Today, The Kokomo Perspective released another episode in their ongoing coverage of the Temple Baptist Church sex scandal. Devin Zimmerman writes:
A lawsuit filed by a local woman claims she was sexually abused by a member of Temple Baptist Church and that she was placed under the care of this individual by the church’s pastor even after his tendencies were made known to the church leadership.
The Howard County resident, going as Jane Doe, leveled a civil suit against Temple Baptist Church, Pastor Mike Holloway, and Donald Croddy and his wife, Elfriede, seeking damages for alleged child abuse she endured at the age of 5.
Doe claims Holloway, as the pastor of Temple Baptist Church, suggested she stay with Croddy on the weekends in the early ‘90s, during which time she allegedly was sexually assaulted by Croddy. The plaintiff in the case claims the living situation was suggested even after the pastor knew about Croddy sexually abusing his own daughter.
he suit hit Howard County Superior Court 2 last week, and in it the suit cites Croddy’s alleged abuse of his adoptive daughter, named D.P. in the suit, as a catalyst for the claim.
According to the suit, Croddy began molesting his daughter in or around 1977. Then, in 1989, the Indiana Department of Public Welfare investigated a molestation accusation concerning Croddy, during which time he was investigated and he “admitted to the allegations and stated that he had fondled his daughter approximately 10 years ago, but nothing has occurred since.” Even though the abuse was substantiated, criminal charges weren’t brought against Croddy.
Then in 1991, ahead of her wedding, D.P. told her fiancée of her abuse, which resulted in a confrontation between the fiancée and Croddy. The suit claims that “at the invitation of Holloway, D.P., her fiancée and Croddy met to discuss the issue and Holloway was advised by D.P. of the molestation by Croddy, which Croddy admitted to.”
In her suit, Doe claims to have begun attending Temple Baptist Church via its bus ministry, where church agents drove a bus throughout the community to pick up children and adults to transport them to the church. The suit claims “children were often enticed to get on the bus with candy.”
While attending Temple Baptist Church, Doe claims to have been coerced into attending the church’s school, Temple Christian School, and also participating in as many church and school events as possible. But due to Doe’s circumstances, attendance was difficult.
Because of this difficulty, the suit claims that in 1992 Holloway and Croddy visited with Doe and her family, at which time Holloway suggested the young girl begin to spend weekends at Croddy’s home so she could attend more church and school events.
It’s during this period Doe claims to have been sexually abused by Croddy.
….
As part of the suit, Doe claims Temple Baptist Church is “vicariously liable … for any and all negligence that may be attributable to the Defendant, Mike Holloway.” Croddy’s wife, Elfriede, also is named in the suit, where it claims she had “knowledge of Donald Croddy’s pedophilia and failed to take actions to protect” Doe.
In response to the suit, Temple Baptist Church’s leadership issued the following statement:
“We believe it is inappropriate for either party to comment specifically on pending litigation. However, Temple Baptist Church plans a vigorous defense of these misguided claims. As always, we remain committed to our faith and the Bible-based principles that guide us every day. As such, we sympathize with all those involved and continue to pray that the truth will prevail.”
Daniel Little, pastor of Yadkin College Baptist Church in Lexington, North Carolina has been charged with numerous sex crimes against children.
The Dispatch reports:
A 40-year old former pastor charged with sexual abuse of a 10-year-old girl has been additionally charged with multiple counts of sexual abuse and rape involving the 10-year-old and three additional children, all under the age of 12 years old.
Daniel Gene Little, 40, of 1563 Jerusalem Road, has been charged with 13 counts of felony sexual offense with a child, 11 counts felony child abuse by committing a sexual act, two counts of felony rape of a child, two counts felony incest with a child younger than 13 and indecent liberties with a child.’
Little is the former pastor of Yadkin College Baptist Church in Lexington. In May, he was charged with felony first-degree sex offense sexually assaulting a female juvenile under the age of 17.
At that time, Little was placed in the Davidson County Detention Center under a $150,000 secured bond. Since then, Little had posted bond and was out awaiting trial.
According to information provided by the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office, on Sept. 5 the sheriff’s office was contacted by the Davidson County Department of Social Services and made aware that three additional juveniles, two males and one female, had come forward and alleged that they were also sexually assaulted by Little.
The three juveniles attended a forensic interview at The Dragonfly House Children’s Advocacy Center where they disclosed being repeatedly sexually assaulted by Little between the years of 2010 and 2015.
Reports state that Little engaged in a sexual acts including, anal, vaginal and oral sex, with two male children, between the ages of 11 and 4, and two female children, between the ages of 4 and 12.
Little was taken before the Davidson County magistrate and given a $6.5 million secured bond and a court date of Oct. 23.
Last week, Judge Dennis Porter ruled that convicted sex offender and Catholic priest Daniel McCormack is still a sexually violent person and should not be released from Illinois Department of Human Services SVP Treatment and Detention Facility in Rushville, Illinois.
Daniel McCormack, a former priest convicted of molesting children in his Chicago parish, was deemed to still be a sexually violent person by a Cook County judge and will be held indefinitely.
The decision came down on Friday afternoon from Judge Dennis Porter, and means that McCormack will remain at the Illinois Department of Human Services SVP Treatment and Detention Facility in Rushville, IL.
“Daniel McCormack has a history of repeated sexual abuse against children that was especially heinous given his status as a priest,” Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said. “I appreciate Judge Porter’s decision that prevents Daniel McCormack from potentially harming other children.”
McCormack will remain in the facility until at least Nov. 27 when a dispositional hearing will take place.
McCormack has been held in mental health facilities since 2009, when he was released from prison after serving a five-year sentence for sexually abusing five boys while he was serving as a pastor at St. Agatha’s Church, the Chicago Sun-Times is reporting.
McCormack, who has been accused of abusing dozens of young boys in civil lawsuits, was seeking to be released from a facility dedicated to housing and treating sexually violent offenders.
Raymond Wood, an expert on statistical evaluations on the likelihood that sex offenders will repeat their crimes, testified Thursday that “actuarial models” suggested that McCormack would be a “minimal risk” to abuse children if he were released from the facility.
“My wife complains that I’ll say as I read [files] ‘This is a really bad guy,’” Wood said. “But as a professional, I want to be engaging in the best professional standard that I can.”
Wood took the stand a day after a psychiatrist had testified for the prosecution, stating that McCormack was likely to victimize other children if released without court-ordered supervision, citing a long history of McCormack groping younger men and boys dating back to before his ordination and continuing even after he was arrested in 2005.
Assistant Attorney General Joelle Marasco questioned whether Wood had factored in the large number of victims, and the fact the priest continued to molest multiple boys even though he’d been confronted by parents, then arrested, and told by supervisors that he was not to have contact with children or even continue his work as a teacher and basketball coach.
Wood was the third person to evaluate McCormack’s risk factors for harming more children, though the ex-priest has refused to answer questions citing pending civil and criminal cases against him, leaving his evaluators with only reports from Chicago Police investigations and an internal review by the Chicago archdiocese.
Before he was charged criminally, McCormack was sent by the church to a mental hospital for sex offenders in Maryland, where he denied being sexually attracted to children.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Paul Burress, senior pastor at Victory Church in Rochester, New York and operator of Fight Church, stands accused of forcibly touching two women.
Steve Orr, a reporter for Democrat & Chronicle, writes:
Paul Burress, a charismatic, in-your-face pastor who gained fame for operating a fight club in his Henrietta house of worship, has been accused of forcibly touching two women.
Burress was for years a pastor at Victory Church, a large nondenominational Christian church. The Victory website does not list Burress as being among its leadership team, and the telephone went unanswered there Monday morning.
Burress, 43, is a mixed-martial arts fighter as well as a minister, and received a great deal of publicity when he was featured in Fight Church, a 2014 documentary.
On Friday morning, however, he was arrested by Monroe County sheriff’s deputies on two counts of forcible touching, according to Sheriff’s Office spokesman Cpl. John Helfer. Helfer verified the person arrested was the minister noted for his “Fight Church” activities.
The charges arose from separate incidents in February, Helfer said. The complainants are adult females.
The offense in question, a misdemeanor punishable by up to 1 year in jail, is defined in the state penal law as forcibly touching “the sexual or other intimate parts of another person.”
….
The Henrietta pastor has been dogged by accusations of sexual misconduct for several years. Several blogs and news websites featured such claims three years ago, when Burress came to public attention because of his fighting-in-church approach.
But none of those accusations were proved and there is no record of any previous arrest.
Tina Wright, a former member of Victory Church who asserts she has a long personal history with Burress, said she had spoken to one of the women who filed charges.
Wright, who now lives in South Carolina, said she encouraged that woman and others who may have been harmed by the minister to come forward.
“I know beyond the shadow of a doubt there are more victims. There’s a lot of us here,” Wright said. “We need to end the silence so we can stop the cycle of abuse, especially in the church.”
Asked her reaction to reports of his arrest, Wright said, “I’m still in shock, to be honest. I’m relieved that the voices of the victims are finally being heard and they’ll have the opportunity to tell their stories.”
A former member claims “Fight Church” pastor Paul Burress abused his power and tried to entice others into the swinger lifestyle, the Christian Post reported Tuesday.
The pastor’s Victory Church was featured in a new documentary about the hundreds of American churches that attract new members and build their communities around mixed martial arts fights between “fight ministry” religious leaders.
Burress defended the fights, which he said were “not hateful or destructive,” but instead taught participants to “control our most violent impulses through strength, discipline and perseverance — none of which are at odds with Christianity.”
But the Bloody Elbow blog reported that an unidentified former member told the leadership team at Victory Church that Burress had tried to entice him into a sexual relationship with the pastor’s wife.
The man said Burress asked him to perform a sensual back rub on his wife, Jill Burress, who had removed her shirt and bra, while at the couple’s home twice in 2009.
“Paul made sure that my hand made contact with the side of a breast by moving it there with his own hand,” the man said. “Paul also made sure that I touched her bare bottom.”
The man, who said he was 21 years old and single at the time, said Burress also showed him nude photos of his wife and a video of the couple having sex.
“This weighed on me for years, until I couldn’t take it anymore and eventually left Victory because of it,” the man said. “A person should be able to trust his pastor. I could not. 1 Cor 4:2 says it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy.”
The man said Burress made sexual advances in 2012 to two female church members in their 20s at his home, where they were going to have their “backs worked on.”
He said the pastor later tried to seduce one of them at a coffee shop after confessing he had been a swinger while previously married to another woman.
“The girls were asked to remove their shirts and bras because the straps got in the way,” the man said. “They both left Victory, and won’t return, because they were frightened and disturbed by the sexual advances of the pastor.”
A former exchange student who was 16 years old when she stayed with Burress and his family in 2009 also sent a letter to church leadership last year, claiming the pastor had molested her.
Victory Church’s executive pastor sent church leaders an email the following day characterizing the woman’s claims as “the latest vindictive email attack against” Burress and the church.
“The timing is suspect as she hasn’t said a word for all these years until these other people started up,” said Al Ogden, who also serves as the church’s director of counseling. “And last year when she came to visit she came back to Victory. So it apparently didn’t bother her much then.”
Ogden also said in the email that her claims may have been coached because they so closely resembled other allegations against Burress, and the official questioned where the woman had gotten the deacon’s email list.
The man said he was concerned about the apparent pattern in the pastor’s life, noting that Burress had been a swinger while married in Missouri and then divorced after an affair with another woman at his Fusion church in Rochester.
….
Update:
USA Today reports that Burress has been charged with additional counts of forcible touching:
Two more forcible-touching charges were filed Friday against Paul Burress, the New York pastor known for running a fight club in his church.
The two new charges involve an adult female who said Burress touched her in a sexual way in one incident this year and another one in 2016, said Corporal John Helfer, spokesman for the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office.
Two other women made similar accusations against Burress last week.
….
You can read court documents related to Burress’ case here.
A March 15, 2018 report states that Burress pleased guilty and received probation. WHAM reports:
A former Henrietta pastor has pleaded guilty to sexual abuse. Paul Burress pleaded guilty to one count of sexual abuse in the third degree. Burress will be sentenced to one year of probation. No-contact orders of protection were filed for all the complainants in the case. Three women accused Burress of sexual abuse. The incidents took place at different times in a hot tub at Burress’ house. Burress was a pastor at Victory Baptist Church in Henrietta until last June.
Evangelicals fall into three camps when it comes to the recent spate of hurricanes, tropical storms, and flooding. One camp says these weather events are retribution from God over homosexuality, same-sex marriage, abortion, or _________________ (fill in blank with latest “sin” Evangelicals are offended by). The second camp sees these events as tests of their faith; that God is ready and willing to perform miraculous works if they will but storm the throne room of Heaven with their prayers. A smattering of Evangelicals, deeply immersed in the teachings of John Calvin, believe that God is the divine weatherman; that recent weather events are manufactured and controlled by God — according to his sovereign — often secret — purpose and plan. I recently wrote a post on this third camp titled, Hurricane Harvey: Where is God When the Flood Waters Rise?.
Today, I want to write about the second camp: Evangelicals who see hurricanes, flooding, and other cataclysmic events as tests of their faith; that God desires to hear and answer their prayers, if and when enough Christians, in one accord, pray for him to come to their rescue. Presently, social media is flooded with hurricane levels of praying. Some of these praying Evangelicals believe that since Hurricane Irma was not as bad as weathermen thought it would be, this is proof that God heard and answered their prayers.
These Christians, along with countless other praying believers, think that their prayers reached a certain numerical threshold upon which God answered their prayers; that if they will only keep praying and encourage other people to pray, the sheer number of their prayers will reach the “stop hurricane in its tracks” level. Evidently, God is a busy man. If Christians want him to stop what he is doing and answer their prayers, there better be a lot of praying going on. This is the Evangelical version of the government petition website established by President Barack Obama. If a petition reached a signature threshold, the government would respond to the petition. So it is with God and prayers.
The number of prayers required for God to answer must be quite high. I am certain that tens of millions of devout, Jesus-loving, church-going, sin-hating Evangelicals prayed for God to turn aside hurricanes Harvey and Irma. Based on damage reports coming out of Texas, it is evident that Evangelicals must not have prayed enough prayers for God to stop his vacation early and deliver Houstonians and other Texans from Harvey’s murderous rampage. However, according to the aforementioned praying Christians, the “you are a winner” level was met and God reduced Irma from a category 5 storm to a category 2. Evidently, not enough Christians prayed, so God refused to stop Irma in her tracks. God did — thanks to his tender mercies, love, and kindness — however, turn down the wind, lessening the carnage wrought upon Florida. Or so Christians say, anyway.
A friend of mine on Facebook by the name of Bonnie has several Christian friends who resolutely and infallibly believe that the prayers of God’s chosen ones led to a better storm outcome in Florida than in Texas. Trying to point out the absurdity of their comments falls on deaf ears. No amount of skepticism, reason, and science moves them. These prayer warriors know what they know, and facts will not move them off the notion that prayer can and does change things. They are certain that God not only listens to their prayers, but he also, when so inclined, answers them.
I learned long ago that people who believe in supernatural magic — a God-man who lives in heaven and is capable of hearing millions of prayers at the same time, will, on rare occasions answer Christian prayers — cannot be reached with reason, facts, and logic. Convinced that they can manipulate the material world though uttering words to the ceiling or saying silent words in their minds, these worshipers of the one true God are impervious to arguments and data that challenge their worldview. These believers in the prayer-answering God will continue to pray because it is the only way they can make sense of the world. They want to and must believe that their lives have meaning and purpose; that the Christian God loves them and has a wonderful plan for their lives; that this God is their Father and he is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
Using the recent carnage in Texas and Florida as a focal point, ask yourselves, is God acting like a loving, caring Father? Is God acting in ways that would lead people to think that he is your BFF? Some readers might ask, How can we know what God can and can’t do or what God did or didn’t do during the recent weather events? This question, from an Evangelical perspective, is quite easy to answer. God is the Creator, the first-cause of EVERYTHING. The Christian God is all-seeing, all-knowing, and all-powerful. He is the sovereign Lord over the heavens and the earth. Nothing happens that is not according to his divine purpose and plan. Whether he actively decrees things or passively allows them to happen, God is in full control of what happens. He has the absolute power to stop or change events such as hurricanes Harvey and Irma. If people are maimed and killed, it is because God commanded it or allowed it to happen. The thoughts and ways of this God — Jesus is his name — are above ours, and as the Apostle Paul stated in the book of Romans, we are not to question what he does or doesn’t do. In other words, God is always right, regardless whether a hurricane kills zero people or three thousand. Simply put, God is God, shut the hell up.
I am grateful that Irma turned out not to be as deadly and destructive as it could have been. The weather is an unpredictable beast. Weathermen trained in meteorological science and predictive methodology do what they can to warn us when bad weather is headed our way. Sometimes, they miss the mark; other times they are spot on. Either way, prudent people pay attention to weather reports. I am always amused at Evangelical hypocrisy when it comes to “trusting” God during severe weather events. If God is as caring and powerful as Christians say he is, then why don’t praying believers hunker down and pray out the storm? Surely the God who promised to never leave or forsake Christians would be right there with them as the winds blow and the flood water rise. While a handful of Evangelicals will foolishly put their God to the test, most of them wisely and prudently flee to safer and higher ground. Their behavior in times of calamity reveals that Evangelicals talk and pray a good line, but when push comes to hurricane, they will do all they can to keep from being killed. When forced to ride out severe weather, many Christians will make sure their pantries are stocked, water bottles are filled, and that they have the necessary supplies to successfully weather whatever comes their way. Again, why not trust God to meet their every need — as Elijah did at Brook Cherith when God sent ravens daily to bring the prophet bread and meat (I Kings 17)?
Try as they might to paint themselves as benighted beings who live on some sort of supernatural plane of existence, Christians are, in every way, quite human. Much like the unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines they condemn and deem sinful vermin, Evangelicals like houses, lands, and property, love their families, and they want, to quote the venerable Spock, to Live Long and Prosper. Doing so requires, not prayer, but human decision and action. Nothing fails like prayer, and all the anecdotal stories in the world won’t change this fact. Prayers might provide comfort to those inclined to believe that God exists, but I suspect, for many Christians, praying is an exercise they know is futile and changes nothing. They pray because the Bible commands them to and their upbringing demands it, but deep down they doubt the value and efficacy of praying.
Micah Dexter, pastor of The Salem Church in Syracuse, New York, was convicted of forgery and sentenced to 1-3 years in prison.
Douglass Dowty, a reporter for Syracuse.com, writes:
A Syracuse minister gave a sermon-length plea for mercy today after being found guilty of forging documents to steal a South Side house.
The Rev. Micah Dexter cast blame on the mayor, police chief and the assistant prosecutor for what amounted to a political witch hunt.
He suggested that his unfair treatment showed “why this country is divided between Hillary and Donald Trump.”
He even claimed that state Supreme Court Justice John Brunetti reneged on a promise not to send him to state prison.
When Dexter was done, Brunetti said that the monetary and non-monetary damage that Dexter did by stealing a man’s house “is almost incalculable.”
The judge said he wished he could order Dexter to pay restitution, too.
“There is more fraud in this case than I have ever seen,” Brunetti said.
The judge said that he never made the promise that Dexter claimed. And he said that Dexter continued his fraud in court today.
With that, the judge sent Dexter to prison for 1 to 3 years. Dexter, who was free on bail and came to court in a suit, was handcuffed and led away.
Dexter was convicted of forging a signature page of a deed that gave him the property from its rightful owner, James Greene, of South Carolina.
Greene had grown up in the residence, prosecutor Lindsey Luczka said today.
Dexter’s actions caused a four-year ordeal for Greene. His house was finally returned to him recently, she said.
Luczka noted that Dexter, even after being convicted, was back in another court over a dispute involving another house he lived in. He claimed to own that one, too, she said.
Dexter clearly hadn’t learned his lesson, she said.
A probation department report concluded that Dexter “has a confusing relationship with the truth.” The report noted that Dexter presents himself as a religious and civil rights leader, “but he doesn’t live that way,” according to an excerpt read in court.
Ultimately, probation said, Dexter was “not a candidate for rehabilitation” and should be incarcerated.
Dexter has refused to accept responsibility and claimed his conviction would be overturned on appeal, Luczka added, from the report.
This was “calculated theivery, not a momentary lack of judgment,” she said, noting that Dexter had been accused of a similar scam in Florida.
Dexter’s lawyer, Graeme Spicer, objected to the characterization that Dexter was taking advantage of his religious role for personal gain.
This is the one hundred and fifty-ninth installment in The Sounds of Fundamentalism series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a video clip that shows the crazy, cantankerous, or contradictory side of Evangelical Christianity, please send me an email with the name or link to the video. Please do not leave suggestions in the comment section. Let’s have some fun!
Today’s Sound of Fundamentalism is a video clip of Bob Larson in the 1990s hawking Lifeline telephone service as an answer to children calling 1-900 sex lines. Produced by Everything is Terrible.
This is the one hundred and fifty-eighth installment in The Sounds of Fundamentalism series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a video clip that shows the crazy, cantankerous, or contradictory side of Evangelical Christianity, please send me an email with the name or link to the video. Please do not leave suggestions in the comment section. Let’s have some fun!
Today’s Sound of Fundamentalism is a video clip of Hurricanes Are God’s Judgment on Gay America by Rick Joyner and Jim Bakker.
This is the one hundred and fifty-seventh installment in The Sounds of Fundamentalism series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a video clip that shows the crazy, cantankerous, or contradictory side of Evangelical Christianity, please send me an email with the name or link to the video. Please do not leave suggestions in the comment section. Let’s have some fun!
Today’s Sound of Fundamentalism is a video clip of A Tour Through Evangelical Hell by Christian Nightmares.
Rick Stedman, an Evangelical pastor, recently wrote an article for Fox News that asked the question, Where is God in the Terrible Tragedy in Houston? I tackled the same question last week in a post titled, Hurricane Harvey: Where is God When the Flood Waters Rise? I concluded that not only did God — if the Bible is indeed true — send Hurricane Harvey, he is directly and completely responsible for all the death and destruction. If God is, as the Bible says he is, the divine weatherman, then he alone is responsible for what we humans call “acts of mother nature” or “acts of God.” In the aftermath of Harvey, humanity at its best was on its display as strangers helped and rescued strangers. Over the coming months, humans will continue to help Houston and coastal Texas recover from the devastating rains and flooding.
Stedman sees “God” in the rescue and recovery activities. Since we are all created in the image of the Christian God, Stedman theologically theorizes, this means it is God doing all the rescue and recovery work we see currently going on in Texas. Stedman writes:
When hurricanes like Harvey devastate so many lives, where is God?
That’s a really good question—one which I’ve heard whenever a hurricane, tornado, or tsunami wreaks havoc—and it deserves an honest, though maybe surprising answer.
It’s been said that tragedies bring out the best in people, and that certainly is the case in Houston. In addition—and here is my answer to the question posed above—tragedies bring out the imago in people, the biblical claim that humans are created in the image of God.
We’ve all seen the stirring TV images of people helping others in Houston. What some fail to see is the reflections of God’s own character in these moving images.
Compassionate volunteers helped nursing home patients flee before the rising waters inundated their residences. Did the volunteers always act this compassionately in the past? Or did the enormity of the crisis bring their true design, based on God’s love, to the surface?
In moments of crisis, Stedman asserts, God bubbles up to the top of our lives, leading us to act compassionately towards those who are suffering. Stedman, of course, has no evidence for his claim other than he believes it and the Bible says so.
I propose we put Stedman’s assertion to the test, say later this week when Hurricane Irma blows through Florida. Instead of humans opening up their checkbooks and making donations, gathering needed supplies, or traveling to Florida to aid rescue efforts, we should do nothing. Let’s let go and Let God. Let’s allow the Almighty, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, the Sovereign ruler of All, and the Savior of humankind, take care of Florida. Instead of opening up our hearts to Florida, let’s stay home and busy ourselves with watching college and professional football. Surely God, who balances the universe on his index finger and knows how many hairs are on seven billion heads, can alleviate the suffering and meet the needs of Floridians. You Go, God, I say. Does anyone doubt that Floridians would suffer greatly if everyone who could help didn’t and stayed home?
I don’t doubt for a moment that many of the people who help in time of human need, do so out of religious motivations. That said, their doing so doesn’t mean that the Christian God exists. Humans are capable of doing all sorts of things out of motivations that are untrue. I readily admit that millions of Americans find great value, help, and hope through believing in the existence of God. The same could be said of most of the world’s religions. However, this in no way proves the existence of God. Surely, Bruce, you don’t believe millions upon millions of people act benevolently out of belief in a lie? Yes, I do. History is replete with examples of humans being motivated to do good (and bad) things because of their commitments to religious, political, and secular ideologies. The Mormon Church, for example, is considered by most Evangelicals to be a cult. Yet, fifteen million Mormons worship a God that Evangelicals say is a fiction. Evangelicals say the same the about all other Gods but theirs. This means that non-Evangelicals who act benevolently in times of need and crisis are doing so out devotion to false Gods.
Stedman spends a few moments taking a cheap shot at atheists. Stedman writes:
Think about it: if atheistic materialism is true, don’t you think we would have become used to death in 3+ billion years of life on planet Earth? Wouldn’t we have settled the case that human deaths are par for the course and shouldn’t trouble us more than the death of a plant or pet?
Stedman is evidently ignorant of the fact that thinking, reasoning homo sapiens have been around for less than 500,000 years. As far as getting used to death, while most atheists may be quite stoic and matter-of-fact about the natural process called death, we certainly haven’t gotten used to it, and neither have Christians. No one likes facing the prospect of death, of losing people they dearly love. Christians try to placate their feelings by believing in the afterlife and heaven — a time and place when God’s faithful will be rewarded with an eternity of prostrating themselves in worship before God. Christians deal with death by resting on the promise of Heaven. Jesus — putting his carpenter skills to use while waiting for his Father to tell him it is time for the rapture — is busy building rooms in the Trump Tower of Heaven® for every person who has the right beliefs. While death causes sadness for Evangelicals, they know — or so they think, anyway — that in the not too distant future their room will be ready and they will be reunited with Christian loved ones who have gone on to Heaven before them. (This thinking, by the way, is a gross distortion of orthodox/historic Christian theology concerning death and resurrection.) Death, then, becomes somethings that must be endured, with a divine payoff awaiting beyond the veil.
Atheists, of course, do not believe such nonsense. Ever the realists, atheists know, based on the evidence at hand, that humans only get one stab at this thing called life. There is no afterlife, no second chances, no heaven or hell. When death comes knocking at our doors, that is the end for us. All that matters, then, is this present life. Unlike many Christians who devalue the present in hope of finding great reward beyond the grave, atheists embrace life with gusto, knowing that dead people — Jesus included — don’t come back to live. Every homo sapien who has ever walked upon the face of planet of earth has died, or will die in the future. Cemeteries are poignant reminders of the permanence of death. Living in denial of these facts doesn’t change them. Death will, one day, likely sooner than later, come calling for each and every one of us. Knowing this, how then should we live? If we care about our parents, grandparents, children, grandchildren, extended family, friends, and neighbors, how should we respond when the Hurricane Harveys of life come our/their way causing heartache and destruction? Why, we act and do what we can help others. Why? Because we love them and desire a better life for those who are important to us. We can extend this farther to people we don’t know. Surely, atheists and Christians alike want to see suffering alleviated and wrecked neighborhoods returned to wholeness. Must we believe in God to care?
Stedman admits that it “appears” that God is nowhere to be found as we survey the havoc wreaked on Texas by Hurricane Harvey. However, according to Stedman, appearances can be deceiving:
God is not absent but is very, very subtle. He hides himself in plain sight, but can be found when we learn how to decipher the clues that point toward his presence. And the clues are abundant right now in Houston.
In other words, God is playing a game of hide and seek. We can’t find him, but, Stedman assures us, God is here, there, and everywhere. Stedman sounds like man who is tripping on LSD. He is seeing pink elephants where there are none. Stedman needs to see God lest his absence invalidates his theological beliefs and renders moot his assertion that God is alive and present in our day-to-day lives.
As an atheist, I believe in giving credit to whom credit is due. When God shows up and does the work, I will gladly give him the credit. Until then, I plan to continue to praising and thanking my fellow human beings for the good they do. They alone deserve my praise and thanks.
The next time Stedman talks with his God, perhaps he can ask him WHY he sent Hurricane Harvey to start with? Explain to inquiring minds, Pastor, why your God caused so much suffering, devastation, and death. Did he do what he did so Christians would look good or have something to do besides watching football? If the Christian God is the compassionate, caring deity Stedman says he is, why doesn’t the Big Man Upstairs make sure the weather everywhere is as sunny and delightful as San Diego? From my seat in the atheist pew, it is hard for me to see a loving, caring, compassionate God at work in his creation. If I were God, I certainly wouldn’t have sent a Hurricane Harvey to Texas just so I could give them a test. In my mind, those who could alleviate suffering and don’t are the worst of people (and gods). The good news is that most Christians are far better people than their God. And hand in hand with atheists, agnostics, and people who worship other deities, Christians can help to make the world better for all who will come after us.
