Texas Mennonites: Combining antivaxxerism with Calvinist-like determinism

 Yes, I know that Anabaptist types like Mennonites aren't Calvinist per se, but many of them hold to the same rigid determinism, as do the parents of the child who was the first measles death in West Texas a few weeks ago.

The child's parents make that clear.

The Texas parents of an unvaccinated 6-year-old girl who died from measles Feb. 26 told the anti-vaccine organization Children’s Health Defense in a video released Monday that the experience did not convince them that vaccination against measles was necessary.

“She says they would still say ‘Don’t do the shots,’” an unidentified translator for the parents said. “They think it’s not as bad as the media is making it out to be.”

The West Texas measles outbreak, the biggest in the state in 30 years, has infected more than 270 people and hospitalizing dozens of them. Public health officials have repeatedly told Texans that studies have time and time again shown that the safest and most effective way to avoid contracting the very infectious, life-threatening disease is to vaccinate with the measles-mumps-rubella shot.

The couple, members of a Mennonite community in Gaines County with traditionally low vaccination rates, spoke on camera in both English and Low German to CHD Executive Director Polly Tommey and CHD Chief Scientific Officer Brian Hooker.

“It was her time on Earth,” the translator said the parents told her. “They believe she’s better off where she is now.”

What do you say in response to that?

It's hard.

First, once again, a reminder that there is NO "theology of the bible," contra these people and other literalists in general. On the issue in hand, in placed like Third Isaiah or Job, you bet I can find support for not just Calvinist-style double predestination on salvation vs damnation, but more specifically, on a broader general determinism. 

Martin Luther, despite his rejection of double predestination, or so he claimed to be doing in "The Enslaved Will" ("Bondage of the Will") actually really supported it in many ways himself.

I can find arguments against such determinism, though, starting with the Yahwist version of the creation story in Genesis 2-3.

Beyond that lurk other issues.

First, reading between the lines of Covenant Hospital's statement, these parents are willing to lie for their religion.

Lying in the name of religion? All-American! And yet another reason why secularists generally score better on issues of ethics than the religious do, especially the fundamentalist within religions. And, that's not limited to Christianity, nor to the United States.

And, with that sort of lying, they surely don't care about endangering others.

Health experts say it could take a full year to fully contain the West Texas measles outbreak:

That said, per that same piece, is this all about religion or not? One person says no:

Katherine Wells, director of public health for the City of Lubbock, during a Tuesday meeting of the Big Cities Health Coalition, a national organization for large metropolitan health departments ... said efforts to increase the vaccination rates in Gaines County, which is about 70 miles from Lubbock, and the surrounding region have been slow as trust in the government has seemingly reached an all-time low.

“We are seeing, just like the rest of Americans, this community has seen a lot of stories about vaccines causing autism, and that is leading to a lot of this vaccine hesitancy, not religion,” she said.

But, putting the cloak of religion on non-religious beliefs is an all-American pastime. And, that, too, is probably not limited to Christianity nor to the US. Nor is it limited to fundagelical forms of religion, whether Christianity or otherwise.

As for Mennonite distrust of government? That goes back, ultimately, to the Peasants' Revolt. But, we're not in the neither Holy, nor Roman, nor Empire today. Besides that? Romans 13.

More wrongness at r/AcademicBiblical

 I "couldn't help" but visit there again recently.

Here's a mix of errors there plus WTFs.

While Saul's 100 foreskins from David was seemingly bizarre, the fact that an "evil spirit" came on him the next day does NOT mean, contra this, that he was "possessed" at that time. And, in the context of 1 Samuel 18, with an assist from Paul Davidson, it's not actually bizarre. Rather, this is a "bounty marker," like ears of dead coyotes being sent to US Fish and Wildlife.

Also per that assist from Paul, much of 1 Samuel 18 is NOT in the LXX. Anybody who knows much about textual criticism of the Tanakh knows that the Former Prophets in general are the worst part of the Hebrew Bible. Missing? Among other things, the "evil" spirit in v. 10. 

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Disagree with Paul Davidson (Captain Haddock) and others, whether they're just citing largely continental academics or they actually agree, in answers on this piece, that Eden in Genesis 2-3 is at least partially metaphorical for the Temple and the Fall a metaphor for the Babylonian Exile. The problem is that this is J material, unless you're claiming VERY late editing for it, or else entirely throwing the documentary hypothesis out the window. I don't buy either one. Per this post, if we restrict ourselves to the first half, could Eden be metaphorical for the Temple? Yes. But, standing by Genesis 2-3 being J material, you have to find some other answer for what the Fall is then metaphorical of. If it's a general expulsion from the presence of (the) god(s), a la end of golden age myths in general? I'm OK with that.

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Here, a discussion of the origin of Yahweh which doesn't mention the Midianite hypothesis. 

And related, at another post? At least in my book, contra this commenter, the Midianite hypothesis is not the same as the Kenite hypothesis.

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That said, sometimes the post itself is the laugher, like this guy asking people to back him up on his claim that Adam and Eve got booted from Eden for having a three-way with a second male. This is also once again a failure of moderators for leaving this post up, including any that are left from two years ago when they ganged up to ban me.

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If you don't get the idea of puns, or don't get grammatical gender, then don't push back against the answers you get. 

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Putting Hindu-Buddhist carts before consciousness horses

Big fail about 2/3 the way through on this Nautilus piece. Even if the no-self idea is true, the author admits that the appearance of a self may still be “real.”

A logical derivation from that is what Hume said to the lady who asked him how he could sleep at night with the “problem of causation,” not knowing if the sun would come up tomorrow or not. Hume simply said, he went to sleep.

In other words, he “acted as if.”

Likewise, the “no-self” view does not extinguish egoism.

And, the “shared self” view smoked too much Buddhism. (Or Hinduism, more likely, since she mentions “Atman.”

Of course, when you have the piece author having written a book, “Non-physicalist Theories of Consciousness,” you’ll get that.

LCMS President Matthew Harrison's latest hypocrisy — a deeper theological dive

About a month ago, I said at my main blog that President-for-Life of the LCMS Matthew Harrison was full of crap — hypocritical crap — in his response to Trump surrogate and general nutter Michael Flynn.

Flynn, per that link, attacked Lutheran Immigration Refugee Services for getting large federal grants for ... uh, helping immigrants. That's even though the LCMS, unlike Rome, can't see its way to doing social justice while remaining theologically conservative.

Flynn, one of Elmo Musk's DOGE-y minions, is of course peddling twaddle. 

So is Matty in his response.

Here, I'm going to expand on some theological issues that I didn't look at there.

Here's the start of that hypocrisy. Matty says:

We don’t say much to or about the government.

Then goes on to talk extensively about the government indeed.

We have suffered formal legal action and much more as we have watched as DEI philosophy (formally rejected by our church body along with white supremacy) has pervaded nearly every aspect of government activity, even as the U.S. government has burgeoned beyond all ethical and rational propriety, in effect stealing the future from our children.

Talking about the size of government in general is talking about government in general. The "taxation is theft" that appears to be in the background of that last line is bigger bullshit, as it's Trump who has run up large parts of the federal budget deficit, Reagan who started it, and Dick Cheney in between who said "deficits don't matter."

Matty doubles down later, while claiming it's "just me, not the LCMS":

Let me just note (and this is NOT an official position of the LCMS): I’m personally pleased with DOGE. The federal government is bloated beyond all rational limits. It can’t fund its activities without accumulating debt. And it’s failing in its basic tasks.

Please.

First, Federal spending ticked up during COVID, yes, but since then, has returned to close to its historic 60-year norm. See the St. Louis Fed. St. Louis, where you are, Matty. Let's add that, in 1998-2001, we actually ran budget surpluses. Gee (with carryover to fiscal 2001) what party controlled the presidency then, Matt? Arguably, you're violating the Eighth Commandment (Lutheran-Catholic-Anglican-Orthodox numbering) by bearing false witness against a political party.

In fact, Trump himself, on Super Bowl Sunday, just blathered to Bret Baier about $36 trillion in national debt without admitting his first term, he was responsible for one-quarter of that.

And again, this is talking about government.

And, because the devil supposedly loves a bible-quoting secularist, now would be the time for Romans 13, I believe:

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment

There you are, Matt.

And, if that's not enough? Verse 7 says:

Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue.

(Harrison hasn't called for tax-refusal disobedience. But, somebody might take his ball and run.)

As Jesus said at the end of the tale of the Good Samaritan? Maybe you should "go and do likewise"? 

DEI? Most of it is a capitalist pile of junk. And, no, Matt, even if there is a god, he, she or it didn't invent capitalism. When done rightly, as Costco knows, it's good for business and its good ethics as well.

You didn't mention critical race theory, but I'll but you at least have personal, if not official, thoughts about it. Well, they would be wrong; of that I have no doubt. 

I can say that with confidence for two reasons. The first is that most White wingnuts blather about critical race theory without knowing what it is. The second is that I've read "Silent Covenants" by Derrick Bell, one of the developers of critical race theory, and found it informative and more good than bad.

Let's next do a gotcha call-out, Matt. You say at the end:

At the same time, a well-regulated border, sound immigration policy, and welcoming space for persecuted refugees are all fundamental parts of a God-pleasing answer to the question:

OK, what's your answer to the genocide in Gaza? I already know. Your denomination hasn't called it a genocide, AFAIK, and has basically ignored it and the countless refugees Israel has created. (The LCMS is fundamentalist in its own way, but not evangelical millennialists, so it has no reason to expect Israel to bring on Armageddon.)

For that matter, since we're talking primarily about Hispanics, and you ARE talking about the government, what's your personal — and denominational leadership — take on the United States' history of coups and other meddling in Latin America that destabilizes countries and creates refugees?

But, then let's get to the rhetorical question that follows.

Who will contribute to this marvelous and blessed American experiment?

THAT, my "dear sir," is clearly untheological. The "United States of America" is not in Christian scriptures, and to claim the "American experiment" is "blessed" as an implication that it is, and so is a theological lie. (Paul, in Romans, said that the Roman imperium was divinely established. He did NOT claim it was "marvelous" or "blessed.") It's about as much a lie as the drivel from the Gun Nuts for Luther group which out of thin air implies there's a biblical, god-given right to gunz. It also is a violation of at least the spirit of the First Amendment you claim to love.

Beyond that? As a riff on John Winthrop's city on a hill angle? It's Calvinist, for one thing, and a theological error that, per Augustine, is the religious version of a First Amendment error. It's a confusion and a conflation of the "two kingdoms."

Harrison knows that Zwingli died in battle, sword in hand, and Luther condemned him for that.

Parallel to that, to riff on pseudo-Paul in Ephesians? Christianity is supposed to be about neither Blacks nor Whites, and re Matt's statement, neither Russian nor American.

So, taking sides on sociological issues as a church denomination is itself problematic theologically, above and beyond other issues.

As for the German immigrants you say founded the LCMS?

I said on my original piece about the Lutefash that Harrison was enough of a political chameleon to largely stay above the fray. To the degree he thinks its too much heavy lifting, he'll ignore the underground network of pastors and congregations, of which I only scratched the surface in that initial piece.

That may or may not still be true. But, on secular politics, I guess he just can't help himself.

As for the First Amendment, not Commandment? Contra a college friend of mine, it cuts both ways, per Jefferson. Beyond that, to divert back to theology? Good old Lutheran Richard John Neuhaus (slightly more liberal on biblical criticism than the LCMS brethren he left, but just as conservative as many politically) talked about the "public square." Yes, Keith, churches have every right to participate in the public square. And other participants have just as much right to critique and criticize them as any other participant.

I would say "Here I stand, I can do no other" as a bit of additional mocking, but of course (OF COURSE!) Luther never actually said that. It's just another part of 24-karat gilt Luther legend. FAR more of that legend is exposed here.

From that second link, this observation of mine:

The "yes I'm right" stance of Luther himself, not only vis-a-vis things where he clearly was, but other issues, such as versus the Reformed on the Eucharist, versus many Reformed and other Lutherans on the issue of adiophora and more, seems to still run strong in much of the conservative wing of Lutheranism. (Let's not forget that Luther thought he was competent to condemn Copernicus' heliocentric theory of the solar system, and rushed to do so when his book was published.)

Is quite pertinent to the situation at hand.