Category Archives: God

Berlin, Brexit, European Union, God, politics, society, vision

Disappointment leads to further delusion

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This week I stumbled upon another perfect example of exactly the kind of lies and diversion tactics of so-called charismatic churches that I have been referring to.

Given their failure to grow numerically in a way that God had allegedly promised, now the leaders have found the latest exciting project for which the church’s naive members will keep on giving excessive amounts of their income. And it comes with yet another promise of great blessing. The church will be like Joseph, providing food for the poor, and then the Lord will mightily bless us. Such blatant misapplication of the Bible always has selfishness at its core.

As I have said in a previous blog, the history of the last three decades of such churches has included “prophetic” promises of revival, then a call to buy large buildings, then Kidz Klubs to reach out to working class children, then planting new churches, then multiple services. None of which produces any tangible church growth, let alone the revival of the masses. It is still hard to believe that the members of such sects never seem to pause and ask: “But why have we not grown after all these projects from God? Where is the revival? Why is the nation in a much worse condition now that all these Christians are influencing things for the better? Is God a liar? Have our leaders and prophets lied? Is no one going to apologise and face up to the failure, deception and disappointment?”

But I guess that’s in the nature of how sects work: you become blind by cultural deception. In any case, challenging authoritarian leaders is a waste of time and will lead to you being bad-mouthed and ostracised. Believe me, I know, because I was once was of those leaders.

Back to the latest idea. If you watch the video, you will see that it involves another costly building project which will pay for a reduction (!) in the size of the church auditorium  and the construction of a warehouse to store food for a food bank to provide food to poor people.

First of all, this is a blinding new idea since it cleverly lets all the church members off the hook with regards to personal evangelism. The thought is: “Thank God! Now I no longer have to feel guilty for having no non-Christian friends; no longer feel guilty about my pathetic inability to share my faith convincingly and authentically with non-believers; no longer feel guilty about the fact that I have not seen one close friend become a Christian in the last decade. Now I can give my money in significant quantities towards another God-given  project, this time to feed the poor. Phew!”

Just a few years ago, when I was leading the church, we received a prophetic word in which an apostle prophesied to us that we had to organise our diaries around reaching the lost. I wonder what happened to that divine instruction? Maybe it’s less increasingly in our DNA!?! (sic)

Secondly, the food bank itself contains masses of animal produce: meat, fish, cheese, milk and even coffee that breaks all guidelines of fair trade with developing nations. Why is it that the church does not pause to ask God the question whether its members should stop being fanatically sadistic to animals and live a vegan lifestyle? If you’d like to see why this point is so important, I recommend you watch this life-changing video presentation by Gary Yourofsky.

Thirdly, providing food for poor people as a project is definitely not, according to Jesus Christ, the role his church! Jesus is clear that the poor will be with us always and that helping the poor is something that individuals do to other individuals. For example, through private hospitality, creating also an opportunity to share one’s faith. But of course inviting a smelly, sick alcoholic who lives on the streets into my home is too great a challenge. A project is much safer, more palatable and does not invade my precious, personal space.

Food bank  projects are the responsibility of politicians and governments. Certainly not the church. Increasing poverty in Britain is a direct responsibility of failing government. And Brexit is about to make it a whole lot worse.

Jesus did  not deal with Rome by becoming a social project manager. He dealt with Rome by creating a dynamic community of joyful radicals who unashamedly lived out their bold, counter-cultural faith one-on-one with the family, friends and community members surrounding them, pumped with faith in a God who could feed body, soul and spirit.

Keeping it boring, neat and tidy is the death knell of a church movement. Mark my words.

“If Jesus came back and saw what was being done in his name, he’d never stop throwing up.”  Woody Allen.

 

Berlin, Children, God

King’s Church Hastings, UK

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In the last few months I have been working with a journalist who is writing a biographical account of my life, in particular since our move  from the UK to Germany. The article will be published in the coming weeks in the German national press as the basis of a plea for more social enlightenment about the issues raised. The journalist is now provoking me to translate it into English and to have it published in the UK too.

I’m as yet undecided, partly because I am not into vendettas, but I thought I would tell some of the story on my blog as a litmus test. In telling my story, my aim is simply to protect others.

Having grown up in a pagan family in the north of England, I became a Christian in 1991 during a gospel preaching service at King’s Church in Hastings. My conversion turned my life on its head and all my beliefs and values were aligned with those of fundamentalist Christianity.

By 2002, I was married, had three children and was leading the church. I would say that the strongest characteristic of the church during my leadership was mission (Christians sharing their faith with non-believers and caring for underprivileged families).

During 2008, I was strongly encouraged to leave Hastings and to start a brand new church, from the ground up, in Berlin.  Newfrontiers – the group of churches to which King’s Church Hastings belongs – is fiercely committed to exporting its brand of Christianity to other European cities. I agreed to go, sold our house and car and took my wife and by then four children to start a new church in the centre of Berlin.

In contrast to other so-called church plants, we had no team to help us. No relatives. No friends. No contacts in the city. There were just the six of us. On our own. We were given financial support, yet without a congregation to pay your salary, living in the capital city of the wealthiest nation in Europe, I had to take on a second full-time job in order to pay the bills. The pressure was enormous: my wife became sick and lonely, all four children suffered from isolation and culture shock, the competitive culture to make a fast-growing church out of nothing in an extremely secular society, the stress of effectively two full-time jobs all came together to produce a catastrophe that was to end in family breakdown and divorce.

Meanwhile, I got into significant moral difficulties that led, amongst other things to the loss of my so-called secular job and my laying down the leadership of the new church.

This is the point in my life when I most needed the support from the members of King’s Church Hastings. I was so desperate. What happened next is still hard to believe, even to this day. Five years later.

On the day my sin came to light, my family and I were swiftly deleted from every page of the King’s Church Hastings website, along with every reference to the exciting church plant in Berlin. Every recorded sermon, every article, every photo. As in the movie “Enemy of the State”, it was as if my whole existence had been suddenly deleted. You can check this out for yourself by visiting www.kingshastings.org Just as with some of the child sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church, instead of honesty, transparency and accountability, there was nothing but cover-up, deceit and denial.

Next came the need for financial support for my wife and children until I could find a new job, at least. The response of the church’s leaders was to pay for my wife and four children to leave me in Berlin and fly them back to live in England. Instead of love, care and reconciliation, we were offered division that ripped us apart as a family. Our oldest two children (then only 16 & 14 respectively) refused to get on the plane and ended up living on the streets for several weeks until I was able to find them. The youngest two had no choice but to go with their mother. The damage to their emotional and educational development are still with us today.

As for the financial support for the oldest two children, this was promised until I could find a job, but not a cent was given. Furthermore, one close friend in King’s Church Hastings sent me £300 to help us, but he made the mistake of telling the leaders who then forbade him to send us any more money privately. Which is similar to what happened to my other close friend who wanted to come out to Berlin to offer me some much-needed moral support, and she too was effectively forbidden by the leaders from coming to visit me.

The moral of the story is: it is best to stay away from religion, especially Christian sects. And if you don’t escape, I guarantee you that the church will ruin your life.

“I’m completely in favour of the separation of Church and State. These two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.”   George Carlin

 

Berlin, God, new writer, prison, society

Freedom from Faith

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As the exceptionally prolonged warmth continues to enshroud Berlin, I recently got to thinking again about freedom and faith. My new apartment is just one minute’s walk to the east of where the wall used to stand, so it’s hard not to keep thinking about the lack of freedom experienced here less than 30 years ago. And about those even today whose freedom is severely restricted. Including those caught up in Christianity.

A convicted criminal once told me that freedom is not about limitless options and unrestricted choice but about consciously making a choice to think or to act in a certain way. Hence it is possible to experience greater personal freedom in prison than living as a wealthy person in open society. I can relate to that, in particular when it comes to making a conscious choice to be free from the absurd incarceration of religious faith.

Here are some of the things I used to believe and even had to believe since, without faith, it is impossible to please God. (Hebrews 11:6)

That all Muslims go to hell since Islam is of the devil even though Muslims and Christians are undeniably descended from the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

When you believe this lie, you no longer see the human being in the foreground, but you see first the religion. A reason for going to hell. Polarisation and  separation are immediate. You feel superior and any compassion is trumped by the need to see the demonised Muslim saved into the kingdom of the one true God.

Freed from this lie, you can see straight away the fellow human being in the foreground.  There is commonality and compassion. You see beauty in ashes and value the enrichment of multi-cultural diversity.

That a man is the head of a woman, just as Christ is head of the church.

When you believe this lie (if you are a woman), you have to accept an inferior position in a relationship with a man and you are prevented from taking the ultimate responsibility for your decisions. You are not free; you are bound by the chains of crass sexual discrimination and demeaning chauvinism.

When you believe this lie (as a man), your sense of superior authority gives birth to a condescending attitude towards women and obscures the benefits of female wisdom. You are likewise not free: you are robbed of the riches of genuine debate between the sexes, the need for fearless compromise and the power of  joint decisions.

Freed from this lie, you can appreciate and honour the multi-faceted differences of the opposite sex. Equality is no longer just a word. It is experienced and lived out in real life.

That you need to give very generously to God and His church.

If you believe this lie, you give away well over 10% of your net income each month and you give even more when the prophecies (men claiming to speak the words of God) start to flow about revival (millions of people becoming Christians), the need for larger buildings and multiple services. All of which turn out to be lies for which no subsequent apology is made.

Freed from this lie, you can make informed choices about how to spend your income, investing it in what really matters, especially helping others. Judas Iscariot, the poor soul predestined by a loving heavenly Father to betray Christ and go to hell, was largely right when he pointed out that money given to the church would be better spent on helping the poor.

That you cannot live out your sexuality if you are gay.

If you believe this lie, you are condemned to a life in which you either a) pretend to be straight, marry and live a fake life, b) cultivate hypocrisy by endlessly trying to hide your addiction to masturbation and pornography with a cloak of purity and self-sacrifice, or c) live a fruitless life of celibacy, denying the very essence of who you are. Whether you are gay due to nature or nurture, your sexual orientation not only defines you, it is you. Repressing yourself is the ultimate form of human incarceration.

Freed from this lie, you can accept yourself, and even rejoice in who you are. You can love and be loved. You no longer have to be fake. If you are true to yourself, you cannot then be false to anyone else. And that is the ultimate experience of freedom.

“Walls that run through cities start by running through human hearts, built by religion and maintained by misguided faith.”

 

God, society, vision

Fake mission

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A friend pointed out to me recently what my old church in Hastings (East Sussex, UK) has recently been planning to do. They want to move the church into four locations now, following the latest trend of many other larger New Ground churches who are failing to grow numerically, in particular through the addition of new converts.

A few years ago, the church growth strategy was to buy million-dollar buildings and see them filled. When the large buildings did not fill, the strategy changed to falling over on the floor and laughing while the Holy Spirit gathered in an enormous harvest of souls. When this failed, the shift moved to renting buses to bus in bored, working class children into the large buildings on Saturday mornings. Since that also brought no growth, the strategy evolved into carving up the larger buildings into smaller units and offering multiple services at different times of the week. Since that also didn’t work, now the idea is to move to multiple venues across a wider neighbourhood, of course whilst remaining under the banner of one church.

Apparently, God has clearly spoken to the churches, especially their leaders, to instruct them to use each one of these strategies, which in turn helps enormously with fund-raising because good Christians obediently give generously to God’s alleged initiatives.

When you are a member of such a sect, you simply cannot see this fraud for what it is. You really do believe that God has a new missional strategy to grow the flailing church and you quickly forget that the former strategy had not worked. Once you have been  outside the sect for a number of years, however, you see this deception for what it is. The church is treating God as if He were were some kind of chocolate-bar maker who is frequently scratching his head to find new ways of marketing his products that are failing to sell anywhere other than on the margins of society.

Back to the “one church across multiple venues strategy.” As with the previous strategies, it is even easier to see with this one why it will fail to bring in the promised new harvest of souls before it has even begun. Why?

For some years I had already been observing this multi-site strategy in other UK cities. In every case, what happened was that the church leaders could indeed boast that their church was numerically growing, if you added all the different locations together. However, also in every case, when you talked to individuals at the new church meetings, you discover that hardly any of them are new converts, but rather Christians who had become bored or disillusioned in their local churches and had begun to go to the new meetings organized by the multi-site church since that was there was some fresh life, vision and excitement. Talk to the leaders of the churches that these Christians had left behind, and you discover a sorry tale of church numerical decline, frustration, broken relationships and bitterness.

Jesus Christ had only one missional strategy, explained in  – “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” Matthew 28:19-10.

To sell moving your church to four venues across the neighborhood as mission is not only grotesquely fake but also but irreparably damaging to other local churches. It has nothing to do with taking New Ground. But it has everything to do with stealing someone else’s ground, along with their sheep.

 

 

Berlin, God, new writer, society, vision, war

Faith and Doubt

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Faith, according to the Bible, is a synonym for certainty:

“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” Hebrews 11:1

So, when Christians say that they believe in one creator God, in the death and resurrection of Jesus, heaven and hell, the exclusivity of the Christian faith, and so on, they experience a real certainty about what they believe.

On the one hand, this is admirable and surely it is better to base the decisions you make in life on strong convictions than on some kind of half-baked, half-hearted notions. Even if, in reality, convictions do not determine our actions but describe them.

On the other hand, it is this certainty that creates deep division between the faithful and the heathen,  ultimately leading to domination, oppression and even war.

It is interesting that doubt, however, has never caused any division, wars, oppression, repression of artistic creativity and scientific research. On the contrary. And the contrast is very stark.

It seems to be that both on the micro level (individuals giving one another the benefit of the doubt) and on the macro level (entire cultures trying to comprehend one another and collaborate for the greater good) that doubt is a much more sound basis for our lives than certainty, which leads to bigotry.

Religion divides through its binding people into clans and cliques and providing them with a so-called divinely inspired narrative justification for their superiority.  We will never be able to get rid of it but we should at least see it for what it is and strive to limit the damage it causes.

So, in this context, a better definition of faith would be “the refusal to believe what is true” and a better definition of doubt would be “the basic requirement for the recognition and promotion of human dignity.”

“Si Dieu n’existait pas, il faudrait l’inventer.” Voltaire.

 

 

Berlin, God, new writer, society, vision

Faith and Madness

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Last Tuesday I was cycling past a church building with my youngest son and was both taken aback and provoked when he asked me why the cross, fixed to the outside of the building, was the symbol of Christianity. Taken aback because I had brought him up as a Christian (taken him to church every week and read him Bible stories at bedtime, etc.) until the age of six when I lost my faith.  And I was provoked by the content of the ensuing conversation, which I will attempt to summarise rather than write a transcript.

I explained to him that Christians believe that God created the world, including human beings. I explained in a child-appropriate way (he is now nine years old) that the first human beings, although God loves them very much, did naughty things and disobeyed God and how this is called „sin“ and how every human being since then has inherited sin and that’s we all do bad things. God – who is also Jesus – still loves us very much, however, and he came to earth and died on a cross to forgive us and to take away our sins. Three days later Jesus rose again from the dead and some time later he ascended into heaven in bodily form and there he will be for all time and we will go to heaven to be with him forever if we choose to believe in him.

My son asked me to repeat the details again as he couldn’t grasp it all, and when I had finished repeating it, he said that all that was impossible and that it sounded just like a fairy story and added that you would have to be mad to believe that.

His comments provoked me to question what is actually the difference between religious faith and madness.  Then I realised that the answer is simple. If just a few people believe a strange story that sounds either impossible or mad, then we conclude that these people are probably deranged and require psychiatric help. However, if a sufficient number of people believes the story, then it becomes both acceptable and can even become a religion.

Conclusion: the only difference between insanity and Christianity is a number. That is to say, Christianity’s existence as a religion is  contingent solely upon the number of deranged people who believe this divisive and pernicious myth. Were there just a few people who believed it, it would be classified as madness.

Berlin, Children, European Union, God, politics, refugees, vision, war

God’s revenge on the USA

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So, very sadly, I was right yesterday. Trump has already after only a few months in office gone down in history as the world’s biggest ever mass-murderer. Thankfully, his crass stupidity has opened up much bigger opportunities with other nations like China, leaving the US behind as a future “third-world” nation.

Maybe Almighty God will now spit the USA our of His mouth, just as He has promised to do with many others who do not obey His commands and just as He allowed to happen to His chosen people on account of their disobedience during the Holocaust (Deuteronomy 28, especially verse 49!)

Below is an account from Sky News today, who, for the first time ever, have taken a pro-European, as opposed to a pro-UK/US, perspective.

Mark Stone, Europe Correspondent in Brussels

 I was in the vast Paris convention centre late on that December night back in 2015 when the climate change accord was agreed.

The jubilation among the delegates was palpable. Politicians, scientists, activists were all ecstatic.

They were surprised too. After the total failure of the previous summit, five years earlier in Copenhagen, they had finally achieved what they had thought was impossible: almost every nation had signed the accord.

Nearly a year later, in November 2016, I was in a US rust belt town in Pennsylvania as America prepared to vote. Out of work and with their factories shut, the people of Johnstown, Pennsylvania chose Donald Trump.

:: Trump announces US will withdraw from Paris climate deal

His promise to “make America great again” had resonated across large swathes of the country largely because he promised to get their jobs and their industry back.

Mr Trump’s pledge to pull out of the Paris accord meant, they believed, that their factories would reopen, their jobs would be returned to them.

It was a cruel populist tactic and it has now been compounded. In an hour long statement on Thursday evening Mr Trump held true to his word.

“In order to fulfil my solemn duty to protect the people of the United States we will withdraw from the climate accord,” he announced from the Rose Garden of the White House with a jazz band and fake applause.

The factory workers are thrilled, naturally. But it’s impossible to see how, ultimately, it will make their lives better, let alone reignite their factories.

Far from putting America first, leaders globally now believe that he has put America last.

It will be left behind as other countries accelerate, with unprecedented enthusiasm, their green energy initiatives. That will have an economic impact.

The flurry of condemnation from around the world was a hint of how big a deal the Trump decision is.

In their joint statement, Italy, France and Germany expressed their regret and said they believed the climate deal gave substantial economic opportunities for prosperity and growth.

It’s true that the accord unlocked significant low carbon investment and innovation globally creating more and more jobs.

France’s President Emmanuel Macron, in a rare 11pm live televised statement, said: “I want to express myself a few hours after the declaration of the President of the United States of America because this is serious.”

“The US has turned its back on the world.”

“France will not turn its back on Americans,” he said, before inviting American scientists to come and work in France.

He ended with: “Make the planet great again”.

The EU Commissioner for climate action and energy, Miguel Arias Canete, issued a lengthy statement condemning Mr Trump’s decision and concluded: “Today’s announcement has galvanised us rather than weakened us, and this vacuum will be filled by new broad committed leadership.

“Europe and its strong partners all around the world are ready to lead the way.

“We will work together to face one of the most compelling challenges of our time.”

John Kerry, the former US secretary of state who was instrumental in ensuring success in Paris in 2015, described the decision as “an ignorant, cynical appeal to an anti-science, special-interest faction far outside the mainstream”. (Ed: Of course a veiled reference to Christians).

He added: “If the world doesn’t press forward faster, we’ll see stronger storms, longer and more intense droughts, more wildfires, a swell of climate refugees and intensified conflict around the world.”

China, once the climate change villain, is now seen in an altogether different light.

While Mr Trump was speaking in the Rose Garden, the Chinese Premier Li Keqiang was dining in Brussels with EU leaders.

It is China’s enthusiastic commitment, along with India and Japan, to stick to the Paris Accord that will, it is hoped, mitigate the decision by Mr Trump.

While there is significant disappointment and dismay at the decision, there is reserved confidence among politicians, scientists and activists that the pledges made in Paris in December 2015 can still be met.

So maybe there are a few silver linings to Mr Trump’s toxic cloud.

The world, minus just America, will now have new impetus, willingness and resolve to implement the Paris accord and ensure the fight for the environment can continue.

Already, extra support for developing nations to help them meet their goals has been pledged.

New bonds are being formed as old ones fray. The European Union and the world’s largest emitter, China, releasing a joint statement on fighting climate change is significant.

The European Union sees this as an opportunity to reassert itself globally.

And given that significant portions of the American electorate are against Mr Trump’s decision, it seems certain that climate change will now be a key theme in the next US election.

It’s not often that climate change features highly in election campaigns.

I fear ,though, that the silver linings won’t stretch as far as places like Johnstown, Pennsylvania.

America’s rust belt workers will be disappointed.

Ed: I rest my case.

Berlin, European Union, God, politics, vision

Christians and our climate

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So it looks as if Donald Trump may pull the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement today. In this context there was a fascinating interview with an American coal mine owner yesterday evening on the German news.

He said, “I am pleased that I can open my coal mines again. There are lots of good Christians around here and they deserve a good job.”

Let’s analyse the implications of this short statement:

  1. Christians deserve good jobs, ergo  non-Christians do not deserve good jobs.
  2. There are good Christians in the world and bad Christians in the world  (totally contradicting Christian theology, by the way) and good Christians have more right to a good job than bad Christians.
  3. It is perfectly legitimate to contribute actively to the creation of the world’s greatest weapon of mass destruction (i.e. a climate that kills millions of people per year)  provided that you are a Christian earning a good wage.

On a micro level, this statement is already pernicious enough. On a macro level, it is catastrophic.

Why is it that Christians have so little regard for our precious and beautiful environment?

There are two main reasons for this. First, they believe that global warming and even so-called natural disasters, such as earthquakes and tsunamis, are a consequence of human sin and entered history with the Fall of Man (Genesis 3). Therefore, they are only indirectly a consequence of modern human action and there is nothing that can be done now to change that.

Secondly, they believe firmly that God is going to create a new earth (Revelation 21) when Jesus comes again. Naturally this leads to a careless attitude when it comes to the environment because it is all going to be renewed by Almighty God anyway. Of course, this new earth will only be enjoyed by Christians while all Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and non-believers will be burning in eternal hell.

Somewhere along the way, I suspect that these attitudes influence the mindset of Donald Trump who has stated that there is no link between human action and global warming.

So, if Donald Trump goes ahead with his plans to pull the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement later today, the American people will have legitimised and become responsible for a veiled global war on a scale that puts every other war into the shade. This egotistical and religious jingoism will absolutely and unavoidably result in the unnecessary suffering and deaths of more children, women and men than the Holocaust and Donald Trump will deservedly go down in history with a similar reputation to that of Adolf Hitler.

Berlin, God, refugees, society, vision

So out of touch!

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In 2017 there will be a major gathering of the German protestant church from 24th to 28th May.  Doubtless the gathering is even more significant this year because it is 500 years since  the Reformation began with  Martin Luther in 1517.

One of the most striking aspects of this event is the large amount of prominent advertising with its slogan attempting to reach out to the nation with the good news about Jesus Christ: “Du siehst mich,” from Genesis 16:13.

This verse can be translated as “You see me” or “You are watching me” and the connotation is unavoidable. It smacks so strongly of at best Monsters Inc. with “I’m watching you, Razelski, always watching you” or at worst George Orwell’s “Big Brother is watching you.” And this at a time when, thanks to Donald Trump, “1984” has recently become a best-seller again in the US.

One of the least palatable ideas to many human beings is the idea that they are being constantly watched or observed by something or someone. This is especially unpopular in Germany where nearly all professionals are obliged to hold all private information as confidential, at no matter what cost. Germans set great store in protecting their private space and very strongly object to being observed by the police, government officials, hackers, etc.

If the protestant church is trying to reach out to the millions of unbelievers in Germany, then they certainly chose the wrong slogan! Whereas I honour and admire the great social work done by the church in Germany, when it comes to evangelism, they would have been much better off by choosing to quote their countryman, Friedrich Nietzsche, when he said: “Gott selbst ist tot.”

I guess the only consolation is that the church leaders have with this slogan quoted Hagar, the genetic mother of Islam, and so they will have at least managed to reach out to the growing number of Muslims in the nation.

Berlin, God, new writer, society, vision

Fundamentalist inconsistencies

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As I walk around my beautiful city, I often observe women wearing headscarves. I assume that the vast majority are of Turkish origin.

This got me thinking about Christian women and why so many of them do not wear headscarves, in particular during church meetings.

In the Bible it says in 1 Corinthians 11:4-5: “Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head—it is the same as having her head shaved.”

I used to belong to a church where the members believe absolutely that the Bible is the word of God (often termed as fundamentalism) and that all its teachings should be respected and put into practice by believers.

I find it fascinating that our leaders taught us that the above quotation from the Bible is, however, a culturally determined aside that is no longer applicable to the church today. Women covering their heads amounted to so-called legalism from which the church should be set free. Hence, some young men prophesied wearing base-ball caps and women prophesied without wearing a head covering.

The same unusually liberal interpretation applied to this interesting quotation from 1 Corinthians 14:34: “Women  should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says.”

Women were actually encouraged to speak up during our church meetings, since this verse too was passed off as a culturally determined relic. Women were not allowed, however, to preach or to lead churches.

I could provide many similar examples, but two suffice to get to my inevitable question: if the above two verses of the Bible are historical relics that are no longer applicable today, even for fundamentalists, how many other quotations fall into the same category? And how are we to distinguish the one category from the other?

All of which goes to prove, no matter how inerrant the Bible might be, the multi-faceted and completely differing ways of interpreting the same text render it errant in terms of its application to daily life. Ultimately, Christians, like every other socially determined group of human beings, do what they want to do and then find a narrative that can be used to justify their actions.