Category Archives: General

The Holy Bible as Authoritative Source for Science

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Sometime it is easy to dismiss accusations of the failure to keep theology out of the Science classroom, as something that only happens in the South, but the reality is that those who seek to blur the lines between Science and Faith can be found everywhere, and if we care about the integrity of the Educational system, we must fight this type of stuff where ever it shows up.

In his letter to the students, Villa said Lopez also ran afoul of campus regulations prohibiting religious indoctrination “by assigning readings from the Bible, reading the Bible in class, and otherwise relying on the Bible as an authority in the assigned subject matter.”

The finding came in response to student allegations that Lopez last semester quoted the Bible as proof that human life begins at conception, assigned his class to research the Bible for Jesus’ genetic makeup, and discussed apocalyptic Christian prophesies during a lesson on climate change.

Calif. college: Teacher violated gay bias policy – washingtonpost.com.

Dangerous Bible Thumpers

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Maybe, I’m in denial, but generally speaking, I don’t think I often characterize devout Christians as “dangerous,” although it truly fits in this case.  I heard this story first on MSNBC’s Rachael Maddow, although the linked article names ABC as breaking the story.  Here it is in a nutshell. Some US manufacturer of sights that go on rifles has been inscribing the sights with specifically Christian Bible passages. This is at odds with the Military’s rules and guidelines, but the manufacturer really doesn’t care. To that company prostelizing Jesus is more important than anything else. This has been going on for a while too, but only recently has a watchdog group brought this to light.

Our real enemies in the world tend to be ultra religious crazies willing to blow themselves up over what they believe is a holy war of US Christians trying to kill their religion. Our government doesn’t see it that way. To us, we are trying to make ourselves safe from these extremists. So what is a little Bible verse have to do with that? What it does is give the message that this really is a religious battle of Christians trying to kill them. All that can do is add fuel to the fire, and make the crazies feel justified in their craziness. And who loses? Our soldiers and their loved ones.

The linked story is from a far right web site, and I chose it specifically so that you can read the comments left by these far right Christians. Truly insane.

Now, not all Christians feel this way (Thank Heavens) but we have to start to name things as they are. We all have to wake up and recognize that while faith can be a powerful tool of much help to many, religious zealotry isn’t good for anyone.

Christianity has failed when it makes us into the exact enemy that other religious zealots are claiming that we are. Where are the real Christians to save Faith from the destruction being caused by the fringe?

CNSNews.com – Group That Alerted Media to Biblical Markings on Rifle Sights Wants Congress to Investigate ‘Military Religious Extremism’.

Robertson and Continued Christian Colonialism

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Special thanks to @wyldraven and @JaneAnneT for their editing assistance.

I doubt that there is anyone who hasn’t heard about Pat Robertson’s comments following the unbelievable catastrophe that hit Haiti this past week. If you aren’t aware, the link below includes the video clip. While a number of blogs, news sources and others have chastised Roberston for the comment, there has been little real exploration of what he said or the historical record behind it.

I can’t find any positive perspective from which to view his comment, and I’ve thought a lot about this. In some regard, his remarks are the standard evangelical conservative response to everything: “Turn to God.” To homosexuals they say, turn to God. To the confused and hurting youth they say, turn to God. To the victims of one of the worst natural disasters to hit the Western Hemisphere they say, turn to God.

And he harms the people of Haiti, as well as all who listen to him, by trying to shroud his Christian arrogance with a pretend compassion for the people of Haiti. Much like the ex-gay ministries claim to love the men and women who seek guidance there, when in reality the very actions taken are harmful and soul-killing.

Robertson traces the problem of Haiti back to what he calls a true story, yet nothing could be further from the truth. For Robertson, it includes a pact with Satan, an idea meant to inspire fear and titillation. How exotic it sounds. How taboo! Few have tried to unpack this “true story”, except some have claimed it isn’t true. Most have simply expressed outrage that he said it.

And similar to the  portrayal of homosexuals, Roberston fails to offer a true context and presentation of the reality for his “true story.” He begins, “They were under the heel of the French.” As if the people were the indigenous people under the control of a foreign power. Robertson fails to acknowledge, that the people being discussed were Africans brought by force to the area, as slaves. This is a critical point as simple as it may seem. The conservative Christian movement uses half-truths like this upon which it builds the judgements and conclusions they cast upon others.

But what of this pact with Satan?  Historically, there does appear to be a story that a houngon (vodou priest) named Bookman led a ceremony where the people asked for assistance against the French and this is often labeled as the start of the revolution that ended slavery allowing the slaves to achieve freedom fort themselves.

Missing are a few facts however. First is the fact that Satan doesn’t really play a role in Vodou despite the Hollywood portrayal of the religion. Vodou, like Santaria, is a syncretic faith born from the melding of ancient African practices and belief systems with Catholicism. More likely, Bookman was calling upon the ancestors, not Satan, to make the people strong, and for that strength to allow them to rebuke their French oppressors.

For Robertson, the Catholics may be every bit as Evil as the pagans from which these people’s religion was formed. But it is still ironic that the very faith tradition Robertston slanders, grew out of the forced conversion to Christianity (even if it was Catholicism). Today, he calls on the Haitians to turn to God, but today’s invocation is no less damaging that the forced conversion of that earlier era.

How Religion has failed, or more correctly, how Christianity has failed, when this is all that such a public face of evangelicalism has to offer to a country where 85% of the population are Catholic.

If all of this wasn’t enough, there is a darker and more sinister side to Robertson’s comments. It is almost as if he was suggesting that the people were better off as slaves, than to rise up and cast off their oppressors. For Robertson, that religious ceremony conducted by Bookman was the start of the Haitian peoples’ problems. Many might argue it wasn’t that event but rather it was the forced enslavement of these people, originally from Africa, that could be deemed the start of their problems. The enslavement of these black tribes, at the hands of the rich white Europeans, who did it, with the blessings if their contemporary church. But Robertson urges the people of Haiti to turn to God.

Now, as then, the will ands desires of the people are unimportant. Some white man knows what is best for the black people of Haiti.

Robertson’s “true story”: Haiti “swore a pact to the devil” to get “free from the French” and “ever since, they have been cursed” | Media Matters for America.

Screening of ‘For the Bible Tells Me So’ by NW PA NOW

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I received an message via Facebook and wanted to pass along the details:

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Event: Screening of ‘For the Bible Tells Me So’ by NW PA NOW

What: Exhibit

Start Time: Wednesday, November 18 at 7:00pm

End Time: Wednesday, November 18 at 9:00pm

Where: Frank G Pogue Student Center, Edinboro University, Edinboro PA

To see more details and RSVP, follow the link below:

http://www.facebook.com/n/?event.php&eid=153971228410&mid=14245b2Gd90731G3deab98G7

Website for the movie and book: http://www.forthebibletellsmeso.org/indexb.htm

Texas Church Sponsors Pro-Gay Christian Billboards

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Saw this on Twitter and had to write about it! Thanks to @QueerJohnPA and @lgbtlife for posting.

WouldJesusDiscriminate.com

WouldJesusDiscriminate.com

Please read the article linked, I’m not going to show any quotes from it, but it is a good read. I’m more interested to share my own reactions to these billboards.

First, I’d like to say that they are really gutzy, and I really give them credit for putting themselves out there like that. The message- that Jesus and the Bible is more welcoming and inclusive than some think it is- is a valuable message to share. But if their goal is to get people, especially Christian believers to rethink their negative judgements of gays and lesbians, I’m not sure how successful this is going to be.

If I have any real beef about the project, is the way it uses scripture. Consider Matthew 19: 10-12, (displayed here from the NIV)

10The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.”

11Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given.

12For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage[a]because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”

Now, this is a very interesting passage, especially following the earlier passages of Matthew 19, but how can anyone interpret it to say that “Jesus said some are born Gay.” Jesus didn’t say that unless the Greek for Eunuch(????????) is exactly the same as Greek for Gay (????????????), which it isn’t. And frankly as a gay man, I’m not sure how I feel about being called a Eunuch.

WouldJesusDiscriminate.com

WouldJesusDiscriminate.com

Genesis 2:24 and Ruth 1:14 (NIV)

24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

14 At this they wept again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-by, but Ruth clung to her.

There is a wonderfully beautiful story to be told about the love between these two women, although I’m hard pressed to say that they became one flesh. Here’s the same problem as the Matthew example. By trying to distill it down to a few passages, and then claim this is what it means, can’t possible provide any real teaching. It can only set the stage for a dispute about does it mean this or not. The tactic of pulling individual verses and claiming to know exactly what it means, that is the problem, not the solution to the problem.

WouldJesusDiscriminate.com

WouldJesusDiscriminate.com

The last billboard is probably the saddest example, for this is truly a rich and meaningful story.

Matthew 8:5-13 (NIV)

5When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. 6″Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed and in terrible suffering.”

7Jesus said to him, “I will go and heal him.”

8The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. 9For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

10When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, “I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. 11I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. 12But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

13Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! It will be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that very hour.

How they get from “a centurion and a servant” to “a gay couple” is truly remarkable, if not deplorable. If you go to the web site there is a full explanation of each passage.

The reality is that there may have been men who loved men and women who loved women in that time and place, but our contemporary understanding of Gay simply does not apply. There were no gay couples, where a couple is understood as an equal partnering of 2 men or two women.

Faith and tradition are things that many will defend and protect even beyond reason. To mess around with someone’s understanding, especially when they feel pretty sure they know what it means, is to invite a defensiveness and promote an unwillingness to be open to other interpretations. To place contemporary constructs (ex: born gay, gay couple) into a biblical era is just as bad as those who go the other way.

What is Murder?

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Steven Anderson has recently been in the news. As a pastor, he prays for Obama to die. The other day, Sirius XM radio host Michelangelo Signorile had him on the air, and the linked blog is about that exchange, and it includes a Youtube video. What I found most intriguing about the exchange was the questioning about murder. According to Anderson, if someone assassinated the President, it wouldn’t be murder, but the legal abortion provider George Tiller  was a murderer.

I have written before critical of Christianity, and even been accused of “hating God,” but the reality is I think Faith is important, and I believe we all deserve to be free to follow the faith tradition that speaks to us. Yet, I have to wonder, how extremist views like this grow and are so easily expressed as if they are rational thinking?

I also think that the rhetoric surrounding homosexuality and GLBTQ issues is going to get far more intense. We are at a critical juncture in history, when Science and culture are at odds with somethings written more than 2000 years ago. As Faith Traditions have handcuffed themselves to the Holy Bible, almost in isolation of fact and reason, it is going to be a pretty bumpy ride. Even denominations which claim to include reason and other methodology to understanding the true Will of God, such as the Methodists (I actually thing John Wesley would be astounded that the denomination that has grown from him ministry has forgotten so much of where that denomination came from) now find themselves clinging only to this very, very old book.

It is true that even Science doesn’t have a full understanding of Human Sexuality, but at one time, nor did it have any awareness that all of the planets in our solar system rotate around the sun. I guess the church didn’t learn much over that mix up. I am not bothered that some preachers can speak with so much condemnation of gay people. They are ignorant and we don’t yet have the Science that makes it as clear as Galileo’s work began to make the movement of the planets clear.

But murder?

Is the Church (in the most general sense) and God’s Will really so conflicted about what is murder? I feel sad for anyone who follows this preacher.

Pastor Steven Anderson: “If you’re a homosexual, I hope you get brain cancer like Ted Kennedy” « From the Left.

A Homosexual Bishop?

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The linked blog is called “Mystic Call” and the blogger. Carmen Rose is pretty spectacular in my book! I keep reading through her post to try and find a short passage to excerpt here, but trying to select one over another is proving difficult. This is a valued read for anyone, believer or non-believer.

I want to draw attention to the comment by DrDave. I’l acknowledge that it is hard- for obviously both this guy and the writer heard the same sermon, and I deid not. But I can’t help but get the impression that they really didn’t hear the same sermon, not really. Or I’m left to wonder if DrDave is just being dismissive. It is easy to consider that for DrDave, the Church is all right, just the way it is (or was before there was a gay bishop), but that may not adequately reflect his POV. Still he doesn’t address what is needed within the Church because it has listened to/ is listening to false teachers.

This notion of false teachers is such an interesting one. The apostle Paul didn’t get a very warm reception by Jesus’s followers, especially those who had supposedly walked with Jesus. Jesus himself was seen as a false teacher by the established “Church” of his time. We only view it differently today after many decades of hindsight, and given that God isn’t talking through burning bushes any more, we may still have it all wrong and not even know it.

Please read her blog entry. I highly recommend it.

Mystic Call: A Homosexual Bishop?.