Category Archives: Setting the record straight

God’s Currency

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It’s really common to demand that God come down and make Himself known. People expect Him to make an appearance, answer for what they perceive as His flaws and mistakes, and otherwise prove to them what they are supposed to take on faith.

On the face of it, it seems like a reasonable request. It isn’t.

There is only one thing that we humans have that is truly ours: Free will. God owns everything else; our will and our capacity to choose Him (or not) is the only thing that we really own. God has an entire universe. It all belongs to Him. Because free will is the only thing we own, faith is the only currency we have that is worth anything to God.

He wants us to believe in Him and to follow his word. But that requires faith. We pay God with our faith.

If you look at the Old Testament, the folks that God said were people after His own heart were folks like Abraham, David, Moses, Isaiah and the like. A very small percentage of the Hebrew people truly had faith in God. Those faithful folks didn’t always behave properly, but they always knew and acknowledged that God was in charge, that He existed and that they owed everything to Him. They had faith that He was bringing a messiah; they had faith that God loved them and that they should love Him in turn.

When we also look at the Old Testament, we see time and time again how God would appear in some dramatic form with big-time, special effects-laden miracles to get the Hebrews out of a jam, and then after a while they just went back to doing their own thing and got hard-headed again. Then God left them to their own devices until they got into trouble again. Then He reappears. Rinse and repeat.

Point is, when God made Himself openly “visible” to the Hebrews through His actions and his voice and such, they still didn’t behave right. They did what they did out of fear and maybe even some respect, but not out of love or true faith, which are the two things God wants from us. The ancient Hebrews are the example to us today of why God doesn’t just open the skies and say, “Yoo-hoo! Up here! Could you all listen to me for a change? Otherwise, I’ve got this place called Hell. Thanks, I appreciate it.”

If we knew God was up there because he made Himself visible to us, most of us who did try to obey Him would be doing so because of fear. We would act better because of a very big stick and not because we choose to.

God must remain invisible, and call upon us to have faith in His word and through His word, or else our currency—our faith—loses its value sharply.

Choosing Satan

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I seem to be stuck on Satan and Hell a lot lately and I’m not trying to be; much like my streak of posts about speaking in tongues not so long ago, I guess the Holy Spirit is pushing me in a certain direction. Anyway, many of my posts about Hell (and more recently my father-in-law’s stuff about Satan, which I posted) have discussed the fact that many people will choose Satan and choose Hell rather than select God’s way. I’m sure many readers have thought me crazy to think that anyone would choose Hell.

But consider this image:

 

In a post at The Jesus Gang that features this graph, the author says simply:

Whose team would you want to be on? I’m just sayin’.

I know the graph is likely meant in humor. And I’m twisted enough to see the joke, despite being a child of God and a follower of Jesus Christ. But it points to a larger issue here. People don’t get it. Satan is a liar and a deceiver. Truth be told, Satan’s devices have led to far more death and suffering in the world. Has God been responsible for some killing? Sure. And there have been reasons for it. But most deaths are not at God’s hands; only a miniscule percentage in the history of humanity have been. Yet, too many people think that disasters are sent from God, that God is to blame when people kill each other over religion, that human illness in this world is a creation of God’s.

Nothing could be farther from the truth but still, people cling to that notion. Some even preach from the pulpit (or just on their media-based religious soapboxes) about how God sent the floods to punish wickedness in New Orleans or sent HIV/AIDS to punish gays or whatever else. Bullshit bullshit bullshit.

The world and the mess it’s in is a joint creation by Satan and humans. God didn’t create a world of suffering; we have repeatedly rejected His way though to follow our own. And when we follow our own way, we are all too often taking Satan’s path.

You think Satan won’t be telling folks in Hell: “God sent you here. He doesn’t want you. Look, I never smote the first-born of every Egyptian. I never declared war on any people who were in the way of the Hebrews. Stick with me and you’ll be better off.” I can almost gol-damn-guarantee he will. And if not that track or those words, some other form of misdirection. Satan isn’t going to reveal how he’s moved people and races and nations through his tricks. He’s not going to call attention to his evil. Shit, in this world he tries hard to give the impression to most folks that he doesn’t exist at all or that he’s just a comical guy with red skin and a Snidely Whiplash mustache and a pointy tail.

But God gives us honesty and truth, and we can’t handle it. We’d rather be stroked by Satan than to be held by God. We’d rather have transient pleasures than long-range salvation.

People choose Satan all the time. And many will choose him even when they have a clear chance to choose something better.

And that’s a fact.

For the record, here are most of my recent (and not-so-recent) other posts on Hell and Satan:

That Ole Devil

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Being sick meant a backlog of work that I spent all day slogging through, and now I have an hour before midnight to make sure I get a post in. So I’m going to cheat a little. My father-in-law is having me transcribe some tapes he recorded as part of the process of him writing a book about one of the more famous—or, more accurately, infamous—characters in the Bible: Satan.

I thought it might be interesting for me to share a little of the first chapter of his four-chapter work, which talks about the origin and nature of Satan. To avoid too long a post, what I will do is post a little now and then over the course of several days (yes, I’ll make original posts too during this time) add more as comments to this post. So, if you want too see more, just tune in the next day to see when I’ve added a comment to it. Here we go:

The church today—the church universal or the earthly church—has failed to set forth Satan as a real and formidable adversary. The church has done well in lifting up Jesus Christ, but it has failed to make known the evil one called Satan. If we will consider the model prayer that our lord and savior Jesus Christ gave the apostles, gave the disciples—and instructed them to give us—what we call today the Lord’s Prayer, we are usually very attentive in reading and praying this prayer. Again, these are words from the mouth of the Lord Jesus himself. Are we ignorant of that phrase in the Lord’s Prayer? Where Jesus clearly tells us to ask God our Father to deliver us from the evil one—that, of course, being Satan.

When we take an impartial and even a historical view of Jesus—and when I say historical writers I refer to Josephus, Origen and several other fathers of the church—we see that a vast majority of Jesus’ earthly ministry was rebuking the devil and his agents—what we would call today exorcisms.

Our Lord and savior Jesus Christ was well aware of the creature called Satan.

The purpose of this chapter is to set forth undeniable proof from the Word of God, as well as living experiences, testifying to the existence of our adversary Satan.

If we fail to comprehend, if we fail to acknowledge the realness of Satan, we will never understand the nature of the Christian ministry. We will never fully understand the ferocity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Now, without being technical, what am I saying? We need to understand why the child of God suffers so very much in this Christian life. Satan, according to the writings of Paul in the book of Corinthians, both 1 and 2, clearly tells us that Satan has placed his agents in the pulpit of many churches today. We read in the second book of Corinthians, chapter two, where Paul tells us that we shouldn’t be surprised that Satan has placed his ministers in the pulpit, for he says, “has not Satan himself transformed himself on occasion into ministers of light?” We read in the book of Revelation where it tells us that Satan has deceived this whole world.

My brothers and sisters in Christ, Satan has deceived the earthly church.

We are in a battle. And to understand that battle, we must understand the enemy. Even nature—and Paul told us to look to nature, the visible world of nature, to see the invisible God—even nature and perhaps this most common phenomenon of night and day, darkness and light, testifies of the struggle of good and evil in this present-day world.

On this present Earth, why must we know Satan? Because if we don’t know him, we will not resist him. If we do no understand Satan, we will not understand the nature of our misfortune as children of God. Hence, we will not resist.

(You want to know something really weird? As of reaching the word “resist” above, my intro and this excerpt together totaled 666 words…LOL)

The Great Divider by Miz Pink

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Wooooopsie!

Little miss me was supposed to post something on Saturday. That’s supposed to be my regular day around here now (in addition to the twofer Tuesday thang) I could go blaming my girlfriend who is about to go through a divorce and wanted to hang out last night, but truth is I still had time to post something. But it probably woulda been crapiolio because I was fresh outta ideas. But church today gave me a nice gospel passage to talk about, so it’s all to the good now.

And what am I gonna talk about? Gospel o’ Matthew chapter 10, verses 24-39. I know, I know, a decent chunk of reading for the average American but you’re reading a blog so how average can ya be? You must like reading. But if you’re really pressed for time you can focus on verses 34 through 39 becasue that’s the controversial part…the part the really rankles some people. Including the woman who read that passage before today’s sermon at church. And the pastor apparently almost lost a close friendship a few years back talking about this passage. Here’s that thorny part by the way:

34 “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 “For I came to SET A MAN AGAINST HIS FATHER, AND A DAUGHTER AGAINST HER MOTHER, AND A DAUGHTER-IN-LAW AGAINST HER MOTHER-IN-LAW; 36 and A MAN’S ENEMIES WILL BE THE MEMBERS OF HIS HOUSEHOLD. 37 “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. 38 “And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. 39 “He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it.

As the liturgist today was fretting about verbally as she prepared to read the entire passage (which is about the meaning of discipleship), she even said, “I like to think that Matthew didn’t really understand what Jesus meant to say.”

And to that, I ask “why the heck not?”

I know it sounds harsh of Jesus to put it that way, but what’s wrong with putting the son of God, the savior of the world…and by extension his big daddy upstairs…ahead of your family? Are the creator of the universe and the guy who is responsible for making it possible for you to avoid eternal damnation some punks you should disregard? Isn’t their eternal cause…and the mission of evangelism and discipleship they put before us more important than any of our worldly concerns?

I’m not saying we should disregard our families and I’m not saying everyone should go out and spread the gospel while leaving their loved ones in the dust. But when you get down to it, that’s not what Jesus was talking about really.

Remember, he was preaching to guys and gals who were Jewish! Waaaay back in the day! To follow him and accept that he was the messiah when most people thought he was a fraud and a troublemaker (especially the saduccees and pharisees) was to put yourself at direct odds with your families. Most people had to basically reject what their families were telling them to follow Jesus. So, back then (and even for some time after Jesus rose from the dead, since the vast bulk of Isreal was still Jewish and not followers of Jesus and most of the Gentiles worshipped multiple other gods and goddesses) Christianity was a huge divider of families. But to embrace your family’s desires would have been to reject Jesus and thus salvation and redemption. Jesus was telling them it was a hard choice but a needed one. People had to choose sides and that meant pissing off family and friends and employers and even the leaders of society.

Today, the average Christian in the first world at least doesn’t really have to deal with that. Let’s face it. If you’re born into a Christian family in America or Europe or someplace else where Christians aren’t persecuted, your family isn’t likely to be divided much by your beliefs in Jesus. Though it is still possible. Maybe you have liberal Christian parents who think the entire Bible is just symbolic. Well then if you take a more fundie view, you might have to choose Christ over your kin. Doesn’t mean you have to reject your family but it does mean you have to be willing to incur their anger maybe to do the right thing. And if your family is Jewish or Muslim or Buddhist or Hindu or whatever else and you take up believing in Christ, well you can best be sure you’ll probably ruffle some feathers and maybe be unwelcome at family gatherings.

And how about not being in a Christian tolerant country  at all? Think of the missionary folks who go out to the Middle East or China or wherever to preach the gospel. They find people who hear and take the gospel to heart. Sometimes they get imprisoned and tortured and even killed for doing it. And the people they preach to may risk the same. Imagine choosing Jesus and not only having to face the wrath of your parents but also the wrath of you own country and police.

But Jesus is that importnat. Salvation is that valuable. Hearing and sharing the gospel is that important.

Jesus came in love…filled up with it…and he came as representative to us of God’s love for us. But he also was willing to tell us things that would make us queasy and shake us up, because choosing faith in Jesus and his Father and accepting the holy spirit aren’t easy things. They come at a price. But the reward is so much greater than the price.

Christianity is meant to bring humans back into grace with God. It aint meant to bring people together on Earth. It can. And ideally it should. But sometimes, it is impossible to do both. We shouldn’t hear Jesus’s words that he comes to divide as being counter to his mission. It’s a recognition that what he offers isn’t always an easy pill to swallow. But few things of true value in this world ever come easy. So why should something that is of the next world be any easier?

Good little workers

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It’s pretty well known that God believes in a good work ethic. For one thing, we know He hand-picked quite a number of people over the milennia to work for Him, and while He expected a lot out of them, He also knew how to bless and protect them when they did what they were supposed to. In the post-crucifixion days, God expects His son’s followers to work to spread the gospel and He rewards them appropriately in the afterlife. You don’t do much but you accepted Jesus at least…well, you have a pleasant eternity ahead of you but no extras. You accept Jesus and you do great work…you get to be part of the inner circle as well as enjoying paradise for eternity.

Also, the New Testament offers us clear advice on how we are supposed to give good, honest work to our employers and not just slack off. I’m sure any number of Christian supervisors and business owners have thought about those passages and wished that more people had a good Christian work ethic.

What I wish though is that they would remember that God also expects a good supervisor/manager/employer ethic.

But they don’t. They’re just as bad (generally speaking) as any supervisor or boss who doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the Bible or God’s will. The expectation is that you will not only do your job well but you will do whatever you are told, you will put your life to the side, and you will live for the company—particularly if you are paid a salary instead of hourly, because somehow a salary is equated with “We own your ass and will call on you whenever we need you.”

I’ve had good bosses, don’t get me wrong. But even then, they answer to people above them who often charge them with working employees harder. By and large, even the most well-meaning boss can only do so much to make the lives of workers easier and companies pretty much don’t give a damn about whether their employees have lives. Again, there are some exceptions, including some big companies, but still, even at those companies, whatever extras they give employees somehow seem like interesting tricks to get them to work more hours without actual financial rewards for doing so.

I’m not against capitalism. It works pretty well overall. But after getting a little more humane for a while there thanks to labor unions and federal laws to protect people from abuse, it seems to be slipping back into a mentality where the company feels it owns the people and can use them or discard them at will without a moment’s thought or any attention to doing right by people.

Let’s take a look at what the Bible says:

Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart, as to Christ; not by way of eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. With good will render service, as to the Lord, and not to men,  knowing that whatever good thing each one does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether slave or free. And masters, do the same things to them, and give up threatening, knowing that both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no partiality with Him. (Ephesians Chapter 6, verses 5-9)

You notice that there are rules there for the people who give the marching orders as well as those who do most of the work. Not only are those in charge supposed to do the same thing workers do, but they are also supposed to forego an aggressive, punishing attitude. More is actually expected of those in charge. Yet in almost every office-based job I’ve ever held, employees get screwed. (By the way, I hope I don’t need to mention to you in modern times that the term slave above should really be interpreted as worker and the word master as supervisor or boss.)

Here’s an example from my own long list of abused worker woes. I once worked at a Big Five financial auditing/consulting firm back when there were still five of them (Arthur Anderson, KPMG, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Ernst & Young, and Deloitte & Touche). That was probably my most abusive workplace, as the general gist was that you worked when they needed you. Weekends be damned. Vacation plans be damned. Family be damned. If a client had a deadline, we had to be willing to put everything aside to get the proposals written, edited, designed and printed—no matter how much time was wasted beforehand by the partners and managers who didn’t get their part of the work done on time.

Oh, sorry, got sidetracked. The example…OK. A partner told my supervisor that we needed to stay late and finish up a proposal based on edits he was going to give us and we needed to get the document turned around in a hurry. We worked our asses off that day to make sure we were able to fax and e-mail him all the pages at his home, since that was where he was going to be working while we were all stuck in the office. Forget the fact that we all had company laptops and could have been at our homes and done the work—we had to stay in the office.

So, after a couple hours of after-hours waiting, we tried to reach the partner at home (to no avail) to see how everything was going and perhaps get some preliminary pages so we could work while he finished editing and adding things. We didn’t reach him finally until sometime after 8 p.m., when we found out he had been enjoying dinner with his family, time with his kids, and was—get this—tinkering with his cell phone at the time we finally got ahold of him. He hadn’t looked at a single page. By the time he finally looked at things and we made changes, it was after 10 p.m. We had eaten a nice take-out meal from a good sushi joint on the company’s tab, but considering how pissed Mrs. Blue was that I couldn’t come home (and not for the first time since taking that job, either) and the way she was starting to feel like I had thrown her over to marry my job in her place, that food was dust in my belly and bile in my throat.

That was just one example. The shit finally hit the fan one week when I refused to work on Sunday (I was a deacon for my father in law…come on) after we had been told that our weekends and vacations would be on hold for the next few weeks. I got called to the carpet first thing Monday and my supervisor asked if I was quitting, since I didn’t seem to have the proper team spirit. I looked her in the eye and said “No, I’m not” and I also informed her that my family was not going to become second fiddle to my job. By the end of the day, Human Resources had my walking papers in order. I wasn’t saddened, though I was disappointed that I had been sucked into—and discarded by—a company that expected workers to be the serfs to the almighty kings and barons (aka “partners”) and the lords and knights in their service (aka “managers”).

That’s not the way it’s supposed to be. Respect is supposed to go both ways. I work hard for you and you don’t abuse me; in fact, you should reward my loyalty. Much like in parent-child relationships—yes, you can tell me what to do and yes, you can chastise me at times—you are supposed to see me as a human and treat me with dignity even though you outrank me.

That’s not the landscape that workers face today. If there is anyplace in America (since I can only speak to the climate in the United States) that is less godly than corporate America, I don’t know where it is. A whorehouse in Nevada is more in keeping with godly values than the average corporation as far as I can tell. Where else but most companies can you get annual raises less than the cost of living and see your healthcare coverage go up in price every year while giving you less actual coverage—so that you essentially make less and less each year while being expected to put in more time so that the company’s bottom line can be protected.

Satan likes that. Profit for the evil and petty people and damage to the rank-and-file population by keeping them sick, unhappy, breaking up their marriages, and everything else. So many corporate titans are part of the conservative Christian right and crow about family values and how we need to defend them. If you seriously feel that way, gentlemen (and most of you are men…and overweight arrogant ones at that), start by respecting the family values of your employees and let them have family lives and health coverage.

(If you’re wondering—and you probably aren’t—this post was inspired by a commenter over at this post at Deus Ex Malcontent…an Anonymous person who basically suggested that Generations X and Y were nothing but petulant, self-centered brat workers while the previous generation in the work world is having to hold their hands and wipe their noses. I responded rather nastily to him in that comment section. If you want to see what I said, go there. Even by my potty-mouthed standards, I feel it is too raw to reprint here. The main post itself about the blog author’s visit to the CNN offices, from which he was recently fired for having a blog, is pretty entertaining, too, though long.)

Sex as a weapon

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I wonder how many couples out there are engaging in a kind of sexual assault on a regular basis and don’t even realize it? I don’t mean that they’re physically forcing the other spouse to have sex and possibly using (or threatening to use) violence as part of that—though I know there are a few too many folks, most of them men, who do that and wouldn’t think of it as abuse as long as they’re married to the victim. What I’m talking about is more subtle, but still insidious. Less violent, but still damaging.

To get a sense of where I’m going with this, let’s run with the term sexual assault and take out the word sexual for a moment. Assault can be verbal or physical, and can be illegal either way. Is calling someone a racial or sexual epithet assault? Sure. Is it as bad as threatening their life or physical health? No, but that still doesn’t make it right. Is shoving someone who really hasn’t done anything serious to you assault? Yes, and the fact that you didn’t draw blood or break a nose or kill a person doing it doesn’t make it morally defensible.

So, sexual assault—and the more intimate, serial and individual-focused version known as sexual abuse—don’t have to be something dramatic like throwing a person down to the ground and pinning them so that you can invade their bodies. But before I go on, let me quote a couple pieces of scripture that I’ve mentioned before in my various posts about sexual relations between couples.

Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time… First Corinthians chapter 7, verses 3-5

So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church. Ephesians chapter 5, verses 28 and 29

We must remember that as in so many things with God, extremism at either end of the spectrum really pisses Him off.

We cannot be demanding of our partner all the sex we want whenever we want at whatever cost. At the same time, we cannot be withholding sex for no good reason. Sex is, primarily, not an activity for making babies but for building intimacy between couples. That is why it feels so damn good when you do it right and sometimes even when you aren’t performing so well. Sex is something that is supposed to be a constant in marriage (no, not every day kind of constant—unless of course that’s what you both want and you’re in good enough shape for it). Even if you’re the kind of couple who wants as many kids as God will give you and you shun birth control, the woman is still going to have a nine-month period every year or so during which the sex is just for keeping you as emotionally connected as you can be. And sex isn’t supposed to just go away when you get too old to have kids anymore.

So, to turn sex into a weapon in a relationship is a terribly screwed up thing to do. Yet many couples, either both members of the couple or just one of them, often do use sex as a weapon against the other, and think nothing of it. They don’t appreciate the fact that they are assualting and abusing the person that they supposedly love so much.

To harangue your husband or wife into having sex by saying, “You’d do it if you really loved me” or “If I can’t get what I want here, I’ll find someone who will give it to me” or anything like that is a form of sexual assault. It’s an emotional attack. It’s guilting someone into doing something they don’t feel like doing right now. It’s wrong.

Or consider the spouse who says, “You won’t get anything until you do this or that.” Withholding sex for some petty reason or personal gain or selfish desire in many cases. That, again, is using sex against your partner; using it as a weapon.

How about the spouse who says, “Honey, there’s something I’ve always wanted to try, and I was wondering…” or “I’ve never wanted to tell you that such-and-such turns me on because I didn’t want you to think I was weird” and, instead of getting a supportive ear and at least a consideration of validating the surprise desire—the other spouse goes in for the kill. Instead of being open and loving, the spouse tell his or her partner “You’re sick” or “I’ll never do that” or “I don’t think I can ever be with you again after hearing that” or laughs the partner to scorn. I mean, considering the wide array of kinks and fetishes out there, only a very, very few rank as so heinous that a person needs professional help. And even then, the spouse should be willing to urge the spouse toward help with love and a desire to curb those feeling and not start out of the gates with revulsion and rejection.

That isn’t to say that a spouse doesn’t have the right to “have a headache” sometimes. Typically, “no” means no, and that includes the marriage bed. Being married doesn’t let you off the hook for respecting the other person’s body and emotions. So, when our spouses say, “Not tonight,” we need to respect that, as long as it doesn’t become an unhealthy habit—and even if it becomes an unhealthy habit, we don’t get to just take what we want. We cannot expect that our spouse is always an open vessel or ready tool for our pleasure. And if there is a habit of constantly withholding or constantly demanding, perhaps it’s time to assess whether the two of you really should be together.

Guns, swords, closed fists, knives, clubs and the like are obvious weapons. But a beautiful little pedestal-top statue or tchachke-esque snowglobe on the shelf can be injurious or even deadly too, swung with enough force toward a vulnerable part of the body.

Get the picture? Rape is obvious sexual assault. But demanding or withholding sex in “nonviolent” ways can be dangerous too, when done at the wrong time or for the wrong reasons or done so often that you psychologically injure or emotionally kill your other half in the relationship.

It’s kind of like that “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people” thing. Sometimes, our bodies can be the loaded weapon in a relationship. Use them right, please.

Beat down by Miz Pink

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My father is a law-and-order type. Literally. His job. Figuratively too. In other word, the home was ruled with an iron fist. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I was abused. I didn’t get hit all the time for sport. My father didn’t get out his frustrations on me. But when I stepped outside the rules, even a little, you can best believe I got the beat down.

Sure, it was always the butt or the back of the thighs (Okay, except the one time I came home high and way after curfew….that got me a slap across the face. Calling my father a bitch once got me more of the same), but these weren’t light slaps and smacks. Objects were used. Sitting down afterward was a chore. Or walking right.

I’m not saying this to call my father out as some kind of demon. I love him. He could express love in his own odd way and in “normal” ways too sometimes. He was faithful to my mom. He provided. He made me laugh. He was and is my daddy. And I didn’t turn out messed up in the head. I know alot of folks want to make out like corporal punishment is always abuse and screws kids up but that wasn’t my experience. It was punishment. Harsh yes but not abuse.

REally though I think we need to be careful how and when we punish our kids. I think we need to go for something other than a spanking or telling the kid to go out and pick out his own switch. But among the Christian set, let’s be honest…more than a few will turn to a certain passage quicker than a flash if you call them on corporal punishment..the “old spare the rod” thing.

Proverbs chapter 23…13 Do not hold back discipline from the child, although you strike him with the rod, he will not die. 14 You shall strike him with the rod And rescue his soul from Hell. And then Proverbs 13:24 too..He who spareth the rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him correcteth him betimes.

Listen, mothers. Fathers. Steparents. Grandparents. Babysitters.

Heck, everyone. Listen up.

Those passages aren’t rooting you on to hit the little children or the big teenagers or any kids. Now I’m not telling you this out of some hippy dippy point of view. I’m not some granola crunching let my kid do whatever the hell they want anywhere anytime mom. I used spanking semi-regularly with my son. When he did something really serious. So, maybe a dozen spankings when he was a child. Total. Over maybe 4 or 5 years.  I had something called the pinch I used more often on his thigh to get his attention and prevent the need for something more serious.

With my daughter, I eased up a bit more. I tried to remember that too often her moods were the result of my moods. Her behavior was the result of watching my actions. I had to take some responsibility for when she didn’t “behave.” I also tried to find more creative ways to get her to do right and ways to punish her that were more fair and more appopriate. Doesn’t mean I didn’t spank her by the way. But I spanked her less than number-one son.

Now, I have a third child on the way. With this one, I hope to never raise my hand. But I also don’t rule it out.

The reason we are not supposed to “spare” the rod is because children need discipline. We have to bring them into line and teach them right because they live in a world of rules and because we want them to treat other people right. No matter what the hippiest-dippiest thinkers out there say (and I’ve read some of the more extreme non-punishment, never even use the word “no” kind of folks) kids don’t just naturally grow up and learn manners and good behavior and respect for rules. People just naturally want what they want and will take what they can and following the rules just isn’t fun. So parents must teach, and then correct gently if needed…and take things away if needed…and whup that ass if really needed.

The “rod” isn’t always a stick or even a hand and you aren’t really going to save a kid from going to hell just by beating them up alot. Shepherds used rods to get those sheep moving but I don’t think they were smacking the hell out of them. What good is a bunch of matted and bloody wool? Rods can be used to point the way, to gently nudge and to make a really loud noise to get someone’s attention. They dont always have to be for hitting.

In fact, that should be our last resort. You can be a good parent while using corporal punishment on a regular basis. But you can also slip into using it all the time and for petty offenses, and then you’re not such a good parent anymore in my book. You can also be a good parent by never using punishment if you get lucky with the personality of your child…or you can raise a snarky kid who does whatever he/she wants and talks back to adults, and then you’re a bad parent without ever having raised a hand.

Don’t spare the rod. But don’t swing it all the time. Do yourself and your kids a favor and learn moderation. Listen to them and talk to them more and hit them less. You’ll all be better for it. We all will.

(BTW, I really recommend people give some thought to the thoughts of Pam Leo and pick up a copy of her book Connection Parenting.)

Cough it up

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Today, we’re going to talk cold, hard cash, in the form of tithes and offerings (which, by the way, you can feel free to send me anytime you want, preferably in multiples of $50—damn! I forgot to set up a PayPal account for that). But before we do, consider this bit of wisdom from a stand-up routine of the almost-always-brilliant comedian George Carlin:

Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it, religion has actually convinced people that there’s an INVISIBLE MAN…LIVING IN THE SKY…who watches every thing you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten special things that he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish where he will send to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry for ever and ever ’til the end of time…but he loves you…And he needs money! He’s all powerful, but he can’t handle money!

Now, I can’t tackle all of Carlin’s points in this post. You’d all fall asleep before I got to the end. Any it’s funny shit anyway, so I’ll let him alone for the time being. But I will address the last couple sentences, which clearly take a humorous jab at the idea of the collection plate being passed around in the church (or religious folks on TV trying to convince you to send a check or call in to give a credit card donation).

OK, just for the record, given that it would be kind of weird for churches to impose cover charges at the door and the fact they don’t have any product to sell you in brightly bedecked retail aisles, I think we can all agree that collection plates are necessary. It is incumbent on the members of a congregation to help support that congregation, just as we support worthy charitable causes and advocacy groups and whatever else.

But the question then comes down to: How much? What are you supposed to give? And if you don’t give, is God going to smite you with erectile dysfunction or a suspicious lump (depending on gender)?

Churches don’t always endear themselves to their members or their critics, either. Many churches have a suspicious-sounding “building fund” that they always send a second round of plates around for after the regular collection of tithes and offerings. People cough up money for it anyway, even though in many churches, it seems that the building never does improve. And despite the fact that there are some very honest and wholesome televised preachers, there are also some very whorish ones who try to sell you napkins or olive oil that have been blessed with miraculous healing powers and other complete bullcrap like that. People don’t remember the good guys on TV; they just see the greedy ones, assume they are all greedy, and throw around the word televangelist with the same tone of voice they use for child molester or crack cocaine dealer.

All that rambling aside, the standard rule seems to be to give 10% of your earnings to the church as tithes. This is in keeping with any number of Old Testament references to tithing. Of course, back in those days, you didn’t always give cash but might instead give the temple a portion of your harvest or fishing catch or something.

This brings up any number of other questions, like:

  • Is that 10% of my gross or my net?
  • Is that 10% of what I have left after I pay my bills?
  • Is that 10% of what I have after I pay my bills and buy a cool four-wheeler or big-screen TV this month?
  • Does that include 10% of my undeclared income from cash-under-the-table work I do?
  • If I give to really cool charities, can I deduct that from my total tithe requirement?
  • Can I give you an IOU for that, God?

For a long time after becoming born again and getting baptized of my own free will (as opposed to the splash of water on the baby’s head kind I got from being born Catholic), I believed wholeheartedly in the 10% tithing rule, and based on  the advice of my father-in-law (who was my pastor at the time), I gave 10% of what my paycheck said after the government had yanked my taxes out.

Of course, I started to run into some financial difficulties. Hell, I still have a bunch of them (worse ones in fact) than I did when my father-in-law was still my pastor. And when you have rent, bills, food and clothing needs, and car repairs—just for starters—it’s kind of hard to hand over 10% of your money to a church on the faith that God will make everything work out. The Old Testament tells folks that they need to trust God and that he will open the storehouses of heaven for them if they give. That’s faith, and I do believe we need to have more faith.

But at the same time, many things in the Old Testament don’t apply in the same way post-Jesus as they did before his death and resurrection. We all know that God doesn’t answer every prayer. Is it really logical to think that everyone who gives 10% of their income in the form of tithes is going to still see their bills get paid even if they have a constipated income flow or massive medical expenses or something else?

Not really.

Let’s consider this: Many of the rules of the Old Testament were around trying to illustrate to humans that they were incapable of obeying God and thus setting the stage for why they needed the Messiah to come along and repair their damaged relationship with God. Many of the rules were designed with the full awareness that people wouldn’t be able to follow them. Others were rules that were meant to maintain the health, cohesiveness and power of the Hebrews (dietary laws, mandates about procreation, making Jewish men put away their strange [that is, foreign] wives, etc.). And it must be stated that those rules were, at the time, directed at the Jews. Sure, God considered Gentiles to be sinful too, but he was focused on the Jews because they were His “Chosen People.” They were His representatives to the world and they were the group from which His son would be born. And so they were always held to higher (and even pettier, some might say) standards than anyone who ever had or ever will live under the grace of Jesus’ atoning death.

I’ve done a lot of reading on the theory of tithing lately, and it has been pointed out by many Bible scholars that despite a great many of the core rules of the Old Testament (the 10 commandments, mandates against sexual immorality and others) being reinforced by Jesus and by the apostles and by others in the New Testament—well, tithing isn’t really addressed. Jesus does mention tithing, but he does so as a way to illustrate how Hebrew priests and others would hold to the letter of the law while ignoring weightier aspects such as mercy and justice. No one in the New Testament really talks about people needing to tithe under the New Covenant nor mention any amounts that one should give.

Yes, there are many examples of people giving money to the church and being exhorted to give, but those are examples of how we are supposed to be generous in giving what we can (and sometimes more than we think we can) and not holding onto money that could better be used to help the widows, orphans, cripples and others the early church was aiding. And Jesus in the story about the widow’s mite shows an example of how someone with almost nothing who gives a tiny amount is more righteous than a rich man who gives only the minimum that he is expected to. But none of those things tells us that we must tithe, or that we must tithe a certain amount.

In talking to my father-in-law (or rather, Mrs. Blue talking to him and filtering knowledge back to me), in reading the theological discussions about tithing (like this one, and that one, and this other one here…and, oh yeah, here too), in reading the Bible myself and in praying to God, I am left with the following beliefs:

On tithing: If you have a church that you regularly attend, you should give a decent amount. You might want to give until it hurts a little. That’s called sacrifice, and it can be very character-building. Does that mean 5%? 10%? 20%? A blank check? The number and password into your Swiss bank account? I can’t tell you that. We need to give out our abundance (at the very least) and we need to give cheerfully, not out of habit or ritual or guilt. How much that means is between you and God. And if you’re not attending a church regularly, but you watch Charles Stanley or some other pastor on television or listen to them on the radio, you should probably give to that church. Basically, wherever you are being fed spiritually, that should be the primary recipient of your tithes. By all means, make sure your bills get paid, but don’t treat yourself at the expense of the church. Christianity exists in a world where money matters, and things like charitable work, missionary work, helping ailing church members, and the like all require money.

On offerings: If you visit a church but are not a member, you need to put something in that collection plate when it comes around, unless they locked you in the place and preached something totally offensive to you. I don’t care if it’s a dollar or a gold coin from a sunken Spanish pirate ship. Put…something…in…the…damn…plate. You took up space, you listened, and God is watching, so don’t be a douchebag.

And so, that’s how I feel about tithes and offerings. And the links in my post above that I already highlighted can give you some idea of what others think as well (oh, and for the only coherent item I found that insists we stick to the 10% rule, go here). It’s not doctrine what I’ve said here. It’s just some general good advice. It’s not that God needs your money, folks. Fact is, God owns everything already. But we have accountability and responsibility, and it is up to us to support the work of godly people here on Earth. We cannot simply sit back and put the burden on God to support them. We have to stand up and be counted. There are many ways we can do that, through volunteering, for example. But we also need to give from our wallets.

So, like the title of this blog says, cough it up. Don’t bitch. Don’t fret about the amount. But do please make sure you’re part of the solution and not some cheapskate who insists on making everyone else pick up the slack.

(Hey, got a last-minute addition here…there’s an interesting [and very long] post at this blog that makes an interesting point that tithing only refers to food. You could theoretically skip to the end of the post and read the last few paragraphs if you’re short on time. I think that might be too narrow of a view and thus maybe too much of a way of getting people off the hook, but it is very interesting, and also points to the fact that statistically, it is evident that tithing doesn’t lift poor people from their poverty through God’s blessings.)

St. Paul the Prickly

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St. Paul…you know, the guy who is responsible for a good chunk of the New Testament thanks to those letters he wrote, mostly to young Gentile churches in the years after Jesus died and rose…well, he’s a lot like my father-in-law. I love him, and I can learn a lot from him religiously. But I wouldn’t talk much politics with him. Nor would I discuss many social issues like, say, feminism. And I sure wouldn’t ask him for much in the way of advice on communications in interpersonal relations.

That isn’t a knock, by the way. Both my father-in-law (who was once my pastor) and Paul show a lot of intellectual power. They are both strong in their spiritual faith. Both of them have a lot to teach me about how to be a better person: for God, my family and others in my life. I respect both of them greatly. And I pay attention to them.

But they can both be jerks, too. They can both be narrow-minded. To their credit, both of them also tend to qualify their statements (Paul in his letters and my father-in-law in church) when they are indeed their own thoughts as opposed to biblical doctrine. Admittedly, the line can blur sometimes, and there are moments in my father-in-law’s sermons when you know his personal feelings have crept in…just as there are moments in Paul’s letters when it looks like perhaps he was going off on a personal tangent without remembering to warn us.

None of this dilutes the value of their messages, but it requires a certain willingness to forgive the man for his faults and focus in on the message. Paul was a learned, disciplined, committed man. He was a Pharisee and was all too willing to take on the mission of hunting down and persecuting Jews who were preaching Jesus as the Messiah and as having risen from the dead to ascent to the right hand of God his father. Despite his conversion to a belief in Jesus as the son of God, Paul didn’t suddenly get a personality transplant and thus much of what he says is colored by the way he was raised and the way he saw the world.

Here’s a funny take on St. Paul from cross-dressing British comedian Eddie Izzard (there is some foul language, but you’d expect that with me, now wouldn’t you?). Watch it for a nice palate cleanser, and then we’ll continue…

So, there were a lot of people who probably would have liked to give Paul the middle finger and many more who still do today. Certainly, he doesn’t endear himself to modern women with this:

A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. (1 Timothy 2:11-14)

First, some have argued that the misogyny was added later after Paul was long dead, but I’m going to give credit to Paul for this because…well, why the hell not? The man lived in a society far more male-centered than what Americans are accustomed to today. Women didn’t hold positions of power generally, and educating them certainly wasn’t a priority, so why would he want a woman telling him what to do? Jerky, yes. But for the time and place, pretty normal thought process. Besides, I think the intent of that passage is a bit more narrow than it seems, as I noted in this post. Just for the record, I talked about Paul and the Pauline letters a bit here, too.

That certainly isn’t the only place where Paul exhibited a certain prickly streak, but it is one of the most telling for our modern times. So, if the guy has some old-world, old boy network chips on his shoulder, why care about anything he says?

Well, the man’s writings lay out a huge chunk of the fundamental doctrine of the church. The other apostles actually listened to him (once they figured out he wasn’t trying to infiltrate them as some sort of trick to destroy them) when he challenged what they were doing. He challenged himself and was open about many of his own flaws. This isn’t the kind of guy who seems to be out to create a church to suit his own ends but someone who was on a mission. In this case, a mission for Christ.

Now, consider also the fact that while the other apostles focused on teaching the Jews about Jesus and his divinity, Paul was tasked with reaching everyone else. The Gentiles vastly outnumbered the Jews and represented a whole host of different belief systems or lack thereof. If Paul seems like a hard-ass at time in his letters, let’s remember that he had to try to stamp out heretical fires at every turn, often when he was far away from the churches that were under fire, and thus unable to counter the false doctrines in person. You’re trying to keep people in line under God’s laws and strengthen their faith while battling their very human natures and being persecuted yourself at every turn.

I’d be a bit salty too.

Fact is, there is little that Paul writes that isn’t fully in line with the teaching of Jesus and the laws of God. And what bits of personal bias he might show at times can often easily be reconciled with societal changes today without altering the core intent. I know a lot of women won’t like the fact that I agree with Paul that women aren’t meant to be pastors. But with educational levels being what they are today, I think they belong everywhere else in the church, and I think Paul would agree on that front as well, given that he recognized a couple women who were important in the evangelism of the early church.

I suspect Paul would hold fast to views against sexual immorality and other desires of the flesh, as well he should given that God doesn’t want us to sin in those ways. But I also don’t think he’d be pleased with people bombing abortion clinics or trying to force secular lawmakers to hold to biblical law on issues such as sexual intercourse.

Paul was a sonovabitch at times, but he was an honest one and a faithful one, and that gives him a lot of credit as far as I’m concerned.

I know I already have a link to some biographical info on Paul embedded in the first word of this post, but click here for a Wikipedia entry on him should you like to learn even more. I rely on Wikipedia for a lot of the informational hyperlinks around here and I just feel like I need to branch out sometimes.

Who picked this stuff out?

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So, there were a lot of letters from apostles floating around in the days of the early Christian church, but there wasn’t general agreement as to which ones were the actual canon of Christianity until around the middle of the second century—and it still wasn’t “official” even then. So, based on that alone, why do we accept the current books of the Bible as being the “right” ones? Couldn’t it just have been a bunch of guys in a religious old boy’s network screwing with us to promote their own power and their own ends? Why should we trust that they picked out the right books to put into what would eventually come to be called the Bible?

Well, here are a few reasons that I think are good ones.

First, let’s handle the Old Testament. Aside from some reordering of certain books and the addition of a couple in the Catholic version of the Bible, the Old Testament is pretty much the Jewish Bible, or Tanakh. Now, there are some things in there that I don’t take 100% literally (I’ll get around to starting my Old Testament series soon), but as far as being the inspired Word of God, I have to accept those books because that’s what Jesus taught from. If it was good enough for Christ, it’s good enough for me, and for the most part early Church leaders didn’t muck around with it, so as far as I’m concerned, it stands strong.

But what about the New Testament? Folks point out rightly that the epistles in there (the letters written to various cities and groups by apostles and others who were setting the foundation for the church) certainly weren’t the only letters out there by church leaders. How can we know that they ones that were picked were the right ones? Folks say it was inspiration from God, but anyone can say that. In general, I think that with opinions flowing and changing, the fact that certain letters stood out and were widely accepted by the mid-second century is probably a pretty good indicator of their resonance and staying power, and thus their inspired nature.

As for the gospels, why only the four “synoptic” gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and none of the others, such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Judas and the Gospel of Mary? or the Gospel of Binky the Elder, for that matter?

Well, Judas didn’t write the Gospel of Judas—so there’s a big ding right there—and the document seems to be no older than the second century, which puts it well after Jesus’ death, unlike the synoptic ones that have origins much closer to Jesus’ lifetime, written by people who knew Jesus. Basically, it’s a work of fiction in the Gnostic tradition to recast Judas and his role. It might be interesting, but it’s ultimately no different than historical fiction that authors write today. It cannot be trusted.

As for the Gospel of Mary, it isn’t even clear which Mary (Mary Magdalene or Jesus’ mother) is the supposed author. Also, even if it is accurate (and the oldest surviving copy is missing several pages, so there’s no way to figure out what it was supposed to say in its entirety, unlike the synoptic gospels, which have hundreds of copies in multiples languages that can be compared and contrasted to ensure the whole story is there). Besides, this “gospel” isn’t focused on the teachings and life of the adult Jesus, and thus really isn’t a gospel at all. Again, interesting reading, and perhaps not fiction, but also not suitable for advancing the great commission.

As for the Gospel of Thomas, it’s not clear enough whether it was written anywhere near as close to Jesus’ lifetime as were the synoptic gospels, nor whether it was actually penned by the apostle Thomas. The stark ways in which is departs from the synoptic gospels in terms of philosophy and theology make it too likely to have been a heretical work and not something truly in the spirit of God’s new covenant with humans.

In general, though, looking at the whole Bible, what strikes me is this: In at least three gatherings of big muckity-mucks of the church in the years 393, 397 and 419, they all agreed to keep the books in the Bible as they were, which mirrored an Easter letter in 367 by the Bishop of Alexandria that listed the books of the Bible that should be considered canon. So, why don’t I hold to the old boy’s network conspiracy theory, even though it was an old boy’s network meeting each time? Because if I were among a bunch of guys and we were trying to figure out how to control people through religion, I would probably be trying to slip in some newer stuff (Hell, it worked for John Smith when he invented what would become the Mormon church and bilked everyone into believing his ridiculous new gospel of Jesus).

I mean, really. The general population way back then, the rank-and-file believers—they weren’t educated, and they don’t know how to read. So, if you’re the church leaders, why not declare that some of your writings, or those of earlier church leaders whom you agree with, are divinely inspired? Who’s going to challenge you on this? No one. And presto!…the Bible becomes your tool of control and propaganda. All you have to do is find some good stuff that someone else had already written, or write your own stuff (sufficiently in line with established doctrine so as to not be suspect, but spun to suit your needs) and make it canon.

The fact that they didn’t suggests to me that they were trying very hard to make sure they chose writings that were from divinely inspired people who lived during the time that Jesus was alive. Yes, a lot of these bishops and popes and shit from those old days were bastards. A lot of them were power-hungry, greedy, deviant freaks. But not all of them. And clearly, even those that did have personal agendas drew the line at messing with God’s word, which at least says their religious and spiritual aims were on target (in this case, at least), if not their worldly activities and goals.