Eugenics

Why is everyone always asking me all these questions about eugenics, as if I ever cared about that? Could it have something to do with the Introduction to "Scotty Kid: The Life Story of Brother Tommy," a chapter that is actually NOT written by the book's namesake? Pentecostals such as the Andersons rarely thought of such matters. Those were the words of Li-Ke-Ke, the Hawaiian name of Theodore Richards, a New Jersey-born educator who lived most of his life in Honolulu, Hawaii, a co-founder of the Honolulu Bible Training School and past principal of the Kamehameha School of Boys. I suppose that racial engineering might have been of special interest to residents of what was at that time only a territory of the United States, not really a state until 1959. And besides, this book was written in 1917, a time of widespread naivete in regards to matters of progress. I vaguely remember reading or hearing something in high school about the idea of eugenics being largely discredited as a science after the debacle of World War II in which it became an excuse for the wholesale elimination of millions of people of races not cared for by the Germans. The Nazis started by emptying the mental hospitals and homes for mentally retarded and then progressed to racial designations. Thus we see that eugenics is a highly subjective matter although science may be called into the service of subjective notions or prevailing opinions. Who will or will not propagate the race is certainly of particular obsession to these Nazis and fascists. But mostly, in the natural realm, natural selection is the survival of the fittest, the law of the jungle, of lions and tigers and bears, of birds and bees and beasts. Interesting thought, but if my descendants are not here to see the results of the great genetic engineering experiment so be it. Who am I to argue with God? You can wash the outside of the bowl if you like but the inside of the bowl will still be as sinful as ever. Each individual in each succeeding generation will still need to work out their own personal relationship with Jesus. I may not live long enough to see the outcome of World War III and the end of time so may be content to watch from heaven how things play out in the end. Whatever. I just wanted to have a normal life, mostly, anyway, but of course pleasing to the Lord. Christians are known by their love, not by sticking it to their enemies. We apparently must turn the other cheek, as Jesus said, to these gluttons for punishment. They constantly accuse me of vanity in regards to writing, and yet, having only a couple of weeks ago learned of the existence of this book, I open the first chapter and see Mr. Richards, a published author, touting his own horn in a most vain and self-aggrandizing manner when comparing his own brand of English to the bum slang usages described by the Scottish-born Mr. Anderson, who became a minister only after years of life on the run as a renegade who bummed rides on trains and begged for his dinner and danced the Irish jig in saloons and took dope and cocaine: "The destruction of the king's English attributable to Tommy from that time to this very day bears distinct relation to the "playing hooky" episode; certainly, it is in no wise to be charged to the Scotch schoolmarms." Mr. Richards concedes that while there is no virtue in abusing the rules of English grammar, the use of certain grammatical violations still may put a certain class of men at ease. (Mr. Anderson proves himself very good at ministering to the bums and down-and-outers from whose ranks he was himself rescued by God's mighty hand.) "It ought to be no special road to favor to vaunt one's ignorance or independence of rules of speech," says Mr. Richards. Yet Mr. Richards himself commits various writing atrocities throughout the book, in particular when using the plural when describing Mr. Anderson standing in lock-step with the prisoners in line for dinner at the penitentiary, as if all of us readers were there with them also standing in lock-step waiting for a plate of grub. Really, tell us the story but do not make us go there. This makes us readers very uneasy. He talks about the authorities giving the prisoner a "balling out" but I think he means "bawling out." Just a typo? Well, you be the judge. But really, it is a very good story if you can get past all of the excess verbiage. We get the impression that Mr. Richards had a rollicking good time interviewing Mr. Anderson for the book, all those details about how to do con jobs and how to break out of jail and how to smuggle things like drugs in to the prisoners. Scary to think all of this printed matter occupies more than half of the book. It is not until Chapter 9 that we finally get Brother Anderson's new nature explained. The Christ nature is described as "Anothengenics — Birth from above." Mr. Anderson says that he does not recognize the photo of convict No. 2173 as himself and yet such a photo is incorporated into the book's cover along with the title "Scotty Kid," the moniker given him by the street bums of bumdom, so we see that the book was planned this way. In Hawaii Mr. Anderson is still in the early years of a ministry that later took him to Bolivia. It is a miracle that such a useless, idle bum and dope addict could be redeemed to a life of useful ministry so this really is a powerful testimony of God's redeeming power. From the day Mr. Anderson is saved he stops taking dope. We have heard similar stories, more recently, from Nicky Cruz's book "Run Baby Run." We just wish Mr. Richards would tone it down a little because it is not about him. And if grandma ever had this book lying around the house I never noticed it, but there are several photos of the Anderson family in the family's photo collection. Why would that be? Well, in 1913 Mr. Anderson and family spend some time in China and possibly my great-grandparents were also there at that time. Who knows if they met or how. But, anyway, Mr. Richards does not find the China trip meritorious of explanation. Says Mr. Richards: "This China trip is unique and has much in it worth the telling. In a life that had not so many bristling out-of-the-ordinary points in it, this missionary trip to China could hardly escape notice, but somehow it strikes us somewhat foreign to our purpose and we omit further mention of it." Thus, we see that while Brother Tommy's story is certainly fascinating, it is mostly does not have very much to do with the story of missionaries in China, especially my great-grandparents. It almost sounds as if China were nothing compared to the experience of Hawaii, missions to China being a mostly average sort of humdrum thing in comparison to serving in Hawaii. Well, I am sure that Hawaii is a nice place, but it is truly not a foreign field in the sense that China was so the comparisons fall short. Surely he does not mean to say that reaching the people of China for Christ is any less important than reaching the Hawaiians, regardless of national ambitions, nor that one ever could or should make territorial ambitions a condition of Great Commission endeavors. The Great Commission does not discriminate in favor of Hawaii vs. China when it talks about taking the good news to the ends of the earth. So unless Mr. Richards can produce the notes he did not use regarding the China trip, well, his book is only of minor use to us in reference to the China story which, as we all know, is truly a foreign field in relationship to the U.S. and not just a territory such as Hawaii or Puerto Rico even if it is also borders the Pacific Ocean and was accessible at that time only by ship. Well, my great-grandparents served in both China in the 1910s and Hawaii in the 1930s but I never asked them which mission field they preferred, China or Hawaii. I am sure the Hawaii story is also of interest but it is much more well documented by persons such as Mr. Richards, and anyway Hawaii is accessible all the time by any U.S. citizen. China, on the other hand, is a much more complicated, less accessible story. Mr. Richards' 1902 hymnal in the Hawaiian language seems to have no relevance to the China story as no one speaks Hawaiian in China anyway. Working together we could all possibly put together some interesting history of China and Hawaii, but divided this way we will never get anything done.
So for all of Mr. Richards' verbiage, we are still pretty much getting nowhere if we spend all of our time obsessing about Mr. Richards and his notion of eugenics. It just misses the mark.

Spots

There is that rich lady tooling around in her fancy Cadillac, flaunting her leopard-spotted coat fashions and imagining that giving things to the poor will somehow enhance her popularity with the masses. But we middle-class, just-getting-by people, we are not fooled. We know those leopard spots are not really freckles. No, those spots were purchased as a step on the stairway to heaven. Those spots were fueled by the greed that greases the fur industry. Not that I was ever an animal rights activist, but here is the script played out before our eyes. Many little critters must die a painful death to stock the fur section of the ladies' department store so that the rich ladies' can one-up each other by counting the spots on their leopard or jaguar skin fur coats. Have they forgotten that we are not saved by comparing ourselves one to another? (2 Corinthians 10:12: "For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise. But we will not boast of things without [our] measure, but according to the measure of the rule which God hath distributed to us, a measure to reach even unto you. For we stretch not ourselves beyond [our measure], as though we reached not unto you: for we are come as far as to you also in [preaching] the gospel of Christ: Not boasting of things without [our] measure, [that is], of other men's labours; but having hope, when your faith is increased, that we shall be enlarged by you according to our rule abundantly, To preach the gospel in the [regions] beyond you, [and] not to boast in another man's line of things made ready to our hand. But he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. For not he that commendeth himself is approved, but whom the Lord commendeth.)

Dave

Yes, that is so weird the way Dave Crabtree always seems to be spewing curses in my direction. And what would a visiting pastor from a church in South Carolina know about anything anyway? Just because these Crabtrees have some type of connection to the general vicinity of San Jose, California, that does not mean they are in any way related to us. Nay, in fact the only San Jose relatives I have learned of recently would be Uncle Sam's family and they apparently attended a Foursquare church so what would the Crabtrees know about anything anyway? Not to minimize the connection between AG and Foursquare, two denominations that grew out of the same Pentecostal roots, but really Uncle Sam's Foursquares may be a little too boxed in by church tradition to have a clue what we are talking about. What would Foursquares know about missionaries? Their display is tiny in comparison to the massive missionary organization of the Assemblies of God and mostly centered around Aimee. Sure, we were acquainted in El Salvador with Becky and Charlene Gosling, two Foursquare MKs to whom we turned over the letter translation job when we left. Don't have a clue what happened after we left. We have not heard anything specific about this, only a lot of things thrown around, so would not want to guess and maybe a little afraid to ask. They always did run in a different crowd than we did most of the time, attended a different church, so I am not sure what to say about that. Regardless, we all know that Foursquares never did emphasize missions to the same degree as the AG. With the changing tides of time perhaps the AG should rename itself as the Assembly of Scandinavians & Browns Yes, Anglos No while Foursquares are the Hollywood Celebrity-Establishment Church and this leaves us regular white folk rather out in the cold because we no longer seem to belong anywhere.

Loser

Yes, I called Loren a loser, and that was not very nice of me, but he really should not be representing himself by such a dim bulb as Alanna if he wanted me to take him seriously or say anything nice about him. After all, Alanna has so many problems. What did she learn in high school anyway? And Loren is really Alanna's buddy, not mine. So why did he send Alanna to sound me out about what I think about Loren after he had spent months dissing me? Obviously I am not going to feel like say anything nice about Loren by that time. Just being a pastor does not compensate for Loren's lack of civility and decency. Plenty of pastors are horrible people who cannot be trusted for anything. Just look at the example of .... Anyway, I can do better being single forever than getting stuck with someone who is sooooo mean to me. If there were a Mr. Right for me then I would not have to waste so much time on all these losers.

Local Patriotism vs. Protestantism

This document titled "The Missionary Question" is very interesting in that it seems to deal almost entirely with Catholic Christianity, written as it is in Korea in 1894. No mention is made of England or Protestants, almost as if the whole of Christianity were comprehended through the lens of Korean Catholicism as represented by France, Spain, Italy. Are you thus trying to suggest that all Protestant and English Christians discourage local patriotism and encourage the sale of daughters into prostitution? This cannot be so. You cannot be a Christian and maintain such an unsustainable position. Thus you are wrong. Thus, you must go back to the table and rethink your positions on these matters from a truly Protestant point of view, remembering that just because they are Catholics, that does not mean that we necessarily disagree with them. We do have some points of agreement here so get real.

Bicentennial Conference

I seriously doubt there will ever be a bicentennial conference on Christianity in China and even if there were, which there will not be, the Mormons would not be invited as they also likely did not attend the first two-week event held at Shanghai in 1907. It just would not make a lot of sense to invite them to participate when they are not willing to play by the few rules that are agreed upon by all of Christendom for centuries upon centuries. Sure, Pentecostals of China also were not invited but arguably the Pentecostal movement did not yet exist in China in 1907, the first reports from there appearing only in 1908. And the commemoration of 1807 as the introduction of Protestant Christianity would not mean very much to Catholics who had already been operating in China hundreds of years earlier than Protestants. And, anyway, Protestants and Catholics do things separately. The Protestants would almost certainly not want to be required to discuss with the Vatican their issues with the government in China. So it is safe to assume that the 1907 conference was composed of mostly the mainline denominations of Protestantism, the Methodists and Episcopals and Baptists who for a hundred years already had been winning converts to Christianity and building churches and schools and orphanages. The conference was reflective of Protestantism of Old China with all of its 19th century values and achievements. No one is minimizing their amazing achievements during that time. Sure, hostility later developed between the dry and dusty mainliners and the Holy Rollers who were seen as emphasizing personal experience at the expense of works. Pentecostals were greatly persecuted by both mainline Protestants and Catholics and to avoid censorship by short-sighted old fogies they developed independent systems to emphasize their priorities of preaching the gospel and supernatural phenomena as the empowerment for works. But now, a hundred years after that, the mainline denominations do not have much to boast of in the way of China at least publicly. The old fundraising systems so valued as illustrative of the national glories of France and England and which required a huge influx of missionary manpower were mostly dismantled and the church of China operates mostly under national leadership. The argument between mainliners and Holy Rollers is in some senses a moot point. About 40 years after the conference all foreign missionaries were expelled from mainland China and the government was taken over by a Marxist regime that remains in power to the present. Whatever happened to all of the churches and schools and believers left behind by the Protestants? Who is watching out for them now? Well, there still might be some remnants left behind in China but, really, it is not my place to say who they are or what they should be doing next. Sometimes things are just outside of our control. Sometimes no one can say which nations and powers will be raised up and cast down in the course of history. It would be exceedingly vain and futile to even try. God knows all of these things and He will work these things out for good according to His purpose which may or may not have anything to do with us and our personal glory. In fact, we might be better off without the burden of having tried and failed and being made to look foolish. We have our own fences to mend and bombed out ruins to rebuild. Would we not just end up looking foolish trying to predict things that we cannot understand? Would we not end up as stooges of some evil dictator we had not foreseen which would only mean that maybe we should reread the Apocalypse? Just because my peers nominate me as loser of the century, that does not mean that I am required to accept that position or act out all their stupid fantasies. Jesus says that the end will come and that when we see these signs of the end times that we should rejoice to know that our salvation is at hand. The only ones who might have reason to be afraid would be those persons such as for example Mormons who are definitely not Christians. It is the Mormons who should be cleaning up their act because until they just don't past muster. Sorry but I just cannot say something that is not true just because it is what you want to hear. Hopefully the Mormons will not be running the national archives because it is not their story. It is our story.

Alanna

Yes, I do feel sorry for Alanna although she really is too weird. I remember she called me and was telling me all of her stuff and she was talking about how the Popineaus are so fascinated with Jimmy Swaggart. I said it really sort of bothered me that they were pointing people to a man, a televangelist, rather than to Jesus. I told Alanna about a conversation years earlier when my mother was ironing clothes and we were watching TV and Jimmy Swaggart was on and he was in tears and ranting and raving on this point: "Mothers, tell your daughters not to wear shorts!" He was really writhing in agony on this point and my mother said to me, "He has a problem." She thought it was just abnormal for him to get so worked and foaming and frothing at the mouth on such a topic. And so I related this conversation to Alanna with the thought that, really, persons should not put too much emphasis on these televangelists. They are always saying all this stuff but our personal relationship should be with Jesus so that whatever happens out there in television land, it will not affect our personal relationship as a believer in Christ because, really, these guys, you just don't know, they are always saying all this stuff. And this conversation with Alanna happened long before we really knew that Jimmy Swaggart really did have a problem. I thought it was just something my mother said.