On Leaving Behind The Influence Of The Bruderhof. The End of An Affair

A fabulous piece of art I found on this page.

Until tonight I have continued to try to like and affirm the Bruderhof, a Christian community in the anabaptist tradition.  I have tried for years. I used to succeed.  At one point their literature saved my faith - although I honestly wish now it hadn't.  At that time I was going through a very difficult period and was finding Christian faith hard to accept.  Someone in a support group - an atheist of all people - pointed me to the Bruderhof because they were giving away a few free books.  Without those books I would almost certainly have left Christianity behind in 2001.  It's fair to say that for some years I loved their books, magazines, articles.  From works like Inner Land by their founder, to works by the Blumhardts, to writings about war, and their publications by other people such as Daniel Berrigan, the Jesuit peace campaigner.  I treasured those books.

I liked the Bruderhof especially for their pacifism and love of justice.  They say many things that people of good will can agree with and even, sometimes, aspire to.

On the other hand though they love injustice too and call it Biblical. Hence this article, published today. It's an article that calls LGBT+ affirmation a "plundering" of marriage from our society, an "extinction crisis," and a "looming disaster" that we mustn't forget when dealing with flood victims. (Really. It says that.)

http://www.bruderhof.com/en/voices-blog/world/responding-to-the-nashville-statement

I've just come back from Greenbelt, a mostly Christian festival attended this year by more than 11,000 people, a festival that's affirmed LGBT+ people for a long time, a festival where I am safe to be transgender and my married gay Christian friends can celebrate their love for each other as well as their love for Jesus and the Bible too.

If I prayed, my prayer for the Bruderhof following the death of their long-term leader would be that the next generation of it could embrace the justice of accepting people just as Greenbelt accepts them. I hope too that their founder, Eberhard Arnold, would have managed to walk in acceptance by now. But given that the article is by the son of the leader I doubt it will happen. (The Bruderhof leadership tends to run from father to son.)

Because to discriminate against queer people and then proudly quote the Beatitudes when anyone says you're wrong is something that I think Jesus himself would have been disgusted by. I'm convinced that he would have said that if you're persecuted for acting unjustly then you bloody well deserve it! Sorry guys but any persecution arising is because of religious bigotry rather than because you're some imagined heir to an Old Testament prophet.

And when you call the idea of accepting people like me an "extinction crisis" you don't deserve to be supported by people like me. Yes, you stand against war and for much that is good. But so do many other groups who have learned not to use and misuse an ancient religious text as an excuse for such homophobic and transphobic statements.

I've enjoyed much that the Bruderhof have published. At one point I had an entire shelf of their books. But it's increasingly hard to own Plough Books knowing they come from an organisation that hates what I am while proclaiming they love people like me.

Perhaps, and with reluctance too, it's time to move on. To chuck out many of those books, especially those written more recently, in an age where homophobia is - at least in the countries in which the Bruderhof operates - a negative counter-cultural statement rather than any kind of societal assumption.

Perhaps I must say goodbye.  It shouldn't be that hard.  I'm no longer a Christian of any variety and as I look at Christians around me a great many work hard for peace, fraternity, love, justice and all manner of spiritual and physical fruits while at the same time embracing the queer communities.

Not just perhaps.  Definitely.

Because I don't need to have my "transgender self-conception" forgiven and overcome.  No thank you.  And when you say that my very existence as myself needs to be forgiven, ultimately that's a statement not of love.  It's a statement of violence, of rejection, of hatred of my very person.

I would say that to any Christian who tells me I need to be forgiven and healed for being transgender.  You hate me.  Pure and simple.  No matter how many fine words you speak about love and truth.  You hate me.

Humbly, people of the Bruderhof, I would ask you to seek new light.  I would ask you to consider whether there are other ways to interpret your holy book and the society and people who wrote it.  Many other Christians have managed to do so and some of those are staunch and unswerving in their great devotion to the texts before them and to the saviour they believe in.

If they can do it, take the risk of having been wrong, can you do it too?

My own love affair with the Bruderhof has been waning for some time.  It is now over.  I can't be in love with those who see me as part of a potential end to the human race just for existing and daring to stand up and be who I am.  I can't be in love with the haters who are too proud to admit they intentionally fail to walk in the love their Jesus speaks of.

Life is too short and too precious to waste more of it in even quiet support of the Bruderhof.  Wisdom must prevail in this case.  When there are Christians like the ones I met at Greenbelt this weekend, who could ever need the Bruderhof?

__________

A couple of follow-on posts for today.

 

The first concerns a response to the Nashville Statement by a denomination of which I was a member:

The Nashville Statement on "Biblical Sexuality" was recently published by a coalition of conservative Christians. Last night I read the response of the Bruderhof Communities to the statement and it prompted a regretful blog post.

This is the response of Metropolitan Community Church. Until I quit church totally I was a member of this denomination.

I no longer believe in God but I see in this response a far greater witness to all that is life, love, wonder, and compassion. Here's a short section:

"WE AFFIRM that the grace of God in Christ gives transforming power, and that this power enables a follower of Jesus to put to death the siren song of the sins of legalism, patriarchy, homophobia, transphobia, and willful ignorance. We affirm that to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord is to walk in the full embrace of all of God's children."

I'd like to thank Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) Denomination and Northern Lights MCC for continuing to be beacons of love and inclusion in our communities.

I'd like to thank too all the other Christian groups and individuals who have taken the step of accepting LGBT+ people, sometimes very bravely and with the real risk of total rejection by other Christians.

I'm glad that many such Christians remain my friends. Some of you are LGBTQIA+. Some are not. Thanks to all of you for being you and embracing people like me.

__________________

The second concerns the response of a wider group of Christians:

Another follow up to my post about the Bruderhof and the homophobic, transphobic statement released this week by various evangelical Christians.

Here's a response to the statement by a collection of LGBTQIA affirming Christians, some evangelical, some more liberal.

http://www.christiansunitedstatement.org/

I don't share their faith but I applaud their response. And I see the names of people I greatly respect among the initial signatories.

My Pastor Gazed At Me And Said, "Wow! You Were REALLY Fucked Up!"

To begin, a photograph.  I've taken this from a Messianic Christian page about faith in God.   The page argues, through links to many articles, that atheists should become Christians because that would be the sensible thing to do given the "evidence."  On the right of the screen there's an offer for a free book.

It's called, "I Have A Friend Who's Jewish ... Have You?"  Sounds riveting.

Today I've been sorting some files on my laptop.  It shouldn't have taken long but I got quite distracted by my past.  In the process of sorting I've found myself looking at Christian books and documents I saved. I've been looking at some of my own writing too which covers much of my Christian life. I still have the text of sermons preached in the year 2000, all kinds of documents from when I was an enthusiastic Catholic, and some really strong Protestant conservatism I briefly clung to after leaving the Catholic church and wondering how I could survive without it.

I found a document containing my prayer diary through a week almost exactly ten years ago. During that period I was undertaking the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola in daily life, with one to one spiritual guidance from a woman who was part of the outreach team of Saint Beuno's Jesuit retreat centre in North Wales.

That particular week included this exciting day trip in London: It took in 3 churches, 2 cathedrals, a church centre, 2 Catholic bookshops and 2 masses.

In the same document I wrote about other days in this two week period in May 2007.

These days could and would include more hours spent kneeling in front of the "blessed sacrament", daily mantra and meditation prayers, praying the Office, rosaries, chaplets – including that of Divine Mercy, the triple colloquy, litanies, the Ignatian spiritual exercises, consideration of the "Mysteries", biblical meditations, Bible verses turned into daily prayers.

These were all happening on the same day.

You read that correctly. On. The. Same. Day. In my most ardent periods I could pray for six hours a day.

And what comments did I give? Many. They include these:

I wanted to enter more into the pain of Jesus. (Because some saints or spiritual writers recommend it.)

I asked of myself, "Could I be Judas?"

I said, "Not much progress in prayer."

I said, "Much need for change and for grace."

And the classic, "Not enough praying in the house."

Honestly. I wrote that. You read that correctly too.

I didn't believe I was praying as much as I should. I certainly didn't believe I was praying as well as I should. After all, hadn't I consecrated my entire life to Jesus? Hadn't I also made an act of total consecration to Jesus through Mary, in the manner of Saint Louis Marie de Montfort? Shouldn't I be praying more? Studying more?

That's what I thought anyway. Because I was utterly lost. Trapped. Despairing. Still self-hating. And when you self-hate it's hard to love others. Not truly and deeply.

As I've looked through some of the books as I've been clearing them out I find similar words from "heroes of faith" canonised by Rome. These men and women were also giving everything they possibly could for their God. And they still beat themselves up for it - mostly emotionally and mentally but sometimes physically too.

I was utterly screwed up. My ex-pastor from MCC used the phrase “fucked up.” But I was being reinforced in being screwed up and fucked up by the books I read, the spiritual writers, the saints.

Was there any hope for someone so screwed up when he was told that the grace to ask for that week included, “Shame and deep grief because the Lord is suffering for me.” And “Faced with the suffering of the Passion, I may have to pray even for the gift of letting myself want to experience it with Christ.”

I arrived screwed up. I left screwed up.

There were happy events.  There were some smiles.  But underneath it all I was screwed up.  Constantly.

I am immensely glad to become free of all that horror.

I am also glad that on my way out of the faith I discovered some Christian spiritual writers who didn't beat themselves up and who had a Jesus who could and would smile. Some people even have a Jesus I like. I recommend someone like Jim Palmer – a Jesus follower but pretty much an atheist. Or the writings of someone like Gretta Vosper – a Jesus follower but an atheist. There are even some theist Jesus followers I can cope with and dip into.

I'm glad they've found a faith around Jesus that's full of good things. No original sin. No exclusivity. No false gods. A view of the Bible that doesn't try to justify it having plenty of horrific things in both Testaments but just says, “The writers tried but got it wrong.”   I even know very happy Christians.  And I know Christians whose love and service to others is a big example to me.  I am glad they have found inspiration for that in the versions of the Jesus story people once wrote.

As for me, the pain is too deep, too long-lasting. It's hard to find any comfort at all in the Galilean preacher and peasant who was elevated to the sky by his followers with the accretion of pagan myths and superstition, a man whose very words were mostly put into his mouth by his followers and whose miracles were inventions. Yes inventions. Arising from the way religion was done then and often is now. In the quest for the historical Jesus, which some say is doomed from the outset, the New Testament narratives are in many places worse than useless no matter how many fine words they contain.

As for me, my question is what inspiration there is to be found in what is true and in the wonder of being - and the wonders of this cosmos, this earth, and humanity - without appealing to a very faulty ancient book that tells of a man who we can't know much, if anything, about.  As such I plan, after six months of putting it off, to attend a humanist meeting tomorrow night.  I want to see what answers they give.  I want to see too whether they offer new ways of questioning.  I'm looking forward to it and the talks at the meetings always sound fascinating.

It's pointed out to me that Jesus said (or is alleged to have said) some very good things. I can only agree with that. But I don't see that as any reason whatsoever to follow him or call him Lord.  He said (or is alleged to have said) some rather more problematic things too.  In addition, lots of people have said very good things. I've met some of them. I don't call them Lord either and some of them aren't holding onto and speaking with an ancient world view and in words arising from primitive superstitions and ancient pagan blood sacrifice cults.

Why would I want to be a Jesus follower – whether a red-letter Christian or an atheist without a sky god – over and above any other guide and inspiration? Why? I don't see a reason. I certainly don't see any unique claim of salvation power being valid. And I don't see the Jesus way as superior to all other ways although I recognise the inspiration and excitement many people find in him. I am told Jesus is about growing into freedom. I see that some people manage that. I missed the boat on that one!

For me, I need – at least for the present – to keep any version of Jesus at arm's length.  Any version. Even the Jim Palmer inner anarchist version. I was hurt in the churches, hurt by the Saints, hurt by Scripture.  Hurt in self hatred and there being enough in that faith to justify my self hatred even while talking of a God of love.  The second biggest selling Christian work in history is The Imitation of Christ.  In it we learn the call to despise ourselves.

I couldn't see it then. I couldn't see how damaged I was by my faith because my faith was the reason I clung to for continuing to exist and my hope that there was a better future if I would only persevere in faith until the end.  I believed in mercy.  And I was thankful because I believed that without the blood sacrifice of Jesus that mercy wouldn't be given to me who, like everyone else, deserved hell - either in fire or separation eternally from God.

I couldn't see how my faith strengthened my despair for this life.

I see it now.

I see it increasingly clearly the more I explore outside of my old faith.

At this time I am grieving for all the lost years.

But I am rejoicing for my future, wherever that may take me.

Outside of the certainty and shame of my Christian faith it may take me anywhere.

And by his lack of stripes I find I am being healed. (Isaiah 53)

If you pray I would ask you not to pray that I return to Christianity. I would ask that you not hope I return to the flock.

I would ask, if you pray, to pray that I may find the way that is right for me, the way that leads me into the fullest life I can live. If there eventually turns out to be some Jesus in that then so be it. If not, that's great. And I would ask that your hope is that I will be free to be myself, to grow in myself, and to rejoice in living and learning to love in ways that were impossible when I was trapped in religion.

At this point I am an atheist. I have no sky god to pray to.  That picture again.

But the statement “I am an atheist” tells you as little about me as it would tell you if I said “I believe in God.”

I apologise for this: I'm not going to expand on the statement any further today.

On An Encounter With Fundamentalism. And On The Wonders Of The Human Race.

I chatted with some preachers in Sunderland yesterday.  I wasn't meaning to.  I was just wanting to finish my ice cream in peace.  Damn you preachers, you thwarted my quiet ice cream enjoyment.

But once they began talking at me, and because I am still utterly obsessed about God things and think about them a heck of a lot, and because I wasn't at that point falling to pieces mentally, I talked back.  It's still a novelty to me to be so far on this side of the dogmatic fence.

We talked about a lot of things.  All of them may bore you.  Some of them you may find strange.  Some of them will make you wonder why Christians sometimes don't even love each other let alone non-believers.

I am no longer a Christian.  I'm not.  But I am still fascinated by it all.  It's a special interest.

So as someone with a deep fascination, I've done the talking.  So you don't have to!  There.  Aren't you pleased?  You will know, when you encounter such people, the kinds of things you are happy to be missing by not having a conversation with them.

I have to give this disclaimer:  Not all Christians are like the ones I chatted with.  Quite a lot are very different indeed.  My plans for the day had fallen apart due to my own absent-mindedness, confusion and panic.  But those plans had been to meet with, sit with and relate with a group of Christians.  To talk, share and learn about theology with them.  I'd been looking forward to it too and am sad to have missed out on the experience.  I believe it would have been great.  And I believe that the Christians I didn't manage to meet with would have had nearly as many disagreements with the fundamentalists as I did.

If you did choose to engage a fundamentalist of this variety, a strange choice, what might you talk about?

Image from https://lotharlorraine.wordpress.com/2014/06/14/is-fundamentalism-destroying-christianity/

I'll start with the more boring bits (history and doctrine) and will end with the most interesting bits (humans and my thoughts about the people I met).  Skip through to the end.  Most of this is not exciting stuff for most people, only strange obsessives like me.  Seriously.  This is long.  And it doesn't even cover the full encounter.  Skip through to the part about people.  Because that's the important thing.

We talked a little of church history.

They said there was a church existing sometimes in secret and sometimes in persecuted groups from the time of Constantine until the Protestant Reformation began.  Theodore Beza, the successor of Calvin, wrote about this history.  That's not an uncommon claim among Protestant fundamentalists but it's a laughable one.  Plus Beza, a man who wrote in defense of burning heretics alive, didn't have the information available to write a reliable church history - which might be why he didn't write one!



They gave some examples of the secret church that upheld the "one true faith."

The Cathars

I was informed that this group were Christians with a beautiful Christian faith, part of the true church. They were persecuted because they held the way of salvation hated by Rome.  This is something I find very funny.  Because the Cathars were dualists - they believed in two Gods.  And they believed in reincarnation.  The Cathars were also gnostics and believed in the ultimate salvation of all people.

In all honesty I don't think the Cathar faith was quite the same as that of these preachers!  I tried to tell them that - because I looked into the Cathars years ago when, as a Catholic, I had the same claims thrown at me.  But no.  Everything I had read and learned was a lie.  Propaganda.  Invented by the Catholic Church.

The Albigensians

I was told that this group were also just like beautiful Protestants.  Bearers of the one true faith.  In fact they were a Cathar sect.  Where most Cathars were pretty ascetic, the Albigensians were more extreme than most.  They also believed that Jesus was just human, not God.  For these people to be held up as models of the true Protestant gospel - the proper Jesus - is crazy.

The Waldensians

This is the funniest of all.  I'll say why a little later.

We talked of other historical documents from the early church.  Reputable ones.  The ones for which we know who wrote them.  And when.  Such as the epistles of Ignatius of Antioch to seven churches, written on his journey to Rome where he was martyred in about AD107.  Such as the two Apologia of Justin Martyr, written to the Roman Emperor around AD150 in the hopes of stopping a persecution.  Those documents contain much that wouldn't fit into the Beza history or the preachers' ideas of the early church.  I know.  I read them a lot before becoming a Catholic for a while.  But no.  All of those documents were fabrications, forgeries from much later, many centuries later, written to prop up a false church.  All such documents that the preachers disagreed with were deemed to be completely non-existent or fake.  I urged them to read these early church documents.  See what was believed by these men of faith and see, especially in Justin, how the early church functioned and how the mid-2nd century Christians worshiped.  I didn't say to follow the way of Justin - just to see for themselves that such a way had been followed by early Christians.

The preacher kept on talking about what Beza is meant to have said and how we have to believe Beza and how all the other things were just false and shouldn't be touched at all.  I could see that historically, there wasn't really any wiggle room for a rational conversation.

We talked a little of doctrine.

The Catholics invented Transubstantiation in AD999.  And believes we're saved by works.  And rejects the Bible.  And has a false Jesus.  And a false priesthood.  And Constantine invented it.  And so on and so on.  These preachers don't like Catholics!

I found it strange.  Two days previously I had laid into some of the teachings of the Catholic Church - with full acceptance that I was giving one side of the teaching far over and above the other.  Now I found myself defending Catholicism.  Of course I'm not Catholic now.  But the accusations fundy Protestants throw at Catholics are ludicrous and hateful.

On a personal note, I am condemned for my Catholic ways and if I don't repent of them I will be judged and burn for eternity.  As a non-Catholic learning this came as something of a surprise.

The New Testament was in its final form by the end of the first century because the apostle John made it so.  Er, no.  Just no.

The gospel was preached across the world by the first generation of Christians - because the Bible says so.

This does not include Australia or the Americas because there wasn't anyone there to tell about Jesus then.  I was told that we know there can't have been people in Australia 2000 years ago because the apostolic church didn't go and preach to them.  Honest.  I was told that.

But the gospel was preached in the British Isles in the first century AD.  Oh yes, I was told that.  And I was told who by.  Apparently the Waldensians came here and told the natives about Jesus.  Oh yes, they did.  Now, unlike the Cathars, the Waldensians did have a faith similar to that seen in the ideas that can be seen in the Protestant Reformation.  Some of their ideas and major criticisms of the Western church of their day are not only valid, they are very praiseworthy.

But did the Waldensians bring the story of Jesus to our shores in the first century?  Well, no.  It would have been difficult for them to do so.  Peter Waldo didn't start that movement until the late twelfth century.  It's an interesting story.  But his followers were not time travelers.

On a personal note, I am the antichrist and an abomination.  That didn't come as a surprise to me.  Old news.

We talked a little about ethics and morality.

I was asked if lying is wrong.  I agree, it usually is.  But to me it wasn't a yes/no question.  I posited an extreme situation.  Sometimes extreme cases disprove a rule.  I was in Germany in 1943 harboring a family of Jews under my floorboards.  The Gestapo paid me a visit and asked whether I was harboring any Jews.  I said I would lie.  He said he wouldn't lie and that God would judge me for my sin in lying.  I tried to explain situational ethics 101.  For the preacher the way of righteousness would have been to give those Jews up to the Gestapo - and myself too, I suppose, for protecting them.

We talked about the verses in the Old Testament in which God commands genocide.  He said that he didn't believe God would command his people to commit genocide now because God does things differently now Jesus has risen.  He said that God is holy and commanding genocide was holy.  He said that if God did command genocide now he would take part in it and kill people because it was better to obey God.  I pointed out a group of children who were passing at that moment and asked, "Would you kill those children?"  He replied that he would, if God told him to.

We talked of the times when it's written that God hardened pharaoh's heart after some of the plagues - and so pharaoh didn't let the Israelites like he had planned.  That's in the story.  But that means that the killing of all the first born children of Egypt wasn't necessary.  Which kinda means all that horror is God's fault.  It's there in the text.  If you, like the preacher, want to believe the text.  The preacher didn't like that.  He couldn't accept it was there because it didn't fit into his dogma. Others say God did it so his power could be seen.  Which rather makes God out to be an egotistical monster.

Yes.  The preacher would slaughter the children of Sunderland under some circumstances.  

Holy crap!

We talked of science.

The preachers believe that the universe is 6000 years old.  I asked about the light coming from a supernova 50,000 light years away.  I was being kind to the man giving this number because it's hardly any distance at all in terms of the universe.  Of all the galaxies in this astonishing universe, less than 100 of them are closer than ten-million light years and we have detected supernovae in galaxies far further away than that.   Wouldn't we thus be seeing the light from a star exploding thousands of years before they would say the universe began?  I got the reply that I didn't know what I was talking about because (a) the universe is expanding so the star would have been much closer 6000 years ago, (b) the speed of light is very different in space to what it is here, and (c) there is no time once you leave planet Earth.  Time doesn't exist anywhere else.  I was told that's what science says.

Evolution is of course a lie.  Anything a scientist says that doesn't fit in with the preachers' brand of dogma is a lie given by Satan.

We talked about other Christians.

Because there are Christians I love who have a faith that's attractive.  They said that these people aren't Christians at all and certainly haven't got the right Jesus.  They said that these other Christians need to repent or burn.

The Protestant Church was going well because it had the Authorised Bible.  But then people started making non-authorised translations from the wrong Greek and Hebrew manuscripts.  And then the Protestant Church went wrong.  Any church using the false Bibles hasn't got Jesus.  Any Christian with a false Bible probably isn't a Christian at all and if they are they desparately need to repent and find the true Jesus in the King James Bible.

On a personal level, I am a fool.

We talked of judgement - and inevitably talked of sexuality.

Please note that I didn't bring this up.  They did.

God has judged and condemned nations in the past.  And he's going to judge this one and condemn it if it doesn't repent, especially from the sin of homosexuality.

On a personal level, I am condemned for my sexuality.

And we talked about other human beings.

They told me this of the human race:  All people, from birth, deserve to burn painfully in Hell for all eternity.  All people are at root evil because of sin.  There is no light in them.  Nothing of God.  Nothing of hope.  Unless they believe on the Lord Jesus Christ (and exactly the right version).

I have a confession to make.  I used to believe that kind of thing.  I thought the Bible said so.  And I wanted to believe the Bible.  I wasn't as extreme as the preachers I met yesterday.  But I believed quite a lot of things that I now find either embarrassing, shockingly reprehensible, or both.  I don't blame myself.  I know the reasons why I came to believe as I did.  But I regret many things.  I accepted Christ in a fucked up state.  And in many ways was fucked up further by my Christianity.

As I talked with those preachers I felt myself more filled with light than I possibly ever have been before.  I did.  And why?  Because when I looked at all the people around me, ordinary people from Sunderland, I saw light.  I saw beauty.  I saw magnificence.  If God is light then I saw God shining from each and every person on that shopping street and saw it as plainly as I could see their physical forms.  It was an amazing experience to have that clarity.

Now, I believe that humans are basically good.  No matter what they do, what they've suffered, what they've been taught to repress or embrace.  No matter what they're going through.  They're basically good.  All humans.  Every single one.

We all make mistakes.  We're all imperfect - or perfectly imperfect.  And sometimes we muck up bigtime or embrace views and beliefs that we later may look back on with a sense of regret or shame.  We all hurt other people sometimes.  We let each other down sometimes.  And all of us may become people who say or do horrible things.

All of that is admitted.  We screw up!  We hurt.  We may be in need of healing.  We may be hungry.  We may be scared.  We may be lonely.  We may act badly out of insecurity.  We may get raised in an environment in which we are taught racism or homophobia or some other prejudice.

But.  We are all basically good.  I believe that.  I know I can be rubbish at social skills at times.  I know I can fail to act in love and light - out of laziness or out of my own woundedness or out of lack of resources.  But I do believe all human beings are wonderful.  Yes, even the suicide bomber.  Even the preacher!

I looked yesterday at the people of Sunderland and I saw shining lights.  And it was wonderful.

And I was being told that all those shining lights were evil.  Dead.  Deserving of eternal torment.

And that for me, beyond history and dogma and science and all the rest of it, is the saddest thing about those preachers.  The saddest by far.

As I think about those preachers I feel this:

Sadness for the years of my life in which I would have gone along with at least part of what they believe, including that view of a fundamentally evil human race in need of salvation from Hell.  Sadness for the relationships I missed out on because of my faith.  Sadness for the times I hurt people because of my faith.

Gladness that the rest of my life will not be spent following such a path.  Gladness for all the things that happened in the last five years - some of them very painful and difficult - which have brought me to this point in my life.  Gladness that I have been "set free from the law of sin and death" which I lived under as an evangelical Christian.

And as for those preachers, I pity them.  And I feel deep sorrow for people in their lives who become affected by the results of their dogma.  I won't be leading the preachers out of the darkness in which they now unwittingly stand.  I hope that they find their way, just as I have been learning to find mine.

My other sadness was that the woman I talked to - because she was answering back to a preacher and had really cool hair and seemed nice - didn't have time to come for a drink with me.  And she really didn't.  Lots of shopping to do before a six hour Megabus journey this morning.  She says if I see her again, to ask again.  I think it would have been quite fun to drink tea with this stranger whose life I completely butted into.  It wouldn't be the first time I've done something like that.

A Three Way Rant About Donald Trump, Religion, and Autism Service Provision

Note:  This post was meant to be about walking along a canal in Manchester, just as Blob Thing wrote about it this morning.  It turned into a three pronged rant about Donald Trump, religion, and the lack of help available for autistic people.  So it's not about the walk at all.  It just keeps mentioning the walk.  Like this:

Blob Thing blogged about this already today.  He did a good job in describing the walk although I was a bit astounded at the way he managed to complain about Donald Trump so much when describing his day.  Trump was not a participant in our day and he does not have a tower in Greater Manchester.  I didn't know that a small soft toy could have such strong views about an American politician.  John Pavlovitz this morning noted that Trump was prophetic about himself when he said that his followers would still follow him even if he was to murder someone in broad daylight.  Someone could write a fascinating psychological study into his followers and how they are similar to fundamentalist religious believers.  Many of them are such believers.

In both cases, evidence does not knock the belief.  They believe Donald Trump is wonderful and they want him to rule them.  No evidence seems to knock their evangelical fundamentalist Trumpist faith.  And no evidence knocks the fundamentalist religious either, of whatever variety.  Science and reason keep knocking blocks off fundamentalist religion and keep showing why it's (almost certainly) nonsense.  A rational person either gives up the religion totally or finds ways to adjust the beliefs so that their God fits in with human knowledge and slides into the cracks where we lack full knowledge.  A fundamentalist ignores the evidence or creates words and arguments that attempt to show why evidence is wrong.

So whether it's evolution, a young earth, the existence of Satan, the inerrancy of the Bible or Koran or Gita or whatever other scripture, or the glories of Donald Trump, the fundamentalist will not be budged.  They are not rational.  They cannot reason about their faith.  I don't condemn them.  It's just a sad thing when someone falls into such a system in their own heads.

I know.  Because I fell into it myself.  We are sorting part of the house at the moment and I found the sheets of paper on which I wrote brief notes before starting to write my life story.  It was to be my spiritual story and contained all the wrong turns I made and how I discovered the truth of the Catholic Church - the "best" version of Christianity and the "only" one to be truly and completely one, holy, catholic, apostolic and sacramental.  I was writing all this.  How I now KNEW the truth.  How I praised God for showing me the best way.  And how I was convinced that now I knew the truth I would remain a faithful Catholic for ever and ever and ever.  Well we all know how that plan turned out!  I read it now and I am a little embarrassed - and I am even more thankful that I moved on.  It's not that I hate the God of my past or think anyone with a similar God has lost a grip on reason.  There are some very reasonable believers out there, ones who accept doubt and accept that faith sometimes has to change in the face of evidence.

It's a hard road away from fundamentalism and the certainty of a religious system.  It might be just as hard for people to turn away from Donald Trump when they have pinned so many hopes and dreams on the man.  Especially when some of those people share many of Trump's despicable attitudes and beliefs.  As was said the other day by a Christian pastor,  "Better a pussy grabber than a pussy in the White House."  Yep.  I don't want to call a human being a little piece of shit.  But.  His views are big pieces of shit.  And they arise from an antiquated, horribly patriarchal religious system that may once have had a place but has now gone rotten and putrid and smells worse than a big piece of shit.  Plenty of churches teach it though - a woman should not have authority over a man.  They say that God said it.  In his book.  Which is infallible and God breathed.  Some churches are explicit in that.  So Trump might be a disgusting sex criminal but to have a woman?  No.  Nay!  Never!  That's banned in the Bible.  They're right too.  It IS banned in the Bible.  It's quite explicit.  A woman isn't even allowed to speak in church and if they have questions have to wait until they get home before asking their husband.  As for authority, well man is head of the woman.  The Bible says so.  To go against that is to go against God - at least according to some believers.  But even to others to go against it is just one part of noticing that the Bible is wrong about God.  And once a believer reaches that point they have a lot of soul searching to do regarding what value both their holy book and their faith have.  There are multiple answers to that soul searching.  Some lead to atheism.  Some to a form of progressive or liberal Christianity.  Some to hiding one's head in the sand and holding on to a form of faith that a believer cannot bear to allow to die.

I'm not going to talk much at all about the walk.  I've talked enough already.  It was a walk along a canal.  Simple.

In any case.  I just that moment had a phone call.  Not my favourite thing.  This was to tell me - and I had to chase people to find this out - that the NHS people I was referred to for help with my mental health problems cannot help me because I am autistic.  Basically because I have a neurological difference the NHS tells me to fuck off whenever I ask for help.  Great isn't it?  No.  It's another big piece of shit and at this moment I feel pretty bloody bad about it all.

I am autistic.

I need MORE help.  Not less.  More.  I've been fighting over and over again for the past year and yet again another service waves me away with an "Oh yes you need help for your mental health but all of us people who spent years training in mental health can't deal with you because you are autistic."

Aaaargh.  If I had severe learning difficulties - if I was "low functioning" - there would be lots of services almost falling over themselves for me.  But I am "high functioning" - which means that I function very well, in certain areas, some of the time and I have a nice high IQ  (I am officially a genius).  And that means there is no help.  None.  Fuck all.  And even the help anyone else with a nice high IQ could get is stolen away from me because of my diagnosis.

I am bloody glad to have my diagnosis.  It helps.  And self understanding helps greatly.  But right now it stinks.

Anyway.  The photos.  Nice aren't they?!  I'm not going to talk about them at all.  Not today.  My head isn't up to it now.

Oh well.  Life goes on.  I'm out tonight with some of those progressive Christians.  They're very nice but still a little too much into the old old story for me as if they still need psychologically to grasp onto a tale that they know doesn't make that much sense.  That might be unfair.  But they know the Bible is just the record of a bunch of people trying and often failing to find the divine and that much of the Old Testament contains a lot of nationalist propaganda.  They look to Jesus for their guide which is fine.  But even there they have to be very selective or interpret in a way that surely the gospel writers didn't mean or else they have to cope with all the things he said about unbelievers and Hell.  So in effect they love the nice bits of Jesus and leave the rest because those bits aren't right.  I don't know exactly what's left that is worth basing a 21st century life on.  But maybe the speaker tonight will enlighten me and leave me wanting to read all his books - of which I own five, four of them bought in the last year.

The photos.  Because life contains incredibly wonderful days with or without an autism diagnosis and with or without help from an NHS with funding and training and service provision gaps.

Maybe I will just have to sort myself out, as I would if the NHS didn't exist - and who knows, under our caring sharing Tory government its future isn't safe.  I've done a lot of self work.  It's just that a bit of help wouldn't go amiss.

You know what?  The photos can wait until the next post.  They are too good to be combined with my woes or musings about people believing beyond the point of rationality.  Just one photo.  Because life is good.  Life is a wonderful thing.

A Short Thought About Christians Going Into The Ministry

Is find myself annoyed at the commonly used term of Christians "going into the ministry."  My annoyance arose from the reports I read yesterday of our local assistant bishop who is "retiring from the ministry."  Bishop Frank is a lovely man and when I was re-accepted into membership of the Church of England four years ago I was happy that he was the man at the front doing the accepting.  I wish him well in his retirement.  And yet, I found myself getting more annoyed and the phrase got stuck under the surface of my brain.

My annoyance is this:  It isn't THE ministry at all.

It's A ministry. One of many.

Every Christian has a ministry to go into, in which they should minister as Christ in this world, light bearers to others. Every Christian will have their own ministry.

Being an ordained priest is certainly a form of ministry but to refer to it as "the ministry" is unfortunate. If it is THE ministry then this automatically relegates the lives of all laity from being Christian ministry.  It posits a system in which some people's service of their God is more important and better than the service most people give their God.

 

And although I'm sure most people don't mean to do it, by calling an ordained hierarchy THE ministry they linguistically make the service of Christ, ministry to the earth and all who dwell upon it, to be a second class service.

All Christians should be in ministry. All should be ministers. And though the form of ministry may vary widely, they should all minister love.

In fact I believe that - although non-Christians may use different language and may not centre their lives upon the life and way of Jesus - all people should be in minstry and minister love:

 

If Christ is the light of the world then all people should seek to be Christ-bearers.

 

If God is love then all people should seek to be reflections of love.

If the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of creativity, of reconciliation, of transformation, if the Spirit is the encouraging paraclete and the model of faithfulness then all people should seek to be Spirit bearers and speak the words of the Spirit.

 

If the life of the Spirit is wonder and awe, service and excitement, rejoicing and mourning with others, and living the fullest lives possible then all people should seek that way of being.

If the Gospel is of hope and peace, if it is good news, then all people should preach and live it.

That's what the ministry is.  Not gaining a dog collar and a place in a hierarchy.  The ministry is to follow the commandment of Jesus to love one another.

The ministry is for all of us.  Christians.  Non-Christians.  Even anti-Christians.  All of us, preachers.  All of us, examples.

That includes me. And I, like all of us, sometimes am a good minister and sometimes (often!) fall short.

 

I am not a Christian right now.  [Although I think a few people would disagree with that statement.]  I am not a theist right now.  But I want to grow in ministry.  I want to be a Christ-bearer.  I want to preach that Gospel in word and deed - and in silence too.  I want to walk in the wholeness of God and fullness of being which is love.

Please bear with me while I keep getting it wrong and keep exploring to find out what my ministry might be and might become outside of believing the old, old story, outside of dogma and doctrine, and outside what most people would recognise as Christianity.  Please bear with me as I learn to walk in the wholeness of God while not believing in a God.

Yes.  Please be patient.  This woman is going into ministry!

As for Bishop Frank:  He may no longer be a bishop of the Church of England.  But I don't believe he is retiring from the ministry.  Those reports were erroneous.  He's just retiring from a form of ministry he happened to have.  He'll still be in ministry.  It'll just be a different form of ministry.

The End of Cuddy's Corse - Walking El Camino From Finchale To Durham, 9th June 2016

Those who have looked at my previous two blog posts will be pleased to know something:  There are no photographs of ruined abbeys in this post.  There are many photos but none of them are of ruined abbeys - or of ruined anything else.

Before leaving Finchale Priory I took another look at the River Wear.  It's a very beautiful, secluded bend in the river.  No wonder they decided to build their home in this spot.  I hope that in the midst of monastic life they were able to appreciate the glories of the world around them as well as the glories of their God.

From the abbey onwards the walk follows lanes and well made up tracks.  It's easy going.  The road from the abbey rises out of the valley quickly to reach the plain on top.

There's not much traffic, just that going to the abbey and the caravan park that's been added next door.  And two very high speed police vehicles with lights flashing.  Had I missed some exciting crisis at Finchale?  Probably not.  But while checking online I discovered something.





Two days after my walk there was a pilgrimage.  A gruelling four mile walking pilgrimage from Finchale to Durham, following the same route as I was.  People who completed the walk would get a special certificate to say that they had walked part of the English route of El Camino, the pilgrim walk to Santiago de Compostela.  The four miles would count towards the one hundred miles required to have officially completed the Camino de Santiago.

If I'd know I'd have been tempted to join the other walkers and claim my certificate.

It's not quite so crazy as it sounds.  It is believed that this was part of the pilgrim route through England that led across to France and then eventually to Santiago.  Unknown to me, I was walking this major pilgrim route or at least a small section of it.  It is also known that St. Godric of Finchale was one of the first British people to undertake the pilgrimage.

St. Godric.  He may have walked a lot but not everyone who walks a lot - and not every one who is a cleric - and not even everyone who gets canonised is necessarily a popular or pleasant person.  At least, Godric claimed he wasn't the best of souls.  His self deprecating self description can be found in this leaflet produced by The Northumbrian Society.


I had known that it was the route by which the body of St. Cuthbert was carried to Durham.  When the Vikings invaded Lindisfarne they did not disturb the coffin of Cuthbert and in AD875 the bishop instructed that the coffin be moved, together with relics of other Northumbrian saints and also the Lindisfarne Gospels.  They travelled throughout Northumbria and eventually settled down in community at Chester-le-Street.  The remains of Cuthbert have travelled around quite a few times since then.  His final journey was from Chester-le-Street to Durham - hence the name of the walk, Cuddy's Corse.

Wow! I have completely side tracked myself by looking up whether there was any major drama requiring that police presence.  Completely swept away in getting fascinated by St. Godric and Finchale and the journey of the long-since-dead Cuthbert and his incorrupt corpse that turned out to be very corrupt when someone looked inside the coffin and the story that Cuthbert's coffin isn't his real coffin which is in a location only known to three monks.  I have been fascinated enough to add books about County Durham to my wishlist.  I have too many books for me to read.  And I want more.  More!

Back to my walk.  At last.  Once out of the valley the long road to the abbey is flat.  The sun was beating down and I could see across the fields and - this being me - I spotted some trees to take pictures of.

The road from the abbey joins another road at a place which, just like a monastery, has walls.  But walls with a very different purpose.  These are the walls of HM Prison Frankland, which the walk passes.  I must admit that I was glad to be on the side of the wall that I was, being watched I'm sure via all the CCTV cameras as I walked right by the wall rather than following the actual path.  I thought, "I'm sure it'll just link up again" but it didn't quite!

A prison is what it is.

And near the walls beauty thrives.

Maybe beauty thrives in places within those walls too.

I continued my walk - or can I call it a pilgrimage? - along tracks until I passed a farm and joined another road that would lead me all the way into Durham.  It wasn't a busy road.  I was passed by a van that went up to the farm and returned, two cyclists and two people on foot.  And there were views.  Walking down the hill from the farm I could see Durham in the distance.  Journey's end.  A very easy pilgrimage.  I doubt whether Godric or the community that carried the corpse of St. Cuthbert had a tarmac road to walk on.

The first view of Durham, with the Cathedral standing proud on the hill.

And then from the valley, close to the river once more, there was this view that I particularly loved.

The poppies leading across the fields almost to Durham Cathedral itself.

It was a stunning day.  I'm glad that I'd looked up Chester-le-Street while passing it on a bus.  I'm glad that there was a link to Cuddy's Corse.  And I'm very glad to have decided to go out and walk it.

Even if the all day cloud didn't happen and I ended up sun burned!

Back to the River Wear as I walked into Durham.  Tranquil, welcoming.  I am counting myself so lucky to live in our country.  There is so much of beauty to look at.  So much history to learn about.  And even close to my home, and close to bus routes, there is an incredible amount that I have yet to discover.

I am greatly looking forward to more days, more walking and becoming someone who appreciates where she lives and explores as much as possible.

Into Durham.  The peace of the countryside replaced by the noise and haste of the city.

And to close, walk completed, Blob Thing and I had a well deserved rest at a cafe.  It's the same one we visited the previous week.  Both times it has been quiet and friendly - and this time we enjoyed a 10% discount having bought ourselves a loyalty badge for a Pound during the first visit.  Blob wants to write a blog post about both visits.  Anyone stumbling on this blog will be wondering why I've suddenly taken an excursion into being a complete lunatic.  If that's you, take a look here at Blob Thing's own blog, started recently after a request was received.  https://blobthing.blogspot.co.uk/

Why Counting To An Infinite God Is An Unreasonable Quest

Note: I am amazed. A month after writing it, this post now has more views than any other on my blog. In many ways it's a rant! Why this post? I'd recommend other posts far more than this one. There is a vast amount of positivity in what I've posted this year and my camera skills are improving, even though I'm just using the camera on a reasonably cheap mobile phone. Take a look at those posts instead. Or if you want something with guaranteed smiles in the pictures, try blobthing.blogspot.co.uk for something lighter than me moaning about someone's poor apologetics skills.

It's Pretty. And it's taken from this site.

This afternoon hasn't gone to plan.  I had decided to edit some photos and get ready a couple of blog posts with lots of pictures of some of the places I've been visiting recently thanks to the freedom a bus pass brings.

Instead, I've been looking at a website:  Counting To God.

Okay, so this site is meant to convert atheists by saying the universe and life developed so there must be God - intelligent design and all that jazz because watchmakers can't be blind. It's the teleological argument for the existence of God, an argument that's been stated in different ways since Plato wrote it down 2400 years ago, through Aquinas and others, and down to today.  Others have argued against the argument and even as a strongly conservative Christian I was on the side of those who argued against all the classical arguments for the existence of God.  Because, in my humble opinion, none of them prove anything!  I might have hated writing that essay on David Hume and miracles at college but even I had to admit he said sensible things about the teleological argument.

The site asks us seven science questions.  We are given two options for each.  After working through the questions and finding the right answers we are led to a conclusion:  There must be a creating God behind the universe.  We have been counting our way to God, from one to seven, and now we must believe.  That's the idea.

Why was I looking at the site at all? A fair question that I have been asking myself. No, I don't believe that it's all in the plan of an omnipotent creator who is calling me back to His side through evangelical websites.

A church of which I used to be a member posted a link to an article. Sometimes they post some really interesting things, often about some of the radicals in church history who sought uncompromising ways to develop communities and/or serve and help disadvantaged people and the groups that other churches sometimes don't help.  So I quite often click and look at the things they post.

Even though the article is one from Premier Christianity I read it.  I was sad, but not surprised to see that the current most popular article on the site is this one:  Why your church shouldn't sign Steve Chalke's charter for gay marriage.  Chalke is a strong evangelical Christian who has been moving more and more to the idea of an inclusive church - yes, including gay people.  Married gay people.  Who can get married.  To each other.  Steve Chalke is not alone in this but in evangelical circles in the UK he's a big name so for him to say these things - and organise conferences where people like Ruth Hunt, the head of Stonewall UK, can come and speak and be accepted - is no small matter for churches here.

The article was about a scientist who used science to turn from atheism to Christianity. It's not a unique story, just as stories about Christians who use science to turn to atheism are not unique.  His personal story is interesting and I'm glad he has found extra peace in his faith.  It's not a cause for anyone to convert to Christianity though.  He's written a book about it and the website is about his book.  He's a clever man, that's certain.  And it was the Head of Physics at MIT who encouraged him to write the book.

This is a man who has more science qualifications than I do.  I just about passed my A levels, that's the extent of my scientific academic prowess.  I apologise for errors I make - please feel free to correct me so I can eradicate them from this post.  On the other hand I have more theology qualifications than he does - I have two degrees to his zero and the site is called Counting to God, not Counting to Physics.  I don't think that's crucially relevant though - this post is more about keeping one's brain switched on rather than anything else.

I got as far as question one before beginning to find problems with the questioning. It asks:

According to the Big Bang Theory:

• Our universe was created; all matter/energy that ever has existed and ever will exist was created in a single instant.
• Matter and energy are eternal and have always existed, but life has evolved over time.

Which of two options is correct. Isn't the answer neither?

Look at the second option.  This is the wrong choice.  The quiz says.

Of course matter hasn't always existed according to the theory.  People know that.  The theory doesn't state that elementary particles existed before the big bang - if there was any "before" but that's another question.  If you've read the novel Tau Zero, which is an experience I recommend, you might go along with the ideas there and say that there was a before and subsequent to the end of the 
universe there will be an after.  Spoilers!

Then there is that word "but."  Why?  The Big Bang Theory says nothing about the evolution of life - life could have suddenly appeared with a diversity of species on 100 billion planets and that would not negate a big bang.  I don't believe it did appear that way, but the theory doesn't rule it out.  Evolution of life just isn't relevant to the question.

I wonder about the word "evolved" being in that option too - it places the concept of evolution into the context of an answer that we know to be false.  Thus if we don't think about it, by choosing the other answer as correct - which you have to do to progress through the site as you'll be told why your answer is wrong if you choose incorrectly - we have subconsciously already biased ourselves against believing in evolution.

Yes, option two is wrong.  At least in part.  So let's look at option one.

Our universe was created.  Hmm.  Created.  So if two was wrong and one option is the right one we already have to answer with this word "created" that implies that there is some kind of creator.  No, the big bang theory does not say the universe was created.  But we've said the other option is wrong - and the website has told us about it being wrong if we clicked on it.  So we have to click and say it was created and that the theory believed by most cosmologists says that it was.

All matter/energy that ever has existed and ever will exist was created in a single instant.  Is that right?  No.  It's not.  The theory does not say this.  What is matter?  This article gives the answer in simple terms. Given that an "instant" is zero time, take a look at this timeline of the big bang.  So no, all matter in the universe was not "created" in an instant.  It took time - even if the time period was so short that we cannot imagine it with our minds without the aid of simulations to show us a little of what was probably happening.  Even then we can't really imagine it because the imagining takes trillions times trillions times trillions as long as the actual event.  Just as we may believe there are billions of stars in our galaxy but we can't begin to imagine them all or form a picture of the planets round them in our minds.

That's question one.  Two options.  Both false.  But it has already become a game in which we are forced towards a conclusion that favours strong theism by virtue of the conclusion being right there in the questions.

Head on to question six and scream at the options - and at which one is the 'right' one too. It asks if the Earth is special and whether there might be other planets suitable for humans to live on. The site producer obviously follows the Rare Earth Theory rather than the estimates from the Carnegie Institution of Science or NASA.

I really dislike the question. The options are that our planet is special and maybe unique or that it isn't special. I would argue that there are probably lots of Earth like planets in the galaxy but that doesn't mean our planet isn't special. It is special. Life is special wherever it's found. And we are special, each one of us, every single human being - special even though there are billions like us on this planet.

The Earth is special.  How can anything that contains this kind of thing not be special.  These photos are from a random walk I went on a couple of days ago - they'll appear again with others in a future post if I ever manage to catch up with posting about walks and the pleasing places not too far from our home.

How could we ever think that this world is not special?  And that's just one tiny part of it, a short bus ride away.  In a straight line, that water is less than three miles away from home.

The site gives two options to each of questions. One option is clearly wrong. The other is closer to the current majority scientific view but is phrased in such a way to imply that God must have done it.

As teleological arguments go, this website is very shoddy. When theism is written into the fabric of the premises it's not really an argument at all.  When the correct answers are as much scientific error as the incorrect answers then it is propaganda rather than anything resembling what Jesus would have called "the truth that sets you free."

I don't have nice simple answers to matters of faith.  I am not trying to sell you a spiritual view of the universe.  What I have is good, health, honest doubt.  What I also have is a view that rejects certainty, exclusivity, holding onto faith when its shown to be false, and putting forth the case for ones faith with false arguments.  I believe all of those things I reject are dangerous - and they are all things I used to embrace to some degree.

I used to have the simple answers.  I had a big slice of certainty, a bigger slice of exclusivity and held onto dogmas including those which an unbiased observer would find ridiculous.  Now I find that the bigger spiritual quest is found in the questions rather than in thinking we have answered any of them.

So.  Is there a God such as that posited by theists including orthodox Christians?

Yes.  No.  Maybe.  I'm not going to begin to try answering the question for you.

One thing is perfectly clear to me:  The website Counting to God does not have the answer.

Look for answers elsewhere.  Or better yet, look for questions.  It's a much more exciting path.