Sheep and Goats

Category: Uncategorized

  • How’s it Going with “the Wicked” These Days?

    How’s it Going with “the Wicked” these days?

    There are plenty of passages to show that ‘the wicked’ (the Bible’s terminology, not mine) do just fine these days, so that one must serve God through love for his ways, not through thinking it will set one up pretty in the short term. For example, Job’s complaint:

    Why do the wicked live on, Grow old, and become wealthy? Their children are always in their presence, And they get to see their descendants. Their houses are secure, they are free from fear, And God does not punish them with his rod. Their bulls breed without failure; Their cows give birth and do not miscarry. Their boys run outside just like a flock, And their children skip about.  They sing accompanied by tambourine and harp And rejoice at the sound of the flute. They spend their days in contentment And go down peacefully to the Grave [at least they do not escape THAT bit of inconvenience\].  But they say to the true God, ‘Leave us alone! We have no desire to know your ways. Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What would we gain by being acquainted with him? (21:7-15)

    Or Psalm 73, where the carefree ways of those ignoring God almost made the writer stumble:

    As for me, my feet had almost strayed; My steps had nearly slipped. For I became envious of the arrogant When I would see the peace of the wicked. For they have no pain in their death; Their bodies are healthy. They are not troubled like other humans, Nor do they suffer like other men.  Therefore, haughtiness is their necklace; Violence clothes them as a garment. Their prosperity makes their eyes bulge; They have exceeded the imaginations of the heart. They scoff and say evil things. They arrogantly threaten oppression. They speak as if they were as high as heaven, And their tongues swagger about in the earth. So his people turn aside to them, And they drink from their abundant water. They say: “How does God know? Does the Most High really have knowledge?” Yes, these are the wicked, who always have it easy. They keep increasing their wealth.  Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure And washed my hands in innocence.  And I was troubled all day long;   (73:2-14)

    Sharing in the ministry helps, I think, for that is where you can showcase what you have to offer. It builds your own faith as you see how people respond. Here in the Bible are answers to the deep questions of life. Some thirst for such answers. Others do not. A statement in the 1968 book ‘The Truth that Leads to Eternal Life’ reads just as true to today as it did then: True, there has been progress in a materialistic way. But is it really progress when men send rockets to the moon, and yet cannot live together in peace on earth?” Some people think it is. Witnesses look for people who don’t. There is even a difference between those who “sigh and groan” over all the “detestable things” and those who bitch and complain because the politicians they don’t like presently have the upper hand. 

    I highly recommend an offer to read a scripture and see if the person has any interest in discussing it. Some will. Often, I start out with an observation that ‘the world is crazy [which nobody disputes in my part of it] and we are people who think the Bible helps: why is it crazy, what hope for the future, how to live in the meantime. I want to read you a scripture, you tell me what you think, and I am gone.’ This way they know immediately the two things Westerners must know: What does this visitor want? and How long will this take?

    Many years ago my wife and I, for our anniversary, attended a high-class cultural function in which everyone was dressed to the nines—impeccably. During intermission, as they were all sipping wine and mixed drinks, I said to her: “Here’s people we don’t hang out with too often: the wicked!” drawing on the phraseology of Psalm 73. I know, I know, completely unfair. No doubt most of them were nice. My wife, who did not yet savor all my sense of humor, looked at me oddly.

    ******  The bookstore

  • GB Update: Use of One’s Own Blood (under construction)

    who is accountable for the lives lost under the blood doctrine?

    Who is accountable when a Christian gets killed in war? Who is accountable when a missionary is kidnapped or killed? Who talked them into so putting their lives at risk?

    I am surprised that this atheist argument—which holds that loss of life is permanent and irreversible calamity—is picked up on a Christian forum.

    I think it’s called “living in the world.” Things change. Time and changing settings make you look at things anew.

    The Acts 15:29 principle about “abstain from blood” remains intact. What was said in the update was just an extension of something said 20 years ago: “A Christian must decide for himself how his own blood will be handled in the course of a surgical procedure, medical test, or current therapy.”

    People work with the understanding they have at present, not the one they will have in the future. Ask the relatives of anyone who suffered harm, even loss of life, in some war that was all the rage at the time but was later seen as wrong-headed. Or due to some scientific decree what was seen to be cutting edge at the time but is now seen as deluded. Such things happen. Some adjust and some don’t.

    “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated,” said Mark Twain.

    Moreover, I’m not sure how many lives were lost previously. It will be like Covid-19, when, in order in inflate the numbers, if you died for any reason while having Covid-19, it was recorded that you died OF Covid-19

    …I think it’s called “living in the world.” Things change. Time and changing settings make you look at things anew.

    The Acts 15:29 principle about “abstain from blood” remains intact. What was said in the update was just an extension of something said 20 years ago: “A Christian must decide for himself how his own blood will be handled in the course of a surgical procedure, medical test, or current therapy.”

    People work with the understanding they have at present, not the one they will have in the future. Ask the relatives of anyone who suffered harm, even loss of life, in some war that was all the rage at the time but was later seen as wrong-headed. Or due to some scientific decree what was seen to be cutting edge at the time but is now seen as deluded. Such things happen. Some adjust and some don’t. “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated,” Mark Twain said. 

    The point is that we put up with it in any other venue, be it nations, be it science. Time passes by and we look at many things anew. It is only in a disliked venue that people will not put up with it. 

    JWs people lost their lives because they refused blood transfusions because of the WTJWorg ban. GB are blood guilty, for sure.

    To the extent they are, so is any leader of any sort presiding over policies in which anyone suffered harm (and you, if you had any role in putting them there). They “knew or should have known” is how the lawyers put it. Whether it be changes in politics, statecraft, science, economics, medicine, manufacturing, even sports, policies change all the time, by your reasoning making whoever was in oversight before “blood guilty.” Yet, we all accept this as a cost of living in the real world. Nothing is frozen in time. Everything updates as time progresses, and not always for the better.

    “The “life-saving instruction” they gave you was paid for dearly. It was paid for with Human Lives. You served God in ignorance and arrogance.”

    How are Human Lives different from human lives? Got it that, in atheistic society today, human life is all that counts, and even among the religious, mankind’s salvation is the overriding issue, whereas with JW it is secondary to sanctifying God’s name—if the latter happens, the former automatically follows. Yet, even with these caveats, JW is by far the “safest” religion out there. Abstinence from drugs, tobacco, alcohol abuse, war, even extreme sports far overweigh anything regarding transfusions, regardless of the latest tweak, so that to vociferously oppose them plainly points to another motive. I mean, if Human Life is truly your greatest concern, look anywhere else first.

    Who would think that a faith that is non-violent, that has all but eliminated racism, that teaches living honesty and peaceably among others, and that doesn’t meddle with governments would be the subject of such online furor as is so with the Witnesses? There has to be another motive for this to be so.

  • Earnest People Seek Different Paths: What’s With That?

    Q: How come it seems like there’s people who honestly and wholeheartedly seek God/truth, yet end up in different religions/denominations? I’m trying to understand why/how people can earnest seek Truth yet come to different conclusions and paths.

    railroad tracks in city
    Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

    A: Different people seek God according to different criteria. Sometimes, at the door with someone inclined to be contentious, I might say, “Look, why don’t we just agree to leave that in God’s hands? He knows if he’s a trinity or not.” (or whatever be the issue left unresolved)

    The meetings of Jehovah’s Witnesses take the form of Bible studies. You can prepare for them. We Witnesses think that is that way to go, but there are people drawn more to denominations or venues more experiential, more triggering the emotions, ones where they will say they experience the holy spirit. The gatherings for many faiths there is no point in preparing for, beyond getting yourself in the mood.

    Then, there are faiths as Catholicism, where a sense of mystery is thought highly desirable in any worship service. There’s not too much of this at Witness meetings, which look more like a classroom, which are more for edification and encouragement, that a person might be better equipped to worship God in their daily life.

    Charlie Kirk said Catholicism is experiencing a resurgence these days, somewhat against his preference, as an evangelical. He attributed much of it to their long history and confidence that it was less given therefore to flip on the dime of new social trends. Stability is what attracted people, he thought.

    JWs think that God speaks to us primarily through the pages of his written Word, and we to him primarily through prayer. Not everyone is drawn to that formula. It used to be, maybe still is, that there were denominations where you might ‘roll in the aisles’ (they were nicknamed ‘holy rollers) getting upon getting ‘filled with the spirit.” There are many modern updates of that formula.

    Paul spoke of his Jewish countrymen at Romans 10:2: “For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.” Witnesses do think it best to do things “according to knowledge.” But, rather than attack each other online for being wrong—attacks that tend to be endless—online, it is better to adapt to the formula: present whatever you have to present (let your light shine) and let people be drawn or not to the faith you espouse. Or, in the words of Bob Dylan: “Let me see what you got. We’ll have a whoppin good time.”

    It’s not a call for ecumenism. It is simply a call for practicality, so that we all may realize the words: “Can’t we all just get along?” No one’s trying to sweep 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12 under the rug: 

    “But the lawless one’s presence is by the operation of Satan with every powerful work and lying signs and wonders and every unrighteous deception for those who are perishing, as a retribution because they did not accept the love of the truth in order that they might be saved. That is why God lets a deceptive influence mislead them so that they may come to believe the lie, in order that they all may be judged because they did not believe the truth but took pleasure in unrighteousness.”

    It’s just that you can’t settle it through debate. Frankly, I think the above is evidence that God is having the last laugh on those who think you can. It will have to be a “Let me see what you got.” It is a dictum not too far from Jesus’ own: “By their fruits you will know them.”

    ******  The bookstore

  • The Anger that Does Not Turn Back

    Four times the phrase is repeated, each time after a surface or insufficient fix—or maybe it just presents as an important reminder:

    “In view of all this, his anger has not turned back, But his hand is still stretched out to strike.” There it is four times in close succession:

    Isaiah 9:12— After attacks by Assyrians.

    Isaiah 9:17 — After widespread godlessness under rebellious leadership.

    Isaiah 9:21 — After internal tribal strife and civil war-like division.

    Isaiah 10:4 — After wide-scale injustice and oppression of the vulnerable.

    “In view of all this, his anger has not turned back, But his hand is still stretched out to strike.”

    It’s almost like the refrain from Desolation Row. “Don’t send me no more letters, no. Not unless you mail them from Desolation Row.”

    Mail all you want. No one pays attention to them. Hardly any point in sending more.

    There was even a fifth letter addressed to the two-tribe southern kingdom, four chapters prior: 

    “In view of all this, his anger has not turned back, But his hand is still stretched out to strike. He has raised up a signal to a distant nation; He has whistled for them to come from the ends of the earth; And look! they are coming very swiftly. (5:25-26)

    He whistles to Assyria. It does sweep in from the north. Naphtali and Zebulun are foremost in its path—that is the “contempt” those tribes are subjected to “as in former times when the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali were treated with contempt. But at a later time He will cause it to be honored—the way by the sea, in the region of the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.” (9:1)

    The Assyrian king who swept in from 734-732 BCE was Tiglath-Pileser III, called Pul in the Bible. The invasion devastated the region: populations were exiled, lands incorporated into Assyrian provinces , were hardest hit, their peoples killed, exiled, repopulated, by others displaced from their own conquered lands. Later it would become known as Galilee. It would be “honored” in that Jesus began his ministry there, a “great light” to the people there “walking in darkness.” (9:2) 

    Verses prophetically applied to Jesus follow, the most explicit we have seen thus far. Start with 9:6:

    “For a child has been born to us, A son has been given to us; And the rulership will rest on his shoulder. His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.”

    Conventional Jews today don’t buy it. They figure it a reference to Hezekiah. They reckon the four glowing descriptions no more than the kissing-up praise you’d lavish on any king back then, who might resent it if you didn’t. Even the next verse:

    “To the increase of his rulership And to peace, there will be no end, On the throne of David and on his kingdom In order to establish it firmly and to sustain it Through justice and righteousness, From now on and forever. The zeal of Jehovah of armies will do this.” (9:7) 

    That’s Hezekiah, too, they say—also the higher critics who are guided exclusively by what they can see and touch, rather than by the “walking by faith, not by sight” of 2 Corinthians 5:7. Prophecy, to them, is almost always later day interpretation of which they are dubious.

    Not only do Isaiah’s countrymen ignore the anger that is still ongoing and the hand still ready to strike—which has struck in the north—but they regard each as a challenge from which they will build back better. 

    “Bricks have fallen, But we will build with hewn stone.  Sycamore trees have been cut down, But we will replace them with cedars.” (9:10)

    They don’t humble themselves, repent, and turn back to God (as Isaiah 9:13) They say: “No problem—we’ll upgrade! We’ll replace bricks with expensive, quarried stone blocks and ordinary trees with luxurious Lebanese cedars.” It’s pride and arrogance. It’s trust in human strength. It’s defiance against God. “You knocked it down? We’ll build it better!”

    tower crane during daytime
    Photo by 500photos.com on Pexels.com

    The boastful response only invites greater judgment—four times repeated. Ultimately, it becomes the total destruction of the northern kingdom by Assyria in 722 BCE.

    ******  The bookstore

  • Is the Kingdom of God “Within You,” “Among You,” or “in your Midst?” Part 2

    So why do so many who identify as Christians today claim the “kingdom of God is within you,” when it is based on outdated* scholarship?

    (*see part 1)

    Might it be because it reduces the kingdom of God to a personal motto that otherwise allows the prevailing world to call the shots? Whereas, if the kingdom of God is “in your midst,” you begin to wonder what it wants. Meeting its requirements becomes more of a concern if it is “among you” in the person of Jesus.

    Moreover, it is really only a kingdom of God that has authority (in your midst, among you—but not “within you” that can be said to trigger the turmoil of Psalm 2:

    “The kings of the earth take their stand And high officials gather together as one Against Jehovah and against his anointed one. They say: “Let us tear off their shackles And throw off their ropes!” (verses 2-3)

    What “shackles” or “ropes” are there when “the kingdom of God is within you,” making it just a personal code? But if it is a kingdom that right now has authority and right now directs people in what to do, the anti-c_lt movement can easily portray that as “shackles” and “ropes” that should be cast off.

    The Witness organization in Russia was banned for exactly that reason. Again from the book ‘I Don’t Know Why We Persecute Jehovah’s Witnesses: Searching for the Why:’

    “One month after the Court decision, Aleksandr Dvorkin, the anti-cult expert, crowed about the outcome he helped mastermind.13 After several years of maneuvering, the coordinating organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses would be shut down so as “to protect the civil rights of the members of this organization.” He was “absolutely convinced that after a few years, the number of members of the organization will decrease dramatically, two or three times, because, when one cuts off its financial foundation, its ability to freely, without hindrance, recruit other people, to rent large halls and so on, then, in fact, people will lose interest and will very quickly disperse and, in this sense, this decision is very correct and far-sighted.”

    “When you cut off someone’s limbs, that person can be expected to die. He champions his role as protector of the individual Witness by severing ties to their organization of choice.”

    How is this not “casting off shackles” and “throwing off ropes?” Where would be its counterpart to those who maintain the kingdom of God is “within you?”

    ******  The bookstore

  • Why Reason Fails: Insights from the Cake-Fruit Experiment

    It was irksome when atheists put up their ‘Let Reason Prevail’ billboard right next to that Illinois State Capitol Nativity Scene back in 2009; that much was immediately apparent. But putting my finger on just why it was irksome required more effort. Was it the presumption of the atheists that they held a monopoly on “reason?” Partly. Was it the crassness of plunking it next to the nativity scene, as though it, too, offered a message of *hope*? Closer.

    It took a while, but I at last came across an experiment that blew that silly *Let Reason Prevail* slogan sky-high. Reason *cannot* prevail among humans. We are not capable of it. We can muster a fair effort when distractions are few. But add in any significant stress, and human reasoning ability goes right down the drain. It is hard to come to any other conclusion after pondering the cake-fruit experiment of several years back. Alas, it received only the publicity of light fluff news. It deserves more, as it holds unsettling implications for any future based on the veneration of reason.

    The cake-fruit experiment unfolded thus: In 1999, Stanford University professor Baba Shiv enrolled a few dozen undergraduates and gave each a number to memorize. Then, one at a time, they were to leave the room and walk down a corridor to another room, where someone would be waiting to take their number. On the way down, however, participants were approached by a friendly woman carrying a tray. “To show our thanks for taking part in our study,” she said, “we’d like to offer you a snack. You have a choice of two. A nice piece of chocolate cake. Or a delicious fruit salad. Which would you like?”

    Unbeknownst to each participant, some had been given two-digit numbers to memorize, and some had been given seven-digit numbers. When Shiv tallied up the choices made (for that was the object of the experiment) he found that those students with seven digits to remember were nearly twice as likely to choose the cake as those given two digits! Two digits—you choose fruit. Seven digits—you choose cake. What could possibly account for that?

    The reason, Shiv theorized, is that once you weed out the occasional oddball, we all like cake more than fruit; it tastes better. But we also know that fruit is better for us. This is a rational assessment that almost all of us would make. But if our minds are taxed with trying to retain seven digits instead of a no-brainer two, rationality goes right out the window, and the emotional, “Yummy, cake!” wins out! “The astounding thing here,” said the *Wall Street Journal’s* Jonah Lehrer, reviewing the experiment for *NPR*, “is not simply that sometimes emotion wins over reason. It’s how easily it wins.”

    Now, this experiment was not taken very seriously by anyone. When the media covered it at all, they treated it as fluff, as a transitional piece going in to or out of more serious news. But plainly, the experiment holds deeper significance. Aren’t world leaders also human, and thus susceptible to emotion trumping rationality? Daily they grapple to solve the woes afflicting us all. Meanwhile, opponents seek to undermine them, and media outlets try to dig up dirt on them. If it takes only five extra digits for emotion to overpower reason, do you really think there is the slightest chance that “reason will prevail” among the world’s policymakers, immersed in matters much more vexing and urgent than choosing between cake and fruit? Has it up till now?

    That is what was so irksome about the ‘Let Reason Prevail’ slogan. Reason *cannot* prevail among imperfect humans! It can occur, but it cannot prevail. Humans are not capable of it. Five digits is all it takes for our rational facade to crumble!

    Since that Baba Shiv experiment, the term “reason” has been upgraded to “critical thinking,” as though to impress with increased potency. It’s the same stuff. It’s just that the latter was not the buzzphrase then that it has come to be today.

    Now, if there is one thing that Jehovah’s Witnesses are known for, it is for their insistence that humans do not have the ability to govern themselves. Nearly everyone else in the field of religion accepts the present setup of squabbling nations as a given and prays for God to somehow bless the leaders running it—often with the proviso that whatever country they are in emerges on top. Of course, it doesn’t matter too much, though, since said religionists are all heaven-bound! Just passing through, you understand. So while one might not like staying in a crummy hotel, you can at least console yourself that it’s only for a night or two.

    ******  The bookstore

  • A Workman’s Theodicy: Why do Bad Things Happen?

    A Workman’s Theodicy’ addresses the question: How can a God of love coexist with evil and suffering? (In the world of theology, such explanations are called ‘theodicies.’)

    The book consists of 3 sections on Job—a chapter by chapter review of the entire Bible book.

    Job: the Setup. (Chapters 1-2)
    Job: The Prosecution (3-32)
    Job: The Resolution (33-42)

    There is a short section on the Holocaust, followed by two on theologians:

    Theologians: Higher Criticism
    Theologians: Attributes of God

    This is followed by a review of the ‘workman’s theodicy’ itself, then a section of efforts to advertise it, amidst some pushback:

    The Workman’s Theodicy
    Enemies

    At the book’s end is an Appendix section of three parts:

    Appendix A1: Does the Bible Condone Slavery?

    Appendix A2: The Origin of Life [a critique of the handful of scientists who specialize in this field—what progress have they made?]

    Appendix A3: When We Cease to Understand [a review of a historical-fiction book that intertwines the themes of quantum physics, mathematics, world war, and madness]

    Enjoy

    Phonto

    From book’s back cover:

    The theodicy that works advertised by people who don’t know the term? How can that be?

    “Why does God permit human suffering?” the Bethel speaker begins. “Well, that’s an easy one, isn’t it? It is one of the first things we learned when we go the truth.”

    It’s easy? Easy?! EASY?! It is only one of the hardest questions in theology! The great thinkers throughout history have tied themselves into knots trying to account for it.

    “The question of how God could allow evil is a staple in philosophy. In fact, it may even be older than the discipline itself.” – Professor David Kyle Johnson

    If there is a benevolent God, why would he coexist with evil and suffering?

    From Job to Kant, from the Holocaust to the lecture halls, from the public squares to the quadrangles, with nods to a bevy of philosophers and theologians, see how and why the giants of miss the theodicy of the workmen.

    ***Dress up your meeting notes for presentable online presentation, and it has the effect that you retain them better yourself. When the Witness mid-week meetings started in on Job, I figured I’d write a synopsis of each week. There they are, for the most part, on my blog. Sort through and combine those notes, merge them with some other writings on how theologians look at Scripture, visit the horrific Holocaust, add in some history and a few appendixes, and out came this book!

    Now available at Amazon bookstores—a new book by Tom Harley

  • The Value of Christian Organization

    My wife and I had people from out of state come into town to work on a Kingdom Hall remodeling project nearby and they needed a place to stay. Sight unseen, we handed them the keys to our house while we were heading away on vacation. There are people who would pay anything for such a brotherhood in which you can place such trust in total strangers.

    At the Independence Day church, Mr. and Mrs. O’Malihan heard of this and decided to do the same. The first guests who stayed at their house broke their TV. The second set of guests tracked mud throughout the house. The third set found the Go Packs and raided the funds set aside. The fourth set emptied the house completely and the O’Malihans returned to four bare walls. Steamed, they contacted the Independence Day church headquarters. “Oh, yeah, that happened to us, too,” they were told. “No, they’re not congregation members – they’re imposters. But we have such a half-assed organization that any scoundrel can pull the wool over our eyes in a twinkling.”

    The first paragraph is true. I just made up the second. But what I like is how with Jehovah’s Witnesses, not only may you enjoy a good relationship with God and his Son, but as a pure gimme, you get a united worldwide brotherhood. Why anyone would throw that away from insistence that their own viewpoint prevail is beyond me.

    The world is more dangerous than before, so the organization safeguards more than before. It is not like in the 1970s, when I, on a whim, drove to a St. Louis International Convention of Jehovah’s Witnesses and presented myself at the rooming desk with the expectation that someone would put me up for the four or five days. They did. The only way that they knew I was a Witness was that I said I was. I stayed with an elderly sister and her non-Witness husband who treated me as though one of their own. But that was long ago, and “wicked men and imposters have advanced from bad to worse,” says the verse. Today there is vetting, only possible with organization, so that you know people are who they say they are. 

    You can do more with organization than you can without. It is no more complicated than that. In the case of an organization such as Jehovah’s Witnesses, devoted to spreading “this good news of the kingdom throughout all the inhabited earth,” seamless organization of voluntary efforts has enabled an entirely new channel of Bible production and distribution,  so that ‘Big Business’ is not in charge of distributing the Word of God, and everyone stays on the same page in the process. Organization is the obvious way that Jesus’ prediction comes to pass: “Most truly I say to you, whoever exercises faith in me will also do the works that I do; and he will do works greater than these.” Greater works than Jesus? It can’t be done through disconnected individuals.

    ******  The bookstore

  • Congregation Discipline Once Common in Christianity Now Largely Abandoned: Norway Flashpoint

    “The internal discipline now practiced by Jehovah’s Witnesses was practiced in most Protestant denominations until less than 100 years ago, based upon numerous scriptures throughout the New Testament. When it became unpopular, they gave it up. As a result, points out Christian author Ronald Sider, the morals and lifestyle of today’s evangelical church members are often indistinguishable from that of the general populace. That’s not the way it ought to be. The Bible is clear that the Christian congregation is not supposed be a mirror image of today’s morally wandering society. It is supposed to be an oasis.

    “I vividly recall circuit overseers pointing out that a few decades ago the difference between Jehovah’s Witnesses and churchgoers in general was doctrinal, not moral. Time was when there was little difference between the two groups with regard to conduct. Today the chasm is huge. Can internal discipline not be a factor?

    “Church discipline used to be a significant, accepted part of most evangelical traditions, whether Reformed, Methodist, Baptist, or Anabaptist,” Sider writes. “In the second half of the twentieth century, however, it has largely disappeared.” He then quotes Haddon Robinson on the current church climate, a climate he calls ‘consumerism:’

    “Too often now when people join a church, they do so as consumers. If they like the product, they stay. If they do not, they leave. They can no more imagine a church disciplining them than they could a store that sells goods disciplining them. It is not the place of the seller to discipline the consumer. In our churches, we have a consumer mentality.”

    (the above four paragraphs taken from ‘Tom Irregardless and Me,’ written in 2016)

     

    ***Favorable government treatment of religion was originally based upon the premise that religion does the government’s legitimate work for them. It improves the calibre of the people, making them easier to govern and more of a national asset. Jehovah’s Witnesses are among the relative few still fulfilling this premise. As a people, they pay more than their share into the public till, since they are honest, hard-working, and not given to cheating on taxes. Yet they draw on that till less, by not abusing government programs and almost never requiring policing. They are a bargain for any country.

    Witnesses think it well when this original “contract” is remembered and not superseded by the modern demand of inclusion. While they include races, ethnicities, classes, etc to a greater degree than most (in the US, according to Pew Research, they are comprised of almost exactly 1/3 white, 1/3 black, 1/3 Hispanic, with about 5% Asian added) they do not include within themselves persons refusing to live by Bible principles. They respect the right of people to live as they choose—reject Bible standards if one chooses—just so long as it is not within the congregation.

    They have made some legitimate tweaks as of late (August 2024 Watchtower, covered at congregation meeting) to address what to do with minors veering from the Christian course—which treatment had become a matter of concern for the Norwegian government. And, as for those who, after help, manifestly refuse to abide by Bible principles, they have replaced a word that is not found in the Bible (disfellowshipping) with a phrase that is (remove from the congregation). A distracting term that is not found in the Bible has been dropped. Thus, it becomes a matter of whether a government recognizes a people’s right to live by the Bible.

    Additionally, real changes have been made to address any perception that elders are quick to remove those straying from Bible values, but the basic thought expressed at 1 Corinthians 5 still holds:

    “In my letter I wrote you to stop keeping company with sexually immoral people, not meaning entirely with the sexually immoral people of this world or the greedy people or extortioners or idolaters. Otherwise, you would actually have to get out of the world. But now I am writing you to stop keeping company with anyone called a brother who is sexually immoral or a greedy person or an idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or an extortioner, not even eating with such a man. For what do I have to do with judging those outside? Do you not judge those inside, while God judges those outside? “Remove the wicked person from among yourselves.” (1 Cor 5:9–13)

    “Do you not know that a little leaven ferments the whole batch of dough?” the apostle Paul says just prior, at 1 Corinthians 5:6.

    When I was a boy, people watched cowboy shows on TV. The good guys wore white hats, the bad guys word black hats. You were not going to fall into a course of wrongdoing, unless it was deliberate. They were wearing black hats!  You could not miss them! Today, in a world where the batch has fermented, things are less straightforward. People stray, get tripped up, even hardened. It doesn’t mean they’re lost causes. Present adjustments are just updates for the times, while preserving the basic need to keep the congregation adhering to Bible standards. Norway may have been the last straw, a trigger for all that the time to relook at things was due. Look, if disfellowshipped ones accumulate to the point where even Norway starts to complain, maybe it is time for a reexamination. The leaven must still be removed, and is, but the new norm—is is overdue?—is to go back from time to time and reexamine specific policies of discipline. Some have been refashioned.

     

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  • An Insular People: No Part of the World: Part 7

    See Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 Part 5  Part 6

    Upon the release of his movie, The Passion, Mel Gibson was asked whether it was true that the Jews killed Jesus. “Well, it wasn’t the Scandinavians,” he replied. No, it wasn’t. But neither was it the Jews, per se. It was the religious leaders of the Jews that did the deed. Jealous at Jesus’ sway with the crowds, agitated at his challenge to their authority, they manipulated the crowd present there in the middle of the night to turn against Jesus. Days before, the little people, the ones who had to sleep at night for the working day ahead and so were not at that hasty trial, had welcomed Jesus with unbridled enthusiasm. It wasn’t the Jews. It was their leaders at the time. Why can’t revisionists make that distinction? Who today says Germans killed the Jews during the Holocaust? Nobody blames the entire German people. It is enough to say Hitler killed the Jews—and that is how it is said.

    Ms. Pagels bends over backwards to qualify all four gospel accounts on this point. They all reveal that the Jewish authorities instigated Jesus’ death. She tries to spin it that they didn’t. There is precious little basis for challenging the point, but she challenges it anyway on all four of them. Pilate was cruel, she points out, summing up sparse accounts of his life. He would not have gone out on a limb to free a Jew, she insists; he despised Jews. It is unconvincing to me. Why would he not have tried to free Jesus, especially if doing so annoyed the ruling Jews, whom he probably despised more? They woke him out of a sound sleep to kill a clearly innocent man just to satisfy their religious envy. Why wouldn’t he thwart them? If you “despise” a people, won’t you despise the leaders of them more?

    Pagels writes of how shocked she was upon discovering that the charge of Jews killing Jesus had fueled countless pogroms throughout history. Isn’t that behind the modern determination to pin Jesus’ death on Pilate and the Romans alone? To be sure, preventing pogroms is a noble cause. It is hard to fault her for motive. But one need not gut the scriptures to do it. It works perfectly well to paint the Jews as hijacked by their religious leaders, just as the Germans were hijacked by Hitler two thousand years later. In fact, it works even better; Both deeds were done in the dark, but only Jesus’ trial was literally in the dark.

    To those whose religious sensibilities takes decidedly a second place to human peacekeeping efforts, it will be, ‘Who cares who killed him? He’s dead. Spin it whatever way placates the masses.’ They will be totally oblivious to any sense of Jesus foretelling his own death, such as at John 22:24: “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just one grain; but if it dies, it then bears much fruit,” ‘Naw, that line was thrown in after the fact,’ they will say, viewing it that he was a preacher who failed in his mission, but later opportunists managed to build a religion out of it.

    Other conclusions seem equally doubtful. ‘Jesus wouldn’t have insulted the Jews,’ Pagels writes, referring to passages such as the 23rd chapter of Matthew. ‘He was a Jew.’ She has never heard of class distinction? Frankly, I think she goes easy on the educated rulers of the time because she also is of that educated class. It is not just her, but virtually all of today’s theologians. They are not drawn from the lower disadvantaged classes that included Jesus and the majority of those heeding him. They are from the higher classes. As such, they are generally inclined to say of the lower, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ It will be as in the 2011 film Inside Job, in which the director expresses dismay that no specific individuals of the 2008 financial collapse were ever brought to justice:

       Charles Ferguson (film director): “Why do you think there isn’t a more systematic investigation being undertaken?”

       Nouriel Roubini (Professor, NYU Business School): “Because then you will find the culprits.”

    Culprits and regulators alike belonged to the same social set and were members of the same country clubs; they had no desire to turn on one another. So it is that today’s theologians cannot see religious leaders of the past as anything but well-intentioned. They are of the same background and class. They will not turn on each other.

    To be Continued

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