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christianity

I’m okay, you’re okay

Saturday 7 February 2009

Most Christian inspirational writing is simply an affirmation of mutually accepted beliefs. Much of it offers little new insight. At best, it’s semi-poetic reinterpretation of old Christian cliches; at worst, it’s painful restatements of the obvious.

Take this passage from Speechless, by Steven Curtis Chapman and Scotty Smith:

Jesus has taken away our punishment on the cross. There he defeated our great enemy, Satan. God’s loudest singing and his most passionate delight is expressed in the gospel of his grace. Through the gospel God is with us. By the gospel he saves us; In the gospel he delights in us. Through the speechless gospel he quiets us with his love. In the gospel we hear him rejoice over us with singing! Does your heart allow you to imagine God himself serenading you with his love songs?

What does this really say? Nothing that Christians don’t profess on a weekly, daily, or even hourly basis, depending on their level of personal piety: God loves us, and Jesus died for us.

“Jesus has taken away our punishment on the cross.” Heard it a thousand times. Nothing new there. It’s about like saying, “Mayonaise is made from eggs.”

“There he defeated our great enemy, Satan.” And hamburgers generally have meat in them.

“God’s loudest singing and his most passionate delight is expressed in the gospel of his grace.” This is a semi-original way of saying, “God’s happy when someone is saved.” What Protestant church doesn’t ring with those words at least once a week?

“Through the gospel God is with us. By the gospel he saves us.” Shoes generally have an element on the bottom known as soles.

“In the gospel he delights in us.” God loves you — that’s at least one being in the universe that loves you.

“Through the speechless gospel he quiets us with his love.” Really, God loves you.

“In the gospel we hear him rejoice over us with singing!” I’m not joking — God loves you.

“Does your heart allow you to imagine God himself serenading you with his love songs?” I’m only going to say this once: God loves you.

It’s like contemporary Christian music: what sense of satisifaction can someone get saying/singing the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over? There seems to be so little intellectual content. All emotion, all the time.

Even Schleiermacher would be distressed…

The Coming Holocaust

Monday 3 November 2008

Leaders and members of sects that cling to the British-Israelism of Herbert Armstrong are watching with glee as the global economic crisis deepens. The Philadelphia Trumpet writes,

The days surrounding Sept. 11, 2008, will go down in infamy. The speed at which so many of America’s most prestigious financial institutions collapsed should be etched into the minds of the American populace–because, whether or not people want to admit it, that disastrous, gut-wrenching, sobering week represented a drastic turning point in U.S. financial hegemony.

What remains is a gaping crater in the nation’s now-discredited economic core. […]

Back in 1984, Herbert W. Armstrong, editor in chief of the Plain Truth newsmagazine, wrote that a massive banking crisis in America could “suddenly result in triggering European nations to unite as a new world power larger than either the Soviet Union or the U.S.” (member and co-worker letter, July 22, 1984). That was 24 years ago, before the European Union took its present form, and before the euro monetary agreement even existed.

“That, in turn, could bring on the Great Tribulation suddenly,” Mr. Armstrong continued, using the biblical term for the time of unparalleled suffering that will conclude this age of man. “And that will lead quickly to the Second Coming of Christ, and the end of this world as we know it.”

Even now, a uniting Europe is fulfilling Bible prophecy, which says that for a time-just prior to Christ’s return-Europe will dominate global trade and finance. Watch as this prophecy unfolds before your eyes.

America’s spectacular banking collapse lurched the world toward this prophecy’s fulfillment. The global economy has a gaping void. Europe is about to fill it-and take its place in history.

This is talking about a German-led United Europe that will attack America with nuclear weapons, enslaving the remaining inhabitants and bringing humanity to the brink of extinction just before Jesus returns and sets up his nasty little kingdom. (And believe me: Armstrong’s vision of God’s kingdom is indeed a disgusting gulag.) Difficult to comprehend how anyone could believe that, but they do.

If one thinks this through for a moment, it becomes absurd for so many reasons.

To begin with, Europe is in economic crisis as well. If anyone is going to fill “the global economy[‘s …] gaping void”, my money would be on China. It already owns America, for all intents and purposes, and it’s making political inroads into Africa and Latin America, behaving in some ways like the America of the 1950’s. Europe is sinking under the threat of sharia law and a United Europe that’s anything but.

Still, for the sake of argument, let’s say that Europe does become some world-dominating superpower. According to Armstrongists, the next move would be an attack on America. But what for? If Europe is the world’s economic powerhouse, why would it attack a country (with an enormous nuclear arsenal) that’s already been marginalized? Besides, a United Europe would have to worry as much about China’s influence as America does now.

Still, for the sake of argument, let’s say that Europe does attack. America, scratching its head and thinking, “Wait — I thought Europe was an ally?!” (except for those Gallophobes who’ll be chanting, “See! We told you we couldn’t trust France!”), will retaliate. Tit for tat, nuke for nuke, and China and/or Russia will then take center stage.

In any scenario, the Chinese win.

No one with any real grasp of history or current events thinks any one of these scenarios is a genuine possibility, so why does this small group of people devote their lives to this fantasy? Simple: it made some degree of sense when Herbert Armstrong began suggesting it. After all, only two decades separated World War I from World War II, and in the 1950s and 1960s it might have made sense for Germany to give it one more go. Of course, anyone at that time with any understanding of the simple fact that World War II was really only a continuation of World War I; it was not the initiation of a series of wars.

Yet some claim it still makes sense. These same people have been saying Armstrong’s prophecies made sense even when his ten-nation European Union-to-come emerged with almost three times that many states; it made sense when an unpredicted (read: unprophesied) terrorist attack occurred seven years ago; and I’m sure it makes even more sense now that the whole world is sinking into recession, with Germany coming up with a bailout plan to rival America’s in spending scope.

Black Armstrongists

Sunday 19 October 2008

If you listen to the first two minutes of Rod Meredith’s Feast of Tabernacles 2008 opening message, you’ll hear this:

God has been very, very good to us this past year. We deeply appreciate it. Even now, as I make this sermon, a little before the Feast, God has blessed us financially, and we’re running around 8-10% increase in our financial income. We’re very grateful for that. He’s moving us ahead. The new television network we have, the Black Entertainment Network, is producing great fruit!

I wonder how that could possibly be working out? After all, the Living Church of God, of which Rod Meredith is the leader, is an Armstrongist sect, which means one thing: theological, institutional racism.

But does that mean individual racism? Can a church be xenophobic and its members not? Can a theology be racist and its adherents not?

I grew up in the Worldwide Church of God, an organization that  was founded on a racist theology. The leadership denied the cornerstone of the group’s theology was racist. “We don’t believe non-whites are inferior to whites, but we believe interracial marriage is a sin.” Or worse: “We believe all humans are equal before God, but in the Kingdom of God will be segregated.” Yet those protestations don’t stand up to what the founder and leader, Herbert Armstrong, wrote.

The church believed that the white, English-speaking nations of the world were God’s chosen people. America, Britain, France, and the other white European countries were the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel, with Britain, America, and the other English-speaking nations having special status.

God had always favored whites. Indeed, Adam was white, as were Noah, Jesus, and all the other patriarchs and prophets. Armstrong wrote,

There was rampant and universal interracial marriage–so exceedingly universal that Noah, only, was unblemished or perfect in his generations–his ancestry. He was of the original white strain.

It is amply evident that by the time of Noah there were at least the three primary or major racial strains on earth, the white, yellow and black, although interracial marriage produced many racial mixtures.

God does not reveal in the Bible the precise origin of the different races. It is evident that Adam and Eve were created white. God’s chosen nation Israel was white. Jesus was white. But it is a fair conjecture that in mother Eve were created ovaries containing the yellow and black genes, as well as white, so that some of the children of Adam and Eve gave rise to black, yellow, as well as white.

The one man God chose to preserve the human race alive after the Flood was perfect in his generations–all his ancestry back to Adam was of the one strain, and undoubtedly that happened to be white–not that white is in any sense superior.

If you are a livestock breeder, planning to enter your prize animals in a livestock show–perhaps at a state or county fair–you will be sure to enter only thoroughbred or pedigreed stock! Mixing the breed alters the characteristics.

God originally set the bounds of national borders, intending nations to be Separated to prevent interracial marriage. Notice, “When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance [speaking of land or geographical boundaries], when he separated [notice–he separated] the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people . . .” (Deut. 32:8).

But people wanted to intermarry–until there would be only one race!

That desire seems still inherent in human nature today! (Mystery of the Ages, pages 147, 148)

God is a livestock breeder, and we his chattel. We whites are the thoroughbreds; breeding with other races will only alter our original, perfect, blameless strain.

Furthermore, the world was originally segregated, and the Kingdom of God would be, too:

In Noah’s day, the chief cause of the violence and chaos of world conditions was racial hatreds, interracial marriages, and racial violence caused by man’s efforts toward integration and amalgamation of races, contrary to God’s laws. God had set the boundary lines for the nations and the races at the beginning (Deut. 32:8-9; Acts 17:26). But men had refused to remain in the lands to which God had assigned them. That was the cause of the corruption and violence that ended that world. For 100 years Noah had preached God’s ways to the people–but they didn’t heed. […]

Noah merely preached to people in his human lifetime. But Noah, in the resurrection, immortal, in power and glory, will be given the power to enforce God’s ways in regard to race.

It seems evident that the resurrected Noah will head a vast project of the relocation of the races and nations, within the boundaries God has set, for their own best good, happiness and richest blessings. This will be a tremendous operation. It will require great and vast organization, reinforced with power to move whole nations and races. This time, peoples and nations will move where God has planned for them, and no defiance will be tolerated. (Mystery of the Ages, pages 341, 342)

Never mind that that the “evidence” Armstrong gave about a white Adam and the “project of the relocation of the races” was his own assurance that “it seems evident.” Armstrong was God’s spokesman, and that was sufficient.

What’s odd, though, is how selectively this kind of racist tripe was preached. I, for one, never heard anything like that in the congregation I attended.

Perhaps that’s because there were three black congregants.

“Apostle” was the highest rank, but there was only one of those: Herbert Armstrong. The second highest rank would be “evangelist,” which might be thought of as a cross between a bishop and an archbishop in the Catholic hierarchy, except they had no say and who would be the next Apostle should the current one die before the end of the age, which is what happened.

It is indeed difficult to imagine that any African Americans would be interested in a church whose theology included the literal proposition that “blacks will be sent back to Africa where they belong,” but there were. Indeed, there was one black evangelist — the highest rank attainable in the church.

In our congregation, there were exactly three African American congregants: a late-middle aged couple and a young lady. They sat together on the second row, always in the same seats, just a few seats down from where my family sat.

For a long time I thought the young lady — an attractive woman in her mid-twenties I’ll call Natalie — was related to the Smiths (obviously not their real name). Indeed, I thought she was their daughter. Why else would they sit together?

Perhaps because they were three in a congregation of 200. They represented around 1.5%.

Eventually, Natalie moved to another congregation of the same sect. There were more African Americans in that congregation, allowing for greater socializing for her: the church wasn’t segregated, you see, but it did ban interracial and outside-the-church dating, so Natalie was a condemned single had she stayed in our area.

It’s difficult for me to imagine, looking back on those three individuals’ self-imposed segregation, what would have drawn them to the sect to begin with? What, to African Americans, is attractive about the notion that white, English-speaking individuals are God’s chosen people, the original Lost Ten Tribes?

All of this makes me wonder how much the executives at BET really know about Meredith and his theology.

BoM 11: First Book of Nephi, Chapter 10

Monday 8 September 2008

1 Nephi 10 opens with talk of his ministry:

And now I, Nephi, proceed to give an account upon these plates of my proceedings, and my reign and ministry; wherefore, to proceed with mine account, I must speak somewhat of the things of my father, and also of my brethren.

“Ministry” is an odd word. It has certain contemporary connotations that I’m not sure existed in earlier periods. It has to do with the Protestant notion of the “priesthood of all believers.” It’s is something Evangelicals do when they witness (another term with significant contemporary connotations); it’s something Mormon missionaries do when they visit you. Yet I wondered what it historically meant, so I did some checking.

The English word “ministry” dates, according to the handy online etymological dictionary, from

1382, “function of a priest,” from L. ministerium “office, service,” from minister (see minister). Began to be used 1916 as name of certain departments in British government. (Source)

So it’s certainly in keeping with a more general usage of the term. While many Protestant pastors would be livid at the suggestion that they function as a priest when they minister, that would be largely mitigated by the Protestant formulation of the “priesthood of all believers.”

The first use of “ministry” in the King James (the predominant Bible of Joseph Smith’s time) is Numbers 4.11-13

And upon the golden altar they shall spread a cloth of blue, and cover it with a covering of badgers’ skins, and shall put to the staves thereof:

And they shall take all the instruments of ministry, wherewith they minister in the sanctuary, and put them in a cloth of blue, and cover them with a covering of badgers’ skins, and shall put them on a bar:

And they shall take away the ashes from the altar, and spread a purple cloth thereon:

“Minster” and “ministry” certainly does have the enotation of religious duty here. Probably a textbook example of ministerium.

Later, Hosea speaks of the ministry of the prophets:

And I that am the LORD thy God from the land of Egypt will yet make thee to dwell in tabernacles, as in the days of the solemn feast.

I have also spoken by the prophets, and I have multiplied visions, and used similitudes, by the ministry of the prophets.

Is there iniquity in Gilead? surely they are vanity: they sacrifice bullocks in Gilgal; yea, their altars are as heaps in the furrows of the fields. (Hosea 12.9-11)

A prophet was not a priest, so this would tend to indicate a slightly different usage. Generally speaking, a prophet’s ministry would be to tell the people what they were doing wrong, that God was angry with them and was going to take some kind of vengeance. That’s certainly more along the line of “ministry” in some denominations, and I guess it’s the role of an Old Testament priest as well. Different connotations, but minimal.

The obvious question is whether or not the same Hebrew word has been translated “minister” in Hosea and Numbers. I could check easily enough, but what’s the point? I can’t compare it to the original word used in the Book of Mormon because God unfortunately took the best proof of his Mormon gospel back to heaven.

All the same, the connotation of the usage of “ministry” in 1 Nephi 10.1 seems, at best, slightly anachronistic.

Chapter ten also includes a prediction: “Yea, even six hundred years from the time that my father left Jerusalem, a prophet would the Lord God raise up among the Jews-even a Messiah, or, in other words, a Savior of the world.” The bulk of chapter ten deal with prophecies about John the Baptist and Jesus, specifically the former’s baptizing ministry (there’s that word again) and the latter’s initial encounter with him.

If only we God had left behind the original plates, here’s all the proof we’d need of both Jesus’ Messiahship and the Book of Mormon’s legitmacy. Right?

Photo by Internet Archive Book Images

Mark of the Beast

Saturday 9 August 2008

What’s going on here?

West Virginia started Friday keeping driver’s license photos out of a computer database for members of a small religious group who believe digital storage is a “mark of the beast” that evokes biblical prophecy.

State Division of Motor Vehicles Commissioner Joseph Cicchirillo said the group of about 50 or 60 Christians, who are not affiliated with a particular church, contacted the agency two or three years ago to object to their pictures “being on a database that can be exchanged throughout the world or hacked into.” […]

Without this accommodation, group members wouldn’t get their driver’s licenses, which the commissioner said would hamper their ability to get everyday services from insurance coverage to check cashing.

I’m all for religious accommodation, but this is a bit ridiculous. This “Mark of the Beast” nonsense is not a theological point, like the Sabbath. Its appearance in the Bible is so vague that it could be interpreted many ways. “I don’t want to clock in — it’s the mark of the beast.”

Indeed, the story includes something just that bizarre:

One of the group members is Phil Hudok, who made headlines in 1999 when he was fired as a Randolph County school teacher for refusing to require his students to wear bar-coded identification badges. Hudok was later reinstated after a circuit judge said the school board had made no attempt to accommodate his religious beliefs.

How exactly was the school to accommodate these beliefs?

And just how insane do religious beliefs have to be in order for some one to say, “That’s too much.”

Can a racist who bases his racism on twisting passages of the Bible refuse to work with a black man because it offends his beliefs? Can a Muslim refuse to work with a woman because it offends his religious beliefs?

The State should accommodate religious beliefs when it doesn’t include re-inventing a whole data management system for a few individuals (as is the case with the article above) and when the belief is not some fringe belief held by a handful of paranoid idiots.

Source

Exposing a Fantasy

Tuesday 5 August 2008

The Illuminati. Who would be better to expose this fantasy than the one and only Bill Schnoebelen? Bill

was a Satanic and Voodoo High Priest, 2nd degree Church of Satan, New Age guru, occultist, channeler, 90th degree Mason, Knight Templar, and a member of the Illuminati.

A lot of titles. Sounds like someone who’s been searching.

Bill’s got a great story. He was born a Catholic, but like all good Catholics, he eventually became a Satanist. A Wiccan. A Mason. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

Bill got interested in the occult because some professor in his seminary — oh, he was going to be a priest — said that, in order to become more like Christ, seminarians should study what Christ studied: the occult, because Jesus was really nothing more than a magician. Rather, someone who practiced Magick.

Odd seminary professor, that.

Eventually Bill fell into the Wicca movement and then progressed on to Satanism, and his career in the Church of Satan was going quite well until it came time for him to become a Satanic priest. Why? Bill explains for us that, before he could become a satanic priest, he had to become a Catholic priest.

That’s news.

So he found a priest willing to ordain him in return for an ordination as a witch something-or-other.

A priest can simply ordain someone else a priest? I thought that’s something a bishop would have to do. Maybe I’m just getting too hung up on the details.

At some point in his walk down the dark road, crosses over the abyss or some similar formulation. What that means, Schnoebelen explains, is that he stands above good and evil. He is a god, and all other humans are like little more than cattle.

At this point, he was told that “to move through what is called eight degree” one has to make choice: either study Lycanthropy or vampirism. He says, “I knew a couple of werewolves and I learned from them, and it’s rather a painful process.”

Not being one who likes pain, he chose vampirism.

How’d that go?

I was made to drink the blood of what I now believe to be a fallen angel, and he in turn drank my blood, and by doing that, something happened to my blood and I was actually physiologically transformed in many subtle ways. My blood type changed. It became impossible for me to eat[ …] except blood. The only solid food I consumed was the Catholic communion host.

Next time I’m at Mass with my wife, I guess I’ll have a hard time suppressing the knowledge that a good many of the parishioners could simply be vampires looking for — what? I’m not sure.

Where did Bill get the blood? By this time he had around 160 witches under them, and many of them more more than willing to let him bite into their jugular — literally. At least that’s what he says.

It got so bad, he says, that he literally had urges to jump on prostitutes, rip their throats out, and drain their bodies. What kept him from doing that? He really loved his wife, and he knew getting caught doing something like this could shatter their marriage.

But didn’t he view all other humans as beneath him — little more than animals? Why would he care about his wife anymore?

The story continues that Bill got back from the bank one of the checks he’d sent to the Church of Satan, and a bank teller had written on the check that she would be praying for Bill.

Within a day or two, I lost all my magical power. I lost all my vampiric power. I lost my job. I got sick as a dog. My wife even got sick.

Bill did what any self-respecting vampire would do. He cried out to Lucifer for a sign.

Who showed up?

Mormon missionaries!

I’d been told many years earlier by this grand druid fellow down in Arkansas, that if I ever got in really deep spiritual trouble, what I needed to do was join the Mormon church, because the Mormon church had been started by witches, for witches, for the express purpose of giving people a place for people like me [sic] to hide out and appear to be nice, conservative, white-bread, Republican Christians.

So the Catholic host is all the solid food a vampire needs and Joseph Smith was a witch.

Who knew?

I couldn’t make it any further. Half an hour had yielded so much, well, crap:Wicca, Mormonism, Catholicism, Satanism, and Masonry, all united in an unholy conspiracy to rule the world. It’s all within the first half hour of “Exposing the Illuminati from Within.”

Bill has other videos available, including a nine-hour special Interview with an Ex-Vampire (Google Video). A few minutes of this reveals stories of battles with demons that leave physical marks, a Wicca ceremony to call up a demon that results in the conjurer being whisked immediately to hell before Bill’s very eyes (at the very least, the guy disappears), of casting spells that result in people’s deaths, and numerous other fantastic (as in “fantasy”) stories.

One has to ask, though, what’s going on here. Is this guy delusional? Did he simply spend a lot of his youth searching for a spiritual home and now that he’s a born-again Christian, he embellishes his life’s story — for the greater good? Is he simply lying? He has to be, because look at what he’s saying: All your childhood fears of beasts under the bed, of werewolves and vampires, of withes casting death-spells, combined with all the urban legends you’ve ever heard, are true — and Wicca, Mormonism, Catholicism, Satanism, and Masonry (one and the same, really) are all behind it.

Who can take this stuff seriously?

You’ve Been Left Behind

Friday 18 July 2008

When Jason received the email, he was panicked. He’d heard his father talking about the rapture for all his life, but he’d never really bought into it himself. Then, suddenly, an email from dad:

Dear Jason,

You must be wondering what happened to me, and I’m sure you’ve noticed that I’m not the only one to disappear. I’m also certain that you’re well aware of what has happened. And sadly, I’m sure you understand why you’re still here, left behind.

I have arranged to have this email sent so that I might have one last word with you, one last plea for you to take a look in your heart and see how much you really need Jesus as your Lord and Savior. There can be no doubt in your mind about the troubling times that are looming now that the rapture is history, but those troubles are nothing compared to what you will face if you don’t fall to your knees and pray this simple prayer.

Lord Jesus, I am a sinner. But I believe that you died upon the cross for me. That you shed your precious blood for the forgiveness of my sin. And I believe that on the third day, you rose from the dead, and went to Heaven to prepare a place for me. I accept you now as my Savior, my Lord, my God, my friend. Come into my heart, Lord Jesus, and set me free from my sin. And, because you are my Savior, Jesus, “I shall not die, but have everlasting life”. Thank you Jesus!

Please, son: do this for your own soul’s sake!

Jason sat stupefied for a moment, wondering whether or not he’d been wrong all this time about his father’s “silly religious rantings.” It seemed that he was wrong, and he was about to get down on his knees when the phone rang.

“Hi son,” said the familiar voice.

“Dad? I thought, I mean, the email, the rapture — I thought you were gone!” Jason stammered, on the verge of tears.

“Oh, did it get sent. God damn it, those people assured me there was no chance of an accidental, pre-rapture sending of all those emails. You know, son, you just can’t trust anyone these days, not even Christians. Or so-called Christians.”

What torment it will be for those caught up in the Rapture to spend the Tribulation with Christ yet knowing some of their loved ones didn’t make it. Wouldn’t it be a great relief if these poor, tortured, saved souls could have one last shot at reaching their loved ones for Christ?

There is Hope: youvebeenleftbehind.com.

Their service is simple: for a low yearly fee, they’ll save documents for you that will be emailed after the rapture.

We have set up a system to send documents by the email, to the addresses you provide, 6 days after the “Rapture” of the Church. This occurs when 3 of our 5 team members scattered around the U.S fail to log in over a 3 day period. Another 3 days are given to fail safe any false triggering of the system. (You’ve Been Left Behind )

How about a stack of letters on your desk? Wouldn’t that accomplish the same thing without the risks involved (i.e., storing significant amounts private data on a server)?

And that’s not the only risk. Emails accidentally sent could, theoretically, be amusing, but it could also damage relationships. Imagine someone gets one of these “You’ve been left behind” emails from a close family member yet she always considered herself a prime rapture candidate. Can’t you hear the heated phone call?

“You mean all this time you’ve thought I wasn’t saved? How dare you judge me like that!”

I told my Polish Catholic wife about it, first explaining what the rapture was — there are not many Polish Catholics who know what the rapture is, let alone the difference between pre-trib and post-trib and mid-trib and late-trib and early-trib and all the other -trib varieties out there. Her response: “Only in America!”

Plurality

Thursday 17 July 2008

Apologists for Islam like to say that Islam allows for diversity of faith.

Fullscreen capture 7162012 111048 PM

Something like this?

Yet in Saudi Arabia — home of two of the most holy sites for Islam — it is illegal for non-Muslims to gather in worship.

I guess the aforementioned apologists had some other kind of plurality in mind…

Father Knows Best

Saturday 31 May 2008

Free will is overrated, at least as framed by Christianity. It’s not that I want to feel compelled to do this or that, but I’m willing to give up certain “freedoms” for the betterment of humanity.

Take the freedom to kill or torture children, for example. According to the Christian notion of free will, we must have the ability to do such an awful thing else we’d be robots.

This ability to torture the innocent wouldn’t really be a theological/philosophical problem were it not for the insistence that the Christian God is, among other things,

  1. completely good,
  2. all knowing, and
  3. all powerful.

Put those three together with the world’s suffering and we have a problem. In order to explain the suffering, we have to compromise. Maybe God isn’t all knowing, and isn’t aware of the suffering. Maybe God isn’t completely benevolent and doesn’t want to do something about the suffering. Or perhaps God knows about the suffering and wants to alleviate it, but being limited, there’s nothing he can do about it.

Since none of these alternatives are acceptable to most believers, Christians explain suffering by invoking free will and saying that it couldn’t be any other way if humans are to be more than robots.

But free will doesn’t fly, especially considering the patriarchal God we see in the Bible.

God is seen, among other things, as the perfect father. “Our Father who art in heaven” pray Christians every Sunday; Jesus, in the Gospel narratives, cries out to “Abba” — “Papa” — while being crucified. God is the ultimate father.

This post was inspired by Thud’s “The Org Chart God.”

I too am a father, and if I imagine treating my child (eventually children) like the Christian God treats his children, I shudder.

A thought experiment: in the future, my wife and I have a second child. At some point, our first-born daughter gets the notion that it would be a pretty good idea to see if rocks can bounce off little brother’s head. If I’m standing by and do nothing about it, what kind of father am I? That kind of behavior would rightly be labeled child abuse.

“But, Your Honor,” I protest before the judge, “I was just giving my daughter the ability to practice her free will.”

In the real world, “free will” doesn’t cut it. We might have the Twinkie legal defense and any number of other, bizarre explanations/excuses for behavior, but I don’t know that any lawyer has ever tried the “free will” defense, and for good reason: it’s absurd.

And yet Christians use the free will defense daily to get their God acquitted.

A correlative defense is the “God’s ways are not our ways” defense. This raises just as many questions as it is supposed to answer, but suffice it to say that any being whose ways include non-intervention when children are suffering is not a being I have much respect for.

The bottom line is that there really is no adequate answer for the problem of evil. Indeed, some of the more traditional answers seem quite outdated, as John Hagee discovered recently when he suggested that God allowed, even directed, the Holocaust through Hitler. Yet this was nothing new. Jewish theologians have been saying similar things for centuries.

Pastor Hagee’s view that an omnipotent God must sanction the evil in our world actually has deep roots in Jewish thought. To cite just one example, the Talmud teaches us that the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed because of “sinat hinam,” or baseless hatred. In other words, our own Talmud teaches that God used the Romans to perpetrate the greatest tragedy in the history of the Jewish people (until the Holocaust) because of Jewish sins. (haaretz.com)

The defense of God’s actions — or apparent lack thereof — is a distasteful activity to begin with, so it’s not surprising that we can so mangle ideas that they come out sounding offensive to casual listeners. Then again, why should finite humans get stuck defending an infinite being?

The problem of evil is what ultimately led me away from theism, but that’s somewhat surprising considering how theists frame the question in relation to their faith: there is no answer, but I have faith that there is a reason, that it will all make sense. Yet it seldom does make sense during our Earthly lives.

BoM 6: Testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Part 3

Sunday 4 May 2008

We ended the last installment with Smith passed out in a field, which leads to obvious questions: Was Smith mentally ill? Did he have hallucinations?

A quick search shows suggests several possibilities.

That he was bipolar:

Joseph Smith’s life reads like the DSM IV-TR criteria for manic episodes of bipolar disorder.

  1. Risk Taking – he took so many risks that he was killed in jail by a mob
  2. Hypersexuality – 51 wives
  3. Hyperreligiousity – founded a new religion
  4. Delusions of Granduer
  5. Flight of ideas / racing thoughts
  6. Prolific production of work in a short period – Book of Mormon
  7. Calls friends in the middle of the night – 116 pages
  8. Audible hallucinations – revelations
  9. Anger management issues
  10. Talkativeness / pressured speech

This would indicate that “god” did not reveal anything to Joseph Smith, he was experiencing manic and mixed bipolar episodes. If this is true, the Book of Mormon and the First Vision are simply delusions of someone with bipolar in a manic episode. (Source)

That he had temporal lobe epilepsy:

I cannot find anything in your website about the idea that Joseph Smith suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy. The symptoms of such attacks include visions of strange beings, an apparent loss of time, a feeling of insight into profound matters, and an urge to spread the word. His revelations seem to me to be classic examples of such attacks, and thus it would be unscientific to resort to claims of the supernatural, violating the principle of Occam’s razor. I would be interested to hear your thought on this theory.

One might even make an argument for other disorders.

This does not deter Mormons, though. A Mormon apologist replies to accusations of mental illness thusly:

Joseph Smith had real spiritual experiences and the things he claimed happened really did occur. It’s obvious that you do not believe that God exists and communicates with man. However, I know of absolute surety that he does. The Prophet Joseph Smith taught:

“This principle ought (in its proper place) to be taught, for God hath not revealed anything to Joseph, but what He will make known unto the Twelve, and even the least Saint may know all things as fast as he is able to bear them, for the day must come when no man need say to his neighbor, Know ye that Lord; for all shall know Him (who remain) from the least to the greatest.” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Section Three 1838—39, p.149)

I have had many spiritual experiences that are very similar to those of Joseph Smith and no doctor in the world would claim I suffered from “temporal lobe epilepsy.” It is possible for every man to know for himself that Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God. (Source)

In the end, it comes down to interpretation of one’s own experience, this apologist argues. He’s wrong, though. We could, though, observe this apologist to determine if he exhibits any symptoms of temporal lobe epilepsy, and we could even do a brain scan to determine whether or not he suffers from the condition.

We, however, are only left with Smith’s written testimony.

I don’t know what the use of historical diagnosis is, and that’s really not the point of my comment.

Smith continues his testimony by describing what happens while unconscious. A voice from above reveals “the same messenger” from earlier, who commands Smith to go tell his father what’s been going on.

“I obeyed; I returned to my father in the field, and rehearsed the whole matter to him. He replied to me that it was of God, and told me to go and do as commanded by the messenger.”

I wonder how that conversation sounded.

“Dad, I’m hearing voices and seeing bright, white beings.”

Smith, Senior stands, scratching his head for a moment, the responds: “Oh — that must be from God. Better do what the voices say.”

Smith then follows the messenger’s instructions and goes to the location of the plates

Convenient to the village of Manchester, Ontario county, New York, stands a hill of considerable size, and the most elevated of any in the neighborhood. On the west side of this hill, not far from the top, under a stone of considerable size, lay the plates, deposited in a stone box. This stone was thick and rounding in the middle on the upper side, and thinner towards the edges, so that the middle part of it was visible above the ground, but the edge all around was covered with earth.

The Book of Mormon invites — practically begs — for archeology to take a look at its claims, and here’s one that even armchair archaeologists could take on: the mysterious location of the plates.

The name of the hill is Cumorah, known now (and forever, I guess) as Hill Cumorah — gives it a more regal ring, I suppose.

These days, it’s a Mormon holy place, with a monument commemorating the discovery and an elaborate stage area for outdoor events.

Perhaps there’s some way we could test the soil to determine whether or not anything foreign had been buried there, but that would require the site to have been largely undisturbed over the years — not likely for a holy site.

Once Smith finds the site, he digs around a bit and finds a stone container.

Having removed the earth, I obtained a lever, which I got fixed under the edge of the stone, and with a little exertion raised it up. I looked in, and there indeed did I behold the plates, the Urim and Thummim, and the breastplate, as stated by the messenger. The box in which they lay was formed by laying stones together in some kind of cement. In the bottom of the box were laid two stones crossways of the box, and on these stones lay the plates and the other things with them.

Smith wants to take them out, but the messenger forbids him, explaining that he will be allowed to do so in four years. The messenger further explains that Smith is to come to the site several times over the next four years.

Accordingly, as I had been commanded, I went at the end of each year, and at each time I found the same messenger there, and received instruction and intelligence from him at each of our interviews, respecting what the Lord was going to do, and how and in what manner His kingdom was to be conducted in the last days.

Once a year, Smith went back to the hill and spoke with the angel. The necessity of conversing at that particular location is odd, for he was not to touch the plates for four years. Why not just keep meeting in Smith’s bedroom? What is the importance of the location?

Finally, “[o]n the twenty-second day of September, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-seven,” Smith is allowed to dig everything up: “the plates, the Urim and Thummim, and the breastplate” and he’s instructed that he will be “cut off” if he lets anything happen to them.

The reason for the messenger’s warning soon becomes evident: everyone is eager to get his little hands on the plates:

Every stratagem that could be invented was resorted to for that purpose. The persecution became more bitter and severe than before, and multitudes were on the alert continually to get them from me if possible. But by the wisdom of God, they remained safe in my hands, until I had accomplished by them what was required at my hand.

Smith completes his work, and the messenger comes down and takes the plates from him.

Thus ends Smith’s testimony proper. The document in the Book of Mormon concludes,

For the complete record, see Joseph Smith–History, in the Pearl of Great Price, and History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, volume 1, chapters 1 through 6.

The ancient record thus brought forth from the earth as the voice of a people speaking from the dust, and translated into modern speech by the gift and power of God as attested by Divine affirmation, was first published to the world in the year 1830 as The Book of Mormon.

And finally, we might get to the Book of Mormon itself.

Image of Hill Cumorah by Flickr user bbytheway; image of replica by mhwolk

Photo by versionz

Catholic mystic’s body

Wednesday 23 April 2008

Padre Pio’s body will be displayed in Italy.

Among the stories that surround the monk, who was born Francesco Forgione and died at the age of 81, is one that he wrestled with the devil one night in his monastery cell.

Some believers also say Padre Pio was able to predict future events, was seen in two places at once and could tell people their sins before they confessed them to him.

Pope John Paul II made him a saint in 2002 at a ceremony attended by one of the biggest crowds ever in the Vatican after the Church said it had found evidence that the miraculous cure of a sick woman was the result of intercession by the dead monk.

However, he was dogged during his life and after his death by accusations that he was a fraud.

A new book last year suggested he was a self-harming man who might have used carbolic acid to cause wounds in his hands mimicking those of Jesus when he was nailed to the cross.

Church officials have denied that he was a fake. (Faithful await display of Catholic mystic’s body)

It’s odd how people so want to see the earthly remains of those regarded as saints, from Lenin to Pio.

Hagee and the Messiah

Monday 31 March 2008

This race has been odd for the religious right. First, there was the issue of whether or not to support a Mormon — a non-Christian in the eyes of many Evangelicals. Now comes the troubling Hagee endorsement of McCain.

Yet it’s not only those on the left side of the spectrum that are troubled by this — or at least, it shouldn’t be. Those same Evangelical Christians who hesitated to support McCain should also be leery of Hagee and his less-than-orthodox theology, as seen below:

[Video removed from YouTube.]

Out, out!

Friday 15 February 2008

There’s a revival of the practice of exorcism in Poland.

One of the recruits is the Rev. Wieslaw Jankowski, a priest with the Institute for Studies on the Family, a counseling center outside Warsaw. He said priests at the institute realized they needed an exorcist on staff after encountering an increase in people plagued by evil.

Typical cases, he said, include people who turn away from the church and embrace New Age therapies, alternative religions or the occult. Internet addicts and yoga devotees are also at risk, he said.

“This is a service which is sorely needed,” said Jankowski, who holds a doctorate in spiritual theology. “The number of people who need help is intensifying right now.”

Jankowski cited the case of a woman who asked for a divorce days after renewing her wedding vows as part of a marriage counseling program. What was suspicious, he said, was how the wife suddenly developed a passionate hatred for her husband.

“According to what I could perceive, the devil was present and acting in an obvious way,” he said. “How else can you explain how a wife, in the space of a couple of weeks, could come to hate her own husband, a man who is a good person?”

I guess gone are the days, by and large, of attributing demon possession only to cases of people with spinning heads who spew pea soup, or at the very least, speak in tongues unknown to the victim new a husky, gravely voice. But there are still cases of Regan-esque possession:

Exorcists said the people they help can be in the grip of evil to varying degrees. Only a small fraction, they said, are completely possessed by demons — which can cause them to display inhuman strength, speak in exotic tongues, recoil in the presence of sacred objects or overpower others with a stench.

In those cases, the exorcists must confront the devil directly, using the power of the church to order it to abandon its host. More often, however, priests perform what some of them refer to as “soft exorcisms,” using prayer to rid people of evil influences that control their lives. (Washington Post)

Prayer is so much less dramatic than burning holy water, though.

What’s troubling about the article is that there is no representation of the opposing viewpoint. Not all Catholics believe that internet addiction can be cured with holy water and prayer. Not all Catholics attribute mental illness to Satan. Not all Poles think that Yoga leads to possession.

Potter v Pope

Monday 23 July 2007

In Poland, the Catholic Church is very much against Harry Potter — sort of like religious conservatives here.

Why?

We all know the standard reasons: wizards and sorcery are simply forbidden in the Bible. It’s that simple.

Yet K pointed out the “real” reason Potter worries the Polish church. I read the BBC News article opening to her:

The seventh and final Harry Potter book has broken sales records on both sides of the Atlantic, selling 11 million copies in its first 24 hours.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows sold 2.7 million copies in the UK and 8.3 million in the US. (BBC)

She responded, “See, that’s why the Polish church is so scared of Harry Potter. That’s real power.”

Foreign Missionaries

Wednesday 13 June 2007

It seems that Europe is now importing what it exported, namely Christianity. But this is often a different kind of Christianity:

The “Amens!” flew like popcorn in hot oil as 120 Christian worshipers clapped and danced and praised Jesus as if He’d just walked into the room. In a country where about 2 percent of the population attend church regularly and many churches draw barely enough worshipers to fill a single pew, the Sunday morning service at this old mission hall was one rocking celebration.

In the middle of all the keyboards, drums and hallelujahs, Stendor Johansen, a blond Danish sea captain built like a 180-pound ice cube, sang along and danced, as he said, like a Dane — without moving. (washingtonpost.com)

A more emotional religion than the methodical Lutheranism Denmark would have exported, to be sure.

Yet what’s most interesting about the article is not the fact that missionaries are going to Europe. That’s old news — I often saw Evangelical missionaries in Poland trying to convert Poles from Catholicism to Christianity. (Yes, I know — but that’s how they see it.) The interesting thing is where the missionaries are coming from.

The International Christian Community (ICC) is one of about 150 churches in Denmark that are run by foreigners, many from Africa, Asia and Latin America, part of a growing trend of preachers from developing nations coming to Western Europe to set up new churches or to try to reinvigorate old ones.

World Christianity today is in an odd stage of development. Evangelicalism, that distinctly American version of Christianity, has been on fire throughout the world. America has been sending out Evangelical missionaries, especially to countries that have large Catholic populations, and now, it seems, these missionaries are going to Europe — full circle.

I wonder if they’re bringing disease back with them, though…

Romney

Friday 11 May 2007

Sharpton’s words about Romney bring to the debate so much that it’s difficult to know where to start.

CBS News has a great editorial about this.

Sharpton is entirely justified to question Romney on his views on the racist aspects of Mormonism. Blacks were excluded from assuming positions of power until the late 1970s. We all know, of course, that Romney will condemn that aspect of his religion — it would be political suicide to do otherwise. In that sense, we’ll never know if we got a straight answer from him. But I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

What’s most disturbing about Romney is his religion — a cult, by the standards of many orthodox Christians. It has all the earmarks:

  • exclusivity
  • specially “revealed” information
  • a founder who was somehow closer to God than anyone else

Oh, wait — I just described every major monotheistic religion, didn’t I?

Romney’s Mormonism will be problematic with many of his target constituency of conservative Christians. Evangelicals tend, I believe, to regard Mormons as misguided at best, Satanically deceived at best. Many of these same individuals (who would fall into the umbrella term “fundamentalists”) call Catholics non-Christians, and Catholicism is much closer, theologically, to evangelicalism than Mormonism is.

The question is whether Romney’s views on abortion and his generally conservative views — he is a Republican candidate, after all — will weigh more favorably with traditional Christian voters than his unorthodoxy.

The Most Hated Family in America

Tuesday 3 April 2007

BBC has a documentary on the Phelps family, of Westboro Baptist Church, “God Hates Fags” notoriety. A fascinating look inside one of the most vilely curious groups in America. What’s most terrifying is how “normal” many of them are when they’re not talking about God hating us all and sending us to hell. Well, not all of us — they’re not going to hell of course…

It’s available on YouTube, but probably won’t be for long.

Watch it.

What Jesus Wouldn’t Have Done

Sunday 25 March 2007

One of my favorite little sects out there is the Restored Church of God. It’s leader, David Pack is The spokesman for god — by his own humble admission, an apostle, with the same authority as the Apostle Paul. Yes, that Paul, of New Testament fame.

After Katrina hit the Gulf coast, he, like many other ministers, gave a sermon about what True Christians© should do to help.

True Christians© should, in short, continue preaching the gospel and warning the people — synonymous in his group. The gospel — the True Gospel© — is simply that Germany is going to rise again and this time beat America, take it into captivity, and basically make the Nazis look like daycare playmates.

(Confused? It all goes back to ancient simmering hatreds. America, of course, comprises the real Israelites, along with the French, the Dutch, the British — the Lost Ten Tribes. Germany is Assyria. History — ancient or otherwise — is not a strength of this group’s theology. )

False Christians (the vast majority of the 2 billion Christians in the world world, who are deceived and actually worship Satan) give to relief organizations. True Christians© (David Pack’s group — representing at most 0.00005% of the world Christian population) don’t.

His reasoning, though, is stunning biblical hermeneutics. I clipped the relevant portion from the sermon.