First of all, please indulge me while I share something of my own beliefs. In no particular order, I am or have been, an agnostic, a dunked-in-the-water Southern Baptist (the 1963 Baptist Faith and Message kind, excluding the 1998 addendum), a humanist(h.t. to our own mrboma), a metaphysical naturalist, a follower of the Church of Reality(shot of chinaco to bartcop), a Bahá’í, a Zoroastrian, a deist, a Naturalist Buddhist, a Transcendentalist,a Unitarian Universalist, and an American Baptist, of sorts (h.t. and a deep bow to Reverend Professor Peter J. Gomes and a hearty “Amen” for his sermons – check out Patriotism is Not Enough for the text of a fine example of a great anti Iraq war sermon or this mp3 sound file of his recent sermon entitled “Tangible Truth” for an earful of mellifluous vocalisation with a real message).
Whew. It’s been a long road for me and all of those belief/non-belief systems. I invite you to examine some of the many links I provided above and enjoy the diversity of systems that humans have created for themselves/have received. Or look for links to other systems that I have not included here. There are many belief systems that I haven’t gotten to…..yet! LOL! (If you would like to leave us all another link or two to share some good websites explaining your own religion or belief/non-belief system or that of others, please do so in the comments below.)
At this point in my seeking, I no longer believe that it matters to me what you believe in your own private mind about who, what, or if Goddess/God/gods/goddesses is/are. The only evidence I can have about what you believe in your own private mind is how you publicly act on your private beliefs. (Given that speech is a form of action, I rule out of consideration as pure action only those words which you speak about what you believe in your private mind about who, what, or if Goddess/God/gods/goddesses is/are – but that’s another religio-philosophical essay which basically boils down to who cares what you say about what you believe if you don’t act right….)
OK, I’ll start getting to the real purpose of this diary: the proposition that some who call themselves Christians act as though they do not believe in the words of the Bible, which is the official record of Christianity and the storehouse of Christian knowledge and Christian concepts of moral truth. I offer this diary as a rebuke to them, in the spirit of the Christian faith that I believe contains much truth. To wit:
Luke 17:3 Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him.
I also offer this diary as a tool and reference for you to use to rebuke certain of our brothers and sisters, regardless of what you believe in your personal private mind about Jesus and the Bible. Personally, I consider it universally moral to use the words of a particular belief system to rebuke the adherents of that belief system in order to promote the morality and truth I find within that belief system. I may be wrong about that, but its not because I haven’t thought about it a lot and tried hard to arrive at a correct understanding.
And so, finally, now that the disclaimers are done and my purposes proclaimed, we arrive together at the point of all this: A fine piece of work I stumbled across that fleshes out my own understandings of the moral failures of the current administration from the perspective of the faith that Mr. Bush proudly proclaims.
Bloodguilty Churches [or, pdf]
Why Bush’s Agenda Is Immoral and an Abomination to God
By Katherine Yurica
George W. Bush, his administration, the Republican controlled congress as well as the Republican Party itself, and most of the churches in America (including evangelical, Southern Baptist, Pentecostal and Roman Catholic), stand indicted–not by men–not by this writer–but by the very Holy Scriptures the religious-right and Mr. Bush profess to uphold.
Weighed against the Bible, the Bush actions are not only morally corrupt–they are unchristian and unbiblical to the core.
I recommend that you download the pdf for future reference, or at least read the whole article online, but I have excerpted a few sections for you here.
On the rush to war:
The prophet Isaiah describes the nation who rushed to war this way:
“Their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands. Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood; their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; desolation and destruction are in their paths and highways.
“The way of peace they know not, and there is no justice or right in their goings; they have made them crooked paths; whoever goes in them does not know peace.” (Isaiah 59:7-8 Amplified)”.
On torture:
There is not a single instance in the Bible where torture is authorized or condoned. It is always presented as something used against the righteous, and the righteous have never resorted to torturing their enemies. The word is used only once in the King James Version at Hebrews 11:35:
“…Others were tortured to death with clubs, refusing to accept release [offered on the terms of denying their faith] that they might be resurrected to a better life. Others had to suffer the trial of mocking and scourging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned to death; they were lured with tempting offers [to renounce their faith]; they were sawn asunder; they were slaughtered by the sword; [while they were alive] they had to go about wrapped in the skins of sheep and goats, utterly destitute, oppressed, cruelly treated…” (Hebrews 11:35-37 Amplified Version).
On immigrants:
God actually instructs us by making reference to the forerunner of our tax system that funds are to be used to feed and clothe the aliens among us as well as the poor, the orphans and the widows:
“…and the stranger or temporary resident, and the fatherless, and the widow, who are in your towns, shall come and eat and be satisfied; that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands that you do.” (Deuteronomy 14:29. Amplified.)
“And if a stranger dwells temporarily with you in your land, you shall not suppress and mistreat him.
“But the stranger who dwells with you shall be to you as one born among you; and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. (Leviticus 19: 33-34. Amplified Version.).
On tort ‘reform’:
Thus Mr. Bush’s so-called reform marks the end of the victim’s ability to receive just compensation for his or her injuries. Mr. Bush also wants to put additional limitations on filing lawsuits: he wants to establish new rules for class action lawsuits and asbestos cases, making it more difficult for the victims to prosecute their cases.
Not only does Mr. Bush’s position violate biblical laws, but it is reprehensible to God: the balance of power in a courtroom cannot and may not be switched to the defendant’s side by edict of the president and his slavish Republican “Christians” that sit in the House and Senate!
In fact, Mr. Bush and his congressional leaders are attempting to undo what God established: the Bible states unequivocally:
“You shall not deprive the poor man of justice in his suit.” (Exodus 23:6. New English Version).
On abortion:
To understand the biblical view of abortions, one must examine miscarriages and how the Bible treated them. In fact, the Bible makes no distinction between a woman who miscarried and a woman who was having her regular menstrual period…. In this respect, an abortion or miscarriage was equal to a woman’s menstrual period and the fetus was not ever considered a person. [see Leviticus 15:19, Leviticus 15:25 and Leviticus 18:19]
…
The real topping to this issue that reveals the hypocrisy of the churches is the fact they have never believed a miscarried fetus is a sentient human, else they would have held funerals for them.
And in conclusion:
There are seven attributes of a man that God hates. God lays out the psychological profile of those traits he abhors. The following are from Proverbs 6:16-19 in the Amplified Version:
- “A proud look [the spirit that makes one overestimate himself and underestimate others].
- “A lying tongue,
- “Hands that shed innocent blood,
- “A heart that manufactures wicked thoughts and plans,
- “Feet that are swift in running to evil,
- “A false witness who breathes out lies [even under oath],
- “And he who sows discord among his brethren.”.
I’m humbly looking forward to forgiveness for our sisters and brothers who repent. Some of them have already, some are beginning to, and some may never. Remember, most of them are really trying to do the right things, they just don’t see things our way. Let’s work to change that.
And now, I ask you to please return to Rev. Gomes, my favorite Christian preacher of all time for a 33 minute long mp3 sound file of his May 28, 2006 sermon that applies to this exact topic, and which is a savvy commentary complete with references to Hitlerian evil and including some inspiration for all of us, Christian or not, to stand with “Power” against the force of evil.
Rev. Gomes
Today and forever may Goddess/God/gods/goddesses be with you, or not, as you believe in your private mind, and may you seek, find, and be moved by the source of your power to act for good.
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. -Margaret Mead
It’s tricky, the balance of “rebuking” without “sowing discord among (ones) brethren.”
Thanks for introducing me to Katherine Yurica. She’s impressive.
Tricky, indeed. It gave me something to consider long and hard before posting this. But, just because it’s difficult doesn’t mean that it can’t be done with a correct heart, and with humility. When rebuking, get ready to be rebuked!
with a correct heart, and with humility
Well said.
The Yurica Report website has long been buried in one of my bookmark folders in the depths of filing system obscurity. I don’t remember how I originally got there, or why, but upon recently revisiting some of those old bookmarks I came across the essay that is the subject of this diary. There is much of substance on her website, and I’m glad to have shared it with you.
Great, love this, blueneck.
Much food for thought here. Coming out of a group similar to the Baptists (Campbellites, actually), and being left with a great storehouse of scripture, I’ve practiced using various ones a lot in discussions about human development – you know, with those folks who are SURE that they understand Christianity to say this or that about corporal punishment, marriage, the status of women.
And more recently it is extending into the nature of government, torture, the just war idea, treatment of enemies, dealing with conflict, etc.
The conversations have to go beyond “I’m right and you’re wrong. No, you’re wrong and I’m right,” which is too much of it, right now.
I do think there can be some broader understanding here, using their own basis for belief.
One more thing: So, you like Peter Gomes.
Spend time at HDiv??
Those of us who have accumulated Bible knowledge should not be afraid to use it. At the least, it is a cultural document, and can be used like quoting a Shakespeare play, to communicate within a cultural understanding. With the encroachment of religion into government, it behooves us all to know something of their justifications, and respond with their own material to argue them out of it, when possible. imho.
I was an undergrad at Harvard in the early 80’s. Were you HDiv?
Nope, my bro was there. I visited him several times (being up the road in NH part of that period). Gomes was and is one of my brother’s favorites, and I got to hear him more than once – he’s very very good.
How is your brother today? Is he using his training? When was he there? I used to speak with D-school students from time to time, and they were definitely an interesting bunch of folks. I once had a long conversation with one of them about his own background, which was fundamentalist/conservative, and how he felt about being at a Divinity school that had a rep for being liberal. I was surprised at the answers I got. He did not feel that the profs and fellow students were in any way hostile towards his personal beliefs.
I wouldn’t be surprised if you hadn’t spoken to him, but more likely to one of his friends. We come from the church of Christ, certainly conservative enough – though a steady trickle have done docs at HDiv school. And our family were already practically liberal apostates among the “true believers”.
The classic Div school joke was that the greatest challenge to faith in attending the Div school at Harvard was not the professors, nor the liberal curriculum, but Boston traffic.
My bro left Div school in later 80s with one degree and went to Jackson – yep, that one near you – to work with a very tiny church there. After about 2 years, he went back to Harvard to work on a doctorate. Ended up with a doc at the Div school (Plus a JFK school MPA), in religion and society. He is a specialist in ethics and disarmament – if you can imagine such a thing. He’s teaching at a DC area seminary of a denomination much more liberal than our natal religion. If I said more about what he’s up to – he’s very politically active – I might as well tell you his name, which I better not do to keep peace in the family!
Thanks for your reply. I wouldn’t want you to reveal anything that your brother wouldn’t want! And it’s a small world isn’t it? I would almost bet money on having spoken to him, in 85 or 86, or at least someone very much like him, as you suggest.
The Boston traffic was the single biggest factor in influencing Harvard undergrads to go to church, I’m sure 🙂
I’d offer a poem that spoke the words of my soul after taking over 30 years to heal from the scars of being raised in a funamentalist christian family/community:
Self Portrait
by David Whyte
It doesn’t interest me if there is one God or many gods.
I want to know if you belong or feel abandonded.
If you can know despair or see it in others.
I want to know
if you are prepared to live in the world
with its harsh need to change you.
If you can look back with firm eyes
saying this is where I stand.
I want to know if you know
how to melt into that fierce heat of living
falling toward the center of your longing.
I want to know if you are willing
to live, day by day, with the consequence of love
and the bitter unwanted passion of your sure defeat.
I have heard, in that fierce embrace,
even the gods speak of God.
I love that.
Thanks Second Nature. David Whyte and his poetry have contributed greatly to my healing. And the first couple of lines of this poem were the first thing I heard of his. It literaly made my hair stand on end.
My experience is that we spend a lot of time on this religious issue working on the intellectual and dogmatic level. But what really needs to happen for those caught up in fundamentalism of any variety is emotional healing. Those who live their life ruled by dogma are seriously broken human beings. At least that’s how it worked for me.
Thank you so much for the poem and for your thoughts. I agree that much of the problem lies in the brokenness and the breaking that occurs before or during fundamentalist indoctrinations. It is an imperative, I believe, to help those in need, but if they are taught to stand in the way of their own healing, how then can we proceed? I feel feeble when trying to change the hurt. The road out for me came through thinking and reading and searching. This is not the only way out, but perhaps, for some, it is a way. And I think we can help some who may hear our arguments and see our scriptural ‘proofs’.
Hey, Man, you have got one great diary written here. Thanks for the very thoughtful insight to one hot topic. I really think you have the right idea on things. As I know your background in study and your brilliant mind, I can say you are and should be a regular poster of diaries here…:o)
See, I knew you could do it, after all…:o)…I applaud you….
It really gives us a lot to think about and digest.
Now, as a Christian, I do believe that Jesus was the great mind that gave us lots of great teachings and parables to lead us in our daily lives. That is just me. I listened as a child to those teachings and grew up learning more as to how they must evolve in our lives as an adult. I never took just a word of the great one for grantee; however, I tried to think things through with whatever wisdom I could muster to do always the right thing. I think this is what He wanted us to do in the very first place. He gave us the basics and intended for us to use our minds to think through the rest of it. Those basics are the foundation of living faithfully and honestly for our mankind and for always be a resource for being human. There are times, I doubt, that many men/women think clearly as to this. They just react out of their own reflexes of being…This could be debated till the end of time. WE do have a good start on it tho…right here at booman, with our wonderful gathering of human beings and their great and thoughtful minds. The hearts of us here are always good. We must never forget this….hugs, P, for all that you have offered here…
Thank you Brenda, I believe that whatever you think inside your private mind about God/… that you are doing the right things and acting out your beliefs. From what I’ve seen of you and what I’ve read of your writings, I, humbly, believe that you are on the track, and have been for quite some time. I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment of the need to think through and weigh scriptures in the balance of reason and love and circumstance. Jesus was surely a great teacher, and I often rely on my knowledge of what he taught to measure my own actions and thoughts.
I have always felt so free to pursue my spirituality and by expanding mine, well it was how I have gotten from point A to point B with all of the many surgeries that my son faces. It is such an odd twisted sort of thing to seek out people to cut on ones child (defying my natural protective instincts). I even grappled with allowing nature to take its course and take him, but something about my son and his spirit demanded that I find a way that he can mature and add his gifts to the world. When I’m around these doctors who are the best of the best and walk some fine line between what is possible (because isn’t almost anything possible?) and what they can really do (with not many teaching them, they are mostly alone on the water they walk on), and feeling the kind of energy these people radiate off of them….it can just about knock you off your feet sometimes. The topper of toppers is that much of the time the parents don’t have a compass to follow either, they walk alone into these foggy caverns of consciousness and possibility and many of them have had outright meltdowns with these same doctors. You wouldn’t believe the confessions we have all shared in the waiting rooms about how we have literally tried to verbally beat to death the gifted people saving our childrens lives, and somehow we all get up the next morning and DO IT! I struggle and flounder at times here in the Bible Belt. The energy I feel that comes off many of the people down here has me hiding in my house somedays, and yet…..is it my imagination or do we all hide in our houses here. In Colorado the neighborhood was a living creature and here it is very very quiet. Other than the hot hot summers I have never known such fabulous weather and so many reasons to be outside among each other yet we aren’t. All the possibilities for all of the peace and love that we could have and share together seem like disgusting evil doorways for SATAN to enter through….but they all adore my son. Many, if they desire to hear our story, seem overcome with pity for us…..and yes, sometimes it is hard and I could use a little pity breather. Self pity though only seems to paralyze me though so I reach into the center of the universe for the strength and energy that I need and I live in this weird parallel universe driving down the street next to them and sitting at the stoplight next to them and feeling completely separated from them by all the possibilities and all the fear of the possibilities!
Tracy, thank you so very much for commenting here. I am honored by your sharing. I am one who has mostly ‘listened’ to you over the past year here at BT and I have not been as verbally profuse with my praise and admiration of you and your obvious strength as some here have, but that is not because I don’t feel that or believe it, it’s because I am in awe. Your struggles with and for your son amaze me. And your comments always make me think. The power of love is very very strong, isn’t it?
You are correct about how the south seems to have stopped breathing in its neighborhoods. It is so sad that folks don’t meet each other and that they stay indoors except when mowing the yard, etc. I think that it is because everyone is afraid down here. Afraid of many things, but mostly of each other. Whites afraid of blacks, liberals afraid of conservatives, and everybody afraid of loving through the small differences that we have with one another. I am fighting to save a local park from developers right now, and it seems that people want to get rid of it or don’t care about it because it is a place where people actually meet each other and, horror of horrors, where blacks and whites and hispanics all share the same ground. I know that’s not the only dynamic ruling the desires to destroy the park, but I can’t help but think that it is one of them. It is very sad. We live in separate worlds, because many many folks down here have never left home far enough away or long enough to really know the wide world, we think our world is sufficient and preferable. Provinciality rules. Have you seen those bumper stickers and needlepoint wall hangings that say something like “American by birth, southern by the grace of god”? This ties in very much with DTF’s recent diary on exceptionalism. Not only do southerners have American exceptionalism to overcome, but regional exceptionalism, also.
reading your impressive list of discarded belief systems makes me wonder if you ever tried operating without one at all?
John Lennon song runs thru my mind, another debunking of discarded belief systems:
I dont believe in Jesus
I dont believe in Buddha
I dont believe in Elvis
I dont believe in Zimmerman
I dont believe in Kings
I dont believe in Beatles
etc etc
I just believe in me
Yoko and me
and thats reality
The dream is over
what can I say
Dream is over
yesterday
I was the dreamweaver
but now I am reborn
I was the walrus
but now Im John
and so dear friends
you’ll just have to carry on…
The dream is over!
Yes, I think I have. I left out John Lennon “Imaginism” from my list. However, it strikes me that on a philosophical level, at least, one cannot be without a ‘belief system’, even if the belief is in not believing in anything.
beliefs are ok, especially when they are based on individual observation and experience, with conclusions drawn by YOU. Not THEM.
Belief systems, especially those provided courtesy of other human beings, are a trap.
Both Buddha and Jesus railed against the turning away from God and toward man.
The voice of God speaks silently within our souls. Nowhere else. The voice of man speaks everywhere else.
“Many will come in my name,” Jesus supossedly said. You have checked out an impressive number of the many.
I agree with you. However, I consider it valuable on many levels to have examined and tried to adopt some of the belief systems of others. I have arrived at the same place that you seem to have arrived on this donkeytale. For what it’s worth, I never take anyone else’s word for anything spiritual anymore, or take for granted that ‘spirituality’ even exists. Through my travels, I have found out that, for me, a church is anyplace that you make it and anyone earnestly searching for truth is a worthy ally.
Good stuff.
Christianity was taken over by one of many possible Christianities. The right wing fundamentalists in America love the Gospel of John which posits that the way to salvation is simple belief that Jesus is the son of God and that he died for human salvation. This is a ticket to irresponsible action since one’s salvation depends on right opinion or belief(orthodoxy) and not on just or righteous action. Because of their idolization of the Gospel of John, American Christians don’t have to do justice, they just need to hold self-masturbatory beliefs.
The Gospel of Thomas is a collection of a little over 100 sayings of Jesus, one of which equates salvation with the bringing out of the divine that is within oneself through action. It’s no coincidence that the only place where “doubting Thomas” shows up is in the Gospel of John. All early Christian writing was polemical including what people now call Holy Scripture. None of these writings were plucked out of the air by God, they were stuck together in a canon about the middle of the 4th century, 300 years after the death of Jesus. All these so called gospels were the 1st century equivalent of blogs.
There were hundreds of “gospels” written about the life and death of Jesus, and they are a noodle casserole of contradictions. Some said he was God, others said he wasn’t. Some said he was two people, Jesus and Christ and that Jesus died but Christ left the bodily Jesus on the cross causing his exclamation of being forsaken because God can’t die. Some said he was resurrected, others said that was unbelievable crap. Some said his post death appearances were apparitions, others a bodily Jesus. All claimed to trace their opinions back to Jesus and/or the Twelve in an attempt to give authority to what they were saying. This kind of name dropping still is accepted as legitimate analysis today. By the way, John has been the most “popular” Gospel since the inception of the religion precisely because it only requires a fantastical belief, something that is exponenetially easier than acting to bring about justice in the world which was the political and theological program of Jesus.
Right on, phronesis. You do your nomme de blog justice, imo. As I said above, I don’t care one whit about what anyone says they believe anymore, only in right action. When I’m quizzed in depth about my own understandings of christianity and whether or not I’m a christian anymore, I say to people that I’m a ‘doubting Thomas’ type of christian, if at all. In the canonical version, Jesus did not banish Thomas to hell for asking for some proof of his divinity. If Jesus is ‘the way’, I’m sure that he won’t mind if I ask some tough questions, no?
Also, you reminded me that I left out Gnostic from my list.
Jesus said, (to paraphrase) “If you want to bring God’s Imperial Rule into being (as opposed to Caesar’s or Dubya’s), act now as if you are already a citizen” of what the King James translators beautifully called the “Kingdom of God.” (Of course they called it that to suck up to the king, but it’s still a beautiful translation of basileia tou theou ) By acting as if we are already participants in God’s Imperial Rule we will be bringing it forth on earth. Gandhi had it right, if you want the world to be a more loving place, start by being loving yourself; he’s a better follower of Jesus than American Christians.
Amen to Gandhi. I’ve recently rediscovered him and I’m trying to read through some of the volumes of his collected writings