The Church of Shut Up

Did you ever notice how evocative moments of silence are? I’m always emotionally moved when the PA announcer asks for a moment. The silence of tens of thousands of people is powerful, indeed. American culture is usually out-of-control cacophonous. If we aren’t yapping with each other, there’s a TV or radio blaring. We are pummeled with noise everywhere we go, including waiting rooms, stores and airports. We even bring our yapping and music to “quiet” places, such as national parks. We just can’t help ourselves. It is getting much too hard to find quiet places anymore. That’s why it’s such a joy to be reminded to shut up, even for a moment, even if once in a while. I also appreciated this simple attempt to remind the crowd to be quiet out of respect for Abraham Lincoln’s accomplishments. Not that this sign worked very well. People still talked, almost as much as ever. Children ran around unrestrained by their parents. People shouted things like, “Hey Bill! Isn’t it about time to go get some hot dogs?”

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‘Master’ Plan

I can’t get enough of Way of the Master Ministries. Way of the Master’s Biblical Evangelical movement, hosted in website, radio, and television format by former child actor Kirk Cameron and evangelist Ray Comfort, have swept internet culture recently, appearing in nearly equal footing on freethinking and faithful websites alike. Apparently, many other people get a kick out of Comfort and Cameron’s teachings, too; as of this February, Way of the Master has not only “witnessed” to tens of thousands of potential sheep, but the website’s evangelical methods have enrolled over 6,500 eager “students”.

Way of the Master’s gimmick hinges on its oddly friendly use of guilt and fear– like the fire-and-brimstone preachers of old, but nowhere near as menacing as “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” The website opens with this introduction by Cameron:

“Did you know that every day 150,000 people die? People just like you and me. Every twenty-four hours, 150,000 people pass from time into eternity. Do you ever think about that? Isn’t there something within you that says, ‘I don’t want to die!’? That is your God-given will to live. And we hope you listen to it, because we make some big claims on this site…”

Ray Comfort’s personal website, Living Waters, runs a constant counter of people who have died since you have opened up his page. Comfort also reminds us that, “The vast majority of those people are entering Hell.” These warm, fuzzy Christian thoughts prove …

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Hell is Unconstitutional – Boycott Heaven

When my friend Doug wrote that “God loves us like an abusive parent,” it sounded so very harsh, but it then reminded me of that most troublesome of concepts:  hell.

I was raised Catholic, where hell was portrayed to be a very bad place to go.  Many Catholics, however, and many liberal Christians, don’t believe that hell is a place where people are literally tortured.   Check out today’s conservative Christians, however, on your local AM radio station.  You’ll hear them fervently arguing that the version of hell taught by moderate Christians is way off the mark.  Hell is not a metaphor or a mere figure of speech.  Here’s what it is:

The reality of hell is the most horrifying, terror striking, fearful truth known to man. It encompasses the worst possible fear and the meanest conceivable existence, continual never-ending torture. “And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever (Revelation 20:10).”

Therefore, many fundamentalists believe that someone sent to hell will be (literally) tortured (literally) forever.  It will be like being forced to go to Dachau, the Rape of Nanking, Abu Ghraib or worse, for eternity.

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