#the universe where i go to divinity school and become a minister is only a hairsbreadth away. and i would've been so happy

[unloneliest]

it has been a really long time since the anchorage unitarian universalists broke my heart like longer than this blog has existed but i'm going to [current city]'s fellowship today for the first time to see if there's a home for me there and i just like. want to tell you guys

[queenlua]

You're a druid and an ex-evangelical, right? What does being a druid mean to you? How did you get from evangelicalism to where you are now? And of course feel free to ignore this if it's nosy. (sincerely, a Christian who wants to leave but who doesn't know what to do)

this is going to make me sound ignorant as hell, lol, but i'm happy to share

under a cut because this got very long, sorry, lol.

my personal progression was: "vaguely christian -> VERY christian -> christian agnostic -> agnostic/atheist -> agnostic/druid -> some sorta druid-neopagan-animist thing."  i guess i'll just go through what made me switch between each of those, and close out with some high-level thoughts that may be helpful for you?

okay, so when i was

VAGUELY CHRISTIAN,

i went to Sunday school every week because That's What You Do, and because my whole hometown was very southern Baptist, i never questioned the veracity of its teachings much... until they ran a whole weekly series on "why [x] is wrong," where [x] is some other group

e.g., we had a week on why Mormons are wrong, and i didn't bat an eye because i hadn't even known Mormons existed until that moment

then we had a week on why Muslims are wrong, and that... bothered me, because i had a friend who was Muslim, and she was just objectively a better person than me, and i was like "any universe where she goes to hell and i don't seems really fucked up"

then we had a week on why EVOLUTION was wrong, and that just absolutely threw me, because while i hadn't thought about evolution much (i think i was in fourth grade or so), it seemed common-sense? scientists thought highly of it? "adaptation over time" just seems logical?

so i went to the public library every day after school for like a week, read some Darwin and some science books, and came back to my Sunday school teacher with, like, an itemized list of objections to the whole "evolution is wrong" thing.  and he came up with some standard Answers In Genesis rebuttals, and i did more research and came back the next week with more science, and we repeated this a few times until he was like "lua, you just gotta take some things on faith"

which.  lmao.  full existential crisis time, because no matter how hard i thought, i couldn't *not* believe in the science, but i also didn't want to go to hell, so i was like "maybe if i believe SUPER HARD i will SOMEDAY be able to unbelieve the condemn-me-to-hell bits"

so i decided to become

VERY CHRISTIAN

and my frantic googling for shit like "proof of god" and "god and evolution" *eventually* broke me out of the Answers In Genesis circles of the internet, and into some decent Christian apologia, like, think First Things and various Catholic bloggers.  and there, i found some way to square my gut sense that evolution was right, with a spiritual worldview.

like, i remember finding some blogger who said:

"young earth creationists get tripped up when they try to explain stars that are millions of light-years away, and end up basically arguing that God's tricking us somehow, and—no!  my God lets you believe in the evidence of your eyes, my God does not demand that you make yourself ignorant or stupid, my God expects you to use your brain"

and i just started crying at my computer, because no one had ever said "using your brain is Good and part of God's will," i was like *finally* here's someone who won't tell me i'm going to hell for just *thinking* about things

(st. augustine does a much better riff on a similar theme, fwiw, but i only found him later)

still, it was an uneasy fit, because, the more i learned and read about world history, the more it seemed... weird... that the One And Singular Path To Salvation was... the successor to some niche desert cult... which didn't even occur at the *beginning* of written history, like, it was all predated by that whole Mithraism thing, etc... and like, sure, i could trot out all the standard theological talking points for why Actually This Makes Perfect Sense, but gut-level-wise, the aesthetics just seemed kinda dumb!  and no level of talking myself out of it made that feeling go away!

so at this point i started referring to myself as a

CHRISTIAN AGNOSTIC

i mean, not aloud.  i still lived in southernbaptistopia and i didn't want, like, my hair stylist to tell me i was a horrible person.  but in my *head* i called myself Christian agnostic and it felt right.

and i started church-hopping, which honestly was really fun, would recommend to anyone at any point.  i visited the fire-and-brimstone baptist church, the methodist church, the episcopalians, the universal unitarians, etc.

unfortunately, while this gave me *some* new perspectives, each of the places either had the same shitty theology as my old megachurch (i remember the *acute* sense of despair i felt when i was starting to jive with a methodist church... only for the dumbass youth minister to start going on about evolution), or, they just lacked any sense of the *sacred*.  like, the Church of Christ churches, with their a capella services, *definitely* had it; i felt more God there in one service than i did in a lifetime of shitty Christian rock at the megachurch.  but their beliefs were even *more* batshit, so.  big L on that one.

having failed to find a satisfactory church, i was basically

AGNOSTIC/ATHEIST

by the time i went to college, but honestly pretty unhappy about it; while it was harder than ever for me to actually *connect* with the divine, i didn't like thinking that my previous experiences of the divine were total lies.  because my shitty evangelical church, for all its faults, could not *completely* sabotage the sense of God's presence.  there were real moments in that church where i do believe i experienced something divine.  mostly mediated by one particular youth minister, who in hindsight was the only spiritual teacher in that church who didn't seem a bit rotten inside, but!  it was something!

so when i happened upon a bunch of writings on the now-defunct shii.org (that's the bit that makes me look WILDLY ignorant, lol), i was utterly captivated.

said author was a previous archdruid of the Reformed Druids of North America, an organization that was formed in the 1960s to troll the administration of Carleton College (there was a religious-service-attendance requirement; they made their own religion; their religion had whiskey and #chilltimes for its services).  however, this shii.org dude seemed to take it pretty seriously.  he was studying history of religion and blogged a lot about his studies, both academic and otherwise.  while RDNA had started out as a troll, that didn't mean they hadn't *discovered* something real in the process, he said.

this, already, was going to be innately appealing to me; i've got a soft spot for wow-we-were-doing-this-ironically-but-now-it's-kinda-real? stuff in general.

in particular, shii.org’s discussions on the separation of ritual from belief was really interesting to me: most religions/spiritualities have *both*, but like, you can do a ritual without having the Exact Right Beliefs (if there even is such a thing!), and it can still be useful to you, it can have real power.  (he had a really lovely essay, speculating on the origins of religion as just a form of art, but that essay is now lost to the sands of time, alas.)

(note that i wouldn't really recommend seeking out *recent* writing by the shii.org guy; he kinda went full tedious neoreactionary-blowhard-who-reads-a-lot-of-Spengler at some point?  sigh.)

the shii.org guy led me to checking out a bunch of books on the history of neopaganism & also books by scholars of religion in general, and the more i read, the more excited i became.  and i started doing little ritual/meditation stuff here and there.

then i was fortunate enough to attend some events with Earthspirit (this was when i lived in Boston), which cemented my hippie dalliances into something more real.  the folks there, being from Boston, were all ridiculously overeducated (a sensibility that appeals to me), but also, being the kind of folks who drive out to a mountain in the middle of nowhere for a spiritual retreat, they tolerated a full range of oddities (everyone from aging-70s-feminist-wiccans to living-on-a-farm-with-your-bros-Astaru to dude-who-started-having-weird-visions-and-is-just-trying-to-figure-out-the-deal to Nordic-spiritualist-with-two-phds-from-Scandanavian-universities-on-the-subject, etc), which gave me a lot of room to explore different types of rituals, ceremonies, "magic", etc.

(polytheism in general lends itself well to this sort of easy plurality!  i can believe other people are experiencing something real with their gods, and i can be talking to a totally different set of gods, and that’s just all very compatible, etc)

anyway, i started calling myself

AGNOSTIC/DRUID

around then, because i knew i'd found *something*, something that felt like all the realest moments i'd ever had in nature, and all the realest moments i'd ever had in that shitty megachurch, but i wasn't quite ready to put a theology to it.

but, idk, you do the thing for a while, and you start encountering some things that you may as well call gods, and you realize you're in pretty deep, and you ditch the "agnostic" bit and just throw hands and start describing yourself as

SOME SORTA DRUID-NEOPAGAN-ANIMIST THING

because that's the most precise thing you can muster.  in particular, the druid bit resonates because nature's still very much at the center of my practice; the neopagan bit resonates because i'm not especially interested in reconstructing older traditions or being faithful to any actual pre-Christian traditions, and animist resonates because what i sometimes call gods seem to be tied pretty tightly to the land itself.  it's all very experiential; all this mostly means i'm some weird chick who sometimes grabs a car and drives out someplace very lonely and hikes for a while and does some hippie shit to try and talk with the land or the god or whatever is there.  and sometimes i come back from it changed, or refocused, or what-have-you, and hopefully i'm better for it.  i'm aware this makes me look a little ridiculous, and is an unsatisfying answer, sorry!

WRT YOUR SITUATION

i don't know you or your situation, obviously, but if i wanted to give former-me some advice to save her some angst, i'd say

-> Christendom itself is far wilder and more diverse than many churches lead you to believe.  if you still want to be Christian on some level, and it's just a shitty church that's convinced you the whole project is fucked, i'd honestly explore, i dunno, your nearest Quaker meeting.  they're invoking the Holy Spirit with regularity but they're not raging douchenozzles about it.

-> if you're specifically interested in druidism, i found John Michael Greer's "A World Full of Gods" really nice.  (caveat: Greer has *also* gone full right-wing nutjob these days, sigh, so like.  would not recommend a great swath of his writing.  but that one's good)

-> deciding that a just God wouldn't give me a brain and then ask me not to use it was hugely comforting to me.  like, that was the start of the whole process, that was what made me feel ok searching for other churches and trying to find something that fit.  obviously you should take this with 800 grains of salt, because obviously i'm no longer Christian, and thus maybe i'm just some poor misguided fallen soul, but... i still kinda believe that!  maybe if you can make yourself believe that, it'll seem less scary?

idk, happy to answer more questions, sorry for the long ramble, hope it helped~

[blossom-hwa]

seungmin + hogwarts au (?)

Thanks for requesting! Hope you enjoy this <3

3-year anniversary drabble game: send me an NCT/WAYV/Stray Kids/The Boyz member + a prompt (check out the post for ideas) and  I’ll write a drabble for you!

~

Title: Simply, You

Pairing: Seungmin x gender neutral!reader

Triggers: none

~

Seungmin, most people believe, is an enigma. He was both a prefect and head boy, seemed to be good at literally everything, and achieved ‘outstandings’ ‘exceeds expectations’ on every single assignment he received since the beginning of his Hogwarts career. 

So why in Merlin’s name did he decide to retire to the countryside and open up a small potions shop instead of becoming something like an Auror, maybe, or even Minister of Magic?

The simple answer: Seungmin is tired of attention, tired of endless expectations placed upon him by his overbearing pureblood line. He’s always wanted to escape to a simpler life, something quieter and smaller than the grandiose party life he’s been forced to live in since he was a child. 

The even simpler answer: he’s fallen in love with you.

Muggle-born, exceedingly talented, you gave him his first black eye when he made a disparaging comment toward you in your first year. He cringes when he remembers the rude, childish boy he used to be - he really believed in that pureblood stuff, seriously - but that was who he was. And you were right to punch him for it. 

You never wanted to see him again, you made that much clear for the rest of the year. But somehow, your interests kept aligning - both of you loved arithmancy and ancient runes, tolerated history of magic, excelled in charms and potions, and loathed divination. When the time came to choose electives, you ended up in the same ones. Your test scores, then your OWLs were on par. 

It was like the universe was doing everything to put you two together. 

Seungmin’s parents tried to force him into a rivalry with you, goading him about the fact that a muggle-born, not even a half-blood, was doing as well as he was (and sometimes better) in school. At first, Seungmin listened. But as the years went on, the rivalry faded, and Seungmin realized just how much he admired you.

He counts himself lucky that the two of you made up in fifth year, leaving him enough time to become your friend before working up the courage to ask you to the Yule Ball in your sixth. When you walked down the stairs in rich blue dress robes, Seungmin really thought his heart stopped for a minute. Eyes sparkling under the chandelier lights, you looked gorgeous. 

From there, it was only a matter of time before Seungmin fell entirely head over heels for everything about you.

His parents disowned him. It was fine, really - he’d long stopped caring about them, and though it stung a bit that he’d been flung aside so easily, his favorite great-uncle (also disowned) left him a generous portion of gold to live off of while trying to find a place to live. 

Seungmin’s living his dream life now. He maintains contact with only those he cares for and has a job that he’s proud of. It’s always fun when Jisung and Felix let themselves in unexpectedly for a visit, or when Hyunjin calls from Korea to let him know how his ambassadorship is going. 

And it’s even better, he thinks, because he lives with the one he lives. 

“I’m home!” Seungmin calls, bag floating onto a couch as he closes the door behind. A fragrant, potion-y smell emanates from the kitchen where you emerge, soot on your face and in your hair, but still as vibrant as always. 

“Did you roll in the fireplace?” he teases, wrapping his arms around you anyway. 

You snort into his shoulder. “No, I decided to take a bath in ashes for fun.”

Seungmin loves this, loves it when he comes home to your snark and laughter. Not caring about the soot staining his skin and clothes, he lets you press a quick kiss to his lips. “Had a good day?”

“Mm, it was fine.” Seungmin grins at the sparkle in your eye. “Better now that I’ve come home.”

[justanothershippingcan]

Main Info of my BNHA Hogwarts AU series

Hello! This will be quite a masterlist to understand the main world around the “(In)feliciter, sentio me a te fascinatum esse praesertim” series on AO3. Here I will put all characters’ houses/roles and some other points I need to make clear. Their status as Muggle-born, half-blood and pureblood is actually not so relevant (except for some characters), but I still wanted to add it. Just a little note: in every installment I will repeat these details if they are important in that story – like, what is UA in the first installment, or Todoroki’s Hogwarts house in the second et cetera – but surely having them all listed in one place might be more comfortable for all readers.

As said in the first installment, the students in class 1-A and 1-B in the BNHA universe are all part of this “pre-Aurors” program (UA, aka “Union of pre-Aurors), which was born due to the Minister of Magic’s (Yeah, Wash, just for pure meme power) and the Head of the Auror Office’s (Endeavour, after All Might’s retirement) request. The League of Villains here is kind of a new group of Death Eaters that still quite worships the previous evil mages even after literal centuries from their departure. I don’t know if I’ll ever make a more “action-centered” installment, since I am really bad at writing “heavier” stuff, but this would be the enemy the students would face.

Again, as I mentioned in the first part, everyone must choose a nickname due to this rise of this organization to cover as much as possible their identities. So I will use the hero names the characters chose in the manga. Though even just some teachers (like Ectoplasm) preferred, for personal reasons, to mention only a nickname to the students too. In this case, just Nezu (Hogwarts’s headmaster) is aware of their real name. This was mostly needed due to some Heroes in BNHA who still don’t have a real name reveal. Regarding names, yes, the students will mostly use the surnames to call each other, and change only when they are really close to that one person, just like in canon. Considering the others use Harry’s surname too in the books, I thought that even here it could work. Also, maintaining that beautiful use of the first name in Japanese makes everything more special.

The course begins in the fifth year and ends in the seventh, it lasts two hours per session and there are four lessons each week. Due to its practicality and privacy, the Room of Requirement is the place where the course is attended, and only “Aurors in training”, Vlad, Aizawa and Joke know what they have to think about to make the class appear. The classroom is divided in two big parts, one for more “theoretical” studies and the other for dueling/sparring. Yeah, because I still can’t think that Aurors don’t get basic physical training in the books – okay that there is magic, but if you don’t have the wand for whatever reason, sometimes even a good punch can do wonders. No, this is not an excuse to create some sparring tension. Another note: the classroom (A and B) still remains, because, well, teaching forty students at once might be a tough challenge. Though, sometimes the two classes do lessons together anyway, especially dueling ones.

All the adults that in BNHA were pro heroes are now or teachers or Aurors. This doesn’t apply only to UA professors who are both (for the UA obviously the Ministry choose Aurors still in duty to teach the students). Camie, Inasa and Shishikura will appear later on. Camie is a Beauxbatons student, while the others study at Durmstrang. In my fic these two schools are now even more “affiliated” with the other, since the two headmasters are married. Camie is still a year older than the others, but due to some of her “problems” that will be explained in one of my fanfics in this series, she began going to school a year later than normal.

Regarding students with particular physical features (Ojirou’s tail, Hagakure’s invisibility, et cetera) they obviously disappear here, at least mostly. Hagakure for example loves Invisibility Cloaks and wears them frequently to prank others a little bit. Ojirou is an Animagus – so, well, his tail appears when he transforms – and Mina keeps his pink hair color due to her Metamorphmagus status. Though, these and other characters’ details (such as the reasons for their Auror name) will be included in the appropriate installments.

Now, here’s the whole list!

Gryffindor

Toshinori Yagi (All Might) – ex Head of the Auror Office, now Defense Against the Dark Arts professor and Head of Gryffindor House at Hogwarts. An inspiration for both Midoriya and Bakugou. Muggle-born.

Moe Kamiji (Burnin) – Charms professor at Hogwarts. Half-blood.

Tsunagu Hakamata (Beast Jeanist) – Study of Ancient Runes professor at Hogwarts. Pureblood.

Air Jet – Flying Professor at Hogwarts. Muggle-born.

Crimson Riot – retired and legendary Auror, Kirishima admires him a lot (like in canon). Pureblood.

Keigo Takami (Hawks) – Auror, number one fan of Endeavour, becomes his “right hand” after Endeavour obtains the Head of the Auror’s office title. Muggle-born.

Shinji Nishiya (Kamui Woods) – Herbology professor at Hogwarts, has a bantering relationship with Yu, while their mutual Auror friend, Edgeshot, is always the poor third wheel. Half-blood.

Rumi Usagiyama (Mirko) – badass Auror. Half-blood.

Izuku Midoriya (Deku) – Seeker in the Quidditch team, UA student in class 1-A. Pureblood, comes from a poor family.

Mina Ashido (Alien Queen Pinky) – Beater in the Quidditch team, UA student in class 1-A. Pureblood.

Eijirou Kirishima (Red Riot) – Catcher in the Quidditch Team, UA student in class 1-A. Half-blood.

Asui Tsuyu (Froppy) – Prefect, UA student in class 1-A. Half-blood.

Denki Kaminari (Chargebolt) – Catcher in the Quidditch Team, UA student in class 1-A. Pureblood, but doesn’t care about it and neither of his family members do. In fact, he loves Muggles’ technology.

Setsuna Tokage (Lizardy) – Beater in the Quidditch Team, UA student in class 1-B. Half-blood.

Yosetsu Awase (Welder) – Catcher in the Quidditch Team, UA student in class 1-B. Muggle-born.

Mirio Togata (Lemillion) – Keeper in the Quidditch Team, UA student in class 3-B. Pureblood.

Tamaki Amajiki (Suneater) – Prefect, UA student in class 3-A. Half-blood.

 Hufflepuff

 Hizashi Yamada (Present Mic) – Cure of Magical Creatures professor at Hogwarts, Head of Hufflepuff House. Half-blood.

Higari Maijima (Power Loader) – Muggle Studies professor at Hogwarts. Muggle-born.

Sekijiro Kan (Vlad) – Auror and UA professor at Hogwarts (Class 1-B). Pureblood.

Kaoruko Awata (Bubble Girl) – Auror, Nighteye’s partner. Half-blood.

Crust – Auror. Half-blood.

Taishiro Toyomitsu (Fat Gum) – Auror. Half-blood.

Emi Fukukado (Ms. Joke) – Auror and UA professor at Hogwarts (Class 2-A). Muggle-born.

Ochako Uraraka (Uravity) – Seeker in the Quidditch Team, Prefect, UA student in class 1-A. Half-blood.

Yuga Aoyama (Can’t stop twinkling) – UA student in class 1-A. Pureblood.

Hanta Sero (Cellophane) – Beater in the Quidditch Team, UA student in class 1-A. Half-blood.

Mashirao Ojirou (Tailman) – Beater in the Quidditch Team, UA student in class 1-A. Half-blood.

Tooru Hagakure (Invisible Girl) – UA student in class 1-A. Half-blood.

Mezo Shoji (Tentacole) – Keeper in the Quiddicth Team, UA student in class 1-A. Half-blood.

Koji Koda (Anima) – UA student in class 1-A. Muggle-born.

Rikido Satou (Sugarman) – UA student in class 1-A. Muggle-born.

Tetsux4 Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu (Real Steel) – Catcher in the Quidditch Team, UA student in class 1-B. Half-blood.

Pony Tsunotori – UA student in class 1-B. Half-blood.

Kinoko Komori (Shemage) – Catcher in the Quidditch Team, UA student in class 1-B. Half-blood.

Sen Kaibara (Spiral) – UA student in class 1-B. Half-blood.

Nirengeki Shoda (Mines) – Prefect, UA student in class 1-B. Muggle-born.

Manga Fukidashi (Comicman) – UA student in class 1-B. Half-blood.

Kojiro Bondo (Plamo) – UA student in class 1-B. Half-blood.

Nejire Hadou (Nejire Chan damn creativity for this one) – Catcher in the Quidditch Team, UA student in class 3-A. Pureblood.

Tatami Nakagame (Turtle Neck) – UA student in class 2-A. Half-blood.

 Ravenclaw

 Ken Ishiyama (Cementoss) – Transfiguration Professor and Deputy Headmaster at Hogwarts. Half-blood.

Nemuri Kayama (Midnight) – Potions professor at Hogwarts, Head of Ravenclaw House. Half-blood.

Thirteen – Divination professor at Hogwarts. Half-blood.

Nezu – Hogwarts Headmaster. Pureblood.

Shinya Kamihara (Edgeshot) – Auror. Half-blood.

Kugo Sakamata (Gang Orca) – Auror. Half-blood.

Tenya Iida (Ingenium) – Prefect, UA student in class 1-A. Pureblood.

Kyoka Jirou (Earphone Jack) – Catcher in the Quidditch Team, UA student in class 1-A. Half-blood. Her father is a Muggle who made her love music.

Shoto Todoroki (Shoto) – Seeker in the Quidditch Team, UA student in class 1-A. Pureblood.

Momo Yaoyorozu (Creati) – Beater in the Quidditch Team, UA student in class 1-A. Pureblood.

Ibara Shiozaki (Vine I had to restrain myself because I wanted to put a vine reference here) – Catcher in the Quidditch Team, UA student in class 1-B. Half-blood.

Itsuka Kendou (Battle Fist) – Keeper in the Quidditch Team, Prefect, UA student in class 1-B. Half-blood.

Jurota Shishida (Gevaudan) – UA student in class 1-B. Muggle-born.

Juzo Honenuki (Mudman) – Catcher in the Quidditch Team, UA student in class 1-B. Half-blood.

Hiryu Rin (Dragon Shroud) – UA student in class 1-B. Half-blood.

Reiko Yanagi (Emily) – UA student in class 1-B. Muggle-born.

Yuyu Haya – UA student in class 3-A. Muggle-born.

Mei Hatsume – Power Loader’s discovery and prodigy, she studies at Hogwarts but she still loves working with Muggle devices, and wants the Magic world to know more about them and use those to make wizards rely less on magic. Half-blood.

Slytherin

Shota Aizawa (Eraserhead) – Auror and UA professor at Hogwarts (Class 1-A), Hizashi’s best friend, has a quirky relationship with Emi. Half-blood.

Ectoplasm – Arithmancy professor at Hogwarts, Head of Slytherin House. Half-blood.

Yu Takeyama (Mount Lady) – Astronomy professor at Hogwarts. Half-blood.

Enji Todoroki (Endeavour) – Head of the Auror Office, he has a complicated relationship with his son, Shoto, like in canon. Pureblood.

Fumikage Tokoyami (Tsukuyomi) – Keeper of the Quidditch Team, Prefect, UA student in class 1-A. Half-blood.

Katsuki Bakugou (Redacted) – Seeker of the Quidditch Team, UA student in class 1-A. Pureblood.

Minoru Mineta (Grape Juice) – UA student in class 1-A. Half-blood.

Hitoshi Shinsou – UA student in class 2-B (I decided to make him a year older so there wouldn’t be a problem with the students’ number, though this is something that might change in the future). Half-blood.

Shihai Kuroiro (Vantablack) – Catcher in the Quidditch Team, UA student in class 1-B. Muggle-born.

Togaru Kamakiri (Jack Mantis) – Beater in the Quidditch Team, UA student in class 1-B. Pureblood.

Neito Monoma (Phantom Thief) – Catcher in the Quidditch Team, UA student in class 1-B. Pureblood.

Yui Kodai (Rule) – Catcher in the Quidditch Team, UA student in class 1-B. Half-blood.

Kosei Tsuburaba �� UA student in class 1-B. Muggle-born.

Yo Shindou – Beater in the Quidditch Team, UA student in class 2-A. Half-blood.

[a-student-out-of-time]

Rambling about V3 Again

Today I saw a really interesting quote from author Brandon Sanderson and it honestly got me thinking. He talked about what he considers the single worst thing you can do with critique in writing, and that’s if a critic “tries to make your story into one they would write, rather a better version of one you want to write.”

That got me thinking about V3.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that V3 is a very polarizing game, and I’ve seen many people talk about how they would’ve preferred to see the story play out, from character arcs to deaths to story conclusions. And while I do honestly enjoy seeing alternative perspectives and takes and AU’s, I feel like a lot about the game, what it’s trying to say and be, is skewed by those ideals.

I’m not saying that the critiques about the game are invalid, because there are a fair share of flaws with the game. What I am saying is that we end up talking so much about what we wish V3 could’ve been that what V3 was trying to be often ends up lost in that, and I want to talk about it.

It wasn’t until I really saw this quote that I was able to articulate all my likes and dislikes about the game and the reactions to it into a cohesive whole, which is what I’d like to do here.

So let’s ask this: what was V3 really trying to be?

Let’s start from the game’s theme: the relationship between truth and lies. This is best exemplified by the fact that you have the option to lie during trials, that you can use deception to find the truth. That’s a very different take from the previous games, where hope was associated with finding and confronting the truth.

Kokichi is another example, as he’s a self-admitted liar who claims to lead a criminal organization and it’s hard to tell exactly what he’s thinking or saying. Yet Kokichi actually helps bring the group to several truths: he helps find the culprit in trials, he reveals Maki’s identity as the Ultimate Assassin, tells the truth about Gonta murdering Miu and it’s thanks to his actions that the group later discovers the reality of their situation.

Throughout their journey, the group is confronted by numerous truths they don’t want to acknowledge, even refusing to do so and attacking people who continue to push them through. And with every revelation, there’s always those lingering details that don’t really make a lot of sense.

Let’s look at the game’s main narrative. At the start of the game, Kaede remembers she was kidnapped in broad daylight, thrown into a van, and brought to some abandoned school with a bunch of other people. She doesn’t act like a particularly nice person and is dressed differently, at least until the Monokubs arrive and give everyone their new clothes and memories. From that point, the narrative shifts considerably.

Kaede is suddenly an outgoing, optimistic leader and Shuichi is a sullen, withdrawn detective who serves as her deuteragonist for Chapter 1. She’s resolved to escape the Killing Game and tries to rally the group together. However, when her methods don’t prove successful and they start drifting away from her, she considers saving them by any means necessary and goes so far as to attempt murder against the mastermind. When that happens, she’s found guilty and executed, leaving Shuichi to take up her role as protagonist.

As you go through the game, using devices called flashback lights that apparently reawaken lost memories, you learn more and more about the reason that the group was brought here: the Gofer Project. When meteors began raining down on earth, all seemed lost until they established this project to send a group of survivors into space to colonize a new planet. A group of Ultimates.

They had established early on that Ultimates have even greater rights in this world: they’re the only ones allowed to vote and hold office. As the meteors came down and the news of this project got out, some people formed a cult that believed it was divine judgement and that mankind should be destroyed. That’s when they began the Ultimate Hunt, pursuing the candidates for the Gofer Project across the world. The Ultimates, with no other way out, decided to erase their memories of talent and live their last days as normal people.

To protect them, the people in charge spread a false story that the Ultimates had died, even holding a fake funeral for them and sent them into space secretly. However, while everyone was in cold sleep, one member of the cult- Kokichi- had sneaked aboard and piloted the ship back to the ruined and now inhospitable earth. They have no way back and no way to survive outside, and thanks to Kokichi’s claims to be the mastermind, they’ve been killing each for nothing. The group ultimately loses hope.

However, they’re resolved to continue on in their fight against the mastermind when they find a flashback light that reveals they weren’t just any ultimates: they were the next generation of ultimates from Hope’s Peak Academy. It wasn’t really the meteorites that got everyone, it was an alien virus that pushed mankind to the brink of extinction. That the cult that rose in the wake of this was Ultimate Despair.

That seems like a definitive way to link this game with its predecessors...until you really begin to stop and pick it apart. If this was about saving mankind, why did nobody have their memories right away? Why would you only bring 16 people? Why students who don’t make them suited to colonization? Why people like a death row inmate, a serial killer, a self-proclaimed liar and criminal, and an assassin?

Furthermore, going through many Fte’s highlights how much of the characters’ backstories seem very out there. Gonta wasn’t raised by wolves but a race of dinosaur people living in the woods, Kirumi is so hyper-competent that she became prime minister during the meteor crisis, Korekiyo’s killed almost 100 women and yet has never been caught, Maki can attend high school despite Japanese orphanages being too underfunded for kids to usually attend, Tenko’s neo-aikido breaks all the rules of traditional aikido and she's impulsive, has low pain tolerance, and disregards fair rules, none of which are very befitting of a martial artist.

And to conclude, even I thought that the reveal of their connection to Hope’s Peak felt very fanficy and out there, especially when the game had made no references or implications of it beforehand. But the reason for all of this is simple and effective:

None of this is real. It’s all staged.

Chapter 6 reveals that everything from their identities to the outside world they thought they knew was all just a fabrication. In truth, Tsumugi shows herself as the mastermind and that they’re actually in the 53rd season of an in-universe show called Danganronpa. Something alluded to even in the beginning of the game with the Team Danganronpa logo. This moment was very make or break for a lot of people, but let’s treat it fairly.

According to Tsumugi, the outside world has become a peaceful, boring place and Danganronpa is the only source of real entertainment the people have. A place where people literally come to have their identities replaced with those of Ultimates and then made to kill each other. This, as it turns out, was an outgrowth of the actual series we’d played before. A game that’s gone over 53 times.

This revelation is devastating for the characters. The lives and memories they’d known were all fabrications, which Tsumugi claims to have intentionally written. The Flashback lights were designed to implant fake memories to manipulate them, which is why that Hope’s Peak connection was set up after everyone gave up following the reveal of the outside world. A truth that could lead the world to despair, a lie that could lead the world to hope.

She even goes so far as to show everyone’s audition tapes, claiming that Kaede, Kaito, and Shuichi himself were willing to participate in the killings out of sheer misanthropy, popularity, and morbid excitement 

Kiibo is also revealed to be the audience’s means of interacting with the game, able to carry out their wishes and can even be hijacked and used as a way to fight against the characters’ decisions.

In the end, Tsumugi claims that the ongoing battle of hope vs despair needs to continue in perpetuity and that the survivors need to sacrifice someone, since only two people can survive Danganronpa. Shuichi, however, convinces Maki and Himiko not to vote for anyone and actually convinces the in-universe audience to give up on the series. Kiibo then blows the set to hell and allows Shuichi, Maki, and Himiko the chance to escape and see the world outside and what sort of influence they could have.

Now, let’s this break this down piece by piece here, because I feel like this part of the game is often conflated. Often I’ve seen people say that Chapter 6 is a giant middle finger to fans of the series, that nothing about the series really mattered, or that the flaws of the game can simply be attributed to bad writing on the creator’s part.

I honestly used to be in that camp myself, but the more I’ve thought about it, the more I feel those statements don’t hold up to scrutiny. We often conflate writing and narrative decisions we don’t like with bad writing. However, if the creator deliberately wants the narrative to move in that direction and has made intentional foreshadowing, references, and motivations that match it, we can’t simply equate that with it being “badly written.”

It’s not bad simply because we would’ve preferred they do something different. There’s a lot of very acclaimed books out there that I’ll admit I don’t care for because of their narrative decisions, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say they’re badly-written.

Furthermore, if something intentionally doesn’t make sense in-story, that is not bad writing. That is purposeful on the part of the creator, not a plot hole. The Gofer Project is not supposed to be a logical narrative, it’s meant to serve V3′s role: deconstruction of the nature of the series. It does this in many different ways:

Sequelization: 53 is a ridiculous amount of entries in a franchise and as I’m sure we’re all aware, as the number of entries goes up, the writing quality tends to go down. The Gofer Project story was purposefully meant to be nonsensical because it’s a story in an in-universe franchise that jumped the shark long ago.

A lot of people found it confusing or ridiculous that Shuichi and Kaede would have a romantic connection despite knowing each other barely a few days. That’s also the point; quick romances are a convenient narrative device to establish a means for character growth, followed by fridging her, a bad narrative trope designed to propel Shuichi toward development. Tsumugi even said as much during Chapter 6.

Similarly, Maki’s role in the story and her feelings for Kaito were reminiscent of that as well, with him helping her come out of her shell. 

When you go back, you can see Danganronpa is loaded with references to other series. Tsumugi is an obsessive otaku and went so far as to fill the entire story with deliberate references and callbacks to things she enjoys.

The Monokubs are deliberate references to executive decisions to add more marketable and merchandisable characters as the series drags on.

The fact that there are (supposedly) people willing to sign up for a killing game deconstructs the idea that some in the fandom may have had. That is, actually being in a killing game would not be fun or exciting, but horrific and traumatizing. Most of us wouldn’t be badass detectives or heroes, we’d be scared out of our minds, afraid, and want to find a way out.

Furthermore, Shuichi being repeatedly told that he’s just a fictional character and that his role is to be the protagonist, to go through hardships and come out stronger for the audience’s entertainment pisses him off so much that he wants no part of it. 

The climax is ultimately a deconstruction of what the series is famous for: the battle of hope vs. despair. In-universe, this has been reduced down to a simple narrative where the audience wants the same thing again and again: to see hope win in the end. Because hope keeps winning, the audience keeps wanting more. It’s become so formulaic that the audience doesn’t want to break out of its shell and just wants to see it over and over.

The final PTA against Kiibo is not meant to be an insult to the audience, but a representation of fighting against toxicity and entitlement in the fanbase, especially the ones that don’t want change. It’s not saying “you’re stupid for liking this series,” it’s saying “don’t be like these people.”

And how does the game? An unsatisfying ending that’s so bad that it drives the audience to give up on the show, finally allowing the killing to stop. Tsumugi decides she can’t live in a world without her favorite show and decides to die.

And that brings me to what I think is the ultimate thing that people conflate about the ending: that it’s all fiction, so nothing about it matters. That the entire franchise was fake, so it’s not worth your time.

That’s exactly the opposite of what V3 is trying to say.

First, Tsumugi is a completely unreliable narrator. The kind of person who let fiction consume her entire life, yet she believes it can’t change reality. She’s a liar and a hypocrite, and there’s no way of knowing if anything she says about the outside world is even true. It could be like she says or it might not be.

The fact that they have technology that can remove memories and add fake ones adds an entire dimension of ambiguity to everything she says, especially when you consider how the beginning of the game does not match up with what she says. We have no idea what the kids were really like before the killing game, so why should we believe anything she says?

And how can we be certain of her claims that she just wrote everything as planned? Kokichi and Kaito managed to put together a plan that completely threw her and Monokuma for a loop

Shuichi, Maki, and Himiko ultimately choosing to take the words of Kaede, Kaito, and Tenko to heart, even if they were part of a fictional narrative, is proof that they still had an influence on the trio. They choose to take something meaningful from their experiences regardless of the reality of their situation. And that’s something we all do.

The media we consume has an influence over who we are as people, and it’s part of why so many of us have such strong attachments to works we love. They were often influential in help shape who we are as people now, for good and for ill, and it’s important to take that into account.

V3′s message is that yes, that is important, and that you should read and enjoy stories and fiction, just as long as you don’t let it consume your life. They can influence you and even the world at large, and so it’s our responsibility as writers, artists, and creators to use that influence positively, to use the medium as a way to change the world for the better. That the only way for stale franchises that we’re tired of seeing over and over is to demand change, even if that means walking out on them. That the only way for things to change is for us to take action and demand change.

And by the end, we may not see immediate results, but we can at least work hard at trying to bring them about. V3 ends with Shuichi, Maki, and Himiko facing an uncertain future in a world they really know nothing about, but hopeful that their actions can and will change the world for the better. Real life doesn’t have solid, satisfying conclusions and it always doesn’t play out like a story, but that doesn’t mean you should give up on ever finding something satisfying or hopeful out there.

This, by no means, is me saying that V3 is a flawless story. I can point to numerous critiques that I still think hold water. However, Sanderson’s point is that we shouldn’t criticize a work based on what we wish it was rather than how it is and what it was trying to do.

I know there’s a lot about the story that bothers people, I know there’s a lot that wasn’t polished and a lot that feels uncomfortable and hard to swallow. Like Shuichi, coming out feeling confused, lost, unsure of what to do, but choosing to see merit and things to take to heart even in a story that turned out to be full of lies and uncomfortable truths.

If you didn’t enjoy V3, I wouldn’t force you to enjoy it. If you did love it, then you should love it. These are all just my thoughts on a story that, as time goes on, honestly feels more and more relevant to me.

[crimehathnofury]

Hey guys it’s Pike. I got a question for you. What comes to your mind when you think of Heaven's Gate? What pops in your mind? What’s the first thing you see? Shiny gates opening to the afterlife? Or is a really cool looking landmark that resembles it? Well one thing that pops into my mind is a California cult. One that has murder in it’s end. That’s my topic for today. The cult known as Heaven’s Gate and it’s leader Marshall Applewhite. So let's begin shall we?

I figure we start with a little information on Marshall Applewhite. He was born on May 17th 1931, in Spur Texas. He had 3 siblings and his father was a presbyterian minister. He had become a very religious child. So he went to school at Corpus Christi. He went to college at Austin College, where he was active in quite a few school organizations and only moderately religious. After he earned a bachelors in philosophy in 1952 he enrolled at Union Presbytrian Seminary to study theology. He got married as well to a lovely girl named Anne Pearce and later they had 2 children Mark and Lane. Early in his studies he decided he wanted to pursue music. He became the music director of a presbyterian church in North Carolina. He was a baritone singer and loved spirituals and the music of Handel. In 1954 he was drafted into the United States Army. He served in Austria and New Mexico as a member of the Army Signal Corps. In 1956, he left and enrolled at the University of Colorado, got his masters degree in music. His focus was musical theater. He moved to New York where he was unsuccessful in becoming a professional singer. He then worked as a teacher at the University of Alabama. However, he lost that position after pursuing a sexual relationship with a male student. His religious education was not ok with same sex relationships. So of course that left Applewhite more than a little frustrated with his desires. In 1965 his wife found out about the affair and they got divorced 3 years down the road. He then left UA and moved to Houston where he served as the Chair of the music department at the University of St. Thomas. Students said that he was engaging and stylish. He was also a well known singer, served as the choral director of an Episcopal church and performed with the Houston Grand Opera. Apparently, while in Houston, he was out as gay. Although he still pursued a relationship with a woman. Who while under pressure from her family left him. This of course upset him greatly. This apparently caused him to have another affair with a male student.  In 1970 he left his job. In 1971 he moved to New mexico and owned a delicatessen. Though he was popular with his customers he moved back to texas later that year. A year after that his father passed. Then a year after that he met Bonnie Nettles.

Bonnie Nettles was a nurse interested in Theosophy and Biblical Prophecy. The 2 became close friends. Applewhite even went as far to say that he felt like he had known Nettles for a long time. That they even met in a previous life. Nettles told Applewhite that their meeting was foretold by aliens. She also told him that he had a divine assignment. Around this time, Applewhite began to search for alternatives other than the christian doctrine, like astrology. Also he had visions one telling him that he was made for a role like Jesus. Applewhite soon started to live with Nettles. Although they cohabitated, their relationship was not a sexual one. The relationship though did fulfil his longing for a loving yet platonic relationship. Before meeting Applewhite, Nettles was married with 2 children. As soon as she got closer with Applewhite her husband divorced her and she lost custody of her kids. Applewhite had closed himself off from his family. EVentually he started to see Nettles as his soulmate. Some acquaintances speculated that she had a strong influence on him. The 2 would then later together opened a bookstore called the Cristian Arts Center, that held a great deal of books from many spiritualities. They also started something known as the Know Place, teaching classes on theosophy and mysticism. They closed that business a short time after. In February 1973 they both decided to travel and teach their beliefs. Pretty cool. Not going to lie. Traveling sounds fun. Exploring faith and just having a great time. However with the little money they had led them to do odd jobs and even sell their blood. They only ate bread rolls, camped out, and sometimes skipped out on their lodging bills. A mutual friend from Houston corresponded with them, accepted their teachings, and in may 1974 she became their first convert. Sometimes while traveling Applewhite and Nettles they would poner the life of St. Francis of Assisi. They would also read books written by Helena Blavatsky, R. D. Laing, and Richard Bach. They kept a King James version of the bible and studied quite a few passages from the New Testament. They focused on teachings about Christology, asceticism, and eschatology. APplewhite also read a lot of science fiction books. June 1974, they had their beliefs solidified into a good outline. They had concluded that they were chosen to fulfil biblical purposes. They had been given higher level minds than other people. They had made a pamphlet that described Jesus as a texan much like Applewhite. They considered themselves the 2 witnesses in the book of revelation. So they would go to churches and tell people they were the 2 or the UFO 2. Applewhite and Nettles believed they would be killed and then would be restored to life, then transported to a spaceship. Not going to lie, their ideas were poorly received. 

In August 1974, Applewhite got arrested for failing to return a vehicle that he had rented in Missouri. Like really? He was extradited to St. Louis, and was jailed for 6 months. At this time he had said that he had a divine right to keep the car. While in jail he pondered theology and abandoned occult topics in favor of extraterrestrials and evolution. When he was released, Nettles and himself began to try and reach these extraterrestrials . As well as seek like minded people. They advertised for meetings to recruit disciples or what they would call the crew. At these meetings Nettles and Applewhite would promote themselves as being from another planet, The Next level, who needed people to participate in an experiment. They said that the people who participated would be granted a higher evolutionary level. At this point they were calling their group the Anonymous Sexaholic Celibate Church. But then changed it to the Human Individual Metamorphosis. Applewhite and Nettles sent advertisements to California. They were invited to speak to New Age devotees in April 1975. They were able to persuade half of the 50 that were there. They continued to have success in recruiting people. At a meeting in Oregon in September 1975 30 people left their homes to follow them prompting media coverage. It was a lot of negative. Not so shocking. Commentators and former members of the group mocked them and suggested brainwashing. By 1976, Applewhite and Nettles had decided to be called Do and Ti. And by 1985 Nettles had died. Applewhite had claimed that she had gone to her Next Level. After her death applewhite changed his view on the ascension process. He previously taught the group that they would physically ascend from earth and that death caused reincarnation. But Nettles death left behind an unchanged body had forced him to say that ascension would be spiritual. He concluded that her spirit traveled to the spaceship and she got a new body.

In the wake of Nettles death, Applewhite had become increasingly paranoid. He feared there was a conspiracy against the group. One member recalled that Applewhite didn’t get close to new recruits. He feared that the government was sending in infiltrators. The group increased focus on sexual suppression; Applewhite and seven others opted for castration.In Applewhite’s views sexuality is one of the most powerful forces that attached humans to their bodies. In the late 1980’s the group laid low as much as possible. Only few people knew it still existed. Then in October 1996 2 things happened. The comet Hale-bopp approached the earth. The other was the group renting a mansion in Rancho Santa Fe California and recorded 2 videos in which they offered their viewers one last chance to evacuate earth. Applewhite now believed that Nettles was aboard the spaceship trailing the comet coming to pick up the others. He stated to his followers that the deceased would be taken by the vessel. In March 1997 they isolated themselves and recorded their farewell messages. Then a mass suicide started on March 22nd. They took barbiturates and drank alcohol. Then they put bags on their heads. They wore nikes and all black uniforms that said Heaven’s Gate away team. 39 dead. It was one of the biggest group suicide since Jonestown in 1978. All I can think of is how this occurred? What do you guys think? If someone was compelling enough do you think you guys would follow without question? Even if it seemed wrong? Let me know. I’m all ears to hear what you guys think. Hopefully you guys like this. I’ll try to cover more cults more often. Bye for now.

[humansofhds]

The Rev. Judith Hoehler, BD ’58

“I had not intended to go on into a ministry. I really had intended to take a year out and go back into foreign service, but after I had been there for about six months studying, I knew that this was the place where I wanted to be. I felt my calling was in theology and ministry.”

Judy Hoehler is one the first seven women to enroll and receive a BD degree, which would later become the MDiv degree. She is also among the first denominational counselors at HDS, representing Unitarian Universalism.

A Time of Rejuvenation

Judy’s path to HDS began in South America. 

She explains, “I had been a Spanish major in college and had received a fellowship to do graduate work in Latin American studies at the University of Chile in Santiago. The more that I studied down there, the more I realized that the questions I was asking about how I wanted to spend the rest of my life were theological questions. And so, I decided to take a year off, since I was slated to go into foreign service, and go to divinity school, where I could address some of these issues.” 

In the spring of 1955, a friend encouraged Judy to apply to Harvard Divinity School. It was opening its doors to women for the first time that fall, and what was more, Paul Tillich was coming to HDS.

“It was going through a rejuvenation,” Judy explains, “and I thought it would be a very exciting place to study. I lived in Massachusetts, and my brother had gone to Harvard, and so, when I got home, I went and applied and was accepted as one of the seven first women.”

We Were Pathbreakers

When she arrived, Harvard had no dormitory space for women. Dean Douglas Horton and Mrs. Mildred McAfee Horton presented a solution. The Harvard Press building was undergoing renovations to become Jewett House, a home on Francis Avenue for the Dean, so the School had rented another house on Francis Avenue from the ambassador to India, Professor Galbraith, for the new dean and his wife.

Judy recalls, “It was a large house, and the Hortons very graciously opened two of the rooms to two of the woman students, and that was for Letty and for me.”

Shortly into the school year, Mrs. Horton held a tea for the seven women students at her home. Mrs. Horton was the former president of Wellesley and the founder the WAVES, the women's navy during the second world war, at President Franklin Roosevelt’s request.

“She had a tea for us because she thought we would benefit from hearing her experiences in breaking into an all-male bastion. It was a wonderful afternoon. All seven of us saw ourselves as breaking new ground.”

One example Judy recalls is the first day of classes, which was also the first day that morning prayers in Memorial Church’s Appleton Chapel were open to women.

“Up until that time, Radcliffe College students had been able to come to morning prayers, but they would have to sit in the main sanctuary of Memorial Hall and listen to the prayers through the choir screen. So Letty and I got up early. We were determined to be the first women to attend morning prayers, and we were the first women that day to get there. We later learned that George Buttrick, who was the university preacher that had come the spring before, had insisted that his wife be allowed to come to morning prayers, so in fact, she was the first woman. But Letty and I certainly saw ourselves as pathbreakers.”

Accepted Inside, Rejected Outside

When classes began, unlike Letty who had been a Bible major at Wellesley, everything was new to Judy.

“Every course opened up my mind to whole worlds that I had not been aware were there. I really was blessed with some superb lecturers, such as Tillich. Another plus that should not go unmentioned was the fact there were so many denominations, and eventually, world religions represented there. That was something that really did enrich education at Harvard.”

Judy and Letty fell in with a group of graduate students very early.

“They were all strongly in favor of women's education at the Divinity School. The faculty seemed very supportive. They seemed to not make a distinction, faculty such as Conrad Wright, George Williams, James Luther Adams, Paul Tillich, Richard Niebuhr, and Krister Stendhal. I felt very little prejudice at that time. If there was any, I was not aware of it. But Letty was. She spoke about it to me. Even after, I only noticed it in little subtle ways. For example, if we were in some discussion around a table and I said something, then later what I had said was brought up, it would be attributed to one of the male students. Other than that, I did not feel it.”

Both Letty and Judy did denominational work and met with much more prejudice in seeking ordination than either had at the School.

“In the 1950s there was a perception that the proper role for women in the church was in religious education or pastoral work rather than engaging in intellectual scholarship, theology, or official ordination.”

Even so, Judy applied for ordination in the American Unitarian Association, a very liberal denomination that had ordained quite a few women at the turn of the century. By the time Judy applied though, that had changed. There were only one or two women ordained, older women whom Judy knew.

“In my interview, I was told that I had a fine record, and I would do a good job, but unfortunately, since it was a congregationally run denomination, the congregations probably were not yet ready for women in leadership positions.”

Afterward, Judy compared interview notes with her classmate William Jones, who applied at the same time.

“It was interesting because we were both told the same thing, only his reason being that he was African American, and mine being a woman. William went on to become a professor of theology, and, of course, I went on to become a pastor, although it took a little while. It was not courage so much as a real desire to do ministry that allowed me to move forward. It was a passion to show churches that women could be pastors.”

Women Can Do the Work

There were two phases in the admission of women to Harvard Divinity School. The first was granting women access to the institution. The second was reckoning with the implications of women entering the conversation in terms of texts, doctrines, practices, and church history.

Judy explains, “The second stage happened after we left because the women's movement was just getting underway when we were students there. Our primary focus was on proving that women could do the work and women could, in fact, become pastors and theologians. I think we did succeed because Letty and I were the only two students to graduate with honors out of the 25 to 30 graduating students three years later in ‘58.”

Judy and Letty were also the only two of the first seven women to complete the three-year BD/MDiv program.

“It was an exciting time, particularly the textual criticism that was emerging called feminist works,” Judy recalls.

By the mid-1980s people like Clarissa Atkinson, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Phyllis Trible, and Letty Russell were all producing work looking at scripture, religious history, and theology from a female perspective.

“They were simply mining history from a different point of view. By the time I returned to Harvard in 1985 as an instructor in preaching and denominational counselor for Unitarian Universalism, more than half of the students were women. That was quite a remarkable change.

“I think the School should look back on the involvement of women, beginning in 1955, with pride, certainly. But with humble pride. It was a good thing that they opened admission to women, but seven women, or nine if you count two who were part time, in our entering class of over 120 was not a very big thing. HDS was not the first of the professional schools to do this at Harvard. However, once HDS decided to do it, they did it well.”

A 60-Year Co-Ministry

Attending HDS changed Judy’s life in many ways.

“I had not intended to go on into a ministry. I really had intended to take a year out and go back into foreign service, but after I had been there for about six months studying, I knew that this was the place where I wanted to be. I felt my calling was in theology and ministry.”

One moment that helped shape Judy’s future life and ministry was when she met Harry Hoehler, a Unitarian looking to enter the ministry. Harry and Judy eventually married, and Judy became a Unitarian bent on ministry as well.

“I was pregnant when I graduated, or very soon after. We had three children relatively close together, and so, I decided to put off ordination until the children were a little bit older. But I was doing a lot of work. In the early ‘60s, the women's movement was beginning to blossom, and I was doing a lot of lecturing in churches. Around ’65, I was on the first denominational committee that went around to Unitarian churches looking for new ministers and give them a training session. It was required before they could get names from the department of the ministry. It was about a day-long workshop on being open to calling women as pastors because by then, we were getting a number of very talented women into the Unitarian ministry as well as ministry in general.”

Judy identifies her “solid grounding in intellectual, academic theological and Biblical work” as one of the most important things she took away from HDS.

“It made writing sermons more central to my ministry because I began to see that the role of the pastor really is to interpret the scriptures for the contemporary scene, how one's faith was to be acted in the present time. That's certainly what governed all the lectures I did on women, women in society, and women in the church.”

She recalls, “As students, Letty and I used to complain, as did other classmates, about the fact that we really got your training by doing student work in little churches around the state. Although there were pastoral theology classes and so forth and the School was supposed to train you for the ministry, we felt there was not much training for it.

“I have to say, though, that through my years in the ministry, what has stood in good stead for me has been the very rigorous grounding that the faculty required of us in our courses in theology, church history, New Testament, Old Testament. That is something that stays with you. It whets your appetite so you continue studying, and working, and joining groups like the Boston Ministers Association, where you read papers to one another.

“I think that's really my greatest gratitude to the Divinity School. And the fact that the Divinity School was so open to the many branches of Christendom and ultimately of world religions. It led Harry and me to both be involved in interdenominational, interreligious work, through our whole ministry. It’s been 60 years that Harry and I have been in co-ministry, and it has been a very rich life, I must say.”

Edited by Natalie Campbell; original interview by Rich Higgins / Photos: Harvard Divinity Bulletin and Andover-Harvard Theological Library

[bountyofbeads]

https://amp.usatoday.com/amp/2354471001?__twitter_impression=true

A Heart-stopping School Shooting Ad: No child should have to text last words to mom.

The new Sandy Hook public service announcement is brutal but not gratuitous. It tells us we must not accept gun violence in our schools as inevitable.

SHARON BROUS AND JACQUI J. LEWIS, OPINION CONTRIBUTORS |  Published September 18, 2019 11:30 AM EDT | USA TODAY | Posted September 18, 2019 PM ET |

One of the great travesties of the gun violence culture in America is that after a mass shooting, once the news cycle moves on, it is those whose lives have been shattered, the survivors and victims’ family and friends, who are left to lead the fight to prevent future gun atrocities.

The standard-bearers for turning tragedy into transformation are the families who lost loved ones at Sandy Hook Elementary School, who have repeatedly emerged as voices of moral courage and clarity. Together, they created Sandy Hook Promise (SHP), dedicated to preventing gun violence and doing whatever they can to awaken the nation to the insanity of our gun addiction and the real toll it takes on real people, including too many real children.

Their new public service announcement is penetrating and unforgiving. It will make you profoundly uncomfortable — and it should. By mocking the ubiquitous back-to-school ads that characterize this time of year, they show the real face of gun violence in a country that last year had 110 school shootings, with 61 deaths. Think of that: Dozens of children who went to school to learn did not make it home at the end of the day. More than 228,000 students in the United States have lived through gun violence at school since Columbine in 1999.

School supplies as literal lifesavers 

The PSA is a heart-stopping twist on this “new normal,” where common back-to-school items, like new shoes, pencils and skateboards, become life-saving tools during a school shooting. It closes with a young girl crouched in a closet, weeping and trembling as she texts “I love you mom” into her new bedazzled phone, the shooter’s footsteps ominously approaching.

It’s brutal. But it’s not gratuitous. Their message: We must not accept that gun violence in our schools is simply inevitable. “Preventing school shootings and violence is the real ‘Back-to-School Essential’,” says Nicole Hockley, co-founder and managing director of SHP, whose 6-year-old son, Dylan, was killed in the 2012 massacre.

SHP has trained 7.5 million people  from Los Angeles  to  Miami-Dade County in its Know the Signs program, which has successfully averted multiple planned school shootings, teen suicides and other types of violence afflicting students across the country. These efforts have saved lives.

A depraved moral calculcus

Of course, it’s not only our schools under fire. Guns are used in murders, assaults, gender-based violence, unintentional shootings and suicide. The problem is rural and urban. Gun violence happens at home (living in a home with guns raises the risk of homicide by 40% to 170% and the risk of suicide by 90% to 460%). It happens at the mall, in the movie theater, at church and in synagogue.

Gun violence in America is a public health crisis.

Watch the PSA. It is vital that we — and our children — know the signs. That would go a long way in stopping many types of gun injuries and deaths, especially suicides, which are at epidemic proportions among teens. And at the same time, let’s not dare pretend that it’s the responsibility of our children, or their teachers, to keep themselves safe from gun violence.

After the Sandy Hook massacre, the whole world witnessed the National Rifle Association and its congressional allies manipulate the massacre into a commitment to loosen gun laws. They laid blame on mental illness, video games, broken families — everywhere but on the AR-15 and magazines used to murder those kids and teachers. They claimed that protecting gun ownership is more inviolate than protecting human life — a depraved moral calculus.

We need an assault weapons ban

You need a license to drive a car and get married. It’s long past time for a federal gun licensing program that would require not only comprehensive universal background checks but also that all guns be sold through licensed dealers. The Senate Background Checks Expansion Act,  introduced back in January, sits stalled because Republican leadership refuses to bring it to the floor for a vote. No matter our political affiliation, we must all insist this bill move through the process immediately.

Assault weapons and high-capacity magazines serve no purpose other than to kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible. They must be banned. Gun manufacturers must be held accountable for injuries resulting from use of firearms, just like automakers, tobacco companies and manufacturers of other consumer products made in the United States.  And we need federal funding to support community-based violence intervention programs, like Operation Ceasefire in Oakland, California.

These actions will make all of us, and our children, safer.

We are faith leaders, driven by the often difficult work of manifesting the divine dream in the midst of the violent realities all around us. We see the toll that gun violence takes on our communities, the sense of fear that pervades our streets and our institutions. We’re tired — we have been fighting this battle for decades already. But we will never abandon the brave families of the victims and the survivors, to do this work alone. We stand together so that no child ever has to hide in a supply closet, texting home “I love you mom.”

Share the Sandy Hook PSA.

Rabbi Sharon Brous is senior and founding rabbi of IKAR  in Los Angeles. The Rev. Dr. Jacqui J. Lewis is Senior Minister of Middle Collegiate Church in New York City. They are senior fellows at Auburn Seminary. Follow them on Twitter: @SharonBrous and @RevJacquiLewis 

[relatablemormonmoments]

Saturday Morning and Afternoon Session Talks

(Note, I listen to Conference rather than watch it, names are probably butchered.)

Ulysses S. Suarez

We need the help of a faithful and inspired teacher, but we also need to teach

Teach your sons and their sons in the ways of the Lord

We need to raise our families in the Lord

Emerse yourself in Scriptures

How do we put principles in the gospel into the actions of our lives?

Actions speak louder than words

Most of our critical spiritual decisions relate to family. (story of a single divorced mother rearing her children)

Mother should guide her children

God wants us back in his presence

Pros: Encourages closeness within our families and with the lord, Encourages us to consider our actions of faith

Cons: The Family A Proclamation to the World, Seemingly excludes those with a poor connection to their families or who converted without their families or whose families have fallen away

Becky Craven

"Happiness, $15" -> cheap trinkets and souvenirs

We as a church are blessed to know how to find true happiness

Car stuck on train tracks-> conductor pulls on emergency break + whistle -> people are able to escape but car is destroyed -> woman watching claims that conductor didn't even try to stop, didn't try to swerve out of the way.

Keep our wheels on the track no matter what obstacles are in our path

Casualness can lead us from the path

World is laiden with distractions, decieving even the elect

We may drown if we aren't careful.

Actions in the "grey" (the "howevers, buts, and althoughs") = "That council does not apply to me"

"If ye love me, keep my commandments"

Doesn't mean being formal or stuffy, but being appropiate

Be more engaged & careful & modest

For the Strength of the Youth applies to each of us (no matter our age, position, or gender)

We need to seek the guidance of the holy ghost

How can we mark ourselves in the Image of Christ?

The world calls us a "peculiar people" which is a large compliment.

We need to widen the distance between ourselves and our worldly influence

Gift of repentance

When you are worthy to recieve personal revelation, you will be blessed and happy

Pros: Gospel is guide to happiness, Doesn't claim that the only way to happiness is through temple marriage, Discusses what leads us from true happiness

Cons: The analogy to a train is nice but doesn't make sense with the rest of her story and implies that there is only one path to happiness, insinuates that temple marriage is part of the path to true happiness, doesn't offer any solutions to avoiding distraction.

Brook P. Hales

God blesses us according to our desires and to his infite wisdom

Scriptures teach us

Lord carefully leads us even if we can't see the results

Lord prepares ways to overcome obstacles before they can occur (Lost Plates and Nephi)

How can God answer us? ->1. Son recieved coat too small, gave it away to another missionary who had been praying for one because he could not afford it (through other people) 2. Joseph (and his coat od many colors) 's brothers sold him rather than killing him, leading to blessings for Egypt and eventual redemption of their family (through.. better circumstances?) 3. Son not hired for dream job, but would have missed a life changing opportunity had he been hired. (Through denying us our wants for eternal perspective)

Patricia Parkinson -> Began going blind at 7 years old, had to go away to boarding school (very home sick) -> Went fully blind at 15, returned home and went to regular highschool-> Eventually gained success at university and in life -> Had a procedure, but came out saying "I'm going to be blind for the rest of my life, I know it, you know it, God knows it." -> Nephew tells her to ask Heavenly Father because Heavenly father grants all of our wishes -> She explains that HF doesn't give us everything when we want it. -> Hales remarks that she's always positive and happy in public but struggles with herself, her disability, and God in private -> she sees that God's hand is in everything

If we keep our commandments, we are blessed by God, even if its not how we expect or want to be blessed.

Pros: Nice approach on how we can struggle with our faith when God doesn't answer us how we want, Good examples of how God does answer us and why he may answer us like that

Cons: Some Ableism in his story about Patricia, simply claims that God will bless us for following commandments

UCHTDORF!!!!!!

Airplanes take 3 hours between Rome and Jerusalem in the present (would take 40 days to travel that distance in Jesus' time)

Even though the church faces persecution, we continue to grow

Put growth into perspective ( A very small flock indeed)

GERMAN SHEPHERD

In some places, the church is shrinking

We must share the good news of the gospel!

How can we fill that great commision in our daily lives?

Share the gospel with friends and acquaintances

Some go out and declare it boldly, others are more hesitant and hide behind the pew when daily missionary work is mentioned, why?

Lord doesn't require expert efforts, but he does require a willing heart and mind

We can draw close to Heavenly Father, Fill our Hearts wirh love for others, and read our scriptures

By doing this we will become better, happier, more authentic

Pros: It's Uchtdorf, Airplanes mentioned, Even small efforts matter

Cons: Airplanes mentioned only once, Encourages a lot of proselytizing in day to day life, Many members are leaving church or going inactive, Really short talk :(

W. Christopher Weidell

His (nonmember) brother (Mike) had Pancreatic cancer, could see the temple from his hospital bed.

Mike became friends with the priesthood leaders, kept askin hc about the church

Mike joined the church and gained strength

Had no pulse when on day gaining Melchezidek priesthood, has pulse as soon as Weidell enters room, he lives to gain the priesthood, but dies 5 hours later.

It takes remarkable efforts to minister

Don't give up on a "Not Interested"-hearts change

Desire tonhelp others achieve deeper conversion

Serving others

Want others to reach divine potential

Sensitive to trials and struggles

We are encouraged to follow the guidings of the Holy Spirit

Trust the Lord

Focus on what's important

It's never too late, you'll never wander too far from the path

Never too soon to extend an invitation

There is always hope

Pros: Heartwarming story about brother, hope if you are inactive and want to come back, hope if yiy have friends or family who have left the church for various reasons

Cons: Influences those really aggressive ministerers to keep going at it, which can weaken someones already weak bond with the church, ITS REALLY SAD, I CRIED OK?

Henry B. Eyring

United as one is the feeling we want in our homes

Families

No contention due to love for God (4th Nephi)

Symptoms of Spiritual Decline TM - How can we protect and increase feelings of love to combat them

Underlying cause=Satan

Reverse spiritual decline in family and in home

Remember the savior as you remember thine sins

Praying as a family brings you closer together

Family who prays together is together, even when far apart

Offer the gospel to your enemies

Examples of Parents

Worry about Celestial Kingdom and the Family Arrangements will be more wonderful than you can imagine

Pros: Talks about strengthening family bonds, NOT ABOUT THE PROCLAMATION TO THE WORLD!!!, strengthen love for God=strengthen family, FOUND FAMILIES? NON NUCLEAR/TRADITIONAL FAMILIES? ?!?!, All you need is love, Love is all you need

Cons: May encourage abusive/extremist parents to shove gospel down childrens throats to "strengthen family" therefore pushing children away

M. Russel Ballard

Can't control what impacts our life, we can control how it impacts our happiness

Do the best we can each day

Heavenly Father loves you

Love God, Love Neighbors

Find peace and happiness in your life

We minister because we love others

Preform Temple ordinances

Keep it simple

Pros: Don't worry be happy, If you follow the commandments you will find happiness, Keep it simple (KonMarie LDS edition)

Cons: The whole we can control how it impacts our happiness doesn't include neurodivergent people, especially those with depression.

Mathias Held

Found a church (ours) where he felt at home

Personal growth, education, humanitarian efforts, self-reliance

Wanted to know everything about the church before joining

Mosiah 1:18

Confident that Heavenly Father would guide him

Through the power of the Holy Ghost we may know all things

Pros: Short and sweet, lists what attracts people to the church

Cons: May make some people in process of conversion feel left out or like they aren't on track/moving fast enough

Neil Anderson

God has given us a way to learn essential truths

See truths of God through the Eye of Faith

Spirit sons and daughters (AND CHILDREN, ELDER ANDERSON! AND CHILDREN!) lived with and worshipped god

We all knew God's plan for us

Prophets see ahead, not only the dangers, but the privileges and blessings

Faith, patience, and diligence

We are all part of a larger family

God will shine his approval on you

Pros: Its about the Plan of Salvation, Eye of Faith, We are all part of a larger family and should strive to help each other, I like the notion that the prophets are also seeing Good things because the world has been very much the bad place as of late..

Cons: I'm pretty sure this is the one where he mentions his LGBTQIA friend who was all like "we need to abandon the ways of the world and thus I be celibate" so... Slight homophobia maybe? I don't know I didn't write it down but a lot of people are bothered by this

Takashi Wada

Overcome darts of the Adversart

True feasting is an experience of joy and thanksgiving

Feasting on scriptures should build our relationship with God

Hearts filled with Gratitude

1. words of Christ increase spiritual capacity for revelation

2. when we struggle with our identity and self esteem, turn to the scriptures

3. live lives of others through the scriptures

A little boy handed Wada's mother a hymn book even though she coukd have easily accessed it herself, an innocent act of kindness he learned through the church and his parents

Hearts burn within us when we read the scriptures

Ye shall have eternity

Pro: This man??? so Sweet??? Hi I love him?, Very innocent stories, very funny.

Con: There is none. Perfect talk.

David P. Homer

"I'm sorry I didn't bear my testimony today, I love you"

1. Critical moments, multiple voices with competing directions, 2. Vital that we listen to the right one

We often focus on what's convenient

Popular =/= best

Mountain climbers' death zone= Spiritual too much time in bad places

Korihor

Impressions given by the Holy Ghost

Seek God's voice

Be doers of the word, not just hearers

Answers can be slow to come

Heavenly Father makes it possible to hear and follow his commandments.

Pro: His opening quote is really cute, Wow this is a call out talk

Con: You may feel called out if you don't follow commandments

Jeffery R. Holland

Adam and Eve closed door to immortality

Help comes from the Lamp of God

Offer broken heart and contrite spirit

Reduce clamor in our buildings

Be mindful of broken hearts and sad spirits around us

No shortage of suffering in the world

Lift load from those who are burdened

Bring tears to the Lord's Sacrificial Altar

Pros: calls people to acknowledge those who are hurt around us, calls people to stop using church for socialization

Cons: What is a Lamp of God?, How can we focus on broken hearts and contrite spirits without hurting them?

[scotianostra]

Donald Currie Caskie was born on May 22nd 1902 at Bowmore, Islay, his exploits during WWII earned him the nickname "The Tartan Pimpernel" 

The son of a crofter he was educated at Bowmore School and then Dunoon Grammar School before studying arts and divinity at the University of Edinburgh  graduating as a doctor of letters He became a minister, his first Kirk was at Gretna before being sent to the Scots Kirk in Paris in 1938.

When France fell in 1940, Donald Caskie was ministering to the Scots congregation in Paris. The arrival of the German troops in Paris closed down the Scots Kirk but not the work of its pastor.  

Joining the general exodus from Paris, Dr. Caskie made his way to Bayonne. From here he might have taken ship for home and freedom. In Bayonne, however, he felt that his work still lay in France; and he declined the passage offered to him. It was a courageous decision. Making his way to the unoccupied zone, he settled in Marseilles, becoming the superintendent of the Seamen’s Mission. Here, in conjunction with our own Secret Service, he maintained an escape organisation remarkable alike for its efficiency and audacity.

To the Seamen’s Mission came Allied soldiers and airmen in ever-increasing numbers. There they found care and concealment until, fitted out in appropriate fashion, they could be passed on along the route that led to home.  After the arrest to which his work was bound to lead, Caskie was imprisoned.  After the arrest to which his work was bound to lead, Caskie was imprisoned. The Vichy Police held him in Marseille after  "fellow Briton" betrayed him. Pastor Heuzé was one of many to be executed. Lack of evidence saved Caskie’s life for the first time; instead he received a suspended prison sentence and was ordered to leave Marseilles. This was partly helped by Caskie’s ability to speak Gaelic confounding his interrogators. 

Caskie headed for Grenoble, where he was employed by the university, and acted as a chaplain for interned British soldiers and resident civilians. The Germans later ordered that all British-born civilians in the occupied countries be interned in Germany; Caskie managed to influence an Italian commandant to release many of them. Caskie was arrested again and spent some time in Italian custody held in an old fortress prison. Being a man of god Caskie used his faith to keep him going, in his memoirs he wrote:

“When the guards rattled the bars of my cell and I went forward to take my crust and pan of water, I saw in the latter a fly scrambling to get out. I picked it out and set it on the floor… It crawled across the floor and I followed it to one of the walls where former prisoners had inscribed the honours roll of those who had passed through the Gethsemane of the Villa Lynwood. I was one of them. My nails were long and uncut and I recall the irony that filled my heart as I considered the claw of my right thumb. Carefully I inscribed my name and rank in the Church of Scotland in the hard plaster. The task finished, I observed my handiwork. It was, I flatter myself, quite a neat job. The roll was up to date. But I was a padre. Choosing a largish space on the plaster untouched by names, I wrote: ‘Thus saith the Lord… Fear not: for I have redeemed thee… I have called thee by thy name. Thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee; when thou walkest through the fire, thou shall not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee…’” 

After being transferred to German custody he found himself back in Paris, in special care of the Gestapo. Condemned to death by firing squad, only the last minute intervention of a German chaplain stays his execution and transferred him to the comparative security of a Prisoner of War camp.

He returned to Paris after the war to resume his work and wrote the book "The Tartan Pimpernel" telling his story,  it helped fund the post-war rebuilding of the Scots Kirk, making Donald Caskie a celebrity, he even featured on This Is Your Life in September 1959. 

Donald Caskie returned to Scotland in the early 1960s, serving at Old Gourock Church, Wemyss Bay and Skelmorlie and St Cuthbert's Church, Monkton. He died in Edinburgh in 1983. 

You can by his book either in print or on Kindle, prices start at £3.79 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tartan-Pimpernel-Donald-Currie-Caskie/dp/1843410354

[pamphletstoinspire]

A Great Catch: The 153 Fish

“I welcome you on the eve of a great battle.” So began General Dwight D. Eisenhower on May 15, 1944, solemnly addressing the admirals and generals and officers of the Allied Expeditionary Force, announcing the proposed strategy for Operation Overlord, codename for the Normandy invasion. Underestimated as an orator, Eisenhower’s speech riveted the attention of all in the tense atmosphere. The location was an unlikely one: a lecture hall of Saint Paul’s School in London. The boys had already been evacuated to Berkshire during the Blitz. The top brass, who had arrived from the advance command post of the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Forces at Southwick House in Hampshire, were seated on school chairs, with two armchairs occupied by King George VI and Prime Minister Winston Churchill. General Bernard Montgomery, the future Field Marshall, brought out his maps to show the British and American positions. The school served as headquarters of the XXI Army Group under Montgomery, and he felt at home there because he was an Old Pauline. Planning took place in the office of his old Headmaster, or High Master, which was the title used from the day of the school’s foundation in 1509 by John Colet.

As a close friend of Erasmus, and an even closer spiritual advisor to Thomas More, Colet was the epitome of a Renaissance humanist, laden with learning he had brought back from France and Italy for lectures in his own university at Oxford. More lured him back to his birthplace of London where his father had been a rich merchant and twice Lord Mayor. As Dean of Saint Paul’s cathedral, Colet put his reforming principles to work with eloquent imprecations against the pride, concupiscence, covetousness, and worldly absorptions that had tainted the priesthood. Archbishop Warham of Canterbury dismissed frivolous charges of heresy brought against Colet by offended clerics. Colet’s combination of charm and audacity engendered the respect even of Henry VIII, despite his bold preaching against the king’s French wars. As a priest with no children of his own, and no nieces or nephews because all twenty-two of his siblings had died in childhood, Colet devoted much of his inherited fortune to founding Saint Paul’s school for teaching 153 boys literature, manners, and, with Renaissance flair, Greek on a par with Latin. Erasmus said that when Colet lectured he thought he was hearing a second Plato. If so, his Platonism was Christian. He wanted a great catch, similar to the 153 fish that the apostles had hauled in at the command of the Risen Christ. The boys would be welcome “from all nations and countries indifferently.”

The catch was great indeed, and since then the school has turned out graduates including, just for starters: John Milton, Samuel Pepys, John Churchill, G.K. Chesterton, three holders of the Victoria Cross, and the astronomer for whom Halley’s comet is named — all rising from the first 153.

Exegetes, sometimes with too much time on their hands, and even earnest saints, have teased 153 and other numbers into signifying possibly more than their meaning. Jerome tried to find some significance in the fact that the second-century Greco-Roman poet Oppian listed 153 species of fish in his 3,500 verses about fishing, the “Halieutica,” dedicated rather sycophantically to the emperor Marcus Aurelius and his son Commodus. Of course, Oppian was wrong in his counting; besides, he wrote after the compilation of the Gospel. Augustine found that 153 is the sum if the first seventeen integers, which may reveal nothing more than his skill at arithmetic. In his devotion to the Rosary, Louis de Montfort found something prophetic between the catch of Galilean fish and the sum of fifteen decades of Hail Mary’s plus the first three beads.

There may be no end to such agile mental exercises, and I once wrote a book — Coincidentally — rather whimsically illustrating how it is possible to detect endless matrices if you try hard enough. For example, faddish New Age fascination with the esoteric numerology of Kabbalah cultism can strain minds. It may not have been a helpful influence on the popular singer who gave millions of dollars to a Kabbalah institute and recently was confined to a mental health facility purportedly against her will. Carl Jung wrote at some length about what he termed “synchronicity” and warned that an obsession with “acausal principles” could unbalance reason. Yet even a detached observer might pause at the fact that the Sacred Tetragrammaton appears 153 times in Genesis.

The point here is that there are many levels of meaning in divine revelation that may be clues to the operation of Divine Providence. “For I know the plans that I have for you, plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope” (Jer. 29:11). Even our limited mathematics may articulate something of the symmetry by which the pulse of Creation may be taken: “‘To whom then will you compare Me, or who is My equal?’ says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who has created these things, who brings out their host by number” (Is. 40:25). Perception of this saves the saints from madness and inspires them to awe.

Contemplation of the unity of the True God and True Man encounters layers of reality beyond the comprehension of human intelligence. Nonetheless, we can perceive the existence of those dimensions. A “Participatory Anthropic Principle,” first forwarded by John A. Wheeler, suggests that the universe is structured with a set of physical constants or “cosmic coincidences” without which there would be no intelligent life on Earth, and that it is only by participating in that structure by rational perception that the constants or coincidences have their potency. So there may be in those 153 fish the Voice saying: “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now” (John 16:12).

It would be a mistake to suppose that the apostles went back to fishing in disobedience to the Master’s command years before that they drop their nets and follow him. Christ is the Alpha and Omega, meaning that he is able to know everything from start to finish at the same time. Before the Resurrection, Jesus told the apostles that they would meet a man in Jerusalem carrying a pitcher of water, from whom they would rent an Upper Room: “So they went and found it just as Jesus had told them (Luke 22:13).” Thus he was also able to “set up” his men, ordering them to go to the Sea of Tiberius, knowing what he had prepared for them there, in order to instruct them.

In his humanity he did a domestic thing in cooking breakfast. In his divinity he predicted what the apostles would become. Whatever else may be encoded in the number 153, the fact is that this event happened, for had it been an oriental myth there would have been a million fish. This number was a detail never to be forgotten. Even when the youngest of them, the cadet of the Twelve, was the last to survive and his mind was weary with age, he said with a thrill like that of a youth: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life” (1 John 1:1).

There is one thing we know that prevents miniaturizing Christ as the best of men but only a man: “For in Him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together” (I Col. 16-17). In him was an urgent appeal to the intellect, which for the Jew was a function of love and not confined to the brain, as is clear in the Resurrection appearance to Cleopas and his companion on the Emmaus road: “O foolish ones, how slow are your hearts to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” (Luke 24:25-26). Here was the culmination of his earlier rabbinical catechesis: “‘Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don’t you remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?’ ‘Twelve,’ they replied. ‘And when I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?’ They answered, ‘Seven.’ He said to them, ‘Do you still not understand?’” (Mark 8: 18–21).

The unseen calculus that fascinated Oppian when counting fish in coastal Cilicia much more amazed William Blake when describing an imagined “Tyger” which certainly was not rampant in London: “What immortal hand or eye / Could frame thy fearful symmetry?” If there is substance to some anthropic principle in the play of numbers, it is found in the fact that after the 153 fish had been dragged to shore, a small fire was burning as Jesus asked Peter three times if he loved him. And Peter wept in remembering that by another small fire in Jerusalem he had said three times that he never knew the Man.

BY: FR. GEORGE W. RUTLER

From: www.pamphletstoinspire.com

[revlyncox]

Deeds That Beckon

This sermon was drastically revised from a previous version to fold in a discussion about how individualism and paternalism -- two hallmarks of white supremacy culture -- affect the way we understand our religious history. We must unpack that history in order to repair the damage that is our heritage and claim the positive mission of justice and kindness that is also our heritage. Delivered to the UU Church of Silver Spring, November 25, 2018, by the Rev. Lyn Cox.

As Unitarian Universalists, we need stories that help us, on an emotional and metaphorical level, understand who we are and how to live in the world. Our history provides those myths. Stories about admirable Unitarian Universalists are grown from seeds of historical accuracy, yet they are family stories. When we study our prophetic ancestors and take up the path of service in our own generation, we are becoming part of that mythic story.

The seminary I attended invited us into one such story. My school was named after Thomas Starr King, a minister who served both Universalist and Unitarian congregations in the 1840s through the 1860s. He got a lot done. Thomas Starr King was about five feet tall. One of his famous quotes is, “though I weigh only 120 pounds, when I am mad I weigh a ton.”

As a nature writer, he persuaded people of the importance of preserving places like the White Mountains of New Hampshire and Yosemite Valley in the West. His accounts were published in the Boston Evening Transcript. He has two mountains named after him, one in New Hampshire and one in California’s Sierra Nevada.

He helped the Unitarian church in San Francisco grow into their mission as a vital congregation involved in the life of the city. Starr King was a vocal abolitionist. When the Civil War broke out, he traveled up and down California, speaking to everyone from miners to legislators about joining the Union instead of the Confederacy or trying to become a separate country.

When I lived in California and walked the hills of San Francisco, sometimes I would think, “If Thomas Starr King could hike up the mountains, I can, too.”  Visiting Yosemite, I could see his point about the landscape being the scenic equivalent of Beethoven’s ninth symphony. Acts of service are like moveable temples, places where we can go to greet the spirits of our beloved ancestors, both blood ancestors and chosen ancestors.

Individualism and White Supremacy Culture

The story of Thomas Starr King can function as a UU religious story, bringing connection and inspiration, and a way to enter the story through acts of service. Even so, it’s worthwhile to go back and take another look at the stories that are important to us through the lens of white supremacy culture.

White supremacy culture is a system of oppression that uses everything from social norms to cultural narratives to corporate policy to federal law to maintain the privilege of one group over all other groups. White supremacy functions even in the absence of people who self-identify as racists. By design, the power and operating rules of white supremacy are unnoticed by most of the people who benefit from it.

Even when we have a story about someone like Thomas Starr King, who dedicated his life to causes like ecological preservation and abolition of slavery, we have to ask ourselves about what ways the form of the story we are telling upholds white supremacy culture. Sometimes oppression is baked in from the beginning, with our admired ancestors working against justice in certain facets while making progress in other facets. Sometimes the white supremacy culture is in our retelling, in the details we emphasize or the details we forget.

Tema Okun from the organization dRworks has published a guide to recognizing fifteen characteristics of white supremacy culture. Okun focuses on the unspoken norms that maintain the status quo, even in organizations devoted to justice. There is a lot to unpack in it, so I’d like to focus on one characteristic now and one a little later in the sermon. https://collectiveliberation.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/White_Supremacy_Culture_Okun.pdf

One of the characteristics of white supremacy culture that Okun describes is individualism. Organizations that are under the influence of individualism have difficulties with working in teams. Individuals believe they are responsible for solving the problems of the organization alone. There is an emphasis on individual recognition and credit, leading to isolation and competition. Few resources are devoted to developing skills in how to cooperate.

The way we UU’s typically tell the story of Thomas Starr King is steeped in individualism. He did do important things, but a lot of his impact was through organizing and teamwork, and those are the strategies that are hard to replicate based on the mythology that we carry on in his memory. He didn’t just go around preaching on street corners, he traveled to speak with and work with coherent groups of people from different social classes and walks of life. He made a difference because of the way he was able to get outside his comfort zone and work with teams, not by his preaching skills alone.

The way history is taught and discussed in general is susceptible to this pitfall, and the way we talk about Unitarian Universalist history in particular is vulnerable to individualism. Sometimes our quick introductions focus on famous Unitarian Universalists, trying to make our religious movement more familiar by reminding people of its famous adherents.

One of the most famous UU’s is Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wrote an essay called “Self-Reliance” in 1841. In his memory, I worry that Unitarian Universalism has taken individualism to a place that limits our mutual accountability and our responsibilities to the most vulnerable among us. I appreciate Emerson’s healthy skepticism toward the way things have always been done. Emerson’s suggestion that sometimes social expectations are not the most important value is important for our anti-racism work, because you have to push back on politeness at least a little bit if you are challenging white supremacy. And. It is important not to let our admiration for Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” prevent us from being in covenant with each other, being loving in our truth-telling, and opening ourselves up to learning new ways of cooperation.    

Contrast the image of Emerson as a poet who stands apart, an individualist hero, with what we know about another writer, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. Harper was born into a family of free Black educators in Baltimore in 1825. She joined the First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia in 1870, and also maintained her membership in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Like Emerson, Williams wrote poems, essays, and lectures. She also wrote short stories and novels. Like Emerson, she wrote about personal development and used her writing to promote social causes. Unlike Emerson, Harper also wrote about responsibility to the community, and she practiced it in concrete ways. In her 1855 article, “A Factor in Human Progress,” she spoke of “the science of a true life of joy and trust in God, of God-like forgiveness and divine self-surrender.” Harper worked in her community feeding the poor and mentoring youth. She was part of several groups who moved toward progress together, for women’s suffrage and for Black suffrage, against lynching, for peace. We learn from her legacy that a writer can be a literary voice and also be a leader who encourages cooperation, solidarity, and true relationship with the people who are most impacted by oppression.

Individualism has its good points, yet there is more to Unitarian Universalist history and more to our current character and potential than we can access through that doorway alone. Hyper-individualism maintains white supremacy culture when it prevents us from getting outside ourselves and building relationships with interfaith partner and community partner organizations. Hyper-individualism privileges the lone dissenter to the point where it is hard to put personal preferences aside so that congregations can work one one thing together. Hyper-individualism leads us to celebrate only the heroic faces of social justice, forgetting to gather in those who are called to work behind the scenes. There is a place in this congregation, this faith, and in the movement for people with many different talents and ways of being. As we study the past, may we celebrate the groups and movements as well as the superstars, knowing that progress is a team effort.

Deeds That Beckon Us To Be Transformed

In addition to individualism, another characteristic of white supremacy culture we can explore in our UU history is paternalism. Paternalism is a cultural norm in which “those with power think they are capable of making decisions for and in the interests of those without power” (Okun). This characteristic is tricky, because paternalism can feel like compassion, yet there are times when paternalism got in the way of true progress. Impact is more important than intention.

If we want a positive example of accountable, grounded, not-paternalistic leadership in our UU history, consider Fannie Barrier Williams. She was an organizer, lecturer, journalist, artist, and musician. She was born in 1855 to one of the few Black families in Brockport, New York. She is most famous for her work in Chicago, where she belonged to All Souls Unitarian Church. Williams made strides in integration through the establishment of the Provident Hospital, joining the Chicago Woman’s Club, and serving on the Board of the Chicago Public Library. She also worked within the African American community. She helped start the National Association of Colored Women, which, through their 200 local clubs, provided child care centers, classes, employment bureaus, and savings banks. There are models among our UU ancestors that disrupt paternalism, if we seek them out.

The compassion that gets mixed up with paternalism might be a good impulse that gets misdirected. So let’s start with what’s good. Being true to compassion means meeting challenges and growing from them, allowing our minds and hearts to be transformed.

Dorothea Dix found that out when she entered the East Cambridge Jail as a teacher in 1841. Dix was horrified by what she saw. The jail was unheated. All of the residents were housed together: people who had been convicted of crimes, people with mental illness, children with developmental disabilities, all mixed together in unfurnished, unsanitary quarters. The only thing the residents had in common was that society had given up on them.

Using her contacts in Boston, Dix got a court order for heat and other improvements at the jail. She then set about a systemic investigation of jails and almshouses in Massachusetts, making personal visits to document conditions. She said, “what I assert in fact, I must see for myself.”  She read about mental illness and treatment and interviewed physicians. She gave her data to a politically connected friend who presented her findings to the Massachusetts legislature. After some attempts at denial and misdirection, funding came through to modernize the State Mental Hospital at Worcester. Dix followed the same pattern in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Hospitals sprung up in her wake.

OK, so all of that is great; however, in our continuing efforts at health care reform and mental health care and accessibility, we would need to do things differently today. Dorothea Dix did try to understand the experience of the people who were most impacted by incarceration, but she did not hold that all people have equal inherent worth. For instance, she did not think that slavery was wrong, she thought that white people were actually superior to Black people. She also harbored prejudice against Roman Catholics, and she regarded people with mental illness as helpless. Compassion is good. Deciding that you and people like you have to take leadership in compassionate change because you are better than the people you want to help is problematic.

Today, trying to undo the legacy of paternalism, we are called support the leadership and voices of the people who are most impacted. We can work with coalitions led by people who are formerly incarcerated and their families. We can support organizations like ADAPT, led by people with disabilities; the organization is even now fighting for the right of people with disabilities to live in the community rather than in institutions. The legacy of paternalism gives a heroic glow to our ancestors who struggled for others, but it is time for us to learn new skills of struggling alongside neighboring communities, learning how to accept the leadership of people who know the most about the issues they are facing.

   The path of service spurs us to many kinds of transformation. We meet challenges and build skills we didn’t have before. We gain awareness of a timeless spiritual truth, which is our oneness. Reflecting on history and our own experience, taking in the lessons of dismantling individualism and paternalism, the transformation that compassion brings becomes a spiritual as well as an ethical reality.

Conclusion

Collective kindness is a tradition worth growing. Role models from UU history and from our own congregation help us to place ourselves on a path with a past, yet a path where we have a choice going into the future. The practice of compassion is a tradition we receive, nurture, and share with the next generation. May we find our place in the mythic story of UUism. May we be transformed. May we come to new understandings of our past and our future. So be it. Blessed be. Amen.

[pooma-bible]

Olusola Babarinde

Nigeria

Praise God. It's study time. Hallelujah

Father we are grateful once again for another study time. Lord we pray that you will manifest your power today as we look into your word, in Jesus name we pray. Amen..

Topic:-God's Eden for you that you mostly avoid ignorantly.

From today, you will stop complicating your life for yourself in Jesus name. This teaching is eyes opener. May God use it to help us all. *God's Eden for you that you mostly avoid ignorantly.* May God correct our lives where we all have missed it one way or the other in Jesus name.

Eden is the place of:

1. God's Presence

2. God's Provision

3. God's Protection

4. God's Power

That was where God placed Adam. He was there and he had all of God for himself. But when he disobeyed the instruction of God, he was sent out of Eden. And since then, God placed Angels to monitor the garden, so that nobody could access the physical tree of life that is therein. But do you know something? God has Eden for each and everyone of us. But majority of us don't know. There is Eden for you, That God ordained for you, But many of us are ignorant of it. The Eden for now for everyone as revealed to me is God's will..: When you are where God wants you to be, doing what he wants you to do,at the time he ordained, then you are in Eden, and you will have Eden's experience.

Life ought not to be a complicated thing, we complicate it for ourselves, when we decide without God. Think about this explanation;

Tolu wanted Admission. In God's plan, he should go to Amodu Bello University Zaria, so that the future president could be his course mate. But his dad had connection in University of Ilorin. And you know that University of lorin calendar is faster than Amodu Bello University. So they influenced it, and he went to University of Ilorin. He graduated on time truly, but then he had missed the opportunity of being a friend to future president, who would had made him a minister or adviser..

Some of us, it is service, so when you were posted to that state, you redeployed to another state, not knowing what God had in stock for you in that state, then you missed all the goodness that God planned for your life just because you failed to know God's will. Some of us even influenced the posting even before the call up letter came, because we were ignorant of God's plan..

If you are already 25 years or let me say above 20, and you have never benefitted from your:

1. Past friendship

2. Colleagues

3. Fellow believers

Then you have not been following divine path. If all people you know are those at the back seat of life or those struggling like yourself, then it's obvious that you have not been following God's leading.

And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him. John 8:29.

Listen to the following: Your human helpers are on the divine path. Your Angels are on the divine path. Your helps are on the divine path, When you miss it, the life will be out of order, Don't miss the divine path. This thing that you can't point to any of your friends that had made it is not something to overlook ooo, Why should you only have affinity with the poor? Why should all your own colleagues be roadside mechanics? *Why should all those you know should be those whose life count less in eternal purpose of God?* The answer is not far fetch, You have followed another path, I have told myself and I'm reminding myself now, and am saying it for the benefit of others, When I have children very soon, I will ask God for their names, if he has not told me ahead.

Then I will need to know their mission, l will not just put them in school when it is time, God must guide me, If God guides you on putting your children in school, he will really lead you well, you won't place them in a school where most of the children will grow up to become armed robbers. All these things matter, But we mostly overlook them, It takes unveil face to see God's will, : I remembered been I posted to Benue state for NYSC in 2015.. It was when Fulani focused on Benue for this killing that they are now doing nationwide, It never crossed my mind to even change the state became I knew my life was in God's plan. Many things happened in the camp. Evangelism. I preached to the camp commandant in her office. With two other Brothers from peace house. The woman collected my number, She was amazed, Then we left camp. I was posted to a very fine village, No water, We were drinking river water, The same river is where we do have our bath, And we drink same water. That my single obedience of not changing my state and primary place of assignment Had fetched me over a million naira from a source among people I met there..

You see, we complicate our lives by thinking we are wise..Where you should be is where God wants you to be. Your Eden is God's will: Something so peculiar about God's will is God's presence. And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him. John 8:29. Relationship has blessings. Not only relationship with God but also with right people. But when your relationship with God is normal, God will be leading and connecting you with right people Let me quickly address this also Is not that everybody reading this that had not met tangible people in life, But you know what?

Some of us hurt them those days not knowing that, we were injuring our future helped, Since I became a Christian, God thought me to be careful about how I treat people. You can't know me, and you become wealthy and not feel like helping me. Is not possible. You know why? You can't remember me harming you Or doing you evil, But you see that our sister, she can abuse a deaf to the point that the deaf will know that he is the one been abused. You have wounded all your potential helpers. Then you are now stranded. You better start treating people well. Be of good character. Being pompous won't help you. You will only be blocking road for yourself.

Eden is God's will, Eden is good character. Eden is also a good character. God wants you to live well. Keep good relationship, Don't be touchy, Don't be aggressive. Don't be unforgiving, Don't be lousy, Don't be arrogant, Keep good relationship, It will help, Not only money is the gain of being where God wants you to be, You will meet people who will be praying for you. I know people we met in service, Who are praying for me, Interceding for me, Who call me to pray for me, Many benefits. That village now, after two crusades held there, had experienced a dramatic transformation.

May God help us all to accept his will. Amen

1. Can you plead for forgiveness, Where you have avoided the will of God, On academics, Location, Friendships

Where have missed your will due to disobedience, forgive me Lord..

2. Lord help me to start experiencing Eden on earth henceforth..

Closing prayer:

Lord we come tonight, have mercy on us, We will no longer have our way: But we shall be submitting to your will, Lord we pray that you will help us. Lord we pray that you help us to be of good character. So that people can be pleased to help us. If anyway we have done anything bad to someone or people and they are wounded already. Lord we pray that you minister to them, and move them to forgive us. Henceforth, make us of best character in Jesus name Thank you for answering us. In Jesus name we pray. AMEN

[newstfionline]

A Pastor Pushes Forward as a Drought Threatens His Town and His Church

By Rick Rojas, NY Times, Oct. 7, 2018

WEE WAA, Australia--The Rev. Bernard Gabbott bumped along on a road so remote the asphalt had given way to gravel, heading out to see a farmer who had been working seven days a week, straining to keep his cattle and sheep fed.

He pointed to an empty patch of earth. The farmer had plowed it to plant as pasture for his livestock, but instead, the afternoon wind kicked up clouds of dust.

“It’s been like that for months,” Mr. Gabbott said as he pulled up to a small farmhouse.

When he arrived nearly a decade ago in Wee Waa, a small town surrounded by scrubby farmland, Mr. Gabbott’s mission seemed straightforward. He was the vicar of the town’s small Anglican parish. His job was to bring people to Jesus.

But now, he has found himself wrestling with a far more complicated reality. With the worst drought in decades threatening a way of life in Australia’s rural communities, he has become a one-man support system for earthly concerns.

He is a counselor, a social worker, and a philanthropist drawing from his own modest funds. At times, he provides solace; in other moments, he must convince hard-pressed families to set aside their pride and accept vouchers for the grocery store.

The repercussions from the drought--now affecting a stretch of Australia larger than Texas--seem almost biblical. There was the town swarmed by famished emus searching for food. The crops overrun by feral camels migrating toward water. Around Wee Waa, it has been the kangaroos invading soccer fields and crowding roadsides after dark, their carcasses littering the pavement in the morning.

But the consequences have been especially brutal for livestock farmers, who have been forced to sell off stock and take on mountains of debt. Hanging over everything else is the specter of harder times to come, leading many to reckon with the potential devastation of their livelihoods and their communities.

“I think there are two droughts going on,” Mr. Gabbott said.

The farms are endangered. So is the town.

Wee Waa, a onetime cotton capital a few hundred miles northwest of Sydney, is one of many rural communities in a part of Australia enduring its driest year since 1965. Scientists have shown that climate change makes Australia’s droughts more severe, but many farmers said the cause matters less than their immediate needs.

Mr. Gabbott introduced Ron Pagett, 75, a lifelong farmer with thousands of acres on the edge of the Pilliga Scrub, an expanse of scruffy woodland. Mr. Pagett, 75, has lived through other droughts, but he figures it will take years to stagger back to profitability from this one.

A truck pulled up to the house with boxes of canned goods, and Mr. Pagett sighed. “Surely,” he said, “they can find someone poor to give that to.”

Mr. Gabbott said it was a response he heard often: farmers refusing charity, playing down their troubles.

More than $1 billion dollars have been made available by officials to support agriculture. More recently, the prime minister, Scott Morrison, Australia’s first Pentecostal leader, has urged the nation to pray for rain.

It’s a common refrain. Here in the sweep of Australian farming country, where land is measured by the thousands of acres and the horizon consists almost entirely of different shades of brown, there has been a flood of entreaties for divine help--at dinner tables, in schools, at gatherings of friends.

“We pray for your mercy in sending soaking rain,” Mr. Gabbott said, praying at a regular Bible study at home, “that really replenishes the land and restores the country.”

He is a convert to rural life. Mr. Gabbott, who is gregarious and quick to laugh, grew up in Sydney, the son of missionaries. He had a brief career in politics working with the conservative National Party before entering the ministry.

For nearly a decade, he has lived in a century-old house behind the church, where his wife home-schools their children--Seth, 12; Baxter, 9; Elsa, 6; and Sage, 4.

The shiplap walls are covered with stickers, family portraits and a timeline of Australian history that stretches across the kitchen. There is no television, but overstuffed bookshelves are everywhere.

The parish owns the house, and Mr. Gabbott said he couldn’t afford to buy his own if he wanted to. He and his wife, Anita, could probably earn far more if they moved; they have a half-dozen university degrees between them.

“We would live nowhere else,” he said. “I don’t think we’ve sacrificed a thing.”

Even before the rain stopped falling, Mr. Gabbott, 43, could see the families moving away and the shops on the main street emptying as farms needed fewer workers and residents were drawn to bigger cities. He could sense the apathy that pervaded Wee Waa, a town of about 2,000 people.

The drought has only accelerated that decline. It’s tugging on the community’s already-fraying fabric, imperiling the entire town.

He has tried to hold together what he can. He assembles a slice of the community on Sundays, when he stands at the front of his brown-brick sanctuary in the center of town, reads from the gospel and delivers sermons that, as some of his congregants joke, he takes his sweet time to unspool.

But these days, most of the work comes during the week. He is a constant presence in Wee Waa, dashing around in a T-shirt and sneakers. (Long distance running is his diversion from ministry).

“I’ve got six days off,” Mr. Gabbott said. “I think that’s the common myth in town.”

Most of the people he encounters will never join him at church. Instead they drop by his office--his regular corner booth at the town bakery. Or they listen to him teach scripture at school or they run after him as he crosses the street, asking to borrow his car, which he lends them, even though last time it was returned badly dinged.

Sometimes, in his “existential moments” as he puts it, he questions if he’s effective. He has noticed a slight uptick in church attendance but the offering is dwindling. In nine years, he has converted one person, a cotton farmer he reads the Bible with every Monday.

Now, he said, his church might not make it: It’s just months away from not being able to afford his wage.

“I don’t know if we made any change or difference in town,” he said, sitting in his house one afternoon. “Someone shared with me, I think it’s an urban myth, but 80 percent of ministers who quit in America go into construction because you’ve got something to show at the end of the day.”

When Mr. Gabbott was in Bible college training for a rural church, another pastor gave him some advice. Learn how to work on a farm.

A family paid him $1,000 for 10 days of work, and then he kept at it.

Over time, he found that, out on the land, men would open up, their minds distracted, their eyes focused on the job at hand rather than the person they were talking to.

“You have very different conversations with men at the dinner table and in the paddock,” said Kaylene McClenaghan, who became close with Mr. Gabbott’s family while he worked on her family’s farm. “Bernard took that to heart.”

In small towns like Wee Waa, the figures who are pillars in community life--teachers, police officers, pastors--are often just paying their dues and passing through. “It often takes people a long time to trust who’s there,” Ms. McClenaghan said.

Mr. Gabbott’s willingness to hang around has changed him, and Wee Waa. He offered funerals as evidence. He averages one a week, and many of the deceased were never regulars in his pews. Yet they requested him. Even Catholics in town have asked to have their funerals in his church with him presiding.

The strength of that bond has made a decision about his future all the more agonizing. He does not want to leave his parish without a pastor. He does not want to leave Wee Waa.

[eternalloveheart]

Morality: God or man?

I started reading the book “What if the bible never existed” by Dr Kennedy. He explores the importance of the bible by its impact on the world. I am only a few chapters in so far just wanting to bring out my thoughts and the quotes I pulled that made me think. I am pretty much summarizing my take on the points of the first few chapters. I will be making more posts on this book with different points. I know this is a blog so I am not making this into some kind of academic essay just posting the aftermath of my reading.

God or man’s?

There are many reasons we cannot officially have a moral code without God. One main “reason you can’t have morality without religion is not that can’t draw up a common code of ethics. It is that without an external authority, most people will not follow it. Now, I will grant that the humanists have drawn up a code, and they have gotten some people to follow it” (Dr Kennedy, page 435).

Brute force

It seems one of the easiest successful ways to get people to conform to a set of moral rules is by religion. A main problem is being human we know that everyone is capable of just as much evil as us if not more with no true claim to some high ground. I have personally asked some atheists how one might go about ensuring morality with those who do not agree with them such as sociopaths who have no empathetic compass. I explained that religion has helped a sociopath namely David Wood turn from his murderous ways to live a life for God. I wait attentively for a response only to hear the atheist respond with the words “brute force”.

It is difficult to use of brute force as it often leads to tyranny and rebellions. I am taking a policing course where we overview policing history. History shows it only aggravates the people further when more force was involved such as military intervention. It went against the human desire for a decent amount of liberties and rights (which even a sociopath would desire). In the Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology, and Police Science, Vol. 55 by J. L Lyman from the Northwest university of Law there is a review of historical mistakes using force against one’s citizens. In the journal it mentions the way the law enforcement was so hated it was inefficient in stopping crime which in turn had crime running more rampant. The journal states that “by 1828 one person in every three hundred and eighty-three was a criminal” in London. The method of “brute force” had worsened the situation as it never got to the core of the problem.

Reasoning

I assume not everyone would have immediately jumped to “brute force”. I think some may have even thought of just reasoning with people. I mean someone has to be able to convince if not through force or empathy that one should dogmatically follow a moral code. I do not just mean sociopaths I include anyone with opposing views of morality. I have to concede everyone has their own views of morality whether right or wrong.

In recent times “the president of the Yale University in a meeting of university professor and educators. He said that we need a new renaissance of education and morality in American colleges. You would think he would have been applauded. But he was booed! They hissed. They asked ‘Whose morality, professor, are you going to impose upon them?” He couldn’t answer the question (Dr. Kennedy, page 482). His ideas might have been the most perfect ideas in the world. It did not matter because no matter how perfect his moral is the human heart is just so full of its own evil. It will not listen to reasoning because it does not care for reasoning based upon their own moral reasoning.

So what if he got a chance to speak would anyone have listened? No one cares what anyone or any group claims is moral. “Charles Darwin knew this. He said it was a horrid thought to realize that all of his speech may have no more significance or meaning than the babbling of a monkey. He said, ‘Would anyone trust the conviction of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?” (Dr. Kennedy, page 506).

It is a hard pill to swallow to admit only God is righteous enough, powerful enough, efficient enough, knowledgeable enough, loving enough and so on to sustain a moral code. God even offers this moral code yet again to those who have broken it with a renewing of his mercies.

Born in sin

So if God is so great why is not everyone just following Him? The heart being born in sin wants to refuse the law for himself and have the laws imposed on others. It is where hypocrisy and double standards arise. I mean having the mental capacity to measure fairness and justice while having fleshly overruling savagery sins.

“Huxley was the most prestigious evolutionary scientist in the world at the time. The interviewer asked him, “Why do you think that evolution caught on so quickly?” Huxley began, “We all jumped at The Origin [The Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin] because . . .” Now if you ask a high school science class to finish that sentence, what do you think the students would say? They would say, “The reason we jumped at The Origin of Species was that the evidence amassed by Darwin was so intellectually compelling that scientific integrity required that we accept it as fact.” That is not what Huxley said. Rather, I heard him say, “[ I suppose the reason] we all jumped at The Origin [was] because the idea of God interfered with our sexual mores.” I almost fell out of my chair! What does that have to do with science? (Dr. Kennedy, page 692).

It seems like the same problem all over again with no one caring about absolute morality when they care too much for their own morality. This time it is different when we peak behind the veil. God makes a promise to those who seek Him diligently in Ezekiel. Ezekiel 36:26-28 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God.

Change

Before we go any further we must consider historical ways people have tried to impose change in the human heart. I know not all have tried “brute” force or “reasoning”. I must admit some have tried changing the environment to help people flourish into their best selves with the hope of fostering perfect peaceful moral.

Many people have been convinced the heart can be changed apart from divine intervention with environmental remodeling. The communists thought they were going to create the “new communist man” without religion. Karl Marx the intellectual founder of communism found his ideas to be the key to solve the mankind’s predicament proclaiming this as the “true solution”. It is no wonder they prohibited ministers from preaching heaven when they had ushered it in prenatally. He thought man was pretty good inside just corrupted by his environmental structures. I have read some books on communism the dream does not pan out.

The communist plan instead of thriving the fruit of good people had made room for a greater evil as “Marxism did produce a new Communist man—a man so cruel that he could commit the most barbaric crimes against his fellow human beings without the slightest qualms of conscience. When we become aware of what took place in the ghastly labor camps, or gulags, we can understand the nature of the new Communist man, perhaps the cruelest man the world has ever seen” (Dr. Kenny, page 811).

“An example of Communist torture occurred just within the last few years. Two Christian women were being punished by the Chinese authorities for the “crime” of being a part of the unregistered house church movement. They were stripped naked, hung up by their thumbs with wires, and beaten unconscious with cattle prods. The system Marx helped create—based on a false paradigm, which was itself based on a false picture of man’s true nature—has probably caused more evil than any system known to man” (Dr. Kennedy, page 821).

In the West “we are told, the new man will be fashioned by psychology and psychiatry. Before you become too excited about that possibility, remember that of all of the professions in America, the highest level of suicide is found in psychiatrists. So if you are contemplating such an act, I don’t recommend that you go see one. He might decide to hold your hand and jump first” (Dr. Kennedy, page 854). I have run into some issues with psychologists lately as I have been told by numerous friends their psychologists think they are beyond help. I almost think that should be illegal to tell a patient because these vulnerable people will remember this every time they reach another low. I can see how a self-fulfilling prophesy could take into effect.

Testimonies

The bible has changed many lives for the better helping people turn a new leaf. It is because being born again is gives a person a new heart and spirit with new desires. God promises to give people a new heart so is there any evidence of this change?

The same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead still has the power to change a person to this day. “No unbeliever could tell me why His words are as charged with power today as they were nineteen hundred years ago. Nor could scoffers explain how those pierced hands pulled human monsters with gnarled souls out of a hell of iniquity and overnight transformed them into steadfast, glorious heroes [of the cross]” (Dr. Kennedy, page 936).

Kwai

There is a movie called “The bridge over the River Kwai” based on the book called “Through the Valley of Kwai”. The author of the book had spoken to the chaplain man of Princeton University who had been part of British forces. He was the very man that had written “The bridge over the River of Kwai”. “He told [him], heartbrokenly, what Hollywood had done to the truth. Here is the real story of the bridge over the River Kwai. The captives had been reduced to savagery. They were starving. They were snapping for every crust of bread like animals. And then the British commander discovered in one of their backpacks a New Testament. He began to read it. As he read it, the wonder of the love of Christ began to fill his soul, and he surrendered his life to the Savior and called on Him for His grace and help. He was transformed. He began to read that New Testament to his men each day. One after another became transformed until virtually the entire camp was transformed by the gospel of Christ. These animal-like men began to save their crusts of bread to give to those who were weaker and sicker than they were” (Dr Kennedy, page 897).

Joad

It is often easy to believe mankind is mostly good when one is living safely in a first world country founded on Christian foundations (which is further elaborated in later chapters). “C. E. M. Joad was one of the great philosophers of England in this century. He was a brilliant intellect and a militant unbeliever. [...] Earlier he had thought that man was basically good and that, given the right conditions, we could create heaven on earth. But two devastating world wars and the threat of another one brought home to him the reality that man is sinful. The only solution to man’s sin, concluded this former skeptic, is the cross of Jesus Christ” (Dr. Kennedy, page 957).

David wood

Note: the pages may not be exact though they are within the range of the found text. It is harder to tell on the kindle app if it is the exact page number.