Thursday, June 13, 2019
I grew up fundy, I’ve had to face it. I’ve tried to put all kinds of spins on it, conservative, mainline traditional, but facts are facts, and although I didn’t see it,
and still don’t remember my parents or grandparents as cruel, or hateful in any way, that’s what it was.
and still don’t remember my parents or grandparents as cruel, or hateful in any way, that’s what it was.
From the time I was born until the age of fourteen, my dad was a Church of Christ preacher. I never experienced any kind of racism, or bigotry, toward
anyone who came into the congregations where he preached, or in our home. Everyone was welcome, no matter their heritage, status, “orientation”
or “lifestyle” ( I use these terms in quotes, because this is the language that was used to describe the “others”) they were always treated with love and
respect and we tried to help everyone we could.
anyone who came into the congregations where he preached, or in our home. Everyone was welcome, no matter their heritage, status, “orientation”
or “lifestyle” ( I use these terms in quotes, because this is the language that was used to describe the “others”) they were always treated with love and
respect and we tried to help everyone we could.
That being said, there was a fair bit of proselytizing, which only makes sense in the circumstances, but never any condemnation from them toward
anyone that I witnessed,. Regardless of their beliefs. Maybe this is why I was able to hide from my own concerns for so long. There was never any
doubt that they believed whole-heartedly that without a meaningful conversion experience to Christ, everyone was lost and going to a literal, real hell.
anyone that I witnessed,. Regardless of their beliefs. Maybe this is why I was able to hide from my own concerns for so long. There was never any
doubt that they believed whole-heartedly that without a meaningful conversion experience to Christ, everyone was lost and going to a literal, real hell.
I know what some of you are thinking, what kind of monsters were they? But, you likely have had some beliefs in your life that you were forced to
reconsider, and I fully believe, had they lived long enough, this would have been one for them. My dad admitted at the end of his life that I had
convinced him that hell definitely wasn’t what he’d thought. But, that’s a story for another time.
reconsider, and I fully believe, had they lived long enough, this would have been one for them. My dad admitted at the end of his life that I had
convinced him that hell definitely wasn’t what he’d thought. But, that’s a story for another time.
About the time I turned fourteen, my dad’s theology changed, but not necessarily for the better. We dived headlong out of the mega conservative,
no instrumental music in worship, COC, into the hotbed of the Charismatic Renewal in 1985. Rock bands, and tambourines, if you couldn’t speak
in tongues, you might not be saved, kind of places. The Sunday services would run for hours!
no instrumental music in worship, COC, into the hotbed of the Charismatic Renewal in 1985. Rock bands, and tambourines, if you couldn’t speak
in tongues, you might not be saved, kind of places. The Sunday services would run for hours!
From there, I ran through the gamut of “non-denominational” churches, but everywhere I went, a certain arrogant ignorance pervaded the leadership.
Most of them had only a rudimentary knowledge of scripture. Which, for a COC kid was appalling, after all, we basically treated the Bible as a
defacto minister of God. It was inerrant, and perfect in every way, after all, it was just up to us to study it hard enough to suss out the answers.
Most of them had only a rudimentary knowledge of scripture. Which, for a COC kid was appalling, after all, we basically treated the Bible as a
defacto minister of God. It was inerrant, and perfect in every way, after all, it was just up to us to study it hard enough to suss out the answers.
There’s a certain level of death to intellectual curiosity that comes with accepting that the Bible, is, in your mind, inerrant. Although this is a relatively
new idea, in the scheme of things, it has been pervasive through most of American Evangelical Christianity for the past century or so. Even in
places where it wasn’t considered quite as literal and concrete as I’d been taught as a child (6 literal days of creation, and so on) those ideas
were almost never expressed from the pulpit. There was a tacit understanding that the book was the book, and whatever it said, and whoever
was in charge agreed to interpret is as meaning, stood.
new idea, in the scheme of things, it has been pervasive through most of American Evangelical Christianity for the past century or so. Even in
places where it wasn’t considered quite as literal and concrete as I’d been taught as a child (6 literal days of creation, and so on) those ideas
were almost never expressed from the pulpit. There was a tacit understanding that the book was the book, and whatever it said, and whoever
was in charge agreed to interpret is as meaning, stood.
So, what’s so wrong with that? Well, I don’t know all of the answers to this question, but here are ten things I picked up on later in life that led
to a whole bunch of questions that ended up with me thinking there is no hell, and gay people are okay with Jesus and maybe a lot of the other
rules we made for ourselves didn’t make a whole lot of sense, and the whole thing was really about being good to people in the first place.
to a whole bunch of questions that ended up with me thinking there is no hell, and gay people are okay with Jesus and maybe a lot of the other
rules we made for ourselves didn’t make a whole lot of sense, and the whole thing was really about being good to people in the first place.
Here they are, the ten things they never told me.
The best description of God in the Bible is a metaphor.
That’s right. We’ve fought wars over these poetic understandings, though. So, they must be able to be understood and taken literally, right? See, the idea is this, God is so big (and if there is a single intelligence behind the universe, it would have to be) that we simply cannot understand, and so, we have to resort to metaphorical language to compare God to things we can know. God is ineffable in essence. But, if this is true, why did I see so much anger for people who insisted on seeing the feminine in the divine, or had another name for God?
God is not a man.
At best, the divine is a blend of genders. It says so right in the first two chapters, but we overlook that and default to father, although he’s also described as animals, a woman, forces of nature, and even inanimate objects. As science begins to unfold what it means for humans to have gender, they are discovering that even on a measurable level, there is very little evidence for the strict binary definitions we’ve applied until very recently. To me, this binary understanding has been used primarily to hold half of the population in check. Yes, women, you’ve been robbed of your rightful place, because some guys decided that some other guys, who wrote all this stuff down, said guys were put in charge by the head guy himself, God, and it’s not true.
There’s very little history, outside of the Bible itself, to back up much of what is in it.
Sorry, whatever they told you at Bible college, might need to be reconfirmed, as awful as it sounds a whole lot of lies have been told to prop up doctrine. I don’t know a lot about this. It is true there is as much evidence for the existence of some of the personalities in the Bible as for other historical figures, but much of what is told within its pages cannot be confirmed through other historical records.
Almost NONE of the source texts come from “original” languages.
In many evangelical circles there is this belief that if you get to the "original" language of the Bible you can make more sense of it. In some cases this is true. It's been mistranslated and misinterpreted. In other places, additional words have simply been made up to make it make what the translator thought was good sense. So, what is the truth
The OT was rewritten into other languages, and then translated back into Hebrew. The Greek that the NT scrolls were written in was not the spoken language of the people who wrote it. Many of them spoke Aramaic, it's believed. Linguistically speaking it’s a stew, and that’s before you even get to the oral tradition being handed down for generations before many of the books were written, or the translation challenges of converting mostly dead languages into somewhat modern English equivalents.
There's more than one "canon" of the "Holy Bible
To say that the “canon” (group of books included in the Bible) of scripture is inspired (directly selected by the Holy Spirit) is a confusing, and misleading statement. There have been many. Hell, there are still many groups of books claiming the title of Bible. Right now there is the 66 book canon of the mainline protestant church, the 73 books of the Catholic Bible, which by the way, has the claim of being older than the protestant, just by history and logic. And the Eastern Orthodox canon contains 81 books, and is said to be the oldest canon in church history. So, which one was inspired? Even these canons are disputed.
Not all of the Biblical authors are necessarily who I was taught they were.
For example, Paul seems to have penned the lion’s share of the New Testament. But, some of what has his name on it, most scholars believe, may have been penned by one of his own disciples, using his name to gain authority. As to the ancient texts, some of them have never had an author attributed to them.
Not everything in the Bible is scientifically accurate.
You're probably saying, wow, no kidding? (sarcastically) It is obvious that there are gaps in the understanding of the writers, and some of their observations are plain illogical. But, and here's the thing, we had a 1954 set of World Book encyclopedias as a kid and I wouldn't want to use that as a text book in a modern science class either. So much of the understanding has changed. Honestly, this point only matters if you're expecting the Bible to be completely infallible.
Surprisingly, however, the same pattern claimed as the biological order of ascendance in evolution by Darwin, is the same order used in the Creation Myth in Genesis. I remember a serious debate in our house when my brother found out that whales are not fish and my father attempted to defend the idea that the whale Jonah was “literally” swallowed by, was both a whale and a great fish, as the Bible states. To me, most of these are simply errors in understanding from the author’s point of view. After all, most people still thought of the world as flat, although the Bible describes it as round. But, I don’t need the Bible to be scientifically accurate in every point. Most historical philosophical texts have similar inaccuracies.
The idea that the Bible is perfect is new
Yep, it started less than a hundred years ago, which is funny. You'd think the earliest followers of this book would have been turned onto the fact that it was perfect, unless, maybe, it's not.I was never told this. I doubt my father ever knew it. Different schools of theological understanding tend to insulate themselves to preserve their way of thinking. You’ll find that two Biblical scholars, both trained to similar levels of education, may have completely different understandings of what the book means on many points and often have never even been confronted with opposing views. The other interesting thing is this, I’ve rarely met a Bible professor who found the Bible to be as black and white as it was nearly always presented from the pulpits I heard it taught from.
There are even problems with the doctrine of "Divine Inspiration"
The idea of the divine inspiration of the Biblical writers doesn’t gel with the idea of free will. Either God creates automatons, even temporarily, to act as mediums ( a practice strictly forbidden in scripture) to transcribe the history and thoughts of God, or men do it willingly. If the former, then what the hell? And was that same possession present when all translation, interpretation, and transcription was done? If not, how would you assume that all of these men (they’re always all considered men) get it all perfectly right, without inserting a single opinion. But, then, we’re given a glimpse into this by Paul, at least once when he tells us straight up this is my opinion, not God speaking.
The Bible’s inerrancy is not only unprovable, but it simply doesn’t matter.
Here’s why. After being in church, literally, since the third day of my life, I’ve come to this conclusion, it does not matter one bit if the Bible is perfect or not. Well, of course it does, some will say, otherwise, we might be living a lie. Well, here’s the thing, you might anyway, even if it’s perfect. Why? Imagine this.
There is an atomic bomb in your front yard. Unless you defuse it, at some point in the future, no one knows exactly when, it will take you and everyone you know out. Never fear! Instructions for defusing this bomb have been delivered. But, here’s the thing. They were written by someone who never saw this bomb. Two thousand years ago. With their untechnological minds. In a foreign language they didn’t speak. That’s not all. Then it was translated from these ancient texts, then transcribed many times, and finally, it was made into an “interpretation” of the original text. But, if you are not precise in every single detail of your defusal process, BOOM!
So, you call in the experts. They can help, right? They’ve devoted their entire lives to studying these instructions and teaching these instructions. They arrive and immediately begin to argue. Why? Because they all have a different idea of how the bomb should be defused and all of them show you in the instructions how their way is right. One says you open the bomb first, then pray, then defuse. Another says, no, pray only, God will defuse the bomb. Another says, dunk the bomb in water, pray, then defuse. And they all have followers who espouse their method. Because, if you don’t get this right, they’re all doomed.
Finally, they resort, not to the original texts, but to commentaries based on other’s understanding of the texts, to solve their disagreements, but this just leads to more disagreements. What do you do? The instructions are perfect, you know that. But, now you’ve got three different versions of them, and tons of peripheral information explaining them and the more you try to make it make sense, the less it does.
That’s why it simply does not matter if the Bible is perfect, infallible, or inerrant. Because, even if it were, we cannot come to a common understanding of what it means.
So, what is the Bible? To me, it’s simply a journal. It’s a journal of men and women who dedicated their entire existence to unravelling the God puzzle, understanding who the creator is, and what our relationship to the divine should be. It records their mistakes, their broken ideas, their imperfect observations, and some of the results. It encourages us to good things, and where it does, we should follow it. Then it has some horrible advice, which is proven wrong. Where this is true, we should learn from it.
But, how do you make peace with all of this? Simple. I’ve come to understand that the bomb (hell) does not exist. There is no lake of eternal fire. God doesn’t torture people eternally for deeds committed on a finite time line. In fact, the Bible doesn’t even say that. But, that’s a story for another time.
Thursday, February 25, 2016
Emancipation: the fact or process of being set free from legal, social,
or political restrictions; liberation:
You, and every
citizen in the “freest nation on earth” are two steps away from a jail cell.
No, I’m not engaging in hyperbole, you have two degrees of
emancipation from the penal justice system. It’s true. It is an indisputable
fact, and I can prove it.
You see, somehow we have gotten to the point that every….single….facet
of American’s lives is regulated by one level of government, or more. Not only
that, but transgressing any of their regulations can land you in cuffs.
You cannot even use a
toilet in this country, without the toilet, the pipes, the water, the plumber,
the floor it’s set on, the walls beside it, the roof over it, being regulated.
And God forbid you
decide to go outside of an approved receptacle and get caught, you could end up
on the sex offenders list, for life!
So, how does that equate to two degrees of emancipation?
After all, they can’t throw you in jail for having an illegal toilet, or can
they? This is where it gets interesting.
It has always been true, for most of my life that all facets
of life were connected, however loosely, to the government’s approval of what I
do.
So, what do I mean about being two steps away from a jail
cell? Let me share a story. I was in a little town in Oklahoma about 10 pm a
few years back. When I came into town, I hit their speed trap and got dinged for
under 10 over.
So, I wrote a check and I put it in the mail, via their instructions on
the back of the citation. And, I thought, reasonably, that it was over and
forgot about it.
Fast forward eight
months, Edmond Oklahoma at a stoplight. There was a bit of gravel on the street
and as I stopped, my tires scratched, just the teeniest bit, causing my tire to
roll just a bit into the crosswalk. Since I saw a cop catty corner from me, I
checked my mirror and rolled back just a bit, thinking nothing.
A few seconds later,
the same cop has circled back and pulled me over because he saw me roll over
the stop line, and he’s only going to give me a warning. Takes my license. Five
minutes later, he’s unsnapping his holster and asking me to put my hands on the
car.
One speeding ticket on
a clean record, Plus, One missed court date that I received no notice from the
little town about, Plus, No criminal record, equals a trip to the city jail and
additional fines totaling $850, including an impound of my car, although I was
gone from it for less than an hour total.
So, what made it
happen? A little bit of magic called “Contempt of court”.
An almost knee jerk reaction to my not knowing I was
supposed to be there, and a “suspended license”, also automatic, also without
notification. Had I not been able to pay my fines, and my warrant fee, they
could have kept me. By the time I was extradited to the small town to see their
judge it could have been days.
And this can happen for ANYTHING, literally. Parking tickets, dog tickets, an unpaid
home inspection violation fine, a delayed payment for a fine for leaving your
trashcan at the curb, the list goes on.
So, you say, these are nuisances, don’t engage in antisocial
behavior and it won’t be a problem. Right?
Unless you live in
Oklahoma and decide to:
·
DO YOUR OWN HAIR WITHOUT A LICENSE
·
ALLOW THREE OR MORE DOGS TO CONGREGATE ON
PRIVATE PROPERTY WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM THE MAYOR
·
HAVE ORAL SEX, EVEN IF MARRIED
·
TAKE A BITE OUT OF ANOTHER PERSON’S HAMBURGER
·
SPIT ON A SIDEWALK
·
WEAR BOOTS TO BED
·
HAVE SEX BEFORE MARRIED
·
CARRY A FISH IN A FISHBOWL ON A PUBLIC BUS
·
DON’T PAY PROPERTY TAXES ANNUALLY ON YOUR
HOUSEHOLD FURNISHINGS
·
MAKE UGLY FACES AT PEOPLE
·
OR FORGET TO TIE UP YOUR CAR WHILE VISITING A
PUBLIC BUILDING.
All of these are
actual laws in the state of Oklahoma, which you can be directly jailed for, or
fined, then jailed if you miss court.
The United States of America has the largest percentage of
citizens behind bars of any nation on earth. Although we have less than 5% of
the world’s population, we have 25% of the world’s prisoners.
Not only that but it
has become an industry!
Prisons can be
privately owned, and in some states, they can have contracts with the
department of corrections that mandate a specific number of filled beds, or
huge fines to be paid by the state for not finding enough prisoners to keep the
beds filled.
Prisoners are often
hired out for labor and paid a small fraction of the wages they should receive,
far below minimum wage, meanwhile, their prison overlords reap the profits. Oh,
boo hoo, you say? Too bad, don’t break the law?
Well, in case the list above is not enough to make you
question if they all belong there, this might. Of all the convicted felons in prison
in the US, over 95% of them never went
to trial.
That’s right! over 9 out of 10 convicted felons were
convicted on a plea bargain and never stood in front of a jury. Many times it
was all determined by one man or woman, not even a judge.
Why does this matter?
It matters because our legal system is based on the age old
principle of the presumption of innocence. The burden of proof lies with the
state. It’s hard to prove in a court of law, that a person has committed a
crime, beyond a reasonable doubt.
So, prosecutors, knowing this, quote the stats of how many
convictions they have earned, versus exonerations. They scare prisoners by
telling them, they are virtually assured to be convicted and sent to prison for
the maximum sentence.
But, only those cases
that are assured “slam dunks” are ever allowed to go to trial. They will
offer immunity, if they believe the prisoner is innocent, or not a danger, they
will offer a reduced sentence if they think they can get it.
So prisoners are
agreeing to plead guilty based on a small number of easy to win cases!
When placed in front of a jury, the accused has the chance
to tell their own story. The jury has a chance to determine if the police, the
prosecutor and the system have done their job. There is a great deal of
accountability in it.
By shortcutting this process in the vast majority of our
criminal cases, we allow the “justice system” to essentially run unchecked.
Juries are not just for determining guilt or innocence, they force the system
to operate by the rules.
So, that’s why it
matters that you are two steps away from a jail cell at nearly every moment of
every day.
And, actually, it is worse than that. In most states, the
arresting officer has, as their sole discretion, the determination of what
constitutes “resisting arrest”. You can literally be charged with this crime
for ANY reason they determine worthwhile.
So, what can we do about it? There’s a lot, actually. We can
volunteer for jury duty. We can educate our fellow citizens to the problem. We
can help change laws. We can wake people up.
Want to learn
something cool? Research a concept called jury nullification!
Juries can vote not to convict when they believe a law is
unjust, which in turn sets legal precedence and can work to fight unjust laws.
So, there is a lot of good that comes out of the jury system that we are
currently missing in our society.
Monday, February 22, 2016
There’s been something bugging me for a bit. It seems these
days that our world is more malleable than it used to be. This, in and of
itself, is not necessarily bad. For instance,
the gender roles that have been etched in stone since time began are not
as useful as they once were. Notice, I say gender, not sex. I speak of the idea
that a family where mom wins bread and dad keeps house is somehow upside down.
But, beyond that, there is an idea that all concepts are
fluid and able to be redefined to meet the current situation. This makes me
crazy. Yes, you can believe what you want to believe in each given situation.
That’s your prerogative. I don’t like labels, so I tend to side with a variety
of groups depending on the cause, I get that.
But, when it comes to describing these actions, it seems that too many
are ready to throw out the dictionary! Here’s what I mean.
I have had several conversations lately where a person
wanted to peg me as belonging to one group or another, but when a perfectly
accurate term is used to describe their own stated position, they balk. Turns
out the term that describes them has baggage they don’t want to carry, so
instead of either finding a new term, or changing their position to one that is
more palatable to their sensitivity, they inform me that I can no longer apply
the traditional definition of the word.
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Ten Things my Evangelical Pastors Didn’t Tell Me About the Bible
I grew up fundy, I’ve had to face it. I’ve tried to put all kinds of spins on it, conservative, mainline traditional, but facts are fa...
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