adminStanely Mushava Features Correspondent
A bootstrap project has the capacity to advance itself without outsourcing energy. The metaphor is drawn from the imaginary act of lifting oneself by pulling up the lap of one’s shoes. While it works as a computing metaphor, bootstrapping cannot be imported as a method for public debate because in the arena of competing world views no idea has self-propagating capacity.
A world view cannot stand up, or floor another, unless it is corroborated by observable evidence, anchored on sound reasoning, backed by outside disciplines and advanced by competent cross-examination of contrary perspectives.
In public debate, bootstrapping would be attempting to propagate an idea through internal sourcing – selectively referencing those who share your prejudices as universal authorities even in the face of conflicting opinions. This is perhaps the closest metaphor for Shingai Rukwata Ndoro’s pseudo-intellectual crusade against Christianity in his column for The Sunday Mail.
Ndoro keeps making huge claims against Christianity, ostensibly based on his superior sources of knowledge.
In recent weeks, Ndoro has made such far-reaching claims as “Jesus did not die for anyone,” “Zechariah was the biological father of Jesus,” “Jesus had a wife called Mary Magdalene!” “God is just a combination of breath, intelligence and energy!” and, “Whoever worships God is invoking a German ancestor”.
In most instances, my immediate reaction to the articles is “Stop insulting my intelligence”. But I have taken time to examine these claims and to establish what Ndoro has to offer in place of the Bible narrative.
Considering that Ndoro is making these claims against long-standing traditions, one would expect rigorous argument and evidence to invalidate what he brands as myths and constructs.
And this turns out to be the Achilles’ heel of his crusade against Christianity. In place of mainstream scholarship, Ndoro has no qualms presenting polemical quotes from obscure websites, sometimes with issues of attribution.
Ironically, Ndoro writes his articles in self-congratulatory mood, praising his approach with adjectives such as “rational”, “logical” and “scientific”, although these seem to be seldom in evident anywhere in his own work.
In some of the articles, Ndoro altogether dispenses with attribution, possibly to obscure the credentials of his sources, and presents their pseudo-profound quotes as binding dogma in opposition to Christian values and beliefs.
He considers himself on a mission to examine religion so as to forestall, in his own words, “the continued furtherance of ignorance, superstitions, theological immaturity and inaccuracies,” yet his articles often serve to propagate these vices as can be demonstrated by a cursory assessment of some of his claims.
In this instalment, I look at some of Ndoro’s verdicts on God.
In a strongly worded article headed “Stand up against theological ignorance!” Ndoro contests the use of the word “God”. He weaves in etymological references with respect to the word and concludes that “as long as we use the word ‘God’, we are invoking the mythical ancestor of a powerful historical Germanic tribe and theologically perpetuating ignorance!”
The implications are absurd. Ndoro is suggesting that billions who call on God worldwide are communicating with a mythical Germanic figure they have never heard of. Nothing can be closer to superstition.
What becomes immediately apparent is Ndoro’s ability to mine information, without the capacity to process it to knowledge. As a result, he exports information to the public with too much dross, thereby selling himself short.
Ndoro misses the basic fact that the word “God,” in both the uppercase and the lowercase renditions, means different things to different contexts, just like other words for the divine entity such as “deity,” “lord” or “king”.
What one refers to by “God”, unlike names which are language-agnostic and culture-agnostic, depends on whether the word is used in a monotheistic, pagan or a syncretistic setting.
The essence assigns the meaning. It is possible to refer to “a god,” “the God,” or “gods,” in reference to different entities but not possible to do the same with a name like Napoleon or Shakespeare.
Anatoly Liberman, the author of “An Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology: An Introduction” says that any professional dictionary “will inform us that god can be compared with two Sanskrit words: one meaning ‘to invoke,’ the other ‘to pour.’”
The word “God” clearly draws from this quality of being invoked or worshipped as suggested by these definitions. It is, therefore, necessary to make a distinction as to what setting the word is used in.
In the Christian context, God is not a figment of German fantasy as suggested by Ndoro but the Supreme Being, the Intelligent First Cause, the Creator and the Ruler of the universe. Ndoro can only confuse the meaning by failing to distinguish the contexts, but Christians are not under obligation to share his confusion.
A recent article by Ndoro takes aim at the core of Christianity by alleging that Jesus did not die for anyone. Christianity is based on belief in the historical death and resurrection of Jesus Christ to reconcile mankind to God.
Ndoro’s ostensible refutation of this Christian fundamental typically produces more heat than light, to borrow Dr Ravi Zacharias’ metaphor.
“According to Pauline, literalist or mainstream Christianity, Yahoshua is alleged to have offered his own life accepting liability for people’s moral debt owed to the angry humanoid Divine.
‘Such a vengeful and sadistic Divine needed to be appeased by or receive a ransom of human blood as the currency contrary to Ezekiel 18:19-32,” Ndoro says.
In the article, Ndoro attempts to bring Bible verses into conflict with each other. He quotes verses in which Jesus says He came to teach mankind about the kingdom of God and verses which say Jesus came to die for mankind.
Why do these two mandates have to be contradictory rather than complimentary? The Gospels say “grace and truth came by Jesus”. Grace was made available in Jesus’ death and resurrection, truth was made available by His teaching ministry.
Why does Ndoro seem to think that these are mutually exclusive? The Gospels say Jesus came to save people from their sins. Why does Ndoro present this as a Pauline construct?
“Pauline Christianity presents a distorted narrative that Yahoshua painfully died to placate the anger of a humanoid Divine against a degenerate humanity.
“This is the core doctrine of Pauline Christianity,” Ndoro says.
“Central to it is the perspective that humanity is inherently debased and thus requiring redemption by way of absolute submission and unquestioning compliance to the wrathful but benevolent humanoid Divine in return for a favour,” Ndoro says.
He brands Christianity as an attack on human agency and proposes instead a secular humanism by which man is inherently conscious and capable of good. What he misses is the question of God’s existence and authority at the heart of all moral questions.
As Zacharias says all philosophising on life’s purpose is ultimately founded upon two fundamental assumptions, or conclusions.
The first is, “Does God exist?” And the second, “If God exists, what is His character or nature?” “Without God, everything is permitted,” as Fyodor Dostoyevsky says. Anyone can be good by their own standards; any community can adapt the truth to its weaknesses; I can define good according to self-interest. It takes God to establish right from wrong.
Secular humanists can fill libraries with literature about the inherent goodness of human beings, but they will still have to triple-lock them to protect the literature from the same human beings.
Christianity is not an empty space where improving humanity is concerned. It establishes the place of God in the affairs of mankind.
The Judaeo-Christian moral law is a timeless basis for determining right from wrong and the enabling agency of the indwelling life of God, accessible through faith in Christ, cannot be honestly said to divert mankind from the quest for good.
In one of his more outrageous articles, Ndoro alleges that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, against the long-held narrative that Jesus was celibate. Again one would expect such a claim to be based on rock-solid scholarship or credible archaeology.
Alas, Ndoro is at it again digging into the gutter web for his “facts,” “science” and “logic”.
According to his article, typically attributed to an amateur websites: “In original Greek, ‘companion’ meant consort and in Aramaic it meant ‘spouse.’ It goes on, ‘And the companion of the Saviour is Mary Magdalene. But Christ loved her more than all the disciples and used to kiss her often on her mouth.’
“The rest of the disciples were offended by it and expressed disapproval. They said to him, ‘Why do you love her more than all of us?’ The Saviour answered and said to them, ‘Why do I not love you like her?’”
“No matter how much lowly the Literalist Christendom has treated her, she is not a minor character in Yahoshua’s life and teachings. Myriam of Magdala (‘Myriam, the Tower of the Divine’) was both a disciple and wife of Yahoshua the Nazarene Rabbi, a bearer of some arcane knowledge, and knew the importance of the eternal conjunction of the masculine and feminine principles to sustain and advance life (‘ankh’),” Ndoro writes.
Ndoro is entitled to his fascination with Gnostic fiction and amateur websites but these must not demobilise his rational faculty and cloud his better judgment. What he seems to be saying is that scrutiny is only applicable with respect to the Bible but not the Internet.
For all the histories, traditions and scholarship on Christ, one cannot throw lines from a few, obscure conspiracy theorists into a debate of such magnitude and expect to be taken seriously.
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