David Koresh

An unusual article at CNN about survivors from the cult of David Koresh.

It is tempting to dismiss Koresh as a nut (which he certainly was). Atheists will use him as an example of how "religion poisons everything".

But this is a real life example of how theology matters, and we should take advantage to learn as much as we can (for many people paid a terrible price, we should not squander it).

The article doesn't address theology directly, but it is there to be teased out:

Page 2: "[believers are] resurrected so they can travel to a kingdom cut off to nonbelievers".

This is a fairly common (and mostly Biblical) belief. Mormons have a mult-level afterlife, where believers get the best and unbelievers get second best. Only the truly evil (in man's eyes) need to be relegated to Hell. It doesn't say what happens to nonbelievers, we would assume it is comparable to the Mormon idea.

Page 3, Doyle says "You don't have to believe as I do". This is interesting. First, what is the fate of unbelievers? If it is Hell, then you are doing a great disservice not to warn them. If not, I would assume the "believer's kingdom" is better than whatever nonbelievers get. Do you not want to share?

At the end of page 3 and into page 4 we are introduced to the horrors of this theology. It is interesting that things almost always devolve into either sex or money (and, for some reason, rarely both). That no one would stand up to him is sad. That Doyle would say "I couldn't argue because he'd show you where it was in the Bible" shows the importance of hermeneutics.

Page 4 also gives us this odd (singular) statement of Koresh's theology:

"There are three crucial points to understanding the Branch Davidian brand of religion.
First, God can appear in the flesh as a man. Second, that man doesn't have to be a good person. Third, if you question whether that man is God, then you are questioning God. In other words, the devil is responsible for your doubt."

There's a lot of problems here, but I am trying to be concise.

The first point is taking the special and making it general (as people do with the gift of tongues). Just because it's in the Bible doesn't mean we should do it! Many of the stories there are instructional ("These people did X, then they were destroyed").

The second point is just wrong. In John 8:46, Jesus challenges the crowd to convict Him of sin - and there are no takers. That people could be deceived in this matter is a troubling point for rationalists, but all too common as a result of sin (here people may feel unwilling to speak up out of their own wrong fears).

The third point shows the danger of human authority, particularly the authority of an individual or small minority. Human authority must always be spread out (a local church needs many elders, with no one of them elevated above the others). Human authority must be challenged, and accepted only when supported with Biblical arguments. Tradition and history are excellent guides here - both for what is right, and for what will destroy us.

Secular Confusion

An interesting article from CNN:

"The argument that criminals could abuse the niqab is not compelling enough to deny the fundamental freedom of religious expression to a group of French citizens"

This is an excellent point (among many in the short opinion piece). How can the secular state claim to be all in favor of human rights, then forbid a right - all the while claiming it is to "protect people's rights".

As the author rightly says:

"And the irony and hypocrisy of claiming the ban protects women from oppression is glaring: Freedom must be 'protected' by denying women their freedom to choose how to dress."

The underlying problem is that secularism has no foundation, it is adrift in the sea of ideas. They want to assert some things are "right" (correct) and other things are "wrong". At the same time, they have no standard for right and wrong - so it must be "anything goes" (at least, anything the majority can agree on).

Of course, the majority is currently against a takeover by Islam. But anyone can run the numbers, and see that soon the majority will be a minority...

Evolution of Language

One area I have little exposure to is the history of language. This is something I would like to look into more. If the evolution of language supposedly began as soon as the development of the physical structures for making sound and brain capacity (that is, well before the time for "Out of Aftrica") - then there should be one root language (common ancestor).

From Ars:

"The authors were able to identify 19 strong correlations between word order traits, but none of these appeared in all four families; only one of them appeared in more than two. Fifteen of them only occur in a single family."

This was only examining a single feature (subject-verb order).

Death and Evolution

An interesting study at Ars (ignore the stuff about bottomonium, or not, I guess):

"Have an undergrad ponder death and, suddenly, anything they learned in intro to bio doesn't look so hot; they'll feel less inclined to accept evolution (or want to hear about it from Richard Dawkins), and more prone to find intelligent design appealing. The same held true in a random population recruited over the Internet. This didn't hold true for students in a natural sciences program, though.

The authors went on to show that it was possible to reverse this effect with a dose of Sagan (an experiment controlled with what the authors termed a "no Sagan" group). Have people read a passage from Carl Sagan in which he celebrates the wonder of the natural world, and the appeal of intelligent design faded into the background."

So thinking about death is protection against evolution - very interesting!

Also, those in the natural sciences have in some way had their consciences seared (or something).

The Impact of the Gospel

Following up on Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians, I have repeatedly read through the second.

The topics are, unsurprisingly, very similar. Tradition holds that the church at Thessalonica was founded during Paul's second missionary journey. He clearly spent some time there personally teaching them (2 Thes 2:5, 3:7). The letters may have been written in 50 and 51 AD.

The first letter offers encouragement and hope in the face of persecution (including tantalizing information about Jesus' return for the Church).

For the second letter, it is clear that the persecution is still ongoing (chapter 1). On top of this, there seems to be some sort of false teaching going on (2:1-3a). Apparently, someone claiming inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and falsely claiming the support of Paul has told them that they are living in the last days (the Great Tribulation, although Paul does not use those words).

What is Paul's response? That the Great Tribulation is only metaphorical, that things will get progressively better as the Church renews the world?

No. He tells them that there will be a great rebellion (probably spiritual, but possibly physical or both), that a "man of perdition" (or destruction) will rise up, and that all the unsaved will be deceived.

Paul here tantalizes us again:

"Do you not remember that I told you these things when I was still with you? And now you know what holds back, for him to be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already working, only he is now holding back until it comes out of the midst. And then the lawless one will be revealed..." (2:5-8a)

Um, no Paul I don't remember, I wasn't there!


The King James has "he who now lets will let", which shows the importance of updating translations. "Let", to us, means "allow". But at the time of the KJV, it meant "deny" (or block). Thus, the Modern King James has fixed this to be "he is now holding back". The second "will let" was actually added - it is not in the Greek. But the idea is confirmed by the later "until he is taken out of the way (or midst)".

Dispensationalists hold that this is the Church being taken away, reducing the mediating effects of the Holy Spirit in the world. It makes a lot of sense, but it is not an open and close case from just this passage.

The Language of God

"The Language of God" (Francis Collins) - For those who are unaware, Francis Collins is part of the founding team of Biologos. I'm somewhat surprised it has taken me this long to get around to reading something by him.

This book is largely a testimony of Collins' faith journey. His background is chemistry and biology, so he has held onto evolution as compatible with Christianity (much of his argument is basically, "I'm a Christian and an Evolutionist, therefore they are compatible").

I took very few notes on this one. Not much new, not a lot of deep analysis or theology. Collins' testimony is pretty solid (conviction from the moral law). Although it's clear he hasn't thought through all the theological ramifications of evolution.

Some of this shows up in the appendix. His thinking is clearly fuzzy on the use of embryonic stem cells for research (which we have seen before), and similarly for therapeutic cloning (pages 250-252, 253, and 256).

Science and the Trinity

"Science and the Trinity" (John Polkinghorne) - I picked up this book because Polkinghorne is a guest contributor at Biologos. It is very short (180 pages), but a very slow read (Polkinghorne likes big words).

Biologos says its goal is to get conservative Christians to accept evolution. I don't think this goal is served by having liberals address the issue! (It does lead me to believe that no conservatives really support evolution, or at least, are not willing to publicly support it. One of their favorite conservatives, BB Warfield, is dead!).

Polkinghorne is a scientist, not a theologian, which makes it difficult to pin down exactly what his theology is. But it is obviously very far from orthodoxy. Some examples, just on page 46:

"It is not surprising, therefore, that we find attitudes expressed in the Bible that today we neither can nor should agree with. These include an unquestioned patriarchal governance of the family... an unhesitating acceptance of slavery" (emphasis added)
"Those who attribute no abiding significance to these timebound attitudes are recognizing that the canon of scripture is not of uniform authority." (He actually goes on more in this vein...)
"the many New Testament passages that speak of fearful and fiery judgement [sic] are rightly interpreted as implying that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ requires the punishment of unending torture for those who have not committed themselves to some kind of Christian orthodoxy in this life." (into page 47)

That's just in two pages, fairly early! It doesn't get better.

Polkinghorne seems to embrace open theism, at least to some degee:

"God does not use the prophets to provide a detailed preview of what must inevitably come to pass... God does not yet know the unformed future" (page 54)
"cosmic history is an unfolding improvisation and not the performance of an already written score" (page 80)
"God does not have that future available for perusal beforehand." (page 108)

I could go on. Polkinghorne manages to pack a lot of error into a small space. I am concerned mostly with the consequences of his theology, and its impact on the Gospel.

First we see the embrace of a sort of universalism (or at least, conversion after death):

"Yet the divine love will surely not be withdrawn in that world [death], but will continue to seek to draw all people into its orbit." (page 158-159)

He also seems to deny "absent from the body, present with the Lord":

"The soul, as I understand it, possesses no intrinsic immortality. The pattern that is me will dissolve at my death... we have no naturalistic expectation of a destiny beyond death... It seems a perfectly coherent hope to believe that the pattern that is me will be preserved by God at my death and held in the divine memory until... the new creation."

This is comparable to the belief of Jehovah's Witnesses, that God will recreate someone very much like you in the resurrection.

He also embraces "the best of all possible worlds" (the idea that God created the world with natural evil, because He is too weak to do any better):

"The existence of free creatures is a greater good than a world populated by perfectly behaving automata, but that good has the cost of mortality and suffering." (page 165)

Yet again, the god of human free will calls for the sacrifice of God's power and knowledge (also, I have reference to the sacrifice of God's holiness on page 94). I will stop here.