This past weekend the House of Representatives passed a comprehensive health care bill that extends health insurance to tens of millions of uninsured Americans and begins reigning in an industry that kills tens of thousands of Americans each year: private (free market) health insurance corporations. Whether through health care rationing (by denying health care insurance to tens of millions of poor and middle class families who are deemed to sick for health insurance or are unable to pay the exorbitant premiums demanded by insurance corporations) or death panels (administrators who decide whether or not to honor claims filed by health insurance customers), the free market health insurance industry prefers to let Americans die rather than selling affordable policies and honoring life-saving policy claims from their own customers in order to insure that industry CEOs collectively pocket billions of dollars.
The bill passed by the House, however, has not yet become law. The coming weeks and months will determine the fate of health care in America. To be certain, the final version of the health care bill will almost certainly not be enough to significantly reign in runaway health care costs anytime soon. Rather, it will likely be just the first step of many required to truly transition the American political establishment from viewing basic health care as a privilege for those who have enough money or the right kind of job or are appropriately healthy, rather than an inherent human right.
Thus we now face a critical point in the history of America: are we as a nation going to continue to allow health insurance companies to kill more Americans in order to create yet more billions of dollars in blood-money profits for corporate CEOs, or do we as a nation have enough moral courage and ethical backbone to stop the greed-driven deaths of innocent Americans? Bizarrely enough, many religious persons who have long claimed to be "pro-life" want the killing to continue: they are championing the current free market health care industry with a zeal of biblical proportions.
Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a pro-life Baptist and otherwise seemingly-reasonable guy, said of the prospect of eventual enactment of the House's health care reform: “I hope and pray it doesn’t [pass], because it would be a disaster for the economy and health care.”
God forbid that America should choose life for her poor and middle class citizens over exorbitant profits for a handful of health insurance industry CEOs!
Graham's anti-health care reform, pro-profits-over-human-life position is the party line of all Republicans in the House save one (more on the lone dissenter later).
Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican leader of the House and supposedly a pro-lifer, insists that the House's health care reform is the “greatest threat to freedom that I have seen in the 19 years I’ve been in Washington.”
For Boehner to equate the saving of American lives as the "greatest threat to freedom" in America exemplifies the type of desperate, ludicrous lies that extremist free market apologists are now resorting to in defense of America's wealthy elite.
At the same time, some so-called Christian ethicists such as Southern Baptist's Richard Land are providing alleged theological cover for free market health care rationing and death panels. According to Land (yet another self-proclaimed pro-lifer), God has no problem with health care rationing and death panels within a free market, capitalist health care system, while the possibility of health care rationing underneath a government system is nothing more than Nazism.
So-called pro-lifers who staunchly defend a free market constructed upon the deaths of innocent American citizens, however, would do well to listen to Representative Anh Cao of Louisiana, seemingly the lone Republican in the House who realizes that human life truly is more important than corporate profits. A self-proclaimed pro-life Catholic, he supported the health care reform bill for the very reason that many of his constituents are poor and uninsured, and thus face the prospect of untimely death in America's current free market health care system. Cao, in short, remained true to his proclaimed pro-life convictions.
So why are so many self-proclaimed pro-lifers (and Christians!) praying and advocating for the continuation of a health care system that kills tens of thousands of Americans annually?
Jesus declared that one cannot serve both God and money (Luke 16:13), while the Apostle Paul (1 Timothy 6:10) asserted that money is the root of all evil.
It would seem, scripturally speaking, that the pro-life demonizers of government health care / ceaseless defenders of free market capitalism have (knowingly or not) chosen to worship wealth over God, and, at least in some instances, opted for evil over good (expressed in willing the death of innocent people in order to preserve corporate profits).
Indeed, the future of Christianity in America may be shaped immensely by the ongoing battle between allegiance to Christ and allegiance to capitalism. Although Christ and capitalism can certainly co-exist together if the latter is kept in a proper context, the growing American evangelical propensity to force Christianity into a free market straitjacket must be resisted by followers of Christ, for the sake of everyone.
Monday, November 09, 2009
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Biblical Atheism: The Real "New Atheists"?
Much has been made in recent years of the emergence of "New Atheists," outspoken disbelievers of deity and deities who relentlessly excoriate religion. Popular and seemingly everywhere now, these new atheists - led by Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Daniel Dennett - are outraged over faith-based science and violence. Targeting fundamentalist religion expressed in creationist theology and violent tendencies, they find no evidence of a deity or deities within or alongside biological processes, and argue that religion itself is dangerous to the human race.
While fundamentalist Christians dismiss New Atheism, other critics (such as Karen Armstrong) contend that New Atheists are arguing against modern religious fundamentalism, rather than religion at large. Creationism, for instance, is a product of the 1960s, receiving thinly-veiled upgrades in the 1990s ("scientific creationism") and the first decade of this century ("intelligent design"). Today's popular conservative Christian view of an earth no older than 10,000 years is a phenomenon of the past 100 years. Only since the late 19th century have many Christians adhered firmly to a literalist biblical interpretative methodology constructed upon modern rationalism, embraced the modern theory about the Bible (yet absent from the Bible) dubbed "biblical inerrancy," and placed their faith in John Nelson Darby's 1820s end-times theological scheme commonly referred to as "the Rapture." In short, fundamentalism (built upon these three modern contrivances) is a novelty of modern religion, not the norm of historical Christianity. In this sense, the New Atheists are indeed swinging their rhetorical blades at modern religion.
We are witnessing, in other words, a battle over who controls scientific truth in the twenty-first century: religious fundamentalists who wish to conform science to faith, or God-disbelievers who are determined to disentangle fundamentalist religious faith from science. As for me, I side with the New Atheists in this particular battle, while nonetheless agreeing with Karen Armstrong that they are mistaken in assuming fundamentalism is representative of religion at large.
Yet there is another dimension of this battle waged on a different playing field. While many fundamentalists dismiss the New Atheists (and atheism at large) as believing in nothing, the biblical foundation of fundamentalism - biblical inerrancy - is arguably (and literally?) nothing more than religious atheism. In short, although biblical inerrancy rhetorically advocates a perfect biblical text, biblical inerrantists apply textual perfection to ... nothing.
For the biblical inerrantist, there is not a biblical text in existence that is perfect. No one has ever held a perfect biblical text, no one has ever read from a perfect biblical text, and no one has ever preached from a perfect biblical text. For the biblical inerrantist, only the non-existent original fragments of biblical writing (referred to as "autographs") are inerrant, or perfect.
In reality, the origins of any once-existent, primary-composed ancient bits and pieces of writing that reflected the original spoken (oral) traditions handed down for generations, are clouded in mystery and speculative at best. In addition, textual original autograph inerrantists do not view as authoritative the ancient, multi-generational oral traditions from which the "original" text came, begging the question of how a theoretical text can be theoretically perfect if the words put into writing where themselves imperfect? (Many inerrantists do an end run around this problem by asserting that there was no oral tradition, and that instead God spoke directly and verbally to the biblical "writers" and forced them to record his dictated utterances verbatim, a theory referred to as "verbal-plenary dictation". The Biblical writers speak against such a view, however; see Luke 1:1-4, for example).
Furthermore, the larger dynamic of biblical "inspiration" (that is, the belief that the written text is derived from God in some fashion, whether inerrant or not; historically, Christians have affirmed various formulations of biblical inspiration, but not biblical inerrancy) "strictly speaking, applies only to the autographic text of Scripture" (according to the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, the creed of inerrantists).
What do biblical inerrantists actually believe about the Bibles in their hands and pulpits? They "affirm that copies and translations of Scripture are the Word of God to the extent that they faithfully represent the original" (see link above). Not only are their Bibles not inerrant, but they are the "Word of God" only if they "faithfully reflect" ... that which does not exist.
Biblical inerrancy, in short, is much ado about nothing.
Placing blind faith in a non-existent text could reasonably be referred to as "Biblical Atheism," not unlike traditional atheists whose belief system is predicated upon the non-existence of a god or gods.
On the other hand, the New Atheists do believe in that which science has revealed. That is, they believe in that which is scientifically verifiable.
Likewise, contemporary Christians would do well to seek to understand the message of the imperfect (according to biblical inerrantists) but existent Bibles in our hands and in our homes and in our pulpits, rather than the inerrantist's faith in nothing (and instead of inerrantist's efforts, in the face of nothing, to control the message of the actual Bibles we do have).
Our actual Bibles do not claim textual perfection nor do they posit a corner on all truth, but they do tell the stories of imperfect people (foibles and all) seeking (at times!) to understand God-centric truth in a pre-scientific era. The person of Christ is the focal point of Christian scripture. To our historical shame, those who claim to be followers of Christ have often abandoned his teachings against violence, greed, and religious legalism (fundamentalism, in contemporary terms). The New Atheists are thus right in pushing back against such perversions of Christ in particular, and religion in general. Yet let us not respond as Biblical Atheists who place their faith in that which does not exist. Instead, let us reflect Christ by following his teachings and example revealed in the scripture we do have at hand, and by welcoming truth wherever truth is revealed.
While fundamentalist Christians dismiss New Atheism, other critics (such as Karen Armstrong) contend that New Atheists are arguing against modern religious fundamentalism, rather than religion at large. Creationism, for instance, is a product of the 1960s, receiving thinly-veiled upgrades in the 1990s ("scientific creationism") and the first decade of this century ("intelligent design"). Today's popular conservative Christian view of an earth no older than 10,000 years is a phenomenon of the past 100 years. Only since the late 19th century have many Christians adhered firmly to a literalist biblical interpretative methodology constructed upon modern rationalism, embraced the modern theory about the Bible (yet absent from the Bible) dubbed "biblical inerrancy," and placed their faith in John Nelson Darby's 1820s end-times theological scheme commonly referred to as "the Rapture." In short, fundamentalism (built upon these three modern contrivances) is a novelty of modern religion, not the norm of historical Christianity. In this sense, the New Atheists are indeed swinging their rhetorical blades at modern religion.
We are witnessing, in other words, a battle over who controls scientific truth in the twenty-first century: religious fundamentalists who wish to conform science to faith, or God-disbelievers who are determined to disentangle fundamentalist religious faith from science. As for me, I side with the New Atheists in this particular battle, while nonetheless agreeing with Karen Armstrong that they are mistaken in assuming fundamentalism is representative of religion at large.
Yet there is another dimension of this battle waged on a different playing field. While many fundamentalists dismiss the New Atheists (and atheism at large) as believing in nothing, the biblical foundation of fundamentalism - biblical inerrancy - is arguably (and literally?) nothing more than religious atheism. In short, although biblical inerrancy rhetorically advocates a perfect biblical text, biblical inerrantists apply textual perfection to ... nothing.
For the biblical inerrantist, there is not a biblical text in existence that is perfect. No one has ever held a perfect biblical text, no one has ever read from a perfect biblical text, and no one has ever preached from a perfect biblical text. For the biblical inerrantist, only the non-existent original fragments of biblical writing (referred to as "autographs") are inerrant, or perfect.
In reality, the origins of any once-existent, primary-composed ancient bits and pieces of writing that reflected the original spoken (oral) traditions handed down for generations, are clouded in mystery and speculative at best. In addition, textual original autograph inerrantists do not view as authoritative the ancient, multi-generational oral traditions from which the "original" text came, begging the question of how a theoretical text can be theoretically perfect if the words put into writing where themselves imperfect? (Many inerrantists do an end run around this problem by asserting that there was no oral tradition, and that instead God spoke directly and verbally to the biblical "writers" and forced them to record his dictated utterances verbatim, a theory referred to as "verbal-plenary dictation". The Biblical writers speak against such a view, however; see Luke 1:1-4, for example).
Furthermore, the larger dynamic of biblical "inspiration" (that is, the belief that the written text is derived from God in some fashion, whether inerrant or not; historically, Christians have affirmed various formulations of biblical inspiration, but not biblical inerrancy) "strictly speaking, applies only to the autographic text of Scripture" (according to the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, the creed of inerrantists).
What do biblical inerrantists actually believe about the Bibles in their hands and pulpits? They "affirm that copies and translations of Scripture are the Word of God to the extent that they faithfully represent the original" (see link above). Not only are their Bibles not inerrant, but they are the "Word of God" only if they "faithfully reflect" ... that which does not exist.
Biblical inerrancy, in short, is much ado about nothing.
Placing blind faith in a non-existent text could reasonably be referred to as "Biblical Atheism," not unlike traditional atheists whose belief system is predicated upon the non-existence of a god or gods.
On the other hand, the New Atheists do believe in that which science has revealed. That is, they believe in that which is scientifically verifiable.
Likewise, contemporary Christians would do well to seek to understand the message of the imperfect (according to biblical inerrantists) but existent Bibles in our hands and in our homes and in our pulpits, rather than the inerrantist's faith in nothing (and instead of inerrantist's efforts, in the face of nothing, to control the message of the actual Bibles we do have).
Our actual Bibles do not claim textual perfection nor do they posit a corner on all truth, but they do tell the stories of imperfect people (foibles and all) seeking (at times!) to understand God-centric truth in a pre-scientific era. The person of Christ is the focal point of Christian scripture. To our historical shame, those who claim to be followers of Christ have often abandoned his teachings against violence, greed, and religious legalism (fundamentalism, in contemporary terms). The New Atheists are thus right in pushing back against such perversions of Christ in particular, and religion in general. Yet let us not respond as Biblical Atheists who place their faith in that which does not exist. Instead, let us reflect Christ by following his teachings and example revealed in the scripture we do have at hand, and by welcoming truth wherever truth is revealed.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
The Religious Right, Civil Rights and Obama: Wisdom From 1998
Long before Barack Obama became a household name, in only the second year of his political career (at that time, the Illinois Senate), two respected historians writing for The Journal of Southern Religion in 1998 warned of the trajectory of the fundamentalist Religious Right as "a movement of white reaction" against Civil Rights that excluded African-Americans. Noting the spread of such fundamentalism nationwide, one of the two historians summarized ascendant, southern white reactionary culture as "General Lee's revenge," and noted the accompanying spread of states' rights and hatred of federal government ideologies, both the overriding themes of today's anti-Obama, white "tea parties."
One historian argued that modern fundamentalism has transformed the South to a larger degree than did Civil Rights. His thesis was: "At the deepest levels, the change in racial and biracial affairs brought about as a result of the Civil Rights Movement was less disruptive of historic Southern culture than the Baptist, Presbyterian, and "third force" fundamentalist uprisings have turned out to be."
Realizing that such an argument was counter-intuitive to many, he continued: "we are afforded more than a hint into the interpretation that the fundamentalist movement is more disruptive than was the Civil Rights Movement; or, it will have proven to be so if its effect is as comprehensive and enduring as was that of its predecessor. The Civil Rights Movement reconfigured all the existing parts of Southern society and culture by insisting that all be considered equal partners, by law and, desirably, in informal practice. Fundamentalism insists on establishing public policy for the entire public whether most, many, or only a few subscribe."
These two 1998 essays are well-worth a read today in the light of the current white, southern, reactionary conservatism that characterizes Fox News-driven Christian fundamentalism and the Republican Party.
See Fundamentalism in Recent Southern Culture: Has it Done What the Civil Rights Movement Couldn't Do? - by Sam Hill, Professor Emeritus, University of Florida (more information about Sam Hill)
And "Response to Sam Hill, 'Fundamentalism in Recent Southern Culture'" - by Betty A. DeBerg, University of Northern Iowa
One historian argued that modern fundamentalism has transformed the South to a larger degree than did Civil Rights. His thesis was: "At the deepest levels, the change in racial and biracial affairs brought about as a result of the Civil Rights Movement was less disruptive of historic Southern culture than the Baptist, Presbyterian, and "third force" fundamentalist uprisings have turned out to be."
Realizing that such an argument was counter-intuitive to many, he continued: "we are afforded more than a hint into the interpretation that the fundamentalist movement is more disruptive than was the Civil Rights Movement; or, it will have proven to be so if its effect is as comprehensive and enduring as was that of its predecessor. The Civil Rights Movement reconfigured all the existing parts of Southern society and culture by insisting that all be considered equal partners, by law and, desirably, in informal practice. Fundamentalism insists on establishing public policy for the entire public whether most, many, or only a few subscribe."
These two 1998 essays are well-worth a read today in the light of the current white, southern, reactionary conservatism that characterizes Fox News-driven Christian fundamentalism and the Republican Party.
See Fundamentalism in Recent Southern Culture: Has it Done What the Civil Rights Movement Couldn't Do? - by Sam Hill, Professor Emeritus, University of Florida (more information about Sam Hill)
And "Response to Sam Hill, 'Fundamentalism in Recent Southern Culture'" - by Betty A. DeBerg, University of Northern Iowa
Friday, October 23, 2009
Baptist Battles: Richard Land and Richard Pierard
Richard Land, Ethics spokesperson for the SBC leadership, continues to spread lies about government health reform "death panels" and continues to equate theoretical government health care rationing with Nazism, although he refuses to equate current free market health care rationing as Nazism.
And now a battle has erupted between two Baptist Richards.
In the one corner, Richard Land, free market champion and anti-Obama crusader, seems oblivious to the fact the the Nazi movement was in large part a product of, and equated itself with, right-wing Christianity. Aligned with right-wing Christians, the Nazi Party advocated Christian Nationalism, sought to kill homosexuals, remove liberal intellectuals from universities, promote a pure Christian faith, join state with God, and enforce Christian morality consistent with Martin Luther's antisemitism.
In the other corner is Richard Pierard, renowned Baptist historian whose area of expertise is modern German history, particularly Nazism from 1933-1945. Pierard has lived and taught in Germany, and he denounced Richard Land's statements as bunk: "The effort to reform health care in the United States has absolutely nothing in common with the events of 70 years ago."
Who are we to believe? The Richard who is one of the most 25 influential Republicans in America and who claims to be an ethicist yet intentionally perpetuates lies about the British Health Care System and death panels that have long been proven to be lies (and turns to the cult leader Sun Myung Moon's Washington Times to prove the death panel lies are true)?
Or, are we to believe the Richard who is a Baptist historian and German historian and knows Nazi history, and recognizes lies for what they are?
Richard Land is now trying to dismiss Richard Pierard as an alarmist, while at the same time Land is using the First Amendment as a cover for his lies.
As Pierard notes, Land's lies have "brought reproach upon the good name of Baptists."
On the other hand, Land's ranking among the nation's 25 Most Influential Republicans may be moving upward, as he has squarely positioned himself as a loyal Right-Wing Republican rather than a truth-telling ethicist.
And now a battle has erupted between two Baptist Richards.
In the one corner, Richard Land, free market champion and anti-Obama crusader, seems oblivious to the fact the the Nazi movement was in large part a product of, and equated itself with, right-wing Christianity. Aligned with right-wing Christians, the Nazi Party advocated Christian Nationalism, sought to kill homosexuals, remove liberal intellectuals from universities, promote a pure Christian faith, join state with God, and enforce Christian morality consistent with Martin Luther's antisemitism.
In the other corner is Richard Pierard, renowned Baptist historian whose area of expertise is modern German history, particularly Nazism from 1933-1945. Pierard has lived and taught in Germany, and he denounced Richard Land's statements as bunk: "The effort to reform health care in the United States has absolutely nothing in common with the events of 70 years ago."
Who are we to believe? The Richard who is one of the most 25 influential Republicans in America and who claims to be an ethicist yet intentionally perpetuates lies about the British Health Care System and death panels that have long been proven to be lies (and turns to the cult leader Sun Myung Moon's Washington Times to prove the death panel lies are true)?
Or, are we to believe the Richard who is a Baptist historian and German historian and knows Nazi history, and recognizes lies for what they are?
Richard Land is now trying to dismiss Richard Pierard as an alarmist, while at the same time Land is using the First Amendment as a cover for his lies.
As Pierard notes, Land's lies have "brought reproach upon the good name of Baptists."
On the other hand, Land's ranking among the nation's 25 Most Influential Republicans may be moving upward, as he has squarely positioned himself as a loyal Right-Wing Republican rather than a truth-telling ethicist.
Monday, October 19, 2009
1000 Miles, 3 Baptist Churches
A few weeks ago, I embarked on an autumn photography driving tour of portions of Montana, Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho, starting from my home near Bozeman. The 1000 mile trip, a loop, traversed a cross-section of the Rocky Mountain West: state roads, county roads, tiny communities, small towns, larger towns, one very large city (Salt Lake), back streets, city streets, and interstate highways. As in most road trips, my antenna was attuned to noticing church buildings (I can't seem to help myself!). On autumn road trips of the past in the Southeast, I recall seeing so many church buildings that the ratio must have been in the neighborhood of one per mile! And a fall tour of New England a few years ago resulted in numerous church sightings, although admittedly many were old buildings sitting alongside country roads and seemed little-used.
The Rocky Mountain West, however, is a different animal. In a thousand miles of driving, I spotted dozens of Mormon wards, tabernacles, and temples; exactly three Baptist churches; and no more than twelve Christian churches total (primarily Lutheran, which is to be expected in this part of the country).
American Baptists arrived early in the Rockies region, and have a nominal presence today; there are three in a fifty mile radius - 100 miles east to west or north to south - of my house. Southern Baptist congregations trace their origins to the 1950s, as oil workers from Texas and Oklahoma, some Southern Baptist, landed in the area as a result of job transfers; still struggling, there are four SBC churches within a fifty mile radius of my house. I know of one independent Baptist congregation in the same area, although I'm guessing there may be one or two of which I know not. And, as of this year, Cooperative Baptists have one congregation (The Well at Billings, Montana) in about a four hundred mile radius, if not more, of my house (see the map here); the Billings congregation is the first of five churches we plan to plant in Montana.
Sure, there are plenty of Lutherans and Catholics (the dominant faith of the region's early settlers), a sprinkling of other mainline Protestants (Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians), and a number of non-denominational congregations, a few of which are fairly large - not to mention LOTS of Mormons and quite a few Jehovah's Witnesses. All told, though, very few folks (less than 1 in 3) who collectively live in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, and Nevada claim to be in church (or synagogue or other house of worship) any given week, among the lowest number in the nation (along with some New England states). Even so, self-reported religious surveys tend to result in inflated numbers, and my guess is that less than half of the one-third actually attend church at any given time.
And so I wonder: why aren't Cooperative Baptists paying more attention to the unchurched West (and, for that matter, unchurched New England?). I wonder, but in reality I already know the answer: we CBF Baptists thus far refuse to take church planting seriously. We incessantly talk missions (this is good!), yet despite the fact that our moderate Baptist seminaries are now turning out hundreds of graduates annually, we're doing very little to establish new congregations in which they might serve.
Montana might not be the most obvious place from which to try to raise CBF consciousness about church planting, but then again, maybe it does make sense: the unchurched nature of much of the American West rivals that of many mission fields worldwide, and missions is the heartbeat of CBF.
1000 miles, 3 Baptist churches. That's the same distance as driving from the southern coastal city of Charleston, SC to the mid-western town of Jefferson City, Missouri.
We can do better than this. If we only try.
The Rocky Mountain West, however, is a different animal. In a thousand miles of driving, I spotted dozens of Mormon wards, tabernacles, and temples; exactly three Baptist churches; and no more than twelve Christian churches total (primarily Lutheran, which is to be expected in this part of the country).
American Baptists arrived early in the Rockies region, and have a nominal presence today; there are three in a fifty mile radius - 100 miles east to west or north to south - of my house. Southern Baptist congregations trace their origins to the 1950s, as oil workers from Texas and Oklahoma, some Southern Baptist, landed in the area as a result of job transfers; still struggling, there are four SBC churches within a fifty mile radius of my house. I know of one independent Baptist congregation in the same area, although I'm guessing there may be one or two of which I know not. And, as of this year, Cooperative Baptists have one congregation (The Well at Billings, Montana) in about a four hundred mile radius, if not more, of my house (see the map here); the Billings congregation is the first of five churches we plan to plant in Montana.
Sure, there are plenty of Lutherans and Catholics (the dominant faith of the region's early settlers), a sprinkling of other mainline Protestants (Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians), and a number of non-denominational congregations, a few of which are fairly large - not to mention LOTS of Mormons and quite a few Jehovah's Witnesses. All told, though, very few folks (less than 1 in 3) who collectively live in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, and Nevada claim to be in church (or synagogue or other house of worship) any given week, among the lowest number in the nation (along with some New England states). Even so, self-reported religious surveys tend to result in inflated numbers, and my guess is that less than half of the one-third actually attend church at any given time.
And so I wonder: why aren't Cooperative Baptists paying more attention to the unchurched West (and, for that matter, unchurched New England?). I wonder, but in reality I already know the answer: we CBF Baptists thus far refuse to take church planting seriously. We incessantly talk missions (this is good!), yet despite the fact that our moderate Baptist seminaries are now turning out hundreds of graduates annually, we're doing very little to establish new congregations in which they might serve.
Montana might not be the most obvious place from which to try to raise CBF consciousness about church planting, but then again, maybe it does make sense: the unchurched nature of much of the American West rivals that of many mission fields worldwide, and missions is the heartbeat of CBF.
1000 miles, 3 Baptist churches. That's the same distance as driving from the southern coastal city of Charleston, SC to the mid-western town of Jefferson City, Missouri.
We can do better than this. If we only try.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Roasted Bible and Fried Chicken for Halloween
I nominate this story as the Baptist story of the year:
The Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, N.C. will celebrate Halloween by burning Bibles that aren’t the King James Version, as well as music and books and anything else Pastor Marc Grizzard says is a satanic influence ... During the book burning, according to the Web site, barbecued chicken fried chicken and “all the sides” will be served. (See full story)
I wonder what they would say if they knew King Jimmie was gay? Or that he hated and even killed Christian dissenters (Wightman is identified by Baptist historian Thomas Crosby as a Baptist; History of the English Baptists, Volume 1, 108-109)
The Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, N.C. will celebrate Halloween by burning Bibles that aren’t the King James Version, as well as music and books and anything else Pastor Marc Grizzard says is a satanic influence ... During the book burning, according to the Web site, barbecued chicken fried chicken and “all the sides” will be served. (See full story)
I wonder what they would say if they knew King Jimmie was gay? Or that he hated and even killed Christian dissenters (Wightman is identified by Baptist historian Thomas Crosby as a Baptist; History of the English Baptists, Volume 1, 108-109)
Friday, October 09, 2009
Richard Land Calls Free Market Health Care Rationing "Nazism"
Yes, Richard Land (executive director of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention) recently declared that health care rationing is "precisely what the Nazis did."
Problem is (aside from the obvious historical misunderstanding or wilfull distortion), he ignores today's free market health care death panels for the insured and the holocaust of the uninsured ... collectively in which tens if not hundreds of thousands die unnecessarily each year ... and focuses instead on the possibility that health care reform might ration health care (and builds his case for this possibility based on blatant falsehoods regarding health care reform).
Yet when Land labels health care rationing as "Nazism," he condemns the free market system which he and the Religious Right have long decreed as holy.
The failure of Land and his fellow Religious Righters to live in or even acknowledge the world of reality in favor of living in a fantasy world of untruths and Wall Street religion is a sign of just how far away from Christ and integrity they have removed themselves.
Ethics? It seems that Richard Land long ago forgot what the word means, for if he took the concept seriously, he would condemn today's free market health care rationing and demand change, instead of hawking the religion of free market capitalism.
Problem is (aside from the obvious historical misunderstanding or wilfull distortion), he ignores today's free market health care death panels for the insured and the holocaust of the uninsured ... collectively in which tens if not hundreds of thousands die unnecessarily each year ... and focuses instead on the possibility that health care reform might ration health care (and builds his case for this possibility based on blatant falsehoods regarding health care reform).
Yet when Land labels health care rationing as "Nazism," he condemns the free market system which he and the Religious Right have long decreed as holy.
The failure of Land and his fellow Religious Righters to live in or even acknowledge the world of reality in favor of living in a fantasy world of untruths and Wall Street religion is a sign of just how far away from Christ and integrity they have removed themselves.
Ethics? It seems that Richard Land long ago forgot what the word means, for if he took the concept seriously, he would condemn today's free market health care rationing and demand change, instead of hawking the religion of free market capitalism.
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