The Slave Bible - A Closer Look

Another look at the Slave Bible

In my original blog about the Slave Bible yesterday, I expressed muted outrage at the role of the Anglican Bishop of London and his involvement in commissioning the book. Beilby Porteus, the Bishop of London from 1787 to his death in 1809 was a rather different person than I portrayed in my first assessment of the situation.

Blog - The Slave Bible

History would suggest, the bishop was the first in authority to challenge the Anglican Church’s stance on slavery in a concerted campaign that lasted almost three decades. He was an abolitionist who stated his case in sermons and in the House of Lords, long before the cause became popular.

The bishop was an abolitionist

In his advocacy, he was concerned about the plight of about 300 slaves on the Codrington Plantations in Barbados that was bequeathed to the Church of England in the early 18^th Century and was overseen by the Archbishop of Canterbury and a committee of Church of England bishops.

From the time he was Bishop of Chester through when he was translated to the bishopric of London, Bishop Porteus worked with slavery abolitionists, and much was made of the fact that disease and maltreatment led to the death of about 40% of the slaves within three years of their arrival that the slave cohort needed constant replenishment from West Africa.

Besides these myriad issues, the bishop was desirous of proselytising the slaves and this must have informed his decision to commission an abridged bible for the slaves of the British West-Indies, as one of the most passionate advocates for the cause of the slaves, he by default assumed responsibility for their spiritual welfare. I can conclude from this reading of history that Bishop Beilby Porteus was neither malevolent nor evil.

Between the marketing and the product

A careful reading of what pertains to the content of the Slave Bible requires nuance over the sensational reductive view that essential parts of bible history were expunged. We can attribute this view to the publicity machinery of The Museum of the Bible (MOTB), which has had its share of controversy and scandal in terms of the provenance and integrity of exhibit acquired for display at the museum.

An academic assessment of the assertion of the MOTB would suggest a variance from the reality. The writer purports an exaggeration by the MOTB when in fact the book does contain verses of liberation as much as some pertaining to slavery were left out. Though the compendium leaves out the book of Revelation, it is not bereft of eschatological hope expressed in other epistles of Apostle Paul. [The Revealer: The “Slave Bible” is Not What You Think]

It would appear Bishop Porteus is both misrepresented and vilified by the MOTB to whatever ends of widening the participation of visitors to the museum beyond its evangelical roots. As I can only offer commentary on the reported events and observations along with not having access to the said Slave Bible to verify any of the claims, my only shocking discovery is to learn that such a book existed, the circumstances around which the book was published are quite different and open to debate.

Where history leaves us

It is obvious from the onset that the bishop met with both deaf ears and opposition to his abolition quest, as Founder of the Society for the Conversion and Religious Instruction and Education of the Negro Slaves, “envisioned a collection that expanded beyond biblical texts and included liturgy for public worship.” It is questionable whether the result achieved that aim.

However, while certain abridged versions of the bible available today as excerpts of the Psalms, Proverbs, or mainly the New Testament of the Gideon bibles found in the bedroom drawers of international hotel chains have not suffered the manipulation and cannibalisation of the Slave Bible, the motive in its origin seems both honest and malign to our reading today.

What cannot be disputed is the Anglican Church of England was integral, participatory, and a beneficiary of the evils of the slave trade and slavery. 

The Slave Bible

A grandiose title

“Select Parts of the Holy Bible for the use of the Negro Slaves in the British West-India Islands”, otherwise known as the Slave Bible, a heavily redacted version of the bible that removed about 90% of the Old Testament and 10% of the New Testament. [Wikipedia: Slave Bible]

It emphasised every need for the slave to know their place and removed references that gave any sense of emancipation or freedom to the slave reader. Imagine a book purporting to be a Christian bible without the Exodus story or the Psalms commissioned in the early nineteenth century by the Anglican Bishop of London, in the same year of the enactment of the Slave Trade Act of 1807 for the abolition of slavery.

I learnt of this malevolent piece of evil propaganda masquerading as religious text, reading the first chapter of the book we are sharing for Lenten studies in the Church of England this year. Wild Bright Hope: Reflections on Faith - The Big Church Read Lent Book 2025 has twelve voices and perspectives on hope, life, experiences and what a revelation the first two chapters were. [The Big Church Read]

It was very profitable

I realised how the transatlantic slave trade thrived visiting The Maritime Museum – Het Scheepvaartmuseum in Amsterdam, over twenty years ago. I saw the profit ledger, a human cargo of slaves with the loss of 10% after accounting for all costs, including the ship and voyage, yielded stupendous profits, and that was the value slave owners placed on acquiring cheap or free labour.

Even after multiple visits to the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool (currently closed for renovation), I was not as moved as that other experience in Amsterdam. I have heard stories about how an interpretation and version of Christianity promoted, validated, and justified slavery, it was the bedrock of belief systems espoused by the American South acquiescing to man’s inhumanity to man.

Changing the Christian perspective

What I did not expect to find in my appreciation of slavery was a “Slave Bible”, and you can never know if other versions of this abridged work of the devil did not exist to keep the slave a slave and the slave master as a god.

What was perpetrated in the name of Christianity is unmentionable and you can only wonder what bible the missionaries gave in exchange for land and resources to the natives in the new world to the Europeans, from the sixteenth century onwards.

It would seem the Christian narrative of those times was to serve European commerce rather than God, a consummate love of money being the root of all evil, including the trading in slaves.

This is one striking question asked by a thirteen-year-old, “What do you do when your saviour and oppressor have the same face?” That gives pause for reflection, the depictions of Jesus are rarely of typical middle eastern features, you will think Jesus was Scandinavian from some artist’s impressions, long flowing blonde hair with blue eyes and much else that has seeded our imaginations of who the son of God is.

Acknowledgement is progress

Yet, I rarely think of Jesus Christ in terms of what he looks like, as no one knows, apart from having participated in our humanity and human race over two millennia ago. His presence confirmed by the new birth and the Holy Spirit given to dwell in us and be our helper, brings us to the inclusive sonship of God the Father and a recognition of such great grace that no man can offer.

Indeed, we study and understand history just as we should know who we follow and believe. The Gospel of Jesus Christ sets us free, any other gospel besides that left men in bondage and chains, physically, mentally, and spiritually. However, I want to believe even through the darkness of a rotten slave bible, some light shone on those who received Christianity with purity of heart, prayers would have been heard, though some might have taken much longer to be answered.

Certain Christian denominations need to acknowledge fully the parts they played in slavery and the slave trade; this should be documented for the historical record.

This is not to impute guilt or culpability, but to advance the knowledge of the truth and the positive changes to our common respect for each other’s humanity, as we strive to make the world a better place, and espouse more the human rights to dignity, life, and freedom.

Let us acknowledge the harm, and work to heal.

Please read: The Slave Bible - A Closer Look

Give us Barabbas!

Evangelical pastor perfectly refutes MAGA Christianity! Culture, Faith, and Politics

The odious appeal of Donald Trump

Until just a few minutes ago, I was quite puzzled about how the Evangelical and Pentecostal movements in America and further afield seemed to embrace Donald Trump as the person and symbol to centre Christianity in the political discourse of the nation.

Fundamentally, I saw no principle or example that made Donald Trump likeable or amenable to the idea that this would help the promotion of Christian values. In fact, what I saw was a corruption of the purpose of Jesus Christ for the gain of earthly and political power without helping anyone see the mercy, the grace, the glory, or the power of God in their lives.

Christian nationalism with all its culture war paraphernalia and the accoutrements of wedge issues on women’s, reproductive, identity, or another other kind of right that suggests justice, fairness, respect, and dare I say the love of one’s neighbour, the grist of right-wing political doctrine seemed to replace the gospel and the message that Jesus Christ represented.

The quest for temporal power in determining who sits on the Supreme Court, what is taught in the schools, who has access to critical reproductive health options, and now, whether the net can be widened to give opportunity to those who are not like us had become the unquenchable thirst of religious purpose.

Discernment and discrimination

Even with my more active Anglican adherence, I am quite engaged and involved in the Evangelical and Pentecostal doctrines. A good deal of the underpinning of my faith comes from inspiration borne of charismatic expression and from listening to the anointed teachings of many leaders of that persuasion.

In listening, I have to be discerning and alert, following two basic credos from another preacher who has long departed to be with the Lord. In the first instance, he said, “Have as much sense as an old cow, eat the hay and leave the baling wire.” By that, I understand that not everything someone says is ingestible, I need to know what the hay is of the beneficial and the baling wire which is the packaging that is not edible and harmful.

I do not because I disagree with some things a person says then discount everything they have to say. I think there is a function of intelligence in being able to select the gems from the dirt or the rough. Nature is already a demonstration of that thinking.

We have always been human

Secondly, and I would paraphrase, “Do not follow anyone so close that you cannot cut away when they are falling into a ditch.” I guess someone else might say, “Keep a healthy distance and the door wide open.” Another variant of that would be something I read about a conversation between a mother and her daughter. “You have every reason to fall in love but get up and walk into your marriage.”

Do not yoke yourself to the untenable, make the allowances for the protection of your heart and your mind. Be smart and sensible, trusting just enough and verifying everything against the principled sources. In this case, when it comes to Christianity, that is the Word of God, the Bible.

I guess what always surprises me is how humanity in its fundamental nature has hardly changed. We can be persuaded in different ways to follow our basest instincts through charisma, sophistry, or just some force that through expediency we cannot resist.

Threatened powers fighting back

This brings us to the court of Pontius Pilate on the day that Jesus Christ was brought to trial before him, for he was the only political official who could sentence Jesus to death for the crimes that the chief priests had accused him of.

By the time Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead, the priests were afraid that they would lose their religious influence on the Jews to Jesus Christ and their semi-autonomous political power to the Romans. They determined through Caiaphas the chief priest that Jesus should be put to death.

⁴⁸ If we let Him alone like this, everyone will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and nation.”

⁴⁹ And one of them, Caiaphas, being high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all,

⁵⁰ nor do you consider that it is expedient for ^[a]us that one man should die for the people, and not that the whole nation should perish.” [Bible Gateway John 11:48-50 (NKJV)]

From then on, a plan was hatched to put Jesus to death. Still, the other relevant things alluded to in the YouTube video are what happened on Palm Sunday and the symbolism of riding on a colt of an ass, Hosanna which in Judaism is a cry for help and not the Christian shout of praise, the laying down of palm branches has its significance in the apocryphal book of the Maccabees. They lay down their garments for him to walk on, as if for a king. [Nashville Catholic: Why Palms? The Significance of Palm Branches on Palm Sunday] [Jehu is king! Bible Gateway 2 Kings 9:13 (NKJV)]

We want Barabbas

Even as Pontius Pilate had determined that Jesus Christ was innocent and had done no wrong, the priests prevailed on the crowd to demand the head of Jesus. Pontius Pilate could have exercised his prerogative of power there and then, but instead, he presented the people with the choice between Barabbas and Jesus Christ.

Every inclination would suggest the people would choose the man who brought the gospel, healed the sick, and raised the dead. Still, they chose Barabbas and the priests for that moment seemed to secure their political advantage.

At that, the crowd went wild: “Kill him! Give us Barabbas!” [Bible.com Luke 23:18-25]

Still, at the point where Jesus gave up the ghost on the cross, the inner sanctum of their political and religious power that only the High Priest could enter was exposed as the curtain was rent to two.

The birth of Christianity came on the day of resurrection as the priests had inadvertently dispossessed themselves of what they sought to keep. More pertinently, in contemporary times, we have situations that present us with a Barabbas or a Jesus Christ and what obtains in the quest for political influence and power by religious entities is selecting Barabbas over Jesus Christ, the expedient over the necessary, the temporal over the eternal, the human over the godly.

Essentially, the religious folk are just like you and I, we might have high expectations of their choices, but we would be disappointed if we trust more in humans than we do in the divine. In the biblical and today’s context, I now understand why Donald Trump appeals to the evangelicals as they choose the political over the gospel and find ways to justify their indefensible stance.

Memento, homo, quia pulvis es

Chant of the Heart: Miserere Mei (Psalm 50/51)

Influenced by many beliefs

I do not make much advertisement about my beliefs or faith, though, in many of my writings I might allude to how I am persuaded of things, views, doctrines, life, and much else.

My Christian journey is interesting and varied, first seen through the inclinations of my parents, their siblings, and their friends who all attended different denominations from Anglican to which I was both baptised and confirmed, the Christ Apostolic Church that my mother attended before her marriage, the Cherubim and Seraphim Church that my younger aunt attended, the Methodist Church that my elder aunt attended and the Methodists founded my secondary school in February 1946.

Filling in forms the other day, one of the options included Charismatic Christian, which I found interesting as until then, the broadly Christian cachet was used. I embrace the charismatic demonstration of my Christian experience which I encountered 40 years ago in April and even with the many characterisations of belief, unbelief, or disbelief I have been exposed to, the relearning of what the dispensation of grace pertains to remains more pertinent.

Ash Wednesday in practice

I had planned to make pancakes for Shrove Tuesday, but I inadvertently had to be in Edinburgh for an engagement and returned quite late on Tuesday, too tired to do anything other than go to bed. I also wanted to return on Tuesday, because I was on the rota stewarding the Ash Wednesday Sung Eucharist with the Imposition of Ashes.

The ashes are part of a ritual signifying penitence where typically the palm fronds from the previous Palm Sunday are burnt to have the ash for marking the sign of the cross on the foreheads of adherents kneeling at the altar. At the imposition of the ashes, the priest would say words to the effect in Latin or in the vernacular, “Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris.” (“Remember, man, that thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return.”)

In addition, the priest said, “Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ.” It was a solemn occasion of awareness, mortality, and the eternal purpose to which we are called. The individuality of knowing yourself in the congregation of the many, your own heart seen and known by God is humbling. I may not essentially be fasting for Lent.

Combining my devotional allegiances

In the background, the Choir as we all met in the quire sang Psalm 51 as canticles in Latin. The high church traditions of our Anglican community could be quite fascinating as we the stewards took the offering and ushered the congregants first towards the imposition and then later to the Communion.

These activities would barely, if ever, be seen in a charismatic church gathering, but I find that I enjoy practising my Christian devotion primarily in the Anglican Church, occasionally in a charismatic church, and generally in listening to messages and sermons by evangelical preachers. An amalgam of community and beliefs that suits my expression and understanding with the assurance that I have found love, truth, mercy, grace, and favour.

Thought Picnic: Weeping for ourselves and others

Time is short

Ephemeral is the thought that creeps into the mind, the wonder about our existence that exists in a timeframe measurable and quantifiable, sometimes short and then for some quite long, that we are caught at the end in a kind of celebration of life like an account closed at the end of many transactions.

For those who have a faith, the belief of an existence beyond this temporal realm. We find that we battle between mortal morbidity and a hopeful eternity. The thought that this phase of enlivenment is the preparation for a timeless future that boggles the mind.

We never knew

The receipt of access to this bliss of promise that begins from herein provides the assurance that whenever we depart, the limitations of the senses pass away for the unlimited expanse of spiritual incredulity that the imagination cannot begin to fathom.

Though we have heard from scripture the phrase “the weeping and gnashing of teeth”, which is considered in the frame of reference of punishment, it was surprising to me when an inference was made to this emotional activity being found in paradise.

The realisation that we never fully understood the promise of heaven on earth, that regret and sorrow will require even the encompassing loving godly miracle from the Father of comfort and succouring for us to enter the grace into which we were called before the beginning of the world.

In Christ alone

For one, for the little and the plenty, for each day that is both eventful and seems without event, for each breath that one takes in sustaining life is a sense of gratitude and thankfulness.

For whenever our storied experience on this terrain ends, we might have lived knowing that we might not be worthy of anything but are still counted worthy of everything that was sacrificed. Not of what we have done, but out of what was done for us.

The world that comes to us

Saying a little prayer

It was one of the strangest requests I had encountered that left me rather unsure of how to respond. He walked in off the street like everyone else who I had greeted that afternoon, now over 200 of them in just over 2 hours, strangers all, interest common.

Before I could greet him, excited as he was, he asked if I could pray for him, I had a sash on and an identity badge, but I had to protest, I am not a member of the clergy. I was at a confluence of belief systems that have shaped my spirituality in interesting ways. I would expect in the Church of England, you might pray with the spectacle of magisterial homiletics, whereas depending on what spectrum of the Evangelical persuasion you are, let’s not even begin to speculate.

He asked me to light him a candle as he was a bit scared of fire and still insisted I pray. So I did with the almost confusion of the laity doing what they were not trained to do and the mumbling of understanding his distress, a few strong words to remedy the situation that bothered him, for which I believe he was full of faith that coming to the church to ask to be prayed for will help. He left, just as he came in.

The world comes to our cathedral

It was the end of my first shift as a welcoming guide to the Cathedral and what an experience it was for me, that I learnt a lot more than I seemed to offer in terms of the basic information about our cathedral. If I do decide to do this regularly, there is a big consideration to have, the strain on my back as I steady myself with my walking cane, in that 3-hour stint, there were times I did have to sit down because the pain was getting uncomfortable and unbearable.

Visitors came from near and far, alone or in numbers, as family, with friends, in groups with purpose or just on a detour, with lots of time and sometimes barely enough to gather the spectacle of architecture before going on their way. When I asked, the nationalities and the small talk made a connection in my wayfaring archive of what a friend calls my library of seemingly useless information that just becomes pertinent for that engagement.

Probably more than a quarter of the guests were someone living in Manchester bringing someone visiting for the first time. I do not think I encountered anyone from Central or South America, but all other regions presented a representative from many places I had been to and could I remember something quite significant in the exchange.

Learning to learn more

For me, there were two things that stood out, visitors who said they were visiting from Kurdistan and if there was any justice in this world, the people should be a country, but I did ask which of the many Kurdistans as I thought they were at least in three countries and I was informed it was 4 countries, I soon realised from my knowledge of geography that was indeed true.

Another couple came in with beautifully trained and behaved dogs and their visit to our cathedral for which they wanted a more substantial guidebook than the simple folder pamphlet on offer that needed updating, they eventually found someone to help. It was in a later conversation that I learnt that there were 42 cathedrals in England, visiting ours was their 39^th, they had two more to visit in Yorkshire and the last was undergoing extensive renovations, so they will have to wait to visit.

To be more effective, I need to develop beyond the platitude of welcoming to becoming an informed tour guide. There is so much to know about our cathedral, its history, the architecture, the windows, the majestic pipe organ, its function, the furnishings, the chapels, the memorials, the statues, the many influences from when there was a building in the same place from the 13^th Century and the 600^th anniversary of its establishment as a collegiate church.

There is a lot more to think about of my experience today, however, what is most important is, I enjoyed welcoming people to our cathedral.

Pat Robertson and the dreamers who rejuvenated Christian living

Bringing back memories

The announced passing of Pat Robertson at the age of 93 today brings to mind an aspect of my history I have barely touched in my many blogs until now.

In late 1982, I resumed admission at the Yaba College of Technology to study Electrical Engineering having made the switch from the Lagos State College of Science and Technology where I was reading Chemical Engineering not so much out of choice but by the influence of an old student who came to give a talk at my secondary school along with the poor career guidance help that was prevalent in those days.

I have many times argued with my mum who at that time was a principal of a secondary school that such showboating visits are not helpful in career guidance, rather they lead impressionable young people off on excursions of fantasy without any understanding of drive, passion, or reality of what they innately can do. However, that is another discussion.

I was missing in action

I was 16 years old, and I was suffocating under my parent’s roof having been in boarding school since the age of 10, my first year at YabaTech as it was called, passed uneventfully, I barely passed the year, I was mostly truant and my head was hardly in order as there were classes I attended that I could not say I was in that class or what we were doing. Maybe a professional assessment would have suggested I was clinically depressed.

My second year began uneventfully and this time I was squatting when I fell into a group of avant-garde art majors who intrigued all by their creativity and ability. A building at the end of a concealed and somewhat secluded road housed the Christian Union building and nothing about them was inviting as guilt and condemnation simply reinforced the idea of the God I had known from the time my mother to me to secret religious meetings from the age of 3 in England.

This is God?

God was a tough punishing deity that required more than sacrifice, tears, and blood to be barely appeased and was never pleased. One night, 3 art students invited me to follow them to this Christian Union building and my discovery? They began speaking in tongues and I was caught in wonderment.

Soon, I found there is a growing band of Christians mostly led by these art students who were giving the bible a new sense of meaning and relevance to our lives and even though my mind was messed up by many things, I was quite an effective student union representative and now, a budding born-again Christian. With that, a new frontline of war was opened on the home front that I did not have the wisdom to manage at that point.

A band of Christian musketeers

Along with this was how Bible study really looked like serious study and not of the Sunday School variety, and the first point of debate was grammar, semantics, and interpretation, whether women need to cover their heads, or their hair was already a covering. The contentions between traditional evangelicals of the brooding and appearing sad-to-be-humble type and the livelier, let’s take the world by the horns stuff, or even maybe more.

I could make a long story of this, Dake’s, Strong’s, Vine’s, Amplified, the lingo was Greek and sometimes Hebrew, the speech was soaring homiletics dispensing stranger-than-fiction hermeneutics and chief of them was the most talented artist of his generation. We had the Americans to give us speech, accent, and direction, we believed we were making God interesting and the slightly curious would find out more.

An American invasion was complete

Enter The 700 Club, which in the 1980s was the staple of Christian television that did not fill you was eschatological dread but a longing for a better experience of a loving and amazing God. The Christian Broadcasting Network founded by Pat Robertson amongst other influences seemed to fill us with daring, adventure, and boldness. Soon, we broke away from the Christian Union to form The Fellowship and there were extraordinary demonstrations of the power of God in our midst from albeit very flawed men, the grace of God remains a mystery even in its powerful expression when we yield to what God has purposed to do in and with us.

Whilst does not entirely read like a tribute to Pat Robertson, it is a tribute to a generation of influential and impactful Christian men and women of ministry who dared to dream seemingly impossible dreams and through their living, their testimonies, their sermons, and their books especially tried to teach others that they can bring these dreams out of the invisible and unseen realm into living present reality.

If we could only dream

These dreams, built broadcasting networks and outreaches, universities, campuses of almost enchanted living, even stupendous wealth, impactful businesses, and churches planted into regions that would have been impossible to reach changing lives so radically and fundamentally, you may not believe much of all this started from a simple dream.

Pat Robertson was one of such men and women who dreamed the impossible and for that, I commend him even if in the latter times of his years he became controversial to the point that whatever he said was dismissed.

God rest his soul.

Other Pat Robertson blogs

Blog - A fatwa in everything but name (2005)

Blog - Fatwa evangelist blurts out again (2006)

Blog - Thought Picnic: How Do They Launder Demons? (2013)

Blog - How God laughs at the thought of being a voter (2020)

A WEIRD prism is just one perspective

Influences of significance

When my dad said over a decade ago, “You have always thought like a Westerner.” I feigned ignorance of what he implied, but it got me thinking about things that baffle me daily. How it is that my worldview on many issues and situations are so radically different from many with whom I am supposed to share a heritage.

Then again, I realise that I have also fallen into a trap and a misconception about culture and values needing to converge to a Judeo-Christian Western construct with the view that those who appear to deviate from such might not represent the best of our humanity.

How marriage changed us

Indeed, many of our international laws of trade, of industry, of life, or of diplomacy follow a broadly western model that has become a synonym for modern and civilised, we miss out on understanding other constructs, cultures, civilisations, and customs that makes other members of our diverse humanity uniquely different, interesting, and rich.

This was brought into stark relief when I listened to a podcast The West and the Rest by Matthew Syed on BBC Radio 4 on his Sideways series, which started with the observation of different psychological responses to what was studied and expected in the West to how intriguingly the advent of Christianity changed marital norms like forbidding marriage to cousins, opening clans to strangers and birthed the kind of innovation and mindset that typifies the West today. [BBC Radio 4 Sideways Podcast: 3. The West and the Rest]

Weird as we come

It begs the question about who the weird ones are, we in the west or the non-western cultures. Whilst there is no way I will pass for a WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant), I am most definitely one of the WEIRD (Western Educated Industrialised Rich and Democratic), a psychological term that was defined in the 2000 book, The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous by Joseph Henrich.

Having an audible copy of this book, it would probably give me an appreciation of why I think differently and why I should make ample accommodation for how other cultures will not converge to my worldview. This would mean we need to negotiate and agree on certain principles, attitudes, and rules for the good of humanity even if implementations will differ.

I come away with the insight that cultural divides will only be bridged with an openness of the mind and the putting away of the western hubris that has led us on spectacularly failed escapades of sowing seeds of our kind of civilisation around the world.

Read or listen

The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous [Amazon]

 

President Trump and the post-Christian Evangelicals

A religious accident reported

When I first heard it, it felt like a topic for a school debate contest, but the facts that in certain circles the votes will come out in the affirmation validating it as the truth definitely means it needs to come up for some discussion, I know many will have angles on this matter, I am sharing my perspective.

“President Trump was the best thing to happen to the Christian church in America since maybe Jesus.” A guest on the Newsmax network in America.

Now, I have been trying to understand the encouragement of and bonding with Donald Trump of the grouping and cohort labelled as Evangelical Christians in America, because their apparent affinities from my appreciation of that strand of Christianity does escape me completely. Not too long ago, I had to wade through the incredulity of no seeing the fruit of the Holy Spirit in Donald Trump, addressed in the referenced blog.

Blog - And they see the fruit of the Holy Spirit in Donald Trump

God is not a voter

She was responding to the content of an article that covered an interview on the Donald Trump influence on the Evangelical movement. [Vox.com: The Trump presidency was a catastrophe for American Christianity] It puts a lot of things into context especially the desperate desire to alter the reality of the elections he handily lost. Some, even people I know thought it had been prophesied he will remain president and they held onto that belief until it became obvious someone had been blowing air in their ears.

For me, I had always been sceptical of the idea that in a democracy someone is chosen or elected by God, it is people who voted not a deity, now, someone might suggest the people were influenced by whatever means to vote a certain way by divine persuasion, that would be interesting if people equally believed the same things and were fully persuadable that way, but I am not convinced.

Man must be accountable to man

What concerns me more is the moment we attribute the election of a person to divine provenance to inadvertently take accountability out of the hands of both the electorate and man, the elected are then answerable to no one and depending on their personality and temperament, as power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

“The law of a theocracy is dictated without option to the people, not made by their judges and governments. The individual conscience is free to accept such dictated law, but the state, if its people are to be free, has the burdensome duty of thinking for itself.” Lord Justice Laws

Blog - The case for State law over religious guidance

It is my view that the presidency of Donald Trump tested the underpinnings of every institution of checks and balances literally to their limits, thankfully, they were robust, but no doubt, vigorously shaken.

I cut loose from them

For the many of us who took liberating Christian tutelage from some leading American Christian teachers in the Evangelical movement up to the recent past, who have now passed on, are wizened with age waiting for the Lord, or whose sons, daughters, and proteges have taken the reins of ministries they founded, Donald Trump exposed to almost unbelievable clarity the viscerally human flaws of these iron champions with clay legs and feet. All flesh and no spirit.

The church became political and sought power to protect its interests and base, they had become a tangent away and completely unrepresentative of the persecuted church of the Acts of Apostles to grew by travail and dispersal as Jesus Christ had predicted in his human walk on earth, nor did they represent the pioneering spirit of the Pilgrim fathers that landed America centuries, they looked more like the religious powerbase that John the Baptist first and then Jesus Christ railed against.

A Church not Christlike

They had unwittingly whilst forcefully become plotters against the person and gospel of Jesus Christ, whilst they paid lip service to a semblance of Christianity which was crudely Churchianity expressed in the words of Sanhedrin of chief priests and Pharisees that met to plan and instigate the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, “What are we accomplishing? Here is this man performing many signs. If we let Him go on like this, everyone will believe in Him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” [Bible Gateway – John 11:47-48 (NIV)]

Basically, The evangelical movement is in a post-Christian phase of being unable to suffer for either Christ or the gospel, they would rather take political power, install judges, implement their fundamentalist policies to bring forward a kind of government or society, maybe kingdom itself that is a flawed, tarnished, corrupt, pastiche of the promised kingdom of God on earth. The church had become comfortably powerful and powerfully comfortable.

The cohort is lost and for a while, I have practised with deliberation one of the best lessons from those teachers of old, don’t attach yourself too close to a person or a cause that you can’t cut loose long before danger looms. I cut loose from following many of these leaders and their teachings, in the main, the movement simply followed Donald Trump all the way into the ditch, there will be casualties and fatalities, but it is my hope that all is not lost and there is much to recover of life and souls from this completely avoidable and sadly delusional catastrophe.

He holds me up

Then I found freedom

It was one Wednesday night in early April, 36 years ago that I discovered something on campus, a livelier form of religion and devotion that put me at odds with everyone apart from the community that embraced me.

There was some turmoil I did not understand going on in my life, one in which I was at school and attended lectures without any inkling of what was going on therein. Sadly, there was no one I could explain my predicament to, but I found the distraction of student union representation and religion to keep my head as things swirled around me.

My sanity mattered more

That I was a failed student probably did not surprise me, though the reasons were quite different from what my parents and some friends thought. I was fighting a battle for my sanity whilst everything else fell apart around. Maybe, I would have liked for everything to all come together, but what is a life without the trials and tribulations that make for the quality of experience?

Indeed, I can say that now, when in the midst of it, I was both helpless and hapless, yet taking each day as it comes writing the story I can tell today. Seminal in those experiences were events quite a few and one of which was the music of the time.

It’s a new sound

I had heard some Christian music that did not suggest the singers were ready to explore the talents they had, pedestrian, uninspiring, perfunctory with words that just needed mouthing and hands clapping without a sense of rhythm like God was a boring sad and an unfunny deity of the sort that mother’s religious proclivities embraced.

Then I heard Andraé Crouch, the whole concept of praise and worship changed, the uplifting music that you will learn, sway and dance to that you were moving too well to even consider clapping. You were dancing before the Lord and even if you become naked in the process like King David once did, it did not matter. [BibleGateway 2 Samuel 6:14-23 (NIV)]

He holds me up

Too many songs that became the way by which God held me through the difficult and seemingly impossible times, for I did not see any light at the end of any tunnel, I groped in the darkness and the Lord led me through the valley of the shadow of death to new green pastures and still waters, but it was a long journey through that wilderness where I strayed at times and predators were on the prowl to devour me. I was spared, saved, and protected, to tell a better a story.

Today, from my Amazon Music subscription I decided to ask Alexa to playback Andraé Crouch and that has been on for hours, reminding of how in times of trouble, I need not be troubled, I am held by the righteous right hand of God and my unsteady gait on the rocky path is kept firm in the knowledge that I will not fall, nor will I come to any harm. We have a destination and it is good to the end. [Andraé Crouch on Amazon Music]

The timely message on Our Daily Bread – God Holds Us just reinforces the sense, feeling and assurance that it is well with my soul. I want to get my maracas out for this.

[]

Some insight into the Jews of Manchester

A religion of observances

A few years ago, after walking past the Manchester Jewish Museum on Cheetham Hill Road, I decided to go in for a visit. As I am wont to do, I had seen a plaque celebrating Dr Chaim Weizmann who once lived in Manchester and went on to become the first president of Israel, there was much to the history of the Jews in Manchester, I thought. [Wikipedia: History of the Jews in Manchester]

In my mind, I thought I knew a lot about Jews and Judaism, I was knowledgeable as an outsider but hardly informed. I had learnt from the Christian bible how the feasts of Judaism related to Christian festivals, teachings derived from the customs and traditions of Judaism giving some context of how Christianity is by terms a Middle Eastern religion that just happens to be so radically westernised.

Difference without indifference

In church last Sunday, during the sermon, the preacher said we should consider our relationships with other religions, seeing first the person before their beliefs, accepting we are in the quest for some spirituality and that we should not claim either superiority or inferiority in relation to other belief systems, for we each in our ways are seeking and worshipping God.

As Judaism celebrates Rosh Hashanah which is the Jewish new year from this evening that would culminate in the feast of Yom Kippur, between them in the space of 10 days is Yamim Noraim; the Days of Awe or the Days of Repentance, the preacher recommended we visit a website, Judaism 101 to learn more about this root Abrahamic religion.

Through a shop window of Judaism

One could consider it an occasion of propinquity that as I switched on my television and was scanning for something to watch off my Amazon Fire Stick 4K, there was a television programme on Amazon Prime called Jewish Law which happened to be a documentary about Orthodox Jews in Manchester, filmed in 2004. They then numbered about 30,000 living in the Prestwich area of Manchester.

In three episodes which covered families, major feasts, religious practices, the management and regulation of kosher, and mitzvahs or commandments, there was a lot to learn, though this would require second and consequently more viewing to get a better grasp of things, the attention of particularities and details made everything seems so onerous except for within the community itself.

And I never knew

Seeing how meat products should not touch dairy that in some households they had separate cooking sections to handle each, like having two separate cooking hobs, ovens and fridges was an interesting revelation. The ceremony of circumcision, without the whole detail was just as moving.

The commandment that Jews should not eat blood meant that eggs were first cracked into a clear glass and viewed from underneath before use. A boy’s hair was not cut until they were 3 years old, when a ceremony that included prominent people in the community cutting a snip of hair whilst contributing to a piggy bank. The act of mourning a close relation does include renting one’s clothes.

Of intrigue and interest

If you thought Judaism was dull, you need to see the revelling during the feast of Purim that was initiated when Esther in the bible mediated on behalf of her people preventing their total annihilation by the Machiavellian hand of Haman. The mitzvah includes getting drunk.

None of this begins to demonstrate the intricate observances of Judaism, but it should pique one’s interest enough to explore this religion in that is probably close to its fourth Millennium. The building of the Manchester Jewish Museum which is Grade II listed is currently under renovation, but the museum artefacts and documents are in temporary residence at the Manchester Central Library.

To all my Jewish friends, Happy Rosh Hashanah! Shalom!

 

Thought Picnic: The gospel was never about Karma

Not what I believe

“Coronavirus is not God’s judgment on the world. We need to stop preaching Christian Karma. The Cross of Christ destroys all Karma. God wants to save the world, not hurl disaster at it!” Dr Andrew Farley

Coronavirus is not God’s judgment on the world. We need to stop preaching Christian Karma. The Cross of Christ destroys all Karma. God wants to save the world, not hurl disaster at it!

— Dr. Andrew Farley (@DrAndrewFarley) March 23, 2020

This was a tweet that appeared to encapsulate ideas I have not been able to articulate for a while. The number of religious people who look for disasters to project of a version of a vengeful and truculent deity who can only gain our attention by visiting calamity and catastrophe on his creatures.

Too many times we have heard, after an earthquake, a tsunami, a hurricane, a plague, or some natural disaster, where hapless lives are lost in stories that never get told except in the sheer spectacle of the horror that leaves us with a sense of the fragility of life and the suddenness that could end it.

In comes a religious figure who in their Jeremiad finds a greatly unmistakable sign from on high, as if we are back to our primordial animist worship practices, the gods are angry and we need to bring sacrifices up to the temples, mountains or grottos to appease the gods to spare us from another disaster.

Come with Noah’s Ark

The Christian variety of the evangelical or charismatic strand are the biggest culprits, from prophets who see the evil to come but are rarely able, willing, or equipped to navigate their flock from the apparent wrath to come, but are ready to gain the fame of having foretold the passing of the disaster. Their revelation never goes as far as to be inspired to build a Noah’s Ark as a sanctuary from the many floods, saving life and more.

Neither do I believe in Christian Karma, I separate the revelation of the God of the Old Testament from the God introduced in the New Testament through the ministry of Jesus Christ. In my view, his only act of mischief would have been when he allowed the evil spirits in a possessed man to enter swine and that drove the swine into the sea, at which point those spirits would have needed to find other hosts. [Bible Gateway - A Demon-Possessed Man Healed]

Our capacity in calamity

Like a friend opined yesterday, he said apart from the fragility of humanity, there is a resilience and strength that cannot be fully understood, the capacity of man to face adversity and come out the stronger and wiser to life and purpose. The spirits could not destroy the man even though they made his life miserable and yet the swine had no capacity to handle those spirits, their entry was an immediate suicide run in the swine.

Anyway, one of the reasons I do not believe in the concept of Christian Karma was in the words of Jesus Christ himself, when you look at the verse after John 3:16, John 3:17 says it all, “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” (NKJV)

Salvation is not for retribution

You don’t save the world, believer or unbeliever, sinner, or saint, Christian, Gentile or any identity you might care to possess by destroying them. Condemnation is not the purpose, even if a natural disaster, plague, or some other adversity comes our way. The prevailing purpose, opportunity, and desire are to save, it is of salvation and triumph. That is not in any way the spirit of Karma.

So, it is with sadness when I could in my basest human instinct lay hold on Schadenfreude that I learnt that a preacher who thought COVID-19 was an exciting bout of mass hysteria had now fallen victim to the Coronavirus and passed away.

It’s a shame, I doubt his religious beliefs would have expected that, yet, we are only human. Things happen to us, but I hope in our story, we can take whatever happens and create a better happening. May his soul rest in peace and may his survivors be comforted and strengthened with fortitude in this time of loss. [RawStory]

Thought Picnic: I know I do not need a cure for who I am

Whose deliverance is it anyway?

Earlier today I received a WhatsApp message linked to a YouTube video of a person whose life had been changed to a normative hyper-Christian existence from a time of use and abuse in terms of sex, for his identity and livelihood.

There was a time when religious instruction and influence dictated more of what was wrong with me than what could be right, what I did not understand or what I should accept about myself. For decades, one was in this inordinate quest for perfection, the constant proverbial self-flagellation that fed guilt, need, low self-esteem, a sense of failure and a yearning for things that always felt impossible.

Then, a time came when on reviewing many of the things that drove my warped religious experiences created and framed from my mother’s religiosity through personal experiences that should have elicited professional psychiatric help rather than African Initiated Church rituals of incantation, recitation, and pseudo-shamanist acts, I rationalised and began to compartmentalise issues.

Freedom from superstition

Being a product of many cultural influences, much of the knowledge I had gained and had become ingrained in my psyche borne of superstition, the paranormal, the esoteric and the bizarre needed unlearning when set in a Western environment. This is not to discount the potency of those belief systems, but to ensure that my thinking was not beclouded by the inexplicable hand of fate if other plausible explanations existed.

Why at one time on a visit to a witch doctor with my aunt we both were able to chew razor blades and swallow our mastication without internal harm to our organs, I would never be able to explain. I know that it happened to me as true as any other reality I have had that is neither hallucination, dream or trance. I have through my life guarded my sobriety with care except for when hospitalisation required opiates that deadened the pain without rendering me delirious.

Yet, the biggest thing in the discovery of self is acceptance. The acceptance of the many things I am and what I represent without disagreement in my mind. Not only that but also to have the courage to stand for who I am in spite of the cultural and societal strictures that could easily place me in a persecuted and prosecuted minority.

What I do not need a cure for

In my life, I know I needed a cure from cancer, I do not need a cure from my personality or the expression of it. In coming to terms with the many facets of my personality formed from a life of circumstance and situations that contribute to the completeness of who I am, I know there are things I might never be able to do or experience and they have not been allowed to distract me or burden me with a sense of failure, where there is a life ahead of me to live.

I cannot drive, it has not diminished my mobility, I have no children when many of my mates have grandchildren, our lives are enriched in different ways, I do not intend to live the life of another person.

More pertinently, I am grateful for the opportunities and privileges my parents granted me as part of my upbringing, however, thankfully, I learnt a long time ago that I have my own life to live, I am neither here to fully their aspirations, live their perspectives of the life they expect I should have and sadly for them, I am not here to please them.

I espouse the virtues of humanity that I hope would make my parents proud of my achievements, my successes and consequently the person I am as their son, who he is and what he is. So, what I am saying, after not even watching that interesting and possibly life-changing YouTube video sent to me on WhatsApp, is I do not need a cure for my sexuality and my open, proud, and accepted expression of it. Thank you.

Opinion: Kim Davis is in jail because she is a clerk, not a cleric

She is a devout Christian, no doubt

Kim Davis, the clerk of Rowan County in Kentucky is in jail for contempt of court and I think that is right and just.

The reason why Kim Davis is in jail was because she refused to grant marriage licences to gay couples after she had been instructed by the courts at various levels up to the supreme court to do her duty.

Now, Kim Davis would have us believe that she is a devout Christian and I have no reason to question her beliefs, her convictions, her persuasions or her conscience.

She is also a public servant

However, Kim Davis as a public servant is someone who has a duty to perform for which she is paid and for which she should be accountable if she fails to perform her lawful duty. A public office in civil society must never be where to wage religious wars of conscience and conviction.

I say this because any community setting might have the same religion, but rarely have similar convictions or devotions, the imposition of which can so easily infringe on the rights of those who are not similarly adherent.

When I last checked, the United States of America is a democracy and whilst many might deign to wear their religion on their sleeves, it is not a theocracy, it is not governed by religious books or dogma, but by a constitution and amendments to the same along with a body of living jurisprudence that interprets questions of law, rights, freedoms, liberties, causes, policy and much else.

She is clerk, not a cleric

I also note that Kim Davis ran for office to be a clerk and not a cleric, so for the multidimensional community that she serves, she is duty-bound to treat everyone to whom she provides the service of granting a marriage certificate equally, with respect, with dignity and without prejudice.

Yet, I respect the fact that Kim Davis due to her religion, her convictions, her beliefs and her conscience might well disagree with the law that grants the right for same-sex couples to receive marriage certificates, those elements of her devout Christianity do not automatically confer on her the right to disobey the law, most especially a direct court order commanding her to do her job.

She has every right to do her job reluctantly, grudgingly, even abusively if she is so disposed, but the law must be upheld.

We should not mistake Kim Davis’ tribulation with one that represents the persecution of Christians, rather this is a case of stubborn presumptuousness engendering stupidity and ignorance.

Why we have civil law

There is a reason for civil law, it makes everyone equal before the law and allows for everyone to be judged on the merits, the facts and the arguments properly made to defend a position based on extant law and constitutional interpretation along with appellate processes that can be exhausted to the highest court after which the decision of that court is final and it must not be impugned.

If we have a situation where everyone is allowed by reason of their devotion and conviction to act according to their conscience regardless of the dictates of the law we risk a society falling into anarchy. We cannot have public officials acting on the whim without regulation or conduct, where depending on how they feel, what they perceive, which prejudice appeals to them most or what judgement they have in their heads they serve without any public accountability, but to God alone.

This brings me to a blog I wrote on the matter the separation of church (religion) and state, I implore you to read the blog.

Blog - The case for State law over religious guidance

The state must think for itself

The aptly named Lord Justice Laws made a number of pertinent statements in his judgement, which I highlighted in that blog, one that I find most critical I have copied to this blog.

“The law of a theocracy is dictated without option to the people, not made by their judges and governments. The individual conscience is free to accept such dictated law, but the state, if its people are to be free, has the burdensome duty of thinking for itself.”

Invariably, the learned judge is saying the people need the option to decide who makes their laws and this option is exercised through their judges and their governments, it is only then that the people can truly say they are free because the state to which they belong does not have to answer to anybody else but the selfsame people from whom are selected those who are the judges, the representatives and the government. That is human government in a nutshell.

Kim Davis by her histrionics was trying to take this option away from the people and give it to her preconceived higher power of God, she can do that in her own house as an act of individual conscience, but as public servant, the people decide through their representatives and this is the judge.

There was a scenario in the bible where the rulers questioned Jesus Christ about the paying of taxes and in the ensuing conversation his answer was good enough to send his challengers on their way.

Don’t confuse the renders

“Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's.” Matt 22:21 (KJV)

Jesus as the initiator of Christianity knew clearly the difference between civic duty and religious devotion. In his answer, one must note that he first addressed the matter of civic duty where the understanding of the rules is clear to everyone before talking of God where that might well be a matter of individual conscience.

I make bold to say that what Jesus intended in his answer was without equivocation that regardless of personal conviction or individual conscience, the laws of the land must be respected. The disarray and disorder comes when certain ignorant religious adherents or extremists confuse the instruction by rendering what is Caesar’s to God and what is God’s to Caesar, sometimes not even knowing what is Caesar’s from what is God’s and that is why Kim Davis is in jail.

Obey or resign

As a clerk, she should have been rendering what is Caesar’s to Caesar, respecting the law and doing her job, she decided to render what is God’s to Caesar and well, Caesar does not trade in God’s currency and technically, that is fraud and frauds go to jail.

Kim Davis in my view belongs in jail until she is ready to obey the law as a clerk who grants marriage certificates to all who are legally entitled to one, including same-sex couples, regardless of her conscience or conviction or she should resign and go home to worship her God without interference from the law or the people.