Free Community Church

I have three cousins who are about my age – a guy names Volker, his sister Petra and my other cousin Birgit. When we were children, we were very close.

My grandparents lived with us, so there were several occasions during the year that they visited us: Easter, Christmas, our grandfather’s birthday on 7 November, our grandmother’s birthday on 21 October. After the shared meal we would go to the basement and play ‘Enterprise’ (I was Mr Spock). Or we would sit in a dark corner in my grandparents’ hallway and take turns telling each other ghost stories. And we made great plans – one of them was to save all our pocket money and buy a blimp, an airship, so we could fly away. In other words: We were very close.

Many years later. Both my grandparents are dead now. My cousins and I hardly meet anymore. Then, last April, we sent them an invitation for our wedding. On that day, they were all there: My aunts and uncles, Volker and Birgit. Only Petra, an evangelical Christian, was missing. After the ceremony, as people walked past us in a long row in order to congratulate, my aunt stood in front of me, crying. Through her sobs, she said: “Petra did not come. She thinks what you’re doing is wrong. I am very very sorry.”

Today we continue to look at our FCC community life principles. The principle we are looking at today goes like this:

'We believe that the fallen-ness of humanity is ever able to corrupt and destroy any human activity especially, the spiritual endeavor. For this reason the value of every human belief and practice, whether of an individual or a community, should be constantly evaluated against its contribution to the preservation and growth of wholesome selfhood, community, justice, peace and love.'

Clarence, always one for coining a catchy phrase, summarized it as:

Beware of the seduction of religious evil.

Wow. Which reminds me of a message I once gave, called ‘Beware of certainty – in praise of Thomas’. Both are related, as you will see.

First of all, let’s look at evil. Quite hard to define.

Evil is, on one level, a cultural construct. The Easter Islanders believed that stealing, if successful, was virtuous. This was probably a social mechanism for redistributing scarce items on a small island. So some ‘small’ evils are debatable and very much depend on the kind of society we live in and the boundaries it has set itself in order to function smoothly.

However some ‘big’ evils - war, genocide, and terrorism, to name a few - are instantly recognizable as such. The issue of why an omniscient, all-powerful God would permit such horrors is one of the most difficult (and obvious) religious questions.

And when you look at these examples – war, genocide, terrorism – it’s scary how many are actually carried out IN THE NAME OF GOD.

- In Germany, in the 1930’s and 40’s, Nazis – calling themselves ‘Deutsche
Christen’, German Christians - tried to take over the churches in Germany and give Hitler a religious justification for the genocide committed on the jews. 6 million jews and gypsies and gays killed – in the name of God.

- The people’s temple
Under Jim Jones
The group lived with their leader in a compound in Jonestown, in the jungle of Guyana. On Nov 18, 1978, US Congressman Ryan arrives for a personal inspection. While Ryan and the others are waiting at the local airstrip, some heavily armed members of the Temple's security guards arrive and start shooting. Congressman Ryan and four others are killed. Fearing retribution, the project members reach a consensus to commit group suicide. 914 die: 638 adults and 276 children. Most appear to have committed suicide by drinking a grape drink laced with cyanide and a number of sedatives. Other victims appear to have been murdered. 914 dead – in the name of God.

- The Branch Davidians
Under David Koresh
On April 19, 1993 the FBI invades their Mount Carmel compound in Waco, Texas, after a 51 day siege. A fire breaks out which kills 85 Brand Davidians – seventeen of the victims children under the age of 12. 85 dead – in the name of God (and law and order).

- On 20th March 1995, at the height of the morning rush hour, members of the
Aum Shinrikyo terrorist group release sarin gas into the underground train network in Tokyo, exposing around 5,000 people to deadly fumes. 12 people die and over 3,000 are injured, many of who are still suffering from the after-effects including brain damage, breathing problems and depression. 12 dead, 3,000 injured – in the name of God.

- On September 11, 2001, muslim extremists fly two airliners into the World Trade Centre in New York, one into the Pentagon, one crashes in Pennsylvania. 2752 die in the twin towers, 189 in the pentagon, 44 in Pennsylvania plus 19 hijackers. 3004 dead – in the name of God.

There is so much evil done in the name of religion, that in a Google search for the words ‘religious evil’, the first top two hits are for pages that claim that religion itself is evil. No wonder.

In his 2002 book, "When Religion Becomes Evil", Charles Kimball says that every religion has the capacity to work for either good or evil. And he finds that there are five warning signs that we can recognise when religion moves towards evil.

1. Whenever a religion emphasizes that it holds the absolute truth - the one path to God or the only correct way of reading a sacred text - to the exclusion of the truth claims of all other religions and cultures, that religion is becoming evil.

How common is this? How many Christian churches do you know, here in Singapore, that claim to hold the only correct way of reading the Bible, literally, to the exclusion of all other Christian churches, including ours, never mind other religions?

One of many many examples is a theory or belief prevelant among the hardest core of the Religious Right in the USA who embrace "reconstructionism," which advocates imposing a radically fundamentalist interpretation of "Biblical law" onto American society. On the September 4, 1998 Armstrong Williams talk show, Colorado talk-radio personality Bob Enyard called for the death penalty for gays and adulterers. Last year, a Christian radio talk-show host in Costa Mesa, California said, "Lesbian love, sodomy are viewed by God as being detestable and abominable. Civil magistrates are to put people to death who practice these things." The announcer urged listeners to contact legislators and ask that they enact capital punishment for homosexuality. The station manager called the program "an honest dialogue concerning Christian beliefs." Congressional candidate Randall Terry, former head of Operation Rescue, extends this view of "Biblical law" to include "Biblical slavery" and capital punishment for rebellious teenagers.

We find similarly extreme views in Islam and Judaism.

I guess all of them have never heard of the little card that Bill Bernbach, the founding father of modern advertising, used to carry in his breast
pocket:

"He could be right."

2. Blind obedience to religious leaders

Which is worse – not being allowed to marry or being told whom you have to marry? Within the Unification Church of the Korean Sun Myung Moon mass weddings are conducted – Rev. Moon and his leadership select the fitting grooms and brides and neither of them have a choice whether they want to get married or not.

It’s scary and all warning signs should go off when a religious group puts itself into a black-or-white opposite to the rest of mankind. ‘You’re either with us or against us.” “You’re either a believer or a follower of satan.”
“You follow God our way or you are an infidel who must be killed.” The group takes over your whole life, your work, your family, they invade your house to check whether you have any idols or tempting materials at home, they call and visit when you miss church. And it’s only logical – once you have signed up to the belief that your group has the only truth, everybody else is wrong and must be fought or – at best – avoided.

Authoritarian religious leaders like Sun Myung Moon, the late L. Ron Hubbard, the late David Berg, Osama bin Laden – they claim absolute authority and demand blind obedience. Another warning sign.

3. Apocalyptic belief that the end time will occur through a particular religion

It’s amazing to see how many religious groups believe that these are the end times, and that they will play a role in it. I guess it’s an attractive promise to say that if you follow me, you will be one of the chosen few who will taken away in the rapture and not left behind.

4. The use of malevolent ends to achieve religious goals

Many of these groups and religions seem to subscribe to the doctrine that the end justifies the means. The end can be the good of the group (since they are the chosen people) which justifies breaking the laws of the world (since the world is in the hand of satan anyway). The end can also sometimes be the good of the group’s leader – be it diamond encrusted watches and a number of Rolls Royce cars for the late Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (later Osho) or girlfriends for the late David Berg, aka Moses David, of the Children of God.

5. The declaration of holy war

The crusades were a holy war. Some Nazi Christians believed they were in a holy war against the Jews. Osama bin Laden has declared a holy war on the USA and its western allies. George W Bush has replied with a ‘crusade’
against the terrorists and those who help them and those who harbour them and those who seem to be in connection with them, proven or not.

Charles Kimball does not leave us with all the bad news. He summarises:

“Religion can resist becoming evil by practicing an inclusiveness that allows each tradition to retain its distinctiveness while it works for the common good.”

Which is surprisingly close to our community life principle:

These are our words. When we look at the word of God, the Bible, ‘religious evil’ has been predicted many times – it was as prevalent then as it is now.
Just that the Bible doesn’t call it ‘religious evil’. It calls it ‘false prophets’. There are many many warnings about those in the Bible – if we only look at the new testament, it says:

Matthew 7:15 - [ A Tree and Its Fruit ] "Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. Matthew 24:11 - and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Matthew 24:24 - For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect, if that were possible. Mark 13:22 - For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform signs and miracles to deceive the elect,if that were possible. Luke 6:26 - Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for that is how their fathers treated the false prophets.

2 Peter 2:1 - [ False Teachers and Their Destruction ] But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them, bringing swift destruction on themselves.

1 John 4:1 - [ Test the Spirits ] Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.?

So how can we recognize religious evil in our world?

We can use the five warning signs and see if any one of them fits. And we can turn to Matthew and use a simple test to see if they are evil or good:

Matthew 7:15-17
A Tree and Its Fruit
15 "Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16 By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.

We can and should apply this test and look at the fruits not just when it comes to cults and extreme religious groups. Our established churches also run the danger of falling into the same trap, being seduced by religious evil.

Last Christmas, on boxing day, one of my younger cousins invited us all to her house, for a cousin get together, just like in the good old days.
Everybody came and brought their children, too. Petra was there – and interacted with us as if nothing had happened. So we played along. Did not challenge or question her. It was a nice afternoon. The kids played in the snow and we ate too much cake.

We are to recognise them by their fruits. And to speak up and stand up for the greater good when we see evil being done. We are to counterbalance closed-mindedness with openness, judgement with acceptance, pain with healing, aggression with understanding.

For there will come a time when we have to step forward – my cousin Petra, you and me, and we will be asked:

“What have you done to my children?”

Let us pray:

Lord,

We are insecure. We need guidance. Strong leaders. Being told what to do and what to believe. So much easier than making up our own mind. So cosy and warm if it’s us against them. So superiour to know we’re right and they are wrong.

But you told us that a closed mind will not bear good fruit. That the others are your children, too. That we should not just respect and tolerate them – we should love them. The hatemongers. The terrorists. The killers.

We need your strength, Lord, for this impossible, this super-human task.
Left to our own resources, we’ll fail. But with the knowledge of your power and your kingdom and your plan for us – we can stand and shine.

Let it be the reflection of your love that makes us shine, Lord. Amen.