A brief note on the Rapture

Michael Hartell of the Sentinel and Enterprise interviewed me in my capacity as a spokesentity for the Boston Skeptics talking about the Rapture. Hartell's article focuses on Harold Camping's prediction that the Rapture will take place tomorrow. His article is worth reading, although there are a few things that didn't get into the final article that I think are worth mentioning: First, the entire "Rapture" doctrine as it exists in modern times is only a few centuries old and only became at all popular due to the preaching of John Darby in the early part of the 19th century. Second, this is a good example of the sort of serious damage that erroneous beliefs can create. The New York Times article on the same subject focuses on the Haddad family where the parents believe the Rapture will occur tomorrow and the children do not. In that article, the Haddads have stopped saving up for college for their children because they believe that it will never happen. The children will suffer when the Rapture doesn't take place and they then can't afford to get good educations. These parents are not going to risk their childrens' lives in the same way that parents who refuse to vaccinate are actively endangering their lives, but the basic problem is the same: hideously inaccurate beliefs about reality are hurting bystanders.

Jack Chick and Civil Rights

There's a new Jack Chick tract up. This tract is entitled "Stinky" and is about an eponymous demon assigned to go up to the surface for Halloween. Stinky is supposed to find a gift for Satan so that a higher a ranking demon, #3, hopes to use to get a higher position in the diabolical hierarchy. Unfortunately, school has just resumed, so I don't have the time to go discuss the tract in detail. And honestly, as Chick tracts go, it is pretty mediocre. We don't even have the grand Catholic conspiracy appearing in this one. The plot-line is slightly less coherent than usual which also may lend to the mediocrity.

However, just when I thought that Jack Chick might be losing his did stand out. At one point, Stinky is trying to get past an angel so he can continue to tempt some humans. Stinky cries out "I demand my Civil Rights!" to which the angel responds "That doesn't work here, Stinky!" (eccentric formatting as in in the original). As far as I can tell, Jack Chick is attempting to make some sort of political argument here along the lines of "civil rights are a demonic concept." I don't know what to say to that.

Jack Chick and Consistent Theology

Two new Jack Chick tracts are up. They are both pretty mediocre. "The Royal Affair" tells the story of David and Bathsheba with a pretty standard threat of hellfire and brimstone at the end. There's nothing of note in the tract other than that Jack Chick apparently thinks that the word "literal" actually means "figurative." (Memo to Jack: David didn't go through a "literal hell." He went through a figurative hell. Figurative and literal have opposite meanings. They are not synonyms.)

The second tract, "Going Down?" is standard Chick tract but with a single interesting twist. It is not uncommon in Chick tracts for someone to have a near-death experience, briefly witness the horrors of hell, and then come back to life knowing about the terrible threat of hell. This tract is an example. However, whenever this happens in a Chick tract, the people who have experienced hell always then accept Jesus as their personal lord and savior. However, in this new tract, the person who experiences hell does not learn about Jesus but rather dies shortly thereafter being dragged back down to hell. Few tracts better illustrate the utterly random nature of the afterlife in Chick's universe: in this case, the return to this world appears to almost be a divine accounting error which doesn't even serve the minimal purpose of saving the individual's soul.

Contemplating this tract also leads to another issue: Chick's theology concerning the immediate afterlife is inconsistent. In most Chick tracts, when people die they stand before Jesus and are judged. In some tracts, such as the above, they are sent immediately to hell. I am aware of no tract in which someone dies and comes before Jesus only to come back to life. In a tiny minority of tracts (such as this one) people who die without Jesus instead go to a temporary realm to wait until they are judged on Doomsday.

Why is Chick's theology of the afterlife so varied? Does he realize how contradictory his various tracts are on this matter? The most obvious hypothesis is that Chick's theology has changed over time. However, there are no chronological trends in which of the three approaches to the afterlife he takes. I suspect that Chick simply does not care about the details of the afterlife that much since the primary issue is being saved or lost; all else is secondary. Thus, a combination of whim and plot-demands control the exact depiction of the afterlife. Given Chick's apparent lack of great intellectualism he may not even have given the matter enough thought to realize the inconsistent nature of his theology.

I do hope that the May tracts are better than this set. It is a big let down given that in January we had a tract about angels fighting werewolves.

Jack Chick, Native Americans and Henotheism

Everyone's favorite Christian fundamentalist tract writer, Jack Chick, has a new tract, Crazy Wolf. This tract is apparently aimed at Native Americans and attempts to show how their traditional religious beliefs are really demon worship.

The tract starts with two stereotypical Native Americans talking about how one of their own, Mary, has accepted the "White God" and how they are unhappy with her. One of them, Margaret, is particularly unhappy because Mary tried to evangelize to Margaret's young daughter Sarah. I guess Jack Chick can't quite understand why someone might be justifiably upset if someone tried to interfere with one's kids’ religious upbringings.

Margaret then discusses how they tried to get a medicine man to put a curse on Mary, but "some strange power" prevented the medicine man's curse from working. So, they decided to ask the assistance of a powerful witch named Crazy Wolf.

Notice that every individual so far in this tract has an English name except for the old, evil witch. I guess it's just a sign of how baddass he is that he as stereotypic name, or something like that. At least his name isn't "Injun Joe."

Of course, Crazy Wolf tries to use his Devil-granted powers to shapechange into a massive wolf to eat Mary. He fails because of Mary and her pastor's prayers. An angel materializes which beats up Crazy Wolf. Mary then further prays that Crazy Wolf will accept Jesus as his personal lord and savior.

We all know this part of the routine: Injun Joe, sorry, Crazy Wolf, talks to Mary and accepts Jesus as his personal lord and savior. Crazy Wolf declares that "my real name is Billie Wolf." Apparently, he has a good name, but it only gets used once he's saved. Then, as happens in so many Jack Chick tracts, he dies a violent death, as Margaret shoots him with a shotgun in revenge for failing to kill Mary.

Crazy Wolf goes to heaven and is told that "You just made it by the skin of your teeth! You believed on(sic) Me and that saved you. Billie Wolf, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." Margaret of course goes to hell to burn for eternity.

This tract raises some interesting issues about Chick's theology. For example, as with some prior tracts, demonic forces are not only real, but very powerful. There's an almost henotheistic aspect to the story. Henotheism is the belief that many deities exist while only worshipping one. Chick’s Jesus becomes relevant primarily after death or during the apocalypse. In Chick’s pantheon, there are many deities but Jesus, the deity of death and destruction, reigns supreme.

Implied in this narrative is the teaching that prayer for a soul can actively lead to salvation. This is confusing. The entire point of Chick’s theology is that all that matters is whether an individual has accepted Jesus or not. If God and prayer can alter that decision, then the even minimal theological explanation of why everyone is not saved breaks down. It becomes within God’s power to alter whether or not individuals are saved. This renders the primary evangelical apologetic of such a deity non-feasible. In particular, damnation is usually defended by arguing that God cannot force people to accept Jesus as their savior. Yet here we see God apparently doing exactly that.

The importance of names is also worth noting. Aside from the not so subtle racism associated with Chick’s name choices, this is part of a general pattern in Chick's theology. What one calls something matters. Thus, for example, in previous tracts aimed at Islam, Chick argues that Allah is not just another word for God. This brings up an issue: Consider the following hypothetical: Someone is explained the entire evangelical belief system but with the words "Satan" and "Jesus Christ" swapped throughout. Then that person accepts Satan as personal lord and savior, does Chick think that that person is saved or not? If names matter then presumably Chick would believe that such an individual is not saved.

The tract of course ends with the usual warning that only Jesus saves. But the wording is worth noting: "Trusting religion, idols, ceremonies, nature gods or the Virgin Mary to save you is only chasing the wind!" That last phrase is not normally in these tracts. I suspect that to Chick "chasing the wind" sounded like an Injun phrase. This fits Chick's Jesus using the phrase "skin of your teeth" which is much less formal than how Chick's faceless, glowing Jesus normally talks.

So what is the overall lesson of this tract? The take away message seems to be that Native Americans are primitive savages but they get cool magical powers. And as long as you accept Jesus eventually, you get to play with the powers for a long time.


Note: Between drafting and posting this review I ran across another review that is worth reading.

Three Religions Meme

James McGrath has recently tagged me (well. really a very large set of people) with the meme of naming three religions you find fascinating of which you are not or have not been a member.

I'm going to place a few additional restrictions on my choices:

First, I am not going to pick any purely fictitious religions. Thus, for example, I'm not going to pick any religions from Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series (although there is a very large temptation to try to pick some of those). Similarly, I'm not going to pick any religion
that started as a fictional religion and then became real. Thus, Melkorism and Cthulhu worship are both out. Finally, I'm not going to pick any parody religions. Thus, Invisible Pink Unicornism and Flying Spaghetti Monsterism are both out although I will note that IPUism was around long before FSMism which is a sad little upstart in comparison (I mean, c’mon. It doesn't even have an oxymoron in its title.).

So of the real, non-parody religions, what will I choose are Cargo Cults, Roman Catholicism and Bahai in no particular order.

Cargo cultism is a religion with which some may not be familiar. It is also as far as I am aware the only example where nearly identical religions arose independently which already makes it very interesting. However, where and how cargo cults arose explains this feature. At the same time, it makes them all the more fascinating. During World War II, the United States used islands whose populations previously had had little or no contact with the outside world. Many people in Western and other civilizations believe in forms of sympathetic magic or the like, but small tribal groups often take this to an extreme. In these cases, the tribes saw the US soldiers doing apparently ritualistic activity that included marching in formation, talking to themselves on pieces of wire, and clearing out large fields. The tribes further saw the immediate responses to this activity: Airplanes came and dropped cargo to the soldiers, including food, medicine and clothing. The tribal members concluded that if they could engage in the same ritualistic behavior, they might get the same or even better results.
Thus, the cargo cults were born.

When the soldiers left, the tribes assigned priests who talked to spirits on the radio which would generally consist of a few pieces of wire. They cleared out or kept clear airplane landing fields. And they wore uniforms and conducted drills. These religions were derisively labeled "cargo cults." These remained strong through the mid 1970s. Members retained their beliefs and practices even when confronted with more features of modern civilization and explanations of what US soldiers had been actually doing. Cargo cults still exist in limited numbers today, seventy years after World War II.

The second religion is Roman Catholicism. The Church has been and remains a fascinating set of contradictions. On the one hand, it is hard to reconcile the gilded architecture and massive hierarchy with the ascetic messages preached by Jesus. The Church has a history of encouraging violence from the Crusades to the Inquisition. When the Church has not encouraged war and killing for its own ends, it has been silent when speaking up could save lives. The Church has also actively persecuted individuals such as Galileo who disagreed with the Church. On the other hand, the Church helped preserved learning that would otherwise be lost. The Church was a bastion of knowledge against the tides of ignorance (tides possibly encouraged by aspects of the Church. but still) The Church has provided shelter and relief to the poor for centuries. In the last fifty years, the Church has strived to modernize and reconcile its beliefs with science while many other religions have gone out of their way to attack science.

The Roman Catholic Church is the Church of Torquemada But it is also the Church of George Coyne and J. R. R. Tolkien. Whether the Church survives this next century and whether it embraces modernity or not will be some of the major questions impacting this century.

The third is the Bahai. The Bahai are the youngest of the major Abrahamic religions. They have consistently embraced reason over dogma and thus far have a history of being the least persecutory of the Abrahamic religions (although how much this is due to their still small numbers remains to be seen). If I had to name a single religion that I might be comfortable with drastically increasing in size over the next few centuries, I would likely name the Bahai.

Edit: It was pointed out to me by multiple people that I neglected to tag this meme for anyone. So I'll tag Kurt because he hasn't blogged much since he got married, Apikores because I'm just curious what he has to say, and Kat because she commented on this post already so hey, why not? And I suppose anyone else who has enough free time who reads this blog regularly and has a blog can consider themselves tagged.

C.S. Lewis, the Trilemma, and Cultural Norms

A common Christian apologetic argument is the Trilemma. First introduced by C.S. Lewis, this argument since Lewis has undergone modification. However, the basic argument has not changed. As the argument goes, Jesus, was either telling the truth when he said that he was God, Jesus was lying, or Jesus was insane. This is generally abbreviated as “Lord, Liar or Lunatic.”

Lewis used this argument primarily as a response to people who thought that Jesus was a good person. but not the Son of God. Lewis argued that this was not a possibility since, if Jesus was not telling the truth, then one of the other two possibilities must hold. In its more modern form, the argument is identical, but evidence is presented as well that the last two possibilities don’t hold.

The argument in either the original form of Lewis or in other variants, suffers from flaws. The most serious flaw is the reliability of the Gospels as record of what Jesus said. It is not at all implausible that Jesus didn’t claim to be the Son of God, but such claims were later asserted by followers. Or Jesus could have in fact said exactly what he is quoted as but have been genuinely mistaken. These are two are two good detailed discussions of these and other flaws. Rather than discuss the flaws, I’d like to examine why this argument is so effective apologetics.

The argument, especially in its post-Lewis form (such as that advanced by Joshua McDowell in his “Evidence that Demands A Verdict”) does not explicitly invoke the presupposition that the audience thinks that Jesus was a great man . However, in an unstated form, this approach is far more effective. We live in a society with few taboos stronger than saying negative statements about Jesus. Indeed, even if one asks most Jews who live in the United States what they think of Jesus, they will feel compelled to say something like “I think he was a great teacher” or something similar. Thus, to most people, the notion that Jesus was either a lunatic or a liar is so repulsive (or politically incorrect) that when faced with those alternatives, they have no choice but to rush to the third possibility. The Trilemma thus rests on implicit cultural norms that Lewis was willing to make explicit. His successors have been less forthcoming.

Where Are All the Smart Apologists?

Recently I read The Screw Tape Letters, a series of letters written by C.S. Lewis. The letters purport to be from an old demon giving advice to a young demon. Lewis is a smart, funny and talented writer. What the demon Screwtape says is as revealing and clever as what he does not say. This is not the only great work of apologetics by Lewis. Why are there no great Christian apologists like Lewis today?

Lewis is far from perfect. Lewis gave birth to one of the most annoying apologetic arguments, the Trilemma. However, even there his intelligence and originality shine through. I have not seen any contemporary apologist produce any argument that isn’t a tired repackaging of pre-existing arguments.

Who are the major apologists today? There really aren’t any in the influential way that Lewis was. But if one had to identify those who today continue the tradition of Christian apologetics, one would probably list Ray Comfort, William Demsbki, and Alister McGrath.

Do any of these people measure up to C. S. Lewis? No. Consider these writers individually:
Does Ray Comfort stack up to Lewis? No way. Ray Comfort is an idiot and an ignoramus. He’s the man who most famously tried to claim that the modern shape of the banana was evidence for a divine creator. Yes, the banana, a fruit that has been heavily modified by extensive breeding by humans, a fruit whose wild form is a nasty hard thing full of seeds.

Does William Dembski stack up to Lewis? Wililam Dembski isn’t an idiot like Comfort. He has a real PhD in mathematics. But this also is a man who, after intelligent design failed in the courts, was reduced to teaching apologetics at a second rate seminary while giving course credit to students for trolling pro-evolution websites. I can’t see C.S. Lewis doing that. Moreover, Dembski’s writing ability resembles that of a 7th grader trying to sound like he’s really bright and well read. I should know. I used to write like Dembski when I was in 7th grade. Demsbki also seems to spend most of his time fighting with other Christians. (He really, really doesn’t like theistic evolution.)

Does Alister McGrath stack up to C. S. Lewis? Now we are getting closer. McGrath is a respected theologian who also has a degree in biophysics. He’s bright. He’s willing to accept both science and religion. He has on occasion made cogent arguments. But there are two problems: First, he’s a dreadfully boring writer. I have trouble staying awake when I read anything he writes. Someone needs to get Ben Stein to do a book on tape of one of McGrath’s books. It would be the ultimate sleep aid. Or maybe it would be a weapon of mass destruction as just playing it nearby would cause individuals within a hundred mile radius to fall into irreversible comas. This brings us to the other issue with McGrath: The subjects and titles of his books are equally dreadful. His two most well known books are "The Dawkins Delusion?" and "Dawkins' God." Ok, Alister. We get the point. You don’t like Richard Dawkins.

So why are there no great apologists for Christianity today? Here are four possible explanations:
First, perhaps great apologists are simply rare and C.S. Lewis is a great outlier. This isn’t a satisfactory explanation. I could compare the modern stock of apologists with G. K. Chesterton and they would still not match up.

A second argument is that Christianity is not the common belief among intellectuals that it was fifty or sixty years ago. Since a smaller fraction of intellectuals today are deeply Christian and since apologetics is valued less today as it has been in the past, intellectuals are much less likely to go into apologetics.

Third, the state of the evidence has changed over time to make belief in Christianity less probable. This argument is almost certainly wrong. The major modern controversies implicating Christianity and Judeo-Christian religions in general have existed for a very long time. The Documentary Hypothesis and similar theories about other Biblical texts have been around for more than a century. So has evolution. Thus, the need to address these issues (either by reconciling Christianity with them, or by refuting them) has existed for a long time.

Fourth, the modern focus of apologetics has been the watchmaker analogy and variations thereof. The watchmaker analogy is an argument for the existence of God based on an analogy to a watch found in the desert which one would immediately realize had a designer. It is no coincidence that the three apologists listed above, all have arguments that revolve around the watchmaker. Ray Comfort uses a particularly stupid form of the watchmaker argument. William Dembski uses a particularly obfuscated form of the watchmaker argument. And Alister McGrath doesn’t really use the argument itself but rather spends most of his time arguing that Richard Dawkins hasn’t sufficiently refuted the watchmaker argument and that if Dawkins is fallible God must then exist.

This focus is understandable: The watchmaker argument and other teleological arguments for the existence of God are some of the hardest to refute. However, the focus of all contemporary apologetics on a single argument has left the industry stagnant and uncreative. In such circumstances, it isn’t surprising that apologetics fails to attract many intellectuals. Moreover, the focus on the watchmaker argument has caused much of modern apologetics (and thus many of modern apologists) to go head to head with much well-established science. C. S. Lewis in contrast was open to the possibility that evolution was correct. If the entire apologetic system revolves around attacking basic science, one shouldn't be surprised that not many bright, educated people are willing to lead it.

I’m not completely satisfied with any of these explanations. However, the decline of contemporary Christian apologetics needs explanation.

Jack Chick’s New Tract

Jack Chick has a new tract, “Some Like it Hot.” I’ve discussed Chick’s tracts before. This one, however, takes us to a new perspective: The entire theological system as explained by the Devil. Like all good Jack Chick tracts, even the title of the tract provides amusement. The title is an apparent attempt at something resembling wordplay referring to the 1959 movie of that title starring Marylin Monroe and Jack Lemmon. Apparently, Chick’s idea of a clever pop cultural reference is to a film that came out fifty years ago. It seems that Chick’s understanding of pop culture stopped sometime in the 1960s. This is consistent with other data, such as his continuing bashing of rock music as satanic while not addressing more modern forms of devil music such as rap.

The premise of this new tract is that a grandfather and his grandson find themselves both in Hell. While wandering around the landscape, they wonder why Henry, the intervening parent, is not there and then realize that he accepted Jesus as his personal lord and savior. The Devil then decides that he wants to talk to the two of them. The Devil gives a long rambling speech, outlining the basic theology. Jack Chick’s Devil seems to be not only incompetent, but doesn’t understand basic time management. As with any Jack Chick tract, we need some bashing of other religions. Thus, the Devil declares:

I alone control every major religion in the world! Isn’t that a pleasant surprise. We’re overrun with religious leaders down here… and all their followers! We’re “blessed” with popes galore and “holy men” like Buddha and Muhammad… all of them got here by trusting their “good works.”

This paragraph is vintage Chick. We’ve got the required Catholic bashing and we’ve got the deep misunderstanding of other religions. Memo to Jack: There’s nothing in Buddhism remotely resembling a notion of “good works.” We understand that you can only think in terms of your religion and its own theological disputes, but that doesn’t mean that everyone else thinks in the same way as you.

The Devil’s rant is accompanied by pictures of various people burning in Hell. One of them appears to be dressed as a Pope, another has peyos and a black hat, while another is wearing a turban. Apparently good Christians never wear turbans.

The Devil continues his rant, explaining that he really hates Henry because Henry saved so many souls. Since the Devil cannot take out his wrath on Henry who is in Heaven, he decides to take it out on these two and thus throws them into a bottomless pit.

This raises a number of issues. First, even Jack Chick seems to think that there’s some element of justice regarding people who go to Hell. So what theological justification allows the Devil to torture people who happen to be related to people he doesn’t like? Second, is this tract really a great argument for accepting Jesus if the most likely result is that one’s family is stuck in a burning hot wasteland where one can actually find and talk to people you know? It may be that Chick is just getting soft in his old age and so we don’t have the default setting of eternal all consuming flame while surrounded in darkness. However, if I had accepted Jesus as my personal lord and savior and had relatives who had not, I’d be tempted not to witness to people. Maybe, I’m just a horrible human being, but I’d have a lot of trouble trying to save strangers if it meant my friends and loved ones would suffer more in Hell. I don’t think that’s what Jack Chick is trying to accomplish.

Two New Jack Chick Tracts

Jack Chick has recently added to his website, not one, but two new tracts: "Evil Eyes" and "It's a Deal."

Jack Chick is a best-selling evangelical tract writer and conspiracy theorist. His tracts encourage people to accept Jesus as their personal lord and savior. This by itself would not be cause for note. However, Chick is refreshingly explicit in articulating and endorsing the more ridiculous elements of extreme evangelical beliefs. Multiple tracts revolve around good individuals being damned because they died before they accepted Jesus as their personal lord and savior while bad individuals are saved at the last minute since they accepted Jesus before they died. Multiple tracts state explicitly "It isn't a question of good or bad. It is a question of saved or lost." If one tried to write a parody of the evangelical conception of God and tried to accent its wretched, cruel and capricious nature, one would have trouble constructing a deity that looked more cruel and evil than that in Jack Chick's mind.

Like many extremists, Chick feels a need to make his argument primarily by attacking groups he dislikes. Thus, he has tracts about how all sorts of people are going to hell: Jews, Catholics, atheists, Mormons, Muslims, Catholics, Dungeons and Dragons players, Wiccans, Catholics, Protestants who think that good works help for salvation, evolutionists, and Catholics. Did I mention he really doesn't like Catholics?

In the past, his anti-Catholicism has generally been highly conspiratorial, claiming among other things that the Catholic Church secretly founded Islam as a way to control the Arab world. Apparently all of the historical conflicts between Christendom and Islam were really just to prevent us from realizing the truth. Or something like that. He also thinks that the Catholic Church founded liberation theology to help control the communists. As with Islam, the fact that the Church has generally been unfriendly to liberation theology is obviously just more evidence for the conspiracy (although honestly in this case, I suspect that he simply heard the term "liberation theology" at one point and jumped from there).

However, one of the new tracts, Evil Eyes, takes a new angle on his anti-Catholicism. In the past, he has portrayed the low level personnel in the Church such as most priests as simple pawns in the larger conspiracy. In this tract however, the Catholic priest in it publicly doubles as a priest of Santeria. Now, one important thing about Jack Chick is that he believes that every deity of every other religion is really an actual demonic entity. Thus, in this tract, an individual uses a voodoo curse on a man to turn him into a zombie. The local Catholic priest, who is also a Santero, tries all he can but is powerless. However, the day is saved when the young born-again cousin uses the true word of God to expel the demon that is the cause of the curse. At the end, the priest gives up both Catholicism and Santeria to become a true born again Christian. One of the most fascinating details in this tract is that not only does Chick think that it is perfectly natural for a Catholic priest to also practice Santeria, but he considers it natural that the priest would do so as part of an accepted community practice. Chick sees everyone else's religions as part of one large blur and assume that the practitioners themselves also see them that way. This is not unique to Chick but is also true for other evangelicals such as the writers of the Left Behind series.

The second tract involves Satan making a deal with a basketball player to have his soul in exchange for letting the player play really well. This tract is part of a running series of tracts that Chick is producing now which are particularly aimed at African-Americans and hence have all African-American characters and stereotypical black plotlines. I'm not sure what Chick is thinking given that African-Americans have one of the highest percentages of evangelicals of any racial group. In any event, as with most Chick tracts involving contracts with the Devil, the protagonist realizes that he's in deep trouble and accepts Jesus as his lord and savior, thus nullifying the contract. The point is then made that the Devil doesn't need a contract to get your soul. This leads to a question: More often than not in Chick tracts, people end up in hell. Furthermore, even people who know about the Devil and God often wind up in hell; in at least some cases people wind up in hell even after seeing the Devil first hand. Therefore, why does the Devil bother to make contracts with people? Indeed, it seems in the Chickverse that making a contract with the devil is a sure sign that you'll eventually realize that you really need Jesus. So if the Devil is trying to collect as many souls as he wants, he shouldn't be trying to make contracts at all.

The only thing more striking than the cruelty of Chick's God is the incompetence of Chick's Devil.

There's a fascinating element to Chick tracts. Aside from the interesting view into a warped mind whose views are shared by a disturbingly large number of people, one learns all sorts of tidbits that one wouldn't learn otherwise. For example, according to the Dark Dungeons tract, not only is Dungeons and Dragons a way to lure children into the occult but if your character advances to at least eighth level , then you will start to learn real spells. Obviously, I was never patient enough. I'm am however curious. D&D 4.0 recently came out. The power level of magic in the game is substantially reduced from that of 3rd edition. Does this mean one has to get to a higher level before one learns real magic? If so, this seems like yet another reason to not play 4th edition.

Messianic Jews, The United States Military and The First Amendment.

Jews in Green recently reported that the U.S. military is requiring Messianic Jewish chaplains to wear on their uniforms crosses, the standard Christian symbol, rather than a small pair of tablets, the standard symbol for Jewish chaplains. The military has yet to issue an official statement. This report raises a variety of First Amendment issues.

A bit of background: Messianic Judaism is a movement composed of individuals who claim to be both practicing Jews while they accept Jesus as Messiah. While there is variety among the various Messianic groups, most have beliefs very similar to the beliefs found in Protestant Christianity. In particular, Messianic Jews emphasize the divinity of Jesus, not just his messiahood , and emphasize their acceptance of Jesus as their personal lord and savior. Additionally, many Messianic Jews (according to some sources, a majority) are not halachically Jewish and a substantial fraction have no actual Jewish heritage, but are Christians who have decided to identify as Messianic Jews for a variety of reasons. The Jewish element of Messianic Judaism comes from many of them keeping some degree of Kashrut and some Sabbath observance starting on Friday and ending Saturday night. Mainline Christian denominations, most evangelical Christians and almost all Jews consider Messianic Judaism to be a form of Christianity, not Judaism. There is a perception among many Jews and Christians that Messianic Jews have been deceptive in their proselytizing practices and have presented themselves as a standard form of Judaism, particularly to Jews who have little background in Jewish knowledge.[i]

Michael Hiles, a self-identified Messianic Jew, was training to become a Navy chaplain. He was informed that he would be required to wear the cross on his uniform rather than the small pair of tablets representing the Ten Commandments, which is the symbol for Jewish chaplains. Hiles objected , and, after unsuccessful appeals up the chain of command, ceased training to be a chaplain rather than comply.

These events raise a variety of questions. I will examine two of these and then propose a solution. First, is the Navy’s decision constitutional? Second, is the Navy’s decision, assuming it is constitutional, the best course as a matter of policy?

Does this Navy’s decision interfere with Hiles’s First Amendment rights? The Navy’s actions appear to be constitutional under existing precedent. However, it is plausible that, if the matter were to be litigated, the Navy’s treatment of Hiles might be declared unconstitutional. In 1986, Simcha Goldman, an Orthodox Jew and member of the U.S. Air Force, argued that Air Force uniform regulations prohibiting head coverings indoors violated his right to free expression of religion, given his need to wear a keepah. The Supreme Court decided 5-4 in Goldman v. Weinberger that Goldman’s rights were not violated. In particular, the Court noted the long-standing deference given to the military. Thus, the burden that the Air Force had to meet was very low. The four dissenters agreed with this premise but argued that the Air Force had failed to meet the low burden of rationality needed to justify its regulation preventing a religious airman from wearing a keepah[ii]

Goldman suggests that Hiles has no case. However, the Navy’s decision with Hiles is arguably a theological decision, i.e. Messianic Judaism is not a branch of Judaism. Hiles can argue that his rights under the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause rather than his rights under the Free Expression have been violated. Arguably, the Court should give less deference to the Navy when Establishment Clause issues are concerned. However, as I will discuss shortly, the Navy’s decision is pragmatically justifiable. Thus, even if the burden the Navy would face in a hypothetical court case is greater than the Air Force’s burden in Goldman, the Navy would likely be able to meet that burden.

Does the Navy’s decision as to Mr. Hiles make sense? Tentatively, I’d say yes. The accuracy of military uniforms and the perceived accuracy of military uniforms is important to morale. There is a serious potential to damage the morale and unit cohesion of soldiers who interact with a Messianic chaplain under the mistaken impression that the chaplain is Jewish. Such confusion can reduce respect for and reliability of the chaplaincy core as a whole. This is particularly likely given the history of Messianic Jews engaging in deceptive practices and the repeated problems of proselytizing by evangelical groups in the U.S. military.

However, there is another solution which is constitutionally and pragmatically preferable. The military should give all chaplains the same, religiously neutral, symbol rather than different symbols based on religious affiliation. One obvious possibility would be simply the letter “C”, denoting that the officer is chaplain without indicating his or her religious affiliation Since most duties of chaplains are identical, this approach keeps the military from having to make essentially theological decisions about which chaplains should be treated as members of which religions. This will not solve all the First Amendment problems presented by the chaplaincy. Some of these problems, such as the necessity of allocating chaplains by religion in large military bases, may be unresolvable. However, this approach – identifying all chaplains as such without specifying on their uniforms the religions to which they belong, will eliminate the problem posed by Mr. Hiles.

Hat tip to Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars. Brayton’s blog entry has a long comments thread which discusses and raises some interesting points which I have not addressed here. For more information, one should also look at the entry at Jews in Green which gives further background of the Hiles incident.

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[i] Although most Jews use the term “Messianic Judaism” and “Jews for Jesus” interchangeably, this is not accurate and most Messianic Jews strongly object to the grouping of the two. Jews for Jesus generally have even less Jewish content. Almost none keep kosher or keep Shabbat in any form.. Jews for Jesus also emphasizes Jewishness as an ethnic group and is much more explicit and blatant in their desire to evangelize to Jews. Jews for Jesus as an organization is a member of the World Evangelical Alliance and various other Christian evangelical organizations. As far as Jews (and almost all Christians) are concerned, Messianic Judaism and Jews for Jesus are both Christian. They both believe that Jesus is their personal lord and savior and that such belief, including the divinity of Jesus, is necessary to avoid eternal hellfire. They both believe in a standard Trinity. Thus, one should not mistakenly label the Messianics as somehow less Christian simply because the Jews for Jesus are even more blatantly evangelical.

[ii] I am simplifying the breakdown. There were 3 dissenting opinions and one concurring opinion. Also note that Goldman was subsequently overturned by legislation that "a member of the armed forces may wear an item of religious apparel while wearing the uniform" so long as the item is “neat and conservative” and does not interfere with the member’s ability to carry out his duties.

The Economy, Prayer, and Idolatry

There has been a long-standing argument in halachah (Orthodox Jewish law) over whether Christianity is considered avodah zara (the technical term for idolatry in Jewish law). The problem of a human being declared to be divine is particularly troubling and Jews have been debating this issue for almost as long as Christianity has been around.

However, some Christians have recently been nice enough to make the Jews have an easier time figuring out how to treat Christianity. According to Wonkette, Christian groups have gathered at the statue of the bull at Wall Street to pray for a better economy. That's right: they are praying at a Golden Calf. Really. You can't make this sort of thing up. I have tried in the past to argue against claims that evangelical Christians are Biblically illiterate, and then they go and do something like this. Between this and Reverend Jeremiah Cumming's inability to quote basic scripture I should just give up.

Hat tip to Pharyngula for bringing this to our attention.

Slacktivist and Left Behind

Fred Clark over at Slacktivist has completed his detailed review of Left Behind.

Left Behind is a novel written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins set in the time following the Rapture of all the true Christians. The book and its sequels have sold 65 million copies. Given how well this book has sold and given the nature of its contents, it is disturbing that many non-evangelicals are not even aware of the book’s existence.

The book and its sequels are full of misogyny, hatred and ignorance.. They portray a world where anyone desiring world peace does so merely to help promote a New World Order ruled by the Antichrist. Anyone who does not accept Jesus as their personal lord and savior burns in hell for eternity. The authors have so little understanding of how the world functions that they seem to believe that the UN decides who each country sends as an ambassador. And there are many more examples. [1] This is before we consider that the writing is just awful. To understand the extreme aspects of modern evangelical Christianity you should read this book. To get much of the same material with a lot more amusement, read Slacktivist’s review.

Clark has gone through the entire book, summarizing and commenting throughout so you don’t need to damage your brain with this book. He is a moderate evangelical with substantial experience with the more fundamentalist and extremist evangelicals. This gives him an insightful perspective on Left Behind. His review is long, but extremely amusing and erudite. In commenting he quotes such luminaries as William Shakespeare, Herman Melville, and Joss Whedon. Clark’s work is similar to my discussion of Stel Pavlou but written by a much more erudite and funny fellow. Also, unlike Decipher, this is about a book that actually matters. Go. Read. Now.

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[1] Yet another example: In the writers' world, Israel expands its borders to include all the territory claimed by the Palestinians and yet somehow is at peace with all its neighbors.

Evangelical Christianity and Proselytizing

There have been a variety of reports about evangelical Christians proselytizing while members of the United States military. Most recently, a group of Marines in Fallujah distributed gospel verses to Iraqis. In particular, they distributed coins that on one side asked “"Where will you spend eternity?" The other side read

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16."

I’m not going to discuss in detail how this sort of behavior is unproductive and undermines the U.S. presence in Iraq. The potential damage from these actions is obvious.[1]

I am going to discuss why evangelical Christians are more prone to these sorts of proselytizing abuses than are members of other religions. Evangelical Christianity has a track record of using positions of authority to proselytize and of claiming to be persecuted when its adherents are blocked from doing so. [2] More generally, evangelical Christians have more trouble abstaining from proselytizing than do members of other religious groups. In my personal experience, interfaith dialogue groups between Jews and Muslims, Jews and non-evangelical Christians, and between other groups work much better than any form of interfaith dialogue with evangelicals. One joint Jewish-Christian text study group at Yale College fell apart because many of the evangelicals were not trying to learn about Jewish attitudes towards the texts, but were interested instead in converting the Jews.

At an initial glance, the apparent difference between evangelical Christianity and other groups could be a matter of sampling bias. Evangelical Christianity is currently dominant in the United States. We have an evangelical President. The second most successful candidate in the 2008 Republican Presidential primary was an evangelical minister. Although there has been fluctuation in the fraction of the population which self-identifies as evangelical, currently about twenty-six percent of the population of the United States identifies itself as evangelical.[3] As a religion with many adherents and many of those adherents in positions of power, there will be more proselytizing incidents involving evangelicals than members of smaller groups even if the overall rate of the behavior is the same in both groups. This sampling issue could explain why proselytizing incidents such as that which occurred in Iraq seem more common with evangelicals than with other religious groups.

However, this is not a satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon as a whole. For example, it does not explain why interfaith dialogue groups with evangelicals are more likely to be disrupted by missionizing tendencies than interfaith dialogue with other religions.

I suggest four reasons why evangelical Christians are less inclined or less able to restrain their proselytizing tendencies than are members of religious groups.

First, as discussed earlier, evangelical Christianity is the dominant religion in the United States. Evangelicals thus have more self-confidence than others in presenting their beliefs. Moreover, when they are restrained by courts or superior officers, evangelicals are more likely to feel that this is something out of the ordinary.

Second, evangelical Christianity in many forms emphasizes that failure to accept Jesus leads to consignment to hell for eternity with no chance for future redemption. This contrasts with the beliefs of many other religions. For example, in many forms of Judaism, eternal suffering is essentially impossible. In many Eastern religions such as Buddhism, the worst punishment one can get for bad behavior in this life is an unpleasant reincarnation. For evangelical Christianity, the stakes for failing to convert people are much higher than the stakes for other religions, given the evangelicals’ certainty that the unconverted will go to Hell for eternity. Petty, temporary laws such as the First Amendment pale in comparison to the threat of eternal damnation. Indeed, if someone convinced me that any individual who had not accepted Jesus as personal lord and savior was going to Hell, I’d abandon concerns like the First Amendment. It would be the only logical, decent course of action.

Third, even for the other religions and other forms of Christianity that believe that this life determines what happens to one for eternity, there are more options in the afterlife than just heaven and hell. For many evangelical Christians, the afterlife is an either-or proposition: the saved go to heaven and the unsaved go to hell. This contrasts, for example, with Roman Catholicism that historically adopted the idea of Limbo in which resided unbaptized babies as well as, in some theological lines, virtuous pagans.[4]

Fourth, the need to witness is evangelical Christianity’s strongest obligation for its believers. In contrast, other religions have many distinct obligations. For example, Orthodox Jews and many Conservative Jews believe that they need to keep kosher. Orthodox Jews pray three times daily. Roman Catholics take communion and go to confession. Reform Jews vote Democratic. However, evangelical Christianity has one single major obligation: proselytize.

Moreover, because there are few other obligations for evangelicals, proselytizing is an obligation of central importance. Thus, telling an evangelical not to proselytize is akin to telling an Orthodox Jew not to say Shemai. The Orthodox Jew so constrained will, understandably, feel under attack and persecuted. Witnessing is the primary ritualistic obligation of evangelical Christianity. Indeed, this is a religion whose name is intrinsically connected with spreading the “good news.” The centrality of witnessing leads to evangelical feelings of persecution when their proselytizing is blocked.

In summary, there are a variety of reasons why evangelical Christianity have difficulty restraining themselves when it comes to proselytizing. These difficulties are due in a large part to beliefs deeply embedded in evangelical Christianity. Thus, we are not likely to see this behavior change in the foreseeable future.

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[1] I’m also not going to comment on their failure to use the original Quenya: “An Eru tambë mellë Ambar sa antanes eressë yónerya, ya nostanes, sië aiquen ná vórima tan avafiruva, mal haryuvas oira cuilë.”

[2] See for example this essay by Elizabeth A. Castelli, "Persecution Complexes". See also Laurie Goodstein, "Air Force Chaplain Tells of Academy Proselytizing" , May 12 2005, The New York Times.

[3] Laurie Goodstein, October 7, 2007, For a Trusty Voting Bloc, a Faith Shaken The New York Times. Larry Eskridge, Defining Evangelicalism.

[4] While Dante is not an authority on Catholic theology it is noteworthy that he includes even Saladin, a Muslim, in limbo.

National Day of Prayer and the First Amendment

Today is the National Day of Prayer.

One might be able to argue that a sufficiently ecumenical National Day of Prayer does not violate the First Amendment. However, don't worry. The National Day of Prayer is now being run to be a blatant violation of the First Amendment. See for example what is happening in Minnesota.

The entire list of attendees at the state capitol is composed of evangelical Christians. There will not even be a Catholic representative. This isn't a coincidence either. The event is run by Shirley Dobson, the wife of James Dobson who founded and runs Focus on the Family. Mrs. Dobson also runs the National Taskforce to coordinate the event. Dobson only lets people be state coordinators if they sign a statement affirming that "I believe that the Holy Bible is the inerrant Word of The Living God. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the only One by which I can obtain salvation and have an ongoing relationship with God." The statement continues but that enough should make it apparent. This about as blatant a violation of separation of Church and State as you can get. This amounts to nothing less than active discrimination against non-evangelicals.

Have other religious groups decided to protest and maybe sue? No. That would be too sensible. Jews on First, a group that has a good attitude about the First Amendment issues is promoting a separate inclusive day of prayer. Screw that. What we need is a special day honoring the First Amendment where we can explain to everyone what the First Amendment says and explain what they can and cannot do with our tax dollars. If James Dobson and his ilk want to undermine the fundamental values of this great nation they can do so without us paying for it.

Hat tip to Pharyngula.