Israelites, Pharisees & Sadducees In The 21st Century Church

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Walk by Faith; Serve with Abandon
Expect to Win!
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Dedication
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The Transformative Justice Project
Eradicating Juvenile Delinquency Requires a Multi-Disciplinary Approach
The Juvenile Justice system is incredibly
overloaded, and Solutions-Based programs are
woefully underfunded. Our precious children,
therefore, particularly young people of color, often
get the “swift” version of justice whenever they
come into contact with the law.
Decisions to build prison facilities are often based
on elementary school test results, and our country
incarcerates more of its young than any other
nation on earth. So we at The Foundation labor to
pull our young people out of the “school to prison”
pipeline, and we then coordinate the efforts of the
legal, psychological, governmental and
educational professionals needed to bring an end
to delinquency.
We also educate families, police, local businesses,
elected officials, clergy, schools and other
stakeholders about transforming whole communities, and we labor to change their
thinking about the causes of delinquency with the goal of helping them embrace the
idea of restoration for the young people in our care who demonstrate repentance for
their mistakes.
The way we accomplish all this is a follows:
1. We vigorously advocate for charges reductions, wherever possible, in the
adjudicatory (court) process, with the ultimate goal of expungement or pardon, in
order to maximize the chances for our clients to graduate high school and
progress into college, military service or the workforce without the stigma of a
criminal record;
2. We then endeavor to enroll each young person into an Evidence-Based, Data-
Driven Transformative Justice program designed to facilitate their rehabilitation
and subsequent reintegration back into the community;
3. While those projects are operating, we conduct a wide variety of ComeUnity-
ReEngineering seminars and workshops on topics ranging from Juvenile Justice
to Parental Rights, to Domestic issues to Police friendly contacts, to Mental
Health intervention, to CBO and FBO accountability and compliance;
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4. Throughout the process, we encourage and maintain frequent personal contact
between all parties;
5 Throughout the process we conduct a continuum of events and fundraisers
designed to facilitate collaboration among professionals and community
stakeholders; and finally
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Newsletter and our e-Advocate Monthly and Quarterly Electronic Compilations to
all regular donors in order to facilitate a lifelong learning process on the everevolving
developments in both the Adult and Juvenile Justice systems.
And in addition to the help we provide for our young clients and their families, we also
facilitate Community Engagement through the Transformative Justice process,
thereby balancing the interests of local businesses, schools, clergy, social
organizations, elected officials, law enforcement entities, and other interested
stakeholders. Through these efforts, relationships are built, rebuilt and strengthened,
local businesses and communities are enhanced & protected from victimization, young
careers are developed, and our precious young people are kept out of the prison
pipeline.
Additionally, we develop Transformative “Void Resistance” (TVR) initiatives to elevate
concerns of our successes resulting in economic hardship for those employed by the
penal system.
TVR is an innovative-comprehensive process that works in conjunction with our
Transformative Justice initiatives to transition the original use and purpose of current
systems into positive social impact operations, which systematically retrains current
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is data-proven to enhance employee’s mental wellbeing and overall quality of life – an
exponential Transformative Social Impact benefit for ALL community stakeholders.
This is a massive undertaking, and we need all the help and financial support you can
give! We plan to help 75 young persons per quarter-year (aggregating to a total of 250
per year) in each jurisdiction we serve) at an average cost of under $2,500 per client,
per year. *
Thank you in advance for your support!
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1. The national average cost to taxpayers for minimum-security youth incarceration,
is around $43,000.00 per child, per year.
2. The average annual cost to taxpayers for maximum-security youth incarceration
is well over $148,000.00 per child, per year.
- (US News and World Report, December 9, 2014);
3. In every jurisdiction in the nation, the Plea Bargaining rate is above 99%.
The Judicial system engages in a tri-partite balancing task in every single one of these
matters, seeking to balance Rehabilitative Justice with Community Protection and
Judicial Economy, and, although the practitioners work very hard to achieve positive
outcomes, the scales are nowhere near balanced where people of color are involved.
We must reverse this trend, which is right now working very much against the best
interests of our young.
Our young people do not belong behind bars.
- Jack Johnson
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Israelites, Pharisees & Sadducees
In The 21 st Century Church
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Biblical Authority
______
Matthew 23 (NIV)
A Warning Against Hypocrisy
Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: 2 “The teachers of the law and the
Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. 3 So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But
do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. 4 They tie up heavy,
cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are
not willing to lift a finger to move them.
5
“Everything they do is done for people to see: They make their phylacteries wide and
the tassels on their garments long; 6 they love the place of honor at banquets and the
most important seats in the synagogues; 7 they love to be greeted with respect in the
marketplaces and to be called ‘Rabbi’ by others.
8
“But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all
brothers. 9 And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is
in heaven. 10 Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the
Messiah. 11 The greatest among you will be your servant. 12 For those who exalt
themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.
Seven Woes on the Teachers of the Law and the Pharisees
13
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of
the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let
those enter who are trying to. [14]
15
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land
and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice
as much a child of hell as you are.
16
“Woe to you, blind guides! You say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it means
nothing; but anyone who swears by the gold of the temple is bound by that oath.’ 17 You
blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred? 18 You
also say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by
the gift on the altar is bound by that oath.’ 19 You blind men! Which is greater: the gift, or
the altar that makes the gift sacred? 20 Therefore, anyone who swears by the altar
swears by it and by everything on it. 21 And anyone who swears by the temple swears
by it and by the one who dwells in it. 22 And anyone who swears by heaven swears by
God’s throne and by the one who sits on it.
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23
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of
your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters
of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without
neglecting the former. 24 You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.
25
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the
outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 Blind
Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be
clean.
27
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like
whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the
bones of the dead and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you
appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and
wickedness.
29
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for
the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. 30 And you say, ‘If we had lived
in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the
blood of the prophets.’ 31 So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants
of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Go ahead, then, and complete what your
ancestors started!
33
“You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to
hell? 34 Therefore I am sending you prophets and sages and teachers. Some of them
you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to
town. 35 And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth,
from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you
murdered between the temple and the altar. 36 Truly I tell you, all this will come on this
generation.
37
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how
often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under
her wings, and you were not willing. 38 Look, your house is left to you desolate. 39 For I
tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name
of the Lord.’”
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Table of Contents
…a compilation of works on
Israelites, Pharisees & Sadducees
In The 21 st Century Church
Biblical Authority
I. Introduction: The 21 st Century Church…………………………….. 19
II. Israelites………………………………………………………………. 37
III. Pharisees……………………………………………………………... 45
IV. Sadducees…………………………………………………………… 79
V. Mind Control…………………………………………………………. 97
VI. Abuse of Authority…………….……………………………………. 115
VII. Spiritual Warfare………………………………............................. 117
VIII. References……………………………………………………........ 123
______
Attachments
A. The Church of The 21st Century
B. The Church Growth Movement and Its Impact on 21st Century Worship
C. Challenges Confronting The Church in The 21st Century
Copyright © 2003 – 2019 The Advocacy Foundation, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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This work is not meant to be a piece of original academic
analysis, but rather draws very heavily on the work of
scholars in a diverse range of fields. All material drawn upon
is referenced appropriately.
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I. Introduction
The 21 st Century Church
21st Century Church: New Absolutes the
Church Must Embrace or Die (Part 1)
21st Century Church...
03/09/2015 03:45 pm ET Updated Dec 06, 2017
by Dr. Steve McSwain, Contributor
Speaker, Author, Counselor to Congregations,
Interfaith Ambassador, Spiritual Teacher
The popular group Hozier has a hit song “Take Me to Church.” Lest you think, however,
the title reflects the current youth culture’s longing to return to the Church they have
abandoned, think again. One line in the lyrics goes like this:
“If the heavens ever did speak
She’s the last true mouthpiece
Every Sunday’s getting more bleak
A fresh poison each week”
“A fresh poison each week.”
Sobering words. And, representative of what many young people think and feel about
the Church today.
To say the 21st Century Church across all denominational lines is suffering is an
understatement.
The 21st Century Church is Suffering
Christian Century says there is an average of nine church closures every day in
America.
The Bishop of New York recently declared 100+ parishes will close or merge in
their Diocese.
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According to the Pew Forum, the Millennial generation has all but abandoned the
Church.
It would not take much to conclude the Church is dying. And, in its present form, I
suspect it is.
I have written extensively on this subject before, as many of you know. And, while
some mistakenly think I, too, have left the Church, I have actually stayed.
Admittedly, I am not involved in the same ways as I have been in the past.
Nevertheless, it is my sincere hope to “be the change I’d like to see,” as Gandhi used to
say. I believe a viable future exists for the Church in all its historic dimensions, Catholic,
Protestant, Evangelical alike. I am working toward this end.
Why Nobody Wants to Go to Church Anymore
My own feeling is, however, the 21st Century Church future lies in offering “absolutes”
to young people who do need boundaries within which to safely forge a real world faith.
Those boundaries, however, must be grounded in facts, in honest inquiry, and in
intellectual integrity.
Unfortunately, the Church has too often wrongly assumed what those “absolutes” must
be. In other words, the 21st Century Church that keeps trying to resurrect old, worn-out
ways of thinking and believing, and pretend while doing so that those absolutes have
never changed throughout its history, has decided already on its preferred destiny: the
graveyard of history.
Old Absolutes?
Here’s a sampling of some of the old absolutes to which dying 21st century churches
and church leaders still cling today...
1. The Bible is inerrant and infallible.
2. Adam and Eve were real people, the first two to walk on planet earth.
3. Creationism is a credible explanation for the origin of all things.
4. Evolution is just a “theory” and, therefore, it is evil.
5. Theism or the belief that God is a superhuman who resides somewhere just above
the clouds who favors his followers and answers their prayers.
6. Original sin is an infectious disease that automatically separates everyone from God.
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7. Substitutionary atonement or the belief God that sent his son Jesus to pay the price
for sin.
8. Homosexuality is abhorrent to God and, even if it is a genetic phenomenon, it must
be rejected or held in submission.
9. As the only way to God, Jesus is going to return to earth one day and condemn all
unbelievers to hell.
10. Hell is, therefore, the final destiny for anyone who does not believe in Jesus.
There are other “absolutes.” But these may be among the more familiar ones. It is many
of these “absolutes” that I see Millennials rejecting outright. In other words, if you want
to know why this generation has left the Church, look no further. You’ll find many of the
reasons in these antiquated beliefs.
I have listed below a few of the “absolutes” a new generation of believers are
embracing. These absolutes are among those the 21st Century Church of the future
must embrace with both enthusiasm and devotion, if viability is the desired outcome.
I am convinced, however, survival is not the interest of many church leaders. In fact,
there seems to be a kind of victimology disease from which many church leaders are
suffering today. When I was in seminary, we called this disease a “martyr complex.”
The Blind Leading the Blind
Many blind leaders today have actually duped themselves into thinking that the
widespread departures from their churches is somehow the fault of those leaving. It’s as
if those leaving are in the wrong. That their faith is faulty. That what they believe is
misguided.
It is, however, the same age-old blindness Jesus came up against repeatedly. As
Father Richard Rohr has correctly noted: “Jesus was never upset with sinners; he was
only ever only upset with people who thought they were not sinners.”
And, guess who thought they were not sinners?
Hint...hint.
It wasn’t those outside the Temple.
No, it was the religious leaders in Jesus’ day who were wrong.
And, yes, it is the religious leaders in our day who are wrong, too.
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Church leaders who cling to old ways of believing and 21st century churches that refuse
new ways of understanding “the greatest story ever told,” are victims of their own blind
stupidity. They mistakenly think a change in their theology is a compromise of their
beliefs.
They remind me of the stubborn Protestant preachers during the days of the Civil War.
Many of the white, southern preachers proclaimed to their death their mistaken belief
that slavery was ordained by God.
Slavery was never ordained by God and, as an erroneous belief, it could never be
defended.
Narrow-Minded Beliefs
But defend it, they did...even unto their deaths.
History would be their judge and their judge history was.
For 21st century churches today to defend narrow-minded beliefs as “absolutes” shared
by God himself is to adopt a similar path that leads to a similar end. No, there won’t be
another war over such beliefs, I don’t think.
Instead, what will happen is what we see happening all around us today. Slowly, but
certainly, methodically, people by the hundreds at first, but now by the thousands are
quietly leaving these churches, or mindlessly participating for the sake of the kids, but
they have little to no interest in what is believed, proclaimed, and promoted.
Such churches have become theaters of religious entertainment - those that appear to
be thriving, anyway. The others - the ones whose death is more visible - are slowly
becoming church museums like their counterparts in Europe.
For these 21st century churches and their leaders, I have a feeling history is about to
repeat itself and, once again, preside over a slow and painful graveside eulogy.
Before mentioning the absolutes the viable Church of the future will embrace, however,
I offer first this analysis for consideration:
My feeling is, there will always be a few “mega” 21st century churches around that
stubbornly cling to old “absolutes” or worn-out ways of believing. Their seminaries will
continue to produce mindless robots of mediocrity dressed up in collars and conditioned
to hammer away on a building nobody really wants to build anymore. By their sheer size,
however, they will successfully deceive themselves into thinking that their size means
everyone attending agrees with their narrow theology and, worse, that God actually
favors their narrow-minded thinking.
But they are wrong.
In both instances.
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The 21st Century Church
Those of us who try to carefully and honestly study these things know for a fact that
such churches lose as many people each year as they appear to gain. In some
instances, in fact, they are actually losing more members than they are gaining.
Nevertheless, they give the appearance to the uninformed that they must be reaching
the multitudes.
They are not, however.
The real truth is, they are treading water, so to speak. Their actual numbers are
declining. Revenues are diminishing. Layoffs are occurring within their staffs. Anyone on
the inside knows this.
What keeps people coming, however, is the good music; the fact that their preachers
are superior motivational speakers; and, mostly, the activities for children and youth
against which small, struggling congregations could never compete.
There may be a few other reasons that create the illusion of growth. But this one thing is
clear: for the most part, the growth these churches seem to be experiencing has nothing
to do with widespread agreement among attendees with what is either preached or
believed by their leaders. Other reasons draw them and, among the most prevalent I’ve
identified already. The only other reason is because they have grown disillusioned by
their former church and/or rigamortis has set in and they have lost interest in sticking
around for the church’s funeral procession.
Strangely, however, church leaders seem to miss this salient reality.
We have just such a mega 21st century church in our city that fits perfectly this
description.
Were it not for the multiple sites the church keeps starting here and there, the fact is,
their annual report would show nothing but declines in both membership and
attendance. By starting all these churches and combining their growing numbers with
their own declining numbers, they successfully maintain the illusion of growth.
The real truth is, however, the mother church is suffering. People are leaving. Revenues
are diminishing. Layoffs are occurring. Insiders...that is, the few in the know...are
growing more and more disenchanted with what is all too apparent to those leaving -
hypocrisy at the core of the beliefs.
Are they still big? Yes, of course. Do they still have “dynamic” worship services? How
could they not? Their musical staff is made up of professional musicians, “the cream of
the crop,” as we say in rural Kentucky.
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Facts are facts, however, and truth cannot be hidden in the baptistry. The future looks
rather bleak for this church and many other mega churches like it.
Conversely, we also have in our city a church like the one I believe will be the growing,
viable 21st century church of the future. It is experiencing growth and vitality already
and it has for many years.
More interestingly, however, it is a “city” church and, while others around it are declining
and dying, it is growing, thriving, and has the healthiest mix of young and old I have
seen in any church in America. And, I have been in literally hundreds of them
representing virtually every denomination within Christianity.
Absolutes the 21st Century Church Must Embrace or Die
More importantly, however, this city church embraces a different set of Christian
“absolutes.” The kind I have briefly outlined below.
Consequently, in this Part One of a two-part post, it is my intention to outline the
“absolutes,” core values, or beliefs that this church not only embraces but the absolutes
I believe the viable, 21st Century church of the future will embrace as well.
In Part Two, I will more fully elaborate on these absolutes. Here, I mention them only for
your reflection.
1. The universal need for union with God.
2. The innate goodness within all people.
3. We are a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints or a hotel for paying
customers.
4. All people are created equal and equality for anyone is equality for everyone.
5. When we say everyone is welcome, we actually mean EVERYONE. Including the
LGBT folk.
6. The Bible is our guidebook. It is not our “rule” book and certainly not our science text.
7. Jesus is “our way” to God. But we know our God is bigger than any of our beliefs
about HER.
8. Doubts and questions are encouraged here. In fact, we believe faith is forged through
doubt.
9. Stewardship is about money but also justice for all people and the care of God’s
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planet.
10. Heaven is not about “golden streets” any more than hell is about “flames and
torture.
Just like the others, these, too, are only a few of the core absolutes the thriving 21st
century church of the future will embrace. But they represent some of the more
important ones.
I remain hopeful.
As Saint Paul put it, “...old things are passing away. Behold all things are becoming
new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
And, none too soon, in my own opinion.
And, in the opinion of the 3,500 people who will choose to leave the 21st Century
Church before the end of this day.
________
Which Churches Will Thrive
in the 21st Century?
APRIL 9, 2015 | Trevin Wax
Whenever people today say that Christianity needs to update and adapt its moral
standards for the 21 st century, I hear echoes from 100 years ago. Back then, the calls
for change had less to do with morality and more to do with miracles. But the motivation
was similar, and the results are instructive.
What rocked the early 20th century was the call of many church leaders to adapt the
Christian faith to the scientific age of discovery. One could not expect thinking men and
women to accept at face value all the miracles in the Bible, the thinking went. The
biblical testimony of the miraculous was embarrassing to an educated mindset.
In order to rescue Christianity from superstitious irrelevance, many church leaders
sought to distinguish the kernel of Christianity (the fatherhood of God and the
brotherhood of man) from the shell of Christianity (miracle stories that came from
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another cultural vantage point). One could still maintain the moral center of Christianity
while disregarding the events that required suspension of disbelief.
As this adaptation spread, belief in the bodily resurrection of Jesus was reinterpreted
and given a solely spiritual meaning (he is alive in the hearts of good people). Miracle
stories such as Jesus’ feeding the 5,000 were given a moral twist (the true miracle is
that suddenly everyone shared). The Virgin Birth was rejected altogether.
Meanwhile, churches outside the West were appalled to hear “Christians” reject the
clear testimony of Scripture and what the church had always believed. In North
America, the rise of the evangelical movement was due, in part, to a desire to reclaim
the center of Christianity and refuse to allow contemporary sensibilities to alter the faith
“once for all delivered to the saints.”
Presbyterian minister and theologian J. Gresham Machen made the case that this
refashioning of Christianity was no longer Christianity at all, but a substitute religion with
a Christian veneer.
Over time, the effort to save the kernel of Christianity and leave aside its shell had the
opposite effect. The distinctiveness of Christian teaching disappeared, and the shell of
church rituals was all that remained. This is why, even today in some denominations,
bishops and pastors and parishioners openly reject the core tenets of the faith but
continue to attend worship and go through certain rites. The denominations that
followed this course have since entered a sharp and steady decline.
One hundred years later, the church is once again being rocked. This time, many
Christians are calling for us to rethink the “embarrassing” parts of Christianity —
specifically, our distinctive sexual ethic. After all, many of the moral guidelines we read
in the New Testament were written from another cultural vantage point and are no
longer authoritative or relevant today. If Christianity is to survive and thrive in the next
century, many of our ancient prohibitions (sex outside of marriage, homosexual
practice, the significance of gender, etc.) must be set aside…
Outside the West, this enthusiasm for rejecting Christian moral precepts that have been
accepted by all Christians, everywhere, for 2,000 years is mind-boggling.
Churches that accept society’s dogma on marriage and sexuality may think of
themselves as “affirming,” but the global church sees them as “apostate.” Meanwhile, it
is the height of imperialistic narrowness for a rapidly shrinking subset of white churches
in the West to lecture the rest of the world — including those places where Christianity
is exploding in growth or where Christians are being martyred — on why they are wrong
and how everyone else in Christian history has misread Scripture regarding the
meaning of marriage.
Nestled within our own times, it is easy to think the trajectory of history will lead to an
inevitable change within the global Christian church. But history’s lesson is the opposite.
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A century ago, the modernists believed that the triumph of naturalism would lead to the
total transformation of Christianity.
It must have seemed thrilling for these leaders to think they were at the vanguard of
reformation, that they were the pivot point of Christianity’s inevitable future. But such
was not the case. Traditional stalwarts like Machen and G.K. Chesterton (who were
criticized as hopelessly “backward” back then) still have books in print. The names of
most of their once-fashionable opponents are largely unrecognizable.
It’s commonplace to assume that contemporary society’s redefinition of marriage,
gender and the purpose for sexuality will eventually persuade the church to follow
along. But if we were to jump forward into the 22nd century, I wonder what we would
see.
Most likely, we would see a world in which the explosive growth of Christians in South
America, China and Africa has dwarfed the churches of North America and Europe. And
the lesson we learn from a century ago will probably still be true: The churches that
thrived were those that offered their world something more than the echo of the times.
________
Will the Church Survive the 21st Century?
Rick Renner
It is no secret that the spiritual environment in the world is undergoing a radical change.
A great gulf is beginning to divide those who reject absolute truth and those who see
what is happening and respond by renewing their commitment to the faith.
The winds of change are blowing, separating the wheat from the chaff. Even identifying
who is "wheat" and who is "chaff" can become a point of contention, depending on the
group to which one belongs. Unfortunately, what we currently see and feel is only the
beginning of the rift that is developing within the Church world. Unless a major revival
occurs, this rift will only grow deeper and wider. If repentance doesn't melt the hearts of
people throughout the Church world, it will eventually seem like there are three
churches:
• A Church that holds fast to the truth and faces the brunt of opposition because it
refuses to bend.
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• A Church in the middle trying to "ride the fence" through accommodation or
compromise in order to avoid persecution and societal rejection (see Revelation
2:12-17).
• A lukewarm, "Laodicean-like" Church (see Revelation 3:14-22) that has allowed
compromise to run its full course, stripping it completely of the power of God and
leaving Jesus standing on the outside.
It is not too late for the Body of Christ to make a full recovery. In fact, it is never too late
as long as there are believers who are willing to hear and hearken to what the Spirit is
saying to the Church. However, in order for the Church to receive the divine power it
needs for correction, change, and restoration, it must undergo a transformation from the
highest to its lowest levels.
The Holy Spirit is prophetically warning His people that the only way they can thwart this
impending dark spiritual season is to heed Christ's warning and apply His prescribed
solutions found in His Word. Christ's words to all seven churches in the book of
Revelation are vital for this top-to-bottom transformation. However, this is especially true
regarding Christ's message to the angel and congregation of Pergamum, who were
under assault in the very area being discussed.
The Cross is always the path for believers who have decided to walk the straight path
with Jesus. The Cross is never enjoyable, but it always results in resurrection.
Therefore, believers today must be willing to face the Cross and believe for resurrection
power to flow through them — even if it means they have to suffer the brunt of a
changing society that has no tolerance for people who hold to an exclusionary faith or to
fixed moral absolutes. If the Church has no fixed, non-negotiable biblical truths to stand
on, it will simply become a spiritually weak humanitarian organization with a "Christian"
philosophy that lacks the power of God.
The Call To Be God's Remnant
In Jesus' message to the church of Pergamum, He commended the Pergamene
believers who refused to be intimidated by the forces of darkness that were lambasting
them from all sides, trying to make them abandon their commitment to the Gospel
(see Revelation 2:13). These opposing forces took on a variety of forms for all early
believers, ranging from strife among family members to communal ostracism to largescale
government crackdowns against the Church. However, despite the diverse ways
in which this antagonism might manifest, these attacks against the Early Church were
all deeply rooted in one common defining characteristic — an adamant adherence to
the system of beliefs collectively known today as "paganism."
Now we are approaching the end of this age in an educated, highly sophisticated, and
technological world, and we are witnessing a return to that pagan premise of the past
that everyone's belief system can be right. More and more, society has no stomach for
spiritual or moral absolutes. In fact, the public reaction to moral proclamations is often
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so adverse that many pastors today are hesitant to take strong positions on issues of
morality, even though these truths are clearly stated in the Word of God. Rather than
answer difficult moral questions, they dodge the questions and skirt around the issues in
an attempt to avoid conflict.
This is precisely what the errant leaders, whom Christ called Nicolaitans, were doing in
Pergamum. Theirs was a doctrine of self-protecting compromise and accommodation
with the pagan culture that surrounded the Pergamene congregation. As a result, it is
possible that the pastors and spiritual leaders in that city who decided to "take a stand"
and preach the Gospel in its pure, unadulterated form were labeled as irrelevant or
intolerant hate-mongers.
Early believers endured bullying, ridicule, imprisonment, and even death because they
refused to conform to the pluralistic pagan world that surrounded them on all sides. The
religious, social, cultural, and political forces of the city exerted tremendous pressure to
coerce these Christians into modifying their message to encompass a more moderate,
inclusive view that would make them compliant with the spirit of the age. Although some
believers collapsed under this pressure, many steadfastly resisted this coercion to
conform and held fast to their faith. In our time and the times to come, there is — and
there will continue to be — a remnant of believers who will not bow to the pressures of
society. Although many did collapse under the weight of these external forces in the
early centuries of the Church, there were many who did not succumb — and who even
chose to suffer rather than to violate what they believed.
God has always had His remnant who will not bow to external pressures, and in these
last times, He will have that remnant once again. And those who refuse to fear or to
compromise their faith in Jesus Christ will experience previously unknown levels of the
power of God as a result of their commitment to stand by truth.
Regardless of the governmental and societal pressures that tried to sway early
believers from a singular commitment to Jesus Christ and His Lordship, most of them
held fast to the name of Jesus and refused to be lured into believing that Jesus was just
another option in a sea of choices. The world may have been religiously pluralistic, but
the Church was not. Although society viewed Christians as narrow-minded simpletons,
these early believers knew that salvation is found only in Jesus Christ, and they refused
to surrender to the pressures of their culture and times.
May the Church today follow their lead and refuse to surrender to the pressures of our
culture and times.
Excerpt taken from No Room For Compromise: Christ's Message to Today's Church –
Volume 2 of A Light in Darkness series. Used by permission
________
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Conquering the Challenges
of the 21st Century Church
By: Ed Bahler on March 09, 2018
When asked about the biggest challenges facing the church of the 21st century, church
missiologist and president of Lifeway Research, Ed Stetzer, replied:
I think the two biggest challenges are nominalism and secularism. Nominalism is the
idea that people are Christians in name only (Nominal Christians). As that category
begins to decline—and in a sense, I am glad to see it go—it means that people will either
move towards secularism, or be reached for the gospel, or for some other religious value.
One of the challenges is that the church is not readily equipped to engage secular people
and will have to do more to train people to evangelize the "far-unchurched."
We are accustomed to evangelizing the "near-unchurched:" people who have perhaps
been to church or dropped out because of a bad experience, but are familiar with terms,
language, and emphases.
Healthy growing churches of the future must learn to connect with and engage “farunchurched”
and “near-unchurched” Millennials (those born roughly between 1980 and
2000). These Millennials have grown up with a plethora of options and opinions. As
Stetzer advises, church leaders must equip their congregations to engage Millennials in
fresh, purposeful ways that connect uniquely with them and their struggles.
What Millennials Believe
Aspen Group engaged Barna Research to help clarify how Millennials are processing
their faith, how we can more effectively engage them, and how physical space helps us
do so. Here are some encouraging findings from the more than 800 responses we
received from Millennials across the U.S.:
Millennials believe it’s a spiritual world
o
o
Fewer than 20% believe Satan is merely a symbol of evil
Fewer than 20% believe being good gets you to Heaven
The Christian faith matters to Millennials
o
o
50-80% feel faith is important
61-81% feel spiritual needs can be met by Christianity
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The decline in their attendance is more about distraction and living in a
modularized world
o
o
They are informed and have options
They look for clues to discern if they’ll fit in at church, and whether the
church adds clarity to their life
Ministry space matters
o
o
Space must be authentic; any sense of bait and switch is a turn-off
Space must accommodate their need for reflection and connection
How we connect with Millennials is critical
o
o
65-95% do not want to share e-mail, cell numbers, or social media on first
visit
Give them room to tell us how to connect to meet their needs
Millennials desire conversation about spiritual matters. They believe the Jesus we know
and trust may have answers for them. But they are overwhelmed, distracted, exhausted,
and mistrusting. Finding faith must be on their terms.
A Great and Urgent Opportunity
Faced with this powerful opportunity to reach Millennials, church leaders must learn to
prayerfully wrap their ministry and leadership strategies around this 21st century
challenge. With so many competing and compelling options for how they’ll spend their
lives, Millennials won’t wait long for us to get it right.
It’s this urgency that compelled Aspen Group to think deeply about the cultural shift
that’s happening among young adults, and how the church can respond to meet their
needs. Working with hundreds of church leaders to create effective ministry space, and
meeting with thought leaders from around the country to discuss trends in the culture
and in the church helped clarify an approach to tackle the challenge of reaching those
who are far from God. We call this process Alignment.
Alignment focuses on four key 21st century ministry strategies:
Evolving Culture
Relevant Ministry
Empowering Leadership
Intentional Facilities
It’s our passion and mission to share with churches what we’re learning about the
underlying movements in our culture through groundbreaking research projects. We
work with churches to assess and empower leadership through effective planning,
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communication, and implementation strategies. We help churches clarify
their ministry priorities to effectively connect with Millennials and fulfill their church’s
mission. And then we explore how to channel all of this learning into an aligned
church facility.
We’re energized by what we’re learning from this research, and we’re excited to share
it. We believe in creating space for ministry impact. It’s this mission that drives why we
do what we do every day.
________
Rethinking Christianity
in the 21st Century
Author: Gregory E. Sterling
Christianity is changing – rapidly – in a century where commerce, communications, and
travel are connected globally in unprecedented ways. How do we understand these
changes in the faith, and what impact will global connectedness have on the church?
Trends have not dramatically eroded the relative number of Christians in the world. The
overall percentage has been relatively stable. In 1910, approximately 35 percent of the
world’s total population were Christians; a century later, Christians comprised 32
percent. 1
What has changed is Christianity’s global geographical distribution. The basic shifts
have been from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern and from the West to the
East. In 1910, 66 percent of the world’s Christians resided in Europe; in 2010, this
percentage had fallen to 26 percent. 2 This is not due simply to the growth of Christianity
elsewhere but to the secularization of Europe. Today churches there are being
converted into other types of establishments at an alarming rate. In England there have
been debates over the nature of the businesses that may take over church property –
e.g., a pub is acceptable but a sex shop is not.
World War and Bingo Nights
There are numerous reasons for the decline of Christianity in Europe. Two world wars
have scarred the minds of many Europeans: People wondered where God was. Other
factors are at work. One of the most interesting observations I have heard came from a
Lutheran bishop in Sweden. At a dinner in Lund, I asked her how things were in her
diocese. She said people attended bingo nights during the week in far greater numbers
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than worship services on Sunday. I asked why. She suggested that the socialism of the
Swedish government was a significant reason. The government had taken over the role
that used to belong to the church. Instead of the church bringing meals to the ill or
cleaning their house or providing a ride to the doctor, the government provided all of
these services. The church had lost its role in society. Whatever the causes for the
decline of Christianity in Europe, the reality of its decline is undeniable.
The African Century?
By contrast, Christianity has been exploding in Africa. In 1910, only 1 percent of the
world’s Christians lived in sub-Saharan Africa; in 2010, this percentage had risen to 24
percent.3 The growth has not only come in Pentecostal or charismatic movements but
in mainline Christian traditions. In 1900, more than 80 percent of Anglicans lived in
Britain; in 2008, that number had fallen to 33 percent. By 2008, the number of Anglicans
in sub-Saharan Africa had reached 55 percent. 4
Similarly, the Roman Catholic Church has grown exponentially in Africa over the last
100 years – from less than 1 percent of the world’s Catholic population in 1900 to 16
percent of the global Catholic population in 2010. 5
One overlooked factor is that many in Africa associate Christianity with democracy and
economic prosperity. People gravitate to it as a means of upward mobility.
Christianity has increased in Latin America. Looking at Catholicism, we can see this
growth: In 1910, 24 percent of the world’s Catholics lived in South America or the
Caribbean; by 2010, this had risen to 39 percent. 6 All these numbers tell the story of the
southern migration of Christianity. In 1910, only 9 percent of the world’s Christians lived
in the South. In 2010, this had grown to 24 percent. 7 Christianity has expanded in the
East. It is estimated that in 1910, 4.5 percent of the world’s Christians lived in the Asia
Pacific region; in 2010, this number had blossomed to 13 percent. 8 The most impressive
Christian growth is taking place in China, although it is impossible to know exactly how
fast. Since 1949 there has been an official church in communist China. Those unwilling
to register have formed underground or house churches. Since the time of the Cultural
Revolution (1966-1976), these have proliferated. One recent estimate places the total
number of Christians in China at 67,070,000. 9
Pluralism Rising
There is one other trend to take into account: When thinking about the global church, it
is impossible to ignore the presence of other religions. With 32 percent of the world’s
population, Christianity is the largest religion today. However, Muslims comprise 23
percent, unaffiliated individuals 16 percent, Hindus 15 percent, Buddhists 7 percent, folk
religionists 6 percent. All other groups are less than 1 percent. 10 How should we
respond to the shifting landscapes of the religious world? Let me offer four responses.
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1) A Changing Center of Gravity. Christianity’s numerical shift from North to South
and from West to East will alter its character in significant ways. For those Christians
who belong to a worldwide communion, the presence of Africans will become more and
more evident. Among Protestants this means the African churches will soon – if they do
not already – have more votes than their northern counterparts. Some tensions already
exist between North and South. Christians in the Southern Hemisphere tend to be more
ethically conservative. Churches like the Anglican Communion or the United Methodists
will need to negotiate these differences. The election of a Latin American pope has
shaken up the ethos of Catholicism. Further change is likely in store when the church
one day elects a pope from Africa. In short, we cannot consider the future of the
worldwide faith without regarding the churches in the Southern Hemisphere as a rising
force.
2) Theology. If we believe experience is a vehicle of theology, we will need to learn to
respect the different experiences that shape theologies across the world. These will
have a direct impact on our theological reflection. In China there are natural tensions
between the official church and the underground or house churches, although these
appear to be improving. In Africa, Christians struggle with the relationship between their
spirituality and indigenous religions. 11 The spirituality of African Christians is often a
blend of native and Christian expressions.
These developments appear to me to be roughly analogous to the state of Christianity
in the first three centuries C.E. At one time, there was a model of thinking of the early
church as a single monolithic tradition. The tradition began with Jesus Christ, was
developed by the apostles, and came to full expression in the work of the bishops who
succeeded the apostles. Some offshoots from this tradition were heterodox, but they
were exposed by the apostles and then by the heresiologists. This model of Christian
origins is largely the construction of early Christian heresiologists like Irenaeus.
Twentieth-century scholarship overturned this model. Today it is recognized that
Christianity emerged in different forms in various locales. 12 The experience of
Christianity in 1st-century Jerusalem was quite different than the Christianity in Corinth.
Initially there was no such thing as orthodoxy in the sense of a uniform and well-defined
movement. Orthodoxy emerged from the coalescence of various forms or patterns of
Christianity. This does not mean that there was no continuity with the earliest forms of
Christianity, but that orthodoxy was a clear development. It was not enforceable until the
rise of bishops and the adoption of Christianity by Constantine.
In other words, rather than thinking of enforced uniformity, we need to think of diversity
within a larger unity. If this is unnerving, we should remember that it was the diversity of
the early centuries that helped to give Christianity its vibrancy and allowed it to take root
in multiple circumstances throughout the Roman world. I think we need to allow for the
same freedom today.
3) Community. The digital world is the greatest innovation since the printing press, and
it has altered the way we think about community. The statistical rise of the “nones” has
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generated a new sociological category – people who have a sense of spirituality but are
allergic to religious institutions. This generation forms customized cyber-communities
rather than flesh-and-blood communities. The fact that two-thirds of the nones in the
U.S. are spiritual but not religious makes them different from their more secular
European counterparts. Notably, the phenomenon of non-affiliation is generational: 32
percent of those age 18-29 consider themselves nones, compared to only 9 percent of
those over 65.
The current generation is wary of institutional forms of Christianity for many reasons.
The scandals of the institutional church, the larger distrust of institutions, the failure of
churches to proclaim the gospel clearly or authentically have all contributed. In my
opinion, a crucial factor is the way younger people think about community and by
extension religion. They regard religion as a matter of optional personal programming.
Many create their own networks rather than join one that incorporates them. They do
not join churches. Congregations are struggling to relate. As one minister memorably
remarked: “We have too many eight-track churches in a MP3 world.” 14 We need to learn
how to build communities through digital communications that address the needs of
flesh-and-blood human beings. We need to show how diverse people can live together
and love one another in the spirit of Christ.
4) From Faith to Faith. We must recognize that we are only one-third of the world’s
population. How should we think of the other two-thirds? In practical ways, the issue is
more pressing for some Christians than for others. In the last decade, 45 percent of new
marriages in the U.S. crossed major confessional lines or were interfaith. In 1950, only
20 percent of the marriages were interdenominational or interfaith. One possible
implication of this is that it will promote good relations among the communities of faith.
We will need to maintain our civility as the mix of faiths changes. On the other hand,
studies suggest interfaith marriages face higher rates of dissatisfaction or failure. I do
not expect these marriages to become less frequent, but acknowledge that they can be
a challenge.
Credibility at Risk
Meanwhile, there are too many places in our world where religion is used as a pretext
for violence. This should concern all people of faith. It threatens to increase the
percentage of unaffiliated dramatically. It is a threat to the credibility of all faiths.
We must find ways to be loyal to our own beliefs or practices and yet be tolerant of
others. As a Christian I cannot say what Mahatma Gandhi said when asked if he was a
Hindu. Gandhi replied, “Yes I am. I am also a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist, and a
Jew.” As much as I admire Gandhi, I can only confess that I am a Christian. My loyalty
to Christ is exclusive. This does not, however, require that I take an exclusive stance to
religion. As a Christian I have a Bible that contains the Jewish Bible. It would be
incredibly foolish of me to deny that Jews understand God or deny the validity of the
majority of my own Scriptures.
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The world is moving in profound ways. We should not think that Christianity is
disappearing. It is, however, changing.
The Ends of the Earth
I have spent a good deal of my life studying Luke-Acts in the New Testament. In my
opinion, the two works offer a self-definition of Christianity within the larger ancient
Greco-Roman world. The author did not think locally but globally. The Gospel opens
and closes in Jerusalem. Acts opens in Jerusalem and closes in Rome, a symbolic
geographical move. The author set this up at the beginning of Acts when Jesus said to
the apostles: “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to
the ends of the earth.” 15 The most fascinating aspect of this declaration about “the ends
of the earth” is that it is left open. Paul is taken to Rome where he awaits trial, but never
comes to trial. As readers we want to know what happened to him. The author does not
tell us. Why not? I do not believe it is because the author did not know Paul’s fate, but
that the author wanted us to understand that the story was not over. It continued. This
was the author’s way to challenge us to continue the story “to the ends of the earth.”
We live in a world that the author of Acts never imagined but did allow for when taking
the story to the ends of the earth. I will say to you what I say to the students at Yale
Divinity School. Christianity is changing in our globalized world; I do not know what it will
look like in 50 years, but I know that you will write its history with your lives. Write it well.
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II. Israelites
The Israelites (/ˈɪzriəlaɪts/; Hebrew: בני ישראל Bnei Yisra'el) were a confederation
of Iron Age Semitic-speaking tribes of the ancient Near East, who inhabited a part
of Canaan during the tribal and monarchic periods. According to the religious narrative
of the Hebrew Bible, the Israelites' origin is traced back to the Biblical patriarchs and
matriarchs Abraham and his wife Sarah, through their son Isaac and his wife Rebecca,
and their son Jacob who was later called Israel, whence they derive their name, with his
wives Leah and Rachel and the handmaids Zilpa and Bilhah.
Modern archaeology has largely shown that determining the historicity of the religious
narrative is impossible, [7] with many scholars viewing the stories as inspiring national
myth narratives with little historical value. The Israelites and their culture, according to
the modern archaeological account, did not overtake the region by force, but instead
branched out of the indigenous Canaanite peoples that long inhabited the Southern
Levant, Syria, ancient Israel, and the Transjordan region through the development of a
distinct monolatristic—later cementing as monotheistic—religion centered on Yahweh.
The outgrowth of Yahweh-centric belief, along with a number of cultic practices,
gradually gave rise to a distinct Israelite ethnic group, setting them apart from other
Canaanites.
In the Hebrew Bible the term Israelites is used interchangeably with the term Twelve
Tribes of Israel. Although related, the terms Hebrews, Israelites, and Jews are not
interchangeable in all instances. "Israelites" (Yisraelim) refers to the people that the
Hebrew Bible describes specifically as the direct descendants of any of the sons of the
patriarch Jacob (later called Israel), and his descendants as a people are also
collectively called "Israel", including converts to their faith in worship of the god of
Israel, Yahweh. "Hebrews" (ʿIvrim), on the contrary, is used to denote the Israelites'
immediate forebears who dwelt in the land of Canaan, the Israelites themselves, and
the Israelites' ancient and modern descendants (including Jews and Samaritans).
"Jews" (Yehudim) is used to denote the descendants of the Israelites who coalesced
when the Tribe of Judah absorbed the remnants of various other Israelite tribes.
During the period of the divided monarchy "Israelites" was only used to refer to the
inhabitants of the northern Kingdom of Israel, and it is only extended to cover the people
of the southern Kingdom of Judah in post-exilic usage.
The Israelites are the ethnic stock from which modern Jews and Samaritans originally
trace their ancestry. Modern Jews are named after and also descended from the
southern Israelite Kingdom of Judah, particularly the tribes
of Judah, Benjamin, Simeon and partially Levi. Many Israelites took refuge in the
Kingdom of Judah following the collapse of the Kingdom of Israel.
Finally, in Judaism, the term "Israelite" is, broadly speaking, used to refer to
a lay member of the Jewish ethnoreligious group, as opposed to the priestly orders
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of Kohanim and Levites. In texts of Jewish law such as the Mishnah and Gemara, the
ישראלי (Yehudi), meaning Jew, is rarely used, and instead the ethnonym יהודי term
(Yisraeli), or Israelite, is widely used to refer to Jews. Samaritans commonly refer to
themselves and to Jews collectively as Israelites, and they describe themselves as the
Israelite Samaritans.
Etymology
The Merneptah stele. While alternative translations exist, the majority of biblical
archaeologists translate a set of hieroglyphs as Israel, representing the first instance of
the name Israel in the historical record.
The term Israelite is the English name for the descendants of the biblical
patriarch Jacob in ancient times, which is derived from the Greek Ἰσραηλῖται, which was
used to translate the Biblical Hebrew term b'nei yisrael, יִשְׂ‏ רָ‏ אֵל as either "sons of Israel"
or "children of Israel".
The name Israel first appears in the Hebrew Bible in Genesis 32:29. It refers to the
renaming of Jacob, who, according to the Bible, wrestled with an angel, who gave him a
blessing and renamed him Israel because he had "striven with God and with men, and
have prevailed". The Hebrew Bible etymologizes the name as from yisra "to prevail
over" or "to struggle/wrestle with", and El (God). However, modern scholarship
interprets El as the subject, "El rules/struggles".
The name Israel first appears in non-biblical sources c. 1209 BCE, in an inscription of
the Egyptian pharaoh Merneptah. The inscription is very brief and says simply: "Israel is
laid waste and his seed is not" (see below). The inscription refers to a people, not to an
individual or a nation-state.
Terminology
In modern Hebrew, b'nei yisrael ("children of Israel") can denote the Jewish people at
any time in history; it is typically used to emphasize Jewish ethnic identity. From the
period of the Mishna (but probably used before that period) the term Yisrael ("an Israel")
acquired an additional narrower meaning of Jews of legitimate birth other
than Levites and Aaronite priests (kohanim). In modern Hebrew this contrasts with the
term Yisraeli (English "Israeli"), a citizen of the modern State of Israel, regardless of
religion or ethnicity.
The term Hebrew has Eber as an eponymous ancestor. It is used synonymously with
"Israelites", or as an ethnolinguistic term for historical speakers of the Hebrew
language in general.
The Greek term Ioudaioi (Jews) was an exonym originally referring to members of
the Tribe of Judah, which formed the nucleus of the kingdom of Judah, and was later
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adopted as a self-designation by people in the diaspora who identified themselves as
loyal to the God of Israel and the Temple in Jerusalem.
The Samaritans, who claim descent from the tribes
of Ephraim and Manasseh (plus Levi through Aaron for kohens), are named after the
Israelite Kingdom of Samaria, but until modern times many Jewish authorities contested
their claimed lineage, deeming them to have been conquered foreigners who
were settled in the Land of Israel by the Assyrians, as was the typical Assyrian policy to
obliterate national identities. Today, Jews and Samaritans both recognize each other as
communities with an authentic Israelite origin.
The terms "Jews" and "Samaritans" largely replaced the title "Children of Israel" as the
commonly used ethnonym for each respective community.
Historical Israelites
Origins
Several theories exist proposing the origins of the Israelites in raiding groups, infiltrating
nomads or emerging from indigenous Canaanites driven from the wealthier urban areas
by poverty to seek their fortunes in the highland. Various, ethnically distinct groups of
itinerant nomads such as the Habiru and Shasu recorded in Egyptian texts as active
in Edom and Canaan could have been related to the later Israelites, which does not
exclude the possibility that the majority may have had their origins in Canaan proper.
The name Yahweh, the god of the later Israelites, may indicate connections with the
region of Mount Seir in Edom.
The prevailing academic opinion today is that the Israelites were a mixture of peoples
predominantly indigenous to Canaan, although an Egyptian matrix of peoples may also
have played a role in their ethnogenesis, with an ethnic composition similar to that
in Ammon, Edom and Moab, and including Habiru and Šośu. The defining feature which
marked them off from the surrounding societies was a staunch egalitarian organisation
focused on the worship of Yahweh, rather than mere kinship.
Language
The language of the Canaanites may perhaps be best described as an "archaic form of
Hebrew, standing in much the same relationship to the Hebrew of the Old Testament as
does the language of Chaucer to modern English." The Canaanites were also the first
people, as far as is known, to have used an alphabet, as early as the 12th century BCE
The Name "Israel"
The name Israel first appears c. 1209 BCE, at the end of the Late Bronze Age and the
very beginning of the period archaeologists and historians call Iron Age I, on
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the Merneptah Stele raised by the Egyptian Pharaoh Merneptah. The inscription is very
brief:
Plundered is Canaan with every evil,
Carried off is Ashkelon,
Seized upon is Gezer,
Yenocam is made as that which does not exist
Israel lies fallow, it has no seed;
Ḫurru has become a widow because of Egypt.
As distinct from the cities named (Ashkelon, Gezer, Yenoam) which are written with
a toponymic marker, Israel is written hieroglyphically with
a demonymic determinative indicating that the reference is to a human group, variously
located in central Palestine or the highlands of Samaria.
Pre-State (Iron Age I) and Monarchies (Iron Age II)
Over the next two hundred years (the period of Iron Age I) the number of highland
villages increased from 25 to over 300 and the settled population doubled to 40,000. By
the 10th century BCE a rudimentary state had emerged in the north-central
highlands, and in the 9th century this became a kingdom. Settlement in the southern
highlands was minimal from the 12th through the 10th centuries BCE, but a state began
to emerge there in the 9th century, and from 850 BCE onwards a series of inscriptions
are evidence of a kingdom which its neighbors refer to as the "House of David."
From The Downfall of The Two Kingdoms to Bar Kochba
After the destruction of the Israelite kingdoms of Samaria and Judah in 720 and 586
BCE respectively, the concepts of Jew and Samaritan gradually replaced Judahite and
Israelite. When the Jews returned from the Babylonian captivity, the Hasmonean
kingdom was established[dubious – discuss] in present-day Israel, consisting of three
regions which were Judea, Samaria, and the Galilee. In the pre-exilic First Temple
Period the political power of Judea was concentrated within the tribe of
Judah, Samaria was dominated by the tribe of Ephraim and the House of Joseph, while
the Galilee was associated with the tribe of Naphtali, the most eminent tribe of northern
Israel. At the time of the Kingdom of Samaria, the Galilee was populated by northern
tribes of Israel, but following the Babylonian exile the region became Jewish. During
the Second Temple period relations between the Jews and Samaritans remained tense.
In 120 BCE the Hasmonean king Yohanan Hyrcanos I destroyed the Samaritan temple
on Mount Gerizim, due to the resentment between the two groups over a disagreement
of whether Mount Moriah in Jerusalem or Mount Gerizim in Shechem was the actual
site of the Aqedah, and the chosen place for the Holy Temple, a source of contention
that had been growing since the two houses of the former united monarchy first split
asunder in 930 BCE and which had finally exploded into warfare. [dubious –
discuss] 190 years after the destruction of the Samaritan Temple and the surrounding
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area of Shechem, the Roman general and future emperor Vespasian launched a
military campaign to crush the Jewish revolt of 66 CE, which resulted in
the destruction of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE by his son Titus, and the
subsequent exile of Jews from Judea and the Galilee in 135 CE following the Bar
Kochba revolt.
Biblical Israelites
Map of the Holy Land, Pietro Vesconte, 1321, showing the allotments of the tribes of
Israel. Described by Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld as "the first non-Ptolemaic map of a
definite country".
The Israelite story begins with some of the culture heroes of the Jewish people,
the Patriarchs. The Torah traces the Israelites to the patriarch Jacob, grandson of
Abraham, who was renamed Israel after a mysterious incident in which he wrestles all
night with God or an angel. Jacob's twelve sons (in order of
birth), Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Jos
eph and Benjamin, become the ancestors of twelve tribes, with the exception of Joseph,
whose two sons Mannasseh and Ephraim, who were adopted by Jacob, become
tribal eponyms (Genesis 48).
The mothers of Jacob's sons are:
Leah: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun
Rachel: Joseph (Ephraim and Menasseh), Benjamin
Bilhah (Rachel's maid): Dan, Naphtali
Zilpah (Leah's maid): Gad, Asher (Genesis 35:22–26)
Jacob and his sons are forced by famine to go down into Egypt, although Joseph was
already there, as he had been sold into slavery while young. When they arrive they and
their families are 70 in number, but within four generations they have increased to
600,000 men of fighting age, and the Pharaoh of Egypt, alarmed, first enslaves them
and then orders the death of all male Hebrew children. A woman from the tribe of Levi
hides her child, places him in a woven basket, and sends him down the Nile river. He is
named Mosheh, or Moses, by the Egyptians who find him. Being a Hebrew baby, they
award a Hebrew woman the task of raising him, the mother of Moses volunteers, and
the child and his mother are reunited.
At the age of forty Moses kills an Egyptian, after he sees him beating a Hebrew to
death, and escapes as a fugitive into the Sinai desert, where he is taken in by the
Midianites and marries Zipporah, the daughter of the Midianite priest Jethro. When he is
eighty years old, Moses is tending a herd of sheep in solitude on Mount Sinai when he
sees a desert shrub that is burning but is not consumed. The God of Israel calls to
Moses from the fire and reveals his name, Yahweh, and tells Moses that he is being
sent to Pharaoh to bring the people of Israel out of Egypt.
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Yahweh tells Moses that if Pharaoh refuses to let the Hebrews go to say to Pharaoh
"Thus says Yahweh: Israel is my son, my first-born and I have said to you: Let my son
go, that he may serve me, and you have refused to let him go. Behold, I will slay your
son, your first-born". Moses returns to Egypt and tells Pharaoh that he must let the
Hebrew slaves go free. Pharaoh refuses and Yahweh strikes the Egyptians with a
series of horrific plagues, wonders, and catastrophes, after which Pharaoh relents and
banishes the Hebrews from Egypt. Moses leads the Israelites out of bondage toward
the Red Sea, but Pharaoh changes his mind and arises to massacre the fleeing
Hebrews. Pharaoh finds them by the sea shore and attempts to drive them into the
ocean with his chariots and drown them.
Yahweh causes the Red Sea to part and the Hebrews pass through on dry land into the
Sinai. After the Israelites escape from the midst of the sea, Yahweh causes the ocean
to close back in on the pursuing Egyptian army, drowning them to death. In
the desert Yahweh feeds them with manna that accumulates on the ground with the
morning dew. They are led by a column of cloud, which ignites at night and becomes
a pillar of fire to illuminate the way, southward through the desert until they come to
Mount Sinai. The twelve tribes of Israel encamp around the mountain, and on the third
day Mount Sinai begins to smolder, then catches fire, and Yahweh speaks the Ten
Commandments from the midst of the fire to all the Israelites, from the top of the
mountain.
Moses ascends biblical Mount Sinai and fasts for forty days while he writes down
the Torah as Yahweh dictates, beginning with Bereshith and the creation of the universe
and earth. He is shown the design of the Mishkan and the Ark of the Covenant,
which Bezalel is given the task of building. Moses descends from the mountain forty
days later with the Sefer Torah he wrote, and with two rectangular lapis lazuli tablets,
into which Yahweh had carved the Ten Commandments in Paleo–Hebrew. In his
absence, Aaron has constructed an image of Yahweh, depicting him as a young Golden
Calf, and has presented it to the Israelites, declaring "Behold O Israel, this is your god
who brought you out of the land of Egypt". Moses smashes the two tablets and grinds
the golden calf into dust, then throws the dust into a stream of water flowing out of
Mount Sinai, and forces the Israelites to drink from it.
Moses ascends Mount Sinai for a second time and Yahweh passes before him and
says: 'Yahweh, Yahweh, a god of compassion, and showing favor, slow to anger, and
great in kindness and in truth, who shows kindness to the thousandth generation,
forgiving wrongdoing and injustice and wickedness, but will by no means clear the
guilty, causing the consequences of the parent's wrongdoing to befall their children, and
their children's children, to the third and fourth generation' Moses then fasts for another
forty days while Yahweh carves the Ten Commandments into a second set of stone
tablets. After the tablets are completed, light emanates from the face of Moses for the
rest of his life, causing him to wear a veil so he does not frighten people.
Moses descends Mount Sinai and the Israelites agree to be the chosen people of
Yahweh and follow all the laws of the Torah. Moses prophesies if they forsake the
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Torah, Yahweh will exile them for the total number of years they did not observe
the shmita. Bezael constructs the Ark of the Covenant and the Mishkan, where the
presence of Yahweh dwells on earth in the Holy of Holies, above the Ark of the
Covenant, which houses the Ten Commandments. Moses sends spies to scout out
the Land of Canaan, and the Israelites are commanded to go up and conquer the land,
but they refuse, due to their fear of warfare and violence. In response, Yahweh
condemns the entire generation, including Moses, who is condemned for striking the
rock at Meribah, to exile and death in the Sinai desert.
Before Moses dies he gives a speech to the Israelites where he paraphrases a
summary of the mizwoth given to them by Yahweh, and recites a prophetic song called
the Ha'azinu. Moses prophesies that if the Israelites disobey the Torah, Yahweh will
cause a global exile in addition to the minor one prophesied earlier at Mount Sinai, but
at the end of days Yahweh will gather them back to Israel from among the nations when
they turn back to the Torah with zeal. The events of the Israelite exodus and their
sojourn in the Sinai are memorialized in the Jewish and Samaritan festivals
of Passover and Sukkoth, and the giving of the Torah in the Jewish celebration
of Shavuoth.
Forty years after the Exodus, following the death of the generation of Moses, a new
generation, led by Joshua, enters Canaan and takes possession of the land in
accordance with the promise made to Abraham by Yahweh. Land is allocated to the
tribes by lottery. Eventually the Israelites ask for a king, and Yahweh gives
them Saul. David, the youngest (divinely favored) son of Jesse of Bethlehem would
succeed Saul. Under David the Israelites establish the united monarchy, and under
David's son Solomon they construct the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, using the 400-yearold
materials of the Mishkan, where Yahweh continues to tabernacle himself among
them. On the death of Solomon and reign of his son, Rehoboam, the kingdom is divided
in two.
The kings of the northern Kingdom of Samaria are uniformly bad, permitting the worship
of other gods and failing to enforce the worship of Yahweh alone, and so Yahweh
eventually allows them to be conquered and dispersed among the peoples of the earth;
and strangers rule over their remnant in the northern land. In Judah some kings are
good and enforce the worship of Yahweh alone, but many are bad and permit other
gods, even in the Holy Temple itself, and at length Yahweh allows Judah to fall to her
enemies, the people taken into captivity in Babylon, the land left empty and desolate,
and the Holy Temple itself destroyed.
Yet despite these events Yahweh does not forget his people, but sends Cyrus, king of
Persia to deliver them from bondage. The Israelites are allowed to return to Judah and
Benjamin, the Holy Temple is rebuilt, the priestly orders restored, and the service of
sacrifice resumed. Through the offices of the sage Ezra, Israel is constituted as a holy
nation, bound by the Torah and holding itself apart from all other peoples.
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Genetics
In 2000, M. Hammer, et al. conducted a study on 1371 men and definitively established
that part of the paternal gene pool of Jewish communities in Europe, North Africa and
Middle East came from a common Middle East ancestral population. Another study
(Nebel et al. 2001) noted; "In comparison with data available from other relevant
populations in the region, Jews were found to be more closely related to groups in the
north of the Fertile Crescent (Kurds, Turks, and Armenians) than to their Arab
neighbors. The authors found that, "Palestinian Arabs and Bedouin differed from the
other Middle Eastern populations studied, mainly in specific high-frequency Eu 10
haplotypes not found in the non-Arab groups." and suggested that some of this
difference might be due to migration and admixture from the Arabian peninsula during
the last two millennia. A 2004 study (by Shen et al.) comparing Samaritans to several
Jewish populations (including Ashkenazi Jews, Iraqi Jews, Libyan Jews, Moroccan
Jews, and Yemenite Jews, as well as Israeli Druze and Palestinians) found that "the
principal components analysis suggested a common ancestry of Samaritan and Jewish
patrilineages. Most of the former may be traced back to a common ancestor in what is
today identified as the paternally inherited Israelite high priesthood (Cohanim) with a
common ancestor projected to the time of the Assyrian conquest of the kingdom of
Israel."
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III. Pharisees
The Pharisees (/ˈfærəˌsiːz/) were a social movement and a school of thought in the
Holy Land during the time of Second Temple Judaism. After the destruction of the
Second Temple in 70 CE, Pharisaic beliefs became the foundational, liturgical and
ritualistic basis for Rabbinic Judaism.
Conflicts between Pharisees and Sadducees took place in the context of much broader
and longstanding social and religious conflicts among Jews, made worse by the Roman
conquest. Another conflict was cultural, between those who favored Hellenization (the
Sadducees) and those who resisted it (the Pharisees). A third was juridico-religious,
between those who emphasized the importance of the Second Temple with its rites and
services, and those who emphasized the importance of other Mosaic Laws. A fourth
point of conflict, specifically religious, involved different interpretations of the Torah and
how to apply it to current Jewish life, with Sadducees recognizing only the Written Torah
(with Greek philosophy) and rejecting doctrines such as the Oral Torah, the Prophets,
the Writings, and the resurrection of the dead.
Josephus (37 – c. 100 CE), believed by many historians to be a Pharisee, estimated the
total Pharisee population before the fall of the Second Temple to be around 6,000.
Josephus claimed that Pharisees received the full support and goodwill of the common
people, apparently in contrast to the more elite Sadducees, who were the upper class.
Pharisees claimed Mosaic authority for their interpretation of Jewish Laws, while
Sadducees represented the authority of the priestly privileges and prerogatives
established since the days of Solomon, when Zadok, their ancestor, officiated as High
Priest. The phrase "common people" in Josephus' writings suggests that most Jews
were "just Jewish people", distinguishing them from the main liturgical groups.
Outside Jewish history and literature, Pharisees have been made notable by references
in the New Testament to conflicts with John the Baptist and with Jesus. There are also
several references in the New Testament to the Apostle Paul being a Pharisee. The
relationship between Early Christianity and the Pharisees depended on the individual;
while numerous nameless Pharisees were portrayed as hostile, New Testament writings
make mention of several Pharisees, including Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus and
Gamaliel, who are sympathetic to Jesus and Christians.
Etymology
"Pharisee" is derived from Ancient Greek Pharisaios (Φαρισαῖος), from Aramaic Pərīšā
(Hebrew: ישָׁ‏ א ‏,(פְּרִ‏ plural Pərīšayyā (Hebrew: ישַׁ‏ יָׁא ‏,(פְּרִ‏ meaning "set apart, separated",
related to Hebrew pārûš (Hebrew: ‏,(פָׁרּוש plural pĕrûšîm (Hebrew: ים ‏,(פְּרּושִ‏ the Qal
‏.(פָׁ‏ רַׁ‏ ש (Hebrew: passive participle of the verb pāraš
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Sources
The first historical mention of the Pharisees and their beliefs comes in the four gospels
and the Book of Acts, in which both their meticulous adherence to their interpretation of
the Torah as well as their eschatological views are described. A later historical mention
of the Pharisees comes from the Jewish-Roman historian Josephus (37–100 CE) in a
description of the "four schools of thought", or "four sects", into which he divided the
Jews in the 1st century CE. (The other schools were the Essenes, who were generally
apolitical and who may have emerged as a sect of dissident priests who rejected either
the Seleucid-appointed or the Hasmonean high priests as illegitimate; the Sadducees,
the main antagonists of the Pharisees; and the "fourth philosophy".) Other sects
emerged at this time, such as the Early Christians in Jerusalem and the Therapeutae in
Egypt.
2 Maccabees, a deuterocanonical book of the Bible, focuses on the Jews' revolt against
the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes and concludes with the defeat of his general,
Nicanor, in 161 BCE by Judas Maccabeus, the hero of the work. It was likely written by
a Pharisee or someone sympathetic toward Pharisees, as it includes several theological
innovations: propitiatory prayer for the dead, judgment day, intercession of saints and
merits of the martyrs.
Judah haNasi redacted the Mishnah, an authoritative codification of Pharisaic
interpretations, around 200 CE. Most of the authorities quoted in the Mishnah lived after
the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE; it thus marks the beginning of the transition from
Pharisaic to Rabbinic Judaism. The Mishnah was supremely important because it
compiled the oral interpretations and traditions of the Pharisees and later on the Rabbis
into a single authoritative text, thus allowing oral tradition within Judaism to survive the
destruction of the Second Temple.
However, none of the Rabbinic sources include identifiable eyewitness accounts of the
Pharisees and their teachings.
History (c. 600 BCE – c. 160 BCE)
The deportation and exile of an unknown number of Jews of the ancient Kingdom of
Judah to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar II, starting with the first deportation in 597 BCE
and continuing after the fall of Jerusalem and destruction of the Temple in 587 BCE,
resulted in dramatic changes to Jewish culture and religion. During the 70-year exile in
Babylon, Jewish houses of assembly (known in Hebrew as a beit knesset or in Greek as
a synagogue) and houses of prayer (Hebrew Beit Tefilah; Greek προσευχαί,
proseuchai) were the primary meeting places for prayer, and the house of study (beit
midrash) was the counterpart for the synagogue.
In 539 BCE the Persians conquered Babylon, and in 537 BCE Cyrus the Great allowed
Jews to return to Judea and rebuild the Temple. He did not, however, allow the
restoration of the Judean monarchy, which left the Judean priests as the dominant
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authority. Without the constraining power of the monarchy, the authority of the Temple
in civic life was amplified. It was around this time that the Sadducee party emerged as
the party of priests and allied elites. However, the Second Temple, which was
completed in 515 BCE, had been constructed under the auspices of a foreign power,
and there were lingering questions about its legitimacy. This provided the condition for
the development of various sects or "schools of thought," each of which claimed
exclusive authority to represent "Judaism," and which typically shunned social
intercourse, especially marriage, with members of other sects. In the same period, the
council of sages known as the Sanhedrin may have codified and canonized the Hebrew
Bible (Tanakh), from which, following the return from Babylon, the Torah was read
publicly on market-days.
The Temple was no longer the only institution for Jewish religious life. After the building
of the Second Temple in the time of Ezra the Scribe, the houses of study and worship
remained important secondary institutions in Jewish life. Outside Judea, the synagogue
was often called a house of prayer. While most Jews could not regularly attend the
Temple service, they could meet at the synagogue for morning, afternoon and evening
prayers. On Mondays, Thursdays and Shabbats, a weekly Torah portion was read
publicly in the synagogues, following the tradition of public Torah readings instituted by
Ezra.
Although priests controlled the rituals of the Temple, the scribes and sages, later called
rabbis (Heb.: "Teacher/master"), dominated the study of the Torah. These men
maintained an oral tradition that they believed had originated at Mount Sinai alongside
the Torah of Moses; a God-given interpretation of the Torah.
The Hellenistic period of Jewish history began when Alexander the Great conquered
Persia in 332 BCE. The rift between the priests and the sages developed during this
time, when Jews faced new political and cultural struggles. After Alexander's death in
323 BCE, Judea was ruled by the Egyptian-Hellenic Ptolemies until 198 BCE, when the
Syrian-Hellenic Seleucid Empire, under Antiochus III, seized control. Then, in 167 BCE,
the Seleucid king Antiochus IV invaded Judea, entered the Temple, and stripped it of
money and ceremonial objects. He imposed a program of forced Hellenization, requiring
Jews to abandon their own laws and customs, thus precipitating the Maccabean Revolt.
Jerusalem was liberated in 165 BCE and the Temple was restored. In 141 BCE an
assembly of priests and others affirmed Simon Maccabeus as high priest and leader, in
effect establishing the Hasmonean dynasty.
Emergence of the Pharisees
After defeating the Seleucid forces, Judas Maccabaeus's nephew John Hyrcanus
established a new monarchy in the form of the priestly Hasmonean dynasty in 152 BCE,
thus establishing priests as political as well as religious authorities. Although the
Hasmoneans were considered heroes for resisting the Seleucids, their reign lacked the
legitimacy conferred by descent from the Davidic dynasty of the First Temple era.
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The Pharisee ("separatist") party emerged largely out of the group of scribes and sages.
Their name comes from the Hebrew and Aramaic parush or parushi, which means "one
who is separated." It may refer to their separation from Gentiles, sources of ritual
impurity or from irreligious Jews. The Pharisees, among other Jewish sects, were active
from the middle of the second century BCE until the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE.
Josephus first mentions them in connection with Jonathan, the successor of Judas
Maccabeus ("Ant." xiii. 5, § 9). One of the factors that distinguished the Pharisees from
other groups prior to the destruction of the Temple was their belief that all Jews had to
observe the purity laws (which applied to the Temple service) outside the Temple. The
major difference, however, was the continued adherence of the Pharisees to the laws
and traditions of the Jewish people in the face of assimilation. As Josephus noted, the
Pharisees were considered the most expert and accurate expositors of Jewish law.
Josephus indicates that the Pharisees received the backing and good-will of the
common people, apparently in contrast to the more elite Sadducees associated with the
ruling classes. In general, whereas the Sadducees were aristocratic monarchists, the
Pharisees were eclectic, popular, and more democratic. (Roth 1970: 84) The Pharisaic
position is exemplified by the assertion that "A learned mamzer takes precedence over
an ignorant High Priest." (A mamzer, according to the Pharisaic definition, is an outcast
child born of a forbidden relationship, such as adultery or incest, in which marriage of
the parents could not lawfully occur. The word is often, but incorrectly, translated as
"illegitimate".)
Sadducees rejected the Pharisaic tenet of an Oral Torah. In their personal lives this
often meant an excessively stringent lifestyle from a Jewish perspective, as they did
away with the oral tradition, and in turn the Pharisaic understanding of the Torah,
creating two Jewish understandings of the Torah. An example of this differing approach
is the interpretation of, "an eye in place of an eye". The Pharisaic understanding was
that the value of an eye was to be paid by the perpetrator. In the Sadducees' view the
words were given a more literal interpretation, in which the offender's eye would be
removed. From the point of view of the Pharisees, the Sadducees wished to change the
Jewish understanding of the Torah, to a Greek understanding of the Torah. The
Pharisees preserved the Pharisaical oral law in the form of the Talmud. They would
become the foundation of Rabbinic Judaism.
The sages of the Talmud see a direct link between themselves and the Pharisees, and
historians generally consider Pharisaic Judaism to be the progenitor of Rabbinic
Judaism, that is normative, mainstream Judaism after the destruction of the Second
Temple. All mainstream forms of Judaism today consider themselves heirs of Rabbinic
Judaism and, ultimately, the Pharisees.
The Hasmonean Period
Although the Pharisees did not support the wars of expansion of the Hasmoneans and
the forced conversions of the Idumeans, the political rift between them became wider
when a Pharisee named Eleazar insulted the Hasmonean ethnarch John Hyrcanus at
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his own table, suggesting that he should abandon his role as High Priest due to a
rumour, probably untrue, that he had been conceived while his mother was a prisoner of
war. In response, he distanced himself from the Pharisees.
After the death of John Hyrcanus his younger son Alexander Jannaeus made himself
king and openly sided with the Sadducees by adopting their rites in the Temple. His
actions caused a riot in the Temple and led to a brief civil war that ended with a bloody
repression of the Pharisees. However, on his deathbed Jannaeus advised his widow,
Salome Alexandra, to seek reconciliation with the Pharisees. Her brother was Shimon
ben Shetach, a leading Pharisee. Josephus attests that Salome was favorably inclined
toward the Pharisees, and their political influence grew tremendously under her reign,
especially in the Sanhedrin or Jewish Council, which they came to dominate.
After her death her elder son Hyrcanus II was generally supported by the Pharisees.
Her younger son, Aristobulus II, was in conflict with Hyrcanus, and tried to seize power.
The Pharisees seemed to be in a vulnerable position at this time.
The conflict between the two sons culminated in a civil war that ended when the Roman
general Pompey intervened, and captured Jerusalem in 63 BCE.
Josephus' account may overstate the role of the Pharisees. He reports elsewhere that
the Pharisees did not grow to power until the reign of Queen Salome Alexandra
(JW.1.110). As Josephus was himself a Pharisee, his account might represent a
historical creation meant to elevate the status of the Pharisees during the height of the
Hasmonean Dynasty.
Later texts like the Mishnah and the Talmud record a host of rulings by rabbis, some of
whom are believed to be from among the Pharisees, concerning sacrifices and other
ritual practices in the Temple, torts, criminal law, and governance. In their day, the
influence of the Pharisees over the lives of the common people was strong and their
rulings on Jewish law were deemed authoritative by many.
The Roman Period
According to Josephus, the Pharisees appeared before Pompey asking him to interfere
and restore the old priesthood while abolishing the royalty of the Hasmoneans
altogether ("Ant." xiv. 3, § 2). Pharisees also opened Jerusalem's gates to the Romans,
and actively supported them against the Sadducean faction. When the Romans finally
broke the entrance to the Jerusalem's Temple, the Pharisees killed the priests who were
officiating the Temple services on Saturday. They regarded Pompey's defilement of the
Temple in Jerusalem as a divine punishment of Sadducean misrule. Pompey ended the
monarchy in 63 BCE and named Hyrcanus II high priest and ethnarch (a lesser title than
"king"). Six years later Hyrcanus was deprived of the remainder of political authority and
ultimate jurisdiction was given to the Proconsul of Syria, who ruled through Hyrcanus's
Idumaean associate Antipater, and later Antipater's two sons Phasael (military governor
of Judea) and Herod (military governor of Galilee).
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In 40 BCE Aristobulus's son Antigonus overthrew Hyrcanus and named himself king
and high priest, and Herod fled to Rome.
In Rome, Herod sought the support of Mark Antony and Octavian, and secured
recognition by the Roman Senate as king, confirming the termination of the Hasmonean
dynasty. According to Josephus, Sadducean opposition to Herod led him to treat the
Pharisees favorably ("Ant." xiv. 9, § 4; xv. 1, § 1; 10, § 4; 11, §§ 5–6). Herod was an
unpopular ruler, perceived as a Roman puppet. Despite his restoration and expansion
of the Second Temple, Herod's notorious treatment of his own family and of the last
Hasmonaeans further eroded his popularity. According to Josephus, the Pharisees
ultimately opposed him and thus fell victims (4 BCE) to his bloodthirstiness ("Ant." xvii.
2, § 4; 6, §§ 2–4). The family of Boethus, whom Herod had raised to the highpriesthood,
revived the spirit of the Sadducees, and thenceforth the Pharisees again
had them as antagonists ("Ant." xviii. 1, § 4).
While it stood, the Second Temple remained the center of Jewish ritual life. According to
the Torah, Jews were required to travel to Jerusalem and offer sacrifices at the Temple
three times a year: Pesach (Passover), Shavuot (the Feast of Weeks), and Sukkot (the
Feast of Tabernacles). The Pharisees, like the Sadducees, were politically quiescent,
and studied, taught, and worshiped in their own way. At this time serious theological
differences emerged between the Sadducees and Pharisees. The notion that the sacred
could exist outside the Temple, a view central to the Essenes, was shared and elevated
by the Pharisees.
The Pharisaic legacy
At first the values of the Pharisees developed through their sectarian debates with the
Sadducees; then they developed through internal, non-sectarian debates over the law
as an adaptation to life without the Temple, and life in exile, and eventually, to a more
limited degree, life in conflict with Christianity. These shifts mark the transformation of
Pharisaic to Rabbinic Judaism.
Beliefs
No single tractate of the key Rabbinic texts, the Mishnah and the Talmud, is devoted to
theological issues; these texts are concerned primarily with interpretations of Jewish
law, and anecdotes about the sages and their values. Only one chapter of the Mishnah
deals with theological issues; it asserts that three kinds of people will have no share in
"the world to come:" those who deny the resurrection of the dead, those who deny the
divinity of the Torah, and Epicureans (who deny divine supervision of human affairs).
Another passage suggests a different set of core principles: normally, a Jew may violate
any law to save a life, but in Sanhedrin 74a, a ruling orders Jews to accept martyrdom
rather than violate the laws against idolatry, murder, or adultery. (Judah haNasi,
however, said that Jews must "be meticulous in small religious duties as well as large
ones, because you do not know what sort of reward is coming for any of the religious
duties," suggesting that all laws are of equal importance). In comparison with
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Christianity, the Rabbis were not especially concerned with the messiah or claims about
the messiah or ranking the laws in importance.
Monotheism
One belief central to the Pharisees which was shared by all Jews of the time is
monotheism. This is evident in the practice of reciting the Shema, a prayer composed of
select verses from the Torah (Deuteronomy 6:4), at the Temple and in synagogues; the
Shema begins with the verses, "Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God; the Lord is one."
According to the Mishna, these passages were recited in the Temple along with the
twice-daily Tamid offering; Jews in the diaspora, who did not have access to the
Temple, recited these passages in their houses of assembly. According to the Mishnah
and Talmud, the men of the Great Assembly instituted the requirement that Jews both in
Judea and in the diaspora pray three times a day (morning, afternoon and evening), and
include in their prayers a recitation of these passages in the morning ("Shacharit") and
evening ("Ma'ariv") prayers.
Wisdom
Pharisaic wisdom was compiled in one book of the Mishna, Pirkei Avot. The Pharisaic
attitude is perhaps best exemplified by a story about the sages Hillel the Elder and
Shammai, who both lived in the latter half of the 1st century BCE. A gentile once
challenged Shammai to teach him the wisdom of the Torah while he stood on one foot.
Shammai drove him away. The same gentile approached Hillel and asked of him the
same thing. Hillel chastised him gently by saying, "What is hateful to you, do not do to
your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation – now go and study."
Free Will and Predestination
According to Josephus, whereas the Sadducees believed that people have total free will
and the Essenes believed that all of a person's life is predestined, the Pharisees
believed that people have free will but that God also has foreknowledge of human
destiny. This also accords with the statement in Pirkei Avot 3:19, "Rabbi Akiva said: All
is foreseen, but freedom of choice is given". According to Josephus, Pharisees were
further distinguished from the Sadducees in that Pharisees believed in the resurrection
of the dead.
The Afterlife
Unlike the Sadducees, who are generally held to have rejected any existence after
death, the sources vary on the beliefs of the Pharisees on the afterlife. According to the
New Testament the Pharisees believed in the resurrection of the dead, but it does not
specify whether this resurrection included the flesh or not. According to Josephus, who
himself was a Pharisee, the Pharisees held that only the soul was immortal and the
souls of good people would be reincarnated and "pass into other bodies," while "the
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souls of the wicked will suffer eternal punishment." The Apostle Paul, declared himself
to be a Pharisee before his belief in Jesus Christ.
A Kingdom of Priests
Practices
Fundamentally, the Pharisees continued a form of Judaism that extended beyond the
Temple, applying Jewish law to mundane activities in order to sanctify the every-day
world. This was a more participatory (or "democratic") form of Judaism, in which rituals
were not monopolized by an inherited priesthood but rather could be performed by all
adult Jews individually or collectively; whose leaders were not determined by birth but
by scholarly achievement.
Many, including some scholars, have characterized the Sadducees as a sect that
interpreted the Torah literally, and the Pharisees as interpreting the Torah liberally. R'
Yitzhak Isaac Halevi suggests that this was not, in fact, a matter of religion. He claims
that the complete rejection of Judaism would not have been tolerated under the
Hasmonean rule and therefore Hellenists maintained that they were rejecting not
Judaism but Rabbinic law. Thus, the Sadducees were in fact a political party not a
religious sect. However, according to Jacob Neusner, this view is a distortion. He
suggests that two things fundamentally distinguished the Pharisaic from the Sadducean
approach to the Torah. First, Pharisees believed in a broad and literal interpretation of
Exodus (19:3–6), "you shall be my own possession among all peoples; for all the earth
is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation," and the words
of 2 Maccabees (2:17): "God gave all the people the heritage, the kingdom, the
priesthood, and the holiness."
The Pharisees believed that the idea that all of the children of Israel were to be like
priests was expressed elsewhere in the Torah, for example, when the Law itself was
transferred from the sphere of the priesthood to every man in Israel (Exodus 19: 29–24;
Deuteronomy 6: 7, 11: 19; comp. 31: 9; Jeremiah 2: 8, 18:18). Moreover, the Torah
already provided ways for all Jews to lead a priestly life: the precepts concerning
unclean meat were perhaps intended originally for the priests, but were extended to the
whole people (Leviticus 11; Deuteronomy 14:3–21); the prohibition of cutting the flesh in
mourning for the dead (Deuteronomy 14: 1–2, Leviticus 19: 28; comp. Lev. 21: 5). The
Pharisees believed that all Jews in their ordinary life, and not just the Temple priesthood
or Jews visiting the Temple, should observe rules and rituals concerning purification.
The Oral Torah
The standard view is that the Pharisees differed from Sadducees in the sense that they
accepted the Oral Torah in addition to the Scripture. Saldarini argues that this
assumption has neither implicit nor explicit evidence. A critique of the ancient
interpretations of the Bible are distant from what modern scholars consider literal.
Saldarini states that the Oral Torah did not come about until the third century AD,
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although there was an unstated idea about it in existence. Every Jewish community in a
way possessed their own version of the Oral Torah which governed their religious
practices. Josephus stated that the Sadducees only followed literal interpretations of the
Torah. To Saldarini, this only means that the Sadducees followed their own way of
Judaism and rejected the Pharisaic version of Judaism. To Ruether the Pharisaic
proclamation of the Oral Torah was their way of freeing Judaism from the clutches of
Aaronite priesthood, represented by the Sadducees. The Oral Torah was to remain oral
but was later given a written form. It did not refer to the Torah in a status as a
commentary, rather had its own separate existence which allowed Pharisaic
innovations.
The sages of the Talmud believed that the Oral law was simultaneously revealed to
Moses at Sinai, and the product of debates among rabbis. Thus, one may conceive of
the "Oral Torah" not as a fixed text but as an ongoing process of analysis and argument
in which God is actively involved; it was this ongoing process that was revealed at Sinai,
and by participating in this ongoing process rabbis and their students are actively
participating in God's ongoing act of revelation.
As Jacob Neusner has explained, the schools of the Pharisees and rabbis were and are
holy "because there men achieve sainthood through study of Torah and imitation of the
conduct of the masters. In doing so, they conform to the heavenly paradigm, the Torah
believed to have been created by God "in his image," revealed at Sinai, and handed
down to their own teachers ... If the masters and disciples obey the divine teaching of
Moses, "our rabbi," then their society, the school, replicates on earth the heavenly
academy, just as the disciple incarnates the heavenly model of Moses, "our rabbi." The
rabbis believe that Moses was (and the Messiah will be) a rabbi, God dons phylacteries,
and the heavenly court studies Torah precisely as does the earthly one, even arguing
about the same questions. These beliefs today may seem as projections of rabbinical
values onto heaven, but the rabbis believe that they themselves are projections of
heavenly values onto earth. The rabbis thus conceive that on earth they study Torah
just as God, the angels, and Moses, "our rabbi," do in heaven. The heavenly schoolmen
are even aware of Babylonian scholastic discussions, so they require a rabbi's
information about an aspect of purity taboos.
The commitment to relate religion to daily life through the law has led some (notably,
Saint Paul and Martin Luther) to infer that the Pharisees were more legalistic than other
sects in the Second Temple Era. The authors of the Gospels present Jesus as speaking
harshly against some Pharisees (Josephus does claim that the Pharisees were the
"strictest" observers of the law). Yet, as Neusner has observed, Pharisaism was but one
of many "Judaisms" in its day, and its legal interpretation are what set it apart from the
other sects of Judaism.
In some cases Pharisaic values led to an extension of the law — for example, the Torah
requires priests to bathe themselves before entering the Temple. The Pharisees
washed themselves before Sabbath and festival meals (in effect, making these holidays
"temples in time"), and, eventually, before all meals. Although this seems burdensome
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compared to the practices of the Sadducees, in other cases, Pharisaic law was less
strict. For example, Jewish law prohibits Jews from carrying objects from a private
domain ("reshut ha-yachid") to a public domain ("reshut ha-rabim") on Sabbath. This law
could have prevented Jews from carrying cooked dishes to the homes of friends for
Sabbath meals. The Pharisees ruled that adjacent houses connected by lintels or
fences could become connected by a legal procedure creating a partnership among
homeowners; thereby, clarifying the status of those common areas as a private domain
relative to the members of the partnership. In that manner people could carry objects
from building to building.
Innovators or Preservers
The Mishna in the beginning of Avot and (in more detail) Maimonides in his Introduction
to Mishneh Torah records a chain of tradition (mesorah) from Moses at Mount Sinai
down to R' Ashi, redactor of the Talmud and last of the Amoraim. This chain of tradition
includes the interpretation of unclear statements in the Bible (e.g. that the "fruit of a
beautiful tree" refers to a citron as opposed to any other fruit), the methods of textual
exegesis (the disagreements recorded in the Mishna and Talmud generally focus on
methods of exegesis), and Laws with Mosaic authority that cannot be derived from the
Biblical text (these include measurements (e.g. what amount of a non-kosher food must
one eat to be liable), the amount and order of the scrolls to be placed in the
phylacteries, etc.).
The Pharisees were also innovators in that they enacted specific laws as they saw
necessary according to the needs of the time. These included prohibitions to prevent an
infringement of a biblical prohibition (e.g. one does not take a Lulav on Shabbat "Lest
one carry it in the public domain") called gezeirot, among others. The commandment to
read the Megillah (Book of Esther) on Purim and to light the Menorah on Hanukkah are
Rabbinic innovations. Much of the legal system is based on "what the sages
constructed via logical reasoning and from established practice". Also, the blessings
before meals and the wording of the Amidah. These are known as Takanot. The
Pharisees based their authority to innovate on the verses: "....according to the word they
tell you... according to all they instruct you. According to the law they instruct you and
according to the judgment they say to you, you shall do; you shall not divert from the
word they tell you, either right or left" (Deuteronomy 17:10–11) (see Encyclopedia
Talmudit entry "Divrei Soferim").
In an interesting twist, Abraham Geiger posits that the Sadducees were the more
hidebound adherents to an ancient Halacha whereas the Pharisees were more willing to
develop Halacha as the times required. See however, Bernard Revel's "Karaite
Halacha" which rejects many of Geiger's proofs.
Significance of Debate and Study of The Law
Just as important as (if not more important than) any particular law was the value the
rabbis placed on legal study and debate. The sages of the Talmud believed that when
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they taught the Oral Torah to their students, they were imitating Moses, who taught the
law to the children of Israel. Moreover, the rabbis believed that "the heavenly court
studies Torah precisely as does the earthly one, even arguing about the same
questions." Thus, in debating and disagreeing over the meaning of the Torah or how
best to put it into practice, no rabbi felt that he (or his opponent) was rejecting God or
threatening Judaism; on the contrary, it was precisely through such arguments that the
rabbis imitated and honored God.
One sign of the Pharisaic emphasis on debate and differences of opinion is that the
Mishnah and Talmud mark different generations of scholars in terms of different pairs of
contending schools. In the first century, for example, the two major Pharisaic schools
were those of Hillel and Shammai. After Hillel died in 20 CE, Shammai assumed the
office of president of the Sanhedrin until he died in 30 CE. Followers of these two sages
dominated scholarly debate over the following decades. Although the Talmud records
the arguments and positions of the school of Shammai, the teachings of the school of
Hillel were ultimately taken as authoritative.
From Pharisees to Rabbis
Following the Jewish–Roman wars, revolutionaries like the Zealots had been crushed
by the Romans, and had little credibility (the last Zealots died at Masada in 73 CE).
Similarly, the Sadducees, whose teachings were closely connected to the Temple,
disappeared with the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. The Essenes too
disappeared, perhaps because their teachings so diverged from the concerns of the
times, perhaps because they were sacked by the Romans at Qumran.
Of all the major Second Temple sects, only the Pharisees remained. Their vision of
Jewish law as a means by which ordinary people could engage with the sacred in their
daily lives was a position meaningful to the majority of Jews. Such teachings extended
beyond ritual practices. According to the classic midrash in Avot D'Rabbi Nathan (4:5):
The Temple is destroyed. We never witnessed its glory. But Rabbi Joshua did. And
when he looked at the Temple ruins one day, he burst into tears. "Alas for us! The place
which atoned for the sins of all the people Israel lies in ruins!" Then Rabbi Yohannan
ben Zakkai spoke to him these words of comfort: "Be not grieved, my son. There is
another way of gaining ritual atonement, even though the Temple is destroyed. We
must now gain ritual atonement through deeds of loving-kindness."
Following the destruction of the Temple, Rome governed Judea through a Procurator at
Caesarea and a Jewish Patriarch and levied the Fiscus Judaicus. Yohanan ben Zakkai,
a leading Pharisee, was appointed the first Patriarch (the Hebrew word, Nasi, also
means prince, or president), and he reestablished the Sanhedrin at Yavneh (see the
related Council of Jamnia) under Pharisee control. Instead of giving tithes to the priests
and sacrificing offerings at the (now-destroyed) Temple, the rabbis instructed Jews to
give charity. Moreover, they argued that all Jews should study in local synagogues,
because Torah is "the inheritance of the congregation of Jacob" (Deut. 33: 4).
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After the destruction of the First Temple, Jews believed that God would forgive them
and enable them to rebuild the Temple – an event that actually occurred within three
generations. After the destruction of the Second Temple, Jews wondered whether this
would happen again. When the Emperor Hadrian threatened to rebuild Jerusalem as a
pagan city dedicated to Jupiter, in 132, Aelia Capitolina, some of the leading sages of
the Sanhedrin supported a rebellion led by Simon Bar Kosiba (later known as Bar
Kokhba), who established a short-lived independent state that was conquered by the
Romans in 135. With this defeat, Jews' hopes that the Temple would be rebuilt were
crushed. Nonetheless, belief in a Third Temple remains a cornerstone of Jewish belief.
Romans forbade Jews to enter Jerusalem (except for the day of Tisha B'Av), and
forbade any plan to rebuild the Temple. Instead, it took over the Province of Judea
directly, renaming it Syria Palaestina, and renaming Jerusalem Aelia Capitolina.
Romans did eventually reconstitute the Sanhedrin under the leadership of Judah haNasi
(who claimed to be a descendant of King David). They conferred the title of "Nasi" as
hereditary, and Judah's sons served both as Patriarch and as heads of the Sanhedrin.
Post-Temple Developments
According to historian Shaye Cohen, by the time three generations had passed after the
destruction of the Second Temple, most Jews concluded that the Temple would not be
rebuilt during their lives, nor in the foreseeable future. Jews were now confronted with
difficult and far-reaching questions:
How to achieve atonement without the Temple?
How to explain the disastrous outcome of the rebellion?
How to live in the post-Temple, Romanized world?
How to connect present and past traditions?
Regardless of the importance they gave to the Temple, and despite their support of Bar
Koseba's revolt, the Pharisees' vision of Jewish law as a means by which ordinary
people could engage with the sacred in their daily lives provided them with a position
from which to respond to all four challenges in a way meaningful to the vast majority of
Jews. Their responses would constitute Rabbinic Judaism.
During the Second Temple era, when Jews were divided into sects, the Pharisees were
one sect among many, and partisan. Each sect claimed a monopoly on the truth, and
discouraged marriage between members of different sects. Members of different sects
did, however, argue with one another over the correctness of their respective
interpretations, although there is no significant, reliable record of such debates between
sects. After the destruction of the Second Temple, these sectarian divisions ended. The
Rabbis avoided the term "Pharisee," perhaps because it was a term more often used by
non-Pharisees, but also because the term was explicitly sectarian. The Rabbis claimed
leadership over all Jews, and added to the Amidah the birkat haMinim, a prayer which in
part exclaims, "Praised are You O Lord, who breaks enemies and defeats the wicked,"
and which is understood as a rejection of sectarians and sectarianism. This shift by no
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means resolved conflicts over the interpretation of the Torah; rather, it relocated
debates between sects to debates within Rabbinic Judaism. The Pharisaic commitment
to scholarly debate as a value in and of itself, rather than merely a byproduct of
sectarianism, emerged as a defining feature of Rabbinic Judaism.
Thus, as the Pharisees argued that all Israel should act as priests, the Rabbis argued
that all Israel should act as rabbis: "The rabbis furthermore want to transform the entire
Jewish community into an academy where the whole Torah is studied and kept ....
redemption depends on the "rabbinization" of all Israel, that is, upon the attainment of all
Jewry of a full and complete embodiment of revelation or Torah, thus achieving a
perfect replica of heaven."
The Rabbinic era itself is divided into two periods. The first period was that of the
Tannaim (from the Aramaic word for "repeat;" the Aramaic root TNY is equivalent to the
Hebrew root SNY, which is the basis for "Mishnah." Thus, Tannaim are "Mishnah
teachers"), the sages who repeated and thus passed down the Oral Torah. During this
period rabbis finalized the canonization of the Tanakh, and in 200 Judah haNasi edited
together Tannaitic judgements and traditions into the Mishnah, considered by the rabbis
to be the definitive expression of the Oral Torah (although some of the sages mentioned
in the Mishnah are Pharisees who lived prior to the destruction of the Second Temple,
or prior to the Bar Kozeba Revolt, most of the sages mentioned lived after the revolt).
The second period is that of the Amoraim (from the Aramaic word for "speaker") rabbis
and their students who continued to debate legal matters and discuss the meaning of
the books of the Bible. In Palestine, these discussions occurred at important academies
at Tiberias, Caesarea, and Sepphoris. In Babylonia, these discussions largely occurred
at important academies that had been established at Nehardea, Pumpeditha and Sura.
This tradition of study and debate reached its fullest expression in the development of
the Talmudim, elaborations of the Mishnah and records of Rabbinic debates, stories,
and judgements, compiled around 400 in Palestine and around 500 in Babylon.
Rabbinic Judaism eventually emerged as normative Judaism and in fact many today
refer to Rabbinic Judaism simply as "Judaism." Jacob Neusner, however, states that the
Amoraim had no ultimate power in their communities. They lived at a time when Jews
were subjects of either the Roman or Iranian (Parthian and Persian) empires. These
empires left the day-to-day governance in the hands of the Jewish authorities: in Roman
Palestine, through the hereditary office of Patriarch (simultaneously the head of the
Sanhedrin); in Babylonia, through the hereditary office of the Reish Galuta, the "Head of
the Exile" or "Exilarch" (who ratified the appointment of the heads of Rabbinical
academies.) According to Professor Neusner:
The "Judaism" of the rabbis at this time is in no degree either normal or normative, and
speaking descriptively, the schools cannot be called "elite." Whatever their aspirations
for the future and pretensions in the present, the rabbis, though powerful and influential,
constitute a minority group seeking to exercise authority without much governmental
support, to dominate without substantial means of coercion.
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In Neusner's view, the rabbinic project, as acted out in the Talmud, reflected not the
world as it was but the world as rabbis dreamed it should be.
According to S. Baron however, there existed "a general willingness of the people to
follow its self imposed Rabbinic rulership". Although the Rabbis lacked authority to
impose capital punishment "Flagellation and heavy fines, combined with an extensive
system of excommunication were more than enough to uphold the authority of the
courts." In fact, the Rabbis took over more and more power from the Reish Galuta until
eventually R' Ashi assumed the title Rabbana, heretofore assumed by the exilarch, and
appeared together with two other Rabbis as an official delegation "at the gate of King
Yazdegard's court." The Amorah (and Tanna) Rav was a personal friend of the last
Parthian king Artabenus and Shmuel was close to Shapur I, King of Persia. Thus, the
Rabbis had significant means of "coercion" and the people seem to have followed the
Rabbinic rulership.
Pharisees and Christianity
The Pharisees appear in the New Testament, engaging in conflicts between themselves
and John the Baptist and with Jesus, and because Nicodemus the Pharisee (John 3:1)
with Joseph of Arimathea entombed Jesus' body at great personal risk. Gamaliel, the
highly respected rabbi and defender of the apostles, was also a Pharisee, and
according to some Christian traditions secretly converted to Christianity.
There are several references in the New Testament to Paul the Apostle being a
Pharisee before converting to Christianity, and other members of the Pharisee sect are
known from Acts 15:5 to have become Christian believers. It was some members of his
group who argued that gentile converts must be circumcised and obliged to follow the
Mosaic law, leading to a dispute within the early Church addressed at the Apostolic
Council in Jerusalem, in 50 CE.
The New Testament, particularly the Synoptic Gospels, presents especially the
leadership of the Pharisees as obsessed with man-made rules (especially concerning
purity) whereas Jesus is more concerned with God's love; the Pharisees scorn sinners
whereas Jesus seeks them out. (The Gospel of John, which is the only gospel where
Nicodemus is mentioned, particularly portrays the sect as divided and willing to debate.)
Because of the New Testament's frequent depictions of Pharisees as self-righteous
rule-followers (see also Woes of the Pharisees and Legalism (theology)), the word
"pharisee" (and its derivatives: "pharisaical", etc.) has come into semi-common usage in
English to describe a hypocritical and arrogant person who places the letter of the law
above its spirit. Jews today typically find this insulting and some consider the use of the
word to be anti-Semitic.
Some have speculated that Jesus was himself a Pharisee and that his arguments with
Pharisees is a sign of inclusion rather than fundamental conflict (disputation being the
dominant narrative mode employed in the Talmud as a search for truth, and not
necessarily a sign of opposition). Jesus' emphasis on loving one's neighbor (see Great
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Commandment), for example, echoes the teaching of the School of Hillel. Jesus' views
of divorce, however, are closer to those of the School of Shammai, another Pharisee.
Others have argued that the portrait of the Pharisees in the New Testament is an
anachronistic caricature. Although a minority of scholars follow the Augustinian
hypothesis, most scholars date the composition of the Christian gospels to between 70
and 100 CE, a time after Christianity had separated from Judaism (and after Pharisaism
emerged as the dominant form of Judaism). Rather than an accurate account of Jesus'
relationship to Pharisees and other Jewish leaders, this view holds that the Gospels
instead reflect the competition and conflict between early Christians and Pharisees for
leadership of the Jews, or reflects Christian attempts to distance themselves from Jews
in order to present themselves in a more sympathetic (and benign) light to Romans and
other Gentiles.
Examples of disputed passages include the story of Jesus declaring the sins of a
paralytic man forgiven and the Pharisees calling the action blasphemy. In the story,
Jesus counters the accusation that he does not have the power to forgive sins by
pronouncing forgiveness of sins and then healing the man. The account of the Paralytic
Man and Jesus's performance of miracles on the Sabbath are often interpreted as
oppositional and at times antagonistic to that of the Pharisees' teachings.
Some historians, however, have noted that Jesus' actions are actually similar to and
consistent with Jewish beliefs and practices of the time, as recorded by the Rabbis, that
commonly associate illness with sin and healing with forgiveness. Jews (according to
E.P. Sanders) reject the New Testament suggestion that the healing would have been
critical of, or criticized by, the Pharisees as no surviving Rabbinic source questions or
criticizes this practice, and the notion that Pharisees believed that "God alone" could
forgive sins is more of a rhetorical device than historical fact. Another argument is that
according to the New Testament, Pharisees wanted to punish Jesus for healing a man's
withered hand on Sabbath. No Rabbinic rule has been found according to which Jesus
would have violated Sabbath.
Some scholars believe that those passages of the New Testament that are seemingly
most hostile to the Pharisees were written sometime after the destruction of Herod's
Temple in 70 CE. Only Christianity and Pharisaism survived the destruction of the
Temple, and the two competed for a short time until the Pharisees emerged as the
dominant form of Judaism. When many Jews did not convert, Christians sought new
converts from among the Gentiles. Christians had to explain why converts should listen
to them rather than the Non-Messianic Jews, concerning the Hebrew Bible, and also
had to dissociate themselves with the rebellious Jews who so often rejected Roman
authority and authority in general. They thus were perceived to have had presented a
story of Jesus that was more sympathetic to Romans than to Jews.
Some scholars have found evidence of continuous interactions between Jewish-
Christian and rabbinic movements from the mid- to late second century c.e. to the fourth
century c.e.
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The Top 10 Things Pharisees Say Today
By Carey Nieuwhof
Chances are that if you’re a Christian, your desire is to be more like Christ.
That’s great.
But are you?
How would you know?
A Barna study done a few years ago owned me.
The survey revealed that 51% of the North American Christians polled all possess
attitudes and actions that are more like the Pharisees than they are like Christ.
In other words, the attitudes of most Christians were described as self-righteous and
hypocritical.
According to the study, only 14% of Christians surveyed reflected attitudes and actions
that better resembled the attitudes and actions of Christ.
What surprised me (as well as study author David Kinnaman) is how my attitudes and
actions still need work…. I’m far too much like a Pharisee and not enough like Jesus.
What breaks my heart is that I think the Pharisee in many of us is killing the mission and
effectiveness of the church.
So how do you know how much Pharisee resides within you?
The attitude of many Christians today is more like the Pharisees than it is like Jesus.
Click To Tweet
In Defense of the Pharisees (Well, Almost Defense)
Before we jump to that, I understand that in many church circles, to simply say the word
‘Pharisee’ is to immediately conjure up an image of a villain.
Pharisee=bad.
And yet the Pharisees were, to some extent, well-meaning people. They studied the law
and knew it as well as anyone.
Their downfall, among other things, centered on their self-justification and selfimportance.
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But there’s evidence that some Pharisees were sincerely seeking God. After all,
Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, both Pharisees, arranged for Jesus’ burial. They
were sympathetic to Christ and, from what we can tell, ultimately ended up following
him.
Similarly, the mission of the early church was radically advanced by a converted
Pharisee—Paul.
And yet Jesus condemned the Pharisees for their pride, lack of compassion and
hypocrisy.
The irony, of course, is this: the people who purported to love God most ultimately killed
him when he showed up.
This isn’t about Jews and Gentiles. It’s about religious people (like you and me) who in
the name of God deny who God really is.
Denying God is exactly what we do when our attitudes justify us more than they reflect
the heart and love of Christ.
People who say they love God sometimes kill him when He shows up.
Click To Tweet
10 Things Today’s Pharisees Say
So what do today’s Pharisees say? Based in part on the research and in part from my
own experience, here are the top 10 things today’s Pharisees say.
A word of caution. As you read them, don’t think about who these phrases remind you
of nearly as much as you think about how they reflect your attitude and actions.
If we all do that, we will all be better off and the church will be stronger for it.
1. “If he knew the Bible as well as I did, his life would be better.”
Yup, there it is. Judgment and self-righteousness rolled up into a neat little package.
I really want people to read their Bibles. But when I get smug and superior about
reading mine, I miss the point.
Arrogance is not a Christian virtue.
Arrogance is not a Christian virtue. Click To Tweet
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2. “I follow the rules.”
And if you do, awesome.
But that’s not what got you into Christianity, is it? You got in because of the mercy which
Christ extended to you when you broke the rules.
Following the rules doesn’t keep you in the love of God any more than it got you into the
love of God.
So why follow the rules? Following the rules is a response to the love of God.
And your attitude should be one of gratitude, amazement, and humility.
3. “You shouldn’t hang around people like that.”
I understand that we have to choose friends for our kids carefully.
But when applied to adults, this thought process stinks.
One of the reasons many churches aren’t growing is because Christians don’t know any
non-Christians.
If many of us were preaching the parable about being the salt of the earth today, we’d
switch it up and command the salt to stay in its hermetically sealed box and never touch
any food.
Of course, Jesus said the opposite. Salt needs to get out of the box to season food.
And Jesus paid a price for that among religious people. They couldn’t fathom why he
would hang out with tax collectors, hookers, and other notorious sinners.
When was the last time you hung out with a hooker?
Convicting, isn’t it? Disturbing, isn’t it?
Yes, it is.
Many churches aren't growing simply because Christians don't know any non-
Christians. Click To Tweet
4. “God listens to my prayers.”
Prayer is amazing. And we do trust that God listens to our prayers.
But, as we’ve said before in this space, prayer is not a button to be pushed nearly as
much as it is a relationship to be pursued.
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The smugness and certainty with which many Christians talk about prayer must strike
people as weird, weird, weird.
The biblical portrait of prayer is as much about broken people embracing the mystery
and majesty of a forgiving God as much as it is about anything.
When prayer becomes a predictable formula that manipulates or controls God, you can
be pretty sure you’re no longer praying.
Prayer is not a button to be pushed. It's a relationship to be pursued. Click To Tweet
5. “Sure I have a few issues, but that’s between me and God.”
And if you keep it between you and God, people will never be able to relate to you.
Perfect on the outside and flawed on the inside—that’s the accusation Jesus levied
against the Pharisees.
When people on the outside look at pretend-to-be-perfect Christians, it does three
things:
It alienates them.
It makes them think you’re fake… because even they know we’re all broken.
It suggests God can’t help them.
The antidotes?
Transparency.
Vulnerability.
Honesty.
When you let people know you don’t have it all together but you’ve met an amazing
God, many people suddenly want to join in.
When you let people know you don't have it all together but you've met an amazing
God, many people suddenly want to join in. Click To Tweet
6. “They just need to work harder.”
Jesus loved the poor and had compassion on broken people.
Many Christians today don’t. (Self-righteousness rears its ugly head again.)
Yes, I am very familiar with the passages in scripture that talk about hard work and
prudence. I try to live by them.
But when I allow my relative ‘success’ to serve as a basis to judge others… I miss
mercy.
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Compassion should be a hallmark of Christians. The early church’s compassion in the
first few centuries after Jesus’ resurrection was one of the key reasons the Christian
faith spread so rapidly, even amidst extreme persecution.
7. “Of course I’m a Christian.”
Few people are better at explaining the difference between moralistic self-righteous
religion and authentic Christianity in our age than Tim Keller.
Keller points out again and again in his preaching that religious people say things like
“Of course I’m a Christian”… and that underneath is a pernicious idea that they have
somehow earned the favour of God by their obedience and faithfulness.
True Christians, he says, by contrast, are filled with wonder, amazement, and gratitude
that God would accept them despite their brokenness? When asked whether they are
Christian, they say things like “I know, isn’t that unbelievable? Can you believe that God
would extend his mercy to someone like me through Christ? I am amazed! Grateful!
Overwhelmed!”
I love Keller’s heart on this.
8. “More people need to stand up for Christian values.”
As Christendom slips away in our lifetime here in the West, we long for what used to be.
But moving forward we will have more in common with our first-century counterparts in
Christianity than with our 20th-century forebears. They lived out their faith in a world that
didn’t share their values, but rather than fight their non-Christian counterparts, they laid
down their life for them.
While some people might get very angry and demand that we stand up for Christian
values, I think the biblical argument runs the other way. As I outline here, maybe one of
the best things Christians today can do is let non-Christians off the moral hook.
Christians should live out Christian values deeply and authentically. But why would we
hold non-Christians to a standard they don’t believe in, anyway? Jesus and Paul never
appeared to do this… not even once.
Why would Christians hold non-Christians to a standard they don't believe in? Click To
Tweet
9. “I’m simply more comfortable with people from my church than I
am with people who don’t go to church.”
This is one major reason why you and your church are incredibly ineffective at reaching
unchurched people.
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If you want to change that, go to some parties and get to know some people who are far
from God.
You will discover that God likes them. And you might discover you do too.
And people – who at one time didn’t follow Jesus – might even start following Jesus.
If you want to change your attitude toward people who are not like you, go to some
parties and get to know some people who are far from God. You will discover that God
likes them. And you might discover you do too. Click To Tweet
10. “People who don’t go to church can come if they want to.”
And Nero fiddled while Rome burned.
Too many churches are all about the preferences of its members than the power of the
Gospel.
Here are some suggestions on what you can do if you serve in a church where people
don’t want your church to change.
Too many churches are all about the preferences of its members than the power of the
Gospel. Click To Tweet
Again, please hear me, because this is as much a challenge to me as it is to anyone
else. There is a Pharisee that lives in me.
But before we leave this, can you imagine what would happen if Christians today
exuded the love, truth, grace and mercy of Christ?
I think the church would be different.
Recognize Yourself?
________
8 Signs of A Modern-Day Pharisee
by Frank Viola
Even though it’s been “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” since Pharisees were
running around in Century One causing trouble for God’s messengers, Pharisees and
Pharisaism are still here.
They’re like the poor. They’ll always be with you.
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While Pharisaism is in sharp decline today (experiencing advanced stages of rigor
mortis), the pharisaic spirit still exists. And it’s the chief reason why so many non-
Christians want nothing to do with Jesus.
When I was 18 years old, I spent a lot of time in a group that bred Pharisees like rabbits.
And I will shamefully admit that I was one of them.
Thank God, however, I experienced the washing machine of life and it drained much (or
all, hopefully) of the Pharisee out of me. Regrettably, that doesn’t happen with
everyone. Many Christians waste their sufferings. And so they remain just as hardened,
callous, self-righteous, and judgmental as they were in their youth.
What follows are 8 characteristics of a “Christian” Pharisee:
1) Pharisees spend more time focusing on what they hate rather than on what
they love.
And what Pharisees hate are people. Well, people who sin differently than they do. (Isn’t
it convenient that God hates the same people Pharisees do?) Cough.
To a Pharisees’ mind, Jesus-followers who hold to a different theology shouldn’t be
allowed near children or small pets. If you tell them, “I disagree with you,” they interpret
those words to mean “the gospel is at stake,” and then dive off the cliff into a
culture/theological war against you and your friends.
Because of Pharisaism, Christians are known for what they are against rather than for
what they are for. It’s because of them that “evangelical” has come to mean fanatical
zealots who have perfected “culture war” tactics and represent the grotesquely hateful
versions of Christianity commonly peddled by ambitious politicians.
2) Pharisees magnify the sins of others while minimizing — or even ignoring —
their own.
Jesus said to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. A.W. Tozer put
it this way, “A Pharisee is hard on others and easy on himself, but a spiritual man is
easy on others and hard on himself.”
3) Pharisees believe (and spread) accusations against others without ever going
to them directly, something you’d insist on if it were you being slandered
(Matthew 7:12).
Regrettably, “Christian” Pharisees produce more vitriol and spread more poison than a
Chernobyl-like nuclear disaster. Dispensing slander is labeled “poison” by the Bible
because it exposes innocent souls to toxic substances which are spiritually lethal.
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Pharisees are adept at vilification, bombing others “with God on their side.” In fact,
many of them don’t know what to do with themselves unless they’re fightin’ for Jesus.
4) Pharisees are quick to pass judgment, but slow to inquire and listen to those
they’re judging.
Pharisees wake up with criticism in their hearts, plotting against those they wish to
destroy, even before the coffee gets cold.
In this regard, Pharisees minister toxicity and death to those who love God (all in the
name of God).
For a Pharisee, it’s shoot first, ask questions later. The exact opposite of what James
told us (James 1:19; 4:11) and Jesus for that matter (Matthew 7:1-4; 7:12).
As E. Stanley Jones rightly pointed out, “The measure of my spirit of criticism is the
measure of my distance from Christ.”
Pharisees need to put the oxygen masks on before trying to correct others. They’d be
wise to learn the art of shadowing boxing, i.e., dealing with the dark shadows they cast
before pointing out the darkness they see in others.
5) It breaks a Pharisee’s jaw to admit they’re wrong or apologize to those they’ve
mistreated.
You’ll have a better chance seeing a hen floss her teeth than to witness a Pharisee
apologizing or admitting to a mistake.
In this regard, Pharisees exhibit a remarkable lack of self-awareness.
This also accounts for why they are so belligerent. They exist to correct others, never
turning the spotlight inward.
6) Pharisees only hang out with other Pharisees.
Because Pharisees establish dubious doctrinal criteria by which every Christian is
judged and condemned to hell, they only hang with their own kind.
In addition, they aren’t a terribly happy bunch of people. They weren’t in Jesus’ day
either. In one Greek manuscript, they are called “lemon suckers.” (Okay, I made that up.
But it’s not far off the mark.)
7) Pharisees impute evil motives to the hearts of others (but are clueless that
they’re merely revealing what’s in their own).
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While they use terms like “discernment” and “contending for the gospel” to describe
(and excuse) their sin, Pharisees are clueless to the fact that they betray their own
hearts whenever they judge the heart of another.
They also engage in the usual fare of claiming to uphold “Christian values” while they
paper over the harmful things they’ve done in the name of Jesus — unfairly sitting over
others in judgment.
NEWSFLASH: Only God has the ability to read the motives of mortals. And as I’ve
contended elsewhere, the New Testament has zero tolerance when humans engage in
it.
On that score, Pharisees need to listen to Anne Lamott who said: “The difference
between you and God is that God doesn’t think He’s you.”
8) Pharisees cannot tolerate correction, even when it’s given in the spirit of
Christ.
A Pharisee hasn’t caught on to the fact that no human sees every angle of everything.
Pharisees are quick to join the bandwagon of brother/sister bashing, crafting special
attacks against those who don’t line up with their unique interpretations of Scripture.
And they break out in boils whenever someone points out their own flaws.
As Len Sweet and I argued in Jesus: A Theography, the things that make Jesus angry
aren’t what most evangelicals get angry about.
Concluding Point
I suspect that as you were reading this article, your brain was populating with different
people who fit my description of a Pharisee.
But that’s not really the intent. Sometimes we need to turn those rifle scopes into mirrors
and ask ourselves, does any of this describe me?
In which case, repentance — a U-turn of the heart — is the cure.
Sadly for many, conscience is that still small voice that tells you what other people
should do.
As with most bullies – including theological ones – within every Pharisee is a frightened
little boy or girl. It’s time to move past our fears in the name of “protecting theological
boundaries” and with grace and humility join the conversation that’s been going on for
centuries.
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When it comes to God’s family, there is no place for erecting walls of isolation and
narrowing the borders of who is in and who is out. In this regard, Pharisaism replaces
the divine dream with a human nightmare.
Alas, the heavens are darkened by our refusal to love each other.
May God be merciful to us all.
________
What Does a Modern Day Pharisee Look Like?
David Dickson
David Dickson (c.1583–1662) was a Professor of Theology at the University of Glasgow
and Edinburgh who wrote commentaries on many different books of Scripture. He
opposed the unbiblical worship and church government foisted on the Church in Scotland
by Charles II and this cost him his position.
10 Nov, 2017
No one wants to be a Pharisee. It’s the ultimate religious insult. No doubt we have
our own idea of what a modern-day Pharisee looks like. It’s probably the type of
Christian with whom we strongly disagree, their standards and convictions are
far removed from ours. It’s easy to apply the Pharisee label without thinking
much about it. We ought to be careful, however, before identifying others with the
enemies of Christ. What was it about the Pharisees that Christ Himself opposed?
This will tell us what we need to know about where the term applies today.
Perhaps modern Christianity isn’t as immune as we might think from strains of
the Pharisee virus.
It’s possible for any type of professing Christian to place undue weight on outward
activities and things that identify us as religious. Sometimes these are things we may
scarcely think about or question but they have been given considerable importance.
They could be what is considered trendy just as much as what is considered traditional.
It is highly important to identify the spirit of the Pharisees today. The Lord Jesus Christ
has such solemn things to say about them that we need to ensure that we avoid their
characteristics. The general stereotype is that Pharisees were obsessed with being
ultra-holy. True, they were interested in outward conformity to their own man-made
regulations but they weren’t interested in heart holiness and entire conformity to God’s
law. Christ actually says that they weren’t strict enough when it came to righteousness.
What is more He says that we must be “exceed” the Pharisees when it comes to
righteousness or we will not “enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20).
The Pharisees and scribes took great effort in making great outward profession of
holiness of life. The truth is, however, that they only made conscience of outward
obedience only (Matthew 5:21) and even then, only in relation to certain
commandments (Matthew 15:3). There is a tendency to try to get around obeying God’s
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requirements by championing our own man-made slogans and rules. A true Christian
must first be clothed with the righteousness of Christ and have their sins forgiven in
Christ. They must be justified freely by grace without the works of the law. They then
seek to demonstrate the authenticity of their faith by true and sincere obedience,
inwardly as well as outwardly. They desire to obey all of God’s commandments. They
want to make further progress in holiness all the days of their life.
Their righteousness must outstrip that of the Pharisees and scribes. First, they must
have the righteousness which is of God by faith in Jesus Christ reckoned to their
account. Second, they also should manifest an inherent righteousness, sincerely
pursuing a holy life before God and man. These are the ways in which their
righteousness must far exceed the superficial righteousness of the Pharisees.
The most solemn warnings Christ gives against the Pharisees are found in Matthew
23:1-36. Frequently they take the form of “woes” (eight in total). In other words, He is
warning them of God’s judgment for their hypocrisy. Of course, He was able to read
their hearts but their conduct and words were very obvious too and these exposed the
true state of their heart.
David Dickson has some key insights into Christ’s words in this chapter. It is a long
article but it makes for vital reading. Here we highlight the main aspects of the Pharisee
virus that we must avoid like the plague. Where we see heart religion and careful godly
living ignored, it has an opening. Where man is exalted and worldly desires masquerade
under religious language and man-made practice we ought to be warned. We must of
course, avoid those who alter the true gospel.
1. Pharisees Don’t Make their Life Match their Convictions
Christ warned about false teachers (Matthew 23:1-3).
(a) People must be warned to beware of contracting the plagues of false
teachers who will not amend their conduct.
(b) We ought still to obey the truth of God’s Word even though it may be
promoted by false teachers; it is still God’s truth (v2).
(c) People are more in danger of following the example of the sinful life of false
teachers rather than any commands of God they may teach. They need to be
warned not to follow the works of such false teachers.
(d) Someone may obey what God commands but not for the purpose for which
God has commanded it. In the sight of God this is no better than not doing it.
Although the Pharisees did many works that were commanded in the law, yet
they did them to be seen of others and to earn merit before God. They were
more careful about the outward ceremonies of the law than observing the moral
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duties of justice and mercy. What they did was therefore counted as though they
had not done them. Christ says that “they say, and do not”.
2. Pharisees Urge Moral Duties without the Gospel
The Lord shows how the Pharisees urged moral duties without reference to the gospel
(which is the only way by which such duties can be done) (v4).
(a) The law is intended to lead us to the gospel where grace and strength for
righteousness and new obedience. Otherwise it is an unbearable yoke. It is here
called a heavy burden, and grievous to be borne. And therefore to press moral
duties on a people without teaching them how to draw strength from Christ for
obedience is to bind heavy burdens on their shoulders.
(b) Hypocrites command people with least compassion which does not enable
them to give obedience. They do not seek to help them by wise teaching,
example or prayer. Therefore Christ says “they will not move [the burdens they
impose] with one of their fingers”.
3. Pharisees Care More About Appearances than Reality
Pharisees had ways of appearing to be religious before others. One was to enlarge their
phylacteries (items they would wear containing verses of Scripture) (v5). The first is
their vain ostentation of holiness and ambitious seeking of vain applause of men, to
which end they did write the words of the law on the borders of their garments, as if it
had been all made up of love of the law.
(a) Hypocrites take greater effort to seem religious than to be religious. They
strive to please others with appearances rather than to please God in truth. They
“do their works…to be seen of men”.
(b) Hypocrites are most concerned about making a show of outward religious
practices and outward aspects of duties that have been commanded, while
neglecting the substance.
4. Pharisees Love Status and Celebrity
Pharisees love to be given status and to be hailed as a prominent teacher (v6-7). The
Pharisees were vain and sought preeminence in all things above other people. We
should not esteem any mere man too highly any gifts he has or any good we have
received through him. It takes away from God’s glory when we attribute too much to
men (v9-12).
(a) Although the Lord does not condemn respects and reverence due to men
according to their callings and places, yet he condemns those who love take
pride in them.
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(b) Hypocrites and vain men least worthy of respect or honour most desire
respect.
(c) Christ does not condemn ways of distinguishing individuals for order and for
the sake of their office from others. He condemns those who exalt themselves
over their brethren in outward dignity (v8).
(d) Those who seek to exalt themselves above their brethren in the same office
are offensive to Christ. He alone must have the preeminent. He has appointed a
ministry in the Church and made them equal in office as brethren (v8).
(e) We are very ready to ascribe something to ourselves if we are able to profit
others by any gifts given to us. Christ says not to be called Rabbi, or Master. The
meaning is, do not take to yourselves more than is the creature’s due. When you
teach others by God’s gift bestowed on you and anyone ascribes to you any
more than is due, see that you do not permit it this sacrilege.
(f) All the authority, light and success of teaching flows from the powerful teacher
Christ, “for One is your Master, even Christ”. Anything given to the creature
above its place is taken sacrilegiously.
5. Pharisees Hinder the Salvation of Others
Christ pronounces a woe on the Pharisees for hindering the gospel (v13).
(a) Men by nature are exiles from heaven and from the grace of God offered in
the gospel. Yet by ministering the Word and ordinances of God in the right or
wrong way, the door of heaven is opened or shut. The Pharisees, says Christ,
shut the kingdom of heaven against men.
(b) It is a fearful charge against false teachers that they do not come to Christ
themselves and also divert others by their bad example or doctrine.
6. Pharisees Combine Religion with Covetousness
(a) Just as ambition and hypocrisy go together, so do ambition and greed (v14).
(b) Simple, ignorant and helpless souls are the prey of corrupt Church leaders.
This is nothing new.
(c) The most cursed behaviour that can be devised may be cloaked with the
pretence of religion.
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(d) The more plausible the pretence put upon a wicked course of action, the
greater the sin (and the punishment. Christ say that they will “receive the greater
damnation”.
7. Pharisees Make Many Converts, But Not to the Genuine Gospel
The Pharisees had a blind zeal to poison others with their errors and make converts to
their sect (v15).
(a) False teachers are more busy to draw others to their error than teachers of
the truth are diligent in drawing others to the truth.
(b) The more effort and haste in false zeal that someone shows in perverting
others from the truth, the more wrath abides on him.
(c) The more someone advances in error and superstition, the more he is the
child of hell and Satan. Such errors have their origin in hell and Satan is the
father of error, superstition and heresy. Christ said that the Pharisees made their
converts “the child of hell”.
(d) Young converts who drink in superstition being persuaded by learned false
teachers are far more taken with their false opinions. They are more addicted to
these false superstitions than their teachers because they believer them to be the
truth.
8. Pharisees Define Sin According to their Own Ideas
The Pharisees actually believed they could take the name of God in vain. They said that
if they swore an oath “by the temple” it was not binding but if they swore “by the gold of
the temple” it was (v16). Christ shows (v20-22) that this was altogether wrong.
(a) Church leaders that corrupt religion and fearfully mislead people become
“blind guides”. This is despite the fact that their office requires that they should be
wise and seeing guides.
(b) These corrupt hypocrites fostered swearing by created things such as by the
temple, altar, gold and gifts.
(c) Corrupt Church leaders make things to be sin or no sin as it serves their
purpose. Here they made an oath by the temple to be nothing and an oath by the
gold of the temple to be binding.
(d) To make light of any oath as not binding opens a door to superstition and
perjury.
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(e) When men depart from the rule of God’s Word in determining sin, they prove
themselves foolish and blind
(f) Superstition and error blinds the mind, and stupifies the heart.
9. Pharisees Only Give Partial Obedience
The Pharisees vaunted their precise keeping of the law in the smallest things while they
despised the law in the greatest duties.
(a) It is no new thing for hypocrites to major on small matters while rejecting the
most weighty duties. The Pharisees tithed anise and omitted mercy. Yet doing
those greater duties does not liberate us from our obligation to do the smallest
duties, one authority obliges us to do both. Christ say that they ought still to have
done these but “not left the other undone” (v23).
(b) Hypocrites being strict are more ridiculous than someone refusing to swallow
a fly while swallowing a camel.
(c) Those who take it upon them to teach others the way to heaven need to know
it well themselves; for it is a fearful charge to be found blind guides.
10. Pharisees Pretend to be Holy but are Not
The Pharisees deceived the people with an appearance of holiness when there was
nothing of the kind in them (v27-28).
(a) Hypocrites may carry their wickedness so fair that men may be deceived: for
they may seem very beautiful outwardly, when inwardly they are filthy, like tombs
plaistred12 without, and full of rottenness within.
(b) God will not be deceived by hypocrites, but will find them out. In His time He
will expose them to the world and pour out wrath on them, for Christ says “Woe
unto you”.
11. Pharisees Honour the Godly of the Past but Hate the Godly of the Present
The Pharisees pretended to honour the saints of the past (v29-30) but in the meantime
hated the godly in the present. Indeed they were about to murder Christ Himself.
(a) The world loves dead prophets better than the living: the living reprove their
sin more directly than the dead.
(b) Gross hypocrites pretend to love good men and yet do not love goodness.
They can condemn their fathers’ faults and yet practise the same themselves.
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They are like those who said: “If we had been in the days of our fathers, we
would not have been partakers of the blood of the prophets”.
12. Pharisees are on their Way to Hell Unless they Repent
He condemns them and threatens them with hell (v33).
(a) When the Lord makes a reckoning, he will declare the sin of the wicked to
their face.
(b) It is good to show the obstinate the difficulty of being saved if they can by any
means they can be driven to seek salvation.
(c) The end of Christ’s enemies shall be condemnation in hell.
________
Self-Examination: 6 Signs You Might Be a
Modern Day Pharisee
A list for reflection...
You Might Be a Modern Day Pharisee.
Yes, it’s been a very long time since the Pharisees were plotting against Jesus in
Jerusalem, but the Pharisee spirit is still a very relevant topic in the Church today.
While people might not be “Pharisees” anymore, the Pharisee spirit still exists.
Sadly, it’s the number one reason why so many people want nothing to do
with Jesus or His followers.
Growing up in church, I remember wondering why some people seemed to be living in
their own bubbles. I heard the message about Jesus and the way He lived, and I was
told that we were supposed to be little versions of Him. So why didn’t the people around
me look or sound like Him?
As I got older, I too struggled with the Pharisee spirit in the form of judgment. I was
living in my Christian bubble and no “dirty” people were allowed in. Thankfully, a real
encounter with Jesus changed that.
I’m not writing from a place of judgment or accusation. Like I said, I’ve been guilty of this
many times before. I’m writing this because I think it’s important that we all take a
moment to reflect and ask ourselves if we are being “little Christs” or if we’ve
really got it wrong.
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6 Signs You Might Be A Pharisee:
1) Pharisees spend more time focusing on what they hate than what
they love.
Because of this spirit, Christians have been made known for what they are against
rather than for what they are for. It’s because of them that “evangelical” has come to
mean fanatical bigots who have perfected “culture war” tactics.
2) Pharisees zoom in on other’s sin but act as if their own doesn’t
exist.
Jesus said that the Pharisees were “white-washed tombs”: beautiful on the outside but
dead on the inside. Jesus also said to beware of the yeast (substance) of the Pharisees:
hypocrisy. A.W. Tozer put it this way, “A Pharisee is hard on others and easy on
himself, but a spiritual man is easy on others and hard on himself.”
3) Pharisees spread accusations against others without ever going to
them directly.
The Bible is clear about going to your neighbor and confronting them personally if they
have done something wrong. (Matthew 18:15)
Regrettably, “Christian” Pharisees spread poison into the people around them. The
tongue is full of deadly poison, and the Pharisee spirit seizes every opportunity to
destroy others with their slander.
Pharisees are skilled at making villains out of others and claiming that “God is on their
side.” Honestly, most Pharisees use the word “God” to bring about destruction and to
justify their selfish actions.
4) Pharisees are quick to pass judgment.
Pharisees actively seek out people to destroy. They search for faults and weaknesses
in others and feed on them.
Pharisees shoot first and ask questions later. This is the exact opposite of what Jesus
told us to do. (Matthew 7:1-4)
As E. Stanley Jones rightly pointed out, “The measure of my spirit of criticism is the
measure of my distance from Christ.”
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5) Pharisees rarely ever admit that they are wrong, and they cannot
take correction.
Pharisees are the kind of people who will always have an excuse ready and a blame to
pass.
They have no self-awareness. When you live this way, you start to distance yourself
from reality.
They love to turn the spotlight on others and never let the light in on themselves.
6) Pharisees stay in their flock.
Birds of a feather stick together, and there’s no way you’ll find a Pharisee around
anyone but another Pharisee.
But this makes sense since everyone else is “unrighteous and despicable.”
As much as they try to disguise themselves with a bright and shiny exterior, Pharisees
are not happy people.
So what’s the cure?
The only way to get rid of a Pharisee spirit is repentance: A total u-turn of the heart!
Begin self-reflection and examination on a daily basis.
Measure yourself to the life of Christ, not just in holiness and righteousness, but
in love, mercy, selflessness, humility, service, and wisdom.
When you see an opportunity to speak into someone’s life, speak into THEIR life;
not about them to everyone else.
Acknowledge that you cannot read someone’s heart and looks can be deceiving.
Ask for forgiveness from the people you have wronged.
Accept correction when reprimanded and apply the truth to your life.
Be slow to speak and slow to wrath.
Remember that it’s okay to mess up sometimes as long as you learn and grow.
Most importantly, have a personal relationship with Jesus every day.
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IV. Sadducees
The Sadducees (/ˈsædjəˌsiːz/; Hebrew: צְדּוקִ‏ ים Ṣĕdûqîm) were a sect or group
of Jews that were active in Judea during the Second Temple period, starting from the
second century BCE through the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. The Sadducees
are often compared to other contemporaneous sects, including the Pharisees and
the Essenes.
The sect was identified by Josephus with the upper social and economic echelon of
Judean society. As a whole, the sect fulfilled various political, social, and religious roles,
including maintaining the Temple. Their sect is believed to have become extinct some
time after the destruction of Herod's Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE, but it has been
speculated that the later Karaites may have had some roots in—or connections with—
Sadducaic views.
Etymology
According to Abraham Geiger, the Sadducaic sect of Judaism drew their name
from Zadok, the first High Priest of ancient Israel to serve in the First Temple, with the
leaders of the sect proposed as the Kohanim (priests, the "sons of Zadok", descendants
of Eleazar, son of Aaron).
In any event, the name Zadok, being related to the root צָדַ‏ ק ṣāḏaq (to be right,
just), could be indicative of their aristocratic status in society in the initial period of their
existence.
Furthermore, Flavius Josephus mentions in Antiquities of the Jews that in the time of
Boethus: "…one Judas, a Gaulonite, of a city whose name was Gamala, who taking
with him Sadduc, a Pharisee, became zealous to draw them to a revolt…". Paul L.
Maier notes, "It seems not improbable to me that this Sadduc, the Pharisee, was the
very same man of whom the rabbis speak, as the unhappy but undesigning occasion of
the impiety or infidelity of the Sadduccees; nor perhaps had the men this name of the
Sadduccees till this very time, though they were a distinct sect long before." The
similarity of Sadduc to the Zadok above, varying largely in transliteration, lends
credence to that account. The contextual inclusion of Boethus and Sadduc implies they
were most likely contemporaries.
The Second Temple Period
History
The Second Temple Period is the period in ancient Israel between the construction of
the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 516 BCE and its destruction by the Romans in 70
CE.
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Throughout the Second Temple Period, Jerusalem saw several shifts in
rule. Alexander's conquest of the Mediterranean world brought an end to Persian control
of Jerusalem (539 BCE–334/333 BCE) and ushered in the Hellenistic period. The
Hellenistic period, which extended from 334/333 BCE to 63 BCE, is known today for the
spread of Hellenistic influence. This included an expansion of culture, including an
appreciation of Greek theater, and admiration of the human body. After the death of
Alexander in 323 BCE, his generals divided the empire among themselves and for the
next 30 years, they fought for control of the empire. Judea was first controlled by
the Ptolemies of Egypt (r. 301–200 BCE) and later by the Seleucids of Syria (r. 200–
167). King Antiochus Epiphanes of Syria, a Seleucid, disrupted whatever peace there
had been in Judea when he desecrated the temple in Jerusalem and forced Jews to
violate the Torah. Most prominent of the rebel groups were the Maccabees, led
by Mattathias the Hasmonean and his son Judah the Maccabee. Though the
Maccabees rebelled against the Seleucids in 164 BCE, Seleucid rule did not end for
another 20 years. The Maccabean (a.k.a. Hasmonean) rule lasted until 63 BCE, when
the Roman general Pompey conquered Jerusalem.
Thus began the Roman period of Judea, leading to the creation of the province
of Roman Judea in 6 CE and extending into the 7th century CE, well beyond the end of
the Second Temple Period. Cooperation between the Romans and the Jews was
strongest during the reigns of Herod and his grandson, Herod Agrippa I. However, the
Romans moved power out of the hands of vassal kings and into the hands of Roman
administrators, beginning with the Census of Quirinius in 6 CE. The First Jewish–
Roman War broke out in 66 CE. After a few years of conflict, the Romans retook
Jerusalem and destroyed the temple, bringing an end to the Second Temple Period in
70 CE.
Role of the Temple
During the Persian period, the Temple became more than the center of worship in
Judea after its reconstruction in 516 BCE; it served as the center of society. It makes
sense, then, that priests held important positions as official leaders outside of the
Temple. The democratizing forces of the Hellenistic period lessened and shifted the
focus of Judaism away from the Temple and in the 3rd century BCE, a scribal class
began to emerge.
New organizations and "social elites," according to Shaye Cohen, appeared. It was also
during this time that the high priesthood—the members of which often identified as
Sadducees—was developing a reputation for corruption. Questions about the legitimacy
of the Second Temple and its Sadducaic leadership freely circulated within Judean
society. Sects began to form during the Maccabean reign (see Jewish
Sectarianism below). The Temple in Jerusalem was the formal center of political and
governmental leadership in ancient Israel, although its power was often contested and
disputed by fringe groups.
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After the Temple Destruction
After the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem in 70 CE, the Sadducees appear only
in a few references in the Talmud. In the beginnings of Karaism, the followers of Anan
ben David were called "Sadducees" and set a claim of the former being a historical
continuity from the latter.
The Sadducee concept of the mortality of the soul is reflected on by Uriel Acosta, who
mentions them in his writings. Acosta was referred to as a Sadducee in Karl Gutzkow's
play The Sadducees in Amsterdam (1834).
Religious
Role of the Sadducees
The religious responsibilities of the Sadducees included the maintenance of the Temple
in Jerusalem. Their high social status was reinforced by their priestly responsibilities, as
mandated in the Torah. The priests were responsible for performing sacrifices at the
Temple, the primary method of worship in ancient Israel. This included presiding over
sacrifices during the three festivals of pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Their religious beliefs
and social status were mutually reinforcing, as the priesthood often represented the
highest class in Judean society. However, Sadducees and the priests were not
completely synonymous. Cohen points out that "not all priests, high priests, and
aristocrats were Sadducees; many were Pharisees, and many were not members of
any group at all."
Political
The Sadducees oversaw many formal affairs of the state. Members of the Sadducees:
Administered the state domestically
Represented the state internationally
Participated in the Sanhedrin, and often encountered the Pharisees there.
Collected taxes. These also came in the form of international tribute from Jews in
the Diaspora.
Equipped and led the army
Regulated relations with the Romans
Mediated domestic grievances.
Beliefs
General
The Sadducees rejected the Oral Torah as proposed by the Pharisees. Rather, they
saw the written Torah as the sole source of divine authority. The written law, in its
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depiction of the priesthood, corroborated the power and enforced the hegemony of the
Sadducees in Judean society.
According to Josephus, the Sadducees believed that:
There is no fate.
God does not commit evil.
Man has free will; "man has the free choice of good or evil".
The soul is not immortal; there is no afterlife.
There are no rewards or penalties after death.
The Sadducees did not believe in resurrection of the dead, but believed in the traditional
Jewish concept of Sheol for those who had died.
According to the Christian Acts of the Apostles:
The Sadducees did not believe in resurrection, whereas the Pharisees did. In
Acts, Paul chose this point of division to gain the protection of the Pharisees.
The Sadducees also rejected the notion of spirits or angels, whereas the
Pharisees acknowledged them.
The Sadducees are said to have favored Sirach.
Disputes with the Pharisees
According to the Pharisees, spilt water became impure through its pouring.
Sadducees denied that this is sufficient grounds for ṭumah "impurity"
(Hebrew: ‏.(טומאה Many Sadducee-Pharisee disputes revolved around issues
of ṭumah and ṭaharah (Hebrew: הֳ‏ רָ‏ ה ‏,טָ‏ ritual purity).
According to Jewish law, daughters inherit when there are no sons; otherwise,
the sons inherit. The Pharisees posited that if a deceased son left only one
daughter, then she shares the inheritance with the sons of her grandfather. The
Sadducees suggested that it is impossible for the granddaughter to have a more
favorable relationship to her grandfather than his own daughter does, and thus
rejected this ruling. This ruling was a testament to the Sadducaic emphasis on
patriarchal descent.
The Sadducees demanded that the master pay for damages caused by his slave.
The Pharisees imposed no such obligation, as the slave may intentionally cause
damage in order to see the liability for it brought on his master.
The Pharisees posited that false witnesses should be executed if the verdict is
pronounced on the basis of their testimony—even if not yet actually carried out.
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The Sadducees argued that false witnesses should be executed only if the death
penalty has already been carried out on the falsely accused.
Jewish Sectarianism
The Jewish community of the Second Temple period is often defined by its sectarian
and fragmented attributes. Josephus, in Antiquities, contextualizes the Sadducees as
opposed to the Pharisees and the Essenes. The Sadducees are also notably
distinguishable from the growing Jesus movement, which later evolved into Christianity.
These groups differed in their beliefs, social statuses, and sacred texts. Though the
Sadducees produced no primary works themselves, their attributes can be derived from
other contemporaneous texts, namely, the New Testament, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and
later, the Mishnah and Talmud. Overall, the Sadducees represented an aristocratic,
wealthy, and traditional elite within the hierarchy.
As Opposed to the Essenes
The Dead Sea Scrolls, which are often attributed to the Essenes, suggest clashing
ideologies and social positions between the Essenes and the Sadducees. In fact, some
scholars suggest that the Essenes began as a group of renegade Zadokites, which
would indicate that the group itself had priestly, and thus Sadducaic origins. Within the
Dead Sea Scrolls, the Sadducees are often referred to as Manasseh. The scrolls
suggest that the Sadducees (Manasseh) and the Pharisees (Ephraim) became religious
communities that were distinct from the Essenes, the true Judah. Clashes between the
Essenes and the Sadducees are depicted in the Pesher on Nahum, which states "They
[Manasseh] are the wicked ones ... whose reign over Israel will be brought down ... his
wives, his children, and his infant will go into captivity. His warriors and his honored
ones [will perish] by the sword." The reference to the Sadducees as those who reign
over Israel corroborates their aristocratic status as opposed to the more fringe group of
Essenes. Furthermore, it suggests that the Essenes challenged the authenticity of the
rule of the Sadducees, blaming the downfall of ancient Israel and the siege of
Jerusalem on their impiety. The Dead Sea Scrolls brand the Sadducaic elite as those
who broke the covenant with God in their rule of the Judean state, and thus became
targets of divine revenge.
As Opposed to the Early Christian Church
The New Testament, specifically the books of Mark and Matthew, describe anecdotes
which hint at hostility between the early Christians and the Sadducaic establishment.
These disputes manifest themselves on both theological and social levels. Mark
describes how the Sadducees challenged Jesus' belief in the resurrection of the dead.
Jesus subsequently defends his belief in resurrection against Sadducaic resistance,
stating, "and as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in
the story about the bush, how God said to him "I am the God of Abraham, the God of
Isaac, and the God of Jacob?" He is God not of the dead, but of the living; you are quite
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wrong." According to Matthew's Gospel, Jesus asserts that the Sadducees were wrong
because they knew "neither the scriptures nor the power of God". Jesus challenges the
reliability of Sadducaic interpretation of Biblical doctrine, the authority of which enforces
the power of the Sadducaic priesthood. The Sadducees address the issue of
resurrection through the lens of marriage, which "hinted at their real agenda: the
protection of property rights through patriarchal marriage that perpetuated the male
lineage." Furthermore, Matthew records John the Baptist calling the Sadducees a
"brood of vipers". The New Testament thus constructs the identity of Christianity in
opposition to the Sadducees.
As Opposed to the Pharisees
The Pharisees and the Sadducees are historically seen as antitheses of one another.
Josephus, the author of the most extensive historical account of the Second Temple
Period, gives a lengthy account of Jewish sectarianism in both The Jewish
War and Antiquities of the Jews. In Antiquities, he describes "the Pharisees have
delivered to the people a great many observances by succession from their fathers,
which are not written in the law of Moses, and for that reason it is that the Sadducees
reject them and say that we are to esteem those observance to be obligatory which are
in the written word, but are not to observe what are derived from the tradition of our
forefathers." The Sadducees rejected the Pharisaic use of the Oral Law to enforce their
claims to power, citing the Written Torah as the sole manifestation of divinity.
The rabbis, who are traditionally seen as the descendants of the Pharisees, describe
the similarities and differences between the two sects in Mishnah Yadaim.
The Mishnah explains that the Sadducees state, "So too, regarding the Holy Scriptures,
their impurity is according to (our) love for them. But the books of Homer, which are not
beloved, do not defile the hands." A passage from the book of Acts suggests that both
Pharisees and Sadducees collaborated in the Sanhedrin, the high Jewish court.
________
“You Might Be a Sadducee If…”
by Eric Pazdziora January 4, 2010
Ah, those good old Pharisees. They’ve been dead and gone for centuries, yet we never
tire of talking about the dangers of their beliefs. I’ve lost count of the number of
sermons I’ve heard, articles I’ve seen, and books I’ve read that in some way or another
caution the Christians of modern days against acting like the Pharisees of ancient days.
And I suppose it’s good. It’s just as easy—and just as wrong—for Christians to fall into
legalism, rules, and self-righteousness as it was for those sanctimonious Pharisees.
It’s true that Jesus’ most scathing condemnation was reserved for the hypocrisy of the
Pharisees. (Anyone who suffers from a milk-and-watery conception of “Gentle Jesus,
meek and mild” need only turn to His blistering condemnations in Matthew 23 to
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permanently unsettle their thinking.) But the Pharisees were not the only religious sect
of Jesus’ day. And this came to me as a mild surprise: they were not the only ones He
told us to beware of imitating. I still remember my puzzlement when I stumbled across
the verses:
“And Jesus said to them, ‘Watch out for and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and
Sadducees.”…Then they understood that He did not say to beware of the leaven of
bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” (Matthew 16:6,12 NASB,
emphasis mine)
The Pharisees and who? I did a little research to find out. It seems that, while the
Pharisees had the biggest place in the public eye, the Sadducees, their rivals, had
gotten a corner on the ministry in the temple. Furthermore, at least one insightful Bible
teacher (Oswald Chambers) said that that was exactly the situation in the present-day
church. The world may see the hypocrisy of Pharisee-Christians, but inside the church,
Chambers believed, we have a far greater infestation of Sadducees.
This was worth looking into a little more. Who were these Sadducees and what did they
believe? What could I do to keep from becoming one of them—or was I one already?
How would I know if I might be a Sadducee?
The most detailed account of interaction between Jesus and the Sadducees is recorded
in Matthew 22 (it is paralleled in the other synoptic gospels). The Jewish leaders were
trying to trick Jesus into betraying His ignorance of theology, which, come to think about
it, was rather foolish to try with the one who was both incarnate Theos and
eternal Logos. Anyhow, the Sadducees make their grand entrance, as Matthew
describes:
“On that day some Sadducees (who say there is no resurrection) came to Him and
questioned Him, saying, ‘Teacher, Moses said, “If a man dies, having no children, his
brother as next of kin shall marry his wife, and raise up an offspring to his brother.” Now
there were seven brothers with us; and the first married and died, and having no
offspring left his wife to his brother; so also the second, and the third, down to the
seventh. And last of all, the woman died. In the resurrection therefore whose wife of
the seven shall she be? For they all had her.’” (Matthew 22:23-27 NASB)
The information may not exactly be transparent. But I believe this incident, if we study
it, shows us several critical characteristics of these Sadducees. And the more I found
out about them, the more I realized I was looking into something that was uncomfortably
like a mirror. Here are the symptoms of the Sadducees, which (if you are brave) you
may ask yourself if you share.
1. You might be a Sadducee if what you disagree with is more important to you
than what you believe.
Notice how these Sadducees are introduced to us. They are from the sect “who say
there is no resurrection.” So, what do they believe instead? Why aren’t they
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introduced, say, as “the Sadducees, who believe in the annihilation of the soul”? “The
Sadducees, who believe in reincarnation”? “The Sadducees, who believe in the
eternality of matter”? Somehow, their beliefs aren’t important enough to mention. We
are only told what they disagree with.
It doesn’t get any better in the rest of the Bible. Acts 23:8, discussing a dissension
between Pharisees and Sadducees, explains, “For the Sadducees say there is no
resurrection, nor an angel, nor a spirit; but the Pharisees acknowledge them all.” Again,
no trace of what the Sadducees actually believe in: we have only an exhaustive list of
what they deny. All their doctrinal statement says is, “We disagree with Pharisees.”
When you ask the Sadducees to tell you what they think is true, all they can come up
with is, “The truth is, they’re wrong.” You are left with a void—the spiritual equivalent of
a negative number. They are eager to say what they think is wrong, but they never tell
you what they think is right.
2. You might be a Sadducee if you enjoy proving people wrong.
For Sadducees, as we’ve seen, the most important part of doctrine is disagreement.
But it’s not enough for them to sit back and politely beg to differ. They knew that Jesus
believed in the doctrine of the Resurrection, and they wanted to prove to the world that
He was wrong. In fact, they lived to prove people wrong.
That can be understood two ways. First, it is not so important to the Sadducees to
prove ideas wrong, as it is to prove people wrong. These Sadducees were less
concerned with showing that the doctrine of the Resurrection was fallacious than they
were with showing that Jesus was foolish for believing it. They used the beliefs as an
excuse to attack the person.
Second, proving someone else wrong is simply another way to prove that you are right.
The Sadducees are on a thinly disguised ego trip. We think of pride as a desire to lift
oneself up, but it can also manifest itself as a desire to put others down. If they can
make Jesus look bad, they’re making themselves look good. If He is wrong to believe in
the resurrection, then it must be correct to disagree with the resurrection—which just
happens to be what the Sadducees themselves think. What a happy coincidence.
3. You might be a Sadducee if you don’t want your questions to be answered.
It doesn’t take a very shrewd judge of character to tell that the Sadducees were not
asking an honest question. They didn’t believe in the resurrection, yet they were asking
about something that could only happen in the resurrection. That tall tale about the
“One Bride for Seven Brothers” wasn’t something they wanted help understanding, nor
was it even a teacher’s question to see if Jesus knew the correct answer. It was an
impossible, ridiculous scenario designed to show the (perceived) fallacy of life after
death—a clumsy attempt at reductio ad absurdum.
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Really, the only “question” the Sadducees asked was, “How can you believe in the
resurrection when it would cause you to accept an outlandish scenario like this?” That’s
not a question. It’s a rhetorical device that is designed to keep an answer from being
given.
So, the Sadducees don’t want to gain knowledge, or at least, they don’t want any
knowledge that might support a belief they disagree with. And you know who are the
only people who refuse to ask questions: the ones who think they already know it all.
4. You might be a Sadducee if you think sarcasm is spiritual.
Not only was the Sadducees’ question dishonest, it was positively dripping with
sarcasm. “Whose wife shall she be in the resurrection?” they asked, but they didn’t
believe in the resurrection. “It’s not a problem for us; it’s a problem for you. Have you
got an answer? We don’t need one.”
This particular kind of sarcasm–not so much clever as condescending, snidely
attempting to belittle others–is common enough among skeptics and unbelievers. But
the Sadducees thought they were serving God. By their views, Jesus was in theological
error, and it was their moral duty to point out his mistake. Scoffing and scorn was their
method of doctrinal debate; this was how they presented their deepest spiritual views.
No one, not even a Sadducee, will come out and say, “The way to really act like God is
to sarcastically put down your opponents.” But, deep in their inner hearts, there’s
something that would agree with that statement, without of course putting it in so many
words. If they put it into words, they would have to contend with the Bible’s unequivocal
teaching: “Surely he scorneth the scorners: but he giveth grace unto the lowly.”
(Proverbs 3:34 KJV)
5. You might be a Sadducee if you think what happens in this world is more
important than what happens in the spiritual world.
This is the crowning hallmark of the Sadducees. As we’ve seen, they don’t believe in a
resurrection, or in angels, or in spirits. Those three things have a common thread: they
all belong to the supernatural world. The only things left for Sadducees to believe are in
the physical world: the things we can see, taste, and touch.
That shows itself in three ways. The first is an unwarranted reliance on human
understanding when it comes to supernatural things. Tell a Sadducee about some
spiritual experience that doesn’t quite add up from an earthly perspective—a sudden
conversion, a healing, a vision—and you will get a king-sized dose of the scoffing
treatment. If it doesn’t make sense to the rational mind, it can’t possibly be true. Paul
observed rightly, “A natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they
are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually
appraised.” (1 Corinthians 2:14 NASB)
The second way is a trust in tradition. (If your church bills itself as “contemporary,” don’t
worry; you still have plenty of traditions too.) Sadducees say they are convinced that
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they know what is right; but we get a more accurate picture by slightly changing the
word order. Sadducees are convinced that what they know is right. The only way
they’ve ever done it is the only way it can be done.
The third way is a pragmatic concern with the here and now.
The Sadducees are building a kingdom on this earth. They are concerned not with what
is best but with what gets the best results, which results are defined as the most people
in the pews, the most money in the till, the most impressive building—in short, anything
that can be calculated, counted, or measured.
When someone suggests that the things that endure forever might after all be worth
more attention than the things that quickly pass away, the modern-day Sadducees may
squash him with a common put-down. “You’re so heavenly-minded, you’re no earthly
good.” That’s not how God sees it.
Listen to the soul-stabbing words of Paul’s epistles: “Since, then, you have been raised
with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of
God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” (Colossians 3:1-2 NIV)
Perhaps it is time for a new cliché: they’re so earthly-minded, they’re no heavenly good.
It is not the brutal skeptic who is the Sadducee, he does not destroy anybody’s shrines; it
is the religious man or woman with particularly bright conceptions of their own, but who
are far more concerned with the visible success of this world than with anything else. You
go to them with some insurgent doubt in your mind, and they smile at you, and say, “Oh,
don’t exercise your mind on those things, it is absurd.” That is the Sadducee who has
done more to deface in modern life what Jesus Christ began to do than all the
blackguardism and drunkenness in our modern civilisation. The subtle destruction of all
that stands for the invisible is what is represented by the Sadducee.
–Oswald Chambers, “The Base Impulse“
There are two ways you can tell if these things are true about you. The first way,
obviously, is if you read about the Sadducees and said, “Good grief, that sounds just
like me!”
The second way, less obvious but equally reliable, is if you read about the Sadducees
and said, “Aha, that sounds just like them!” You wouldn’t have enjoyed noticing it about
them (whoever they are) if it hadn’t also been true of you.
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How well did I do myself on the Sadducee test? Well, I’ll just hint that, if some of these
descriptions seem uncommonly detailed, it might be because they’re descriptions of
someone I know very well. To come out with it, I’ve seen almost all of these things in
myself (at one time or another) as I looked into the mirror of God’s Word. I know from
experience how uncomfortable it makes you feel when you look at the words of Jesus
and realize, “I’m doing exactly what Jesus cautioned His disciples against doing.”
But there’s good news. If you feel guilty about being a Sadducee, that’s the first sign
that you are ceasing to be one. And Jesus Himself provides the most effective antidote
to this system of thinking. Watch His response to the Sadducees carefully, as it tells not
only the cause of the Sadducees’ problem, but its cure.
But Jesus answered and said to them, “You are mistaken, not understanding the
Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are
given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. But regarding the resurrection of the
dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham,
and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the
living.” (Matthew 22:29-32 NASB)
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After the tedium of the Sadducees’ endless negations, it is refreshing to notice how
Jesus handles something He disagrees with. “You are mistaken,” He says, and goes
on to tell why they are mistaken, and what the truth really is. But on the way, He points
out the spiritual diseases that caused the Sadducees to become what they are. Jesus’
diagnosis is piercing and perceptive: the Sadducees do not understand the Scriptures
or the power of God. And there is more to that than you might imagine.
“You do not understand the Scriptures,” Jesus said to the Sadducees. It wasn’t that
they never read their Bibles. Indeed, quite the opposite. The Pharisees and
Sadducees were noted for their in-depth knowledge of the words of Scripture:
“scholarly” is almost an understatement; “fanatical” is a little closer. But, for all their
studies of the words, they had missed the whole point. It was as though a scholar of
literature devoted his life to the study of Hamlet and never once noticed that
Shakespeare’s play is about a despondent prince.
“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life,” Jesus
had told them on a different occasion; “it is these that testify about Me; and you are
unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life” (John 5:39-40 NASB). The purpose
of the Scriptures is to testify of Jesus and point us to Him as the one who gives us life.
In the Scriptures, the Father has spoken by inspiration of the Spirit and testified
concerning the Son. If we read the Scriptures and do not see Jesus in them—on every
page—then we do not understand them.
“O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!” He
said to the travelers at Emmaus. “Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets,
He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.” (Luke 24:24-
26 NASB) Notice the repeated emphasis on “all”. Jesus is the subject, not only of the
Gospels and Epistles, but of all the Scriptures. If I am making it my goal to understand
the Scriptures, then I must make it my goal to know Jesus. The two cannot be
separated. (And, of course, it works the other way around: if your goal is to know
Jesus, you had better study God’s Word.)
How does this cure a Sadducee? For one thing, it shows you the truth. Not only is
God’s word truth (see John 17:17), but Jesus said, “I am… the truth” (John 14:6). The
more you learn of the truth, the more you come out of your disagreement to other
people’s philosophies. You do not need the sarcasm, as the truth can speak for itself.
And you begin to ask questions that can be answered, and to find the answers—and to
realize that “Jesus is the answer” is more than an idle cliché.
What about the power of God? The first step is to recognize that it exists: once you
realize this, you are faced with something bigger than yourself, which is fatal to the selfassuredness
that undergirds the Sadducees’ thinking. In turn, that teaches you the
beginnings of humility, which takes all the fun out of proving people wrong. Then, as
you see that knowing about it isn’t enough, you begin to experience God’s power—
which puts an end to the anti-spiritual pragmatism. It teaches you, in fact, the only way
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to really be effective in working for God, and that is when God does the work with you
as His instrument.
When you are a Sadducee, your spiritual life is all dust, dryness, bitterness, and
jealousy—I speak from some experience. But being a converted Sadducee is one of
the greatest joys in the world. You learn about forbearance, mercy, and forgiveness.
You find humility; your pride fades away. You rejoice in the fact that you don’t know
everything, and don’t need to. It is all Jesus’ doing, for He is the resurrection and the
life.
________
Empathizing with Modern-Day Sadducees
Posted on December 10, 2015 | Author Jonny Rashid
In the New Testament, the Sadducees were a Jewish political party and a religious
order. They are some of Jesus’ primary detractors. To put it one way, perhaps as the
punk rocker in my heart might, they were sell outs. They were walking a thin line
between loyalty to God and loyalty to the Roman Empire which occupied Palestine.
They were increasingly allowing Rome and its officials to disrupt Jewish culture and
ideology. In fact, to most people, the Sadducees and the Romans were about the same.
They spoke in the name of God but represented the interests of the Roman Empire. I
am sympathetic with them because they were truly caught in a difficult place, trying to
lead their people, while facing extinction, destruction, and displacement by a powerful
occupier.
I mention this little piece of history to note that these days there seems to be more and
more people who are acting like they were members of that political party. To many
people in the U.S., in light of the Paris bombings and the San Bernardino shooting, an
alliance with the violent empire of the U.S. is the only way to defeat the Islamic State
and its threats against innocent people.
There are many reasons the IS got formed in the Middle East, not least of which was
the ill-advised, quagmire Iraq War, but rather than point the finger all the time (I know I
did a little) and wish that circumstances were different, I want to empathize. I realize
how oppressive and wicked the actions of the IS are. Terrorists killing innocent people
in the name of the Koran, Islam, and Allah, is not very new to me. In fact, among my
peers, I have a unique perspective, because my family, who are Christian Egyptians,
had a hard time living in even a moderate Muslim theocracy. This extremism is very
personal. And it truly does confound me. And it confounds Christians all over who are
wondering how to demonstrate the love of Christ to their enemies. Rod made Jesus’
famous commandment plain on Monday: it’s time to love our enemies. That’s the calling
and the lifestyle that Jesus commanded.
I wonder then why people like Jerry Falwell, Jr., who undoubtedly know that
commandment from Jesus, act so unusually when they make calls for arm themselves
in order to eradicate any sort of “Islamist” threat. Here’s the direct quote:
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“I’ve always thought that if more good people had concealed-carry permits, then we
could end those Muslims before they walked in and killed them.”
Do they not see the basic picture? Are they blind to calls of Jesus? Jesus is speaking
plainly, and was to the people he was directly addressing, but they still struggled to
follow what he called for.
Because of my background, I think I understand it. It seems like Americans are
increasingly arming themselves in order to protect themselves. I suppose that is
understandable too. Our government isn’t doing much to protect us, we can’t seem to
pass legislation that might help the cause (and the legislation that’s proposed is up for
debate anyway). The temptation is there to succumb to the fear and protect ourselves,
or support the candidate who is most likely to blow up all of our enemies (as if, for once,
violence won’t beget more violence).
That mentality, I believe, comes from the state itself. I actually think the state has, over
time, eroded the calls of Jesus and replaced it with their own. Zack Hunt called it the
end of Christianity (h/t Tim Reardon):
“It’s Christianity without discipleship, Christianity without the cross, Christianity without
Jesus Christ living and incarnate.
It no longer matters if we actually live like Jesus, so long as we agree that Christian
dogma is true.”
I agree with Hunt, vehemently. I’d like to declare his truths from a rooftop. Nothing feels
more satisfying than to rip into the modern-day Sadducees that have done little to
include peacemaking Christians who are looking to create an alternative. In my own
“peacemaking” way, I am often tempted to violently disagree with a Christian call to
violence. I want to be real, especially during Advent. I want to represent Jesus because
I’m sick of the sell outs taking up the air time.
But I’m not so sure my loud political argument is so effective. Plus, I did plenty of it with
my dad (over the very issues in this post) growing up. I think it’s time for me to stop
shouting.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve made a concerted effort to not shrink my echo chamber.
I’ve actually made a lot of friends with people who are actively serving in the military or
formerly did. It’s opened my eyes. I’m listening to all sorts of the people with a wide
variety of perspectives, many of which are different than my own, but perhaps some of
which have some truth in them. I’m not less of a peacemaker, to be sure, but I am
feeling called to be more inclusive and gentle, even with my strongest of convictions. I
do not want to create a new kind of fundamentalism. I rejected fundamentalism a long
time ago.
So my big ask is this. When you find a brother or sister who is not moving with Jesus
and his calling, gentle guide him or her to the truth (and be willing to learn from them
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too). My favorite way is including them in a cell or a Sunday meeting, but it doesn’t have
to be that. There are lots of things we can do. Maybe you can list another.
The last thing we need is a new law, dictating by a holier-than-thou thought police. Even
the most extreme people, including the IS, have their reasons for what they do.
Responding with truth and love to them may actually change their hearts. That goes to
all of our enemies; whether they are in Lynchburg or Iraq.
________
Responding to Modern-Day Sadducees
Christianity 201
May 24, 2014
Modern Sadducees & Taking the Holy Bible Literally
Even 2000 years ago there were those who declared portions of God’s law shouldn’t be
taken literally. They were the counterparts to today’s Liberal Protestants. Who were
they? Why they were the infamous Sadducees!
They ran things in the Temple. They were the money changers, wealthy and corrupt.
They outwardly hated the Romans but secretly cut deals with them. They had a low
view of the Hebrew Bible accepting only the parts of it they watered down. They
questioned or rejected the writings of the prophets. They had a secret admiration for
Greek philosophy. In short they were the rationalist, liberal theologians of their day.
They didn’t believe in miracles, the virgin birth, the Christ’s resurrection, nor in angels,
the Holy Spirit, or Hell.
Like the Sadducees modern day Liberal Protestants, or Pseudo Christians, teach that
the bible is filled with myths. They deny the infallibility of scripture and in effect undercut
the authority of the Gospel they say they believe. They reject that Hell is eternal, or that
non-believers will go there. They promote universalism believing there are many ways
to paradise which leads to things like abortion and homosexuality.
Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, despised and condemned them then as He will do to all
like them now. Don’t be caught dead siding or following anyone who calls or implies
that God is a liar or believing their answer to the question: “Should we take the Holy
Bible literally?”
Below are a few of the dominate criticisms to the word of God with all responses from
Dr. Curt D. Daniel, pastor of Faith Bible Church, of Springfield, Illinois,
faithbibleonline.net
“The Bible contains many errors. It is neither infallible nor inerrant.” But: Jesus
said, “Thy Word is truth” (John 17:17) and “Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35).
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The Bible testifies of its own essential truth. “The sum of Thy Word is truth” (Psa.
119:160). “Thou art God and Thy Words are truth” (2 Sam. 7:28). It is the Word of “God
who cannot lie” (Tit. 1:2). Every Word of God is pure (Psa. 12:6), and “Thy Word is very
pure” (Psa. 119:140). It is “the Word of truth” (Psa. 119:43; 2 Cor. 6:7; 2 Tim. 2:15).
“Thy Word is true from the beginning”, that is, from eternity (Psa. 119:160). It is purer
than refined gold (Psa. 18:30, 19:8, 10; 2 Sam. 22:31). God says of His Bible, “These
words are faithful and true” (Rev. 21:5). It is infallible and inerrant in all areas, earthly
as well as spiritual (John 3:12). To deny the inherent truth and inerrancy of Scripture is
to call God a liar (I John 5:12). Those who do are the liars.
“The Bible contradicts itself.” But: Truth never contradicts truth. There are many
paradoxes and mysteries in Scripture (e.g., Mark 8:35; John 11:25-26), but not a single
contradiction, either in doctrine, history or principle. God is a God of order, not confusion
(I Cor. 14:33). Contradiction is confusion. Liberals are in mental confusion because they
contradict Scripture and imagine contradictions in the Bible.
“The Bible contains myths, sagas, legends and fairy tales. We need to demythologize
the Bible”. But Christianity would be the true religion even if all of its
teachings were non-historical myths.” But: This is the very heart of Liberalism, what
Gordon Clark exposed as “doctrine without facts.” Scripture itself warns against myths (I
Tim. 1:4, 4:7; Tit. 1:14; 2 Pet. 1:16). Scripture contains no myths or other such lore. It is
all historically true. If it were not, then we would be hopelessly lost in our sins (I Cor.
15). Liberalism is the real mythology and we need to remove it from us.
“The Bible is a collection of old campfire stories told by old Jewish nomads,-
retold and reshaped for centuries until someone wrote them down in a form
vaguely resembling the original story.” But: The Bible nowhere teaches such
nonsense. It is a total fabrication and romantic skepticism. The idea of “campfire stories”
is that of myths and legends. Scripture also warns against “old wives’ tales” (I Tim. 4:7)
– the gender equivalent of old men’s campfire stories. Instead, God spoke through
dreams, visions and even angels (Heb. 1:1-2), not through the superstitious ramblings
of desert nomads. By contrast, Liberal theories closely resemble those tall tales.
“The use of the Bible as the final authority is bibliolatry (book-worship).” But: All
theories are to be tested by Scripture and Scripture alone (I Thess. 5:21). The Bereans
were commended for this (Acts 17:11). Jesus Himself appealed to the Bible as the final
authority of truth (Matt 4, 22:29; John 10:35). There is no higher authority than God.
Since Scripture is the Word of God, it alone is the highest authority to which we can
appeal. “Thus saith the Lord” and “It is written” settle a matter. The Bible is no “paper
pope”, as Liberals scoff. It is the Word of God.
“The Bible contains the Word of God, but is not the Word of God itself.” But: This
is not taught in the Bible. The Bible says that it is the Word of God, not merely contains
it. A cup can contain coffee without being coffee. The very nature of Scripture is that it
is the very Word of God, not the word of Man (cf. I Thess. 2:13).
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“The Bible becomes the Word of God when we believe it.” But: Scripture does not
say that it “becomes” the Word of God. It is already the Word of God whether anyone
believes in it or not. We merely need faith and illumination to believe what it already is
(cf. Rom. 10:17; Eph. 1:17-18). But our faith cannot make it what it is not already by
nature.
“The Bible bears witness to the Word of God, but is not the Word of God
itself.” But: This too is not what Scripture says about itself. The Bible is God’s Word!
Liberals often say that God’s “saving acts in history” are alone the Word-of God, to
which the Bible witnesses. It is correct that in these special acts and miracles, God
communicates to Man. But they are not verbal communication. Scripture alone is the
verbal Word of God and takes precedence even over miracles (Luke 16:31).
“Jesus, not the Bible, is the Word of God.” But: It is not a matter of either/or but
both/and: Jesus is the personal, incarnate Word of God (John 1:1, 14; Rev. 19:13). But
Jesus Himself also referred to the Bible as the Word of God (Matt. 4:4; John 10:35,
17:17). Jesus testified to Scripture, and in turn Scripture testifies to Jesus (Luke 24:44,
46; Acts 10:43; John 5:46). Liberals would reject both testimonies.
“The Bible is ‘a Word of God’ together with preaching.” But: Only the inspired
preaching of the prophets and apostles could ever be considered ‘a Word of God’
comparable to Scripture, and even then they based their preaching on special divine
revelation. We do not receive this direct divine revelation any more (cf. Heb. 1:1-2), and
so our preaching is qualitatively different from Scripture. It is used by God only insofar
as it is faithful to the message of Scripture. Liberal preaching is not even that.
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V. Mind Control
Brainwashing
Brainwashing (also known as mind control, menticide, coercive persuasion, thought
control, thought reform, and re-education) is the concept that the human mind can be
altered or controlled by certain psychological techniques. Brainwashing is said to reduce
its subject's ability to think critically or independently, to allow the introduction of new,
unwanted thoughts and ideas into the subject's mind, as well as to change his or her
attitudes, values, and beliefs.
The concept of brainwashing was originally developed in the 1950s to explain how the
Chinese government appeared to make people cooperate with them. Advocates of the
concept also looked at Nazi Germany, at some criminal cases in the United States, and
at the actions of human traffickers. It was later applied by Margaret Singer, Philip
Zimbardo, and some others in the anti-cult movement to explain conversions to some
new religious movements and other groups. This resulted in scientific and legal debate
with Eileen Barker, James Richardson, and other scholars, as well as legal experts,
rejecting at least the popular understanding of brainwashing.
The concept of brainwashing is sometimes involved in legal cases, especially regarding
child custody; and is also a theme in science fiction and in criticism of modern political
and corporate culture. Although the term appears in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) of the American Psychiatric
Association brainwashing is not accepted as scientific fact and has sometimes been
characterized as pseudo-scientific.
China and the Korean War
The Chinese term xǐnăo ( 洗 脑 ,"wash brain") was originally used to describe the
coercive persuasion used under the Maoist government in China, which aimed to
transform "reactionary" people into "right-thinking" members of the new Chinese social
system. The term punned on the Taoist custom of "cleansing / washing the heart / mind"
(xǐxīn, 洗 心 ) before conducting ceremonies or entering holy places.
The Oxford English Dictionary records the earliest known English-language usage of
the word "brainwashing" in an article by newspaperman Edward Hunter, in Miami News,
published on 24 September 1950. Hunter was an outspoken anticommunist and was
alleged to be a CIA agent working undercover as a journalist. Hunter and others used
the Chinese term to explain why, during the Korean War (1950-1953), some American
prisoners of war (POWs) cooperated with their Chinese captors, even in a few cases
defected to their side. British radio operator Robert W. Ford and British army Colonel
James Carne also claimed that the Chinese subjected them to brainwashing techniques
during their imprisonment.
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The U.S. military and government laid charges of brainwashing in an effort to undermine
confessions made by POWs to war crimes, including biological warfare. After Chinese
radio broadcasts claimed to quote Frank Schwable, Chief of Staff of the First Marine Air
Wing admitting to participating in germ warfare, United Nations commander Gen. Mark
W. Clark asserted:
Whether these statements ever passed the lips of these unfortunate men is doubtful. If
they did, however, too familiar are the mind-annihilating methods of these Communists
in extorting whatever words they want .... The men themselves are not to blame, and
they have my deepest sympathy for having been used in this abominable way.
Beginning in 1953, Robert Jay Lifton interviewed American servicemen who had been
POWs during the Korean War as well as priests, students, and teachers who had been
held in prison in China after 1951. In addition to interviews with 25 Americans and
Europeans, Lifton interviewed 15 Chinese citizens who had fled after having been
subjected to indoctrination in Chinese universities. (Lifton's 1961 book Thought Reform
and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of "Brainwashing" in China, was based on this
research.) Lifton found that when the POWs returned to the United States their thinking
soon returned to normal, contrary to the popular image of "brainwashing."
In 1956, after reexamining the concept of brainwashing following the Korean War, the
U.S. Army published a report entitled Communist Interrogation, Indoctrination, and
Exploitation of Prisoners of War, which called brainwashing a "popular misconception".
The report concludes that "exhaustive research of several government agencies failed
to reveal even one conclusively documented case of 'brainwashing' of an American
prisoner of war in Korea."
American Governmental Research
For 20 years starting in the early 1950s, the United States Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) and the United States Department of Defense conducted secret research,
including Project MKUltra, in an attempt to develop practical brainwashing techniques;
the results are unknown (see also Sidney Gottlieb). CIA experiments using various
psychedelic drugs such as LSD and Mescaline drew from Nazi human experimentation.
Criminal and Civil Cases
The concept of brainwashing has been raised in the defense of criminal charges. It has
also been raised in child custody cases. The 1969 to 1971 case of Charles Manson,
who was said to have brainwashed his followers to commit murder and other crimes,
brought the issue to renewed public attention.
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Plagio
Italy has had controversy over the concept of plagio, a crime consisting in an absolute
psychological—and eventually physical—domination of a person. The effect is said to
be the annihilation of the subject's freedom and self-determination and the consequent
negation of his or her personality. The crime of plagio has rarely been prosecuted in
Italy, and only one person was ever convicted. In 1981, an Italian court found that the
concept is imprecise, lacks coherence, and is liable to arbitrary application.
The Brainwashing Defense
In 1974, Patty Hearst, a member of the wealthy Hearst family, was kidnapped by the
Symbionese Liberation Army, a left-wing militant organization. After several weeks of
captivity she agreed to join the group and took part in their activities. In 1975, she was
arrested and charged with bank robbery and use of a gun in committing a felony. Her
attorney, F. Lee Bailey, argued in her trial that she should not be held responsible for
her actions since her treatment by her captors was the equivalent of the alleged
brainwashing of Korean War POWs (see also Diminished responsibility). Bailey
developed his case in conjunction with psychiatrist Louis Jolyon West and psychologist
Margaret Singer. They had both studied the experiences of Korean War POWs. (In
1996 Singer published her theories in her best-selling book Cults in Our Midst.) Despite
this Hearst was found guilty.
In United States v. Fishman (1990), Steven Fishman was a member of the Church of
Scientology when, between 1983 and 1988, he conducted a fraudulent scheme to sue
large corporations via conspiring with minority stockholders in shareholder class action
lawsuits. Afterwards, Fishman would sign settlements that left those stockholders
empty-handed. Two months after being indicted on 11 counts of mail fraud, Fishman's
attorney notified the court that they intended to rely on an insanity defense, using the
theories of brainwashing and the expert witnesses of Singer and Richard Ofshe to claim
that the Church of Scientology had practiced brainwashing on him and those practices
left him unsuitable to make independent decisions. The court ruled that the use of
brainwashing theories is inadmissible in expert witnesses, citing the Frye standard,
which states that scientific theories utilized by expert witnesses must be generally
accepted in their respective fields.
In 2003, the brainwashing defense was used unsuccessfully in the defense of Lee Boyd
Malvo, who was charged with murder for his part in the D.C. sniper attacks.
Some legal scholars have argued that the brainwashing defense undermines the law's
fundamental premise of free will. In 2003, forensic psychologist Dick Anthony said that
"no reasonable person would question that there are situations where people can be
influenced against their best interests, but those arguments are evaluated on the basis
of fact, not bogus expert testimony."
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Human Trafficking
Kathleen Barry, co-founder of the United Nations NGO, the Coalition Against Trafficking
in Women (CATW), in her 1979 book Female Sexual Slavery prompted international
awareness of human sex trafficking. In his 1986 book Woman Abuse: Facts Replacing
Myths Lewis Okun reported that: "Kathleen Barry shows in Female Sexual Slavery that
forced female prostitution involves coercive control practices very similar to thought
reform." In their 1996 book, Casting Stones: Prostitution and Liberation in Asia and the
United States, Rita Nakashima Brock and Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite report that the
methods commonly used by pimps to control their victims "closely resemble the
brainwashing techniques of terrorists and paranoid cults."
Some of the techniques used by traffickers include feigning love and concern for the
victims' well-being to gain trust before beginning to track, manipulate and control the
entire life of the victim, including environment, relationships, access to information and
daily activities, promises of lucrative employment or corrupt marriage proposals, debt
bondage, kidnapping, induced drug dependency and fear tactics such as threats about
law enforcement, deportation, and harm to friends or family members. Physical
captivity, shame, Stockholm syndrome, traumatic bonding and fear of arrest can
contribute to victims’ inability to seek assistance.
Anti-Cult Movement
In the 1970s, the anti-cult movement applied the concept of brainwashing to explain
seemingly sudden and dramatic religious conversions to various new religious
movements (NRMs) and other groups that they considered cults. News media reports
tended to support the brainwashing view and social scientists sympathetic to the anticult
movement, who were usually psychologists, developed revised models of mind
control. While some psychologists were receptive to the concept, sociologists were for
the most part skeptical of its ability to explain conversion to NRMs.
Philip Zimbardo defined mind control as "the process by which individual or collective
freedom of choice and action is compromised by agents or agencies that modify or
distort perception, motivation, affect, cognition or behavioral outcomes," and he
suggested that any human being is susceptible to such manipulation. Another adherent
to this view, Jean-Marie Abgrall was heavily criticized by forensic psychologist Dick
Anthony for employing a pseudo-scientific approach and lacking any evidence that
anyone's worldview was substantially changed by these coercive methods. On the
contrary, the concept and the fear surrounding it was used as a tool for the anti-cult
movement to rationalize the persecution of minority religious groups.
Eileen Barker criticized the concept of mind control because it functioned to justify costly
interventions such as deprogramming or exit counseling. She has also criticized some
mental health professionals, including Singer, for accepting expert witness jobs in court
cases involving NRMs. Her 1984 book, The Making of a Moonie: Choice or
Brainwashing? describes the religious conversion process to the Unification Church
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(whose members are sometimes informally referred to as Moonies), which had been
one of the best known groups said to practice brainwashing. Barker spent close to
seven years studying Unification Church members. She interviewed in depth or gave
probing questionnaires to church members, ex-members, "non-joiners" and control
groups of uninvolved people from similar backgrounds, as well as parents, spouses and
friends of members. She also attended numerous church workshops and communal
facilities. Barker writes that she rejects the "brainwashing" theory, because it explains
neither the many people who attended a recruitment meeting and did not become
members, nor the voluntary disaffiliation of members.
James Richardson observed that if the new religious movements had access to
powerful brainwashing techniques, one would expect that they would have high growth
rates, yet in fact most have not had notable success in recruitment. Most adherents
participate for only a short time, and the success in retaining members is limited. For
this and other reasons, sociologists of religion including David Bromley and Anson
Shupe consider the idea that "cults" are brainwashing American youth to be
"implausible." In addition, Thomas Robbins, Massimo Introvigne, Lorne Dawson,
Gordon Melton, Marc Galanter, and Saul Levine, amongst other scholars researching
NRMs, have argued and established to the satisfaction of courts, relevant professional
associations and scientific communities that there exists no generally accepted scientific
theory, based upon methodologically sound research, that supports the concept of
brainwashing as advanced by the anti-cult movement.
Benjamin Zablocki responded that brainwashing is not "a process that is directly
observable," and that the "real sociological issue" is whether "brainwashing occurs
frequently enough to be considered an important social problem", and that Richardson
misunderstands brainwashing, conceiving of it as a recruiting process, instead of a
retaining process, and that the number of people who attest to brainwashing in
interviews (performed in accordance with guidelines of the National Institute of Mental
Health and National Science Foundation) is too large result from anything other than a
genuine phenomenon. Zablocki also pointed out that in the two most prestigious
journals dedicated to the sociology of religion there have been no articles "supporting
the brainwashing perspective," while over one hundred such articles have been
published in other journals "marginal to the field." He concludes that the concept of
brainwashing has been unfairly blacklisted.
Families of cult followers have attempted to utilize brainwashing theories to satisfy
conservatorship statutory guidelines. Conservatorship is a court case in the United
States that grants a responsible person custody over another adult who cannot care for
herself or himself, either financially and/or in daily life, due to physical and/or mental
limitations. Typically, conservatorship cases involved the elderly, mainly those suffering
from dementia-related illnesses. However, conservatorship cases involving younger
adults and their participation in new religious movements increased during the mid-
1970s, with many of those U.S. judges granting temporary conservatorships to family
members of cult followers. The usage of brainwashing theories in conservatorship
cases was deemed inadmissible as a result of the Katz v. Superior Court (1977) ruling.
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The ruling implied that the statutory guideline for conservatorships only referred to
"needs of health, food, clothing, and shelter" and that investigating if conversion is
"induced by faith or by coercive persuasion is ... not in turn investigating and
questioning the validity of that faith." In 2016, Israeli anthropologist of religion and fellow
at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute Adam Klin-Oron said about then-proposed "anticult"
legislation:
In the 1980s there was a wave of ‘brainwashing’ claims, and then parliaments around
the world examined the issue, courts around the world examined the issue, and reached
a clear ruling: That there is no such thing as cults…that the people making these claims
are often not experts on the issue. And in the end courts, including in Israel, rejected
expert witnesses who claimed there is "brainwashing."
American Psychological Association on Brainwashing
In 1983, the American Psychological Association (APA) asked Singer to chair a
taskforce called the APA Task Force on Deceptive and Indirect Techniques of
Persuasion and Control (DIMPAC) to investigate whether brainwashing or coercive
persuasion did indeed play a role in recruitment by NRMs. It came to the following
conclusion:
Cults and large group awareness trainings have generated considerable controversy
because of their widespread use of deceptive and indirect techniques of persuasion and
control. These techniques can compromise individual freedom, and their use has
resulted in serious harm to thousands of individuals and families. This report reviews
the literature on this subject, proposes a new way of conceptualizing influence
techniques, explores the ethical ramifications of deceptive and indirect techniques of
persuasion and control, and makes recommendations addressing the problems
described in the report.
On 11 May 1987, the APA's Board of Social and Ethical Responsibility for Psychology
(BSERP) rejected the DIMPAC report because the report "lacks the scientific rigor and
evenhanded critical approach necessary for APA imprimatur", and concluded that "after
much consideration, BSERP does not believe that we have sufficient information
available to guide us in taking a position on this issue."
Other Areas and Studies
Russian historian Daniel Romanovsky, who interviewed survivors and eyewitnesses in
the 1970s, reported on what he called "Nazi brainwashing" of the people of Belarus by
the occupying Germans during the Second World War, which took place through both
mass propaganda and intense re-education, especially in schools. Romanovsky noted
that very soon most people had adopted the Nazi view that the Jews were an inferior
race and were closely tied to the Soviet government, views that had not been at all
common before the German occupation.
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Joost Meerloo, a Dutch psychiatrist, was an early proponent of the concept of
brainwashing. ("Menticide" is a neologism coined by him meaning: "killing of the mind.")
Meerloo's view was influenced by his experiences during the German occupation of his
country and his work with the Dutch government and the American military in the
interrogation of accused Nazi war criminals. He later emigrated to the United States and
taught at Columbia University. His best-selling 1956 book, The Rape of the Mind,
concludes by saying:
The modern techniques of brainwashing and menticide—those perversions of
psychology—can bring almost any man into submission and surrender. Many of the
victims of thought control, brainwashing, and menticide that we have talked about were
strong men whose minds and wills were broken and degraded. But although the
totalitarians use their knowledge of the mind for vicious and unscrupulous purposes, our
democratic society can and must use its knowledge to help man to grow, to guard his
freedom, and to understand himself.
In his 2000 book, Destroying the World to Save It: Aum Shinrikyo, Apocalyptic Violence,
and the New Global Terrorism, Robert Lifton applied his original ideas about thought
reform to Aum Shinrikyo and the War on Terrorism, concluding that in this context
thought reform was possible without violence or physical coercion. He also pointed out
that in their efforts against terrorism Western governments were also using some mind
control techniques, including thought-terminating clichés.
In her 2004 popular science book, Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control,
neuroscientist and physiologist Kathleen Taylor reviewed the history of mind control
theories, as well as notable incidents. She suggests that persons under its influence
have more rigid neurological pathways, and that can make it more difficult to rethink
situations or be able to later reorganize these pathways. Reviewers praised her book for
its clear presentation, while some criticized it for oversimplification.
Some scholars have said that modern business corporations practice mind control to
create a work force that shares common values and culture. Critics have linked
"corporate brainwashing" with globalization, saying that corporations are attempting to
create a worldwide monocultural network of producers, consumers, and managers.
Modern educational systems have also been criticized, by both the left and the right, for
contributing to corporate brainwashing. In his 1992 book, Democracy in an Age of
Corporate Colonization, Stanley A. Deetz says that modern "self awareness" and "self
improvement" programs provide corporations with even more effective tools to control
the minds of employees than traditional brainwashing.
In Popular Culture
In George Orwell's 1949 dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four the main character is
subjected to imprisonment, isolation, and torture in order to conform his thoughts and
emotions to the wishes of the rulers of Orwell's fictional future totalitarian society.
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Orwell's vision influenced Hunter and is still reflected in the popular understanding of the
concept of brainwashing.
In the 1950s many American films were made that featured brainwashing of POWs,
including The Rack, The Bamboo Prison, Toward the Unknown, and The Fearmakers.
The film Forbidden Area told the story of Soviet secret agents who had been
brainwashed through classical conditioning by their own government so they wouldn't
reveal their identities. In 1962 The Manchurian Candidate (based on the 1959 novel by
Richard Condon) "put brainwashing front and center" by featuring a plot by the Soviet
government to take over the United States by use of a brainwashed presidential
candidate. The concept of brainwashing became popularly associated with the research
of Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov, which mostly involved dogs, not humans, as
subjects. In The Manchurian Candidate the head brainwasher is Dr. Yen Lo, of the
Pavlov Institute.
The science fiction stories of Cordwainer Smith (written from the 1940s until his death in
1966) depict brainwashing to remove memories of traumatic events as a normal and
benign part of future medical practice. Mind control remains an important theme in
science fiction. Terry O'Brien comments: "Mind control is such a powerful image that if
hypnotism did not exist, then something similar would have to have been invented: The
plot device is too useful for any writer to ignore. The fear of mind control is equally as
powerful an image." A subgenre is corporate mind control, in which a future society is
run by one or more business corporations that dominate society using advertising and
mass media to control the population's thoughts and feelings.
________
The Covert Strategies of the False Revival
PART TWO: Mind Control Tactics
"Are Churches using a form of Brainwashing
to alter the minds of Believers?"
In part two of this study, I plan to examine some mind-control tactics as reported by anticult
organizations and other interested parties, and to show how these tactics are the
very methods now being used to indoctrinate people into the New Order.
First, a couple of definitions of mind-control. See this statement from, "Coercive Mind
Control Tactics - A Short Overview", which says: "Coercion is defined by the
American Heritage Dictionary as:
1. To force to act or think in a certain manner,
2. To dominate, restrain, or control by force,
3. To bring about by force."
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The FACTNet definition is useful:
"Mind control" refers to all coercive psychological systems, such as brainwashing,
thought reform, and coercive persuasion. Mind control is the shaping of a person's
attitudes, beliefs, and personality without the person's knowledge or consent. Mind
control employs deceptive and surreptitious manipulation, usually in a group setting, for
the financial or political [or religious!] profit of the manipulator.
Notice this further statement from the above document:
"Mind control works by gradually exerting increasing CONTROL over individuals
through a variety of techniques..."
Ronald Enroth (author of "Churches That Abuse") has this to say about dysfunctional
churches:
"What are the hallmarks of unhealthy, aberrant churches? The key indicator is control
oriented leadership, ministers who have a need to "lord it over the flock." Abusive leaders
demand submission and unquestioning loyalty. The person who raises uncomfortable
questions or does not "get with the program" is cast aside. Guilt, fear, and intimidation
are used to manipulate and control vulnerable members, especially those who have been
taught to believe that questioning their pastor is comparable to questioning God. ... How
can we recognize a healthy church? In addition to matters of appropriate doctrine, a
healthy church is reconciling and restorative, not adversarial and elitist. Members of
healthy churches seek to deepen and strengthen their family commitments. Legitimate
leaders will welcome dissent and hard questions from members without threat of reprisal.
Trustworthy leaders will encourage accountability and they will establish checks and
balances."
Therefore, mind-control techniques are totally at odds with genuine Christian teaching.
God makes his appeal to the mind and heart of a person without pressure, coercion or
control. God asks for a thoughtful, reasoned, perceptive response to his truths, not the
knee-jerk reaction of a slave.
Only man is interested in creating automatons that are programmed to act, think and
believe alike, and are forbidden to exercise their critical faculties. Only man is interested
in dominating others for his own benefit. Only man will turn to domination, threat, control
or secretive mental techniques to alter the minds of his listeners. These are not the
methods that God uses!
What are the differences between genuine teaching or evangelism and thought-reform,
or mind-control? These paragraphs come from a FACTNet document:
"A coercive persuasion program is a behavioral change technology applied to cause the
"learning" and "adoption" of a set of behaviors or an ideology under certain conditions. It
is distinguished from other forms of benign social learning or peaceful persuasion by the
conditions under which it is conducted and by the techniques of environmental and
interpersonal manipulation employed to suppress particular behaviors and to train others.
Over time, coercive persuasion, a psychological force akin in some ways to our legal
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concepts of undue influence, can be even MORE effective than pain, torture, drugs, and
use of physical force and legal threats...
".. The relationship between the person and the coercive persuasion tactics are dynamic
in that while the force of the pressures, rewards, and punishments brought to bear on the
person are considerable, they do not lead to a stable, meaningfully SELF-CHOSEN
reorganization of beliefs or attitudes. Rather, they lead to a sort of coerced compliance
and a situationally required elaborate rationalization, for the new conduct.
"... Truly peaceful religious persuasion practices would never attempt to force, compel
and dominate the free wills or minds of its members through coercive behavioral
techniques or covert hypnotism. They would have no difficulty coexisting peacefully with
U.S. laws meant to protect the public from such practices.
"But appearing to be 'peaceful persuasion' is precisely what makes coercive persuasion
less likely to attract attention or to mobilize opposition. It is also part of what makes it
such a devastating control technology. Victims of coercive persuasion have no signs of
physical abuse, convincing rationalizations for the radical or abrupt changes in their
behavior, a convincing "sincerity, and they have been changed so gradually that they
don't oppose it because they usually aren't even aware of it." ('How Does Mind Control
work', from FACTNet.org - see all links below)
Already is it becoming apparent that compulsion, pressure, threats, and domination are
the methodologies of mind control, and we see these very tactics employed in many
churches today!
Do Churches Use Coercion?
Apart from the central, most obvious, pointer to abusive church systems - controlling
leadership - we can see some further indicators of the use of mind control as we
examine a textbook on the subject and compare its findings with common practise in
revival churches.
When I did so, I was disturbed to discover that every one of the tactics employed by
mind-control experts outside the churches (i.e., in politics, cults or military intelligence)
was also apparent in the churches! Could this be a coincidence or is it proof that a
subtle brainwashing is taking place in order to implant the new, unbiblical, doctrines of
the Global Church?
Below is part of a document called "Coercive Mind Control Tactics: A Short
Overview". I think you will agree that we can see almost all of the tactics listed at work
in the churches.
"Coercive psychological systems are behavioral change programs which use
psychological force in a coercive way to cause the learning and adoption of an ideology
or designated set of beliefs, ideas, attitudes, or behaviors. ...In such a program the
subject is forced to adapt in a series of tiny "invisible" steps. Each tiny step is designed
to be sufficiently small so the subjects will not notice the changes in themselves or
identify the coercive nature of the processes being used.
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"The coercive psychological influence of these programs aim to overcome the
individual's critical thinking abilities and free will - apart from any appeal to informed
judgment. Victims gradually lose their ability to make independent decisions and
exercise informed consent. Their critical thinking, defenses, cognitive processes,
values, ideas, attitudes, conduct and ability to reason are undermined by a
technological process rather than by meaningful free choice, rationality, or the inherent
merit or value of the ideas or propositions being presented."
I think I can say without fear of contradiction that the hallmark of the revival has been a
"submit now, think later" strategy, designed to achieve the very condition described
above.
One of the most difficult aspects of the revival that believers have had to face is the
constant pressure to abandon their critical abilities and to accept the manifestations,
power and doctrine at face value, simply on the say-so of their leaders. Not only is this
inimical to biblical doctrine, but it is a technique much more suited to mind control than
Christian preaching or teaching.
Stories are legion of the leaders passing judgement on anyone who dares to question
the revival doctrines or activities; many have been the reports from those who were
branded as blasphemers or driven out of their fellowships for exercising caution and
stopping to examine what was going on, rather than check their brains at the door.
The cry goes up "submit! submit!" and all who do not are immediately suspect.
Just as in cults, mindlessness and passivity is encouraged among the revival followers.
Believers are urged to "clear your minds; make your minds blank - just receive". On the
contrary, God urges us to fully use our minds, to test the spirits, to pore over doctrines
to see if they be according to his word, and never, never to become a passive
automaton willing to accept everything we hear or are commanded to do.
Above all, I feel, it has been the willingness of Christians to be unthinkingly led by those
claiming to be in authority over them that has opened the way for massive deception in
the churches.
MIND CONTROL TACTICS
The article cited above is not a Christian one, but was reportedly used to make the US
Government aware of the coercive activities of certain cults and secular groups. It made
the observation that physical acts of coercion formerly used by the military, etc., - such
as deprivation, pain, imprisonment, threat and torture - were now seen as a LESS
effective method than the psychological tactics seen listed below.
In other words, when any group, or any government, needs to slowly alter the beliefs
and thoughts of the populace, they can effectively do this without harming or alarming
anyone, without incurring legal penalties, and while being supported and funded by
those very people whom it seeks to enslave!
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Not only is this a perfect tool, therefore, in the hands of the New World Order, but it is
being employed to change the very structure, belief-system and goal of the Church on a
global scale! We had better sit up and take notice!
Let's examine the seven tactics of mind control, as reported in the same article.
TACTIC 1 - Increase suggestibility and "soften up" the individual through specific
hypnotic or other suggestibility-increasing techniques such as: extended audio, visual,
verbal, or tactile fixation drills; excessive repetition of routine activities; sleep restriction
and/or nutritional restriction.
TACTIC 2 - Establish control over the person's social environment, time and sources of
social support by a system of often-excessive rewards and punishments. Social
isolation is promoted. Contact with family and friends is abridged, as is contact with
persons who do not share group-approved attitudes. Economic and other dependence
on the group is fostered.
TACTIC 3 - Prohibit opposing information and non supporting opinions in group
communication. Rules exist about permissible topics to discuss with outsiders.
Communication is highly controlled. An "in-group" language is usually constructed.
TACTIC 4 - Make the person re-evaluate the most central aspects of his or her
experience of self and prior conduct in negative ways. Efforts are designed to
destabilize and undermine the subject's basic consciousness, reality awareness, world
view, emotional control and defense mechanisms. The subject is guided to reinterpret
his or her life's history and adopt a new version of causality.
TACTIC 5 - Create a sense of powerlessness by subjecting the person to intense and
frequent actions and situations which undermine the person's confidence in himself and
his judgment.
TACTIC 6 - Create strong aversive emotional arousals in the subject by use of
nonphysical punishments such as intense humiliation, loss of privilege, social isolation,
social status changes, intense guilt, anxiety, manipulation and other techniques.
TACTIC 7 - Intimidate the person with the force of group-sanctioned secular
psychological threats. For example, it may be suggested or implied that failure to adopt
the approved attitude, belief or consequent behavior will lead to severe punishment or
dire consequences such as physical or mental illness, the reappearance of a prior
physical illness, drug dependence, economic collapse, social failure, divorce,
disintegration, failure to find a mate, etc.
At once it will become clear that churches are using psychological coercion on a major
scale!
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Drumming Up Support
Commenting on Tactic One, the use of "softening up" activities, we need look no further
than the meetings in which the new doctrines are peddled and the spirit behind those
doctrines is made available to all who will receive it. The clever use of music,
atmospheric lighting, the alteration of mood, crowd control, astounding testimonies to
raise expectation, the noise, chaos, lack of time for reflection or thought - all this and
more has been noticed by revival watchers.
Many cannot find the "presence of God" now without music, or outside of the meeting.
They are drunk on the hype and excitement. But is it really the presence of GOD that is
summoned by such activities?
Rodney Howard Browne's meetings are one perfect example of a scripted performance
running to a definite plan and using every technique in the book to manipulate his
listeners. It is a mesmeric performance carefully and minutely staged to best effect. If
RHB encounters any interruption or surprise to the proceedings, or if his backup team
fail to act on cue, then his anger quickly shows. (One wonders how the man would fare
in a foreign country unused to such things, without the stage, the music, the script and
the backup team.)
Music has become the most powerful tool for softening up the minds of believers to
receive the message. One writer whose brainwashing document can be found all over
the Internet is the late Dick Sutphen, an intensely anti-Christian holistic practitioner. His
article was written in an attempt to explain Christian conversion as the result of mind
control. However, his comments on the activities of some Christian groups are worth
repeating:
"Go to the church or tent early and sit in the rear, about three-quarters of the way back.
Most likely repetitive music will be played while the people come in for the service. A
repetitive beat, ideally ranging from 45 to 72 beats per minute (a rhythm close to the
beat of the human heart), is very hypnotic and can generate an eyes-open altered state
of consciousness in a very high percentage of people. And, once you are in an alpha
state, you are at least 25 times as suggestible as you would be in full beta
consciousness....
"Before I continue, let me point out something else about an altered state of
consciousness. When you go into an altered state, you transfer into right brain, which
results in the internal release of the body's own opiates: enkephalins and Betaendorphins,
chemically almost identical to opium. In other words, it feels good...and you
want to come back for more...
"...The use of hypnotic techniques by religions is sophisticated, and professionals are
ensuring that they become even more effective. A man in Los Angeles is designing,
building, and reworking a lot of churches around the country. He tells ministers what
they need and how to use it. This man's track record indicates that the congregation and
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the monetary income will double if the minister follows his instructions. He admits that
about 80 percent of his efforts are in the sound system and lighting.
"Powerful sound and the proper use of lighting are of primary importance in inducing an
altered state of consciousness...
"But let me inject a word of warning here: If you think you can attend such gatherings
and not be affected, you are probably wrong. A perfect example is the case of a woman
who went to Haiti on a Guggenheim Fellowship to study Haitian Voodoo. In her report,
she related how the music eventually induced uncontrollable bodily movement and an
altered state of consciousness. Although she understood the process and thought
herself above it, when she began to feel herself become vulnerable to the music, she
attempted to fight it and turned away. Anger or resistance almost always assures
conversion. A few moments later she was possessed by the music and began dancing
in a trance around the Voodoo meeting house. A brain phase had been induced by the
music and excitement, and she awoke feeling reborn. ...The only hope of attending such
gatherings without being affected is to be a 'buddha' and allow no positive or negative
emotions to surface. Few people are capable of such detachment.
"There are three primary techniques used for thought stopping [to halt rational
examination of what is going on]. The first is marching: the thump, thump, thump beat
literally generates self-hypnosis and thus great susceptibility to suggestion.
The second thought stopping technique is meditation. ...The third thought-stopping
technique is chanting, and often chanting in meditation. "Speaking in tongues" could
also be included in this category."
Once again, these words are strikingly illustrative of many charismatic revival meetings.
The April 27th 1997 issue of the Washington Post contained a 4000-word feature article
on the revival. Post staff writer Peter Carlson gave an eyewitness account of one of the
revival meetings, explaining how the meetings begin: "It begins with a drummer laying
down a slow beat that goes on for several minutes, a steady, inescapable, portentous
heartbeat. The guitarist and the organist join in, along with a choir of several dozen
singers... From the first note, the people are up out of the pews and on their feet,
clapping in time or dancing with eyes closed, hands raised."
An eyewitness report of a performance by the "Worldwide Message Tribe" - a
Manchester-based Christian rock group that frequently visits schools and other youth
venues - speaks of the same kind of hypnotic drumming and chanting.
The eyewitness says that the rhythm was a steady beat like an African witchdoctor
chant using the bass and drum; and they chanted "Who's in the House?' to which
everybody replied, "God's in the House". They worked everyone up into a frenzy, then
chanted "jump for God/for God jump" while telling people it wasn't loud enough, or high
enough. "By this time the whole of the thousand people were hypnotised - and I mean
really hypnotised".
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At an "Awake America!" meeting in Denver (June 2, 1998), there was no message and
the preaching was replaced by frenzy. David Works, an obvious advocate of the chaos,
gleefully reported: "the drummer pounded a drum for 10 minutes while the crowd was
led in a chant of “Jesus, Jesus!”
I well remember the meeting organised by Restoration groups to introduce Celtic
theology to British Christians. The meeting was scripted, and while the script was
intoned in a portentous voice, huge screens behind the audience displayed swirling
shapes and colours, to the accompaniment of a bang, bang, bang of a single drum. Is
this Christian preaching or indoctrination?
Either 'In' or 'Out'
TACTIC 2 - Establish control over the person's social environment, time and sources of
social support by a system of often-excessive rewards and punishments. Social
isolation is promoted. Contact with family and friends is abridged, as is contact with
persons who do not share group-approved attitudes. Economic and other dependence
on the group is fostered.
TACTIC 3 - Prohibit opposing information and non supporting opinions in group
communication. Rules exist about permissible topics to discuss with outsiders.
Communication is highly controlled. An "in-group" language is usually constructed.
I think that many who have been involved as members in "restoration" or "shepherding"
fellowships as well as revivalist churches would agree that their lives were swallowed up
by the people and events such that "normal life" disappeared and all social interaction
took place with church people and in the meetings.
When the "blessing" hit Toronto Airport Church the meetings were held almost every
day and lasted for hour after frenzied hour. People were already "drunk" in the meetings
and their minds were further eroded by tiredness, constant loud music and unnerving
spiritual activities. In an atmosphere of uncertainty and chaos there was little time to
think clearly. Some were left incapacitated and could not continue their normal daily
routines, such was the bombardment to their senses.
All of this tended to remove the members from their normal environment, in which they
could have reflected on their previous life and beliefs, and made comparisons. No,
reflection and conscious choice were discouraged, and all those who were "truly
seeking God" had to "jump in the river" immediately without regard to the
consequences.
The waves of power came upon them; the leaders urged everyone to receive (or be left
behind) and under this intense pressure and haste most people caught up in the frenzy
gave into the conditioning.
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Knowing that the system worked, and that few people can withstand the onslaught of
hours of such mental pressure, the revival leaders would frequently manipulate the guiltfeelings
of their critics and say: "You cannot justify criticising the revival until you have
personally attended a meeting. Come along and then you'll see."
"I was just wondering how someone could speak of these things negatively without
experiencing them himself. I do believe in what you call "Holy Laughter" because I have
experienced it and do experience it quite often. ... Many people, when they don't
understand something, tend to criticize it, just because they don't understand it with their
mind. Here is something very important. We will never figure out God, or understand His
power shown through signs, wonders and miracles. I would encourage you and many
others to go for yourself and not just base your opinion on what others have said. When
you get into the presence of God and allow the Holy Spirit to move, things happen. We
may not understand them with our mind, but we don't need to." [e-mail in possession of
the author]
This attitude has been taught from the pulpit right from the beginning of the revival. "You
can't know anything is wrong until you experience it". Really? How do we know
spiritualism is wrong? - or adultery? - or heroin?
People do not urge you to taste the fruit because they know you'll get an opportunity to
search the scriptures and test the spirits. No, they want you to get into the revival
atmosphere charged with deceiving spirits so you'll "let it happen". They want you to
come under the pressures of mind-control and "receive"!
I know some fine ministers who started out by writing critical articles against the Toronto
Blessing, were manipulated into attending the meetings, but were caught up,
conditioned, converted to the new paradigm, received the "blessing" and thereafter
became revival addicts just like everyone else!
Alternative Information Discouraged
Members are actively discouraged from relationships outside the church, even
with family members, if they do not approve of what is going on.
The church and its leadership and goals becomes the believer's only point of reference
and anything outside of that doctrine or experience is frowned upon or actively
discouraged. Anything contrary to the "approved" doctrine is viewed as evil and
"negative". Websites, people, books, tapes and anything else that would give an
opposing viewpoint are off limits.
Anyone within the church who dares to offer opposition or to raise a question about
doctrine is publicly castigated and pilloried, and members are commanded to ostracise
them. They then find that backs are turned on them in the street, phone calls stop, and
they are considered outcasts.
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By many subtle and not-so-subtle means, those who are not totally convinced are put
down and pushed out, while only the mindlessly obedient are praised and lifted up -
becoming trusted members of staff and elders. It quickly dawns on everybody that the
way to be accepted, loved, respected and promoted is to offer blind trust and
submission to the leadership. Since most people fear exclusion, and seek love and
approval, they learn to obey. This is the "reward and punishment" system spoken of in
Tactic 2.
In watching many of Rodney Howard Browne's videos it offends me deeply that he
openly insults anyone who does not submit to his methods. Any person foolhardy
enough to sit still, read the Bible, and resist the waves of laughter is rounded upon and
publicly branded "a religious Pharisee" and when that person eventually walks out,
Browne mocks them and makes a joke at their expense.
How many of us are strong enough to withstand the critical stares and mockery of a
thousand people in a public meeting? How many of us would submit and follow the
crowd - do what we are told - rather than be branded a misfit? So, when the pressure is
applied, people submit and learn to go with the flow.
Common Cause
When John Doe experiences the revival manifestations, people "outside" no longer
seem to understand him. Only the truly "anointed" seem to have empathy for him
because they share his experiences. All the initiates commit themselves to work for the
exciting goals of restoration - they have a common cause that binds them, and nonmembers
simply "do not understand".
Therefore, to spare themselves criticism or challenge, they avoid contact with anyone
who has not shared a similar experience. Indeed, contact and conversation with those
outside quickly angers them, because their perceptions are challenged and the initiation
begins to break down. They must quickly rid themselves of opposing views, and act to
reinforce the teaching by attending yet more meetings or sharing with fellow "cultists".
All of this drives the members closely together and instills a distrust of those "outside".
I tell you, this is the word I hear the Spirit of the Lord releasing over this region. It is a
paradigm shift the Lord is bringing... I hear the Lord say that some have left
denominational, old wineskin places because you’ve been hungry for what God is doing
in this hour. ...And God says I am raising up these "Training Centers" to be places of
demonstration of what I will do...The religious systems of men will always try to bring the
true Davidic Company into bondage, with their way of doing things, but the Davidic spirit
will always reject it. [from Kingdom Restoration Centre by Robert Gay at Praise &
Worship Seminar - March 11th, 1999]
And so the circle of social interaction narrows down to the church and those within it
who are "initiated". Social events, outings, meals and other day to day happenings are
all confined to fellow church members, thus reinforcing the validity of the revival
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experience. The fact that this is a cult-like behaviour seemingly never occurs to
Christians in revival churches!
'In' Language
Buzz words are shared between all the initiates that refer to specific parts of their
common experience, developing an in-language that only they fully understand.
We have seen how scriptural terms are being reinterpreted and applied to specific parts
of the revival. Once the meaning changes, ONLY the initiates "own" that phrase.
Outsiders are not meant to share these terms; this emphasises the exclusive nature of
their doctrine and experience.
Such buzz-words abound - you only need to visit a website catering to the revival
followers to see articles and "prophecies" stuffed with terminology that has lost contact
with its scriptural roots but now refers to a 'secret and special' part of the revival plan. A
few picked at random are:
birthing
carpet-time
river-revival
eagle-saints
Davidic worship
"more, Lord"
overcomers
transition
gatekeepers
new thing
new breed
the Bride, bridal love, bridal passion
passion for Jesus
Revivalists have developed a language all of their own that marks people out as either
"in" or "out". We are no longer "just" Christians!
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VI. Abuse of Authority
Abuse of Power, in the form of "malfeasance in office" or "official misconduct," is the
commission of an unlawful act, done in an official capacity, which affects the
performance of official duties. Malfeasance in office is often grounds for a for
cause removal of an elected official by statute or recall election. Abuse of power can
also mean a person using the power they have for their own personal gain.
Institutional Abuse
Institutional abuse is the maltreatment of someone (often children or older adults) by a
system of power. This can range from acts similar to home-based child abuse, such
as neglect, physical and sexual abuse, to the effects of assistance programs working
below acceptable service standards, or relying on harsh or unfair ways to modify
behavior.
Donald Trump
Examples
After an impeachment inquiry conducted by the US House of Representatives in
2019, articles of impeachment were filed against President Donald Trump on charges of
abuse of power and obstruction of congress. On the abuse of power charge, the articles
of impeachment allege:
Using the powers of his high office, President Trump allegedly solicited the interference
of a foreign government, Ukraine, in the 2020 United States Presidential election. No
fact witness or evidence was provided only third party views on what they thought intent
was though it is alleged he did so through a scheme or course of conduct that included
soliciting the Government of Ukraine to publicly announce investigations that would
benefit his reelection, harm the election prospects of a political opponent, and influence
the 2020 United States Presidential election to his advantage.
Joe Arpaio
In February 2010, Judge John Leonardo found that Arpaio "misused the power of his
office to target members of the Board of Supervisors for criminal investigation".
In 2008, a federal grand jury began an inquiry of Arpaio for abuse of power, in
connection with an FBI investigation. On August 31, 2012, the Arizona US Attorney's
office announced that it was "closing its investigation into allegations of criminal
conduct" by Arpaio, without filing charges.
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Arpaio was investigated for politically motivated and "bogus" prosecutions, which a
former US Attorney called "utterly unacceptable". Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon has called
Arpaio's "long list" of questionable prosecutions "a reign of terror".
Fa Zheng
Fa Zheng, a Chinese man, was appointed as the Administrator ( 太 守 ) of
Shu commandery ( 蜀 郡 ) and "General Who Spreads Martial Might" ( 揚 武 將 軍 ) by Liu
Bei. He oversaw administrative affairs in the vicinity of Yi Province's
capital Chengdu and served as Liu Bei's chief adviser.
During this period of time, he abused his power by taking personal revenge against
those who offended him before and killing them without reason. Some officials
approached Zhuge Liang, another of Liu Bei's key advisers, and urged him to report Fa
Zheng's lawless behaviour to their lord and take action against him. However, Zhuge
Liang replied, "When our lord was in Gong'an ( 公 安 ), he was wary of Cao Cao's
influence in the north and fearful of Sun Quan's presence in the east. Even in home
territory he was afraid that Lady Sun might stir up trouble. He was in such a difficult
situation at the time that he could neither advance nor retreat. Fa Xiaozhi supported and
helped him so much, such that he is now able to fly high and no longer remain under
others' influence. How can we stop Fa Zheng from behaving as he wishes?" Zhuge
Liang was aware that Liu Bei favoured and trusted Fa Zheng, which was why he
refused to intervene in this matter.
Police Officers
In dictatorial, corrupt, or weak states, police officers may carry out many criminal acts
for the ruling regime with impunity.
Individual officers, or sometimes whole units, can be corrupt or carry out various forms
of police misconduct; this occasionally happens in many forces, but can be more
common where police pay is very low unless supplemented by bribes. Police officers
sometimes act with unwarranted brutality when they overreact to confrontational
situations, to extract a confession from a person they may or may not genuinely suspect
of being guilty.
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VII. Spiritual Warfare
Spiritual Warfare is the Christian concept of fighting against the work
of preternatural evil forces. It is based on the biblical belief in evil spirits, or demons, that
are said to intervene in human affairs in various ways. Various Christian groups have
adopted practices to repel such forces, as based on their doctrine of Christian
demonology. Prayer is a common form of spiritual warfare among Christians. Other
practices may include exorcism, the laying on of hands, fasting, and anointing with oil.
Doctrines of Demonology
Jewish demonology escalated with the rise of Jewish pseudepigraphic writings of the
1st Century BCE, in particular with Enochic apocrypha. Jewish apocrypha initially
influenced post-New Testament writings of the early fathers, which further defined
Christian demonology. Thus followed literary works such as The Didache, The
Shepherd of Hermas, Ignatius's epistle to the Ephesians, and Origen's Contra Celsum.
Mainstream Christianity typically acknowledge a belief in the reality
(or ontological existence) of demons, fallen angels, the Devil in Christianity and Satan.
In Christian evangelism, doctrines of demonology are influenced by interpretations of
the New Testament, namely with the Gospels, in that dealing with spirits became a
customary activity of Jesus' ministry. Mark states that "he traveled throughout Galilee,
preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons" (Mark 1:39).
Exorcisms may be promoted by evangelists referring to Jesus comment, "If I drive out
demons by the spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is upon you" (Matt.12:28; Luke
11:20).
Evangelical Christian traditions believe that Satan and his minions exercise significant
influence over this world and its power structures. A hostile realm in conflict with the
kingdom of God is recorded in the Bible by the Apostle John, "the whole world is under
the control of the evil one" (1 John 5:19) and by Jesus who referred to Satan as "the
prince of this world" (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11), which may point to the concept
of Territorial Spirits.
Paul elaborates on demonic hierarchy in Ephesians 6 where he also mentions, by way
of metaphor, those qualities needed for defense against them. Two of those articles, the
helmet of Salvation and the breastplate of Righteousness, are also mentioned in the
book of Isaiah.
It is also believed that Satan occupies a temporal existence when the Apostle
Paul refers to him as "the god of this age" (2 Cor.4:4). Further, Paul's epistles focus on
the Victory of Christ over principalities and powers. Evangelical interpretation has
history divided into two eras: the present evil age and the age to come which supports
the concept of the Second coming of Christ.
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Imagery of spiritual warfare is displayed in the Book of Revelation when after the War in
Heaven (Rev.12:7), the beasts and kings of the earth wage war against God's people
(Rev.19:19), and a final battle ensues with Satan and the nations of the earth against
God himself (Rev.20:8).
Practices in Christianity
The Spiritual Warfare (c1623), a print by Martin Droeshout depicting the devil's army
besieging a walled city held by a "Christian Soldier bold" guarded by figures
representing the Christian virtues. It has been suggested that this print may have
influenced John Bunyan to write The Holy War.
Christian practices of spiritual warfare vary throughout Christianity. The development of
specific spiritual warfare techniques has also generated many discussions in the
Christian missions community. Critical exchanges of views may be found in periodicals
like the Evangelical Missions Quarterly (such as in volume 31, number 2 published in
1995), and in conferences sponsored by the Evangelical Missions Society. In 2000, an
international collaborative attempt was made by evangelicals and charismatics in
the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization to reach some common agreement
about spiritual warfare. The conference gathered in Nairobi, Kenya, and yielded a
consultation document as well as many technical papers published as the book Deliver
Us from Evil.
Spiritual warfare has also been practiced by non-Christians and in non-Christian
countries. According to the Christian Broadcasting Network commentator Carl Moeller,
spiritual warfare is practiced even in North Korea, a country that has been described as
the most dangerous place on earth to be Christian. Non-Christian media reported on the
African spiritual warrior Pastor Thomas Muthee visit to America who prayed over a 2008
presidential candidate. The Nigerian Tribune, the oldest surviving private newspaper
in Nigeria, has published articles calling for the need for spiritual warfare. In the case of
Haiti, American televangelist Pat Robertson and others blamed the earthquake of 2010
on demons, and called for Christians to increase spiritual warfare prayer.
Expositors of spiritual warfare include Jessie Penn-Lewis, who published
the Pentecostal 1903 book, War on the Saints, prolific author Pastor Win Worley started
publishing his Hosts of Hell series in 1976, and Kurt E. Koch published Occult
ABC, which all contain elements of the concept of spiritual warfare, if not explicitly using
the expression. In 1991, C. Peter Wagner published Confronting the Powers: How the
New Testament Church Experienced the Power of Strategic-Level Spiritual Warfare and
edited Territorial Spirits. In 1992, Dr. Ed Murphy wrote a modern 600 page book on the
subject, “The Handbook of Spiritual Warfare“, from the point of view of deliverance
ministry. Laws of Deliverance, From Proverbs, 1980, 1983, 1995, 2000, 2003, written
by Marilyn A. Ellsworth, is another important Biblical work of authority, as is her
book ICBM Spiritual Warfare, God's Unbeatable Plan. Other notable expositions on
spiritual warfare were written by Pastor Win Worley, Mark Bubeck, and Neil Anderson.
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Catholicism
Pope John Paul II stated, “‘Spiritual combat’… is a secret and interior art, an invisible
struggle in which monks engage every day against the temptations”.
In modern times the views of individual Roman Catholics have tended to divide into
traditional and more modern understandings of the subject. An example of a more
modern view of the demonic is found in the work of the Dominican scholar Richard
Woods' The Devil.
The traditional outlook is represented by Father Gabriele Amorth who has written three
books on his personal experiences as an exorcist for the Vatican: An Exorcist Tells His
Story, and An Exorcist: More Stories, and An Exorcist Explains the Demonic: The Antics
of Satan and His Army of Fallen Angels. Francis MacNutt, who was a priest within the
Roman Catholic Charismatic Movement, has also addressed the subject of the demonic
in his writings about healing.
Reformation
The practice of exorcism was also known among the first generation of teachers and
pastors in the Lutheran Reformation. Johannes Bugenhagen was the pastor of
the Wittenberg town church and officiated at Martin Luther's wedding. In a letter
addressed to Luther and Melanchthon dated November 1530, Pomeranus recounted his
experience of dealing with a young girl who showed signs of demon possession.
Pomeranus' method involved counseling the girl concerning her previous baptismal
vows, he invoked the name of Christ and prayed with her. (Letter reproduced in
Montgomery, Principalities and Powers).
The Anglican-Puritan writer William Gurnall wrote a lengthy three-volume work The
Christian in Complete Armour that was published between 1662 and 1665. In this work
Gurnall stressed the place of reading Scripture, prayer and the name of Christ.
Evangelicalism
In the American revival tradition among evangelicals, prominent preachers such as D. L.
Moody, Billy Sunday, R. A. Torrey and Billy Graham have all affirmed their belief in the
existence of the demonic and had occasions to recount some of their own spiritual
warfare encounters. In the nineteenth century, one of the major evangelical authorities
on demon possession was the missionary to China, John Livingstone Nevius.
During the late twentieth century, evangelical writers such as Mark Bubeck and Merrill
Unger presented their theological and pastoral response to demonic phenomena. The
problem of demon possession and spiritual warfare became the subject of a Christian
Medical Association symposium that was held in 1975. This symposium brought
together a range of evangelical scholars in biblical studies, theology, psychology,
anthropology, and missiology (see Montgomery, Demon Possession).
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One of the very significant German writers is the Lutheran Kurt E. Koch whose work has
influenced much of both evangelical and charismatic thought in the late twentieth
century. The impact of his ideas has been recently examined by the folklore specialist
Bill Ellis.
Pentecostalism
Spiritual warfare has become a prominent feature in Pentecostal traditions. The concept
is well embedded in Pentecostal history, particularly through Jessie Penn-Lewis's
book War on the Saints arising from the Welsh Revival in the early twentieth century.
However, Jessie Penn-Lewis preaches a very different kind of spiritual warfare than that
preached by the third-wave Charismatic movement of today—notably C. Peter Wagner
and Cindy Jacobs. Other Pentecostal and charismatic pastors include Don
Basham, Derek Prince, Win Worley, Bishop Larry Gaiters, Dr. Marcus Haggard, and
Missionary Norman Parish, who have emphasized using the power of the blood of
Christ in the deliverance ministry.
Spiritual warfare has been applied to spiritual growth in holiness, or what is technically
called sanctification. A preacher may discern that parishioners are experiencing
obstacles in their faith, prayer life and general spiritual well-being. That process of
discernment may yield an awareness of spiritual oppression caused by a combination of
personal sin and demonic influence. The obstacles are then removed through prayer,
delivering a parishioner from demonic possession, and breaking down false beliefs
about God. Dr. Ed Murphy is the author of a modern 600-page tome on the subject from
the point of view of deliverance ministry entitled The Handbook of Spiritual Warfare. See
also The Ultimate Guide to Spiritual Warfare: Learn to Fight from Victory, Not for
Victory (2015) where the author, Pedro Okoro espouses the notion of
fighting from victory, not for victory. He teaches believers to stop struggling with the
devil, and instead to start enforcing their authority as believers in Christ.
Charismatic Movement
According to the Christian Science Monitor, "C. Peter Wagner, head of Global Harvest
Ministries in Colorado Springs, Colo., is in the vanguard of the spiritual warfare
movement." In the version of spiritual warfare of Wagner and his associates and
followers, "spiritual mapping" or "mapping" involves research and prayer, either to locate
specific individuals who are then accused of witchcraft, or to locate individuals, groups,
or locations that are thought to be victims of witchcraft or possessed by demons,
against which spiritual warfare is then waged. Peter Wagner claims that this type of
spiritual warfare was "virtually unknown to the majority of Christians before the
1990s". According to Wagner, the basic methodology is to use spiritual mapping to
locate areas, demon-possessed persons, occult practitioners such as witches and
Freemasons, or occult idol objects like statues of Catholic saints, which are then named
and fought, using methods ranging from intensive prayer to burning with fire. "[T]hey
must burn the idols… the kinds of material things that might be bringing honor to the
spirits of darkness: pictures, statues, Catholic saints, Books of Mormon… [T]he witches
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and warlocks had surrounded the area… When the flames shot up, a woman right
behind Doris [Wagner's wife] screamed and manifested a demon, which Doris
immediately cast out!"
Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses believe they are engaged in a "spiritual, theocratic warfare"
against false teachings and wicked spirit forces they say try to impede them in their
preaching work. Where their religious beliefs have been in conflict with national laws or
other authorities—particularly in countries where their work is banned—they have
advocated the use of "theocratic war strategy" to protect their interests, by hiding the
truth from God's "enemies", being evasive, or withholding truthful or incriminating
information. The Watchtower told Witnesses: "It is proper to cover over our
arrangements for the work that God commands us to do. If the wolfish foes draw wrong
conclusions from our maneuvers to outwit them, no harm has been done to them by the
harmless sheep, innocent in their motives as doves."
Criticism
In evangelism and worldwide Christian missions, former missionaries such as Charles
Kraft and C. Peter Wagner have emphasized problems with demonic influences on the
world mission fields and the need to drive demons out. Robert Guelich of Fuller
Theological Seminary has questioned the extent to which spiritual warfare has shifted
from its basic moorings from being a metaphor for the Christian life. He underlines how
spiritual warfare has evolved into "spiritual combat" techniques for Christians to seek
power over demons. Guelich argues that Paul's writings in the Epistle to the Ephesians
are focused on proclaiming the peace of God and nowhere specify any techniques for
battling demons. He also finds that the novels of Frank Peretti are seriously at odds with
both the gospel narratives on demons and Pauline teaching.
Missions specialists such Scott Moreau and Paul Hiebert have detected traces
of animist thought encroaching on both evangelical and charismatic discourses about
the demonic and spiritual warfare. Hiebert indicates that a dualist cosmology now
appears in some spiritual warfare texts and it is based on the Greco-Roman mystery
religions and Zoroastrian myths. However, Hiebert also chastises other evangelicals
who have absorbed the modern secular outlook and have tended to downplay or even
ignore the demonic. Hiebert speaks of the flaw of the excluded middle in the thinking of
some evangelicals who have a cosmology of God in heaven and humans on earth, but
have ignored the "middle" realm of the angelic and demonic.
Some critics have linked the rise in aggressive forms of prayer to the increasing
militarization of everyday life that characterizes twentieth century cultural shifts towards
the widespread normalization of highly militarized discourse. This rhetorical and
ideological stance has crept into the practices an rituals of religious prayer and
conversion, just as it has similarly expanded into sectors like technology, immigration,
humanitarianism and education, just to name a few spheres that have also been
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influenced by Militarism. Despite the seeming opposition between the submissive and
morally upstanding associations with prayer and dominating violence associated with
militarism, these two spheres interact in a dialectical way -- they are entangled to
produce one another. The association of spiritual warfare with a rise in militarization
serves to contextualize some of the ways that prayer warriors create meanings around
their own actions and tactics, as well as around those they are trying to criticize or
change. "Spiritual battles" and "prayer strikes" on the "prayer battlefield" use highly
politicized language to forcefully impose change onto another party or group,
piggybacking on the power of militaristic rhetorical function to achieve this aim.
Christian Countercult Movement
The excesses of allegations made in the satanic ritual abuse phenomenon of the 1980s
and 1990s have prompted critical reviews; however, these are due to the surreptitious
nature of these cases. Some apologists in the Christian countercult movement have
expressed concerns that spiritual warfare techniques seem at times to have been based
on spurious stories and anecdotes without careful discernment and reflection. Some of
these general concerns have been expressed by apologists like Elliot Miller (Christian
Research Institute), and Bob and Gretchen Passantino in various articles published in
the Christian Research Journal. Others, such as Mike Hertenstein and Jon Trott, have
called into question the claims of alleged ex-Satanists like Mike Warnke and Lauren
Stratford whose stories have subsequently influenced many popular books about
spiritual warfare and the occult. Bill Ellis's work, Raising the Devil, has detected the
presence of folkloric stories about the occult and demons circulating in evangelical and
charismatic circles, which later become accepted as unquestioned facts.
Cultural Influence
Popular fictional portrayals of spiritual warfare are found in novels by Frank E.
Peretti, This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness, and Darrin J
Mason, Ominous. There are also many articles, books, and blog topics about this
on Patheos.com.
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IX. References
1. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/21st-century-church-new-a_b_6827020
2. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/trevin-wax/which-churches-will-thrive-in-the-21stcentury/
3. https://www1.cbn.com/questions/will-the-church-survive-the-21st-century
4. https://www.aspengroup.com/blog/conquering-the-challenges-of-the-21st-century-church
5. https://reflections.yale.edu/article/new-voyages-church-today-and-tomorrow/rethinkingchristianity-21st-century
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israelites
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharisees
8. https://careynieuwhof.com/pharisee/
9. https://frankviola.net/pharisee/
10. https://www.reformationscotland.org/2017/11/10/what-does-a-modern-day-phariseelook-like/
11. https://godtv.com/6-signs-modern-day-pharisee/
12. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadducees
13. https://www.ericpazdziora.com/you-might-be-a-sadducee-if%E2%80%A6/
14. https://christianity201.wordpress.com/2014/05/24/responding-to-modern-day-sadducees/
15. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainwashing
16. http://www.banner.org.uk/apostasy/mind-control2.htm
17. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abuse_of_power
18. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritual_warfare
19. https://iphc.org/sites/default/files/21stCenturyChurch_0.pdf
20. https://www.agohq.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/CareersContemporaryWorshipMusic.pdf
21. http://epublications.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1454&context=theo_fac
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Attachment A
The Church of The 21st Century
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Attachment B
The Church Growth Movement and Its Impact on
21st Century Worship
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Attachment C
Challenges Confronting The Church
in The 21st Century
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Page 150 of 176

Advocacy Foundation Publishers
Page 151 of 176

Advocacy Foundation Publishers
The e-Advocate Quarterly
Page 152 of 176

Issue Title Quarterly
Vol. I 2015 The Fundamentals
I
The ComeUnity ReEngineering
Project Initiative
Q-1 2015
II The Adolescent Law Group Q-2 2015
III
Landmark Cases in US
Juvenile Justice (PA)
Q-3 2015
IV The First Amendment Project Q-4 2015
Vol. II 2016 Strategic Development
V The Fourth Amendment Project Q-1 2016
VI
Landmark Cases in US
Juvenile Justice (NJ)
Q-2 2016
VII Youth Court Q-3 2016
VIII
The Economic Consequences of Legal
Decision-Making
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Vol. III 2017 Sustainability
IX The Sixth Amendment Project Q-1 2017
X
The Theological Foundations of
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Q-2 2017
XI The Eighth Amendment Project Q-3 2017
XII
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XV The Advocacy Foundation Coalition Q-3 2018
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XVI
for Drug-Free Communities
Landmark Cases in US
Juvenile Justice (GA)
Q-4 2018
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Issue Title Quarterly
Vol. V 2019 Organizational Development
XVII The Board of Directors Q-1 2019
XVIII The Inner Circle Q-2 2019
XIX Staff & Management Q-3 2019
XX Succession Planning Q-4 2019
XXI The Budget* Bonus #1
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XXIII Critical Thinking Q-1 2020
XXIV
The Advocacy Foundation
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XXV International Labor Relations Q-3 2020
XXVI Immigration Q-4 2020
Vol. VII 2021 Community Engagement
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XXVIII The All-Sports Ministry @ ... Q-2 2021
XXIX Lobbying for Nonprofits Q-3 2021
XXX
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Vol. VIII
2022 ComeUnity ReEngineering
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@ The Foundation
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XXXIII The Advisory Council & Committees Q-2 2022
XXXIV
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of Contemporary Judicial Process
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XXXV The Second Chance Ministry @ ... Q-4 2022
Vol. IX 2023 Legal Reformation
XXXVI The Fifth Amendment Project Q-1 2023
XXXVII The Judicial Re-Engineering Initiative Q-2 2023
XXXVIII
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XXXVIX Habeas Corpus Q-4 2023
Vol. X 2024 ComeUnity Development
XXXVX
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XXXVXI The Mentoring Initiative Q-2 2024
XXXVXII The Violence Prevention Framework Q-3 2024
XXXVXIII The Fatherhood Initiative Q-4 2024
Vol. XI 2025 Public Interest
XXXVXIV Public Interest Law Q-1 2025
L (50) Spiritual Resource Development Q-2 2025
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LI
Nonprofit Confidentiality
In The Age of Big Data
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LII Interpreting The Facts Q-4 2025
Vol. XII 2026 Poverty In America
LIII
American Poverty
In The New Millennium
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LIV Outcome-Based Thinking Q-2 2026
LV Transformational Social Leadership Q-3 2026
LVI The Cycle of Poverty Q-4 2026
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LVIII Corporations Q-2 2027
LVIX The Prison Industrial Complex Q-3 2027
LX Restoration of Rights Q-4 2027
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LXI Community Culture Q-1 2028
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Vol. XV 2029 Inner-Cities Revitalization
LXIV
LXV
LXVI
Part I – Strategic Housing
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Part II – Jobs Training, Educational
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Part III - Financial Literacy
and Sustainability
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LXVII Part IV – Solutions for Homelessness Q-4 2029
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Vol. XVI 2030 Sustainability
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LXIX
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Vol. XVII 2031 The Justice Series
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LXXIV Procedural Justice Q-3 2031
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Vol. XVIII 2032 Public Policy
LXXVII Public Interest Law Q-1 2032
LXXVIII Reforming Public Policy Q-2 2032
LXXVIX ... Q-3 2032
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The e-Advocate Monthly Review
2018
Transformational Problem Solving January 2018
The Advocacy Foundation February 2018
Opioid Initiative
Native-American Youth March 2018
In the Juvenile Justice System
Barriers to Reducing Confinement April 2018
Latino and Hispanic Youth May 2018
In the Juvenile Justice System
Social Entrepreneurship June 2018
The Economic Consequences of
Homelessness in America S.Ed – June 2018
African-American Youth July 2018
In the Juvenile Justice System
Gang Deconstruction August 2018
Social Impact Investing September 2018
Opportunity Youth: October 2018
Disenfranchised Young People
The Economic Impact of Social November 2018
of Social Programs Development
Gun Control December 2018
2019
The U.S. Stock Market January 2019
Prison-Based Gerrymandering February 2019
Literacy-Based Prison Construction March 2019
Children of Incarcerated Parents April 2019
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African-American Youth in The May 2019
Juvenile Justice System
Racial Profiling June 2019
Mass Collaboration July 2019
Concentrated Poverty August 2019
De-Industrialization September 2019
Overcoming Dyslexia October 2019
Overcoming Attention Deficit November 2019
The Gift of Adversity December 2019
2020
The Gift of Hypersensitivity January 2020
The Gift of Introspection February 2020
The Gift of Introversion March 2020
The Gift of Spirituality April 2020
The Gift of Transformation May 2020
Property Acquisition for
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Investing for Organizational
Sustainability July 2020
Biblical Law & Justice TLFA August 2020
Gentrification AF September 2020
Environmental Racism NpA October 2020
Law for The Poor AF November 2020
…
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2021
Biblically Responsible Investing TLFA – January 2021
International Criminal Procedure LMI – February 2021
Spiritual Rights TLFA – March 2021
The Theology of Missions TLFA – April 2021
Legal Evangelism, Intelligence,
Reconnaissance & Missions LMI – May 2021
The Law of War LMI – June 2021
Generational Progression AF – July 2021
Predatory Lending AF – August 2021
The Community Assessment Process NpA – September 2021
Accountability NpA – October 2021
Nonprofit Transparency NpA – November 2021
Redefining Unemployment AF – December 2021
2022
21 st Century Slavery AF – January 2022
Acquiesce to Righteousness TLFA – February 2022
ComeUnity Capacity-Building NpA – March 2022
Nonprofit Organizational Assessment NpA – April 2022
Debt Reduction AF – May 2022
Case Law, Statutory Law,
Municipal Ordinances and Policy ALG – June 2022
Organizational Dysfunction NpA - July 2022
Institutional Racism Collab US – August 2022
Page 162 of 176

The Ripple Effects of Ministry TLFA - September 2022
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 NpA – October 2022
Organized Crime (In The New Millennium) ALG – May 2022
Nonprofit Marketing NpA – June 2022
The Uniform Code of Military Justice AF – July 2022
Community Policing NpA – August 2022
Wills, Trusts & Estates AF – September 2022
International Incidents Series
I. Ten Conflicts to Watch In
The New Millennium LMI – October 2022
II. International Hotspots LMI – November 2022
III. International Cyber Terrorism LMI – December 2022
2023
I. International Sex Trafficking LMI – January 2023
II. Brexit LMI – February 2023
III. Global Jihad LMI – March 2023
IV. The Global Economy LMI – April 2023
Judicial Mistakes ALG May 2023
The Political Dynamics of Justice TJP June 2023
Reform in The U.S.
The Violent Crime Control and
Law Enforcement Act of 1994 TJP July 2023
The Cost Ineffectiveness of TJP August 2023
Mandatory Minimum Sentencing
In The U.S.
Israelites, Phafisees & Sadducees TLFA September 2023
In The 21 st Century Church
…
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The e-Advocate Quarterly
Special Editions
Crowdfunding Winter-Spring 2017
Social Media for Nonprofits October 2017
Mass Media for Nonprofits November 2017
The Opioid Crisis in America: January 2018
Issues in Pain Management
The Opioid Crisis in America: February 2018
The Drug Culture in the U.S.
The Opioid Crisis in America: March 2018
Drug Abuse Among Veterans
The Opioid Crisis in America: April 2018
Drug Abuse Among America’s
Teens
The Opioid Crisis in America: May 2018
Alcoholism
The Economic Consequences of June 2018
Homelessness in The US
The Economic Consequences of July 2018
Opioid Addiction in America
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The e-Advocate Journal
of Theological Jurisprudence
Vol. I - 2017
The Theological Origins of Contemporary Judicial Process
Scriptural Application to The Model Criminal Code
Scriptural Application for Tort Reform
Scriptural Application to Juvenile Justice Reformation
Vol. II - 2018
Scriptural Application for The Canons of Ethics
Scriptural Application to Contracts Reform
& The Uniform Commercial Code
Scriptural Application to The Law of Property
Scriptural Application to The Law of Evidence
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Legal Missions International
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Issue Title Quarterly
Vol. I 2015
I
II
God’s Will and The 21 st Century
Democratic Process
The Community
Engagement Strategy
Q-1 2015
Q-2 2015
III Foreign Policy Q-3 2015
IV
Public Interest Law
in The New Millennium
Q-4 2015
Vol. II 2016
V Ethiopia Q-1 2016
VI Zimbabwe Q-2 2016
VII Jamaica Q-3 2016
VIII Brazil Q-4 2016
Vol. III 2017
IX India Q-1 2017
X Suriname Q-2 2017
XI The Caribbean Q-3 2017
XII United States/ Estados Unidos Q-4 2017
Vol. IV 2018
XIII Cuba Q-1 2018
XIV Guinea Q-2 2018
XV Indonesia Q-3 2018
XVI Sri Lanka Q-4 2018
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Vol. V 2019
XVII Russia Q-1 2019
XVIII Australia Q-2 2019
XIV South Korea Q-3 2019
XV Puerto Rico Q-4 2019
Issue Title Quarterly
Vol. VI 2020
XVI Trinidad & Tobago Q-1 2020
XVII Egypt Q-2 2020
XVIII Sierra Leone Q-3 2020
XIX South Africa Q-4 2020
XX Israel Bonus
Vol. VII 2021
XXI Haiti Q-1 2021
XXII Peru Q-2 2021
XXIII Costa Rica Q-3 2021
XXIV China Q-4 2021
XXV Japan Bonus
Vol VIII 2022
XXVI Chile Q-1 2022
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The e-Advocate Juvenile Justice Report
______
Vol. I – Juvenile Delinquency in The US
Vol. II. – The Prison Industrial Complex
Vol. III – Restorative/ Transformative Justice
Vol. IV – The Sixth Amendment Right to The Effective Assistance of Counsel
Vol. V – The Theological Foundations of Juvenile Justice
Vol. VI – Collaborating to Eradicate Juvenile Delinquency
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The e-Advocate Newsletter
Genesis of The Problem
Family Structure
Societal Influences
Evidence-Based Programming
Strengthening Assets v. Eliminating Deficits
2012 - Juvenile Delinquency in The US
Introduction/Ideology/Key Values
Philosophy/Application & Practice
Expungement & Pardons
Pardons & Clemency
Examples/Best Practices
2013 - Restorative Justice in The US
2014 - The Prison Industrial Complex
25% of the World's Inmates Are In the US
The Economics of Prison Enterprise
The Federal Bureau of Prisons
The After-Effects of Incarceration/Individual/Societal
The Fourth Amendment Project
The Sixth Amendment Project
The Eighth Amendment Project
The Adolescent Law Group
2015 - US Constitutional Issues In The New Millennium
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2018 - The Theological Law Firm Academy
The Theological Foundations of US Law & Government
The Economic Consequences of Legal Decision-Making
The Juvenile Justice Legislative Reform Initiative
The EB-5 International Investors Initiative
2017 - Organizational Development
The Board of Directors
The Inner Circle
Staff & Management
Succession Planning
Bonus #1 The Budget
Bonus #2 Data-Driven Resource Allocation
2018 - Sustainability
The Data-Driven Resource Allocation Process
The Quality Assurance Initiative
The Advocacy Foundation Endowments Initiative
The Community Engagement Strategy
2019 - Collaboration
Critical Thinking for Transformative Justice
International Labor Relations
Immigration
God's Will & The 21st Century Democratic Process
The Community Engagement Strategy
The 21st Century Charter Schools Initiative
2020 - Community Engagement
Page 171 of 176

Extras
The Nonprofit Advisors Group Newsletters
The 501(c)(3) Acquisition Process
The Board of Directors
The Gladiator Mentality
Strategic Planning
Fundraising
501(c)(3) Reinstatements
The Collaborative US/ International Newsletters
How You Think Is Everything
The Reciprocal Nature of Business Relationships
Accelerate Your Professional Development
The Competitive Nature of Grant Writing
Assessing The Risks
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Page 173 of 176

About The Author
John C (Jack) Johnson III
Founder & CEO – The Advocacy Foundation, Inc.
________
Jack was educated at Temple University, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Rutgers
Law School, in Camden, New Jersey. In 1999, he moved to Atlanta, Georgia to pursue
greater opportunities to provide Advocacy and Preventive Programmatic services for atrisk/
at-promise young persons, their families, and Justice Professionals embedded in the
Juvenile Justice process in order to help facilitate its transcendence into the 21 st Century.
There, along with a small group of community and faith-based professionals, “The Advocacy Foundation, Inc." was conceived
and developed over roughly a thirteen year period, originally chartered as a Juvenile Delinquency Prevention and Educational
Support Services organization consisting of Mentoring, Tutoring, Counseling, Character Development, Community Change
Management, Practitioner Re-Education & Training, and a host of related components.
The Foundation’s Overarching Mission is “To help Individuals, Organizations, & Communities Achieve Their Full Potential”, by
implementing a wide array of evidence-based proactive multi-disciplinary "Restorative & Transformative Justice" programs &
projects currently throughout the northeast, southeast, and western international-waters regions, providing prevention and support
services to at-risk/ at-promise youth, to young adults, to their families, and to Social Service, Justice and Mental
Health professionals” in each jurisdiction served. The Foundation has since relocated its headquarters to Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, and been expanded to include a three-tier mission.
In addition to his work with the Foundation, Jack also served as an Adjunct Professor of Law & Business at National-Louis
University of Atlanta (where he taught Political Science, Business & Legal Ethics, Labor & Employment Relations, and Critical
Thinking courses to undergraduate and graduate level students). Jack has also served as Board President for a host of wellestablished
and up & coming nonprofit organizations throughout the region, including “Visions Unlimited Community
Development Systems, Inc.”, a multi-million dollar, award-winning, Violence Prevention and Gang Intervention Social Service
organization in Atlanta, as well as Vice-Chair of the Georgia/ Metropolitan Atlanta Violence Prevention Partnership, a state-wide
300 organizational member violence prevention group led by the Morehouse School of Medicine, Emory University and The
Original, Atlanta-Based, Martin Luther King Center.
Attorney Johnson’s prior accomplishments include a wide-array of Professional Legal practice areas, including Private Firm,
Corporate and Government postings, just about all of which yielded significant professional awards & accolades, the history and
chronology of which are available for review online at LinkedIn.com. Throughout his career, Jack has served a wide variety of
for-profit corporations, law firms, and nonprofit organizations as Board Chairman, Secretary, Associate, and General Counsel
since 1990.
www.Advocacy.Foundation
Clayton County Youth Services Partnership, Inc. – Chair; Georgia Violence Prevention Partnership, Inc – Vice Chair; Fayette
County NAACP - Legal Redress Committee Chairman; Clayton County Fatherhood Initiative Partnership – Principal
Investigator; Morehouse School of Medicine School of Community Health Feasibility Study Steering Committee; Atlanta
Violence Prevention Capacity Building Project Partner; Clayton County Minister’s Conference, President 2006-2007; Liberty In
Life Ministries, Inc. Board Secretary; Young Adults Talk, Inc. Board of Directors; ROYAL, Inc Board of Directors; Temple
University Alumni Association; Rutgers Law School Alumni Association; Sertoma International; Our Common Welfare Board of
Directors President 2003-2005; River’s Edge Elementary School PTA (Co-President); Summerhill Community Ministries
(Winter Sports Athletic Director); Outstanding Young Men of America; Employee of the Year; Academic All-American -
Basketball; Church Trustee; Church Diaconate Ministry (Walking Deacon); Pennsylvania Commission on Crime & Delinquency
(Nominee).
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www.Advocacy.Foundation
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