Genesis - Racy Soap Opera?

When somebody mentions the book of Genesis, what do you think of first, and is your initial reaction positive or negative?

I'm probably like most ex-fundamentalists, thinking of the pre-scientific myths - Eden and the flood - and all the idiots who still imagine they're literally true. My knee-jerk reaction is definitely negative.

So it's a bit of a jolt to read a positive assessment of the old pot-boiler by someone who has never suffered "Answers in Genesis" syndrome. I'm referring to a posting by Caroline Blyth on the Auckland Theology blog.

Genesis is a fantastic biblical book to look at in depth with students and one of my favourite to teach – using the tools of literary criticism... The students are never bored, in my experience, and thoroughly enjoy probing and pondering what’s going on in this rollercoaster of a narrative. There’s more sex, action and drama than even the raciest soap opera; we read about the miraculous, the unbelievable, the cataclysmic, and the plain old bizarre... Genesis is a book that I think explores the human condition in all its fullness and frailty; in particular, its ancient authors seem at pains to articulate the complex and at times incomprehensible relationship that exists  between humanity and the divine. In my opinion, they do this incredibly well.

Genesis as literature is quite a different thing to Genesis as fuel for text-quoting literalists who advocate for creationism. Clearly the winds of enlightenment are blowing strongly through Theology 210/310 Genesis, and it's delightful to see Robert Alter's translation being used (one can only hope someone turns up with Robert Crumb's illustrated adaptation).

But, would somebody in the class please pass on this approach to the folk who run the Christian bookshops, stocking their shelves with moronic rubbish that perpetuates the reigning anti-scientific world view among those neither privileged nor predisposed to attend varsity classes? Once out of the academic environment, how many of these "never bored... probing and pondering" students will end up soft pedalling on their progressive understanding back in their churches, lest apple carts be upset?

Laying down that reservation, what do you think of the points Caroline Blyth makes? Can Genesis be prised from the clammy hands of Ken Ham, Ray Comfort and their ilk, or has the battle already been well and truly lost?

The Oxford Comma

I loathe the Oxford Comma. Its presence in written texts is highly irritating, inept, inapt and unnecessary (note the absence of one of the little blighters after "inapt"). But then, I suppose I'm one of only a very few who gives the proverbial "continental" about such arcane matters.

What, you may ask, is the Oxford Comma?

The graphic explains all. It concludes that if you live in the United States, then you can use it with a clear conscience. This is wrong. You should never use it: period. Not even in Texas.

Marijuana - the Herbal dissertation

A posting on Gary Leonard's excellent ex-WCG blog reminded me - for the first time in years - of this nifty little publication produced way back in 1970 by the "Ambassador College Research Department."

Yup, a copy of this fine title sat on my bookshelf at home when I was fifteen years old. It was the definitive statement on the issue, as far as I was concerned back then.

Not that I think smoking weed is a good idea even now. It's a dumb habit right up there with a host of others. But should it remain criminalised? I'm not so sure.

But regardless, inspired by Gary I went hunting for an online copy, given that my paper copy long ago disappeared. At least I think so. Tucked away at the bottom of a cupboard I have a morgue of ancient booklets, but digging it out is always a depressing prospect.

So here it is: a link to the text and, if you're so motivated, access to a PDF copy. Think of it as a period piece - a sectarian cultural artefact if you prefer - rather than a source of any kind of reliable information.

Ain't the Interweb wonderful!

Too bad if you live in India

Take a look at this smirking, be-suited reprobate.

The resemblance to Emperor Palpatine in Star Wars is striking. He is Marijn Dekkers, CEO of Bayer, and if there is a hell, he should get a front row seat.

Jim West points out coverage of this man's odious comments.

In 2005, the FDA granted approval for a promising new cancer-fighting drug called Nexavar. Bayer took it to market shortly thereafter, and it is currently an approved treatment for late-stage kidney and liver cancer.

That is, so long as you live in the developed world. In a recently published interview in Bloomberg Businessweek, Bayer CEO Marijn Dekkers said that his company’s drug isn’t for poor people.

“We did not develop this medicine for Indians…we developed it for western patients who can afford it,” he said back in December. The quote is quickly making its way across Indian news outlets.

The comment was in response to a decision by an Indian patent court that granted a compulsory license to a local company to reproduce Bayer’s drug. Under Indian patent laws, if a product is not available locally at a reasonable cost, other companies may apply for licenses to reproduce those products at a more affordable price. Nexavar costs an estimated $69,000 for a full year of treatment in India, 41 times the country’s annual per capita income.

In 2012, Indian pharmaceutical company Natco Pharma Ltd. applied for just such a license, and it was granted. The company began reproducing the drug at a 97 percent discount, offering it for just $177. Bayer has been appealing the ruling ever since, and in December Dekkers told Businessweek that he viewed the compulsory license as “essentially theft” before dismissing poor Indian cancer patients.

Pharmaceutical companies have long been accused of ignoring the plight of those who cannot afford their astronomical prices. In the United States, where insurance companies often pick up most of the tab, consumers are often shielded from the true cost of drugs they are prescribed (Nexavar, for example, costs as much as $96,000 in the United States, but Bayer ensures that eligible US patients only see a $100 copay).

Dekkers’ quote brings into sharp relief the industry’s general ambivalence towards the developing world. A 2012 report from Doctors Without Borders found that most pharmaceutical companies devote only a small fraction of their operating budgets to fighting diseases that disproportionally affect — and kill — millions of the world’s poorest people.

Good on India for promoting legislation to protect its people from predatory leeches. Pharmaceutical companies certainly have a right to recover development costs and turn a profit. They don't have a right to print their own money at the cost of misery for people who live in places Dekkers, in his smug ignorance, deigns merely to sniff at.

Why it's hard to have a reasonable discussion with a fundamentalist

An interesting post on the self-reinforcing pocket universe of fundamentalism.

[The page URL was changed a few days after posting, meaning an error message came up when the link was clicked. This has now been fixed.]

Anger of the Betrayed

One of the enduring themes in the comments sent to this blog is anger. Anger at a failed faith tradition. Anger at sectarian roots. Anger at the Bible. Anger at Christianity as a whole. Anger at religion in all its forms.

I sympathise. I too was duped by a manipulative Christian group run by - as I see it now - charlatans. But to be fair, in my naivete (I was a teenager when I was drawn in) it was my own, dumb choice. And the long period of disillusionment and then abandonment of that identity was (and still is) a massive learning experience that has helped shape me into the person I now am - hopefully for the better rather than worse. No, I'm definitely not grateful for the ride; I wonder what life would have been like if I hadn't "bought the ticket." These days though I prefer humour, reflection and a dash of reasoning, minus the polemic humbug... at least most of time, but I definitely know where people are coming from when they vent.

Where does that anger come from?

Elizabeth Drescher

Enter Dr Elizabeth Drescher from Santa Clara University. She's been researching that interesting group of people who, when asked what their religious affiliation is, reply "none".

Interestingly, about 70% of the 'Nones' come from a Christian background.

Drescher looked at the attitudes of Nones who came from various places in the Christian spectrum: Catholics, Evangelicals and Mainliners.

Former Catholics felt hurt and wounded by their church. Dr Drescher comments, "What they often told me was that they left the Catholic Church not so much due to a theological shift, but because 'something happened to me. My identity was not affirmed and that was painful.'"

'For Mainline Protestants, the theme is neither hurt nor anger, but a sense of ennui. They got it. They get that they’re supposed to be good to people, share what they have, do good in the world... One young woman told me, “I learned everything I needed to know there, I get it. I don’t need this in order to be a good person or in order to make sense of everyday life.” I hear this when I interview parents as well: “Our children will learn good values. Check. They've learned this, we can move on.”'

And then there are the Evangelicals, a term that more closely approaches the experiences of many readers of this blog.

"For Evangelicals, the theme that emerges consistently is anger. Many have felt that conservative evangelical teaching in regards to science, Darwinism, and the environment set them up to look foolish. They feel they were tricked. Some reason brings them to a place where they get more information and understanding about the world, and they feel like they were duped by the teachings in their traditions. They didn't need to be, but they feel they were set up to look like idiots and it makes them really angry."

Can you identify?

Of course, if you were involved in the lunatic fringe of evangelicalism, the full-on world-denying fundamentalist version which some of us know only too well, your reaction could well be even stronger.

Which brings us back to the anger expressed here. What do you think?

(In case you missed the link above to an interview with Elizabeth Drescher, here it is again.)

Moving the Goalposts

John Loftus is an insightful individual and a fierce critic of Christianity in general and the Bible in particular. In a recent post he cries foul over conservative Christians "shifting the goalposts." It's a short piece which is worth reading in full.

Fundamentalist Christianity represents yesterday's conservative faith whereas Evangelical Christianity represents today's conservative faith...and the goal posts keep being moved. Evangelical Christianity therefore is the liberal faith that conservatives of yesterday rejected, while the Evangelical Christianity of the future will reject the theology of today's Evangelicals. Liberalism is the trend into the future. It's palpably obvious too.

Evangelicals in the eighties rejected Karl Barth, inclusivism, Hell as annihilation, the mythical interpretation of the Genesis creation stories, the late dating of 2nd Isaiah and Daniel, and they especially rejected evolution. These former Evangelical views are now being rejected by today's Evangelicals. The goal posts have simply been moved!

And of course he's right. But is this a problem?

Switch tracks to politics for a moment and think of the party you generally support. Are its specific policies different now from what they were a decade ago. Hopefully so! The world changes... and the pace of change is escalating. Keep up or become irrelevant.

What has probably stayed the same though is the general direction and values of your party of choice. If it stressed individualism and the work ethic as top priorities in 2004, it probably still does. If it stressed social harmony and equity in 2004... you get the idea.

Conservatism in particular is a moveable feast. Conservative in relation to what? If society's consensus moves, we pull up the tent pegs and move just a little further upstream... or downstream, depending on which way the wind is blowing.

Even in its monolithic days, Christianity was quick to change. If it hadn't it would have stayed as an obscure (and by now extinct) Jewish sect. No movement can 'freeze' in one position for all time. That's even more true today when a countless variety of sects compete for legitimate use of the title 'Christian'.

If there is a problem, it's in the cacophony of competing voices trying to assert what is essential in any definition of Christian. Being baptised with water? That cuts out all the nice people in the Salvation Army. Reciting the Nicene Creed? That excludes a thousand Pentecostal groups. Having a 'born again' experience? That leaves behind all those folk who know the limits of a metaphor.

To make one further small observation, it's also inaccurate to judge Christianity based on the forms you find dominant in your own culture. John Loftus is writing about the Evangelical/Fundamentalist phenomena in America. The view from Europe, for example, is somewhat different. The perspective he offers here, while true in as far as it goes, is a provincial one. The very word 'evangelical' means something quite different to millions of Christians - including not a few in the United States (which explains why the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America isn't 'evangelical' in anything like the sense he uses it).

Christianity is morphing, as it always has. No big surprise. What's the problem? The issue is whether it's changing quickly enough to survive.

To paraphrase John Shelby Spong, Christianity must change... or die.