4/24/2012 Links

I’ve been reading a lot of excellent posts these last few weeks.  Here, I want to share some of them with you (if you haven’t read them already).

1.  Messianic Jew Derek Leman talks about Rachel Held Evans’ controversial post, 15 Reasons I Left Church.  Derek refers to an e-mail that he received, which said (and Derek changed some parts to respect the person’s anonymity):

“At the local university I am completing some classes in Judaism and loving them. Then I attend my local church and things that never bothered me before are suddenly a terrible disappointment. In a recent sermon, the pastor unfortunately used the typical theme of Jewish faithlessness in contrast to Christian faithfulness. His complete lack of skill in exegeting the scriptures, in realizing the authors themselves were Jewish, and that anti-Judaism is nowhere to be found in a skillful reading of the New Testament is alarming.  In another recent Bible discussion, many of the members gave smug answers about the harmfulness of the Law and the superiority of ‘grace,’ as they understand it. I felt so out of place here. This is the first time I have come to feel like a stranger in my own church. I am afraid I don’t fit within Christianity anymore, but my faith in Jesus has not diminished at all. Why can’t churches see Messiah for who he is? How can a person whose eyes are opened to these things remain?”

This made me think some about my own church’s approach towards the Hebrew Bible and Judaism.  (My church is PCUSA.)  Like other churches that I have attended, my current church criticizes the Pharisees (see my post here), and it sometimes treats the Hebrew Bible as inferior to the New Testament.  At the same time, both the Pastor and the Pastor Emeritus have said that God’s hand was in the creation of the modern state of Israel, albeit they didn’t say this in a fanatical Christian Zionist way.  Moreover, I think that our Bible study through Margaret Feinberg’s Scouting the Divine was a positive step, for Feinberg demonstrated knowledge and appreciation for laws in the Hebrew Bible, such as the Sabbath, gleanings, and the land rest.  Some people in the group were using that as a platform to promote blue laws, which (as someone who spent time in Seventh-Day Adventism) frightened me somewhat.  But Feinberg’s book definitely encouraged us to see the Torah positively.

2.  The Christian Heretic shared a journal entry that she wrote when she was a Christian in college.  She said:

“My Chi Alpha friends loved me when I was ultra-spiritual and rebuked me when I wasn’t.  So I sort of went into pseudo-spiritual.  I did all the right things, said the right words, but my motivation was to make friends, not just to get to know God.  He was the fringe benefit.  Here at home, my friends at church seem so shallow and superficial.  Whenever I get together in a social gathering, it’s all rowdy, fun and games, crazy, not too much hint of a serious side.  In both situations, I feel I have compromised my relationships with God for the relationships of people.  I keep searching for the perfect friend.  One who has all the qualities listed earlier.

“People just aren’t like that, though.  Every human being on this earth puts conditions on their love for one another.  ‘I love you because you seem spiritual.’  ‘I love you because you’re wild and crazy and like a good time.’  ‘I love you because you are my daughter.’  No person can love all the various facets of an individual.  A person loves, not another person, but certain sides of his personality that are compatible with their own.  Only God can love the whole person.”

I identified with wanting a deeper relationship with God that was hard to find amidst the evangelical fun-and-games, and also desiring unconditional love, which is hard to get in this world.

3.  Nick Norelli criticizes Bart Ehrman’s remark that “Apart from fundmanetalists and very conservative evangelicals, scholars are unified in thinking that the view that Jesus was God was a later development within Christian circles”.  Nick appeals to Larry Hurtado, a scholar who argues on the basis of cultic devotion that Jesus was exalted early on in Christian history, meaning that a relatively high Christology is early rather than late.

4.  Rodney shares what he thinks about being in churchrelevance.com’s Top 200 Church Blogs.

5.  Kate Elizabeth Conner talks about the two times that she adored Jerry Falwell when she was a student at Liberty University.

David Marshall: “What About the ‘American Taliban’?”

For my write-up today on David Marshall’s The Truth Behind the New Atheism, I will blog about Chapter 10: “What About the ‘American Taliban’?”  As is often the case, I cannot do complete justice to Marshall, for there’s a lot in this chapter.  But I will focus on some issues that he brings up.

Marshall refers to a survey that he conducted of two conservative Christian churches, an evangelical Presbyterian church and Cedar Park Assembly.  Marshall found that most of those surveyed agreed with the statement that “The Old Testament legal system was for a particular period in history and should not be applied wholesale to modern America.”  At Cedar Park, a church that has fought same-sex marriage in Washington state, only 20 per cent thought that homosexual acts should be prosecuted, and Marshall states that “Far fewer of the evangelical Presbyterians did” (page 181).  On page 182, Marshall outlines what he believes is the Christian conservative agenda: “(1) Marriage is best carried out between people of opposite sexes; (2) the birth of children is preferable to their deaths (this from the same religion that outlawed infanticide and lions shredding people in the arena); and (3) students might usefully be informed that there are books that express skepticism toward purely material explanations of origins.”  Marshall goes on to say that “Leaving the rights and wrongs of these issues aside, it seems to me these are legitimate public policy issues for people in a democracy to discuss.”

There has been other research that has been done along the same lines.  In Christian America?: What Evangelicals Really Want, sociologist Christian Smith argues on the basis of surveys that American evangelicals are much more moderate and tolerant than some may think.  (Well, Smith may express his thesis a little differently from that, but you can click on my link to Amazon to get an idea of what his book is about.)

How does what Marshall say gel with my experience?  I’d say that it does and it doesn’t.  Let me start with where it does.  I’ve met many Christian conservatives, and (with some exceptions) they don’t believe that American society should execute practicing homosexuals.  (Good for them!)  I’ve even met a Christian Reconstructionist—-someone who wants for Old Testament law to be applied to the United States—-and he told me that we as a nation are a long way from this happening, and that it would only work if the vast majority of the population in the U.S. recognized the legitimacy of Old Testament law.  One time, I was on a plane with a Christian conservative lady who publishes a newspaper, and she told me that she’s against gay marriage, but that she favors gay rights in such areas as employment and housing.

But here’s where what Marshall says does not gel with my experience: A common Christian conservative talking point has long been that homosexuals fighting discrimination in employment and housing are seeking “special privileges” or “special rights”.  I have read Christian conservative literature that praises Bowers vs. Hardwick, the Supreme Court decision that legally legitimized anti-sodomy laws.  Maybe the religious right is becoming more moderate on this issue.  I certainly hope so.  Jerry Falwell later in his life told Tucker Carlson that equal access to housing and employment for homosexuals was equal rights, not special rights (see here).  But I remember living in Cincinnati during the 2000′s, and I as a voter continually was voting on measures to protect gay rights in housing and employment, measures that were often in response to some ordinance (or something like that).  That tells me that we’re not in the clear yet.

The attitude of many Christian conservatives I know towards Muslims also disturbs me.  I’ve read some who say that the First Amendment doesn’t even protect the right of Muslims to practice their own religion.  Some, when defending the view that America is a Christian nation, quote scholars or authors who hearken back to the days when the states had religious tests to hold public office.  I wouldn’t say this about every member of the religious right.  I remember listening to Ralph Reed decry the days when an atheist was not allowed to testify in court.  But I am disturbed by some things that I have read by Christian conservatives whom I know, and I hope that they truly are extreme examples.

Overall, my hope is that Christian conservatives would just respect the fact that not everyone believes or lives as they do.  I think that there are many who do understand this, but there are also many who don’t.  The ones who make a big stink about saying “Merry Christmas” rather than “Happy Holidays”, for example, don’t seem to grasp that not everyone keeps Christmas.  And I wonder if those who blab on about “God’s agenda” for the United States and treat the U.S. as the equivalent to Old Testament Israel take into consideration the diversity of this country.

It also annoys me that Christian conservatives are one-sided on the aspects of Scripture that they want to apply to the United States.  Sure, they’re pro-life on the abortion issue, and I applaud them for that.  But they’re also for cutting welfare.  Whereas the Torah has such ideas as the cancellation of debts, Christian conservatives by-and-large did not support renegotiating people’s loans so they could keep their homes.  I once got an automated call from Mike Huckabee (whom I ordinarily like) urging me to vote for a measure that would protect the emergency loan business, which charges exorbitant interest rates.  What happened to the biblical frowning upon usury?  And, while Marshall does well to cite statistics about Christians giving to charity, I wonder how this meshes with the attitude of contempt for the poor that I have observed among many Christian conservatives—-an attitude that assumes that the poor are poor because they’re lazy.  I applaud Christian conservatives, such as Dan Coats, who have sought to ameliorate poverty through conservative means.  But I wish that more conservative Christians would include concern for the poor somewhere in their list of what constitutes “God’s agenda”.

So am I for applying the Bible to American public policy, or not?  Some Christian conservatives have implied to me that I’m inconsistent to decry the Christian right, even as I support the Christian left, which also wants to compel people to abide by certain standards.  I’m not sure how to answer that question.  I think some ideas are good whether they are supported by the Bible or not.  I include a social safety net in that.  There’s more than one can say about this complicated issue, but I’ll stop here.

Justice, Justice You Shall Pursue

I went to the public library today and looked through a book about Jimmy Carter’s “crisis of confidence” speech, also known as the “malaise” speech.  The book is by history professor Kevin Mattson and is entitled, What the Heck Are You Up To, Mr. President?: Jimmy Carter, America’s “Malaise,” and the Speech That Should Have Changed the Country.  Mattson tries to argue that the malaise speech should be put on par with the Gettysburg Address, for it exhorted the American people to affirm certain basic values, such as humility and a regard for their fellow human beings.  Michael Moore makes a similar point in Capitalism: A Love Story, in which he features an except of the speech where Carter laments materialism in America and the tendency to honor people not for what they give, but for what they make.

Ironically, the book says that Jimmy Carter’s message actually overlapped with that of Jerry Falwell, who was conducting “God Save America” rallies at the time.  Both disliked the shallow culture of America, with all its self-centeredness.  The difference was that Falwell didn’t support the sort of “humility” that Carter advocated, for Falwell tried to incorporate his critique of American society into a larger patriotism and optimism.  And that’s essentially what Reagan played on: he encouraged Americans that they were good and could pull through together, rather than putting them down for being selfish and lacking confidence.

One part of the book that caught my eye concerned Jimmy Carter’s admiration for the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, who had a significant influence on Carter’s worldview.  Niehbur emphasized that human beings are sinners who seek to dominate, yet he also believed that a just society was possible.  He wasn’t a utopian, mind you, but he thought that society could be fairer than it currently is.  At the same time, he maintained that we should always have an attitude of humility, for our nature is sinful, and even our best intentions can go awry because of our selfish desire to be number one.

My religious background (Armstrongism) was always skeptical about the ability of humans to create a just society.  We’re sinners, after all, incapable of self-government!  According to Herbert Armstrong, God gave us 6,000 years to rule ourselves, all to show us that we couldn’t rule ourselves, for we’re corrupt.  That would set the stage for the second coming of Jesus Christ, the only one (besides God the Father) who can rule us in a righteous fashion. 

But I wonder: can I believe that human beings are sinful, while also having hope that justice can be possible in this society?  I’m not saying society will ever become perfect, but can it become more just than it currently is?  Maybe we are incapable of self-government all by ourselves, but can we govern ourselves better with the help of God?  And if we’re simply supposed to sit on our hands, wait for Jesus Christ to return, and do nothing to promote and bring about justice in this world, then why did God command the rulers of ancient Israel to do justice?  It’s all over the Torah, Psalms, Proverbs, and the prophets!  Was God commanding them to do something he didn’t think they could do, at least on some level?

Pat and Jerry Up Close

I just finished Mel White’s Stranger at the Gate: To Be Gay and Christian in America (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994). Mel White was a ghostwriter for such figures as Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Billy Graham. Unknown to them at the time was Mel’s sexual orientation. Mel White is a homosexual.

Mel talks about Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson up close, for he got to work with them on several occasions. What’s interesting is that his account of their personalities matches what I have read or heard about them elsewhere, in a variety of sources. Or, actually, I have several sources about Falwell. My information on Pat Robertson is from someone who’s met him.

Mel White describes Falwell as a practical joker. Jerry once put a baby crocodile in his bathtub, scaring his wife, Macel Pate (who may be related to me, who knows?). That matches something I read on the Internet. There was a journalist who did not like Falwell because of the divisions he caused in her community. She visited Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia to do a story about him, and, much to her surprise, she found him to be a nice, funny guy. When she rode around with him in his truck, he pretended that he was about to run over the students. He definitely had a funny streak.

But, according to Mel White, Falwell also had problems with the truth. White says that Falwell was not overly homophobic up close, for he had a homosexual on his staff. For Falwell, as long as the gay kept his homosexuality to himself, he and Falwell would get along fine. But, at the time of White’s writing, Falwell denied that he had a homosexual on his staff (according to White).

White also refers to a mass-mailing that Falwell sent out, detailing his rescue from a homosexual mob in Los Angeles. According to Falwell, the LAPD had to rescue him from a bunch of murderous homosexuals. But the police deny that this even occurred.

I’ve read in other sources about Falwell’s problems with the truth. In Keeping Faith, Jimmy Carter recounts that Falwell was telling people that he (Carter) had homosexuals in his administration, based on a statement that Carter allegedly made to him in a meeting. But, in Carter’s recollection, he told Falwell no such thing. Carter says that Falwell later apologized, yet he still aired ads in which a mother told her little girl that Carter was bad because he tolerated homosexuals.

In William Martin’s With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America (New York: Broadway, 1996), Falwell recounts that his church began reaching out to African-Americans in the early 1960s. Here’s Falwell’s version of events:

“[T]he real test came–it was probably 1960 or ’61–when a black family came forward to join our church and wanted to be baptized. I said, ‘All right, I’ll baptize you,’ and I did. But I told them that night, as we were about to go down in the water, I said, ‘Neither one of us may come up out of that water, so I hope you’re right with the Lord. I am.’ And I baptized them. We lost a couple of families over that, but just that quickly it was all over. And as far as I know, we became the first church in this town to aggressively begin ministering to everyone…[I]n 1960 in the South, it was a big deal. And it caused criticism–in the city, in the community, not just in the church. There were people wondering, ‘What is this young preacher trying to do, ruin our town?’”

According to Martin’s research, Falwell’s story is inaccurate, for “Thomas Road Baptist Church remained segregated until 1968, and the first baptism of an African-American person appears not to have occurred until 1971″ (page 58).

So was Falwell a liar? I don’t know. Maybe he just had a certain perspective on past events. On some level, we all place things that happened to us into a narrative, which isn’t necessarily accurate in every detail. Perhaps Falwell sincerely believed he was telling the truth.

Regarding Pat Robertson, Mel White depicts him as very intense. White contrasts Robertson to Falwell: “Pat Robertson, on the other hand, was almost always polite, but distant, totally self-absorbed in his ambitious plans, and certainly not much fun.” When White was on Robertson’s plane, Robertson dropped him off, put a more influential person in Mel’s place, and took off again. Mel found himself in a strange airport, “hoping to catch a commercial flight home” (page 205).

That reminded me of someone who told me a story about Pat Robertson. “Why don’t you invite Pat Robertson to this area?” he was asked. He replied, “I know Pat and Dee Dee. I’ve had lunch with them. They’re charming, wonderful people. But his attention span for you is like that if you don’t present him with the hottest thing since French toast.” When he said “that,” he snapped his fingers. “If I invite Pat here to speak, he’ll look through the curtains to see if he’s got a big crowd, and I don’t want him to be disappointed.”

His interpretation of Pat wasn’t as negative as White’s, but both seem to present similar characteristics: a man who is ambitious and driven, yet friendly.

When I hear different people say the same thing about someone, I think, “Okay, we’re talking about the same person here.” But who knows? These figures may have had deeper things in them that never came to the surface. Can we truly say that we know someone? Motivations may be hidden.