Tag Archives: fundamentalism

September 15, 2020 · 03:21

Songs from Yesterday for Today: Barry McGuire’s Eve of Destruction and Don’t Blame God for the Sins of America

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I have been hearing the words to two of Rock/Blues and Contemporary Christian singer and songwriter Barry McGuire. In the 1960s he performed with the New Christy Minstrels, the rock musical Hair, and then about five or six years later he became a born again Christian.

As a secular artist he performed one of the most radical protest songs ever performed and still ended up with a number one hit despite it being banned from play on many radio stations. That song was Eve of Destruction.

 

The lyrics are chilling and are as applicable today as when the song was released.

The eastern world, it is explodin’,
Violence flarin’, bullets loadin’,
You’re old enough to kill but not for votin’,
You don’t believe in war, but what’s that gun you’re totin’,
And even the Jordan river has bodies floatin’,
But you tell me over and over and over again my friend,
Ah, you don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction.Don’t you understand, what I’m trying to say?And can’t you feel the fears I’m feeling today?
If the button is pushed, there’s no running away
There’ll be no one to save with the world in a grave,
Take a look around you, boy, it’s bound to scare you, boy,
And you tell me over and over and over again my friend,
Ah, you don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction.
Yeah, my blood’s so mad, feels like coagulatin’,
I’m sittin’ here, just contemplatin’,
I can’t twist the truth, it knows no regulation,
Handful of Senators don’t pass legislation,
And marches alone can’t bring integration,
When human respect is disintegratin’,
This whole crazy world is just too frustratin’,
And you tell me over and over and over again my friend,
Ah, you don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction.
Think of all the hate there is in Red China!
Then take a look around to Selma, Alabama!
Ah, you may leave here, for four days in space,
But when your return, it’s the same old place,
The poundin’ of the drums, the pride and disgrace,
You can bury your dead, but don’t leave a trace,
Hate your next door neighbor, but don’t forget to say grace,
And you tell me over and over and over and over again my friend,
You don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction.

No, no, you don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction.

In 2012 Barry recorded a new version of it. The lyrics are here:

Well the Western World is in danger
We the People have become like strangers
Taking polls and opinions while the fabric decays
For the greed of the few how much the innocent pays
And the children are watching, you can hear how they pray

And you tell me over and over and over again my friend
How you don’t believe we’re still on the eve of destruction

Think of this green Earth, a tropical rainforest
And take a look around to the Sahara Desert
We wanna cut it down, burn it to the ground leave barren and waste
Till there’s no room for living, animals, rivers or lakes
And there’s nothing to stop it but a miracle of faith

And you tell me over and over and over again my friend
said you don’t believe we’re still on the eve of destruction
now you don’t believe we’re still on the eve of destruction

I know you understand what we’re trying to say
Can’t you see the madness that’s lead up to today?
We believe its time for a change, for a new golden age
Where the business of life runs in harmony with nature
For nature reflects the beauty within ourselves
And this changin’ attitude would ring out the Liberty Bells
For the hungry and the homeless and the helpless as well

And you tell me over and over and over again my friend
saying you don’t believe we’re still on the eve of destruction
oh you don’t believe we’re still on the eve of destruction

At the source of silence, we’ll sings songs of creation
Transcending the boundaries of our soul’s imagination
You can’t twist the truth, it knows no regulation
Cuz the truth is in Love, Freedom and Cooperation
Let there be peace in your heart, that’s all right, that’s where it starts
Let there be peace tonight, in all the Nations
For the music of life is in (our last deliberation?)

And you tell me over and over and over again my friend
saying you don’t believe we’re still on the eve of destruction
no, no, no you don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction

But then there is the song Don’t Blame God for the Sins of America. 
I have never been able to get the words out of my head.

We can certainly blame Christians who have been in the lead of greed, pollution and climate change denial. We can blame them for claiming to be pro-life except after the baby exits the womb of the mother. We can blame them for putting their alleged “patriotism” above the Gospel, and for their support of a racist, authoritarian would be dictator who has the deaths of nearly 200,000 Americans in the COVID19 Pandemic.

Barry wrote this and I have to agree:

With knowledge faith changes, and that isn’t heresy and it doesn’t deny Christ. The fact that I believe that Christ can love anyone that Christians condemn doesn’t make me an unbeliever. It makes me a Christian, and it makes me pray harder for our world.

So until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

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February 23, 2018 · 00:05

“Don’t Try to be Like Me, I didn’t Always Get it Right” Rest In Peace Billy Graham

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

No matter how one viewed him Billy Graham was both a legend, a remarkable man, and a truly historic figure in terms of the Evangelical Christianity that he popularized more than any other preacher before or after him. His legacy will be debated for years and I think that it is very possible that in death he will become larger than he was in life; mostly because those who attempted to follow him were poor imitations or politically motivated hucksters that Graham himself would later have nothing to do with.

Though many knew him as “America’s Pastor” he only briefly served as the pastor of a small church before he became an evangelist, a role for which he was particularly suited, he was the entire package. Graham was young, good looking, and could communicate a simple evangelical message with conviction, passion, and grace in a way that few evangelists before or since have been able to do. He was also incredibly adept in understanding the potential of television and the broadcasting of his message world wide.

When I was a kid his crusades were a staple of television. I had an aunt in Stockon California who when she wasn’t watching Lawrence Welk she was watching Billy Graham crusades. Whenever we visited her viewing habits didn’t change, no wonder my uncle Ted spent so much time in at his favorite local bar, but I digress…

That being said, even when I was eleven or twelve years old Reverend Graham’s crusades were amazing to watch. First was the fact that despite the simplicity of his message he was exceptionally talented in delivering it. To see thousands of people responding to his call for conversion or rededication to Christ as George Beverly Shea led choirs singing the invitational hymn Just as I Am was a thing of rare beauty when it comes to evangelical crusades and altar calls. Billy Graham was a master of manipulating emotions to bring people down the aisle, and I do not mean anything malicious by that.

Graham’s message was simple in its traditional evangelical message. All have sinned, and that means all of us; Christ died to save sinners; repent, believe, and confess Jesus as your savior. The message was not new, it had been preached by Christians in a variety of forms and in many cultural variations for about 1900 years before Graham ever began his first crusade, but Graham’s were much more of the simplistic fundamentalist evangelicalism that has been part of the American landscape since the Second Great Awakening. It had been a staple of Fundamentalist revival preachers for decades before Graham but unlike the hellfire and brimstone message of previous preachers like Billy Sunday Graham focused on the love of God, and unlike so many his sincerity in preaching that message came through whether in person or on television.

His message was grounded in the theology of Pre-millennial Dispensationalism of Irish Anglican Priest John Darby which found its way to North America where it was popularized by American C.I. Schofield. The message was simple and based on the belief the the return of Christ to judge the world was imminent: accept Christ and avoid the wrath to come.

His message was no different than thousands of other preachers like him, but he was better at it and understood the role of media, particularly television in spreading the message. Likewise while he encouraged Christians to become more politically active in the 1950s and 1960s though when Jerry Falwell and other fundamentalist preachers formed a political movement that became the current Christian Right he warned against it. In 1981 he said:

“I don’t want to see religious bigotry in any form. It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it.”

He had learned the hard way, while he was a gifted evangelist, he was not a prophet and in the first two decades of his career, Graham, the North Carolina Democrat allowed himself to become captive to Republican Presidents. He compared Dwight D. Eisenhower’s first foreign policy speech to the Sermon on the Mount and said that Richard Nixon was “the most able and best trained man for the job in American history.”

To his credit Graham did not seek the friendship or companionship of Presidents, except for Nixon, but every President after John F. Kennedy regardless of Party sought Graham’s counsel, advice and spiritual support. That being said the low mark of his career and ministry was when tapes of him and Richard Nixon emerged in 2002 in which while they agreed with their support of Israel, disparaged American Jews and their supposed control of the media, to which Graham added the Jews support for pornography. When that came to light Graham apologized and tried to put his remarks in context of those of President Nixon but his retractions for that was well as his remarked in a letter to Nixon to “bomb the dikes” in order to flood North Vietnam irregardless of civilian casualties demonstrated a ruthlessness in support of American military power being used against civilians damaged his credibility for many people.

In terms of civil rights and race relations Graham desegregated his crusades, even personally taking down the ropes that separated whites and blacks at one location. He told one audience in Mississippi that “there was no room for segregation at the foot of the Cross.” He supported Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to a degree but when Dr. King was jailed in Birmingham Alabama and wrote his classic Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Graham told reporters that King should “put the brakes on a little bit.” His unwillingness to take risks in supporting civil rights later in life was something that would also damage his reputation among Christians and non-Christians alike.

In the 1980s he said that AIDS was the judgement of God, a comment that he quickly walked back. Later he realized his mistakes in being too close to Presidents and avoided Washington and the White House. That did not keep him from befriending or caring for Presidents including Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barak Obama.

To his credit Graham could admit his mistakes with a display of humility that is lacking in most big time preachers and evangelists. When Jonathan Merritt asked Graham how people could be more like him Graham responded: “First, I’d say, don’t try to be like me, because I didn’t always get it right.”

Likewise, in 2007 when he was asked why he never supported or was affiliated with the Moral Majority or other Right Wing Christian Evangelical political groups he said:

“I’m all for morality, but morality goes beyond sex to human justice. We as clergy know so very little to speak with authority on the Panama Canal or the superiority of armaments. Evangelists cannot be closely identified with any particular party or person. We have to stand in the middle in order to preach to people, right and left. I haven’t been faithful to my own advice in the past. I will be in the future.”

I only wish that those who pretend to be the leaders of the Christian Right today, including Graham’s son Franklin and daughter Annie would be wise enough to heed his advice.

I could go on and try to evaluate the other parts of his life and ministry both positive and negative, and those debates could could go in for decades.

As for me, I always found Reverend Graham to be a genuine, yet flawed man. Whether one agreed with his theology, style of ministry, or positions on different issues he wasn’t a fake. He was exactly who he was, he believed the message that he preached. He was neither a prophet or theologian, and he approached the political world with a certain naivety that unscrupulous politicians like Richard Nixon exploited.

Charles Templeton who traveled with Graham and frequently roomed with him in various crusades eventually parted ways with Graham and became an agnostic. Templeton, who died in 2001 was asked about Graham and said something that resonates with how I feel about him and his influence:

“I disagree with him profoundly on his view of Christianity and think that much of what he says in the pulpit is puerile nonsense. But there is no feigning in him: he believes what he believes with an invincible innocence. He is the only mass evangelist I would trust. And I miss him.”

Honestly, I don’t think there will be another like him, certainly among those who have tried to emulate him or take up his mantle in the now hyper-political world of American Evangelicalism. Graham learned lessons in dealing in the political world that those who have followed him, including his son Franklin have ignored, and when American Evangelicalism crumbles under the weight of political, social, and financial malfeasance and painfully shallow theology it will be their fault.

Later in life Graham moderated some of his views on salvation. When asked by John Meacham in 2006 whether he believes heaven will be closed to good Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus or secular people, Graham said:

“Those are decisions only the Lord will make. It would be foolish for me to speculate on who will be there and who won’t … I don’t want to speculate about all that. I believe the love of God is absolute. He said he gave his son for the whole world, and I think he loves everybody regardless of what label they have.”

As I reflect on his passing I think that he will understand the implications of eternity more than any of us will and whether I agreed with him or not I will miss him and wish that his son and other Evangelicals would take heed and learn from his experiences rather than to keep digging the Church into the abyss.

Until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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January 11, 2018 · 00:15

To Stand Up Against Zealots

 

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Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I am not a fan of ideologues or the “fundamentalists” of any point in the political, ideological or religious spectrum. Their lack of courage, stunted intellectualism, and inability to see things from outside their limited field of view does not allow them to face really difficult questions that confront us today.  They claim to hold the keys to the universe but sadly are hold nothing more than the key to their high school gym locker.

The Iranian novelist Salman Rushdie who has been on the run from Iranian fundamentalist ideologues since he wrote the supposedly heretical Satanic Verses once noted:

“The moment you say that any idea system is sacred, whether it’s a religious belief system or a secular ideology, the moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision, or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible.”

I believe that we are at yet another crossroads in Western civilization. This time a crossroads where the classic liberalism that was the basis for democratic societies is being stampeded by zealots of various persuasions who guided by the supposed infallibility of their ideological belief systems, deliberately and without remorse seek to destroy the institutions that are the guardians of liberty.

In my honest opinion I think that the worst of these are the conservative Christian theocrats and their seemingly ideological enemies the Ayn Rand following Social Darwinist “conservative libertarians.” They have no shame, their respective ideologies blind them to truth and turn them into sociopaths that only give a damn about their power and profits and they latched on to President Trump, prostrating themselves and the Republican Party to him in order that they might triumph.

Of course I will be the first to admit that there are some leftists who would be the first to put a bullet in the head of Lady Liberty to further their own cause.  But they are not the danger. They control nothing that would allow them to succeed and most cannot even agree among themselves to work together, they have nothing on Lenin, Stalin, Mao, the Iranian Mullahs, or even Hugo Chavez; may God give rest to his chubby cheeks.

Say what you want about him but President Trump is not an ideologue, he can’t be, he’s too much of a self-absorbed narcissist to be an ideologue. All he wants is the adulation of his audience and the power and wealth that come with it. He may be a sociopath but it is not for the sake of any ideology. If the issue was the President alone we could survive him; but his supporters of the Christian Right and the Ayn Rand Social Darwinists of the GOP are much more dangerous, because they are true believers who actually control many of the apparatuses of government at the local, state, and federal level.

We have seen the results of such movements in history before and each time they succeed in gaining power they have brought disaster to nations, and sometimes the world.

Proponents of ideological purity assume that their ideological bias is equivalent to sacred truth, be it a religious or secular truth. The promoters of such systems promote something more than their opinion, as Hannah Arendt noted: “For an ideology differs from a simple opinion in that it claims to possess either the key to history, or the solution for all the “riddles of the universe,” or the intimate knowledge of the hidden universal laws which are supposed to rule nature and man.”  

As such, ideology is not based on knowledge, but is distinct from it and the enemy of knowledge for it binds the mind in a straitjacket in which all thought must be submitted to the truth of the ideology. As Arendt noted such ideologies must be handled with caution as they “pretend to be keys to history but are actually nothing but desperate efforts to escape responsibility.”  

An ideology protects the true believer from having to think for himself, it allows the insecure to grasp at the protection that it allegedly provides, and allows the believer to deny reality, and to by definition declare everything that contradicts the ideology to be heretical, and opponents to be aligned with the devil himself, allowing the believer to hate the opponent. As Eric Hoffer noted, “Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all the unifying agents. Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a god, but never without a belief in a devil.” 

As I have mentioned the past couple of days my favorite television character, Raymond Reddington, played by James Spader in The Blacklist once said “I know so many zealots, men and women, who chose a side, an ideology by which to interpret the world. But, to get up every single day and to do the hard work of deciding what to believe. What’s right, today? When to stand up or stand down. That’s courage.” The fact is, no matter how stridently they espouse their beliefs, ideologues are by definition not courageous, because courage takes critical thinking, something that ideologues of any persuasion are incapable of doing.

That is why knowledge and critical thought even when they are uncomfortable and take us out of our comfort zone are so much more powerful and important than ideologies that are followed blindly. My words to the ideologues of the Christian Right and the Ayn Rand followers of so many in the Republican Party is that of Samuel Adams who said:

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” 

It takes no courage to be an ideologue, and once a person surrenders to an ideology as his or her reason for existence, they sacrifice the ability to reason, the ability to think critically, and the capacity to acquire knowledge and in doing so they surrender to tyranny and servitude though they think they will end up on top.

That is the danger of the blind ideologies that are consuming our world today and why as long as anyone who cares about freedom has a breath in them they must be opposed.

Until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

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January 10, 2018 · 00:01

“In the Kingdom of the Blind, the One Eyed Man is the King” Musings of a Flawed Man

 

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Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Over the past year or so this site has picked up a good number of new subscribers and sadly most of us will never get a chance to sit back and enjoy good intellectual conversation over a good craft or German beer or a nice bottle of wine. So if you would sit back and over whatever your favorite beverage may be take the time to let me wax eloquently about how the writer that you follow here got to be what he is.

I think my favorite character on television is Raymond “Red” Reddington, played by James Spader on the shoe The Blacklist. He is a very complex and troubling character, and the thing is I can understand him. His is a world of gray where he sometimes does the right thing for wrong reasons as well as the wrong thing for right reasons. His loyalties are personal and not ideological, he is a man of contradictions, as am I. Raymond Reddington one said, “Cultural peculiarities notwithstanding, I find cock fighting to be abominable. However, truth be told, I do love fried chicken.” I totally agree with that, sorry Vegan friends.

My regular readers know that I am a complex person as well. I am a Christian, a priest at that, who often doubts. I am also a career military officer who has been to war, come back from war different and hates it. But I also realize that as much of an evil as war is, that there are sometimes worse evils than war itself.  That being said I find the thought of someone, perhaps like President Trump launching the world into a nuclear war with North Korea to be opposed at all costs by anyone with at least half of a functioning brain. My loyalty to the Constitution and the American people far outweigh any need that I might have to ingratiate myself to any would be tyrant.

Likewise I am very liberal and progressive in my political and social beliefs, but I serve in a profoundly conservative institution that is not always welcoming to my beliefs. I wasn’t always this way but it was my experience in Iraq that turned the tide and turned me into a progressive. Usually people get more conservative as they get older, that’s not me. I got liberal, started caring about civil rights for everyone, the growing economic inequity between the richest and everyone else, and rejected the theocratic leanings of some leaders of my former church. At a point in my life where I should by all means have become even more conservative based on my social status, education, and income, I went the opposite direction. I am not alone, I read an article that Tom Ricks wrote in 2014 in which he said very similar things to me. I personally know others who have made the same journey.

But that being said, even though I am a liberal and progressive at heart, my education as a historian and my life experience mitigates against me becoming an ideologue or zealot, and I am certainly not a revolutionary. Thus unlike zealots who I might agree with I tend take the time to wrestle with the issue and not react out of emotion or illogic. Even if I agree with someone I hate it when they through emotion or illogic make stupid arguments that are all to easy to dissect or discredit; not because they are wrong on the issue but because they don’t argue their point well. Let me explain.

I tend to be able to see and appreciate arguments of multiple points of view on almost every issue, and I wrestle with them, doing the best I can to do the right thing. Whether it is for the right reason or not, I don’t pretend to know because I make no pretense of being a saint. Maybe that is one reason I have friends on all sides of the political, religious, and ideological debates that rage about this country and in the world. I live in a world of shades of gray.

I love trying to understand all sides of a position which of course makes me a terrible ideologue, and even worse I love the thrill when I embarrass an ideologue of any kind using reason, logic, and throwing in the appropriate emotional twist to make it sweet. I discovered this as a short, introverted, history nerd in high school and college. I found that in debate classes I could take the opposite side of what I really believed and shred the person advocating for the exact position that I really believed due to my then rather fundamentalist Christian worldview; like my support of pro-life position of being against abortion and for the death penalty at the same time. It was in arguing the opposite side that I discovered how intellectually incoherent those positions were. When I got to seminary after my first active duty tour in the Army I continued my antics in arguing against positions that I actually at the time believed in, with similar results. In fact a number of my fellow students asked me why I wasn’t in law school and it wasn’t a compliment; nonetheless I relished it.

But as always I digress…

In the last episode of season three of The Blacklist, Reddington tells an assistant FBI director who he has been helping solve crimes, “I know so many zealots, men and women, who choose a side, an ideology by which to interpret the world. But, to get up every single day and do the hard work of deciding what to believe. What’s right, today? When to stand up or stand down. That’s courage.” From my experience I believe that to be the truth, and truthfully, I would rather deal with people that wrestle with this difficult world than rather than those whose beliefs are shaped by their ideology first, regardless of facts, divergence of opinions, history, science, reality, and experience.

But what bothers me in what I see going on in this country and around the world is that mass movements of ideologues and zealots of every persuasion, political and religious, those that have seized or are trying to seize power in many nations, and foment revolution. Captivated by ideological purity, they are unwilling to compromise and frequently label anyone that disagrees with them or the leader of their movement, even in the slightest manner as traitors or evil. Many times the zealots take no time to evaluate the quality of the merits of their movement or those that oppose them, their cause is right, their opponents are evil and need to be destroyed. I think the most distressing case is where the Nazis and German Communists worked together to destroy the Weimar Republic in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Eric Hoffer wrote,  “The quality of ideas seems to play a minor role in mass movement leadership. What counts is the arrogant gesture, the complete disregard of the opinion of others, the singlehanded defiance of the world.” Likewise, Hoffer noted something that I observe almost every day, that the zealots and ideologues of mass movements use anger and hatred to unify their followers. Hoffer noted, “Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all the unifying agents. Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a god, but never without a belief in a devil.” Believe, me, ask any ideologue of any type, and he or she will tell you who their devil is. But sadly history demonstrates that a mass movements of any type, political, ideological, or religious has achieved power, all opponents, especially those closest to them ideologically or religiously are the enemy, or to use Hoffer’s words “a devil.” The opponents closest to the ideologues ideology have to be destroyed or discredited first, before they can move on to battle their real opposites. Just look at history.

The ideologue cannot lose because he already knows his answer, the classic fundamentalist Christian quote, “God said it, I believe it, that settles it”  is very much descriptive of other ideologically driven mass movements be they conservative or liberal. The ideologue’s attitudes are derived from their ideology and are often not subject to facts. I see it every day, especially on social media where partisans of evil persuasion fire broadside after broadside at all opponents, regardless of the facts, or even the fact that there may be more than one equally valid viewpoint on a subject. But then I tend to see everything in various shades of gray and not in black and white absolutes, and ideologues of all types frighten me, even those whose unbending beliefs are sugarcoated with millennial or utopian sentiments of the perfect world that will follow their victory. I know from history that such is not the case, in far too many instances first thing that radical, or self-proclaimed revolutionaries do after achieving absolute power is to kill.

Now as far as the President is concerned he is not a populist, nor an ideologue, and certainly not a revolutionary in the traditional understanding of the term.  The only thing that he believes in is himself; he is certainly a narcissist and he demonstrates daily that he is a paranoid sociopath. His bottom line is himself, everything and everyone else is fungible. He is intellectually lazy and the only time he tells the truth is when he inadvertently reveals who he really is in his Twitter meltdowns.

His most prominent supporters tend to be people who know the truth about the man but through a combination of a lust for temporal power, his conservative Christian base; or greed, the Ayn Rand type libertarian-conservatives whose social-Darwinian greed makes them use him to enrich themselves. The former believe that Trump will help them usher in a theocracy; the latter believe that he will give the government over to them in order to help their profit margin. None of them have any principles and are committed to their respective ideologies as contradictory as they may be. None of them have any courage, and none of them will ever stand for anything.

Maybe that is why I like Raymond Reddington. He’s flawed and so am I. He does bad things. He is a manipulator; but he recognizes his moral and ethical shortcomings and wrestles with his  own shortcomings. He is not always successful but he does make the attempt. I look at his character and I realize that in a different world or maybe an alternate universe I could be him.

All that being said, I really do think that real courage is to wrestle with reality every day and do the hard work of deciding what to believe; and today that may be different then tomorrow, but it will be based on reality and tempered by my often contradictory beliefs. Of course a true political ideologue or religious fundamentalist will condemn me to their version of hell for being that honest, but it is true. That is my uncomfortable reality, it may not be right, and my vision may be skewed and distorted, but it is what it is; and as Reddington said, “In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”

As for you my readers I do thank you and hope that one day we may sit back and enjoy a drink together, possibly even toasting the “Immortal Lord Nelson.” But until that time thank you for taking time out of your day to read what I write and for your comments.

So until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

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July 21, 2017 · 06:30

Marching Backwards Again: the Scopes Monkey Trial at 82

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Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Eighty-two years ago today a high school biology teacher in Dayton, Tennessee was convicted of teaching the theory of Evolution and fined $100 in defiance of The Butler Act, a state law written by Tennessee State Representative John W. Butler, a farmer and the head of the World Christian Fundamentals Association.

The text of the law stated:

“That it shall be unlawful for any teacher in any of the Universities, Normals and all other public schools of the State which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, to teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.”

Butler’s legislation did face some opposition in the State Senate. However it passed there on a vote of 24-6 after the famous Fundamentalist evangelist Billy Sunday preached as series of revival meetings to incite public opinion in favor of the bill. Sunday’s message was clear, he preached that “Education today is chained to the Devil’s throne” and praised Butler and the House for their “action against that God forsaken gang of evolutionary cutthroats.” The bill was signed into law by Governor Austin Peay, but Peay expected little to come of it.

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It was a show trial that pitted a prosecutorial team led by proponents of Butler’s legislation and headed by William Jennings Bryan, a former Secretary of State and four-time Presidential Candidate against Scopes, who was defended by the renowned attorney Clarence Darrow. Though Bryant “won” the trial the result was not to his satisfaction and proved embarrassing to him and his cause. The trial judge refused to admit scientists and scholars as witnesses for the defense but Darrow, despite the “defeat” was the clear winner.

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William Jennings Bryan (above) Clarence Darrow (below)

Marcet Haldeman-Julius wrote of Bryan at the trial:

“As he sat there in the court room, day after day, silent, fanning, fanning, his face set I was appalled by the hardness, the malice in it. No one who has watched the fanatical light in those hard, glittering black eyes of Bryan’s can doubt but that he believes both in a heaven and in a hell. At the same time the cruel lines of his thin, tight-pressed mouth proclaim, it seems to me, that he would stop at nothing to attain his own ends. It is anything but a weak face–Bryan’s. But it is a face from which one could expect neither understanding nor pity. My own opinion is that he is sincere enough in his religion. Also that in it is included the doctrine Paul so frankly taught–that a lie told for the glory of God is justified…”

I find it interesting that 82 years later the Republican Party has been hijacked by Christian Fundamentalists like Butler and Bryant. This was shown in a poll last week in which over half of the GOP respondents thought that college education was a bad thing and harmful for the country and propose bills that devastate education budgets, scientific studies, and promote an agenda that is harmful to the planet that we live on. Ignorance is forever busy.

Then of course the creationist descendants of Butler and Bryant are taking the State of Kentucky for all the money that they can with their massive Noah’s Ark Creation Museum paid for in part by taxpayer dollars. With the museum failing the group is doing its best to avoid paying taxes on the property by selling it to their non-profit entity for $10.

Such people claim to love God, but they manifestly hate his creation, including people God created who don’t believe like them. Scopes has passed into history but it lingers today.

Spencer Tracy, who played the fictional version of Darrow in the movie Inherit the Wind gave a speech in that movie which should be required reading for anyone:

“Can’t you understand? That if you take a law like evolution and you make it a crime to teach it in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools? And tomorrow you may make it a crime to read about it. And soon you may ban books and newspapers. And then you may turn Catholic against Protestant, and Protestant against Protestant, and try to foist your own religion upon the mind of man. If you can do one, you can do the other. Because fanaticism and ignorance is forever busy, and needs feeding. And soon, your Honor, with banners flying and with drums beating we’ll be marching backward, BACKWARD, through the glorious ages of that Sixteenth Century when bigots burned the man who dared bring enlightenment and intelligence to the human mind!”

So until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

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May 15, 2017 · 06:30

Hedonism and Fundamentalism: The Hallmarks of Ante-Bellum Pro-Slavery and Modern Evangelicalism

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I spent part of yesterday reviewing my text of Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory! so I could continue to write what I need for my literary agent to help in the process of getting it marketed and published. To quote the President “who ever thought it could be so complex?” but I digress…

In re-reading the text I came across a passage that struck me as entirely contemporary in its application and I had to stop. It was the fundamentalist theology of Southern Evangelicals that both justified slavery as well as the most hedonistic aspect of Southern life. It was a religion that defended slavery from biblical literalism and excused the worst aspects of the greedy, slothful, and lust filled life of the Southern slaveowners and oligarchs. This is the same kind of theology that today permits the enrichment of oligarchs and preachers while neglecting almost every other aspect of the Gospel simply because those in power promise to protect and empower Christians over others, especially white Christians, the more affluent the better. The love of prosperity Gospel and the gilded cage of Donald Trump’s Christianity are a great combination.

Some things never change, especially for Christian fundamentalists who in order to maintain their temporal power must justify the worst and most repugnant aspects of their culture; as the British Evangelical Anglican theologian Alister McGrath wrote: “the arguments used by the pro-slavery lobby represent a fascinating illustration and condemnation of how the Bible may be used to support a notion by reading the text within a rigid interpretive framework that forces predetermined conclusions to the text. How else could supposed Christians support a leader who mocks their beliefs and tramples on the example of Jesus? Of course that too as a rhetorical question. It is a fact that throughout history many Christians in Europe, America, and in other parts of the world have had no problems supporting the most anti-Christian leaders and regimes and even participated in genocide for their benefit justifying it in the name of God.

So anyway, until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

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April 22, 2017 · 06:30

Truth Deniers: The Fundamentalist Idolatry of Preachers

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

As I mentioned yesterday things have been quite busy and unsettled around here so I won’t be writing a lot today. That being said, I want to mention a comment that a fundamentalist Christian come to my Facebook page and send me a direct message excoriating me for a very considered article that I wrote about the death of the Reverend David Wilkerson a number of years ago after he drove his car into an oncoming truck.

It was a difficult article to write. As someone who admired David Wilkerson yet did not idolize him I took the time to read his blog posts, and then obtain the State Police accident reports, accident photos, and autopsy results. My conclusion based on the evidence, and my experience doing accident investigation when I was in the Army was that Wilkerson had to have intentionally driven into the oncoming truck. The police reports, the photos, and his own words all pointed to it. Honesty, I would have preferred to have discovered that the car had a mechanical issue, or that he had a medical event that caused him to veer into the oncoming truck, but the evidence did not show that. Instead, it showed that on a clear day, on a strait road, that he drove directly into an oncoming tractor-trailer rig, ending his life and fatally injuring his terminally ill wife.

Over the years I have had quite a few Evangelical Christians come to this site as well as my Facebook page to attack me, condemn me to Hell, and do everything but to dispassionately examine the evidence and come to a conclusion. The problem is that I took down the idol that they made of a good man, a man who did many good things, but who also had feet of clay, who like his wife was suffering from serious medical issues, and who had recently suffered the betrayal of the people that he had helped to promote to senior leadership at Times Square Church, people who would have not reached their positions without his help and assistance.

The problem is that David was a fundamentalist, and he had written a small polemic book about suicide being an unforgivable sin. I have the book, I read it before I wrote the article. Personally I don’t think that God will condemn to Hell a suffering person who makes a tragic choice such as suicide. There were many things that I admired David for and others that I disagreed with him, suicide was one of them.

Yesterday I got a personal message from another of his idolators who blasted me every which way but loose. Instead of responding like I have done in the past I realized that no words of mine would change this person’s opinion, so I simply deleted it without comment. To me it is no longer worth debating people who refuse to even entertain  possibilities that are at odds with their beliefs about the men they turn into idols.

That is a problem for many Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christians. I have seen too many deny and defends the real crimes of preachers who they have turned into idols. I saw it when I worked for a very well known Fundamentalist televangelist when I was in seminary in the late 1980s and early 1990s and throughout my ministry since then. It doesn’t matter what they do: defraud their followers, be caught in horrendous marital infidelity, abuse of children, and even murder, their followers will defend them to their dying day and then condemn anyone who dares point out inconvenient truths. Pardon me, but that is not Christian, it is idolatry.

To his credit, David Wilkerson did not defraud his flock, he did not cheat on his wife, he did not abuse children, or murder anyone. He appears to have been caught in the terrible throws of depression, hopelessness, and succumbed to the impulse to end his life. There are many people who have also contacted me over the years to share the good things about David and ministry, as well as how he touched their lives who also empathized with the suffering that led him to take his life. I think that demonstrates an appropriate response to the tragic death of someone who did many good things.

Anyway. That’s more than I intended to write and I had no idea how much something that happened almost seven years ago still inspires people to hate and condemn those who however reluctantly destroy their idolatrous image of good but flawed and suffering people. However, I continue to learn that as Lord Dumbledore said: “The truth.” Dumbledore sighed. “It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution.”

It is, and some people cannot handle it.

Have a great Saturday.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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May 15, 2015 · 10:38

Friday Interuptions 

 
Friends of Padre Steve’s World

Interruptions are the spice of life. Carl Von Clausewitz talked about war being “the province of chance” and of course that can be a metaphor for life.  Shit happens and even the best laid plans of mice and men get way layer and mangled. Old dead Carl wrote that “chance makes everything more uncertain and interferes with the whole course of events” and that my friends has been my week so far. 

Of course as you know we lost our oldest and best furry child Molly on Monday which hit us hard. There is something else which I cannot say much about right now that is a source of concern for us, and then this morning as I wow working away we lost power at the staff college when a transformer blew. That interrupted work on my latest Gettysburg chapter revision and has forced a retirement ceremony for my friend Commander Lisa Rose to be moved outside. 

Lisa’s retirement ceremony will be special. Lisa is a great nurse who I worked with at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth back in 2008-2010. Back then while I was struggling with faith and life while working 80 to 100 hours a week, mostly in the ICU, Lisa who was Nurse Manager for our Inpatient Oncology Unit would put her arm around me and tell me to go home. Lisa is a tremendous Christian who lives her faith in a real and powerful way. She had to live most of her military life wondering if someone was going to try to get her kicked out of the Navy during the days of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell edict, something that gave a modicum of protection for Gay and Lesbian service members but did not protect them from the witch hunts of those who hate them. As such Lisa was not able to have her wife Karen attend functions that most of us consider routine for families to attend. Today was special because not only is Lisa a friend, but like the rest of us her wife was finally able to be honored like other military spouses who devote so much of their lives to their spouse’s careers. That meant a lot to me and it is an honor to be a part of her ceremony. I’m sure I will shed some tears today. 

After the ceremony I will likely be heading home for the day, unless power comes back. We have already dismissed our students and because to much of what we do is dependent on technology there is almost nothing I can do. 

Since I was bored I got on Facebook and tweaked some preachy preacher’s post on a friend’s page, sending him into a theological rage which has given me much ammo for a future blog post. The guy got so spun up so I tweaked him more and he just didn’t get the irony, or the humor of what I was doing. But sadly that is the base line for religious extremists of any persuasion. They cannot deal with history, humanity, or life, so they spend their lives building theological fortresses that make in impossible for the undesirables to enter and from which the cast aspersions and condemnation on all that disagree with them. But I digress…

So, that said it is time to get suited up and get ready for the ceremony and probably an early beer. As we know, beer is good, and as Oscar Wilde said “work is the curse of the drinking classes.” 

Let the games begin.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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March 20, 2015 · 20:16

I Guess I am Not a Christian



i think that I am a Christian. I have been baptized, made my profession of faith, been confirmed, married in the church and been ordained as a Deacon and Priest, but I guess to some that isn’t enough. Of course I am talking about the Christian Taliban of the Christian Right, people whose theological knowledge and expression is about as articulate as a hamster on steroids, and who think that only they have the keys to the kingdom of God. 

I have consumed a fair amount of excellent craft beer tonight but even so, my understanding of faith, the  Christian Faith and theology is better than idiots that I encounter. I had it happen again tonight and of course it was some ignorant fundamentalist from Texas who decided that I was not a Christian. 

Frankly I have had it. The ignorance of the supposedly Christian Right, which sadly I have to say I once considered myself to be a part,  has so poisoned discourse in this country that it is embarrassing. If such is the Christian Faith I would rather be be condemned to Hell than to be considered a Christian by their standards. 

As Pedro Cerano (Denis Haysburt) said in the movie Major League “fuck you Jobu, I do it without you.”

Of course I am not talking about Jesus, who I like very much, but who is no help with curveball, but rather the ignorant fundamentalist who sit as prosecuting attorney, jury and judge over those who they hate. Yes I said hate, because that is the only explanation for such behavior. If that means that I am not a Christian, then so be it. 

Pray for me a sinner.

Peace,

Padre Steve+ 

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October 1, 2012 · 21:11

I Like Jesus Very much, but He no Help with Militant Angry Christians

Did you ever have one of those days where a militantly religious person attacks you ceaselessly because they are offended at something you said and continues to attack no matter how many times you try to let it go? It has been one of those days for me. On days like this I get weary of militant, angry and all too often ignorant Christians.  They make me tired but even still I will serve to ensure that they have their religious liberty.

There is a scene in the movie Major League where the Cuban defector Pedro Cerrano played by Dennis Haysbert, who has an altar to his God Jobu in his locker to help him hit the curveball. One of the other players ask him about Jesus and Cerrano says “Jesus, I like him very much, but he no help with curveball.” Well for me Jesus is no help with militantly angry Christians.

I have written over 1200 articles on this site some of which attract criticism and so long as the critic is polite and sticks to facts I deal with it pretty well. However I find that the nastiest of my critics are supposedly Christian. I cannot believe the hateful, rude and uncivil manner displayed by these people and on rare occasion I have responded with blunt criticism of their behavior. In fact in posts where I have been critical of any faith it is Christians who are the most vicious in their attacks. Even Moslems that have written when I have criticized either the actions of Moslem extremists or aspects of their religion are more decent than these Christians.

The funny thing is that I never get attacked for big stuff, but rather having the nerve to criticize their favorite preacher or suggest that Christian leaders that they idolize may have feet of clay. Even people that disagree with me on doctrine or divisive social and political topics, including those espoused by Christians generally try to stick to some kind of ground rules when they comment. They stick to the issues and don’t for the most part make it personal.

However, there is a type of religious personality that cannot abide any criticism of their leaders. You name the religion and you will find people that are militantly aggressive and even violent to those that criticize their current earthly leader or some previous leader. It as if you criticize them you are criticizing God even when it is well deserved criticism completely backed up with facts. But then to such people facts don’t matter.

Likewise the viciousness levied by such Christians against “sinners” is appalling, especially homosexuals and people of non-Christian religions. Jeremy Affeldt, an Evangelical Christian and pitcher for the San Francisco Giants commented on his blog recently:

“It’s getting harder all the time to say, “I’m a Christian.” I’m not afraid to say I’m a Christian. Sometimes I’m embarrassed to say it! I’m embarrassed by how people view Christianity, as a judging faith. The way people view Christianity is not the way that sinners viewed Jesus. Sinners loved Jesus! They knew He loved them! And as much as it is possible, I want to be viewed like Jesus was viewed, as someone who loves people.”

I stand in total agreement with him. I deal with a lot of people who have been for a large number of diverse reasons been treated badly by the church as an institution or by some of the people who act as if they are the final arbiter of truth or God’s judgement.

I find it little wonder that people are leaving Christian churches of all denominations in droves. For most of these people it is not about God or Jesus, or even the Bible. It is due to the lack of love, care, compassion exhibited by Christians and the institutional corruption, lack of transparency, double standards and political machinations of churches over people that are not of their faith or under their institutional control. The surveys conducted by Christian pollsters like George Barna bear this out. When asked what words or phrases “best describe Christianity” the top response of 16-29 years olds was “anti-homosexual” while 91% of all non-Christians surveyed said this was the first word as it was for 80% of Christians in the survey. Here are those words that describe Christians. Personally I don’t like them but it is what it is.

Hypocritical: Christians live lives that don’t match their stated beliefs;
Antihomosexual: Christians show contempt for gays and lesbians – “hating the sin and the sinner” as one respondent put it
Insincere: Christians are concerned only with collecting converts
Sheltered: Christians are anti-intellectual, boring, and out of touch with reality.
Too political: Christians are primarily motivated by a right-wing political agenda

The sad thing is that we are not simply alienating non-Christians we are losing young Christians in this cesspool of Christless Christianity. I wrote about this about a year ago in an article entitled Reaching the Lost Christian Generation.I wrote another article when novelist Anne Rice announced that she was leaving the Catholic Church called Anne Rice and the Exodus. Both articles deal with reality that many conservative Christian leaders refuse to recognize. The fact is that in many western countries Christians and the institutional church behave as if they are both entitled to being at the top of the heap and play the victim when they don’t get their way or when someone dares to criticize them or their leaders.

Jesus told his disciples that people would know they were his disciples by their love for one another. It was a sentiment that even the Roman persecutors of the early Church echoed.

I just hope that despite my own faults that people who come to me in person, or on this site see me as someone that loves people hopefully as Jesus would. What grieves me about some of those that attack and attack and attack is that they try every nerve that I have, and the sad thing as most of them don’t take the time to actually find out anything about me or what I believe before they launch their attacks. I can in a small way understand Jesus’ frustration with the religious leaders of his time.

Here is to hoping that things will get better.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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