HeavenBoundEarth

Tag: christianity

  • On the murder of a “sacred politician”

    This post is a longtime in the making and took several days.

    I was so thrown off by the reactions of many of the majority of Evangelical Christians, on the murder of a certain person this summer, that I still have a hard time writing. I do not even want to name him because just his name seems to bring out the worst in people, as far as I have seen. But he was neither sacred, nor a politician, reading people’s reactions though, he sure seemed to be. Like I had to explain to people over and over in discussions: NO, I do not agree with this person’s murder, or murder of any kind. But I deeply disagree with his rhetoric. Just saying that though, raised so many heckles from White Evangelicals, be they relatives or people I have never met. The reactions from “brothers and sisters in Christ” hurt me deeply and have affected me to this day. Not only myself, but my husband as well. How can you revere someone like this man and claim he died for his beliefs in Christ? Mind you, I know the arguments white Evangelicals are coming from, but excuse me, thinking they are sacred is a totally different thing.

    This was my facebook post at that time:
    “Civilization is why you can have a nice life. It is civilization that tamed humans, gave you antibiotics, gave you elevators, gave you stoplights, gave you air conditioning, gave you surgery, gave you the ability to if you have a headache, I’m going to take an Advil. It also gave you the rule of law, separation of powers, consent of the governed. The indigenous population had none of that. We came here and we built something new. We came to a barren country with a very violent quote unquote Indian domestic…These are the people that won’t go to church, but they’ll chant indigenous pagan incantations. I’m sorry. Western civilization is a good thing. I’m glad our ancestors came here and I’m proud of what they built.” Taken from a transcript of one of this man’s podcasts.

    Do you realize how deeply hurtful this is to your Native American neighbors?

    My own points on this so-called civilization…At the point “civilization” was brought to an “empty” land, the “civilized” nations did the following, for example. The death penalty for “treason” (treason could be claimed under any excuse): If you were noble, you were lucky. You were simply hung. If you were not noble, you were hung till almost dead, taken down, slized open and your entrails ripped out, then you were quartered by being pulled by 4 horses in four directions. And all that after having been horrendously tortured with methods that make scalping seem like an act of mercy. Also, lets not forget the inquisition that existed in Europe for hundreds of years, which included the burning of “witches”. These witches were in the most part medicine women, knowledgeable in the uses of plants for healing. That’s where our medicinal knowledge went: burnt up in the fires of the inquisition. Because if people could go to natural healers, they did not need the church and pay for prayers, etc. The inquisition was used for so many reasons: Political power, land crabbing (easy to denouce the owner and then take his land), money. Least of all religious reasons. In this civilization, women were nothing. A woman got raped? So what? No one would believe her claim. Here, among the Native tribes on the other hand, the perpetrator was sent out with no or hardly any weapons to fend for himself. Something which constituted an almost certain death sentence at that time. You committed murder in Europe? Well, it depended on who you were and who you killed: If you killed a noble, you were in trouble. If you killed a commoner, no big deal. Here, many tribes shunned the murderer for the rest of his life. Something that is still practiced today by some tribes. And it did not matter who you were.

    Here, the members of a tribe shared everything. In Europe, the poor were starving. And if they dared to help themselves to a piece of bread, for example, their hand was cut off. And/or they were sent to the gallows. Or /and sent off to the colonies like Australia. Oh, the glories of that civilizations. Why do you think so many of your ancestors came over here???

    “Though he once praised Martin Luther King Jr., he later reversed course, calling the civil rights leader “awful” and “not a good person.” At a December 2023 event, he declared that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a “huge mistake,” claiming it created a permanent bureaucracy designed to push diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

    Do you know how deeply hurtful this is to your African American neighbor? His rhetoric about well known African American women who only got into college because of “special permissions? The same about African American pilots. What nonsense. Those “special permissions” were necessary because otherwise African Americans were still not given the same rights as their European American counterparts. It is the same in all sectors. Qualifications do not matter for many. Color does. It is the reality in both the States and Canada.

    Have you ever held the hand of a person struggling so deeply with who they are that they are willing to mutilate their body through surgery, accepting the life-long consequences because it is better than the deep pain they are going through right now? Have you? Probably not, but you stand at the sidelines and judge. Just like him

    Have you ever held the hand of a girl/woman pregnant by rape? Have you ever experienced the utter devastation of rape? Have you pledged support, took her into your home? My guess is no, but you stand at the sidelines and condemn, like him

    Have you ever held the hand of a woman fighting for her life and that of her unborn child during extreme sickness, monthlong bedrest. Have you helped her out with practical means? Has he?

    Are you involved with helping pregnant moms out in anyway? Are you involved in the fostercare system where many unwanted babies end up?

    I am not justifying abortion, but I am asking for love and understanding and a helping hand, Jesus’ hand in a very practical way.

    Have you ever held your dying baby that most would have aborted, but that the medical community after birth refused life giving surgery because she wasn’t worthy enough? So abortion is wrong, but supporting that life after is not a given? Have you supported someone in this situation? Has he? Has he forced hospitals to go the extra mile? No, he just used the same old words any Evangelical knows ad nauseam. I guess that’s why he got so much support.

    There is more that I could list…if you can still stand with him and defend his rhetoric as a Christian…In each point I have either personally been that person or have/have had close friends and family in those groups. He has deeply hurt them and your praise of him hurts every time they hear it! And no, that is not what Jesus would do!

    They say her defended the faith and died for it. But where did Jesus ever address abortion (and yes, it did happen back then too). Where did Jesus address gay, lesbian, etc.? No, the popular passages quoted about that supposedly address this are taken out of context and misinterpretated. Homosexuality was not even a word in the Bible until not too long ago (last century) As usual we forget that the historical context when trying to understand and translate certain unknown words in the Bible. You can research it for yourself. When did Jesus discuss the rights of different shades of people? Actually, when does color ever come up in the Bible? But Jesus sure did adress where the powers that be did things wrong against others. And these people were, most often, his own religious leaders.

    Immigration? That just makes me roll my eyes. This was a descendant of immigrants talking about other immigrants. Jesus himself was at a time an immigrant. Many of his people were at that time immigrants to the many nations of the middle East and Europe, etc. His own country was occupied.

    What gets to me most is that this man was not very smart. I have heard the same arguments about the same topics growing up in Germany…discussed among young people. The exact same rhetoric. Nothing had changed over the centuries and the distance. You just needed to grow up in those circles and you could talk like him in your sleep. And if, like him, you could not win your argument, you just did the same as him: Get loud, interrupt, put the other person down, etc. Nor did he have a vast biblical knowledge. Unlike Jesus, he just made sure to please the masses. And unlike Jesus he would cut you down mercilessly if you disagreed. Okay, one correction: Jesus would be quite merciless in his discussion with the religious leaders, who thought they had all the answers, even in regards to Jesus.

  • Who we are…a part of us

    Who we are…a part of us

    I needed the encouragement of somebody else’s post to start writing this:

    Who are we? Let’s start with myself…because that’s easier to write. Or maybe just because I think of myself first???

    I was born and raised in Germany. In a very, VERY fundamental Evangelical household. And very strict. The only permitted movies/shows were ‘The Walton’, ‘Little House in the Prairie’, and ‘Bonanza’. ‘The Waltons’ were so permitted that my mother walked out of an evening church service because the preacher talked too long and she did not want to miss ‘The Waltons’. But that’s a better memory than my mother walking proudly up to the front of that same church with her four girls in tow, to sit in the front row. Waiting, like everybody else a bit impationtly for the service to begin, which, contrary to typical German efficiency, started to run later and later. Finally one of the church’s leaders walked up to my mother and asked if her husband was planning to come. To which she replied that no, he was not planning to come because he was preaching that night in another church. It was a bit embarrassing when she was informed by that gentleman that my father was scheduled to preach in this church right here as well. I can’t remember what happened then, but I am sure we made it on time to ‘The Waltons’ that night.

    I saw my first movie in a theatre at 16 years old when my cousins secretly took me out. I’m not sure they’ve been forgiven for that yet. My first bar-visit and alcohol was in my twenties during my nursing studies when my class mates convinced me to go out with them.
    Their teachings included amongst others:
    No sex before/outside of marriage
    No divore
    Women do not preach (unless it is on the mission field where no men wanted to go.)
    No divorce
    No remarriage
    No alcohol, no smoking (unless it was hidden behind closed doors or in the backyard)
    God is a God of love but will send you to hell if you disobey just one little rule without repentance.

    In my twenties my entire family came to Canada. Here I married my ex-husband: Chinese and the pastor of a strict Evangelical church. Though far less strict than my parents. After 19 years of marriage I managed to secretly leave him and to marry again a few years after, “sins” which to this day steep me in deep sin and condemn me to hell. I am still paying for this with no contact with my children and my family, unless I repent to them, my family, my ex (probably should have put him first), and my former church. My children themselves were trained to believe this so deeply that “I cannot invite you to my wedding because I will risk loosing my entire family (grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins) if you come.”

    I still do believe that my new (almost 10 years now) husband is to blame for this, because I am convinced if he were a son of Billy Graham the scenario would be different. But alas, he is not! Not at all! Not even close.

    Enter the husband: He is not German, not white (not that that bad as the Chinese ex proved, but at least that one was/is a minister), but worst of all, he is not a strict Evangelical Christian. So, like me, he is on his way to hell…at least we are going together. Mind you, he has a very firm believe in Jesus, but he did not come to know him the traditional Evangelical way: The Sinner’s Prayer and baptism, but his own, very personal way, a way much more profound than the Sinner’s Prayer. Not only that but my husband is a deeply traditional Cree, a pipe carrier, sweatlodge holder and participant in other, deeply sacred ceremonies.

    One of my sons asked me one time if my husband believes in God. I do not understand everything having to do with Native beliefs, but I do understand that to ask most Natives if they believe in God is to ask them if they are Native American. So I told my son that yes, he does. But what does he call Him. I answered: God, the Father, the Creator. The exact same words I use when I pray. My son asks back if it is the SAME God though. Maybe I should have been more concerned with my son’s spiritual journey at this point and asked him how many Gods he thought there were because, of course HE was/is the SAME GOD. My son has refused to talk to me since the year that conversation took place.

    My husband, his parents, his grandparents is/are all survivors of the residential schools with all the physical, sexual, mental and spiritual abuses that involved. Not just in the schools, but because of that in the homes. A horror that most white people do not want to believe. Because to believe it is the stuff that gives you nightmares. Only this was (and in many families still is) reality. My husband saw and experienced horrible abuse. There are other abuses/derogatory experiences that are ongoing for him as a Native in a predominantly white society. Like being walked out of a major store after paying for his purchases while he was waiting for me to finish paying for mine. Or being yelled at for damaging a white woman’s car he hadn’t even touched till she quickly shut up when I walked around the corner. Or being stopped in the rez in the morning by the police and sharply asked if he had been drinking (he hadn’t been drinking a drop of alcohol for more years than that officer was alive), or the murder of two Native (Metis) hunters on legal territory by two white men living in the neighborhood. Or the memory of his uncle freezing to death after having been given the “Starlight Tour” by the local RCMP, (google it, though they happened in more locations than the one mentioned), and so much more. There are so many wounds and scars he has to struggle with and yet he is a truly courageous and honorable man.

    Our “different” spirituality used to cause a lot of problems between my husband and myself. I put “different” because the more I learned, the more I understood how much we had in common. If we change the traditional Christian words and meanings that Jesus never used or said, the more we realize we believe the same.

    Sin? The Hebrew original for the English word sin is actually much closer to the Cree words for sin, in the sense of missing the mark, taking the wrong way’.

    Taking the red road means doing and behaving the same way Jesus told us to and the teachings about the red road predate the appearance of the white men.

    Hell? No, traditional Cree do not believe in hell. Neither did Jesus. He never mentioned hell. What is translated as hell is an actual place that really existed outside the city of Jerusalem: A place where garbage and refuse were burned. Nor does the mention of the ‘everlasting fire’ talk about hell. Read the context. But more about that in another blog. Nor did the early church believe in hell. That teaching did not become an official part of church doctrine till centuries after Jesus’ death through primarily St. Augustine and had a lot to do with financial and political advantages for the church and the later Holy Roman Empire under Charlemagne. Actually, one should not study the history of Christian dogma without studying the political history of Europe at the same time. They go hand in hand. It is a lot easier to control an Empire if it is under the same religion as that Emporer. And even more, if that Empire and official religion promises hellfire and brimstone if you don’t follow its rules, pay monies to be forgiven, etc., or serve them with hellfire right here on earth by burning the ‘disobedient’ at the stake. A tradition followed by not just the Catholics, but Protestants as well. For example, John Calvin, a still widely followed reformist who killed ‘antagonists’ by slowly burning them at the stake. This brutality (amongst other brutalities) by the Christian church to prove the existence of a merciful God started in the 1100s and lasted into the 1800s. So in more than one way the church did not only veer away from the truth of Jesus’ teachings about love and peace and created its own hell.

    In light of all this and more, it should not be a problem for us to honestly question what we have been taught and search for the truth. It what we have been taught is the truth, questioning it cannot destroy it. But if some of it was a lie, questioning it can be life changing. And that is what it proved to be for me. Creator God and Jesus are far greater than any cultural or religious box we put Him in. Learning this was eye-opening for my husband and myself, especially myself. Though easy it was not.

    This is part of who we are and are becoming so far on our way to meet the Creator. And I sure hope we will never stop learning and enriching each other.