Jeepers Creepers II: The John Mackay Affair

What creeps out from under this latest stone is particularly nasty and it’s a warning to keep a professional distance from fundamentalists.

As a rule fundamentalists have a very jaundiced view of those beyond the pale of their sub-cultures, often assigning quite extreme opprobrium to outsiders. An example is fundamentalist Jason Lisle who recently referred to civic leaders as “wicked” on the basis that they sanctioned homosexual marriage. He has also stuffed blasphemies into the mouths of Christians who don’t accept his YEC position. In the perception of fundamentalists like Lisle one cannot ultimately reject their opinions in good faith or good conscience – instead they see final rejection of their opinions as a product of malign ulterior motives. As I have said before this imaginatively jaundiced view of the world gives fundamentalists a weakness for conspiracy theorism: When they adopt a conspiracy theory stance it gives them at once both aggrandisement and rationale for their paranoia by way of dignifying narratives which explain why the world is so evil-hearted in not accepting their opinions.

Before I continue I must give my usual mental health warnings: Fundamentalists are apt to apply moral duress on outsiders by means of quite extreme language; after all, they genuinely believe their opinions come with divine authority and so in their view if you speak out against them you speak against the Almighty himself and one can’t do worse than that!...in fact that's the unforgivable sin. It’s understandable then that in fundamentalist perception detractors deserve the utmost censor. But this censoriousness can have a damaging emotional effect and unless you are the sort for whom it’s all water off a duck’s back it is probably not advisable to have contact with fundamentalists if you feel that disagreements are inevitable. I have seen and experienced some pressure myself but my usual approach is to treat fundamentalists with the utmost firmness; unless I am seeking information from them I find that attack is the best form of defence and a firm approach chases them away.  Fortunately Christian fundamentalism is non-violent – it is very difficult to justify violence from the teaching of the NT Christ. However, having said that it is my opinion that the core mental complex displayed by Christian fundamentalists is an all too human trait and has commonalities with the mental complex displayed by Islamic extremists: In both cases we see that uncompromising, self-believing, last-bastion remnant militancy, an attitude that is proof against discouragement when just about everyone in the world is perceived as being wickedly set against your community. Uncompromising idealism of this kind, in any shape or form, can be ruthless and cruel and is best avoided.

Now, against that backdrop I would like to introduce The John Mackay affair. Mackay is an abrasive Young Earth fundamentalist. In terms of being highly self-motived and with utter self-belief he is probably on a par with fundamentalist Kent Hovind.  Both have that kind of faith which trades on fear. Obviously as professing Christians they can’t use violence but there are other means of putting coercive pressure on people. It is this more subtle coercion which brings me to the point of this post. For this post is about the fierce acrimony that can exist between fellow fundamentalists; if fundamentalists fall out their self-believing epistemic leads to a belligerent confrontational paranoia that is compounded when it is on both sides of the equation; ergo, fundamentalist schisms are some of the most vicious feuds of all as both sides let out all the stops and have no compunction about engaging in mutual accusations of atrocious sin. Since 'compromise' is a dirty word to fundies inter-fundie feuds can go on for years.

The information I will be linking to in this post is, in my view, in the public interest because it exposes the psychological pressures that can be brought to bear within the closeted confines of fundamentalist communities. Such rancour can be very damaging to those who find themselves on the front line, especially if they don’t have the self-belief and confidence of some of their hardened uncompromising cohorts. This data will serve to reinforce my warnings about the potential psychological dangers of fundamentalism. Let me also add that I have on more than one occasion been concerned about the mental health of some fundamentalist leaders; but ironically it is that self-same mental condition which gives them their drive, their vision and above all their self-belief.

The John Mackay Scandal: A sordid, squalid affair

John MacKay: A Headache for Ken Ham

In the late 1970s John Mackay was a business partner of Ken Ham; they ran a business selling YEC literature. But according to the sources I link to below there was a complex three way split starting in the late 1980s triggered by the accusations MacKay made about Ken Ham’s secretary Margaret Buchanan.  As a result MacKay fell out acrimoniously with his own organisation, now called Creation Ministries International (CMI). It seems that even today there is considerable rancour between CMI and MacKay. Also, CMI remain bitter about the way they were treated in the early 2000s by Ken Ham's start up, Answers in Genesis-USA. I needn’t go into details as those details are provided in the documentation I link to.  I have created my own copies of all the relevant documents in case they should otherwise disappear from the web. It is these copies I link to.

1. The British Centre for Science Education have an web article that is probably best read first as an introduction to the affair. My copy of it can be obtained here, although the original web article can still be found here. Some of the links in the article are orphaned but that doesn’t matter as I supply links to the requisite documentation below.
2. Creation Ministries International at the time of writing still have a web page on the affair.  My copy of  this page can be found here. The original, if it is still available, can be found here:

hxxp://creation.com/regarding-john-mackay
3. Supporting documentation that is linked to by both the BCSE and CMI web pages can be found here and here.

     4. Ken Ham has, it seems, come out on the side of MacKay: Reformo-charismatic fundamentalist Nigel Wright sent me this document.

Finally one general lesson: As in the case of the Witch Finder General of 17^th Century England, we discover that those who seek out witches are far more dangerous than those they accuse of witchcraft!

Relevant Links

Jeepers Creepers I:

http://www.viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/jeepers-creepers-i.html

See the sections on Witchcraft here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzLwnl6qE_yeNXFGZDQwcWs2WVk/view

Fundamentalist Argument Clinic

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

The Heroic Holy Remnant

No kidding, I have seen fundamentalism that boarders on this kind of thing!

Having focused closely on Christian fundamentalism in its many, many forms since the late 1970s I find that at times it disproportionately fills my field of view and I can get a distorted sense of its importance. However, in a post dated 18th of August and entitled Partnering with a Creationist University one of my favourite fundies, Ken Ham, helps me get back a sense of proportion:  This is what he says (See underline):

One of the most-asked questions I receive at conferences and from visitors to the Creation Museum concerns whether I have a recommendation for a Bible college or university that has a strong creationist emphasis that their teenagers could attend.

Sadly, there are very few creationist universities (or Bible colleges or seminaries, for that matter) in the world—and only one we know of that has a creation-based geology degree program—Cedarville University in Ohio (only about 2 hours from the Creation Museum)

Yes, I've noted this kind of thing before (See also here) and so has somebody else, but this reminder is confirmation of the need for fundamentalists like Ken Ham to maintain the spiritual spin that supports the self-image of a heroic holy remnant battling against wide spread heresy and apostasy in the church - after all, they need a dignifying rationale to live for. However, academic Christianity is not entirely representative of rank-and-file Christianity where it is likely that there is greater prevalence of the fundamentalist cognitive complex.

And while I'm here take a look at this picture of Ken's Ark and compare it with my blog post on "Quantum Non-Linearity".  If the weather in Kentucky is anything less than mild then those thin wood walls are either unfinished or they are going to prove rather energy inefficient.

 From Quantum Non-Linearity 29/615: *quote* My guess is that the "hull" of AiG's Ark will be covered in a thin facade of planks and that's highly symbolic because in the final analysis that's what this "Ark"  project is all about: namely, a matchstick facade sufficient to give visitors the impression of being inside the Ark *unquote*

Submission, Obedience ....and Threat.

The picture above shows the Muslim family who recently left the UK for a holiday in Bangladesh and then routed their return journey so as to join the Islamic extremists in Syria and Iraq. News items about the family can be read here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33393628

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/british-family-reportedly-joins-syria-095036755.html#UwORS6E

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3149190/All-12-Islamic-State-Luton-family-release-statement-confirming-Syria.html

The statement released on the family's behalf by the Islamic extremists is given in the Daily Mail article as follows (My emphases):

We release this statement to confirm that, indeed we are in the Islamic State, a land that is free from the corruption and oppression of man made law and is governed by the shariah, the perfect and just laws of Allah subhanAllah wa Ta'la.

All 12 of us and why should this number be shocking, when there are thousands and thousands of Muslims from all corners of the world that are crossing over land and sea everyday to come to the Islamic State?

That are willingly leaving the so called freedom and democracy that was forced down our throat in the attempt to brainwash Muslims to forget about their powerful and glorious past and now present.

Or is it shocking that those attempts have clearly failed? That regardless of being born and bred in the west, the epitome of democracy, our Islam was not washed away? And despite the totalitarian rules that are in place, Muslims are still awaking to their obligations?

Don't be shocked when we say that none of us were forced against our will. In fact it is outrageous to think that an entire family could be kidnapped and made to migrate like this. It wasn't by the command of a single person in the family but by the command of the Khalifah of the Muslims who has called all Muslims, whether young or old, single or in families, to make hijrah to the state of Islam. A land that has established the Shariah, in which a Muslim doesn't feel oppression when practising their religion.

In which a parent doesn't feel the worry of losing their child to the immorality of society. In which the sick and elderly do not wait in agony, tolerating the partiality of race or social class.

Alhamdulillah for the establishment of the Khilafah.

We say to those that are concerned for our safety to put your hearts at rest for we feel safer than we have ever felt before.

We call all Muslims, to rush to the command of your khalif. Race to your state. Race to what will give you honour in this life and the hereafter. Hasten to the obedience of Allah.

Do not fear losing the life you built for yourselves by making hijrah but fear losing your Imaan and Islam whilst residing in darul kufr and not making hijrah.

We pray Allah saves from such a fate and guides us all to be obedient to His commands. Ameen.

The Mannan Family in the Islamic State

Seldom mentioned is the barbaric brutality and cruelty these people, if given a chance, are prepared to inflict on those who disagree with their religious views. They coolly justify this behavior as doing the will of the Almighty: "Almighty", in fact, sums up their conception of God. The sections I have emboldened above are notable......

We read above of a group of people who are thoroughly alienated from Western democracy, to the extent of despising it. Western democracies don't give authoritative guidance on the meaning of life and one's moral duties before God - that's for the individual to work out for himself. In a sense that is a strength of Western Civilization. But for some that's far too open ended and a more intimate authoritarian society requiring unconditional obedience and identification is the security they crave. The reference to the totalitarian rules of the West forced down their throat is, of course, the distorted thinking of  a pathologically disaffected mind.

The above statement gave me a chill of disquiet: The language and sentiment behind it is very similar to some of the things I've come across in Christian sectarian circles:  A yearning for a robust "theocracy" rather than a wishy-washy democracy leads Christian sectarians into authoritarian structures where decisions are made for them, and where light touch mainstream Christian communities are considered to be "man made systems of error".... and there I quote a Christian sectarian who I will in due course feature in my "Jeepers Creepers" series.  Of course, in practice the so called "theocracy" means unquestioning obedience to some flawed human figurehead or some very human government with whom there is no arguing and have set themselves up as God's mouth piece. Very grievous to these submission driven believers is the loss of children to the freedoms of Western choices. The nostalgia for past lost glories is also a common theme among sectarian restorationist Christians.

What these religionists who yearn for a perfect law to follow do not credit is that a relationship with God is not primarily through obedience but through repentance, forgiveness, renewal of the heart and ultimately the offered hand of friendship from God.

I don't see any easy answers to the above: Western societies must remain pluralist societies where the individual makes his choices before God....or without God if that is what (s)he believes. This unfortunately will not solve the crisis of identification that faces some members of our Western communities who crave authoritative and secure guidance as to life's meaning and life's exact shape; they inevitably put themselves on a collision course with democratic values.

Relevant link:

http://www.viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/power-heroic-purpose-and-community.html

Jeepers Creepers I

Previously unknown species of Christian cults/sects creep out from under every stone.

Did you know that there is a danger of you going to hell if you:

1. Call Jesus "Jesus".
2. Don't speak in tongues
3. Watch TV.

Well, that's according to a couple of  Christian cults/sects that have come to my notice of late. In both cases it looks as though a sect member has crept onto my church premises and deposited their tracts which I then find. Here's the first tract:

(Click to enlarge)

This one threatens hell and damnation if you don't have an accredited reception of the Holy Spirit, (as accredited by them of course!) - what they recognize as "speaking in tongues" is regarded as important evidence of this. They also threaten damnation for TV viewers. I have a hunch that the people who left this tract are the so-called "Potter's House", a sect who meet not far away from my church. According to their Wiki page "Potter's House" expect a true Christian believer to speak in tongues and they also have a dim view of TV viewing. However, that's just a guess.

Here's my second tract:

(Click to enlarge)

If you read this tract you will see that they talk in very stern and condemning tones about anyone who refers to Jesus as simply "Jesus" and/or regards him as a friend. Some spiritually conceited blockhead has written an incoherent footnote on this tract that tries to get around the passage in John  15:14-15 where Jesus refers to himself as a "friend"; this person simply cannot see that "friendship" is a mutual extrinsic property brought about by mutual relationship: Viz: If A is my friend then it follows that I'm a friend of A. I know very little about this second sect except that the tract gives an address in Germany.  I actually first came across this group when they put tracts on the cars in the car park at my church. See here:

http://norwichcentralbaptistchurch.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/yet-another-christian-sect-coming-out.html

When I find a tract from some hitherto unknown Christian group there is a simple rule of thumb I use to test the likelihood that the tract is from a strongly sectarian group: Look for passages in the tract that criticize other Christians as at best inferior and at worst hell-bound - when you see that you know they only accept themselves as authentically Christian.

This characteristic of condemning all people outside one's cloistered holy remnant as at best spiritually compromised and at worst satanically evil as an all too common and recognisable human trait. As we can see from the above, apparently quite innocuous behaviors (or absence of certain behaviors) are regarded by sectarians as enough evidence to consign people to eternal tortures and at the same time are considered clear cut signifiers separating out the sheep from goats. I've said the following before but it bears repeating: It is easy to imagine that the very human traits we see above could be exploited to promote acts of violence: Firstly, if these sectarian people have little problem in accepting innocuous behaviors as evidences of the presence of evil and therefore deserving eternal tortures in hell it would be no big deal for them to think that "goats" deserve physical death. Secondly, these sectarians have such a mechanical and literal way of interpreting the Bible that I shudder to think what might happen if the New Testament contained injunctions to kill apostates, heretics, blasphemers, and unbelievers. Fortunately for us in the West, the NT is very explicit about not spreading Christianity by the sword (.....but then come to think of it what about the "inquisition"?).  But there is more than one way to disseminate fear: heavy hints about the wrath of God and hell if one leaves a sect is another way of keeping people in line. The irony is that in theory Christianity  removes the fear of sin and death, and yet these cultists know how to reintroduce it!

It would be a nice idea to get together a sect/cult database that tabulates all the traits of the different cults. However, I've more pressing things to do! 

Why I’m not an Evangelical. Part 1: The Fundamentalist Epistemic

 Did he really say that?

The following letter appeared in the March/April edition of “IDEA”, the magazine of the Evangelical Alliance. The letter gives one of the reasons why I, as a Christian, struggle with evangelicalism; it tells us why evangelicalism so easily topples down into fundamentalist authoritarianism. It is a text book example of the epistemic error which is at the heart of fundamentalism:

Thanks for your timely investigations into evangelical identity in the Jan/Feb issue. Nowhere did that question come more sharply into focus than in Leader’s Questions (p32) on what the word ‘evangelical’ means.

Whilst Revd Rachel Marszalek reads scripture ‘through the lenses of reason, tradition and experience”, Dr Lucy Peppiatt perceives scripture as “the primary authoritative lens through which and against which all other texts, ideas, cultures etc. are interpreted and measured”

So which lens are we to use! Is scripture to be viewed through the filter of our world or our world to be viewed through scripture? Is the word of God to be subject to the changing culture of the world or the world subject to the enduring word of God?

Our evangelical forbears allowed the word of God to reign supreme in their lives, even when it cost them dear. May God enable us, together, to do the same.

Yours sincerely

Michael Thornton.

Michael Thornton appears to have no inkling how language actually works: The interpretation of text is always dependent on cultural and cognitive complexes, complexes which effectively process textual tokens. These tokens don’t contain meanings; rather they generate meaning given the interpretative resources of the cultural and cognitive substrate they impact. This is a general truism which applies to all forms of language because this is what language is by definition: that is, signals which act as meaning stimuli as they impinge upon cultural and cognitive contexts. The Bible, as a sequence of textual tokens, also follows these principles; if it didn’t it wouldn’t be language.

So, strictly speaking the starting point isn’t scripture in-and-of-itself but the combination of scripture and the substrate on which scripture works its purposes. Thornton appears to be under the mistaken impression that it’s a choice between scripture and substrate; he is so confounded by this false dichotomy that he is unable to see that the two must work together to generate meaning, a meaning that flows out of their interaction. In fact given this truism there is a case for claiming that effective scripture isn’t in fact the printed word, but the meanings those words evoke given the right substrate. Thornton’s dichotomy  may have been encouraged by a misapplication of the “sola scriptura” concept, a slogan coined during the reformation as a way of prizing apart scripture from the authoritarian grip of Roman Catholic fundamentalism; sola scriptura could never mean scripture alone in an absolute sense, but only in a relative sense.

The type of view expressed by Thornton is one I frequently encounter amongst fundamentalists and even moderate evangelicals like those represented by IDEA: I’ve long suspected that part of the psychological complex which favors such a view is an epistemic insecurity which prompts fundamentalist minded Christians to seek absolute jot and tittle certainty in their faith. This temptation towards inquisitional certainty subsequently provides a basis for the heretic purging of those Christians who disagree with the inquisitors.

The epistemic insecurities which fuel fundamentalist jot and tittle certainties might be assuaged somewhat if there was a clearer apprehension that God is sovereign over the whole package of contextual substrate and impacting word. The Divine choreographer is no doubt more than capable of arranging things so that the interaction between symbol and context generate potentially edifying meaning in the life of the believer.  It is unfortunate that the statement by evangelical Lucy Peppiatt has had the effect of conniving with Michael Thornton’s fundamentalist mentality.

However, let’s have a look at what Jason Lisle has to say on this subject. The following quote is taken from a comment on one of his blog posts. Here Lisle was responding to the question of a fellow fundamentalist:

Dr. Lisle says:

October 14, 2014 at 11:54 am

Zach, the answers to your questions involve the concept of the “hermeneutical circle” or “hermeneutical spiral.” I have a book coming out in the summer that addresses these issues in rich detail (in chapter 9). For now, I’ll have to give a shorter answer. God’s Word would have to be true because of the nature of God; He is truth. God has “hardwired” us to know that He exists, and to recognize His Word when we hear it or read it (John 10:27). How we respond to God’s Word will determine what happens next. If we receive His Word with humility then we participate in the hermeneutical circle. Basically, this means that God’s Word is sufficiently clear that we can understand and correctly interpret much of it upon reading it. After all, God designed our minds and knows how to write a book such that our minds can understand it. Because of sin, we don’t instantly correctly interpret all of God’s Word on the first reading. But the portions we do understand rightly will help us to understand the more difficult portions. In the process of time, our understanding improves as the Scriptures systematically sanctify our thinking. The Bible is therefore self-interpreting. It teaches us how to interpret it.

The general drift of this piece by Lisle is, I believe, correct, although he has expressed it in such a way as to as to neutralize its important lessons and even encourage the black vs white/baddies vs goodies categories preferred by the right-wing Fundamentalist mind. However, Lisle has at least become aware of the textual boot strap problem: i.e. one can’t assign meaning to scripture in a cognitive and cultural vacuum; that meaning can only bootstrap from an a priori cognitive and cultural substrate on which the text of scripture impacts. Thus the mind, in part equipped by its context, must be correctly primed in order that it be correctly informed by the textual input from the Bible. Moreover, as Lisle suggests, the reading of scripture effectively feeds back into one’s priming and therefore scripture influences the understanding of scripture; in fact Scripture becomes part of the substrate culture on which scripture itself works.  See here where I made this important point.

But fundamentalists are not known for nuancing or epistemic humility, and so Lisle uses some phrases that cancel all his good work by encouraging epistemic arrogance. These phrases are stock in trade for the fundamentalist and have the effect of signaling the old certainties about the divine authority of fundamentalist opinion.

Lisle: God’s Word would have to be true because of the nature of God

My Comment: There is a difference between natural language and the propositional notational language of mathematics and physics whose “truth” is intended to be independent of any one human being and is found in consistent and correct symbolic operations. In contrast natural language is highly connotational in nature and as such truth (or falsehood) is found in what it generates in the cognition it impacts.  Take for example the parables of Jesus: in what sense are these “true”? Are they to be regarded as true literal histories? If they don’t refer to literal histories does that make them false? Or should they be regarded as edifying archetypical vignettes whose truth emerges when they generate meaning on the appropriate human substrate?  Where is God’s truth in this case? It can’t be in the text because without interaction with a substrate it generates nothing and means nothing.  In much of natural language truth or falsehood is an effect rather than being resident in the text itself. The criticism often made of fundamentalism, and there are hints of it in the way Lisle expresses himself, is that in its very literal approach to scripture it treats the Bible like a scientific textbook. Parables are far from scientific statements: they are signals to the reader to be appropriately and rightly creative in their interpretation.

Lisle God has “hardwired” us to know…

It may well be (in fact I think it is likely) we have some kind of “God instinct”, but we must set that against the possibly that the intensity of this instinct may vary from person to person. Moreover, this instinct may be obscured and/or weakened, perhaps even eclipsed, by environmental influences of all sorts. So called hard wiring may actually only set up a propensity that in itself is not determinative. In using the term hard wiring Lisle has expressed the “God instinct” in typically black and white terms, terms that are likely to appeal to the fundamentalist sense of epistemic certainty: As the fundamentalist reads his Bible with Lisle reference to “hard wiring” in mind he will likely be encouraged to believe he has been “hard wired” to correctly interpret the text thus helping to neutralize any doubts, ambiguities or epistemic humility about what he draws from the text.

Lisle: God’s Word is sufficiently clear that we can understand and correctly interpret much of it upon reading it. After all, God designed our minds and knows how to write a book such that our minds can understand it. Because of sin, we don’t instantly correctly interpret all of God’s Word on the first reading

My Comment: It’s probably a safe bet to infer that to Lisle and his fellow fundamentalists those sufficiently clear meanings are their own! It’s what some fundamentalists refer to as the “plain meaning” of scripture; any other meanings must, according to Lisle, be a product of sinful and willful misinterpretation – notice that Lisle gives no space to plain ordinary genuine  interpretation errors when reading the Bible! In the fundamentalist universe sinful motives stalk the world and beyond their strict and particular fundamentalist communities those malign motives are found around every corner – this is why fundamentalists have a weakness for conspiracy theory.

Lisle: The Bible is therefore self-interpreting. It teaches us how to interpret it

My Comment: Although I agree with what Lisle has written immediately before this sentence, he has gone too far here: Scripture is never absolutely self-interpreting; its meaning has to be bootstrapped from somewhere as Lisle himself has admitted with his reference to “hardwiring”.  Once again we find Lisle serving up what his strict fundamentalist audience want to hear: Namely, that the Bible is a small, secure, self-interpreting universe. This encourages the fundamentalist to drop outside influences in favor of the proprietary readings favoured by his particular fundamentalist community; this is the sense in which they implicitly understand the term “sola scriptura”. The latter phrase was coined in a time when Catholic fundamentalism insisted on the divine authority of its reading of scripture. Ironically Lisle and his fellow fundamentalists have a similar opinion of their own views!

All in all Lisle has expressed himself in such a way as to mask the important questions surrounding the bootstrapping of Biblical meaning: The tenor of what he says would be unlikely to budge Michael Thornton  and Lucy Peppiatt from their misleading opinions which wrongly give the impression that scripture is a self-contained island of meaning, an independent “lens” which has no need to call on cultural and cognitive resources in order to generate meaning.

...to be continued

Did he really say that? As we shall see, the fundamentalist epistemic is likely motivated by fear and insecurity.


Postscript 30/6/15. A case study in fundamentalist epistemic arrogance

Who else?

In a blog post entitled 28 June 2015 fundamentalist Ken Ham writes (my emphases):

....we have an absolute authority by which all our actions must be judged—the authority of the Word of God. God obviously is the ultimate Judge, and He has given us His Word with which to judge actions.

....before we make a judgment, we must make sure we are judging righteously from God’s Word and not relying on our own opinion.

Ken's post is about the validity of judging others - I wouldn't quibble with that as we all, necessarily in fact, make valued judgments on people's behavior.  What interests me here is the way Ken justifies his judgments. As we know Ken Ham is a very judgmental person, constantly pronouncing God's censor on atheists and Christians alike; even that I wouldn't class as an activity wrong in-and-of-itself. Where Ken goes wrong is that he passes the buck on his epistemic responsibility in arriving at the ontological basis from whence he makes his judgments: For, as we can see from the above, in Ken's eyes he is not pronouncing his opinions, but God's opinions. He sees little epistemic responsibility in getting his interpretation of the Bible right, and gives no indication that when he "judges righteously from God's Word" it still remains his opinion of God's Word: Instead Ken is quite certain that his opinions are God's opinions. It is that unquestioning confidence that to his mind sanctions his prolific output of condemnation on others, and it is that which qualifies him as a fundamentalist.    (See here http://www.viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/hell-and-hamnation-ii.html). As I heard someone say: "An evangelical is nice fundamentalist". It follows then that a fundamentalist is a nasty evangelical!

The Nasty Party Speaks

Fearful certainly, but Meek? I don't think so!

In a blog post dated 15th April and ironically entitled "In Meekness and Fear" Ken Ham, Answers in Genesis Theme Park manager, remarks on a transcript of a conversation between "Old Earth" Astronomer Hugh Ross and the president of Biologos, Deborah Haarsma. Ham informs us that during  this conversation Hugh Ross....

"....implied that in contrast to us at Answers in Genesis, Reasons to Believe and BioLogos try to avoid “vindictive language” and “ad hominems” in their conversations on origins"

This is true! But Ham, needless to say, denies it and instead rationalizes his particularly abrasive personality as follows:

"We can (and should) speak authoritatively.....standing on the authority of God’s Word and not compromising with man’s ideas about origins."

...implying of course that Hugh Ross and other Christian scientists like Deborah Haarsma are compromising. If such moral slurs aren't ad hominems, then I don't know what is! In fact the moral slurs and ad hominems are so natural to Ham's confident self-believing way of thinking that he is quite unaware of the effect of what he is saying.  As a rule fundamentalists like Ham see sinful malign motives round every corner (See epilogue) and have no compulsion in accusing detractors of the heinousness of their position. In his post the slurs and slander come in thick and fast:

"....interpret the Bible however they want."

"We should not impose our ideas on God’s Word (as Hugh Ross and BioLogos continually do)"

We shouldn't let the fallible, sinful world dictate what we believe about the past any more than we should let the sinful ways of the world dictate our attitudes!"

"Pray that they [Ross and Haarsma] will repent and return to the authority of God’s Word as the foundation for their thinking in every area! "

 Ham's vindictive fulminations are no stranger to this blog. See here for other examples:

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/the-escape-to-arcadia.html

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/hell-and-hamnation-at-work.html 

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/hell-and-hamnation-ii.html

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/the-paranoiac-mind-of.html

As usual Ham's attacks find their rationale in his intellectual short comings and misunderstandings about the nature of science: See here for example:*

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/mangling-science-part-5-two-kinds-of.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/beyond-our-ken-on-mature-creation.html

(See also: http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/intellectual-depravity.html)

It seems that fundamentalist cultures attract personalities like Ken Ham and this is not necessarily to do with espousing Young Earth Creationism either. Young Earthists such as Paul Nelson and those on the web site "Uncommon Descent" seem to manage to put their case forward without using the "nuclear options" of charges of compromise, heresy and blasphemy. Embattled fundamentalist communities such as "Answers in Genesis" appear to attract and select for obdurate personalities who are looking for the security of epistemic certainties and a supporting sectarian community from which they can condemn a world that has alienated them.  The associated self-belief and self-deceit which supports the holy remnant conceit of these quasi-cults leaves only one logical conclusion open to these fundamentalists; namely, that all those who disagree with them are bad conscience heretics and this belief in turn provides divine sanction for the condemnation of "heretics" in the strongest (and nastiest) religious language.

As Sir Kenneth Clarke once said:

....to try and suppress opinions one doesn't share is much less profitable than to tolerate them. This conclusion should have been reached during the reformation, it permeated the writings of Erasmus,…alas a belief in the divine authority of our own opinions afflicted the protestants just as much as the Catholics……

I have heard it said that "an evangelical is a nice fundamentalist". Perhaps we could be more explicit and say a fundamentalist is a nasty evangelical!

Epilogue: Witchcraft and Conspiracy Theorism (20/04/15) 
 A very religious fundamentalist like Ham sees disagreement with himself as sure sign of sinful motives, bad conscience and guilt. He cannot accept that ontological complexity and epistemic intractability very easily results in differing opinions for quite genuine reasons, reasons absent of malign motives. Instead he believes that those who disagree with him are willfully disobeying the obvious meaning of holy writ. In effect Ham believes he has secure knowledge of the private consciences of Christians like Hugh Ross and Deborah Haarsma. To him Ross and Haarsma have broken a religious taboo and have become ritually unclean and nothing they say can dissuade him of their good consciences; hence his call for them to repent. Ham's recriminations have parallels with the accusations of witchcraft one sees in rural Africa. Victims of such accusations can say nothing to clear themselves in the face of accusers who believe they have a secure knowledge of the truth, knowledge that is in fact a fiction from the imagination (perhaps even a monster from the id!).  As I have remarked many times in my blogs, the suspicious fundamentalist mentality which sees the world as the domain of broken taboos, ritual uncleanness, hatred, persecutions, flawed consciences and evil genius provides fertile ground for the paranoiac and fictitious constructions of conspiracy theorism.


Footnote: 
* 29/04/15 On Ham's Scientific ineptitude: Words, and that includes the words of the Bible, don't contain meaning; rather they trigger meaning as they impact upon a substrate of cognitive resources strongly influenced by culture and knowledge of historical context.  We therefore cannot escape from an assumed knowledge of the past when we interpret the Bible. But knowledge of the past is the very thing that Ham attempts to downgrade with his repeatedly used false dichotomy between historical and observational science, thus undermining his own claimed grasp of Biblical truth. And of course he is naive enough to repeatedly use the anthropomorphism that God is an "eyewitness" of the Genesis creation.

Jeff Lucas

Lucas: against holy affectations and spiritual pretentiousness

At a recent Church at Home Weekend  I attended Jeff Lucas was the speaker. Jeff is a well-known figure in evangelical Christian circles and I have mentioned him approvingly in this blog on more than one occasion. (See here). If my memory serves me well then I believe Jeff started out as leader with the restorationist house group movement along with other leaders such as Terry Virgo and David Tomlinson. This movement peaked in the UK at the end of the 1970s and beginning of the 1980s. But a lot has happened since then and these three leaders now find themselves in very different positions, or at least two of them do.

It is probably true say that whilst Virgo has more or less stayed in the same place all these years Lucas and Tomlinson have moved on. In fact in Tomlinson’s case the move has been considerable. Virgo probably classified (and probably still does) as a fundamentalist patriarch whereas Tomlinson is now a fairly left wing Christian Liberal and ordained Church of England minister. Both Virgo and Tomlinson have received mention in this blog before (See here and here).  In terms of his culture and attitude I would place Jeff Lucas somewhere between the two, and like Tomlinson I suspect that Lucas has gone through a period of soul searching and transition. This transition has lead him away from a self-assured fundamentalist faith, the sort of faith that believes more in its own spirituality than it does in God himself. Although it’s probably true to say that I’m nearer Tomlinson than I am Lucas, I have great regard for Lucas and I am very glad that someone of his caliber is where is, strategically well placed to bring sanity and self–awareness to an evangelical Christian culture that in some places seems to teeter on the edge of an anasognosic crackpot spiritual dementia.  In contrast Tomlinson has moved too far to be so strategically placed. It may be true to say that Lucas and Tomlinson are part of a church malaise that produced the so-called emerging church along with other Christian leaders like Rob Bell and Brian Mclaren; but somehow Lucas has managed to stay true to a charismatic evangelical tradition.

Like Tomlinson, Lucas has no doubt experienced times of disillusionment with Christian evangelicalism and may have had the maturing experience of thinking things through in the empty dungeons of doubting castle. But Lucas has reacted very differently to Tomlinson. He copes with the hackneyed spiritual clichés and plastic inauthenticity so often found in charismatic fundagelicalism with satire and humour. I think I recognize that reaction because I’ve gone that way myself: The only worthy response to the kind of serious minded fundagelicalism which is so consumed with its own self-belief is to satirize it and laugh at it; for its conceited self-assurance makes it well beyond the voice of reason (For examples of my own satire see some of the early posts on this blog that reproduced some of the articles from the hard copy version of VNP; in fact the hard copy version of VNP was  almost entirely satirical, a kind  of “Wipers Times”, a way of coping with what for me was a situation difficult to come to terms with).

Lucas is a leader who, I guess, has seen more than his fill of cliché welding over confident holy rollers and this comes out in his talks; although I call them “talks” he has all the cutting edge talent of a standup comic and he uses this talent in a routine that is subliminally if not overtly subversive of kitschy versions of Christian community: Take one example: He said that sometimes long band driven worship sessions can drag rather and yet during these marathon sessions a worship leader may interject with camp affectation ”Heaven is just like this, only its forever!”.  Well, I’m afraid I can’t tell them like Lucas does, but I hope the drift is clear; Lucas is constantly and hilariously sending up the all too human foibles of charismatic and evangelical Christianity. In response all I can say is “Good on yer Jeff!”. Lucas confessed that he himself was once inclined to crass in-your-face-evangelism; that is, the sort of evangelism that can take an otherwise prosaic conversation, turn it on a sixpence via some corny tenuous allusion and start talking about grave spiritual matters; cue funny anecdotes from Lucas! He also referred to a phenomenon I have frequently seen myself; that is, of the unchurched being dehumanized as pew fodder for some evangelistic message. He also took a swipe at the heavy healers who attempt to explain failed miraculous healings in terms of disbelief and disobedience. By way of summary Lucas said he really wished that many Christians could “lighten up and chill out.” My reply? No chance! Tacky spiritual posturing is here to stay, but look on the bright side; at least it gives us something to laugh about!

Lucas’ unrelenting subliminal attack on Christian inauthenticiy had a purpose. Lucas wanted to make the point that we as Christians have reacted against twee spiritual ostentation and consequently lost our voice; instead we need to regain our voice and consolidate our fellowship and community.  But Lucas warned against going so far as to turn church into a meeting down at the pub – was that an oblique reference to David Tomlinson?

Jeff Lucas admitted himself to having suffered disappointments and burn out. He consequently recommended his book "Faith in the Fog" which addresses this subject. In Lucas’ case he resolves the problems in favour of a generous form of evangelicalism, one that embraces self-doubt and humour and prunes away the hollow hypocrisy. His aim is for a truly serious version of Christianity that doesn’t find a need to major in spiritual gimcrack. Jeff Lucas, I’m glad to say, has his eyes wide open and well knows just how cheap and clinquant Christian spiritual ostentation can become,. This ostentation, in the final analysis, amounts to a display of very human self-believing conceits and self-deceits, a sham holiness. My overall verdict of Jeff Lucas is that whilst I’m probably a bit closer to Tomlinson than Lucas, without doubt the church is in very good hands with someone like Lucas and it will not want for critical self-examination and be less inclined to take its own inevitably flawed spiritually (See Romans 7) too seriously.

Postscript

One Sunday service at the begging of September 2002 I found a printed piece of writing folded into my church notices; it was a piece abstracted from “Lucas on Life” by some unknown church member. At that time I hadn't heard much about Lucas accept that from somewhere I had gained the impression  he was once connected with restorationist Terry Virgo and New Frontiers. The piece he had written was a funny story about a minister who took the bull by the horns and made small changes to the morning service such as moving the pews around a bit and then after the service serving Jaffa cakes with the tea and coffee instead of Rich Tea biscuits.  At that stage I had had a belly full of talk about change because the word “change” was often a code word for “We need a holy spirit revival”. Such aspirations were usually expressed by those who completely undervalued and/or ignored the anointed ministries that were already were active in the church. So, I naturally assumed that Lucas was yet another aficionado of those “holy spirit” churches that are constantly on the lookout for tawdry and tinselly blessings. By 2002 I had already written a satirical piece called “Killing Pews” [1995] about “holy spirit” revivalism, and so having been subject to this unsolicited spam in the notices the following Sunday I distributed a piece of counter spam (see below):  I had no idea at the time that Lucas was actually on a similar escape  trajectory to myself. The character “John Bilgewater” mentioned below had appeared in an early hard copy versions of VNP. (See here for more about Bilgewater)

Dereham Road Baptist Church

Norwich

7 Sept 2002

Hi folks,

Re: DRBC's Spamming wars

               I was absolutely fascinated by the piece of spam I found in my notices last week. Taken from "Lucas on Life" it portrayed a minister making modest changes to his services/pew arrangements. This timid tinkering with service arrangements, however, just isn't radical enough. Jeff Lucas, and his readers, are clearly well behind the times or, more likely, on a different planet and know nothing about the following which goes back to  1995, more than 7 light years away (The following is a quote from “Killer Pews”):

               Another shock is that in this environment of light movable seats it is very difficult to adopt a cosy out of the way pew of your own. In fact I am waiting for the day when we arrive for the service downstairs to find that someone has removed the seats completely,  no doubt intended to convey to us, as we stand shiftily wondering what to do with our arms and legs, that if we are not going to "move on with the Lord" the seats will.. ... The design and mobility of the pews down here remind their congregations that God demands change whether they like it or not. ("Killer Pews", TVR January 95)

               But if you want to get really radical the man to see is the Rev J. Bilgewater whose activities you can read about in DRBC's spammed church magazine "Views, News, and Pews". Needless to say he has solved this pew problem in his own inimitable style. He sent all his pews to the dump long ago and replaced them with pogo sticks to ensure his congregation keeps mingling. After a trial run of this new scheme Rev. Bilgewater realised that the tea had to be served in "roller coaster" proof spout mugs.

              Now, who is going to have the courage to admit to having handed out this spiritual cliche? Come off it, we can't work in a cultural vacuum and there always has to be some kind of arbitrary framework needed to give shape to our activities, so why constantly be soul searching about it? True, we mustn't be inflexible, but haven't we heard this message about how terribly spiritual it is to accept change just about 15 billion times too often? Can't we have a change and not hear about change for a change?

 Tim "you've been spammed" Reeves.

PS Can Jeff Lucas tell us how to dunk jafa cakes into tea and get a useful result?

Vengeance Fundamentalism: Turn or Burn

The group above has been featured before on this blog; they are Islamic State jihadists who hail from the UK. Given the legacy of news reports and imagery IS have thrust upon the world, I find it difficult to look at these jihadist gentlemen without shuddering; they have joined one of the nastiest religious groups the world has seen. But the shock horror that Islamic State specializes in may in part be down to a compensation for the relative weakness of IS in terms of conventional arms; in comparison the allied forces ranged against them have the technology to precision bomb them with virtual impunity and Islamic State has little hope of fighting back on equal terms. This probably means that their most powerful and perhaps their only really effective weapon is fear itself, a fear they stoke up with the horrific atrocities which they publish with pride. And of course one mustn't underestimate the role that vengeance plays in these acts of barbarity.

Somehow the IS fundamentalists appear to have lost all humanity and become heartless automata prepared to do anything to fulfill the letter of their religious law without hint of compassion. The chances of high flying aircraft coming to grief over their domain is very small indeed and yet I’m sure allied military pilots quake just a little at the thought of what might happen if they have to bail out. It makes me quake just thinking about it even though I’m thousands of miles away in the refuge of a comfortable safe and rich country, a country armed to the hilt with the most advanced weaponry the world has seen. But this weaponry is unable to defend against the invasion of the irrational fear and horror that the jihadists have unleashed; some of the imagery I've seen of their violent work I will take to the grave.

Fear used as weapon has a long case history;

• Some fiction writers undoubtedly understand the effect of fear as a weapon: In the film Aliens II the troops sent in to deal with the alien threat utterly outclassed these aliens in terms of firepower and killing ratio. But in spite of that the alien’s suicidal strategies against superior arms along with the fear and revulsion they engendered nearly won the battle for them. In Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings the chief weapon of the Nazgul was a disabling and choking cloud of fear and rumour .Other than that they didn’t have any really effective weapons; their leader was killed by a hobbit and a young fearless female warrior.

• In the natural world warning displays that actually don’t signify a real threat but are copies from animals with real offensive means are sufficient to keep foes at bay as a result of the fear and repugnance these displays invoke.

• During the Roman invasion of Anglesey Druid priests called down terrible curses on the Roman army; but apart from the fear value of these curses they were ultimately ineffective. As Tactitus wrote:

• On the shore stood the opposing army with its dense array of armed warriors, while between the ranks dashed women, in black attire like the Furies, with hair dishevelled, waving brands. All around, the Druids, lifting up their hands to heaven, and pouring forth dreadful imprecations, scared our soldiers by the unfamiliar sight, so that, as if their limbs were paralysed, they stood motionless, and exposed to wounds. Then urged by their general's appeals and mutual encouragements not to quail before a troop of frenzied women, they bore the standards onwards, smote down all resistance, and wrapped the foe in the flames of his own brands. A force was next set over the conquered, and their groves, devoted to inhuman superstitions, were destroyed. They deemed it indeed a duty to cover their altars with the blood of captives and to consult their deities through human entrails."

• In the Middle Ages when government ruled less by consent than by force miscreants were publically put to death in horrifying ways that must have acted as a form of aversion therapy for those who might contemplate challenging the powers that be. Moreover, the religion of the day traded on threats of judgment and eternal torture and this must have helped scare a believing public into keeping on the straight and narrow.

When your only weapon is fear.

Modern religious fundamentalists often have few material bargaining chips, but as of old they have become skilled in wielding the weapon of fear. They speak in strong censorious tones to those who challenge their opinions and practices, threatening God’s displeasure and judgment on those they accuse of heresy, apostasy and disbelief.  (See for Example Ken Ham’s words here and here and Michael Voris' words here) . Of novel interest, however, is the strange case of well and truly cornered Christian fundamentalist Kent Hovind, a man in jail for tax fraud. Perhaps as a way of consoling his damaged ego he appears to have adopted the sovereign citizen movement and consequently he has made a set of legal pronouncements as if he was an official judge dispensing justice upon what he considers to be an outlaw US state . In fact according to wiki he has claimed that Democracy is evil and contrary to God's law  a claim which has a very Islamic jihadist flavor about it. This could be interpreted as just emotive gesturing, but:

A 2014 report by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism stated that a survey of law-enforcement officials and agencies across the United States concluded that the [Sovereign Citizen] movement was the single greatest threat to their communities, ranking above Islamic terrorists and jihadists.

…..and such a movement is likely to resort to fear tactics, by definition.

Fundamentalists of all brands use the weapon of fear and their expertise in wielding this weapon may result of their first person knowledge of fear; they are themselves beset by fears because from their perspective the world is a very scary and evil place full of conspiracies against them. They are therefore all too ready to read into the quite innocuous behaviors of disbelievers motivations driven by the heinous sins of heretics, apostates and evil doers who need the fear of God put into them. In the absence of any real power fear is the main means of effect for the fundamentalist, a tool one doesn't have to be particularly powerful to use, because fear, if done well, can be administered with the right kind of threat. For example, towards the end of this post on his blog PZ Myers quotes Kent Hovind telling Myers to “Turn or Burn”. Although I don’t suppose that’ll frighten PZ Myers any more than it does me, some people are intimidated by that sort of talk. But when one calls the bluff of these “Turn or Burn” fundamentalists one finds that the fear they secrete evaporates like a black mist in the Sun.

Islam needs to reform itself by de-literalizing many of its vengeance based practices and bellicose chauvinistic beliefs, beliefs originating from violent lawless contexts. Above all it needs to give up the kind of Islam that only regards itself as properly expressed until it has taken over the state and installed Sharia law. Unlike Christianity which has a tradition of victorious dignified living even when its communities are small, powerless and persecuted, Islam has a tendency to only see dignity in civic power and control. It’s not as if Christianity can claim to be perfect; far from it: Christianity also needs to reform with the times; in fact it started to reform* 200 years ago following the enlightenment, although there have been reactionary influences particularly during the 1960s that have tried to take it back to the past. 

There is, however, an ironic link between Islam and Christianity. As we have seen in recent days Islam, (or at least some sections of Islam) has a very strong vengeance streak: Innocent IS hostages have been put to death in very cruel ways. These executions appear to have little tactical value apart from breeding fear and horror among IS enemies. But these executions may also serve as a way of satiating the IS appetite for vengeance and assuage their fiery wrath built up over many months of being targeted with guided missiles about which they can do absolutely nothing apart from hide. The immolation of innocents in order to dampen the fires of wrath is, of course, the very literal theological construction that some fundamentalist Christians put on the meaning of The Cross of Christ; they believe that in a very literal sense God’s infinite anger against humanity was assuaged by the infinite torture of his “Son”, just as burning innocent victims alive might satiate IS wrath. Taken literally this view doesn't work on several counts, not least because it is clear that smoldering human anger which satisfies itself in acts of judicial vengeance has its root and rationale in the socio-biological contexts of human communal living and this is not likely to be part of the Divine condition. I don’t believe the Christian fundamentalist soteriology of torture to be literal; for me The Cross manifests the divine motivation to bring about reconciliation, identification and the concomitant emotional cost such reconciliation entails in dealing with the schismogenic nature of sin. A vengeance-cum-torture theological model may be apposite to the true cost of restorative justice but only as a metaphor. Life enhancing productive anger doesn't merely placate itself with cathartic acts of cruelty or self-harming but constitutes the motive needed to get on and do something constructive about the situation even at high emotional cost.

As I've pondered the cruel acts of Islamic State I've come to the conclusion that these acts make very little tactical or strategic sense and it is only in the context of the Abrahamic perspective of propitiatory vengeance and immolation can I make any sense of them.  Christianity and Islam are linked through the theme of vengeance except for one big difference; through Christ vengeance (whether understood literally or metaphorically) has had its day. Islam (and some versions of Christian fundamentalism), we hope and pray, will one day end its attraction to power and vengeance.

***

By the way if you happen to see any of the jihadist gentlemen pictured above make sure you call the police quickly. Also call the police if you spot Christian fundamentalist Kent Hovind because it may be he has been sprung out of jail by fellow Sovereign Citizens.

Hovind: At war with the "pagan" world.

Footnote: * As Lord Kenneth Clark once put it; the reformers of the 16^th century were in some ways simply swapping Papal and Catholic authority for the divine authority of their opinions. Appeal to the Bible was seldom moderated with epistemic humility; yes, the Bible is Revelation but its revelation is often mediated through a very human, sometimes flawed, channel. And yet the sola scriptura principle, in as much as it individualized the faith, may well have been a necessary precursor of the enlightenment and science; it set up the idea that theories, claims and propositions etc, must find authentication in the "textual" experience of the individual. (Where I use "textual" in the post modern sense)