Christian Voice? Only via a strange definition of “Christian”
I listened amazed the other day to the Today show, on which someone from the religious nutters’ group Christian Voice admitted having strong-armed a cancer charity to persuade it not to take any money donated by the cast of the Jerry Springer - The Opera.
In how many ways is this screwed up? Let’s count.
1) JSTO depicts the eternal split between Satan and those heavenly bunch in Jerry Springer terms. I watched the show (on TV) - more, I suspect, than many of the CV bunch have. I wasn’t outraged, though then again I don’t have any Christian sensibilities to outrage. The swearing seemed slightly out of line, but then again, in character with the context.
2) I quite like the precepts of Christianity, or at least New Testament Christianity: treat people as equals, forgive, help. They seem like good rules for a society that will rub along OK. Nothing that CV is advocating - hating JSTO, threatening the charity - fits those precepts. It’s Old Testament Christianity, which isn’t Christian, it’s pre-medieval. It’s neolithic.
3) Threatening to cut off funds to a charity is, as David Soul quite rightly said, blackmail of the nastiest sort. “Nice little charity you got here… be a shame if something happened to your funding. Oops, I knocked over your coffee pot. Well, accidents happen, uh?”
Hey, I could even claim some animus against David Soul - this is the guy who serenaded my wife during the 1997 election. (Read John Sweeney’s book on the Knutsford constituency - it’s all in there.). But I don’t; I thought his appearance (is that the right word?) on Today was excellent: reasoned, calm, but making the point. He looked good in the TV showing of JSTO, too.
As for JSTO itself, the (idiotic) grumbles saying “You wouldn’t do this about Islam” are dim. No, you wouldn’t in the UK, because we don’t have the cultural reference points to understand them. You’d have to have arranged marriages, early-teen brides, and the audience would be going “I dunno, have you read the Koran?” Whereas in this country most people have vaguely heard about Lucifer being thrown out of heaven.
I’ve got a side interest in the way that religions infect people; they do seem to me to be something which is evolutionarily almost inevitable as you become more intelligent, like an emergent system of intelligence. I once put the idea to Richard Dawkins. Andrew won’t be surprised to hear he dismissed it.
Oh, and now Christian Voice is hinting at targeting abortion clinics. Interesting that the link there, from Christian Today, calls CV “a widely condemned extreme Christian group”. They really need to go away and re-read the New Testament.
- These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
- Want some trouble? Do a religious ad in the style of the "I'm a Mac" ad (8 December 2006; score: 144.25%)
- The best definition of "news" I've ever heard (14 June 2006; score: 41.9%)
- No, I'll beam *you* up, Scotty (20 July 2005; score: 33.91%)
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March 1st, 2005 at 8:29 am
Two points. I think the first thing that is wrong with almost all atheistic discussion of religionm: we assume that something called “religion” exists. Actually, and considered as a form of social organisation, or even of belief, post-literate bureaucratic religions are as different from shamanism as modern armies are from Yanomamo raiding parties. Any kind of sociobiological analysis has to take these differences into account, and will find that entirely different aspects of human nature come into play in these different social contexts.
Secondly, the division between old and new testament xianity is only clear to us moderns. It would have horrified and bewildered Jesus, who was — so far as we can tell — a thoroughly orthodox Jew, as were his immediate followers. “Not one jot nor one tittle of the law shall pass away” he said. He said the other stuff, too, but against a background of unquestionable orthodoxy.
March 1st, 2005 at 2:24 pm
Andrew’s points are well made apart from the bit about “Yanomamo raiding parties” as I have no idea what they are?
The problem with Jesus is that he said lots of things. No-one disputes that. But in the c.2000 years since, plenty of people have argued about what he meant when he said them. And that’s what this stems from. The CV have their own interpretation of what Jesus said and then they do the thing I hate most about most religions - they try and force it upon you. I have never heard of a Jew trying to force Judaism on a Gentile but I have many “religious” groups knocking on my door on Sunday mornings asking me to succumb to their way of thinking (usually in return for giving them money). My personal opinion is that there are “religions” and “bandwagons”. If you’re not part of the former, jump on the latter.
Am I the only person to have noticed that Jehova’s witnesses are in fact an MLM?