Church in Fundyland sponsors “International Burn a Quran Day”. Just faschistnating.

International? Well, you have to give the folks at the Dove World Outreach Center credit for having high aspirations (for their rather lowly endeavors). From the looks of their website and their amateurish, if not disastrous, attempts at public relations, it’s doubtful that they hold much influence outside Gainesville.

From the Facebook page promoting their cause:

On September 11th, 2010, from 6pm – 9pm, we will burn the Koran on the property of Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, FL in remembrance of the fallen victims of 9/11 and to stand against the evil of Islam. Islam is of the devil!

Sadly, almost 1600 Facebook nuts have joined. Maybe it’s because of all the really funny racist cartoons on the page. I don’t know. Maybe it was a slow YouTube day.

Telling people that Islam is of the Devil is a pretty important evangelical tool for these folks. They even went to the trouble of putting up some fancy plywood signs, Burma-Shave style, on their church’s lawn. But wouldn’t you know it? They were vandalized by some enemies of freedom and liberty:

Notice the quality craftsmanship? What a shame. Anyway, the savvy Dove Worlders knew exactly who the culprits were:

Last night one of our signs was vandalized. This is private property and vandalism is a crime here in America. In Islam, many actions that we consider to be crimes are encouraged, condoned or sheltered under Islamic teaching and practice, though. Another reason to burn a Koran. The signs have been in front of the church for a year. They are made of sturdy plywood and the missing sign will be replaced.

Who dun it?

Free speech is hated by homosexuals and they do not like to hear the truth about their perverted lifestyle. We are protesting our openly homosexual Mayor Aug 2. Maybe they did it, (not the Mayor himself, surely) but the more likely trigger for this attack is the burn a Koran Day plan.

Free speech is not Sharia compliant, and the Moslem Mafia (CAIR) is openly opposed to our signs and message. But this is America and we have the law on our side. The police defend us and our rights, the Fire Department have no problem with our having a bonfire on 9/11, and we will not be silenced.

I guess there is no need to overly worry about these goofy,fringe,church-going people. After all, they’re just idiots. But don’t forget:the people who supported Hitler and Mussolini were seemingly harmless, middle-class, church-going idiots as well. Brown shirts and white sheets. A lot in common.

Look out Westboro Baptist. Looks like you’ve got some competition.

Tags: bigotry, Dove World Outreach Center, International Burn a Quran Day", fascism, relgio-fascism, racisim

‘Anti-Christian’ bus ads appear in major cities

What if….?

A group called ‘Stop Christianization of America’ is promoting ads on major city public transportation that urge people to leave the Christian faith. The anti-Christian campaign is sparking thought about the religion’s place in American society.

Several groups are engaging in something of a religious ad war over the merits and misconceptions of Christianity, a religion that remains a mystery to many Americans.

Ads by a group calling itself Stop the Christianization of America, which aims to provide refuge for former Christians, read: “Hell on your mind? Is your family or community threatening others? Leaving Christianiy? Got questions? Get answers!”

Those ads, appearing on dozens of buses in the San Francisco Bay Area, Miami, and New York, are a response to ones from an interfaith  group that say, “The way of life of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad. Islam. Got questions? Get answers.”

In New York, the Christian Ecumenical  Community sponsored this campaign: ” Christians  for Peace. Love for All – Hatred for None.”

The ads are part of a larger conversation over Christianity’s image, which Christian organizations say has been hurt by extremists both at home and abroad. But many conservative groups say that concern about the spread of Christianity isn’t alarmist, pointing to evidence of preachers and televangelists  in this country inciting militancy and a growing number of American Christians being arrested for hate crimes and sexual deviancy.

A self-described “anti-crusader,” Mustafa el Amin  is the conservative blogger and executive director of “Stop the Christianization  of America”  who conceived of the “Leaving Christianity” ad campaign.  His campaign was inspired by the hate filled and violence provoking actions of the Westboro Baptist church and the Southern Street Preachers Association.

Mr. Amin  described his campaign as “a defense of religious freedom,” in an e-mail response to questions. The goal, he says, is mainly “to help ex-Christians who are in trouble” and also “to raise awareness of the threat that apostates live under even in the West.”

But some religious rights organizations contend that the real intent is to incite fear about a faith that, according to recent studies, remains misunderstood. A 2009 poll by the Pew Research Center found that 38 percent believe Christianity  is more likely to encourage violence than other religions.

But… that’s not how it really went down. For the rest of (and the real) story go to the Christian Science Monitor.

Tags: religious satire, Pamela Geller, extremism, Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, "Muslims for Peace. Love for All – Hatred for None.", Stop Islamization of America

Mel Gibson in the hands of an angry God

No too long ago I was an angry Christian.  Long before that I was an angry Conservative – because I was raised by an angry Conservative.  It could just as easily have been the other way around, there are plenty of angry Liberals out there.  No one seems to have a monopoly on this emotion and it’s usually accompanied by indignation and self-righteousness with a liberal dose of superiority.  Being on the correct side of the issues allowed me to feel anger towards all those who not only did not understand but who, in my mind, were deliberately trying to sabotage the world.  Of course this is in hindsight. At the time I didn’t realize how angry I was.  I was just so definitely right about everything.

I’ve always been impressed with Dallas Willard’s  take on Jesus’  Sermon on the Mount.  In the “Divine Conspiracy” Willard says that most of Jesus’ message here boils down to this:  there is no room for anger in the Kingdom of God. You’d think that this was pretty obvious.  But many times I’ve been surprised to hear peace-loving Christians object to the idea.  After all, they say, there is such a thing as righteous anger.

Was there ever an example of  an angry person who didn’t feel righteous ?  I don’t know about you, but when I’m angry  it’s not because I think I’m wrong but because I’ve been wronged.  I’m usually the only one who has gotten things right.  When the smoke has cleared, that’s usually not the case.

But what about Jesus’ anger in the Temple? Tossing over the tables and swinging the knotted rope? Well, if you think that Jesus  was genuinely angered by the mercantile scene in the Temple then you aren’t giving him much credit.  He surely knew what to expect when he got there and he knew what his actions would provoke.  It wasn’t an angry outburst – it was a calculated ploy. Yet this one episode has become the proof  we use to justify our own ‘righteous’ anger.  “If the cause is a good one, well, then it’s OK to lose one’s temper” (the ends justify the means).  Even moderate Christians continue to slip on this banana peel.

Christian fundamentalist have a theology that embraces the idea of an angry Yahweh, who demands violent justice, partnered with an angry End Times Jesus who is going to punish all those who  “have it coming”.  Although we have Jesus’ teachings on peace, love, mercy and self-sacrifice  he left us a loop-hole that we just love to jump through, over and over.  Hence our outrage over sexual promiscuity,  welfare mothers, gays and lesbians, the removal of school prayers, false prophets and the rise of Islam.  (Of course Muslim fundamentalists are just as angry, as are the recent crop of fundamentalist atheists.)  There is  something about ‘fundamentalism’ – this idea that there are  only certain ‘absolute’ truths and anyone who can’t see them is terribly flawed – that lends itself to anger.

The most prominent religious fundamentalist in the news today is not a Muslim or Bible Belt Evangelical but a reactionary Roman Catholic: Mel Gibson. And, as is usually the case with religious fundamentalists, it is anger that has thrust him into this part of the public spotlight.

The gossip commentators, bloggers and talking heads  accusing Mel Gibson of being a drunken racist bigot, an anti-Semite and a misogynist are really missing the point. Anyone who has listened to the recent tapes and read any of his earlier unfortunate comments can see that Mel is really pissed off about something.  He is boiling mad. Which, I’ve been told, can lead some people to strong drink. (Thank God I don’ t have THAT problem).  I’m sure that at the time Mel thought his anger was justifiable.  (Which, if you check the underbelly of the blogosphere, you will find a lot other people think so as well.)

When Gibson released “The Passion of the Christ” I was nearly ecstatic.  Like most neo-Evangelicals,  I loved the movie, it struck me deeply (and it still does, but that’s another story). I excitedly anticipated the millions it would convert to Christianity (they never did).  I was excited that an expressly counter-secular- culture film could be so successful at the box offices ( and that, artistically, would be  miles above the cinematic dreck that preceded it).  And I was proud of Gibson, who bucked the system and testified to the world  how he was saved by Jesus Christ.  But I wonder if his Christ (and mine, at the time) was really able to save anyone.

Over the next six years Gibson has displayed a pattern of angry self-destruction.  I doubt if he really hates as much as many people think he does.  I really doubt that he believes all the terrible things that he has said. After sobering up, I’m sure he regretted them.  But there is no doubt that he is angry, probably just as angry (if not more so) than he was before his religious conversion.  I don’t know what Mel is angry about, but why does it seem as if his faith has not helped him here?

What happened when he became ‘born again’?  Did Gibson really change?   For that matter, has anyone who ‘turned his or her life over’ to an angry God really changed?  Or could it be that,  comfortable  in the hands of a  God who is angry at  all the same things we are,  we have no reason to change?  Because it is anger,  along with fear, that allows little room for the transformative power of love in our lives.  Anger management – righteous anger – allows us to live with this monkey on our back rather than finding a way to toss it off.  And for Christians that is the Way of Jesus.

(As an aside: where are all Mel’s old Evangelical supporters now?  Not a peep out of ‘em. What ever happened to forgiveness and mercy and grace?)

History has brought us to the point where the Christian message is thought to be essentially concerned only with how to deal with sin: with wrongdoing or wrong-being and its effects . . . The current gospel then becomes a ‘gospel of sin management.’ Transformation of life and character is no part of the redemptive message.

Anger indulged, instead of simply waived off, always has in it an element of self-righteousness and vanity. Find a person who has embraced anger, and you find a person with a wounded ego.

Dallas Willard – “The Divine Conspiracy”

Tags: anger, Dallas Willard, Mel Gibson, The Divine Conspiracy

Another example of people stepping all over God’s Word

First there was the Jesus on the Dashboard. Then we had WWJD bracelets, followed by Testa Mints, The Armor of God Pajamas and any one of hundreds of  Christian- slogan tee-shirts.  What would God’s Enterprising Spirit call Christian entrepreneurs to come up with next?

From Tampa Bay Online:

Teacher puts heart and sole into faith-inspired sandals

TAMPA – Shannon Hayes is no prude, but when she saw the young teens at the beach acting out, one thought went through her head:

“If they had a few Scriptures to help lead them, maybe they wouldn’t act that way.”

On that day, a seed was planted in Shannon’s mind, something she couldn’t shake.

Beach flip flops imprinted with Scriptures!

“We hear so much about Christians walking the walk,” she says. “So if you had a little reminder on your shoes, that could be a gentle nudge to stay in the word.”

“I know what a divine calling is now,” Shannon says. “I know that sounds kinda weird, but I really do feel that God told me to do this. And I see that every time I’m worried or stressed out about something, he points me in a new direction and it all works out. So I know it was the right thing to do.”

In October, Shannon introduced her line of Walk the Walk flip-flops. She chose five Scriptures relating to the Christian walk and five colors. She sells them for $20 (shipping extra) on her Web site – www.walkthewalkflipflops.com – and recently got her first retail location at Inspired Christian Gifts, 4017 Henderson Blvd. in south Tampa.

What’s next? Christian underwear? Oh, too late. (blush!)

But seriously, does anyone really think this is going to work? Will it help adventurous Christian kids to remain virtuous? Well, at least it might scare away members of the opposite sex. But do they really think it will help non-Christian kids to seriously consider the faith? I guess it really doesn’t matter, as long as they sell.

In the three or four years that I wore those goofy Christian tee-shirts not one person ever approached me and said: “Hey, man. I really like what your shirt says. Tell me more about this Jesus fellow.” Now I wear them only when working around the house but if I hit my thumb with the hammer I still let loose with the F-Bomb.  I doubt if faith-flops would help  any better.

Tags: Christian Pop Culture, Walk the Walk Fli- Flops

It’s just plain stupid to ask politicians about their faith. Most of the smart ones lie about it anyway.

I haven’t been paying much attention lately to any news other than what’s  going on in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Gulf of Mexico. So I’ve missed the fun taking place down in South Carolina. The GOP candidate for Governor, Nikki Haley, has had a tough time getting to where she is right now, which is  the front runner in this race.

Two men came forward claiming they had each had affairs with her. Jake Knott, a local redneck senator, referred to her and the President as  “rag heads”  (Ms. Haley is first-generation Indian American who was raised in the Sikh tradition) and lately there has been a grass roots ‘whispering’ campaign suggesting that she is – gasp! – not a “real” Christian.

Haley says she converted to Methodism at age 24. She, her husband, Michael, and their two children attend a Methodist church in Lexington, S.C.

But in speeches and e-mail campaigns, the detractors, who include a state lawmaker, a local Republican official and at least two local pastors who support Haley’s opponent, are spreading the view that she is concealing her true faith.

They recall that six years ago, she was recognized in an Indian newspaper as the first Sikh elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives. They note that when she ran for the legislature in 2004, she described her marriage in a Methodist church but did not mention that she and her husband also participated in a Sikh wedding ceremony, and that she continues to attend Sikh services with her family a few times a year.

They also point to changes on her campaign Web site, which they assert is evidence that she is trying to reposition herself as a strong Christian. Earlier this year, before she became well known as a candidate, the site made reference to “God Almighty.” That has been changed to “Christ.”

“Haley can’t seem to make up her mind about her faith,” said Phillip Bowers, chairman of the Pickens County GOP, in an e-mail to local Republicans last week. Reached by telephone Friday, Bowers said: “It finally got to the point where I ought to let the party know about the inconsistencies in the story.”

Pastor Ray Popham of Oasis Church International in Aiken told CNN: “I think she needs to be straight up with people, if she is both. If she believes that you can be both, then she should say that up front.”

And Tony Beam, an interim pastor at Mount Creek Baptist Church in Greenville, asked listeners on his radio program recently: “Is Nikki Haley being honest about her faith?

This is serious stuff in the deep South. The same type of party sponsored, grassroots, church-centered gossip mongering may have been what cost John McCain the state in the last presidential primary:

In 2000, local strategists for George W. Bush’s campaign in the GOP presidential primary were widely accused of orchestrating a smear campaign against John McCain, including false rumors that he had fathered a black daughter out of wedlock and that he supported a tax on charitable contributions to churches.

“In 2000 against McCain, they had this e-mail chain and telephone chain going through the churches,” said Richard Quinn, who worked for the McCain campaigns in 2000 and 2008 and for a gubernatorial candidate this year. “They went through the churches, recruited ministers and scared some of the fundamentalist ministers by demonizing McCain. It created quite a buzz in the faith community, and it was just incredible how well it worked. We just fell real hard and real fast.”

Did everyone pick up on how this all went down in churches? And not in bar rooms or the Elks or VFW.  Shameful.

I would like to say, like so many do, that faith should not be important when it comes to deciding on whom to vote for. But I don’t believe that. Back when I was a Conservative Neo-Evangelical I voted for George Bush because he was a conservative Born-Again Christian. Now I would use the same criteria to NOT vote for him. The last person I want to see with access to the nuclear football (or shaping our foreign policy) is someone who believes in the Rapture and the Tribulation.

But I think the type of religious concern being displayed in South Carolina has less to do with theology than it has to do with racism and bigotry. Fortunately,  the majority of voting Republicans in that state (and maybe the majority of Democrats as well)  have been able to step up their game a bit and see beyond the fear mongering and stereo typing. I hope so. It can’t be easy when you hale from a place where many still misses the good old days of the Confederacy.

What does trouble me, though,  is that it seems that Ms. Haley might very well still have ties to her old faith.  She is protesting just a bit too much here, what with all the new JESUS! emphasis and hyping the Palin endorsement etc. And that’s sad. It’s sad that she has to do that in order to win an election in America, that she can’t be upfront about holding to any unorthodox religious views. There is no reason that Sikhism and Jesus should have to be incompatible.

Unless you happen to vote for openly Christian politicians like Jake Knott (the senator who called her a “rag head”). Recently he asked: “Have you ever asked her if she believes in Jesus Christ as her lord and savior, and that he died on the cross for her sins? Have you ever asked her that?”

Why is that a viable question? Because apparently an answer in the affirmative in no way suggests that the respondent is in any way more intelligent, sophisticated, educated, open-minded or well mannered than the lowest common denominator southern cracker.  And perhaps even less competent.

Besides, when it comes to Christianity, it’s the wrong question anyway.

Tags: Nikki Haley, Jake Knott, South Carolina Politics

Today I will explain the Holy Trinity so that ANYONE can easily understand it. Really.

1 .God is a perfect God.

2. He made the world and everything in it, including us.

3. But he made it imperfect.

4. But he still loves his creation.

5. God is also an angry God who is easily offended

6. From the beginning, we are all depraved and have offended God.

7. And though he loves us, God is also just and demands punishment for the wicked  (which is all of us).

8. Since God is infinite then our offense against him is infinite (even though we are finite – don’t worry about the math) and we can never pay our way out of our predicament.

9. So we deserve God’s justice, which, unfortunately, is to send us to suffer in Hell for all eternity. Even babies. For our own good. Because he loves us. (It’s a mystery, don’t ask why. Who do you think you are, anyway? God?)

10. Because he loves us he must be fair to us. After all, he is just. Since we really chose Hell for our ultimate destination (always read the fine print) if he cut us any slack then he would not be respecting our choices. And what kind of love is that?

11. But God is also a sensitive God.

12. And God is Love. He told us so.

13. He doesn’t want to send any of us to hell – it saddens him. Especially the babies.

14. But our sin still requires some sort of sacrifice, preferably a blood sacrifice, to balance the books. Because God is really, really just. He demands perfect justice because he has no choice but to do so, even if he is omnipotent. He’s so perfect he just can’t look the other way. Some one has to pay the bill.

15. Except that, since we are imperfect, sacrificing our puny selves would be an imperfect sacrifice to a perfect God to pay off an infinite bill. You can see the problem there.

16. But he finds a loop hole in his own set of laws. ( He should’ve seen that coming.)

17. And decides to send Jesus,  his only “Son”, to Earth as a man and have him die in order to pay the price for our sins. This is called Grace.

18. Since Jesus is without sin, only he can possibly be worthy of being sacrificed in our place. Since he’s perfect then his sacrifice was perfect and pleasing to God.

19. But…what kind of God would sacrifice his only Son? And be pleased by it? That’s not very nice. And not too just, either, since Jesus is innocent.

20. Ah ha! We forget that Jesus is also God!  So in effect, when God sacrifices Jesus he also sacrifices himself. It’s like God picked up the tab himself. Which, you have to admit, is pretty nifty. Now that God/Jesus has paid the bill we don’t owe anything! This is called forgiveness.

21. But how can this be? How can Jesus and the Father both be God at the same time?

22. So somebody found out that God was Binitarian – one God who is also two persons. Tricky, but somewhat conceivable.

23. Except Jesus talked about God’s spirit like it was another person, not just a thing. (He does, doesn’t he?) And if Jesus is now God he must be omniscient so this “holy spirit” must be another person, too. But what kind of person?

24. So we added the Holy Spirit (Ghost) to the Holy Binity to create the Holy Trinity. More tricky and not so easily conceivable.

25. But God (or someone) said that everyone must believe that God consists of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit or they cannot follow Jesus. No exceptions. Everyone else can just go to Hell.

There, now. Simple. Anyone have any problems with that?

(Disclaimer: the thoughts expressed above are not the author’s but those of what many consider to be orthodox authority.  If they had been real thoughts you would have been advised  to seek shelter in the nearest basement and  tune into your local Trinity Broadcasting Network for further instructions.)

Tags: systematic theology, Penal Subsititutionary Atonement, religious satire

Which Jesus died on the Cross? (or the 7 things he might not have said)

I’ve long looked at the four Gospels as being complimentary to each other. One evangelist filling in the gaps that were, for whatever reason. left by another.  Recently,  I took a closer look at the differences between the four passion narratives and it no longer appears that this is the case.  Mark was the first Gospel to be written and the vast majority of scholars understand that Matthew and Luke both based their gospel largely on Mark’s.  But it is clear that Luke significantly changed Mark’s account.  It’s not like he just added to it, filling in the gaps, but he changed the story in such a way that, if they both didn’t  use Jesus’ name, you might think that he and Mark are talking about two different men.

Mark’s Jesus is quiet and if anything, despairing. He does not respond to those who taunt him, not even those (2?) crucified along side him. Before he dies he forlornly cries out to God, asking why he has been forsaken.

‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’

For the most part, Matthew’s depiction of Jesus’ crucifixion remains true to Mark’s account.

‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’

Luke’s Jesus, on the other hand, is much more talkative and seems to be much more positive about and more in control of his circumstances. Jesus is taunted by only one of the two crucified and he assures the other one a place in paradise. He asks God to forgive his killers and does not cry out in despair as he does in Mark and Matthew. Instead he appears unafraid of death and offers his spirit to God .

‘Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.’

And John’s Gospel does not mention any dialogue between Jesus and  the thieves. His Jesus does not cry in despair or vocally assign his spirit to God (though it is implied) nor does he ask forgiveness of his tormentors. Instead he concentrates on the future well being of his mother and that of an unnamed disciple. Most importantly, his last words seem to underscore the cosmic significance of his death ( or do they?).

‘It is finished.’

I’m not questioning the authenticity of any of these accounts. But what do we mean by authenticity? That the scriptures must be factual representations of actual events? If so, then how do we account for where they differ?  Did Jesus say all of these things (as the famous ” 7 things that Jesus said on the Cross” quiz would suggest)?  If so, then why are all of them not found together in at least one Gospel? If not, then why would one author (or later scribe) remove or add something to another’s  earlier account? I don’t think there is any way we can read these four accounts and not see that this is precisely what happened.  But what were their motives? What, if anything, do these observations mean to us? Is it a good thing or not that these changes in the text, though at times seemingly slight, may decidedly alter the way in which we perceive Christ, perhaps in ways that were never intended?

Does a devotion to biblical literalism, a zealous misunderstanding of Sola Scriptura, require that someone  ignore the obvious? If we can force ourselves to deny the scripturally obvious in order to comply with ‘orthodoxy’ then perhaps we can also force ourselves to deny (or overlook) the essence of scriptural truth.

Perhaps it is too late for us to cut to the chase , too difficult to critically edit the various Jesus movies that are playing  in each of our minds, where in each film Jesus is portrayed differently: the tough Christ, the loving Christ, the Christ who climbs on Rocks.  Angry Jesus, sad Jesus, suffering Jesus, baby Jesus, the Jesus who loves little children. Warrior Christ,  peaceful Christ, Buddha Christ, liberal Christ, Super Christ, American Christ.  Vindicator Jesus, savior Jesus, Jesus the blood sacrifice. Max von Sydow, Jeffrey Hunter or Jim Caveziel?  Jesus as man, as God or as the Son of God.   Which Jesus died for you?

There is an old Evangelical tee-shirt that mimics the Coca Cola logo and reads: “Jesus-The Real Thing”.  How certain can we be that our Jesus is “the real thing”? Or should we be so confident? Perhaps certainty is part of the problem.

Tags: biblical discrepencies, biblical inconstencies, John 19, Luke 23, Mark 15, Matthew 27, Sola Scriptura, the Last Seven Words of Christ on the Cross, the Passion accounts

Quick! Hide the pink flamingos: God smites the Touchdown Jesus

God made it clear on Monday that he is not too pleased with tacky lawn ornaments, especially big ones associated with churches:

Touchdown Jesus

MONROE, Ohio – A six-story statue of Jesus Christ was struck by lightning and burned to the ground, leaving only a blackened steel skeleton and pieces of foam that were scooped up by curious onlookers Tuesday.

The “King of Kings” statue, one of southwest Ohio’s most familiar landmarks, had stood since 2004 at the evangelical Solid Rock Church along Interstate 75 in Monroe, just north of Cincinnati.

The lightning strike set the statue ablaze around 11:15 p.m. Monday, Monroe police dispatchers said.

The sculpture, about 62 feet tall and 40 feet wide at the base, showed Jesus from the torso up and was nicknamed Touchdown Jesus because of the way the arms were raised, similar to a referee signaling a touchdown. It was made of plastic foam and fiberglass over a steel frame, which is all that remained Tuesday. (Associated Press)

Kind of looks like the last few scenes of the “Terminator”.  I’ve got to say that I prefer the finished product. It’s so minimalist.   To me, the original statue  looked like Jesus was tired of playing with his little rubber toy cross and wanted Abba to lift him out of the tub. Anyway, the story gets even better:

Some people were scooping up pieces of the statue’s foam from the nearby pond to take home with them, said church co-pastor Darlene Bishop.

“This meant a lot to a lot of people,” she said.

Keith Lewis, of nearby Middletown, arrived at the church around 7 a.m. Tuesday to photograph the remains for his wife. Lewis said he had viewed the statue as both an oddity and an inspiration.

Cassie Browning, a church member from Dayton, said she was driving home when she saw smoke and noticed the statue was missing.

Travelers on I-75 often were startled to come upon the huge statue by the roadside, but many said America needs more symbols like it. So many people stopped at the church campus that church officials had to build a walkway to accommodate them.

Bishop said the statue will be rebuilt.

“It will be back, but this time we are going to try for something fireproof,” she said.

The 4,000-member, nondenominational church was founded by Bishop and her husband, former horse trader Lawrence Bishop.

Lawrence Bishop said in 2004 he was trying to help people, not impress them, with the statue. He said his wife proposed the Jesus figure as a beacon of hope and salvation.

Anyway, I hope this church has learned it’s lesson. And I hope other churches get the idea that great big “Roadside America” statues of Jesus (you never do see any of Moses, Mohammed or Buddha do you?) are not the kind of thing that God is too crazy about. I mean, when was the last time you heard of Paul Bunyan or the Meineke Man going up in flames?

Unless you think that this was just a coincidence and God didn’t have a hand in it. Well, OK. But I’ll bet this church makes the claim with their insurance company  that this was an “act of God”.

Tags: Acts of God, Roadside America, Solid Rock Church, those silly Christians, Touchdown Jesus

Which scriptura should I sola?

picture courtesy of Emergent Village.com

Probably the most famous example of someone tampering with the Christian scriptures is the so-called Johannine Comma:

For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness on earth:the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree as one. (1 John 5: 7-8, NKJV)

The first line was later removed from most modern bible translations so that we typically find just the following:

For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. (John 5: 7-8, NIV)

According to notes in the NIV Study Bible the questionable line was added to the Latin Vulgate Bible and is not found in any Greek manuscript prior to the sixteenth century. The implication is that some scribe or scribes of the Roman Catholic church added it. Which they did, and for an obvious reason: this was the only line ever found in any Bible that directly points to the idea of a Triune God. The scripture was altered by Church authority to bolster a difficult-to-comprehend doctrine.

The reason this line was found in any Greek manuscripts after the 16th century was because Erasmus added it to later editions of his Greek New Testament, the first ever compiled. At first Erasmus didn’t include the Comma, as it wasn’t in any of the Greek texts he found, either. Under immense pressure from Church authorities he agreed to put the Comma “back in”.  Additionally, Erasmus couldn’t find complete Greek manuscripts for certain other scriptures (particularly Revelations) so in those cases he merely translated the Vulgate’s Latin “back” into Greek, errors and all.

(Remember that the New Testament scriptures were originally written in Greek  and it wasn’t until Pope Damasus ordered Jerome to produce a Rome-sanctioned Latin bible in the fourth century BCE that a single authoritative church-wide book ever existed.  But even Jerome’s earliest Vulgate (common) Bible didn’t have the Comma: it was added later.)

This is the kind of thing that many Protestants came to expect of the Roman Catholic Church, with the Magisterium’s disdain for Sola Scriptura. Except, as you can see with the above scriptural quotes, the King James (as well as the New King James) version of the Bible still include the Comma. And most modern Protestant versions of the Bible (with a few notable exceptions) rely upon Erasmus’ Greek New Testament, which is largely derived from the Vulgate. These collective works are known as  the Textus Receptus (a term bible scholars use to describe any Greek text that is not based on the best, oldest or most verifiable manuscripts but on Erasmus’ work instead.)

But scriptural manipulations by ‘orthodox’ authorities don’t end there. In John 5 there is the story of Jesus encountering the crippled man at the healing springs of Bethsaida. Apparently he has waited 38 years to be lowered into the water and be cured. Why so long? Well, he says, every time an opportunity arises, the water is no longer “stirred”. Which is a little confusing: what is this man talking about? What does he mean by ‘stirred’ waters. At some point someone took it upon himself to solve this mystery for us, even though he made it up in order to do so. You won’t find it in most Protestant bibles but you will find it in the trusty old (and New) King James:

For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.
(John 5: 4, King James Version)

Even though many still love the King James (and it is easier on the ear – compare its version of Ecclesiastes with the competition’s) many more will concede that it has quite  a few issues.  But it is not the only bible that does.  Which, along with all the other textual changes and scribal errors (and there are many more), poses some serious challenges to anyone who believes that the Bible is the innerant, infallible Word of God, that must be taken literally in order for us to understand God and the universe.

Take the problem we have with 1 Timothy 3:16, which for most of the Church’s history (and in many bibles today) has read like this:

And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness:

God was manifested in the flesh,
Justified in the Spirit,
Seen by angels,
Preached among the Gentiles,
Believed on in the world,
Received up in glory.
(NKJV

But in the early 18th century bible scholar J.J. Wettstein, upon examining the Greek manuscript this verse derives from, found that one of the word’s had been changed to read “God” when it originally said something like “who”. This altered verse is one of the few, if not the only, explicit statements of Jesus’ divinity found in the Bible. The verse originally read more like this:

Without any doubt, the mystery of our religion is great:

Who was revealed in flesh,
vindicated by the spirit,
seen by angels,
proclaimed among Gentiles,
believed in throughout the world,
taken up in glory.
(NRSV)

Which speaks more about the mystery of who Jesus was and not the absolute assertion that he was God. By pointing this out (among other questions about scriptural accuracy) Wettstein was shunned from his religious and academic community. And even though this information has been well known for nearly 300 years many bible publishers refuse to make the necessary changes. What type of faith do we have when we need to fall back upon spurious scripture for our religious security?

It seems to me that, all affirmations of Sola Scriptura aside, Protestants have more devotion to non-biblical “tradition” than they would like to believe.  I mean, sola which scriptura, for Pete(r)’s sake?

(Thanks to Bart Ehrman’s “Misquoting Jesus” as the source for most of the above material.)

Tags: "Misquoting Jesus", 1 John 5: 7-8, 1 Timothy 3:16, Bart Ehrman, Desiderus Erasmus, J.J. Wettstein, Johannine Comma, John 5 :4, Sola Scriptura, St. Jerome, Textus Receptus

Cruising the Bible/Porn Belt

From: atypicaljoe.com

Over the Memorial Day weekend my daughter, Dot, and I took a last-minute road trip to visit some friends in Nashville. We left B’more Thursday morning and got back Sunday afternoon.  Around 1300 miles, all told.

To help pass the time we invented a new travel game that I think can only be played down South: God vs. Larry Flynt.  I would count the billboards with in-your-face evangelical messages and she would count the number of advertisements for lewd and prurient past-times.  “JESUS SAVES!” and “HELL IS A REAL PLACE!” vs “ADULT BOOKS!” and “NOW IN – THE FLESHLIGHT!!”. Once we hit Tennessee there were at least one or two per mile. Kentucky was almost as bad good. It was close, but Dot won. And it was pretty funny, if maybe a tad depressing if you thought about it, which we didn’t.

But it got me to thinking later on: what was it about the Southern demographic that encouraged the erection construction of all this annoying signage? Is one in response to the other? A lot of the  big G.O.D. signs were pretty close to the big S.E.X. signs.  But I figure that the Bible Belt existed long before the advent of the Rural Porn Belt. (Or did it? Sex in the country: Tennessee Williams, William Faulkner and Daisy Dukes? )   So maybe the “Adult” signs are in response to all those obnoxious condescending  Fire ‘n’  Brimstone (with lime? salt?) signs: “Stop hollern t’us like kids, dangit! I kin do what Ah wanna!” Which might mean that overly overt evangelism isn’t getting the desired result.

Or, considering all the scandalous clergy stories we’ve heard about for years forever, perhaps they’re just two sides of the same coin.  Maybe Religious Fundamentalism and Sexual Licentiousness are passionately engaged in making the moral beast with two backs. The attraction of opposites, that maybe are not quite so opposite after all – just using different tools to scratch the same itch. Like Victorian prudes and those quaint black and white postcards of mustachioed men in straw boaters doing the nasty with plump ladies wearing bonnets and garter belts.  Just that, in this case, it’s not going on behind closed doors anymore, but out in the great wide open

Times sure have changed, ain’t they?

Tags: bible porn belt, crazy Southerners, religious billboards, sex billboards, T

The heresy of the dogma that bit the Church

I remember once asking my new Christian friends why – if Jesus is The Way and his Good News is all we need to hear – then why bother with the Old Testament at all?  Who needs to know all that old stuff if the Gospels and Epistles have all the information we really need?  It seemed to my novice ears that this was precisely what the apostle Paul was saying.  Besides, there are so many glaring inconsistencies between the Old and the New Testament’s messages.

The typical response was that the Old Testament clearly predicted Jesus’ coming as Messiah. This made the Hebrew Scriptures an important source of evidence for Christian apologetics. As far as any inconsistencies go, well they weren’t really inconsistent.  There was just a change in the way God related to us, now that Jesus had made everything right with his death and resurrection.  And after all, the Old Testament was still the Word of God.  Just incomplete.

Anyway, I don’t struggle with that stuff anymore.  I think the Hebrew Scriptures (the term “Old” Testament is so…condescending ) are very important for Christians to study.  All of the Hebrew scriptures, not just those found in our Bibles. We totally screw up when we forget that Jesus was a Jew, living in Palestine with other Jews, and most of these scriptures (no Bible yet, remember) were the source of his theology and his cultural traditions. And it doesn’t help when we exclude Jewish interpretations of their own scriptures, either.

I no longer struggle with trying to square the apparent inconsistencies between the  angry, violent and vengeful Yahweh with the forgiving and merciful Father of Jesus (even though the Hebrew Prophets presented us with much the same portrait of God as Jesus did ).  I simply no longer believe that any of the scriptures, old or new, are the Word of God.  They are not inerrant nor are they infallible.    They were written by men (and maybe women) who were certainly ‘inspired’ to come to some sort of understanding of God, but they were not God’s secretaries taking divine dictation. And they do not always paint God in a favorable, or accurate light. It’s when we try to take literally all the words found in the Christian canon, on face value and without any historical context, that our problems begin, whether we are orthodox, heretic or atheist.

I didn’t realize it then, but in some ways I was a Marcionite.  Marcion of Sinope (ca. 85-160) was an early Christian thinker who also had problems squaring the Hebrew Scriptures with the Gospels and especially with Paul’s Epistles. He could not accept the idea that the loving “Father” that Jesus prayed to was also the angry Yahweh of Hebrew scriptures.  So he came up with an alternative theology, one steeped in Greek philosophy and mythology, in which Yahweh is the flawed creator god, subordinate to the ultimate (and good) deity: God, the Father of Jesus.

According to Marcion, Jesus comes from the Father to redeem the walking dead from the clutches of Yahweh and the misery of this corrupt world. In this way Marcionism is similar to Gnosticism.  (For a nice movie parable watch “ The Matrix” trilogy.)  Marcion composed what is probably the first Christian canon, the first compilation of Holy Scriptures, but they contained only a syncretized form of the Gospels and the letters of Paul.  Paul’s epistles were the primary source of his theology and it is Marcion who first placed them in an anthology.

Now, with all due respect to Rey (who got me to thinking about Marcionism) I do believe that, in this case, those church fathers who ended up as history’s Christian victors were right to label Marcion a heretic.  Of course,  they were begging the question because there was no such thing as orthodoxy at the time– there was no Christian consensus on doctrine or dogmas – there were none of the creeds Christians recite today. In fact, the first creeds were likely written and imposed in response to Marcionism, which had a great following.  Now, I don’t think that the Church’s surviving theology is altogether that faithful to the teachings of Jesus either.  But there is little, I think, in Marcionism to commend it to someone who wants to follow Jesus. Because Jesus without Judaism is not Jesus at all. It is something completely different.

What so many orthodox-loving Christians, then as well as today, fail to recognize is that much of this heretical doctrine infused itself into the surviving Christian theology. So many of these destroyed and forgotten heresies had very large followings – their influence would not disappear by mere decree (or by book burnings and hangings). Just a few examples:

-To this day Paul has an inordinate amount of influence on the Church’s doctrine.
-Throughout the Church’s history there has been a tendency to place our focus on another, better realm that await us beyond this fallen and depraved world.
-Our fixation on a battle between good and evil, between God and Satan, is reminiscent of the dualism found in Marcion and Gnostic theologies.
-And, of course, the Church has tried it’s best take the Jewishness out of Jesus (and make villains out of the Jews – some believe that it was the Church’s repressed Marcionism that helped fuel the dogma of Hitler’s  ‘Final Solution”).

As outlandish as Marcion’s theology may sound to us today, who have known nothing other than modern Christian ‘orthodoxy’  (the theology of the victors), does it really sound any more outlandish than the concept of a triune God? (Try asking your Jewish or Muslim friends that question.) Again, the problem seems to lie within the combined ideas of Biblical literalism and inerrancy.  A more relaxed, though possibly just as devout, reading of scriptures can solve this problem and, in my experience, help immensely with one’s understanding of God.

It was the cognitive dissonance caused by trying to believe contradictory ideas, ideas not just found in a literal reading of the Bible but ideas thought up by theologians in their attempts to square their own contradictory readings of scriptures, that had me doing the same thing that the ‘orthodox’ had already done and continue to do: embracing heresy to prove orthodoxy.

Tags: Marcion of Sinope, Marcionism, Early Christian Church, Dualism, Gnosticism

Christian Colonialism: the culture of the Borg

As reported in the Huffington Post:

According to (Sarah) Palin, the recent backlash against the National Day of Prayer is proof that some people are trying to enact a “fundamental transformation of America” and to “revisit and rewrite history” in order to shift the Christian nation away from its spiritual roots.

Palins’s advice: “Go back to what our founders and our founding documents meant — they’re quite clear — that we would create law based on the God of the bible and the ten commandments.

“What in hell scares people about talking about America’s foundation of faith?” Palin continued. “It is that world view that involves some people being afraid of being able to discuss our foundation, being able to discuss God in the public square, that’s the only thing I can attribute it to.” – the Huffington Post

Funny choice of words.  I mean, she hits the nail squarely on her own head – because it is really conservative Neo-Evangelicals like herself who are afraid of taking a fresh look at our country’s foundation. When they encounter new (or suppressed) information about old events, information that tends to bust patriotic and religious myths, they ridicule it as revisionist history. Of course, revisionist does not mean wrong. It’s usually the other way around.

In “Guns, Germs and Steel”, Jared Diamond argues effectively that it was not moral or intellectual superiority that allowed Western civilization to advance technologically while others didn’t: it was merely an accident of geographical fate. Our  more ‘advanced’ culture had access to plants and animals that were easily domesticated (like wheat and horses) that other people in other places did not. This led to an early Eurasian agricultural system that could support a class society that included not only rulers, scribes and scholars and explorers but also a professional warrior caste. The Aztecs, Incas and Mayans had developed many of these same things: they were empires as well.  But, because of their native geography and it’s relative lack of natural resources, their technology was quite a few centuries behind Eurasia.

When the Europeans met the Native Americans they came equipped with cavalry, steel armor, swords, cannon and a thirst for empire.  Even very small bands of armed European soldiers could decimate Native American armies hundreds of times their size, which is what happened at Cajamarca.  Factor in European diseases and plagues introduced to the New World, diseases that killed millions of native people, and the outcome was inevitable.

One line in the book reminded me that our European forefathers were more like the Borg of Star Trek than the founders of the “Christian Nation” who live on in the imaginations of people like Sarah Palin:

“The initial success of Pizarro and Cortes did attract native allies. However, many of them would not have become allies if they had not already been persuaded, by earlier devastating successes of unassisted Spaniards, that resistance was futile and that they should side with the likely winners.”

Resistance was futile. “Assimilate or die”could be another way of saying “that they should side with the likely winners”.  Almost makes me wonder if the Star Trek writers were thinking about Western civilization when they conjured up the Borg.  And of course, it was not just the Spanish, but the French, Dutch, Portugese, English and Americans who helped conquer the New World by enjoying the same imbalance of power.

But, am I just guilty extremist thinking here? Isn’t this all just liberal exaggeration? Well, let’s consider all those native cultures and nations that have been able to coexist peacefully with Christian (Catholic and Protestant) European colonists and their descendants.  Funny, I can’t seem to think of any. They either no longer exist or were assumed into the Western collective.

Perhaps it is a bit outlandish to compare the human colonialists with the terrifying and monsterish Borg. But try looking at the Europeans from the perspective of a Native American. Or Fiji islander. Or a Bantu farmer. I think the ships, horses, armor and weaponry used by the colonizers might be just as terrifying. And the soldiers just as monsterish.  But at least they were Christian.

Tags: America's Christian roots, Christian colonialism, Colonialism, Guns Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond, National Day of Prayer, revisionist history, Sarah Palin, Star Trek, the Borg