Years ago my friend Paul, a manager at a waste treatment plant, held up two glass laboratory beakers at a speaking engagement. The one in his right hand contained a clear liquid, the one in his left a thick, black liquid.
“This,” he said, jiggling his right hand, “is lab-certified 100 percent pure water.” Then he jiggled his left hand. “And this, well, this is the raw product I deal with all day long. Here’s the question: How much of this could I put in the water, and you still drink it?”
Looks of horror on every face in the audience. It was clear that none of us would drink the water if he added even a drop from the beaker in his left hand.
A while back, 83-year-old nun Megan Rice was convicted, along with two other protesters, of breaking into a secure facility used for disposing of highly enriched uranium and spraying the place with baby bottles loaded with human blood.
Several scriptural principles spring to mind but, if your brain works like mine, among your first might be Christ’s advice to ‘let the dead bury the dead, just come be my follower.’ No matter how strongly she felt on the political issue, the nun should not have allowed it to infect her ministry.
In 1976 Argentina was involved in an internal ‘dirty war.’ People were arrested, detained, and many thousands were ‘disappeared’ without any respect for their legal rights. Two of those arrested were Catholic priests named Yorio and Jalics. They were Jesuits. Their boss at the time was Jesuit Provincial Superior Jorge Bergoglio, who later became better known as Pope Francis.
Some of the torturers from that time went on trial for war crimes. One side claimed the Jesuits were activists, and that the future pope didn’t do enough to protect them. There were even claims that he ratted them out to the bad guys to make points for himself. The pope, of course, claims "he did all in his very limited power to work behind the scenes with the Junta" to secure the release of the two accused priests.
The same two scriptural principles apply. What Jesus commanded his followers to do was to follow his example and preach the kingdom. He didn’t ask them to become activists, set up charities or hospitals, overthrow corrupt governments or break in to nuclear facilities.
"Many will say to me on Judgment day, ‘Lord! We prophesied in your name… and performed many wonderful works in your name.' Then I will tell them publicly, 'I've never known you. Get away from me, you evil people.'"(Matthew 7:22)
Look around at the major religions today. Do you see:
- Evidence of a three-headed god, with the son as the most prominent? That's not Christian; Babylon started it.
- Doctrines that assume people have some sort of spirit that continues on after they die? The bible doesn't teach it; Look to ancient Babylon.
- Extorting money from parishioners by threatening that they or their babies might be sent to limbo, purgatory or torturous hellfire if they don't cough it up? Babylon.
- A mindset of ‘my family, my tribe, my state, my country, my skin color is better than yours,’ or even 'my country, right or wrong'? It came from Babylon.
Most importantly, do you see a church mixing customs of pagan origin with Bible teachings, like mixing sewage into clear water?
The book The Paganism in Our Christianity states: “It was a definite Christian policy to take over the pagan festivals endeared to the people by tradition, and to give them a Christian significance.”
I would not call that a "Christian policy". But it was certainly a tactic of Christendom.
‘Well, sure, Halloween/Christmas/Easter have pagan origins. And yes the cross, the robes, the candles and incense were in pagan churches before being adopted by Christians. And yes, the clergy being elevated above the laity may be unscriptural. And of course celibacy/nuns/images/holy water/steeples... where was I going with this? Oh, yeah: sure, they're pagan, we know that. But they aren’t hurting anybody. And we're keeping them.’
A few weeks ago, I showed a lady Jesus’ warning to Peter that ‘all who take the sword will perish by the sword,’ (Matthew 26:52) Unbeknownst to me, she was retired military, so she was offended by the scripture. She didn't deny that it was what Jesus said; it was right there in her Bible. Nor did she argue that I was twisting scripture, that that surely wasn't what Jesus meant.
Instead, her reply was, ‘But if everyone followed that teaching our country would have been overrun years ago.’ In other words, Jesus was wrong.
How much of this filth can they mix into your water and you still drink it?
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Bill K. Underwood is the author of several books, all available
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