Want Black Slavery Reparations? Here’s 30+ Mother Jones autobiography quotes to the contrary

 

The call to pay reparations to descendants of black American slaves boils down to two basic arguments. The first is that black slaves (as well as blacks living since slavery ended) suffered so severely that their descendants deserve to get paid for it. The second is that today’s black Americans would be so much wealthier if only their ancestors had been paid like white workers were.

Anybody who believes that these arguments justify billions or trillions of dollars of reparations paid to black Americans, while denied to other Americans, should read the autobiography of labor activist Mary Harris “Mother” Jones, which shows how white American industrial workers of the late 1800s and early 1900s suffered every bit as bad as black American slaves and also were paid too little to pass anything to future generations. The fact that white industrial slaves suffered as much as black slaves is proof that our nation’sstruggle (and the world’s) has always been a class struggle far more than a racial one.

I recommend this book, not only because it is short, but because it was written by somebody who witnessed these things personally. But if you don’t have time for the book, or you would like a preview, here are some important quotes that will help you understand a more complete American history. I have divided them up by category.

Those who support black slavery reparations will argue, before even reading this article, that none of it matters because white Americans “chose” to suffer these things or “chose to come here [America],” that they were not forced to work or brought here against their will. So let me address that first, before we get into the details.

 

Did whites have a choice?

Page 40: “In a single block in Kensington… Mothers of 22 children under 12 explained it [oppressive child labor] was a question of starvation… That the fathers had been killed or maimed at the mines.”

Viewpoint: The reality is that their “choice” was between starvation and working in agonizing conditions. They didn’t get free food, shelter, and basic healthcare, like black slaves did. They lived in a world of corporate dependency in which they lacked the means to provide for themselves, so they were fully dependent upon those who possessed the means. If those who possessed the means severely oppressed them, they had no choice but to endure it.

Page 5: “From 1880 on… The enormous immigration from Europe crowded the slums, forced down wages, and threatened to destroy the standard of living fought for by American working men.“

Page 14: “There was always a surplus of immigrant labor, solicited in Europe by the coal companies, so as to keep wages down to barest living… 14 hours a day was not uncommon… Families lived in company-owned shacks that were not fit for their pigs. Children died by the hundreds…”

Viewpoint: These passages counter the reparationist’s argument that “white people chose to come here,” meaning that Europeans liked American industrial labor conditions so much that they chose to cross the ocean to suffer them.

While Mother Jones herself was an immigrant, and she consistently stood for the rights of both immigrants and native-born laborers, she couldn’t help but tell the truth that too much immigration had decimated the lives of working class Americans, even those whose families had been here for decades, to the point that they were no better off than black slaves had been.

Furthermore, American industry, in this case the coal companies, deceived Europeans into coming to America with promises of secure jobs and good housing, only for them to find themselves used as scabs to break a strike and then left unemployed and homeless.

Page 132: “Organizers would come in with bandages on their heads… Foreigners were forever rushing in with tails of violence. They did not understand. Wasn’t this America? Hadn’t they come to America to be free?”

Viewpoint: Those immigrants who “chose to come here” sought late 1700s constitutional liberty, only to find that it had been crushed by late 1800s corporate tyranny. With no means to provide for themselves, they had no choice but to suffer this tyranny or suffer starvation.

 

Just as bad as slavery, if not worse

 Page 3: “…the ‘blues’ and the ‘grays’…before had been fighting each other over the question of chattel slavery. They decided that the time had come to formulate a program to fight another brutal form of slavery —industrial slavery.”

Viewpoint: Mother Jones, whose father brought her from Ireland to Memphis in the 1830s as a child, witnessedboth black slavery and the suffering of white industrial workers in the late 1800s. She had no reservations about calling what white industrial workers suffered “brutal slavery.”

Page 45: “50 years ago, there was a cry against slavery and men gave up their lives to stop the selling of black children on the block. Today, the white child is sold for two dollars a week to the manufacturers.”

Viewpoint: Reparations activists are trying to rewrite history by saying that Northern soldiers did not want slaves to be free; they just wanted the Union to stay together. Yet, Mother Jones, who lived through the Civil War, tells us otherwise. And she also recognized the parallel between black slavery and white slavery, that it was just a technical difference, not a practical one.

Page 18: “We were all living on dry bread and black coffee. I slept in a room that never had a fire in it, and I often woke up in the morning to find snow covering the outside covers of the bed.”

Viewpoint: The book, “There is Power in a Union” by Philip Dray, also share stories of white industrial workers living on nothing but dry bread and black coffee. Their food was every bit as meager, if not more meager, than that of Black slaves who had to be fed enough to remain alive and able to work. And if there was snow on their blankets, their shelter was clearly no better, either.

Page 80: “[Mostly white] miners worked 12 hours a day in the mills and smelters and mines, in the midst of sickening, deadly fumes of arsenic. Arsenic poisons. It paralyzes arms and legs. It causes the teeth to fall out, the hair to fall off. Weird looking men worked in the mines; gaunt, their faces sunken in, their eyelashes and eyebrows off, a green aspect to their skin.”

Viewpoint: Sounds worse than a black slave working in a field or plantation mansion.

 

Page 139: “All the world’s history has produced no more brutal and savage times than these.”

Viewpoint: This statement comes towards the end of Mother Jones autobiography in which she sums up what she believed to be the worst brutality in world history. To be fair, she did not witness most of world history. But she did witness black American slavery, having spent her teens and 20s in Memphis during the 1840s and 1850s. She witnessed both. And she insisted that white industrial slavery was the most brutal. I’ll take her word any day over modern day historians who witnessed neither.

 

How white industrial slavery worked

Page 89:“The miners had been peons for years, kept in slavery by the guns of the coal company, and by the system of paying in scrip, so that a miner never had any money should he wish to leave the district.”

Page 55: “[White coal miners] we’re in practical slavery to the company, who owned their houses, owned all the land, so if a miner did own a house, he must vacate whenever it pleased the land owners. They were paid in scrip instead of money so that they could not go away if disatisfied. They must buy at company stores atcompany prices.”

Viewpoint: Mother Jones uses a key term here – “practical slavery.“ The technical slavery of owning another person and forcing them to work while  providing for them food, shelter, and basic healthcare had been abolished. Therefore, corporations created a practical slavery where they paid predominantly white workers so little that they struggled to afford the levels of food and shelter that black slaves had received for free; and if the workers and their children died from malnutrition, exhaustion, or workplace injuries, they were simply replaced with the next immigrant off the boat. If the workers wanted to leave their slave like conditions, they could not afford to buy as little as a piece of dry bread once they left the company town, because the scrip that they had been paid could only have been spent at the company store in the company town they escaped. It was practically slavery, with just a few twists.

Page 58: “[Striking Colorado] miners were evicted from their company-owned houses. They went out on the bleak mountain sides, lived in tents through a terrible winter with a temperature below zero, with 18 inches of snow on the ground. They tied their feet in gunnysacks and lived lean and lank and hungry as Timberwolves.”

Viewpoint: Another example of “practical slavery” is being threatened with homelessness, starvation, and death from exposure in the event that white and Hispanic workers displeased their corporate masters.

Page 74: “The family had to run up a debt [to their company] of $30 for [their father’s] funeral. Year in and year out they toiled to pay back to the Company store the indebtedness. Penny by penny they wore down the amount. After food and rent were deducted from the scanty wages, nothing remained. They were in thralldom [a Norse word for “slavery”] to the mill.”

Viewpoint: This quote perfectly refutes the pro-reparations argument that had slaves been paid, black Americans today would inherit “generational wealth.” We see here that white industrial “slaves” were paid so little that there was nothing left to pay their father‘s funeral, let alone pass down to descendants.

Furthermore, we see in this quote the technical work around that enabled white industrial slavery. Corporationspaid their workers so little that workers had no choice but to borrow money from the company for so little as their father‘s funeral, and then they would spend the rest of their lives unable to leave their jobs, because they were in bondage to the company as long as they owed debt .

Mother Jones goes on to say that she had to steal this family out of town during the night, making sure that the wheels of the stage coach were properly oiled so that they made no noise, lest she get caught carrying these white slaves away to freedom.

Page 122: “An explosion! Whose husband was killed? Whose children were fatherless?

‘My God, how many mules have been killed!’ was the first exclamation of the superintendent.… New mules had to be bought. They cost the company money. The human life is cheap, far cheaper than mules.”

Viewpoint: Here, Mother Jones mentions a reality that made white industrial slavery far deadlier than black American slavery. While black slave owners may not have respected their slaves, the slaves were of significant financial value to them. They needed black slaves to stay alive and healthy enough to work or be sold; therefore, black slaves often received better food, shelter, and basic healthcare than many white industrial slaves. A dead black slave was a major financial loss to the owner, even if it was a child; they cost money to replace. The same was true with mules in industry. But a dead white industrial worker or dead child of a white worker cost the corporate tyrants nothing; they could simply replace them with the next immigrant off the boat (and there were many of those), since they had invested nothing in the human beings themselves. That’s the main reason why white American industrial workers died at approximately twice the rate of English industrial workers, according to the numbers “The history of workplace safety in the United States” at eh.net.

 

Child labor conditions

Page 76: “A breaker boss watched the boys. He had a long stick to strike the knuckles of any lad seen neglecting his work. The fingers of the little boys bled onto the coal. Their nails were out to the quick.”

Viewpoint: Reparations proponents often argue that they are owed a debt because black slaves were beaten. Well, it turns out that white industrial slaves were also beaten, while their jobs simultaneously mutilated them. It wasn’t just those adults who joined unions, but also those children being driven to work harder..

Page 40: “I put the little boys with their fingers off and hands crushed and maimed on a platform. I held up there mutilated hands and showed them to the crowd and made the statement that Philadelphia’s mansions were built on the broken bones, the quivering hearts, and drooping heads of these children.”

Viewpoint: Mother Jones made this statement in reference to the 1903 Kensington Philadelphia child labor strike. It included over 10,000 children. There’s a children’s book about it called, “Mother Jones and her Armyof Mill Children.”

As of 1910, only 5% of Philadelphia was black. It was almost entirely White children, not Black children, who “built” Philadelphia. Reparations activists effectively urinate on the graves of these children by saying that it was Blacks who “built America.”

Page 37: “I said to the father, ‘What is wrong with your girl?’ ‘Consumption,’ said he. ‘I couldn’t earn enough in the mines, and she went to work in a boarding house. They worked her so hard she took a sick – consumption.’…He went home and when he opened the door, his sick daughter said, ‘Father, you have lost your job.’ She started to sob. That brought on a coughing fit from what she fell back on the pillow exhausted – dead.’”

Viewpoint: Black slave children didn’t have to worry about their parents losing their jobs and starving as a result. Some aspects of black slavery were worse than white industrial slavery; some aspects were better.

Page 70: “Little girls and boys, barefooted, walked up and down between the endless rows of spindles… Tiny babies of 6 years old with faces of 60 did an 8 hour shift for $.10 a day. If they fell asleep, cold water was dashed in their faces… At lunch, the children would fall to sleep… on the bare floor… Sleep was their recreation.”

Page 72:“How long do they [children ages 6 to 10] work? From six in the evening till six come morning… $.10 a night… They stumbled out of the heated atmosphere of the mill, shaking with cold as they came outside… They die of pneumonia, these little ones, of bronchitis and consumption [that’s when your job exhausts you to death].”

Viewpoint: To give you some idea of what $.10 bought in the late 1800s, a pound of rice, which is about 1300calories, cost 5-10 cents, depending on the state. A dozen eggs could cost over $.30 (according to photocopies of old documents I researched at libraryguides.missouri.edu). That should give you some idea of how severe the poverty was for these children. Clearly, what they could afford was no better than what Black slaves had been given for free. Worse yet, they were killed and maimed by their jobs at much higher rates than black slave children.

Page 72: “I went from Tuscaloosa to Selma, Alabama, and got a job in a mill. I boarded with a woman who had a dear little girl of 11 years working in the same mill with me. On Sunday, a group of mill children were going out to the woods. They came for Maggie…

“Get up, Maggie, the children are here for you to go to the woods. Oh, mother, just let me sleep; that’s a lot more fun. I’m so tired. I just want to sleep forever.”

The next day she went to the mill as usual. That evening at 4 o’clock, they brought her home and laid her tiny body on the kitchen table. She was asleep – forever. Her hair had caught in the machinery and torn her scalp off.”

Viewpoint: Various historical sources, including the CDC, have stated that 20,000 to 30,000 overwhelmingly white workers died from their jobs annually in the late 1800s and early 1900s. A significant number of these were children. Black slaves suffered not even a fraction of such high mortality, because tending crops and working in plantation mansions was far less dangerous than working in coal mining, silver mining, steel, high rise construction, textile mills, and railroad (the latter of which surprisingly killed 10,000 people per year).

 

White industrial civil rights atrocities

Page 130: “If I were to stop to talk to a woman on the street about her child, a cossack would come charging down upon us and we would have to run for our lives. If I were to talk to a man in the streets of Braddock, we would be arrested for unlawful assembly.”

Viewpoint: Even the most basic American rights, freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, were prohibited for predominantly white industrial workers trying to organize for bearable hours, livable pay, and safe conditions.

Page 54:“Shopkeepers were forbidden to sell to miners. Priests and ministers were intimidated, fearing to give them consolation. The miners opened their own stores to feed their women and children.”

Viewpoint: As a result of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, northern white Americans were prohibited from aiding or feeding any Black American who had escaped southern slavery. And in the decades that followed the Civil War, black Americans had to form their own towns to be able to provide for themselves. Thanks to quotes like this, we know that white union workers suffered the same thing.

Page 95: “The militia… forbade all meetings [of white miners]. They suspended every civil right. They became despotic. They arrested scores of miners, tried them in military court, without jury, sentenced them to 10, 15 years in the Moundsville prison.”

Viewpoint: How could white workers have “every civil right” suspended if it was only blacks who lacked civil rights? Because it was the working class of all races who lacked civil rights.

Page 6: “The police without warning charged down upon the workers, shooting into their midst, clubbing right and left. Many were trampled under horses’ feet. Numbers were shot dead. Skulls were broken. Young men and girls were clubbed to death.”

Viewpoint: No, these were not Black Americans marching for civil rights in Selma. These were white industrial workers marching for livable working conditions in Chicago. All races have suffered severe police brutality. But today’s anti-white media hides stories like these in an attempt to convince Americans that our struggles have been racial rather than class-oriented.

Page 8: “The leaders of the eight hour day movement were hanged on Friday, November 11 [1886]”

Viewpoint: Reparations proponents often argue that white people were not hanged like black slaves were. They are lying. White people were regularly hanged. And many of them did not receive a constitutional trial, like the Molly Maguires, for example.

Page 35: “Men who joined the union were blacklisted throughout the entire section. Their families were thrown out on the highways. Men were shot. They were beaten. Numbers disappeared and no trace of them were found. Storekeepers were ordered not to sell to union men or their families.”

Viewpoint: Woke liberals would have us think that these crimes against humanity only happened to black Americans. The truth is that White workers suffered similar brutality and discrimination.

Page 63: “strikers were arrested for vagrancy and worked in chain gangs on the street under brutal soldiers…Men, women, and tiny children were packed in the bullpen at Cripple Creek. Miners were shot dead as they slept.”

Page 115: “Oh mother, did you hear how they are arresting miners for vagrancy, for loafing, and making them work in company ditches without pay, making them haul coal and clear snow up to the mines for nothing!”

Viewpoint: Those who cry for Black slavery reparations sometimes make the argument that Black Americans were enslaved well into the 1900s by means of arresting them for vagrancy and forcing them to work on chain gangs as unpaid laborers. That may be true, but it was also true for white industrial workers who unionized.Therefore, the descendants of white prison slaves should not have to fund the descendants of the black prison slaves.

Page 97:“… Deputies and guards drove an armored train with Gatling guns through the tent colony of the miners, while they were sleeping. Into the quiet tents of the workers the guns were fired, killing and wounding the sleepers.… No one was arrested.”

Page 115: “Oh, mother, did you hear how the soldiers entered Mrs. Hall’s house, how they terrified the little children, wrecked the home, and did worse – terrible things – and just because Mr. Hall, the undertaker, had buried two miners whom the militia had killed!”

Viewpoint: Again, we are misled into believing that police brutality is a racial problem. The truth is it has primarily been a class problem in American history.

Page 117: “the militia… machine guns began spraying the flimsy tent colony, the only home the wretched families of the miners had, spraying it with bullets… The little Snyder boy was shot through the head, trying to save his kitten. A child carrying water to his dying mother was killed.… And dug out under a burned tent, the charred bodies of 11 little children and two women were found – unrecognizable… Slaughtered tiny babies and defenseless women. Done by the order of Lieutenant Linderfelt, a savage brutal executor of the will of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company.”

Viewpoint: This quote speaks of the Ludlow massacre of 1914. More than a few dozen white (and perhaps some Hispanic) workers were massacred by the Colorado state militia serving the will of a coal company.

Altogether, there have been over 100 strikes in American history in which a total of over 1000 predominantly white workers were killed. But in this case, families were killed, too.

If you haven’t heard of these, that’s because the Republicans don’t want you to know what a living hell America was when corporations could do whatever they wanted while the government shot strikers on their behalf, and the Democrats don’t want you to know that white industrial workers suffered every bit as bad as black slaves, thus proving that our primary struggle has been a class struggle that is today misrepresented by woke liberals as a racial struggle, so that Black Americans may receive never ending preferential treatment at the expense of descendants of working class whites who are to receive never ending discrimination.

Page 80: “In 1899 the Bunker Hill company mine was blown up. The governor called the troops which only made matters worse. The first troops were Negroes. [white] Men were arrested and thrown in jail without trial. 1000 [white] men were herded into a bullpen.”

Viewpoint: If black militias mistreated white workers, do they owe white workers reparations?

Not only do I hope that these quotes from Mother Jones have educated you on how the media has misrepresented America’s historical class struggle as a race struggle, but I also really hope you share this article with others online. Mother Jones’ stories need to be heard by an America that has turned a deaf ear to her. Why have they done this? Here’s a possible reason:

Page 57: “I know no east or west, north or south when it comes to my class fighting the battle for justice.“

Viewpoint: Throughout her autobiography, Mother Jones repeatedly places her identity in her class — the working class. Even though she was a woman of Irish descent, she fought for every working class man, woman, and child, regardless of whether they were Irish, Italian, Polish, German, Mexican, or otherwise.Perhaps that’s why social liberals largely ignore her accomplishments today. They prefer leaders who look out only for their own gender or race.

— by K. Scott Schaeffer — Author of the book, “Ending Racism against White Americans: a Christian case for individually quality and a post-racial future.”

EMF Health Theory – The Impact of Electromagnetic Energy (including 5G UWB) on Human Health

EMF Health Theory

By K. Scott Schaeffer

The following article is a combination of physics, neurology, and my personal experiences as they pertain to electromagnetic energy’s effects on the human body. I write this, because my body’s intolerance to strong electromagnetic frequencies (EMFs) is severe. The levels of  EMFs that 5G Ultra Wideband impose on the human body will likely kill me, either by respiratory constriction, stroke, or other internal bleeding, resulting from overstimulation of my hyperactive parasympathetic nervous system.

 

I will get into details about the personal experiences that enabled me to identify and understand my EMF intolerance, later. But first, let’s get acquainted with the electromagnetic spectrum.

 

Electromagnetic energy is made up of one thing – photons. Photons travel in ways that vary in length. The longest waves are called radio waves. They have the lowest frequency, which is the number of waves that pass a given point per second. The shorter the wave, the more waves pass a given point when traveling at light speed, thus, the higher the frequency. The next longest waves (and the next highest frequency) are microwaves. After that comes infrared, followed by the visible color red and the rest of the visible light spectrum, up to the color violet, then ultraviolet, x-rays, and, finally, gamma rays. All of these are made of the same particle. The only difference between them is the length of the wave and the frequency of the signal.

 

The human race has grown up on three of the seven components I just mentioned — infrared, visible light, and ultraviolet — all of which we get from the sun. Despite the fact that the wavelength difference between these is no more than a matter of millimeters, the impacts each of these have on the human body are quite different from one another.

 

Infrared is felt as heat, and it literally increases your body’s temperature. You don’t need to see these EMFs for them to affect you. You could lie in the sun with your head in a dark, heat resistant box, and you would still feel the heat on your body. If you receive too much infrared, your body will warn you by making you feel too hot so that you seek shade. Your body will also protect you with perspiration. So, even though your body is made for the sun, there are still thresholds at which infrared EMFs can harm you. The good news is that the sun goes away at night, so your body can rest. If you had to do all sleeping in direct sunlight, you would die.

 

Visible light is not felt by any part of your body, except your eyes and brain when light is too bright. However, just because you don’t feel visible light does not mean it can’t affect your body. It’s illogical to conclude that this thin sliver of the electromagnetic spectrum has no physical impact, when the EMFs it is sandwiched between have significant impact. (I know from experience that if someone leaves a fluorescent kitchen sink light on that indirectly shines into my room while I am asleep, I wake up feeling sick throughout my entire nervous system, even though my eyes were closed. If someone were willing to do a sleep test like this, I could prove it.) Nonetheless, your body also has warnings and defenses in the event you get too much light. The feeling of it being too bright is a warning, and the closing of your eyes and turning of your head is the defense. Too much light will blind you. The good news is that you can get away from light when you sleep. That’s important, because the study after study shows that too much light while sleeping is detrimental to one’s health.

 

Ultraviolet light is also not felt by your body upon direct exposure. And, like infrared, you could have your head in a box and your body would still feel it’s effects. If you get too much UV, you feel skin pain that we call sunburn. It’s a warning to get out of the sun. Our body’s defense system is tanning. If you get UV exposure beyond what is safe, you get UV poisoning. The three people I’ve known who’ve gotten it, fell asleep in the sun. Your body is most susceptible to EMFs when sleeping. The good news is that we can get away from UV EMFs when we sleep. If we couldn’t, UV would kill us.

 

Now let’s compare these EMFs the human body is made for to one it’s not made for -microwaves. Again, this is the cellular communications part of the spectrum. Unlike the three solar EMFs, your body has no warning system (unless you are me), and your body has no defense against them. This lack of defense, as well as the fact that our body receives no benefit from microwaves, makes it likely that far lower amounts of microwave energy are needed to harm us than amounts of the three solar EMFs. Furthermore, the fact that the slight wavelength difference among the three solar EMFs each have different impacts on the human body makes it probable that microwaves have yet another impact. But unlike the three solar EMFs, which have positive health impacts necessary for life, it’s likely that microwaves only have negative impacts. Most importantly, unlike the 3 solar EMFs, you can’t get away from them when you sleep, if they come from a cell tower, wireless high powered router, or 5G Ultra Wideband booster cell in your nearby. This energy will stress the body 24 hours a day, 7 days per week, 365 days per year, because it’s continuously active. So, even though our bodies are made to rest by getting away from solar EMFs at night, our bodies have no opportunities to rest when exposed to the high level microwave energy of 5G Ultra Wideband.

 

Biased studies

Scientists have argued that 5G Ultra Wideband levels of electromagnetic energy are harmless, because a study once done on the impact of high-voltage power lines show that they don’t cause cancer. This is a lazy argument. I have three responses:

One, cancer is not the only health disorder there is. If scientists failed to study impacts on blood pressure, neurotransmitter levels, and long-term organ function, they didn’t do their due diligence; they just did one simple-minded study and jumped to an emotional conclusion, and approach all too common in modern science and medicine.

Two, high-voltage lines have a low frequency of only 60 Hz; while 5G Ultra Wideband will have frequencies over 5,000,000,000 Hz and up. Just as a small differences in frequencies between infrared, visible light, and UV have drastically different effects on humans, it’s illogical to assume that 60 Hz will have the same impact on the body as frequencies higher than 5 GHz.

Three, 5G Ultra Wideband exposes us to far more overall energy than high-voltage lines do. My grandmother lives 350 feet from high-voltage power lines, yet, from her backyard, my EMF sensor shows no increase in EMFs over the minor amount that the sensor picks up from nature. Yet, when driving by the Philadelphia sports complex on I-95, my EMF sensor gave readings over 250 times higher than what my sensor normally picks up from nature, thanks to the fully activated 5G Ultra Wideband service at the sports complex. That, of course, means 250 times more electromagnetic energy than generated by high-voltage lines. When you consider that there’s a threshold at which even the three solar EMFs harm the body, we should seriously examine whether energy 250 times stronger than high-voltage lines exceeds the danger threshold for frequencies unfamiliar to the human body.

 

Scientists have also argued that a 2011 study in New Zealand disproved radio and microwave intolerance, because it exposed participants to EMFs in a blind test, and most of them did not say they felt it right away. This is an idiotic conclusion.

One, the same study would supposedly prove that UV can’t cause sunburn, because none of us “feel” UV upon being exposed to it. However, we all know the effects of UV (and other EMFs) are both cumulative and delayed. The longer UV bombards your body, the more harm it will do; and the worst sunburn pain is often at night, long after the UV exposure has ended. The same goes for radiation sickness from gamma rays.

Second, eight years ago, it would take a couple hours for me to be able to feel whether a compact fluorescent lightbulb burned beneath a lampshade. Today, I can feel it in less than a minute from behind my back in the daytime. Most EMF intolerant people don’t have a condition anywhere near as advanced as mine; therefore, a brief blind test is insufficient. I recommend sleep studies in which people are exposed to 5G EMFs at different times and for a different durations while sleeping. Not only should sleep habits be monitored, but so should blood pressure and other vital signs in the short and intermediate term.

Three, this study most likely did not account for rare health conditions. Think about the incredibly small percentage of people who get a rash from only five minutes’ sun exposure. If you study 200 people, you would most likely not find anyone who gets a rash in that group, because your sample size is too small. And if you only found one or two rash suffers, you may disregard them as falling within the margin of error or as having the rash caused by other factors. I don’t know the number of people involved in the study, but it’s unlikely to have been enough to account for a rare reactions.

 

Possible causes

It may not be a coincidence that people claiming to have EMF intolerance who protest 5G Ultra Wideband tend to live in the United Kingdom, Scandinavia, Australia, and South Africa. That’s because people who live far from the equator tend to be less tolerant of electromagnetic energy.

 

A major reason for this may be genetics. People of Northern European descent have always been more prone to sunburn and allergic sun reactions. That means they are less tolerant of solar EMFs than other races and ethnicities. It is reasonable to consider that they may also be less tolerant of all electromagnetic frequencies than the rest of the world.

 

Furthermore, people who live far from the equator have more glutamate, one of the brains two excitatory neurotransmitters. Glutamate is created by photoreceptors on the posterior of the eyes in the absence of light. Glutamate, along with the brainstem‘s acetylcholine, energizes the brain. Glutamate over abundance is associated with Multiple Sclerosis, a disorder far more prevalent the farther one gets from the equator. It’s quite possible that brains create glutamate in the absence of sunlight, because the brain would have insufficient energy to function at full capacity without solar EMFs, if it weren’t for glutamate picking up the slack. But brains with too much glutamate might over activate in the presence of strong EMFs to the point that EMFs stress the nervous system. That stress might make the system more sensitive and more likely to over defend against EMFs.

 

On the other hand, acetylcholine might have a similar impact. On a personal level, my brain stem, cranial nerves, and parasympathetic nervous system’s over activity are much more likely to be caused by an over abundance of acetylcholine, but perhaps exacerbated by a surge of glutamate during Pennsylvania’s dark, cloudy winters (I get worse every winter, but somewhat better by the end of summer).

 

The reason I suspect acetylcholine the most is because the worst of my suffering, from brainstem tension to tremoring to gastrointestinal issues, comes during REM sleep, either shortly after falling asleep or during 4 AM to 8 AM sleep. This is when the brainstem produces most of its acetylcholine. Also, if I eat a half pint of blueberries (one of the highest choline foods) on an empty stomach, I get a sudden hard-hitting tension attack in my brain and facial nerve. It comes from out of nowhere, much like severe food allergy reactions do. If it were my vagus nerve, spinal accessory nerve, or glossopharyngeal nerve that were affected, the reaction might have cut off my breathing. To the best of my knowledge, blueberries have no significant impact on glutamate, like they do acetylcholine production.

 

CT scans

I think overabundant levels of acetylcholine might be responsible for bad reactions to MRI and CT contrast dye injected during CT scans. The medical establishment blames the dye, saying that some people are simply allergic to it. But based on my 2017 CT scan without contrast dye, in which my stomach and chest tightened up 4 to 6 hours later (remember, EMF reactions are often delayed), I believe it’s the energy of the scan (a single scan equals the total x-ray energy one gets from nature over the course of an entire year) creating such a stress on the body that the revved up parasympathetic nervous system over-constricts the vascular and respiratory systems (controlled by the vagus nerve, rooted in the medulla) as it incorrectly blames the dye for the stress.

 

To know for sure, we would need to inject thousands of people with contrast dye, without giving them the scan, to see if the frequency and severity of reactions are the same as those who have gotten the scan. It’s likely that some people are truly allergic to the dye. But others might develop the allergy due to EMF stress. If EMF stress can cause allergic overreactions, we might want to study its affects on other allergies and on responses to viral and bacterial infections. Perhaps balanced energy is a key to good health that the American medical establishment has stubbornly ignored. Also, if we can identify EMF intolerant individuals, we can prevent many deadly CT scan reactions.

 

Fluorescent lights

In the fall of 2008, I developed ulcers and esophagitis out of the blue. I tested negative for H-Pyloribacteria (which causes 90% of ulcers) three times over the next five years. I tried eliminating one food after another from my diet. Nothing worked. By 2012, I had a rule of no eating after 4 PM (2 PM for big meals), so I could digest it by bedtime. Yet, my stomach would often feel fine all afternoon, until an hour or so after I sat down to watch TV at night. Then my stomach turned chaotic, and I would have tremor attacks shortly after falling asleep. Finally, in 2014, I realized that fluorescent lights, especially the CFLs in my living room lamps, were the cause. Once I removed them and avoided all other fluorescent lights at nights, my ulcers went away (except for the time a hospital resident did an unnecessary ultrasound on my stomach, then I got an ulcer that took 10 days to heal).

 

While I can look back over my life and see how often office fluorescent lights made me fog-brained and tired, only to feel great an hour after leaving work or school, I believe that CFLs at home made my intolerance to energy much worse. It wasn’t until 2020 that I learned that CFLs pulsate at a rate of 12,000 to 15,000 times per second. This explains why my EMF sensor picks up 200+ milligauss of radio energy from CFLs (about the same as a microwave oven when running), but none from incandescents or LEDs. While the pulsations are too fast to consciously see, the pulsations are rapid enough for the brainstem and vagus nerve (which controls the stomach) to subconsciously feel them.

 

There is a sense, however, in which I am lucky to have my vagus nerve primarily attack my stomach and esophagus (perhaps due to my hiatal hernia already causing agitation). Both have lots of nerves, so I can feel when something is wrong. The vagus nerve (the largest nerve not protected by bone) also controls other vital organs that have fewer nerves and therefore generate less physical pain. One of those is the kidneys. My father, who swears by CFLs, has developed kidney disease, despite no family history or risk factors (like drinking). Perhaps it’s the CFL pulsations from the lamp he sits next to each night, stressing his vagus nerve to the point that it gradually damaged the kidneys, while he never felt a thing until it was too late. The fact that this theory may seem far-fetched to most people is irrelevant as to whether or not it’s true. To the best of my knowledge, no studies have been done on CFL effects on the nervous system. I know if a study were done on me, I could feel it’s impact in a matter of minutes, even if it were behind me in the daytime. (Take three lamps, two with incandescents and one with a CFL, set them 5 feet behind me, and take turns turning each one on in random order for a few minutes at a time, and I can tell which one is the CFL.)

 

Cell phone towers

Aside from the impact of CFLs on my digestive system, it wasn’t until April 2012 that my entire nervous system went haywire. I started with tremor attacks within 30 minutes of falling asleep. They left my nervous system feeling fried, my breathing feeling shallow, and my consciousness feeling like it was struggling to focus throughout the following morning.

 

What changed?

 

3G booster cells were placed next to my apartment building. It took me several years to discover this. But looking back, it appears to have been the cause of my increase the sensitivity to light, sound, chemicals, and electromagnetic frequencies since then.

 

In May 2012, I drove an hour to the telescope observatory atop the LVAAS headquarters on South Mountain in Allentown, PA to do an evening of astronomical observing. After returning home and going to sleep, an outside noise awakened me and resulted in my heart beating over 200 bpm for 15 minutes straight. Testing would show there was nothing wrong with my heart. The cause it would remain a mystery for the rest of the decade. It wasn’t until I got a rather sudden, awful head tension (that made me more light and sound sensitive for a week) when hiking uphill in 2019, while passing a cell tower on the Midstate trail in Saxton, PA, that I began to figure it out. I would then realize that the cell tower 75 yards from the LVAAS observatory was the cause.

 

My cell tower sensitivity would explain why I would get REM sleep attacks every time I came home from the Augwick Tower Road overlook near Cowans Gap State Park in 2018 and 2019. Likewise, a night of camping became unbearable to the point I had to pack up and leave at 1 AM, only to notice a cell tower a few hundred yards from the site on my way out. And my peaceful and relaxing trips to Cherry Springs State Park turned neurologically tense several years ago. The trips were peaceful in the days when you couldn’t get a cell phone signal at the park. Then, in either 2016 or 2017, when we could suddenly get four bars on our phones, because they added a cell tower less than a mile down the road (one that I did not notice until 2020), my head tension became a continual problem.

 

Of course, none of these attacks came on as suddenly as when I passed by a new 5G tower in the Roxborough section of Philadelphia in November 2020. Upon seeing the tower, I doubted that it had been there before moving out of Conshohocken in 2018. It had been a year and a half since I had been there. I then wondered if Philadelphia wasn’t gearing up for 5G service. While stopped at a light just past the tower, a powerful tension hit my brain stem like no other tower had previously done. I knew right then that 5G was already active. Later research proved I was right. By the time I reached my New Jersey destinations, after passing through the city, I checked my blood pressure, and the diastolic (bottom number) was 20 points higher than usual, as my body had begun to tremor from the tension.

 

In January 2021, I had a similar, but less severe, tension while taking my usual walk-break at Harrisburg’s Wildwood Park, as I traveled from central Pennsylvania to eastern Pennsylvania to visit family. This had always been a relaxing place for me to take a break from the tension caused by driving. But this time the tension was quite overwhelming and would become nearly unbearable throughout the remainder of the day and overnight. Later research found that 5G had just been activated along the highway interchange adjacent to the park.

 

Upon a return to South Jersey in early 2021, I had to pass through Philadelphia again. So this time I brought my EMF sensor with me. I took a different route that was longer and would allow me to pass by 5G areas faster (I-476 south to I-95 north). The readings as I passed the airport and the sports complex blew my mind. Out in nature, I get a radio frequency reading around 4 mW per square meter. My Comcast router at home gives a reading of about 26 mW per square meter from 5 feet away. But the readings from interstate 95, passing the sports complex, maxed out my sensor at 1000 mW per square meter. My head tension was quite significant, despite having taken a Xanax beforehand to make my nervous system less reactive. Fortunately, I slept that night at my grandmother’s in Berks County, where there is no 5G, yet. But it’s coming soon, and no longer will I be able to visit family.

 

Routers

While my digestive system went haywire from CFLs in 2008, and my brain stem and cranial nerve-related health went haywire from 3G cell boosters installed next to my apartment in 2012, it wasn’t until 2016 that I suspected that wireless routers could have any impact on my health. I saw some YouTube videos about it and, considering that my wireless router was only 2 feet behind my head when on my computer during the day and 5 feet from my head when sleeping at night, I figured why not turn off my router and see if I get better over time?

 

Much to my surprise, turning off my router yielded immediate results. The next morning, I rememberedmy dreams! I could remember 10 to 12 things that happened. Prior to this, I thought that I didn’t dream anymore. After turning it off, I would remember my dreams regularly, even up to last night.

 

At that time, the router caused me no pain when it was on, but routers had pretty weak signals back then. It wasn’t until I visited my sister in Boyertown, PA for Thanksgiving in 2018 that I suspected router-related pain. I spent the night on the third floor and slept well. But my dog downstairs cried for me when I awoke to use the bathroom around 3 to 4 AM, so I came downstairs and tried to sleep on the couch. The longer I laid there, the more tension built in my brain stem. I considered that it might be from her router less than 10 feet away.

 

When I visited again for Thanksgiving in 2019, I felt that same tension after only half an hour of entering the living room. I asked my sister if she had recently gotten a new router, and she replied that her ISP just gave her an upgraded one. The router was out of sight in the cabinet, so I had no way of knowing that she had gotten a new router other than by being able to feel it shortly after entering her living room.

 

By this point in time, I had grown familiar with a very specific brain stem tension that I get from microwave EMFs. This was largely due to having new routers in my new apartment in the fall of 2019. First, Verizon installed a DSL router. I only had it on for a couple hours the first two afternoons, and the tension it caused in my brain stem became unbearable overnight and while hiking the following day. I then stopped using the router and felt better. Afterward, I switched to Comcast, who had a weaker router, and I was able to sleep again. Then, one night, I awoke after five hours of sleep, feeling sick throughout my nervous system. My brain stem tension continued throughout the morning, until I noticed at noon that I had forgotten to unplug the router before bed the previous night. From time to time since then, I forget to unplug the router when writing or watching TV in the living room, and I don’t realize it,until I feel brainstem tension 1 to 2 hours afterward.

 

Cell phones

When I had an iPhone 5S, people I told about my EMF intolerance would ask if cell phones bothered me. I would say they did not. And when I bought an EMF sensor, the 5S never generated much of a reading. But when I replaced it with an iPhone 8, I put the phone in my left pants pocket, where I always put my phone, and five hours later my thigh ached. It would go on to give me trouble for several weeks, until it completely healed from the incident. Since then, I turn my phone off before putting it in my pocket. But every once in a while, I forget. If I’m driving with the phone tight against my thigh, I feel pain within 30 minutes. If I’m fishing with the phone in my cargo shorts’ lower pocket, where it is an inch or so away from my skin, I feel stomach pain within two hours. Never have I pulled the phone out of my pocket to find that I left it on accidentally and did not feel any pain.

 

The Sun

Not all of my problems are with unnatural energy. Recent years of my condition had made me intolerant ofboth the sun’s visible light and infrared energies.

 

The psychologist I saw in 2015 (to see if my condition might have an underlying psychological cause) recommended that I try single point meditation, daily. I had never been sun sensitive prior to this. By the end of the week, the sun’s brightness gave me a headache between the eyes for the first time. I chalked it up to coincidence. But the longer I meditated, the worse my visual sun sensitivity got. After five months, I accidentally went five days without meditating, because I was away from home. I noticed that the sensitivity got a good bit better without the meditation. Proponents of meditation say this shouldn’t be. But when you consider that meditation stimulates the brain stem and it’s cranial nerves, there should be no surprise.

 

In 2017, squatting down in the sun to pull weeds in my grandmother’s garden, I went to stand up and, instead, hit the ground. I mostly passed out. Research showed me that this condition is called vasavagal syncope. That’s where the sun’s heat causes blood vessels to expand rapidly, pooling blood in the lower body that one needs in the upper body. Therefore, the body falls over to get blood back into the upper body.

 

A week later, a 25-mile lunchtime bike ride, about 5 miles of which was in the strong June sun, resulted in me urinating blood. I ultimately found that the leak (which persisted the rest of the week every time I walked or drove in the sun) came from a skin tag in my ureter that had most likely been there all my life. What most likely happened was vascular over expansion from the Sun’s infrared energy, increasing the blood pressure to the point of causing the leak. Fortunately, it was at a benign location, unlike my mom’shemmoragic stroke of the brain stem, after she spent a weekend in the sun at the Jersey shore at age 47, which took her life.

 

A few weeks after having surgery to fix my leaking fibroepithelial pollop of the ureter, I’ve ventured to Southwest Kentucky to see the total solar eclipse. I drove west at 6 AM every day so the sun would be at my back. While on the way home, I left after noon, so the sun would not be in front of me, but it still shone on my hands atop my steering wheel. After a few days, the skin on the back of my hands bubbled up and hurt like I had poison oak. Upon returning, my doctor told me it was a sun rash. It took three weeks to go away. To this day, if I walk in heat and humidity in the evening, my right hand, which got the worst of the rash, turns purple instead of just turning red as it always had before. That’s because the blood vessels over-expanded to the point that they never returned to their original size.

 

This is similar to what happened to my leg when I got an ultrasound before my surgery in 2017. I had a pain in the back of my knee that was most likely a swollen lymph node. But they did an ultrasound on the inside of my leg to be sure it was not a blood clot, since I was about to have surgery. The next day, the vein that ran under the skin where they did the ultrasound was swollen and had a strong pinching and burning feeling. That pain lasted for two weeks. To this day, the van looks bloated and baggy. And when I rode a lawn tractor for 25 minutes the following spring, sound vibrations agitated it to the point that it bruised due to the blood vessel leaking. It’s my theory that too much sun exposure did the same to the vessels in my mom‘s brain stem.

 

To be fair, my intolerances have not just been electromagnetic. Compressed sound (from voice over IP or iPhone music) is about 20 times worse than routers and fluorescent lights. FeBreeze attacks my stomach, while Pine-Sol tightens my throat, and secondhand marijuana smoke causes brainstem tension, overnight shivering, and low blood pressure the next day.

 

I didn’t used to be this way, but I suspect that 25 years of daily 5 mile walks and 15 mile bike rides, combined with a half gallon or more of daily refrigerated water, and a dozen years of eating the super high-choline foods of broccoli, with salmon or eggs, for a light dinner every night for 12 years, stimulated my brain stem to the point that it became way too sensitive and powerful. It just goes to show that being healthy to the extreme can throw your body out of balance, too.

 

I need your assistance

I ask, first and foremost, that before you give Verizon permission to bring 5G Ultra Wideband into the community, that you have a Verizon do a test on me first to prove that the strength of the signals cannot impact my body, including my blood pressure readings or my sleep. I know that they will fail the test.

 

I could also use the help of any doctors or medical researchers out there or willing to take a closer look and study the impact of electromagnetic energy on the human body further. I realize it might put their careers in jeopardy for seeking the truth. But every once in a while, there’s someone like the doctor in the movie, Concussion, about CTE in the NFL, who is willing to stick their neck out to help people rather than just go along with lies to hold onto their career status.

 

I can be contacted at 610-717-2608 or at Schaeffer.k.scott@gmail.com . Please reach out to me with any questions

A fresh take on whether Jesus is God or is subordinate to God (a verse by verse analysis)


One Sunday at Applebee’s after church in the early 2000s, several of my young adult Sunday school classmates and I found ourselves discussing Jehovah’s Witnesses, a few of whom I had worked with on my previous job.

 

I defended them as legitimately saved Christians, despite having theological disagreements with them. In response to my assertion, one of my devout fellow evangelical church goers dropped his head and sighed, “But they don’t believe that Jesus is God in the flesh,“ as he made his case that they were false, unsaved Christians. Over the two decades that have since passed, I’ve noticed an increasing number of churches excluding other Christians as non-believers if they don’t believe that Jesus is God or is “coequal” with God.

 

There is a sense in which I think that a technical debate about heavenly relationships is not that important. On the other hand, if those who insist that one must believe that Jesus is God, not merely the son of God, in order to be saved are wrong, then they may be guilty of violating Matthew 23:13–14 in which Jesus says, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves will not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.”

 

If Jesus is the subordinate Son of God rather than God himself, they are serving no purpose but to exclude true Christians from the faith. Furthermore, they may be guilty of violating the first commandment by worshiping Jesus as God rather than God the Father as God.

 

Like most controversial Christian theological issues, the nature of the relationship between Jesus and God is disputed, because the Bible gives us no clear answer on the issue. Those of one belief or the other will cite a few passages they insist prove their viewpoints, yet their firm conclusions are easily weekend by contrary versus they’ve excluded. Therefore, our only chance at learning the truth is to examine all the 100+ passages addressing the relationship between Jesus and God the Father.

 

This makes for a rather lengthy article. To make it easier on you, the reader, I have divided the passages by viewpoint. First, I will list and analyze passages that best support the theology that Jesus is God. Next, I will list and analyze the most convincing passages that best support the theology that Jesus is subordinate to God. Then I will take a break from these lists to present a theological solution you are unlikely to have heard from anyone else. Finally, I will list all other passages that apply to this topic, just so you can get a complete overview of the Bible’s messages on it. I don’t want to be guilty of selecting verses that support a given viewpoint while hiding others from you.

 

(The upcoming analysis of these passages may appear as though it was written with bias. That’s because I had already drawn my conclusion before the official writing of this article. But that doesn’t mean I was biased in my research prior to writing this article. It is no skin off my back either way whether Jesus is coequal with God or is subordinate to God, since I have no official church or societal status from which I can be “canceled.” I simply want the biblical truth to be known, whatever it is.)

 

Passages indicating that Jesus is God:

Matthew 4:6–7, “It is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

Since Satan is trying to tempt Jesus, not God the Father, Jesus seems to imply that he is God.

 

Matthew 28:20, “… they worshiped him.”

This one is less direct. But “they“ would be in violation of the first commandment by worshiping someone who is not God.

 

Mark 10:18, “Who is good but God alone?”

Jesus responds to a man calling him good. What we don’t know for sure is whether Jesus is agreeing that he is good and therefore God or refuting the notion that he is as good as God.

 

John 1:1/14, “The Word was God… The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”

My NIV study Bible says the passages in early John mirror pre-Jesus rabbinic writings about the nature of the word of God, but insert Jesus into this pre-existing theology. Nonetheless, if the Word was God and then the word became Jesus, then the Word is both Jesus and God.

 

John 1:18, “No one has ever seen God but God the one and only.”

NIV footnote says that this passage can also be translated as “but the only begotten.” Since there is such a big difference between these two meetings, this verse is unhelpful in our study.

 

John 5:18 says the Jews wanted to kill Jesus because he was “calling God his Father, making himself equal with God.”

Later, we will examine a passage in which Jesus clarifies what he means.

 

John 14:7, “No one comes to the Father except through me. If you knew me, you would know my Father; you do know him and have seen him.”

This verse is puzzling because Jesus appears to imply that those who know him know and see the Father; he does not say they are seeing God. Many people assume here that Jesus is saying that he is God, because our subconscious minds automatically know that the Father is synonymous with God.

Nonetheless, this verse can be explained by the theology I will later present.

 

Romans 9:5, “… Christ, who is God overall…”

NASB says half of the ancient manuscripts simply say “who is overall;” they omit the word “God.”Thus, this passage is also unhelpful in our study.

 

II Corinthians 13:14, “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”

Many Christians use the mentioning of Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit in the same breath as being proof of them being coequal. However, the Bible mentions Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are mentioned in the same manner, yet Jacob was subordinate to Isaac who was subordinate to Abraham.

 

Philippians 2:6, “… Christ Jesus, who in very nature of being God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped.”

Again, I will explain later how he was God in his “very nature.”

 

Colossians 1:15 “He is the image of the invisible God, the first born of creation…”

This passage could be used by either camp, because a human son can look like his Father and be the first born to his Father.

 

Colossians 1:16, “for by him all things were created… All things were crafted by him and for him.”

If Jesus is the creator, because all things were crafted by him, that would pretty much make him God. The strongest argument I could make to the contrary is that the word “all” doesn’t literally mean “absolutely everything,” but means “all kinds” or “a large number,” as it usually does in the Bible. For example, Jesus “came to save all men” most likely means “all kinds” of men (not just Jews) rather than that every single man is saved.

 

Titus 2:13, “… the glorious appearing of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ.”

This passage directly calls Jesus “our God.”

 

Hebrews 1:3 “The son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being.”

This seems to say that Jesus is exactly God. On the other hand, verse 1:5 sends us in another direction. Stay tuned.

 

Hebrews 1:8 “But about the Son, he says ‘your throne, oh God, will last forever.’”

Again, verse 1:9 sends us in another direction. Stay tuned, again!

 

2 Peter 1:1 “… to our God and Savior, Jesus Christ.”

1 John 5:20 “… even His son, Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.”

Both of these passages flat out call Jesus God.

 

Most powerful passages indicating that Jesus is not God, but is subordinate to God (these get off to a slow start but become more convincing as we go on)

 

Matthew 27:46, “My God, why have You forsaken me?”

Jesus does not say, “My me, why have I forsaken myself?“

 

Mark 10:40, “…to sit at the left or right is not for me grant”

Mark 13:32, “No one knows the day or the hour, except the Father”

In both of these passages, the Father  knows more than the Son.

 

Mark 14:62, “…the Son of man coming on the clouds at the right hand of the mighty one.”

If Jesus were God, wouldn’t he be the mighty one rather than be next to the mighty one?

 

Luke 15:17, “The power of the Lord was present for him to heal the sick.”

If Jesus was God, why would he need God’s power to heal the sick?

 

John 5:30, “By myself I cannot do nothing”

John 6:38, “I have come down from heaven, not to do my will, but the will of him who sent me.”

These passages, as well as others, imply that God is directing Jesus. Yet, there are no instances in which Jesus directs God.

 

John 10:30-36, [Jesus says] “I and the Father are one.”… Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of them are you stoning me?”

“We are not stoning you for any of these,” replied the Jews, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.”

Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your law, ‘I have said you are gods” to whom the word of God came… What about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s son?’”

Jesus gives two defenses. The first is that the word “god” does not always mean God the Father; it can be what we might call “god with a small G.” The second defense is a clarification that he was calling himself “God’s son,” not “claiming to be God,” as the Jews accused him of saying.

 

John 13:3, “Jesus… had come from God and was returning to God,”

John 14:1, Jesus says “Trust in God. Trust in me also.”

Both of these passages speak of Jesus and God as though they are two separate beings. (This is true of many other verses which I will list toward the end of the study.) Yet, the Bible never speaks of the Father and God as though they are two separate beings.

 

John 14:10, “Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.

John 14:20, “on that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.”

Verse 10 could lead one to think that Jesus and the Father are coequal since they both are in one another. But in verse 20, Jesus uses that same language when speaking of his relationship with the disciples, who are clearly subordinate to him.

 

John 14:28, “…for the Father is greater than I.”

Jesus clarifies, after having said that the Father is in him and he is in the Father (verse 10), that the Father is greater than he, not coequal to him.

 

John 17:2,3 “Father… that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”

Here, Jesus himself states that the Father is the only true God and implies subordinate nature by saying that he was sent by God.

 

John 17:21–22, “Father, just as you are in me and I am in you… that they [the disciples] may be one as we are one.”

Obviously, Jesus is not praying for his disciples to all become the same physical person. Being “one,” as Jesus said he and God the Father were in John 10, is clearly not defined as being the same creature, but perhaps as being like-minded and/or united in purpose.

 

John 20:17, “I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”

Here, Jesus says that the Father is his God, too! That would quite obviously make him subordinate to God, not the same as God.

 

 

Acts 2:36, “God has made Jesus… both Lord and Christ.”

Again, Jesus and God are spoken of as separate entities, and it is God who determined what Jesus would be. The Bible never says that God determines what the Father will be, do, or say. That’s because God and the Father are always one and the same.

 

Acts 7:55, “Stephen… saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God.”

No one stands next to themselves.

 

Romans 8:17, “… We are heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ.”

If we are heirs of God, then we are children of God. Jesus is also a child of God. He is more like the “firstborn,” as Colossians 1:15 says. And, in biblical times, that meant a closer and more privileged relationship with the Father. Regardless, no one is an heir of themselves.

 

The next several verses collectively make my next point:

 

Romans 15:6, “… So you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

II Corinthians 1:3 “Praise be to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”

Ephesians 1:3, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Ephesians 1:17, “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know Him better.”

I Peter 1:3, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Revelation 1:6, “[Jesus] has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father.”

All of these passages say that God is synonymous with the Father and that the Father is Jesus’ God. If someone is your God, then you are clearly subordinate to them.

 

I Corinthians 3:23 “…you are of Christ, and Christ is of God.”

We Christian humans may be “of Christ,“ but we are not Christ; we are subordinate to him. Likewise Christ is “of God,“ but that does not mean that Christ is God; it most likely means that he is subordinate to God.

 

I Corinthians 8:6, “…(there are many gods), but for us there is one God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things come.”

This implies that the Father is the one God overall, while Jesus is something else — our Lord.

 

I Corinthians 11:3, “…the head of every man is Christ, the head of every woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God.”

Clearly, a woman is not the same person as a man, and a man is not the same person as Christ; therefore, it is illogical to conclude here that Christ is the same person as God.

 

I Corinthians 15:27–28, “when it says everything has been put under him [Jesus], it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. When He has done this, then the Son will be made subject to Him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.”

God always determines Christ’s status and circumstances, while Christ never controls God or determines His circumstances. And it is Jesus, the son, who “will be made subject” to God. This may be the most convincing passage of all that Jesus is subordinate to God.

 

I Timothy 2:5, “For there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ.”

Again, this passage speaks of Jesus as though he is a different entity than God. It also specifically states that there is only one God.

 

Hebrews 1:3,5 “He [the son] became as much superior to angels as the name he inherited is superior, for to which angels did God ever say, “You are my son; today I have become your Father. Or again, I will be his Father, and he willbe my son.”

This follows Hebrews 1:1, the passage I included among those that say Jesus is God, and then I said, “stay tuned.” It reads, “The Son is the radiance of God‘s glory and the exact representation of His being.” I can explain what this passage may refer to in the next section.

But for verses 3 & 5, notice the use of the words became, inherited, today, have become, and will be. These words imply a change in Jesus’ status. To say “I have become his Father” is to imply that he hasn’t always been Jesus’ Father. Likewise, I “will be his Father” implies that, at the time of the statement, He was not yet Jesus’ Father. Perhaps this passage suggests a transformation of Jesus that I will address in my theory.

 

Hebrews 1:8–9, “But about the Son, He says ‘Your throne, oh God, will last forever… Therefore, God, your God, has set you above your companions.’”

Again, the first line (that we initially presented as evidence of Jesus being God) seems to imply that the Son is God, but then verse 9 tells us that God is Jesus’ God who put Jesus in his elevated position.

 

Hebrews 4:14, “…Jesus, the son of God…”

The simple fact that Jesus is called “the son of God” but the Bible never calls the Father “the Father of God“ is evidence that Jesus is not God but the Father is. Nobody is a father of themselves, and nobody is a son of themselves. You can only be a father or son of somebody who is not you. Thus, the Father is God and God is the Father. Furthermore, such a phrase as “the Father of God” would make God sound subordinate to the Father. There are many other passages I could’ve used to make this point, since so many other passages use this same phrase.

 

1 Peter 1:21, “Through him [Jesus], you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.”

Other Bible passages tell us to put our hope in Christ. But this passage tells us that when we do so, we really put our hope in God (who is a separate being), not because Jesus is God, but because God is the one who has made Jesus the Christ.

 

My theological theory

The focal point of my belief about the relationship between Jesus and God is Jesus’ baptism. Most of my life, I thought of the Holy Spirit descending on Jesus as nothing more than a show for John the Baptist to see and share, affirming that Jesus was the son of God and that God was “well pleased.” But, since 2012, I see it as more than that; I see it as a transformation.

 

John tells us that when Jesus was baptized, the Holy Spirit descended on him in visible form. How this affected Jesus depends on the nature of the Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament, God would use the Holy Spirit to temporary take control of someone, like Samson, and use him to slay 1000 Philistines; and then He would let go of that person by removing from them the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was kind of like God’s wireless remote control or His wireless internet connection, where tech-support can get inside the computer, take control of it, and guide its behavior.

 

Once Jesus was baptized, John 3:34 says Jesus had “the Spirit without limit.” That’s a way of saying that Jesus was fully connected with and fully controlled by God. Immediately after his baptism, Luke 4:1 says, “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned to the Jordan.” This passage seems to imply that Jesus had not been “full of the Holy Spirit” before his baptism. Then Luke 5:17 says, “the power of the Lord was present for him to heal the sick,” implying that Jesus could not have healed the sick without the power of the Lord being present.

 

Where did Jesus get this power?

 

He got it from God through the Holy Spirit he had just received in full during his baptism.

 

With God dwelling in him through the Holy Spirit — God’s wireless remote control — Jesus could say “It is the Father living in me who is doing His work [John 14:27].” God had taken full control of Jesus’ words and deeds, so in a practical sense, Jesus was effectively God in the flesh.

 

Passages that further support this include the following:

 

Acts 10:38, “…God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went about doing good and healing… because God was with him.”

Colossians 2:9, “… For in Christ all the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form.

1 Timothy 3:16, “the mystery of godliness is great… He appeared in a body vindicated by the Spirit.”

Colossians 1:19, “for God was pleased to have the fullness of his deity dwell in him.”

Consider the word dwell. If you dwell in a house, the house is not you, but you control the house’s behavior. You determine room temperatures, when doors and windows open and shut, and when lights turn on and off. Likewise, God dwelling in Jesus determined Jesus’ behavior.

 

This theology now sheds light on some passages that seemed to say that Jesus is God, such as, “The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us (John 1:14),” “If you knew me, you would know my Father; you do know Him and have seen Him (John 14:7),” “The son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being (Hebrews 1:1),” and “Christ Jesus, who in very nature of being God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped (Philippians 2:6).” Even a few passages that straight-up call Jesus “God” may be alluding to the Spirit-filled relationship without getting into specifics.

 

This relationship through a “Spirit without limit,” may only describe Jesus’ ministry. It appears that God’s Spirit may have abandoned Jesus at the cross, prompting Jesus to cry, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Once Jesus was resurrected, he was glorified by God, and the Holy Spirit was apparently restored, according to Acts 2:33, which says Jesus was “exalted to the right hand of the Father, received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit…”(On the other hand, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” is the opening line of Psalm 22, a psalm that includes other prophetic lines about Jesus’ crucifixion, such as having his hands and feet pierced and having lots cast for his clothing. Jesus may have been quoting that Psalm to let others know it was being fulfilled, or perhaps that psalm was prophetically quoting Jesus; Therefore, we should not jump to too firm a conclusion over this particular passage.)

 

The exact nature of Jesus’ relationship with the one God overall today is unknown to us. That’s fine, because the Bible does not require that we know the mechanics of the connection between God and Jesus for the sake of our salvation. All it requires is that we believe “Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name (John 20:31).” What’s more important in a practical sense is that we love God with all our hearts and love our neighbors as ourselves, which is the opposite of condemning and cutting off those who believe that God the Father is the one true monotheistic God and that Jesus (and Mary) are subordinate to Him, not equal to Him.

 

 

Other related passages

The following are other passages that could have been used in the study, but that are a bit less convincing or are redundant.

 

Matthew 11:27 “All things are committed to me by the Father/no one knows the Father except the son.”

John 5:26 “the Father has granted the son to have life in himself”

John 12: 44,45 “When a man believes in me, he does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me. When he looks at me, he sees the one who sent me.”

John 12:50 “whatever I say is what the Father told me to say.”

John 13:31 “Now is the Son of man glorified and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son and himself, and will glorify him at once.”

John 17:5 “… The glory I had with you [Father], before the world began…”

Jesus appears to be no mere human, but someone who existed with God before he ever set foot in this world as a human.

John 17:18, “…for I gave them the words You gave me…”

 

The majority of the remaining passages simply show the Bible speaking of Jesus and God as separate entities. Again,that is something we never see the Bible do when speaking of God and the Father, because God and the Father are the very same thing.

 

Acts 2:24 “God raised him from the dead.“

Acts 2:22 “Jesus… was a man accredited by God to you by miracles… which God did among you through him.”

Acts 4:24, 27 “God… they conspired against your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed.”

Acts 5:30 “God raised Jesus/God exalted him to his right hand.”

Acts 10:42 “…[Jesus] is the one who God appointed…”

I Corinthians 15:15 “We have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead.”

I Corinthians 15:24 “… When he [Jesus] hands over the kingdom to God the Father.”

II Corinthians 5:18 “God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ.”

Galatians 1:1 “Paul… sent… by Jesus Christ and God the Father.”

Ephesians 5:2 “Christ… a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.“

Ephesians 5:5 “… the Kingdom of Christ and God”

Ephesians 5:20 “God the Father… in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Philippians 1:2 “God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ”

I Thessalonians 1:1 “and God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

I Thessalonians 1:9–10 “you turned to God… and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead – Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.”

I Thessalonians 3:11 “Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus clear the way for us to come to you.”

2 Thessalonians 1:1 “Grace and peace to you from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

2 Thessalonians 2:16 “our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father”

I Timothy 1:2 “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the command of God our savior and Jesus Christ our hope… God the Father and Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Hebrews 10:12 “this priest [Jesus]… sat down at the right hand of God.”

James 1:1 “James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

I Peter 1:2 “… who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ.”

I Peter 3:22 “Jesus Christ, who… is at God’s right hand.”

2 Peter 1:2 “… Through the knowledge of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

2 Peter 1:17 “we received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him [Jesus] from the Majestic glory, saying, ‘This is my son,…”

1  John 4:14 “the Father has sent the Son to be the savior of the world.”

1 John 4:15 “if anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the son of God, God lives in him and he in God.”

– K. Scott Schaeffer

(For donations, give at paypal.me/KScottSchaeffer)

 

 

 

 

It’s time for The Freedom of Belief Act

 

Please support the creation and passage of “The Freedom of Belief Act,” as proposed by me, K. Scott Schaeffer, author of the book, “Ending Racism against White Americans: A Christian case for individual equality and a post-racial America.”

 

This law will make it illegal for corporations, governments, and schools to punish employees, students, and customers for stating political, religious, scientific, cultural, or other views with which the entity disagrees or is offended by.

 

*Note that this law does not punish any employer who prohibits employees from engaging in political, religious, etc. discussions in specified situations, as long as the rule applies to everyone, regardless of opinion. For example, an employer may prohibit employees from promoting the employee’s political or religious views to customers, as long as the rule applies equally to all employees. But in the event that such discussions are permitted, they must be permitted for everyone, regardless of how much the employer dislikes the express belief of the employee.

 

*Also, this law would provide exceptions for political campaigns and religious organizations. For example, a political campaign organization would be free to exclude those who oppose that campaign’s political beliefs and might sabotage that campaign’s activities. Likewise, a religious organization would be free to exclude those who oppose that religious organization’s beliefs and practices.

 

Ultimately, The Freedom of Belief Act effectively extends first amendment and civil rights protections to include private enterprises. These enterprises, especially corporations, have effectively become our unelected government, taking away freedoms that even the government is prohibited from taking. These corporations are as much a threat to our freedoms as invading foreign armies, and our government must uphold its constitutional responsibility to protect us from threats to our freedoms, both foreign and domestic.

– K. Scott Schaeffer

Rebuttals of 18 Pro-Abortion Arguments

Below are several pages of short anti-abortion arguments that I wrote during the COVID-19 stay-at-home crisis. I encourage you to print these and distribute them to anyone you know FREE of charge, either in their entirety or by picking the ones you like best (you may also include them in literature you create yourself, although citing my name on the quote would be preferred).

 

Pro-Abortion Argument: As a man, who are you to have an opinion on abortion?

Anti-Abortion Response: I am a former fetus who thinks my life and my relationship with my mother are far more valuable than my mom having had the right to kill me. (And, personally, I am a former fetus born to a 15-year-old mother, four years before Roe v. Wade. The illegality of abortion at the time may have saved my life!)

 

Pro-Abortion Argument: Stop calling us pro-abortion. We are pro-choice. We think abortion is a terrible thing, but we believe that having one should be the woman’s personal choice.

Anti-Abortion Response: Apply this reasoning to any other terrible thing, and it’s clear how bad this reasoning is. For example, “We think drunk driving is a terrible thing, but we believe that killing someone with the car should be a driver’s personal choice” is an argument hardly anyone would accept. It should never be anyone’s personal choice to kill or hurt someone else, especially children. Terrible things like drunk driving are illegal, because those of us who might be victims have a voice, unlike the children in the womb.

 

Pro-Abortion Argument: You are being deceptive by calling fetuses children.

Anti-Abortion Response: Merriam-Webster includes fetuses in the definition of the word “child” ( i.e. the phrase “pregnant with child”).

 

Pro-Abortion Argument: It’s my “right to choose.”

Anti-Abortion Response: “Choice” is not more important than the well-being of those your choices hurt.
In fact, nearly every legislative debate pits one person’s right to choose against another person’s right to choose. Two decades ago, the debate was over the right for people to smoke cigarettes wherever they chose vs. other people’s right to not breathe that smoke. This is even true when it comes to more obvious crimes, such as the right to choose whatever car you want vs. the right to not have your car stolen by someone who wants it. To simply proclaim your right over and over without giving any consideration to those your rights might harm is pure selfishness.

 

Pro-Abortion Argument: Abortion opponents hate women and their rights.

Anti-Abortion Response: Most single-issue anti-abortion voters ARE women! Many of these women are staunchly anti-abortion, because they felt something special when pregnant – that the fetus was alive. They are not anti-woman. In fact, half the fetuses they long to protect are female.

 

Pro-Abortion Argument: What gives men the right to legislate our bodies?

Anti-Abortion Response: Voters! And half of those voters are women! That’s how a representative democracy works. To say a male representative cannot regulate a woman’s reproductive area is like saying that a female legislator cannot vote to punish men for sexual assault, because that would be a woman legislating a man’s reproductive area.

 

Pro-Abortion Argument: Government cannot tell women what to do with their bodies.

Anti-Abortion Response: An abortion ban would not tell women what to do with their bodies. Rather, it would prohibit doctors, both male and female, from intruding upon a woman’s most private area with cold, hard instruments and crushing or tearing apart her child. There are many procedures that doctors have been prohibited from performing, even at the patient’s request. That’s why Dr. Kevorkian was convicted of murder for complying with patients’ requests for suicide assistance. The main difference between assisted suicide and abortion, of course, is that aborted children never asked to be killed.

 

Pro-Abortion Argument: How would men like it if the government told them what to do with their bodies?

Anti-Abortion Response: Millions of men did not like it very much when “the government told them what to do with their bodies” by drafting them into the wars in Japan, Germany, Korea, and Vietnam. These men’s bodies were placed in the way of enemy bombs and bullets, as they witnessed the horrors of death for days, months, and years on end. Women, on the other hand, have had the privilege of never having had their bodies forced into harm’s way by the government.

 

Pro-Abortion Argument: How would men like it if the government made them get vasectomies?

Anti-Abortion Response: Unlike an abortion ban, mandatory vasectomies would be a true example of the government forcing a medical procedure upon citizens. It would force all men, regardless of their behavior, to suffer pain and risk medical complications (it would also make Americans go extinct). Likewise, mandatory immunizations (which are a good thing) are yet another example of government-forced medical procedures on our bodies. An abortion ban, on the other hand, forces no medical procedure on anyone. Rather, it just allows nature to take its course and complete a process the pregnant woman already initiated.

 

Pro-Abortion Argument: If we make abortion illegal, it’s only fair to outlaw masturbation and birth control, too.

Anti-Abortion Response: Masturbation and birth control do not kill humans who have their own separate DNA, as children in the womb do. Rather, they kill sperm cells that will die anyway if not used within a few days.

 

Pro-Abortion Argument: Why don’t you leave pregnant women alone and hold the men who impregnated them accountable?

Anti-Abortion Response: States do hold men accountable by requiring that they pay child support, while counties employ entire teams of people to enforce the collection of it. The men are not given a second chance to undo their mistake, like women are by means of abortion. This double standard sends the message that women are less capable of taking responsibility for their actions than men are.

 

Pro-Abortion Argument: Banning abortions won’t end abortion; it will only end safe abortions.

Anti-Abortion Response: This is about the only good argument legalized abortion advocates have, because it actually shows concern for people rather than simply advocating the selfish right to kill a child.
In the 1960s, prior to the legalization of abortion, approximately 200 American women died annually from illegal and self-induced abortions. However, the U.S. did not have WIC and crisis pregnancy programs, like it does today. These programs should eliminate the financial reasons for abortions. So, in the event that abortion were made illegal again, the only women risking their lives by means of illegal abortions will be those who have embraced the teaching that career and societal status are of far greater importance than bearing, raising, and loving human life.

 

Pro-Abortion Argument: Abortion is okay, because a fetus is not a baby. It is not conscious; it does not know it exists; and it feels no fear or pain.

Anti-Abortion Response: Likewise, according to neurologists, once babies are born, they are incapable of conscious thought prior to five months of age. And even after that, they still lack fear for a few more months. Therefore, from the perspective of the child’s experience, there is little practical difference between that of a 2nd trimester fetus and that of a 2-month-old baby. Neither one has any clue that it exists as an individual.
If you were to place a handgun to the forehead of a 2 month old baby, it would have no thoughts or fears; and if you were to pull the trigger, the pain it suffers would be over much faster than if it had been killed in an abortion procedure. Yet somehow, we live in a society that will jail a mother for decades if she kills her baby, while punishing no one at all for killing her baby while it is still in the womb.

 

Pro-Abortion Argument: Nearly 50% of pregnancies end in miscarriages. So, what does it matter if women have abortions?
Anti-Abortion Response: That’s like saying, “Exactly 100% of human lives end in death. So, what does it matter if people commit murder?” The sin of murder is not that you cause someone to experience death, which they will eventually experience, anyway. The sin of murder is that you “choose” to take away the life of someone whose natural time to die has not yet come. That’s why abortion counts as murder, too.

 

Pro-Abortion Argument: An abortion decision should be between a woman and her doctor, because health care is a personal issue.

Anti-Abortion Response: Killing is not health care. It is the opposite of health care. Likewise, pregnancy is not an illness, injury, or disease; therefore, no cure is needed.

 

Pro-Abortion Argument: Stop forcing your religion on me.

Anti-Abortion Response: Abortion need not be a religious issue (the Bible never mentions it, specifically). Abortion opposition makes logical sense to anyone who believes that no individual should ever have the right to take away the life of another individual for any reason other than self, public, or national defense. If you are glad your mother didn’t abort you, it’s hypocritical to support the legalized abortion of others.

 

Pro-Abortion Argument: How can Christians call themselves pro-life and turn away refugee children?

Anti-Abortion Response: Indeed, many Christians have made the mistake of closing their hearts to refugees, simply because the Republican Party taught them to do so. The truth is that neither Democrats nor Republicans are truly pro-child. And that’s why we Christians should never let left or right teach us right from wrong. The Bible alone should be our moral guide.

 

Pro-Abortion Argument: Why do anti-abortion activists falsely accuse us of wanting to legalize third trimester abortions?

Anti-Abortion Response: Because anyone who argues, “My body, my right,” effectively advocates the right to abort a child until the moment of birth.

 

Pro-Abortion Argument: Behind millions of successful women are abortions they do not regret (from a sign at the Women’s March).

Anti-Abortion Response: The word “successful” is rather subjective. If you think that bringing life into this world is success, then you will never kill your child, even in the womb. On the other hand, if you believe that having degrees, prestigious titles, and power over others is success, then you will kill the child in your womb if its life stands in the way of your goals.
One’s definition of success is determined by where one’s values are rooted. And the values of corporate success are rooted in greed and pride – two things the Bible repeatedly condemns. Meanwhile, the values of motherhood are rooted in love. But even if we set aside values and look at this from a practical perspective, motherhood is still the better choice.
Motherhood: Your children and their children will miss you long after you’re gone.
Career: Corporations will quickly forget about you and move on.
Motherhood: Bearing children usually results in loyal, lifelong relationships.
Career: Corporations will replace you with a machine if it saves them a dollar.
Motherhood: Raising children gives nearly all women something to be successful at (and feel good about).
Career: Corporations offer “success” to few women (and men), because there are not enough prestigious job titles to go around. Most jobs are menial. So that leaves most women with little “success” to get excited about. And even if you do have a prestigious title, it won’t make people love you. Your subordinates are more likely to resent you than admire you, especially if you talk down to them. And if you expect your peers to praise you for being better than they are because of all you’ve accomplished, you will be the one they love to hate. So, unless you are an entertainer, most people won’t care about your career successes 1/100th as much as they care about their own mothers.

– by K. Scott Schaeffer

Jesus – The Original Opponent of Israeli Nationalism

Most religious and politically-minded Americans know that much of the Evangelical church has had unwavering support for the nation of Israel, regardless of how badly Israel behaves. And, now, the Republican Party they enthusiastically support seems willing to go so far as to instigate war against the predominantly Muslim nations surrounding Israel.

When many of us oppose these acts of aggression, call out the sins of the Israeli government, or simply admit that Israel’s discrimination against the Muslim people who grew up there is wrong, the Religious Right often attempts to override our concerns with some sort of line about how Israel is God’s chosen nation – that, because of who their ancestors were, they get to abuse and neglect their Muslim residents.

The truth is that if you think a people group deserves preferential treatment over another group, simply because of which long-dead people they are descended from, you’re not only thinking in a racist manner, but you also have failed to comprehend an essential part of Jesus’ message – that our ancestors don’t determine our worth; our personal behavior does.

Here are a couple Jesus quotes that have inspired this point, the first of which he uses to answer a local resident’s question about whether or not only a few will be saved, and the second to express how impressed he is with the faith of a non-Jewish Roman centurion.

Luke 13:28-30, “There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out. People will come from the east and the west and north and south and will take their places at the feast on in the kingdom of God. Indeed, there are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last.”

Matthew 8:10-12, “I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Those “subjects of the kingdom” are the descendants of Abraham who think they are God’s chosen people, simply because of their ancestral lineage. Jesus makes it clear on multiple occasions that your ancestors earn you no special privileges in the day of judgment. Rather, any welcoming we might receive into God’s family will result from our behavior, as we see in the next passage:

Matthew 48-50, “He [Jesus] replied to him, ‘Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?’ Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

Through Jesus, God expanded Abraham’s descendants to include all those who shared Abraham’s faith in the one God who is. When Revelation, the Bible’s final prophetic book, refers to future Israel, there’s a good chance it’s not talking about the genetic descendants of the Jewish race, but rather every theological descendant who has come to know and obey God through Christ. Therefore, today, the nation of Israel (in a spiritual sense) may include millions of people worldwide, throughout history, and not just be limited to Jews who live in the modern nation-state of Israel.

But if I’m wrong, and it really is about genetics, then the land belongs to modern Muslims every bit as much as it does modern Jews. Not only have the ancestors of Palestinian Muslims lived there for over 400 years under the jurisdiction of the Ottoman Empire, but also many Muslims are descended, at least in part, from Ancient Israel. Remember that the Jews are just 1 of 12 Israeli tribes. Ten of the other tribes were taken into captivity by the Assyrians in the 700s B.C. and were scattered across their vast empire that now constitutes nations like Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq. Later, the Jews were taken into captivity by the Babylonians (now Iraq) in the 500s B.C. And even after the Persians (now Iran) conquered Babylon and permitted the Jews to return to Judah, many thousands of them remained in Babylon or dispersed throughout the Persian empire. All of these areas today are predominantly Muslim; therefore, most of Israel’s descendants today are Muslim. So, if we make genetics the determinant of who gets to live in the lands of the ancient Israelites, then today’s Muslims are just as deserving as today’s Jews.

 

-K. Scott Schaeffer

Flaunting your body – how it’s harmful to others

 

Flaunting your body – how it’s harmful to others.

Nothing says Christmas like America erupting over Miley Cyrus wearing a revealing outfit on the Christmas episode of Saturday Night Live. In fact, the outfit wasn’t just revealing; it was absurd. Nobody in public wears a coat with no shirt underneath. You wear a shirt first, then, if it gets cold, you add a coat. Obviously, Cyrus didn’t dress this way for the warmth. She dressed this way to create controversy and to turn people on sexually. It’s yet another case of flaunting sexuality to earn oneself undeserved money, fame, and glamour that one’s talent alone (or lack, thereof) could never attain.

While Cyrus’s antics appear obviously wrong to some of us, many others, particularly feminists, support her move, as they have for so many other body-flaunters in the past. They usually say things like, “She’s a woman who should be free to do what she wants,” or “What’s wrong with showing the beauty of the female body?” or, “She isn’t hurting anyone, so stop restricting her.”

The truth, however, is that she and other body-flaunters have hurt a lot of people. No, not by means of physical violence, but let’s not be simpletons about this. Sometimes, you need to look a little deeper to see how people are hurt emotionally, and we need to do that right now. Here are a few groups who are hurt by women who flaunt their bodies sexually in public.

Other Women: Who gets most upset about women flaunting their bodies? It’s not men; it’s women! Many women, especially those who are married, feel they should not have to compete for their husbands’ attention, sexually. These women have a righteous jealousy, because their husbands belong to them. Therefore, they become frustrated when other women in public media, such as television, movies, music, and mainstream magazines endlessly invite their husbands to lust for them instead of their wives. Not only are wives emotionally hurt by the mental attention their husbands devote to these other women, but they also fear the body-flaunters will cause their husbands to become dissatisfied with their wives’ aging, expanding, or otherwise imperfect bodies and seek a woman who can provide for them the raw sexuality that body-flaunters bombard them with.

When I’ve shared this reality with feminists online, the response the feminists usually give me is that those women have no right to be insecure and need to get over it – if they can’t keep their husbands satisfied, that’s their fault, not the fault of women who flaunt their bodies. I find this ironic, because I thought feminism was supposed to be pro-woman. It turns out that this particular brand of feminism actually hates women and is nothing more than selfishness and rebelliousness disguised as a noble cause.

Wives are not the only women hurt by the body-flaunters, however. Even single women who are looking for a man have expressed significant frustration with their antics. Women who possess integrity seek to attract a man by appealing to his heart and mind, and they feel it’s cheating when other women, who lack integrity, go right for the guys’ crotches.

Adolescent Boys: Regardless of what feminists and conservative Christians might tell us, it’s a psychological, biological fact that most men are visually attracted to women and their bodies. That’s normal. However, that visual, physical attraction is to go hand in hand with relationship. Blending physical attraction with a personal relationship keeps everything in balance. But what happens to adolescent boys in America today (and for the past half century) is that before they’re old enough to date and have those personal relationships, women on TV, the internet, and the magazine rack are calling for them to lust for their bodies while offering no possibility of relationship. These women promote themselves to these young men as mere sex objects, since they have no interest whatsoever in even getting to know them, personally. This causes a distortion in a man’s sexuality and leads him to overemphasize lust for the physical body in his mindset toward women. Granted, not all men are affected by this. Some have fewer hormones than others, while some have no interest in women at all. Nonetheless, the public body-flaunters serve no good purpose in a young man’s sexual development.

Young Girls: While enjoying New Year’s Eve at a friend’s house a couple years ago, my friend called me into the room where the TV was and said, “Scott, look at Mariah Carey. She’s got her a** hanging out. Doesn’t she care about the impact she’s having on young women?” Now you might think that my friend is some sort of devout Christian prude. That’s not the case. First, he’s not religious. Second, we went through puberty together and he was very interested in women’s physical bodies displayed in the public media, as was I. Today, however, he’s the father of two daughters who will soon reach the age where they might be tempted to expose their bodies sexually in public, especially if they want to be like the entertainers they idolize. Mariah Carey wearing a thong-swimsuit-dress (another absurdity) on New Year’s Eve in Times Square, where temperatures were in the 40s, can have nothing but a negative influence on young women.

You would think that in the age of #MeToo, where we condemn the pressuring of women to do what they do not want to sexually, we would rebuke those who create environments that pressure young women to flaunt their bodies in order to be accepted. Many of them, when they first do it, are uncomfortable, but they feel that they must, not only to compete with other body-flaunters in attracting men, but also to impress women who only respect sexually-rebellious behavior. Women like Miley Cyrus try to make it cool to flaunt one’s body in public and, by doing so, simply add to the pressure these young women face.

Grown Men: Believe it or not, many men, especially religious men, would rather not be tempted to lust after women they can’t have. They would prefer to limit their sexual focus to their wives. One might say to them, “If you don’t like it, then don’t look at it.” And that approach would work if visual sexual temptation were limited to strip clubs, magazines wrapped in plastic, and adult videos hidden in a store’s back room. But when the sexuality is inserted into non-sexual places, like a family TV show or a grocery store magazine rack, its lure is unavoidable, and the men are then forced through a form of mental torment that’s too strong for most women to understand, since their sexuality is not constructed the same way.

I’ve encountered numerous feminists online who say that women in the public eye have every right to flaunt their feminine parts to make themselves “feel beautiful” (as if you can’t feel beautiful without flaunting them), and if the men get turned on by it, it’s the men’s fault; the man must control his thinking. The truth is that while the man has some responsibility to control his thinking and behavior, it is never right to try to tempt somebody to think what they shouldn’t. No one would say it’s right to hold a biscuit in front of a dog, whose body has a physical drive for hunger, and then refuse to give the biscuit to the dog, and instead, beat him for looking at it. That would be sheer cruelty. Likewise, it’s equally wrong for a woman to present her body in a sexually-enticing manner to a man, when a man has a physical drive for sex, and then deny the man and blame him for his desires. To paraphrase what Jesus said, “Sin is going to happen. But woe to the person who causes others to sin. It would be better for that person to have a millstone hung around their neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea than what is going to happen to them on judgment day.”

Now I know feminists who read this will accuse me of saying that men have the right to rape women who flaunt their bodies. In no way have I or the Bible ever said this. We live in a civilization where, if somebody does something wrong, it’s OK to tell them that it’s wrong, and it’s OK to have laws in which our legal system punishes them for their wrongs. But it’s never OK for us to take the law into our own hands and punish people, ourselves. And it’s obviously not OK in the Bible to have sex with anyone other than your spouse. Thus, we Christians do not promote what feminists call rape culture. We simply are willing to call out the sins of both sexes equally, rather than pretend that only men can sin sexually. The truth is that both sexes sin equally, even though the sins may manifest themselves in different ways for a woman than they do a man.

Upon being made aware of the millions of people who are hurt emotionally by women who publicly flaunt their bodies, many feminists still act as though they are somehow the victims when others discourage them from doing it. They seem to think that their rights are being suppressed while everyone else’s are being recognized. They’re failing to recognize two things:

First, they are flaunting their bodies without “consent” – the focal word of the #MeToo movement. If a man exposes his man-parts to those who have not consented to see them, he is labeled a pervert. If a woman does it, especially through mass media, she’s a star who no one is permitted to criticize without receiving the wrath of today’s feminists. That’s a double standard, and double standards are always evil. Feminists might argue that its different for the woman, because the man has evil motives when he does it. Indeed, his motives are most likely that he thinks he will turn the woman on sexually, or that he will make the woman feel uncomfortable. Whereas, when a woman does it, her motives are most likely that she will turn men on sexually, that her exposure will make others uncomfortable/offended, that she will show she is more beautiful than other women (“who’s the fairest of them all”), that she will show society that no one can tell her what to do (rebelliousness), or that she will receive lots of money and celebrity worship for her behavior. In either case, none of the motives are righteous.

Second, dressing appropriately requires virtually no sacrifice whatsoever on their part. It’s not as if they are in any kind of pain, are forced to make a strenuous effort, or are forced to shell out extra money for the sake of others’ emotional well-being. All they have to do is cover their boobs and butts, just like 99% percent of the women most of us see on a daily basis. When it comes to loving your neighbor as yourself and putting others’ interests on the same level as your own, it doesn’t get any easier than that.

– K. Scott Schaeffer

 

 

 

 

Revelation’s Beast – Where the Religious Right Gets it Wrong

If you’ve spent many years of your life in or around conservative Evangelical Churches, you’ve heard plenty of speculation about who the Beast is in the Book of Revelation. Usually, you’ll hear them say it’s a person, like Barack Obama or the Pope, or that it’s an entity, like the U.N. or the Roman Catholic Church.

I say the Bible points to none of these and that the Religious Right simply uses such accusations to justify their nationalist condemnations of the outside world, when, in reality, Revelation’s criteria for the Beast actually points to their own world.

Why does any of this matter?

It matters, not because we need to determine the time of Jesus’ return, but because the Bible sternly warns us Christians that “those who worship the beast and his image” will have an exceedingly bad afterlife (Revelation 14:9-12), to put it mildly. So it’s of great importance that we not give the beast and its image a religious level of reverence and devotion, nor should we let it be our teacher of what is right and wrong.

Before we get started on examining each of Revelation’s criteria for the Beast, let’s clarify a couple things:

First, the Beast and the anti-Christ are two different things. The anti-Christ is a person who gets no mention in Revelation. And 1 John 2 says there were many anti-Christs who already existed in John’s day. So it’s questionable as to whether there is one official Anti-Christ just before the end of days.

Second, the Beast is not a person; it is a kingdom. And it’s not just any kingdom, it’s the world’s most dominant superpower. The concept of the beast originated in the Old Testament book of Daniel, chapter 7. Daniel had a dream about four beasts, each with a bizarre appearance. He didn’t understand it until “one like a son of man” whose “kingdom is one that will never be destroyed” said to him, “The four beasts are four kingdoms that will rise from the earth.” Most scholars believe that the beasts were Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. Rome, the 4th beast, is said to be the most terrifying, to the point that it would “oppress the saints (Dan 7:25).”

That’s where John, the writer of Revelation, comes in. He resurrected the Beast concept, once the promised “oppression of the saints” had begun. He introduced two beasts – the first “coming out of the sea;” the second “coming out of the earth [Rev 13].” The first Beast is most likely Rome, the world superpower at the time of writing, since Revelation 17:9-10 says, “The seven heads are seven hills on which the woman sits. They are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; but when he does come, he must remain for a little while.”

The 2nd beast appears to lie in future, after the first beast had fallen. It’s likely to come along near the end of civilization, since it apparently has the technological ability to “make fire fall from the sky (Rev. 13:13)” and “control who can buy or sell (Rev. 13:16).” And, naturally, it must come along soon (if it hasn’t already), since our technological advances are quite capable of annihilating us any time, now. Thus, the chances of the 2nd Beast existing in today’s world are high.

(Another possibility is that the final Beast is not made up of just one nation. In fact, Rev 17:12 explains, “The ten horns you saw are ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but who for one hour will receive authority as kings along with the Beast.” So maybe each age has its own beast – a world superpower who preys upon the innocent. If so, perhaps no single superpower matches all the criteria for the 1st Beast or the 2nd. Maybe it takes all the beasts & kings collectively to fulfill all the prophecies.)

That being said, let’s move forward by examining the criteria for the 2nd Beast and then seeing how it matches up with each of the major Beast candidates.

Criteria for the 2nd Beast:

Revelation 13:11: “Then I saw another beast, coming out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb, but he spoke like a dragon.”

If you know the Bible, it’s likely you know the horns represent rulers, the lamb represents Christ or Christians, and the dragon represents Satan. What’s open to debate is whether the number two is literal or symbolic. I had learned in my New Testament History class in the early 90’s that, in Jewish apocalyptic literature, two was the number of witness/testimony, such as those who go about in pairs sharing the faith. If that’s the case, then the 2nd beast is a kingdom whose ruler(s) professes Christianity, but speaks like the devil, who Jesus called the Father of Lies.

Roman Catholic Church: Once upon a time, they were a perfect fit. The popes of the late Middle Ages were downright demonic, waging wars against outsiders and conducting torturous inquisitions of their members.  But today, they no longer have political power. And recent popes, like John Paul II and Pope Francis, have continued reforming the church.

The United Nations: The U.N. may qualify as a world superpower, but it does not profess to be Christian and it doesn’t have prominent leaders, so it’s not a good fit.

Russia & China: China’s rulers have not been professing Christianity up to this point in time. Russia’s Putin does promote orthodox Christianity, and he sure lies a lot. So Russia is a possible match.

USA: All its presidents claim to be Christian. Some are quiet about their faith, while others, like George W. Bush & Donald Trump, are quite vocal about it. All its presidents tell lies (which is probably necessary to get elected in a democracy). But PolitiFact has found 67% of Trump’s claims to be mostly or completely false, far worse than any other president. The USA is the closest match for this passage.

Revelation 13:12: “He exercised all the authority of the first beast on his behalf and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed.”

Again, the 2nd beast is somehow rooted in the 1st beast and calls its people to worship the first beast. The problem here is that people don’t worship old fallen kingdoms, which is what the first beast is. So worship must mean something else, such as an allegiance to the location or the ideology of the first beast.

The Roman Catholic Church: It’s located in Rome, so that makes it a match for this criteria.

The United Nations: It has little to do with Rome – an unlikely candidate.

Russia & China: Little to do with Rome.

The Axis Powers: Eighty years ago, the Axis between Berlin and Rome would have been a perfect fit.

USA: It’s not Rome. However, its founders resurrected the Roman concept of a Republican government. The USA even has a political party called The Republican Party. One might argue that Rome had become an empire, run by a dictator rather than by a republican government, by the time of Revelation’s writing. But one could also argue that increasing executive power, even to the point where the president can fire those investigating him, has effectively turned the USA into a dictatorship; and with a military presence in most of the world’s nations, it has become the world’s most powerful empire of all time. While ancient Rome may not be worshipped by Americans in a traditional manner, many Americans effectively worship America, regard its Rome-inspired Constitution as sacred, and honor its Rome-admiring founders with a religious zeal normally reserved for gods. Thus, the USA is a likely candidate.

Revelation 13:13: “And he performed great and miraculous signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to earth in full view of men.”

Only countries able to engage in modern warfare can literally make fire come down from the sky. So this can’t be the Roman Catholic Church, since it has no weapons, but it could be the U.N., Russia, China, or the USA.

Revelation 13:14-15: “…He ordered them to set up an image in honor of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. He was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that it could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed.”

“Wounded by the sword and yet lived” makes sense as a reference to Rome as the first Beast. The Western Roman Empire was taken down by invaders (by the sword), yet the Holy Roman Empire took its place. By using the Roman name, they, in a sense, kept the empire alive.

Problem: If the beast is a fallen kingdom, like Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome were, then how could anyone make an image of it and cause it to speak? Obviously, we’re getting into some pretty symbolic imagery here. We can assume, however, that the image is something made by humans that symbolizes the first beast. The image that inspires the most reverence in the modern world is a nation’s flag, which is symbolic of the nation’s government. It’s the government and its constitution that speak. So perhaps, the flag & constitution of the kingdom whose government is most like that of ancient Rome is the image to which this passage refers (that would be the USA). Perhaps a day will come when those who fail to honor the “image ” of the flag will be persecuted. Therefore, any entity that commands its people to revere the flag could fulfill this prophecy.

Revelation 13:16-18: “He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of the name. This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man’s number. His number is 666.”

We could get into all kinds of speculation about calculating the number of the beast, but since there are so many possibilities, there’s no room for that here.

The question that we can address, however, is “Who has the power to control whether people can buy or sell?”

Roman Catholic Church: Today’s church has little control over world finances. Even if it were to prohibit its members from buying or selling, most Catholics would not obey, just like they don’t obey the church on birth control. And there would be nothing the church could do about it. Unlikely candidate.

The U.N.: U.N. resolutions have little power, so a resolution that no one could buy or sell would be ineffective. The nations of the U.N. can work together in a join military venture, but that’s not the kind of thing that would restrict individual buying or selling. Unlikely candidate.

China & Russia: As both countries grow in wealth and power, their ability to control buying or selling grows, too. Certainly, they both have some very wealthy and powerful people who may someday control some of the world’s most powerful industries. And both have a tendency toward authoritarian leadership that controls every facet of people’s lives. Both are likely candidates.

The USA: America is less authoritarian than some other countries, but that can change very quickly. The U.S. and the U.K. control global banking. And global banking, in many ways, controls them. The lines between the government and corporate financial power are blurred, with democratic governments having the power to regulate finance, but also with the financial industry having the money to get their own kind elected, so they can control the system that has power over them and increase their power even further. As our commerce system moves away from cash so that people must rely more and more on electronic commercial instruments provided by the financial industry, the easier it is to simply deny people access to these instruments if they displease the powers that be. Thus, the USA, where corporate capitalism has most of its roots, is the most likely candidate.

Revelation 16:10, “The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom was plunged into darkness. Men gnawed their tongues in agony and cursed the God of heaven because of their pains and sores, but they refused to repent of what they had done.”

Roman Catholic Church: It’s pretty hard to plunge a religion into darkness, since its members are scattered around the globe. Unlikely candidate.

The U.N.: Since the U.N. consists of 193 nations, the whole planet would have to be plunged into darkness. That could be done with a change in solar activity, heavy ash in the atmosphere from an asteroid impact, or a nuclear winter. But if that were the case, you would think Revelation would simply say the whole world would be plunged into darkness. Unlikely candidate.

Russia, China & the USA: A country could be plunged into darkness one of two ways – a major volcanic eruption, like Krakatoa, or, in modern times, a broken power grid. Ted Koppel recently published a book about the latter, called “Lights Out.” It’s possible one or more of these countries could have their power grids hacked and destroyed by cyber-terrorists (or destroyed from an electromagnetic pulse caused by a nuclear bomb detonated atop the earth’s atmosphere high above the target nation). And with hardly any Large Power Transformer replacements on hand, 99% of their citizens would be without food, funds, refrigeration, clean water, sewer, gasoline, and functioning hospitals for several months to several years. Diseases from malnutrition, contaminated water, and lack of healthcare would cause the “pains and sores” mentioned in the passage. Perfect candidates.

Conclusion: If there’s a representation of Revelation’s final Beast in the modern world, the United States of America is most likely it, or at the very least, part of it (perhaps joining together with other nations or intertwining with growing corporate power around the globe). They appear to be the only candidate that matches all the criteria.

That’s a tough pill to swallow if you grew up in the USA, thinking your country was the good guy, after all it had done to protect the world from Nazi Germany, Imperialist Japan, the Soviet Union, and Communist China. But the power it gained in the process can be used for evil. The election of Trump to the presidency is proof of that. And there’s something kind of supernatural about the way it all went down – from brainwashing millions of Christians into following the least Christ-like individual there could possibly be, to the surreal election night in which he won against all expectations and odds. Some, like Franklin Graham, have said the “hand of God” was involved. Perhaps he’s right: Revelation 17:17 says, “For God has put it in their hearts to accomplish his purpose by agreeing to give the Beast their power to rule, until God’s words are fulfilled.”

Just because someone comes to power by the “hand of God,” doesn’t mean they aren’t of the devil.

– K. Scott Schaeffer

The Protestant Case for Purgatory

Let me start by saying this:

I have never been Roman Catholic a day in my life, nor have any of my close relatives.

But having spent my young adult life in the Bible Belt, Evangelicals drilled into my brain the idea that we Christians were to enthusiastically study the Bible on our own. I think they expected that doing so would lead people like me to come to the same conclusions as them. But by my mid-30’s, I found that the more I studied the Bible open-mindedly, the more I came to different conclusions.

One of those conclusions was that the afterlife isn’t so simple as heaven vs hell, that there are multiple possibilities for what happens after we die. Jesus frequently mentioned the “outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Revelation speaks of the “second death” in the “lake of fire,” where the wicked are “destroyed,” not eternally tormented. Eternal torment appears to be reserved for the likes of the Beast, the False Prophet, and the devil himself.

But only in the last couple years have I taken special notice of passages promising or at least implying that we will be punished for our unrepented sins in the afterlife, and that the punishment will vary according to what we have done. That’s effectively what purgatory is – temporary punishment. Granted, this goes against the popular Protestant ideology that we are forgiven all our sins just because we call Jesus our Lord. However, Jesus shot down that idea a long time ago by saying he’ll refuse to even recognize those who call him “Lord,” yet do the devil’s will:

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform, many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers [Matt 7:21-23].”

The Bible is loaded with passages refuting the notion that simply believing there was a guy named Jesus, who was the Son of God, sends you straight to heaven. But we’ll save those for another article. This one’s about purgatory. And here, now, is a collection of passages that have inspired me to open my mind to an idea that most Protestants find offensive:

Matthew 6:14, “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your father will not forgive your sins.”

In other words, the extent to which we forgive will affect the extent to which God forgives us. One might argue that God will forgive us entirely or not at all based on whether we have forgiven entirely or not at all. But the truth is that all of us forgive someone somewhere along the way, while none of us forgive all people completely. So, for God to judge us based on how we forgive cannot be an all or nothing proposition.

Matthew 7:1-2, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

This goes hand in hand with forgiveness. We have two choices when others sin against us, against others, or against God. We can judge them, or we can forgive them. If we judge others by strict and unrealistic standards (like calling for them to be imprisoned if they fail to remember every email they sent 4-8 years ago), then God will likely judge us by strict and unrealistic standards. But if everyone just goes straight to heaven or straight to hell based solely on whether they prayed the Jesus prayer, then that would have to mean Jesus was lying when he made this statement.

Matthew 11:24, “But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.”

Here, Jesus addresses Capernaum, not an individual. But since judgment day is for individuals, Jesus must have meant that judgment day will be more tolerable for some bad people (those in Sodom were supposed to have been pretty bad) than for other bad people (like those in Capernaum). Therefore, judgment varies based on the level of sin committed.

Matthew 12:35-37, “The good man brings good things out of the food stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. But I tell you that men will have to give account on the Day of Judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”

This passage could go either way. One might take it to mean that if our judgement day defense is good enough, then we go to heaven forever, but if our words on that day fall short, then we burn for eternity. Wow, talk about pressure! But if it means God will give us a chance to defend ourselves (“give account”) for every evil thing we say, then there is hope that God will only impart a partial punishment for those wrongs.

Matthew 16:26-28, “For what will a man be profited if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and will then recompense every man according to his deeds.”

(This quote is from the New American Standard Bible, which is considered to be the most literal of the major translations. The New International Version uses “reward” instead of “recompense” and “what he has done” rather than “deeds.” But I still remember my Old Testament History book at Belmont University criticizing the NIV for translating the Bible to fit American protestant doctrine. This appears to an example of that.)

If we go by the literal translation, this passage is clearly states that our “deeds” will determine our “recompense,” rather than the mere belief that Jesus is the Son of God determining it. But don’t despair. Other passages indicate that we will be forgiven for the sins we repent of. Repentance means to not only be sorry for our sin, but to turn away from it and stop doing it. We may still slip and sin from time to time, but we should acknowledge our sin and work to eliminate it. More importantly, we must not glorify or preach sin, whether we revel proudly in drunkenness or cry “my money” when faced with having to pay taxes to help those less fortunate than ourselves. That leads us to this next verse:

Matthew 18:6, “But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come!

Jesus implies here that having a millstone around your neck and being drowned is far better than the afterlife punishment for those who lead others astray. So purgatory, or the 2nd death, are not to be taken lightly.

But if we all go straight to heaven or hell based on having been told the right name to pray to, then what difference does it make if we lead others into temptation? Wouldn’t the believer in Christ be forgiven regardless what he did, and the non-believer condemned eternally regardless of what he did? Clearly for the believer and the non-believer, judgment will be worse for those leading others into sin.

Luke 12:47-48, “That servant who knows this master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.”

Again, we see varying degrees of punishment here, not one person receiving eternal lashes and another receiving none, because they sang praise songs to Jesus. In this case, those who know the law of God receive more punishment than those who don’t.

So why become a Christian if you’re going to be held even more responsible for your deeds?

That’s like asking, “Why teach a ten-year-old that it’s wrong for him to bully six-year-olds and that he’ll be punished if he continues?” The answer is that protecting the innocent, defenseless six-year-olds is of far greater importance than protecting their abuser from punishment. Likewise, the more we truly seek to live the Christian life (rather than just look out for our own salvation), the more we love God and others, which makes this world a better place for everyone. That’s why sharing Jesus’ message and the Bible’s teachings is so important.

1 Corinthians 3:13-15, “…his workmanship will be evident, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will prove the quality of each man’s work. If what he has built survives, he will receive a reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss. He himself will be saved, but only as if through the flames.…”

First, this passage appears to say there are extra rewards for a Christian’s righteous work. Granted, it could be that there will be differing rewards for those who go to heaven.

Second, it says the Christian whose works are bad will “suffer loss.” So, it can’t be that the results of his work are merely demolished, but that the man will personally suffer, and that suffering will be “as if through the flames.” Yes, he will still get to heaven, but will suffer along the way.

2 Corinthians 5:10, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done in the body, whether good or bad.”

This time we even have Paul, the author of most salvation-by-faith theology, saying that we’ll be judged by what we’ve done. And the fact that he says each “will receive what is due him” implies varying rewards and punishments, while “things done in the body” implies deeds, not just beliefs. Notice, he does not say, “each may receive what is due him for having decided to believe or not believe in Jesus.” He assumes the church members to whom he writes already believe in Jesus.

Revelation 22:12, “Behold, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done.”

And finally, John joins in by quoting Jesus saying that He will recompense every person based on what they have done, not so much on what they have believed.

 

So if Jesus will judge us according to our deeds, was He, or the New Testament’s writers, a liar for saying that those who believe in Him will be saved?

No, because such a statement was true for the audience to which he was speaking. Remember that no one in New Testament times was raised a Christian, neither was anyone living in a Christian community. Those who professed faith in Christ believed in his teachings. And they were so dedicated to his teachings that, according to the Book of Acts, they sold or shared what they had and joined what was effectively a church commune. They made radical life changes according to his teachings; they didn’t just believe in a name they were taught while continuing to live a life of greed and mercilessness.

That’s what the Pharisees (the religious establishment who persecuted Jesus) did, as they believed in the names of Abraham and Moses, but served the devil in their behavior. And that’s what many Christians do today, as they preach Republicanism in the name of Christ. I won’t say there will be hell to pay for them, but I will say that  temporary punishments might be in the their future.

-K. Scott Schaeffer

12 Good Things Democratic Government Has Done


At the core of conservative political thinking, both Republican and Libertarian, is the idea that our democratically-elected government does far more harm than good. Conservatives say the government that governs least governs best. My short response to such statements is to ask, “Can you name a small government country that you think is much better? Of the 35 capitalist countries that make up the OECD, only Mexico has had far fewer regulations and significantly lower taxes than the United States.”

There’s a reason that small government breeds misery. And that reason is that small government doesn’t protect people from the life-ruining effects of corporate greed, nor does it provide the services and stability that the free market cannot. A strong democracy is the best system humans have come up with so far. Here are some examples of the good things our strong democratic government has done. I’m sure you can think of many more examples that one could add.

Prevent Depressions – I’ve already covered our nation’s depressions, and I’ve pointed out that we haven’t had any since we modified capitalism in the 1930s. That’s not to say potential for depressions hasn’t been there. On October 19th, 1987, the U.S. stock market lost 22.68% of its value, the biggest single day drop in American history.  This time, however, the Federal Reserve lowered the Federal Funds rate and injected liquidity into the market to help the market rebound.  Not having to worry about maintaining our nation’s gold reserves, the government could actually help improve the situation, unlike in the supposed good old days of small government and the gold standard.

Preserve nature for our enjoyment – When I visited Yellowstone National Park in 2012, I took shelter from a thundershower indoors one day and found myself face-to-face with an exhibit on geothermal wonders around the world in such places as Iceland, New Zealand, and Russia. I was shocked to learn that many of these marvels of natural beauty had been transformed into ugly industrial sites in an attempt to profit from their thermal heat. Had Yellowstone been located near 1800’s eastern industrial sites, it likely would have been ruined, too. Its remote location allowed it to hang on until America could come to its senses and preserve it. Likewise, the only reason the great sequoias of California avoided annihilation by the logging industry was that the trees are brittle to the point that they break apart when falling to the ground, making them useless for lumber.

I’ll admit that I make more use of the national parks than most Americans, and I literally thank God that I live in a country that preserves the wonders of God’s creation rather than in a country that empowers those who love money to destroy them or limit the enjoyment of them to the wealthy few.

Break Time & Lunch Time – In late 1800s, textile mills fined workers for eating on the job, sitting down, washing hands, and getting a drink of water.  Fortunately, “we the people” voted for politicians to require lunch breaks, sick time, family leave time, etc., in the workplace; and we’re all better off for it.

National Weather Service – While their weather forecasts aren’t always accurate, they’ve done a lot to help us prepare for hurricanes, snowstorms and tornados. Many lives have been saved. Republicans don’t like the fact that they share their research with Americans for free, however. That’s why Republican 2012 presidential candidate, Rick Santorum, sponsored a bill to deny the NWS the right to supply the public with free weather data and require that they only share it with private companies. This is yet another example of Republicans manipulating government to enrich their corporate supporters.

Water Supply – Private water management just doesn’t work. Owners of lakes, dams, and irrigation systems can be financially persuaded to share water with some businesses while denying it to others. Only a public water supply can ensure water for everyone at a reasonable price.

40 hour workweeks and overtime pay – The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 created the 40 hour work week. It requires that those who work more than 40 hours receive overtime pay. Unfortunately, many employers today get around this law by paying low income professionals by salary rather than by hourly wages. They can then force the employees to work extra hours without paying them any extra money.

How does working many hours let Christians serve God?

It doesn’t. Salary slavery, as I like to call it, is a roadblock to Christian living. Religion isn’t just belief; it’s action. We can’t take that action if we’re enslaved to our jobs. We can’t exercise freedom of religion if we spend most our waking hours creating wealth for the wealthy. Long work hours reduce our church and community involvement and minimize our personal relationships. God designed us for these as well as for work. A work-dominated Christian life is hardly a Christian life at all.

Building codes – As a graduate of Boyertown High School, I have to mention the Rhoads Opera House fire of 1908 in Boyertown, PA. As a result of poorly marked exists (in a dark theater) and doors that opened inward toward the crowds pressing against them, 171 people died.  This is why theaters and other establishments must adhere to fire codes today. Business owners may whine about government telling them what to do with their property, but lives are more important.

Removing abandoned corporate structures – Thanks to corporate liability protection, the wealthy leave behind abandoned factories after their businesses fail. These factories crumble over time, making them dangerous and unsightly. They also serve as breeding grounds for crime. While some properties are bought and used for other commercial real estate purposes, many never are, especially those in the cities that are far from highways. Our tax money funds these clean-ups; that is, if there’s enough tax money available. Otherwise, the land is ruined for everyone.

Toxin-free food and workplaces – In 2008, approximately 300,000 Chinese infants and toddlers were sickened, and some died, from the addition of melamine to children’s milk products. Farmers often purchased artificial protein powders containing melamine from traveling sales reps.  They added these powders to the milk to stretch it while ensuring that it would pass protein quality tests. Farmers also had been adding hydrogen peroxide to milk to keep it from spoiling.  China does not have a Food & Drug Administration to regulate and inspect food production. If libertarian Republicans had their way, neither would we. The food industry would have the “liberty” to do what it wanted at our expense.

Mortgage consumer protection – For most people, buying a home is the biggest financial commitment they’ll ever make. If their lenders sneak tricky wording into their mortgage agreements, home buyers will lose many thousands of dollars. This is a complex industry, and few hard-working people have the time or even the mental capacity to read and understand the fine print and catch every possible scheme. That’s why we’ve chosen to protect ourselves by having our government pass laws like the Truth in Lending Act of 1968.

Hunting Regulations – Thanks to the NRA and the gun debate, today, most hunters are Republicans, many of whom complain that regulations do more harm than good. Yet, it’s regulations that make their favorite hobby possible. Most states, especially those with large populations, have rather strict hunting laws designed to preserve the sport. The states impose rather short hunting seasons, limit hunting firearms capacities to just a few bullets, restrict hunting to the daytime, and limit the number of a given species that can be harvested in a day’s time or in a year’s time. If hunters were permitted to mow down entire herds of deer with semi-automatics, day or night, all year long, with no harvest limit, the hunted animals would likely be on the verge of extinction within a year’s time, and hunting would cease to exist as a hobby. In other words, the greedy few would have ruined hunting forever for everyone else. And that’s generally what regulations are all about – protecting the many from the greedy few, so that everyone can share in the goodness that life has to offer.

Quieter Commercials – This may not be a lifesaving regulation, but it demonstrates the positive power of democracy. When I watch football, I like to turn the sound up a bit more than I do for other programs. I like to feel like I’m at the game. By the fall of 2011, I couldn’t do this anymore, because every time commercials aired, my television’s volume was darn near ear-splitting. Apparently, thousands of Americans suffered the same problem and complained to the FCC. The FCC then prohibited commercial volume being louder than that of regular programming, starting in 2013. A libertarian might argue that we have the liberty to not watch television at all if we don’t like loud commercials, but that’s not the ideal outcome that most Americans want. Instead, “we the people” put pressure on our democratic government to fix the problem, and it worked.

Of course, there are many other good things I could have listed, including civil rights legislation, worker safety legislation, and even the Do-Not-Call List (which gives residents freedom from harassment by eliminating corporations’ freedom to harass residents). I did not intend for this to be a comprehensive list. But I did intend for this to be a reminder that “we the people” have done so much to protect ourselves from the harmful effects of greed that few of us can fathom all of the good that’s been done. We tend to be naïve about how devastating the effects of greed can be on humanity, because we’ve grown up in a world with a protection system already in place. We then tend to imagine that our small government past was so much better than the present, when the truth is that we’re terribly ignorant of our nation’s history. And it’s that ignorance that Republican politicians and pundits count on. If we remain ignorant, the Republicans and Libertarians will, in the name of small government, dismantle all of the good we’ve fought so hard to establish.

The truth is that a democratic government structured like ours, regardless of its size, is good, not bad. If officials do wrong, we can vote them out of office. The only instances in which a democratic government becomes evil are those in which non-democratic forces control it. In Birmingham, that force was the KKK. In Ludlow, it was the coal company’s power over the state government that brought about the murder of the workers’ wives and children. In the banking fiasco of the Great Recession, it was the banking industry’s influence over government that brought about deregulations that enabled the crisis to occur. And in the future, it will have been the influence of wealthy people who have funded candidates and bought elections that cause debt doomsday – a day when our nation can no longer borrow money to pay its debt and will have to print up the money to do so, causing hyper-inflation – all because Republicans have spent decades shoveling tax dollars to the rich while simultaneously cutting their taxes.