Unfundamentalist

Above All, Love

Dan Wilkinson

The Waco tragedy and the cult of Christian evangelicalism

by in Fundamentalism

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In the March 31st, 2014 New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell writes about the 1993 F.B.I siege on David Koresh’s Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, and the government’s failure to understand the motivations of the group they were dealing with.

Gladwell places the Branch Davidians in “the religious tradition that sees Christ’s return to earth and the establishment of a divine Kingdom as imminent. They were millennialists. Millennial movements believe that within the pages of the Bible are specific clues about when and how the Second Coming will arrive.”

He also compares the Branch Davidians to Mormons, identifying both groups as actively cultivating a culture of separatism. From David Koresh’s Branch Davidians to Joseph Smith’s Mormons, “countless religious innovators over the years have played the game of establishing an identity for themselves by accentuating their otherness.”

It seems clear to me that modern American evangelicals also fit this mold. These self-proclaimed “defenders of biblical Christianity” perpetuate a narrative of themselves in constant conflict with a debased and immoral culture; it’s all us versus them, the faithful versus the faithless, their sacred versus everyone else’s secular.

As today’s evangelicals continue to self-identify in terms of opposition to society, they find themselves increasingly isolated not only from American culture, but from the mainstream of Christianity itself.

Just as Koresh and his… [Read more…] about The Waco tragedy and the cult of Christian evangelicalism

Godly Christians: Don’t stop at World Vision! Keep going!

by in Fundamentalism

Dear Warriors for Christ:

Yesterday it was disclosed that 10,000 God-fearing Christians abandoned their sponsored children when World Vision USA made the abominable choice to allow for the hiring of married gay employees.

Congratulations, brothers and sisters! By withdrawing your financial support of children in need, you have shown the world what the sacrificial love of Jesus Christ really looks like! Yes, it hurts not to give. But sometimes that is the price we must pay.

Speaking of  how we spend our money, let’s keep the pressure on! Our unswerving Godly convictions demand that we continue to boycott all companies and organizations that support gay marriage. Such companies include: Starbucks, General Mills, Costco, Kraft, Levi’s, Nike, Gap, Target, Campbell’s, Pepsi, Coke, Oreo, Ben & Jerry’s, Nordstrom, Sears, J.C. Penney, Macy’s, Chevron, Shell, BP, 3M, Chrysler, Ford, GM, Nissan, Toyota, Volkswagen, Comcast, Sony, Walt Disney, Time Warner, Viacom, Hallmark, Kellogg’s, Land O’Lakes, Safeway, Hershey, Mattel, Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, DuPont, GE, Whirlpool, Home Depot, Best Buy, Barnes & Noble, Staples, Office Depot, Walgreens, OfficeMax, Crate and Barrel, Kodak, Lexmark, and Xerox.

Refraining from spending with these companies should not prove too difficult for you, for surely you own no credit card issued by Visa, MasterCard, Discover, or American Express. (Nor, of course, do you have any money in or with Citigroup, J.P. Morgan,… [Read more…] about Godly Christians: Don’t stop at World Vision! Keep going!

Which story are you in?

by in Book Reviews

“Which story are you in? Have you chosen your story wisely? Have you challenged the story you tell yourself, if it doesn’t align with reality?”

So asks C.S. Lewis during an imagined lunchtime conversation in Alister McGrath’s new book “If I Had Lunch with C.S. Lewis.” (Tyndale House, 2014) McGrath uses Lewis’s writings and biography as a springboard to explore important questions of life and faith.

In chapter 3, “A Story-Shaped World,” he examines how and why Lewis came to write the Chronicles of Narnia and the importance of the Narnia stories as representations of the Christian story.

Lewis saw stories as a means to better understand the deep truths of life and as a way of “sneak[ing] past the ‘watchful dragons’ of a dogmatic rationalism.” For Lewis, stories are able to make theological ideas intelligible, making them “real” in a way that dry exposition never could.

As a young man Lewis struggled to understand what story he inhabited and what relevance Christianity had to his life. It was through his friend J.R.R. Tolkien that he came to understand Christianity as a “true myth,” a story that “unifies and transcends” the “fragmentary and imperfect insights” of our lives.

McGrath says that “For Tolkien, the Gospels narrate ‘a story of a larger kind,’ which embraces what is good, true, and beautiful in the great myths of literature, expressing it as ‘a far-off gleam or echo of the evangelium in the real world.’” It was this conception of Christianity that captured… [Read more…] about Which story are you in?

"Noah" in a nutshell: Watchers lose, love wins

by in Movie Reviews

In my previous post about “Noah,” I observed: “Like any artist with a singular vision, Aronofsky’s work is often uneven and polarizing, but always thought-provoking and engaging.” I didn’t realize how prescient those words would be. Though intended to describe Aronofsky’s entire oeuvre, that sentence turned out to be an apt summation of my feelings after seeing “Noah.” Uneven? Definitely. Thought-proving? Undoubtedly.

Spoiler Alert: I reveal some plot elements that aren’t in the Bible and are key to the movie. If you haven’t yet seen it and plan on doing so, don’t continue … you’ve been warned!

First, the uneven.

Aronofsky’s Watchers are the ultimate Gnostic archetypes: beings of pure light entrapped by the muck of the material world, yearning for release from the bondage of physicality. But the Watchers, as depicted by Aronofsky, are lumbering, cartoonish beasts, an awkward and uninspired mix of Ent, Transformer and Muppet that would be laughable if not for the naïve earnestness of their role in the script.

The film would have been far stronger had they been omitted entirely, along with the underwhelming battle scene in which they featured. Aronofsky is clearly at his best when examining the psychological motivations and interactions of his human characters, not when orchestrating CGI battles featuring ballet dancers with yoga boxes taped to their arms and legs.

Rather than further bemoaning this misstep, I have another interpretation of… [Read more…] about "Noah" in a nutshell: Watchers lose, love wins

Sink or swim, "Noah" is a story worth retelling

by in Movie Reviews

Darren Aronofsky’s film “Noah” hits theaters this Friday (March 28) but has already caused controversy within some Christian circles.

It’s sparked a few interesting conversations for me as well. Questions I’ve encountered in discussions with friends have included: “Who’s Aronofsky?”, “Was there really a flood?” and “Does the movie follow the Bible?”

When discussing “Noah,” it’s important to remember that this is a Darren Aronofsky film. Like any artist with a singular vision, Aronofsky’s work is often uneven and polarizing, but always thought-provoking and engaging. From “Pi” all the way through to “Black Swan,” Aronofsky has always been willing to pursue his aesthetic vision, to push the limits of convention and propriety and to craft movies that remain true to his intent rather than seeking mere mass-market appeal.

It’s also important to remember that this is a story from the Bible that has transcended the Biblical text itself, becoming firmly ensconced as part of modern Christian mythology. In light of our seemingly ubiquitous familiarity with the story, reading (or re-reading) Genesis 6-9 prior to weighing in on cinematic interpretations of that passage seems like a wise undertaking. It’s a quick read, notable as much for what it doesn’t say as for what it does. If you’re going to see the film, why not take five minutes to read the original?

To better understand that Biblical story of the Flood, I recommend Paul Seely’s three part series for BioLogos: The Flood: Not… [Read more…] about Sink or swim, "Noah" is a story worth retelling

The best Christian book of the year

by in Uncategorized

Several years ago, I attended a church discussion group on the topic of women in ministry. The pastor leading the group spent the first forty-five minutes forcefully laying out the “biblical” case for why women aren’t allowed to be pastors.

After his diatribe, I asked him, “if women can’t be pastors, does that mean God withholds gifts of preaching and teaching from them? Or does he bless them with such gifts and then denies them their full use?” He equivocated and rehashed his talking points.

To me, the answers are clear: God doesn’t withhold these gifts from women. There are many women who have been blessed with gifts of preaching and teaching and leadership and who have been called by God to use these gifts to their fullest potential serving the Church. Any church that refuses to acknowledge, accept and celebrate the blessings that God is offering through these women is refusing God himself. Sadly, this rejection and exclusion continues to stymie the Kingdom of God in many churches.

But even within churches and denominations that accept women in leadership roles, challenges of gender, race and age don’t magically fade into irrelevancy. It’s challenging to be a pastor. It’s even more challenging to be a female pastor. The challenges faced by young, non-white, female pastors are Sisyphean. It’s easy to say we fully accept women in church leadership roles, but the realities of explicit and implicit biases are still all too pervasive within modern… [Read more…] about The best Christian book of the year

Samurai Ken Ham and the Biblical Watermelon

by in Christian Issues

As I’ve previously discussed, Ken Ham’s argument for Young Earth Creationism depends upon his slicing science into two kinds of science: historical and observational.

Ham contends that observational science, upon which everyone generally agrees, forms the basis of our modern technological accomplishments. But when it comes to historical science, Ham claims that we end up with profoundly different conclusions — for instance, evolution versus creation — because we’re analyzing the evidence from different worldviews. According to Ham, being a Christian (or a true Christian, anyway) means interpreting the historical scientific data through the Bible alone. If you’re not a Christian (or are simply a very misguided one), then you interpret the historical scientific data according to your own terribly flawed and sinful understanding.

To Ham, his interpretation of the historical evidence rests on God’s infallible Word, while everyone else’s interpretation of that evidence rests on their own utterly fallible assumptions. While Ham’s division of science is decidedly problematic (not to mention blatantly self-serving), there is a division to which all Christians really should pay attention: the text of the Bible and our interpretation of that text.

On the one hand we have the text of the Bible, written and collected and compiled and edited by many authors for many reasons over many, many years. Great! Unfortunately, we don’t have any of the… [Read more…] about Samurai Ken Ham and the Biblical Watermelon

What can movies tell us about the afterlife?

by in Book Reviews

What do our stories tell us about who we are? What do our songs, our books, our paintings and our movies reveal about the reality of our existence? Do our artistic expressions point toward deeper truths that lie beyond the merely physical, or is our creative output only a subjective reflection of our innate longings and desires?

In “Death at the Movies: Hollywood’s Guide to the Hereafter” (Quest Books), Lyn and Tom Davis Genelli wrestle with these questions through an exploration of cinema’s metaphysical side, examining what our movies have to say about life, death and beyond.

The Genellis focus on “transit” films: movies that explore a “transition or change, as to a spiritual existence at death.” (3) In their understanding, “the essence of the transit film is to show characters learning and developing, mastering their limitations in an essential way.” (80) These cinematic narratives thereby function as “vehicles for the subconscious infusion of perennial mystical/spiritual concepts about death.” (3)

The authors think that such films reveal important metaphysical truths and set out to show “how popular motion pictures have intuited transit through their visions of death and the afterlife, and how those visions play out their largely unconscious role in the evolution and guidance of human consciousness toward understanding the meaning and purpose of death.” (3)

The Genellis walk us through the metaphysical insights of movies such as It’s a Wonderful Life,… [Read more…] about What can movies tell us about the afterlife?

The Embarrassing Speculations of Ken Ham

by in Christian Issues

This guest post is by UC supporter Pete Lefevre.

Out of a morbid sense of curiosity, I watched the Bill Nye/Ken Ham debate this past week. For me, the origins of our earth and our species have been amply explained through scientific inquiry and those who argue for a 6,000-year-old earth — who treat Genesis as a science and history textbook — have not fully considered the numerous and powerful arguments that might disturb their closed system.

That accusation might well be hurled back at me, so if you’ll allow me some special pleading, I was an adherent to the creationist view for many years. I’ve spent inordinate amounts of my life in American Evangelical Conservative Protestant churches. While this particular subculture of religious expression may not have a printed list of required political, historical, and scientific beliefs I can assure you that if you show any deviance from the expected norm (if, for example, you accept observation of redshift as a reliable dating mechanism for the universe, or accept natural selection as an explanation for the development and variety of life) you may find yourself isolated if not shunned. These churches are not open-ended discussion groups. It’s believe or leave.

So I suited up, showed up, and saluted the flag in a manner of speaking. But my inveterate reading habits did me in. I took great comfort and courage from much of the Bible. I also took great comfort and courage in reading Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, and Michio… [Read more…] about The Embarrassing Speculations of Ken Ham

Martin Luther King Jr.'s Challenge to the Church

by in Book Reviews

“Race, as both a social construct and a visible reality, is the gigantic elephant in the American living room that some insist will disappear if only we would just ignore it.” So says Edward Gilbreath in the opening pages of his book “Birmingham Revolution: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Epic Challenge to the Church” (InterVarsity Press).

Gilbreath goes on to explore the history of the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King Jr.’s pivotal role in that movement and the ongoing challenges that America still faces regarding race. Through the lens of King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Gilbreath offers an extended reflection on where we’ve come from and where we still have to go in terms of race and the church.

In his Birmingham letter, King opined:

But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today’s church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust.

Those timeless words offer a challenge that many responded to in 1963, but has all too often been ignored by today’s Christians. Gilbreath wrestles with that loss, interacting with present-day civil rights and church leaders and examining the challenges we have overcome and the lessons that history can teach us.

“Birmingham Revolution” isn’t… [Read more…] about Martin Luther King Jr.'s Challenge to the Church