Former Conservative? Not so much.

The subject of this article, Bart Campolo and his Church of Christ Without Christ, is cause for pity as well as ridicule, but this first paragraph is sort of pitiable as well:

My new colleague and friend, Bart Campolo, is the principal investigator. Bart is the new Humanist Chaplain at the University of Southern California. A former evangelical Christian leader with a national profile in his own right, he is the son of Tony Campolo, the famous evangelical preacher best known as the personal spiritual mentor to President Clinton after the Monica Lewinsky affair. Steadily, over a period of decades, Bart’s credulity in evangelical doctrine eroded away until his wife convinced him that he was theologically past the point of no return. He burst his way out of the conservative Christian bubble, leading to hand-wringing on the pages of Christianity Today, a major evangelical periodical.

OK, insofar as there is a "conservative Christian bubble", Bart Campolo was never part of it and didn't need to "burst his way out". His father is part of the Sojo Christian Left Mafia and that has been known for years. This is sloppy writing on Jim Burklo's part, who is a liberal Christian author, and the only excuse might be that he was thinking of Frankie Schaeffer whom he'd mentioned early. Otherwise I think he just wants to blame those awful, hypocritical conservative Christians for someone losing their faith altogether. As he states later:

Early in his tenure here at USC, I gave Bart a copy of my first book, OPEN CHRISTIANITY, and he read it. “If I had read this a few years ago, I might have become a progressive Christian instead of an atheist,” he told me. But neither he nor I regret it. The whole point of theologically progressive Christianity is that Christianity is not about turning people into Christians, or even making sure that they stay Christian. It’s about the same thing that Bart is about. It’s about love, and creating communities of love. If Bart can spread this love without Christian or any other religious content, I will holler a hearty hallelujia [sic]! His way is a good way, just as my way is a good way.

If Bart Campolo actually stated this verbatim, the obfuscating on his part here would astounding. "I might have become a progressive Christian," he allegedly stated. Campolo has always been on the Christian left! Burklo is illustrating the myth-making propensity of the left once again.

I don't know the man's heart, but I would suggest a more likely story would be that there was no foundation underneath the faith of his father beyond a sort of personality cult. His father is sort of a pope of his own church and his concerns are mostly political rather than theological. Even his Wiki page lists him as a sociologist first, then a pastor. I don't think Bart Campolo "burst out" of anything so much as "dropped down" into his own philosophical comfort zone the way a man sits down in his favorite recliner.

By the way, personality cult pretty much describes the situation with the Schaeffers as well. Francis Schaeffer more or less started his own church community becoming a de facto pope in the process. This is most often not a good environment for a child to forming his faith in, seeing your dad act like a bear at home and some kind of angel out in public. Both these cases are good arguments for the celibacy of the clergy.

Sometimes hatred turns to pity

Sometimes hatred turns to pity. And I think that's kind of a Christian thing. I think Tolkien wrote something about that in one or two of his books.

A reader emails us:

A belated response to the Damon Linker suck-up post.

I've long since given up regular visits to Rod's blog (for reasons we all are familiar with) so it's good to drop in here and see the capsulized chronicle of Rod's decline and fall—something I do have the time for.

I used to hate Linker, seeing him as an opportunistic snake in the grass, a 21st century Maria Monk.

Then I saw a video of his wife, and now I think I just pity him. To imagine him picking up small change here and there as a freelancer and online "editor" but mostly surviving as a house-husband to a shrill, strident, man-jawed associate professor is to imagine something I would view as a living hell. As he writhes in the flames of this torment, I can understand if his cries are blasphemous and his shrieks are libelous.

The video is proof that even Ph. D.'s can be brainwashed.

Here's some supplemental reading material which might shed some light on the subject.

Prager responds to Dawkins

Whenever I'm listening to the radio at Noon and I notice that Rush Limbaugh is getting a bit repetitive, I always kick over to Dennis Prager's show. The man is really brilliant, and this article showcases his persuasive, bold and clear defense of the Truth against the serious error of the kind of modern, militant atheism espoused by Richard Dawkins. Excerpts:

Years ago, I interviewed Pearl and Sam Oliner, two professors of sociology at California State University at Humboldt and the authors of one of the most highly-regarded works on altruism, The Altruistic Personality. The book was the product of the Oliners' lifetime of study of non-Jewish rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust.

The Oliners, it should be noted, are secular, not religious, Jews; they had no religious agenda.

I asked Samuel Oliner, "Knowing all you now know about who rescued Jews during the Holocaust, if you had to return as a Jew to Poland and you could knock on the door of only one person in the hope that they would rescue you, would you knock on the door of a Polish lawyer, a Polish doctor, a Polish artist or a Polish priest?"

Without hesitation, he said, "a Polish priest." And his wife immediately added, "I would prefer a Polish nun."

That alone should be enough to negate the pernicious nonsense that God is not only unnecessary for a moral world, but is detrimental to one.

And:

Perhaps the most powerful proof of the moral decay that follows the death of God is the Western university and its secular intellectuals. Their moral record has been loathsome. Nowhere were Stalin and Mao as venerated as they were at the most anti-religious and secular institutions in Western society, the universities.

Nowhere in the West today is anti-Americanism and Israel-hatred as widespread as it is at universities. And Princeton University awarded its first tenured professorship in bioethics to Peter Singer, an atheist who has argued, among other things, that that "the life of a newborn is of less value than the life of a pig, a dog or a chimpanzee" and that bestiality is not immoral.

Dawkins and his supporters have a right to their atheism. They do not have a right to intellectual dishonesty about atheism.

I have debated the best known atheists, including the late Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Lawrence Krauss ("A Universe from Nothing") and Daniel Dennett. Only Richard Dawkins has refused to come on my radio show.

RTWT (Stands for read the whole thang.)

Peter Hitchens: "I used to believe this piffle."

I don't know what Peter Hitchens's pay grade is, but he must make more than Barack Obama.



Around 2:53, the atheist scientist dude starts licking his lips. You can hear it. He knows he's in trouble.

"Hockeysticks and bananas." LOL.

Donohue on Pullman's "Fervid Imagination"

William Donohue from the Catholic League points out how Pullman's serious non-fiction is more interesting and fairy-tale-like than his "Dark Materials" adolescent fiction, which is thinly-veiled anti-Catholicism.

Philip Pullman's new book, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, is available in the U.S. on May 4; it is published by Canongate U.S. Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on it today:

The publisher was kind enough to send me an advance copy of Pullman's new book, no doubt hoping I would give it some free publicity by hammering it. They may be disappointed: it's an interesting fable and not in the slightest degree anti-Catholic.

My beef with Pullman's trilogy, His Dark Materials, and more specifically with the movie based on the first book, "The Golden Compass," centered on the attempt to seduce young people into thinking that atheism is the answer and the Catholic Church is the problem. But this book has no hidden agenda—it's a fanciful account of the Gospel story, one that displays the author's fervid imagination. Pullman's fairy tale sees Mary giving birth to twins: Jesus, a figure who bears resemblance to the Son of God known to Christians, and Christ, a less admirable character who is preoccupied with institutionalizing his legacy.

The most important statement about the book is not its contents, rather it is the decision to write it in the first place. Why would England's most famous atheist storyteller find it necessary to repair to the Gospels to write this book? What is it about Christianity that Pullman can't live without? And why does his fascination with religion not extend to other religions? To be sure, had Pullman taken liberties with Islam, he would have been a marked man. So much easier to deal with those Christians, most of whom are very nice.

The real issue remains. Christian novelists are not known for finding material in atheistic accounts of human existence—they simply ignore them—but the contra is not true. Perhaps Pullman can write another story explaining why.

This echoes my sentiments exactly. How is this different than every cafeteria-style religionist from Ghandi to Fr. Richard McBrien with regards to Jesus and Christianity, i.e., picking what you like and discarding what you don't? Donohue's mention that he felt like maybe the publishing company was looking for some promotional wind for the sails of this book made me think of another likely irony: the Holy Name of Jesus and Christ will be the main sales engines for a tome which would otherwise be titled "Some Ideas by Phillip Pullman".

Larry David Pisses on Picture of Jesus

How original! Never heard of that before.

At one point in the show, David goes to the bathroom in a Catholic home and splatters urine on a picture of Jesus; he doesn’t clean it off. Then a Catholic woman goes to the bathroom, sees the picture and concludes that Jesus is crying. She then summons her equally stupid mother and the two of them fall to their knees in prayer. When David and Jerry Seinfeld (playing himself) are asked if they ever experienced a miracle, David answers, “every erection is a miracle.” That’s what passes for creativity these days.

Was Larry David always this crude? Would he think it comedic if someone urinated on a picture of his mother? This might be fun to watch, but since HBO only likes to dump on Catholics (it was just a couple of weeks ago that Sarah Silverman insulted Catholics on “Real Time with Bill Maher”), and David is Jewish, we’ll never know.

That's so frickin' funny. Really.

UPDATE: I think a few who have stumbled onto this post, not being regular readers, haven't realized that I'm being utterly sarcastic when I said the bit was funny. It's not funny at all from my perspective.

UPDATE, 10/29/2009: Here are my new thoughts on the "Jews laugh" links.

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Another ridiculous moral equivalency attack on Christianity

I have a new post on the Alexandria blog which I felt compelled to write after this little exchange in the comment boxes between Harvey Lacey and me, which I'll abbreviate here:

Pauli: I don’t know why it harms gays to be told they can’t have the same kind of relationship men have with their wives which we commonly call marriage. They can call their relationship what they want, they can even call it marriage, but it’s different. If you want to say it’s no different then that’s your opinion, your belief if you will. The belief of traditional Christians is that this could do more harm to gays to tell them this because it’s a lie.

Harvey: The only thing that supports your position on heterosexual marriage being superior to a homosexual one is your belief. And your belief has nothing but suspicion and myth to support you.

When you find yourself in a quiet place where you can hear clearly the discussions between your heart and your brain I would like you to think about believing what you do. Consider for a moment the motivation of the parents of the Indians who gave up their daughter for sacrifice. That’s believing my friend, that’s believing. Your belief doesn’t take near as much commitment. But it’s no less wrong.

So believing that gays can't have a marriage equivalent to a traditional marriage between a man and a woman is called "no less wrong" than committing human sacrifice by killing one's offspring. No less wrong. This is the disease called moral equivalency, and we see it everyday from the assertion that opposing "universal single-payer health care" is morally equivalent to being pro-abortion to the baseless assumption that Israel must be just as bad as the terrorist group, Hamas, since they are fighting them.

I go on to show that there is a lot more than merely "suspicion and myth" which supports accepting marriage as being defined traditionally by linking to David Benkof's "Phantom Past" which I recommended everyone should read last week. I reiterate this recommendation again because it shows the "gay narrative" to be as mythical as anything we Christianists ever came up with and it does so in the language of historical and anthropological research.

Being able in a small way to expose the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of this sort of nonsense is one of the reasons that I accepted the opportunity to write―without compensation―for Alexandria, a blog featuring very few gold nuggets amidst the boring and nauseating dirt.

What happened to "Multiculturalism"?

From the Catholic League.

PUNDITS SLAM PALIN ON WITCHCRAFT
Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments today on news reports that an African minister once asked God to protect Sarah Palin from witchcraft:

“In 2005, Sarah Palin went to church and found that a visiting minister from Kenya, Bishop Thomas Muthee, was doing the service. He offered a prayer asking Jesus to keep her free from ‘every form of witchcraft.’ Palin said nothing—she simply kept her head bowed throughout the blessing. Why this is newsworthy is one issue, but why it has quickly become the subject of scorn is another.

“For the past two decades, Americans have been lectured by educators and the chattering class that we must respect cultural, religious, racial and ethnic diversity. It seems that exceptions to the creed of multiculturalism are only made when it suits the ideological agenda of the left. Enter Keith Olbermann: He exploited this incident last night as a club to paint Palin as an extremist. Moreover, he used this single blessing to unfavorably contrast the African minister to Barack Obama’s spiritual mentor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. The MSNBC commentator incredibly said that Wright—who spewed hate speech before Obama for 20 years—‘seems pretty mainstream’ by comparison.

“Witchcraft is a sad reality in many parts of Africa, resulting in scores of deaths in Kenya over the past two decades. Bishop Muthee’s blessing, then, was simply a reflection of his cultural understanding of evil. While others are not obliged to accept his interpretation, all can be expected to respect it. More than that—Muthee should be hailed for asking God to shield Palin from harmful forces, however they may be manifested. And for this he is mocked and Palin ridiculed?

“We know that many cultural elites have a hard time embracing religion, but is it too much to ask that they at least show some manners when discussing subjects which most Americans hold dear?”

sXe

John Hood's quip on the Corner this morning reminded me of my days as a Fugazi fan circa 1990. A friend of mine had their 2nd EP Margin Walker and it just blew me away. I had just gotten my first CD player, so I purchased 13 songs which contained their first 2 EPs.

Fugazi's appeal to me most likely had something to do with the fact that I had just gone through this huge girlfriend breakup and a lot of really angry, testosterone-achieved guys screaming and wailing on guitars totally made sense. They were also supposed to be really "smart" and "socially conscious" — whatever the hell that means — which separated them from Suicidal Tendencies, Gang Green and other skate-punk faves. Their lyrics were impenetrable enough to seem profound; I don't pretend to be able to fathom what the following rapped lines from "Bulldog Front" really means:

Ahistorical — you think this shit just dropped right out of the sky
My analysis — it's time to harvest the crust from your eyes

...but it's great because it can basically be used to diss the ideas of anyone you don't like. The bonus is it contains great words like crust and shit.

"Burning Too" contains a more uplifting message, tunefully reminiscent of Bowie's "Rebel Rebel":

This world is not our facility
We have a responsibility
To use all of our abilities
To keep this place alive

Those lines always remind me of a poem a third-grade girl might have penned to caption her crayon submission to the local Earth Day coloring contest. But as with all great Fugazi compositions, it is redeemed by the red-faced yelling during the chorus: "WE GOTTA PUT IT OUT!! DO IT!! DO IT NOW!!!!"

When you go flying off your skate board into a sewer grate you need something to unite your suffering to that of the whole human race. And if you aren't Catholic at the time and don't realized that's one of the purposes of the Mass, Fugazi will have to do. Being "straight edge" helps one avoid many evils, but you can't thrive on a steady diet of nothing. Maybe that chapter of my youth subconsciously helped lead to my conversion.