L.B.: Hospitality vs. Sales

Left Behind, wrapping up Chapter 11

As an evangelist, the Rev. Bruce Barnes gets a few things right.

Evangelism is what Chapter 11 of Left Behind is all about. This is an awkward topic. In American culture, evangelism has become something dreaded and despised -- perhaps most of all by the very evangelical Christians who are constantly being told that if they were good Christians, they would be doing more of it.

How did this become the case? How did something that was supposed to be about "good news" become, instead, an awkward, embarrassing and odious duty?

This happened, I think, when what ought to be an act of hospitality was transformed into an act of salesmanship. Salesmanship, whatever else it may be, is ultimately inhospitable.

We could go back and look at the causes of this perverse commodification of the gospel -- tracing the way that 19th-century evangelists like Charles Finney began adopting the techniques of salesmen, and how these techniques were further refined over the years by students of marketing like Bill Bright. But we needn't go into great detail here about how this happened to acknowledge that it has happened.

"Evangelism" today is not seen as the practice of hospitality, but as a kind of marketing scheme. It is not an invitation, but a sales pitch. Not a matter of "taste and see," but of "buy now." Or, to use one of my favorite descriptions of the work of evangelism, it is not "one beggar telling another beggar where he found bread," but rather one fat man trying to convince another fat man that he's a beggar in order to close the sale on another loaf.

Contemporary American-style evangelism is made even stranger by the fact that it seems devoid of content. It's become a turtles-all-the-way-down exercise with no apparent real bottom. Evangelism means, literally, the telling of good news. Surely there must be more to this good news than simply that the hearers of it become obliged to turn around and tell it to others. And those others, in turn, are obliged to tell still others the good news of their obligation to spread this news.

That may be an effective marketing strategy, but what is the product? There doesn't seem to be a product -- only a self-perpetuating marketing scheme. It's like Amway without the soap.

Bruce Barnes -- and LaHaye and Jenkins -- is certainly right that evangelism is an imperative, a duty, for Christians. Jesus' final words to his disciples included his "Great Commission" -- "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel ..."

But in the soapless-Amway model of American-style evangelism, it seems like the Great Commission is the gospel. This makes no sense -- it is an ouroboros, a Moebius strip, a spiritualized version of the child's prank of writing on both sides of a dollar bill, "How do you keep an idiot busy all day? (See other side for answer)."

The product, Barnes and L&J would say -- the only product -- is "salvation" from, as Barnes puts it, "sin and hell and judgment." Thus the prominence of fire and brimstone in many an evangelistic sales pitch. It's interesting that this emphasis on fire and brimstone cannot be found in that Great Commission Jesus gave to his disciples: "Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you."

This business about "making disciples" seems a bit more complicated than what we usually think of as proselytization. It certainly sounds like it calls for more than a sales-pitch. (And what was that about "everything I have commanded you"? This from the "love your neighbor/love your enemy/turn the other cheek/don't worry about food/care for the least of these" guy? Barnes, like most American evangelists, somehow leaves all that out of his sales pitch.)

To get a sense of what I mean by evangelism as the practice of hospitality, visit your local church. Don't go upstairs, to the sanctuary, go downstairs to that room in the basement with the linoleum tile and the coffee urn. That's where the AA and NA meetings are held.

At its best, Alcoholics Anonymous embodies evangelism as hospitality. They offer an invitation, not a sales pitch. They offer testimony -- personal stories -- instead of a marketing scheme. They are, in fact and in practice, a bunch of beggars offering other beggars the good news of where they found bread.

At its worst, AA sometimes slips into the evangelism-as-sales model. You may have found yourself at some point having a beer when some newly sober 12-step disciple begins lecturing you that this is evidence that you have a problem. He will try to sell you the idea that you are a beggar so he can sell you some bread. The ensuing conversation is tense, awkward and pointless -- the precise qualities of the similar conversation you may have had with an evangelical Christian coworker who was reluctantly but dutifully inflicting on you a sales pitch for evangelical Christianity.

Back to Bruce Barnes. He does, as I said, get a few things right. When Rayford calls asking questions, Bruce invites him over. Come on by, come on in, door's always open. That's hospitality. And Barnes spends the better part of the chapter telling his own story -- his "testimony." Autobiography is neither an argument nor a sales pitch. It can be, instead, another kind of hospitality.

But then poor Bruce can't help himself. The sales pitch, he thinks, is all that really matters here, and he soon gets down to the hard sell, trying to move his productless product.

Barnes explicitly uses the language of sales, twice referring to the promise of salvation as a "transaction." And he lays the sales pressure on thick -- even threatening Chloe with the hypothetical bus.

Ultimately, this chapter is just one long infomercial. It ends the same way every infomercial does -- with the prospective buyers receiving a free video tape explaining how salvation through Christ and/or a Craftmatic adjustable bed will solve all their problems. Act now. Supplies are limited. Sales personnel are waiting to take your call.

Comments

[bulbul]

If our Western societies reject the Gospel it's their problem, there are other fields to harvest (Africa, Asia..)
Wow, what a smart approach. I bet St. Peter hadn't thought of that. He could have just went "Darn, those Roman folk sure don't seem like they want to buy my stuff. Why don't I try Messalina? From what I heard, those people down south are quite the gullible sort." In other words, thank you for proving Fred's point.

Bugmaster:Secondly, I don't think you appreciate what Hell is, according to modern mainstream Christian belief.
I can't speak for everyone here, but I am pretty sure I do. Plus, your description of hell is a bit off from what I know as 'modern mainstream Christian belief'. For example, the Catholic Church defines the chief punishment of hell as 'eternal separation from God' (CCC 1035).

What you are trying to say is that all the sales marketing and semi-brainwashing is done to save us the unworthy unbelievers from hell. I respectfully disagree. I have met my share of evangelicals and none of them cared for me or my soul. The only reason they tried to convert me was because they were told that is what good Christians are supposed to do.
Besides, I am a good Catholic boy: I got my First Communion, I have been confirmed, I go to church, I even receive the sacrament of Penance twice a year. Why do the evangelicals think I need what they're selling?

[Jon Hendry]

"In American culture, evangelism has become something dreaded and despised -- perhaps most of all by the very evangelical Christians who are constantly being told that if they were good Christians, they would be doing more of it."

Has become?

Have you ever read the late-19th century novel The Moonstone? It's on Project Gutenberg. One of the characters is a woman who is portrayed as an annoyingly persistent proselytizer and giver-of-tracts.

In one part, on hearing that an older woman friend is likely to die soon, she pays a visit carrying a large bag full of tracts and pamphlets, which she distributes throughout the house. (They are discreetly returned to her by the butler.)

[Robert]

"It's like Amway without the soap."

Brilliant. For most Evangelical pitches I've received there is no there there. Just veiled threats. "I personally don't loathe you, but God? God's gonna get you if you don't ORDER NOW!"

I have known a few (very few) what I call "true Christians" however and I was impressed. "What do I have for you? Nothing. I'm not selling anything. I have a relationship with Jesus. Sometimes it's hard, other times it gives me strength. Anything in particular you want to know?"

[Manalive]

On the topic of whether or not it is logically necessary for an evangelical who believes in hell to brainwash or coerce believers into the kingdom of Heaven: One should also take into account how many people one _turns_ away from the Gospel by one's brainwashing & coercion. I often wonder about this when certain Christians (Those Who Shall Not be Named) trumpet the number of conversions due to their books.

[robert p]

Me> If our Western societies reject the Gospel it's their problem
bulbul> Wow, what a smart approach. I bet St. Peter hadn't thought of that.

Jesus did say that (paraphrase): "if a town does not receive you, shake the dust off your feet". OK, I am my brother's keeper, but not responsible for his personal choice to accept/reject the Message.

To all you "anti-evangelists" out there, where is the biblical justification for NOT sharing the Gospel!?

[Ray]

If there isn't a Bible verse that says "Don't be an annoying pain in the ass", there should be.

[Erick Oppeen]

Personally, I would be far more impressed with someone who quietly _lived_ the beliefs than with someone who wouldn't STFU about his or her beliefs.

Part of evangelism's bad rep these days comes from the sort who insist on injecting their chosen subject (whether it's the Big Pink Pixie In The Sky or vegetarianism...do NOT get me started on militantly evangelical vegetarians; they _annoy_ me) into every discussion, and ignoring clear non-verbal signals that this subject is not welcome.

[cjmr]

Closest I can find to 'don't be a pain in the ass', Ray, is addressed to parents:

Fathers, do not provoke your children, so they may not become discouraged. Colossians 3:21 (similar verse at Ephesians 6:4)

But it could be generalized, I suppose...

[twig]

"To all you "anti-evangelists" out there, where is the biblical justification for NOT sharing the Gospel!?"

I would say it's that line about praying quietly inside your house where nobody can see you, and that's the appropriate way to pray.

Somebody who has actual biblical knowledge can give you the exact line and book without blinking, I'm sure.

[cjmr's husband]

Matthew 6:6, probably THE most important verse in this day and age. Paraphrasing: "Jesus said: Go to your room and BE QUIET!"

That would make a cool bumper sticker.

[bulbul]

Twig: Somebody who has actual biblical knowledge can give you the exact line and book without blinking, I'm sure.
You probably mean Matthew 6:6 "But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy
Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." I am not sure, however, that this passage applies here.

robert p: To all you "anti-evangelists" out there, where is the biblical justification for NOT sharing the Gospel!?
I hate to point out the obvious, but noone here is saying we should stop sharing the Gospel. Some of us, however, do have a problem with the way you evangelicals do it. For starters, try rereading what Fred has to say on the subject. And if you feel like it, you could also try to answer my question - why does every evangelical I have ever met want to convert me although they know I am a Catholic?

[wintermute]

bulbul: Because Catholics are not Real Christians™, of course. You worship the Pope instead of God, and even cookies. Must be true, Jack Chick said so.

[aunursa]

do NOT get me started on militantly evangelical vegetarians; they _annoy_ me

FYI: March 15 is the fourth annual International Eat a Tasty Animal for PETA (EATAPETA) day.

[robert p]

Twig, bulbul:
Unlike the mighty US of A, here in the "Soviet socialist republic of New Zealand" practically nobody knows the Gospel story. We don't have the problem of millions of annoying evangelicals running around preaching at everybody. But we DO get all the un-Christian TV from the States, with its moronic caricatures of Christ and the Church. So from my perspective we need more preaching.

(we do have millions of annoying hobbits^H^H^H^H rabbits running around! ;)

[bulbul]

robert p.: "Soviet socialist republic of New Zealand"
I am sorry, I do not get the reference and/or joke. I have been under the impression that New Zealand is a bastion of neo-liberal (free-trade) economic policies.

As for your argument, you are - again - missing the point. No one here, least of all me, will disagree with you as to the amount of the preaching needed. The more the better, I say. We will, however, disagree with some ways of preaching as performed by some Christian groups and/or denominations.

Two minor points: the CIA Factbook tells me that over 53% of New Zealand's population is Christian. Somehow this does not go together with your claim that in New Zealand "practically nobody knows the Gospel story" and I hope you will forgive me if I place more trust in the Firm than in you.
More so, since as a citizen of the Godless Commie-Infested Soon-To-Be-Left-Behind European Union I have been hearing stuff like that for years and I have yet to see the total obliteration of Christianity in Europe.

[Kim]

You will be gratified to learn that around here (Northern California) it isn't a hypothetical bus, it's a hypothetical beer truck!

[robert p]

bulbul:
the CIA Factbook tells me that over 53% of New Zealand's population is Christian
If I may be so bold as to correct the infallible CIA; that number includes nominal Christians. The 2001 Census also found 53715 adherents to the Jedi religion (1.5% of NZ)! The Census just counts whatever box people tick. Only 12 to 15% of my compatriots regularly attend church. (Don't force me to do research on that!)

New Zealand is a bastion of neo-liberal (free-trade) economic policies.
Indeed, we now have a huge income gap and growing underclass. Hurrah for capitalism! My sarcastic Socialist comment refers to our current 'progressive' Labour administration which continues to marginalise Christian morality and expand the arm of the State.

We will, however, disagree with some ways of preaching as performed by some Christian groups and/or denominations.
Condeded: actually I don't disagree with the main point -- perhaps I was missing it to some extent. Obnoxious/manipulative evangelism does indeed suck.

[Ray]

Apparently the figures for regular church attendance in the US are similarly low http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/csrpl/RIN%20Vol.1No.2/Church_lies_polling.htm I think there was a thread on Crooked Timber recently that talked about Bush's non-attendance at church, and some argued that many evangelicals don't attend church regularly. And now that I think of it, Fred posted a while back about how lots of churches were closed on Christmas day last year, because it was a Sunday!

[Scott]

If anyone needs another LB fix:

The Apocalypse Will Be Televised
Armageddon in an age of entertainment

... “How fading and insipid,” Swift wrote, “do all Objects accost us that are not convey’d in the Vehicle of Delusion?” And indeed, such preposterous views haven’t prevented LaHaye from advancing in the world. As an ecclesiastical go-getter, he has few peers. A co-founder, along with the Rev. Jerry Falwell, of the Moral Majority, LaHaye now heads something called the Tim LaHaye School of Prophecy, at Liberty University in Virginia. Another of LaHaye’s visionary projects is the secretive Council on National Policy, which functions as a sort of theological popular front of evangelical preachers and politicians on the far right. And his alliance with Jerry B. Jenkins (writer of the Gil Thorp comic strip, former editor of the Moody Bible Institute magazine, and author of more than one hundred quickie books, including celebrity “autobiographies” of Billy Graham and Orel Hershiser) has turned LaHaye into a best-selling novelist.

As the careers of such disparate authors as Ayn Rand and D. H. Lawrence demonstrate, eccentric ideas are no impediment to writing novels. Almost any worldview compatible with sanity, in the medical sense, can serve as the scaffolding of readable fiction. Orwell wrote about what he called “good bad books,” arguing that “intellectual refinement can be a disadvantage to a story-teller, as it would be to a music-hall comedian”; what is necessary are strong convictions, an interest in individual human beings, and a powerful instinct for narrative. We’re all capable of suspending disbelief for the sake of a good story. So how seriously should we take the dust-jacket blurbs from reviewers who compare the Left Behind series to the work of pop-fiction luminaries like Tom Clancy and John Grisham? Or, to put it another way, can anybody not infatuated with LaHaye and Jenkins’s theological views read the novels for pleasure?

The answer, I fear, is no. On a purely mimetic level, the novels scarcely exist as realistic or even as allegorical fiction. These are novels for people who don’t read novels. Far too much of it is sheer didacticism: the characters don’t converse so much as they preach....

...By no means are all, or even most, evangelical Christians comfortable seeing their faith turned into fortune-telling. Rossing quotes an array of contemporary theologians who reject what one disapprovingly describes as “this perverse parody of John 3:16: ‘God so loved the world that he sent it World War III.’” As noisy zeal overwhelms more reasonable voices, however, the Left Behind hubbub strikes me as symptomatic of the degraded state into which American Puritanism has fallen. In Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, the runaway religious bestseller of the seventeenth century, Christian’s allegorical journey to the Celestial City involved an essentially inward quest. His encounters with the Giant Despair and Mr. Worldly-Wiseman forced him continually to search and re-search his mind and spirit for evidence of Satan’s wiles. LaHaye and Jenkins convert what was once the spiritual and psychological drama of salvation into escapist melodrama, Puritan self-examination into messianic narcissism. Satan is the Other, basically anything you fear and don’t understand. The books are pagan tribalism writ large, complete with soothsayers and magic spells. All of history has conspired to turn suburban Americans into apocalyptic superheroes. The end is near, and dude—you’re, like, the star!

[Skyknight]

More fun tidbits from that article...

"In his 2002 book 'The Rapture', LaHaye indignantly defended himself against a John Birch Society critic who accused him of being in cahoots with the Illuminati. To the contrary—LaHaye pronounces himself an avowed enemy of what he calls the “satanically-inspired, centuries-old conspiracy to use government, education, and media to destroy every vestige of Christianity within our society and establish a new world order.”"

(Ah, good. I was trying to remember which book LaHaye proved himself to be a believer in the Illuminati's existence. It certainly explains the Utukki Seven in the Babylon Rising series.)

"Anybody who really wanted to set the proverbial cat among the Tribulation Force’s symbolic canaries would have directed the faithful to Matthew 24:36, in which Christ warned his disciples on the Mount of Olives not to distract themselves searching for signs of the Second Coming because “no one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” Indeed, the entirety of Matthew 24-25, dubbed the “Olivet Discourse” and deemed by LaHaye “the prophetic clothesline on which every other Bible prophecy ought to be hung,” appears to warn against precisely the sort of spiritual hucksterism practiced by End Times entrepreneurs. Jesus repeatedly cautioned against false prophets and narrated four parables, among them the tale of the foolish virgins who missed a wedding banquet after allowing their oil lamps to burn out before the bridegroom returned to summon them. “Therefore keep watch,” Christ warned, “because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.” Lest the message be misunderstood, it’s also repeated in Acts 1:7. Asked by his disciples when he would restore the kingdom to Israel, Jesus responded: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.”"

(Read: Worry more about ideals than destiny. However, considering that the dispensationalists have a Bernard-of-Clairvaux-like case of despair about ideals [Bernard said that humanity's depravity was such that Jesus's preachings could not affect anything appreciably; the blood atonement was the only thing that had, ever could have, and ever would have any positive effect on humanity], maybe they think destiny is the only thing LEFT that's worth considering in detail)

"Psychologically speaking, the series makes the average Harlequin romance look like Madame Bovary. Consistent with fundamentalist preoccupations, the only sins are sexual, and no sooner does Rayford Steele understand that his wife and sons have been raptured off to heaven than he’s cured of Hattie Durham fever at once and forever".

(And...wastefulness? Avarice? Apathy? Wrath? Envy? Pride? How did THOSE cardinal vices get subordinated to lust? Especially since the Satan's main sins are supposed to be envy, avarice [read: greed], and pride?)

A quote from "The Glorious Appearing" in there that may shed some light on LaHaye's understanding of God...

"As those around them turned to run, they too were slain, their blood pooling and rising in the unforgiving brightness of the glory of Christ."

So the glory is what isn't forgiving, hm? It's still a bit nebulous to me, but I'm sure that that particular phrase is pregnant with what LaHaye understands (or Jenkins; depends on who came up with the wording first).

"After which Jesus adds, “For all your lies about having evolved, you are a created being.”

Evolved? It all comes down to that? God is going to straighten Satan out about evolution versus creationism on Judgment Day?"

(Truth be told, I think it's more than that. LaHaye probably sees evolution's givens of flux as challenging the idea that God did everything perfectly on the first try. From there, LaHaye may think that God intended for all things to be eternally static from when he created them...)

[Bugmaster]

To everyone whom I'm too lazy to quote:

I understand your sentiment that Christianity "should not" be about brainwashing, or selling Jesus (he's hot hot hot !), or pushing your beliefs on people, etc. If more people thought like you, we'd live in a much better world.

What I tried to point out was that evangelicals are not necessarily evil, or selfish (though some of them are); they're not just tricking people into joining their club for membership fees (though some of them are). Instead, I've tried to show that it's fairly easy for a good, compassionate, rational person, to start out with a set of commonly accepted beliefs ("Hell is bad", "unbelievers go to Hell", "love your neighbour"), and arrive at the state where he has no choice but to sell his brand of Jesus by whatever means necessary -- if he ever wants to be able to look himself in the mirror again. I don't doubt that many of these annoying Evangelicals that Fred talks about are scammers, and many others are no better than bots, but I think that many others are honestly trying to save wayward souls from their vision of Hell, because, to them, nothing is more important than that.

You can argue that Real Christianity (tm) is not like that, or that brainwashed conversions are not True Conversions, or whatever, but the Bible is a big, confusing book; you can use it to justify pretty much any belief you want. Faith alone is not a good differentiator, because everyone has their own version of faith, and there's no way to tell which one is objectively true.

[cjmr]

And now that I think of it, Fred posted a while back about how lots of churches were closed on Christmas day last year, because it was a Sunday!

Actually, it was more like, the churches were closed that Sunday because it was Christmas. (Had Christmas been any other day, they would still have been closed.)

[Ray]

Ah, okay. Sounds weird either way...

[bulbul]

robert p.:
َQuote 1: here in the "Soviet socialist republic of New Zealand" practically nobody knows the Gospel story
Quote 2: Only 12 to 15% of my compatriots regularly attend church.
Do you get my point?

Bugmaster: actually, "Real Christianity (tm)" is a term used by the evangelicals. I would never use that term.
but the Bible is a big, confusing book; you can use it to justify pretty much any belief you want
No you can't. As Umberto Eco points out, there is a difference between interpreting a text and using it, the latter also referred to as demagoguery. Many Christians use the Bible to prove their point instead of actually trying to find out what it says (i.e. intepreting or reading it), the best example may be the old sola fide controversy. But you can't use just any text to justify anything, especially not the Bible. Try to find a Bible passage prescribing Christians to sacrifice new born babies or a passage which would justify the belief in reincarnation. Or does that fall under the "pretty much" weasel phrase?

[Kim]

robert p: you said, "My sarcastic Socialist comment refers to our current 'progressive' Labour administration which continues to marginalise Christian morality and expand the arm of the State. "

What, specifically, do you mean by "continues to marginalise Christian morality"? What morals are they doing what to?

[bulbul]

continues to marginalise Christian morality
I can't speak for New Zealand's politicians, but every time I hear something like that from our Church leaders and Christian Dems, it usually refers to things like failing to stop that gay-rights activist from appearing on the evening news or doing nothing about the reality shows.

[Kim]

That's why I asked. Maybe he has some other meaning???

[Bugmaster]

Try to find a Bible passage prescribing Christians to sacrifice new born babies...

I don't know about "newborn", but Abraham is praised specifically for being fanatical enough to sacrifice his own son. Later on, Israelites kill babies (and women and children and donkeys) routinely at God's command. God himself kills a bunch of Egyptian firstborn (presumably babies, as well). In Levitivus, God commands that disobedient children should be put to death, but I guess that's technically not a sacrifice.

...or a passage which would justify the belief in reincarnation.

What else is the Resurrection, but a special form of reincarnation ? In fact, as you surely know by now, some Christians believe that the True Christians (tm) will be reincarnated physically in Heaven.

I don't have time to search the Bible right now; the above pieces are off the top of my head. I'm sure I could find even more baby-killing, reincarnating stories if I looked hard enough.

The problem with "interpreting" the Bible is that there's no way to judge whose interpretation is correct, without downgrading the Bible to a secondary status -- secondary to our modern moral code ("killing children is wrong, so all these passages in Leviticus no longer apply"), or secondary to our scientific knowledge ("we know about bacteria, so that mustard seed thing must have been a metaphor"), etc. That's problematic, because the authority of the Bible, and of faith, is degraded as the result, since we can rely on our own moral/scientific/whatever faculties instead of obeying what may or may not be God's word.

So, if we do assume that the Bible is a self-contained, authoritative text, then your interpretation of it pretty much depends on which faith you subscribe to. Was there a literal Flood ? Is gay sex ok ? Should you brainwash unbelievers in order to save their lost souls ? The answers all depend on your faith. The Evangelical faith leads to a "yes" answer to the last question, without any malice involved along the way.

[Bab5nutz]

"Try to find a Bible passage prescribing Christians to sacrifice new born babies..."

"I don't know about "newborn"

I can't remember where exactly in the Bible, this appears, but there is the tale of Jephte, Judge of Israel. When out fighting his enemies, he promises God that if the Israelites win, he will sacrifice the first living creature to greet him when he returns home.
Unfortunately, the first creature to greet him is his daughter, and only child.
The daughter begs for an extension from daddy so that she can go and mourn for her lost life for a few weeks. Then like an obedient daughter, she comes home, and Jpehte sacrifices his daughter.

[bulbul]

What else is the Resurrection, but a special form of reincarnation ?
Dunno, maybe something completely different?

In fact, as you surely know by now, some Christians believe that the True Christians (tm) will be reincarnated physically in Heaven.
Could you be perhaps confusing resurrection of the dead (see the Nicene creed) and the Rapture? These are, you know, two totally different things.

The problem with "interpreting" the Bible is that there's no way to judge whose interpretation is correct
This is post-modern BS, i.e. not true. Semiotics, anyone? Biblical hermeneutics, anyone?

The answers all depend on your faith.
No they don't. They depend on your interpretation, which, in turn, depends on your knowledge of the Bible and other relevant stuff (history, other languages and literatures like Phoenician and Ugaritic etc.).

killing children is wrong, so all these passages in Leviticus no longer apply
These and other passages in Leviticus of West Wing fame do not apply because (to put it briefly) the New Testament says so.

[Fhydra]

*Starts humming Steve Taylor's "I Manipulate."*

Sometimes the comments here are better than Fred's posts of Left Behind.

[Kim]

bulbul said, "The problem with "interpreting" the Bible is that there's no way to judge whose interpretation is correct
This is post-modern BS, i.e. not true. Semiotics, anyone? Biblical hermeneutics, anyone?"

Bulbul -- there is no way to tell from that which interpretation you are advocating as the only and obvious one right way. Not such post-modern BS.

I read recently that the whole concept of taking the Bible literally is a concept that only occurred to people after the Enlightenment and because of scientific thinking. (Karen Armstrong; The Battle for God)

[cjmr's husband]

Not so much. Many of the excuses for Galileo's trial were because of biblical literalism; it just wasn't called that at the time.

[bulbul]

Fhydra: sometimes the comments here are better than Fred's posts of Left Behind.
*gasps* Blasphemy!!! :-)
But you're kinda right, the members of the Slacktivist comments club are for the most part a bunch of incredibly smart people (present company, naturally, included).
That's the other reason I love to come here.

Kim: there is no way to tell from that which interpretation you are advocating as the only and obvious one right way
True, but that's because I am not advocating any particular interpretation - well maybe except for the idea that works do play a role in salvation. For the most part, I was objecting to Bugmaster's deconstructivism.

cjmr's husband: Many of the excuses for Galileo's trial were because of biblical literalism
Yes, that too. I vaguely remember a lengthy discussion on a particular bible verse describing a sun rising (or setting) and the Inquisition arguing that the heliocentric system would thus be in direct contradiction with that passage.

[Cactus Wren]

Try the 31st chapter of Numbers. The war on Midian is over, all the Midianite soldiers are dead. Moses -- presumably speaking for God -- commands his own soldiery to return to the city and kill off all the male civilians, down to infants in arms, and every woman or girl who's not a virgin. The virgin girls the soldiers are allowed to keep "for themselves".

Later in the chapter, the number of girl-child slaves thus acquired is given as thirty-two thousand. Of this number, thirty-two are sacrificed to God, along with 675 sheep, 72 beef cattle, and 61 donkeys.

Try to find a Bible passage prescribing Christians to sacrifice new born babies

Okay:

"And the congregation sent 12,000 of the valiant warriors there, and commanded them, saying, "Go and (F)strike the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead with the edge of the sword, with the women and the little ones. "This is the thing that you shall do: you (G)shall utterly destroy every man and every woman who has lain with a man. And they found among the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead 400 young virgins who had not known a man by lying with him; and they brought them to the camp at Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan."

--Judges 21:10-12

There's your divinely-sanctioned infanticide AND your divinely-sanctioned rape/sex slavery too.

Remember evangelism is also pretty direct spiritual warfare, so it's bound to be subjected to fairly intense criticism and opposition from the strongholds of this world.

Ah, nothing like a little sign-of-contradictionism to wipe away doubts and criticism, is there Robert? If anything demonstrates religion's unseverable link to other absolutisms, it's got to be the entire body of thought surrounding signs of contradiction: The belief that, as Orwell once said, "Surely our enemies can't be both intelligent AND sincere!"

Plus it always seemed like a pretty good moral sop too: A Christian is, say, sexually torturing Iraqi prisoners, and the better angels of his nature whisper in his ear, "This is wrong!" the man can simply deactivate that voice by think, "Wow this does feel really wrong . . . But you know, I bet the fact that lots of sexular people oppose it means that it must secretly be something GOOD!"

And he goes right back to torturing.

[J]

That was me by the way.

And in a slip I'm sure the loyal opposition will call Freudian, I meant to say "secular people" not "sexular people".

[bulbul]

There's your divinely-sanctioned infanticide AND your divinely-sanctioned rape/sex slavery too.
Judges, good example. So is Numbers. But I was not asking for examples of infanticide and various divinely-sanctioned perversions. Try reading what I wrote again.

There's your divinely-sanctioned infanticide AND your divinely-sanctioned rape/sex slavery too.
Judges, good example. So is Numbers. But I was not asking for examples of infanticide and various divinely-sanctioned perversions. Try reading what I wrote again.

But the fact that you CAN justify it, when those things are clearly wrong, means something. Different people will think it means different things. I think it means that the morality of the bible is obsolete. and God is expecting us to be smart enough to see that and to grow.

[bulbul]

??: But the fact that you CAN justify it
No you cannot. If you try to, just as some of you have, you are misinterpreting the Bible. Judges and Numbers are historical books, not books of Law. Not everything that's in the Bible is a commandment.

[Scott]

Old Testament genocide rundown

[J]

If you try to, just as some of you have, you are misinterpreting the Bible. Judges and Numbers are historical books, not books of Law. Not everything that's in the Bible is a commandment.

I fail to see any useful distinction beyond the semantic. The Acts and Gospels are not books of law, and people take their examples to be morally binding. Heck, Christians, who supposedly reject the entire concept of codified divine "law" have nevertheless ALWAYS stood ready to invoke concepts of "God's will" that are functionally identical to "holy law". For centuries, the morality of slavery was defended on the basis of the passage from Genesis in which Noah curses Ham and all of his descendants to be the slaves of his brothers. Genesis is definitely a book of "history."

It seems to me that men will do what men can do--and then use any available scraps of paper or shards of clay tablets to morally cover their actions. Is it not colossally beside the point to argue that they aren't using those things quite the way they're intended?

[cjmr]

Got another good "don't be a pain in the ass" verse today (in RCIA class of all places)--Galatians 5:26.

Let us not be conceited, provoking one another, envious of one another.

[Bugmaster]

This is post-modern BS, i.e. not true. Semiotics, anyone? Biblical hermeneutics, anyone?

Yikes ! Apparently, I'm a postmodern deconstructionist now ! Get it off me, get it off !

They depend on your interpretation, which, in turn, depends on your knowledge of the Bible and other relevant stuff (history, other languages and literatures like Phoenician and Ugaritic etc.).

The problem here is that the "other relevant stuff" becomes superior to the Bible. Your interpretation of the Bible now depends on the "other relevant stuff", such as radiometric dating (which means that the passages about the Earth being created in six days must have been metaphorical), or modern morality and the Golden Rule (which means that child abuse is wrong, along with slavery), or plain old physical evidence (we've been to outer space, therefore that "firmament" stuff must be a fable).

Well, if you base your interpretation of the Bible on external sources, then what authority does it really have ? In other words, when you say, "God wouldn't order the slaugther of women and children, because God is good", what you're really saying is, "I know right from wrong on my own, and if God is really good, he wouldn't do things that are wrong". Similarly, when you say, "We've been to Earth orbit, and there's no crystalline dome enclosing it, so that stuff about the Firmament must have been metaphorical", what you're really saying is, "I know what's real and what's not on my own". This kind of approach downgrades the Bible to nothing more than a book of fables. As an atheist, I see nothing wrong with this, but that's me.

However, if you make the Bible your primary authority, and base your interpretation of external sources on it, then you get fundamentalism in general, and Young Earth Creationism, gay-bashing, and witch trials specifically, which I think most of us agree are a bad things. Additionally, the Bible contains numerous contradictions, which means that you cannot interpret it literally while remaining intellectually honest.

One way you can dodge out of this dillemma is to interpret the Bible based on some sort of a metasyntactic analysis of the Bible itself. This combines the worst features of the first approach (because your metasyntactic analysis method is now superior to the actual text of the Bible) with the worst features of the second one (because you still have to tailor your method to explain away all of these contradictions and witch-burnings).

Another way to get out of the problem is to use faith; i.e., your faith will tell you which passages are literal, which are metaphorical, and which are just plain wrong. However, in this case you cannot condemn someone else for interpreting the passages in a way that you find repugnant -- because one person's faith is pretty much as good as another's; there's no way to objectively judge which one is true, and there's no good way to convince someone that your faith is true at all... other than sales pitches and brainwashing.

[J]

However, if you make the Bible your primary authority, and base your interpretation of external sources on it, then you get fundamentalism in general, and Young Earth Creationism, gay-bashing, and witch trials specifically, which I think most of us agree are a bad things . . .One way you can dodge out of this dillemma is to interpret the Bible based on some sort of a metasyntactic analysis of the Bible itself.

I agree. And this latter part is what constitutes the basis of the theology put forward by the Bishop Spong/Karen Armstrong/ Joseph Campbell/Elaine Pagels contingent, (Armstrong especially) in which otherwise thoughtful and liberal people pretend that the Bible/Koran/other holy texts were never really taken literally until recently and that therefore there should be no real contradiction between science and faith. They also hold that fundamentalism is a short-lived perversion of faith rather than a force that has always been present--of not completely dominant--in virtually all religious traditions.

This revisionism found its purest expression in the months just after the September 11th terrorist attacks in which we were told repeatedly that "'Islam' means 'peace'" and that "jihad" did not really mean "war".

[robert p]

bulbul:
quote 1, quote 2
Ouch! OK, OK, I give up! NZ ain't too bad. Silly assertion retracted.
continues to marginalise Christian morality
Where to begin? Well, how about
- civil unions legislation (paving the way for gay marriage)
- legalised prostitution (resulting in some sad statistics of young schoolgirls getting involved)
- abortion laws stretched far beyond their original intention, so that it's a form of contraception for some
- embarrassingly high youth suicide stats, the govt refuses to release figures
- proposal to lower the age of sexual consent to 14 (it's already pretty low at 16)
- lowering of the legal drinking age to 16
- legislation in progress to outlaw spanking (and all forms of parental physical discipline for that matter)
- proposal to introduce hate speech legislation
- Prime Ministerial rudeness to the Queen because "NZ is a secular society now"
- PM calls Mohammed cartoons "gratuitous" but has nothing to say about Southpark episode desecrating the Virgin Mary
- Ministers refusing to take responsibility for numerous scandals, the worst of which is probably the guy who, as a teacher, used to enjoy humiliating young girls, entering their changing rooms while they were showering or changing

you can shoot me down for that one if you like

cheers,

[bulbul]

J: "'Islam' means 'peace'" and that "jihad" did not really mean "war"
So per you, islam actually means war and jihad actually means war .. er .. too?

[bulbul]

robert p.:
thank you for explaining. I do not intend to shoot you down, I would only like to ask you to explain the following: what do the low age of consent, student suicides, low legal drinking age, outlawing spanking, hate speech legislation, the fact that your PM is a rude b**ch insensitive to South Park and the pervert cum teacher have to do with Christian morality?

[robert p]

ps: By Ministers I mean Government ministers, not Clergy
(the papers havent found any dirt on Christian ministers at the moment)

[bulbul]

Bugmaster: However, if you make the Bible your primary authority, and base your interpretation of external sources on it, then you get fundamentalism in general, and Young Earth Creationism, gay-bashing, and witch trials

Er... No. Young Earth, gay-bashing and with trials are based on biblical literalism. Fundamentalism (I know I am overgeneralizing, please don't kill me) basically says "all I need to understand/interpret the Bible is the Bible itself." Those people bet their eternal life on a mediocre translation. They don't care about the other stuff.

If I use the external sources to aid me in understanding the biblical text (which is light years aways from "base my interpretation on them"), I will find out that the word Hebrew word for "witch" in "you shall not suffer a witch to be alive" actually does not mean "witch", but it is a cognate of Phoenician/Ugaritic word - which I can't remember now - which means "someone who poisons wells" (I will provide a citation as soon as I find it). If I use some other basic tools of reasoning, I will arrive at the conclusion that there is something wrong with the fundamentalist hate of gays based on the Old Testament, since they accept the commandment concerning homosexuals, but refuse to stick to other commandments found in the same book, such as usury or shellfish.