Randal Rauser's Blog, page 126

Strange Revelations I’ve Received in the Mail (Part 2)

Of all the end-of-the-world prophecies I’ve received over the years, this is surely the strangest and, in a bizarre way, the most endearing. And in contrast with the long-winded revelations of Warren Jeffs, it is also mercifully brief. I now present to you (drum roll please) …

Hercolubus or Red Planet!

Originally published in 2004, Hercolubus or Red Planet is a marginally sane warning of the imminent end of the world at the hand of a giant, er, red planet. The back cover provides a good overview:

In essence, Hercolubus or Red Planet is a short book version of that guy sporting the wild beard, prophetic robe, and sandwich board warning that “The End of the World is Near!”

But every dark cloud of doom needs a silver lining of hope. What message of salvation does Hercolubus or Red Planet offer? Open up the book and you discover (so far as my quick perusal suggests) that salvation lies in chanting the right mantras. Fortunately, the book explain the phonetic pronunciation which will aid persons to attain astral projection which will allow them to leave behind their bodies and the earth fated to destruction at the hand of Hercolubus or Red Planet:

So what lessons should we draw from this unique text? I’ll conclude with some quick reflections.

Putting on my Christian hat, I’ll note that the Gospel message of Hercolubus or Red Planet reflects some classic characteristics from good old fashioned Gnosticism, in particular a sharp dualism between the physical and spiritual along with the promise of salvation consisting of leaving the physical body behind. It has oft been observed that Gnosticism is a hydra-headed beast, one that returns each generation in new forms, and Hercolubus or Red Planet could be interpreted as yet another manifestation of this long history.

Meanwhile, my atheist friends will likely focus on a different point. I envision them saying the following: “What difference is there between Hercolubus or Red Planet and the Bible? If contingent historical circumstances allow this movement to grow and flourish, then in two millennia scholars could be carefully exegeting and applying the ‘prophecies’ of Hercolubus or Red Planet for their own age.”

To which I say, sure, that is possible. But what is supposed to follow? So far as I can see, nothing. After all, the fact that a delusional book could become a revered object of study doesn’t entail that every book which becomes a revered object of study is thereby delusional. 

The post Strange Revelations I’ve Received in the Mail (Part 2) appeared first on Randal Rauser.

Strange Revelations I’ve Received in the Mail (Part 2)

Of all the end-of-the-world prophecies I’ve received over the years, this is surely the strangest and, in a bizarre way, the most endearing. And in contrast with the long-winded revelations of Warren Jeffs, it is also mercifully brief. I now present to you (drum roll please) …

Hercolubus or Red Planet!

Originally published in 2004, Hercolubus or Red Planet is a marginally sane warning of the imminent end of the world at the hand of a giant, er, red planet. The back cover provides a good overview:

In essence, Hercolubus or Red Planet is a short book version of that guy sporting the wild beard, prophetic robe, and sandwich board warning that “The End of the World is Near!”

But every dark cloud of doom needs a silver lining of hope. What message of salvation does Hercolubus or Red Planet offer? Open up the book and you discover (so far as my quick perusal suggests) that salvation lies in chanting the right mantras. Fortunately, the book explain the phonetic pronunciation which will aid persons to attain astral projection which will allow them to leave behind their bodies and the earth fated to destruction at the hand of Hercolubus or Red Planet:

So what lessons should we draw from this unique text? I’ll conclude with some quick reflections.

Putting on my Christian hat, I’ll note that the Gospel message of Hercolubus or Red Planet reflects some classic characteristics from good old fashioned Gnosticism, in particular a sharp dualism between the physical and spiritual along with the promise of salvation consisting of leaving the physical body behind. It has oft been observed that Gnosticism is a hydra-headed beast, one that returns each generation in new forms, and Hercolubus or Red Planet could be interpreted as yet another manifestation of this long history.

Meanwhile, my atheist friends will likely focus on a different point. I envision them saying the following: “What difference is there between Hercolubus or Red Planet and the Bible? If contingent historical circumstances allow this movement to grow and flourish, then in two millennia scholars could be carefully exegeting and applying the ‘prophecies’ of Hercolubus or Red Planet for their own age.”

To which I say, sure, that is possible. But what is supposed to follow? So far as I can see, nothing. After all, the fact that a delusional book could become a revered object of study doesn’t entail that every book which becomes a revered object of study is thereby delusional. 

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Strange Revelations I’ve Received in the Mail (Part 1)

As a seminary professor, I get a lot of emails (probably 3-4 per week) from strangers who are peddling their new self-published book or who are simply keen to share their revelations about the end of the world or the evil of Islam or their new theory on X or Y. Over the years I’ve also received several unsolicited packages in the mail. In this article and the next I’m going to describe the two most interesting mailed gifts.

I’m devoting this first installment to a quick look at two sizable volumes of revelations I received in the mail from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This is a splinter group from mainstream Mormonism led by Warren Jeffs. Jeffs was an unapologetic polygamist who apparently enjoyed bedding teenage girls. He was eventually convicted for his crimes and has since been sentenced to life in prison.

The volume pictured here is the first edition of Jeffs’ revelations which Jesus allegedly gave to him in prison between 2009-2012. The volume is over 800 pages and looks and sounds like biblish straight up. A year after I received this book in the mail I received a second edition which included 100 pages of new revelations. (Too bad Jesus didn’t tell Jeffs he wasn’t quite done talking or Jeffs could have avoided the hassle of sending out two editions.) Alas, Jeffs has, as yet, been unable to persuade the authorities who have imprisoned him that God is, in fact, on his side.

Jeffs’ book reflects the way many people think the Bible came about: namely, some folks felt themselves inspired and thereby became the mouthpiece for God. They signed their revelations “Thus saith the Lord!” and the rest is history. That may indeed be how Jesus Christ Message to All Nations came about, but that certainly doesn’t reflect the origins of the Bible.

On the contrary, the Bible is a diverse collection of literary texts that emerged in the warp and woof of history. This library includes legal texts, wisdom sayings, folk history, historical narrative, letters, songs, poems, proverbs, and other writings. These texts circulated in a variety of contexts and over decades and centuries were gradually recognized as having a unique authority as a divinely authorized canonical collection. (A few years ago I reviewed Yoram Hazony’s important book The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture. If you’d like to read more about how approaching the Bible first as revelation has distorted our thinking about it, I strongly recommend that book.) So while Jeffs’ collection of “revelations” reflect a popular notion about how the Bible originated, it does not, in fact, reflect the reality.

If anybody is interested in purchasing either the first or second edition of Jesus Christ Message to All Nations I’ll be willing to let them go for $30 each (including postage).  I recognize that this might seem a bit steep (after all, you can purchase a copy on Ebay for 6 bucks). But I’m kind of partial to these volumes (they do make a marvelous door-stop), so the price is firm.

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And Now for Something Completely Different: The Outline of My New Book

Today I finished the final draft of my 11th book. At this point I switch from heavy editing mode into light copy editing mode. The typesetting stage should follow soon thereafter.

This book is unlike anything I’ve done before. At 86,000 words, it is one of the longest books I’ve written. It is also most surely the most personal: while I’d be reluctant to call it a memoir, it does draw on multiple instances from my own life to weave a narrative of evolving understanding as regards matters theological and soteriological (that is, pertaining to salvation).

Currently the title is: Do You Know Where You’d Go If You Died Tonight?: Forty years of seeking salvation. 

And here is the table of contents: ten parts, forty short(ish) chapters, and one long journey:

* * *

Introduction: What does it mean to be saved?

Part 1: Conversion

Chapter 1: Dear Jesus, please come into my heart. Amen

Chapter 2: A minister of the Gospel

Part 2: Doubt and Assurance

Chapter 3: Blaspheming the Holy Spirit

Chapter 4: Miracles

Part 3: Getting the Gospel Right

Chapter 5: The Four Spiritual Laws

Chapter 6: The Fifth Spiritual Law

Chapter 7: Street witnessing

Chapter 8: The Sixth Spiritual Law and playing “Stairway to Heaven” backwards

Chapter 9: Peter Gabriel or Jesus Christ

Part 4: Grace and Works

Chapter 10: Variations on the Sixth

Chapter 11: Don’t sin, be perfect, et cetera

Chapter 12: Serial killers who love Jesus

Part 5: Highway to Hell

Chapter 13: Going to hell because somebody goofed

Chapter 14: Hell by way of a gingerbread cookie

Chapter 15: Hell and noble intentions

Part 6: The B-I-B-L-E, Yes That’s the Book for Me

Chapter 16: Beyond the Bible Bread Loaf

Chapter 17: Interpret the Bible literally where possible?

Chapter 18: Leaving the King James Bible behind

Chapter 19: Why did Petra want to kill their old man?

Chapter 20: Jesus and the Disney Bible

Chapter 21: How I learned to hate my enemies

Part 7: In Search of a True Church

Chapter 22:  Mormons and other people who believe the wrong things

Chapter 23:  Speaking in other tongues (or not)

Chapter 24: On adding lightness

Chapter 25:  Is “evangelical” a guarantee of quality?

Chapter 26: When you doubt can Mother Church believe for you?

Part 8: The Devil’s in the Doctrinal Details            

Chapter 27: Did Jesus teach his disciples about the Trinity (and does it matter if he didn’t)?

Chapter 28: Do the requirements of belief change over time?

Chapter 29: Beliefs, doubts, and a healthy faith

Chapter 30: Maybe all dogs (and babies) go to heaven, but what about toddlers and teenagers?

Part 9: The Gospel Comes into Focus

Chapter 31: Love God or neighbor?

Chapter 32: The greatest story ever told

Chapter 33: God became meat?

Chapter 34: God was murdered?

Chapter 35: What’s this about taking up our crosses?

Part 10: The Gospel is Bigger and Better than I Ever Dreamed

Chapter 36: Caught between a dark and a dull place

Chapter 37: I’m still going to die, but at least I have hope

Chapter 38: Grace at the Gospel Mission

Chapter 39: You are awesome. Really, you are

Chapter 40: Looking for love in Las Vegas

Conclusion: The Gospel in a nutshell

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What are Human Rights Based On? A Response to Andy Bannister

A couple weeks ago “Unbelievable” featured a debate/dialogue on human rights between Christian apologist Andy Bannister and humanist/atheist Peter Tatchell. The show begins with a short video from Andy and so in providing my critical response that is where I’ll begin as well:

Andy is an articulate and engaging speaker. But I disagree with his presentation in this video. I’ll focus my critical comments on two points in dialogue with the short video before noting some additional comments about the “Unbelievable” exchange more generally.

Atheism and a Random Collocation of Atoms

My first problem centers on the way that Andy suggests that atheism is somehow committed to a grossly reductionistic understanding of the human person and thus human value and dignity. He begins to set up the point a mere 31 seconds into the video. Andy opines:

“The problem is talking about human dignity, especially inherent dignity of human beings is basically impossible if you’re an atheist.”

“Human rights  is based on human dignity and human value and where does that come from on atheism? You see, if you don’t believe in God, if you believe in just a random collocation of atoms … or just the result of time plus chance plus natural selection, how is it that we have some kind of special dignity that other animals don’t? And on that dignity you can build human rights.”

Andy suggests here that there are but two choices: either accept theism and human dignity and value or accept atheism in which case you are committed to a reductionism about the person which undermines any basis for human dignity and value. We can’t have dignity and value if we are merely “a random collocation of atoms….”

However, atheism is not committed to a reductionism about the human person. Atheism is simply the view that God does not exist. It is not the view that only random collocations of atoms exist. Nor does it entail that only random collocations of atoms exist. Consequently, atheism is consistent with many different views of the human person, dignity, and value.

For example, a person could be an atheist and accept that human persons are emergent non-physical substances which are irreducible to the material atoms that compose their bodies. This may be an unusual anthropology for an atheist to hold in the sense that statistically not many atheists currently hold such a view. But there is no inconsistency between this anthropology and atheism. An atheism could also affirm the existence of objective moral value which exists sui generis as part of the basic metaphysical furniture of the universe. This too is compatible with atheism.

Interestingly, I already made these points in a previous podcast with Andy. So I’m disappointed to see that he is still attempting to further this line of attack on atheism. Alas, by attempting to claim atheism is committed to this kind of implausible reductionism Andy commits at least two logical fallacies, the strawman and the fallacy of false alternatives. This is not an auspicious beginning.

Value: Inherent or Ascribed?

As the video continues, Andy asks how human dignity and value can be established. Andy then argues that value is ascribed rather than inherent. He bases this claim on the economist’s definition of value as that which a person (i.e. the valuer) is willing to pay for something (i.e. the object valued). Andy then presents a surprising argument that Christianity can explain this ascribed value because God paid for human beings with the life of his son, and thus in virtue of that act we have ascribed value. By contrast, on atheism there is no (divine) being to value the human race and thus ascribe value to that race.

I’ll present three points in response to this argument in ascending order of importance.

First, the least important point. Andy seems to assume an economic model of atonement according to which God in Christ pays for human beings. But pays to whom? The devil? Surely Andy is familiar with the great difficulties with attempting to provide the ransom motif the technical status of a genuine theory of atonement.

Andy could avoid this problem by saying that God only “pays” in some sort of metaphorical or analogical sense. But then it is not at all clear that this extended sense is sufficiently like the market economic exchange to which he appealed such that it can in fact establish the kind of value that is secured by genuine economic valuation.

Second, and more importantly, I was frankly taken aback by Andy’s decision to define value in terms of a market exchange. That seems like exactly the wrong way to define value. To borrow a famous quote from Oscar Wilde’s Lord Darlington, a cynic is “a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.” In other words, you can know what everybody will pay for every object in a market exchange and yet know what nothing is truly worth. The lesson is that genuine value, the kind of value with which Andy is presumably concerned, is not secured by the mere valuation in a market exchange.

Finally, and most importantly, the ascribed definition of value in this short video appears to be fundamentally inconsistent with the inherent conception of value that Andy appeals to in the “Unbelievable” program, a conception that Andy claims is located in the image of God.

This left me deeply puzzled. On the one hand, Andy says that value is ascribed and established by Christ’s atoning work. On the other hand, he says value is inherent and resides in the image of God. I don’t understand how Andy believes these two views fit together because they seem incompatible to me. Perhaps Andy can fit them together, but he has not as yet provided sufficient depth on his views to explain how.

Universal Human Rights?

I will close by turning from the video to the wider “Unbelievable” discussion. Throughout this debate Andy attacks Peter Tatchell’s basis for truly universal human values. Unfortunately for the humanists, while Tatchell seems like an eminently nice and intelligent person, he is not a particularly skilled debater. But Andy’s view of human rights has significant vulnerabilities that could have been explored in the program.

To begin with, let’s return to Andy’s claim that the image of God secures an inherent conception of human dignity and value. Andy appeals to the image of God at several points, but what is the image, exactly?

Here’s one possibility. The image could be a supervenient property which exists in virtue of particular (human) organisms exemplifying particular powers (e.g. imagination, free will, reason, language, etc.). If the image of God is explicable in terms of the exercise of one or more of these properties then the atheist can appeal to those same properties in his account of value.

Of course, all such accounts face a problem: what about the human beings who lack the properties or capacities in question? E.g. they lack reason or language or whatever. Are they not fully human? Are they not in the image of God? Note that this is a problem for the Christian as surely as the atheist.

Andy could avoid that problem by retreating to the view that the image is simply an arbitrary divine declaration: by fiat God declares this particular species of especial value irrespective of the powers or properties of any individual members of the species. Certainly Andy could make that claim, but let’s be clear that it exacts the high cost of making the declaration of “image of God” an empty placeholder in search of a substantive account of human value.

I’ll note one more problem before wrapping up. Tatchell never brings up the problem of biblical violence and human rights. Consider, for example, the fact that particular groups (e.g. Canaanites; Amalekites) are given over to the herem in portions of the Old Testament. These actions, described in passages like Joshua 6-11 and 1 Samuel 15 meet the standards of ethnic cleansing and genocide. And that raises a fair question: how can Andy justify a universal conception of human rights if he believes God can command actions as extreme as the eradication of entire people groups?

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The Bible as God’s Anthology

My views on the Bible really began to change when I went to university to pursue a double major in English and religious studies. At that time I began to learn about hermeneutics including the importance of interpreting distinct literary genres, heeding historical context, and attending to the many distinct approaches to textual interpretation. Along the way I gradually came to terms with the fact that I had inculcated a particular way of reading the Bible – interpret literally when possible – from my conservative Pentecostal upbringing. It was disconcerting to learn that this flatfooted approach to Bible reading had led me to misread various texts. It turned out that the proper interpretation of the Bible was significantly more complicated than I had initially supposed.

I’d grown up thinking about the Bible in the terms of two dominant models. To begin with, there was the Newspaper Model. I’d long envisioned large tracts of the Bible as providing straightforward newspaper-like accounts of God’s action in history: past, present, and future. In addition, I viewed the Bible as a collection of wisdom sayings, something like 31,000 Sayings to Succeed in Life and Get to Heaven. Newspaper accounts of history and wisdom sayings for life: that was the Bible.

It didn’t take long to realize that those two images just didn’t work. Both images failed to grapple with the diversity of biblical genres, ancient idiomatic expression, and the rich cultural implicature with which every text was interwoven. They were also grossly reductionistic: if a sentence required the context in which it was spoken or written to give it meaning, why had I assumed that sentences could be extracted from the Bible without loss? As I came to terms with the inadequacy of the Newspaper and Wisdom Saying Models, I began to look for a more suitable metaphor or analogy of the Bible. But what?

My shifting view of the Bible was intertwined with studying English, and in particular with one of my textbooks from university: The Norton Anthology of American Literature. The Norton Anthology is an influential text that has gone through many different editions over the years. It is an expansive and diverse omnibus collection of writings which span four centuries of American history (from the 1600s to today), composed by men and women from a wide range of experiences, cultures, and socioeconomic backgrounds. As a result, the writings collected in the text exemplify a diversity of genres and styles including poetry, short story, letters, speeches, novel excerpts, and much more. The editors selected the various texts that fill the pages of the book as a way to tell the story of the American people.

As an English major, I spent a lot of time with the Norton Anthology. And one day it occurred to me that the Bible was actually a lot like this venerable textbook. Like the Norton Anthology, the Bible was an extremely diverse collection of writings composed by many different people writing in many different genres and all for the end of telling the story of a national people (in this case, the Israelites and early Christians). The text was composed in three different languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek) and written in several distinct cultural contexts over a thousand years. Further, far from being like a divine newspaper or a collection of isolated wisdom sayings which could be stamped on individual cards for ease of memorization, the Bible encompassed a vast and complex number of genres including pithy wisdom sayings, various forms of poetry, prophecy, Gospel, apocalyptic, law, and so on. It was an ancient library, and like any library distant from the reader in culture and time, it required care in interpretation.

At several points while reading the Norton Anthology, I had been impacted by the great gap in worldview between the writer and myself. That recognition had cultivated in me a sense of humility when reading the text and a commitment to heed the historical and literary context of each passage to the best of my abilities in an effort to close that gap.

As great as that gap could be, it paled in comparison with the chasm that separated my experience and worldview from that of the ancient Hebrews and early Christians that composed the Bible. And so I found that in addition to the enormous diversity within the text, I also needed to grapple with the gap between the biblical texts and my own culture and experience. Yet, somehow I had missed that glaring fact growing up, apparently based on the misbegotten belief that God had revealed himself in a collection of newspaper descriptions and transcultural wisdom sayings which were all equally accessible to any reader, despite their distance in time and place from the original writing.

No analogy is perfect, and in this case there is a rather important difference between the Bible and the Norton Anthology. While the Norton Anthology was compiled by human editors, I believed the Bible was compiled ultimately by God. Nonetheless, God functioned in the manner of a divine editor as the one who ultimately brought together the various writings of his human authors into a single, unified work. Moreover, God compiled this collection through human agents: editors, copyists, bishops, congregations, and church councils. All these individuals and groups worked – some intentionally and others as God’s unwitting agents – to identify the set of writings God had chosen to compile his book, a book which presented the story of God’s people and which promised good news for all people.

While the differences were undeniable, it was the parallels between the Bible and the Norton Anthology which fascinated me: both collections were enormously complex and varied works compiled by an editor to tell the story of a national people. In each case this meant that the proper reading of the collection demanded of its reader attention to this enormous complexity and variation. When it came to the Norton Anthology I was learning the set of reading skills required to engage the collection with the care and competence that it deserved. But where the Bible was concerned, I had never acquired those skills. I had never learned to heed the literary context, the social context, and the historical context of the various texts that compiled the collection. And I had little appreciation for the breathtaking gap in culture and language between these texts from the Ancient Near East and my own perspective as a late twentieth century Canadian Caucasian male reader.

This lack of awareness, and the bad reading that would inevitably result, would be troubling enough in an English class where the cost could do damage to your final course grade. It was orders more troubling in life where the cost could do damage to your soul. Observations like these pressed the question: why did God give us such a complicated, challenging collection? He could have presented us with a straightforward newspaper account of his actions in history combined with a smattering of wisdom maxims and clear doctrinal affirmations: God’s Story: A straightforward account of God’s action in history with wisdom sayings to succeed in life and get to heaven. But he didn’t. Instead he gave us the Holy Bible: The Divine Anthology of God’s People. And Christians have wrestled with the complexities of the biblical text ever since.

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How I’ll Know When I’m Ready For Heaven (Hint: it has to do with dog turds)

Over the last month the snows have gradually receded from Edmonton as spring has tepidly taken hold on the northern prairies. It’s an exciting time of year, except for one thing: dog turds.

Yes, dog turds.

I try to get out for runs on a regular basis and as the snows melt away on the various trails near my house, they reveal a vast and diverse collection of dog turds which thoughtless owners left on the trail. Some are grey and nearly fossilized, like a very stale Tootsie Roll coated in flour. Others are greenish brown and covered in mold spots as they slowly dissolve into the earth. In other words, a perfect 10 on the gross-out scale.

But all of them are disgusting. They take the joy out of spring. And God forbid any of them should end up smooshed between the labyrinth treads of your running shoe.

This brings me to a simple observation about personal sanctification. Here it is:

When I take a handful of dog poop bags with me on a run and I pick up as many of these piles of turd as I can to make the trails more pleasant for my neighbors, and I find joy in this modest bit of self-sacrifice simply for the increased pleasure it will give to my neighbors as they walk the trails, and I hold no lingering ill will to the dog owners who left these piles there in the first place, and I don’t want any public recognition for doing all this because doing the right thing is its own reward … then, and only then, I’ll know I’m ready for heaven.

And by the look of things, that’s going to be awhile.

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This is Not Normal: The Importance of Satire in the Age of Donald Trump

One month ago Donald Trump tweeted a series of bizarre accusations that Barack Obama wire tapped Trump Tower during the election. The charge was complete nonsense. And yet, in the weeks that followed Trump’s surrogates have engaged in a jaw-dropping exercise in confabulation, attempting to find something — anything — which can provide some sort of corroboration for the man’s paranoid and utterly baseless delusion.

(Please keep in mind that this is only one example of the wider phenomenon. Whether it is Trump claiming 3 million people illegally voted, or that his inauguration crowds were the biggest, or that human-induced climate change is false, or that Trump knows more about ISIS than the generals, or that Mexico will pay for his stupid wall, or that everyone will have healthcare, or that Obama is responsible for the latest Syrian gas attack [the same Obama who, Trump claimed, founded ISIS] or that Obama wasn’t born in the United States, or … the list goes on and on and on.)

By and large, the media is forced to go along for the ride. And in a quest for “fairness” they enlist those paid Trump surrogates to appear on panels to offer serious commentary on the latest iteration of Trump’s mind-numbing, narcissistic ignorance, delusion, and base stupidity.

At this point I think of two terms, gaslighting and shifting baselines. In the 1944 film Gaslight the villain named Gregory (played by Charles Boyer) attempts to convince his new wife Paula (Ingrid Bergmann) that she’s insane. One of his methods is to alter the flickering gaslights that illumine their house at night. He then denies that he can see any change in an effort to get Paula to begin questioning her own reality. The plot gave rise to the term gaslighting, a technique of psychological manipulation in which one individual leads the victim to question their reality in order to attain power over them.

In December 2016 Lauren Duca published in (of all places) Teen Vogue an outstanding critique of Trump titled “Trump is gaslighting America“. Just over two months into Trump’s presidency, the corrosive impact of his narcissistic, post-truth persona on the public square is increasingly visible as Trump surrogates continue to debate “wiretapping”.

The second term is shifting baselines, and this refers to the phenomenon that normalcy changes over time. For example, in a world of increased pollution, a beautiful day may be one where you can simply see the sun through the smog. Even now I can see Trump — his vulgarity, his delusions, his narcissism, his complete lack of a moral compass or gravitas — as shifting baselines across society in a range of areas: government, public service, the media, and so on.

The shared problem with gaslighting and shifting baselines is that Trump is treated as normal. He isn’t. Nor is the Trump age in which we live. But how best to counter it? A couple days ago Vox.com posted this short video which provides the way forward: satire.

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Will Jesus Return in 1988?

With the return of Jesus mere months away, the publisher didn’t have time for such niceties as cover art. Stark red font against a white background will have to do.

I remember September, 1988 well for one reason: my friend Sean’s parents gave away and sold all their possessions. Why? They were convinced that Jesus would return in a few days based on the calculations of Edgar Whisenant, calculations that Mr. Whisenant had published in the bestselling booklet 88 Reasons Why The Rapture Will Be In 1988.

I never read Mr. Whisenant’s booklet, but Karl Keating quotes the following excerpt which gives a taste of the perverse logic of this delusional genius:

“From 2422 B.C., we have the instructions for building the ark given by God to Noah. Thus 2422 B.C. + (9 x 490) = 1988, the year of the Church’s rapture. Thus, 490 years is a period of dealing with a people (7 x 70 or 70 weeks [of 7 days]), and 9 is 3 x 3, the number of God; therefore, 9 x 490 is the end of God’s dealing with the Gentile people from Noah to the end of the time of the Gentiles in 1988.

                “From 532 B.C., the start of the Jewish punishment seven times over for not obeying God, or a punishment of 2,520 years (Lev. 26:14-39); or from 602 B.C. when Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar his dream of the idol with the head of gold, subtract the 70-year Babylonian captivity and you have 532 B.C. + (7 x 360) = 1988, the year of the Church’s rapture.” (Cited in Karl Keating, The Usual Suspects, Ignatius Press, 2000 96).

Who needs a biblical hermeneutics class when you have a calculator and a vivid imagination?

I still find it incredible that Sean’s parents — and thousands like them — were persuaded by this kind of gobbledygook that Jesus would come back in September, 1988.

Poor Sean. That’s a tough way to begin your sophomore year!

Today I ran across Whisenant’s book at Amazon.com where it is for sale in a Kindle edition. I was shocked to see that it actually had 2 1/2 stars. I wondered, “How is it possible that this crazy pamphlet got anything more than a single star?” Then I read some of the reviews and I realized some sardonic humor was at play. Here’s a five star review:

“A lot of people say you can’t know when the rapture will be but this book spells it out clearly. laugh if you want but when Oct 1988 comes around I’ll be ready….oh…wait.”

Heh heh.

Not all was levity, however. Another review (with a somewhat perplexing 3 star rating) offered a more sobering autobiographical glimpse at the impact of this kind of nonsense:

“When I was around 7, my parents had this book. It sat on the coffee table, scaring the bejesus out of me. I had forgotten about it, but thanks for the reminder of why I have generalized anxiety disorder.”

I suspect more than a few folks raised in dispensational fundamentalist churches suffer from a similar clinical diagnosis.

This is the point where I say “April Fools!” (I’m posting this article on April 1st.) But the fact is that this is no joke. Whisenant’s book was a bestseller. The nonsense quote above really does come from the book. Sean’s parents really did dump all their possessions based on Whisenant’s crazy calculations. And more than a few folks who grew up in that era probably do suffer a generalized anxiety disorder as a result.

Sometimes truth rivals the best April Fool’s jokes.

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To Shun or Not to Shun: That is the Question

Last year I addressed the topic of shunning fellow Christians in an article titled “Should we shun Christians that we believe are living an immoral life?” The crucial excerpt comes in Paul’s comments on church discipline in 1 Corinthians 5. The essence of his directive is summarized in verse 11:

“But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people.”

This topic returned to my mind a couple weeks ago when Michael Brown posted the following short (i.e. three minute) video:

I have a few additional thoughts to add to my original article here.

First, churches today are often reluctant to exercise any sort of discipline among members, and there are several reasons for this. To note one, many churches have committed to an overly consumerist and seeker-sensitive model of church, and that makes it all the more awkward to call people to account for bad behavior: you don’t want to alienate the customers. That said, even commercial establishments have rules like “No shirt, no shoes, no service.”

Second, if you think about it, this is a shockingly harsh teaching. Paul insists that we ought not even eat — and thus have no fellowship — with the person who is being shunned. So imagine, for example, that Dave left his wife for another woman and he has been expelled from church. A few months later you run into Dave at the mall. He seems delighted to see you and he asks you out for coffee. As Paul would have it, you need to refuse the invitation. Until Dave repents of his sin you can have no social interaction with him. Indeed, at most you might exchange a perfunctory greeting before you insist that you need to be on your way.

(Note as well that Paul does not provide any allowance for familial exceptions. So even if Dave is your brother or son, you still need to shun him.)

This leads me to the third point: as Brown notes, Paul intends this hard teaching to be redemptive. The justification for absolute shunning is not a deontological absolute. That is, it is not an inviolable moral law that one always ought to shun the Christian engaged in habitual sin. Rather, the justification for the principle is consequentialist in nature: one shuns based on the belief that doing so will make it more likely that the individual will thereby repent.

This may be the case in some instances, but is it always the case? Or could there be instances where shunning actually alienates a person further and makes it less likely that they shall repent? I can think of real life instances where it appears that shunning only served to alienate and embitter a person against the community of faith further. And if that does occur, then it is an open question whether one, in fact, ought to shun in a given circumstance.

Finally, are we willing to apply this principle consistently? As I’ve noted before, Jesus appears to teach that those who divorce and remarry for any reason other than porneia (i.e. “marital unfaithfulness”) are not in a legitimate conjugal union. Rather, their relationship with their new “spouse” is tantamount to an ongoing situation of habituated adultery. And that means that those couples in your church who are divorced and remarried for any reason other than marital unfaithfulness are prime candidates for shunning until they leave their (illegitimate) current spouse.

Who is willing to carry out that shunning? Who thinks that doing so would be, in any way, redemptive?

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