I spent most of the day procuring enough time with electronics to watch this video in its entirety. Being a fully-fledged adult entering into middle age and having to fight to do simple things such as this is an unfortunate side-effect of the level of care that I am receiving and cannot be avoided, which does not make it any less annoying. But I did ultimately succeed and the thrill of getting my way is nothing compared to what I actually got out of the video. I will respond to it in backwards order, first describing my thoughts in response to Derek and then my thoughts on PineCreek’s original topic. Please note that all my references to “the video” in this post are to this opening video.
As for Derek, I derived from from the video that he was a Reformed Baptist. This is the exact denomination in which I was raised, my initial theologian being my father, whose own favorite theologian was John Piper. For those who don’t know Piper, he is the guy behind https://www.desiringgod.org/ and I personally was first introduced to him when my dad handed me his book on biblical femininity, which compared a woman living independently and not under the care of a man to a daredevil jumping out of an airplane with no parachute. Piper was also the guy behind ideas like these:
So, I mean, y’know, basically the same RTS-inducing bull🤬 that I usually harp on. My mother was more “nuanced;” I believe she coerced my dad into believing this doctrine, despite the fact that she knew it to be bull🤬, in a complicated and successful attempt to manipulate everyone around her. Essentially, she made it appear that she was the “good cop”/submissive wife who had no choice but to support her 🤬-hole husband when, in fact, she was the one in complete and total control, using my dad as a tool for her sadistic purposes. I can’t prove any of this of course, but I know my mom pretty well. Unfortunately for me, I did not figure this scheme out until many years after I had left the home, groped around in the dark for a while, and then spent a LOT of time in therapy.
But I digress. I have to give Derek credit: he definitely knows his stuff and has thought through his position. He also seemed to have a good heart. However, I still disagree with virtually everything he said. In order to justify the killing of the Canaanites, he presents a purely rational argument and turns off his “emotion mind.” Now, thanks to the years and years of intensive therapy that I have under my belt, it is second-nature for me to view this split in the mind like this:
Derek is deep in reasonable mind when describing his thoughts on killing Canaanite babies. He approaches the matter in the same way that a sociopath might, even though he is clearly not a sociopath. This seems to be a common phenomenon when one people group dehumanizes another, leading otherwise good people to do horrible things. If the biblical story is historically accurate, the Israelites were probably in reasonable mind; just like lots of other political groups through history, such as the Nazis in WWII and some other, more recent groups, which shall remain nameless. However, note that Derek switches into an extreme form of emotion mind when arguing for the overarching worldview that causes him to dehumanize the Canaanites. He constantly refers to his subjective experience of salvation, which he knows will influence nobody’s point of view except his own. This subjective experience leads him to believe in the infallibility of the bible, and to lend his unwavering allegiance to the god who he believes is behind it. He never reaches wise mind; all he does is pendulum-swing between the two extremes.
Another thing that I noticed about Derek was his constant use of really big words. I used to do this, too, when I was in Reformed Baptist circles. Note that he constantly tries to appear nonchalant as he drops extremely specialized vocabulary which he then goes on to define, assuming that the host won’t know the lingo. Unfortunately for Derek, the host has been around the block a few times himself and needs no explanation. This is a tactic that I have seen countless times within Calvinism, in which they split hairs on theology and then assign pretentious names to every conceivable position anyone could hold on any micro-sub-issue. This detracts from the fact that the whole thing is a load of hooey. Who could call somebody out on ridiculous theology when they’ve invented that many smart-sounding words to describe it? Using big words prevents them from having to say what they’re saying in regular English, and that way they they can shield themselves from having to actually come out and say what they actually believe and probably be rejected immediately.
But while the Reformed Baptist community has especially serious holes in its supporting logic, the entirety of Christianity has to come up with a way to explain ethnic cleansing. A staff member the other day asked me what I was doing, and I explained my blog. She could not help herself from referencing a sweet bible passage in which it apparently says that God wouldn’t even break a bruised reed. I listened politely and then commented that that would be great news if I were a cattail, but God apparently wasn’t so nice as to avoid genocide. She flippantly replied, “Oh, I figured you would come back with something like that.”
What?? Am I beating a dead horse by bringing up that whole genocide thing again? What if I were considering dating someone who inspired authors to speak extremely highly of them, saying touching quotes about sweetness and not hurting a fly, and the only thing bad anyone could say about my potential significant other was that they had personally ordered a few major war crimes? Water under the bridge? How do actions not speak louder than words here? How could an otherwise intelligent person think that I was making too big a deal of a little genocide, when it’s really an over-visited issue and I should apparently let the whole thing go already?
I was going to describe my whole journey through Christianity today, including the time I spent in all sorts of denominations both Calvinist and Arminian (there go those big words again) but unfortunately the hospital’s Electronics Reapers will be coming through in just a few minutes. So I will close this disorganized post that I desperately want to organize by describing my own emotional reaction to the black-and-white photo of the terrified little boy that was shown shown so many times in the first half of the video. I was in a crowded room so I forced myself not to cry. But I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. To those I know who remain Christian and don’t even know that this blog exists, “YOU DID THIS TO THAT LITTLE BOY!” “YOU KILLED HIM!” I thought of all the children I’ve seen abused. And I thought of me. Whenever I’ve ever pictured my own past self going through horrible abuse in my earliest years, there’s been a disconnect. What would have obviously been trauma to any other child seemed justified when done to me. After being constantly redirected to that picture, something clicked. I’m in my thirties, single, with no family, and living in a mental hospital because of the same tradition that killed the Canaanite children. My heart shrieked in response to the photo of a child sacrificed to religion because I, too, was that sacrifice.
4 thoughts on “A Child Sacrificed”