My travel cellphone got bricked a couple of days ago. It cannot boot, and so I have been trying to communicate with Robyn by facebook messenger. I await the comments on alternatives with great interest, because when I tried to log in at Sydney airport this morning to tell her that yes, I had made it to the airport (0500 taxis are fun) I was told that there were security checks as I had logged in from too many places and the borg did not think it was me.

The Borg sells my webspace, my attention, my eyeballs as surely as the old television networks. It is their model: I get pictures of things I have clicked on or who interest people in my network. I am fairly sure that there are algorithms deciding if I am a safe Reformed nice guy or a member of the Dread Ilk. It wants me to be me.

And the more intrusive and censoring it is, the less I like it.

But the Almighty gets really angry when someone takes his identity and preaches that which is not his words. This is why some talk of evanjellyfish or churchians — those who want to be liked and produce preaching and dreams and visions that are of comfort. When God wants to instead warn us.

Beware of those who are spiritual and preach nothing but comfort, and leave your conscience alone. They are selling the narrative of this world, and it is a lie.

Jeremiah 23:16-32

¹⁶Thus says the LORD of hosts: Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you; they are deluding you. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD. ¹⁷They keep saying to those who despise the word of the LORD, “It shall be well with you”; and to all who stubbornly follow their own stubborn hearts, they say, “No calamity shall come upon you.”

¹⁸  For who has stood in the council of the LORD
so as to see and to hear his word?
Who has given heed to his word so as to proclaim it?
¹⁹  Look, the storm of the LORD!
Wrath has gone forth,
a whirling tempest;
it will burst upon the head of the wicked.
²⁰  The anger of the LORD will not turn back
until he has executed and accomplished
the intents of his mind.
In the latter days you will understand it clearly.

²¹  I did not send the prophets,
yet they ran;
I did not speak to them,
yet they prophesied.
²²  But if they had stood in my council,
then they would have proclaimed my words to my people,
and they would have turned them from their evil way,
and from the evil of their doings.

²³Am I a God near by, says the LORD, and not a God far off? ²⁴Who can hide in secret places so that I cannot see them? says the LORD. Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the LORD. ²⁵I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy lies in my name, saying, “I have dreamed, I have dreamed!” ²⁶How long? Will the hearts of the prophets ever turn back — those who prophesy lies, and who prophesy the deceit of their own heart? ²⁷They plan to make my people forget my name by their dreams that they tell one another, just as their ancestors forgot my name for Baal. ²⁸Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let the one who has my word speak my word faithfully. What has straw in common with wheat? says the LORD. ²⁹Is not my word like fire, says the LORD, and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces? ³⁰See, therefore, I am against the prophets, says the LORD, who steal my words from one another. ³¹See, I am against the prophets, says the LORD, who use their own tongues and say, “Says the LORD.” ³²See, I am against those who prophesy lying dreams, says the LORD, and who tell them, and who lead my people astray by their lies and their recklessness, when I did not send them or appoint them; so they do not profit this people at all, says the LORD.

Romans 8:6-11

⁶To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. ⁷For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law — indeed it cannot, ⁸and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

⁹But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. ¹⁰But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. ¹¹If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.

The narrative will tell us what to do. They will criticize those things that keep us safe. This includes people telling Mike Pence that his rule — not to be alone with a woman not his wife — is somehow wrong because of sexism or homophobia, the false sins of our delusion.

A story about Billy Graham goes something like this: In 1949 or 1950, after one of his famous evangelistic meetings, Graham returned to his hotel room to find a naked woman lying on his bed, ready to seduce him in an attempt to destroy his ministry. Graham, cautious and humble as usual, fled the hotel room and immediately implemented a rule that would come to bear his name: From that day forward, Graham would not travel (including by car), eat or meet alone with a woman other than his wife, Ruth.

…

But good intentions do not always produce helpful consequences. In this case, the Billy Graham Rule risks reducing women to sexual temptations, objects, things to be avoided. It perpetuates an old boys’ club mentality, excluding women from important work and career conversations simply by virtue of their sex.

There are good reasons for pastors not to meet behind closed doors with someone of the opposite sex. For the sake of transparency, it can be a wise decision to choose to meet, say, at a coffee shop or somewhere with an open-door policy. But for men to categorically refuse to meet one-on-one with women is often dehumanizing and denies the image of Christ that each person bears. As the philosopher Dallas Willard wrote in “The Spirit of the Disciplines,” “Alienation from them makes room for harmful lusts.” It also fuels the myth that loads of women are waiting around to falsely accuse powerful men of rape, a situation that has occurred, but is rare and often used to discount real sexual trauma.

The Billy Graham Rule also denies the reality of LGBT people. As a friend pointed out to me: Should a bisexual person refuse to ever be alone with anyone, full stop? Should a male pastor refuse to meet one-on-one with a gay man? As with so many policies in the evangelical church, the Billy Graham Rule assumes heteronormativity, furthering the idea that people who are LGBT are people “out there,” not an essential part of the church.

The rule also promotes the preservation of men and exclusion of women in positions of leadership. If a woman at work cannot meet one-on-one with her boss or colleague, her options for advancement (or even being taken seriously as a colleague) are extremely limited.

I would add that in my job I work with female colleagues and we often meet with patients together and then discuss them or have supervision afterwards. There are men I won’t meet without someone else in the room for self preservation, not all of whom are patients. And there are women I definitely won’t meet without a person there, some of whom are not in Human Resources. I have seen sexuality used as a weapon, and it destroy more than churches.

The Billy Graham rule may be a hedge, It may be Pharisaic. But if Steve Pence and his wife agree that is how he will run things, that is their business, and it does avoid another destroyed marriage.

And the narrative says we do not need such. We do.

Be very careful about those who speak as if they are from God. Who claim to be on the side of the right and true. Listen instead to those who struggle. Listen even more to the Spirit, and here I have but one hint: his voice, unlike the narrative of this world, is quiet, and his words will bring you to tears, pain and reform.