God and Stuff

Things Ministers Hear

2012-01-20T20:38:00.001-08:00

Please excuse the language but I had to post this. I've heard all of these before...every single one of them.

:-)

On review, I haven't heard quite all of these. I'll leave you to figure out which ones don't apply.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-22T12:59:00.000-08:00

New Blog

2011-12-21T18:57:00.001-08:00

I've got a new blog that goes through the New Testament chapter by chapter. Come and join me.

RIP Christopher Hitchens

2011-12-16T07:43:00.000-08:00

I saw in the news this morning that Christopher Hitchens has died at the age of 62. Hitchens was a columnist, author, and pundit famous for his wit, his intellece, and his often controversial views.

I know him bast as an outspoken critic of religion. Islam, Christianity, and Judaism were his main targets but he viewed all religion as wrong-headed and evil, as can be seen inthe subtitle of his book, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.

I've got mixed feelings about Mr. Hitchens. On the one hand I think his criticism of religion was mean-spirited and unfair, his understanding of the Bible superficial at best, and his suppositions about Christian theology often wildly innacurate. He was fond of making blanked condemnations such as this from God is Not Great...

"violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism, tribalism, and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children"

.
Despite this, I have to must acknowledge that Hitchens often pointed to real problems that need to be dealt with. He raised important issues that need to be discussed honestly and seriously. While I often disagree--and strongly--with his conclusions, I think his questions are important and am grateful to him for raising them.

Goodbye, Christopher Hitchens. I'm not sure what to offer in farewell because I'm sure you'd scorn my blessing and be offended by my prayers. I guess I'll just thank you for making me think about uncomfortable things. I didn't end up where you'd have wanted me to, but I am better for having struggled with the questions.

Some Pre-Christmas Musings

2011-12-10T10:38:00.000-08:00

There are some things that we don't always think about in the Christmas story as it appears in the Bible.

Mary and Joseph were not married when Mary was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. We sometimes gloss over the scandalous implications of this because of the miracle, ut put all your expectations aside for a moment and think about it.

When we look at the age women were generally betrothed, Mary was an unwed, pregnant teenage girl. That's something that could be awkward even our more tolerant modern world, but think about thas. Mary lived in a culture that believed in "honor killings." The y may not have called them that but this law from Deuteronomy shows that it what they were.

It wasn't just a scandal; Mary's life was hanging by a thread. Joseph could have demanded that the men of the city stone her to death. Even putting her aside honorably would make her, as an unwed mother, an outcast, condemned by the whole community for her assumed loose morals. She knew what it meant to be vulnerable.

Which really gives a lot of extra meaning to what she says in the song we call the Magnificat.

And Mary said, "I'm bursting with God-news; I'm dancing the song of my Savior God. God took one good look at me, and look what happened - I'm the most fortunate woman on earth! What God has done for me will never be forgotten, the God whose very name is holy, set apart from all others. His mercy flows in wave after wave on those who are in awe before him. He bared his arm and showed his strength, scattered the bluffing braggarts. He knocked tyrants off their high horses, pulled victims out of the mud. The starving poor sat down to a banquet; the callous rich were left out in the cold. He embraced his chosen child, Israel; he remembered and piled on the mercies, piled them high. It's exactly what he promised, beginning with Abraham and right up to now.

This passage in Luke 1:46-55 is remarkible for what it tells us about God. This is not a God who kowtows to kings and presidents or takes special notice of the rich and famous. This isn't even a God who stands in solidatiry with the decent and morally upright church-going folk of the world.

The God who Mary sings about is a God who cares about the poor, the despised, the rejected, and the vulnerable. This is a God whose son is born out of wedlock to a poor couple with no social standing. It's scandalous but God's love is scandalous as he breaks all the social and religious rules out of love. And it's something that carries over to the ministry of Jesus who grows up to touch the untouchables, forgive the unforgivables, and embrace the unacceptables.

A Kinder, Gentler World?

2011-12-02T22:20:00.000-08:00

This is a fascinating topic and one that gives me hope for the world.

Stephen is vague about the role of religion in this. He dismisses the Bible a bit sarcastically as the "source of our morality" when decrying the ancient practices of total annihilation of enemies, and the use of the death penalty for so many crimes. At the same time, he suggests the "logic of the Golden Rule" as one possible reason for the growing ethic of peace.

For what it's worth, I think he's right in criticizing the ancient rules about genodide (though it no good archaeological evidence to show that the ancient Israelites ever took them literally enough to wage a genocidal war), and the use of the death penalty (though Rabbinic tradition asserts that death was only the punishment of last resort and was seldom used).

I'll agree with him that The Golden Rule is a huge step forward from the ethics of honor and revenge. Of course, Jesus is not the only person to formulate the rule, which is sometimes also referred to as the Ethic of Reciprocity but I think his version is the best known and most influential in the western world.

Does this show the ethics of Jesus slowly but surely chipping away at the violence and hatred of the world? I think it does, and you can bet I'm going to learn all that I can about this. In the meanwhile I'll just say, I'm very happy to learn that "Peace on Earth and goodwill to all people" is so much more than just a hopeful saying.

Giving Thanks

2011-11-23T13:01:00.000-08:00

There's an interesting Thanksgiving prayer in the classis movie "Shenandoah"when the family patriarch, played by Jimmy Stewart, says the blessing over the dinner.

The prayer does a lot to establish Stewart's character who is a proud, self-relaint, and pig-headed. He believes in himself and his family and not much of anything else. Bhy the end of the movie the tragedies he experiences in the Civil War have opened his heard and broadened his world at least a little.

I thought of this prayer on this Thanksgiving day because it reflects other things I've heard about thanking not thanking God. It's been a trend for a few years now for celebrities to thank God first when they win a Grammy, an Oscar, or some similar award. It's also become routime for comedians to mock this because it seems to suggest that this person winning is a priority for God.

Sports figures who thank God for a victory, a championship, etc. are also mocked by comedians. they point out that, if God has miraculously helped one team win he has also caused the other team to lose. Some also chide the athletes for failing to take responsibility for their own victories.

Finally, I've seen some people mock celebrities who thank God for healing. When Magic Johnson's HIV went into remission he and his wife publically thanked God, and I saw an on-line column blasting them for it. The article suggested that it would have been appropriate to thank his doctors, or the researchers who came up with AZT and other medicines that helped. Thanking God, the article suggested, was stupid and showed a lack of appreciation for the people who really helped.

There are things here that I agree with. I can't see God caring that much who wins"Best Album" at the Grammies, or intervening in the Superbowl. Also, if someone blows off the contributions of doctors and researchers when they thank God for a healing, I don't think that's right. (BTW, I don't thing that was Magic's attitude, or the attitude of many people who experience that kind of recovery. I don't think I've ever seen a case where thanking God made the recovering person any less grateful to all the people involved. It's not as if someone who's just gotten their life back has a shortage of gratitude.

As for "taking responsibility" for our acievements... that seems like a strange argument. It sounds like they are suggesting that superstars and celebrities suffer from tiny egos and that an excess of humility is going to sweep through them like a plague. (Wouldn't that be awful?)

The critics of thanking God have got some fair points, but I think they've missed the point. It's not about imagining that God likes me better then the next guy, or that every little success I have is thanks to supernatural intercession. Thanking God is realizing that we don't accomplish anything all by ourselves. We are connected to others, to family, to friends, to teammates and opponents, to docrtors and nurses and scientists, to producers, and backup singers, and directors, and to so many other people whose contributions to our lives we may not even be aware of. And as we are connected to each other, we are also connected to God. When we feel joy, success, elation, we are feeling our connection to God in that moment and thanksgiving is the most natural response in the world.

Thanksgiving shouldn't be just about the victories in our lives, because God is always with us. When we realize that, we find ourselves seeing blessings in every little thing, and feeling thankful every moment.

It's a better way to live, celebrating your blessings and feeling thankful for them. To go back to the movies, it's the difference between living like the stern and angry Jimmy Stewart from the beginning of "Shenandoah" and the thankful, joyful Jimmy Stewart at the end of "It's a Wonderful Life."

Which Jimmy Stewart would you rather be?

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

The Burden of Proof

2011-11-12T10:33:00.000-08:00

I run across a lot of interesting stuff while browsing the web. Yesterday I found a this poster on an Athiest perspective.

It's an interesting perspective. For one thing, it makes a point that not all Athiests disbelieve in the same way or for the same reason. For some, the problem of human suffering is the issue. I can see how an honest person with a conscience could have a hard time believing in a just and loving God. I think the problem of suffering is something that both believers and non-believers of conscience are bound to struggle with.

For some Athiests, I think it is the coolness factor. When you look at some of the mocking statements New Athiests make about how believers are stupid, delusional, superstitious, immoral, etc. the temptation is right there. Just declare yourself an Athiest and you can claim that you are smarter than the great majority of the human race. It's the flip side of people who become Christians thinking that will make them superior to everyone else. IMO, it's the shallowest reason to believe or disbelieve in anything.

Then there are some who just don't get believing. I've known a few folks in this category who aren't necessarily hostile to believers, but they don't see any logical reason to believe and don't feel any deep urge to believe. Without anything rational or irrational pushing them, the whole idea of believing in God just seems strange to them, and it's easy to see why.

The poster picks up on that, though it takes it in an angry direction. It implies that it is unfair to tell people that they should have to justify themselves by disproving the existence of God.

This is true. I can't make you believe and you're under no obligation to justify your disbelief. I completely agree with the poster to that point.

It's when you take the saying on the poster a little further that I disagree. If you take the "burden of proof" argument to suggest that believers should have to prove God's existence to justify our beliefs, I have to disagree.

I believe deeply and fully in God, but it's never been a matter of evidence. Faith in God seems as natural as eating or drinking to me, and I suspect that's the case for most believers. For us, needing to justify our faith in rational scientific terms is a bizarre idea. Faith, after all, is more about a relationship than about believing an idea.

I think I can get across what it's like with the analogy of falling in love. When you fall in love, there's no difficulty in proving the existence of the other person, but the bond between the two of you is a different matter. Your feelings of love are real, true, and powerful, but impossible to demonstrate. Imagine if someone said this about your love.

If you propose the existence of something, you must follow the scientific method in your defense of its existence. Otherwise, I have no reason to listen to you.

As wonderful and useful as the scientific method is, there are areas of life where it's the wrong tool for the job. There are many unscientific questions that it is powerless to help us understand, yet things like love, beauty, compassion, justice, and (yes) God are still meaningful and important to the majority of people.

The bottom line for me is that the argument about proving God's existence is a silly one. In the modern world we talk about God vs. science, but trying to prove God in scientific terms doesn't make any more sense than trying to prove science in the terms of faith.

Faith and science are two different tools with different uses, different strengths and different weaknesses. Just because science can't answer a question doesn't mean it's a bad question. I really think that we need both the insights of faith and of science. I think that we should stop seeing this as a war and start seeing it as a conversation where each side has a lot to learn and a lot to offer.

The Bully Pulpit

2011-11-10T12:46:00.000-08:00

I stole my title from Stephen Colbert this week because it kind of says it all.

In an attempt to protect kids from being bullied in public schools, the Michigan legislature has enacted an anti-bullying measure. Michigan Republicans, however have added language to the bill allowing bullying on religious and moral grounds.

Colbert says it better than I can.

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

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I hope it's obvious to everyone without me having to say it just how un-Christian this is. The idea that anyone needs the freedom to physically or even verbally bash another human being to express their religious or moral convictions is absurd. The fact that is it people who call themselves Christians pushing this is deeply offensive to be and about as blasphemous as anything I've ever heard. It shows a tragic lack of understanding of Jesus, who spent his life touching the untouchables, welcoming the outcasts, and standing up for the marginalized.

We have the freedom in the US to express our opinions, even our most hateful and mean-spirited opinions. That's a valuable freedom, but it was not and never should become license to bully.

"My right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins." - Oliver Wendell Holmes

Thank You Bishop Spong

2011-10-22T17:47:00.000-07:00

I've been reading columns by retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong for quite a few years. He is an important voice in modern Christianity and, though I often disagree with him about details, I have a lot of respect for him.

There's something that Bishop Spong says about what he calls the "God of theism" that has always bothered me. He seemed to be saying things about God that I disagreed with and I wanted to understand better. I once e-mailed him a question about it but never saw the answer in his column. It turns out that he did answer; I just found what he said in another blog. What he said helped me understand him better, and let me know that we are closer to agreeing than I realized.

Here are question and answer:

----------------------------------------------

Question and Answer
With John Shelby Spong

Matthew Baugh, via the Internet, writes:

I've wondered for a while about the definition of theism and its implications. There seem to be three central points you use most often. The God of theism is 1) external, 2) supernatural, 3) intervenes in human lives. Does this statement imply that God is the opposite of these three things?

Much of what you write suggests that this is clearly true of point 3. You present God as not intervening and not capable of intervening. The opposite of point 2 would seem to be that God is natural. Is this a correct assumption and, if so, how do you see God as manifest in the natural world? The opposite of point 1 would seem to be that God is internal.

I'm very aware that I might be reading too much into your words but the sense I get is that you suggest that God is internal to human experience. This seems to fit with some modern brain research that suggests that human beings are "hard-wired" to believe in some higher power and to worship it. This research suggests that belief in God is a natural part of being human rather than a social construct imposed from without.

Is this the non-theistic understanding of God? Internal, natural (though not manifest outside of human consciousness) and unable to intervene in the world (except perhaps through God's effects on the consciousness of each believer?)

Dear Matthew,

Thank you for your penetrating and perceptive letter that gives me an opportunity to think publicly once more about the meaning of the word "God" in human experience.

Let me begin by making a distinction. I try not to talk about the "God of theism." I regard theism as a human definition of God. It is not who or what God is. Theism is a human attempt to describe a God experience in pre-modern language. Prior to Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo, people inevitably thought of God as a supernatural presence over the natural world.

Before Isaac Newton, they thought of God as setting aside the laws of the universe to do miracles or to answer prayers. Before Darwin and Freud, they thought of God as the external creator and portrayed God as a heavenly parent. Prior to Einstein, they assumed that these perceptions were objectively true and not subject to the relativity in which all human thought dwells since both the time in which we live and the space we occupy are relative, not absolute. So when I dismiss theism, I am not dismissing God. I am dismissing one human image of God that sought to define a human experience of the divine.

To suggest that if theism is not true then the opposite of theism is true is to make the same mistake. Every human attempt to define God is nothing more than a human attempt to define the human experience of the divine. We can never tell who God is or who God is not. We can only tell another of what we believe our experience of God has been. Even then we have to face the possibility that all of our God talk may be delusional.

When I try to talk of God, I am only talking of my God experience. That is not what God is, that is only what I believe my experience of God to be.

I do not experience God as a supernatural power, external to life invading my world in supernatural power. I see no evidence to think this definition is real. The problem is that most people have most deeply identified this definition of God with God that when this definition dies the victim of expanded knowledge, we think that God has died.

I am not trying to form a new definition. I am only trying to share an experience. In my human self-consciousness at both the depth of life and on the edges of consciousness, I believe I encounter a transcendent other. In that encounter, I experience expanded life, the increased ability to love and a new dimension of what it means to be. I call that experience God and that experience leads me to say that if I meet God in expanded life, God becomes for me the source of life. If I meet God in the enhanced ability to love, God becomes for me the source of love. If I meet God in an increased ability to be all that I am, God becomes for me the ground of being.

I can talk about my experience. Having only a human means of communication I cannot really talk about God. Horses can experience a human being entering their horse consciousness, but a horse could never tell another horse what it means to be human. Somehow human beings have never quite embraced that fact that this is also true about the human being's knowledge of God.

I do not know how God acts therefore I can never say how God acts. For me to say God is unable to intervene would be to say more than I know. For me to explain how God intervenes or why God does not intervene is to claim knowledge of God that is not mine.

I test my experience daily in the light of evolving human language. The result of that is that every day I believe in God more deeply, while at the same time, every day I seem to have less and less beliefs about God. Human beings seem almost incapable of embracing mystery, especially ultimate mystery. I am content to walk daily with the mystery of God. I walk past road maps, past religious systems, even my own but never beyond the mystery of God. I suppose that makes me a mystic, but an uncomfortable, never satisfied, always-evolving one.

I find great meaning and great power in this approach. I commend it to you. Thank you for your super letter.

A Prayer for Egypt

2011-10-11T11:31:00.000-07:00

I heard some disturbing reports about violence in Egypt last week. As you probably know, Egypt was one of the first great successes of the Arab Spring when popular demonstrations managed to dislodge the dictator, Hosni Mubarak. I thought it was wonderful, and was heartened to hear young Arabs and Egyptians rejecting terrorism in favor of the power of peaceful protest.

Unfortunately, there is a dark side to the revolution. A month ago, Egyptian crowds attacked the Israeli Embassy, and just a few days ago saw a rash of anti-Christian violence.

According to reports, a radical Islamic group called the Salafis are targeting the Coptic Christians with several church burnings and acts of violence. The Copts, who have lived in the country since before the time of Muhammed, are upset by the transitional government's lack of action on the matter. To make matters words, a non-violent Christian protest was attacked by the army leaving at least 25 dead and nearly 300 injured.

The government blames a outside conspiracy that wants to destabilize the country while many on the street think the army may be encouraging chaos in a bid to remain in power. This isn't helped by a the fact that the government controlled media will not report the Coptic side of the story or broadcast any story that accuses government forces or Muslims of wrong-doing.

I believe there are many people in Egypt who want to see peace between the different religions, but it's an uphill battle. What looked like good news for all Egyptians may not be such good news for the religious minorities. Only time will tell. I hope that the prayers of the rest of the world will be with Egypt and the whole Arabic world, and I also hope that the eyes of the world will be on them. May peace prevail on earth but may that peace always include justice for all.

(NOTE: I put this entry aside for a week. In that time there have been huge developments in Libya where dictator Moammar Gadhafi has been killed. My concerns, and hopes, for that country are very much like those for Egypt.)

Happy Halloween (early)

2011-10-09T18:05:00.001-07:00

I'm a pastor but I've never seen the sense in the anti-Halloween sentiment that you find in some churches. Children dressing up as ghosts and witches is innocent fun (besides, these days it's more about superheroes and Disney princesses than spooky creatures).

Like anything else, Halloween can be made into what we want it to be. It can be just another excuse for a party, or it can be a time to have some quality time with the kids, or you can even find a lesson in it.

Here's something a parishioner pased on to me that I used in church today. I carved a pumpkin as an illustration. (Man, it's been too many years since I did that.)

THE JACK O'LANTERN PRAYER

"Pumpkin Prayer"

{cut off top of pumpkin}
Lord, open my mind so I can learn new things about you.

{remove innards}
Remove the things in my life that don’t please you.
Forgive the wrong things I do and help me to forgive others.

{cut open eyes}
Open my eyes to see the beauty you’ve made in the world around me.

{cut out nose}
I’m sorry for the times I’ve turned my nose at the good food you provide.

{cut out mouth}
Let everything I say please You.

{light the candle}
Lord, help me show your light to others through the things I do. Amen

By: Liz Curtis Higgs

New Blog

2011-09-24T17:02:00.000-07:00

I've wanted to go through the entire Bible with a blog, but there are enough topics I want to cover here that it would get a little cluttered.

Because of this, I've started a NEW BLOG to cover the Bible. I hope you'll join me there to take a fresh look at familiar stories and maybe even to discover a few new things.

Bad for Women?

2011-08-13T15:58:00.000-07:00

I recently signed up for a wonderful site called Bible Study Tools.com which has an even broader assortment of versions of the Bible than my old favorite, Bible Gateway. I'm just learning all the features but one I love is the ability to look at passages from two different versions side by side.

There's a downside to everything, I suppose. The articles I've seen there are (so far) all very conservative. One of these that really caught my attention was an article by Mary Kassian, an author, speaker and professor of women's studies at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.

In her article 10 Reasons Why the New 2011 NIV Is Bad for Women she takes aim at the practice of using gender-inclusive language in the Bible.

In case you're not familiar with it, "inclusive language" means using language that isn't just male. For example, when addressing a group of people where there are men and women mingles it means saying something like "brothers and sisters" instead of just "brothers" or when talking about all the people in the world it means using "humanity" instead of "man."

This has been fairly common practice in my church (the United Church of Christ) for at least thirty years but has only recently made inroads into Mrs. Kassian's Southern Baptist denomination. This trend bothers her and she has listed 10 reasons that she thinks inclusive language in the Bible is bad for women.

I disagree with her. While I think that inclusive language (like any cause) can be done poorly, I think the basic idea is theologically sound, rooted in authentic Christian faith, and important for modern people. I'll try to explain why point by point.

Here are Mrs. Kassian's points (in bold) followed by my comments.

1. It obscures the profound symbolism of gender:

There may be something in this point, though Mrs. Kassian doesn't develop it. I'll concede that she might be right about some positive symbolism being lost, but I believe that is overshadowed by the negative and sexist symbolism. The Bible was written in a deeply sexist culture where women were not only considered inferior but treated as property. Modern sexists use this to pretend that these attitudes are God's will in the same way that preachers in the Antebellum South used scriptures about slavery to claim that was God's will. We need to strip away the cultural baggage in scripture to discern God's truth more clearly and inclusive language can help to do that.

2. It exalts gender above that to which it points:

Mrs. Kassian says . . .

Changing the Bible's gender language implies that the Bible's gender language is about us. It's not. The Bible is ultimately . . . about Jesus

I agree that the grand sweep of the Bible is about God more than it is about gender. We should not use inclusive language in such a heavy-handed manner that the Bible seems to be a manual on gender rather than the story of God and humanity. Fortunately, nobody who wants to use inclusive language is trying to do this. The changes are subtle and don't alter the story of God or Christ one bit.

3. It diminishes the unique beauty of womanhood:

I'm not sure what to say in response to this. I don't see it, and Mrs. Kassian doesn't ever say how it diminishes women.

4. It is less inclusive of women:

This is an interesting point. Mrs. Kassian points out that the Hebrew word for all people, male and female, is 'adam. She says that when we say "men and women" we are excluding women from the collective whole.

While I can see her point, it would really only be true if people were talking about changing the Hebrew word. No one is doing that. The question is what the best translation of 'adam is. She seems to argue that "man" or "mankind" is the only appropriate English translation. She doesn't say why she believes this is better than a gender neutral term like "humanity."

5. It demeans women:

Mrs. Kassian says that a gender inclusive Bible assumes that women are too stupid that "man" actually means "human" and that "brothers" often means "brothers and sisters." The truth is that this doesn't make any judgment that women are stupid at all. It simply addresses the reality that there are many people who have heard from their preachers that, when the Bible says "men" it means "males only."

6. It patronizes women:

I was surprised by how sarcastic Mrs. Kassian got on this point. She says...

Poor little girls. The translators need to change the words of the Bible so our feelings don't get hurt. Boo hoo.

She says that changing the language of the Bible to avoid hurting women's feelings is wrong. She's right, if that was what was happening, it would be patronizing. But that's not what's happening; inclusive language Bibles exist to give us a more accurate understanding of God's word, free from the sexist prejudices of older generations of translators.

7. It calls God's attitude toward women into question:

She rightly says that God loves men and women equally, but assumes that inclusive language is criticizing God for giving men more air time than women. The truth is that inclusive language criticized not God, but the human writers and translators of scripture who sometimes let their own prejudices overshadow God's truth.

8. It calls God's wisdom into question:

Again, there is no criticism of God, only of the wisdom of humans who bring a sexist agenda to biblical translation.

9. It encourages further changes to Scripture:

Mrs. Kassian says . . .

I know of at least one Muslim that is aghast that Christians would have the audacity to tamper with the wording of our Holy Book.

This one stunned me, not that a Muslim would be agast, but that a Christian would use this as an argument. The Muslim approach to scripture is very different from that of Christianity. Muslims seek to avoid even translating the Qur'an as much as possible and I've seen Muslim critics of Christianity say that the sheer number of versions of the Bible is proof that we are drifting further and further from the original meaning.

Actually, the opposite is true. The reason we have new translations is because we have better scholarship and better access to good ancient manuscripts. Our modern versions, and that includes gender inclusive versions, are attempts to get closer to the meaning of the originals scriptures.

10. It leads women away from truth:

Mrs. Kassian rightly feels that the scripture shoudln't be watered down or made more palatable. But she is mistaken if she thinks that is what lies behind the gender inclusive versions. As I've said, this movement seeks to strip away human prejudice and offer a more accurate and more faithful understanding of our holy scriptures. That's not to say that inclusive language Bibles are automatically good. Like any other approach it can be handled faithfully and well, or clumsily and dogmatically.

The challenge is not to accept inclusive language because we like it, or to reject it because we are blindly afraid of it. We should use it fairly and rationally to help us grow closer to God.

What About Hell?

2011-08-10T10:51:00.000-07:00

A friend sent me Time magizine article from earlier this year. It seems that Rob Bell, the pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church is making waves in Evangelical Christianity with his new book, Love Wins. He is raising the question of whether people who don't believe in Jesus are doomed to suffer for eternity in Hell, or whether the truth is different than what so many Christians expect.

Bell has been criticized for this book. Even though he doesn't come to any firm conclusions about who goes to heaven and who to Hell, he opens the door to the question. This has been called "theologically disastrous" by Conservative Evangelical radio host Albert Mohler. The objection (if I understand it correctly) is that we need the threat of Hell because people aren't going to follow Jesus just because of his goodness, mercy, wisdom, and the way he draws people into a new relationship with God.

Some Evangelical critics have called Bell a Universalist because of the book. For the record, he is not, but he does believe that the question of who is saved and who is doomed is an open one, and the most honest way to discuss this is to affirm that this is a mystery here.

I have a lot of respect for the wisdom, insights, scholarship and compassion of Rob Bell. I haven't read his book yet, but I agree with everything I've heard him say about it in articles I've read. When he says that eternal damnation for all non-Christians seems incompatable with the loving ministry of Jesus, I have to agree 100%.

I'm going to say more about Hell in my next several blogs. It's always surprised me how little the Bible has to say on the subject. Most of what we believe in Hell comes from much later Christian preaching and traditions. But more on that later. Till then, I'll just leave you with this video of Rob Bell debating this topic with < href="http://adrianwarnock.com/">Adrian Warnock a conservative Evangelical pastor from the UK.

See who you agree with.

video platform video management video solutions video player

Bible Literacy - Wrap Up

2011-07-15T09:55:00.000-07:00

Just a few final thoughts on the Bible Literacy quiz.

1) The Freedom From Religion Foundation is correct that a lot of Christians don't know the Bible as well as they should. For one thing, it's shocking how many believers have trouble differentiating between what is actually in the Bible and what their church and/or preacher says about the Bible.

2) However it is also true that many Athiest critics are equally sloppy, take passages out of context, and fail to distinguish between doctrines and actual scriptures.

3) The FFRF is correct that there are quite a few passages in the Bible that are shocking. There is violence, intolerance, sexism, and hate speech.

4) But, like a number of athiest critics, they tend to cherry pick the worst scriptures and turn a blind eye to the overrisding themes themes of mercy, compassion, and justice. (There are more than 2000 passages about showing compassion and justice to the poor making it the second most dominant theme, only surpassed by the theme of faith in God.)

5) The FFRF correctly points out that the Bible is not an accurate source for scientific or medical information.

6) But they tend to distort the passages about ethical and spiritual teachings to try to discredit them. They pull passages out of context and offer unreasonable interpretations.

Bottom line: There are some areas where there is real need for investigation and criticism of the Bible and especially of a narrow and literal reading of the Bible. It's an important conversation and I think that believers and nonj-believers alike could benefit form an open dialogue.

This would need to be an honest conversation to accomplish anything. Neither side could come in assuming that only they had all then answers. The dialogue would have to inlcude respect, humility and an openness to learning something new.

I'd love to see that happen someday.

Bible Literacy - 6

2011-07-15T09:31:00.000-07:00

41. Paul forbids divorce, but Jesus allows it under one circumstance. What is that circumstance?

Answer: B - If the wife has sex outside of marriage.

Sexism illustrated: in Christianity, only a male can divorce a cheating spouse.

"It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement: But I say unto you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery." (Matthew 5:31-32) Not only did Jesus contradict Paul (I Corinthians 7:10), he admittedly contradicted the Mosaic law (Deuteronomy 24:1), which allowed divorce on much broader grounds.

My Comments:

Divorce in Jesus' time was sexist, just as marriage was sexist. The wife had few rights under Jewish law and divorcing her husband was not one of them. The husband on the other hand, could divorce his wife if he decided there was anything wrong with her or if he simply got tired of her.

This teaching from Jesus came because he was upset by seeing women cast off so casually. Women in Jewish soceity were extremely vulnerable and a divorced woman was put out of the house with no money, property, or means of support. Often begging or prostitution were her only means of survival. Jesus' teaching was meant to protect women from this harsh and unfair practice.

42. What group of people will make it into the heavenly choir?

Answer: D - 144,000 male virgins who have not been defiled with women.

No women allowed! Notice the sexism: women "defile" men.

"And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father's name written in their foreheads. . . . And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth. These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb withersoever he goeth." (Revelation 14:1-4)

My Comments:

The FFRF got this one pretty much right. Like most of the images in Revelation, this is symbolic rather than literal (the number 144,000, for instance is symbolic. It is created by multiplying 12 squared by 10 cubed. Both 1 and 10 are symbolic of wholeness.)

43. Which one of these words is in the bible (Trinity, Liberal, Christmas, or Rapture)?

Answer: B - Liberal.

In the King James version of the bible, "liberal" is a good word. The word "conservative" appears nowhere in the bible.

Different translations translate this differently: NIV="giving generously" giving liberally in , which is rendered:

"The liberal soul shall be made fat: and he that watereth shall be watered also himself." (Proverbs 11:25) "The vile person shall be no more called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful." (Isaiah 32:5) "But the liberal deviseth liberal things; and by liberal things shall he stand." (Isaiah 32:8) "Whiles by the experiment of this ministration they glorify God for your professed subjection unto the gospel of Christ, and for your liberal distribution unto them, and unto all men . . . Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift." (II Corinthians 9:13-15)

My Comments:

Very true. It's an amusing thought, if not really a comment on modern politics (though it is true that many Christians are political Liberals and vice versa.)

It is hard to know when early belief in the Trinity arose, (likely sometime in first several centuries of Christianity) but the word "Trinity" only dates back to the 13th Century and never appears in the Bible.

The Christian celebration of Christmas dates back to the 4th Century CE. The actual word "Christmas" is pre-12th Century but does not appear in the Bible.

The word "rapture" comes from 1594 but the theological understanding of the Rapture is much more recent and comes from 17th Century America.

44. Where does the bible say that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights?

Answer: D - Nowhere.

Nowhere in the bible will you find an acknowledgement that human beings have inherent rights to life, liberty, happiness, dignity, fairness, or self-government. In the bible, humans are sinners, worms, and slaves--God has all the rights.

"There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death." (Proverbs 14:12) "Lean not unto thine own understanding." (Proverbs 3:5) "Bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." (II Corinthians 10:5) "Captivity" is not freedom. The U.S. Declaration of Independence is a humanistic, anti-biblical document.

My Comments:

It is true that the Bible contains no declaration of human rights; no ancient document does. The very concept of a declaration of human rights is a modern one.

The focus on human beings as "sinners, worms, and slaves" is not really biblical. A quick survey of the KJV trns up only 3 instances of people being called worms. Two of these (Job 25:6 and Psalm 22:6) are the reflections of deeply depressed men and the third (Isaiah 41:14) a word of reassurance to Israel at a time when the people feel like worms. In all these cases, it is the people, not God, who call themselves worms.

The words "sinners" and "slaves" are much more common in the Bible but they are not really used as the FFRF characfterizes them. Different specific groups are called "sinners" in scripture but the word is never used as a blanket characterization for all people. As for "slaves", the term is used a lot in the parables of Jesus, but it is a reminder that all people have responsibilities, not that we are unworthy. The FFRF's objection really applies to the way some preachers talk about humanity, not the way the Bible talks about them.

When the Bible says that people should submit to God it means that they should be loving, truthful, generous, forgiving, etc. It is not the same as the freedom to lie, to hate, to act out of greed, malice or selfishness, but these are the only "freedoms" that submission of God takes from us.

As for the Declaration of Independence, it is a noble documant and it is humanistic. It is hardly anti-Bible though, not in the eyes of most American Christians, nor in the eyes of its Deist author, Thomas Jefferson, who wrote: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.(emphasis mine) nor in the eyes of the signers of the Declaration, 32 of whom were Episcopalian, 13 Congregationalist, 12 Presbyterian, 2 Quaker, 2 Unitarian, and 1 Catholic.

45. Should Christians allow nonbelievers into their homes?

Answer: No

Acting inhospitably is the Christian thing to do. Notice how this verse unfairly equates unbelief and diversity with evil: "If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds." (II John 10-11)

My Comments:

Like many of the writers of the epistles, the author of 2 John was dealing with a specific situation. It looks like there were some non-believers in the community who were actively trying to talk believers out of the church. His advice made sense in that situation but wasn't meant to be for all Christians everywhere.

Hospitality is one of the core values of Christianity ans it shows up in many scriptures, including Matthew 25:34-40.

Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what's coming to you in this kingdom. It's been ready for you since the world's foundation. And here's why:

I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me a drink, I was homeless and you gave me a room, I was shivering and you gave me clothes, I was sick and you stopped to visit, I was in prison and you came to me.'

"Then those 'sheep' are going to say, 'Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?' Then the King will say, 'I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.'

46. Should Christian men kiss each other?

Answer: Yes

Why do we not see men kissing in church, then? "Greet all the brethren with an holy kiss." (I Thessalonians 5:26. See also Romans 16:16; I Corinthians 16:20; II Corinthians 13:12; I Peter 5:14)

My Comments:

Well... this was the custom of the time, but it's not exactly a command. :-)

47. Should Christians always give what they have to anyone who asks for it?

Answer: Yes

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said: "Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again." (Luke 6:30, repeated in Matthew 5:42) Try asking Christians for their houses and possessions, and see how faithful they are to the teachings of Jesus. Borrow a Christian's car and see if they ever ask for it back. Modern believers know that Jesus was wrong and the bible is not to be taken literally.

My Comments:

Jesus was using exaggeration to make a point about generosity. Rather than hoard resources and turning a blind eye to people in need, he suggests sharing without complaint. Ther FFRF is half right here, this passage shouldn't be interpreted literally, as an inflexible rule, but Jesus wasn't wrong: generosity is a better way to live than selfishness.

48. Do the Ten Commandments prohibit incest or rape?

Answer: No

The "ten commandments" (see Question 1) do not condemn any sexual acts. The only sexual practice prohibited by the list in Exodus 20 is adultery, which, although a valid marital concern, is a legal act between consenting adults. The violent and degrading crimes of rape and incest surely should have rated a "top ten" list, but they do not appear. Adultery in the Old Testament was considered a crime that could only be committed by a wife. Harper's Bible Dictionary explains: "The law was probably intended to ensure that any child born to the wife was really the husband's child, since it was considered crucial for the husband to have offspring, so that the family name could be perpetuated." Adultery had bearing on the patriarchy, while more violent crimes did not.

My Comments:

This is essentially correct. Rape and incest are prohibited but are not given the special status of being in thew 10 Commandments. The Ten Commandments do reflect the culture and the time they were written. as much as they reflect the word of God.

49. If you lose a lawsuit, should you pay exactly what the court decides?

Answer: No

You should pay twice as much! In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus commands: "And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain." (Matthew 5:40-41) Are bible-believing Christians really paying double court-ordered child support? Or are they wiser than Jesus?

My Comments:

This is another case of Jesus exaggerating to make a point (as with question 47). In this instance the point is that Christians should try not to get caught up in the hostile dog-eat-dog world of lawsuits. When you are in a dispute, Jesus teaches that it is better to reach out in kindness and generosity than to lash back. It wouldn't work as an inflexible rule, but Jesus had little use for those and offers it as a guiding principle.

50. Can Christians ask their boss for a raise?

Answer: No

It is un-Christian to ask for a raise: "And [John the Baptist] said unto them, Exact no more than that which is appointed you. And the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, And what shall we do? and he said unto them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages." (Luke 3:13-14) Modern Christians who love their families know better than this: it is not responsible to deny yourself a fair market wage, especially if you have children to support. Real family values transcend the bible. [John the Baptist was "preparing the way" for Jesus when he supposedly spoke these words.]

My Comments:

As with a number of scriptures the FFRF cites, this one changes when you read the whole thing. Here is is in KJV:

And the people asked him, saying, What shall we do then?

He answereth and saith unto them, He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise.

Then came also publicans (tax-collectors) to be baptized, and said unto him, Master, what shall we do?

And he said unto them, Exact no more than that which is appointed you.

And the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, And what shall we do? And he said unto them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages. (Luke 3:10-14

And it's even clearer in the Message version:

The crowd asked him, "Then what are we supposed to do?"

"If you have two coats, give one away," he said. "Do the same with your food."

Tax men also came to be baptized and said, "Teacher, what should we do?"

He told them, "No more extortion—collect only what is required by law."

Soldiers asked him, "And what should we do?"

He told them, "No shakedowns, no blackmail—and be content with your rations."

John the Baptist was telling people to stop harassing and eploiting others. There's nothing here to suggest he'd have any issue with a laborer asking for a fair raise.

So... how did the FFRF do on their own test? FWIW, I'm giving them credit for all correct answers even where they made false statements in their comments.

THEIR SCORE: 36 out of 50.

Bible Literacy - 5

2011-07-15T09:01:00.000-07:00

31. According to Jesus, what must you do to have eternal life?

Answer: B - "Sell everything you have and give all the money to the poor."

Heaven will be very empty, it seems. How many Christians take seriously this direct command of Jesus?

My Comments:

This is a potent lesson that more affluent Christians could afford to think on, but it is an exaggeration for the sake of effect. We know that the Disciples had a common purse for their expenses. We also know that there were several generous female followers of Jesus who funded his ministry.

While selflessness and generosity are important in Christianity, Jesus isn't laying down inflexible rules. When he speaks to the Rich Young Ruler the instruction to give all he has is to him alone. Those of us who "overhear" the instruction learn a lot about generosity and the dangers of being too tied to wealth and possessions.

Jesus offered different advice to others who wanted to enter the community. To some he said that entering the Kingdom had to do with caring for those in need, to others he said it had to do with having the openness and simplicity of a child. Everyone needs all of these things in some measure. A lot of the genius of Jesus was to perceive the needs of each person he spoke to.

32. According to Jesus, how should Christian disciples treat their parents?

Answer: C - Parents should be hated.

More family values from the "Good Book."

"If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14:26) The word "hate" here is miseo, the Greek word for "hate," from which we get the prefix in "misanthropy" and "misogyny." The same writer uses miseo in such verses as: "Blessed are ye when men shall hate you." (Luke 6:22)
The concept of devaluing your family is reflected by Matthew: "And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." (Matthew 10:37-38) Why not love your family first? This sounds like something an uneasy dictator would say.

My Comments:

This is another answer that is technically correct but completely misses the spirit of Jesus' teachings. Jesus taught love for all people, but did a lot to shake up the idea of what constituted family. He reached out to the outcasts and the rejected to include them in the family of God.

It is natural to put out families first, but with that comes a constant danger. The Corleone family may be fictional, but their story makes the point of what can happen when family is the ultimate value. We can use our loved ones to justify all manner of selfish and even cruel behavior
The scene shows the contrast in the values espoused by Michael Corleone in the baptism vows, and the terrible things he is willing to do in the name of his family.

By putting God ahead of family, Jesus is saying that God's values of compassion, honesty, justice, etc. come first and nothing, not even family, not even your own life should be an excuse to settle for less.

33. According to Jesus, how should slaves be treated?

Answer: B - They should be beaten for disobedience, but not more severely then they deserve.

Jesus never denounced slavery: he endorsed it! He incorporated it into his teachings as if it were the most natural order (which it was for the biblical writers who didn't know any better). Why doesn't the bible--supposedly inspired by an all-loving deity--ever hint that there is something wrong with such a brutal social institution? If it were not for the influence of the bible, the appalling American slave trade might have been curtailed, along with the bloody Civil War.

"And that servant, which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes."

(Luke 12:47-48) The entire context (Luke 12:41-48) shows that this is not part of a parable--it is the explanation of a parable, after Peter asked a question. But even if it were a parable, it would carry the same weight as a teaching of Jesus.

The word "servant" above is doulos, which means "slave" in Greek, and is correctly rendered "slave" by the NRSV, NAS, Scholar's Version, and others. "Shall" meant "should," as Jesus adds: "For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required." (Luke 12:48)

My Comments:

Slavery is wrong. That's something that is terribly obvious to any modern person. Unfortunately, (as the FFRF points out) slavery was an accepted fact in the ancient warrior. It was a worldwide phenominon and wasn't seriously questioned until the modern period.

It would have been great if Jesus had explicitly come out against slavery, just as it would have been nice if he'd made statements about sexism, the destruction of the environment, racism, homophobia, etc. That kind of argument is unfair, though, and would also condemn Buddha, Lao Tsu, Plato, Marcus Aurelius, and pretty much every other great thinker, religious or secular, of the ancient world.

I think it's a stretch to blame American slavery on the Bible, let alone the Civil War. Slavery existed in the Americas because of for the same kind of economic reasons that had always driven it, and by the attitude of superiority that had always helps people justify exploiting others. Christianity shares some of the blame, but Christians have also been in the forefront of ending slavery. While many preachers in the American South used the Bible to justify slavery, the Abolitionist movement was also spear-headed by Churches and Christian groups. My own church took very noble efforts abainst slavery, including their role in the Amistad Incident.

To get back to the scripture cited, let's look at the full passage. Judge for yourself if it is an endorsement of slavery, or Jesus using an image the people of his time would have known to make a point?

34. What did Jesus say about peace?

Answer: B - "Don't think that I came for peace on earth. I came to start wars."

Are these the words of a good man?

"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword." (Matthew 10:34) "I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled? But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished! Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division." (Luke 12:49-51) These words, by the way, come immediately after Jesus talked about beating slaves. (See Question 33)

My Comments:

The words, "I come to start wars" would not be the words of a good man, so it's good that Jesus didn't say them. As you can see from the scripture the FFRF cites, the actual words (in their common English translation) are "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword." The question is what he meant by a sword.

The usual understanding of this text is that Jesus is promosing that his life and ministry will shake things up. He is challenging the prejudices and power structures that have marginalized so many people. He is going up against the elites who want to keep things just as they are. With all that, there is going to be division, and trouble. This is a warning to anyone who follows him that they are not going to be safe from the turmoil. The reality is that many of them will face anger and rejection, even from friends and family members.

But is Jesus pushing for physical violence? It's hard to make that case against the man who taught about loving our enemies and turning the other cheek. How can we make such an assumption about the man who refused to fight back when he was arrested? The man whose last words as he was crucified were to pray for firgiveness for his executioners.

The early Christians certainl;y did not interpret this saying as Jesus wanting to start wars. Though most Christians were still Jewish in the first century, they refused to take part in the Jewish Uprising of 66-73 CE, nor the Bar Kokhba Revolt of 132-136 CE. The first few generations of Christians were pacifists who would not enlist in the army or become gladiators. Many would not even fight back when sentenced to die in the arena. Given all this, there is no way the words of Jesus can be understood as promoting war.

35 Which of the following did Jesus not say about witnessing?

Answer: B - "God is my witness."

Paul wrote: "For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son." (Romans 1:9)

Notice that Jesus contradicts himself below.

"Jesus answered and said unto them, though I bear record [martyria] of myself, yet my record [martyria] is true: for I know whence I came, and whither I go; but ye cannot tell whence I come, and wither I go." (John 8:14) Martyria means "bear witness" (NAS) or "testify" (NIV, NRSV), the same word used in the contradictory John 5:31 (below).

"If I bear witness [martyria] of myself, my witness [martyria] is not true." (John 5:31)

Needless to say, Jesus was not very reliable, nor was he very clear.

My comments:

In John 5 Jesus is speaking to a group of Pharisees who have just challenged his authority to heal on the Sabbath. He responds that, since the healings he does come from God he isn't doing anything wrong; God is clearly working on the Sabbath too.

He goes on to say that his authority comes from God, and he has evidence. If he were just some guy claiming to have authority, they wouldn't need to take him seriously. The fact that he can heal, though, shows that God is bearing witness for him, and it's the kind of witness they can't deny.

In John 9 we see Jesus arguing with the Pharisees again and he tells them that he is the Light of the World. They ask for proof and he essentially "You can trust me, I know. I'm my own witness."

If that was all he said, it would be a contradiction, but here's what he goes on to say in verses 16-18.

And yet if I judge, my judgment is true: for I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me.

It is also written in your law, that the testimony of two men is true.

I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me.

In other words, though the passages may sound contradictory, but a closer reading shows they are saying exactly the same thing.

36. What personal sacrifice for "the kingdom of heaven" was Jesus talking about when he told his disciples, "He that is able to receive it, let him receive it"?

Answer: D - Castrate yourself.

No wonder we don't hear sermons from the entire New Testament--how many preachers actually take this ghastly advice seriously?! Although some have prudently tried to interpret this as celibacy rather than castration, the early church father Origen read it literally and took a knife to himself. There were entire monastic orders, and church choirs in need of sopranos known as "castrati" based on this teaching of Jesus. Literal or not, the face value of this verse is physical mutilation:

"But he said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given. For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs from the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it." (Matthew 19:11-12) The Scholar's Version has: "There are castrated men who castrated themselves because of Heaven's imperial rule. If you are able to accept this (advice), do so."

Tragically, every year there are reported cases of Christian followers mutilating themselves because "the bible tells me so."

My Comments:

The story about Origen castrating himself may be true but it is controversial among historians. Is is true that some Christians have believed the story and have castrated themselves. I haven't been able either to verify or rebuke that this passage has ever been used to justify the castrati singers as FFRF claims. I have also been unable to verify the claims of Christian self-castration every year. If it is true it is a terrible tragedy.

But does the passage really mean what some have taken it to mean? I haven't checked out in the Greek myself, but talented translator and exegete Eugene Peterson translates the passage this way in The Message version of the Bible:

But Jesus said, "Not everyone is mature enough to live a married life. It requires a certain aptitude and grace. Marriage isn't for everyone. Some, from birth seemingly, never give marriage a thought. Others never get asked—or accepted. And some decide not to get married for kingdom reasons. But if you're capable of growing into the largeness of marriage, do it." (Matthew 19:11-12)

37. According to New Testament medical advice, what should you do if you are sick?

Answer: B - Ask the church elders to apply oil to your skin and pray for you.

"Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up." (James 5:14-15)

Verses like these have resulted in the needless deaths of adults and criminal-neglect deaths of children from treatable illnesses that were left untreated because of prayer. Why couldn't the biblical deity have dispensed some useful medical advice to the human race instead of placebo prescriptions for prayer?

My Comments:

Actually, it's not the prayers or the anointing with oil that results in illness and death, it's the insistence of some Christians that those are all that they need. I agree that this is a problem, but it's unfair to blame the Bible for a faulty reading. There is no prohibition on modern medicine in this passage.

38. What does Paul prohibit a woman from wearing in church?

Answer: B - Gold.

How many Christian women know they are breaking God's law by wearing gold wedding rings to church? Or pearls or braids or expensive clothing? This is all part of the biblical plan to keep women in their place (see Question 39.)

"In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shame-facedness and sobriety; not with broided [braided] hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array." (I Timothy 2:9) Paul was not simply giving his own personal advice here; he introduced these verses with: "Whereunto I am ordained a preacher, and an apostle, (I speak the truth in Christ, and lie not;) a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity." (I Timothy 2:7)

My Comments:

There is a long history of sexism in the church, it is true. The Bible was written in a sexist time and a sexist culture and Christians need to realize this and stop treating passages like this as a mandate for keeping women down.

Having said that, this is not a rule, and the fact that Paul asserts his authority at the beginning does nothing to change that. Paul had very strong views on the law, which he felt was incapable of bringing salvation. Paul was very confident in his insights and authority, but he didn't have any use for new laws. He offered advice to cthe people and churches he wrote to, usually about specific situations.

In this case, he wanted the focus of women in church to be on the spiritual rather than the superficial. Good advice, but repressive when it gets used as a rigid set of rules.

39. According to Paul, what is the role of women in the church?

Answer: C - Women must keep silent. They should learn from their husbands at home.

This sexist admonition continues to be invoked by Catholics and patriarchal Protestant denominations to turn women into second-class citizens.

"Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church." (I Corinthians 14:34-35) "I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God." (I Corinthians 11:3) "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord." (Colossians 3:18) "Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence." (I Timothy 2:11-15)

My Comments:

Paul was a sexist, and Christians who want to keep women "in their place" delight in repeating his sentiments about women. IMO, this is a legitimate gripe with the Bible and with Paul. Fortunately, Christians do not need to take every bit of advice this brilliant and faithful but flawed apostle as iron-clad law. Paul himself believed that laws and rules were useless when it came to saving people so the last way he would want to see his letters used would be as books of inflexible rules.

40. What does Paul say about marriage?

Answer: A - "I wish everyone were single like me."

As author Ruth Green put it, the "Christian family" is a "Christian fantasy." Paul's belief that "it is good for a man not to touch a woman" (I Corinthians 7:1) led to the doctrine of celibacy and other warped teachings on sexuality. Nineteenth-century feminist author Matilda Joslyn Gage pointed out that this teaching directly led to such woman-hating abuses as the witch-hunts.

"For I would that all men were even as I myself. But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that. I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I." (1 Corinthians 7:7-8)

My Comments:

We don't really understand much about Paul's sexual hang-ups except to say that he had them. I've heard a number of theories, including the ideas that he had suffered from a terrible marriage or that he was a closetted homosexual. Whatever the reason, Paul knew that others didn't agree with this idea and grudgingly accepted that. In no way does he try to forbid marriage, only to offer his opinions.

While the FFRF are correct in describing Paul's ideas, their history is shakey. The practice of a celibate priesthood did not come from Paul. When celibacy became a big deal for the clergy, Paul's letters were used as a justification, but the actual reason was a struggle with a religious movement known as the Cathars about a thousand years after Paul's death. The connection they draw between Paul and the witch hunts is also incorrect and relies on errors and myths about the witch hunts. Here and elsewhere I've linked to websites by wiccan historians who deserve a great deal of praise for separating myth from reality in this tragic history.

Bible Literacy - 4

2011-07-15T08:40:00.000-07:00

Here are the answers to 21-30 with comments. If this is confusing, please go back three entries to the beginning of this series.

21. What reason did God give for tormenting Job?

Answer: C - "Satan dared me, so I destroyed Job for no reason at all."

This is a damning confession. In a court of law, this would be enough to convict God of the highest reckless crimes against humanity. In addition to ruining Job's livelihood and inflicting him with a debilitating illness, God murdered his 10 children and his servants--"without cause."

My Comments:

It would be damning, if that was what God said. Let's take a look at several translations to see if the FFRF has accurately understood God's words. First, in the translation they uses, the King James Version, we see:

"And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause." (Job 2:3)

You can kind of see how the archaic English of the KJV might lend itself to such an understanding, but let's see if that holds up in a highly accurate modern translation, the New Revised Standard Version:

The Lord said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil. He still persists in his integrity, although you incited me against him, to destroy him for no reason."

On this closer examination it seems that Satan tried to get God to destroy Job, but it didn't happen. Let's take a look at a final version, The Message paraphrase version, which is noted for skillfully rendering the subtle shadings of the original languages of the Bible into English:

GOD singled out Satan, saying, "And what have you been up to?" Satan answered God, "Oh, going here and there, checking things out." Then God said to Satan, "Have you noticed my friend Job? There's no one quite like him, is there--honest and true to his word, totally devoted to God and hating evil? He still has a firm grip on his integrity! You tried to trick me into destroying him, but it didn't work."

It's a clear case of sloppy Bible reading. Where the FFRF says God is saying "I destroyed Job without cause" God is actually saying the opposite.

So, if this isn't the confession the FFRF says it is, why does Job suffer? Is it because God wants to test him? Is it because Satan wants to destroy him? Is it just because bad things sometimes happen to good people?

The frustrating thing about this book is that Job never learns the reason, and neither do we. When God finally speaks to Job there's no explanation, only a mystery. In fact, God slams the armchair theologians who have been trying to explain things to Job for speaking about things they don't understand. Job's honest questioning is praised while the false self-assurance of the 'friends' is repudiated. The question of suffering is a mystery, but we are left with the assurance that God is with Job, and with us, even when we suffer.

22. According to the bible, what does Satan look like?

Answer: B - A red dragon with 7 heads and 10 horns.

Are there still adults in the 21st century who believe in the existence of Satan? If they do, they are forced to picture him as a mythical 7-headed dragon, the only physical description of Satan given in the bible.

My Comments:

This is correct. Revelation is a book of symbols and visions so this is a metaphoric rather than a literal image, but is it still the only description of Satan anywhere in the Bible.

23. How does the biblical god treat haughty women?

Answer: B - He puts scabs on their heads and uncovers their private parts.

This is sexual harassment and molestation. "Secret parts" is poth, which means "hinged opening" (vagina). This is just one of many biblical instances in which women are debased, immorally or cavalierly treated as male property, subject to purchase, sale, abduction, and even sexual assault. No wonder the biblical writers never disapprove of such crimes when they are committed by God himself. How can anyone possibly pretend to love a god who would say such a thing?

My Comments:

The problem addressed here is pride and more than pride, injustice. The haughty women are a symptom of what is happening in Israel in Isaiah's time. The poor suffer while the wealthy indulge themselves with luxuries. The corrective that is that the proud are humiliated.

I agreee that the image is a disturbing one, and I agree that the treatment of women in the ancient Hebrew culture was sexist and exploitative. While I dislike the image, though, I hope modern readers can see past it. The eart of the passage is a call for justice and an attempt to shame the wealthy into showing more compassion and justice for the poor and oppressed.

24. In dollars (shekels), how much is a woman worth?

Answer: A - Half a male.

Modern sexism and inequality have their roots in the Bible. Depending on age, a female is worth approximately half as much as a male:

This devaluation of women is reflected in the "double uncleanness" of giving birth to a daughter.

My Comments:

There is no denying that there is a huge amount of sexism in the Bible. It improves in the New Testament, but even there women are devalued in disgraceful ways.

The only statement I will take issue with here is the claim that the Bible is the root of modern sexism and inequality. This would mean that non-Christian countries would be free of sexism. Sadly, that is not the case; sexism is a world-wide problem and crosses national, cultural, and religious boundaries.

25. What happens if a man rapes an engaged virgin in the city, and no one hears anything?

Answer: D - They are both stoned to death.

What if she was gagged, or had laryngitis, or the neighbors were out of town? Is it fair to punish the victim of a crime, much less mete out the death penalty to a victim of violence?! The bible primitively and unfairly frames rape as a crime committed by a man against another man's property.

And if the woman is not engaged, she is forced to marry her rapist! The rapist simply pays a fine.

My Comments:

This time the FFRF nailed it. It's impossible to justify this terrible attitude about women, even in the context of the ancient world. To try to apply this in the modern world would be inexcusable.

Sometimes the Bible reflects cultural values that we are well-rid of in the modern world.

26. What is the Mosaic Law punishment for being handicapped?

Answer: C - You are not allowed in church.

This is an ancient, unenlightened view, treating the disabled as inferior people. Shouldn't an all-loving God be bigger than this?

My Comments:

I have to agree. Fortunately, Jesus also agrees and made it a focus of his ministry to include and heal the mentally and physically handicapped.

27. According to the Bible, when may a husband have sex with his wife?

Answer: B - Not during her menstrual period.

Another example of biblical sexism: women are "unclean." This is also an example of disproportionate punishment, as being "cut off" from the tribe for this "crime" was likely a death sentence in a nomadic culture.

My Comments:

I have to agree with this one too. These ancient purity rules don't make sense, and didn't even back then.

28. How should you feel when you dash babies against the rocks?

Answer: A - Happy.

Is this "pro-life"? This is one of numerous examples of god-ordained genocide. Even if you coldly feel there is justice in killing the innocent infants of people deemed "evil" by your religion, would you be happy to do it, as the bible declares? If this is not evil, then what is?

My Comments:

This is a deeply disturbing passage from the Psalms. For what it is worth, this was written during the Babylonian Captivity when the people of Israel had been conquered by the Babylonian Empire. Imagine that the European Jews of World War 2 had to write a Psalm about how they felt living under the Nazis. They might well have included some similarly hateful and violent language, as would most people in their position.

I think the image of dashing babies to death is horrible no matter what the situation, but I don't think calling this "genocide" is in any way fair. The Jews were powerless under the Babylonians and incapable of genocide, except in their darkest fantasies. They were the ones in danger of being wiped out.

29. How many human generations were there before Jesus?

Answer: D - 62.

The bible got it wrong by two orders of magnitude. History and archaeology prove that there were more than a mere 62 generations before Christianity. The species Homo sapiens has existed for 100,000 - 200,000 years, which would be at least 5,000 generations.

Luke 3:34-38 lists 20 generations between Adam and Abraham: Abraham, Thara, Nachor, Saruch, Ragau, Phalec, Heber, Sala, Cainan, Arphaxad, Sem, Noe, Lamech, Mathusala, Enoch, Jared, Maleleel, Cainan, Enos, Seth, Adam. Then Matthew 1:17 gives 42 generations between Abraham and Jesus: "So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations."

Matthew and Luke also contradict each other: both genealogies claim to go through Joseph, the father of Jesus (Matthew 1:16; Luke 3:23. Why Joseph? Wasn't God the father?), yet their lists disagree in length and in names--except for Shealtiel and Zerubbabel, an intersection that proves they were not intended to be separate lines. They also contradict the Old Testament genealogies, conveniently deleting and adding in order to make the numbers fit a pattern.

My Comments:

This one is pretty much right on. Trying to measure the age of humanity, or the age of the earth from the dates in the Bible is an exercise in futility. The Bible wasn't written with this sort of question in mind.

The genealogies in Matthew and Luke are symbolic, by the way. Matthew was written for a Jewish audience and the genealogy was meant to show continuity with Jewish tradition so it traces him back to Abraham. By contrast, Luke was written for a mainly Gentile audience and created a lineage going back to Adam to show that the Gospel was for all people.

30. What Christmas tradition is expressly forbidden in the bible?

Answer: C - Christmas trees.

Many other Christmas traditions have their roots in pagan practices, such as the holly wreath, a fertility symbol. Even the date of Christmas, near the winter solstice, is linked to sun worship. Modern Christians have stolen Christmas from the pagans.

My Comments:

There are Fundamentalist Christians who imagine that this passage is talking about Christmas trees but this is actually a reference to a Middle-Eastern fertility worship object called an Asherah pole. So, unless you're using your Christmas tree for ancient fertility goddess worship, you're okay as far the Bible goes.

Biblical Literacy - 3

2011-07-11T15:25:00.000-07:00

CAUTION: If you're start here this won't make much sense. Go here and read the entries in order.

I've gone through questions 1-10 of the quiz created by the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Now, here are questions 11-20.

-------------------------------------------

11. According to the bible, who created evil?
Answer: C - God.

Now we know who is to blame.

The word "create" above is bara, the same word used in Genesis 1:1. The word "evil" is ra, such as in Genesis 2:9, "the tree of knowledge of good and evil." Some versions, such as the NIV, have unjustifiably softened the implications of this verse by translating ra as "disaster" or "calamity," although ra is used repeatedly throughout scripture to refer to moral evil. (See Isaiah 7:14-15: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil [ra], and choose the good.") But even if the "disaster" interpretation were allowable, the verse still depicts God as a troublemaker.

My Comments:

The question of evil is the most difficult question in the monotheistic religions. You can find a variety of answers in scripture including the idea that God is the creator of evil.

Could it be that God created evil as a kind of sadistic practical joke on humanity? This is the position of maltheism though the Bible itself never suggests that God either approves of nor rejoices in evil.

Could it be, as some theologians suggest, that evil is in some way a necessary part of creation? The movement known as process theology suggests that Creation is an ongoing process and that God continues to both guide and move the world toward a future in which evil will be no more. This and the liberation theology movement say that we are partners with God in working for a world where there is justice and peace for everyone.

The Bible never gives a reason for the existence of evil, but I find the process and liberation ideas much more helpful and think they give a much truer picture of the character of God than other ideas.

12. According to the bible, what is God not able to do?

Answer: C - Repel chariots of iron.

So much for omnipotence.

My Comments:

This passage always makes me chuckle. There was no continuity editor working on the Bible and some of the authors had odd ideas.

13. According to the bible, where does God live?

Answer: B - In darkness.

How can the "God of light" live in darkness?

"Then spake Solomon, the Lord said that he would dwell in the thick darkness." (I Kings 8:12. Repeated in II Chronicles 6:1) "And he made darkness pavilions round about him, dark waters, and thick clouds of the skies." (II Samuel 22:12) "He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies."< (Psalm 18:11) "The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice . . . clouds and darkness are round about him." (Psalm 97:1-2)

This contradicts I John 1:5: "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all . . . If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another."

My Comments:

This is true, though the contradiction is not nearly as strong as the FFRF suggests. Like many words, "darkness" has shadings of meaning. In the Old Testament passages cited, God "dwelling in darkness" is a poetic way of saying that God is beyond the sight of humans (IE, God is invisible). In the I John passage, "darkness" is used as a metaphor for evil and sin, which is a completely different use. I suspect the authors of these books would agree: God is invisible to human eyes but there is no place in God for evil and sin.

14. According to biblical biology, what is a bat?

Answer: A - A bird.

Biblical biology rates an 'F.' Bats are mammals, not birds. This is another good reason to keep bibles out of science classes.

My Comments:

For what it's worth, I agree completely about keeping Bibles out of science classes. The Bible is not, and was never intended to be, a science text. It is a book filled with stories of fallible, faithful people coming to know their God. It is also colored by the pre-scientific views of those people. Whaddaya expect? Nobody in the ancient world knew about modern biological classifications.

15. According to biblical anatomy, where does thinking happen?

Answer: A - In the heart.

Biblical anatomy also rates an 'F.' The heart is an organ that pumps blood--it does not process thoughts, although the biblical writers erroneously thought it did. The word "brain" appears nowhere in the bible.

My Comments:

Those silly Hebrews! They should have checked with the Greek philosophers on that one. Those enlightened souls could have told them that the liver is the seat of reason.

:-)

16. How did Gideon demonstrate his family values?

Answer: C - He fathered 71 sons through many wives plus a mistress in Shechem.

So much for monogamy and fidelity. Is this how the hotel-bible Gideon Society expects us to demonstrate family values?

My Comments:

Yup, like Jacob, David, Solomon, and so many others, Gideon is not a model for ethical behavior. The idea that the heroes of the Bible were morally perfect and should serve as role-models for modern people is patently false. With a few notable exceptions, Bible heroes are deeply flawed people who succeed only through the grace of God.

The FFRF is correct on the second point also; the idea of a monogamous marriage exists in the Old Testament, but there is no moral judgment against men who have several wives and/or concubines. It's a part of that ancient culture that we are better off leaving behind. However, the fact that Gideon and others were total dogs as far as women went is a reflection of their time, not an indictment of God.

17. After Jephthah was victorious in battle, what sacrifice did he burn on the altar, as he had vowed to the Lord?

Answer: D - His virgin daughter.

Another example of family values from the "Good Book." Jephthah's nameless daughter is burned as a sacrifice in order to appease the wrath and flatter the vanity of God, who tacitly accepts and never denounces this horrible practice.

The bible sanctions child sacrifice here. Notice how everyone assumed the correctness of Jephthah's actions: there is no denunciation of this pointless murder from God, or from anyone in Jephthah's community, or from the biblical writers. It was the right thing to do.

The ultimate child sacrifice, of course, is the story of Jesus being put to death to appease the wrath of his offended father. Ruth Green, author of The Born Again Skeptic's Guide to the Bible, puts it this way: "If the concept of a father who plots to have his own son put to death is presented to children as beautiful and worthy of society's admiration, what types of human behavior can be presented to them as reprehensible?"

The biblical god often requested and accepted human sacrifice: "And he [God] said [to Abraham], Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of." (Genesis 22:2) "For thou shalt not delay to offer the first of thy ripe fruits, and of thy liquors; the firstborn of thy sons shalt thou give unto me." (Exodus 22:29) "But the king [David] took the two sons of Rizpah . . . and the five sons of Michal . . . and he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the hill before the Lord: and they fell all seven together, and were put to death in the days of harvest . . . And after that God was intreated for the land." (II Samuel 21:8-14) "We are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ . . . But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God." (Hebrews 10:10-12)

My Comments:

The FFRF claims that the story of Jephthah is proof that the Bible sanctions human sacrifice. While it is a very disturbing story, it is more accurate to say that the Bible fails to comment on child sacrifice in this instance. Some scholars agree with the FFRF that God's silence in this story implies consent, but when the Bible does speak in Leviticus 18:21, Leviticus 20:3, Deuteronomy 12:30-31, and Deuteronomy 18:10 it is always to condemn the practice.

Historians have a hard time saying much about child sacrifice in ancient Israel or even in the ancient Middle East as a whole. We are confidant that the practice existed but don't know how common or widespread it was.

The FFRF presents 4 scriptures to back up their claim that God often demanded and received child sacrifice; they deserve to be looked at individually.

1) The story of Jephthah is tragic and horrible. The story comes from a very primitive time in Israel's history and presents a violent and tribalistic understanding of God. Even taking the story by itself, Jephthah does not come across as an admirable character. He is a proud man who makes foolish promises and suffers as a result. The book of Judges is filled with similarly grim stories and reflects a savage time in Israel's history. Perhaps this best summed up by the last line of the book: In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes. (Judges 21:25.)

2) The story of the Binding of Isaac is one of the most difficult to understand in the Bible. While the story has a happy ending, it begins on a terrible note as God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son.

Jewish tradition suggests this was meant to be a symbolic sacrifice but Abraham mistook it for a literal one. Modern Christian scholarship points out that this seems to be a combination of two older stories. When Abraham is told to sacrifice his son, the name used for God is "Elohim" but the name changes to "Yahweh" when God stops Abraham. In his book Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature literary critic Erich Auerbach suggests that there is a buried struggle between the gods of sacrifice (represented by Elohim) and the God of mercy. in this story. This seems to be a shift in the theology of the Hebrew people, from understanding God as one who demands terrible sacrifices, to a deity who cares about all people.

3) The FFRF says that Exodus 22:29 implies human sacrifice was performed, but the scripture goes on to say how the firstborn can be redeemed from this fate. The impulse to sacrifice firstborn sons to the gods seems to go back to pre-Jewish traditions. The idea of saving the children by redeeming them is a first step away from this practice. There's a good discussion of this here.

4) Hebrews 10 is one of the key verses for the doctrine of substitutionary atonement which compares Jesus' death on the cross to an Old Testament blood sacrifice.

The FFRF's objections refelct the fact that many Christians take this symbolism literally and claim that God must be appeased by blood. The truth is that Jesus' dies because he loved people enough to put himself in harm's way for their sake. The writers of the New Testament had to help the people of their world understand this so they used a metaphor they would understand--the image of blood sacrifice.

As modern people, many centuries removed from this ritual, we need a different metaphor to understand. Let's look at another martyr, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Most believers would agree that he was one of the most Christ-like leaders of the tewitieth century. He risked, and lost, his life because his faith in God and his love for his fellow man compelled him to do so. While I'm not saying that Dr. King was another Christ, his personal sacrifice helps us to understand Jesus' sacrifice.

5) The story of David and the sons of Saul is a brutal one, but it is not the story of a religious sacrifice, it was a legal proceeding. Saul was guilty of genocidal raids against the Gibeonites, who should have been protected by a treaty. David went to the Gibeonites to ask how to atone for the damage the earlier king had done. Since Saul was dead they settled for executing seven of his grown sons.

18. What price did David pay King Saul for his first wife?

Answer: C - The foreskins of 200 Philistines.

David is supposed to be a biblical role model; but how does massacre and mutilation show moral leadership? What would Saul want with 200 foreskins? Possibly proof that his new son-in-law was a truly macho man for his daughter. (More likely, this reflects the pagan practice of offering foreskins as a rain/fertility ritual.)

My Comments:

This is pretty much accurate; the business with the foreskins is one of several gruesome traditions associated with warfare in the ancient Middle East. It's hardly unique to David, but there is no way to sugar coat it.

I do think the FFRF is missing the boat when they say that David is meant to be a role model, though. He is far from that, as anyone who has read his story knows. David was a very human mix of good and bad qualities and was rebuked by God on many occasions, notable in the story of Bathsheba and Uriah.

19. How many regular sexual partners did King Solomon have?

Answer: D - One thousand sexual partners.

At least one thousand. Another fine example of family values from one of God's favorites. "But king Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites . . . And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines." (I Kings 11:1-3)

Notice that this lifestyle is never denounced by God, Jesus, or the biblical writers. Solomon, supposedly an ancestor of Jesus, was praised by Jesus: "all his glory" (Matthew 6:29), "wisdom of Solomon" (Matthew 12:42). Jesus compared himself (not so humbly) to Solomon's greatness: "a greater than Solomon is here." (Luke 11:31)

My Comments:

I agree that Solomon is no role model. In addition to his many wives he allowed images of the gods his wives worshipped into the Temple, and instituted forced work-gangs to build the Temple and other public works. He was a brilliant diplomat and was revered for his intelligence but he wasn't much as a role-model.

Still, it's not accurate to say that God never denounces Solomon. If you read the full passage of 1 Kings 11:1-13 you see that God comes down hard on Solomon for just that. And Jesus' praise isn't high as the FFRF makes it out to be. When Jesus praised Solomon he wasn’t approving of his life style, he was saying he was a snappy dresser (Matthew 6:29) and a clever ruler (Matthew 12:42 and Luke 11:31).

20. What happened to 42 little children who teased God's prophet Elisha for being bald and he cursed them in the name of the Lord?

Answer: C - Two bears came out of the forest and killed them all.

Note that this bloody execution for a childish prank is the work of the God of the bible. Is a person like this worthy of worship? Is this "pro-life"?

My Comments:

This is a strange and gruesome story that is at odds with the usually kind and quiet character of Elisha. It's also a great favorite of critics of the Bible for obvious reasons.

I've seen some commentators suggest that the phrase "little children" really indicates "young men" and that this a youth gang of considerable size. I don't know if this is the case or not, though even then it would be an ugly story.

I'll have to study this one in more detail and come back to it later. For now I'll just say that it's a strange incident that stands out because it is so different than the story surrounding it.

Biblical Literacy - 2

2011-07-11T14:57:00.000-07:00

In my last entry I mentioned a Bible Literacy Quiz that I'd found interesting. I scored a 40 on the test which got me this comment:

40 - 50: Wow! You know more than a minister, priest, or rabbi!

That's flattering, but a little exaggerated. I'm pretty good with Bible stuff but I don't know more than most of the other clergy I know.

I noticed as I looked through the answers that there were some inaccuracies, and a lot of commentary. In other words they were a good starting point for a conversation but not something I'd want to take as the final word. If you have the same reaction, here's my take:

SPOILER WARNING: If you are going to take the test, do it before reading this section!

I have copied the question from the quiz, followed by the correct answer (with commentary) posted on the Freedom From Religion Foundation site, then added my comments after.

1. What is the last of the Ten Commandments?

Answer: C - "Don't boil a young goat in the milk of its mother."

Believe it or not, this prohibition in Exodus 34:26 is the official tenth commandment, from the only set of stone tablets that were called "the ten commandments." There were three sets of commandments:

1) The first time Moses came down from Mount Sinai with commandments, he merely recited a list (Exodus 20:2-17), which is the version most churches today erroneously call the "Ten Commandments," although they were not engraved on stone tablets and not called "the ten commandments."

2) The first set of stone tablets was given to Moses at a subsequent trip up the mountain (Exodus 31:18). In this farcical story, Moses petulantly destroyed those tablets when he saw the people worshipping the golden calf (Exodus 32:19).

3) So he went back for a replacement. God told Moses: "Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest." (Exodus 34:1)

Here is what was on the replacement tablets (from Exodus 34:14-26)

My Comments:

This is an ingenious way of suggesting that all Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish interpretive tradition is wrong. I suppose that's a possibility but if you read Exodus 34 carefully you'll see that there's nothing that says that the list from Exodus 34 is the "official list" nor that it--and not the list from Exodus 20--was carved on the tablets. That's just the FFRF's interpretation.

There are several different lists of the Ten Commandments; the most familiar is from Exodus 20:2-17 and another version shows up in Deuteronomy 5:6-21. there are some subtle but interesting differences between these two versions of the Ten Commandments. Critical scholars believe that the lists were written at different times by different authors according to what is known as the Documentary Hypothesis.

So what do you do when you have several lists that don't quite match? You can't look at the tablets because nobody has them. Jewish and Christian interpretative traditions have chosen the Exodus 20 list as the one most reflective of their experience of God and the Laws of Moses.

I suggest you read the passages in full and decide for yourself.

2. What is the penalty for working on the Sabbath?

Answer: A - "You will be stoned to death."

Isn't this an excessively violent punishment from a supposedly "Good Book?" What is the harm in working on the Sabbath? It seems the only harm is to the ego of the Sovereign, who demands respect with no respect to human needs.

My Comments:

This is the punishment listed. It is indeed excessively harsh and we don't know exactly why. The best explanation I've heard is the Rabbinic tradition that the death penalty was proscribed for quite a few crimes in ancient Israel, but was very rarely used. In other words, the leaders of the community had the option of imposing the death penalty, but only used it in the extremely rare cases when everything else had failed. Both the Old and New Testaments use hyperbole a lot in making moral points. They set up a terrible penalty to show the seriousness of a crime, but when the crime is broken they show mercy rather than following the letter of the law. The story of Adam and Eve is a good example of this. God sets up the death penalty for eating the forbidden fruit, but refrains from killing them when they break the rule.

The FFRF cites an example of a man put to death for working on the Sabbath. It's a grim tale, but it is also the only instance of this happening in the Bible. Is it a literal story or a kind of boogie-man story designed to impress the seriousness of the law on people?

The FFRF also suggest that the only purpose of the Sabbath is to appease God's ego, but a look at the Sabbath laws shows that this is not the case. You aren't supposed to work seven days a week, and you're not allowed to make others work that hard either; not even animals. In addition, there was also a Sabbath year, called Shmita on which the earth was given a rest from labor and allowed to lie fallow. Then, after every seven sevens of years, on the fiftieth year, came a special Sabbath called the Jubilee. All debts were forgiven and all slaves were set free. The Sabbath Laws were about social and economic justice.

3. What is God's name?

Answer: A - "Jealous"

This is a petty self-described insecurity from a supposedly all-wise leader.

"For thou shalt worship no other god: for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God." (Exodus 34:14)

My Comments:

The quiz makers correctly state that the name Jehovah is an erroneous reading of the Hebrew name YHWH by medieval Christian writers.

However, the statement that God's proper name is "Jealous" is erroneous. It may look that way in some English translations but "jealous" is simply one of many epithets assigned to God and versions of the Bible that translate this more accurately say "the jealous one." The only name in the Bible that can described as God's personal name is Yahweh (traditionally spelled without vowels as YHWH).

I do agree that calling God jealous reflects a crude understanding of God. Other biblical images of God as the merciful one, the just one, etc. hew closer to God's true nature.

4. How should parents treat a stubborn and rebellious son?

Answer: D - He should be stoned to death.

This cruelly excessive Mosaic law was actually enforced at one time by the Massachusetts colony and has been used to justify child abuse and murder.

My Comments:

This another example of exaggeration to make a point. There is no instance in the Bible of someone carrying it out. The fact that Christians in several times and palces have used this to justify child abuse and murder is chilling, but the fault with is with the abuser, not with the scriptures they twist to their own ends. This kind of behavior is condemned by the vast majority of Christians and Jews.

5. What happens if you are not a virgin on your wedding night?

Answer: D - You will be stoned to death.

This barbaric punishment is still being followed in some parts of the Moslem world, which share some of the teachings of the Hebrew bible. There is no such penalty, needless to say, for a groom who is not a virgin. The fact that Christian women who have engaged in premarital sex are not being stoned to death today shows that even believers recognize cruelty and absurdity in their own "Good Book."

My Comments:

I agree that this is a brutal and senseless rule, and one which reflects the fact that women and girls were horribly undervalued in ancient Hebrew culture. The Bible was written in a particular time and place to a particular culture. That culture owned slaves and treated women like they were less than men. That wasn't just a Hebrew attitude though, it was more or less universal through the ancient world.

While it is ridiculous to take these words as moral guidance, it is absurd to condemn people who lived thousands of years ago because they didn't conform to twenty-first century standards.

6. What does the bible say about witches?

Answer: A - Witches should be killed.

Tragically, tens of thousands, if not millions, of innocent women in Europe and the American colonies were cruelly accused, tortured and executed because of one single bible verse.

My Comments:

The Hebrew word translated "witch" here refers to someone who speaks to the spirits of the dead so "medium" would be a better translation. It's kind of amusing to note that this would condemn phony psychics like John Edward.

While this I agree that this is an ugly passage, it is probably another of those exaggerations I've mentioned. Certainly those who wrote it could never have imagined the witchcraft persecutions. For that matter, the authors of the quiz seem to accept some myths and misperceptions about the witch persecutions at face value. In fairness, it's best to be accurate all around.

7. Which of these foods does the bible expressly permit you to eat? (The others are "abominations.")

Answer: C - "Locusts."

Since ham and lobster are verboten to bible believers, how about some barbecued grasshopper or steamed locust for dinner?

My Comments:

True, though there are several New Testament passages including one from Jesus that address this specifically.

Bon apetit.

8. When the Israelites conquered the Midianites, what part of the spoils of war was given to the priest as "the Lord's tribute"?

Answer: D - 32 virgins.

Of the 32,000 virgins that were kept alive as "booty" for God's warriors, 32 young captives were handed to the priest. The bible brutally sanctifies war crimes against girls and women that continue to this day. Who could possibly respect a dictator who behaves like this?

My Comments:

If God were a dictator who sanctioned this sort of thing, I would agree, but that's not the case. The Bible was written a long time (2-3 thousand years) ago and people in the ancient world had a number of things they took for granted. The inferiority of women, the taking of booty in war, and slavery were only some of these things.

What we see in passages like this is a primitive people projecting their cultural assumptions on God. This stands in contrast to the more enlightened words from the prophets, Apostles, and Jesus as people developed a better understanding of the nature of God.

9. What is the origin of the "mighty men" giants known as nephilim?

Answer: A - They were the offspring of God's angels and young women.

Can't God maintain better control over his libidinous troops? This is scandal in high places.

This is obviously mythical. The "sons of God" were angels: "the expression clearly refers to divine beings." (Harper's Bible Dictionary) The word nephilim "could mean 'fallen ones' and allude to stories in related cultures of rebellious giants defeated by the gods in olden times (cf. Isa. 14:12)." (Harper's)

Some suggest this is why Paul admonished Christian women to keep their heads covered in church, so as not to sexually tempt the angels: "For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels." (I Corinthians 11:10)

My Comments:

This is pretty accurate. There are some stories in Genesis that make you shake your head and wonder. I will say though, that it is inconsistent with every other depiction of angels in the Bible.

10. What happened to Korah and his family, Israelites who thought they could talk directly with God without a human intermediary?

Answer: C - The earth opened and swallowed them up.

See Numbers 16:31-35 for the whole story, in context, of God killing 15,000 of his own people for daring to question the authority of Moses. But it gets worse! Some who thought this was pretty harsh treatment were killed by a plague.

My Comments:

This is one of a number of brutal stories that believers and non-believers alike have a hard time with. Aside from repeating that ancient and primitive people have a different set of values and perception of God, there's not much to say. Of course to condemn God on the strength of these stories is to assume that these writers have a handle on the real God while the writers of books like Amos, Micah, Isaiah, Ruth, etc. (not to mention the Gospels) are clueless.

Believers have to struggle with these stories and the dark side of religion/God that they raise, but they are ultimately not the decisive stories in how we understand God.

Biblical Literacy - 1

2011-07-11T14:53:00.000-07:00

How well do you know the Bible?

According to a 2010 study by the Pew Institute, Jews, Athiest/Agnostics, and Mormons score overall higher on religious knowledge than Evangelical Protestants, Mainline Protestants, or Catholics. The findings are interesting (and a little embarassing) and fit with a 2005 Gallup study commissioned by the Bible Literacy Project that suggests high school students have a lack of adequate exposure to the Bible to help them understand English literature like the works of William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, and John Steinbeck. This is interesting to look at in conjunction with the 2009 Barna Group study which indicates that, while interest in faith is rising in the US, Bible literacy is going down. Younger Americans, particularly those who have become adults since 2000 are interested in God, and even in Jesus, but not as much in the Bible.

I suspect this is a reaction (possibly an overreaction) to the way that the Bible has been used for some time in the US. Since about 1900 there has been a movement called Fundamentalism. Christian Fundamentalists teach that there are several principals (or fundamentals) that one must believe in order to be called Christian, inclusing the idea that the Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit and is thus perfect, without contradiction or error.

This insistence that the Bible is always right has led some Christians to insist that science, medicine, history, etc. must be wrong when they contradict the Bible. They also insist that the Bible is the perfect moral guide, even those portions that say things that seem horribly unjust and cruel to us. Those are two hard pills for a growing number of modern people to swallow, and I think they are right to question them.

I don't think turning away from the Bible is a good solution, though. You shouldn't either blindly accept or casually reject anything, including the Bible, without properly understanding it. Fortunatly there is a very good way to study the Bible critically and gain a deeper understanding of it.

The thing that has me thinking about this is a survey on Bible Literacy I recently took. The survey comes from the Freedom from Religion Foundation and, as you might guess, has a strongly anti-Bible slant. Still, it's an interesting test that covers some obscure but important parts of the Bible that ought to be looked at by believers.

There are a lot of questions so, take the survey, but if you don't test well, don't despair. I'll be doing a few more blog posts to look at the answers and deal with the spin.

2011-06-18T20:23:00.000-07:00

In his documentary The God Who Wasn't There filmmaker Brian Fleming spends part of the time challenging the idea that Jesus was a historical person. Most of the documentary, though, has to do with his personal spiritual journey and his reasons for rejecting Christianity.

I won't take issue with him rejecting Christianity. While I think that is sad, it is his personal decision. Also, I understand his reasons. He grew up being taught a lot of doctrines that made God seem like a monster. He was told (as many Christians are) that anyone who does not accept Christ as Savior will be punished for all eternity in Hell. He finds the idea of so many good people experiencing never-ending torture impossible to reconcile with the idea of a good and loving God. He also finds the condemnation of gays unacceptable. (As it happens, I agree with him on both these points and think these are doctrines that can be questioned and rejected.)

I'm part of a group in Christianity that is known variously known as "Liberal Christians", "Mainline Christians", "Progressive Christians", or (Mr. Flemming's term) "Moderate Christians". We are faithful believers who study and follow the Bible intensively and carefully, but not literally or uncritically. We don't think it makes sense just to follow the words, God calls us to understand the meaning and context. We use the teaching and example of Jesus Christ as our interpretive focus. That sounds fancy but it essentially means that we are far more committed to following Jesus than the laws of the Old Testament.

Flemming says that moderate Christianity makes no sense. Christians can't be okay with homosexuality, he says, because God really does hate fags (he cites Leviticus 20:13. Flemming implies that the only legitimate way to understand the passage is literally, without any regard for context, without any questioning or analysis.

The thing is, the Bible is a lot more complex than that and understanding it takes work. There are, and have always been, people of faith who question and defy the biblical laws when they are harmful or cruel. In fact, this isn't a new phenomina; Jesus is well known for breaking the scriptural laws by healing on the Sabbath (also a capital offense accorting to a literal reading) shasing meals with sinners and tax collectors, and welcoming the rejected and despised in the circle of God's love.

Does it make sense to say that Leviticus is right about God and the Gospels are wrong? That's essentially what Flemming's argumans comes down to and it's one that makes no sense to me. There are actully a number of other interpretations of this passage. If we're going to use the Bible to understand God we have to look at the whole Bible, not just take a few passages that support our point of view and hold them as absolute. We have to deal honestly with the fact that the writers of the Bible sometimes disagreed with each other and try to get to the truth behind those disagreements.

Flemming goes on to say that the Inquisition wasn't a perversion of Christian faith, but a legitimate expression of it. He says that, if the Bible is right, and the only way to avoid Hell is to become a Christian, then the Inquisition makes sense. To inflict a little suffering on people in this life to save them from an eternity of suffering in the next life is the nest thing to do.

The problem with this argument is that the Bible doesn't say this. Flemming is repeating a doctrine of the church he grew up in. It's something that quite a few Christians believe. It's a position that they can quote a number of scriptures to support. But there is no passage in the Bible that says this, not anywhere!

Flemming hits one point as the ultimate in what's wrong with God. Mark 3:28-29 quotes Jesus saying: Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.

Flemming says that this means that anyone who denies, or even doubts, the existence of the Holy Spirit is damned to eternal punishment. He sincerely believes this and his story of how this passage terrified him as a child is heart-rending. But while his pain is real, his anger is misdirected. A more careful study of the whole passage tells a different story. Jesus is responding to people who are essentially claiming that he is an agent of the Devil, that his words of wisdom are lies, that his healing is evil, etc. These are people who know the truth but deliberately lie to advance their own agenda. They don't care what sort of dirty trick they have to pull or who who it hurts as long as they "win."

This is what is means by blaspheming the Holy Spirit. When you give into this kind of deliberate and cynical manipulation; when you justify dishonesty and cruelty to achieve a goal, you have rejected the very thing that makes forgiveness possible.

Getting back to Mr. Flemming's film; his pain and anger are real but his aim is sloppy. If God hated gays, if the Inquisition was the truest expression of Christianity, if the Bible said that anyone who doubted the existence of the Holy Spirit was doomed to Hell, then his condemnation of Christianity would be fair. But if he were interested in being fair I don't think he'd dismiss the Christians who have a different point of view without making any effort to understand us.

Sadly, the film is a blanket condemnation of the many for the wrongs of some. It's a shame that he chose this approach instead of inviting an honest and open conversation. There's so much both sides could learn from that.

The God Who Wasn't There

2011-06-14T12:49:00.001-07:00

The God Who Wasn’t There

I’ve heard about this documentary for some time and had the chance to watch it the other day. It’s an interesting presentation, though it tends to wander. The basic idea is that Jesus is not a historical person but a mythological figure, cobbled together from the legends of other savior figures. The film’s creator, Brian Flemming, mixes this with general reflections that Christianity is a bad religion that worships an evil God, and with his own personal spiritual journey.

The part debunking Jesus is based on various theories of history which emerged in the 18-20th centuries, and which have recently been revived by Atheist writers like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. While these theories were popular in the late 19th and earlyt 20th centuries, they have fallen out of favor with professional historians.

FWIW, the idea that Jesus “wasn’t there” has been out of favor with most secular historians for several generations. While contemporary historians are skeptican about many of the events of Jesus’ life (miracles, meeting with Pilate, birth in Bethlehem, etc.) they generally agree on several things.

1) There was a historical first century Jewish wisdom teacher named Jesus of Nazareth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jesus.
2) He was a Galileean Jew who made at least one pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
3) He may have been a disciple of John the Baptist.
4) He taught using surprising and original parables, many of which spojke of the Kingdom of God.
5) He was crucified during the administration of the Roman governor Pontius Pilate.
6) His followers eventually split with Rabbinic Judaism to form the religion that would become known as Christianity.

While there is a great deal of debate about just about everything beyond this, most historians say that we can trust the historical evidence for Jesus about as well as we can the historical evidence for the existence of Socrates.

Flemming isn’t a historian or biblical scholar himself, and that shows in his lack of basic awareness of what the Bible says, and of scholarly criticism of it. He seems to reject the historical Jesus mostly because he wants to. As Flemming relates his personal journey we learn that he was a bright, original thinker who grew up in a Fundamentalist Christian environment that strongly discouraged his questioning attitude and originality. He had the imagination to see the dark implications of what he was taught about God and came to the conclusion that the teachers at his Christian school, the preachers he heard, and the attitudes of the many (admittedly good and loving) Christians around him were twisted.

After a great deal of personal struggle, Flemming has decided that, if the things he was taught about God are true (EG, that God sends people to Hell for following any other religion), then God is a monster. He has also decided that he would find it immoral to find such a God. Finally, he has concluded that what he calls “moderate Christianity” makes no sense. He is certain that the Fundamentalists are right about the nature of God and that moderate Christians who believe that God is loving, have no problems with homosexuality, etc. are deluding themselves.

I had mixed feelings about the film. Flemming rejects many things that are worth rejecting, but he is far from being rational or objective about it. His confrontation with the principal of the Christian school he attended is hard to watch. I join him in disagreeing with the principal’s doctrinal views, but the way he ambushes a man who obviously likes and cares about him is painful.

I do agree with Mr. Flemming about many of the ideas he rejects, and think he has a lot of integrity for rejecting them. I have some problems with his approach though. In its own way it seems to me as narrow, judgmental, and legalistic as the Christianity he grew up with.

More on the places where I agree and disagree later. For now, I’ll just say that I found the film interesting but lacking in depth, and ultimately it made me sad.

A Little Perspective

2011-05-30T10:36:00.000-07:00

Every so often I get e-mail from people who I like and respect, but the e-mail is really out there. I never know exactly how to respond but will make an effort here.

I recently this video in the e-mail. It warns of the dangers of Islam and "proves" that the Obama administration has given up on the Constitution in favor of Sharia law.

If this had come from some anonymous source I'd just dump it into my junk folder, but it came from someone who I like and respect, so I'll put some effort into saying why I think its nonsense.

He makes a number of assertions in the video, some are clearly factual and others have a high degree of spin on them. He says that the US has a tradition of free speech that Afghanistan doesn't. I agree absolutely.

He says that, while he doesn't like burning any book (I agree) but that Terry Jones burning of the Qur'an recently is free speech, protected by the Constitution. Again, I agree. In fact, President Obama and other public leaders agree as well, and that's why he made no attempt to arrest or to censor Mr. Jones. He simply used his own freedom of speech to publicly condemn the action.

The video goes on to condemn the burning of Bibles sent by a Christian group to a soldier who hoped to use them to Evangelize the Afghan people. He points out that the Afghan government and culture is not tolerant of this.

This is true; in fact this attitude is fairly widespread throughout the Middle East, so much so that US military policy has very strict regulations about the use of Bibles among troops in the region.

I can sympathize with the soldier in question, who apparantly believed that his call from God superceeded his mission as a soldier, but I can hardly condemn his superiors. When military personnel violate military policy, they are compelled to take action.

As for the assertion that the military (or the government) consider the Bible to be garbage because the confiscated Bibles were burned... The long-standing tradition for disposing of the American flag in the military is also burning. It is considered the only appropriately respectful method. This certainly doesn't mean that mean that the military considers the flag garbage. The Army was placed in an awkward position by the actions of one soldier and behaved as honorably as they could. As a Christian and a pastor I understand that there is no insult intended and take no offense at this. To compare this with the action of Rev. Terry Jones, who burned the Bible as a deliberate insult to Islam makes no sense.

I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know if the argument that treating the Qur'an reverently violates the first ammendment holds any water in a legal sense. My personal opinion is that it is a silly argument. The US is a country where religious tolerance and freedom of speech can be taken for granted. Afghanistan is not. Making some allowances for this only makes good common sense. Pretending it means we've given up on the constitution does not.

A Late Note on Osama bin Ladin

2011-05-25T09:41:00.000-07:00

I didn't comment on the death of Osama bin Ladin when it happened. My feelings on the subject are kind of complicated.

Am I glad? I am relieved that a dangerous criminal can't plot the deaths of innocent people any longer. At the same time, I can't celebrate the loss of a human life.

Was killing him justified? I'd need to know what the orders were to pass any kind of judgment on that. If he was ordered assassinated, I will feel differently than if the SEALs were ordered to capture him and were forced to fire on him by the situation. I sincerely hope that my government is above the assassination. Unless evidence to the contrary comes out, though, I will give them the benefit of the doubt.

How has the world changed? While the death of Osama is a milestone, I wonder if out attention shouldn't be more focussed on something else. The comment that comes back to me over and over is from a Saudi woman interviewed on NPR. She essentially said that, for people like her, Osama bin Ladin was yesterdays news. For them the heroes in the Middle East are the protestors in Egypt who accomolished more in a few weeks of peaceful protest than Osama did in decades of violence.

I hope and pray that this is true. It's hard to tell yet what kind of governments are going to form folliwing the Arab Spring, but I am very hopefull. For so long the conventional wisdom has been that the only way to deal with terrorism was to prop up some of the nastiest dictatorships in the world.

The heroes of the Arab Spring have shown us that there is a third choice; that peace with justice is not just a silly idealistic dream. I hope and pray that this change lives up to it's promise. I also hope and pray that we are wise enough to embrace it and do everything we can to help create a world where both terrorism and dictatorships are unacceptable.

Still Here

2011-05-21T12:27:00.000-07:00

Though the last I heard the prediction of the rapture said "around supper time."

That kind of makes sense since we know from The Life of Brian that the Sermon on the Mount was "around tea time."

One Last Blog Before Doomsday

2011-05-20T11:37:00.000-07:00

Unlike some other Christians, I am no good at predicting the future. In fact, when it comes to the end of the world, I don't even try. That's probably because I take seriously things like Matthew 24:36 which says:

"But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."

That comes in one of the most Apocalyptic passages in the Gospels, and I've always interpreted it to mean "no one knows." That's why I was caught by surprise to learn that someone, apparently, does know.

Harold Camping, the president of California based Family Radio, has studied the scriptures carefully and discovered that the Apocalypse will begin tomorrow, on Saturday, May 21, 2011. This is the day of the Rapture, when those who have been saved (about 200 million people by his estimates) will vanish from the earth to ascent into Heaven. Those who are left behind will experience terrible ordeals, including a global earthquake before the final destruction of the earth (and the rest of the universe) five months later (October 21, 2011.)

Camping is the latest in a long line of people who have predicted the date of the biblical end-times. One of the most significant Bible interpreters was William Miller (1782-1849) a Baptist preacher who headed a nationwide movement predicting that the world would end on October 22, 1844. When Miller's prediction failed to come true many of his followers dropped away in what became known as "The Great Disappointment."

Still, there were others who carried on this tradition. The Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Adventist Christians are all his direct spiritual heirs and predicting the end times remains an important part of their faith.

In the 20th Century one of the most influential predictors of the Last Days has been author Hal Lindsay. I remember him and his predictions from when I was growing up. He said that the Bible revealed that the world would probably end in the 1980s, and certainly before 2000.

This isn't just a recent phenomenon. The great Reformation leader, Martin Luther, believed that the end would come in the 16th century; Presbyterian pastor Thomas Love believed that it would happen in the period from 1758-1763; Charles Taze, of the Jehovah's Witnesses said Christ would come again in 1874 and that the end of the world would take place in 1914.

Though this kind of prediction has grown in popularity in the modern era, it's been with us from the beginnings of the Christian church. Each generation has its doom-sayers, who sincerely believe that the Apocalypse is here. So far their predictions have had a 100% record of failure.

We'll have to wait and see what happens tomorrow, but I doubt it'll be anything more traumatic than what and other Saturday brings. I think that we miss the point when we try to make these kinds of predictions. I think that's why Jesus says what he does about no one knowing. His focus is not on predicting the end, but on preparing people to live lives of kindness, honesty, acceptance, and a passion for justice for everyone. When we live following the example he gives us we don't have to worry about the end of the world for we can face anything, even that, without regrets.

What Would Jesus Take

2011-05-08T13:24:00.000-07:00

I try to stay away from politics in my blog, but when political pundits cross the line into matters of faith, I figure that's fair game, especially when their comments are as mindless as this rant by Rush Limbaugh.

I'm not familiar with Lawrence O'Donnell, but I think I'm a fan in the making. Unlike Rush, he actually read the appropriate Bible passages and came to the inescapable conclusion that God cares about poor people. While that doesn't mean that God hates wealthy people, it does mean that those of us who have wealth (and that's most Americans) also have a real obligation to the poor.

Mr. O'Donnell really nails that point.

Cool stuff!

Gene Robinson Retires

2010-11-10T17:05:00.000-08:00

Bishop Gene Robinson announced his retirement today. I've never met Robinson or even heard him speak but I've been aware of him since 2004 when he was became the first openly gay bishop in the Anglican Communion.

Because of his sexuality, Robinson was a controversial figure and drew fire from some Christians who felt this should bar him form service in the church. I have never heard any criticism of Robinson as a pastor, a man of faith, or a human being, my impression is that he is admirable in all of these areas and it is only his sexuality that draws (IMO thoroughly unfair) criticism. I have always been struck by his coursge, even in the face of death threats, his wisdom, and the compassion he shows to even his harshest critics.

I know that his parishioners will miss him terribly and I'm sure his voice will continue to be heard. I certainly hope it will because we need voices like his.

The Universe

2010-10-25T12:58:00.000-07:00

This is really cool!

It's an interactive display of The Scale of the Universe. It starts at the left end with a planck length (theoretically the shortest length that can have any meaning) and scrolls all the way to the projected size of the universe.

When I think about this stuff, I find it both humbling and awe-inspiring. It amazes me to think of the vastness of creation and how small we and out planet are in the scope of things. At the same time, it amazes me how we are made up of such small things, cells, molecules, atoms, quarks, prions. Almost inconceivably tiny things come together in intricate ways to create all that we can see.

It amazes me to think of someone I know and imagine that every part of them, even every thought and feeling, can be described at some level as the interactions of tiny forces and particles.

I've been asked whether I am a creationist, and I don't have a simple answer. I do believe that God created the world but I am very aware that the complexity of things is not anything like scientific proof of God's existence. In other words, I believe in God, but I have no faith in "Scientific Creationism" which seems to me to misrepresent scientific method for it's own purposes.

When I contemplate the universe, one of the things that strikes me is how little I really know. We human beings have learned an amazing amount about the universe but the more we learn the more questions are revealed.

But what we do know paints such an intricate and beautiful picture that it fills us with the most religious of all feelings, a sense of wonder and awe.

That doesn't make for a very hard-headed and practical blog entry, I know, but I think that hard headed and practical might be missing the point here. Explanations and proof shift the focus back to us and our limited understanding. While I hope that science never stops seeking to understand things better, I also hope that faith never stops seeing the wonder of all we cannot know.

My All Time Favorite Benediction

2010-09-27T10:24:00.000-07:00

This is from the Franciscans and I love the way it finds blessings in four such unlikely sources. I think really captures what my faith is all about.

The guy on the video is Gene Robinson, the first openly-gay bishop in the Anglican church and someone whose faith, wisdom, and courage I admire a great deal.

Unspeakable

2010-09-20T18:29:00.000-07:00

Pope Benedict was in the news this weekend. While on a visit to Great Britain, the Pope expressed his grief and shame about the continuing scandal of pedophile priests. I'm glad to hear the apology and hope that it is part of a sincere reassessment of the Catholic Church in dealing with this crisis. I have never been a fan of this particular pontiff, but I'd like to believe that these words contain sincere repentance and a commitment to bring about change.

One thing that the Pope said really struck me. He referred to the actions of the abusers as "unspeakable crimes."

That's a very apt phrase and it sums up what, in my mind, is a great deal of the problem. When a child is abused we don't talk about it. There's so much shame involved that everyone, the child, the family, the community all get quiet and act as if it never happened.

That's what most of the protests have been about. The abuse is terrible, but the attitude that the incident then needs to be hushed up, makes things even worse. Without honesty there is no accountability. Without victims able to tell their stories there is no justice.

That's why I am happy to see Benedict's words. Even if, as some critics say, this is more a political gesture, at lease the unspeakable is finally being spoken, and that's something that needs to happen. No matter how ugly reality is, we can never hope to change a situation until we face it.

Pakistan Floods

2010-09-08T09:44:00.000-07:00

I was listening to an NPR report on this the other day and both the scope of the disaster and the lack of international response are staggering. The flooding still covers an area the size of Italy and roughly the same number of people as the entire population of Canada are affected.

As the video says, there has been international support, but not at the levels seen in the Haitii earthquake or the tsunami. Some people interviewed have expressed a concern that the money will go to the Taliban but that is NOT the case.

My church, the offers United Church of Christ offers assistance in partnership through Church World Service which has an outstanding record of getting aid to the people who need it.

Phoenix Affirmations #12

2010-08-13T06:24:00.000-07:00

The last of the Affirmations is...

12. Acting on the faith that we born with a purpose, a vocation that serves to strengthen God's Kingdom and extend God's love.

Sometimes we have the idea that there are a few gifted, heroic folks out there who really make a difference, but that most of us are ordinary slobs who don't really matter.

Nothing could be further from what our faith teaches. Everyone--every single person who has ever lived or ever will live--is important, everyone has amazing potential, and everyone can do something that will make the world better.

Some may be able to advocate for greater justice for all people, or find ways to deal more effectively with disease, poverty, and hunger. Some may be peace-makers, helping people to set aside old hates. Many will have less dramatic, but still vital roles to play in modelling kindness, honesty, integrity, and mercy. To paraphrase Mother Teresa, we cannot always do something great, but we can do something small with great love.

The bottom line is that you are important, so celebrate that. And remember, with that importance comes the power to make a difference, and the responsibility to use that power wisely and compassionately.

Phoenix Affirmations #11

2010-08-11T13:48:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I posted one of these so here's the catch-up.

The Phoenix Affirmations are a set of ideas meant to define Progressive Christianity. They are not meant to be a series of iron-clad doctrines that believers are required to hold. Rather they are a description of what is out there in this huge, but often misunderstood, branch of Christianity.

The Affirmations are broken into three sections, reminding us of Jesus teaching to "love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself." The first section has 4 points about what it means to love God, the second has 4 points about loving your neighbor, and the last, 4 points about loving yourself.

The last 4 can be a little controversial because "loving yourself" can sound like the narcissism, or self-indulgence. As I hope you will see, it's neither of those things.

For 1-10, see the archives of this blog.

#11.Realizing the benefits of prayer, worship, recreation, and healthiness in addition to work.

Modern people, and especially Americans, have a tendancy to think that work is the highest possible good. To be a worthwhile person you have to put in long hours at the job, even if that means neglecting things like personal health and time with your family. We value people by productivity, and we measure this by the time someone puts in, and by how much they earn.

But this is a terrible way to evaluate people's worth. Jesus didn't value people like this, but saw the value in them regardless of their earning potential or how likely they were to wil Employee of the Month. He taught that every person is a child of God, and there's more value in that than in any reward we get in the marketplace.

That's not to say that we should slack off. Doing what you do with pride and dedication is a wonderful thing. It has to be put in perspective, though, because there are other things that are just as--or more--important. God doesn't just want us to be hard-workers, but good parents, friends, spouses, neighbors, and much more. We can do these things only if we take time to spend with the people we love, to cultivate our spirituality, and to just have fun.

God wants you to be productive, but God also wants you to be happy, loving, spiritual, and fulfilled... I wonder why it seems so hard for us to do it.

The Mosque in NYC

2010-08-04T12:51:00.000-07:00

The city of New York has cleared the way for a mosque and Muslim community center to be built near the ground zero site. This has promped protests from some who feel that this would disrespect the memory of the victims fo the 9-11 terrorist attacks.

I don't get it.

The reactions I've seen seem to suggest that a mosque would be some kind of a concession to the terrorists. One fo the protest signs I saw on the news said that Muslims put up mosques to mark the place of victories.

I understand the depth of the feelings about ground Zero. I remember watching the news in horror when the buildings collapsed, and feeling outrage that anyone could do such a thing. But it is a terrible mistake to act as if all Muslims are terrorists, or even extremists. The vast majority of Muslims I've met have been kind, decent, law-abiding people who care about their families and want to be good neighbors. In this they are very much like most of the Crristians I've known, and most of the Jews, Buddhists, and Athiests.

There is a problem with violent extremism in the Muslim world, and it would be foolish to ignore this. But is is even more foolish, in my opinion, to blame all Muslims for the actions of a minority group. (Militant extremists are a very small minority in Islam, which is fortunate. Imagine what the world would be like if any significant fraction of the 1.5 billion Muslims in the world were terrorists.)

The people who would be worshipping in the Mosque and using the community center are innocent of the horror of 9-11 and the people who are guilty would have no interest in having such a place built. The proposed Mosque is meant to cultivate religious tolerance and healing, two of the last things the terrorists want to see.

Anger is natural after such a senseless tragedy, but holding onto anger makes it impossible for us to heal. And turning that anger against the blameless only makes our wounds worse. Jesus calls on us to firgive even the guilty. That's a tall order, but surely we can forgive the innocent.

Commercials

2010-07-28T00:12:00.000-07:00

I'm back with a renewed yen to update this thing weekly! (I know, I've said this before, but this time... well, I'll give it the old college try.)

I'd never posted the UCC commercials before. They were controversial for a couple of reasons. First, they showed a church that refuse to reject anyone, including (controversially) gays and lesbians. Second, they were deemed accusatory by some of our sister denominations.

I wasn't in on the planning, so I can't swear this was an unintended consequence. But I believe the focus was saying who we are, not who other churches are. The sad truth is that there are churches where people are turned away for a variety of reasons. There are also many churches that welcome people, regardless. I salute all those who do, and am proud to belong to a denomination that does.

The first commercial, "Bouncer" makes the point of many people's experience in a powerful way.

The next commercial was "Ejector Seat" which took the same message but portrayed it humorously. I feel a little guilty for finding this as funny as I do.
:-)

The most recent ad, "Steeples" is my favorite. See if you agree.

Glen Beck and Social Justice

2010-03-12T20:59:00.000-08:00

I have to start this by admitting that I don't know much about Glen Beck. I've heard his name mentioned along with Rush Limbaugh's as an influential conservative pundit. I've seen his show a couple of times and, while I thought he was more personable than Rush, I wasn't interested in his politics or his humor.

But this last week, Mr. Beck said something on his show that I really can't leave alone. He said this...

"I'm begging you, your right to religion and freedom to exercise religion and read all of the passages of the Bible as you want to read them and as your church wants to preach them . . . are going to come under the ropes in the next year. If it lasts that long it will be the next year. I beg you, look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!"

He went on to say equate "social justice" with Communism and Nazism. (Article with sound file here) He's backed away a little from this comparison, now saying that "social justice" is code for "big government" but still says that Christians should leave churches that preach social justice.

That's a problem because (as most Christian churches teach) social justice is central to our faith. We may have somewhat different ideas about the exact nature of social justice, or how to seek it, this concept is central to our faith.

What is the Christian idea of social justice? Well, here are some basic points, complete with scriptures.

Point 1. God has a special concern for the poor.
Deuteronomy. 26:5-9, Luke 4:16-21, Psalm 140:12-13, Isaiah 25:1-5, Psalm 10:14, Isaiah 41:17-20, Luke 6:20-21, James 2:5-7, and Luke 6:20-21.

This last is a favorite of mine. I've often heard people claiming that the Beatitudes are about spiritual blessings in the next life. You can get away with that (more or less) when you're looking at the more familiar version in Matthew, but Luke doesn't pull any punches. God's blessings are also for the very practical needs of people in this life. And if we don't go along with seeking enough justice at least to allow the poor to survive? Well, Luke also has this list of woes for the uncaring wealthy. Which brings us to...

Point 2: God's people are expected to care for the poor (This is at the heart of the "Jubilee" laws).
Deuteronomy 15:7-9, Deuteronomy 26:12-14, Leviticus 19:9-10, Proverbs 31:8-9, Isaiah 58:6-9, Leviticus 19:9-10, Isaiah 58:6-9, Jeremiah 22:1-3, Luke 12:33-34, Luke 12:33-34, Luke 3:11, Matthew 5:38-42.

As seen in these verses, the biblical idea of wealth is very different from what we are used to. People do not own property, per se. God owns everything and allows people to use and manage the resources of the world. We are seen as sharecroppers using our landlord's property for his purposes first and our personal benefit only after that. Anyone who puts their own profit ahead of the good of the people is seen as stealing from God.

Which brings us to...

Point 3: Those who serve the poor are blessed by God.
Proverbs 22:9, Jeremiah 22:13-17, Deuteronomy 15:10-11, Proverbs 19:17, Jeremian 7:3-7, Isaiah 58:9-12, Luke 14:12-14, Luke 12:25-48, Matthew 19:16-22.

All people are God's children and, as such, deserving of basic justice and compassion. We often try to limit that, saying that we only need to care for our family, our countrymen, people who look and think like us, people who share our values, etc. but the scriptures don't give us this out. If we want the blessings that comes from knowing God, we can't we have to care for God's children. We can't have it both ways.

In fact...

Point 4: The Bible promises dire consequences for those who refuse to help the poor.
Ezekiel 16:49-50 (According to the prophet, lack of social justice was the sin of Sodom), Isaiah 10:1-4, Luke 1:46-55, , Ezekiel 22:23-29, Jeremiah 5:26-29, James 5:1-6, Luke 16:19-25.

The last of these scriptures is the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man. I've been thinking about that a lot recently and have been struck by the fact that we are never told that the Rich Man was dishonest, or lacking in religious devotion, or even that he was harsh and cruel. The only bad thing that we know about him is that he lived well and that he ignored the needs of his poor neighbor. That's not a problem in the eyes of many modern people, but scripture sees caring for the poor as a sacred obligation, not an option. Perhaps that's because caring for the poor is inseparable from caring for God.

Which leads us to...

Point 6: God identifies with the poor and helpless.
2 Corinthians 8:8-9, Proverbs 19:17, Proverbs 14:31, and Matthew 25:31-46.

That last passage is the judgment of the nations, or the parable of the sheep and the goats. Jesus makes the point about caring for the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the rejected, and all who need help. When we do this, we welcome him into our lives. When we reject or ignore these people, we reject and ignore him.

In other words, social justice is not something foreign that has been tacked on, it is at the very heart and soul of Christianity. It is one of the strongest core values Christians have. The scriptures I've listed only begin to tell how important it is. After faith in God, it is the most frequently mentioned idea in the Bible.

I'm not sure where Mr. Beck is coming from with his statements but, in this case, he couldn't be more thoroughly or outrageously wrong. Christianity is about compassion, it's about justice, of all kinds, and it's about reaching out to people who are hurting for any reason. If we ever forget that, then we've misunderstood who God is.

Haiti, Robertson and Lazarus

2010-01-28T10:42:00.000-08:00

In the wake of the terrible earthquake in Haiti last week, Pat Robertson made one of his cringe-worthy comments.

When something terrible happens, we try to understand it. Sometimes we come up with foolish and offensive explanations. In fact, that's where the "pact with the Devil" story came from in the first place.

Haiti was once the richest possession of the French. They imported huge numbers of African slaves to work the cane fields. In the 1790's the slaves staged a successful revolt, winning freedom and equality for themselves. This was the first successful slave revolt and it terrified slave-holders in Europe and America. Shortly after this a story began to circulate that the slaves had held a huge ceremony in which they had pledged the island to Satan in return for his help in defeating the French.

It's debatable what actually happened, or if there even was a ceremony, but the story became popular and has been kept alive in some churches to this day. It's probably an attempt to explain how God could allow non-Christian slaves to successfully kill their Christian masters. Like other bad theology explanations, it's lead to a great deal of bigotry against the people of Haiti, which Robertson's comments have dragged out into the light.

I think we are at our worst when we try to explain away things that defy our understanding. I'm not saying it's wrong to try to understand them, only that it's a terrible mistake to latch onto some bogus explanation that makes us feel a little better. And when we grab hold of a bogus explanation that uses God as the reason, I think we are breaking the third commandment (Don't take God's name in vain) in the worst way possible. We are using God's name to try to justify our own judgmental ideas about things.

Of course, I've been trying to understand this catastrophe too, and I've also gone to the Bible. I haven't found an explanation, but I noticed something that seems significant to me.

Jesus once told a parable about a poor man named Lazarus. He sat at the doorstep of a rich man who lived very well while he struggled just to survive.

One day Lazarus and the rich man died and found themselves in very different circumstances. Lazarus was cared for and comforted (implicitly) in the presence of God while the rich man was cut off and in torment. We don't know much about the Rich Man. He may have been a crook or an honest business man. He may have been a villain or a pillar of society. The only thing we can say about him for certain is that he ignored the poor man at his gate. in the view of Jesus, that was unacceptable.

I can't say who the earthquake struck Haiti. A geologist has a much better shot of making sense of that question than a theologian. I can say that earthquake was roughly comparable in power to the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake that struck the Bay Area of central California. There were 63 deaths and nearly 4,000 injuries from that quake, which is tragic, but many orders of magnitude less than what the Haitians have suffered.

The reason is simply that Americans have the resources to build much better homes and buildings. In an earthquake, out structures hold up reasonably well, while the cheaper buildings of Haiti collapse, burying people in the rubble. No one could have prevented the quake, but if Haiti were more prosperous, the death toll would be vastly reduced.

For me the question isn't "why did God allow the quake to happen?", it is "what kind of neighbor has America been?" I think we've been a little too much like the rich man in the parable, enjoying our prosperity while our poor neighbor suffers on our doorstep.

2009-06-06T18:02:00.000-07:00

Phoenix Affirmations #10

2009-06-03T07:21:00.001-07:00

10. Claiming the sacredness of both our minds and our hearts, recognizing that faith and science, doubt and belief serve the pursuit of truth;
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If you haven't seen one of these before, the Phoenix Affirmations are a group of 12 ideas that help to define progressive Christianity.

Number 10 is one that still makes the news from time to time. The most recent thing I've seen about it was when Bill Nye, the Science Guy was booed at a lecture in Waco Texas. Nye had pointed out the fallacy of a strictly literalist interpretation of the Bible. He quoted Genesis 1:16 which reads, "God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars." Then pointed out that the moon isn't actually a light, merely a reflector of the sun's light. This angered several audience members who booed and some even walked out.

I'm not aware of any church that actually teaches that the moon generates its own light, but Nye's point is a good one. He's essentially saying that it's not a good practice to try and deduce the rules of physics from the study of scripture. That's the kind of thinking that caused Galileo trouble for saying the earth orbits the sun, and Charles Darwin trouble for suggesting that life evolved over time rather than being simultaneously created.

While there have been, and still are, some scientists who tout their discoveries as proof that God does not exist, they have always been a minority. Most physicists, biologists, geologists, etc. have no interest in trying to disprove God; they simply want to understand the natural world as best they are able. In their studies they have opened up insights about the universe that fill us with wonder and awe.

That's not something that people of faith should feel threatened by, and many of us are not. We understand that scripture deals with the 'who' of creation, and is not particularly concerned with the 'how'. Science, on the other hand, is not competent to say anything much about God, but is ideally suited for looking at the 'how' of creation.

Science vs. religion is an old argument, but it's one that has never made sense. Human beings have been given several very useful tools to understand the world. Some questions are best answered with scientific thought and others by faith. It's not a case of one approach being right and the other wrong. Both are essential parts of being human and we should fund ways to cultivate both in our lives.

"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind." Albert Einstein

Phoenix Affirmations #9

2009-05-18T12:13:00.000-07:00

9. Basing our lives on the faith that, in Christ, all things are made new, and that we, and all people, are loved beyond our wildest imagination – for eternity;

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It's been a while since I did one of these. If you're coming across this late, the Phoenix Affirmations are a collection of statements that attempt to define what progressive Christianity is. I've been going through them one by one so my comments on 1-8 can be found earlier on the blog, or there is a study guide here.

This is a simple affirmation: God loves people.

That's an interesting statement as much for what it doesn't say as for what it does. It doesn't say any of these things:
- God loves some people, but hates others.
- God loves all people, but loves some more than others.
- God loves good people, but has a different attitude toward bad people.
- God loves believers, but has a different attitude toward non-believers.

You can find Christians who believe any of these statements. You can even find passages in the bible to support them. There are a lot of rules about what a person has to do or not do in order to be acceptable in God's sight. But the overwhelming motion of scripture is that God will break any of these rules out of love for us.

The Old Testament prophets are not considered a very 'touchy-feely' group of people. They appeared at a time when Israel was fragmented into two kingdoms, Israel, and the southern kingdom of Judah. This is a time when there was a great deal of social injustice as the wealthy and powerful took advantage of the poor and helpless. This was also a time when the people, and even the leaders, were attracted to worshipping the gods of the neighboring nations.

The prophets challenged both of these things. They told the people that, if things didn't change, God would turn away from them for all time and their enemies would overcome them. The people didn't stop and their enemies did overcome them. The Assyrian Empire destroyed the kingdom of Israel and its people were lost to history. The kingdom of Judah struggled on for a time before it was overwhelmed by the Babylonian Empire.

The message of the prophets--the word of God--had been that this would be the end. God had promised that it was over and the honor of God depended on keeping his word. Yet, as the people lived in exile, a new message came to them. God still loved them, God was always with them, and there was still hope for the future. The love of God was so great that it was willing to do things that broke the rules. God was willing to set aside his honor for the sake of love.

You see something similar in the life of Jesus. The scribes and Pharisees believed in the idea that God loved some people (those who were ritually clean and kept the Law of Moses), but not others (foreigners, people who didn't keep ritually clean, the mentally and physically ill or handicapped, etc). But Jesus reached out to these people, touching, teaching, welcoming. His whole life, and his death and resurrection for that matter, were about tearing down the barriers that kept people form a faithful relationship with God or loving relationships with each other.

God loves people--not some people, but all people.

There are two implications for us. The first is that we ought to love others as God does. We ought to love others as ourselves, without judgment or splitting humanity into several categories. We ought to simply love.

The second is to remember that, no matter what, God loves us. No matter how bad we may feel about ourselves and the things happening in our lives, God still loves us and longs to heal the broken parts of our lives.

Isaiah said it better than I can so I'll close this with a favorite passage:

"Can a mother forget the infant at her breast,
walk away from the baby she bore?
But even if mothers forget,
I'd never forget you—never.
Look, I've written your names on the backs of my hands. (Isaiah 49:15-16)

Statisticians and Islam

2009-05-11T01:05:00.000-07:00

"There are liars, damned liars, and statisticians."

The quote is attributed to Mark Twain (or sometimes to Benjamin Disraeli) and expresses the fact that numbers can be put to all kinds of uses. While statistics can be used responsibly, all too often they are used to confuse, frighten or manipulate.

Case in point, this showed up in my e-mail recently.

The movie, complete with scary music, warns that a declining birthrate in Europe and the U.S. and the current rate of immigration will transform Europe in the near future into a series of nations with Muslim majorities. This is an extremely dubious claim (as the good folks at Snopes.com demonstrate in this article, and it's followed by even more bizarre assertions such as this:

"By 2027, 1 in 5 Frenchmen will be a Muslim. In just 39 years, France will be an Islamic republic."

When you stop to think about it, this doesn't make much sense. Even in the unlikely event that France was to gain a Muslim majority, that would not make it an Islamic Republic. There are a few states in the world right now, including Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan and Mauritania that call themselves that. Most Islamic majority nations use different forms of government and some, like Turkey, have completely secular governments.

The video implies that all Muslims are to be feared, that they are out to overrun the western world and do away with Christianity. You can tell it's reaching when it quotes Muammar al-Gaddafi to make the point. He doesn't speak for all Muslims or even all Libyans by any stretch of the imagination. He's a publicity hungry petty dictator known for making unreliable grand statements.

Muslims are no more a single group, united in their opinions than Christians are. They are part of a diverse world religion with some fanatics but a majority of decent, ordinary people. While there are certainly changes coming in the world (aren't they always?) and challenges to face learning to live with each other (again, this is nothing new) the kind of paranoid fear the video promotes is not going to help anyone.

Phoenix Affirmations #8

2009-04-20T12:23:00.000-07:00

8. Walking humbly with God, acknowledging our own shortcomings while honestly seeking to understand and call forth the best in others, including those who consider us their enemies;
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This one seems simple (though anytime I say that I end out writing more). The first part of the affirmation grows out of a familiar scripture:

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8)

Humility has a bit of a bad rap in our culture, which is largely the fault of Christian preaching. In an attempt to avoid destructive pride, some teach that we should go through life thinking of ourselves as loathsome, worthless sinners who can accomplish nothing good.

That is messed up thinking, and a far cry from true humility.

I ran across a great insight in the Anglican BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER years ago. It said that the person who believes they are useless, worthless and ruins every thing they touch is suffering from pride as much the egotist. Both are completely unrealistic, and thoroughly self-centered ways of viewing life. Whether we try to put ourselves above everyone else, or beneath them, we're shutting ourselves away from any kind of healthy and loving relationships.

True humility takes down the barriers that false self-images raise up. Humility comes when you see yourself as you are, with all of your virtues and flaws. It comes when you understand that you are human, just like everyone else and it frees you to love others without judgment.

Which brings us to the second part of the Affirmation. This one is also based in a well-loved scripture.

You're familiar with the old written law, 'Love your friend,' and its unwritten companion, 'Hate your enemy.' I'm challenging that. I'm telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that. (Matthew 5:43-47)

Loving a stranger is hard work, let alone loving an enemy. Freud once wrote that love should be confined for those people we consider worthy (I need to blog about that quote someday. For now, I'll just say the man had issues.)

Freud's idea fits with what seems the most common sense approach. We love people when we're going to get something out of it. Loving those who don't love you is a waste of energy, and loving those who hate you is just asking for trouble.

But that assumption doesn't take the power of love seriously. I read several years ago about a young man who, driving drunk, had killed a family's teenaged daughter. No one would have blamed the family if they had hated him and petitioned the court for the harshest possible sentence. Instead they got to know him, visited him in jail, pleaded for leniency in his sentencing, and took him in when he was released from prison. His life was changed by the power of their forgiveness. and so were the lives of the family. They said that reaching out as they did helped to make their daughter's death bearable.

Loving others, strangers, enemies, is the hardest challenge that God puts before us. It is difficult and dangerous, but it is also the only thing that can transform the world.

Aaargh!

2009-04-18T14:48:00.000-07:00

I saw a comment by an old friend named Erik Kniffen but, when I tried to publish it, it disappeared!

I am a techno-dummy. :(

Erik, please comment again.

The Hermeneutics of the Stop Sign

2009-04-18T14:31:00.000-07:00

this is something that's been floating around the internet for a few years. Just a bit of background: Hermeneutics is a study of how a text is interpreted. The name comes from Hermes, the messenger fo the Greek gods, and is used to describe an approach that iss meant to help readers get the full meaning from the text.

An exegete is someone who practices exegesis (pronounced like "eggs-a-Jesus") which is a disciplined study of a biblical text.

I'll leave you to figure out the rest of the fancy language for yourselves.
:)

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Suppose you're traveling to work and you see a stop sign. What do you do? That depends on how you, the exegete, interpret the stop sign.

1. A post-modernist deconstructs the sign (knocks it over with the car), ending forever the tyranny of the north-south traffic over the east-west traffic.

2. Similarly, a Marxist refuses to stop because she sees the stop sign as an instrument of class conflict. She concludes that the bourgeois use the north-south road and obstruct the progress of the workers in the east-west road.

3. A serious and educated Catholic rolls through the intersection because he believes he cannot understand the stop sign apart from its interpretive community and tradition. Observing that the interpretive community doesn't take it too seriously, he doesn't feel obligated to take it too seriously either.

4. An average Catholic (or Orthodox or Coptic or Anglican or Methodist or Presbyterian or whatever) doesn't bother to read the sign but she'll stop the car if the car in front stops.

5. A fundamentalist, taking the text very literally, stops at the stop sign and waits for it to tell him to go.

6. A seminary-educated evangelical preacher might look up "STOP" in his lexicons of English and discover that it can mean: 1) something that prevents motion, such as a plug for a drain, or a block of wood that prevents a door from closing; 2) a location where a train or bus lets off passengers. The main point of his sermon the following Sunday on this text is: When you see a stop sign, it is a place where traffic is naturally clogged, so it is a good place to let off passengers from your car.

7. An orthodox Jew does one of two things: a) Take another route to work that doesn't have a stop sign so that she doesn't run the risk of disobeying the Law; b) Stop at the sign, say "Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, king of the universe, who hast given us thy commandment to stop," wait three seconds according to her watch, and then proceed. Incidentally, the Talmud has the following comments on this passage: Rabbi Meir says: He who does not stop shall not live long. R. Hillel says: Cursed is he who does not count to three before proceeding. R. Simon ben Yudah says: Why three? Because the Holy One, blessed be He, gave us the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. R. ben Isaac says: Because of the three patriarchs. R. Yehuda says: Why bless the Lord at a stop sign? Because it says, "Be still and know that I am God."

8. A scholar from the Jesus Seminar concludes that the passage "STOP" undoubtedly was never uttered by Jesus himself because being the progressive Jew that he was, he would never have wanted to stifle people's progress. Therefore, STOP must be a textual insertion belonging entirely to stage III of the gospel tradition, when the Church was first confronted by traffic in its parking lot.

9. A New Testament scholar notices that there is no stop sign on Mark street but there is one on Matthew and Luke streets, and concludes that the ones on Luke and Matthew streets are both copied from a sign on a street no one has ever seen, called "Q" street. The scholar has read an excellent 300-page doctoral dissertation on the origin of these stop signs and the differences between stop signs on Matthew and Luke. There is an unfortunate omission in the dissertation, however; it doesn't explain the meaning of the text!

10. A Hebrew Scriptures scholar points out that there are a number of stylistic differences between the first and second half of the passage "STOP." For example, "ST" contains no enclosed areas and five line endings, whereas "OP" contains two enclosed areas and only one line termination. She concludes that the author of the second part is different from the author of the first part and probably lived hundreds of years later. Later scholars determine that the second half is itself actually written by two separate authors because of similar stylistic differences between the "O" and the "P."

11. Another prominent OT scholar notes in his commentary that the stop sign would fit better into the context three streets back. (Unfortunately, he neglects to explain why in his commentary.) Clearly it was moved to its present location by a later redactor. He thus exegetes the intersection as though the sign were not there.

12. Because of the difficulties in interpretation, yet another OT scholar amends the text, changing the "T" to "H". "SHOP" is much easier to understand in context than "STOP" because of the multiplicity of stores in the area. She demonstrates that the textual corruption probably occurred because "SHOP" is so similar to "STOP" on the sign several streets back, that it is a natural mistake for a scribe to make. Thus the sign should be interpreted to announce the existence of a shopping area. If this is true, it could indicate that both meanings are valid, thus making the thrust of the message "STOP (AND) SHOP." She goes shopping.

13. A "prophetic" preacher notices that the square root of the sum of the numeric representations of the letters S-T-O-P (sigma-tau-omicron-pi in the Greek alphabet), multiplied by 40 (the number of testing), and divided by four (the number of the world — north, south, east, and west) equals 666. Therefore, he concludes that stop signs are the dreaded "mark of the beast," a harbinger of divine judgment upon the world, and must be avoided at all costs.

The Hunger Site

2009-04-15T15:20:00.001-07:00

This is a post that I’m putting on both my blogs because it needs to have the word spread. You may know about these already, but, if you don’t, here they are.

The Hunger Site started in 1999 and is a click-to-donate website. What that means is that you can click a button on the site once per day and it will translate as a small donation to the famine relief organizations Feeding America (formerly known as America’s Second Harvest) and Mercy Corps. The action is free and, thought the donation is small, it adds up over time and is an effortless way to make a difference.

It is linked to a number of other websites with the same set up and similar missions.

The Breast Cancer Site gathers contributions for free mammogram screenings.

The Child Health Site focuses its efforts on providing medicine and medical care to low income children.

The Literacy Site uses the funds they gather to purchase books for literacy campaigns.

The Rainforest Site buys up areas of endangered rainforest so they cannot be developed.

The Animal Rescue Site purchases food to care for animals in shelters.

Each of them is worth a click a day. They are my first six visits when I go on line. I hope you'll consider them.

Phoenix Affirmations #7

2009-04-14T12:26:00.000-07:00

The next on our list of affirmations is a controversial one, but is absolutely vital.

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7. Preserving religious freedom and the Church’s ability to speak prophetically to government by resisting the commingling of Church and State;

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The idea of separation of church and state in North America grew out of some bad experiences in Europe. My denomination, the United Church of Christ, is directly descended from one of these groups. The Pilgrims had a rough time in England because they had their own ideas about worship. That doesn't sound so sinister, except that their non-conformist approach came at a time when Queen Elizabeth I was consolidating her power as both Queen of the Realm, and leader of the Church of England. In her view, active membership in the national church was a necessary sign of political loyalty. People who wanted to worship in a different form were considered disloyal citizens.

The Pilgrims had a rough time in England because of this. They ended fleeing to Leiden in the Netherlands, and eventually chartered a ship called the Mayflower to bring them to North America. Unfortunately, the theocracy they set up in the Massachusetts Bay Colony was also intolerant of religious dissent, but we often move forward with baby steps.

The first principle we can see in this is pretty simple: The government has no business telling it's citizens how they should worship.

That one is fairly simple, and is a familiar argument. If faith is a decision of personal conscience and choice then it makes no sense for the government to tell people that they have to belong to a specific religion or denomination. As a rule every one agrees with this... with the exception of people who are pretty sure that their religion or denomination would be the one to come out on top. :)

The second principle is that one of the primary roles of religion (my religion anyway, I won't presume to speak for everyone) is to speak out when the state does something cruel or unjust.

In the Hebrew scriptures, the priests were supposed to be the servants of God, and to help the common people. The King of Israel was also supposed to be a servant-leader rather than an authoritarian despot. Unfortunately there's a lot of truth in the old saying about power corrupting. It wasn't long before the King and the Priests were a privileged class who exploited the common people and ignored their needs. You can see this starting to take shape in 2 Samuel 7 when King David announced his plan to build a grand Temple for God so that God will have a home as grand as the king's palace. No longer would God be worshiped in the glorified tent that was the Tabernacle. Now people would have to come to the big city to worship.

Lifestyles of the rich and famous.

The thing was, this wasn't what God wanted. God preferred being out among the people and had no use for a house of cedar wood. God stopped David's plans, and if the king had really been listening he would have given up his grand lifestyle and come back out among the people where God was.

Unfortunately, he didn't, and each generation of kings and priests got a little more removed from the concerns of God's people and a little more concerned about protecting their own power and privilege. That's what always happens with a state religion, it becomes all about power and privilege, and drifts far away from the valies of God.

That's where the prophets This was the case with the prophets in ancient Israel. God called them to go and speak out against the abuses they saw. As you might guess, they weren't popular. In fact, many of them were killed for what they had to say. Looking back, we can see that they were the ones speaking out for their faith while the blended religious/political leadership was not.

If you blend religion and government, then the church becomes so enmeshed in politics that it loses its soul. There have been many times that government and religion have come together like this in the history of the world, and I can't think of a single time when this hasn't happened. To remain true to itself, religion has to avoid this entanglement.

In Praise of Atheists

2009-04-11T09:18:00.000-07:00

Here is yet another digression in my series on the Phoenix Affirmations. It'll be a short one because I need to get back to working on regular stuff for Easter.

I've had a number of atheists and agnostic friends over the years. One thing that I've discovered is that conversations with them have been very helpful to my spiritual growth. There are things that talking to them can give you that you usually can't get talking to a believer. Don't get me wrong, I love talking to other Christians, but they tend to be too polite to me and respectful to ask the tough questions.

"It says in Matthew that Jesus died on Friday, but in John he dies on Thursday. How do you deal with that kind of contradiction in the Bible?"

"I just saw that a famous preacher named (fill in the name) was caught (fill in the scandal). How do you deal with that kind of hypocrisy in the church?"

"I was reading the Bible and ran across a passage where God commanded the Israelites to commit genocide. How do you deal with that?"

Those are questions that need to be dealt with, and struggling with them has done a lot to shape and deepen my faith. They are the kind of questions an honest outsider will ask. Sometime the asking comes in the form of polite inquiry (I like that), other times it comes as angry accusation (not so much fun) but either way it raises important questions.

My sense has been that most atheists and agnostics are very honest in their questioning. There are a few who are just out to start a fight, or take a cheap shot, but they're a minority. You only ask questions about something if that thing is, on some level, important to you. Some are fascinated by the idea of faith; some are repelled by the fact that so many people allow 'irrational superstition' to guide their lives. Most take the questions they ask very seriously.

I do get frustrated when one of these conversations turns one-sided. Some of the atheists I've talked to seem to have very little interest in my responses to their questions, or their accusations. Some seem less interested in learning what my position actually is than they are in telling me it's wrong. I'm afraid I've let myself get short tempered a few times. That's been a mistake. Even when the tone is strident, the questions they raise still deserve serious consideration.

I've learned something interesting in these conversations. There are a lot of things they say that I agree with. When they tell me why they don't believe in God, they usually give me reasons that it's easy to respect.

"I can't believe in a God who would sanction genocide."

"I can't believe in a God who would condemn people to everlasting punishment for belonging to another religion, or for having no religion."

"I can't believe in a God who would sanction the bombing of an abortion clinic, or the shooting of an abortion doctor.

"I can't believe in a God whose followers are more interested in covering up a scandal than in caring for suffering people."

As it happens, I can't believe any of those things either.

The sad truth is that many Christians carry around false ideas of God. Those ideas are based on notions that the preacher is infallible, or the church hierarchy is infallible, or the church doctrines are infallible, or even that the Bible is infallible. They imagine that finding a flaw in any of those things is the same as finding a flaw in God so they shut their eyes to the flaws.

But God is greater than the preacher, or the doctrine, or the theology, or the hierarchy, or even the Bible. All of those things are tools to help us understand God. They can be wonderful tools but, when we forget that's all they are and start acting as if they are interchangeable with God we've made a terrible mistake. We've created a false idea of God and put it in the place of the real God.

It's these false ideas that atheists and agnostics are so good at identifying and criticizing, and they do believers an invaluable service. Honest questions are never the enemy of the true God; they are an important part of any healthy faith.

(That was not a short digression, was it? I'll work on it.)

Phoenix Affirmations #6

2009-04-09T15:14:00.001-07:00

After a little break, I wanted to get back to the Phoenix Affirmations. If you're joining this program already in progress, the affirmations are an attempt by progressive Christians to say what we're all about. There are 12 points and they're divided into three categories based on the 'Great Commandment' and the Golden Rule'. Affirmations 1-4 are about love of God, 5-8 are about love of neighbor, and 9-12 are about love of self.

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6. Standing, as Jesus does, with the outcast and oppressed the denigrated and afflicted, seeking peace and justice with or without the support of others;

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One of the central parts of Jesus ministry in the Gospels is his focus on justice for the least powerful members of society. He lived at a time when the religious and political leaders of his community experienced great prosperity, while the ordinary people struggled to survive under the burden of high taxes. Like Micah, Isaiah, Amos, and so many of the Old Testament prophets before him, Jesus was deeply upset by the unfairness of this system.

While it is sometimes (too often) overlooked by preachers, social and economic justice is mentioned more them 2,000 times throughout the Bible. After faith in God, it is Jesus favorite topic in his parables and other teachings. If you claim to be a follower of God, but haven't picked up on this point, you've missed something vital.

Jesus doesn't flinch from this point either. In Luke 6:17-26 he says:

‘Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
‘Blessed are you who are hungry now,
for you will be filled.

So God clearly has compassion for the poor, but there's more. Unlike Matthew's Gospel, which sticks exclusively to the blessings, Luke's account also lists some woes:

‘But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.
‘Woe to you who are full now,
for you will be hungry.

Woe to you who are rich? Those are shocking words, especially to American Christians who like to equate wealth with our religious devotion. Why should Jesus say something so harsh? Does he mean wealthy people who are obsessed with their wealth? Does he mean just those who have gotten wealthy through ruthless or dishonest means?

It's easy to try to spiritualize those words away, with this and with other parables. The best example of this kind of creative interpretation is found in the parable of the camel and the eye of a needle found in Matthew 19:24, Mark 10:25, and Luke 18:25. Jesus says that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.

Interpreters have tried to make this parable easier on the wealthy for years by suggesting that the 'eye of the needle' is actually the name of a city gate in Jerusalem, or that the 'needle' mentioned is actually a special kind of needle with a very large eye, or that the word translated 'camel' is actually a mistranslation of the word for a slender rope.

All of those sound reasonable, and give the wealthy a much better shot, but there are no shortage of articles demonstrating that all of these explanations are wishful thinking. Jesus really was talking about something that is completely impossible. He wanted to drive home the importance of the idea that God cares for the survival rights of the poor far more than for the property rights of the wealthy.

You can find the same imperative in the story of Lazarus and the Rich Man as well. The rich man doesn't end out in torment because he was dishonest, or immoral, or cruel. His offense is simply that he is wealthy, and there was a poor man at his gate, and he never did anything to help.

There is an overwhelming movement to care for the poor and the helpless. It's not a call that lets separate them out so that we can care only for those we deem "deserving". The Gospels are much more basic than that. Simply put, poverty and injustice are intolerable in God's sight. If we really are God's people, they will be intolerable to us too.

Cliffs Notes Christianity

2009-04-07T20:34:00.000-07:00

I've noticed something that other clergy have told me that they see too. Often we run into non-Christians who really 'get' Jesus better than many Christians. I've thought about this a lot and I've decided that it has to do with how we encounter Jesus.

A non-Christian is most likely to be familiar with the story of Jesus as just that, a story. Perhaps they've seen a few Jesus movies, or read the Gospels on their own, or something like that. In that case, the power of the story is able to capture them withour much interpretation of commentary. They are able to connect with the essential core of wisdom, compassion, courage and faith they find there.

Christians, on the other hand, have often had a lifetime of interpretation piled on the story. They've heard preachers and Bible story teachers telling them how they ought to read the story. They've got footnotes in their Bibles that tell them what everything really means. All of these tools are well-intentioned, and are designed to help, but they can have the opposite effect.

When I was in college I read Cliffs Notes for classes quite a bit. The little yellow booklets did an excellent job of telling me all the things I might miss in a difficult piece of literature. Of course I soon found that it was easier studying from Cliffs Notes than actually reading the book (some of those are long!)

You can do that, and even get a decent grade, but it will give you no real appreciation of the book, let alone any depth of understanding. To gain that you have to read the book. You have to struggle with it and think about it and get to know it.

Doctrines are the Cliffs Notes for Christianity. They can be helpful, but far too many people over-rely on them. They become a substitute for reading the Bible for yourself. Worse, they become a substitute for getting to know Jesus or God. This results in a shallow faith, one which can miss the whole point. Sadly, a lot of Christians are stuck in this rut and stubbornly insist that their doctrines are the last and only word on understanding God.

We can really take a pointer from those people, even outsiders, who have skipped the whole Cliffs Notes experience and actually 'read the book'.

Phoenix Affirmations #5

2009-04-05T20:20:00.001-07:00

5. Engaging people authentically, as Jesus did, treating all as creations made in God’s very image, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, age, physical or mental ability, nationality, or economic class;

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This affirmation is a big deal because excluding different people has been a shameful part of the history of Christianity for a very long time. Women have been (and still are sometimes) relegated to inferior status. There were (and are) places where people who were ethnically different were excluded. There are also many less obvious prejudices that show up. The very old and the very young can be shoved to the side, as can the mentally or physically challenged. And, of course, homosexuals still face terrible discrimination.

But that's not the whole story, and it never has been. There have always been Christians who have understood that this kind of discrimination is contrary to the loving God we serve and especially to the ministry of Jesus, who embraced and associated with people regardless of the prejudices of his time.

Since the beginning of Christianity there has been a struggle. On the one hand there are people who consider themselves better than others, and who find ways to shut others out. On the other are people who want to practice a radical kind of grace and acceptance, as Jesus did.

That's a witness as old as the faith, and one which we strive to continue.

Phoenix Affirmations #4

2009-04-05T20:06:00.000-07:00

4. Expressing our love in worship that is as sincere, vibrant, and artful as it is scriptural.

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This is an easy one. Simply put it's saying that faithful worship can take a wide variety of forms and styles. There's nothing sacred about doing it the way we've always done it before. One of the implications is that, if the old forms of worship are making people feel alienated from God, they can and should be changed.

Lost Generation

2009-04-03T10:58:00.000-07:00

I liked this so much I'm repeating the posting from my other blog.

Phoenix Affirmations #3

2009-04-02T08:25:00.000-07:00

3. Celebrating the God whose Spirit pervades and whose glory is reflected in all of God’s Creation, including the earth and its ecosystems, the sacred and secular, the Christian and non-Christian, the human and non-human;

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One of the bugaboos of Christianity has been that its leaders have often claimed to have exclusive rights to the truth, and the only possible access to God. What I've heard most often is that all of truth is contained in the Bible, that anything which contradicts the Bible must be untrue, and that no truth can be known outside of studying the Bible.

That's a dangerous point of view for several reasons. First, by raising the Bible to the point of being the absolute and unquestioned truth, we effectively make it the center of worship. It's not a good thing for Christians to put anything, even the Bible, in place of God. In fact our word for it is idolatry.

What makes this worse is that the people who like to insist on the Bible being the absolute and only source of truth is that they actually mean their reading of the Bible. They will deny it, of course. Some like to claim that they don't interpret at all "we just take it as it is", but that is nonsense. It's impossible to read the Bible without interpreting, and even groups that claim to be literalist often get into arguments about what passages really mean. For that matter the way those groups understand scriptures have changed a great deal through history.

Human beings don't have the ability to read things "just as they are". The way we understand everything is influenced by the time and place we live in, the traditions that influence us, and even our own personalities. Any time a group says that the Bible is the complete truth, they are actually saying that their understanding of the Bible is the complete truth. In other words they have raised their understanding to the center of worship.

If it's dangerous to make the Bible your god, it's even more dangerous to make your interpretation your god.

To keep from falling into this trap, we do our best to keep our eyes and ears open for God everywhere. My church uses the motto, "God is still speaking". This takes scripture very seriously but reminds us that the fullness of God's wisdom and grace is too great to be fully contained in any single book. We are open to perceiving God's wisdom in the words of a talented authors, poets, songwriters, etc. We see God's glory reflected in the wonders of nature and the discoveries of science. God can speak to us using the words of Buddhists, Jews, Muslims, or Atheists.

That doesn't mean that we buy into popular culture wholesale. There are a lot of negative, destructive, un-Godly messages out there and everything has to be looked at faithfully and critically. But it does mean that we're not going to rubber stamp things as true because they're labeled 'Christian' or untrue because they don't have the ecclesial stamp of approval.

That's too lazy an approach for someone who is serious about exploring the truth that God has to offer.

E-mail

2009-03-31T08:21:00.000-07:00

We interrupt this blog series for a quick bit of mail.

I get notices every so often from Christian groups trying to mobilize support for something. This morning I got one from a group called Church World Direct. I opened it because the name was so similar to Church World Services, which does amazing relief and community redevelopment work across the world.

This is different. Instead of reaching out in service to the hurting people of the world, this group devotes it's time and efforts to working against marriage rights for gay couples. I was disappointed.

This is from the letter:

First, for many, there is some cause for rejoicing given the November 2008 ballot results in Arizona, Florida and California, where same-sex marriages are now banned. Nevertheless, the attack upon the biblical understanding of marriage continues unabated. Still, we are encouraged that thirty states have now passed bans on same-sex marriage.

I have got to say some things about this.

First, I'm sick of slogan "the biblical understanding of marriage". The truth is that marriage in modern America bears almost no resemblance to marriage in the Bible. In those ancient times men were allowed several wives, in addition to the sexual services of any number of female slaves. Women and children were nothing more than property in those unions. A woman could be mistreated and there was next to nothing she could do about it. A man could divorce his wife for any reason and she would be out on the street with no money, no possessions, no access to her children, and no hope of remarriage. She would have to do whatever she could to survive, which could mean gleaning, begging, or prostitution.

The Bible doesn't glorify this; in fact there are numerous passages that scold callous husbands for their abusive behavior. Still, the writers of the Bible assumed that this model of marriage was the way things were. If we modern people assume that there is a biblical model of marriage that we have to copy, we are making the tragic mistake of confusing the culture of those ancient peoples for the will of God.

The truth is that the institution of marriage that we have in modern America is better in many ways than what was known in ancient times. It's better because there is an assumption of equality between husband and wife. It's better because, even when husbands want to treat their wives and children like glorified pieces of furniture, there are legal protections. It's far from perfect, but it's taken some important steps in the right direction.

Groups like this one will point out that there are still many problems. They point to a too-high divorce rate, and staggering number of children being born and raised in single parent homes as a problem. They point to the much higher stresses on children being raised without a father which lead to higher rated of substance abuse, premature sexual activity, and imprisonment and say its crisis.

And it is...but the next thing they say is blatantly untrue. They claim that these problems are somehow caused by, or at least directly connected to, committed gay unions. They claim that allowing gay marriages will somehow worsen the problems facing marriage in America.

It baffles me why they say this. I've looked for some kind of logical argument and have never found one. There's the vague assertion that, as toleration of gays has increased, the problems in marriages have increased. The implication is that one has somehow caused the other, but that's not a logical assumption. Following that reasoning you can also 'prove' that global warming is caused by a decline in the number of pirates.

I was married for 20 years. My marriage recently ended because of problems that had (surprise) nothing to do with whether gay couples were allowed to marry. In fact, I suspect if you poll divorced people or people in struggling marriages in America you won't find any significant number who attribute their issues to gay couples.

Groups like this one don't actually care about the health of traditional marriages, that's just a smoke screen. They know they can muster a lot of support for their cause (marginalizing gay people) by pretending that they're actually protecting something that most people care about. If they actually cared about marriage, they'd likely spend at least some of their time and money creating resources to help people in struggling marriages.

To go back to the Bible for a moment: It doesn't present any clear model for how a family is supposed to be structured, but offers a great deal of guidance on how people in a family are to be treated. If we care for one another, deal honestly with each other, show kindness and respect, make certain the strong do not abuse the weak, and place the welfare of others ahead of our own desires, we will have stronger marriages, stronger families, and stronger communities.

That's the approach of faith, and it's always better than looking for some group to use as a scapegoat.

Phoenix Affirmations #2

2009-03-29T14:28:00.000-07:00

2. Listening for God’s Word which comes through daily prayer and meditation, studying the ancient testimonies which we call Scripture, and attending to God’s present activity in the world;

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This one is hardly edgy, but it's very true. There is a great deal to be said for being grounded in an ancient spiritual tradition. If you don't have something outside of yourself to rely on, you run the risk of letting your own desires and prejudices become the standard of truth. (This can happen even if you're got scripture and tradition to help you, but they're the best safeguard I know of. The fact that a lot of smart and faithful people before you have asked a lot of the same questions is helpful. You don't have to buy their answers, but it's wise to consider them thoughtfully.

I've often heard the objection from non-Christians that the Bible should be abandoned because it has morally questionable rules and stories of God-sanctioned atrocities. I can understand the objection, because those things are real. They aren't 99% of the Bible, as some claim, but you don't have to read too far to run into one of them. From the laws that ban the eating of shellfish, to the call to execute someone who works on the Sabbath day, to the story of God sending bears to eat the young boys who made fun of the prophet Elisha's bald head, there is a lot in the Bible that is hard to read, let alone understand.

But it shouldn't be a matter of throwing the whole thing out because of the difficult parts. There is irreplacable wisdom about who God is and what it means to be human. The issue is one of learning to read in a careful, disciplined manner and learning to distinguish timeless wisdom from ideas (like slavery, genocide and the notion that women and children are only property) that belong in a long gone era.

It wouldn't be honest to pretend that the ugly parts of the Bible aren't there, or to try to pretend that they aren't ugly. At the same time, it isn't fair to judge the whole of scripture by the worst.

It's probably best to give an example of what I'm talking about. I know someone who dismisses the idea that there is any truth in the Bible by quoting the following three verses.
1 John 4:8 - "Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love."
1 Corinthians 13:4 - 4Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant..."
Exodus 20:5 - "You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me..."

He's clearly right that there is a logical contradiction here. I could argue that it's not the same word being used for jealous (it's not even the same language, Exodus was written in Hebrew and the others in Greek). That's kind of a technical argument though. The more important thing is that these are three different books written by three different authors. Finding this kind of contradiction is a challenge to the idea that the Bible was transmitted verbatum from the lips of God, but it does nothing to challenge the idea that they were written by human authors who, though all faithful and inspired, expressed themselves in very different ways. They were influences by the context they lived in, bu the immediate needs of their own communities, and by their own understanding and personalities. It's no surprise to see that what they wrote contains contradictions, but that doesn't invalidate the writings. That would be a little like suggesting that an idea of Dickens contradicting an idea of Shakespeare's would invalidate all of English literature.

I know that seems like a bit of an apples and oranges argument, but it's not. The reality is that, for all that holds it together, the Bible is a very diverse collection of books, which don't always agree with each other. The holiness code of Leviticus butts heads with the justice-preaching of the prophets in a way that foreshadows a similar argument between Jesus and the Pharisees. Ezra and Nehemiah rail about the evils of Israelites taking foreign wives, but Ruth (written at roughly the same time) exalts just such a marriage.

There are a number of these arguments imbedded in the Bible. People living during it's writing had theological arguments, just as faithful people continue to have. What's remarkable is that both sides of the arguments are preserved in the scriptures, which brings to them an honesty that a book written to push one and only one understanding could never match.

In my opinion, that honesty and struggle are a lot of what gives the scriptures their lasting value. I really see that in the story of Jacob, whose name means "one who wrestles with God". Like him, those of us who are guided by these scriptures, are grappling with a complex relationship. That's not as comfortable as the assumption that the Bible is a book of easy answers, but it's ultimately much more beneficial.

Phoenix Affirmations #1

2009-03-25T16:19:00.000-07:00

The first of the Phoenix Affirmations (see my last post if you don't know what these are) is:

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1. Walking fully in the path of Jesus, without denying the legitimacy of other paths God may provide humanity;

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You've got to respect a list that starts out with such a controversial statement.

For most of its history the most common position of the Christian Church has been that it is the sole owner of truth, the only path to God, and the only hope of salvation. The idea of salvation is often expressed as "Christians will go to Heaven, everyone else will be sent to Hell to suffer eternal punishment for all eternity."

Salvation and Hell are big topics and I'm going to hold off on saying much about them for a later post. For now I'll just say that there are a lot of Christians who say that any non-Christian religion is automatically wrong. There's also a line of reasoning that an Evangelical friend once explained to me. Effectively he said: You can't respect another religion, because respecting it implies that there is some validity to it. If you imply validity, then you put it on an equal footing with Christianity. If you do that you're saying that Christianity isn't THE way, only one way of many, and that will lure other people to eternal damnation.

These Christians have a number of scriptures they go to for support, like John 14:6, which reads: "Jesus answered, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me'."

It sounds pretty simple, but it’s not. John is addressing a specific historical situation. His audience is largely composed of Jews, some of whom accepted Jesus as the Messiah, and some of whom favored other Messiah candidates like Simon bar Kokhba. John is effectively saying to the undecided Jews that Jesus is the one and only Messiah. His pronouncement has everything to do with the situation he was living in and nothing at all to do with the spirituality of Buddhists, or Muslims, etc.

Then too, there are scriptures like the judgment of the nations found in .”Matthew 25:31-36. The people in this parable are judged, not on faith in Christ, but in how they treat others.

"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

That scene is even more dramatic when you realize who it is addressed to. When the scripture talks about this as the judgment of “the nations”, it is translating a phrase used to refer to outsiders or non-believers. In other words, this verse is telling us that non-believers will be judged and found worthy on the basis of their compassion.

There are actually quite a few verses in the New Testament like this. They hold out the possibility that non-believers can be good people, can have a full relationship with God and the deep spirituality that comes with it, and can even find salvation. That sounds scandalous to Christians who have been raised on the doctrine of ‘limited atonement’ but the rest of us see them as reflecting God’s loving nature.

That’s not to say that we don’t think our way is special. Far from it, I wouldn’t be anything but a Christian. I find something in my faith that I don’t believe I could find anywhere else. In fact, I believe there is something so special to be found only in following Christ, that I wish everyone could experience it.

But that doesn’t mean that I can’t respect the faith of a Muslim, or a Buddhist, or a Jew. I’ve known people in all these religions whose faith and wisdom puts mine to shame. I’ve seen what I would call a genuine closeness to God in Taoists and Baha’i’s and agnostics, and I have to admire and respect that.

That’s not saying that all other religions are on the right path, and it’s certainly not saying that all practitioners of other religions are on the right path (I should add that many people who are professing Christians are not on the right path either). It’s simply saying that, non-Christians can find God. Actually, since my tradition talks about being found by God rather than finding God, maybe this line from the novel The Shack says it better (I’m quoting from memory so please forgive me if I get a couple of words wrong).

“Not all roads lead to me, but I will travel down any road to reach you."

The Phoenix Resolutions - part 1

2009-03-24T20:52:00.000-07:00

Some times it's hard for progressive Christians to say what we are. We're more likely to say what we aren't. We aren't literalists, we aren't Funadmentalists, we don't believe that one has to vote pro-life or even be a political conservative to be a Christian. We believe hating and excluding gays (or any other group of people) is contrary to the teachings and example of Jesus Christ.

All of that is true, but it fails to say who we ARE.

The PHOENIX AFFIRMATIONS are a recent attempt to answer that in a positive way. these twelve points are built around the two most central teachings of Christianity, the Great Commandment (love God) and the Golden Rule (love your neighbor as yourself). They do an excellent job of showing a form of Christianity that many people, sadly, are not familiar with. I'll be going over them in detail in the posts to come. For now I'll just put them out there for you to see.

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THE PHOENIX AFFIRMATIONS
Summary Version 3.8

The public face of Christianity in America today bears little connection to the historic faith of our ancestors. It represents even less our own faith as Christians who continue to celebrate the gifts of our Creator, revealed and embodied in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Heartened by our experience of the transforming presence of Christ’s Holy Spirit in our world, we find ourselves in a time and place where we will be no longer silent. We hereby mark an end to our silence by making the following affirmations:

As people who are joyfully and unapologetically Christian, we pledge ourselves completely to the way of Love. We work to express our love, as Jesus teaches us, in three ways: by loving God, neighbor, and self.

(Matt 22:34-40 // Mk 12:28-31 // Lk 10:25-28; Cf. Deut 6:5; Lev. 19:18)

Christian love of God includes:

1. Walking fully in the path of Jesus, without denying the legitimacy of other paths God may provide humanity;

2. Listening for God’s Word which comes through daily prayer and meditation, studying the ancient testimonies which we call Scripture, and attending to God’s present activity in the world;

3. Celebrating the God whose Spirit pervades and whose glory is reflected in all of God’s Creation, including the earth and its ecosystems, the sacred and secular, the Christian and non-Christian, the human and non-human;

4. Expressing our love in worship that is as sincere, vibrant, and artful as it is scriptural.

Christian love of neighbor includes:

5. Engaging people authentically, as Jesus did, treating all as creations made in God’s very image, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, age, physical or mental ability, nationality, or economic class;

6. Standing, as Jesus does, with the outcast and oppressed, the denigrated and afflicted, seeking peace and justice with or without the support of others;

7. Preserving religious freedom and the Church’s ability to speak prophetically to government by resisting the commingling of Church and State;

8. Walking humbly with God, acknowledging our own shortcomings while honestly seeking to understand and call forth the best in others, including those who consider us their enemies;

Christian love of self includes:

9. Basing our lives on the faith that, in Christ, all things are made new, and that we, and all people, are loved beyond our wildest imagination – for eternity;

10. Claiming the sacredness of both our minds and our hearts, recognizing that faith and science, doubt and belief serve the pursuit of truth;

11. Caring for our bodies, and insisting on taking time to enjoy the benefits of prayer, reflection, worship and recreation in addition to work;

12. Acting on the faith that we are born with a meaning and purpose; a vocation and ministry that serves to strengthen and extend God’s realm of love.