Category Archives: society

Berlin, European Union, free literature, health care, politics, society, video

Anonymous for the voiceless

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As I was going shopping recently, outside the mall was a small group of people wearing Guy Fawkes masks and holding laptops depicting images of suffering animals. They labelled themselves as “Anonymous for the Voiceless.” I guess all my life I have pushed this important issue to one side and carried on being carnivorous.

On this occasion, however, a particular phrase caught my attention: “Why are my taste-buds more important than the suffering and death of another living creature?”

Since then I have watched two of the videos recommended by the group, one by Ed Winters (UK) and one by Gary Yourofsky (USA), and I have felt obliged to review my standpoint. Apart from the horrendous suffering inflicted upon the animals that are slaughtered for meat, I also discovered some things I never knew about the dairy industry.

I had never thought about how, in order to produce milk, cows have to be artificially inseminated and then have their calves taken away from them very soon after birth so that the cows can produce milk for human consumption.  Nor did I realise that these young calves soon had their insides ripped out as a by-product of selling veal so that the rennet can be obtained from their fourth stomach in order to curdle the milk used to make cheese. As for the condition of even the chickens that lay eggs for us … best not even go there. So now I understand why, for vegans, the dairy industry is pretty much on the same level of the meat industry. There is no such thing humane suffering or a humane death.

In the same week as I watched these videos, I read an article about Air New Zealand serving up a vegan burger on its flights to the USA. This received an angry reaction from the country’s carnivores. NZ MP Nathan Guy wrote on Twitter: “Disappointing to see Air NZ promoting a GE substitute meat burger on its flights to the USA. We produce the most delicious steaks and lamb on the planet – GMO and hormone free. The national carrier should be pushing our premium products and helping sell NZ to the world.”

Jingoism used to justify insane human cruelty?

A few years ago, when I was so unenlightened that I believed in God, some vegetarian friends asked me why I ate meat. I had no real answer. Now, however, I understand it has a lot to do with the fact animals and the environment are unimportant to the great Christian myth. The Bible tells us that God was more pleased with Abel’s fat-laden animal sacrifice than with Abel’s vegetable sacrifice (Genesis 4:2-7). It tells us that God gave humans permission to eat meat and that all animals would forever live in fear of humans (Genesis 9:1-3). It tells us that animals do not have a soul (Genesis 1:26-27) and so do not require salvation. It tells us that humans are to rule over the animals and nature (Genesis 1:26-27). It tells us that animals were sacrificed to cover human sin (Hebrews 9:22). And it tells us that this world will one day be destroyed and a new, beautiful, sinless world will be created to replace it (2 Peter 3:10-13).

When such narratives can be used to justify your cultural behaviour, you don’t need to give any thought to the suffering of animals or our willful  destruction of the environment. When was the last time you heard a sermon in church encouraging you to become a vegan?

Conversely, many Hindus are vegetarian. In Hinduism, animals are treated with greater respect (perhaps shaped by reincarnation?) and there is no notion of this world being destroyed and a new one created to replace it.

In conclusion, I challenge you to watch the video below. I can assure you that once you do, you will have no excuses left to remain a carnivore.

In case you are wondering, should non-believers tell Christians to become vegans? No.  Have I become a vegan? Yes.

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. I hold that the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of humankind.”   Mahatma Gandhi

 

 

politics, refugees, society, vision, war

Low-life blunders on

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This sick, jingoistic low-life blunders on after over a year in the role of the President of the United States of America. Every time I think he cannot do anything more outrageously unethical, he does.

As we have recently discovered, thanks to the “biased, lying, fake-news-ridden press”, his racist obsession with dealing with illegal immigrants entering the USA has led to the intolerable separation of children from their parents. The (so far) 2,300 children are not only separated, but being held in make-shift detention centres, given sedative drugs that are being presented to them as vitamin pills and some have so far never got to see their parents again (source: BBC news).

Even since this Auschwitz-like atrocity has come to light, Trump shows absolutely no signs of adjusting his zero-tolerance policy. On the contrary. This week he wrote on Twitter:

“We cannot allow all of these people to invade our country. When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no judges or court cases, bring them back to where they came from. Our system is a mockery to good immigration policy and law and order … Our immigration policy, laughed at all over the world, must be based on merit – we need people who will help to Make America Great Again.”

America once was great, largely thanks to its cultural diversity. Just take a look at the names in the cast and crew list of some of the greatest US movies ever made. This man Trump is a disgusting, perverted affront to the values of humanity, the riches of cultural diversity and to the rights of children and families.

And the greatest irony in all of this is that the US likes to regard itself as a Christian nation. It is estimated that over 40% of the nation go to church every week and 70% regularly attend a service. If Christianity is meant to have a positive influence on the moral behaviour of a nation, then it clearly is not working.

At the end of the day, the increasingly hollow slogan “God bless America” is an insult to prayer, an insult to racial tolerance and an insult to human equality. Even more so when it comes out of the mouth of an ignoramus like Trump.

Let’s hope God wakes up soon and gives the Americans the president they really deserve.

“Is man merely a mistake of God’s? Or God merely a mistake of man?”   Friedrich Nietzsche

 

Berlin, Children, movies, new writer, society

So proud of my daughter

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Next Monday in Munich my daughter will be seen in her first role in a movie. The premier will take place at 9 pm in the Sendlinger Tor Film Theater.

“Yung” has been nominated for awards in several categories and I am really looking forward to being there, proudly hiding in the back row.

Her film is not for the faint-hearted. It follows the lives of four young women  into the vibrant, hedonistic subculture of Berlin. The official description  runs:

“Janaina, 17, earns money by making Internet pornography. Her best friend, Emmy, 18, finds the whole city intoxicating, without realizing that she’s getting deeper and deeper into a cycle of addiction. Joy muses about love when she doesn’t happen to be selling drugs. And Abbie, 16, dreams of escaping to Los Angeles. YUNG is a roller-coaster ride through the lifestyle of the millennial generation, but it’s mainly a pure, rough, and authentic portrait of friendship.”

Knowing all the actresses and actors as well as the director makes the film even more exciting for me. Some scenes were even filmed in our apartment. It will no surprise to those who know me that the director asked me to make it more untidy for the shooting.

If you are not able to be there, please like the Facebook page.

The film will be showing in other cinemas around the country once the Munich Film Festival is over. For more information about the Munich Film Festival, please click here.

There is also a review from 27 June 2018 in the Süddeutsche Zeitung.

“I know I’ve finally become a teenager because my parents have started getting really triggered about everything.”   Ewan.

 

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, 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, European Union, politics, society, vision

Democracy cannot be bought

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As the months go by, it becomes increasingly uncomfortable to say that you are British if you have the privilege of living in Europe. So much of what is happening in the UK at the moment, in particular the consequences of the latest election and the handling of Brexit, simply beggar belief.

This week has also seen Theresa May literally purchase a tiny minority in the House of Commons for the sum of one billion pounds Sterling. And yes, she has given this money to a group of nationalistic, misogynistic, homophobic dinosaurs known as the DUP .

If I ever needed conclusive evidence, as I wrote in this blog a few months ago, that the UK is not really a democracy, then here we have it.

True democracy, irrespective of the precise details of its format, is of such a high value that it cannot be bought. It requires lengthy dialogue, diplomacy, exhaustive dialectic, a humble willingness to compromise, cultural understanding and a sensitivity to linguistic subtleties.

Oh dear, Mrs May, it seems that you know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Along with the rest of us Europeans, I do hope your days are numbered.

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, 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.