So I've been toying around with new and exciting ways to increase the viewership on my blog. Anti-Trump stuff seems to be popular, even more so than when people ask questions to get me talking about sex if not quite as much as when I've developed cancer. It's not a CRAZY number of hits... 2,000 is a really stinking good result for me, so nothing truly viral just yet, but I think I've found a way to to make that happen.
So I have decided, sometime in the next week or so while I am still on Paternity leave, to say something extraordinarily racist, sexist, or otherwise bigoted. I'll write it in the blog, maybe I'll post a video about it, as well as leaving a few quick shares here and there on social media.
Now at first, I know this will just make my usual readership confused and angry. Likely some who liked my approach to Christianity will feel betrayed. But the real good will be when someone goes beyond disappointment into true anger.
They'll share it, outraged, and demanding others share in their outrage. Most won't but some will, scattering the message further and further until it gets picked up by some rights group that publicly denounces me, all the more loudly for the obvious hypocrisy between the new direction and earlier posts. (Bonus, it increases hits on earlier posts, leading to comparison pieces and "where did he go wrong" interest stories! See Phelps, Fred.)
Eventually, on some slow news day or a HEAVY news day in some way relevant to my chosen form of bigotry, some reporter will seek me out, asking me to share some context for my statement. Presented with what someone like me always seeks, a platform, I double down on my statement, further antagonizing the world and pushing the clicks machine.
Around this time, some other outlet sympathetic to the views I have adopted in this fit of mercenary hatred will share me, complaining that others are seeking to suppress me. At that point I'll put up a GOFUNDME for aid, and likely pay for my daughter's College if I invest wisely afterwards as thousands rally to protect my right to be an asshole.
Where things go from here depends. Maybe I get a regular spot commenting on a hate based website, eventually dissolving into the furniture, or maybe things go further, statement after statement hitting the publics offence button hard and continuing to drive hits, links, and shares, which in so doing finance my life (as by this time I am probably no longer welcome in my Christian denomination anymore, but obviously no one will report on that.)
Meanwhile, around the world, people of the group I have attacked are given one more reason to believe that everyone of faith hates them... because when someone preaches tolerance, it doesn't move news stories, but when the most insignificant pastor in the world starts preaching hate, the world can't hand him a microphone fast enough.
I'm not here to claim that these people's influence is negligible... that would be an insult to all who have been hurt by preachers like these over and over again. We who oppose them within the Christian faith do need to work to be louder, as loud as we can, so that the message that Christianity is a faith of fear and hatred can at least be actually challenged in the public eye.
But that is hard... really, really hard, when the media trips over itself to boost one side of the signal while neglecting the other. So for the love of all that is Holy... could we PLEASE stop handing these idiots microphones?
Wednesday, June 22, 2016
Tuesday, June 14, 2016
Naming your Demons
Do you believe in Demonic possession? After Orlando, I am starting to think that I do.
-Kasey
-----
I know what you mean, Kasey.
As it happens I am currently doing prep work for a Biblical text where Jesus drives many demons out of a man who was suffering from possession, and it's the sort of text that always can be counted on to raise questions for people whose pastors encourage that sort of thing.
The role of demonic possession in the mindset of the church is a fascinating one. With a few notable exceptions, most modern churches (at least as we practice in North America) do not deal much with direct demon possession, and so the possessions we read about in the scripture are often interpreted as well known modern phenomena seen through the lens of an ancient Worldview. The most common I've encountered (and even was guilty of myself) was interpreting the Demons of Bible times as mental illness.
As a quick sidenote, that kind of mindset can be DEVASTATING to people suffering from mental illness, because it often leads to horribly harmful methods employed to deal with the mental illness in question. Preachers are not psychologists. Short version, read the Bible however you like, but encourage those with mental illness to get professional help. Don't ask the pastor to "fix them." If he is willing to, I can promise it won't end well.
Back on topic, facing such a subject in the wake of the Orlando shooting did put the entire concept back on the burner for me, so to speak, and so I have an answer for you, of sorts.
It does not bother me too terribly to think of what happened as something driven by a demonic force, but with one important caveat... if you choose to look at it that way, you need to see that the shooter was not the only one driven in such a way.
More and more stories are coming out of the shooter as a homosexual wracked by guilt and self loathing, driven to do a horrible thing by hatred for others that was born in hatred of himself. You want to call that a demon, I can live with that. But I am seeing that demon, and others like it, all over the place these days.
People claiming that the victims got what they deserved because they were at a gay club. People claiming that this justifies fear and hatred of Muslims. People who don't particularly care because the victims were largely POC.
People driven to say horrible things by something dark inside them, something they don't even recognize within themselves. Something that possesses them.
Most of us on social media are aware of someone or other who strikes us as horrible for one reason or another, and usually there is someone else, often a mutual friend, who will defend them, saying; "Look, what he said was horrible, but he is a great guy if you know him, would do anything for a friend..."
We seem beset by people who are, if you know them, good people, but capable of great acts of fear and hatred at even the slightest provocation.
Call it demonic possession if you wish, or just evil. Call it human nature if you tend towards pessimism. Call it a form of mental illness in the worst cases if you must. But what is important here is not that you see it in others and shake your head and sigh.
Because often we want to call something demonic in order to absolve ourselves of it. If someone was driven by horrible evil, then we who are NOT horribly evil, could never be capable of it. But that isn't how demons work. If the Orlando shooter was driven by demons, those same demons could drive you, and, I would argue, possibly already do. So we can't just wash our hands of such forces, regardless of how we classify them.
Instead, recognize how those same demons are at work inside of you. Name your demons, be they homophobia, sexism, racism, classism, ableism, whatever forms those dark entities of fear and hate can take. Confront them, and try to defeat them. If you don't eventually the person hurting others in a way you can't even imagine... will be you.
-Kasey
-----
I know what you mean, Kasey.
As it happens I am currently doing prep work for a Biblical text where Jesus drives many demons out of a man who was suffering from possession, and it's the sort of text that always can be counted on to raise questions for people whose pastors encourage that sort of thing.
The role of demonic possession in the mindset of the church is a fascinating one. With a few notable exceptions, most modern churches (at least as we practice in North America) do not deal much with direct demon possession, and so the possessions we read about in the scripture are often interpreted as well known modern phenomena seen through the lens of an ancient Worldview. The most common I've encountered (and even was guilty of myself) was interpreting the Demons of Bible times as mental illness.
As a quick sidenote, that kind of mindset can be DEVASTATING to people suffering from mental illness, because it often leads to horribly harmful methods employed to deal with the mental illness in question. Preachers are not psychologists. Short version, read the Bible however you like, but encourage those with mental illness to get professional help. Don't ask the pastor to "fix them." If he is willing to, I can promise it won't end well.
Back on topic, facing such a subject in the wake of the Orlando shooting did put the entire concept back on the burner for me, so to speak, and so I have an answer for you, of sorts.
It does not bother me too terribly to think of what happened as something driven by a demonic force, but with one important caveat... if you choose to look at it that way, you need to see that the shooter was not the only one driven in such a way.
More and more stories are coming out of the shooter as a homosexual wracked by guilt and self loathing, driven to do a horrible thing by hatred for others that was born in hatred of himself. You want to call that a demon, I can live with that. But I am seeing that demon, and others like it, all over the place these days.
People claiming that the victims got what they deserved because they were at a gay club. People claiming that this justifies fear and hatred of Muslims. People who don't particularly care because the victims were largely POC.
People driven to say horrible things by something dark inside them, something they don't even recognize within themselves. Something that possesses them.
Most of us on social media are aware of someone or other who strikes us as horrible for one reason or another, and usually there is someone else, often a mutual friend, who will defend them, saying; "Look, what he said was horrible, but he is a great guy if you know him, would do anything for a friend..."
We seem beset by people who are, if you know them, good people, but capable of great acts of fear and hatred at even the slightest provocation.
Call it demonic possession if you wish, or just evil. Call it human nature if you tend towards pessimism. Call it a form of mental illness in the worst cases if you must. But what is important here is not that you see it in others and shake your head and sigh.
Because often we want to call something demonic in order to absolve ourselves of it. If someone was driven by horrible evil, then we who are NOT horribly evil, could never be capable of it. But that isn't how demons work. If the Orlando shooter was driven by demons, those same demons could drive you, and, I would argue, possibly already do. So we can't just wash our hands of such forces, regardless of how we classify them.
Instead, recognize how those same demons are at work inside of you. Name your demons, be they homophobia, sexism, racism, classism, ableism, whatever forms those dark entities of fear and hate can take. Confront them, and try to defeat them. If you don't eventually the person hurting others in a way you can't even imagine... will be you.
Monday, June 13, 2016
Concerning Orlando
Those who follow my sermons may have been surprised to notice that yesterday I didn't preach about what had happened at the Pulse in Orlando... which was due to the fact that I only heard about it right before Church started, and I hadn't had time to process the event or even absorb any of the details.
That the shooting is horrible is obvious and does not require me to harp on it. That folks who are LGBTQ still have to worry about this sort of thing happening to them is a sad commentary on where we are as a nation, but plenty will be written about that. I am not in a position to comment on the shooter, if what he did was due to his faith, due to his political beliefs, or due to mental illness, or if the three all go hand in hand.
I don't know. If it IS faith, then it isn't my faith to comment on, though I have seen some Islamic scholars beginning to do so themselves, and so I will leave them to it.
My commentary goes to some of the others who, like me, can only react to it in the cute little ways they find so witty. I'm a pastor, a Christian leader, and Christians, you are disappointing the hell out of me this morning. Disappointment isn't even the right word... I am pissed off.
The comments that I am seeing on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media are, I believe, the sort of thing that would get Jesus flipping tables in temples. Those who see this as justification for hatred against Islam, or for pushing laws to treat them as second class citizens, are disgusting.
And the most infuriating of all are those who see this as a proper punishment for LGBTQ people. If you are saying things like that, then you are using your faith to justify hatred, to justify violence. You are breaking a bunch of Biblical admonishments and ignoring basically the ENTIRE message of Christ himself. You are sinning, plain and simple.
You're also being a miserable excuse for a human being.
And it isn't going unnoticed. Millions of people who have never experienced faith are seeing you RIGHT NOW and either deciding for the first time or being confirmed in their opinion that if THAT is what faith is, then they want no part of it. Hell, if that is what faith is, -I- want no part of it.
The sermon I did preach yesterday talked about people who use law to try to keep score, to be able to make the claim that they are better than others, to reject the idea that we are saved by grace through faith in exchange for a sense of smug self-righteousness, when the scriptures try to remind us that there is neither slave nor free, Jew or gentile, male or female.
The people who died in Orlando, who are still dying in Orlando, are people, murdered, leaving devastated friends and family in their wake. What they did, who they did it with, does not change any of that. It is a tragedy, full stop.
But the cowards who hide behind a weak understanding of their faith to justify their hatreds and prejudices, those who put on a smug "I told you so," to use this instance to justify previously held hatreds and grievances, to those who would DARE to use the name of Jesus Christ so that what happened seems like a victory...
You are an embarrassment to our faith, to all of us. You are every reason why we as Christians are distrusted in the world today. People making provisions against us at this point is a matter of self defense, not of religious intolerance. You are an active hindrance to the gospel, sinning against the Holy Spirit, literally the only sin in the Bible ever described as unforgivable. You are standing between people and Christ and actively working to deny them his love and while I believe in forgiveness of Christ in this particular moment that idea makes me feel ANGRY, rather than safe.
And to everyone else... I'm sorry. They don't speak for me, or for countless others, but frankly I couldn't blame you if, in this moment, you had a hard time caring about that.
That the shooting is horrible is obvious and does not require me to harp on it. That folks who are LGBTQ still have to worry about this sort of thing happening to them is a sad commentary on where we are as a nation, but plenty will be written about that. I am not in a position to comment on the shooter, if what he did was due to his faith, due to his political beliefs, or due to mental illness, or if the three all go hand in hand.
I don't know. If it IS faith, then it isn't my faith to comment on, though I have seen some Islamic scholars beginning to do so themselves, and so I will leave them to it.
My commentary goes to some of the others who, like me, can only react to it in the cute little ways they find so witty. I'm a pastor, a Christian leader, and Christians, you are disappointing the hell out of me this morning. Disappointment isn't even the right word... I am pissed off.
The comments that I am seeing on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media are, I believe, the sort of thing that would get Jesus flipping tables in temples. Those who see this as justification for hatred against Islam, or for pushing laws to treat them as second class citizens, are disgusting.
And the most infuriating of all are those who see this as a proper punishment for LGBTQ people. If you are saying things like that, then you are using your faith to justify hatred, to justify violence. You are breaking a bunch of Biblical admonishments and ignoring basically the ENTIRE message of Christ himself. You are sinning, plain and simple.
You're also being a miserable excuse for a human being.
And it isn't going unnoticed. Millions of people who have never experienced faith are seeing you RIGHT NOW and either deciding for the first time or being confirmed in their opinion that if THAT is what faith is, then they want no part of it. Hell, if that is what faith is, -I- want no part of it.
The sermon I did preach yesterday talked about people who use law to try to keep score, to be able to make the claim that they are better than others, to reject the idea that we are saved by grace through faith in exchange for a sense of smug self-righteousness, when the scriptures try to remind us that there is neither slave nor free, Jew or gentile, male or female.
The people who died in Orlando, who are still dying in Orlando, are people, murdered, leaving devastated friends and family in their wake. What they did, who they did it with, does not change any of that. It is a tragedy, full stop.
But the cowards who hide behind a weak understanding of their faith to justify their hatreds and prejudices, those who put on a smug "I told you so," to use this instance to justify previously held hatreds and grievances, to those who would DARE to use the name of Jesus Christ so that what happened seems like a victory...
You are an embarrassment to our faith, to all of us. You are every reason why we as Christians are distrusted in the world today. People making provisions against us at this point is a matter of self defense, not of religious intolerance. You are an active hindrance to the gospel, sinning against the Holy Spirit, literally the only sin in the Bible ever described as unforgivable. You are standing between people and Christ and actively working to deny them his love and while I believe in forgiveness of Christ in this particular moment that idea makes me feel ANGRY, rather than safe.
And to everyone else... I'm sorry. They don't speak for me, or for countless others, but frankly I couldn't blame you if, in this moment, you had a hard time caring about that.
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