Your Source of Understanding?

Last week I mentioned the new PCG radio station, online at kpcg.fm. At that time the only streaming option seemed to be through their website, with less than satisfactory results. Since then KPCG has turned up on Tune In under the moniker The Voice: Your Source of Understanding. The Tune In app is much better than the website in terms of audio quality, which is essential if you're featuring classical repertoire.

As for "your source of understanding", it's clearly a copycat reference to the old "magazine of understanding" subtitle for The Plain Truth. Unfortunately there was little understanding on offer back then, and even less now under the father and son Flurry franchise. What music lovers - probably thinking they've chanced on an NPR station - make of the sudden transitions to cult rants is hard to say. From Samuel Barber's Adagio to Stephen Flurry rattling on about "the guvver-mint of God" and quoting the 1930s Moffatt Bible translation on his Strumpet Gaily show (I might have that title slightly wrong) has to be a bit of a jolt.

PS. Could somebody please tell the newsreader named Nick how to correctly pronounce the word Britain (it ain't Bri-in).

Tom T. Hall and Garner Ted

Tom T. Hall is a legend in the country music business, the man who wrote Harper Valley PTA. That might not mean a lot to anyone under forty, but the guy was big in his time. There's an interview with Hall on americansongwriter.com which includes this anecdote.

I have written songs that I didn’t understand until somebody explained them to me. I am riding along one night and there’s a preacher on the radio. It’s a long drive and it’s in the middle of the night, and it’s the only big signal I could get on my a.m. radio. And I’m listening and it finally dawns on me, he’s preaching about [the song] Homecoming, and what a son-of-a-bitch I am. [imitates preacher's voice] “This is the kind of music they are putting out these days – This guy has been in jail. He didn’t come to his mama’s funeral, he hasn’t seen his daddy in 15 years. He’s got a prostitute in the car wearing a miniskirt, and she’s been drunk….” And I’m thinking [exhales, his eyes get big] – that wasn’t what I had in mind when I wrote that song. [laughs]

[Interviewer] That is unbelievable. When was this?

Tom T: The 60′s. But this guy did 25 minutes on Homecoming. He never played it. What do you think of that? He heard that song on the radio someplace and man he decided to do a sermon. His name was Garner Ted Armstrong, and [the show] was called “The World Tomorrow.” He had a phenomenal talent –  I’ve never heard anybody do it quite that well, maybe in Washington or someplace – but this guy could talk for an hour and not say anything. It was all biblical and biblical history and everything, and every once in a while he would take off on some current topic like my song Homecoming [laughs]. I was big in L.A. at the time – you know everything starts in Los Angeles – So the Rolling Stones discovered me first, and then the people in LA and then everything kind of started to gravitate back to Nashville where I was living [laughs].  I wasn’t a celebrity until the Rolling Stones and some other people in LA said I was. I became a celebrity here because they liked me in L.A. Especially the preachers were listening to the radio [out there] – I was astounded. I was absolutely nobody, I am riding along in this 15 year old used car, I’m not even sure where I was going –  and this guy is preaching about Homecoming, and I though “Holy cow – I’ve started something here. I’ve got this guy all riled up.” Then all of the sudden – of course it's biographical – me in the song – I didn’t realize what a rotten son-of-a-bitch I am! [laughs] I thought I was a pretty good guy.

 Yup, Ted could explain a lot of stuff, in fact he had an opinion about nearly everything, and as Hall so succinctly puts it, "could talk for an hour and not say anything." (I'm guessing this incident happened well before Ted's appearance with Buck Owens on Hee Haw.) And in case you're wondering exactly what GTA was having conniptions over...

Paul, Who Art Thou?

Richard Carrier

Jesus Mythicism is an advanced state of doubt regarding the possibility of an Historical Jesus. It's not a popular position, but stubbornly endures in the peripheral vision of those engaged in the relevant fields. Among its most powerful advocates are Robert M. Price (with doctorates in theology and New Testament) and Richard Carrier (with a doctorate in ancient history). It's popular scholarly critics include Bart Ehrman and James McGrath.

If Jesus Mythicicism is still regarded as "fringe", then a corresponding rejection of an historical Paul is on the far fringe of the fringe. It is a position advocated by Hermann Detering, a German pastor whose doctoral thesis was on Dutch Radical Criticism, and is bounced around by a very few others.

Now Richard Carrier has waded in on the Pauline question with a firm "Nein!" to Detering's "Paul Mythicism".

The best formal attempt to argue for the non-historicity of Paul is that of Hermann Detering (see The Fabricated Paul). I cannot ascertain his qualifications in the field. But his writings are well-informed. They just trip over logic a lot. His case is not sound. Nor is anyone else’s I've examined. They falter on basic methodology (like ignoring the effect prior probability must have on a conclusion, or conflating possibility with probability) and sometimes even facts (e.g., Detering seems to think self-referencing signatures commonly appear only in forgery; in fact, they are commonly found on real letters—I've seen several examples in papyrological journals).

 So what's the difference between doubting an Historical Jesus and an historical Paul?

Jesus belongs to several myth-heavy reference classes. He is a worshipped savior deity. He is a legendary culture hero. He is a Rank-Raglan hero. And he is a revelatory archangel (already as early as the earliest writings we have, granting the letters of Paul are such). All of those classes of person already start with a high prior probability of being mythical, because most members of them are mythical (or for culture heroes, about even). And these are beings all of whom are claimed to be historical, yet are usually in fact mythical. Just like Jesus.

Paul does not belong to any such class. Paul thus falls into the class of ordinary persons who wrote letters and had effects on history. In ratio, most of such people claimed to exist, actually existed. By far. The mistake being made then is that people assume the starting prior for anyone claimed to exist is “50/50″ (agnosticism) but we know for a fact that that is not true. Examine thousands of cases, and you will find persons claimed to exist, overwhelmingly actually existed.

Along the way Carrier takes a intemperate ballistic swipe at James McGrath ("that renowned fool") before addressing in more irenic fashion a variety of issues raised by Bob Price, author of The Amazing Colossal Apostle, who regards little if any of the Pauline writings as genuine. I'd feel aggrieved on James' behalf if I didn't know he was more than capable of baring his own gnashers.

My own brief and clumsy comments on Detering's The Fabricated Paul were posted here in 2012. Not surprising then that I find Carrier's critique quite convincing.

If you're one of those sad individuals who, like myself, finds these issues utterly fascinating, you're unlikely to be disappointed.

That link again: Richard Carrier. The Historicity of Paul the Apostle.

Journal - 173rd Issue

The latest issue of The Journal: News of the Churches of God has just been released. On the front page - who'd have thunked it - news of a Sabbatarian Biker group, XII Legions.

The bikers are “looking for other bikers who have an interest in motorcycles, riding and the Word of God, including God’s holy Sabbath day,” Mr. Paparella said...

The founders are longtime Church of God members, with past and current fellowships with the former Worldwide Church of God, United Church of God, Church of God (Seventh Day), Beth Israel Messianic Congregation and Church of God Flemington (an affiliate of Church of God Ministries International), as well as several private-residence-based church groups.

Just when you thought there was nothing new under the sun.

(Byker Bob, are you out there?) 

Steps to Ellen

Local Seventh-day Adventists hit letterboxes in my street this week with a free copy of their nineteenth century prophetess' most distributed book, Steps to Christ.

I have a hard job understanding how the SDAs keep growing with this kind of material. Even the "culturally sensitive cover art that is free of stereotypes and beautifully presented" (as trumpeted on the blurb) is - at least for me - a huge turn-off. But you can judge that for yourself. Free of stereotypes? Uh...

I remember reading Steps to Christ as a teenager, though I preferred The Great Controversy (also by Mrs White) which was a less sickly read. This Pacific Press give-away edition comes in two flavours, Caucasian and African-American. The difference obviously isn't in the text (woe betide anyone even thinking about fiddling with Ellen G. White's sacred words!) but about that all important cover. A Google image search helped locate the alternate artwork (see below).

Adventists have a lot of clout, with an impact way beyond their numbers. They are well connected with New Zealand's ruling conservative National Party (former party president John Slater for example and his blogger son Cameron) and in addition to garnering tithes, they have a license to print money through their tax-free health food company, Sanitarium, producers of such Kiwi favourites as Marmite and Weet Bix. You'd think that, given such advantages, they could at least put out something more relevant and original - not to mention less kitschy - than this.

It's not that the SDAs don't do some good. Their aid agency ADRA, as far as I know, does do some good work. And at least they don't door knock on the scale of Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons. But what advantage is it to have a plagiarist prophetess, make ridiculous prophetic claims based on a deeply flawed reading of Daniel and Revelation, and stubbornly cling to Young Earth Creationism? Growth probably has little to do with this kind of wooden evangelism - something a sociologist could address with greater insight than a theologian.

So no, I won't be re-reading Steps to Christ. If any convincing was needed it appeared as soon as I saw the slogan plastered across the back cover: "Jesus wants to be your best friend". But I might keep it on the desk for a few days anyway to, as a friend of mine has a habit of saying, keep my disgust fresh.

KPCG

Out there in Edmond, OK, the Flurry fiefdom - a.k.a. the Philadelphia Church of God - has recently launched their very own low power FM radio station. The call letters? KPCG of course.

Just imagine being able to listen to Stephen Flurry on "Trumpet Daily" every day. And Joel Hilliker ("Trumpet Hour") twice a week.

But wait, there's more. The Key of David, for example, lots and lots of repeats of The Key of David; and PCG's answer to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the Philadelphia Singers.

Other than that it's loads of classical music and an in-house variety of "Christian contemporary music". I was (un)fortunate enough to catch a example from Ryan Malone called "I am every man." It was pretty awful. I noticed that these recordings all seem to feature the sect's high status family names; Turgeons, Hillikers, Malones, not the common herd. Funny that.

Behold brethren, the programming schedule. I trust you're coming over all faint at the very thought of it.

You can't listen in on 101.3 FM unless you're really close to the carefully manicured Flurry compound that includes the Armstrong Auditorium and Herbert W. Armstrong College. It is, after all, only a low power station. And it doesn't seem to have been picked up yet by any streaming radio services like Tune In. But there is a live feed at kpcg.fm. Not a very reliable feed - an unacceptable number of skips and blips, and the stream can also be temperamental in loading - but it's enough to give you a taste.

If you have the stomach for it.

Those wicked, wicked progressive Christians

In Fountain Hills, Arizona those extremely dangerous United Methodists are under attack. Not from atheists or the godless, but from other churches in their community.

David Felten, co-creator of Living the Questions, is also pastor of The Fountains in Fountain Hills, Arizona.  He found himself under attack by fellow clergy who do not approve of his brand of Christianity.  These clergy have used the op ed page of the local paper, newspaper advertisements, and expensive banners to campaign against David and progressive Christianity.

John Shuck, himself a progressive Presbyterian pastor, interviews Felten on Religion for Life. You can also read about events in Fountain Hills on John Shore's blog.

Among the critics ("the gang of eight") who have put up banners and turned up the heat on the Methodists, are local Presbyterians, Baptists, Calvary Chapel and Lutherans. The Baptist pastor has referred to his Methodist neighbours so often as "the apostate church" that Felten, demonstrating a sense of humour the other churches must find hugely puzzling, bought the domain name apostate.church which now redirects to their website.