Mike Starkey writes: For the first decade of the 2000s I was a vicar in suburban southwest London. Part of my inheritance from the previous regime was a church with close links to a cult.
It was a very British kind of cult, with an emphasis on high culture, old-fashioned values and the 1662 Prayer Book. A sepia-tinted nostalgia for old England was combined with an eclectic mix of Eastern mysticism and esoterica dredged from the freakier wilds of Victoriana. They ran a number of schools, including one in the parish. In a world of shallow culture and declining values, the schools proclaimed virtues of politeness, courtesy, truthfulness and honesty. In addition to the schools, the group ran courses offering insights into wisdom, ethics and self-understanding.
I inherited close ties to this school, who for years had held regular events in church and now expected me to support their activities. But the closer I investigated, the more disturbed I became. I severed the link.
With the passing of time, it became clear that the professed values of the group were not all they had claimed to be. Years later, an independent inquiry found that pupils had been ‘criminally assaulted’ while at the school. The inquiry uncovered examples of pupils being kicked and thrown across the classroom. Significant sums were paid in compensation for historical abuse at the hands of the cult and its schools.
I recently met up with a survivor who had attended one of the schools. We walked and chatted in Bushy Park, a few miles from the school she attended as a child, and the tale she told was harrowing. Yes, there had been extreme physical and verbal violence. But more devastating was the mental torture. The worst of it has never been made public, she said. She was still in recovery decades later, and her hands shook as she remembered.
As we spoke, I remembered the anger expressed by some members of my congregation after I had severed links to the cult. How could I possibly distance the church from values of politeness, courtesy, truthfulness and honesty? What kind of monster was I?
I’ve remained intrigued by the language of cults and new religious movements. In particular, I’m fascinated by the gap between benign-sounding rhetoric and a more brutal hidden reality. I’ve come to think of the language of the cult as Weaponised Kindness.
In an era of memes and social media, rhetoric triumphs over substance. As long as the label on the tin says kindness, the tin never needs to be opened or its contents examined. In such a culture, values degrade into badge-wearing, flag-flying and sloganeering. Nuanced ethical debates become polarised. My side is self-evidently good, your side evil. I’m motivated by kindness; you, by hate. If I vilify a hater, I’m on the side of virtue because I’m fighting for goodness. The language of kindness is weaponised.
Compassionate Christians with a concern for social justice seem particularly vulnerable to weaponised kindness, and seem curiously unable to spot it in others. Maybe I’m oversensitive to it after my adventures with the cult. I’ve sometimes wondered if I’ve become a little obsessive. My recent conversation with the cult survivor in Bushy Park reassured me I’m not.
My weaponised kindness alert went off recently during the sermon of Bishop of Washington Mariann Budde, at Washington National Cathedral, following the inauguration of Donald Trump as President. The sermon polarised public opinion. The MAGA faithful found it offensively ‘woke’, symptom of a Church that defers to social justice platitudes and waters down historic Christianity. From the progressive side, the Bishop was hailed as prophetic, speaking truth to power.
The clearest expression of this polarisation came in an article by evangelical social justice activist Shane Claiborne. For Claiborne, public response to the sermon revealed that there are now two versions of Christianity in the USA: a nationalistic, supremacist pastiche of the Gospel, and an authentic Christianity that takes its model from the historical Jesus.
Between the Christianity of Trump and the Christianity of Christ, we recognize the widest possible difference — so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure and holy is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt and wicked. I can see no reason to call this Christianity.
I agreed with much that Bishop Budde said in her sermon. She was brave to speak out in the presence of power. There was something morally exhilarating about her focus on unity and her references to human dignity, honesty, humility and mercy. I was heartened that the sermon was given by a prominent woman in church ministry.
I was less happy with Claiborne’s demonisation of everybody who raised questions, or felt sympathetic to any of Trump’s policies, as the ‘cult of Trump’. In his article he cites only the most rabid reactions from the MAGA faithful. At no stage does he concede that huge swathes of America might have agreed that Trump is a deeply morally-flawed character—even found the man repellent—but still found his policy proposals in particular areas to be more moral (and more authentically Christian) than those of the Democrats.
The phrase, ‘in war, truth is the first casualty’ is attributed to Aeschylus, father of ancient Greek tragedy. The first casualty in Christian polemics is nuance.
Claiborne’s description of the Trump faithful as a cult felt ironic, since the latter part of the Bishop’s sermon set off cult language warning bells in my own head. I found one of the Bishop’s phrases to be a prime example of weaponised kindness:
In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families who fear for their lives.
I immediately queried the Bishop’s use of the term ‘transgender children’ in a social media post, and was told I was missing the point. Her message was mercy and compassion. Nobody with a conscience could possibly object to a focus on mercy and compassion. Fair enough. I was zooming in just two words, not the broad sweep. But this was precisely my point. Those words were delivered in passing, as an uncontroversial example of the mercy and compassion she was highlighting. Nobody with a concern for social justice could possibly object. Could they?
To challenge the Bishop on those two words signalled to many that I was on the wrong side of history. I’d chosen the wrong type of Christianity. In the word of Shane Claiborne, I’d chosen the version of Christianity that was ‘bad, corrupt and wicked’. I’d chosen the Christianity that did not deserve to be called Christianity.
My reason for focussing on those two words was a concern for language, particularly euphemisms that normalise the unacceptable. I’m convinced today’s language of ‘protecting’ the ‘trans child’ is a cultish euphemism, designed to mask something creepy and abusive. That it could be dropped in as something uncontroversial in a sermon on mercy left me unsettled. It reminded me of the cult school that promised politeness, courtesy, truthfulness and honesty. What’s not to like about that? Well, in retrospect, quite a bit.
My concern about cultish language is twofold:
- It’s a language of ‘us’ and ‘them’. There’s no nuance, no middle ground. You’re committed to the cause, or you’re evil.
- It twists meaning. There’s a kind of language favoured by cult groups that sounds benign and compassionate. It borrows a radiant language of kindness, authenticity and self-discovery, only to twist their meanings. It can mask horrors. There’s something especially horrific about borrowing and twisting the language of personal authenticity, because our watchful dragons have been taught not to stir when that language is used.
A characteristic of cult language is what linguists call a thought-terminating cliché. This is a platitude that signals virtue, but stops discussion. No kind person could possibly disagree with it—if you do, you’re a hater. Thought-terminating clichés have become commonplace today: ‘Just be kind’, ‘The only thing I’m intolerant of is intolerance’, ‘Finding my true self’. And one of the most widely weaponised thought-terminating clichés of our day: ‘Trans kids’.
It all sounds so benign and affirming. But a medical ethicist I know describes the medical harm done to children in the name of gender ideology as the worst medical scandal of the 21st century. A gay friend tells me there is no such thing as a trans child, only a transed child.
Children from pre-school age onwards are being encouraged to believe they might have been born in the wrong body. Colourful, cartoony books pack the shelves of bookshops and libraries, telling young children their perfectly healthy body may be a mistake, that they might have some speculative and unfalsifiable true self at odds with their physical body.
Books that challenge this narrative are cancelled. I recently read the wonderful My Body is Me, by poet Rachel Rooney and illustrator Jessica Ahlberg. It’s a gentle, empathetic book for 3- to 6-year-olds that celebrates diversity. Black children, white children, disabled children, girls playing football, boys making art and baking. Its message: it’s good to be myself; my body is me.
But its author was branded transphobic and vilified. She subsequently left the world of publishing, and has been banned from literary events. A book that fosters self-acceptance was rebranded as hate. Your body is not the real you, say activists to small children. It’s a kind of costume.
Coincidentally, at the same time as the Bishop was delivering her sermon, new stats were released on the numbers of UK children who think they’re the wrong gender. Analysis of GP records shows that in the 10 years from 2011 to 2021 there was an astonishing 50-fold rise—and this only includes cases which reached the GP. Even if we grant that there remains a tiny number of people who have genuine gender dysphoria (historically around 0.01% of the population), it’s hard to imagine a clearer example of a social contagion, spread among a vulnerable, impressionable population through peer groups and social media.
Earlier I cited examples of thought-terminating clichés. With my Bushy Park conversation fresh in my mind, I offer some translations:
- ‘Just be kind’. Means: Just be kind—as long as you agree with my definition of kindness, or I’ll brand you a hater, and hateful people deserve no hearing or compassion.
- ‘The only thing I’m intolerant of is intolerance’. Means: If you tolerate the same things as me, you’re on the right side of history. If you have views my peer group finds unacceptable, you’re by definition intolerant; you’re a hater and nothing you say should be taken seriously.
- ‘Finding my true self’. This is a staple of cults and marketing departments. It separates an inferior, everyday self from an aspirational authentic self, which can be discovered at a price. That price might be buying a product, or surrendering your money and life choices to a manipulative leader who claims to know your true self better than you do.
- ‘Trans child’. Means: A child encouraged by adults to think they may have been born in the wrong body. That their perfect, perfectly healthy, body—the only body they will ever have—might be a mistake. A child told by people they trust, at a vulnerable and impressionable age, that drugs and irreversible surgeries might make them more authentic—despite the fact that they can’t possibly grasp the long-term implications of this.
Don’t get me wrong. I believe there’s a great deal that all Christians and all people of goodwill can agree with in Bishop Budde’s sermon. I’m not remotely implying she had dubious motives. In many ways I admire her. But once you’ve been up close with a cult, and walked with a cult survivor, you learn to recognise thought-terminating clichés—even when the speaker is unaware they are using them. And you feel a shiver down the spine whenever you hear the weaponised language of kindness.
It’s a language that sounds benign, even as it polarises, distorts and harms.
Mike Starkey is a London-based writer and ordained Anglican minister, formerly Head of Church Growth for Manchester Diocese. He blogs at Flaneur Notes.
The bottom image is Victor Orsel – Good and Evil: the Devil Tempting a Young Woman (detail), 1832. Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon. Photo taken by Mike Starkey.
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Perceptive article.
Amen to all of this. This is why we, at LGBChristians, are trying to alert the Church of England to this new safeguarding failure happening in its schools. It overwhelmingly affects youths unable to cope with same-sex attraction. We’re witnessing the re-medicalisation of homosexuality, and autism.
I’m interested in why autism diagnoses have rocketed. Is it greater awareness of something that was always so; or something in the modern urban diet; or due to certain aspects of upbringing; or a combination? I wouldn’t rule out any of these.
Anton
Having autism myself – at the severe end autism diagnoses have climbed as it has been realised that many (seriously MANY!!) earlier diagnoses of schizophrenia should have been autism, plus of course the simple realisation that autism is not the same thing as just ‘thick’.
At the mild end – because of one of the distinctive things of autism, sometimes called ‘mind-reading’, not something occult or sci-fi but the ability to ‘read’ emotions in the face – autism comes as a spectrum. Arguably almost all men could be regarded as at least slightly autistic compared to almost all women – because of their childcare role women have I think more ‘back-ups’ in the mind-reading bit of the brain. The issue is whether someone is so affected that it is a problem – which it certainly was for me before research in the 1980s made diagnosis of milder autism (Asperger syndrome) possible from the early 1990s. I know quite a few people (interestingly especially in the railway and modelling hobby) who I perceive as clearly ‘on the spectrum’, but they were more fortunate in being able to find jobs and other life situations suited to how autism manifested in them. (My own life might have been quite different had it been realised earlier that my ‘hyperlexia’ made me a natural ‘fit’ for library work – but by the time diagnosis was posssible it was a bit late).
In relation to the ‘trans’ issue autism has two logically distinct but related relevances. The difficulty with mind-reading makes understanding people including yourself quite hard – I struggled for a long time to realise that I’m not actually ‘gay’, and many autistic people seem to me to end up identifying as gay or more often ‘bi’ because of the difficulties they have with relationships. Also autistics tend to be rational (Star Trek’s “Vulcan” aliens were based on autistics known to the series creator) and will often question traditional gender roles. I’ve never seen myself as possibly really a woman but I can see how confusion could arise for some autistic people.
The other point is that autism is often connected with atypical hormonal activity – sometimes of the mother and affecting the developing child in utero, but also often in the autistic person themselves. And in turn ‘trans’ experience is often related to such ‘rogue’ hormones; definitely so in a case I know personally.
I don’t think anybody ever conflated autism with ‘just thick’. Try going into a university mathematics departmental tearoom.
Anton
When you know it’s autism you don’t think it’s ‘just thick’. But before it was realised there was a distinct thing called autism an awful lot of autistic people ended up in homes for what were then called the ‘retarded’. There is an episode of ‘Quincy ME’ available on Youtube which illustrates that rather well. I’ll try and find a link for it.
I understand that one of the things which led to the realisation of autism existing was the oddity that when some of the brainiest people in the world were gathered together to develop the A-Bomb, their marriages often produced what appeared superficially to be intellectually lacking.
Ooops!
“… intellectually lacking offspring.”
Anton – the Quincy episode was “Quincy, M.E. – Season 4, Episode 3 A Test for the Living”. Unfortunately at the moment Youtube appears to have it “hidden”.
The basic plot was that a supposedly ‘backward’ child escaped from a home through security portrayed as tough for the adults, in the outside world came to Quincy after dying in an accident. Quincy is puzzled because he doesn’t see many things he would expect in a backward child, and is approached by a person who explains autism to him and enlists him to help another boy be diagnosed as autistic.
Interestingly in the days when a TV guide mag could give a line of description, this was often portrayed as Quincy ‘saving’ the child from the diagnosis of autism!!
I do not know, but over 50% of referrals to the Tavistock were autistic, whereas the prevalence of autism in society at large is nearer 1%. It’s a medical scandal.
For an important account of the Tavistock, see Hannah Barnes’ book “Time to Think”.
You have completely ignored the points the Bishop was making about migrants and the poor, and made the focus of your article the trans issue.
Is the only Christian argument that having mercy on (illegal) migrants = automatically giving them full citizenship and permitting them to stay?
Is the only Christian approach to statehood and borders are to abolish them? Allow anyone to enter? Where do you draw the line?
Is the only response to the poor socialism? Or are we allowed to acknowledge that capitalism (despite its manifold problems) has lifted more people across the world out of poverty than anything else?
It’s clear to me that our responsibility to the world’s poor is balanced by our ability to look after our own poor and ensure we husband our resources in a responsible way. Illegal migration should be discouraged not least because it favours the strong and wealthy in the country they are immigrating from. Therefore it is just to deport illegal migrants.
A bishop using her pulpit to preach the lefty liberal way as ‘the christian response’ in a preachy and pious way is improper and offensive.
I have read most of the responses on here, and yours was the only one that mirrored my own views…thank you
The entire issue of immigration (documented and undocumented) is complex. Simply calling all undocumented immigrants “criminals” is one of those thought-terminating clichés Mike mentions in his article. There are nuances that must be taken into account.
I just saw a news story this morning about an immigrant who was arrested leaving church this past Sunday. He and his family had crossed the border illegally, fleeing gang violence in their native Honduras. He was registered, having an ankle monitor to make sure he didn’t abscond while awaiting a hearing on his petition for asylum. He was appearing at the local Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office for all his scheduled check-ins. He was even given a temporary work permit so he could legally find employment while his petition worked its way through the immigration courts (which are severely backlogged due to insufficient funding to hire more immigration judges). He had not been involved in any criminal activity. He was complying with the legal process. His asylum petition had not yet been ruled on.
But because he had been following the rules, ICE knew where to find him. ICE officers showed up at the church asking for him. The pastor and staff refused to let them enter to apprehend him, so they just waited until he left the service, and nabbed him.
He was trying to follow the rules, but was betrayed by the very system with which he was complying.
“all undocumented immigrants” are breaking the law by being so, and are therefore criminals.
I do not see where you actually provide any nuence or insight into why my claim is ‘one of those thought-terminating clichés’. It’s an assertion, and I reject it on the same grounds.
You then go to give an example of someone who is not an undocumated immigrant – but an asylum seeker. He is clearly documented. I do not know why ICE arrested him, nor what they were doing, or whether that is just or not – but I do not see the relevance either.
Rather like the Magnificat or the Parable of the Good Samaritan.
Both very offensive.
And rightly so.
The trans issue was the first issue the Bishop raised in applying her call for unity and she did it in the underhand, weaponised way which Mike was highlighting. Mike complimented other aspects of the sermon so you are being unfair in suggesting he is being unbalanced and picky.
Not only that, she did it by sensationalising the threat of suicide among children, which is against every prevention guideline I know. And she did it for the whole nation to hear and without evidence, as studies show that transitioning does not alleviate suicidal ideation or depressive co-morbidities.
I didn’t think Bishop Budde was talking about suicide. That’s not what we think of with someone in fear for their life.
No? Donald Trump has just appointent a gay man to the Treasury and another as ambassador to Germany. He’s not trying to kill ‘LGBTQ’ people. She may not have put it as obviously as she could but she was referring to trans children, not the whole acronym, and she made sure that suicide could be implied, she’s not stupid.
Yes he has, and that is his prerogative.
Dear Richard:
I think that it is easy to listen to an historically common list of “Dos” and “Don’ts” and the addition of something uncommon in the list attracts attention. I found the inclusion of “trans” children to be a bit jarring, because it is a contentious designation to begin with, while being poor or a migrant is self-evident. However, I didn’t give it another thought. I agree with you that zooming in on it seems a bit picky. We all have our moments in sermons and even in some readings, in which our eyes roll a bit at a factual stretch, but we come back next week.
She knows that the more she mentions the term, and secondly and more importantly dishonestly mentions it as if it were an agreed and well-founded term, then the more it will get embedded in the national psyche.
It is both agreed and well-founded.
Your not agreeing with those two realities doesn’t make them less real.
You are saying that people agree that the term ‘trans children’ means something?
Basically historically and internationally they agree that it does not. Today they do not agree, and it is obviously incorrect for you to say that they do. The only way they agree is if you get together only those who agree with the proposition and exclude those who disagree with it. Then people will agree – but that would be dishonest, artificial and tautologous.
Some people, like you, resist the reality by pretending that some things don’t exist because you would prefer that they didn’t.
Trans children exist. Most people recognise that. People who don’t recognise that don’t stop trans children existing.
Trans people have existed in many cultures and societies. Rebutting that is simply historical and anthropological ignorance.
No, it’s a social contagion.
Most people disagree they exist. What circles are you moving in? It seems that you constantly repeat the mantras of your extremely narrow society and time in history. Rather than being critical and independent which are the first requirements.
You think your assertion that this is not true carries weight? I have seen this often. People think that they can make an assertion, any assertion, and the fact that they make it (however odd it is) increases its chances of becoming true!
This is connected to the fact that they have only got people to believe such a thing by means of endless repetition in the first place.
And the endless repetition is emplyed because no-one would think of believing such things unless it were constantly jammed upon them.
But even if, in some parallel universe, most people did think that, what possible relevance to the truth could that have?
You know very well that the last ten years have seen the number of people claiming to fall into this category *suddenly* shooting up. That is the reverse of anthropological, therefore. The proportion of girls shooting up. The proportion of autistic being wildly unrealistic. The social contagion perspective is common sense here. Cf. anorexia and bulimia in another age. They are reactions to particular societies and circumstances/assumptions that have proliferated in those societies (such as, of course, downplaying male and female).
These are obvious and central points, often made. How can your presentation begin to be adequate if it does not address them?
Christopher
You are extremely culturally and historically ignorant if you believe that a) trans people haven’t existed in many societies across many cultures
b) most people don’t believe that trans people exist.
Nor do you seem to understand that more people being diagnosed with something (for example, autism) is because societies are, in the main, more aware of such conditions than they were 50 or 500 years ago. The prevalence is not necessarily greater; the awareness is. For someone who so highly prizes science, this seems a strange oversight.
None of which was my point. My point was that you must be half crazy if you think that the exponential growth in people claiming to identify as something unverifiable and untestable has happened at the very point when people are saturating society with these very same ideas. The power of suggestion. Social contagion.
1 All the Tavistock Clinic patients were actually ‘trans’?
2 If not, how differentiate between those who were and were not?
3 How about those who felt they were at some times and not others?
4 How about those for whom adolescence was intrinsically a time of flux which later settled down?
5 And were any of them ‘semi trans’ or were they all 100% one way or the other?
6 If even a doctor tried to examine the patients, would there be any way of telling which were ‘trans’? I.e. has objective reality at all? Because we can be sure that femaleness and Chineseness have objective reality and are very observable indeed, even by the layperson.
This topic is off topic.
There are 6 questions for you to address. I cannot see any way that a coherent position can be held on your basis.
For ‘has happened at the very point’ read ‘has happened by mere chance at the very point’.
You clearly have no idea of how few trans people attended the Tavi.
But this article is not a review of the Bishop’s speech. That there are good things was acknowledged, but those two words were a springboard for talking about this very real issue. I’m sure others have written on the Bishop’s speech, and all the positives, but this article was, intentionally and effectively, focussed elsewhere. I for one found it a very good analysis of something which is a real issue in our society.
Agree richard that there were stronger points the bishop raised, eg on long established migrants to the usa who have built legit lives there, etc. But i agree with this article strongly that there was loaded language in this sermon, ie trans kids. Its almost like using a human shield for ones own agenda.
Jane Cornish’s reply said it better than i could
Thank you ! Very eloquently expressed.
The problem will all churches today is that they are transactional. If you say the right words, you are in. Brand loyalty is the only essential ingredient. If you leave, you will be replaced by another ‘supporter’. The are very similar to football clubs. The system can easily be exploited by those with divided loyalties. It’s unlikely that anyone would go to church or support a football team if they weren’t at all interested in Christianity/football but status, power, money and all sorts other things influence the system as a whole. The type of communities that shaped the faith in the early days no longer exist. The warnings in Paul’s letters about insincere infiltrators are glossed over. There’s very little gatekeeping.
This is a very observant and in some ways horrendous observation. Unless we recognise the value of transactions? But we need something so much deeper at a spiritual level.
Just about every religion preaches kindness, but the point is to practise it. (I don’t often adapt Marx!) We should not take what people say too seriously, but should look at how they live. That is why Paul said that an Elder should be chosen on the basis of how he manages his own family (1 Tim 3). In our churches today, we often don’t know each other well enough to do that.
If your antennae quiver, as did the author’s on first meeting the cult he describes, then do not ignore them.
One of my doctrine lecturers said… “Christianity is not about being kind to Granny and the cat” . (Hugh Silvester)
Whatever the means to influence or manipulate other people may be, the ultimate defence against being led astray by untruth or cultish technique is an ingrained refusal to outsource one’s own thinking to any other human being or group – including other Christians. God designed it that every human being has his or her own unique brain and the consequent mind (meaning the ability to think through and debate within oneself) for discerning what is true or false factually as well as what is good and bad morally. The fact that someone can be perfect in their analysis or moral judgement on one issue can never be taken as guaranteeing that person’s analysis or moral judgement on any other issue.
When it comes to our dealings with people whom we know, trust or even love, such a perspective might seem superfluous – unpleasantly cynical even – but I think having it ever present at the back of our minds is simply a realistic way of handling the infinitely complicated business of relating to other people. Those of us who are Christians will obviously understand it as one aspect of the stark reality of living in a fallen world. The truth is, we cannot even guarantee to ourselves that our own discernment of facts and moral uprightness will always be 100% reliable: we all get things wrong and probably, on occasion, offer bad views or advice to others. And that’s why our constant walk with God, continually inhabiting the pages of scripture, praying for wisdom, humility before him and repenting of failure must remain at the centre of our lives.
And who of us is not aware of the disingenuous use of words like ‘biblical’ or ‘prayerfully’ amongst Christians for justifying particular opinions or actions…?
If ever you hear “I say this in love…” then you know a zinger is coming.
Ha. You know that’s right! Why not just admit you’re saying it out of irritation? Fortunately, I see this in comedy and drama but not in real life. If others have to listen to it, well, arguments are often made with some tools best left in the kit.
Great comment. I’ve even heard some people say (God bless them) we should vote “biblically”
We should.
Casting lots?
‘Voting biblically’ means voting according to how far policy proposals cohere with biblical principles; it’s not a reference to the means of voting.
And biblical principles are not a hard and fast thing, and are very much open to interpretation and context.
If the bible can mean anything then it means nothing.
So data (relatively definable and testable) is nothing, and interpretation (delightfully malleable, which is of course the point) is everything?
I thought interpretation was interpretation OF the data, and therefore necessarily subservient to the data.
And no-one should listen to the ‘interpretations’ of those not especially versed in the language, culture, history etc of the text. There are thousands of people worldwide who ARE so versed and accredited, so it would be quite wrong to listen to others.
Except the bible is not data. It is story. Narrative. Interpretation of history. Poetry. Myth. Apocalyptic. Letters. Other kinds of literature as well.
That someone who purports to be a scholar of the NT should state that all this literature is data is worrying and rather implies that we should take any of their interpretation at all seriously. Good grief.
That last bit should read ‘should *not* take any of their interpretations at all seriously’
Voting biblically, like biblical marriage, is a nonsense phrase. They are mantras for the Christian right to hide behind, so that they don’t have to think of the implications of living a Christian life. And ‘ biblical’ usually excludes the Magnificat because it’s kinda Marxist.
If you want, substitute ‘the text’ for ‘data’. I was using ‘data in that sense (rather than the sense you assumed).
Seriously Christopher, you must see that hardly advances your very shaky case.
For one thing you have just demonstrated that particular words can have different meanings according to the intention of the author, and they are not necessarily what the reader assumes.
Secondly, it makes no real difference. Scripture is many things and you are treating it as all one thing – as if it can give binary answers to both simplistic questions. (And note that simplistic is different to simple). Questions about policy, polity and politics and fiercely complicated.
Note Penny’s answer above. Spot on. To say that one can vote biblically is an abuse of scripture.
But that would be an answer to someone who said no interpretation was ever necessary. I.e. not to me. My point would need to be read again. So, to repeat:
-The text precedes interpretation.
-Interpretation defers to the text.
-Both are necessary.
-The latter, interpretation, only needs to be carried out by the qualified, since there are 1000s of them, and it is not likely that the unqualified will be able to withstand all those 1000s. Even the qualified could generally not do that.
-The malleability of the word ‘interpretation’ leads to its being exploited, meaning that restriction to the qualified is all the more necessary.
You are making such a general point as to be meaningless Christopher. And ignoring the points I have made about differentiating between genres of text.
You are another who thinks the only people qualified to interpret are those who agree with your interpretation. That’s not so.
I studied at two Universities for degrees in Theology. I didn’t spend five years doing so to be told I wasn’t qualified by someone who makes vast general points.
Total misunderstandings 6.
(1) You did not gauge my meaning because you did not reach that stage, not because the meaning was not there.
(2) The precise relation between text and interpretation is an important matter. .
(3) Genre is irrelevant to the issue of text-interpretation pecking order.
(4) The existence and importance of genres you know very well I am well aware of, and in fact also know that I often make the same point myself.
(5) You say I only allow people to interpret who agree with my interpretation. Where on earth did I say anything even close to that? It would be an odd thing to say anyway.
(6) I did not exclude qualified people like you but unqualified people, and prioritised people according to how appropriately qualified they are.
While making this point above I did not mention you in particular.
Total BS 6
(1) Your expression and meaning was opaque. Text and data are different things. Scriptural material might have been better. But text would have simply been clear.
(2) The precise relation between text and interpretation is an important matter. Of course if is. Whoever said it wasn’t.
(3) Genre is crucial when it comes to interpretation. We don’t interpret myth in the same way as fact, or letters, for example.
(4) The existence and importance of genres you know is something you often seem to forget when making your vast generalisations.
(5) You often imply that your own interpretation *in some areas* is the only one permitted. The very phrase ‘voting biblically’ implies such. Otherwise all Christians would vote the same way. And clearly they do not.
(6) your mode of expression often implies exclusion.
Your first line was rude and glib, but I am puzzled by (5) – chapter and verse please for this ‘often’.
Your first line was rude and glib, but I am puzzled by (5) – chapter and verse please for this ‘often’.
I meant ‘The total of misunderstandings was 6.’, not ‘There were 6 total-misunderstandings.’.
As for (3), well obviously genre is crucial to interpretation. My point was quite different: that it is irrelevant to the question of the pecking order between text on the one hand and interpretation on the other.
Pecking order? What on earth are you on about? I’ve been studying theology for 50 years and I’ve never heard such a phrase.
You can’t just draw some clear water between text and interpretation. Many of the texts are themselves actually interpreting events.
As for chapter and verse for 5. Read what I put. The very phrase ‘voting biblically’ implies that you think there is only one way to interpret the bible when it comes to voting. Clearly that is nonsense. Otherwise all Christians would vote the same way. And clearly they do not. So – interpretation of the bible in this matter will vary. So – voting biblically becomes a meaningless bit of cant. A vast generalisation.
No. This one way language comes repeatedly from you, but when did it come from me? Voting biblically is as complex or simple as the message of the Biblical tradition itself. That is: multifaceted if with strict parameters or rail-lines.
You can’t put clear blue water between text and interpretation? Yes you can, and that is why they are different concepts from one another. Text is what textual scholars establish. Interpretation (which is the work of commentators – again, a different role) piggybacks on that, so is secondary. It waits for the text to be established so far as that is possible, and only then comments on it from various angles.
If you are saying that interpretation can fail to come after text (as opposed to before text, or simultaneous), then what is it that ‘interpretation’ is interpreting?
So you are saying that the Gospels are all about facts and not interpretation about the life of Jesus and the signs of the kingdom? Come off it.
Key question: what did they believe then that made them express themselves as they did? Interpretation and text always go together. The text is not a transcript of a tape recording. It is interpretation.
(Rhetorical question, no need to answer with further generalities, thank you)
Christopher
One simple point.
You would, I think, claim that a biblical vote would be anti abortion.
According to scripture a foetus is not a person, since causing a miscarriage is not a capital offence. Killing a pregnant woman demands the killer’s death. A foetus ‘dying’ because the woman is injured/killed doesn’t.
Slippery thing this biblical voting.
The definition of ‘foetus’ is certainly slippery. It is a word of convenience (convenience, for those that have killing in mind).
You think there is a magic moment, far less than a second in length, when a foetus suddenly becomes a baby?
Or is it that a nonhuman suddenly in an instant turns into a human? Answers?
‘Person’ is a philosophical concept, that no-one asked to be introduced because it is unnecessary. Where does it come from? We already have science (the species homo sapiens would exist even if no-one could talk or use words), and therefore the need for philosophy is bypassed. Second, you are more trusting than I if you think that the definition of this man made concept is unchanging. After all, meaning is defined by usage. So it means whatever people say it means. Whcih is conveniently vague, and people (monsters) can therefore go ahead and kill the babies.
Biblical – Don’t kill. Killing humans is fairly universally seen not as bad but rather as the worst thing you can do. On this do you disagree?
Thank you Christopher for making my case for me. We were talking of voting biblically (not of what I think of person good or when I believe a foetus becomes a baby).
An unborn baby (since you prefer that term) is regarded in scripture as property, not a a human being. So killing a foetus is not regarded as killing a human being and is not a capital offence.
Your approach is ‘God said it, I believe it, and that settles it.’. An approach not found in the academy.
It is an odd idea that things become true by virtue of being written down. Worse, written down in a book that tat the time of writing has not become regarded as scripture yet.
The reason things are written down is that they are regarded already as true – true before the writing took place, and not any truer as a result of the writing.
If any writing says true things, they were true in natural law or true in history.
Legal prescriptions are often on the basis of natural law as the writer discerns it.
It is not as though we ourselves are less able to discern natural law. Not necessarily. But we have a lot to live up to, since Scriptures became Scriptures at all only by being able to have an influence and power and accuracy that other writings could not compete with.
You are quite wrong Christopher.
I have said nothing about what I believe. I merely pointed out that in scripture a foetus is property not a human being. Which makes your claim to biblical voting more … um … nuanced than you suggested.
I mean pray carry on Christopher, but your arguments about scripture not being scripture until …. something, something … just look increasingly risible.
So you think writers know they are writing ‘scripture’ at the time?
Rather than certain writings later being defined as scripture?
I should think it is sometimes one, sometimes the other. But ‘scripture’ needs defining, and the definition that emerges centres on a later process of discernment, doesn’t it?
Your most recent answer sticks to ‘God said it, I believe it, and that settles it.’. But that means that it is a simple matter to know which things God has spoken. What makes it simple?
Isn’t it better to see which things are true? First, see if there is a worldview which functions like a breakthrough or revelation in its explanatory power. This will be the case because it is in accord with natural law and with the way things are. Then also see if modern statistics confirm that that worldview is right.
Paul wrote of men sleeping with one another being ingratitude, idolatry and abominable. Do I just believe him because he said it? Is that not gullible? I believe IT (rather than him) because it coheres with other truths (truths are things that work in practice and are seen to be the case) and because of the devastation always caused till this day by pursuing the contrary way. As statistics unsurprisingly confirm in spades.
Also because I can see where awelessness and ingratitude fits in the entire picture – they are fundamental.
Then he seems to have received on the Damascus road a coherent overall lens for understanding so much holistically, such that he does not even question it. Which is indeed tone important way that understanding progresses.
So I have four or five reasons for agreeing strongly with what he writes – but none of these three or four has to do with anything called scripture. He was writing to the Romans with the authority he had received on the Damascus Road, and of course LATER it was understood to be of crucial importance to collect together the writings that had this divine authority. There was not always full agreement about which writings those were, but there was strong agreement about the core. There will doubtless have been writings where some bits were thought more authoritative than others. And others like Revelation where the overall degree of authority was disputed.
By using ‘scripture’ as your key concept, you must surely see that your foundation is upon a concept that is very complex and with unclear areas. That is no way to proceed. It is unthinking to a degree, which is no doubt why people use the (highly problematic) term ‘fundamentalism’.
And yet you say above there is clear water between text and interpretation! You are very confused and confusing Christopher.
And back to your obsession with what men may or may not do with each other privately.
Your concerns are noted. But so is your confusion.
Christopher
And none of that obfuscatory babble has anything to do with voting biblically or the observation I made about abortion.
I repeat that I said nothing about an action being right or wrong, I merely pointed towards the text and asked you a question. Which you seem unable to answer.
Lastly you must know what scripture ‘says’ if you believe in voting biblically.
Quite astounding Christopher. You agree with “voting biblically”, but at the same time argue that having Scripture as our foundation is “no way to proceed”.
Instead you seem to formulate your own worldly view, then cast around Scripture to see if it will concur with your view. It reminds me of Disraeli’s criticism of how Gladstone used statistics; it’s much like how a drunk uses a lamppost – more for support than illumination.
Then you misunderstand my perspective, which is by definition no basis for criticising it.
Any perspective that is new to people (i.e. a high proportion of perspectives) they will probably begin by misunderstanding. But perseverance pays off.
The Biblical writings are in the ascendancy because people have chosen them and affirmed them (or their perspective) in especially great numbers over an especially long time period above competitors as bringing revelation and a coherent account of reality.
You say that their importance lies in mere assertion. No – assertion is ten a penny, and anyway assertions are just as likely to be inaccurate as accurate. Their importance lies in their power that over and over, like a correct theory, enables people to make sense of life and find out what life is really all about.
Emphasis on assertion is fundamentalist and is incoherent for the reasons stated.
It is a no brainer that we should vote biblically, because if we don’t, we will be preferring a less accurate perspective with less power to one that is more accurate and hence has more power.
That accuracy and power could scarcely come from the fact that things are asserted. Things are asserted everywhere. Rather, it comes from the fact that the particular things asserted correspond so well to reality. A text is words and words exist only to describe a prior reality.
A couple of the basic mistakes made by PCD:
(1) ‘a foetus was property not a human being.’ Many human beings were property. This is a false antithesis, so fails.
(2) The excinction of the life of an unborn attracted a lesser penalty than the extinction of the life of someone born.
In that system, the latter could be taken to be rated as more valuable than the former. Of course, the latter is the most valuable being in existence, so it’s all relative. Lesser does not mean little.
So what is established is a pecking order in this system.
The vase majority of things in the world are not at the very top of the pecking order.
So everything that is not at the very top can be killed?
Killed? *Because* it is not at the very top?
What on earth has that sinister idea to do with the actual text?
The cruelty of that non-implication even exceeds its extreme illogic.
The idea was that biblical voting would not include being anti the killing of unborn humans. The verse says only that unborn humans are legally below born, in this context at any rate. So the idea that anything not at the very top of a pecking order can just be killed because of that (not that the ‘because’ makes sense) is certainly extremely unbiblical. As well as being pretty mad.
(3) Speaking of ‘a foetus’ without specifying when is this magic moment when a foetus suddenly changes into something that is not a foetus is not adequate. Until such explanation can be made, it will seem that the use of the word foetus is ideological.
And the only ideology that occurs to one is the ideology that wants to play down the significance of the organism involved.
The precise opposite of what any half-good people would want to do: play up the magnificent supreme significance we are dealing with here.
The highest masterpiece in a masterpiece universe, but not good enough for some. They could – presumably – create and animate better themselves.
Christopher
Killing a slave could be a capital offence.
Killing a foetus* wasn’t.
* A scientific term
Is the passage Exodus 21?
Far from speaking about deliberately killing an unborn human,
(a) it does not even speak about killing an unborn human at all. The ‘life for life’ is what the text is not explicit about, but I think an adult is the natural equivalent to another adult.
(b) the baby in question was born prematurely, so is not unborn.
Then there is the issue of whether a miscarriage is meant.
If I understood the passage better I could comment but it is better left to OT specialists?
Christopher
Yes it is. Doesn’t matter whether it’s a miscarriage or a premature birth, it is not, for the purpose of the Law, a ‘life’.
And yes, I have consulted a HB expert.
I strongly suspect I disagree with Bishop Budde about the trans questions and issues. But is she the example of weaponsed kindness or is it Claiborne? I’m not sure that the Bishop, in setting out a plea for mercy to the President, is setting up a harsh them vs us narrative. Nor is it particularly twisting things to acknowledge the fear that many have about the Trump presidency. Asking him to be merciful to those who are scared is not a denouncement.
I don’t think either that where you stand on trans questions and issues is part of defining “Trump Christianity” or people’s problem with it. The associations with prosperity gospel (see Paula White), flirting with Christian nationalism (see the St John’s photo op, plus numerous Trump acolytes), profiteering and abusing the Bible (see the Trump Bible), using prayer to flatter each other (see Franklin Graham) etc. etc. are surely more of the issue at hand.
Good points.
“I don’t think either that where you stand on trans questions and issues is part of defining “Trump Christianity” or people’s problem with it. The associations with prosperity gospel (see Paula White), flirting with Christian nationalism (see the St John’s photo op, plus numerous Trump acolytes), profiteering and abusing the Bible (see the Trump Bible), using prayer to flatter each other (see Franklin Graham) etc. etc. are surely more of the issue at hand.”
Absolutely. The book to read about all of this is Jim Wallis’ The False White Gospel. Prophetic. Clear. Staggering in its perception of what Trump is all about.
Colourism involves even more of a generalisation than racism. So the title is worse than racist. I hope the book is good to compensate for that.
Glad you are omniscient about what Trump is all about. Personally I take Mike Starkey’s point that “Trump is a deeply morally-flawed character… [but find] his policy proposals in particular areas to be more moral (and more authentically Christian) than those of the Democrats.”
I’m not familiar with the notion of the “white gospel” but I don’t like the sound of it because the gospel is for all races. And I accept that many American blacks who are genuinely welcome in mainly white churches in the USA are able to detect cultural assumptions in those churches that, although not racist or antiscriptural, are specific to the white community and not shared by the black community – in a sense, adding to scripture.
Just as a matter of correction for others reading here, that’s not what Mike says. He was discussing Shane Claiborne’s response and Mike said
“ At no stage does he concede that huge swathes of America might have agreed that Trump is a deeply morally-flawed character—even found the man repellent—but still found his policy proposals in particular areas to be more moral (and more authentically Christian) than those of the Democrats.”
We don’t know if Mike agrees with that or not. He is making the point that huge swathes of America thought that.
It’s worth noting in all of this discussion that Trump did not get 50% of the vote. And only got 1.6% more votes than Kamala Harris. So it’s all balancing on a pretty fine line. And if the voting had been that close but the other way around, Trump would have been arguing that the election was stolen, and storming the White House again. Instead, he was pardoning those who did exactly that 4 years ago and took the law in their own hands. Abusing democracy and officers of the law in the process.
There are nuances in what was written at top, which one may pick up on or turn a blind eye to. Let’s ask him.
If, as I believe, Trump thought four years ago that the election had been stolen from him but didn’t know how, he spent the time outside the White House working out how to deal with Wokery in a way he’d never have seen had he merely continued his presidency. Good riddance to DEI (‘didn’t earn it’).
‘At no stage does he concede that …’
I would suggest that is what he thinks as this is debate language.
The so-called democratic voting systems in western countries like the US and UK are abysmal. How can any government claim they have a mandate from the people if the majority didnt vote for them? I mean in the UK 2/3 of voters did not vote for Labour!
The false white gospel enabled South Africa and Rhodesia, the Atlantic slave trade, and racism and colonialism to this day.
Until we recognise how white Europeans (and the US and Australia) have weaponised a toxic theology to facilitate white supremacy, we cannot repent.
Nonsense Penelope, those things were done for money and power by selfish persons. They went to church but they never constructed a systematic theology – they couldn’t, for it would have been so blatantly counterscriptural as to be absurd to all. To knock over their feeble attempts to justify slavery (of one set of people only) using Genesis 9:25, it suffices to quote Christ in Luke 6:31.
Liberal theologians are more subtle in their ways of being counterscriptural.
White persons have had more worldly power in the last 300 years, so their evil is more apparent. But we are all evil without the transforming power of Christ. The New Testament treats slavery as an existing reality, as it was when it was written and still is in some places dominated by other religions. It does not advocate armed resistance, but has nothing good to say about it.
You say “we cannot repent”. Who is ‘we’? Speak for yourself.
Scripture mandates slavery.
Slave traders and owners, colonialists and the makers of apartheid were simply being faithful to scripture. It is very convenient to claim that these were wicked men who were only nominally Christian. They were wicked but, like Christians throughout Christendom,(even into today) they weaponised scripture and theology to suit their supremacist agendas. They firmly believed that God had made the white man superior to the ‘savage’, and granted him sovereignty over colonised bodies.
We cannot repent on their behalf, but we can repent of the ways in which their agendas still harm the vulnerable. We are all under his judgement and, in my view, will be judged much more harshly for the systemic oppressions we condone and perpetrate than for having sex before marriage (for example). And before anyone accuses me of condoning extra marital sex, I am comparing the gravity of sin.
In the Old Testament the Israelites were permitted to take slaves after a military victory, but they were to be treated as human beings in the image of God, not as impersonal property. They and their masters were subject to the written Laws of Moses, including a weekly day off. Killing a slave arbitrarily would count as the capital crime of murder. Female slaves taken for sex were to have the privileges of marriage.
Have you considered what would happen to women and children in the Ancient Near East if the Israelites simply left them to fare for themselves after killing their menfolk in battle?
As for the New Testament, the Golden Rule I have quoted (Luke 6:31) rules out the taking of slaves, does it not? The NT treats slavery as a fact but has nothing good to say about it. The NT does not preach armed rebellion of slaves, because the early church would then simply have suffered the same fate as Spartacus and his band.
Slave traders and owners, colonialists and the makers of apartheid were simply being faithful to scripture.
And Wilberforce wasn’t?
Slave traders and owners… were wicked but, like Christians throughout Christendom… they weaponised scripture and theology to suit their supremacist agendas. They firmly believed that God had made the white man superior to the ‘savage’, and granted him sovereignty over colonised bodies.
That is true and is very wrong of them, provided that by ‘they weaponised scripture’ you mean ‘they twisted scripture’. Scripture is susceptible to being twisted because it is written as an invitation, not a contract between two business sharks. We can recognise the twisting because scripture does have a meaning. (If scripture can mean anything then it actually means nothing.) If you disagree with me, please give the arguments that these men used to try to justify their obnoxious views on the basis of scripture. I’ll bet they can be knocked over easily without a doctorate in theology.
No, slavers didn’t twist scripture. Wilberforce and abolitionists argued (quite properly) against the grain of scripture.
Your rather rosy view of slavery in the Hebrew Bible is the product of Christian apologetics, not an attentive reading of the texts. Israelites could (were mandated to) take any men and women who weren’t Israelites as slaves. The women weren’t ‘married’; they were sex slaves. Even with debt slavery, men were manumitted; women weren’t (although Deuteronomy ‘corrects’ this).
It takes a great deal of modernist negotiation with the text to make slavery in ancient Western Asia look acceptable.
I’m perfectly content for readers to look at the scriptures about slavery for themselves and decide between us.
Why, by the way, do you accept the scriptures about the virgin birth, death on the cross and resurrection from the dead of Jesus Christ? What is your criterion for accepting those yet rejecting others?
So am I Anton. If they read attentively and with an informed perspective on the original context and languages. And an awareness that the texts often contradict each other. Many Christians don’t or won’t read like that in case it troubles their beliefs. Unfortunately, this simply distorts their understanding of scripture and thus their faith
Your comparison of the resurrection with the Law is fairly ludicrous. The resurrection is attested in 4 gospels and the Pauline correspondence. Laws on slavery, largely derivative, were gathered in Exodus and sometimes corrected in Deuteronomy. The two cases are entirely different.
So in short, you believe the New Testament but not the Old. You are something of an opposite to an orthodox Jew!
Do you not see that the laws initially given at Sinai needed restating to the generation about to go into Canaan, many of whom were not at Sinai 40 years earlier? God also filled these laws out in Deuteronomy, making many of them casuistic (If you do this then the penalty is…) rather than apodictic (Don’t do these things…), as was necessary when the people were about to settle. The casuistic form is needed to keep the nation well ordered in the land (and would doubtless have been given at that moment even if the trek had taken only a fortnight), and the apodictic form emphasises God’s rightful authority to give laws. When giving apodictic laws, God often says “I am YHWH.” No Israelite who did not believe in God would write that, and no Israelite who *did* believe in Him would write it unless he believed it came verbatim from the supreme Creator. So who wrote it according to your view, Penelope?
For an advocacy of the real-timing of Exodus, please see the 150pp work The Books of Moses Revisited by the Liverpool University scholar Paul Lawrence. He shows that the covenants in the Law bear strong similarities to the inter-state treaties of the second millennium BC in the Ancient Near East.
You also miss how staggeringly different are the priorities underlying the written laws of Moses from every other legal code. There is no capital punishment for theft of any physical property. That is staggeringly different from all other ancient codes including Roman law (and 18th century English law). There is a system of land ownership which, had it been kept, would have prevented an aristocracy rising which claimed to own the land and taxed in kind those who worked it as harshly as it dare. Such aristocracy-peasant systems have kept 95% of the human race in impoverished misery for thousands of years. Mosaic Law is truly revolutionary.
It is tragic that you cannot recognise the hand of God.
So, in short, you believe everything in the Hebrew Bible.
A literal Adam and Eve.
A literal Noah, whose forebears are the ancestors of tribes and peoples, except that they all perished in the Flood.
A literal Flood.
A literal Exodus?
I could go on.
You are treading on the science/scripture interface and this is not the place for an extended discussion, but I affirm that there was a couple who are ancestors of all humans today. I do not believe, however, that they are the sole ancestors of us from their era: just that they are included in the family tree of everybody. And I do believe in an inescapable flood in the part of the world where all of their descendants lived. As a research physicist and evangelical Christian these are important matters for me and I have deliberately read many points of view. I find difficult two sets of people: those fundamentalists who in practice seem to think that rejection of Darwin is as important as acceptance of Jesus Christ; and liberals who believe that Genesis is ‘myth’. Various good arguments against the mythological view are set out in CS Lewis’s essay ‘Fernseed and Elephants’. Here is a quote from it: “A man who has spent his youth and manhood in the minute study of New Testament texts and of other people’s studies of them… is… likely to miss the obvious thing about them. If he tells me that something in a Gospel is legend… I want to know how many legends… he has read, how well his palate is trained in detecting them by their flavour, not how many years he has spent on that Gospel”.
I believe that science and scripture are in active accord apart from miracles, where they clash. ‘Literal’ is not a useful word, because Genesis is a literary account. Am I right in thinking that ‘material’ would convey your intended meaning better?
I am appalled that you do not believe the Exodus from Egypt happened. Your rejection of that but acceptance of the virgin birth and resurrection of Jesus Christ is extraordinary. They are 2000 years ago and the Exodus some 3500 years ago; both ancient! You might as well say that the four gospel writers got it from a single (questionable?) source as go by Wellhausen’s supposed four strands in the Pentateuch, supposedly combined in the biblical text. This ‘documentary hypothesis’ was demolished by PJ Wiseman (d. 1948), who recognised that Genesis is a compiled sequence of ancient texts written originally on stone tablets. Many stone tablets from Mesopotamia, dated as old as Abraham and Noah, have been uncovered, and they have their own writing conventions, which Wiseman recognised within Genesis. The retaining of those conventions by the compiler – presumably Moses, who also wrote the last part of Genesis, set in Egypt – shows that he copied faithfully. Moses simply added the names of places which had changed name by his time. We even know who each tablet was written by (or for), because the earlier, Mesopotamian parts of Genesis each end (not begin!) with the phrase “These are the toledoth of…”; toledoth means “historical origins”. (For example, “these are the toledoth of Jacob” in Genesis 37:2; our chapter divisions do not match this understanding.) Each section gives information which only that man could have known or found out reliably, and runs up almost to the death of the man named yet never reaches it. The other four books of Moses have been reliably dated to the era of which they speak in ‘The Books of Moses Revisited’ by Paul Lawrence, who shows that the covenants in the Law bear strong similarities to the inter-state treaties of the second millennium BC in the Ancient Near East.
I’m sorry, no respectable contemporary scholar would take Wiseman’s hypothesis seriously, just as most scholars would agree that there is no literary, historical nor archaeological evidence for a mass exodus of Hebrew slaves from Egypt. A small slave revolt maybe.
The flood narratives were borrowed from Mesopotamian stories written for a very different geographical environment and there are at least three distinct strands edited into the Noah narrative.
There is no archaeological evidence for the walls of Jericho.
The edited forms of the Law probably emerged during or after the Babylonian captivity, not earlier.
Why you should think these stories of a people’s relationship with their God (or, more properly, gods) should make me disbelieve in the resurrection, I cannot think.
Have you actually read Wiseman? And what of his point that each section of Genesis ends (not begins!) with a toledoth statement, many about a particular individual, and each section contains no anachronisms? Good evidence that these sections were written contemporaneously – evidence that you simply ignore. A scholar should be able to explain this.
The flood narratives were borrowed from Mesopotamian stories written for a very different geographical environment and there are at least three distinct strands edited into the Noah narrative.
If you begin by assuming that the account of the flood in Genesis was written much later, that would be the best conclusion. IF…
Here is Jericho:
https://www.tektonics.org/gk/jericho.php
David Rohl is a mixed bag but this makes good sense.
The edited forms of the Law probably emerged during or after the Babylonian captivity, not earlier.
Assertion is not argument. I have offered a reference (Paul Lawrence’s book) and summarised its argument, regarding the forms of covenants. You have failed to engage with that argument several times now.
What perturbs me is the fact that you clearly are at ease disbelieving the same scriptures that Jesus Christ regarded as totally authoritative while calling yourself a Christian.
I fail to engage with unserious scholars. And your assumptions about my beliefs are quite breathtaking. Do you think that because I don’t believe in a literal odyssey or an historical Herakles, I don’t think Alexander the Great existed?
There was one further point which I forgot, about the Exodus. An argument against it is the number of Israelites, taken from the Book of Numbers: apparently some 2 million. That would absolutely dwarf the Egyptian army which Pharaoh sent after them, which terrified them; would mean that each Israelite woman averaged about 40 children while in Egypt; and would not match the statement that the Israelites were the ‘fewest of all the peoples’ (Deuteronomy 7:7). But the evangelical Christian (and professor of metallurgy) Colin Humphreys has pointed out that the Hebrew word translated in Numbers as ‘thousand’ (‘lp) can equally well mean a troop of men (as at Judges 6:15 and 1 Samuel 10:19). That brings the number on the trek down to an average sized football stadium or so, and makes everything consistent. Please see Humphreys’ paper in the journal ‘Science and Christian belief’ vol.12, pp17-34 (2000).
I fail to engage with unserious scholars.
I’d like to see you say that to Paul Lawrence, whom I quoted above. But a real scholar engaging with gadflies finds it easy to swat them. I have provided genuine reasons and references for my position and asked you questions in this public forum that you have simply (and repeatedly) ignored. Does your sniffy attitude derive from your inability to refute them?
The existence of similar contemporary laws is not proof of the Exodus, unless I have missed something!
You have not cited any archaeological, literary or historical evidence for a mass exodus of Hebrew slaves from Egypt. You might think the historical record would take note of such a thing!
Evidently you don’t consider the Pentateuch as comprising any “literary or historical evidence for a mass exodus of Hebrew slaves from Egypt”. Says it all.
Egypt was humiliated, so you wouldn’ expect much to be said from that side.
Rather a desperate explanation that!
Truth-loving Persians do not dwell upon
The trivial skirmish fought near Marathon.
Penelope, have you considered that in your rejection of the foundation of the Old Testament yet acceptance of the New you have been drinking from wells poisoned by antisemitism? I have no reason to believe that you are antisemitic but you might need to purge yourself of views that crept into the church from antisemitic institutional churches centuries ago.
Have you considered that I am not ‘rejecting’ the Hebrew Bible (and that my choice of term for those scriptures is less antisemitic than yours)?
Your accusations are either ignorant or insulting. Or both.
PCD thinks it is antisemitic (vocab and framework always comes from 2020s west) to think the OT deals with a former and less good dispensation.
(1) In which case Jesus improved nothing, maybe even changed nothing.
(2) In which case the OT does not believe its own publicity about the coming messiah and new better promised covenant.
Christopher
PCD thinks no such thing.
I think it’s antisemitic (and no the concept doesn’t come from the 2020s West – ever heard of Luther, or the Shoah?) to call scripture which is, for Judaism complete, the ‘old’ testament.
The term Hebrew Bible isn’t perfect, but it’s better.
Nor were all Judahites, Israelites or Jews looking for a Messiah.
Great article.
However, I’m not sure “the only body they will ever have” is quite right. If we trust in Jesus, then this body will be transformed into a more glorious body.
When I read the headline, my thought went immediately to the Moonies and their technique of “love-bombing”. Then I started to read, and realised that Mike was talking about a church and school I passed cycling home from work for nearly 20 years. Reading on, that for me made the point on how bad ideologies can creep in ordinary places and into the minds and hearts of good people. One issue here is how to deal compassionately with a troubled person without giving in to false narratives for the reason for the trouble.
Stepping back from the main issue raised, it was good to be reminded of the polarization, and how issues get bundled up so that one cannot agree on somethings, and not on others. The issue of “thought-terminating clichés”. All sides (perhaps there are more than two!) have the tendency to use these. How about “God says in His Word…”, or “it’s not Biblical”?
A few years back I was looking into a severe mental health issue (because I had heard of someone whose condition sounded like it). One article reported that it was more common in “hyper-individualised societies”. It intrigues me to consider how this individualism, working out in ideas of individual freedom and individual identity, has given rise to hot-button issues on either side of the apparent polarization. For instance, who comes out with the thought-terminating cliché “my body my choice”?
The weaponization of words
Jam 1:26 If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain.
Jam 3:5 Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindles!
Jam 3:6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.
Jam 3:8 But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.
1 Pet 3:10 For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile:
Such is the history of the world. There are so many who, like witch-finder Generals, seek out and denounce other peoples sins of the tongue [in their view].
Of course, it only starts with “having words” which then proceed to pushing down,dismemberings and burnings; whether it be religion or politics [e.g. Nazism]
We say “we are only pushing back against perverse uneducated misogynist et al rhetoric”
There is a great deal of what Paul calls Carnality abroad at the moment in much of our deliberations;
For him Spiritual warfare is not about words
but power.(1 Th 1:5 2 Corinthians 10:4)
4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds.
English Standard Version (ESV)
4 For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.
The question to ask is are we just pushing back against those who are pushing back (a melee) or are we pulling down strongholds, if we are then we shall know that Jesus Christ always “leads us around in victory.
2 Corinthians 2:14 Amplified Bible (AMP)
But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us spreads and makes evident everywhere the sweet fragrance of the knowledge of Him.
1 John 5:4 For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.
Rev 15:2 And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God.
There is a world of difference in pushing back and overcoming.
Churches may and do fail but those who hear what the Spirit is saying [words] as Daniel informs us
Dan 11:32 says “And such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he corrupt by flatteries: but the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits”.
Moreover, the way Bishop Budde delivered her message arguably violated principles of non-violent communication (NVC). NVC emphasizes expressing observations, feelings, needs, and requests without judgment or blame. While her sermon was solemn and heartfelt, it could be interpreted as confrontational in tone, particularly when addressing the President directly in a public setting. This approach risks alienating the audience it seeks to persuade, as it may be perceived as accusatory rather than collaborative. For example:
1. Observation vs. Judgment: Instead of neutrally describing the administration’s policies or actions, her language could be seen as implicitly assigning blame, which may provoke defensiveness rather than reflection.
2. Feelings and Needs: While she expressed concern for vulnerable groups, she did not explicitly articulate her own feelings or needs in a way that invited empathy or understanding from the administration.
3. Requests vs. Demands: Her plea for mercy, while powerful, might have been perceived as a demand rather than an invitation for dialogue or mutual understanding.
By framing her message more in line with NVC principles, Bishop Budde could have fostered a more constructive and empathetic conversation, potentially leading to greater receptivity from her audience. Nonetheless, the core of her sermon—advocating for justice and compassion—remains profoundly relevant and deserving of attention, irrespective of the historical or institutional context.
Jesus and Paul violated NVC all the time