Kieran Healy

What a Shower of …

I you’ve ever wondered what sort of story would appall both The Eugene Volokh and Atrios then here’s your answer. And they’re right to be appalled, too. Freedom for all, but with an astringent sidedish of evangelical blackmail.

As George Orwell put it:

“As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents.” [The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), chapter 11]

Where’s the blackmail? There’s no force involved here. When I was on active duty in the Navy Christian organizations would offer us a place to stay the night and a free breakfast it we would agree to listen to a sermon. We knew up front what the agreement was. Would you forbid this evangelist to make his offer? If you had the power would you execute him if he wouldn’t folow your instructions?

There’s a big difference between extra cookies at the camp lejeune chapel and water in a desert in a middle of a war.

Also between listening to a sermon and being baptized.

A reply to “Atrios” and “Mark”. Kieran describes the offer of the “baptism” as “evangelical blackmail”. Her point is this is an “appalling” misuse of an incentive.i.e., the desire for a bath in a hot and dusty land. My point is the use of the term “blackmail” is too strong, it implies a degree of coercion that is not present. That Kieran is “appalled” indicates bias. The Chaplain’s job description requires him to present the message of how Christ can save one from the coming judgment. What’s so appalling?

Jim, “they have to agree to be baptized.” Okay? If they don’t agree, no bath. You know and I know that anyone can say, sure, baptize me, so they can get the retard for Jesus off their backs and get on with their life, and no, he isn’t like a Spanish conquistador, he doesn’t kill or maim in the face of resistance, but it takes a special kind of evangelical idiocy to think it a good idea to “force” people into baptism. What do they say, “to accept Christ Jesus as my savior and lord . . .” Acceptance = freely given assent. Don’t accuse me of being anti-Christian. I am married to a Southern Baptist.

Hi, Barbara. Thanks for your reply. We are all focused on the appropriateness (inappropriateness) of the Chaplain’s inducement to listen to his invitation to become a follower of Christ. I have to leave to keep a business appointment and I want to give your comments the attention they deserve so it’ll be tonight (I’m on EST) before I can get back to you. P.S. It sounds like you’ve put a lot of thought into the subject, I have no intention of accusing you of being anti-Christian. :)

Hi, Barbara. You label Chaplain Llano’s inducement as “evangelical idiocy”. Likewise, Kieran, Volokh, and Atrios are “appalled”. LLano’s methodology is an affront to your sense of propriety. FIRST: Chaplain Llano is not your servant, he is God’s servant (if he is a true believer). Therefore, “Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.” Romans 14. SECOND: Are you not judging with the same attitude the Pharisees used? They were “affronted” and “appalled” that Jesus would dare to heal on the Sabbath and when He did “…they were filled with fury…” (Luke 6:11). The bottom line is the Gospel is being preached and some of these soldiers-who could be killed- can find eternal salvation. “What then? Only that IN EVERY WAY, whether in pretense on in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I REJOICE.” (Philippians 1:18). The criticism of Chaplain LLano is misplaced.

Dear Jim, Chaplain Llano is different in degree not kind from the Spanish conquistadores. He would try to effect by compulsion, however mild, what can only be effected by grace and willing acceptance. Very bad paraphrasing—for if he has not love his words are as clanging symbols, unintelligible and without meaning. Know that Jesus healed without requiring tribute. It is the healing that led people to God, and if it can occur the other way around, that’s great, but it is so unlikely to occur as a result of coercion that it hardly seems worth the effort. Judgment is not the same thing as opinion. I am permitted an opinion. I recognize that I will not be passing ultimate judgment on Chaplain Llano or anyone else for that matter.

I can’t imagine Jesus, upon finding someone in need of water, requiring them to undergo the Christian conversion ceremony in order to get access to that water.

See John 4, for example.

A few other things: This chaplain may be a servant of God, but as a member of the military, he’s also a servant of the people of the U.S. Ergo, U.S. citizens have a right to question his actions.

Conversions which are coerced, in my opinion, do much more harm to the Christian cause than those which come about through people seeking knowledge based on a Christ-like example. If Chaplain Llano seeks to bring others to the faith, he can do a better job by acting as Christ would, and not using the ways of the world.
—Kynn, a Christian

I think the central issue, from either side, is that he’s requiring them to be baptized. That’s a fairly serious profession of religious commitment on an entirely different plane from requiring people to listen to a sermon or spend some time reading the Bible.

Either this chaplain is so arrogant as to believe that anyone who listens to his sermon will become a believer, or he is baptizing people who he knows have not in their hearts come to the beliefs that would traditionally lead them to baptism. I’m not an expert on the baptismal practices of every denomination, but I’ve certainly never heard of a faith that would consider adult baptism without experience of grace to be a good idea. In fact, insofar as baptism implies a commitment to Jesus, then being baptized without feeling said commitment seems to me like a lie told to God. I guess that wouldn’t bother an atheist who was in it for the bath, but you’d think someone who claimed to be a man of God would hesitate a little.

Dear Laura,Yor identified the central issue as the requirement that the soldiers be baptised. It doesn’t sound to me like the soldiers are being required to be baptised. What they are being required to do is listen to an hour and a half sermon, then they get what they really want- a big, wet, bath. If some of them come to faith through the preaching of the Gospel in that hour and a half, they are baptised. If others remain unmoved they receive the bath as a reward for sitting in Pastor Llano’s dirt floor tent and listening to his preaching.You are certainly correct in pointing out the seriousness of accepting the immersion as more than a bath. Whether the person in the water is getting baptised or getting a bath depends entirely on his heart attitude, and “God looks on the heart”.

Jim, you’d make a good Jesuit.

John, being like Jesus is God’s purpose for his people: “For those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers.” Romans 8:29. The only thing I don’t like is God has chosen suffering as the means to shape character.

Give up, he doesn’t get it….He’s never going to get it. Jim would need some major de-programming before he understands the difference between compassion and coercion.

Now, if the organized religions of the world would agree to offer safe, rent free housing and food for the poor and homeless, rather than building bigger and emptier churches, I’d consider that compassion in coercion’s clothing.