Want My Vote? Camouflage Your Faith.

According to a recent Angus Reid Institute poll as reported in the National Post, voters don't want their politicians to have personal religious beliefs -- at least that's my take from their findings.  But let's look closer.

The poll was conducted one month after the recent Canadian federal election and focused on the leader of the Conservatives, Andrew Scheer, who lost to Liberal Justin Trudeau even though many thought Pierre's son had screwed up so badly that there was no way he could win.  But win he did.

Among those polled who knew Scheer was Catholic, 51% said his religious beliefs had a negative impact on their view of him.  But did all 51% translate that into voting for his opponent?  We don't know. It is true that the two key issues were his positions on same-sex marriage and abortion rights.  It is also true that Trudeau and the Liberals emphasized that more than anything they had to offer.

It's also possible that Scheer had a non-positive (or at the very least a non-exciting) image to begin with. He certainly wasn't prepared to take on those who would argue his faith was the problem.

Interestingly, the poll found that 67% of Canadians knew about the deep religious beliefs of both Scheer the Conservative and NDP (New Democratic Party) leader Jagmeet Singh, a devoted Sikh. But they treated them differently.  While 51% counted it against Scheer, only 24% counted it against Singh.  Why?  Maybe it wasn't the person after all, but rather the specific faith that made a difference.  These days, if it looks, swims, and quacks like a Christian, it must be a Christian -- and it's unacceptable to have a Christian behaving like a Christian in government, especially in the ruling party.  However, if the leader can camouflage his/her Christianity, say like Justin Trudeau does, then only 31% would even know about his Catholic faith (same faith as Scheer's) and only 36% deemed it as a negative impact on their views towards him.

And of course, the liberal, left-leaning, media does not help a candidate like Scheer.  They continuously pelt questions at him about his stand on the two issues mentioned above knowing his responses would likely cause more voters to move away from him.  And this goes on even while 55% of Canadians believe that questions about a person's faith or religion should be "off-limits" during election campaigns (and only 45% say it should not).  But since when does the media today listen to the majority when it doesn't suit their agenda?

The fact Scheer promised he would never allow legislation that would change the status quo of the federal government's position on the issues did not matter.  I mean after all how can you trust a politician when he won't stick by his own ethical and religious beliefs?  [An excellent question by the way.]. And the poll actually bears that out -- 32% believe a politician who makes those kind of promises, but 41% doubt its truth, and 27% say there's no way they'd keep their word.

And we can argue all we want that having faith as a guiding light is much more than having a position on same-sex marriage or abortion and that politicians with faith are much better for society than those without -- it doesn't matter because these days it's all about those two issues and those two issues almost exclusively.

In fact, among Liberal and NDP supporters, over 80% said that a candidate's views on those two issues had a strong impact on their vote.  For Conservatives, it was only 46%.

Angus Reid polls also provide an index on "public faith" for Canadians -- the degree to which those polled believe that having, knowing, and sharing faith and its importance in society.  Currently 36% are for it; 30% are uncertain; and about 35% dead against it.  That's the election mentality field in which anyone tries to win an election.

Nevertheless, the fact remains -- faith worn on your sleeve is not a vote-getter these days.  How then shall the Christian run for office, or should he?

First, I believe we need more Christians in office, not fewer.  But Christians running for office must realize that winning is not the be all purpose of their life.  God can use your run for office to open other doors and touch the lives of individuals and groups in new ways.

Second, as a body of believers, the Church of Christ must realize that while God is fully aware of who wins and who loses in elections and who forms the governments of the world, He does not need the political playing field to conquer sin and set up His Kingdom.

Third, and most importantly, if God has given us strong convictions about the various issues causing division in our society today, we should stick with those convictions, being very careful to demonstrate total love towards those that disagree with us.  We have not done that well as Christians to this point. If we are to make a difference, we need to.

Fourth, our votes should go to people who have faith and are willing to tell their voters that their faith will indeed guide their actions and decisions.  And let's leave the results to God.

-- Ken Godevenos, writing from Murrells Inlet, South Carolina.

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Blood In The Desert

You Left In Me The Faith – Book 1

Author: C. Douglas Gordon

Publisher: Self-published, San Bernadino, CA, 2017

                                                                     

A Very Good Novel: Read With a Discerning Mind

This is a historical novel and as close as I get to non-fiction. But the theme intrigued me. The plot is beautifully intertwined using several threads including allusions to biblical parallel passages, real historical events, theological controversy, parental love, slavery, power, the formation of belief systems, and the development of religions. Suffice it to say, although reading the book from a critical perspective, C Douglas Gordon managed to keep my interest at a high level, wanting to find out the fate of his main characters.

This is not a book for the faint-hearted. The depictions of the cruelty which took place both in the fictional part of this book and in the historical events the author intertwines are to say the least laden with blood and brutality and at times vividly portrayed from a sexual perspective. I’ll let each reader decide for themselves whether Gordon needed to go to this extreme to get his points across about how Christians were treated in their early history. I can’t seem to settle on one side of the argument versus the other.

One of the key threads in the novel is that of “martyrs” – especially the lesser known ones. The author is skillful in bringing their stories out without us losing track of his fictional plot. But then, and perhaps unintentionally, with separate chapters named after each of the three main characters’ ‘journeys’, there is a suggestion that each of our lives are “flights” from something or someone, ultimately ending in martyrdom. Yet throughout the book, the reader cannot help but feel he/she is being moved towards a climactic point where the woman, the man, and the child are reunited, and love and peace conquer fear and hatred.

The book may present some puzzlement to the Christian reader who is unfamiliar with the major theological disputes of the faith (e.g. the divinity of Jesus) and even some of much lesser importance such as the issue of the God’s gender. There are references to God as ‘the Birther’; a male and female Aeon countered later by two ‘savior’ Aeons – namely Christ and the Holy Spirit (the female one); and the Demiurge and much more.

There are also some interesting takes on other issues that often go unresolved. For example, when a young girl with a very high fever and in the process of dying is saved after the lead character prays to Jesus (referred to as Yesua throughout the book), the mother gives Jesus the credit. Miriam (the lead character) retorts, “No. Your Faith in Yesua has saved your child!” Clearly one can’t argue with that since the other has paralleled the thinking behind the words of Christ Himself when after healing numerous people during his earthly ministry, He said, “Your faith has made you well.” On the other hand, it would be misleading to omit the fact that it still was Jesus that did the healing. The issue is best described in a blog on the very topic, the role of faith in healing. Gordon makes no effort to teach or clarify in situations like this.

All this to say that readers need to discern between what they believe and determine to be the truth and what Gordon is simply relating as possible traditional stories about how one religion began, was communicated, and eventually became known as Christianity.

There is much to commend the author on, including an incredible comprehension into the affliction of blindness and its impact on the brain. Most insightful and interesting. Gordon also offers his readers some gems with respect to what ‘history’ is. For me, his memorable nuggets there were: “History belongs to the future.” A reference, for me at least, to the fact that we who employ it, own it. And that is followed up with his, “Those who look back often cloud the truth with their beliefs.” That is so true.  Yet, was the author making a statement concerning our view of what the New Testament Faith that has now metamorphosed into our modern-day belief system really was all about?  You be the judge.

I recommend the book for those that like a good historical novel. I believe it serves Christianity well in helping us all understand what those who had “the faith left in them” in the years, decades, and centuries after Christ’s life on earth, went through. But I would caution the reader to take under advisement Gordon’s theological references outside his excellent plot line. And yes, I may well be ready to enjoy (with similar caution), C. Douglas Gordon’s next novel, entitled The Twelve Coins, in his ‘You Left in Me the Faith’ series.

·      Ken B. Godevenos, President, Accord Resolutions Services Inc., Toronto, Ontario, October 1, 2017. www.accordconsulting.com

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A Theory Re. Coincidences: Reality or Placebo?

Connecting With Coincidence: The New Science for Using Synchronicity and Serendipity in Your Life

Author: Bernard D. Beitman, MD

Published by: Health Communications, Inc., Deerfield Beach, FL, 2016

In our society, the word “coincidence” is well understood by almost everyone by the time they reach ten years of age, if not younger. Coincidences are observed by us all and most of us are quick to explain their happening either as a mystery (an act of God for the believer) or strictly an event that occurred randomly (by chance). I was no exception, although I employed (and still do) both plausible causes identified above, depending on the circumstances under which a coincidence occurred and its significance. Therefore, it was easy for me to agree to review this book when given an opportunity by the distributor. That decision, however, resulted in a personal challenge.

Psychiatrist Dr. Bernard Beitman is a brilliant author. His book is professionally laid out in three main sections. In part 1, his aim is to convince us (it does not take much) that weird coincidences do commonly take place; part 2 is dedicated to how one can integrate coincidences into their life; and part 3 is devoted to the serious reader who wants to more closely examine a new ‘theory’ about coincidences. [Beitman more correctly uses the term ‘theory’ here as compared to the sub-title of his book where he uses ‘science’ to describe his beliefs.] In this last part he introduces us to what he calls the ‘psychosphere’, or mental atmosphere, where we all, in his view, subtlety exchange forms of energy and information with each other.

As the author is a medical doctor as well as a psychoanalyst, we get to learn some very interesting things (e.g. twins joined at the head are called ‘craniopagus’ twins; those who have identical medical issues in hospitals heal faster if their bed is by a window; and so on). And he asks some very interesting questions such as “Why is joy not shared at a distance in the same way as negative painful emotions?” which he then proceeds to answer as best he can.

Beitman is both a realist and very clever. Examples of the former are that he admits his mathematically inclined colleagues and people of faith, would say coincidences are examples of random chance at work or God, respectively. Examples of the latter are his statement that he couldn’t convince either of them otherwise as “theirs is a fixed belief” in the laws of probability or God’s total involvement in our lives.

As a ‘religious scientist’, the author believes that we use our “God-given abilities to influence the way we, and others, live.” There’s something that sounds right with that, but does it go far enough?

Beitman describes the environment in which we are most likely to notice coincidences in our lives. These include high emotions as well as being in a state of transition.

He is also very careful to caution us on the misuse of coincidences.  At one point he describes a couple that married as a result of coincidences, but the marriage didn’t last long because marriages he writes, “must be maintained through trust, commitment, caring and consistency.”  The book is full of useful “ideas” and suggests which he identifies with an icon of a light bulb. One of them is the thought that while “coincidences (may) deserve a seat at the table of your romance – they don’t deserve to be the decider-in-chief.” He also deals with “library angels” and “internet angels” – a more recent form of coincidences.

In a section entitled, How Romance Coincidences Are Created, Beitman describes the fourth step in the process as “The person often enters an altered state of consciousness.” And that’s where he loses me.  He does, however, indicate that those who know useful coincidences commonly occur come to expect them as part of daily life. My experience is that whether one does or does not expect them, the same coincidences would happen – that is, albeit one who is not looking for them may miss them but they would still occur in the absence of expectation.

Part 1 is full of examples of coincidences that have been recorded through family ties, friends, colleagues, acquaintances, health situations, ideas in the air, timely money, pets, and work.  One cannot argue with what happened in these stories. One only has the option of assigning a cause to the coincidences. For example, one person prayed to God for money and he was led to where he found it. He “believed that God guided him to the money.” But Beitman believes the person himself played a collaborative role with God in finding the money.  I can even buy that.  After all, God is the One who has given us a brain and a memory with which to think and reason things out and act accordingly.

Throughout the book, the author talks about “base rates” with respect to various probabilities of things happening randomly. But while he walks us verbally through one example, he never uses number for one reason or another, and that would have helped greatly. While he believes we can take steps to increase our ability to notice and take advantage of coincidences in our lives, he also quotes the old saying, “The dog that trots about in the right places finds the bone.” So maybe it is more about perseverance, being optimistic, learning from failure, and relying on intuition than anything else.

In the last section of the book, Beitman tries to show us how “simulpathity” (connecting with the experience of others at a distance without knowing how we do it) and “Human GPS” (finding our way to people, things and ideas without consciously knowing how) together get us to “loved ones in distress whose location we don’t know” just in time to save them. While he argues well for his case, that still is not an idea I am willing to swallow as it is based on there being “mechanisms by which energy-information is converted into electrical nerve impulses the brain can process into emotion and behavior.”

As a creationist, I parted company with Beitman when he wrote near the end of his book, “I believe that our physical being seems to have emerged from a primordial soup, a rich mixture of energy (perhaps electricity) and information (perhaps simple molecules).” May I suggest, perhaps just a theory. This psychosphere leads us, in his mind, to “the One Mind, of Consciousness, of the Universe, of God” and to the realization that we are all one and the same. All bringing déjà vu of Shirley Maclaine’s “I am God” philosophy.  I was hoping scientists had gotten past that these days, but alas, perhaps not.

While Dr.Beitman has a lot of things right, including about the internet and social media, I would take issue with him on his conclusion that the “spread of personal qualities through social networks adds yet more evidence for the existence of the group mind and, by extension, the psychosphere.” In reality, it can also point towards our great diversity of mind.

So, who is this book for?  A lot of people who know the word “coincidences” and want to learn much more about how they may happen and the related theories that try to explain them. It should however be read with a critical mind for once we try to explain something like this beyond the two traditional explanations, we are wading into waters where true science can only accompany us so far, and the rest is simply conjecture. We’re on our own.

Now, just in case you think I am being too tough on the author and the book, let me share with you the following: When I was about to start my careful reading of Part 2 of Dr. Beitman’s book (while taking in the sun and the beach at Garden City, S.C.), I stopped and checkd my phone in case there was a free wi-fi around.  Just prior to that I had been reading (in his book) about Oprah Winfrey’s audition for the role of Sophia in the film, The Color Purple. In my search for free wi-fi, up came two possibilities, one of which was Purple Rain. I intentionally wrote a note about what had just happened and observed, in the margin of the book, and then checked the wi-fi availability again. ‘Purple Rain’ was gone.  Was this coincidence? Did I really see it on my phone?  Who knows?  At least I noticed it and Dr. Beitman would have been quite pleased, I’m sure.

By Ken B. Godevenos, President, Accord Resolutions Services Inc., Toronto, Ontario, May 13, 2016. www.accordconsulting.com

Get the book here: http://astore.amazon.com/accorconsu-20

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A Concise Review: Core Conservative Belief vs. Progressive Belief on 13 Key Issues.

This article is well worth your time.  You can use it to figure out who you are. . .  Then act accordingly and also pass it on.

Archived-Articles: Core Conservative Beliefs

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