After the Reason Rally, American Atheists held its annual convention in DC. I did not attend, though I wish I had — mostly because I had so little time to talk to so many people I saw at the rally and going to the conference would have given me a chance to spend more time with them. And because I would like to have seen this:
A local minister stepped down from her post just before announcing she is an atheist.
A member of Lake Jackson United Methodist in Tallahassee says Teresa MacBain left the church Friday, March 30.
A day later, a video was posted online from a recent American Atheist Conference.
In it, MacBain came out as an atheist to the crowd.
This is becoming more and more common. Dan Barker, an ex-preacher himself, has started the Clergy Project, an online forum for ministers still in the pulpit who have lost their faith and become atheists.
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slc1
April 5, 2012 at 1:41 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
This is becoming more and more common. Dan Barker, an ex-preacher himself, has started the Clergy Project, an online forum for ministers still in the pulpit who have lost their faith and become atheists.
I wonder if Heath would consider such individuals Christians?
d cwilson
April 5, 2012 at 2:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
To me, clergy are the most likely to become atheists of any group since they actually spend a lot of time studying the Bible. You can’t spend years reading that book before it becomes obvious that it’s all horrendous bullsh!t written by desert nomad who had ass-backwards morality by modern standards.
The Lorax
April 5, 2012 at 2:12 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
No! Don’t step down from the pulpit, stay up there! Listen, you’ve got hoards of people who actively seek your wisdom vis a vie an ancient book in order to learn how to live their lives and be good people. That’s power you can’t buy, my friend. You didn’t give it up when your outlook was based on nonsense, why would you give it up now that you turn toward reason? Stay there, and encourage others to grow! To follow your example! Tell them that they don’t need you or an ancient book to be good!
Abby Normal
April 5, 2012 at 2:20 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I don’t think of it so much as losing faith, but rather gaining wisdom.
sumdum
April 5, 2012 at 4:08 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Very brave. I hope she’s got a plan for her future, like a new job and stuff. Gotta be hard to build a new life after you step away from something like that.
Markita Lynda—it's Spring after the Winter that wasn't
April 5, 2012 at 4:20 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
That’s a woman of principle. Usually all we hear from ministers, almost all of them male, about they can’t afford to admit the truth because it would cost them their cushy job.
Eamon Knight
April 5, 2012 at 4:43 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’ll have to watch the video later, but I was there. It was a moving moment. “Pastor M” (real name: Mike Aus IIRC) was on the programme, and I think his coming out was planned, but MacBain seemed to be a spontaneous decision. There was a whole panel of ex-ministers; these have to be some of the gutsiest people I’ve ever seen.
PocketWocket
April 5, 2012 at 5:45 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’m pretty sure Elisabeth Cornwell either conceptualized or started the Clergy Project, didn’t she? I’m not positive.
grumpyoldfart
April 5, 2012 at 5:58 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Crazy, fundamentalist, right-wing, hater…
I wonder how many peoples’ lives she has ruined with her nonsense. I wonder if she intends to apologise to those she converted to her dopey sect. I wonder how much cash she skimmed off the collection plate over the years. I wonder how many people followed her faith healing advice and suffered complications as a result.
kevincolquitt
April 5, 2012 at 5:59 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It would have been fantastic to see you there Ed. I was and when Teresa came out as an atheist (she stood there in front of hundreds of people and said, “I am an atheist”) it sent chills down my spine and I got a bit teary eyed. I know I wasn’t the only man in the audience who did so, because she immediately began to speak about just that as some gentleman in the audience, obviously in her purview, was also emotional about her announcement. It really was incredible!
I think there were a half dozen ex-ministers turned atheist who were in attendance at the American Atheist Convention that were part of a panel of speakers-also quite incredible and entertaining to hear about their experiences.
Michael Heath
April 5, 2012 at 6:29 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
slc1:
When it comes to being a Christian in terms of their religious beliefs the answer is obviously no. Slc1, what should we call people who:
1) call themselves Christians specifically when it comes to their faith, beliefs, and theology
2) believe in the same theistic god that Jesus supposedly prayed to (according to the Bible)
3) belong to a Christian denomination like the Congregationalists, Quakers, liberal Mennonites, or even some of the mainline denominations – though the latter with some contra views, e.g., John Shelby Spong relative to Episcopalian doctrine
4) worship God within these denominations as members
5) perceive Jesus as a special envoy specifically sent by God who is their primary channel to worshipping God, praying to God, understanding God as best as he can be understood, where
6) Jesus was divinely led and inspired by God to lead people to God.
Since you disagree we should call these people Christians, as does Ed, what should we instead call them? I don’t think there’s a defensible argument except for Christian. Unless one wants to start making a denomination-centric argument which is idiotic given the context within which this subject is posed here, i.e., considering all of Christianity given that no one has the authority to determine whose beliefs are ‘true Christianity’.
I’m looking forward to Ed defending his claim that millions of devout Christians aren’t really Christians within the context of their theology, faith and beliefs; without bias towards particular Christian denominations. I don’t think he can defend it.
Tony
April 5, 2012 at 6:55 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Abby Normal @4:
-acquiring wisdom doesn’t always make someone lose their belief in god though. Losing her faith (i.e. truly losing the whole “believing in things for which there’s no shred of evidence”) can open her world up to true wisdom.
_______________________________________________________
Michael Heath:
-being ‘Christian’ is every bit as vague as ‘god is love’. It encompasses everything from
‘I think the bible is the inerrant holy word of god’
to
‘I don’t go to church, but I’m a good person and I believe in god’
to
‘god hates fags so he’s killing American soldiers’.
Until there’s a consensus on what it means to be ‘Christian’, the word is so expansive as to be meaningless.
TCC
April 5, 2012 at 6:57 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
A woman has made a positive change in her life and made an open admission of unbelief despite immense pressure to stay closeted (and the loss of her livelihood and possibly social support), and you not only make her out to be a horrible person but accuse her (absolutely without evidence, on the basis of incredibly ugly stereotypes) of embezzlement and advocating the rejection of medical care? Seriously? Real asshole move there.
heddle
April 5, 2012 at 7:35 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
This is, of course, good news all around. Good news for her that she doesn’t have to live a lie. Good news for the church that an unbeliever is out of the pews (or in this case the pulpit.)
As I have said many times, the new atheism–in removing the stigma of being an atheist–is perhaps the best possible thing that could ever happen to the church in the US. Having people in the pews who are there because of peer or familial pressure, or because they believe they are “supposed” to be Christians, has been a disaster and has rendered the US Christian church as particularly weak.
I look forward to the day when US Christianity is like European Christianity. There may not be many of them, but the ones I meet are, almost universally, rock solid.
harold
April 5, 2012 at 8:24 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
grumpyoldfart said –
Okay, some of this is unfair over-generalization, but let’s say that we agree that it was a negative thing for her to be a right wing fundamentalist. We do agree about that. I sympathize with not liking the behavior or right wing fundamentalists.
If you’ve got a time machine, she can go back and change the past.
Otherwise, all she can do is change now.
This really is just another example of a purity test designed to reduce the number of people who support humane, progressive policies, by attempting to hijack something positive as being the “property” of some narrow group of people.
Look, if you Star Trek fan club or skateboarding crew is gloriously exclusive toward those who also like those things but aren’t “true” aficianados in your view, more power to you.
When it comes to people accepting scientific reality and supporting basic human decency though, I’d like to encourage that, even for people who wear loud golf pants, or work at square jobs, have the wrong favorite Star Trek products, etc.
One less fundamentalist, one more member of the reality based community. Works for me.
Michael Heath
April 5, 2012 at 8:27 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Tony writes:
I disagree unless one takes the position it’s impossible to define who is a member of any ideology, e.g., conservatives, liberals, secularists, nihilists, communists, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, etc.
We’re actually observing this with the current slate of Republican aspirants for president where all of them lack some central attribute of contemporaneous U.S. conservatism where people like Andrew Sullivan makes the thoroughly unconvincing argument none of them are conservatives. (I still love the guy, he’s just wrong on this point.).
Unless of course if one takes the position of a sub-set of this group looking to make a partisan argument, but within the context of the public square that’s an irrelevant argument since it’s merely an in-group argument rather than a distanced position without the bias of any in-group.
slc1
April 5, 2012 at 8:31 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Re Michael Heath @ #11
The answer, as I have stated on numerous occasions, is that they are cultural Christians. Or non-Christian theists in the case of those who believe in god. A more recent example then Jefferson was the late Martin Gardner, an agnostic for most of his life who later became a believer in a supreme being but described himself as a non-Christian theist.
Items 5 and 6 on Heath’s list also apply to Muslims. Yeshua, in Islam, is considered one of the prophets, along with Abraham, Moses and, in their view, Mohammed. Therefore, was Jefferson a Muslim? His view of Yeshua was much closes to the Muslim view then the Christian view.
The bottom line is that Spong and people who do not accept Yeshua of Nazareth as the son of god and the redeemer of mankind are not believing Christians. I don’t know how many ways to say it. That’s the entire basis of Christianity. If that’s not true, then the entire edifice collapses.
harold
April 5, 2012 at 8:31 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
grumpyoldfart –
I see that my comment, although containing elements of accuracy, is also hostile and combative.
That’s kind of ironic – my comment in favor of not excluding is actually rather excluding.
Apologies for the excessively hostile tone of the stuff below “Otherwise all she can do is change now”.
slc1
April 5, 2012 at 8:35 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Re Michael Heath @ #16
Andrew Sullivan defines conservative as the British Conservative Party and considers its leader, David Cameron, as his notion of a conservative. Prime Minister Cameron, who is currently pushing for same sex marriage in Great Britain, would be persona non grata in the Rethuglican Party.
harold
April 5, 2012 at 8:38 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I hate to agree with the guy (gal?) who wants to nuke Iran, but I am in some contexts a cultural Christian, even though I am not religious.
Michael Heath
April 5, 2012 at 8:39 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
grumpyoldfart:
TCC:
grumpyoldfart goes too far in imagining certain wrong-doings where we have no evidence this pastor committed. However he’s correct that a responsible person with integrity holds themselves accountable for the harm they’ve done to others where it would effectively impossible to be a fundie preacher and not abuse others.
But we shouldn’t just condemn her either; we all fail others. The idea of contrition, forgiveness, and most powerful of all – grace, are powerful behaviors which betters all of us. Se we should do both, celebrate the fact there’s one less person abusing others in this world and act in a manner that encourages people like her to begin the journey of taking authentic responsibility for their actions.
Michael Heath
April 5, 2012 at 8:53 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
slc1 writes:
Which fails to answer my question, again. Your ‘cultural Christian’ label is wildly incorrect because we’re not talking about non-believers who go through the motions but instead those who practice their faith as I described early. Of course those people I described previously are ‘cultural Christians’, as are all the ones you claim are Christians along with a bunch of people who merely go through some of the motions – which doesn’t address my list above. Cultural religionists are those who don’t have faith or beliefs but maintain a communal relationship with others in that religion – Jefferson, Spong, and millions of others I described have faith, they have belief in God, they are devout, they worship, they pray, and most of them do so with other like-minded believers. What is a devout Congregationalist but a Christian? Please slc1, answer that question within the context posed rather than avoiding the question altogether.
slc1 writes:
Your cherry-picking certain points while avoiding all the other necessary attributes presented is a failure in simple logic. To extend your logic, Satan is a Christian because the Bible has him conceding Jesus’ position relative to God.
Michael Heath
April 5, 2012 at 9:12 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
harold writes:
I understand, I also considered myself one for a few decades after advancing beyond faith and dogma. I didn’t come to appreciate contrition and grace in a vacuum, but instead from the Bible where I still find it a primary standard which I attempt to meet though with repeated failings. But that label avoids the topic which slc1 and I are debating which has to do with a certain group of Christians’ faith, beliefs, theology, and devout worship practices and we would call them other than Christian, which is how they define themselves. slc1 keeps changing the goalposts or avoiding the field altogether rather than confront what these millions of people are if not Christians.
Michael Heath
April 5, 2012 at 9:37 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
heddle writes:
The less societal pressure imposed on people to conform to Christian belief, the less Christians there will be. That’s awesome news all ‘true Christians’ should celebrate because it greatly increases the number of people the Christian god gets to punish for all eternity. [/snark off]
heddle, your argument has you seeming to ignore the infinitely horrendous consequences of more people rejecting the Christian faith. Shouldn’t you be advocating whatever practice would minimize the number of people bound for eternal punishment where what you celebrate here certainly reduces the number of believers. And wouldn’t a moral person mourn a reality which has a god intent on punishing even one sentient being for all eternity?
Michael Heath
April 5, 2012 at 10:58 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Re fundamentalists and authentic contrition; here’s Bob Altemeyer in The Authoritarians, pages 134 – 135 of the free Internet version:
Rip Steakface
April 5, 2012 at 11:44 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
My grandfather was a dyed-in-the-wool, Godfearing Presbyterian up until some point in the 70s or 80s. He was a minister – he went to babble school and everything.
Then he found rock ‘n’ roll and never turned back. Now he’s written a trilogy of books pretty much designed to piss off his immediate family who are all still Presbyterian.
Note that my mother (his daughter) was raised not particularly religious (Grandma would always just say “we’re Lutheran,” apparently, but they never went to church or had a babble in the house) by either of her parents. Neither was my dad (same idea – culturally Christian but not godbothering). As a result, they got into adulthood and became atheists some time in their 20s, but never said a single word about religion to me until I was about 13 and had pretty much already come to my own conclusions.
It’s always nice to see a formerly fundagelical family (added alliterative appeal, anybody?) find out how much bullshit they were fed once upon a time.
Modusoperandi
April 6, 2012 at 12:22 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Michael Heath “heddle, your argument has you seeming to ignore the infinitely horrendous consequences of more people rejecting the Christian faith. Shouldn’t you be advocating whatever practice would minimize the number of people bound for eternal punishment where what you celebrate here certainly reduces the number of believers. And wouldn’t a moral person mourn a reality which has a god intent on punishing even one sentient being for all eternity?”
Oh, jeez, Michael, it’s right there in Romans 9; God will have mercy on whom He has mercy. He even hardens the hearts of some so they refuse to heed His call. And who are you to question the one that made you…you who He [may or may not have] destined from the start to suffer an eternity of conscious torment?
Huh?
Hold on. Let me reread that.
Shit. That can’t be right.
You know, this God character comes off as kind of a dick.
dingojack
April 6, 2012 at 3:52 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
[avoiding the theological debate completely]
When I read the headline I did a double take. How does that work?
Bob: Hi I’m Bob and I’m an atheist.
omnes: [dearily chanted in unison] Hello Bob.
:} Dingo
matty1
April 6, 2012 at 6:03 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Heddle
I don’t think the evidence supports this, see here for a recent survey in the UK. The survey questioned people who self identified as Christians in the 2011 census and of those only 49% do not believe Jesus was the son of God.
Michael Heath
This isn’t exactly accurate regarding Heddle’s position, in his view those who leave the churches were never really Christians to begin with so the number going to hell doesn’t increase.
Think of it as like a venn diagram, circle A is ‘The Saved’ and circle B is ‘people who attend church’. Heddle wants to increase the overlap between these two circles by getting those who are only in B to leave but he also claims that if you are not in A then being in B is of no benefit to you or anyone else.
You are right that the Calvinist view of a God predestining people to eternal torment is downright evil but that is a separate issue to whether churches should want nominal members who don’t actually agree with their teachings.
Deanna Joy Lyons
April 6, 2012 at 6:09 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Sorry for the spamminess, but I haven’t found the full coming out speech anywhere online, so I know if someone wants to hear it it’s difficult. My husband Rich was on the ex-preacher panel so we recorded it and the Teresa’s whole coming out speech right afterward. We released it as an episode of our podcast here: http://livingafterfaith.blogspot.com/2012/03/atheist-preachers-yes-episode-56.html You can just click on the title to listen in your browser, or it can be found on iTunes and Zune or RSS feed.
If you’d like to hear just Teresa’s part, it starts at about 51:00.
heddle
April 6, 2012 at 6:14 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
matty1,
I have no doubt that’s accurate. I’m talking about the Europeans I encounter in churches, at the university, etc. Those who are practicing Christians. They tend to be rock-solid and exceptionally well-studied in terms of theology.
matty1
April 6, 2012 at 6:37 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
That may be the case, certainly we don’t seem to have much social pressure for census Christians to fill the pews every sunday, which I’m told the US has.
heddle
April 6, 2012 at 7:23 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
matty1,
That is exactly my point. A European who claims to be a Christian and seeks fellowship in a local body of believers is typically very serious about his faith. Americans–not so much–and often as not it is simply social/family/cultural pressure and/or social conservatism co-opting Christianity for its purposes rather than a commitment to biblical Christianity. That is why I think European Christianity is healthier than American, and look forward to our rising to their standards–and even appreciate the assistance of the new atheists. Christianity is better suited for secular states.
sosw
April 6, 2012 at 7:40 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@2:
If I remember correctly, Daniel Dennett found that a surprising number of priests were actually non-believers.
Raging Bee
April 6, 2012 at 8:40 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I wonder if Heath would consider such individuals Christians?
Actually, there is such a thing as “Christian Atheism” — at least according to one guy I saw at Speakers’ Corner back in 2005. According to him (and the pamphlets he was handing out), Christian Atheist(s) believe that the only way one can truly live in accordance with the teachings of Jesus, is effectively to become an atheist: renounce religious hierarchy, dump irrational supernatural beliefs, stop pretending this or that voice in your head is “the voice of God,” don’t let others bamboozle you with arbitrary claims about what God told them to tell you, use your own (God-given) rational faculties to decide what’s right and wrong, take responsibility for your own words and actions, and work with whoever you have to to do the right thing, whether or not they believe in the same god(s) as you do. Which is, in many instances, pretty much what Jesus himself did in the Bible stories.
Raging Bee
April 6, 2012 at 8:44 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Can an atheist call himself a Christian? Well, there’s atheists I know who follow the teachings of Jesus a Hell of a lot more closely than most of the liars and tribalistic bigots currently bringing shame and disgrace to that label. Just sayin’…
Raging Bee
April 6, 2012 at 8:52 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
…I am in some contexts a cultural Christian, even though I am not religious.
Which “contexts,” exactly? Before you answer that question, you might want to ask yourself what parts of your culture actually come from Christian doctrine or church institutions, as opposed to which parts come from somewhere else and just got labelled “Christian” by people trying to pretend their religion is the source of everything good.
I consider myself “culturally” Hellenic, Roman and British, since the Christian teachings I grew up with were heavily tempered by ideas and traditions of those cultures (in addition to not being really invented by Christ anyway).
Raging Bee
April 6, 2012 at 9:05 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
heddle, your argument has you seeming to ignore the infinitely horrendous consequences of more people rejecting the Christian faith. Shouldn’t you be advocating whatever practice would minimize the number of people bound for eternal punishment where what you celebrate here certainly reduces the number of believers.
No, not if he’s (maybe slowly and obliquely) coming around to realizing that his path is not the One and Only True Path, and that all that Hell stuff is nothing but horseshit made up to terrorize the most emotionally vulnerable people. Is that the case, heddle?
democommie
April 6, 2012 at 9:09 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“If I remember correctly, Daniel Dennett found that a surprising number of priests were actually non-believers.”
Whaddaya expect from functionaries of the “Whore of Babylon”?
Religions offer some form of reward; salvation, satori or, in certain cases, “heaven on earth” in return for good behavior. Atheism offers nothing and demands nothing. That sounds like a better deal to me–seeing as christianity only enriches management in any material way.
A pocketful of JESUS will buy exactly as much as a pocketful of noJESUS; the differenence is that knowing your beliefs don’t physically affect the world is rational.
Christians or any other faith holders have my permission, encouragement even, to believe ANYTHING
democommie
April 6, 2012 at 9:11 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I wasn’t FINISHED!!
Christians or any other faith holders have my permission, encouragement even, to believe ANYTHING that they would like to believe. The problem I have with them is that many of them decide that I need to hold the same beliefs.
There, now I’m finished.
Modusoperandi
April 6, 2012 at 9:25 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
heddle “I’m talking about the Europeans I encounter in churches, at the university, etc. Those who are practicing Christians. They tend to be rock-solid and exceptionally well-studied in terms of theology.”
Ah, but what about their teeth? Are their noses moist and fur shiny? How firm is their stool?
dingojack
April 6, 2012 at 9:34 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Demo – A case of premature ejaculation*?
:) Dingo
——–
* Definition 1
Geds
April 6, 2012 at 9:59 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
slc1 @8:31: The bottom line is that Spong and people who do not accept Yeshua of Nazareth as the son of god and the redeemer of mankind are not believing Christians. I don’t know how many ways to say it. That’s the entire basis of Christianity. If that’s not true, then the entire edifice collapses.
Really? In that case I’m pretty sure that the vast majority of the pre-Nicene Creed Christians would like to have a word with you. The Gnostic Christians, too.
The only reason that Christianity is what it is today is because Paul had the loudest and most enduring voice in the early church, so when the Bible was put in to the final(ish) canon it was his (and his copycats’) version of Christianity that was spread. That was the one that was then made into the more-or-less official Christianity of the Roman Empire under Constantine and reflected in the Nicene Creed.
Christians with skin in the game will tell you that the version we have now is the definitive version because it’s god’s will. But it’s not by a long shot. Had someone other than Paul been the loudest mouthpiece we might be seeing a totally different version of Christianity. It would probably either be a different branch of Judaism or possibly something closer to Buddhism, with Jesus as a Bodhisattva. And in that world you’d be making an ass of yourself while lecturing Michael Heath that anyone who claims Christians need to accept Jesus as a the Messiah is totally off base because that’s simply not part of the underlying foundation of Christianity.
Eamon Knight
April 6, 2012 at 9:59 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Does it say something about the local culture that this is even news in Tallahassee? I’m thinking that in Toronto or Ottawa, this would be hot gossip within the local denominational body, and it might be a blip in the Religion section of the paper. But TV news? It would rate lower than “human interest” stories about some centenarian celebrating yet another trip around the sun, or the baby delivered by the cab driver in the back seat en route to the hospital.
harold
April 6, 2012 at 10:08 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Raging Bee –
Needless to say, most of the Christianity I was raised in came about, to greatly oversimplify, in about this way – the ancient Middle East was diverse and Judaism, or more correctly its direct and indirect ancestors, was itself constantly changing and full of controversy for centuries, when Hellenization and then Roman conquest of much of the area occurred. In that context, a Judaism-derived cult centered around the alleged teachings of a messianic figure who may or may not have been inspired by a single individual, emerged. That particular semi-unified cult became quite popular in many Mediterranean urban centers of Late Antiquity. At first it was fitfully persecuted by Roman emperors, but eventually a version of it was endorsed by the late emperor Constantine. With official recognition came a relative purging of ideas that had been well-accepted in the more informal underground cult.
Until about 700 CE the resulting relatively organized religion, albeit with frequent controversies, was mainly established in the Middle East and Mediterranean areas. However, it spread slowly, mainly from a focus in Ireland, and from the then-depleted city of Rome, over much of Western Europe. While this process was superficially hostile to the local paganism of the time, many elements of pagan ritual and tradition were incorporated into Christian practice. At the same time, the Islamic conquest of much of the Middle East occurred, shifting the focus of Christianity more to the west.
Skipping over important developments for the sake of comment brevity, eventually there was a major split of Western Christianity into Protestant and Catholic branches.
While I have a mixed ancestry, including crypto-Native American ancestry (you’d never guess to look at me), I am mainly of Western European recent (as in last 1000 years) ancestry, and was raised in one of the Protestant traditions, albeit with plenty of contact with Catholics.
I completely agree with this.
However, the cultural traditions I was raised in, which strongly influenced me, were most recently called “Christian”.
There are different ways to deal with progressively improving human rights. One is to regard the past as a time of unmitigated injustice and to attempt to break from all cultural traditions.
That has some merit, but of course, some of the humane ideas we now adopt themselves have roots in past cultural ideas.
Furthermore, to divest oneself entirely of unconscious cultural traits and biases is a near impossible task.
I am not endorsing the many inhumane acts done in the name of “Christianity”, nor denying the tenuous links of western Christianity to the semi-legendary figure of Jesus. It’s just that some of my non-religious friends are accurately described as culturally Jewish*, Islamic, Hindu, etc, and by that extremely oversimplified but useful heuristic, my main cultural influences have been “Christian”.
Erp
April 6, 2012 at 10:12 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I haven’t had a chance to look closely at the video but I’ll note two things.
1. Resigning just before the start of holy week (this week) is a bit odd since it is the busiest time of year for most Christian pastors. It would guarantee maximum turmoil in the church.
2. Lake Jackson United Methodist doesn’t seem to be a bastion of right-wing religion (such don’t usually use rainbow colored flames next to the word ‘accepting’ which to my eyes is code for relatively safe for gays). I would guess that would make them very liberal by Florida church standards.
Eamon Knight
April 6, 2012 at 10:27 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@46.2: Agreed. A little perusal of their website + Facebook suggests to me that this isn’t a hard-line salvationist church, and is LGBT-positive (I have a rule of thumb that any denomination with “United” in its name is on the liberal end of the spectrum).
slc1
April 6, 2012 at 10:52 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Re Geds @ #43
And in that world you’d be making an ass of yourself while lecturing Michael Heath that anyone who claims Christians need to accept Jesus as a the Messiah is totally off base because that’s simply not part of the underlying foundation of Christianity.
This is quite possibly true but it is a counterfactual argument that is completely irrelevant as we sit here today. We are where we are and believing Christians today accept Yeshua of Nazareth as the biblical prophesied messiah, and, in fact, have been persecuting Jews for 1700 years for failing to do likewise.
We could just as well speculate as to what the cult of Yeshua would look like today if he had not been executed and had gone on to oust the powers that were in the temple in Jerusalem. I would argue that it would more closely resemble Islam with Yeshua instead of Mohammed.
heddle
April 6, 2012 at 11:39 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Geds,
Gee, didja come up with that novel thesis all on your own? It’s revolutionary, it is!
There are two types of Christian critics in this world. Those who claim Paul didn’t exist, and those who claim that he usurped Christianity.
Raging Bee,
Depends what you mean is “his path”. I believe that the only way anyone can be saved is if they are regenerated by a divine act (that precedes their faith, if they indeed develop what we commonly call faith–and in most cases I think they will) and are justified by the righteousness of Jesus, not by their works. In that sense I believe in one true path.
But if by one true path you mean that you have to do this that or the other or join this or that denomination, then no. What we do–have a testimony, join a church, ask Jesus to come into our heart and be our PersonalLordAndSavior(whatever that means), have an epiphany, become Calvinists or not–none of those contribute anything to our salvation–they are at best effects, not causes–so in terms of human actions not only is there no true path–there is no path at all.
As for hell I believe it exists but have no idea what it is since the the metaphors used in the bible (outer darkness, pit, abyss, lake of fire) seem irreconcilable.
Geds
April 6, 2012 at 3:18 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
slc1 @48: This is quite possibly true but it is a counterfactual argument that is completely irrelevant as we sit here today. We are where we are and believing Christians today accept Yeshua of Nazareth as the biblical prophesied messiah, and, in fact, have been persecuting Jews for 1700 years for failing to do likewise.
It may be irrelevant in a conversation about the particulars of what a particular sect agrees on as the definition of Christianity, but considering that your entire argument hinges on it being impossible for anyone to claim to be a Christian and not hold certain foundational beliefs that aren’t actually historically accurate, it’s not irrelevant. If someone wants to claim to be a Christian because they follow the teachings of Jesus as a Middle Eastern Buddha, they can absolutely do that and simply claim the mantle of Gnostic Christianity.
Also, too, if you’re going to claim that persecution of the Jews is a key factor in Christian identification you’re going to have to declare whole swaths of church-going, Bible following Christians to be, well, non-Christian. The Anabaptists, the Quakers, several sub-groups of the Orthodox traditions, and the Nestorians come immediately to mind.
heddle @49: Gee, didja come up with that novel thesis all on your own? It’s revolutionary, it is!
There are two types of Christian critics in this world. Those who claim Paul didn’t exist, and those who claim that he usurped Christianity.
You missed a third category: historians. Oh, and would you look at that? I have a degree with a major in history and a minor in religious studies and I once spent an entire semester on a research paper on the Maccabean Revolt to get out of the history program at university.
Got an A on it, too.
I’m not claiming Paul usurped Christianity. I’m just saying that claiming Paul’s interpretation of Christianity was the only one is factually wrong based on history. Rather he was right or wrong is immaterial to me, since I think the whole thing is a load of hogwash. I’m just pointing out that it’s possible to interpret Christianity in a way that doesn’t match up to Pauline orthodoxy and anyone who claims otherwise is either not up on the historical facts or remaining intentionally ignorant to push an agenda.
Oh, and one of the people who was instrumental in cementing that “novel” theory in my mind was a Presbyterian minister with a Th.D. He actually brought up the history of Paul’s teachings in relation to other schools of thought during the early days of Christianity in a sermon. In a church. On a Sunday morning. The stuff about the Nicene Creed and Constantine came from my own studies of who Constantine was and how he used the early Christian church as an unorthodox power bloc while consolidating his own power against the other Tetrarchs.
heddle
April 6, 2012 at 3:28 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Geds,
He did, did he? And what other schools of thought might that be? And what was the documentation that they competed with Paul by, say, AD 65?
Was his name Dan Brown by any chance?
Geds
April 6, 2012 at 5:26 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
heddle @51: He did, did he? And what other schools of thought might that be? And what was the documentation that they competed with Paul by, say, AD 65?
You must not read your own Bible very much, heddle. The big sects, for the record, were the gnostics and the ones that just wanted those who were to become Christians to stay as Jews.
The Gospel of John is known as “the gnostic gospel” because that whole “In the beginning was the Word” thing was actually pretty standard boilerplate gnostic thought.
But if you want proof that Paul was competing against other people with a different message, well, let’s go look at the letters of Paul hisownself:
I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed! – Galatians 1:6-9
Oh, and the person Paul argued with publicly the most on that whole stay Jewish/don’t stay Jewish? Peter. Y’know, the head disciple, the guy upon whose supposed throne Pope Benny currently sits. He’s kind of an important dude. I can understand how you might miss it, though, since that story is buried right in the middle of the Book of Acts.
Some men came down from Judea and began teaching the brethren, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” And when Paul and Barnabas had great dissension and debate with them, the brethren determined that Paul and Barnabas and some others of them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders concerning this issue. – Acts 15:1-2
The Bible. It’s a fascinating book filled with stories of people arguing with each other over some crazy stuff. You ought to consider reading it sometime. You might learn something…
slc1
April 6, 2012 at 6:59 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Re Geds @ #50
If someone wants to claim to be a Christian because they follow the teachings of Jesus as a Middle Eastern Buddha, they can absolutely do that and simply claim the mantle of Gnostic Christianity.
There are such people around today. They call themselves Muslims. There also seems to be a branch of Reconstructionist Judaism which accepts such a notion.
Also, too, if you’re going to claim that persecution of the Jews is a key factor in Christian identification you’re going to have to declare whole swaths of church-going,
I don’t know that it’s a key factor in Christian identification but persecution of the Jews by the Catholic Church and the various Protestant churches spun off by Martin Luther’s activities certainly were bent out of shape by the refusal of the Jews to accept Yeshua of Nazareth. By the way, Martin Luther was at least the second worst anti-Semite in history. His numerous diatribes against the Jews exceeds anything in Mein Kampf.
The fact that there were disagreements between various factions in between the execution of Yeshua and the reign of Constantine is of historical interest but of no consequence today. The Paulines won, their opponents lost. The winners write the history books.
heddle
April 6, 2012 at 8:25 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Geds,
It is really dumb of you to take the tiresome “you should read your bible sometime” approach. Even my numerous critics on here would, I believe, concede that I have over the years of commenting on here demonstrated a good grasp of the bible.
People that argue (as you have now done several times) that common knowledge demonstrates their expertise just look dumb. This “do you know who Paul argued with.. why it was Peter, yes Peter!!!” demonstrates that you probably are not as knowledgable as you think–because anyone who was even slightly educated in matters biblical would know that everyone beyond grade-school (in Sunday School) knows that Paul rebuked Peter.
Oh, and just in case you think I googled “holy crap did Paul rebuke Peter?” and now pretend to have know all along–something you would do I suspect– here is one of many places on my blog where I discuss it–in this case in Lesson 7 of my multi-part adult Sunday School on church history. You might try following the links for the entire series, I think you could use it–or you could continue using “biblical history according to Dan Brown.”
Not that any of this (Paul arguing against the Judaizers, who were actually members in good standing of the Jerusalem church) has anything to do with with your claims regarding Paul. Nor his criticism of an outbreak of antinomianism nor his and Johns concern with gnosticism/early-Docetism (and the word became flesh). Correction of false teaching does not imply other rival schools–there has to be a certain critical mass before it rises to the level of a rival school. It is quite proper for Paul to correct what he sees as error. To support your claim–which you can’t because there simply is no extant 1st century documentation–you would have to show there was a substantive and sizable rival to the Pauline school–supported by some other apostle– for the direction of apostolic-era Christianity. There was not. All indication was that Peter accepted his rebuke, and of course in his own epistle he praises Paul. And Paul won the day at the first church council (Jerusalem) when the letter effectively closing the door on the Judaizers was sent out. If there was an actual rival school of Christianity in the first century, any trace has been lost to antiquity. There is nothing–nothing in the few histories of the era–indicating that there was a rival school in the 1st century. You are simply puling stuff out of your ass.
Deanna Joy Lyons
April 6, 2012 at 8:34 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@46, 47 and others. Teresa started out as a fundamentalist, but progressed bit by bit through more progressive/liberal churches. She eventually ended up at the Methodist church listed.
heddle
April 6, 2012 at 8:37 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Geds,
Oh, I forgot, and you wrote this:
It must be buried really deep on Acts, so deep that it tunneled its way through and emerged in Paul’s letter to the Galatians.
TCC
April 6, 2012 at 9:49 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
There are two types of people in this world: those who like to use false dilemmas and stamp collectors.
(Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
slc1
April 6, 2012 at 10:40 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Re Geds
Apparently, Mr. Geds is new to these parts so perhaps it is fitting to introduce him to one of the frequent commentors, Prof. David Heddle, who is a professor of physics at Christopher Newport Un. in Newport News, Va., currently also serving as chairman of the mathematics department there.
Prof. Heddle is a former atheist who, like Francis Collins, has seen the light and is now an Evangelical Christian.
dingojack
April 6, 2012 at 11:36 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Geds – allow me to introduce SLC, he is a genocidal maniac with (apparently) early onset Alzheimers*. (He also seems to unaware that the Coptic Church (a gnostic organisation) is still going strong in Ethiopia, and not so strong in Egypt).
And Heddle, who has some reading comprehension difficulties:
:) Dingo
—–
* Geds commented frequently on the old Dispatches site.
dingojack
April 6, 2012 at 11:57 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
For those who are late to this rather dull party, this is the boozy late night argument going on in one corner on the loungeroom between guests who refuse to go home –
Heddle/SLC argues: “Belief in a divine Christ is what defines Christianity because this is the belief that won”.
And Geds argues: “It is only due to the contingencies of history, and it wasn’t always so”.
Heddle/SLC – “Nuh uh (I’ve got a science degree & have taught at Sunday School!)”
Geds – “Uh huh (I’ve got a degree in History & studied the Early Christian Church)”
& etc.
@@
Dingo
—–
Psst guys – what about the Arians?
[ducks behind the sofa to avoid the explosions]
slc1
April 7, 2012 at 7:46 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Re Dingojack @ #60
Issac Newton was a clandestine Arian and Jefferson has been accused of also being one.
dingojack
April 7, 2012 at 9:34 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
SLC – Really? I did not know that.
Dingo