Return of a Godbeat F-bomb: The 'curse of Ham,' Twelve Tribes history and a Colorado fire

Let’s start with a journalism question about the news coming out of Colorado about possible links between the Marshall Fire and a controversial religious group known as the Twelve Tribes.

The New York Times has used that popular journalism F-word — “fundamentalist” — in a major story that ran with this headline: “Colorado Wildfire Inquiry Focuses on Christian Sect.” The read-out under that headline states: “Investigators are looking at the possibility that a fire that destroyed more than 900 homes started on property owned by a fundamentalist Christian sect known as Twelve Tribes.”

Once again, we need to talk about what the word “fundamentalist” means and what it does not mean. Let me ask this question, before we proceed: Is the “Twelve Tribes” movement a “fundamentalist Christian” group in the same sense that Black or White independent Baptist churches found in many or most American cities are accurately described, in doctrinal terms, as “fundamentalist”?

Perhaps the crucial question for journalists covering this story is whether the Twelve Tribes movement is a “sect” or, in sociological terms, an actual “cult”? Hold that thought.

First, here is the overture of the Times story, showing the context for this religion-beat F-bomb:

Investigators looking into the cause of a colossal wildfire in Colorado that forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of people are focusing on a property owned by a Christian fundamentalist sect, after witnesses reported seeing a structure on fire there moments before the blaze spread with astonishing speed across drought-stricken suburbs.
Sheriff Joe Pelle of Boulder County said at a news briefing … that the property owned by Twelve Tribes, which was founded in Tennessee in the 1970s, had become a target of the inquiry after investigators ruled out the possibility that downed power lines might have sparked the fire.

With that in mind, let’s return to the pages of the journalism bible know as the Associated Press Stylebook (h/t to Bobby Ross, Jr., for checking the evolving online edition).

Let us attend.

fundamentalist The word gained usage in an early-20th-century fundamentalist-modernist controversy within Protestantism. In recent years, however, fundamentalist has to a large extent taken on pejorative connotations except when applied to groups that stress strict, literal interpretations of Scripture and separation from other Christians.
In general, do not use fundamentalist unless a group applies the word to itself.

Duck and cover: What was the worst misuse of the Bible in history?

THE QUESTION:

Across the ages, what passage in the Bible was the subject of the most heinous misinterpretation and application?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

Without doubt, the answer is Genesis 9:18-27.

The use of those verses as biblical support for black slavery was “devastating, and patently false,” says David M. Goldenberg, who wrote the important studies “The Curse of Ham” (2005) and “Black and Slave” (2017). Black History Month is an appropriate season to contemplate a perverse biblical claim long perpetrated by various Christians, Jews and, from a different tradition, Muslims.

This Genesis passage, aptly called “obscure” and “enigmatic” by scholars, records a sordid incident in primeval times. After surviving the great Flood, Noah planted grapes and then (possibly by mistake) became drunk with wine. As Noah lay uncovered in a stupor, his son Ham “saw the nakedness of his father” and reported this to his brothers Shem and Japheth, who then took care to cover Noah without looking upon his naked body.

When Noah awoke and learned what had happened, he cursed Ham’s son Canaan, saying “a slave of slaves shall he be to his brothers.”

So this was not a “curse of Ham” so often spoken of, but upon Noah’s grandson Canaan. We are not told that God cursed Canaan, only that Noah did so. Noah then asked God to bless his sons Shem and Japheth while omitting Ham, but God had previously blessed all three brothers equally (Genesis 9:1).

“The Bible says nothing about skin color in the story of Noah,” Goldenberg observes, and others agree. Analysts differ on the geography and ethnicity that might be indicated in the genealogy that follows in Genesis chapter 10 but do agree on one obvious point. The Bible identified Canaan as the ancestor of the Canaanites, Israel’s pagan rivals. The family line in Genesis 11:10-31 designated another of Noah’s sons, Shem, as the ancestor of Abraham and thus the Israelites, as he was also to be of Ishmael and the Arabs.