Once again, a reply from Dave Matson has simplified my task of answering Roger Hutchinson's latest journey into La-La Land. Matson has effectively demolished Hutchinson's attempt to exonerate the Bible of all blame in the religious atrocities that blemish western history, so I can focus on points that relate more directly to Hutchinson's personal attacks on me.
A question of integrity: Matson addressed Hutchinson's seemingly deliberate misrepresentations of what he and I have said in our replies to him, but I think that point needs to be stressed more, because it relates directly to Hutchinson's personal integrity. In my reply to Hutchinson in the May/June issue, I pointed out that after he had sent a letter to the mailbag column in which he accused Matson of shopping around for Bible translations that would agree with the errantist claim that the king who reigned over the children of Israel (Gen. 36:31) was a reference to Saul, the first king of Israel, Hutchinson submitted a reply to Stephen Van Eck in which he quoted the NIV version of Jeremiah 7:22-23, which is the only version I was able to find that contained the word just, which was obviously inserted by translators in an attempt to make the verse mean that when the Israelites left Egypt Yahweh didn't give them commands just about burnt offerings but had also spoken to them about his desire for obedience. That was a flagrant attempt on Hutchinson's part to search for a translation that agreed with his strained interpretation of the passage. Hutchinson almost always quotes from the KJV, but to justify his quotation of the NIV in this matter, he went so far as to say that "(m)any regard the New International Version of the Bible as a better translation for the modern reader" ("Moses and the Pentateuch," TSR, May/June 2000, p. 7). Well, if it is a better translation for modern readers, why does he not use it until he needs to find a version that agrees with some far-fetched solution to a biblical discrepancy that he is trying to peddle? Such flagrant hypocrisy can't be mentioned too often, so as long as Hutchinson continues to lecture skeptics on having "an agenda" that causes them to "slant [their] investigation to achieve the conclusion [they] seek" ("A King Over Israel," TSR, January/February 2000, p. 8), I intend to keep readers reminded of just who is pursuing an agenda.
That brings us to Hutchinson's later distortion, which Matson referred to in his reply above. Matson had said that nobody had ever claimed that "Christianity is the cause of atrocity." In the article in which this statement appeared, the word the was clearly printed in bold print to show that Matson's obvious intention was to say that nobody is claiming that Christianity is the only cause of atrocity, but when Hutchinson quoted it, he left "the" unemphasized to leave in the minds of those who might not remember Matson's statement the impression that he had said that Christianity is not the cause of atrocity period, so that Hutchinson could then piously ask, "What, then, was Till trying to say?" Such misrepresentation can only be deliberate. How, then, is Hutchinson qualified to lecture anyone on morality? He is a living example of how Christians will practice deception and lying if they believe that it will further their cause. With Hutchinson as the opponent on the issue of Christianity's blemished past, I really don't need to press the issue. He is all the proof I need that the adherents of this religion are willing to violate their own moral code if they think it will advance their "agenda."
Rhetorical Questions: I got the impression that Hutchinson was accusing me of a kind of cheating by making use of writing skills that I had learned from teaching college writing. "As a retired English professor," he said, "[Till] has not forgotten the power of a well placed rhetorical question." So what am I supposed to do? Should I not use writing skills that I learned in my profession so that my rebuttals of Hutchinson's articles won't be quite so effective? If so, just how far should we extend that? I have also learned quite a bit about biblical inconsistencies and discrepancies through years of research into the subject. Should I not use any of this information so that biblicists will have a better chance of defending their absurd position that the Bible contains no errors at all?
Gee, it just occurred to me that I have replied to Hutchinson's complaint through a series of well placed rhetorical questions. Shame on me. Hutchinson can just mark it up to a personality flaw that I have. When I undertake a task, especially one that involves writing, I seem to want to do the best I can do. If he would adopt the same goal, maybe he wouldn't make so many statements that are easy to rebut.
A Pretender to the Pulpit? Twice Hutchinson resorted to insulting attacks on my honesty when I was a preacher and missionary. In an attempt to dismiss the misdeeds of clergymen as merely the crimes of "people with agendas" who "use religion to further their purposes," he said that one would think that Till, "(h)aving, himself ,once been a pretender to the pulpit... could grasp the distinction." One slur about my integrity as a preacher wasn't enough for him, so later on he attributed my "personal belief that the Bible has far less influence on Christians for good than one might think" to my failure to let "the Bible exert much influence on [me] in those days when [I] used a pulpit to do [my] thing." What we have, then, is someone who didn't even know I existed until five years ago pretending to know all about my motivation when I was a preacher and missionary over 40 years ago. Pardon a "well placed" rhetorical question, but is any more comment necessary? Hutchinson typifies the would-be apologist who has become all too familiar. Unable to accept that a Christian, and especially a preacher, could study the Bible and make a sincere, intelligent decision to reject the premise that it is "the inspired word of God," this type seeks to explain that which is incomprehensible to him by attributing all sorts of ulterior motives to those who just can't continue believing something that is intellectually impossible for them to believe. Thus, the Hutchinsons of the world explain the Tills by accusing them of having been hypocrites who never were "real Christians." Hutchinson reminds me of a quotation I saw on the internet, which was attributed to Elbert Hubbard: "If you can't answer a man's argument, all is not lost; you can still call him vile names."
Casual vs. Causal Relationships: Hutchinson attempted to exonerate Christianity of all blame for the atrocities in western history by claiming that there was only a "casual relationship between Christianity and historical events." He seemed to be arguing that Christianity has been so "widespread" that its presence where atrocities occurred was merely casually coincidental. Of course, I suspect that he would never agree to apply this same consideration to atrocities that occurred in the Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia. Would he ever argue that communism was so widespread in these countries that its presence where atrocities occurred was merely casually coincidental? Oh, heck, there I go replying to him again with a well placed rhetorical question. In stating his casual/causal argument, he made one of the most ridiculous false analogies I have ever seen. He said that Matson's line of reasoning would prove that fire departments spend their time setting fires because they are always observed at the scene of fires. That's true, but they are always observed to be fighting the fires at those scenes and not starting them. This contrasts sharply with the inquisitions, crusades, witch hunts, and other persecutions of the past in which church officials and leaders were on the scene but not to stop the proceedings. They were there to make sure they continued.
The Bible vs. Christianity: In my November/December 1999 reply to Hutchinson, I stated that I should not have limited the cause of persecutions to Christianity but rather should have attributed them to the Bible. I did this because I personally find it hard to classify organizations like the Phineas Priesthood and other racist organizations as "Christian," although they do exhibit obvious signs of biblical influence. Even their names tell us that. Hutchinson, of course, would have us believe that such organizations are really motivated by "greed, jealousy, or selfishness" and that their biblically based names are just some sort of coincidence. I doubt, however, that he would be so willing to exonerate Marxism of blame or influence if an organization bearing a name derived from Marxism should commit moral atrocities. At any rate, he called the modification of my position from Christianity to the Bible a "retreat" that had "no doubt discouraged the faithful." I prefer to think of it as an extension rather than a retreat, because I had realized that religious fanaticism that isn't derived from Christianity is nevertheless derived from the Bible at least in some instances, but if Hutchinson wants to see this as a retreat, let him see it that way. I suppose he has to have the occasional experience of thinking he has scored a point or else he would go away entirely. That would leave us without a court jester to represent the Bible in TSR, and we sorely need a few Roger Hutchinsons to let our inerrantist readers see just how impossible it is to defend the Bible against charges of errancy.
People with Agendas: I've decided that agenda must be Hutchinson's favorite word, because he uses it so often. Matson, Van Eck, and I aren't at all objective or honest in Hutchinson's opinion; we are just people with agendas to pursue, which cause us to "slant our investigations to achieve the conclusions we seek." Now he wants us to believe that child molesters in the priesthood, scam artists in pulpits, and homophobic and racist hatemongers are not the fault of religion but the fault of "people with agendas," who "seek to use religion to further their purposes." I don't doubt at all that he is right about the motivations of such people, but what makes it so easy for them to achieve their goals? Is it not the very trust and gullibility that the Bible instills in people? After having been indoctrinated from childhood to trust the priest or the preacher, is it any wonder that so many children and women seem to fall prey to the sexual advances of clergymen or that adults allow themselves to be suckered into religious confidence schemes that bilk them of their savings? The people who perpetrate these acts obviously do have agendas to pursue, but religion prepared their victims to become such easy prey.
Studies have indicated that Satanism isn't nearly as widespread in this country as some rumors and urban legends would have us believe, but now and then there do seem to be some incidents that are genuine cases of "Satanism." When children or teenagers are involved, as in the case of the group from Kentucky a few years ago who murdered the parents of one of the members, adults wring their hands in despair and ask how such things could happen. But where do youngsters who become involved in such practices learn about Satan in the first place? They learn it at church, where they are taught about the existence of this evil entity called "Satan." They certainly don't learn to believe in Satan by any associations that they have with religious skeptics, because skeptics don't teach their children such nonsense. Hutchinson may try all he wishes to blame sexual offenses and the confidence scams of clergymen on people with "agendas," but that won't explain away how religion seems to make it so easy for such rogues to find victims.
What Else Is There? On the matter of responsibility for Soviet and Chinese atrocities, Hutchinson "answered" Matson's opinion that skepticism wasn't responsible with the comment that "history declares unequivocally that those atrocities were not the fruit of Christianity," which he then capped with a rhetorical question: "What else is there?" In this case, however, Hutchinson's rhetorical question wasn't so "well placed," because it shows that he has an either/or (black-or-white) way of thinking. He can't seem to understand that the cause of atrocities aren't necessarily an either-or matter. Simply because atrocities are committed by those who aren't Bible believers doesn't mean that biblical skepticism was responsible for them. Atrocities can be and have been committed by people who knew nothing at all about the Bible and therefore had no opinions about it one way or the other. In cases like these, how could biblical skepticism have been responsible for the atrocities? I know nothing at all about Buddhist scriptures, so if I committed an atrocity, how reasonable would it be for Buddhists to claim that Buddhist skepticism had led me to do it? I suspect that Hutchinson is trying to argue that one cannot be a moral person unless he accepts the existence of the Bible god Yahweh, but that's a premise he would need to prove before vaulting to the conclusion that when atrocities are committed by those who are not Bible believers and may never even have opened a Bible, skepticism of the Bible is responsible.
On the other hand, he has a much greater issue to address. The history of western civilization is blemished with inquisitions, crusades, witch hunts, and other persecutions. The leaders in most of these atrocities were church officials or preachers quoting scriptures in support of their actions. In these cases, it's hard to separate the church offices or positions from the acts that were done, especially when the perpetrators spouted scriptures as their justification and church officials presided over the proceedings. This is an issue that Hutchinson hasn't addressed except, of course, to say that it "ain't so." In the remaining space I have, I will address the quibbles he has resorted to in his desperation to whitewash the history of Christianity.
Lot's "Righteousness": After all this time, Hutchinson still does not understand my purpose in bringing Lot into this discussion, or else he understands it but recognizes the damage it would do to his position if he admits that he knows why I had cited this example. Surely, no reasonable person would argue that literature, music, movies, art, and other cultural mediums cannot have good influences on society, but my position is simply that one cannot logically argue that such mediums can influence society for good but not for bad. If literature that depicts the noble aspects of life can uplift those who read it, why would it not be true that literature that appeals to the baser impulses of life would have the opposite effect? Deciding what to do about corrupting cultural influences is always a touchy social problem, but I happen to agree with those who think that a responsible society cannot just do nothing about this problem. Christian groups surely agree with this, because they are usually in the forefront of efforts to remove objectionable literature from schools and libraries and even to prevent its sale at local outlets. My basic disagreement with them is that they go way too far. Sometimes their efforts are directed even at children's literature for no other reasons except the plots include such elements as witchcraft, sorcery, or psychic phenomena.
This brings us to Lot again. He is just one of many characters in the Bible who make those in even the most risqué of modern novels look almost saintlike. Sodom was presumably so morally corrupt that Yahweh deemed its destruction necessary, but because Lot and his family were "righteous," Yahweh sent two angels to the city to warn them to flee before the destruction. The "righteousness" of Lot, which prompted this divine intervention was later described in the New Testament.
For if God did not spare the angels who sinned but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved for darkness... and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly; and delivered righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked (for that righteous man, dwelling among them, tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds)then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment... (2 Peter 2:4-9).
Upon reading this, one would think that Lot was the very epitome of sainthood. So just how "righteous" was Lot? In earlier articles, I have already summarized his part in the story about the destruction of Sodom. When a group of homosexual ruffians surrounded Lot's home and demanded that he send out the two men (angels) so that the mob could "know them," Lot pleaded with them to take his virgin daughters instead and "do to them as you please"(Gen. 19:1-11). After the angels had zapped the mob blind, Lot and his family fled the city, but when the fire and brimstone rained down on Sodom, Lot's wife looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt. (Am I actually having a discussion with someone who believes that such nonsense as this really happened?) Then when Lot and his daughters had escaped into the mountains, they got him drunk on alternate nights, took turns seducing him, and as a result became pregnant and gave birth to Moab and Benammi, the eponymous founders of the Moabites and Ammonites (Gen. 19:30-38).
This repugnant yarn completely undercuts Hutchinson's defense of biblical tales such as this one on the grounds that the Bible told both the good and the bad about its characters but condemned the bad so that god's wrath against the bad would "serve as a warning" ("A Poor Selling Job: Another Till Bankruptcy," TSR, November/December, 1999, p. 6). In the same context, he cited the apostle Paul's claim that such things were written as examples to Christians so that "they should not lust after evil" (1 Cor. 10:11). This all sounds good until the story of Lot is examined and shown to have no condemnation at all of any of Lot's actions. The fact that the angels intervened on Lot's behalf to disperse the mob and then instruct Lot on how to escape from the destruction about to fall on the city (Gen. 19:11-12) certainly doesn't tell us anything about the wrath that God sends upon sinners so that we will have an example "not [to] lust after evil." Likewise, the silence of the biblical text about any divine disapproval of Lot's incestuous relationship with his daughters certainly doesn't give us any example that tells us not to "lust after evil." The passage cited above (lefthand column) does, however, tell us that Lot was so righteous that he was "oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked" to the extent that his "righteous soul" was "tormented ... day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds," and so Yahweh deemed him worthy of a special mission of angels sent on his behalf to save him from the fiery destruction about to descend on Sodom. If a man who had no more concern or respect for his daughters than Lot did was all this righteous, one could hardly imagine just how deplorably wicked the other people in Sodom were.
The story of Lot, however, is only the tip of the iceberg. The Old Testament abounds with horror tales of despicable human conduct that was either approved by Yahweh or never condemned by him. In the Old Testament we can read of heroes of faith who lied and then were rewarded for it (Gen. 12:10-20; 20:1-18; 26:1-16). In these "doublets," which Dr. Harwood wrote about (p. 2, this issue), the father-son patriarchs, Abraham and Isaac, passed their wives off as their sisters in order to gain favor from the kings of the lands they were in at the time, and in one instance, Abraham even "pimped" his wife to the Egyptian king and received sheep, donkeys, oxen, camels, and servants (Gen. 12: 16). All of these stories, in fact, ended with Yahweh's blessing the patriarchs with more material possessions than they had at the beginning, so it's certainly hard to see how they could possibly serve as examples to us so that we won't "lust after evil."
In another biblical tale, we read about Yahweh's "chosen ones" going on a mission, which Yahweh himself ordered (Num. 31:1-2), to destroy the Midianites , after which Moses ordered his officers to kill all of the male children and nonvirgin females brought back as captives but to "keep alive for [themselves]" the virgin females (vs:15-18). Anyone reading this story would certainly have a good example to teach him not to "lust after evil," wouldn't he?
In other biblical stories, one can read about Yahweh's telling his "chosen ones" to enter Canaan, drive out all of the inhabitants, and leave "nothing alive to breathe" (Deut. 20:16-17), and further along are the accounts of Joshua's execution of these orders (Josh. 10:40; 11:10-11, 15, 23). First Samuel 15:1-3 contains direct orders from Yahweh for Saul, the first king of Israel, to "utterly destroy" the Amalekites and "spare them not" but to kill both male and female, child and infant. Even the livestock of the Amalekites was to be completely exterminated. What readers will not find, however, is any suggestion that Yahweh disapproved of any of these atrocities. In fact, the Bible explicitly states that he himself ordered them. How, then, can Hutchinson claim, with a straight face, that such stories as these serve as examples to us so that we won't "lust after evil"?
The fact that the Bible abounds with tales like these underscores the colossal hypocrisy of Christian groups who seek to ban books and movies because of contents that are rather innocent compared to what can be found in the Bible. Where is the consistency in demanding the removal of books from schools and libraries because of scenes of witchcraft, violence, and sexual escapades that are comparatively innocuous in terms of what can be found in the book that those fighting for censorship use as the basis of their demand. To say the least, there is an element of hypocrisy here, or else it may just be ignorance, because many Christians who go on crusades to protect public morality don't really know much about what is in the Bible.
In his desperation to defend the unsavory aspects of the Bible, Hutchinson could do no more than resort to absurdity. In reference to my previous summation of Lot's incestuous relationship with his daughters, Hutchinson said, "From this, it appears that we should fear for daughters in religious families, who upon reading of Lot's daughters would immediately seek to emulate their behavior" (p. 5, this issue). I never implied any such thing as this, because any father with a sense of moral decency in him would never consider doing this, but Hutchinson is surely aware that some fathers do have incestuous inclinations, and whether he wants to admit it or not, some of these men are churchgoers, who even hold positions of respect in their churches. Does Hutchinson suppose that there is just no way that such fathers as these could be influenced by the story of Lot to act on their impulses?
Witch Hunts: Hutchinson has simplistically reduced the cause of the Salem witch trials to "basically... a few bored young girls looking for excitement along with a few copy cats whose efforts were magnified by a family that had a score to settle." In just 30 lines Hutchinson swept aside the 17th-century witch hunts in New England as unfortunate tragedies that Christianity had nothing to do with, even though the literature on the subject shows an obvious connection between these persecutions and the religious superstitions of the Puritan New Englanders. Hutchinson said that I shouldn't have patted myself on the back so much and "spent a little more time trying to sort out what happened in Salem and how it related to the Bible." That's almost ludicrous coming from someone who probably did no more than spend a few minutes on the internet to find a few catch phrases that he then used to oversimplify the root causes of the Salem trials. Those causes went far beyond a "few bored young girls looking for excitement" and "a family that had a score to settle." Hutchinson may call it patting myself on the back if he wishes, but it is a fact that I taught American literature on the college level for 30 years and gave particular emphasis to the colonial New England period, because I wanted students to see what happens when a fundamentally religious establishment controls the government. During those 30 years, I read a wide range of literature on the subject of the witch trials and persecutions of Quakers and other religious minorities, so I could hardly not have learned something about that period of our history. These readings included not just the interpretation of those events by historians who lived and wrote after the fact but the actual transcripts of interrogations and trials of the accused, as well as the few surviving death warrants of those who were executed. I read the works of preachers like Cotton Mather, who seemed particularly preoccupied with the problem of "witchcraft" in the colonies, and the Diary of Samuel Sewall, who was one of the presiding judges at the Salem trials. Mather's Wonders of the Invisible World, contained his accounts of some of the trials, and prior to this book, Mather had published Memorial Providences, Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions, an account of the "bewitchment" of the children of John Goodwin, a mason who lived in Boston, and the subsequent trial of a washerwoman named Glover, who was accused of having bewitched the children. In Mather's books and the interrogation and trial transcripts of the accused, there are records of various questions directed to the accused about what god they served and the devil that they were in league with. The interrogations and trials included having the accused recite or read the so-called Lord's prayer or some other scriptures, after which judgments were reached according to the evaluation of the reading performance of the accused. No reasonable person can read these documents and say that the religious beliefs of the participants in those trials had nothing to do with causing the witch hunts.
Hutchinson will not find me saying that the religious beliefs of the participants were the cause of the trials, because certainly other factors were involved. In his oversimplification, Hutchinson said that there was a family that had a score to settle, but (if he will excuse me for patting myself on the back) there were actually two families with scores to settle, because a longstanding feud between the Putnams on the westside and the Porters on the eastside had divided the colony, a feud that had its roots in disputed inheritances that had resulted from widows who had survived their first husbands and then remarried, producing half-siblings who later disagreed with the distribution of properties. In addition to this, there was the matter of rivalry between the haves and the have-nots, which had resulted from relative prosperity in the families on the eastside, whose livelihoods were derived from trade, and the poverty of westside families, who were hindered by Indian wars on their frontier from clearing more land to accommodate the expansion of their extended families. Another factor was petty politics in the village church that followed the hiring of the Reverend Samuel Parris in 1689 to serve as its minister. The Putnams and the have-nots sided with Parris; the Porters and the haves opposed him.
Parris was directly linked to the "bored young girls looking for excitement" whom Hutchinson referred to. One of them was his six-year-old daughter Betty and Abigail Williams, his niece and apparent ward. These girls began to play fortune-telling games with Tituba, a slave whom Parris had brought with him when he moved to Salem from Barbados. Originally from West Africa, Tituba had apparently brought with her some familiarity with voodoo and witchcraft, which she used in her games with the two girls. Soon Parris's daughter and niece brought Mercy Lewis and Mary Alcott, two older girls into their group, and from there their games spread and produced a hysteria that culminated in the trials. Afterwards some of the girls confessed that they had just been playing games, but by then the damage had already been done.
Before and during the trials, Cotton Mather, probably the most influential clergyman of the time, supported the prosecution of witches, so having him in favor of the trials would be somewhat like having Billy Graham on one's side in a modern-day controversy. In the early 1700s, Mather changed his position and opposed some of the "spectral" evidence that was being used to "convict" accused witches, but by then the persecution in Salem had run its course.
The religious persecutions of this period were by no means confined to Salem. In other parts of Puritan New England, dissenters like Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson, who had dared to disagree with the ruling establishment, were exiled, and Quakers were banished and then executed if they dared return to the colonies. I've already mentioned the names of victims like Mary Dyer and Mary Latham, who suffered the ultimate penalty for daring to violate the religiously based code that was imposed by the Puritan establishment, so when Hutchinson attempts to exonerate Christianity and the Bible from all blame in persecutions like these, he simply shows a bias that causes him to slant his investigation to achieve the conclusion he seeks. Other factors were indeed involved, but no reasonable person can say that the Christian beliefs of the colony were not key factors.
There is no space to discuss the inquisition, but why should I even bother? I have already established that this was a church-led effort to stamp out "heresy," and Hutchinson devoted just 12 lines to dismissing this blot on western history as just "nothing more than an effort by a religious faction to preserve its turf." Yeah, right, the inquisitions were approved by popes and conducted by leaders appointed by the church, but it was just nothing more than an effort by a religious faction to preserve its turf. Instead of just assuming a conclusion he wants to be true, Hutchinson should obtain a copy of the CD reviewed on page 3 of this issue and try to learn a few historical facts about the inquisitions.
With my apologies to Shakespeare, I need to say no more about
Hutchinson's efforts to rationalize Christianity's role in atrocities
obviously motivated by biblically based beliefs than to say that his
tirade has been little more than a "sound of fury, signifying nothing."
If he has some evidence that will prove that Bible-quoting leaders of
persecutions should not be associated with Christianity, he can show it
to us. Otherwise, his suspicion is correct. This issue has come to an
end.
