Category Archives: Book Reviews

Manuscript Found in Accra by Paulo Coelho, A Book Review

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This entry is part 12 of 12 in the seriesBook Reviews

manuscript found in accra

Manuscript Found in Accra, is written by Brazilian author Paulo Coelho.  The book was translated from Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa and is published by Alfred A Knopf.

The publisher graciously provided me a copy of the book to review. Manuscript Found in Accra is 190 pages long and can be read in several leisurely sittings.

This is the first Paulo Coelho book I have read. Quite frankly, until the publisher representative contacted me, I had never heard of Paulo Coelho. This is my loss since millions of other people know who Paulo Coelho is. According to back flap of the book, Coelho has written numerous books; books like The Alchemist, Aleph, Eleven Minutes, and The Pilgrimage. His books have been translated into 74 languages and over 140 million books have been sold.

Manuscript Found in Accra is best described as wisdom literature. Drawing on the collective wisdom of the world’s religions, Coelho tells a masterful story that forces the reader to contemplate and consider their own life; its meaning, purpose, and direction.

While the book is littered with religious and spiritual references, it does not come off as a religious book. Coelho takes the reader beyond the boundaries that sectarian religions erect and encourages them to see the wisdom found not only in religious texts but also in the collective experiences that humanity shares.

The main character of Manuscript Found in Accra is a man called the Copt. The book focuses on the Copt’s interaction with the people of Jerusalem on July 14, 1099.

Roman Catholic Crusaders have surrounded Jerusalem. Attack is imminent. Many of the residents of Jerusalem will flee before the battle, yet others will stay to fight, knowing that they will likely die. Before this historic battle takes place, the Copt asks all the people to come to the city square. He asks the leaders of the three Abrahamic religions to join him there.

The Copt is described as:

…a strange man. as an adolescent, he decided to leave his native city of Athens to go in search of money and adventure. He ended up knocking on the doors of our city, close to starvation. When he was well received, he gradually abandoned the idea of continuing his journey and resolved to stay.

He managed to find work in a shoemaker’s shop, and—just like Ibn al-Athir—he started recording everything he saw and heard for posterity. He did not seek to join any particular religion, and no one tried to persuade him otherwise. As far as he is concerned, we are not in the years 1099 or 4859, much less at the end of 492. The Copt believes only in the present moment and what he calls Moira—the unknown God, the Divine Energy, responsible for a single law,which, if ever broken, will bring along the end  of the world.

The people, along with their religious leaders, gather in the city square, the very same city square where Jesus was condemned to die. The Copt says to the people:

From tomorrow, harmony will become discord. Joy will be replaced by grief. Peace will give way to a war that will last into an unimaginably distant future…

They can destroy the city, but they cannot destroy everything the city has taught us, which is why it is vital that this knowledge does not suffer the same fate as our walls, houses, and streets. But what is knowledge?…

It isn’t the absolute truth about life and death, but the things that help us to live and confront the challenges of day-to-day life. It isn’t what we learn from books, which serves only to fuel futile arguments about what happened or will happen; it is the knowledge that lives in the hearts of men and women of good will…

I am a learned man, and yet, despite having spent all these years restoring antiquities, classifying objects, recording dates, and discussing politics, I still don’t know quite what to say to you. But I will ask the Divine Energy to purify my heart. You will ask me questions, and I will answer them. This is what the teachers of ancient Greece did; their disciples would ask them questions about problems they had not yet considered, and the teachers would answer them.

Someone in the crowd asks, what shall we do with your answers?

The Copt replies:

Some will write down what I say. Others will remember my words. The important thing is that tonight you will set off for the four corners of the world, telling others what you have heard. That way, the soul of Jerusalem will be preserved. And one day, we will be able to rebuild Jerusalem, not just as a city, but as a center of knowledge and a place where peace will once again reign.

A man in the crowd says, we all know what waits us tomorrow. Wouldn’t it be better to discuss how to negotiate for peace or prepare ourselves for battle?

The Copt turns and looks at the religious leaders to see if they have anything to say, then he turns back to the crowd and says:

None of us can know what tomorrow will hold, because each day has its good and its bad moments. So, when you ask your questions, forget about the troops outside and the fear inside. Our task is not to leave a record of what happened on this date for those who will inherit the Earth; history will take care of that. Therefore, we will speak about our daily lives, about the difficulties we have had to face. That is all the future will be interested in, because I do not believe very much will change in the next thousand years.

The people proceed to ask the Copt 20 questions. Each chapter in the book details the Copt’s answer to their question. The questions and answers deal with matters close to the heart of all of us: love, fear, loss, death, beauty, courage, friendship, and dreams. Regardless of one’s religious persuasion, Manuscript Found in Accra is a treasure-trove of wisdom. It is a book that can be read over and over, with each reading giving new insight.

My favorite chapter is the one where a person preparing to die in battle the next day asks:

We were divided when what we wanted was unity. The cities that lay in path of the invaders suffered the consequences of a war they did not choose. What should the survivors tell their children?

The Copt replies:

…do not see to be loved at any price, because Love has no price.

Your friends are not the kind to attract everyone’s gaze, who dazzle and say: “There is no one better, more generous, or more virtuous in the whole of Jerusalem.”

Your friends are the sort who do not wait for things to happen in order to decide which attitude to take; they decide on the spur of the moment, even though they know it could be risky.

They are free spirits who can change direction whenever life requires them to. They explore new paths, recount their adventures, and thus enrich both city and village.

If they once took a wrong and dangerous path, they will never come to you and say: “Don’t ever do that.”

They will merely say: “I once took a wrong and dangerous path.”

This is because they respect your freedom, just as you respect theirs.

Avoid at all costs those who are only by your side in  moments of sadness to offer consoling words. What they’re actually saying to themselves is: “I am stronger. I am wiser. I would not have taken that step.”

Stay close to those who are by your side in happy times, because they do not harbor jealousy or envy in their hearts, only joy to see you happy.

Avoid those who believe they are stronger than you, because they are actually concealing their own fragility.

Stay close to those who are not afraid to be vulnerable, because they have confidence in themselves and know that, at some point in our lives, we all stumble; they do not interpret this as a sign of weakness, but of humanity.

Avoid those who talk a great deal before acting, those who will never take a step without being quite sure that it will bring them respect.

Stay close to those who, when you made a mistake, never said: “I would have done it differently.” They did not make that particular mistake and so are in no position to judge.

Avoid those who seek friends in order to maintain a certain social status or to open doors they would not otherwise be able to approach.

Stay close to those who are interested in opening only one important door: the door to your heart. They will never invade your soul without your consent or shoot a deadly arrow through that open door.

Friendship is like a river; it flows around rocks, adapts itself to valleys and mountains, occasionally turns into a pool until the hollow in the ground is full and it can continue on its way.

Just as the river never forgets that it’s goal is the sea, so friendship never forgets that its only reason for existing is to love other people…

I heartily recommend Manuscript Found in Accra. Since I am an atheist, some of you might find my recommendation of Paulo Coelho’s book strange. But, I found the book affirming many of the humanistic values I hold dear. Yes, Coelho is a religious man, a practicing Catholic, but can we not all learn from people who are different from us, people who, despite our differences, hold a common humanity with us?

This is the first wisdom oriented book I have read since leaving Christianity almost 5 years ago. For a time, the wisdom-well was poisoned and I could not read books with any religious or spiritual sympathies. But now I find myself yearning for books that speak to my humanity, books that call on me to reflect on who and what I am and how I want to live my life.

The strict materialist will find little to like in Manuscript Found in Accra. For those who dream of a better tomorrow, who still have hope and seek a world of peace, Paulo Coelho’s latest book will inspire and provoke us to be better human beings.

Note:

TLC Book Tours handles some of the book reviews I have done.  If you have a book that you would like to publicize please contact them. I have found the staff at TLC Book Tours a delight to work with.

Banished, A Book Review

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This entry is part 10 of 12 in the seriesBook Reviews

banishedI recently finished reading, Banished, A Memoir, Surviving My Years in the Westboro Baptist Church.  The book is written by Lauren Drain (along with  Lisa Pulitzer) a former member of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. The book is 295 paged long and  is published by Grand Central Publishing.

Laura Drain spent her teenage years as a member of the infamous Westboro Baptist Church. The Drain family moved to Topeka to join the church in 2001 and they remain members to this day.  In 2007, Lauren was kicked out of the church. For a time she continued to live in Topeka. She is a nurse and now lives in Connecticut with her fiancé.

I wanted to like this book, I really did. Anyone who can escape the clutches of Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church is to be commended. Throughout the book, it is evident that Lauren was mistreated and abused, and it is a wonder that she escaped with any sense of self-worth.  The church and her family did their best to destroy her mentally and emotionally, yet she came through it, and she deserves a lot of praise for what she has done with her life post-Westboro.

Banished reads like a teenage girl’s diary. Page after page details Drain’s angst over boys, make-up, dating, marriage, and the fear of going to hell. Drain spends significant time repeatedly detailing how she craved the approval of the Phelps’s and how she went about trying to gain their approval. Sadly, the book became quite redundant and I found myself speed reading.

Banished does offer a first-person account of how the Phelps clan lives. However, Drain says very little negatively about the Phelps’s or the church. As one reviewer on Amazon noted, it seemed like Drain, if she could, would go back to Westboro. I doubt this is actually the case, but Drain spends little time critiquing the vile behavior and beliefs of the Westboro church family.  I don’t want to be harsh in my judgment because I have not walked in her shoes, and since her family is still members of Westboro, I can easily understand her hesitancy over being severely critical of  the Westboro church family.

lauren_drain

Drain was not kicked out of Westboro because of her beliefs. She still believes in the Christian God, albeit a different version of the Christian God, a kinder, gentler, loving God. She still reads and studies the Bible and has come to see that there are many different ways to interpret the Bible.

In telling her story, whether intentionally or not, Drain shows that the Phelps family and the Westboro Baptist Church is made up of vile, nasty, vindictive people, who, due to their doctrinal beliefs, have lost the capacity to love anyone other than their own. (and even then, their love is conditioned on obedience to what the church beliefs and the edicts of the pastor)

Drain reveals that the Phelps family has a few secrets of their own, like the fact that two of Fred Phelps’s daughters became pregnant outside of wedlock. I am sure this was especially galling to Drain since the reason she was banished is because she desired to have a relationship with a boy that was not a member of the church. That’s right, her big sin was being a normal, heterosexual teenage girl.

And this is the crux of the story. It is the story of an American teenage girl who wanted to be like other teenage girls. She wanted to have a boyfriend. She wanted to feel loved. She had wistful thoughts about getting married some day. (the only available boys in the church to marry were grandsons of Fred Phelps) Her parents, the Phelps’s, and the Westboro Baptist Church, robbed her of her youth. They used  and abused her and then threw her away like a piece of trash.  (to this day she has no contact with her parents)

I wish Lauren Drain well. She deserves a good life, a life with those who will love her for who she is.  I hope that someday her family will be delivered from Phelps cult and that her relationship with them can be restored. I can only imagine the pain she must suffer from being completely cut-off from her parents and siblings.

Drain gives the impression that the Westboro Baptist Church in an aberration and that most Christian churches and people are not like the Phelps’s and Westboro. Unfortunately, my extensive involvement in Evangelicalism tells me this is not the case.

Westboro uses the threat of church discipline to control its members. I know of many Calvinistic Baptist churches that do the same. When I was co-pastor of Community Baptist Church in Elmendorf, Texas, I saw church discipline routinely used to keep people in line. People who refused to obey were excommunicated. When I decided to leave the church and return to Ohio, I was excommunicated because I did not ask the church’s permission to leave. To this day, the church considers me a publican and heathen.

Drain reveals that Fred Phelps is the domineering, controlling man everyone thinks he is. (as is his daughter Shirley who rules the church with her father) As the pastor of the church, he rules the church with a rod of iron. His word is the law. Is such behavior by a a pastor an aberration? Maybe in some sects, but in the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church and in many Evangelical sects, extreme pastoral authority and control is the norm.

Westboro Baptist Church is a cult. Drain refuses to say this in the book, but any cursory reading of Banished will clearly show that the Westboro Baptist Church is a cult and Fred Phelps is a cult leader. The same cult markers found in the Westboro Baptist Church can be found in countless Evangelical churches.  If anything, Banished should be read by every church member in the IFB church movement. They will have no trouble seeing themselves in the book. As I have said many times. there is little difference between many Evangelical churches and pastors and Westboro Baptist Church and Fred Phelps. The difference is one of appearance rather than substance. There is nothing in the beliefs of Fred Phelps and Westboro that can’t be found in Calvinistic churches in the IFB church movement, in the Reformed Baptist movement, the Founder’s Group in the Southern Baptist Convention, and the Sovereign Grace Baptist movement. Theologically, there is little difference between Fred Phelps and Al Martin and Al Mohler.

The Myth of Persecution, A Book Review

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This entry is part 9 of 12 in the seriesBook Reviews

The Myth of Persecution

HarperOne, the publisher of The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented A Story of Martyrdom, sent me a review copy of the book.  The book is 260 pages long, 308 pages long including the chapter notes and index.

Candida MossThe author of the Myth of Persecution is Dr. Candida Moss, professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of Notre Dame.  She is a graduate  of Oxford University and earned her doctorate from Yale University.

The Myth of Persecution deals with the persecution of Christians during the first 300 years of Christianity.  Moss shows that she as an excellent grasp of Christian and non-Christian  literature written during the early centuries of the Christian church.

While Moss admits that Christians were persecuted on and off throughout the first 300 years of church history, she thoroughly debunks the claim  that Christians were always persecuted. In fact, many of the instances of persecution were actually prosecutions.

Moss writes:

The Sunday school narrative of a church of martyrs, of Christians huddled in catacombs out of fear, meeting in secret to avoid arrest, and mercilessly thrown to lions for their religious beliefs is a macabre fairy tale. When Christians appeared in Roman courtrooms, they were not tried as heretics, blasphemers, or even fools. Christians had a reputation for being socially reclusive, refusing to join the military, and refusing to swear oaths. Once in the courtroom Christians said things that sounded like sedition. They were rude, subversive, and disrespectful. Most important, they were threatening. Even if the actions of the Romans still seem unjust, we must admit that they had reasons for treating Christians the way they did. The fact that religion and politics were so intimately blended with one another means that it is difficult to parse the motivations of Roman administrators as either religious or political. But from a Roman perspective and from the perspective of members of most ancient religious groups and political organizations, the Romans had the moral high ground. They were protecting the Empire from the wrath of the gods and its effects. That Christians were executed should not surprise us, this is a world in which people paid the “ultimate price” for seemingly small offenses.

As we have seen in the past two chapters, a close look at the evidence shows that Christians were never the victims of sustained, targeted persecution. Even the so-called great persecutions under emperors Decius and Diocletian have been vastly exaggerated in our Christian sources. In general, when Christians were executed, it was for activities that were authentically politically and socially subversive. In the case of the emperor Decius , it seems that the so-called persecution of Christians wasn’t aimed at Christians of all. It was a way of bringing about social and political unity in the Empire, something more like a pledge of allegiance then religious persecution.

Throughout the book, Moss details how many of the source documents for the stories about Christian martyrs were embellished, and,  at times, fabricated out of thin air.  Even some the saints revered by the Catholic church  have histories that call into question their authenticity. I was quite surprised and delighted that Moss, a professor at a Catholic university, did not shy away from the controversies surrounding the mythic stories of the Catholic church.

Moss also details how some of the ancient martyr stories were actually borrowed from other cultures and religious traditions.  There were times when I thought Moss was stretching these connections a bit, but I found the chapter, Borrowing of Jewish and Pagan Traditions, to be quite fascinating.

Moss wrote:

Even a brief study of early Christian martyrdom literature reveals that Christians were influenced by ancient Greek, Roman, and Jewish traditions about death. The heroes of the classical world were reshaped into soldiers for Christ. When people admit that Christians were heirs to this legacy, they do so selectively. Many acknowledge the Christian martyrs inherit or at least claim to inherit the mantle of martyrdom from ancient Judaism. The references to and comparisons with the Maccabees provide incontrovertible evidence that Christians saw their martyrs as part of this tradition. This much is acknowledged or at least implicitly acknowledged in most scholarly and religious treatments of the subject.

When it comes to the Greek and Roman influences, however, things are very different. We would be hard-pressed to find any modern denomination of Christianity that admits Greek and Roman heroes and heroines in their canon of martyrs, even if Christians like Justin Martyr were willing to revere Socrates as a Christian before Christ. Why the difference? The distinction is not based on the evidence, but on the way that people think about the relationship between Christians and Jews. For Christians, the Old Testament is believed to contain a series of prophecies about Jesus and the church. If Christian martyrs seem to be like figures from the old and new Testaments, it is because their deaths are fulfillments of prophecies. They are seen as being part of a single unbroken tradition, a single witness to truth.

In the case of Greek and Roman examples, the connection between Christian and pagan martyrs is more problematic. There is no prophetic or divine time between Christianity and Greek and Roman religion and philosophy. On the contrary, the adaptation of paganism and Christianity threatens the idea that Christianity alone has the truth. Those who reject the classical tradition for religious reasons and hold Christian martyrs in high esteem tend to ignore Greek and Roman antecedents to martyrdom.

This is a game of cultural favorites. There’s a theological explanation for the fact the Christian martyrdom stories are similar to biblical narratives of persecution, but there is no such explanation for the similarities with pagan traditions. That Christianity might have borrowed from pluralistic, polytheistic religious traditions is difficult for those who conceive of themselves as part of an unbroken singular tradition. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that Greek and Roman religious practices no longer exist. The idea that Christianity borrowed from or was dependent upon morally questionable failed religions ruffles feathers and prayer books.

The truth of the matter is that as we have seen, Christians adapted their ideas about martyrdom and sometimes even the stories about the martyrs themselves from both ancient Jewish and pagan writers. We cannot help but note the irony here. Christians are thought to be unique because they die for Christ, but the stories by which they communicate their uniqueness are borrowed from other cultures. Clearly Christian martyrdom is one of a number of ancient varieties of martyrdom. Even though early Christians adapted, augmented, and otherwise contorted ancient models in their own stories, they were nonetheless dependent upon earlier literature. To be sure, Christian martyrdom stories depart from classical examples of noble deaths, but toying with, trumping, reversing, and usurping are not the same as inventing. Early Christians consciously and deliberately harnessed the cultural power of Greek, Roman, and Jewish heroes for their own ends.

All in all, The Myth of Persecution was a great read. If I were to have any criticism of the book it would be that the chapter on how the myth of Christian persecution affects our modern culture was quite sparse, only ten pages long. I wish she had spent a lot more time dealing with how the religious-right in the United States has a martyr complex that finds its root in the ancient Christian martyrdom stories.

I also found myself wishing that Moss had written a chapter or two about the martyrdom tradition and stories found in the Protestant church.  This, I suspect, was beyond the scope of the book.

As any Evangelical knows, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs is considered one of the foundational texts of Evangelical belief. (especially in the Baptist church)  I suspect the stories complied by John Foxe have their own problems, and while Moss did briefly mention Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, she said nothing about the stories contained in the book. Maybe her next book will be on the martyrs of church after Constantine.

I heartily recommend, The Myth of Persecution.

The Making of an Atheist, A Book Review Part 2

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This entry is part 2 of 2 in the seriesThe Making of an Atheist

making_of_an_atheist

The second chapter in James Spiegel’s book, The Making of an Atheist: How Immorality Leads to Unbelief, is titled, Atheistic Arguments, Errors, and Insights.

In this chapter Spiegel spends significant time defining terms like atheist, theist, agnostic, supernatural, and naturalist, Generally, Spiegel properly defines these terms, except when it comes to  theist. (which is ironic since Spiegel is a theist)

By improperly defining  what a theist/theism is, Spiegel betrays the one truth that is behind everything in his book; that there is one true, and living God, and that God is the Christian God who is revealed in the Bible and through creation. Spiegel makes frequent reference to God and religion giving meaning and purpose to life and God and religion being the source of morality, but Spiegel does not mean just any God or any religion. It is HIS God and HIS religion that gives meaning and purpose to life and it alone is the wellspring of morality.

What is a theist? The classic definition is:

A person who believes in the existence of a god or gods

Spiegel, however, does not define a theist this way. Instead, Spiegel defines a theist in such a narrow way that only the Christian God can fit the definition.

Spiegel defines a theist as:

Someone who believes in a personal God—an almighty, all-good, all-knowing Spirit who created and sustains the universe. Theists sometimes call God “infinite” because this denotes a lack of limits, and if God created everything (besides Himself) , then He can’t be limited by anything. Theists call God “transcendent” for similar reasons. Since space and time are aspects of the physical universe, the Creator must transcend both.

Christians readers of The Way Forward will readily see that Spiegel’s definition of a theist is actually the definition of a person who believes in the Christian God.

Atheism is the disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods. I will again charge that Christians like Spiegel are atheists. While they do believe in one specific God, they are atheists when it comes to all other Gods. Perhaps someone should write a book about the real reason Christians don’t believe in the other God’s known to humanity? Perhaps the real reason is moral and psychological.

The above argument that Christians are atheists is unassailable. They believe ALL other Gods except the Christian God are false Gods, no Gods at all. This is why in Roman days Christians were considered atheists. They refused to believe in any other God but the Christian God.

So the only difference between James Spiegel, the Christian, and Bruce Gerencser, the atheist, is one God.

Spiegel states that atheists deny the supernatural and are naturalists. While he makes allowance for the  fact that not every atheist might fit in these categories, he rightly states that atheists reject such things as angels and the human soul,  What he doesn’t answer is why such a belief is irrational.

Spiegel’s worldview is shaped by his belief that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant Word of God. While he never states this explicitly, he is a professor at Taylor University, so I think I am safe in assuming he believes in the inspiration and inerrancy of the Christian Bible. (however he might define inerrancy) It is also clear, based on the Evangelicalese Spiegel uses throughout the book, that he is, In every way, an Evangelical Christian who believe the Bible is a supernatural text given to humans by a supernatural God.

It is this presupposition that causes Spiegel to look at that world in a certain way. The atheist does not have such a presupposition. The atheist denies that the Bible is an inspired text. There is no supernatural God, so there can be no supernatural text.

I find it quite interesting that Spiegel never addresses the BIG reason why many Christians become  atheists. (maybe he doesn’t believe a “true” Christian can become an atheist)  One of the major reasons a Christian becomes an atheist is that they  come to see that the Bible is not the inspired, inerrant Word of God. Once the authority of the Bible is broken, the Christian is then intellectually free to pursue the God question no matter where it leads.

Result? Some Christians become liberal or progressive Christians. Others become deists, pantheists, or become Buddhists. And some, unable to find a natural and comfortable stopping point, become agnostics or atheists.

I suspect that Spiegel does not address the arguments atheists have for the Bible not being an inspired, inerrant text because he thinks these type of arguments are actually a mask covering the real issue; atheists don’t believe the Bible is the inspired, inerrant Word of God because of their rebellion against the authority of the Bible.

Spiegel refuses to admit that an atheist has an intellectual basis for their disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods. His mind is settled; people become atheists because of rebellion against God and their desire to be immoral.

In a section titled, The Usual Suspects—Evil and the Positivist Pipe Dream, Spiegel addresses the problem of evil. Spiegel briefly states the arguments for God allowing evil in the world:

This leaves the theist with the task of making sense of divine permission of evil, which is known as theodicy. Why does God allow the world to go so wrong– where people suffer under the terrors of hurricanes, cancers, and one another? Probably the most popular theodicy appeals to free will and the notion that we human beings have no one to blame but ourselves for our sin and suffering. God endowed us with moral autonomy that we might generally relate to him, but we have tragically abused this freedom. So evil is our fault, not our Creator’s. We act immorally of our own volition, and all of our suffering is the consequence of those choices– if not our own, then someone else’s– ultimately tracing back to the first humans who brought about the fall.

Another major theodicy focuses on the greater goods that God achieves by permitting evil—significant virtues such as patience, forgiveness, compassion, and perseverance, which cannot exist without the substrate of some sin or suffering. One cannot be compassionate where there is no pain. And one cannot forgive where there is no transgression…

…Still other theodicies appeal to such things as the laws of nature, divine punishment, aesthetic considerations, and the supposed need for evil to exist in order for good to be known.

Spiegel raises the typical, albeit worn out, arguments for why God allows evil to exist. Simply put, It is our fault and we need evil in the world to understand good.

Again, everything Spiegel writes flows from his belief that the Christian God is the one, true God and that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant Word of God. I hate to keep beating a head horse about Spiegel’s presuppositions, but they are crucial to understanding, and ultimately, rejecting, what he writes.

Spiegel thinks atheists are in rebellion to God and have a desire to be immoral and this blinds him to any argument an atheist might make about the Bible being the “real” issue for their disbelief.

The atheist looks at the Bible and sees a God who demands certain moral behavior from humans, yet does not adhere to the same moral standard for himself. God says, do as I say, not as I do.

The atheist knows there is evil in the world and he also knows that goodness exists. (though some may not use these exact terms due to the religious connotation they have) Atheists understand that bad people do bad things. (again, the atheist and the Christian likely differ on what is a “bad” behavior) While we reject that morality comes from God, we do not reject that people can, and do, act morally and immorally.

Towards the end of the chapter, Spiegel states that atheists have no grounds to say anything is evil/good or moral/immoral. Addressing the notion that atheists live meaningful lives and have moral values, Spiegel writes:

The truth is that moral values and the belief that life is meaningful are borrowed capital for the atheist, borrowed from the very thing the atheist aims to demolish– belief in God.

How does one gain moral values from just believing in God? If I believe in any or all the Gods, will that give me moral beliefs?  Spiegel, perhaps would argue that humans have innate moral values, the law of God written on their heart. (Romans 2) However, just believing in a God does not give anyone moral values.

Moral values come from, among many things, religious texts. Christians are moral, not because they believe in God, but because the Bible defines for them what morality is. Christian morality dominates the United States because we are a Christian nation, a nation where most everyone professes to be a Christian.  Spiegel seems oblivious to the sociological and cultural reason a person chooses a certain religion, a certain God, and a certain set of moral values.  (perhaps Spiegel needs to take a look at John Loftus’s Outsider Test of Faith)

As an atheist, I have no problem saying that my moral values have been deeply influenced by the Bible.  It is quite impossible to spend fifty years in the Christian church and twenty-fives years as a pastor, and not have moral values that are greatly influenced by past experience and beliefs.

When I became an atheist, I did not have my mind erased, starting over with a clean slate. I am the sum total of my past experiences.  While becoming an atheist has forced me to reëxamine my moral values, many of the moral values I have find their root in my former Christian beliefs.

This is no proof, however, that God exists. These same moral beliefs are found in many religions, religions that are considered by Spiegel to be false or satanic religions.

Many atheists would agree with me when I say that moral teaching and wisdom can be found in many places, including ancient religious writings.  The atheist objection is to people like Spiegel who make a particular religious text the standard by which everything must be judged.

The most glaring omission in this chapter is that Spiegel does not mention humanism one time. This is not surprising since Spiegel only wants to focus on a sterile, naked atheism. He never never tells readers that many atheists and agnostics are humanists or part of groups like atheism+. Why is this is?

I think Spiegel wants to present atheists in as bad of light as possible,  Once humanism is brought into the discussion things become quite a bit more complicated for Spiegel. Atheism is simply the disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods. That’s it. However, for most atheists, this is not the end all. Atheists are quite a varied lot, but, most atheists are likely to have liberal or progressive political views and likely to have moral values shaped by their humanistic beliefs.

Fred Edwords, in his essay titled, What is Humanism, gives ten ideas held in common by secular and religious humanists. They are:

  1. Humanism is one of those philosophies for people who think for themselves. There is no area of thought that a Humanist is afraid to challenge and explore.
  2. Humanism is a philosophy focused upon human means for comprehending reality. Humanists make no claims to possess or have access to supposed transcendent knowledge.
  3. Humanism is a philosophy of reason and science in the pursuit of knowledge. Therefore, when it comes to the question of the most valid means for acquiring knowledge of the world, Humanists reject arbitrary faith, authority, revelation, and altered states of consciousness.
  4. Humanism is a philosophy of imagination. Humanists recognize that intuitive feelings, hunches, speculation, flashes of inspiration, emotion, altered states of consciousness, and even religious experience, while not valid means to acquire knowledge, remain useful sources of ideas that can lead us to new ways of looking at the world. These ideas, after they have been assessed rationally for their usefulness, can then be put to work, often as alternative approaches for solving problems.
  5. Humanism is a philosophy for the here and now. Humanists regard human values as making sense only in the context of human life rather than in the promise of a supposed life after death.
  6. Humanism is a philosophy of compassion. Humanist ethics is solely concerned with meeting human needs and answering human problems-for both the individual and society-and devotes no attention to the satisfaction of the desires of supposed theological entities.
  7. Humanism is a realistic philosophy. Humanists recognize the existence of moral dilemmas and the need for careful consideration of immediate and future consequences in moral decision making.
  8. Humanism is in tune with the science of today. Humanists therefore recognize that we live in a natural universe of great size and age, that we evolved on this planet over a long period of time, that there is no compelling evidence for a separable “soul,” and that human beings have certain built-in needs that effectively form the basis for any human-oriented value system.
  9. Humanism is in tune with today’s enlightened social thought. Humanists are committed to civil liberties, human rights, church-state separation, the extension of participatory democracy not only in government but in the workplace and education, an expansion of global consciousness and exchange of products and ideas internationally, and an open-ended approach to solving social problems, an approach that allows for the testing of new alternatives.
  10. Humanism is in tune with new technological developments. Humanists are willing to take part in emerging scientific and technological discoveries in order to exercise their moral influence on these revolutions as they come about, especially in the interest of protecting the environment.
  11. Humanism is, in sum, a philosophy for those in love with life. Humanists take responsibility for their own lives and relish the adventure of being part of new discoveries, seeking new knowledge, exploring new options. Instead of finding solace in prefabricated answers to the great questions of life, humanists enjoy the open-endedness of a quest and the freedom of discovery that this entails.

I suspect that if Spiegel had introduced humanism to his readers, his atheist straw man would have gone up in smoke. Better to not ruin the stereotype, yes?

Spiegel ends the book by admitting that Christians do not live up to the moral standard of the Bible. His answer, of course, is for Christians to repent, and do better. Spiegel believes the atheist is wrong for not believing in the Christian God just because those who say they believe in God don’t always live as if God exists or live as is if God really meant what he said in the Bible. (in other words, we are wrong for throwing the baby out with the bath water)

Spiegel thinks atheists should believe in God regardless of how Christians live. However, the atheist is inclined to say, is not the proof of the validity or bankruptcy  of any religion the fruit it produces in its followers?

We now have 2,000 years of history from which to judge the fruit of Christianity. We also have numerous studies on the morality of Christians. We know that Christians, for the most part, live no differently than non-Christians. We know that history is filled with accounts of horrible actions and beliefs in the name of the name of the Christian God. The evidence is there for all to see.  Yet Spiegel wants atheists to believe that the Christian God is the one, true living God and he is alone is worthy of worship. Perhaps the question Spiegel needs to answer is WHY anyone would WANT do be a Christian?

Perhaps it is time for humanity to turn away from the Abrahamic religions who have brought great suffering, bloodshed, and death into our world. While we may argue over whether or not religion does some good in the world (and I think it does) , the greater question is whether or not religion brings enough good to the table to justify the prominence it is given by so many people? Atheists like me contend that perhaps it is time to let humanism have a chance. After all, based on the bloody past, we could hardly do worse.

Note: I would add that Spiegel totally misses the point that agnosticism and atheism are not the same. That one can be an agnostic and not be an atheist and one can be an agnostic and an atheist. Many atheists, myself included, are agnostic on the God question, but based on the current available evidence for there being a God, live our day-to-day lives as an atheist.

Spiegel also fails to mention that, arguably the most famous atheist in the world, Richard Dawkins, is agnostic on the God question.  Of course to mention this would totally defeat Spiegel’s assertions about atheists, so I can readily understand why he paints Dawkins like he does. Richard Dawkins is an agnostic? Well, obviously.

Note: It is astounding that Spiegel goes on and on about theodicy yet does not mention or address Bart Ehrman’s book, God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question—Why we Suffer Let me mention again that Spiegel focuses on atheists who are not former theologians, Bible scholars,professors, or pastors. He seemingly wants to stay as far away as possible from the Bible and what it actually says. (and what the Bible says is the ultimate ground of truth for the Christian)

To Heaven and Back, A Book Review

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This entry is part 6 of 12 in the seriesBook Reviews

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This past July I wrote a blog post about Mary Neal, the author of To Heaven and Back: a doctor’s extraordinary account of her death, heaven, angels, and life again. The cover of the book says that Neal’s book is a true story.

If you have not read my previous post I would encourage you to do so. It is important to understand that Mary Neal believes that the Bible is an inspired, inerrant text and that she is most likely an Evangelical.

The book To Heaven and Back is a wildly popular book. It took me two months to get the book from the library.

I have written book reviews of two similar books, Heaven is for Real and The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven. Both of these books spend a lot of time detailing the various aspects of heaven. Neal’s book is different in that it spends very little time talking about what Neal saw while she was in heaven.The book is really an autobiography,so people looking for a lot of juicy details about heaven will be sorely disappointed.

The book details Mary Neal’s life from her childhood through the death of her son in a ski training accident. Neal sees God in everything that happens in her life. No matter the circumstance,the Christian God is there ready and willing not only to help Neal but intervene in her life in a supernatural way.

In my Christian days a book like this would have been a must read for me. Like Neal, I saw God in everything I did in life. No matter what happened in my life I saw God working and accomplishing his purpose and will. No matter what good or bad came my way, God was working things out for my good and his glory.

Neal, an orthopedic surgeon, looks at life from this perspective:

God and his angelic messengers are present and active in our world today and this involvement and intervention is both ordinary and its frequency and extraordinary in its occurrence.

On January 14, 1999, Neal and her husband were kayaking in South America. While kayaking, Neal was thrown into the water and pinned underneath her kayak. According to Neal, she drowned, went to heaven, stayed for a short while, and returned to her body. Her account of this is detailed in To Heaven and Back, a book she waited 13 years to write. (a 222 page book, published in 2012)

In the introduction of the book Neal addresses those who are cynical about her claims, those who claim that miracles defy the laws of nature and, therefore, cannot occur. She gives two situations to describe her belief concerning miracles:

  • A ball is dropped from a height and falls to the ground. It obeys the laws of nature.
  • A ball is dropped from a height and falls toward the ground. A hand reaches out and catches it. It never reaches the ground. The ball has obeyed the laws of nature, but the hand has intervened, if the hand were God’s, we would have witnessed divine intervention without a defiance of the laws of nature.

As I read this to my wife, a woman with little to no training in philosophy or science, even she could quickly see the error and silliness of Neal’s explanation of what a miracle is.

If the ball in the second situation truly obeyed the laws of nature it would fall to the ground just like in the first situation. God reaching out his hand to catch the ball is indeed a defiance of the laws of nature. When a ball is dropped its natural course is to fall to the ground. Anything that interrupts the ball’s fall to the ground is an interruption of its natural course.

Neal claims that God catching the ball with his hand is a miracle. Perhaps I am stretching the metaphor too far here, but I wonder if Neal would think it is also a miracle when a human catches a ball and keeps it from naturally falling to the ground? Isn’t the human defying the laws of nature by interrupting the ball’s fall to the ground?

Neal is convinced that she died, went to heaven, and came back to earth again to re-inhabit her body. She is convinced, beyond a shadow of doubt, that her experience was a miracle that cannot be explained. Evidently, Neal, a university trained, supposedly science literate, doctor, is ignorant of the neurological explanations for her death-back to life experience.

Neal is a proponent of the notion that anything that cannot be explained is God. Not only does Neal see God in the unexplainable, she sees a very specific God, the Christian God.

One of the most baffling aspects of the book is Neal’s (a devout evangelical Christian, a believer in Jesus) appeal to the near-death experiences found in other religions. She believes that these common near-death experiences in all religions is proof that there is a God.

By positing such a belief, Neal betrays her evangelical beliefs. Surely Neal does not believe that all roads lead to heaven or that all religions are equally true. I have no doubt that Neal believes there is one God, the God of the Christian Bible. If this indeed is her belief, then her appeal to the near-death experiences found in other religions falls flat on the ground. According to standard Evangelical doctrine, the near-death experiences found in other religions are false experiences, satanic in nature, the works of a false god.

Neal, like many evangelicals, wants to appear as broad-minded. Perhaps this is needed to sell more books or perhaps an editor required such a broad approach, but everything I have read about Neal’s doctrinal beliefs suggests that Neal believes there is one true God, one true divine text, and one way to heaven. (the publisher of To Heaven and Back is WaterBrook Press, an imprint of Evangelical publisher Multnomah, a division of Random House)

In the chapter titled, going Home, Neal describes her time in heaven:

While my body was being slowly sucked out of the boat, I felt as though my soul was slowly peeling itself away from my body…

…At the moment my body was released and began to tumble, I felt a “pop.” It felt as if I had finally shaken off my heavy outer layer, freeing my soul. I rose up and out of the river, and when my soul broke through the surface of the water, I encountered a group of 15 to 20 souls ( human spirits sent by God), who greeted me with the most overwhelming joy I have ever experienced and could ever imagine. It was joy at an unadulterated core level. They were sort of like a large welcoming committee or a great cloud of witnesses as described in Hebrews 12:1…this welcoming committee seem to be wildly cheering for me as I approached the “finish line.”

While I could not identify each spiritual being as someone by name…, I knew each of them well, knew they were from God, and knew that I had known them for an eternity. I was part of them, and I knew they were sent to guide me across the divide of time and dimension that separates our world from God’s. I also had the unspoken understanding that they were sent not only to greet me and guide me, but also to protect me during my journey.

They appeared as formed shapes, but not with the absolute distinct edges of the formed physical bodies we have on earth. Their images were blurred, and each spiritual being was dazzling and radiant. Their presence engulfed all my senses as though I could see, hear, feel, smell, and taste them all at once. Their brilliance was both blinding and invigorating. We did not speak, per se, using our mouths, but easily communicated in a very pure form. We simultaneously communicated our thoughts and emotions, and understood each other perfectly even though we did not use language.

Later, in the same chapter, Neal describes a great and beautiful hall, and in doing so, totally trashes her evangelical beliefs about sin, death, judgment, and salvation. Neal writes:

I felt my soul being pulled toward the entry and, as I approached, I physically absorbed its radiance and felt the pure, complete, and utterly unconditional absolute love that emanated from the hall. It was the most beautiful and alluring thing I had ever seen or experienced. I knew with a profound certainty that it represented the last branch point of life, the gate through which each human being must pass. It was clear that this hall is the place where each of us is given the opportunity to review our lives and our choices, and where we are each given a final opportunity to choose God or to turn away—for eternity…

I thought evangelicals believed that it is in this life we must make a choice concerning our salvation? After death it is too late to make a choice.What Neal describes here is some modified version of universalism, a salvation that is offered to all post-death.

Think for a moment about what Neal is saying here. She is saying that I can live my life anyway I want. I can be the most indecent, immoral, godless human being on the face of the earth, but after I die I will get a chance to to either accept or reject God. This seems like a great deal to me. I can live for self, indulge my flesh, and give no thought to God at all, and after I die God will basically say to me, don’t worry about all that stuff you did. Do you want to live in heaven, in peaceful bliss for all eternity? Who in their right mind would say no to such a proposition?

I am shocked that such basic theological ignorance would get past the editors at Waterbrook Press, an evangelical publisher. In a Christian book market where swear words and sex scenes are routinely edited out of book manuscripts, I’m surprised that the theology advanced by Neal in her book made it through the editing process untouched.

In chapter 17, Neal describes a conversation she had with an angel. Neal writes:

I was having a “conversation” with an angel who was sitting on a nearby rock. I call the being an angel, but I don’t really know what he was: angel, messenger, Christ, or teacher. I did know that he was of God, in God, and from God. As we conversed, I asked questions, and he gave me answers. We discussed how to “rejoice always,” and discussed the long-standing question, “why do bad things happen to good people? During this conversation, I received the following wisdom.

We are each given the opportunity and privilege to come to earth for different reasons. Sometimes we come in order that we may personally develop the fruits of our spirit: those of love, kindness, patience, joy, peace, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Sometimes we come to help someone else develop the fruits of the spirit. We all come to earth to become more Christ-like, as noted in Romans 8.

In preparation for our journey to Earth, we are able to make a basic outline for our life. This is not to imply that we, the humans, are entirely in charge of our life’s design. It is more like God creates it, then we review it and discuss it with our “personal planning”angel. Within the algorithm are written branch points in our lives at which times we may exit, returning to God, or we may be redirected to a different task and goal.

We may be directed to these branch points by our own conscious choice and by our circumstances, or we may be pushed along by angelic intervention…

in all my 50 years in the Christian church and 25 years in the ministry, I have NEVER heard this explanation for the “why do bad things happen to good people” question? it is quite evident that Neal has drunk deeply at Angel Well and that her subjective experience trumps anything one might find in the Bible. “Personal planning angel?” Really?

Neal, like many Christians, shows little understanding of what the Bible actually says about the FRUIT, not fruits of the spirit. Neal fails to even understand that, according to orthodox Christian doctrine, that the fruit of the Spirit is not the fruit of the human spirit but the fruit of the Spirit of God.

Neal, a university trained orthopedic surgeon, a former medical professor, should have a good background in the basics of science. I have no doubt that she knows a lot more about science than I will ever know. (and it is quite certain from this book that I know a lot more about Christian theology than she does) What I find baffling is Neal’s description of death in chapter 20.

Speaking of her father’s death, Neal writes:

When I entered the room where my father was lying in his hospital bed, I saw that he was sedated and the ventilator was rhythmically pushing air in and out of his lungs. Although he was still “alive,” I had the overwhelming sense, really more of a deep knowledge, that his soul had already departed from his body. He was already dead. Although it is a commonly-held belief that a person’s soul departs at the moment of their physical death, I have come to believe that the departure of the soul defines and determines the moment of death, rather than the body’s physical death determining the moment of the soul’s departure. With the use of modern medicine and technology, the organism that is our human body may continue to physically function and appear to be “ alive,” but unless God sees a purpose to return the soul to its body, the person is essentially dead. Not only had I witnessed this during my surgical training, but there are far too many accounts of near-death experiences in which there is a description of the soul departing the shell of it’s not-yet physically dead body to ignore this reality.

In other words, Neal totally rejects the scientific and medical definition of death. I would love to know how Neal would ascertain if the soul (and I don’t believe we have a soul) has “departed?” Can you imagine your doctor saying, we need to keep your Mom on life support until we “know” her soul has departed. Can anyone say…medical malpractice?

In a classic example of Neal seeing a miracle everywhere she looks, Neal tells a story about her mother and stepfather and their Bradford pear trees. Neal writes:

(Neal’s stepfather is in the hospital suffering from a serious bout of pneumonia.) We sat at her (Neal’s mother) breakfast table sipping coffee, contemplating George’s health and the possibility of his release from the hospital. As we chatted, we looked out the picture window and gazed upon a large, entirely barren Bradford pear tree. My mother then told me the story of that tree.

She and George loved the large, pink blossoms of the many Bradford pear trees in their neighborhood, so they had planted this tree many years prior with the hope of enjoying its annual display of color. While this particular tree had continued to grow taller and taller, it had never produced a single blossom. She said that George was so dismayed by the tree’s inability to blossom that he planned to cut it down in the spring and plant a new one. He loved color and wanted to see blossoms from their breakfast table.

We were still feeling hopeful as we drove to the hospital, but encountered a radically different situation upon our arrival. George had taken a turn for the worse and his organs were failing. God was calling to him, and we knew that his remaining time on earth was short… We held each other and held George as his spirit peacefully left this world.

The following morning, as we sat down for coffee at my mom’s breakfast table, we looked out the window and gasped. Their once forlorn Bradford pear tree was bursting with color. This tree, which had been barren just 24 hours earlier, was now filled beyond capacity with large, beautiful, perfect pink blossoms.

These colorful blossoms stayed on that tree until well after frosted felled the blossoms of neighboring trees. When this tree finally begin to drop its leaves, it did so on the side facing away from the window before dropping a single blossom on the side that faced my mother’s breakfast window. What a gift from my stepfather. What a miracle…

In chapter 30 Neal tells a story about an event that took place after her son Willie died:

In the days after our return from Maine, walking our property was the one activity that brought a small semblance of calm to my turbulent and broken spirit. As I walked, I try to make sense of my life, contemplated what to say at my son’s memorial service, and made detailed mental accountings of our property, trying to decide on a site for Willie’s flowering garden. One morning, as I was walking past a small grouping of willow trees, I came upon a great surprise. The area around and within every willow was overflowing with the vivid, bold, deep pink-colored blossoms of wild Alpine roses. These flowers were of the exact color, shape, and appearance as had been the ones blooming in the field in which Willey died…

… Willey knew the story of the pink blossoms on the Bradford pear tree that had appeared immediately after the death of my stepfather. He knew how significant and emotional that event had been for my mother and me, and he would have seen the painting of the tree hanging in my bathroom many, many times. I know that Willey sent us a message that day through the roses; one of appreciation, love, gratitude, and a sense of apology for leaving, I believe he knew this would be one of the few ways of communication we would not question.

Completing the story of the Bradford pear tree, after beautifully blooming for five years, it was suddenly and unexpectedly struck by lightning and destroyed, serving as a message telling my mother that it was “ time to move forward” in her life. It makes me wonder if the beautiful Alpine roses that we now so lovingly nurture on our property will one day disappear.

Stories like these permeate Neal’s book. If Neal was in a crowded room and someone farted, while everyone was trying to figure out who farted, Neal would be telling all who would listen, God did it. For those of us raised in the evangelical bubble, such God sightings were quite common in our own lives. Everywhere we looked we saw God.

Now that we’re outside the bubble such things seem insane. Many of the things that Neal describes in her book as miracles or God intervening in her life can be explained by natural, scientific means. Even when there is no scientific explanation, this does not mean that the Christian God did it. Unexplainable things are just that… unexplainable. Not every question has an answer. There is no need to interject God into the fabric of our life to give our lives coherence.

It is hard not to conclude that Neal has a form of Christianity that allows one to make it up as they go along in life. Instead of embracing life with its many twists and turns, Neal attempts to explain her life as one long, steady God intervention. Instead of owning her bad choices and misjudgments, Neal passes the buck to God, taking very little personal responsibility for her own choices and decisions. (this is especially evident in the details of her professional career)

The last chapter of the book is titled Logical Conclusions. For this skeptic, Neal’s book is anything but logical. Neal states, based on her subjective, unprovable, irrational experiences, five logical conclusions:

  • I believe God’s promises are true
  • I believe heaven is real
  • I believe nothing can separate me from God’s love
  • I believe God has work for me to do
  • I believe God will see me through and carry me when I cannot walk

On one hand, I am indifferent to stories like Neal’s. Neal has had some difficulties in her life, several serious accidents, professional turmoil, and the death of a child. Who am I to suggest that she cannot believe in a God that controls every aspect of her life, a God who is there for her every step of the way? If this is what helps her get through life, if this is what gives her peace, then who am I to rob her of her beliefs?

On the other hand, stories like Neal’s promote bad theology and distort the teachings of the Bible. Neal encourages people to see God and angels behind every “coincidence” in their life. I’m convinced that this kind of thinking promotes irresponsibility and allows people to escape owning the consequences of their actions.

Neal wants to see the “silver lining” (God) in every circumstance, even in the divorce of her parents and the death of those she loves. This kind of thinking is escapism and it denies the reality that life can be ugly and painful and that few of us escape this world without suffering.

As a skeptic I am forced to view life as it is and not as I want to be. Oh how I wish that there was life beyond the grave and that someday I would see all of my family and friends once again. There are some aspects of heaven that greatly appeal to me. Few of us want the grave to be the end of it all but, everything that we can observe in this world tells us that death is certain and there is no coming back from the grave.

To believe Neal’s story requires faith, a faith I do not have. If you are Christian reader of this blog, you might enjoy Neal’s book. However, the vast majority of you are skeptics and I suspect you will find reading To Heaven and Back a colossal waste of time and money. I have read the book for you and hopefully this review tells you everything you need to know.

Did Jesus Exist? by Bart Ehrman, A Book Review

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This entry is part 5 of 12 in the seriesBook Reviews

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I am delighted to review Dr. Bart Ehrman’s latest book, Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth. The book was sent to me by the publisher.

Anyone who reads this blog knows I am a big fan of Bart Ehrman. When I began to move away from Christianity Ehrman’s books were extremely helpful. They forced me to confront my beliefs about the English Bible and the underlying Greek and Hebrew text. I was also forced to consider that many of the ideas I had about Christianity and its history were either complete fabrications or an admixture of truth and error.

I have stated many times that any Evangelical Christian who honestly reads Bart Ehrman’s books can no longer say, I believe the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God. They might be able to hang on to some form of progressive or liberal Christian belief but Ehrman’s books are an axe to the root of Evangelical Christianity.

Ehrman’s latest book, Did Jesus Exist?, is 368 pages long. As he has in the past, Ehrman writes in a manner easily understood by the non-scholar. I am sure, he will be faulted, like he is every time he comes out with a new book, for not having enough footnotes or endnotes, but Ehrman knows who is target audience is and he does not weigh them down with copious notes that only the scholars among us would appreciate. The bibliography does list 45 authors and 66 books, with both authors who believe Jesus existed and those who don’t amply represented. Anyone wanting to research this matter further will find plenty of books listed in the bibliography to help them with their research.

I am not a scholar, at least in the sense the word is used in the Did Jesus Exist debate. I was a Christian for 50 years. I spent 25 years pastoring Evangelical churches in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. I have a rudimentary Bible College education. While in college I received no training in Hebrew or Greek.  I was taught a narrow, truncated version of Christian church history. What knowledge I gained about Hebrew and Greek and Christian church history came from tens of thousands of hours spent in the study.

As a pastor, I was largely self-taught and books became my education. Over time, I came to trust certain authors.  This is what most non-scholars do. We decide which authors, which experts we are going to trust. We do this all the time in virtually every sphere of life in which we are not an expert. However, when it comes to the Bible, it seems everyone is an expert.

I am not a expert. I am not a novice but I am certainly not a university and seminary trained scholar. I am also at the place in life age-wise and health-wise that my ability to improve my academic lot is limited. I read and study as much as I can. As I do this, I again look for authors that I can trust. Dr. Bart Ehrman is one such author.

In Did Jesus Exist? Ehrman states several times that history is not a science. There is no test to prove that Jesus existed. The historian must look at the available evidence and come to a reasonable conclusion. From those conclusions, we end up with probabilities. The main question that Ehrman asks is, is it probable that Jesus existed? Based on the available evidence Ehrman says, Yes, Jesus existed.

Ehrman states in the introduction that his goal is not to convince mythicists (those who don’t believe Jesus existed) of the folly of their view. He writes :

I do not expect to convince anyone in that boat. What I do hope is to convince genuine seekers who really want to know how we know that Jesus did exist, as virtually every scholar of antiquity, of biblical studies, of classics, and the Christian origins in this country and, in fact, in the Western world agrees. Many of these scholars have no vested interest in the matter. As it turns out, I myself do not either. I am not a Christian, and I have no interest in promoting a Christian cause or a Christian agenda. I am an agnostic with atheist leanings, and my life and views of the world would be approximately the same whether or not Jesus existed. My beliefs would vary little. The answer to the question of Jesus’s historical existence will not make me more or less happy, content, hopeful, likable, rich, famous, or immortal.

But as a historian I think evidence matters. And the past matters. And for anyone to whom both evidence and the past matter, a dispassionate consideration of the case makes it quite plain: Jesus did exist. He may not have been the Jesus that your mother believes in or the Jesus of the stained-glass window or the Jesus of your least favorite televangelist or the Jesus proclaimed by the Vatican, the Southern Baptist Convention, the local mega-church, or the California Gnostic. But he did exist, and we can say a few things, with relative certainty, about him.

In any event, I need to admit that I write this book with some fear and trepidation. I know that some readers who support agnostic, atheist, or humanist causes and who typically appreciate my other writings will be vocal and vociferous in rejecting my historical claims. At the same time certain readers who have found some of my other writings dangerous or threatening will be surprised, possibly even pleased, to see that here I make common cause with them. Possibly many readers will wonder why a book is even necessary explaining that Jesus must have existed. To them I would say that every historical person, event, or phenomenon needs to be established. The historian can take nothing for granted. There are several loud voices out there, whether you tune into them or not, who are declaring that Jesus is a myth. This mythicist position is interesting historically and phenomenologically, as a part of a wider skepticism that has infiltrated parts of the thinking world and that deserves a clearheaded sociological analysis in its own right. I do not have the skills or expertise to provide that wider analysis, although I will make some brief remarks about the broad mythicist phenomenon in my conclusion. In the meantime, as a historian I can show why at least one set of skeptical claims about the past history of our civilization is almost certainly wrong, even though these claims are seeping into the popular consciousness at an alarming rate. Jesus existed, and those vocal persons who deny it do so not because they have considered the evidence with the dispassionate eye of the historian, but because they have some other agenda that this denial serves. From a dispassionate point of view, there was a Jesus of Nazareth.

Did Jesus Exist?  has three parts:

  1. Evidence for the Historical Jesus
  2. The Mythicists’ Claims
  3. Who Was the Historical Jesus?

In the first chapter Ehrman gives a brief history of the mythicist view and its relevant present-day authors. Later in the book he will come back to these authors and give their views more careful consideration. Ehrman looks at the mythicist claims of such men like Robert M Price, Richard Carrier, Frank Zindler, Thomas L. Thompson, Earl Doherty, George A. Wells,  Acharya S, D.M. Murdock, Timothy Freke, and Peter Gandy.

In chapter two Ehrman talks about the non-Christian sources for the life of Jesus. Ehrman makes it clear that there is no hard, physical evidence for Jesus.  There is no archeological evidence. There are no writings from Jesus. Does this mean the Jesus did not exist? Hardly.

Ehrman writes:

This is not much of an argument against his existence, however, since there is no archaeological evidence for anyone else living in Palestine in Jesus’s day except for the very upper-crust elite aristocrats, who are occasionally mentioned in inscriptions (we have no other archaeological evidence even for any of these). In fact, we don’t have any archaeological remains for any non-aristocratic Jew of the 20s CE, when Jesus would have been an adult. And absolutely no one thinks that Jesus was an upper-class aristocrat. So why would we have archaeological evidence of his existence?

We also do not have any writings from Jesus. To many people this may seem odd, but in fact it is not odd at all. The vast majority of people in the ancient world could not write, as we will see in greater detail. There are debates about Jesus’s literacy, if of course he lived. But even if he could read, there are no indications from early sources that he could write, and there is no reference to any of his writings in any of our Gospels. So there is nothing strange about having nothing in writing from him. I should point out that we have nothing in writing from over 99.99 percent of people who lived in antiquity. That doesn’t mean, of course, that they didn’t live. It means that if we want to show that any one of them lived, we have to look for other kinds of evidence.

Ehrman spends a good bit of time talking about the non-Christian sources for the life of Jesus. He talks about:

  • Roman references: Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, and Tacitus
  • Jewish sources: Josephus

Mythicists often claim that the passage in the writings of Josephus that makes mention of Jesus was not written by Josephus, that it was added by a Christian years later. Ehrman charts a path between the extremes of yes, Josephus wrote this and no, he didn’t by suggesting that the passage in question had been embellished.

Ehrman writes:

The big question is whether a Christian scribe (or scribes) simply added a few choice Christian additions to the passage or whether the entire thing was produced by a Christian and inserted in an appropriate place in Josephus’s antiquities.

The majority of scholars of early Judaism, and experts on Josephus, think that it was the former–that one or more Christian scribes “touched up” the passage a bit. If one takes out the obviously Christian comments, the passage may have been rather innocuous, reading something like this:

At this time there appeared Jesus, a wise man. He was a doer of startling deeds, a teacher of people who receive the truth with pleasure. And he gained a following both among many Jews and among many of Greek origin. When Pilate, because of an accusation made by the leading men among us, condemned him to the cross, those who had loved him previously did not cease to do so. And up until this very day the tribe of Christians, named after him, has not died out.

If this is the original form of the passage, then Josephus had some solid historical information about Jesus’s life: Jesus was known for his wisdom and teaching; he was thought to have done remarkable deeds; he had numerous followers; he was condemned to be crucified by Pontius Pilate because of Jewish accusations brought against him; and he continued to have followers among the Christians after his death.

As can be expected, Ehrman spends considerable time detailing why the gospels must be considered as historical sources. Ehrman does a good job defending the view that that gospels are a historical source and certainly are appropriate for use in determining whether or not Jesus existed. Mythicists like to reduce the gospels down to one gospel, Mark, and Ehrman makes short work of the folly of such an argument.

Ehrman concludes his chapter on The Gospels as Historical Sources with this:

The evidence I offer in this chapter is not all there is. It is simply one part of the evidence. But it is easy to see why even on its own it has proved to be so convincing to almost every scholar who ever thought about the issue. We are not dealing with just one gospel that reports what Jesus said and did from some time near the end of the first century. We have a number of surviving gospels—I name seven—that are either completely independent of one another or independent in a large number of their traditions. These all attest to the existence of Jesus. Moreover, these independent witnesses corroborate many of the same basic sets of data—for example, that Jesus not only lived but that he was a Jewish teacher who was crucified by the Romans at the instigation of Jewish authorities in Jerusalem. Even more important, these independent witnesses are based on a relatively large number of written predecessors, gospels that no longer survive but that almost certainly once existed. Some of these earlier written texts have been shown beyond reasonable doubt to date back at least to the 50s of the Common Era. They derive from locations around the Mediterranean and again are independent of one another. If historians prefer lots of witnesses that corroborate one another’s claims without showing evidence of collaboration, we have that in relative abundance in the written sources that attest to the existence of the historical Jesus.

But most significant of all, each of these numerous gospel texts is based on oral traditions that had been in circulation for years among communities of Christians in different parts of the world, all of them attesting to the existence of Jesus. And some of these traditions must have originated in Aramaic-speaking communities of Palestine, probably in the 30s CE, within several years at least of the traditional date of the death of Jesus. The vast network of these traditions, numerically significant, widely dispersed, and largely independent of one another, make it almost certain that whatever one wants to say about Jesus, at the very least one must say that he existed. Moreover, as we will now see, there is yet more evidence.

In chapter four Ehrman talks about the evidence for Jesus from later sources outside the gospels. He briefly talks about Josephus and Tacitus but he spends the bulk of this chapter giving evidence for Jesus’s existence from Christian sources like:

  • Papias
  • Ignatius of Antioch
  • 1 Clement
  • The book of Acts
  • The writings of Paul

Ehrman writes:

As a result of our investigation so far, it should be clear that historians do not need to rely on only one source (say, the gospel of Mark) for knowing whether or not the historical Jesus existed. He is attested clearly by Paul, independently of the Gospels, and in many other sources as well: in the speeches in Acts, which contain material that predates Paul’s letters, and later in Hebrews, 1st and 2nd Peter, Jude, Revelation, Papias, Ignatius, and 1 Clement. These are ten witnesses that can be added to our seven independent Gospels (either entirely or partially independent), giving us a great variety of sources that broadly corroborate many of the reports about Jesus without evidence of collaboration. And this is not counting all of the oral traditions that were in circulation even before the surviving written accounts. Moreover, information about Jesus known to Paul appears to go back to the early 30s of the Common Era, as arguably does some of the material in the book of Acts….

In chapter five Ehrman talks about two key data for the historicity of Jesus:

  • Paul’s association with Simon Peter and Jesus’s brother James.
  • The crucifixion of Jesus.

Ehrman writes:

Paul indicates that he received some of these traditions from those who came before him, and it is relatively easy to determine when. Paul claims to have visited with Jesus’s closest disciple, Peter, and with his brother James three years after his conversion, that is around 35—36 CE. Much of what Paul has to say about Jesus, therefore, stems from the same early layer of tradition that we can trace, completely independently, in the Gospels.

Even more impressive than what Paul says about Jesus is whom he knew. Paul was personally acquainted, as I’ve pointed out,with Peter and James. Peter was Jesus’s closest confidant throughout his public ministry, and James was his actual brother. Paul knew them for decades, starting in the mid 30s CE. It is hard to imagine how Jesus could have been made up. Paul knew his best friend and his brother.

Paul also knew that Jesus was crucified. Before the Christian movement, there were no Jews who thought the Messiah was going to suffer. Quite the contrary. The crucified Jesus was not invented, therefore, to provide some kind of mystical fulfillment of Jewish expectation. The single greatest obstacle Christians had when trying to convert Jews was precisely their claim that Jesus had been executed. They would not have made that up. They had to deal with that and devise a special, previously unheard of theology to account for it. And so what they invented was not a person named Jesus but rather the idea of a suffering Messiah. That invention has become so much a part of the standard lingo that Christians today assume it was all part of the original plan of God as mapped out in the Old Testament. But in fact the idea of a suffering Messiah cannot be found there. It had to be created. And the reason it had to be created is that Jesus—the one Christians consider to be the Messiah—was known by everyone everywhere to have been crucified. He couldn’t be killed if he didn’t live.

In chapters six and seven, spanning almost a hundred pages, Ehrman talks about, and discredits, the claims of those (mythicists) who say Jesus did not exist. He returns to the writings of the mythicists I mentioned earlier.

What claims do mythicists make? Ehrman gives four claims that mythicists make:

Claim 1: The Gospels are Highly Problematic as Historical Sources.

  • We do not have the original texts of the gospels
  • We do not know the authors of the gospels
  • The gospels are filled with discrepancies and contradictions
  • The gospels contain non-historical materials
  • The stories in the gospels are filled with legendary material

Claim 2: Nazareth Did Not Exist.

Claim 3: The Gospels are Interpretive Paraphrases of the Old Testament.

Claim 4: The Nonhistorical “Jesus” is based on Stories About Pagan Divine Men.

In chapter seven Ehrman homes in on mythicist claims that Jesus was a mythical being. He asks and answers several questions:

  • Did the earliest Christians invent Jesus as a Dying-Rising God, based on Pagan myths?
  • Was Jesus invented as a personification of Jewish Wisdom?
  • Was Jesus an unknown Jew who lived in obscurity more than a century before Paul?
  • Was Jesus crucified in the spiritual realm rather than on earth?
  • Did Mark, our first Gospel, invent the idea of a historical person, Jesus?

Ehrman’s answer to each of these questions is NO!

The final part of the book asks the question, Who was the historical Jesus? If Jesus existed who was he?

Ehrman makes clear that we must differentiate between the the historical Jesus and the Jesus who Christians claim was born of a virgin, worked miracles and rose again from the dead. Before the supernatural claims can be addressed we must first determine if Jesus existed. We can believe Jesus existed without believing Jesus was born of a virgin, worked miracles, and rose again from the dead. The former is a matter history can decide. The latter is a matter of theology, of faith.

According to Ehrman, who was Jesus? After reading the book, I would summarize Ehrman’s view like this:

Jesus was born in relative obscurity in the town of Nazareth. His parents were poor and his father was a common laborer. As an adult Jesus became a disciple of John the Baptist, and over time became an Jewish apocalyptic prophet. He was crucified by the authority on Pontius Pilate.

In the final part of the book Ehrman has a lot to say about the apocalyptic proclamations of Jesus and his apocalyptic activities. He makes a compelling case for Jesus, the apocalyptic prophet.  I plan to write several posts in the future about several interesting points Ehrman makes about Jesus and the works he did during his three years of public ministry.

I have no doubt that the diehard mythicists who frequent Fallen From Grace will not be convinced by Bart Ehrman’s, Did Jesus Exist? I can only hope they will read the book and it will force them to add a bit of nuance and temper to their claims. I also hope their wilder claims will die the swift death they deserve.

For the rest of Fallen From Grace readers I hope the book will be instructive and will provide ammunition when debating with Evangelical Christians about the inerrant, inspired, infallible Word of God.

For Christian readers of Fallen From Grace (yes, I know you are out there) the book is likely to be offensive, instructive, or affirming depending on how you open you are and how you view the Bible itself.  I can only hope this book will be widely read in Christian circles.

As our family gathered together to watch Ohio States go down in flames to Kansas last night, I told them that I thought Did Jesus Exist? was Bart Ehrman’s best book. (and I have all of them) While Ehrman spends a good bit of time dealing with mythicist claims he also spends a lot of time detailing how we should read the Bible and judge its historical reliability. I dare say if an Evangelical Christian is willing to read the book with an open mind they will never view the Bible or Jesus the same again.

 

Who is Dr. Bart Ehrman?

Bart D. Ehrman is the author of more than twenty books, including the New York Times bestselling Misquoting Jesus, God’s Problem, Jesus, Interrupted, and Forged. Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and is a leading authority on the Bible and the life of Jesus who has been featured on a variety of top media outlets.

Laura’s Light by Laura Hardman, A Book Review

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This entry is part 6 of 12 in the seriesBook Reviews

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Laura Hardman, the wife of Fundamentalist Baptist Evangelist Don Hardman, has written an autobiography titled Laura’s Light. The book is 277 pages long, and as best I can determine, is self published. The book has a 2010 publication date.

Laura’s Light reads quite a bit like the Bible. Laura Hardman’s story is one of bondage to sin and deliverance from that sin through the blood of Jesus Christ. Also, like the Bible it is littered with fictions and omissions.

Hardman’s story begins June 14, 1955 in Salem, Ohio. The first 45 pages of book detail Hardman’s hard scrabble life, a life she says God used to prepare her for future life as an evangelists wife.

The rest of the book details Hardman’s marriage to Don Hardman, their conversion to Christianity, and their subsequent work as evangelist and wife.

There is no question that Don and Laura Hardman are sincere, devoted followers of Jesus Christ. I have no reason to question their commitment to Jesus. However, Laura’ Light does bring to light some glaring issues in the thinking and attitudes of Don and Laura Hardman.

The book is hard to read. It has numerous grammatical errors. I found myself speed reading at times, wearied from the poor grammar. Hardman would take my criticism of her grammar as a badge of honor. She is quite proud of her hillbilly ignorance.

Hardman writes in the preface:

The words of this book are simple and easy enough for a child to read. My education is very limited and my vocabulary is not with enticing words of men, because I am writing it from my heart and not from an educated view.

Hardman reiterates this point several times in the book. I can appreciate someone who writes from the heart. I do the same on this blog. However, Hardman should have engaged the services of someone who could correct the glaring grammatical errors. These errors detract from the story Hardman is trying to tell.

The book reveals that Hardman has racist tendencies. I am sure she would be appalled at being called a racist but her language in the book reveals a deep seated racism that is quite common. This kind of racism is so much a part of the person that they might not even be aware of how offensive their words are.

Perhaps Hardman is just refusing to be politically correct. Perhaps she is just refusing to use the language of the liberals she rails against in the book.

Here are a couple of choice quotes that show, at the very least, a lack of understanding of the modern world we live in:

One week we decided to take four of the ghetto kids on an outing to the Gulf of Mexico to play with them in the water….

The humorous part of this story is that when they were all done playing in that salty water, I took each one into the back of the truck and dried them off. The drier they got, the whiter they got! Black folks don’t have the pores like we have to produce oils, so they have to put lotion on their skin to keep it black and not a ashy color. It was a good thing I had some cocoa butter on hand, and I was able to soak them down before I got them back home. (page 189,190)

Speaking of a trip she and her husband took to Africa to preach and teach:

One day one of the preacher boys asked me if I would cut his hair. When I looked at him I figured it would be similar to trimming my black poodle, so I agreed. (page 233)

Speaking of a trip Hardman and her husband took to Hawaii:

It was on November 3, 2002, very early in the morning that we boarded a plane in New Orleans…

It had been just a little over a year since 9-11….

It became a little more frightful when I saw a couple of rag heads get on the plane… (page 247)

Throughout the book African-Americans are called blacks and Hispanics are called Mexicans. I know there is disagreement about which terms are proper, but taken together with the quotes I mention above, the book has quite a racist tone. ( along with Hardman repeatedly calling homosexuals, sodomites)

I find the racial overtones interesting because the Hardmans spend most of the year ministering to street people in the New Orleans area. People who are overwhelmingly people of color.

Another thing that stood out to me in the book was Hardman’s view of sex, married men, and her own sexuality. It is a subject that comes up repeatedly in the book.

If Hardman is to believed, married men chased after her from her teens years and up. Repeatedly, Hardman writes of married men trying to get her to have sex with her. (she uses Christian-correct words for their actions but there is doubt they were after her for sex)

After Laura Hardman and her husband were converted and in the ministry, Hardman finally saw the light about the whole married men wanting to have sex with her.

Hardman writes:

All the way through my Christian life it seemed I had to learn things the hard way. However, one thing was for sure, I never forgot the lesson I learned. Each day the pastor come to the trailer, and he and Don would decide where they would make calls that day. There is one day he came over, and for the life of me I can’t remember what I was wearing, but it must have looked worldly and sensual. He told my husband he could not look at me because my clothes were revealing the contour of my body. Talk about a dagger through my heart. I could say I had no idea what my well-built body did to men, but I really could not because I was still getting whistles when I went to the mall and shopping centers, even after salvation…

If I caused even a strong man to abstain from looking at me, what was I doing to the weak? (page 95)

I was astounded when I read this passage and others that spoke of Hardman’s sexuality.  Perhaps the problem was not Hardman but the preacher man who couldn’t keep his mind pure. (a common problem for poor, lustful, weak Baptist men)

Hardman portrays their life in the ministry and as a traveling evangelist as one of standing for the truth at all costs. She details loss of friends and loss of meetings because of their stand for the blessed truths of the King James Bible. Not one time does Hardman ever speak of a problem being their fault. It’s the liberals fault. There is always an enemy, imaginary or real, they are fighting. This is the kind of life narrow fundamentalism brings.

Hardman glosses over a few pertinent issues in the life of Laura Hardman and her evangelist husband, Don Hardman. They practiced this subterfuge the whole time they were holding meetings for me in Somerset and West Unity, Ohio

On page 87 Hardman speaks of Don’s ministerial calling. (Don completed a 1 year Bible correspondence course with Liberty Baptist Home Studies) The church they were part of at the time, First Baptist Church, Findlay, Ohio did not believe that Don was called to the ministry. Hardman gives the reason as:

his (Don’s) wicked past.

That’s it. This is the same line the Hardmans used time and time again when asked about their life BEFORE salvation. In their mind, the past was the past. It was all under the blood of Jesus, never to be remembered again

So what was Don’s wicked past? Don was divorced. Not only was Don divorced, but his first marriage, as a young man, was to a teenage girl who was pregnant by him.

Two children came out of Don’s first marriage. Laura claims the children as her own, a claim I suspect the biological mother finds quite offensive. While Hardman does say Don had two children, she never calls herself their step-mother. In her mind, when Jesus came into their life EVERYTHING became brand-new and that included the children having a new mother.

Hardman details their life as a traveling evangelist. Hardman sets 1987 as Don Hardman’s start as an evangelist. Hardman spends a lot of time mentioning people who helped them along the way. I was quite surprised that Bruce Gerencser and Somerset Baptist Church got no mention at all. We were one of the first churches to have Don come and preach. Don held four meetings for me at Somerset and another meeting in West Unity, Ohio.

We were close to the Hardmans. We traveled to several churches where Don was preaching to support him. We even took a group from our church to the Hardman’s home church (Midway Bible Baptist Church) in Fishersville, Virginia to attend their annual Bible conference. We graciously supported the Hardmans financially. We spent several days in northern Ohio with the Hardman’s family while Don and Laura were off the road. Our youngest daughter is named after Laura.

I suspect, like Don’s wicked past, I have been expunged from their memory. Laura’s Light was written in 2010. By then Laura Hardman had got my coming out letter and had written to tell me that I never was a REAL Christian. Perhaps, having a one time staunch supporter turned atheist was too much for them to bear. No matter what is or isn’t in the book, the Hardmans know…..

This book is titled Laura’s Light. Laura Hardman has a persona she wants to portray and she does a good job portraying it. However this book is a mixture of fact and fiction, in many ways, like most autobiographies.

Hardman wants to portray her life as one of continued ascendency after salvation. For this reason her story has an untrue ring to it. Life is messier than that. Sins. Lapses in judgment. Wrong. Error. Doubts. These are the kind of things that say to a reader, here is a real person. Unfortunately, like many Christian autobiographies, the book subject is given God-like qualities, qualities that those closest to them find quite amusing.

Where can I buy the book?

As far as I know the book is only available one place on the internet. You can purchase it here. (dead link)

Here is a YouTube video about Laura’s Light. (video taken down)

News article about Don and Laura Hardman.

Interesting Snopes.com article about Don Hardman and a bolt of lightning hitting a church where he was holding a meeting.

Unfamiliar Fishes by Sarah Vowell, A Book Review

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This entry is part 4 of 12 in the seriesBook Reviews

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Unfamiliar Fishes by Sarah Vowell chronicles  the 20th century history of Hawaii from the first missionaries that landed in Hawaii to the fraudulent American annexation of Hawaii in 1898. Vowell is an astute historian with bulldog research skills. She possesses a wicked sense of humor that turns history into a reading delight. Unfamiliar Fishes, published by Riverhead Books, a Penguin Group imprint, is 238 pages long. (I read it in a few night time readings)

Vowell’s book, in many respects, is a story written many times before, a story of powerful white men seeing something they want and by subterfuge and force taking it. Over the past decade I have dedicated a significant amount of time to reading the history of the American Republic. From the time when the Pilgrims and Puritans landed on the eastern shore of a wild expansive land populated by Native Americans to our latest military foray in Libya, a clear pattern emerges. Christian America, holding resolutely to a belief in manifest destiny, has been quite willing to use political and military force to take what it wants, regardless of what anyone else thinks about their actions. We are a bloody nation that has repeatedly stolen land belonging to others because we think we have a God-given right to do so. Simply put, God is on our side, f**k the world.

The Hawaii of the early 20th century was home to a native Polynesian (?) people ruled by the House of Kamehameha. By European or American standards Hawaii was a beautiful backwater filled with uncouth, naked,uneducated people, a heathen country that would benefit greatly from exposure to educated, mannered, prudish Victorian Christianity.

American missionaries came to Hawaii in 1819. Over the next 80 years the missionaries succeeded in evangelizing Hawaii. Schools and churches were built, the Hawaiian language was translated and put into written form, and the majority of Hawaiians learned to read and write.

The American missionaries believed they had a mandate from God to convert the Hawaiians from their heathen ways to Christianity. Over time the missionaries persuaded Hawaiians to adopt a Puritan style code of moral conduct. (especially concerning alcohol drinking and sexual matters.)  In other words, the missionaries turned  Hawaiians into copycat uptight,sexually repressed, American Christians.(1)

The missionaries, along with sailors who ported in Hawaii, brought diseases (measles, smallpox, tuberculosis, venereal disease to name a few) that Hawaiians had no immunity to and as a result thousands of people died. For many decades the native Hawaiian population was decimated by the disease and death visited on them by white Americans and Europeans. (similar to what happened to Native Americans in the 17th and 18th century and Aztecs and Mayans before that)

Over time white missionaries, along with white businessmen, consolidated their power and hold on Hawaii. 80 years after the first missionaries came to Hawaii, white Americans, a minority population, seized the government of Hawaii and requested annexation to the United States. Through deceit and political manipulation the United Stated annexed  Hawaii in 1898.

Unfamiliar Fishes is a poignant reminder of the danger of religion and political or economic ambition being one and the same. Perhaps the missionaries were pure in their objective when they first landed in Hawaii, however, it didn’t take long for religious zeal to become confused with political power and economic ambition. Many of the important players in the overthrow of the Hawaiian government and Hawaii’s subsequent annexation to the United States were descendants of the missionary families that came to Hawaii decades before.

I heartily recommend Unfamiliar Fishes. Sarah Vowell is a godless liberal and I most always find her writing and viewpoint refreshing.(especially in an America now dominated by conservative, right wing ideology) Years ago I read a good bit about Hawaii  but my reading was from the Christian missionary point of view. Wasn’t it great that all those Hawaiians got saved!! The books I read trumpeted manifest destiny and ignored the destruction of the Hawaiian culture by American missionaries. (after all they were heathens and Christian Americans always know what is best for other people. An arrogant lot we are.)

The book sadly reminded me that what we are doing in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya sounds eerily similar to what took place in Hawaii over a century ago.(from a political perspective) The American Republic is over 200 years old and we have developed a track record of political manipulation and corruption, shedding blood, and taking what we want. Americans like to think we are good people, a peaceful people, but our history betrays this lie. We are a people drunk on power and might, and we have been this way since the Pilgrims and Puritans first landed here. From the slaughter of Native Americans to the collateral damage in the Middle East, America has been quite willing to destroy and shed blood to get what it wants.

I readily admit I have become a cynical American. The more I read and observe the more cynical and disheartened I become.  In 1898 Boston attorney Moorfield Storey, decrying the annexation of Hawaii (and other islands) warned:

When Rome began her career of conquest , the Roman Republic began to decay…Let us once govern any considerable body of men without their consent, and it is a question of time how soon this Republic shares the fate of Rome.

Time is running out…

*One small quibble I have with Vowell’s book. She states that Timothy Dwight, Jonathan Edwards’s grandson, was the star of the Second Great Awakening. Perhaps among Calvinists this was true, but I think Pelagian Charles Finney would be considered by many to be the bright and shining star of the Second Great Awakening.

(1) Puritans rarely passed up on an opportunity to take the fun out of life. Granted incestuous relationships within the House of Kamehameha led to birth defects and early death, so the Puritan insistence that incest be outlawed was probably a good idea)

Who is Sarah Vowell:

Sarah Jane Vowell (born December 27, 1969) is an American author, journalist, essayist and social commentator. Often referred to as a “social observer,” Vowell has written five nonfiction books on American history and culture, and was a contributing editor for the radio program This American Life on Public Radio International from 1996–2008, where she produced numerous commentaries and documentaries and toured the country in many of the program’s live shows. She was also the voice of Violet in the animated film The Incredibles….

Vowell is a New York Times’ bestselling author of six nonfiction books on American history and culture. Her most recent book is Unfamiliar Fishes (2011), which reviews the growing influence of American missionaries in Hawaii in the 1800s and the subsequent takeover of Hawaii’s property and politics by American plantation owners, eventually resulting in a coup d’état, restricted voting rights for nonwhites, and annexation by the United States. A particular focus is on 1898, when the U.S. “annexed Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Guam, and invaded Cuba, and then the Philippines, becoming a meddling, self-serving, militaristic international superpower practically overnight.”  The title of the book is an allusion to a quotation from the aged David Malo, who had been the first Native Hawaiian ordained to preach and Hawaii’s first superintendent of schools:

If a big wave comes in, large and unfamiliar fishes will come from the dark ocean, and when they see the small fishes of the shallows they will eat them up. The white man’s ships have arrived with clever men from the big countries. They know our people are few in number and our country is small, they will devour us. [pp. 138-139]

Breaking Their Will, A Book Review

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This entry is part 2 of 12 in the seriesBook Reviews

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Janet Heimlich’s new book Breaking Their Will, Shedding Light on Religious Child Maltreatment, is a cogent investigation into religious child abuse. Breaking Their Will covers a broad array of religious sects and Heimlich does a good job at documenting the child abuse within these sects.

While Heimlich states several times that she is not suggesting that all religions are bad or that all religions lead to religious child abuse, she comes pretty close to proving otherwise. I wonder if she had to say not all religions are bad to avoid being labeled a closed minded hater of all religions, but regardless of her reason for playing nice with religion, she does a more than adequate job proving that religious child abuse is widespread.

Heimlich writes that religious child maltreatment manifests itself in many ways such as:

  • Justifying  abusive physical punishment with religious texts or doctrine
  • Having children engage in dangerous religious rituals
  • Taking advantage of religious authority to abuse children and procure their silence
  • Failing to provide children needed medical care to a belief in divine intervention
  • Terrifying children with religious concepts, such as an angry and punitive god, eternal damnation, or possession by the devil or by demons
  • Making children feel guilty and shameful by telling them they are sinful
  • Neglecting children’s safety by allowing them to spend time with religious authorities without scrutinizing the authorities’ backgrounds
  • Failing to acknowledge or report child abuse or neglect to protect the image of a religion or a religious group

Breaking Their Will is divided into four parts:

  • The pain of chastisement—religious child physical abuse
  • Harm without hitting—religious child emotional abuse
  • Violating a trust—religious child sexual abuse
  • Sin of denial—religious child medical neglect

Heimlich’s book is well documented and chocked full of real life stories of boys and girls that were abused. In my most recent battle with people within the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement I noticed that the testimonies of people who were abused are routinely dismissed. In most every case the abuse deniers know of people who were not abused while in the same setting as those who were abused,  or they know the accused abusers personally, so they dismiss abuse claims as lies or attempts to attack and destroy the IFB movement. I subscribe to the theory that where there is smoke there is fire and the sheer number of people claiming to have been abused make it highly in unlikely that they are all lying.

At times Breaking Their Will made me uncomfortable. The book reminded me of what I once was. It is hard to admit that my sincere literal interpretation of the Bible led me to preach and teach things that are clearly abusive. I routinely recommended child rearing books by John R. Rice, Jack Hyles, James Dobson, and Richard Fugate. While I can not undo the past, I can advocate for and demand that religious child abuse be taken seriously.

Heimlich suggests that clergy be required to report child abuse and neglect. Here in Ohio, such a requirement is already law. However, many pastors do not consider beating a child with a rod or a belt to be abuse. The Bible teaches (requires) it and their parents disciplined them using corporal punishment and look how they turned out. Until there is a federal law making striking a child a crime, physical child abuse, in the name of God will continue.

I observed and participated in disciplinary methods that I would today clearly consider abuse. Back then I called it Biblical discipline; Today it is child abuse. Over the course of 25 years I reported abuse to Family Services three times. All the reports were made after I observed or heard about abuse. (all of the reports came from our bus ministry) In retrospect, I now know that what I called good bible-based, God honoring discipline was actually religious child abuse.

Heimlich advocates extending or eliminating the statutes of limitations on sexual child abuse. She will get no argument from me. (though I do have some concern about false claims of sexual abuse being used to get back at a parent, pastor, teacher, etc) I think it is scandalous that the Roman Catholic Church, in many states, hides behind statutes of limitations, refusing to even acknowledge that abuse “might” of occurred.

Heimlich encourages parents to examine the norms and behaviors of the faith-based communities they are a part of:

  • Is my faith community theologically exclusive? That is, do religious leaders and other worshippers claim to be the only people who “know” religious truth?
  • Does my community fear or hold in contempt those who are not part of our faith?
  • Do I feel at ease asking questions, voicing complaints, or expressing feelings of religious doubt to those in authority or others?
  • Do I raise my child according to strict guidelines or beliefs held by my faith community?
  • Would I be rebuked or treated closely if I did not follow those norms, including enforcing strict discipline in the home and using physical punishment in ways that make me feel uneasy?
  • Do my faith leaders tell us God wants us to spank our kids?
  • Are children in my place of worship treated respectfully, even when they misbehave,or are they made to feel shamefully?
  • If parents or children help in managing their lives, does my place of worship offer suggestions for mental health services or simply tell them to talk to a member of the clergy, pray harder, or undergo an exorcism?
  • If I were to find out that my child was abused by a member of my faith community, or if I had strong suspicions that such abuse had taken place, would I feel comfortable reporting that abuse to outside authorities, or would I feel obligated to first contact faith leaders and follow their instruction?
  • If I did speak to faith leaders first, would they likely advise me to report the allegations to law enforcement or child protective services or to keep the problem within the church?
  • How much power does my religious leader hold?
  • Do worshippers believe he or she has some sort of God hotline and thus can tell us how God wants us to live our lives?
  • Does a religious leader try to scare people faith?

For those of raised in IFB churches and Evangelical churches this list pretty well describes most of the churches we have been a part of. In other words tens of millions of Americans attend churches that have dangerous abusive tendencies. How can this be? Simple. When a religious text becomes the authority over every aspect of life, and its teachings implicitly obeyed, abuse is sure to follow. (and we see the same thing in the Muslim faith and Orthodox Judaism)

Heimlich raises one controversial point towards the end of the book when she deals with female and male circumcision. Most everyone would agree that female circumcision (the cutting of the clitoris) is morally wrong and should be criminally prosecuted. But what about male circumcision? Heimlich makes a compelling case that male circumcision is just as barbaric and immoral as female circumcision. Fortunately, male circumcision is in decline with barley 55% of newborns being circumcised. (high of 80% in the 1970’s)

I heartily recommend Janet Heimlich’s new book Breaking Their Will. If you want to study the connection between religion and child abuse this should be the first book you read.  Religious child abuse can be stopped IF parents and religious leaders are willing to tackle the subject head-on. Thoughtful parents need to leave the belt in their pants and relegate the rod to the the trash bin of archaic, unenlightened tools of discipline. As a parent and a grandfather I have an obligation to encourage and gently instruct my children in matters of child discipline  and the propriety of religion in the lives of their children. (my grandchildren) Our children know my wife and I oppose any form of hitting children and they know that we do not support children being indoctrinated in a religious faith before they are mature enough to make a decision on their own.

I hope Breaking Their Will is widely read. May it spur a mass exodus out of churches that promote and teach religious child abuse. May it also make government authorities aware of the extent of abuse that goes on in faith communities.

Who is Janet Heimlich?

A freelance reporter for National Public Radio, Janet Heimlich won nine journalism awards, including the prestigious Katie, given by the Press Club of Dallas; the Houston Press Club’s Radio Journalist of the Year; and the Texas Bar Association’s Gavel Award. In addition to her radio work, Ms. Heimlich has written non-fiction articles for such publications as Texas Monthly, the Austin American-Statesman, the Texas Observer, Tribeza, and Edible Austin.

Breaking Their Will is published by Prometheus Books. The book is 326 pages long, with an additional 71 pages of end notes and bibliography.

The Divinity of Doubt by Vincent Bugliosi, A Book Review

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This entry is part 3 of 12 in the seriesBook Reviews

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The publisher, Vanguard Press,  sent me a  review copy of  Vincent Bugliosi’s latest book Divinity of Doubt, The God Question. Divinity of Doubt is 272 pages (338 pages with chapter notes and index) long and is Bugliosi’s attempt to establish agnosticism as the only valid choice in the God debate. Bugliosi neatly divides views about God into three categories: organized religion, agnosticism, and atheism.

Bugliosi spends significant time, in fact the entire book save 3 chapters, dismantling and shredding Christianity. He makes it clear that he does not believe the Christian God exists. He dismisses the rest of the major religions of the world in a chapter titled Hey ,Look at Us. We are Just as Silly as They Are. Bugliosi makes it clear that the world would be far better off if much of organized religion died a quick death.

Bugliosi’s critique of Christianity is standard atheistic fare. Long time atheists and agnostics will bore quickly when reading  Divinity of Doubt. I found myself saying yeah,, yeah , yeah I agree. Ok, next.  That said Bugliosi’s book is a great primer on the theological and textual issues the Christian church faces.  This would be a great book to give to someone who is considering leaving Christianity.

Bugliosi is rightly critical of those who believe in certainty but he himself often appeals to theological certainty when he writes about  what  bible scholars believe concerning this or that theological or historical issue.  He often makes it sound like bible scholars are unified when it comes to the textual and historical problems of the Christian bible, when, in fact, unity is a word rarely used to describe bible scholarship. Proof? Consult the true God of this world Google and you will quickly find out that virtually every aspect of the Christian religion is endlessly debated. Christians can’t even agree on basic things like God, communion, baptism, or how a person becomes a Christian.

I was astounded that Bugliosi did not mention Bart Ehrman one time. (I did not read the chapter notes so there is a small possibility Ehrman makes an honorary appearance there) Ehrman is clearly the most popular and most read theologian of the 21st century. His books are a devastating critique of Christianity and Bugliosi not mentioning Ehrman’s books is troubling. (not that Ehrman would have necessarily added anything to the book. Bugliosi comes to many of the same conclusions as Ehrman.)  In passing I  should note that Bugliosi incorrectly states that William Lane Craig is a Catholic apologist. Craig is actually an Evangelical Christian apologist. .

Bugliosi spends several chapters on the subject of evolution, creationism, and intelligent design. He admits he is not a scientist but this does not keep Bugliosi from diving right in anyway.  Bugliosi writes:

But apart from science, I have problems with the Big Bang theory. For one thing, I simply cannot even begin to imagine how at some tiny point in time and space, some microorganism, or what have you, self exploded and created the universe, though I obviously am in no position to challenge this theory…But I do know that whatever they are, they are something, and that is the big problem. It would seem that no one can actually believe that the Big Bang exploded out of nothing, completely empty space, which would be an impossibility. It had to have exploded out of something. And no matter how small or subatomic that something is, the question is who put that something there? If it wasn’t the creator, and how did it come into existence? Remember, nothing can create itself because if it did, it would proceed itself, an impossibility.

Unlike Bugliosi, I confess not only am I quite deficient when it comes to matters of science, I also have no intentions of exposing my ignorance to those who are experts in science. I will leave it to my readers who are well-schooled in science to deal with Bugliosi’s claims. I will stick to  the Bible and theology.

In a chapter titled Atheism and Its Current Leading Prolocutors Bugliosi deals with the subject of atheism. Bugliosi  focuses only on  the writings of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens. For some unexplainable reason Bugliosi assumes that if he reads the books of  Big Three of the Atheist movement (he ignores Daniel Dennett)  he has adequately surveyed the necessary material to make a proper judgment concerning atheism.  As a result Bugliosi paints a truncated, incomplete picture of atheism. His book would carry far more weight with atheists IF he had broadened his horizons and referenced books written by atheists, agnostics, humanists, and skeptics who offer a different viewpoint than Harris/Hitchens/Dawkins.

Bugliosi hates the certainty he sees in the writings of Harris/Dawkins/Hitchens. Bugliosi wrongly assumes that these thee authors are the face of atheism and that their beliefs are the beliefs of all atheists. Bugliosi rightly contends that no one can know for certain whether or not there is a God yet he discounts atheists who say just that. Dawkins admits that a person can not with certainly know whether or not a God exists. Dawkins states “God almost certainly does not exist” and Bugliosi takes this to be a disingenuous statement. Why?

Atheism is all about probabilities. Does God exist? I don’t know. Is it probable God exists? No. Is it likely God exists? No. Does the Christian God, as taught in the Bible, exist? No.  Rare is the atheist who says with certainty that no God exists. In fact Bugliosi proves in his book that he is every bit as much an atheist as most of the atheists I know. Bugliosi would have been better informed about atheism if he would have, at a bare minimum read the WIKI on atheism.

In the future, I hope Bugliosi will broaden his horizons when it comes to atheism.I have profited greatly from  the books of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens. That said,   there are many other authors like Michael Shermer, Richard Carrier, Hector Avalos, David Eller, S.T. Joshi, A.C. Grayling, Paul Kurtz, Bart Ehrman, and Scott Aiken/Robert Talisse who have written significant books about atheism and humanism that I have found quite helpful, books, it seems, that Bugliosi paid no attention to. Bugliosi also fails to mention the books by John Loftus, Why I Became an Atheist and The Christian Delusion, two books that are very helpful in laying the foundation of modern atheism.

If you are a confirmed atheist or agnostic Divinity of Doubt will not plow any new ground for you and it certainly does a poor job at surveying the current, popular atheist scene. The book is bombastic at times and the biggest defect in the book is how Vincent Bugliosi views himself.

Bugliosi says this about himself:

I seem to naturally—and not as a result, I can assure you , of any special intelligence at all—see what’s in front of me completely uninfluenced by the trappings of reputation, hoopla, conventional wisdom, and so on, put on it by others.

I suspect some readers of Divinity of Doubt will not be able to get beyond Bugliosi’s naïve view of himself. As I read what Bugliosi said about himself I found myself wanting to toss the book in the corner where I store all the books I have read by authors filled with self-importance.(Granted my sensitivity to this stems from a lifetime in a religious movement dominated by arrogant, self important preachers) I didn’t toss the book and I am glad I didn’t.  I had to remind myself that sometimes you have to get beyond the messenger and listen to the message. Forget Bugliosi’s character flaws. Is what he preaches the truth? The answer is Yes, especially when dealing with Christianity.

I  heartily  recommend Divinity of Doubt, especially for people who considering leaving the Christian faith. The book should be helpful to Christians who are questioning the tenets of the Christian faith. Divinity of Doubt answers many of the questions pastor’s hope their members never ask.

I close this review with Bugliosi’s own words concerning religion:

I can say with relative confidence (because what I’m saying, at least it would seem, has to be true) that there is only one necessary religion that has any merit to the people who inhabit this earth, and that’s the Golden Rule: “Do unto others what you would want them to do unto you” (from the Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount [Matthew 7:12]). To treat others as you would want them to treat you is the highest, most noble form of human behavior and the basis of all morality. No matter what some papal encyclical says; no matter what some bishops’ conference says; no matter how many sacraments of the Catholic church there are, or chapters and verses in the bible, or thick and complex books by theologians, or Sunday school classes and sermons by pastors; no matter how many heated arguments there are about God, Jesus, and religion; no matter how many pilgrimages there are to Mecca, Jerusalem, and other holy places; no matter how many thousands of hours Jewish scholars struggle over the meaning of the Torah; no matter how many multimillion-dollar churches and synagogues and grand cathedrals to Christ are constructed, nothing can ever change that simple reality…..

If we must have religion, the seminal test as to the value and merit of any religion worth its salt has to be not what you believe, but what you do—that is, how you treat your fellow man. Yet in the thousands upon thousands of books, and billions upon billions of words that have been written, particularly about Christianity and the bible, what percentage of these books do you think are devoted to the only thing that counts—the Golden Rule?

To these words this atheist says Amen.

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