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Showing posts with label Christian fundamentalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christian fundamentalism. Show all posts

Dr John Coulter ✍ Just as the lunatic fringe of so-called street preachers cannot be allowed to tarnish every Christian who responsibly uses open air evangelism, so too, the Christian faith must purge itself of the lunatic fringe in militant fundamentalism who have come to dominate Ireland’s pro-life movement.

Because of the activities of a section of the Christian faith anti-abortion lobby, new laws were recently introduced implementing the creation of safe zones around some medical clinics.

The law is known as the Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Act (Northern Ireland) 2023, which received Royal Assent on 6th February this year. Under this law, anti-abortion protests and other behaviours are prohibited within any Safe Access Zone once it has been established, and this may be enforced by the PSNI.

These Safe Access Zones were introduced across Northern Ireland on 29th September. A section of Christian fundamentalism views such zones as a denial of freedom of expression, but could it be a question that as a result of the behaviour of the lunatic fringe of the Christian faith at anti-abortion demonstrations, Christianity has only itself to blame for the introduction of such laws?

Many of the health clinics previously targeted by militant fundamentalist protests because of their abortion services also provide care on other services, such as blood disorders and helping women who have lost babies through miscarriage.

For many couples, including Christian couples, the loss of the unborn child through miscarriage can cause as much grief, pain and mental suffering as the loss of a child after it has been born.

Another interesting statistic to ponder, if it could be found, would be the number of Christians, especially born again believers, who privately have either had terminations themselves or paid for family members or friends to have abortions ‘on the quiet’ whilst publicly adopting a pro-life stance?

How would a couple feel, especially a Christian couple, if they were attending one of these medical clinics to be treated for the physical and mental effects of a miscarriage - having just lost their precious baby - and were confronted with a mob of militant fundamentalists waving placards containing photos of unborn babies?

And its not just a case of the protection and welfare of the folk attending such medical clinics, but also the well-being and safety of the staff themselves who work in such centres.

The key question is - when does peaceful Christian protest become militant fundamentalist intimidation? More significantly, has the Christian pro-life movement been infiltrated by the ultra-Calvinistic wing or ultra-conservative Catholic lobby of Christian fundamentalism?

If theological fascism is slowly, but surely beginning to dominate the anti-abortion lobby, how can Christians generally claim the faith is being persecuted when the activities of militant fundamentalism’s lunatic fringe brought these laws on themselves?

Put bluntly, the Christian faith can claim it needs its rights protected, but who protects folk from the excesses of militant fundamentalism? Broadly speaking, many Christian prayer meetings pray for what they term ‘the persecuted Church.’ But what about prayers for victims who have been persecuted by the Church?

How many people over the years have gone cold in their Christian faith or abandoned it completely because of a bad experience either in a church, or been persecuted by folk who called themselves Christians?

During my own spiritual journey, especially during church services where there would be prayers of intercession, the persecuted church would often be remembered.

But as a young teenage Christian, I remember being punched in the face by a Presbyterian elder in Sunday school, and the kicking I got to my lower back in a church hall simply for being the Presbyterian minister’s son.

As a teenage Christian in the 1970s, I would think to myself: 

I don’t need to go to Soviet Russia or communist China to get persecuted; all I have to do is walk a few yards into the Presbyterian church hall and I’ll get all the persecution I want!

Having endured that mincing mill as a young Christian minister’s son, I can fully understand why so many folk abandon their faith. I have chosen not to abandon mine.

The big danger is that it would be so, so easy to judge the Christian faith based on the actions of folk. That’s why it is equally important for true Bible-believing Christians to take a firm stand against the actions of militant fundamentalism.

Such actions by theological fascism have resulted in these new safe zone laws. Another key question remains - what section of society will these militant fundamentalists turn their attention to next?

Will there have to be safe zones imposed outside post primary schools and colleges in the New Year when teachers have to deliver lessons on Relationships and Sex Education (RSE)?

Just as militant fundamentalists used online social media abuse to target politicians in the abortion debate, will the same online abuse now be heaped on teachers delivering the RSE curriculum?

Militant fundamentalist targeting of the media has already kicked off with past online abuse accusing those who work in the media of being part of a satanic deception. I wonder does this online abuse against the ‘media’ include the numerous Christian magazines, radio stations and TV channels?

The bottom line is that if we Christians cannot police our own activities, we cannot complain when society brings in new laws to protect itself from the excesses of militant fundamentalism and theological fascism.

Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
Listen to commentator Dr John Coulter’s programme, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning around 10.15 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. Listen online. 

True Christians Need To Face Down Militant Fundamentalism

Ian Major ✒ vents criticism of what he considers a silly interpretation of Christ's command for Christians to assemble together, and consequently a vile attack on Christian leaders who do not agree with that silly interpretation.
 
Josiah Burke, who fellowships in a church in Castlebar, Co. Mayo, has published a 60 page booklet called, Selling the Vineyard. In it he attacks the leaderships of churches who stopped indoor meetings or even just stopped singing or requested any who had symptoms to stay home.

The primary error that leads him to vilify his brethren is his understanding of what the command to assemble entails. He asserts it means meeting as a church, regardless of the circumstances. He says:

If there was a deadly virus, the testimony of the Church would be the protection and healing power of God as it continues to obey Him regardless of the circumstances.’ p46.

He claims as support Psalm 91:10 “There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.” He also says those with ‘symptoms of the virus' should be admitted to the assembly. p34.

Does the Scripture teach this? No! Infectious diseases were treated seriously in the Law – those showing signs of infection, even though they might turn out not to have been infected, had to be excluded from the camp. Only when the infection was seen to have gone would they be readmitted.
 
The NT does not give any laws dealing with contagion, except the command to love your neighbour as yourself. So we should ask ourselves what Paul or any of the apostles would have expected of an infected brother or sister, and of the assembly. Would they say to one infected with Smallpox to just come on in as normal? Would they have condemned a church who told them not to assemble with them until they were well ( but giving selfless care to them)?
 
I am certain the answer would be No. Love of neighbour does not entail infecting them. Neither does it entail putting God to the test, taking unnecessary chances and expecting Him to keep them safe. I don't know if Josiah or his church are into the Health & Wealth theology, but this is what we would expect from them. This indeed is what some of those American churches did, until many of the leaders and members went down with the virus.

The saddest part of this folly is his vilification of his brethren. He accuses them of ‘apostasy and rebellion' (p10); being ‘hirelings' and ‘unfaithful shepherds' (p11); ‘cowardly and unfaithful men’ (p13).
His condemnation is for all churches who stopped their indoor meetings or stopped congregational singing, but he singled out the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster for special vilification (p33-34; 37; 43-53; 57-58). He names some of its leaders: Rev. Gordon Dane (Moderator), John Armstrong (Deputy Moderator) and John Greer (Clerk) p43.

Amongst other accusations he says:

The leaders of the Free Presbyterian Church have voluntarily and defiantly shut the doors of the house of God in direct and indisputable contravention of the commands of the Word of God, attempting by doing so to preserve their respectability in the world. p50. 

His conclusion, ‘God has departed from the Free Presbyterian Church' p57.

I am not a member nor adherent of the FPC, but I know and respect many of their members and leaders. They are the last church in NI one could accuse of apostasy, rebellion and cowardice, of being led by hirelings and unfaithful shepherds. This booklet is a sample of the theological folly out there that has sprung up in this pandemic crisis.
 
Josiah Burke is not an isolated case - I've heard other pulpits denounce their brethren in similar terms. Leaving aside the conspiracy nutters that see the pandemic as a scam to get us to take the mark of the beast, this theological case is more serious because, if it is true, those who take measures to protect public health must be gullible fools at least, or wilful traitors as is stated here.

Here's the importance of sound theology portrayed clearly: go wrong in our interpretation of Scripture and we may reach devastating conclusions. So if we reach devastating conclusions, our first response should be to go back and thoroughly check our interpretation. It may be right, but we need to make sure before we take up arms against our brethren. I can't see how anyone could reach the conclusion this man has, without being motivated by unbiblical ideas.

⏭Ian Major grew up a heathen Protestant, was converted at 17. He lives out his Evangelical faith as a Baptist. 

Selling The Vineyard

The headline is the name of a song from the Christian singer, Sir Cliff Richard. Religious commentator, Dr John Coulter, explores the at times uneasy relationship between Christianity and rock music in his latest Fearless Flying Column today.

I’m a preacher’s kid who loves heavy metal music and original vinyl albums by Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, the Quo, and of course, AC/DC and Iron Maiden, hold pride of place among my music collection.

But as a mainstream Presbyterian minister’s teenage son growing up in the Seventies in the heart of the north Antrim Bible Belt, showing off your new double-live Black Sabbath album, ‘We Sold Our Soul For Rock’n’ Roll’ (released in 1975), may not have been the wisest of things!

After all, the minister who had been in the congregation before my dad had been there for 40 years and had no children, so kids in the Presbyterian Manse were certainly an unusual social commodity in the 1960s and 1970s.

Picture the scene - an elder’s wife comes to the Manse, to be greeted at the front door by a long-haired, skinny, specky-four-eyed wannabe rocker wearing jeans and a Led Zeppelin tee-shirt, with Black Sabbath’s iconic song, Paranoid, roaring through the Manse on 200 watt speakers!

To say that my love of rock was a culture shock for Bible Belt rural farming Presbyterians is putting it mildly. Worse was to follow. In 1976, I decided take my love of metal a stage further and formed a very, very short-lived band I named The Clergy.

I dressed in my dad’s clerical robes and attempted to play - as the band’s lead guitarist - my own tribute to Paranoid. Common sense did kick in and I decided the band’s image of the rock-playing clergy act was just too blasphemous for rural Presbyterianism and I disbanded the group.

I converted one of the spacious bedrooms in the Victorian-style Presbyterian Manse into a recording studio. Then came the fateful day when a chum took a photo of me recording some rock music.

Somehow, the slide made it out into the community. The Manse window could be clearly seen in the corner of the slide. This was confirmation that the minister’s son was playing and recording the devil’s music in the Manse!

My understanding is that there was then an ad hoc meeting of some Presbyterian elders to discuss if I would be a bad influence on the young people of the community with my love of heavy metal music, especially when the image of a Presbyterian preacher’s kid was that I should only listen to the Scottish Metrical Psalms, perhaps a large dose of Country and Western Gospel - but certainly no rock or punk!

I say ‘ad hoc meeting’ because as I’m completing research for a memoir of my experiences as a preacher’s kid working in journalism, and I simply cannot find a formal record of this meeting. Perhaps it was only a bunch of elders who had a wee, unofficial chat about my heavy rock activities.

Time-wise, we are talking about events which allegedly took place some 44 years ago and sadly, any of the supposed elders who were involved in such an ad hoc meeting are now dead, so in researching this aspect of my life, I’ve had to rely on local folklore and gossip.

Indeed for decades after, the 1976 slide was passed through that north Antrim community of me, brandishing my electric guitar, headphones, and yelling into a microphone; it seemed to be almost a step ahead of me - only to be mysteriously and anonymously passed to me in January 2020!

The aftermath of that ‘meeting’ was that to some in the Presbyterian community, I was seen as the ‘spawn of satan’. More trouble ensured as my retort to that accusation was - ‘that’s a great name for a band!’ Clearly, Puritan Presbyterianism did not appreciate a minister’s son with a dark sense of humour.

The rock rebellion went even further in the late Seventies - I formed my own punk and metal recording label, Budj Recordings, based on my schoolboy nickname of Budgie Coulter.

The inspiration for the company began ironically when I was a trainee journalist. I was covering an event in the coastal town of Portrush organised by the Christian outreach organisation, Project Evangelism. The event was packed with rockers, bikers and Hell’s Angels.

But once ‘the musical bit’ started with the acoustic guitars, the rockers all walked away. Plucking up the courage to interview them as to why they were leaving, they told me the music ‘sucked’ - or words to that effect! Because music - and especially rock - was such a part of their biker culture, they equated the ‘boring’ acoustic guitar music with Christianity, which they also saw as ‘boring’.

The bottom line was that the medium was the message. Surely, the witness policy was simple - communicate the Christian message in a medium the rockers could identify with; I wasn’t changing the message of ‘Jesus Saves’, merely the choice of musical genre through which that message was spoken.

The concept of Budj Recordings - namely, communicating the Gospel through the musical mediums of punk and rock - did not sit well with both Christian fundamentalists or secular rockers.

Indeed, reflecting on my time as album producer with Budj Recordings, I probably got more criticism and flak from fellow Christians than I did from secularists or the ‘unsaved’.

The North East Ulster Bible Belt mentality had championed the myth that the only musical instruments which could be used in worship were either the piano or the organ - electric guitars, drum kits and electronic keyboards were ‘of the devil’.

This hardline Puritan mentality was not simply confined to the Seventies. In some places of worship, it still existed well into the new millennium. Several years ago, the youth wing of a particular fundamentalist church wanted to hold a praise service.

When hardliners in the church got to hear that the young people would be praising God using acoustic guitars, they staged a walkout during the service. It came as no surprise that many young people abandoned that particular church.

What the hardline fundamentalists cannot fathom is that Christian rock is alive and well and in many churches - even in mainstream denominations - and electric musical instruments in praise time are now the accepted ‘norm’.

It’s been 20 years since my late father and I enjoyed an evangelical rally in Kenya in July 2000. The Africans certainly know how to praise God, especially in their singing and dancing.

There are times when I wish I had the cash to transport some of the dyed in the wool fundamentalists from Ireland to Africa to see that worship in action.


Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter

Listen to Dr John Coulter’s religious show, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning around 9.30 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM, or listen online at www.thisissunshine.com

Why Should The Devil Have All The Good Music?

It’s not the end of the world, but the end of the ‘Hat Brigade’ in churches! Religious commentator, Dr John Coulter, uses his Fearless Flying Column today to push the view that the virus crisis, once ended, will see the demise of the once-influential ‘Hat Brigade’ in many Christian denominations.

For generations, the so-called ‘Hat Brigade’ has ruled the fashion roost in many churches and denominations across Christianity, but the coronavirus pandemic could put a swift end to its domination once and for all.

With churches and places of worship in total lockdown, many clerics are delivering their sermons via social media and the internet. The concept of the virtual church is now a living reality.

In a previous Fearless Flying Column, I alluded to the view that this could change the whole ethos of Christian evangelism and outreach as to how the Church communicates its message. When the lockdown ends, we could witness many more people coming out to worship, or indeed changing churches or denominations because of the influence of online worship.

The ‘Hat Brigade’ is a reference to those fundamentalists and evangelicals who strictly interpret the Apostle Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians in the Bible’s New Testament, chapter 11, on the role of women at worship with their heads covered.

The key section is from verses five to 15. Here it is as expressed in the King James Version of the Bible:

“5, But every woman that praying or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven.
“6, For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered.
“7, For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man.
“8, For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man.
“9, Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.
“10, For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels.
“11, Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord.
“12, For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God.
“13, Judge in yourselves: is it comely that a woman pray unto God uncovered?
“14, Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?
“15, But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering.”

Put bluntly, many fundamentalist males have interpreted this passage of Scripture as giving them the authority to order women to wear hats in churches. Others go even further and would ban the ordination of women preachers and clerics.

The bottom line is that for generations, many women have had a raw deal from churches, denominations and mission halls as a result of this passage.

During the 1970s especially, it was not uncommon for certain mission halls to proudly display notices that women coming to worship should wear hats. Some halls even provided scarves for those women who dared to appear at worship without their heads covered!

In this period, I recall two spinster sisters who loved the preaching of two well-known male evangelists and decided to travel many miles to hear them preach. They were dismayed when they were taken aside after the meeting and informed that if they came to another meeting, they must wear hats!

In another incident, I recall the story of a family who had a young daughter who was a gifted Gospel singer. She was based in County Antrim. Her parents got her a booking at a mission hall in County Tyrone and on the Sunday evening in question drove the hour’s journey to the hall for their daughter to sing.

But she was refused permission to sing as the wee girl was not wearing a hat! None of the ladies present at the meeting would lend the girl a hat because that would mean they would be in the meeting without a hat! It was a case of ‘no hat, no hymn’! Then another hour’s car journey back to County Antrim - all that travelling and the cost of petrol, for what?

Fundamentalists would defend their position by stating that the family should have checked the fashion code of the mission hall in the first place.

The key question facing fundamentalists in these cases - does Christ look on what is in someone’s heart, or on the head gear they wear?

When we all stand before God on Judgement Day, will entrance to Heaven be refused to some Christians because they chose not to wear a hat to church?

It makes no mention of head coverings in the key Salvationist text of St John chapter 3, verse 16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (KJV)

Another key question which the fundamentalists, and even some within the evangelical tradition, will have to face is - how many people have turned away from the Christian Gospel because of the strict fashion code on hats?

Even before the virus lockdown, there has been a radical rethinking of the ‘hat rule’ from First Corinthians with a greater emphasis on verse 15 - that a woman’s hair itself is a covering.

However, the fundamentalists will be quick to point out that the verse states ‘long hair’, so will we have male elders, deacons and preachers ruling on how many inches or centimetres a woman’s hair should be before it meets the Biblical criteria of verse 15?

A decade ago (so this must be taken in that context) I had to the opportunity to visit one of the Rev Ian Paisley’s Free Presbyterian churches, a denomination known for being an integral part of the ‘Hat Brigade’.

Even though I am the son of a mainstream Presbyterian minister and a life-long, card-carrying member of the Ulster Unionist Party, I must stress that I was made most welcome at the church.

There certainly was a fine array of hats among the middle aged and older women that Sunday, but the teens and twenties women also displayed an equally fine array of fascinators! Heads certainly were not covered by what amounted to be nothing more than a twig with a feather! But none of these fascinator-bearing women were being refused entry to worship.

So what’s the policy for the future? The Christian Church as a whole needs to get a grip on itself and stop pandering to the ageing minority to strictly enforce the so-called ‘no hat, no handshake’ interpretation on Scripture.

This refers to the band of fundamentalists who maintain that unless a woman wears a hat to church, she cannot become a member of that church and be extended the ceremony of the Right Hand of Fellowship - the so-called official joining ritual which many fundamentalist and evangelical churches indulge in.

Instead of the ‘Hat Brigade’, let’s have a hallelujah for the up and coming ‘Verse 15 Brigade’!
Certainly, we Christians (and I particularly include myself) of all denominations should take note of the words of the Indian Hindu leader Mahatma Gandhi, given his fascination with the teachings of Jesus Christ Himself: “If it weren’t for Christians, I’d be a Christian.”

Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter

Listen to Dr John Coulter’s religious show, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning around 9.30 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM, or listen online at www.thisissunshine.com

When Is A Personal Hair-Do Not A Christian Hair-Do In Church?

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