On 10/23/06, Dwayne Monroe <idoru345 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Jeffrey Fisher:
>
> <snip>
>
> the father explained to me that that had been the
> devil making my mother call, so that i wouldn't accept
> the lord.
>
> <snip>
>
> ...my faith, or whatever it was, took a number of
> years after that to finally vanish into more or less
> nothing. but i am pretty well convinced that that
> episode was the mortal blow.
>
> [...]
>
> ...............
>
>
> No doubt, nearly every American who attended an
> evangelical church (hell, why limit it to
> evangelicals?) can call up a similarly irritating
> memory.
>
>
> ..
>
>
>
> In 1986, a week or so after space shuttle Challenger
> disintegrated into countless fiery fragments, a member
> of my church - a classic "church lady" - remarked that
> the vehicle's destruction was the result of God's
> displeasure with humanity "messing around where his
> sinful self isn't wanted".
>
> Meaning, of course, anywhere outside of the planet's
> atmosphere.
>
>
> I remember letting this comment roll off my back -
> after all, my younger self thought, she's elderly and
> unhappy and lives alone in curtained gloom like a
> latter day Mrs. Haversham; it's not surprising she'd
> be perplexed by spaceflight, something considered
> impossible when she was my age and yet, a very real
> fact of late 20th century life. It was no accident, I
> calmly observed, that she'd retreat into churchy
> formulas.
>
>
> Later, in what was a far more devastating blow to my
> opinion of the church's place in modern life, a "Youth
> Pastor" delivered a fiery sermon that amplified Sister
> Haversham's Challenger post mortem. He declared that
> in the course of Christ's triumphal return to Earth -
> as the heavenly city and all the angels passed through
> our solar system victoriously en route to their
> destination - all our sister planets would be cleansed
> by fire of "sinful contagion".
>
>
> Since, as far as I knew, we'd yet to establish
> colonies on Mars and, as I understood it, sin was a
> flesh and blood, state of mind sort of thing, I was
> confused.
>
> Where was this contagion coming from?
>
> The Youth Pastor quickly explained; our space probes,
> the Voyagers and Mariners and Viking landers, these
> were the robotic typhoid Marys that brought the blight
> of sin to the rest of our star system.
>
>
> Needless to say this was a stunningly bizarre notion
> which turned my ideas about 'sin' completely on their
> head. So, it wasn't merely actions or thoughts that
> were 'sinful' but the very stuff of the world itself -
> everything was 'fallen'.
>
>
> I shouldn't have been surprised, this concept had been
> drummed into me from an early age (not by my family
> mind you, whose interpretation was more thought/action
> centered). Even so, as a space technology enthusiast
> and reasonably rational thinker I was astounded.
>
> In fact, I was so disturbed by the implications of
> this 'space contagion' concept I consulted with the
> Pastor in his office to ask for guidance. This turned
> into a debate that went in unexpected directions as I
> found myself growing more and more annoyed with his
> explanations.
>
>
>
> .d.
>
>
>
>
>
> In all probability the airplane is banked and is turning, although your sensations make you feel it is in straight and level flight.
> Don't act according to your sensations. Check and cross check your instruments.
>
> Pilot's Information File, 1944
>
> ......................
> http://monroelab.net/blog/
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