Menu Close

Tag: Christianity

This Week With Christians on Social Media

social media

Guest post by ObstacleChick

I didn’t even make it through a week before finding a lot of really good Jesus-ified quotes. My personal favorites are the pumpkin quote and the one in which the writer believes that Jesus/God prevented all sorts of awful atrocities before they happened. Let me know your favorites and your thoughts in the comments!

“Have you prayed about it as much as you’ve talked about it?”

OC: Can Christians stop talking about praying? Why can’t they just go pray in private? That’s what Jesus would do . . . he even said so.

Being a Christian is like being a pumpkin. God picks you from the patch and brings you in (John 15:16). Then washes all the dirt off of you. (2 Corinthians 5:17). He opens you up and scoops out all the yucky stuff. He removes the seeds of doubt, hate, and greed, etc. (Romans 6:6). Then he carves you a new smiling face (Psalm 71:23). And he puts his light inside you to shine for all the world to see (Matthew 5:16).”

OC: . . . And when Halloween is over, you sit on the front porch and rot until someone throws you in the garbage.

“You don’t have to please others. Just do what God wants you to do, because at the end of the day, it is only He who can satisfy your heart. Not the approval or applause of other people.”

OC: I kind of like it when other people applaud. . . and I haven’t heard God applaud. He’s pretty silent. Silent God.

“He who counts the stars and calls them by their names is in no danger of forgetting his own children.” – Charles Spurgeon

OC: Nah, he doesn’t forget him, he just lets awful things happen to them.

“Trust me, I know what I’m doing — God”

OC: God, you sure have a terrible way of showing it — hurricanes, cancer, children being abused, accidents that you could have prevented . . .

“When you pray be sure that you also listen. You have things you want to say to God. But He also has things He wants to say to you.”

OC: He needs to speak up — I never could hear him. Maybe he should have sent me an email.

“I believe the time is coming when we will not be able to take our Christianity as casually as we do now.” – A.W. Tozer

OC: I wish they’d all take it so casually that it would just go away. . .

“Have you ever stopped and wondered what God has done in your life that you aren’t even aware of? Maybe He healed you before you even knew you were sick. Perhaps He saved you from a fatal car crash that never happened. I have felt like God has protected me more times than I count, so I can only imagine how many times He has rescued me when I was unaware that I was even in danger. Take a moment to thank God for protecting you. He is always watching over you and He’s there for you even when you don’t realize it. What an awesome God we serve!”

OC: And your evidence that these sicknesses or illnesses that almost happened but didn’t happen because GOD intervened is what? That’s like me saying, oh, I almost won the lottery but then I didn’t because of the devil. Or sin. Or something.

“Simply believing in the existence of God is not exactly what I would call a commitment. After all, even the devil believes that God exists! Believing has to change the way we live.”

OC: Well, I’m an atheist and I don’t believe in the existence of either God or the devil. But just for the sake of argument – what is it about the existence of God that would provoke me to change the way I live? Fear of retribution? And you think that’s a good motivation?

“Dear God, please: 
Teach me.
Keep me.
Hold me.
Help me.
I want to be better than I was yesterday. 
Tomorrow is a new day! Repent and get closer to Jesus!”

OC: If I have a goal I want to achieve, I design or find a plan that lays out the steps I need to do in order to reach that goal. Reaching the goal is not always guaranteed, but the process of completing each step helps me to gain the skills or knowledge necessary to potentially reaching a goal. Never have I achieved a goal by sitting back, repenting to God/Jesus, and asking him/them to do all the work.

Happy Halloween!

halloween

Guest post by ObstacleChick

Halloween is one of those holidays that is tremendously fun for kids, but most of us are probably unaware of the origins of the holiday. The ancient Celts (inhabitants of the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Northern France) celebrated the festival Samhain on October 31 whereby people would light bonfires and wear costumes, typically animal skins and heads, to ward off ghosts. November 1 marked the new year for the Celts, conveying the end of harvest and the entrance into the cold, dark months of winter which were associated with death. The Celts believed that on October 31, the boundaries between the living and dead were blurred so that ghosts would come to earth and wreak havoc. While people tossed crops and animals into the bonfires as sacrifices to the Celtic gods, Druid priests would tell fortunes and make prophecies about the year to come. At the end of the night, people would relight their hearth fires from the bonfire in order to bring protection for the new year.

As the Romans expanded their empire into the Celtic territories, they brought two festivals with them which were incorporated into the Celtic Samhain. Feralia in late October was the Romans’ holiday to commemorate the dead. The second was a festival honoring Pomona, the goddess of fruits and trees (hence, the practice of bobbing for apples on Halloween). In 609, Pope Boniface IV created All Martyrs Day in May, and later Pope Gregory III moved the festival to November 1 and included all saints and all martyrs in the festival named All Saints Day. In 1000, the church made November 2 All Souls Day to honor the dead. All Souls Day was celebrated with costumes and bonfires similarly to Samhain, and All Saints Day was colloquially called All-Hallowmas with the night before (the traditional Samhain day) called All-Hallows-Eve (later shortened to Halloween).

The celebration of Halloween made its way to the colonies with the British and Irish immigrants. While the Puritans were rigid and prudish and did not allow much celebration of Halloween in New England, Halloween was celebrated in the Mid-Atlantic and the Southern colonies. As immigration from Ireland increased in the 19th century, further celebration of Halloween spread throughout the United States. From 1920, the celebration became a community event with special emphasis on fun for children. Today, there are parties for adults and for children, plus trick-or-treating, trunk-or-treat celebrations, and fun for kids at shopping malls. Many people of all ages enjoy dressing up in costume and having a good time together. In fact, my 16-year-old son recently said he misses the fun that he had as a kid on Halloween.

My brother is 12 years younger than I, born to parents who were almost 39 and 41 at his birth. My mom and step-dad worked full-time and had little interest in doing anything extra for their son outside of basic care. They would take him to the park sometimes on the weekends, but that was about it. He was expected to play on his own until he was old enough to play outside with neighborhood kids. We lived in a rural area where everyone owned a minimum of one acre of property, so houses were not very close together. Trick-or-treating consisted of parents driving their kids from one house to the next – the kids would hop out of the car, run up to the door for candy, then run back to the car to drive to the next house. I remember my mom taking me out to trick-or-treat a few times when I was a kid, but when our church started having a Halloween party for kids, she took me to that instead. During the 1970s and 1980s there were huge scares about razor blades and needles being put into candy, and hospitals would offer to x-ray the candy for safety. Everyone was warned to throw away homemade treats because they might be poisoned or filled with broken glass or razor blades. I remember one year my mom wanted me to throw away a wrapped Rice Krispies treat from elderly Mrs. Massey up the street – like Mrs. Massey was going to harm children with broken glass.

By the time my brother came along and wanted to trick-or-treat, my mom and stepdad had no interest in taking my brother trick-or-treating and they refused to do so. Not yet having a driver’s license, I dressed my brother up the best I could and walked the neighborhood with him so he could trick-or-treat. I’m not sure what he did when I went to college, but I suppose he went out with friends. At some point when I was in my 20s, my mom started saying that she thought that Halloween was a Satanic holiday and that Christians really should not celebrate a holiday that glorifies death, Satan and demons. Being in my 20s and no longer an Evangelical Christian, I told her she was crazy, which went over quite well (NOT!), but we disagreed about a lot of things such as homosexuality, abortion, and the role of religion in public discourse.

Now in his mid-30s, my brother has become increasingly religiously devout in the past couple of years. While he does not belong to a church (mainly because he can’t find one with which he agrees), he prays every day, teaches his sons his version of Christianity, and is part of a Skype/online men’s prayer group. Recently, he started frequently posting Bible verses along with quotes and articles from Christian ministers. He prefers content dealing with sin, the mightiness of God, and the consequences of sin. His politics are quite right-wing Trump-supporting, flavored with a hefty dose of fear of “Luciferism,” Communism, Atheists, Demons, Satanism, and Pro-Choice Feminist “Jezebels.” He posts articles from Charisma magazine, which is a far-right Christian fear-mongering site. Sometimes I’ll read an article he posts, laugh out loud, give a good eye-roll, then become sad that he believes these things.

A couple of weeks ago, he posted a Charisma Magazine article regarding Halloween. The author goes into great detail citing supporting verses about why Christians should not celebrate Halloween under any circumstances. Instead, they should proselytize their neighbors who come to their door to trick-or-treat. So neighborhood parents bring their little kids to this author’s house for candy and instead they get an earful about JESUS. Nice. Way to destroy the fun for the kids.

My husband who was raised nominally Catholic (meaning, his family went to church on Christmas and Easter), and who doesn’t know a lot about fundamentalist evangelical Christianity, read this article. He commented that the author cited verses to support her point of view, sometimes just snippets of a verse, each one taken completely out of context. He asked if it was customary for Christians to use verse references in that way. I explained that the practice is so common that it has a name — proof texting — which is why it is so easy for Christians to utilize verses or parts of verses to support just about any argument that they like or don’t like. He then stated that he felt bad for our nephews because they aren’t allowed to celebrate a fun children’s holiday because their dad thinks that Halloween is Satanic.

My brother posted the little meme above regarding verses in the Pentateuch that “prove” that God doesn’t like it when we dress up like witches, wizards, vampires, and ghosts. Personally, I thought that the vampire reference was a stretch as the verse refers to those who consume blood, and frankly, there are many cultures that do eat blood (blood pudding, black pudding, black sausage, blood tofu, blood soups, to name a few). Interestingly, there are over 600 rules for the Jews in the Pentateuch, yet Christians typically will say that Jesus came to fulfill the law and therefore we do not have to follow the laws. But when it is convenient Christians will call back certain laws from the Pentateuch that suit their purposes. I also find it amazing that Christians believe in ghosts, demons, and Satan as if they are REAL LIVE beings, but that is another topic entirely. Maybe I am able to celebrate Halloween without fear because I do not believe in the existence of supernatural beings.

Personally, I can picture young Jesus dressed up in a centurion’s costume trick-or-treating around Nazareth for dried dates with his pals. He probably would have told Evangelical Christians to lighten up and let the kids have a little fun. But that’s just me being a sacrilegious atheist. May you all have an enjoyable and safe Halloween!

Everybody But the Church Understands

rape is never the victims fault

Guest post by MJ Lisbeth

Not so long ago, rape was seen merely as a “sex crime.” I say “merely” because its “sexual” designation made it, at best, less worthy of attention or, worse, something the victim brought on herself. (Rape was also, for all intents and purposes, defined as something done to a woman by a man.) Thus, it could be seen as something that happened because a woman was out at the wrong time or wearing the wrong clothes — not a way in which one human being violated another.

But then a shift occurred. As someone who is not a criminologist or a scholar in any related field, I can’t tell you what caused the changed. What I know, however, is its result: policy makers and law enforcement officials are, increasingly, treating rape as a violent crime. While there are still police officers and departments, as well as public officials, who treat victims with condescension or even hostility, increasing numbers are doing what they can to give rape victims the same sort of attention and avenues of redress afforded people who have been mugged or suffered other random assaults — which, of course, is what they deserve.

Thankfully, I see a similar sort of change in the winds for people who have been sexually molested by priests or other authority figures, including employers, teachers and directors. One result is that more of us are coming forward, whether in the days or weeks after the incidents — or even decades later, as I finally did.

This is not to say, of course, that coming forward is easy or without repercussions: why do you think I’m writing under a nom de plume? But the fact that I, and others, have been able to speak up, in whatever ways and to whomever (I’ve told a few good friends as well as a therapist and social worker) shows that at least some people have a different, and more accurate, perception of sexual harassment, molestation, abuse and assault from the ones they had just a few years ago. And, of course, people who hadn’t been paying attention are now focused on the issue.

The change I see is this: people are starting to understand that when a priest takes advantage of an altar boy who doesn’t yet know the names of the parts of his body the priest is touching — or a director demands sex of an aspiring actress — or a coach or trainer forces him- or herself on an athlete whose life plans depend on staying on the team and keeping a scholarship — it’s no more a mere “sex crime” than the attack of a waitress on her way home from the lobster shift — a work shift that covers the late evening and early morning hours — or forced intimacy by a spouse, shift  partner or paramour. Instead, the abuses I’ve described are abuses of power imbalances — and, perhaps even more important, abuses of trust.

That last point cannot be overstated. People usually enter marriages trusting each other. Employees go to their jobs trusting that their supervisors or employers will treat them with personal and professional respect. And, every day, parents entrust their kids with — and teach their kids to trust — teachers and coaches.

And priests. In communities like the one in which I grew up, priests were trusted more than anybody else. That is one reason why abuse and molestation from them is so traumatic and alienating: The faith parents and other adults have, and teach their children to have, in their priests—whom they see as representatives of God — makes it difficult, if not impossible, for kids to speak up, even if they have the language to do so.

That implicit, unquestioned trust in priests makes abuse from them all the more egregious: violating that trust is worse than almost anything else that can be done to a vulnerable child — or, for that matter, to adults who lack the confidence to speak with other kinds of professionals. Very often, people like the ones with whom I grew up could confide in almost no one else, and they and their kids don’t have much else in their lives besides work, school, family and the church.

People are outraged over sexual abuse from priests, as well as other authority figures, because they’ve come to understand what I’ve described. My closest friend, the widow of a blue-collar worker, “gets it.” So does another friend who grew up without religion and says she never experienced abuse from anybody. So does a male friend who has practically no formal education.

Lots of other people get it, too. Sometimes it seems everybody does — except for Church officials. Rather than seeing sexual abuse by priests as an exploitation of trust and power, the church blames other things. Like the Sexual Revolution — never mind that victims have been reporting abuse they incurred decades before the SR supposedly corrupted us. Or homosexuality — forgetting that nearly all men (including priests) who sexually molest boys never have any sort of sexual experience with adult men, or any desire for it.

That last fact about the proclivities of pedophiles is something that I knew even before I had the language for it — or for my own body or desires, for that matter. I suspect most people these days understand as much, even if they’ve never read the research that corroborates it.

I understand. They understand. Everyone, it seems, understands — except for church officials — that priests preying on vulnerable young people is, more than anything, an abuse of trust. Perhaps it’s just not in their interest to understand. In the meantime, if not the sexual revolution or gays, they’ll find something or someone else — including the victims themselves — to blame.

This Week With Christians on Social Media

social media

Guest post by ObstacleChick

Here are some fun religious quotes I found this week from my acquaintances on social media.

“When it’s not in God’s time, you can’t force it. When it is God’s time, you can’t stop it.”

OC: I recall that the Bible says that with God, a day is as 1,000 years and 1,000 years is as a day. I’m supposed to hang around for 1,000 years to see which it is? Wouldn’t it make sense if I took some action on my own?

“We must stop compromising the word of God to appease men, and begin guarding what was entrusted to us. Which is the absolute and infallible truth of God. – Adam Cappa”

OC: Because it’s just SOOOOOOO clear in the Bible what is the infallible truth of God.

“Be patient, everything is coming together – God”

OC: Another exhortation for me to hang around for a day or 1,000 years or whatever . . .

“Dear Jesus, help me to surrender my anxiety today, to quiet my mind and stop striving, so that I may see that You are God. Thank You!”

OC: Because seeing God is way better than seeing a therapist and taking Prozac.

“Trust Jesus when everybody seems to be getting a miracle but you. When you feel forsaken and yet remain faithful, you are the miracle. — Beth Moore, The Quest”

OC: Yet another exhortation to do more Jesusing for a day or 1,000 years instead of actually making a plan and taking action.

“If you want God to close and open the doors, let go of the door knob. — TobyMac”

OC: I’m seeing a trend among these quotes . . . sit back and don’t do jack.

“He turns coal into diamonds, sand into pearls, worms into butterflies. He can turn your life around too. — TobyMac”

OC: Translation: we humans are lesser, yuckier things that need Jesus to make us into something better.

“One day there will be no going back to life as usual. One day there will be no more night and no more dying of any kind. The sea and the grave, death and Hades will have given up their dead and the righteous Judge will have assigned final destinies (Rev. 20:11-15). When that eternal day comes I suspect we who were saved from our sins by the blood of Christ will ponder this life and wonder how we ever really called it ‘being alive.’ — Beth Moore, The Quest”

OC: What she really wants to say is that all the SAVED will be partying it up in heaven and saying na-na-na-na-boo-boo to all the unsaved who are suffering eternal torture in HELL for not believing the correct doctrines.

“There is power in the name of Jesus to break every chain that binds you!”

OC: Or you could just hit the weight room a little more often. . .

“Stop listening to every dysfunctional thought and tell your mind to align with the word of God.”

OC: Because there isn’t anything dysfunctional in the Bible, the Word of God, no-sir-ee Bob!

Songs of Sacrilege: Terrible Lie by Nine Inch Nails

nine inch nails

This is the one hundred ninety-first installment in the Songs of Sacrilege series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a song that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please send me an email.

Today’s Song of Sacrilege is Terrible Lie by Nine Inch Nails.

Video Link

Lyrics

[Verse 1]
(Hey God)
Why are you doing this to me?
Am I not living up to what I’m supposed to be?
Why am I seething with this animosity?
(Hey God)
I think you owe me a great big apology

[Chorus]:
Terrible lie
Terrible lie
Terrible lie
Terrible lie

[Verse 2]
(Hey God)
I really don’t know what you mean
Seems like salvation comes only in our dreams
I feel my hatred grow all the more extreme
(Hey God)
Can this world really be as sad as it seems?

[Chorus]
Terrible lie
Terrible lie
Terrible lie
Terrible lie

[Post-Chorus]:
Don’t take it away from me
I need you to hold on to
Don’t take it away from me
I need you to hold on to
Don’t take it away from me
I need you to hold on to
Don’t take it away from me
I need someone to hold on to
Don’t tear it away from me
I need you to hold on to
Don’t tear it away from me
I need someone to hold on to
Don’t tear it away from me
I need you to hold on to
Don’t tear it, don’t tear it
Don’t take it, don’t take it, don’t

[Verse 3]:
(Hey God)
There’s nothing left for me to hide
I lost my ignorance, security, and pride
I’m all alone in a world you must despise
(Hey God)
I believed your promises, your promises and lies

[Chorus]
Terrible lie
Terrible lie
Terrible lie
Terrible lie

[Bridge]:
You made me throw it all away
My morals left to decay
How many you betray
You’ve taken everything
My head is filled with disease
My skin is begging you please
I’m on my hands and knees
I want so much to believe

[Background whispers]:
I give you everything
My sweet everything (5x)

[Outro]:
I need someone to hold on to
I need someone to hold on to
I need someone to hold on to
I need someone to hold on to
I need someone I need someone
I need someone to hold on to
I need someone I need someone
I need someone to hold on to
I need someone I need someone
I need someone to hold on to
I need someone to

Songs of Sacrilege: Weak Fantasy by Nightwish

nightwish

This is the one hundred ninetieth installment in the Songs of Sacrilege series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a song that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please send me an email.

Today’s Song of Sacrilege is Weak Fantasy by Nightwish.

Video Link

Lyrics

These stories given to us all

Are filled with sacrifice and robes of lust

Dissonant choirs and downcast eyes

Selfhood of a condescending ape

Behold the crown of a heavenly spy

Forged in blood of those who defy

Kiss the ring, praise and sing

He loves you dwelling in fear and sin

Fear is a choice you embrace

Your only truth

Tribal poetry

Witchcraft filling your void

Lust for fantasy

Male necrocracy

Every child worthy of a better tale

Pick your author from à la carte fantasy

Filled with suffering and slavery

You live only for the days to come

Shoveling trash of the upper caste

Smiling mouth in a rotting head

Sucking dry the teat of the scared

A storytelling breed we are

A starving crew with show-off toys

Fear is a choice you embrace

From words into war of the worlds

This one we forsake with scorn

From lies the strength of our love

Mother’s milk laced with poison for this newborn

Wake up child, I have a story to tell

Once upon a time

Seeing the Christian God Where None Exists

god of the gaps

If there is a Christian apologetics argument that irritates the heaven out of me, it is the God of the gaps argument. Can’t explain something? God. Have something happen in your life for which there seems to be no rational explanation? God. Any place you have unanswered questions, you will find Evangelicals suggesting “God did it.”

Several years ago, two Patrick Henry High School students, ages fourteen and seventeen, were killed in a tragic automobile accident. The Defiance Crescent-News reported at the time:

Two Henry County brothers were killed Wednesday morning when their vehicle became submerged in a Wood County creek just west of here.

Killed were Xavier Wensink, 17, and his passenger, Aidan Wensink, 14, both of Deshler. They were students at Patrick Henry Local Schools.

According to the Wood County Sheriff’s Office, at 11:20 a.m., a call was received concerning a vehicle completely submerged upside down in a creek on Sand Ridge Road, just west of Custar Road. Dispatched to the scene were deputies from the Wood County Sheriff’s Office and Weston Fire/EMS.

Grand Rapids Fire Department was dispatched to assist, as well as the Toledo Fire Department’s dive team. Rescue personnel discovered that the vehicle, a 2000 Chevrolet Monte Carlo, was occupied by the two teenagers.

I wept when I read of their deaths. So young, so much of life ahead of them, but in an instant the bright lights of their lives were snuffed out. Their deaths, of course, left their families and classmates struggling to make sense of it all. God’s name was thrown around. Everyone was reminded of the “fact” that God is in control, and he allows (or causes) tragedies to teach us to snuggle up close to him and trust that he is working out everything according to his purpose and plan. How about, don’t kill the fucking kids, God! That seems to be the right thing to do. You are the sovereign of the universe. Flex your pinky finger and stop the accident from happening. Nothing is too hard for God, right?

The oldest boy, who would have graduated in 2019, played varsity football. His jersey number was 28. Remember that number. It plays an essential part in the story that follows. Patrick Henry lost its first few games, and then one Friday night they scored 28 points and won the contest. They have in subsequent weeks won three more games, scoring 28 points each time. It’s a miracle, right?

The Defiance Crescent-News had a feature write-up about the 28 “miracle.” Here’s some of what the reporter had to say (behind a paywall):

Since Inselmann took over at his alma mater in 1991, the Patriots had given their frontman victories with 28 points on the scoreboard eight times going into this season. Never before in Inselmann’s tenure had PH won more than one game in a season with 28 tallies in a game, with the triumphs coming in: ‘91, ‘98, ‘00, ‘03, ‘05, ‘09, ‘13 and ‘14.

Fast-forward to the present day, where a glimpse at this season’s results shows four of the Patriots’ five triumphs coming with the squad lighting up 28 points on the scoreboards. Beginning with the Delta victory, that stat includes three in a row over the Panthers, Archbold and Swanton, with a huge 28-13 triumph over Bryan last week keeping PH undefeated in the league.

The significance?

Xavier Wensink’s jersey number is 28. The meaning?

“I really do believe that our team believes that Xavier is with us, and he is watching,” Inselmann insisted. “I don’t call that coincidence. I just think that the good Lord’s watching over us with Xavier, and the kids believe it.

How the season ends is anybody’s guess at the moment, as PH still has to contend with NWOAL rival Wauseon (3-5, 3-2 NWOAL) before hosting what should be an epic season-ending showdown with Henry County hammer Liberty Center (8-0, 5-0 NWOAL, No. 4 D-V).

But regardless of how it all shakes out, the 2018 Patrick Henry Patriots will forever be remembered as the team that didn’t quit, bringing together a school, program and community that, more than anything, needed something to believe in.

“As long as we keep getting better every week, believing in each other, becoming closer and closer as a team, only God knows where we’re gonna go,” concluded Healy.

As you can see, “God” features prominently in this “miracle.” Look, I get it. People want to make sense of a senseless accident. In the midst of their grief, there appears a statistical oddity. This must be “God” sending everyone a message that number 28 is tearing up the turf on the heavenly football field. Or this is a sign that the dead boy is alive and well in Heaven, watching over his teammates.

I find it hard to criticize such nonsense. I certainly don’t want to cause anyone more heartache, but high school coaches, teachers, and news reporters owe it to the community at large to tell the truth. Suggesting that God is so tuned in to what is happening on earth that he takes time to “fix” the scores of football games is absurd. I wonder if the players on the losing teams had some sort of tragedy or loss in their lives too? Why, then, did God choose to give the W to Patrick Henry, but not them? Such arguments cheapen faith.

But, Bruce, four games with winning 28-point scores! What do you make of that? It’s a coincidence. Life is filled with such oddities. When they happen, we should say, hmm, that’s interesting. What we shouldn’t do is attribute them to the Christian God. Just because something strange and out of the ordinary happens doesn’t mean God did it.

Patrick Henry’s football season will soon come to a close. The school will move on to its winter sports, but left behind will be family and friends who are still grieving their loss. Perhaps, in the still of night, they will sense God’s presence. If that’s what gets them through the night, fine by me. I suspect, however, that more than a few people will, as they toss to and fro on their beds, say, WHY? And to this question, Christians offer up religious platitudes and appeals to faith. However, from my seat in the atheist pew, it seems to me that God’s silence is deafening. Perhaps the reason this is so is that there is no God, and we humans are left to ourselves to figure out the reasons young lives are ended all too soon.

Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Christians Outraged Over Hilarious Australian Organ Donation Ad Featuring Jesus

jesus organ donation

Christians are upset over a recent Australian ad featuring the man, the myth the legend Jesus Christ giving a thumbs up to organ donation.

Video Link

Producer Richard Todd had this to say about why he used Jesus in the ad:

Look, I think you have to look at the intent. I was also brought up in a Christian family. The whole intent of this is to really look at what Jesus would do if he was alive in 2018. And seeing that religion is all about being selfless, you know this is the most selfless act anyone could do.

Director Richard Bullock explained:

I wanted to deliberately provoke a conversation in homes around the subject. I thought it would be amusing and relevant to find that the nicest and kindest man who ever lived – Jesus, wasn’t aware that his organ donor status was no longer on his license. Once I started writing I realised that the complexity of the Australian Organ donation could be explained. In the end Jesus donating his organs is exactly what I think Jesus WOULD do.

Christians took to comment sections to express their outrage (all spelling in the original):

I’m not impressed tax-payer dollars were spent on an advert which belittles the excruciating torture and gruesome sacrifice of my Lord Jesus Christ. Why is this mockery politically correct according to your views? It would be politically incorrect if you were making fun of people based on their gender, sexuality or race but Christianity is fair game, right?

To be so casual about Jesus’ crucifixion is taking humour denigrating Christ to a new low. If your aim was to divide opinion over the level of respect Jesus Christ and Christians should be given, you have suceeded. What you have not suceeded in is making organ donation the attractive talking point you had hoped for. I for one, will not give you the controversy you are hungry for. I will not be sharing this video with anyone, but I WILL be making a complaint.

If the intention was to increase awareness of organ donation and provide education on how to register, then it sadly barely achieves that goal. If the intention was to be disrespectful and blasphemous towards Christians and their God – then you nailed it. It is offensive to me as a Christian and I am not sure how the suggestions to denigrate other religions as well is helpful

How dare you mock my Lord Jesus! If this were mocking my race, colour, gender or sexual preference you would be breaking the law, and you think this is ok. Go ahead, keep mocking Christianity, you will surely reap what you are sowing. I am an organ donor, but today without fail I will cease to be until this add is pulled and a public apology given! I ask all my Christian brothers and sisters to do the same! Now when you notice all the Christian donors you are losing, maybe you will see the error of your ways! Just because Christians are taught to forgive, doesn’t mean we should be fair game.

More cowardly degeneracy from the left. Why don’t they mock the world’s other major religion? Oh yea because they are cowards.

THIS AD IS SO BLASPHEMOUS. JUST DISGUSTING AND SHAMEFUL. I DEFINITELY WILL NOT CONSIDER DONATING MY ORGANS DUE TO THIS EVIL AD. I’D LIKE TO SEE WHAT TROUBLE THEY WOULD GET INTO DOING AN AD WITH MAHOMMED, KRISHNA OR BUDDHA IN IT. THE CREATORS WOULD BE PUT IN JAIL OR BLOWN UP. YAHWEH (GOD) WILL POUR HIS WRATH ON THE CREATORS OF THIS ADD.

Jesus is my King and this is disgusting. Thank god he’ll be here soon to sought you lot out.

Mohammed probably would have been more appropriate he actually stayed dead. Gee I guess he was out of the question for some strange reason. Just another clown making fun of Jesus knowing he will only get forgiveness from Christians and not his head smacked in. Lucky Jesus taught forgiveness to his followers so the clowns can get away with this while they are still alive. This is just another nutjob all bent out of shape, triggered over Christianity at the end of the day , nothing more.

You would not dare to mock the Muslim faith in this way or the Aborigines Dreamtime in this way so what makes you think its okay to keep knocking the Christian faith. If you don’t have the creativity to make advertisements without hurting and offending people maybe you are in the wrong profession! This ad makes me want to remove myself from the organ donar list! Where are the regulators and why is this ad still up? Christians are peaceful, respectful, contributors to society, we deserve the same respect that is given to everyone else. It is deplorable that in a Christian country like Australia, the foundation stone of our faith can be so mocked and disrespected.

Dirty atheist dogs, I would love to meet the maker of this disrespectful clip. This is bigger than just disrespecting someone or someones family, this is our dear god the god of the world, Don’t think for a minute 1.3 billion Catholics are going to let this go. In any type of battle you want we will take it all the way, our history speaks for itself , when someone disrespects or makes misinformed lies about the Lord of lords our god Jesus Christ without any evidence to back up their message, they will pay for it. This is larger than life , if you want to make a criticizing attack on a religion and you can back it up with church teaching, religious text , etc , then you are entitled to do so , but this is gross misrepresentation of Jesus . We will not stand by idle and wait.

Disgusting !! The Lord God has long reaching arms and eventually catches up with everyone. I would not donate my organs in fear that people that promote this rubbish end up with them. I will change my consent in the morning to NO. I will not be donating.

His Hunger for the Church

st peters

Guest post by MJ Lisbeth

More years ago than I care to admit, I read Richard Rodriguez’s Hunger of Memory. Not long afterward, I went through a period when I hated the book because people (or, more precisely, people whose opinions I detested) embraced it. I was young enough, chronologically and emotionally, to get away with things like that.

I’ll confess that, today, at least one of his notions resonates with me, an unrepentant liberal. He exposed the contradictions of Affirmative Action, at least as it was practiced in the late 1970s and early 1980s — and, to a large extent, as it’s still practiced today. He described the ways in which he benefited because, as he says, of his surname. But by the dint of having earned a bachelor’s degree from Stanford and continued his studies at Columbia and Berkeley, he had more in common with his fellow scholars — most of whom were white and at least upper middle-class — than with the poor Mexican-Americans among whom he grew up.

He thus became the darling of William F. Buckley and characters even more odious because there’s nothing they love more than someone who shares their attitudes and whose skin is darker than theirs. It allows them to say, “See, I told you so!” But another part of Rodriguez’s biography has endeared him to me at least as much. And it resonated with me at least as much.

That part of his story is his, and his family’s, relationship with the Roman Catholic faith in which he was raised. At the time the book was published, he still considered himself a member of the church, although, as he says, the modern adaptations of it — prayers in English instead of Latin and folksy guitar music instead of Bach compositions — were at least somewhat alien to him.

Still, he said, he continued his affiliation with the church — in the face of friends and colleagues who chided him for showing up late to Sunday brunch because he’d been to mass — because, in spite of all of its changes, it provided a “liturgy” (which I take as a churchy way of saying “narrative”) to his life. That, and what he feels the church gave his Mexican parents.

Of all the institutions in their lives, only the Catholic Church has seemed aware of the fact that my mother and father are thinkers — persons aware of the experience of their lives. Other institutions — the nation’s political parties, the industries of mass entertainment and communication, the companies that employed them—have all treated them with condescension. In ceremonies of public worship, they have been moved, assured that their lives, from waking to eating, from birth until death, all moments — possess great significance. (pp.90-91)

That, to me, sounds like another “Mother Teresa” argument: Whatever abuses she, or any other representative of the church, or the Church itself — committed on the poor, the sick, the weak — or others in any way vulnerable — is justified by the “good” they or the Church did. That the church itself has been so complicit in conscripting young men (like his father’s forebears) to conquer lands (like the ones in which his parents and he grew up), slaughter the natives of said lands, and to enslave captives brought to those lands — all the while providing said conscripts a standard of living not much better than the natives who were sent to slaughter — seems to have escaped the notice of a supposedly educated man like Rodriguez.

Even if, as he wrote, the Church was aware of people like his parents as thinkers — which I don’t doubt they were—he still gives the institution far too much credit. If you are starving, the person who gives you anything to eat, even if it’s stale or tainted, can seem like a savior or hero. Really, it’s no different from the appeal of any number of despots from Julius Caesar to Mao had for proles and peasants — or that drug dealers have for young people who see no way out of the ghetto or, more important, the moment in which they are living.

One can be forgiven for idolizing a person or institution that seemed to offer charity and solace to one’s poor parents and family. One can even be forgiven for venerating such a person or institution when he, she or it offered a place, however servile, within a world that isolates, rejects and alienates people who are poor, weak or foreign. But if such a person acquires an education, formally or otherwise, that person will see, in time, that the person or institution who took him or her “seriously” or “protected” him or her from bullies or other dangers — or simply provided a meal, room or job—may have had other purposes for such seeming acts of charity. Those acts may have been attempts to recruit the recipient for something, or simply to buy his or her silence.

The latter seems to have had an effect on Rodriguez. While he says he dislikes the “modern” church, he doesn’t dislike it enough to leave it — even after coming out as gay, as he did a decade after Hunger of Memory was published. That, as a gay man, he can still cling to a religion that so blatantly opposes non-heterosexual love — no matter that the Pope says, “Who am I to judge?”— is, at least to me, a mystery even beyond that of the faith itself.

It might just be that he’s been so rewarded within the community of the Church, and by secular as well as religious conservatives, for his apologetics. The conservatives have rewarded him with grants to write, speaking engagements and other things that have allowed him to sustain his life since he left his PhD studies — because he realized he was benefiting from his surname. As for the church — well, I guess it’s what’s made him the commodity he’s become: a gay Hispanic Catholic conservative. Where would he, his talents notwithstanding, be without it?

Perhaps he would have hunger — and his memory would be different.

Questions: Bruce, Did You Believe in the Existence of Alien Life Forms?

questions

I recently asked readers to submit questions to me they would like me to answer. If you would like to submit a question, please follow the instructions listed here.

ObstacleChick asked: When you were an Evangelical Christian, did you believe in the existence of alien life forms? That is, did you believe that there was potentially life on other planets? Did you believe that it was possible that God created other planets on which there were creatures made in his image? Or did you believe that “aliens” were demons? And did you believe the universe was large enough that there could be life on other planets but that the technology does not yet exist for us to detect them (or that they could detect us)?

My answer to this question will be short and sweet. As an Evangelical pastor, I had an anthropocentric view of the universe; that God created one inhabited planet: earth; that alien-populated planets were found only in science fiction. I believed humans were God’s “special” creation — much like the AIs in Westworld. God gave us dominion over everything.

As you can see, I had no place in my worldview for space aliens. I was a young-earth creationist who believed God created the world six twenty-four-hour days, six thousand years ago. When science conflicted with Genesis 1-3, I always sided with God’s inspired, inerrant, infallible Words. Sadly, I passed this ignorance on to three generations of congregants.

Today, I believe that it is likely that there are other inhabited solar systems/planets; that it is unlikely that we are alone in the universe. I have often pondered what would happen to Evangelicalism if aliens landed on Earth in Mars Attacks! fashion. I suspect that loss of faith would be widespread, but many Evangelical preachers, teachers, and professors would find some way to “explain” the appearance of alien life. Christianity, if it is anything, is an adaptable system of belief. One need only study church history to see how Christian beliefs, practices, and social prohibitions have evolved over the years. If I asked you in the 1960s whether Evangelical churches would one day use rock music in their worship, we both would have had a hearty laugh. Yet, today most Evangelical churches use music forms that were once considered sin.

Evangelicalism is going through tremendous upheaval, shedding millions of congregants. Some Evangelicals, desperate to hang on to tribal faith, now embrace beliefs — pro-LGBTQ, pro-same-sex marriage, pro-evolution, to name three — which were, not that many years ago, the provenance of liberal Christianity. I predict Evangelicalism is headed for schism, with progressives and Fundamentalists forming their own sects. As Southern Baptists are learning, give Fundamentalists an inch they will take a mile. Liberal Southern Baptists left years ago, with progressives believing they could get along with their Fundamentalist brethren. As they are finding out, Fundamentalists see them tools of Satan, compromisers of truth. Fundamentalists, for the most part, are young-earth creationists, whereas progressives tend to be theistic evolutionists (a bastardized version of biological evolution). As with the bloody war between factions over abortion, Fundamentalists have no interest in compromise or finding common ground. Fundamentalists, much like the German and Russian armies in WWII, have a scorched-earth approach to defeating their enemies. No matter what science, common sense, or reason tells us, Fundamentalists are resolved to stand firm upon their literal interpretations of the Bible. Even if aliens from Planet Zot transport them to a labor camp light-years away, Fundamentalists will still be saying, THE BIBLE SAYS!

About Bruce Gerencser

Bruce Gerencser, 61, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 40 years. He and his wife have six grown children and twelve grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist. For more information about Bruce, please read the About page.

Bruce is a local photography business owner, operating Defiance County Photo out of his home. If you live in Northwest Ohio and would like to hire Bruce, please email him.

Thank you for reading this post. Please share your thoughts in the comment section. If you are a first-time commenter, please read the commenting policy before wowing readers with your words. All first-time comments are moderated. If you would like to contact Bruce directly, please use the contact form to do so.

Donations are always appreciated. Donations on a monthly basis can be made through Patreon. One-time donations can be made through PayPal.