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Saturday, November 29, 2014

Should Jesus Ever Be Called “Yeshua”?


Spend enough time among diverse Christian groups, you’re bound to encounter some who refer to Jesus by the term Yeshua.  Those individuals (a minority among Christians) will explain that Yeshua was Jesus’ “real” Hebrew name, and some (a minority of the minority) will go so far as to claim that using any other word for His name is unbiblical or ungodly.

In the extreme, such individuals may claim that your English use of “Jesus” is improper.  They might drop subtle hints that your entire faith could be in question, since only those who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved (see Romans 10:3).


WHERE DOES THE WORD YESHUA COME FROM?

Those who call Jesus Yeshua do so because they believe they are using the word Jesus’ contemporaries used when they addressed him.  They believe that the name “Jesus” is overly modernized, and that it might even be inappropriate.

Yeshua is a modern transliteration of the Hebrew name we usually render as Joshua, and Joshua was, in fact, the root of Jesus’ name.  By “transliteration,” I don’t mean “translation.”  In many ways, transliteration is the opposite of a translation.  It’s an attempt to show the original sounds of a foreign word without using the written form of that original language.

Chances are you’ve seen examples of Greek, Hebrew, or Arabic.  Those languages have a completely different script from English, which uses Roman-style letters.  To show you how to pronounce a word in one of those languages, I have to Romanize the word – give you the approximate sounds in letters you can read and practice for yourself.

Therein lies our first major problem.  Some languages have sounds that aren’t used in other languages, or at least not used in the same way.  The buzzing sound you hear at the start of the French phrase Je t’aime is the same sound English puts at the end of the word garage, but English never starts a word with that sound.  Likewise, the breathy, guttural rasps in the Hebrew toast l’chaim and the Spanish name José have no equivalent Romanized letter that is helpful for English speakers.  Still other languages have oddities that can’t even be reproduced in Roman letters – the Tsou language of Taiwan, for example, has variations for /f/ and /h/ that are made by inhaling air rather than exhaling air, sounds linguists call pulmonic ingressives, but which few in the Western world can make.

So when someone claims that Yeshua is the real name of Jesus, they don’t seem to realize that their spelling of it in Romanized letters is only an approximation, and more important, that their pronunciation of it is only a ballpark attempt to mimic the sounds of an ancient language no one had the technology to record.

This explains why a Google search of “What is the real name of Jesus?” produces so many variations on that “real” name, both in Romanized spelling and the suggested pronunciations: Yeshua, Yahushua, Yesua, Yehoshuah, and more.


WHAT LANGUAGE DID JESUS SPEAK?

Jesus spoke Aramaic, not Hebrew.
The second major problem with calling Jesus by the Hebrew name Yeshua is that it’s highly unlikely Jesus spoke Hebrew.  By the time He was born, the daily languages of his province were common Greek and Aramaic.  Latin was spoken by top politicians.  Hebrew was used primarily for ceremonial purposes, although even for those Aramaic had taken over in most synagogues.  Aramaic was a Semitic language, like Hebrew, but the two were as mutually unintelligible as French and Latin are today, even though French evolved from Latin.  If Jesus’ household spoke Aramaic on a daily basis, his name would be better transliterated as Eashoah, more nearly approximating the ancient Aramaic lettering.

Jesus spoke Greek.
However, it’s certain that Jesus spoke Greek as well.  Greek had been the common language of the area for almost 400 years, and Jesus' people were multilingual.  In fact, He may have used Greek as his primary language for teaching, evidenced by the fact that whenever he lapsed into Aramaic, the Gospels make a point of translating the Aramaic words he chose to use.  The New Testament was written entirely in Greek, even the Gospels.  Those who prefer the term Yeshua will sometimes claim that the Gospels were first written in Aramaic.  They are certainly mistaken, based on the Bible text alone.  Why would a Gospel writer composing his text in Aramaic go to the trouble of telling readers the translation of an Aramaic word?  Mark offers repeated translations of Aramaic (in 5:41, translating Talitha kum into Greek for his audience; in 7:34 translating Ephphatha; in 15:34 translating Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani”).  Matthew provides similar acts of translation to Greek, and John goes to pains to explain in Greek what rabbi and messiah mean in the language his readers understood.

Clear conclusions:
(1) The Gospel writers wrote in Greek.  If they had been writing in Aramaic, they would not be pausing to provide Aramaic translations for their audience, no more than I would write here, “The word audience translates to ‘audience’.”  You don’t translate a word from the language you’re already writing.

(2) Furthermore, the fact that the Gospel writers broke from their narrative to point out that Jesus had used Aramaic words at some points in His teaching is pretty strong evidence that they saw that switch to Aramaic as unique and noteworthy ... as if it were something outside the norm of the way He taught.  Chances are that when they mention, “And then, in Aramaic, he says ...” it’s because He hadn’t been speaking Aramaic up to that point.  The language switch jumped out at them, and they noted it.

(3) The Gospel writers called our Lord Iesous, Jesus.  They saw no need to translate that name, or to point out that it was a poor Greek variation on a better Aramaic or Hebrew name to call Him.  They’d already shown elsewhere that they had no hesitation pointing out important translations.  Matthew even went to the trouble to decode a title accompanying the name of Jesus, Emmanuel, God With Us.  But at no point did these Greek-writing, Holy Spirit inspired authors go to the trouble of saying, “We all really called him Yeshua,” or “Make sure you don’t use the Greek for that when you’re getting saved, though.”  They liked the name Jesus.  In the New Testament Scripture we have – written in its original Greek – there is no other name by which they called Him.  Nor by which Greek-writing Paul called Him.  Nor Peter.  Nor Jude.  Nor James.  Iesous, Jesus, was the preferred name.


AHA!  BUT HEBREW HAS NO LETTER “J”!

This is almost too small a point to bother with, but since it’s likely you’ll run into it, you may as well have it resolved right now.

Many promoters of the name Yeshua claim that Jesus can’t possibly be the name of the savior because the letter J didn’t even exist until the 14th century, almost a millennium and a half after He lived.

This is absolutely true and absolutely meaningless, for one simple reason: Letters are not sounds.

The letter J didn’t exist in Greek, Aramaic, or Hebrew, and neither did the letters Y, E, S, H, U or A.  However, the sound represented by the modern letter J most certainly existed, and it exists in nearly every language we know.  Representing it as a Y is little different from representing it as a J.  I’ll prove that.  Say the following word:

YAY

Now say it 20 times fast without inhaling.

YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY

Did you feel the J sound forming?  Most likely you did ... in fact, I’m told that it hurts to keep the Y as a pure Y sound once you hit the tenth or twelfth YAY.  If you do the exercise in the other direction, repeating the word JAY, you’ll find your mouth slipping toward the Y of YAY as well.

The sound represented by an initial J in Jesus is nearly identical to the sound represented by the letter Y, just with the slightest of friction or buzz added.  There are many letters with such tricks (say “a little Tylenol” and notice how the two Ts in little are more like Ds than the initial T in Tylenol).  The letters J and Y are, in this case, the same essential sound.  There is no vast conspiracy to hide the true name of the Lord.

Here endeth the J lesson.


SO ARE THEY WRONG TO CALL JESUS “YESHUA”?

Am I saying that those who refer to Jesus as Yeshua are wrong to do so?  I’ll answer that with a hearty, confident, “It depends.”  Are the Spanish wrong to call Him by something that sounds to English ears like, “Hey, Zeus!”?  Are the Russians wrong for Isus?  The Chinese wrong of Yesu?  Punjabi speakers wrong for Yisu ne?  The Azerbaijani wrong for Isa?  I’m going to go out on a limb here and say this: If Jesus was called Eashoah by his Aramaic-speaking mother, but Iesous by Paul and the Gospel writers, then the first act of transliteration was performed by the Holy Spirit, and I shouldn’t question the legitimacy of accommodating other languages.  The Christ who rose is the Christ who rose, and by any other name He is as sweet.

However – if the devotee of the name Yeshua begins to insist to you that his use of the name is more proper, more biblical, or more holy than your own use of “Jesus,” it may be time to discern the motivation behind the attitude.  Scripture warns us numerous times to avoid putting on airs, and there is something about pretending to have a special, secret name for God that smacks of something less than humility, more like Gnostic secrecy.  Real love does not put on airs.

If you hear your preacher or teacher or prayer leader suddenly bursting forth with declarations of “Yeshua ha Maschiach!” and Hebrew is not their native tongue, ask yourself what the speaker or pray-er’s motivation might be.  To invoke God with a better language?  To use a more powerful version of the name, as if it were a magic spell?  To stand out from others who don’t use those words, thus appearing to be more in tune with God?  To lead you to notice that they are unique, using special vocabulary, worthy of your focus and attention?

I can’t answer that for anyone, since it’s situational.  But pray for discernment, and always test the spirit of those who would try to get you to buy in to the idea of secret words and special knowledge.

And if they bring up the Letter J thing, just roll your eyes at them.

Marana Tha (that’s Aramaic for either “Our Lord is coming” or “Our Lord has come”!),

Cosmic Parx

Sunday, November 16, 2014

On Heaven & Hell & Babies Who Die


Note: This was a tough blog post to write.  I try to maintain a wry, witty, playful voice when I create these blogs, but I found that hard to do with such a delicate, heart-twisting topic.  It doesn’t help that I’m recently married, and that many theoretical issues about babies and family are closer to home than ever before in my life.  So thank you for bearing with the uneven tone below.
_________________________________________________________

What happens to the souls of those who die in infancy?

It's a profoundly unsettling question, one that’s especially horrible for those who have experienced the loss of a baby.

The issue triggers default responses among those of us who are believers.  She's with God now.  She was too precious for this world.  She's in heaven waiting for you.  We'll be with her again one day, when the rest of us go to her.

In fact, it's a discussion so heartrending that it seems cold and unfeeling to try to accommodate it to our Christian doctrines and theologies.  If you were to ask anyone who’s experienced such a loss whether they think their baby went to heaven or hell, you’d likely get the most furious of stares in response.

But the question isn't a settled one.  The statement "All babies go to heaven" is surprisingly modern and liberal.  You see, the Protestant Reformation gave us a precise equation for salvation, pushing to the vanguard of our doctrines the Bible's assertions that humans are born in depravity and sin, and that only faith in the sacrifice of Christ can lead to saving grace.  For those able to experience faith, that equation is a blessing beyond words.  For those too young to have faith, it is a cold equation indeed.

It doesn't help, either, that centuries of scholars, commentators, and teachers of our faith have failed to reach a consensus on the matter.  To view them as a whole, it seems our spiritual forefathers can only agree that there is no clear Biblical direction on the fate of babies' souls.


What the Scriptures Say

Chances are, you’re the sort of person who is appalled by the idea that God would allow a baby to suffer eternally in the fires of hell simply because the infant never aged to a point when she could make a declaration of faith.  It would mean that God created that soul knowing she would die in her first year of life, knowing she would suffer eternal damnation as just payment for having been born a child of Adam and not being given enough time to get herself saved through faith and grace.  For most, such a God is unthinkable. 

However, the Bible is oddly silent about the topic.  This seems particularly unusual when you consider that it covers eras in which up to 25% of babies died in their first year, 50% before they were 10.  Why is the Bible so disturbingly vague about something so dear to the hearts of parents?  Even today, when infant mortality rates worldwide have dipped below 1% for the first time in recorded history, we are driven to ask, What became of those ninety-five million souls who died this year before seeing their first birthdays?  What does Scripture tell us?

Sadly, not much.

Some commentators, hoping to bolster their belief in infant salvation, grasp for 2 Samuel 12 in which David mourns the death of his infant son.  David declares he must cease his fasting and praying for the child, for “I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me” (v. 23).  Doesn't this clearly show that David believed he'd go to heaven with the child?  However, other commentators point out that this verse does not clearly say the baby has gone to heaven; it simply says he died in the flesh, just as David will one day die in the flesh.  "I will go to him" simply means "I, too, will die."  To extrapolate from that verse a theology of universal infant salvation would be, according to those commentators, an act of imposing our own desires on the literal words of the Scripture.

A second passage of Scripture used to advance universal infant salvation is Matthew 19 (and its parallel in Luke 18): “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom of heaven.” After all, commentators reason, if the Kingdom of heaven is made up of little children, how could babies not go right to heaven if they die before coming into the faith?  But this passage, too, falls quickly to the scrutinizing gaze of other commentators.  The children in this passage were clearly old enough to “come to Jesus” on their own, and in the previous chapter of Matthew are explicitly called “little ones who believe in me” (18:6).  They are, say some commentators, obviously old enough to be believers.  They are paidia (children) with saving faith, and not unaware brephoi (infants, toddlers, babes as in Luke 1 and 2).


Solutions from Our Spiritual Forebears

In a previous blog post, I mentioned that the late 1800s biblical scholar Henry Van Dyke raised conservative eyebrows by proposing that humans who die before reaching an age of moral accountability were automatically accepted into heaven.  Had Van Dyke made his declaration today, he’d be representing the majority view.  In his own time, however, the bold suggestion caused schism and contributed to a break that persists to this day between modern and conservative Biblical scholars.

Historically, the Christian faith has taken multiple approaches to resolving the question.  As you might already guess, the “resolving” has never fully hit home for 100% of the Body of Christ.  Some less-than-satisfying solutions have included the following:

  • Inventing Limbo: Roman Catholics struggled with the disposition of infant souls as much as any other part of Christendom.  Their populist solution (technically, it was never an explicit church doctrine) was to declare that unbaptized babies wound up in Limbo, an afterlife realm of Eden-like joy and peace.  Limbo was outside the presence of God (and thus did not violate the cold equation of salvation by faith and baptism), but it was a realm of as much eternal bliss as one could imagine outside the knowledge of God.

  • The Friends and Family Plan: Acts 10, 11, 16, and other passages of Scripture offer up a tantalizing idea of salvation with the words “you shall be saved and your entire household,” hinting that the faith of the home’s head person leads to salvation for everyone in the house.  This idea is particularly comforting for those who suffer the loss of an infant: We believed, they reason, therefore our child was covered by the faith lived through us.  I love this idea, but it is not without its gaping holes ... it implies that everyone in the household being discussed gets access to salvation through the faith of another, not through their own faith.  Prominent households had servants and adult children, extended family, cousins, countrymen from afar taking long-term shelter.  Are those members of the household automatically covered by the faith of the head of household?  Would their own rejection of Christ be overridden?  And when father turns against son, mother against daughter, does the salvation act of faith of the household’s head get severed somehow?  Clearly, this solution causes more theological problems than it solves.

  • Forget the Friends, Just Save the Family: Other commentators narrow the scope of household salvation through an appeal to 1 Corinthians 7:14 – “For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now they are holy.”  Right there seems to be definite affirmation that children are saved by the faith of a mother or father, and the matter seems closed.  "We Christian families go to heaven," says this line of reasoning.  "The babies of unbelievers go to hell."  As cold as that might sound, it was the driving conviction of many Reformed, Calvinist, and Presbyterian believers for centuries.

  • Maybe Some Other Smart People Know: The 1 Corinthians 7:14 verse has sent ages of commentators into contortions.  Some examples (and pardon my rapid name dropping): Benson suggests that it means that by being born to even one Christian parent, an infant is “federally holy,” deserving of baptism and thus salvation.  Barnes counters that there is no Scriptural support for such an idea, and that the verse is meant to prevent believing parents from divorcing and thus making their children illegitimate in this world.  Meyers interprets the “sanctification” mentioned in the verse as permission for the believing partner to keep having sex with the unbelieving spouse.  Bengel’s Gnomen interprets the holiness of the children as a state of being “more open” to the faith once they’re old enough to accept it—location, location, location, a distinct advantage over the children of unbelievers but not salvation itself.  Jamieson-Fausset-Brown rather cavalierly declare the verse to mean that the believer shouldn't worry about being made impure by the unbelievers in his family, and that he gets to be holy despite the sinful, unbelieving state of the others in his house.


So, What’s The Answer?

Do all babies go to hell due to being born in Adam’s sin and separated from God, as we learn from the Reformers?

Do they go to heaven because they had no chance to choose the Lord, as we learn from modern preachers?

If they go to heaven without accepting Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior, does that mean the Protestant Reformation was wrong, and that there are alternate paths to the Father?

If the children of believers -- but not of unbelievers -- go to heaven, then what happens when the unbelieving parents come to the Lord after the death of the child?  Is that child punished eternally for having parents who believed too late?  Are the offspring of unbelievers punished simply for not having been born into the right family?

If all the billions of infants and unborn miscarriages are souls who go to heaven, do they represent by sheer number the vast, vast, vast majority of the saved?  Is heaven staffed by babies?  Is the way to salvation that Paul considers primary – coming to Christ through faith in his death and resurrection – actually a minority, secondary path?

If dying before coming to an age of accountability is a surefire way to eternal fellowship with God, then what benefit is there to surviving and risking rejecting the Lord, as the Scripture says a majority of adults will do?

Questions, questions, questions, and here’s my answer: I don’t know.

But here’s something I do know: A friend of mine, a Methodist minister, discussed this issue with me at length.  He reached an “I don’t know” conclusion as well, but his final declaration hit home with me.  He avowed, quite simply, that he couldn't even imagine a God who sends babies to hell.  He said, “ I have no solid Biblical reason for thinking that, but in my heart, I can’t imagine a universe working that way.”

And that’s where I am, currently.  Scripture passages aside ... there are so incredibly few of them for such a vital issue, and the ones we do have are maddeningly unhelpful ... the idea settles right into the “Yes, but ...” area of my heart.  Yes, the Bible says little on the topic, much of it less than hopeful.  But the Spirit within my heart speaks volumes.

Sometimes you just have to embrace the still-speaking voice of God.

Maran Tha,

Cosmic Parx / YoYo Rez

Sunday, October 12, 2014

The Blood Moon Hoax of John Hagee


I've backed away from blogging for the past few months thanks to an impressive academic workload, but I needed to jump back briefly to comment on an exercise in Vain Imaginings that is being promoted by the Rev. John Hagee: The meaning of four “blood moons” (full lunar eclipses) falling on four Jewish high feast days in the 2014-15 lunar cycle.



For those of you on a tight schedule, good news: This blog will be brief.  It turns out that it’s incredibly easy to debunk Hagee’s now-gone-viral suggestion that these blood moons have anything to do with the Rapture, the Second Coming, war in Israel, or any other End Times event.

1. Scripture Makes Limited References to the Moon Looking Like Blood.
Hagee had previously suggested that the End Times would begin in the 1990s, but that failed projection hasn’t kept him from keeping his prediction franchise going.  His most recent Mammon-grabber of a bestseller is called Four Blood Moons: Something Is About to Change.  In it, he related a passage from the minor prophet Joel to our current cycle of four blood moons within a one-and-a-half year period.  (Total lunar eclipses are called blood moons thanks to the reddish glow the moon reflects from sunlight’s longest wavelength, red):

Joel 2:28-31 (KJV)
And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions:
And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.
And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.
The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come. 

This is the Bible’s primary reference to a moon that looks like blood.  Note that there is no mention of a cycle of four phases in which the moon looks like blood over a 1.5 year period.  Note, too, that there is no mention of the blood moons taking place on High Feast Days of the Hebrews.  I mention these things because they are important to Hagee's book-marketing claims, but appear nowhere in the Scripture text he is promoting.  He would have us interpret this text as if it were referring to events taking place right now, but he is severely ... and biblically ... mistaken.

You see, the Bible tells us exactly when these things took place and were fulfilled.  In Acts chapter 2, the Apostle Peter declared that the very words written above were fulfilled on the day of Pentecost (v. 16) when the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles.  That was the coming of the Day of the Lord, and from thence forth, all who called upon the name of the Lord would be saved.

We have a choice: Believe Hagee, because interesting stuff is going on with eclipses and Jewish holidays; or believe Peter that the Scripture Hagee has usurped for his bestseller was in fact fulfilled on the day the Bible declared it fulfilled.

If you side with Hagee, you have a cool, topical Vain Imagining to discuss ... but you will have trouble explaining to the rest of us that the Holy Spirit has not yet come, and that we are still awaiting a day when we can call upon the name of the Lord to be saved.

As my first pastor used to say: “That just don’t play well in my pew.”

2. Prophecies for Israel Should Be Fulfilled in Israel
The above was enough to close the coffin lid on Hagee’s Vain Imagining, but allow me to nail the lid of that coffin shut with a couple other facts: 
  • Israel Has 7 High Feast Days, not 4: Hagee makes very little effort to explain why four blood moons and an accompanying solar eclipse occurring on exactly four (but not all seven) feast days declared by Moses from Sinai is a special sign of a world-changing event.  It’s an impressive confluence, indeed; however, no part of the prophecies he pretends to be interpreting mentions a four-sevenths split in the importance of feast days.

  • None of the Blood Moons will be seen in Israel: Oddly, the tetrad (a foursome) of blood moons declared by Hagee to be so significant for Israel won’t be visible in Israel.  Well, to be fair, the very last one on September 28, 2015 (the feast of Sukkot) will be visible for a few minutes right before sunrise, should anyone there happen to look up.  Now, I don’t claim to know the mind of God, but I will hazard this insight: If I were giving the chosen people of Israel a sign in the heavens, I wouldn’t put the best views of that sign in New Zealand.

  • Tetrads of Blood Moons Have Not Predicted Anything for Israel in the Past: Hagee claims that the modern founding of Israel was predicted by a blood moon foursome.  He also claims that the Spanish expulsion of the Jews was foretold by a blood moon tetrad, as well as the Six Day War for Jerusalem.  He would be wrong in all cases, however.  The tetrad of 1493 took place a year after the expulsion of Jews from Spain, and 16 years after the launch of the Spanish Inquisition.  The tetrad of 1949 took place a year after the founding of modern Israel.  The Six Day War – apparently Hagee’s favorite of the fifteen modern Israeli wars – started a random 44 days after the first lunar eclipse of the tetrad of that time; the other eclipses wandered in over the course of the next fifteen months.  Simple fact: signs predict.  When the alleged signs come after an event, they’re not predicting anything except the past.  By that reasoning, the upcoming tetrad of blood moons foretells something really huge happening back in 2013.

  •  A Fractional Solar Eclipse Is Not “Darkness”: Hagee makes a big deal about a March 20, 2015 Jerusalem solar eclipse.  His marketing campaign for his latest book would have you believe that this fulfills Joel’s prediction that the sun will become dark in Jerusalem (and yes, he suddenly, inexplicably cares that this is in Jerusalem now, a milepost that seemed unimportant for lunar eclipses).  Long story short: The March 2015 Jerusalem solar eclipse will block less than 10% of the sun.  This is no full eclipse from Israel’s perspective.  It’s a drive-by.

3. The Moral of My Story Today

I can’t tell you whether Hagee is self-deluded or a conscious deceiver.  I can tell you, however, that what he does detracts from the mission of the Gospel.  Time and again the Scriptures warn us to avoid Vain Imaginings and to beware the tickling of our ears by preachers we gather around ourselves for entertainment rather than challenge and discipleship.  The answers to the question “What’s the harm?” when asked about such flights of fancy as Hagee’s blood moons hoax are these:
  1. they take energy from the sharing of the Gospel and refocus Christian effort on acts of astrology and divination;
  2. they encourage partial readings of the Scripture in service to personal interpretations that fall on shallow soil, sprout, and die once predicted dates and times come and go;
  3. they take time from teachers who must then refute the Gospel-overshadowing theories of charlatans ... time that would be better spent searching the Scriptures or, better still, bringing the Scriptures to life through the fruit of the Spirit and good works laid out for us by God.

My prediction: The last blood moon of the tetrad on September 28, 2015 will come.  Then it will go.  There will be wars and rumors of wars, but the end will not be yet.  Rev. John Hagee will say that he never suggested that the Rapture would happen.  He’ll blame that extrapolation of his words on others.  He will point toward some event that takes place in 2015 and declare it to be a “major change” that the blood moon tetrad predicted.  The change will be an important event for that particular time, but not significant to the history of salvation.  Memory of his claims will fade.  Then it will be gone, forgotten.

Then someone else, or perhaps Hagee himself, will point to a new personal interpretation, a new startling event, an ear-tickling idea that again predicts a time table for the coming of the Lord.  My personal guess (and remember that you heard it here first) will be May 14, 2018 ... exactly 70 years from the founding of modern Israel, which someone will decide is a “generation.”


We’ll all be older then.  But will we be wiser?

Marana Tha,
Cosmic Parx

Monday, July 7, 2014

Will Evangelicals Go To Heaven?

Today, when I googled the question “Will Evangelicals go to heaven?” (with the quotation marks in place), I retrieved only one result, a single page with that question on it.  When I googled the phrase “Will Catholics go to heaven?” I garnered a returned-results increase of over four thousand percent.

Quite a hit difference.

Clearly it was time for a new article addressing the under-asked question above: Can an Evangelical (particularly a U.S. Evangelical, since that's where the movement grew) really be admitted to eternal paradise?

SPOILER ALERT: I’m going to conclude with a tentative and conditional “Yes.”  To reach that conclusion ... which I confess is merely my flawed, human opinion on the matter ... I will tackle three of the best arguments presented against the salvation of Evangelicals.  I’ll let the Naysayer have his Nay-filled Sayings, and then I will propose a counter-argument to reestablish hope that followers of the U.S. Evangelical movement truly can spend eternity with our Lord and Savior.

***


NAYSAYER POINT 1


1. Evangelical religion is rotten at its very foundation.  Its founder George Whitefield successfully urged the Georgia colony to reinstitute slavery so that his own plantation would be profitable, and the Wesley brothers, John and Charles, considered the founding fathers of America to be a “bunch of hypocrites” and “brawlers for liberty” without respect for the king ruling over them.  Surely these men, inaugurators of the U.S. Evangelical movement and of the “first Great Awakening,” were building on a foundation of sand, not the firm foundation of Christ, of whom Paul said: “Those who are free in Christ are free indeed.”  Here, in fact, is an excerpt from a 1751 letter with Whitefield’s own words:

"As for the lawfulness of keeping slaves, I have no doubt, since I hear of some that were bought with Abraham's money, and some that were born in his house.—And I cannot help thinking, that some of those servants mentioned by the Apostles in their epistles, were or had been slaves. It is plain, that the Gibeonites were doomed to perpetual slavery, and though liberty is a sweet thing to such as are born free, yet to those who never knew the sweets of it, slavery perhaps may not be so irksome. However this be, it is plain to a demonstration, that hot countries cannot be cultivated without negroes. What a flourishing country might Georgia have been, had the use of them been permitted years ago? How many white people have been destroyed for want of them, and how many thousands of pounds spent to no purpose at all?”

What did the efforts of this “great awakener” lead to in the U.S.?  The reestablishment of slavery in Georgia due to his arguments in its favor, and ultimately to the Civil War, which killed more Americans than nearly all other U.S. wars combined.  His Evangelical movement is founded upon motives of bondage, profiteering, and death.  No such movement can belong to the God who “defends the cause of the poor” and who is a “stronghold for the oppressed.”


MY RESPONSE TO POINT 1

This argument against the salvation of Evangelicals relies on what is called the Genetic Fallacy, the illogical argument that where a thing comes from defines its current goodness or badness.  A popular example showing how silly the Genetic Fallacy is can be found in the true statement “Volkswagen was established under the Nazis!” and the ridiculous conclusion, “Any American who buys a Volkswagen is pro-Nazi!”

Regardless the origin of the current Evangelical movement—and some of Mr. Naysayer’s arguments are questionable since the anti-American Independence Wesley brothers were also quite anti-slavery—it needs to be remembered that salvation of an individual in Christ is just that: salvation of an individual, not the condemnation of a group and any individual falling under its label.  Many, many groups have dark spots in their past, ranging from the Inquisition’s execution of thousands of Jewish conversos by the Catholics, through the slaughter of Anabaptists by Calvinists in theocratic Holland and Calvinist Switzerland; and from the subjugation and forced baptisms of native peoples by Spanish conquistadors as recorded in their own journals, to the “Sunday Afternoon” (i.e., after church services) lynching of thousands of Southern blacks documented in Dr. James Cones’ The Cross and the Lynching Tree.

My point is this: Yes, many current groups have nefarious origins and questionable pasts.  But we, unlike Whitefield, must take a more universal approach to the truth that one who is free in Christ is free indeed ... regardless of the Evangelical label and its background baggage.  A current Evangelical can be free indeed from the Whitefield past and the founding of historical Evangelicalism.

***


NAYSAYER POINT 2


2. The Evangelical cult clearly demonstrated that it was not a unified part of the Body of Christ.  Prior to the Evangelizing of America, the number of Christian denominations could be counted on both hands; today, there are thousands of U.S. denominations that have sprung up from the divisive nature and strife-focused hearts of congregations with Evangelical origins.  Jesus passionately invoked the Father in John 17 that his followers “may be one, even as You [the Father] and I are one.”  With the birth of the Evangelical movement, that oneness became a distant dream.  In no time, the way to start a new church was to declare one’s parent congregation heretical, stirring up as much strife as possible over particular jots and tittles, and then planting a flag in the plot up the road to declare one’s self a new and all-true church.


Today, one can count over two hundred distinct major Christian denominations in the United States.  On top of that, there are an additional 35,000-plus “nondenominational” groups who refuse to be associated with each other due to any number of imagined distinctions, doctrines, preferences, and fear of apocalyptic ecumenism.  That last point is the most ironic fruit of Evangelical splinterism.  While Christ called for the oneness of His followers, the scattered flocks of the Evangelical schism see unity as a sign of the End Times and the Antichrist, an imagined “One World Church” in which Christ’s unity is declared Satanic.


“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil” the prophet Isaiah wrote.  Evangelicals of today bring those words to life in the worst way possible, by calling unity in Christ evil and by embracing strife and division as if those represented piety.  Evangelicals remain strife-seekers.  Those who would be saved must “come out from among them.”



MY RESPONSE TO POINT 2

While it’s true that having hundreds and even thousands of denominations is certainly not an ideal situation for a group that calls itself the Body of Christ, the comments Mr. Naysayer makes here are more a reflection on the weakness, rather than the heretical nature, of Evangelical faith.  I argue that there is nothing here that would necessarily keep them from an eternity of fellowship with the Lord.  I will concede his point that there are too many denominations.  I will also concede his point that any move toward uniting them again really is seen as a questionable abandonment of one’s principles and even as a supportive move toward a “One World Church” of the End Times (which I concur is a fiction spun by catastrophist eschatologists).

I do not concede, however, that this splinterism is, de facto, evidence of all Evangelicals being outside of Christ.

I propose that the problem comes from a heightened sense of individualism that U.S. Evangelicals derive both from their U.S. culture and from Evangelicalism’s focus on “conversionism” as one of its driving pillars of faith.  “Conversionism” is a term related to a one-time event in which you “accept Jesus Christ” in a moment of emotional surrender.  Recently, it’s become vogue to refer to this experience as being “born again,” and Evangelicals fell into an unfortunate habit of equating this term (mentioned twice in the New Testament) with having reached a goal of salvation, rather than having started a journey along salvation’s path.  Often Evangelicals will ask, “Have you been saved?” or “Have you been born-again?” as if that one emotional experience, important as it is, were the fullness of their Gospel experience.  It’s their view of an event-dependent God, a view that confirms their individual-centered expectation of getting it all from God at once, so that one could now sing “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!” and declare “Jesus is my personal Lord and Savior!”

In the fullness of the Gospel message, salvation is not a moment locked in a Christian individual’s personal timeline, rendering Jesus from that point forward as “his” Lord.  It is in its entirety a state:
in our past (“You were saved by faith in God,” Ephesians 2:8)
in our present (“It is the power of God for those of us who are being saved,” 1 Corinthians 1:18)
in our future (“We will be saved through Him from wrath,” Romans 5:9)
and, frankly, on God’s terms, outside of our perception of time itself (“the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world,” Revelation 13:8).

Salvation is a step-outside-of-past/present/future thing.  It was, it is, and it shall be.

It is the rugged individualism of the American ethos, combined with the conversionism affectation of Evangelicalism, that led U.S. churches into a splintering of the Body of Christ to a degree unimaginable in history prior to the first Great Awakening.  I contend that this fracturing is not best addressed by condemning Evangelicals for their habit of forming new churches whenever they’re displeased with some element of their old church.  Instead, it should inspire the rest of us to continue the prayer of Christ.  We must pray they overcome the easy tendency in their individualistic communities to cast off other parts of the Body.  We must show them that they can stop fleeing from the Body in a misguided show of individualistic piety.  We must teach them, the way Paul taught, that being a leg but not an arm does not exclude one from the wholeness of the Body, and that different parts working for common purposes make the Body whole.  It is the heterogeneity, not the homogeneity, of a body’s system that makes it a successful whole.

Once we pray and instruct our Evangelical brethren in this, we will begin to save them from the myth of church unity being evil.


***


NAYSAYER POINT 3


3. The Evangelical masses of the United States have turned Bible worship into a requirement for membership in their groups.  Idolatry of the Bible has become a staple of their belief systems, to the point that their statements of faith often open with a statement about their belief in the Bible, coming before any mention of their belief in God.  This type of book worship was directly condemned by Jesus, who informed the Pharisees, “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you find eternal life; but they point to me.”  Evangelicals have elevated the medium of God’s inspired message to the level of godhood, following the faulty syllogism, “The Bible is the Word of God.  Jesus is the Word of God.  Therefore, the Bible is ...”  They fail to realize that never once does Scripture refer to its own written text, in part or in whole, as “the Word of God.”  Only Jesus Himself and the Voice of the Lord receive that title.


Worse, having set the Bible up as the one inviolable written code of God’s Rules for Everyone, Evangelicals then effortlessly change its meaning to fit their current political leanings.  They shift easily, generation to generation.  Before the abolition of slavery, they insisted the Bible declared slavery to be natural and God’s way.  Before universal suffrage in the U.S., their preachers used Scripture to show why women should never be allowed to vote.  After that, they used Scripture to support segregation and combat the intermixing of races in public places.  Later they insisted that the Bible shows that races must never intermarry, per God’s own unchanging mandate.


Ask any Evangelical today whether the Bible says such things, and you’ll get a flabbergasted response, disbelief that anyone would ever accuse Christian Evangelicals of believing such nonsense.  Ignorant of their own immoral history, they continue to cling to the central edict of their immoral forebears: that the Bible be worshipped, wielded politically, and referred to by a title it never claims for itself, "the Word of God."  Make no mistake, they will continue their claims about how their current politics are reflected, absolutely and infallibly, in the words of God’s book.


They do not worship God.  They worship their own opinions, superimposed on a sacred text they hold up as their idol.




MY RESPONSE TO POINT 3

Mr. Naysayer, sir, you go too far in calling Evangelicals “idolaters.”  While I admit that they sometimes approach the Bible the way radical Islamists approach the Qur’an – as a physical relic worth killing over—by no means do all or even a majority of them fall under your sweeping accusation that they hold the book up as an idol.

Also, I think you’re mistaking all of Evangelicalism with its Christian fundamentalist arm.  U.S. fundamentalism is a significant but still fractional segment of the entire U.S. Evangelical movement.

A bit of history: Henry Van Dyke was a Christian scholar of a more liberal bent.  Van Dyke proposed, among other things, that the faith held dear by conservative Calvinists, Evangelicals, Presbyterians, Methodists and the like be adjusted to say that all dying infants immediately went to heaven.  That preposterous request was one of the straws that broke the conservative camel’s back and led to the drawing up of Christian “fundamentals,” a decree meant to halt such modernist heresies as Van Dyke’s “all babies go to heaven” idea and the creeping suspicion that maybe the Pope wasn’t really the Antichrist.  These five fundamentalist principles included reference to the “inerrancy” of Scripture as their first and foremost item (just as you alluded to in your argument).  The principles formed the foundation of what is called “fundamentalism” in the U.S. today.  That arm of the Evangelical movement is about a hundred years old.  It is younger than the Evangelical movement by a century and a half, and should not be treated as if it were the same undertaking.  They overlap of course, but they are not identical, and I am not prepared to argue here that all fundamentalists go to heaven.

As to your point of Evangelicals elevating their respect and admiration of the Bible to the level of “worship,” I feel you overstate the case dramatically.  You sound, in fact, very much like one of those Evangelicals you oppose, one who might insist that Catholics “worship Mary,” even though the Roman Catholic Church’s stance against any such thing is quite clear.  Mr. Naysayer, Evangelicals do not worship the Bible.  They may use language that makes one suspect they elevate it too highly (for example, your admittedly valid point about the Bible never calling itself “the Word of God.”)  But I feel such excesses can be dealt with through education rather than through condemnation of the entire movement as a book-worshipping cult.

If I were to educate an Evangelical, I would start by explaining that Biblical inerrancy is not the same thing as Biblical literalism or even Biblical infallibility.  One does not need to throw away the entire Bible simply because Jesus references the mustard seed as the “smallest of all seeds on the Earth” when clearly it literally isn’t.  One does not need to throw away the entire five books of Moses simply because Jesus, when confronted with their literal words about permissible divorce, dismissed their usefulness by saying ... about Scripture inspired by God ... “Moses only permitted that because of the hardness of your heart.  That’s why that bit was in those particular Scriptures.  It’s your fault.”

Further, I would educate my Evangelical friend that inerrancy in teachings, doctrines, principles, and ideas of faith does not mean the same thing as inerrancy in biology, cosmology, physics, genealogies, or mathematics (as in the case of 1 Kings 7:23, which incorrectly calculates the value of Pi to be an even 3.0).

And should my Evangelical friend feel ill at ease because he believes the Bible declares itself to be factually, scientifically, and historically infallible, I would ask him where it makes that claim.  Certainly not in 2 Timothy 3:16, which characterizes Scripture as being profitable and useful for training and equipping a child of God to do good works.  “Profitable and useful” are descriptions of a tool, and a most impressive one, but in no way say “scientific infallibility.”  And certainly not Romans 15:4, which likewise treats the writings of old as instruction tools and texts of encouragement.  2 Peter 3:16 concedes that there are things in Paul’s letters that are hard to understand and can be misused, just like in all Scripture; 2 Timothy 2:15 implies that the word needs to be studied thoroughly to divide it rightly and to apply it as a child of God.

And my Evangelical friend is likely, finally, to say: “But 2 Timothy 3:16 states directly that all Scripture was inspired, breathed into, by God.  If there are any mistakes in it, doesn’t that make God fallible or a liar?  Doesn’t it?”

To that I will say, still teaching: “You’re mistaken.  That verse doesn’t say Scripture was breathed by God.  It says all Scripture is breathed by God, is inspired by him, is in the present tense, not was in the past tense.  That clearly shows that the act of inspiration dwells within the reading as much as it does in the writing, in hearing the Scriptures and applying them now.  All Scripture is inspired by God, continuously given by the breath of God.  And God is still breathing, still inspiring the works of righteousness directed by that passage.  It’s that step-outside of past/present/future thing all over again.  It is God ... still speaking.”


CONCLUSION

Mr. Naysayer, I consider you thoroughly rebutted.

Simply because Evangelicalism was of questionable birth does not make its current adherents into reprobates immune to God’s salvation.
Simply because its American adherents are subject to a cultural ethos of rugged individualism does not mean there is no hope for some, the remnant within, who work for the unity of the Body of Christ.
Simply because some of them fall into the Pharisaic trap of worshipping the letter while forgetting the true nature of the Word of God, our Savior Jesus, does not mean they are all idolaters.

If they abide in Christ, they can be saved.  Though a thousand fellow Evangelicals fall to the left, another thousand fall to the right, there is still hope in Christ that will lead to the salvation of particular Evangelicals.

Let us not grieve the Holy Spirit by thinking otherwise.

Marana Tha,

Cosmic Parx a.k.a. YoYo Rez

Thursday, April 17, 2014

Wait ... God Hates DOGS?

About a month after the death of Fred Phelps, infamous “God Hates Fags!” activist and founder of the funeral-crashing Westboro Baptist Church, I came across this unique sermon, a sort of eulogy to Phelps.

I’m not familiar with the works or preaching of the minister below, a “Rev. Daley O’Grasper,” but I’m certain he wouldn’t mind the blatant abuse of copyright laws I commit here by quoting his sermon in full.  Surely he wants his message spread to as wide an audience as possible.  As you’ll see, he does a remarkable job of showing Biblically how “God Hates Fags!” is only the beginning, and how applying the same Westboro Baptist Scriptural approach to other areas of the Bible will lead us ever closer to becoming a pure and righteous nation.  His message comes across more strongly if you imagine his voice in a down-home preacher accent. 

On a personal note … I'm not fond of his use of Phelp's term "fags."  But I sure am relieved I only own a cat.


A SERMON BY THE REV. DALEY O’GRASPER
“Beyond Hating Fags”  ~ April 13, 2014


Brother and sisters, a shining light of truth has gone out.  The Reverend Fred A. Phelps, a man fearless in his proclamation of the truth, has finally gone on to glory, and we are left a little emptier in our efforts to beat some godly sense into this godforsaken nation.  More than anyone, Fred knew the Biblical principle that the “kingdom of heaven is born of violence, and the violent must take it by force.”

We have lost a Four-Star General in our Sodomite Wars.

And I know what you feel, brothers and sisters!  I know you are asking, “Reverend O’Grasper, who will lead us now?  Reverend O’Grasper, is all now lost, and must we now quit the field of battle, ceding ground to the Gay Brigades?”

Take heart, my children of God.  For the Reverend Daley O’Grasper knows what must be done.  We will not give up ground!  We will not end the fight!

In fact, we will win new ground.  We will fight an even broader fight.

Fred Phelps, I tell you now, did not go far enough.  Did you hear me?  I’ll say it again.  Fred Phelps did not go far enough with his “God Hates Fags” crusade, for the Bible reveals to us an even graver threat to the sanctity of American families.  There is an anti-Scriptural curse within millions of homes throughout this land, and it has been here in front of our eyes for so long, it must be that we were too blind to see it.

Brothers and sisters … God Hates Dogs.


The Biblical Case


Oh, brothers, I know you’re gasping at that!  Sisters, I know you are clutching your pearls.  But biblical truth will not be kept silent, not while the Reverend Daley O’Grasper still has breath in his lungs!

Protest all you wish, but the simple fact is: the God of the Bible hates dogs even more than He hates “fags.”

Homosexuality is mentioned in 8 books of the Bible.  But dogs?  The canine curse?  They are mentioned negatively in 19 books of the Bible, a full 237% more books than those mentioning homosexuals.

And distinct passages within those books?  Homosexuality is mentioned or implied in 9, yes only 9 different passages, and then only if you stretch it a little.  But dogs?  The four-footed fiends?  They are condemned in 32 distinct passages, 356% more condemnation than what the Lord provided for those homosexuals we so vehemently oppose.

Perhaps you claim I’m playing a cute numbers game … but I tell you, they are God’s numbers, it is no game, and to question them is to question the Almighty himself!

Perhaps you say that the dogs are sometimes only used as a metaphor for the heathen … but I answer you, God selected that metaphor because it was the creature he found most disgusting on the face of the Earth.  For why would He use dogs as a metaphor of His disgust if they did not disgust Him?

Perhaps you think “common sense” should overrule the divine revelation of the inerrant Word of God … but I say to you that your love of cuddly Mr. Muffins the chihuahua or noble Rex the German shepherd is no love at all, but a lie of the devil as he tries to fill our homes with creatures contrary to the righteousness of God.

If you have a household dog … a creature condemned by God himself, interacting with your loved ones … then you have brought utter perversity into your home.

From here on, our message will be this: If we spend a day in our fight against homosexuals in America, we must commit 3 to 4 of the following days in our fight against the far more hated creature of Scripture, the dog.

For God hates dogs, and He hates you if you love them in defiance to His Word.


Scriptural Lessons about Dog Ownership

The Reverend Daley O’ Grasper says unto you: If dogs could talk, they would say bad things about holy people.

“But against any of the children of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue, against man or beast: that ye may know how that the Lord doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel.” (Exodus 11:7)

What you pay to buy or "adopt" the abomination called “dog” is equivalent to what you pay a whore.

“Thou shalt not bring the hire of a whore, or the price of a dog, into the house of the Lord thy God for any vow: for even both these are abomination unto the Lord thy God.” (Deut 23:18)

Dogs are equated with sexually aberrant behavior.

2 Sam. 3:8 -- Abner protests that having inappropriate relations with his father's concubine would make him a "dog's head."

Dogs are unworthy as protectors of your children.

God has Gideon reject any warrior who drinks water “like a dog” rather than with their hands, for by that behavior they show themselves to be unfit as God's holy warriors. (Judges 7:5-7)

Dogs are lowly, and to be considered one is insulting.

“And the Philistine said unto David, Am I a dog, that thou comest to me with staves? And the Philistine cursed David by his gods.” (I Sam. 17:43)  Further, Abishai calls a "dead dog" one who has insulted King David (2 Sam. 16:9).

Dogs eat the fallen bodies of the cursed.

I Kings 14:11; 1 Kings 16:4 -- Those who die cursed are eaten by dogs.  In addition, I Kings 21:19-23 shows that as part of a holy man’s curse, dogs lick up the blood of the condemned (Elijah to Ahab); and dogs eat the condemned one's wife (Jezebel).

Dogs killed the Messiah.

Psalms 22:16 – “For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.”  (A prophesy of the Christ!  God saw dogs as so despicable that He casts them in the role of murdering His own Son!)

A dog symbolizes hateful, vicious violence.

2 Kings 8:13 -- One who slays men, dashes children, and rips open pregnant women is a dog.

Heathens are dogs.

Psalm 59:6-8 -- “They return at evening: they make a noise like a dog, and go round about the city.  Behold, they belch out with their mouth: swords are in their lips: for who, say they, doth hear? But thou, O Lord, shalt laugh at them; thou shalt have all the heathen in derision.”

Dogs are foolish and violent.

Proverbs 26:11, 17 – “As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly ... He that passeth by, and meddleth with strife belonging not to him, is like one that taketh a dog by the ears.”

Dogs are the pinnacle of sloth and greed.

Isaiah 56:10-11 – “His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber.  Yea, they are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and they are shepherds that cannot understand: they all look to their own way, every one for his gain, from his quarter.”

Dogs are vicious deliverers of God's insult and wrath.

Jer. 15:3 – “And I will appoint over them four kinds, saith the Lord: the sword to slay, and the dogs to tear, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the earth, to devour and destroy.”

Nothing holy should be given to dogs.

Matt. 7:6 – “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.”

Dogs = Evil workers.

Philippians 3:2 – “Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision.”

Dog will not run from repetitive acts of sin.

2 Peter 2:22 – “But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, the dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.”

Dogs are not in heaven -- they are outside the gates with the evildoers.

Rev. 22:14-15 – “Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.”


Conclusion

This is the creature Americans see as a member of the family.  This is the foul beast that they let play with their children, guard their home.  This is the biblical view of the brute some dare call Man's Best Friend.

Yes, brothers and sisters, the Word of God is hard.  The path of righteousness is not an easy one.  Even here today, I see that half of this very congregation has stood up and stormed out of here, furious to hear the Word of truth so plainly proclaimed.

Every single one of them is a dog lover, and, as such, is an enemy of this great nation and the Word of God.

We must oppose them, my dear remnant.  And we must oppose them 3 to 4 times as much as we have previously opposed homosexuals, as the Word of God makes clear.

Those who left during this sermon … they will be outside the gates of the Heavenly City when final judgment comes.  Only the baying of their rancid, evil pets will accompany the flames that consume them.

For truly, my brothers and sisters … God.  Hates.  Dogs.

And if you can’t see that, you’ll have forever to regret it.

Let us pray …

____________________________________________________________


A final thought from Cosmic Parx:

Did it strike anyone else as kind of ironic that the initials for the Reverend  Daley O’ Grasper would be Rev. D.O’G.?

Marana Tha,

Cosmic Parx