Very Nice People

Honestly, criticizing Rick Warren is not the purpose that drives my life, but the megachurch guru made one other statement on "Larry King Live" that's worth examining.

On the subject of Terri Schiavo, Warren says something that highlights why it is that evangelical Christians in America are simultaneously Very Nice People and blindered hypocrites. Here's Warren:

I know that if it were allowed, that Terri Schiavo's feeding for the rest of her life would be taken care of by millions and millions of people, who would be happy to pay for her feeding for the rest of her life if she happened to even remain in that state. And so that's not the issue.

He's right that "that's not the issue." The question at the heart of Schiavo's numerous court cases was not whether or not anyone was willing or able to pay for her care, but whether or not such care was what Terri Schiavo would have wanted. All of those courts -- again and again -- have decided this is not what she would have wanted.

Warren seems to be substituting a hypothetical scenario for the actual case. In this hypothetical scenario the primary issue is not "What did Terri Schiavo want?" but rather "Who will pay for her care?" True believers in this scenario thus recast Schiavo's husband as a mercenary cad trying to shirk any obligation to pay for her medical care.

This seems to be another example of the demonizing function of evangelical anxiety. The need to see ourselves as good leads to a need to see ourselves as significantly better than others. And since, in reality, we do not appear to be substantially different from others, we are forced to reinterpret them, to view them as more wicked than they are, ascribing to them the most heinous of motives for even the most difficult situations (see also: The Politics of Abortion).

But despite all that, I have no doubt that Warren's central assertion here is true: If called upon to do so, "millions and millions of people" -- many of them devout Catholics and evangelicals -- would contribute to pay for Terri Schiavo's medical maintenance.

For the sake of argument set aside -- as these millions do -- the question of what Schiavo would have wanted. There is a noble impulse at work here. These folks would be willing to give, even to give sacrificially, for the sake of another. That's a Good Thing.

The Schiavo case, of course, is not the hypothetical scenario that Warren presents. It is not simply a matter of insufficient resources. Yet multitudes of just such cases do exist. Yet because these cases are not causes celebre their existence goes unnoticed, their need unheeded, by the same "millions and millions of people" who are so ready to contribute to care for Terri the Symbol.

This is where the blindered hypocrisy comes in. American evangelicals really are Very Nice People. They would never, like Dives in the parable, callously disregard the suffering of poor Lazarus on their very doorstep.

Yet they have no problem constructing lives and communities that prevent them from ever having to see, or notice, or acknowledge the existence of the billions of Lazaruses (Lazari?) who make up the majority of our neighbors in this world. After all, good, decent people simply can't be expected to raise their children in the kinds of neighborhoods where beggars are loitering on doorsteps.

The sympathetic impulses of these Very Nice People are real, but they are stymied by context and by a semi-voluntary refusal to look at those outside of that context. This semi-willing blindness imperils "The Soul of the New Exurb." When the blindered context of American evangelicals gets combined with poisonous reassurances about the undeserving poor, and then used in the service of self-interest-group politics that pits it against any larger, common good, then these Very Nice People can wind up having a very nasty effect on the world around them.

The link above is to Jonathan Mahler's fascinating New York Times Magazine profile of an exurban evangelical megachurch near Phoenix (a church, incidentally, modeled after the church growth philosophy of Rick Warren).

Mahler describes many of the laudable programs offered by the church, programs that are:

... what church-growth experts refer to as a side door. Before the rise of the megachurch, evangelism was done primarily through the front door -- the Sunday-morning service. Today, large evangelical churches try to offer the yet-to-be-saved as many different entry points as they can.

But doors -- front doors, side doors, back doors -- are for going out as well as for coming in.

If someone in desperate need manages to find their way in through one of the many doors of evangelicalism's megachurch culture, the millions and millions of people inside will rally to their aid. But sadly those same millions don't seem willing to go out those doors to look around and see if there might be more unmet needs out there.

Comments

[Stephen]

I wonder if Evangelicals are so eager to latch onto causes such as "protecting the unborn" or Terri Schiavo because they are examples of being Truly Innocent. That is to say, there isn't any way for the Evangelicals to get sullied by association.

I say this because I do see quite a few people who manage to "get in the side door" and who are promptly shown the way out.

One of the many false beliefs of American Evangelicalism is the idea that our wealth & privileged status in society is a result of our Godly lives. Therefore, those who do not share in this wealth and status must not be Godly and are no longer our concern. But it is safe to take up the cause of Terri Schiavo and other Truly Innocents since, unlike the homeless, the single mom, the homosexual AIDS victim, etc., their situation is not their own damn fault.

So yes, Evangelicals are a lot of Very Nice People, so long as they are able to stay completely within their own world. However, I think you have first-hand experience with what happens when someone insists on bringing the real world to them.

[animus]

There's an old Irish proverb that goes, "If you want to know what God thinks of money, look at the people he gives it to." I assume that Americans don't have this proverb, or else they don't understand it.

There is also a certain irony in the way that some churches are obsessed with "sodomy" at the same time that they are proud, full of bread, &c, not to mention failing to strengthen the hand of the poor.

[rachel]

[T]hose same millions don't seem willing to go out those doors to look around and see if there might be more unmet needs out there.

Along those same lines, I thought it was telling that when McFarland did the direct-mail campaign to build church membership, he sent the mailing to the entire town *except* the area where the original population (Spanish-speaking farm workers) lived.

[MJ]

Personally, I find modern churchgoing kind of depressing. The ultra-casual dress and boring, repetitive praise-and-worship music seem irreverent (or maybe "irrelevant" is the word I'm looking for) to me. At the same time, I realize that the churches I grew up in--one of them so old-fashioned that people weren't allowed to use modern romantic ballads in their weddings--really did turn people away (whether intentionally or not) with the unstated dress code and traditional music.

Both of those churches have gone the charismatic route and opened up the side doors now, btw. I don't know if it's helped them attract new churchgoers or not. In one of them, half the choir and most of the old people left when they quit doing traditional church music, so it might have been kind of a tradeoff.

I think what's more depressing is the idea of exurbs like Surprise, homogeneous little enclaves of people who all go to the same megachurch and spend their spare time sharing with each other in small groups. And even more depressing than that, $16,000 worth of Krispy Kreme. O tempore! O mores! ;-)

[lawguy]

Of course apparently none of those millions who would be willing to pay for Terry Schivo's upkeep were willing to pay for that little black baby in Texas a couple of weeks ago.

[pfc]

The fact is that millions of Christians, along with millions of non-Christians, are already paying for Mrs. Schiavo's care and feeding. She is living in a hospice that is providing mostly free care and her medicines are being paid for by Medicaid. So, we're all paying for her.

I really don't understand why the Christian Right doesn't get this.

[patter]

"McFarland's messages are light on liturgy and heavy on what he calls ''successful principles for living'' -- how to discipline your children, how to reach your professional goals, how to invest your money, how to reduce your debt, even how to shake a porn addiction. ''If Oprah and Dr. Phil are doing it, why shouldn't we?'' he says."

Ahhh, another of the "It's All About Me" churches. None of that "dying to self" and "take up your cross" mumbo-jumbo -- too depressing, too scary, might have to change radically.

MMMMM...Krispy Kremes....

[patter]

I don't know if it was intended, Fred, but your title reminded me of the chapter from C.S. Lewis -- "Nice People or New Men?"

[Karmakin]

The only reason they'd be willing to pay for it is in a showboating kind of way.

You pretty much hit on it there, Fred. But I think you missed kind of what they're trying to do with this. Their goal, is to ensure that their own world is as amoral as possible. Morality is for the OTHER guy. Basically limited to sexual issues, and done to a black or white degree that would make your head explode, it's that way for a REASON. Sex is supposed to be the end-all of morality. Everything else? It's just business/finance/whatever.

They're not bad people, so to speak. They just don't give a care about people outside of their immediate community. If say...a bill was passed to "save" Terri's life, but a tax increase in order to fund universal health care was attached, they'd vote it down in a heartbeat. Can't help THEM, that is. There's no ability to showboat in having the government cover the bills. Best to leave it up to charity, so we can show how gooooood we are...

These mega-churches are..no..have..taken such sociopathic traits in society and put a megaphone to them. Made them acceptable, to the point where it affects everything. And I suspect nothing less than a widespread cultural smackdown will reverse things. And I further suspect that it has to come from a liberal religous culture that's becoming more and more infected with this every day....

I don't have much hope.

[Natalie]

I’m glad you are pointing out that conservative evangelicals really aren’t all that bad of people. That’s a lesson I’ve been learning lately, too, to temper my critical attitude. The parable I use to remind myself is that of the good Samaritan; the fundy/evangelical is the one who stops to help.

But I’m also glad that you rightly point out what’s wrong with the worldview and the selective morality that many of these people have...keep up the good work!

[ProfessorPlum]

Natalie,

I think you'd better go back and re-read the good Samaritan parable. PP.

[Scott]

Of course apparently none of those millions who would be willing to pay for Terry Schivo's upkeep were willing to pay for that little black baby in Texas a couple of weeks ago.

Since you can't save everyone, you have to pick and choose, and what better criteria for picking and choosing than to set the 'proper' moral tone for the nation and win one against the Evil Librul Culture of Death?

[Emma Goldman]

I think it's "Lazarim." Isn't it?

[McKormick]

well said fred. christianity in my western experience is based on a causal (?) framework. 'get them in church', 'get them saved', 'get them discipled', 'get them getting', 'pray more', 'read your bible more', 'give more', 'sin less'. . . It's a measurable mark of religious achievement.

Also, the Terri Schiavo case sets up the 'necessary' us/them dichotomy. 'they will know we are christians by our lobbying'. 'do not confuse me with one of them - for the record i am against all this!' 'you are black i am white'.

it's frustrating to no end and in my opinion, denigrates and degrades the truth found in a life of faith.

[Karmakin]

If you looked at modern religion..

The atheist would stop and help the person.

The liberal religous folk would stop and help the person after quietly saying a little prayer.

The conservative religious folk would look around and see who was looking. If someone is looking, they'd scream how good they were helping that person while doing a half-ass job of actually helping them.

If nobody was looking they'd walk on by.

[baltar]

Nice post. I've wondered myself about the lack of "charity" and "humility" in the modern right-wing evangelical. They all seem to be able to quote endlessly from the Bible about being saved and being reborn, but don't talk much (or act much) on the clear poverty, sadness, depression and general unhappiness around them (even, sometimes, in the Exurb).

[Luke Francl]

Karmakin, I think you're generalizing too much, but not much has changed if you go by the parable of the Good Samaritan.

[reMark]

If nobody was looking they'd walk on by.

Unless they were gay, in which case, they'd spit on them first.

[Jim]

Most Evangelicals are nice people but that does not stop them in many cases from also being good people, so it is worthwhile commenting on them and to them. The good ones are good enough that they have moved beyond the bitter-lipped certainties of Fundamentalism.

Remember that mst of these people crowding into these megachurches did not grow up in any church, so this is the closest thing to a spritual community they have ever experienced. Good for them for trying. Remeber that many of them are the first generation in their families to ever have been middle-calss, and that alot of their social and therefore religious spasms have a lot to do with class-antagonism chips on their shoulders and insecurity about their respectability. That colors their doctrine.

They have something like survivor guilt about having so much money, when they may have grown up with a "poor-but(spiritually)-proud" attitude, sort of Walton's Mountain sentimentality about their moral superiority over rich people. What to do now that they are rich? Blame God - it's all God's will. That means some kind of prosperity theology. Sounds very much like the path that earlier generations of new rich followed, under the name of Calvinism.

The good ones keep on growing. The rest you can smell a mile off. They are the ones who spit on a gay man in the road before getting the media there to film thieer charity. Those are the ones who are so pagan that they claim Roman civil law and Old Testament scripture about marriage and sexuality are normative for Christians.

The shame is that they drive so many people away from Christ. Think of the reasons you hear form atheists for their atheism - it usually comes down to some kind of blasphemy one of these spat at them about what God demands.

[achilles]

It's of course easy to say that millions would pay for Schiavo if given the chance. They probably would. Indeed, they probably are. One of the undercommented aspects of this story is the way in which right-to-life groups have used Schiavo as a fund-raising message. Of course the funds are spent on things that are only indirectly (at best) related to her case--lawyers fees, for example. But I'd wager that an awful lot of the money is used on general expenses, promotion, and lobbing. It is surely part of the reason that so many of them want to continue to whip people to hysteria even after the case both legally and medically is hopeless.

[achilles]

It's of course easy to say that millions would pay for Schiavo if given the chance. They probably would. Indeed, they probably are. One of the undercommented aspects of this story is the way in which right-to-life groups have used Schiavo as a fund-raising message. Of course the funds are spent on things that are only indirectly (at best) related to her case--lawyers fees, for example. But I'd wager that an awful lot of the money is used on general expenses, promotion, and lobbing. It is surely part of the reason that so many of them want to continue to whip people to hysteria even after the case both legally and medically is hopeless.

When I think of most of the Fundies, I often think of the lesson Jesus taught regarding how one should give to charity. He points his finger at the ones who make a great public display of their giving, pointing out that the spirit of the gift is lost in the pride and hubris of the giver. As all of us "good" Christians know, Pride goeth before the Fall. As for the other aspects commented on here, someone with a great deal more writing talent than myself should write a book explaining about how Liberal Jesus actually is. The Gospels display an astonishing Liberalism in their teachings, particularly considering the conservative political-religious atmosphere of Jesus' time. Even today, Jesus' teachings of Love, Tolerance, Charity, Acceptance, and Peace for EVERYONE, regardless of who they are or their lot in life, reads like the Democratic Party Platform. Once revealed, it's a bitter pill for the Religious Right to swallow.

[freelunch]

I won't believe these folks really care about others until they start telling their senators and congressmen that it is their duty as Christians and citizens to make sure that every poor person is taken care of and every ill person is ministered to. Making a very public spectacle of yourself without committing to help the neighbor you do not know ("Lord, who is my neighbor") shows merely that you cannot tell the difference between what Jesus taught and the Pharisees, as presented in the Gospels, taught.

Natalie, I think you confused the Pharisees and the Samaritans. In the US, you could substitute African-American, or, even better these days, Moslem, to get the full point of Jesus's story.

[Mabus]

With due respect....

the response you are giving the fundamentalist in Natalie's version of the story illustrates precisely why the fundamentalist has been properly placed by Natalie.

See, each of us has our own version of the story, and the person who stops to help is whoever we most despise. For the fundamentalist, that person may be gay, or Muslim. But for the self-assured liberal Christian, a Bible-thumper is precisely the appropriate person to stop and help the wounded man.

[achilles]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/kgtv/20050329/lo_wkmg/2648050

List of Schiavo Donors To Be Sold

Tue Mar 29, 4:52 PM ET

If you expressed your support to Terri Schiavo and her parents fight to keep her alive, you may begin to receive a steady stream of solicitations, according to a Local 6 News report.

 Terri Schiavo's parents have agreed to sell their list of supporters to a direct-mailing firm, Local 6 News reported.

The company, "Response Unlimited" pays about $150 a month for 6,000 names and $500 a month for 6,000 e-mail addresses.

A spokesperson for the Schindlers confirmed that they had agreed to sell the information, but won't say for how much.

[Andy]

That's an extremely interesting comment. You know, part of the whole religious/conservative/libertarian mantra is, "Why should my hard-earned money go to take care of someone else?" Republicans don't think we should pay for public schools, public health care, welfare, social security -- any of the social programs the government funds. And yet here's someone saying that these people would gladly fork over some of their money to pay for Terri Schiavo's care. Well, jeez louise, people, just vote for higher taxes and let fund the government programs that actually DO this kind of work!

[Art]

Come chrisians and join the "Just say NO to God" campaign. The next time some moralizer purporting to speak for God looks down their spiritual nose at you, think about this:

After the catastrophic plagues, infestations and deaths of the first born Egyptians, could God's Commandment 'Thou Shalt Not Kill' have been a change of heart? Had God found his own murderous ways too repulsive to permit?

If the Commandments are the bottom line measurement of God's will, why then did God, some forty years later, offer the wandering Israelites all the land of their historic roots if they would only kill its every inhabitant?

The "Just say NO to God" campaign suggests God wanted the Israelites to say "No". A father teaches his children right from wrong, and tests to see if the lesson was learned. Was God's order to kill a test that Israelite failed?

Are the ways in which we obey God's will more complicated than our spiritual leaders present? Does God admire moralist rebellion and abhore intellectually lazy conformity?

Join the "Just say NO to God" campaign where difficult questions are raised: Does prayer annoy God? Does God wear an MP3 player to tune out the blaring insincerity?

[Natalie]

About the good Samaritan, Dave Rattigan says it better than I can in his article, "Even Fundies Don't Come in Black-and-White:"
http://leavingfundamentalism.org/evenfundies.htm

Mabus is dead on. The most challenging people to place in that story--fundamentalists--is precisely why I put them there. I guess that's just how radical Jesus' love is.

[bellatrys]

The "Good Samaritan" parable is also about existing structures of *power.* You cannot read the Gospels and make any sense of them if you ignore the sociopolitical realities of the time. (I know that most Christians aren't *aware* of the sociopolitical issues of the late Roman empire in the province of Syria, and that they ignore them through ignorance, but that's not a good excuse.) Thus things like House of Herod not being ethnically Jewish at all, the role of Alexander the Great and Socrates in the cultural mish-mash, and who controlled the methods of production and the resources - plus who lost out in old power struggles - all contribute to the background and references that the authors, readers, and characters in the Gospels took for granted.

You can of course interpret them on purely personal, sentimental levels, and this is what most ministers and commenters and sunday school teachers do, like someone who's never studied anything but soap operas trying to teach Antigone.

Thus it's not enough to just look at the parable and say, oh, someone *different* from us or even someone we think of as a heretic. You're missing the point, that the priest and the Levite represented the top social classes, the people with the wealth and the power, the people who set the norms for everyone else and stood in *earthly* judgment of them, as well as in religious matters. There is no separation of religious and political in a theocracy, and no such thing as belief being a purely personal matter. Heresy is treason.

Now I know that conservative Christians like to think of themselves as an oppressed and downtrodden ethnic minority in this country, but when you look at the amount of wealth *and* political power - and the assumption of status at the top of the food chain to bully everyone else - this is one of those beliefs not grounded in any sort of reality or facts.

Reading the parable and ignoring this is like reading Amos as a purely-personal directive to start praying more, completely internal and self-involved navel gazing spirituality...which I have *also* read in Christian sites of "Bible Meditations for Women," though you might not think anyone could write a sermon on Amos and leave out any mention of social justice on a societal level. But they can.

[Holdie Lewie]

I was with Fred until the last paragraph. It's simply wrong to say that "those same millions don't seem willing to go out those doors to look around and see if there might be more unmet needs out there."

A lot of evangelicals do seek to do good in the world outside the parking lots of their churches. I remember the time that I, as a reporter, was covering the aftermath of Hurricane Floyd in North Carolina, and I stumbled upon a church group that was repairing flood damage to a stranger's house. After the tsunami of Dec. 26, how many of us donated to Habitat for Humanity International so the organization could build homes for the victims? (My hand is raised.) If you donated to them, you donated to an evangelical organization, and I assume that members of megachurches are part of HfH's volunteer base. Volunteers from evangelical churches are always going around helping poor people in Appalachia or Africa and in many other places as well.

My problem with the megachurches is that they have become satellites of the Republican Party. As such, they do a vast amount of harm. But to say that this is a sign that they don't care about the world at large -- well, that doesn't make sense. They are politically active, and evangelically active, *because* they want to change the world.

[Mabus]

Bellatrys, I am not a political scientist or a historian, but I am hardly unaware of the power relationships you refer to. Believe it or not, a substantial part of my information on those matters actually did come from sermons and sunday-school, though by no means all. (I have accumulated some more detailed information over the years, though I will be the first to admit I am not an expert.)

Even so, it seems to me that the text states the primary message clearly: "Whoever needs help is my neighbor, regardless of any social barriers." Social standing and wealth are important to the parable, but they are not completely determining.

Lastly, I point out that while religious conservatives as a group have more influence than we tend to let on, not all is roses and candy for us either. As has been repeatedly pointed out by Fred, most of us are working class and some of us are lower still. To hold the positions we tend to on "social justice"--I prefer the term "mercy" for most applications--costs us, sometimes dearly, and it might actually be worth asking why we do hold to them.

(*Another factor regarding conservative tales of oppression--the religious right is very much a mini-coalition itself, of factions that are often allies of convenience only and are sometimes still bitter foes outside the political arena. We do not always see our power as a group because we do not see ourselves as a natural grouping.)

[syfr]

Bellatrys,

Where should I start (books, websites, etc.) reading about the sociopolitical realities of the time?

Thanks in advance.

Syfr

[Beth]

I watched Sullivan's Travels recently. One key scene takes place in a church. This church didn't have video screens, but it did have a white sheet, and on occasion the sheet would be hung at the front of the church, and they'd show movies and Disney cartoons. On these occasions, they would invite the warden from the prison farm up the road to bring the prisoners to share the entertainment. Before the prisoners arrive, the preacher tells his congregation "neither by word, nor by action, nor by look to make our guests feel unwelcome, nor to draw away from or act high-toned. For we's all equal in the sight of God."

These guests, remember are not potential converts. There is no real chance they'll join the church or repay the congregation's generosity in any way. They are simply neighbors in need and the little that the church has, it gladly shares with them.

The problem I have with the megachurches is not the donuts, the video games, or the mall-like atmosphere. It is the sense that all these things are just come-ons, a way to get people in the door so you can sell them something. That's not generosity; it's advertising. The circus surrounding Terri Schiavo seems much the same. I don't doubt there are many very nice people who are genuinely distressed by her situation, but I can't help thinking that the reason so many religious and political leaders have chosen this particular neighbor to support has less to do with her need than the PR potential of her situation.

[Agitprop]

These Christians are not dead set against social welfare programs. They simply want the churches, not the government, to administer such programs. They--the churches and the believers-- want to control the programs by holding the purse strings and monitoring who gets to benefit from these programs. "We'll cure your drug problem and get you a job if you give yourself to Christ". The entire "Faith Based Initiative" is an attempt to get more followers and increase church power that's all.

[Jim]

"It is the sense that all these things are just come-ons, a way to get people in the door so you can sell them something. That's not generosity; it's advertising."

Beth, you are right in that observation, just wrong in thinking there is something wrong with it. The Church has always used come-ons. I read once that the use of hymns as opposed to just chanting the Psalms has to do with keeping up with and outdoing the Arians, a fight over market share. The technical term for this is "rice Christians".

One aspect of the parable of the Prodigal Son is the motive behind the son's repentance. All he ever says is that he is hungry - that's the depth of his moral and spritual crisis. And the point of the story is - so what?

What do you expect, that people are going to come to church (or do anything else) our pure intentions? We are human beings; we aren't capable of having pure intentions.

[Rich K]

Folks, folks! We are missing the point of what a parable in the Gospels is. Jesus used the Good Samaritan to cause listeners to rethink the concept of Neighbor. In this light, yes the Good Samaritan is fundies. If liberal mainliners and "elite media" types are the audience. If fundies are the audience, then it is Dan Rather or Bishop Spong who is the Good Samaritan.

As to Mr. Clark's original point in his blog, I am not sure that it is just evangelicals who escape blight to raise families. This sort of thing was common before there were evangelicals. I'd say it is a human desire, no, a natural desire (throughout nature, animals hunt the safest places to nest) to raise a family in as controlled an environment as possible. Why would it be otherwise?

[bellatrys]

Syfr, www.livius.org is a wonderful website to start with...and to keep going back to. When I was writing "A Bloody Mess," I found it the best place to brush up on the things I half remembered from my ten-years-past Early Church History and Classics and Art classes, or my even-longer-back conversations with classical history buffs, and things seen in Rome and Pompeii but not in the stuffy guidebooks, if you have a hard time keeping all the many members of House Herod and the Diadochs straight (and who murdered whom), you will easily be able to track them down on this cross-referenced and illustrated thematic encyclopedia.

Another reference - handy for tracking down what gods the Athenians *did* believe in and who exactly Diana of the Ephesians was and how she differed from ordinary Artemis as worshipped by everybody else and such like, is Theoi, again illustrated and chock full, like Livius, of [drumroll] first hand source materials.

This is the big difference between a first rate and mediocre history text, like nearly all school ones. The mediocre one has paraphrases and summaries, often second or third generation regurgitations of events, leaving students with the impression that everyone back then was dimwitted and irrational.

So you can read actual Hymns and prayers to Zeus or Apollo or Demeter, and see how similar/different they are to Christian imagery...

The other major references - for when you want to find out if that minister's assertion about what word X meant the way Jesus used it is true, frex, are Perseus, which is *wicked* hard to use, but in combo with google can be be made, like the oracle of Delphi, to yield up answers not found anywhere else (like the fact that the word debatably translated as "kill" or "murder" as in "Thou Shalt Not," is used by Greek dramatists to encompass anything from what we think of as murder, to government-ordered sacrifices (Iphegenia) to warriors hacking each other up in battle, and thus probably ought to be translated indeed as "shed blood," - or things like the fact that the word "pharmakon" translated in KJV as sorcerers is also used to mean "poisoners," and you can even if you don't read Greek learn enough to know that you don't know, if you know what I mean.

All of this kind of thing, in common with a text like the searchable Blue Letter Bible, which offers the option of calling up a variety of translations - including the Greek and the Latin editions - can give starting points to dig up even more stuff, so you can find yourself hunting out pictures of various members of House Ptolemy on coins or statuary showing what the war elephants described in Maccabees looked like, and track down the actual MS #s of the earliest versions of the Legend of Veronica, as well as thoroughly disprove the "origin" of the name in Vera+Icona, "true-image" (it's actually a dialect form of a popular posh Macedonian name, Phereinike, "Victory-bringer".)

Manuscript numbers, btw, are something you will find yourself looking for ever more often. When a biblical historian" or Scripture interpreter starts spouting off about some document at Qumran or other, and how it "proves undisputable" something or other about the accuracy of the Bible, the first thing you start looking for is the footnotes, and the citation, in the scholarly manner, of the manuscript and the museum and even which side of the page it's on.

(If there aren't any footnotes, or if the citation is to some *other* Christian apologist's book put out in Wheaton, IL, then it must be treated as suspect until independently verified. This is, alas, very common.)

And you can can then google onward and upward to learn what's known about the aqueduct - yes, there really was an aqueduct, not just in the Pythons' imagination - though when you're done reading about the Antipaters, the Chalabis of 2000 years ago, you end up suspecting that it was a massive boondoggle on a Halliburtonic scale, and nothing that benefited your average disgruntled Judean-in-the-street.

All of this about context also applies, btw, to trying to study Classical philosophy and drama and so on, it's always well to bear in mind - and of course Plato and Aristotle and their schools were part of the NT social background, it goes both ways.

(There is always the danger it will become an addiction, and you will end up knowing more than any human needs to about Greek businessmen and their families operating in Roman Britain and stand-up comics doing parody skits of classical mythology and ostraca and anti-Celtic propaganda and what kinds of fabric dyes were available in Augustan Syria and who ran the factories and how the bit about Peter's denial evokes standard Greek tragic tropes and...)

[bellatrys]

Mabus, from 1975 to about 1995 I *was* a conservative Christian. One of those suckered working class ones, as a matter of fact. I've devoted a great deal of energy to deconstructing the way we were suckered in, but the fact remains that people who ate dinner and stayed at our house or were on the phone with us subsequently helped set the policies by which the White House is running things these days, secular *and* religious.

I'm a handshake away from: Bill Buckley, Pat Buchanan, Viguerie, Weyrich, Hudson, Neuhaus, (Michael) Novak, Tom Monaghan, and people with power and influence behind the scenes you probably haven't even heard of (if you know what the Carrolls are responsible for, I'll be surprised, because *no one* else that I know does, but they're the main reason that Front Royal, VA, keeps popping up as a wingnut headquarters.)

Yes, there are sub-pods within the mega pods, just as there are with dolphins, cattle who may be oblivious and disconnected enough not to realize their place in the herd. But the herd is real, and so are the herdsmen, the false shepherds who belong to the Church of Tashlan.

And as far as knowing the history - well, maybe you do. But I've heard so many errors of basic, historical, *documentable* fact taught in religion classes, preached from pulpits, and printed in Bible "study guides," that I can't take that on faith any more from any Christian, without a secular certificate of academic achievement to go with it.

[syfr]

Thanks Bellatrys!

I like your blog...

[Rebecca Allen, PhD]

This is what bugs me the most about the "right-to-life" movement. I don't see them-or at least their leaders--adopting/fostering unwanted/special needs children, or taking terminally ill people into their homes and caring for them, or donating large sums of money to nursing homes or the child welfare system. In fact, these tend to be the same people who support the rabid tax-cutters, who deprive these systems of much-needed funds. In other words, they feel free to criticize, but don't want to actually do any of the work of addressing these problems. Which leads a cynic like myself to think that their movement is more about controlling women than about any so-called "right to life."

"We'll cure your drug problem and get you a job if you give yourself to Christ". The entire "Faith Based Initiative" is an attempt to get more followers and increase church power that's all.

I've never seen how curing an addiction can be done by simply exchanging a substance for another drug (religion). Biochemically, they act in very similar ways, giving users a "high" that becomes more and more life-consuming as time goes along. That would make churches the world's largest drug dealers...

[mj]

God forgive me, but I don't think I've ever heard from more self-righteous talk in my entire life. What ever happened to affirming good where we find it. Perhaps that would mean struggling together with those in the dreaded "mega-churches" to help them see the areas where they need to be challenged. Hmmm...maybe that would cut short the incredible amount of time we spend among the poor alleviating suffering. I am positive this is actually true of some of you, but I know that others (like myself) spends time criticizing megachurches because I don't have anything better to do. I actually know a guy who was in a megachurch (and still is) who was moved to sell his suburban home to move into an area in solidarity with the poor and destitute. Of course, since this doesn't fit the grid, we can just question whether his motives were pure.