The last caption should be: Well, your opinion is invalid. It is meaningless, because you don't believe in the duck. i.imgur.com/24eZXZ5.jpg27 minutes ago
To all my Christian friends: Remember, God created that rainbow you're now seeing everywhere. ;-) #MarriageEquality7 hours ago
People need to learn the difference between Memorial Day and Veterans Day. One celebrates the living, one commemorates and mourns the dead. 19 hours ago
Posted on December 19, 2012 by bobcargill (@xkv8r)
Mayan Grocery List
Here’s a quick thought on the Mayan Calendar, the so-called Mayan Apocalypse, and December 21, 2012:
“Claiming the world will end because the Mayans ran out of room on their calendar is like claiming an apocalyptic famine is coming because you ran out of room on your grocery list.” – Robert R. Cargill
It’s all nonsense. Watch this for more, credible information.
Posted on December 18, 2012 by bobcargill (@xkv8r)
Dr. James Dobson (right) with Presidential hopeful Rick Santorum.
For all of you who once respected him, we’ve unfortunately come to witness Dr. James Dobson devolve over the past several years into nothing more than a right wing fundamentalist.
“I mean millions of people have decided that God doesn’t exist, or he’s irrelevant to me and we have killed fifty-four million babies and the institution of marriage is right on the verge of a complete redefinition. Believe me, that is going to have consequences too.
And a lot of these things are happening around us, and somebody is going to get mad at me for saying what I am about to say right now, but I am going to give you my honest opinion: I think we have turned our back on the Scripture and on God Almighty and I think he has allowed judgment to fall upon us. I think that’s what’s going on.” (audio here)
Dear Mr. Dobson,
Please stop. Just stop. Please stop telling us what you think God thinks (which, not coincidentally, happens to be precisely what the Evangelical GOP talking points tell you to think). In fact, please contact Pat Robertson and come to some agreement to retire together, because you’ve both absolutely lost your minds!
There are plenty of quality, good-hearted, kind, loving, and yes, faithful teachers in our public schools, and they give their entire lives to and for their kids (as we’ve recently seen at Sandy Hook Elementary). Why insult them by failing to acknowledge their efforts? Why judge them just because the government won’t let you force non-Christian elementary school kids to pray to Jesus (otherwise known as that maddening drum you refer to as “School Prayer” that you incessantly beat)?
Are you so blind to the thousands of good and loving teachers in our public schools – many of whom are devout Christians! – that you’d say “we’ve” (and therefore, “they’ve“) “turned their backs on God” just because the guy you voted for lost the Presidency?
Will you REALLY blame gays and abortion for the Newtown shootings? Is your God so small, so weak, and so readily obliging that he is somehow forced to abide by US domestic policy? Is your God so childishly petulant that he throws a fit in the form of a schoolhouse slaughter when he’s not honored enough? Not praised enough?
Enough! Retire already. But whatever you do, please stop talking nonsense.
Or, here’s a thought: focus on your own damn family, and stop criticizing mine, you theologically impotent, thoughtless hack.
Posted on September 14, 2011 by bobcargill (@xkv8r)
Here are a couple of free resources available for use when teaching the story of Jephthah and his sacrifice of his daughter.
The first is from the Brick Testament, which uses legos to tell Bible stories.
The second is NonStampCollector’s telling of the story of Jephthah, which addresses additional concepts of ethics, morality, and compares the sacrifice of Jephthah’s daughter to the Akedah of Isaac in Genesis 22. The video is below.
Posted on September 14, 2011 by bobcargill (@xkv8r)
Here are some thoughts on free will from one of my favorite YouTube authors, NonStampCollector. If you haven’t seen his videos, check them out. They are guaranteed to make you think.
There was no apology, but neo-fundamentalist Mars Hill Church Pastor Mark Driscoll responded to the backlash of criticism (including my own, Rachel, Joel, Jim, Scott, and others) about his general theology of men and women self-described “flippant” remarks made on Facebook:
Mars Hill Church Pastor Mark Driscoll incites gossip about "effeminate" worship leaders and asks his followers to tell their stories.
as well as a number of past comments about “effeminate” men. (Kudos, btw, to John Von Rader and Rick Allen (above) for immediately calling Mr. Driscoll on his incitement of gossip in this public forum. And conversely, I hereby offer the following Merriam-Webster.com link to Will and Virgil.)
Mr. Driscoll’s response wasn’t actually so much a response to the merits of the objections raised against his behavior as it was a mere acknowledgment that some people didn’t like his recent Facebook incitement of homophobic gossip comments. Glaringly absent, however, from his comments was any form of an apology whatsoever. Mr. Driscoll did acknowledge in a carefully worded statement that his executive elders “sat him down,” saying:
As a man under authority, my executive elders sat me down and said I need to do better by hitting real issues with real content in a real context.
I’m not sure whether to interpret this as an acknowledgment of disapproval by his superiors (methinks so?), or an attempt to deflect criticism by suggesting that what is really needed is a better venue to publish his unapologetic thoughts on the gender issue. I lean toward the latter because where the apology should have been, Mr. Driscoll instead promised to create a new website where he will attempt to better articulate his “complementarian” position of using “biblical authority” to continue to suppress discuss the roles of women in the the church. Not unexpectedly, Mr. Driscoll states that he will use the first post on the new website to hock a new book that he and his wife have written tentatively entitled, “Real Marriage: The Truth about Sex, Friendship, and Life Together” (apparently differentiating real marriage from same-sex marriage, which Mr. Driscoll opposes) to be published by Thomas Nelson publishers.
Driscoll reasserted his position that King David was properly qualified to be the chief psalmist (the apparent equivalent of “worship leader” to Mr. Driscoll, who appears to have forgotten about the worship function of the Levitical priests in early Israelite religion) of the Bible because he still possessed the very “masculine” trait of being “a warrior king who started killing people as a boy.” (Driscoll’s actual quote is this:
I explained the main guy doing the music in the Bible was David, who was a warrior king who started killing people as a boy and who was also a songwriter and musician.)
So in the end, Mr. Driscoll appears not to be saying that he said something inappropriate, but by offering to create a new website to promote discussion of his views, he appears to be saying that we don’t understand him because he’s not saying it loud enough. Go figure.
Ephesians 5:25 says, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church.” 1 Corinthians 13:4ff defines love as “patient, kind,” etc. Nowhere in 1 Cor. 13, however, do I see the masculine love husbands are to show defined as “watchin’ football, makin’ money, climbin’ a mountain, shootin’ a gun, or working on a truck” (see the 2:50 mark here).
Don’t forget that Mr. Driscoll’s Mars Hill church sees its primary mission as the proselytization of 22-25-year old “young, single, non-Christian, perverted, educated, technological men” (see the 3:45 mark here). Mr. Driscoll made his name as a pastor by appealing to young men. He does a lot of consulting on the side and has achieved much success within Evangelical circles because of his strategies to appeal to young men. This means there is much potential personal and financial incentive for Mr. Driscoll to preach a gospel that appeals to “young, single, non-Christian, perverted” heterosexual men who like to “slaughter other men,” “win a fight,” and “punch you in the nose” (see the 2:20 mark here). Perhaps this is why we continue to hear and read repeated homophobic and gender-discriminatory comments from Mr. Driscoll: his “gospel” is designed to appeal to the “young, single, non-Christian, perverted” men from whom he gains his power.
Imagine if these men ever learned about the real Jesus presented in the Bible. I’m guessing that would be bad for business…
ESPN is reporting that Dallas Cowboys Hall of Fame wide receiver Michael Irvin will be appearing shirtless (well, abs-uncovered at least) on the cover of next month’s August issue of Out magazine. Why, you might ask, would a straight male appear on the cover of the world’s most widely-read gay magazine?
According to the article by Cyd Zeigler, Irvin is attempting to honor the life and struggles of his gay brother, Vaughn, who died in 2006, by speaking out:
Now, after working through some of his personal demons with his long-time bishop, T.D. Jakes of the Potter’s House church in Dallas, Texas, Irvin is ready to talk about Vaughn. More than that, he’s become a passionate supporter of gay athletes and equal rights for same-sex couples.
Michael Irvin also has a pointed message for the African-American Christian community:
“I don’t see how any African-American with any inkling of history can say that you don’t have the right to live your life how you want to live your life. No one should be telling you who you should love, no one should be telling you who you should be spending the rest of your life with. When we start talking about equality and everybody being treated equally, I don’t want to know an African-American who will say everybody doesn’t deserve equality.”
[Note that 2008 California election exit polls indicated that an overwhelming 70% of the California African-American community supported Prop 8 (which sought to ban same-sex marriage), while the ballot initiative only passed with a slim 52.24% majority.]
Good for Michael Irvin. Irvin is now admitting that much of the womanizing he did in his younger years was, in part, due to the fact that he knew his brother was gay, and he didn’t want people to think he was gay. I applaud Irvin’s honesty, especially on a topic where many men are not honest. I firmly believe that many men oppose marriage equality for same-sex couples simply because they do not wish to be perceived as gay.
I know this from experience. Despite my wife and child, many of my “good ol’ boy” friends from back home in Madera and Fresno, CA (especially the Christians) and an even greater number of folks who only know me from appearances on TV or pieces I’ve written either assume I am gay, bisexual, or am no longer a Christian because I advocated so strongly against California’s Proposition 8 (here and here and here and here). They call me all the names you’d use to tease a gay man, as if I’d somehow be embarrassed or offended by names if I were. And while I don’t let petty name calling trouble me much, I do think that many other straight men (especially people of faith) are so afraid of the mere concept of homosexuality (i.e., that it might somehow “rub off” on them or, like Michael Irvin admitted, that it may be a genetic thing and they may carry a recessive “gay” gene that may present at any time), or are simply so afraid of being called gay, that they overemphasize their masculinity and vehemently oppose homosexuality, and even go so far as opposing equal rights for homosexuals. These men, who fear feelings and emotions they may or may not experience or understand, attempt to purge their minds of the perceived threat by condemning gays, opposing their civil rights, and insisting that men stick out their chests, work on their trucks, play football, cuss, suppress the roles of women, and “not act like a bunch of ‘chickified’ church dudes” who “wear sweater vests.”
Which brings us to Mars Hill Church Pastor Mark Driscoll, who in this case study, must be viewed as the Christian antithesis of Michael Irvin and those of us fighting on behalf of social justice and civil rights for all persons.
Opposition to homosexuals, same-sex marriage, and what he calls “effeminate” men is nothing new to Mr. Driscoll. I’m referring to comments after comments he has made about both women and men he feels do not meet the Christian criterion for “dudes,” including “chickified church boys,” and “nice, soft, tender” men “walking around singing love songs to Jesus.” (see below. And, don’t miss the mash-up of the below video here.)
In the above interview (around the 1:50 mark), Mark Driscoll rants about “effeminate” men, saying they are:
“church boys wearing sweater vests and walking around singing love songs to Jesus…nice, soft, tender, ‘chickified’ church boys”
and arguing real Christian men should be characterized as:
“slaughter other men, heterosexual, win a fight, punch you in the nose, dudes”
Driscoll goes on to complain that:
“60% of Christians are chicks, and the 40% that are dudes are still sort of chicks…it’s just sad”
“You walk in and it’s sea foam green, and fuschia, and lemon yellow, and the whole architecture and the whole aesthetic is real feminine and the preacher’s kinda feminine, and the music’s kinda emotional and feminine…”
“and the innovative dudes are home watchin’ football, or they’re out makin’ money, or climbin’ a mountain or shootin’ a gun or working on their truck.”
Note that Mr. Driscoll is not specifically opposing gay men in the above clip, but “effeminate” men whom he feels are not real Christian men who, of course, punch people in the nose and climb mountains.
[Btw, I wonder how he'd feel about a 6'1", 220 lb., free thinking, sharp tongued, former redneck from Fresno who ate something his father shot four nights a week for dinner growing up, who is still an equally good shot with a 7mm Remington Magnum or a .357 Magnum, who has climbed that mountain, fixed that truck, won that baseball championship, and took on that bully, and who, now as a Mensan with a formal graduate education in biblical studies and ancient languages, regularly advocates for social justice and the civil rights of those being oppressed by Christian neo-fundamentalists like Driscoll? I wonder how he'd feel about the kind of man who is actually comfortable enough with his own masculinity to wear Uggs and regularly wear a leather satchel which his daughter refers to as a "murse" (i.e., a man-purse) to a professional conference of his peers? Because, you know, they're out there keeping people honest. Just a thought...]
And this isn’t a one-time thing for Mr. Driscoll. Just this past week, Pastor Mark Driscoll placed the following on his Facebook page. (And yes, since the public backlash best expressed by Rachel Held Evans and countless others), he’s since deleted it from his wall. But fear not, I always make screen shots ;-):
Mark Driscoll incites his Facebook followers to opine and name "effeminate" men.
And Mr. Driscoll is not “just kidding around” as so many of his numb-minded followers are quick to assert in his defense. His neo-fundamentalist pattern of behavior (which I define as a 1950′s fundamentalist in an edgy screen printed hoodie and a pair of designer jeans) is consistent and unapologetic.
Here, when questioned about whether or not he’s “just kidding,” he defines precisely what he’s asking:
Mark Driscoll articulates to his Facebook followers what he meant by "effeminate" when questioned by a respondent about what he was asking.
And, lest you think Mr. Driscoll felt he made a mistake, he defends his asking the question:
Unfortunately, bigotry like this is not limited to the (other) Mars Hill (the better, truer Mars Hill is here), and it is time for people of all faiths to stand up and combat racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, and bigotry in all its forms.
This is what Michael Irvin and most sound Christian scholars, bloggers, advocates, and people of faith are combating. This is the bigotry and nonsense that has plagued the church for so long.
I may not understand the gay mind, but just because I do not understand something does not mean I should oppress the civil rights of those who do. In fact, when asked if I am gay, I always refuse to answer the question and usually reply with the classic “West Wing/CJ Cregg” response of, “It’s none of your damn business.” (See also this clip. And this one. And this one. West Wing said it best!) In a panel discussion at Pepperdine University on racism and homophobia, I explained that I say this because I believe that the sooner straight men stop answering the question, the sooner the question will stop being asked. It is not enough for straight men to say that they support same-sex marriage, but then when asked, “Are you gay,” respond with, “W/Hell no, I’m not gay!” as if there is something embarrassing about it. Straight men should speak out more often in support of marriage equality and we all should stop answering (and asking) the question “Are you gay?”
So I applaud Michael Irvin’s decision to face his fears, honor his brother, and speak out in favor of marriage equality. I’m not a Cowboys fan, and never have really been a Michael Irvin fan. But this decision has turned my opinion of Mr. Irvin to a favorable one, and I am now a fan. I applaud his decision, and I hope this is the beginning of yet another long and distinguished career of public advocacy on behalf of the oppressed for the heralded “Playmaker.”
P.S. If you’d like to contact Mark Driscoll’s church’s “elders,” you may do so here.
If you have an hour, you really ought to listen to the 2010 debate between Dr. Bart Ehrman and Dr. Craig Evans on the reliability of scripture. Below are the YouTube videos in 9 parts.
Dr. Bart D. Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Craig A. Evans is the Payzant Distinguished Professor of New Testament at Acadia Divinity College of Acadia University, in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada.
The audience is the First Family Church in Kansas City and Dr. Ehrman acknowledges at the beginning that most people there will not agree with him. However, throughout the debate you will notice a growing trend: Dr. Ehrman demonstrates the discrepancies and inconsistencies and errors of the biblical text, and dismantles any possibility of an “inerrant” or “infallible” text. In response, Dr. Evans does not dispute Dr. Ehrman’s arguments, but instead dismisses these errors as “insignificant” or attempts to argue that the text is still reliable despite the textual problems.
I’ll let you decide whose argument is more compelling. However, I agree with the moderator, Pastor Jerry Johnston, who states after one of Dr. Evans’ responses (Pt. 3, @ 3:37), “Sounds like an evangelist.”
The key questions are as follows:
Are the gospels reliable? (Pt. 1 @ 3:50)
Do the gospels accurately preserve the teachings of Jesus Christ? (Pt. 2 @ 3:42)
Do the gospels accurately preserve the activities of Jesus Christ? (Pt. 3 @ 3:42)
Do the gospels contain eyewitness tradition? (Pt. 4 @ 4:25)
Do archaeologists and historians use the gospels as sources? (Pt. 5 @ 4:05)
Have the gospels been accurately preserved down through the centuries? (Pt. 6 @ 6:22)
Do scribal errors and textual variants significantly impact any teaching of Jesus or any important Christian teaching? (Pt. 7 @ 7:33)
The title of this post is not a complaint; it is merely an observation. No one confronts the representatives of another tradition with a contest to see which one’s deity will send fire from heaven as Elijah did. No Christian blogger claims that those who comment negatively will be struck with blindness for doing so, as apostles did. God is depicted in many parts of the Bible as knocking down city walls, parting seas and so on. Yet no Christian dominionists are likely to march around Washington D.C. and see it fall into their hands.
Those who claim they “believe the whole Bible” and “take it literally” are being dishonest. Their pastor may have preached recently on the story of the fall of Jericho, but it was applied to God “making the strongholds of sin in your come life crumbling down”, not to a battle plan to take a city.
To be fair, not all Biblical authors view God in the same way. And so there is no single “Biblical view of God”. But certainly God as depicted in some parts of the Bible is not the concept of the deity served by Christians today.
The question a Christian needs to ask is whether they have the courage to admit that their view of God is not the same as that of many depictions in the Bible. Do you have the courage to take the Bible’s actual words completely seriously, even when the result is that you are forced to acknowledge that you do not accept their literal truthfulness?
Let me end with a couple of thought-provoking quotes from Don Cupitt’s book, which I just finished reading:
“The Virgin Mary may cure many people in Portugal but she is much less active in Libya, whereas vaccination and inoculation are observably beneficial – and equally beneficial – in both cultures, the local religion in the end making no difference at all” (Don Cupitt, Taking Leave of God, p.123).
“To put it bluntly, classical Christianity is itself now our Old Testament…We have to use traditional Christianity in the same way as Christianity itself has always used the Old Testament. In both cases there is a great gulf but there is also continuity of spirit and religious values…When a Christian sings a psalm he knows there is a religion-gap and a culture-gap, but it does not worry him because he believes his faith to be the legitimate successor of the faith of the psalmist. Similarly, since the Enlightenment there has developed a religion-gap and a culture-gap between us and traditional Christianity, but we may still be justified in using the old words if we can plausibly argue that our present faith and spiritual values are the legitimate heirs of the old” (Don Cupitt, Taking Leave of God, p.135).
I agree. The truth is that any Christians who claim to interpret the Bible literally would be no different from the very sharia law fundamentalists they so vehemently criticize in Islam. Likewise, few actually believe that God actually works in those same ‘mysterious’ (read: literal, vindictive, destructive, directly miraculous, genocidal) ways anymore. Yet, if you ask Christians today how many of them believe in a ‘literal, inerrant, infallible’ Bible, that percentage would be quite high, especially among Evangelicals.
All of this is to say that anyone being halfway honest must admit that 1) we can’t read the Bible literally, and 2) our views of God are significantly different today than in the first Christian century, in spite of any myth among particular religious denominations that we believe and practice exactly what and how the early church believed and practiced.
אם תהיה רעה בעיר ויהוה לא עשה
“If there is evil in a city, has Yahweh not done it?” Amos 3:6
"The Quest for the Historical Satan" by Miguel De La Torre and Albert Hernandez
A new book entitled “Quest for the Historical Satan” is scheduled to be released this August 2011 (Amazon). The authors, Iliff School of Theology (Denver, CO) Professors Miguel De La Torre and Albert Hernandez, argue the following:
The figure of Satan has for centuries embodied or incarnated absolute evil. Existing alongside more intellectualist interpretations of evil, Satan has figured largely in Christian practices, devotions, popular notions of the afterlife, and fears of retribution in the beyond. Satan remains an influential reality today in many Christian traditions and in popular culture. But how should Satan be understood today?
De La Torre and Hernandez’s volume probes the murky origins of the satanic legends and beliefs back to their pre-Christian roots in the Middle East. They unearth the Satan’s roots in Egyptian and Babylonian understandings of evil. They also show, however, that the ancient Satan has some characteristics we would hardly recognize, especially his appearance in most ancient cultures and survival in many traditional religions as the “trickster” figure. While a minor tradition in historic Christianity, the authors argue, seeing Satan as trickster is historically accurate and holds real promise for Christian rethinking in “theology, philosophy, and practice of evil” and how it can be dealt with. This is a fascinating story that helps the reader reframe basic elements of our worldview of good and evil.
Bible and Interpretation has an essay from the book’s authors here, which concludes:
Viewing Satan as trickster is not without problems, specifically the ambiguity that exists between Satan and God—an ambiguity that can find its full expression in the trickster figure. Rather than being God’s antithesis, God’s opposite, a certain ambiguity, if not complimentary position is held by Satan. If Satan has no power except that given by God, we are left wondering whether evil can come from God, a proposition which the early biblical writers and ancient Church Fathers like Augustine raised. We heard the prophet Amos asking “If there is evil in a city, has Yahweh not done it?” (Amos 3:6). More disturbing is the passage where God sends evil spirits to torment King Saul (1 Sam 18:10). Such a proposition has the potential of dismissing any notion regarding God’s ultimate goodness. Once we eliminate Satan as some type of quasi-deity who can be blamed for all of the evils which befall humanity, we are left asking if God has a dark side. What is more, if Satan is only carrying out God’s divine will; then does this mean that God is the ultimate trickster?
Setting aside the obvious question about the “historical questing” for anything theological or superhuman, the book should offer an interesting critique of what has become the standard view of Satan as absolute evil (and conversely of God as purely good). How did ancient Israel go from a singular monotheist faith (at least in a prescribed, orthodox sense) to a Christian pantheon of good and evil divine beings complete with names and characteristics?
I’ll read the book when it arrives. It should give rise to some discussion.
allow me to welcome jim west, who will set this one up for us:
I’m trying to think of a word that describes people worse than dilettantes. Idiots? Imbeciles? Morons? People who should NEVER talk about or be allowed within 10 miles of the Bible or biblical interpretation? Or, more accurately, all of the above. Because all of the above certainly describes Fox News and their utter unfamiliarity with anything related to Scripture.
A page on Fox Nation…claims Obama “misquoted a familiar Bible verse” during his address yesterday:
President Obama misquoted a familiar Bible verse during a faith-based address at the National Prayer Breakfast.”Those who wait on the Lord will soar on wings like eagles, and they will run and not be weary, and they will walk and not faint,” the president said during a speech to several thousand people at the breakfast.
But the actual passage, from Isaiah 40:31, states: “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”
Somewhat ironically, while Fox Nation appears to be positioning themselves as the arbiters of authentic Christianity, they seem unfamiliar with the fact that there is more than one version of the Bible. Obama was quoting from the New International Version while Fox Nation was pointing to the King James Version to “debunk” him. This would be funny if it weren’t so pathetic.
Really Fox, please, please, just shut up. Just shut up and never talk about the Bible or Christianity ever again. Every time you do (or Beck does or O’Reilly does) you all just prove to the rest of the world how thoroughly moronic you are. You’re not just dilettantes. You’re far worse. You’re Fox News.
i’ve said it before, i’ll say it again: the sooner people at fox news stop trying to be theologians – i’m looking at you bill o’reilly (here) and glenn beck (here and here and here and here) – and stop trying to establish themselves as religious authorities attempting to cultivate some sort of christian version of sharia law, the better off we’ll all be.
just admit that you only want to criticize president obama, and don’t mind using some sloppy biblical exegesis misinterpretation to do so.
don’t you think that a journalist with even a shred of integrity might hear president obama’s speech and say, ‘hmm, that sounds like a verse i know. i wonder if he’s using a different translation?’ nope. instead, this ‘fox nation‘ report (note that the name of whoever wrote that ‘article’ is nowhere to be found) just assumes that obama misquoted scripture and started ranting, betraying both his/her own ignorance of the bible (and its translations) and his/her (religious?) animosity toward president obama.
dear fox news: please stop pretending to be religious scholars, because you suck at it.
