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the millennial retrospective
Terry Bowland Was Right!
I was going to write a lengthy play-by-play skewering of Terry Bowland’s chapel sermon last Tuesday at Ozark Christian College, in which he argued that the imagery of Yahweh Sabaoth (which when properly translated means, He Who Creates Armies) is neglected among Christians.
I’m not going to write a long response. I just don’t have the energy this week and frankly I don’t think the sermon merits it. (Bowland spent as much time chortling at his own jokes(?) as he did making any substantive—or substantiated—claims.) But I will offer a few remarks, before referring you to some other responses that have appeared since the sermon last Tuesday.
My first response is that Bowland’s sermon was incredibly misogynistic. He stereotyped women, saying they prefer movies like The Wedding Planner to movies like Braveheart. (I happen to know a number of women who prefer Mel Gibson movies to J-Lo movies). He claimed that his sermon was primarily for men, but that the women could “listen in too.” Bowland should really be censured for this. It’s macho bullshit and it’s very offensive, not just to the women who like Mel Gibson movies, but to all the women over in Iraq and Afghanistan fighting for Terry’s “freeeeeeeeedooooommmmm” in the name of the Pax Americana. If you want to be a man, Terry, you should apologize to them.1 You should also apologize to all the ancient Neareastern war goddesses like Ishtar, Innana, Anat, Astarte and the Sun-Goddess of Arinna, among others, all from whom Yahweh Sabaoth learned a thing or two about battle savagery. These chicks stood knee deep in Israelite blood on more than one occasion—so Terry owes them an apology too.
My second response is to Terry’s claim that Christian men need a divine role model, and that role model should be a war god. Fair enough. But why Yahweh? Why not any number of ancient war gods from whom Yahweh certainly learned a thing or two on his way up? Whatever. Yahweh’s as good a choice as any, I suppose. I’m just saying, there are options.
But I am suspicious of the claim that men need such a role model. One indication of that fact is all the macho hooting and hollering that took place throughout Bowland’s hilariously transparent appeals to macho movie violence. It sounded to me like those men didn’t need their arms twisted to drool over the prospect of chopping heads off in the name of Yahweh Sabaoth. Bowland is preaching to the choir. Moreover, I find it odd that, in offering his students a biblical role model, Bowland doesn’t pay any attention to the kind of role model the Scriptures themselves offer to men:
You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. (Matt 5:43-45)
For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps. ‘He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.’ When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness. (1 Pet 2:21-24)
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross. (Phil 2:5-8)
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect. . . . Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’ No, ‘if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.’ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:2, 17-21)
I’m just sayin’. If you’re going to offer a scriptural role model, why not offer the role model Scripture itself offers. Just a suggestion.
Moreover, could Bowland’s sexual insecurity be any more transparent? I think it’s suggestive that his favorite movies all involve muscular men who run around with their shirts off and flash their anuses from under their kilts. Anal exposure, oily man-chests, and violence. (Not making any accusations. Just sayin’.)
But seriously, my third response is that Terry’s sermon was just really immature, and irresponsible. Aside from all this hootin’ and hollerin’, his investment in this macho image is a real live issue—from his Harley Davidson to his intense commitment to his physical prowess, what exactly is he trying to prove? More significantly, his heroes are the pagan King Leonidas and a pagan warrior Maximus. He revels in the Spartan warriors who are trained to love nothing but the glory of violence from a young age. Terry even quotes Maximus giving his allegiance to a Roman emperor, something Christians in that period were being killed for refusing to do. Terry thinks this is “real manhood.” I suppose men like Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Daniel Berrigan—all of whom were arrested on more than one occasion, two of whom were killed—they’re not courageous. They’re pussies. MLK should have joined the Black Panthers. Gandhi should have started the Taliban. Daniel Berrigan should have used illegal violence, rather than protesting illegal violence.
His gleeful commendation of that machismo nonsense propagated by the likes of John Eldridge is frankly juvenile. First of all, and not to trash talk Mr. Rogers (who was a great man and a fine Christian), but to lump Mother Teresa in beside Mr. Rogers as if Mother Teresa was all about “being nice” is just insane, besides being utterly ignorant and/or prejudiced. Mother Teresa was a woman of immense courage (more in her little toe than Bowland has with his Harley Davidson persona and his Mr. Universe physique combined). Not only did she devote her entire life to following the example of the role model Yahweh Sabaoth sent to teach Terry Bowland a thing or two, she spoke out against injustice on platforms Terry Bowland couldn’t even dream of vacuuming. She was a real human being who devoted her life to caring for those who suffer, in an environment that was hostile to her work, in obedience to the command of her Lord of Hosts. Bowland is a Bible College professor tucked away in the safety and security of the Bible Belt. Give me a break. If Bowland honestly believes Rambo is more like Jesus than Mother Teresa, he’s got a very intense “depart from me, I never knew you” coming to him! Bowland should be censured for preaching a false gospel, and for maligning the character of a true saint and disciple of Jesus. Who at OCC has the courage to censure him—to call him out, in public, for the coward he is?
(I should also add that all of Terry Bowland’s favorite movies are Rated R, and 300 in particular has strong sex, and an orgy scene, not to mention gratuitous violence. Unless the rules have changed officially, I was under the impression professors and students weren’t supposed to watch R Rated movies. Even if it’s not really enforced, is it OK now for a professor to proclaim from the pulpit that a movie with a sex orgy is one of his favorites?)
My fourth response is that Bowland’s sermon was jingoistic, and therefore, idolatrous. Before Bowland began his sermon, he played a clip from the Mel Gibson movie We Were Soldiers. For the women who are reading this, since you obviously haven’t seen this movie, here is what Mel Gibson’s character says in the clip:
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: Look around you. In the 7th cavalry, we’ve got a captain from the Ukraine; another from Puerto Rico. We’ve got Japanese, Chinese, Blacks, Hispanics, Cherokee Indians. Jews and Gentiles. All Americans. Now here in the states, some of you in this unit may have experienced discrimination because of race or creed. But for you and me now, all that is gone. We’re moving into the valley of the shadow of death, where you will watch the back of the man next to you, as he will watch yours. And you won’t care what color he is, or by what name he calls God. They say we’re leaving home. We’re going to what home was always supposed to be. Now let us understand the situation. We are going into battle against a tough and determined enemy.
I can’t promise you that I will bring you all home alive. But this I swear, before you and before Almighty God, that when we go into battle, I will be the first to set foot on the field, and I will be the last to step off, and I will leave no one behind. Dead or alive, we will all come home together. So help me, God.
Here in this clip (Bowland evidently can’t see it), language that describes the church in the New Testament is ascribed to the United States of America. The church is the true location in which Jew and Gentile—all tongues and nations—are united. The U.S. has usurped the church’s place. This is the gospel of U.S. imperialism. The United States unites and the wars of the United States bring peace. It is no longer “Yahweh, my Shepherd” who carries us through the valley of the shadow of death, but the watchful eye of the soldier next to you. Bowland can’t see it—he can’t see the idolatry—because to him it’s not idolatry. This is Bowland’s religion. To him, the gospel of Jesus Christ isn’t political: it’s spiritual. It’s all about saving souls. For politics, Bowland believes in the gospel of the United States.
And in case you think I’m being unfair–that Bowland didn’t want to endorse the whole movie, but just wanted to use that clip to introduce the sermon, I’ll quote Bowland himself: “I wish we could spend the rest of the sermon watching that movie because that would pretty much sum it up.”
If he had showed the whole movie, we would also have seen this scene–very pietistic–in which Mel Gibson’s character and a young soldier are praying in a chapel:
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: Our Father in Heaven, before we go into battle, every soldier among us will approach you each in his own way. Our enemies too, according to their own understanding, will ask for protection and for victory. And so, we bow before your infinite wisdom. We offer our prayers as best we can. I pray you watch over the young Jack Geoghegan. That I lead into battle. You use me as your instrument in this awful hell of war to watch over them. Especially if they’re men like this one beside me, deserving of a future in your blessing and goodwill. Amen.
2nd Lieutenant Jack Geoghegan: Amen.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: Oh, yes, and one more thing, dear Lord, about our enemies. Ignore their heathen prayers and help us blow those little bastards straight to Hell. Amen.
Amen. Preach it, Brother Bowland! I guess that about sums it up.
Bowland says biblical nonviolence doesn’t convince him. Fine. So, I would assume then that Bowland would claim to be a just-war theorist. If I’m wrong in that assumption, I’m happy to be corrected. Assuming that Bowland is a just-war theorist, I find it incredibly telling that Bowland tacitly assumes the righteousness of the U.S. wars without even a single attempt to apply the criteria of actual Just War Theory to the U.S. wars, to see if they can be justified or not. (Perhaps this is because Bowland doesn’t know what those criteria are. I’ll be happy to tell him, if that’s the case.) To so many North Americans, and to so many North American Christians, “just-war theory” just means that whatever war our side happens to be fighting is justified. Now, granted, Bowland didn’t say anything explicit in favor of any U.S. wars. But at the very least, he showed a clip from a Vietnam War movie—one of the most unjust, illegal and immoral wars in U.S. history, perpetrated by a vast web of lies by corrupt politicians in the name of the U.S. gospel of the free-market against the demonic forces of Communism. Bowland is completely irresponsible if he thinks he can show clips like that, then associate Christian pacifists with Communists by calling them “pinko-commie-liberal-pacifists” (“just kidding…” [chortle] “just kidding…” [chortle] “just kidding…” [chortle] “sort of”). He actually applies this epithet to a group of the most conservative Bible translators Bible translation has ever known! That’s just because he’s ignorant. But he’s also grossly irresponsible for propagating this kind of nonsense from the gospel pulpit, and he should be censured for it. I doubt he will be, of course.
Then, as if we hadn’t had enough macho bullshit and prejudiced disregard for the reasonable convictions of other believers, after acknowledging that he has great friends who are pacifists (a moment of almost something like humility, or at least respect for others), he follows that admission immediately by a picture of Jesus armed with a fully-automatic assault rifle and the words “GOD IS NOT A PACIFIST!” To thunderous applause, of course. (Bowland is clearly a prophet. You can tell because the vast majority of God’s people already agree with his message and love him for preaching it.)
I suppose Bowland doesn’t realize that the blood in which Jesus’ gown is dipped in the book of Revelation is not the blood of his enemies, but his own.
My fifth response to Bowland is that his gospel is dualistic. It isn’t the gospel of Jesus Christ, who came preaching good news to the poor, liberty to those in debtor’s prison, etc. Bowland’s gospel is almost completely devoid of any historical understanding of Jesus whatsoever. Bowland’s gospel is all about saving souls—a mission he attempts to twist our arms into undertaking by means of some of the most horrifyingly manipulative and disgusting “pathos” I have ever heard:
If our enemy had his way, he would see every man in this assembly emasculated, humiliated. If our enemy had his way, he would see every woman here raped, beaten and sold into slavery. If our enemy had his way, he would have every child sodomized, brutalized, violated again, and again, and again.
If Bowland has not already been censured for this god-awful language, he ought to be, and severely.
DIGRESSION: Of course, Satan is NEVER depicted as seeking to do these kinds of things to God’s people in the Bible. Rather, it is Yahweh himself who perpetrates this sort of disgusting brutality upon his people (e.g, Lev 26:27-29; Hosea 13:16; Jer 5:15-17; among many others). Just sayin’. DIGRESSION CONCLUDED.
But to Bowland, Yahweh seems only to be concerned with justice “on that final day.” Bowland shows several pictures of poverty, meant to inspire pathos. Little does he realize that most of the pictures he shows depict poverty that is the result of the wars he loves to drool over. But Bowland’s appeal to pathos is undermined by the fact that, to him, their needs will all be met “on that final day.” Not now. No wonder Bowland doesn’t like the “Mother Teresa Jesus.” Mother Teresa thought they were supposed to be fed now. How wrong she was! Bowland’s refrain is “on that final day.”
He asks, “Are you prepared to go into all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything Jesus has commanded us [except the command to love your enemies, the command for the rich to sell all they have and give to the poor]? Sir, yes sir!” In the end, Bowland’s gospel is all about making converts now—spiritual salvation. Justice will be taken care of later, “on that final day.” Mother Teresa wasted her life, and apparently Jesus was crucified by Rome because he proclaimed an otherworldly, spiritual salvation that was not in the slightest bit threatening to Roman domination.
My final response is to ask why, after all that jingoistic, violence-loving, macho crap he called a “gospel message,” Bowland doesn’t realize that his portrait of Yahweh Sabaoth’s victory is completely and utterly nonviolent? Finally, in the end, Terry Bowland was right. Bowland tells us that Yahweh Sabaoth comes onto the battlefield in Jesus of Nazareth and that “in his passion, death and resurrection, the battle was won!”
Oops! Talk about scoring a point for the other team. Just sayin’.
Since Ozark Christian College is purportedly a school in the tradition of Alexander Campbell and Barton Stone (both stanch pacifists) I’ll leave now with some remarks from Alexander Campbell himself. What would Campbell say to his spiritual children? Find out below:
The times are full of corruption, and the church is contaminated with the times. We all need to be reminded in tones of tenderness, coming from the world-rending agonies of the cross, that we, people of the living God are not of the world. [Millennial Harbinger (1864), 4.]
And stranger still, see that Christian general, with his ten thousand soldiers, and his chaplain at his elbow, preaching, as he says, the gospel of goodwill among men; and hear him exhort his general and his Christian warriors to go forth with the Bible in one hand and the sword in the other, to fight the battles of God and their country; praying that the Lord would cause them to fight valiantly, and render their efforts successful in making as many widows and orphans as will afford sufficient opportunity for others to manifest the purity of their religion by taking care of them. . . . Now from these [types of Christians] turn away. [Christian Baptist I (Bethany, VA: 1823), 17-18.]
Neither are the statutes and laws of the Christian kingdom to be sought for in the Jewish scripture, not antecedent to the day of Pentecost; except so far as our Lord himself, during his life-time, propounded the doctrine of his reign. [The Christian System (Cincinnati: Standard, n.d.), 133.]
Campbell, referring to theological treatises written by men wishing to legitimate Christian participation in warfare by appeal to the Old Testament, wrote that such “volumes to this effect only convince me of the ignorance of some and the hypocrisy of others, from whose reputation for candor, intelligence and piety we might have expected better things.” Millennial Harbinger (1846), 640.
We can justify many of the Old Testament wars on as good and relevant grounds as we justify polygamy, divorce and certain forms of slavery, because there was no separate and spiritual community erected on earth from Adam to the last Pentecost. [Millennial Harbinger (1846), 640.]
Campbell cited the Old Testament (Isa. 2:2-4; Micah 4:3-4) to show that Christians now live in the messianic age of peace in which the weapons of war have been refashioned into instruments of peace. Millennial Harbinger (1848), 375, 383.
Campbell protested against the abuse of the pulpit, which takes place as ministers promote the cause of their nation in war. He held that glorifying war heroes, offering prayers for victory against enemies and perpetrating the myth of the righteousness of one’s own nation ended up ‘desecrating the religion of the Prince of Peace by causing [the church] to minister as a handmaid of war.’ Whenever the church lifts its voice to sanction and support a war, the saving and unifying message of the gospel is discredited. Campbell deplored the practice of elevating military heroes to a stature comparable to saints and of speaking of those who fall in battle as if they are martyrs. All such exercises align Christians in one nation with their compatriots to the exclusion of others. Instead of being an instrument of God to break down the walls of hostility between peoples, Campbell contended that too frequently the church builds the walls higher. [Craig M. Watts, Disciple of Peace: Alexander Campbell on Pacifism, Violence and the State (Indianapolis: Doulos Christou, 2005), 34. Campbell citation from Millennial Harbinger (1848), 360ff.]
War and Christianity are Antipodal. [Millennial Harbinger (1850), 523.]
Campbell believed that bravery, valor and patriotism were, in his words, “pagan virtues” that ran counter to the universalizing thrust of the Gospel.
See also the good response by OCC professor Mark Moore and the excellent comments by OCC professors Tom Lawson and Shane Wood on that same post.
Here is Bowland’s sermon. There’s some stuff missing from the beginning—a lot (but not all) of the misogynistic remarks. And his references to the movie 300. And the playing of the clip from We Were Soldiers.
- Of course, this misogynism is encouraged by the OCC trustees. [BACK]
November 21, 2009 - 9:03 PM
Here is Bowland’s sermon. There’s some stuff missing from the beginning–a lot (but not all) of the misogynistic remarks. And his references to the movie 300. And the playing of the clip from We Were Soldiers.
November 22, 2009 - 4:47 PM
I”m glad you didn’t write a *long* reply.
Good response. I hope this misogynistic bullshit theology of a Godly man dies out soon.
November 23, 2009 - 12:25 AM
And people really wonder why I walked out in the middle of it!
November 23, 2009 - 12:08 PM
That sounds almost as bad as when that Senator gave a chapel sermon several years back. Thanks for the critique of the sermon.
November 23, 2009 - 12:14 PM
I remember that sermon, Nicolas! I also remember that you, Stephen Lawson and I walked out of that one. Interestingly, three students walked out of Bowland’s as well.
November 23, 2009 - 12:17 PM
what was the students response to the small walk out?
November 23, 2009 - 12:18 PM
the new one
November 23, 2009 - 12:18 PM
Dunno. Jordan? Care to comment?
November 23, 2009 - 12:22 PM
I guess I’m hoping that the idolization of professors at OCC has waned and a willingness to engage in honest critique of the material has developed.
November 23, 2009 - 12:23 PM
Not a bunch.
November 23, 2009 - 1:20 PM
Essentially the response was two-fold : 1) “Geez, what was the big deal? Ol’ Bowland was just pokin’ a little fun…” and 2) “It’s time to put on your big-boy pants (William Wallace’s kilt?) and hear someone of the opposite opinion…” (this one came from some professors, so I’m told.)
The first response, primarily from the same students who thought themselves at a pep rally for war, is of course a result (at least in part) of the celebrity-status of some profs at OCC. These courageous men have taken up the cause against the “liberal pacifists” (pinko-Commie now, as it seems). They have taken up the fight against this kind of incipient disease, malevolently released upon the population at OCC by wolves in sheep-clothing. Prior, you see, the mass of the students were upset because, although they vehemently disagreed with such liberal pacifist ideology, they found themselves unable to intelligently argue the contrary, particularly if you asked them to do so on New Testament grounds (in fact, many admit the NT is indeed “pacifist material”). Alas, now all of that has been finally cast into the dark recesses of OCC history, and these courageous juggernauts (so courageous that they can even stand up to the likes of Mother Teresa and Mr. Rodgers! O such bravery!) have taken up the resistance by throwing up idolatrous images of Jesus, yelling loudly with a booming voice, and showing clips from Mel Gibson films (not the Passion, of course).
I say this not because I think there are no professors capable of intelligently arguing against pacifism and all of its accompanying corrosion, but because the very “celebrity profs” the multitude of students have chosen as their heroes are in fact some of the least capable (apparently; I’m just going off of what they themselves have presented). There are a few professors who are not pacifists and who have never claimed to be, who are nevertheless much more nuanced and reasonable (and respectful) in their articulation, many of whom I have personally bantered with.
These are not the heroes in the anti-pacifism resistance, however, because these profs are more like Mother Teresa and Mr. Rogers than they are Rambo in their actual lives. You see, if you’re going to get a poster-boy for a cause, they have to at least consistently embody the cause itself (hence the above sermon and Thom’s/Mark Moore’s/others’ excellent critiques). Unfortunately, real academic dialogue is still dulled, therefore, since most of the students on the campus have imagined that the intellectual case against Christian-liberal-commie-ad hominem ad nauseum has in fact been successfully mounted, not to be outdone in charisma. In other words, they still do not have to really engage the real issues, for their thinking has been finally done for them.
Another reason for this response is because many (including a lot of profs) think that pacifism is just another “issue,” much like one’s interpretation of some obscure passage like 2 Thess 2 or one’s millennial position. They find it impossible to imagine that pacifism is either a paradigm, or a relevant issue for Midwest Bible Belt Christians (I have had these things said to my face: “I understand all that pacifist stuff, but what’s this got to do with the people sitting in our churches on Sunday morning?” etc.). Of course, all of this is because unlike most of the world (not to mention most of the “Christian” world), we in America enjoy the luxury of picking and choosing what is and is not relevant for ourselves. In other words, violence and non-violence has little relevance when your country is fighting wars thousands of miles away from your own backyard, your own family, etc. Non-violence is not relevant to us because we don’t have to deal with it personally (and also because if we did we would find that our entire way of life–freedom, democracy, wealth, etc.–has been primarily upheld, and is still being upheld, by violence. To renounce violence as American is to renounce your right to live the way you do).
The second response, primarily from profs who (unfortunately) imagine that they have even begun to engage with pacifist convictions, I take as a personal insult. These people actually think I left the chapel because I could not bear to hear a position other than my own. Never mind the fact that I GO TO OCC, where THERE WOULD NEVER BE ANYTHING ANALOGOUS FOR OUR POSITION TO WHAT TOOK PLACE IN CHAPEL LAST WEEK! Do they actually imagine that after beholding such a blasphemous picture of Jesus, my Lord, with a machine gun–the very same machine gun many of my own brothers and sisters in Palestine have to face EVERY DAY (among many other people, Christian and non-Christian alike)–I would NOT be so offended as to feel physically/spiritually compelled to withdraw myself from such a satanic (in the sense of ultimately distorted) sight? Trust me, it’s not because I cannot stomach your arguments; it’s because I cannot stomach your belligerence.
Sorry for the extremely long response to your simple question, Nicolas. Essentially the answer is: the response on the OCC campus to my (and a few others’) walkout was probably everything you can imagine.
God have mercy us.
November 23, 2009 - 1:36 PM
It is satanic, Jordan. No need to qualify it.
November 23, 2009 - 1:37 PM
@jordan – thank you for the extremely long response. it is a good one. I would have walked out too. and did so many times during chapel at my undergraduate, which was by no means as ridiculous as yours.
November 23, 2009 - 1:39 PM
also @Thom, the Campbell quotes at the end are brilliant.
November 23, 2009 - 2:01 PM
That’s two sermons in the past year at OCC by profs that take cause against pacifism and Mother Teresa. Did anybody preach against Mother Teresa before she was dead?
November 23, 2009 - 2:26 PM
you have to be a heartless bastard to preach against mother teresa.
November 23, 2009 - 3:31 PM
I don’t think Martin Luther King Jr, Mother Teresa, or Alexander Campbell (ok..maybe) would use the immature, snobby and vulgar language you used in this post. Even though you were offended. I am a right leaning Republican who is very concerned about critiquing my views in light of Jesus, and am very open to a lot of what you write, I just wish you wouldn’t use words like B.S. and Pu*** Im not sure Jesus would, and it could lead someone who could learn from your writing to be turned off.
November 23, 2009 - 3:50 PM
P.S., i doubt that you care, but i think it’s important that you be heard. i just wish you would have prayed about what you wrote before you wrote it, not that it was written to me or anything. But keep in mind, some people who aren’t necessarily part of your “group” may be interested in thinking about what you share.
November 23, 2009 - 8:12 PM
I’m so glad I finally have a justified reason to disrespect my professors! I’ve been waiting for that for a while. But I think people walking out over a “satanic” is a major cop out. You can’t tell me you’ve walked out of every church that had a picture of a white, blond haired blue eyed picture of Jesus that’s been made to fit our paradigm. The reason people listen to sermons like the one above and think that they are exegetically sound is because the only people that have anything to say against these sermons can’t say anything without attacking the people that deliver them. You say that the Ozark profs and students just bash pacifism, blah blah blah and then you come here and cry on your website and do the exact same thing. We already get enough of that crap at school. Why do we need more of it from you guys? We just see you pacifists as people who wait for somebody to say something dumb so that you can insult them and make yourselves look better. We already have that. If you want us to see you as something other than just a bunch of punk pacifists kids that want to rage against the machine with the best of them, give us something that we don’t already have.
November 23, 2009 - 8:58 PM
For those of you easily offended, I think the Ozark-safe reply is located here: http://markmoore.org/330/2009/11/lord-sabaoth-addendum-to-sermon.html
November 23, 2009 - 9:31 PM
If you can’t dialogue with another Christian because his vocabulary is different than yours how are you ever going to have anything to say to or hear from the larger world?
November 23, 2009 - 10:15 PM
Connor,
I’m quite amazed how much better you know my own heart than I do. I mean, I thought I was walking out because the first half of the sermon was an affront to the Body of Christ. I thought I was walking out because I could not stay and participate in what was happening with a good conscience. I thought I was walking out because I know real people whose friends and family have been gunned down in the name of the warrior-god ideology the sermon exalted. I thought I was walking out because of an idolatrous image (and contrary to what you have said, a white Jesus does not equal a Rambo Jesus). In short, I thought I was walking out for all the reasons I enumerated above.
But I guess I was wrong. I really walked out of chapel because I love being right, even if that does make me a target on the campus. I really walked out to draw attention to myself. I really walked out because although I had nothing whatsoever to be that offended at, I just felt the need to walk out in front of everyone and thereby create a hundred occasions for me to have to explain myself to those who really want to know, and those like yourself who don’t. And on top of all that, I really commented on this blog not because I was explicitly asked to do so, but because I just couldn’t handle the world not hearing my cries.
You are right about my heart and its inner-motivations, not me. How astounding a gift you have! I will ask God to give me the same.
This weekend I will be sure to tell my country congregation of 40 or so, in the backwoods of central Missouri, that I have become too smart, too educated in the Scriptures for them, and will instead focus my time, energy, prayers, and my life to being more academically astute than everyone else around me.
However, I think they too will be surprised at this unusual display of my “real” motivations in thinking and speaking about the Gospel of Peace. I will be sure to let them know that you were the first to see through my soul, discerning truth from error.
November 23, 2009 - 10:40 PM
i r like the Ozark safe reply. I do speak to the larger world on a regular basis without using vulgar vocabulary (or at least trying not to.
,not because i’m a self-righteous snob,but because I don’t want to compromise things like what Paul says to Timothy “set an example for believers in speech..etc..” or in 2 Cor. 8.7 where he states that the “believers are excelling in speech”. or the Proverb (8.13) that lets the reader to know “to fear the Lord is to hate perverse speech.” We can speak to the larger world in a respectable, civil way, without lashing back out of a desire to be “authentic” because it’s the in thing to do. I’m not trying to be a jerk. I’m just saying.. sometimes wisdom is helpful when writing in a blog. And you are much more aware of that than I am. If you really care about those who might listen.
November 23, 2009 - 10:41 PM
wow..not sure how that “I like” came out i r. sorry .
November 23, 2009 - 10:43 PM
Jordan, I don’t know why you would pray for the gift to see people’s hearts when you already have it. Don’t get mad at me for “knowing” your heart when you started off you reply by saying
“The first response, primarily from the same students who thought themselves at a pep rally for war.”
I only claimed to know the heart of one person where as you know the hearts of the whole crowd! Maybe it is I who should be praying for your gift.
And as for me equating a white Jesus to some Rambo-like deity, well, you made that up. See for yourself. I wrote no such thing. I also never mentioned you as the person that walked out over the picture. One of the people that walked out told me personally that it was the reason that they walked out.
In my response, I simply stated some of the reasons that people that attend Ozark or have heard the sermon have given for not agreeing with the pacifists at Ozark. I am not at all against pacifism or the pacifists at our school. I did not attack you or use sarcasm to address you in my response, yet both of those were used in my response. I was asked questions about this topic that I did not know the answers to, so I came here, to the people who claim non-violence as the answer. While Jesus may not have preached what Bowland preached in Chapel, I doubt he preached that you should run your brothers into the ground when they don’t know all the answers.
November 23, 2009 - 10:47 PM
Jesus called his theological opponents “children of the devil” and a “brood of vipers.”
I’m sure he meant it in a nice way, pally.
November 23, 2009 - 10:48 PM
What I think you fail to realize is that we all are trying to heed our Lord’s words. However, I don’t think calling bullshit theology bullshit is perverse. What is perverse is perverting God into the image of a war-crazed misogynist.
November 23, 2009 - 10:52 PM
Thom is striving to “set an example for the believers in speech…etc.” He is calling out oppressive theology, he is echoing Christ’s passion for nonviolence in that he went to his death nonviolently. Thom is seeking to renew Christian’s minds that have been so perverted by the American lust for blood, and the story America tells of winning by means of war, and freedom by means of violence. That is not perverse or profane.
November 23, 2009 - 11:01 PM
From Herbert Marcuse, An Essay on Liberation (Boston: Beacon, 1969) pp. 7-8:
November 23, 2009 - 11:03 PM
no i do realize that, whether I agree fully or not. I know that both Jesus and paul got ticked and used heated words. I’m not from Ozark, i’m just interested in hearing what all sides say because I believe it’s important. i hated 300 and walked out in the middle of the orgy scene on my female date (who wanted to see it
i’m just bothered by the level of harshness toward an individual that seems to be displayed…my job requires me to listen to people cuss at me on a daily basis… i just wish I could see something different among Christians..or then maybe you don’t consider these professors who don’t agree w/ your perspective Christians.. maybe I’m just guilty of wishful thinking. .
November 23, 2009 - 11:09 PM
If some Christians can’t engage my substantive arguments because they think I’m being obscene, then they have an obscene (bourgeois) definition of obscenity.
And that is precisely why I use language they think is obscene. I’m not just saying. I’m displaying.
Jesus and Paul did not insult their opponents because “things got heated.” They insulted their opponents because they felt their opponents deserved to be insulted. Don’t water it down.
November 23, 2009 - 11:26 PM
Connor,
I guess I felt singled out since 1) I was one of the three who walked out, and the only who commented on this blog and 2) you specifically mentioned the “satanic” thing as being a cop out.
I guess I also felt like you equated the Rambo-Jesus with the white one, because while the Rambo-Jesus is what I labeled “satanic,” you proceeded to say that that was a “cop out” because myself (or whoever else you were talking about) probably didn’t walk out every time we saw a “white, blond haired blue eyed Jesus.” It sounded to me like you were accusing of me of inconsistency because while I will indeed walk out of a worship service that throws Rambo-Jesus up on the screen, I would not necessarily walk out of a church that had white Jesus on its wall. Sounded like an equation to me, but I may be reading it wrong.
In addition, I did in fact feel your comment was sarcastic (which I am alright with), and I read it to 3 other people who thought the same. Hence, I figured you could take it just as well as you dished it out. However, if you were not intending to be sarcastic, then I retract my sarcasm (however not my point).
As most of the people who actually talked to me face to face about the incident can verify (about 10-20 or so), you can always feel free to talk with me personally about my convictions, be it academic or occasional.
November 23, 2009 - 11:41 PM
@Anthony: also, what basis do you have for rejecting certain words as perverse?
Is it because they offend some people who have been brought up to think those certain words are perverse out of some contrived Victorian sense of propriety?
The pledge of allegiance and the national anthem are offensive to me and millions of others worldwide. Do you believe that Christians should should stop saying those words because they offend some people?
November 24, 2009 - 6:44 AM
Poor Queen Victoria, she gets the blame for so much.
OK, so, out of the hypothetical . . . would you refuse the sacraments (baptism and/or eucharist) from a believer who, having heard and read all sides, is nevertheless still serves as a police officer? A member of the National Guard? A Marine?
If “refuse the sacraments” isn’t the right language, think of something synonymous with “I refuse to acknowledge that you are a Christian brother or sister.”
November 24, 2009 - 8:44 AM
Mother Teresa (there’s no “h” in her spelling of it….sorry, pet peeve of mine when people misspell her name) is one of my heroes. Ironically, I did a paper on her for my “evangelist bio” paper in Personal Evangelism with TB. I guess he may have thought that was a poor choice. Bummer to her she’s got a worse rep these days than King Leonidas. “300″ was one of the few movies I have felt guilty for watching….one of the others being “Fight Club”…oh, and “The Departed”.
I’d better get out of here before I’m spotted.
November 24, 2009 - 9:41 AM
@tom – is this question directed at me?
November 24, 2009 - 11:06 AM
Nah, it’s just generic. Like my corn flakes.
November 24, 2009 - 11:24 AM
sacraments are efficacious regardless of the priest’s sanctity.
I might say that someone is not living as Christianly as possible, but there is no time that I would refuse to acknowledge someone as a Christian brother and sister.
November 24, 2009 - 11:51 AM
TommyJoe,
For me, this post isn’t even about pacifism or police officers or any of that stuff. For me, it’s about jingoism, machismo and misogynism, as well as irresponsible hermeneutics and witness.
As indicated in my post, I am happy just to hold Bowland to the basic criteria of just-war theory.
November 24, 2009 - 11:59 AM
Thanks, Mike, for the correction. And the comments.
November 24, 2009 - 12:35 PM
Now you (plural) made me smile.
Of course you recognize “coarse” speech, and – yes – of course it is based on cultural norms.
So what else is new?
The responses, as you all surely know, confuse offensive ideas (and, yes, there are a lot of those out there) with vulgar words. Two different things. I can affirm a good idea with vulgarity, or promote an offensive one with polite and civil language.
Of the two, by the way, I’d take the first. But, it’s a false dichotomy. “Pledge” is not a vulgarity in American English. “Shit” is. The first could be part of a sentence encouraging violence against the innocent and the second could be a description of a needed bodily function. But the ugliness of ideas carried by words used to discount the existence of vulgarities is a confusion of categories.
There is value in using vulgarities, of course. Peppering a blog with needless (since anything can be said as well with other words) vulgarity is certainly setting forth the “Hey-I’m-a-cutting-edge-non-evangelical” flavor we’ve all come to expect. Of course, there also is the shock value. That’s always a plus. And then there’s the “don’t-be-a-legalist” retort for anyone who might suggest civil language is important in the promotion of peacemaking among peoples – particularly among those with differing ideas.
Yeah, there’s the “Jesus got mad” answer (belongs right up there with the anti-pacifist “OK, but what about Hitler?” cliche-response). And “Paul used the poopy word.” Yep, but not every other page. And, anyway, there are no less than six ways to describe feces and, last time I checked, American English normally only considered one of those a top-level vulgarity (a couple of others might get honorable mention).
I remember my first summer at Boy Scout camp. I was so excited. I had learned how to cuss. I got it down, too. It felt good to use them. But, then again, I was twelve years old.
No such thing as vulgarities? Hmm. OK. Then promise me, really promise me, you’ll use exactly the same language in church (for those who still participate in one of those). And, for thanksgiving, go ahead and drop a few of them on dear old grannie. Yep, let ‘em fly.
Be consistent. Prove your thoughtful and value-drive rejection of Victorian prudish mores and bourgeoisie middle-class Republican Leave-it-to-Beaver American distortions by the dexterity of your employment to choice colloquialism. So, please, teach them to your kids. Share with with your family. Let’s add them to our worship songs. Won’t that be fun.
Yes, there are ideas and justifications for wickedness couched in polite words that are obscene. No need to remind me of that.
And, of course, vulgarities are not nearly as harmful as other uses of language. That is absolutely true. Shouting our “damn” when you bust your finger does hurt anyway. Not like, say, personal attacks and insults. Like maybe attacking a man’s sexuality, for example. Something like that would be like a good hard verbal slap across the face. Hope it gets a laugh from the fans. And, no one would mind if it hurt the old professor (surely, no longer a brother). After all, he said stuff you found offensive. He deserves it.
Sticks and stones? Trust me, the wounds caused by our words can make a slap on the face seem like an act of Christlike compassion.
Anyway, the good Lord knows I don’t hear nearly enough angry people assaulting others with abusive language and personal attacks these days, not since I swore off Fox News.
Seriously, use vulgarities if you want. I’ve heard and said worse. But, I never thought they expressed some altruistic agenda that wrapped them in a kind of grand nobility.
Of course, if you actually wanted any of these thoughts to be seriously heard by those not already in agreement, it is, frankly, a self-defeating strategy of vocabulary.
That these issues need a forum for civil discourse is obvious. That it will ever be here is not.
November 24, 2009 - 12:40 PM
@tom – I’m episcopalian, I do use the same language at church. Also, so does my grandma at thanksgiving.
November 24, 2009 - 12:42 PM
Tom,
Your last comment is very clever. It has some rhetorical value.
But it’s not going to fly. If you’d like me to give it a serious response, these are the magic words: “just fuckin’ do it!”
Say the magic words and I’ll take your comment seriously.
November 24, 2009 - 12:58 PM
No magic words.
No, I did not expect a serious response.
November 24, 2009 - 1:02 PM
Then why the patronizing crap?
I was already planning to write a post on the issue of vulgarity and obscenity. I will write that post, after which, no comments about why Thom shouldn’t use Thom’s ordinary language on his own blog will be allowed. I will respond once and for all to such nonsense. Then that will be it. I’m not going to allow my substantive posts to be hijacked by prudes who are “looking out for Thom’s best interests.”
Not that you’re a prude, Tom. Just sort of prude-ish.
November 24, 2009 - 1:19 PM
Oh. And as for the question of whether I teach my child to cuss–the answer is hells yeah. She says “son of a bitch” like a pro, but “shit” is still pronounced “tish.” We’re working on that.
I’m not raising my daughter to be a class-snob. We embrace the common language in this house.
November 24, 2009 - 3:13 PM
Thanks for letting me post. I look forward to a post on obscenity. It appears you have a just war theory of language and use it in a very combative way (which is fine, because I understand that non-violence isn’t = to non-combative.” Class snob or whatever, I have atheist and agnostic friends who don’t devalue what I have to say because I think there’s a biblcial injunction to express “holiness” in our speech to honor Jesus.
November 24, 2009 - 3:16 PM
I got so shook up, i gave an inaccurate e-mail address.. take that Lil out of Flo and it will be right. P.S. I don’t mean to come across as attacking you, I don’t know you and you don’t know me, and I’m fully aware of the fact that you will speak as you want to speak. It’s YOUR blog. I’m just wanting to remind that we will be held accountable for our words.
November 24, 2009 - 3:17 PM
That’s precisely what I’m reminding Terrry Bowland and OCC.
November 24, 2009 - 3:21 PM
And I think my speech is very Jesus honoring.
November 24, 2009 - 3:32 PM
Connor, your original response to this post was as bellicose as that of anyone else. I am confounded that you would become so defensive at someone’s cantankerous banter, when yours did nothing to attenuate the tension of the discussion. As if all ought to accept your belligerence with alacrity, but we should watch our mouths when responding. Don’t act like you came on here, all innocent you, just looking for someone to answer your questions, and then Jordan came down on you uncalled for. I know that you’re better than that.
November 24, 2009 - 3:34 PM
Alex, Connor and I just had a telephone conversation a little earlier. It was a good conversation. His original comment may have been bellicose, but I think he is genuinely asking questions.
November 24, 2009 - 3:36 PM
BTW, Alex, I love you.
November 24, 2009 - 3:45 PM
Anthony,
I don’t take personal offense. I know you’re sincere and I’m not calling you a classist.
November 24, 2009 - 4:14 PM
Thanks. BTW I don’t like how women are often stereotyped in sermons, I’m an ordained preacher in exile working at AAA, and i take very seriously the way we speak and the illustrations we use and the responsibility we have to respect and acknowledge everyone who hears our message and I believe people who preach need to be reminded. And even though i’m a republican and “captialist pig”
I’ve found myself walking out of a church service that seemed more like a nationalist celebration of worship to America than a gathering of Jesus people…but man, I wish you
weren’t cool with your daughter cussing. But to each his own, you probably wish i would just shut my mouth and not mention that. I am serious in asking questions, (even though I may be coming to the discussion with my own preconceptions) I want to know the biblical justification for what appears to be a “just war theory” of language/profanity for nonviolent Christians or pacifists or whatever you prefer to consider yourself (intent is not to disrespect you with label) because I have a genuine interest in speech ethics for Christians, that’s not based out of self-righteousness, at least I don’t want it to be, but to glorify Jesus. What we say and write does have an effect on the hearer, and can flood out the good points that people who may not be in agreement on certain things need to hear. Unless the message is only intended to be heard by those who are in agreement.
November 24, 2009 - 4:34 PM
This discussion about profanity ends now. Comments having to do with Bowland’s sermon and my response to it are encouraged. How I raise my daughter and what kind of language I choose to use are not the subject of this post.
November 25, 2009 - 1:24 AM
@Anthony
Man you’re totally right how often men and women are stereotyped into particular categories… Oh it is good, that from the pulpit we as men tell women how they should live and behave as if from our own experiences. Ha! Yet I am thinking over this, and I know that I have maybe done this a little or maybe a lot. Given the few minutes I’ve been stewing this in my mind, I feel that I have probably done this quite a lot. Sad isn’t it, how often we don’t even realize how deeply our worldviews have been shaped by forces outside ourselves that we don’t even recognize how our everyday lives have been shaped, men and women… sad.
November 25, 2009 - 3:32 AM
Thom, I randomly follow your blog and fb posts and am pleased to have read this one. You have an interesting school where people ‘preach’ things like this sermon, by the way. I have spent a lot of time in the military and currently work in law enforcement, but am slowly realizing the world you seem to inhabit of non violence. I have an honest question: Can a person be a Christian and stay in a career such as mine? I don’t agree with the views of your preacher friend, but is there a place for a cop who is a follower of Christ? I value your opinion!
November 25, 2009 - 9:51 AM
Hey, Joe!
Let me clarify this: Terry Bowland is a professor at Ozark Christian College, my former undergraduate school.
I am no longer at Ozark. I am a graduate student at Emmanuel School of Religion, where a message like this one would never be given by any professor here.
I just need to clarify this.
As for being a Christian police officer, a while ago I wrote a series of posts on the early Christians and their views on nonviolence. Before about the time of Constantine, all of the Christian theologians and the vast majority of Christians were pacifists, but many Christians remained in the Roman army after conversion. They did this usually if they could find a position (administrative or otherwise) where shedding someone’s blood wouldn’t be necessary. That was their solution. They took this very seriously. If a Christian soldier shed another’s blood, they would have to go through a three year period of penance where they couldn’t partake of the sacraments. That speaks volumes for how seriously they took the teaching of Jesus.
I’m not going to presume to tell you what to do now. My primary encouragement to you would be not to fight somebody else’s battles. If you can find a position in law enforcement where the police are actually spending more time than not helping the poor, rather than hunting them down, more power to you. Such positions, I imagine, are few and far between in a country like ours. But the principal principle here is justice.
November 25, 2009 - 10:10 AM
Sorry. I forgot to give you the link to the series: here it is.
Another way I would frame the tension is like this: moral reasoning isn’t done in a vacuum but always takes place from a particular perspective. Jesus of Nazareth did his moral reasoning from the vantage point of the oppressed peasant classes–those who were dominated by imperial forces. Jesus represented those who were occupied by a foreign, invading army who installed sympathetic people in positions of power (king and high priesthood). That’s where Jesus was doing his moral reasoning from. (Paul as well, if you’ll read my essay on Romans 13 under the essays above.)
People like Terry Bowland do their moral reasoning from the vantage point of empire. For that very reason, their moral reasoning can never be genuinely “Christian.” It has a completely different set of assumptions. Bowland reasons like Caesar. Jesus reasons more like somebody who grew up in Iraq or Afghanistan.
That’s important, especially for Christians who have been soldiers, to see. Being a Christian involves a conscious decision to take sides with the oppressed and stand in solidarity with them.
I would also commend you to the blog of Michael Westmoreland-White, who is himself a former U.S. soldier turned practitioner of gospel nonviolence. He has recently been doing a series on biblical nonviolence from which you might benefit. His website is: http://www.levellers.wordpress.com
And for the idea of reasoning from the perspective of the marginalized, I’d commend you to read Doing Christian Ethics from the Margins by Miguel De La Torre.
November 26, 2009 - 12:03 AM
That might be the most beneficial thing said about this whole situation. Thanks for that, Thom.
- L
November 26, 2009 - 11:53 AM
Jordan: I am without regular access to the internet and have thus been delayed in reading your response. Thank you for informing me of the current climate at OCC. Your desire to follow Jesus as authentically and fully as possible is admirable, thank you.
November 26, 2009 - 6:37 PM
Here is a question for those who think men need more role models: who would you rather be like Mother Teresa or t. Bowland? That should solve that!
I sure hope that the following sermons on peace by spike and welch will speak truth into this situation. I will listen expectantly and hope they preach courageously. The church needs it’s servants to follow the way of Jesus, and it’s servants need their professors to help them know what that means, regardless of the personal cost.
November 30, 2009 - 1:14 PM
Did he seriously show that picture? And people cheered? Yikes. (I know it’s a small detail, but I’ve used that picture as a joke many times and even non-pacifist Christians shudder in embarrassment, so I was just wondering.)
November 30, 2009 - 1:24 PM
That exact picture, and you can hear the cheers on the recording.
November 30, 2009 - 1:25 PM
A student told me his justification for it (given later in a class) was that he was modernizing the sword Jesus wields in Revelation. No need to comment on the exegetical legitimacy of that.
November 30, 2009 - 2:10 PM
I just stumbled upon this blog and subsequent entry. Excellent work and dialogue. I’d like to add two experiences I’ve had with this very subject.
First, I agree with the idea of a censure of this particular person and not solely based on this occasion. In my time at OCC I was once subject to this professor’s “chortle” because I dared question his use of Romans 13 to support the previous administration’s glaring practice of unethical tactics abroad, specifically in Iraq. I felt like my part of the exchange was civil and, if I may be so bold, scholarly in nature. His was…well…not. I’m not one to hold grudges, but holding people in leadership accountable is a different story.
I have a ex-student of mine who is now attending OCC. You should know a couple of things about this student. This student is a she. She is not from the middle of America; she is from the NE and born of a Biblically conservative, yet politically non-involved family. She is also one of the most intelligent people I have ever met. She has loved her time there at Ozark so far, but she is absolutely horrified at the environment of misogyny that is propagated in various forms. This in turn horrifies me.
There needs to be something done there at Ozark to curb this trend. And more than letting women serve as trustees (although I’m not opposed!). It is a systematic issue that needs to be addressed as it seems that Ozark is going backward instead of forward here.
November 30, 2009 - 2:21 PM
Joshua,
Thanks for your great comments.
Yes, Bowland’s “exegesis” of Romans 13 is about as dangerous and uninformed as exegesis can get. Even a surface reading of the text doesn’t come close to legitimating illegal wars of aggression like the U.S. war in Iraq, let alone Christian participation in such wars! But I have argued that a simple surface reading of Romans 13 is not adequate to account for the data.
As for the misogyny in the institution, that is a serious problem that does real damage to real human beings, like your friend from the Northeast. I feel for her, and she should know that there are people at OCC (some of them commenters on this very thread) that do not share the institution’s misogynistic assumptions and attitudes. She will find friends in them.
But I agree that something needs to be done about it at an institutional level. And you’re right that not allowing female trustees is just the tip of the iceberg. Before they got rid of the pulpit altogether and replaced it with a lectern, it used to be the case that whenever a woman would “teach” (not preach) in chapel, they would remove the pulpit and replace it with a lectern, to make it clear that it was a woman now speaking, and she had less authority.
Damien Spikereit has finally integrated the homiletics class, so I hear, so that is a good step. But OCC has a long way to go.
These two issues, jingoism and misogynism, which are so destructive in the world, are good examples of the reason I come down so harshly, and use such jarring language, and pull no punches in my public criticisms of OCC. I love the school, but it exists in a state of pervasive sinfulness, and perpetuates structures that marginalize human beings and create more orphans and widows than OCC missionaries could even think about caring for!
November 30, 2009 - 7:12 PM
Reminds me of something else I once read:
I’m not saying… but it is a bit worrying. The history of “Muscular Christianity,” as it has been called, is indeed scary in the worst ways.
Btw, I don’t know what “jingoism” is. Sorry if everyone else does.
November 30, 2009 - 7:22 PM
Nice Hitler quote.
Don’t know what jingoism means?
CTRL+T, dictionary.com
November 30, 2009 - 7:23 PM
jin·go·ism (jĭng’gō-ĭz’əm)
n. Extreme nationalism characterized especially by a belligerent foreign policy; chauvinistic patriotism.
November 30, 2009 - 8:43 PM
Also, this was the end of my post:
“Moreover, the most quoted line of Braveheart is this: “They can take our lives, but they’ll never take our FREEDOM!” Think about that. In the midst of battle, William Wallace breaks down his former ideology and repents. He says essentially, “The greatest thing we can do today is not to kill, but to die.” That is the call of Christ. That is true freedom – to actually believe that Jesus is alive and that resurrection happens and will happen for everyone who believes, first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. I would like to remind everyone that Braveheart does not end with killing, but with dying. The greatest thing William Wallace ever did for his people was to expose the injustice of his oppressors by being tortured, castrated right in front of everyone, and beheaded. William Wallace, in the end, repented of war and took up the standard of pacifism. And for that, I consider him a peacemaker.”
- L
November 30, 2009 - 8:45 PM
@lancelot – beautiful.
November 30, 2009 - 8:47 PM
That’s one way of looking at it, Lancelot, but I’m not sure that’s what the message of Braveheart was. After all, after they beheaded him, what it inspired his people to do is to fight some more. He wasn’t a nonviolent martyr. He was a martyr of war, and his death galvanized the warriors to do more violence to their enemies. If anything, Wallace’s death underscores the difference between him and Jesus all the more. Wallace’s martyrdom for “freedom” is a sort of perversion of the cross.
November 30, 2009 - 8:49 PM
Sorry, Lancelot, and Matthew, that I am obliged to disagree.
November 30, 2009 - 8:52 PM
@thom – i don’t disagree with you. But I still think what Lancelot said is beautiful, even if it’s not true.
November 30, 2009 - 8:55 PM
I forgot you were an Episcopelian. My bad.
November 30, 2009 - 8:58 PM
Okay, that’s fair – at least to say that he wasn’t a pacifist. But it did expose something within his own paradigm, and I stand by what I said -
Regardless of his paradigm, his greatest weapon was still his death, not his sword-bearing life. You’re right in saying that he was a martyr of war, but his martyrdom itself subverts, at least in part, the entire ideology of killing. He took up a standard, and that standard was faithful death.
Am I commending him? By no means. I simply point out that the best part of that movie was when he breathed his last – when his death at the hands of the empire, not the death of others by his hand, did something. Pacifist? No, it is a perversion, you’re right. But it remains the greatest thing he did, and still subverts his message, at least in part.
- L
November 30, 2009 - 9:00 PM
Boom. You’re right. That was the best part of the movie.
December 1, 2009 - 12:12 PM
An important voice to this whole conversation is Damien Spikereit’s sermon in today’s chapel…it truly was a fantastic and well put together response to the previous sermon that has caused such a firestorm (complete with an apologia for Mother Theresa and even a picture of Jesus not holding a gun but giving a peace sign). It was done in the Spirit of Romans 12:14-21, which was read by his wife right before the sermon. While we all (at OCC and all over America) have a long way to go on this issue, Damien’s sermon truly was a welcome addition to the conversation that left me (and other pacifists) feeling like a voice of peace was heralding a response in the Spirit that characterizes our non-violent stance. Get it as soon as it is up…
December 1, 2009 - 12:45 PM
Thanks, Shane. That’s good to hear.
December 1, 2009 - 12:48 PM
I fell for the Hitler quote. I had it pegged as Mark Driscoll.
December 1, 2009 - 1:03 PM
buuurn
December 3, 2009 - 4:00 PM
I second this.
[mccracken]
December 3, 2009 - 10:57 PM
“If our enemy had his way, he would see every man in this assembly emasculated, humiliated. If our enemy had his way, he would see every woman here raped, beaten and sold into slavery. If our enemy had his way, he would have every child sodomized, brutalized, violated again, and again, and again.”
Thom, I assume the quote was from this Bowland character…sorry, couldn’t stand to listen to the recording for longer than…okay I didn’t even try. I am drawn to think about the wars in the ancient world, as well as the different groups fighting them (Assyrians, Babylonians, et al.). It seems (even through surface readings of ancient history) that these (as in, the pleasant images given by the bowland character) were common practices practiced by the victors. Perhaps not all of them, we can hope, but my point is this, I don’t recall “our enemy” as receiving credit for these kinds of things. Again, it seemed that Yahweh was proctor of these ancient ‘mishaps’ to poor Israel (me thinks of the babologna captivity: As a side note, I did enjoy your post on salvation, esp. where the captivity period was mentioned…interesting discussion). Care to comment?
By the way, quit cussing on your blog, you asshole.
December 20, 2009 - 11:25 PM
Hey so there were actually 4 students who walked out. just saying. haha But i like the respone it points out pretty much everything that was wrong with that sermon. The only issue i have though is that i feel like if your gonna write a rebuke to someone you should make sure it is all based out of love and not anger. I could be wrong but it seems like this response is coarsing with emotions and the majority of it being anger. Otherwise keep doing what your doing.
December 20, 2009 - 11:38 PM
Nathan Schulz,
You’re mistaken that my response was an emotional reaction. I thought about it for five days before writing anything down, sort of like Jesus slept on it before attacking the temple.
But you’re right that there is anger, as there should be.
December 23, 2009 - 1:16 AM
Thanks for sharing the comments. I don’t know Terry Bowland but if your depiction of his message is remotely fair, he sounds like someone empowered by the arrogance of ignorance. It is sad that such anti-Christian garbage can be proclaimed at a Christian College without someone who knows what he or she is talking about having equal time. So sad that many in the Stone-Campbell tradition have so completely lost their way, conforming to the pride and violence of this world rather than being conformed to Christ as scripture bears witness to him. Folks like Bowland -as you have described him- tend to claim to stand within the just war tradition but in fact they are simply clueless about the real content of that tradition, to say nothing of their failure to grasp biblical pacifism, grounded as it is in the cross. Those who try to blow off nonviolent Christian discipleship as “liberal” are really counterfeit conservatives who have no serious interest in conserving the way of Jesus. If you are interested, I can send you a couple essays I’ve written on just war, one published in Encounter last year and other that will appear in the next issue. Considering your interest in biblical peaceableness and the problem of nationalism, you might find of some interest some of the essays here: http://www.disciplespeaceharbinger.com/ Keep your passion for true discipleship alive!
December 23, 2009 - 4:37 AM
Craig,
Honored to have you on my blog. I’d love to read what you’ve written on just war. I’ve read your book on Campbell and I read an essay you did on the history of pacifism in the Stone-Campbell tradition, which Chris Smith sent me.
Fortunately, a week after Terry Bowland preached, professor Damien Spikereit preached on peace, and responded quite directly to some of the things Bowland said. OCC is not without faithful Stone-Campbell representation, but the majority seems to tow the conservative Evangelical party line.
Thanks for your comments; they are on point. And thanks for the link to your website. I will be sharing that around. Some valuable resources there!
December 29, 2009 - 5:28 PM
Wow, I am disgusted and ashamed that this sermon was preached at Ozark.
Your response was very appropriate and much appreciated.
December 30, 2009 - 1:40 PM
Good to hear, Michael. Thanks for commenting.
December 31, 2009 - 6:24 PM
Hey Thom i get that, there definately should be anger but bashing Bowland as a person really makes us no better than him. hes still a good guy even though he is definately off in his views. But that doesnt mean we should attack his person. If anything we need to continue to show him love and pray that he will see why he is wrong. That is the only way that he can be changed.
December 31, 2009 - 6:34 PM
What “we” should do does not concern me. I have displayed why I did what I should do, here: http://thomstark.net/?p=769
January 1, 2010 - 4:03 PM
i think you misunderstood me. i dont care about cussing, i just care about loving people and if thats not what your doing here then i just dont get it. Doesn’t Bowland deserve the same love as the innocent children in Iraq.
January 1, 2010 - 4:08 PM
If Bowland were hungry, he should be fed. Were he thirsty, he should be offered drink. If he had no shelter, he should be welcomed into our homes.
If he’s spouting dangerous, misogynistic, jingoistic theology, then he should be called on it.
What’s to understand?
January 1, 2010 - 4:32 PM
I don’t just address cussing in that post, Nathan. Or didn’t you read it? I tell you why I insulted Bowland, and why that’s a perfectly Christian thing to do.
Ditto Ira.
January 2, 2010 - 3:18 AM
Well i apoligize, i definately did not read through the whole post and now that i have gone over it fully i understand where your coming from. Thanks for the insight.
January 2, 2010 - 4:39 AM
No need for apologies, Nathan. I appreciate you giving it a full read! It saved me having to write it all over again.
I know people will continue to disagree with me, but that’s all right.
Anyway, thanks for your presence and for your genuine concern.
Grace and peace.