[Hi, all. John here. This is the fourth in a six-part series we're all extremely lucky to have. When Bob and I were preparing this series for presentation here on my site, we thought a good, basic name for the series overall was "A Primer on Islam." We were wrong. That's so boring. And what we have here is hardly a primer; this is at least 20 years worth of concentrated, distilled study by a crazily gifted intellectual and teacher. Oh, well. Later we'll rename the whole group of lessons. ("Lessons"! Who wants to read lessons? What were we thinking?) For now, this is one of the true gems of the six. Please pass it along to anyone you think might be interested. Feedback more than welcome. Thanks for giving it a read. Now heeeeeeeeeere's Pastor Bob!]

A Primer on Islam
Lesson Four: History Behind the News
by Pastor Bob

CALIPHATE (The dream of unity and the reality of multiplicity)

• Caliph = “successor”
•  Inherent problem of succession to Muhammad (571-632 A.D.)
• Four “Rightly Guided” Caliphs (632-661): Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali
• Sunni Muslims (85%) and Shi’a Muslims (15%)
• No singular Islamic empire after initial Islamic expansion in 700s. Modern Islam witnessed three Muslim empires: Turkish (Ottoman), Indian (Mughal), and Persian (Safavid).
• Difficult to hold both secular and religious authority
• Distant central caliphate meant real power at a local level (village)

• MUSLIM VIEW: “The good old days.” Some Muslims desire to return to Caliphate, or better, an idyllic state emulating the perceived harmonious community of the Prophet.
• NEWS: No individual or group speaks for the whole of Islam—Diverse and contextual.

CRUSADES (Defining relationships between East & West and between Islam and Christianity)

• The Crusades (roughly eight between 1095-1270), named after the Latin word for cross, “crux,” were fought ostensibly to retake Jerusalem and the Holy Land. They were initiated by Rome’s Pope Urban II’s response to the plea of Emperor Alexius I, of the faltering Byzantine Empire. Alexius I was afraid that the Muslims would finally take Constantinople.
• Ultimately, in “aiding” the Christian Eastern Empire, they hastened its demise and hardened the schism between East & West. The crusades also added to the anti-Semitism of Europe as large Jewish communities were decimated along the way.
• Irony: Jews faired better under Muslim control than Christian control.
• Christians and Muslims were both promised that in fighting for God, their past record of sins would be wiped clean and they would be promised heaven/paradise.
• The crusades are a watershed point in history in which the West continues to increase in power and the East gradually declines—in essence, they begin to switch places.

• WESTERN VIEW: The crusades bolstered the Western papacy and diverted the energies of a feudal Europe. Europeans also became acquainted with the sophisticated Muslim culture and readily absorbed the preserved and translated classic Greek texts, particularly Aristotle.
• MUSLIM VIEW: Seen as but the beginning of Western Christian aggression towards Muslims.
• NEWS: The crusades are more meaningful to the people of the Middle East and to Muslims everywhere than to people of the West.

COLONIALISM (From colonizer to colonized: Fragmentation and loss of identity)

• Up until the 1700′s, the Muslim community had largely been ruled by Muslims. Even the Mongol conquers later converted to Islam. However, with the rise of European colonialism, this dramatically changed.

• Colonizers essentially used the tactic of dividing and conquering its colonies.

1. First by trading with a region and creating dependencies and then bringing in military to “protect” its interests (British control of India is a prime example).
2. Created artificial boundaries that cut through natural ethnic and tribal cohesion.
3. Created states dependent upon their colonizers by reorienting local, self-sufficient economies into producers of goods for the colonizers (ie: coffee, tobacco, and rubber).

• By the end of WWI, Britain controlled Palestine, Transjordan, Iraq, the Arabian Gulf, Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei. France controlled North, West and Equatorial Africa, Lebanon and Syria. The Dutch controlled Indonesia.
• The Muslim world that had been ruled by three Islamic empires (the Ottoman of the Mediterranean, the Safavid of Persia, and the Mughal of India) would finally be parceled into today’s fifty some nation-states.
• Christian missionaries accompanied colonialism with vigor. They, in keeping with their times, connected the triumphs of European nations with Christianity while blaming the misfortunes of the Muslim world on Islam. Christianity was inherently viewed as a religion of progress and Islam as a religion of stagnation.
• A Western attitude of superiority manifested itself in a stereo-typical “servant-master” relationship with Muslims. European governments and missionaries sought to “civilize” the Muslims with Western style education, Christian virtues and “enlightened” social policies.

• WESTERN VIEW: Manifest destiny. Colonialism helped create the great Western nation states.
• MUSLIM VIEW: Muslims have mixed feelings towards colonizers (anger at oppression, jealousy of wealth and power) and negative feelings towards the associated “Christianity” of the colonizers. In addition, the combination of Western military dominance and Christian mission have caused many modern Muslims to perceive Colonialism as another version of the Crusades.
• NEWS: The average Muslim will lift up any figure who challenges the dominance of the West (David and Goliath). Additionally, groups formed by tribal association or ethnicity often overlap the seemingly arbitrary boundaries of nations forming unexpected alliances and tensions.

NATIONALISM (Forming nations out of former colonies)

• Nationalism grew out of a struggle with colonialism.
• As groups, including Muslims sought to gain political control, they were bonded by their common oppression.
• In India, nationalism against British control caused Hindu’s (led by Ghandi) and Muslims to temporarily unite, but would later lead to the formation of a Muslim Pakistan.
• Emphasis was often placed not on Islamic unity or pan-Islam but rather in Arab ethnic/linguistic nationalism. This took many forms: In Turkey under Ataturk, a totally secular government was formed. In Egypt, Nasser’s Arab socialist movement prevailed. Interestingly in countries such as Syria, Lebanon and Egypt, Christians along with Muslims sought nationalism and even worked together.
• Though Muslims succeeded in throwing off the considerable European yoke of political control, they were still heavily influenced by European economics, European-style education and government. The most enduring legacy of colonialism that shaped nationalism was secularism (something natively antithetical to Islam).

• WESTERN VIEW: Threatens loss of control of natural resources in former colonies.
• MUSLIM VIEW: Freedom from colonizers.
• NEWS: Most militant extremism today comes out of nationalistic desires (e.g., to gain freedom or throw out a perceived oppressive government) but often uses religion to legitimate its cause.

OIL (Dependent independence and the fuel for Islamic extremism)

• Made region invaluable to world economic stability
• Colonialism became “Corporate Interest” (The real power in the region)
• Control of oil creates an innate tension between nationalizing countries and international corporations.
• Essentially, it has been impossible for Middle Eastern countries to emerge with governments or monarchies that are not intimately bound to international corporate interests.
• Creates rapid wealth for a small group of people and their families. This causes an extreme separation of the classes. It allows a few to govern the many and typically creates unstable (and undemocratic) governing structures whose purpose is to keep power at all costs. With such extremities in wealth, one can buy almost anything…(Ex: Osama Bin Laden’s huge inheritance)

• WESTERN VIEW: A vital component of the world’s economy lies underneath one of the most volatile areas of the world.
• MUSLIM VIEW: Blessing and curse. A blessing in that oil is a tremendous resource, and a curse in that such a commodity brings much foreign intervention.
• NEWS: Gasoline prices! A major component in the world’s economy, and accordingly, a vulnerable target for terrorist groups to attack.

COLD WAR (Changing the World Order)

• Middle East becomes a pawn between Soviet Union and U.S.
• Previously, it was the “Great Game” between Britain and Russia.
• Soviet Union seeking warm water ports and world domination.
• U.S. containing Communism and securing economic resources that it had become dependent upon.

• Isreael:

1. Isreal has been and is a significant ally of the U.S. The U.S. has provided billions of dollars in aid and advanced military weaponry that gives Israel a distinct advantage in the region. Therefore, the U.S. has become connected with the complex issues of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and has inherited the negative perceptions by Muslims over the creation and expansion of the state of Israel.
2. Muslims viewed the creation of Israel in 1948 as a European-American colony in the midst of an Arab nation.
3. Israeli military advancements in 1956 and 1967 further humiliated the Arabs.
4. Israel is often perceived as European-American colonialism aimed at keeping the Arabs divided and weak.

• U.S. aids Iran (Shah’s regime), Iraq (Saddam Hussein) and Afghan rebels

1. American hostages taken in Iran
2. Heavily armed Iraq invades Kuwait (Gulf War follows). Leads to a massive U.S. military presence, particularly in Saudi Arabia.
3. A small segment of the Afghan rebels (and Arabs from all over the world), in part trained by U.S. to terrorize the Soviets in Afghanistan now terrorize world.
4. Soviet invasion of Afghanistan contributes to a weakening of its economic base and is a key factor in the crumbling of the Soviet Union.
5. Former Soviet Union now fractured into many groups with much expertise, weaponry and the desire for economic survival.

• After Cold War: U.S. became sole “super-power” in the region (China is a relatively uninvolved player as of yet) and therefore the easiest target for the present political and economic unrest of the region.

1. U.S. essentially inherits the historical “Western” baggage, particularly colonialism.
2. U.S. replaces the Soviet presence in Afghanistan as the U.S. topples the Taliban.
3. U.S. invades and occupies Iraq.

• WESTERN VIEW: Containing Communism and now international terrorism.
• MUSLIM VIEW: Same-old-thing: Another version of the Crusades/Colonialism.
• NEWS: After forty years of shaping political, economic and military strategy in the world, the effects of the Cold War are still in play.

COUNTERING CHANGE (Rise of fundamentalism and militancy)

• Care is needed in defining “Fundamentalism.”

1. Misconception: Fundamentalists are inherently conservative and trying to live in the past.
2. Rather: Their ideas are essentially modern and often innovative.

• Common traits of “Religious Fundamentalism”:

1. Emerge out of and react to a perceived spiritual crisis.
2. Oppose secular forces and view conflict as a cosmic war between good and evil.
3. Often withdraw from mainstream society fearing contamination and annihilation.
4. Through charismatic leadership, a counter-cultural community and an ideology are built.
5. Certain doctrines and practices of the past are selectively retrieved, but creatively interpreted.

• Additional traits of “Religious Fundamentalism” specific to Islam:

1. Response to modernity and Western “isms” such as secularism, colonialism and materialism.
2. Lack of historical perspective: A refusal (or out of ignorance) to interpret the Qur’an and Hadith in light of historical circumstances.

• WESTERN VIEW: Fear and anger: Fear of terrorism and a motivating anger to subdue terrorism at all costs.
• MUSLIM VIEW: Anger and fear: Most Muslims share in the anger towards their own despot governments and towards foreign intervention, but they are fearful of the violent, indiscriminate (“non-Islamic”) methods of militant fundamentalism.
• NEWS: The predominant images of Islamic, militant fundamentalism in the news, has for many Westerners, defined the meaning of Islam and its community.

ISLAMIZATION (Reclaiming an “Islamic” world view)

• A series of differing movements seeking to revitalize and return to an Islamic way of life. These movements share the common negative reaction to Western imperialism and secularization.
• For some this means rejection of modernism and Western influences. It means a returning to the past, specifically to 7th/8th century shari’a (Islamic law) that dictates all aspects of Muslim life including its government. This is sometimes called the SALAFI MOVEMENT (“salaf” means “ancient one”). This movement has been expressed both peacefully through political change and forcibly through extremist action (sometimes called ISLAMISM).
• For others, Islamization means an integration of modernity with Islamic values. This means a careful assimilation of science, technology and political structures filtered through an “Islamic” lens.
• Islamization has yet to provide stable, equitable governments but it is making inroads within educational systems.

• WESTERN VIEW: Threatening.
• MUSLIM VIEW: Marginal groups within Islam that try and speak for all of “Islam”
• NEWS: The press focuses on extremist forms of Islamization while ignoring peaceful forms that seek to revitalize Islamic identity.

COMMUNICATION (A shrinking world)

• Internet:

1. Rapidly collapsing the boundaries between countries and continents with instant information.
2. A medium in which truth, lies, wisdom and propaganda commingle without discrimination.

• Al-Jazeera:

1. Arab news network working out of Qatar, famous for broadcasting tapes from Osama Bin Laden.
2. Former employees of the BBC, Al-Jazeera has sought to provide a window into the Arab world that works to show the different sides of each situation. This has caused them to be criticized by virtually everyone, yet everyone watches.
3. There are other similar Arab networks, but for many Arab speakers, this is where they get their understanding of the world.

• WESTERN VIEW: Challenged to make sense of so much readily available information.
• MUSLIM VIEW: Growing access to events of the world and a profound way of connecting Muslims with each other.

COMPASSION, COOPERATION AND POWER (Living together amidst power & powerlessness)

• Hilm: A pre-Islamic, Arabic word that describes the virtue of one who has the power to destroy, but instead shows moral forbearance towards those who are weaker.

• WESTERN VIEW: Must maintain power at any cost.
• MUSLIM VIEW: Must obtain power at any cost.
• NEWS: Usually controlled by those in power. Occasionally, the power of compassion emerges.

Pastor Bob is a pastor in San Diego.

More in this series:

A Primer on Islam: The Basics (Lesson 1 of 6)

A Primer On Islam: Groups, Sects and Shari’a (Lesson 2 of 6)

A Primer on Islam: Historical Outline (Lesson 3 of 6)

A Primer on Islam: Muslims in Context (Lesson 5 of 6)

Primer on Islam: Muslims in North America (Lesson 6 of 6)

[Note to commenters: Be nice; be respectful; keep it extremely civil. Anything else will get you booted. Thanks for understanding.]

Where was God when my 9-year-old son was drugged and raped? generated a lot of very moving and compelling responses. Reader Karen Miller wrote one I thought I’d take a moment to address:

My previous job exposed me to the most horrible, vile, evil things in the world. My morning meetings consisted of viewing all the photos of fatal accidents and crime scenes from the previous day. The photos of a vicious rape and strangulation of a 17-year-old girl made my blood run cold. No movie, no books, nothing, can prepare you for the horror of a violent rape and murder. I wanted to kill the perpetrator. I really and truly wanted to kill him. As I was driving home a sudden thought flashed into my head: this man, this horrible man, could go to heaven if he asked for forgiveness.

I could not reconcile this. I did not want anything to do with a God that would let this man into heaven. I was a mess, a total mess. I have a preacher friend and sought his counsel. He told me that God alone would be able to determine the man’s sincerity if he truly asked for forgiveness. And my friend told me that yes, if indeed God judged him sincere, the man would go to heaven. I still have a hard time accepting this. I have a hard time accepting that a sin is a sin is a sin. I have a hard time grasping the idea of loving the sinner and hating the sin. I no longer work at this job, as it caused me a lot of emotional turmoil. Some people are able to distant themselves from the victim. I, unfortunately identified with the victims, and brought their sorrow home with me. Sorry this went off topic but after reading John’s original post, this young girl has been on my mind.

Nowhere in the Bible does it say that a murdering rapist who asks for forgiveness is guaranteed by God a place in heaven. The Bible is extremely, dramatically, frustratingly, resolutely, entire-denomination-creatingly unspecific about who gets into heaven, or how, or why, or when—or what it even means to be in heaven. Does it mean being a chubby winged baby who plays the harp? A perpetually delighted spirit floating around all day with the giggles? Does it mean sitting beside God, 24/7-trillion, reveling in the awesomeness of his … fabulous feet?

Do they have coffee in heaven? I love coffee. If heaven isn’t at least as great as a great coffee shop, I’m going to be pretty seriously disappointed. Not that I’ll exactly complain aloud. If by some egregious administrative fluke I wind up in heaven, the last thing I’ll be doing, ever, is pressing my luck.

I’ll just be, like, “Oh, really? They only serve green tea here? Oh. That’s great! Does this harp music ever stop playing? It doesn’t? Great!”

Many Christians are deeply enamored of pretending they know the rules of getting into heaven. But they don’t. No one does. And using the Bible to determine who gets into heaven is like using the IRS code to determine what size hat you wear. Except what size hat you wear probably is somewhere in the infernal IRS code. But pointing to virtually any Bible passage as “proof” of who does and doesn’t get into heaven is like pointing to a flock of two hundred crows passing overhead, and saying, “That one right there is the one that crapped on my car.”

Specificity fail.

So what can we know about God, and heaven, and the ultimate fates of any of us?

I have no idea. But one thing I do know is that I, a Christian, am absolutely, one hundred percent comfortable with the idea that God is nothing if not fair.

It’s not fair for a Muslim baby to go to hell because he or she died not being a Christian. It’s not fair to create gay people—and then insist they spend their lives celibate. It’s not fair for a murdering rapist to be ushered into heaven just because he said the right words before he died.

I believe that ultimately God is fair, just, equitable. And I have no reason whatsoever to believe that he (or—fair is fair—she) is anything less.

* * *

See also my Is God’s Justice Different Than Our? Hell, No!

And if you Google “Who gets into heaven?” one of the first things you get is this thing I made/wrote:

This was sent me last week:

Dear John,

I am a secular humanist who practices Buddhism. I am writing to you because I appreciate your writings regarding people like me who do not follow Jesus. I would like to share some of my history with you, and explain why I no longer follow god.

When my son was nine years old, he was raped by his best friend and his best friend’s parents. All together. All in one night. He was drugged, and when he woke up in the middle of being raped, a gun was held to his head. He was told that both he and I would die if he told anyone, or attempted to stop himself from being raped.

Anyone who allows that to happen to a nine-year-old boy, or who has foreknowledge of such an event and does not stop it, is evil, and deserves no more respect than the actual perpetrators.

I had no idea this had happened at all. My son hid it from me because he was in fear for my life.

My son is now sixteen years old, and deeply troubled. He physically lashes out; his behavior became increasingly sexual and inappropriate. Finally, he tried to harm himself. He was admitted to a mental hospital, and has bounced from hospital to hospital ever since. He hasn’t been able to make it on the outside for more than a couple months at a time.

I had always taken my son to church. I prayed over him every night; I read my bible daily (and knew it well). I believed and trusted god with my own life—and especially with my son’s life, since he was born three months early. I dedicated him to god while they held him nearby the operating table so I could see him before they whisked him off to the neonatal intensive care unit.

I also believed god through my first (very young, very brief) marriage, and also throughout my second marriage to a philandering preacher’s son, who beat me and my son, as his father had done to his mother and children before him.

With regards to this second marriage, every single leader of my church—from the head pastor, to associate pastors, to bible study leaders, and all the way down—told me to stick it out. One church leader told me that I should “pray the bruises away,” literally. They said that. And I heard this exact same thing from the leaders of more than one church, because we moved a couple times.

So those are the big reasons why I no longer follow god. I’d rather burn for eternity than follow someone who would allow all this.

Since leaving God behind I have less guilt, and have been building a more solid and secure life for myself. It is hard sometimes to not be able to place all my burdens on Jesus; it would be nice to have someone else carry them for a while. But he couldn’t help my son, so he certainly cannot help me. I believe it is a matter of self-delusion to find peace from faith; I find the same peace nowadays when I practice meditation, which involves no deity.

The little reasons I don’t follow god? They are all ones I find in your articles: the inconsistency of believers, the greed, the judgmentalism. The hate spewed by followers of Christ—or followers of any religion, really—seems to be poisoning the world.

I hope you will take the time to respond to this. I would be interested in your thoughts. Thanks for reading.

Dear woman who has suffered so much I barely know how or where to start with this:

It means more than I can possibly say that you trust me enough to bring this to me. It’s a genuine honor. Thank you for it.

You amaze me. You have ultimately responded to the morass of dark pain that has been so much of your life by lighting your own way out of it. That is absolutely inspiring.

Instead of staying beaten, as most anyone would, you’re rejuvenating. You’re meditating. From all through which you’ve thought and fought you’ve forged an actual, practical philosophy. So I cannot be in anything but sheer awe of your strength.

That said, I pray that you will not find too offensive my saying this: God did not harm your poor child. God did not beat you. God did not tell you to pray your bruises away.

It was not God who did those things. It was ignorant, vile people.

Your complaint against God is that he didn’t stop those ignorant, vile people from doing the ignorant, vile things they did.

What you are in essence asking about God is what throughout time people have always asked about God: Why does he allow evil to exist?

And that excellent simple question has an excellent, simple answer: God allows people to do whatever horrible, vile, evil things they want to, because to do otherwise would be to violate people’s free will, which is something that God’s love for all people absolutely prevents him from doing.

God gave us free will. And he will not take it from us. And we do not want him to take it from us. Free will is what defines us. It’s our most precious attribute. Without free will we are at best animals, and at worst mindless automatons.

God gave us our free will because he wants us fully independent. He so loves us, in other words, that he gave us the power to reject him. That is love, and full respect. We would not want, or stand for, anything less.

The great downside of free will is that it grants each and every one of us the capability of violating the free will of anyone weaker than ourselves. That’s a despicable thing to do, of course: it is what crime is. Ultimately all crime boils down to one person exercising their free will to in some way override the free will of another—which we all understand as such an egregious thing to do that we punish the perpetrator of such a violation by in turn removing, via imprisonment, their free will.

Life is about the exchange and negotiation of relative free wills.

The irreducible truth is that right now, if I want to, I can beat my wife. She is weaker than I; she could not stop me from doing that. I am free to commit that atrocity.

What you would wish is for God to stop me from doing that, to stay my hand. You wish for God to look down, see that I am about to strike my wife, and somehow arrest that action: freeze me in mid-motion, paralyze my arm, instantly replace my crazed fury with peaceful thoughts and feelings.

You want God to in some way directly and purposefully violate my free will. You essentially and explicitly want me, at God’s will, to at that moment transform into God’s puppet.

But the truth is that you do not, in fact, want that. Because you would not want God to also be able to at will transform you into his mindless, will-free puppet. Ultimately you would insist for me what you certainly insist upon for yourself: absolute freedom.

Every blessing carries its own curse. The blessing of free will is the curse of human evil. The two are inseparable. That cannot change.

If you want will that is truly free—if you want everyone to have the kind of autonomy you certainly desire for yourself—then you want stronger people to be able to victimize weaker people. I know that feels pretty distinctly counterintuitive—but, if you think about it, that is where you arrive. It is where we all arrive. No human being wants a God who is constantly busy monitoring their every action and thought, and preventing or suddenly changing those which he feels cross the line between good and evil, between right and wrong, between acceptable and unacceptable.

None of wants to exist on a slope so weird, slippery, random, and out of control. Not you. Not me. Not anyone. We don’t want God interfering with our lives and identity that way. And we can’t wish for others what we don’t want for ourselves.

I’d be the last person in the world to blame you for rejecting God. But the hard truth remains that it was not God who betrayed you. It was people. And God did not stop those people from committing their horrible transgressions against you and your son for the same reason he did not stop you from recovering from those transgressions in the valiant, ennobling way you have. With all my heart I hope that the damage done your son is in time similarly undone.

Below is a video about this very matter that I once wrote and produced via the free online tools available at xtranormal.com. (When you make these things, you have no control over the look of your chosen setting, character, or character’s voice—and you have few enough choices for either those. So you just … do what you can.)

Again, I’m profoundly humbled and honored that you wrote and allowed me to share in this manner your gut-wrenching and ultimately inspiring story. As I say, I’ve zero interest in trying to turn you into a Christian. But, man, I know that if I were Christ, I’d want nothing more than to have on my team someone of your quality, drive, and integrity. I don’t know much about much, but I’m certain of one thing: God would love to have you back.

As, most certainly, would I. Please write me again sometime, and tell me how you and your son are doing. In the meantime all my love to you, and thanks again.

“Be quiet!” said Jesus sternly. “Come out of him!” The impure spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek.

The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, “What is this? A new teaching—and with authority! He even gives orders to impure spirits and they obey him.”

An Unclean Spirit
A sermon by Pastor Bob
January 29, 2012
Text: Mark 1 :21-28

Mark 1 :21-28

They went to Capernaum, and when the Sabbath came, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach. The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law. Just then a man in their synagogue who was possessed by an impure spirit cried out, “What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”

“Be quiet!” said Jesus sternly. “Come out of him!” The impure spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek.

The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, “What is this? A new teaching—and with authority! He even gives orders to impure spirits and they obey him.” News about him spread quickly over the whole region of Galilee.

–Our gospel reading for this morning touches on something that is not easy to talk about, especially in the 21^st century.

–It is about evil in this world.

–And not just abstract evil, but tangible evil that possesses.

–Evil that restrains our lives, our hope, our faith.

–Our text begins with Jesus attending worship at a synagogue in Capernaum.

–Sometimes we forget that Jesus was a good Jew who worshiped at whatever synagogue was close.

–And in this case, Jesus was teaching as well as worshiping.

–Jesus was a teacher, a rabbi.

–Only after years of training could one become a rabbi, and only after many more years would a rabbi begin to speak with authority—with their own voice, that went beyond just repeating what other famous rabbis had said many years before.

–Yet, here was Jesus, speaking with such authority that it went beyond the scholars of the day.

–It went beyond what anyone was expecting to hear.

–It was something new.

—It was the voice of God.

–And if anyone missed that fact, it was not the unclean spirit of this story.

–In the midst of worship came a voice that must have shaken the hearts of all who heard it.

–A voice coming from someone in the synagogue crying out,

–“What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.”

–Now, notice first that the unclean spirit uses the word “us.” “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?”

–Apparently there is more than one unclean spirit.

–Perhaps there are more unclean spirits in the one man.

–Or perhaps this is not the only person with an unclean spirit.

–In any case, it is evident that from the beginning that this unclean spirit is not alone.

–That its strength perhaps relies on its numbers.

–We too might relate to this reality.

–That when we face times of darkness and despair in our lives, it seems to multiply.

–To touch the many aspects of our lives.

–Until it seems like the whole world is against us.

–Such is the nature of darkness in our lives.

–Secondly, we don’t know whether the person with the unclean spirit had just arrived in the synagogue.

–Or, whether that person had been there all along.

–Slowly absorbing Christ’s words, letting them percolate, and finally being compelled to scream out.

–What we do know is that this unclean spirit shatters the moment with both profound fear and profound truth.

–The unclean spirit does not want to be anywhere near Jesus.

–It cannot tolerate Jesus’ teaching.

–It cannot bear such authority, such power, such love.

–It knows that the gig is up.

–That its time in this man was close to an end.

–The unclean spirit knows that Jesus can see it for what it is.

–That though the people around him are oblivious or perhaps ignoring the unclean spirit’s reality:

–Jesus knows.

–Now as we think about our own lives, aren’t we often oblivious to such things as well?

–Are we inclined to see or feel the pain in others?

–Are we likely reach out and break the seeming continuity of despair?

–Often, it is something or someone outside of ourselves who sees the truth of the situation with us.

–Who can look at our situation, and see it for what it is.

–Ironically, here it is the unclean spirit who first recognizes and speaks the truth.

–The elephant in the middle of the synagogue that day is not that there is present an unclean spirit or even a legion of unclean spirits.

–It is that the Son of God is in their midst.

–That in such a presence, everything is exposed for what it is.

–Not just the bad, but the good.

–And so in the middle of an ordinary service of worship the unclean spirit declares something extraordinary.

–That this man from Nazareth is more than a teacher; that he is the “Holy One of God.”

–It is in this person that God sends the promise that something new is happening.

–Jesus is no ordinary teacher, no mere liberator of minds.

–Jesus is here to free a world from all unclean spirits, from all the broken pieces of our lives: from death itself.

–The unclean spirit knows this, or is afraid of this possibility.

–Jesus rebukes the unclean spirit to be silent.

–And instantly it leaves the helpless man.

–It was then that the people in the synagogue began to have an inkling of who Jesus is.

–Before, they had seen him as a persuasive teacher.

–But now they recognized that his authority and power was beyond their experience.

–And as our text concludes, Jesus’ fame spread all across the region of Galilee.

–Now, as we try and absorb this gospel this morning, I have a few cautions for us.

–Most of us, when we imagine ourselves in this story, place ourselves in the crowd of those surrounding the man with the unclean spirit.

–He had an unclean spirit; we are somehow clean.

–We don’t want to think that we are occupied by darkness and temptation.

–And so, in our own fear, we are prone to, in one way or another, point our finger at the other, instead of at ourselves.

–The problem with this, of course, is Jesus.

–Jesus did not come into this world to simply teach us a little bit about ourselves, to share some wisdom concerning the world, and then leave.

–No. Jesus came so that we would believe in him, and in such faith have everlasting life with him.

–The reality of our situation is that we still need Jesus.

–That though we are promised salvation, we still live in the brokenness of sin.

–And that every day brings own its temptations and even trials.

–I wish I could say that because you believe you will not face difficult times. But we all know that is not true.

–I do believe that because of our faith, we are better equipped to face them

–To acknowledge them, name them and move to something better.

–Believe it or not, I think we can also learn from the unclean spirit.

–We must not forget that the unclean spirit in this story was part of an “us,” part of a community.

–Only as a community can any of us truly face the darkness.

–Jesus’ words: where two or three are gathered in his name, he will be present.

–It is true that the acts of individuals are important.

–However, it is as a community that we are truly the body of Christ.

–None of us here are completely holy, completely perfect in every way.

–But together we combine not only our collective weaknesses, but our collective strengths.

–And these are exhibited most profoundly in our love for each other in God.

–Brothers and sisters in Christ.

–Here is our reality:

–We live in both a strange time of challenges and an amazing time of opportunities.

–Our challenges are readily evident:

–Our economy is down.

–We are challenged by unemployment.

–Our youth search for identity in a confusing world.

–Yet, our opportunities are equally real:

–We as a community are empowered by the Holy Spirit.

–We are fed by its word and promise that God not only hears our prayers, but empowers us to take on the challenges of this world together.

–And we, like those in the synagogue that day, cannot help but be possessed by God’s spirit to share the love of God to everyone around us.

–Everyone in San Diego.

–Everyone in the world.

–Everyone, always.

Yesterday a young man wrote to ask why I thought so many people are attracted to the preaching and teaching of Mark “Stop Looking At The Top of My Head” Driscoll.

Sorry. That was an obnoxious joke. A faux-hawk is certainly a legitimate hairstyle choice.

Anyway, I’ve several times been asked about Mr. Driscoll’s popularity, and so thought I’d take a moment to venture an opinion on it.

Mr. Driscoll, it seems to me, is

Okay, can we stop with the pointy-head jokes? This is serious business. Mark Driscoll is a very serious individual. Look here:

Does that look to you like a guy who shouldn’t be taken seriously? Of course it doesn’t.

Now then. Mark Driscoll is

Oh, c’mon! Stop it!

A great many of those attracted to Mr. Driscoll are young adults. This is because, generally speaking, young adults are in that harrowing phase of life wherein they’re discovering just how terribly complex real life can really be. Most young teens are filled with pure, black-and-white moral certitude; most young adults, however, freshly getting knocked about by the world beyond their homes, are unsettled by the encroaching conviction that things aren’t anywhere near as simple as they once believed them to be.

Where young adults have nothing but questions, Mark Driscoll has nothing but answers. He is

Okay, I’m just going to ignore that. But that’s the last one.

He is offering to the young adults in his audience a version of God and Christianity that many of them naturally find extremely compelling. And beyond that, Mr. Driscoll himself is

strong, commanding, powerful, unafraid. He is in control. And that can be very compelling to a young person, who is often finding so much inside and around them out of control. Well, they look to their Pastor Driscoll, and see

You know what? Fine. Fine! I’ll just stop talking now.

But before I just give up on this, I want to be clear. Mark Driscoll is a force to be reckoned with. You can joke around all you want, but at the end of the day, Mark Driscoll is

All right, that’s it. I give up.

Here is Mr. Driscoll himself to show you why he is most certainly not to be dismissed out of hand as a power-crazed, egomaniacal, anger-fueled, testosterone-addled showman preying on the insecurities of young people and daring, in his appalling arrogance, to imagine that he actually speaks for God.

This morning John Shelby Spong was kind enough to write and send me this:

John Shore is a gadfly, calling the Christian Church everywhere to act the way it says it believes about love and justice, which of course makes him an uncomfortable presence in those churches that do not like to be forced to face reality. So were the prophets of old. So was Jesus of Nazareth.

And he wrote what he did knowing of my 16-point theological expression—the first point of which I imagine caused the great progressive lion to roll his eyes.

But what do I know? Perhaps it didn’t. All I do know is that today Jack Spong (as he’s known to those of us who learned that via the email he sent us this morning), the indefatigable proponent of feminism, gay rights, and racial equality within both the church and society at large—one of our time’s great champions of the underrepresented and oppressed—today went out of his way to encourage me in my work. And for that I will certainly always be most deeply appreciative.

The year was 1984. My wife Catherine and I were living in Lancaster, CA, a small, blazingly hot town on the western edge of the Mojave Desert, where she and I had moved to help care for her sick mother.

Here’s pretty much exactly how I will always remember Lancaster—especially since this is right where we lived:

I understand it’s now much grown, but during the time we were there, kids in Lancaster dreamed of making it in—or just to—Bakersfield, some seventy miles to the north.

This is an excellent shot of Bakersfield:

huge parts of which also look like this:

Here is the Bakersfield airport:

The point being: Bakersfield is a “big city” like a piece of fried corn-dog coating is filet mignon. (And I know of what I speak: after Lancaster Cat and I lived in Bakersfield for nine years. Whoo-hoo! We lived the dream!)

Anyway, back to Lancaster in 1984. Cat and I were at the annual Lancaster County Fair. To give you some idea what that was like, many of the fair “displays” were just stuff people had dragged out from their garages, barns, and repair shops, and simply dumped onto the fairground grass. You were just supposed to walk around and look at piles of old farming tools, vacuum cleaners, water heaters, broken lawn furniture. Dilapidated refrigerators. Ancient bicycles with no wheels. Shoes. Frayed bits of rope.

What made it fancy was that the assorted piles were located on ground that was in the shade. That’s why I stayed looking at the stuff: shade! Lancaster is the deserteriest of desert towns: over 100 degrees for weeks on end was typical. A nice, cool summer night in Lancaster is 80 degrees.

At the fair were also things like pigs and goats; Lancaster was a very 4-H kind of place. (To be clear: I love 4-H.) There were a bunch of live chickens stacked in wire boxes that you were supposed to look at. Baked goods were also on display, sort of: in a Quonest hut a bunch of card tables stood holding Hostess Cupcakes with whipped cream sprayed on top of them. Twinkees decorated with bows. Ding-Dongs carefully arranged on paper plates. I remember there was a cherry pie that looked like it might have been good once.

I’m being obnoxious about it, but the truth is I loved the Lancaster County Fair. I’m a complete freak for county fairs. If I go to heaven, and it turns out to be nothing but small town county fairs, I am going to be one extremely thrilled after-lifer.

Anyway, guess who was playing at that year’s Lancaster County fair?

Etta James!

Poor thing. What at that point had happened to her career? Did her agent hate her? I have no idea, of course. But I do know that when she walked out onto the stage in the cavernous main auditorium of the Lancaster County Fair that year, my wife and I were sitting smack in the center of the front row.

Our seats were not difficult to obtain. In the entire auditorium there were only fourteen other people sitting in the ocean of metal fold-out chairs. I know because I counted each of them. I wanted to make sure that I never forget the time that I saw Etta James perform at a hick county fair before a total of sixteen people.

It was at the end of a long, hot day. The other audience members were mostly kids who had spent that day working at the fair: they were all wearing or holding food-crusted aprons, and looked positively exhausted.

Etta was then very heavy: when she came out, it was clear how much her body had become her enemy. She was about as overweight and out of shape as a person can be; I remember being afraid her legs would fail her. She held herself in a strange, bent sort of posture, as if, knowing her body would at any moment collapse, she wanted to at least lessen the distance it fell.

There were no stage lights, or anything like that: the huge fluorescent light fixtures hanging from the ceiling bathed us all in the same pale, greenish-yellow light.

It was the gig from hell, basically.

Etta came out, looked out as us, scowled a bit, turned to her four-person band, and signaled them to start.

She started singing. She wasn’t exactly into it. It was just another show.

It wasn’t to Cat and I, though. This was Etta fucking James.

Cat and I don’t do a lot of things well, but we know how to let musicians and singers know that we appreciate them. So—what with our being right in front of her, and all—we started in letting Etta know that we knew who she was, that we were delirious to be listening to her, and that she sounded every bit as great as we knew she would.

And then the change came over her. She started to go deep inside herself. I don’t know if it was Cat and me cheering her on, or the heat, or the despair of having to do that gig, or what. But, right there in front of all sixteen of us, Etta James became Etta James. She sunk into a place so blue it was pitch black—and then came back up with it, roaring, crying, wailing, singing it into all the sweet, terrible pain this world can bring.

The guys in her band looked around at each other, nodded, and ratcheted their business up. Things had just gotten real, and they weren’t about to let the smokin’ Etta James train pull out without them.

Etta laid into her singing, hard—and stayed right there, at the most painful, real place on earth. She didn’t just deliver it. She knocked on your door, came into your house, dragged you up into your bedroom, and worked you with it. This was more than a woman singing. This was more than the blues. This was a woman who had become the very heart and soul of everything that the blues ever could or would be.

Cat and I turned to each other with our mouths hanging open. The kids beside and behind us were in paroxysms of joy.

It was the kind of moment you have maybe once in your life. Maybe twice, if you pay attention. Maybe never.

And that moment lasted, for all of us, for fifty of the most solid minutes there ever were.

There was a three-year period of my life when I made my living as a music journalist. I’ve seen a lot of live music. In my whole life I’ve never seen a performer do what Etta James did that day.

Rest in peace, Etta James.

Thank you.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

As you may know, this past summer the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) decided to allow the ordination of gay clergy.

Yesterday, a new Presbyterian denomination was born: the Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterians—or, for short, ECO (as opposed to echo, which is a hollow, after-the-fact, ever-diminishing noise).

ECO was formed by pastors and laypeople in response to PCUSA’s decision to join the 21st century. They’re against gay people being ordained as ministers, and so started their own sub-denomination wherein such a thing would be prohibited.

And that’s fair enough. If they want to take their ball and go play with themselves in the corner, that’s certainly their right.

What is certainly most notable, however, is ECO’s refusal to anywhere, in any way whatsoever, just come out and say that they formed in response to PCUSA’s sanctioning the ordination of gay people. Everyone knows that’s why ECO formed. It’s hardly a mystery or secret. Yesterday’s Reuters story on the matter is titled Presbyterian group breaks away over gay clergy. Back in August, Rev. John Crosby, now the president of ECO, said, “We [the Presbyterians] have tried to create such a big tent trying to make everybody happy theologically. I fear the tent has collapsed without a center.”

Wow. So, for Rev. Crosby the go-to metaphor on this matter is tent poles. Boy, for a guy who likes to sidestep taking hold of the big, hot issues …

And what deft sidestepping Rev. Crosby and his fellow ECO leaders do. A reader can search high and low throughout ECO’s online site, and nowhere will they find a single, solitary word about gay people or homosexuality. They’ll read how ECO wants to “connect leaders through accountable biblical relationships,” to “reclaim a sense of covenanted biblical community,” and to “develop gospel-centered leaders.” They’ll discover ECO’s passion for “the right kind of diversity” (which is then carefully stipulated to mean “women, men, young leaders, and every ethnicity”). They’ll readily learn of ECO’s desire to “unite around a shared theological core.”

But beyond that kind of dissembling, Secret Code Fundy Talk, nary a mention will they find of the true and actual reason ECO exists.

ECO honchos! Just say that you’ve formed because you believe that gays shouldn’t be ordained! If your convictions are so great they’ve compelled you to found a “breakaway movement,” why aren’t they great enough for you to be explicit about what it is you’re breaking away from?

That said, though, I’m heartened by the leaders of ECO being so afraid of proclaiming their true nature and purpose. It means they’re as uncomfortable as, God knows, they should be, about excluding gay people from full participation in the life that Jesus so passionately offered to all.

It’s always encouraging when someone can’t force their mouth to say what their heart knows is wrong. It means there’s hope for them yet.

In the meantime our would-be friends at ECO are stuck, as it were, inartfully singing along with the Cowardly Lion:

I’m sure I could show my prowess / Be a lion, not a mouse / If I only had the nerve.

* * *

Related Post: Our [Presbyterian] Church: “Sign This Anti-Gay Statement, or Leave”

(UPDATE: A commenter to this post wrote: “As a PCUSA pastor I can tell you a big reason why ECO was formed was because the pastors in the anti-gay lobby receives very generous pension and medical benefits from the PCUSA that they are afraid to leave behind should they follow their conscience to disaffiliate from the denomination. … Our pension plan is the envy of most denominations and our benefits are generous. Any minister can leave at any time to seek a call in another Presbyterian denomination that would have them [PCA, OPC, EPC, RCA, CRC, etc.]. But they don’t want to give up the perks.”)

A few nights ago I got in this letter about Tim Tebow:

This year, many Christians I know have been thrilled by Tim Tebow and his well-publicized Christianity. I don’t have any problem with that. However, some of them have taken it a step further, and implied or stated that God is looking favorably upon the Broncos because of this.

This, I must admit, makes me a crazy woman. I find it hard to believe that God would interfere in the outcome of a football game, regardless of the religion of the participants—and if it were true that he did, it makes hard to fathom the success of many people who are downright nasty. But I know many people who seem to feel that every win for the Broncos was proof positive that Christianity (and in particular, a very fundamentalist Christianity) is the One True Way. Because of this attitude, I actually find myself cheering against people who are blatantly Christian in public, which I don’t want to do. Any thoughts?

So my first thought is that Tim Tebow sounds like the name of the Santa’s elf in charge of drumming monkey dolls. But that’s … stupid. Sorry.

My second thought is that no one who is downright nasty is ever successful. If you’re nasty (as in Scrooge-nasty, not “Oh, my! My boob!” Janet Jackson-nasty ), you lose. That’s the rule. (Though of course I know what the reader meant: When Dickheads Are Victorious is always a disconcerting show to watch.

My third thought is that if Tim Tebow were all that devout, wouldn’t he, ala Eric Liddell, refuse to play on Sunday—the Lord’s Day, the Christian Sabbath? I mean, pious-wise, I’m somewhere between Andy Griffith and … well, Otis the wino, and even I never published anything on Sundays before I started posting Pastor Bob’s sermons.

But whatever, I know. An NFL player who won’t play on Sundays is like a vampire who sunbathes. Total fail.

My fourth thought is the terribly obvious: “What kind of loser God would give a [bleepeth] which team wins a football game?”

The idea that Tim Tebow compels God to arrange for the Denver Broncos to win football games is so amazingly stupid that having to take it seriously for as long as it took me to type that has given my eyes a heart attack. Now I hate my life.

Curse you, moronic Tim Tebow fans! A pox upon your … oh, forget it. You wouldn’t know a pox from Biggie Smalls.

But is saying that in response to prayer God doesn’t throw football games the same as saying that God doesn’t hear, or care about, prayers offered to him?

Of course not. God does help Tim Tebow win football games. How? Because whenever any of us open ourselves up to the presence of God, we become a better version of ourselves. We become calmer, more centered, more compassionate: we gain the comprehension and apprehension of an ultimate context that is both pacifying and edifying.

We become (for, alas, however long) wiser.

Sometimes doing that is called prayer. Sometimes it’s called meditation. Sometimes its called worshiping. Sometimes it’s called centering oneself.

Sometimes it’s even called Tebowing.

Cultivating one’s relationship with God (or the Cosmic Divine, or … whatever/however anyone thinks of The Really Big Picture)? Thumbs up.

Being obnoxiously ostentatious about doing that, and failing to realize how obviously that communicates nothing but ego and show? Thumbs down.

Attributing the Broncos’ rise to the playoffs as God’s response to Tim Tebow’s displays of faith—and then having the Broncos get dropped like a bowling ball in a pool? And having the news come out today that during his team’s AFC divisional loss on Sunday, Tim Tebow was badly hurt—but that he continued to play through his pain?

Two thumbs up from this reviewer for that episode of the ultimate reality show.

In the comments section to my recent post, An Open Letter From Christians to Gay People, a guy showed up using the screen name “The Word.”. Here is most of what “The Word.” wrote:

I’m a Christian. I strive towards becoming Christ like in all aspects of my life. But I fail; I fail miserably and am no where near perfect. I have sinned; I should go to hell. So should you, and you, and you as well. Humanity is imperfect, and we do not deserve anything. But that being said, you have to bring God into this. He loves us. He loves us so much he sent his one and only son to die for us on the Cross. Jesus died for our sins. All of them. Every time we’ve lied, every time we’ve cheated, looked at someone with hatred. Every sin is equal in God’s eyes.

If you have ever looked at a woman with lust, to God you have committed adultery. If you have ever looked upon someone with hate, you have murdered them in His eyes. None of us are deserving of heaven. But for some reason God has chosen to pour out his love, his mercy, and his forgiveness. He’s given us a way out. And all we need to do is believe, and every sin has been washed away.

That being said, I still say that homosexuality is a sin. In the same way that my own sexuality is a sin. I (like so many other men in the world) look at porn. I am not proud of it, I do not like it, and it makes me feel so much worse for the rest of the day. I do it; I am deserving of hell. But in the same way that Jesus forgives me, he forgives anyone of the homosexual orientation. I have confessed my sin, but I still live in it, wallow in it, and stink with it’s stench. But I am free, by the love of Christ I am free. I believe that someone living in homosexuality is capable of going to heaven for that reason. Because Jesus Christ, Son of the Most High, died for that person. And if that person were to recognize him, then he would set them free.

I love all people, as God does. And I do not view anyone as less than I do. I accept that homosexuality is not a choice, it is very hard to get rid of, almost impossible. I cannot just ask God to make me not attracted to women. It doesn’t work like that. I can try and control it, but I cannot hope for perfection. I think that I am ineligible to become a pastor, because of my sin life. I think that many people are not eligible, even people that currently reside over churches. We’ve let our guard drop so much, we’ve let sin into our lives so much. In the same way as I wouldn’t want someone who watches porn, or drinks, or smokes cigarettes to be a pastor, I don’t want a homosexual to be a pastor. Sin is sin. I love people, I reach out, I befriend. I have never belittled anyone based on their sexuality, nor will I. I am truly sorry for those of us who reject Christ’s notion of love, and choose to hate. That is not God.

I carry no emotional baggage whatsoever. God is love. Without God there would be hell for all. How I act upon my sexuality towards women is a sin, in the same way that acting upon your sexuality towards the same sex would be a sin. God doesn’t hate anyone. We all deserve Hell, which is why we NEED God. God loves us, he forgives us, regardless of how much we sin, as long as we believe that through him and his love there is salvation. To sin is to deviate from God’s will. I reference the entire Bible. There are six references to homosexuality throughout; go and find them, you will be surprised I’m sure. Six. Why on earth would God reference homosexuality six times if it wasn’t a sin? Sure, if you look at the one in Leviticus, which is filled with laws only commanded to certain people groups, then I can see how you don’t view it as sin. But if you combine it with the five other times, it becomes solid fact. The number of times he talks about a man becoming one with his wife should clue you in.

I have done no damage, nor does my theology do damage. I spread love, peace, and acceptance to the world. Not hate, anger, or intolerance. I have done my research, I have studied. … Sexuality is a gift, the greatest gift, and we should treat the greatest gift with the utmost respect, out of reverence to our high and almighty God. God does not tempt, the flesh tempts. God does not punish. Hell is simply absence from God, from his most eternal love. I doubt it is what we like to depict it as. It is just a world without God. An entirely human, and entirely broken world. The Truth shall reign through. The Word is with me.

God created Adam and Eve in the beginning, in the perfect garden, in the perfect place. All was right, all was as it was intended to be. That is God’s plan. That is how God designed it. When we chose to refuse that, to eat the Fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, we chose to forsake that. And everything became tainted. Everything became broken. With that brokenness became sin of all form—not brought on us by God, but by ourselves. That sin includes homosexuality and bisexuality.

Sexuality in it’s purest form, in what God designed it to be, when everything was perfect, is a gift. But with that gift there comes a curse, a curse brought upon ourselves. Jesus sent his son down to free us from that curse. I am susceptible to lust, as others are susceptible to anger, jealousy, greed, hate, slothfulness, and gluttony. We all have an area in our life that we struggle the most in, that we will fall in. But just because 99.9% of men look at porn, have lust in their hearts, and sleep with reckless abandon, does not mean that it is what God intended. Just because there is a growing population of GLBT, does not mean it is what God intended. I am within sin just as much as every man. I do not judge anyone based on their sin. I condemn all sin equally. I will not “support” sin. I will love everyone equally, spread acceptance, love, and peace to the world.

A day or so after closing comments to An Open Letter, I received an email from one Mike Moore, who wrote to tell me that reading the words of “The Word.” made his eyes bleed. He expressed his desire to have written a response to Mr. Word.

“If you want to do it now,” I wrote him back, “Feel free. I’ll post it.”

Mike took me up on that offer. Here is his response to “The Word.”:

John’s An Open Letter From Christians to Gay People sparked over 650 comments! That’s a great party: plenty of people to keep things lively, yet not so many that conversational threads get lost.

Not unusually, I arrived at this party late. (I’d like to say “fashionably late,” but what I was wearing at the time would only be considered “fashionable” in Seattle, circa 1991.)

Arriving late is often a good thing: the gang is on their second or third cocktail, and people’s conversation is well on the way to becoming slurred, funny, candid, and, as a rule, more interesting.

Unfortunately, by the time I arrived at John’s Open Letter, the party was almost over. All the good words had been taken. Thanks were well expressed. Sincere and thoughtful debates had been had. Most of what was worth saying had been said.

And, horrors, within minutes of my arrival, the comment section closed! End of party!

But (and I say this as a guy who believes that for every party, there is an after-party), I found I couldn’t move on. I was a bit shaken-up by one of the commenters, “The Word.”

Before I knew it, “The Word.” had gotten well under my skin.

“The Word.” set off my bells and whistles. Danger. I felt an unfamiliar hostility.

At first glance, it was only that he was using Someone Else’s Name. He was perpetrating identity theft on a grandiose, John 1:1 scale. Like using God’s social security number to get a Platinum Card.

Then there was the period. Unlike God, this guy wasn’t content to simply be “The Word”. No, he went a step further, and added a period: “The Word.”. As in, I Am The Word, Period. As in, End of Discussion. As in Don’t Question Me.

So, being a knee-jerk reaction sort of fellow, I was already feeling put-off by “The Word.”—and I had yet to even read his comments.

Then I read his comments.

Then I kind of hated the guy, without really wanting to. Because “The Word.” frightens me.

“The Word.” has twisted love and sex, sin and forgiveness, hell and heaven, flesh and spirit, and cigarettes and liquor into a strange, dangerous mental knot that I (and I daresay anyone else in the world) couldn’t begin to unravel.

The words of “The Word.” trigger my most primal fight-or-flight response. He reminds me of the guy who says so many of the right things while trying to get you into the back of his Ford van with the custom Serial Killer package. “The Word.” makes me think of the stranger offering candy.

“The Word.” feels like the 3 a.m. knock on the door when your porch light is out.

The reason I write this is honestly to learn: Is it just me?