08AR13-28

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Apologia Report 13:28

July 24, 2008

Subject: Occultism and polemics

In this issue:

OBAMA, BARACK - Newsweek cover feature examines his faith, impressing liberals while leaving conservatives uneasy

OCCULTISM, GENERAL - social science analysis of polemics as "a highly useful tool, complementing apologetics"

WHITEHEAD, JOHN - critical book-length profile of Rutherford Institute founder

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OBAMA, BARACK

"What He Believes" reads Newsweek's July 21 cover. The story, "Finding His Faith" by Lisa Miller and Richard Wolffe (p26-29), explains that the candidate was "Born to a Christian-turned-secular mother and a Muslim-turned-atheist African father.... He is now a Christian, having been baptized in the early 1990s at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. But rumors about Obama's religion persist. In the new NEWSWEEK Poll, 12 percent of voters incorrectly believe he's Muslim; more than a quarter believe he was raised in a Muslim home. ...

"In the NEWSWEEK Poll, almost half of the respondents say Obama shares at least some of [former pastor Jeremiah] Wright's views; nearly a third say Wright might prevent them from voting for the presumptive Democratic nominee.

"The story of Obama's religious journey is a uniquely American tale. It's one of a seeker, an intellectually curious young man trying to cobble together a religious identity out of myriad influences. Always drawn to life's Big Questions, Obama embarked on a spiritual quest in which he tried to reconcile his rational side with his yearning for transcendence. He found Christ - but that hasn't stopped him from asking questions. 'I'm on my own faith journey and I'm searching,' he says. 'I leave open the possibility that I'm entirely wrong.' ...

"At the point of his decision to accept Christ, Obama says, 'what was intellectual and what was emotional joined, and the belief in the redemptive power of Jesus Christ, that he died for our sins, that through him we could achieve eternal life - but also that, through good works we could find order and meaning here on Earth and transcend our limits and our flaws and our foibles - I found that powerful.' ...

"'I'm a big believer in a faith that is not imposed but taps into what's already there, their curiosity or their spirit,' he says. ...

"He says he prays every day, typically for 'forgiveness for my sins and flaws, which are many, the protection of my family, and that I'm carrying out God's will, not in a grandiose way, but simply that there is an alignment between my actions and what he would want.' ... Thanks to the efforts of his religious outreach team, he has an army of clerics and friends praying for him and e-mailing him snippets of Scripture or Midrash to think about during the day. ...

"'I do not believe that my mother, who never formally embraced Christianity as far as I know ... I do not believe she went to hell.' ..."

In a sidebar the authors ask Obama, "What do you think about the Kingdom of God? Is it attainable on Earth by humans?" He answers: "I am a big believer in not just words, but deeds and works. I don't believe that the Kingdom of God is achievable on Earth without God's intervention, and without God's return through Jesus Christ, but I do believe in improvement." <http://www.newsweek.com/id/145971>

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OCCULTISM, GENERAL

Polemical Encounters: Esoteric Discourse and Its Others, Olav Hammer and Kocku von Stukrad, eds. [1] -- more interested in conveying his approval of the editor's approach than in describing the book's content, Asbjorn Dyrendal begins his review with the helpful observation that "Polemic is more than a sharpened rhetorical exercise used to overwhelm an Other in debate. It is a tool for constructing this Other, and, more importantly, by so doing, demarcating one's self in the same process. Polemic creates boundaries, alliances and self-identification: We are *this,* and not *that.* As such, polemic is a highly useful tool, complementing apologetics." (Note: Dyrendal is using the term "apologetics" in a social-science context. - RP)

Only in an aside do we learn that the book is comprised of 13 chapters by 12 authors. "Some are more general than others. Boaz Huss' article on how academic scholars of Kabbalah have taken on the role of 'authorized guardians' with regard to contemporary practitioners, and the resulting delegitimizing polemic, certainly holds general interest in the way it challenges certain conceptions of our discipline. So does Wouter Hanegraaff's assertion that a 'Grand Polemical Narrative' has misrepresented European religious history through a modernist, 'whig history' ... where science and theology has 'othered' the esoteric. This, ironically, gave birth to 'occultism' when groups and individuals appropriated the view of history where the esoteric was a hidden tradition."

The book's strength is "the historial analysis and the focus on how polemic has been used strategically in particular cases and for specific participants in esoteric discourse.

"One who [looks] at polemics from both of two opposing camps is co-editor Olav Hammer, in a highly readable introduction to the debate between dowsers and skeptics. Dowsers and the other diviners have always been ready to make positive claims about the effect and trustworthiness of their craft, and so it is no surprise that their mondern apologetics frame dowsing as a 'scientific' enterprise." Numen 55:4 - 2008, pp479-480.

(If you follow the above link for the book on amazon.com, check out the consumer reviews there as well.)

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WHITEHEAD, JOHN

Suing for America's Soul, by R. Jonathan Moore [2] -- reviewer Heather Hadar Wright explains that "the story of The Rutherford Institute (TRI) begins well before John Whitehead founded it in 1982; even before Whitehead's conversion from atheist communism to evangelical Christianity in 1974, after reading Hal Lindsey's The Late Great Planet Earth [3]. In the first chapter, 'Contexts,' Moore takes the reader through the history of religious pluralism in the United States, focusing on various movements and denominations of Protestantism. He describes (in rapid fire) various theological shifts in evangelical thinking over the past two-hundred years, and their connections to what he terms 'parachurch' or voluntary religious organizations (like TRI). ...

"Whitehead initially argued emphatically that Christianity was written into the Constitution of 1787.... Over time Whitehead's thinking shifted radically. He turns to arguing explicitly against Christian domination, recognizing the reality of religious pluralism, and coming to associate religion with more general free speech claims. ... Moore compellingly concludes that ... this 'religion-as-speech' strategy was a hazardous one. ... Moore succinctly puts it, 'in the long run Christians may not have been reframing a secularist discourse; the discourse may have been reframing them.' ...

"One minor complaint is that while Moore both takes seriously the influence of, and pokes fun at, Whitehead's apparently slipshod scholarship and inflammatory rhetoric.... Moore exhaustively combs through Whitehead's voluminous works, one after another. While this allows Moore to demonstrate handily the shifts in Whitehead's understanding of American history and his proposed solutions to the current 'crisis,' the book would benefit from a bit of conclusion." Journal of Church and State, 50:1 - 2008, pp177-178.

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Sources, Monographs:

1 - Polemical Encounters: Esoteric Discourse and Its Others, Olav Hammer and Kocku von Stukrad, eds. (Brill, 2007, hardcover, 325 pages) <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/9004162577/apologiareport>

2 - Suing for America's Soul: John Whitehead, the Rutherford Institute, and Conservative Christians in the Courts, by R. Jonathan Moore (Eerdmans, 2007, paperback, 214 pages) <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0802840442/apologiareport>

3 - The Late Great Planet Earth, by Hal Lindsey (Zondervan, 25th printing edition, 1998, paperback: 192 pages) <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/031027771X/apologiareport>

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