Discworld Meets The Plain Truth

It's hard to know where to begin with the latest issue of The Journal: News of the Churches of God, but what the heck, let's give it a go.

For Terry Prachett fans, news that the late fantasy writer and creator of the Discworld novels drew on The Plain Truth as inspiration for a fictional publication in his nineteenth book in the series, Feet of Clay. The magazine called Unadorned Facts was modelled on the PT.

Live and learn.

And you'd have to concede that Feet of Clay is also a great title for anything that, even obliquely, relates to Herbert Armstrong and the gaggle of sects that still idolise him.

It is, incredibly, ten years since the Terry Ratzmann killings during LCG services in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Several articles reflect on that event, including an essay written just two months after those terrible events by Robert Geiger, then just 12, who was sitting next to the youngest of Ratzmann's victims, Bart Oliver, aged 14.

Coverage also of an Ambassador College reunion held in Pasadena earlier this year. The organiser was Bob Gerringer who, if I'm not mistaken, was along with the late John Trechak, one of the founding editors of Ambassador Report. Some 400 were in attendance. Among the speakers was Wayne Cole whose "words were positive and healing." Nice to hear that Wayne, regarded as one of the "good guys" among WCG's former leadership, is still holding his own. How might things have been different if it was he who followed on as Pastor General from Armstrong?

(Perhaps in some alternate Discworld universe he did!)

The last instalment of John Warren's history of the WCG in East Texas appears in this issue, especially focusing around the explosive years of 1994/1995.

Dave Havir puts the buzz-phrase "servant leadership", much abused by the LCG, under the microscope. As always he's well worth reading.

I don't believe I've ever recommended one of the ads in the Connections section before, but there's a first time for everything I guess. Tina Engelbart has written a page-long essay entitled Did Paul Silence Women in Corinth? She's reacting to statements by Art Mokarow in a previous issue. While I'm not sure I'm completely convinced by Ms Engelbart's exegesis of the passages in 1 Corinthians, I'm glad someone is standing up to those officious dilettante preachers who so love to quote Paul to support their misogyny, but know so very little about his writings.

If all this sounds good, it's only fair to warn you that there are the usual less than insightful contributions as well. Australian engineer Mike Baran blows a righteous indignation valve discussing (kind of) the canon, and there are the rest of those Connections ads - one sponsored by something called The Obedient Church of God, Omak, Washington. You'd have thought these guys would have run out of naming options years ago.

You can find The Journal PDF here.

On babies, screw-drivers and deck chairs

What do you do when long-held beliefs suddenly start to crumble under the impact of fresh information?

It's a situation that most of us have had to confront at one time or another. For some of us more than once.

One option is to go into denial. Get defensive, refuse to be pushed any further up the learning curve. Dig your toes in and circle the wagons, hallelujah! Growing is painful, make it stop!

I dare say we've all met people like that. The older you get the harder it is to go through a seismic shift in your world-view. You end up spending a lot of time and energy trying to convince yourself (usually while trying to convince others) that there's no problem.

Another option is to finesse your views. Take out a screw-driver and make a few adjustments. Look for the deeper significance. I confess that this has been my favoured approach over the years. Reject a vulgar literalism, for example, and  try to uncover the authentic values that lie "in, with and under" the problematic elements.

Then there are the "baby and bathwater" types. Out it all goes.

I was challenged on this a few days ago by something Hemant Mehta wrote. He was making the point that the Option 1 people - the example was Ted Cruz - are only succeeding in creating more Option 3 converts. To summarise the argument, more young people are distancing themselves from any form of Christianity because "they don't want to be part of a religion that does so much damage in our society. [The role of fundamentalist extremists is] to make them realize how awful their beliefs really are."

And that hit me between the eyes. True, nicht wahr? How do we expect young people (or even the occasional old coot) to bother with a nuanced, compassionate or progressive understanding of their inherited faith while all the noise is being made by lobotomised literalist preachers who advocate a gospel of judgement, fear and intolerance? The situation isn't helped by the congenital unwillingness of more sophisticated mainline Christians to distance themselves from the moralistic tithe-farmers who now loudly dominate public discourse on all things Christian.

And I wondered, if only for a fleeting moment, whether the "baby and bathwater" types had succeeded in cutting the Gordian knot while others like myself were fluffing around trying to shuffle deck chairs on the Titanic. Yeah I know, horrible mixed metaphor, but you get the idea.

I guess I'll stick with Option 2, but maybe I'll also be less critical of those who, in all good conscience, find Option 3 the only one they can really deal with.

Developing passionate readers

PZ Myers isn't everybody's cup of communion wine. The wicked old bloke is a rampant godless atheist after all. But whatever you may think about his refusal to bow the knee to religious sensibilities, his recent post on kids and reading is simply brilliant. It's called Don't read because you should, and is the kind of advice parents of young readers should be hearing from their kids' teachers and schools, rather  than the pedantically meaningless claptrap that all too often appears on youngsters' reports - and I confess to having written my share. Follow this simple advice and the literacy skills of the nation (whichever nation you identify with) would get an immediate boost.

[B]eware the attitude that you should tell people what they should read: what you’re doing isn't ennobling their mind, it’s teaching them that reading is a chore and an obligation, and that it isn't fun at all... My philosophy is always to encourage a passion — if you are devoted enough to start devouring books on any topic, eventually you’ll find enjoyable and educational stuff on your own. But the key step is to foster pleasure in reading anything.

Trusting Doubt

On my "must read" list for April.

Most Evangelical Christians earnestly strive to worship the God of Love and Truth. But a belief that the Bible is literally perfect can put them in the odd position of defending falsehood, bigotry, and even violence. What do Evangelicals believe? And how do these beliefs subvert humanity's shared moral values, including the compassionate ministry of Jesus in the New Testament? Is the Good Book even “good,” given its historical inaccuracies, scientific impossibilities, and moral contradictions? Trusting Doubt answers all these questions … and more. It also provides a clear picture of this variant of Christianity which has risen to political prominence at a spiritual cost. 

Raised in a staunch fundamentalist family and educated at Wheaton College – home of the Billy Graham Center for Evangelicalism – Valerie Tarico speaks as a former "insider." She offers alternative biblical, social, and scientific explanations that are compatible with contemporary Christianity, interfaith understanding, and non-theism. Gratefully, Tarico's unique voice as a former Evangelical provides a scholarly yet accessible path away from fundamentalism and toward spiritual clarity – a journey based on logic, love, and the quest for truth.

The Gospel According To Harry

Harry Belafonte to be exact.

Belafonte, born in 1928, is still going strong it seems. Back in the day (by which I mean the fifties and sixties) he was a household name, a rare Black singer who soared on the international music charts. Just my opinion of course, but his music is still fresh and vibrant even now, although some of the lyrics (in A Woman Is A Sometime Thing for example) wouldn't pass muster today. He tends to be remembered for Jamaica Farewell, The Banana Boat Song (Day-O) and Island in the Sun, but his repertoire went much deeper than that. The "king of Calypso" was hugely versatile.

But what intrigues me is the many, many biblical references in his music. Songs like:

• Wake Up Jacob
• My Lord What a Mornin'
• Ezekiel (improvising on Ezekiel 1:15-22)
• Buked and Scorned
• Were You There When They Crucified My Lord
• Swing Low
• March Down To Jordan
• Steal Away
• Take My Mother Home (very appropriate for Easter)
• When the Saints Go Marching In
• Hosanna (based on Matthew 7:24-27)
• Noah (a hilarious sermon parody)
• In That Great Gettin' Up Mornin'

It's not as though this can simply be explained by a taste for spirituals. Biblical references abound among folk artists of that era - The Seekers, The Kingston Trio and many more. The middle years of the past century were saturated in a cultural appropriation of biblical themes and imagery. They weren't "preachin'", they were simply reaching into the rich cultural capital that then under-girded society, often to inspire much needed progress and change (perhaps no surprise that Harry Belafonte has consistently fought for civil rights and justice issues over the years and that folk music had a strong anti-establishment subversive streak).

What happened?

Today those images - well watered down and given an evangelical spin - seem to have been consigned to the ghetto of "Christian music", the abomination of guitar gripping, faux rock groups strutting their heinous Hillsong stuff on mega-church stages.

If anything is a measure of the decline of Christian influence and the advance of biblical illiteracy in general, I'd guess this would be it. 

And I find that kind of sad.

Blogging Babel

Paul over at Is That In The Bible? doesn't blog nearly enough, but when he does it's almost always worth the wait. Take his latest illustrated piece on the Tower of Babel as an example. What can one say? Comprehensive, informed... Dear lord, the man even provides a bibliography!

You've got to wonder how anyone, living as we all do in the early years of the twenty-first century, could take the Babel story literally. This is simply not the way languages developed. And yet lots of people still do. Not on linguistic or etymological grounds, but because "the Bible tells me so", and they take pride in "a simple faith".

While that may cause some of us to grind our teeth in frustration along with the editors of National Geographic (see their lead article in March: The War on Science), even worse in my opinion is the well-intended appropriation of the Babel story by more liberal Christians in an (ineffective) attempt to rescue it from irrelevance. Sure, there are universal themes in the narrative, just like there are universal themes in the Epic of Gilgamesh. But should the fact that the Babel story is in the biblical book of Genesis privilege it beyond similar tall tales in Greek and Near Eastern culture (or Far Eastern, African or Pacific culture for that matter!) Etiological stories (can be well say etiology together, brethren?) of necessity touch on basic themes, whether they're in Genesis or Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories.

But I digress. Paul has put together an outstanding post on the Tower of Babel. Read it, then share it with a fundamentalist relative or acquaintance (oh the joy of being just a bit subversive).

Poisoned WELS

Various media are carrying the story of a Lutheran minister who "joked" about raping a female blogger whose political views didn't coincide with his own. Among those commenting has been Überblogger Hemant Mehta.

Indeed, when you read the comment, it's clear that "Pastor Dave" Wendt has a wide and expressive vocabulary that would crisp the eardrums of most of us at fifty paces.

My only observation - apart from agreeing that this guy is a contemptible dipstick - is to qualify what 'Lutheran' actually means in this case, especially for those of us beyond the borders of the US.

Pastor Dave doesn't work here anymore.

In America there are three large Lutheran bodies, each quite distinct from the other (as well as a bunch of little bodies, some of which are truly unique, such as the Laestadians). They are:

1. The ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) which is progressive, the largest of the US Lutheran bodies (just under 4 million), and a member of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF). 
2. The LCMS (Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod) which is highly conservative and shares a number of beliefs - such as Young Earth Creationism - with fundamentalist churches. It's membership is a tad over 2 million.
3. The WELS (Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod) which is, to speak plainly, batshit crazy. With a membership below 400,000 it's the Missouri Synod on steroids.

This last body, the smallest of the three, is the original spiritual home of Michele Bachmann, who only abandoned WELS when it became apparent that continued membership could be a political liability (a move that could be termed the Bachmann Turncoat Overdrive.)

Now, ya wanna guess which of these bodies "Pastor Dave" belongs to?

Yup. We're talking WELS.

Pastor Wendt initially denied sending the email, but then up and resigned anyway. The congregation's website since seems to have been purged, Stalin style, of references to it's former pastor.

Good riddance.