Teetering on the Brink of the Nihilist Abyss

Cartoon from: http://chainsawsuit.com/tag/nihilism/

Evangelical atheist PZ Myers recently reproduced the English lyrics of the Icelandic entry to the Eurovision song contest. He prefixed it with the comment:  They get bonus points for reflecting my mood so well.

The revelry was unrestrained

The hangover is endless

Life is meaningless

The void will get us all

Hate will prevail

Happiness comes to an end

For it is an illusion

A treacherous pipe dream

All that I saw

Tears ran down

All that I gave

Once gave

I gave it all to you

Multilateral delusions

Unilateral punishments

Gullible poor fellows

The escape will end

The emptiness will get us all

Hate will prevail

Europe will crumble

A web of lies

Will arise from the ashes

United as one

All that I saw

Tears ran down

All that I gave

Once gave

I gave it all to you

All that I saw

Tears ran down

All that I gave

Once gave

I gave it all to you

Hate will prevail

Love will die

Hate will prevail

Happiness comes to an end

For it is an illusion

A treacherous pipe dream

Hate will prevail

I would guess (or at least hope) that the author of the these bleak lyrics would tell us that they are a warning to the human race of the consequences of failing to get its cooperative act together; for example, we can see how in the 1930s a web of lies arose out of the ashes of WWI!

By couching these consequences in such a negatively nihilistic way with a strong hint of these consequences being inevitable the author might feel that the warning comes across with that much more force. In conjuring up a stifling sense of hopelessness, meaninglessness, emptiness (and any other anti-superlative you can think of) the lyrics barge their way into the emotions and badger one to ponder the meaning of life if any. In this sense it would classify as a kind of modern day Book of Ecclesiastes. On the other hand perhaps the song writer truly is a hard core nihilist and sees no way but down into the nihilist abyss.

At least Neitzsche did eventually find a way to say "Yes!" to life, but if you are looking for hope in Iceland's Eurovision entry there is very little to go on! The best we can find is that the first person gave all ..... but needless to say received nothing in return!

As I have said so often, atheism teeters on the brink of a thorough going nihilism and these lyrics are eloquent warning of what happens when one goes over the brink. Spelling it out: There is no long term hope and a very ephemeral illusory happiness. Hate will prevail. The irony is that when humanity works hard to bring purpose to life via self-defined goals, there will be inevitable clashes between epistemically challenged less than perfect, human beings with their very different visions of how to go about creating a world of meaning. The very search for meaning has the potential to create hate!

But as the cartoon above suggests in true nihilism it is not hate which prevails but cold indifference. The existence of hate does at least tell us that there is some one out there with the motivation to strive for a purpose although that striving probably gets up some else's nose! If we want to discover the likely consequences of cosmic indifference, however, H. G. Wells book "The Time Machine" can also be read as a warning to atheist man about his grave responsibilities in a world without God.  No wonder then that PZ Myers is feeling so bleak!

Genesis Literalism: Vineyard Fellowship

 Biblical literalism could look like this if taken  far enough!

My friend James who takes as keen an interest in the state of Christianity as I do drew my attention to a Vineyard fellowship's statement of faith and pointed out that the statement's article number 4 (See below) likely suggests they are Genesis literalists. He is very probably right, unfortunately.  We are both concerned about the rundown intellectual state of parts of the church as so often manifested by its embattled fundamentalist wing. For example, the claim that the age of the cosmos is a mere 6000 years is particularly absurd and beyond Christian academic circles this belief is surprisingly widespread among scientifically illiterate & gullible evangelical Christians who are spiritually intimidated by extremists like Ken Ham and his small retinue of tame credentialed scholars. Because young earthism has rather weak arguments in its favour that these weak arguments are tendered by "credentialed scholars" is a very important piece of supporting evidence for the scientifically illiterate rank and file who believe these arguments.

Below I reproduce the parts of the statement of faith that are relevant to our concerns. There is however one caveat to make: A statement of faith, however literalist, doesn't necessarily imply fundamentalist attitudes in the fellowship itself. In any case it is quite possible that the statement was written by the fellowship's mentoring organisation and that the members themselves don't use it as a way of sharply distinguishing the sheep from the goats, the outsiders from insiders, as a fundamentalist would do.

***

VINEYARD: #2 WE BELIEVE that God's kingdom is everlasting. From His throne, through His Son, His eternal Word, God created, upholds, and governs all that exists, the heavenly places, the angelic hosts, the universe, the earth, every living thing and mankind. God created all things very good.

MY COMMENT: No problem: The above, I think, is a fairly standard folk concept of God's ultimate sovereignty and cosmically comprehensive creative action. However, I wonder if Vineyard would accept Denis Alexander's interpretation of "all things very good" meaning "fit for purpose". I suspect that they wrongly interpret "very good" as connoting "perfection". In fact they probably haven't twigged the difference between connotative language and notational language.

VINEYARD: #3 WE BELIEVE that Satan, originally a great, good angel, rebelled against God, taking a host of angels with him. He was cast out of God's presence and, as a usurper of God's rule established a counter-kingdom of darkness and evil upon the earth.

MY COMMENT: Satan's rebellion and fall is well established Christian doctrine. But has Satan really established a counter kingdom on earth? In his vanity he might think he has (Luke 4:6) and try to act like a king (see Rev 13:1-2) but given the totalising nature of God's sovereignty it looks to me as if there is only room for one King in the cosmos! How can the power of such a King be "usurped"? As Daniel 4 makes clear in the case of Nebuchadnezzar, it is only God that rules even when vain kings try to act like God. See also Romans 13. Having a view of Earth as a kind of dark satanic almost hell like place is unbiblical and cult like. See for example the following quote from a Jehovah's witness with whom I corresponded over some years. He expressed his opinion on the subject of Satanic sovereignty as follows:

Jehovah has allowed Satan to rule this Earth and set up governments, knowing that a bad government is better than no government at all (anarchy). But he does not approve of the various governments, in fact he says through Jesus Kingdom will do away with all of man's governments See Dan 2:44. (February 1982)

If we read Dan 2:44 we see that this Watchtower Follower is reading too much into it. This reading is encouraged by the JW's who see themselves very much as a holy competing counter-culture marginalised on the edge of the much hated greater society. If one reads Daniel 2:44 we see that it is telling us that God is going to set up a new kingdom in place of the old corrupt kingdoms - that isn't to say that those old kingdoms weren't God's kingdoms: There are God's kingdoms albeit abused by Satan and human beings.  Romans 13:1-2 makes it clear that God does approve of governments and in fact they have been established by the sovereign God himself:

Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.  (Roms 13:1-2)

Typically of a fundamentalist extremist our Watchtower follower has gone far too far in his assessment and understanding of the Bible which he interprets through the lens of the teaching of his spiritual superiors in the Watchtower. The world is still God's approved kingdom although many abuse their delegated power. Given that government is God's government it must be treated with respect and not despised as Satan's domain providing pretext to be used and abused according to corrupt selfish ambition.

I see Vineyard's statement of faith as coming too close to the Watchtower model that earth's governments are a Satanic counter-kingdom. I read that as evidence of a reactionary response of an increasingly marginalised christian culture which in consequence sees itself as something very other and contrary to the powers that be and has difficulty identifying with the wider social sphere. This is the realm of Trump popularism which all too easily lapses into conspiracy theorism.

VINEYARD: #4 WE BELIEVE that God created mankind in His image, male and female, for relationship with Himself and to govern the earth. Under the temptation of Satan, our original parents fell from grace, bringing sin, sickness, and God's judgement of death to the earth. Through the fall, Satan and his demonic hosts gained access to God's good creation. Creation now experiences the consequences and effects of Adam's original sin. Human beings are born in sin, subject to God's judgement of death and captive to Satan's kingdom of darkness.

MY COMMENT:  This is the article James draws our attention to. Things start to go badly wrong here; see my reply to James below where I explain this more fully and also James comments on it: As we shall see a pathological Western Christian dualism shines through the above statement.

VINEYARD: WE BELIEVE that the Holy Spirit indwells every believer in Jesus Christ and that He is our abiding Helper, Teacher, and Guide. We believe in the filling or empowering of the Holy Spirit, often a conscious experience, for ministry today. We believe in the present ministry of the Spirit and in the exercise of all the biblical gifts of the Spirit. We practice the laying on of hands for the empowering of the Spirit, for healing, and for recognition and empowering of those whom God has ordained to lead and serve the Church.

MY COMMENT: I wouldn't say I have a big issue with any of this but it betrays something I have always maintained QUOTE: We believe in the filling or empowering of the Holy Spirit, often a conscious experience, for ministry today UNQUOTE: Regarding the latter I note this: Presumably given  "often a conscious experience",  it follows that the empowering of the Spirit is often not a conscious experience! As I point out in this blog post, Charismatic Tony Higton also admitted that "Baptism of the Holy Spirit" doesn't necessarily entail a conscious experience. Therein lies the rub: Many who seek of the "Baptism of the Spirit" expect it to be accompanied by some kind of epiphany ushering in a spiritual power game changer. This may not always happen thus causing disappointment to be internalised and suppressed. Moreover, subsequent to this spiritual non-event the promise of spiritual power is not always be very noticeable: False prophecies, failed healing, authoritarian leadership, spiritual spin, young earthism and prosperity teaching are all presided over by fellowships which claim to be under the auspices of so called privileged charismatic power!

VINEYARD: #9 WE BELIEVE that the Holy Spirit inspired the human authors of Holy Scripture so that the Bible is without error in the original manuscripts. We receive the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments as our final and absolute authority, the only infallible rule of faith and practice.

MY COMMENT: "The Bible is without error in the original manuscript"!!. That is often the refrain of fundamentalists; They know that in the transmission through history copies and translations of the Bible will accumulate errors if only small errors and therefore can't be absolutely error free. But for the fundamentalist mind anything less than 100% truth tends to register as nothing short of 100% error! And so there is a need to posit the "infallible original manuscripts"; (as if anyone reads them!). What they don't acknowledge is that this immediately tips the whole discussion of what is "God's Word" into the domain of human reasoning and debates about historical provenance: For who is going to decide what are the original manuscripts and by what criteria? Such a decision will depend on our fallible extra-biblical historical knowledge and understandings. Just what constitutes the "originals" will be arguable. In any case aren't the original documents the texts generated by the inspired writer before they underwent any copying? If not then how many copying processes are allowed before a text is deemed not to be original? Is the humanly developed understanding of information redundancy allowed to be invoked to show how it can be used to recover truth in the face of error? But worst of all for the fundamentalist doctrinaire concept of infallibility is that large portions of Biblical meaning are transmitted not via notational language but by connotational language; that is, text which is just a trigger or key opening up huge domains of cultural association; in this process the recipient is highly proactive in assigning meaning. It could be argued that only the texts in their original language "hold" the right connotational meaning because connotational language is highly culturally specific and therefore the source text must be packaged together with its source culture before any infallible meanings can be arrived at. If so then the fundamentalist mindset would suggest that our much copied and translated bibles, set as they are in our own culture, are of dubious value since it is impossible for them to be infallible. This is especially so because so much biblical meaning is derived from a proactive connotational reading, a process largely driven by the fallible recipient and his fallible cultural mental resources. But to regard the highly complex biblical reading process as too error prone to be of value is an absurd conclusion which naturally follows on from the fundamentalist tendency to equate anything less than 100% truth as nothing short of 100% error! The fact is our Western Bibles and the Western culture providing  the lens through which we recover biblical meaning are clearly fallible channels, but that doesn't prevent those channels delivering truth about salvation; it's just means we have to be little less epistemically arrogant about our grasp on Biblical truth. The embattled fundamentalist mind seeks to anchor indisputability & infallibility in a revered static object, but given that information involves propagation and a highly proactive interpretation by the recipient we start to understand that "God's Word" is much more a process than it is a static material object.

Hand waving jesters in the direction of so called "final and absolute authority and infallibility" are used by authoritarian fellowships in an attempt to settle disputes about meaning in an authoritarian way, completely oblivious to the implicit epistemic uncertainties in their position. These fellowships really do need a lesson in epistemic humility. Since the "extraction" of Biblical meaning entails information transmission, the resources of cultural thought forms and connotational processes entailing much  heavy cognitive lifting done by the human recipient, there is no room for the arrogance of infallibility that we so often see in fundagelical fellowships. The incoherent doctrine of "infallibility" is there to give embattled fellowships the secure authoritarian barriers behind which they can feel both epistemically safe and find a pretext to condemn outsiders for heresy. 

VINEYARD: #11 WE BELIEVE the whole world is under the domination of Satan......

MY COMMENT:  No, the world is not under the domination of Satan although Satan and (wo)man introduce much corruption; the world is under the sovereignty of God although that authority is the light touch of God's permissive will. This sort of article of faith is so easy to use to write off modern science in favour of a medieval fundamentalism and/or conspiracy theorism.

***

Here is my original reply to James: 

It is difficult to interpret 4 as unambiguously young earthist, but I suspect that young earthism is the view they hold, although I hope I am wrong. However, I can do business with young earthists as long as they don't make it a faith test, unlike extremists such as Ken Ham.

What I do see here, however, are hints of dualism. Well OK, there is the dualism of God vs his creation. But superimposed on that by Western Christianity is a dualism in the created world. i.e a "spiritual world vs matter" dichotomy. Sometimes this "spiritual" world is all but elevated above creation. e.g. notice that in the Vineyard statement of faith it is not clear that the world of Satan is part of the created order: It goes straight in with the fall of Satan and his Angels without making it clear they must be created beings and that their disobedience represents a pre-Adamic fall in the created world order and who knows what effect that had on creation. Notice that the Vineyard's points on the Satanic fall come before the doctrine on creation expressed in point 4.  Moreover, notice that in 4 we read: "Through the fall, Satan and his demonic hosts gained access to God's good creation. Creation now experiences the consequences and effects of Adam's original sin".  Access to God's good creation? But didn't Satan and his Angels have access to creation anyway because they were also created beings? Hence there is no recognition that the fall of Satan and his angel  had any effect on creation or that they are created beings. There seems to be a taken-for-granted subliminal assumption here that Satan and his cronies live in a separate world and that they only had access to the created world via man's fall. Does that make them uncreated "gods" then?

This is dualism, bordering on gnosticism. This is where I find the origin of many of the problems of contemporary Western Christianity: I suspect that it helps motivate a young earthist doctrines. For them, matter is seen as somehow "inert" and often bordering on the profane, part of Satan's kingdom, recalling somewhat the gnostic ideas of a creative demiurge.  It also explains why Western minds cannot make any sense of the paranormal: "Billiard ball" matter is not supposed to have the properties such as we see in hauntings, UFO events, crypto-zoology etc. The paranormal starts to fall into place if we see the created world as consisting of differing modes of conscious cognition akin to the difference between a rational waking state and a dream state.

That the kind of dualism implicit in Vineyard thinking is an error is suggested by Colossians 1:15-18 where we find that Christ created all things and that includes Satan. 

I further suspect that there is a tendency in Vineyard toward leadership authoritarianism and the usual "holy spirit" Christians vs non-holy Christians dichotomy.

***

Below is James reply to my reply, which I include because it adds materially to the case in view; in particular James noting  "the absurd idea (occasionally posited in some extremist circles) that there was no death of any kind in the world until Adam sinned, as per this Vineyard quote" is very significant and probably clinches the case  that we are dealing with Genesis literalists. 

 Hi Tim,

Yes indeed - thanks for the reply.

I agree. I don’t detect any unambiguous alarm bells ringing for me here, but a couple of cautionary observations. Number 4 looks like an inferred nod towards a rigid Biblical literalism and a creationist doctrine. However, like you, I too can do business with folk like that, as long as they remain outside the ‘my way or the wrong way’ camp, and don’t take creationism as the exclusive sine qua non of Christian faith.

Like you, I’m also somewhat unclear what this is all about -- “Through the fall, Satan and his demonic hosts gained access to God's good creation. Creation now experiences the consequences and effects of Adam's original sin".

If it’s to do with the absurd idea (occasionally posited in some extremist circles) that there was no death of any kind in the world until Adam sinned, as per this Vineyard quote - “Under the temptation of Satan, our original parents fell from grace, bringing sin, sickness, and God's judgement of death to the earth” - then we are dealing with a ridiculous, although probably internally harmless, viewpoint, as it obviously isn’t true.

“Through the fall, Satan and his demonic hosts gained access to God's good creation. Creation now experiences the consequences and effects of Adam's original sin".

I don’t know what to make of this statement, especially the “access to God's good creation” as it’s rather ambiguous. This ambiguity is quite common when you take Paul’s obviously non-literal exposition in Romans 5:12 and turn it into an historical commentary - it gets rather muddied. Satan and all his demonic hosts are part of God’s creation too - there is a strict category distinction between God and everything else, including the demonic world, as St. Paul reminds us:

"The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.” Colossians 1:15-18.

Given the foregoing scripture, it makes little sense to talk of Satan and his cronies “gaining access to God's good creation” because they were always part of God’s good creation to start with, until they fell through pride (see Ezekiel 28:15–17 and Isaiah 14:12–14). It could be just a bit of harmless doctrinal sloppiness, or it could be a rabbit hole into some more perturbing beliefs, but I guess we’ll find out in due course.

Best Wishes

James

Character Assassinators

Cowboy Bob knows the answer to that!

I get an emailed newsletter from an atheist called Ashley Haworth-Roberts who spends much of his time harrying the anti-science Christian fundamentalist culture. As I am a researcher of sectarian brands of Christianity I find that Ashley actually succeeds in drawing my attention to a lot of useful material. In one of his latest newsletters he quotes a Trump and Ken Ham supporting fundamentalist who calls himself "cowboy Bob".  What interested me was the following quote from the cowboy's blog. It's an indication that for at least some of the Christian right-wing young earthism is a faith test, a test you fail if you don't go along with their young earthist views  Here's the quote with my emphases:

Some folks reject the Bible's authority. We expect that from atheists and other non-believers, but there are professing Christians who also downplay the Word of God. Scripture plainly says that everything was created in six days. Instead of humbling themselves and submitting to Christ, they light a shuck out of there and head for the comfort of riding the owlhoot trail. (Cowboy speak for "outlaws") They are degrading Scripture.

Why would a supposed believer want to compromise? It seems to me that these owlhoots don't want to look like one of those people who reject deep time, so they seek the praise of men rather than God. Another reason is that they want to accommodate atheistic views of science and their interpretations of evidence so they can allow for evolution. Some of these alleged Christians get a notion to add millions of years to the Bible by pretending it doesn't mean what it clearly says. 

People who try to compromise with theistic evolution, old earth creation, and hybrid creation accounts do not accomplish anything of value. Indeed, such tinhorns mock God, his people, and Scripture. Do they really believe? Their insistence on eisegesis over exegesis**, ridicule of Bible-believing Christians, and giving comfort to enemies of God causes me to lack belief that they do so.

(See http://www.biblecreation.com/2019/02/making-hybrid-creation-stories.html)

It never occurs to people like this that even on a literal interpretation Genesis 1 is hardly a description of the process of creation for it says very little about the details of this process; that is, the actual sequence of events that the commands of God entail. The Genesis 1 narrative, by all accounts, is (necessarily) a mere summary of an immense burden of creative activity  See here.

But what I would like to focus on here is the fact that the above quote reveals just how full of assumptions the cowboy is about  the underlying motives of those Christians who don't agree with him: The cowboy is quite sure that Christians who beg to differ are harbouring malign ulterior anti-Christian attitudes. Moreover he, like other young earthists, is unlikely to make known that his views actually originate from the 1960s, a time that Ken Ham thinks of as the young earthist reformation.

The character deformation implicit in the cowboy's words allied to his all too obvious profound suspicions of Christians beyond the pale of his subculture are of-a-piece with the right wing & fundamentalist affinity for paranoid conspiracy theorism: Let's not forget that Trump and professional Christian conspiracy theorist Alex Jones have in the past engaged in mutual support. 

As the Watchtower egged on its followers to believe that 1975 was going to be the likely end of this system of things and then claimed that it never made a prediction, so likewise we can see how Ken Ham is egging on the cowboy's behaviour and yet turns round and tries to claim that he's not making young earthism a salvation issue...... Oh yes he is!. 

Apart from research purposes I would warn reasonable Christians to avoid engaging with people like the cowboy (along with fundamentalists in general).  As we can see one doesn't start on a level playing field with them. Reasonable Christians (who are in fact in the majority, I'm glad to say), in fundamentalist eyes, are the lowest of the low, traitorous apostate spiritual outcasts on the "owlhoot" trail! Fundamentalists like the cowboy are so full of a priori suspicions & potential recriminations that the trusting and mutually respecting relationship  needed for constructive dialogue just isn't there to start with. Interaction with them just catalyses further accusations, slandering, anger, aggravation and polarisation. However, it helps to realise that these people are not out to intentionally deceive, but their pathological paranoid vision of the world is very real to them; it takes a long time and a lot of effort to deconstruct that world view.  Unless one is specifically lead to engage these kinds of rabid sectarians there are better things Christians can occupy themselves with!

Relevant links
As the following links suggest there are parallels here with a sect like Jehovah's witnesses.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzLwnl6qE_yeemhBVURGSExVaFE/edit?pli=1

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.com/2018/05/fundamentalist-publicity-sects.html

Footnote:
* I doubt the cowboy would be able to tell us much about the relationship between "eisegesis & exegesis" and the difference between "notation and connotation". 

Vulnerable Mission and Mythos vs Logos in the Walled City of Kowloon

Kowloon's walled city, now demolished.

The January 2019 edition of Premier Christianity magazine has an interview with Jackie Pullinger, a Christian whose mission field was the notorious Walled City of Kowloon in Hong Kong. The story of Jackie Pullinger's foray into the dangerous labyrinth of the Walled city is the stuff of living legend. This is heroic Christian mission as Christians love to hear it. An ill-prepared maverick with no ties to an official mission organisation pits themselves against the darkest elements that often lurk in human community and comes through triumphantly. Pullinger's story has some similarities with that of Gladys Alywood.

Christians love this sort of stuff especially as most Christian's "walk with God" is a fairly unexciting affair in comparison. Through the lives of people like Pullinger Christians can live the exciting, adventuress and miraculous Christian life vicariously. Above all, it lends hope for the humdrum lives of many Christians because we hear how, from a most unpromising starting point (Which most rank and file Christians can identity with!), God can confound us by raising up some big new thing. However, therein may lie the rub: Some Christians might think: "Why doesn't God work for me like that? What am I doing wrong? Why is the supernatural missing from my life?". Thus a subliminal sense of guilt can set in under the surface. Sometimes that guilt turns outward into anger and blame against local churches that by-and-large don't show Christians how they too can live these supposedly "super-duper-supernatural" lives.  I have seen this happen.  Anyway, Pullinger's story has been told many times so I need say nothing more of it here

***

In response to a question from the interviewer about how she learnt the local language Pullinger replied as follows:

Pullinger: Well it was a good thing I didn't begin too quickly because I just had time to do a short evangelism course before I got on the ship, and if I'd known Chinese I would have said too much. I thought that preaching the Gospel was explaining how Jesus came to die for your sins and, of course, that's no preaching the Gospel at all....

Interviewer: Why isn't it?

Pullinger: Because that's not necessarily good news to anyone who doesn't know love, who doesn't understand your language, who doesn't follow your logic. So, it was a good thing because I found out that the people there were not listening anyway, they were watching to see how I acted, whether  I really did love them. And if I really did love them, maybe God really did love them.                                                                                                                                                                                     
MY COMMENT: I'll be commenting on this very important inter-cultural question later. Pullinger then goes on to talk about her first Chinese convert who, after his meeting with Jesus, she plied with follow-up literature and information about the faith. She tells us that given Chinese culture this was one of the worse things she could have done: Because in Chinese culture learning is taken so seriously, a lack of academic success is tantamount to being a failed person. Hence Pullinger's first convert was intimidated by all the follow-up books which he mistakenly interpreted as proof that a grasp of all this information was a condition of faith.

Interviewer: Is there a lesson there that Western Christians can be too bookish?  

Pullinger: I think that the Word of God is terribly important but it depends on how you access that. Nowadays when people come to know Jesus, we pray  with them for the gift of tongues  immediately. It's not an optional extra, we say, but the way he'll give you a new language to help you talk to Him....No, it's not a prerequisite. The prerequisite is "Would you like to help pray somebody off drugs?". OK now, can you manage four hours of praying non-stop? Tongues would be a really great help. That's it. It's not the tongues that makes it special, it's just quite hard to keep going in your own language.

MY COMMENT I'll read the foregoing to mean that Pullinger sees tongues as an all but necessity in her kind of work, work which, of course, she will know best about.  So, giving her the benefit of the doubt I assume that she would reply "No" to the rhetorical questions in 1 Corinthians 12:29-30:

Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret?

After all, one finds that for many Christians who seek an "experience" or "tongues" when they have hands laid on them for the "Baptism of the Spirit", nothing really noticeable happens. In fact you can find Charismatic Christians who will admit this. For example, Tony Higton, a C of E charismatic admits in his book Called to Serve: A Local Church Study Course that when a Christian goes for a "Baptism of the Spirit" there may be no accompanying special experience or tongues to be had. I will be giving another example in my next post. 

I have heard of several cases where the believer is expecting some kind of spiritual down-load or epiphany and nothing happens; sometimes this can challenge their faith if their expectations are crushed. Moreover, some Christians seeking the "Carpet Blessing" (another name for the "Toronto Blessing") have, on occasion, been disappointed to find that they have not been blow over by God's Spirit but instead are simply pushed over by the "priest" administering the blessing. In general the question of whether a Christian seeking an epiphany, perhaps to fix a spiritual existential crisis, actually has some kind of experience or spiritual down-load seems to depend on the personality involved, although the hard-line Charismatics will not likely accept this and are inclined to witch-hunt for "spiritual blockages"  if their expectations of an "experience" are not fulfilled. 

***

There are important things to learn from Pullinger, although there may be some things to unlearn as well. In the West Mythos and Logos (See footnote* for more on Mythos and Logos) expressions of belief sit uneasily with one another. They may try to be friends but the relationship can be tense and stormy. We see hints of this in the interview with Pullinger. 

1. MYTHOS

In my opinion rank and file Western Christians (that is, Western Christians outside the intense academic culture of colleges and universities and those who classify themselves as traditional reformed Christians) are not "bookish" enough about their faith: Today the premium is on an existential faith that seeks satisfaction, validation and authentication through supernatural encounters with the divine. Anything else is likely to be regarded as less than the ideal divine plan. In this context Christian learning tends to be thought of as at best as having an ancillary supporting role and at worse utterly inferior to "Touches of God". However, I must add my usual disclaimer that I am certainly not in the business of offering a blanket and unqualified denial of people's epiphanies, baptisms, touches of God, divine encounters, speaking in tongues, prophecies and what have you: I don't automatically write-off such experiences anymore than I expect my particular spiritual experiences and pilgrimage to be written-off. Proprietary experiences can be very helpful. The stickler is though, that many have a one size fits all philosophy consistent with the gnostic-like tendencies of some parts of fundo-Charismatic Christianity. (See here for more on the Mythos vs Logos divide)


2. LOGOS

Where Pullinger has important lessons for us is on the subject of inter-cultural mission: Her approach looks as though it classifies as what missionary Jim Harries would call Vulnerable mission; that is, mission which is:

a) Determined to meet people where they are at in their culture and properly understand and engage that culture before thoughtlessly spouting formulaic evangelical cliches at them as if those cliche's can somehow magically "speak Christians into existence". Principally the cultural immersion of the Vulnerable Missionary is achieved  by learning the local lingo in its context so that the connotative content of the language is taken on board along with its notational content.

b) Avoids as far as possible destabilising relationships within the local culture with the promise of the introduction of developmental funds and Western resources. This avoidance prevents the missionary being put into the role of a rich benefactor or "bwana", thereby helping to foster authentic relationships rather than locals being tempted to kowtow to their rich missionary patrons. A client-patron relationship probably has the effect of obscuring many cultural oddities from the missionary, as the clients are inclined to curry favor with their rich patrons by keeping up appearances.

For whatever reason it seems that Pullinger naturally followed this "Vulnerable" approach. This form of mission is called "Vulnerable Mission" by Jim Harries because it opens up the missionary to dangers, misunderstandings, isolation and that of becoming a servant learner rather than a leader. Vulnerable mission can also sometimes result in fraught relations with other Western missionaries and their mission organisations, organisations who see their task exclusively in terms of a leading developmental role: i.e. "holistic mission". This is not to say Christians shouldn't be involved helping to develop and industrialise the poorer nations of the majority world.....the purpose of VM, as I see it, is to introduce another method in the missionary toolbox of methods, one which circumvents some of the conundrums caused by holistic mission. VM is mission which reaches the parts that other forms of mission don't. The Vulnerable Missionary needs to be a supreme diplomat. But unfortunately there is potentially an inner contradiction here; Vulnerable Missionaries have to be strong characters and strong characters are not natural diplomats, as I can testify from my own experience. 

We see from Pullinger's account how she inadvertently was prevented from using a one size fits all approach to her mission field. As she makes clear, if she had arrived in Hong Kong with just enough Chinese to think that she understood the language it would have been a disaster. To properly understand a language one needs to understand its cultural context and therefore the connotational content of the local natural language. One cannot learn the connotational content of a language without being immersed in the local context.

Because Pullinger had to learn the local language, effectively on the job, she had to first get to know her people, understand them and above all demonstrate her love for them. She could then share the Gospel in a way that was meaningful to them. Even so, as she admits, it was ignorance over Chinese culture which meant she made at least one mistake from the start. But she knew she had to learn and learn fast!

Footnote: Mythos and Logos

* Mythos: Often indescribable and intuitive, "Mythos" connotes experiences that may be referred to as "sensing God's presence", "touched by God", "empowered by God"  etc. These experiences  are often difficult to analyse and articulate. Sometimes a state of consciousness rather than a demarkable experience the whole thing can be very mysterious. 

Logos: Strong on content, analysis and thinking based experience: Very theologically inclined this articulated content will, in varying degrees, revolve around theology and the Bible,The Word; hence "Logos". This category actually embraces the paranormal, such as healings, tongues and prophecies as these events can be analytically investigated for authenticity.

Love, Anger, Hell and Monsters from the Id.

In the November edition of Premier Christianity magazine there was an article which, in the context of a reference to reality of hell,  told us that:

In a church in Wimbledon the young pastor said that God essentially saved us from himself, from his own wrath. That was a profound statement.

A monster from the id. He doesn't 
know why he is angry!

The piece I have underlined was separately displayed as a large point size banner elsewhere in the article, perhaps to emphasize it's "profundity". Yes, it is profound, but profoundly wrong. It conveys a vision of a god with a split personality and whose character is so at odds with itself that it is almost as if this god is a Jekyll and Hyde act; a god who loves on the one hand and yet may engage in torturous (eternal) punishments on the other. The loving god is set against the angry god; which one will win? If the Wimbledon pastor is right then you won't like God when he's angry! He can turn into a monster from the id* quite capable of eternally torturing those who upset him!

This vision of God just doesn't ring true; in fact it has the finger prints of flawed human thinking all over it. For as we know, human anger all too often satiates itself through horrific acts of vengeance, acts sometimes carried out in the name of the Almighty. In the thought life of some Christians this is what justice is all about and they construct an image of a god of anger after the model of their own anger. There are humans out there who are quite prepared to consign their enemies to an eternal torture as punishment for their affrontary.

If we remember that human beings are organic complex adaptive systems we can, however, see the glimmer of a biological rationale behind human vengeance behaviour. In the cut and thrust of wild nature predatory attacks may have to be met with anger motivated physical violence for two reasons: Viz: To administer both deterrence and leaning. Pain, needless to say, is a great facilitator of learning - unless you've got a very short memory! Attackers will learn that they face the risk of pain if they attempt an attack and other potential protagonists may also be put-off from attacking if they see punishment meted out. In these primitive connections the organisms dealing out "justice" need not understand why they are acting the way they do; the important feature is that it is an effective survival strategy even though it may be carried out as a mindless reflex action.

 In the more sophisticated contexts of human society formalised punishment rituals will again act as a deterrent and may lead to learning and repentance in the offending protagonists; provided, of course, the principles of fair justice have been followed. But it is hoped that in this less primitive connection there is a grasp of the rationale for punishment and that it isn't just a reflex action. If such punishments succeed in their aim of bringing about a contrite spirit and general reform, punishment then becomes redundant. If just social punishments lead to reformation then the role of punishment is complete; in the socially advanced context punishments aren't reflex actions but are consciously put in place to do themselves out of a job: Punishments, if their goal is achieved, cannot be forever. Even if anger motivates deterrence and punishment, constructive anger looks beyond the satiation of its appetite for violence to the implicit social goals intended to fix the problem in hand. Constructive anger doesn't engage in the violence of punishment for its own sake. In the integrated harmonious soul anger, like other motives such as the appetite, is answerable to a higher executive. But the vision of God presented by the quip in Premier Christianity is hardly one of an integrated harmonious soul - it may be true of humans but it can't be true of God. If the quote above is a sample of a fundamentalist concept of God's wrath then I suggest that such people have a lot to learn from those human beings who use their anger to motivate reformation and problem solving. A need to continue satiating anger via proactive punishment is a sign of a sick mind. 

Even very biological human anger can be directed constructively and need not satiate itself via a reflex action to torture; the latter is an anachronistic response appropriate only in biologically elementary tit-for-tat settings where the reasons for the strategy are unconscious. People who lose an innocent loved one to, say, human negligence or culpability, naturally enough feel very angry at the parties responsible for this loss.  But this anger in some cases at least isn't necessarily satiated by seeking the administration of suffering. Instead the anger may dissipate itself in actions that aim to see restorative justice done rather than punishment for its own sake. Or failing that the offended person may seek to create conditions which help prevent similar tragic events or perhaps support people who find themselves in similar situations. This is how primitive reflex anger can be redirected to become a constructive motive. But admittedly this is much easier said than done: It is all too human for offended anger to express itself instinctively via a socially inappropriate heuristic of uncontrolled tit-for-tat vengeance. But whilst it is clear that an elementary tit-for-tat response is fit for many basic biological connections it hardly seems fitting as a Divine trait! God's anger, I imagine, finds far more constructive expression and is an emotion more harmoniously integrated into his character. Salvation isn't a case of protecting us against God's anger, but it is a work where, I suspect, love and anger act together. My thinking is that salvation is an act where God's wrath has been harmonised with God's love.

Contrary to the quote in Premier Christianity it is, I submit, the absence of God's wrath which we need to be saved from. Whilst the fundamentalist imputes to God a very human concept of anger where propitiation connotes a hellish abyss of God's uncontrolled wrath, I would propose that hell is in fact due to the absence of Divine wrath. Unlike an elementary biological heuristic sophisticated righteous anger proactively seeks restoration and reform. It is the absence of righteous anger and of God subsequently leaving us alone and allowing human behavioural logic to take its course which we must fear most. In hell there is no Divine wrath to motivate a fix. Hell is God not wanting to do anything, presumably because he is leaving alone those who want to be left alone, thereby allowing the logic of human sin to do its stuff. Hell is wanting to be abandoned by God and subsequently being abandoned by God. The consequent loss of righteous wrath opens up the way for humanity's peculiar aptitude to create its own hell. God will not always strive with man. (Genesis 6:3). 

The article in Premier Christianity also includes this statement:

I feel that there are so many churches now that don't talk about hell.

It's a jolly good thing they don't talk about it if their only vision of hell is of a place of proactive endless propitiatory torture. The biological vengeance response is no model for hell. Instinctual vengeance has no concept of reason; it just acts and punishment, eternal or otherwise, is administered simply because it feels "deserved" and no further justification is thought to be needed. It is no surprise that churches are quiet about their concept of hell if they hold such a repugnant medieval vision; the only vision that some fundamentalist Christians can supply. Christians of this ilk are the last people we want to hear talking about hell. In fact if Rico Tice is a sample of a Christian talking about hell then the best they can do is to stay silent.

***

The following picture is a still from the fundamentalist ministry Answers in Genesis' video advertisement for their Ark shaped wooden flood exhibit. It is in fact symbolic of the premise on which the Ark Park is based i.e. divine retribution for those who don't tow the Ken Ham line. Below we see a mother and child getting their "just desserts" in the form of a huge death dealing global tsunami. Rather appropriately the tsunami is shaded in "hulk" green!

* "Monster from the id": a reference to the film "The Forbidden Planet". 

The Parachute Parable

Disclaimer: None of the following subject matter is intended to cast aspersions, or unqualified doubt upon any intimate revelation a Christian may have been given and which they may call, whether rightly or wrongly, "Baptism in the Spirit", or for that matter upon any other form of revelatory wonder to which they may have been witness. About such things I here make no comment whatever, deeming them to be matters well beyond the scope of the present discussion. My concern here is largely with the causes of, and description of, a Christian culture often found riding on the back of such experiences; a culture that categorizes Christians, limits them, labels them, antagonizes them, divides them, and with a partisan spirit makes implicit valued judgments about Christian diversity..... 
April 1997

***

A comic caricature of the actual situation I know, but it gets the point across: Trance-like states of consciousness and sublime inner gnosis of the Divine are de rigueur in some churches.

  

Recently in an email I found myself writing the following in regard to the ethos found among many contemporary Christians: 

Today’s postmodern/existential Christians believe that the highest form of faith is expressed in those highly intuitive states of mind involving experiential epiphanies, inner-light revelations, ecstasies, high passions, emotional unravellings, swoonings, sublime “gnosis”, altered states of consciousness etc etc (call them what you will). In this context Biblical “head knowledge” tends to be regarded as second best to these more sublime “power” orientated spiritual states of consciousness.  In these days of a marginalised and troubled Christian culture many seek this kind of “deep soul” faith as a fix for a spiritual existential crisis and/or to authenticate faith. Bible study for its own sake doesn’t sell well here. None of this is to say that Christians don’t, from time to time, have indescribable epiphanies & ecstasies; rather, I’m referring here to an underlying postmodern/existential influenced philosophy that nowadays tends to put a premium on the “passions” of the inner life. 

I have, in the past, related this seeking of sublime experience of God to the almost sensual revelation depicted in Bernini's image of St Teresa. But before I go any further let me make it clear that the foregoing certainly doesn't apply to all evangelical and fundamentalist Christians: For example, the hyper-conservative Christians who identify strongly with the reformation patriarchs tend not to go in for this kind of experience bending Christianity; in fact it is something they regard as most unhealthy and recommend instead a "Word" based faith; Logos as opposed to Pneuma is their preferred slant.  Also, many reasonable Christians in academia would not be attracted by an over emphasis on Christian "gnosis".  Let me also mention here a group of charismatic Christians I refer to as  reformo-charismatics.  They are Charismatic Christians who were completely put off by the bizarre excesses surrounding the "Toronto Blessing" as it reached its demented crescendo in the mid 1990s; for them enough was enough! The reformo-charismatics continue to strongly critique Christians who are constantly on the look out for supernatural novelties. The reformo-Charismatics see the so-called  "Baptism of the Spirit" as a one-off initiation into "the power of the Spirit" and would likely condemn Christians who constantly seek to "get high" on novel experiences; which is, in fact, what a portion of Charismatic sub-culture has degenerated into. 

Interestingly, and very significantly in my opinion, you will also find an interest in "gnostic" states of mind among new-agers as they seek some inner connection with ultimate Truth in reaction against the seemingly profane "materialist" worldview which has, apparently, swept the cosmos clean of sacred mystique. But the new-ager can be just about as wacky as the gnosto-fundamentalists!

I have posted on this subject of the "gnostic" drift of Christianity many times before. Here's a sample:

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.com/2017/04/mythos-versus-logos.html
http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.com/2012/10/dallas-willard-catches-up-on-gnosticism.html
http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-existential-drift.html
https://norwichcentralbaptistchurch.blogspot.com/2010/05/once-more-unto-breach-dear-friends-once.html

https://norwichcentralbaptistchurch.blogspot.com/2010/12/another-manifestation-of-logosmythos.html

https://norwichcentralbaptistchurch.blogspot.com/2007/12/having-sex-with-god-sometimes-life.html

It is true to say that an interest in "inner-light" and altered states of consciousness are not always quite so pronounced and bizarre as we see in the "Charismatic Dubstep" video above. More usually we see gnostic interests manifested in a spiritual value system which regards the inner encounter with God (Or as it used to be called "the touch of God") as the pinnacle of spirituality. Here is an example of a quote which, I submit, comes out of a spiritual value system biased toward initiations into the transforming power of "God consciousness":

Pray for the Encountering God for all of us. How we need so much more of the Holy Spirit and to truly encounter God to be totally transformed”

Another piece of evidence which I believe comes out of a gnostic slanting world view is the habitual quip which refers to the "18 inch gap between head and heart". By and large the users of this quip don't mean the difference between knowing about something and actually believing it and practicing it; for if you practice and believe as hard as you might, to the Christian gnostic belief is pretty second rate until you have had an experience the Spirit or had the touch of God or Encountered God  or had what ever cliche may be used to  describe the required sublime epiphany.

I believe in the science of parachutes, but
put one on my back and ask me to jump at
10,000 feet is another thing....!

I myself reject this false dichotomy of head vs heart. Emotions, feelings and deep intuitive states are useless unless they are channelled as a kind of fuel driving the organisation imposed by the so called "head"; head and heart can not be separated anymore than a working car can be separated from its fuel. That head and heart, so called, are inseparably linked becomes clear in the following illustration.

***

If you sent me up in an aircraft and put a parachute on my back and asked me to jump out at 10,000 feet I couldn't do it! This wouldn't mean, of course, that I don't have a deep belief that parachutes work. But if we were to think about this scenario in polarised gnostic terms it might be claimed that I only had a second rate "head knowledge" of parachutes as opposed to the "experience of parachuting". But this dichotomy is really to misrepresent the situation. I certainly believe "in my heart" that parachutes work; the trouble is that my lower level preservation instincts don't believe it! But if, say, I had decided to start doing parachuting as a hobby then I would seek enough training in order to re-educate my low-level instincts. What would be the deep seated motives driving this training period? Firstly there would be the desire to join in the fun of parachuting, but secondly there would also be the underlying "intellectual" belief in the science of parachutes and this deep seated intellectual belief is entirely necessary to drive the project.

In this parachute scenario we see that what might at first sight be classed as "head knowledge" is in fact an important factor in motivating the project; without it parachuting as a hobby would never get off the ground, so to speak. It is ironic then that what today's existential Christian is inclined to identify as second rate  "head knowledge" is in fact at one level actually "heart knowledge"! Intellect and heart can not be portrayed as a sharp dichotomy.  It is the deep beliefs located in our worldview, and not the emotional froth and bubble, which drives the faith.

But let me end once again with my usual disclaimer: None of this is to deny that some Christians have ecstasies and epiphanies; it's just that not everyone does and the gnostics need to acknowledge that and stop underrating Logos Christians. 

The dangers of rule driven morality.

He may or may not do what is right but he hasn't a

 clue as to why either way; its all rules to obey for him!

In a post entitled "Be Kind to Humankind - Why?" fundamentalist theme park supremo, Ken Ham, comments on "Be Kind to humankind week". The result is that he reveals a concept of morality that to my mind is readily corruptible; in fact if pushed it can lead to the kind of cruelties we are familiar with in religions driven by an uncompromising almost algorithmic interpretation of God's Law; welcome to the world of the "Fundobot"!

Ham's article can be found here:

https://answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2018/08/25/be-kind-to-humankind-but-why/

I reproduce Ham's post in full below. I have highlighted the parts which reveal the rationale behind Ham's morality.

Today is part of what’s considered “Be Kind to Humankind Week.” Each day this week has a special theme of different ways people can show kindness to one another. Some of these include “Sacrifice Our Wants for Others Needs Sunday,” “Forgive Your Foe Friday,” and “Speak Kind Words Saturday.” Now all of these things are good—as is the idea of a week dedicated to consciously deciding to be kind (as we should be all the time)—but why should we be kind to others?

The idea of being “kind” is prevalent in our society with many proclaiming that if we were just more kind to each other, the world would be a much a better place. But why should we be kind in the first place? And who defines kind? Without the ultimate authority of God’s Word, there’s no ultimate reason to be kind. We can invent reasons, such as “because it feels good” or to bring others happiness. But that’s not an ultimate reason—and that kind of reasoning could be used to justify all kinds of actions, some of which are decidedly not kind.

Now, this doesn’t mean atheists, humanists, and others who preach “kindness” can’t be kind. They certainly can be, and often are. But they have no ultimate basis for their kindness or even for a definition of kindness. (oh yes they do! See below -Ed)

And not only that, they are being inconsistent with their “survival of the fittest” evolutionary worldview. In that worldview, kindness is only necessary if it had some sort of survival benefit for the organism. There’s no “kindness for kindness’ sake” (although some animals do seem to exhibit altruistic behaviors, which has stumped evolutionists).

We should be kind (as defined by Scripture) this week and the other fifty-one weeks of the year, because we’ve been commanded to “be kind, to one another” (Ephesians 4:32). And not only that, we should be kind because of the example of tremendous kindness we’ve been shown by our Creator. Despite our rebellion against him, he stepped into history in the person of Jesus Christ to die for our sins and save us. God’s kindness towards us is limitless and will be experienced for eternity by those who trust in him.

So be kind to humankind this week—and consider showing others the ultimate kindness by telling them about the free gift of salvation, generously available to all who will believe because of the kindness of our loving Creator.

From where I'm standing it looks as though Ken, although he asks "why", actually hasn't really grasped the deep reason why we should be kind: The only answer he has is that the moral mandate for kindness comes from what he thinks to be the final and authoritative instruction of God; that is, it's right because God says so. But what if these instructions are wrongly interpreted and the instructee believes that being kind entails things like executing people for gay-sex or stoning adulterous women to death or burning heretics at the stake? Blind robotic obedience to what we fancy to be authoritative instructions and rules has the potential to generate a cruel merciless  "morality".

An authoritarian algorithmic morality is blind to the fundamental rationale behind "kindness". To guide our behaviour there must be something which goes deeper than "We do it or don't do it because (we think) God said we should do it!"; that is an argument from brute authoritarianism (As you might expect of a fundamentalist, authority looms large in Ken's thinking).There is something far more fundamental behind morality than ephemeral human interpretations of God's instructions, interpretations which are so often here today and gone tomorrow.

In this post on Quantum Non-Linearity I sketched out what I propose to be the core basis of all morality: This basis rests on the fact that humans are centres of conscious cognition: Conscious cognition is the core of reality - without it "existence" is an unintelligible concept. Human beings are not mere robotic facades where consciousness is just to be regarded as an illusory conceptual device for dealing with cognitive complexity. The first person perspective is logically fundamental to the cosmos and gives it reality (See the post I have linked to for more details).

From this basis it follows that we are kind to one another because we identify other humans as having a first person experience; that is, they are conscious beings who are capable of experiencing the qualia of joys and hurts. The mandate to be kind is not justified by bland authoritarian instructions but because people are feeling beings who know the first person perspective of pleasure and pain.  Truly kind people are kind not because God commands such or even because God himself is kind, but rather because God has made human beings with conscious cognition and he has put it in our hearts to understand this fact, therefore challenging us to make empathetic and optimum moral decisions when serving others competes with serving self.

Atheists and non-Christians may not believe in a God and may know nothing about Biblical instruction, but nevertheless will understand that other human beings have feelings like themselves*.  They therefore face the moral challenge of treating the feelings of others with consideration even though they may know nothing of the Bible. As it says in Romans 2:14-15

Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.

Atheists, contrary to Ham's claim, do have an  ultimate basis for their kindness and a definition of kindness: namely, consideration for the feelings of others, feelings that they know in their hearts to exist. Although implementing one's consideration for others in complex communities where ramifications are often difficult to work out in full, one's moral starting point is a willingness to give deference to the consciousness of others. Moreover, the kernel of the Biblical law is not a set of instructions; rather it is a state of being, a condition of the heart:

8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. (Romans 13:8-10)

Rule breaking is a symptom, repeat, a symptom of a deeper moral malaise of the heart, a spiritually pathological state of being:

8 If you really keep the royal law  found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right. 9 But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. 10 For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. 11 For he who said, “You shall not commit adultery,” also said, “You shall not murder." If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker. 12 Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, 13 because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment. (James 2:8-13)

The core value of the law is mercy and not merciless following of rules. The context of both of the foregoing passages of scripture is of societal and/or church living. That is, it is all about community and it is community life which tests the state of our hearts toward one another. Perceiving one another as conscious beings rather than robotic facades and acting accordingly is the foundation of morality; it's not about obedience to rules spoken by an omnipotent despot**. As we can see from the above Biblical quotes, all instructions and commands to do good trace back to the Royal Law; that is to love one's neighbour as one self and the reason why we must love our neighbour is because they too have the first person perspective of conscious cognition.

A purely instruction based morality, when allied to the epistemic arrogance of fundamentalism has the potential to proceed with utter certainty and mercilessness without regard to feeling. (Romans 3:10).

The Biblical message is that we have all fallen short of the Royal Law and stand condemned of the disease of sin (Appropriately, the word with the "I" in middle). But there is a way out:

20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin. 21 But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,... (Romans 3:20-23)

But....

24 ..... all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. (Romans 3:24)

...27 Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. Because of what law? The law that requires works? No, because of the law that requires faith. 28 For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. 29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, 30 since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. 31 Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law. (Romans 3:27-31)

You might think that it is pretty clear from these passages that all who know and call on Christ and have been adopted by God (Acts 2:21, Roman 8: 15) are saved from the bondage of selfishness. But the fundamentalist cannot accept that; for the fundamentalist will make it clear that without following their strict regime of belief and practice your salvation is at best questionable and at worst null and void. If you are not one of them a fundamentalist will want to know why not. Therefore the first reaction of the fundamentalist when faced with Christians beyond the pale of their sect is to seek for subtle unorthodoxies and sins in order to clinch a charge of heresy and discredit an outsider's testimony (See here and here).  They may readily invoke God's grace when it comes to Donald Trump's corruption but that's not for Christians who disagree with them!

Relevant Links:
http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.com/2015/02/vengeance-fundamentalism-turn-or-burn.html
http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.com/2015/07/submission-obedience-and-threat.html
http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.com/2016/05/a-god-of-hell-and-hamnation.html

Footnotes:
* There is a question here about psychopaths: Do they see other humans as anything other than a robotic facade?

** God's instruction is needed when we are unsure as to the ramification of our actions in the complex environment of the community, actions that by diverse means could lead to bad community, even if intended for good.