Proselytes or Pitchmen?

I want to take a few brief moments of your time to point out something that most freethinkers are attuned to when it comes to evangelical Christians: they are buying and selling... souls. The WOTM crew does it in a very clever manner and disguises it with a false sense of concern for the eternal destination of your immortal soul but, come on, can they even demonstrate that such a "thing" or "place" exists? Of course they can't; that's where their carefully crafted, finely honed sales pitch comes into play.

A quick internet search will reveal a great deal of interesting information on the perfect sales pitch. Here is the tried and true harangue:

* Start with conviction
* Winning against negative sentiments
* Preparations are the Key to Success
* Use emotions in the sales process
* Complete focus on the customer
* Objections are buying statements
* Closing thoughts

The way in which these points translates to the cookie-cutter WOTM speech is blatantly obvious. Knowing that Todd, Ray and Kirk are not only attuned to these sales methods but employ them, we can further understand why Living Waters and Way of the Master marketable goods are in such high demand. They've cornered a very large evangelical Christian market; they sell their products to both evangelists and the newly-converted alike.

We have to ask ourselves if they are really concerned for our souls or if they are simply looking for the next great sales gimmick. In all actuality, Todd would make quite an effective and prosperous replacement for Kevin Trudeau.

Why did Christ die?

I recently had the opportunity to interact with the author of an evangelical Christian blog through comments on one of his blog posts. The title of the entry is entitled "Christ Died For Sinners" which immediately caught my attention.

After reading the short entry and the enclosed quote, I submitted a question in comment form. To my astonishment, I got a reply. Not only do these bloggers seem to be amped up for evangelism but interested in apologetics as well. I welcome their arguments.

Former Follier Says: September 24th, 2007 at 3:30 pm
Christ died in order to save a fallen creation by taking the sins of an infinitely wicked world against an infinitely holy god upon himself, does that about sum it up?

One question: If our sins are so abhorrent to god as to allow his “son” to be the propitiation for our sin, then what is Jesus doing sitting at the right hand of god right now? If the sins of mankind are punishable by eternal damnation, shouldn’t the sacrifice bear the burden? Three days in the ground hardly seems “just”.

Good thing it’s only a fable.

Josh Says: September 24th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
Former Follier,

you obviously have your doubts as to whether or not the biblical account of Jesus death and atonement really is a fable or you wouldn’t have bothered checking our site. Jesus suffered the full weight of God’s anger for all the sins of all His people before he died, while he hung on the cross, and when he cried out “it is finished”, he signified that he had fully drunk the last dregs of the punishment that all his people deserved. It is certainly a mystery that Jesus could sustain an infinitely intense dose of God’s anger, enough punishment to keep all His people in Hell for all eternity. Only Jesus could do this because only Jesus was and is both God and man. His human nature was enabled to do what no other human nature could i.e. soak up all the wrath of God and come out the other side. The gospel is foolishness to the natural man - it is a mathematical improbability too great to fathom and yet it is the truth. God has no physical form and yet all power to create and sustain all things. Because something is a mystery doesn’t mean it isn’t true. For a simple analogy imagine God’s wrath like a tap with an infinite variety of pressure and volume settings - God says in his word that some will suffer more in hell and some less - all will suffer according to the nature of their sin. God turns the tap of his wrath to the precise measurement of what that sinner deserves. Jesus takes the place of all his people beneath the deluge of Gods wrath and God turns the tap on full bore to blast the soul of Jesus with the full weight of hell that all his people deserve. The volume and the pressure of that tap are of such severity that they fully satisfy the requirements of God’s justice. So severe was this punishment that the contemplation of it caused Jesus to sweat blood.We read it. We believe it.

Former Follier Says: September 25th, 2007 at 3:39 am
Josh,

Your assumptions that I am still wrestling with my beliefs are false. Simply looking at my online nickname (a portmanteau of “Former Follower” and “folly”) is a testament to that fact.

However, I still fail to comprehend how a god could send himself in human form to die for the sins which he allowed to enter the world in order to appease himself. It not only seems self-serving, it seems to be superfluous. Especially taking into consideration the fact that there was no good reason for him to supposedly create us in the first place. According to Christian theology, we are here to serve and glorify him. He already had a “heavenly host” of created beings (with free will as is evidenced by the fall of Lucifer and his demons) with no other purpose but to glorify and praise god (as the story goes).

Regardless, for god to send his “son” (himself in human form) for the sole purpose of dying to absolve a contrite mankind from its sin, doesn’t that equate to suicide? Whether or not Jesus killed himself is irrelevent; the fact that he came to earth knowing full-well what would occur meant that he submitted to and pursued his own death. It’s akin to the “suicide by cop” phenomenon on a cosmic scale.

The problem lies in your the last sentence of your reply: “We read it, we believe it.” I certainly hope mankind will have moved beyond such mental lethargy two thousand years from now at which point the Harry Potter chronicles could be considered diviniely inspired holy text.

Former Follier Says: September 25th, 2007 at 3:43 am
To clarify things a bit, I did not actively seek out your site or even your content, necessarily. I did a generic Google search for “Way of the Master” (which my website is devoted to countering) and stumbled across your blog. Divine providence, perhaps?

The (Opposing) View

For those of you who may be interested in reading more about views that differ from my own but don't have the time or the desire to wade through the mire that is Way of the Master, I have posted a new link in the left margin of this blog. It is relatively well-written and will give you a taste of what is being taught by WOTM. The writer's doctrinal views are incredibly similar to those of Friel, Comfort and Cameron all the way down to his concept of "grace through the law".

To better understand the mind of a fundamental, evangelical Christian literalist, visit Anathema Unbound (Jason Seipp) at "The 'ology' of Theology" and tell him Former Follier sends his greetings.

Anti-Testimony: A Brief Deconversion Story

I was raised in a very strict fundamental Baptist home and was "saved" at five years of age while eating my breakfast cereal before kindergarten one morning. From that point on, I was "in rebellion to God," as my parents liked to put it. Nothing I did seemed to be good enough: I was an honor roll student, bilingual at a young age, a prodigious illustrator , a budding actor and, above all, was involved in all the affairs of the church and the associated school (which I attended from the age of four until my high school graduation at seventeen) such as puppet ministry, nursing home ministry, church and school choir and band, bus ministry, youth group and all associated activities and even door-to-door witnessing on Saturdays.

It was on a Saturday morning when I was "calling" on the lost that I had my first run-in with an atheist (cue scary music). He lived in a ramshackle old house in a wooded cul-de-sac in a neighborhood not too far from my own. He was gruff, unpleasant and impolite; not necessarily the way I'd like to be perceived as an atheist. From that point on, he was the embodiment of the evil atheist in my then-Christian mind.

As the years passed, what I was being taught of the Bible became absolutely unfulfilling and I had no desire to study it further for my own understanding because, well, what would be the point? I was still a piece of shit to my parents, regardless of what I did or did not do. This is when I began to "backslide." I turned to secular friends, secular music and everything else that was abhorred by my parents and their church. I would still attend with them and was still involved in all of the extra activities but only nominally.

By the time I was fifteen I was smoking, fooling around with girls, using "filthy" language... all the things that good Christian boys and girls ought not to do. And I loved it all. A couple years later when I graduated high school I decided to remove myself from my parents' oppressive rule and place myself in another equally oppressive environment but one that would later prove to be more rewarding and personally beneficial. I enlisted in the Army at seventeen years of age (with parental consent).

I served six years and climbed the ranks, declining several promotions allow the way for fear of leadership. While I was in the military, I was first confronted with secular individuals that I didn't know personally (ie. neighborhood friends, cousins) and was impressed by their ability to reason. Growing up, I was rarely given choices yet in these people I saw that they made dozens of choices daily and revelled in it; they were leading their lives, not merely living them.

Due to my upbringing, these events brought me back to the Bible to search for hidden meaning and truths. Perhaps my pastor had been skipping over nuggets of knowledge all those years. It was my duty to find those bits of wisdom and apply them.

Well, I don't need to tell any of you that I didn't find them. I studied and prayed but to no avail. I was forced to a conclusion much to the detriment of my faith: God was not in the Bible. In fact, God wasn't around at all. Further, He never had been around.

The open and honest reading of "God's Word" had crushed my faith, destroyed my world-view and, as a result, given me the best gift imaginable: The ability to think. And live.

Judge not lest ye be judged...

Theists have pioneered and championed the use of the bad analogy. I've sat through my fair share of sermons in my lifetime and can still vividly recall some incredibly poor object lessons and analogies that were tossed out from the pulpit. I think I've finally found one that tops the list in none other than our very own Mr. Friel. It isn't so much a "bad" analogy as it is dangerous.

Todd prides himself in his ability to field "uncomfortable" biblical questions but he shouldn't sing his own praises too loudly because he only entertains such questions for a short time before shifting gears and imposing the Ten Commandments. He uses this tried and true method of "speaking to the conscience" in order to show his audience that they have sinned before an almighty god and are worthy of spiritual death followed by eternal damnation in a lake of fire. But Todd holds the keys of your heart (as god's servant) and can show you how your soul can be cleansed and Christ can do a transforming work inside of you, securing a place for you in heaven. The best part of the deal is that you don't have to do a thing in exchange for all of this goodness... except die to yourself... and repent of your sins and turn from them... oh, and to plead God's mercy through the death, burial and resurrection of his son, Jesus Christ. Other than that, salvation is completely free!

It sounds more like spiritual quid pro quo than a free gift, if you ask me.

What really gets me is the way Todd will solemnly and soberly appeal to the fear of his listeners and callers by equating sins against god with wrongs against man that are punishable in a court of law. Let me draw a basic mental image for you, one that is based on Todd's very own examples in his soul-winning efforts:

If a criminal guilty of a violent crime appears before a judge in a court of law, the judge will be forced to punish him in order to maintain justice. The judge will not accept pleas for a lessened sentence but will weigh the heftiest fine against him. Unless someone steps in and mercifully pays the fine, justice cannot be met.

If the false dichotomy cannot easily be seen, let me shed some light on it for you.

To begin with, a sin is supposedly the ultimate affront against a holy and righteous god and is punishable with eternal torment in a place that god created and set aside for those who trespass against his laws. There is no social equivalent to this concept especially not a mere monetary fine! The most imposing punishment one man can levy against another is capital punishment which is a finite punishment. How does infinite suffering at the hands of a wrathful god correlate with momentary physical pain?

Knowing that a fine is not a viable penalty to be imposed on a criminal guilty of committing the most heinous acts imaginable (under the assumption that god finds all sins equally and eternally offensive) but capital or, at the very least, corporal punishment, we can see that no court in this country would accept a substitute. Once tried and convicted, a criminal must suffer his own fate; his best-friend can't offer himself up to the courts as a sacrifice. That's (ancient) tribal mentality and doesn't appease the modern judicial system.

We can then go on to understand that, in a court of law, mercy and justice are not mutually compatible. If a stay of execution is ordered not because of the suspects innocence but on a whim, the Governor has exhibited (unwarranted) mercy. However, if the sodium pentathol is injected into his veins, true justice has been achieved (if one can call it that).

After exposing this fraudulent analogy, how then can Todd continue to use it to instill fear in the hearts of his throngs? It isn't difficult to see the psychological (cruel) game he's playing by beating people into emotional submission. Fundamentalist theology can be likened unto spiritual battered spouse syndrome! Once you have a captive, submissive audience, well...

So, can God be eternally merciful and just? It's exactly what the WOTM crew would have you to believe. Let's see what the dictionary has to say about the denotation of these two words (no need to apply hermeneutical principles here):

Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

Just -- Being what is merited or deserved: (a just punishment)

Mercy -- Lenient or compassionate treatment: (begged for mercy)

If these two terms are mutually compatible, I'd like to know how. Besides, before we go condemning others for their actions in the sight of god, shouldn't we prove his existence first?