3 “I”s

In the years since my enlightenment I’ve occasionally referred to what I call the 3 “I”s of American fundogelicalism: Isolation Insulation, Inoculation and Infiltration. This post is a response to Astasia’s suggestion that I take this idea out of an obscure comment thread and write a (nearly equally obscure) post about it.

1. Isolation Insulation is the process by which fundogelical churches segregate the sheeple from the outside world. A few examples of the vast array of services and activities they offer to accomplish this are:

• Providing social activities for every demographic group
• Operating Christian schools and colleges
• Developing curricula to support home schooling
• Sponsoring sports teams and, sometimes, entire leagues
• Producing and distributing media (books, movies, music, etc.) that reinforce fundogelicalism
• Running summer camps

The idea is to meet all social, educational and spiritual needs within the fellowship so that fundogelicals never have to rely on support or resources from non-fundogelicals. Many fundogelicals encourage their sheeple to frequent businesses and professional practices owned and operated by Christians, and even publish directories to guide the sheeple in selecting businesses to patronize. God forbid that fundogelicals would ever mix with – and perhaps be influenced corrupted by – non-Christians for any reason (except prosyletization, under rigidly choreographed circumstances)! After all, if you were a fundogelical, would you want an infidel plumber fixing your clogged drain? I think not!

2. Inoculation = indoctrination + apologetics. To use a sports analogy, think of indoctrination as the “offensive” play during which the fundogelical team has the ball and the opportunity to score points. Indoctrination points are scored by filling minds with dogma. Apologetics, then, is the “defensive” play during which the fundogelical team protects itself and tries to prevent non-fundogelical influences from scoring. The process here is to reinforce the dogma by teaching the faithful approved responses to challenges to their dogma. Indoctrination starts as early as possible;  apologetics training comes after some indoctrination has been implanted quite firmly. Many fundogelicals seem to cruise through life on an indoctrination-rich regimen that includes little apologetics training.  In fact, too much apologetics training may backfire if the faithful start examining questions and stock responses too carefully, especially if they go to non-fundogelical resources for additional information. Thus, the ideal inoculation regimen is heavier on indoctrination than apologetics, but a “healthy” regimen includes both.

3. Infiltration is the process by which fundogelicals seek to dominate a society. This dominance was taken for granted throughout much of American history. More recently, however (the past 30 years or so), expanding acceptance of pluralistic, liberal and inclusive ideals has prompted fundogelicals to take aggressive action to maintain social and, especially, political hegemony in the USA. School board decisions regarding Christmas pageants, Ten Commandments posters, science, social studies and sex education curricula, etc., have not been accidental or isolated. They have been part of a deliberate strategy to dominate public education and permeate public school content with fundogelical ideas and ideals (see Ralph Reed’s Active Faith for a thorough explanation of the genesis and implementation of this tactic). Sponsorship of repressive initiatives like Proposition 8, and ongoing opposition to abortion and stem cell research are additional examples of ways in which fundogelicals seek to impose their values on American society. Infiltration is particularly important to fundogelicalism because, if successful, then inoculation could be confined largely to indoctrination (apologetics could become a mere academic exercise rather than a survival tactic), and isolation insulation wouldn’t be necessary at all.

Non-Christians should remember that the primary reason fundogelicals seek to infiltrate American society is because they see anything less than a Christ-dominated society as a threat to their own spiritual survival. They’re playing for eternal consequences: they want desperately to get into heaven and stay out of hell. Non-Christians don’t need to adopt quite that long-range a plan, but we need to remember that the 3 “I”s of fundogelicalism are connected to both fundogelicals’ highest aspirations and their deepest fears. Their stakes are high – eternal life. Ours are higher – the lives, the only ones we’ll ever get, that we have right now.

– the chaplain

 

Signposts on The De-Conversion Trail

Like many children, I thought church was extraordinarily boring. Unlike many children, I was compelled to be at church several times a week. That being the case, I couldn’t help absorbing the dogma that was reiterated ad nauseum in both church and home. I was not raised in a complete bubble, but it was about as close as it could get short of being home-schooled. As an adult – even as a Salvation Army officer – I resolved never to let my life, or the lives of my children, become completely absorbed in evangelical Christian and – especially – Salvation Army bubbles. In hindsight, I think that resolution probably sealed my fate.

I was about 12 when I first learned that there were people who didn’t believe in god. Until then, I had no idea that no-god-belief was even an option. As far as I knew, everyone believed in god, and everyone I knew personally believed in god, or said they did. The medium through which I learned about atheism and agnosticism was a TV show called All in the Family and the first “out” nonbeliever I encountered, via the boob tube, was Mike Stivic, Archie Bunker’s agnostic son-in-law. All I figured out at that time was that agnostics professed not to know whether god existed, and atheists did not believe in god. I didn’t know of any way to find out more about nonbelief, so I just tucked those little bits of information into some corner of my mind. I didn’t love god. I didn’t want to “do god’s will.” And I certainly didn’t want to go to church as often as I did, but I wasn’t in a position to change that circumstance anytime soon. So, I got on with my life as best I could.

I was about 14 when we studied Greek mythology in 9th grade English class. I was greatly amused by those randy gods who couldn’t resist having sex with all those beautiful mortal women. One day, I had a weird thought: What’s the difference between those gods and dolls, and god and Mary? Wow! Stunning idea! An idea I quickly dismissed by rationalizing that god didn’t actually have sex with Mary, so it wasn’t the same thing at all.

So I went on living my life.

But…that Virgin Birth thing never really sat well with me; I had a feeling there was more to that story than I was being told. I believed in god, Jesus, the whole evangelical schtick as far as I knew it, but I still didn’t love god or Jesus, and I still didn’t want to “do god’s will.” I just labeled myself a rebel and got on with my life.

I was in my mid-teens when I “got my heart right with god,” and, after graduating from high school, I attended a Christian college. Needless to say, the indoctrination process there was thorough, and I graduated completely convinced that Christianity was the True Religion, and evangelicalism was the right way to do it.

Fast forward to my mid-thirties. I’m the oldest person in my graduate school History of Education class. I’m also the only former minister. One day, as we’re examining Martin Luther’s writings on education, a student asks: What’s he talking about when he keeps saying that the devil is tempting him? I wait for the prof to field the question, then jump in when he shrugs his shoulders. I explain that all indications were that Luther believed that Satan was a real being – a spirit being, but a real entity nonetheless – who worked evil in the world and in people’s lives. She looks astonished that any adult would believe such a thing. The prof looks abashed, but doesn’t say anything. I just shrug my shoulders and think, “Yeah, it does sound pretty silly, doesn’t it.” That was the day I stopped believing in Satan.

There were other signposts along my de-conversion trail – points at which I stopped, caught my breath, and wondered whether the path I was following led anywhere at all. I’ve written about some of them before but there’s more to tell. In good cliffhanger fashion, I’ll save those stories for another day.

– the chaplain

 

K2K

A Christian blogger bragged today about a child who is proselytizing another child:

To put this in context, I’ll explain that Junior Soldiers are juvenile members of The Salvation Army, ages 7-16. Recruits – those preparing for Junior Soldiership – can be as young as 6. I have no idea how old (or young, as the case may be) this particular evangelist is. Nevertheless, I can’t resist asking, does this vignette tickle your funny-bone, turn your stomach, or what?

If a child wants to read his Bible while riding a bus, well, okay, he has a right to do that. If someone asks him about what he’s reading, well, okay, he has a right to discuss it. But following up that accidental conversation by preparing to evangelize a child with a canned presentation strikes me as more than a bit creepy.

Has this young evangelist (or his parents) considered whether the parents of the intended recipient want their child to learn about Christianity in this manner? Furthermore, can any adult seriously believe that children are intellectually equipped to discuss religion with each other, particularly with the express intention of converting one another? My guess – based on my personal knowledge of this blogger – is that the parents of the budding evangelist don’t give a damn what the target child’s parents want; they’re certain that their evangelical Christian religion is the true one, the only path to god and heaven. Therefore, they’re doing the child, and perhaps an entire family, a favor by sharing their version of Jesus. As for my second question, I can only guess that their answer is “yes,” since someone is encouraging one child to proselytize another.

Christianity: so simple even a child can understand it.

I suppose we’ll be reading about Willliam Lane Craig’s retirement any day now.

Yeah, right.

Chalk up this weird, perhaps sordid, story as yet one more example (as if any more are needed) of Christian arrogance.

– the chaplain

 

Toy Update!

You’ve probably noticed that the deacon and I are rather fond of electronic toys. Therefore, you won’t be at all surprised to learn that we’ve both updated ours in the past few months. Our latest round of toy gathering began last fall, when the deacon purchased an iPad and I upgraded my Kindle.

The photo above shows the deacon’s iPad. I think he uses this more than he uses his laptop computer these days. He’s especially pleased since he upgraded it to include 3G networking capacity, which allows him to access the Internet from nearly anywhere.

He bought his iPad about the same time I upgraded from the Kindle 2 to the Kindle 3G. I had to upgrade after my first Kindle succumbed to permanent power failure. Over a period of several months, the battery kept losing its charge until it reached a point where I had to keep it plugged in to use it. That impeded its portability a bit, to say the least. Eventually, it got to the point where it just wouldn’t turn on at all, even when connected to life support. I was peeved that it died after only 1.5 years of use. After toying with whether to try another Kindle or get an iPad, I chose the Kindle 3G. My primary reason for this choice was that I really like the Kindle’s screen. It’s not backlit, so it’s much easier on the eyes than the iPad. As you can see in the photo below, the 3G is about 40% smaller than the 2. It’s very lightweight and it’s about the size of a paperback book.

Everything went well with my Kindle 3G for the first couple of weeks, but then it started rebooting itself randomly. This continued for a few weeks, and the frequency with which it happened became more than a little bit annoying. When I eventually contacted Amazon, the service representative upgraded the software. This seemed to solve the problem for awhile, but then the rebooting quirk started all over again. I was on the verge of sending it back for replacement (it was still under warranty) when I read on a user forum that this has been a common problem. Several comment writers suggested that the problem was with Amazon’s leather cover, rather than the machine. They reported that, after they took the ereader out of its cover, it worked just fine.

You’ll note in the photo below that Amazon’s leather cover has two metal hooks that insert into notches in the metal body of the ereader. It seems that these hooks cause a short-circuit in the machine, which causes it to reboot incessantly.

As soon as I read that, I removed my Kindle 3G from its cover and decided to test the theory for a few days before returning it for a replacement. That was several months ago and the machine has not rebooted once since then. Once I was pretty sure the problem was solved, I ordered a new cover from M-Edge. So, what you see below is documentation of the fact that I have 2 Kindles (1 working, 1 not) and 3 covers (2 working and 1 not).

The final toy that I’ll mention here is my new iPhone. Yes, I know, I said for many years that all I wanted in a phone was an instrument for sending and receiving phone calls. That was true then. But, as I watched the deacon using his Blackberry to send and receive emails, photos, etc., and particularly as I watched him using his iPad, I slowly decided that maybe it was time to upgrade my phone. I initially considered adding email and Internet access to my old cell phone. When I investigated this option, I quickly learned that the monthly fees for those limited functions would cost me just as much as the monthly fees for an iPhone. Upon learning that, I decided to buy the iPhone, which offers many functions in addition to Internet browsing and email. So, the newest toy in our stable is the iPhone4.

I just got it yesterday, so I can’t tell you how well it works yet. If you want to know, you’ll have to either get one of your own, or wait a few more months for my review.

– the chaplain

 

God’s Leading = My Desire

I got an email two days ago from a guy I haven’t heard from in several years. He said that god is leading him to sing a particular song in church this Sunday, but he doesn’t have the music for it. That being the case, he asked me if I had it and, if I did, could I email it to him. Well, I don’t have it, and I have neither the time nor the inclination to whip up an arrangement of it, so I suggested that he contact someone else about it.

Could someone please tell me what kind of a boneheaded god “leads” someone – on short notice, at that – to sing a song for which he doesn’t have the sheet music? What the guy should have said is that he wants to sing the song this coming Sunday, if he can get all the shit together to make it happen. Instead of saying that, he cloaked his desire in holy language and shifted responsibility for the matter to god. Fundogelicals often do that, as if saying it’s a directive from god makes it more authoritative: god told me to do this, so if you have the means to help me make it happen then you’re obligated to help me.

I’m calling bullshit on this maneuver. As far as I’m concerned, if god really is leading someone to do something, then it’s god responsibility to provide the means for doing it. Don’t expect me to pick up his slack.

– the chaplain