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After Church/State Separation Advocate Mikey Weinstein Speaks at Patrick Henry College, School Deletes Video

***Update***: An official at Patrick Henry College responded to me about why the video was removed in the first place:

We temporarily removed the automatic post of the Olasky-Weinstein interview Sunday afternoon to honor the request of one of our students, who was involved briefly in the post-interview Q&A. We will be posting the interview in its entirely on our PHC website (minus the student’s brief involvement), by start of business tomorrow.

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Yesterday, I posted about how the Military Religious Freedom Foundation‘s Mikey Weinstein (below, right) recently sat down for an interview with WORLD Magazine editor-in-chief Dr. Marvin Olasky at Patrick Henry College, one of the most fundamentalist Christian schools in the nation.

You can read the positive reaction from students here, but what’s puzzling is that the school took down the video from their website within days of posting it. Chris Rodda explains:

On Friday afternoon, PHC posted the video of Mikey’s interview on its UStream page, along with the videos of its other Newsmakers Interview Series interviews, and the video started to get around via blogs and social media.

At some point over the weekend, however, PHC apparently decided, for reasons that can only be guessed at, to take the video down. (MRFF was initially informed of the disappearance of the video by a PHC student who had wanted to show it to their Bible study group, but found that it had been deleted when they went to the school’s UStream page.)

But, fortunately, the video is not lost. MRFF recorded the interview, and it is now available on our YouTube channel. So, if you want to guess at why PHC might have decided to make the video of this interview unavailable, just watch it.

I have sent an email to Patrick Henry College asking why the video was pulled and I’ll update this post if I hear back.

With that, here you go!

Again, I haven’t had a chance to see the complete interview, but if any moments stand out to you, please leave the timestamp and summary in the comments.

8 Things Your Pastor Will Never Tell You About the Bible

This is a guest post written by Richard Hagenston. Hagenston is an ordained United Methodist minister, a former pastor, and the author of Fabricating Faith: How Christianity Became a Religion Jesus Would Have Rejected.

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When I was a United Methodist pastor, I learned an unsettling thing from my own experiences and those of some colleagues serving other churches: Many ministers keep secrets about the Bible, lest things they learned in seminary (or otherwise know) hurt church attendance and the Sunday offering.

This put some friends of mine in a terrible quandary, forced to say things from the pulpit that were doctrinally demanded but which they had come to privately question. As for me, I resolved the matter by leaving the pastorate. When I did, I got calls of congratulations from two nearby ministers. One of those calls was especially poignant. He said I was fortunate to have other skills from my previous work experience that I could draw on. But he added that all he had been trained to do was to be a minister and that he felt trapped in the pulpit saying things he no longer believed in order to continue supporting his family.

It’s time our secrets about the Bible came out. It’s time for Christians to know what their pastors won’t tell them.

1) The Apostles of Jesus Seem to Have Known Nothing about a Virgin Birth

The earliest mention of the birth of Jesus to be written is not the nativity stories in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, but verses in Paul’s letter to the Romans. He wrote it after having met with Peter and others who had known in person not only Jesus but also his mother and brothers. Despite learning from them everything they could tell him about Jesus, Paul shows no sign of having heard of a virgin birth. Instead, he wrote that Jesus “was descended from David according to the flesh” and was declared to be the Son of God not through any special birth that Paul mentions but by his resurrection (Romans 1:3-4).

The nativity stories in Matthew and Luke, suggesting that Jesus had a virgin birth in Bethlehem (the birthplace of David), were composed later and even his own apostles showed no indication of knowing anything about it.

2) Jesus Said He Wanted to Offer Nothing to Gentiles

The fact that Christianity has become a religion largely of Gentiles who literally worship Jesus is a huge irony, because in his ministry, Jesus said he intended to offer Gentiles nothing.

Matthew 10:5 shows Jesus giving his disciples firm instructions to “go nowhere among the Gentiles.” It’s true that Chapter 8 of Matthew and Chapter 7 of Luke show Jesus healing the servant of a Roman soldier. However, this happened only after the soldier said he was unworthy of Jesus’ attention.

It’s also possible that Jesus assumed the servant was a Jew, because, as shown in Matthew 15:21-28, when a woman who was indisputably a Gentile asked for healing for her daughter, Jesus initially ignored her. She was so persistent with her pleas that his apostles wanted to silence her. But they didn’t ask Jesus to do that by helping her. Instead, knowing his attitude toward Gentiles, they urged him to send her away. When she finally knelt before Jesus, making it impossible to continue to ignore her, he told her he was sent “only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” He then made clear that he considered her as a Gentile to be no better than a dog, adding that it wasn’t fair for dogs to receive food intended for children. Only when she pointed out that even dogs eat crumbs from their masters’ table did Jesus praise her for her faith and give her the help she wanted.

Further evidence that Jesus had a harsh attitude toward Gentiles comes from the fact that, after his death, resistance from his disciples caused Paul problems in his Gentile conversion efforts (see Galatians 2:11-14). Christianity eventually became a religion of Gentiles not because of any personal outreach to them by Jesus during his lifetime, but because of the work of Paul and the fact that most Jews, whom Jesus was really reaching out to, rejected it.

3) Jesus Tells Everyone Not to Think of Him as God in the First Three Gospels

The Gospel of John shows Jesus saying he is divine — again and again. But nowhere in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, widely acknowledged to have been written before John and thus closer to the events they describe, does Jesus claim to be a deity.

In fact, all of those first three gospels show Jesus scoldingly saying that he should never be thought of as God. Mark 10:18 depicts Jesus as saying, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.” Obviously, he took offense at the mere thought that he might be considered to have the same righteousness as God. He is shown making the same point in Luke 18:19 and Matthew 19:17.

4) The Resurrection Appearances in the Gospels Have Irreconcilable Differences

The gospel accounts of the resurrection appearances of Jesus differ substantially, including where the risen Jesus is said to have appeared to his apostles. The gospels of Matthew and Mark place the appearances solely in Galilee. However, Luke, as well as the book of Acts, has Jesus appearing only in and around Jerusalem.

To add to the confusion, the Gospel of John shows Jesus appearing in both Galilee and Jerusalem. The actual appearance of a resurrected Jesus would have been so stunning that it raises the question of why there was not even one record of such an event that made a deep enough impression to be passed down in all the gospels.

5) Jesus Was Against Public Prayer

Those who argue for public prayer in such diverse settings as government meetings and football games don’t seem to know the Bible.

If they did, they would realize that Jesus was very much against it. In Matthew 6:1, he warns against practicing piety before others, saying that those who do will “have no reward from your Father in heaven.” In Matthew 6:6, as a preface to the Lord’s Prayer, he says that to pray one should go into a room, close the door, and pray in secret. In fact, the King James Version of the Bible translates that as going into a closet to pray.

Perhaps even more significant is that in Matthew 6:5 Jesus harshly criticizes those who pray out loud in synagogues, the local worship settings of his day. Based on that, it seems possible, jolting as it may be, that he may have also disapproved of public prayer in churches, much less government meetings.

6) Some Books of the Bible Are Forgeries

My seminary professors mentioned that some books of the Bible, notably some letters attributed to Paul, were probably written by people who lied about who they were to gain Paul’s authority for their own ideas. But they never put it that bluntly. They couldn’t even bring themselves to use the word “forgeries.” Instead, they used “pseudepigrapha,” a fancy word meaning wrongly attributed authorship that tells the truth while in its pompousness also disguises it.

Especially suspect are the so-called pastoral epistles, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus. Because these made it into the Bible under Paul’s name, some find reasons to insist that they must be authentic. However, there is wide agreement among many Bible scholars that they differ so much from Paul’s vocabulary, style, and teachings that they could not be by him.

All of this raises the question of how much authority one wishes to give the writings of those who were not truthful even about who they were. For instance, in contrast to the respect that Paul showed toward women, the author of 1 Timothy felt very differently. In 1 Timothy 2:11-15 he says they need to be silent and submissive, and will be saved only “through childbearing.” A similar point that women need to be silent in church appears in an authentic letter of Paul as 1 Corinthians 14:34-35. However, those verses so thoroughly break the flow of the passage in which they appear, and are so contrary to other things Paul writes, that they seem like they’re a later insertion by another person wanting to claim the authority of Paul for his own repressive attitude toward women.

And yet those verses in 1 Timothy and 1 Corinthians, apparently by people pretending to be someone they were not, are used even today to justify limiting the leadership roles of women in some churches.

7) Parts of the Bible Were Intentionally Written to Disagree with Other Parts of the Bible

Not only does the Bible have many contradictions, some of them are clearly intentional.

An Old Testament example is found in Psalm 51. That psalm was written after Babylonia destroyed Jerusalem (and its Temple that had been built by Solomon) and led the city’s inhabitants off to exile. Since the Temple was no longer available for sacrifice, the author of Psalm 51 offers comfort in Verses 16 and 17 by saying God does not even desire sacrifice but only a contrite heart.

But then, in a clearly intentional contradiction, someone who disagreed with that came along and added, immediately afterward, Verses 18 and 19 saying that God would be delighted by sacrifices that would follow a rebuilding of Jerusalem.

In the New Testament, we see an example in what the gospels say about the message of John the Baptist. The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke all depict John the Baptist as saying he was offering a baptism for the forgiveness of sin through repentance alone. But, writing later, the author of the Gospel of John didn’t like that at all. He wanted to say that forgiveness comes only through sacrifice, the blood sacrifice of Jesus himself. So, in contradiction to the other gospels, he says that the message of John the Baptist was to proclaim Jesus as a pending sacrificial Lamb of God.

Contradictions such those in Psalm 51 and what the gospels say about John the Baptist, as well as others that can be found in both the Old and New Testaments, show that much of the Bible is an interplay of human agendas which often conflicted with one another.

8) Apostles Who Had Been Taught by Jesus Himself Insisted that Paul Was Wrong about the Gospel

The Apostle Paul was a man under attack for his beliefs. In Galatians 1:6-9 he complains about those who thought that his gospel was wrong and were causing people to turn away from what he had taught them. Not wanting to give voice to the opposition, he doesn’t mention the issues in dispute. But he was not one to even consider that he may have been at fault, saying in that same Galatians passage that even any “angel from heaven” who dared disagree with him should be damned.

As for the identity of Paul’s opponents, in 2 Corinthians 11:13 he calls them “false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.” But who were they? In 2 Corinthians 11:5 he sarcastically calls them “super-apostles.” In that time, “super-apostles” could have meant only one thing: the original apostles.

This means that apostles who had known, walked with, and been taught by Jesus himself during his lifetime thought Paul was wrong about at least some of what he was teaching.

This leads to a question: Since Paul’s teachings became a basis of today’s Christian faith, would Jesus have approved of the religion that is today proclaimed in his name? Answering that question is the basis of my book Fabricating Faith.

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I am still a Christian, but I don’t believe we should hide from the facts about our own faith. How many pastors know about these problems, but never mention them in a sermon? How many of them are depriving their congregations of a fuller, deeper understanding of their faith, with all of its complexities? We must be willing to embrace some uncomfortable truths.

After Three Decades as an Ordained Minister, Syndicated Columnist Bob Ripley Comes Out as an Atheist

Rev. Bob Ripley was a minister for more than three decades, including 15 years spent as Senior Minister at Metropolitan United Church, a major Canadian congregation. He also wrote a syndicated column discussing religion for the past 25 years.

His most recent column, however, may raise a lot of eyebrows, because Ripley talks about how he no longer believes in God.

It’s a prelude to his forthcoming book Life Beyond Belief (not yet available online for some reason) explaining his deconversion:

… I need to tell you that I’ve changed my mind. Where once I proclaimed the doctrines of Christianity with passion and sincerity, I am now convinced that religion, all religion, is man-made. As with the long line of deities dotting the history of our species, the idea of one God, Yahweh, made manifest in Jesus of Nazareth, is our means to an end — to explain how we got here, for instance, or to avoid looking fate in the face or to gain an edge over our enemies.

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If all this makes you sad, I’m sorry. Please remember that I have not changed. The heart that was once surrendered to Jesus Christ, that gave itself to others and infused a vocation with kindness, still beats in me. If you have ever met me, know that the person I was then, I am now, still striving for integrity and capable of profound love.

I’m not lost. I began this journey by asking questions. It continued by not being content with trite cliches or lazy affirmations. Curiosity is an amazing accelerant. I am a passionate advocate for unremitting intellectual honesty, for reason and reality, for love and learning. My advocacy simply no longer assumes a deity.

I still believe. I believe no person or group of persons is inferior to any other. I believe that what matters is not so much what we believe, but how we conduct ourselves for these few short, fragile years of being alive. I believe that being aware of the beauty and wonder of the universe, including this pale blue dot in the remote corner of one of billions of galaxies, is an indescribably wonderful privilege.

If the book is anything like that column, I can’t wait to read it.

Ripley, incidentally, has been answering questions anonymously for a while now at another Patheos blog, Rational Doubt. He outed himself there today as well.

(Thanks to Brian for the link)

Pastor Explains How His Church Will Offer to Tutor Elementary School Kids… to Bring Their Families Closer to God

We’ve discussed the Good News Club on this site several times before — it’s basically an elementary school version of Campus Crusade for Christ. The Christians who run the groups want to reach the kids early — before they can think for themselves — in the hopes that they’ll be able to add another tally mark on the church walls and save some souls.

But there’s a less explicit, more insidious way to get to young children, and you can hear it in a recent sermon given at Calvary Alliance Church in Cincinnati, Ohio.

In the clip below, Pastor David Robinette explains how his church plans to gather volunteers, then approach local elementary schools with the offer of tutoring children for free. Why tutor them? Because they’ll win over the children, which means winning over the families, which means they’ll eventually come to Jesus. He doesn’t say that last bit explicitly, but the path is evident.

… what [another church group found is that] through long-term tutoring, for one hour a week, after school, you begin to reach children in helping them with their studies. And then it turns into behavioral mentoring, and then it starts reaching into families…

… I’m gonna ask you to keep this between us right now, okay? I don’t want you to go to any schools around here and say my church is starting a Whiz Kids program…

At least the pastor says, if the schools reject them, they’ll move on, but his point is made clear by the end: “That’s our Jerusalem.” That’s how they’re going to win over converts.

If this were purely altruistic, it’d be hard to criticize what they’re doing. It’s a wonderful thing when local citizens offer to help tutor children for free. But there’s an ulterior motive at work here: The church wants to reach new members and they’re using the children as a conduit to reach their families. There’s something just abhorrent about that end goal.

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know if any atheist or non-Christian group is urging members to tutor these kids — I wish they would — but I hope the elementary school officials at least make it very clear that no proselytizing is allowed when these adults are with the children.

Friendly Atheist Podcast Episode 21: Conor Robinson, Creator of the Pathfinders Project

Our latest podcast guest is Conor Robinson, creator of the Pathfinders Project:

Conor Robinson graduated from Yale University, where he launched the Yale Humanist Society. He is a Teach for American alumnus. And last year, he began and took part in the Pathfinders Project, a year-long international service project for Humanists. Consider it a Mission Trip minus the religion. He visited Cambodia, Uganda, Ghana, and Haiti, among other places. (Full disclosure, I’m on the board of Foundation Beyond Belief, which helped sponsor this project.)

We spoke with Conor about living with a group of strangers for a year, how he had to change his diet while living overseas, and how his life has changed since returning home.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on the podcast. If you have any suggestions for people we should chat with, please leave them in the comments, too.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, get the MP3 directly, check it out on Stitcher, or just listen to the whole thing below.

And if you like what you’re hearing, please consider supporting this site on Patreon and leaving us a positive rating!

Uri Geller: The iPhone 6 Bends Because of Your “Mind Powers”

We finally figured out why the iPhone 6 bends. It’s not Apple’s fault!

It’s the energy of our minds… says “psychic” Uri Geller, who finally figured out no one cares about his spoon trick anymore:

“There are two possible explanations,” Uri Geller, the psychic illusionist famous for bending spoons with his mind, told MarketWatch. “Either the phone is so seriously thin and flimsy that it is bendable with mere physical force, which I cannot believe given the extensive tests Apple would have done. Or — and this is far more plausible — somehow the energy and excitement of the 10 million people who purchased iPhones has awakened their mind powers and caused the phones to bend.”

Yep. That’s gotta be it. Even though your mental powers won’t do anything unless your hands are also bending the phone at its edges…

Now’s a good time to point out that Geller is probably richer than any of us will ever be.

(Image via Hadrian / Shutterstock.com)

Becoming an Atheist Has Health Benefits

We’ve all heard the studies that show religion is good for your health.

Among other things, church-goers have less stress, are less likely to smoke or drink, have more self-esteem, and have stronger social support. The problem with these results is that it’s not necessarily church itself (or belief in the supernatural) that’s the key — it’s just being part of a tight-knit community. An atheist group that meets regularly, in other words, may provide many of the same benefits.

Finally, we’re getting a look at the other side. Why is leaving religion good for your health? Jon Fortenbury explores that question in a new Atlantic article. It turns out the health benefits of becoming an atheist are especially obvious if you’re leaving a restrictive religion:

Like [former evangelical Christian Annie] Erlandson, some people’s health improves after deconverting because they stop practicing negative health behaviors that may have been tied to their religion. For example, leaving a faith such as Christian Science, which dissuades medical treatment, obviously opens up more opportunities for healthcare intervention.

Other negative health behaviors sometimes associated with being religious, according to social psychologist Dr. Clay Routledge in Psychology Today, are cognitive dissonance (consistent religious doubts can harm your health) and avoidant coping. An example of the latter is the attitude that things are “all in God’s hands,” which could potentially keep people from taking action on behalf of their own health.

Unlike those who become isolated from community after losing their faith, Erlandson’s social life improved drastically after her deconversion. She began hanging out with theatre kids and people in the local punk rock scene.

Essentially, a lot of the benefits of becoming an atheist are similar to joining a church (if that makes you happy). You become part of an accepting social circle. You feel that your new beliefs are in accordance with reality. You feel at peace with yourself. You have new ways of handling the stress of everyday life.

If you’re in a religious faith and you’re not happy, leaving it will almost certainly be good for you. It’ll be tough at first, making such a drastic change, but I can’t think of anyone I know who left religion and still has any regrets about it. (The flip side of that, of course, is that those who join a church because they felt alone or depressed will inevitably be better off as a result.)

It reminds me of the Louis CK bit about how divorce is always good news because it means things were shitty before and they’re a little less shitty now. If you’re unhappy, then changing your situation is bound to confer some health benefits along the way.

(Image via Shutterstock)

This Atheist’s Stage IV Lung Cancer Isn’t Causing Him to Rethink His Beliefs

This is a guest post written by Stuart Grief. For over 20 years, Stuart has worked with CEOs and senior leaders both as a consultant and c-suite executive.

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About seven weeks ago, I was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer, a rare occurrence for a non-smoker and otherwise healthy person in his early 50s. Although I hope it is not the case, I can imagine some religious people wondering whether I was afflicted due to my disbelief in God. If that’s true, it’s hard to imagine a more petty and vengeful all-powerful God.

What I’ve been exploring for the past few weeks are my feelings related to my illness. Although they have run the gamut of emotions, one I’ve not felt is anger. I can imagine that if I did believe in an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent God, I would have some questions for Him. The absence of a God belief has allowed me to accept the randomness of this occurrence as I would a lightning strike or a piano falling out a window. I’ve spent no time wondering or lamenting “Why me?” and have focused instead on my treatment and what I can do to enjoy whatever time the latest in medical science can provide me.

I’ve been fortunate to receive encouraging messages from many friends and family members and cannot imagine dealing with this illness alone. I have noted that many — if not most — of the messages include some form of, “Our thoughts and prayers are with you.” For some I suspect it’s simply a turn of phrase. Others have described more explicit prayer activities in church or synagogue. I’ve not felt offended in the least by these expressions, recognizing that they are an attempt by those who care to do something — anything — to help, and for that I am grateful.

However, these mostly well-educated well-wishers have me wondering what they think about their prayers, and how they resolve the dissonance I quickly ran into as I thought about it. If God is willing to answer their prayers, why has He chosen to afflict me in the first place? If He has a reason or plan for my affliction, why would their prayers change His plans? Is He surprised in his omniscience that so many people care for me? Will He realize that He made a mistake? And how is it that my mortal sin of disbelief can be overcome by their fervent prayers?

Since the misfortune of my diagnosis, there have been a number of positive developments. Scans showed that the cancer was not visibly present in my brain, bones, or organs. It was “contained” to my lungs and lymphatic system. I was found to have one of only a few genotypes of lung cancer that have been identified, and there are oral therapies that target these mutations with very few side effects. I’m feeling dramatically better after only five weeks on this therapy. And I’m fortunate to live in Boston, only minutes from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute where I’m being treated (and where some of the research related to my therapy was done and continues). As my wife diligently communicates my changing situation to our friends and family, a number commented that they “knew God would hear their prayers.” Again, I wonder how they avoid the dissonance I would experience over such beliefs.

I haven’t yet had the opportunity to discuss this with some of my believing friends and family. Under normal circumstances I might avoid such discussions, but perhaps, feeling empowered by my illness, I might just ask them some of the questions I posed above.

I often hear that religion provides people with comfort in times of distress in their lives, making me wonder whether my beliefs might change in a similar way. I can unequivocally state that my beliefs have not changed despite my current situation. I find it much more comforting to know that my illness is the result of the randomness inherent in any complex system and to place my hopes in the incredibly skilled scientists and physicians battling this disease, rather than the capricious whims of a dictatorial deity. Belief in a supernatural agent as the cause of, and presumably rationale for, my illness would only add stress and anxiety to an already difficult situation.

Church/State Separation Advocate Mikey Weinstein Speaks at Fundamentalist Christian College

On Friday, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation‘s Mikey Weinstein (below, right) sat down for an interview with WORLD Magazine editor-in-chief Dr. Marvin Olasky at Patrick Henry College. That’s one of the most vocal fighters for separation of church and state speaking at one of the most fundamentalist Christian schools in the nation.

Broadcast live streaming video on Ustream

(You know, they could have at least spelled his name correctly…)

According to a couple of the emails I’ve seen from current and former PHC students to Weinstein, they were disturbed by the nature and tone of the questions posed to him:

Speaking on behalf of many of us who attended, I wanted to thank you for the personal courage it must have taken for you to come here. We all saw your security guards and after going to your website at the MRFF we now know why you need them. While a lot of us can’t say much for Mr. Olasky’s offensive, sketchy interview “techniques”, we really can praise your excellent answers and instructive and even humorous commentary. You kept your cool and we learned so much. [Current student]

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A few hours before his interview began, the administration sent out a campus-wide email calling Mr. Weinstein a “rather non-traditional guest” who would “bring an alternate and, by some standards, anti-Christian viewpoint.” To their credit, the email asked the students to be hospitable. It’s unfortunate, however, that separation of church and state in the military would be a topic that requires such an introduction…

Marvin Olasky, of World Magazine fame, conducted the interview. From the beginning, his questioning was unnecessarily belligerent. He presumed that Mr. Weinstein’s answers could be a simple yes or no (as if the law is that simple) and gave Mr. Weinstein little time to provide a detailed explanation about the various factors that would go into the legal analysis of a case. Despite Olasky’s shortcomings, it was a great interview. Mr. Weinstein gave as good (probably better) than he got, and the students heard a great explanation about the importance of the Establishment Clause in the military. [Former student]

I haven’t had a chance to see the complete interview, but if any moments stand out to you, please leave the timestamp and summary in the comments.

We’re Looking for More Volunteers to Help Track Anti-Church/State Separation Legislation Across the Country

Last month, I put out a call for people who might help me track legislation that threatens to erode the wall between church and state, whether it’s making the Bible the official State Book or altering science curriculums so that public schools teach Creationism alongside evolution.

I received an incredible number of responses — and we now have several groups in place, each watching over a handful of states. The infrastructure is in place!

We could still use a few more volunteers, though, to strengthen each team. If you’re interested in participating in this project, please fill out this form ASAP. I’ll add you to a team as soon as possible.

Thanks for your help.

(Image via Shutterstock)