In this episode of Drunk Ex-Pastors, Christian has to deal with an obstinate child named Jason who refuses to wear his headphones and stalls for twenty minutes on a shot he doesn’t want to drink. After compromising, they discuss the manipulative practice of attempting to create Christians known as the “altar call,” and what role this played in them being asked to leave the Calvary Chapel pastorate. They then listen to a wounded warrior describe his experience back in The States which drives home the realities of war in a way that many people don’t ever recognize. Jason and Christian (or Christian and Jason) then address listener feedback including why it’s impossible for Christian ministers to be authentic and whether or not being “born again” requires a complete change of personality. Finally, they are both biebered by torture, but not enough to distract them from pizza.
Also, Jason gives his brother the best birthday wishes a stupid, inbred, adopted brother could ask for.
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Podcast #144: Radiohead, Shakespeare, and the Chastity of Mike Pence
Podcast #274: Flying Saucers and Little Green Men
Altar calls are akin to the sales pitch you get from a Time share salesman. It’s such a great deal, won’t you just take it? If you don’t, you might never get a chance to get such a great deal again!
I think the idea of the ‘personal relationship’ with Christ that evangelicals embrace sort of changes the idea of repentance from a reassessment of our cultural attitudes, prejudices, values, and the things we accept as normal to a more self-oriented self-help system.
Instead of looking at why we’re apathetic in the face of other’s suffering or injustice, we get a moral checklist of sins that we need to work on and a list of expectations and baggage of what it means to be a ‘real’ Christian, leading us all to obsess over sex and put up a happy face in front of others while ignoring the very real suffering that our culture and system inflict on others.
Seems like Calvary Chapels have their priorities messed up when it comes to what they will and will not accept from pastors…… and listening to you guys talk is like therapy for me because I LITERALLY wanted to have many conversations like that with people at various CC’s and no one, I do mean NO ONE would go there.
I like comparing the altar call to the Mass if for no other reason than it irks decisionists good and hard.
(Breaks bottle and beckons threateningly)
One of the top lines of the show… “The Holy Spirit doesn’t need me to dim the lights.” Sums it up, right there. The people offering altar calls have some sincerity (I believe & hope) & good intention but the calls are weaved in with fear, peer pressure, manipulation & a general unsettled feeling.
This is a hell of a diatribe… please forgive me. You’re just so inspiring!
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I think the evangelicals have twisted the public confession of Jesus as Lord and Savior into something that has NOTHING to do with a personal relationship with God, and everything to do with gaining control over the new “convert.” (Indoctrination, anyone? Also, I’m pretty sure there might be a numbers thing going on, with a quota of conversions needed per month). If a person REALLY experiences life change for the better because of their conversion, sharing their story in an unassuming and humble manner to those they meet who need the same freedom is the only public confession warranted.
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I think that from God’s perspective (If He exists), every person ever born is already perfect. It seems to me that if God is omniscient, omnipotent, (insert your favorite omni___ here), there is nothing in the universe or outside it that is not made of Himself; in other words, because He was, is and ever will be, NOTHING exists outside of Himself, including all matter. He doesn’t “float around” outside us, or earth, or the heavens; we are His children because we are made FROM His essence*, just as any child is formed in their mother’s womb, out of her essence/building blocks.
So, from His perspective, we are all perfect, because we are made from Him. And as such a Being would be perfect, He cannot choose to hate or distance Himself from us, because He cannot distance Himself from Himself. And no, I’m not saying we’re all gods, just indelibly connected to Him.
I have the feeling that there is nothing “magical” about the blood of Jesus that somehow transforms a person into a new creature at an altar call. The Blood of Jesus exists so that maybe, MAYBE we can believe, for just a moment, that we can approach HIM. Maybe we can forgive ourselves for all the shit we’ve done. All barriers to having any contact with God exist only in our own minds and hearts, because He cannot erect a barrier against His own essence.
This is salvation: saved from our own sense of guilt, and given tools—grace, or the acceptance of it; prayer, or connecting to God in a way that empowers us to act lovingly; and the rest of the Armor of God™ **—that help us not to be such assholes to one another. If someone is still an asshole, no amount of claiming the Blood of Jesus at an altar call is going to make a difference.
* Pardon my use of the word “Essence;” it sounds new-agey and hokey, but I don’t feel like pulling up a thesaurus. Deal.
** Also pardon all the Christianese lingo. it seemed apropos.
*** Of course, I don’t believe in hell. Just sayin’. Hell does not fit into the above view. Nor do I think living my life as an exercise just to get into Heaven matters at all, because if there isn’t an afterlife, I won’t realize it—I’ll be nonexistent—and if there is, we are simply being gathered back into Himself, which most likely will be nothing but good.
Thanks for the “diatribe,” Kim! 🙂
I do think that “numbers” is an element to the altar call. I don’t think there’s a quota or anything, but I think it’s a way of measuring success for preachers, even though 90% of people that go forward at an altar call don’t generally follow through for very long. In reality, the “success” rate is about the same as if they just stayed in their seats, but it looks a lot better when you get a bunch of people emotional coming forward to try to change their lives or escape hell or looking for some other kind of emotional encouragement or healing.
@kim & @christian –
Being areligious yet interested in the subject, I’ve had many conversations with Christian friends (various protestant denomination & catholic) and many would disagree with Kim’s statement that human beings are perfect. After all, if that were true then he wouldn’t have needed to send his son to die for our sins (which is just a weird twisted logic but whatevs!) and isn’t the whole point so that God can forgive us and not us forgiving ourselves as Kim pointed out above?
That said, I haven’t had a chance to listen to pod #21 yet.
I started with #1 and have now listened to all 21. Thank God (or if you’re Christian, thank whatever) I only have to give an hour or two a week to this from now on.
On #11 I decided I would only listen while I was also drinking. This made numbers 11-21 much more interesting. I recommend it to your other listeners.
One other thing: How did it take you until #21 to mention The Dude? I had been waiting for new shit to come to light and finally…finally…it did in #21.
Looking forward to more!
p.s. I have no affiliation with CC or any Reformed churches, though I did start my grad work at a Reformed seminary. Thus, I’m hoping you’ll have no motivation to Arbaugh me.
Greg, based on my limited interactions with Kim, I don’t think she would be upset to not fit in to the normal “Christian” mold. The “orthodox” Christian would disagree with her.
mildly buzzed current pastor, everyone doesn’t drink while listening??? 🙂
I almost cut that part about The Dude out. Then I thought maybe someone would get a kick out of it, so thanks for mentioning that. It was worth leaving it in now.
We have no reason to “Arbaugh” you (now I’m going to have to use that term again sometime) although I am curious to figure out who you are now! 🙂
Yeah, I was ha-ha laughing at the part about The Dude. And “Arbaughing” someone is so in my vernacular now.
Now that I think about it, what other word could you even use for that? Change approved!
Greg –
Of course we’re not perfect; we’re all assholes, pretty much, with very few exceptions. And humanity struggles under the weight of that assholery in an unending cycle of action and regret.
It’s not that we’re perfect; it’s that He SEES us as perfect. Perhaps perfect isn’t the best word; permissioned might be better, as the point I was trying to make is that every human being, ever, has had unbarred access to Him. From His perspective, the door is always open. We are the ones who close it for myriad reasons – guilt, no desire to change behaviors, fear – to name a few. To accept Jesus’ blood is to *claim* redemption, to believe for ourselves that we may approach Him.
The barrier is always on/in us; He has never put up a barrier. Fig leaves, anyone? Adam and Eve had the same capacity for assholery as we do; they just didn’t know any better. As soon as they knew the difference between good and bad, the shame came. Jesus’ blood and death reversed that and takes us full circle, to be able to approach God no matter how horrible we believe we are.
If you look at it a certain way, and take Genesis as fact, I’m not sure God ever expected us to be perfect (the way we think of perfection), or to not hurt each other. Had Adam and Eve not eaten the apple, and humanity had grown to thousands or millions of people, is it possible that no one would ever get angry, horny, drunk, envious… I doubt it. God had to expect all of those things from us. It’s our knowledge of our sin that separates us from Him, because we allow that knowledge to fill us with fear and a desire to hide from Him.
Also, this in any way does not condone sin, or remaining in sin. I’ve found it very hard to remain an asshole if I’m really seeking His presence; feeling free to approach Him, and actually doing so, makes it very hard to *not* be the best possible person I can be.
And you’re right, Christian – I’m not normal. And I’m totally ok with that. 🙂
Speaking of perfection, I’ve always wondered what those who affirm the theology of the re-dedication altar call but who also don’t respond mean to say. The only thing it can be is, “I’m good to go, nothing to repent of.” Um…
CK – you’re commentary on “altar calls” is dead nails on. No where delineated in Scrip. The gospel *is* quite enough – perhaps a detail that Smith missed and Laurie continues to miss. Let’s just continue the dog & pony show…
Hey guys, I’m a big fan of your podcast. Keep up the great material!
My point of contention with this last podcast was about the justification of torture given the ‘jack Bauer situation.’ I’m not sure if that’s the point you were trying to make, but I think that there’s nothing that can morally justify torture. At the most, this time-bomb scenario would make torture understandable, but not morally justifiable.
I believe that torture is one of the lowest forms of human debasement. And I think that it’s destroyed any credibility the U.S. Had as the champion from human rights.
Justin makes a fantastic point, we are rarely presented with the sort of torture scenario that “24” portrayed. However, the problem is that that is precisely the scenario that people have in mind when they are presented with articles about the CIA’s torture program.
To me, torture is similar to the death penalty — it should not be condoned by civlised society. After all, if you’re normally anti-torture but is okay with torture in a “24” style situation, where do you draw the line? Is it okay to torture if the risk of death is 500 people? 5,000 people? Or if the threat it less than 24 hours? Who gets to make these arbitrary lines and distinctions?
Justin and Greg, you guys make really good points. I think you guys are right that it’s a slippery slope and one of the lowest forms of human debasement. I don’t think that it should be accepted as something that it’s legal for the government to do to people.
I’m curious though, and I’m not trying to trap you or anything, what would you be OK with if someone, for example, had placed a bomb on a plane and you had them in custody and the plane was in the air, and the bomber could disable it? (Obviously, this is a silly movie-type scenario that doesn’t necessarily represent what the government practiced.) What if you only had two hours? You can’t land and evacuate the plane. The only chance to disarm the bomb and save 300 lives is to get the information from the bomber. Would you be OK with torture in that scenario if all other avenues had been exhausted?
The whole scenario itself has little bearing on reality because think of it from the terrorist’s perspective. Part of the idea with torture is that no one can hold out forever (although that itself is kind of a movie trope) but let’s just continue down this path… if the terrorist knows that he/she only has to hold out for a certain amount of time, after which, the information they hold becomes useless, then what is in the torturer’s arsenal to compel the answer?
Look at the type of methods that have been used, prolonged exposure, sensory depravation over extended periods of time. What can you do, other than maximising pain, if you only have two hours? But pain type torture isn’t effective because 1. eventually the person will snap (sensory overload) and 2. they don’t produce the necessary psychological state to compel information.
Here’s really the bottom line, even if we condone the use of torture and the “24” type scenarios happen in real life, it’s been made abundantly clear that torture simply does not produce results!
Torture fantasy is really about revenge. Not about getting actual information.
Sheesh, man, can’t I just enjoy my fantasy torture scenario! 🙂
So, if you have someone in custody that you know has planned something that will kill a bunch of people, what do you do with them? Ask them nicely what’s going to happen and when they don’t answer, just put them in prison?
And again, I’m not condoning torture, no matter what the answer is here.
That is actually what you do: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/5231507/FBI-agent-got-valuable-information-without-torture.html
Soufan was on a PBS Frontline episode a few years ago giving additional insight into this: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/iraq-war-on-terror/the-interrogator/inside-the-interrogation-room-ali-soufans-tactics/
I mean, just look at your own life, are you more likely to tell a friend a secret or an enemy? And no, you don’t put them in prison, you interrogate them. But interrogation doesn’t mean torture!
Well, I definitely like that option better. It assumes that there’s time, that the person wants to brag about what they’ve done to someone, and that no one is in immediate danger. Obviously, it’s a very complicated topic. I would rather say that torture should never be allowed. I wonder what I would want done though if it was someone I loved in danger and that danger could halted if they got information out of someone.
P.S. Greg, I just put the postage on your shot glass. It will go out tomorrow and you should have it this week.You live down where I grew up. I went to Woodbridge High School for a couple of years.
Shoulda coulda woulda. It’s really not that complicated — you have to paint a pretty elaborate scenario in order to justify torture and even then you’re never sure that you will get the information you’re looking for.
Sweet! As I mentioned, next time one/either/both of you guys are back down this way, would love to grab a pint.
Woodbridge High eh? The lame HS in Irvine. (Uni grad here. :D)
Two great shows that I think show problems with torture are Criminal Minds, “Lessons Learned” (season 2, Ep 10), and then the movie “Unthinkable” 2010, with Samuel Jackson.
In both the interviewer/interrogator talk about actually getting real intel, versus the subject giving what they think you want, to just stop the pain.