A Religion of Slogans

February 5th, 2012

Has anybody noticed that nobody preached a revival in the Bible?

Grace is not license to do whatever I want. It is the ability to do what God wants. (Benjamin J. Everson )

It’s neither. It’s not my ability at all. In fact, grace is God’s decree to cover my lack of ability and to support me in my frailty. The people who are in Christ receive abundant grace, but we still don’t do what God wants, even when we want to. We need (and we receive) His forgiveness in Christ every day. Grace is not a super power that makes us sinless; it’s the support we need because we are sinners.

And furthermore, grace is not based on such pragmatic ends. God doesn’t give me grace simply to get what He wants, my perfect righteousness right now. He’s gracious to me because He loves me, even in my current frailty. Grace is the application of God’s love to cover my sins, sustain my life, and enlighten my mind and heart so that I can know Hm and enjoy Him forever by a process of growth. God doesn’t need to be gracious to me to carry out His ends. He has chosen to make grace to me His ends, because God is love, and He joys to show mercy.

The problem, one of them, of a religion made up of slogans, of catching those nifty sayings that roll off the tongue and sound right to the ear, is that they can make religion glib, shallow, and downright stupid. You know, the sort of religion that pushes “Bible Revival,” even though no preacher in the Bible ever set out to preach a “revival”. The term did not even exist in the New Testament church.

Posted in Grace, Sanctification by Grace | 2 Comments »

It’s a New Year, Better Get This Posted Now: Long Hair on Men

February 4th, 2012

Amazing that a religion as corrupt as Christian Fundamentalism would even worry about long hair on men, but the topic comes up from time to time. The reference that preacehrs use as the basis for their objection to long hair on men is found in I Corinthians 11, where Paul talks about it being a shame for a man to have “komao,” a word that the KJV translates as “long hair.” The word literally means “tresses.” In a sense, komao would simply be translated as “hair,” rather than “long hair,” or it could be translated as “locks of hair” or “tresses of hair.” Paul is talking about noticeable hair; hair that draws attention to itself (as almost everybody had hair in his culture, the word has to be taken in a cultural and societal context. But it does NOT mean “long hair.” the word “Komao” has nothing to do with degree or amount of hair.)

Paul is talking about “dressed hair” or “coiffed hair.” It’s not hair length that is banned as effeminate (as, even in Paul’s day, some pretty butch military men wore their hair in a traditional single braid that was a sign of virility). The text is talking about hair that is styled to be shown off as a glory. That is a feminine behavior, and there is no equivocation about it. Guys who wear curlers and bows are sissies.

Some preachers, hedging from the Fundamentalist insistence of hair off the collar assert that Paul is talking about hair that is so long on a man that it is effeminate–extremely long hair. But that’s still not what Paul is saying. “Komao” is not a word about degree or length of hair. It’s a word that is talking about the quality or characteristic of a person’s hair. Men in his day wore their hair all the way down to the waist, as a sign of virlity, in fact. (The Asian “queue” is a sign of a man’s virility, but it’s tied back or braided.) But they did not “arrange” their hair as a woman does

Paul is quite clear in what he is saying, but modern minds are not clear. Women in his day wore their hair by ordering or arranging the tresses. Long hair on a woman is NOT her glory if it is ugly, unwashed, or unkempt. Paul is not talking about hair length, but the fashion of arranging the “tresses” to a woman’s best advantage.

In other words, a woman proclaims her glory by arranging her hair, not just growing it long. The glory shared by every single woman in Paul’s day was her means of adorning her hair. Not all could afford fine clothing. Not all could afford fine jewelry. But all could arrange her tresses in the most flattering and ornate way possible.

Women with adorned hair (in a culture where her beauty was her only accessory) were distracting and were deliberately attracting attention to their beauty by their ornate hair styles. That’s why it’s so unseemly for a woman with her tresses arranged to pray in public with her head uncovered, because she is attracting attention to herself far more so than a man would do, simply because she *is* self-adorned while in the presence of God. So Paul decrees that she must cover that beautiful adornment.

Again, Paul draws his argument from nature, yet in his time, men in some cultures wore long hair. But they did not “dress” their hair or treat their hair as “tresses” for adornment.

Nature has NOT taught men to have short hair (just ask the millions of Chinese and Japanese warriors who favored braids and top knots). But Nature HAS taught men not to curl their hair, put bows in it, or style it. Cultures that descend to that are teetering on disaster because the men have descended into being silly, vain boy-toys, where uncontrolled outrage, gross self indulgence, and sexual sin are prominent (consider French aristocracy, 1700’s.)

But the matter is easily settled in the Greek, just check to see if the word Paul uses for women’s’ hair in the passage is EVER used to describe a man’s hair, except in the negative (that such hair is a shame to him). Even in the description of Mary Magdalene’s hair when she wiped the feet of the Lord Jesus, the word “thrix” is used, a denotation that she wore her hair without the elaborate styling of her day, a sign of humility and preparation for her act of worship in wiping His feet with her hair. But her hair undoubtedly was long, as she washed His feet with it, yet because she used her hair in the most utilitarian way imaginable (as a towel) a different word is used for her hair. The word “komao” would not be used to describe long, straight hair used to wipe a person’t feet.

Posted in Fundamentalism and Stupidity, Gender, Holiness | 2 Comments »

The Consequences of Being a Person Who Matters #3 (And Everybody Matters)

February 3rd, 2012

And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.
For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.
Luke 9:23-24

So far, we’ve covered the first two components of Christ’s command to follow him:
1. Denying ourselves
2. Taking up the cross

And now we should consider the final component: having taken the cross that is appointed for me, I must follow Him, bearing my cross.

His statement implies several things: first, that in taking up a cross and following Him, we are acting in duplicate of Him. That is, we follow Him not just in the sense of linear pursuit, but also in the sense of imitation. The Greek here indicates a unity: we are following Christ in the sense of copying Him as He goes. You know the old joke: “Walk this way.” But that is what Christ is saying and doing.

So we are not the only ones bearing a cross, for Christ is ahead of us, bearing His cross. He is teaching us His way, and this is how He teaches us.

First of all, Christ is clear that each of us has a cross, a cross that uniquely belongs to me, a cross that uniquely belongs to you. The cross that I carry is assigned to me by God. My abuse was no accident. The reins never slipped from God’s Hands. He handed me my cross, just like He handed your cross to you. Yes, I carry my sins, but I carry the sins of another person on my shoulders as well: the sins that scarred me, the sins that deformed my youth, the sins that can still pain me. God assigned that to me. Just like He assigned your suffering to you.

Let us not forget, when God became a man, God assigned the sins of the world for God to carry on a cross. So nobody’s been exempted here. He was innocent, and He was good, and yet He suffered. And He took up that suffering with determination and love for us.

Spiritual divas in the media and in books may make our union with Christ into an ecstatic, fragrant, touchy-feely extravaganza of mutual admiration. The reality is that the first point of that union is suffering: real life suffering. And we are commanded to embrace it, and that is our first point of union with Christ: if we would follow Him, we must take up the cross given to us. That also means, like Christ, we love our enemies and offer them the forgiveness that Christ has the power to give them.

Furthermore, with that cross, Christ says “follow me”. It is the instrument of our suffering and grief, but it is also the instrument of His teaching for each of us. Christ shows me how to walk this walk, because He has walked it. Christ lifts me up when I fall under my Cross. Christ lays down the guidelines for this walk: to forgive, to love, to pray, but also to find myself so dependent on Him that soon all my fears of Him are replaced by confidence. In Fundamentalism, I was told to put my cross away by the usual Fundamentalist methodologies: dressing a certain way, observing a routine of “devotions,” avoiding certain music, movies, etc. I was kept busy, keeping myself “right with God.” And I dreaded Christ because I thought I had to get a certain amount of work for Him done, and done the right way, to please Him.

But now, here I am, pinned down by this cross again, and He hoists us both up, just like He always does. And I might be suffering, but not from fear of Him. I’ve come to understand that He has put me in the footsteps of His path precisely so that He can sustain me. I’m not afraid of Him any more. I don’t even think in terms of whether or not I measure up to Him. I’m sure that I don’t. But it’s not about that. It’s about Him. That’s what my cross is about. It’s about Christ. As long as I carry it, I can’t get by without Him. And as long as I can’t get by without Him, He keeps sustaining me. That doesn’t mean life is easy. But it does mean that my life, and the suffering I encounter, are meaningful, purposeful, and bringing me to a point. My suffering is united to His suffering. I have died in His death. I will rise in His resurrection.

Christianity today is about political power, and celebrity, and money, and big crowds. And none of it works. Have you noticed? Christianity in the USA is selfish, sexually corrupt, flippant, sexually corrupt, hopelessly divided, sexually corrupt, and ultimately, it’s sexually corrupt. And if you think I am hitting one of those points too hard, let me point out that sexual corruption is a sign of a culture that throws away people. They might be worth a good fling, but once you’ve had them, you throw them away. That ethic is the antithesis of Christ’s teachings, and it exists in the Religious Right, in Evangelicalism, and in Christian Fundamentalism. And it gets manifested by these ongoing sexual scandals and horrors. And Fundamentalist preachers do it to children: sexually use them and throw them away.

Christ rebuked Peter with this observation: thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. That is, in urging Christ not to meet His fate at the hands of the Pharisees, Peter refused to be patient enough to learn the wisdom of God and the way God would establish His kingdom on earth. Instead, Peter rashly wanted to use the devices of this world to establish the Kingdom of God on earth. He wanted Christ to rise as an earthly power.

This is what Christian Fundamentalists want today. They want a strong political party, a strong economy, low taxes, and the right to carry guns. We’ve tried it. It doesn’t work. But sadly, many of those who have survived Fundamentalism and exited it are still relying on the world’s methods: power, clout, money, celebrity. The Kingdom of God does not advance that way.

We follow Christ, but the journey does not end with a cross.

God Himself came as “the contemptible branch” as the Old Testament prophesied: an unknown man, a peasant, a laborer. From this tiny sprout of David, a Kingdom came. He conquered by serving His people and then dying for them. That is His path, and those who follow Him and want His kingdom to flourish must follow that path. There really is no other way. I have seen people clutching after fame and importance, and they end in sorrow and anger and alienation. It’s great to have television documentaries on our side. It’s great to have a court case reach national attention. But even though Christ had His share of fame for a time, His conquest of sin came upon the Cross.

The way of following Christ by denying self and taking up the cross is personal, individual, humiliating, heartbreaking, joyful, healing, illuminating, painful, and glorious. It’s all those things, as far as I can see. Christ doesn’t veil the truth: the New Testament is written mostly by martyrs. But the only way to conquer is to conquer His way, and that means denying ourselves, each of us taking up the cross appointed to us, and following Him.

Posted in devotionals, Faith, Recovering Fundamentalists | 3 Comments »

Answering the Allegations Against Me

February 2nd, 2012

May 19, 2011

I think it is revolting that I have to do this. But after the events of last night, I have to. So if you are wondering if I’m some sort of agent for Bob Jones University, or if I am huckstering money from the Lambs, here is my rebuttal and my account of the ongoing harassment I am getting, a harassment based on reasons that don’t even make sense:

http://www.jeriwho.net/jocelyn/

Updated January 5, 2011
Regrettably, I have updated the page in the reference above. I have appended more nonsensical (and vague) allegations. I did this because now the story has changed. And I’ve typed in my replies.

Posted in Fighting the Flying Monkeys | 55 Comments »

The Consequences of Being a Person Who Matters #2 (And Everybody Matters)

February 2nd, 2012

I don’t often write about the abusive home in which I grew up, but I did grow up in an abusive home. And I’m not going to go into a lot of details here, but I want to point out that what my abuser wanted, was for me not to matter.

So my opinions were ridiculed; my looks were ridiculed; my beliefs were ridiculed; my goals were ridiculed (and interfered with), etc. Everything I said or did came under this person’s scrutiny and was rejected.

And to myself, in myself, I kept insisting that I mattered. And really, I was right: I did matter. Everybody matters. The problem was, I didn’t know how to behave as a person who matters. And believe me, for years I was clueless about, not just appropriate behavior, but kind behavior. Cruel or mean stuff that I did deliberately was fairly minor (I think), but cruel and mean stuff that I did and said without thinking twice about it was almost continual.

I’d lived in my head for so long that I walked in a land of ghosts. Almost everybody else was just a shadow, like a character from TV or a book. In another sense, without even realizing it, I was the shadow in their world, and they were real. I really didn’t know how to be invited out to dinner or be a part of the give and take of a conversation.

I came into Christian Fundamentalism as a teenager. And I ran into a lot of harshness in Christian Fundamentalism. I was a harsh person, and I was at times treated harshly, without any respect for the validity of my ignorance. But (and I know this will anger some people), I also ran into a lot of kindness and patience. The people who taught me how to look at other people with the recognition that they mattered were (and still are) Christian Fundamentalists. The woman who came to know that I passionately wanted to be a writer and so personally taught me for four years, on her own time, how to write, was a Bob Jones University faculty member. (This was before BJU developed the writing majors.)

It’s precisely because I understand now that I matter and that others matter that I began to document clergy abuse in Fundamentalism back in 2001. And I understand that the same Fundamentalism that helped me (overall) to grow up is the same Fundamentalism that is entirely indifferent, for example, to the death of Brent Stevens at the hands of Dave Hyles. Brent Stevens matters too. If we look at the words of Christ, we learn that the least of His brethren concern Him more so than the greatest. He expressly said that the least person in the kingdom of heaven was greater than the fearless and gifted John the Baptist.

Christ didn’t come to John in the hour of John’s death. John the Baptist died alone, among his enemies. But Christ was present in the final hour of a nameless thief who professed repentance and faith in Him. Christ personally guaranteed an unknown, unremarked man a place with Him in Paradise.

So I see and I recognize how disobedient Christian Fundamentalism is in the way it treats those who are perceived to be less significant than its major players. And I think the sins of Christian Fundamentalism are worse now than it was 35 years ago when I first entered its doors.

But that’s another topic. My point is that everybody matters. I see survivors of abuse declaring that they matter (and they are right), but they sometimes exercise their new-found value by anger, hatred, railing against others, refusing to yield, sometimes on even the smallest of issues.

And what does Christ say to us? Because we matter, and because each of us has the power to do great harm by living without faith in Christ, just as we also have the power to do great good by means of faith in Christ, Christ has told us how to be followers of Him: And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me (Mar 8:34).

Taking up a cross is a startling image, for only those destined to suffer take up a cross. They bear the weight of the very instrument of their suffering and death, and they drag it with them to their place of execution. And when they get there, they are executed upon the cross that they carried. But Christ gives us this guarantee in His very next statement: it is only by this means that we shall live: For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it (Mar 8:35).

Yes, carrying a cross is unwieldy and difficult.

His command is in the singular. Every single person takes up a cross. We all have one. And even when man will not lay this cross upon us, we must consent to take it on ourselves in order to follow Him.

This commandment calls out to us as participants in a single relationship with Him. For carrying the cross of Christ is not a group thing. It’s you and Christ. It’s me and Christ.

I see survivors of clergy abuse trying to have meaningful lives by seeking agreement with each other (and when they don’t get agreement, they often try to hammer others into agreement). It’s a dead end. Of course there is a certain joy in conversing with people who understand what you went through. And one very successful group is the Hephzibah House women. But right now, they’re a rarity.

For you cannot go to others to get a life worth living. This is why so many of these “survivor” groups fall apart into squabbling and name calling. The answer does NOT lie within you or among you. If we look at the Hephzibah House women, we see a very high priority among many of the women on behaving with love and tolerance and patience, rather than on expecting others to behave as they should. Many of those women come into that group determined to behave with kindness and charity (which is part of that practice of denying self that I wrote about previously), respecting the suffering of others instead of each woman focusing on her own suffering. (And that’s also very true for women in that group who do not profess Christ at all.)

For the Christian who has suffered abuse, we are not excused from the life of faith in Christ. Each of us has to accept what was done to us as part of our life in Him. That doesn’t mean we say abuse was okay. It’s certainly not OK for children to be sexually or violently abused. What was done to me was not OK. But I was given a cross to carry. I’m not going to run from that cross. I do believe that the longer I learn the lesson of carrying that cross, the more clearly I will see my Savior ahead of me, bearing the Cross He also willingly took.

We have an obligation as we carry our crosses to confront sin, to rebuke sin, to offer repentance to all mankind, to pray for our tormenters to come to feel remorse, to pray for them to be stopped from harming others, to pray for other victims, to hope for the Love of Jesus Christ to transform us more and more into His image.

And nobody’s going to get this right, at least not all the time. We will all fall under the weight of the cross that each of us carries. But Christ’s command to us hasn’t changed. If we want to follow Him, then each of us must take that cross given to us, and carry it. Thus, we share His fate, and we will share His glory.

This world is not changed by money or political power or fame, or celebrity. He has told us how we change the world: through the Cross, through a life of professing Him without shame and identifying ourselves with His Cross, which we bear all our lives. That actually is the Christian way; that is the way of Christ.

Posted in church abuse, devotionals, Faith, Recovering Fundamentalists | 4 Comments »

The Consequences of Being a Person Who Matters #1 (And Everybody Matters)

February 1st, 2012

Mat 16:24 Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

The first record we have in the English Bible of Christ saying this is in Matthew’s Gospel. Peter had just been, first, honored by Christ for the declaration, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Indeed, Christ has just bestowed tremendous honor upon Peter: the keys of the kingdom of God. The Roman Catholics use this text to say Peter was the first pope. And while I disagree with that, I don’t want us to make the opposite mistake of thinking that Christ’s blessing, given here, is meaningless:

Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church;
and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven:
and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven:
and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

Protestants too easily spurn this incredible proclamation of Christ. For Christ here transmitted His kingdom from heavenly to earthly. He had been waiting, and teaching, and bearing with His disciples to this great day, when they would profess Him freely, in faith, as God, the Son of God, not just a great prophet. This was the opening of the Great Door that Adam’s sin had closed between earth and heaven. This was the consummation of the promise that the herald angels had sung to earth below, that God extended peace and good will to man: Faith came to mankind, a faith like no other faith: the faith of knowing God incarnate, God with us, God among us. Jesus Christ is the Light of the world, and on that day Peter saw by that Light and professed Christ the Son of God.

Christ blessed the faith of Peter (representative of the faith of Christendom) by granting the transmitting of His kingdom and its power to men, through the apostles. Henceforth, the counsels of God and God’s decrees for this earth would be carried out by the Body of Christ on earth. The Church as an institution was formally ordained later, at Pentecost. But here, the seed was held up before witnesses and then sown: faith in Jesus Christ the Son of God.

So, Peter has just been honored by Christ. We may assume, flushed with the authority that Peter mistakenly took as his own to use as he liked, Peter then remonstrated with Christ about Christ’s explanations to them that He must be taken captive, made to suffer, and die. And Christ rebuked Peter with a rebuke far more galling than one was likely to hear from Christ: for Christ actually called Peter “Satan” for trying to dissuade Him from His mission. Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.

And then Christ laid out the explanation for this kingdom: If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

It’s easy to recognize that He’s making this clear to Peter, especially. Even the great and mighty men of the Kingdom of God must do what the weakest and lowliest do: deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Jesus Christ. Nobody in the Kingdom of God is excused from that.

We ought to remember that Peter’s distress at Christ’s predictions were real, and Peter’s confusion was real. Christ had just endowed him and the apostles with incredible power in the spiritual realm, and Christ had explicitly assigned that power to this current world: the things bound on earth would be bound in heaven, and the things freed on earth would be freed in heaven. Peter may even have assumed that he had a right to change the earthly plan of Christ, to say that being bound by the Pharisees was not fit for the Son of God to suffer on this earth.

And we also make this same mistake. We can act from what we think are high motives, even though the plan we lay out contradicts what Christ has expressly told us. We can be guided by the strongest and even noblest of gut reactions, humanly speaking, and find ourselves in contradiction to Christ.

So Christ spells it out for us: First and foremost, even with the gifts of heaven given to us, and all the delight that God has for His Son that He pours out to us when we are in Christ, we still must deny ourselves.

No, we do not tell Christ how it has to be. He tells us how it has to be. And He tells us this even when we have our own list of reasons about why His plan is flawed.

In the last few weeks, I have read where people have awarded themselves the right to hate those who do evil (on the grounds that we must hate evil). But that is contrary to what Christ taught. We must hate evil, but like it or not, while He taught us to rebuke evil, to confront evil, He also taught us to love our enemies, and to forgive those who hurt us. I know that commandment to forgive has been twisted around by evil men in church office who use it as proof text to excuse their own wickedness. But most of my readers should know the Bible well enough to know that’s merely their deception. Yes, they spin lies about what forgiveness is, but their lies still don’t negate the real thing.

After all, one purpose of confrontation and rebuke is to offer the hope of redemption to those who have done evil. In addressing offenders with their sin, we open a door to them to repent, to see the sin for what it is and reject it. If they don’t repent, we have the choice to overlook the sin if its minor and limited to our jurisdiction; or we can pursue the grievance in increasingly public stages. But we don’t have the right to hate anybody. That where that “deny yourself” commandment really sticks.

I have also read the writings of people who dismiss the possibility of repentance in those who sin, and so they excuse themselves from forgiveness on the grounds that the offenders will never repent. But that’s just self deception. Of course the ideal is full reconciliation, but even when an offender will not repent, we cannot hate that person. We can confront; we can even rebuke, but we cannot do harm. We cannot rail, revile, etc.

Each person bears his or her own cross.

We have to deny ourselves to forgive. We have to deny ourselves to love. It hurts. It’s humiliating. And notice this: Christ made the process of taking up the Cross expressly singular. Denying yourself, denying myself, cannot be done as a group. People can encourage you to do it. But in the end, denying yourself goes against every grain of being being part of a group or even part of a relationship. It even means standing out, apart from the group, alone. Denying yourself is extremely grueling, extremely personal, tremendously humiliating (not just humbling), and if you do it right, nobody even notices that you’re denying yourself.

People can also despair of it: I know I will sin, so if I start this walk of denying myself and taking up the Cross, I’ll just be a hypocrite. And sure, nobody notices when I am denying myself with tears in my eyes, but let me fail my profession just once, and then EVERYONE notices. And that is absolutely true. Anyway, it feels true. (The real truth, in my experience, is that a lot of people who love me and want me to grow in grace encourage me, but what I remember most are the few who express contempt for me.) But whether I am encouraged or whether I am disdained, Christ said this is the only way to follow Him. This is the acid test of being a Christian.

Christ Himself fell under the weight of the Cross that He carried for the sins of the world, so certainly each of us falls under the weight of our own Cross. That’s part of carrying a Cross. More on that, later, I hope.

But the first lesson He gave us when He blessed us with the weight and the glory of bringing in the Kingdom of God among us, was the lesson of never exempting ourselves from the need to deny ourselves. We must do this or else be false and vain professors of Christ like those who teach that merely repeating a prayer will save us. No, saving faith is the power of God in us and among us. It demonstrates itself. And if a person would follow Christ, that person must deny himself or herself, take up his or her Cross, and follow Him.

Posted in devotionals, Faith, Recovering Fundamentalists | No Comments »

The Podcast Schedule for February

February 1st, 2012

Here is the overall schedule for the Recovering Fundamentalist podcast for this month:

1/30 – 2/3
The Trinity Baptist, Jacksonville, scandal – interviews from previous staff at Trinity Baptist Church in Jacksonville Florida, who describe the deception and cover up of the church officers and deacons to protect pedophile preacher Bob Gray.

2/6 – 2/10
An analysis of a sermon by Pastor Jack Schaap, showing that it has nothing to do with the Bible, and a two-part look at another abusive IFB children’s home, Camp Tracey.

2/13 – 2/17
A week long look at the elements of Christian Fundamentalist culture that are presented as being Biblical but, in fact, appear no where in the Bible and have nothing to do with what the Bible teaches.

2/20 – 2/24
An examination of another church abuse case, and an analysis of Jeff Owens’ most famous sermon, “Cranked Up,” and a look at how it is entirely antagonistic to what the Bible actually teaches.

Posted in podcast, Recovering Fundamentalists | No Comments »

Tedd Butler, HAC Graduate, Sentenced in 2nd Case to One Year Concurrent

January 31st, 2012

Tedd Butler, Hyles-Anderson graduate and multiple sex offender of children, was sentenced today in the sequel to his two-part series of convictions in Michigan (Ottawa County and Kent County) for child molesting. Butler molested little boys while he was pastor of an assortment of different IFB churches.

In compliance with his incredibly lenient plea deal, Butler could not be sentenced in Kent County to a sentence longer than his sentence in Ottawa County. So he received a one year sentence, which he will serve concurrently with the one-year Ottawa County sentence.

Posted in Tedd Butler | 1 Comment »

Keep Your Daughters Innocent and Teach Them the Value of Their Dignity. And Behave Yourselves Like Christian Men.

January 31st, 2012

From January 2011

Chris Anderson advocates the tried and repeatedly failed cure for lust in men: make the woman, even the little girl, responsible

About a year ago, IFB pastor Chris Anderson went on a rant. He said he was going on a rant. He wanted dads to start becoming aware of their daughter’s sexuality. Chris tried to redefine the term sexuality to avoid being offensive to normal people when he used it in terms of fathers and daughters, but he failed. For Chris was talking about sexuality. And Chris proceeded to give us his list of lust-inducing clothing, which, in his opinion, dads need to recognize and appreciate for the dangers they represent.

And Chris’s weird rant was followed up by buckshots of IFB disturbed weirdness, and I mean weird. Some “devoted dads” wrote about the sexual modesty they were trying to inculcate into their 8 and 9 year old daughters. One woman remarked this (about another woman, and while in church): “I sat once beside a young woman whose skin I was admiring (!?!!!) during worship, of all places! The point is, if I, a woman, can be distracted by ‘pretty flesh’ (her skin was flawless) how much more our sons, too.”

And then there was the mom who, with her four year old, laid down the law of not tempting those helpless men to have sex with her: “know my daughter is only 4 and I have a long way to go…but I have put a standard of “no pants” unless covered by a skirt or dress. She doesn’t fight me on this. We do battle sometimes about the length of the skirts…because maybe I haven’t been as clear on that.” Watch it, lady. If you don’t catch them at 4, they’ll be pregnant at 5.

I was further amazed when Jim Berg, dean of something or other at Bob Jones University, actually commended this slightly kinky blog post and its really kinky spree of comments. I guess I wasn’t the only one. At the time, as far as I recall, several other bloggers and Facebook pundits picked it up and publicized it. And, in the Honorable Tradition of Redacting Fundamentalist History, Chris Anderson pulled the post and its comments.

But this is a topic that needs to be addressed, because the heart and mindset of what this young man and his admirers were saying still prevails in Christian Fundamentalism. I certainly don’t object to Christians protecting themselves from the dangers of lust, but let’s look at the Bible on this matter. Christian Fundamentalists want to swaddle up women (a four year old wearing a long skirt over slacks. You get the idea.), but what does the Bible say about lust?

First, do you see anywhere in the Bible where a woman is blamed because a man lusts after her? And yet here is yet another IFB pastor instructing dads to start considering the sexuality of their daughters, in order to protect other men from helplessly falling into sin. What is this, sharia?

When David lusted after Bathsheba, David was blamed. Solomon wrote that the lustful man who goes after a woman to commit fornication is a fool walking down to his death. He says that even when a woman deliberately tempts a man, the man will bear the weight of his sin. He is responsible. Christ also made it clear, when a man lusts after a woman, THE MAN has fallen into sin. THE MAN is responsible. The Bible, by the way, though it acknowledges that there are appeals to lust that women can (and some do) make, places the root cause of lust in the heart and mind of the person who lusts. The Bible does warn men that there are wily women who will exploit the propensity of men to lust, but it still puts personal responsibility onto men when men sin.

In Romans chapter one, fornication is linked, not to the way women dress, but to being in rebellion against God and coming under His curse. Remember, the book is addressed to Christians in Rome, where fornication and every type of lustful enticement was available out on the open street. But Paul still writes that fornication is an indicator of condemnation by God. And this is a warning Christian Fundamentalism would do well to heed, for Christian Fundamentalism is filled with gross, abominable sins in its pulpits, and its leaders (among whom are Chris Anderson and Jim Berg, and all elders and officers in Christian Fundamentalism) are courting the rebuke of God for their failure to purify these churches and the office of elder.

In Galatians chapter five, Paul decrees that those who commit fornication are living under the Law and not living according to the Spirit. Yes, fornication is an end result of legalism and not faith. And we have certainly seen the legalism and fornication go hand in hand in Christian Fundamentalism.

Now, certainly, a young lady needs the guidance of women to learn to dress appropriately, and the Bible also teaches this, but taking away the innocence of children who wear peddle pushers or shorts on the grounds they they will entice men is just plain idiotic. Men of conscience do not have sex with children. And yes, teaching a little girl that men may lust after her at her age, and it’s her fault, is teaching her to view herself as a sex object for men. And she is way, way, more than that. Let the child be innocent for as long as possible. Teach men that sex with babies and adolescents is revolting to God and a sign of His curse upon a man, a church, a denomination. Now there’s a topic the good ol’ boys club of Fundamentalism doesn’t preach.

Jim Berg recommends Chris' failed approach.

The Bible appoints the guidance of the younger women to the older women. Believe me, the last thing Fundamentalism needs is a public, Facebook discussion from one of its preachers on dads becoming aware of the sexuality of their daughters. The. Last. Thing.

When will Fundamentalism stop sexualizing all women, all girls, all children and humbly recognize that females are created for God’s glory, and if one of them is inadvertently enticing you, look the other way. And then repent for taking to yourself something that doesn’t belong to you: the dignity of another human being. These fundies argue about free will day in and day out, until it actually becomes a matter of exercising it. Then suddenly, they all take up the premise that they are helpless before their own drives. As I’ve written before, Christian Fundamentalism has an atheistic view of man. They accept as a premise that a man is helpless before His drives and desires. They obsess on the clothing of women but not on the minds of men, which must come to Christ in humility and repentance, recognizing that Christ owns all women as His purchased subjects.

Let me just point out, no sect of Christendom harps on female modesty as much as Christian Fundamentalism does, and no sect of Protestant Christendom is more full of child molesters (in the pulpit, no less) than Christian Fundamentalism.

Hey Jim Berg, Chris Anderson, you want to protect your daughters? Start throwing the perverts out of IFB pulpits. Then you’ll have actually protected girls and children.

Make men who profess Christ become afraid of church discipline if they lust after kids (and teenagers are kids).

Bathsheba was probably naked when David lusted after her. But God blamed David for taking another man's wife.

Give men a conscience again, and reinforce their responsibilities, and you’ll be a lot more successful in cleaning up Fundamentalism. You’ll also impart to growing girls the firm conviction that they are valuable in the eyes of God as creatures of dignity and vessels of His mercy, and THAT will keep them modest in their attire.

Posted in Bob Jones University, Fundamentalism and child abuse | 4 Comments »

UPDATE: James “Ben” Harris, youth worker at Lawrenceville’s Brookwood Baptist Church, charged with multiple counts of child molestation

January 30th, 2012

From January 2011, when Harris was arrested.

In April of 2011, in a much less publicized event, Harris was indicted on three counts of child molestation and one count of enticing a child for indecent purposes. The three counts of child molesting are based upon real time incidents of inappropriate touching and indecent photos that Harris sent to the boy. The count of enticement is based upon a January 13 2011 incident in which Harris allegedly enticed the teen to his home for “the purposes of indecent acts.”

According to the boy’s parents, Harris, a youth counselor at Lawrenceville’s Brookwood Baptist Church, met the boy in Sunday school and increased contact with him by means of trips to malls and baseball games. Harris and his alleged victim had recently attended a church retreat on which they slept in the same bed. Harris was caught when the boy’s mother discovered the messages that Harris had been texting to her son on her son’s cell phone.

James Ben Harris, by the way, is married with two children and at the time of being arrested was a finance manager with Coca Cola.

Each child molestation count could carry a prison term between five and 20 years for first-time offenders, according to Georgia code.

Posted in clergy-sexual-abuse, James Ben Harris | No Comments »

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