Not Every Proselyte
Becomes A Child Of Hell
According to several dictionaries, a proselyte is a newcomer to some version of faith. Since no one is born a believer of any kind, everyone is a proselyte at some point.
Even if one is born into a religious family, becoming an adherent to the family altar, be it Catholic, Baptist, Hindu or whatever, is still a choice and when you make it, you are a proselyte.
Each person’s level of commitment to their chosen belief, however, is not the same. It could be very intense or quite casual. It could also be non existent.
Ronald Reagan Jr. is a good example. His father, President Reagan, was quite religious but Ron Jr. rejected his father’s religion entirely. Instead, he became an atheist and today represents the Freedom From Religion Foundation regularly in TV commercials.
If you’re religious and of the Christian variety, you probably find his commercials offensive.
Obviously, in his case, his dad’s religion didn’t stick but he still qualified as a proselyte. Instead of Christianity, he became a proselyte to atheism. Whenever he came to that conclusion, he was a newcomer to the belief that God doesn’t exist.
But the point to this post is not that you are a proselyte but where has that journey taken you?
It’s A Journey
Becoming a proselyte is a first step. What follows can be very different for each person.
There’s nothing wrong with proselytizing on behalf of your faith. In fact, if you’re Christian, it’s what we’re told to do. Jesus made the point several times, Mark 16:15 being one of them.
Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.
There’s also nothing wrong with being a proselyte but it’s only the initial stage in a life long journey of discovery, learing and growing. That process can be very different for each person and, according to Jesus, can go in a bad direction.
Growth for Proselytes, like newborns, is usually a guided process. We call it discipleship and the end is determined by the one guiding the process. Jesus offered severe warnings for the guides.
Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert (proselyte), and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are. (Matthew 23:15)
Matthew 23 is considered one of the more sombre chapters in the Bible. In it, Jesus pronounced condemnations on the Pharisees in the form of “woes.” There were seven in all and in the Woe quoted above, He implied they were children of hell and their discipleship efforts produced the same.
It’s a psychological fact. We become like the people with whom we mix so proselytes will become like their mentors. This happens in every sphere of life. Children become like parents. Students become like teachers. Gang members mirror their leaders.
Some dismiss the warning thinking it only applies to the Pharisees. The thinking is Pharisees are very different to us so our discipling doesn’t need so much work but look around. Religious activity is all around us the outcomes are very different and in some cases extreme.
The Pharisees were different, yes, but not entirely. They held many ideas in common with believers of the 21st century. They were the fundamentalists of their day.
Fundamentalism Is An Attitude
The Pharisees believed many of the same things we do today excepting the idea that Jesus was Messiah.
They believed IN the Messiah and expected the Messiah to come but they stopped short at accepting Jesus as that coming Messiah.
Much like today’s fundamentalists, they prayed, they tithed, they believed the Bible was the Word of God. They worshipped God regularly and maintained rigid devotion to everything the Bible says along with several add-ons. They debated interpretations often and heatedly.
They were committed to the point of obsession. Their devotion was so focused on God, and what they perceived as righteousness, they lost site of grace and decency and consideration for others. Jesus made that point too (v. 23).
Toward anyone who differed with their ideas they were threatening. The Pharisees had decided that anyone who confessed Jesus would be barred from the Synagogue. That’s like a social, cultural, economic death sentence. Israel was nothing if not a religious state and the Pharisees ruled Israel’s religion. The Pharisees had no political power but they could make your life miserable if you disagreed with them.
The experience of the blind man in John 7 is evidence of this. After Jesus healed the blindness, his friends made an uproar which didn’t go unnoticed by the religious leaders. These rulers interrogated the blind man and his parents about the incident and they were frightened.
Toward Jesus, they took a different approach. He was popular with the people so instead of threatening, they were dismissive, defensive, argumentative and they only became damning in the end. Believing anything different to what the Pharisees taught was considered capitol offensives and true to form, they crucified Jesus.
They waited a long time before crucifying Jesus, and the crucifixion was initiated under the cover of darkness, because they feared public opinion. All of their public questions was nothing but a cover for their real motives.
Sounds a lot like extreme right wing Republicans.
Their beliefs weren’t the problem. Their attitude was.
What Is A Child Of Hell
When it came to Jesus, the Pharisees were combative. They questioned everything Jesus said and did, and sought every opportunity to confuse His teachings. They never got much traction but the effort was endless.
And as I said in the previous point, the debate was only a cover. They weren’t interested in a fair discussion of the issues. They only wanted Jesus gone.
The obvious elephant in the room, though, is the phrase “Child of Hell.” What in the heck is that? Jesus insinuated they were children of hell and said they produced children of hell so we need to explore the idea.
The best way to understand this moniker is to understand the idea from the perspective of Matthew 23. That is where Jesus used the term and He used it in reference to the Pharisees.
You don’t have to work hard to isolate the biggest fault of the Pharisees, at least from this chapter. Six times Jesus referred to them as hypocrites and a seventh time He said they were full of hypocrisy and wickedness, and He said all that in one chapter!
We all know what a hypocrite is. It’s a person who says one thing and does another. What they say and how they act are smoke screens for the real intention. The face they present misrepresents their real motives.
The Pharisees gave the impression they cared about others but in reality were insensitive and selfish. Their ideas, some of which weren’t false, became more important than the people they claimed to minister to.
Being a “Child of Hell” doesn’t mean you’re going to hell. It may just mean you’re displaying qualities associated with the place. And you’re a liar. That’s in reality what a hypocrite is.
You could say that about the Pharisees. Some of them were probably not genuine believers but some of them were. Nicodemus comes to mind. He was a Pharisee who the New Testament indicates recognized Jesus as Messiah (John 3) but he remained in the ranks of the Pharisees and even argued against making snap judgments against Jesus (John 7:57).
He also assisted with the burial of Jesus (John 19:39).
Nicodemus was Christian but closeted.
Some Proselytes Become Sycophants
Not only did Jesus see the Pharisees as children of hell, He made it clear that the end result of their discipleship efforts were children just like them, children of hell.
But what does that really mean? What did it look like?
In order to be in the good graces of the Pharisees you had to parrot their ideas. In order to gain their recognition you had to develop arguments to further sustain their ideas.
Those wrong ideas became the glue that kept everyone together and turned them into monsters.
Associations produce like-mindedness. We think, speak and act like the people with whom we closely identify even when those people are hateful, mean spirited, divisive, untrustworthy and the like.
Be careful. Associating with the wrong people produces undesirable characteristics. Birds of a feather may flock together but humans are the only birds to flock first and feather later.
In the end – for pharisaical types – what they believe, the ideas they consider significant, become the only thing that matters. Anyone who disagrees is a target. Not the idea. Not the belief. The response doesn’t involve a debate or discussion about ideas and beliefs, but the person holding a different idea is maligned.
If you stay around them, you must become like them or be vilified.
And that brings us to a most important observation. The end of proselytism done the wrong way, the whole point of the exercise for fundamentalists is religious sycophancy.
Believers today, like the Pharisees of old, have become communities of people, armies even, who consider themselves guardians of a set of ideas that on the surface carry a sense of rightness but in reality can’t be proven and shouldn’t be forced on the broader community.
These armies of people no longer encourage others to believe. They are now forcing them too.
Sycophancy
Sycophants are usually associated with influential people. They flatter influential people or act in servile ways toward those people in order to gain an advantage. Other terms used synonymously are toadies, boot lickers, brown-nosers, suck ups, kiss ups and quislings.
That happens in fundamentalism too but with a twist.
The one thing fundamentalists have, the one thing that identifies each one as a fundamentalist and guarantees acceptance is their beliefs about what is and is not moral.
If you agree with their moral guidelines, you have a chance at acceptance.
This isn’t about salvation. It’s not about believing in Jesus for salvation. It isn’t even about being immoral yourself. All you need do is question fundamentalist ideas about morality and not only are your ideas rejected but your person is too.
Sycophancy is driven more by ideas about morality than people. Fundamentalists suck up to the group by adhering to the accepted ideas. If we want to flock we must show the same feathers.
But it’s more than that. A good sycophant must prove everyone who disagrees wrong and they’ll pick at any shred of difference. Like chickens pecking bloodied chickens to death, fundamentalists go into attack mode in the face of even the smallest disagreement.
Mike Johnson’s accusation against Nancy Pelosi (whose effectiveness as a leader far exceeds Mike’s) for tearing up Trump’s speech following the State of the Union address is a good example. Mike made an effort at criminalizing her constitutionally for doing so.
No one took his accusation seriously.
My question is was Mike defending the constitution or using it as a cover for his distaste for Pelosi.
It should be noted that Jesus also accused the Pharisees of straining at gnats and swallowing camels (v. 24).
Sycophants May Be Quite Intelligent
Sycophancy has nothing to do with intelligence. Henry Kissinger, National Security Advisor and Secretary of State in the Nixon administration, whose IQ was well above average, was also known for his sycophancy.
Nixon gave him position and power. Sucking up to Nixon was necessary to maintain that power and he did it well.
His fellow students at Harvard referred to him as Henry Ass Kissinger. His intelligence made him a better, more effective sycophant.
As a side note, we should never attach character to intelligence. Intelligence may just imply the ability to lie more convincingly.
Several Qualities Of Sycophants
- They may be intelligent.
- They make something of nothing, and nothing of something. In other words they strain at gnats and swallow camels.
- They are capable of reason but rational arguments never register once their ideas are fixed.
- They are insecure. Their ideas are so attached to God, the idea becomes God.
Where does this leave us today? One answer to that question might be surrounded by sycophants.
It’s the choke-on-a-knat, swallow-a-camel characteristic Jesus assigned to the Pharisees extreme Republicans are mirroring every day.
THINK!AboutIt
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