Protecting the Poor from Religion

The social situation in rural Africa is the closest we get today to the situation that existed in first century Palestine, when Jesus was teaching. And Jesus’ message – among other things – was that the religious leaders were exploiting the poor, and needed to stop. In fact, Jesus’ harshest words were reserved for the religious leaders of his day. He called them “white washed tombs” and “blind guides”. I wonder what he might say to many African church leaders who seem to be mimicking the message and methods of those first century religious leaders.

There’s a reason Jesus was so opposed to them. Religion – as Karl Marx most famously pointed out – can be a drug for the poor (“opium for the people”), sedating them and distracting them from their desperate lives. At one level, that could be a good thing. The problem is that this too quickly turns to exploitation. Fundamentalist religion does this by offering eternal security and certainty of a better life (either now or in the future); and then demanding sacrifice today in response. Its best form produces solid citizens who will work hard and contribute to society self-sacrificially. The worst form, though, produces crusaders and unloving – and unlovely – cultish disciples.

A more sinister religion, though, emerges out of a “wealth and health” based religion. It promises cures for diseases and riches on earth. This is the religion peddled in rich countries through the 24-hour Christian broadcasting networks that ask viewers to contribute financially in exchange for holy water, prayer mats, blessed items and other tat. Mostly harmless, but most certainly idolatry. It is almost always for the benefit of the leader.

It’s when this religion meets the poor that things get nasty. This past weekend in Ghana, a stampede for special anointing water blessed by Africa’s most high profile fundamentalist Christian leader, Prophet TB Joshua from (I am sure you guessed) Nigeria, resulted in at least four deaths and thirty serious injuries. TB Joshua has courted controversy many times, including recent incidents in Ghana where his security guards illegally detained journalists covering his “crusades” in Accra. His Facebook page continues to spout testimonies of the power of the anointing water (from an Indian student who passed his school exams to people finding employment and cures for all sorts of diseases) – but no mention of the disaster in Ghana, except that this coming weekend’s crusades have been cancelled.

There is a form of religion that really would be good for the poor. Sadly, much of what is happening in Africa right now is not that form. And the poor need to be protected from it. When people die, hopefully there is an opportunity for truth to shine through.

Why have South African Christians welcomed CJ Mahaney?

Right now a conference called Rezolution is taking place in Johannesburg. The keynote speaker is an American, CJ Mahaney. Just a few weeks ago, Mahaney stepped down from the leadership of his own denomination, Sovereign Grace Ministries on the back of a court case in which he is a named defendant. The case alleges that Mahaney and other SGM leaders knowingly covered up sexual abuse that took place within their churches. (Update on 18 May 2013: the indictment has now been updated and made public: read the court document here. Warning, it will make you sick to your soul).

This comes on the heels of a leave of absence Mahaney took in 2011, in which he admitted to “various expressions of pride, unentreatability, deceit, sinful judgment and hypocrisy” (see Christianity Today’s reporting of the situation back then).

In October last year, three female plaintiffs filed a lawsuit that alleges “a conspiracy spanning more than two decades [in the 1980s and 90s] to conceal sexual abuse committed by church members”. Mahaney and board president John Loftness, along with six other leaders, are named as defendants for allegedly failing to report incidents of abuse to law enforcement, encouraging parents to not report them, and “mislead[ing] law enforcement into believing the parents had ‘forgiven’ those who preyed on their children.”

Reformed Christians are flocking to this conference and extolling the teaching of Mahaney.

I have no doubt that God can use anyone to speak His message, and that all of us are sinners. But I am very concerned that in a country rocked by sexual abuse such as South Africa, the church would invite this man to speak. It sends a horrific message to a watching world. We need to be more sensitive to the world we wish to minister God’s love to. CJ Mahaney should have been removed from Rezolution conference as a speaker. And his public ministry should not be supported by Christian leaders in this country.

A good friend of mine who happens to be a recently cum laude graduated Masters student in psychology who has a passion for social justice and dealing with the effects of child abuse, has written an article on this issue that I think deserves to be read. You can read and download the PDF here. I encourage you to do so.

I am very disappointed that Antioch Bible Church, founded by Tim Cantrall out of a messy split with Honeyridge Baptist Church a few years ago, has chosen to keep CJ Mahaney on the bill of Rezolution. I am disappointed in my many conservative friends who have supported this conference and specifically Mahaney while knowing the fact that he has stepped down from ministry in the USA. By all means support him privately, but do not endorse his public ministry. I am disappointed that the Reformed churches in South Africa do not take the issue of sexual sin amongst one of their leaders seriously. I am disappointed in the message that a watching world has received from this Rezolution conference.

I distance myself from this brand of Christianity.

There IS place for rich people in heaven (thank goodness)

The Bible has dire warnings for rich people. More than any other people (including all forms of vile criminals), the Bible warns rich people that their souls are in danger and the eternal destiny put at risk by their riches. Some rich people are told that they should give their money away – not as a form of communism, but rather as a test of their real motivations and allegiances. And yet, throughout the Bible, personal wealth is seen as a gift from God and a blessing. There are many rich people in the Bible, from Abraham to David, and Job to Paul.

In an excellent guest post on Rachel Held Evans’ blog this past weekend, Sara Barton wrote a wonderful piece about Joanna. She was one of Jesus’ female disciples. And she was rich. Her story is superb – and superbly told by Sara. Read it here, or an extract below.

Thank goodness we have models of how rich people should follow Jesus. What a difference the wealthy can make in the world if they develop a Jesus-worldview.

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How rich do you have to be (in order to help a poor person)?

Contrary to a common misinterpretation, Jesus never said that money was the root of all evil. There is nothing wrong with money, with making money, or with being rich. The Bible does warn rich people that it is dangerous for your spiritual health to be wealthy, but it is the love of money that is the root of all evil. According to the Bible, one of the key uses of personal wealth should be to help others. An abiding principle throughout Scripture is that we are blessed in order to be a blessing to others.

Yet we live in a world that is as inequitable as it has ever been. The rich are so rich, and have skewed the economic systems in their own favour. And the poor continue to remain so. There are currently over 1 billion people who live on less than $2 a day – and most of them will die because of their poverty.

Back in 2000, the world’s governments got together and created a set of eight goals, called the Millennium Development Goals, with a target of halving global extreme poverty by 2015. We’re nearly at that target date now, and we are seeing some successes. The number of extremely poor people has in fact reduced in the last thirteen years. But probably the most important part of the MDGs was that they quantified what is required to end extreme poverty, putting a price tag on it. We know what needs to be done. We know how much it will cost.

And there’s the rub. Who will pay?

Well, Oxfam recently crunched the numbers and showed that the net income of the world’s 100 richest people for 2012 (not their overall wealth: just the $240 billion they earned last year) is enough to end extreme poverty not once, or twice, but four times over. Or, put another way, if the world’s richest 100 people gave just three months earnings to the efforts to end poverty, we’d have all the money we needed to achieve this goal.

By the way, the world’s richest 1% have seen their income grow by more than 20% during the financial crisis.

OK, so that’s quite an eyeopener. But you could easily tut tut at this point and write this off as someone else’s problem.

But what about you?

Well, how rich do you have to be to be one of the “world’s richest”? How rich are you? Go to this wonderful website, http://www.globalrichlist.com/, enter your annual income and it will show you where you stand in the world’s income list (yes, your ranking out of 7 billion people). If you’re in the top 20% (and I promise you that if you’re reading this, then you are), then this is YOUR issue to.

How rich do you have to be in order to have enough to help the poor? So what are you doing about it?

Being a witness to grace: Louie Giglio, homosexuality, a prayer, persecution and a storm of protest

One of the current themes of conservative evangelical Christianity is a persecution complex. They look for opportunities to be offended by popular culture (take the phony ‘war on Christmas’ in America, for example). And when something happens that could in any way be taken as an attack on Christians, they fall over themselves to proclaim how persecuted they are. This happened again this past week, as Louie Giglio, well known pastor of Passion City Church in Atlanta, was withdrawn from praying the benediction at President Obama’s inauguration. The reason was pressure from LGBT groups because of a sermon Giglio had preached in the 1990s about homosexuality.

The Gospel Coalition immediately jumped on this as a sign of an anti-Christian bias in society, of President Obama’s campaign of religious intolerance and (of course) of the fact that the conservative evangelicals must be right because Jesus said that people would hate them. Read their statement here.

It’s amazing how John 15:19 is taken so out of context it is made to say exactly the opposite of what Jesus intended. Go and read John 15 for yourself quickly. The immediate context is about love. It’s about proving our commitment to God, our devotion to each other and our service to the world by how much we love. And not the “tough love” advocated by James Dobson (so called “love” that would reject a child because of their sexual orientation, or cut off ties with a friend because of their divorce) but the sacrificial love of Jesus, who “while we were yet sinners”, gave up his life for us. Keep reading into John 16. The people that Jesus was warning his disciples about – those that would “hate them” – were the religious leaders. Jesus was hated by Pharisees and Saducees, not by the people. This is the tragic irony of the persecution complex: it’s actually conservative evangelical church leaders that Jesus was warning us about. They are actually the persecutors, not the persecuted.

Anyway, back to Louie Giglio, who I actually believe has done something different. He has provided a wonderful example of the grace and love we are supposed to be showing to the world.

It seems as if he withdrew his acceptance to pray at the inauguration (rather than being “disinvited” as the Gospel Coalition said). Read his statement here, and the Inaugural Committee’s statement here. In the light of a growing backlash to the invitation, Giglio – maybe under pressure from the White House – chose grace and peace and love. Rachel Held Evans has stated beautifully the value of this move by Giglio:
“I applaud Giglio’s decision to do as much as he could to ensure that something as sacred as a prayer did not become overly politicized or divisive. He made grace and peace higher priorities than his own celebrity. To me, that’s the essence of what Paul meant when he said, ‘As much as it depends on you, live peaceably with all people.’ We would do well to follow Giglio’s lead in this regard and discuss this situation with civility, not making more of it than necessary.”

I’d suggest, by the way, we should discuss the whole issue of homosexuality in the same way, too.

By the way, Rachel’s blog post on the issue is masterful. She explains that there is no denial of freedom of speech in Giglio’s removal from the Inauguration, nor are evangelical Christians being persecuted in America. Read her thoughts here.

It’s becoming too predictable, and a bad witness, that every little issue is seen as a storm, a denial of rights and a persecution by evangelical Christians – especially in America.

Thank you, Louie Giglio for your grace and wisdom.
Thank you, Rachel Held Evans for your insights and analysis.
Thank you, LGBT community for your continued concern and advocacy for people broken and wounded by a society and a church that does not know how to engage with you in love.
Thank you, God, for your patience with your creation and for helping us to inch forward – however slowly – towards the type of world that is truly “your Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven”.

Responding to Tragedy

There have been tragedies to respond to in the year just passing. Unfortunately, a consistent theme coming out of American evangelicalism has been to use these tragedies as a bandstand for the common causes of the day, namely abortion, homosexuality and gun control (sad how conservative American Christians have reduced their religion to these touch stone topics). Once again, after the Newton school shootings, prominent Christian leaders have publicly stated their beliefs that this tragedy is caused by America’s shift to the left on these issues.

Greg Boyd, of ReKnew, responds as follows, and I agree entirely:

Finger Pointing and the Impulse to Judge

by Greg Boyd, ReKnew

To no one’s surprise, yet to the sadness of many of us, several Christian spokespeople, including James Dobson, Mike Huckabee and Bryan Fischer, are blaming the shootings in Newtown, Conn, on abortion and gay marriage. This is sadly reminiscent of Jerry Falwell’s hurtful response to 9/11 when he divined that “the pagans,” “abortionists,” “feminists,” “gays,” “lesbians,” “ACLU” and “People For the American Way” were to be blamed. It’s reminiscent as well, on a smaller scale, of John Piper’s disturbing public declaration that the collapse of the 35W bridge here in Minneapolis that killed 13 people was God warning us about our sin and the toppling of a church steeple by a tornado was God warning a denomination not to ordain gays.

It seems to have become a staple of American conservative Christianity to respond to tragedy – when people most need to be reminded of God’s comforting and healing love – to grab a megaphone and accuse.

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Christmas is coming, and so is Saint Nick

Our current image of Father Christmas as a fat old man with red cheeks and long white beard was cemented into popular culture by Coca-Cola in the early 1930s, as part of a marketing campaign to get people to drink cold drinks during winter. The red-coated figure of Santa was created by a commercial illustrator, Haddon Sundblom, based on illustrations that had appeared in the New York Times in 1906, 1908 and 1925 (see below):

   

But Santa Claus has been around for a long, long time in various cultures and traditions around the world. It is generally accepted that the earliest incarnations are based on the real life figure of St. Nicholas, who lived in Asia Minor in the 3rd century AD. He seems to have been a wealthy man, who gave most of his wealth away to help others. Famously, he would go at night in mid winter and throw bags of money into poor people’s houses. He used his entire inheritance to help the poor, sick, and children in need. He gave in secret, expecting nothing in return. He attended the Council of Nicea in AD 325. Greatly loved for his faith, compassion and care, he is venerated in both East and West.

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Do Evangelicals Really Love Jesus?

Phil Zuckerman is Professor of Sociology at Pitzer College in Claremont, CA, USA. He recently wrote a very insightful critique of American Evangelicals, and I think he hits the nail entirely on the head. His conclusion is powerful: Evangelicals love what Jesus can do for them, but don’t really love what Jesus asked them to do in response. In this sense, they don’t actually love Jesus. His article puts it even more strongly. Read the original Huffington Post article, or an extended extract below:

Why Evangelicals Hate Jesus

Huffington Post, Religion Blog, 6 September 2012
by Phil Zuckerman and Dan Cady

The results from a recent poll published by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life reveal what social scientists have known for a long time: White Evangelical Christians are the group least likely to support politicians or policies that reflect the actual teachings of Jesus. It is perhaps one of the strangest, most dumb-founding ironies in contemporary American culture. Evangelical Christians, who most fiercely proclaim to have a personal relationship with Christ, who most confidently declare their belief that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, who go to church on a regular basis, pray daily, listen to Christian music, and place God and His Only Begotten Son at the center of their lives, are simultaneously the very people most likely to reject his teachings and despise his radical message.

Jesus unambiguously preached mercy and forgiveness. These are supposed to be cardinal virtues of the Christian faith. And yet Evangelicals are the most supportive of the death penalty, draconian sentencing, punitive punishment over rehabilitation, and the governmental use of torture. Jesus exhorted humans to be loving, peaceful, and non-violent. And yet Evangelicals are the group of Americans most supportive of easy-access weaponry, little-to-no regulation of handgun and semi-automatic gun ownership, not to mention the violent military invasion of various countries around the world. Jesus was very clear that the pursuit of wealth was inimical to the Kingdom of God, that the rich are to be condemned, and that to be a follower of Him means to give one’s money to the poor. And yet Evangelicals are the most supportive of corporate greed and capitalistic excess, and they are the most opposed to institutional help for the nation’s poor — especially poor children. They hate anything that smacks of “socialism,” even though that is essentially what their Savior preached. They despise food stamp programs, subsidies for schools, hospitals, job training — anything that might dare to help out those in need. Even though helping out those in need was exactly what Jesus urged humans to do. In short, Evangelicals are that segment of America which is the most pro-militaristic, pro-gun, and pro-corporate, while simultaneously claiming to be most ardent lovers of the Prince of Peace.

What’s the deal?

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A picture of women: from the Bible? or from 1950s American suburbs?

Earlier this year, Rachel Held Evans hosted a series of posts on her blog that looked at a variety of issues related to the role of women in the church. You can see links to the full series here. So there’s no confusion about my position, I believe that women and men are equal before God, and that all the gifts are available to everyone to use for God. Everyone is under some authority, and ultimately under God’s but gender is no issue in this.

The post I enjoyed the most in this series was one that looked at whether a conservative position on women is Biblical or cultural, and whether the roles of women laid out by those who do not allow women to lead or teach in church are from the Bible or from 1950s Western culture.

You can read the full post here, or an extract below.

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There is one more myth regarding “biblical womanhood” that we really need to address as part of our series—and that is the myth that a true woman of God is defined by her roles as a wife, mother, and homemaker. I spend quite a bit of time exploring this in my book, A Year of Biblical Womanhood, but it’s so important to the conversation surrounding gender equality in the Church, it’s worth discussing in an abbreviated format here. 

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Child-like interpretations of the Bible

Over the past few days, I’ve been engaged in some interesting conversations that all began with a simple picture I posted on my Facebook status. It’s largely about same sex marriage, but the 60+ comments in the thread get very quickly to issues of how we interpret the Bible. If either topic interests you, I think you’ll enjoy the interactions on my Facebook timeline.

Then, this morning, the preacher at the church I attended made some excellent comments about how we understand the Bible. The basic message of the Gospel is so simple that a child can understand it. In fact, in order to understand it you need to approach it with child-like (not childish!) faith and trust. But there are parts of the Bible that are very complicated and complex, because they are talking about God. If they were easy to understand it would make a mockery of who God actually is: above and beyond us.

Our preacher was much more eloquent than this. And it’s a wonderful point to make. The simple parts of the Bible are simple enough for a child to understand and accept. And we need help with some of the other parts that are difficult to understand.

But it struck me that there is a corollary to this thought – and that is about what children might believe about God before we impose our doctrines on them.

In the Facebook conversation during the week, one of the common themes of those people arguing that homosexuality is wrong is that this is “the plain reading of the texts” on this topic. This sounds like a strong argument, but it is not – for many reasons. But here’s one more reason.

If you asked a 7 year old child if they thought that God hated two men just because they loved each other and wanted to be together, almost every innocent child in the world would say, “No”. Surely God doesn’t hate them just because they love each other? (By the way, this test applies to many self-evident truths: does God like it when people lie or steal? Is God happy when Daddies and Mommies divorce? I think children would provide the right answer to almost all “self evident” sins).

So, if children would not understand why homosexuality would be considered wrong by God, then it must be the case that this issue is one of the “difficult to interpret” parts of the Bible.

It’s a simple point, really, but an important one. The seven verses/passages that talk against homosexuality are definitely in the category of “difficult” and need careful interpretation. They cannot just be taken at “face value”. And they do NOT say what they seem to say at first reading.

The same, by the way, is true of Genesis 1-11 and the age of the earth, the sections on slavery, the instructions about nobody with disabilities being allowed to serve in church leadership, tattoos, levirate marriage, polygamy, war, sacrifices, and many other issues. It’s an interesting test, this child-like understanding of God. I like it.

Celebrating judgement and damnation

This past week I was alerted to a video of a child singing in church. This happens every week in churches all around the world, but this particular incident borders on child abuse and shows a horrible side of conservative Christianity.

A young boy sings a simple song about heaven:

I know the Bible’s right, somebody’s wrong
I know the Bible’s right, somebody’s wrong
Ain’t no homos going to make it to heaven

Now, regardless of your theology or personal beliefs on the issues of homosexuality, the response of the adults in this church must surely appall any Christian (or any human being for that matter). They jump up and wildly applaud and whoop their delight. They celebrate what they see as the eternal judgement and damnation of other people. They encourage demeaning and belittling approaches to those they see as sinners.

Is this how Jesus would have us behave?

Judge for yourself:

I know that I don’t hold what might be called a “majority opinion” on the issue of homosexuality. I do not think the Bible is as clear on this issue as most conservative Christians think it is. But our theology of sexuality is surely irrelevant here. This kind of attitude and action has NO place in our churches. It is un-Christlike, un-Christian and wrong. I am sure that there will be more homosexuals in heaven than people from this church.

How is it possible to even have a rational conversation about sexuality in a context where this type of behaviour persists? What would Jesus do?

The difficulty with defending Biblical Marriage

I am working on a blog about the current debates on the issue of marriage (which is really a debate on homosexuality by conservative Christians), but this infographic came across my screen and it’s too good to keep to myself for now. So, with apologies that this is my only post in the last few weeks, here’s a graphical portrayal of the problems with defending a “Biblical” view of marriage (click on the image for a larger view to read it more clearly):

Christianity: Essentially Masculine?

A few weeks ago, theologian John Piper made a most remarkable statement, claiming that Christianity has been revealed by God as essentially masculine in nature, and that one of the problems with it today is that it has lost its masculine feel. This is a most remarkable statement. I have spent the last few weeks reading many responses to this statement – the best list of these is available at Rachel Held Evans site here.

One of the best responses came from Paul Anthony on his Disoriented Theology blog. Read it here or a detailed extract below:

The Radical Femininity of Christ

by Paul Anthony
3 February 2012

Correlation may not equal causation, but I see a connection between this statement …

I conclude that God has given Christianity a masculine feel. And being God, a God of love, He has done that for our maximum flourishing both male and female… He does not intend for women to languish or be frustrated or in any way suffer or fall short of full and lasting joy in this masculine Christianity. From which I infer that the fullest flourishing of women and men takes place in churches and families that have this masculine feel.

… and this one:

No population group among the sixty segments examined has gone through more spiritual changes in the past two decades than women. Of the 14 religious factors studied, women have experienced statistically significant changes related to 10 of them. Of those transitions, eight represent negative movement – that is, either less engagement in common religious behaviors or a shift in belief away from biblical teachings. … The only religious behavior that increased among women in the last 20 years was becoming unchurched. That rose a startling 17 percentage points – among the largest drops in church attachment identified in the research.

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Is it really Christ-mas in Britain this year?

Last week, David Cameron made an interesting speech on the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible. The item that received most press coverage in the speech was Mr Cameron asserting that “We are a Christian country and we should not be afraid to say so.” He admitted personally to be a committed but only vaguely practising Christian with some deep doubts about some theological issues.

He continued: “I know and fully respect that many people in this country do not have a religion. And I am also incredibly proud that Britain is home to many different faith communities, who do so much to make our country stronger. But what I am saying is that the Bible has helped to give Britain a set of values and morals which make Britain what it is today.”

Some would argue that a time of national crisis and difficulty is precisely when the church can shine in society. The Economist from the previous week had made just such a point in an insightful piece (read it in full here, or an extract below).

Postscript added on 25 December: The Queen’s speech today was filled with Christian messages, and a strong almost evangelistic message. It’s probably the strongest specifically Christian message I have ever heard from a member of the Royal family in the UK. Is this a sign that the leaders of the country have made a decision to use the Christian faith as a means to developing the nation? If so, the church needs to jump at the opportunity. But it must do so realising that people are seeking God, not the church. They want faith, not a religion.

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The Daily Show, Mitt Romney, Evangelical Americans and Cults

I am a fan of Jon Stewart and The Daily Show on Comedy Central. Their brand of satire and political commentary appeals to me (even if it is a bit crude sometimes). They pull no punches and have no favourites.

On Monday night, they took a swipe at evangelical Christians who are targeting Mitt Romney’s Mormon beliefs as cultish. They start with an overview of the Republican nomination process thus far. Then they move into their main piece by making fun of Christian beliefs, and although I did squirm a bit, I consoled myself by thinking that their jibes were aimed at a specific version of evangelical Christianity in the USA. But as the clip heads to a conclusion, they target the huge inconsistencies in how Republican Christians in particular are applying their version of the Gospel to life in America, “the 99%” and the divide between rich and poor. This was the best bit for me.

It is a deeply insightful piece of satire, and worth your attention. Watch it below or at The Daily Show website.

PS – if you can’t watch Daily Show videos because they are blocked in your country, let me know in the comments below, and I’ll help you with a work around.