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Five, Six, Pick Up Sticks

Friday 5 March 2021

Today’s reading with Fr. Mike included Numbers 15, and if I’m writing about it, you can probably guess why: more brutality. Verses 32 through 36 read

When the Israelites were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the sabbath day. Those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses, Aaron, and to the whole congregation. They put him in custody, because it was not clear what should be done to him. Then the Lord said to Moses, “The man shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him outside the camp.” The whole congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.

Fr. Mike knew that this was a troubling passage. I could hear it in his prayer after the final reading:

Father in heaven, we thank you for your word. We thank you for your scripture today. We thank you also for the great wisdom you give to us in helping us understand your word. Lord God, for all the times we are perplexed and troubled — not just perplexed but deeply troubled, even troubled in our heart by you, by your teaching, by what you reveal about yourself, we ask that you give us not only a, not only take away a spirit of skepticism or spirit of cynicism, but you give us a spirit of openness, a spirit of truth and of honesty. A spirit of trust that when we don’t understand, we ask. And when we still don’t understand, we continue to ask. Lord God, give us a spirit of trust. Give us a spirit that is open to whatever it is you will for us this day and every day.

What’s wrong with a spirit of skepticism? Shouldn’t we be skeptical about a great many things? Just look at the news — Qanon, claims of a stolen election, anti-vaxers. There’s plenty we should be skeptical of. Being skeptical just results from being a critical thinker, so I feel like Fr. Mike is asking his god to turn off our critical thinking faculties for this passage.

To his credit, Fr. Mike does try to explain things this time. In the past, he’s just glossed right over it, but he deals with the troubling passage this time:

Remember: the heart of these laws is that God has said, “No, you are my people.” He has set his love upon them. This is so important. These laws, the consequences of sin, the consequences of going against the Lord are so great that they shock us, right? Capital punishment as a violation of the sabbath. For picking up sticks, it says here in Numbers chapter 15.

Then he reviews the passage before continuing,

We can look at that, we can hear that and think, “That is, um, I don’t want to say crazy, but that is something we wouldn’t expect […] out of God’s law. Clearly it’s not something we would expect from the god that is mercy and love. How do we understand this?”

That’s exactly my point: it’s something we wouldn’t expect out of a God that is described as loving and merciful. How do we deal with that contradiction? There are a few options:

  1. Suggest that this is evidence that this god is not loving and merciful.
  2. Suggest that this god’s sense of love and mercy is conditional at best, barbaric at worst.
  3. Suggest that we might not understand it and move on.
  4. Suggest that it is indeed loving and merciful but that we simply don’t understand it.

“It can seem so extreme for us,” Fr. Mike admits, but he simply points out that there is a provision for those who do this unwillingly. They’re not to be executed. It’s only those who do so willingly, flagrantly — those who thumb their noses at this god’s commands. He then suggests that the third tithe

Third tithe mentioned in Deuteronomy 14 somehow makes up for it.

Every third year you shall bring out the full tithe of your produce for that year, and store it within your towns; the Levites, because they have no allotment or inheritance with you, as well as the resident aliens, the orphans, and the widows in your towns, may come and eat their fill so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work that you undertake.

It can seem “schizophrenic” (his word), but he points out that it’s extremely generous and merciful to take care of widows. That’s what we’d expect from a god of love

I joined a FB group for this Bible in a Year reading plan and posted my concern: “I struggle greatly with all these passages about stoning. Why would God command such a brutal and barbaric method of execution? I wish Fr. Mike would address that. Thoughts?”

One person responded, “That’s what they could understand 3,500 years ago. You can’t read the Bible with a 21st Century lens.” I’ve heard that argument so many times, but I just don’t understand it. From a Christian perspective, if it’s wrong it’s because God says it’s wrong; so if it is wrong in 21st century, it had to be wrong in all time.

I took a slightly different argument in my response, though:

God is not just condoning this. He’s not looking down from heaven and saying, “Well, they’re stoning people now. That’s wrong. I’ll take care of that, but it will take time because they’re so backward now. By the 21st century they’ll have outgrown this.” He commanded it. It was his instruction. There are other ways to kill that they could have easily understood. They would understand, “Hey, don’t stone people. It’s brutal. It’s awful. To execute them, here are some herbs you mix in water. It’s painless and nearly instant.”

At this point, there are lots of likes for the response to my question, little acknowledgment of the content of what I asked. And I get if: I’m asking questions that challenge comfortable belief. I’m asking questions about one of the many things that led me away from belief. I can understand if no one wants to touch it.

The Inevitable Move

Tuesday 23 February 2021

A few days ago, Fr. Mike, on day 50 of his Bible in a Year podcast read Exodus 37 and 38 as well as Leviticus 26. The passages in Exodus all had to do with sacrificial offerings, but the chapter from Leviticus was, in many ways, the most troubling passage in the whole Bible so far. It is, in short, a list of the punishments the god of Old Testament will mete out on Israel if they abandon the proper worship of him, but it presents such a conditional love, which bears all the hallmarks of an abusive relationship that I don’t see how someone can read these chapters and not absolutely cringe.

It begins with a promise of what will happen if they do remain faithful:

“If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. And your threshing shall last to the time of vintage, and the vintage shall last to the time for sowing; and you shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land securely. And I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid; and I will remove evil beasts from the land, and the sword shall not go through your land. And you shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. (Leviticus 26.3-7)

One might question whether this god would be upset to discover that people were worshiping him because they want all the benefits, but this supposedly omniscient being should know that and perhaps work that into the passage. “You must honestly love me and worship me.” Something like that. Still, that’s a trivial point compared to what happens later in the chapter.

By verse 14 it turns quite troubling:

“But if you will not hearken to me, and will not do all these commandments, if you spurn my statutes, and if your soul abhors my ordinances, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant, I will do this to you: I will appoint over you sudden terror, consumption and fever that waste the eyes and cause life to pine away. (Leviticus 26.14-16)

Fr. Mike, in his commentary, explains, “There are consequences for actions. […] He hands them over because he loves them.” If this doesn’t call Israel back to their god, Fr. Mike explains, then their god will let more stuff happen to them until they do turn back to him. “The whole point of this is not punishment,” Fr. Mike assures us. “The whole point of this is rescue.” This is the first problematic idea, and it hits at one of the biggest issues I’ve had with Christianity for some time now. “Rescue” suggests the following:

  • Force A
  • affects entity X
  • and entity Y somehow stops force A by
    • getting rid of force A,
    • removing entity X from the effects of force A, or
    • mitigating the effects of force A.

Within all of this is the idea that force A is separate from entity X doing the rescuing. If I’m beating my son and then stop beating him, I’m not rescuing him. If I’m holding my daughter’s head underwater and then stop holding her head underwater, I’m not rescuing her. It’s only a rescue if someone or something else is doing it, and I somehow stop it.

The problem with Christianity is simple: this god is the one doing the beating; this god is the one holding heads underwater. How so? Simple: Christians frame all this “rescue” as a rescue from the consequences of sin. But the god of Christianity defined sin. He designed the consequences of sin (and everything else) by creating the world as he did. He’s ultimately the victimizer and the savior. That’s not rescuing. That’s a sick relationship.

Putting that aside, though, it’s disturbing to look at the consequences listed in Leviticus, through verse 45:

  • I will bring more plagues upon you, sevenfold as many as your sins.
    This is not a consequence. This is God responding to one’s actions, and with a sort of severity that might even be rare in the mafia.
  • I will let loose the wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number, so that your ways shall become desolate.
    Who is really paying the price if the children are getting devoured by wild beasts? And what kind of relationship does this inspire? We’re just cowering in fear of what this being might do to us.
  • I will walk contrary to you in fury, and chastise you myself sevenfold for your sins. You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters.
    What!? God here is saying he will, in fury, bring such desolation that the Israelites will turn to cannibalism. Will he be like with Pharaoh in Egypt? Remember: several times Pharaoh agreed to let the Israelites go, but according to Exodus, “God hardened his heart” so that he would change his mind. Is God going to harden the hearts of the Israelites to make them turn to cannibalism, or will things just get so bad that they won’t feel they have any choice? (And when would a parent ever really feel that way?)
  • And I will devastate the land, so that your enemies who settle in it shall be astonished at it.
    The implication earlier is that Israel’s enemies will do all this destroying, but here it seems to indicate that God doing it. After all, the enemies come and are astonished, presumably at the brutality which has swept through the land.
  • And as for those of you that are left, I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; the sound of a driven leaf shall put them to flight, and they shall flee as one flees from the sword, and they shall fall when none pursues.
    Again, God does this, not the enemies. He seems to be suggesting that he’ll make them such cowards that they’ll be eradicated.

How does Fr. Mike explain all this? He makes the move I’ve been waiting for him to make the whole time, really the only move he can make: The fact that it doesn’t seem right is our fault. “We just need to trust God and understand that there is an answer to all these questions,” he argues:

This is the discipline of a father, and this is so important to us. You know, when we approach scripture, and we don’t trust God, we see these things and go, “Wow, that’s crazy. I’m done with this. Day 50, that’s it. I’m out.” But when we approach the word of God, and we have that spirit of trust where it’s like, “Okay, if I don’t understand this, it must be me that doesn’t understand this.”

If I begin to be suspicious of God, and I say, “Wait, let me pause. God is a good dad. And while I don’t understand what he’s doing here or not doing there, I have to look at him, look at life, look at myself through the lens of ‘Okay, God is a good dad.’ So why would a good Dad allow these punishments to come upon those who are disobedient?” Well, because, like any good dad, like any good parent, I want more for you than just your comfort. I want more for you than for you to just go about your life and do whatever it is you want to do. I want the best for you.

So this is God, who is the good dad. And he says, “I want the absolute best for my children, so if they refuse to walk in my ways and walk contrary to me, here’s the consequences. Because I want to bring them back to my heart.”

But how do we know that this god is a “good dad,” as Fr. Mike suggests? It hits at the very heart of the question of theism: how do we know anything about this supposed being? All Christians claim to know about him comes from three sources:

  1. Personal experiences with what we call the divine.
  2. What the church teaches about this being (and here I have in mind the Catholic idea that the Bible and the church are equal authorities).
  3. What the Bible says about this thing we call the divine.

Personal experiences are just that: personal. If you have a warm feeling in your heart, that’s all you know. To attribute it to the Holy Spirit or anything else is interpretation and therefore highly subjective. In this sense, the believer is putting faith in herself and her interpretation of her inner experience. The other two sources, though, inform that faith.

What the church says about its god is just what other people say about, and so ultimately the believer is putting her faith in these other people.

The Bible is just a book. Nothing more, nothing less. If believers purport it to come from the hand of their god, there should be evidence of some sort in the book itself. The safest way to approach it, then, is to look at the Bible and ask, “What sort of god is presented in its pages?” From this reading in Leviticus, it seems a stretch to say that this being is in any sense “good.” He’s vindictive, envious, and petty at best and ghastly, wretched, and unspeakably cruel at worst.

So where does Fr. Mike get this “good dad” stuff? Simple: it’s his working preconception. He’s making assumptions about the Bible before he reads the Bible, and he’s suggesting believers do the same. And to be fair, what else are they going to do? If they’re committed to his idea that their god is good, they have to approach it with that assumption, and no one really wants to worship an evil god. In addition, if they were raised in the church, they were taught that their god is a good and loving god long before they can read the Bible for themselves and see all these terrors.

It is here that the true horror of the situation enters, for it is here that believers being to look like spouses in an abusive relationship. Take what Fr. Mike said about his god and reframe it: imagine that Fr. Mike is an abused wife and his god is the husband:

If I begin to be suspicious of my husband, and I say, “Wait, let me pause. My husband is a good husband. And while I don’t understand what he’s doing here [with all the unspeakable abuse mentioned earlier] or not doing there, I have to look at him, look at life, look at myself through the lens of ‘Okay, my husband is a good a good husband.’ So why would a good husband allow these punishments me? It must be because I am disobedient.” Well, because, like any good husband, he wants more for me than just my comfort. He wants more for me than for me to just go about my life and do whatever it is I want to do. He wants the best for me.

That is classic victim-blaming. Worse: it’s victim self-blame. “My husband beats me because I deserve it. It’s for a greater good, and if I don’t understand that, it’s just because I’m not as smart as he is.”

If any of our friends spoke this way, we would encourage her to go to a shelter immediately with her children. But Christians simply stay in this relationship. They believe they deserve it because of Original Sin and their own short-comings. How many times have I heard Christians talk about how wretched they are? “Amazing grace, that saved a wretch like me.”

Most Christians would respond, I think, by saying, “That’s the Old Covenant. Look at how beautiful the New Covenant is! That’s where I draw my faith. Jesus saved us from all of that!” Yet the response to this is so simple that even a child can make it — and has. “But that’s the same god!” These are not different entities. The Christian doctrine of the trinity paints them into a corner, and they fail to see that it’s happened. In doing so, it makes the relationship even more toxic.

I, for one, got out of that relationship, and I feel so much better for it.

Blasphemy

Wednesday 17 February 2021

“I listened to Fr. Mike already,” I told K this morning. I listened to the Bible in a Year podcast while making lunch and breakfast. It’s the best time for me to listen to it: K is taking a shower, and usually I’m alone.

“Was it interesting?”

“Well, more killing, killing, killing.”

Today, Fr. Mike covered Leviticus 24, and verses 10-16, in particular, stood out to me:

Now an Israelite woman’s son, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the people of Israel; and the Israelite woman’s son and a man of Israel quarreled in the camp, and the Israelite woman’s son blasphemed the Name, and cursed. And they brought him to Moses. His mother’s name was Shelo′mith, the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan. And they put him in custody, till the will of the Lord should be declared to them.

And the Lord said to Moses, “Bring out of the camp him who cursed; and let all who heard him lay their hands upon his head, and let all the congregation stone him.  And say to the people of Israel, Whoever curses his God shall bear his sin. He who blasphemes the name of the Lord shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him; the sojourner as well as the native, when he blasphemes the Name, shall be put to death.

It struck me that this is a particularly tricky passage because there’s no set definition for blasphemy. Sure, the Israelites would have codified some definition of blasphemy, but ultimately, it’s a relative thing. Just look at the definition the Oxford dictionary provides: “the act or offense of speaking sacrilegiously about God or sacred things; profane talk.” Sacrilege is simply profane talk: treating something that is sacred as if it were not. If that’s the case, then even highly religious people commit blasphemy all the time — in someone’s eyes. It seems that if God wanted to make sure that people weren’t getting stoned for saying “gosh,” which is really a euphemism for “God,” that this ultimate punishment was saved for at least a more heavy-handed approach, like calling someone a God-damned idiot. (Would that be blasphemy? I was just using the term to quote a hypothetical person in a hypothetical situation — but is that blasphemy?)

 

Forever Throughout Your Generations

Tuesday 16 February 2021

Today, Fr. Mike went through Exodus 32 and Leviticus 23. The passage in Exodus deals with the golden calf that the Israelites started worshiping. Fr. Mike also pointed out that this is where the Levitical priesthood is born, in verses 25-29:

And when Moses saw that the people had broken loose (for Aaron had let them break loose, to their shame among their enemies), then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, “Who is on the Lord’s side? Come to me.” And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together to him. And he said to them, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel, ‘Put every man his sword on his side, and go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor.’” And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses; and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men. And Moses said, “Today you have ordained yourselves[a] for the service of the Lord, each one at the cost of his son and of his brother, that he may bestow a blessing upon you this day.”

Adoration of the Golden Calf, by Nicolas Poussin

So what made the tribe of Levi so special that priests could come only from them? They slaughtered a bunch of me who were stupid enough to worship a damn cow that they themselves had made. I mean, it’s no secret where the cow came from. The chapter begins with a command from the people: “When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron, and said to him, ‘Up, make us gods, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.'” These idiots see the idol being made and then turn right around and credit it with their deliverance from Egypt. They’re simple people at best. They’ll literally worship just about anything. God should have had pity on their stupidity, but instead, he had Moses kill a bunch of them.

At first, God wants to kill them all, but Moses talks him down from that ledge:

But Moses besought the Lord his God, and said, “O Lord, why does thy wrath burn hot against thy people, whom thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent did he bring them forth, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou didst swear by thine own self, and didst say to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it for ever.’” And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do to his people.

It’s amusing that the way Moses talks God out of killing them is by appealing to God’s pride. “I mean, look — you’re going to seem foolish if you deliver all these people from Egypt and then just kill them.” Strangely enough, though God never changes according to the Bible and never does evil (also according to the Bible), he “repented of the evil which he thought to do to his people.”

Now how does Fr. Mike deal with these difficulties? Simple — he doesn’t. He talks about how we like to make God into an idol that we can control. We put him in our pocket and then take him out when times are tough. That’s a fair enough assessment, I think, but it doesn’t really deal with the weirdness of the passages he read for us today.

The other passage today was Leviticus 23, which deals with the feast days God wants people to celebrate. “These are the appointed festivals of the Lord, the holy convocations, which you shall celebrate at the time appointed for them” (verse 4). Obviously, Christmas and Easter aren’t in there, but a whole bunch of feasts that I grew up celebrating are, and I grew up celebrating them for a very simple reason: the Bible says to do so, and nowhere in the New Testament does it say to stop celebrating them.

Indeed, the passages requiring them are quite specific that these are ordained for all time:

  • Verse 14 is about the offering of First Fruits: “You shall eat no bread or parched grain or fresh ears until that very day, until you have brought the offering of your God: it is a statute forever throughout your generations in all your settlements.”
  • Verse 21 is about the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost): “This is a statute forever in all your settlements throughout your generations.”
  • Verse 31 is about Atonement: “You shall do no work: it is a statute forever throughout your generations in all your settlements.”
  • Verse 41 is about the Feast of Tabernacles (Booths): “You shall keep it as a festival to the Lord seven days in the year; you shall keep it in the seventh month as a statute forever throughout your generations.”

Recall Zachariah 14:16 from a few days ago: “Then every one that survives of all the nations that have come against Jerusalem shall go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of booths.” It seems pretty clear that God is ordaining these celebrations for all times and all people. Why don’t most Christians celebrate them anymore?

Fr. Mike, of course, did not deal with that. And I can’t really blame him: this is “The Bible in a Year” podcast, not “The Bible in a Year for Skeptics” podcast. But it does illustrate one tendency I’ve noticed about believers. Those tricky parts, those troubling parts — they don’t see them. Even when they’re there in front of them, they don’t see them.

“God is mysterious,” and it’s all taken care of.

More Silence

Saturday 13 February 2021

Earlier, Fr. Mike explained that the reason Christians are to follow some of the Old Testament commands and disregard others is a question of audience. Some were meant to be only for Israel while others are clearly meant for everyone. He tried to elaborate it with an example about homosexuality in the Bible in which he pointed out that the text points out that the nations surrounding Israel “defiled” themselves in this way (I guess by showing tolerance to the gay community) and that Israel was not to do the same. Thus, Fr. Mike contended, it was clearly meant for those other nations as well. That’s how he explained away the command not to wear clothes of mixed fabrics but insisted that the prohibitions against homosexuality were still binding.

Alright, so let’s take that as a given for the sake of argument. I don’t think the point stands: I think it’s just a bunch of verbal sleight-of-hand (I know — horribly mixed metaphor). There’s nothing in the text that explicitly even suggests that some of these laws are binding for all people and some are not. Most Christians today don’t keep the OT feasts like the Feast of Tabernacles (also known as the Feast of Booths) even though Zechariah 14:16 states, “Then every one that survives of all the nations that have come against Jerusalem shall go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of booths.” If anything seems directed toward all people, this surely is. By Fr. Mike’s logic, then, Christians should still be keeping at least observe the Feast of Tabernacles/Booths. Be all that selective-application-of-a-dubious-hermeneutic as it might be, let’s just take for the sake of argument that Fr. Mike’s interpretative principle is sound. What do we make of today’s reading, then?

Leviticus 20 is a brutal chapter. It lists the penalties for various infractions of the law. Most commonly, the penalty is death, and that death, most commonly, is by — guess! bet you’ll never guess it right! — stoning.

It starts out with a fairly disturbing command: “The Lord said to Moses,  ‘Say to the people of Israel, Any man of the people of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, who gives any of his children to Molech shall be put to death; the people of the land shall stone him with stones'” (verses 1 and 2). This giving of children to Molech was always explained as child sacrifice. So it’s disturbing that child sacrifice is such an issue (or potential issue) that right out of the gate, the first penalty deals with this. We might think, “Well, that’s good. At least this god has the children’s good in mind.” That reassuring thought disappears as soon as we read verse three, though: “‘I myself will set my face against that man, and will cut him off from among his people, because he has given one of his children to Molech, defiling my sanctuary and profaning my holy name.'” So it’s not that they committed this awful cruelty to children, it’s not that they betrayed their responsibilities as parents, it’s not that they tortured children — no, it’s all about this god. Burning children is bad because it profane’s this god’s name. That’s just sick.

From that auspicious start, we have a whole litany of death:

  • In verse 9, we’re instructed to kill incorrigible children: “For every one who curses his father or his mother shall be put to death; he has cursed his father or his mother, his blood is upon him.”
  • In verse 10, we’re instructed to stone adulterers: “If a man commits adultery with the wife of[a] his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death.”
  • Verses 11 and 12 as well as 14 through 21 deal with the penalty for various forms of incest and beastiality. Death, of course.
  • Verse 27 deals with those who supposedly talk to the dead: “A man or a woman who is a medium or a wizard shall be put to death; they shall be stoned with stones, their blood shall be upon them.”

As a side note, many people have demonstrated that this “talking to the dead” nonsense is just that — it’s cold reading. Derren Brown has walked into a room and convinced people he was talking to the dead just after saying to the camera, “I’m going to go in there and make them think I’m talking to the dead, but I’ll be doing no such thing.”

It’s verse 13, though, that stands out when juxtaposed to what Fr. Mike said earlier: “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death, their blood is upon them.” This is a clear condemnation of homosexuality. The question is this: if the prohibition of homosexuality is to be interpreted as universal, why shouldn’t the punishment be likewise?

Verses 22 through 24, though, is even more interesting, for it seems to demolish Fr. Mike’s whole distinction between universal and non-universal application of the Old Testmant law:

“You shall therefore keep all my statutes and all my ordinances, and do them; that the land where I am bringing you to dwell may not vomit you out. And you shall not walk in the customs of the nation which I am casting out before you; for they did all these things, and therefore I abhorred them. But I have said to you, ‘You shall inherit their land, and I will give it to you to possess, a land flowing with milk and honey.’ I am the Lord your God, who have separated you from the peoples.”

Fr. Mike argued that the earlier condemnation of homosexuality was universal because it was set in opposition to what the surrounding nations tolerated, but these verses do the exact same thing for all God’s commands.

So what does Fr. Mike in his post-reading reflection say about all this brutality? How does Fr. Mike deal with the verse that seems not just to undermine his earlier argument but to demolish it completely? Simple: he says nothing. He instead focuses on the other reading for the day, Exodus 27 and 28, which deal with the priestly garments, and he talks about his own experiences wearing modern priestly garments.

It’s not a problem if you don’t acknowledge it…

Emissions and Lapidation

Tuesday 9 February 2021

“That can be a very challenging, challenging reading,” Fr. Mike begins today’s commentary, which I take to mean something like, “It’s really tough to explain away these passages that seem so barbaric or seem so weirdly obsessed with relatively unimportant things. They seem to challenge the very goodness and wisdom of the god we worship.” The reading was Exodus 22 and Leviticus 15, and he says that the Exodus reading seems to be more commonsensical.

The first part of the chapter has to do with the laws of restitution — things like what to do if your bull gores another animal. That type of thing. Fr. Mike discusses these laws fairly quickly, and he’s probably right: they are fairly commonsensical in a way. These passages, Fr. Mike explains are “revealing something about God’s heart.” These are “the principles according to justice.”

What he says not a word about are the instructions in the latter half of the chapter, particularly the first set of so-called social and religious laws:

“If a man seduces a virgin who is not betrothed, and lies with her, he shall give the marriage present for her, and make her his wife. If her father utterly refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money equivalent to the marriage present for virgins.

“You shall not permit a sorceress to live.

“Whoever lies with a beast shall be put to death.

“Whoever sacrifices to any god, save to the Lord only, shall be utterly destroyed.” (Exodus 22 16-20)

We’re to stone incorrigible children. We’re to stone witches. We’re to stone those who change religions. Stoning is such a brutal, barbaric punishment that the fact that not only does this god justify it (“I’d rather you not do it, but I guess if you do it in these situations it’s alright”) but simply commands it — that thought alone disqualifies this god of anything other than contempt from right-thinking people, from people who have a modicum of empathy and decency.

These are, remember, the “principles according to justice” instead of vengeance; this god is all about making sure the punishment fits the crime. So apparently, taking your child out, burying him to the waist, and bludgeoning him to death with stones is a just punishment. Stoning is appropriate for the imaginary crime of sorcery. And just as we see in Islam, the punishment for leaving the faith is — you guessed it — stoning.

Remember, too, that these things, according to Fr. Mike, “reveal something about God’s heart.” What it reveals to me is simple: this is not a just god; this is not a decent god.

But it is the god presented in the Bible, so all this behavior must be justified. We have to explain away this barbarity somehow. How does Fr. Mike justify it? Simple: he just doesn’t comment about it at all. Not a word about any of the commands to stone anyone. Not one word.

He does go into detail about the passage in Leviticus, which is what all we’re to do regarding menstruating women and semen-spilling men. It reads like this:

“And if a man has an emission of semen, he shall bathe his whole body in water, and be unclean until the evening. And every garment and every skin on which the semen comes shall be washed with water, and be unclean until the evening. If a man lies with a woman and has an emission of semen, both of them shall bathe themselves in water, and be unclean until the evening. (Lev. 15.16-18)

This is what the creator of the universe, the ground of all being, is concerned with: what to do after a wet dream.

Fr. Mike explains it this way: “The bodily emissions are important why? Because life is in the blood. They’re important because they refer to very intrinsic and necessary parts of our relationships.” But why would there be rules about this? Fr. Mike explains,

[It] is because the body is sacred. The emissions of the body refer to life but also because this particular kind of emissions of the body have to do with sex, have to do with reproduction, have to do with relationships. […] There’s some kind of guidance, some kind of restraint again placed upon people when a) they are engaged in sexual acts with one another, and b) they’re in community with each other. And this is just part of the genius of God’s word. God’s word is saying “we’re going to show restrait.” And that restraint is not for restraint’s sake alone and also not like “oh, gross!” — that’s not what uncleanness means. Uncleanness simple means whether this is an issue of blood, an issue of seman, whaterver this is, those are things that can bring forth life. But because they bring forth life, we have to be careful around them. This is something that’s so important for us to rediscover in the twenty-first century that because there are things so connected to life we need to be careful around them.

What does that even mean? Why would we “be careful”? In what sense would we “be careful”? Is he talking about being careful with sex? I guess that’s what he means, but the Levitical passages aren’t solely about sex; they’re about menstruation and simply ejaculation (not necessarily during coitus). It all just becomes a big confusing bundle of squishy words that don’t seem to mean anything.

I feel like he’s just providing an answer that he knows, consciously or unconsciously, is vague but will communicate enough to reassure believers who are troubled by this passage. They might not even understand it, but it gives them something to calm their worries about this passage. I can even hear someone saying something like this, then appending it with, “I’m not sure I explained it right. Fr. Mike does it better. You should just listen to the podcast.”

Header image is a still from the film The Stoning of Soraya M.

Slavery in the Bible

Monday 8 February 2021

K asked me to listen along with her has she goes through Fr. Mike Schmitz’s podcast The Bible in a Year. I’ve been eager to see how Fr. Mike deals with the more troubling parts of the Bible, and today, he hit Exodus 21, which deals with how to treat slaves:

“Now these are the ordinances which you shall set before them. When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing. If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s and he shall go out alone. But if the slave plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,’ then his master shall bring him to God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him for life.

“When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. If she does not please her master, who has designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed; he shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has dealt faithlessly with her. If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter. If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights. And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money. (Ex 21.1-11)

Fr. Mike explains it this way: it’s a difficult passage, but it’s important to understand Old Testament slavery in the proper context:

He’s not revealing himself to a people who knows who he is. […] He’s not revealing himself to a people who, for lack of a better term, are civilized. He’s revealing himself to a people who are familiar with a kind of Wild West justice. He’s revealing himself to a people who have a sense of what’s right and what’s wrong but don’t necessarily know how to pursue what’s right and what’s wrong in a way that’s absolutely just and fair. […] He’s teaching them, “I am a god of justice, a god who does hear the cry of the poor.”

Yet Fr. Mike contends that because slavery was so common in the ancient world, God had to take baby steps with them. First of all, slavery then wasn’t what we think of slavery. It was more like indentured servitude. So it’s slavery, but not slavery slavery. Next, he contends that God had to teach the Israelites that you can’t just do anything you want to your slaves. They’re human beings. That’s all fine and good, I guess, but it seems to me that that’s a pretty basic step, a pretty small step. Add to it the dimension of sexual slavery (“If she does not please her master”) and the thought of selling one’s daughter into this sexual slavery — it’s just astounding that someone can justify this.

More problematic is the realization that, if God was just taking these “baby steps,” we would expect to find an outright prohibition of slavery somewhere later in the Bible. After all, Christians are fond of explaining that Jesus did away with all that Old Testament stuff when he instituted the New Testament. And it seems to have caught on: Paul writes in Galatians 3.28, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Surely that’s the next step implied by this baby-steps argument.

It’s hard, then, to understand why Paul himself would contradict himself and walk back this argument in Ephesians 6.5-8

Slaves, be obedient to those who are your earthly masters, with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as to Christ; not in the way of eye-service, as men-pleasers, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that whatever good any one does, he will receive the same again from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free.

Even more troubling is the whole letter to Philemon, in which Paul returns a slave to his master In verses 12-18, he writes,

I am sending him back to you, sending my very heart. I would have been glad to keep him with me, in order that he might serve me on your behalf during my imprisonment for the gospel; but I preferred to do nothing without your consent in order that your goodness might not be by compulsion but of your own free will.

Perhaps this is why he was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back for ever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, as a beloved brother, especially to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord. So if you consider me your partner, receive him as you would receive me. If he has wronged you at all, or owes you anything, charge that to my account.

Here would be a perfect chance to condemn and prohibit slavery. Here would be the perfect location to take that final step started with those baby steps in the Old Testament. Here would be the place to say something like this:

I am not sending him back to you. I would have been glad to keep him with me, but I gave him the choice to stay or to go, and he, being a free man not just in Christ but because slavery is itself vile and immoral, chose to leave. I preferred to do nothing without your consent, but because he has his own rights and liberty, I told him to go his own way.

Perhaps this is why he was parted from you, that you might realize how vile slavery is and repent of this evil. Understand me now: there is no place in the body of Christ of slavery of any kind, of any shape, of any definition. So if you consider me your partner, receive this news as you would receive me. If he has wronged you at all, or owes you anything, he paid it off long ago.

There. I fixed it.

Sunday Theological Thoughts and a Ride

Sunday 13 September 2020

A Ride

We went for a bike ride this afternoon to our favorite local park. We got an up-close view of a local:

We see them at a distance quite frequently, and they even come into our creek behind our house from time to time, but this is undoubtedly the closest we’ve ever been to one.

Sunday Theological Thoughts

While in Mass today I noticed an oddity that I’d heard many times but never really thought about: just before the congregation recites the Lord’s Prayer, the priest says, “At the Savior’s command and formed by divine teaching, we dare to say…”

“Why ‘dare’?” I thought. “Doesn’t Christianity present God as a father?”

A little research revealed this:

The priest notes what a privilege it is for us to be able to talk to God in this way: “At the Savior’s command and formed by divine teaching, we dare to say …” What is it that we dare to say? “Our Father”. This is precisely what Jesus calls us to do. It underscores the intimate relationship we now have with God because of Jesus’ work of salvation. We share his life because he came to share ours. Through our union in Christ, God has truly become our Father.

Website for Church of St. Vincent DePaul in Singapore

I suppose the argument might be that pre-Jesus, no one would have thought to call God Father. I don’t really know. But there’s always been something of a thread of fear in most theisms, which seems somewhat unhealthy to say the least.

It’s certainly present in the Bible, including this curiosity: “The fear of the Lord leads to life, and whoever has it rests satisfied; he will not be visited by harm” (Proverbs 19:23).

It seems somehow to echo what’s said later in Mass, just before going to take communion: “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.” If God is indeed to be seen as a father-figure, who ever talks to their father that way? If my children said they’re not worthy of being in my presence, I would wonder how I’d managed to raise them with such little self-esteem. I don’t even know that you could raise children to think that way without emotionally abusing them. I understand the sense of humility, but this just seems to be a little much. I know, I know — I’m viewing it through a human perspective. That’s all any of us have, though, and it seems, honestly, a little like a cop-out. “Who are we to question the ways of God?” covers a multitude of unanswered prayers.

Day 77: First Day in Conestee in Rainbows

Sunday 31 May 2020

First Day in Conestee

We’ve been waiting for our favorite park to open for weeks now. It seemed to us that going for a walk in the park should be something that lends itself rather naturally to social distancing. Certainly, you have to be aware of where everyone is and perhaps not go at the pace you would normally walk, but those are small concerns that mature people can keep in mind and in action relatively easily. But the city kept the parks closed.

Today, they were open, so we went for a walk in the morning when it was likely to be less crowded. We kept our distance from everyone and behaved as model citizens.

The kids were just glad to get out and do something. Perhaps they were also glad to see other faces — I know I was.

But I’ve had concerns about this opening up of South Carolina. I don’t get the impression that everyone else is being as careful as we are. And the numbers prove it. Earlier this week, we had a day with 300+ new cases — the highest we’d ever had. Then we had a couple of more days in the 200s or high 100s range, then yesterday we saw that the number jumped up again. Today, there were 312, but there was also an addendum about yesterday’s count:

154 cases that should have been reported in yesterday’s positive case counts were not updated from suspected to confirmed cases in our database by the time yesterday’s news release was issued. An additional quality check of yesterday’s positive case numbers revealed the omission of these cases in the daily reporting total. The corrected total of positive cases for yesterday (May 30) has been updated to 420. (Source)

So we’ve gone from having no single day with more than about 280 to having a day with over 400. Just about two weeks after restrictions were eased. Which is to say that I’m afraid people’s stupidity (“This has all blown over — back to normal”) will cause a spike that will undo all we sacrificed over the last months.

In Rainbows

When Noah and the survivors emerged from the ark after God had wiped out all of humanity except them, there would have likely been some consternation: what if God decides to do this again and this time, we don’t make the cut? It seems God wanted to assuage exactly those fears:

Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: “I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature on earth. I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds,  I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.” (Genesis 9.8-16)

A skeptic like me has a lot of issues with this passage. Well, there are a lot of issues about the whole story of Noah and the ark, not the least of which is God deciding to wipe out all of humanity instead of, say, coming down and teaching them how they’re making bad choices, like a parent would do. Perhaps a spanking of some sort if we want to get Victorian. Then there’s the question of getting all the species in the boat, the inexperience of Noah as a shipwright — just problems all over the place.

But just these few verses offer a couple of big issues: first, why does God need reminding? “I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant” not “you will see it and remember the everlasting covenant,” though I guess that’s implied. But I suppose we could work out some literary way to get around that.

What we can’t get around is the simple fact that text here seems to suggest that there was never a rainbow before this event: “Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds” certainly hints at this. So you see the opening: “You mean to tell me that the lingering droplets of water in the sky that act as a prism and break the sunlight into its various colors — an act of physics — never happened before this?” Rainbows are not mysteries: we know exactly how they form, and I would imagine that meteorological sciences have gotten to the point that they can list several conditions that need to exist before a storm that will set in action a chain of events that will end in said rainbow.

Apologists who take the Bible literally have to deal with this. How to do so? I suppose they could suggest that, yes, God altered the laws of physics at that moment. But a more common explanation is a little more baffling: it had never rained before the deluge, apologist suggest. Mists and dew and the like were enough to water the flora of the Earth.

I mentioned this to K: she raised her eyebrows. “That’s the first time I ever heard of that.” I suspect it’s an Evangelical (i.e., American Christianity) attempt at explaining an obvious problem with the Biblical text in such a way that allows believers to continue interpreting it literally, word-for-word.

I first heard that argument when I was a kid. I want to say, “It struck me as strange even then,” but I don’t really recall. I remember hearing it, so it made some kind of impression on me, and it stuck in the back of my head as another example of some of the odd contortions literalists bend themselves into in order to continue interpreting the Bible literally.

I heard it again tonight. Or rather, overheard it. I wasn’t involved in the conversation, just listening from the fringes. “I mean, God created the world so perfectly that they didn’t even need rain — just a mist was enough,” the apologist explained.

It was one of those times that I really wanted to jump into a conversation but knew that there would be no point. Neither of us would budge from our view.

Day 52: A Fort of Sympathy

Wednesday 6 May 2020

The Fort

Work continued this evening on the fort. We needed some more bamboo canes, so we headed over to our neighbor’s stand of canes and selected four after school was over. By the time we got them back on our property, it was nearly dinner (school for me went really late today), and it was raining, making it impossible to continue working.

After dinner, though…

The process has been one of evolution. We start with a design idea, discover it works, continue for a while, then have another idea. We try to incorporate it into the old idea; it sometimes works; it often doesn’t. We see if a third idea will bond the two original ideas a little more firmly. And so on.

E is discovering that the men who do all the primitive building on YouTube are in fact deserving of quotes: “primitive” building, for there’s nothing primitive about it except the tools they’re using. I could have tried to explain that to the Boy, but I don’t think it would have convinced him. Working on it himself, though, has certainly done that.

Sympathy

I went for a run this evening. It’s been a while. I get in these phases that I feel certain that a fitter, healthier G is just within reach: I simply have to get a regular exercise routine going and monitor what I snack on (or eliminate it altogether). It’s easy — nothing at all to it. And then I put the Boy to bed and find that I almost fell asleep with him and reason, “I’m already almost asleep. It would be a shame to waste it.” Or I just decided a glass of wine and some chess online is a better way to spend my time. Or occasionally (this is a cycle I’ve been going through for about 18 months now), I get this routine going and then some injury or previous pain flares up and I have to stop running for a week or more, and my motivation is back to where it usually is, which is to say near zero.

So I went out for a first run in probably two weeks, cueing up my running soundtrack on Spotify. The first song shuffled out: Beck’s “Devil’s Haircut.” I wasn’t in the mood for it, so I swiped on to the next song: the Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil.” (One run, Spotify played “Sympathy for the Devil” followed by Van Halen’s “Running with the Devil,” and concluding with “Devil’s Haircut.” A more superstitious person would read something into that.) The second verse began, and it got me thinking:

And I was ’round when Jesus Christ
Had his moment of doubt and pain
Made damn sure that Pilate
Washed his hands and sealed his fate

It reminded me of the scene in Mel Gibson’s take on the passion story. During Jesus’s scourging, a very androgynous Satan crying a child who looks surprisingly old walks through the crowd, looking as if he’s somehow winning a victory by having Jesus crucified.

In both these examples, and in general Christian thought, Satan is presented as having had a part in influencing humans to kill Jesus. But why in the world would he do that if Christian claims that Jesus was foretold for millennia? Christian theology teaches that through the crucifixion, Jesus somehow defeated Satan and ultimately saved our souls, and that this plan was in place from the Fall in Eden.

That is kind of confusing as well: if God is omnipotent, he knew that was coming, and so it was part of the plan to begin with. But if it was part of the plan to begin with, it seems like a bad plan, as if the failure implicit in the Fall is integral to the whole scheme. Which means we were made to fail. Odd plan, that.

At any rate, I was wondering why Satan is always shown to be crafty and yet an idiot at the same time. Evangelical views make Satan even more of an idiot: he’s going to try to overthrow God in Armageddon, yet he’s doomed to fail. All Evangelicals know this. It’s preached every Sunday. And yet somehow Satan, a being who is supposedly so much more powerful than humans in every way imaginable, doesn’t know about this.

More questions about the devil: why would he torture people in hell? Wouldn’t he want to reward them for choosing him over God? Wouldn’t he make it a paradise to rival Christian views of heaven just to thumb his nose at God? He’s literally an instrument of God’s punishment in the Christian view, yet he has free will and hates God. Why in the world would he be God’s pawn like that? That’s the whole reason he got tossed out of heaven in the Christian story.

And that’s another thing: how did this war in heaven happen? How do spirits battle? Wars have to do with one thing: inflicting more death and carnage on your enemy than he can on you. How in the world would immortal spirits fight then? It just doesn’t make any sense. Maybe that’s why we should have sympathy for the devil: in the grand scheme of things, he’s just a schmuck doing God’s dirty work in punishing souls who reject God. What a crappy job.

So I was jogging along, all these thoughts bouncing about in my head, and it struck me that perhaps that’s as good an argument as any against going for a run: I roll about in silly, useless speculation…

Stoned

Tuesday 9 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.

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.

Norfolk_Scope2

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

8654388381_328f47d1aa_k

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 a 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.

hwa
Herbert W. Armstrong

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.

BB

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

G,

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!

BB

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.

BB

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 his 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.

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“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 great9,393,393-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:

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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:

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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.

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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.

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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.

Lane's talk show entrance
Lane’s talk show entrance

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"
“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"
” 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.

What kind?
What kind?

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 1 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 7 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.