The sinner sees little cause for alarm and fails to apprehend his imperative need of promptly accepting Christ as his Saviour. He imagines himself secure. He goes on in his sin, and because judgment against an evil work is not executed speedily he increases in his boldness against God. But God’s ways are different to ours. There is no need for God to be in a hurry – all eternity is at His disposal. He is in no haste to execute judgment because He knows the sinner, cannot escape Him. It is impossible to flee out of His dominions! In due time every transgression and disobedience shall receive “a just recompense of reward.
Arguing that an invisible god works inexplicable magic producing undetectable effects is the theological equivalent of a desperate child saying that the Tooth Fairy ate her homework. No parent or teacher or scientist can prove she didn’t. That said, it’s important to remember that humanity’s interest in prayer stems from a desire to get what we need and want. Actions of supernatural beings that have no discernable impact on actual lives are, from a human standpoint, simply irrelevant. Prayer persists because people believe that prayer affects this physical world and their own lives.
In the mind of atheist neuroscientist Sam Harris, prayer apologists had cut themselves too much slack long before they began arguing that prayer is uniquely exempt from the scientific method. He says that even before the double blind randomized trials we had a mountain of evidence that prayer requests don’t work, and Christians have tacitly adapted to what they know but won’t admit: “Get a billion Christians to pray for a single amputee. Get them to pray that God regrow that missing limb. This happens to salamanders every day, presumably without prayer; this is within the capacity of God. I find it interesting that people of faith only tend to pray for conditions that are self-limiting.”
A God Should Do Better; So Should We
God the Almighty shouldn’t operate at the margins of statistical significance. He shouldn’t be most evident when the evidence itself is of the poorest quality, fading into invisibility as the light of scientific rigor becomes brighter. He shouldn’t need defenders who are willing to tie their reputations to expensive research that they then dismiss as irrelevant when results are disappointing. God shouldn’t need defenders who engage in rabbit hole reasoning, who insist that he moves in our world and in our lives, but only as long as we aren’t looking; or who insist that despite all evidence to the contrary bad is actually good because it must be good, because by definition God is good and he’s in charge.
Since the year 2000, the U.S. government has spent over $2 million on prayer studies without producing any result that is remotely congruent with the bold claims made by the authors of the New Testament. And yet those bold claims are a reasonable set of assertions to make about an all-powerful and all-loving, interventionist deity.
Our ancestors put forward their best set of hypotheses about how the world works, who is in charge, and how we can get what we need. They did so without the benefits of enlightenment philosophy or the methods and discoveries of science, without the global flow of information and the freedom to debate ideas. They had no way of knowing that their hypotheses would fail when examined in the light of modern knowledge and analytic capacity. But at least they knew not to simply accept and repeat whatever their ancestors had said 2,000 years earlier. Maybe we could try living up to that bar.
— Valerie Tarico, Alternet, What the Bible Says about Prayer Versus Reality, November 21, 2016
Having a bit of extra time on my hands as I impatiently wait for Thanksgiving Day (family, food, and football) to arrive, I decided to comment on a recent blog post written by my friend Gary. You can read his post and my comments here. Into the discussion came a Fundamentalist Lutheran by the name of Jim Pierce. Pierce is a member of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS). He swears he and his sect are most definitely NOT Fundamentalist. If you have some time, please read his comments on Gary’s blog. I’ll leave it to you to decide if Pierce is a Fundamentalist. For the purpose of this post, I want to share several of Jim’s comments that were directed my way. His comments are a fresh reminder that even if Evangelical Christianity’s narrative is true, I still wouldn’t become a Christian if it meant I had to go to church and heaven with the Jim Pierces of the world. No thanks. Give me hell every time. In fact, heaven for me would be the absence of such people. Dear Lord Jesus, PLEASE rapture your chosen ones ASAP.
This is the time of year when Evangelicals spend significant amounts of time fawning and prostrating themselves before their God, thanking him for all that is good in their life. They go to great lengths to make themselves feel insignificant — little more than worms. I am nothing, you are everything, weeping Evangelicals say to their God. It’s all about you Jesus! For Evangelicals, life is all about God. He alone is worthy of praise, honor, and glory. Every bit of good that comes their way is due to Jesus. After all, the Bible says that without God Evangelicals can do nothing. The Bible also says that God gives Evangelicals the very breath they breathe and the ability to walk. Simply put, God is EVERYTHING!
The sum of Evangelical existence is to worship, praise, adore, and serve God. If they do so, their God promises to give them an eternal home in the sweet by and by after death. And what will they do in heaven for ten billion years? Why, they will worship, praise, adore, and serve their God. In other words, a narcissistic deity demands absolute fealty if Evangelicals hope to escape eternal torture in the flames of the Lake of Fire. Worship me or burn seems to be what the Evangelical God is saying. Is it any wonder that the majority of the human race rejects this God, and that the fastest growing American religious demographic is that of those who are atheists, agnostics, secularists, and those who are indifferent to organized religion. Who would want to serve a God who demands his servants give every waking moment to him. I know I don’t.
No one will argue the fact that Christians in general and Evangelicals in particular do many good things. The problem is that they are not allowed to accept praise from their fellow humans. How often have you thanked an Evangelical for doing good, only to have them say to you, give all the praise to Jesus! He is the only reason I can do anything good. Those of us raised in Evangelicalism know the drill. Someone says something nice to you, perhaps thanking you for helping them or giving something to them. Godly humility requires you to bow your head downward, staring at the floor while you tell them that it is Jesus they ought to be thanking, for he alone is the one doing good works through them. Is it any wonder that many Evangelicals have low self-esteem? How could it be otherwise. It should surprise no one that spending a lifetime being told that your life is nothing without Jesus and that — in and of yourself, you have no power to do good things — leads to Evangelicals thinking poorly of themselves. Sunday after Sunday, their pastors remind them that they should make much of Jesus, that life is all about him; that history is HIS-story. Remember the J-O-Y acronym? Jesus first, others second, yourself last. In many churches, the acronym goes something like this: Jesus first, others second, and you don’t matter.
Rarely do Evangelicals ponder the question of whether their thankfulness is misplaced. The Bible explicitly teaches that all praise and honor belong to God. As with many things the Bible says, Evangelicals accept this claim without further investigation. Why should anyone give praise and honor to the Evangelical God? What has he done for me, for you, for anyone? The fact is, if Evangelicals are willing to carefully examine their lives they will find out that their God hasn’t done jack-shit for them.
Several years ago, I decided to carefully examine all the prayers that I said God answered for me when I was an Evangelical pastor. I found that almost every answered prayer could be attributed to human intervention. I was left with a handful of “answered” prayers for which I could find no human connection. Now, this does not mean that God answered these prayers, it just means that I was unable to find who was behind answering my petition. I can think of several instances where I received money anonymously in the mail. Does this mean that God pulled some greenbacks out of his wallet, put them in an envelope, affixed a stamp, and mailed it to my home address? Of course not. A kind human did this, not God.
Look at all the hurt and heartache in the world today. Countless prayers are uttered to God by people starving, homeless, sick, or dying. Their prayers, for the most part, go unanswered. Sometimes their prayers are answered, not by God, but by kind, compassionate human beings. As our planet heaves and groans under the weight of an increasing population, global climate change, war, disease, and political unrest, where is God? Evangelicals are taught to never asked this question. God is on duty 24/7, Evangelical pastors tell congregants. He will never leave you nor forsake you. Yet, by any rational, reasonable estimation, God has indeed done just that. David said in Psalm 37:25: I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread. Is this statement true? Of course not. Everywhere one looks, they see Evangelicals and unbelievers alike forsaken and begging for food. Should we not in Waldo-like fashion ask, where is God?
I am a firm believer in giving credit to whom credit is due. I don’t give credit to a deity because I see no evidence for a God of any sort being involved in our day-to-day lives. On Thursday most of us will celebrate Thanksgiving. Duty-bound Evangelicals will spend time going around the table thanking God for all that he is done. And when everyone is done giving Jesus all the praise, honor, and glory, everyone will bow their heads in prayer as someone thanks God for the food. No one will bother to consider exactly what God did to provide the food they are about to eat. It will be assumed that God did everything.
On Thursday, we will open up our home to twenty-three people — our children, grandchildren, and their significant others. While some of them are religious, none of them is Evangelical. So when it comes time to say thanks, the grateful utterances will go to those who prepared and cooked our meal. Most of that praise will go to my wife Polly. Tomorrow, she and our daughters and daughters-in-law will spend the day making pies. Our daughter Laura will devote Wednesday evening to making dinner rolls. Several of our sons will do the only baking they know how to do — writing a check to help pay for the meal. Polly will get up early on Thursday and put the turkey, ham, and pork roast in the oven. She will have, the night before, brined the turkey, thus making it moist and tender. As our sons arrive, several of them will be asked to get out the folding tables and chairs and put them in the kitchen. One of them will lengthen the dining room table so as many people as possible can sit there. Older grandchildren will wonder if this will be the year they get to sit at the big table. Someone will place the burgundy tablecloth on the table, and then set it with Mamaw Shope’s china. Wineglasses will be removed from the hutch and placed near each plate, as will silverware and linen napkins. Polly will go to the bedroom closet and retrieve several candleholders and candles and place them on the table. She will then light the candles. Now it is time for the meat to be cut and put on serving plates. Polly will likely ask one of our sons to do this. While the meat is being cut, several bottles of wine will be uncorked and taken to the table. Once the meat is carved, the mashed potatoes, Brussels sprouts, corn, sweet potatoes, and rolls will be put in serving bowls and placed on the table. Salt and pepper shakers will be put on each end of the table, along with butter and gravy. And then, finally, the words everyone wants to hear will be said, time to eat!
From start to finish the work that went into Thanksgiving dinner was provided, not by an invisible deity, but by real flesh-and-blood human beings. If I am going to praise anyone for the wonderful meal I will eat on Thanksgiving day, it will be my wife and those who helped her cook the food and desserts. If I wanted to extend my thankfulness further, I would thank my wife’s employer for giving her a job and thank the undocumented workers for harvesting much of the food that we will consume. Everywhere I look, I see, not the hand or foot prints of God, but the hands of a woman who loves to cook and enjoys blessing her children and grandchildren with her culinary skills.
Evangelical readers of this post will likely remind me that none of this would’ve been possible without God. They make such a statement based on the presupposition that their version of God is the one who gives us all things. They assume, without evidence, that God is behind everything. As a nonbeliever, I make no such assumption. I believe what I can see with my own eyes, and what I will see on Thanksgiving Day is a wonderful family pulling together to make the day memorable. It is to them and them alone that I say thanks. And most of all, it is to Polly that I will say thanks. For without her we would all be eating Thanksgiving dinner at the Golden Corral.
New Creation Church in Hillsboro, Oregon thinks maintaining a certain image and look is vitally important. To further this end, church leadership established certain qualifications for worship team participants:
Dress Code
Our main goal is to look professional and our dress should always be modest, as we are not only representing Christ, but Pastor and New Creation Church.
Clothing must be clean, sharp and ironed. No clashing colors.
Appropriate shoes must be worn at all times. i.e. No sneakers, tennis shoes, flip flops or shoes with white soles.
We want the worship team to look the best they can! Remember that the way we look is of utmost importance. We are the first thing the congregation sees. People do judge by appearance. We never get a second chance to make that first impression. Please be sure that your style and clothing bring honor and glory to God, isn’t excessive and doesn’t draw unnecessary attention to yourself.
Dress is to be smart casual. This means nice pants or dressy jeans with blouses or sweaters, and/or jackets for women and nice collared dress shirts for men. Tennis Shoes, sneakers, flip flops, and shoes with white soles are not allowed.
Grooming and Hygiene
Hair must be washed, nicely groomed and kept neat and clean; no sloppy hairdos or excessively wild styles that draw undue attention.
No excessive piercings, or visible tattoos.
Ladies, put your make-up on before you get to church. If wearing a skirt, nylons are suggested. No tight shirts, low cut shirts or tummy’s showing. All skirts must be below the knee.
No excessive colognes or perfumes.
Bodies must be clean and use of effective deodorant is essential to positive interpersonal relationships.
Remember also that breath mints are available in the bookstore. Please use them! No gum during services.
No Excessive weight. Weight is something that many people have to deal with. Make sure that you are taking care of your temple, exercising and eating properly. [emphasis mine]
Remember that as a music minister people look up to you. Your life must exemplify one of excellence in all areas; spirit, soul and body.
Please read this carefully and examine yourself regularly as to your commitment in this area of service. If you do not meet the standards set forth in these guidelines, you will disqualify yourself as a part of the Worship Team.
After this document was exposed and publicized, the church quickly removed it from their website. You can still read it here. New Creation is pastored by Rod & Rebecca Sundholm.
The Oregonian picked up this story and called the church for a response. Here’s what The Oregonian had to say:
New Creation Church Pastor Rebecca Sundholm says that the guidelines had been on the website for a long time and she said she was “dumbfounded” by the controversy.
“What’s funny is this has nothing to do with anybody else but our church,” said Sundholm over the phone Thursday. “If anybody looked at our worship team, they would see they aren’t all skinny.”
“In fact,” she added, “the worship leader has weight issues.”
Sundholm said the worship leader wrote the guidelines years ago — the church is 28 years old — and that, “those guidelines aren’t even enforced anymore.”
Still, she said, “We have standards just like anybody would have standards in a business.”
“Don’t come to church with wet hair; if you wear make-up, put it on,” she said. “It’s not negative.
….
But Sundholm thinks that these commenters don’t really understand her church, since she assumes none of them have actually attended services.
“It’s ridiculous really,” she said. “It’s just so taken out of context.”
Fat-shaming is a common problem in certain corners of the Evangelical world. The larger churches become, the more they concern themselves with their image. Wanting to attract a successful, moneyed clientele, these Evangelical religious corporations go to great lengths to advertise that their businesses are where the hip and cool people hang out. Fat people who dare to attend such churches are often reminded that being overweight is a sin, a sign that you are given over to appetite and gluttony.
Let me say in closing, not all Evangelical churches have a problem with fat people. Fat-shaming tends to be a larger/mega-church problem. Small churches, already cannibalized by spiffy, entertainment oriented megachurches, are often filled with untouchables, including those who are look like contestant hopefuls for The Biggest Loser. Baptists tend to be quite okay with obesity. Gluttony is the only sin Baptists are allowed to commit.
Too bad I don’t live closer to New Creation. I might be inclined to put on biker shorts, black socks, and dress shoes — sans shirt — and picket the church’s Sunday services. Picture THAT for a moment, readers!
For generations now, the American church has been declining in both relevance and number as it sought to placate sinners rather than model holiness, call for repentance, and watch Jesus save them. The hold-hands-and-sing-kumbaya-with-culture way of doing church looked like it was modeled after the accommodate-and-yield way of doing politics (especially in the Republican Party). “Whatever we can do to keep you from getting mad” has been the mantra of both for decades.
….
Americans were drawn to Donald Trump because of his fearless tell it like it is attack on what’s plainly and clearly wrong with the nation. That same go-along-to-get-along mentality he railed against in government has clearly trickled into the churches and found a home. We have hope for a better tomorrow in this country because a few pastors and Christian leaders boldly stood up and said Trump’s vision for America was more in line with biblical values and our Founders intent than Clinton’s dream of open borders, taxpayer funded abortion, and gun control.
Something is going on in America and it’s not just about the president. Republicans are now in control of the White House, both houses of Congress, and a record number of state legislatures and governorships. Liberals in government have been telling the American people for too long to “sit down and shut up” while they tell us what we need to do and even think. At one point in her campaign Hillary Clinton even said, “deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed.” Mrs. Clinton wanted the government in charge of changing religious beliefs. People are obviously fed up with it. And the same goes for liberals and progressives in the church. People are sick of it.
Smart churches that are experiencing growth have found that people are actually hungry for plain talk from the pulpit. America’s parishioners are rejecting the progressive religious message just as they are rejecting the progressive political message. They are sick and tired of being told by programmed clergy that the Bible doesn’t mean what it clearly states.
This country, as demonstrated by the 2016 presidential election, is ripe for a message of repentance, renewal, and restoration! Someone has said that the electorate voted to make America great again and the Church should decide to make America a Christian nation again.
….
Now is the time to speak truth to power from the halls of Congress to the padded pews in the vaulted ceilings of our church sanctuaries. The Left will call it hate speech, bigotry, and a long list of words ending in ‘phobia.’ But it is crystal clear that people are ripe for straight talk on both politics and religion. We will always have a welcome and needed contingent of people calling the body of Christ to love, forgive, and accept God’s love. Thank goodness. But what we have lacked for a long time is the voice of the prophet thundering about God’s judgment on unrepented sin. Surprisingly, we find out that people actually want to know God doesn’t look the other way when we sin.
….
This may be our last chance. The political climate has actually paved the way for it. People are responding to plain talk. If our preachers will stop apologizing for what is in the Bible and start reminding people that God is both loving and holy, teaching about forgiveness and Heaven as well as God’s judgment and hell, we just might have a revival in the country. We might make America a Christian nation once again. I wonder if that might have been the real purpose in the miracle of the Trump victory?
— Ray Rooney, Jr., American Family Association, On the Cusp of National Revival?, November 18, 2016
This is the one hundred and thirty-sixth 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 George and Terri Pearsons talking about their church’s babies raising their hands in worship of Jesus. The Pearsons pastor Eagle Mountain International Church in Newark, Texas — a Kenneth Copeland Ministry. Terri is Kenneth and Gloria Copeland’s daughter.
Here’s a partial transcription of the video clip:
GEORGE PEARSONS: We’ve got an outpouring of spirit with the babies! We had babies lifting their hands in a service. They were over there, in the children’s area — the babies’ area — on Wednesday night, and they started praying, and they have our service on the screen. The kids were crying. The babies were crying. And when they started praying on the screen — I’m telling you the truth, I would not lie — these babies were lifting up their hands.
TERRI PEARSONS: All of them in the room!
GEORGE PEARSONS: All of them.
TERRI PEARSONS: And the workers noticed it!
GEORGE PEARSONS: In the room.
TERRI PEARSONS: It got quiet and their little hands went up. That has never happened before. It has to be God.
Transcription by The Friendly Atheist, Hemant Metha.
The prayers of the saints have been answered. Hallelujah! Political Correctness is done. Hallelujah! The evangelical vote is back! Hallelujah! Israel has a new friend. Hallelujah! The Swamp will be drained. Hallelujah! The justice that our government refused to deliver came from the people. Hallelujah! Abortion has a new enemy. Hallelujah! A leader will work for us and not our enemies. Hallelujah! The Supreme Court will be saved. Hallelujah!
The people have repudiated the Obama legacy. Hallelujah! Obamacare will be replaced. Hallelujah! America has been spared. Hallelujah! Instead of filth, there will be faith in the White House. Hallelujah! The House, the Senate, and the President will work together for hard working Americans. Hallelujah! Outreach ministries are safe from the IRS. Hallelujah! A corrupt mainstream media has been discredited and neutralized. Hallelujah!
….
Today, you are indeed, witnessing a singular miracle in American history. Donald Trump faced insanely impossible resistance. He was pronounced dead again and again. Today, he stands with humility, on the cusp of making America Great Again. Hallelujah!
Mario Murillo, Mario Murillo Ministries, Hallelujah!, November 9, 2016
Question: “Pastor John, did God cause, or would God cause, my wife to miscarry our child because I have a struggle with lust and pornography? I have a lot of guilt right now, and I don’t know how to think about God’s discipline and punishment for my sin. I’m very confused, please help.”
May that discipline come in the form of harm, even death, to others that we love, as well as ourselves? And the answer is yes, it may. This was certainly the case with David’s sin of adultery and murder with Bathsheba and her husband. Nathan the prophet said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin” (2 Samuel 12:13). And then the next thing, “Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord” — and surely that is what pornography is — “the child who is born to you shall die” (2 Samuel 12:14).
So, I would certainly say in my own life — now hear this carefully — I would certainly say in my own life the most painful and humbling disciplining from the Lord has regularly been though the pain and suffering and sometimes death of those I love, rather than through any blows against my own body. Oh, that we only suffered in our own body. This has been the way the deepest Christians have always thought about the losses through the death of those they love. Jonathan Edwards preached numerous sermons about the way the Lord disciplines a church by taking away a godly pastor in death. Edwards’s godly wife Sarah spoke about kissing the rod of God in the death of her 54-year-old husband — a rod of discipline that she felt more than anyone. She called it a rod of God on her back. And she kissed it.
Every loss that we endure as sinful children of God have two designs: one from Satan, one from God. Satan designs our unbelief and rebellion and renunciation and guilt and paralysis and loss of faith. God designs our purification and that we would hope less in this world and more in God who raises the dead.
I don’t know whether our friend who wrote this question lost his child in miscarriage as a direct discipline from God because of his pornography. I do not know. He does not know. I do know that in the loss of the child, God wills a new humility and a new submission and a new faith and new purity through the pain of this loss.
This is the one hundred and thirty-fifth 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 clip of a speech given by Vice President-elect Mike Pence.
Arguing that an invisible god works inexplicable magic producing undetectable effects is the theological equivalent of a desperate child saying that the Tooth Fairy ate her homework. No parent or teacher or scientist can prove she didn’t. That said, it’s important to remember that humanity’s interest in prayer stems from a desire to get what we need and want. Actions of supernatural beings that have no discernable impact on actual lives are, from a human standpoint, simply irrelevant. Prayer persists because people believe that prayer affects this physical world and their own lives.
