05.15.07
Posted in faith, culture, life at 4:22 pm by Brandon
Perusing technorati.com you’d think it was Christmas. Frankly, I was a little shocked over the content of many entries I noted today about how very happy people were that Jerry Falwell had passed on. Even Christians (at least the progressive kind) seemed overjoyed that Rev. Falwell had passed.
I have to say, that sickens me a little.
If grace is true, then grace extends beyond my little political world.
If grace extends beyond my political world, God probably loves those who disagree with me politically, morally, and socially.
If God loves those who disagree with me, then God probably wants me to love them too.
It’s hard to remember sometimes, I think. I’ll admit, my first reaction upon hearing news of Falwell’s death wasn’t to be sad. It should have been, but it wasn’t. Sometimes, I think we all need a reminder that death–no matter whose–is the enemy, not a solution.
Tags: falwell, Jerry Falwell
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03.05.07
Posted in faith, culture at 12:23 am by Brandon
It’s spring break. Perhaps that will mean that I’ll post a time or two, maybe not. We’ll see. At any rate, I’ve been thinking on something lately that I think I’m right about.
It strikes me that scientists and preachers have a whole lot in common. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that they basically have the same job. Here’s what I mean:
A preacher spends her or his existence attempting to help us understand the truth about the world as it’s been specially revealed to us in scripture. A scientist spends her or his existence attempting to help us understand the truth about the world as it’s been generally revealed to us in creation.
If one accepts God to be a creator and sustainer of creation, it basically follows, then, that both God’s general and special revelation of Godself tell us truth about God. Right? You follow me?
So, you’re thinking to yourselves, “Hey, Brandon, what’s with the waxing esoteric about science and faith all of a sudden. You’re being a big buzz-kill.” You’re right, I am. Sorry. But, as of late I’ve been bothered by something. It seems to me that when preachers give sermons they like to extend their scope beyond the special revelation of scripture. Preachers, especially ones with fundamentalist-ish roots, have a few favourite whipping-boys when it comes to sloppily preaching about things outside of their purview. As a soon-to-be-internet-researcher, my area of study is a favorite whipping-boy. (Myspace is causing the world to end up in hell, etc.)
So what if a preacher or two gets a tad pissy about the internet in a sermon? Who cares? Well, frankly, I do–and I’m guessing God agrees with me (he regularly does; I’m rarely wrong.) I care because the folks who talk bad about the internets have rarely read the work of those who have spent time trying to understand the way God has created humans to use the internet as a tool. In short, many of the people who would love nothing more than to demonize a whole medium of human communication, haven’t spent a lick of time reading the academic literature about it.
Imagine if a scientist, in his or her writing, made sweeping claims about faith without having read the claims of the documents about which they were proclaiming judgment. Such claims would be met with faith-wide outcry of a scientific prejudice about faith. Why then, are scientists who claim faith so damn tolerant of faithful prejudice about science?
So, are we to require that each time a pastor gives a sermon that they’ve read all of the extant literature relevant to the domain about which they hope to speak. I think not. (Although, a bit more research couldn’t hurt.) Rather, I would argue that the Church needs to stop being a failure at teaching its people the skill of application.
The skill of application is, to me, a major missing component to what it takes to be a church-member. We’ve so sanitized church in the hopes that any 4-year old without a church background will feel comfortably that they’ve been able to fully digest each aspect of the sermon, that our parishoners have lost the skill of being able to apply what they hear. Sure, I’ll blame MTV, too. Our culture has consistently and progressively been willing to engage of more of the cognitive processing (read: thinking) for its audience…and the Church has followed suit.
If the Church could process the messages it heard, there’d be less need for pastors to go out on tenuous limbs and whack at the whipping-flavors of the month. Rather, people could hear the truth as revealed in scripture, and (wonder upon wonders) do the work of application to their own lives.
It’s just a thought.
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12.11.06
Posted in faith, christ-haunted life at 8:18 pm by Brandon
A man sent me an email today. He asked me beautiful, wonderful, questions. Though I won’t share this individual’s identity, I will share with you some of his questions.
What this gentleman basically asked me today was this:
It seems like you have examined and rejected a lot of the stereotypical assumptions about what it means to be a Christian. I like that. Me too. But I’m wondering whether and how much you considered whether God even exists in the first place, whether God is somehow personal - that is, cares about my life, and what God requires I believe, both about God and about Jesus.
Are these issues you accept as a given? Are they issues you wrestle with sometimes? Often? Assuming you have wresteled with these questions, what road did you travel to resolve them, or did you never resolve them?
Whew. Heavy stuff, to be sure. Yet, I think these are important questions. Questions that I, as the writer of these questions seems to assume, have indeed spent some significant time ruminating upon. What I’m about to present is not the “badchristian.com” prescribed answers to any of these questions. Rather, I’m going to tell you something of a narrative about how I ended up thinking the way I do (if you cared) and why asking these questions is vital to a strong Christian faith.
But I’m wondering whether and how much you considered whether God even exists in the first place, whether God is somehow personal - that is, cares about my life, and what God requires I believe, both about God and about Jesus.
Are these issues you accept as a given?
Great question. Is God personal? Does she/he care about me? What does God require that I believe about God and Jesus? Frankly, like most people do, I took the easy road on most of these questions through the majority of my admittedly immature Christian walk. The short answers were these: Is God personal? Yes. Does God care about me? Yes. What does God require that I believe about God and Jesus? That God exists, Jesus is God’s son, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried, and on the third day was resurrected and now sitteth on the right hand of God the father from there he shall judge the living and the dead… What a mouthful!
And then, the most important question of all the questions asked by my emailing friend: Are these issues you accept as a given? My answer to this question, as was the case (and perhaps is the case for many) was a triumphant and emphatic “Yes!”
Largely, my answers to the first set of questions haven’t really changed. I still believe that God is a personal relational God who cares about people and desires interaction with those people. I still believe that God cares deeply about me. I’m a little fuzzy about what God requires of me with regard to my intellectual assent to a particular demographic of theological abstracts, but I personally believe that God exists (as obviated by my answers to the first two questions), that Jesus is God’s son who was crucified, died, was buried, and ressurected and now lives. I believe that.
What’s changed? I no longer can answer the “Are these issues you accept as a given?” affirmatively. In fact, just as emphatically and triumphantly as I would’ve answered “Yes!” in the past, I’d have to answer “no” now. My answer to this question leads rather naturally into a discussion of the emailers second set of questions:
Are they issues you wrestle with sometimes? Often? Assuming you have wresteled with these questions, what road did you travel to resolve them, or did you never resolve them?
These are issues that I wrestle with ALL the time. Often would be an understatement. I find these issues to be consuming, and tiring, and sometimes frustrating.
What road did I travel to resolve these issues? Well, although I have an answer, a belief, I can’t say for sure that they’re completely resolved. Although, as I said before, I do have faith in a certain sub-set of historical facts that seem to point to the existence of a personal, involved, and demanding God. The first, and much less messy, answer to the “what road did I travel” question is that I read, a lot. But, in order to get to a place where that reading would do me any good, I had to be willing to put my faith to the test. More on that later.
What did I read? A pretty seminal (again, please pardon the sex biased language) and faith changing book was a book I’ve mentioned here before co-authored by Marcus Borg and N.T. Wright called (I believe) The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions. I read this book with an open mind, and probably for the first time in my life I was convinced of a bodily resurrection.
Now, before reading the book (and subsequently a couple of N.T. Wright’s other pieces such as the one found here, and others in this N.T. Wright repository) I did “believe” in a bodily ressurection. Or, maybe it would be more accurate to say that I would’ve verbally casted my vote for a bodily ressurection of Christ given that that’s what they told me in Sunday School. Wright’s arguments regarding the bodily ressurrection (and more importantly, what a bodily ressurrection means for 1st and 21st century Christians) gave me much more confidence than the flimsy 8th grade bible-class arguments I was previously armed with.
That’s the road I’ve travelled to get to where I’m at. Did I resolve these issues? Depends how you define resolve. Do I have something that I can verbally assent to that I agree with in my heart? Yes. Given the fact that I had to have the openest of minds, given that I had to really let go of my beliefs about God, in order to arrive at any REAL belief, I’d have to say that I haven’t really resolved anything; at least not in the sense that I could quit wrestling with the topic of “Is God real, Does God want to deal with a piddly little human like me, and What does God want me to believe about Jesus?” So, in that sense, I never resolved the issue.
A few paragraphs ago, I made one of those “more on that later” statements. Well, now’s the time to pick up the “more on that later thread.” I feel like sometimes as Christians–and I include myself in that number–we get the eensy-weensy-est bit antsy about the “are these issues accepted as a given” issue. I can count on less than one hand how many times I’ve heard a faith leader tell me that I should be willing to throw all my beliefs about God out the window and hold them up to a test of the evidence.
This leads to my title question: “Why are Christians so doubtful?” Now, I can only speak from my own experience. And, my experience could well be unique. However, it seems to me that people of faith are pretty reticent to put that faith to the test. In science, we talk about Popper and falsifiability. If we’re to believe a theory is true, it should be submitted to a test which could ostensibly find that theory to be wanting. Junk science happens when we “test” theories by subjecting them to conditions that can only result in evidence supporting our preconcieved theory, and then we proclaim that this theory is true.
It seems to me that junk faith operates along the same lines. If we’re to believe that faith is true, it should be submitted to a test which could ostensibly find that faith to be wanting. Christians, sometimes, seem to be doubtful that their faith can really support rigorous inquiry. I know it makes me bristle every time I think that in order to grow in my faith that I might need to loosen my grip on the parts of faith I’ve been trained to grip onto so tightly. That’s not a particularly comfortable feeling.
However, if we ever want to create a living growing real faith, I think that’s just what we need to do. If we really believe in faith, we need to subject it to intellectually rigorous questioning. Anything less reveals the truth: That what we have and call faith is really an empty, shallow reflection of faith. A faith so weak, we don’t really trust it.
Is my faith perfect? Far from it, it’s weak; some parts of my faith are, I’m sure, empty, shallow reflections of a true living faith. I hope that over time, prayer, reflection, and study that I’m able to strengthen my faith accordingly. Probably the first step in the process is realizing the truth in the wise words of Wayne Campbell:
“I say hurl. If you blow chunks and she comes back, she’s yours. But if you spew and she bolts, then it was never meant to be.”
See? Falsifiability.
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12.09.06
Posted in faith at 4:25 pm by Brandon
16Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Matthew 28:16-20
***Spoiler warning: This is a non-academic treatment of the great commission. I don’t know the original greek and thus can only comment on my observations of the text in translated form. I’m not a seminarian, nor am I, well, particularly smart. My comments seem, to me at least, to be pretty obvious…so, don’t be surprised if you don’t find them bright, well-informed, or anything of that nature.
Seems to me that the modern Church tends to translate “make disciples” pretty loosely. I mean, if you think about it, Jesus seems to be giving some pretty seminal (pardon the sexist language) instructions as to what we (Christians) are supposed to do from here on out.
As I see it, here’s how “make disciples of all nations” tends to play out in the modern Church:
- Get as many people as we can to show up regularly at Sunday morning worship.
- Once they’re in the doors, get them to be “born again”.
- Once they’re born again, get them to conform to the sub-cultural model of what “Christian” is.
- Once they’ve conformed to the model (e.g. they listen to all the “right” music, read all the “right” books, drink all the “right” drinks, can speak using the “right” lingo, and appear to be “into” worship on Sunday morning), we can then say they’ve been made into disciples.
- Once they’re disciples, they’ve been completely self-actualized and can engage in the work of “making disciples” and the whole grand order starts all over again.
I know this is a shocker, but I’m not entirely comfortable with this mechanism for a number of reasons.
The first reason is that it leads into the notion that if a church is “big” it’s somehow doing a better job at making disciples. I would argue that this is bullshit. Big churches make clones, not disciples. Dander up yet? Here’s what I mean: By virtue of their size big churches can’t really know their constituency. Sorry, it’s true. Say what you like about small groups, but I’ve yet to experience a big church small group that was doing anything but trying to make me into a “better” big church-goer.
But, you know better don’t you? YOUR small group is different. I can hear you constructing your apologies to my argument already. But, before you dot your “i”’s and cross your “t”’s, think about these questions. Does your small group meet regularly? How regularly? Is it regularly enough that you REALLY get to know your fellow small groupers…like, say, 1 or 2 times a week? What do you study in small group? Do you use a devotional, a guide? What does that guide seek to shape you into? Are there predetermined answers to that devotional that you really should be able to get?
What I’m getting at here is that small groups aren’t really in the business of fellowship. You see, fellowship is the cheap alternative to study…or at least that’s the overarching opinion. The point of small groups is most often not to talk about lives, but to answer questions…with specifically predetermined answers. See what I mean: Cloning.
Another reason I’m not comfortable with the big church mechanism is that “making disciples” is seen as a linear process with a predetermined end-point. I’m not sure that this critique can be so roundly asserted at only big churches, though. Small churches seem pretty good at this one too. If the making of a disciple is a linear process with a specific end goal (i.e. a picture of the perfect disciple), then it seems plausible that we should emulate that character. The linear model has a fatal flaw, however. It assumes that a “perfect disciple” is a static construct–in fact, most Christians hold this “end target person” to be Jesus. The thing is, Jesus doesn’t tell us to become Jesus. Jesus doesn’t tell us to become divine. Jesus tells us to be disciples, followers, dynamic creatures whose hearts’ desire is the kingdom of God.
Jesus tells us to be people of direction, people of pursuit.
This is a pretty uncomfortable thing for the church entrenched, sub-culture worshiping, Christian music listening, drug-free, rich, white, Christian. Here’s why: Being a disciple doesn’t require you to find a place of peace, it requires you to find a place of war and be peaceful. It requires you to find a place of of hurt and be comforting. It requires you to find a place of darkness and be light. Disciples aren’t necessarily the ones who’ve “achieved holiness”; disciples are the ones who PURSUE holiness. A disciple is a traveller. A disciple seeks answers rather than bears answers.
Disciples are people who are hurt and broken and imperfect.
That’s uncomfortable, man. Frankly, I’d love nothing more than to sit around in a white upper-middle class haven and just, you know, be holy and shit. But, it doesn’t work that way. I’m not sure they’re telling us that in big churches. And now that I think about it, I’m not so convinced I’m hearing it in little churches either.
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10.18.06
Posted in faith at 10:31 am by Brandon
I’m taking a little break in my “revolutionaries” series to share with you a few thoughts that arose after I read the latest tripe at the Christian Worldview Network by “Dr.” David Noebel.
Christian Worldview Network has posted some really off the wall stuff before, and to be honest, I haven’t even really been reading all of it to know that this latest stuff is really the worst, but I can confidently tell you that Noebel’s piece is truly the most horrible piece of writing I have ever read at that site. Please do go read it in its entirity, and know that rather than to waste bandwidth on bullshit, I’ll just be reproducing the particularly flagrant bits of trash.
Further, I’ll be addressing the rest of this thought directly to “Dr.” Noebel, in case he’d like to respond–though, frankly, I think probably he won’t have much to say.
Dear “Dr.” Noebel,
First off, I’d like to ask you why you happily let people refer to you as a doctor? Being a doctoral student myself, I would never dream of not completing my doctoral degree and allowing thousands of misguided followers attribute more source credibility to myself than they should. So, why, when (as stated in your profile on the Christian Worldview Network site) you did not complete your doctorate in philosophy at the University of Wisconsin (the reasons for which we can only guess), why would you allow–in an official publication sent out to thousands of readers–yourself to be referred to as “Dr. David Noebel”. Why on your own Summit Ministries site would you refer to yourself as “Dr. David Noebel” That’s not just misleading, or a half-truth. It’s a bald-faced lie.
This point makes the claims you choose to make in your most recent article “Will the Real Sodomy Party Please Stand Up?” a little more clear. Frankly, no Ph.D. worth their salt would ever make some of the claims you make. Here are a few examples:
There hasn’t been a homosexual issue that the Democrats haven’t either backed or initiated since the ACLU determined that homosexuality would make a great stick to poke in the eyes of conservatives, traditionalists, and all natural law advocates. There hasn’t been a gay pride parade which hasn’t been led by a Democratic politician! There hasn’t been a gay pride book for first graders not endorsed by Democrats.
Bold claims, these are Mr. Noebel. Can you back them up? Can you cite evidence? You see, had you successfully completed your degree in Philosophy, you would, no doubt, have been required to take a course in basic logic. Perhaps you took it and just didn’t care or understand what was going on. In order to be able to prove this claim, sir, you would need to have knowlege of EVERY instance of EVERY homosexual issue, and EVERY democrat would have needed to back or initiate UNILATERALLY. I defy you to turn the rest of your life’s work to documenting EVERY instance of EVERY homosexual issue, and demonstrate that EVERY democrat backed or initiated those issues UNILATERALLY.
Then, when you complete that work (this should only take about 20 or so years) you can begin to start finding evidence to support your second claim: There hasn’t been a gay pride parade which hasn’t been led by a Democratic politician. Frankly, I’m not sure what it would prove if you could demonstrate this, but in order to demonstrate it you’ll need to document EVERY instance of EVERY gay pride parade ever. In each of those instances, you’ll need to demonstrate that a democratic politician led the parade. I defy you to support your claim.
Then, when you complete that work (and please work quietly, being people who value results–as doctoral students like you and I do–you wouldn’t want to report your findings before you’d completed your investigation) we can then turn to your next claim: There hasn’t been a gay pride book for first graders not endorsed by Democrats. Again, and I think you’re getting the drift here, you’ll need to document EVERY instance of EVERY book you label as a “gay pride” book, and demonstrate unequivocally that a democrat endorsed each one. I defy you to support your claim.
But, it’s not just Democrats you claim to know the “truth” about Mr. Noebel, you’re an equal opportunity “hater.” Here’s what you had to say about Log Cabin Republicans:
The truth is that every Log Cabin member knew of Republican Foley’s homosexuality, and I would be surprised if the Log Cabin didn’t know of his hitting on the pages for years. Homosexuals keep close tabs on these things and are really good at defining exactly who is and who is not “hitting on the boys.”
Wow, I never thought I’d be in the business of defending Republicans. And, honestly, I’m not sure they need defending from your cartoon arrows. In order to defend, to cite evidence for, the above claim, you will need to identify EVERY Log Cabin Republican, and be able to show evidence that EVERY Log Cabin Republican had knowlege of Foley’s homosexuality. I defy you to support your claim.
Finally, you make an implicit claim–a little easier for you to defend–that you’d be surprised if the Log Cabin didn’t know of his hitting on boys for years. How many Log Cabin Republicans would it take for you to be surprised at how few knew of Foley’s follies. 10%? 20%? 50%? Perhaps you can do a survey, I’m sure the Republicans in question would truthfully answer a survey from you about how many of them knew a member of Congress was having inappropriate relations with boys. I defy you to support your claim.
Here’s a good one: “Homosexuals keep close tabs on these things and are really good at defining exactly who is and who is not ‘hitting on the boys.’” But, not one citation. Nien. Nada. Clearly, for such an erudite and respected intellectual it would be mere child’s play for you to, off the top of your head, cite some social scientific study that supports such a claim. Perhaps academia is too liberal for you to trust their findings…then certainly you yourself have conducted some survey, some focus groups, done an experimental manipulation, even a quasi-experimental design, done an ethnography–maybe an auto-ethnography, perhaps, hmmmm… 
–maybe you’ve COLLECTED SOME DATA to support your wild claim!!!
But finally some evidence:
I have come to the personal conclusion that pedophilia and gayness go together like Mary and Mary’s little lamb. I may be wrong, but every “chicken hawk” that I have known has been on the hunt for “chickens.” Congress and church are just the playgrounds where the hunt occurs.
Above this claim you do offer some evidence! Kudos to you Mr. Noebel. Your “n” is now equal to one. Only 199 more instances of homosexuals that are pedophiles and people might start listening to you. Of course, the argument you make implicitly is that pedophilia is somehow unique to homosexuality. Your study design unfortunately does not test for this. You’d also need to sample (randomly, mind you) among both homosexuals and heterosexuals and determine if the rate of pedophilia is greater among one population or another. Of course, contrary evidence (and I do have citations) is rampant (Bickley & Beech, 2001; Freund et al., 1989; Jenny et al., 1994; Marshall et al., 1988; McConaghy, 1998). Even if you did conduct the aforementioned study, you still wouldn’t have evidence of a causal relationship between homosexuality and pedophilia. The aformentioned design doesn’t allow you to rule out, by randomization, spurious causal agents. I defy you to support your claims.
Science is important Mr. Noebel. I want to know if you’re right. Unfortunately, you’ve given me absolutely no reason to think you are.
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10.16.06
Posted in revolutionaries at 5:46 pm by Brandon
I’m a fan of this one…a big fan. This guy brought revolutionary to a new level.
You can run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Sooner or later God’ll cut you down
Sooner or later God’ll cut you down
Go tell that long tongue liar
Go and tell that midnight rider
Tell the rambler,
The gambler,
The back biter
Tell ‘em that God’s gonna cut ‘em down
Tell ‘em that God’s gonna cut ‘em down
Well my goodness gracious let me tell you the news
My head’s been wet with the midnight dew
I’ve been down on bended knee talkin’ to the man from Galilee
He spoke to me in the voice so sweet
I thought I heard the shuffle of the angel’s feet
He called my name and my heart stood still
When he said, “John go do My will!”
Go tell that long tongue liar
Go and tell that midnight rider
Tell the rambler,
The gambler,
The back biter
Tell ‘em that God’s gonna cut ‘em down
Tell ‘em that God’s gonna cut ‘em down
You can run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Sooner or later God’ll cut you down
Sooner or later God’ll cut you down
Well you may throw your rock and hide your hand
Workin’ in the dark against your fellow man
But as sure as God made black and white
What’s done in the dark will be brought to the light
You can run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Sooner or later God’ll cut you down
Sooner or later God’ll cut you down
Go tell that long tongue liar
Go and tell that midnight rider
Tell the rambler,
The gambler,
The back biter
Tell ‘em that God’s gonna cut you down
Tell ‘em that God’s gonna cut you down
Tell ‘em that God’s gonna cut you down
5 points to the first person who can correctly identify this revolutionary (without googling the lyrics, you cheating bastards.)
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10.11.06
Posted in revolutionaries at 12:11 pm by Brandon
So, ah, here’s my deal. I’ve been busy.
Now, I’m not talking “mildly occupied”, I’m talking “holy-crap-balls-Lucy-I’ve-fallen-asleep-doing-reading-for-
class-every-night-for-the-past-three-weeks busy”.
Anyway, because I’ve been busy, and for whatever reasons, some of you have been ever so kind enough to keep popping by, I’ve decided that I’d do a series of low-work (for me) and high bang for your buck (for you, given that you can read here for free) posts on revolutionaries of the web. I’ll try to pick out some quotes from web-revolutionaries of the faith that are making their voices known. That’ll make me feel a little better about taking the more reclusive posture I’ve been taking, and it’ll give those of you who waste your time here feel like you have something to read.
So, here’s the first revolutionary tale from a 40-something gentleman. Whether he’s a person of any faith or no faith I don’t know. Frankly, it doesn’t much matter. His message, a destinction between Christians and christians is, I think a helpful one:
Christians– those people on TV and in government who are always judging and condescending (see also Idiots & Pussies). Not to be confused with christians (lower case ‘c’) who are feeding the hungry, visiting the sick, clothing the poor, consoling the heartbroken, standing up to the Man in support of the People. You find Christians on TV and in public office calling us to assasinate the president of Venezuela or kill innocent Arabs; you find christians in the poorest areas of your city handing out food and clothing and along the US/Mexico border handing out water.
Food for thought.
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08.14.06
Posted in faith at 9:04 am by Brandon
This frustrates me.
It’s not so much that Pat Robertson was once firmly against the environmental wingnuts, and now he’s talking about how global warming is some huge problem. Pat, if he wishes, is allowed to change his mind.
The problem, as I see it, isn’t so much Pat’s newly found position in support of the environment and the dangers of global warming. The problem, rather, is what Pat needed to change his mind. Here’s an excerpt from the above-linked article:
Conservative Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson said on Thursday the wave of scorching temperatures across the United States has converted him into a believer in global warming.
“We really need to address the burning of fossil fuels,” Robertson said on his “700 Club” broadcast. “It is getting hotter, and the icecaps are melting and there is a buildup of carbon dioxide in the air.”
This week the heat index, the perceived temperature based on both air temperatures and humidity, reached 115 Fahrenheit in some regions of the U.S. East Coast. The 76-year-old Robertson told viewers that was “the most convincing evidence I’ve seen on global warming in a long time.”
So, let’s be clear. A bevy of REAL scientists have, for the past 20 years or so been very concerned about global warming. They’ve produced a bevy of research, and have made a bevy of converts from that well done science. But, Pat wasn’t convinced by the liberal academic elitists.
No. Pat Robertson was convinced by the flimsiest, most biased, and generally most flawed of any evidence. Pat was converted to the “global warming cause” because he was hot. It’s concerning, I think that people take up this recent change in Pat as something signifying a change in evangelicalism.
It’s not a change in evangelicalism, or Christianity for that matter.
Rather, it’s a sign that the same sorts of attempts to engage with the science that Christians have been at for hundreds of years are still alive and well. For whatever reason, Christians seem to display a contempt for the scientific. Favoring, rather, evidence that supports their previously held assumptions about human and animal behavior, anatomy, the world, and the cosmos.
Rather than seeing a vehicle by which to explore God’s created order, Christians see a scary, out-of-control machine. A machine that is as uncontrollable as it is unholy. Rather, Christians–and their method, judging by Robertson, seems alive and well–tend to rely on their own (unavoidably biased) perceptions.
From this we see new converts to global warming if for no other reason than that it has been hot out.
It leaves me to speculate a few things.
If it were unseasonably cold this winter, will Robertson change his mind about global warming?
If the Pope were to try to walk around the planet, not quite make it, and see only flatness, would he change his mind about the earth being round?
I’m personally glad Pat decided to become a supporter of environmental stewardship. I think it’s great, really. It just concerns me a tad that all it took was a few hundred degree days.
And, perhaps more concerning, why, after seeing pictures and visiting the poor all over the world, are Christians reticent to do anything about it? I mean, we see it, but don’t do much. And, in fact, many times we lend our unwavering support to the very corporate entities that have caused such abject poverty to begin with.
It seems that just like HEARING about the heat isn’t quite enough to an environmentalist make, it’s also not just SEEING poor people that makes people committed to the ideals of eradicating poverty.
I suppose that’s why the verse tells us to sell all we have and give it to the poor, rather than to form a big-ass mission trip to Jamaica, complete with a scheduled beach-day, for the local youth group. We need to experience poverty to care about it.
But, I don’t see Pat Robertson committing himself to a life of poverty anytime soon just to convince himself that we need to be serious about eradicating poverty. I suppose I’ll have to be satisfied with environmental stewardship.
Tags: Poverty, Pat Robertson, Environmentalism, Christianity
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08.08.06
Posted in faith, satire at 11:26 am by Brandon
During our time in Europe, Jen and I got to see some fantastic relics from the middle ages. It struck me as odd that St. Mark’s in Venice and the Vatican museum in Vatican City were now the home to numerous pieces of artwork and artfully made ancient artifacts from the ancient times. Some of the art was early Christian art, but some of it was decidedly not. Much of their loot was proliferated from ancient Egypt or Muslim strongholds during the crusades.
I found this to be fascinating and troubling.
It was rare that we would be invited to see such ancient antiquities without paying a hefty entrance fee. For example, Jen and I dropped about 12 euros each simply to be admitted into the Vatican museum (which was only about 50 percent open and had Europe’s rudest security guards.)
As we strolled the aisles of looted treasure I got to pondering something, since a lot of what’s in the Vatican museum is stolen, and, judging by the gargantuan line of visitors, since it seems that the Vatican is pulling down a massive chunk of change with their museum, it seems only fair that some other Christian churches should get in on the mix. I mean, most of their procurements came BEFORE the reformation, after all. When Protestant churches left the Catholic church, they couldn’t have known the extreme revenue potential they were turning down.
So, I propose a fundraiser. Here’s how it will work.
We’ll round up some of our hickish Christian School students. Now, I’m not talking about the pansies that go to those liberal Christian Schools in the city, either. I’m talking about rounding up the high school boys that drive trucks and whose truckbeds are lined with spent Mountain Dew bottles. The kinds of students who wear cowboy boots and belt buckles and tote a 9mm handgun, just in case.
Once we’ve got a thousand or so of these folks we’ll charter them a plane to Rome. It’ll be great.
Then once they arrive in Rome, they can ransack the Vatican museum and haul the spoils back to good ole’ Grand Rapids, Michigan. We’ll build a big ass museum somewhere near “the Pentagon” (aka the Christian Reformed Church’s headquarters on the corner of 28th street and Kalamazoo Ave). Then we can display ancient treasures from all periods of antiquity, charging a hefty admission fee, of course…perhaps something in the 20 dollar per person range.
We can hire our own rude security guards, and perhaps, we can even see if we can get some Canadian mounties to wander around in some sort of silly uniform–just like the Swiss Guard.
And we’ll be wealthy. Oh, will we ever be wealthy.
We can build huge churches, and buy 50 thousand dollar sound systems, and have preachers that dress in elaborate robes rather than cheap 50 dollar suits from the sale rack at Marshall’s. We could have one staff member per church goer and maybe a few spares for visitors, our budget could swell beyond imagination–with no fear of cheque overdraft fees. Our Churches could be outfitted with pools, and gymnasiums, and life-sized replicas of the River Jordan for immersion baptism, hell, we could even have 10 acre parking lots paved with 24 karat gold.
It’d be like Vegas, baby. Only Christian–so like Branson, Missouri, I guess.
After all, what’s a Kingdom without a castle?
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07.24.06
Posted in faith at 1:04 am by Brandon
My dad (and I’ve genetically picked up his predisposition to corny humor) always used to quip about Sunday morning sermons that the pastor preached about sin. And, the pastor specifically came down squarely against sin.
Of course, this little joke lost a little of its bite–you know, given that my dad WAS the pastor in question. Nonetheless, sin is an interesting topic. Perhaps the topic itself isn’t so interesting as what Christians try to do with sin.
Some Christians try to use sin to scare people. I’m sure you all know the type. There’s the Falwells, the Dobsons, the Robertsons of the world trying to convince us all that the homosexuals are off reproducing like bunnies and dragging society down the fast lane to hell. If we don’t turn from our heinous, liberal ways, our society is going to burn like a couch or a parked car after a Michigan State sporting event loss.
The funny thing about all that is the types of sins that they pick that’ll send us down the highway to destruction. It’s always the sexual sorts of sin–the kind you always loved to hear about when you were young at church–that are the focus of such folks. Sexual sins–though rarely discussed–were like solid gold ingots; they were the best gossip currency out there. Followed very closely, of course, by sins of addiction.** On the heels of which follows the closely related issue of divorce. I very clearly remember a time in my life when a young man in our church got a young woman pregnant, out of wedlock, of course. I distinctly remember thinking that if that EVER happened to me, my life would simply be OVER.
It must be nice to be able to pick those sins that aren’t so much a problem for you, and then rewrite a couple thousand years of religious tradition to suit your denominational fancy…but frankly, it doesn’t work for me. And, it doesn’t work for others either.
Take for example those Christians who want to get a pat on the back for just recognizing sin. Jim Wallis and a lot of other Christian Left-ists are, rightly in my opinion, infuriated with the narrowly (selectively) enforced sin of the Christians who want to use sin to scare people and generate juicy discussion. These folks, again rightly, notice that some issues are completely ignored as sin issues. So, they spend their time pointing out that it’s sinful to live opulent, selfish, consumeristic lives. And, they are, of course, correct.
Of course, because they’d rather shrivel up like a turd on a hot day than be confused with a conservative right winger, they often tend to ignore the damage sexual sin can do in people’s lives, or tend to condone divorce (not that there aren’t significant and some right reasons to get divorced) as something that’s just par for the course for the 21st century couple. Too often these people seem to want gold stars for pointing out that we should buy less gas and love people more. Sure, they’re right (we should buy less gas and love people more), but honestly I don’t see much about them that’s any different than the folks on the right…they’ve just got a different set of rules to enforce, and a different set of standards to judge people upon (rather than talking about the girl in church who’s 16 and is 5 months pregnant, they’re the ones talking about who’s going to hell for driving an SUV and not using cloth diapers).
Then, there’s a whole other bunch of Christians–well meaning ones, I’m sure–who’re busy desperately running around trying to figure out what, if anything, is a sin. For example, on a message board I used to frequent there was recently one exemplary discussion about whether or not it would be “a sin” to wear the AC/DC t-shirt that this person’s fiance just bought them. You know, would it hurt their witness?
The last time I checked, 60 posts of discussion had ensued.
Staving off the nearly overwhelming desire to drink a gallon of bleach, instead I headed for the liquor cabinet. Then, once I got my nerves under control (because 4 pages of discussion about why or why not on whether or not to wear an AC / DC t-shirt just shoots the hell out of my nerves) I staggered off to find my laptop so I could write about sin. Which brings me here.
Sin, as it’s been described to me from the scriptures, is quite simply falling short of the mark. It happens to all of us, and it can and does happen in the most innocuous of situations. In fact, most things I do, if I really think about it have been touched to a degree or another of sin. Sure, that sucks, but it’s a fallen world (pardon the kitch-y, cliche-ish phrase).
What I’ve started to think about sin is that it has the power to paralyze people. That can happen in lots of ways. We can be paralyzed by our judgementalism. We can be wooed into a sense of self-satisfied righteousness by simply being able to name certain types of sin. And, we can even be brought to a standstill when we focus on the everyday ins and outs of the depth of our depravity.
But, I don’t think we’re called to be a paralyzed people.
Jesus caused many a lame man to walk. Sure that was a literal healing (I believe). However, there’s something distinctly metaphoric about Jesus’ healing of the lame or paralytic. Jesus doesn’t turn the paralytic loose on the world with the admonition, “Now, watch every step you take that you don’t step in a hole and break your neck…cuz’ if’n you screw this healing up, there’ll be no more for you.”
No, Jesus tells us to go out and sin no more. Go out and stop missing the mark. Go out and use your gifts. Go out and drive less and walk more. Go out and be sexually pure. Go out and love people. Go out and be kind to the environment. Go out and help failing marriages that can be reconciled to be reconciled. Go out and love the orphans.
It’s no easy calling, to be sure. To go out and sin no more, to be perfect. But to be stuck in a rut somewhere looking at the actions of ourselves and others, well, that’s a long ways from perfect, if you asked me.
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**Kevin very correctly points out that only certain sins of addiction are really counted as sin.
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