It's no wonder the Church is losing the appeal to semi-intelligent people seeking semi-intelligent answers.

I occasionally listen to WMCQ FM 91.7 out of Muskegon on the way into work and hear some of the banter between JJ and Ron on "J.J. & Ron in the Morning," which I think is syndicated out of Tupelo, MS. WMCQ is an AFR (American Family Radio) affiliate[1].

This is JJ and Ron's Facebook page .  They look like a couple of nice guys, don't they?

On 2/28 these guys and AFR President Tim Wildmon went on and on about President Obama's fake Social Security number, a falsified Selective Service card, of course his forged birth certificate, and about some law enforcement officer petitioning Congress to open an investigation.

If JJ and Ron and AFR President Tim Wildmon simply took a moment to do some fact checking, they'd have found a number of sources debunking the new Social Security card claim, including Snopes.com .

On 2/29 JJ and Ron and/or AFR President Tim Wildmon quoted another Christian regarding possible economic woes, getting a gun and keeping your powder dry. They made sure listeners understood they were talking about a real gun, it wasn't a metaphor. This was two days after TJ Lane went on a shooting rampage that killed three in an Ohio high school.

It's no wonder the Church (capital C, all Christians everywhere) cannot convince semi-intelligent people seeking semi-intelligent answers to consider Jesus. Because the loudest voices proclaiming Christ are the most misguided.

If order and decency and civil discourse collapse in this country, it won't be from outside pressure, it will be because the Christian Ignorati like JJ and Ron and AFR President Tim Wildmon were dumb enough to encourage people even dumber than themselves to believe hogwash and then arm themselves so they could safely persist in their ignorance.

(Presumably those on the business end of the barrel would no longer be around to interfere.)

Do not underestimate the influence and reach of people like JJ and Ron and AFR President Tim Wildmon. They've combined a civil religion, bigotry, gun culture, intolerance, and xenophobia into a blind, deaf, and dumb construct that you cannot debate or assuage or befriend, for any departure from the particulars of the construct is viewed as a supernatural assault.

Don't get me wrong, there ARE good, sensitive, humble, peaceful fundamentalists. They are generally reserved, pensive, generous, nonjudgmental, tolerant people. I grew up with them. My father was such a man, as were my grandparents (Thomas and Geneva Cairns, and LaVerne and Ethel Grandy), and Kenneth Andrus, who pastored Bethel Baptist Church for many years.

And there ARE intelligent conservatives like frequent FOX News contributor Charles Krauthammer, and a hero of mine from years ago, William F Buckley, Jr.

Too few are listening to the humble quiet voices of reason.

 

[1]
I consume all types of TV and radio to stay informed. I prefer a perspective just a smidgen left of center, but I listen to the far right the far left, the conspiratorial and the grounded, the head bangers and the grinners and the pickers.

Started: 2012-02-28

I wouldn't be here if there hadn't been some hanky-panky at Muirhead Farm near Larbert, Scotland

(Yes, in this blog we learn what the hired help does when the boss isn't looking.)

I consider myself primarily Scottish (since my last name is Cairns), but I'm really 1/4 German, with the other 3/4 divided unequally among English, Welsh, and Scottish. My clan is Robertson, or Clan Donnachaidh (which I cannot pronounce but would like to be able to).

 

My grandpa Cairns, Thomas Graham Cairns, occasionally told us that his mom, Agnes Graham Robertson Cairns, told him we were descended from King Robert the Bruce, III, of Scotland; this descent was through her side of the family, and as Grandpa tells it, his dad didn't like the story and his mom would only share it when he wasn't around.

I don't know if it's true, but I do believe that Grandpa Cairns and his mom believed it was.There are Bruces and Robertsons scattered throughout that branch.

My Grandpa Cairns said his mom Agnes could bake on a wood stove the best cherry pie you ever ate; depending on how old Grandpa was when that memory was created, it could have been Chicago, or a number of small towns in Canada, like Barrie, Ontario, (where the Cairnses originally emigrated[1]), but Great Grandma Agnes's skills in the kitchen were surely learned in Stirlingshire, Scotland, which seems to be the region that side of the family comes from.

Grandpa's father died when Grandpa was a boy, in his teens, I believe, but old enough by that time to be working. His father fell out of tree while picking apples, broke his back, and slowly wasted away in a hospital. Grandpa said it was a very hard to watch him die slowly that way. I would like to have asked more about what a hospital was like in those days, how often he visited, wisdom his father left him, that sort of thing. But I could tell that even after all those years, he was uncomfortable with the memory.

I understand.[2]

Despite my heritage, I've poorly understood the political complexity of The British Isles, which is the politically correct term for the geographical region that includes Great Britain and Ireland.

While working on copy for an international foods area of my company's website, I did some research. This is an excellent and short video:

The Difference between the United Kingdom, Great Britain and England Explained

More here.

[1]
As it happens, my Grandpa Cairns's father, Alex, was born illegitimately in Bannockburn, Scotland; he took his mom's last name, "Cairns," and was raised by her brother, his uncle David. David moved to Canada with little Alex, and Alex’s biological mom Janet stayed in Scotland. Alex apparently used the last name "Wilson" occasionally, his biological dad's last name, but after a trip back to Scotland to see his mom, he returned to Canada and kept the name Cairns for good.

(The name "Wilson" still shows up a lot in my family, however, including my dad's middle name.)

There's a lot more to it, of course, but that's the gist. Had things been different, perhaps I'd have been a "Wilson" and living in Scotland, which, nearing the fuzzy end of the lollipop as I am, sounds kind of nice. (Apologies to Marilyn Monroe).

As it happens, the Wilson that lent his sperm to my gene pool ended up marrying a domestic servant, and great-great-grandma Janet married a hammerman (a metal worker or blacksmith ). Janet was also a domestic servant, and the man she married, Joseph Sharp, a laborer, so it doesn't seem there was any class embarrassment.

However, when Alex went back to Scotland to visit his biological mom Janet, he certainly met or learned about the Wilson side of his DNA, and for whatever reason settled on "Cairns" as the name he wanted to keep.

It may be Great Grandpa Alex didn't like all that King Robert the Bruce stuff because any talk of ancestors may have revealed more about his own past than he liked.

It's interesting to look back and realize I wouldn't be here if there hadn't been some hanky-panky between Janet Cairns and Alexander Wilson at Muirhead Farm near Larbert, Scotland. There's a similar story on my mom's side regarding a brown-eyed gardener who played a mean fiddle, but that one's not documented far as I know.

Aren’t you glad you read footnotes?

[2]
Dad asked Mom before he died if we thought we had good childhoods. I told Mom that yes, of course, we did, but I couldn't bring myself to tell Dad that without breaking down.

Next time.

Besides, he knows my heart now.

Started: 2012-02-23

Do Unto Others Who Repel You

William Peter Blatty, author of The Exorcist, spoke with NPR around Halloween on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the release of his book. Up to that time, I'd never read the book or heard him speak.

 

Listen to the interview here:
http://www.npr.org/2011/10/29/141683620/after-40-years-grisly-exorcist-book-gets-a-rewrite

The book and movie retained an evil tinge from my childhood. It was condemned by my church (you all know by now, Bethel Baptist Church in Erie, PA) and by Mrs Andrus, our Bible teacher at Bethel Christian School, who who said wonderfully dire things like "Satan must really be in his glory right now" ; i.e., "Don't you feel guilty for enjoying this spooky moment?," which we all of course did (and enjoyed it). Satanism and demonology were all the rage at the time, along with UFOs, Bigfoot, and all those delightfully mysterious things that capture a child's imagination.

Yet, Blatty said in the interview that he intended The Exorcist to be a story of faith. When I heard that, and coming as it did from what seemed to be a sensitive writer who'd thought a lot about it, I was intrigued, so I planned to listen to the book.

I'm nearing the end of the the audio book now, and I can't say enough good things about Blatty as a writer and narrator. If the topic weren't so devilish, I'd call it enchanting.[1]

Professor Oppewal taught me at Calvin College that most every piece of literature has a thematic passage. It may or may not be intentional on the author's part, but you can find it if you're paying attention.

I came across that thematic passage last night. During a break in the exorcism, Fr Karras is asking Fr Merrin why this is all happening, "Father, what's going on in there? What is it? If that's the Devil, why this girl?".

The story has hinted at the ancient Babylonian deity Pazuzu and Reagan's (Linda Blair's) use of a Ouija board, but the truth incorporates and transcends all these clues. Father Merrin says:

 

"I think the point is to make us despair, Damien - to see ourselves as animal, and ugly - to reject our own humanity - to reject the possibility that God could ever love us.[...] And there lies the heart of it, perhaps: in unworthiness [emphasis mine]. For I think belief in God is not a matter of reason at all; I think it finally is matter of love; of accepting the possibility that God could love us. [...] He knows... the Demon knows where to strike. [...] Long ago I despaired of ever loving my neighbor. Certain people repelled me. How could I love them? I thought. It tormented me, Damien; it led me to despair of myself, and from that, very soon, to despair of my God. My faith was shattered. [...] at last I realized that God would never ask of me that which I know to be psychologically impossible; that the love which He asked was in my will and not meant to be felt as emotion at all. Not at all. He was asking that I act with love; that I do unto others, and that I should do it unto those who repelled me, I believe, was a greater act of love than any other [emphasis mine]."[2] (Read more from this passage .)

I understand from another account that Max von Sydow (Fr Merrin) wanted some of this dialog in the film, and that it was indeed filmed, but director William Friedkin eventually edited it out, apparently thinking it was redundant, but probably also that it was a bit preachy. Blatty had also wanted to keep some of it in. Read more here.

There are entire lives lived inside that quote above, like Mother Teresa, and even my own dear Mrs Andrus, who couldn't have gotten past the dross to see gold.

[1]
I've finished the book and was pleased with how Blatty ended it. I won't ruin it if you haven't read it, but it did maintain Blatty's intent to present a story of faith. And if you've seen the movie and enjoyed it, Blatty's narration is a terrific treat you don't want to miss.

[2]
John Whitehead calls Blatty's writing "meat and potatoes prose," which I first interpreted as condescending, but it needn't be, if you imagine it as filling, nourishing, and tasty. Perhaps a story of faith should be precisely those things. Meat and potatoes are accessible.

I wouldn't use "meat and potatoes" to describe most writers I enjoy, Truman Capote for example, who is filling and satisfying in a different way, most definitely not "like eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs at one go," but perhaps like eating one at a time as you turn each page.

(Incidentally, you should read Whitehead's entire article; I thought for example that the profanity and sacrilege in The Exorcist were gratuitous, but it's apparently typical of possessions, or psychological disorder, if you prefer.)

Started: 2012-03-01

Don't Assume

I get an email newsletter periodically from Rock Creek Church in Derwood, MD. I think it's a mega church. I've never been there, but an old college friend[1] goes there, and his wife and son occasionally contribute to the email, so I like to read it.

Recently their newsletter reposted a blog entry from Kevin DeYoung, pastor at University Reformed Church in East Lansing, MI. I'm not Reformed, but I understand the reformed sensibility quite well, and I like his tagline, "Restless and Reformed."

The blog entry, "Don't Assume" , is short and worth a read.

I come from a Baptist background where we observed a lot of don'ts, which was impossible and discouraging most of the time. This is a good list of don'ts.

A problem I've found with "good don'ts" is that they often force you to delay an opinion, which for prudent intellects is usually marked by silence; but to those who've already formed an opinion, this is often interpreted as indecision and weakness.

[1]
Mark Jorritsma. We became fast friends as freshman and have remained friends for years. I lived in Bolt, which at that time was a men's dorm, and I believe he was in VanderWerp. Shultze-Eldersveld was the happening dorm in those days, where the cool kids lived. I never did get to know anyone there or visit. It has a mystique that remains with me still.

Started: 2012-03-01

Why do I use footnotes?

The best writing is brief (or can be consumed in brief segments that are nearly self-contained and as rewarding as the whole).

The best way to read my posts is to read them through without the footnotes, then read through again and read the footnotes in context.

I don't expect too many people to do this. Many of you that read my posts already skim them, which is not a good idea, because they're meant to be enjoyed as much (if not more) for how they're written than what they say.

But I'm happy for any time you spend with me, for I am then also spending time with you.

Started: 2012-02-24