Patriotic Sunday

I find the video I have embedded below deeply troubling. What I found the most troubling was the video panning of the audience at the end where the announcer tells everyone to stand to show support for the idolatry they just witnessed. Most do. 

In the time of the Judge Gideon in Ancient Israel, the staff of Moses that was used to heal the people of a plague still existed.  As you might expect it had become a symbol of idolatrous worship. Gideon was forced to destroy it. The staff itself was not evil, the use of it which popular custom at the time dictated was a violation of the second commandment. This is how I look at the use of flags in worship. 

While I am sure that many in this congregation thought this presentation was over the top, I wonder how many still agreed with the philosophy presented? How many of those who did not stand did so for health reasons? Most I would guess. 

"Oh say can you see?" I doubt most of my readers do see. 

One cannot leave Babylon the Great by worshiping at one of its altars. 

Some Ideas Are So Dumb They Can Only Be Believed By Religious People

Since religion according to dictionary.com is "a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe," I suppose we are all religious in some sense. But what I am more specifically talking about is the need for some people to justify themselves through religion. Some have the ability to put their brain into neutral, and believe what tickles their fancy or their ego. One such religious belief is British Israelism:

British Israelism (also called Anglo-Israelism) is a doctrine based on the hypothesis that people of Western European descent, particularly those in Great Britain, are the direct lineal descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. The doctrine often includes the tenet that the British Royal Family is directly descended from the line of King David.

British Israelism is data mining at its "finest." While data mining is a legitimate term, I am using it to describe a very human process of selectively harvesting data that, with a little tweaking, can "support" a preconceived notion. In terms of the Bible a related term is "proof-texting." 

Let me give you an example. The British Israel advocate may start out with two true statements: 1. The word "brit" in Hebrew means "covenant." 2.The word "ish" in Hebrew means man. So what conclusion is drawn? The English word British therefore means "covenant man."

Argh. 

People do this all the time. The health field is particularly suspect. You find the health study that says what you want, and suddenly it is the most important study ever. But the way such studies work is that you can often find studies that say the opposite. I am not saying that better health is unknowable, but to be careful which dumb religious health idea you buy into. 

What makes me smile about British Israelism is that it is in one sense true. Since we are all related to each other, there are very few people alive today that do not have "Jewish" blood. Hitler would not be pleased. And of course the "De" in my last name means that I am a descendant of royalty and nobility. That, and 14 rubles, will allow me to ride the bus anywhere here in Murom, Russia. 

This video presents this idea well, and provides the additional information that I have one billion atoms that used to be in the body of the bard, William Shakespeare. That no doubt explains the excellent quality of this blog.

Civil Religion

Am I the only one troubled by the iconography in many churches of the US flag? When I wrote about, and gave an example of Civil Religion last week, it was not well received. Here is what Prof. Philip Gorski who has specialized in studying Civic Religion said about the early church: 

In the standard genealogy, the term “civil religion” is attributed to Rousseau and traced to the Romans, sometimes via Machiavelli (Hughey 1983; Rouner 1986; Shanks 1995; Cristi 2001; Parsons 2002). While the peoples of Rome enjoyed a great deal of religious freedom, they were nonetheless obligated to take part in the civic rituals of the Empire (Scheid 2003). These demands, it should be noted, were of a purely ritual character. They did not involve a confession or creed of any kind, as regarded the efficacy or meaning of the rituals. The refusal of the early Christians to take part in the Roman cult was one of the principal reasons, perhaps the principal reason, why they were subject to periodic persecutions. Nor did the Christianization of the Empire bring an end to religious persecution; it simply shifted their target — from the Christians to the “pagans”

This was actually the subject of one of my earliest blog posts. It seems almost quaint that the early church was so concerned about such a trivial matter--and that is the problem, for the confusion of the state with God is a common error among Christians. This should not be a surprise as this was a common mistake throughout history. 

For those interested in this subject and who wish to go a little deeper, here is an interview with professor Gorski.  

Since I have meditating on this lately, you can no doubt expect more posts on this subject. 

Goose Stepping For Jesus

As we are traveling my blogging may be somewhat irregular, so I thought that today I would share an old post from the past. I had not realized until I came across this post that I have been blogging for over two years! I wish to publicly thank Pam Dewey, the beloved editor here at prophecypodcast.com. If you like what you see here, a lot of the credit goes to her. 

So if you want to see one of my earlier posts about the uniforms we all wear, click here. 

Civic Religion

What is idolatry? Here is Exodus 20's description from the Message. Yes, this is one of the Ten Commandments:

^4-6 No carved gods of any size, shape, or form of anything whatever, whether of things that fly or walk or swim. Don’t bow down to them and don’t serve them because I am God, your God, and I’m a most jealous God, punishing the children for any sins their parents pass on to them to the third, and yes, even to the fourth generation of those who hate me. But I’m unswervingly loyal to the thousands who love me and keep my commandments.

It is not that images are bad in themselves, so I guess I am only semi-iconoclastic in the way I look at these things. What is bad is bowing down, serving, and worshiping these idols. 

But I can just see you saying, "I have never done that!"

Are you sure? 

But before I mention one widespread type of idolatry among Christians today, I want to discuss the punishment on multiple generations mentioned in the commandment. This is a proverb and must be interpreted as a proverb. Here is Ezekiel's interpretation:

18 ^1-2 God’s Message to me: “What do you people mean by going around the country repeating the saying,

The parents ate green apples,
The children got the stomachache?

^3-4 “As sure as I’m the living God, you’re not going to repeat this saying in Israel any longer. Every soul—man, woman, child—belongs to me, parent and child alike. You die for your own sin, not another’s.

How then can God punish us for the sins of our parents? It is really simple if you think about it. We learn from our parents and repeat the same sins. The rest of Ezekiel 18 discusses this. 

Watch this video clip taken directly from an iconic movie. It shows by example the idolatry of modern Christians today, and in particular notice the training of the youth in idolatry. Notice also the removal of the hat by the black man in America's most holy place. 

Are you committing idolatry without realizing it? The reason such propaganda films are made is that they work.