Though this blog post is (correctly) filed under Christian Extremism, it makes me incredibly angry and sad.

U.S. citizens have donated less money to Japan so far than they did to either Haiti or Louisiana over the same time frame. While there are many possible explanations, it appears that these three disasters have at least one thing in common: many people seem to believe that they were caused by the Christian god.

• The New Apostolic Reformation folks have decided that the earthquake in Japan is evidence of their god’s war against demons;
• Christian extremist preacher Chuck Pierce claimed that he caused the quake through prayer;
• Fox “News” blow-hard Glenn Beck suggested that his god may have produced the quake because the Japanese people have been too lax with his Ten Commandments;
• Christian extremist author Tim LaHaye welcomed the earthquake and tsunami as evidence of the apocalypse he so desperately wants to see; and
• Some Japanese Christians have decided that the disaster was a message from their god that Japan has made a mistake by embracing atheism and materialism.

Dear vjack,

The idea that God intentionally sends disasters upon people because of their misdeeds is profoundly anti-Christian.  It flies in the face of everything Jesus teaches in the New Testament, and actually in the face of much of Hebrew scripture as well (though there are some notable exceptions in the Torah!).

In churches that use the Revised Common Lectionary, we will hear a gospel reading this coming Sunday in which Jesus is asked “Who sinned, that this man was born blind?”  Jesus answered, “Nobody did.”  The Christian response to earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, tsunami, tornadoes, blizzards, plagues, and epidemics is the same.  Who sinned to make this happen?  Absolutely nobody.  For someone who identifies himself or herself as a Christian to say otherwise is to speak in ignorance and arrogance.  For leaders to say such abominations in public is to become a false prophet… and Jesus had some pretty harsh things to say about false prophets.

I promise you, the vast majority of Christians laugh at these false prophets, like Chuck Pierce, Glenn Beck, Tim LaHaye, Pat Robertson, Fred Phelps, and their ilk.  We become angry, because these persons taint our faith and our church with their complete lack of compassion and love for neighbor.  We try to distance ourselves from them. 

And the Undercover Nun stands up straight and says to the entire world:

• These men speak falsely.
• God does not send natural disasters to punish God’s beloved children. 
• And faithful Christians are just as disgusted with these men as you are.

Mr. Lahaye, Mr. Pierce, Mr. Beck, and everyone else who preaches that the earthquake and tsunami and ensuring tragedies in Japan are the work of a vengeful, punishing God: Stop leading people astray, you brood of vipers.  Jesus warned us against false prophets like you, with your slanderous lies.  May God have mercy on your immortal souls.  God knows well enough, you need it.

So, vjack, on behalf of Christianity and the Church Universal (I know, that’s so presumptuous!), I am profoundly sorry for the lies of these ignorant, arrogant slanderers.  Undercover Nun honors your choice to reject the supernatural and the institution of religion — God knows there are days when I’ve wanted to do the same — and I hope you understand that we aren’t all like these men.

In loving-kindness,
the Undercover Nun

P.S. There are also plenty of Christians who have discovered that scripture says absolutely nothing about hell being a place of eternal torment, peopled by pointy-tailed demons with pitchforks and supervised by a devil.  And plenty of us who are convinced that the infinitely-loving God that scripture shows us would never condemn one of God’s beloved children… even the jerks mentioned by name in this post.  My prayer for them all is that when they die, they will get to heaven and be very surprised by what they see and whom they meet there.

If there had been time, Marie Exley would have liked to start a family. Instead, the 32-year-old Army veteran has less than six months left, which she’ll spend spreading a stark warning: Judgment Day is almost here.

Exley is part of a movement of Christians loosely organized by radio broadcasts and websites, independent of churches and convinced by their reading of the Bible that the end of the world will begin on May 21, 2011. …..

This is the most recent in a long line of predicted eschatons. (eschata? eschatoi?).  Predicting the end of the world is a long-standing tradition among Christians.  Jesus tells us that we can’t and won’t know when it will happen, so we know that attempts to try to decode prophetic and apocalyptic works will always be futile.  Besides which, we all know God has a great sense of humor. It’s pretty much guaranteed that any date a human comes up with for the eschaton will make God laugh and cross off that date on the Eternal Calendar.

The point of not knowing when the end will come is that we are called to live Easter lives now.  We are called to embrace the overflowing love and grace of God today, to choose faith and hope today, to give love to all persons today, to give respect and dignity and loving-kindness to others today. 

The thing about God’s Incarnation in the person of Jesus is that God’s Kingdom has been introduced into the world already.  God’s Kingdom is here, right now, and it is also yet to come.  In the gospels, Jesus teaches us about the Kingdom of God, and Jesus invites us to bring the Kingdom of God into being, here, right now.  We do this by choosing christlike love and faith.  Rather than mocking Kingdom behaviors (“You’re just trying to immanentize the eschaton.”), followers of the Jesus of scripture are engaged in healing, feeding, clothing, loving — in living God’s Kingdom come on earth, as it is in heaven.

So someone claims that they can prove that Jesus will return on May 21, 2011?  Please.  Undercover Nun has plans for August, to make her life vows (God willing) at Annual Chapter, and I don’t plan to change them.  If you want to use up your vacation days before this date, go ahead.  But I won’t be joining you.

False prophets everywhere, Undercover Nun prays for your immortal souls.

(Source: wecanknow.com)

If you haven’t seen either Mark Tooley’s piece in The American Spectator or Sheldon C. Good’s response Are Mennonites Taking Over the World?, then I highly commend both to you.  I expect you’ll agree with me that Mr. Good’s response grants more dignity to the original bit of fear-mongering  propaganda than it deserves, but that’s pretty typical of those Anabaptists.  You know, they’re always forgiving people, and refraining from fighting, and being nice and civil and reverent.  It’s a danger to us all!

Just looking at the posts Mr. Good has written at (Episcopal priest and activist) notorious new-Anabaptist Jim Wallis’s God’s Politics blog certainly reveals the politics of an Anabaptist: justice in Cambodia, speaking out for civility in legislative discourse, massive oil spills in Nigeria, and finding common ground with Dr. Rand Paul.

I mean, who really cares about this stuff, right?  Only a left-wing radical communist, who wants to ram things down our throat like universal health care, so maybe our infant mortality rate will improve to be in line with the rest of the developed world.  Or coming home from war, so that Americans won’t be able to shoot skeery boogeymen who don’t believe what good God-fearing Americans believe.

The thing is, Anabaptists (e.g., Amish, Mennonites, Brethren) make a really great boogeyman for those who choose to live in fear.  Anabaptists choose not to live like most people in 21st century America, to the extent that the Amish reject the use of electricity.  Often, their communities can seem closed-off to those of us on the outside, and intentional simplicity can feel like a conviction and a threat to us.  They wear funny clothes.  They belong in the 18th or 19th century.  They’re so peaceful and forgiving — the wimps! — and so very easy to make fun of.  If you want to fan flames of fear, anger, and hatred, these are easy groups of people to target.

And yet, only a member of the IRD could say something as patently absurd as “Those Amish are trying to take over the world with their pacifism!“  The only thing more ridiculous than the points Mr. Tooley is trying to make here (basically: FEAR THE EVIL ANABAPTISTS WHO ARE TRYING TO TAKE OVER AND DESTROY AMERICA!!!) is the thread of comments following the article. You don’t have to scratch far beneath the surface of IRD to find the truly frightening places from which their funding comes.

But really, we should fear those buggy-driving Amish.  And those revolutionary Mennonites who seem so nice and innocent and pleasant in the grocery store, but are plotting in their homes and barns and churches to destroy us all.  This sounds about right for IRD and its chief contributor, Howard Ahmanson.  The mainline Protestant denominations have been thrown into such disarray that Episcopalians, Methodists, Lutherans, and Presbyterians just aren’t a threat to anyone any more.  So it’s time to go after the Anabaptists.

Thankfully, there is Good News to be found in the Gospel, though gospel teachings seem to be hard to find in the actions and fruits of the IRD.  The Good News is that God tells us Do not be afraid.  Let not your heart be troubled.  Believe in me. 

Fear is the opposite of faith.  To choose fear is to reject faith.  Mark Tooley rejects faith when he writes such inflammatory, fear-mongering articles.  He instead encourages conservative Christians to stray even farther from God, from the Good News taught by Jesus, from the witness of the prophets and apostles.  Mr. Tooley says, Live in fear! There is not enough world for us all! We have to protect ourselves, at all cost! They aren’t true believers anyway!

Is this how God wants any of God’s children to live?  No, I say to you, as Jesus says to us all through the gospel.  God wants us to live in love, in peace, in unity.  Unity does not mean that we must all be the same, that we must all agree; no, such uniformity is anathema to God.  What we owe to each other, in Christ, is godly love, respect, dignity, justice, food, drink, healing, shelter, clothing.  Jesus preaches abundance, and Mr. Tooley and the IRD try to convince us of scarcity.  Jesus preaches life, and the IRD teaches violence and death.

Given the choice, I’d far rather be one of those evil world-conquering Mennonites! 

Mr. Tooley, Jesus had some pretty harsh things to say to those who put stumbling blocks before God’s children, as you have with this article and others you have written.  You are a false prophet, a speaker of falsehood, a champion of fear and anger and evil.

Undercover Nun is praying for your immortal soul. 

And Mr. Good?  Undercover Nun thanks God for you and for your witness.  I’ll hold your good work in the Light.

Samuel lives in an abandoned building with 10 other children accused of witchcraft. A local group, ‘Stepping Stones Nigeria,’ which is dedicated to helping street children, visits them. “Religious leaders capitalize on the ignorance of some parents in the villages just to make some money off them,” said Lucky Inyang, project coordinator for ‘Stepping Stones Nigeria’. “They can say your child is a witch and if you bring the child to the church we can deliver the child but eventually they don’t deliver the children… The parents go back to the pastor and say, ‘why is it you have not been able to deliver the child’ and the pastor says ‘Oh - this one has gone past deliverance - they’ve eaten too much flesh so you have to throw the child out.’” And most pastors charge a fee for deliverance — anywhere from $300 to $2,000.

Jesus weeps.  Undercover Nun is weeping, too.

We are not helpless in the face of this evil, this false prophecy, this reprehensible abuse of power, this merciless and unloving abuse of God’s word.  Go to the web site for Stepping Stones Nigeria.  Do something - do anything! - to help these children.  Educate yourself, write to Congress on their behalf, sign the pledge and say so on your blog.  Donate money, hold an awareness and fundraising event.  Challenge your place of worship, your sorority, your class, your bar, your workplace to take a stand.  Refuse to stand silently by while God’s precious, beloved, beautiful children are diminished and killed.