Recovering Evangelicals

By Luke Jeffrey JanssenReligion & Spirituality Christianity

Recovering Evangelicals episodes

July 07, 2023#125 – Paul’s spiritual journey
Another listener tells his story of navigating a long and meandering path through Evangelicalism: many detours, but the same destination.
This week, we talk to an old friend of both of ours: Paul Almas. Paul played a key role in Luke’s reconstruction journey, was someone that both Luke and Scott looked up to 20 or 30 years ago in two very different church settings, and has been an ardent supporter of the Recovering Evangelicals Project from the very beginning. He’s constantly plugged into various podcasts and sending us articles of political, religious, theological, sociological, and/or philosophical interest. Points that we talked about in today’s conversation include:
his father was a circuit preacher in rural Canada in the 30s and 40s
Paul was steeped in Fundamentalist, Dispensational Theology … Young Earth Creationism …. inerrancy/infallibility of scripture …. he fully embraced all of this for the first two decades of his life
a very tightly knit family and social group (church congregation)
for young members in this community, becoming a pastor/missionary was top priority, while secular work was second choice
in order to pursue what ultimately became his career (industrial design and consulting), Paul needed to leave the constraints of his community and go to the big city (Toronto) to get education; this exposed him to a whole new world
started to ask questions in his youth years, especially when the church brought in travelling preachers/evangelists with their emotionally manipulative revivalist tent meetings
as a young adult, he was very much involved in teaching, leading, and serving as elder and board member in the churches he attended (and helped build)
in his 40s, became disenchanted with the church as an institution
became critical of much of the theology that he had held firmly during the first two or three decades of his life, particularly the inerrancy and infallibility of scripture, morality of many Old Testament stories, Dispensational Theology, atonement theology, the blood of Christ, his concept of God, the Trinity, etc. ….
needed to soften his positions on those aspects of his theology and belief system, eventually reconfiguring parts and even rejecting other parts outright
when he subjected his personal theology to the creative problem-solving methodological tools that he developed for his business (industrial consulting), or the critical thinking that comes with the Scientific Method, he found big holes and gaps (see 29:00 – 32:00)
he still fully believed in a creative force, but had serious problems with the arrogance and certainty that theology invoked … still “has not landed” on many theological issues about which he previously had great certainty
what is Paul’s secret? why has he been able to give up on many of the same theological tenets that other people have blamed for the shipwrecking of their faith, and yet still retain a firmly committed Christian belief? Answer: you have to learn to be comfortable with mystery … requiring certainty is fatal to belief
no longer interested in the institution of church, but greatly values the fellowship and community of church
any regrets about that journey? … none at all … rough patches were learning and growth opportunities
even as he’s “turning up the seats, putting up the chair tables, and getting ready for final landing approach,” he’s getting excited to meet the creative force from which we came
when asked can/should Evangelicalism be recovered, his answer was: “I don’t think so. I’d never use the label anymore.” We need to find a new label for what we want it to mean.
As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic …
If you’re interested in other personal life stories of people we’ve interviewed, check out this thematic collection.
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59 min
June 30, 2023#124 – Doug’s spiritual journey
Getting to know one of our listeners, and his very unique and thought-provoking path into and out of Evangelicalism.
We talked to Doug, one of our listeners, to learn a bit about his very unique story through Evangelicalism: from Fundamentalism, through progressively more liberal churches, eventually going back to Bible Seminary as an atheist to become the minister for a Unitarian Universalist church, and currently studying Zen Buddhism while also attending Sunday School at a Disciples of Christ church in small-town USA.
Our casual conversation meandered through a variety of touchpoints:
his favorite podcasts, including a skeptic’s interest in the paranormal and UAPs (the new acronym for UFOs)
born into a spiritually liberal home, but became a Fundamentalist Evangelical as a teen in order to escape hell
inerrancy/infallibility of scripture was deeply engrained into his formation
eternal conscious torment in hell
Young Earth Creationism
his career goal as a teen was to become a missionary, preaching the Gospel, so he went to Bible College
Bible College was a Bob Jones wannabe institution
all other faith traditions (esp. Catholicism) were seen to be heretical … “and even Southern Baptists barely made it”
how the Evangelical movement at that time strayed into national politics
his spirituality has always been much more intellectual than experiential/emotional
joined the Air Force; trained in Logistics and Acquisitions
attended an Orthodox Presbyterian Church
began noticing more and more problems in his daily readings of the Bible; eventually, this pillar holding up his faith (inerrancy/infallibility) broke completely
went through a progression of increasingly liberal churches; eventually stopped going at all [for a while]
stopped believing in any of it, despite two “atheist-in-a-foxhole” experiences; learned to accept that he could die at any moment, and never felt a need to reach out to God; felt no concern about going to hell
the “four horsemen of the Apocalypse”
some noteworthy answers and non-answers to prayer
started attending a Unitarian Universalist Church … as an atheist …. and began serving as their minister
started training in Zen Buddhism
then started attending a Sunday School class in a Disciples of Christ Church (still as an atheist)
doesn’t like the label “scratching the itch” applied to him
Christianity is noteworthy because of what it leaves behind in its wake: schools, hospitals, drug addiction centers, and Western liberal ideals (love your neighbour; help the weak; stand against racism)
questions about having (or requiring one to have) a personal relationship with the Divine
maybe the way Christianity was presented to Doug was faulty: it was “too rigid to the point of being brittle, and then when it broke, it didn’t have enough flexibility to be remolded into something different”
God needing blood to overlook sin, and Jesus having to be tortured and killed, are abhorrent ideas
can Evangelicalism still be recovered? … No, the term has become too tainted … now has too much baggage
One thing Doug said near the end of our conversation really struck me: “But if there’s an afterlife, and I stand before God, in some form of judgment, I can stand before that God intellectually honest that I did not think that God was a brute that tortured people; I wouldn’t do that, why would I expect God to do that?”
As always, tell us your thoughts on this conversation …
If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like the sermon he gave at his home Unitarian Universalist Church (we referred to it a few times in the interview), or our own episode #41 (“Scratching the itch”).
Episode image by Hermann Traub from Pixabay.
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1 hr 11 min
June 23, 2023#123 – “The Exodus”: Sunday School version or scholar’s version?
Science now makes the former no longer tenable, leaving three options for believers: ignore the problem, reject the Bible, or revise one’s theology.
The story of “the Exodus” has traditionally been seen to involve millions of Israelites following Moses out of Egypt: this image is derived from a literal reading of the Old Testament, with more than a little help from Cecil B. DeMille’s iconic movie. However, scholars have given us several other versions of this story which are much, MUCH smaller in scale and quite different in many of the details … and which are much more believable, especially given that they’re based on actual data (archaeological; literary; genetic). This puts many believers in a difficult position: setting aside what they see/saw as the Biblical version forces them to devalue the Bible and possibly to reject their faith. In this episode, we talk about why the “Sunday School version” is really no longer tenable, and how to revise one’s theology to accommodate that paradigm shift. Discussion points included:
how people respond when they grow up with one version (usually the “Sunday School version” and then later are confronted with a very different one (usually one of the scholar’s versions).
“the numbers” that argue against the literal version (the “Sunday School version”):
(1) the numbers that the text give us which are just too hard to believe (several million Israelites marching out of Egypt? the logistics for a horde of this tremendous size)
(2) the numbers that you’d expect to find if the Sunday School version was historical, but which are nowhere to be found (the trail of dead bodies and garbage; surrounding cultures would have written something about this event)
(3) the numbers that we do find which point to a very different version (the Levites as late-comers to Canaan from Egypt; the genetics of the inhabitants of Canaan at that time)
the perceived risks of rejecting the Sunday School version of the Exodus story:
need to reject the whole Bible (the inerrancy/infallibility problem)
need to reject core aspects of Christian faith (if there was no Passover event, then what do we do with Christ’s death on “Passover”)
[Black] Liberation Theology resonates profoundly with the Exodus story
many listeners gave great feedback to our question: “if you have/had to reject the Sunday School version of this story, what impact would that have on your Christian faith”
people feel lied to by Christian leaders who know or should know that the traditional Sunday School version is suspicious
the first step in coming to grips with this problem is recognizing that the Old Testament was written by Jews, and to Jews; we can debate the extent to which this on-going in-house conversation is open to us 21st century Westerners.
constitutional lawyers and Supreme Court judges are faced with the very same situation when interpreting the US Constitution: either stay absolutely true to the original wording, or see it as a living document that breathes and changes as the American population changes through time and encounters new situations
we also see the same thing in the four corners of the Wesleyan quadrilateral: two corners that are wooden and unbending (scripture and church tradition) are balanced out by the flexibility of the other two corners (reason and church experience)
Fundamentalists and Literalists already occasionally take scripture non-literally whether they realize it or not (the sun orbiting the earth? Hell is underground? the sky is a hard dome holding back an ocean of water? our soul resides in our liver?)
the ancient Israelites and 1st century Christians fully believed that God needs blood to absolve sin; but many Christians today call into question Penal Substitutionary Atonement and God’s need for blood
As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic …
If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like Episode #57 (the writing of the Old Testament), #101 (Divine Inspiration), #112 (Passover as the context for Christ’s death on the cross), #19 and #20 (Atonement Theory), #15 (how ancient Jews understood things so differently from us today).
Movie promotional image from Paramount Pictures (modified).
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1 hr 3 min
June 16, 2023#122 – the Exodus from Egypt
Although the origin story for Jews, and the foundation for much of Christian theology, many scholars will ask: did it really happen?
Moses leading the newly-born nation of Israel out of slavery in Egypt, wandering through the desert for 40 years, and taking possession of Canaan is an iconic story. Not only is it the central national origin story for Jews, but it also forms the foundation for a great deal of essential Christian theology: the Passover, with its images of lamb’s blood smeared on the front doors to ward off death and judgment, and announce salvation and liberation … the giving of the Ten Commandments and the entire Levitical law … establishing a new religious system … the journey to the Promised Land. These are all themes that are picked up later in the New Testament, and provide the context for Jesus’ mission and death on the cross. For this reason, this story of the Exodus of Israel out of Egypt is a staple for Christian Sunday School curricula and sermons alike.
But many modern scholars will ask a very unsettling question: did it really happen?
To explore this, we talked to Dr. Richard Elliott Friedman, a scholar of ancient Israelite history with impeccable credentials (Harvard; Oxford; Cambridge; University of Haifa [Israel]; UCSD). Points that we talked about include:
Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 movie The Ten Commandments, with Charlton Heston as Moses, has become the Christian/Western cultural memory of that Old Testament history
are Christians guilty of cultural appropriation when they take that entire story and make it their own?
what data do we have for that Old Testament history …. in addition to the Old Testament itself, we now have archaeological data and genetic data, but not other literary data from non-Jewish sources
there are many Egyptianisms in the Old Testament story (the Hebrew Tabernacle looks like the Battle Tent of Ramses II; the Ark looks like a religious box used in Egyptian parades; ritual practices such as circumcision; sacrifices; brick-making; Egyptian names)
there was not one massive exodus, but many small exoduses; people groups were constantly coming and going from Egypt
“the Exodus” did happen; it just didn’t happen the way it’s described (it wasn’t two million people leaving all at once)
the writing of the Old Testament involved many people (it was not just Moses) and was influenced by a variety of political and religious forces; these include two groups of priests who were more allied with either Moses or with Aaron
the laity (the people in the church pews) are decades/centuries behind the scholars when it comes to understanding the origin, editing, and redacting of the Old Testament; Evangelical academics are beginning to “catch up”
the nation of Israel was a confederation of different indigenous people groups who were already living in Palestine (including ones who were already coming and going from Egypt over the prior centuries), as well as a group of Levites who left Egypt in some kind of dramatic fashion; it was the latter who re-shaped their own history together with that of the existing people groups, and who then taught that revisionist history to the children until it became national doctrine
these various people groups worshipped several gods, including Yahweh (the Midianites and others) and El (Canaanites; Ugarit; Phoenicians)
the Levites who came from Egypt joined this confederation much later, and re-shaped the religious practices of this emerging nation of Israel
if the “Exodus” and the religious rituals of Israel didn’t happen in the way that we are led to believe from a superficial reading of the book of Exodus, then what do we do with the Passover, which is a ritual that celebrates that Exodus, and which Christians have completely appropriated as the very foundation of their theology (Christ as the Passover Lamb, and his blood shed for our redemption)
in the Ancient Near East, atonement required blood
As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic …
Find more information about Dr. Richard Elliott Friedman at his personal web-site.
If you enjoyed this episode, you may also enjoy Episode #57, in which we interviewed Dr. Peter Enns about the origin and writing of the Old Testament, or Episode #80, in which Dr. Aren Maier tells us about the origin and evolution of Judaism and the nation of Israel.
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1 hr 7 min
June 09, 2023#121 – Human sexuality and gender: our own perspective
We look back on the previous four episodes, evaluate what we learned, pull together some loose threads, and set some objectives for future episodes.
This is our fifth and final episode in our mini-series on the Christian view of human sexuality and gender. After listening to four scholars give their various expert perspectives on this topic, Scott and I reflect on what we learned and what issues still need to be explored. Points that we touched on include:
religions can have varying interests in many other aspects of human existence, but they all have rules around sex
Christianity and Judaism are particularly interested in controlling sexuality and gender
would a God of cosmic proportions be as fixated on this?
perhaps Christianity should be more fixated on poverty than on sexuality
Christians excel at proof-texting or cherry-picking verses from the first five books of the Bible, from which they get words that they can’t define (abomination; fornication) and phrases that they can’t explain (image of God; your physical body is a spiritual temple; two people being made “one flesh”) to justify their peculiar rules about sex
a close and careful study of those Old Testament passages, without presuppositions like inerrancy and infallibility, points to a more human origin for those ancient texts
our extreme difficulty in getting Christian scholars to defend the Evangelical view of sex
we push back on the claim that the Bible is actually very supportive of sex; Christian experience and Church tradition are even much less so
Christian aversion to sex stems from its roots in Greek philosophy
mortality in childbirth is the supreme argument against the Intelligent Design claim that God created us to enjoy sex
some common arguments that Christians fumble when condemning masturbation, pornography, and homosexuality:
“if you’ve lusted in your mind, you’ve already committed adultery”
“Jesus’s answer about divorce shows us homosexuality is wrong”
Jesus wasn’t talking about “Adam&Eve” because “Adam” didn’t have a father or mother
Scott getting into trouble with last week’s guest (Dr. Sara Moslener) when talking about Evangelical purity culture becoming rape culture
listener feedback from Doug, Cynthia, Rachel, David and Edward
people aspiring to have a “Biblical marriage”, or to be a “Biblical wife/husband” … perhaps they should look at what the Bible actually says about that
is Christianity just “caving in” to secular culture; can we learn from it?
how can we recover from this unhealthy theology
As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic …
If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like two previous ones in which we give a 101 on Evangelicals and Evangelicalism (Episodes #38 and #39), or one in which we talked about Intelligent Design (Episode #21).
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57 min
June 02, 2023#120 – Evangelical Purity Culture
A scholar’s perspective after decades of research: “we’re talking about a whole network of politicized ideals that has used the bodies of adolescents to gain political power … Purity Culture has become rape culture.”
This movement seems to be anything but what it appears to be. Evangelical leaders compelling adolescents to be sexually pure (Purity Pledge cards and rings; Joshua McDowell’s True Love Waits, and Josh Harris’s I Kissed Dating Goodbye), while they themselves were embroiled in sex scandals and cover-ups (the Southern Baptist Convention; Falwell Jr; Swaggart; Haggard; Ravi Zaccharias). The rise of a Purity Movement based on so-called “Biblical” principles which are not found in the pages of the Bible. A movement with laudable goals (purity; integrity) and naive promises/hopes which ended up causing an immense amount of pain and suffering through shame, guilt, and condemnation.
We talked to Dr. Sara Moslener, who has spent decades researching this movement, interviewing people and scholars, and writing a book about her findings. Some of the things we talked about include:
the rise of this movement was driven in part by religious pressures (the Moral Majority, the Religious Right; True Love Waits [SBC]; purity pledge cards and purity rings), but also political pressures (Federal Welfare Reform bill; Abstinence-Only education) and federal funding
boycotts against Disney (Ellen Degeneres “coming out”)
the Free Love generation and the Sexual Revolution
Evangelicals borrowed much of their sexual ethics from Roman Catholicism, but didn’t take the corresponding theology because “that’s Catholic theology” …. Evangelicals don’t have a theology of the Feminine Divine, or of celibacy, but do have confused and naive ideas about “a Biblical marriage” and other “Biblical principles”
“we’re talking about a whole network of politicized ideals that has used the bodies of adolescents to gain political power”
the backlash against the Purity Culture movement, both within Christianity and from the public/secular sector
Purity Culture tells young girls that “if you have sex before marriage, you’re a chewed up piece of gum”
female authors like Rachel Held Evans, Sarah Bessy and Elizabeth Esther push back on Purity Culture; Emily Joy Allison starts #ChurchToo
Josh Butler writes Beautiful Union — a deeply male-centered perspective in which sexual pleasure (for men) is emblematic of God’s love for the Church — which receives immediate criticism and is quickly withdrawn, and Butler resigns from his ministry
“purity culture is rape culture”; the former teaches that male sexuality is innately aggressive, and feminine sexuality is innately passive and nurturing: put these two together and you naturalize rape … an anthropological truth: it’s women’s job to make sure that men’s sexuality is contained (James Dobson and others)
numerous sex scandals involving the Roman Catholic Church, the Southern Baptist Convention, and many individuals (Swaggart; Haggard; Lentz; Falwell Jr; Hybels; Ravi Zaccharias, … )
this normalization of a rape culture is in part behind white Evangelicals voting for Trump despite his morality, life-style and what he says (the infamous Access Hollywood tape)
the myth that the white Evangelical family, as the foundation of the nation state, is a safe place, and that church is also a safe place. But both turned out to NOT be safe places!
the linkage between Purity Culture and Christian Nationalism
creating home school coalitions
Trump’s attempts at religious piety (e.g., holding up a Bible in front of a church which had been cleared of protesters using tear gas; references to Bible verses)
the more impactful sexual revolution happened in the 1920s, when it became acceptable to separate sex from procreation
the sexual revolution(s) eventually hit Evangelicalism (in the 70s?)
what we didn’t have in the 70s was the concept of consent …. and Purity Culture did not help: Purity Culture became rape culture
gender identity, and the corresponding politics
the After Purity Project: interviewed 65 people who grew up in and out of Purity Culture, and now talking to scholars about the data; a book is in the works.
As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic …
Find more about Dr. Moslener at her personal website, and at Central Michigan University’s article which highlights the After Purity Project.
If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like you may also like Episode #48, where we talk to Kristen Kobes Du Mez about Christian Nationalism and toxic masculinity, or Episode #114 with Frank Schaeffer about the birth of the Christian Right and the rise of the Moral Majority.
To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher.
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1 hr 2 min
May 26, 2023#119 – Human sexuality: the Christian perspective
Too often, the Christian response to questions about human sexuality is to point to Leviticus, and similar Biblical passages.
Like other religions, Christianity has a few laws, taboos, and prohibitions about a variety of life issues (diet; holidays; technology; money; dead bodies). But when it comes specifically to human sexuality and gender, Christians have come up with a very, very ….. VERY …… long list of things to regulate and prohibit.
And the application of that preoccupation starts very early for many Christians. Many children find out before they’re two or three years old that touching their genitals actually feels kind of good, but the typical parental response to this self-exploration is to quickly scold the child and tell them how “you don’t do that …. at least not in public!” That’s the beginning of a life-long journey of associating sex with being dirty, and of feeling shame and guilt. As the kids get older, they get dire warnings about masturbation, about not dressing in a way that causes the men in the church to stumble, about the dangers of dating, and the lectures about premarital sex. And once those kids do get old enough to start exploring their own world of sexuality, that shame and guilt is complemented with condemnation if they stray even a little bit outside of very narrowly prescribed pathway of what is called “normal” sex.
That shaming, condemnation, regulation and prohibition isn’t only a parent-child transaction. Evangelicals will also direct it at pastors and worship leaders who have been caught in a sexual affair, and the response is usually an immediate termination of employment and ostracization. They’re much more forgiving and compassionate if the offence is a substance abuse problem (drugs, or alcoholism), or embezzling ministry funds; but an illicit sexual affair …. that’s just too much for them.
And typically, Evangelicals justify all of this regulation, prohibition, shaming and condemnation by pointing to Biblical passages taken from the Old Testament, especially Leviticus, or to other ones in the New Testament which in turn point directly or indirectly to those Old Testament ones.
In this episode, we talk to Dr. Stephen Simpson, who has grad level theological training, is a practicing clinical psychologist with expertise in sexuality and marriage therapy, and is an Associate Professor at Fuller Theological Seminary where he teaches Human Sexuality. We asked him: “why does Christianity cares so much about human sexuality?” Some of the things we talked about include:
the Bible really doesn’t say anything about premarital sex
the strongly negative preoccupation that Christianity has toward sex (and aversion to it) stems from GrecoRoman thought (which holds a dim view of the physical, and a high view of the spiritual) and Western capitalism (which sees women as property, and marriage as a financial arrangement)
sex for love versus sex for reproduction
when revising Christian thinking about human sexuality, do we seek guidance from medical doctors and scientists, or follow the lead of society (as we’ve done before regarding women in the workplace, or working on Sundays), or invoke the Wesleyan quadrilateral (church tradition; reason; Christian experience; and scripture)?
how the Bible might NOT be the best place to get such guidance (especially not the Pentateuch) because any golden nuggets of Divine truth that might have been there originally are now obscured by ancient male Semitic fingerprints
whether or not the Levitical laws were an improvement over the existing cultural norms of that era (Luke is very decidedly in the “NOT” camp on this idea)
the fact that Christians will often invoke “the image of God” in discussions around human sexuality, even though there’s no wide agreement about what that phrase means, and no definition of that phrase that brings in aspects of God’s own sexuality and sexual nature (please note: I’m not suggesting that God even has a sexuality or sexual nature; instead, that bringing that phrase into the discussion is just not relevant)
how the people sitting in the pews are always decades behind in the thinking of Biblical scholars and theologians; is this because those pew warmers don’t want to stray too far from their parent’s religion, or because their pastors don’t have the boldness to push them out of their comfort zones, or because the seminaries aren’t properly training the pastors, or because those seminaries depend on the pew warmers themselves for funding and support
how this Christian preoccupation with sex exacts a heavy toll in the form of shame, guilt and condemnation, much more so for girls/daughters than for boys/sons
As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic …
Find more information about Dr. Simpson and his work at his faculty web-page.
If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like Episode #101, where we talk about Divine Inspiration, or of course the two previous episodes in this mini-series on Sex (#117 and #118).
Episode image from Victoria Chentsova.
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1 hr
May 19, 2023#118 – Human sexuality: the ancient Jewish perspective
The typical modern Christian reflex response to sexuality is to point to the Old Testament Levitical laws: so let’s look more closely at those.
The ultimate goal of this mini-series of episodes on sex and gender is to get the Christian / Evangelical perspective on why this is such an important and sensitive topic. But knowing that they will almost immediately point to passages found in the Old Testament — especially the laws found in Exodus-Leviticus-Numbers-Deuteronomy, and the creation narratives found in Genesis — we thought we should first talk to a scholar of Jewish and Christian thinking, who was raised in a devout Jewish home, and who wrote a book entitled “Traditional Jewish Sex Guidance: A History” … Dr. Evyatar Marienberg.
There are many peculiarities around the Mosaic Law that sound more like ancient Semitic males writing their own ideas than a divine benevolent Being of cosmic proportions dictating them. For example, for the first thousand years (from “Adam and Eve in the Garden” to Israel in Egypt) God did not find it necessary to issue any kinds of law whatsoever about sexuality (other than “be fruitful and multiply”). And then during the 40-year march through the desert immediately before Israel established its nationhood, there is a sudden explosion of “613” laws of Moses. That Mosaic law pays a great deal of attention to fluids that come from the genitalia (men having wet dreams; women having periods), but absolutely nothing is said about those that come from the mouth (saliva; vomit), eyes (tears), nose (boogers), ears (wax), skin (sweat), belly buttons (dust bunnies), or digestive tract (feces). There is also a great deal of discrimination against females: they are literally worth less (as slaves, or as babies) and have much less freedom. And then there are the horrid laws around how to sell your daughter into slavery, and how to claim a young virgin who was captured in war. These are only a few of the examples that challenge the Divine origin of these laws, rather than their human origin, and call into question the universality and timelessness of these Laws.
Some of the other points/questions that we covered include:
there are well over 600 specific laws contained in the Mosaic Law
“is polygamy legit or not?”; the transition within Judaism toward monogamy
the Mosaic Law does not forbid many forms of sex outside of a monogamous marriage relationship (premarital sex; multiple wives; concubines; virgin prisoners-of-war), and doesn’t describe any kind of marriage ritual
clean versus unclean
males and females are treated differently because, in the eyes of the Mosaic Law, males and females are simply viewed as clearly different … they are just not the same
slavery; people being treated as mere property
what does “males and females being created in the image of God” mean?
what does the image of God have to do with gender and sexuality (Christians often invoke the imago Dei when they defend their views on gender/sexuality)
divine inspiration of scripture, and incarnation of God
what is the modern Jewish attitude towards homosexuality
what does “the two will become one flesh” mean?
premarital sex
divorce
Song of Songs (a sexually explicit book in the Bible)
is it really God who’s so concerned about sex and gender, or is it just human males using God as the justification for their views?
As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic …
Find more information about Dr. Evyatar Marienberg at his institutional profile. Also check out his book on the traditional regulations given to Jewish couples about marital sex, as well as another focusing on how Catholicism influenced the rock icon Sting.
If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like Episode #57, where we talk to Dr. Pete Enns about the origin and evolution of the Old Testament, or Episode #101 where we talk about divine inspiration of scripture.
Episode image: Moses with the Ten Commandments by Rembrandt, 1659 [Gemäldegalerie, Berlin].
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1 hr 11 min
May 12, 2023#117 – Why do religions care so much about sex?
The first in a series of episodes on this question, this one being a scientific perspective from an ex-Mormon social psychologist
This is the first in a multi-part series of episodes that focuses on that very question. It will NOT get into sexual ethics, morality or normativity. Instead, we’re exploring why it is that religions pay widely varying attention to this or that aspect of human existence (diet; money; dead bodies; government; medicine; technology; war), but ALL religions across the board have much to say about sex and gender. This is especially true of Christianity. As always, we’ll get a number of scholars to weigh in on this from their diverse perspectives.
This week, we start with an ex-Mormon social psychologist — Dr. Jordan Moon (Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse) — who will look at this from the scientific perspective. He recently published a paper in a scientific journal with the title: “Why are world religions so concerned with sexual behavior?” We thought this was a perfect place to start. Some of the points/questions we talked about include:
sex and gender precede the fossil record of single cell life
there’s no clear evolutionary advantage, because some life forms still reproduce non-sexually even though they have the ability to do so sexually
although each religion might have certain laws about fundamental aspects of life (like diet; what to do with dead bodies; the use of mind-altering chemicals; technology; money; how to wage war), they ALL say something about sex and gender; this has been true across the globe and all through recorded history
Christianity in general, and Evangelicalism in particular, have MUCH to say about sex, gender, and sexuality
attributing sex to any form of Intelligent Design calls into question the “intelligence” of the Designer: ” …. “why run a sewer system through the middle of the playground?”
religion is so obsessed with this because “the stakes are very high”; however religions are not so uniformly or universally concerned about other matters for which the stakes are high (dietary laws; money; technology; war)
can human preoccupation with sex/gender be a product of evolution if we don’t see seeds of this preoccupation in our closest genetic relatives (apes)
animals don’t seem to have taboos about masturbation, nudity, public displays of affection, homosexual acts … this is all a uniquely human thing
if religion’s preoccupation is related to population control or reproductive success, then why is it against polygamy
Christian values vs Puritanism
correlation studies show one’s degree of religiosity (a psychological term) is better predicted by attitudes about sex than by moral values such as compassion
do religions give us our values, or do we gravitate toward religion based on values we already hold
do we choose religion because it aligns with our subconscious reproductive goals
if religion’s “interest” in sex is primarily related to controlling/encouraging reproductive success, then why do they reserve so much condemnation and shame for people who want to simply enjoy sex for the sake of intimacy and personal pleasure … and why would religion want to stomp out promiscuity
the evolutionary cost/benefit ratio for monogamy vs polygamy
why did ancient Israelite culture tolerate polygamy, but gradually transition to a monogamous society
history has shown that the majority of human cultures have been polygamous
does monogamy make human culture more stable and harmonious by keeping the unmated male youths “off the street and out of trouble”
the celibacy paradox: why do so many religions require their professional holy men to be celibate
why do religions attach so much condemnation, guilt and shame to all aspects of human sexuality, and why is this applied so much more heavily against females/daughters than against males/sons
Needless to say, it was a candid and stimulating conversation!?
As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic …
Find more information about Dr. Jordan Moon at his faculty web-page and his personal web-site.
If you enjoyed this episode, you might like our previous episode that focused on Intelligent Design.
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1 hr 7 min
May 05, 2023#116 – Bible translation ain’t easy!
Words without spaces or vowels and multiple manuscript versions with different words are only the beginning of the problem!
Have you ever wondered why there are so many different versions of the Bible: the King James, the Revised Standard Version, the New Revised Standard Version, the English Standard Version, the New English Bible, the New International Version, and dozens of others? Ever wondered why scholars can still be haggling over how to translate a given verse?
The problem doesn’t only begin with needing a trustworthy lexicon that lists the various English meanings for any given Hebrew or Greek word, nor trying to figure out from the context of the words around that ancient word to decide which English meaning to choose. Sometimes you have to guess at the word itself …. because the ancient Hebrews didn’t use spaces or vowels!? So translators had to first decide which strings of letters formed which words, then insert different vowels to see what made the most sense: for example, did “CRT” mean “create”, “crate” or “court”?
Our expert — Dr. Mark Elliott — also tells us that the problem isn’t only needing to choose between different possible words, but sometimes you had to choose between different versions of ancient manuscripts which used entirely different words and phrases. Usually, it would seem, you go for the oldest manuscripts because they’re closer in time to the original, rather than the newer manuscripts which might have undergone editorial changes since the original was written. But the older manuscripts tend to be in worse condition: more moth-eaten, mouldy, fragmented, and therefore missing key portions of the text message.
And sometimes the decision to choose between different manuscripts came down to the one that aligned more closely with the theology and politics of the translators themselves!
We then go through three examples of contentious Bible translation to highlight how these decisions are made, and how they can radically alter the theology that is conveyed in the passage:
was Jesus angry when he healed a leper who stopped him on his missionary journey (as an older reliable manuscript indicates), or was Jesus compassionate (as per the newer manuscripts)?
did Abraham refer to God in the plural form because he was just confused and misspoke, or because he was condescending to his polytheistic audience, or because he was himself a polytheist at the time?
did Matthew “get out of his lane” when he took an ancient Hebrew prophecy about a young woman conceiving and birthing a son as a sign that would be fulfilled just a few years later, and turned that into a centuries-old prophecy of the Virgin Birth of Jesus?
As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic …
Find more information about our guest, Dr. Mark Elliott, at his faculty web-page.
If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like Episode #57 (Dr. Peter Enns; origin of the Old Testament) or Episode #81 (David Carr: origin of the New Testament).
Episode image from Pixabay.
To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher.
Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted, and find us on Twitter or Facebook.
Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive
1 hr 4 min

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A podcast for people who were once very comfortable in their Christian faith … until the 21st century intruded and made it very hard to keep on believing.

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