Wounded by their own Words

     It is well known that Bart Erhman is out for revenge.  His constant stream of books and articles, his appearance on television programs, all of which focus on the historical criticism of the scriptures and the New Testament times.  His books on the history of the writing of the scriptures and how they were subject to errors and to theological biases are all the response to his anger and frustration at being deceived by the Christian community in which he was reared.

     Dr. Erhman was converted, as he has told us, in a very strict evangelical, fundamentalist congregation. He was told and he accepted that the Bible was the word of God and every word in the Bible was inspired and divine. He was told the Bible was the inerrant word of God. He was so devoted to that theology that he wanted to be a Biblical scholar.  When in his studies of the Scripture he began to learn the truth about the vast number of manuscripts of the Bible and how many different readings there were to so many different passages, he began to discover that the Bible was not without its human dimension.  He discovered that he had been lied to by all those preachers. The Bible was not inerrant as a text.  His response has been to engage in attacks upon the Bible and Christianity ever since.

     What perhaps is not as well known is that Reza Aslan, who is the author of the much discussed book Zealot: The life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, was also converted from Islam by an evangelical Christian community.  As an adolescent living in the USA he was converted to Christianity in a fundamentalist church.  Once again, as an undergraduate he encountered the critical biblical scholarship that exposed the shaky foundations of that fundamentalist message. He abandoned Christianity and returned to his roots as a Muslim.  Now he, also, is writing books that criticize the basic message of the Christian faith.

     "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." but the Christian faith is also discovering that "that woman" has a match in a fundamentalist convert who discovers that the proclamation of an inerrant Bible is a lie.  The Bible is indeed, an inspired book, inspired by the faith of the humans who wrote it and the message of the presence of a Holy One in the midst of History is good news, but the text that tells that story is as flawed as any other book that is published.

And still it goes

     One of the things that amazes me most about the series of mystery writers is that the conflicts never change.  John Rebus was never trusted by the upper level management of the Edinburgh police. Alexandra Cooper still fights with the same people every story.  Joanne Brady continues to have trouble with her deputies.  You might think that after these heroes and others have solved so many crimes the forces they are with would support them whole heartily.    I understand that it would not make for a very good series of mystery books, but that is another problem.

     But when you do think about it, there is the reality that facts do not often change people's minds. Whether politically or socially or economically the facts do not seem to have much impact on the way we think.  You can have 95 nations and all the Nobel prize winning scientists you want conclude that global warming in happening and that human activity is very much a part of the cause, and yet lots of people will not change their mind.  There are still flat earth people and two gunmen conspiracy people on JFK's shooting.

     So the best means of transformation of people is in the living contact with a different way. Those who hate certain groups of people will not be talked out of their bigotry by facts, but let them met an individual and they may begin to change.  Most of the conversions of people I have read and met have been because of the personal lived witness to faith, and not by facts and logic.  Your life is still the best testimony you are able to give.

Words of Gardner Taylor

To quote one of the most distinguished preacher of American,

"It is one thing for secular special interests to organize themselves around punishing the poor and penalizing the handicapped; it is altogether another matter, and infinitely more atrocious, when religion aligns itself with the ugliest moods and deepest biases of the community around it.  There are forces of reaction and meanness and oppression loose in the country today which mask their harsh bigotry with the Word of God and the persuasiveness of a certain synthetic ministerial unction. They castigate people whose ideologies do not agree with theirs. They are passionate about life before birth but are not nearly equally intense about the quality of life after birth. They criticize, and rightly, crimes of violence, but they have not one word of criticism for corporate robbers who bribe, misappropriate, lie, dodge income tax, and practice cutthroat methods of business operation."

Spoken in l983 and now 30 years later the words are even more appropriate and the evil done as only gotten worse.

Forgetting where you came from!

     It makes a great story. He was born to a single mom who could not read, but who made him write book reports and read them to her so she knew he was doing the work.  He ate welfare food, got health care from the clinics and got government paid for glasses. He was accepted into college and med school because of affirmative action.  And now he is a rabid opponent to all of those programs.  Dr. Ben Carson. He wants to promote himself as a great story of individual achievement that proves that those who are on welfare could get off and out of the ghetto if they would just work hard.   His story is a great story but why does he want to deny the same help to others?   Somehow there must be a conflict and confused personality in him that does not want to have to remember that struggle and the struggle that others are still trying to make.
     The same confusion exists in most of the southern states. All those southern states that have representatives in congress shouting and preaching about the need to eliminate welfare, worker's comp, unemployment benefits, medicare and medicaid, live and are elected in states that are receiving more in federal aid than they are contributing to the government in taxes.  That is the Southern states get back more in those programs in terms of total dollars than they pay in taxes to the Federal government. The whole area is receiving welfare and are dependent on the liberal northern states to pay for them.
     It takes somebody with more intelligence than I have to understand the mind and the attitude that can stand up and bite the hand that is feeding it so loudly and aggressively.

I was amazed!

     Twice on my recent trip aboard I was left with my jaw on the floor by comments of members of our group.  It slowly became known that I was a Presbyterian minister, and I think it was true that most of the members of that group considered themselves believers.   So one of the members commented to me that he had read an article that reported that a well known theologian had admitted that at times he had doubts about the existence of God. The group member then told me that he believed that any theologian who had doubts about God had way too much time on his hands and needed to find something better to do.  I did manage to ask him if he never had doubts about the existence of God.  I even suggested that there was no faith without doubt, but he did not seem to be able to grasp that notion.  Is the chess board black with white squares or is it a white board with black squares on it?  You may be sure that it is one or the other, but surely every once in a while you think it might be the other way around. Well, when one looks at life there are beautiful things, glorious people, works of art, good deeds, grace abounds, and so you are sure of the goodness of God, and then you see the crime, hatred, the killing, the greed and you see senselessness of pain and suffering and don't you wonder, doubt maybe whether there is a good God or even a God?  My jaw hit the floor when he told me that he did not think a theologian should be doubting the existence of God.

     The second time it bounced off the floor was when a very highly educated and successful lawyer for a fortune five hundred company told me, when we were looking at the magnificent craters, the deep and beautiful glacier lakes and rivers of New Zealand, those rain forests of millions of years and the erosion of the granite rocks, that he had never thought about the Genesis story of six days of creation which he thought was the way it had happened.  The whole six twenty four hour creation story put up against the vast awe inspiring mountains and cliffs and he never thought of reconciling or attempting to integrate one with the other.  Granted it was not his life's work and he had family and lots of things to worry about, but if people who have his kind of education and experiences can go through life with these things compartmentalized, how can we ever make any kind of progress in finding a faith witness that matters. How can we find an educational curriculum that is scientific if we still want the six day creation poem taught as science?

    Once again there is evidence that education is not all that is needed for the achievement of a robust and dynamic faith in the midst of the reality of the world we live in.  There is no honest faith without doubt, and there is no vibrant and dynamic faith without the power to bring the poetry and truth of scripture into alliance with the research and data of history and science.

   

A Little Honesty, Please

     Driving in the car with a man whom I had just met, he was talking to me like he did not know what I had been or who I was. Maybe he did know who I was and thought I needed to be "reformed." He was telling me about how Christians in China have to be very careful. That if one teaches the Bible, one can be killed. I have heard the same story, but I have also heard much recently that the Chinese government has kind of adopted a "Don't ask, Don't tell" about practicing the Christian faith.

    But the lecture on Christianity in China lead to another lecture on the virtues of the Christian faith, in his mind. According to him Christianity is the only faith that has given women equal rights. All other faiths have suppressed women.  I did not want to get into any major discussions of World History with the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans who all had women gods and women priest.  I did not want to try to venture into the oriental religions as I do not know much about them myself.

     And I was very pleased with myself that I kept my tongue and did not point out to him that his Southern Baptist still do not want women to be preachers; that the Roman Catholic Church has been trying to shut up the American nuns, and will not let women be Priest. That as a Presbyterian I have a personal memory of the fight to allow women to be Elders and Ministers.  Jesus was very progressive in his day in the treatment of women, widows,  children, and foreigners, but the history of those who followed Jesus does not indicated that they have been more progressive in the treatment of women. St. Paul tries to limit the involvement of women in worship.

     The defense of Christianity is a worthy thing, but to do it with inaccurate information does not help the cause.  As Linda Fairstein in her series of mystery stories with Alex Cooper, the woman who tells her story about being raped had better be honest in all parts because if it is shown you lie or misuse the facts in one small place, the jury will think we are lying all the time.

What Hypocrisy!

There has been a stream of criticism on the television about the lack of leadership in Washington to solve these major financial issues.  I think that is true. I think neither the House nor the Senate has the kind of leaders who can work out some compromise.

I think is grossly unfair to blame President Obama for the stalemate as I have heard many do. Because Obama does not have, even as President the power to make things happen as CEO's in other companies  do.

I think it is grossly unfair of the many CEO's who have been quoted as saying that Obama has failed to produce leadership when the leaders and CEO's of the auto industry were not able to reach solutions without going into bankruptcy court. The CEO's of Wall Street banks were not able to find a solution to their self created problems without getting help. The Airlines were not able to find solutions to their financial issues without going into bankruptcy court.

It is a pretty arrogant group of people who can look at Washington and claim a lack of creative leadership when none of them were able to find "creative leadership" to resolve their problems without outside help.  Congress and Obama had nobody to come in and give that outside help.  There are 500 arrogant stubborn people in Congress and Obama cannot even make his own Democrats stay in line let alone get the Republicans to cooperate.

It is a classic example of hypocrisy to hear business leaders talk about failure of leadership.

ANOTHER REMINDER OF THE POWER OF EVIL

And so it drags on for another day. The two sides continue to demonize each other. The solution to the problem is that the “other side” ought to just give in and give up.  Both sides wrap themselves up in the “arrogance of righteousness.”  One side even claims that they have “God on their side.”  Perhaps both of them ought to go back and listen to one of Bob Dylan’s great songs about “God on our side.”

But that is one of the great disguises of evil, to make itself look so much like the good.  One of the great powers of evil is to be able to make a second level good into an absolute good. To take a minor and make it a major. To take a good cause like “debt reduction” and make it into an absolute when the absolute ought to be “to govern for the good of the country.”  The power of evil has the splendid power to make those who are remaining steadfast feel like they are saints.  They are being persecuted for righteousness sake.  Both sides claim the high road, and believe themselves to be doing good. Evil enjoys watching this kind of fight between two committed sides.

Because it has the ability to look so much like the good, there has always been the temptation to think that evil can be easily overcome.  If these two good intentioned sides would just talk to each other, we could easily solve this problem. Boehner has been quoted as saying, all Obama has to do is come down to the House and give in. Reid has said all the House has to do is pass a budget without Health Care restrictions.

In fact, it is one of the worst mistakes that continues to be made in Western Civilization since the age of Enlightenment. It is the quick and easy assumption that evil can be simply and painlessly overcome.  “A weak awareness of the power of evil is the simple, shallow, optimistic notion of the West.”, so said Gardner Taylor, one of this country’s great Black preachers.  It is the arrogance of education that all we need to do to achieve the good is to get more people education.  But education only makes the evil ones more skillful. Look at Osama Bid Laden.  Education is good but it does not eliminate evil.  Wealth, Fame, Military Power, Democracy, Political power, none of them are able to overcome evil.  Certainly religion has not been able to overcome evil. 

One of the greatest problems with American protestantism is that its major public expressions completely avoid dealing with the problem of evil. If you listen to Joel Osteen evil is just a lack of effort and faith in yourself.  All the prosperity gospels discount evil as quickly as possible. Bad things may happen but with a little faith and effort you can over come them.

Someone once suggested that all evil needed to succeed was for good people to do nothing. Well, that is pretty simplistic as well. The power that religion does give is the power not to pretend that evil can be overcome. Evil is around us, in us, in our systems, in our economy, in our lives, and we ought not to pretend that we can just deal with is easily and quickly.  The best way to deal with it is to acknowledge it and ask each other to call it to attention when we see it.   What is happening in D.C. right now is simply evil and it obviously will not be overcome easily.