Prophecy: And another one bites the dust!

Some mickey mouse prophecies have run out of time.

In this blog post I quoted a Christian leader who, during a gathering of the Revival Alliance in September 2011, made this prophecy:

There’s something about September 1st, I believe you can write it down. I believe you can write it in your journal, that ‘everything changed September 1st 2011’. I feel like it’s a prophetic word over this country (the UK) – September 1st 2011 – everything’s different”

In the November 2012 edition of Christianity magazine there is a report on this September's 2012 Revival Alliance conference. In the report we read:

This conference followed a special more restricted gathering of the Revival Alliance in September 2011…reported in a previous issue of Christianity. Many observers hailed that as a significant time for the UK with many prophetic words suggesting the UK was being given an opportunity to embrace a new move of God…. Some delegates expressed sadness that there was no continuity with what had happened in 2011, though many were thrilled with their experience of God’s presence.

To all intents and purposes this looks like another stale prophecy that’s well past its sell-by-date. But notice the escape clause here:  The UK was being given an opportunity to embrace a new move of God. So will the prophet admit to being culpable for the failure? No! Modern prophets and their followers are canny when it comes to apportioning responsibility for their turkeys: That responsibility will be placed fairly and squarely on the shoulders of all those in the UK who didn't take the opportunity to embrace “a new move of God”! ..... What move of God? Did I miss it?

Dallas Willard Catches Up On Gnosticism, Fideism and Irrationalism.

Fideism: A widespread philosophy in contemporary Christianity

I was extremely interested to read an article in the October issue of Christianity magazine about Christian philosopher Dallas Willard. The article tells us that according to Gary Moon Willard’s contribution might one day be comparable to that of Martin Luther. Well, I've never heard of Gary Moon and not sure if I've even heard Willard’s name either, but this probably only goes to show how out of touch I am! Nevertheless, I was very impressed by Willard’s response when he was questioned on why he had written his book Personal Religion, Public Reality? [2010]. This is what Willard says: (The emphases are mine):

A very deep problem of contemporary society: the idea that when you speak of the truths of the Christian faith, and when you speak of the path you walk as a Christian and a disciple, you do not have knowledge to rely on. It is believed that knowledge is ‘secular’, and anything that is of God or the Holy Spirit, or of the human soul, is not in the area of knowledge, but in the area of something called ‘faith’. Over the last 100 years or so it has become commonly accepted that faith is not based on knowledge and doesn't incorporate knowledge. And so then the question is ‘So what in the world is it?’ And the answer that most people give you is that it’s an irrational leap. 

That’s what the book is really all about. It’s showing first of all that this happened [this new view of faith], and that as pastors and leaders, and just as simple Christians, we’re up against this assumption, and it’s just not true. The central truths of Christianity are subjects of knowledge for anyone who could reach for them and understand that that is what they are. Such thinking changes entirely the atmosphere in which one lives and in which one deals with others. If you just take faith as it is currently understood, it dismisses reality and says that you’re just running on what’s inside of you. So the idea of personal religion becomes dominant, and the idea that religion is essentially personal and it can’t be anything public because it’s just ‘your stuff’. 

Nice to have you onboard Dallas! The scourge of Christian fideism/Gnosticism is something I’m all too familiar with. I’ve been up against this problem for the whole of my Christian life and I have referenced it in my blog posts and elsewhere many, many times. However, I want to take this opportunity to make available an essay on the subject that I completed in 2000. This essay can be downloaded here. 

Interestingly, the irrational leap that Willard speaks of is well exemplified in the very same issue of Christianity magazine. In an article entitled “Mind Games” we read about a pastor in the state of Pennsylvania: 

There are those who say that there is no rational argument for God, and that we should be happy with that. John Wilkinson, a pastor at LCBC church in Pennsylvania….. argues that we shouldn’t expect faith to be rational, because it isn’t. When he went to Penn State University to study philosophy and religion, he was faced with and atheist ‘Goliath’ – a professor who ‘saw as his mission to suck faith out of every student’. Wilkinson was no exception, and he faced a crisis of faith. But this was not addressed by counter-argument using reason and wit. Instead, he told God that he chose to believe in him. ‘Shortly after… I felt a very calming and soothing presence’, he records. ‘Something like a warm hand on my shoulders. I heard, “there, now we can begin”. Wilkinson seems to think that we can ignore rational arguments for God, and the science behind it, and instead we should celebrate that Christianity is irrational. 

Let’s face it, Wilkinson has been utterly routed by his ‘Goliath’ and that has left him with only one option; to retreat into the security of the protecting shell of his inner life and sooth himself with the ‘inner light’ of the spirit. But note the irony: It was the still small voice of reason that ultimately came to Wilkinson and spoke to him from within the soft warm womb of his bolt hole; Wilkinson's hypothesis for God was eventually supported by his (private) experience. That’s the paradox of fideism; it too is eventually forced to fall back on the canons of reason in spite of pretensions to having access to superior revelations transcending rationality. In the final analysis fideism proves to be a philosophy that attempts to justify itself through reasoned articulation and therefore one that must eventually pass the test of rationality, the test that the ideas vs. experience contention imposes on all sentience. 

It’s good to see Willard giving a strong lead away from the contradictory self-referencing of fideist versions of Christianity. Willard’s book was published in 2010 and given his stature it is not a moment too soon; in fact as far as I’m concerned it is at least ten years behind the times. But better late than never! 

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Links relevant to the above material: 

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/2001-spaced-out-odyssey.html  

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/heres-interesting-book-cloudspotters.html 

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2008/11/hemisphere-short-of-brain.html 

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2009/03/split-loyalties-and-split-brains.html
http://norwichcentralbaptistchurch.blogspot.co.uk/2007/06/hyper-feminised-church-article-in-july.html

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Addendum 23/10/12. Today's charismatic evangelical milieu is very liable to divide the Christian world up into Holy Spirit initiates and non-initiates and therefore one has to be very careful what one says in order to forestall being placed on either side of this false dichotomy. In fact, only very recently did I have to send out the email below in an attempt to promote a more nuanced position:

Dear all,

As it may have been the cause of some dismay I thought I had better qualify my remark about expressions of Holy Spirit, a remark I made during our discussion on the benches at the edge of  XXXX's sunny sports field. You may remember (or not as the case may be) I said something to the effect that these expressions are strongly influenced by personality (and I should have added “culture”)

I thought I had better qualify my remark because parts of the contemporary Christian scene are polarized on this issue and are consequently only able to register two Christian types; namely, those who have been initiated into the things of the Spirit and those who haven’t. I have long rejected the uncritical acceptance of this dichotomy.

But firstly I must say that I have always affirmed Christian experiences such as epiphanies, spiritual gifts and the miraculous in general. Above all I affirm that the promise and anointing respectively referred to in Acts 2:39 and 1 John 2:20&27 are universal amongst Christians and constitute the much needed antidote to a creeping contemporary anti-physicalism and Gnosticism amongst Christians, just as it did in the first century.

What I do utterly reject, however, is the setting up of spiritual elites based on a claimed spiritual initiation into some kind of mystical “inner light” experience; in short a form of neo-gnosticism”. Gnosticism is a common “elite” phenomenon right across the religious spectrum and beyond. In its most general form it sets up an “inner light” vs. “reason” paradigm and my own researches suggest that this is not a peculiarly Christian phenomenon but is influenced by sociological, cultural and crowd factors.

My own view is that otherwise valid Christian markers (such as epiphanies, spiritual gifts and various cultural expressions) have been (ab)used to create a fictitious category of “elite spirituality”.  In some cases this has even resulted in the calling into question of many Christians claim to the promise and the anointing.

Tim Reeves

Some relevant blog posts:

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2006/11/blog-post.html 

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2006/08/fighting-christians.html

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2008/10/continuous-revival.html

I’m Wright and You’re Wrong!

The Blinding Light of the Reformo-Charismatics

(This post contains a link that can be used to download the discussion I had with Nigel Wright on his web site)

Not long after I published this piece on New Testament Restorationist Alan Howes, along came someone called Nigel Wright who posted the following comment on one of my blogs:

Christians wonder why those around them don't believe the bible is true.

In fact those in the world say with one loud voice "science" that's what we believe.

Unfortunately to sum up the problem, it's fair to say that many claiming to be Christian don't believe the bible to be true either.

Nigel

Well, guess where this guy is coming from! He’s a fundagelical who believes that those Christians who don’t emulate his brand of scriptural literalism, devotional ostentation and plastic piety are the cause of disbelief. He’s quite sure that if every Christian were just like him the world would have less difficulty with the Bible. He doesn’t think of himself as part of the problem but part of the solution! In his view what is all-so-obvious to him must also be obvious to other Christians. Since he believes the divine authority of his opinions to be self-evident then in his eyes any professing Christians who doesn’t agree with him must be sinning and have a bad conscience; if indeed they have the right to call themselves Christians!

Such is the logic of the fundamentalist mind. Notice, however, that Nigel made absolutely no attempt to grapple with the content of the post he commented on. He probably thinks himself to be above such “intellectualism” because he is “in the Spirit” and therefore all he need do is speak in the strongly censorious tones of the righteous.

I’ve lost count of the number of Christian sectarians I have come across who, like Nigel, are only capable of stringing together a set of well-rehearsed spiritual clichés which they then use to condemn those who are not affiliated with their Christian subculture. (See also the character “GS” who is featured in the series of posts referenced here)

The appearance of Nigel Wright on my blog turned out to be something of a windfall for the VNP research department. For it seems that Nigel Wright has a connection with Alan Howes: Nigel’s Web site gives the same email address as can be found on Alan Howes article on NN&N

As I said in my post on Alan Howes "One man’s NT blueprint is another man’s corrupt practice and disagreements can be very sharp if contending parties all think they are operating according to scripture or according to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Try contradicting Alan Howes and you will see what I mean”. Well, here was the next best thing:  Here was someone who looked to be from the same or similar Christian subculture (i.e. reformo-charismatic) so why not try contradicting him and see what happens? I just had to interview this man, so I followed Nigel back to his web site anxious to carry out the contradiction test. We had a “discussion” that lasted over several weeks. My previous experience with those who have a high estimation of their spirituality told me that it would only be a matter of time before this guy deleted my “worldly” views. Consequently, I took pains to store the content of this “discussion”. This content can be downloaded in PDF format from here. I may well single out some of the gems in this material for special comment later.

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Some understanding, sympathy even, ought to be offered to fundamentalists like Nigel Wright; (Although this is difficult to do without patronizing such anti-intellectual duffers). The fact is, as William Irvin Thompson tells us, contemporary society contains far too much information to make a comprehensive and rational evaluation of it humanly possible, even for the most intelligent and well informed of us. Therefore, no world view can realistically be claimed to be based on a synthesis of all the strands of available data.

The personality traits of the average fundamentalist are such that they are very uncomfortable with this literary overload that society presents us with; they also loath ambiguity and crave mechanical certainty. They feel insecure and let down by “The World”, a world that in the final analysis offers them little in the way of unambiguous anchor points and the authoritative last word. They want to short cut all the intellectual tedium and instead aspire to making a connection with a failsafe and authoritative epistemic method. To them the Bible is apparently the solution to this problem; it offers a relatively tiny universe of data of only about 1000 pages. This is the small closed ended universe they have been looking for that contains all they need to know.

But fundamentalism fails to take sufficient cognizance of the fact that Biblical meaning can only be unraveled in the context of the open ended resources of the world God has given us; the Bible is meaningless without a blend of knowledge that ranges from history, through the language instinct and psychology, to common sense philosophy and physics. (See here) However, in an attempt to preserve their closed ended and authoritative epistemology fundamentalists will down play the subject of Biblical interpretation by using doctrines like  “The perspicuity of scripture” or “Using scripture to interpret scripture” in an attempt to truncate the open endedness of scripture and make its revelation self-contained. (These doctrines are in any case necessarily extra-biblical in nature and not unassailable.) For the fundamentalist, language interpretation must be relegated to the status of an unproblematic secondary issue because they so want to pronounce with confidence and with last word authority using phrases like “The Bible says so & so” or “It’s all in accordance with the Scriptures”. That life is seldom this simple is acknowledged in a backhanded way even by the Nigel Wrights of this world. When it comes to difficult topics like say the meaning of Genesis they have to resort to specialist ministries like AiG (and also to religious cranks like John MacKay in Nigel’s case – see Nigel's web site)

As with fundamentalist epistemology, so it is with fundamentalist community: Polyculturalsim can be as open ended and fazing a subject as epistemology. Once again the fundamentalist mind is inclined to draw an exclusive line round what he considers to be valid. In particular, the very checkered nature of Christian community particularly rankles with the strict and particular fundamentalists. Instead they hanker after cozy monocultural communities that are claimed to be immaculately modelled “in accordance with the scriptures”. This is likely to lead to the formation of small exclusive “uncontaminated” groups of believers. A sense of marginalization, persecution even, from the wider community can mean that paranoia has a tendency to run high in these exclusive groups, even to the extent that outsiders may be regarded as engaged in a conspiracy against them. But this comes with a consolation of pride in thinking oneself to be part of a small community who have rumbled the secret of a persecuting society. They can walk past their fellow human with their head held high, knowing that they are in on a secret known only to a holy remnant.

Against all this one might wonder how the Christian message of the unconditional love of God and the gospel of grace and freedom from sin is prevented from subverting this exclusive religious vision of Christianity. Easy: The Nigel Wrights of this world are likely to tell us that it is sign you have failed to apprehend God’s grace if you continue in ways that violate the belief and practice laid down by his sect. In short we have the oxymoron that grace is to be earned the Nigel Wright way. In fact he implicitly says as much in the discussion we had. This religionisation of the Gospel is common to every Christian sect between here and the Watchtower’s Brooklyn Head Quarters.

 Unfortunately there is usually little time to develop a proper relationship with Christian sectarians to the point where it is clear to them that one isn’t part of a worldwide conspiracy against them. In fact such a relationship is all but impossible until you are eating out of their doctrinal hand; until then they are apt to regard you as Satan’s tool or dupe. For me, then, it suffices to get across to the sectarian that I find their religion repugnant and that they can give up any ideas that I’m a potential convert. For this reason I’m always firm with fundamentalists, a hard cop rather than a soft cop. This approach usually succeeds in demonstrating only one thing: If you are firm in your disagreement with the Wrights and Howes of this world don’t be surprised if they are very reluctant to acknowledge you as a fellow Christian!

Fundamentalist Schismogenesis

In his "atheist testimony series" PZ Myers has picked up some fascinating accounts of "conversion" from fundamentalism to atheism. In particular this testimnony piqued my interest because it was from an ex-fundagelical who was, amongst other reasons, "deconverted" due to the sharp disagreements between fundamentalist sects and cults. Fundagelical infighting, need I say, has been one of my interests ever since  I was drawn toward Christianity; see the following links, for example.

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/mouth-of-god.html

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/fundamentalist-argument-clinic-part-1.html

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/fundamentalist-argument-clinic-part-2.html

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/fundamentalist-argument-clinic-part-3.html

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/fundamentalist-argument-clinic-part-4.html

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2006/11/blog-post.html

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2006/08/fighting-christians.html

As PZ's correspondent makes clear, schismatic behaviour is a fundamental challenge to fundamentalism's vehement claims of being "in accordance with the scriptures": This is what we read:

I also visited friends’ churches with them, and found that they, too, believed that they alone were the ‘real’ Christians.  It seemed they sincerely derived the same comfort and joy from their beliefs as I did from mine; yet I had been taught that their heretical views meant their eternal doom.

This, I think, led to a decisive epiphany for me.  I had observed that, even within evangelical Christianity, there were sharp doctrinal divisions between churches; yet they all were reading from the same guidebook!  There was no objective way to determine which, if any of them, was really reading it correctly.  I remember hearing a number of very heated arguments between different churches’ members on various doctrinal points.  Each of these opposing viewpoints could be ‘proved’ by citing one’s own select scriptures.  Every church believes that they alone have all the answers.  From listening to the arguments, I saw that the differences of opinion weren’t so much that one person has any more or less insight into the ‘true’ meaning of the scriptures.  They simply believed what they had been TOLD to believe, and the groupthink was enforced through the social interactions within each church.

You would think that an omnipotent God would be able to make his will perfectly known to his followers.  Instead, what we have is a cacaphony of thousands of different sects and denominations sniping at each other, each proclaiming its own monopoly on the truth.  

Fundamentalism was aggressively and threateningly pushed my way when I was "converted". I even got as far as trying to believe Morris and Whitcomb's book "The Genesis Flood". However, in time this book help trigger a kind of "intellectual vomit" reaction, a reaction which was also in part down to my observations on fundamentalist schismogenesis. As per the above correspondent this schismatic behaviour potentially threatened the very plausibility of Christianity. However, it could never be claimed I was a good or convinced evangelical and in fact my relationship with it proved to be stormy right from the start, ultimately ending in divorce. Ironically it was my poor evangelical standing that probably saved my faith: I always reserved for myself  the freedom to explore new thoughts and ideas that might help deepen my faith, thoughts and ideas that are a no-go-area for the average fundagelical. 

However, the correspondent I have quoted above really paints a too extreme picture of Christianity when (s)he says Every church believes that they alone have all the answers. Although that is true of many a fundagelical (And have I met my fair share of them!) it is not true of many Christians I know.

The VNP award for Christian Authenticity goes to….Jeff Lucas

Jeff Lucas, for the second time, wins the above award (See here for the first time). Jeff writes for Christianity magazine, although he is in fact a teaching pastor at Timberline Church, Colorado (Lucky them!). There is stiff competition for VNP’s “Christian Authenticity” award amongst Christianity magazine columnists and they have come up for it before. See here: 

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/epistemic-play-pen.html

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/healer-dealers.html

Jeff’s latest article can be found in the June edition of Christianity magazine and is entitled A Dangerous Passion. As the title suggests it is a warning about what happens when passionate serious minded Christians, who see every issue in black vs. white terms, go on the rampage – as Jeff can testify from personal experience. Here are some quotes: 

Passionate Christians can be highly dangerous. I’ve reached that this awkward conclusion after too many years of pastoral leadership …. I’ve seen people wounded, churches split and lives ruined by sold out, white hot, do-or-die zealots…. 

And that’s just the start. The article is so worth reading that I scanned it and it can be read below. Jeff is certainly not against passion per se; his problem, I think, is with the mindless bigoted passion of the spiritual ultras who take themselves far too seriously. As I always say: 

Polarisation passion feeds. Passion polarisation breeds. Polarisation is passion's cause, for crusade and holy wars.

And here's another good saying that I have used before: (An epitaph found on a tomb in St Stephen's church in Norwich)

A scholar without pride, a Christian without bigotry, devout without ostentation.

(Click to enlarge)

Holy Healers!

Point to the evidence Hinn!

As my last post touched on the subject of healing I ought to post the following for the record. 

The June edition of Christianity magazine has a letter from a Peter Saunders who signs himself as the chief executive of the Christian Medical Fellowship. He says:

The 4000 Christian doctors who belong to the Christian Medical Fellowship Fellowship believe in God's power to heal both in response to prayer and through the gift of medicine. We also believe in the positive effect that Christian faith has on health, which is supported by scientific research.

So here we have a guy who is likely to be very knowledgeable about Christian health issues and at the same time not especially biased against the possibility of miraculous healing. But this is what he goes on to say:

Although God chooses to answer prayer in many ways, there is very little hard evidence that miracles of the sort that Jesus and the apostles performed - instantaneous miraculous reversals on major diseases and disabilities - are happening with any great frequency in Britain today.

That, need I say, concurs with my own observations. However, it is quite likely that Saunders testimony would count for very little amongst the pious ultras who would probably regard much of the medical profession as part of a Godless system. In any case as we saw in my last post any attempt to check up on  apparently miraculous healings may be regarded as at best unnecessary and at worst a sign of resisting the Holy Spirit. But on this subject Saunders writes:

If Jesus was not afraid to have his healings examined by the priests, then we should also seek objective verification [by medical professionals] of any healing claim.

Great advice! But I am afraid that this all rather presumes a culture which respects the medical profession. Unfortunately many marginalised Christian spiritual ultras have a tendency to despise professional medicine and write it off as "man's way". Criticism of their culture will automatically register amongst them as an affront to God, such is their conceit.

Holier Than Thou vs. Holier Than You

As we saw in my last post the latest round of revivalist expectancy is linked to the Bay of Holy Spirit movement, a movement that has prophesied revival in Norwich. This prophecy has now passed its sell by date, but expectancy of revival remains high amongst these revivalists.

One must first put this whole matter in perspective: The churches who have identified themselves with this latest “move of God” are just one of the many Christian splinters to be found in Norwich; in fact I don’t think of them as mainstream, if indeed such a thing as “mainstream” can be defined given that the normal state of Christian affairs is one of its eggs being distributed over many baskets.

Setting the scene for the purposes of this post, however, is this article on the ecumenical Christian web site Network Norwich and Norfolk. Posted toward the end of 2010 it gave me my first alert that a new prophecy pertaining to Norwich was in the offing. The article attracted the comments from a critic called “Way Truth Life Seeker” who is attached to yet another of Norwich’s many Christian splinter groups; but more about that later. 

What I want to look at here is the response of a certain “Brent Lewis” to Truth Seeker’s challenge. Lewis has obviously sold out to the Bay of Holy Spirit movement. However, compared to Truth Seeker’s robust and closely argued challenge Lewis’s response in terms of facts and reason is remarkably light. But assembling facts and reason are really not his forte; instead he prefers to spiritually intimidate his critic. Below I reproduce Brent Lewis’s final response and I have embedded it with my own commentary. As you will see it is weak on reason and fact but very strong on its attempt to apply spiritual duress. I must say that in my experience Lewis’s spiritual put downs are not peculiar to him; they are common amongst those in his Christian subculture and the ethos and clichés he expresses can be found in the teaching of the leaders who promote God’s latest “new thing”. To be fair Lewis is just re-expressing what he has been taught. 

Dear Way Truth Life Seeker, I appreciate your honesty and frankness however I don’t think we’re going to agree on the issue of Divine healing. I’ve attended many revival meetings in different countries and witnessed numerous miracles, why would we want evidence and documentation; the evidence is right in front of my eyes; that by the Lords all sufficient love and Grace- He sets people free, delivers them, heals them and makes them whole. 

My Comment: As we know, and as the existence of sleight of hand “magic” confirms, evidence that is right in front of the eyes can be notoriously unreliable, especially if it comes out of the heady and emotional context of revivalist rallies; in such a context seeing isn’t believing. Apart from clear physical impairments such as amputated limbs, most human disabilities have causes and symptoms that are invisible and therefore claimed healings are by large claims about things you don’t readily see. Moreover, crowds, particularly gullible, uncritical, and emotional crowds, are easy to manipulate. If we waiver demands for documentation it would become a free-for-all for every religious charlatan between here and Salt Lake City. Genuine healers will not to be frightened of demands for documentation. 

You seem like a doubting Thomas even wanting a sign, but the Lord said in the synoptic Gospels that no sign shall be given.

My Comment: The reference to “No sign shall be given” comes from Mat 12:39 (et similia) where we find Jesus confronting not a disciple but His sworn enemies, the hypocritical religious leaders of the day: Lewis subtle, or perhaps not so subtle, insinuation is that Truth Seeker is comparable to Christ’s worst enemies! But the great irony here is that Mat 12:39ff tells us that a sign will be given, namely, the story of Jonah, a story that is being used here as a metaphor for Christ and His resurrection. We see this metaphor actually fulfilled in the very story of doubting Thomas who received the best sign of all, the living Christ Himself. Lewis, in mixing up the stories of doubting Thomas and the Pharisees, has clearly screwed up his comparisons! 

The cack-handed insinuation and sense of threat gets even stronger in the next passage: 

We as believers have to be very careful when we speak about the miracles infused by the power of the Holy Spirit, in Mathew chapter 12 we see the Lord working many miracles and the Pharisees are mocking the Lord and even saying : This one does not cast out demons except by Beelzebub the ruler of the demons, but the Lord rebuked them and said Therefore I say to you, All kinds of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven to men, but the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit shall not be forgiven to men. 

My Comment: Lewis is now upping the ante with an innuendo about the unforgivable sin; (See Mat 12:30ff; looking at the context we see that once again Jesus’s antagonists are the Pharisees, and not disciples) My interpretation of this piece of spiritual bullying by Lewis is this: “If you challenge the Bay of Holy Spirit movement it may not just classify as an ordinary sin; instead you should beware of committing the unforgivable sin”. This kind of language has been used before against those who were opposed to the Toronto blessing – See here. So, having well and truly sunk his fangs into Truth Seeker with this allusion to the unforgivable sin Brent Lewis now dribbles out some concentrated spiritual venom: 

The scribes and the Pharisees were eyewitnesses of the miraculous healing of the mute and blind man. They saw the demon cast out of the man, and they knew it was only the power of the Holy Spirit who could do miracles such as these. Their accusations toward Jesus revealed the attitude they harbored within… envy, jealousy, bitterness, hatred and strife. Instead of rejoicing because this child of Israel was healed and restored, they began to be enraged with and set themselves “violently against” Jesus. This was not merely an outburst of anger on the part of the scribes and Pharisees, but rather, the outward manifestation of their greed and selfish and wicked ways. By plotting against the man of God, they begin their journey down the road to blasphemy (vilification) of the Spirit of God, it’s the same situation today with many dear ones touched, healed and delivered by Spirit of the risen Christ yet onlookers just shun and shake their heads not realizing their blaspheming the Holy Spirit.

My Comment: The intimidating anti-superlatives are coming in thick and fast here; “they knew it was the power of the Holy Spirit”, “accusing Jesus”, “envy”, “jealousy”, “bitterness”, “hatred”, “strife”, “violently against Jesus”, “greed”, “selfishness”, “wicked ways”, “plotting against the man of God”, “blaspheming the Holy Spirit” all packed into a short paragraph. If poor old Truth Seeker doesn’t want to “begin his journey down the road to blasphemy” what should he do? Here’s Brent Lewis’s advice: 

At the end of the day we have to have empty ourselves of all the teaching, doctrines and theology we think we know and stop confining the Lord to the letter and get afresh vision of the Lord moving across the earth. One of the attributes of love is that it believes all things, and rather than Christians arguing what is or isn’t a miracle they need to work together get out on the highways and byways, exercise the gifts that the Lord has given them so the Lord can complete his work on earth and come back and establish His kingdom. Come Lord Jesus! Amen.

My Comment: The foregoing, in my experience, typifies the ethos and doctrines doing the rounds in these authoritarian revivalist Christian subcultures: Empty your head, suspend your critical faculties and just believe all that’s on offer, for to do otherwise is neither loving nor the way of Christ. I’m reminded here of a cassette I listened to in the mid-1990s where a certain Ellie Mumford, a promoter of the Toronto Blessing, exalted her listeners not to analyze this blessing but to just accept it. Neither Lewis nor Mumford can see their double standard: They would not, of course, empty their heads of all those doctrines which teach an uncritical acceptance of what is loudly billed as the latest move of God. This emptying of one’s self of all reason and knowledge, especially when faced with superior articulation, is what I refer to as the gnostic escape from reason; basically it’s saying “Damn your arguments; I’m enlightened and you’re not!”. It’s usual the stand-off between reason and intuition, knowledge and feelings that takes place when logos and mythos fail to come to terms.

*** 

One question remains here: Who is this "Truth Seeker"? That is a long story: I spent nearly three years corresponding with him by email. He is a follower of Witness Lee’s teachings. These teachings are promulgated by “Living Stream Ministries” who have an administrative and teaching centre at Anaheim, USA. He was much more willing to engage the Bible and reason than the self-confessed empty-head, Brent Lewis. But we find that Truth Seeker, like Lewis, has also backed himself into a corner as a consequence of an all-out-commitment to just one of those many baskets of eggs. Lewis and Truth Seeker are both very pious Christians capable of some ostentatious displays of devotional language: That’s another way of saying that they are both spiritual hot-heads, “on fire for the Lord”. Their meeting is a match of the irresistible force and the immoveable object. They both have complete confidence that the Christian subculture to which they have attached themselves is where everyone should be at spiritually; if you are going to believe this sort of thing then you are going to believe that Christians who are not with you are prime fodder for proselytizing. This is the logic that brings Truth Seeker and Lewis to similar conclusions: Viz: “If you are not with us you must be against us and if you are against us you are against God”. Truth Seeker, when I pressed him, also resorted to bluster and the gnostic back-stop against reasoned argument; he was “in the Spirit” and I, of course, was not; his thoughts were spirit lead and mine were “soulish”. Furthermore, like many who have backed themselves into a corner, he could also be pretty threatening; and the best way to threaten a fellow Christian is to attempt to call into question and destabilize that which is most precious to them; none other than their faith*. The idea is that the target will then attempt to re-stabilize their faith by selling out to what the proselytizer will hype as the latest move of God, a move not to be missed. 

 Perhaps I will tell the story of “Truth Seeker” another day. 

 * Footnote: At one point in the NN&N thread Lewis even goes as far as questioning whether the moderate and reasonable evangelical Hank Hanegraaff is a true believer.

Postscript
Lewis and Truth Seeker find it difficult to accept that authentic shows of high piety are possible outside their own Christian subculture. Their strong and exclusive identification with their respective sub cultures has, as I have said above, had the effect of backing them into a corner and given them little room to manoeuvre. Therefore when they are faced with another's spiritual ostentation and vehment conviction they have given themselves few choices: Rather than seeing one another as just displaying bog standard human foibles and conceits, they see something far more malign: As we have seen Lewis is edging towards accusing Truth Seeker of committing the unforgivable sin. Truth Seeker in turn, as my experience with him suggests, is likely to think of Lewis as being a captive in spiritual Babylon.

Prophecies: Stack’em high, Sell’em Cheap and Sell’em Short.

Some prophecies are running out of time

This blog post was triggered by an article in the April issue of “Christianity” magazine entitled “Hungry for Revival”. In the words of the article:

Some have prophesied that 2012 could be a significant spiritual time for the church and interest in revival among some leaders is growing…… An increasing number of churches are expectant.

After a summit of revivalist leaders in September 2011, during which there was “a special sense of the presence of God”, one of these leaders is quoted as saying:

“There’s something about September 1^st, I believe you can write it down. I believe you can write it in your journal, that ‘everything changed September 1^st 2011’. I feel like it’s a prophetic word over this country (the UK) – September 1^st 2011 – everything’s different”

That statement is gloriously ambiguous! And yet it is apparently regarded as a “prophecy”; the article goes on to say that those close to this particular leader tell us “It is very rare that he would give this kind of prophecy”.  As we will see this kind of prophecy from this kind of leader is far from rare. One must remember that in the Christian subculture this prophecy is coming from, leaders are apt to be raised to the status of quasi holy men and therefore merely setting a question against their teachings is often felt to be  an affront, perhaps even tantamount to questioning the Holy Spirit Himself. Therefore the followers of this particular holy man will be taking his words very seriously indeed and very ready to defend him.

The above prophecy is still, I suppose, relatively fresh and its ambiguity gives it a fuzzy sell by date. Going back in time a bit further we can find recent prophetic utterances that are still part of this latest round of revivalist expectancy but are now, however, past their sell-by-date.  If you look at the video promoted here and here you will find Bay of the Holy Spirit revivalists  Nathan Morris  and John Kilpatrick prophesying about revival in Norwich.  This is what we hear:

 I believe in the next eighteen months city wide revivals will break out…. In the end of 2010  into 2011 we are going to see an outbreak of revivals across the nations of the world. I believe the Lord said to me I’m going to raise up cities of refuge, places of out pouring…

I speak to Norwich in the UK. Norwich!  Be awakened by the fire of the Holy Ghost!

God is beginning to do something there…just an outpouring in Norwich UK. I believe that this word we preached tonight is coming to Norwich UK…. Shout fire right now…Norwich in the name Jesus be awakened right now.

But do you know what, in the days to come there is going to be so many cities on fire for God, especially beginning in 2011…I believe the Holy Spirit right now is softening cities and churches ready. It’s not going to be a church wide revival; it’s going to be city wide revivals. God’s going to shake cities

Those prophetic words really do seem to be past their sell by date; the end of 2010 into 2011 is over a year ago and nothing has happened in Norwich: Although no date is actually given for revival in Norwich the prophecies pertaining to Norwich were provided very much in the context of the 2010 into 2011 time frame.

***

Dubious prophetic utterances and an excited expectancy amongst the followers of the Christian holy men, need I say, are no new phenomena; there has always been a demand  to up the ante with the latest “new thing” God is doing. The Jehovah’s witnesses were into a similar dynamic with their 1975 expectancy. In fact as a result of this latest spate of prophecies I decided to travel back in time by browsing my stock of Christianity magazines, a stock which goes back to 1980, right back to the days when “Christianity” was actually called “Buzz”.  This is what I found.

The year is 1987. The January edition of Buzz carries an article entitled “Are the Horseman in the Saddle?” (Referring, of course, to the four horseman of the apocalypse) The article tells us about a certain Clifford Hill, a pastor of a London East End church who “called a group of 153 Christians with a prophetic gift to Mount Carmel in Israel”. Over to Hill and the Mount Carmel prophets:

We are very near to the point of disaster in our nation. The present world situation is so serious that the very existence of mankind is under threat. There will be tremendous destruction, even nuclear war, unless the nations turn from the path they are taking now and turn back to God….. I see three things coming in the not too distant future in our nation. One is economic collapse, the second is political uncertainty and the third is trials on a scale unknown before in our nation…. I believe I’m hearing from God….

It will not be long before there will come upon this world a time of unparalled upheaval and turmoil. Do not fear for it is I the Lord who am shaking all things. I began this shaking with the first World War and I greatly increased it through the second World War. Since 1973 I have given it an even greater impetus. In the last stage I plan to complete it with the shaking of the Universe itself with signs in sun and moon and stars.

Let us now go forward to the April of that year. Here we find an article entited “Revival”.  It starts:

A great tidal wave of revival is heading toward Britain – a new wave of God’s spirit sweeping across the nation and winning souls for Christ. Such is the vision of revival received by evangelist Nancy Goudie a member of the gospel rock band Heartbeat….. “As the Spirit of God has been moving through the Church it’s as if he’s put the word ‘revival’ on the lips and hearts of his people” say Heartbeat. And a good many Christians agree with them.

The article goes on to quote other big names of the day who were expecting a British revival; Selwyn Hughes, evangelist James Robinson, pastor Paul Yonggi, evangelist Reinhard Bonnke, and restorationist Arthur Wallis. Flamboyant pastor Gerald Coates is also quoted as saying the tide has turned.

One must recall that the above are simply the Woolworth’s prophecies that have come my way - if one starts looking for them one finds them to be as common as beetles – for example in 1995 Gerald Coates predicted  that  within 18 months Westminster chapel was going to be at the heart of Revival.  Here I list a few other Woolworth’s prophecies that I’m aware of.

People love to have something exciting on the horizon; it gives them something to work for, hope for and fuels their dreams, and those Christians whose hopes have been inappropriately raised have my sympathy. However, one might find that the sympathy only goes one way. When prophets and their prophecies are questioned their followers can get quite threatening.  As William Irwin Thompson has remarked about the zealous excesses of the followers of eastern gurus (and I think you will find that the principles here apply as much to Christian gurus):

We do not need a new civic religion of the world state run by Initiates of Kundalini Yoga; we need to protect spirituality from religion in a secular culture of law in which devotees are protected from the zealous excesses of one another. It is utterly naïve to think that in the near future men will have outgrown the playpen of the American Constitution and will lovingly trust one another. The gurus are tolerant and merely condescending now because they have no political power; but even without power they show full evidence of human frailty and vanity and tend to think that their own yoga is bigger and better than the other guru’s. And what is often only a case of mild condescension in the guru becomes in the disciples a fever of zealotry.

Just how threatening the disciples of the latest clutch of Christian holy men can be we will see in a later post.

The Epistemic Play Pen

"Join me, I'm a fundamentalist."

In the February edition of “Christianity” magazine Greg Downes writes about his decision to study theology (see page 49):

When I first expressed an interest in the subject as a teenager, some well meaning Christians advised me against it, saying I would lose my faith. This certainly happens to some people, but I couldn't help but think that if I were to discover some devastating fact that was the death blow to my faith, surely that would mean it wasn’t true after all, and therefore not worth holding on to.

This is not the attitude of many Christians. When “The God Delusion” was published, a Christian advised me against reading it, saying it would undermine my faith. She was surprised when I replied: “Well if Dawkins is right I would want to be an atheist as soon as possible”. The response from this sister was that if Richard Dawkins was right she would really rather not know, since her life would be emptied of meaning. In that sense being an unashamed seeker after truth is what I have in common with men such as Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens, only since my conclusion is that God is, my world view ends up radically different.

Downes expresses an admirable attitude. The only real challenge to faith I can see here is the hint that for some, Christianity only works because a lack of intellectual integrity protects it. There seems to be a swathe of Christians out there who believe their faith is only safe whilst they remain in an epistemic play pen. With this level of gullibility no wonder the anti-science fundamentalists have a market.

Quasi-Religion Creeps into Atheism by Stealth

God is pictured as a kindly old bearded gentleman all in white, seated on a throne surrounded by light and who lives upon high.

(Picture from http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimshannon/3823248802/)

This is a curious post by PZ Myers. The post tells us about fellow atheist Alain de Botton who suggests atheists build “temples for atheists”. PZ Myers, need I say, is none too pleased; it’s sailing far too close to the winds of religion for PZ to feel comfortable! PZ links to this web page, where we can read:

De Botton's most recent book, Religion for Atheists, calls for unbelievers to copy the major religions and build grand architectural masterpieces to inspire a sense of perspective in people. He argues that a temple doesn't need to be dedicated to a religion: "You can build a temple to anything that's positive and good. That could mean: a temple to love, friendship, calm or perspective".

He added: "Why should religious people have the most beautiful buildings in the land? It's time atheists had their own versions of the great churches and cathedrals. A beautiful building is an indispensable part of getting your message across. Books alone won't do it."

As I have remarked before, when atheists want to introduce a blend of communal celebration and mysticism into their beliefs they have little choice but to raid religion for ideas*. Trouble is, in my experience atheist mysticism and crowd celebration always comes over as affected and intensely embarrassing; what is to be the focus of atheism’s mysticism and celebration? Humanity? Science? Our ontological context that makes science effective? But the self, the known and the insentient make poor objects of worship. Authentic worship and celebration thirsts for the transcendent

Whether one regards religion’s objects as real or not, it seems that humanity has an innate appetite for the transcendent and the mystical and only religion has the wherewithal to satiate this appetite. No surprise then that something resembling religion worms its way back into atheism at the first opportunity. That’s going to make a zealous atheist like PZ Myers very unhappy indeed: He may sense that conceding the existence of an appetite for religion, even amongst atheists, especially among atheists, might register as evidence relevant to the question of God's existence. If Myers' aim is to suppress religion I think he has got his work cut out!

Footnote:
* My previous quotation re this subject:  "when organised atheism in the form of communism has attempted to provide a public rationale for celebration it has created cult figures, demigods and a quasi-religious sense of mystical collective destiny."

Further Notes on "The Mouth of God"

There is an all too human temptation of pride in thinking of one’s self as part of an exclusive righteous elite, a spiritual remnant who hold tightly to “absolute truth”. The epistemological focus of this kind of devotion is on “The Word” and/or internalized epiphanies. A concomitantly fideist tendency to reject science (The Mechanics of Providence) as mere “man’s knowledge” is taken as an expression of devotion. Above all sectarians know that their words are “right” and everyone else is “wrong”, even other Christians; in fact especially other Christians! As I have indicated in my last post, this apparent epistemological arrogance surfaces in the mind of the sectarian as the epitome of humility because he, in his opinion, is conforming to Divinely revealed “blueprints” and simply mouthing God's words. That such “blueprints” have to be appropriated, read, interpreted, evaluated and implemented by the fallible mind of the sectarian never seems to enter the sectarian’s arrogant and proud head. He will claim that The Bible and/or The Holy Spirit underwrites all he says; thus are logos and mythos horribly abused to underwrite an epistemology of arrogance. Oh the irony of it all!

Strong sectarians have little regard for serious relations with “outsiders” for their own sake – outsiders are considered evangelism fodder and the sole reason for seriously relating to them is to get them into the sect.  Relations are severed when it becomes clear to the sectarian that an “outsider” is argumentative and/or a lost cause. The sectarian may become sullen and belligerent toward the dissenting outsider whom he considers to be opposing God's very words spoken through his mouth.

Such are my unpleasant experiences with those on the sect-cult spectrum.

The Mouth of “God”

Sectarianism: All  mouth and blind obedience.

The January issue of “Christianity” magazine has an interview with Christian palaeontologist Mike Taylor. During the interview Taylor comments on the polarised quarrels in North America between Creationists and Evolutionists. Viz:

They are a complete waste of time and energy. Scientists who should be doing valuable work are distracted into refuting frankly loony ‘science’. Worse still Christians who should be spreading the love of Christ are distracted into a fruitless argument that has nothing to do with the Gospel, and can only be a hindrance to scientists who might otherwise be open to Christ. It really is the most appallingly pointless and destructive conflict – all the more so because it’s between two sides that aren’t even opposed, as they would realize if they’d only listen to each other.

I’m certainly sympathetic toward Taylor’s impatience! The time of professional scientists (not to mention tax payer’s money) is clearly not well spent refuting the crank-science of fundamentalists. I’m also sympathetic toward Taylor’s regret at the pointlessness of it all, especially when the quarrel is between Christians. However, I think Taylor is rather too hopeful in his assessment that it’s between two sides that aren’t even opposed, as they would realize if they’d only listen to each other. For many fundamentalists this issue is very much bound up with their version of Christianity and they have a world view that obliges them to proactively crusade against Christians whose views differ from their own. Young Earth Creationist Ken Ham, need I say, is my textbook example; you won’t get him to accept that this is a fruitless argument. For him it is the stuff of the Gospel and those who do not share his views he thinks of as compromisers who are turning people away from church and the true gospel. Given extremism of this intensity any reasonable Christian who respects science and reason will find themselves in conflict with fideist fundamentalists whether (s)he likes it or not.

If we should have any doubt that Ham’s concept of the gospel is inextricably linked to his Young Earth Creationism (YEC) we only need read his blog post of 28 December and entitled A No-Literal-Adam Evolutionary Christmas “Gospel” Message. In this post he refers to a Christmas message from Faraday institute director Dr Denis Alexander as an “anti-gospel message”. Further, in a blog post dated 30 December and entitled Which Jesus Do You Really Believe In? we read the following:

Steve shows that today many Christian scholars who identify themselves as theological conservatives and evangelicals are preaching a Jesus different from the Jesus of the Bible. In order to accommodate their personal belief that millions-of-years-evolution is true, they are essentially re-writing major doctrines and accounts in the holy Scriptures from beginning to end. Many no longer believe in a literal Adam and Eve, a literal sin in a literal the Garden of Eden, a literal Ark and Flood, or that the Jesus created the world as recorded in the Old Testament and as He says He did in the New Testament

Consistent with a sect that is reacting to a hostile world by hardening its position in order to prevent its message being compromised, YEC philosophy is now getting explicit recognition in the statement of faith of those who attach themselves to it. In Ham’s blog post dated 26 Dec and entitled President of Creationist College Visits Museum with Family we read:

The college, which started in 1968 and is now a Bible/liberal arts school, has the following sentence in its statement of faith: “We believe in . . . Six creation days of twenty-four hours each.”

The sentiment is clear: For Ham salvation demands a belief in a creation period of literally 6 x 86400 seconds; essentially the core message that Ham’s Answers in Genesis organization is preaching – in his view to deny YEC is to deny Jesus and perhaps even jeopardize one’s salvation. This consolidation of the collective identity of a religious group in a ritualized gathering around a particular set of proprietary observances thought to be bound up with salvation (in this case YEC) interests me greatly; it is a stage in the formation of a cult.

***

Since my first identification with the Christian cause I have given a certain amount of time to the study of Christianity’s many sub-sects and cults. Let me be frank here. After being happily and merrily “converted” in the mid seventies my subsequent soon after discovery of the numerous cultish and sectarian expressions of Christianity was a big and unexpected shock; yes I really was naive enough to think that all was going to be sweetness, light and harmony in Christian circles. After all, I was given to understand that the radical message of Christianity was that faith wasn’t about an uptight and jealous guarding of proprietary religious observance and practice, but rather the acceptance of a very embracing message of grace, repentance, forgiveness, and relationship followed by a clear conscience. But here were people who were reintroducing no end of finicky observances and proprietary beliefs back into church, by using the Bible as if it was a collection of legal articles. They left little doubt that if their views were not followed whole heartedly it could endanger one's salvation. For them the guilt trip was very much back on the pilgrim's itinerary and constituted the coercive means by which they eased in their beliefs. I have to say that as far as I was concerned these people were (and still are) the biggest challenge Christianity faces to its authenticity and truth as one can find and so I threw myself into a study of the subject.

Below I provide a list of some of the partisan Christian groups I have been acquainted with. They occupy different places on the sect-cult spectrum and have varied degrees of social integration, strictness and recognizable identity; some have a fuzzier definition than others and some are movements within movements. However, they are all marked by offering particular observance novelties and/or spiritual elixirs that they regard as at the very least helpful to salvation, if not essential to it. The list below is roughly in the chronological order of my acquaintance with these movements. The bias toward protestant sects is a sign of my being in the protestant West.

Children of God.

Strict and Traditional Brethren

Jehovah’s witnesses

Mormons

The Christadelphians

Strict and Traditional Evangelicals

Herbert Armstrong and the Plain Truth

The Jesus Army

Restorationists

Gnostic and fideist charismatics

The Snake Handlers sect.

Potters House

Toronto Blessing revival

Barry Smith: Millennium Bug prophet

Gold dust and angel feathers Charismatics.

Extreme orthodox groups.

Answers in Genesis.

Strict and Particular Baptists

Todd Bentley’s Lakeland revival

The Witness Lee Brotherhood

The Geocentric Christians

Christian Flat Earthers (Now defunct?)

Real Catholics (Michael Voris)

William Tapley, end of world prophet 2010

Harold Camping, end of world prophet 2011

I don’t think anyone needs to be told that this list is by no means exhaustive. If one looks hard enough new species of Christian cult or sect, each with their own specialized hobby horses, will creep out from under every stone one turns. When presented with such a smorgasbord of types one seeks general ideas and themes to simplify and explain the phenomenon. To this end we can identify commonalities in the social dynamics that exists amongst the sects: The observations I have made above about Answers in Genesis are a case in point. Here we find a group whose specialist message is being rejected by the vast majority of Christians. In fact the 1960s “restoration” of YEC beliefs seems to be running out of steam and Christians are failing to accept YEC’s travesty of science. The reaction of those who have huge stakes in the movement (like Ken Ham) is to get more strident and extreme in their pronouncements as they find a need to derive an inverted self esteem from an increasing awareness of themselves as a "peculiar remnant" people. Thus, isolation leads to entrenchment and in turn a clearer definition of an eccentric faith. This seems to be the common polarizing dynamic that is a precursor to the sectification and ultimately cultification of a Christian movement; either that or the movement bombs because only unshakeable and proactive self-belief can survive marginalization by the rest of the Christian community. There is an inverted pride in being a small vociferous purist movement that sees itself as an uncompromising anchorage of truth in a sea of error.

There is another commonality I have noticed from my experience with sects and cults that I would like to share here and which is relevant to Taylor’s otherwise admirable sentiment that the two sides need only listen to one another. Listen to one another? Forget it! In the sectarian mind failure to enthusiastically and uncritically embrace the uncompromising sectarian message, whether it is about the latest form of restorationist teaching, blessing, or revival, is to play fast and loose with God and risk Divine displeasure. In this sense, then, sectarians think of themselves as God’s mouthpiece that must be obeyed. Therefore an attempt to negotiate with them will register as a failure to respond adequately to their message and will be regarded as at best a sign of spiritual impediment and at worst manifestation of willful sin. Their message is non-negotiable. They therefore harbour a deep suspicion of the motives of all who disagree with them and they find it difficult if not impossible to accept that anyone can dissent and still have a clear conscience; dissidents are likely to be thought of as consciously and deliberately resisting the Holy Spirit.

It is this hardline attitude of the sectarian toward prevaricators that unfortunately makes Taylor’s desire for conciliation unlikely to be fulfilled. The out and out sectarian takes himself very seriously indeed and if his views are not taken on board he will, after a time, retreat in sullen righteous indignation; neutrality is simply not an option with him and even an impartial noncommittal attitude is equated with rebellion against God. He will feel every right to echo divine anger toward the dissenter; you can sometimes see it in sectarian faces. As effectively “God’s mouthpiece” sectarians have no pride problems with making claims of breathtaking arrogance and yet, paradoxically, at the same time think of themselves as humble, devout, unquestioning vessels of the Almighty’s purposes. Whenever I deal with sectarians who make a show of their piety I always think of an epitaph that one can find on a tomb in St. Stephens church in Norwich:

A scholar without pride, a Christian without bigotry, devout without ostentation.

St Stephens Church, Norwich, holds a lesson for sectarian Christianity.