"Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom."
Dee and I are wrapping up a wonderful three-day visit to the Washington, D.C. area where we have spent time with some incredible people whom we have met through the internet. These gatherings are so much fun that one of our blogging buddies came all the way from Dubai to participate. If anyone ever attempts to convince you that meaningful relationships cannot be established through the blogosphere, we have proven this to be a Snopes worthy myth.
On a more somber note, we are aware of the latest controversy surrounding the release of comments made by Mark Driscoll in 2000 as well as the tragic suicide of Ergun Caner's son. We will begin to address these matters when we return.
Have you ever questioned whether a story, statistic, or tidbit your pastor (or other speaker) is sharing is the 'gospel truth'? As an example, you have no doubt heard the following illustration. A frog is placed in pot of water at room temperature. As the water is gradually brought to a boil, the frog will make no attempt to escape… Often, pastors use this as an illustration of the slippery slope that can lead to serious sin.
If you have always believed the frog in a pot story to be factual, we are terribly sorry to disappoint. As plausible it sounds, Snopes and other sources confirm that it is indeed a myth. In an effort to keep track of fabrications, we have established a corner on our blog called Dave's Pulpit Myths and Forgeries, which will allow you to share false information in a comment. You can find it at the top of the blog under the heading "Interesting". It's just one more valuable service we provide here at The Wartburg Watch. đ
Recently, Bob Smietana addressed this issue in a post titled You might want to fact-check your pastor's sermon. The subtitle states: "Preachers love to drop statistics and historical tidbits into their sermons. Too bad so many of their facts are untrue."
Here is what we believe to be the crux of his article:
During the sermon, I stopped listening to the pastor and instead turned my eyes on my cell phone. Something about the story just didn’t sit right — it was too good to be true. So whatever spiritual lesson I was supposed to learn in the sermon was soon overshadowed by the wisdom of a Google search.
Things get even worse when a pastor starts quoting statistics.
I’ve heard most of these in church or seen them in the pages of Christian publications. You may have heard a few of them, too:
- Church members get divorced at the same rate as anyone else.
- The church in the U.S. is dying.
- Most Christian young people are shacking up and having sex.
- Half of ministers want to quit their jobs.
- Youth groups are driving teenagers out of the church in droves.
- A third of divorces in America are caused by Facebook.
None of these statistics is true.
People who go to church have lower divorce rates, churches in the U.S. aren’t dying out, 80 percent of young people who read the Bible or go to church aren’t shacking up, and Facebook isn’t ruining a third of U.S. marriages.
And that stat about Christians who think youth groups are bad for teenagers comes from an online, unscientific survey by a Christian nonprofit that believes youth groups are unbiblical. So they created a survey that produced some statistics to prove their point.
We are ALL prone to accept stated thoughts as fact, especially if we like, admire, or trust the individual who is speaking.
Unfortunately, myths told in the pulpit can escalate from harmless stories to spiritual abuse. We want to remind our readers (as we remind ourselves) that we need to be fact checkers. In other words, Caveat Emptor.
Some years ago one of our blogging buddies wrote a post that provides a much needed message to all of us. It definitely bears repeating, and we are including it below.
A Favorite Story About The Need to Think for Yourself
I am digressing a bit in this post to share a favorite story that I read not too long ago. It is about the need to think for yourself despite what a leader or someone in authority might tell you is true. It can apply to a number of things including courtship and dating but more importantly other spiritual areas.
Charles II Story:
Charles II once stood before a group of scholars at meeting of the Royal Society of England and proposed this question to the august assembly: “Gentlemen, if I place upon these scales a pail of water weighing 10 pounds, and place in the water five live fish each weighing one pound, why is it that the scales still remain precisely at 10 pounds?”
Well the wise men belatedly debated the matter trying to solve the king’s question. One suggested that the fish have air sacs which buoy them up. Perhaps this was the answer. Another muttered something about a “theoretical vacuum.” Others propounded theories of “ungravitating gravitation.”
Finally the king’s voice silenced their discussion: “Gentleman you are all mistaken. When one places five one-pound fish in a pail of water weighing ten pounds, the scales must certainly read fifteen pounds. Your failure to answer my question discloses that you place too much confidence in me, your king.”
All too often we accept statement without asking the right questions. Millions accept what someone has told them – without personally analyzing the facts for themselves. And this is probably more true in the realm of religion than anywhere else.
From: “Reach Out for Life” by E. Lonnie Melaschenko Chapter 3
How many of us and how many times do we hear something taught and strive to believe it is true just because someone in a position of authority or who is well respected indicates it is true? Are we doing this even if warning signals in our mind and heart go up questioning what was said? Why do we sometimes put so much faith in what some “respected” leaders tell us without at least questioning it?
Do we sometimes look to explain why the scale would still read 10 pounds when we know that there is no probable way it could? What teaching have you been “taught” that you may be doing something similar on?
Something to ponder.
Perhaps we should label myths proclaimed from on high as "truthiness". Here is Stephen Colbert explaining the meaning of that interesting term.
Lydia's Corner: Jonah 1:1-4-11 Revelation 5:1-14 Psalm 133:1-3 Proverbs 29:26-27
Eagle! I mean, first?
Ha ha, did you mention the frog in boiling water thing because I actually used that phrase when we met for dinner yesterday evening?
The factual errors aren’t the only problem. Pastors will use sermon illustrations that are borrowed from someone else and make them sound like their own personal anecdotes – I think this practice is rampant.
I think we all need to put our brains in critical thinking mode, and it’s not just sermons. I saw a church sign the other day that says, “In order to lift someone up, you have to be on higher ground.” Which is ludicrous, of course. Think about it. Haven’t you ever heard of boosting someone up from below? What makes this statement sad is that they were implying that you need to be morally superior to someone in order to encourage them spiritually. So then there can be all this comparison. I teach you because I am wiser. I can’t learn from you because I am wiser. Or I can’t say anything to you that might help you grow because you are already more spiritual than I am. Or I can’t question what you say because you are the preacher. We all lose out on the “one anothering.” Like I boost you up, and then you turn around and pull me up to where you are. End of rant.
Most things that sound/support your position really well and are too good to be true–are false. Especially on the Internet.
Interesting post recently on Scott McKnight’s “Jesus Creed” blog.
Mary Schweitzer is a Christian and a molecular paleontologist who is famous/infamous for identifying the remnants of soft tissues in a fossilized triceratops horn. She tells a story:
“One time I was visiting a church and the pastor got up and started preaching a sermon about people not being related to apes, and he started talking about this scientist in Montana who discovered red blood cells in dinosaur bonesâhe didnât know I was in the audienceâand it was my research he was talking about! Unfortunately, he got everything wrong. I just got up and left.”
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2014/07/24/blood-from-stone-but-unfortunately-he-got-everything-wrong-rjs/
This pastor had been reading Young Earth Creationist accounts of the significance of Mary Schweitzerâs work. If he was concerned with passing on to his congregation the facts and meaning he could have accessed her published papers directly.
You can read more about Mary Schweitzer here:
http://biologos.org/blog/not-so-dry-bones-an-interview-with-mary-schweitzer
This is my pet peeve!!! Whenever I would hear an anecdote from the pulpit about “little Johnny” or “little Susie” or “Joe” my radar screeched “lie alert!” I have noticed pastors love to relate to their congregations that on their latest trip they shared Jesus with the guy sitting next to them on the plane, despite the fact that they hate to say what they do for a living because inevitably they end up sacrificing their time to listen to an actual human being and share the gospel. I did notice that the last time I heard my former pastor share this story, his wife was asleep so there was, as usual, no witness to this selfless event.
My breaking point was listening to radio pastor Ron Vietti share this tale, which I googled, snoped, and could find zero evidence of:
This is my pet peeve!!! Whenever I would hear an anecdote from the pulpit about “little Johnny” or “little Susie” or “Joe” my radar screeched “lie alert!” I have noticed pastors love to relate to their congregations that on their latest trip they shared Jesus with the guy sitting next to them on the plane, despite the fact that they hate to say what they do for a living because inevitably they end up sacrificing their time to listen to an actual human being and share the gospel. I did notice that the last time I heard my former pastor share this story, his wife was asleep so there was, as usual, no witness to this selfless event.
My vote for most preposterous story goes to Ron Vietti,a radio bible pastor. I may err in some details, but for the most part I stand by my memory: There was a group of American soldiers taken captive by the enemy (no details about what war or identity of the enemy). After some time living in gruesome conditions the enemy said to the American captain, half of your guys are free to go, but you have 10 minutes to decide otherwise no one goes free. (Why the time limit?) So somehow some guys selflessly deny their place to allow the other guys to go free. So then the guys are packing their duffle bags (POWs, right?) with their “prized possessions” (POWs, once again), and ONE GUY decides he will forgo packing his prized possessions in his duffle bag because he has decided he will stick ONE OF THE GUYS left behind in his duffle bag and smuggle him out instead of his prized possessions! Pastor Vietti then uses this example of selfless love!!! WTF? Of course, the audience oohed and ahed. I googled, snoped, and could find zero evidence of this tale. The harm of course, is that this pastor relates how he has raised the dead, by the power of the holy spirit, who apparently is unable to guide him to tell the truth.
To agree and also apply that healthy skepticism to the linked stats article:
My sissy says it is undoubtedly true that those Christians who pray before restaurant meals are poor tippers in the posh establishment she is currently wait-staffing. This might, then, be a subset of Christians because she also knows some Christians who donât pray in front of everyone, and are good tippers.
Re the stats on divorce, Iâd love to see a breakdown of nones who left evangelical and mainline churches over issues relating to destructive marriages that eventually ended in divorce. The institutional church has a tendency to maintain itâs pristine state by pressuring problems to leave, so these stats may be inadvertently deceptive. Plus, isnât it interesting that the mainlines show a slightly lower divorce rate than the Evangelicals, even with all their liberal devaluations of family?
w00t
Do you remember the sermon illustration about the word “sincere” and how it means “without wax”? I once wrote a whole blog post on how that’s a load of hooey.
Regarding your comments on divorce rates, I think that you are really on to something. My wife and I have been leading divorce recovery groups in churches for eight years. I have observed that many conservative churches browbeat couples with marriage issues to either: 1. “Suck it up” because you married him/her and thus maintain a marriage that is dead or dangerous. Or 2. If you cannot accept our pastoral authority in your marriage, get out of our congregation. Hence, “We do not have divorces in our church”.b>@ Patrice:
First! (don’t fact-check this claim)
My favorite is “John Griffith the Bridge Operator”. This version from “The Bible Answer Man” himself. http://www.equip.org/hank_speaks_out/john-griffith-the-bridge-operator/
I’ve heard it for over 40 years– almost always purported to be true– though old newspaper articles supporting the story are somewhat hard to find. And, Oh, the things it says about God! A trainload of totally innocent passengers are saved from the fatal consequences of Griffith’s ineptitude and bad parenting skills when he “sacrifices” his son for them. They never hear of this sacrifice, and should be ashamed of their ingratitude.
My wife and I had been attending a church for a few years, but were starting to waver in our commitment. We loved the congregation, enjoyed the music and had a meaningful ministry that we had started. But eh, there were some problems. They were way too committed to a complementation view of marriage, male âheadshipâ, against secular counseling, vilified homosexuals and got involved in partisan politics. The deal breaker for me was when the pastor stated from the pulpit that âevolution cannot be true, because it violates the Second Law of Thermodynamicsâ. This former music major clearly had no idea what the 2nd Law says, but he was confidently assuring the congregation that virtually all the PhD evolutionary scientists are wrong because of the simple âfactâ he had just given them.
Clunk.
I could no longer take any of his teaching seriously and we soon went out the door.
“Seldom right, but always certain”
More about this argument:
http://biologos.org/questions/evolution-and-the-second-law
Great article Deb. It gets depressing sometimes fact checking everything, but it does make the well evidenced events even better. And its so easy to feed your own biases nowadays, with RSS feeds, and easily differentiated and isolated media. Something I always have to work on to my chagrin. ^_^
Deb, Dee:
Most of those “Pulpit Myths and Forgeries” are better described as “Christian Urban Legends”, and follow the tropes of Urban Legends. (And have been around for a long time; have you ever read the hagiographies of some of the early saints?)
I first heard of them called that at this site, the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance: http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_cul.htm
Great topic, great video, great post.
Trusting your gut is bad. I, however, have a better idea.
You should, of course, believe something because of who said it, if they are a “nice guy.” Or second cousin of the person speaking and someone who used to work in that field.
You should believe something because of how many people say the same thing. Especially if it is backed up by poll results.
You should believe something because of how long that story has been around. Especially if it can be connected to some historical person you never hear of. Sounds historical and maybe even academic.
You should believe something if it requires you to spend a lot of time or a lot of money to pursue the idea. Good things always are expensive.
You should believe something if it is a closely held secret and you are one of the few people who is privileged to find out about it. Especially if it is a stock fund.
You should believe everything your SS teacher says if he has succeeded in insurance sales or motivational speaking, clear evidence that God has blessed him.
You should believe what your spouse, your teenager, your four year old, your grandmother, your employer or your special other tells you, just because they think you should.
But for sure and for sure you should believe everything your dog tells you, because they are likely to be the most honest other creature in your life.
To defend the poor folks of the Royal Society in front of Charles II, it is not immediately obvious why a fish not touching the bottom of the barrel would affect the force of the bucket on the scale. Simply, according to Newton’s third law, the force of the bucket on the scale has the same magnitude as the force of the scale on the bucket. It’s easy to see that the scale has to hold up the bucket AND the fish, so the weight will go up to 15 pounds with 5 one pound fish. Another way to look at it is to note that the fish puts pressure on the water, which divides and “swallows up” the fish. This pressure is counterbalanced by the pressure of the water on the fish, which also affects the pressure at the bottom of the container.
@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
Did you hear the one about bringing the demon-possessed toy/artifact into their home, and then everyone started having bad things happen to them? I think I saw that one on The Brady Bunch. By the way, I stumbled onto the Slacktivist reviews of Left Behind from like, 8 years ago, and I saw your name in the comments! You do get around!
Aww, Dee and Deb, I wish I’d gotten in on the DC meetup; I live in NoVA! Of course, I’m mostly a lurker; I’ve been learning a lot from this blog and its community.
Toffeemama wrote:
I had that invoked on me three-four years ago, as an “obvious” explanation for a bout of depression after acquiring an art print at a Furry Con. I know exactly why it put me into a depression, and there’s nothing supernatural about it: some of the circumstances around my acquiring it were similar to some of those in my long-ago breakup with my only girlfriend, and it triggered a flashback at full emotional intensity.
The demon-possessed art piece theory being proposed by someone who was following a “Spiritual Warfare Expert” (who apparently received private revelations from God about Obama being God’s Judgment on America) did NOT add to their credibility.
I have a particular axe to grind about Left Behind et al. I lost 10-15 years of my life to End Time Paranoia during the heyday of Hal Lindsay, counted from the time I was ambush-prosletyzed to the last flashback/freakout in ’88.
Janet Varin wrote:
Joke one-panel cartoon:
A guy is showing off his “ASK ME ABOUT JESUS!” T-shirt, saying “Since I started wearing it when flying, I’ve always gotten the whole seat row to myself! You should try it sometime!”
Virginia Knowles wrote:
I cut church signs a lot of slack. Whoever’s in charge of the sign message (usually the pastor in small churches) has to come up with a clever and inspiring one- or two-liner every week, week in, week out. And after a while you run out of good ones and get kinda punchy and/or desperate. And things which should not be on a church sign are.
Janet Varin wrote:
The joke (or at least I hope it was a joke) at Liberty while my daughter was there was how to lead somebody to Christ while both your cars were waiting for the red light to turn.
Have you guys read this? AMAZING. This is how it’s done folks, this brother has class.
Testimony of a Calvinist pastor who after intense study, became a Reformed Arminian. He felt led to resign his job, and below are the links to his written testimony, and a link to the audio of his resignation to the church. I’m just astounded at how loving and respectfully he handled this:
http://evangelicalarminians.org/calvinist-pastor-turns-from-calvinism-to-arminianism-after-20-years-as-a-calvinist-and-intensive-study/
http://www.sandharborpca.org/resources/sermons/?sermon_id=215
srs wrote:
SNORT!
While this might be a little TMI, my husband and I have been revisiting our views on sexuality. We were both raised in a conservative Christian homeschooling culture(his was much more sheltered than mine), and we’ve been rethinking some of the things regarding sexuality that we were always taught, either directly from parents or from our culture in general. It’s been pretty revolutionary to both of us, but we don’t really have anyone else to talk to about it because of the sensitive nature. It’s been very enlightening to us so far…. and pretty fun.
I heard the same story from two different preachers. Both of them claimed that after a church service they had just preached at, a dishevelled and unkempt woman came up to them and said ‘Please help me. My husband is planning on divorcing me!’. To which both preachers claim to have replied “Well, if I was your husband, I’d divorce you too!”. The point of the story seems to be to illustrate that you need to invest time and effort into your marriage and this manifests itself in your appearance. I suppose it’s kind of a horrible story with a horrible point.
Has anyone else been told this story, related in the first person?
@ Dave A A:
It sounds like you’re a dissenter after my own heart Dave A A. Back when I still darkened the doors of a church or two, I did a brief sojourn with one of the main-liners that allows wimminz in the pulpit. I remember one Sunday when one of their own, a gifted young woman in her last year of seminary before ordination delivered a guest homily in the main sanctuary. You remember the old chestnut about the good shepherd breaking the legs of recalcitrant sheep for the ‘own good’? She demolished this cruel fiction with fact, heart, and an insight that is rare in clergy of either gender. May her tribe increase.
Nancy wrote:
Now you’re starting to sound like Mark Twain. I like it!
Pastors often get up and say that the Supreme Court ruled God out of public schools, or ruled that students cannot pray at school. After one such, I confronted the pastor and said, my area of expertise is law and I recently completed and passed the bar exam. The Supreme Court has never ruled that students cannot pray. What was ruled is that the neither the state government, the school district, the principal, nor the teacher can pray aloud before students, and there cannot be a designated time to pray, although a moment of silence is allowed for whatever the students want to do. In addition, the teacher cannot teach her religion or talk about God, but the students cannot be downgraded nor punished for discussing their religion or experience about God or church in an assignment where that is not contradicted by the terms of the assignment. The teacher cannot, the student can. He was rather surprised. I said, what if I said that the Bible says ___________ (an absolutely ridiculous statement) and you were a listener. Would you want to correct my false statement based on your education and knowledge? The next week, in the church newsletter, there was an apology and correction by the pastor regarding school prayer.
Loren Haas wrote:
I think there should be a law that no one is allowed to invoke the Second Law of Thermodynamics until they can demonstrate that they actually passed a physics course.
An Attorney wrote:
It’s great that the pastor had the humility to apologise. But he should have known better than to preach that nonsense. I’m not even American and I knew that prayer isn’t banned in US schools.
@ Muff Potter:
I listened to a pastor tell the exact same story about a year ago! (I don’t remember who it was, but it was certainly not my pastor) He said that the “rod” was a big, club-like stick, that was used to break the leg of a sheep when it was about to fall into a hole. His whole sermon unsettled me, but I put it out of my mind until recently, when it all came rushing back. I thought, “What kind of a shepherd would injure one of his sheep? Doesn’t that actually hinder the flock’s movement? Why wouldn’t he use the crook staff to grab the sheep until he could get to it?” What a load of sheep doodie.
@ An Attorney:
Just guess what school system held a recent job fair in Charlotte? Houston. They pay about the same for a starting teacher as my daughter makes in base pay after 21 years in the field including a masters. And now our legislature says they will announce today (that probably means in a few days) a budget deal which is disastrous for the future of education in NC. Houston especially wants special ed teachers as one of its designated needy areas. I told my daughter to look into it, or else get ready to go back to school and train for something else. Of course, it is hot in Houston, but she already works with a difficult population many who speak little english and many whom are into criminal activity. Might as well get paid for it. I am just assuming that is why Houston is hurting for teachers.
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
I think some people see Left Behind as some sort of scripture. It, and The Late Great Planet Earth, are like the last days true life fiction (but it could really happen) for the times. TLGPE was published in 1970 and LB in 1995.
I wonder if Lindsey and/or LaHaye are frustrated because so much time has passed and no rapture and no Antichrist?
@ Muff Potter: I’d like to meet her!
26th!
(Comment, not commentor – numerous multiple comments above, but I can’t be bothered to count the folk as it’s bedtime.)
(I hope this is helpful.)
@ Toffeemama: oh no!!! I broke my left femur when I was 5, and it was awful (injury and recovery). A poor ewe w/out any pain relief or medication to help fight infection would more than likely die very, very fast.
That version of the story is particularly appalling, since it sanctions abusive behavior toward animals. (Who are, in this instance, domesticated and thus entirely dependent on us for basic needs and protection for their entire lives.)
Rob wrote:
And only a few who passed a physics course in HS or an introductory course in college would actually UNDERSTAND the 2nd law, as it is unusually simply stated and actually very complex.
@ Virginia Knowles:
Wholeheartedly agree.
David wrote that God lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire. I often wonder how much he knew about Jesus, and about the extent to which God would descend, himself, into the slimy pit to rescue those trapped therein. But that wouldn’t make as nice a noticeboard.
BTW – the story of Charles II and the Royal Society is almost certainly untrue, at least in that form.
There was never a “Royal Society of England” – Charles granted it a royal charter as “The Royal Society of London”. And the earliest accounts I can find of that story actually have one of the members laughing at all the stupid answers and telling the King the truth.
@ Nancy:
Watch out for the benefits package. No Social Security contribution and the Teacher Retirement System in Texas is somewhat of a joke that keeps teachers who do pay into the Soc. Sec. system from collecting a realistic benefit. Health insurance used to be poor but is better. And watch whether the teacher is basically alone in the classroom with 25 kids, many who are unprepared, reading 2-4 years below level for example. Limited discipline system (I do not refer to corporal punishment at all, but little backup of the teacher and no respect). Modal career length in Texas is about 5 years now.
Leila wrote:
LOL! I knew I was going to write about this today, and I bit my tongue. đ
It was such a pleasure meeting you! We will definitely have to break bread again in the future.
@ Virginia Knowles:
Great points!
@ srs:
Good one. đ
Toffeemama wrote:
We have promised to return, so we'll catch you next time!
@ An Attorney:
Thanks for the tip. I had no idea that there were people who were not under the social security system. I just checked SS re Texas on line, and it is a deal breaker for anybody with significant time in a different sort of retirement system. The NC state system is similar to the federal retirement system (FERS) and different from TX. It is OK. She already has an undergrad degree in something else, and perhaps that can be a base for looking in a different direction. Bummer.
The video won’t play here. It shows “The Colbert Report – Sorry, but this video is unavailable from your location probably due to your overly polite attitudes.
But never fear, as you can watch clips from The Colbert Report at thecomedynetwork.ca”.
Rob wrote:
Got a B or better and the course used calculus and not just trig.
An Attorney wrote:
For real fun they should take a first college level engineering course in thermodynamics. Really bends your head at first. Along with dynamics. And these folks who have no idea spout nonsense at you. đ
mirele wrote:
More like SCRIPTURE! completely superseding and replacing the Bible. Or at least all parts of the Bible which don’t agree 1000% with it. I experienced this during my time in-country in the Seventies: “Bible Studies” with not a Bible in sight, only Late Great Planet Earth.
I used to say that was back when the Bible had only 3 1/2 books: Revelation, Daniel, the “Nuclear War Chapter” of Ezekiel (the 1/2), and Late Great Planet Earth. That was it. Nobody even mentioned any other books.
Oh, and it’s not “last days true life fiction”; it’s History Written In Advance.
In the late Eighties, I was getting my head shrunk in therapy for a while. My shrink had crossed paths with Hal Lindsay at some time; she said that as far as she could tell, he wrote those books entirely for the money (and made a PILE of it).
My response: “Great. He’s laughing all the way to the bank and I’m having flashbacks like a ‘Nam Vet.”
Looking back, I can see a masterpiece of Fanservice. Lindsay put a Christianese spin on the Cold War trope of Inevitable Global Thermonuclear War (It’s All Over but the Screaming) and added a promise of Easy Escape.
@Deb – it was a lot of fun. So nice to know that there is a community of people out there of a similar mindset.
Nancy wrote:
“FASTER, DAD! THE HEATHEN’S GETTING AWAY!”
— Ned Flanders’ kid during that Flanders-after-Homer car chase on The Simpsons
Oh, and last year RHE had a blog posting on the subject:
http://rachelheldevans.com/blog/why-i-dont-witness-to-people-on-airplanes
numo wrote:
A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.
Proverbs 12:10
@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
I don’t “witness” like that, and never have. But there are some things I put in a plug for if the situation is just perfect and it can be done with a brief comment. Adoption in one. So somebody might say something that just slaps the opportunity in my lap and I may say something like, “You know, my daughter and her husband adopted two little girls from China, and we were not sure what problems might be associated with that at the time. But that has been almost 11 years ago now, and it has worked out much better that we even expected. It may not be for everybody, but it has certainly worked for us.” And then leave it at that. I guess that is a form of evangelizing for adoption, but it is not aggressive and I only do it situations where it is appropriate to the conversation.
I guess I don’t totally have a problem with speaking up about some things. So let me give an example where that actually happened. In the checkout line in the children’s department of a large store in the mall. Waiting in line, and the lady behind me noted I had children’s clothes and made some comment and then I said something about having to have certain colors but that was hard to find that year, and she said why not use other colors, and I said because my grandchildren are Asians and have different skin and hair color, and she paused to think what to say which is when I said what I said. So, OK, I do that when I can because there are some weird ideas out there about adoption and about international adoption and about adoption of children of a different race, so I preach the word when I can. Because kids are kids and they need a chance for a life. I have never really seen anybody act offended, though I know that some are offended by the idea.
But I don’t talk about politics or religion like that. But I guess I did just use your comment as an excuse to witness for adoption. And to put in a plug for the idea of “witnessing” of sorts. Mea culpa.
What we want are the things that work! If the illustration in a sermon is not true…WHO CARES?
It is a story people!
Jesus told parables that were not true…they were stories.
Do you work to be this stupid or were you born this way?
[MOD: I’m going to let this through as I’m sure people will have a RATIONAL response. But the name calling stops now. And the replies shall not respond in kind.]
@ Toffeemama:
I have no idea where he got that from.
For one thing, we know from a number of different historical sources and contemporary cultural parallels that pastoral “rods” were used to keep sheep together and in a desired area. A tap on the head is enough to do the trick for any wayward sheep. Besides, a flock of sheep is generally pretty calm and subdued, and they will willingly follow a shepherd that they are familiar with. (The presence of a predator, as with most livestock, is of course likely to induce panic).
Second, why on earth would any shepherd break a sheep’s leg? It’s incredibly difficult to rehabilitate livestock from a broken leg. Depending on the severity of the break, a broken leg often requires euthanasia. Purposefully breaking an animal’s leg is absolutely not a viable option to “protect” a sheep.
It’s so frustrating to me (with a background in ancient Near Eastern studies) when pastors attempt to make up cute/clever little tidbits and in so doing, completely disregard the actual historical/social/cultural context of Scripture. There is plenty of interesting stuff – no need to invent things! (Of course, I have a feeling that they prefer to make up their own stuff so that they are free to make any theological claims they wish).
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
Reminds me of the episode where Bart plays video games w/Rod and Tod. They had a game where you would shoot people in the game to convert them. One of the boys tells Bart: “You only winged him. Now he’s a Unitarian…”
Sophie wrote:
Pat Robertson Kills It With the Ladies
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzVwzJ2aCs4
“Ladies, what do you do if your husband is a drunk? You go out and get a makeover, of course! At least, according to good Christian Pat Robertson. Pat Robertson would like women to know that if you’re having marital problems, it’s like due to your terrible looks…”
@ mirele:
I love how some people will see the Left Behind novels or the notes in the Scofield Bible as divinely inspired or nearly so. But if you present these same people the Nicene Creed, some writing by an Early Church Father or the text of a liturgy, they will not want to have anything to do with it and they will condemn it as “the mere words of men.”
mirele wrote:
A lot depends on whether the books are still selling. But I seem to recall that at least Tim LaHaye has another sideline: personality tests for Christians (are you melancholy, phlegmatic, choleric or sanguine?).
@ Nick Bulbeck:
And one morning at breakfast, my gran picked up the plate of canteloupe and said to my father, Colin, ‘Have some more melon, Colly.’
Chris wrote:
A tale that is refreshingly different from the sly and cynical infiltrations we have read about as perpetrated by newcalvinists. Which makes me wonder: surely, there are honest men and women out there who, as devout calvinists, felt compelled to walk in the light and declare themselves even though it significantly cost them.
Estelle wrote:
Life is butter melon cauliflower, as someone once said.
@ Nick Bulbeck:
They (Tim and Beverly) have a whole bunch of stuff they are doing. On his website he has several book series including another one with Jerry Jenkins, the Jesus Chronicles, about the attributed writers of the gospels. They are still into the personality thing, including how to be a spirit filled phlegmatic and such. Beverly started Concerned Women for America, which is still quite active. He had a spin-off prophecy organization in co-operation with somebody else. They do seminars. They have bunches of money and gave a building, apparently to Liberty University, and I don’t know what else. What I am saying is that they are big players and influential in their circles.
I went to one of their prophecy seminars in a large non-denominational church here in my town (by far the biggest church in town, I think) about ten years ago. The place was packed out. Actually, they are quite old, were even then, but are so full of energy I could not believe it. These people are really easy to like, are good “showmen” in their particular religious style, and one can write off their prophetic ideas and still end up recognizing success in “religion” even while disagreeing with them, and while saying that well, that is not my style.
Jerry Jenkins has also gone on to publishing successes, apparently one right after the other.
@ Nancy:
I gather that some folks don’t get the bigger picture about the “prophecy” thing. While there have been some groups that have set dates and watched for something to happen “any minute now” and such, in my experience in baptist near-fundamentalism that is not remotely the majority idea. So why do it? What is in it for the crowds? (The professionals, of course, make their living this way.) Well, because for some it seems to help them understand “the world” and acts as sort of a discernment grid for some ideas and events and such. It also brings hope to folks who may see things “going from bad to worse” and they reassure themselves that not to worry, all this has been prophesied, but God is still in charge so take heart. For some, I think, it can become a hobby. It can be a diversion from the daily grind of a difficult life. And, I have to say this carefully, it can be a really good show; part sci-fi and part action thriller. But sitting around waiting for the rapture any minute is not remotely on the list for most folks, even prophecy fans, in my experience.
If some prophecy “expert” came to town, claiming he discovered secret Bible codes and claiming he came up with some numerology trick that will predict the Antichrist and the stock market, thousands of people would eagerly show up for his seminar. His book, “Countdown to Lotsa Things Blowing Up – Your End of the World Survival Guide” is a best seller. He would get extra points if he has all sorts of conspiracy theories – people love that sort of thing. If he claims to be a prophet who has “secret knowledge” that only he and God knows, secrets he is willing to share for a price, people will practically worship him (the false prophet, not God).
Imagine if someone who is a recognized expert in Biblical languages, theology and history came to town. Imagine he spoke about hermeneutics and exegesis and church history and how Revelation was understood from the early Church through the Reformation. He has a book that has the word “hermeneutics” in the title. Do you think 50 people would show up for his lecture? 40 people?
Deb
I am glad you found my favorite story about the need to think also valuable. It is not my story but what I found in a book someone gave me.
If you want to talk about something that has been accepted without questioning is the definition of gossip. Especially in SGM Churches I have seen the definition be quite broad and include any basic questioning especially when you question a leader.
Sadly so many people have accepted SGM’s definition rather than see what the bible says and think for yourself. IMO, SGM Leaders were able to get away with a lot of what they did due to their keeping regular members in the dark due to the group’s definition of what was “gossip” or “slander.”
@ Steve240:
Grateful you shared that info on your website. I am reminded of this famous quote:
I believe we can learn A LOT from SGM's short history.
This is such a pet peeve of mine. I feel like screaming “Cite your sources, please!!!”. I usually just dismiss whatever is said concerning whatever uncited story or poll is talked about. Chris Rosebrough over at Pirate Christian Radio points this sort of uncited junk out too.
I know a good one: that God approved of polygamy in the OT and that it was common among the Israelites. I even heard that one on tww!
Jacob C wrote:
Maybe in a larger city such a Chicago or NY. But then again maybe not anyone. Of course most of these folks at least coordinate with local churches so you will get a few dozen or so people in a church basement.
Godith wrote:
You might be interested in this:
http://www.come-and-hear.com/editor/polygamy-orthodox/
The Orthodox Jewish Pro-Polygamy Page
Emes L’Yaakov
Mr.H wrote:
Or like Piper and how women shouldn’t have muscles. That idea only works with the middle class in modern times and up in first world situations or the very wealthy anywhere else.
Then again maybe Piper is a closet advocate of the prosperity Gospel. đ
Jacob C wrote:
I doubt it, and I’ll tell you why. What he had to say, whether correct/ accurate or not might appeal to people’s minds, but it does not address their emotions. I saw a survey, maybe two or three decades ago, and to why people go to church-the music, the socializing, the children’s activities, the sermon, etc. The percentage who went for the sermon was extremely small.
An Attorney wrote:
I will not get Social Security. I have may quarters in, but if I applied, for every dollar I received from SS, I would lose that much from Texas Teacher Retirement.
When my wife retires, and receives SS, if she passes before me, I will not get her SS…..Texas Teachers are rooked….
NC Now wrote:
It looks to me like a lot of what the neo-Puritan and/or calvinista crowd are doing is aimed at the white middle class. This group, the press tells us, are quickly diminishing in numbers and in influence partly due to economics. There has been a lot written about the loss of the middle class, so I won’t rant about that. None the less, some of what is being said in neo-calvinist fundygelicalism sound to me like they are partly becoming a gathering place for people and ideas formerly associated with that class. For instance, the man on the job and the woman at home with the kids. The middle class used to pride itself on that. As recently as a few years back some women in my neighborhood got together, for some reason invited me, and soon took to lamenting about the sorry state of the neighborhood during the day time since so many women were working outside the home and nobody was around during the day like in the old days. (And this was not a religious group, just some residents of the neighborhood.) I think that with some time and analysis one could identify more stuff in certain churches that once were “neighborhood” stuff for the middle class. Personally, a lot of the comp stuff (for example) does not sound so much like religion to me but rather sounds like the middle class of the pre-social revolution days of the 60s. Now masquerading as religion.
@ K.D.:
Will you get Medicare?
An Attorney wrote:
I am really tired of hearing that “God got kicked out of public schools,” as if there is some sort of wall that God slams into every time He approaches a public school.
Regarding, “Church members get divorced at the same rate as anyone else” statistic being false.
So are the evangelicals and Mainline Protestant churches giving themselves a “pat on the back” claiming they are doing a good job and a 32 to 34 percent divorce rate is just about right?
@ Tim Lawing:
Stories that are told as “this happened” are called anecdotes and are required to have actually happened. They can be used as illustrations in a sermon. Any illustration that didn’t actually happen needs to be introduced as a fable or parable.
Parables are a form of art. They were composed to make a point (like Aesopâs Fables). Jesus was wonderful at it, yes?
You’d best take a class in basic literature as well as fundamentals of journalism before you venture to comment on this topic again. I am sure there are some free online classes.
Nick Bulbeck wrote:
I have a Border Collie named Elin. One of her nicknames became Elin Watermelon. This sometimes was shortened to simply Melon. From there it was a short, tragic, and perhaps inevitable step to calling her ‘My Melon Collie Baby’.
As a resident contrarian I must take umbrage with the assumption of pastor’s propagating myths when they talk about the people they “witnessed to”, ie, sitting on the plane.
Obviously there are pastors and christians who exaggerate these stories for the sake of their ego. But I have been good friends with many pastors who I have first hand witnessed they veracity to the claims they make.
I think part of the disconnect for listeners of this story is what do we exactly mean when from the pulpit I talk about who I talked to this past week…. For me, I can’t remember the last time I had a conversation where I broke out a tract and lead them through the “sinners” prayer. But not a week goes by where I don’t have an opportunity to engage someone on a deeper spiritual level.
For me I talk about these stories from the pulpit for 2 reasons;
1) Because I want to help create an environment where people are encouraged to engage with their friends and neighbors at a deeper level than “how bout that weather?” My big push is not for people to “share the gospel” but to take the time to REALLY talk to people. And, as a church, we want to create opportunities to make it easy to invite people to fellowship with you and the entire church. This weekend we are hosting a homemade ice cream party. For the last couple weeks I share about how I invited my neighbors and encourage people to do the same. We aren’t preaching at the party, or sharing the Gospel, we just want to start meaningful relationships with our community. So that when the opportunity to have a deeper conversation occurs one day, you have invested in them as a person and not a target.
2) If I am not sharing my faith in some capacity, I think the church should fire me. So I share illustrations from my life because I believe it is important for the members to be encouraged that their pastor takes seriously the responsibility to share Christ with our community.
You know, most pastors would do better to recite Patristic homilies, such as those of St. John Chrysostom, or the metrical homilies of St. Ephraim the Syrian (which are intended to be sung; for that matter the Orthodox hymn known as the Kontakion was originally a form of metrical homily, or sung sermon, developed by St. Romanos the Melodist in the 6th century). Granted, the Orthodox church of today is not known as a hotbead of preaching skills; it would not be unfair to say that, on the whole, our priests are the worst preachers in the business. However, there is a lot to be said for de-emphasizing the sermon, which are the ideas and words of one man, who is a sinner, even if he is a member of the sacramental priesthood, in favor of the sacramental service, which is a holy ordinance of God. Within a typical Orthodox parish the sermon takes 5-15 minutes, whereas the anaphora, in which the Eucharist is consecrated, takes at least 30. So on average, in the main Sunday divine liturgy, you’ll spend 15 minutes hearing the Bible chanted, first an epistle, and then the Gospel, 15 minutes max listening to a brief sermon of a mainly theological nature (one that will most certainly not touch on contemporary politics or other mundane concerns), 30 minutes worth of antiphons, troparia and other hymns, and the litanies of the liturgy of the catechumens, and 30 or more minutes in the anaphora, plus the time spent distributing communion, and lastly, the dismissal rite, which is another ten minutes or so. Amazingly it is not uncommon for people to stand throughout the entire service; how they pull it off is beyond me, but they do, and there is great freedom to walk about the nave.
Now within a Tridentine mass in the Roman Catholic church, or an Anglo-Catholic Solemn High Mass, which tends to be an odd hybrid of the Book of Common Prayer with Tridentine Roman praxis, you’ll see about 10 minutes on assorted rites such as the sprinkling of the congregation with holy water at the beginning, and the various litanies, 10 minutes of Bible reading (the epistle or prophecy, followed by an alleluia verse, or in Lent, a tract, followed by the Gospel, sung in Latin, then repeated in spoken English just before the homily), about 10-15 minutes of preaching, maximum, and then 25 minutes or so in the consecration of the Eucharist. It is customary to sit throughout large portions of the service; there is also much obligatory kneeling, which technically violates Canon XX of the Council of Nicea, which prohibits prostrations on Sundays, feast days, and in Eastertide, although Roman Catholic liturgists I’ve spoken to about this claim that Canon XX was long ago abrogated in the Roman church, and what is more, only applied to full prostrations or metanias as they’re known in the east; I’ve also seen pious Orthodox faithful inadvertantly perform metanies during a Hierarchical Divine Liturgy in Lent, and the Bishop (who happens to be my Bishop) did not intervene to stop them; my priest feels he should have, but there is always room for economy in these matters.
In both of the above cases, and in other related scenarios, for example, the liturgical worship of the other Eastern churches, on which I could write volumes, the sermon is properly de-emphasized. The emphasis of the service shifts to God; the priest disappears, in Eastern churches, literally (behind the iconostasis or a curtain in Oriental Orthodox and Assyrian churches), so that Christ may appear. The environment is mystical, one is easily able to, as the prayers say, “Lift up your heart unto the Lord.”
This otherworldly voyage into the realm of the supernatural is highly uncomfortable, even alienating, to some Protestants who have grown up with the sort of praise band, altar call service, but it has its advantages, and one of them is that the sermons, being confined to theological matters related to the specific nature of the day, whether or not it is a feast day, and the appointed lectionary readings, are short, and confined to a primarily theological realm. One is not usually subjected to politics; one certainly is not exposed to attempts at prophecy or other characteristics one sees in the charismatic realm, and properly speaking, the priest does not play the role of an entertainer (indeed, many Orthodox priests are quite shy, and some are known to hide behind the iconostasis with the Royal Doors closed even when the rubrics say they’re supposed to be open). This tends to discourage the kind of poisonous narcissism that has crept into so many churches, which forms the raison d’etre of this blog, a narcissism that is the sure product of prelest, or spiritual delusion; unrestrained pride opens the door to all forms of demonic influence.
Tim Lawing wrote:
I like to think it’s the product of hard work and perseverance.
@ Adam Borsay:
Thanks for sharing how you minister to others. We all should strive to do the same.
I have no problem with what you have explained if it indeed happened. Fabrications are the focus of this post.
@ Godith:
(1) Polygamy was by no means ubiquitous in the ancient Near East. As far as we can tell from extant evidence, it was usually reserved for upper class men who desired to make alliances with other upper class men. It was a way of cementing relationships, creating military allies, securing shared resources (water, land), and limiting conflicts.
We also have evidence (in the form of preserved marriage contracts) that sometimes men reserved the right to add a second wife if their first wife was unable to give them male heirs (sound familiar?). Most descriptions of polygamy in the OT conform to the above (Patriarchs, Davidic line, etc.)
(2) Most of the polygamy we see in the OT actually predates the Israelites, who came into existence after the last patriarch (Jacob/Israel). In the few post-patriarchal depictions of polygamy presented in the OT, they are all negative. This can be seen, in part, as an indication that socio-cultural and economic variables had shifted to such an extent that polygamy was no longer a necessary feature of life and, not being ideal, was gradually discarded by the societies than formerly practiced it.
@ An Attorney:
It is simply a matter of fact that the Second Law of Thermodynamics has long since been repealed.
@ Adam Borsay:
I do not mind, and mostly believe, people’s stories of witnessing. Mostly because I “witness” about adoption, deliberately and I hope appropriately, so I believe other people when they say they “witness” in some way about other things.
I also talk to strangers in ways that are not remotely witnessing. I do that both because I like to, and also because people seem to like it. The reasoning, if one needs reasoning behind it, is that we have got to make this nation work for all our sakes, and friendliness to strangers is one way.
But once you do that (talk to strangers) sometimes conversations take a “religious” turn when one may not particularly want to do that. Just a few days ago a Walmart employee did something I would call in the “testify” range. I was looking for a particular product which was not on the shelf two days before, a particular kind of sewing machine. I checked Walmart on line and they told me it was out of stock. JoAnne fabrics did not have it. I could order it from some online sources for an exorbitant shipping fee (it is heavy). So I went back to Walmart to try to buy the display model. The store employee I sought out during this process would not sell it. So I considered buying the next one up in that series and behold on the shelf were not one but three of the specific model I had wanted in the first place, still in boxes. Obviously not out of stock. I was surprised. She said, “Somebody is looking out for you.” I said, “It wouldn’t be the first time.” But then she wanted to tell me about some of her prior experiences of being looked out after. About that time another lady with a cart stopped by and wanted to listen to the employee. And oldest granddaughter was standing there watching this. So I thought, well you just never know. I just said nothing and shortly moved on. So, yeah, it happens.
So, sure, I am ready to believe that these things might happen a lot to pastors. But what I do not believe are the almost magical stories of people who get gloriously saved on the spot right there in the grocery store. Come on now. Sure, once in a while you just know you ought to engage somebody specifically in conversation, in private, and often it makes no sense, and it turns out to be somebody who really wanted to talk. For those who do not do this, let me say, sometimes you also just know to keep your mouth shut. But mostly, I think preachers are sometimes hard to believe with the conversion stories (as contrasted to the witnessing stories or spiritual conversation stories.)
@ Nancy:
Hi Nancy,
I’m sure that you are unaware of the anti-semitic nature of the website that you linked to. I’m wondering how you discovered it and what you like about it?
@ NC Now:
Totally!
Does Piper really believe that ancient Israelite women weren’t fit? They may not have gone to a gym, but they certainly did a lot of rigorous work. I’d imagine that carrying heavy waterskins back to camp, for example, may have led to the development of – GASP! – muscle definition!
Tim Lawing wrote:
Come on, everyone – I call Poe!
On this subject, one of my favourite moments from The Life of Brian is the response of his small group of listeners when he has to pretend to be a prophet to avoid arrest. The business end of this clip is at 1:30… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9czBBKof7Yo.
In other news, a fantastic pommel-horse final from the Commonwealth MAG. It took Max Whitlock a score of 15.966⌠to get silver, behind an monumental 16.058 from Scotland’s Dan Keatings.
@ Mr.H:
I did not say I like it. I think it is informative. However, there are a lot of websites that are pro-polygamy, some of them orthodox jewish like this site, and some not jewish at all. The comment to which I was responding included something about what did or did not happen in ancient israel, and I think the orthodox jewish websites go into that better than others.
But I do not consider the orthodox jews to be anti-semitic, not even the ultra-orthodox, even when they disagree with the laws of current day israel. Judaism is complex just as is christianity.
Now I do think that it is good to listen to the jews when they talk about their own history or their own scriptures. It is frequently a different viewpoint.
@ Mr.H:
I was thinking of all women up to about 50 years ago in the first world.
Today we (first world middle class and up) tend to think of people living in single family houses going to work and having a kitchen with an electric or gas stove, fridge, and today a microwave. Prior to the 50s this was a alien world to most of the planet plus most of the EU and US. I have aunts and uncles who grew up getting up a 5 am, lighting the “stove”, breaking the ice in the wash bowl and setting it on the stove in the winter, then milking the cows, collecting eggs, then the women start cooking. Men start other chores. And both worked till dark or later. And it was hard work. And these folks had electricity for a light bulb or two plus coal for the stove. THEIR parents didn’t have these things.
Piper is a fool. In his mind Jesus lived a bit before 1900 then we had our world.
  __
“Take Five…”
hmmm…
  Perhaps, the failure to follow Jesus ‘properly’ these days discloses that there are many that are placing too much of their ‘confidence’ in their church leaders, and simply do not examine closely the holy scriptures, and enter private prayer, as well?
huh?
“I perceived how that it was impossible to establish the lay people in any truth except the Scripture were plainly laid before their eyes in their mother tongue.”
~ William Tyndale
What?
William Tyndale, who first translated our bible into english from the original languages, would have us ‘established’ in the Scriptures, God’s Words…
–> that was in the years 1525 & 1534 respectively,
What gives t-o-d-a-y?
(sadface)
“He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” Â ~Jesus
(smiley face goes here)
Sopy
—
Jacob C wrote:
“Secret Knowledge” as in “Occult Gnosis”
Nancy wrote:
Jerry “Buck” Jenkins is a HACK. And he’s not even a good hack. His stuff reads like BAD fanfic, Perfect Author Self-Insert Hero and all. Check out the site Heathen Critique sometime, title “Soon” (where Jenkins starts with the legit premise of retelling the story of the Apostle Paul in a near-future dystopian setting and completely screws it up from word one).
Adam Borsay wrote:
Hey Adam (hope first name is okay, call me Blue), I just wanted to say that this is a great way to reach out. It really feels like you aren’t reaching out for people just as conversion targets, and I appreciate that. However…
As an outsider, this comes off sounding like you’re still just investing in the person as a long term project, not in the person themselves. I get that in no way is that your intention, it’s just how it comes off.
And there’s the flipside, I get that besides being a religious edict, this is also a job duty for you. I’m asking you about this because I often pause at truly bonding with newer people who are religious because I’m so often aware that I may just be a conversion project, and I don’t like how that adds distrust to my interactions with others in my communities of interests, real life and personal. How does one balance the two really? Be a friend to the person, but also try to change them.
@ Nancy: I looked at the site index and found that Mr. H is correct – for whatever reasons, the site owner has posted some very damning antisemitic material (*not* written by her!). The site owner is Jewish, and I’m not entirely sure why she’s done that, but there it is.
Am thinking you might have gotten directly to the page you linked to via Google, and thus not have seen the index page.
Godith wrote:
Cassie wrote:
I’m so glad other people do this too. I find this playing fast & loose with sources & truthfulness absolutely appalling in Christians… who claim to be all about the truth, whether in literal or parable form… this fits neither criteria. It makes me wince & it is no wonder people mock Christianity due to this – we’d be quick enough to point it out in another religion or with atheists/agnostics. We must have more respect for the truth than this. I would be slammed if I didn’t properly credit sources I’m using in my Master’s study, & how much more important is this, than that.
Ooh look, a random bit from Godith in my post… not sure how that happened.
Joe2 wrote:
Proud? Nah. Just realistic.
It’s a well-known fact that high commitment to religion has the effect of lowering divorce rates.
You cannot stop divorce entirely because a huge percentage of marital breakdown is for very serious reasons: abuse, addiction, abandonment, and adultery. In a 2004 survey, those factors alone accounted for more than 40% of the divorces over age 40.
The University of Chicago reports a 38% divorce rate among people who attend weekly religious services, and their study does not refer to any particular religious group.
The U.S. Census also shows a correlation between those who rate religion as very important and a lower divorce rate:
How important is RELIGION to you?
Very important: 18%
Somewhat: 21%
Not important: 26%
@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
I will have to do that. Thanks for the tip. I have not read his stuff, but I read an article about him and if I remember correctly a job change or something in relation to wheaton college, or something. I gather he is very financially successful.
@ Tim Lawing:
If it is an illustration, then the preacher needs to say so. Yes, Jesus taught in parables. But he did not put them forward as literal truth, but as illustrations of spiritual truth. We have enough lies from the pulpit on tithing, for example, that pastors need to learn that if they are God’s representative to a group of people, they need to be certain to convey truthfully, including whatever illustrations or references to “news reports” and to “studies”. I have been at a church where notes from the sermon are passed out afterward, as people leave, with all of the citations and references. If it is worth the big salaries, it is worth being truthful and sharing the references.
Nancy wrote:
Yes, I still pay into that, even from my pension.
Attorney, my son will start his third year teaching in Texas this Fall. It’ll be his last. He’s already received an offer in 2015 from a friend who is in private business to move to Dallas and work up there. If not, he will go to S. Korea and teach English. He’s had enough of Texas Schools….
William G. wrote:
I found the Orthodox service amazing and was shocked at the walking around done in the service.
If I were not old and scared of change, I could see me converting to this form of worship. I enjoyed it more than any church service I have attended in the last 20 years….
@ numo:
That is correct. I did go directly to the page from Google.
@ Albuquerque Blue:
Thanks for the thoughts Blue.
Have you ever been friends with a person who is a part of a pyramid scheme? It’s the worst. Now, if you knew them pre-pyramid its just annoying. If you met them, and then find out they wanted to hang out so they could tell you about the wonders of buying all of their generic energy drinks from themselves….well….that’s infuriatingly obnoxious.
Have you had a friend who owned a “hardware” store?(I do) I am sure that at some degree they want me to one day be a customer, and they have talked to me about their store, and I happened to go buy a something there recently. But it is a totally different experience. I don’t mind that they mention their store, and they just wanted to make sure that if I am ever in the need of something like a hammer, I should swing by. But our relationship isn’t dependent upon them selling and me buying/joining.
The contrast of those two experiences is what I would want a Christian to take to heart. The relationship isn’t about selling something, its a relationship. And, when its appropriate there shouldn’t be any embarrassment in saying, “talking about that, here is my take”.
So to summarize. Christian evangelism should be like owning a store, not being in a pyramid scheme.
@ Mr.H:also read david Mace’s book on Hebrew marriage practices
@ Adam Borsay:
Thank you, that quite clarifies my question.
@ Janey:
And it absolutely makes sense, given how much more opportunity that gives for community reinforcement. I wonder how universal that is across religions, if those that regularly participate have a lower divorce. For those that such a thing is a priority as well I wonder.
@ Mr. H:
A curious question, how common was polygamy in Greek and Roman culture in Jesus’ day? I mean “official” polygamy, i.e. legally recognized multiple wives, not one legal wife and multiple concubines. I had heard before that it was uncommon among Jews in the post-patriarchal period but don’t know the stats on the Roman world.
I will add about the divorce stats among the religious – I hope they aren’t being kept artificially low because of things like domestic abuse denial/coverup and Piper, Baucham, etc.’s permanence view of divorce. In other words, I hope those things are not as common as they seem to be, and that many people aren’t being guilted into staying when it’s unhealthy and damaging and they are Biblically allowed to escape their abuser.
Adam Borsay wrote:
But so much of Evangelical “Witnessing(TM)” IS a pyramid scheme. Sheep saving Sheep so they can save more Sheep so they can save more Sheep. What they’re being saved FOR and TO gets lost along the way. Sell That Fire Insurance!
Remember Campus Crusade for Christ? They said as much with Bill Bright’s teaching of “Multplying Ministry” — you’re here to make converts who will in turn go out and make more converts who in turn will go out and make more converts….
How does that differ from a pyramid? Complete with Crowns of Glory on J-Day for the Uplines whose names are on top of the list. I was not surprised to find out Bill Bright had been a salesman before founding CCC/Cru.
Rob wrote:
Thank you for this comment!!
@ Tim Lawing:
Absolute rubbish. People actually believe this stuff, myself included. There is a difference between parable and true stories. Jesus made that quite clear. Many pastors claim that there stories are true showing a complete lack of sense or the ability to fact check their sermons.
Then again, some people tell *parables* about their lives…
Adam Borsay wrote:
Unfortunately I lost two friends over the Amway garbage. I even told one of them, long before they got involved in Amway, that I never, ever want to talk about Amway. Well, she became involved and tried to proselytize me. I told her to leave me alone and she reported me to a pastor!!!! Thankfully, the pastor told her she was out of line.
Tim Lawing wrote:
Well done on making a point, and simultaneously defeating it, all in one short post.
If a story has meaning and merit IN AND OF ITSELF, why pretend that it *actually happened to you? Why not just tell it *as a story*?
You refer to Christ’s parables. Did you know that Christ never said “Hey, I knew this guy once. He was a Prodigal Son…”? He told them *as stories*. Do you see the difference?
You say it’s ‘just a story’. Well OK, if it’s as inconsequential as you seem to be saying it is, then why tell it in the first place? All you’re doing is lying to the congregation to make yourself sound interesting.
You follow CHRISTIANITY. That is, a religion built on the testimony of witnesses to Christ’s life, death and resurrection. Witnesses who wrote the eyewitness accounts that we call the gospels. Whether or not something is a true account of somebody’s life is actually kind of important in Christianity.
When you are a pastor and you say something happened to you, you are in a position of trust and authority. When you tell a lie (and yes, when you say ‘this is true and it really happened to me’, that is in fact a lie, not a ‘story’), you lose the trust of your congregation and they lose their faith in your ability to live with honesty and integrity.
Finally, don’t come on a Christian blog and talk about people being ‘born stupid’. The Creator you supposedly follow might have a problem with that. And nobody takes you seriously when you resort to insults.
@ dee:
On another day I would comment about a particular person that may fall in that category, but for today that is inappropriate.
@Adam Borsay – I like your analogy of how not to witness by using the pyramid scheme.
I have a friend who, just this week, thought a guy was interested in her, but I unfortunately think he’s interested in recruiting her for his pyramid business scheme.
@ Nancy:
Hi Nancy,
Thanks for your response. If you don’t mind, I have a few questions:
(1) Were you aware that the website you linked to is anti-Semitic? If you were not, do you know see see that it is indeed anti-Semitic?
(2) Were you aware that the woman behind the website, Carol Valentine, is a kooky conspiracy theorist?
See, for example: http://www.public-action.com/
(3) Are you familiar with the age-old anti-Semitic tactic of “studying” Jewish sources in order to discover “secrets” that Jewish people allegedly “hide” from Gentiles? (cf. Protocols of the Elders of Zion, etc.)
(4) How, exactly is that website informative for you? What does it teach you?
(5) Any pro-polygamy movement within Judaism is absolutely a fringe movement that is condemned by all major rabbinic authorities. They are kooky. To try and use their views as being representative of normative Judaism is false at best and deceitful at worst. (I think all of us on this site are very aware of the possibility that certain segments of a broader group – NeoCals, for example – do not necessarily represent the whole).
(6) How do you feel about Jewish people?
@ Hester:
Hey Hester! Greco-roman social customs are a bit outside of my own area of expertise, but Walter Scheidel has an excellent, concise article discussing this topic:
https://www.princeton.edu/~pswpc/pdfs/scheidel/010903.pdf
Hester wrote:
Was my heavy sigh audible? Whoa – – Since covering a lot of stories on the Doug Phillips fallout, I have heard from many women who are done with spiritually abusive husbands. Many of these moms have no college education and are saying the abuse is so bad, they are willing to leave financial security and decent home/shelter to get away to freedom. My heart aches for these ladies and children.
@ Mr.H:
Give it a rest. I did not reference a site but rather an article. I did not reference any Carol Valentine and do not intend to make a study of her. If you did not find the article informative of one element of thinking, then do not read it. There is no more to the story than that.
@ numo:
The site owner is not Jewish, and it’s not a “her.” The alias “Carol A. Valentine” is used by an infamous bigot named Terry Cross. He has lurked around the internet for years, posting some disgusting, nasty lies. He’s also a wacky conspiracy theorist who, among other things, claims to have “helped” Timothy McVeigh.
The “Come and Hear” website is his deceptive attempt to try and present anti-Semitic material in a roundabout way. It’s not difficult to discover the truth if you fish around a little bit.
Re: the specific link Nancy posted: Carol/Terry went out and found some kooky fringe Jewish group that supports polygamy, and he is using it to try and make all Jewish people look bad.
@ Julie Anne:
Thanks for your compassionate comment. We need to be in prayer for those in such a predicament. May they experience freedom from abuse and encouragement to move forward with their lives.
@ Nancy:
Hi Nancy,
You did indeed reference Carol Valentine AKA Terry Cross.
You posted a link to an article hosted on his virulently racist website (http://www.come-and-hear.com).
The article posted was used by him to try and deceive people and convince them of his wacky, racist views. By your re-posting here, you are supporting his cause (whether you realize it or not).
If it was an honest mistake, I do not mean to cause you embarrassment. We have all been misled by various websites. And his website is very tricky indeed.
However, in light of the circumstances, I don’t think it is wrong for me to ask you for an apology, so that we can move on. If I had made a similar mistake, I would certainly offer a mea culpa!
@ Nancy: I hear you! I’ve run across some info. that way, and only later looked at the sites themselves. Bad move, in some cases!
@ Mr.H:
By all means accept my apology. I did not mean to be offensive. You have apparently not read my reply to numo that I accessed the article directly from google and did not access the web site per se so had and have no knowledge of what you are saying, nor do I intend to make some study of it now. I will accept your evaluation of the situation. Mea culpa.
@ Mr.H: OK, I will take your word for it.
The site index seemed primarily concerned with Talmudic study, but I do realize that there are plenty of people who host legit-looking sites that host truly awful content.
Lesson learned (for me)!
@ Nancy: As an aside, I’ve run into boondoggles like this myself. Better to doublecheck the main site before posting links, I’m thinking – only because I’ve done that myself and *then* realized how bad the hosting site actually was/is.
@ Nancy:
Thank you, Nancy!
This reminds me of blogs that discuss problems with churches:
“Can a lone blogger bring down a business?”
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28448912
“In the online age, do bloggers wield too much power? Or does the internet’s promise of freedom of speech trump businesses’ need for a way to prevent their profits being hit?”
@ Sophie & dee:
I seem to recall Lawing was a troll� Or am I mixing him up with the numerous fake Elevators that were hanging around?
dee wrote:
Hmm….my sister was involved with Amway for a while. I looked into it. But the shine wore off pretty quickly – especially when they started saying that if your family wouldn’t join, you need to distance yourself from them. (Sidenote: I wonder why, then, I so easily fell for the religious cult I later got sucked into? Hmm…). The walking away and cutting our losses point came when we attended a local meeting to introduce potential marks. They actually locked the doors and had ‘bouncers’ positioned to prevent anyone from leaving. That was our last one.
Sadly, my cousin and her husband got involved in it a couple of years later and completely alienated themselves from the years of the family. They were in it for about 12 years before they quit, but they did so much damage to their family relationships that I’m not sure they’ll ever recover. Trust, once shattered, is not easily won back. And they got pretty into the join or get out of our life gig.
So, yeah. Amway is, in my opinion, a cult. And always has been – with serious religious overtones – you will not do well at all in Amway if you don’t at least lean evangelical….but, this was my experience – your mileage my vary.
I think the problem is that a lot of these statistics and their ‘debunking’ depends on the definitions used. So people can both claim that Christians are indistinguishable from non-Christians as far as divorce is concerned if they rely on self-identification, and that Christians are less likely to divorce if they look at who actually goes to church often enough to be considered a Christian.
So it’s not so much that the stats are wrong but that you have to make dubious judgment calls one way or the other (are you a Christian if you say you are? And, on the other hand, can we really insist that we actually know better than people what they are?).
I’m much more concerned about the causal claims that people tend to make, such as thinking that the ‘good’ figures show that going to church makes a difference, when it fact it may be that people who go to church every week are different from those who do not. And you’d probably need a prospective, longitudinal study to check whether it is not going to church that leads to divorce or whether divorce leads to people leaving their church.
Mr. Lawing, my pastor told a story last Sunday that I know for a fact was a lie.
It was about Madalyn Murray O’Hair wanting to ban Christian radio.
When I confronted him and showed him proof it was not true, he said it did not matter if it was true of false, what matters is we stand up for the truth.
That made sense to me because I realized that Christians have been quiet too long now and that is why gay marriage is legal.
So, even if my pastor tells stories that are embellished, it does not matter, as long as he is trying to combat this culture.
Rahab lied about the spies and she is in Jesus lineage.
Driscoll related –
On the blog page “P- Nation page 9 UPDATE: includes text that looks to be preserved from page 10”, Wenatchee The Hatchet reprints quotes by Mark Driscoll, including some Bible verses that Driscoll included.
I have pasted these right from the WTH page (there are about five Bible verses, I’ve only looked up two so far):
(as typed by Mark Driscoll; emphasis added by me):
1. “Babylon’s warriors have stopped fighting; they remain in their strongholds. Their strength is exhausted; they have become like women.” (Jeremiah 51:30a)
2. “Look at your troops-they are all women!” (Nahum 3:13)
The thing is, when I looked those same Bible verses up online, in the NIV version, they say “weaklings” not “women.”
Is there some other Bible version that uses “women” in those verses instead?
The NIV has:
Jeremiah 51:30
30 Babylonâs warriors have stopped fighting;
they remain in their strongholds.
Their strength is exhausted;
they have become weaklings.
Nahum 3:13New International Version (NIV)
13 Look at your troopsâ
they are all weaklings.
I did look up Nahum 3:13 in the English Standard Version (ESV) which says,
13 Behold, your troops are women in your midst.
I don’t know koine Greek. Does anyone here know if the underlying texts have “women” or “weakling,” and even they do have “women,” does the usage mean not literally ‘women,’ but is conveying ‘weakling’?
I also have to wonder if using “women” as some kind of put-down in the Old Testament in those contexts was more a reflection of the patriarchal culture than God announcing via the text that God himself considers women weak (see Deborah, Esther, Ruth, Abigail, and Jael for examples of Old Testament women who were not weaklings).
I find it interesting that Driscoll would go for the Bible translations that use “women” rather than “weaking” considering his peculiar views on gender and his very sexist opinions about women.
@ Shed Larringer:
So to win the culture wars, lying, cheating, stealing, killing?, covering up sexual abuse of a child by a pastor?, are all OK if it helps win the culture war. Your pastor is a lying, cheating (not delivering full value for his pay), scoundrel, my friend. Good luck. If you getting into heaven is based on his teaching, you don’t have a chance.
Shed Larringer wrote:
Don’t you see the contradiction in that?
Shed Larringer wrote:
Shed, Tim, Dan, Karen, Steve, Larry… what a troll! Talk about lying. Banned.
@ dee:
Just so everyone knows. Either Shed and the others are part of a multiple personality disorder or it’s on person posting here as 7 or more different people.
So for the record:
Shed Larringer, Tim Lawing, Steve Daniels, Dan Youngerling, Larry Tolbert, Karen Hester, Seth Lowery, and Susan Lanskey all use the same computer connection. And since it’s a residential Road Runner account the odds of this not all being the same person or maybe a husband and wife team are trivially low.
@ GuyBehindtheCurtain:
Polygamy perhaps? Or some guy who can’t get anyone else to talk to him? Perhaps that is why he is answering himself on the blog? Darn…I forgot about multiple personality disorder…bless his and hers and its little hearts!
Wow, Dee, you get this and I got a copycat SSB Facebook page all in the same week. Aren’t we special?
Jacob C wrote:
That happens rather a lot, doesn’t it? I remember one lady who was quoting from her Scofield to me, & I (gently as possible)replied, “You do realize, don’t you, that only the TEXT is inspired? And that Scofield’s notes aren’t?” She looked considerably startled, & admitted, “Why, I never thought of that!”
@ Mr.H:
” By your re-posting here, you are supporting his cause (whether you realize it or not).”
you posted it again dude! just to be right, after she explained her error, you posted it again to make your point about how we shouldn’t post it.. I am anxiously awaiting your 7 point response of what I just wrote here so I can defend my actions on this website, and hey I apologize in advance.
I heard a pastor once, on a talk on how people hide their sin, claim that Bobby mcFerrin(don’t worry be happy) had committed suicide. The pastor’s reasoning was that BobbyMcferrin was singing about being happy when really he was miserable. I left the church building and laughed my self stupid in the church cafe.
GuyBehindtheCurtain wrote:
Ahem: @ Nick Bulbeck:
I hate to say “I told you so”, but (being vain and egotistical) I shall bite the bullet and do it anyway.
Everyone: I told you so.
Shed Larringer wrote:
I mean, if that’s not a parody I don’t know what is. I can’t pretend it made me LOL, but it certainly made me smile. In the UK during the 80’s this was known as “alternative comedy”. I think Shed Laryngitis should be un-banned!
Liz.R wrote:
I don’t know when you heard said pastor, but I’m sure you’re well aware that even today, rumours of Mr McFerrin’s death would be greatly exaggerated!
Slight tangent, but I’ve come across that attitude (that everyone who looks or sounds happy is really just trying to hide their pain) semi-regularly among preachers and house-group leaders. It has led to some very tedious and pointless conversations.
@ Daisy:
The NET bible, which is online, gives the literal reading as ‘women’. The footnotes are very useful in that version and explain the use of this as a metaphor in the underlying Hebrew.
I think in the culture concerned the idea was to convey the soldiers had become weak, hence the NIV rendering. The NIV might of course be pandering to political correctness. The average man is physically stronger than the average woman, and in an age where physical strength carry a heavy sword was what counted, I don’t see any put down in the verses you quoted.
@ Daisy: Patriarchalists do that all the time. Selectively select verses to bolster their opinions. Another case of Driscoll using the Bible as a sock puppet.
Has he given a response to the digging up of these posts? Has he stayed silent? Does he even know we know about them?
@ Daisy:
I think the NIV is just about the only version that translates to “weaklings” instead of “women” – I’ve checked KJV, NKJV, ESV, ASV, and NetBible. They all use “women”. BTW, it’s not Koine Greek in these (OT) references – I believe these versions all use the Masoretic Hebrew OT text…
I believe the NIV tends to be the most liberal, PC, gender-inclusive, etc. of the lot.
I’ll tell you what is insulting. It is some of the PC bible translators who seem to think that I, as a woman, will have the vapors unless they modify scripture in some what that they think will not offend my delicate self. Forget it. I’ll take mine straight up.
Interestingly enough, Larry Tomczak, co-founder with CJ Mahaney of what became SGM, was sued for slander in the early 80’s for making a similar statement at a California religious conference broadcast on radio. http://www.nytimes.com/1983/09/10/arts/author-wins-judgment-for-slander.html
http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20076291,00.html
Many think this was a very important part of SGM history; because it amped up the fear of being sued to such a level.
The suit settled for $150,000.
I don’t think I made clear that Larry’s statement was about the suicide of Thomas Harris, the co-author (with his wife) of I’m OK, You’re OK.
Jacob C wrote:
Don’t forget Late Great Planet Earth and the notes in the Dake’s Annotated Bible. Which both supersded the Bible in Divine Inspiration.
roebuck wrote:
I think only the NRSV – considered by fundamentalists to be a blight upon scripture – might be considered more liberal. The 2011 revision of the NIV caused an uproar among fundamentalists because of it’s expansion of gender-inclusive language where the translators believed that was the intent of the text. The SBC, in knee-jerk fashion, condemned the 2011 revision of the NIV in a resolution at their 2011 convention. No discussion of the issue in their resolutions committee, it was simply submitted from the floor and passed with no discussion.
A quick test for determining the most ‘liberal’ Bible translations is to look up Isaiah 7:14. If the verse use the term “young women” (as does the NRSV) rather than “virgin” it’s considered by fundamentalists to be anathema because it’s ‘radically liberal’.
@ zooey111:
Humans have a long history of letting others do their thinking for them.
@ Phoenix:
Wow, I had no idea about this. Even after everything that has come out about PDI/SGM, first I heard of this one. Amazing what went on before the internet we have no idea about unless in those circles.
@Phoenix – gosh, I was there for that and I had totally forgotten it!
@ Phoenix:
@ Phoenix:
Harris’ own side to this story is interesting. The rumour that he had committed suicide had actually started before Tomczak took it up, and it was also circulating in an even nastier form (some were saying he’d killed someone else as well). As far as I know, to this day nobody knows who started the rumour.
Tomczak was one of the first, if not the first, identifiable person to broadcast the rumour publicly and it was something of a last-straw moment for Harris and his family. They actually launched a 19-megadollar lawsuit, and if indeed they ended up settling for 150 kilodollars that kind of hints that it was more about the point than about the money.
JeffT wrote:
There were some issues with the NRSV concerning it’s gender inclusive language. Mentioned was changes in the use of “son” and “Son of Man” in its christological uses, if I recall. I just checked an article on the ewtn website about approval of its use for liturgical purposes being rescinded, but it being allowed for reading purposes. That was back when. I have no followup on that, and followup is not the purpose of this comment,
I mention this to note that it was not just the (baptist) fundamentalists who had some issues with that translation.
Quote from above comment:
“The 2011 revision of the NIV caused an uproar among fundamentalists because of itâs expansion of gender-inclusive language where the translators believed that was the intent of the text. The SBC, in knee-jerk fashion, condemned the 2011 revision of the NIV in a resolution at their 2011 convention. No discussion of the issue in their resolutions committee, it was simply submitted from the floor and passed with no discussion.”
There had been previous extensive discussion about the prior TNIV, and at the time there were those who thought the 2011 revisions did not go far enough. There was comment about use of the words father, brother and son for one thing. There was something about changing singulars to plurals for another thing in the TNIV. I am not sure what was changed between the TNIV and the 2011 revision, but apparently it was not enough to get the SBC on board. Try the christian post website for information I believe.
I just found all this easily on google and refreshed my memory, but i am not posting links for obvious reasons.
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
I love how some people will see the Left Behind novels or the notes in the Scofield Bible as divinely inspired or nearly so.
Donât forget Late Great Planet Earth and the notes in the Dakeâs Annotated Bible. Which both supersded the Bible in Divine Inspiration.
Add to that, Billy Graham’s prophetic warnings in the early 80’s with his book “Approaching Hoofbeats”. I guess he saw what a big seller Hal Lindsey’s book was and decided to jump on the book wagon. I remember my parents reading that and all the discussions about how the end was near.
And in the last few weeks we see the recent ‘warnings’ from Anne Graham Lotz. Apparently, since she’s traveling less, she’s had more time to “listen to the spirit”. So she decides to reveal what God is whispering to her by writing a letter to Pat Robertson and appearing in a CBN video.
“One of the things he’s impressed on me is that we’re living at the end of human history as we know it” and so on…….. These Graham offspring really think they have a more direct line to The Lord than the rest of us.
Now I don’t claim to be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I think if God had a direct message to send to us, I doubt he’d filter it through Pat Roberson’s tv show.
http://m.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2014/July/Anne-Graham-Lotz-Sounds-Alarm-Calls-for-Prayer/
Nick Bulbeck wrote:
Good point!
@ M. Joy:
There’s too much political upheaval in Israel right now. It was only a matter of time before the Lindsey-style dispensationalists started to prophesy. I’m actually surprised it took this long and isn’t worse, what with the ebola outbreak and Russia causing trouble (Russia has been involved in past antichrist prophecy crazes).
K.D. wrote:
Well you know even in Russia seating is provided for the old, infirm and those unable to stand. Many Orthodox churches in the US are fully equipped with pews. There is also the Western Rite, which consists primarily of former high church Anglicans or Anglo Catholics.
Shed Larringer wrote:
Jesus is the Divine Logos, the Word of God, the Second Person of the Holy, Life Giving and Consubstantial Trinity. In His consubstantiality with us, through the lineage of Mary, he is descendant from a succession of horrible sinners; He alone is entirely without sin or the trace of original sin. King David was an adulterer and a murderer; Solomon’s sexual promiscuity was shocking even by the perverse standards of that era. The presence of someone in the lineage of our Savior does not give us license to imitate their sinful behaviors; God the Son, by choosing to be born of a virgin descended from them, was acting to sanctify the fallen nature of humanity, and provide a means whereby these sins could be forgiven; He was not seeking to legitimize or promote the sinful behaviors of His human children, who were the forebears of His assumed humanity, which by its very nature, until He assumed it, was inherently corrupt and evil.
Thus, because Rahab lied, is not a valid excuse to lie. As the Gospel of John teaches us, Jesus Christ is Truth, and to lie for purposes of propaganda is to reject Him, and must be repented of, for we will, on the Dread Day of Judgment, have to answer for it. What is more, the approach you advocate was previously used by the Roman Catholic church in the 16th and 17th century to justify lying; they called it Casuistry. Ultimately they realized it was evil, and the practice, particularly popular amongst the Jesuits, was suppressed via direct Papal intervention, if memory serves (look up the Wikipedia article on Casuistry for the exact story).
What your pastor did was no different than John Calvin’s infamous whopper, to the extent that one could make a ship with the alleged relics of the Holy Cross present in Europe. In fact, this was a filthy lie, for a French scientist in the late 19th century weighed all of them, and calculated that in their totality, the surviving fragments amounted to but a third of the estimated mass of the entire Cross.
This is not to say they are authentic; they are, in most cases, likely authentic pieces of the “True Cross” found by St. Helena in Jerusalem in the early 4th century, after she was sent by her husband Constantine I to locate the Cross and the major relics of the Christian faith in that city, which had been devastated by the Romans in the early 2nd century, and was largely in ruins. St. Helena claimed to have found the True Cross; three crosses actually used in executions were recovered, and one of them was found to be able to cure a blind man, according to legend; this cross was then assumed to be the one upon which our Lord was crucified. Was it really? Who knows. However, the event had a profound effect on Christian piety in the rapidly expanding church in the centuries to come, and is commemorated on September 14th, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross.
The hagiographic nature of the story, in my opinion, opens the door for one to dissent from it on the lack of proof, although the surviving fragments of the Cross, which was disassembled in order to provide relics for the maximum number of churches (because in those days, it was required that all churches, at their consecration, be invested with relics of martyrs, our Lord, or other holy objects, being installed in a reliquary in each altar), are in most cases likely fragments of this cross found by St. Helena; even if they are not, they are most likely very ancient indeed.
John Calvin, in order to score the kind of iconoclastic point that our new Caliph Al Baghdadi would love, decided to tell a whopper about them, in order to advance his new school of theology. He might well, like your pastor, have justified this, on the grounds that Rahab lied, and the ends justify the means. As for the Holy Cross itself, and its fragments which are now venerated; if it is not in fact the cross on which Christ is crucified, if the story of its discovery is true, and the zealous piety with which that story was believed suggested it is, then St. Helena did not act in bad faith; after all, if you found three crosses, and were able to make someone who was blind cease to be blind using one of them, you would probably deduce that it was in fact the real deal, so to speak. Especially if you lived in the Fourth Century, when our contemporary standards of scientific investigation and rational thought did not prevail; curing blindness with a cross in that age would be seen as absolute proof that the cross in question was the one upon which Jesus was crucified.
So my point is that errors, made in good faith, are excusable, whereas lies made for purposes of propaganda, such as those told by John Calvin, and your pastor, are not. Is your pastor in good company telling a lie with John Calvin? Perhaps, if you feel that Calvin acted correctly in luring Servetus to Geneva with false promises of sanctuary, so that the latter could be tried and executed for heresy. I of course cannot share such a view; in my mind Calvin was a dreadful heresiearch who perverted the Christian faith into something resembling militant Islam, who corrupted the hitherto highly successful Protestant movement into something that moved the Western church further away from Orthodoxy, rather than closer to it (Luther certainly had restored a measure of Orthodoxy; although there were errors in his theology, the joyous nature of the Lutheran mass, communing under both species, the restoration of the vernacular et al, were all steps in the right direction, whereas the Calvinist doctrine of rejecting the sacraments, emphasizing preaching over communion, considering the Bible rather than Christ to be the Word of God, in spite of John 1:1-14, and, in the manner of any Islamic tyrant, suppressing all feasts and removing all iconography, on the grounds of it being “Pagan, was the biggest step away from Holy Orthodoxy since the Great Schism).
Note that in this context I use Orthodoxy not to refer to the Eastern Orthodox church in particular, which, while a very good church, is in most cases far from perfect, but rather, to that ideal form of the Christian church; the correct doctrine, transmitted from the Apostles, and believed in by the Early Church, the doctrine reflected in the writings of the Apostles, and Ss. Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Athanasius, Gregory of Nazianzus, Maximus the Confessor, John of Damascus, and Gregory Palamas, which was prized by men such as John Wesley and CS Lewis, and which ought to be zealously pursued by every pious Christian.
Daisy wrote:
I wish it were possible for lone bloggers/website owners to bring down an organization. It can happen, but as I’ve learned with Scientology over the last 20 years, moving a feared organization into the “ha ha we’re snickering at you behind our hands” category takes a lot of work and perseverance.
I’m going to share a link to my very favorite Christian Urban Legend, that of the “missing” or “lost” day.
http://www.snopes.com/religion/lostday.asp
This was a story promoted by a book called “How to Live Like a King’s Kid” by Harold Hill, who was a real person.
I’m reminded that the con man in “The Music Man” was also named “Harold Hill.” Seems fitting once you read the story.
Muff Potter wrote:
I have a male, charismatic, former-Lutheran former pastor to thank for demolishing many cruel fictions in like manner.
Deb wrote:
If nothing else people can look at C.J. Mahaney’s teaching on what he called “psychobabble” where he taught against a lot of psychiatric treatment including medication for mental illnesses.
Sadly most people within SGM blindly accepted what C.J. Mahaney taught on this. Of course after all, Mahaney was the group’s “pope” so he was not to be questioned.
@ sam h:
Hi Sam,
I posted the link with a clear explanation of the racist nature of the website. My main concern was not that Nancy had posted the link at all, but rather that the link was portrayed as some sort of reliable, non-biased source of knowledge.
I feel that the matter has been resolved. I believe that Nancy feels the same. It was a mistake, and it has been handled appropriately. If you would like to discuss it further, let me know.
mirele wrote:
I don’t. Some lone bloggers/site-owners are highly dysfunctional or even sociopathic people. The “alternative physics” that prevails * in cyberspace gives these people more power than they could ever have IRL without making them any more responsible. I don’t want them deciding who lives and who dies – not even metaphorically.
Sub-point 1
I am a lone blogger/site-owner, and although my wife assures me I am not a sociopath, I still don’t want a world in which I make those kind of decisions either. The only person who could be trusted with that much power would be someone who had absolute power and, having it, freely surrendered it for love’s sake – moreover, effectively surrendered it to those who hated, misunderstood and despised him, allowing them to humiliate and destroy him so that he could free them. That person would rightfully be King, and there is only one King.
Sub-point 2
Mirele – I realise the above was almost certainly a passionate argument with something you didn’t actually mean! Please read it as me sounding off at my own resonant frequency rather than as me “correcting” you⌠your point, I think, was about individual whistle-blowers being able to bring dark deeds into the light, and that doesn’t need any correcting.
Steve240 wrote:
Just like Scientology.
Like L Ron Hubbard, not only “pope” of Scientology but “Bridge to Total Freedom”.
mirele wrote:
And one of the key factors in that achieving critical mass was the South Park episode, and the aftermath where Operating Thetan-whatever-level Tom Cruise tried to get banned.
“THIS IS WHAT SCIENTOLOGISTS
ACTUALLY BELIEVE”
— subtitle during the South Park retelling of OT3/Wall of Fire/Emperor Xenu
@ Dave A A:
No to mention the simple fact that the story is not at all analogous to the crucifixion. The kid wasn’t born to be sacrificed in the gears of a bridge.
Bob Cleveland wrote:
Not unless you’re Truly Reformed(TM).
“It’s Predestined, It’s Predestined…”
“Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.”
~Mark Twain~
Dave A A wrote:
I hate that story. Always think of the poor boy, and I don’t really think that it is a good illustration of Christ’s sacrifice at all.
@ Bob Cleveland:
@ Beth Duncan:
Christ came for many reasons– including to lay down (voluntarily) his life– the righteous for the unrighteous. Griffith’s son came by chance, negligence, or disobedience.
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
I do think you’re speaking more about certain Neo-Calvinists than all who truly hold to the reformed doctrine there! đ