Category: Politics, Religion & Money

Onward, Christian Nationalist Soldiers

This week the PBS Newshour had a segment on the alarming rise of Christian Nationalism. Florida governor Ron DeSantis preaching like a televangelist and saying “putting on that full armor of God” unsettles me. Do I believe he Believes? Sure, as much as I believe that Trump believes in anything but himself.

The “God is White and Guns are Good” movement really scares me. Here is another discussion, with an Evangelical Christian pastor’s views.

Campus Crusade for Christ, now called Cru, is an organization that was started by former candy salesman Bill Bright. My past involvement with CCC gave me an early view into what’s been going on politically with Evangelical Christians over the past 50 years.

Campus Crusade’s growth was built upon the old multi-level marketing model. “Bring a friend who will bring a friend.” There were two adults, unaffiliated with the school, who were in charge of the campus operation — a man for the boys and a woman for the girls. The more I met with them and, especially, their boss who coordinated activities across multiple campuses, the more I began to get a sense of the organization’s conservative views.

Before attending a retreat where we would meet students from another college, who belonged to InterVarsity, we were warned against the organization’s “liberal” views. After meeting some of the other kids, I wished InterVarsity would open a chapter at my school to compete with Campus Crusade.

The more I saw of Campus Crusade for Christ, the more I realized there was more Crusade than Christ in the organization. After several years I walked away and never returned. I was deeply in love with a girl who had also come to question Cru’s messaging. She got me into Campus Crusade, and she left around the same time that I did, but for a reason that was paradoxically both the same and the opposite. She felt the organization wasn’t sufficiently committed to the Word of God. As I was letting go of my faith, she was looking for a greater religious experience and joined a Charismatic Christian group. I attended a couple of meetings with her, but they were too much for me. Kinda like this, but with a white congregation. 😉

https://youtu.be/mCF_xzxhxME

Brother Andrew’s Traveling Salvation Show

Anne van der Bijl has died at age 94. “Anne,” as in a Dutch variation of Andrew, was better known by his alias, Brother Andrew. I learned of his passing at the library in, of all things, the print edition of The Economist.

https://www.economist.com/obituary/2022/10/06/brother-andrew-secretly-carried-bibles-behind-the-iron-curtain

In my “born-again” period during college, I read Brother Andrew’s book God’s Smuggler. It’s his autobiographical account of taking Bibles into what were then the Communist countries of the Soviet Union.

There was also a comic book adaptation of God’s Smuggler, by Al Hartley. Somehow I missed seeing this Spire Comic at the time.

Hartley was a former Marvel artist, who had drawn Patsy Walker for Stan Lee.

The notice in The Economist missed an opportunity to point out that it was economics, not Brother Andrew’s efforts at planting copies of the Bible à la the Gideons, that contributed to the breakup the Soviet Union. The seeds of discontent grew from the public’s awareness of the worldly benefits of 1980’s secular consumerism — plentiful food, blue jeans, CD players, VCR’s, etc. China has since embraced the advantages of Capitalism, independent of Christianity or Democracy.

Matters of Ongoing Concern

This is jawdroppingly offensive. One case was designed to undo Jim Crow-era segregation; the other to promote racial diversity.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/30/supreme-court-term-conservative-targets/

The Constitution treats insurrection and rebellion as political dangers, not protected rights.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/27/opinion/us-second-amendment.html

Should Internet time synchronization run on rigorously tested and battle-worn but whimsical and arguably bloated code that someone may still struggle to fully understand, even after devoting decades to it?
https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-thorny-problem-of-keeping-the-internets-time

Bogey Bucks

A habit I have developed from watching old movies is taking inflation into account whenever somebody mentions money. In The Harder They Fall, when Humphrey Bogart’s wife doesn’t sound enthusiastic about the job he’s taken, Bogey says, “don’t knock it, it pays a thousand a month, and expenses.” In 1956, $1000 was equivalent to $11,000 today. Good money for the unemployed boxing columnist Bogart played in his final film role.