Civil Commotion

Something called the Faith Driven Consumer is now ranking companies and their products according to how faith-friendly they are.

Would y’all be surprised to learn that Godly Folk won’t be buying their coffee-to-go at Starbucks any time soon? Sorry, but on “Faith Compatible Corporate Actions,” Starbucks scored a measly 6 of a possible 30-points.

Faith-Compatible Corporate Actions, 6/30 points

Actions that demonstrate an acknowledgement of, respect for and compatibility with biblically orthodox teachings on core issues of importance to Faith Driven Consumers, including:

Respect for, acknowledgment of, and compatibility with a comprehensive pro-life view on abortion, embryonic stem cell research and euthanasia — either by supporting these positions publicly, financially or with in-kind resources equal, at minimum, to support given alternative positions, or remaining silent and neutral on these issues – 0/10 points

Respect for, acknowledgement of, and compatibility with biblical teaching on sexuality, gender, marriage and family — either by supporting these positions publicly, financially or with in-kind resources equal, at minimum, to support given alternative positions, or remaining silent and neutral on these issues – 0/10 points

Promote or support wholesome images in marketing and culture while refraining from the promotion or support of pornography, sexual immorality or the sexual exploitation of individuals, as viewed through a biblical lens – 6/10 points

Joshua the Noisy has nothing on these guys.

It is ridiculous, hurtful to the cause of Christ. It was deceptive – a controversy built on lies. It could almost make me go buy a cup of Starbucks.

Dave Miller, SBC Voices
On Joshua Feuerstein and the manufactured Starbucks flap

But, of course, Christianity has been since its founding a cynical us-vs.-them enterprise that exploits exactly the sort of uneducated and unthinking losers to whom Feuerstein appeals. I applaud Miller for unloading on Feuerstein the contempt and disdain that he deserves, but he is an apostle for our time, the unplugged Christian id.

Every time I see something like this, I’m unable to decide what bothers me the most. The gratuitous cruelty, or the shamelessness that enables people to record something like this and post it on social media.

Philosopher Stephen Law takes up the question whether or not the man Jesus ever existed, suggesting a further criterion for assessing historic claims: A great many hocus-pocus claims throw the mundane, humdrum claims into doubt.

Let’s return to Ted and Sarah. If they tell me a man called Bert paid them an unexpected visit in their home last night, I have every reason to believe them. But if they tell me that Bert flew around the room by flapping his arms before dying, coming back to life and turning their sofa into a donkey, well then not only I am not justified, solely on the basis of their testimony, that these amazing things happened, I can no longer be at all confident that any such person as Bert exists.

[ … ]

Where testimony/documents weave together a narrative that combines mundane claims with a significant proportion of extraordinary claims, and there is good reason to be sceptical about those extraordinary claims, then there is good reason to be sceptical about the mundane claims, at least until we possess good independent evidence of their truth.

I admit that I’ve never considered that principle so formally, but it seems to me commonsensical; a great many extraordinary claims about a person or event do put the humdrum claims into doubt.

What is more, there is a sound basis for wondering whether or not the man Jesus ever existed; there is no — NO — contemporaneous evidence of it. Not even historians then living, and who hated Pilate, made any mention of Jesus’ crucifixion, for instance. Try to imagine the World Net Daily crowd overlooking President Obama merely saying something unkind about fundamentalism, and you see why that’s a problem.

Even so, what nobody denies is that there was a very strong Jesus Movement within 10- to 20-years of the best-estimates of the time of the crucifixion. That’s well short of convincing, and certainly not dispositive, but I think that fact has to be taken seriously.

There is a plausible explanation: Jesus was a small-time rural prophet/cult leader/miracle-monger who took his road show to the big city and failed spectacularly. Nobody was traumatized but his odd little band of followers, who then made a cottage industry out of making-up and selling stories about their abruptly-departed leader.

That works. That can be believed.

… wondering how a cartoon character like Ben Carson managed to get in front of the Republican pack. Well, just so’s you know, the crazy people think it’s, like, obvious that he belongs at the front of the pack, and that his present difficulties are a wicked media conspiracy. As a matter of fact, the crazy people knew that the Forces Of Darkness would soon align to ‘get’ him.

Last May we published a column, “Why They Must Destroy Ben Carson.” It has been determined that a black Christian conservative, especially a political outsider with credentials as a life-saving physician, just cannot be allowed to succeed in politics. Carson must be destroyed.

His life as a poor boy with a temper is now coming in for serious media scrutiny. Who did he hit? And why?

[ … ]

All of this is happening now because Carson is doing very well in the presidential polls and could actually capture the GOP presidential nomination and threaten Hillary Clinton’s election to the presidency.

There has always been a loony right in America, near-rabid fever-swampers who see dark conspiracies and Illuminati lurking behind every tree and who believe everybody to the left of Louis the XIV dines on babies.

But until fairly recently they could be ignored; the press wouldn’t give them the time of day, and they had almost no way of finding each other and organizing and publishing their madness. The Internet changed that, and … who knew? There’s a hell of a lot more disaffection and sickness and desperation just below the surface than most of us ever imagined.