Evangelicals Take Aim at Liberty

The Washington Post has an article entitled, "Is the Tea Party unbiblical?" My first reply is: So what if it is?

There seems to be this move by the Left to invoke the Bible to justify their big governmentalism. Now I personally think they are firmer ground than free market types who think that a book rooted in primitive tribalism can support their views. But I have to ask the Left why they are bothering. First, most of them don't take the fables and myths of the Bible seriously. Second, they are leaping onto the religious bandwagon just as the American public is, as Afrikaners would say, "gatvol" of the mixing of religion and politics. The Left rightfully ignores the screed of dead tribalists when it comes to homosexuality and a host of other issues, so why invoke this outdated morality when it comes to so-called "social justice" issues?

These types are as transparent as the Religious Right which tried to impose their biblical values on society through the use of coercive government. If it was wrong for Falwell why is it right for the socialist types in Christianity?

The second thing about the article is that by "Tea Party" while they target the gaggle of right-wing, neanderthals ranting about immigrants and taxes under the Tea Party banner, their real target is the rather unrelated creed of libertarianism. The Tea Party is not libertarian. It shares some libertarian sentiments but the views of Tea Party types is only for small government some of the time. When it comes to social issues they tend to support big government all the way.

The Post article quotes some professor of Christian ethics who is involved with a Left-wing lobby group called "New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good." The name alone is a clue that these are people are collectivists. But that is what I would expect. The Bible is a tribalistic book and tribalism is another form of collectivism. I don't deny there is a common good but that good is the protection of the equal rights of all. What the Left means is a redistributive state where some are penalized for the sake of others. By definition that is not the common good since some are sacrificed for the well-being of others. Telling the sacrificed, as they are economically raped by the state, that it is good for them is absurd. Big government always acts on behalf of some while the other are the "acted upon."

This professor, David Gushee, says: "This kind of small government libertarianism, small taxes, leave-me-alone-to-live-my-life ideology has more in common with Ayn rand than it does with the Bible." I would have to agree there. Biblical government doesn't leave people alone. Ask the "heretics" who were executed by God-fearing biblicists! Ask gay people who are on the sharp end of the biblical sword when it comes to marriage equality and basic civil rights.

At all times in history the Bible has been mostly invoked to oppress not to liberate. The orthodox Christians in the South had plenty of Scripture to back up their slave-owning practices. Individuals who opposed equality of rights for women had no shortage of biblical references at that call. In his dissection of socialism Mises wrote that "no movement against private property which has arisen in the Christian world has failed to seek authority in Jesus, the Apostles, and the Christian Fathers, not to mention those who, like Tolstoy, made the Gospel resentment against the rich the very heart and soul of their teaching." Mises said, and I concur, that the Christian church "has prepared the soil for the destructive resentment of modern socialist thought." Mises claimed that: "Any would-be destroyers of the modern social order could count on finding a champion in Christianity."

The Post does quote some Tea Party officials who claim "Jesus was not for socialism," and these people are right as well. How can this be the case?

The point Mises makes is not that the New Testament advocated socialism because it didn't. It didn't advocate any kind of economic order at all. Certainly the church in The Book of Acts practiced a form of collective ownership where each contributed their worldly goods into a common pool for redistribution. But it was not a common ownership of the means of production, which is what socialism really is. Redistribution of wealth is just part of the socialist gospel, not the entire thing. Prof. Anthony Waterman wrote that early Christianity "had no recognizable body of social thought" whatsoever.

What it had, however, was utter contempt for material existence and wealth. These believers accepted the promise of Jesus that he would return to earth before the last of them died and establish his kingdom. He told them to not worry about production at all but to wait in anticipation for the end of the world. There was no emphasis on economics because there was no need for an economy—the world was coming to an end. Mises wrote:

It is only in this way that we can understand why, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus recommended his own people to take no thought for food, drink, and clothing; why he exhorts them not to sow or reap or gather in barns, not to labor or spin. It is the only explanation, too, of his and his disciples’ ‘communism.’ This ‘communism’ is not Socialism; it is not production with means of production belonging to the community. It is nothing more than a distribution of consumption goods among the members of the community—’unto each, according as any one had need.’ It is a communism of consumption goods, not of the means of production, a community of consumers, not of producers. The primitive Christians do not produce, labor, or gather anything at all. The newly converted realize their possessions and divide the proceeds with the brethren and sisters. Such a way of living is untenable in the long run. It can be looked upon only as a temporary order which is what it was in fact intended to be. Christ’s disciples lived in daily expectation of Salvation.

Church father Tertullian put it this way: "I have no concern in this life except to depart from it as speedily as possible." Edward Gibbon, whose work The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, showed the detrimental impact of Christianity, wrote:

The ancient Christians were animated by a contempt
for their present existence, and by a just confidence of
immortality, of which the doubtful and imperfect faith of
modern ages cannot give us any adequate notion. In the
primitive church, the influence of truth was very
powerfully motivated by an opinion which, however, it
may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, has
not been found agreeable to experience. It was
universally believed that the end of the world and the
kingdom of Heaven were at hand.

What the socialists found useful in the New Testament was contempt it expressed for this world and material possessions, which often expresses itself in the oddest of places. When Mary is told that she is with child, supposedly through some miracle, she exalts God and denounces the rich, saying that God "hath filled the hungry with good things: and the rich he hath sent empty away." Jesus said that it was the poor who were blessed. His brother James warned: "Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. In the story of the rich man and Lazarus we learn that poverty-stricken Lazarus dies to awake in Abraham's bosom, while the rich man burns in hell. The only crime mentioned appears to be his wealth.

Paul, the real founder of Christianity, said that the poor aren't tempted to abandon God but that the rich "fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil, which some coveted after, they have erred from the faith." Jesus was more direct. He said that you "cannot serve God and mammon" and told his followers to avoid work, toil or wealth-building. He urged them to "seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take things of itself."

This contempt for wealth and the wealthy energizes much of the resentment behind socialism. As the pro-market theologian Michale Novak admits: "The gospel accounts amply supply the liberation (socialist) theologians of our day with a rhetoric to be employed against riches and the rich." Barbara Ward, in her work Faith and Freedom, wrote: "Communism owes its immense vitality more to its biblical vision of the mighty put down and the poor raised up than to its theories of value or its interpretation of history."

Conservative sociologist Peter Berger says that the roots of western socialism "are undoubtedly in the communitarian tradition of Western Christianity." And pro-capitalist Catholic Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn said that "the ethical content of Christianity" fosters and promotes "the temptation toward socialism." He wrote: "Along the path of the socialist utopia lies a day of judgement when the humble will be exalted and the rich and mighty brutally dispossessed. And from the Socialist-Communist utopia itself can be gleaned the picture of paradise lost—and regained; a new age of innocence, of peace and brotherly love, with envy, crime and hatred banished forever."

So both the Christian Left and Christian Right are correct to a limited degree. Christianity, as the Right says, didn't exactly preach socialism. But, as the Left notes, it was contemptuous of wealth and the wealthy. It had disdain for material existence and preached an apocalyptic judgement against the mighty and wealthy in favor of the poor and dispossessed. Marxism leaned on Christian mythology to make its points. After centuries of the Gospel, the soil was well prepared for Marx's secular version of the same thing. Unlike Jesus, however, Marx didn't promise revenge and paradise in the future, but in the here and now.

If one must pick which of these two odious arms of religious statism is more correct, as far as which way the New Testament leans politically, I would have to go with the Left-wing Christians. And that is how most Christianity, over the ages, has leaned.

Eventually the Christians realized that Jesus wasn't coming back when he said he would. Eventually they needed a system of ethics in regards to production and distribution. And when that ethic was formed it was rooted in the envious attitudes of the New Testament with its contemptuous views of material existence and wealth. That pushed the Church in a statist direction economically.

The Religious Right is correct in that neither Jesus, nor the New Testament, had a particularly socialist economic policy. It had no policy whatsoever. But it did have the attitudes that the socialists have used for a couple of centuries now to inspire contempt for depoliticized markets, private property, and free exchange.

Missionaries of Hate

The above video is well worth watching.

I tire of hearing how Christianity is "different" from Islam and that fundamentalist Christians aren't like fundamentalist Muslims. I disagree. They are very, very much alike, and I say that as someone who knows these people well. The tendency toward violence exists in both camps. The main difference is that fundamentalist Christianity is contrained by the culture that surrounds it. It is not as evil as it wants to be.

The question that must be asked is not about how Christian fundamentalists act today, in modern America, but: How would they act in a culture if they were the dominant force? Certainly the fundamentalists who have spoken about a "Christian America based on God's law" envision a society where millions of people would be susceptible to the death penalty.

This video, about the hate campaigns in Uganda, fueled by American fundamentalists, is an indication of how these radical Christians would act in America, if they had the opportunity. The lack of opportunity should not be construed as a lack of will.

Now that I've thoroughly offended the Right allow me to comment on issues that will offend the Left.

The situation in Uganda is clearly a bad one. It is made worse because so much of African culture is thoroughly dysfunctional. All cultures are not equal, no matter what the cultural relativists say. What saves America from going too far down the theocratic road is that our nation still has one foot firmly rooted in the Enligtenment. Admitted the other is in the Dark Ages and ruled by superstition and faith, but America is sufficiently enlightened to avoid the worst excesses of faith-driven politics.

Africa is another case completely. African culture doesn't have one foot in the Enlightenment, it is more like one toe—and the little one at that. In my years in Africa what I saw was the worst forms of superstitition. Young girls were raped because the sangomas (witch doctors) said that raping a virgin could cure AIDS. I watched a soccer match on television where a small cat ran on the field. The players pursued it and stamped it to death, claiming it must be a witch sent to curse them. Every year hundres, if not thousands, of individuals are burned to death becasue the locals believe they are witches placing curses on their neighbors.

The worst excesses of the witch hunts in Salem, or in Europe before that, are nothing in comparison to the witch hunts that take place every year, year-in and year-out, even now in the 21st century. Consider these cases:

• Kenya, 2008: a mob of 300 men attacks and burns to death 11 people. "The gang moved from home to home through two villages, identifying their victims by using a list of names of suspected witches and wizards and the kind of spells they were believed to have cast..." They sometimes slit the throats of the victims first, or beat them to death with clubs. "Most of the victims were between 70 and 90 years old..."

• Nigeria, 2009: Fundamentalist churches denounce hundreds of children as "witch children" which leads to "exorcism" by forcing acid down the throats of the children. Nwanaokwo Edet, was just 9 when the acid was forced down his throat. It spilled, buring away his face, and he died from the "treatment" inflicted by his church and his father. Over 200 such children were identified by 13 fundamentalist Christian churches as witches. In all of Nigeria it is estimated that 15,000 children have been accussed of being witches and over 1,000 were killed by the Christians sent to exorcise them.

• Burundi, 2009. Watch this report on how albinos throughout East Africa are being hunted down and slaughtered so that their body parts can be used to make "good luck" charms. Where I lived in Africa this was called "muti." Shops existed selling portions and charms made by local sangomas




• South Africa, 2009: Ntombizanele Combo, 45, died when her home was set alight by witch hunters. Her six-year-old granddaughter, Sibulele Combo tried to escape but was forced back into the burning hut by the mob. Not far from the secne a 57-year-old man was hacked to death by the mob. Police say that the mob was hunting witches.

This sort of Dark-Ages thinking was rampant throughout Africa. The closest the West has to this sort of "magical" thinking is fundamentalist Christianity, so it is no wonder that this form of extremists religion is on the rise in Africa. What makes this even worse, is that many Africans see this sort of witch hunting being sanctioned by the West, as Christianity is associated with Western thinking. The Bible clearly says: Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. It also commands the execution of male homosexuals—though not lesbians. The "Western" concept of Christainity is seen as endorsing the worst excesses of the African culture. People who have no problem executing small children in the name of Jesus, certainly won't be appalled at the idea of killing homosexuals.

Motes, beams and whinging Christians

Here is the story that has caught the attention of Christians around the world, especially the right-wing types. As usual there is more than meets the eye and their accounts are not entirely truthful.

A fundamentalist Baptist was standing on the street in England yelling out one of his typical sermons to people who found themselves within earshot of the man. Among his content was the usual rant that fundamentalists have against those demonic homosexuals, their favorite scapegoat for all that is wrong in the world today. He was then arrested under Section 5 of the Public Order Act for causing "harassment, alarm, or distress." He was told that he couldn't do this in public again. Keep the words "harassment, alarm, or distress" in mind.

Right-wing websites are in an uproar. One site falsely claimed that the same sort of arrest could happen in America because of hate crime legislation. There is no truth to that claim. The right-wing Melanie Phillips claimed that the minister was arrested merely for "preaching Christian principles," and that this is proof that "the attempt to stamp out Christianity in Britain appears to be gathering pace." According, to Phillips this is being done "under the rubric of promoting tolerance and equality—but only towards approved groups" and "some people are more equal than others." Phillips seems quite clear that while gays are protected Christians are not.


Phillips tried to tie this into unrelated cases to prove her claim that poor Christians are being oppressed in England. She lies about the actions of one "poor pensioner" who she says merely complained to her council about a gay parade. I covered this case and the "poor pensioner" was an antigay campaigner who went to a gay event and intentionally insulted people and then demanded they be censored by the law when they were rude to her in return. That, as we shall see, is fairly typical for Christian conservatives.

Phillips also wrote of government employees who were fired for being Christians. In fact they were fired for refusing to do the job they were hired to do. These were civil servants who refused to give services to gay people that are routine for others. If a Christian won't do their job they should be fired just as any employee who refuses to do their job should be fired. Religion is not an excuse for failure to perform according to the job contract. Phillips apparently thinks it is. In another case she laments how someone could lose a job for wearing a cross. Again that is the typical distortion of the Religious Right. In that case the employer had a rule against all employees wearing any jewelry, regardless of the content. Christians weren't being singled out.

The Christian Institute, in the UK, which always get involved in these cases, has come to the Baptist's defense claiming his rights as a Christian are being violated. Catholic conservative Cristina Odone made reference to "inquisitors" fuelled by "a vicious secularism that allows no tolerance for views based on Christian values." I guess as a Catholic she would be an expert on the Inquisition, after all, they invented it.

Make no mistake about it, I don't condone the arrest. It was wrong. But it is not an example of Christians being singled out for persecution, as they would have you believe.

The law is question is bad. Unlike all the Christians who have whinged about this case I actually support freedom of speech for everyone. None of them do. They are merely a special interest group wanting to protect their turf. They want the right to criticize and condemn others but equally wish to deny others the right to criticize or condemn Christianity.

Here is some evidence. While we all have read about the Baptist bigot who got arrested, how many heard about the atheist arrested on the exact same charge? His crime, however, was insulting Christians. According to the BBC, Harry Taylor, was "found guilty of causing religious aggravate intentional harassment, alarm or distress" because he left anti-religious leaflets in the Liverpool airport "prayer room." (Why do airports need prayer rooms but bus stations don't?)

These two incidents were only a few weeks apart. Yet the one got hardly any notice while the Christian Right has been bleating about the other endlessly.

Taylor had leaflets with cartoons. One showed Jesus on the cross smiling as he advertised "no nails" glue. Another showed Islamists at heaven's gate being told: "Stop, stop, we've run out of virgins." According to the BBC the chaplain at the airport was "severely distressed" by the cartoons. Really? What a wimp! Taylor was banned "from carrying religiously offensive material in a public place," and given a suspended six month jail term, 100 hours of unpaid work and a £250 fine.

Notice that Taylor was charged with precisely the same offense. But his punishment was far more severe than that inflicted on the Baptist. The Baptist stood on a step-ladder shouting at people. Taylor left leaflets sitting around. But I can't find any prominent right-wing columnist lamenting the death of free speech in Taylor's case. These right-wing hypocrites are selective advocates of freedom of speech. Their view is: "Free speech for me, censorship for thee."

What these cases show is the totalitarian nature of England's laws on speech. I've argued that before. It is not merely an attack on Christian values, as the Right wants to pretend. It is an attack on the most fundamental secular right of all—the right to express an opinion, even an offensive one. This is an assault on classical liberal values, not on Christian values. Christians don't value freedom of speech.

What is especially irksome in these hypocritical rants is that some of the same groups lobbied for legislation to prevent criticism of religion. The Vatican lobbied for laws restricting the right to criticize religion. When the controversy over the cartoons of the alleged Prophet Mohammad started in Denmark, Vatican officials were out in public demanding censorship and special laws restricting freedom of speech. Cardinal Ersilio Tonini said "Freedom of the press, including satire, must stop where religious belief begins." Cardinal Achille Silvestrini said: "Western culture must find a limit to its goal of making freedom an absolute. We too, here in Europe, should rebel against the idea of mocking religious symbols."

According to one Catholic site Cardinal Silestrini "said Christianity has similar sensitivities." Aldoo Giordano, general secretary of the Council of European Bishops' Conferences, said on Vatican radio that the satire used regarding Mohammad "goes against human rights" and that "the entire Christian world is very saddened and pained by satire of this type, aimed at the brothers of another religion."

Cristina Odone didn't utter a peep about that, but then it was the actual source of the Inquisition demanding the censorship, so she was fine.

The Vatican itself issued a statement regarding the cartoons that expressly said that censorship ought to be the law. "The right to freedom of thought and expression... cannot entail the right to offend the religious sentiment of believers."

On the one hand we have Christians weeping and wailing when the law is used to silence their anti-gay sentiments. When the same law is used to silence an atheist not a single one of these Christians uttered a peep. And when the cartoons "insulted" the alleged prophet of Islam we saw religious leaders demanding censorship. They said the law should not allow people to cause distress to others. Unless, of course, those others are gay, then the law should support unlimited bigotry because that's what Jesus would do.

Once again we see the Religious Right refusing to support freedom as a principle. To them freedom of speech is a special privilege bestowed on them, but denied to others. Equality of rights, in their mind, is "special rights."

As a classical liberal or modern libertarian, I argue that what is good for the goose is good for the gander. The Baptist bigot should be allowed to shout until horse, if he wants. But the offensive atheist shouldn't be banned from handing out "offensive" leaflets either. These Christians need to be a little more honest and a little more rational—I know the latter request goes against everything they believe.

When they lobby for laws that ban speech for causing "distress," as they did during the Danish cartoon controversy, they have no right to complain when those laws bit them in the ass when they cause distress to gay people.

This is what really irks me about the Religious Right, they are totally Orwellian in the use of language. When the law censors critics of religion that is "respecting religious values." When the laws censors critics of homosexuality [which is as sensible as criticizing blue eyes] that is an assault on Western values. When gay people have the same rights as Christians that is "special rights" but when Christians have rights that gay people don't have, that is just peachy keen.

Rights are the same for everyone. So yes, the Baptist should be free to say all the silly things that Baptists are prone to say. They can't help it, it's in their nature. And critics of Islam or atheists with offensive leaflets, have the same rights as well. Gays can be called sinners and the Vatican can be ridiculed for all the various atrocities it has been involved with. Free speech is for everyone.

The same law in England was used against a Christian last week, and against an atheist a few weeks ago. The law was wrong both times. And while I condemn both applications of the law, the Christians who are now weeping about persecution, were silent when an atheist was the victim of the law. And just a couple of years ago these Christians were demanding legislation to protect people from the sorts of free speech they are now demanding.

Many years ago a minor figure in Christianity—after all he never became Pope or even a bishop—named Jesus said: "You hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of your own eye; and then shall you see clearly to cast out the mote out of your brother's eye." Of course, as a libertarian I'd reply: "Hey dude, keep you damn fingers out of my eyes unless I ask you to help." But he was much closer to a reasonable view than these whinging Christians today.

Straight from the horse's mouth: if by horse, you mean ass.

Many of you know that the misnamed American Family Association is a gaggle of fundamentalist Christians, many of whom seem certifiably insane. Of course, I dare not say they are all crazy. Some are just as dumb as a post. Others, of course, may just be malevolent, evil people. Recently the new head of AFA, Rev. Bryan Fischer, addressed why he wants the law to arrest gay people. His comments will be indented and in blue, my reply, will not be indented and in black.

I received a complaint from a listener to my "Focal Point" radio program, complaining that I had suggested that it is appropriate to impose legal sanctions on those who engage in homosexual behavior. Here is my response. The individual's name was not attached to the email, so I wasn't able to address him by name.

I suggest it a good thing the person didn't attach his name. If the AFA crowd ever does get to make the laws, it is clear they will use them widely and in a very authoritarian manner. So anonymity, in the face of potential tyranny, is not necessarily a bad strategy.

Hi!

Thanks for writing me about my comments on my program regarding homosexuality.

It might be worth noting that what I actually suggested is that we impose the same sanctions on those who engage in homosexual behavior as we do on those who engage in intravenous drug abuse, since both pose the same kind of risk of contracting HIV/AIDS. I'd be curious to know what you think should be done with IV drug abusers, because whatever it is, I think the same response should be made to those who engage in homosexual behavior.

There are a lot of bad premises packed into a very small amount of space. Let's try to unpack them rationally, which I know, is not something you prefer to do. Reason and faith don't go together very well. Being that you are out of practice of using reason, allow me to help you.

I would have the same penalty on drug use, IV injected or not, that I would have for being gay. That is, none whatsoever. What people do with their own bodies and lives is their own business. It is not your business, the church's business, and most certainly NOT the state's business. What people put in their bodies is no more concern of the State than what they put in their minds. Good thing too otherwise the irrationality that you preach would be illegal to the core.

Considering how the government has botched the war on drugs so badly it is shocking that you use drug laws as an analogy for criminalizing, and incarcerating, gay people. Imagine the SWAT teams breaking down bedroom doors, guns pulled, the same way they do in the war on drugs. Of course, the drug warriors fuck up all the time and end up murdering people who weren't even drug users. I guess we could expect the same sort of botch-ups when we hand over to the SWAT teams the enforcement of biblical morality.

There is a premise within your premise. You assume that both these activities should be punished by the violent force of government because "both pose the same kind of risk of contracting HIV/AIDS." Actually not. Life is not as simple as simpletons like to pretend.

First, the risk of contracting HIV from IV drug use is NOT due to IV drug use but do to the reuse and sharing of infected needles. It doesn't matter one iota what is in the syringe that is being shared. It is the sharing that is the problem—not the content of the needle. If diabetics were forced to share needles the same risk would be prevalent and only the most ignorant of people would then propose a law banning the use of insulin due to the risk of HIV. I will assume you would be one of them.

Why is it that IV drug users share needles and diabetics don't? Because people like you propose laws to prevent drug use. As part of your prohibitionist mentality the government, your Big Pal, has regulated needles. Of course, prohibition never actually prohibits anything. People still use needles, but people like you have made it harder for them to get clean needles. You are so anxious to save them from themselves that you force them into a death sentence by sharing needles. If anything should be banned here, and I'm not proposing it, then it ought to be people preaching prohibitionism—it really does kill people. And you helped with those laws, so you are responsible. Blood is on your hands but apparently not enough to satisfy you.

There is another premise hidden in this paragraph: that is the idea that Big Government should protect people from themselves. People do bad things, or at least things you assume are bad, and from that you preach that the Almighty State should step in and strip people of freedom because, when people are free, they are sometimes stupid. I agree that free people often do stupid and irrational things, not that I think homosexuality is either. But, your churches wouldn't exist if that weren't the case. I think religion is harmful and you are good proof of that. It is dangerous to freedom, much the same way communism is. Now, if I held your authoritarian premises, which I don't, I would then have to push for arresting you and prohibiting you from preaching Big Brother government and moral authoritarianism.

You also seem to think that homosexuality causes AIDS or increases risks in ways that heterosexuality does not. Of course, I'm sure you are ignorant of the facts because faith and facts just aren't seen together very often. In truth, most AIDS cases worldwide are among heterosexuals. HIV is not homosexually transmitted, it is sexually transmitted. It can be spread more easily by some sexual activities than others, and the sexual acts most likely to spread HIV can be, and are, performed by people of all sexual orientations, not just gay people. Based on your uninformed assumptions you would need to make sex illegal, not just homosexuality. Of course, I'm sure that some of your more frigid congregation would shout a loud hosanna to that idea.

Just as there are some practices that are more likely to spread HIV than others, there are practices that won't spread it at all. I won't titillate you with a discussion of them. But there are sexual practices that one can engage in, from now until eternity, with zero risk of infection. Actually you could have a huge, writhing mass of millions of homosexuals, perpetually engaging in such practices without a single infection. (Heterosexuals as well, mind you.)

In addition, if you were to lock 100 homosexuals in room, all of whom are HIV negative, and allow them to commit "sodomy" for the next 40 years, not only would they be grateful, but all of them would still be HIV negative as well. HIV is a virus, it is sexually spread without regard to sexual orientation. But HIV negative people don't infect other people NO MATTER WHAT THEY DO SEXUALLY.

If you believe that what drug abusers need is to go into an effective detox program, then we should likewise put active homosexuals through an effective reparative therapy program.

Wow, Rev. Fischer, you want mandatory sentences sending homosexuals to places to "detox" them. How about a nice sign outside the camp saying: Arbeit macht frei? What you are saying is that the government should round up millions of gay people and incarcerate them under some forced therapy program that you and your fellow authoritarian religious nutters would concoct for them. I have long said that fundamentalists see gays the way Nazis saw Jews. Your willingness to have "therapy" camps for unwilling gays is evidence of that. It is also evidence of how you people preach massive government expansion and break-the-bank taxes to impose your authoritarianism on others.

There are at least 15 million gay people in the United States. How many "ex-gay" camps would it take to house 15 million people? A camp you might wish to emulate was a little place called Dachau. It was only open for 12 years and during that time it processed 200,000 prisoners. That means that at any one time it had around 15,000 prisoners (and when you put people in detox centers against their will they are prisoners). Now, if you were to try to "detox" all gay people at once, you would need the equivalent of 1,000 Dachaus.

Any idea on how much taxation would be needed to fund this little project of yours? And are you seriously thinking that locking up 15,000 gay men, in barracks together, with nice big group showers, will help discourage homosexuality? No sir. Not at all. You will need separate showers and lots and lots of heterosexual guards to make sure they all stay virtuous. No barracks either. They can't share rooms. Surely you know how the mainly heterosexual inmates in prison are having sex with each other, can you imagine how widespread it would be if you locked up all the gay people together?

Here are some ideas. The average cost per inmate in American prisons is $25,000 each. Of course you can house them in shared rooms and they do have group showers. Can't do that if they are all gay and you are "dehomosexualizing" them. So the cost would be have to be much higher. With 15 million inmates, even at the lower rate of $25,000 each, your cost per year, to maintain your Gay Gulag, would be $375 billion. America is spending about $7 billion per year to build prisons for the current inmate population, which is just over 2 million. Under your Gay Gulag idea the cost would jump seven fold at least, and the gay prisons would cost a lot more (all those extra single rooms and tiny showers). The start-up costs for a Gay Gulag would be billions, before your dehomosexualize your first victim.

Of course, to dehomosexualize unwilling homosexuals you not only have to incarcerate them, for years I suspect, you have to pay for an army of faux therapists who will be handsomely paid along with a few million guards and auxiliary personnel.

Hopefully your employees won't be like the so-called "ex-gay" therapists fundamentalists have promoted in the past. It is pretty messy when they get caught screwing the patients, isn't it? Or how about the big exgay you guys promoted as an example of dehomosexualization, who got photographed hanging out in a gay bar? Wasn't it a bitch that he was on a speaking tour sponsored by your group when he got caught?

All in all, the Gay Gulag is going to be very, very expensive, and it will require tax increases that will make Obama salivate, a system of camps that would turn Stalin green with envy, and would require the obliteration of a little thing called the Bill of Rights. But, it's a small price to pay when you're imposing God's will on people!

Secondly, I'm afraid you're simply wrong about the Bible's perspective on the law and homosexuality.

Paul lists quite explicitly in 1 Timothy 1:8-11 the actions and behaviors that are the proper concern of the law:

"Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine..."

Oh, dear, you don't seem to know that Paul didn't actually write the Pastoral Epistles which are ascribed to him. The evidence is pretty clear that they were written by someone else, not by Paul. And Paul was probably dead for some time when they were written. However, even if Paul had said it: so what! The Bible says a lot of stupid things and we aren't going to impose laws based on those idiocies either.

Please note that by your own admission you will actually need to incarcerate most of the American public. You say that the law should impose penalties on people based on what someone, pretending to be Paul, wrote a couple of thousand years ago—and you dare call the Muslims dangerous for wanting to impose the Quran! But the verse you quote would, according to your logic, require camps to "detox" all "sexually immoral" people, not just gays. That would shut down the U.S Congress (which might be beneficial) but it would also means tens of millions of more inmates in your system of camps, actually hundreds of millions considering what you people think about sex.

The alleged Pauline verse also says that this applies to "whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine." I suppose we will need courts to determine "sound doctrine" from unsound doctrine. And, I know people like you well, I grew up with you guys and went to your schools. So I know that by unsound doctrine you mean, and this is only a partial list: Mormons, Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Scientists, Spiritualists, Scientologists, Quakers, Shakers, Unitarians, Muslims, humanists, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Taoists, Christadelphians, and hundreds of other sects, cults and churches. Even the mainstream Protestants aren't of "sound doctrine" in the eye of fundamentalists. Once "sound doctrine" is put under federal law there is no limit to who can be incarcerated in your moral America.

So, why not just build a prison wall around the whole country? Oh, never mind, I forgot they were already doing that.

Of course, we have to also look at the destruction your little gulag would cause by ripping productive people out of the marketplace and incarcerating them. You arrest 15 million gays and that means 15 million people stop producing goods and services. Not only are they costing tens of thousands of dollars for each year it takes to dehomosexualize them, but they stopped paying taxes and producing goods and services. So that means even more taxes on the backs of the few people who aren't sinful enough to be incarcerated, which I think might be four people.

The bottom line here is that, biblically, those "who practice homosexuality" should come under the purview of the law just as much as those who take people captive in order to sell them into slavery.

Apparently you can't see the difference between enslaving people (which involves incarcerating people against their will—much as you are advocating) and homosexuality. Enslaving people means violating the rights of others. Incarcerating gay people (or the sexually immoral and others listed in the bogus Pauline quote) is also violating the rights of others. Two people, or even 42 people, voluntarily having sex with one another, violates the rights of NO ONE. Slavery is wrong but for the same reason that your Gay Gulag is wrong—it violates the rights of other people.

You express a belief in the Scriptures, and I trust your confidence in Scripture is not selective. If you believe all Scripture is inspired, then you are compelled to accept that legal sanctions may appropriately be applied to those who engage in homosexual behavior.

I don't know if the poor person who wrote you believes the Bible is inspired. If he does, that's his problem. But I'm glad you have made it clear that you think to believe the Bible requires Big Brother government to make it illegal to be gay. And you have made it clear that you want gays incarcerated to be forcibly dehomosexualized, as if that is possible. You berate the person in question asking him if his "confidence in Scripture is not selective." So, lets get some selective Scripture out of the way. The Bible says: "If a man lies with a male, as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them."

So, Rev. Fischer, is your belief in the Bible selective as well? Or do you really believe that instead of locking up millions of gay people in one vast gulag, which the Bible doesn't suggest, that they should all be executed instead, which the Bible does command.

Let's get realistic here. Of course, the recipient of your little authoritarian epistle is selective in what he believes in the Bible. So are you. One would have to be totally insane to take every word of that book literally. No one does, no one. Even the most fundamentalist of fundamentalists won't take every word of Scripture literally. So they each pick and choose according to their own petty hatreds, prejudices, and ignorance—much as you have done.

Thank you for contacting us, and I hope this response will help you think in a thorough and biblical way about this important social issue.

I have long argued that one's views of God don't tell you anything about any god at all. But they do tell you a lot about the person who is preaching. People use their vision of a god to project a giant version of themselves. God is like a projection screen where we see a bigger image of the projectionist. Your view don't help anyone think through "this important social issue" but it does out you as an authoritarian, someone who believes in massive government intrusion into the lives of people, and who advocates a pervasive system of State control. Hell, compared to AFA and your views, Rev. Fischer, Obama is practically a flaming libertarian.

Some thoughts on the letters of Paul.

My regular readers will know that I’m an atheist. Those who have read this blog for sometime will also remember that I spent some time in seminary. That’s seminary, not penitentiary—though there were times the two were quite similar.

I concluded that the concept of god simply didn’t make sense—that there was no reason for me to believe. I bode no ill will for those who conclude differently, in spite of believing that they conclude wrongly. And I have had an abiding interest in all things theological. I studied the belief systems of the major branches of Christianity and many of the less well-known sects as well.

So, in spite of my utter lack of faith, or a belief in the supernatural, I continue to study the subject of religion—Christianity in particular. Christianity has had a major impact on Western society. I live in Western society, so it behooves me to study this influence—especially since I have concluded that the influence of Christianity has not been benign.

One of the courses I am currently listening to isabout how the Bible can into existence. It is not a topic that we actually spent much time studying in seminary. My seminary believed the Bible was the infallible, wholly inspired, word of God. At the time, I was trying very hard to agree with them. Even then I was seeing flaws in that claim.

And, my continued study of the origins of the Bible, particularly the New Testament, goes a long way in explaining why the seminary ignored this historical approach. We were told to believe, to have faith, to never question, and were never taught how the Bible evolved.

Even if we stick to just the New Testament the history is inconvenient, at least for the fundamentalist interpretation. Of course, there was no such thing as the New Testament for most of the years of early Christianity. Christianity spread by word of mouth, not by the Bible, as there was no Bible.

In the course I am currently taking there has been some discussion on the letters of Paul to the various local churches. These letters are in fact the earliest writings of what became the New Testament. The New Testament is not chronologically collected. The gospels were written decades after the death of Jesus, and in all likelihood, by individuals who never saw or meet Jesus.

Similarly the letters of Paul, which make up a huge portion of the New Testament, were written by someone who never saw Jesus alive. Paul did claim to have a vision of Jesus sometime after his death and claimed resurrection. And, as a result of this alleged vision, Paul went around seeking converts to his brand of Christianity. He was quite successful at it too, creating small churches throughout the region of Asia Minor.

After Paul left an area he often heard of problems with his converts. So Paul would write them letters trying to set them straight, or give them guidance. Those letters, and others attributed to Paul, are now much of the New Testament

But, there is no reason to think that Paul, when he sat down to write those letters, believed he was writing the infallible, inerrant, word of God. No doubt he did think his doctrines were straight from God, but then so do most believers. But surely Paul thought he was writing a letter to some specific people trying to give them advice and guidance. He was merely sending a letter. Had the computer/internet been invented in Paul's lifetime we, no doubt, would be reading emails from Paul, not epistles.

People kept many of Paul's letters, copied them over and passed them around. Or, more likely, someone read them aloud since most Christians were illiterate. Paul was seen as the one who converted them to this new “one true” faith. So his advice was taken seriously.

But there is no indication that anyone, at the time, thought these letters were the “word of God.” That came much later. There is actually some evidence that, while they clearly admired Paul, they didn’t take care of his letters very well. In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, known in the New Testament as First Corinthians, Paul makes mention of his previous letter to the Corinthians. First Corinthians is not the first letter to the Corinthians at all. It is actually, at the very least, the second letter Paul wrote the church in Corinth. Paul makes mention of this in chapter five, verse nine.

Paul continued some of the points he made in his first letter, in his second letter. So far no copies of the first letter have survived. Apparently the church in Corinth did not think that Paul’s first letter was the infallible word of God. They thought it was a letter from Paul chastising them for immorality. We know the first letter was preaching at the Corinthians about sex because Paul wrote them telling them “not to company with fornicators.” I would think that if either Paul, or the Corinthians, thoughts these letters were the inspired, infallible word of God, then they would have been a little more careful with the letter that they lost. Surely Paul, had he ever thought of his letters the way contemporary fundamentalists do, would have been far more diligent and kept copies of each one.

My point is, that if you believe you are holding in your hand the only copy of the inspired, inerrant word of God then you are going to be pretty damn careful not to lose it. But the Corinthians apparently did lose it, or someone did along the way. And Paul didn’t see any reason to keep a back-up copy of “God’s word” either. I suggest that neither Paul, nor the Christians in Corinth, understood the letters of Paul to be the word of God.

Actually, at no point in the early history of the New Testament was text treated as the literal word of God. People treated it the same way they would any collection of stories. When the various manuscripts, that were later collected and called the New Testament, were copied—the only form of duplication in existence at the time—the scribes often added their own flourishes or deleted things they didn't like. And apparently no one bothered to carefully proof read the copies as thousands of variations between ancient New Testament writings survived to this day. This attitude indicates they didn't think they were handling the inerrant word of God, otherwise they would be more careful about the errors, and editing, they were making.

Oddly, modern fundamentalist refer to their view of the Bible as the “old time religion” yet, it is not actually the oldest, of the old time views. It seems fairly clear to me that Paul, and those he converted, never saw his epistles, or letters, the way modern fundamentalists do. Fundamentalism is not returning to how Christians first viewed these letters at all.

My view is that the letters of Paul are interesting historical documents explaining his beliefs and some of the problems in the churches he founded. They help explain how and why some Christian doctrines survived and others died out, or are now branded heresy. Paul’s letters are important because he, far more than Jesus, is the true founder of Christianity. Paul’s brand of Christianity is the one that ultimately won out, of all the different versions of the faith alive at the time he was. So studying his letters tells us a lot of the evolution of the Christian religion. But there is no reason to think that anyone at the time they were written, including Paul, saw these letters the way modern fundamentalist do today.

Illustration: How Rembrandt imagined Paul.