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Stoned

Tuesday 09 April 2019

Sunday’s gospel left me troubled.

and Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. At daybreak he appeared in the Temple again; and as all the people came to him, he sat down and began to teach them. The scribes and Pharisees brought a woman along who had been caught committing adultery; and making her stand there in the middle they said to Jesus, ‘Master, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery, and in the Law Moses has ordered us to stone women of this kind. What have you got to say?’ They asked him this as a test, looking for an accusation to use against him. But Jesus bent down and started writing on the ground with his finger. As they persisted with their question, he straightened up and said, ‘Let the one among you who is guiltless be the first to throw a stone at her.’ Then he bent down and continued writing on the ground. When they heard this they went away one by one, beginning with the eldest, until the last one had gone and Jesus was left alone with the woman, who remained in the middle. Jesus again straightened up and said, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ No one, sir,’ she replied. ‘Neither do I condemn you,’ said Jesus. ‘Go away, and from this moment sin no more.’

A number of things trouble me about this, ways in which it seems Jesus failed to act morally.

To begin with, here he has an opportunity to condemn the unspeakably barbaric act of stoning, undoubtedly one of the brutal ways to kill another human being, and he says nothing. “What have you got to say?” ask the scribes and Pharisees, and Jesus should have answered with a clear, unequivocal condemnation of the act itself.

The obvious answer is that, if Jesus was God, he was responsible for the Old Testament, which prescribes stoning for a number of offenses. It was his idea to begin with, in other words. It’s littered throughout the Old Testament and is always commanded or condoned:

Achan … took of the accursed thing. … And all Israel stoned him with stones, and burned them with fire, after they had stoned them with stones. … So the LORD turned from the fierceness of his anger. Joshua 7:1-26
And he that blasphemeth the name of the LORD, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him. Leviticus 24:16
If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city. Deuteronomy 22:23-24
If any man take a wife, and go in unto her, and hate her … and say, I took this woman, and when I came to her, I found her not a maid: Then shall the father of the damsel, and her mother, take and bring forth the tokens of the damsel’s virginity unto the elders of the city in the gate: And the damsel’s father shall say … these are the tokens of my daughter’s virginity. And they shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city. … But if this thing be true, and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel: Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die. Deuteronomy 22:13-21
If there be found among you … that … hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them … Then shalt thou … tone them with stones, till they die. Deuteronomy 17:2-5
If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers … thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die. Deuteronomy 13:5-10
If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother … Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city … And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die. Deuteronomy 21:18-21
A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood shall be upon them. Leviticus 20:27
Whosoever … giveth any of his seed unto Molech; he shall surely be put to death: the people of the land shall stone him with stones. Leviticus 20:2
They found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day. … And the LORD said unto Moses, The man shall be surely put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones…. And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the LORD commanded Moses. Numbers 15:32-56
Thou didst blaspheme God and the king. And then carry him out, and stone him, that he may die. 1 Kings 21:10

Another issue: this is the story of “the woman taken in adultery” — where’s the man? (I’m presuming it was a man because were it a lesbian encounter, I’m certain the scribes and Pharisees would have eagerly pointed that out.) Why did Jesus not bring them to task for their blatant misogyny?

Questions without answers. Well, without answers that most believers would find palatable, I think.

Why a Jet?

Tuesday 05 January 2016

Autumn Ritual

Tuesday 14 October 2014

In years past, last Tuesday night's gathering would have filled a large-capacity auditorium, or even a civic center, like the Scope Arena in Norfolk, Virginia. They would have sat in dozens of rows on the floor, up risers, into the balcony area, and walking into the arena that first night would have produced an excitement in everyone that was audible.

Thousands of people, gathering for eight days, in locations all over the world. It would look something like this, except for more formal attire.

Part of my past that I haven't experienced in almost twenty years as best I can remember. Ninety-five was the last time, I think. Those gatherings have continued through those years, but my trajectory has gone in the opposite direction before veering back to something more like an eighty-degree angle: not quite the same beliefs, but certainly not aÂ denial of all the beliefs.

Those gatherings have continued for the last twenty years, though the single, monolithic church organization that originally held it has splintered into almost countless pieces, with the organization itself changing its name and completely reversing most of its old doctrines -- like the required eight-day Old Testament festival observance -- so that it is indistinguishable from other mainline Protestant groups. The splinters that fell away have been keeping up the tradition, though, and last Tuesday night, in Bend, Oregon, a pastor opened the gathering with a message that has been repeated every fall with the regularity of the changing leaves.

They've been starting like that for decades now -- I still wonder every autumn how many more decades it will continue. When will a group that proclaims definitive prophetic events within our generation and has been proclaiming it in vain for something like seventy years (Germany will rise again, don't you know?) -- when will such a group (or in this case, groups) disappear for good? For how long can someone declare that "time is short" and warn people that a great confederation of European nations with Germany and the Vatican at the head will rise up and utterly decimate the United States? At which point does the hypothesis -- no, the sure prophecy -- become just too ridiculously and obviously wrong for anyone to take seriously?

G Has Left the Building

Saturday 12 July 2014

For just short of three years, I ran a web site that was highly popular with a very small demographic, writing about something that the vast majority of Americans and an even larger majority of potential international readers -- we're talking the 99.9999999% range -- would have never even heard of. That topic was the various offshoots of a small Christian group, the Worldwide Church of God, with a peak membership of no more than 150,000, that imploded in the mid-1990's when it changed all its distinctive, heterodox doctrines and began moving to mainstream, Evangelical Christianity. With that change, which the church leadership enacted in what many considered to be an underhanded, deceptive manner, the church membership dropped to roughly sixty thousand within a couple of years, then to thirty thousand in a few more years, as members sought newly-formed organizations that still clung to the Worldwide Church of God's original teachings, left for mainstream Christian groups, or dropped out of religion altogether.

In the early years, there was a great deal of bickering and sniping among the splinter organizations about which group most faithfully adhered to the teachings of Herbert Armstrong, founder of the Worldwide Church of God. It provided fascinating, sometimes amusing reading, and having grown up in the organization and just dropped out of a philosophy of religion graduate program, I was hooked.

I started a web site, recruited fellow writers, developed a readership, and wrote almost daily about this or that church's latest proclamation, declaration, or whine. As an atheist, I took a particularly smug tone, resorting often to heavy sarcasm and occasionally to outright mockery. Still, my pseudo-academic background led me to write several serious analyses of this or that organization's claims and arguments, and I occasionally got comments about how the site helped this or that individual.

Then L was born, and I suddenly had no time. For some period before that my interest had been waning, but I hung on, convinced that what I was doing was somehow significant but doubting it was. Then, about eight months after L was born, after steadily decreasing posting, I called it quits with the following post.

I’ve been struggling–to find topics for this blog, to maintain my interest in all things Armstrong, to find time to care.

Truth be told, to care.

Jared said it best in a recent comment:

[A] moribund XCG is [not] entirely a bad thing either. After all, there’s only so much one can say about Armstrongism before you’ve said it all.

I don’t feel like I’ve said it all–there are thousands of words that could still be written about the phenomenon of Herbert Armstrong and the sect he formed. Yet, I really no longer have the interest or time to write anymore words about it.

I feel like Chicken Little, for our common XCG sky will continually fall. David Pack will talk about his web site statistics until the day he dies. Rod Meredith will provide critics with still more reasons to call him Spanky until the day he dies. Those in the upper echelons of the dwindling WCG will continue to talk about their amazing transformation until the day they die.

But I will not be commenting on them at that point, and I certainly won’t be commenting on them when I die.

About six months ago, I started preparing a final post, but I kept putting it off. I thought, “Maybe I’ll just write a little here, a little there,” for a while. Several have noticed and commented on this, and I have remained silent as to the cause of this dip in output.

My initial draft of this post might provide clarification:

Certain things in life force us to see things in a different perspective. Births, deaths, marriages, divorces, conversions–these are the kinds of things that make us stop and reflect on where we are, what we are, and most importantly, what we’re doing with the short time we have on Earth.

We have twenty-four hours in a day. We work at least eight of them; we sleep six to eight of them; we wash, shave, cook, eat, clean, drive, exercise and a million other forms of maintenance for another three or four a day. That leaves us with precious few hours a day for ourselves.

What do we do with that time?

Until recently, I spent time looking at, analyzing, and even mocking the beliefs and actions of a group of people I no longer have anything in common with.

Recent developments in my life now make that a less-than-ideal way to spend my free time.

The “certain event” I was referring to was the birth of my first child.

Since then, I’ve been of thinking about what I want my daughter to know about my own religious past. Truth is, I want her to know as little as possible. Because of shame? Embarrassment? Certainly not. I don’t want her to know for the simple reason that it no longer impacts my life. I can’t see much positive coming from me ever going into any detail with her about what I used to believe, about what her grandparents used to believe, about the fact that a true handful of people in the world still believe it. I don’t believe it, and that’s that.

And so, to quote one of my favorite authors:

“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax–
Of cabbages–and kings–
And why the sea is boiling hot–
And whether pigs have wings.”

To talk of many things–but not the XCG. And not here.

Some might be wondering whether this signals the end of my presence on the XCG scene. It does. In fact, I doubt very much that I will even “lurk.” As a famous, oft-misquoted teacher once said, “It is finished.”

I appreciate all the support I’ve received during this little two-and-a-half-year adventure. I thank all the fellow contributors who, throughout these last nearly thirty months, have helped to make the discussion here a little more balanced. I am grateful to all you regulars. You really kept the site going.

Most of all, I’m heartened by some of the comments of the past, folks telling me that I have helped them in some way. I appreciate you sharing those thoughts, for it gave me a certain joy that I will truly never forget.

But the time has come.

Best wishes to all, ill wishes to none, and I leave with the hope that if we ever meet again, we’ll have so much more to talk about than the XCG.

What had I accomplished?

I'd made several people mad: some sent me nasty emails or left malicious comments. Still, what could I expect? Wasn't I doing the exact same thing with others' beliefs? Some people threatened my web host with a lawsuit, but since the group in question was outside my scope of interest and never directly or indirectly mentioned on my web site, even a libel claim was ridiculous.

I'd inspired others to start their own web sites, and I'd provided apologists with plenty of material in turn for their own writing. What could I expect? With me criticizing them, they were right to criticize me, and since no leader or group was going officially to deal with a puny little hen like me, individual members took on the responsibility, inasmuch as the various churches officially allowed such activities.

But what about helping people? I'd always assumed that I must be doing that, that I must be helping others see the errors in logic that the various groups committed. Still, I only had a couple of emails. The comments to my farewell post provided a bit more information.

Comments

exrcg 08/22/2007 11:12 PM

thank you G — your site certainly helped me when i transitioned out of the cog world a couple years ago — it was a comment i made at that time, and i echo it again here. your efforts have been appreciated.

Jared Olar 08/22/2007 11:16 PM

I’ve been wondering when you were going to wrap it up here. Of course you told me before, after your daughter’s birth, that you were going to bow out soon. You hung on longer than I thought you were going to.

So long, and thanks for letting me have rather too much fun with Bob Thiel. Now go raise that little girl of yours and kiss [K]. Real Life is calling . . .

Lao Li 08/22/2007 11:41 PM

Thanks for all the work G.

The void between postings was a sign that time is short, we were in the gun lap!

Keeping something like this going can be the same as problems facing the COGs. Sometimes there’s some new input, but otherwise it’s just moving bones from one grave to another.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

Church Corporate Critic 08/23/2007 12:12 AM

My thanks as well.

We wish you well.

You will be a much healthier person mentally.

Church Corporate Critic 08/23/2007 12:20 AM

I have a going away present:

gods

The peer review team liked it more than is customary for such articles.

It too may the last of its kind.

Robert 08/23/2007 01:19 AM

So, I’m going to take this opportunity to plug my own blog, and I hope you won’t mind. It’s a little different than XGC for a couple reasons: 1) It feature the stories of people who were in or around WCG and who now have given up faith entirely, and 2) I pretty much let them write it, so I have had no problem keeping it going since 1997– Wow, 10 years!

Non-Believer Former Members of the WCG
http://ironwolf.dangerousgames.com/exwcg/

Dennis 08/23/2007 09:21 AM

Excellent job G and yes, there is a time to move on as I know you have. The world will little note, nor long remember what you have done here…but I’m glad you’re in the neighborhood so we can have lunch and a good laugh from time to time!

And..for a limited time, if you act now, a free opportunity to finally be rubbed the right way by a former minister of WCG! Call now for a free assesment to see if you are sane enough to come to the office.
Best of all things to you and your family. I have a third little girl coming to the planet compliments of my son and daughther in law today, even as we speak.

charlie kieran 08/23/2007 10:30 AM

Best wishes G for you and your family. Congratulations on that little girl! This blog and a few others were a big help for me. My folks are still under the armstrongist thumb so I’ll continue to work on them in the meantime I just tell my kids not to pay any attention to what Pop-Pop says about God. For the most part I’ll be moving on as well although I’ll check in from time to time on Gavin’s site just to see what is going on. I just don’t have the time anymore and my fourth child is due in February.

Dennis: Congratulations on another grandchild and best wishes to your son and daughter in law.

It has been great reading posts from everyone!

Byker Bob 08/23/2007 11:23 AM

Well, G, we’re on the same page! I’ve recently found myself either satiated, or undergoing waning interest in all things ACOG, and have been visiting all the regular sites less and less over the past several months. That’s probably a good thing, because it indicates that everything is processed.

I really don’t know if there are any answers to all of the great philosophical and religious questions mankind has asked himself over the centuries. About all a person can do is to be kind to fellow man, and indulge in the pursuit of happiness.

Thank you for all of the thought provoking materials presented here, and the work that went into them. Best wishes for a good life for you and your family. It’s been fun being part of the xCG community and making some friends here.

paul 08/23/2007 05:29 PM

My daughter was born this year, and between that and graduate school, time is short. I understand your position; it would be impossible for me to do what you have been doing. It’s been a good time!

But as far as the XCG’s and my daughter go, it is my duty to protect her from such garbage. I have to shield her from the apocolyptic-paranoid-fearful-slave mindset of the in-laws who are in the LCG. I don’t want my girl’s mind poisoned. I don’t even want her exposed to the XCG Lite mindset of my mother. I’m an atheist now, and I won’t hide it from my daughter…but then again I don’t mind if my wife wants to raise her as a Christian, so long as she hears both sides and gets to make up her own mind. But XCGdom? Forget it. I don’t want that filth near her. In this vein, I still have an interest in the XCG’s. Keep an eye on the enemy.

Paul

Gavin 08/24/2007 01:50 AM

Shucks G, what can I say? You’ve been a much appreciated kindred spirit, and flown the flag for the power of free-thinking in a community known for a lack of just that. I understand the need to let it go. Thanks for everything you’ve done: XCG has been an empowering venture with a distinctive voice of its own.

Kia kaha: strength to your arm

Gavin

Buffalo 08/24/2007 02:20 AM

Anonymous 666 08/24/2007 09:47 AM

How long do we have?

boston blackie 08/24/2007 11:20 AM

Or you could announce your retirement, pop back in from time to time as a guest blogger on Gavin’s other “Coast to Coast” site and then surprise us all with a new format — just like some folks we know. =)

“Wanna take a ride?”

Best wishes there G, whatever you choose to do!

b²

Mario 08/24/2007 01:31 PM

Thanks for being instrumental in our exodus from an (x)CoG G.

Congrats on your new arrival. Enjoy the moments, they go by so fast…

Peace to you and yours

John 08/24/2007 09:05 PM

Thanks so much G. Your site played a very important role in helping me exit the cult, and in convincing me that suicide was not the best path.

You and Gavin literally saved my life.

My best wishes to you and I hope life brings you many, many bountiful joys.

Frenchie 08/25/2007 09:22 AM

Congratulations on the birth of your first child … it is indeed a life-changing event.
You did say one thing that has total truth in it in your “good-bye” .

the fact that a true handful of people in the world still believe it

I know that you meant “just a few”
But it is the TRUE people of God who still believe and will continue to believe.

May you find your way.

Byker Bob 08/26/2007 01:50 PM

Oh, Man! What a cheap shot, Frenchie!

Actually, I hope that one day you and the rest of the deceived Armstrongites find your way!

Lao Li 08/26/2007 10:18 PM

My last posting… promise…

The winding down of this site was noted with apparent glee by Dr T, who to me implied sic semper infidelis. Au contraire, I found this to be a very balanced and temperately moderated site. On other sites, the moderator beat me to a jellied pulp at the sniff of my appearing positive about anything that eminated from a COG. As I may have said already, this site is open, COG-related discussion; most of the “correction” I’ve received has been empirical rather than imperial.

FWIW, at my remote roost in Manchuria, I encountered students from a remnant Sabbatarian community. Their little congregation was perhaps the work of a (COGspeak) Sardis-era missionary, with whom their ancestors would have lost touch two or so revolutions ago. What a coincidence to be the first westerner ever encountered since then… Their first question was about the Sabbath being on Saturday, as in China the first day of the week is Monday…

Jared Olar 08/27/2007 10:27 PM

Yeah, I fliggered Bob Thiel would be sure to comment on G’s announcement. He says:

I thought that G was planning on phasing his anti-COG site out. I have long thought that those who are against the COGs would realize the truth, as in the last two sentences that he wrote above.

He means G’s comments, “Until recently, I spent time looking at, analyzing, and even mocking the beliefs and actions of a group of people I no longer have anything in common with. Recent developments in my life now make that a less-than-ideal way to spend my free time.”

But as usual Bob doesn’t see things correctly. If G were among “those who are against the COGs,” then he’d be motivated to continue this project. But he’s not “against the COGs.” He’s just in favor of things that are more important and necessary to life and happiness than the COGs have ever been or will ever be.

Then Bob says:

On the other hand, there are those of us who ARE COMMITTED to learning, growing in grace and knowledge, trying to get the good news of the Kingdom of God to the world, and wish to be part of the Church of God. So, the COGwriter site has no intentions of shutting down.

Oh goody. We were so worried that the Cooge Writer was going to shut down.

But since Bob is committed to learning, growing in grace and knowledge, trying to get the good news of the Kingdom of God to the world, and wishing to be part of the Church of God, that means there’s still hope that he’ll eventually see the light and leave the COOGEs behind.

Not that we’re holding our breath or anything . . . .

Lao Li 08/29/2007 06:32 AM

can’t resist… must respond…

Once during an episode of Batman, an Australian friend generalized that Americans overuse the prefix anti. Did you ever notice (like Seinfeld, perhaps) that Dr T usually puts in the anti when mentioning COG criticism or another COG that has a doctrine that doesn’t match with one of the LCG? Yet the comments appear fairly warming when it is noticed that some non-COG group has a doctrine that shows some similarity? The similarity should be no surprise, as it has been widely stated that HWA was revealled those doctrines when reading their literature… or the works of Allen, or Rupert, or Adolph…

Someone, somewhere posted that Bob’s site is not really different from this one; the difference is that when making comparisons, his metric is the LCG, and ours is reality.

Okay, resistance was futile. My last post, I promise…

See you next year in Beijing.

I’ll go help my Sardis students with their English…

Buffalo 08/29/2007 10:55 PM

G Scott wrote,

”[with]ill wishes to none”

Well, that’s great. What brought about the conversion?

Jared Olar 08/30/2007 10:06 AM

What brought about the conversion?

And what will bring about yours, Mr. Snark?

Buffalo 08/30/2007 04:08 PM

Ah, Mr Olar, by engaging in name-calling you prove my point while trying to make one of your own. Thanks. That means I need say no more.

Heather Ramsdell 08/30/2007 07:33 PM

Please get off MR. Pack’s back. Leave the Apostle alone.

Dr S 08/30/2007 08:26 PM

Please get off Mr. Pack’s back

Clever! Back. Pack.

Back! Back!

Do not attack the back of Pack!

I’ve heard that before. Do all you guys plagiarize?

Now to think up something to honor Olar the Scholar.

Jared Olar 08/31/2007 12:03 AM

Ah, Mr Olar, by engaging in name-calling you prove my point while trying to make one of your own.

My snarkily observing that your comment is snarky proves your allegation that G Scott has ill will toward . . . somebody? Oooookay.

Thanks. That means I need say no more.

Indeed, it doesn’t appear that you needed to say anything at all.

Byker Bob 08/31/2007 09:24 PM

I can’t believe that the zombies have finally gotten up the courage to attack just because G has stated that xCG has become a spent force.

What a bunch of tail gunners, just like their idol AMR.

Stinger 08/31/2007 10:11 PM

It’s good to see you going out on top, G.

So don’t let the religious bastards and other assorted spiritual clowns & bible freaks get you down. You’ve done a great work in exposing Armstrongism and the stupid self-righteousness that it breeds in these Pharisee clones that have that big A stamped on their foreheads (and their own little black book tucked away somewhere).

Best2U,
— Stinger

Heather Ramsdell 09/01/2007 10:09 PM

“Don’t let the religious bastards and other assorted spiritual clowns & bible freaks get you down”.

Venom spued from a moron. Leave Mr. Pack alone. Idiots

Dr S 09/01/2007 10:45 PM

Ms Ramsdell

Remember the prime directive: avoid ad hominem arguments

We only comment on what is said. Take it as brutally frank feedback.

“Feedback is the breakfast of champions” — Denis Waitley

Besides, Mr Pack loves it! He believes it’s persecution, one of his proofs that he is on the right track! (From one of his World to Come “broadcasts”.)

Jared Olar 09/02/2007 09:26 AM

Heather, how do you know David Pack is “the Apostle”? Did he receive laying on of hands from Jesus? Did Jesus tell him, “Feed my sheep”? Has his shadow healed the lame or the sick? Has he raised the dead?

What is it exactly, apart from David Pack’s say-so, that makes him “the Apostle”?

Big Red 09/02/2007 04:28 PM

G is doing the right thing. Raising a child is the hardest, most rewarding job a person can know.

I want to address some comments to Frenchie, Buffalo, Heather, AMR and the like.

First, the comment about you being tail gunners is true. You hear the website is discontinued, so you want to toss in some venal cheap shots at the very last moment. Doesn’t sound very Christian to me.

I don’t have the same antagonism towards Armstrong as some do. My experience in the old WCG was generally positive. I know that some people did get burned, however. I saw it happen.

During a FOT, Mr Armstrong said “so many of you people don’t get it.” Then he added “a lot of you ministers don’t get it.” That comment hit my brain like a thunder bolt.

After that comment, I stopped kissing the minister’s foot. I stopped looking for assurance from other people.

So many people were burned by bad pastors. So many people were burned by the people around them. Like Jonathon Livinston Seagull, I became free of that stuff. Thank you Mr Armstrong!

Heather? You want to call people morons and idiots? Then you still don’t get it! You’re still “in the flesh.”

Where were you when God created the universe? Where were you when God created life on this earth? Can you set the sun or moon in its orbit?

Yet you feel free to pronounce judgements on people that you’ve never met? Whom are you to presume such things? You better look at your own life, and take care of your own sins.

And the same goes for Bob Thiel. He thinks highly of himself, but he’s going to face a big surprise.

Dr S 09/02/2007 09:13 PM

Well said, Big Red!

There’re so many splinters, with so much to hide —
When we assess, they return and deride.

With AMR and Heather, with us their beef
Is that we choose not to hail to their chief.

That said, Big Red,
it’s time to go to sleep…

The comments show the nature of the web site, indeed all sites: topic X soon morphs to topic Y in the comment section. One post, in fact, had well over a hundred comments that were mostly about something entirely different. Still, there they are, the comments that still bring a smile when I consider them:

your site certainly helped me when i transitioned out of the cog world a couple years ago
Thanks for being instrumental in our exodus from an (x)CoG G.
Thanks so much G. Your site played a very important role in helping me exit the cult, and in convincing me that suicide was not the best path.
You and Gavin[, author of a similar site,] literally saved my life.

All those hours of work for three comments? To help three people? One could of course make the argument that only three people replied but that perhaps many more felt the same way.

Not Even With a Whimper

Saturday 21 May 2011

That’s great! It doesn’t start with an earthquake! And apparently for some, May is the cruelest month, breading disappointment out of dead prophecies, mixing frustration and desire. It’s supposed to be the end of the world as we know it, and no one left on Earth is supposed to feel fine. Yet with reports coming from Sumatra and New Zealand, where six o’clock has come and gone, show that today will pass just like any other.

Cult Watch has some good advice for Campings followers on this day of non-events. The first point is the hardest:

Be prepared to accept that you are wrong. Many others have claimed to know the end of the world before now, and obviously they were wrong. They too misinterpreted Scripture, so if the rapture does not occur on the 21st of May 2011 then you will have joined their ranks. This will be a blow to your ego and some will find this failure very emotional. The best course of action is to prepare to be humble. (Source)

It’s heady stuff, predicting the end of the world. When you’re a prophet that has figured out what no one else has figured out, it’s probably almost impossible not to get an inflated ego over it. Even if you’re not the prophet but someone supporting him (and of course it’s almost always a man), helping him, it’s easy to let all the esoterica to go to your head.

It’s not the first time people have lived through the end of the world, nor will it be the last. Religious huckster Herbert Armstrong predicted that the world would end in 1972. Almost forty years later and twenty-five years after his death, followers remain, still convinced that they know the signs of the times and will accurately see the end coming before anyone else.

One of Armstrong’s self-appointed successors is David Pack, who has his own church called The Restored Church of God. At the church’s magazine’s web site, there’s an article about the Camping prediction with the following lede: “Predictions from a small American religious sect have gained widespread attention.” Pack writes about all the reasons why Camping is wrong, and in the ultimate irony, ends the article, “If you are serious about learning the truth of the end time, read the most comprehensive book ever written on the subject” (source). Surprisingly, this book Pack mentions is the Bible, but he also suggests hisÂ The Bible’s Greatest Prophecies Unlocked! to reach full understanding of Scriptures.

It all brings to mind Eliot’s “The Hollow Men,” with it’s famous final stanza:

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

Camping would probably be content with a whimper this beautiful Saturday.

Chick on Evolution

Wednesday 18 November 2009

Many Christians who criticize evolution are criticizing a caricature of evolution, presented by their preacher and not by a scientist. They don't even understand the basics of the theory they claim to be debunking, and their efforts to disprove evolution illustrate this with painful clarity.

Recently, when I stopped for coffee, I found a Chick Tract about evolution. I knew what I would find inside, but I couldn't help but read it out of curiosity.

It was filled with such a ridiculous presentation of evolutionary theory that I found it difficult to believe that anyone who wasn't already convinced could be convinced through such a simplistic, silly presentation.

The most basic assumption anti-evolutionist Christians make about evolution is that it proposes a linear, step-by-step evolution from lower to higher creatures. They insist that evolution teaches that humans come from monkeys. This particular tract begins with just such a time line.

"If we come from monkeys," creationists ask, "Why don't we see any half-monkey, half-humans?" Indeed, if evolutionary theory supported such an idea, that would be a legitimate question. Yet any evolutionary biologist will tell you that the theory of evolution suggests no such thing. Instead, evolutionary theory postulates that primates come from a common ancestor. In other words, we had the same great^9,393,393-grandparents, but our lines split somewhere along the way.

Another common tactic is to associate evolutionary theory with religion. That was the tract's next step:

1041_08 — Notice that this text on evolution depicts man and dinosaurs together? That shows how little fundamentalists understand evolution...

I have never heard anyone refer to evolution as his or her "religion." Further, very few people blindly trust their professors because any professor worth his or her keep wouldn't expect it. Further, science doesn't work that way. Science doesn't seek blind faith like the tract's mother illustrates. It discourages it, in fact.

What's most amusing, though, is the illustration the mother is holding in the second panel. With its illustration of a cave man battling a dinosaur, it is more fitting for a creationist. After all, the creationist museum in Kentucky has a diorama that includes humans with dinosaurs. (Before the fall, T-Rex used those massive teeth for breaking open coconuts, as all creatures were vegetarians before the Fall.)

In most arguments, it's a short step from "evolution says we're all descended from monkeys" to "that means I'm equal to god." It's an illogical step, because God doesn't come into the picture with evolution. That's the point: it's about observable, testable, measurable data. God isn't easy to measure or convince to come into the lab for tests. That's why evolutionary theory is agnostic, and why intelligent design is not science: both are claims that science cannot test.

Still, creationists somehow make the connection, and Chick does a finely amusing job of illustrating this:

The answer to little Johnny's question is, "Nothing, really." And that's not because there is no God and therefore Johnny can place himself on a pedestal. It's because people willingly make gods (of other people, stones, abstract ideas) all by themselves, and with a little convincing and hocus pocus, individuals convince others to turn them into gods. Priests and televangelists do it all the time. Watch Benny Hinn's performance: while he says he's a conduit for the Holy Spirit, it's clear there's something else going on in that ego of his.

Yet this notion that evolution does away with morality is ridiculous. Most moral codes are very practical: they protect us from others "lying, cheating" and becoming mini-gods. It's only an anything-goes situation if people are willing to live in chaos. Most people don't care for chaos, so we curb our desires for the good of all, including ourselves. If we're unable or unwilling to curb those desires, the state curbs them for us. (A very Hobbesian view, I realize.)

At this point, the tract takes an unexpected turn. It's not the proselytizing that's unexpected; it's the theology that's a bit odd.

This "special blood" theology is something very new to me. It sounds, quite honestly, very primitive. It suggests the notion of blood brothers: mix your blood with another person and it somehow makes you qualitatively different. It makes me think of the old notion that somehow your essence, the core of your being -- be that good or evil -- can be transmitted through your blood.

It also makes God quite literally a blood-thirsty being. But then again, Jack Chick's tracts were never about creating an image of a god that any rational, compassionate person would like to have anything to do with.

Chick's god is little more than a small child, focusing the sun's beams on an ant, grimly smiling as the ant writhes in pain.

If I treated my daughter the way Chick's god treats humans, I'd be very rightly locked up for child abuse.

Putting the “Scat” back into “Eschatology”

Tuesday 18 August 2009

There are movies out there that are so awful that you just have to recommend them to your friends. Like the old Saturday Night Live sketch in which Chris Farley has everyone trying the rancid milk and rubbing his clammy belly, there are some evils that we simply must share to appreciate.

The Omega Code is one of them. Without a doubt, it is the worst movie I’ve ever seen, yet one film everyone should endure just to see how bad a movie can be.

There is nothing redeeming about this film, and that’s its perverse charm. The acting is awful, sometimes too hot, sometimes too cold, most times just not there; the script is pathetic, ranging from faux Elizabethan nonsense to middle school scribblings; the special effects are neither special nor effective; the cinematography is along the lines of “put the camcorder there and hit the red button”; the soundtrack has all the subtlety of a mix prepared by an eight grader who’s just discovered Carl Orff; the direction lacks any whatsoever; the costumes are late-eighties high school drama club quality.

If someone sat down to plan a worse movie, it would be tough to top this one.

A look at the production credits brings everything into focus, though. TBN Films, as in “Trinity Broadcast Network”–Paul Crouch’s network. Writing credits include Hal Lindsey as a consultant for biblical prophecy.

A-ha! It’s not the film itself that’s important, but the ideology behind it. In short, it’s propaganda portraying the soon-coming end of the world according to a certain fundamentalist Christian interpretation of the Bible.As a bizarre aside, there is a bizarre theological menage a trios involved in this film that is about as dumbfounding as the film itself. Both Casper Van Dien and Michael Ironside play in The Omega Code and Starship Troopers. Troopers, in turn, was directed by Paul Verhoeven, who was a fellow of the notorious Jesus Seminar, the ultimate liberal theologians club, hated and scorned by Crouch’s TBN. Talk about working with directors of diverging views!

Michael York plays Stone Alexander, “beloved media mogul turned political dynamo,” whose rise to power is never explained. Within a few minutes of the film, however, he’s “named chairman of the European Union,” developed “an inexpensive, high-nutrient wafer that can sustain an active person for more than a day and a revolutionary form of ocean desalination that will bring life-giving water to the driest of deserts,” and won the “United Nations Humanitarian award.”

And there you have it, folks: if you haven’t figured it out already, Alexander is going to set himself up as the miracle working Beast prophesied in the Book of Revelation.

Initially, “motivational guru Gillen Lane,” played (or rather, played at) by Casper Van Dien, joins forces with Alexander in an effort to make a cliche difference in the world. He soon realizes the evil of Alexander’s true aims and becomes determined to stop him.

In the meantime, though, he has some of the choicest moments of the film, often serving up the lines that other characters hang themselves with. For example, Lane suggests that, in order to motivate people, Alexander needs to be someone “to rally behind,” an “archetypal figure to embody the message.” His ultimate suggestion, after mention Martin Luther King and Gandhi, is “a new Caesar,” to which Alexander memorably replies,

Oh, no, no! No, not Caesar! Why man, he’d have to stride the narrow world like a colossus, and we petty men walk beneath his huge legs and peep about to find ourselves dishonorable graves. Oh, no! No, I’m not that ambitious.

Yes, your sophomore English serves you well–Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene ii.

"Why man, he’d have to stride the narrow world like a colossus, and we petty men walk beneath his huge legs and peep about to find ourselves dishonorable graves"

Is this an attempt at high-brow script writing, or is it York improvising, flexing his theatrical muscle, so to speak? I’m not sure which alternative is more frightening.

Yet as the film progresses through the second half, it gets worse. Or better. Or both, if you’re a masochist.

Some examples: Alexander develops technology that “neutralizes” nuclear weapons, unites the world into a single government, with a single-currency, rebuilds Solomon’s Temple, and literally comes back from the dead.

5-Fullscreen capture 12262013 122052 PM — "Gentlemen, we all know the rules to *Risk*."

Gillen Lane’s close friend Sen. Jack Thompson, played by George Coe (The Mighty Ducks, Bustin’ Loose), laments,

I don’t know anything about visions. I never had one. But I know about marriage. And I know about family. And I know the worth of a real man will show in the countenance of his wife’s face.

" I know the worth of a real man will show in the countenance of his wife’s face"

The director, Robert Marcarelli, introduces bizarre attempts at plot twisting which, to anyone really thinking during the film, are inexplicable plot complications. Characters faced with immanent danger react with increasingly baffling shortsightedness. And most puzzling, the relationship between the purported Bible code (the crisscross, three-dimensional code supposedly hidden in the Torah, a la Jewish Kabbalah) and Biblical prophecy is never explained, though it seems clear to everyone in the film.

This is perhaps the film’s most confusing point. The waters get muddied right at the film’s opening, when Lane, who also has “a doctorate in both world religion and mythology from Cambridge,” is interviewed on a talk show by Cassandra Barashe, played by Catherine Oxenberg.

Barashe: In addition to your many other accomplishments, you seem to be an expert on the Bible code. [...] Explain to our audience what this Bible code is, and how it works.
Lane: Well, crisscrossing the Torah is a code of hidden words and phrases that not only reveals our past and present, but foretells our future. [...] Most amazingly, in the Book of Daniel, an angel tells him to seal up the book until the end of days. But Rostenburg[, an expert on the Bible code,] may have found the key to unlock it. See, he believed that the Bible was actually a holographic computer program and that instead of two dimensions, it should be studied in three. If this could be achieved, the code would actually feed us prophecies of our coming future. Anyway, the reason I discuss this in my book is because what we want to believe as religion really traces back to myths born out of our collective consciousness.
Barashe: Has anyone raised the question of how people like yourself can believe in these hidden codes within the Bible, and yet not in the Bible itself?
Lane: You mean like, “Jesus loves me, this I know [Looks at the audience with skeptically raised eyebrows], for the Bible [Air quotes, returning his gaze to Barashe] tells me so?” [Looks at the audience as they laugh at his wittiness]
Barashe: Yes, exactly.
Lane: My mother used to sing me that song. But you know what? She died in a tragic car accident when I was ten years old, and I finally realized that her faith in this loving God, her truth, was just a myth. Therefore, myth must be truth.

"We are the higher power!" to applause in middle America — "We are the higher power!" Lane proclaims, to applause in middle America. Highly realistic.

This kind of twisted logic is the basis for the film and snakes its way throughout the whole script. The Beast rises to power by following the secret codes of the Bible, yet we’ve all been warned of it in the books of Daniel, Ezekiel, and Revelation, as other characters make clear. We’re left wondering, “If it was supposed to be so clear to us mere mortals, why did Satan--and that’s really who Michael York’s Stone Alexander is, a possessed megalomaniac--need the secret Bible code to figure out how to bring it all to fruition?”

That’s a question that not only does the film not answer, but it doesn’t even realize it raises it. I suspect this confusion between code and prophecy arises from TBN’s effort to get “real prophecy” into a mass marketed, main-steam film. The popularity of Michael Dorsnin’s The Bible Code and similar books seems to have gotten the writers at TBN to thinking, “Hey, we can use this as a springboard into the Bible’s real code: prophecy!” As a result, it’s a mess.

As a whole, the biggest flaw of The Omega Code is its earnestness. Films usually don’t take themselves as seriously as The Omega Code does, for it not only depicts but is a battle against the wiles of the devil. Yet what the cast and crew end up making, instead of the Biblically-based, thought-provoking thriller they think they’re working on, is a B-movie, and the absolute worst kind: an accidental B-movie. Its “B” status slipped up unawares, probably just a few moments behind the initial idea was taken seriously by all involved.

Even if the film were made in earnest but intelligently, it wouldn’t be so bad. But not only are we dealing with an awfully written script, but we’re also enduring characters who are simply stupid. They scribble “bug” on a legal pad to let one another know a room is wired, then proceed to talk in hushed stage whispers that no known listening device can detect. They run for their lives, literally the most wanted individual on the planet, then start ranting about visions they’re having when they finally find someone who’ll help them.

God bless them all, but they’re freaking idiots, each and every one!

The clear stupidity of the characters lets us sigh in relief, though. In the end, their idiocy transforms the film into a hopeful vision for the future, because if Revelation’s Beast turns out to be half as dimwitted as any one of the characters in this film, there’s hope for humanity.

Unless he starts producing films.

Ping Spong

Saturday 01 August 2009

The Sins of Scripture: Exposing the Bible's Texts of Hate to Reveal the God of Love is Shelby Spong's 2005 effort to deal with several problematic themes in the Bible. Divided into sections, each section contains several chapters dealing with:

The Bible and the Environment (Overpopulation and the Catholic imperative to procreate)
The Bible and Women (Misogyny in the Bible)
The Bible and Homosexuality
The Bible and Children
The Bible and Anti-Semitism
The Bible and Certainty
Reading Scripture as Epic History

Spong flip-flops on how to explain these problematic passages. Sometimes, he seems to say "We've been misinterpreting this all along"; with other passages, he seems to say, "Well, primitive times, backwards thinking." But with certain core items, he simply disregards them as being unscientific and unable to teach us anything.

He deals with the major passages about homosexuality in the first manner. The command in Leviticus not to lie with another man as one would a woman has been misinterpreted throughout the millenia. What it means, Spong explains, is not to treat men in a subservient manner, not to treat a man like a woman. In explaining it this way, Spong is essentially saying, "This is not a homophobic text; it's a misogynistic text!" Whew -- what a relief. Apparently, the writer of Leviticus just meant "Don't treat your lover as if he's lower than you" or "Don't treat him like a woman."

The other method of dealing with troubling texts is to employ the "they didn't know better; they were primitive people back then" argument. He does this with the misogynistic passages. He gives great detail about all the double standards in the Old and New Testament for women (women are ceremonially unclean longer when giving birth to girls; woman are not to hold positions of authority or even ask questions in church; when are to be sequestered when menstruating), and he seems simply to brush it aside by saying, "Well, we know God couldn't be misogynistic, so these texts represent the times and culture they're written in."

Yet Spong occasionally dismisses whole episodes in the Bible because they simply can't be true. For instance, the core of traditional Christianity is wrong:

Let me state this boldly and succinctly: Jesus did not die for your sins or my sins. That proclamation is theological nonsense. It only breeds more violence as we seek to justify the negativity that religious people dump on others because we can no longer carry its load. […]

We are not fallen, sinful people who deserve to be punished. We are frightened, insecure people who have achieved the enormous breakthrough into self-consciousness that marks no other creature that has yet emerged from the evolutionary cycle. (173, 4)

One reads this and thinks, "Well, what's the point then." The logical guess is that Spong will explain, "It's not Jesus; it's what he taught." Yet many of the says of Jesus -- particularly the "I am" statements in John -- didn't happen:

Of course, Jesus never literally said any of these things. For someone to wander around the Jewish state in the first century, announcing himself to be the bread of life, the resurrection or the light of the world would have brought out people in white coats with butterfly nets to take him away. (234)

There are so many problems with that that it's difficult to know where to start. At the most basic level, this shows a profound ignorance of the nature of first century notions of mental health. We only have to look at other passages in the Bible to realize there were none. It was all attributable to demons and mystery. And there certainly wasn't anything resembling a “funny farm,” even if we strip away the nineteenth century cliches of Spong's metaphor. Unless Spong has some archeological evidence he's keeping hidden, it just doesn't have any credibility whatsoever.

If it almost seems like Spong rejects the existence of a personal God, it's because he does.

Whoa! Spong doesn't believe in a personal God, the kind of God that the monotheistic religions have been preaching for millenia? That's fine -- I don't particularly believe in that God either, but what's the point of rooting around in scripture to explain this or that when Spong doesn't even believe in the God most theists hold to be, in one way or another, the author of that scripture?

That's why reading this causes a certain sense of cognitive whiplash -- and I'd assume it's an experience common to most of his books. "We don't have to throw out the Bible because of the homophobia that drips from its pages because those passages have been misunderstood for so long; but we do need to throw out the God who supposedly wrote the Bible because no one ever comes back from the dead." Isn't faith in that very thing the heart of Christianity?

Spong isn't trying to revise Christianity as much as he's attempting to create an entirely new religious system, one that puts all holy books on the same level as the Iliad or the Odyssey. I'm fine what that; that's the level I put most holy books: instructive, but in no way more authoritative than any other book. But then to insist on calling oneself a Christian seems ridiculous.

And what's the point of it all? No Christian who believes in the bodily resurrection of Jesus, the actual existence of Adam and Eve, and the need to be saved from Original Sin is going to say, "Hey, Shelby -- good point. I'm convinced." The only people who will be convinced are fence-riders like Spong himself, people who want the cultural comforts of belonging to a religion without any of the bothersome necessities of believing in God, Jesus, etc.

Additionally, no atheist is going to be convinced. To non-theists, Shelby seems to be taking a Trans-Am, gutting it, moving the engine to the back, and turning it into a boat and yet insisting on calling it a Trans-Am. It's not a Trans-Am, and Spong's creation is not Christianity.

Spong hints at what he's after:

Creation must now be seen as an unfinished process. God cannot accurately be portrayed as resting from divine labors which are unending. There was no original perfection from which human life could fall into sin. Life has always been evolving. The Psalmist was wrong: we were not created “a little lower than the angels” (Ps. 8:5, KJV). Rather, we have evolved into a status that we judge to be only a little higher than the ape's.

This is a very different perspective. There is a vast contrast between the definition of being fallen creatures and that of being incomplete creatures. […] We do not need some divine rescue accomplished by an invasive deity to lift us from a fall that never happened and to restore us to a status we never possessed. The idea that Jesus had to pay the price of our sinfulness is an idea that is bankrupt. When that idea collapses, so do all of those violent, controlling and guilt-producing tactics that are so deeply part of traditional Christianity.

It is like an unstoppable waterfall. Baptism, understood as the sacramental act designed to wash from the newborn baby the stain of that original fall into sin, becomes inoperative. The Eucharist, developed as a liturgical attempt to reenact the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross that paid the price of our sinfulness, becomes empty of meaning. [...]

The first step is found, I believe, in acknowledging our evolutionary origins and dispensing with any suggestion that sin, inadequacy and guilt are the definitions into which we are born. […] We might be a dead end in the evolutionary process, a creature like the dinosaur, destined for extinction. We might instead be the bridge to a brilliant future that none of us can yet imagine. (177-9)

Basically, Spong is talking more Arthur C. Clarke/2001: A Space Odyssey than anything else. Yet recall that the sequel, 2010, ends with a very Garden of Eden-esque situation:

"ALL THESE WORLDS
ARE YOURS EXCEPT
EUROPA
ATTEMPT NO
LANDING THERE
USE THEM TOGETHER
USE THEM IN PEACE"

Or maybe Spong has something else in mind. Maybe Spong doesn't really know what he has in mind. Except that he's a Christian, but only insofar as he reads the Bible and thinks Jesus was damn fine man (in as much as we can tell from his sayings, after we scrape away everything he obviously never said).

Spong calls himself a Christian, but it leaves me wondering what kind? It's seems that, having been an Episcopal priest and bishop for so long, he simply can't let go.

Antichrist Beast Obama

Thursday 23 July 2009

The site’s welcoming text reads,

Any fair study of the scriptures coupled with the study of the signs of the times will convince almost anybody with a modicum of intelligence that the end of the world is drawing nigh. […] Barack Obama is the Antichrist, and is leading doomed america [sic] to her final destruction and the destruction of the world! We’re not talking some vague, nebulus [sic] postulation, we’re talking plain, straight BIble [sic] talk backed up by an overwhelming amount of real evidence – on the ground! Watch this fascinating, three-part documentary and check out the rest of the site for Bible perspective on the rise of Antichrist in the last hours of these last, dark days.

Anyone who is not familiar with Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church would do well to watch this BBC documentary.

One might wonder what someone is hoping to accomplish by insulting its readers by suggesting that those who disagree (or who are not yet convinced) don’t even have a “modicum of intelligence.” Yet once it’s clear that this is one of Westboro Baptist Church’s many web sites, all is clear.

What’s interesting about this is the time line Phelps is setting up for himself here. By calling Obama the Antichrist, Phelps is painting himself into a corner; it is a definitive claim about prophecy.

When Obama leaves office and not a single thing has happened, what will happen? Will Phelps admit he was wrong and at last quiet his irrationally bigoted voice?

Doubtful — false prophets always have a way of reinventing themselves.

Site: http://www.beastobama.com/

Rethink Church

Tuesday 07 July 2009

The tag line is intriguing: “What if church wasn’t just a building, but thousands of doors?” That appears to be a motto for the United Methodist Church, which is running advertisements in Times Square through September. One ad reads, “What if church was a literacy program for homeless children? Would you come?” Another: “What if church considered ecology part of theology?”

Their web site reads,

We are doers. Committed to social justice, ending hunger, eradicating diseases of poverty, and being the healing faith community as God calls us to be.

We accept you for who you are, and guide others searching for deeper meaning. We respect other religions and welcome diverse opinions.

We offer thousands of ways to experience church so you can find a journey you can call your own.

We aren’t striving to be all the same, but we are striving to work together to make a significant difference in the world.

There’s a small discussion forum, which is nothing spectacular or novel, but the lead question is: “How do you think high profile deaths can connect people?”

The site allows users to locate places of need using Google Earth. Some of the topics are a little vague:

Health & Well-being
Breaking Ground
Transforming Lives
Advocacy
Helping Hands
Support Groups
Disaster Response

I’m not sure what “transforming lives” or “breaking ground” might be. Still, a wonderful idea.

The site also incorporates Google’s Friend Connect, providing something of a sense of community, and one only has to read the book of Acts and some of Paul’s epistles to see how important community was in the early church.

It’s a promising idea, one that’s sure to make nonbelievers think, “Hey, now there’s a church that’s following Jesus’ example and helping people on an existential level.”

Source: Blogging Religiously.

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