The Fear Factor

"Scientists have found a long-awaited explanation as to why humans have for centuries maintained orderly societies: the fear of an angry god."

That's the intro to an article appearing prominently in today's New Zealand Herald. It's based on a just-released study published in Nature.

"They found that people who believe their god is more punitive and knowledgeable behave more honestly and generously towards others who share their religion."

That hardly seems surprising. Religious identity, as those of us who've been part of a high demand movement know all too well, can be akin to tribal identity.

"[T]he study found that overall, participants who rated their gods highly as all-knowing and concerned with moral behaviour allocated more money to people who believed in the same god."

"These gods acted as a kind of social engineering, [Dr  Quentin Atkinson of Auckland University] said, so that people who believed in a morally-concerned god were more likely to follow the rules of the game and give money to their fellow believers over themselves and their village."

So there's the engine that drives tithing.

You can read the whole story here. On The Economist website there's also a review of God Is Watching You, a book written by Dominic Johnson of Oxford University, who is also quoted in the article.

While this is said to be about the power of religion to engender cooperation, it could equally be used to demonstrate the effect of religious fear in reinforcing fictive kinship, exclusionary practices, cultural and doctrinal rigidity and the non-acceptance of outsiders (heretics, heathen, infidels). Perhaps it's no coincidence that the rise of a global community (enabled in part by the Internet) parallels the decline in Western religious identity.

What are you giving up for Lent?

Yesterday was Shrove Tuesday.

Today is Ash Wednesday.

All very quaint. For traditional Christians (including Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, Presbyterians and Methodists) today is the first day of Lent.

Lent means forty days of abstinence from an indulgence of your choice.

I have suggestions. Here are some of the things I'm prepared to sacrifice.

(1) Green smoothies
(2) Bungy jumping
(3) Scroggin
(4) Conservative NewsTalk radio
(5) Frank Sinatra recordings
(6) TV evangelists
(7) Quorn

As you can see, I chose a suitably biblical number. Technically I think you only have to select one thing but, in the spirit of sanctifying supererogation (a much-underused term on theological blogs), I think I may tackle the full set.

In fact, in keeping with the supererogation theme, I might keep up the giving up even beyond the end of Lent.

Feel free to join me.

The Norelli Test

Nick Norelli, a Pentecostal associate pastor in New Jersey who also describes himself as a layman, has an opinion on the question as to whether Christians and Muslims are talking about the same god in their separate discourses.

Norelli thinks it's an easy answer.

Do Muslims worship the Trinity? (No)
Do Muslims acknowledge Jesus as the Son of God? (No)
Does that entail a denial of the Father? (Yes)

And there you have it. Case closed.

"So I repeat, Muslims and Christians do not worship the same God. It’s really not a difficult question to answer."

Incisive, huh?

But what if we change the first two questions ever so slightly.

Do Jews worship the Trinity (No)
Do Jews acknowledge Jesus as the Son of God (No)

From there you have to follow the logic with question three.

I don't know about you, but I'm not prepared to give an 'amen' to that. Quite the contrary.

Maybe not such a simple question after all.

The Bible with Typos

Every now and again I get careless and something comes out all wrong on the blog. Misspelling Brant Pitre's name in the previous post, for example (now fixed). It's nice to know I'm not the only person to goof up. Even Bible publishers can get it very wrong. Some early examples.

The Bug Bible.  Coverdale's 1535 translation.  Psalm 91:5 reads:  "Thou shalt not nede to be afrayed for eny bugges by night."  A handy promise that, if true, would mean no more need for insect repellent.

The Fool Bible.  An edition from the reign of King Charles I where Psalm 14:1 reads:  "The fool hath said in his heart there is a God."  Perhaps it could be rechristened 'the Richard Dawkins version'?

The Lions Bible.  Dating from 1804.  1 Kings 8:19 reads:  "But thy son that shall come forth out of thy lions."  Presumably, it wasn't a roaring success.

The Printers' Bible.  From around 1702.  Psalm 119:161 reads: "printers have persecuted me without a cause."  Many an author might cry 'amen' to that.

The Sin On Bible.  An Irish edition (1716) in which John 5:14 reads: "sin on more."  Begorrah!

The Wicked Bible. The best known of the bunch, printed in 1631. Exodus 20:14 reads "Thou shalt commit adultery."

The To Remain Bible.  A proofreader at Cambridge wondered about the placement of a comma in Galatians 4:29.  A helpful editor pencilled in "to remain" in response.  Nobody explained this to the printer.  The verse reads: "persecuted him that was born after the spirit to remain, even so it is now."


Source:  "Bibles: some specially named editions" in the 18th edition of Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 

Dogmatic Apologetics

It is an abuse of one’s status as a public intellectual to write dogmatic apologetics for lay readers.
Neil Godfrey

Neil Godfrey at Vridar has the first plain-talking review of a recent apologetic text by Catholic scholar Brant Pitre. This thing has been tossed around on various blogs with patsy reviews. Or perhaps Pollyanna reviews describes them best. You don't have to agree with everything that Neil writes to recognise that he, at last, has cut through this particular Gordian Knot.

The experience reminded me of delving into books published by my old religious cult many years ago, proving decisively and with impeccable logic and thorough research that the Bible really was the word of God, genuine scholarship proved that fact, and all modern scholarship that cast doubts on this was under the sway of the stubborn minds who refused to read the evidence seriously and foolishly relegated the Gospels to folklore and fairy tales. Form criticism was likened to the folly of that favourite juvenile Telephone Game that only works because the players don’t take the message they are asked to relay seriously and make up any old thing as they pass it along.

The quote at the top of this post comes at the end of the review. It deserves repeating. Indeed, it should probably be carved in granite and placed in reception areas at every theological department at every university that has one. 

I'd even chip in for one at Otago!

Where the Arrow Points (Part 2)

Ron Dart. I haven't heard his voice in well over twenty years. If I dug through the archives I might still find an old audio tape from his Church of God International (CGI) days. Probably seized up and unplayable.

I've never recommended his CEM ministry, nor his Born To Win radio program. It's probably more than fair to pigeon-hole Ron as "fundamentalism-lite". If you haven't already realised it, I don't do fundamentalism-lite.

But, way back in the late 1970s and early 1980s he was a significant figure for some of us, helping open up our thinking and breaking the back of a one-true-church mentality. Given the fundamentalist mindset that many of us were still in thrall to, Ron was a force for change. Yes, I know he had his faults; Lord, don't we all!

At no stage in the years since I started writing about the Church of God movement have I ever regarded COG sects as anything other than wrong-headed when it comes to a wide range of beliefs and practices. Ron Dart was no different. Yet clearly they're not all equally toxic. Some are downright dangerous while others, by comparison, are relatively benign. Ron Dart's ministry, certainly after leaving the Worldwide Church of God, was of the latter type.

Think of it as scaffolding on a construction site - an analogy often used in education circles. We were scaffolded into a new mindset; nudged into reassessing the path by which we had come. Am I grateful for that? You better believe it.

Ron didn't preach authoritarian leadership or exclusivity. He didn't preach British Israelism - at least, I never heard him do so. He didn't preach triple tithing or make grandiose personal claims. In a lot of ways he was light years ahead of Ted.

Ron did stick with many of the 'distinctives' derived from Armstrongism. I don't have a problem with that, any more than with intelligent Latter Day Saints who still treasure the Book of Mormon, my Lutheran antecedents who took the doctrine of consubstantiation seriously ('ubiquity' to the confessional sticklers) or free-thinking Catholics who nevertheless display Marian artwork and crucifixes in their homes. No skin off my nose. I don't (to quote something Ron Dart once said) have a dog in those fights.

If I do feel a passion about Church of God issues - and I think I have a reasonable track record demonstrating that - it's primarily about abusive, manipulative, unaccountable leadership. Leadership that creates dependence, that scorns mandate, that nurtures mindless "trust me" compliance.

Ron Dart was not in that mold. When he left WCG he headed down a new trajectory, and that definitely included his time in CGI. I suspect Ron was a moderating influence on Ted Armstrong as Ted settled down (fatefully as it turned out) into his comfort zone in East Texas; a Cicero to Ted's Caesar. Maybe he should have walked away from Ted sooner. Then again, I know the wrestling match you have when confronting the need to tear yourself away from any significant commitment, something he'd already experienced in leaving WCG. I'm not about to judge him over that.

Yes, my assessment of Ron Dart's theology, all these decades later, is that it was half-baked. But most theology is - some would say all. I can only say that, when I learned of Ron's passing, I was saddened. Alongside people like Ernie Martin he had an overall positive influence "within the fold" during those crucial years, even if the effect was to create a revolving door out into the big wide world. I'm in debt to him.

That's definitely not something I'd say of Tkach, Meredith, Flurry, Pack, Kilough and the other "Yertle the Turtle" leaders. Believe me, when Meredith goes to meet his maker you won't find me writing any fond eulogies.

You don't have to agree with me. It's not a mathematical formula. It's a statement about personal lived experience. If you weren't "in the wilderness" in the late 70s and early 80s your experience will be different.

This much, though, is consistently true. For too many COG leaders the arrow points to reactionary beliefs, horrendous oversimplification, fudging the evidence, a flight from reason and encouraging their followers to abdicate responsibility. Ron Dart, at his best, pointed in another direction, even if he personally didn't move as far along that road as some would have liked. He had my respect.


[Any comments on this post will be moderated.]

Where the Arrow Points (Part 1 of 2)

How do you evaluate the life and ministry of someone whose views are different from your own? That's the conundrum faced by many of us who in former days were part of a religious group that we have since abandoned. In most cases we didn't leave because of "weak faith" or personal failings; we left (or were pushed out) because the advertised package was nothing like the reality. We left because of bad people in high places and blatant hypocrisy. We left because we saw the manipulation and exploitation of decent people. Later we came to see that, apart from being an ethical desert, the intellectual underpinnings of the whole enterprise were also thoroughly rotten.

Looking back across the years I have little time or respect for many (most!) of those individuals who once enjoyed a high profile in that organization, specifically in my case the Worldwide Church of God. But there are exceptions. The passing of Ron Dart has brought this into focus for me.

To be clear, I regard Herbert and Ted Armstrong as self-serving con artists, no question. The best you might say about Herb was that he became a victim of his own delusions. All of us have the temptation to maintain and enforce things we only half believe in, as long as it's in our own best interests. As the oft-cited proof text goes: the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9). Too bad Herb didn't apply it to himself.

But what about more contemporary figures, those who survived the breakup of the WCG and continued to preach in that tradition? The criteria I use, when I stop to think about it, is where the arrow points, the direction in which their ministry takes people.

I was around in the period between 1978 and 1981, a young guy without much nous starting off in the big wide world, and a fairly recent convert to Armstrongism. The WCG was undergoing a 'cultural revolution' at this time. In the wake of Ted's departure and then the receivership crisis, anyone who stood up to Herbert Armstrong was purged.

If I was to put my finger on one event that summed it all up, it would be the day in January 1979 when Wayne Cole took the stage of the Ambassador Auditorium to call on church members and employees to cooperate with the receiver's inquiries; a voice of reason. He never finished. Rod Meredith and his thugs stormed on to the stage and used physical force against Cole. They had new instructions from Armstrong. Cole was forcibly removed and disfellowshipped. You can still access the LA Times report (as reprinted in the Spokane Spokesman-Review).

Meredith has always remained true to form, older but no wiser. Choose your own adjective: arrogant? ignorant? authoritarian? His later treatment of Raymond McNair is a case in point. With Meredith it's always been about "follow the leader". Meredith feeds on dependency. In so many ways he is a spiritual son of Herbert. Perhaps one redeeming feature is that he seems to sincerely (or stupidly) believe his own publicity. I doubt we could say that for Herb.

Along with Meredith we could list a number of other posturing clown figures with their own Church of God franchises. These guys have all the answers to all the wrong questions. If you like to do your own thinking, stay well away.

Which takes me back to Ron Dart.

(To be continued)