In my last posting, The British National Party and racist Neo-Paganism: is there common ground? 2, I finished the article on Neo-Paganism and racism. I now will look at the similarities between the British National Party and racist Asatru and Odinist groups.


The British National Party, which won two seats in the European Parliament just two weeks ago, has one particularly strong similarity to racist neo-pagan groups. And it should be pointed out that its similarity is politically very dangerous in regards to democracy. It is a racism that tries to eliminate the very definitions of both racism and democracy.


In the article I posted I looked at Steve McNallen’s religious view of race which he refers to as “Metagenetics.” He wrote, “We are intimately tied up with the fate of our whole people, for Asatru is an expression of the soul of our race.” Because of this view only the white race is allowed to belong to such religious groups. And although this is supposedly a religious view it nonetheless fits precisely the demands of the BNP’s qualifications for belonging to their political party.


In the Constitution of the BNP they state:

The British National Party represents the collective National, Environmental, Political, Racial, Folkish, Social, Cultural, Religious and Economic interests of the indigenous Anglo-Saxon, Celtic and Norse folk communities of Britain and those we regard as closely related and ethnically assimilated or assimilable aboriginal members of the European race also resident in Britain. Membership of the BNP is strictly defined within the terms of, and our members also self define themselves within, the legal ambit of a defined ‘racial group’ this being ‘Indigenous Caucasian’ and defined ‘ethnic groups’ emanating from that Race as specified in law in the House of Lords case of Mandla V Dowell Lee (1983) 1 ALL ER 1062, HL.

2) The indigenous British ethnic groups deriving from the class of ‘Indigenous Caucasian’ consist of members of: i) The Anglo-Saxon Folk Community; ii) The Celtic
Scottish Folk Community; iii) The Scots-Northern Irish Folk Community; iv) The
Celtic Welsh Folk Community; v) The Celtic Irish Folk Community; vi) The Celtic
Cornish Folk Community; vii) The Anglo-Saxon-Celtic Folk Community;viii The Celtic-Norse Folk Community; ix) The Anglo-Saxon-Norse Folk Community; x) The
Anglo-Saxon-Indigenous European Folk Community; xi) Members of these ethnic
groups who reside either within or outside Europe but ethnically derive from them.(Ninth Edition)

BNP’s attempts to define democracy and racism are much like the words from Animal Farm about all animals being equal but some being more equal than others. On racism they, like McNallen, keep insisting that if their party respects other ethnic groups, but insist they stay within their own communities and/or countries, they are not racists. However as one begins to read some of their policy statements extreme ideas emerge.
For instance their statement about immigration begins with views that simply sound very conservative but as it progresses one is reminded of long lines of trains headed for concentration camps. Their statement:
“To ensure that this does not happen [the white population becoming the minority], and that the British people retain their homeland and identity, we call for an immediate halt to all further immigration, the immediate deportation of criminal and illegal immigrants, and the introduction of a system of voluntary resettlement whereby those immigrants who are legally here will be afforded the opportunity to return to their lands of ethnic origin assisted by a generous financial incentives both for individuals and for the countries in question.”
The BNP also has a system for answering questions about racism. In their leaflet “Language discipline,” they state, “The precisely correct description of what we are, in
the standard terminology of international comparative politics, is a ‘patriotic’ or
‘ethno-nationalist’ party. That is, we espouse, like many political parties all over
the world, the interests of the particular ethnic groups to which we belong.” The BNP goes on to redefine the difference between the rights of other ethnicities and the rights of Caucasian peoples.

The leaflet suggests that party members when speaking of none white groups define ethnicity in both the civic and ethnic ways. This means that all other ethnic groups have the rights and duties of citizenship but that only the white groups have the right of staying in the majority as far as population is concerned. As the author puts it, “This ethnic understanding of Britishness does not impinge upon the civic rights of British passport holders. It is merely an expression of the rights of an indigenous people to be recognised as such, and to have the right to remain as
the majority population in their own nation.” This is simply a ruse. If one is a citizen of Britain, one is a citizen of Britain. The right of fecundity belongs to all ethnic groups.

As a matter of fact a rule listed above this double citizenship one helps the reader understand the apparent racism in any of the rules. It is, “Explanations of our ideology should be couched, whenever possible, in terms of specifically British history and the specific national identity of Britain. For example, when discussing rights, we should speak of‘our traditional rights’ or ‘the rights of Englishmen’, not about universal human rights, which is a very different concept.” (Bold original)

The racism of the BNP is blatant but there are other subjects related to racism. This particular political party has a totalitarian bent which is not unlike past totalitarian political parties of the twentieth century. Also there are other connections, such as books and ancient pre-Christian history, which once again reflex the racist paganism of some Asatru and Odinist groups. I will explore these various subjects in following postings.

The British National Party and racist Neo-Paganism: is there common ground? 2

The second half of “The NeoPagan Movement and Racism.”

Ethnic Religion and Religious Hatred

These various Odin groups make a distinction between a universal religion and an ethnic or “folkish” faith. All of the major world religions are considered universal because they are meant for all people. The ethnic religion is understood as existing only for a racial or cultural group. In this context Christianity is seen as the great enemy of the white Northern peoples since they were converted by its missionaries to an alien religion not in keeping with the soul of the Northern European. Picture by Stephen Larson

Michael Moynihan in his book, Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground, subtly implies that the many church burnings in Norway by either band members or fans of black metal was a subconscious explosion of the white youths need to return to the old heathen religions. He documents how many of these members turned from satanic rock to the Norse or Odin religious symbols in their music and religious outlook. One explanation that Moynihan offers is Jungian and builds on a theory of racial archetypes within the cultural subconscious.6 So along side the racial problem in these groups is the glaring problem of religious hatred.

There are several degrees of extremism among such pagan groups on the Internet. The most extreme and the racist ones are The Pagan Front and The Heathen Front. Another grouping made up of such groups as Asatru Free Assembly, Asatru Folk Assembly and Odinic Rite, do not consider themselves racist and have nothing to do with Hitler or Nazism. (Interestingly, the latter groups see Hitler and Nazism as manifestly Christian, and therefore atrocious, while Pagan Front and Heathen Front see Hitler and Nazism as anti-Christian and therefore an admirable and helpful part of their movement. They all quote Hitler to prove their point!)

While Steve McNallen of Asatru Folk Assembly claims not to be racist, some of his articles promote racism. In an article entitled “Wotan vs. Tezcatlipoca,” McNallen attempts to show that a kind of spiritual ethnic war is developing in California between the gods of the Hispanic culture and the European culture.

He sees the old Aztec and Mayan gods pushing for territory in California and writes, “If California and the American Southwest are to be cultural battlegrounds, who better to lead the European-American counterattack against Tonatzin and Tezcatlipoca than our own Gods of the North.” While not suggesting violence as the answer, he sees cultural interests such as language and festivals as indicators of aggression rather than celebrations of ethnic diversity in a democracy. 8

The Heathen Front, unlike the Pagan Front, does not major in Black Metal music. Not unlike Nazi culture, they value ethnic folk music and the classical music of Richard Wagner.7 However, the founder of the Norwegian Heathen Front, musician Varg Vikernes, is a young man serving a prison term in Norway for murder and church burnings. Before his imprisonment he was a part of the Black Metal and Satanic Music scene in Norway. He is also one of the more important subjects in Moynihan's book Lords of Chaos.

Moynihan explains that Vikernes is an embarrassment to the neo-heathen groups because of his “extreme and bloody interpretation of indigenous Norse religion.” Moynihan also writes, “when contemporary figures sought to revive the old religion of Northern Europe, they had not intended to bring back uncontrollable barbarism and lawlessness with it.”9

Several other interests connect these groups to the pagan worldview and to grass roots movements in general. One interest is the tribal unit versus globalism. Since the tribe is seen as the most important unit of society in the Odin communities, neither nation states, world organizations, nor any form of global movement are accepted as helpful to the white European soul. Another interest is the environment. They affirm environmental concerns and have statements at their websites about environmental issues as they see them.

The Heathen Front offers an essay on Savitri Devi. She was a vegetarian and advocate for animal rights. Her book, Impeachment of Man, is an attack on Christianity, Judaism and Islam and a plea for the rights of animals. A European, she lived in India during World War II, aligning herself with the Nazi Party and the radical India Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). She later developed connections to George Lincoln Rockwell the founder of the American Nazi Party. 10

The Heathen Front also states:

"Judeo-christian [sic] morals prevent mother Jord from doing her work, so we are keeping people alive that were sacrificed by nature to save those fit for survival. More people means [sic] more pollution, and today we have reached too high a level of population/pollution. The earth can no longer re-generate. Slowly we are killing everyone to help just a few. If you look upon this matter with a clear vision, rather than one blurred with Judeo-Christian or humanist values, you will understand this fully as well."11

The religious hatred of these various groups is one of the more troubling aspects of the movement. On Pagan Front's website various band's sites are promoted. One site has two crosses inverted with Christ still hanging there as an entryway. Varg Vikernes in an article denouncing “Christian Identity,” (a racist movement claiming to be Christian), calls Christianity the “most extreme Jewish consequence.”

Later in the article, he states, “It were [sic] Christians who condemned everything Aryan to Hell forever! It was Christianity who made our Aryan race coward and degenerate! Christianity has been the origin of everything evil in Europe since it arrived here!”12 In an article about ecology, the writer states, “Judeo-Christianity is the irreligious masquerading as the religious. It is a life hating death cult, that hates the earth with its races, its tribes and its wide biological variety - its underlying holiness.”13

A Biblical Response: God's Blessing From Tribe to Messiah to the Nations
Humanly speaking, the Judeo-Christian world will cringe at this hatefulness, and rightfully so. Yet, prayerfully, there is another picture of the individuals in these groups. Born into a Western “Christian” culture where most people are biblically illiterate and where materialistic secularism has almost totally engulfed society, they generally know nothing of the gospel of Jesus Christ. They equate “Christian” with the emptiness of secular society. Racists neo-pagans experience a society filled with barren hype, little meaning and violence. They believe that within their pagan racial beliefs they have returned home: to nature and to the tribe.

But such groups have the foundation for meaning inverted. It begins not with humanity, not with the alleged racial archetypes of human consciousness, but with the compassionate Father, the true Creator of all. And while the story of redemption, which gives meaning, begins with a small Near Eastern tribe, it is proclaimed and pushed forward toward all humanity; it is expanded as God speaks through the voice of the prophets of that tribe.

God's promises came to Abraham the father of that tribe, “and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed” (Gen. 12:3b). God chose that small family to bring a blessing on all the peoples of earth. The Hebrew prophets reminded the nation, who grew from that particular family, of God's desire for redemption and blessings on all people. Israel will be “a light of the nations.” God's house, “will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples.” God will bring the foreigner, those who are not Israel, “and make them joyful in My house of prayer” (Isa. 49:6b; 56:7).

God would do this through the coming Messiah who would be a light to the Gentiles: “The people who walk in darkness will see a great light; those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them” (Isa. 9:2 with Luke 2:32). Finally, because of the Messiah's death on a cross and His resurrection, the beautiful song of the elders can be sung:

“by your blood you ransomed for God saints from every tribe and language and people and nation; you have made them to be a kingdom and priests serving our God and they will reign on earth” (Rev. 5:9, 10b).

God starts with the small, the particular, and the isolated. He moves to embrace all in His redemption. The men and women who find inspiration in an empty snowy wood, lofty mountain peaks, tales of brave warriors and mythic sagas, will in the end find only emptiness and horror if they miss the God who created not only the snowy woods, but also all the tribes of the earth.

Moynihan's remark about “uncontrollable barbarism and lawlessness” being an unintentional result of a revival of Northern European Paganism, is simply one case in point. Jesus Christ is the only revelation of God; any other leads to destruction. Unredeemed humanity moves toward the horror and corruption of nightmares. All that is good and promising, “the weight of glory” as C.S. Lewis called it, comes from Jesus Christ.

Notes

6 Michael Moynihan, Didrik Soderlind, Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground, (Vince, California: Feral House 1998). Michael Moynihan is himself a member of “the Tribe of the Wulfings,”(see “Lords of Chaos: A Review by Hnikar) Hnikar, (Eric Wood), has left the Asatru Folk Assembly and has removed all of his articles from the internet but the papers are on file at Naming The Grace. Moynihan has a band called Blood Axis. He belongs to those groups that disavow racism but who hold a potential for racism.

7 What is AHF? Frequently Asked Questions, On file.

8 Stephen A. McNallen, Asatru Folk Assembly, “Wotan vs. Tezcatlipoca: The Spiritual War For California and The Southwest, http://www.runestone.org/articles/wotanvstezcat.htm

9 Moynihan, Lords of Chaos, 182.

10 Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Hitler's Priestess: Savitri Devi, the Hindu-Aryan Myth, and Neo-Nazism, (New York: New York University Press 1998), 104,105. Savitri Devi is rejected by some Odinist because of her embrace of Hinduism.

11 What is AHF? Frequently Asked Questions. On file.

12 Varg Vikernes, On File.

13 Oswin OR, “Deep Ecology and Odinism,” On File.

The British National Party and racist Neo-Paganism: is there common ground? 1

On Friday the 12th, Church and World. com (Presbyweb)was linked to a story in Christian Today about the British National Party which recently won two seats in the European Parliament. The BNP is a racist political party with some similarities to other totalitarian groups. They of course insist they are not racist. Hans Cornelder of Church and World also linked to their web site.Picture by Stephen Larson

While exploring the site I noted that their main ideology is not unlike that of some pagan groups I have written about who insist that all ethnic groups should be respected but all should keep to their own communities. I was interested enough in the similarities that I put both of their names together into Google. I came up with additional information on the racist pagan movement.

I decided to post a series; the first part will be an article I have already written, titled, “The NeoPagan Movement and Racism.” I will post this article first for two reasons. The most important reason is because it will be a guide for understanding the racism of the BNP. The second reason is because I discovered a movie is being made, by 2010, using the main book that I used for my research for the article.

The book is Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground, written by Michael Moynihan and Didrik Soderlind. One of the main persons in the book is “Varg Vikernes.” He served "a prison term in Norway for murder and church burnings. Before his imprisonment he was part of the Black Metal and Satanic Music scene in Norway.” The book was horrific; I can only guess that the movie will be also. So here is the first part of “The NeoPagan Movement and Racism” before I begin writing about the BNP.

The NeoPagan Movement and Racism

In the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin wall I remember listening to an interview with Henry Kissinger. The interviewer asked Mr. Kissinger if he feared a re-united Germany and a renewed Nazi movement? He replied that history does not perfectly repeat itself, but he did fear the rise of a new Romantic Movement. I believe that fear is well founded when focused on the dark side of Romanticism. Kissinger doubtless recognized the racist sentiments that can emerge out of the Romantic worldview. This article will explore the relationship between racism and some Neo-Pagan groups who are a part of a new Romantic Movement. I will point out the blatant racism of some groups and will explore the potential racism in other groups that disavow racism. I will also explore the hatred these groups hold for Jews and Christians, and I will give a biblical perspective and response to such hatred.

Understanding Romantic Movements
Romantic movements generally include a wide assortment of thinkers since such movements are in many ways a reaction against empiricism and materialism. Several of the more articulate Christian apologists of the last century could be considered Romantics. C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as well as most of the Inklings were Romantics in much of their view of life and in their writings. They were, however, Romantics with a Christian worldview and there are three distinctions to be made.

First, Romantics, who see the sublime, mystery and meaning in the natural world, often equate God with nature and for that reason are pantheists (God is all) or panentheists (God is in all). In contrast, Romantics who are Christians understand that God is the creator of everything and not a part of the world.

Second, some Romantics equate God or their own particular ethnic essence with folk tradition, cultural myths and homeland. Both Lewis and Tolkien valued folk tradition, cultural myths and the love of homeland, but they did not place such weighty significance on them. Third, some Romantics make no distinction between good and evil since both are a part of nature. In fact, some even glorify evil.

Christian Romantics understand evil as both personal and part of the fall of humanity. They, perhaps more than anyone, understand the dark dimensions of evil and they do not glorify wickedness. They see evil and good as progressive, moving in extreme opposite directions. Lewis makes such a distinction in his essay “The Weight of Glory.” He admonishes the reader “to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.”

A New Romantic Movement
Several cultural pointers provide evidence that a new Romantic Movement is in progress. A growing interest in medieval and mythical subjects in books and movies is one indicator. A growing movement of smaller ethnic-centered groups in place of a more homogenized society is another indicator. The Green Movement, with a greater concern and priority for nature rather than industry or science, is also a part of a Romantic worldview. Certainly, the New Age movement and a growing pagan community are the products of a romantic attitude toward life, community and the universe in general.

As stated, many of those who could be considered a part of the New Romantic Movement are members of the neopagan community. A small percentage of the neopagan movement is racist. Most of the racist groups belong to Odinist communities. They may also be called Ásatrú. (However, not all Odinists or Ásatrú adherents are racist.)

All of the groups I will consider in this article are made up of white European descendents; they purposely exclude all other ethnic groups. Their religious focus is on the gods and goddesses of old European tribes. (These include, Odin, who is also called Woden, Thor, Frigga, the wife of Odin and Freya.) Many Odinists see the gods and goddesses of their religion as archetypes or expressions of the racial subconscious. But there are many ways of understanding the multitude of gods and goddesses worshiped by the Ásatrú and Odinist groups. The gods and goddesses may also be viewed as real entities.

The factor that either makes them racists, or gives them the potential for racism, is their insistence on religion as a genetic development as well as an intrinsic part of the human essence. Stephen McNallen, who leads the Asatru Folk Assembly, calls this idea “Metagenetics” and writes:

"One of the most controversial tenets of Asatru is our insistence that ancestry matters-that there are spiritual and metaphysical implications to heredity, and that we are thus a religion not for all humanity, but rather one that calls only its own.1"

Toward the end of his article McNallen states, “We are intimately tied up with the fate of our whole people, for Asatru is an expression of the soul of our race.”2 In a later article McNallen refines some of his thoughts. He writes:

"Our religion is a function of who we are, not just what we believe. Since the human being is holistic entity, our spirituality cannot be considered something apart from our physical ancestry. In terms of both genetics and metagenetics, our ancestors are encoded into our very beings. From values and temperament- which have been shown to correlate statistically with heredity-to the deeper issues of spirit, our forefathers and foremothers continue to influence us.3 "

Likewise, an article found at “Heathen front,” explaining what AHF (Allgermanische Heidnische Front) is, states that ethnic religions “are the most suitable ones.” The writer explains they are “manifestations of the inner self of every people, and expression of their collective subconscious.”4"

The author of the “creed” pages for Heathen Front's website also writes, “We believe that every religion is a projection of the völkish archetype, morals and ethics.”5 This means that all religion comes from tribal or racial experience as opposed to universal human experience. It certainly denies that an absolute and personal Creator God reveals Himself to all of humanity.

The need to protect a racial religion from outside cultural and ethnic influences by refusing membership to other races is not only problematic, but seems racist. One would have to protect the racial group from contamination by other races in order to keep the religion pure since religion is seen as the essence of the race.

1 Stephen McNallen, “Metagenetics”, An Odinist Anthology, (1983), http://www.runestone.org/metag.html.
2 Ibid., 4.
3 Stephen McNallen, “Metagenetics- an Update- Genetics & Beyond: the Ultimate Connection,” The Runestone, (Summer 1999) http://www.runestone.org/metag2.html.
4 What is AHF? Introduction, On File
5 What is AHF? Our Creed, On File

My Big Tent

The Presbyterian Church USA is having a conference called the Big Tent to represent all the diversity in the Church. I can't be there but after several weeks of enjoying various videos that I want to share I thought I would produce my own Big Tent. It will be very diverse. Really!

The first one is a band playing in a service in Brazil in what must surely be a Pentecostal Church. The music is great both because of its worshipful sounds and because of a fantastic saxophone solo.



After enjoying the sax and the worship, the beauty of God's gifts, God's healing and his gifts of talents are combined in this video. Gaylen Stewart uses his art to tell of God's healing. It was a recommend by a friend, Steve Scott, a staff member of Warehouse Ministries, and an artist, poet and musician in his own right. This video is by and about Gaylen Stewart.



Our diversity is tied together in a ministry of proclamation. All are called to tell of the good news that Jesus Christ lived, died and was resurrected. It is the Church's Lord which allows for such diversity; without Jesus Christ we are not one, but just a mass of difference.


This is a benediction. My daughters have always loved the music of Rich Mullins who was killed in an accident several years ago. Here he sings the Creed. The people in the video are the ones he spent his life ministering to.

Exploring the basis for two recent killings

Scott Roeder and James Von Brunn are two of a kind; their killings are connected to fringe groups concerned with anti-Semitism, conspiracy theories and racism. The killer of the abortionist, Dr. George Tiller, and the killer of the guard, Brian Lennon, at the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. are both involved in such fringe groups.

Author Leonard Zeskind, who has written on racist groups for many years, wrote a column for "The Huffington Post" about Scott Roeder, Tiller’s killer. He traces Roeder’s interests back “to the so-called Christian common law courts and the militia movement,” explaining that the groups were and are involved in something called “‘sovereign’ citizen.”

The term implies that the members believe they are not required to pay taxes or obtain marriage or driver’s licenses because they are under an illegal government.1 Usually, these groups see the United States Government as controlled by Jewish people or Zionist. The Government has been referred to at times as ZOG (Zionist Occupation Government).

Zeskind writes, “The notion of "organic sovereigns" was first promoted by the Posse Comitatus, best known for its tax protest politics, but imbued also with the racist and anti-Semitic ideology known as Christian Identity.” Zeskind looks at the history of several fringe ideas tracing the militia group, the Posse Comitatus, to the Freemen, the group that Roeder was associated with. Zeskind’s article is important. It can be read here, Racism, Anti-Semitism and the Murder of Dr. Tiller.

James Von Brunn, the killer of Brian Lennon, is profiled in an article on The Washington Post, “Updated: Details on White Supremacist Suspect.” The article lists several groups and also quotes by Brunn. “Noontide Press” a racist, anti-Semitic and revisionist publisher is one of the entities. Several quotes by Brunn are, “"There was no policy to mass murder Jews,” and "No order was given to mass murder Jews. There was no budget to carry out such a policy. There were no means (gas chambers, etc.) to carry out mass murders."

The author of the Washington Post article writes:

“Von Brunn's online book, "Kill The Best Gentiles," is hundreds of pages of conspiracy theories that include Holocaust denial, the ancient hoax of the "Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion," and wild webs of fantasy seeking to link the Federal Reserve Bank, the Illuminati, Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx in a grand, centuries-long story of Jewish plotting against white people.”

In the fall of 1992 I wrote an article on Christian Identity for Christian Research Institute Journal. Yet, as Zeskind points out in his article, “this particular iteration of white nationalism was pushed aside as other forms, some more openly national socialist in their orientation, took its place at the front of the movement.”

But the movement still operates in the mind and movements of men like Roeder and it dirties the good name of the pro-life movement as it skirts about the fringes. But it need not, it is the baser world of racism, anti-Semitism and conspiracy theories that underlies the thoughts of such men as Roeder and Brunn. They use any pretense, abortion is but one, and such men as Roeder are careful to feed off of the Christian community. It is a pretext for legitimacy; it has happened before, it will happen again.

Those who know Jesus Christ as Lord know better. Their source isn’t muddy water. It is living water. Their hopes are not placed in some horrendous utopia overseen by either the far right or the far left. Instead they know the voice of truth.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. To Him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. A stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers.” (John 10: 1-5)

1. At one point in my work with fringe groups I counseled by telephone and mail with the supposed wife of an Identity leader who was trying to decide if she should leave him because of abuse.I say supposed because I found out as we talked that they were not legally married because of this idea of sovereign citizen. Happily it made some of my suggestions a bit easier.

A redone: Falling sunflowers, falling tears and falling Churches

I have removed the last posting I put up because I found the information on the Presbytery web site calender. I have no way of showing that it was not there before. It is possible that it went up over the weekend and I did not see it. I know I have been looking for it for a while, nonetheless it is there. I will still post the rest of my material.

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I came home this afternoon from my Committee on Preparation for Ministry meeting and visited my garden. In my garden, two beautiful sunflowers, one just beginning to bloom, lay destroyed. One, the biggest, which had undoubtedly bloomed early in the morning, had the flower head totally missing. The other, with several blooms, had its flower petals shattered all over the new sprouting beans. I found myself crying.

But, something more painful then lost flowers is troubling me, and I am sure that is why I reached the point of tears. At CPM, I discovered that this Tuesday and Monday evening our Presbytery had meetings with two members from the General Assembly Task Force on the investigation of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church's role in churches leaving the PCUSA. My first problem was I did not know about the meetings and I should have been there. (I may have just missed the calender postings which must have been placed there very late.)

When I found out I was devastated, because I have a story to tell and some very strong feelings about my brothers and sisters in the EPC.

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I may have told my story before, but I will tell it again. My husband and I were the only members of Sacramento Presbytery, that I know of, that were attending the General Assembly’s Committee on Ecumenical Relations when the overture on the investigation came up for people outside of the committee to speak to. (I was there for a different overture.) The only person who stood up to speak for that overture was the former pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Sacramento, David Thompson.

He is the person who filed the complaint against our Presbytery for coming to a settlement with the First Presbyterian Church of Roseville and Fair Oaks Presbyterian Church. He thought that we had not asked for enough money. He actually suggested in Presbytery that they should give up their church buildings.

Thompson, in the GA committee meeting, said that the EPC had stolen several of our biggest churches and millions of dollars from our Presbytery. The truth is there is only one person who has caused Sacramento Presbytery to lose thousands of dollars.

That is my story, and here are my feelings. As most people know who read my articles I have strong feelings about ordaining practicing homosexuals. I believe it would be ordaining those who willfully sin and will not repent of that sin. I believe it would bring great damage to our churches and to sinners who need the transforming grace of Christ.

But insisting that we as a denomination should break fellowship with another body of believers in the Church catholic because some of our members and churches, for conscience sake, have moved to their denomination, is sin.

It isn’t that it will damage our churches; it will bring them to ruin. It isn’t that it will keep sinners from being transformed; it will make great and horrific sinners out of all of us. And that outcome bothers me more than the possibility of our denomination ordaining practicing homosexuals.

I beg of my Church, the PCUSA, to be on the side of righteousness and not be the persecutors of the people of God.

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The dates on the calender are here: http://www.sierramissionpartnership.org/component/option,com_events/Itemid,37/. I apologize to all those who commented, since I also deleted your comments.

Candomble, true faith and the Word of God

Sometimes different parts of our world mesh nicely together. This morning on Facebook Pastor Mary Holder Naegeli placed a comment on her site. She was “pondering Karl Barth, I,1,230-36, and implications for Christian teaching in the missional setting.” I was very interested so I took the time to read that section.

As I read, a seemingly minor statement by someone in the last Horizons, the Presbyterian women’s magazine, came to mind. While I had concluded that this particular issue was well done it did have a couple of problems and the statement was one of them. I feel the passage in Barth’s Dogmatics gives greater insight on the problem.

In an article entitled “Transformative Travel” by Ellen Birkett Morris, Judy Martin who traveled to Salvador Bahia, Brazil, to work in an orphanage made a comment about the religion of Candomble. Explaining not only that it was a combination of Catholicism and an ancient African religion, Martin also stated that “Even in poverty, their lives are filled with song and dance and celebration of their faith. My faith is practiced quite differently, but learning about and being exposed to this different religion and its value system added yet another dimension to what I know about faith.”(Emphasis mine)

I will explain first that Candomble is not a Christian religion although its adherents do hold some reverence for entities whose names are biblical such as Jesus. Several years ago when another issue of Horizons had a much more, I will not say complete, but larger article on Candomble I wrote this as an explanation.

“Candomble is one of the religions of South America that has a strong spiritualist foundation. The religion consists of a hierarchy of beings on several levels. The highest is the remote god Olorun. Andrew Dawson, Professor of Religious Studies and Sociology at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, in the book New Religions: a Guide, explains the cosmology of Candomble:

The souls of the dead (eguns) are dispersed throughout orun, [the spiritual realm] their cosmological position in the spiritual hierarchy determined relative to their spiritual development when alive on earth. The spiritual spheres nearest the earth share a similar level of cosmic energy with it, thereby allowing the orixas most central to Candomble practice to pass easily between the spiritual and the material. [1]

Dawson goes on to explain the most central part of the Candomble religion which is the possession of a medium by the orixas. In an exchange the orixas possess the medium, (inhabits their body) giving advice and in return receive food and clothing.”[2]

Now I will return to the connection between Barth’s text and Martin’s statement about faith, “learning about and being exposed to this different religion and its value system added yet another dimension to what I know about faith.”

Barth using Anselm and Luther as well as his own thoughts writes about what faith is in relationship to the Word of God. And he does show that faith unattached to Jesus Christ both as gift, revealer and object is not Christian faith.

Additionally Barth insists God is not the true God because of human faith in Him. A quote will be helpful, “What makes Him the true God is that someone believes in Him in true faith. And the fact that the faith in which the true God is believed is true faith is not due in any sense to itself but to the fact that the true God has revealed Himself to it, i.e., it is due to the Word of God.” This makes any kind of faith disconnected from the revealed Word untrue faith.

That means that there is Christian faith filled with the revelation of Jesus Christ and religious faith which has no meaning for a Christian at all except as the study of religion.

Another quote, “…when Luther speaks of the Word and faith he is saying, of course, that where there is no faith the Word cannot be, or cannot be fruitful, but he is primarily, and this is the point, that where faith is, it does not have its ground and its truth and its measure in itself as a human act or experience, but even through it is a human act and experience it has these things in its object, in Christ, or God’s Word.”

My thought then is that Martin has knowledge of two entities: her particular religious practice and knowledge of another religion. But she does not have knowledge about faith as a particular if she is speaking of what is not connected to Jesus Christ and connecting it to her own. She cannot connect Candomble to Christianity by the use of the word faith. They are two different entities.

(I am not saying here that Martin isn’t a Christian, I am saying that in her statement she is missing what faith is. And I must confess that the problem might have originated with the editors of Horizons rather than Martin.)

So here is my own point. Martin, in the article did not acknowledge any need or desire for those involved in Candomble to have true faith in Jesus Christ. And she was seemingly more interested in the phenomenon of religion and believed that knowledge of one more kind added another dimension to her own knowledge of faith. But it is not our experience of faith or another’s that is important, rather it is the object of our faith Jesus Christ, the one who fills our faith experience, which matters.

If the Word fills our faith, if our faith is in that one who gives faith and reveals himself in our faith we will undoubtedly have both discernment and concern for those involved with other gods. We will, perhaps even pursue the knowledge of other religions that we might more carefully proclaim what is true faith which is made true by the revelation of the true God as he is known in the Incarnation, Jesus Christ.

[1] Andrew Dawson, “Candomble,” New Religions: A Guide, Editor Christopher Partridge, forward, J. Gordon Melton, (Oxford: Lion Publishing; New York: Oxford University Press 2004) 287.
[2] Ibid.