MATHETΩN

One always reads I Tim ii.15 with astonishment. The astonishment can abate if one remembers that “saved” is obsolete English, not properly the revenant that does Evangelicalism’s bidding. But now one is bemused.

I contrived the following catechism as a comment on the passage.

Q. According to the Hebraíc scriptures, what were the results of the human disobedience after creation?

A. Conscience, and mortality.

Q. Can these ills be remedied?

A. Yes, by God’s special gifts mercy and eternal life, as his son Yesús taught and showed.

Q. And what were the punishments with which God cursed humanity for the disobedience?

A. For males, to encounter pain in their labors, and to find nature tend to resist them; and for females, to tend to submit to men, and to encounter pain in childbirth.

Q. Can humanity be rescued from these punishments?

A. Yes: by persisting through the pain, thus to renew the joys of creation. Specifically, males can emerge from the sweat of work with a new bounty, and a subjected Nature; while females can pass through the pangs of childbearing to the reverence of husbands, and a baby.

Have you noticed that the unique Evangelicalist symbol is the three crosses? Whether on church side or letterhead, it is the symbol that other religious groups will not be found to share. I have never given this much thought, or have perceived it vaguely as a slap at Rome; but now I think it is important. That third or second cross, elevating the “saved thief”, symbolizes all their preaching and praxis: it might be said their belief in him is the way they believe in Him.

I ran across a poignant thread at an Evangelicalist website yesterday; a young man begs to know if his father is in hell or in heaven. I’ll reproduce parts of the thread below, heavily edited:

I am desperate and seek answers. Although my dad led a sinful life he knew God. A few weeks ago, the preacher came to him and he confessed his sins and prayed to be saved. Last night he passed away. Is he in heaven now? Is it possible that our prayers could still save him, if he is not? I am very upset and can’t function. I can’t bear the uncertainty. Please help and guide me.

If the preacher is from a Bible-believing church, then he is saved.

It was not just an accident that your father confessed and repented. God reads the minds and hearts of men and plans everything accordingly.

I hope you are in fellowship. We are to be in submission to our church so that we are under God’s protection when difficult times come, such as this.

Do not let the devil beat you with lies like praying for him; praying for the dead is witchcraft.

If your father confessed his sins and prayed to be saved, why would you doubt that he is saved?

You can be sure that your Dad is in heaven. The same with my mum: She said the sinner’s prayer, didn’t get baptized, died last year, but, thank you Jesus, she is saved. Amen.

Why do heads of grain grow? Is it not so they ripen? But when they ripen, is it not so they may be harvested? since they do not grow for themselves alone. If they had feeling, they might pray that they never be harvested, but never to be harvested is a condemnation of heads of grain. Similarly, I want you to realize that in the case of humans it would be a curse never to die: it would be like never ripening, never being harvested.

Bonnie’s only begun her first term in college, and it seems to me she’s already been plunged neck-deep into the strident we-don’t-know-anything dogma that is reportedly pop-postmodernism. For example, the first lesson in her writing class is about how there can be no good writing — and a teacher forbade the class to critique grammar, making the curious dodge from fiat of calling it “inborn”.

I want to laugh, but something in it all seems deadly earnest.

I wonder how many more generations can find fuel from nothing but relief at having escaped modernism? But perhaps that is not what is happening at all; perhaps I really mean to be asking, How long will it take the Boomers to die?

Ask not thyself that question very often, or risk night-scares of Boomers living forever, grimmer and loucher with each century.

“The nine-year-old boy lay on a bloodstained hospital sheet crawling with ants, staring blindly at the wall.

“His family pastor had accused him of being a witch, and his father then tried to force acid down his throat as an exorcism. It spilled as he struggled, burning away his face and eyes. The emaciated boy barely had strength left to whisper the name of the church that had denounced him— Mount Zion Lighthouse, part of the powerful Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria.

“A month later, he died.

” ‘Witchcraft’ has taken on new life because of a rapid growth in Evangelical Christianity. Their parishioners take literally the biblical exhortation, ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’ Campaigners against the practice say around 15,000 children have been accused in only two of Nigeria’s thirty-six states over the past decade and around 1,000 murdered. The United Nations Children’s Fund says tens of thousands of children have been targeted throughout Africa.

“Church signs sprout around every twist of the road snaking through the jungle between Uyo, the capital of the southern Akwa Ibom state where Nwanaokwo lay, and Eket, home to many more rejected ‘witch children.’ Churches outnumber schools, clinics and banks put together. Many promise to solve parishioner’s material worries as well as spiritual ones—eight out of ten Nigerians struggle by on less than $2 a day. ‘Poverty must catch fire,’ insists the Born 2 Rule Crusade on one of Uyo’s main streets. ‘Where little shots become big shots in a short time,’ promises the Winner’s Chapel down the road. ‘Pray your way to riches,’ advises Embassy of Christ a few blocks away. It’s hard for churches to carve out a congregation with so much competition, so some pastors establish their credentials by accusing children of witchcraft.

“Sam Itauma of the Children’s Rights and Rehabilitation Network said it is the most vulnerable children—the orphaned, sick, disabled or poor—who are most often denounced. In Nwanaokwo’s case, his poor father and dead mother made him an easy target.

” ‘Even churches who didn’t use to “find” child witches are being forced into it by the competition,’ said Itauma. ‘They are seen as spiritually-powerful if they can detect witchcraft, and then the parents pay them money for an exorcism.’

“That’s what Margaret Eyekang did when her eight-year-old daughter Abigail was accused by a ‘prophet’ from the Apostolic Church. A series of exorcisms cost Eyekang eight months’ wages. The payments bankrupted her. Members of two other families said pastors from the Apostolic Church had accused their children of witchcraft, but asked not to be named for fear of retaliation. The Nigeria Apostolic Church refused repeated requests made by phone, e-mail and in person for comment.

“At first glance, there’s nothing unusual about the laughing, grubby kids playing hopscotch or reading from a tattered Dick and Jane book by the graffiti-scrawled cinderblock house. But this is where children like Abigail end up after being labeled witches by churches and abandoned or tortured by their families.

“There’s a scar above Jane’s shy smile: her mother tried to saw off the top of her skull after a pastor denounced her and repeated exorcisms costing a total of sixty dollars didn’t cure her of witchcraft. Mary, fifteen, is just beginning to think about boys and how they will look at the scar tissue on her face caused when her mother doused her in caustic soda. Twelve-year-old Rachel dreamed of being a banker but instead was chained up by her pastor, starved and beaten with sticks repeatedly; her uncle paid him sixty dollars for the exorcism.

“Israel’s cousin tried to bury him alive, Nwaekwa’s father drove a nail through her head, and sweet-tempered Jerry—all knees, elbows and toothy grin—was beaten by his pastor, starved, made to eat cement and then set on fire by his father as his pastor’s wife cheered it on.

“The children at the home run by Mr. Itauma’s organization have been mutilated as casually as the praying mantises they play with. Home officials asked for the children’s last names not to be used to protect them from retaliation. The home was founded in 2003 with seven children; it now has 120 to 200 at any given time as children are reconciled with their families and new victims arrive.

“Helen Ukpabio is one of the few evangelists publicly linked to the denunciation of child witches. She heads the enormous Liberty Gospel church in Calabar, where Nwanaokwo used to live. Ukpabio makes and distributes popular books and DVDs on witchcraft; in one film, a group of child witches are depicted pulling out a man’s eyeballs; in a book, she advises that ‘sixty percent’ of the inability to bear children is caused by witchcraft. In an interview with us, Ukpabio was accompanied by her lawyer, church officials, and a personal film crew. ‘Witchcraft is real,’ she insisted.

“After he publicly identified Liberty Gospel as denouncing ‘child witches,’ armed police arrived at Mr. Itauma’s home accompanied by a church lawyer. Three children were injured in the fracas. Mr. Itauma asked us not to reveal other churches identified by children, to protect their victims. ‘We cannot afford to make enemies of the churches around here,’ he said.”

God damn Christianity.

I have seen a certain bulletin plastered on churches by Mathetai so often that I think I must quote at least part of it:

… His [Jesus's] most commonly-repeated command was:

Follow me.

Follow him to where? To his Kingdom of life, through death. Here is a list of questions that ask, Am I following Jesus?

“Have you left your home, your family, and your income?”

“Are you proclaiming, or teaching about, the Kingdom? Are you healing? Are you everywhere doing good?”

“Have you been, or are you soon to be, houseless or arrested?”

“Are you soon to be killed?”

(Once, attached to some Youth Camp caravan, I saw the list limited to the last two questions — but added to them, I think, toothlessness and jailtime — concluded with something flippant such as: “If not, you aren’t doing it right.”)

Your tongue longs to jump into argument, but restrain it; it is a tyrant, and you must fight it daily seventy-times-seven. Fix your mind to your soul as to the wood of a cross, strike it with alternating hammer blows like an anvil. It has to be mocked, abused, ridiculed, and wronged, though without in any way being crushed or broken; indeed it must keep calm and unstirred.

A man should know that a devil’s sickness is on him if he is seized by the urge in conversation to assert his opinion, however correct it may be.

Only through shame can you be freed from shame.

Habit ( a ) forms things and ( b ) follows them. And it is particularly true that virtue depends on habit.

Drink deeply of scorn from every man, as though it were living water handed you to cleanse you.

A small fire can soften a great lump of wax; and a small indignity meekly accepted will often ease, sweeten, and wipe away all the heart’s harshness.

Do not become silent in an unreasonable way that causes disturbance and hard feeling in others.

One reason Henry VIII had the scholar William Tyndale strangled to death is because his adviser Thomas More vehemently attacked Mr. Tyndale’s translating from Greek the words “congregation”, “elder”, and “love”.

The churchmen had for centuries been careful to substitute the words “Church”, “priest”, and “charity”. This new honesty was “heretical” because it introduced “notions dangerous to pope and Church”.

By now Mr. Tyndale’s terms are common — and two of them have taken on the meanings the churchmen so wished them to have. So, were someone today to substitute “assembly” and “senior”, can we suppose today’s churchmen would wish him strangled, too?

Here are descriptions of a follower of Jesus by two churchmen; I quote rather-randomly from the first few chapters of their principal works.

Rick Warren, ca. 2000

The disciple:

• makes “a difference in the life of a relative or friend”
• will be “remembered after death”
• “owes it to himself” to accept God’s rewards
• will be more physically, psychologically “well”
• anticipates a reward “too good to be true”
• “balances his earthly concerns with his heavenly values”
• becomes “more responsible”, “more energetic”
• “attends church on a regular basis”
• attains a superior “reputation”
• is now “on a team”; “connected”, “comfortable”
• becomes “healthier, more-capable”
• “respects the ruling political system”
• runs a business “on spiritual principles” and so runs “simply a better business”, for “these things work in the real world”
• is “getting the pie right now because he is following an eternal recipe”
• “sticks to a task” and thus “builds character”
• has his “questions answered”
• has “Someone to help him hold on, in life”

John Climacus, ca. 600

The disciple:

• “freely accepts death”
• bears “a chastised heart”, “unrecognized wisdom”, and “an unnoticed life”
• is always “striving to be humble”
• “wishes for poverty”
• “longs for what is divine”
• “pours out love”
• “denies himself empty pride”
• dwells in “a depth of silence”
• endures “hardship, simplicity” in his “chosen route of great grief”
• is “separated from everything”
• is “set on fire, in the darkness”
• “sits like someone of foreign speech among people of other tongues”
• “drives out his love for family”
• “is a fugitive”
• “mortifies his appetites” and “constantly toils”
• drinks “the bitter cup of dishonor: derided, mocked, jeered”
• “denies his will; he must patiently endure opposition, suffer neglect without complaint, put up with violent arrogance”
• “has undertaken to travel by a short and rough road” of “self-mistrust up to his dying day”
• “turns away from earthly concerns, from human ways, from family; cuts his selfishness away”
• must “never grieve the loss” of these things