Rosenhouse begins by admitting that “religion is simultaneously fascinating and frustrating . . .” This seems to be evident throughout his book. He tells of attending many Christian conferences especially ones on intelligent design. Rosenhouse is a mathematician (Assoc. prof at James Madison University) who has written popular books on the math behind Sudoku, among other scholarly works. From the start, Rosenhouse makes clear that while he is an atheist, he is also respectful:

I am an atheist. That means that I do not believe in God. It does not mean that I am metaphysically certain there is no God, that I wallow in nihilism and moral relativism, that I think science has explained everything, that I think religious people are stupid–or that I partake in any of the other asinine caricatures of atheistic belief you may have heard.

This admission alone gives me pause. He doesn’t think religious people are stupid. Misguided. Wrong. but not stupid. In fact, Rosenhouse comes off as someone who is genuinely baffled by religious people as if there is sincere puzzlement at what it is that we religious folks are on about.

As you can imagine, it is a source of frustration to me that most of my fellow Americans see things differently. . . I wonder what religious folks know that I do not. Do they have some insight that I lack?

Now that’s an honest question. And it deserves an honest answer. But not right now. Right now, I’m listening. He goes on to detail the things he finds baffling about religion. What is interesting is, however, is what he gets about religion. If by religion we mean, “cultural identity and social community,” then that isn’t baffling at all. This is interesting to me because of all of the talk about “community” within our modern church movement. Community makes sense to Rosenhouse. Its doctrine that offends:

Whatever else it is, religion is also about putting forth a large collection of propositions relating to matters of empirical fact–many of which seem highly dubious. That the earth is superintended by an all-powerful, all-knowing, all loving God is already a tough sell given ludicrous quantities of rottenness in the word.

I know, I know. Some of you Christians are thinking, how can a worldview that explains everything in terms of four fundamental forces and atomic particles have room for “rottenness” other than as a purely subjective concept, but temper your ardor and listen. If God exists then there is rottenness to explain. One way of dealing with rottenness in the world is simply to believe it is meaningless–the result of a random world filled with human beings acting on deep biological urges. In fact, apart from God, that seems the best, most rational way of explaining all the rottenness. But evil isn’t the only thing he finds baffling–Jesus really puzzles him as well:

I have been told repeatedly, by people genuinely concerned about my soul, that Jesus was God in human form, lived a sinless life, and died on the Cross in payment for sins I would commit thousands of years later. They warn of the gruesome fate awaiting me in the afterlife, pending my failure to get with the program. In their more poetic moments they tell me I have a God-shaped hole in my heart that only Jesus can fill. I do not understand how people come to believe such remarkable things.

And to those who would begin running an argument about the historicity of Jesus’ claims, Rosenhouse admits that he sees no reason to think the Bible is anything special:

People keep telling me that the Bible has significance far exceeding its historical and literary value, sometimes  describing it with phrases like “the Word of God.” It i unclear to me what reason there is for thinking it is any such thing.

At this point, Rosenhouse begins to expound his frustration with Religion’s power and authority to explain the natural world. What he says will seem very familiar to those of us who have listened to debates about science and religion. What is interesting is that he immediately heads off the claim that science and religion are simply two separate spheres–neighbors with no direct conflict.

What has religion actually given us to justify its status as a “way of knowing”? By what method do I distinguish correct theological assertions from incorrect ones? How is “bad theology” different from “theology I happen to dislike”?

This is an honest longing to have religious questions answered in the same way that scientific questions are answered. Rosenhouse seems to desire the same level of precision in questions of faith as in testing hypotheses in physics or mathematics. And before we criticize him for that we should listen.  For Rosenhouse the concept of a purely spiritual being with a mind (but no physical brain) is not ludicrous but simply baffling:

We are told that God exists outside of time and that to Him the past, present, and future exist simultaneously. It is possible to write those words, but can you really picture what they mean . . . Just to be clear: My point is not that my failures of imagination show that God does not exist. It is simply that invoking God to explain the universe seems like an instance of the cure being worse than the disease or of filling one hole by digging others.

If I understand him, Rosenhouse is saying that yes Atheism (and its worldview of physicalism and empiricism) has its difficulties but they are preferable to the metaphysical difficulties of free-will and divine foreknowledge and eternal timelessness. He continues:

We can hypothesize that the sorts of natural forces that have adequately explained 99% of everything are also adequate for the few puzzles that remain. The alternative involves inventing an omnipotent deity, thereby saddling ourselves with a collection of conceptual difficulties far more disturbing than anything found in nature. In the end I am not an atheist because I thereby have a ready answer to every existential question. Atheism just makes fewer demands on my credulity

And there we have the crux of the debate when Atheists and Christians sit down and talk–how big a chasm is there between a scientific mind and faith in Christ. Believers think that chasm is not so great–that one does not have to commit intellectual suicide in order to “get with program” to use Rosenhouse’s phrase. Atheists, think that gap is a gaping chasm and on the other side is a kind of passivity about some of the most important questions in the universe and likely a smug, condescending sympathy for the poor benighted folk  who refuse to give up their intellectual freedom and integrity. The real debate between Atheists and Christians is how wide is that gap. Christians try to claim the gap is not so wide by marshaling intellectual arguments for God’s existence, the historicity of the Bible (mostly to prove the historicity of the Resurrection). We spend a great deal of our time our claims are not all that fantastical. We also criticize the scientific mind on the other side of the gap. We criticize modernity and say things like “I Don’t Have Enough Faith To Be an Atheist” And so both sides scratch their heads from across the divide. What to do? Well, part of the answer is to take their bafflement seriously and address their puzzles and not get bogged down into debates that don’t do anything to argue the divide is not so big. However, we do Christianity a disservice when we try to deny the divide exists. Scientific materialism and Religious faith are not simply two different spheres. They are two opposing ideas. Any attempt to make them neighbors only adds to the atheists frustration and perplexity. It certainly doesn’t make the divide look any easier. Also if Rosenhouse is right, it won’t do any good to simply hide our allegiance to doctrine like an unsightly stain on the carpet when company comes over. For Rosenhouse, our doctrine is the sticking point and it will not make Christianity any more palatable if we try to de-emphasize it with bromides about community and authenticity. As for the rest, I’ll leave my thoughts for next post. What I am going to do is pray. Pray for wisdom far above my meager philosophical understanding and patience and humility to honestly listen to what Rosenhouse has argued here. I pray that I can see in his argument not only what he thinks is there but what we both may be missing. As always I invite your comments as I work out my response with fear and trembling.

Still, you’ll hear voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s the root of all our problems, even as they do their best to gum up the works; or that tyranny always lurks just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave, creative, unique experiment in self-rule is just a sham with which we can’t be trusted.

Do not question what big government is doing. Don’t listen to dissenting voices, just trust us. Anything less is doubting this “unique experiment in self-rule.” This leads me to a Joyism. A Joyism is a word or phrase my beloved wife, Joy, invents in the process of writing an article. She is more of a creative writer than I and says some profound things in entertaining ways. This particular one is, “Just because you heard it from the pulpit doesn’t mean it isn’t really stupid.” This is true in many areas of life, not just the church. It really boils down to “be skeptical” and it is quite biblical. When Paul taught the Bereans, they were skeptical and checked out what he said before accepting it. Biblically, leaders were and are to be servants of all not unquestioned bosses of all. The higher they ascend into leadership the more accountable they become to a larger number of people. The founding of our nation began with a distrust of human government. The founders were abundantly aware of how despotism and tyranny grows and takes over people who begin with great intentions. “Power corrupts and absolutely power corrupts absolutely” is not only a cliché but is so because it is true.

As important as this may be in the world of politics, it is much more so in the Church. Recognized leaders in the pulpit wield great power because they are speaking for God from that place of authority. As missionaries to cults and New Religions MCOI often has to deal with very broken people. Some of them are broken by a false teacher within the church. I have lost count of how many young adults that were raised in Gothardism have become atheists after leaving. A few years ago a state senator who had been very involved with Gothard’s teachings for over 20 years, left after reading our book, A Matter of Basic Principles: Bill Gothard and the Christian Life and then called and ordered a few cases. He wanted to give it to the young men and women that had worked on his election campaign that had grown up in Gothardism and left the faith. As we spoke I told him that they do need to understand that even though God and Gothard both begin with “Go” and end with “d,” they are not the same thing. It is difficult because many churches teach the same view of authority which we find in non-believing secular leaders. Don’t question just hear and obey. Don’t listen to dissenting voices. Reject them, trust us, we know what is best for you. It is a scary thing to question one’s authority when you have been taught that they are speaking directly from God to you and to question them equals questioning God. That is a very big stick. In addition, many of the high demand groups inside and outside the Church like, The Institute in Basic Life Principles (Gothard), Vision Forum (Doug Phillips), Remnant Fellowship (Gwen Shamblin), the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society will work at ruling or ruining dissent and silencing those who dare question. (A very good book on this is The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse: Recognizing and Escaping Spiritual Manipulation and False Spiritual Authority Within the Church)

Jesus Himself taught His followers to be skeptical, “Beware of false prophets” He said in Matthew 7:15. Skepticism is a safe guard. It is a way to keep leaders accountable, perhaps the way to keep leaders accountable. If they realize they live in glass houses and everyone around them has Windex they will tend to be more circumspect and honest in their claims and teaching. Yes, I think the Joyism is correct, “Just because you heard it from the pulpit doesn’t mean it isn’t really stupid.”

The U.S. government has and is continuing to work hard at creating a Jew free zone called the Palestinian State. In Israel Muslims have representation on the governing body of Israel, own businesses and participate as citizens. Whereas the Muslims which are clamoring to have the land divided have been clear that the new nation will not allow Jews and have also been clear that this is just the next step to the total elimination of a Jewish nation and if possible, the elimination of all Jews from the face of the earth.

I wonder, would the U.S. government and liberals in general work as hard to create a state that is a Black free zone or a Gay free zone? Of course not. After all, being anti-Jew is fine but being anti-Black, anti-Islamic or anti-Gay is not and this anti-Semitism has come into our school curriculum. A question in the section, “Terrorism by Individuals and Organizations” of the text book, The Cultural Landscape: An Introduction to Human Geography asks:

If a Palestinian suicide bomber kills several dozen Israeli teenagers in a Jerusalem restaurant, is that an act of terrorism or wartime retaliation against Israeli government policies and army actions

Hmmm. The story first came to public attention with FOX News Todd Starnes story, Parents Call Textbook Anti-Semitic . He gives a good thumbnail of the issues and also the context of the quote which actually demonstrates the idea in the fuller context is worse than the the shorter quote shows.

Currently our Federal Government and courts are working hard against the will of the people to force acceptance of homosexuality. How would liberal media react if they came across a textbook which had a question like:

If an Christian Identity suicide bomber kills several dozen Homosexual teenagers in a Chicago Gold Coast restaurant, is that an act of terrorism or wartime retaliation against United States government policies and judicial actions

This would immediately be classified as terrorism. What if it was a Muslim instead of an Evangelical? There would be some confusing vocabulary gyrations since both are currently protected groups. However, the example is valid so why is one acceptable but the other is not? The article I’m Not Anti-Semitic – I’m Anti-Stupid writes:

Sentence one reads, “Distinguishing terrorism from other acts of political violence can be difficult.” Um….no not really. Political, medical, global whatever the venue, anytime violence is used to try to force someone to agree with you or at least make them afraid to disagree, is terrorism. I didn’t need an AP class to figure that out.

In a futile attempt at clarity the paragraph continues. “For example, if a Palestinian suicide bomber kills several dozen Israeli teenagers in a Jerusalem restaurant, is that an act of terrorism or wartime retaliation against Israeli government policies and army actions?” So, as long as it’s considered retaliation it’s acceptable? Well, that’s just what we need to teach in high school. Lets go into the place were far too many use bulling as justification for mass murder and have them ponder the merits of murdering teenagers in retaliation. Yea, THAT’S a good idea.

The paragraph closes with, “Competing arguments are made: Israel’s sympathizers denounce the act as a terrorist threat to the country’s existence, whereas advocates of the Palestinian cause argue that long-standing injustices and Israeli army attacks on ordinary Palestinian civilians provoked the act.” Sooooo, depending on your point of view terrorism is acceptable? Seriously? That’s what we want to put out there? Good Lord no wonder America is dangling at the bottom of the educational chain.

She is correct. It isn’t really difficult to distinguish between terrorism and other acts of political violence. Well, that is unless the acts of terrorism are against Jews. That is just a gentle Muslim disagreeing with Israel’s politics.

The claims about media bias are as ubiquitous as celebrity wardrobe malfunctions, so I won’t really go into that.  What is interesting is the discrepancy on why people think Gosnell is a bad, bad man. Pro-abortion advocates see Gosnell as a cautionary tale about ensuring women have access to safe and sanitary abortions. Anti-abortionists see it as a cautionary tale about how apathy can lead to evil.

On the pro-abortion side I present Irin Camaron:

“. . . the media coverage obsession is a red herring. By all means, let’s talk about Kermit Gosnell — who is accused of acts that are already illegal — but in a fact-based fashion. As Philadelphia Weekly reporter Tara Murtha put it, this was about a “multi-level, panoramic, institutional negligence, a culture of passing the buck and flagrant disregard for patient’s welfare, [which] prevented any meaningful investigation.” This is not about how Gosnell performed “late term abortions” (a highly imprecise term) as much as it is about the fact that the women who went to him felt they had nowhere else to go, an issue I have yet to see all the right-wing grandstanders fully address.”

Nothing about what Gosnell jokingly called “snipping.” Nothing about the fetus at all. To Camaron, that is simply not the story. Her narrative shapes this as being about women’s healthcare. However, it turns out that a lot of Gosnell’s patients weren’t simply poor women who had no where else to go and who no doubt would have gone to a reputable abortion doctor if they had federal funding.  James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal, reports that according to Grand Jury testimony:

  His patients came from several states, including Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, as well as from Pennsylvania cities outside the Philadelphia area, such as Allentown. He also had many late-term Philadelphia patients because most other local clinics would not perform procedures past 20 weeks.” The woman Gosnell is accused of murdering with a drug overdose, 41-year-old Karnamaya Mongar, came from Virginia and was referred by a clinic either there or in the District of Columbia.

So the idea that this is a cautionary tale about poor women seems well, just wrong. More likely, as the Grand Jury testimony indicates, Gosnell was known as a doctor who would do what other doctors didn’t have the guts to do. Perform live births and then kill babies who would have easily survived. But why should that surprise us. After all, what’s a few weeks when it comes to women’s health? What’s important is that women have control over their bodies right? They shouldn’t be saddled with an unwanted pregnancy. I hear some of you saying, “Typical man. You don’t know what its like to be pregnant. You must simply shut up and stop telling women what they should or should not do with their body.” This is of course a logical fallacy. It is a red herring that Camaron evoked in her bait and switch. I agree that women’s health is important. I also agree with anti-abortionist David Gushee that anti-abortion proponents should talk about the plight of poor women and care about the difficulties they face with more passion in the midst of a making a case that abortion doesn’t have to be the last resort of the poor. But the fact that I’m a man, doesn’t make my argument invalid.

The fact of the matter is that if we make the morality of terminating a pregnancy a matter of geography (see “Human Rights? Only for Some Humans?” )
then its not that hard for us to imagine women and gynecologists quietly admiring what Gosnell did. Consider the bold statements of Mary Elizabeth Williams who declares: “So What if Abortion Ends a Life?”

Here’s the complicated reality in which we live: All life is not equal. That’s a difficult thing for liberals like me to talk about, lest we wind up looking like death-panel-loving, kill-your-grandma-and-your-precious-baby storm troopers. Yet a fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides. She’s the boss. Her life and what is right for her circumstances and her health should automatically trump the rights of the non-autonomous entity inside of her. Always….

When we try to act like a pregnancy doesn’t involve human life, we wind up drawing stupid semantic lines in the sand: first trimester abortion vs. second trimester vs. late term, dancing around the issue trying to decide if there’s a single magic moment when a fetus becomes a person. Are you human only when you’re born? Only when you’re viable outside of the womb? Are you less of a human life when you look like a tadpole than when you can suck on your thumb?…

…saves lives not just in the most medically literal way, but in the roads that women who have choice then get to go down, in the possibilities for them and for their families. And I would put the life of a mother over the life of a fetus every single time — even if I still need to acknowledge my conviction that the fetus is indeed a life. A life worth sacrificing.

Well, at least she’s honest. The life of the mother trumps the life of an non-autonomous entity every single time. Who cares if that mother waited till a bit past some arbitrary deadline a bunch of men in some legislature decided–”This is late term lady. This fetus is okay to abort lady.”  Gosnell knows the truth. Snip it. Snip it in the bud. Just keep it quiet, you brave man.”

Here’s the thing, if Williams is right, then there is no magic that gives someone moral status. And she’s okay with that. And apparently so was Gosnell. But there are a lot of people that see her comments as a kind of everyday evil. Its the kind of evil James Waller says is what you see when ordinary people commit genocide. The life of a Jew isn’t as important as the life of German. The life of a Croatian isn’t as valuable as a Serb. What magic is it that says the life of one is more than another? Autonomy? Why autonomy? Why not, hair color? In the absence of any foundational principles, its easy to rationalize this. I started this post with the intent to rip into Williams. But actually I find myself weeping. Its sad when a soul gets cauterized and adopts ideas with such dire consequences without the need to justify them from any deeper ethical principles.

Author Lawrence Wright is a graduate of TulaneUniversity and the AmericanUniversity in Cairo and is a staff writer for The New Yorker. He has authored six other books and has won a Pulitzer Prize. He is also a screenwriter. He is a meticulous writer and lists 6 pages of sources for this new book.

In spite of Scientology’s claim of millions of members Wright says that there really are about 25,000 that call themselves Scientologists. He explains that there are 3 tiers in Scientology. The majority of Scientologists are just average run of the mill Scientologists. Then there are celebrity and Hollywood Scientologists. Tier 1 would love to mix and mingle with tier 2 but that rarely if ever happens. The third tier consists of what might be called “clergy” that run the church mainly from Florida and California. There are approximately 3,000 to 5,000 and they are called the Sea Organization or Sea Org. The name is a remnant from the time that founder Ron L. Hubbard ran the organization while on the high seas.

Wright explains what motivated him to write this book: “I was drawn to write this book by the questions that many people have about Scientology: What is it that makes the religion alluring? What do its adherents get out of it? How can seemingly rational subscribe to beliefs that others find incomprehensible? Why do popular personalities associate themselves with a faith that is likely to create a kind of public relations martyrdom?” (page Xll).

On page 19 the author introduces us to the classic 4 step program used to draw others into Scientology. Wright then explains the process called auditing which is the ongoing indoctrination process for the movement.

Scientology would never use the word sin. The founder Lafayette Ronald Hubbard taught that wrong ideas root themselves in the mind and become fears, obsessions, insecurities and hang ups. These embedded negatives are called engrams. Engrams can even be acquired in the womb. They become like post hypnotic suggestions that we cannot resist. Hubbard’s insights, it is claimed, can release these engrams over time. The seeker is introduced to a small machine called an E-meter which is supposed to detect the irrational urges and the affixed negativity and with the help of an auditor (or overseer) the person can work on becoming “clear” or free of engrams. This state of being clear releases one to become and operating thetan. The thetan is the soul or spirit of a person. The insider terminology was created by Hubbard.

Wright explains that an operating thetan (and there are various levels of operating thetans) report paranormal and clairvoyant experiences. They report exhilaration, knowledge of past lives and encounters with spirits from other ages (Page 18). We might call it altered states of consciousness or fantasy. Anyone familiar with the Bible would inform us that scientology is clearly esoteric, occultic and a form of spiritism. Hubbard who has written numerous Science Fiction books has created a religion filled with contrived code words and obvious mythology.

Wright takes us from the birth of Hubbard in 1911 to his death in 1986, (pages 20-183). Hubbard’s obesity and heavy smoking no doubt hastened his death. He died a physical and mental wreck, (pages 363-365). Scientology bestowed no evident powers on him. Believers are still awaiting his return.

In his early years everything that the young Hubbard did was formative and explains his creativity in the construction of Scientology. Hubbard’s first job consisted of writing pulp fiction which honed his ability for inventing extremist scenarios. He wrote under his own name and under 20 aliases as well. He penned everything from Arabian Nights to Zombies and with great flair, (pages 27-32). Imagination was the key in writing these kinds of books and Hubbard demonstrated that he had lots of it.

Hubbard claims that in 1938 while undergoing dental work and under anesthetic he died and somehow received esoteric information and divine mysteries and revelations while in an out of body experience, (page 29-30). Soon after this his career in writing Science Fiction was launched. It is out of this muddy mix that Hubbard eventually invented Scientology.

Over time Hubbard would father 7 children by 3 wives, (page 36).

Commitment to family is much less important than commitment to the organization.

It is hard to know how much of Hubbard’s military career is fiction and embellishment as opposed to facts since so many of his public military record read differently from his personal verbal reports.

Eventually Hubbard linked up with a Rocket Scientist named Jack Parsons. Parsons was a libertine and proponent of free love. His frequent house guest and comrade was the notorious Aleister Crowley who practiced black magic and who taught that there should be no moral code whatsoever. Crowley authored books on magic, witchcraft and mysticism and called himself the Great Beast. His grand tenant was “Do as thou wilt”. Parsons had absorbed much of Crowley’s occultic and evil teachings. L. Ron moved in with Parsons and this was the mental petrie dish he lived in for a time. They together would invoke spirits in night time rituals, (pages 42-48). One of  Hubbard’s sons (who has changed his name to Ronald DeWolf) says without hesitation that Scientology is black magic. Scientologists today are told that Hubbard was involved with Parson’s to infiltrate and destroy black magic. Facts show the opposite.

Wright has surfaced court documents that give an intimate look into Hubbard’s bizarre and conflicted mental state in the 1940’s, (pages 50-56). Shortly after this in 1950 Hubbard moved to Bayhead, N. J. with his second wife. The book Dianetics and its introduction to Scientology was launched with its semantic maze. It is pretty much agreed that Hubbard’s system is based on the writings of Polish Philosopher Alfred Korzbski, (page 60). Hubbard’s book became an instant sensation. On February 18, 1954, the Church of Scientology of California was inaugurated, (page 83). Scientology after many skirmishes with the IRS became a tax exempt religion.

It is hard to detail and describe the ups and downs of Hubbard’s weird, zany, drama filled and fraudulent life. All the details and documentation are in Wright’s book. Much of it is jarring and shocking and at other points downright silly. Scientology’s official board at one juncture claimed Hubbard had toured the universe even stopping off at the planet Venus, (page 91). At first the idea of past lives was ruled out but then ruled in. Moving into the Scientology universe is truly a journey into science fiction.

Hubbard founded Sea Org in the late 1960’s and spent his days on the water wandering the globe (on the run from the courts) and strutting in his naval uniforms. There were 3 ships in his “navy”, (pages 94-134). As Hubbard spun out tall tales and science fiction stories for the crew he was in fact inventing the doctrines of Scientology. The crew would endure his negative moods, hurtful whims and horrible punishments. After all they had signed billion year contracts, (page 110 – 130). If only one half of the things documented in the book about Hubbard are true they show him to be a sadistic, paranoid tyrant who loved money and control over people’s lives. They show Scientology to be a destructive cult of mind control.

In September 1973 Hubbard suffered a motorcycle accident in which he broke an arm and some ribs. His poor handling of the situation and of his pain had some of those closest wondering if his claims about himself and his powers were really true.

A short time later Hubbard’s son Quentin was found in a car in Las Vegas unconscious with a tube running from the exhaust into the closed car interior. He died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Hubbard was convinced his son was murdered, (pages 133-134).

A branch of Scientology had already been started in Hollywood in 1954 (mentioned above) so Hubbard and his followers were already on a hunt for the rich and famous. Some of the Hollywood icons came to the new religion. Wright names them all. The idea of meeting stars of stage and screen led ordinary people to jump aboard the Scientology band wagon.  For many well known movie stars Scientology was a revolving door (page 140). Of course the most well known Scientologists today are Tom Cruise and John Travolta. There are a number of pages in Wright’s book given to the relationship of Travolta to Scientology.

Chapter 5 chronicles the end of Hubbards reign. It gives the details of his death, cremation, and the scattering of his ashes in the ocean. The second half of the book then moves into the volatile and violent Miscavige years and runs to the present. These are the years when the organization was run and continues to be run by the bizarre and sadistic David Miscavige. This period is marked by internal violence, scandals, defections, law suits, legal wrangles, negative press and in spite of it – some expansion. In November 2012 a Scientology center was opened in JaffaIsrael after multi million dollar renovations of the old Alhambra theatre. It has a fully equipped office for Ron Hubbard.

There is an enormous amount of material giving information about Tom Cruise’s relationship to Miscavige and other incredible insider information that is just too detailed for the space we have here. One caution – Wright’s quotes of others language is raw and vulgar here and there but is how Scientologists speak. Biblical morals seem unimportant to them.

I do recommend the purchase of this book as the contents are an excellent inoculation against Scientology and dangerous, deadly mind control cults like it. Though long it is worth the read.

A 1983 independent documentary film titled “Uptown Christian Soldiers”¹ contained some of the earliest criticism of JPUSA (including ex-member testimony), but did little to tarnish its image in the evangelical community. In 1989 JPUSA became a congregation in the Evangelical Covenant Church denomination. Three years later, Christianity Today magazine devoted a six-page cover puff piece to the group.² JPUSA was hip and trendy when it wasn’t hip and trendy to be hip and trendy among American evangelicals.

But the tide would soon turn. In 1994, Dr. Ronald M. Enroth, Professor of Sociology at Westmont College (Santa Barbara, CA) published a very unflattering chapter-length account containing testimonies of ex-members in his book, Recovering from Churches That Abuse.³ Over the next 19 years, JPUSA continued to hemorrhage members and the splendor of its first two decades gradually dimmed. Its flagship publication, Cornerstone magazine ceased publication in 2003. Its main annual event, Cornerstone Festival, folded after its final opening in 2012. And now, in the midst of this apparent decline, tremors that have been rumbling for some time just beneath the surface are poised to put JPUSA back under a very uncomfortable spotlight.

(Video Source: Kickstarter, a fund-raising web site for filmmakers.)

Jaime Prater is a 37 year-old alumnus of the School of the Art Institute in Chicago (1997) and Columbia College, Chicago (2001), where he majored in film and video. He is also a graduate of Uptown Christian School, run by JPUSA, where he was raised.  A few years ago, Jaime began to put his filmmaking training to work on the project of interviewing others who, like himself, were either born at JPUSA or brought there as small children, and thus, unlike their parents, were not members there as a matter of choice.

While it is possible for JPUSA to dispute whether much of what these younger ex-members describe in their interviews actually constitutes abuse, one category of allegation is made that, if true, is beyond any debate. Jaime testifies to having been sexually molested while a child at JPUSA. When he brought this to the attention of the leadership at that time, he tells us that his story was discounted, and he suffered consequences. Some of those consequences were imposed for “acting out” behaviors that Jaime exhibited, which are often seen among children who have been sexually abused. His parents corroborate his account.

He is now wrapping up work on a film documentary titled No Place to Call Home—Growing Up in a Religious Commune.⁴ It turns out that Jaime is not the only person who claims to have been molested there, nor the only one who claims that his testimony was not believed. In fact, as Jaime came to the point where he thought his interviews were complete, more ex-members came forward with stories similar to his. If this string of allegations is true, it paints a picture not only of the sexual abuse of children extending back many years, but also a pattern of failure on the part of JPUSA’s leadership to alert the proper authorities.

For us, this is a difficult story to tell. One reason is that it’s not our story. We are not bringing these charges against JPUSA; we are simply reporting them. They have already been public to a certain extent, but now they will be more so. Another reason for our difficulty is the relationship we have had with JPUSA, or at least some of its key members, over many years—a relationship that has been tested over the past several years.

JPUSA and Me

Here at Midwest Christian Outreach, Inc. (MCOI), our experience with JPUSA goes more than 30 years. Back in the early 1980s I worked on an annual project with JPUSA in which I, a friend of mine, and as many volunteers as we could find, would distribute evangelistic literature at the Watchtower Convention for Jehovah’s Witnesses that was held nearby. My friend knew Eric Pement, who rounded up the JPUSA volunteers and had them meet us at our location. He introduced me to Eric, who in turn showed me around the building in which JPUSA’s residents lived at that time.

I had already known of both JPUSA and Eric through JPUSA’s Cornerstone magazine, to which Eric was a regular contributor. On any given day I might be walking in Chicago or one of its nearby suburbs (particularly Oak Park, where I attended Emmaus Bible College), and a hippified member of JPUSA (long hair, bell-bottom jeans, peasant shirt, the whole nine yards) would offer me a free copy of the magazine, which I eagerly received and enthusiastically read. By the late ’70s the whole hippy shtick was already getting worn around the edges, but the magazine’s appearance was so professional, its artwork and layout so fabulous, and its articles so relevant and readable, that Cornerstone had already found its niche as a kind of Rolling Stone for Christians, complete with reviews of Contemporary Christian Music records.

One of the things I appreciated Cornerstone for was its exposés of cults and other spiritual frauds. JPUSA also published some of these articles as tracts, which I found very helpful. Thanks especially to Eric’s writing and involvement in such organizations as Evangelical Ministries to New Religions (EMNR),⁵ JPUSA was gaining a considerable reputation in this area. Eric was also of help to me personally as I was being persecuted by the leader of a spiritually abusive group to which my wife and I had belonged for about five years in the late ’80s and early ’90s.

JPUSA and He (Ronald Enroth)

But it was right about that time that JPUSA became ensnared in controversy. One person who had helped me recover from my experience of spiritual abuse was Dr. Ronald Enroth, Professor of Sociology at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California. In 1992 I read Dr. Enroth’s book, Churches That Abuse,⁶ and its accounts were chillingly similar to what I was then experiencing. Once I left the abusive group, I contacted him by phone and he was very generous with his time.

In late 1993, Dr. Enroth advised me that “something big” was about to become public knowledge with respect to “a major ministry” in the Chicago area. Later he sent me a manila envelope, red-stamped “CONFIDENTIAL,” and I learned that this ministry was JPUSA. Needless to say, I was torn. But as I read the enclosed documentation, it became increasingly clear to me that whatever good works JPUSA may have done over the years, they needed to explain why so many of their ex-members were now testifying to incidents of spiritual abuse in their midst.

Unfortunately, that’s not the route they took. Instead, they circled the wagons, pointed their guns outward, and commenced firing. The first public volley came in the form of the now (in)famous “anti-Enroth issue” of Cornerstone,⁷ published as a kind of preemptive strike even before Enroth’s Recovering from Churches that Abuse⁸ came out with its chapter on JPUSA.

It seems that JPUSA received advance information concerning Enroth’s Recovering book when someone unethically smuggled an early draft copy of the chapter on JPUSA out of the offices of Zondervan Publishing House and sent it to Cornerstone. The magazine’s staff pulled out all the stops, and got as many evangelical (or not-so-evangelical) “big guns” as they could find to defend JPUSA, none of whose knowledge of JPUSA had any real depth, including one with an unsavory reputation as a cult apologist, and others whose response was to lamely question whether such things as “spiritual abuse” actually exist (I refer readers to the books of 1 and 2 Corinthians and Galatians for the validity of that phenomenon).

In one of several other attempts to discredit Enroth before he even had the chance to speak, Jon Trott, then a senior editor of Cornerstone, blew as many dog whistles as he could find, accusing Enroth of “McCarthyite methods … He’s just using anecdotes squeezed into a frame—the secular mind-control model. And he ignores facts that don’t fit in.”⁹ The firestorm of controversy had already begun, even though the first copy of Recovering was still months away from being printed.

For a group now known for holding its members’ lives under a spotlight and providing them with generous amounts of unsolicited criticism, publishing a refutation to printed criticism even before its ink dried was not the best way to demonstrate accountability. Looking for every possible argument to discredit an accusation before it comes out of an accuser’s mouth does not exactly give the impression of fair-mindedness, or even respect for the audience observing the confrontation.

When I finally received my own copy of Recovering I turned immediately to its chapter on JPUSA and devoured it whole. I then put the book down and asked, “That’s it?! The leaders at JPUSA got their knickers in a furious twist over this?!”  The revelations that JPUSA knew Enroth would share with the world were serious, but hardly as damning as what he’d exposed about other groups in his previous book, or even in Recovering itself. They were things that could be addressed and remedied, if JPUSA was willing.

Unfortunately, now we know that that was not “it.” The allegations that are now surfacing, in addition to those we already knew about, not only from ex-members who joined JPUSA in its early days, but from those who were born there or taken there as young children, make the reports delivered by Enroth look very tame, indeed.

In the long run, JPUSA’s response to the Enroth debacle did not help their credibility much, nor did it generate the sympathy they expected, and from a PR perspective it is easily diagnosed as a self-inflicted gunshot to the foot.

Unbeknownst to me until after I worked with MCOI for a while, Don and Joy Veinot attended numerous conferences with Eric Pement on the topic of cult evangelism in the 1980s and ’90s. I ended up speaking at such a conference with Eric after I joined MCOI. The conference was actually hosted by a church right in my neighborhood, and I was scheduled to present some of our preliminary research on Bill Gothard. This was also not too long after Ronald Enroth published, Recovering. Eric knew that I was somewhat sympathetic to the testimonies of the ex-members that Enroth was sharing, and he didn’t seem happy about it. Nevertheless, I got a call from Eric just before the conference.

“I’m not sure this phone call is a good idea, but I need a place to stay overnight during the conference and I was wondering if you could put me up for the night.”

This was how I learned about JPUSA’s policy of requiring its adult members to get permission to travel, of not generally allowing them to travel alone, and if they spend the night away from JPUSA they’re supposed to stay with a Christian family. Since we had no spare bed, Eric slept on our living room sofa, and before he went home I took him out to McDonald’s.

The conversation we shared that day yielded no new information. I have a great deal of respect for Eric, but as I broached the subject of the Enroth controversy with him he did nothing to fill what I considered major holes in JPUSA’s attempts to defend themselves. I do not, for example, see how objecting to Enroth’s “sociological methodology” actually deals with the question of whether or not the incidents Enroth reported actually happened, and whether anything was ever done about them. Biblically speaking, that’s all that really mattered at that point. Any complaint that Enroth did not properly follow academic methods could only serve as a smoke screen.

Several years after the initial Enroth/Recovering controversy, in April 2001 The Chicago Tribune ran a huge two-issue spread on JPUSA titled, “Commune’s iron grip tests faith of converts,”¹⁰ and “Exodus from commune ignites battle for souls.”¹¹ The titles pretty much give away the author’s point of view. Ted Olsen at Christianity Today was incredulous.

Why spend so much ink on the disputes now? Especially now, actually? If anything, the Chicago Tribune practically ignores the more recent developments in the JPUSA.¹²

Olsen accused the Tribune of doing “a sloppy job with JPUSA,” but he seemed blithely unaware of the fact that the Tribune folks were not the only ones spending “so much ink” on what was by that time a seven-year-long dispute. Just several months earlier, Jon Trott had returned to stirring the pot with an essay titled, “Is Abuse about Truth or Story…or Both? One Intentional Community’s Painful Experiences with False Accusations.” It appeared as a chapter—strangely out of sync with the other chapters—in a book titled, Bad Pastors: Clergy Misconduct in Modern America.¹³ Trott’s essay generated a lengthy response from Enroth in the form of an open letter.¹⁴ Whatever “more recent developments” might have been taking place at JPUSA, they did not include a willingness to put the whole episode behind them, or to truly make amends with ex-members, or even, after all that time, to stop attacking Enroth.

JPUSA and We (MCOI)

Around that same time, the same thing that first prompted Enroth to write about JPUSA more-or-less happened to MCOI: a significant number of ex-members contacted us, urging us to tell their stories of abuse. This led to a 2002 meeting with about 20 ex-JPUSAs at Naperville Bible Church (at least that’s how many signed the guest list).  It was the product of many phone calls and email exchanges (some of which I still have). Of the ex-members of JPUSA who attended, three flew in from California, one couple came in from Tennessee, another couple from Wisconsin, someone else from Indiana, but most from Chicago and its suburbs.

We taped the meeting with the knowledge of everyone there, and we had each of them sign a confidentiality agreement in which they decided for themselves just how much permission to give us to publish what we heard. They could either (1) withhold permission, (2) give us permission to quote them anonymously, (3) give us permission to name them as a source but only when communicating with JPUSA when they agree to keep it confidential, or (4) give us permission to publish their quotes and name them as sources. We heard lots of stories, but we’d also seen how JPUSA responded to Enroth’s book in 1994, so we wanted to proceed cautiously. For reasons that will become clear as you read on, so far we have neither published anything we were told nor have we shared it with anyone, including JPUSA’s leadership.

We explained that our research into Bill Gothard lasted about six years before it resulted in a book (although it had resulted in journal articles prior to the book), and so we wanted to manage expectations. Gothard was difficult to research because his books were only available through his organization. Researching JPUSA would also be difficult because we would have to track down people, some of whom might not want to be found.

I also explained that our research would be complicated by the fact that I and my family would be moving to Florida in November 2002 and I would be starting a new career. We didn’t want people to think that we would be able to turn around a published piece right away.

Don contacted JPUSA to let them know that MCOI wanted to give them an opportunity to respond to the things we were hearing. The reply that MCOI received was encouraging: Jon Trott at JPUSA expressed gratitude that we wanted to hear their side of the story. He thanked us for being the first ones who had come to them at the beginning of the research. A meeting was soon arranged and a date was set for prior to my family’s move, so that I could attend along with Don.  JPUSA’s leadership (which we assumed to be its pastors) was to be in attendance, along with Jon Trott and Eric Pement. Eric was no longer living at JPUSA, but was still sympathetic to the group.

Don and I had two primary objectives: (1) secure a list of people who had left JPUSA on good terms, and who would say good things about it, and (2) secure the commitment of JPUSA to allow someone from MCOI live in the commune for a period of time and interview current members. The reason we wanted these two things was because one of the big complaints that JPUSA had about Enroth was that he didn’t interview anyone other than “disgruntled ex-members,” and thus his presentation was unfairly one-sided.

To say the meeting did not get off on the right foot is a bit of an understatement. We showed up, and Jon was there, and so was Eric, but where was JPUSA’s leadership? Jon left the room for a while and we just sat there, looking out the window. Eventually Jon returned and Dawn and Curt Mortimer showed up. It appeared that they had not been briefed on the purpose of the meeting, leading to an awkward discussion that required us to justify something we thought JPUSA had already agreed to.

It soon became obvious to us that Dawn was not very trusting, and didn’t really want to cooperate with us. I also got the sense that Curt and Jon would follow whatever Dawn said. If Eric hadn’t vouched for us, we would have never gotten them to agree to supplying us with the list we wanted and the permission for someone to stay there. During our discussion they also thought it would be a good idea if they supplied us with audio copies of JPUSA’s sermons so we could see that they do not teach legalism, and we agreed to listen to them.

Unfortunately, however, these promises went unfulfilled for months. The latter two were never fulfilled. I obviously was not going to be able to be the MCOI rep staying at JPUSA; I was moving to Florida soon. We had one main candidate who would be able to take time off work to do it—but wouldn’t you know? JPUSA found something offensive about him, and he was never allowed to stay there. I remember the “offense” seemed rather lame, but I don’t recall exactly what it was right now. And we never did receive copies of any sermons.

In the meantime, I and my family temporarily moved in with my in-laws, nearly all my possessions were boxed-up and put in storage, and soon I would be in a program working toward teacher certification. I waited and waited for the list of happy (non-disgruntled?) ex-members, but I kept on being disappointed. As my obligation to get myself retrained and provide for my family loomed larger and larger, my time-window for being able to devote reasonable time to our JPUSA project was rapidly closing. My life was upside-down, and when I landed a teaching job in 2003 virtually everything else I was doing got put on hold for a while. Of course, this all worked to JPUSA’s advantage—not that I completely halted my work. I did what I could when I could, but a lot more slowly.

After we asked Jon Trott for the list a few times he sent us a nasty email telling us he’d send it when he was good and ready. When we finally got it, it was a much shorter list than we’d expected—not nearly as many people as had shown up in Naperville. Not only that, but once I started making calls, none of the people who answered their phones had been long-term residents of JPUSA. A few of them had even rented out their houses while at JPUSA, and returned to them after staying maybe one or two years. These were hardly people who’d made the same kind of commitment as those who’d turned over everything they owned to move in, often for decades.

It’s true that these people said nice things about JPUSA. They didn’t report any of the kinds of things that we’d heard described in Naperville (at that time there was only one alleged case of sexual abuse we were aware of), and they generally considered their stays there as positive experiences. However, it would not be difficult at all to make the case that the JPUSA leadership, knowing that these people were only there for a short time, would have handled them with kid gloves. We could not give their testimonies the same weight as those that came from former long-term residents who’d turned over all their earthly possessions to JPUSA, only to be turned out onto the street with nothing years later. As far as I was concerned, JPUSA’s leadership had reneged on its word. Still, we did not want to find ourselves in a position where, no matter what we published or how thoroughly it was documented, JPUSA could come back and say, “But they only listened to disgruntled ex-members!”

So now the problem was what to do next. After a couple of years of working on this I received a phone call from someone who’d been at the Naperville meeting and who was very unhappy with our lack of progress. I apologized profusely and assured him that we had every intention of moving forward when we could, but we were very short-handed, and my job and family life were preventing me from devoting adequate time to the research.

Sometime later (in the mid-2000s) we had a volunteer come forward, and he resumed making the phone calls to ex-members for us. He had time to do this because he was on disability for a serious health issue. Unfortunately, that health issue led to his untimely death (he was in his 30s) shortly after he started working with us. I was beginning to think that the Lord was trying to tell me either that this just wasn’t the right time for this or that we weren’t the right people to do it.

Thus we’ve been maintaining confidential documents on ex-JPUSAs for more than ten years now. As a small, under-staffed, under-funded ministry, we wanted to make sure that anything we publish is fair and accurate, giving due diligence to the goal of telling the positive side of the story as well as the negative (with, of course, the permission of those who tell us their stories)—and, ironically, JPUSA effectively sabotaged our effort to tell the positive side.

One of my biggest regrets has been that I have not been able to move this project forward so that we could complete it.  But now that Jaime Prater’s video has come along, I am beginning to think that it could be far more effective than anything we could have done. For one thing, I don’t know how we would have been able to gather as much information about growing up at JPUSA as Jaime has. Most of the contacts we had were people who moved into JPUSA as adults.

Epilogue

At this point we have no reason to doubt that JPUSA’s leadership will choose to respond to Jaime’s video project much as it has in the past. It is our hope and our prayer that this time, however, things will be different.

We hope JPUSA will avoid attacking the messengers. We hope they will show as much concern that the principle of Matthew 5:23 is observed by them as they do for the principles of Matthew 18:15-17 being observed by others. We hope they will not resort to ad hominem arguments as a defense.

Yes, it is true that Jaime Prater no longer professes to be a Christian. Yes, it is also true that he is openly gay. But these facts do not invalidate his testimony. We would point out that we have noticed that a number of ex-JPUSAs  have rejected the Christian faith entirely, sometimes with hostility, and while we hesitate to lay the blame for that solely at the feet of JPUSA, it should sober their leadership nonetheless. Does it?

We have been hoping and praying for reconciliation and healing between JPUSA and its ex-members for nearly 20 years now. Our desire for this was intensified in 2002. We implore the leadership at JPUSA to try a different—and we believe more biblical—course of action now, since it seems clear that their previous strategies have ended in failure.

Endnotes

I am not in this article really going to argue for or against same-gender couples which are demanding to have marriage Federally redefined to include their sexual attractions. The reason is that in a pluralistic Republic, such as we live in, every citizen has the Constitutional right to attempt to persuade the elected officials to legislate in a way that favors their view. We made this point in our 2010 article “A Constitutional Right to Marry?”. This is true for Gays, straight, Democrat, Republican, Independent, Liberal, Progressive, Conservative, etc. and the courts have agreed as we point out in the article.

Joy and I were teaching on this issue 25 years ago and at that time suggested that about now culture would likely be accepting same gender relations under the category of marriage. Inspite of the recent Time Magazine article, “How Gay Marriage Won” this has not become the law of the land yet but has made major headway. But, again, this has been done based on a lie and then marketed well. Why do I say this is based on a lie? Simple, to my knowledge no one has denied anyone the right to marry. The actual issue at the heart of this debate isn’t that anyone has been denied the right to marry but that the marriage licensing criteria discriminates and therefore limits the field of marriageable candidates. Before I continue I know that some readers will be distracted since I have not pointed out that the Constitution doesn’t really address marriage or the rights associated with marriage. This has been under the jurisdiction of the individual States since the nation’s inception. We have a brief historical legal challenges and stances in the U.S. in our article, “A Constitutional Right to Marry?”. The U.S. Supreme Court has consistently affirmed the State’s right to define the meaning of marriage, resisted a Federal redefinition and has also consistently left the licensing criteria to the individual states. This may change with the 2 cases currently before the Supreme Court. Time will tell.

But what of the claim that Gays are being denied the right to marry? Marriages are licensed by each state. Licenses are by nature discriminatory. I know. Many people hate that word but it is actually a very good word and practice in many circumstances. Some people are said to have discriminating tastes in food and/or beverage choices. That means they choose something that is superior over something that is mediocre or even not good. Discriminating can be bad or good or even neutral depending on the criteria used. In the business world there is BOQ or Bonafide Occupational Qualifications which may limit or exclude some from certain professions. An airline plot may be excluded from a job as a pilot if they are 82 or an anti-Semite may be excluded from being a Rabbi without consequence to or punishment of the synagogue that refuses to ordain or hire him or her. Doctors are licensed and the criteria for their licensing is fairly stringent. Most of us are glad this is the case for this discriminating criteria weeds out those who are unqualified and allows those who are qualified to be licensed as physicians. It is even illegal to practice medicine without a license. Discrimination is an essential component of the licensing process.

Does the right to marry automatically include everyone you may want to marry? Each state has criteria which provide marriage licensing qualifications such as applicants must be a resident of the state or at least within the borders of the state for a period of time before a license may be issued. The length of time varies from state to state. They also have negative criteria which limits the marital pool. All states have language which declares those an individual may not marry. The lists include, father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, brother, sister, son, daughter, aunt and uncle. You may not have more than one spouse at a time (no bigamy, polygamy, polyamory). One cannot marry another that is under the marriageable age which varies from state to state and has been changed from time to time. In most states one cannot marry their first cousin. Until recently, in all states one could not marry someone of the same gender. All very discriminatory.

Claiming they are being denied Constitutional rights plays on the sense of right and wrong for many Americans and is therefore a good marketing strategy but is absolutely false. Of course, if they were honest there would be less success for their cause. There would be a huge public cry and backlash if the argument was that marriage laws are discriminatory (which they are) and all discrimination is evil therefore all marriage laws must be abolished. But that would mean anything goes. If the term is being redefined why should it be limited to 2 in a “loving relationship”? Why not 3 or 5 or 20? Why not fathers marrying sons or daughter or even sons and daughters. Why not a 40 year old marrying a 10 year old. Group marriage (polyamory) would be just as socially and legally acceptable as same gender marriage and traditional marriage could be frowned on as narrow minded and limiting. None of this is new news. Stanley Kurtz brought these issues up 10 years ago in a Weekly Standard article Beyond Gay Marriage:

Advocacy of legalized polygamy is growing. A network of grass-roots organizations seeking legal recognition for group marriage already exists. The cause of legalized group marriage is championed by a powerful faction of family law specialists. Influential legal bodies in both the United States and Canada have presented radical programs of marital reform. Some of these quasi-governmental proposals go so far as to suggest the abolition of marriage. The ideas behind this movement have already achieved surprising influence with a prominent American politician.

The president and others claim this is an issue “fairness.” Fine. Shouldn’t they be honest as to what the actual issue is or would that expose the cry of “fairness” as being a lie?

The rejection of the historic Christian faith is not only present and active in the liberal media but is in the universities as well. The latest is the story that a “University backs professor for telling students to ‘stomp on Jesus’” . In this case a Florida university student was suspended for refusing to write the name of Jesus on a piece of paper, drop it on the floor and stomp on it. I wonder why they didn’t do that with the name Mohammad or with the Qur’an? I suspect in that case the professor would have been fired rather than protected. After all, offending Christians is fine but offending Muslims is simply not acceptable.

What about the “War on Easter? Schools, Cities Planning Another Round of ‘Spring Egg Hunts’”. I am not particularly concerned with the word “Easter” per se. In spite of what Bill O’Reilly at FOX may say this is an area where pagan beliefs have been mixed in with Christian belief and embraced as a cultural tradition with little spiritual meaning for many. It isn’t really part of the historical Christian faith but celebration of the resurrection is and has been the reason for this holiday for nearly 2,000 years. The reason these positions are accepted or even protected in schools and universities is the rejection of the resurrection and indeed a dismissal of the Christian faith as any more than a mere myth for a weak minded segment of the population. The new thing to embrace and elevate is the new Federally mandated religion of political correctness.

There is another way in which doubt is cast on the resurrection. Jehovah’s Witnesses specialize in this area. It is to deny the physicality of the resurrection, in their case to make it basically Xeroxing of the individual. “Resurrection: Watchtower Style” delves in to this more deeply.

Oddly, none of this is really new but some form of each of these ideas were around even in the First Century. The Apostle Paul spent the entire chapter of 1 Corinthians 15 on the issue of the resurrection. In verse 1-11 he recites an early Church creed (developed in the mid 30s A.D.) the core teaching of the gospel, the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus including a citation of witnesses. In verse 12-19 he addresses the uselessness of the proclamation of faith if there is no resurrection. If there is no resurrection we die and that’s it. There is no forgiveness of sins because even Christ was not raised. Life is hopeless. The balance of the chapter argues that the resurrection is and was physical. There is a physical connectedness between the earthly body and the one that is resurrection. It is the same body with added properties. Christ’s physical resurrection is what secured victory over death itself.

This celebration is the culmination of God’s example of Sacrificial Love and the physical resurrection is the evidence that death has been conquered so that like the Apostle Paul we can say,

O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.(1 Corinthians 15:55-57)

He is risen! He is risen indeed.

Penn Jillette ( Penn and Teller ), author of ( God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales is obviously not a Christian. He is an atheist but one not unlike Benjamin Franklin. He enjoys the debate and exchange of ideas. He also looks for consistency between behavior and claimed belief. This made an interesting exchange between Jillette and Piers Morgan. Morgan is a Roman Catholic who essentially rejects the authority of Rome. Jillette defended Rome’s right to hold to and defend their doctrine and pointed out that Morgan isn’t really a Roman Catholic and should join a church that better reflects his beliefs.

Morgan is fairly representative of the spirit of the age among Liberals and Progressives. Truth is not arrived at through evidence and reason but is emoted. One may disagree with Rome in essential doctrine but then don’t pretend to be a Roman Catholic. I do not agree with Rome as I pointed out in ”Thus Saith Rome (this Journal also includes a history of the development of certain Roman Catholic doctrines) and that is why I am not a Roman Catholic. It should also be noted, and I am sure will irritate some of our readers, that Roman Catholics, Reformed and Evangelicals have a shared history and many doctrines in common. As it happens, Rome’s position on same gender marriage and abortion fall into this category.

Biblically, marriage is between male and female and for most of history, one male and one female. That is how it was in the beginning and Jesus Himself affirmed this Matthew 19: 3-6. (I would suggest that like divorce God allowed polygamy for a period of time due to the hardness of men’s hearts). For Liberals and Progressives sexual fidelity and respect for biblical teaching are not high priorities. We live in a time when sexual satisfaction is used to determine sexual morality. Public policy and personal positions may begin with something that is true but then is built upon with strange propositions which end up affirming positions that are at best untrue and at worst harmful. Two examples are at the base of this new controversy. The argument begins with the idea that humans are sexual beings. That is true. It moves on to the affirmation that some are sexually attracted to their same gender. That is also true. The next claim is that everyone should be allowed, no affirmed, in acting out their sexuality in the way that most satisfies them. This is not only untrue but is held very inconsistently and requires many caveats to sound reasonable. Someone may achieve sexual satisfaction by raping another. Well, sexual satisfaction now takes a back seat to something else, consent. In another case someone may achieve maximum sexual satisfaction with small children (pedophilia). Again, a caveat, the child is not old enough to make an informed decision.

Other issues arise in the area of sexual fidelity. Within a monogamous relationship (the biblical and Roman Catholic view) venereal disease and AIDS are not an issue. Sex with multiple partners is where these issues arise. This is another example of the inconsistent thinking of Liberals and Progressives. There are big moves lately to legislate on dietary issues with the move to Social medicine and Obama care because society will now bear the cost of all of its members. Therefore, the thinking goes, society has the right to decide what individuals are allowed to eat or drink. But if that is true then why can’t society and more specifically the Church degree monogamy between a man and woman as the only acceptable form of marriage. After all, Liberals and Progressives insist that all of us pay the health care costs associated with venereal disease and AIDS so why can’t we decide what should be socially and legally acceptable? Oh, yes, because that may make some feel bad. So what wins? Truth as dictated by emotion.

The Roman Catholic Church holds that all humans have rights and that innocent humans should be protected. Capital punishment, if used, should be applied to humans that have committed capital crimes, have been arrested, tried and convicted of those capital crimes. Reformed and Evangelicals agree with this doctrine. Liberals and Progressives on the other hand are opposed to capital punishment for the guilty of committing capital crimes but support capital punishment for the innocent unborn. Here a woman’s right to own another human based on where it lives trumps the right of the unborn human to protection. In their view Human Rights are Only for Some Humans. For Liberals and Progressives a woman has the right to own another human and to sentence them to death by dismemberment if she so chooses.

This plays out in the arena of finances as well. The video ”Illustrating Inequality” on The Dish visually shows how wealth was distributed, how the general population perceives how wealth is distributed and how it is actually currently distributed. I cannot attest to the accuracy of its statistical claims and although not directly asserting what should be done with this info makes innuendos about the wealth of the upper 20% being, “skewed unfairly,” it is “shockingly skewed,” and how most people feel it “should have” been distributed. The video assumes that life ought to be “fair.” But who decreed that life ought to be fair? What does “fair” mean? If “fair” is that all should have the right to pursue their dreams and better their life I agree. If “fair” means that all should have equal outcomes regardless of talents, ethics, effort, creatively, etc., I would and in fact most would reject that definition when put objectively but that seems to be where Liberals and Progressives key in on emotions as the arbiter of what is true. The video doesn’t ask questions like, “How did those with the most wealth come by that wealth?” In other words, was it gained honestly? Is Oprah Winfrey, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, the late Steve Jobs and others wealthy because they worked hard, had good ideas that were well marketed and provided valuable goods or services to others or were their gains illegal and to the harm of others as say a favorite of Liberals and Progressives George Soros who made his wealth by Black Market trading, collaborating with the NAZI’s to the harm of the Jews?

The video makes no mention that much of charity is funded by the very wealthy who take the benefit of being wealthy also has the responsibility of aiding those who are not as fortunate. Some of the billionaires take this so seriously that 40 of the Wealthiest Families banned together and pledged ½ of their wealth to charity.

And here we return to my original point. Whether you agree with the doctrines of Rome or not, they have every right to keep their pledge to uphold and defend them. If you don’t like their doctrines become something else with which you agree. I don’t agree with Liberals or Progressives and so I don’t join them. It is simple really.

The rapture of Jesus is imminent.

Again, if you want to believe in some secret rapture of Christians from the earth just before the Tribulation, if you want to believe in and carry around in your hip pocket detailed charts and graphs of how its all going to happen, then so be it. But do the rest of us a favor and stop saying so in public.

So far, your record of correctly predicting the future earns a flunking grade. And I and scores of other Christians are frankly tired of apologizing for your arrogant — and so far, absolutely wrong — predictions as to when it’ll happen.

If you’ve been following along in the last post, you will see a familiar theme. Steve, in a flurry of tolerance, admits that Crazy Christians can believe whatever they want but really should just keep it to themselves. Trouble is that Steve doesn’t take the time to distinguish his targets and and does the columnist equivalent of carpet bombing Damascus. There is a HUGE difference between those who believe there will be a rapture at any time and those who think they can play pin-the-tail on the Antichrist. Let’s do a quick test, The Left-Behind series was one of the most popular series in history–of any books published. Most of you have at least read one or two. Anywhere in the series where the authors do any predicting about the actual future before the rapture is supposed to take place? Thought so. Has Billy Graham engaged in predicting when the rapture will occur? Have you seen any Southern Baptists predicting any dates? Thought not. The most you will get is from most Evangelicals is that the modern day is in line with all the precursors to the rapture. Believing that the rapture is imminent is not the same thing as predicting the future. Evangelicals do not have a “failing grade” for predicting the future. It is true, that those Christians who believe in a “secret rapture” often remark, “It can’t be long now!” (usually after a presidential election or a really bad law gets passed). But that is not a failed prediction.  And its also true that Jack Van Impe comes pretty close sometimes to making a prediction (usually during ratings sweeps). Many, many Christians believe the rapture could happen at any time (the rough-and-ready definition of “imminent”) but only a very select few start making predictions and setting dates. Harold Camping and Jehovah’s Witnesses do that sort of thing.

The earth is less than 10,000 years old.

If you want to believe that Genesis is a scientific description of the origins of the universe, then have at it. Just stop insisting that those myths be taught in our public schools. You do no service to the Bible nor to the morality of this country by demanding school administrators include textbooks that teach that nonsense or by demanding courts hang the Ten Commandments on chamber walls or classroom walls.

McSwain, lumps three groups of actual Christians together and engages in guilt by association and the straw man fallacy. There are three groups smashed together like a bad Lady Gaga mashup. There are young earth creationists, people who believe that creationism should be taught in schools, and some group of people I’ve never heard from who think Genesis is a scientific description of the origins of the universe. No creationists, thinks “Let there Be light” is a scientific description of the universe. They just think its scientifically accurate. No Christian I’ve heard of thinks that Genesis is a full description of anything. They just think its compatible with reality. Furthermore, Intelligent Design people don’t think Genesis should be taught in schools. Nor do they think Genesis is a scientific description. Michael Behe thinks Genesis has about as much authority as McSwain, but still thinks ID is valid. I’m not a young earth creationist while others in MCOI tend in that direction. However, McSwain is sloppy if he assumes that if one is a creationist that one wants to have it taught in schools. These are two different arguments. He’s worse than sloppy when he implies that the people who want creationism taught in schools are young earthers.

Homosexuality is a chosen lifestyle and it is a sin against God.

This one issue, my friend, is on the outs. If you don’t know that, you are more blind than the Republicans were in the last election. They misinterpreted the political environment and so completely blew it when it came to getting their candidate elected. And you, my friend, are misinterpreting the moral, spiritual and religious environment — and the changes that are coming. My son said it well the other day. We were discussing homosexuality and same-sex marriage and he observed, “Dad, it’s your generation that’s hung up on these issues. Once you guys get out of the way and the younger generation moves into the decision-making arena, these issues will disappear. The day will come when, just as slavery is unthinkable in our consciousness today, it will be equally unthinkable to deny anyone the right to be who they are or the right to same-sex marriage.”

I’ve said about all I want to say for a while about gay marriage in “No Retreat but Much Surrender” but my problem with McSwain on this point isn’t about gay marriage or sexual orientation. Its the attitude that a clocks or calendars decide what is true. Peter Kreeft illustrates this with an imaginary argument between John F. Kennedy and C.S. Lewis who both died on the same day:

Kennedy:  It’s… so… so outdated.  So unenlightened.  So medieval.  So primitive.
Lewis:  Jack, do you tell time with an argument?
Kennedy:  What?
Lewis:  I said, do you tell time with an argument?
Kennedy:  What in the world do you mean by that?
Lewis:  When you want to know what time it is, what do you look at?  An argument or a clock?
Kennedy:  A clock, of course.
Lewis:  And what do you use an argument for, if not to tell time?
Kennedy:  Why, to prove something, of course.  Or to try to.
Lewis:  Something false or something true?
Kennedy:  Something true.
Lewis:  So you tell time by the clock and the truth by an argument.
Kennedy:  Among other means, yes.
Lewis:  Not vice versa?
Kennedy:  No.
Lewis:  But you were trying to tell truth by the clock a minute ago.
Kennedy:  Truth by the clock?
Lewis:  When I want to disprove an idea, I try to prove that it is false.  Your argument against my idea that your belief was a heresy was simply that my idea was old.  Outdated, I believe you said.  Medieval and primitive were two more of your terms.  Those are all clock words, or calendar words.  (Calendars are only big, long clocks, after all.)

So with all due respect to McSwain’s son (he didn’t pick this fight), the fact that enlightened people may one day treat opponents of gay marriage they way we now treat those who dare admit slavery or indentured servitude are acceptable (large portions of the Muslim world for instance), isn’t an argument. Its a prediction. We should use arguments to tell time and we sure shouldn’t use calendars to prove something is true. And then we get the punch line of McSwain’s dismissal of any one who believes Homosexuality is a sin according to the Bible:

You can still revere the Bible, my friend, but move beyond the prejudice of Paul or anyone else. You don’t need to make Saint Paul infallible to treat the Bible as important.

You know what? He’s right. You don’t have to make St. Paul infallible to treat the Bible as important. Muslims certainly don’t. The Bible is important to Islam. You can think the Bible is an important book while thinking Paul was a poor benighted bigot, a product of his times, and probably a self-loathing closet homosexual himself. But what you can’t do, if you do all of that, is treat the Bible like Christians should.

If the Bible is merely an important book for Christians, that we can interpret through whatever contemporary lens we like, then really, seriously what is distinctive about Christianity at all? Not all Christians hold to evangelical inerrancy, but no committed Christian thinks the Bible is just an important book full of useful stories. Even Islam recognized this when they called Christians and Jews, “People of the Book” (Ahl-Al-Kitab). It is THE book of Christianity.

Of course, if you are going to decide acceptable doctrine with a calendar rather than an argument, the Bible can be just an important book of useful stories. If Christianity is merely a relationship with a God that is comfortable, in line with contemporary mores,  and just vague enough that we don’t have to worry about offending Him/Her/It, then there is no room for an authoritative book that defines Christianity.

Essentially what we have here is a very real disconnect between two different worldviews. One worldview says that we discover what God is like and then conform our lives to that in order to have a relationship with God. In that case the Bible becomes the means by which we find out what God is like. Because God is spirit we need his revelation to us no matter how difficult it is to interpret. The other worldview says, the only God worth relating to is one that upholds what we interpret as non-objectionable and friendly behavior. For these people, the Bible cannot be anything other than an important book full of useful stories. But notice that if we hold to the former worldview, it becomes very difficult to simply stop saying homosexuality is a sin, just because such a view “is on the outs.” However, if we hold to the latter worldview, it becomes much easier.