Mississippi Atheists

Brad Harrub (1)

2009-08-16T00:01:00.003-05:00

A friend of mine sent me an e-mail telling me about a Creationism seminar being taught by Dr. Brad Harrub, PhD to be held at the Collierville Church of Christ in Collierville, TN. (I'm sorry, but this story is a rare departure from Mississippi.) This e-mail wasn't from an online atheist buddy informing me of a nearby attack on science, but a member of this church wanting to inform me about the latest in attacks on god. I even gave my friend a ride home after the meeting. I hope the church sends me a "thank you" card for taking care of one of their own.

The lecture was titled "Atheism’s Attack on America". I eagerly wanted to know how much destruction that I have rot on America. I dare say that America will never recover from the devastating blow that all atheists have dealt to her core values of baseball, apple pie, and Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Go ahead. Name one The Four Seasons song without looking it up. If you can't, then the atheists have already won.

All atheists are trying to say is "There's probably no god," and "Church and state shouldn't influence each other." The first point is debatable, and we love to argue with others over it. The second point is not, and we will work to ensure it. If there is one value that atheists have tried to change it's the value of thinking for one's self independent of any religious dogma. But therein lies the issue: shall we decide between man's wisdom or god's wisdom? If you've been following this issue any, then you know that we spend a great deal of effort trying to convince people that there probably isn't a god, therefore there probably isn't any divine wisdom to be found. Stop worrying and enjoy your life.

Who's this guy kidding? The entire Collierville Church of Christ, that's who, as well as every other church where he has given his "Origins" seminar. Dr. Harrub gives this talk around 40 times per year and can give the talk at your next event for $1200. At this seminar, no minds were changed. In fact, everyone in the room (including myself) was more firmly grounded in their original positions. That's how you know that the seminar is a complete failure. The information is misrepresented, the Christians accept it uncritically, and the atheists do their best to correct the misinformation in the question and answer period.

You are probably wondering what atheists are guilty of doing. Dr. Harrub flashed a quote on the screen. "Let me control the textbooks, and I will control the state. -Adolph Hitler (2)." After we took god out of our textbooks, our country has become more immoral. We can show this by looking at the dramatic increase in crime and teen pregnancy rates and by completely ignoring ever changing socio-economic factors. You or I may think that the simple removal of god from textbooks by atheists because of an evil German dictator to harm American values is a proposition that only a madman would maintain. You might even call it hate speech toward atheists. But Dr. Harrub also points out that our textbooks have evolution and evolution just isn't true (3).

Yes, Dr. Harrub is a creationist, which means he's among the 0.14% of scientists who believe in Creationism (4). In order to prove his point, he has to misrepresent the theory of evolution anyway he can. He has a PhD in Neurobiology from the University of Tennessee. He had to understand the cornerstone of biology to advance in his studies and complete his dissertation, so I have no doubts that he realizes that it's all a misrepresentation. He paraded the classic perceptions of transitional humans: Piltdown man, Nebraska Man, and Lucy and others. Some of these fossils have been discredited by other scientists (5). Others, such as Lucy, Dr. Harrub had to weaseled this on his own to discredit the fossil.

Oh, then the question and answer session came, and it was dominated by atheists who were rightfully angry at the hate speech. The atheists corrected his slides on church and state cases. They defended themselves to the church as having morals. One person pointed out that we, as Americans, enslaved one race of people and nearly exterminated another while our children were learning about god in the public schools during the 19th century, so his thesis is bunk. And yes, the atheists defended the theory of evolution. As the questions dragged on, one person asked Dr. Harrub about why he thought homosexuality was immoral and his answer was for the same reasons that rape is immoral (which I found horribly offensive). The issue of morality was a major point of contention. Dr. Harrub asked one of the atheists where he gets his morals, and he answered that morals primarily come through the avoidance of pain and suffering. Dr. Harrub then asked if it was moral to beat small girls who are unable to experience physical pain due to a neural disability (6). Tensions were very high. There was one church member who was mocking all of the questions on morality by cocking his index finger and thumb as if it were a gun and pointing it at various people in the room (complete with making the shooting sound). The atheists asked why god would command genocide in the Old Testament. Dr. Harrub said that god would never command such a thing, and we would never be able to provide Bible verse to support a claim. I found the passage, so that makes Dr. Harrub a liar.

1 Samuel 15:2-3 - Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

The atheists in attendance left on a higher moral ground than the speaker. I was proud to tell others in attendance that I was an atheists in the church.

(1) is a used car salesman for Jesus. Anyone who plays this fast and loose with the truth always has a backup career.
(2) By the way, I can find no credible source to back up this quote, but I have found hundreds of Christian apologetics sites repeating it. It's probably a fabrication.
(3) Dr. Harrub showed slides of quotes on evolution from popular biology textbooks. One of those textbooks was written by Kenneth Miller, a devout Roman Catholic who has written plenty on evolution/creationism controversy. I wanted to ask Dr. Harrub why he was quoting a Roman Catholic as an example of why atheists are attacking America.
(4) http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_publi.htm
(5) Science is awesome because scientists are actively critical of every other scientist. Only the best ideas should be allowed to survive. Dr. Harrub is being critical of science, but he should also know that his criticisms have been dealt with many, many times. If he honestly believes that he has a legitimate point to make on the theory of evolution, he should make his point the proper way: by aggregating research data, writing a paper, passing peer review and discussing the paper at a conference. I encourage every Christian creationist reading this message to encourage this of Dr. Harrub. His details can be found on his contact page. Be polite if you contact him.
(6) I'm not making this up.

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What I've learned from Mississippi Churches about Community

2009-05-17T12:01:00.008-05:00

PZ Myers talks about the lack of correlation between religion and intelligence.
Journeyman Philosopher talks about the lack of correlation between religion and morality.

So... religion isn't the key to intelligence nor is it the key to morality. And you already know that I think Christianity is strange. And yet thousands of Mississippians are going to wake up on Sunday morning, find a church, sit through the service, praise a god, and then find something to eat afterward.

With the exception of "praise a god", I'm going to do the same thing, just like I've done every weekend for the past few years. I find a Mississippi church and sit through the service. In the back of my mind, I say, "This will be the service that convinces me that there's a god above." It's my effort to keep an open mind on supernatural matters. Each week I walk away having learned more about the church that I visited than anything supernatural. In two years of actively visiting churches, interviewing preachers and reading Christian apologetics books, I have found nothing that requires me to conclude that supernatural forces exist. I've blogged about many of those experiences here at Mississippi Atheists. There was one church that I attended that I've yet to blog about. Just for the record, I visited the local Oxford Church of the Nazarene but never wrote a post about them. I reached a point where there was nothing new to say.

If there is one positive aspect to religion, it's this: religion provides a unified community framework. Sure, the basis for that religion may be mythology, but the unified community framework is still there. Despite no interest in worshiping mythology, atheists, agnostics and freethinkers still seek that sense of community. I now know a handful of nonbelievers who attend the local Episcopalian church because they are tolerant to the views of others. I've started attending the local Unitarian congregation where I am encouraged to be open about my non-belief. It really is like having my cake and eating it too. I get the community involvement where I can openly discuss spiritual matters without having to worship mythology. I also visit The Orchard, a local Methodist affiliation. They have an active community outreach program that focuses on service.

But let's not forget the negatives. I think back to my visit to the Yellow Leaf Baptist Church. Here's a church that is warm and hospitable, and yet they have a warped view of history. This church wants us to believe that the United States was founded as an exclusively Christian nation. One of the things the pastor warned me about was people trying to rewrite the history of our country when it was he who lacked the understanding of basic US history. Their religion supports this strange viewpoint, so I doubt they will ever change. I also think back to my second visit to the First Baptist Church. I blogged about them once and they personally invited me back. The second time around, the pastor had an anti-homosexual, anti-secular subtext to his sermon that I found to be offensive. If this view is representative of the entire church, then I certainly don't want to be part of that congregation. I want to tell the pastor that if he keeps preaching an anti-secular message, he'll never win a new convert. Better yet, I shouldn't tell him anything.

Michael Shermer once said, "Religion is good when it does good, and bad when it does bad." From what I've seen in almost 20 Mississippi churches, I can vouch for that remark. There's a book titled, "They Like Jesus But Not the Church." It's a series of interviews with people who don't attend church and why they do not. Here's a message that I would like to tell to Christians: I'm no longer interested in your Jesus, but I am interested in your church. What do you have to show us? Where do you get community right and where have you been wrong? The one thing that I feel the freethought community in Mississippi lacks is a real presence in the greater community.

One last thing: three different members from the Oxford Church of the Nazarene have sent me personal e-mails asking me to return. They are certainly an example of positive community.

What is strange about Christianity?

2009-02-24T23:00:00.008-06:00

Image via Wikipedia

I was sitting in a recent church service on the topic of 1 Peter titled "What is strange about Christianity?" 1 Peter is littered with encouragement to act strange with regard to Christian living. Earlier this week I was sitting in a lecture at Rhodes College given by Bart Ehrman on the topic of New Testament forgeries. Ehrman revealed the reasons why 1 Peter is probably a forgery. During the lesson at church, this tidbit kept nagging me.

The preacher opened the up the question to the congregation. What is strange about Christianity? Imagine my complete lack of surprise when all of the responses were good things about Christianity: They care for the poor; they love their enemies; they are the "salt and light in the world." Not a single response thrown out by the congregation was self-critical in any way. One point the preacher made was that "we still follow an ancient text". The fact that a set of teachings is old or new does not really matter to me. I care about what is being taught. To his credit, he mentioned that his faith "rest in an empty tomb," which is strange indeed.

What is strange about Christianity? Christianity is supported by a book that says our universe is only 6000 years old, a single man lived over 900 years, God willfully killed everyone except for 8 people, snakes talked, God speaks through burning bushes, a fish swallowed a man whole then spit him back up, God made planet Earth stop revolving to prolong a battle, and God invented multiple languages because he didn't like a construction project. This is just a quick summary of the strange parts. We don't have to stop there. There are books devoted to the strange, the contradictions, the invented histories, and the down right unpleasant aspects of the Bible.

In my view, the strangest aspect of Christianity is that the earliest written accounts of Jesus' life come 40 years after the time of his death and in a language which he did not speak. Of course, the fundamentalist will say, it was the Holy Spirit who guided the writers to record their gospels. I suppose, but that only adds to the strangeness. Think of the thousands of people that benefited from the miracles that Jesus performed. Indeed, the writer of the Gospel of Matthew boasts of over nine thousand people who were feed by a miracle. Nobody thought to write this down. 9000 witnesses and not a drop of ink was spilled for at least 40 years. Strange indeed. If just 1% of those in attendance were literate and realized what they were witnessing, we should have roughly 90 independent accounts. Instead the Holy Spirit had to find a literate Greek writer to finally get this stuff on paper. To make things stranger, Jesus even comes back from the dead and appears before another 500 people and the only account of this comes from Paul (who wasn't even among the 500).

I want to turn this preacher's question over to you, since many Mississippians are either Christian, Christian and doubting, or non-believers: What is strange about Christianity?

A Non-Believer in Church: Grace Bible Church at Oxford

2009-01-26T15:00:00.008-06:00

Image via WikipediaSchool has started back and I'm back to visiting area churches. If you are wondering why I'm slowing down, it because it is getting harder to write these posts with original content. This past Sunday I visited the Grace Bible Church over at the Oxford Community Center. Grace Bible Church is a young church at only three years old. It is not affiliated with any standard denomination (or any that is clearly evident). From the format of worship, the services are most similar to style seen at The Orchard of Oxford. From the brand of theology, they seem to be interdenominational. I've visited their services twice and all I can think about is that everything they say and do feels generic. I imagine that this is the version of Christianity that is best equipped to move into the future.

There were around 200 people in attendance. Mostly I saw college students. The music at the service consisted of an acoustic guitar, drums, and several singers. The person leading the music would add his own personal reflections on how worship is to be performed. The music was pretty good, but all of the performers seemed to be packed into a tight area. The cymbal player was practically sitting on the drum set. The stage at the Oxford Community Center doesn't have the space needed for they are trying to do.

There was a special treat for this Sunday. The church elders introduced themselves and talked about their core values. I thought this might be a chance to reveal the inspiration for starting this church or some of their doctrinal concerns. Instead, it was bland marketing. Worship should strive for excellence; we have multiple teachers for different styles of teaching; we really want to focus on our community groups; (and finally) we have a youth group. I wanted to know more about this church. I left with more questions than when I first considered visiting.

The lesson of the hour came from 1 Corinthians 12. It's the passage where Paul is talking about spiritual gifts that one receives when one becomes a Christian. Some of these gifts are skills, like administration or teaching. Some of these gifts are supernatural, like performing miracles, faith healing, or prophecy. Other gifts are just plain weird, such as speaking in tongues and translating tongues. Speaking in tongues was discussed as part of the lesson, but I didn't see anyone attempt it. Does this church really believe that within their membership is the ability to perform miracles, perform faith healing and see into the future? If the pastor talks about this as being part of Christianity in the lesson, then it is a fair question to ask. Of course, I'm going to want to see evidence (and then I'm going to refer them to James Randi's challenge).

I realize that this had little to do with his lesson, but as a skeptical thinker that was my focus. The pastor wanted to focus on this idea of diversity (we have different talents) and unity (we are members of one body) all at the same time. It is a noble message. The pastor said, "How humbling it had to be a Jew for them to hear that a Gentile ... one who was kept at a distance, a heathen, a barbarian, they called them dogs, they were unclean ... that they were one with the Gentile in Christ." I found it interesting that he mentioned that Jews called the Gentiles dogs. In Mark 7:25-30, Jesus called a Phoenician woman a dog. Maybe the pastor was alluding to that passage. I suspect Paul was trying to cover the mistakes of Jesus.

Later on in the passage, Paul refers to individual members of a church being similar to individual body parts in order to show that all Christians are useful. "All of the different parts of the body are needed to make the body effective," spoke the pastor. I hope I wasn't the only one in the room to think, "Hey... what about the appendix? Isn't that safe to remove?" Paul's analogy falls apart in the light of modern science. Then again, the pastor probably wants us to look at these passages in the light of their intended meaning rather than nitpick over the details. (Don't stop nitpicking.)

The lesson ended. The collection plate was passed during the final song. For the first time in all of my visits to churches, there was no warning that the collection plate was being passed. If there was one positive aspect that I liked about this church, this is it. College students are known for being poor so I bet they appreciate not being asked to give.

As for the "Non-Believer in Church" series, I'm running out of interesting churches to visit. I figure this will be ending soon.

A Non-Believer in Church: North Oxford Baptist

2008-12-22T16:00:00.005-06:00

Image by _escalade328s_ via FlickrThis is actually my third time to walk through the doors of the North Oxford Baptist Church. Normally I write on the first visit. On the first visit I slept in a little and missed most of the sermon (and I was unaware of the meeting times) On the second visit it happened to be their annual Christmas music show with a large cast of performers. I took lots of pictures, but I have the suspicion that few would agree to having their picture posted on any website unexpectedly. Hence, a third visit was due.

The sermon was titled "The Coming in His Own Words: I Came to Serve". The supporting verses came from Mark 10:45. The sermon had an overriding theme: humility. It was pretty basic: Jesus was humble, so you should be humble.

Most of the sermon was the retelling of a story of an Egyptian man named Farahat who lost his expensive watch 1972. The garbageman finds the watch and returns it to the man. When asked why he returned the watch, the garbageman said that Jesus taught him to be honest. Farahat was so moved that he begins to study the Bible, becomes a Christian in 1978, and eventually a priest. The church that this man attends is currently a cave in Cairo, Egypt.

The story smacks of Christian propaganda, so I did a few searches. It turns out that this cave has a website and they retell this story on the site (scroll down to the section "The Gold Watch"). Do the stories match? According to their version, a watch was lost and a garbageman found it, but none of the other details match. The moral that I get is to be skeptical of convincing stories. To be honest, neither version sounds like a credible story.

In the view of this preacher, it is pride, selfishness, and arrogance that cause people to be repelled away from Christianity and humble servants that bring people to Christianity. This is certainly true for some, but I was repelled when I was allowed to challenge my beliefs on my own. I have witnessed some pride and arrogance during my visits to be sure, but that is a minority of my experience. Some of us require evidence rather than examples of good character.

So far, I've visited First Baptist, Second Baptist, Yellow Leaf Baptist, and North Oxford Baptist churches. I'm sure there are more. Is it just me, or does this small town have too many Baptist churches?

Christian God Destroys Two Mississippi Churches

2008-12-16T15:26:00.000-06:00

Image by Getty Images via DaylifeA recent article in the Hattiesburg American (Mississippi) reported on two Mississippi churches destroyed by the Christian god. I found it interesting that the author chose to credit "Mother Nature" with the damage. I expect that she may be the next target of a jealous god. Whatever happened to giving credit where credit was due?

According to the article, the Friendship Missionary Baptist Church in Hattiesburg was hit by lightning in May of 2007. Interestingly, church members had been in the midst of renovating the church when the building was burned by their vengeful god. I can only assume that they had deviated somehow from their god's specific demands for how churches were to be built. Or maybe a burnt offering was missed.

Next up, we have the Calvary Baptist Church in Petal. Nothing quite so dramatic as a lightning strike, this church was leveled during Hurricane Katrina. The congregation was just recently able to secure money for a new building and plans to break ground in March.

If you are reading this post from outside the state of Mississippi, you probably wonder what makes any of this sufficiently newsworthy to appear in the paper. You see, we in Mississippi are treated to this sort of thing every week. If it is about a church, it is inherently newsworthy. I just wonder why the paper chose to ignore the real story that the Christian god has been destroying churches.

A Non-Believer in Church: Yellow Leaf Baptist in Oxford

2008-11-24T12:00:00.013-06:00

(Hello, Mr. Jerry! Thanks for visiting the site. To everyone else: This post will be longer than usual. I'm going to include more of my thoughts on the lesson and discussion afterward.)

Since first seeing the Church and State billboards around Oxford, I've been curious as to who did this promotion work. I contacted the Lamar Sign Company and they informed me that it was the work of the Yellow Leaf Baptist Church. A group somewhat associated with this church known as the "Citizens for God and Country" is responsible for the billboards, as well as for the yard signs that say "Let's Honor God in America again." The group was recently highlighted in The Oxford Eagle and The Daily Mississippian. So I did what I do best: I visited this church to ask someone about their signs.

Services at the Yellow Leaf Baptist Church begin at 10:30 AM. For being an out-of-the-way country church, it was unexpected to see an attendance of over 150. At least 8 people took the initiative to welcome me to their service. There was even a small girl who ran up to me and asked, "What are you doing?" I had to tell her, "I'm getting ready for church." She quickly ran away. Walking into new churches for the first time still makes me nervous, so I appreciate it when they are friendlier.

The service began with the morning announcements and the recital of the following lines (which was repeated at various times throughout the service):

(The pastor says) "God is good!"
(The audience says) "All the time!"
(The pastor says) "And all the time..."
(The audience says) "God is good!"

I filled out the visitor card and wrote "msatheists.org" on it and slipped it into the collection plate.

The pastor's message was titled "An Attitude of Gratitude: A Hebrew Thanksgiving". The supporting verse came from Psalms 100. At the beginning of his talk, he reminded the congregation that the Bible was the infallible word of God. It was a five part lesson that covered the following areas why we ought to be thanking God:

1) He is God. YAHWEH.

Thanks for clearing that up. Not only do we have to believe in God, we need to thank him too.

2) He is our creator. He designed us.

He asked everyone to turn to someone and say "You are a masterpiece." It was at this point that he mentioned that our stomach acid is capable of eating through "18 inches of concrete." I would have liked to have asked him: so is this an example of good design or bad design? (I spent part of my afternoon researching gastric acid and hydrochloric acid to see if there was any truth to this. I found that hydrochloric acid is capable of softening concrete to make it more pliable. I'm a skeptic: I double check all scientific claims.)

3) God is benevolent.

He barely mentions this point. With everyone repeating the "God is good" line, apparently we don't need to discuss this further. Why is God good? Has any positive event ever happened that must be attributed to a supernatural creator? If you can answer that one, let me know.

4) God is merciful.

He told us the story of "Brownlee North", who (supposedly) was threatened with death if he preached Christianity. North preached anyway because God is merciful. (I tried googling that name but nothing came up.)

5) God is the truthful one.

The Bible is infallible, God's truth does not change, and God will only speak truth to you. (Come on. You are pulling my leg. Not one tiny little error in the Bible? This is my favorite oddball mistake in the Bible.)

The lesson ended. (We repeated the "God is good" line again.) It was announced that there would be a "Feast on the Grounds" immediately after the service. Usually I leave after the service, but I still wanted to ask about these signs, so I stuck around for the meal.

I caught up with the pastor after the meal and had a long chat with him. I got permission to use his name: Jerry. Someone already alerted him that my visitor card mentioned an atheist website, so he asked if I was an atheist. I told him "yes". Jerry was kind enough to talk with me about the billboards. He also seemed eager to defend his faith right then and there.

He asked me to prove that there is no God. I wasn't ready to debate him, so I just told him that there isn't sufficient evidence to make the claim for a God and that proof rest on Christians. The way he sees things, it us, the atheists, who are responsible for proving our claim. I tried to explain that it is very difficult to prove a negative claim, which is what the Christian is asking of the atheist.

He asked me where we all come from. I told him that it was a good question and I didn't know the answer. Saying "I don't know" is perfectly reasonable. His answer (and I'm paraphrasing) was that God created everything and put us here. We have no proof of God, so we have no proof that "God did it." This is the crux of skepticism: only speak where you have sufficient evidence and demand evidence from those who speak.

He was concerned about how many people I have lead away from Christ due to this blog. (If I lead you away from Christ by simply talking about churches, please let me know. I would love to hear your story.) In a round-about way, he gave me the Pascal's Wager argument for why I should return to being a Christian. I think my eyes glazed over as soon I noticed our old friend Pascal's.

We talked some about the signs. I explained some of the errors found on the billboards and he defended them saying that the group researched each quote. He claimed that the billboard regarding the quote from "Supreme Court, 1811" is a real example of our Christian heritage because the defendant in the case lost his appeal. I still contend the trial never went to the United States Supreme Court (which is what the sign depicts). He had little to say over the mistake regarding the James Madison and Benjamin Franklin mix up.

He mentioned that some people are trying to rewrite the Christian heritage out of our country's history. I'm not denying that there has always been a strong Christian presence in America's history. Our founding fathers wanted to make sure of two things: the people may practice their religion however they wish and the government is not allowed to endorse a religious viewpoint. Our founding fathers may have paid lip service to Christianity's better qualities, but they created a religion-neutral government. This is a heritage of which we can be proud.

As I drove away from the church, I passed another one of this group's billboards that said, "It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible. -George Washington". That quote has also been debunked. We have no proof that he said it. Three billboards; three historical goofs. If atheists sponsored billboards to say anything, there would probably be public outcry. This group prints three billboards promoting a skewed view of history and has historical goofs to top it off, and they get a positive review in local papers.

One last thing: I want to put Jerry at ease about the content of this blog post. We pretty much disagreed (respectfully!) on everything we discussed. He recommended a book to me: Evidence that Demands a Verdict. For all of my regular atheist readers, if you need any winter reading, try digesting part of this book. I plan to read at least part of it over the break. I probably couldn't digest all of it; 800 pages is a bit much.

Mr. Jerry: The other post in this series are found here. If you are not interested, you are welcome clear your browser's history. We won't be bothered at all.

A Non-Believer in Church: The Orchard at Oxford

2008-10-22T20:00:00.003-05:00

Image via WikipediaSince my last post to the First Baptist Church, I've been in communication with Pat, the pastor of The Orchard church in Oxford. The Orchard (not to be confused with The Orchard in Tupelo) is a small Methodist church that meets in The Powerhouse, which is the community center for the Yoknapatawpha Arts Council. The sign in the front of The Powerhouse says that The Orchard is "A Church for Everyone." That's a pretty lofty goal once considering that "everyone" includes people from non-Christian religions as well as non-believers.

Being a small church, it should be easy to spot the visitors. Pat recognized me as soon as I came in the door, despite having never met in person. I have to say that this immediately put me on the defensive. He began talking to me about what he and I have in common. It seems we both have interests in Twitter and pop culture. He had to greet others, so he told me to help myself to the free coffee. I'm already concerned about how objective I can be about this column (Hi Pat!). At least this church doesn't have a problem with an atheist visiting the service.

I've been to other services that were casual. The Orchard at Tupelo, with over 1000 members, was equally as casual as this service. This service had about 50 people, with age ranges from college student up to middle aged. There were few children or elderly people. The music consisted of a guitar player and a drummer (I think). It was simple, acoustic, and beautiful. The lyrics to the songs were on an overhead projector, but I didn't see anyone singing along.

The pastor's lesson was on "The Scandal of Grace". It focused on God's perspective of grace by retelling the story of Jonah. The story is classic: God argued with Jonah to convince him that the people of Nineveh are in need of God's word despite Jonah believing that they are all unworthy. The message from the book is also clear: God's grace is currently extended to anyone, no matter how far away a person is from God. Pulling from the story in Luke 15:11, he pointed out that many aspects of our lives are not fair. Thing may not appear fair to us, but God sees things differently from us. This is why God is in charge and we are not (which I thought was a tad oversimplified). In his view, the idea of grace is "scandalous" because all people are undeserving of grace and are still allowed to have it.

He suggest that the Christian God represents that which is hope, mercy, grace, love and compassion. Once you factor in other Biblical concepts such as Hell and judgment, the idea of a loving God becomes muddled. As for these types of lessons, I prefer these messages over the dogmatic ones. I saw a glimpse of this last Sunday, as well as at the Episcopal service and the Unitarian service. Some churches are moving in the direction of teaching ideas that shape the overall community, while other churches are moving in the direction of their respective dogma. In the interest of easing the tension between believers and non-believers, I want churches to move toward community ideas (such as grace, peace, and love).

No discussion was made over the likelihood of a person being able to survive for three days in the belly of a fish, or why didn't God just reveal himself to someone inside Nineveh and cut out the middle man. Maybe it's best that these details were overlooked. It is easier to examine these improbable tales for the moral messages than examine them for their accuracy. Just one step in the direction of reality and the Book of Jonah as a historical account falls apart. This is true for most of the Bible.

After a closing song, the service ended. Members could stay for the communion, but people who didn't want to take it were allowed to leave. That is something that I haven't seen any other church do. Most of the time I'm left sitting by myself in the pews while everyone else takes communion. That flexibility to the service was a nice change.

I do have friends that attend this church, so I'll probably be back at some point.

A Non-Believer in Church: Secularity and State

2008-09-23T12:01:00.014-05:00

Image via WikipediaI am thrilled that people in the community have found this blog and are giving me feedback. A pastor at the First Baptist Church in Oxford sent me an e-mail saying that he found the blog post where I discussed my first visit to that church. He wanted to invite me back for their series titled "God and Politics." This is my first invitation from a local church to attend service. The topic of church and state interests me, so I e-mailed back to accept his invitation, adding that I would probably write about it.

The pastor that invited me lead the music. He played several beautiful songs by an acoustic guitar. It was heartfelt and reminded me of the same music found at the Episcopal church. As most of you know who have been following this series, I can appreciate religious music. I would like to tell him that I enjoyed those songs and the words he shared in between.

When the senior pastor got up to share his message, the tone of the service changed to that of evangelical politics. His talk was centered on the theme of "speaking out". He talked about many things, some of which were offensive to me. He spoke of things that were disparaging of secularists, and I will not repeat those words here. He made claims regarding homosexuality that are not supported by any scientific research. He held a position that issues such as homosexuality and abortion were non-negotiable, while other issues should be debated and studied because they were more complex. His view was that those of us who disagree on these non-negotiable issues have loose morals. In addition to the position of the Southern Baptists on the separation of church and state, he advocated a "separation of secularity and state." He did not preach a message to inspire people to make their lives better; it was a message to rally this church into the voting booth based on misconceptions about homosexuality and abortion. This group has the unfortunate name of "Values Voters".

I was upset by the message. I will not be going back. Instead, I'm going to take this moment while these things are fresh on my mind and do something positive: I'm make a small donation to a group supporting reproductive freedom.

(My original draft of this post was 4 times longer and tried to go point by point with the lesson. I realized that was too much. You are glad, I'm sure.)

UPDATE: The First Baptist Church of Oxford has updated their Sermon Podcast Series so that you may hear for yourself.

A Non-Believer in Church: Oasis Church of All Nations at Oxford

2008-09-16T10:00:00.006-05:00

Image by publik18 via Flickr Governor Sarah Palin attends the Wasilla Assembly of God in Wasilla, AK, a member of the World Assemblies of God Fellowship. I don't know anything about the Assemblies of God, so now is my chance to visit a new church and learn about a vice presidential candidate's faith. Using the AG website, I was able to find the "Oasis Church of All Nations" here in Oxford. They don't have their meeting times posted anywhere, so I showed up last Sunday at around 9 AM only to find out the meeting time was 10 AM. Here's a tip: If you want me to show up at your church, make the meeting times possible to find.

Everyone was overly friendly. I shook hands with probably a dozen people. They all made me feel welcome. The preacher handed me their magazine "The World for You Today". I walked around the church for a little bit then left to run errands until 10 AM. When I came back, they handed me the church's homemade CD. Putting multimedia in the hands of a visitor is a good idea. I've been listening to this church's music all afternoon.

I estimate about 70 people were in attendance and the band had 8 members. I was surprised at the racial makeup of the group: it was split evenly with whites and blacks and a few other members of different ethnic backgrounds. This was a pleasant change from past churches.

I took a seat on the back pew of the auditorium. Someone came up to me and asked, "Did you get a copy of the CD?" "Yes sir," I replied. "PRAISE GOD!" he shouted back. God should be praised because I got a CD?

The service began with a greeter asking everyone to stand up to praise God. The band started playing a song to get the group fired up. There was plenty of hand clapping and shouting. A praise ballerina danced all around the auditorium. Between songs, there was a prayer. During each prayer, several people in the audience began shouting in gibberish speak. One woman appeared to be possessed by a spirit who kept shouting "Praise me, praise me!" followed by a lot of gibberish speak. The service stopped until the "spirit" had left her. This cycle of 15 minutes of music followed by prayers in gibberish speak went on for 50 minutes. Then the service leader shouted, "You may be seated in the House of God!" My legs were starting to give out. I noticed that many of the elderly members took the liberty of sitting much sooner. The ballerina had been dancing for 50 minutes almost continuously.

The service leader said that it was now the time for meeting and greeting with others. Usually this last 30 seconds in other churches, but the band played a full five minute song while everyone got up and started conversing with one another. It was a miniature party that broke out in the middle of church. Kids were running around the room and everyone left their seats. Organized and friendly chaos. We were all called back to our seats again.

The preacher gave his lesson titled "Stewardship: Stealing is wrong." It was a simple lesson on tithing. If you don't tithe, then you are stealing from God (I'm paraphrasing). He challenged everyone to "Put God to the test!" by tithing and cited the reward found in Malachi 3:10. I had always been told that testing God was apparently a bad thing, but I guess it's okay when you test him by giving the church more tax-exempt money. Needless to say, this is when the offering plate was passed. (I've yet to attend church that did it out of order.)

After the first lecture, there were some announcements, and then the preacher's wife got up to speak. This was the same woman who was possessed by the spirit earlier. The spirit was apparently gone now, because she gave her lesson in regular English. Her talk was titled "Commitment verses Complacency." It was mostly personal testimony. A different woman felt the need to shout "Jesus" every few minutes during her talk. After hearing her talk for way too long, I was hoping for another spirit possession so I could hear more of that gibberish speak.

At noon the service ended and I've had my quota of wacky for the day. The ballerina and the spirit possession did it for me. I don't have the same experiences as Governor Bobby Jindal, but I'm pretty sure that spirit possession represents either clever acting or a mental condition. If Governor Sarah Palin believes in spirit possession, then I seriously question her mental fitness with regard to the challenges faced by running the country.

A Non-Believer in Church: Unitarian Universalist in Oxford

2008-08-18T01:08:00.008-05:00

I am branching out by visiting the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Oxford, which is the first non-Christian church that I have visited. Their creed is that they have no creed. For this reason alone I would like to return. In May, vjack floated the idea of atheist churches. If you read through the comments (all 79 of them), the response was mixed: some liked the idea, some didn't, some said that science class was good enough, and a few suggested UU churches. UU is a church for atheists, but it is also a church for people of all other faiths. At this church, God is good and God is optional.

The service began at 11 AM. There were 34 people in attendance. I introduced myself to the door greeter, who then gave me a name tag. For the most part, the service was in the style of a typical Christian worship service. A collection plate was passed around. We sang from hymn books. A man lead a few songs with a guitar accompaniment. The door greeter stood in front of everyone to announce all of the visitors, including me.

The man leading the service asked if there were any "joys" to be announced. This is where members could speak freely to the group. One person thanked "modern medicine" (and not God) for helping her relative survive cancer. Already, I realized that I was among a different kind of people. Following the "joys", the minister called for "concerns". There was no prayer over these concerns. The minister struck a chime bar and told us to think on these things.

The sermon was titled "Why I am a Universalist". It was about the life of John Murray who started the first Universalist Church. Universalism is a form of Christian-based theology that centers around the idea that God loves everyone regardless of who you are or what you do. To support this view, the minister said that he agreed with the biblical writer Paul in the passage of Romans 8. (It would be difficult to convince me that Paul was a Universalist.) At one point the minister mentioned that he was asked to leave his former church when he revealed that he was a homosexual. He used the story to contrast mainstream Christianity, which will reject or reform homosexuals, with that of Universalism, which accepts homosexuals. Given that I don't believe in God, I don't have much use for this idea of Universalism, but it is certainly better than the viewpoint of many followers of mainstream Christianity.

There was a song following the lesson. It's probably best just to copy one verse of the song for you to read.

Some say once you're gone you're gone forever, and some say you're gonna come back. Some say you rest in the arms of the Saviour if in sinful ways you lack. Some say that they're comin' back in a garden, bunch of carrots and little sweet peas. I think I'll just let the mystery be.

The lyrics in some of the songs were a little silly. The Unitarian Universalist call their theology a "laid-back theology". They are taking a passive stance on the big questions on our existance: Why are we here? Their answer: it is a mystery; let the mystery be. I'm sure this position is taken to maintain harmony among a diverse group. I would still like to know if anyone within this church attempts to answer this question. Perhaps I'm operating under the warped viewpoint that religions should attempt to explain the unknown.

The service concluded with everyone getting in a circle and saying the words "Go in peace, believe in peace, create peace." I stuck around for several minutes to see if anyone would greet me. I think I shook hands with half of the people at the service. One lady went out of her way to make sure that I had a caffeinated coffee with cream. I noticed that many of the members shared a similar story. "I was from X religion, but then I realized that I couldn't be a member of X because of Y, so I left. Then I found Unitarian Univeralism." The former religions that I heard mentioned were Southern Baptist, Presbyterian, and Catholic. They wanted the ability to question their original faith without feeling ostracized for thinking, so they came to this church.

I talked with the minister some about how his faith has changed since leaving his former church. He mentioned that it's changed dramatically and it's always changing. I mentioned that my own views on faith have changed over the past year and will probably change more over the next year. Without knowing anything about my views on faith, he said, "And I hope they do."

One last thing: Oliver now has a twitter page. Follow me! (But not in any sort of divine sense of the word.)

A Non-Believer in Church: Second Baptist in Oxford

2008-07-27T15:47:00.006-05:00

I am proud to say that this is my tenth post about visits to churches in the state of Mississippi. To mark the occasion, I went to Second Baptist Church in Oxford, which is an all African American church. Being white, I can easily duck in and out of white churches without saying a word to anyone. I have none of those advantages at this service. I was truly nervous about how I was going to be received because there was no way for me to blend into the group. Services began at 11:00, so I walked up to three gentlemen who were all standing outside the church for a smoke break and asked them if it was alright if I attended the service. They all said yes and directed me to the front door.

I sat on the back pew, which is typical for all of my church visits. I think everyone that spotted me told me "Good morning," which provided some comfort. One of the door greeters gave me a visitor name tag that I had to wear, which, given the circumstances, was a little redundant. Another door greeter told me that I should sit closer to the front and I moved toward the middle of the auditorium. In this church, Jesus is presented as a black man. There is a stained glass window of a black Jesus and a mural of a black Jesus baptizing a group of black followers. If all of the popular media depictions of Jesus present him as a white European, then it is no more wrong to depict Jesus as a black African.

I counted 28 members in the choir and estimate a total of 200 people in attendance. I really was the only white person in attendance. The first song was lead by a man who stood in front of everyone and just started singing. Those who knew the words to the song sang along, which was most of everyone. It was a beautiful song in the style of a traditional black gospel hymn and I enjoyed it. No matter what your philosophical position, you cannot deny the beauty in some of this music. There was a second traditional hymn and after that, the choir sang several loud, passionate songs. These songs seemed to go on forever and most only had one verse. I bet one song was 20 minutes by itself. The audience gets into the music too with people standing up and hand clapping and swaying their arms up in the air and shouting whatever praise came to mind. Being among all of these passionate people was very exciting. There is something to be said about how powerful and persuasive music can be. I had to remind myself that passion does not equate to any sort of evidence for a claim.

The preacher's lesson was on James 1:1-3. He only needed three verses to teach this lesson. His lesson could be summed up in three lines: Life is full of trouble; Don't run from your troubles; Rejoice in Christ always. He just kept repeating this theme, and when he got tired of speaking his them he began shouting his points into a microphone and the people encouraged him with shouts of "amens." At this point, his lesson went from being bland to annoying. The third phase of his lesson was to start singing his points into the microphone, which was preferable to the shouting, but not by much. I thought the preacher was channeling James Brown during the lesson. The band (a drummer and keyboard player) started jamming during the lesson and kept trying to match the tempo of the morphed sermon/song.

With no distinct ending point to his lesson, he sang to the audience that new members and members needing prayers could come forward. Several did. This phase of the sermon/song dragged on for several minutes. Three pews in front of me, a woman stood up and screamed "HALLELUJAH LORD!" and kept repeating that phrase. People around the room reacted quickly to this woman, so this must be common. A woman came over with a box of tissues and two more women started fanning her and a man came over to hold her up. She just kept shouting that phrase until she was so exhausted that she couldn't shout anymore. She probably would have hurt herself without the support. What drives a person to act like this?

Finally, the singing ended. To end the service, everyone came forward and crowded the entire front of the church. They had a prayer and everyone was dismissed. I got back in my car and the time was almost 1 PM. I was exhausted after that two hour concert.

A Non-Believer in Church: Latter-day Saints in Oxford

2008-06-30T17:28:00.012-05:00

I am learning about more flavors of the Christian faith. Yesterday morning, I visited the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints at the 9 AM service here in Oxford. The LDS has taken great strides to distance themselves from the insular polygamist cults that go by a similar name. Beyond this, I don't know much about the LDS church. I have never read "The Book of Mormon" or any of the LDS church's history. I walked into this service with a blind understanding of what to expect. If you are a member of the LDS church or been a member in the past, please leave a comment.

The LDS church is famous for knocking on your door at 9 AM on a Saturday morning, telling you all about Jesus Christ and Joseph Smith and won't leave until they've taken up 5 minutes of your time and handed you a copy of their "Ensign" magazine. For me, a non-believer, to walk into their church, I expected them to have their sales pitch ready and fill my pockets with all of their written materials. Instead, I got nothing. I shook hands with the young door greeter, but beyond that, I didn't say a word to anyone. There were no materials to learn more about this church. There was no bulletin to let me know the order of worship or the lesson topics. For a group that is known for not being shy about getting their message out, these people were shy to this visitor.

The first thing I notice is the kids. Lots and lots of kids. Every adult couple that walked in the door had at least one small child. I estimate that 40% of those in attendance were under the age of 15. There were probably just over 100 people total, but that's tough to tell with all the little kids. A guy was giving some announcements and then asked everyone to raise their right hand as if some sort of vote was taking place. He was talking so fast that I don't know what they were voting on. There were several songs at this service, and nearly all were patriotic American songs. Maybe it was part of a theme considering that Independence Day is coming up.

The service contained three lectures from different members of the congregation. The first was a young boy who spent 15 minutes reading a letter that someone else wrote about a troubled youth who's life was changed after meeting a member of the the LDS church. The boy read in a monotone voice. I saw several yawns and heads began to nod off and several children were fussy. After he read the letter, he sat back down. I don't think anyone was paying attention to him because they were trying to quiet their own children. It was a very noisy service.

The second lecture was the most revealing about the LDS church. The lecturer was a woman who spent some time working at "The Temple," (I think in Arizona). Her talk was all about how service to the temple is the most important service we can give. We must all strive to work at the temple and being allowed inside the temple requires much preparation. "Curiosity and interest are not qualifications for being allowed inside the temple," she warned us, which ruled me out immediately. You must be interviewed by a bishop and a president before qualifying to enter the temple. You are only allowed to wear a white robe inside the temple. You must pray before entering the temple. As she is going over all of these archaic rules for being allowed inside the temple, I begin to think that this sounds cultish. She told us about how our acts of service might be used to represent us in the afterlife, or our acts could be used to represent someone who has already died. She told us that one day while at the temple, she did some service for her afterlife and then she did some service to help an anonymous deceased person's afterlife. She hopes to meet this anonymous deceased person when she gets to heaven. That was just a little creepy.

The third lecture was about the holy trinity based on Joseph Smith's "revelations". The lecturer didn't cite from The Bible and only briefly mentioned The Book of Mormon, but it was common to site conference proceedings. I'm getting the impression that divine revelation isn't enough to support this religion. That does make sense: "divine revelation" isn't enough to support any religion. Every religion has commentary to make sense of the revelation.

The service ended and I waited around afterward to see if anyone would greet me. No one did, so I left.

A Non-Believer in Church: First Baptist in Oxford

2008-06-20T02:10:00.005-05:00

It's been almost four weeks since my last post on a church visit. I can't make it to a new church every Sunday. I still have to frequent the church of my current membership in order to maintain certain illusions for certain people. I've been an active church goer since birth and deconverting from Christianity didn't change that. Last Sunday I visited the First Baptist Church in Oxford at their 8:30 AM service. It use to be intimidating to walk into a new church. I think they are going to smell the godlessness on me, but now I realize it is difficult for anyone to talk to visitors. I just put on my Sunday Best, carry my Bible (it has my name with gold lettering on it), put on a fake smile and I look like everyone else. I probably look like a reporter the way I scribble notes and quickly turn pages in my Bible to keep up with the lesson.

There were close to 250 people in attendance at this service. 16 members made up the choir and it was probably one of the better choirs I've heard in my visits. Last Sunday was Father's Day, so the preacher asked all of the fathers to stand for a prayer. It was an eloquent prayer, but I did note that the preacher prayed for all of the first generation of believing dads so that they may "end the cycle of disobedience." It is usually subtle the way non-belief is associated with disobedience, as if I am more disobedient than your average Christian. The idea is so pervasive that he probably didn't realize that it would bother anyone. Within the same prayer, he encouraged dads to be good givers, both in the nurturing parenting context and in the monetary context: the collection plate was being passed around immediately after the prayer.

The preacher began his lesson by directing everyone to 1st Kings 1:5. I found myself engaged in his lesson. I'm suppose to be critical of these sermons and this lesson was good. The story was of King David, a man after God's own heart who was also one of the most sexually deviant men of the Bible. His lesson focused on all of David's sexual sins and how this reflected poorly on him as a father. According to the Bible, David's children would commit some of these same sins. Everything he said he backed up with scripture perfectly. He wanted the men of the congregation to look to David as an example of what not to do. This preacher advocated responsible parenting, and I had to agree with every word of it. While many preachers want to fix society's ills by influencing legislation that effects everyone, this preacher was calling for parents to be more involved with their kids.

At the end, I thought this preacher did a perfect job with his lesson. He concluded his lesson with a prayer, and in that prayer, he goofed. He mentioned that although David was not a responsible parent, he still maintained the linage of Christ through his son Nathan. In the Book of Luke, the writer records the linage of Christ all the way back to Adam. There, the writer records Nathan in that linage. The Book of Matthew also records the linage of Christ all the way back to Abraham, but in that book, David's son Solomon carries the linage of Christ. Clearly, the Bible is in dispute with itself. Apologists have responded by saying that one linage represents Mary's family and one represents Joseph's family, but each gospel clearly says that its linage contains Joseph. Because one gospel (or both) has the facts wrong on this point it does throw the validity of the Jesus story into question. The only reason why I mention this is because the preacher used David, Nathan, and Christ as the focal point of his lesson without giving a word to the controversy surrounding his point.

The service concluded with a few songs (all of which I thought were performed well) and a few announcements. I was out the door in time to walk into a different church less than a block away. To date, I've revisited the Episcopalian church, the Presbyterian church, and the Church of Christ at least once just to make sure I'm not visiting a church on an overly good or bad Sunday. Soon everyone in this town will know me.

A Non-Beliver in Church: United Methodist at Oxford

2008-06-03T00:46:00.005-05:00

I'm still exploring the numerous denominations of Christianity in the small town of Oxford. The more different churches I visit, the more I see the same template for worship. My last three churches were Presbyterian, Episcopalian, and Catholic and this past Sunday I visited a United Methodist. If I had not known the name of the church on the outside of the building before hand, I would probably have confused all of these sects. I would like to understand at a deeper level how these groups are different enough to merit different names and different meeting places. They all had the same format of communion, same order to the service, and almost identical creeds were recited. I had trouble writing this week's column because of all the overlap from past columns. Even the bulletins have the same congregational responses. Here's a free tip to all churches: have less verbatim, boring repetition.

I attended the first service of the Oxford University United Methodist Church at 8:45 AM. There were about 80 people total. I estimate the average age of the congregation at close to 60. Just being young made me stand out. There were a few younger couples (by younger, I mean under 60) and a few children, but I did not see anyone my age in the service. As for the service's music, an organ was used and it was loud enough to overpower all the singing, so the music wasn't good. As for all of my negativity, the service was lead entirely by a woman, which was a pleasant surprise. She gave the announcements and the morning's lesson of a simplistic message of "Jesus is good. Follow Jesus."

The bulletin mentioned the church's increasing budget woes in some detail, so I engaged in a little math to occupy my time during the preacher's lesson. This church's annual budget is over $1.5 million. After 5 months, their 2008 contribution of $570,000 falls short of the to-date budget of $650,000. To meet the end of the year budget, the contribution needs to be $30,600 per week. The preacher mentioned that the total church enrollment had over 1000 people (that must be a huge second service if all 920 show up). We can estimate (crudely) that ever four people equals one family, so this church has 250 families. $30,600 divided among 250 families is $122 per family. Are the Methodist a denomination that practices tithing 10 percent of their income? If not, please forgive me of this assessment. At $122 per week, a family would need to make over $63,000 per year to fulfill that obligation. According to city-data.com, each hypothetical family would be (on average) in the 90% percentile of income for Oxford homes. At what point does a church change from aiding a community to being a stress on a community? Maybe some people don't go to church because they can't afford it.

Today was "Communion Sunday". As with the last three churches, the communion was prepared in front of the congregation during the service. At those services, the priest would hold up a cracker and break it into two parts, but at this service, the priest broke what appeared to be a loaf of Subway bread. (As you can tell, my mind was already drifting to lunch.) As people in the pews would come up to the front of the room for communion, the back doors of the church came open and more people started getting in line.
The service started with 80 people but ended with close to 100. These 20 or so people got to skip the boring lesson and the collection plate, take communion, be seen in church, and then be out the door for the dismissal. Now that's convenience and commitment.

Among the services that I have attended, I put this one somewhere in the middle. It wasn't bad. It was just dull.

Tags: church, United Methodist, Oxford, Mississippi, Christianity, non-believer, atheist

A Non-Believer in Church: St. John's Catholic in Oxford

2008-05-18T18:50:00.006-05:00

Oxford, MS has many churches so there is no shortage of flavors of Christianity for me to experience in this small town. Two weeks ago, I visited an Episcopalian service and very much enjoyed it. This week, I attended the 8:30 AM Mass of the St. John's Catholic Church, which is being held at the Paris-Yates Chapel on the University of Mississippi campus due to the construction of their own meeting place. Maybe I have things backwards in my head, but the Episcopalian service felt more "catholic" than the Catholic service that I attended today. Whether you are Catholic or formerly Catholic or simply find this interesting, please leave a comment.

Close to 200 people were at the service and the chapel was packed. Ushers were setting up folding chairs in the aisles to accommodate people still coming in the door. There are two morning services and I can only guess the problems faced by the second morning service where people don't have to wake up as early to get to church on time. The song leader had an impressive tenor voice. He would sing a complete song and then the congregation would do their best to repeat that song. For a few of the songs the people attempted to sing with no help on what the lyrics were, which made the music sound weak. Most of the songs were in English and one song was in Latin.

The service began with a procession of people, including the alter boys and the priest and one other man holding a Bible. The priest wore a long white robe and alter boys wore casual Sunday clothes. The priest lead everyone in the greetings and the group confession of sins. In blindly reading from the bulletin, I asked the blessed Mary, ever virgin, and all of the angels to pray for me. Just like the Episcopalian and the Presbyterian services, most of the service consisted of me reading the bulletin and trying to keep up with the next point for the congregation to say something. They recited the Nicene Creed. I've only been to three services of this style, but sheepishly reading every word in the bulletin and reciting the Nicene Creed is getting monotonous. When the priest asked everyone to greet those around us, I made a point to say "peace" to everyone who shook my hand. The lady sitting next to me said in a cheery voice, "Welcome to our parish!"

There were a few Bible readings and I thought it was interesting that reading from the Gospels were treated with higher regard than Old Testament passages or Paul's letters. (Maybe someone in the comments can tell me why this is.) The priest's sermon was directed to the new high school graduates. He began his lesson by telling a packed house of early rising Catholics that it was rare for anyone to pledge fidelity to a church anymore. I didn't realize it was proper to insult the congregation like that. He warned the new graduates that when they get to college, there will be a "religion 101 course taught by a man with a ponytail and a tweed jacket who laughs at Monty Python and will tell you that there is no god and we're all the same." Again, I was shocked. I'm sitting in a chapel built on state property at a state university that allows the local Catholic church to meet here for Mass and the priest returns the favor by trivializing the university's Department of Philosophy and Religion. The priest ended his lesson by discussing how Catholics were viewed in the rest of the world. He said, "Catholics are often viewed as being weak in their knowledge of Bible scripture. We are strong in our knowledge of the Bible. We wrote the dang thing!" At this point, I was beginning to wonder if I was sitting in a Catholic service or a parody of a Catholic service.

Near the end of the service, the communion was offered, which involved an elaborate series of preparations which could only be seen at a distance. The priest said that all were welcome to take, including visitors, so I took this as an invitation to get in line. To accommodate all of the people, the communion was split, so I went to the back of the room. The lady handed me a cracker and said, "This is the body of Christ." I took a second look at it and it still looked like a cracker.

The service concluded with a prayer of support for everyone in the church, including Pope Benedict XVI. There was a final song and we were dismissed.

The priest's stereotype of atheists is only one third true: I don't have a ponytail or own a tweed jacket, but I do enjoy Monty Python. While some members of the church made me feel welcome, it was the priest's lesson that did not make me feel welcome. I don't feel compelled to return to this church any time soon.

Tags: Mississippi, Oxford, church, non-believer in church, University of Mississippi, atheist, religion

A Non-Believer in Church: St. Peter's Episcopal at Oxford

2008-05-05T00:40:00.009-05:00

As a college student, the end of the semester is good about throwing me off of my regular routine, but I found some time to visit St. Peter's Episcopal Church here in Oxford. This was my first time inside of an Episcopal church so once again I am asking any readers who are familiar with this denomination to elaborate in the comments. The service was so wrapped in symbolism that I felt completely lost.

I attended the 5:30 PM service of the Holy Eucharist, which is designated to fit into the busy schedules of local college students. There were about 50 people in attendance. Nearly all were college students wearing typical college student garb. The music was the best that I've heard in any church visit yet. The music at The Orchard was good, but felt mass produced. The music at First Free Will Baptist was country folk singing at the top of their lungs. Here we had a small band of mostly acoustic guitars and a violinist playing a set of honest and beautiful songs. If I could get a CD of this small band, I would.

Most of the service was foreign to me. The services began with a procession of people in white robes holding various holy relics like a Bible or a Cross. I did not understand a single action of the minister. He had a metal ball that produced smoke that he started swinging at a candle. There is a deeper symbolic reference here I'm sure, but I've read the Bible from cover to cover and must have missed the references to a metal ball, the smoke, and the candle. There was part of the service where everyone recited a prayer while staring at a stain glass window of Jesus . There were parts where we were requested to kneel during a prayer. At another point, the assistants brought all of the holy relics to the center of the auditorium while the minister produced a lot of smoke from his metal ball and began reading from the Bible. Like the Presbyterian service, the congregation recited the Nicene Creed, and many did it from memory. I felt uncomfortable (and very weirded-out) for not understanding any of the symbolism.

The minister asked everyone to greet those sitting around them. When people shook my hand, I made the mistake of saying "hello." The word of these people was "peace." I began to stick out.

The minister's sermon was on the ascension of Christ which takes place in Acts Ch. 1, but aside from reading the passage, he didn't use any scripture to support his lesson. His message was that Christ meets you regardless of how strong your faith is. (My faith is nil, so I'm curious how far Jesus has to stretch to reach me considering that I don't believe him to be divine.) He wanted everyone in attendance to act in a manner which is "countercultural and foolish for your faith." To some extent, I can agree. He wanted the people to practice peace. Peace is certainly counter cultural, but it is not foolish, and peace is good whether it is done in the name of your faith or not.

Near the end of the service, the minister prepared the communion with a series of elaborate actions involving two cups sitting on a table. All of these actions had a symbolic meaning but it was all lost on on me. Like the Presbyterian service, communion was served by everyone coming to the front of the auditorium to receive it from the minister. Again, I felt like an oddball for being the only person who remained in the pew during communion. In a group of 50, it was not hard to spot the new guy.

The service concluded when the minister asked everyone to go outside for a group picture. Everyone was dismissed and began talking in the front of the church. I stood on the front lawn for about five minutes wondering if anyone would at least greet the new guy, but no student did. The minister spoke up, "We have a visitor!" He just might be the nicest guy in the world. He asked me, "So which parish are you from?" I told him how I was visiting in order to experience an Episcopal church service and he told me about the church website and invited me to the group dinner for all students after the service.

Aside from conducting a very peculiar service and being forced to work with college students who are too scared to say "hello", the minister made me feel welcome.

Tags: Oxford, Mississippi, St. Peter's Episcopal Church, Episcopal, college students, bible, church, atheist, communion, minister

A Non-Believer in Church: First Presbyterian at Oxford

2008-04-13T20:33:00.006-05:00

My third post in this series of church visits generated a fair amount of feedback because it highlighted the issue that Christian extremism still exists in Mississippi. When the post was featured on the Friendly Atheist blog, one commenter suggested that I visit the First Presbyterian Church in Oxford. I live in Oxford, so it was a natural pick.

Traffic is heavy because Eli Manning is in town and I made it to church at few minutes late (which I can't stand). I slipped in the back door, grabbed a bulletin and sat on the back pew after 8:30 AM. Today was "Youth Sunday 2008," which means that the entire service was conducted by the church youth. I know nothing about the traditions of the Presbyterian faith, so if anyone would like to comment on this, I would appreciate it. This church visit was certainly an improvement over my last visit.

I made a quick headcount estimate of 150 people. The church building is small, but beautiful. The walls are lined with gorgeous stained glass windows, each depicting a popular story from the Bible. There is a large organ and a choir pit for 20 members. A cross made out of cedar timber rest in the front corner of the auditorium.

The service outline was long and took over two pages of the bulletin to print every song, prayer, and poem in the program. Every word of every prayer was in the outline, as were some of the shorter songs. The service had an odd arrangement where everyone was required to sit or stand at different times and this wasn't announced or printed in the bulletin. I stood after everyone stood up and sat when I saw everyone sit back down. Some cues would have been helpful.

The regular church-goers wore their traditional Sunday clothes. The youth all wore black t-shirts with the words "Even the smallest light shines," which was this Sunday's theme.

Instead of one lesson, there were four lessons, each given by a high school student. Each lesson had to draw from the theme found in Ephesians 5:8-14. The first speaker was a girl! I have never been in a church service where the lesson was given by a female. This was the most pleasant surprise of the morning. There are passages in the Bible which directly say that the women must learn in silence and it takes courage to realize that this is sexist and should be ignored. She talked about the darkness that she faced because she is a senior who still didn't know where she wanted to go for college or what might be her major. The other three speakers talked about circumstances where they felt in the dark: a friend who committed suicide, a sister in the hospital, and an encounter with a stranger as a young child. Only one of the speakers referenced a Bible verse: John 3:16-21. "John 3:16" is a classic sign to see at sporting events, but the rest of the passage is lesser known. I would like to write a critical critique of that passage, but I'll save it for a later time since the speaker is a high school student and was probably only using the passage because it is classic.

After the lesson, there was the offering, three girls sang a beautiful hymn and then the communion followed. The head preacher gave a nice, short talk about the purpose of the communion: it should be for everyone who is interested in Christ and wanting what he has to offer. Rather than pass the communion on plates through the aisles, everyone in the church stood up and in an organized manner walked to the front of the room to take it. I was the only one in the room to stay in my pew and I know I looked like an oddball.

One of the youth played his guitar during the communion and it took me a second to realize that he wasn't playing a hymn. He was playing the Black Crows' "She Talks to Angels," which is funny because it's a song about drug addiction. After the service, we all walked out into the church court yard. The head preacher, an older gentleman, walked up to me, gave me an odd dap handshake and said, "What's up, my man? All is well?" I have to respect a man who tries to reach out to a younger culture, even if I don't know which younger culture he's trying to reaching.

Tags: atheist, nonbeliever, church, Mississippi, Oxford, Christian extremism, First Presbyterian Church, Eli Manning, women, bible

A Non-Believer in Church: First Free Will Baptist at Iuka

2008-04-06T17:38:00.015-05:00

My travels brought me through Iuka this past Sunday, so I stopped by the First Free Will Baptist Church. I stepped in the door, picked up a bulletin, and sat on the back pew just after 11 AM. This is a small church with only about 100 in attendance. For a church this small, they had a piano, an organ, and an electric guitar. 20 members made up the choir. The bulletin said that today is the first day of a 6 day revival meeting and the church was providing "OLD-FASHION PREACHING DAY AND NIGHT". I was about to discover their meaning of "old-fashion preaching."

The services began with choir singing, a duet, a solo, and a long, rambling fast spoken prayer. People were lifting their hands and standing and hollering "Praise the Lord!" and "Praise Jesus" when the passion came to them. The preacher got up to deliver his lesson, but before he got very far, a man stood up to tell everyone how much Jesus helped him with his life. This didn't seemed planned. This man talked for a few minutes before he sat back down. The preacher spoke about half a sentence when a woman stood up and told everyone about how Jesus solves all our problems. She talked for a few minutes about how Jesus worked in her life and then sat down. I guess this preacher is use to constant interruptions.

The preacher finally got a chance to give his lesson on Isaiah 59:1-4. His talk was about sin. To give you an idea of his preaching style, think of Jonathan Edwards' "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" hyped up on steroids. He knew how to get this mostly elderly congregation pumped up and going strong for JESUS! He gave his congregation a long list of sins, all while shouting at the top of his lungs. He called "baby killing" a sin and homosexuality a sin and told everyone to speak out against any sign of sin, even if they have family members who might be engaged in that sort of activity. He wanted to bring the Bible and prayer back into our schools. He warned his congregation that if they tried to bring the Bible into schools, the government would oppose them, but do not worry: God will be on the side of God, and God's side always wins. Everything the preacher said was shouted. The people shouted "Praise the Lord!", "Praise Jesus!", and "Amen" through all of this. The preacher was talking fast and loud and everyone had their hands up in the air. I felt like I was at a cattle auction without any cattle.

When I listen to sermons in any church, I try to look at the lesson with an objective mindset. Where was the preacher right? Where was he wrong? Did everything he say agree with the Bible that he claims to have read? You couldn't do that to any point in this preacher's lesson. He was stereotypical of everything that non-believers see in Christians: they are loud, obnoxious, ignorant, and filled with prejudice and self-righteous attitudes. It is hard not to stereotype when I'm watching Christian fundamentalism in action. It could be summarized in one line that the preacher spoke during his lesson: "Now church... don't go out an tell your friends that I told you to get rid of your televisions, but if the Lord tells you to get rid of your television, you don't sell it, YOU BEAT IT WITH A BASEBALL BAT!" This, in all honesty, scared me. The lesson ended with a prayer, but I couldn't understand a word of it because everyone was still shouting their "Amens". What good is a public prayer if no one hears it?

The services ended with some announcements, which were the only even-tempered part of the whole service. In a very clam manner, it was announced that there will be a women's lunch event later this week. The final prayer was given and everyone woke up from their trance. They talked (at a regular volume) and acted like it was another normal Sunday. One lady introduced herself to me, but at this point, I was making a dash for the door.

I'm heading north of Oxford next weekend, so that's where I'll report next time for church (if I recover from this week).

Tags: atheist, Mississippi, church, Iuka, First Free Will Baptist Church, Jesus, preacher, bible, homosexuality, god, Christian, prayer, Oxford

A Non-Believer in Church: Church of Christ at Oxford

2008-03-31T21:48:00.014-05:00

It's like those miserable Psalms... they're so depressing. Now knock it off!

I stayed local for church this week. I went over to the Church of Christ on North Lamar Street in Oxford. Services start promptly at 10 PM. The layout is traditional for a Church of Christ auditorium: classical pews fill the room with a single pulpit and baptistery at the front. The auditorium seats roughly 400 people. Perhaps I'm revealing too much of myself here, but I've been in dozens of Churches of Christ, and they all follow this pattern.

If you aren't familiar with the Churches of Christ, maybe you recall the trial of Mary Winkler, accused of shooting her husband, a preacher of a Church of Christ congregation. Mary Winkler's problems should be her own, but her religion was dragged into it. It was a storm of media attention and I followed most of it. On the CNN show "Nancy Grace", Nancy investigated deeper into the Church of Christ... by interviewing a Baptist minister. The Baptist minister, in a bit of irony, called the Church of Christ "kind of is a borderline cult, unfortunately." Pot. Kettle. All denominations retain some knowledge that the other denominations either don't have, have overlooked, or just ignored, and this is what makes denomination X better than all of the others. What I can say about the Church of Christ is that they follow a painstakingly strict interpretation of the Bible.

The services started with several songs. There are no instruments in the services, and the congregation puts forth all of their effort into each song. The communion is passed and the offering followed. The prayers are long drawn out pleas to God, including calls asking for wisdom, thanking God for the weather, mentioning the sick of the congregation by name, and asking for forgiveness. This service had more than one of these pleas to God.

The lesson of the hour came from the 107th Psalm on the redemptive powers of God. At the heart of the preacher's lesson was his understanding that God is providentially working in our lives. He cited examples of drug addicts turning their lives to God, alcoholics turning their lives to God, and gambling addicts turning their lives to God. The message was clear: the only way to break free from a harmful addiction is to turn your life to God. You may be wondering how turning your life over to a metaphysical concept helps, but that's where the belief in providence must come in. He decried individualism, saying that it was currently the biggest problem plaguing the church. I had to agree with the preacher here: once I started to think for myself, I stopped believing. He thought it was interesting that the Christian religion is most successful with people who seem to be at the lowest point in their lives, but did not speculate as to why. The point was also made to study the Bible more, because verse 20 of that psalm says "He sent his word, and healed them," and made the implication that the only book that you really need to consider in helping your troubled life is the Bible.

As an aside to the rest of the lesson, the preacher talked about how the differences in the character of God between the Old Testament and the New Testament were "a bunch of bologna." His point was that God was a god of love all the time. When we characterize the God of the Old Testament as a god of wrath and the God of the New Testament as a god of love, then we completely misrepresent the love of God.

I understood what the preacher was trying to say, but I didn't believe him. Through out the Old Testament, God allows evil to happen to both the righteous (see Job) and the unrighteous (see the rest of the Old Testament) and yet in the New Testament, he is still striking people dead for minor offenses. Old habits are hard to break. The argument could be made that God is a god of love throughout the Bible, but only if you over look all of those passages where he isn't. God loves you, except when your great grandfather was an unbeliever.

After the lesson, the invitation was offered to anyone who needed the prayers of the church. Three people came forward, including one person who needed prayers to help him attend church more often. I kept thinking to myself, "I'm looking for a way out, and he's looking for a way in."

I'm going to be on the eastern side of the Mississippi this weekend, which will give me the opportunity to visit a new church. If the response to this post is positive, I might turn this into a series. The idea of visiting churches and writing the experience is respectfully ripped off of Hemant Mehta's fascinating book "I Sold My Soul On eBay".

Tags: atheist, church, Church of Christ, Mary Winkler, Nancy Grace, CNN, religion, bible, Mississippi, Oxford

A Non-Believer in Church: The Orchard at Tupelo

2008-03-23T14:08:00.003-05:00

I should explain a few things before I begin. I come from a devote Christian family. All of my family as well as my Mississippi friends still think I am a believer. I gave up believing the mythology about two years ago. I still go to church regularly out of fear of what others will think of (or might do to) me. Since I am going to church, I ought to be recording these experiences. Maybe it is ironic that I'm writing while listening to the excellent Christian music podcast "Bored Again Christian," which I would recommend to anyone.

About three weeks ago, I attended the services of "The Orchard," a church of the United Methodist in Tupelo. It's a much larger church than I am use to attending, with around 1,000 people in attendance. The place looks like an airport terminal. The signs that hang from the walls have a giant typeface to direct people to different areas of the building. There are free coffee and donut stations throughout the auditorium. The church has a store with spiritual living books, t-shirts, and coffee mugs. Several wooden crosses hang from the ceiling. The front of the auditorium has a stage and a full band was used throughout the service.

Most of the service consisted of live music, which was enjoyable to me. The band played while the congregation (or more appropriately "audience") watched. There was some encouragement to sing and the lyrics were on an overhead screen, but I didn't see a lot of participation. The majority of the people were content to stand and listen. The older Christian me would have been bothered by the lack of singing from the group. The newer secular me wonders why a person would make any effort at all to come to church and not try to participate.

The speaker of the hour talked about a passage from The Book of Hosea, Ch. 11. Hosea is a book about a prophet who is so angry that he spends most of the book begging God to curse and torture the tribe of Ephraim in cruel and inhuman ways. The speaker is obviously talented enough to turn this book into a family friendly lesson. He told a funny story from his childhood where his mother would read a children's book to him when he got in trouble, and that this was much worse than any spanking he could have received. It was clever in that it showed that the bond between God and his people should be the same between the bond between parents and children, thus the overall message of "God loves you" was complete.

After the speaker finished, there was more live music, followed by the offering. One minister introduced a family who had recently had a baby girl. The family said that they all wanted to be rededicated to God, including the baby. The minister sprinkled the water on the baby's head and talked about how she was now a sister of the church, but not yet a full member. This portion of the service made me realize that the indoctrination of children into a religion begins before they are even able to learn of alternatives to what the parents already believe.

There were some closing announcements and one minister told a shocking story about how someone died of a heart attack in the middle of the previous Sunday service. Then he clarified that no one died and no one even had a health issue. He was highlighting the problem that people are parking in the zones reserved for emergency vehicles. It was a shocking way to get my attention, and it worked, but I don't exactly condone that sort of attention grabbing. It harkens back to the story of the boy who cried wolf too many times.

The service concluded with a minister simply saying that the service was over. The window drapes are mechanized to all open at the same time, so as the service finished the auditorium filled with sunlight. It was quite beautiful and it certainly had the emotional draw to it. Looking back, every aspect of the service was based on an emotional appeal to follow God. There was no effort to make a reasoned appeal to follow God because it wasn't needed. Why do you need reason to get people in the doors if free coffee, donuts, and live music do just as well?

I enjoyed my brief time at "The Orchard," if only for the entertainment value. If you are a member of this church, I hope this provides a new perspective on this church's style of worship. Also, be on the lookout for a new guy sitting on your pew taking copious notes (and that goes for any church in Northern Mississippi).

Tags: Mississippi, atheist, Tupelo, Orchard, church, Christian, Christianity, atheism