Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Pastor Danny Nalliah, of 'Catch the Fire' ministries is quoted as saying that the Victorian bushfires are a punishment from 'God.'

It’s just another piece of evidence that the Christianity Industry is dead.
 Two hundred years ago, Wilberforce made exactly the same argument that Danny made. Danny's can be seen at http://catchthefire.com.au/blog/2009/02/10/media-release-abortion-laws-to-blame-for-bush-fires/ Wilberforce made it in a speech for abolition of slavery, a speech to the House of Commons in London. He was in touch with the national mood, the national sense of identity. Therefore he had, by an large, a good hearing, unlike Danny, who has seriously misjudged his audience. But think, perhaps Danny already knows that his real audience is backs-to-the-wall die-hards who will throw money at any ‘ministry’ that rehearses insults, because they think like the Pharisees thought (who also loved the bible and evangelism), that sincerity plus loud disapproval equals faithfulness. Well, sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn’t.

Wilberforce’s hearers (and those who read reports of it) had a sense of national identity which had yet to have religion removed. This removal happened via the crisis of intellectual authority kick-started by the rise of science, particularly the Darwinian storm concerning origins, which destroyed permanently the confidence that Christianity could offer reliable knowledge on which a civilization could be built. The job of secularization was finished by the professionalization of charity, and to top it off, the voluntary euthanasia of the established churches. They bored themselves to death by committees, buildings, and microphones. Pedophilia is the last sexual rictus of a suicidal ecclesiastical organism. Now that the Christianity Industry is dead, let’s not forget why.

People are both better informed and much stupider than they were 200 years ago, so God help Danny if anyone suspects he has been giving his ‘God’, a hand.

We all, Danny, need to pull our heads in just now. Me too.

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