Category Archives: Evangelical Christianity

The Christian Holy War for Trump

American Fascism, Death of Democracy, Evangelical Christianity, Extremism, Politics & Religion, religion, True Believer, Trumpism

 

Many American pastors, including particularly evangelical or fundamentalist pastors have endorsed Trump since 2015 and continue to do so,  reinforcing Trump’s view that he could kill people and not lose support. On January 6, 2021 that was clearly demonstrated. The only difference is that Trump did not have to do the actual killing or fighting. Like a true Mafia Don he just asked his followers to do it and they followed his instructions. Trump asked them to fight to defend the country and they did exactly that.

 

One of the American pastors was conservative evangelical pastor Greg Lock the founder of Global Vision Bible Church in Mount Juliet, Tennessee. He wrote this in his book This Means War, ““We are one election away from losing everything we hold dear.” The battle, Locke continued, is “against everything evil and wicked in the world.” Thomas Edsall of the New York Times interpreted these remarks this way: “It is a rallying of the troops of God’s holy army. This is our day. This is our time. This means something for the Kingdom. As a matter of fact, THIS MEANS WAR.”

The day before the riot at the capitol Greg Locke tweeted his faithful followers in a manner not unlike Trump but with religious language:

 “May the fire of the Holy Spirit fall upon Washington DC today and tomorrow. May the Lamb of God be exalted. Let God arise and His enemies be brought low.”

 Obviously, these are not the views of all Christians, but frankly I am shocked by how many feel this way. I wonder if police are considering charging  any of these pastors with inciting violence.  Their language is certainly incendiary.

Sometimes the marriage of politics and religion breeds monsters.

 

Steinbach hits International News

Epidemics/Pandemics, Evangelical Christianity, Steinbach

Steinbach does not often hit the national or international news, and when it does it usually is at least partly about religion. We on occasion have been made to look ridiculous, not entirely without justification,  for actions taken based on the religious views of a majority of the community. The news has not always been negative. I remember when Steinbach hit the national news for having the most generous charitable donors in the country. That is pretty favourable news.

I have been a subscriber to the Guardian Weekly since 1982. It is a newspaper that is read around the world and widely admired for the quality of its journalism. Then it was called the Manchester Guardian. I assure you that since that time Steinbach has never been on the Guardian’s radar. They might have mentioned the name Steinbach (I can’t remember) when Steinbach’s most famous son was interviewed by the press around the world as a result of a journalist, Murray Hiebert, who I knew in passing, and who was the Malaysian bureau chief for Far Eastern Economic Review, and was jailed after serving one month for contempt of court. Basically, he was jailed for writing a book critical of the Malaysian legal system. I believe he was the first reporter in the Commonwealth that was jailed for his writing since the Second World War. I don’t know if the Guardian covered the story but they likely did because he was interviewed by media around the world. Briefly he was probably the most famous person ever to have come out of Steinbach. The Guardian might have mentioned Steinbach when it wrote about our most famous daughter—Miriam Toews. They have written about her on more than one occasion, and she is certainly worthy of international attention and has justifiably received much of it.

And now Steinbach hit international news again and this time for something that happened in our little city. Imagine my surprise when I read about this in the Guardian. The Guardian reported on the dissenting efforts of the Church of God Restoration. The Guardian juxtaposed their rebellion with the seriousness of the pandemic, particularly in Steinbach. Here is what Leyland Cecco reported in the Guardian Weekly:

 

“We’ve certainly been more aggressive with masks than the United States,” said Dr. Anand Kumar an infectious disease and intensive care physician. His province of Manitoba has the highest  active case rate in the country. 634 infections per 100,000 residents—seven times the higher than neighbouring Ontario. In Steinbach, the site of a recent anti-mask protest, officials have logged  10-day positivity rates of 40%.”

 

I was told that was the highest rate in North America at the time, yet our city was the site of an anti-mask rally. It was incongruous. Actually, it was worse than that. Dr. Kumar, an expert on the subject, was advocating, Manitoba’s restrictions be tightened, not loosened as the church wanted. He was worried about a health care overload that was already stressing our health care system. The dissidents included many members of the church, but many others as well. They  were primarily worried about their rights to congregate. The Guardian suggested that Manitoba would have done much worse had they followed American practices and ignorance about the disease and had Manitoba political leaders not refused to believe in conspiracy theories. As the Guardian said, that “probably averted a far more dire outcome.”

I wonder what will be the next reason that Steinbach attracts international attention? Maybe when Miriam Toews wins the Man Booker Prize.

Trump the Saviour

American Fascism, Death of Democracy, Death of Truth, Evangelical Christianity, True Believer, Trump, Trumpism

Some people are now saying Trumpism is a cult. There is some substance to this claim. Trump said that he could stand on 5th Avenue in New York, shoot someone, and he would not lose any support! That is theological support. Trumpers are accustomed to believing without evidence. As a result, the lack of evidence for Trump’s claims, such as his claim that he won the presidential election by a landslide, for example, can readily be believed by the Trumpers. That is why, I believe, Evangelicals in general have had such fondness for Trump. They find it easy to believe in him. That is why I have been saying beliefs have consequences.

Rick Wilson the co-founder of the Lincoln project had some interesting things to say about Trumpism:

“Trumpism is a cultural problem. That culture is defiant of reality and tradition and morality. It is a fundamentally unconservative culture.  They are not believers in limited government, the rule of law or the constitution. They believe in Trump. If he says something, that’s what they believe. If he said tomorrow ‘I am in favour of child sacrifice,’ they would say, ‘we ought to reconsider child sacrifice,’ because that is the power he has over them. It’s the most astounding diversion from what American politicians have traditionally been.  Traditionally, even powerful and charismatic American politicians have been in response to people.  These are in response to a leader.  He is a perfect authoritarian figure in terms of the charisma, the control, and almost religious devotion to him.”

 

The only thing that rings false in that statement is the word “almost.”  It is in fact religious devotion. The word “almost’ waters it down too much.

Trump is the saviour of Trumpers. As a result, Trump does not have to worry about his supporters being disappointed in. It does not matter. It is unlikely to vanish. It is possible it will vanish but unlikely. Other politicians can only envy Trump.

Don’t Blame but Criticize

Death of Truth, Epidemics/Pandemics, Evangelical Christianity

 

A local Mennonite Pastor in Steinbach, Kyle Penner, whose views deserve respect, recently wrote an article in the Winnipeg Free Press after all the negative press our community has been receiving as a result of the actions of some of the more conservative members of our community. Not all I must point out. Some conservative Christians were interviewed and demonstrated their scepticism about the accepted science about the coronavirus. In a free society everyone is entitled to give his or her opinion. But that doesn’t means they are exempt from criticism. Nor should they be. Even on matters affected by religion. Penner was upset because people were blaming the conservative Christians online in a non-Christian spirit.

Penner’s opening paragraph struck home:

“We are dying here. So please, everyone who has suddenly got it in for Steinbach: get off your high horse and lead with compassion instead of smugness.”

I must admit that opened a wound. I have probably been guilty of smugness in relation to these conservative Christians. My bad. But does that end the matter?

I want to be compassionate. I feel for the people who have become ill. I feel for the their families and loved ones. I feel for the people who might feel guilty about perhaps being the spreader of the coronavirus. I feel particularly sympathetic and grateful to the health care workers who have been working tirelessly to protect us. And that is exactly why I believe the conservative Christians deserve to be criticized. Not drawn and quartered, but firmly and clearly criticized.

It is precisely the conservative Christians and others like them who have been denying the Covid science often in favor of dangerous disinformation about the coronavirus. They have refused to wear masks or maintain social distancing. They have not been respecting our health care workers. The words and actions of these Covid deniers have been causing irreparable harm to others in the name of dubious claims from the Internet which they have been given an unseemly religious or constitutional gloss. They have lulled others into a false sense of security. They have helped to erode truth. They claim they have the religious freedom to gather and decide whether or not they will wear masks, thus endangering the lives of others.

They have contributed to the terrible heaping on of extra work on our health care system and it’s professionals  and with it extra risks of serious harm, and they have been doing that in the name of God. By their reckless actions they have created serious health risks to thousands of other people young and old and particularly the most vulnerable members of our society. Those actions do not deserve acquiescence; they deserve criticism. That criticism should be delivered with compassion and kindness, but it must be delivered firmly. These people with their misguided views are a serious public health hazard. Their misinformation should be challenged or we are also contributing to that danger.

I don’t want to be a part of any mob laying blame for the pandemic on the conservative Christians. I believe their influence thankfully is not great. But it not non-existent either.

Mr. Penner says be kind and compassionate. I agree completely. That’s why we can’t let the conservative Christians off the hook on this one. Criticism is deserved.

The Christians are Killing US

Evangelical Christianity, Fear

 

Steinbach resident and business owner, Evangeline Loewen, who was recently interviewed by CBC in light of sky-rocketing rates of Covid-19 in our town, said that she wants to separate old and vulnerable people from the rest of us so we can live and work and they can stay somewhere else?

Evangeline Loewen said, “It looks like we are preparing for Communism.” No doubt this will be put on National TV. I think it was. Is wearing a mask now comparable to spending 10 years in the Soviet prisoner of war camps? Are masks a slippery slope to that?

She doesn’t want people to be “pumped full of fear.” She also said people should be afraid because we should trust God who heals us. As our hospital emergency room is jammed to capacity as a result of Covid-19 cases, she really thinks everyone is making too big a deal of Covid-19. Many others in our town feel the same. They don’t like the restrictions. People like that think it is a major infringement on their liberty to be forced to wear a mask when in public so that others are protected.

Because people are asked to wear a mask in Steinbach mainly to protect the lives of other people, the opponents of the restrictions organized a protest rally against compulsory mask use. They did this as Steinbach has the highest per capita rate of Covid-19 in Canada! 49 new cases of Covid-19 in Steinbach today!

Meanwhile, as citizens like Evangeline Loewen from Steinbach and Reeve Lewis Weiss from Labroquerie dismiss mask-wearing Steinbach has the highest per capita rate of Covid-19 in Canada!

But ignorance has consequences. Recently, I listened to a heart-breaking interview with a Sarah Neufeld (no relation), a Health Care Worker from Steinbach’s Bethesda Hospital.

 

Here are a few of the things she said according to Steinbach Online (It’s long but it’s worth the read):

“Sarah Neufeld is a nurse in the Emergency Room at the Bethesda Regional Health Centre. She says the number of positive COVID-19 cases she and her team are dealing with on a daily basis are considerably more than they or the hospital building itself can handle. She notes it is not uncommon to run out of rooms and be forced to relocate beds into the hallways and even beds themselves are not always available.

“I liken this to what it must have been like around The War when the injured just kept coming and coming and coming and they had no place for them, that is the feeling that we have. Right when we are exhausted, we have filled every bed, we have finally transferred a few patients out, then we get four more in.”

“We’ve even had someone in a chair because we didn’t even have enough beds,” she remarks. “To have every room, every space, every hospital bed, and every ICU bed full. It is something I have never seen in my career.”

There have been rumors around Steinbach that certain individuals with the virus have been forced to wait out the night in an ambulance. While Neufeld could not substantiate those reports, she says, considering the current spatial constraints, it is not altogether unlikely.

“If we have Covid-positive patients that come in via EMS they cannot be offloaded until we have a bed and because we are so overcapacity, it is entirely possible that they had to wait for hours in the ambulance bay with attendants.”

In addition to not having enough staff to manage the number of incoming patients, Neufeld says the staff that the hospital does have are burning out fast. These days, she says it is realistic to expect an eleven-hour shift with no breaks.

“How are we supposed to manage in these conditions?” she questions. “These aren’t sustainable.”

…

“I feel driven to advocate for my fellow healthcare workers that I work alongside,” she states. “I feel like the community does not have an idea of how bad it is and how desperate we are in the ER

During the weeks ahead, Neufeld anticipates that she and her coworkers will become even more mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted than they already are. Ultimately, the only way Neufeld can see the situation improving in the ER is if they get more housekeepers, work clerks, nurses, and doctors. She is calling on the government to do just that.

Meanwhile, Neufeld says there is one small thing the public can do to make their workload lighter…

“We need a show of solidarity from our community,” she stresses. “We hear about these anti-mask people or these anti-mask rallies and we are utterly shocked and dismayed at the fact that there are people doing that when we are working so tirelessly for our community. And the paradox is when they are sick where do they go? They come to us at the hospital. So if people could wear their masks and show respect and kindness, that this the biggest thing they could do.”

 

What Neufeld and her co-workers do not need are dangerous fools like Lewis Weiss who thinks because he does not feel sick he can’t spread the disease to others. What Neufeld and her co-workers don’t need are religious zealots like Evangeline Loewen who thinks restrictions on our freedom such as wearing masks are an unreasonable imposition and a prelude to Communism.

I don’t want people to be pumped up with unreasonable fears either, but it seems to me we should be concerned about these dangers.

Sarah Neufeld warned that these conditions in the hospital are not sustainable. She also said, “when people keep coming we can’t handle them.” If the health-care workers can’t keep up what will the people do when no patients are allowed in to the hospital? Get medical treatment from the local Reeve perhaps.

No Lives Matter When God is on your side

Epidemics/Pandemics, Evangelical Christianity, religion

 

Things have been going crazy in Steinbach. By that I mean more crazy than normal. Steinbach has been recently  hitting the national news for two reasons. First, Steinbach apparently has the highest per capita covid-19 rate in Canada. At least it did.

As reported by CBC, according to research epidemiologist Cynthia Carr, “Steinbach has around 1,000 active COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people. She says that number is twice as high as Winnipeg and ten times the national average.”

Now comes the crazy part. What do you think Steinbach is doing in response? Battening down the hatch right? Wrong answer! Steinbach is going into denial in high definition. That may seem incomprehensible but it’s not.

Ian Froese reported for CBC News, that local Steinbach restaurateur, Brigitte Turner, said that some people don’t believe there’s anything to worry about. The ones that don’t find anything to worry about, worry me. They think that because God is on their side there is nothing to fear. As Bob Dylan said long ago, “Don’t count the dead with God on your side.”

According to Ian Froese of the CBC, “Over the past week, a daily average of 31.2 out of every 100,000 residents of the Southern Health region (which includes Steinbach) were diagnosed with COVID-19. No other health region in Canada, aside from Winnipeg, comes close.”

As Froese reported, Brigitte Turner overheard “a patron trying to explain to a friend that a death rate of one to two percent from an illness is actually devastating.” Think about. How does that need explaining? Canada has a population of about 37 million people. If 2% die that would mean 740,000 deaths! The United States which so far has more deaths than any other country in the world and has about 10 times Canada’s population, has less than 1/3rd of that! Yet some people here think 1 to 2% is acceptable?

As if that is not enough,  in Steinbach we have even more crazies. Take Evangeline Loewen owner of a local florist shop. She was also interviewed by the CBC. She says 99% of her customers think the government imposed restrictions are too extreme. That number is absurd by the way. There are many people who object to those restrictions but many people in Steinbach realize they are necessary to save lives. I don’t know which camp has more people. Yet as Steinbach has the highest rates in Canada many want restrictions loosened.

As Ian Froese reported,

“Instead, she advocates for measures separating the most vulnerable in society from everybody else. Another near-lockdown may have disastrous effects on economic, physical and social well-being, she worries. “We’re not happy with the whole fear being pumped into the people.”

Think about that solution for a moment. I have heard that people “at risk” represent about 30% of Manitoba’s population. Manitoba has a population of about 1, 400,000. That means we need to find a place for about 420,000 people. Where would they all go? Currently most of those people are sprinkled throughout the population in every town and city. Many live with their families. Some live alone. How are we going to keep them separate? Send them all to some town up north? How practical is that?

Loewen says she cares deeply for old people who are mainly at risk. That is why she wants them kept separate? But have no fear she has a solution to that too. She says we should not be afraid. “That’s because part of why a lot of us aren’t as afraid, either, is because we do know there’s a God. He made us, He’s the one that can actually heal us.”

So the Christian solution is to send old people and others at risk some place where they can be separate from the rest of the people but as long as they trust God they have nothing to fear.

Is that the Christian solution?

Dad, God, and Me: Religion without Limits

Books, Evangelical Christianity, religion

 

 

 

Ralph Friesen has written a fine book called Dad, God, and Me. Let me say at the outset that in reviewing this book I am not neutral. The author Ralph Friesen has been a friend of mine for many years. We grew up in the same town, Steinbach, and curled together from time to time.  In fact I was a little bit younger than he was, and I and my friends considered him and his friend Patrick Friesen intellectual leaders of our generation. But I realized after reading this book that our experiences growing up in this town were very different.

 

Ralph’s upbringing as the son of a Kleine Gemeinde conservative Mennonite Church, was very different from my experience, the son of much more moderate Christians. My parents were much more liberal in the religion they doled out. I would say that Ralph’s life was soaked with evangelical religion. To me Ralph paints a picture of parents with a shockingly totalitarian view of Steinbach in which children were nearly suffocated with religion. In other words, it was religion that invaded all of life. Frankly, I found even the much more liberal theology of my parent’s  church too stifling for my taste. More conservative members of our community considered it barely religion at all. I can’t imagine how I would I would have survived his upbringing.

 

The religion of the Kleine Gemeinde (little congregation) was, to echo of phrase of Albert Camus, religion without limits, making it as unpalatable as politics without limits. I thank Ralph for giving me a peek into his world. It was a fascinating look. Now I know how lucky I was not to be raised in that environment.

Not that Ralph’s family was not loving. They were certainly loving. The parents, the father in particular, just wanted to determine everything about his son’s faith. Nothing else would do. As Bob Dylan said, the parents were “Making you feel that you gotta be just like them.” Every book, every piece of music, every sporting event, every relationship was viewed through an evangelical lens. Nothing was off limits. That is what religion without limits is all about.

Before his father got saved or born again, thanks in part to an itinerant evangelical minister, Ralph’s father enjoyed life outside the church. In particular he loved movies. The theatre in Steinbach was driven out of town as some Mennonites, like the Kleine Gemeinde became ever more evangelical. I remember as a youth how sad I was at that. I loved going to movies and my parents did not discourage me from doing that. I remember one day I had gone to see the movie Heidi about a young Swiss girl. I loved the film. It was a joyful experience. But when I walked home all alone on a Friday night I was approached by 2 old crones who stopped me and asked me what I was doing out this late on a Friday night. I exuberantly told them about his wonderful movie I had just seen. The women were shocked. This was awful. Did I not realize I was bound for hell if I did things like that? I was totally mystified. What could be wrong with seeing a film about Heidi. I could not understand. In time I did of course but to a young lad this was a scary experience. These were the evangelicals of our town.

As Ralph explains in the book,

“The Mennonites mistrusted the arts, and all individual creativity, as belonging to the sinful world, distracting the Christian from the serious worship of God. Dad fell into line with that view after his conversion. If he was to express himself creatively, he would contain that expression within religious boundaries, as in composing sermons, or leading choirs, or signing hymns.”

 

Does that not sound totalitarian? Religion intended to dominate all of life. Some Mennonites, thank goodness, saw things differently. But to the Kleine Gemeinde religion was that absolute. It was everything.

Ralph describes that milieu with precision, but with compassion. He clearly loves his family, but did not allow them to choke him. Ralph, unlike most Mennonite youth in such circumstances managed to bolt for freedom.

I would suggest that no matter whether you are a Mennonite or not, Christian or not, you can enjoy this book. It is well worth the trip.

Judaism: Wisdom of the Old Testament Prophets

Evangelical Christianity, religion

I continue to search for the good in religion. I often criticize  religion , but I acknowledge there is a lot of good stuff there too. In fact in all the religions I have looked at there is good.

People brought up in Christian homes tend to downplay the importance of the Old Testament, and with it Judaism. Christians often see themselves as superior to the Jews, just like they do to all other religions. But is this disparagement fair? I would suggest it is not.

For example, Christians often say that the Jews believed in an “eye for an eye” while they went beyond that to “turning the other cheek.”  There are some statements in the New Testament that support that assertion. Yet there is also the clear fact that in the New Testament a God is described who would place non-believers into eternal torment. That goes way beyond an eye for an eye, but in the wrong direction. That is not turning the other cheek, which we are told to do. That is revenge, an entirely ugly emotion, of the worst kind. In fact think about revenge that goes on forever!

It is rarely a wise approach to evaluate any religion by statements made by its competitors or critics. It is much wiser to look at the religion first hand or at least listen to what sympathizers say.

The Mosaic phrase “an eye for an eye” first appears in the Old Testament in Exodus 21 where it is promptly followed by the statement, “If he knocks out his servant’s or his maid’s tooth, he shall let him go free for the tooth’s sake.”  That is an odd statement, but at least it demonstrates that the Law of Moses never just applied the principle of an eye for an eye  mechanically. The emphasis is on the spirit of the provision, namely that the law does not respect persons. By that is meant that all are treated equally. An eye of one is worth the eye of another. No more no less. All people are equal before the law, kings and paupers. That is not a bad principle, and tempers the more harsh sounding an eye for an eye. Of course, in ancient times, limiting the avenger to an eye for an eye rather than a life for an eye was already a huge improvement over  common punishments.

I also really like the statement in Leviticus 24, “You shall have one law for the stranger and for the native, for I am the Lord your God.”  Equality again is the rule and it is a fundamentally important law right to this day, enshrined as it is in our Canadian constitution.

In practice of course, Christians have been no better than adherents to other religions in denouncing revenge and retaliation. Look at the tortures inflicted on heretics during the Inquisition for example. An eye for an eye would have been an enormous improvement.

Nietzsche, for example, who is often criticized by Christians, and others, had a much better approach. He said the noble person was the one who was freed from revenge. He had his Zarathustra say, “that man be delivered from revenge, that is for me the bridge to the highest hopes.”

In the Old Testament there is actually strong evidence of the importance of a keen social conscience. This sets apart the Old Testament from the sacred writings of many other religious texts. In fact the social conscience  is implicit from a belief in God according to the Old Testament.

In Leviticus it says, “You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason with your neighbour, lest you bear sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbour as yourself.” That is pretty good moral advice. In fact, I would suggest as good as such advice ever gets. Of course all the Old Testament  requirements are not equally sound. That passage is immediately followed by one that you shall not let your cattle breed with another kind or sow your field with two different kinds of seeds. Why is that important? So admittedly, I pick and choose. I do that with all religions. It is my belief that we have to exercise our critical thinking.

But there are lots of good things too in the Old Testament. Leviticus 33 says, “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. The stranger who sojourns with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.” Once again profound. this is just another version of the Golden Rule.  I think t shows how religion is what connects us to each other, not what divides us. If it divides us, it is not religion. That is my fundamental principle.

Elsewhere in the Old Testament the prophet Malachi asks a profound question: “Have we not all one father?  Has not one God created us?  Why then are we faithless to one another?” (2:10) Or consider Job who asks, “If I have rejected the right of my manservant or my maidservant, when they contended with me; what then shall I do when God rises up?  When he makes inquiry, what shall I answer him? Did not he who made me in the womb make make him? And did not one fashion us in the womb? (31:13-15) Once again the Old Testament prophets understood as their followers often did not, that we are all kin. We are all one. and we should treat each other accordingly.

The Old Testament prophets relentlessly stressed the importance of social justice. They were not concerned with rituals. Their criticism was fundamentally moral.

Those Old Testament prophets are not often give credit for their wisdom. I really like what Micah said, “He has told you, man, what is good and what the Lord requires of you: only to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” (6:8) I don’t know that morality ever gets more simple or more profound than this! Justice, mercy, and humility is what is demanded of us.

Isaiah another of those prophets also advocated for justice instead of ceremony said this:

“What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord.  I have had enough of burnt offerings…Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, abolish oppression, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.”

That is what the God of Old Testament said when he said to his people, “You shall be holy.” (Leviticus 19:2.) Or when he said, “You shall be to me a kingdom of priests.” (Exodus 19:6)

There is a lot to be said for the Old Testament.

 

I’ve been told I’m going to Hell Soon: Fellow feeling and Religions

Evangelical Christianity, expansive religion, Fellow Feeing, Philosophy/Ideas, religion

Some people just cannot grasp the idea that religions might actually have something in common. A couple of years ago I got in serious trouble with a real estate agent from the Bible Belt of Manitoba. I was speaking at a continuing educational seminar for real estate agents and we were talking about ethical rules. I told the real estate professionals, ‘Don’t worry about trying to memorize all the rules.’ I said, ‘Just know where you can find them and remember this—the fundamental rule: The Golden Rule. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” I should have stopped there. Instead, I made a big mistake. I brought in religion of all things to an educational session for real estate agents. How stupid could I get? I said to them, this rule, the golden rule, was the basis of all moralityandall religion. I said all religions had this important rule in common. I presumed this would please people. Religions actually agree with each other. There is no reason to argue. They should be able to get along. But at least one agent did not accept that.

After my talk I was approached by a real estate agent. He asked me if I was “born again.” I knew immediately I was in trouble. No I said, “I was born only once to my knowledge.” But I did think about Bob Dylan who said, “He not busy being born is busy dying.”

The agent pounced on my comment. “I thought so,” he said. “You are obviously nota Christian because you are equatingChristianity with Islam. That means you are going to hell.”  And that was not enough. He added, “And you’re an old guy so you will be going to hell soon.” That last part really hurt. (Well not really)

Obviously this was a man without fellow feeling. He could not grasp that it was a good thing, not a bad thing that all or most religions agreed on the fundamentals. He much preferred to think that hisreligion was superior to all others. I would say that meant he was not religious at all. No empathy; no religion. No connection; no religion.

As I have already said, the word “religion” in fact comes from the old Asian/Indian word religiothat means “connection.” I think it explains religion perfectly. It explains how religion is what connects us to others. I would even add it is what connects us to the world, to nature, to all beings.

It is deeply interesting to me that religion has a common core.  Karen Armstrong has some interesting things to say about this. She had joined a convent at the age of 17 but found it was not for her. She became a scholar instead. For the next 40 years she learned a lot about compassion and dedicated her life to the concept. In my view she did not move far from the world of what a convent or at least religious retreat should be. When she studied world religions she too was surprised to learn that compassion was the core of allmajor religions.

She became a historian of religion, received the prestigious $100,000 TED prize in 2008 for her work promoting interfaith dialogue, and founded the Charter for Compassion, a multilingual and multi-denominational effort to transform the world’s religions into a force of global harmony rather than discord. She enlisted a wide array of thinkers from many faith and moral traditions.

Armstrong summed up her life long study in a book called Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life. In it she wrote:

 

One of the chief tasks of our time must surely be to build a global community in which all peoples can live together in mutual respect; yet religion, which should be making a major contribution, is seen as part of the problem. All faiths insist that compassion is the test of true spirituality and that it brings us into relation with the transcendence we call God, Brahman, Nirvana, or Dao. Each has formulated its own version of what is sometimes called the Golden Rule, “Do not treat others as you would not like them to treat you,” or in its positive form, “Always treat others as you would wish to be treated yourself.” Further, they all insist that you cannot confine your benevolence to your own group; you must have concern for everybody— even your enemies.

 


         Armstrong also challenged the common view that religion is the cause of all wars:

“In fact, the causes of conflict are usually greed, envy, and ambition, but in an effort to sanitize them, these self-serving emotions have often been cloaked in religious rhetoric. There has been much flagrant abuse of religion in recent years. Terrorists have used their faith to justify atrocities that violate its most sacred values. In the Roman Catholic Church, popes and bishops have ignored the suffering of countless women and children by turning a blind eye to the sexual abuse committed by their priests. Some religious leaders seem to behave like secular politicians, singing the praises of their own denomination and decrying their rivals with scant regard for charity… Disputes that were secular in origin, such as the Arab-Israeli conflict, have been allowed to fester and become “holy,” and once they have been sacralized, positions tend to harden and become resistant to pragmatic solutions. And yet at the same time we are bound together more closely than ever before through the electronic media… In a world in which small groups will increasingly have powers of destruction hitherto confined to the nation-state, it has become imperative to apply the Golden Rule globally, ensuring that all peoples are treated as we would wish to be treated ourselves. If our religious and ethical traditions fail to address this challenge, they will fail the test of our time.”

 

Armstrong quoted the final version of the Charter for Compassion, which was launched in November of 2009 and came to embody this spirit by offering an antidote to the voices of extremism, intolerance, and hatred:

 

“The principle of compassionlies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honor the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.

It is also necessary in both public and private life to refrain consistently and empathically from inflicting pain. To act or speak violently out of spite, chauvinism or self-interest, to impoverish, exploit or deny basic rights to anybody, and to incite hatred by denigrating others — even our enemies — is a denial of our common humanity. […]

We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world. Rooted in a principled determination to transcend selfishness, compassion can break down political, dogmatic, ideological and religious boundaries. Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity.”

Armstrong offered the following as a definition of compassion:

 

“Compassion is aptly summed up in the Golden Rule, which asks us to look into our own hearts, discover what gives us pain, and then refuse, under any circumstance whatsoever, to inflict that pain on anybody else. Compassion can be defined, therefore, as an attitude of principled, consistent altruism.

In fact, the first person to formulate the Golden Rule predated the founding figures of Christianity and Islam by five centuries and a millennium, respectively — when asked which of his teachings his disciples should practice most tenaciously, “all day and every day,” the Chinese sage Confucius (551–479 BCE) pointed to the concept of shu, commonly translated as “consideration,” which he explained as striving “never to do to others what you would not like them to do to you.”

Armstrong clarified this as follows:

“A better translation of shu is “likening to oneself”; people should not put themselves in a special, privileged category but relate their own experience to that of others “all day and every day.

Compassion, thus, is a matter of orienting oneself toward the rest of humanity, implicitly requiring a transcendence of self-interest and egotism. I would say that this means that we are not required to renounce self-interest, but rather to transcend it. We must combine it with beneficence. We must love others like ourselves, but clearly that entails, that first we love ourselves.”

Centuries after Confucius, the three major monotheistic religions adopted the strikingly similar doctrines that many believe are at the core of each religion. I also believe that this same principle—the Golden Rule—is the also at the heart of all morality. I hope to explore that in a subsequent post. It is also interesting that the compassionate spirit is ennobling in all cases and even when it has a secularorigin.In other words, fellow feeling or compassion is the basis of religions and a morality. I think that is important.

I think that real estate agent did not understand religion at all. Nor morality for that matter.

Faith, Truth, and desire

Evangelical Christianity, Philosophy/Ideas, reason,

 

This may be my most controversial post so far. I urge my friends who will be disappointed in me not to think of me as wicked, but as a fallen brother. I also  urge them to point out to me where I went wrong.

A friend sent to me an excerpt from a well-written article by N. T. Wright.  He argues that as a historian there is convincing evidence that Jesus Christ came back to life after dying. This is what he concluded:

The historian’s task is not to force people to believe.  It is to make it clear that the sort of reasoning historians characteristically employ — inference to the best explanation, tested rigorously in terms of the explanatory power of the hypothesis thus generated — points strongly towards the bodily resurrection of Jesus.

Is that true? I accept it as a principle, that the more astonishing the claim the stronger the evidence must be to support it. I would suggest that someone rising from the dead is such an unusual accomplishment that objectively we would never believe that this had happened without very strong evidence indeed that it had in fact occurred. I don’t know about you, but I have never found such a claim about anyone else was ever true or even mildly convincing. Would any of us accept such claims about Mohammed, for example?  I would suggest that Muslims might believe that, but unless one had been indoctrinated to believe from a very early age it is highly unlikely that anyone would ever reach the conclusion that the evidence “points strongly towards the bodily resurrection of Mohammed”. Only those who already believed in the faith, would feel that evidence pointed strongly in that direction.

Would anyone say that about the evidence that any person at all  rose from the dead? Can you conceive of any evidence at all that might lead one to believe that? I would submit that any such conclusion is highly unlikely. The reason is that such beliefs are not based on evidence, they are based on inculcation or indoctrination and even highly intelligent people are guided, usually unconsciously, by that indoctrination, not by evidence at all. They don’t even realize their belief is based on indoctrination.

For the same reason it is obvious why most Christians were raised by Christians and most Muslims were raised by Muslims. We tend to believe what our parents teach us, especially what they taught us from a very young age. It is not that the evidence for Christian beliefs is so much more available in Christian countries or evidence for Muslim beliefs is much more available in Muslim countries. The key is indoctrination not evidence

I am no expert–but I have never seen evidence for the resurrection of Christ that would actually convince anyone other than a person who already believed it. The evidence is not strong at all; it is extraordinarily weak. At least I have never seen any.  It is not surprising of course that the evidence is weak. After all millennia have passed since the alleged event.  Finding convincing evidence of such an astoundingly rare event would in fact be miraculous, if not impossible. Of course, that does not mean those who believe in the resurrection are wrong, I am only suggesting that they do so not on the basis of belief, but what I call “indoctrination” and they call “faith.”

Of course millions of people believe that Christ rose from the grave and they are entitled to do that but I don’t believe it is  based on evidence at all but faith.  That really means that such beliefs will be held no matter what the evidence. I think it was John Loftus who said, “You cannot reason people out religious beliefs, because they were not reasoned into them”.

Faith is belief without reason.   If you believe something without there being a reason, then you have faith in it. According to the Bible in Hebrews11:1, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” That is precisely what Friedrich Nietzsche objected to about faith.  Hopes are not evidence! The search for truth, he believed, is corrupted by wishes and desires.  If hopes are the “evidence” of truth you know the evidence is tainted. Contrary to the book of Hebrews, it is completely unreliable .

N.T. Wright earlier in the above referenced article said, about the historical evidence for the resurrection of Christ,

 

“The question divides into four.  First, what did people in the first century, both pagans and Jews, hope for?  What did they believe about life after death, and particularly about resurrection?  Second, what did the early Christians believe on the same subjects?  What did they hope for?  Third, what reasons did the early Christians give for their hope and belief, and what did they mean by the key word ‘resurrection’ which they used of Jesus? Finally, what can the historian say by way of comment on this early Christian claim?”

The fundamental problem I see with an approach like that of N.T. Wright is that it is based on hopes. His method is to find evidence to support beliefs he has probably had since the time of his youth and which ground his hopes for a life after death.  Hopes have no place in historical or scientific inquiry. They have a place in theology of course. Hopes are part of faith–a fundamental part of faith in fact.

That is what made Friedrich Nietzsche say, “Faith” means not wanting to know what is true.” The faithful believe what they want to believe. It is extremely difficult  not to believe what you want to be true. Nietzsche also said,  “The craving for a strong faith, is no proof of a strong faith, but quite the contrary. If one has such a faith, then one can afford the beautiful luxury of skeptics: one is sure enough, firm enough, has ties enough for that.” In other words, if faith is strong enough, no reasoning will talk one out of it. No evidence, no matter how compelling will dispel the belief.

All of this reminds me of that great 20thcentury deep thinker—Archie  Bunker. Archie Bunker proudly claimed to have faith. He said,  “Faith is something that you believe that no one in his right mind would believe.”

People who acquire faith usually do so not because of a convincing argument, or a powerful religious experience, but as a result of deep and persistent inculcation or indoctrination by their parents.  Such a faith is therefore nothing more than a very powerful prejudice.  It is very difficult to divorce oneself from one’s parents. It is actually much more difficult than to divorce a spouse. Nietzsche disdained such faith. He said “To accept a faith just because it is customary, means to be dishonest, to be cowardly, to be lazy.”

Nietzsche contrasted this faith with love of reason. He put it this way,

“A kind of honesty has been alien to founders of religions and others like them:  they have never made their experiences a matter of conscience for knowledge. “What did I really experience? What happened in me then, and around me? Was my reason bright enough?  Was my will turned against all deceptions of the senses and was it courageous in its resistance to the fantastic?—none of them raised such questions;  all the dear religious people still do not raise such questions even now:  rather they have a thirst for things that are against reason, and they do not want to make it too hard for themselves to satisfy it.  And so they experience “miracles” and “rebirths” and hear voices of the little angels!  We, however, we others, who thirst for reason, want to look our experience as straight in the eye as if they represented a scientific experiment, hour after hour, day after day. We ourselves want to be our experiments and guinea pigs.”

We have to be “courageous” in “resistance to the fantastic.” I think Wright  lacked that courage. He has instead found convincing evidence where no objective person would have found it. He has been guided not by evidence or “reasoning…tested rigorously” but instead by preconceptions.

Preconceptions are dangerous because they keep us from looking for the truth. After all, if you think you already have the truth why would you search for it? Nietzsche said it was not important to have the courage of one’s convictions. It was much more important to have the courage to attack one’s convictions.” That is what we have to learn to do. That is the basis of critical thinking. This willingness is its most important element.

Nietzsche also said, “Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.” He said, “I am dynamite.” I think he meant to say that he was on this earth to break up encrusted ‘truths.’ He was here to attack them, to expose them.

Nietzsche’s approach is difficult. He does not deny that. He scorns easier positions.  Unlike Nietzsche, most people do what John Kenneth Galbraith talks about when he said, “Faced with the choice of changing one’s mind and with proving there is no need to do so, almost everyone get busy on the proof.”

It is very difficult to give up our convictions. This is particularly true of those we learn at a very young age from our parents. They seem to be a part of us. To cut them loose is like cutting off an arm. I also like what Albert Pike said, “We believe what we are taught; and those are most fanatical who know least of the evidence on which their creed is based.”

Dewitt Jones, the photographer enunciated another  profound concept. He said, “I will see it when I believe it.” Until then our preconceptions or biases can stifle the truth so that we cannot detect it.

Christians keep talking about the importance of belief in Jesus.  I am never sure exactly what that means. Can they mean that we have to believe some particular proposition?  After all why would such a belief be necessary? Or does it mean we should trust him?  Have faith in him. That would make more sense. Is that very different however?

Some Christians even suggest that unless we have some beliefs in Jesus we will be condemned to eternal damnation–whatever that means. Forget about eternal damnation, is it fair to base rewards or punishments of any sort on beliefs–particularly fundamental beliefs that we have had since the time of our extreme youth? In most cases our parents should get the credit or blame for those, not us.

Our parents indoctrinated us–rightly or wrongly–when we were very young. We were so young we had no ability  to resist the indoctrination. We are not good or bad because we accepted the indoctrination. We were vulnerable. There was nothing we could do about it. Just as it is not fair to condemn an accused person of a crime when the person is so mentally ill that he or she cannot resist the impulse to commit the crime, so it is not fair to base any rewards or any punishments, let alone eternal ones, on what we were indoctrinated to believe, or not believe, when we were  young children. I cannot believe any God who would do that. That is why we should never be judged by our beliefs. We should be judged by our actions freely accomplished.