The Mission to North America Repents

First, I expect the United States Senate to confirm Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. today. It will be a reminder that virtue, character, sanity, and respect for science are nothing in an age of vanity and performance. Most of the Republicans who will vote for him do not, privately, care for him but have allowed themselves to become muppets with arms firmly forced up their rectums, controlling their votes.

Robert F. Kennedy’s actions and statements have cost lives and racked parents with guilt that they somehow caused their children’s autism. Not that any one of these Republicans will care, but Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. provoked his own wife to commit suicide, and that behavior should not be rewarded. The sad thing here is that if a Democrat nominated Kennedy, he would have to change not a single position for Democrat support, and every Republican voting for him today would oppose him. This vote will be a transaction rationalized by “he can be fired.” It is a cop-out of responsibility. The man provoked his wife to hang herself and has, for fifty years, willfully lied, distorted, and misrepresented medical and scientific data. But Trump. (and seed oils)

So on to other matters.

The Presbyterian Church in America’s Mission to North America has formally repented from the statement advising illegal aliens not to show documentation of their country of origin or citizenship. I certainly appreciate that and the clear statement, which reads in part:

Recently, we posted links on our webpage to external organizations offering a wide range of recommendations and frequently asked questions on immigration. MNA’s leadership erroneously allowed the posting of content that advised undocumented persons on ways to avoid being detained by authorities. We affirm that it is our Christian duty to obey the lawful commands of the civil magistrate and be subject to their authority (WCF 23.4; Romans 13:1-4; 1 Peter 2:13-14). To counsel otherwise is a sin. We confess that we fell short of our Biblical and Confessional standard. We repent and apologize. We also apologize for causing confusion and consternation in our church. We have removed all the previously posted information from our website.

That is clear, Biblical, and refreshing.

There are too many people and faith-based organizations these days that dig in their heels and double down. I’m glad Mission to North America chose a humble path instead.

Second, and completely unrelated, if you have not heard, Larry Sanger, the founder of Wikipedia, has become a Christian. He writes a pretty lengthy explanation (his background is philosophy) of how and why he converted here.

In part, he writes,

When I really sought to understand it, I found the Bible far more interesting and—to my shock and consternation—coherent than I was expecting. I looked up answers to all my critical questions, thinking that perhaps others had not thought of issues I saw. I was wrong. Not only had they thought of all the issues, and more that I had not thought of, they had well-worked-out positions about them. I did not believe their answers, which sometimes struck me as contrived or unlikely. But often, they were shockingly plausible. The Bible could sustain interrogation; who knew? It slowly dawned on me that I was acquainting myself with the two-thousand-year-old tradition of theology. I found myself positively ashamed to realize that, despite having a Ph.D. in philosophy, I had never really understood what theology even is. Theology is, I found, an attempt to systematize, harmonize, explicate, and to a certain extent justify the many, many ideas contained in the Bible. It is what rational people do when they try to come to grips with the Bible in all its richness. The notion that the Bible might actually be able to interestingly and plausibly sustain such treatment is a proposition that had never entered my head.

I also, fairly soon, started “talking to God.” This was experimental. After I had lost my faith as a child, I nevertheless continued occasionally pretending to dialogue with a supremely wise being about various issues in my life. It was a kind of therapy, a kind of play pretend with an imaginary friend (that is more or less how I put it to myself). So, I did that more explicitly now, but with God, being of course aware that this is suspiciously like prayer. I never once thought that the thoughts that appeared in my head were any but the products of my own imagination. (I still do not: I am not a prophet.)

What struck me, and I did not want to quote it here at any real length, is that what led him down the road was a growing interest in the occult as he had meditated on evil and learned about Jeffrey Epstein and the fixation so many wealthy Hollywood types have with mysticism and the occult.

“[O]ne of the things that one learns about the occult and its various secret societies is that they believe the knowledge itself is potent, that it opens doorways to the spiritual realm. If there was one thing that was clear to me, it was that I wanted such doors, if any there be, to remain firmly shut,” he wrote.

Realizing so much of the occult is a twisting of the Bible, he decided to read the Bible to understand it as a way to understand evil and the occult.

From a personal side, having had a daughter in a very Christian school, the topic of angels, demons, and the spirit world came up more than once as girls of the era, in and out of Christian schools, talk about that stuff. I always told my kid it was not healthy to dwell on it or spend time diving into it because it has a way of metastasizing in the mind and taking on a life of its own.

There are multiple crystal shops near me where non-believers who claim some aspect of spiritualism go for charms, etc. When Christianity fades from society, atheism does not spring up. The old gods slither back into society. The number of people who reject Christ but read their horoscope is rising.

Sanger notes this, and I thought it was fascinating that his search to understand evil and realizing the occult is rising in parts of high society led him to the Bible.

It really is worth a read, though I warn you it is a bit lengthy. What is also notable compared to some prominent celebrity “conversions” of late is his humility and unwillingness to make a big show of it.