Beyond The Good News?

Many have been those who have wryly noted that The Good News, published by the United Church of God, is anything but a conveyor of good news. The lads in Milford may have had that in mind when they decided on a re-branding exercise which takes effect in 2015. More likely though, they're unhappy about low circulation (currently claimed to be 201,000). So out with The Good News and in with Beyond Today magazine. Will it make any difference? Unlikely.

Meantime the January edition, which will be one of the last issues under the current name, is available to download. You might call it the Islamophobia issue, but in case that's not depressing enough there's a feature on Ebola as well! (Subhead: Increasing pandemics prophesied). I'm sure Scott Ashley will take exception if I'm wrong, but all this stuff is written by staff writers - dare one say hacks? - not anyone with real world knowledge of any of these subjects. This means the GN has an awful lot in common with The Watchtower.

Lads, here's a tip. Stop trying to mimic a badly written current affairs magazine with pretensions of "inside knowledge" based on a horribly uninformed understanding of "prophecy". Just sayin'.

But never let it be said that the GN (soon to be BT) doesn't tackle the really big questions. Randy Stiver, the Einstein (perhaps closer to one of the bagel brothers than Albert) of UCG has another piece entitled - wait for it - Who Is God? Whoa! He begins in a positive vein: "There are several ways you can start getting to really know God."

I stopped reading at that point and ran out of the room screaming.

Aw shucks

I'm used to getting battered around the lugs here at Otagosh, so it's always a bit of a surprise to find that someone appreciates my occasional ravings. The someone who I'm specifically referring to is Neil Godfrey, a.k.a. Vridar (vridar.org). Neil posted some flattering comments recently which you'll find here. Please, nobody tell James McGrath!

Truth to tell I haven't posted a great deal lately. The last month or so have been, um, difficult on a number of fronts, and blogging has of necessity dropped to the bottom of the priority pile. But hey, Summer is here (eat your hearts out all you Northern Hemisphere types) and a much needed vacation started last Thursday. I expect the activity here on Otagosh will step up a notch as a result. Sometime next year I intend to throw away my whiteboard markers and take early retirement, so who knows what that will mean. I'm one of those tragic souls that entered school at age five and never managed to leave, other than changing which side of the big desk I sit at.

Meantime my most demanding holiday project is to watch every single episode of the 60s TV series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea which has recently been released here on DVD. Holiday reading includes Gordon McLaughlan's highly entertaining Great Tales from New Zealand History and political journo Steve Braunias' Madmen: Inside the Weirdest Election Campaign Ever. The latter is worth it just for the cover which depicts prime minister John Key as one suspects he really is, stripped of the Teflon PR mask.

Theological material? Hmm. I'll think about it, but not too seriously.

Papa Joe pontificates on Jesus Mythicism

James McGrath has a new chum who has joined the anti-mythicism chorus, none other than GCI 'Pastor General for Life' Joe Tkach Jr. Now I respect (though I don't always agree with) James' opinion on this subject, after all he has the 'cred' to speak out on the topic. But Joe?

In any case you can read the PG/President's thoughts for yourself on El Presidente's weekly missive. The mighty theologian drags out quotes from Josephus, Tacitus and Suetonius, all of which were written long after Jesus' death and are somewhat dubious anyway. Nothing new there. Joe also chucks in brief references to F.F. Bruce, C.S.Lewis and I. Howard Marshall just so we all know he's firmly in the evangelical mainstream (as if that's a good thing!) More surprisingly he calls in a quote from Bishop Spong to bolster his argument.

Any mythicist worth their weight can easily debunk Joe on the points he raises, this is territory that has been visited and revisited ad nauseam. Not that I'm nailing my flag to the mythicist position. Hey, who really knows? Jesus' existence as "the man from Nazareth" and the "stranger from Galilee" is based on probability rather than any rock solid evidence. Despite what you may have heard from blowhards like Joe, the gospels are anything but eyewitness accounts.

To read the article that in all likelihood set Joe frantically pounding his Word Processor - or perhaps his ghost writer did the hard yards - then click across to the December 18 Washington Post article by Raphael Lataster. This guy at least knows the parameters of the discussion. An excerpt.

All we have are later descriptions of Jesus’ life events by non-eyewitnesses, most of whom are obviously biased. Little can be gleaned from the few non-Biblical and non-Christian sources, with only Roman scholar Josephus and historian Tacitus having any reasonable claim to be writing about Jesus within 100 years of his life. And even those sparse accounts are shrouded in controversy, with disagreements over what parts have obviously been changed by Christian scribes (the manuscripts were preserved by Christians), the fact that both these authors were born after Jesus died (they would thus have probably received this information from Christians), and the oddity that centuries go by before Christian apologists start referencing them.

Sorry Joe. Again, the evidence is thin on the ground and humility is called for. I rather think on balance that there is an historical core to the Jesus accounts, but it's best to keep a finger grip on such conclusions.

You don't of course need to be a literalist to appreciate the depths of Christmas story - in fact wooden literalism probably just gets in the way. But false assurances and blatant apologetics are less than helpful. So no, I'm not in favour of 'retiring' Christmas because of the imaginative elements (something you don't need to be a mythicist to concede).

But I do think unelected President for Life Tkach should retire. Should have done so years (decades!) ago. He's way out of his depth.

Happy holidays to all!

Go Francis Go!

Dear lord, a reforming pope.

A certain popular Southern Baptist biblioblogger has recently labelled Pope Francis as the "hippie pope." But since when has anyone outside the Bible Belt paid the slightest attention to a ranting Southern Baptist preacher? Come the third resurrection the majority of those toasting their noodles in the flames of gehenna - apart from those screaming "Allahu Akbar" - will doubtless be clutching KJV Bibles and frantically humming The Old Rugged Cross.

The fact is that for many both inside and outside the Roman fold Francis is a breath of fresh air.

And just look at what His Wholesomeness has just said about the mafioso curia and assorted Vatican bureaucrats.

Spiritual Alzheimers
Existential Schizophrenia

Shades of Luther and popes of more recent times who one suspects were swiftly silenced before they could threaten the mafioso priestocrats that traditionally hold real power in Mother Church; John XXIII and John Paul I.

Conservative Catholics will be joining hands with fundamentalist Protestants in cries of horror, if for different reasons. The prophecy panders in Charlotte and Edmond will be having conniptions as they try to shoehorn all this into their cramped preconceptions based on fantastical misinterpretations of the Bible.

Music to the ears of those with ears to hear.

Imagine someone with a fraction of the integrity of Francis taking over the mantle of a smaller pseudo-Protestant body - let's say for the sake of argument one based in Glendora, California (formerly in Pasadena).

Reform doesn't begin with dogma. That trots along in the wake. It begins with structural change, systemic change. It begins by throwing open the windows and letting in clean air. Not so easy in a church with a tradition as firmly embedded as Catholicism. What other institution has weathered the centuries as it has? Compared to his last two predecessors Francis has moved with lightning speed.

That not-so hypothetical Glendora sect put the doctrinal wagon in front of the organisational horse. They painted the wagon, re-padded the seat and oiled the wheels, then shot the horse and sent it to the taxidermist! The credit for this strangely stupid strategy ultimately lies with their own pope (Joe II) and his curia of that time.

The BBC notes "There was silence at the end of the Pope's speech."

I'd say he scored a direct hit. If he survives the backlash (and one can only pray that he will) it will be interesting to see what follows.


Tip of the cheese cutter to Reg Killingley who provided this link to the official Vatican statement. Unless you read Italian you'll need to click on the 'translate this' option.

British Israelism, Racism and the WCG

[Not to be reposted or published in print form without prior consent]

For those readers who, like myself, have a history in the late, unlamented Worldwide Church of God, I have a question.

What was the one key teaching - doctrine if you will - that you would identify as foundational during your sojourn in that body?

There's certainly a wide choice to ponder. The church offered a smorgasbord of distinctive beliefs. Sabbath, Holy Days, tithing, dietary requirements, conscientious objection to military service, the God Family (or alternately a form of binitarianism), 'begotten' rather than 'born again', the millennium on earth, three resurrections, the apostleship of Herbert Armstrong.

A follow-up question for extra credit. Which one of the WCG's teachings - if any - do you feel still "stacks up" in the wake of the break-up of this once monolithic organisation?

My suspicion is that the answer to both would in many, many cases be "none of the above". The real draw-card for countless brethren was clearly "Bible prophecy".

Prophecy was hardly the sole prerogative of Armstrong. Dallas dispensationalists, Seventh-day Adventists and others were going hard at it too (remember The Late Great Planet Earth?)  But in the WCG the unique key to prophecy was British Israelism, the arcane idea that the white Anglo nations are descendants of the patriarch Joseph. Britain and the white Commonwealth were identified as Ephraim while the United States was Manasseh.

I'm not aware, even today, of any major splinter group that doesn't affirm "BI" very much as Armstrong taught it.

I confess that my own views on BI were always sceptical from the get-go. On most of the other doctrines I was easily convinced (c'est la vie), but I remember reading the Armstrong opus on that subject as a teenager and wondering if there was something wrong with my intelligence given the fact that the logic of it seemed so obviously shonky. At age 21 I came across Judah's Sceptre and Joseph's Birthright by J.H. Allen and it was apparent, without anyone needing to point it out, that Armstrong had plagiarised the earlier work.

But for most members, Armstrong's teachings on BI and prophecy were revelatory and quickly embraced. Why?

Perhaps it's no coincidence that a reactionary doctrine like BI took on a new lease of life at the time of the Civil Rights movement. Did we even have the word "racism" in our everyday vocabulary back then?

BI, for many folk, and especially for white folk, was an affirmation of their specialness. It reinforced their prejudice, provided an apologetic and justification for a conveniently rose coloured view of history. Just when Blacks in South Africa and the US, Maori in New Zealand and indigenous groups in many other countries were challenging the status quo. And if you think that's all ancient history now, check out what some of the dimmer candles in the ruins of the WCG still spout on the subject. For these people - people of real sincerity and conviction no doubt - it still might as well be 1964.

Why am I rambling on about this? In case you missed it there have been some perceptive comments to the previous post. Among them 'Neo' has contributed the following thoughts on the subject. I think he hits the nail on the head.

Armstrongism could fairly well be described as a system for classifying people as to worth. In an Armstrongite congregation everyone knows who is important and who is not. To properly situate everyone at the correct place in the social hierarchy, some assessment of human worth is necessary. I knew back in those days that the wealthy business owner who always talked to the minister on Saturday was worth more than me and he would likely be first a deacon and then a local church elder. Most people in Armstrongite congregations are unimportant to the leadership except for tithe support. The unimportant derive their esteem not from their participation in the congregation but from being a British-Israelite, one of the chosen. Once you are classified, this has finality. I was on the lowest rung in the hierarchy at Big Sandy. Years later, I would meet people from AC who treated me as if that were still my estate. 

How is this system to respond to a Black President? By deriding what he is. Via the media, putting him in his God-ordained place of subservience. Ex-Armstrongites recognize this principle at work. People inside Armstrongism would never notice anything being out of place or unusual about [the cartoon in The Journal]. My guess is that [the editor] received no protests concerning the cartoon from within the loyal Armstrongite ranks. 

That rings true to my experience too, even though it was half a world away. The WCG was - let's not mince words - not only a hotbed of petty congregational game playing (Yertle the Turtle stuff, mirroring the toxic situation in Pasadena and with the ministry as a whole), but racist in its teachings to the core. Groups like Rod Meredith's Living Church of God still are. You only have to read the content in the retreaded "prophecy" articles they endlessly pump out for Tomorrow's World. You can't affirm BI without embracing a racist world view. It goes with the territory. Their God is indeed, despite the standard obligatory denials, "a respecter of persons".

And perhaps, as Neo suggests, that goes more than half way to explain the overwhelming loathing of the Obama presidency in the remaining ghettoes of Armstrongism today.

New Issue of The Journal

I'm not sure I should even try to offer any comment or opinion on the latest issue of The Journal: News of the Churches of God lest I unwittingly end up again in the Letters to the Editor section. Anyway the link is above so, if you are interested in the shards of COGdom, you can click across.

No Mo?

Moses more myth than man.

An article from this morning's NZ Herald (sourced from the Observer) that's worth a read.

There is no historical figure of Moses, and no reason from archaeology or history to suppose any of the exodus story is true.

[T]he absence of evidence outside the Bible story is potentially embarrassing, says Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner, who leads Reform Judaism in Britain. "You have to distinguish between truth and historicity," she said.

Truth and historicity? Hmm.

"Moses himself has about as much historic reality as King Arthur," archaeologist Philip Davies famously concluded. A more moderate conclusion comes from the historian Tom Holland: "The likelihood that the biblical story records an actual event is fairly small."

Oh dear, can't you just hear the choking sounds from the fundagelical fringe?