How to Spiritually Abuse Your Children in Three Steps

Step One - Repeatedly teach them something that the rest of society would find weird, "out there", or flat-out offensive.


Step Two - Tell them that the negative reaction of the "rest of the world" proves that the above "something" is true and must be adhered to even more rabidly.


Step Three - When people undoubtedly are offended or weirded out by your child's professed beliefs, use this as proof the outside world is full of hateful people who can never be trusted.


Step Four (Optional) - Find others that agree with the "something" in Step One and spend as much time as possible with them, cutting off all meaningful contact with the rest of society.


This isn't really a guidebook for those that are seeking out a way to spiritually abuse their children.  What it is, though, is a manual for you to spot the warning signs of those young people that need to be rescued.

Love,

I. C.

Fred Phelps Grandchildren - My Heart is Heavy

If you have been reading this blog for long, you will know I have two biases.  My greatest bias is toward women.  There is no greater living being on the face of this earth than a woman.  And I love them for everything they are.  My second bias is toward children and grandchildren of spiritually abusive caretakers. 

I just spent all night without sleep studying Fred Phelps, the elderly hateful "pastor" of the Westboro Baptist Church, and his extended family. Part of my research led me to the embedded video, which is part of a series by Louis Theroux titled, The Most Hated Family in America.

In this video, we watch as Theroux goes into the bedroom of Phelp's 11-year-old grandson to interview him.  Two things stood out to me during this brief discussion.

1. The young man was quite obviously parroting lines he had heard repeated over and over again.  Without even thinking, he said that "gay" meant "happy", which is a line from one of Phelps' many sermons, then he quickly listed "homosexuality" as another trite description of what are most definitely "filthy fags, so you can just shut up."  The boy quickly coughed on his words, realizing what just came out of his mouth and seeing Theroux's reaction and incredulous questioning of "you just told me to shut-up?!", quickly backpedaled in red-faced embarrassment and apologized.

He never meant to say those words.  You can watch the video and see it in living color.  The fact is, he had been trained to say them.  The rhetoric had been so etched into his brain that he never even batted an eye.  His training was such that he was taught to talk to a person as if they disagreed with his viewpoint.  I believe this young man has never met a person outside of his family who agrees with him.  It's sad.

2. When asked to validate the "end times" happenings in the contemporary world, he starts speaking incoherently about an aunt's vision of a pink cave that fits their extended family.  Then, he tells of them huddling around a computer screen, finding pink caves in Jordan.  Obviously, to this young man, this narrative is proof that the end is near.  Twice, he tries to get Theroux to acknowledge that the image was "cool".  Theroux graciously obliged him.  Again, sad. 

Reality is not a necessary ingredient in this young man's life.  Worse yet, a cave is only small enough to fit his entire 80-strong extended family in.  Thus, he has swallowed the idea that other members have set forth, that since nobody is doing what they are doing, there are no others in the elect of God.  All others will go to hell.

Then, Theroux moves on to the bedroom of one of the granddaughters.  Within seconds, he is surrounded by the other two granddaughters and some woman who I assume was their mother.  I stared in shock and wonder.  These girls were absolutely beautiful!  And they wore fashionable clothing.

Then they opened their mouths.  And I wept.

My heart is heavy.  I can only hope beyond all hope, that these beautiful young ladies will cast off the shackles of the embittered women they call their mothers, and the pompous pricks they call their fathers, reject the heavy handed, tunnel visioned, hateful, bigoted rhetoric of their master, Fred Phelps, and run.  The world needs their beauty for both a brighter canvas of life, as well as the intellect that they revealed.

While you watch the lengthy discussion between Theroux and the girls, note two things:

[Update: Oops!  While the video embedded above is the correct video for watching the young boy speak, it does not contain the content of the girl's flushed faces.  Watch it anyway to see a discussion about a Muslim wife dying because her husband didn't burn Korans with the faithful.  The correct link is here.  Start it at 47:00.]

1. The girls are in love with a young reporter from overseas.  You can see it in their faces.  They are flushed whenever he is referenced.  The most beautiful of the girls has his picture on her phone.  They have been exchanging gifts and following one another on Twitter.  And yet, they rejoice that God is good by sending him to hell.  Romance is out of the question even though there is so much there for them.

2. God is sovereign and the girls must worship him for all his naughty judgements, as well as his good ones.  Oddly enough, only their family receives the good ones.  Everyone else is going to hell.  They are not even interested in reaching this young reporter for God.  Hell, as his destination, is a bygone conclusion.  And they laugh, shrug it off, and go on with life.

I weep.  My heart is heavy.

Is a Doubting Thomas Really All That Bad?

A good friend of mine leaned back in his chair and said the following profound statement:

"[God] made an appearance for 'Doubting Thomas', why not me?"

Recently, I have been engaging friends and strangers in conversations about proof of the existence of the god of the Bible.  Of course, nobody I have spoken to has ever seen him and thus have to resort to axiomatic arguments.

"The Bible proves that God exists because he said he wrote it and thus, he did."

My counter to that is simple.  Many holy books and religious leaders say the exact same thing.  They state that their religion is true, even exclusive to other religions.  Sometimes, they even go as far as the writers of the Bible and say that you're a fool if you don't agree with them.  I find these written statements to be quite presumptuous on the writer's part and actually quite intellectually lazy.

If you cannot prove what you are writing, don't patronize the reader.  Any other book that tries to play that game will be laughed off of a book store's bookshelf.  Some may try it, but we apply academic rigor and reasonable logic to thwart the slaps of the author.  Nobody that writes a statement like that can or should be taken seriously.

Or, they say something like this:

"The Holy Spirit has done a great work in me, so I know he exists."

How can a person say that?  Couldn't it be their mind that taught them how to live?  Experiential growth and maturity in life?  I would consider that more likely than an imaginary existence of a being inside of you.  (Disclaimer: This response is one that I respect.  It removes the need to treat the Bible as an inerrant and infallible guide book and allows the person of faith to live a life of caring and love.  Even so, I still must engage with a question of "prove it, I want video".)

But, there are two other responses I get (other than the intellectually lazy responses that say that the world around us makes it obvious that God made it and my personal favorite, there were thousands of witnesses in Jesus' time and they all corroborated his existence - not even remotely factually accurate) raise my eyebrows so high that my forehead looks like a hound dog's cheeks.

"JESUS IS LORD!"  Or, "PRAISE JESUS!"

Any other variant of those two phrases is pretty comical.  If I ask more questions, I get the same answer shouted back at me.  It's almost like the person doing the yelling believes that his words will somehow shock me into the obvious realization that they are right and I am wrong.  But all I am doing is asking questions to make them think.  Why bother yelling?

And the second - and really, the point of this post - statement:

"You have to have faith.  God does not have to show himself to you.  If you don't believe, you'll just go to hell.  Stop being a doubting Thomas."

I don't blame the bearer of this news at all.  I'll explain in a bit why they have the story of Didymus (Thomas) all wrong, but first, let's see why it's expected that a Christian believes this.


The writer of 1 Corinthians 1:18 scratches the backs of those who believe what he is writing by telling them that all who reject his words are going to hell anyway, so it's to be expected.  So you see, a Christian who swallows this teaching is obligated to treat the Bible, if they believe that is in fact God's word, as factual, because it says it is, even if the logic is against them.

There is a problem though.  That teaching is in stark contrast to the alleged words of Jesus in the book of John.  Jesus didn't refuse to allay Thomas' doubts by quoting 1 Corinthians 1:18 at him.  No.  He actually said, "You have seen, so now you believe."  And he didn't follow it up with, "so you're going to hell."  Or, "you're the only lucky bloke that got to see me but everyone else has to just believe or they go to hell."

That last statement is not Jesus' alleged words.  And yet, it is exactly the sort of attitude that oozes from fundamentalist Christianity or any branch of Christianity that purports itself to be the exclusive path to heaven.

But, I stand with Thomas and my friend, and, by default, Jesus himself.  If God really does exist, if Jesus is really God's son and can walk through walls to show himself to Thomas, he sure as bloody nails can do the same to any doubter in the entire universe.

I'm waiting.  But I won't hold my breath.