Fred Phelps

Fred Phelps, dead at age 84.  You hated fags.  How queer.

Sam Harris contra Theism

(He doesn't demolish it.. but he puts a dent in it with the help of some older critiques)
Update: We're down to 6.6 million under the age of 5 deaths per year now, or 18,000 deaths a day UNICEF/WHO.

Kaufmann on Christian Interpretation and Hell

Millions of Christians agree on this claim and back it up by citing Gospel passages they like; but different people pick different passages. To some, Jesus looks like St. Francis, to others like John Calvin, and to many more the way a man named Hoffmann painted him. Pierre van Paassen's Jesus is a Socialist and Fosdick's a liberal, while according to Reinhold Niebuhr Jesus' ethic coincides, not surprisingly, with Niebuhr's. To use a political term: almost everybody gerrymanders, carving an idealized self-portrait from the Gospels and much less attractive straw men from the literatures of other faiths. A great deal of theology is like a jigsaw puzzle: the verses of Scripture are the pieces, and the finished picture is prescribed by each denomination with a certain latitude allowed. What makes the game so pointless is that not all pieces have to be used, and any piece that does not fit may be reshaped, provided one says first, "this means." That is called exegesis.

Finally, the Jesus of the New Testament believed, and was not greatly bothered by his belief, that God would damn and torment the mass of mankind in all eternity. According to all three Synoptic Gospels, he actually reassured his disciples: "If anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. Truly, I say to you, it shall be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha than for that town."  This is no isolated dictum; the Sermon on the Mount, for example, is also punctuated by threats of Hell.

Augustine, Aquinas, arid Calvin stressed Hell, but many Christian apologists today simply ignore all such passages. A few insist that in a couple of inter-testamentary apocalypses we find far more detailed visions of Hell. They do not mention that these apocalypses would not be known today if it had not been for the esteem in which the early Christians held them. For the Jews rejected them while accepting the humane teachings of men like Hillel and Akiba. Rabbi Akiba, a contemporary of Paul and the Evangelists, taught that "only those who possess no good deeds at all will descend into the netherworld"; also that "the punishment of the wicked in Gehinnom lasts twelve months."

Hell (final)

Zoroastrianism: an ancient religion that became the religion of the Persian Empire. It would influence all three Abrahamic religions, sometimes in quite startling ways. There is no doubt that Zoroastrianism itself was influenced by still more ancient beliefs (notably Babylonian), these reaching back into the mists of prehistory.

It has had its main influence on Judaism through its notions of angels and demons, as well as afterlife conceptions. From the lake of fire, to the battle between God’s angels and the dragon and his angels (I should point out that the Jewish notion of “Satan” already existed in Jewish religion, but it was Zoroastrianism that shaped it into what it was in Jesus’ time), to the resurrection of the dead and a new creation, the Zoroastrians had a great reservoir of theological ideas to draw from. Even casually reading through the Vendidad (Zoroastrian holy scriptures dating from perhaps 8^th century BCE) one can find other interesting parallels with the Christian NT. Take for example the following, a section highly resembling the temptation of Jesus by the devil:

“Again to him said the Maker of the evil world, Angra Mainyu:... Renounce the good Religion of the worshippers of Mazda, and thou shalt gain such a boon as Vadhaghna gained, the ruler of the nations.'

Spitama Zarathushtra said in answer: 'No! never will I renounce the good Religion of the worshippers of Mazda, either for body or life, though they should tear away the breath!'

Again to him said the Maker of the evil world, Angra Mainyu: 'By whose Word wilt thou strike, by whose Word wilt thou repel, by whose weapon will the good creatures (strike and repel) my creation, who am Angra Mainyu?'

Spitama Zarathushtra said in answer: 'The sacred mortar, the sacred cups, the Haoma, the Word taught by Mazda, these are my weapons, my best weapons! By this Word will I strike, by this Word will I repel, by this weapon will the good creatures (strike and repel thee), O evil-doer, Angra Mainyu! The Good Spirit made the creation; he made it in the boundless Time.” (Vendidad 19:6-9).

Here Angra Mainyu (the evil one) comes to Zarathustra, the prophet of Zoroastrianism, to prevent him from destroying demons. It is a curious fact that in the gospel accounts it is not long after his temptation that Jesus begins to cast out demons (Mark 1:21: “Have you come to destroy us?”). The other similarities are obvious. In both this account and the gospels, the evil one comes to make demands on the hero. In both cases this involved renouncing the hero’s fidelity to their god. In both cases the hero uses a formula: “it is written.” Zarathustra: “By this Word will I strike, by this Word will I repel, by this weapon will the good creatures (strike and repel thee)” (here the Word of Mazda, the good God of creation). In the gospel accounts too the devil is repelled after the formulation. Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’ Then the devil left him... (Matthew 4:10-11). The “Word,” as we know, will also be personified in Jesus himself who continued to cast out demons throughout his ministry.

An interesting aside: the translators of the New American Standard bible reference Exodus 8:19 for the following passage:

“And if I by Beelzebul cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? So they will be your judges. "But if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Luke 11:19-20).
Exodus 8:19 is a reference to Pharaoh’s magicians calling the plagues a work of the “finger of God.” Here I wonder if we can’t use the connection with Zarathustra to our advantage. What if the context of Luke 11 would be better reflected in that other Hebrew scripture referring to the “finger of God”:
“The LORD gave me the two tablets of stone written by the finger of God; and on them were all the words which the LORD had spoken with you at the mountain from the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly” (Deuteronomy 9:10).

Here Jesus’ reference to “the finger of God” would reflect again a connection with the “for it is written” or the “Word taught by Mazda.” The demons, in other words, were being thrown out by nothing less than the “W/word of God.” Is it perhaps more than a coincidence that Deuteronomy didn’t take its final shape until the Babylonian and later Persian conquests? It’s provocative I think, but I have no time now to explore it further.

What are the implications of all this? You, thoughtful reader, will have to decide this in your own way. For some, it will make little difference, either because further thought is shut down to preserve its own status quo, or because faith has already become a lifestyle depending less on “truth” than social function. For others there is no issue because for them it is possible to think of God working behind the scenes of world religion, gradually bringing about a more complete expression of God’s will and purpose etc. For them Jesus is the culmination of this process (or the final Day), or Muhammad, the seal of the prophets. Still others may start to see things in their intricate interconnectivity, as informing and being informed (Judaism also informed later Zoroastrianism). For these God will also be working throughout, or God will be reduced to historical processes, contingent on political and sociological factors, not to mention environmental ones as well (famine, disease, etc). Or perhaps none of this floats your boat in the first place. Whatever the case I beg that you take Nietzsche’s admonition seriously: “If you wish to strive for peace of soul and happiness, then believe; if you wish to be a disciple of truth, then inquire.”

Hell (part V)

As I’ve previously indicated, the Jews of Jesus’ time were informed by various apocalyptic writings. The most important of these for our purposes was the Ethiopic Book of Enoch. The Christian NT includes a quotation, found in Jude (Enochic source noted by 2011 version of the NIV):

Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about them: “See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone, and to convict all of them of all the ungodly acts they have committed in their ungodliness, and of all the defiant words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” (Jude 14-15)

Compare Enoch 1:9

“And behold! He cometh with ten thousands of His holy ones To execute judgement upon all, And to destroy all the ungodly: And to convict all flesh Of all the works of their ungodliness which they have ungodly committed, And of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.”

That Jude is quoting from this writing is obvious from the attribution “Enoch, the seventh from Adam” also found in the Book of Enoch 60:8. For this reason some of the Church Fathers considered this writing inspired, while others took another track and decided Jude couldn’t be inspired! But Jude isn’t the only place Enoch shows up. 1 Peter 3:19-20 also draws on the Enochic tale of the pre-Noahic fall of humankind and the vision of their subsequent imprisonment, something not found in canonical scripture:

“After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits— to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water..”

For the sake of time I will quote a few passages here from Enoch (there are many more), later taken over by the Christian NT, dealing with the idea of hell or fiery punishment:

“In those days they shall be led off to the abyss of fire: and to the torment and the prison in which they shall be confined for ever. And whosoever shall be condemned and destroyed will from thenceforth be bound together with them to the end of all generations.” 10:13-14

“Woe to you, ye sinners, on account of the words of your mouth, And on account of the deeds of your hands which your godlessness as wrought, In blazing flames burning worse than fire shall ye burn.” 100:9

“And into darkness and chains and a burning flame where there is grievous judgement shall your spirits enter; And the great judgement shall be for all the generations of the world.
Woe to you, for ye shall have no peace.” 103:8

“And from thence I went to another place, which was still more horrible than the former, and I saw a horrible thing: a great fire there which burnt and blazed, and the place was cleft as far as the abyss, being full of great descending columns of fire: neither its extent or magnitude could I see, nor could I conjecture. Then I said: 'How fearful is the place and how terrible to look upon! ' Then Uriel answered me, one of the holy angels who was with me, and said unto me: 'Enoch, why hast thou such fear and affright?' And I answered: 'Because of this fearful place, and because of the spectacle of the pain.' And he said unto me: 'This place is the prison of the angels, and here they will be imprisoned for ever.” 21:7-10 (See especially here Jesus: “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” Matt. 25:41, also Rev. 20).

We cannot, however, rest easy having identified an important origin of the NT notion of hell. That the Ethiopic Book of Enoch has influenced the writers of the NT is well-established and easy to demonstrate. This was a Jewish text with its origins in pre-Christian times. Jesus and his contemporaries were familiar with it and didn’t hesitate to draw on its conceptions and themes (not limited to notions of hell). Many early Christians felt it was inspired. What I find fascinating, however, is the theological origin of the Book itself. In a previous post I have briefly discussed the Biblical notion of “Satan.” Once again, and finally, we will have to shift our gaze from the ancient Jews and the later Christians, to that once great civilization famous for, among other things, its comprehensive and highly influential religion: Persia.

Hell (part IV)

One could continue to comb through the Christian scriptures to locate every instance of the mention of “hell” or a related description, and drawing up a large list, sit down to examine what the NT really says about the subject. One must be sensitive to literary styles, the use of metaphor, poetry, etc, while at the same time acknowledging when a text seems to indicate its actors truly believe the topic of their discourse has definite characteristics, really existing in some sense. So, for example, when reading the following passage:

“We ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love all of you have for one another is increasing. Therefore, among God’s churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring.
All this is evidence that God’s judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering. God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.
With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may bring to fruition your every desire for goodness and your every deed prompted by faith.” (2 Thessalonians 1:3-11)

It should be obvious that hell, i,e, “punishment with eternal destruction” functions in a number of ways: 1) As a promise that wrongs will be righted, that in the end there will indeed be justice for those followers of Christ who suffer terribly at the hands of their persecutors, proving the validity of the statement “God is just.” It goes without saying that, based on this passage, God’s justice is contingent on his being able to punish those who cause such “suffering” (1:5). In other words, calling into question God’s lack of mercy or grace for the persecutors simultaneously calls into question his justice.

2) This promise of eternal punishment for the persecutors brings hope to the persecuted. It is obvious that it is here meant as an encouragement for those Christians who are suffering. It functions as a reminder of their calling from God.

3) The writer contrasts two types of judgment: a) God’s judgment in his calling, and b) God’s judgment against those who persecute his elect. It seems clear the writer believes God has chosen (judged) some to be faithful in Thessalonica, that he has chosen beforehand who will be called. For some this is offensive to our modern sensibilities (does God not love all, why not call all?), whereas for others of a more Calvinist strand it is merely an indication of God’s sovereignty (the debate is ancient, again due in large measure to scripture’s ambiguities/inconsistencies). That the Thessalonican’s perseverance is “evidence that God’s judgment is right” (he chose wisely beforehand, somewhat like when we were children and chose a soccer team from among our classmates who later proved victorious- this is precisely what is happening with Job: Satan calls into question God’s judgment that Job is righteous, the rest of the story unfolds with the vindication of Job and therefore God himself. This is why I believe the introduction with Satan is a vital part of the text), so too will his judgment righteously fall upon those who oppose his chosen, a positive and a negative judgment.

4) That hell as eternal punishment is a real possibility, that it involves both fire and absence from God, i.e. it’s not merely metaphorical but actually descriptive. The writer really believes it will “happen this way” and encourages his listeners to believe “this will happen” (1:7).

I’m sure it is possible to further examine this passage in light of other critical approaches, to further flush out the life world of his audience (sociological/anthropological), to investigate further his descriptive terminology from a historical perspective (archaeological/literary) etc.

All of this is merely the scriptural consideration. Within a certain Christian approach this is sufficient. But for a large number of Christians, tradition also plays a vital role: “What has the Church to say about this topic?” Not just the Church right here in the particularity of our little town or city, but what has the Church, that great mass of saints spanning two thousand years, those great councils, those men and women of great learning and devotion, what have they to say? Can they so easily be dismissed with the naive statement “speak where the Bible speaks, be silent where it is silent”? It should be obvious how impossible this task is, how unproductive and confusing, how divisive in the long run.

We have not yet come to the end of our explorations.

Hell (part III)

We have seen that the writer of Hebrews seems not to believe in an eternal punishment for the unrighteous, unless by “eternal” we mean no chance for reprieve, no going back, no grace. He (or she) does indeed believe that those who refuse the grace of God will one day be consumed (or eaten) by God’s fire, violently shaken, and completely annihilated: they will cease to exist, vanish. Here there is no mention of everlasting fire or a torturous existence. Here too there is no more grace beyond a certain threshold, be it in the next life, or perhaps even in this one (Esau was an interesting case in point, though I won’t be too dogmatic here).

Rather than continue by summing up a particular author, I will instead consider that other view of Hell found in the Christian NT, the one in agreement with the previously mentioned councils: eternal punishment without end.

I have already indicated that the notion of a hell began some time before the writing of the NT scriptures or the ministry of Jesus. I think perhaps the earliest one can find it in the scriptures as a whole, (and this is only the idea of hell, not a formal designation) would be the book of Daniel. This is one of our post-Persian era writings (see my post on the devil) so perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising. The passage I have in mind is Daniel 12:1-2:

“At that time Michael, the great prince who protects your people, will arise. There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then. But at that time your people—everyone whose name is found written in the book—will be delivered. Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.”

Here, as one can see, there is no specific mention of hell, but the notion of “everlasting contempt” is present. It is the sapling of what would become a horrible tree. Skipping the apocryphal books of the intertestamental period, we come to the NT itself. It is John the Baptist who first speaks of Jesus separating the wheat from the chaff, the latter being burned up with “unquenchable fire.” Jesus himself does not hesitate to use the imagery of everlasting fire and punishment:

Matthew 18:8: If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire.

Matthew 25: 41, 46: Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.

Mark 9:48: It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where “‘the worms that eat them do not die, and the fire is not quenched.’

I’ve chosen these references specifically because they seem to indicate a sense of eternal punishment. There are many more which merely mention fire or some other horrible kind of fate, but which do not specifically hold this quality of everlastingness. One counter-example from Matthew 10, which could even be construed in an annihilationist way (does the attempt to harmonize these accounts for the sake of maintaining "one Author" not do violence to the texts themselves, not to mention the dishonesty involved, no matter how well intentioned):

"Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell." (10:28).

It should be said here that if Jesus actually said these things his words would have been unambiguous to his listeners. By this time there is already a hell tradition, and part of this tradition includes a sense of its eternity. Against modern writers who seem to want us to believe that his listeners would somehow “interpret” this differently I’m afraid that based on the overwhelming evidence they’re merely wishful thinkers (Nietzsche would refer to them as “abusers of history”).

While it is true that Jesus certainly believed in the existence of hell and its eternal nature (both its existence and, quite likely, its nature as eternal punishment), he also certainly didn’t make this the main focus of his teaching. This seems obvious even with a quick glance at the gospels. Those people who portray Christianity as a religion obsessed with hellfire are not basing their assumptions on the gospel record.

Once again we shall have to continue in another post.

Hell (part II)

In our first post concerning hell, I made the claim that Jesus was a man of his times, here in reference to apocalyptic writings popular at that time. One of these writings, and the most important for our subject, is the Ethiopic Book of Enoch. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. That the Hebrew scriptures and the Christian NT have a completely different idea of the afterlife is quite clear, especially in connection to any form of punishment after death for the unrighteous. The New Testament is indeed clear that there will be a punishment of the unrighteous, a reckoning, a righting of wrongs, and “avenging of blood.” This is entirely necessary in a place and time when whole families were persecuted for their belief. It also satisfies the sense of injustice that people have had since ancient times that the wicked should prosper while the righteous perish. This life is not the end of the story, in other words. Whether this punishment is eternal or not is a matter of which author you ask. The NT does not have a uniform voice here. The writer of Hebrews, for example, seems to indicate that this punishment is temporary, that sinners will be completely consumed by fire and destroyed:

“If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.” (Heb. 10:26-27).

The word translated by “consume” here means literally “to eat” often used in the most mundane passages of the NT to indicate someone eating a meal etc. Here would be a passage that annihilationists (those people who believe there is no hell, but that the unrighteous are completely destroyed) might use in their arsenal. The writer later says:

“Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son. Afterward, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. Even though he sought the blessing with tears, he could not change what he had done” (Heb 12: 16-17).

Here too people have found evidence that there is no second chance, that once one is lost, they are always lost. This is consistent with the declarations of the early councils that I mentioned in our first post, and it is also consistent with the first passage I quoted from chapter 10: "no sacrifice for sins is left," only fearful expectation. The councils applied this to the afterlife, but here is there not a possibility the writer even means in this life there is no grace beyond the “falling short” of God’s grace, the immoral act, the one who hates peace and holiness, even if sought with “tears?” We see here the same parallel: sin followed by a sign of regret (tears/fearful expectation), guaranteed rejection/destruction. In its context (both here and in the previous two chapters) is this not a reasonable interpretation? So for the writer of Hebrews one does not even “see the Lord” but is completely destroyed by God’s fire (perhaps God himself, see 12:29). No mention of eternal damnation to be sure, but also an interesting coupling of the usual modern response: “hell is living in the absence of God” (not “seeing the Lord”) with literally being eaten and (we must reasonably infer) completely consumed or annihilated. This same coupling can be found later in chapter 12:

“See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks. If they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, how much less will we, if we turn away from him who warns us from heaven? At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” The words “once more” indicate the removing of what can be shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain.” (12: 25-27)

Here we find the “removal” of the contingent, the created, that which is not the Kingdom of God (12:28), i.e. those who “turn away from him who warns us from heaven.” There is no mention of this removal involving eternal punishment, but merely a vanishing away of anything not in the Kingdom (see 11:5 where the same Greek word is used of Enoch in a seemingly positive sense, indicating the neutrality of the word: he was “taken” so that he could not be found, i.e. he vanished). Once again a possible annihilationist passage.

In our next post we will have to consider some other NT writers and their position on hell.

Hell (part I)

I have previously touched on the topic of hell. That the present aversion to any “real” hell in the next life and subsequent reinterpretation or outright dismissal is a cultural phenomenon I have already eluded to. Recently I read the blog of a Christian pastor in which he defended the view that hell is simply the self-centeredness of egotistical people, of their wallowing in raging passions and self-pity. Quoting Tim Keller he says: “Hell then is the trajectory of a soul living a self absorbed self centered life, going on and on forever.” The “fire” of hell refers to “refinement” or “purification,” while in another place burning with fire simply means never being complete, i.e. continually being broken down or destroyed, something that takes place right here without reference to a here-after.

This isn’t the first time in the history of the Church that hell has been viewed in a metaphorical sense. St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, and Origen (to name a few) understood “fire” to refer to God’s wrath. “Eternal” has been understood as “definitive” or “final” rather than referring to duration per se. So our pastor is in fine company. Of course, after 553 and the Second Council of Constantinople and later the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, hell officially took on its more traditional form and was affirmed as an eternal (in the sense of duration) punishment: “If anyone says or thinks that the punishment of demons and of impious men is only temporary, and will one day have an end, and that a restoration will take place of demons and of impious men, let him be anathema” (2^nd Council Const. This against good Origen).

What of the form of hell? Our good pastor was partly correct in pointing out the influence of Dante’s work on the European imagination. It was he who once wrote: Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’entrate (Abandon hope all you who enter here). But our pastor friend neglected to mention another text of great importance, the very one Dante himself relied on: the second century Apocalypse of Peter (not to be confused with the much more pleasant Gnostic version). If you’re looking to have the crap scared out of you or to be made ill this makes for an excellent read.

But where did all this arise? Even a brief look at the Hebrew scriptures (OT) will confirm the complete lack of any semblance to the Christian understanding found in the NT scriptures, even on the very lips of Jesus himself. This is where I think we must part ways with our pastor who says very little about Jesus and hell. One must never forget that Jesus was a man of his times, informed by the same apocalyptic writings that many of his contemporaries were. Of course, our pastor would assume that Jesus was “in the know” about these things and had no need to rely on such writings. Within the circular argument of faith it is almost impossible to convince people otherwise, but I might point out that Luke says even Jesus “grew in wisdom and in stature” (2:52), that he was found “sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions” (2:46), i.e. he learned and was taught (even if, perhaps, he learned at an accelerated rate).

It is not enough to stop at the Councils or at our present cultural interpretation of hell (which is all too accommodating in any case). It is obvious too that it is not sufficient to stop at the canonical writings as there we are faced with a huge gap. We shall have to revisit this.