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

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

R.I.P. Fred Phelps and Westboro Baptists

It’s been a couple weeks since the death of Fred W. Phelps, founder of the “God Hates Fags” Web site and leader of the funeral-protesting Westboro Baptist Church.  His passing brings to my mind a number of times I’ve been questioned over the past few months about the ONA policy of my East Coast congregation, the United Church of Christ.  “ONA” stands for “open and affirming,” a position of acceptance toward our gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered members.

UCC is, in effect, the polar opposite of the Westboros of this world.  We are decidedly NonFred Phelpsian.

“Do you go to that gay church?” a friend recently asked me in my social network world of Second Life (where I’m also an active member of a UCC ministry).  That’s an odd question, since being ONA does not make UCC a “gay church” any more than being handicapped-accessible makes our congregation a “disabilities church.”  Our openness to Latino members doesn’t make us a “Spanish church.”  Our acceptance of elderly members doesn’t make us a “geriatric church.”

We are, quite simply, the Church.

Whose Church?  Christ’s.  No other modifier is needed, although we choose by our name to emphasize that we find our unity in Him, making us a United Church of Christ.

“But what about the fact that the Bible condemns homosexuals eternally to the fires of hell?” some of my friends wonder at me.  And yes, I do consider these people my friends and my brothers and sisters in Christ, and I am pleased they are honest with me about their concerns.

I answer: “That’s not our interpretation of Scripture.  We don’t believe the Bible actually teaches any such thing.”

“But it does!” some of my friends insist.  “It’s right there in black and white!  How can you believe the Bible doesn’t teach that?”

And with that question, I step gently into The Talk.  I only offer The Talk to those who seem genuinely interested in knowing how we at UCC approach Scripture.  I try to initiate The Talk with the humility of spirit I imagine would be found in a 19^th century abolitionist talking gently to a dear friend who insists slavery is approved by Scripture.

I present The Talk here in its entirety.  I’ve written it up as a script with some usage directions, the mental instructions I give myself while I use it and adapt it to the individual to whom I'm ministering.

The Talk isn’t an exercise in Biblical exegesis.  It’s conducted at a much more basic level than that, the core hermeneutics of how the Bible is approached as a work communicating the mind and will of God.  I take this approach not simply to avoid tedious disputes over the ungodliness of eating lobster and wearing mixed fabrics, but to drive home a basic fact: most ONA congregations approach Scripture in exactly the same manner as the vast majority of Evangelicals.

THE TALK

:::::

A Response to Evangelicals about Why the United Church of Christ (and other Christian denominations) Are Open and Affirming for the LGBT Community

:::::

((NOTE: Please feel free to use and modify this as a conversation guide for discussing UCC ONA beliefs with Evangelical friends.  The script is written in a manner that speaks to Biblical literalists, and it reflects the spirit of 1 Peter 3:15: “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.”))

***

Why do we accept and affirm members of the LGBT community?  I would be happy to try to answer that.

As I answer, I ask a favor: Please listen to this entire explanation before responding.  It will require five uninterrupted minutes of your time.  It is the one courtesy I request, since you have sincerely asked for an explanation.

Is that a reasonable request?

((WAIT FOR POSITIVE RESPONSE.  IF AT ANY TIME YOU ARE INTERRUPTED, SAY SOME VERSION OF THE FOLLOWING: “I see you’ve started to comment.  Would you like me to stop the 5-minute explanation you agreed I could give?”))

Okay, then …

Yes, Scripture does have several passages that read as if they condemn all homosexual acts in all circumstances.  And yes, at first glance it would seem as if we of UCC are “ignoring” those passages.  We are not, however, ignoring them.  We are interpreting them for better understanding.  To help you understand what I mean by that, I will use three examples of an identical approach to Scripture – your own.

EXAMPLE 1:

When you read the fifth chapter of Matthew, you see Jesus commanding you to pluck out your right eye or to cut off your right hand if either causes you to sin.  At no point do you consider that to be a literal command, despite the clarity of the words.  Instead, you immediately conclude that the Lord couldn’t possibly mean for you actually to maim or blind yourself.  You say YES, BUT … and you allow yourself an alternate interpretation of that verse.  At this point in my explanation, it isn’t important what you say after the YES, BUT.  What matters is that something in you, something in your mind and in your heart, immediately led you to reconsider any literal application of those words to your own walk in Christ.

Of course you have other words you think and say after YES, BUT.  You might have hunted down a Scripture that forbids self-maiming, and decided you must interpret Jesus’ words in light of that other Scripture.  You might have researched literary forms and decided some statements in Scripture are hyperbole or symbols.  But the fact is, you would never have started hunting for that other verse if you hadn’t had the YES, BUT moment.  You wouldn’t have been troubled enough to research literary forms if you hadn’t had that YES, BUT moment.

Where did that moment come from?  What made you step back from your customary literalism in order to rightly divide the Word of truth?

EXAMPLE 2:

When you read the letters of Paul and discover the literal instructions that women are not to speak in church at all unless they are directly prophesying with their heads covered, and that certainly no woman is to be a church overseer, something within you immediately says YES, BUT and you begin to research and scrutinize and study to justify why you believe that a woman should be allowed to speak in a church or even lead one.  I am inferring you do that, because many Evangelical ministries have female teachers and prayer leaders and have had female pastors.  Likewise, when you read in Scripture that no man may remarry after divorce because that forces his wife to become an adulteress, and that no leader of a church may remain if his own house is not in order, something in you says YES, BUT and similar research and rationalizing begins.  Again, I infer you must think in this way because many Evangelical churches are led by divorced and remarried men.  So it’s clear that at least they, and very likely you, say in the heart YES, BUT and then work toward understanding God’s Scriptures in light of their (and your) own circumstances.

Again, I ask: Where does that YES, BUT moment come from?

EXAMPLE 3:

When you read the second chapter of 1 Peter in Scripture, you discover that Christian slaves who are being unfairly beaten by their masters, their owners, are directed to take those beatings without complaint, because it is their “calling” in Christ (v. 21).  It probably dawns on you that this passage means that every slave who strives to be free of violence and abuse is, in light of the literal nature of these words of 1 Peter 2, in rebellion against God and in violation of that slave’s Christian calling, a rebel just as Satan was a rebel.  Every slave who is Christian … ancient slaves of Rome, American slaves before the Civil War, modern slaves pressed into sex prostitution … is to quietly take his or her abuse as an appropriate role within the kingdom of God.

Right now, if you are a decent human being, your heart and your mind are saying YES, BUT …

CONCLUSION:

In the UCC, we embrace that YES, BUT moment by means of a single phrase: “God is still speaking,”  We even end the sentence like that, with a comma, to show our commitment to the idea.  When you as an Evangelical feel that YES, BUT moment in your heart as you ponder challenging Scripture, we would call it one of those moments when God is still speaking, the voice of the Spirit still within you.

Yes, Scripture records a demand for the silence of women in churches.  Yes, Scripture records a requirement that a church leader be a once-married male.  Yes, Scripture records the Creator as saying “I hate divorce.”  Yes, Scripture records a condemnation of homosexual activity.  Yes, Scripture records a call for self-maiming to escape sin.  Yes, Scripture records a command to accept unjust slave beatings as the slave’s Christian role.

For five of those six, you, as an Evangelical believer, heed your heart when it says YES, BUT. That is because in that heart of yours, God is still speaking,

We as UCC believers and children of God have that same reaction to all six of those six.

All the studied reasoning you have used to shed light on your five YES, BUT moments — considerations of cultural differences, appeals to other Scriptures, scrutiny of original Greek or Hebrew words, appeals to common sense and literary forms — whatever approach you’ve taken for your five areas, we have as well, and for all six areas.  We stand in agreement with you.  We affirm that yours is a sound, valid way to approach Scripture.  We firmly agree that the Spirit of God within you, the wisdom the Spirit puts in your heart when it says YES, BUT, is holy and noble and righteous.

I don’t ask that you come to the same conclusions we do.  But I do ask, with respect and as your sister in Christ, that you recognize that in these matters our approaches to the Bible are not different from yours.  My actual details for my opinions might not hold water for you, but the approach itself is one you embrace in your own life.  I will worship beside a homosexual believer just as readily as you will accept a divorced and remarried female pastor who rejects slavery.  Both of us must face Scriptures that seem to the unschooled eye to oppose our stances.  But in both of our hearts, God is still speaking His YES, BUT and growing us in the ability to rightly divide the word of truth.

Thank you for allow me to share those thoughts without interruption.

And if you're interested to learn more about us, we also have really cool commercials.

Marana Tha,

Cosmic Parx

How to Start Your Own Cult

Every year in a Humanities course I teach, I present a unit titled, “How to Start Your Own Cult.”  Naturally, it isn’t designed to encourage real cult-building.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  It’s designed to make students immune to the manipulation that can lead to cult-like membership of any kind.

My unit focuses on modes of social discourse, primarily how unscrupulous people with a knack for language, social coercion, and psychological manipulation can subtly pressure us into buying an appliance we don’t need, donating to a cause we don’t care about, or, yes, even turning our free will over to a dynamic cult leader.

Even my naming that school unit the way I do is an example of subtle coercion, piquing the interest of students by sounding like forbidden fruit.  Inevitably, one or more students will ask me: “Are we really allowed to be learning this?  How to make a cult?”

I invariably reply: “Yes.  But you must swear only to use your powers for good.”

BUT WHAT IS A CULT?

That’s a good question.  I won’t answer it to your satisfaction.  That’s because no one can answer it satisfactorily.  The word “cult” has come a long way since its early use as a positive term signifying a religious group with a particular focus.  Within early Catholicism it was almost the equivalent of our current terms “sect” or “denomination.”  In the latter half of the 20^th century, however, the word developed a universally negative connotation in English.  It became vogue to apply the damning term to anyone with whom we disagreed theologically or philosophically.  In under five Google minutes of what I’ll laughingly call research, I managed to find:

• Protestants calling Roman Catholicism a cult
• Calvinists calling the Word of Faith movement a cult
• Evangelicals calling Calvinism a cult
• Republicans calling the Democratic Party a cult
• Democrats calling the Tea Party a cult
• Mean people calling the My Little Pony craze a cult

Don’t like something?  Call it a cult.  By applying that name, the implication is that right thinking people … you know, rational, sober people like you and me … wouldn’t give in to the lies and manipulations of a group that embraces heresy and falsehood.  The leaders of those groups (we tell ourselves) are already too far gone to help, but we can still rescue the unwitting victims, the weak of mind who were tricked into believing the lies thrust upon them through brainwashing or worse.  If we could reach them … break them off from the cult, make them see reason, even deprogram them while keeping them in isolation for a time … we’d be doing them and the world a great service!

And acting a little, um, cult-like ourselves, I guess.

And scattered therein are the elements of my not-very-satisfying definition of a cult, for the purposes of this blog post: It is an organization that knowingly uses mental and social manipulation and coercion to make you dependent on their ideas, their society, their worldview, and their leaders.  I’ll be the first to say that that definition is overly broad, maybe even unfairly so.  But as a starting point, it helps focus us on the path toward a much more interesting question:

If you were a member of a Christian cult, would you even know it?

By learning the steps of cult-building, you have a tool that might open your eyes to manipulation you hadn’t noticed before.

5 STEPS TOWARD BUILDING A CULT

Any decent salesperson can tell you that the key to closing a sale is to lead a prospect to a point where you ask, “What one thing is keeping you from buying this product?” When you get the prospective customer to verbalize that one thing, you sell against that single objection, showing how it isn’t as much a barrier as the customer thought.  Objection answered, the prospect has no other hurdle, and the sale is that much nearer.

Cult leaders are more than decent salespeople.  They’re masters.  The best of them can give you the feeling that an objection has been answered long before you’ve verbalized it.  If I were designing my own cult, here are some of the steps I’d take to add members to my growing cult empire.

CULT BUILDING STEP 1: I’d Create and Define an Enemy

Nothing unites like opposition.  Consider, for example, the rise and fall of the Baha’i religion.  Viewed as a heretical cult in Persia (Iran) of the mid-1800s, the faith suffered over 20,000 martyrdoms in its first decade … and, having the common enemy of Islam as the force uniting them, grew dramatically in the following half-century.  That time of persecution represented their greatest growth spurt; once they came to the United States, growth stayed tepid except for a brief increase in the 1970s, when society itself was cast as the enemy.  Since those days, little has happened.  Without a defined enemy, the faith languishes with a U.S. membership under two hundred thousand.  By way of comparison, that’s fewer people than those who signed petitions last month to have Justin Bieber deported back to Canada.

As an Alpha Cult Leader, my first job would be to clearly identify something that my people can be against.  And I mean vehemently against, something that embodies pure evil.  I can do this by pointing my finger at something that exists – Big Pharma, the Government, Evolutionists, Born Agains, White People – or, failing that, I can invent an enemy who doesn’t exist in any organized manner, but who’ll embody whatever attributes I prefer to oppose – a Secular Humanist Cabal, the Illuminati, a Post-Modernist Agenda, the Liberal Media, Lizard Overlords, The Bush 9/11 Conspiracists.  The point is this: In the absence of any actual persecution, I need to make my first followers feel keenly that they are being oppressed by a force they have no hope of overcoming.  Banding together as victims of the common Enemy is their only option.

CULT BUILDING STEP 2: I’d Declare, “Act Now, Seats Limited!”

Infomercials underwent an interesting development in our lifetime.  Gone (nearly) is the assurance that “Operators are standing by!” and in its place is the advice, “If you get a busy signal, try again!”  The change was a conscious one.  The idea that operators were standing by led, inadvertently, to mental images of vast phone banks peopled by bored operators who were getting very little business.  The replacement phrase, encouragement to keep trying when phones were busy, painted a different picture in the consumer’s mind – active phone banks, many calls, and should you get through … well, hey, you’re one of the lucky few!  You made it!

To make your purchase feel special, marketers set artificial limits.  That limit might be time (“Call within the next 30 minutes for your discount!”), quantities (“Due to high demand, a maximum of 4 items per caller!”), or both (“Jesus is coming within the next 3 years, and only 144,000 will be saved!”)

Yes, that last example jumped from sales to cults.  The Catastrophist Christian Cults of the mid-1800s and later used this sales technique to great effect.  Accepting Christ and their leader wasn’t an open-ended deal.  Time was limited.  At any moment, the Second Coming could occur and those not accepted to the in-group might not be part of the exclusive club that escapes the Enemy’s wrath.  Hey, we don’t take just anyone!  But we might take you.

As an Alpha Cult Leader, I want a similar effect.  Not just anyone gets to wander up to my place of cultifying and grab a seat.  My invitations would have a cap (“We only have ten extra seats tonight”), and I’d require admission credentials (“You’re with Karen?  Good; we prefer to seat those who come with one of our members!”)  I’d imply a time limit (“We had to turn away a couple groups of people last week because they arrived too late.”)  And I’d make use of that enemy I conjured up in step one (“We’ve had a few cases where atheists [or government agents, or PETA activists, or global warming deniers] tried to sneak in here so they could spy and disrupt.  You don’t seem to be one of those sorts.”)

Letting you into our exclusive club doesn’t just make us look special.  It makes you feel special, and that’s the point.  We’re winning you.

CULT BUILDING STEP 3: I’d Play “The Humble Confessor”

Nobody likes perfect people.  Oh, we claim we do, especially here in America.  We love our heroes.  But you know what we like more than that?  We love to see our heroes fall, because it reminds us that nobody’s perfect … and if even the best people aren’t perfect, then there’s an outside shot for the rest of us poor slobs.

As an Alpha Cult Leader, I will not allow you to discover accidentally that I’m imperfect.  Instead, I’ll be the one to tell you.  I will stand up in front of my growing congregation and declare, “Remember, you’re not here for Reverend Yolanda.  You’re not here because Reverend Yolanda has anything special to offer you.  You’re here because there’s something bigger than all of us!  And it’s a good thing, too, because if you knew the weaknesses of Reverend Yolanda, the faults in her heart – how she can sometimes become angry at a moment’s notice in the face of cruel unbelievers; how she sometimes feels too tired to go on and has to turn to the Mighty Power to lift her weak self; how she sometimes doubts and says, Is this marvelous ministry what you want me to do, Oh Power, is it really this wondrous thing you’re calling me to?” … well, if you could see those faults clearly, you’d know that whenever Reverend Yolanda lifts her hands to the sky, it’s so she can get one small, meager use from this sinful body, and that’s to point to the Power Above!”

How honest I sound!  How willing to open my soul!  How inspiring to those who are also weak!

Notice, though, a couple things.  First is the distancing trick of referring to myself in the third person … not saying “I” but instead saying “Reverend Yolanda.”  If you listen closely to your favorite preachers, you’ll hear that technique used a lot.  The trick simultaneously (1) keeps you a little distanced from me, so you remember I’m a touch higher; (2) distances me from the faults I’ve listed for myself, discretely creating the impression I’m above the sins as well; and (3) creates a “second” me who is standing there next to you, as human as you are, and simultaneously admiring me from beside you.

Take a look, too, at the faults I assign myself.  I have a temper (in the face of evil); I get tired (because I do so much for all of you); I doubt (in the face of the marvels the Power does through me).  In effect, I’m saying I’m wonderful to a fault.  You have simultaneous feelings that I’m open about my humanity and frailty, but also that I’m the most amazing person you’ve ever met.  Let’s face it, that’s something that can’t be achieved by confessions like, “When I finish preaching, I do five shots of Grey Goose and find me an orgy to relax.”  There are confessions … and then there are confessions that help grow the cult.  As your Alpha Cult Leader, I am careful to reveal the latter only.

CULT BUILDING STEP 4: I’d Make You Secretly Special

Once you’ve come to my cult meeting a few times … once I’ve made sure you have the sense of how wonderfully human and stunningly above you I am … I will find the perfect moment to get you alone.  I’ll keep you in the crowd, since I want the buzz of the congregation serving as background sound while I speak to you.  You’ll be surprised that I waved you over to the side.  As far as you could tell, I didn’t even know you existed!  But here you are, being called over by the Reverend Yolanda!  For a second you feel panic.  Did you do something wrong?  Is this a bad thing?

“Hey,” I say to you, putting a hand on your shoulder and looking around to be sure no one is overhearing us (a trick that makes you keenly aware that the whole place probably notices I’ve called you aside).  “I have to tell you … I get such a powerful feeling of the Mighty Power when I see you worshipping here.  It’s as if you really have a direct connection to the Mighty Awesomeness.  I envy you.  It took me so many years to find that state in myself, and I can’t tell you how inspiring it is for me to see you clicking with it immediately, as if you have a special calling on your life.  I just felt I had to tell you that.  Thank you for inspiring me.”

Boom.  Did you just hear that?  Did that just happen, here, in front of everyone, you and the Reverend Yolanda sharing a secret … a secret that you inspire her?  That you have a gift?  That you connect to the Mighty Force of the Cult?  Holy moley!  That Reverend Yolanda … she is so insightful!

CULT BUILDING STEP 5: I’d Have You Do Me A Favor

Now that I have you coming to the cult, and I have you admiring the cult leader, and I have you feeling important in the cult, I have one more thing to do to make you feel obliged to us.  I’ll ask you for a favor, preferably something that inconveniences you a little.  Or even a lot.

You might think I have that backwards.  Wouldn’t you feel more indebted to me if I did you a favor, instead of asking you to do me one?  Believe it or not, no.  According to research summarized by Noah J. Goldstein in his book Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive, the key to remembering a favor is to be the one to do it, not to be the one to get the benefits.  If I ask you to drive me to a charity event one Sunday, you will remember doing that favor for a lot longer than I’ll remember having received it.

Goldstein tells the story of how Ben Franklin was disliked personally by a member of the Continental Congress.  Franklin solved that problem by asking to borrow a rare volume from the man’s library, and asking that the man put himself out by delivering it personally to Franklin’s home.  Franklin held on to the book for a while, returned it with copious thanks, and the two became fast friends for the rest of their lives.  Franklin knew the trick: If I ask you for a favor, you begin to redefine yourself as the sort of person who’s nice enough to do me a big favor.  You feel better about yourself, you remember doing your favor for a long time, and you begin to see me in a more favorable light as well.  After all, you wouldn’t do favors for just anybody.

As your Alpha Cult Leader, I would wait until you were just beginning to feel comfortable at my cult meetings, and then I would hit you up for a favor.  The favor wouldn’t involve money.  It would involve your time and effort.  Would you be able to pick up three youths who come to our sessions and need a ride weekly?  Or would you be interested in helping out on our Kitchen Cult Yummy Squad?  Or would you lend your building talents to the new addition on the Cult Cave?  I’d pick the favor that best matched your talents, I’d make sure it actually cost you time and effort.  I would be ever in your debt, as you grew to find yourself more and more in my pocket.  After all, you’re the sort of person who does favors for the Alpha Cult Leader.  That’s who you are.  That’s how you see yourself.

ON SECOND THOUGHT …

As I said at the beginning, I obviously don’t want you to go out and start your own cult.  The purpose of thinking in these terms is to train your mind to see the manipulations.  Any one of these steps, when considered in itself, is harmless and healthy.  But when you start seeing clusters of manipulative language and behaviors, it’s time to pause and consider the spirit behind the organization and its leaders.

Just maybe, if you find yourself a member of a Christian Cult, you’ll be able to spot it in time.

Marana Tha,

Cosmic Parx

‘Hate the Poor’ & Other Acts of Sodomy

Quick trivia question: For what sins was the Biblical city of Sodom condemned to destruction?

If you lean toward a populist understanding of this Genesis 19 story, your immediate reaction might be to say, “For being homosexuals!” due to the fact that the angry mob of men outside Lot’s door demanded to have forcible sex with his two visitors, angels in disguise.   If you’re more influenced by current Biblical scholarship, your answer might be, “For violating the ancient laws of hospitality, because any injustice to strangers is seen by God as a horrific act!”

I submit that a reasoned response to both those approaches should be: Slow down, cowboy, and read the question again.

For what sins was the Biblical city of Sodom condemned to destruction?

The simple fact is, when Sodom was condemned, no acts of forced angel rape or violations of sacred hospitality against those angels had yet taken place.  The decision to destroy Sodom had been made before the angels arrived there.  God had already sat with Abraham and announced his intentions, and Abraham had already negotiated with the Lord, convincing Him to spare the city if one hundred righteous men could be found, or even fifty, or even thirty, or even, in the end, ten.  That caveat notwithstanding, the destruction decision had been made already.  Anything involving the angels who visited Sodom was a secondary incident, and any conclusions drawn from their story by either populist or progressive Biblical scholars is simply inference.

For my part, I take neither view.  I prefer a stance far more conservative than those of the progressives or even of the traditionalists.  More on that below.

Word Play

As a linguist, I’m intrigued by the origins of words we adopt; as a Christian, I’m especially intrigued by those with etymologies rooted in Scripture.

Take the word “onanism,”  for example.  It’s fallen out of fashion recently, but the word derives from the story of Onan, an Old Testament character who “spilled his seed on the ground”  during sex with his brother’s widow, refusing to provide his dead brother an heir. This act of defiance sounds a lot more like the Roman Catholic Rhythm Method of birth control than anything else, but “onanism” took on a life of its own in the late 1700s and started to refer exclusively to male masturbation.  Since the Bible has no direct spiritual legislation about male masturbation, the term “onanism” became a handy tool for preachers keen on suppressing it.  Presumably, female masturbation was not a pressing concern of the era.

Like “onanism,” our current use of the term “sodomy” as referring to anal sex also might be only tangentially connected to its source story.  Even if one accepts the populist interpretation of the text, “sodomy” would literally be an act of desiring (although not actually having) sex with angels  (think nephilim and the days before Noah).  It might also refer to the other atrocities tied to the text (e.g., to offering one’s own daughters to be raped, or to drunken incest, which Lot’s daughters performed soon after).

But if I really wish to redefine the term “sodomy,” I’d be better served investigating what the Lord originally found so vile about the people of that city … male and female, not just the guys.  I could spend all day drawing conservative vs. liberal inferences from Genesis 19, but why do that when I have other parts of Scripture that tell me directly what the Lord says it means to “be like Sodom”?  Permit me to abandon modern liberalism, to abandon modern conservatism, and to get downright reactionary on you.  Let me travel back to the days of Ezekiel and Isaiah.

Being Like Sodom

The destruction of Sodom left a lasting imprint on the Hebrew culture.  The prophets used Sodom as an example of wickedness for scores of centuries after the story was first told.  Interestingly, the prophets never used it as a symbol of homosexuality or violations of hospitality.  Let’s listen to Ezekiel’s take on what it meant to be like Sodom:

“Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed, and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.  They were haughty and did detestable things before me.  Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.” (Ezekiel 16:49-50)

Holy smokes, sulfur, and brimstone! Right there, the Lord reveals his exact motivation for destroying Sodom!  The Lord slew them to a person because they were:

• arrogant – they were awash in their own sense of superiority and self-esteem
• overfed – while the rest of the world was on tight rations, they stuffed themselves
• unconcerned – they presumed no retribution for their arrogance and gluttony
• did not help the poor – their wealth stayed with them, and the poor languished
• did not help the needy – the oppressed, the handicapped, the sick, the lame, they all went unnoticed

What made them haughty?  What acts made them detestable?  The very ones listed above, with nary a mention of inhospitality or angel rape.

How does one escape being like a citizen of Sodom?  Isaiah joins Ezekiel by telling us clearly in his prophecy’s first chapter, where God urges Israel to turn from the ways of Sodom by doing those things Sodom wouldn’t do:

“Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom … Learn to do right; seek justice.  Defend the oppressed.  Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.” (Isaiah 1:10, 17)

So Scripture does, in fact, tell us the sins of Sodom, at least the ones worth mentioning explicitly: arrogance, being overfed, being unconcerned, not helping the poor and needy, being haughty, not doing right, not seeking justice, not defending the oppressed, failing to take up the cause of the fatherless, not pleading the case of the widow.  Add to that a reference in Jude 7 about sexual immorality, too, and you have an exhaustive list, and a powerful condemnation.  It leaves nothing to inference, nothing to guessing.  It is the word of the Lord.

Our Modern Sodom

When I hear U.S. evangelical preachers claiming that America is becoming a modern-day Sodom, I agree with them.  Sure, they make that declaration for all the wrong reasons … they assume they’re talking about gay marriage, background checks on guns, socialism, and other modern horrors.  But in Scriptural reality, we become more like Sodom every time we or one of our leaders makes a move to hurt the poor, the fatherless, and the oppressed.  Worse, we become as blind as the residents of Sodom every time we buy into the anti-Biblical notion that a nation should not strive to provide social justice and welfare to its most vulnerable inhabitants.

Ignore the poor?  That is a Sodom Mindset.  Despise the hurting?  That is a Sodom Heart.  Go through life with the assumption that the less fortunate must deserve their plight, somehow, some way?  That is the same error made by Job’s friends, and Isaiah and Ezekiel see it as the mark of a Sodomite.

Please, America, know this: 

• Every time a U.S. politician makes cuts to programs that feed the hungry … we see a true Biblical act of sodomy.
• Every time a legislative body moves to hamper a minority’s freedom to vote and participate in government … we are seeing sodomy.
• Every time a well-fed person of power works to limit school lunches for the needy, we are seeing sodomy.
• Every time a candidate berates the poor as lazy at her 3,000-dollar-a-plate fundraiser, we are seeing sodomy.
• Every time a politician says that private charities and not public largess should care for our elderly, our veterans, our disabled, our mentally ill, and our starving children in fatherless families, we fall deeper into the errors of history’s most sinful city.   

I hear the pushback.  There are those who would say, “But welfare makes people lazy!”  And I will answer, Yes, there are poor people who cheat, just as there are rich people who cheat, just as there are working class and middle class people who cheat.  But I ask you this: If there are even one hundred people on public assistance who are there righteously, would you spare them your wrath?

What if there were only fifty such people?

And please, don’t be angry if I continue, but what if there were only ten such people?  Would you spare the system your wrath if there were only ten such righteous people being saved by the public generosity of our nation?  Or would you destroy the righteous with the wicked?

I pray you, Lord, that we save our nation from modern day Sodomizers.

Marana Tha,

Cosmic Parx / YoYo Rez

The Little Tin God of Apologetics

Christian Apologetics demands systematic structure.  However, sometimes I just like to wander around in thought.  So for irony's sake, today's critique of Christian Apologetics will abandon structure and flow like a wild stream.

“Ladies and gentlemen: Are you ready to rrraaaaaambllllllllllllllllle?”

***

Here’s a homey Apologetics metaphor I thunk up while watching remodelers in my home last month:

Imagine a contractor comes to redo your kitchen.  You watch him work, and you admire his skill.  The man is a master with the hammer, never a hesitation, never a  bad hit as he drives those nails home into the new window casing.  But then you watch as he sets a pane of window glass into the new frame.  He aligns it carefully, and instead of reaching for the caulk, he again grabs that trusty hammer, drawing his arm back to nail the glass into place.

“Wait!” you dare to yell at this expert.  “Why on Earth are you using a hammer to set the window?”

“I’m a Hammerist,” he explains, sounding quite reasonable.  “Hammering is my gift.  Since it’s what I do well, I use it for everything.”

“Oh,” you say.  “Even for making sandwiches?”

“Now you’re just mocking me,” he says darkly as he raises the hammer toward you.

THE LITTLE TIN GOD

If you’ve ever run into a vehement (“forceful”), virulent (“bitter”), obstinate (“stubborn”) believer in Christ who immediately begins fellowshipping with you by demanding to know your faith credentials, by testing you on a set of key doctrines, by declaring approval or disapproval of your faith almost immediately, and by demanding to know by Scriptural citation whether you can prove you really want him to “have a nice day” as you claim … you have met a follower of the Little Tin God of Apologetics.

The expression “Little Tin God” might come from a Don Henley song or it might be from an Isaac Asimov essay.  Whatever its source, its meaning is intriguing.  As a “little god,” it is clearly an idol, a false focus of worship trying to call attention to itself.  Made of tin, it is not even an impressive idol of precious metals.  It is robotic and cold.  It is hollow inside, lacking the innards and guts and warmth and stuff of humanity.  Like the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz,. it has no heart.

Unlike the Tin Man, it is not on a quest to find one.

THE LIMITATIONS OF APOLOGETICS

I have no hard evidence for it, but my anecdotal experience leads me to feel that a high percentage of Virulent Christian Apologists suffer from Asperger Syndrome, a “developmental disorder related to autism characterized by higher than average intellectual ability coupled with impaired social skills and restrictive, repetitive patterns of interest and activities.”  I’ve only met one Virulent Christian Apologist who shared that he actually had that diagnosis from a physician, but the points of overlap are striking enough to at least justify a comparison by analogy:

Higher than average intellectual ability: Virulent Christian Apologists (let’s just call them VCAs from here on) prove their point by blurting out a Bible verse or the meaning of a Greek or Hebrew word from Scripture, and they demand you do the same on the spot.  If you cannot, they declare themselves a “winner”  of the intellectual argument.

Impaired social skills: VCAs cannot see the difference between fellowship and Apologetic debate.  When a group discussion is about a point of dogma, they become animated and even dominant in the conversation; when the discussion focuses on other aspects of life, they either become oddly silent and withdrawn, or they turn inappropriately silly and verbally clumsy.  For the VCA, times of prayer and worship and praise and elation and celebration in the Lord are awkward experiences.

Repetitive patterns: For the VCA, use of Scripture as a hammer in all situations is not a moral choice; it is a hardwired pattern.  If a truth is needed, there is a Scripture for it.  If there’s a Scripture for it, there is a single truth being conveyed.  I once conducted an informal experiment (unkindly; I should not have done it without consent) to test the repetitive nature of a brother in Christ.  I had noticed a nearly Pavlovian response to certain Scriptures, and I wanted to see if I was imagining the phenomenon.

MY LITTLE EXPERIMENT

With this brother, I noticed that whenever anyone would cite the story where Jesus refuses to condemn the woman caught in adultery, he would quickly remind the person speaking that Jesus then said, “Go and sin no more.”  So I experimented on him over a period of months.  Whenever I would mention the story without that line at the end, he would quickly remind me that was how it ended.  Whenever I mentioned the story and inserted that ending myself, he would thank me for remembering that was how it ended.  It didn’t matter whether or not going forth and sinning no more was part of the point I was making.  The ending had to be there.  My friend had to put it in.  It was in the pattern.

Then I tried it with another of his stimulus-response lines: “Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there I am with them.”  His unvarying response when hearing that was to state a reminder that the verse was written “in the context of church discipline.”  Never mind that the point being made was that God is with His people individually or in a group, small or larger.  The pattern demanded that the point be made that the original context of that particular verse was church discipline.  One line of Scripture, one required response.  I suspect that if he didn’t mention the church discipline context, even when it added nothing to the discussion, he would feel vague unease for the rest of the conversation.

Test number three: Then I tried it with mentions of the human heart.  Say anything about following your heart, and my friend had to remind everyone listening that somewhere in the Bible it declares the human heart to be the most wicked of all things.  Never mind that a mere seven chapters later, the Lord announces he gives His people a heart that will know Him and follow him.  The stimulus-response/one-verse-one-truth mental rule said that if you mention the human heart, my friend had to mention the exact citation of the human heart being most wicked.

WHAT’S YOUR POINT?  WHAT’S YOUR SCRIPTURAL POINT?

Oops.  Sorry.  I just did another mean experiment without consent now.  It was this: Instead of mentioning the exact chapters and verses of the last three Biblical references I made, I stayed vague about their locations in the Bible.  If you didn’t notice I did that until the very last one, you are definitely not a VCA.  If you noticed I did it and filled in for yourself ideas like, “Yes, in John, around chapter 8.  Oh, and in Matthew, I think.  Yes, yes, that’s in Jeremiah somewhere!” you are probably a well read brother or sister in Christ who is not VCA either, simply very familiar with the Word.

BUT … if you immediately filled in with, “John chapter 8.  Ah, Matthew chapter 18.  And Jeremiah 17, that’s obvious, why didn’t she say so, why was she so vague and why did she turn sloppy and say 'somewhere in the Bible'?!?  What the heck!”… then you, my dear brother or sister, you may be in danger of being VCA, and worshipping before the Little Tin God of Apologetics.  If you felt irritated about my nonspecific citations, despite their accuracy, then you are displaying signs of worshipping skilled citation and process of debate above the very essence of truth.  To you, the logic flow may be more important than the Father of All Hearts.

And if you just demanded, “What Scripture does the term ‘the Father of All Hearts’ come from?  Did you make that up?!?” … then you’ve got it really badly.

AT THE ALTAR OF THE LITTLE TIN GOD

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

The gears of the Little Tin God of Apologetics are testing, analysis, dialectic, demand, logic, victory, rightness, and self-congratulation.

***

Once I spoke with a friend who is caught up in polemical Apologetics.  I told him about how I was starting a Bible study with an 8-year-old girl, introducing her to the message of the Gospel.  One of his first questions about this beautiful opportunity and blessing was this: “Have you addressed with her the distinction between the concepts of election by God’s foreknowledge and a believer selecting to accept propitiation voluntarily?”

“She’s eight years old,” I said.  “We talked about lost lambs.”

“Oh, okay,” said my friend, now sounding vaguely confused.  “Maybe not yet, then.”

Yeah.  And maybe not ever.

***

Hey, check this out: At the throne of God or maybe Christ, somewhere in the Bible, that place where Jesus says, “Not all who say Lord, Lord will enter into the Kingdom of God” (or maybe it said Kingdom of Heaven), those who are going to be brought into the Kingdom respond from the heart, astonished that they had actually fed and clothed and comforted the Lord when they fed and clothed and comforted all others.  Meanwhile, the rejected "Lord, Lord" sayers immediately want to enter into debate with the Lord, challenging Him to provide verifiable evidence that they had neglected to feed, clothe, and comfort Him!

How cool is that?  Heart vs. Brain, compassion vs. calculation, Writ of Scripture Searched vs. Him to Whom They Point.

***

Somewhere out there in the world, my Apologetics friend just thought, “You know, that passage refers to doing good to other brothers in Christ, not just to random poor people.  I felt the need to say that.”

***

“Lord, when did I see you hungry and not feed you?  Huh?  When?  Tell me, when, huh?  And don’t give me that ‘Who is my neighbor?’ line and bring up Samaritans, because that is a different passage of Scripture subject to distinct contextual hermeneutics, and you can't logically grab a citation that …”

“Depart from me.”

***

YOYO, THAT'S TOO RANDOM, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?!

Yeah.  Sorry.  It’s a little trick I learned from the writer Kurt Vonnegut.  Sometimes you just have to shake up the fleas by going into a tail chase.  Nearly every VCA has already stormed off in disgust at the messy, illogical, and purposely unpatterned flow I’ve built into this post.  Which is good, because now I want to talk to those of us who feel beleaguered by them.

Dear ones, those with faith of children … I ask that you not fret in the presence of the VCAs.  Don’t cast aspersions upon yourself for not being able to battle them in their You-Sank-My-DogmaShip! Scripture wars.  Neither should you cast aspersions upon them, not right away.  They, too, have hearts that seek God.  And they are not the little tin gods who demand worship.  Rather, it is the field of Christian Apologetics itself that is the Little Tin God.  That pursuit focuses on cold content, and cares little for the styles and context and sensitivities and humility required for interacting with the world or with brothers and sisters in Christ.  In the field of Apologetics, content is king, context is annoyance, and people are just things you're meant to pour your facts into.  And by “context,” I don’t mean the context of a Scripture verse.  I mean the timing, the placement, the awareness, and the discernment required to truly interact in love and with a heart of fellowship.

Yes.  I’m talking about window pane caulking jobs that replace the Hammerist instinct.

***

Some random considerations:

1. Apologetics study can leave the impression that there is an answer for everything.  There isn’t.  Our beloved VCA brothers and sisters cannot see that, either due to neurological limitations, learned experience, or immaturity in their growth in Christ.
2. Apologists leave the impression they think they’re never wrong.  But we must understand that isn’t what they feel.  Behind their abrasive arguments, many VCAs are frightened that they may get something wrong, that something will be out of place in their Kingdoms of Tidiness.  We must be sensitive to that, and we must model the Love so they can see it, if not feel it at first.
3. Apologists do not yet know how to fellowship.  Remember, they, for many years, have mistaken debate and argument for acts of fellowship.  They don’t understand that faith has a component of simple, kind, human interaction – times of reaching out and embracing.  The emotions of faith have more to do with Christian fellowship than any concordance could ever capture.  This is why Paul’s letters end with such long passages of greeting people by name and verbally interacting with them on mundane matters.  It is also why those sections of the New Testament are of so little interest to VCAs.
4. Apologists don’t understand that your perspective is different.  They honestly, with all their mind, feel you’re simply missing the Logic.  When you say that you feel in your heart something doesn’t mean what they claim, they really do think you are not using your mind, or that you’re stubbornly playing by pretending not to see what is so amazingly clear to them.  Mention your heart, and they can simply spout Jeremiah 17:9.  They will not spout Matthew 22:37.
5. Apologists sometimes can’t even hear your alternate perspective.  Polemics and Logic Craft have driven them to build walls around their conclusions.  If you say to them, “Couldn’t that also mean …?” you are wasting breath.  “Also mean” is not a word pairing they can hear.  They have long ago lost the opportunity to derive wisdom from many counselors.  Unless those counselors are already speaking within Apologist Logic Craft, they cannot be comprehended.
6. Pray for them.  We are in danger of losing our Apologists from the Body of Christ.  As we refuse to let them dominate us with their cold strictures of thought, they find us less appealing to be around, and actually enjoy the company of unbelievers more.  At least among unbelievers, they can feel right about fighting all the time.  Fellow believers who reject that style make them feel oddly uneasy.  Far better to dwell among the unbelieving (they reason) and to take fellowship there.  Then VCAs can stop calling their hostility “teaching” and call it “outreach”  instead.

***

VCAs have elevated “being right” above “being righteous.”

VCAs have replaced submission to the Law of Moses with submission to the Laws of Logic.

VCAs only see the faith of little ones as something embarrassing, something to be matured out of, and not as the very basis of entering the Kingdom.

VCAs still sticking around to read this have already mentally mustered a list of bullet-point Scriptures to contradict the spirit of this blog.

VCAs can justify their rude, tactless, strife-laden social interactions by citing Scripture that presents seemingly approved rude, tactless, and strife-laden speech by their Biblical betters.

VCAs believe defending the faith, fighting the good fight, striving for the Gospel, and many other quippy sayings they have ossified right out of context serve as justification for their antisocial rudeness and unprovoked attacks.

Most VCAs are not even mildly swayed by anything I’ve written here today.

***

Flashback: Jesus is twelve years old.  He’s at the temple.  He’s questioning the temple teachers, astounding them with his insights and depth of understanding.  His questions are powerful ones.  His insights are logically sublime.  His progression of thought is polemically dazzling.

And which of those brilliant argument techniques does the Holy Spirit inspire Luke the Evangelist to record in the Bible for our later use?

Not a one.  Not a single one.

The Little Tin God of Apologetics demands rational, systematic, polemical purity.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love.

Maran atha,

Cosmic Parx