This is not the column I originally had slotted for this week, but then I saw fellow Applelinks columnist Rodney O. Lain's screed entitled "Weaning you off the Kool-Aid (tm): Fallacies of Christianity... and the Mac religion" , and I knew I had my topic for Holy Week.

This weekend is Easter, the most important observance on the Christian calendar, so it is somewhat appropriate, I guess, to be discussing Christian issues. However, I would not normally have addressed the subjects in this column here on Applelinks, except for the fact that Rodney brought them up first, and in my estimation his assertions require a challenge and rebuttal. These are issues that I take very seriously. More seriously than anything in my life.

Rodney's title immediately roped me in: "Fallacies of Christianity," eh? Well, as a small-o orthodox Christian, I do not believe that there are any such thing. Fallacious interpretations of Christianity up the ying-yang, of course, but Christ is, as He Himself affirmed, The Truth.

Like Rodney, my religious background is in evangelical Protestantism. However, unlike Rodney, I am now a convinced catholic, which has changed my perspective on many of the matters he brings up in his column, particularly "organized religion."

When I was 19, I had a profound, (and very evangelical), Christian experience, and at that point, I began seriously affirming myself as a Christian. I then spent the next near quarter-century on what Orthodox priest and author Father Peter Gillquist -- himself a convert from evangelical Protestantism, characterizes as "the phantom search for the perfect church," with essentially no success.

But, as I approached age 40, it gradually began to dawn on me that I had things backward. The point wasn't for me to find a Christian organizational body that measured up to "MY" standards, but rather that I should be more concerned about measuring up to the standards set by Christ and His apostles. But how to know which interpretation of those standards was correct?

Well, first there is no way that we can ever know, in the sense of factual scientific knowledge, that a religious doctrine or dogma is true. That is where faith comes in -- "the substance of things hoped for -- the evidence of things not seen." However, faith does not entirely dial reason and logic out of the equation, and it seemed logical to me that one was likely to find the most accurate interpretation and articulation of the tradition handed by Christ to the apostles (2 Thess 2:15) in the organizational bodies that can legitimately claim an unbroken line of succession back to the 1st Century Church, which would be the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, and, I shall argue, traditional Anglicanism.

At the point when I came to this epiphany, I could very well have joined any of those three communions, and I believe that choosing any of the three would have been fine. However, Roman Catholicism in North America is horribly beleaguered by liberal theological and social notions, that diametrically contradict the Catechism of the Church, and I would have found that painful to deal with. I love Orthodox theology, but I find the ethnic emphasis of most Orthodox parishes hits a discordant note with me -- no offense, but it's not my ethnicity. My ethnic identity is Anglo-Celtic, and consequently, I settled on the Traditional Anglican Communion -- Anglican Catholicism.

In September 1994, at the age of 43, I was baptized using the Book of Common Prayer offices " For Those Of Riper Years"-- with Orthodox-style full triple immersion. A year later, I was confirmed in the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada by Diocesan Bishop Robert Mercer C.R.

Out of this personal faith journey came a book manuscript, entitled "That They May Be One: To Heal The Scandal Of A Fragmented Church" which I hope will be published in the not too distant future. A working draft was posted to the Web in 1997, and that eventually resulted in the establishment of the TTMBOForum -- an e-mail discussion list that I moderate, and which has members on five continents with somewhere between one and two dozen Christian denominations represented. The general theme is promotion of better mutual understanding in the hope of furthering the goal of renewed Christian unity. Several Mac web personalities, including two webmasters whose names you would probably recognize, are members. Actually , Rodney Lain was a member for a while, but quit after a couple of months without explanation.

The scandal that I refer to in the book's title is that there are, according to the new World Christian Encyclopedia, 33,830 nominally Christian denominations in the world. Rodney says "You can't have religion without control." I would respond that you can't have a coherent religion without discipline and authority, which necessarily implies some sort of episcopal structure. Consequently, as I assert in the book, The only realistic model for fulfilling Jesus' wish "that they may be one," is for the whole body of Christ to coalesce around the communions that have a direct and unbroken lineage to the ancient, primitive Church -- to form, as affirmed in the Nicene creed: one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.

Rodney says: "I should hasten to add that I believe in God. I believe in a Creator. But I don't believe in church."

But of course, that is largely the attitude that has led to their being 33,830 denominations -- many of them avowedly "non-denominational." Unless you determine to eschew Christian fellowship altogether, some sort of group organization is inevitable, which leads to organizational structure -- however informal at first, and before you know it you have another new denomination. This is all horribly counterproductive for the Christian faith.

As a Good Book puts it, "You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe -- and tremble!" (James 2:19) I'm not suggesting that Rodney Lain is demonic or anything, but the point is that simply believing is not enough. God demands more of us than that -- a lot more, and as a catholic Christian, I am convinced that participating in the life of the Church and receiving the Sacraments are part of these demands under normal circumstances.

In his column, Rodney proposes 10 points which he presents as stumbling blocks to Christian belief, at least for him.

1) if the unjust go to hell, what happens to babies when they die?

This is the reason that Catholics, Orthodox, Anglican, and several Protestant denominations baptize infants. The first three believe in baptismal regeneration. However, there is no scientific formula. I have faith that God is just, and that babies will be justly taken care of.

2) if I commit suicide, will I go to hell?

In Catholic/Orthodox Christian belief, yes. You will have committed a mortal sin of which the nature precludes any opportunity to repent, and Christianity teaches that without repentance there is no forgiveness. I don't see this as an obstacle to belief per se, although it no doubt will offend the liberal sensibility that too many folks these days confuse with Christian morality. [Addendum: A friend, Ron Gray, leader of the Christian Heritage Party of canada has brought to my attention: "But please note that the Catechism of the Catholic Church, at 2283, says, 'We should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives. By ways known to Him alone, God can provide the opportunity for salutary repentance." Who am I to disagree, and why would I want to?]

3) How could Moses write the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, if many of the incidents covered in those books occur after his death?

To the best of my knowledge, neither the Catholic nor Orthodox churches claim Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. The Roman Catholic Catechism makes no reference to it. It may be a pious belief of some Christians, but the "books of Moses" could also be reasonably interpreted as meaning books that tell the story of Moses and the Mosaic law. Moses probably did write (or dictate) a good bit of the Pentateuch, but whether he did or not should not be a faith breaker.

4) If the only way people go to heaven is by hearing about Jesus, what about the billions who have lived and died having never heard this message?

You don't get to heaven by just hearing about Jesus. The sticking point is whether you accept or reject Him. I am convinced that God will give everyone of fair chance to do just that, although just how, I leave up to Him. In Romans 1:19-20, it says: "Because that which is known by God is revealed in them, for God revealed it to them.. For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity; that they may be without excuse." So in that sense all have "heard the message."

5) Will the Jews go to hell?

Jesus said: "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6) While aspects of goodness and truth are found among all people by virtue of their being created in the image and likeness of God, salvation comes through Christ alone. Consequently, Jew or gentile, if we reject Christ, and if He was not a preposterous liar, then our eternal prospects would seem to be bleak.

My central argument on this point is that it seems ludicrous to profess faith in Christ as Lord, Author, and Creator of the Universe, but to suggest that He didn't mean what He said on matters that one finds uncomfortable. The concept of eternal damnation is about as uncomfortable as it gets, but the whole Christian Gospel is focused on the problem of human sin and alienation from God, and the Incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ -- Almighty God entering time and space as a man -- as the solution to sin and alienation. On the basis of what the Christian Church has taught from the beginning, it is incoherent to suggest that there could be any other way to salvation but through Christ.

Even during Christ's earthly ministry, many of His initially enthusiastic followers fell away because they could not accept His hard teachings on the demands for salvation (cf: John 6: 60-69).

That said, I believe that the Jews are still and forever God's Chosen People. Anyone who doubts that should give Romans Chapters 9, 10, and 11 a careful perusal.

6) Why do Christians celebrate Christ’s birth using the date and symbolism of the well-documented religious orgy known as the Winter Solstice/Equinox?

In a recent article in the Atlantic Monthly, Charlotte Allen, senior editor of Crisis magazine cites Ronald Hutton, a religion historian at the University of Bristol, who, says Allen, "effectively demolished the notion... that fundamentally pagan ancient customs existed beneath Medieval Christian practices." According to Allen, "there is now widespread consensus among historians that Catholicism thoroughly permeated the mental world medieval Europe. The idea that medieval revels were pagan in origin is a legacy of the Protestant Reformation." Hutton told Allen that "There is still no proven pagan feast that stood as an ancestor to Easter" -- the latter notion one that many Christians have accepted as conventional wisdom.

7) If the New Testament does away with the Old, why do we still impose “old” things like tithing and Sunday-observance?

The New Covenant doesn't do away with the old one; it completes and fulfills it. According to the Roman Catholic Catechism, the New Covenant succeeds and perfects the Old Covenant. "The New Law or Law of the Gospel is the perfection here on earth off the Divine Law, natural and revealed."

8) Why are Christians so damned intolerant of anything unchristian? What happened to "love thy neighbor"?

Depends on how you define "intolerance." For liberals, "tolerance," appears to be synonymous with approval; ergo: if you disapprove of any behavior or action on moral grounds, you are, ipso facto," intolerant." Well, I don't accept that definition. Christ was not "tolerant" in the liberal sense of the word. He consistently told people to "go and sin no more."

Psalm 97:10 commands: "You that love the Lord, hate evil." In Revelation 2:6, Christ commends members of the Church at Ephesus for hating the deeds of the wicked Nicolaitans, "which I also hate." Proverbs 6:16-19 lists seven distressingly familiar and common human vices that God professes to "hate." I could go on.

Confirming others in their sins and vices is the antithesis of loving them. Love does not mean unconditional approval. The important thing and the Christian thing is to love the sinner while hating the sin.

Or, if Rodney is perchance referring to tolerance of other religious beliefs, where in the world is there more religious freedom than in the traditionally Christian nations?

A 1998-'99 survey of political rights and civil liberties around the world by Freedom House, a Washington-based NGO founded in 1941 by Eleanor Roosevelt, found that of the 88 countries rated as "free," "79 [90 percent] are majority Christian by tradition or belief."

9) Why do we have to have preachers in charge of us, telling us how to live, when the Bible says that every person claiming to be a Christian is a minister of God? "The day will come when no one will have to tell you 'know the Lord.' They will all know Me, from the greatest to the least."

Rodney's objection here is a non sequitur. Having an episcopal priesthood in no way precludes or inhibits personal lay-ministry. As for the quotation, it is unfamiliar to me, and Rodney provided no reference. [Addendum: My friend Ron Gray also notes: "By the way, Rodney's elusive Scripture reference (hard to find, because he's either paraphrasing or using a 'modern' version) is Jeremiah 31:34] I'll counter with this, from Philippians 2:10-11: "that at the name of Jesus every knee would bow, of those in heaven, those on earth, and those under the earth, and that every tongue would confess that Jesus Christ is Lord..."

But that day has not arrived yet, obviously.

Christ established both the Church and the priesthood. Check out Matthew 16:18-19.

10. Actually, Rodney did not itemize this one, but in some respects it is the most important objection he raised. He writes:

"I'm not worried about being wrong, even if I am wrong about such things as hell (in which I don't believe: the Greek and Hebrew original translations of the word "hell" mean, literally, "the grave." no more, no less). For if I do end up going to "hell" when I die (BTW, Billy Graham doesn't believe in hell, either), I won't have time to worry. I'll be too busy "high 5'ing" and greeting all of my friends :-)"

I would want to hear Billy's spin on that before accepting that he doesn't believe in hell, but a religion that preaches salvation, logically implies that there is something to be saved from. Saved from what? Without hell, there’s no adequate answer. However, many modern Christians find themselves troubled by the idea of hell, and wonder how a loving, all-powerful God could allow a place of eternal torment. This sentiment derives partly from sincere compassion -- partly from humanist philosophy.

Liberal humanists, who set the cultural agenda in modern Western society, hate the idea of any sort of personal accountability. In the ethos of secular humanism, hell is a morally offensive notion. Consequently, hell has been dropped from the lexicon of serious public discourse, and become just another thoughtless expletive.

However, as mid-century American philosopher Richard Weaver argued: “There is bitterness in the thought that there may be no hell, for if there is no hell, there is no justice.” Ergo: if the ultimate reward of evil-doers is exactly the same as that of the virtuous, then morality is reduced to the philistine pragmatism of “What’s in it for me?”, and the capriciousness of temporal fortune becomes cruel indeed.

The Hebrew Sheol of the Old Testament referred to a place where souls of the dead resided, and implied no moral distinctions. It is not until the book of Daniel, written quite late in the Old Testament period.(c. 535 B.C.), that a more complex concept of hell begins to emerge: “And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.”

In one New Testament usage, the word “hell” (from the Greco-Roman Tartarus ) refers to the place where fallen angels were imprisoned to await the final judgment. However, the Greek Gehenna, also translated as hell, derived from the Hebrew name meaning “valley of Hinnom,” -- a deep gorge near Jerusalem where child sacrifices to the pagan god Moloch were conducted, and where continual fires burned to dispose of remains. Jesus uses the term Gehenna eleven times in the first three Gospels, and this indicates that the association of hell with fire and corporeal torment is allegorical rather than literal.

A “universalist” doctrine that everyone will eventually be saved has considerable emotional appeal, but it simply doesn’t square with the Gospel message or with the idea of divine justice. However, cartoonish notions of hell as a literal fiery pit, populated by pitchfork-wielding demons, aren’t adequate either.

I believe that the concept of hell developed by C.S. Lewis in his novella The Great Divorce," comes closer to the truth; ie: hell is an afterlife destination we essentially choose for ourselves -- in continuum with choices made in this life. Eastern Orthodox theologian Kallistos Ware writes: “Self-love is hell; for, carried to its ultimate conclusion, self-love signifies the end of all joy and meaning. Hell is not other people [as existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre contended];. hell is myself, cut off from others in self-centeredness.”

In his book, "Hell: The Logic of Damnation," Jerry L. Walls observes: “The idea that the misery of hell is the intrinsic consequence of choosing to become a certain type of person has a stark realism about it that is often absent when hell is depicted as the supreme torture chamber. It is a dreadful but credible thought that we might come fully to prefer the deformed sense of satisfaction endemic to sin, and that God will finally give us what we want.”

Some argue that moral behavior resulting from fear of damnation is not truly morally motivated. However, this construct only works when hell is perceived as a place of externally imposed punishment. But as Philo of Alexandria, a Jewish historian/philosopher and contemporary of Jesus and St. Paul writes: “And banishing the unjust and ungodly soul, [God] disperses and drives it to a distance from himself to the region of the pleasures and appetites and acts of injustice; and this region is, with exceeding appropriateness, called the region of the impious, more fitly than that one which is fabled as existing in the shades below. For indeed, the real hell is the life of the wicked, which is audacious, and flagitious, and liable to all kinds of curses.”

Ergo: If hell is actually a place we go because we have come to love sin, then the choice not to go to hell must logically derive from repudiating sin. Rational self-interest is more than mere selfishness and pragmatism. In proper Christian understanding, it is impossible to further one’s genuine self-interest by doing what is morally wrong. Therefore, true self-interest, and a sincere effort to live to the best of our ability in accord with the objective moral order, are ultimately one and the same.

This realization contradicts the widely-held misconception that Christianity is a perversely killjoy religion, with a mean God whose main interest in people is to prevent us from enjoying life’s sensual pleasures; activities that without His arbitrary imposed moral code could be happily experienced without guilt, censure, or negative consequences.

Unfortunately, many individual Christians and churches over the centuries have done little to dispel that erroneous notion. But a joyless Christianity bespeaks a deficient understanding of the whole Gospel message. The Joy of the Lord runs as a constant and triumphant motif through both Biblical Testaments. Christ and His apostles consistently exhorted the faithful to rejoice. By choosing sin and rejecting God’s love, we also reject joy. As John Milton put it:

“Farewell happy fields where joy for ever dwells: Hail
horrors hail Infernal world and thou profoundest Hell
Receive thy new possessor: one who brings
a mind not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place; and in it self
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.”

Rodney says he doesn't claim the final word on spiritual truth. Neither do I, and it would be arrogantly presumptuous of any individual to do so on the basis of their all too fallible private judgment. Which is my point. That's why we need the Church --which includes that "great cloud of witnesses" who have gone before us as the Church Triumphant, as well as what is supposed to be the Church Militant here and now. That is why I am a catholic. Happy Easter--Christ is risen.

And, since this is Applelinks, I will also address the Mac-oriented points Rodney Lain raised in his column. Rodney suggests that many Mac users proclaim a quasi-religious dogma that incorporates the following points:

1) the Mac OS is better than any OS out there

I would say that the classic Mac GUI is better than any other GUI I've encountered, including Aqua/Quartz. The underlying Mac OS is not nearly as wonderful, but it is without question the most flexible, user-friendly implementation of a personal-computer OS yet.

2) there is nothing good about Windows

I'm thinking.....

3) Microsoft is evil

Microsoft is devious, hegemonistic, way too powerful, and makes buggy, bloated software. Evil can certainly come from that.

4) Megahertz doesn’t matter

Megahertz does matter, but not proportionately. In other words, 1 gigahertz isn't twice as good as 500 MHz. According to Applelust's Dave Schultz, an analogy Apple reps are given is to a three cylinder and 8 cylinder car and RISC v CISC - it take less power to to more and is more efficient. MHz does matter, but the overall machine plus software, and OS, is the final result.

5) Steve Jobs is God

Who has ever said this, other than perhaps facetiously (and irreverently)? Steve Jobs is Steve Jobs. Anyone who would suggest Jobsian divinity has a pathetically stunted conception of the divine. This one is a straw man, Rodney.

"I don't believe I'm wrong about how too many of us claim that the Mac is perfection epitomized. But, I do leave room to admit that I may be wrong about Christianity and my Christian brethren."

Well, nobody familiar with my frequent roasting of Apple would suggest that I think the Mac is anything like perfection personified. It's the best all round personal-computer solution, but there's LOTS of room for improvement.

As for being wrong about Christianity, I could be wrong about a lot of things, but I don't believe that the doctrine and teaching of the traditional Christian church is wrong. I would stake my life on it. Actually, I think I have.

For another critique of Rodney O. Lain's article, from a mainly philosophical rather than religious perspective (notwithstanding the title), check out Dave Schultz's "What is Good about The 'Mac Religion'" on Applelust:
http://www.applelust.com/HTML/Editorials/html/Archives/ed_macreligion.shtml

And Dan Knight offers his commentary, with a more religious/Church focus at:
http://lowendmac.com/musings/faith.html

Charles W. Moore