Baptist Pastor In ‘Hell’ Controversy
One of the things Independent Baptists in Australia have never been blessed with is diplomacy. In fact Christian fundamentalists the world over regard that as an overrated virtue. Pastor Kevin Harris of the Illawarra Community Baptist Church [Independent] probably agrees. The news.com.au site is reporting that he caused a great deal of offence by telling some Jewish leaders [albeit in private] that Jews were going to hell and faced a fate worse than the Holocaust. The report is entitled ‘Baptist Pastor Raises Hell in Jewish Dialogue’.
Kevin, like many Independent Baptists pastors in Australia is from the States. Over in the States they probably think this is a wild untamed land full of savage pagans. Thus a steady stream of KJV wielding fundo’s have been heading over in fulsome supply, many planting ‘Baptist’ churches in schools and community halls, regardless of the presence of other churches.
You can visit Kevin’s church website here, which I have immediately entered into the running for our Rogue’s Gallery of Australia’s Worst Church Websites, so that we can all learn how not to build ours. Whilst there check gems such as:
Is The King James Bible too hard to understand?
Is Contemporary Christian Music appropriate for the worship of a holy God?
In their information on Who Are The Independent Baptists? we read:
We believe the temporary sign gift of speaking in tongues has fulfilled its Biblical purpose and has ceased to
function (Mark 16:17-20; 1 Corinthians 14:22; Hebrews 2:4).We believe in the pre-tribulational rapture (Christians will meet Christ in the air before the Tribulation begins) as explained both in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 and in 1Corinthians 15:51-53.
We believe in separating from false teachers and false churches such as Roman Catholicism (Romans 16:17).
We believe that God created the earth in six literal twenty-four hour time periods (see Genesis 1). Not only do many Baptist Union pastors and churches no longer believe these doctrines; neither does the Baptist
Union training school (Morling College).We differ in that we only promote conservative music that glorifies the Lord and edifies (builds up) God’s
people. If we perform music that is designed to appeal to our flesh, it will produce fleshly results. But music that is designed to stir our souls produces spiritual fruit that glorifies the Lord. For this reason, you will still hear the meaningful, time-honoured hymns sung at an Independent Baptist church.
Kevin has no doubt got the rough end of the pineapple as they say around these parts, because you don’t expect a conversation held in your lounge to be all over the news wires and and being blogged about by scandalous blogs like these do you? Well let that be a lesson in diplomacy Kev. Believe what you want as fervently as you want, but be careful about how and to whom you communicate them.
The lesson for me: Not only do we have to cope with the bad news generated by our own, but whenever the Fundo Baptists cause a stir all the media and readers see is the word ‘Baptist’, and we are tarred with the same brush. We need to educate the media about these exotic Independent types quickly!
Dear Gordon,
I read your article about me and wondered if you would like to hear what really took place in that conversation. I did not say what Vic and Lynnda claim. We simply and lovingly answered his question about what we’re on about. Please ring me on 4272 5530 if you would like to know the specifics. If you have ever had someone twist your comments to mean something you don’t believe, and never said, you know how disappointing that can be!
As far as our website, I thank the Lord for the volunteer who gave many long hours to build it. We would welcome help from a volunteer to enhance it.
If I can ever be of spiritual help to you, please don’t hesitate to ring me.
In Jesus’ Name,
Pastor Kevin Harris
Good to hear from the horses mouth. As I said in my scurrilous piece: you got the rough end of the pineapple.
If I were you I would not think that a private conversation would make it into news.com.au
You can rightly feel that you’ve been done over.
Feel free to give us the real scoop, unlike the rest of the media this reputable outlet will publish it in full.
Look I know volunteers would have put lots of time into that website. With a little guidance that effort can be greatly enhanced. I refer you to the article entitled How To Make A Great Website.
I would normally advise that you drop a lot of the stuff that’s on your site but its better left up so that people can get a feel of you before they venture forth. It will turn off the people it needs to and attract those you are looking for.
You could be of spiritual help to me: delete that scurrilous claim you make about us ‘Union’ pastors. We might not like your style of music, we might sneak the odd peak at the Message version, and some of us do allow women out of the kitchen at our churches but we’re actually your fellow workers in the Gospel which we still faithfully proclaim.
May God produce fruit through your ministry, and those who labour with you.
P.S. Did you vote for Obama?
That is a gracious answer Kevin, and I have no doubt you could very well have been misquoted and misreprented. Also…there is only one way to the Father…and this does offend.
However..
“We differ in that we only promote conservative music that glorifies the Lord and edifies (builds up) God’s
people. If we perform music that is designed to appeal to our flesh, it will produce fleshly results. But music that is designed to stir our souls produces spiritual fruit that glorifies the Lord. For this reason, you will still hear the meaningful, time-honoured hymns sung at an Independent Baptist church.
If that truly is your view it is laughable.
Music designed to appeal to our flesh? You have to be joking.
Music is ammoral.
I dare you…go back to the music they sung at the early church. I doubt you would understand it….and neither would I…and I am not talking about the language!
Then go play the cymbals and instruments LOUDLY as the Psalms tell us to…even in the outdated, innacurate KJV.
Finally…read this quote…
“I am no music scholar, but I feel I know appropriate church music when I hear it. Last Sunday’s new hymn – if you can call it that – sounded like a sentimental love ballad one would expect to hear crooned in a saloon. If you insist on exposing us to rubbish like this – in God’s house! – don’t be surprised if many of the faithful look for a new place to worship. The hymns we grew up with are all we need.”
Of course, this letter was written in 1863, and the song they were talking about was “Just as I Am”. As much as things change, they stay the same.
It is sinful in my view to be boring and irrelevant to a world who does not yet know Jesus as their Lord.
I am seeking to be all things to all people, so as to win them to Christ. The message never changes, the medium MUST change, the challenge of spreading the gospel demands it.
Gracious reply Kevin. My happiest image is that of Gordon looking like our “Mr April” in another section – being left with liquified trousers after reading you posting a reply to his report. “Reaping what you have sown” has taken on a whole new meaning ! After everything, he then he goes on to call you a “horse” in his reply.
We have all indeed been misquoted and that is lamentable.
Are “Fundamentalist” Baptist churches growing these days ? Just a question ….
love ya work Aaaron.
That’s not what I meant Aaron. I feel a call to my lawyers coming on…
I am a member of the NSW Council of Christians and Jews and have been active for many years in inter-faith dialogue. As a Catholic I suspect I have a different ‘take’ on who gets into the next life – I’m personally inclined to leave it up to Jesus. Nonetheless, I am concerned at the comments that were allegedly made by Pastor Kevin Harris. Friends in inter-faith circles are also concerned at the possibility of vicious comments etc circulating among church groups etc that may end up in our schools etc. The news has spread rapidly and I am fielding emails from Jewish friends here in Australia as well in the States.
I’m not sure how the response to comments made in person can be considered to be proportionate, given the context. I do not share the same outlook on life and theology as Independent Baptists, however much of the foundational aspects of Evangelical theology can be presented in a way that would cause similar distress, to a range of people.
I can communicate my beliefs about sexuality in an insensitive manner, or I can communicate them in a manner and context that will not give critics the opportunity to portray me as a bigot.
It’s no rocket science to logically deduce that many Christians believe that anyone who doesn’t embrace Christ ‘the way the truth the life’ will miss the glory train. Duh. If you want to take offence at that then you’ll be a busy man!
I know for a fact that Jews do not believe that Jesus is the Messiah. If I went to see some Rabbi’s they would possibly tell me so, and they may even tell me that the supposed divinity of Christ is an elaborate scam. I can run off to the media about that if I want to, and create some headlines. However, any half intelligent person can work out what Jews believe about Jesus without going to see any Rabbi.
I know what atheists believe about Jesus as well. I can go and see some atheists and get offended if I want but that’s another duh!, isn’t it? We know what atheists believe.
I can go and see some Catholics to see what they feel about the Baptist church, and I can go away mightily offended if they are consistent with Catholic dogma and tradition. However, I am well aware of what they are likely to believe.
I hope you get my point. It’s not rocket science to know what a Fundamentalist Baptist is going to tell you about Jews who do no embrace Jesus as Messiah. Their beliefs on the issue are a matter of record for decades now.
It’s 2008, time for some people to wake up and realise just what is out there.
For the record, I know there are plenty of people out there who would regard my beliefs as stupid, futile, erroneous, fallacy, evil, pointless [add your own epithet....] Despite the fact that I know this, I am secure enough in my faith to be able to deal with that. The next person who disagrees with my faith position will NOT appear as a news headline.
As a Jew, may I join the conversation and say part of the issue here is not just the private conversation but the public pamphlets? Copeis of these were provided to the Jewish delegates at the meeting, who then made them available in unedited form together with their concerns.
I work in interfaith dialogues. I was raised in a conservative family; all my schooling was in a Methodist school; I have attended Catholic, Anglican (high and low) and Seventh Day Adventist services with friends from these communities. I also mix in Hindu and Buddhist circles. So I understand a lot of different world views. But I am often the one who has to be accommodating, as my region is overwhelmingly unquestioningly Christian.
I am also the child of Holocaust survivors. And a historian.
Pastor Kevin’s pamphlets are offensive to me, and sent chills up my spine because – in the rural part of Australia in which I live – there are too few intelligent and mature Christians able to control the actrions of restless and angry youth looking for reasons to take their discontent out on peopel who are Different In Any Way. My part of Australia has had Jewish citizens for over 150 years and Christians from the Middle East for over 120 years. This pamphlet is the kind of excuse some elements of our community use to physically attack those they assume are recent refugees, suspicious, ‘nasty Muslim’, ‘imperialist Zionist’ etc.
Together with the website, there is a chilling and unfriendly message here. Good design overcomes many of the issues, and creates more genuine interest and a more relaxed dialogue. Of course, an imaptient zealot may then coutner with ‘Good design is for whimps: it’s deceitful and sneaky. This says what we mean’. In which case, we’re right to be alarmed.
sorry for my typo’s!!
J
Hi Joanne
Thanks for dropping by and taking time to help us see a perspective that we are usually blind to. I can see that the fear of anti-Semitism is hot-wired deep into your families history. That is something I can only begin to imagine, bearing in mind the trauma that goes with that history.
I still feel that this can potentially be a way whereby people get worked up about something that surrounds us daily. When I purchase the Weekend Australian each weekend and pull out the magazine, I expect to find a weekly column by Phillip Adams that intimates that the Christian faith is for brain dead, fundamentalist loving, science denying, intellectually challenged, easily duped Philistines.
I can get wrapped around the axles about that or I can figure that its standard operating procedure for Adams, and just about any secular humanist.
Obviously I cannot hotwire my feelings back to a family history of being sent to horrific Holocaust camps, but I can to a degree hotwire it back to experiences where I have been humiliated or discriminated against because I have belief.
I live in a world surrounded by people who think that what I believe is wrong, stupid, vacuous, fictitious, etc – and so do you. We can go looking for these people and their views or we can accept that they exist and be secure in our beliefs.
Unless these views are part of a contagion that can lead to more sinister things, simply leave them where they are: theological beliefs held by people who see things differently to you.
I am happy to dialogue with leaders and people from other faiths, as long as it does not imply that I neutralise any theological belief that I have that may contradict one of theirs. If that’s the case I’m in trouble. Tolerance is the acceptance of each others diversities, not the attempt by secularists to re-render our theological views into a homogeneous whole. That is impossible.
I can’t convince an Independent Baptist that the KJV is just another translation no more than I can convince a Muslim that Jesus was more than a prophet. I can show them respect and dialogue with them in a civil and harmonious way that promotes healthy interaction and tolerance.
I could point out plenty of views that Jews would have about my theology that I could choose to get upset about – if I wanted. However, I understand that Jews do not accept Jesus as the Messiah and that’s OK with me. I’ve made a different choice but that’s me, and I’m all I can control.
Typos: I’ll forgive yours if you forgive all mine!
I’m more relaxed about my faith’s spectrum of philosophies and views of life than many others (partly because my parents made sure I was well taught in my own faith, over a long range of time and views, and also mixed in a wide range of social circles that welcomed others).
Where the discomfort comes in the present discusion is not so much about anti-semitism (which is a vague and out-dated notion, in my view, since by definition it should also encompass anti-Muslim, anti-Baha’i and anti-Zoroastrian feeling but never does) is in the misappropriation of our symbols to then manipulate them to broadcast another opposite view. Such as interposing a death’s skull into the Magen David, star of David – which is a representation of a shield and a symbol of protection and has previously been imposed on us (in its original form) over centuries as a symbol of otherness and death.
It’s like me making the point that Christian mass takes my blessings over food and turns them into a cannabalistic celebration: sure, we can both find justification for our views, and say ‘I was just making a calm academic point’, but in truth we both know our views are going to create the horror we get reflected back.
It’s academically and spiritually naive to glorify and extoll the very nature of your divisive belief at first meeting without having set the basis of cordial boundaries. It’s also rude, and dismissive of the person you’re professing to hold the equal-minded discussion with. And to do this while at the same time misusing the symbols of that person’s beliefs and history as the way to ’show them the Light’ is, well, the way to create a war instead of letting Gd do the work via the Message itself.
I mean, either you believe Gd’s Word speaks for itself and needs no external prompting, or else you’re actually saying Gd’s Word is lacking a little something in the ‘oomph’ department, which I’d call a crisis of faith.
(And please – I’m not trying to be controversial here. I really am sitting calmly in my office space with a cuppa, and a smile, feeling relaxed and open and welcoming this open discussion)
Oh, and I’m not using ‘you’ and ‘your’ in the singular personal sense, but in the wider social sense of ‘one who…’.
Hi Joanne
thanks for stopping by again and for more considered comments and reason. I think there are some elements fo the story missing for me – namely a pamphlet etc.
I began my story by suggesting that for Independent Baptist can’t usually count amongst their blessings, the particular one that brings diplomacy. Making your point loudly and bluntly is often seen as being ‘faithful to the Gospel’. In other words, you told them like it is, and you gave them the truth between the eyes.
I must put my hand up and say that in my zealous past I have often been guilty of that, and in my latter years have often apologised to people I have met who knew me when I first made a faith decision to follow Christ.
I would hope that all believers move on beyond their zealous early days and whilst not letting the fire die learn to develop their zeal in a more considered manner.
I think you make an interesting point about God’s Word speaking for itself, and the tendency for followers to add their two cents worth for effect, as if God needs the brilliance of our arguments or the force of our histrionics.
My hope is that you can interpret your offence through the prism of academic and spiritual naivety rather than naked aggression.
At the heart of ID’s is a deep desire to live lives that are pleasing to God. Possessed by a high degree of certainty of their doctrines, they can come across threateningly to others who are not used to their level of certitude. I think at heart they are really nice people. Unfortunately many of them have the kind of form which led to this story blossoming out of control.
You said:
“a deep desire to live lives that are pleasing to God”
I have come to believe this is true of many people in many faiths, and that – for them – the faith in which they have an unswerving belief is the right one for them. I base this on the ‘many rooms in Gd’s house’ passage. For me, there is a deep crystal-toned ring that resonates in my soul when I know I’m hearing eternal truth – and it is part of Gd’s wonder that I can find that truth reflected in many cultures and many learnings, so that others can experience/discover that truth in a way that is meaningful for their own life’s journey.
When you live a life that uses several calendars and several languages so that linguistics and philosphical constructs are always fluid, you learn to discern the concepts that move beyond language. And you find ways to discuss and to celebrate these concepts and your experiences of them. For me, this is part of my experience with Gd. It’s part of the mystery and the wonder, the timelessness and the infinite expanse of freshness within the familiar.
I find an abiding comfort, security and joy in this; and also that there is so much to discuss in the common concepts, leading to fresh learnings about my faith and others’. If we gain more insight to our own faith, and recognise that others are doing that too, then surely we are all peacefully doing Gd’s work the way it’s meant to be done.
However when it comes to actual deeds, I find it more pressing to follow Gd’s injunctions to relieve social injustice, than to try to convert others especially through fear. Anyway, that’s a whole other topic, and one not necessary to enter into now.
I just wanted to point out originally that it wasn’t just the private conversation that was a concern, it was also the nature of the publicly available pamphlet that Pastor Kevin proudly gave to his Jewish visitors. And why this is so alarming, and also counter-productive to his message.
Thank you for listening.
Thanks for your insights. Another factor that is an inhibitor to dialogue for fundamentalist Christians is the exhalted status that ’sound doctrine’ has over above other values like character, love in action, social justice, etc.
Getting doctrine right and then dying on that hill seems to be more important than relationships. Relationships are brokered on the basis of shared doctrinal agreements. Independent Baptists have their totemic issues, [covered in Kevin's website]. they usually include the King James Version, how bad other Baptists are, how wrong Pentecostals are, how the Pope and the Vatican are of the devil, etc.
It is unusual for the Jewish faith to get a mention, their wrath is usually reserved for other Christians. Everyone else can line up behind people like me in the firing line, cos I’m taking the first bullet being a pastor in ‘one of those Union churches’.
For me the most revolutionary message of Jesus was grace, and that is the differentiator between Christianity and other religions for me. We get what we don’t deserve through the Messiah: mercy, forgiveness – and we don’t get what we deserve. Surely grace should typify the manner in which we relate to people?
Your are very gracious, thanks for stopping by to add your wisdom.
Thank you for making me welcome: I may stop by again on occasion, if I’m not intruding!!
[It does seem that life is way too short to waste on vengeful fury when it seems we can win more friends for Gd's side with 'honey' than 'vinegar' (or hellfire, in this instance). I figure I was granted an intellectual brain, insight and the ability to communicate for a reason: I was named for the prophet Jonah, taught to listen for that Voice of truth within. When we can meet like this, and establish the commonalities and boundaries of discussion then the differences illuminate so we can both learn - surely, Gd's plan in action? Translating that into practical works in daily life, so the theoretical becomes actual, this is the stuff of our Law that many observers fail to note and yet is how we all grow. This is the dimension that removes belief from Sunday (or whichever day is deemed Sabbath) into the rest-of-the-week, that prevents misrepresentation and misinterpretation because the action is simple and clear.
Oh look - I've gone on on a tangent again....
sorry!! You can tell there's much we can chat about, in terms of theosophy and of practice. And I do agree with you on the relevance and veracity of KJV translations, and wonder if you've seen some of our more recent translations?
Again, thanks for the chance to explain that our alarm is specifically with Pastor Kevin's choice of tools.]
Joanne I’m afraid what you’ve seen is but smidgen of what awaits you if you ever care to peruse the available books and pamphlets that get churned out of the fundamentalist Christian press in the US.
In one of my previous churches we had a guy who was single, who spent a significant part of his earnings buying and building up a large library of video’s, pamphlets, books etc that was full of conspiracy stuff and of course the ritual flogging of other Christians and the usual guff about secret Jewish one world orders.
After a long while I imposed a strict 5 minute rule on his un-announced drop-ins to give me the latest missive. Eventually he gave up on me and pronounced me a ‘Vatican Change Agent’.
Do yourself a favour: don’t even look at what is available out there
I’m on the same journey as you in many ways: trying to translate my faith beyond the propositional and into the way in which I live each day. I don’t always do a great job, but I’m working on it and so is God.