Catching Up on Some Reading

 Given I have had a little extra time between filling out applications for positions, publishing books, and taking care of some overdue projects, I have been able to catch up on some reading too.  I have some thoughts on a couple of articles I have been reading after being able to print them off (I love this thermal printer - no ink, no toner, etc.).  Between that and re-watching Designing Women (that show is a guilty indulgence - I have been a fan since high school despite some differences with a bit of the politics in the show.  And, Suzanne looks really good in that one blue dress she wore in earlier episodes - my goodness!) I have been treating my post-employment interlude as a time to get some organization done in many areas.  There are two articles in particular I wanted to give some reflection on today, so we'll get started.

The first is an article that piqued my interest, as one of the readers on my dissertation committee wrote it and he mentioned it as it also related to my content somewhat.  Dr. Broom (or "Doc" as many of his students call him) is a historian, and he knows political history like the proverbial back of his hand.  He came up with a good perspective on radical totalitarian ideologies, and I have been looking for his ideas in writing ever since I defended my own dissertation a couple of years ago.  I was able to finally find it this week, and I wanted to first summarize his points before I add my own perspective on them, because he sort of agrees on some level with my own fundamental thesis (I proposed that Fascism and Nazism were actually left-wing ideological movements, as they had more in common with the political Left than they did with the Right).  We don't 100% agree on the minute details obviously, and that's OK - the overall conclusion is the pivotal aspect that is integral.  The title of Doc Broom's reflections is "The Four Ugly Step-Sisters," and he notes two fundamental things that aided in the evolution of the four ideologies he notes:

1. A synthesis of the ideas of Rousseau (the general will), Godwin (greatest good for the greatest number), Hegel (there is no objective truth), and Darwin (the accidental nature of life without God) formed an ideological alchemy that gave rise to four related systems:

a. Socialism

b. Fascism

c. Nazism

d. Progressivism

2. The four above systems, Broom notes, are actually a form of secularized feudalism in that the individual serves the system in all of them.  I tend to agree with this, but here is where I take it a step further.  All four systems rely on the Kantian/Nietzschean concept of "struggle" to tear down what they consider an old order, and this in turn provides the impetus to impose their order on others.  Also, in regard to Darwin, Broom is right that he is an influence, but it is how he was the influence - Darwin's ideas were taken from the biological into the social/economic realm by individuals such as Herbert Spencer, and particularly when it comes to Fascism and Nazism, the biological and the social/economic realms are merged in this weird way through things such as eugenics and eventually even the emerging transhumanist movement.  Therefore, in each of these systems, struggle and chaos are what lead to the success of their consolidation on power, which is why the idea of "revolution" is part of all of them.  The individual becomes a means unto an end therefore, and the system becomes the end-all and be-all of everything.  

Looking at how political theory works, there are two beneficial forms of government - the monarchy and republicanism.  Both have their strengths, and neither is perfect, and in all honesty I am a political Monarchist myself and I find them to both have great strengths that compensate for their differences.  On the other hand, pure democracy, if it were implemented, would lead to a polarization and would facilitate the anarchic struggle which would enable a totalitarian system like one of these "Four Ugly Step-Sisters," and that is the point.  The United States is not, and has never been, a democracy - the Founding Fathers designed the American system as a republican system that relied on responsible representative government to ensure mob rule wouldn't be a consequence.  It is the one thing that makes the American system unique and undergirds the success of the system (up until recently, when more disciples of the "Four Ugly Stepsisters" started to get messed up in things, often with the backing of huge corporations - that is a topic in itself!).   I could go into that, but we'll save that for another discussion. 

Bottom line, I like Doc Broom's ideas, and I am very happy I was able to find them in print.  I wish I would have had this for my own dissertation work a couple of years ago, because it articulates some aspects of my own thesis.  Now I will move onto the second article I have read the past couple of days.

This second article was something I was trying to find out more about for years, as it has a lot to do with my interest as a church historian, particularly of smaller obscure groups.  As Pentecostal denominational history has been a thing that has garnered my interest for perhaps over 30 years now, I see a number of diverse groups within Pentecostalism, and some of them have interesting histories of their own within the broader movement - I wrote a whole book about those small denominations a few years back actually.  Many academics, who are looking at things from often a very secularized perspectivc that is predominantly hostile against religious traditions, paint groups like Pentecostals with a broad brush, and that frankly is not fair to the groups or to a given religious tradition as a whole. And, this is where I want to go with this discussion now.

Groups like Pentecostals are not monolithic by any measure - there are a huge diversity of denominations, fellowships, and even single independent congregations that each have unique histories, personalities, and traditions that are uniquely their own.  These range from the bigger and more mainstream denominations such as the Assemblies of God to small, obscure congregations that meet in bait shops and gas stations in more rural parts of America.  It's a lot of those small groups that capture the most interest, as they are mostly ignored or overlooked by much of mainstream scholarship.  A few of these groups have evolved some unique doctrines and practices - the serpent-handling congregations in my native Appalachia are a perfect example - and when I come across something like that I want to learn more about it.  One such group I learned about years ago that was based in my home state of West Virginia had as its formal name "The Church of the Everlasting Gospel," and they were popularly known by another name - the Neverdies.  The only mention I had seen of this obscure group was a small article in J. Gordon Melton's Encyclopedia of American Religions years ago, and there are a couple of unusual doctrines these people had which got my attention.  First, I wanted to give a little history on the group first. 

A local Pentecostal preacher from the Charleston area by the name of Ted Oiler is considered the founder of this movement, and in the mid-20th century this preacher came across a book entitled The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus Christ, which was published around the year 1908 by a Disciples of Christ minister by the name of Levi Dowling.  Dowling was one of those people who espoused the Theosophical-derived idea of "Jesus going to India" which has become increasingly popular in some Christian circles today as well, and part of the adaptation of that view was an idea that Jesus taught the doctrine of reincarnation - obviously, this is false, and most reputable theologians reject this because it has a dubious source at best.  Oiler, who also was an advocate of Wesleyan/Holiness soteriology which was integral to early Pentecostal belief, adapted this probably from a combination of reading this as well as from something he probably heard in his travels, and the weird thing was that somehow it integrated into Wesleyan/Holiness perfectionism.  I am going to give my theory as to how this probably happened.

Two aspects of Pentecostalism could easily foray into a reincarnation doctrine, one being the idea of spiritual rebirth, and the other being the Holiness idea of sinless perfection.  For someone like Oiler, who probably was a lay preacher to start, it would be easy to conclude that spiritual rebirth could also extend to physical rebirth, and with that rebirth is an attainment of actual perfection - this means that hell would then be confined to the end of time, and people just keep coming back until they get it right, or "Biblical reincarnation" then.  This is similar to the way that some extreme Calvinists would also embrace Universalism, as indeed some Primitive Baptists in the same region actually did (Howard Dorgan, a renown Appalachian religious scholar, wrote a whole book on the Primitive Baptist Universalists that is actually quite thorough).  So, in other words, the Neverdies believe you grow in holiness by being physically "born again" as well as spiritually, and when a guy like Ted Oiler - a sincere but unlettered man who didn't have the discernment unfortunately to separate some theological wheat from chaff - gets his hands on a piece of literature like Dowling's book, it can lead to those conclusions easily.  The Neverdies, much like "The Church of the Unknown Tongue" that led to human sacrifice murders in the early 1930s in nearby Kentucky, represent what happens when some Pentecostals don't get the proper discipleship they need and later some of these people become ministers.  The same could be said of some Oneness Pentecostal groups and some of the serpent handlers as well, but as far as I am aware, most Oneness and serpent handlers don't believe in reincarnation or human sacrifice either.  I will show where this is going shortly, but now back to our Neverdie friends.

Oiler led the sect in West Virginia until he anointed his successor, one Henry Holstein of St. Albans, to pastor the Church of the Everlasting Gospel, the congregation he founded in Charleston that taught this doctrine.  Holstein passed away in 1975, which explains why I think I had a letter returned addressed to him some years ago when I wanted to write and find out more about this group (Melton's encyclopedia was a good resource, but it was way out of date as far as contact information for a lot of the groups he documented in it).  However, over the years I have still kept sort of an interest in this group, so it was fortuitous when I came across the article I found this past week.  Now, let me just give some perspective on some of this as it relates to our own spiritual development.

Religious faith - especially when one embraces the truth of the Gospel - is something that is a life-changing experience.  So, as a result, it is easy to get so enthusiastic about it that you can be like a sponge just soaking it up.  I know, because I have been there too and have also had my share of letdowns and disappointments.  The two components of one's faith - the cerebral discipleship aspect where you "study to show yourself approved" as well as the more emotional side of spirituality - are both integral to one's growth as a believer.  Unfortunately, what often happens is that we can veer to extremes.  One one hand, we become so caught up in the legalities and semantics that we end up being jaded and even doubting some important things that are integral to our faith, or we let our emotions take over and go off on some sort of "Pentecostal fit" and embrace anything and everything that sounds "spiritual" to us.  That latter aspect is what makes movements such as the Word of Faith heresy as well as some other problematic practices possible, and it can lead to an eventual crash when the reality starts to set in.  I want to give an example of something my ex-wife Barbara told me about when she was still new in her faith years ago.  Barbara became a very on-fire new Christian, and of course she wanted to read more of her Bible but at the time didn't have a grounding.  So, she read something in a passage of Scripture out of context and got this idea that you would go to hell if you ate meat!  So, fearing for her soul, she gave up eating meat for dinner.  Luckily, one of her sisters was a bit more grounded and helped her understand that the passage did not mean that, and thankfully Barbara outgrew that.  But, imagine if her sister didn't help straighten out that misunderstanding - Barbara would have been in for some health issues and other things later due to a misreading of a Bible passage.  Many a cult or sect has been started by similar experiences happening to people - the Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and others started with their founders misunderstanding Scripture passages, so it is not limited to small groups of hyper-Pentecostals in the hills either.  The most effective weapon Satan has in his arsenal is that he knows the Bible too, and because he knows it, he can even use God's word to mess with people and lead them astray.  And, that is why we must "study to show ourselves approved," and also one reason why often the Bible is described as a "two-edged sword" - if used correctly, it can transform lives, but if placed in the wrong hands, it can be abused in such a way that it actually can kill people (like John of the "Church of the Unknown Tongue" did in 1933 when he killed his own mother as a human sacrifice).  That leads to a couple of final observations.

The Church teaches a "Four-Fold Hermeneutic" of Scripture which ensures that it is understood as the Church has taught it over two thousand years, and I have emphasized this many times when I have had discussions in writing and in person - the Four-Fold Hermeneutic is Literal, Allegorical, Moral, and Anagogical, and it is possible that one passage of Scripture can be two or more of these at once.  The context of Scripture is also important, and it is unwise to just string two verses together at random as it could have catastrophic consequences.  The well-worn example of this is taking two passages of Scripture - one is Matthew 27:5, which is the narrative about Judas Iscariot committing suicide after he betrayed Jesus.  The other is Luke 10:37, which has a simple command from Jesus to "go and do likewise."  In context, both of these Scriptures are relevant, but they are two different topics and don't belong together.  The second passage from Luke has to do with a parable Jesus was teaching about the display of mercy, and that is what he is referring to when he said "go and do likewise."  Also, chronologically, the Luke passage took place before the Matthew one did, so they are definitely not connected.  However, if you get an unsuspecting person, a new convert, who sees these two disparate verses paired together, imagine what goes through their mind - they are thinking God is commanding them to kill themselves!  While that is a more extreme example, it must be understood that stuff like this happens all the time.  Recently, for instance, I rewatched a DVD documentary I have that was filmed in 1983 entitled Chase the Devil, and it is about Appalachian religious traditions.  One of the people featured in it was an old musician from I believe was western North Carolina (I need to look that up to be sure) by the name of Virgil Anderson.  At one point in his life, Virgil came to understand that he needed to atone for things in his life, so on his property he actually built a small church, which the commentator Jeremy Marre said he did "as a penance."  On the steps of that little tarpaper church he constructed, Virgil is playing his banjo and singing a bluegrass tune called "Been Gone So Long" which he adapted from blues songs he heard his Black co-workers sing in the mines, and his rationale for that has good points and bad points.  The good point - and I agree - that Virgil made was that there is no harm in listening to non-religious music.  However, the bad point he used to justify it was a Scripture taken out of context that talks about the dangers of eating, drinking, and being merry for tomorrow we may die (Isaiah 22:13).  While, sure, you can say that this verse encourages people to enjoy life to the fullest (OK I guess in some contexts) the context of the verse as traditionally understood is that people waste time on petty pleasures while maybe neglecting things that are more important.  Those two things are not necessarily contradictory at all, because it is OK to have a little fun once in a while as long as you do so responsibly, but at the same time we need to also focus on the bigger picture of our lives  - they are short, and we need them to be meaningful as well.  So, while technically Virgil didn't get it wrong, he only got half the message on that verse.  Does that mean Virgil (who is probably long gone, as he was likely in his late 60s when that video was made in the early 1980s) was a bad guy?  I would have to say no - I think Virgil was probably basically a decent man, and I don't think he was a serial killer or anything.  He was just a retired old man who enjoyed simple pleasures of his life, and that is not a bad thing.  So, while Virgil didn't totally take this completely out of context, at the same time he didn't get the full message on what the verse was actually talking about. The context of the verse probably didn't damn Virgil to hell or anything, but it could be misconstrued if someone less-informed picked that line of reasoning up.  I want to eventually do a whole commentary at some point on that whole program, because Chase the Devil has a lot of interesting things in it that I feel we could learn from too.  But, that is for another day.  The lesson here is that if you are going to study Scripture, at least do so with proper guidance - misunderstanding a verse or two could in some cases have fatal consequences. 

I probably rambled more here than I intended to do, but I just wanted to share a few thoughts on a couple of very different topics I have been catching up reading about.  Thanks again for joining me, and will see you next time.