Michael "Hell-Fire" Voris is Back With a Vengeance

Angry Catholic Voris: Just look at the picture top right: Heronymus Bosch would be proud. Need I say more?

After publication of his Catholic Dictatorship video on militant atheist PZ Myers' blog (See my last post)  it seems that Real Catholic Michael Voris is none too pleased with his foul mouthed treatment by PZ Myers' coarse speaking "raiders". But poor PZ will find that he and his raiders' puny anti-superlatives are utterly out classed; after all, they can only resort to an assortment of body parts, excretions and private acts to use as insults. This school boy invective pales compared to the spiritual "invective" the Michael Vorises of this world can muster from a deep supply emanating out of what in some people's books is a terrifying world view. They can call on the gravitas of eternity and presumed knowledge of the human spiritual predicament to insult, condemn and above all curse, really curse. And don't forget that they really mean it and believe it; it therefore carries far more anti-value and is far more cathartic than saying something like "You w*nker!". Here's just some of it transcribed from the above video; it sounds a lot like some of the protestant fundagelical language of spiritual condemnation I have heard, and which I myself have also been on the receiving end of:*

They hate the Catholic church and what she teaches because they hate themselves...They are in love with evil. They are entrapped by it and enslaved by it and rage against the good....adulterous...money worshipping...power hungry, attention crazed, pride filled, promiscious lives...chained by their passions and fears...they will die in their sins...deep down they know the spiritual ship wreck their lives really are or will become...monarchy of hate...who do you prefer for your monarch, Christ or Satan? (and the following is really ironic - ed)... you really need check your hate speech, it is way too revealing...

It's no surprise that in the depths of the Middle Ages the Catholic church, in its dungeons, knew just what to do with some of those body parts that PZ and his raiders speak so lightly of; and, moreover, it "knew" it had the right to do it!

Characters of the Wild Web: PZ Myers dreaded raiders strike again, but when it comes to Real Cursing the Real Catholics provide a much more professional service.

* For reference read the book of Jude.

One Ring to Rule Them All

(Note: 18/8/10: The Real Catholics have pulled the video: Perhaps to spite the people they thought were "wrenching it out of context to try to make a weak point" to use the words of one of my detractors)

When I watched the above video on PZ Myers’ blog my first reaction was that it must be a trolling spoof or at least a tongue in cheek production with the aim of baiting the PZ Myers of this world. But seemingly not: The man in the Video, Michael Voris, a Catholic who talks and sounds very much like a fervent Protestant fundagelical, has a series of YouTube videos promoting Catholic religious hegemony. Nothing unusual about that you might think given that this blog is always criticizing the authoritarian spiritual hegemony of some Protestant sectarians. So what’s new here?

Voris tells us that “Our nature is fallen” and is “self absorbed”. Fair enough, I can go along with that; its core Christian doctrine. But then suddenly out of the blue we get this:

….Only virtuous people should be allowed to vote! … Limit the vote to faithful Catholics…. Only true Catholics look at God. …. When true Catholics vote they cast them with an eye to what God desires not fallen human nature …. Democracy is doomed to failure… The only way to run a country is by benevolent dictatorship – a Catholic monarch.

Surely this man can’t be serious! He must be having us on! The last time I saw a very similar looking manifesto was when I read “Mein Kampf”. It is difficult to credit that anyone, in the light of Western History, can still hold such views.

Isaiah Berlin has made us very conscious of the difficult balancing act between positive and negative liberty that must be maintained in a democracy. Given the human nature that we all share, both extremes of positive and negative liberty have undesirable consequences: Positive liberty can drift toward dictatorship; negative liberty drifts toward market chaos.

The problematical question that never occurs to anti-democrats is this: Just who is going to decide who is virtuous enough to rule autocratically? Who is going the “morally bootstrap” the first virtuous autocratic government? Can fallen beings trust themselves to identify, let alone implement, the absolute government of the virtuous? Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Voris ought to learn the main lesson of that famous book by fellow Catholic J. R. R. Tolkien where the tempting and corrupting effects of absolutism find an excellent metaphor in the One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

Oliver Cromwell did away with the crypto-catholic dictatorship of Charles I and consolidated parliament. Trouble was, Cromwell himself didn’t understand or know how to handle parliament. He was repulsed by the cacophony of voices of competing (self) interest that was the English parliament and so he effectively dissolved it and became dictator; although credit to Cromwell, true to his beliefs, he was probably a reluctant dictator. Cromwell blew his chance and failed at the test of getting the balance between positive and negative liberty right. The Protestant Cromwell, like the Catholic Voris, was of the opinion that once you’ve got rid of “all them others” somehow the rule of the virtuous and Godly would just emerge. But it didn’t: Parliament became a forum of argument and counter argument expressing the inevitable balance of interest of a democracy; that is what authentic parliament is all about - we must simply accept it and run with it. But the puritanical Cromwell couldn’t accept it. The only solution Cromwell could think of, like Voris, is to enforce the autocracy of a self-righteous and probably self-appointed oligarchy. However, we have to make all due allowance for Cromwell: In the history of Western government Cromwell was breaking entirely new ground without the hindsight of past models to go on. Voris does not have that excuse, and ought to know better.

Ironically, anti-democratic leanings are also a recrudescent phenomenon among Protestants in spite of their Biblio-centric individualism. Hierarchal absolutism is not far under the surface of the mindset of some Protestants as typified by the following quotes taken from a ministry that shall remain nameless:

Some have wrongly taught that the local churches are autonomous, that once an apostle establishes a local church and appoints the elders, he is through with that church and should stay away…..The leaders in the church must take the lead in all things. They must be the leading sheep, the head sheep, in the flock. When the sheep at the head of the flock move, the rest of the sheep follow ….The elders should be regarded, obeyed, and honored by the saints.

The tempting and corrupting effects of the "One Ring" are, alas, as real in church government as they are in society at large (See my last post).

The two faces of English democracy:

Cromwell: The uncompromising face of positive democracy

Walpole: The compromising face of negative democracy

The fact is that truly democratic government will always have to emerge from an ongoing and contradictory tumult of voices, interests, perspectives and viewpoints that tug in different directions; such are the consequences of the ambiguities and sinfulness inherent in our world. Sir Robert Walpole, England’s first prime minister, well understood the underlying self interest that often motivated democratic rule and referred to it as “the natural state of human affairs”.

There is no one party that has a monopoly on righteousness any more than it has a monopoly on sin. As the good book says:

For there is no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the Glory of God (Rom 3:23)

****

During the last 'benevolent' Catholic dictatorship even dissenters were given a stake in government.

Disney Land Christianity

Why doesn't Hinn just 'Jacket' in?

Two articles in the August "Christianity" magazine are notable.

The first article is about excess in some churches and is entitled “Money, Sex and Power”. Although the churches concerned are largely American Charismatic churches, it is usually not long before UK churches pick up the baton.

The article starts by dealing with the money and sex scandals that are now all too familiar, but my own opinion is that this is really a distraction from the main problem. Sex and money tempts people in all walks of life and a fall here can happen to anyone. When the Christian showman and “miracle” entertainer Todd Bentley came a cropper over his affair and divorce, some parts of the church reacted as if this was the only problem with his ministry. Some even tried to spin doctor it by making a virtue out of it: It was all down to poor brother Bentley’s “burn out”; poor guy, he was so over worked! Trouble was he was burning himself out peddling junk spirituality egged on by a gullible crowd who were baying for “more Lord, more…”. In fact as far as I’m concerned Bentley’s marital infidelity is the least of his sins and arguably could be excused as having mitigating circumstances. Basically fundagelicalism never learned from the “Bent Oddly” affair and never took the cue to take a good long hard look at itself. In fact by implicating sex and money fundagelicalism could get itself side tracked by putting it all down to a good old fashioned sin that is easily identified. But I’m of the opinion that the real sin is endemic to fundagelicalism itself. The problem will not go away unless fundagelicalism reforms itself.

The article in “Christianity” leaves the subject of power until last. This matter, I suggest, is much closer to the nub of the real issue than is sex and money. Under the subtitle of “The Abuse of Power” the article tells the story of a church where:

The issue was over the pastor’s teaching on a variety of issues including creation, tithing and the nature of spiritual authority. He insisted that these teachings were central to the faith and that dissenters from his line were in serious error that threatened their eternal destiny. It reached a head when one Sunday during a sermon the pastor launched into a personal attack on those in the church who disagreed with him. Naming them – and most were in the congregation that day – he called on them to ‘repent’ and then proceeded to pray for this to happen. During the prayer these people stood up and left the building. Within ten minutes other members of the congregation, some in tears and others heckling the pastor walked out. The meeting ended in chaos.

The article claims that this story is “the tip of the iceberg”, and like all such icebergs it is the “sea of faith” that is keeping it afloat: It is not a case of people occasionally (or even frequently) being tempted by the lure of power as they might also be tempted by sex and money. The problem is to be found in the underlying ethos of fundagelicalism, particularly charismatic and Pentecostal fundagelicalism. That ethos is one of a brash, positively affirming and assertive Christianity flowing naturally out of a culture that, as an affected reaction to its marginalization, is so totally convinced it speaks with the very words and authority of God. I suspect that the pastor referred to in the above quote was less tempted by sheer power per se than he was tempted by the common fundagelical delusion that he was the mouth piece of God. It’s not that this culture is necessarily peopled by the authoritarian, the arrogant, the gullible and the stupid, but the cultural mores of fundgelicalism helps feed authoritarianism, arrogance, gullibility and stupidity.

If the authoritarian, the arrogant, the gullible and the stupid start to populate institutions and sects whose ethos attracts them, then naturally enough one is going find them giving a very hyperbolic explanation of what they are doing. This brings me to the second article in “Christianity” by regular writer Jeff Lucas. In a column entitled “Mind your Language” Lucas acknowledges that many Christians give a fabulous account of their doings using a language of spiritual superlatives that raises the prosaic into an ethereal grandiose realm. Lucas kindly calls it “metaphor and shorthand” but a case could be made out for calling it “spiritual spin”. Lucas, in fact, gives an example that he himself is guilty of:

I used to describe prayer as a conversation, until, decades on, I came to realize that it could be misleading. ‘God spoke to me this morning’ I would announce breathlessly, perhaps suggesting that (a) I awoke to the sound of a booming voice that rattled the alarm clock and (b) I have an ongoing hotline to God and am enjoying happy little chats with him through each and everyday. In truth 99% of my praying is me doing the talking.

Lucas also says:

.. after a while we start to believe in the Magic Kingdom ourselves as I found out when I went to Disney land and actually approached Mickey Mouse and asked for an autograph. Only as I walked away did I realise that I’d just asked a sweating college student togged in furry fancy dress to honour me with a signature. I’d bought in to the myth myself.

Telling, truthful, candid, sobering stuff. But Lucas is taking a big risk: He could be in for some brickbats on “Christianity’s” letters page if the religious fanatics who speak for God decide to mobilize.

The following is an example of the output of one Christian sect very sure that it has an ongoing hotline to God, a line that needs no interpretation:

The all-inclusive Christ, who as the life-giving Spirit indwells our spirit, is everything to us. We must believe the clear Word in a pure way, saying, "Amen," to whatever the Bible says, and we should take care of our experience. There is no need to interpret. Simply take whatever the Bible says and believe it.

No need to interpret: That's right, no need to think about it, just get a direct download from the Almighty Himself and you're away; in fact no need to even bother to get the download as we have it already, so just come to us and we can tell you what to believe. One little problem though: A million and one fundagelical ministries, sects and cults, all with their proprietary and mutually inconsistent authoritative downloads, can't all be right.

Over confidence, over certainty, and spiritual arrogance are the inevitable products of the false belief that Christians somehow speak the very words of God, and this very naturally leads into the abuse of spiritual power and authoritarianism.