Unitarians: Those who insist God’s not three.

And how they try to get out of obeying the persons of the trinity.

Unitarian /ju.nə'tɛr.i.ən/ n. One who emphasizes God’s oneness, and rejects the orthodox view of God as a trinity.

2. [capitalized] A member of a church or group which asserts this belief.

3. adj. Having to do with this belief.

[Unitarianism /ju.nə'tɛr.i.ən.ɪz.əm/ n.]

The belief God’s a trinity is the hardest concept in Christianity, and a really difficult idea for a lot of people. Not just non-Christians: Plenty of Christians struggle with it too.

A lot of us spend a lot of time trying to invent clever explanations for how trinity works. More of us figure it’s a paradox; it’s beyond our finite human capabilities; let’s leave it at that. But a number of us figure it’s ridiculous: God spent the entire Old Testament trying to get it through the Hebrews’ thick skulls that he’s one. That’s the description he prefers; that’s the one they’re going with; forget about this “God is three” business.

They’d be unitarians. Sometimes they use that title, but often they don’t, ’cause they don’t wanna be confused with the theologically libertarian Unitarian Universalists. A number of ’em prefer to call themselves “Oneness” Christians—again, to emphasize God’s oneness.

I find it’s easiest to bunch unitarians into these categories:

• Non-Christian monotheists. These’d be Jews, Muslims, and Sikhs—folks who believe in one God, and never did believe in trinitarianism. Hence they don’t bother to use the “unitarian” label for themselves; of course they’re unitarianism. For them, “Father” and “Holy Spirit” are just other names for the One God, and Jesus isn’t divine.
• Arians are named for Áreios of Alexandria (256–336) who believed only the Father is God, and Jesus is a lesser god whom the Father created. “Holy Spirit” is God’s power, not a separate person. Jehovah’s Witnesses are a type of Arian.
• Modalists believe the One God appears to be three persons, but isn’t really. Sometimes he’s in Father mode, where he acts cosmic and otherworldly; sometimes Jesus mode, where he’s human; sometimes Holy Spirit mode, where he’s helpful and intimate. But it’s really one divine guy in three guises.
• Pantheists believe God isn’t a being; he’s the sum total of everything in the universe. So Jesus actually is God… but then again so are you, me, and everything else, collectively. (You’ll find many of the uppercase-U Unitarians totally buy this. The idea comes from the Hindus.)

As for pagans, you’ll find they either hold Judeo-Muslim beliefs about God, or Arian beliefs. When they become Christian, they often carry their heretic views into Christianity with them. And if no Christian ever bothers to sit ’em down and try to explain trinity (as best we can, anyway), they’ll hold onto ’em for quite a long time.

Or they’ll dabble in tritheism, the belief God is actually a committee of three gods (i.e. what the Latter-Day Saints believe), then reject it before it goes too far and wander back into Arianism, then reject that before it goes too far and ping-pong between one and the other. Or get sidetracked by modalism. Really, when Christians never bother to sort out our beliefs, we tend to just stay confused and heretic. Humans are lazy like that.

The Independent Fruit story.

How do we imagine we’re growing God’s kingdom?

Mark 4.26-29

Back to Jesus’s parables about agriculture.

Because in Mark Jesus told this story right after he told the one about the Four Seeds, some in the connect-the-dots school of bible interpreters leap to the conclusion the seed in this story, means the same as the seed in the previous story. In the Four Seeds story, the seed is God’s word. Mk 4.14 In this story, which I call the Independent Fruit story (and other Christians call the Seed’s Growth story, or the Kingdom Growth story), Jesus states the seed represents God’s kingdom itself. Miss that fact, and you’ll miss the whole point of the parable.

Clear your mind about the other parables. Come to this story fresh. Got it? Good. Now let’s read.

Mark 4.26-29 KWL

26 Jesus said, “This is God’s kingdom: Like a person who might throw seed on the ground.

27 He might sleep, might get up, night and day…

and the seed might sprout, might grow, without him knowing.

28 The earth automatically produces fruit. First sprouts, then a head, then a head full of grain.

29 Once the fruit is ready, he quickly swings the sickle, for it’s harvest time.”

Jesus used a lot of subjunctive verbs in this story—talking about what might happen, what could happen. Not what definitely will. Typical translations make it sound like this is all definite stuff: The person throws seed on the ground and it will grow, will produce fruit, will be ready. But that’s not how Jesus describes it. All these things might happen.

The one thing that will happen? The earth producing fruit. As Jesus put it, aftomáti/“by itself”—the word I translated “automatically,” because that Greek word is literally where our word comes from. Regardless of what a person might do, the earth does its own thing. Toss seeds on it, and the earth’ll grow them without our help. Without our knowledge. Without anything from us. It doesn’t really need anything more from us.

And this is what God’s kingdom is like.

Prophesying your own issues.

Funny how a lot of prophecies particularly apply to the person sharing it.

From time to time—in bible studies, church, conferences, prayer groups, what have you—prophets get up and say a little something which “God laid on their heart,” which is Christianese for “God told ’em.”

Or at least they think God told ’em. They were listening to their consciences, which is probably the easiest way to hear God. When we become Christian, the Holy Spirit gets to work on our consciences, growing good fruit in them, fixing our attitudes, poking us there whenever we misbehave. For some of us, it’s our most regular form of communication with him; we’re used to it. Many prophets have learned to listen to our consciences, in case any tugs we might feel are messages from God.

So let’s say a prophet detects this idea in there: “Someone’s not so sure she believes in God. She has doubts.” Sounded to them like something the Holy Spirit would say. So they take it and run with it.

“I feel in my spirit,” they’ll say (this’d be Christianese for “I think”), “there’s someone in this room who’s not sure whether she even believes in God anymore. She has days when she can’t even feel God’s presence. She’s struggling. I just want everyone in this room to know God is real. He cares about you. And if you wanna come forward we’ll pray for you, and pray that God show up in your life. For you to feel his presence.”

Thereafter, five or six girls come forward to be prayed over. And sometimes one or two guys who don’t care which pronoun was used: They’re kinda feeling that way too, and also want prayer.

Okay, time for the analysis.

Everybody doubts. Those who don’t, either had such a profound God-experience they don’t doubt anymore, ’cause they used to doubt, ’cause everybody doubts. Or they’re in heavy denial, which ain’t good. In any event, skip a rock into a crowd of Christians and it’s a safe bet you’ll hit a doubter. So we don’t actually need the Holy Spirit to inform us, “Hey, there’s a doubter in the room.” Maybe we need him to remind us, but not inform us. But get up in any large meeting, prompted by the Spirit or not, and declare, “Anybody have doubts? Come forward for prayer,” and people’ll come forward for prayer. Because everybody doubts.

And because everybody doubts, why’s “Somebody has doubts” sitting in this prophet’s conscience, waiting to be heard? Because the prophet has doubts. That’s a message for them. Since we humans are far more alike than not, it’ll also work for many of the people in the room. But we humans tend to have some really serious blinders on when our consciences are talking to us about ourselves.

So nine times out of ten, you know who’s really going through the struggle with belief and doubt in the room? Duh: The prophet.

The next dozen times you hear prophets get up and declare something, ask yourself, “Say, does this message also apply—if not primarily apply—to the person giving the declaration?” And y’know what? It almost always will.

Same-gender marriage in the United States.

And why it freaks certain Christians out to no end.

Depending on your politics, same-gender marriage is either a done deal or a huge issue.

I think we can figure out which camp you’re in, based on what you call it. I’m gonna describe it as same-gender marriage, ’cause that’s what it is. Conservatives seem to prefer “same-sex marriage” and “gay marriage,” and of course cruder terms. Progressives frequently use the term “marriage equality,” ’cause they’re trying to emphasize how, as they see it, it’s no more nor less than marriage—so why add adjectives?

Me, I know a lot of conservatives. To their minds, same-gender marriage is gonna be the ruin of the United States.

Mostly that’s because their beliefs consist of a combination of replacement theology and civic idolatry. Replacement theology presumes Christianity has taken the place of ancient Israel, and all the LORD’s promises to Moses and the Hebrews in the wilderness, now apply to us present-day Christians and our nations. Civic idolatry presumes this is especially true of the United States; that because of our Christian forebears, and indicated by God’s blessings of abundant wealth and military supremacy, America is God’s primary Christian nation. Americans will grudgingly accept some other nations are sorta Christian… but nobody’s as Christian as we are. (Now cue the chants of “U-S-A! U-S-A!”)

The catch: If the United States has superseded Israel, and likewise has a special covenant with the LORD, when Americans violate his will, the cycle’s gonna kick in and God’ll let our enemies smite us. Or he’ll personally smite us himself with hurricanes. Either way.

I should point out if replacement theology were in any way not rubbish, God would’ve started smiting Americans long before we declared our independence. ’Cause slavery. True, there’s slavery in the bible, and God even had commands about how the Hebrews were to make and treat slaves. But by those commands’ metric, American slavery was a ghastly abomination. It wasn’t a penitentiary system. It was kidnapping, dehumanization, and torture. If the Civil War was, as Abraham Lincoln believed, God’s judgment upon American slavery, we got off so lightly.

Need I mention all the other violations of God’s covenant with the Hebrews which Americans—including “good Christians”—violate hourly? We’d be here a while.

Same-gender marriage zeroes in on only one command of the 613: The command prohibiting male-on-male sexual activity. Lv 18.22 It’s not one of the 10 commandments, nor one of Jesus’s top two, but conservative Christians have elevated it to maybe number 13. To them, it offends God like no other.

The real problem? It offends them like no other. They personally find homosexuality distasteful. That’s why they can’t “live and let live,” like they do with all the other commands they ignore. Or even themselves commit, like coveting and Sabbath-breaking. This one captures their attention because it creeps ’em out. Hence their quickness to condemn it, and everything relating to it… as they look the other way at snobbery, lying, injustice, evil schemes, and all the stuff God’s truly outraged by. Pr 6.16-19 Their priorities take precedence.

Do you trust your church’s leadership?

If not, you need to do something about it.

Either you trust your pastor and your church’s leadership structure, or you really don’t. Ain’t no third option.

You may claim there is so a third option; that I’ve made this sound like a black-and-white issue when there are plenty of shades of gray. Y’see, we trust everyone up to a point—because everyone but Jesus is fallible. So we trust the leadership of our church to a point. After all, the devil’s constantly on the prowl, 1Pe 5.8 tempting church leaders to fumble and fail, so we gotta be on our guard constantly, lest we crash and burn right along with ’em.

Okay, in principle I have no issue with this reason. Makes sense. Seems consistent with the Christian principle of testing everything. 1Th 5.21

But in practice, it becomes an excuse for holding a church at arm’s length. In practice, it’s not that Christians trust their leaders for the time being, yet stay vigilant lest they slip up: They stay disconnected. Uncommitted. Ready to bail at the first sign of trouble. Heck, at the first sign of discomfort.

Sometimes for good reason. If you’ve been burned by church before, I don’t blame you at all for being slow to trust your new church. But just as often it’s for entirely selfish reasons: We don’t wanna recognize any church leader’s authority in our lives. We don’t wanna be accountable to anyone. We don’t wanna submit to one another out of reverence for Christ Jesus. Ep 5.21 Easier to never recognize ’em as authorities in the first place, and disguise our fear of commitment as “discernment.” Well, I call rubbish.

Eventually everyone will understand Jesus’s parables.

Of course, some of us are just willfully stupid about ’em.

Mark 4.21-25

When Jesus was explaining parables to his students—how they work, and why he uses them—he said this.

Mark 4.21-23 KWL

21 Jesus told them, “Does the light come in so it can be put under a basket or under the couch?

Not so it can be put on the lampstand?

22 It’s not secret except that it may later be revealed.

It doesn’t become hidden unless it may later be known.

23 If anyone has hearing ears, hear this.”

Quite often Christians quote this passage as if it applies to every secret: Anything we say in secret, it’s gonna eventually come out in public.

And y’know, Jesus did say something like that, in Matthew and Luke. But he did so in a different context. There, he was talking about critics of Christianity, people who were gonna hassle us for proclaiming the gospel. In time, their evil was gonna become public. In time, all of Jesus’s other, private teachings were also gonna become public. In time everything becomes public. The truth will out.

Matthew 10.26-27 KWL 26 “So don’t be afraid of critics, for nothing has been covered up which won’t be revealed. Nothing is secret which won’t be made known. 27 What I tell you in the dark, say in the light. What you hear in your ear, proclaim from the roofs.

Luke 12.2-3 KWL 2 “Nothing undercover exists which won’t be revealed. Nothing is secret which won’t be made known. 3 As much as has been said in the dark about it, say in the light. It’ll be heard. What was spoken in your ear in an inner room, will be proclaimed from the roofs.”

But that’s a whole ’nother lesson, and today I’m just discussing Jesus’s parables.

Yes, the wording is the same as that when Jesus was teaching on the light of the world:

Mark 4.21 KWL Jesus told them, “Does the light come in so it can be put under a basket or under the couch? Not so it can be put on the lampstand?”

Matthew 5.15 KWL “Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it shines on everything in the house.”

Luke 8.16 KWL “Nobody who grabs a light covers it with a jar, or puts it under the couch, but puts it on a lampstand so those who enter can see the light.”

Luke 11.33 KWL “Nobody who grabs a light puts a cover on it, nor under a basket, but on the lampstand so those who enter can see the light.”

And again: Whole ’nother lesson. Jesus had no trouble borrowing the same metaphor to teach a bunch of different lessons. Something those who think parables are secret codes, oughta bear in mind. Context, people. Not codes.

Nope, the reason Jesus said these things in Mark was ’cause he wanted his students to know that this bit—

Mark 4.11-12KWL

11 Jesus told them, “God’s kingdom’s mysteries were given to you.

To those outside, everything comes in parables.

12 Thus seers might not see—and realize.

Hearers might not hear—and be forgiven things.” Is 6.10

—is meant to be temporary. In time, the outsiders get to know what everything means. But when Jesus first shared these parables, it wasn’t yet the right time. His hour had not yet come.

How to annoy people. Or not.

And how their bad attitutes infuse what I write.

When I first got into the newspaper business, I regularly wrote opinion pieces. Got my own column in a few different papers. I would, on occasion, deliberately try to bug people.

My justification for it was:

• Really good writing pushes people’s buttons.
• So they get angry. At least they’re reading.
• I have every right to express my opinions.
• Those who get outraged by this stuff? Cranks.
• It’s all in good fun.

Yeah, I was a real jerk about it. I’d write really obnoxious stuff sometimes.

At the same time—more of my youthful and spiritual immaturity coming out—I was also under the misbelief that opinion pieces actually could change people’s minds over to my way of thinking. They don‘t work that way. Only fools read the op/ed pages to learn what to think. Most of ’em read to learn what others think, but for the most part they already have their minds made up. They’d either discover I agreed with them, and feel vindicated; or discover I believed otherwise, and feel annoyed. And if I annoyed them often enough, most would quit reading.

So when I tried to a rise out of people, I wasn’t as successful as I expected. I’d try to be super annoying, and my fans would cheer me on, and everyone else would dismiss me. (And rightly so.)

The outraged responses always came from the stuff I never expected.

Fr’instance, I once used the word “crap” in a newspaper column. As profanities go, that one’s really tame, so I used it and thought nothing more of it.

But we had this one regular nut-mail contributor. Some old guy who contributed to every local newspaper. Frequently he’d mix up his newspapers, and write to one paper to comment about something he read in another. And every time he found a word he considered inappropriate, he’d demand the paper fire the writer. That was his only solution to any problem: Fire people. He suggested I be fired many times. Naturally nobody took him seriously.

So, “crap” drew his ire. But none of my deliberate attempts at outrage got people to respond. It’s like I was waving red flags to the color-blind.

Eventually the Holy Spirit convinced me this was rotten Christian behavior. If I found it fun, it was evil fun. There’s no good excuse for it; it doesn’t promote God’s kingdom whatsoever; it had to go. So I repented and cut it out.

Still occasionally, unintentionally, offended people, though. Still do.

Again, it’s all for the stuff I never expect. I get misunderstood. Or somebody’s looking for offenses, and take me out of context. Or a story’s going round that bends my words till they’re unrecognizable; gossip’s evil like that.

Paradise: The nicer part of the afterlife.

Where Christians go when we die… and why we prefer other ideas to that of paradise.

Paradise /'pɛr.ə.daɪs/ n. In the afterlife, the place of the blessed. [Usually equated with heaven.]

2. The garden of Eden.

3. An ideal, happy, peaceful, or picturesque place or state.

[Paradisal /pɛr.ə'daɪz.əl/ adj.]

Perdís was an ancient Persian word for “a park.” Persian parks were particularly known for their decorative, ornamental gardens.

Both Hebrew and Greek borrowed the word. Late Biblical Hebrew turned it into pardés, which is found in the bible thrice. Sg 4.13, Ec 2.5, Ne 2.8 Ancient Greek turned it into parádeisos, also found thrice. Lk 23.43, 2Co 12.4, Rv 2.7 It’s where we get our English word paradise.

Of course in English a paradise refers to any nice place. I tend to hear it describe tropical beaches, which are hardly garden-like. But the Pharisees grew to use it primarily to describe Eden, the place of the first humans. And the afterlife.

Like Ecclesiastes commented, nobody really knew what happened to a human’s spirit after death. Ec 3.21 But they speculated. To them, once the body was in sh’ól/“the grave,” once the neféš/“soul, lifeforce” was extinguished, the spirit would go elsewhere and await resurrection. In the Old Testament, “elsewhere” was the same for both the righteous and the wicked. Ec 9.10 They didn’t imagine it as a place of reward nor punishment. It was simply where the dead went.

No, that’s not a pleasant idea. That’s why over time the Pharisees came to believe God sorted people in the “elsewhere” for reward and punishment, before resurrection. Different parts of the afterlife. A restful part, and a hellish part.

Y’know that story Jesus told of Lazarus and the rich man? Lk 16.19-31 Like that. The rich man’s torment, the Pharisees designated ge-Henna, after the burning landfill outside Jerusalem. Lazarus’s comfort, in contrast, was designated paradise, as if the LORD had teleported Eden into the afterlife, and let the ghosts of the deceased wander around there. (Not sure what they’d do with the fruit trees, though.) Yeah, both these terms are metaphors. Torment wasn’t literally a burning garbage fire, although it was mighty bad. Comfort wasn’t literally Eden.

Now, here’s the problem: Is this what our afterlife is gonna consist of? ’Cause for most Christians, this simply won’t be good enough. Our preachers promised us mansions in heaven. We want that. We don’t wanna lounge around with Abraham and await Jesus’s return; we wanna see our dead relatives and friends, then find Jesus and give him a big ol’ hug (and maybe weep on his toga for a bit), then run into the fields and play with our childhood pets which died years ago. We don’t just want comfort; we want our eternal reward. Right away.

So we wanna hear Jesus has significantly changed things since bible times. Here’s the problem: Bible doesn’t say he’s changed a thing. But Christian mythology sure does, and that’s the story Christians prefer.

Works righteousness: Salvation through good karma.

Christians who try to merit salvation—and Christians who try to weasel out of good works.

Works righteousness /'wərks raɪ.tʃəs.nəs/ n. A right standing (with God or others) achieved through good deeds.

Works righteousness is how the world works. We tend to call it karma: If we want people to think of us as good, upstanding, and deserving, we’ve gotta publicly do good deeds. Like doing charity work, making big donations, rescuing needy people, doing stuff for the public good. Not just the stuff ordinary citizens do, and should do, like follow the laws and not be jerks. It’s gotta be actions which go above and beyond.

Or (and this is the much harder way, although a number of people prefer it ’cause you can do it passively) we’ve gotta suffer some kind of catastrophic loss. One which totally doesn’t seem to fit our circumstances. You know, like Job being a really good guy, yet losing all his kids and stuff in a single day. Jb 1 Getting a deadly disease, getting your house flooded, getting your dad murdered—stuff that’ll make people sympathetic, or even cry.

See, people assume the universe oughta balance things out. Good things should happen to good people, and bad things to bad. But in reality the universe is random and meaningless. When circumstances expose this truth, people feel it’s just wrong—and often take it upon themselves to balance things out. (And then claim, “See? The universe balanced things out.” Well, it needed help.) People pour out support to the needy—but y’notice it’s sometimes entirely out of proportion. More than once I’ve seen a story in the news about people in need, and people donated so much support, 100 times the people could’ve been helped by it. (Hopefully the needy people passed some of that generosity along.)

But yeah, the world runs on works righteousness. On karma.

The kingdom of God, on the other hand, runs on grace. People don’t get what we deserve, much less what people think we merit. Instead we get what God wants to give us, and he wants to do for us way more than we can ever ask or think. Ep 3.20 He wants to give us his kingdom.

Problem is, for a whole lot of Christians this idea hasn’t entirely sunk in. When we come to Jesus, we bring our existing ideas, including our existing wrong ideas, with us. One of ’em is the idea we owe God big-time. After all, look how much he’s done for us! But we conclude we therefore have to pay him back. You’ll even hear Christians claim this is why we’ve gotta do good deeds: We owe God. We’ll never ever be able to make it up to him; not even after a trillion years of good deeds. Still, they insist, we should try.

Which is simply nuts. And goes against everything God’s trying to teach us about grace. We’re supposed to give without expecting anything back, Lk 6.35 because that’s how our Father gives.

But karma is so pervasive in every human culture, even those of us who know God does grace instead of karma, try to make it up to him in big or small ways. We don’t always do stuff for God out of pure gratitude. We’re still trying to balance out our karmic debt… to an infinite God. Good luck with all that.

Nah. The reason Christians are to be good, is because God instructs us to be good. Not to earn anything, not to pay anything back, not for any other reason than love. If you love God, do as he says. Jn 14.15 If you don’t really, you won’t really. But forget about earning his love; you already have it. Forget about earning his favor; you already have it. That karma stuff only works on humans. Not God.

Bible “difficulties”: The passages which won’t do as we want.

Usually scriptures which appear to contradict other scriptures.

Whenever you hear Christians refer to “bible difficulties,” you’d think we meant scriptures which’re hard to translate, hard to interpret, hard to understand, or hard to follow. Often we do. Certainly I do.

But why do Christians consider these scriptures difficult? Three reasons.

1. We believe the bible contains no errors—but these passages appear to be in error, or appear to contradict other scriptures. Like Jesus’s two different genealogies.
2. We have certain beliefs, doctrines, traditions, or assumptions—and these passages appear to violate them. Like Christians who don’t wash feet, Jn 13.14 or Christian men who don’t kiss one another hello. Ro 16.16 We don’t wanna say these passages don’t apply anymore… but honestly, we don’t wanna follow ’em either.
3. These passages actually are obscure, and Christians throughout history (and Jews too) have found ’em hard to interpret.

The most common reason would be the first one: Discrepancies. Scriptures which appear to contradict other scriptures… or reality itself.

Nearly every Fundamentalist believes the bible has no contradictions. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking: “Have these guys ever read the bible?” Tried to line up the resurrection stories, or Jesus’s aforementioned genealogies? Plus several orthodox Christian teachings—based on bible, I remind you—are kinda contradictory as well. Like how God’s kingdom is here, yet not yet here; like how God is one yet three. Fundies know all this stuff, but regardless: One of their fundamentals, one of their non-negotiable beliefs, is that the bible has no errors. And contradictions would be errors. Therefore no contradictions.

Hence Fundamentalists have written big giant books of bible difficulties. In which they try to explain away any discrepancies, plus any other problem scriptures, as best they can. Sometimes reasonably, ’cause these passages only look like discrepancies but aren’t really. Other times not so well.

Losing your faith when you go to school.

More accurately, being the pagans you always secretly were.

In my town, today’s the first day of school. I have friends in other parts of the United States who say, “You start school in August? You’re nuts.” I look at it from an educator’s point of view: The shorter the summer vacation, the less chance there is for the kids to forget everything before we get ’em back in the classrooms. Plus most of the parents do not mind at all.

Colleges and universities are also starting up this time of year. Along with that comes a common worry Christians have: They worry their good Christian kids will go away to school, and gradually ditch their Christianity.

It’s hardly a new worry. It’s been around since the very first Christians sent their kids to the ancient version of university, the academy. It’s been around since the first universities slid away from the goals of their Christian founders, and became secular.

Since I grew up Fundamentalist, I got to hear their version of that worry. Fundies suspect their salvation depends on clinging to all the correct beliefs, and since any good school challenges us to question everything, that’s the very last thing they want their kids doing. It’s why they created Fundamentalist colleges, where they question everything but their fundamentals. (Though frequently these schools have way too many fundamentals, but that’s another debate for another day.)

Hence in high school my youth pastors told me, time and again, the only schools worthy of consideration are the Christian ones. Their goal was to shelter us from the cold cruel world out there, lest it corrupt us and turn us pagan.

A lot of us Christians bought into this mentality. It’s why, as soon as possible, Christians put their kids in Christian preschools, elementary schools, middle schools, high schools; then transition ’em to four-year Christian universities. Others don’t trust any Christian schools—somehow they’re all corrupt—so they educate their kids at home as long as possible. Heck, instead of going away to university, some of ’em take long-distance classes from home, lest the shelter the schools are meant to be, just isn’t strong enough.

In this way, parents figure the kids will never be drawn away from Jesus by the subtle, foundation-shattering perils of atheistic humanism in the classroom. Nor the drug-fueled hedonism in the dorms. Nor the distractions of popular culture everywhere else.

All the classroom subjects will be carefully based on a bible-centered worldview. And ideally so will all the extracurricular activities and dorm life. The kids’ll be totally immersed in Jesus. They’ll never fall away.

They never bother to consider: What kind of anemic, pathetic faith are we talking about, where we have to encase kids in a plastic Christian bubble lest any microbe from the outside destroy this faith?

See, that’s the real problem. These kids who abandon their faith? They don’t have faith. Their parents bungled the job of passing it down. The kids don’t love Jesus, if they even know him at all; they’ve been chafing under all the Christianity, and the instant they leave for school—even a Christian school!—there goes their religion. Cast off as fast as they can shed it.

Happened to me too: I didn’t ditch Christianity, but I totally ditched Fundamentalism. Plus various other annoying beliefs. Lemme tell you about it.

The Deuteronomistic history.

How some of the books of the Old Testament share a theme—and likely an author.

When I was growing up, I was a little curious about who wrote the books of the bible. Supposedly Matthew wrote Matthew and John wrote John and the three letters named for him (plus Revelation) …but Timothy didn’t write Timothy, and since Samuel was dead way before the end of 1 Samuel, it stands to reason he didn’t write 2 Samuel. Naturally I wanted to know who did write the books, but none of my Sunday school teachers knew. One of ’em speculated it was Solomon.

Fact is, people back then people didn’t put their names on their writings. Even David didn’t put his name on his psalms: Whoever compiled the psalms together, added his name to the psalms which had traditionally been ascribed to him. It’s a safe bet David did write ’em. But the other anonymous books of the bible: We don’t know who put them together. They felt the story was way more important than the authors’ names.

Anyway. In 1981, bible scholar Martin Noth theorized the books which Jews call the “former prophets”—Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings—and more than likely the book of Deuteronomy along with them, are all part of one large history, edited together by one person. Or one group of people. Noth named it “the Deuteronomistic history,” named of course for Deuteronomy.

It was a very short period of time before a lot of bible scholars signed on to Noth’s theory. It makes perfect sense. Though many conservative scholars (myself included) don’t agree Deuteronomy oughta be included in the Deuteronomistic history. Even though Deuteronomy does repeat a lot of commands found in the previous three books. There are good reasons Deuteronomy is bundled together with the Law, not the Prophets; and good reasons the Deuteronomistic history is inspired by that book, and not just prefaced by it.

People tend to refer to its author (or group of authors) as “the Deuteronomist.” Since—for no good reason—Christians have traditionally assumed Samuel wrote Joshua, Judges, and Ruth, if not half 1 Samuel, I’ll call the Deuteronomist “Sam” for short.

Telling your pastor you’re leaving.

Are we obligated to give our church an exit interview before we leave?

Got a question from a reader: “Last year my pastor preached about the steps you need to take before you leave the church. One of them was you first have to go to your pastor and talk it over with him. But most of the reason I’m leaving my church is because of him. Do I really have to talk with him first?”

No. You don’t have to say a word. You can go to another church immediately.

This “You gotta talk to the pastor before you leave” idea doesn’t come from bible. It comes entirely from pastors. They wanna know why you’re leaving.

Ideally, it’s because pastors wanna help. People leave churches for all sorts of reasons. And the pastors are hoping maybe, just maybe, they can help you work out some of those reasons, and change your mind. (I think it’s naïve of them to hope so, but many of them will try it just the same.)

Often, and more realistically, they’re troubleshooting. They wanna know why you’re leaving in case it’s the church’s fault. What can they fix? What can they do to prevent people from leaving in future?—to “close the back door,” so to speak?

And yeah, sometimes it’s not at all for noble reasons. Sometimes pastors want the chance to defend themselves. “You’re leaving because the church does [a bothersome behavior]? Well, we’re meant to do that. God wants us to do that. We’d be compromising the gospel if we quit doing that. It’s wrong of you to object to that.” Really, the discussion’s not gonna do a whole lot to convince you to stick around. It’s just to make the pastors feel vindicated and self-righteous; to feel they did nothing wrong, and you’re in the wrong for leaving. If that’s the sort of meeting you suspect you’re gonna have (’cause that’s the way the pastors tend to defend themselves every other time a problem comes up), definitely skip it. It’ll be no help to anyone.

Worst case: The pastors wanna do nothing but browbeat you for leaving. Or threaten you with hell, because they’re convinced their church is the only outpost of God’s kingdom there is, and everyplace else belongs to Satan. Don’t go to those meetings either.

If you really do want them to know your reasons for leaving, write them an email or letter. You needn’t read what they send you in response—especially when you suspect it’ll be hurtful. That too is optional. You needn’t send them anything.

What if your church made you sign a contract, when you became members, which required you to have an “exit interview” before you leave? Simple: They can’t legally enforce it. At all. (Contrary to popular belief, employers can’t legally enforce exit interviews upon their employees either. So your church definitely hasn’t a leg to stand on.) If they persist, tell ’em to either get a subpoena or leave you alone. And of course no court will grant them any such thing, ’cause separation of church and state.

Such churches may insist, “You promised us before God,” and hope this argument convinces you to attend any meeting they deem necessary. And yeah, when we swear to God, we oughta abide by any such promises, because God holds us accountable to them. But let me remind you that marriage vows are also a promise before God—yet Jesus permits people to divorce those who cheat on them. Mt 5.32 There’s a significant difference between promising God, who never goes back on his word; and promising humans, who regularly do.

So if your church mistreats you—and in so doing, defies God—you’ve been cheated on. You can divorce your church. Insisting you can’t, or that you must only do it on your church’s terms, is just more mistreatment. All of it manmade. None of it biblical.

The subtler type of racism.

We’ll catch, and oppose, the more obvious forms of racism. The subtle sort tends to slide.

Once again I bumped into an odd phenomenon; one I briefly mentioned in my article on white Jesus. In short, it’s racism; the type people tend to get away with because it’s subtle.

But first, a big long bit of backstory.

Robert E. Lee, 1863. Wikipedia

Robert Edward Lee was the commanding general of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia during the United States Civil War. (The army started burying soldiers on Lee’s front lawn during the war, as a way to stick it to him; it’s now Arlington National Cemetery.) He was one of the better generals in the war… and arguably it’s because he was such an effective general that the war lasted way longer, and killed more, than it ever should have.

Y’might be developing the idea I don’t think much of Lee, nor the reputation the American south has granted him in the 150 years since the Civil War. You’d be absolutely right.

When Lee joined the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the man swore to defend the Constitution of the United States. Yet he participated in armed rebellion, supporting a separatist nation whose primary reason for existence, as stated in their new state constitutions, was to perpetuate slavery. Southerners imagine Lee was a noble man, conflicted because he didn’t want to shatter the union his own wife’s grandfather had created. (Her grandfather? George Washington. Yes, that George Washington.) Even so, Lee couldn’t bring himself to fight his fellow Virginians. Or at least that’s how he justified his treason to himself, and plenty of southerners have perpetuated this myth.

Sound harsh? I’ve been accused of that. But even by standards of the day, Lee’s behavior is inexcusable. Washington had recognized the immorality of slavery and freed his own slaves. His adoptive son had freed some slaves, and his slaves also expected to be freed at his death, but that didn’t happen. Hence Lee held these hundreds of people in captivity, kept them in shacks on his land, worked them without pay, and had ’em flogged when they displeased him. As general, he permitted his troops to enslave any free blacks they encountered. And of course they killed American soldiers so they could continue these offensive practices. He never spent an hour in jail for it; he was graciously given amnesty. If anything I’m being generous too.

Southerners are slowly starting to come around to the fact Lee is an embarrassing part of their history, and not someone to be celebrated. The reason it’s so slow? The white supremacist movement.

From the end of the war till 1877, white supremacists were suppressed by the army. That ended after the Republicans stole the 1876 presidential election. Seriously. Back then the Republicans were liberal and the Democrats conservative; the Republicans were the equal-rights party and the Democrats were super racist. (From the 1930s to ’70s, they gradually traded worldviews. Still a lot of non-racists among the Republicans, but after Democrats passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, many of the “Dixiecrats” joined the Republicans and brought their toxic views with them.) Democrat Samuel J. Tilden had unexpectedly won both the electoral and the popular vote, and Republicans were horrified. So they struck a deal: If the Democrats conceded the election to Rutherford Hayes, the Republicans would pull the army out of the south, and whatever happened thereafter, happened. What happened was a useless one-term president, and southern Democrats creating racist “Jim Crow” laws which made life hell for southern blacks for a century. White supremacists repainted the Civil War as a noble but failed cause. That’s when all the pro-Confederacy idols cropped up. Yes of course it’s civic idolatry… Confederate style.

Idol of Lee on his horse Traveller, erected in Charlottesville in 1925. Wikipedia

Including the idol of Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia. It was commissioned in 1917, built in 1925, and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1997. Back in April the city council decided to sell it, and rename Lee Park as Emancipation Park. White supremacists have been fighting this plan ever since. Including a big rally this past weekend at the University of Virginia campus, where one of the white supremacists ran a car into counter-protesters. Some of ’em were waving Nazi flags right alongside their Confederate flags. Nazis are another group white supremacists are trying to repaint as a noble but failed cause.

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee had tweeted,

“White supremacy” crap is worst kind of racism-it’s EVIL and perversion of God’s truth to ever think our Creator values some above others.

— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) August 12, 2017

I don’t care for everything Huckabee tweets (I don’t share his sense of humor at all), but I liked this one so I shared it.

Didn’t take long before I got these two responses:

• “[It’s wrong] for ANY race to think they are superior to another. There are racists on both sides.”
• “No worse than black racism. Racism is racism. There no runner-up prize.”

And someone who tried to pivot to a discussion of black people’s sins. See, when you can’t defend your own behavior, deflect as best you can.

Criticism and self-promotion destroys. Humility restores.

Plus how “Christian businesses” aren’t really.

James 4.11-17.

Continuing on his whole theme of pride and its destructiveness, James went after those Christians who took it upon themselves to critique and condemn others, and those Christians who exaggerate their big plans which ultimately aren’t gonna come to anything.

Starting with the bit about badmouthing Christians. You know the type. Every church has ’em. Sometimes they’re even in leadership.

James 4.11-12 KWL

11 Don’t badmouth one another, fellow Christians.

One who badmouths or criticizes a fellow Christian, badmouths and criticizes the Law.

If you criticize the Law, you aren’t a doer of the Law, but a critic.

12 Only one is the Law-giver and critic, with power to save and destroy.

Who are you to be your neighbor’s critic?

This passage confuses people because of the different ways we interpret katalaleíte/“you all speak evil.” After all there’s many ways to speak negatively. Might be minor nitpicking (“Her pasta sauce is bland”) or gossip (“Her husband’s banging the nanny”) or full-on condemnation (“She’s a liar”). There are lots of ways to speak negatively.

Most of the time I hear this passage used to rebuke gossips. But considering the context—James went straight to talking about the Law—it clearly doesn’t mean minor badmouthing. It’s the full-on condemnation. The stuff where Christians are accusing one another of sin. And not following the process Jesus outlined, Mt 25.15-20 but trying to work the court of public opinion. Good old-fashioned backstabbing.

Part of the problem with how people interpret this passage has to do with dispensationalism: The belief the Law used to be how God saved people, but thanks to Jesus we’re saved by grace, and therefore the Law no longer counts. So much wrong with that idea: God always saved people by grace, and the Law didn’t save anyone, but was granted to a saved people to show ’em how now to live. Yes, Jesus fulfilled large parts of the Law, but as anyone who knows their 10 commandments can tell you, plenty of it still applies. The Law still defines right and wrong.

If you think the Law no longer counts, you won’t see the problem with badmouthing and criticizing the Law. Heck, you’re already doing it yourself. And James’s instruction will go right over your head. You will—as many a Christian has—skip the Law parts, and figure it’s only about saying mean things. Stop backbiting, Christians!

Pride and coveting destroys. Humility restores.

Our lifestyle should reflect wisdom from above, not covetousness from within.

James 4.1-10.

At the end of chapter 3 of his letter, James was making the point zeal and argumentativeness don’t come from God.

James 3.14-18 KWL

14 If you have bitter zeal and populism in your minds, don’t downplay and lie about the truth:

15 This “wisdom” doesn’t come down from above—but from nature, the mind, or demons.

16 Where there’s zeal and argumentativeness, there’s chaos and petty plans.

17 Wisdom from above, first of all, is religious. Then peaceful.

Reasonable. Convincing. Full of mercy and good fruit. Not judgmental. Not hypocrisy.

18 Righteous fruit is sown by peace, and harvests peace.

Just because Christians split this teaching into separate chapters, doesn’t mean James was done with his idea. That’s the context for the next 10 verses. Righteous fruit is sown by peace… and wars and battles don’t come from the same place. They don’t come from above.

James 4.1-4 KWL

1 Where do the wars and battles all of you have, come from? Not there!

They come out of your hedonism, the “field experience” of your limbs.

2 You all covet, and don’t have. You murder, act in zeal, yet you’re powerless to achieve it.

You fight and wage war, yet don’t have—because you don’t ask.

3 You ask, yet don’t receive because you ask for evil!

—so you might spend it on your hedonism.

4 Adultresses! Haven’t you known friendship with the world is enmity with God?

So whoever wants to be a friend of the world, is rendered God’s foe.

As leader of the Jerusalem Christians, James naturally had to deal with all their fights and spats. No doubt some of ’em escalated into violent physical confrontations, ’cause “eye for eye” and all that. With his experience, James knew precisely what sparked the bulk of these fights: People wanted their own way. They hadn’t submitted to God. (They sure wouldn’t submit to one another.) They had their own ideas how things should be, who should answer to whom, and what God “owes” us.

Even Christians who should know better, try to get away with this. Years ago my pastor bought a luxury car, and spent the bulk of a sermon trying to explain God permitted him this extravagance. It was a pretty pathetic defense. It was little better than what we hear in Prosperity Gospel churches—how God wants his kids to have the best of everything, so what’s wrong with a little mammonism? Years later the pastor gave his car away; that defended his purchase far better than his sermon ever did.

But my point, and James’s, is that our idonón/“hedonism” (KJV “lusts”) are our real motives for our behavior. Not wisdom from above. Jm 3.15-17 ’Tain’t from above; more like below.

Swiping my words.

Christians play really fast and loose with plagiarism.

Years ago I taught junior high. Various subjects: History, literature, grammar, science, bible, algebra. Sometimes ’cause the other teachers weren’t up to teaching those subjects; sometimes despite the fact they really wanted to teach those subjects, but I’m more qualified. (That’s a story for another time.) Anyway, I made the kids write. A lot.

Often in class: I’d give ’em an assignment which needed to be completed during classtime. I had an ulterior motive, which they didn’t always suspect: I wanted to learn how they wrote. Partly to work on improving it… and partly to catch ’em when they plagiarized.

’Cause time would come when they had to write reports. And when they did, I’d seen enough of their writing to immediately detect whether they wrote it personally, or not. I mean, it’s fairly obvious when they lift entire paragraphs from the encyclopedia; suddenly they were writing at a collegiate level, with vocabulary words I knew they didn’t know. But the internet has all sorts of writing styles.

Some of the dimmer bulbs in my classroom didn’t really try all that hard to disguise their plagiarism. They’d cut and paste directly from the website. Wouldn’t bother to change the font. Wouldn’t even bother to get rid of the hyperlinks. I kid you not: They’d turn in papers with blue underlined links to other webpages.

When I was in junior high, the teachers went a little too easy on you: Plagiarism would get you knocked down a grade or two. In high school you’d automatically get an F. I figured my kids oughta learn this lesson early, before it ruined their high school grade point averages: I also adopted a zero-tolerance policy. Plagiarism meant an F. I’d let kids redo their papers for better grades, but once you plagiarized, you were stuck with that F. No exceptions.

Now when I handed the graded papers back to the kids, I’d usually put ’em on their desks myself, and face-down. ’Cause it’s nobody else’s business what grade they got. Unless of course they made it everyone’s business… as one of ’em once did in one of my science classes. Loud enough for all to hear: “Hey, what’d I get an F for? I worked hard on that paper! Why’d you give me an F?”

Oh so we’re gonna have this discussion in front of everybody? Very well then.

Me. “You got it for plagiarism. You didn’t work hard on that paper. You cut and pasted from the internet.”

She. “I did not.”

Me. “Oh come on. You didn’t even get rid of the blue underlined links. It says on your paper, ‘Click on the link to see the animation.’ What am I supposed to click on?”

Rest of classroom. [hilarity]

Me. [miming trying to click on a sheet of paper] “Doesn’t work.”

She. [getting redder and redder]

Rest of classroom. [more laughter]

Me. “Don’t tell me it wasn’t cut and pasted.”

And I dropped it and changed the subject.

Yeah, I’d have fun with the kids when they tried to pull a fast one. Well, it was no fun for them. But they had no idea I’d done worse when I was their age. Kids rarely recognize teachers were once their age, and tried the same stunts they had. Or that years of previous students had tried such things too. I knew exactly how to catch the kids who never thought they’d get caught. I know I didn’t catch all of them—I let a few of ’em slide, ’cause you gotta pick your battles.

But plagiarism was definitely a battle. ’Cause it’s such an easy thing to avoid: Credit your source! Put the statement in quotes, and say who said it.

Back in high school I once wrote a science paper which was almost entirely quotes. I went to the library, wrote a few dozen quotes from three different astronomy books onto index cards, sorted them into a fairly coherent order, and the few parts I personally wrote were only there to link the quotes together. I barely wrote anything. But I followed the rules: I didn’t plagiarize, and named my sources. Got an A. I told kids all the time: The rules are easy. But kids’d break ’em anyway.

Years later, in grad school, I was working on a paper (or blogging; don’t remember; either way writing was going on). One of my hallmates, an undergrad, angrily slammed his door and stormed down the hallway.

Me. “What’s wrong?”

He. “Got an F on my [incestuous participle] history paper. The [same word] professor says I [his vocabulary wasn’t diverse] cheated.”

Me. “Did you?”

He. “No. I wrote the whole thing myself. I just quoted someone and didn’t give them credit.”

Me. “So, plagiarism.”

He. [look of “You’re on THEIR side”]

He disappeared from the school after that semester. I’m guessing he flunked out.

But here’s the problem: That’s just school. Once you graduate from high school, university, and graduate school, and go off into the “real world,” unless you’re in academics, journalism, politics, or publishing, nobody cares.

Yep. People plagiarize to their hearts’ content, and nobody calls ’em on it. That is, till they publish something which makes them rightly liable for a lawsuit. Then they might get sued or fired. But most of the time they totally get away with it.

Happens all the time among Christians, in the church. That’s who rips me off, anyway.

Tongues and unfruitful minds.

Plus the unfruitful cessationist interpretations of this passage.

1 Corinthians 14.13-19.

This is a passage Christians like to quote. For different reasons.

For Pentecostals it’s to quote the apostles—specifically Paul—when they wrote, “I speak tongues more than all of you.” Then argue, “See? Paul did it. Why can’t we?” And then, more often than not, proceed to do it contrary to everything else Paul taught about building up the church.

For anti-Pentecostals, it’s to point to the statement, “Pray that you can interpret,” then loudly object, “People ought never speak in tongues tongues at church unless they follow up with an interpretation.” Then they proceed to ban even the tongues which might be followed up with interpretation, just to be on the safe side. If they’re full-bore cessationist, they’re pretty sure tongues are devilish anyway.

Well, let’s look at the passage in question.

1 Corinthians 14.13-19 KWL

13 So tongues-speakers: Pray that you can interpret.

14 When I pray tongues, my spirit prays. My mind isn’t fruitful.

15 Why is this? I’ll pray by my spirit; I’ll pray by my mind.

I’ll sing by my spirit; I’ll sing by my mind.

16 For when you praise in your spirit, and the place is full of newbies,

how will they say amen to your thanksgiving, since they don’t know what you said?

17 You did give thanks properly, but others weren’t built up.

18 I thank God—and I speak tongues more than all of you.

19 But in church, I want five words in my mind to speak so I can also instruct others.

(That, or tens of thousands of words in tongues.)

Yes, my translation reads a little different than others you might’ve read. That’s because we have different biases. When others translate this passage, they imagine the apostles were contrasting. To them this passage is about speaking tongues versus speaking ancient Greek—or English, or Spanish, or whatever the locals speak.

That’s not at all my attitude, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the apostles’ attitude either. They spoke tongues; they never forbade it; they ordered the Corinthians to not forbid it either. 1Co 14.19 The issue wasn’t tongues versus no tongues; it was proper versus improper. It was using tongues for personal worship, not group worship, nor to create a “spiritual” atmosphere.

If you’re convinced the apostles were trying to contrast between tongues and no tongues, it’s really easy to make it sound that way by slanting your translation. First of all, the word de/“and.” Ancient Greek used it to connect sentences which had a common theme, much like today’s English uses paragraphs. When you translate, you can drop every de entirely; it shouldn’t change the meaning of the translation any. But when you translate de as “but,” like the KJV and many other translations, you’ve introduced a contrast which isn’t in the original text. And here’s what you get. (I highlighted every word in the passage which translates de.)

1 Corinthians 14.13-15 NIV

13 For this reason the one who speaks in a tongue should pray that they may interpret what they say. 14 For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. 15 So what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my understanding; I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my understanding.

Plus if you translate i/“or” as “than,” you get:

1 Corinthians 14.19 NIV

But in the church I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue.

Those four little words make four big differences, ’cause now people have the idea tongues are negative and undesirable—that in our churches, people should speak English only.

Bias, man. It’s a sneaky little critter.

Killing false prophets: Wanna bring it back?

Fake prophets can be really destructive. But killing them is the easy way out.

When the LORD explained to Moses how his prophets were gonna work, he wasn’t messing around.

Deuteronomy 18.17-22 KWL

17 “The LORD told me, ‘What they say is correct, 18 so I’m raising up prophets for them—

from among their family, like you, and I put my words in their mouth.

They speak to the people everything I command them.

19 When anyone doesn’t listen to my words which my prophet speaks in my name,

I myself demand accountability from that person.

20 However, the prophet who presumes to speak in my name what I’ve not commanded them to speak,

or what was spoken in the name of other gods: This prophet dies.

21 When you say in your heart, “How can we identify a word which wasn’t spoken by the LORD?”:

22 When the prophet speaks in the LORD’s name, and it’s not my word—

it’s not something the LORD’s spoken; it won’t come to anything.

The prophet spoke it in pride. Don’t fear them.’ ”

True, we don’t execute false prophets anymore. Not because, as some dispensationalists would put it, we don’t live under the Law anymore; we live under grace. (And that grace apparently extends to con artists and manipulative people who’d convince you they’re true prophets, then proceed to ruin your lives and rob you blind.)

Nope, it’s because of separation of church and state. The government isn’t to interfere with any religion, including the fake stuff. As history has proven time and again, when it comes to religion, governments and politicians can’t be trusted to determine what’s real and what’s fake. To keep ’em from persecuting and destroying true religion, we have to self-police the frauds. But lest we go overboard ourselves, it means we don’t have the power to execute ’em.

Where does that leave us? Well, when they’re fraudulent in the area of prophecy, they’re frequently fraudulent in many other areas of their lives. Including areas where our governments can criminally prosecute them. The state can get ’em for fraud; the feds can get ’em for tax evasion.

And when they haven’t crossed that line, but are obviously fake prophets, Christians need to stop giving them free passes, nor covering up for their misdeeds. We’re supposed to expose such misdeeds. Ep 5.11-14 Broadcast far and wide that these fakes can’t be trusted; that they’re poison and cancer to our churches; that they ruin our Christian sisters and brothers for their own gain, drive some of ’em away from the church or even Jesus, and give pagans an excuse to mock us. Our tolerance level for fakes should be way lower than it is.

I know; Christians are supposed to do grace, like our Father. That’s why we’re to personally forgive these frauds when they wrong us. Be kind and loving to them. But put them into positions of authority thereafter? As far as leadership is concerned, that’s where we need to treat them as if they’re dead. They need to be “killed” from any list of potential leaders we might have: Power corrupts ’em too easily, and isn’t safe in their hands.

Connect-the-dots interpretation: Stop that.

Just because your brain sees a connection, doesn’t mean it’s real.

Your brain is designed to recognize patterns.

It’s how the brain stores data. It takes a memory, breaks it down into “what I know already” and “what’s new,” stores what’s new, and stores links to the memories we know already. And they don’t have to precisely be memories we know already; just stuff that’s close enough. If it sees a similarity, or pattern, in what we experience, that’s close enough.

That’s how we pack 50-plus years of experiences into a 100-terabyte brain. And explains why some of our memories are kinda sloppy: Our brains were pattern-matching things which weren’t accurate matches.

Our brains pattern-match inaccurate things all the time. Sometimes for fun: Ever played the game of “What does that cloud look like?” Or had to put up with your mom insisting that so-and-so looks like some celebrity, but you can’t see it at all? Or been startled by a shadow which kinda looked like a stranger was in your house, but turns out it wasn’t?

Psychologists call this tendency apophenia: Your brain’s making a connection which isn’t really there. Happens all the time, and a lot of the time we realize this and are amused by it.

This person is pretty sure the word “love” is written in his cat’s fur. I see more of an “HXICVW,” but you know how people tend to see what they wanna see. Reddit

But other times we’re deliberately looking for connections. Like detectives trying to solve a case, like mathematicians looking for a statistical trend, like gamblers looking for a lucky streak, like conspiracy theorists searching for a cover-up. They wanna find a connection so bad, they’ll jump right on top of anything. Including all the bad matches our brain makes.

Yep, we Christians do it too. When we want a sign from God badly enough, we’ll settle for anything; we won’t even bother to confirm it. Or when we’re scouring the bible for truths and revelations, and find coincidences… and if we wrongly believe nothing is meaningless, we’ll insist these can’t be coincidences; they’re revelations!

Happens all the time. Generates a whole lot of really bad bible interpretations. So it’s something I gotta warn you about, lest you stumble into this trap yourself. Or be led into it by an overzealous preacher.

End Times preachers in particular; many of ’em are just the right combination of conspiracy theorist and connect-the-dots misinterpreter.

The Almighty our defender.

This psalm isn’t necessarily about you, y’know.

Yoshév b’setér Elyón/“Seated in the secret [place] of the Highest,” (Latin Qui habitat) is our 91st psalm. It’s often called the Psalm of Protection, ’cause it talks about how the LORD will protect “you.”

Who’s the “you”? Actually that’d be the king. This is a messianic psalm, addressed to (and possibly written by) Israel’s king. This fact isn’t obvious; the psalm never bluntly says it. Hence loads of Christians figure they’re the “you,” apply it to themselves, and take a lot of comfort in the idea God’ll deliver us from our every foe.

Problem is, God never promised us any such thing. On the contrary: Jesus promised us we’d suffer. Jn 16.33 So to claim Yoshév b’setér Elyón for ourselves is not only taking the bible out of context, but setting ourselves up for huge disappointment when it inevitably won’t come true that way.

Yeah, my translation rhymes. Went with trochaic octameter.

Psalm 91 KWL

1 Seated in the Highest’s secret, seated in Almighty’s shadow,

2 tell the LORD, “You are my refuge and my fortress—God, I trust you.”

3 For he frees you from the fowler’s traps, from pestilence, destruction.

4 With his pinions you he covers. Under wing you find protection.

His truth is your shield and buckler 5 from the arrow’s daily flight.

His truth is your strong defense, so do not fear the dread of night.

6 Pestilence which walks in darkness, ruin at noon devastates—

7 thousands at your side and right may fall—but round you, it abates.

8 Only with your eyes you look, and see the wicked get their due.

9 The LORD God’s your refuge, and the Most High is a home to you.

10 Evil gets cut off from you. Inside your tent, plague is expelled.

11 For his angels, God commands to watch you, all your ways surveilled.

12 Lest you strike your foot on rocks, by hand they lift you in protection.

13 Step on lion, cobra; trample cub—and dragon!—his discretion.

14 “Since they love me, know my name, I rescue them and grant them safety.

15 They call; they I answer. I’m with them in all their difficulty.

I deliver them, and honor them, 16 and fill with days sufficient.

I will show them my salvation,” says with grace the LORD omniscient.