I've wondered why believers in the Rapture, the Anti-Christ, and the Second Coming would get so wrapped up in right-wing politics. If the Apocalypse is coming within our lifetime (41% of Americans and 58% of white evangelical Christians believe Jesus is coming back by 2050), isn't it pointless to try to stop all the devilry that must take place to bring him back? Why fight all of the Anti-Christ's groundwork for centralized authority and global dominion—Medicaid expansion, regulations on coal and fishing tackle, Keystone XL (oh ho! you fundies have missed that one, haven't you?)—if the End Times must happen to fulfill cosmic destiny? (And the age-old question: why again must an omnipotent, loving God let all this unpleasant drama play out?)
History professor Matthew Avery Sutton offers an explanation for faithful political activity in the run-up to Armageddon. Believers in the Rapture, Tribulation, and Armageddon don't withdraw; they invest their talents:
Traditionally, people have believed that this expectation that Jesus is coming back would lead to indifference, that people would focus on the next world, they would invest very little in this world. In fact, they’ve done just the opposite....
It’s clear from D.L. Moody to Billy Sunday to Aimee Semple McPherson to Billy Graham to Jerry Falwell, that to believe that Jesus is coming at any moment does not make you less active or less involved in your culture. They say over and over and over again that this is not the case. We just haven’t heard them. Every generation of evangelicals and fundamentalists says it. Their apocalyptic theology makes them more active not less.
There is a biblical argument for this that they use. It’s the parable of the talents. In this story a ruler invests in his servants, giving each of them a number of talents, or money. He then goes away to another kingdom. When he comes back he wants to know what they’ve done with their talents. Some had buried their talents, afraid of losing it. Some had lost the money, wasting their talents. But some had invested wisely and made more money. So the returning ruler rewarded those who had invested wisely and maximized their talents and used them for greater good. For fundamentalists and evangelicals, the point here is that God has given them talents. He’s gone away, he’s coming back, he’s coming back soon, and he’s going to ask what you’ve done with your talents. Jesus ended the parable by instructing the disciples to “occupy” until I come. And that’s what fundamentalists and evangelicals have done.
That means that, far more than many other Christians, they believe they have a responsibility to act as vehemently, as radically, as urgently as possible [Matthew Avery Sutton, interviewed by Daniel Silliman, "It’s The Apocalypse, Stupid: Understanding Christian Opposition to Obamacare, Civil Rights, New Deal and More," Religion Dispatches, 2014.12.02].
Invest your efforts in earthly action that the Antichrist will overwhelm and that the Lord will have to set right anyway—my head spins at the thought that that's the real motivation behind the voting habits of a possible majority of South Dakota voters.. and at the thought of trying to find a way to reason people away from the destructive policies to which that thinking leads.
So the ruler came back and found some did nothing and some lost theor monies. These became wingnuts. Those who invested wisely were ignored and the ones chosen to clean up after wingnuts became Libs,the favored ones.
I suspect that the reality people actually experience is such a disconnect with the various religious views, such as a coming rapture, that so-called "true believers" don't really believe this stuff. They may say they do, and even try to convince themselves they do, but, absent severe mental illness, when push comes to shove I suspect that the rational part of the individual's mind simply cannot fully embrace such views.
Then, perhaps to battle this internal conflict, it becomes necessary to engage in irrational actions that try to force others to accept beliefs and doctrines that they, themselves, doubt in their own rational minds.
Oh Oh! Sibson will be coveting the Madville Times.
Mr. Howie truly believes. Mr. Howie is insaner than most. He is insaner than Sibby's stepsister.
BCB, interesting hypothesis. In a way then, you are saying they may be "closet existentialists" trying to find meaning and self-worth in an otherwise incomprehensible world with an uncertain future?
http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/existentialism.htm
Nearly 2,000 years ago John the Apostle predicted a single worldwide government with the power to prevent dissenting Christians from buying or selling (Revelation 13:17). It looks to me like the prediction is coming true, and the Affordable Care Act looks to me like a big step in that direction.
As a side note, modern Christian fundamentalism is widely regarded as the namesake of The Fundamentals, a set of 90 essays published from 1910 to 1915 by the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, John Thune's alma mater.
The "five fundamentals" had previously been set forth by the Presbyterian denomination in 1910:
—inerrancy of the Bible
—historical reality of its miracles
—Christ's virgin birth
—Christ's substitutionary atonement (death for our sins)
—Christ's bodily resurrection
The "fundie" label seems derogatory to me. I'd prefer to be known as "hyper-fundie" (ha ha).
Jesus. Statehood for the tribes and Mexico.
I think you are on to something BCB. It seems to me that the way one grows or strengthens one's faith is through doubting, questioning, arguing.
In the ELCA denomination of the Lutheran Church, such questioning is encouraged within the seminaries (graduate schools) and out. When I studied at Luther Seminary in the mid-1990s, no one got away with simply stating, "I believe X, and that's that." Challenges always came, and that was good. It was hard, often stressful, and very good.
I think that challenging, arguing and struggling is a good thing. Perhaps the best thing it brings about is how impossible absolute certainty is. If Jesus' closest followers, women and men, could be wrong so often, who are we to deal in absolutes about the whole of Christianity?
That's why it's all about faith, not fact. I understand the frequent rebelling against faith. It's extremely hard and often frightening. Creating certainties is so much more comfortable and feels entirely safer. I'm sure I fail at faith and rebel at least as often as anyone else.
Where was I? Oh yeah. Certainty. Armageddon coming by 2050. Weird. I wonder who came up with that? Despite centuries of complete failure at this End Times Prediction Business, there is still a sucker born every minute, and a scammer ready to fleece the frightened flock.
Ain't religion great?!
When there are no more earthquakes, no more volcano activity, when the oceans and rivers no longer flow, no more land shifting, there are no more germs, virus, bacteria and etc. that will be the "end time" because that will mean that earth has died and can no longer support life.
There will be no peace, and Jesus will not return during our lifetime, because mankind have not gotten Jesus' message yet (which is quite similar to other philosophies,) nor implemented it.
In the meantime there will be those who will become wealthy by selling books, videos, and movies about the end times, and those will spend their money on those books, videos and movies.
Amen JeniW. That's exactly how it works.
Between 4 and 5 billion years when the sun implodes and Earth is toast it won't matter to any of us.
Bill, this is kind of a deja vu moment with you. No I am not suggesting that these folks are '"closet existentialists" trying to find meaning and self-worth in an otherwise incomprehensible world with an uncertain future.'
Instead, I'm suggesting that the rational human mind limits his ability to deny the full weight of personal responsibility for his outlook and relationship with the world, absent some sort of mental illness. Individuals who think or claim they believe in religious doctrines, like the rapture, engage in a futile effort to deny this personal responsibility by trying to identify something outside themselves that is responsible for their suffering or joy. In a similar vein, Sartre's "bad faith" has been described as "the habit that people have of deceiving themselves into thinking that they do not have the freedom to make choices for fear of the potential consequences of making a choice."
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hide-and-seek/201203/jean-paul-sartre-bad-faith
I think of "bad faith" as the process of trying to pass the responsibility for one's choices on to another entity. A person wants to think he is miserable because the devil tempts him into various sins and God punishes him for his behavior. He wants to see himself as happy because Jesus died for our sins, God answers his prayers and rewards his behavior. Either way, he seeks to avoid exercising the personal responsibility that he fears.
The linked article gives an analogy in describing someone who tries to be a waiter by doing everything a he believes a waiter does. He "must at some level be aware that he is not in fact a waiter, but a conscious human being who is deceiving himself that he is a waiter." I think the same holds true for someone who thinks he is a religious being that is defined by his religious beliefs and behaviors. Like the waiter, he is at some level be aware that he is not in fact the religious being at all, but a conscious human being who is deceiving himself. In a futile attempt to suppress this unfortunate realization, he tries to convince others to believe in and obey his adopted religion in the hope that by doing so this will give his own fundamentalism the credibility that his rational mind keeps telling him is lacking.
...above I perhaps should have added: ...trying to find meaning and self-worth in an otherwise incomprehensible world with an uncertain future... "by projecting their masked uncertainty onto others and damning them, instead of themselves for it."
(It's what I meant to communicate, but upon re-read, I should have perhaps been more explicit about what I assuned was implicit. :-)
Estadidad para las tribus y México.
The Blindman
Mexican statehood for the tribes!
If god rilly answered prayers,why do the koch bros have to buy pols and elections to make themselves richer? It costs nothing to bribe god,does it?
If god is rilly against moneychangers,why hasn't he/she/it smited the koch bros and wingnuts right along with them?
Grudz, see, I'm just getting ready for the move.
The Blindman
MFI. the real question is why haven't enough people smited the Koch Bros and their supporters?
Would it be safe to say the supposed anti-christ is a republican? After all, they are the ones who insist on destroying the planet as soon as possible in the name of profit. Or am I out in left field?
Bill and BCB, I think you are on the right track concerning how people try to make religion work for them. They want to domesticate religion, tame it and make it safe and comfortable. One and done. The believer learns the right rules and Ta-dah! Perfect safety has been acquired.
I don't think that's how it works. There is lots of struggling with belief among Jesus' favorite guys. Peter, Thomas, Matthew, John - all of them had serious times of doubt and getting it entirely wrong. There is No One and Done.
Out best modern example of the ongoing struggle that characterizes faith is Mother Teresa. She had doubt Every. Single. Day.
Charlatans like Joel Osteen, Jim Dobson, Pat Robertson, Tony Perkins, Joyce Meyer and the like are wealthy because they understand that many people will spend large amounts to be made psychically comfortable.
That's not faith or religion.
Tim, I'm not comfortable with naming an antichrist or assigning it a political party. For me that sounds like trying to co-opt religion to suit my needs.
I'm so appalled by Republican bastardization of Christianity that I'm terribly gun shy of getting anywhere near that myself.
I could be wrong about the whole antichrist thing though. It wouldn't be the first time. In fact, I wouldn't even guarantee there Is an antichrist.
Deb, I meant no harm, you have to believe in that garbage for it to matter, I don't so no matter to me. But I should be more understanding to the believers, my apologies.
Tim, there is no need for you to apologize to me. I'm not offended by what you've said. In fact, when you wrote "you have to believe in that garbage for it to matter", I nodded in agreement. Your feeling that religion is "garbage" does not affect my faith because it's My faith and agreement with others does not play a role. Why should it?
The only time it might matter to nonbelievers is when the religious types try to code their religion into law for the entire citizenry. Historically, that has worked out very badly.
I think your argument (Sartre's argument?) is perhaps flawed in it's assumption that people are really all that conscious, BCB. Instead, I think a lot of it is driven by the unconscious... And that is not actually self-delusion to not know where one's thoughts come from, but rather the nature of the mind, and perhaps a case of mistaken identity.
But, the net effect of either analysis would result in the same behavior. And yes, I know that I'm saying, following your reasoning, that 'mental illness' is to a large extent synonymous with our contemporary human condition. But I'm in good company in that regard. That's what Carl Jung thought too. ;-)
Mr. Fleming, they do know you make ads against smoking when you saunter into Ifrits and everybody shouts "BILL!!!!" That is the definition of unconscious self-delusion.
And I am not saying it is insaner than most. But you wouldn't catch me in one of those dens of iniquity. Mostly because our pal Lar never flushes the stool after himself.
" 'mental illness' is to a large extent synonymous with our contemporary human condition."
Yep. Believing in an unseen god of any kind is a form of mental illness, a self-delusion perhaps. But mental illness is not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes it's all that stands between one and insanity.
Deb-That's not faith or religion. No ma'am,it ain't. That is entertainment-the real name of the game. Just like sports "superstars" who claim they get paid to entertain suckers willing to hand over ever increasing sums of money to watch spoiled athletes underachieve. Pay for pay sports-the new religion.
Deb, I'm not saying that belief in God is a form of mental illness. I'm saying that ignoring or marginalizing that (biologically inherited) aspect of ourselves that needs to do it can be. So can mischaracterizing that 'internal' voice as an 'external' one and thus failing to embrace our whole 'self.'
Grudznick, you appear to be about five years behind on your research on our company. We moved out of the Ifritz location about three or four months after they moved in (they couldn't get the ventilation system to work well enough to keepmthe smell out of our upstairs office, and besides, we needed more space). Further, I personally have never been in the place during 'working hours.' In short, I doubt the customers there would know me from Adam, unless they met me somewhere else. And yes, you might want to stay out of there also. You have enough iniquity in your life already and should probably just stick with the devil you know. ;-)
http://www.argusleader.com/story/opinion/readers/2014/12/14/letter-politicians-support-business-environment/20401639/