Daily Archives: March 10, 2011

The modern day heresy of Pastor Rob Bell

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For some time now, I have been keeping an eye on the growing storms within the American Right. The philosophical split between the moderates and the Sarah Palin extremists has been growing for a long time, and the recent ascent to party of so many of the Tea Party’s best and brightest into actual power, where their crazy ideas and violently vehement visions have to face the cold clear light of public scrutiny as real actual policies that will affect their lives, has proven far more of a disaster than a boon.

All of this, I feel, should be seen against the backdrop of history. It is clear to any student of the current events of decades previous to our own that what defines being a conservative changes quite a lot from era to era. The conservatives of our parents’ generation fought for the Establishment, the Government, and the status quo. Modern conservatives say government is the problem. And so on.

So what we are seeing, right now, with the Madness of the Right in the United States, and to a lesser extent all over the democratic world (with things like anti-Sharia Law legislation, for example) is the process one generation’s conservatives go through as the last gasps of their power and relevance are played out in the public arena. It is not pretty, and considerable damage can be done by these panicked, angry, unthinking, blind beasts as they stampede over the horizon, but luckily, history assures us that they soon will be gone into that big sunset and no longer a worry to the rest of us.

And as this happens, there will be the few among them who, cognizant of this, or perhaps merely cognizant of just how bitter, mean, and frankly evil their kind seems to have become, will open the door to the next generation, show that the old guard has at least some flexibility and maybe actually enjoy a little approval from the younger conservatives before they shuffle off this mortal coil.

They, of course, will be set upon by their cohorts like a pack of wild dogs as the worst kind of traitorous backstabbing coward for daring to get out of ideological lockstep with the rest of the baying hounds.

And that is what is happening to Pastor Rob Bell. Here’s the skinny on him :

Mr. Bell, 40, whose Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Mich., has 10,000 members, is a Christian celebrity and something of a hipster in the pulpit, with engaging videos that sell by the hundreds of thousands and appearances to rapt, youthful crowds in rock-music arenas.

According to this article on the New York Times website, Pastor Bell has been a controversial figure amongst evangelical Christians in the USA for some time, but what has gotten him doused the boiling brimstone of the devout’s disapproval lately has been news that his upcoming book endorses the radical and hatefully blasphemous idea that Gandhi is not currently rotting in Hell next to Hitler.

In short, he challenges the idea that everyone but a very small, narrowly defined group of evangelical Christians are going to Heaven after this life, and absolutely everybody else is going to suffer the most possible pain for the longest possible time possible in Hell.

This idea, that our little sect going to Heaven and everyone else is doomed, is a great recruiting tool for small splinter religions who are recruiting amongst the disaffected and disgruntled who might have a great deal of reason to feel that the secular world doesn’t find them special at all, and hence a religion that tells them that, despite what society tells them, they are actually super special and the only ones God likes enough to let into his private after-death club really appeals.

But to young, thoughtful people with a conscience, the idea that God would hand out the ultimate punishment conceivable to a great person like Gandhi or Mother Teresa or Martin Luther King just because they did not belong to the exact right tiny little splinter of humanity simply does not jibe at all with the notion of a loving, just, and fair God.

It is like saying someone is a wonderful parent because if their kids misbehave, they shoot them dead.

So while in the moment all the madness loose in the USA is depressing, people like Pastor Bell show that this too shall pass and greater enlightenment comes even to the church going traditionalists.

Let’s just hope that the old guard doesn’t torch the palace out of spite on the way out.

A true story of Fred “Mister” Rogers

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The more I lean about this man, the more amazed I am by him. He is like a saint of American values.

This is from Mister Rogers’ Wiki entry :

During the 1997 Daytime Emmys, the Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Rogers. The following is an excerpt from Esquire’s coverage of the gala, written by Tom Junod:

Mister Rogers went onstage to accept the award — and there, in front of all the soap opera stars and talk show sinceratrons, in front of all the jutting man-tanned jaws and jutting saltwater bosoms, he made his small bow and said into the microphone, “All of us have special ones who have loved us into being. Would you just take, along with me, ten seconds to think of the people who have helped you become who you are. Ten seconds of silence.”

And then he lifted his wrist, looked at the audience, looked at his watch, and said, “I’ll watch the time.” There was, at first, a small whoop from the crowd, a giddy, strangled hiccup of laughter, as people realized that he wasn’t kidding, that Mister Rogers was not some convenient eunuch, but rather a man, an authority figure who actually expected them to do what he asked. And so they did. One second, two seconds, seven seconds — and now the jaws clenched, and the bosoms heaved, and the mascara ran, and the tears fell upon the beglittered gathering like rain leaking down a crystal chandelier. And Mister Rogers finally looked up from his watch and said softly “May God be with you,” to all his vanquished children.[14]

Unbelievable. With his quiet dignity, epic sincerity, and gentle authority, he got a whole room full of jaded Hollywood types to sit still, be quiet, and miracle diablu, experience real emotion.

His awesomeness is so epic, he even made the snarky bitchy Esquire writer seem like a total douche for writing about it the wrong way.

Still not convinced Mister Rogers is a modern holy man? Watch this clip of him testifying before the Senate during one of the many times the right wing tried to kill PBS by cutting its funding.

It’s that clip that made me a permanent fan of the man. I was never fond of his show as a kid. As I have said before, he reminded me too much of those adults who talked to me like I was an idiot and were all weird and creepy and slow about everything. Nobody in my family acted like that towards me. I didn’t like it.

But now, after seeing that clip…. I feel bad about any snarky thing I ever said about the guy. I would be quite happy to have any kid I was caring for watch his show, although I probably could not hack to watch it with them. For good or ill, I still cannot hack that kind of treacle sweetness.

But that does not keep me from admiring the hell out of the man, and wishing I was more like him.