What Would Jesus Brew?

WWJB? It’s a legitimate question. Jesus drank with the best of them. He made choice wine from water at a wedding in Cana—and lots of it. About 150 gallons. In case you’re wondering, that’s about 800 bottles. And it was good stuff.

“You saved the best for last,” said the master of the banquet to the bridegroom. All proof that Jesus approved of earthly celebrations and drinking, despite the fact that some fundamentalists make the ludicrous claim that his wine wasn’t fermented. It was. The Greek word used is oinos, which means fermented drink derived from grapes. In fact, in the Torah, God told the Israelites to use a portion of their tithe to buy food, wine, and strong drink—whatever their appetites craved—for an annual party. Like the Cana wedding, it was a time of rejoicing, which the Psalmist echoed when he said “He makes wine that gladdens the heart of man [and woman].” The scriptures tell us the abundance of wine is a divine blessing.

Don’t get nervous, teetotalers. God does not approve of alcohol abuse. Paul told his hearers “don’t get drunk with wine” in the Greek continuous tense; meaning don’t be in the habit of overindulging. The implication is, it’s fine to tie one on with restraint once in a while, as the Israelites were encouraged to do once a year; just beware of the dangers of drunkenness, in other words, alcoholism. It will ruin your life. Today, unlike biblical times, it is complicated by the deadly combination of drinking and driving.

But what of societies where moderate imbibing is practiced responsibly? If Jesus was invited to a wedding in Belgium or Germany or the home of an American microbrewer, and his mother Mary was worried because they ran out of beer, what would he brew? You can bet your bottom dollar it wouldn’t be Bud Lite.

Read more...

New Website Launched: michaelcampbooks.com

It's been awhile since my last post but I do have a good excuse. I've been developing, tweeking, and launching my new website at michaelcampbooks.com! Please check it out and give me your feed back. There's a summary of the two books I'm working on and an articles page, which includes screeds on my crazy theological ideas.

My book, Confessions of a Bible Thumper: From Evangelical to Heretic on My Quest for a Reasoned Faith recently got back from my editor, Jason Black. Jason gave me incredibly valuable feedback and advice that I trust will take the book to the next level. He also really liked it--despite the fact that he's an atheist--and told me "it's a darn good book."

The manuscript will have Jason's input incorporated later this spring. Then it will be time to market it (websites, interviews, speaking), search again for an agent, and get it in line for publication. Stay tuned for more news here and more material/articles on my website.

Everything in Moderation

I often remind my children that it's best to observe this rule of thumb--everything in moderation--when it comes to personal behavior. Without it people fall into the trap of alcoholism, drug addiction, and obsessive gambling, etc. The same rule of thumb can be said about religion and faith. Without moderation, people succumb to extremism, whether Islamic radicalism or Christian fundamentalism/evangelicalism. The cure for extremism is for moderate and progressive voices to speak sense, expose lies, and stand up for the victims of extremist ideology.

I introduced the abuses of evangelical extremism in the Christian Right in my nine lessons and expound on it in my forthcoming book, Confessions of a Bible Thumper. Here I want to share two examples of how moderation fights extremist Islam. First is Somali women's rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former Muslim turned atheist who exposes the victimization of women in radical Islam in her book Infidel. This is a courageous yet disturbing account of her journey out of fundamentalist faith and into rational and compassionate humanism. Although I think she ignores progressive ideas on faith when she rejects all religious thought and becomes an atheist, I applaud her heroic stand against the radical elements of Islam and her defense of women's rights. Her atheism seems to be a natural reaction to her experience and not the fundamentalist variety. A kind of moderate atheism.

Another more promising example is Dr. Hawa Abdi, another Somali woman (I've always admired and loved the strong-willed beautiful women of the horn of Africa) who stood up to the Party of Islam in Somalia in defense of her own moderate humanitarian efforts to fight suffering and injustice (which includes, like Hirsi Ali, the condemnation of female genital mutilation). Read the details in Nicholas Kristoff's article, Heroic, Female, and Muslim. The Party of Islam's militia tried to take control of her hospital but she heroically faced them down.

As a moderate Muslim, Hawa Abdi has much more influence to stop extremism because she remains a Muslim and attracts other moderate Muslims to support her efforts. (I make this point on Lesley Hazelton's excellent post on the subject). Whereas Hirsi Ali's atheism hinders Muslims from hearing her message, Dr. Abdi's Muslim faith helped rally other moderate Somali Muslims to protest the Party of Islam's actions.

It's encouraging to see moderate and progressive thinkers exposing the lies and abuses of extremists wherever those extremists are. In Somalia, Hawa Abdi's courage to fight Muslim extremists, and the outrage voiced by the world's Somalis, is an encouraging glimmer of hope that moderate ideals can win out.

John Shelby Spong and the Hereafter

When I first started this blog five years ago, people told me "your ideas remind me of Bishop Spong," the liberal theologian and former Bishop of the Episcopal church. Having never read him (as one just starting to emerge out of the sheltered enclave of the evangelical subculture), I checked out his books. In a way, these people were right. Spong was coming to similar conclusions as I, saying we should rescue the Bible from fundamentalists and that the popular literal and narrow interpretation of scripture is nonsensical (e.g. on gays, women, inerrancy, etc). While still embracing Jesus as one who revealed God and encouraging us to follow his example of selfless love.

Yet upon closer examination, I decided Spong goes too far. He seemed to doubt almost everything, concluding there was no supernatural elements in the Bible including the resurrection. Those positions seemed to me to be just as "fundamentalist" as the literalists, by deciding on these issues, not on the merit of objective biblical scholarship itself, but from a preconceived position. Like other progressives like Garry Wills would, I still feel that way. However, after seeing Spong speak last month in Seattle (touting his new book, Eternal Life: A New Vision), I have a new appreciation for his spiritual journey. I found him to be delightful, sensible, and full of compassion. And, one who believes in life after death, albeit without telling us exactly what it will be like. (I mean, who can?)

That's exactly what the new movie Hereafter does as well. Although sometimes excruciatingly slow, the movie gives us a glimpse of a place beyond death where light and peace await, without labeling a source of the light as God or Christ. Hereafter seems to base its theory of beyond on the many near death experiences that have been documented. Spong's book doesn't focus on those but is based on Spong's own personal research and vision for experiencing eternity starting now in a way that transcends religion. To me, the movie and Spong's book is at the very least a wonderful sign of spiritual yearning and sense most people seem to intrinsically possess, which is a stark contradiction to the popular view of materialism. Just some of my observations.

Firing Based on Religion: A Right or Wrongheaded?

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that World Vision can hire and fire employees based on their religious beliefs. Three former employees, terminated for their beliefs, had filed a lawsuit alleging discrimination. Having worked for World Vision for two years, here's my take.

World Vision has a right to maintain their organization according to their purpose, which is to render the poor humanitarian aid motivated by Christian faith. Other Christian and non-Christian organizations have that same right. But is the narrow way they define Christian faith accurate?

World Vision argues if they don't screen their employees for their Christian commitment, the organization would not be pursuing their mandate, to help the poor (regardless of the faith of the poor) as followers of Christ.

Here's a couple considerations. World Vision and other Christian organizations like them only follow this policy within the U.S. and other predominantly Christian countries. In Muslim countries, for example, they are forced to hire local non-Christians since there are too few believers. Why doesn't this prevent them from pursuing their mandate?

Other Christian organizations, like Habitat for Humanity and Mercy Corps (this organization's founders were evangelicals), maintain their Christian identity without requiring their employees to be believers. If these organizations can do it, why not World Vision? Is there something wrong with an organization that purports to give aid indiscriminately but has discriminatory hiring policies?

Then there's the terminated employees themselves, two of which worked for World Vision for ten years. Turns out they are still Christians, they just don't see eye to eye on the deity of Christ and the Trinity. World Vision's statement of faith, which new hires have to sign on, is based on conservative interpretations of the Bible (including the infallibility of the Bible). Two questions: (1) Why don't they allow people to differ if they still consider themselves Christians? and (2) Shouldn't employees have the same freedom of religion as all U.S. citizens, the freedom to change their religious values without fear of losing their job? (as long as those values don't undermine the core purpose of the organization--which in this case, they surely do not. I don't see how a worker's stand on the Trinity or the deity of Christ will harm relief and development efforts).

Conclusion: World Vision has a right to run their religious-motivated organization as they see fit, but I believe their hiring and firing policy is wrongheaded. When their daily operations of humanitarian aid does not require each worker to have an orthodox faith (as they define it), why not let people of all faiths and no faith take part? As Jesus said, "whoever is not against us, is for us." If the employees weren't undermining the mission of World Vision, allow them their freedom of belief. World Vision needs to rethink their policy.

Certain and Uncertain

I Survived the Christian Right
Ten Lessons I Learned on My Journey Home

Conclusion: Certain and Uncertain - As much as I defend these nine lessons, I’m not insisting I’ve suddenly arrived at absolute certain truth. What I am saying is that we must be willing to go where the evidence leads even if it goes against out long-standing tradition or personal bias. Although I believe Christians can be certain of many things (the historical Jesus, his practical and spiritual wisdom, a transcendent meaning and power in the world—God—and a new way of relating to God found in the good news of Jesus), we should hold many views lightly because most of us don’t have a clue what really was happening culturally when Jesus spoke about his coming again, or the aionios punishment of the age, or when Paul spoke of porneia or arsenokoitai, or how the Bible was compiled, copied, and made into a canon of scripture by an editorial committee in the fourth century. There will always be an element of mystery and uncertainty.[69] If we are to come to sound conclusions about the Christian faith, we must ensure we humbly attempt to follow a reasoned course and not swallow whole what others before us have said—be they conservative or liberal—without careful evaluation.

69 Schaeffer, Frank, Patience with God: Faith for People Who Don’t Like Religion (or Atheism)

Embrace Universal Life

I Survived the Christian Right
Ten Lessons I Learned on My Journey Home

Lesson 9: Embrace Universal Life – Before I went to Malawi and early on in my evangelical walk in 1982 I got one major thing right. Faith in Jesus includes emulating his concern for the poor. I packed my bags, joined an evangelical relief agency and headed off to the “ends of the earth,” in this case Somalia, to aid refugees devastated by war.

I also wanted to share my faith with Muslims. My evangelical theology taught me they were lost without someone like me converting them. It didn’t take long to see the logical conclusion of that doctrine. The overwhelming majority of Muslims, steeped in their own fundamentalist religion since birth, were not coming to Jesus. They were toast. Burnt toast and destined for an eternity in hell according to evangelical theology. Problem was, I didn’t buy it. Since I experienced God’s love personally and felt divine love for my Muslim friends, I surmised God’s character demands He not destine people to eternal separation and torment. I adopted, and kept secret for the most part, the very minority position of inclusivism—that salvation is possible outside of Christendom.

Fast forward to my seventeenth (I lost count) crisis of faith in 2007. Having changed my view on scriptural inerrancy and authority, the church, tithing, the return of Jesus, sexuality, and gay rights, why not go for broke? I had become an open-minded seeker desperately trying to prevent my brains from leaking out. After reading three thoughtful, progressive evangelical authors[61] and another former Pentecostal minister,[62] a long-time puzzle was solved. Through a combination of Bible abuse and upholding man-made tradition, the evangelical church had squelched a view of salvation that had been espoused by several church fathers including Origen and Gregory of Nyssa.[63] It was universal reconciliation—that all would eventually be reconciled to God, thus more in line with God’s character of unconditional love. “Even while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”[64]

Turns out that pesky word “eternal” used in conjunction with “punishment” and supposedly talking about hell doesn’t really mean forever. A better translation is “punishment of the age to come,” for the Greek word aionios is more accurately rendered “pertaining to an age.”[65] Also, the Greek word for “punishment” always refers to the remedial variety.[66] So, universal reconciliation doesn’t mean God doesn’t punish evil, just that it’s temporary and always corrective and not for retribution. I concluded that Paul was right all along: “As in Adam, all will die, in Christ, all will be made alive.”[67]

If you’re going to believe, believe in the really good news.[68]

61 Talbot, Thomas, The Inescapable Love of God, MacDonald, Gregory, The Evangelical Universalist, and Keith DeRose, http://pantheon.yale.edu/%7Ekd47/univ.htm
62 Pearson, Carlton, The Gospel of Inclusion
63 MacDonald, Gregory, The Evangelical Universalist, page 173
Romans 5:8
64 MacDonald, George, Op. cit. page 147
65 Talbot, Thomas, The Inescapable Love of God, page 91.
66 I Corinthians 15:22
67 Luke 2:10 – “I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people.”

Science vs Religion - Go Where the Evidence Leads

I Survived the Christian Right
Ten Lessons I Learned on my Journey Home

Lesson 8: Science vs. Religion - Go Where the Evidence Leads – Us vs. them attitudes are in the science vs. religion and creation vs. evolution debates. Typically, the people debating are the extremists, who only see things in black and white. There can be no mixing of their cherished positions. Fundamentalist young-earth creationists who believe in a 10,000 year-old earth based on a literal interpretation of the Bible are pitted against fundamentalist evolutionists, like the New Atheists (Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris as opposed to reasonable atheists like Michael Ruse), who mock all theists for believing in the myth of God and the fairytale of religion. Yet 67 percent of Americans say it is possible to believe in both God and evolution. [48] The media often reinforces these polarities by distorting any moderate views. For example, they rarely differentiate non-literalist old-earth creationists (who include reputable scientists and technically, theistic evolutionists who believe God created the first life forms) and lump them together with the antiquated ideas of the Dark Ages. Given these realities, here are the lessons I learned:

Evolution is not the enemy. First, it’s possible to reconcile evolution with a biblical worldview. Francis Collins does it persuasively.[49] Don’t let staunch atheists who have an axe to grind tell you evolution proves there is no God. They delude themselves.[50] Nor should you allow staunch creationists to argue evolution is incompatible with the Bible. They hold to a rigid literalism.

Evolution is not immune to criticism. Evolution is usually portrayed as one specific unified theory held by all reputable scientists. There are in fact several competing theories and many ways to look at the scientific data. Stephen J. Gould and Niles Eldridge proposed the theory of punctuated equilibrium that critiqued the Darwinian view of continuous gradual evolution. Gould said the absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions of biological design was a nagging problem for gradualistic evolution.[51] Eldredge said the fossil record screams loudly that what Darwin theorized—slow, steady, evolution—is not the case.[52] Molecular Biologist Michael Denton critiqued orthodox Darwinism in his landmark book[53] and subsequently made the case for a form of guided evolution.[54] Biologist Dean Kenyon, who pioneered evolutionary self-organizational theory, later repudiated it and embraced a design hypothesis.[55]

Intelligent design is neither the enemy nor immune to criticism. Intelligent Design (ID) theory is commonly represented as a fundamentalist wolf in sheep’s clothing. The facts don’t warrant this. ID theory is misused by the Christian Right to bolster their exclusivism[56] and therefore deemed guilty by association. It should be examined critically, but remarkably diverse intellectuals support the idea. These include agnostic mathematician and Darwinism-critic David Berlinski[57] and the former most renowned atheist in the world, Antony Flew, who announced to a shocked world that intelligent design must have been involved in the origin of the coded chemistry in DNA.[58] Moreover, ID is not incompatible with evolution. Tenured professor of microbiology Michael Behe, a leading ID proponent, holds to the evolutionary tenet of common descent.[59] Finally, critics who claim ID is not a real scientific theory probably have not carefully evaluated the case.[60]

Question the rhetoric of the extremists and look carefully at the evidence for both theistic evolution and intelligent design. Go where the evidence leads.

48 CBS News poll, October 23, 2005
49 Collins, Francis, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief
50 Berlinski, David, The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions
51 Gould, Stephen J., Is a New and General Theory of Evolution Emerging? Paleobiology, vol 6 (1), p. 119-130 (1980)
52 Eldredge, Niles, Confessions of a Darwinist, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Spring 2006
53 Denton, Michael, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis
54 Denton, Michael, Nature’s Destiny: How the Laws of Biology Reveal Purpose in the Universe
55 I heard Kenyon speak at a Discovery Institute event in Seattle, WA in the summer of 2007
56 The Christian Right-influenced school board of Dover, PA forced teachers to make a pro intelligent-design statement in classrooms, despite the advice of the Discovery Institute not to do so.
57 Berlinski, David, The Deniable Darwin
58 Flew, Antony, There is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, page 95 and 123
59 Behe, Michael, The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism, page 182.
60 Meyer, Stephen C., Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design, pages 403-415

Support Gay Rights Not Wrongs

I Survived the Christian Right
Ten Lessons I Learned on My Journey Home

Lesson 7: Support Gay Rights Not Wrongs - Most of my evangelical friends thought I went off the deep end when I changed my view on this issue. I have to admit, for years I had wondered how anyone could defend homosexuality in light of certain passages of the Bible. But that was before 2004, when I did an honest study of those passages and discovered misinterpretations and before I learned that several words in those passages are almost certainly mistranslated.

It started when I began hearing stories from Christian gay people on how they had pleaded for God’s help to overcome their “sin” of homosexuality. They were saying it didn’t work. A personal friend told me a similar story. Despite seeking help in “ex-gay” ministries, God wasn’t changing them into heterosexuals nor taking away their sex drives.[40] I read a Philip Yancey book[41] where he recommended people read Mel White’s story (without endorsing his conclusions).[42] White was a former ghostwriter for evangelical heavy weights and had come out declaring his homosexuality and the futility of trying to change. It was then that I clearly saw there was a pastoral problem with homosexuality. But was there a scriptural problem? Was there evidence evangelicals were misreading the Bible on this issue?

Turns out there is. For instance, one word in the Greek New Testament commonly translated “homosexual,” is the word, arsenokoitai, which is rarely found in ancient literature and whose meaning is uncertain.[43] It must be a condemned sexual behavior but does not denote homosexuality across the board. To translate it “homosexual” without at least including a footnote about its ambiguity is irresponsible. To understand what the New Testament teaches on homosexuality, one must understand the landscape of sexual practices in the first century.[44]

For instance, when Paul talks of homosexuality in Romans, he’s speaking in the context of idolatry. Historical and literary context leads many scholars to conclude that when the Bible alludes to homosexuality it is talking about common forms of it in the ancient world, namely pederasty[45], cultic prostitution[46], and homosexual rape (e.g. implied in the story of Sodom), and not committed, loving homosexual relationships, which are supported by Christian movements like Metropolitan Community Church, SoulForce, and even the late Lewis Smedes[47], an evangelical author who taught at Fuller Seminary.

Don’t misread the Bible on homosexuality. Open your heart to gay people, who can’t change their orientation despite well-intentioned efforts.

40 Stossel, John, Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel—Why Everything You Know is Wrong, page 185.
41 Yancey, Philip, What’s So Amazing About Grace
42 White, Mel, Stranger at the Gate: To Be Gay and Christian in America.
43 See Campolo, Tony, Speaking my Mind, page 67 and Rogers, Jack, Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality, pages 73-74
44 Helminiak, Daniel, What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality and Cannon, Justin R., The Bible, Christianity, and Homosexuality
45 The oppressive male-initiation practice in the Greco-Roman world of men having sex with boys
46 For example, Cybelene worship in Corinth, Athens, Ephesus, and Rome, which included castrated male priests, and the temple of Aphrodite in Corinth, which had 1000 sacred female prostitutes. See Stark, Rodney, Cities of God, pages 50 and 92.
47 http://www.soulforce.org/article/748

Have Sensible Sex

I Survived the Christian Right
Ten Lessons I Learned on My Journey Home

Lesson 6: Have Sensible Sex – By now, I’m sure some have declared me a full-fledged heretic. Brace yourself, there’s more. Now for something totally uncomfortable—the subject of religion and sex. In my experience, with some noble exceptions (there are some excellent evangelical marriage manuals on sex), the evangelical church has largely been sex-negative, in other words, either it has suppressed open discussion or portrayal of sex for fear of promoting immorality, or it has condemned certain sexual behaviors, from nudity to masturbation to oral sex to all pre-marital sex, based on misinterpretations of the Bible. 31

My historical studies reveal today’s church views on sex have more to do with Greco-Roman Platonism and Augustine’s warped perspective—despite his wisdom on other topics—than a rational reading of scripture. For instance, the Jewish tradition from which Christianity arose was sex affirming. Correspondingly, contrary to popular belief, the Greco-Roman world, in which the early church grew, was not wholly a debauched sexual culture. The sex-negating Platonists and Stoics, who had fearful attitudes toward “irrational” sexual pleasure, influenced much of it. 32 This had impact on early church fathers like Augustine.

One specific is how these sex-negative Greco-Roman values influenced the English translation of the Greek New Testament word porneia. Raymond Lawrence calls it “perhaps the most deliberately mistranslated word in the biblical literature,” 33 when it is rendered “fornication,” and I would argue when it is also translated “sexual immorality” (as in ‘flee sexual immorality’ 34). Conservative Biblicists have condemned a host of sexual behaviors under that one word, commonly summing it up as perverted sex or all sex outside of monogamous marriage, without understanding what it meant to the original audience. One scholar believes a better translation is “harlotry,” 35 for the connotation of porneia is selling oneself to break covenant. Moreover, it is not always about sex, as is evidenced by the times it or its Hebrew equivalent is translated as “idolatry.”

Despite the fact that I would never endorse polygamy as a good idea, the fact is polygamy is never condemned in the Bible nor is monogamy strictly endorsed. In fact, the Torah commands polygamy in the case of the Leverite law 36 and supports it at times. 37 Polygamy and concubinage were practiced by Old Testament heroes of the faith from Abraham to Jacob to Gideon to David and never censured by God, except excessive polygamy with foreign women outside the faith. The truth is that if Bathsheba had not been married to Uriah, David would not have committed adultery. The biblical literature defines adultery differently than we do in our modern context. 38

Likewise with pre-marital sex, the Bible puts limitations on it because of the Jewish concern for pure lineage and because unmarried women were considered property of their fathers. There was no equivalent of today’s single woman, living outside her family’s home. Therefore, the Bible does not specifically condemn all singles sexuality. 39

This is not to say that we should emulate the male-dominated society of the Bible or married men have license to run out and grab the first single, pretty woman they see bathing on a rooftop (how David first saw Bathsheba). Promiscuity rooted in selfish, personal gratification cannot be defended. However, it does mean, if we are honest, that we should take the above facts into account when we decide on a sexual ethic for today.

In sex, let the admonitions to love one another, treat each other kindly, and be responsible in our relationships, be the guiding principal, not absolutist rules that were never a part of the Bible’s historical and cultural milieu.


31 Thelos, Philo, Divine Sex: Liberating Sex from Religious Tradition
32 Lawrence, Raymond, The Poisoning of Eros
33 Lawrence, Raymond, Op. cit., page 2
34 I Corinthians 6:18
35 Countryman, William, Dirt, Greed, and Sex
36 Deuteronomy 25:5-10
37 Deuteronomy 21:15-17
38 Countryman, Op. cit., page 159
38 Countryman, Op. cit., page 264.

A Model for Community Change through Local Nonpartisan Politics

by Jo Ann Goodson, Deep Thought Pub guest blogger

“If you don’t vote Republican or for this candidate, hell will break loose. If we pass Obama’s health care bill, the government will take over your life and God will judge us for funding abortion and disobeying the Ten Commandments.”

This statement represents one of the things I think is so very wrong in our politics today and makes me want to run and hide instead of fighting back. For one thing I really do not like getting involved in politics but I do not have a choice if I really want changes to be made in the way we live in community. There are good things happening but there appears to be so much more that is wrong. I am involved in a group in my city that is trying to make a difference in how we live in community and how we can best help each other. We want a much better place in which to live and have our being. Our group is made up of Christians, Jews, Muslims and folks with no faith. The name of our group is called CHANGE, Community Helping All Neighbors Gain Empowerment.

We are not trying to make our city Christian. We are trying to organize to bring about social justice, equal opportunities for everyone, good education for our children and promote an environment in which they can better learn, health issues, what can be done about suspensions, dropouts and bullying in our school system. These are only a few things that we are currently working on. Some of the things we want to accomplish can only be done if our city government and CHANGE can work together. Thus I must be involved in politics if I want my wishes and prayers for my city/county to be accomplished.

I think we can be an example of how good politics can be performed. Working together for the greater good of all. Respecting each other and our differences by putting aside our own agenda, whether Christian or other, and working for the good of everyone. We do not threaten anyone with what will happen if they do not do as we say. We compromise and come to a good working plan together. In the end we can celebrate together on a job well done as we look at the results of our efforts. Our national government could take a lesson or two from us. We have accomplished some really good stuff together so far.

Don’t be Seduced by Political Power

I Survived the Christian Right
Ten Lessons I Learned on My Journey Home

Lesson 5: Don’t be Seduced by Political Power - I learned one of the warped mindsets of heavily financed political activism is an us vs. them mentality. Today, this attitude continues to fuel the Christian Right in their quest to save America from moral depravity and reclaim it for Christ. Us vs. them mindsets can also be present in left-wing politics, but that is another story.

Within evangelicalism, black-and-white, us vs. them, groupthink is pervasive. I saw that clearly when I was involved in the pro-life movement and Operation Rescue in the late 1980s. The attitude is one of drawing lines: Republican over Democrat, pro-life over pro-abortion, religious America over secular America, etc. But “power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.”26 Evangelicalism within the Christian Right has always been about taking control, getting the right candidates in, overcoming the enemy (abortion, homosexuals, liberals), legislating the right laws, forcing an abortion clinic to close, and reclaiming America for Christ, all by manipulating the masses through fear and demonization of opponents. If you don’t vote Republican or for this candidate, hell will break loose. If we pass Obama’s health care bill, the government will take over your life and God will judge us for funding abortion and disobeying the Ten Commandments.27

But these are lies, or if you’re inclined to be more gracious, false dichotomies. We live in a pluralistic society. Good politics is about compromise, not taking control. Real influence comes through open-minded persuasion and loving others, not by winning at the polls or banning abortion or suppressing gay rights. Democrats, as much as Republicans, care about decency and values. God works through more than one political party, outside of evangelicalism,28 and in people of other faiths. As comprehensively argued by evangelical author Mark Noll, the historical record is clear that America is not a Christian nation the roots to which we must return. 29 Christianity has had both positive (abolition and civil rights movements) and negative (intolerant, legalistic Puritans and endorsement of slavery) influence on our country.

Do not lust for political power and cultural influence. 30

26 Thomas, Cal, Blinded by Might: Why the Religious Right Can’t Save America, page 54
27 In a prayer cast organized by the Family Research Council on December 16, 2009, Pastor Jim Garlow claimed the health care reform legislation currently being deliberated in the Senate, violated just about every one of the Ten Commandments!
28 Cox, Harvey, When Jesus Came to Harvard
29 Noll, Mark, In Search for Christian America
30 Ballmer, Randall, Thy Kingdom Come: An Evangelical’s Lament

Don't be Deluded by the Last Days

I Survived the Christian Right
Ten Lessons I Learned on My Journey Home

Lesson 4: Don't Be Deluded by the Last Days: As a brand-new believer in 1979 I tended to accept the pre-tribulation Rapture view that the Bible predicts Jesus would return a second time before a period of tribulation, to whisk believers up to heaven and leave unbelievers behind to face seven years of apocalyptic trials. After reading several critiques of this view,18 I realized it was farcical and unbiblical, not to mention highly manipulative the way preachers or authors—Hal Lindsey in the 70s and 80s and Tim LaHaye (Left Behind) today—use it to “persuade” people to come to Christ, or else. Despite this, like the majority of evangelicals, I still believed the return of Christ was in the future and possibly eminent, given the state of the world.

Then around 1999, the preterists 19 entered my life; the likes of R.C. Sproul, Gary DeMar, and Kenneth Gentry, ironically conservative evangelicals who introduced the notion that everything that Jesus predicted in the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21) was fulfilled between 64 and 70 AD.20 They also viewed the speculation around the return of Christ as madness 21 and the book of Revelation as written prior to 70 AD;22 hence its predictions were not speaking about thousands of years in the future.

Their reasoning was refreshing. They cried Bible abuse by dispensationalists and the bulk of evangelicals in the widespread unreasonable belief that Jesus spoke of two events in the Olivet Discourse: a coming calamity on Jerusalem within a generation, and then in the next breath about his return to earth 2000 years in the future. After reading the preterists, I reread all those prophetic verses and suddenly they made perfect sense. 23

What I didn’t expect was to come to believe these preterists weren’t going far enough. Considered “partial preterists,” they still believe in a future return of Christ at the time of the resurrection. But for this position to stand, there must be two second comings of Christ, one in 70 AD in judgment on Jewish Temple worship and one at a future resurrection. But this view is problematic because the New Testament does not speak of two second comings at all, or more accurately, a third coming. I found myself agreeing with the “consistent preterists,”24 who say that all the prophecies about Jesus returning occurred at or before 70 AD based on a rational reading of the New Testament and first century historical evidence. 25

Imagine that for a moment. Jesus has already returned. The drama is over. There is no need to unmask the mystery or fear the Antichrist, let alone shape American foreign policy around the return of Christ and the end of the world.

Get on with the business of saving the planet and promoting social justice in the world without secretly believing it will all be for naught in the end.

18 DeMar, Gary, Last Days Madness: The Obsession of the Modern Church
19 Preterists believe biblical events were fulfilled in the past as opposed to futurists, who believe they will be fulfilled in the future.
20 Sproul, R.C., The Last Days According to Jesus, and Josephus, The Jewish Wars
21 DeMar, Gary, Op. cit.
22 Gentry, Kenneth, Jr., Before Jerusalem Fell: Dating the Book of Revelation
23 e.g. Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, this generation shall certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.” Matthew 24:34 and “The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place.” Revelation 1:1
24 J. Stuart Russell, The Parousia, and www.preterist.org
25 Josephus, Tacitus, and Eusebius. They cite occurrences of false prophets, famines, earthquakes, wars, and astronomical signs leading up to 70 AD that match what Jesus predicted.

Avoid Legalism Like the Plague - Lesson 3

I Survived the Christian Right
Ten Lessons I Learned on My Journey Home

Lesson 3: Avoid Legalism Like the Plague - One day I was enjoying a beer with a friend in a popular pub near my home when I noticed someone who went to my former evangelical church. After I picked myself off the floor due to shock from seeing him in a bar, we greeted each other and I asked if he still attended.

“I finally left last year,” the man said.
“Do you mind me asking why you left?” I asked.
“I got tired of jumping through hoops.”

What an apt way of describing what I also experienced in the majority of the six or seven evangelical churches I attended over the years. Why do some churches make our faith journey into an obstacle course on a field of required religious practices and doctrines? Could legalistic control have something to do with it? Again, there are some admirable exceptions, but as Brennan Manning once said, “the American church accepts grace in theory, but denies it in practice.”

Evangelical Christians largely conform to a performance-oriented approach to God: Regularly attend church to worship God our way, pray and read the Bible daily, go to a home group, adhere to a particular statement of faith, believe in the right doctrines and the future return of Christ, be pro-life, dress modestly, don’t drink (or if you do, please don’t do it in front of us), avoid questionable movies, don’t put swear words, sex scenes, or questionable doctrines in your books, refrain from producing music on a secular recording label, and whatever you do, don’t vote for a Democrat. And those are the more moderate rules! In summary, avoid contamination by the world, heretics, and liberals and insulate yourself in the squeaky-clean alternate evangelical world we created.

I saw many evangelicals forget that “we are no longer under the supervision of the law,” and “whoever loves his fellow human being has fulfilled the law.” The lesson? Evangelicalism is inundated with religious baggage and a host of man-made written and unwritten regulations that have nothing to do with authentic spirituality. Since “Christ is the end of the law” or a law-based approach to God, we are free to govern ourselves under Christ’s one overriding law of love.

Find ways to love God and love your neighbor and don’t worry about fitting into some legalistic evangelical mold. Or any kind of Christian mold, for that matter.

Leave Churchianity - Lesson 2

I Survived the Christian Right
Ten Lessons I Learned on My Journey Home

Lesson 2: Leave Churchianity - Surprise! Jesus didn’t found an institutional church. 9 For that matter, he didn’t found a religion either. He also didn’t expect his followers to set up a Christian version of the synagogue, let alone create a parallel Christian universe where microbrews are banned.

When I worked on a church planting team in Malawi, Africa in the 1990s, I studied the early church and began to realize how unbiblical our modern concept of church is. I came to see that professional salaried clergy, a clergy-laity distinction, meetings in buildings, church budgets, hierarchal leadership, and legalistic requirements were not present in early Christianity. Frank Viola and George Barna make the case that most of these elements of church were borrowed from pagan culture. 10 That doesn’t make them necessarily evil, just not based on the original, and not the model for Christian fellowship. The word translated “church” is the Greek ecclesia, which simply means “gathering” and does not denote an institution. The same word is used for a “mob” in the book of Acts. 11

Evangelical churches routinely espouse modern church membership and active involvement as God’s only way of building the Kingdom and creating mature believers. I recently heard a pastor describe his love for the institutional church in terms normally used for ascribing worship to God.

Undoubtedly, there are churches that are healthy places to grow spiritually, but my experience also reveals how prevalent spiritual abuse is found in fundamentalist and evangelical churches. One could argue that the doctrine of the institutional church is largely to blame for abuses. Why? It promotes churchianity—the practice of making belief in Jesus largely focused on the habits and demands of the institutional church (doctrinal purity, religious behavior), rather than on God’s love. Churchianity encourages authoritarian leadership, which is at the core of spiritual abuse. It also doesn’t encourage people to think for themselves. Blind compliance is sure to follow. “Evangelicals are enamored with power and control. That’s why numbers and measures are so important to evangelicals, and why compliance is next to godliness.” 12

Don’t put up with churchianity.

9 Wills, Garry, What Jesus Meant, page 78.
10 Viola, Frank and Barna, George, Pagan Christianity, page xix.
11 Wills, Garry, Op. cit., page 78.
12 Mike Yaconelli, in The Post Evangelical by Dave Tomlinson, page 28.

I Survived the Christian Right: Beware of Bible Abuse

Ten Lessons I Learned on My Journey Home

OK, I confess. There are only nine lessons, but ten sounds better.

A quest for a reasoned faith based on reality. That was largely what my 27-year sojourn in evangelicalism was about. Although evangelicals are not a monolithic block comprised only of conservatives (progressive evangelicals are becoming more influential), I found the movement and my experience saturated with the mindset of the Christian Right.

This mindset often calls things “truth” when they are only half-truth, thus making falsehood hard to detect. I didn’t find my whole experience bogus—I was and still am enthralled with Jesus’ teaching, signs of God working in my life, and supportive of things evangelicals do right, like fighting poverty through organizations like World Vision. But what I increasingly found was a lack of authenticity and reasoned perspectives on faith.

I weathered the theological storm and made it home to a progressive Christianity, taking with me valuable insights derived from ten eye-opening discoveries. There I go again. I mean nine. The following are lessons readers open to new paradigms can learn.

Lesson 1: Beware of Bible Abuse – With some notable exceptions, most evangelicals I know primarily read the Bible devotionally, meaning they read it in a superficial way without regard to the conditions of history, culture, genre, or its own literary context. They also believe it is the infallible Word of God and expect God to speak to them personally through its message. I read the Bible this way for years. But I gradually learned a valuable lesson. Although harmless on occasion, a predominantly devotional approach to Bible study inevitably leads to Bible abuse—handling scripture in a way that the original author did not intend and the original audience would never recognize. Although it is mostly done unintentionally, I find people abuse the Bible in three ways.

Misinterpretation – The most common form is when people take verses or passages out of their literary context, for example, the practice of citing isolated verses to bolster a doctrine. In other words proof-texting. That’s why we should “read the Bible like drinking beer, not sipping wine.” 1

Another form of this is practicing poor exegesis and hermeneutics. Exegesis is ascertaining a passage’s original meaning through understanding its historical and cultural background. Hermeneutics is deciding how to apply a passage to our modern circumstances. Without doing the hard work of both of these, it’s easy to misinterpret what the Bible teaches. 2 Passages are applied with a wooden literalism, which causes a host of problems, including dogmatic teaching on divorce, tithing, the eminent return of Christ, and sexuality, to name only a few.

Applying Strict Authority – Despite the fact that the Bible does not claim to be inerrant, 3 fundamentalists and many evangelicals insist it is. When I visited L’Abri Fellowship in Switzerland in 1984, I studied this doctrine and concluded there was little evidence to support it. Gradually, I came to believe that the Bible is not a set of timeless maxims to be obeyed to the letter. It never claims to be the Word of God, only that Jesus is the Word come down from God and the Jewish prophets spoke the word of the Lord. When every isolated verse or passage is applied with equal authority, the phenomenon of Bibliolatry results.4

Moreover, the evidence supports the notion that parts of our modern Bible were added by copyists and go beyond the original manuscripts, which we don’t have. 5 One example is the controversial passage in I Corinthians 14 often used to justify the suppression of women. It states women should not teach but be silent in church and in full subjection to men. Yet the evidence is strong that Paul did not write these verses but later copyists added them. 6 The Jesus Seminar makes this mistake in the opposite direction when it dogmatically concludes portions of Jesus’ sayings are not genuine based on subjective opinion, not on manuscript evidence. 7 These discoveries reveal how our modern Bible can still contain divine inspiration—and powerful lessons rooted in godly wisdom—without every part of it being the Word of God or wholly free from human error. 8

Mistranslation – There are several places in the New Testament where the English word chosen in most popular translations is almost assuredly not correct. I will cite several of them below. Our modern English translations are not as accurate as we think and should not always be taken at face value.

Read the Bible in its own historical, cultural, and literary context. Don’t worship it.

1 N.T. Wright
2 See Fee, Gordon, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth
3 Countryman, William, Biblical Authority or Biblical Tyranny?
4 Bible worship; see Thatcher, Adrian, The Savage Text: The Use and Abuse of the Bible, page 4.
5 Erdman, Bart D., Misquoting Jesus
6 Fee, Gordon, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, and Erdman, Op. cit., page 183.
7 Wills, Gary, What Jesus Meant, page xxv.
8 Wills, Gary, Op. cit. and Countryman, William, Op. cit.

Squash Fundamentalism Wherever it Rears Its Ugly Head

Go for the jugular of fundamentalist mindsets. It is the enemy of freedom of thought. It is plagued by the disease of black-and-white thinking. It divides and often conquers. Yet, fundamentalism is harder to detect than one might realize. It's easy to see it when someone on the Religious Right discriminates against women or gays or promotes a controlling morality based on literalist views of the Bible. It's harder to see when held by progressive secularlists who rightly critique right-wing fundamentalism but succumb to black-and-white thinking in their response.

Years ago I was wrong about atheists. I rejected their world view and their motivation. I wrongly believed they chose to deny God because of their selfish desire to live autonomously in a universe free from moral restraints. I since learned that there are varieties of atheists, just like there are varieties of theists, and many atheists are moral and upright individuals. In fact, one of my heroes these days is an atheist: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who wrote Infidel, and fights for the rights of Muslim women. But I also learned that some atheists are fundamentalists. Like fundy religionists, they don't fight fair, have an ax to grind, and refuse to go where the evidence leads.

Richard Dawkins, who regularly calls believers delusional, falls in the fundy-atheist category, I would say, along with others among "the new atheists." Atheist Michael Ruse said Dawkin's book, The God Delusion, makes him embarrassed to be an atheist. I respect Ruse for his candor. Antony Flew, the most famous atheist in Europe, changed his position and became a deist. When I read why in his book (There is a God), I gained a new respect for him and his position, even during the time he was an atheist. According to Frank Schaeffer in his new book, Patience with God, atheist Daniel Dennett argues decently and is no fundamentalist. (Dennett, author of Breaking the Spell is one of "the-gang-of-four" new atheists along with Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris).

There is such a thing as atheistic fundamentalism. I've learned there is a balanced way to approach religious arguments--in fact any controversial argument--that respects the facts over dogma and always attempts to go where the evidence and one's honest life reflection leads. This leads me to want to squash fundamentalism wherever it rears its ugly head--including inside myself--and pursue this balanced path instead. Care to join me?

Shameless Sex

I applaud Keith Graber Miller’s call for a balanced sexual counterculture (Sojourners Magazine - Sept-Oct. 2009, Sex Without Shame) that exults sex-positivism in light of God’s gift of sexuality and exposes sexual irresponsibility and exploitation. It’s refreshing to see a reasoned view on masturbation, homosexuality, and youth sexuality coming from a serious Biblicist. While the church has a long way to go to shed its sex negativism, popular culture often promotes free love without responsible limits. Miller hits on two important distinctives the church and society need to hear: (1) God is more concerned that people demonstrate genuine unselfish love, respect, and care in relationships, than in what bodily interactions they pursue, and (2) good sex that is life-affirming comes after we get what we really need—a powerful intimate connection that guards against hurt, jealousy, and brokenness.

Conference Writes the Book on Writing

I'm at the Pacific Northwest Writer's Association annual conference as I write this and it's been a wonderful experience. They have great sessions for people in every stage of writing and particularly for folks who are ready or are currently pitching their book and searching for an agent. Yesterday I pitched my book, Confessions of a Bible Thumper, to an editor and an agent and will meet more agents today. For any other aspiring writers out there, a writer's conference such as this one is the place to go to get grounded in book writing best practices. As is joining a writer's group and reading books like Anne LaMott's Bird by Bird or Stephen King's On Writing. The biggest lesson for me is that writing a book or any noteworthy piece goes way beyond writing the crappy first draft but is a long process of writing, rewriting, and having your work reviewed and critiqued by a variety of people to get your transforming ideas out there in a succinct, understandable, humorous, and highly engaging form.

Getting Intelligent Design Straight

I finished a draft of the chapter on Last Days Delusions, but true to form, I just have to start another chapter before cleaning the last one up. I love multi-tasking, hence the way I read 5 books at a time and write the same way. I was having a conversation with my father--a kind of ID-controversy guru--and asked him about Michael Behe (a leading ID proponent) and some of the things he said in his newest book, The Edge of Evolution. Behe is roundly attacked by staunch evolutionists, but guess what? What I suspected is true. He is officially a theistic evolutionist! Not of the Darwinian variety, of course, since that is what ID theorists critique--and in my mind, rightly so. Nevertheless, I found an interview of him on the Internet (during my conversation--I just love how quickly we can find stuff these days), and he said common design is not as good as an explanation of common descent as an evolutionary model is. He's not a Darwinist, but he still believes in evolution! What's the difference? I explain that in the chapter in my book. Point is that most of his ID colleagues disagree with him. You can be an ID theorist and still be an evolutionist (for that matter, you can be agnostic too, like David Berlinski). The media doesn't get it.

So, why don't all the other theistic evolutionists (Ken Miller, Brown U., Francis Collins, Head of Genome Project) applaud people like Behe? It appears it's not evolution per se, that is the god of science, but Darwinism. I will explore this later.

The Writing-Researching-Publishing Process

Anyone who wants to follow my experience writing, researching, promoting, and publishing my book (Working title: Confessions of a Bible Thumper - My Sojourn as an Evangelical, Why I Left the Fold, and How I Discovered a More Reasoned Faith), follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Michael_W_Camp

Paul the Egalitarian

I knew Jesus was an egalitarian in the way he respected women in the first century's male-dominated society, but Paul? His infamous passages denigrating women made me shudder, along with every feminist on the planet. In my more moderate evangelical circles, we dealt with those passages as culturally conditioned anomalies of first century bias that were not applicable to our modern cultural context. But what if those passages were never in the original Greek text? That was something I never considered because the possibility was never allowed inside the narrow confines of the theologically-conservative churches I attended.

Well, you learn something new every day. In reading Bart Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why, I learned just how reasonable the case is that the I Cor. 14:34-35 passage ("It is shameful for a woman to speak in church..." That one.) is bogus. What a breath of fresh air. But the real shocker for me is that my old friend Gordon Fee (not literally--I'm a long time fan of one of his books on how to interpret the Bible), put forth this case way back in 1987 in his commentary on I Corinthians! Where the hell was I? I didn't get the memo. Ehrman cited Fee in his book. I feel slighted. All these years Fee taught part of the Bible was altered and the evangelical church never bought it. And the Bible hasn't been revised (or footnoted as far as I know) in any modern translations to reflect it.

The case is strong. Take verses 33b to 35 out and read the passage and see how much more it makes sense. And, how suddenly Paul isn't contradicting his great line "...there is no male or female in Christ... all are one," or what he says elsewhere, or contradicting Jesus and his welcoming of women. Ehrman reveals how additions to texts were not uncommon by scribes who had theologically biased reasons to alter things. Some of them never made it into our modern Bibles but some did! Ehrman (and Garry Wills) also makes the case that Paul didn't write I Timothy. Guess where the other anti-feminist verse is attributed to Paul? You got it. I Timothy.

Universal Life

Two books I recently read have helped shape my rethinking of the traditional evangelical view of salvation. The Inescapable Love of God by Thomas Talbot and The Evangelical Universalist by Gregory MacDonald (a psuedonym) make a near impenetrable case that universal reconciliation was the original intent of the apostle Paul and Jesus. How could the church be teaching exclusivism all these years and never have disclosed this fact? My theory is that traditionalism is so strong in evangelicalism and other conservative Christian movements that any diversion from it is suppressed. For example, how many evangelicals were ever taught that the church fathers Origen, Gregory of Nyassa, and several others were universalists? How many know that universliasts have included such prominent people as President John Adams and George MacDonald (a favorite author of C.S. Lewis)? How many people know that the word "everlasting" in Jesus' famous Sheep and the Goats passage is more accurately translated as "pertaining to an age" and that Jesus wasn't talking about a never-ending punishment but a punishment that pertained to the coming age? How many recognize that Paul made several statements that strongly support universalism including "as in one man, Adam, all sinned, so through one man, Jesus, all will be reconciled?" No, most aren't aware of these facts because they don't fit the traditional view and teachers and Bible commentators are either ignorant of them or are deliberately overlooking them. I bring these details and much more out in one of the chapters in my book, Confessions of a Bible Thumper.

The Bible and Gay Marriage

This is the title of the collection of letters published in Newsweek in response to Lisa Miller's article in the Dec. 15 issue on her religious case for gay marriage (Our Mutual Joy). 40,000 readers responded, the vast majority arguing against Miller's case by claiming misinterpretations of the Bible. Here we go again with the scourge of black and white thinking and narrowly focused literalist reading of the Scriptures--mostly by religious conservatives, but also to a lesser degree, by Miller herself. Here's how I see various issues stand:

1 - Defining marriage - Miller is spot on. Conservatives define traditional marriage in a distorted way by conveniently overlooking the obvious acceptance in Scripture of polygamy, concubinage, and forms of open marriage. The list is long of heroes of the OT who practiced these including Abraham, the father of the Christian faith, whose wife gave him permission to sleep with her maidservant, and David, a man after God's own heart, who was rebuked for stealing another man's wife and murdering her husband, then told by God himself if he wanted more wives, God would have given him more if he had only asked. One man-one woman monogamy, as a law, was foreign to the traditional Jewish concept of marriage. Polygamy was not only allowed but encouraged by God through the Leverite law that commanded men to marry their brother's widow if the brother died without fathering children. Point Miller. Let's understand our definitions of terms per the Scriptures themselves. The Bible does not define marriage as explicitly between one man and one woman.

2 - Paul's attitude to marriage - Miller misses an important point. Paul did not regard marriage as an act of last resort, as she claims. Jewish tradition and Scripture encouraged heterosexual marriage as a given, inevitable outcome. In the NT, Paul was stating his view of marriage in light of "the eschalogical challenge," that is, the prevailing belief among the apostles that Jesus would return very soon and a time of intense hardship was at hand. In fact, it came in the late 60s to 70 AD with the terrible events and siege that led up to Jerusalem's destruction. Paul was telling unmarried men it was better not to have marriage as a distraction during such times, but if they couldn't control their desire that it was understandable that they marry. Point religious conservatives. Let's understand the context of a passage.

3 - The sin of homosexuality - Miller brings out several important points but misses several others. What exactly is Paul condemning in Romans and the other epistles? The context of Romans is idolatry. Idol worshipers end up doing things contrary to nature or more accurately, custom, and then become depraved. Is Paul condemning homosexuality across the board or only certain forms of it, such as shrine prostitution and humiliation and rape--common practices in the OT--and pederasty, a common practice among Greeks and Romans. Then there are the words in Paul's writings translated "homosexual" that are disputed by scholars who have no axe to grind. Paul's hearers no doubt did not think of our modern definition of homosexuals when they heard the original Greek words he used, and most definately did not think of lesbians. Point Paul. He was tough on idolatry and legalism and the obvious self-deluded and violent sins. He did not comment on loving same-sex relationships by those who believe in and love God.

4 - The love of Jesus - Miller alludes to it. Religious conservatives claim his love does not condone sin and making judgments about sin. But how did Jesus define sin? His most strident rebukes went to the Pharisees, the most religious zealots of the day who were notorious legalistic hair-splitters who could never find enough grace to make exceptions to the law, nor recognize the overriding principle that Christ taught--that love is the fullfilment of the law. He who loves his neighbor has met the law's demands. We are not longer under the law's supervision. Christ is the end of the law, as Paul taught. So, we no longer have to be fruitful and multiply, nor marry, if we choose not to. We no longer have to keep the ceremonial law, nor the sabbath, if we choose. Women no longer need be under a double standard, but are equal with men. But we do have to keep the law of love and let that be our guide--a guide that can override the letter of the law. Is it possible to love God and your neighbor and have a homosexual relationship? I believe it is. How can it be impossible? It may not produce children, but neither do single parents or those who choose celibacy. Point Jesus. Love trumps the letter of the law.

Take the Insider's Tour of Evangelicalism

I'm a former Baptist missionary, aid worker, and Senior Writer for World Vision. I want to take you on an insider tour of evangelicalism, one of the fastest growing religious movements in America today. If you’re tired of Bible thumping or were ever tempted to thump a Bible thumper, this tour could be your cure. Laced with wit and humor (I hope you think so too), my journey takes you from my conversion amidst the 1970s Jesus Movement to Muslim animistic Africa with plenty of church-experience stops along the way to expose the good, bad, and the ugly of the evangelical movement.

But I don't stop there. Often disillusioned with evangelical institutions and dogma, I venture into the realm of the radical Left and their response to the Christian Right, only to find that religious conservatives don’t have a monopoly on fundamentalist mindsets. With clowns to the Christian Right and jokers to the secular Left, what is the average Joe to do who believes in God, is weary of organized religion, enjoys sex, watches the Daily Show (OK, Comedy Central also works), and can’t turn down a good microbrew? Well, before you throw in the towel and affix the new nifty atheist symbol to your bumper, you might want to check out my proposed alternate way: recover a reasonable faith that takes the New Testament call for freedom from man-made religion seriously, rejects narrow literalism, and insists on going where the evidence leads.

In my unique iconoclastic style (again, I hope so), I explore the fundamentalist roots of the church, charismatic and mainstream evangelicalism, the new progressives, including the emergent church, and over reactions to the Christian Right such as the writings of Bishop Shelby Spong and Sam Harris. By weaving personal stories and anecdotes together with some of the most controversial hot-potato issues of our day, I ponder such thought-provoking questions as these while answering them with clear reasoning and meticulous references from scholars, historians, and scientists:

• How and why do some Christians abuse the Bible?
• Why is the traditional doctrine of hell based more on tradition than on what the Bible truly affirms?
• Why is the evangelical church wrong on the gay rights issue?
• What’s all this rigmarole about the end of the world and Jesus’ return?
• Why are Christians wrong when they claim someone like Gandhi isn’t “saved?”
• Is there a reasonable way to solve the religion vs. science debate?
• Is materialistic atheism really ruling the day intellectually?
• And the real stumper, Can we ever recover from the damage done by the Teletubbies?

If you want to learn how to squash fundamentalism wherever it rears its ugly head, on the Right or the Left, and yearn for some clarity in religious thought and the culture wars, my tour in the form of a new book called Confessions of a Bible Thumper, may be your ticket to an authentic and progressive spirituality independent of dogmatic trappings. What part of this tour are you fascinated with?

Confessions of a Bible Thumper

Why haven't I posted anything in a while someone asked? Well, I've been busy working my day job and on a new writing project (could turn into a book) that I will begin to preview here. I welcome all your comments.

How a Former Evangelical Survived the Christian Right, Rejected the Radical Left, and Recovered a Rational Faith

Introduction

The enigma of Christian fundamentalism and most of evangelicalism is the loss of the biblical concept of freedom and the development of the unbiblical system of performance-based religion. Based on their preoccupation with biblical inerrancy and literalism, most of evangelicalism has succumbed to a deep-seated and insidious legalism that grips conservative bible-believing Christians with an iron fist that refuses to let go. From the asinine superficiality of extreme fundamentalism to the more thoughtful faith of moderate evangelicals (but no less performance- and law-based) the conservative church is in spiritual bondage, suffering from a severe drought of grace—something with which it should be inundated given what the Bible truly teaches. As one conservative church member said to me recently when I asked him why he stopped attending church, “I got tired of jumping through hoops.”

Although there may be glimpses of freedom among some progressive evangelicals, legalism typically reigns supreme, taking various forms within individual churches and denominations. The censorious gradations include on one side of the extreme written and unwritten codes for dress, behavior, speech, sex, ministry, and non-essential doctrines (e.g., restrictions on skirt lengths, body piercings, alcohol use, most if not all divorce, certain sexual behaviors even among married couples, women in ministry, adherence to the King James Bible only, and fundamentalist statements of fairh). Moderates aren’t nearly as strict yet have their own written and unwritten legalistic codes that include measuring a person’s godly maturity based on how well they practice spiritual disciplines, such as praying and reading the Bible, and their degree of commitment to, and financial support of, an institutional church. In short, legalistic evangelicalism focuses primarily on what believers must do for God rather than on what God has done for them. Afraid of teaching true biblical freedom, the institutional church attempts to control people through its emphasis on creating and enforcing laws derived from misinterpretations of the Bible and traditional non-biblical teachings rather than allowing individuals to govern themselves under the overriding law that Christ taught—love for God and neighbor.

Shamefully, the church also suffers from a shortage of clear thinking. Mark Noll laid out that case in his seminal book where he stated in the first sentence, “The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind.” Not exactly an encouraging sign. Although Noll recognizes certain virtues of evangelicals, such as sacrifice and generosity to the needy, he concludes they are not exemplary for their thinking.

Ironically, the enigma of the radical religious Left is their extreme emotional overreaction to the Christian Right. Garry Wills calls this “the new fundamentalism”, a term he uses to describe the work of the team of scholars who make up the Jesus Seminar. “Though some people have called the Jesus Seminarists radical, they are actually very conservative. They tame the real, radical Jesus, cutting him down to their own size.” Wills is no card-carrying fundamentalist.

Confessions of a Bible Thumper is the product of my journey of 25 years as a card-carrying evangelical who, frankly, got tired of jumping through hoops. Disillusioned with anti-intellectualism, superficial platitudes and pseudo-spiritual pat answers, both blatant and subtle legalism, litmus tests for outsiders, and the gross and widespread mishandling of the Scriptures, I left my bible-thumping ways only to find that many liberal alternatives to the Christian Right aren’t much better.

Read entire Introduction...

Rethinking Iraq

Recently in Newsweek (November 6 cover "We're losing, but all isn't lost.", Fareed Zakaria wrote an excellent and balanced view of Irag with recommendations for a way forward. Frankly, I'm tired of simplistic pronouncements on "Bush's War", from both Bush critics and some supporters. Critics blindly overlook the stark realities of the Saddam era, saying we should leave now and never should have been there in the first place. Some supporters, and Bush himself, overlook the stark realities of the escalated Sunni/Shiite sectarian hatred and violence (and the fact that much fighting is largely not a jihadist crusade but a Sunni struggle for control of the country) and its impact on uniting a democratic Iraq. Zakaria gives a more realistic picture and suggests a more balanced solution.

Democracy in Iraq--although I believe it still has a fighting chance--is not winning. Zakaria says we must "reduce and deploy our troops and nudge Iraqis toward a deal" in order to avoid total loss and get a "gray" outcome. In laying out the bad and the ugly, he doesn't overlook the good: a free Kurdish north and democratic free elections. One point he hits home is the critical fact that "the way out of this stalemate is not to pack up and go home. That will surely result in a bloodbath or worse."

One element missing from Zakaria's analysis is the need for forgiveness in Iraqi society. Without it, there is little hope. Shiites are venting after years of Sunni control and oppression, and Sunnis are retaliating trying to regain control. Shortly after Zakaria's article (and Saddam's hanging sentence), the largely Shia-controlled government finally made an effort to reign in Shiite death squads that attack Sunnis and then offered Sunnis their old government jobs from the Saddam era--a huge concession. Steps to reconcile and forgive like this will do more than any military solution. And as Zakaria said, with a Shia and Sunni agreement, Al Qaeda would be marginalized in the country.

Ted Haggard's Darkest Hour

The case of Ted Haggard and his recent fall from grace is a truly bizarre story. Haggard initially minimizes the accusations by Mike Jones (I bought meth from him, but didn't take it; I got a massage from him, but didn't have sex with him - sound familiar? "...but I didn't inhale"), but eventually confesses his own deception: "The fact is I am guilty of sexual immorality. I am a deceiver and a liar. There is a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I have been warring about it for my entire life..." He still says not all of what was claimed was true, but enough of it is. Meanwhile, Mike Jones passes a lie detector test partially--the part about him having sex with Haggard he fails. Perhaps he was stressed at that time, says the test implementer, and says he will do it over. Whatever the outcome is irrelevant now that Haggard has at least admitted deception, sexual immorality, and a "dark side".

Haggard is now mocked by the left and tolerated by the church, as a fallen brother, whose sin now exposed, was part of God's will as "God is a holy God and he chose this incredibly important timing for this sin to be revealed, and I actually think it's a good thing. I believe America needs a shaking, spiritually, " so said a leading board member of Haggard's church.

God is using this to shake America? Isn't he using it to shake the church? Shouldn't people be angry that the church continues to foster deceptive leaders? Or, is there a deeper element that should be faced--the fact that narrow, legalistic teaching bears the bad fruit of deception, hypocrisy, and in some cases deep sexual frustration?

One of the bizarre elements of this is how no one seems to be asking how a anti-gay-rights evangelical influential leader could fall into homosexual sin in the first place! Doesn't it appear like he was a man struggling with homosexual orientation and finally gave in? If so, his story must be reminiscent of Mel White's, although Mel didn't openly preach against homosexuality.

In 2003, Haggard was quoted as the new President of the National Association of Evangelicals: "This is evangelicalism's finest hour. It is the time for evangelicalism to assert itself in the public debate of ideas." If that was their finest hour, today is one of their darkest. And, another piece of evidence that the church is in desperate need of a new reformation.

Myths in the Media and in Public Thought

Did you know almost everything you know is wrong? So says 20/20 consumer advocate John Stossel in his new book Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity. And he has a good point with a strong case.

I have been flabbergasted how so much of what the media reports and how they frame debates is distorted and misrepresented. Headlines announce news and without reading the whole article or digging deeper into facts, you walk away with a distorted view. Or, the bias of the media outlet slants the issue the way they want. The result is many of us are duped. Stossel exposes this phenomenon with his fact-finding investigative approach. Here are some samples of his findings:

Myth: DDT is dangerous to the environment. Truth: DDT saves lives.
I've been telling this story that DDT is way overhyped as a killer. It's only dangerous at very high levels and when public policy banned it years ago, it proved devastating for Africans. If the US funded DDT spraying, we could prevent the spread of malaria, but we don't and millions die.

Myth: Gas prices are going through the roof. Truth: Gasoline is a bargain.
When adjusted for inflation, we still pay little for gas. In fact, factoring inflation, gas today is 69 cents cheaper than 1981!

Myth: Outsourcing takes American jobs. Truth: Outsourcing creates American jobs.
Outsourcing helps the poor in the developing world and lowers prices and helps us consumers. Lower prices means we have more money to spend. Outsourcing also enables businesses to expand operations and create new and better jobs for Americans.

Myth: Republicans shrink government. Truth: Republicans say they will, but don't

Myth: Government helps the needy. Truth: Government hurts the needy by vomiting the public's money everywhere.

Myth: Politicians (e.g. President and Congress) run America. Truth: The people run America.

Myth: Public schools are underfunded. Truth: They have lots of money.

Myth: Business rip us off. Truth: Most don't.

Myth: Experts can cure homosexuality. Truth: Experts delude themselves.
(My thinking on this one has changed and I agree with Stossel - see Mel White).

Myth: (a) Global warming is happening because of fossil-fuel burning and (b) signing the Kyoto Treaty would stop it. Truth: (a) Maybe and (b) Hardly.
The evidence points that it doesn't. See Canadian scientists statement. Kyoto would hurt the poor.

Myth: Polygamy is cruel to women. Truth: The women aren't complaining.

Myth: John Stossel is a conservative. Truth: John Stossel is a libertarian.

Posts to Come

I've been so busy with my new job, I haven't had a chance to post much. I've got several subjects on my mind to post around including the Ted Haggard incident, John Stossel's new book called "Myths, Lies, and other Downright Stupidity", the Dead Sea Scrolls, the recent excellent Newsweek article on Iraq, and more about the Intelligent Design movement (just watched a video of Richard Dawkins visiting Ted Haggard's church -- a misrepresentation of the ID movement and a shameful display by Haggard, which reinforces again the need for a radical reformation in the church or else materialists and/or legalists will rule the day).

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