Why I don’t go to church

This is from an online discussion where I was asked why I do not go to church. There are several reasons and they are complex.

I don’t go to church because I consider the church to be too rooted in Paganism and tradition. This is something that I felt convicted of even as a young child, but I attended church because of my parents’ wishes – we attended a Baptist church back then, and I can’t say I didn’t feel happy there, and I can’t say I didn’t feel love there, but there was something missing. In my teens I stopped going to church because I was refused communion because I was a child, and also because I asked why the church and Jewish people worshipped on different days (considering Ephesians 2:16, Ephesians 4:3-6) and the answer I received didn’t make sense. I had lots of questions, and not enough answers that made sense. I returned to the same church in my mid 20’s and the same questions presented themselves to me, but the right answers never came, so I moved on to a Seventh Day Adventist church (which wasn’t hugely different) before moving to a Messianic Congregation which I liked (apart from the liturgy) but was quite a drive from my home.

Paganism:
Christmas and Easter are festivals not spoken of in scripture, the apostles didn’t keep them, they are pagan replacements or additions to biblically correct observance: https://www.anthony-ewers.me/the-origins-of-christmas/

Easter is in line with the Vernal Equinox, it’s a replacement of Passover – I need to do another blog post or article on that one.

Tradition:
I see both the present day and historical leadership of the church, even back to “The Early Church Fathers” as modern day Pharisees. Yahshua said this about them:

“‘These people honour me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain;
their teachings are merely human rules.’
You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.”
And he continued, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! (Mark 7:6-9).

It’s important to note that it was the way the law was presented, side-stepped, partially applied and perverted by those who claimed to be teachers of it at that time that Yahshua despised, not the law itself (note Matthew 5:17-20).

There is also the time as a child I was told by my girlfriend (sometime in the early 80’s) that black people had been allowed to be slaves because of the bible, namely “The Curse of Ham” (Genesis 9). That got me thinking about Trans-Atlantic slavery and the consequences that affect black people to this day. God’s curse on people who do not obey his commands lasts 4 generations (Exodus 20:5/6), so if Noah’s curse on his descendent Ham did come to pass and was somehow more permanent than God’s, it is therefore strange that the Israelites were actually enslaved to sons of Ham (Egypt – Exodus 1 etc) before their deliverance from Egypt, and this happened approximately 800 – 900 years after the flood according to scripture. So why after all that, scripturally, The Curse of Ham should then have been used by Christians several millennia later as a reason to justify the enslavement of black people seems to be rather tenuous at best. Scripture says slave traders will not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Timothy 1:10), yet many denominations of the Christian church participated in slavery, owned slaves and were even compensated for loss of those slaves who were deemed to be “property” when slavery was abolished.

If I began making a cake and put in arsenic rather than almonds, I would have to throw that cake away and start again. If I were building a house and I built off line distorting the original plan and design, I would have to tear that part of the building down and rebuild. But as proof that many churches haven’t learned they were using the wrong spiritual ingredients and perhaps not building their church according to the foundation and plan God required, there are churches who refused (and continue to refuse) to allow black people into the ministry or priesthood, and movements like British Israelism and its offshoot Christian Identity (who feed off false teachings like “The Curse of Ham”). These movements want to assert that Anglo Saxons, the British, Scottish, German and Nordic peoples are the rightful heirs of the promises god gave to Israel, they focus on tenuous etymological links between words and twist biblical scriptures out of context in order to give them the reason to purge native peoples from their homelands and make people slaves. The Christian Identity movement in particular is extreme, it views people who are non-white as having no soul, not being human, a different species only fit only to be slaves. The literature of these movements such as “The Turner Diaries” gave rise to the tactics and lifestyle of the Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh and they underpin the views and life-styles of racist groups like the Ku Klux Klan.

Essentially I see Europeanised Christianity as a corrupt vine, that doesn’t just distort scripture and harm black people, it also gives white people a false sense of superiority. It traps everyone in an illusion of ardent faith, but you have to remember what Paul wrote:

“And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.” (2 Corinthians 11:14)

What I mean by quoting that is, if the devil masquerades as something good, we have to be really careful about what we consider to be good, and for me, the ONLY clarity that can be gained on that is from God’s word, so I reject Church tradition, new unwritten commandments and anything that tries to pigeonhole me into a box where I serve in some kind of underclass in society because of the colour of my skin.

I’m Messianic to a degree, but the current occupants of Israel are not much different to the Nazi’s who persecuted the Jews in WW2 judging by the way Israel treats Palestine, and any non-Jewish person wishing to live in Israel’s biblically prescribed territory. I’m not pro-Israel in this sense, which Messianic people tend to be. I don’t currently keep Old Covenant feasts or much in the way of custom, but rather I’m at a stage where I have rejected Christian customs and want to find the right place where I feel faith is correctly defined and practiced.

I don’t know if my reply is what you would expect, and I in no way mean to offend, it’s just that I feel if you are not aware of stuff in this world yourself and are not telling others, I feel you are sleepwalking in a living nightmare. Ignorance just isn’t bliss.

Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. (1 Peter 5:8)

Africans evicted from Israel

“He secures justice for the orphan and the widow; he loves the foreigner, giving him food and clothing. Therefore you are to love the foreigner, since you were foreigners in the land of Egypt. You are to fear ADONAI your God, serve him, cling to him and swear by his name.” Deuteronomy 10:18–20 Complete Jewish Bible.

Judaism teaches love for foreigners that enter Israel, we could term these people as immigrants or refugees or however we see them. In these case the law of God seems to put the onus on the “foreigner” to follow the ways of God and for Israel to accept the foreigner and not discriminate against them.

What we term as Christianity reaches out to people to a greater degree, there is more of an active energy involved with reaching out to people and inviting them into the community of believers, but this is a spiritual community, rather than a physical community.

It’s such a pity that in Israel that application of the law is partial, there is an emphasis on national identity in the sense of something that needs to be guarded so that it is not lost, instead of a more transcendent identity that outsiders (foreigners) can share and help to edify the whole community.

Outside of Israel, within the Church, application of the law is even more partial, but there is the notion of this transcendent identity which can embrace others and bring them into a community.

I don’t think any religious community has the interpretation of God’s word right, either those in Israel or outside of it, and neither myself, but as an outsider looking in, for I am neither in Israel physically or part of a church, I can basically see that no matter what ways in which we misinterpret God’s law or are partial in our application of it, the end result is the same – division, pride, prejudice, corruption and injustice.

I would say there is wisdom enough in the world for us to do better at achieving God’s righteous standards, but the evil in the world is winning over the good, and the more it does so, the deeper we slip into a dystopian reality – it’s not in the future – it is here and now, and has actually been around for a long time.

Far-right in the USA

Did you know what lies beneath the rise of the racist far right movements in the USA? Read up on “British Israelism” and “Christian Identity”. These movements want to assert that Anglo Saxons, the British, Scottish, German and Nordic peoples are the rightful heirs of the promises god gave to Israel, they focus on tenuous etymological links between words and twist biblical scriptures out of context in order to give them the reason to purge native peoples from their homelands and make people slaves. The Christian Identity movement in particular is extreme, it views people who are non-white as having no soul, not being human, a different species only fit to be slaves. The literature of these movements such as “The Turner Diaries” gave rise to the tactics and lifestyle of the Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh and they underpin the views and lifestlyes of racist groups like the Ku Klux Klan.

It’s important to know that The Turner Diaries also depict a race war and nuclear war.

So when I see someone like Donald Trump, whom I would term a crafty snake, employ people in his cabinet like Steve Bannon Chief Executive of Breitbart News a far right website as his Chief Strategist (although he has now been sacked), Jim Sessions (Attorney General) with a murky right wing sympathising past, and even with actions like pardoning Joe Arpaio who publicly said he felt honoured to be compared to the Ku Klux Klan back in 2007; it seems clear racism in America is coming out into the open, and right from the top.

It seems to me people have to go through more character checks for a job in a supermarket, than for a job in the Whitehouse.

Freedom of speech and hate speech

21) The tongue has power over life and death; those who indulge it must eat its fruit. Complete Jewish Bible: Pr 18:21

36) Moreover, I tell you this: on the Day of Judgment people will have to give account for every careless word they have spoken; 37) for by your own words you will be acquitted, and by your own words you will be condemned.” Complete Jewish Bible: Mt 12:36–37

I’ve got no problem with free speech, people should be able to say whatever they want. What I do have a problem with is ignorance, and the opinions that breed from ignorance and are despised by the majority of decent people.

People who are filled with hate actually need to be heard, so that their opinions can be brought down by public debate, and if the public doesn’t have the strength, will or intellect to add clarity to a situation be a rebuttal that educates those that hear it, that is a failure on the part of those that should defend what is right, and a triumph for those who proclaim what is evil.

This debate tells me that society is losing its mental capacity not only to ensure people get a proper education for those that fall beneath the net, because I believe many problems that manifest in hate speech are born of ignorance and reflect a mental deficiency which after generations who pass through that same conditioning can become a genetic flaw; but also, in the general level of education for those who do not fall below the net, and who do not indulge in hate speech, who are stunned and shocked but are somehow lacking the ability to formulate the speech to counteract hate filled language.

See the debate on Al Jazeera here

The shameful past

I recently heard about some students who want statues of William Gladstone removed. Gladstone was a British Prime Minister who served 4 terms in Parliament and helped some slave owners get compensation when the trans atlantic slave trade was abolished.

Video courtesy BBC News.

I think it is a bad idea. Britain needs to face up to its past, and we all do, hiding from it doesn’t make the problem go away. Some people who train their pets not to foul in the home, will take a pet that has broken the house rules and rub their nose in their mess and tell them, don’t do it again. The same can’t be done in this case explicitly, but destroying the evidence I feel destroys one of those markers that reminds Britain of its arrogance and iniquity of many years ago, that it was proud of at the time. These statues also reminds the oppressed who oppressed them so that we might be aware of the serpent that given latitude, might strike twice.

Additional reading:

The Independent: Britain’s colonial shame: Slave-owners given huge payouts after abolition
Cambridge University Press: Gladstone and Slavery

The controversy over the Washington “Redskins”

I’ve often spoken about how language reflects prejudice. As a black person I often feel on the wrong end of that in an Anglo-Saxon/European culture. There is this weird inconsistency in the English language regarding its references to the colour black. Generally black is bad, white is good. Financially if you are in the red, that’s bad – but if you are in the black that’s good, yet during the crisis that hit the UK government in 1992 when we exited the ERM, financially a bad day, it was referred to as “black Wednesday”, and to further the inconsistency, we now celebrate – in the retail centric sense, Black Friday after the US Thanksgiving. There are frequently negative connotations associated with colour, but actually as humans we have so much more capacity to use language more accurately and communicate effectively.

However, it has to be remembered that black people are not the only people stereotyped and marginalised by the use of language. Just this week on Al Jazeera I saw an article about the Washington Redskins. Not being a follower of American Football myself, I’d never considered the angle this story revealed, and had always considered The Redskins name as being loosely synonymous with the colour of their kit. But when you look closely at the emblems on the kit, the team mascots and paraphernalia associated with The Redskins – it points to a kind of Native American Indian theme, which some Native American Indians feel offended by.

We have this odd thing going on in society regarding skin colour. White people are not actually white – the name flesh as a colour doesn’t mean anything as there are many different colours and shades of flesh. SImilarly, black people are generally brown, of various hues and Indian People, native American or otherwise are not at all red, similarly – people of Chinese decent are not yellow… It seems to me, if colour is important, we should probably at least be accurate about the colour names we use.

Now that I know Native American Indians are offended by these terms, I won’t be using them – and I think in order to make our society more responsible in its use of language, all people who are demeaned and marginalised by certain words and linguistic forms should band together to protest, teach and correct others about this. If pressure isn’t applied against the this kind of thing, it will just go on unchallenged, perpetuating the crass insensitivity and/or blindness of a majority group which is adamantly slow to change.

Vide and further reading “NFL Team name causes outrage in the US“, courtesy Al Jazeera.

Racists say the first slave owner in the USA was black!

I came across the following post on an online bible study group on an internet dating website:

OMG, The First Slave OWNER in the USA was a Black Man

“This is going to be a shocker to many of you, but the first slave OWNER in America was indeed a Black man name Anthony Johnson. He was captured in Angola Africa by North African Muslims (hello), then sold to a Virginia farmer as an indentured servant. His indentured status was to last a maximum of 10 years by law, and upon his freedom, he himself purchase indentured servants. Prior to one of those servant’s expiration of servitude, Anthony Johnson applied to the government for the right to keep him FOR LIFE (actual slavery). This occurred in 1654, and this marked the beginning of slavery in the USA, and it was BEGUN by a BLACK MAN. The slave trade in the USA followed after that and at the beginning of the Civil War of the USA, several of the slave OWNERS were themselves BLACK.

North African Muslims were the biggest slave traders in history and it is estimated that they enslaved about
200 million people over the course of 1400 years.
Europe and America practiced slavery for less than a third of that time.
So this idea that slavery was invented by and/or promoted the biggest by the European WHITE man is pure bunk.”

My Reply was as follows:

Hello to everyone,

I was shocked by the inaccuracy of the Opening Post with race being such a sensitive issue. Firstly the title of the post is factually incorrect and should be:

The first legal slave owner in American history was a black tobacco farmer named Anthony Johnson.

Possibly true. The wording of the statement is important. Anthony Johnson was not the first slave owner in American history, but he was, according to historians, among the first to have his lifetime ownership of a servant legally sanctioned by a court.

A former indentured servant himself, Anthony Johnson was a “free negro” who owned a 250-acre farm in Virginia during the 1650s, with five indentured servants under contract to him. One of them, a black man named John Casor, claimed that his term of service had expired years earlier and Johnson was holding him illegally. In 1654, a civil court found that Johnson in fact owned Casor’s services for life, an outcome historian R Halliburton Jr. calls “one of the first known legal sanctions of slavery — other than as a punishment for crime.” (Source: Snopes.Com)

One has to remember that legal forms of slavery were practiced all over the world, and indentured servitude and chattel slavery are quite different things. The former often had the agreement of the people involved, was legal at that time and had been practiced in biblical times (Ex 21:2) and even before. The latter however, in its most extreme and heinous form as practiced by Europeans transported an estimated 11 million people from various parts of Africa to America, transported in squalid conditions, often without keeping records of those being transported, throwing people overboard in forms of mass baptism, not really caring whether people lived or died, with conditions improving little for many over the approximately 400 years it lasted. One has to remember churches owned slaves, and the 11 million transported is virtually double the number of people who died in the Jewish Holocaust, and with scant records kept of deaths who knows how many African lives perished because of this inhumanity. Here is some information that at least attempts to assess that:

“The trans-Atlantic slave trade was the largest movement of people in history. Between 10 and 15 million Africans were forcibly transported across the Atlantic between 1500 and 1900. But this figure grossly understates the actual number of Africans enslaved, killed, or displaced as a result of the slave trade. At least 2 million Africans–10 to 15 percent–died during the infamous “Middle Passage” across the Atlantic. Another 15 to 30 percent died during the march to or confinement along the coast. Altogether, for every 100 slaves who reached the New World, another 40 had died in Africa or during the Middle Passage.” (Source: Digital History)

Here is a scripture to consider:

This is what the LORD says: “For three sins of Gaza, even for four, I will not relent. Because she took captive whole communities and sold them to Edom, (Amos 1:6).

I’m not saying Europeans are being spoke of explicitly in this scripture, but their actions are comparable to how Gaza is described, and it clearly seems that God sees this type of action as being wrong. What nations have done what is mentioned in Amos 1:6 above, but not only that – transported chattel slaves thousands of miles across the planet, to help with building up land they stole from another race of people? The overwhelming majority of these actions done by force, even under the banner of religion?

Going back to the premise of the Opening Post, also consider that slavery started in “The New World” in 1620, Anthony Johnson became a indentured slave owner in the 1650’s which is about a generation after the initial influx of people. Are we seriously saying that for that entire 30 year gap, all African slaves bought and sold between European people in within America were done so illegally? Not one of those white slave owners or traders sought legal means to own slaves? If this is true, why did European white slave owners prefer illegal chattel slavery over indentured labour? What of the people who were born into slavery, did they not become legal property of the people who probably illegally owned their mother or father?

The premise I feel that was implied by the Opening Post seems to say, “don’t blame us for slavery, your people practiced it first”. As a black person, that’s what I read – between the lines. It’s a very superficial and inaccurate supposition. We definitely need to understand the different types of slavery that existed, how long those types of slavery existed, and the full context of the case in question – none of which were provided and which I have now clarified. Trans-Atlantic slavery and the societies impacted and borne out of it have created a very marked impact on societies right across the planet, and this led to the indentured labour in America practiced by both black and white people of which author of the Opening Post’s writes. The issue he misses is that as the initial influx of chattel slavery was illegal. Therefore all the indentured labour that followed it stemmed from that initial act, and in every instance was an act of injustice and simply an extension of the initial system of chattel slavery. If the slaves had not been transported half way across the world in the first place none of that would have happened, no “indentured labour” in America, no Jim Crow and Segregation, there would also be no race problem, at least involving the lives of black people in the USA today, although I am sure the Europeans would have found another culture to demonise, like Native American’s or Hispanics – perhaps this shows its ugly face in the shape of Donald Trump, who cannot help but laden his speech and writing with such contemptuousness even now.

There is a deep seated guilt in European culture that wants to distance itself from the acts of their forefathers in the past, for the most blinded this leads to a denial of history and its effects on the present day world. The social and economic impact of slavery is felt to this day. That display of inhumanity is what has led to this polarisation of cultures and colour, and keeps black and white communities in a flux of division and mistrust – with exceptions as people endeavour to live as people with love and respect for one another as God intended.

Europeans assume superiority because they have built huge and prosperous civilisations seeing themselves at the top of the tree, despising and dehumanising those who they used to help them get there, to this day. People of Colour assume inferiority low worth and status, as they try to live in the confines of European culture that by its language, economic structure and even in its interpretation of religion systematically dehumanises and oppresses them. These devices present in European society form a powerful hegemony which takes a concerted and sustained effort on the part of any Person of Colour to overcome.

There are many People of Colour caught up in a cycles of poverty and crime because of a mentality derived from the corrosive effects of this European cultural hegemony on our minds. In my mind this is what the famous Reggae artist Bob Marley talked of as “mental enslavery”. The unfortunate effect of this is that this type of behaviour by People of Colour only serves to perpetuate the European/white notions of superiority, and associating black with bad, white with good… We are at the level now in society where the patterns of thought and practice are so heavily embedded in people, both black and white, that it is probably written in our genes.

What a cursed trap for us all, both black and white! The black people can’t truly escape, the white people can see no reason why we are not free!

The very system or thing that People of Colour are claimed to be set free from, Trans-Atlantic Chattel Slavery, has a sting in its tail – that being the nature of the society created on the back of that system, treats us unfairly and attempts to limit the power for good in our minds. It’s like being freed from manacles only to find you are not fully accepted into society because you are black, in some ways much like the ex-convict who tries to integrate into society after having server their time.

But, what crime have People of Colour committed, other than being black? Is being black really a crime? Why do we suffer from the effects of being black years after this form of slavery ended? Do the children of convicts suffer in the same way? Are children born to a female convict in prison free, or do they also grow up in prison as a convict? What about that child’s children, and their children’s children, etc, at some point the person who was originally a convict and sent to prison will have served their sentence or died. The point I am making is that the children of convicts are not considered to be criminals, in severe cases where the parent is notorious, the child could have issues being accepted by society, but generally that is not the case, and you could only know about the history of the child’s parent if you knew them, or made a link through their family name.

However, in the case of being black, no matter what stratum of society you live in, this acceptance by society is based on the assumed and inferred qualities Europeans perceive about People of Colour, it’s nothing to do with whether your parents committed any type of criminality, whether you aspire to be a crook, a priest, a doctor, a sports star or a president. Being black is perpetually a crime at an implicit level in the European consciousness – it’s something visible, tangible at which they can direct their unease and/or hatred at in its various forms. It was a justification for physical slavery that existed hundreds of years ago, and the same notion exists today and is behind the malevolent devices that put up that invisible glass ceiling on you at work, disenfranchises you, skews the perceptions and tactics of law enforcement, perverts justice against you, perceives you as “the other” and unfortunately, I could go on and on and on…

The flip side is that Europeans consider the fact that Trans-Atlantic Slavery has been abolished to be pretty much the end of the matter, regardless of the fact that a difficult struggle for the rights of black people within European based societies continues to this day, in addition to the effects of colonialism and economic imperialism destabilising and decimating many African countries. When you think a problem is fixed, that something is atoned for, and it isn’t – that creates a problem that festers and morphs over time with the same underlying cause crying out to be remedied.

I don’t think the majority of European/white people want to see People of Colour suffer continual injustice, a small proportion do. The majority don’t see, perceive or adequately understand the effects of the culture they dominate causing harm to others, and a minority of European/white people do.

What could fix, or undo the effects of Trans-Atlantic Slavery? Freeing slaves? Giving black people the vote? Positive discrimination/affirmation? A token black president? I don’t think so! Surely only God knows the answer to that question!

Oppressors never see their oppression – they just see a status quo

Some white supremacists sometimes feel that their rights as often indigenous citizens are being impinged on by an influx of people who don’t belong among them.

America see’s that one nation that develops a nuclear weapon, even though it has many times more nuclear weapons, is a threat to regional or even world stability.

Some Islamic countries see Christianity as a threat and try to suppress it, even though in “Christian” countries, Islam is allowed to be practiced freely.

African countries, from of old have had their rulers killed, humiliated emasculated and corrupted – some corrupt themselves, but it seems that whenever Africa want to asset itself as a continent, build itself up, to lose the image of being needy, that other powers in the world, simply don’t want to see that happen.

Insightful as always, Al Jazeera’s Shadow War in Sahara sheds light on the shady tactics and misinformation promoted by “the usual players” to keep African nations separate, in need, while they divide and exploit as has become their usual modus operandi.

Video courtesy Al Jazeera.

Scripturally, this comes to mind:

The Lord’s Answer

5) “Look at the nations and watch—
and be utterly amazed.
For I am going to do something in your days
that you would not believe,
even if you were told.

6) I am raising up the Babylonians,
that ruthless and impetuous people,
who sweep across the whole earth
to seize dwellings not their own.

7) They are a feared and dreaded people;
they are a law to themselves
and promote their own honor.

8) Their horses are swifter than leopards,
fiercer than wolves at dusk.
Their cavalry gallops headlong;
their horsemen come from afar.
They fly like an eagle swooping to devour;
9) they all come intent on violence.
Their hordes advance like a desert wind
and gather prisoners like sand.

10) They mock kings
and scoff at rulers.
They laugh at all fortified cities;
by building earthen ramps they capture them.
11) Then they sweep past like the wind and go on—
guilty people, whose own strength is their god.”

Habukkuk Chapter 1, verses 1-11.

Well this is written in the language that described the terrors of millenia ago, yet it refers to today also, although the means of advance or transport may have changed, although America and the West may not be technically Babylonians in terms of their geographic location, their actions embody the spirit of the Babylonians written about in the scripture above. Which empire was the biggest empire ever to span the earth? Don’t people refer to the current day activities of The West as neo-colonialism? Hasn’t The West mocked, murdered and deposed rulers and taken over their lands, and to this day holds exploitative control over them?

Bob Marley said, who the cap fits, let them wear it.

The trick that The West plays is that it can never admit to the past and its devouring nature that has made it what it is today, and as an entity, it lives in a state of denial, where at the same time it is very aware if the need to deflect, mask, alter, and hide the past to justify its position and status in the present, maintaining a perpetual hegemony.

Straight outta vision…

Well, it annoyed me, even though I like some of the content Netflix releases, that at such a sensitive time when black people are being shot by police in increasing numbers in the USA, that Netflix should hearken back to the 80’s Hip Hop band NWA.

NWA

NWA

It seems to me, that because for many black American’s, American justice is a failure. Not only that but the voices of intelligent change and rationalisation are not being heard load enough. Unfortunatly, the white controlled media outlets want to hold up a cathartic stereotype for black people to hark back to, but this stereotype is problematic for black people. It re-enforces the very prejudices white culture has about black people and violence, and serves only to validate the police’s destructive treatment of black people.

As black people we should have moved on past NWA and made a new narrative. Really, these guys were on the scene over 30 years ago!  But unfortunately the program in question is trending on Netflix…

Sometimes we’ve got to wake up, and realise we need something new. Let’s not perpetuate the past!