Tomorrow's Headlines Today

MAY 21, 2011 -- JUDGMENT DAY?

When I lived in the city, I would sometimes buy my Sunday paper late on Saturday afternoon. That’s when the first Sunday edition of the Chicago Tribune hit the streets. Inevitably I would make a pathetic joke about reading the paper to find out what would happen tomorrow.


Some Christians read the Bible as if it contained tomorrow’s headlines. Typically this involves taking a verse or two from Daniel, a couple more from Revelation, a dash of the Psalms, a pinch of 1 Thessalonians, some current events, a little speculation and combining them in ways that the Bible’s original writers would never be able to recognize. In other words, it involves reading the Scriptures without regard to their historical context, their canonical context, or even the context of a specific verse within a book of the Bible.


The photograph above shows a religious tract that I have kept on my bookshelves for about 19 years now. It is in the form of a newspaper, 20 pages long. It was mailed to me by a group called the Mission for the Coming Days. They claimed that Jesus would “rapture” all true believers out of the world on October 28, 1992, leaving the rest of us behind to face 7 years of tribulation.


They were wrong.


But you knew that, didn’t you? Everyone who has ever set a date for the rapture, the return of Jesus, the end of the world or what-have-you has been wrong. It’s because they have misused the Scriptures. The Bible doesn’t work that way.


The Bible contains a lot of prophecy, but very little in the way of prediction. Prophecy is God’s word spoken to a specific set of circumstances. The prophet’s goal is usually to inspire repentance. Only occasionally do the prophets foretell future events and even then it is in vague terms. Jesus himself refused to set a date for the end and discouraged his followers from speculating about it.


There were allegedly suicides on October 29, 1992. Members of the Mission for the Coming Days thought that they had missed the rapture and took their own lives in despair. Maybe some of them had given their life savings to the group’s work and were now left with nothing. I don’t know. The group’s leader allegedly went to prison, charged with fraud, when it was discovered that he held investments that did not mature until after October 28, 1992. Again, I don’t know for sure.


I do know that the whole story is a sad case of deception, whether intentional or not.


Now radio preacher Harold Camping and his followers are predicting that May 21, 2011 will be Judgment Day. Camping arrived at that date by using a verse or two from Daniel, a couple more from 1 Thessalonians, a dash of personal revelation, a pinch of speculation...you know the recipe. They are convinced that they are right. I am equally convinced that they are wrong.


In that sense, May 21 will indeed be "Judgment Day." It is the day that Harold Camping will be proved wrong. I am confident of this because the Bible doesn’t work the way Camping claims.






To paraphrase one of my mentors, the Bible does not reveal the shape of the future, but it reveals the One who shapes the future. More to come.

Noli Me Tangere

THAT'S LATIN FOR "DON'T TOUCH ME."

This woodcut, titled Noli Me Tangere, by Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) has been a longstanding favorite of mine. It depicts the sunrise scene from the Gospel of John where Mary Magdalene meets the risen Jesus in the garden outside of his empty tomb.

Mary turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?" Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away." Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and said to him in Hebrew, "Rabbouni!" (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, "Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'" (John 20:14-17 NRSV).

This story is poignant and full of mystery. Why does Mary not recognize the risen Jesus? Why is she forbidden to touch him?

Dürer shows Mary, kneeling before Jesus, her left hand resting on a jar of oil which she has brought to anoint his corpse. Her right hand reaches to touch him. He extends a nail-pierced hand to forbid her. Balancing the composition, the background features the morning sun dawning over a hillside and a small group (more women come to visit the tomb?) approaching on the garden path.

It is a beautiful picture and it makes me laugh. To explain why Mary mistook the risen Lord for a gardener, Dürer has dressed Jesus in a floppy hat and slung  a garden spade over his left shoulder. Whether the humor was intentional on Dürer's part--and I suspect it was--it is nevertheless appropriate. What better day to enjoy a little holy hilarity than Easter day?

Blessed Easter!




It is because Mary Magdalene was sent to tell Jesus' disciples the good news of his resurrection that she has been called the "Apostle to the Apostles." I found the copy of Dürer's woodut here.

God's Calling Card

OR THE DEVIL'S TRUMP CARD?

Feeling a bit put out at the way the Bible is too often (mis)used, I once wrote:

I believe that the Bible is God's calling card, an invitation to conversation. Why do so many people use it as a trump card to end conversation?

In my last few posts, I have argued that the discrepancies in the Bible, especially the Gospel accounts, are due to the fact that the writers have different theological agendas. We do the Bible, and ourselves, a grave disservice if we try to "moosh" its varying viewpoints together into a sort of "Gospel of St. Cuisinart" as John Petty so nicely put it.

This morning on his Exploring Our Matrix blog, Dr. James McGrath linked to two items worth reading. Both highlight the diversity of voices to be heard in the Bible.Thanks, Dr. McGrath!

The first is Kristin Swenson's article at CNN's Belief Blog, "Read the Bible, Even If You Don't Believe It."  Dr. Swenson writes:
 

If you're not biblically literate, you can get along all right, but you're missing out. It's like a cocktail party with raucous conversation. You're invited, but until you know something about the Bible, you'll be stuck talking about the weather at the punch bowl.

Read the entire piece here. It is well worth it.

Also worth the read is Timothy Beal's piece "The Bible Is Dead; Long Live the Bible" at the Chronicle of Higher Education website. A quote from Dr. Beal:

Bible debunkers and Bible defenders are kindred spirits. They agree that the Bible is on trial. They agree on the terms of the debate, and what's at stake, namely the Bible's credibility as God's infallible book. They agree that Christianity stands or falls, triumphs or fails, depending on whether the Bible is found to be inconsistent, to contradict itself. The question for both sides is whether it fails to answer questions, from the most trivial to the ultimate, consistently and reliably.

Dr. Beal goes on to cite Dostoevsky and  Blind Willie Johnson. Intrigued? Read the whole article here.

Maundy Wednesday

REALLY?

I have been blogging about some of the discrepancies found in the Bible, particularly the ways in which the Gospel of John diverges from the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke). I believe that those differences are due mostly to the fact that John has a different theological agenda than the other Gospels. John has a higher Christology. So, where the other Gospels say that Simon of Cyrene carried Jesus' cross to the place of crucifixion, John tells us that Jesus, always self-sufficient and in control, carries the cross by himself.

Those who hold that the Bible contains neither errors nor contradictions typically explain away this discrepancy by saying that Jesus started out carrying the cross alone, and later, Simon of Cyrene was pressed into service, thus eliminating the contradiction. Unfortunately this kind of harmonizing also eliminates a clear understanding of John's unique theology.

Let John be John, I say. And let each of the Bible's writers speak for themselves. They all fall within the spectrum of orthodoxy, but each proclaims the message in their own way. Rather than explain away their contradictions, let us attend to them and so learn each writer's unique perspective.

A few days ago, a friend emailed me a link to this article.  It seems that Colin Humphreys, a physicist from Cambridge has written a book in which he claims to have resolved another discrepancy between John and the Synoptics. In Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus' last supper with his disciples is a Passover meal that apparently takes place on a Thursday. In the Gospel of John, Jesus is actually crucified on Passover, which means that the Last Supper must have taken place a day earlier.

In all fairness I have to say that I have not read Humphreys' book and honestly, don't think I will. So, I am not in a position to assess the strength of his arguments. According to the article referenced above, Humhreys resolves the difference between John and the Synoptics by arguing that Jesus used a different calendar than the one that “was in widespread use at the time of his death....” By that calendar, Passover would have fallen on Wednesday.

This may account for a one day difference in the date of the last supper, but it does not explain the three year difference in John's account of Jesus chasing the money-changers out of the temple as compared to the account in the Synoptics.

Nor does it explain some other, significant differences between John's account of the last supper as compared to those accounts in the Matthew, Mark and Luke. For instance, in John's Gospel there is no mention of the bread and wine that Jesus shared with his disciples; there are no “words of institution.” Instead, John's Jesus gives a lengthy “farewell discourse” and washes his disciples' feet. In short, there is no indication in the Gospel of John that the Last Supper was a Passover meal.

In John's Gospel, Jesus is referred to as the “Lamb of God” (John 1:29, 36) None of the other Gospels uses this title. The exact meaning of the term is hard to pin down (that was probably John's intent) but it is a symbol of sacrifice and salvation and echoes the account of the Passover in Exodus 12. That Jesus, the Lamb of God, would die on the Passover, at the same time that lambs were being slain in the temple at Jerusalem is symbolic, significant and fraught with meaning.

Some may want to explain away every contradiction in the Bible. Not me. John was not writing a history; he was proclaiming the gospel. Rather than conflate the four Gospels and lose their unique character, I think we should let each speak for itself.





 The Lamb of God graphic came from good old wiki.

Intellectual Camels

DOCTRINAL GNATS

I just counted. There are 38 Bibles in the bookcase beside my desk.* Most of them are different translations. There are several other Bibles around the room and more in my office at church. I also have several electronic Bibles on my desktop computer and a few more on my iPod.

I love the Bible. I read from it every day.

In my last blogpost I raised the question “Who carried the cross?” According to Matthew, Mark and Luke it was a certain Simon of Cyrene. The Gospel of John says that it was Jesus himself. Over at the Progressive Involvement blog, John Petty picked up on my post and expanded upon it. I think he says some of the things I said better than I did. Thanks, John!

In previous posts I have dealt with the questions “How did Judas die?” and “How many angels did the women meet at Jesus’ tomb on Easter morning?” These are just a few of the discrepancies found in the various books of Scripture. Some others: Did Jesus chase the money-changers out of the temple on his last visit to Jerusalem before his crucifixion (per Matthew, Mark and Luke) or was it almost three years earlier (per John)? Did James and John ask Jesus to give them the seats of honor in his kingdom (Mark 10:35 ff. ) or was it their mother who made the request (Matthew 20:20 ff.) ? Did the risen Jesus instruct his followers to return to Galilee (Matthew 28:10) or to wait in Jerusalem (Luke 24:49)?

I could go on at some length, but I think this suffices to make my point. The Bible is not a single book. It is a collection of ancient literature written by a variety of people who sometimes disagree about points of fact and even about theology. We understand the Bible best when we read the books as the writers intended instead of trying to conflate them into a single narrative or force a single theological framework upon them. In fact, the points where the writers disagree are usually the most instructive, for it is there that we learn each one’s distinctive theology.**

I once had a discussion about the Bible’s discrepancies with a man who proudly described himself as a Fundamentalist. I think he was rather frustrated with me when he said, “You just read the Bible looking for errors.”

I don’t.

Maybe these guys do, but I don’t. I read the Bible expecting to encounter God’s word. The contradictions are just there.

I also had a conversation with an inerrantist pastor who told me “The ELCA teaches that the Bible is errant.” I had trouble convincing him that we don’t. I don’t believe that the Bible is inerrant, but neither do I believe that it is errant. The Bible does not mislead. Its writers just sometimes disagree.

Then there was the layperson who told me, “If you just accept the Bible as the inerrant Word of God you will know peace.” I explained to him that I was quite at peace. Peace doesn’t come from reading the Bible uncritically. Peace is a gift of God given through the cross of Christ. I suppose I could try accepting that the Bible is without error or contradiction, but it would not bring me peace. The cognitive dissonance would likely kill me.

So why am I telling you this? It is because I want you to know that you can be a faithful Christian without surrendering your intellect. You can be a believer without denying the evidence in front of your eyes. No matter what some may tell you, you don't have to shut off your brain when you read the Bible. You don’t have to swallow intellectual camels and strain at doctrinal gnats. Jesus loves you.








*That’s English Bibles, not including 6 Greek New Testaments and a Septuagint.

**If you want to follow my thinking a little further, this means that Christian orthodoxy, as defined by the canon of Scripture, insists upon a few basic points but beyond that allows for a range of theological possibilities. So, e.g. Matthew’s Jewish Christianity and Paul’s Gentile Christianity are both orthodox but Docetism and Gnosticism are out of bounds.

Props to Annie Salness who drew the cartoon that accompanies this post. I found it on her blog, here. She has some beautiful artwork. Check it out!

Who Carried the Cross?

JESUS OR SIMON OF CYRENE?

The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) agree that the Roman soldiers who led Jesus to the place of his crucifixion compelled a certain Simon of Cyrene to carry Jesus’ cross. Cyrene was a city in what is now Libya. Mark’s Gospel mentions that this Simon was the “father of Alexander and Rufus” which raises the intriguing possibility that Mark expected his original audience to know who these men were. Luke adds the detail that Simon carried the cross behind Jesus.

It is never surprising that Matthew, Mark and Luke agree with one another. They are called “synoptic” (Greek for “seen together”) because they follow the same outline. Scholars have good reasons to think that Matthew and Luke both used Mark’s Gospel as one of the sources for their own writings. I find it much more interesting and instructive to examine the points at which these three works disagree, because it is there that each one’s unique theology can be discerned.

The Gospel of John is quite different from the synoptics. It follows its own outline and narrates many events and teachings of Jesus that are not found in the other gospels. John 19:17 says quite plainly that Jesus carried the cross “by himself.” Simon of Cyrene is never even mentioned in John’s Gospel. How shall we account for this difference?

Roman Catholics, and anyone else who has participated in the devotion of the Stations of the Cross, will be familiar with the tradition that Jesus fell three times on his way to be crucified. In this tradition, Simon of Cyrene was compelled to carry the cross after Jesus fell the first time. Although the tradition is widely known, it has no basis in the Scriptures. None of the Gospels mentions Jesus falling.

Still, the idea that Jesus started out carrying the cross and that only later Simon was compelled to carry it is one way to explain the apparent discrepancy between John and the Synoptics. It is much the same sort of explanation that my hypothetical Church of Deadwood Dick used to account for a man lighting a cigar and tapping the ashes out of a pipe. As in that thought experiment, though, it might be wise to ask if this is the most reasonable explanation.

The Gospel of John has a high Christology. That is, it presents Jesus as and powerful, much more so than the Synoptics. In John 1:1 ff. Jesus is described as the pre-existent Word of God and as God incarnate. John’s Jesus possesses divine knowledge (2:25). Repeatedly in John’s Gospel (and only in John’s Gospel) Jesus makes “I am” statements which echo the divine name revealed to Moses in Exodus 3:14. (Some of the “I am” statements can be found at John 6:48. 8:12, 10:11, and 11:25, but read the whole Gospel to find them all).

Throughout the Gospel of John, Jesus is depicted as being in charge of every situation. Even when he is arrested, the armed crowd that comes for him falls “to the ground” when he speaks and he is able to demand that his disciples be let go (18:6-9). In John, Jesus’ crucifixion is described as a “lifting up” (3:14, 8:28, 12:32) and “glorification” (17:1). These are all signs of John’s high Christology, as is John’s plain statement that Jesus carried the cross “by himself.”

It is possible to harmonize John’s account with that of the Synoptics’. It is even plausible to say that Jesus carried the cross “by himself” and that Simon of Cyrene also carried it, though I think that this denies the plain meaning of the texts. If one wishes to maintain that the Bible contains no errors or contradictions, then it may even be necessary to resort to such an explanation.

The problem is that explaining away this difference between John and the Synoptics obscures John’s wonderful high Christology. To me the most reasonable explanation for the difference is that John and the Synoptics have different theologies.




I like Gwyneth Leech’s painting of Jesus and Simon of Cyrene carrying the cross in tandem for many reasons, among them Simon’s north African clothing. I found the picture here.

The Church of Deadwood Dick

A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT

When I was in college I read a book titled Deadwood Dick on Deck; Or, Calamity Jane, the Heroine of Whoop-Up, by Edward L. Wheeler. It was a reprint of a story originally published in 1885 as an entry in the Beadle's Half Dime Library (hereafter, BHDL).

I no longer have the book and cannot find the text online, but as I recall it, there was a scene in which a character told a story beside a campfire. As he began his speech he lit a cigar. A few pages later he concluded the story and tapped the ashes out of his pipe.

The BHDL was a disposable entertainment, a pulp magazine marketed toward boys. The stories were hurriedly written, hastily edited and rushed into print. Apparently Edward L. Wheeler made a simple mistake, forgetting what kind of smoking material his character was using. It slipped past the editors and made it into print. It was all quite inconsequential.

Now, I invite you to join me in a thought experiment. Imagine that there is a cult of people who worship Deadwood Dick. We'll call them “Dickians.” It is ridiculous, I know, but bear with me as we further imagine that the Beadle's Half Dime Library is the sacred scripture of the Church of Deadwood Dick. The Dickians read the BHDL to learn about the words and deeds of their idol. They seek to discern Deadwood Dick's will for their lives in the BHDL's pulpy pages.

Next, let us imagine that there is a subset of Dickians who believe that the BHDL is not only inspired, but also inerrant. Their reasoning goes something like this: Deadwood Dick is a straight-shooter, honest and true. Deadwood Dick would not lie. Since Deadwood Dick inspired the writing of the BHDL, and since it is, in very fact, the word of Deadwood Dick, then it must be true, free of error and without contradiction. Given the premises of this thought experiment, this seems reasonable. Doesn't it?

How then, might these inerrantist Dickians explain the apparent contradiction of the character in Deadwood Dick on Deck who lights a cigar and taps out a pipe? I could suggest a few strategies.

For one, they could argue that the word of Deadwood Dick is infallible, but human beings are not. Edward L. Wheeler's original manuscript of Deadwood Dick on Deck was, therefore, inerrant, but error crept in somewhere along the line, perhaps in the process of editing or typesetting. If Wheeler's original manuscript was lost or destroyed, this assertion could not be falsified.

Or, a Dickian inerrantist might argue that there is no actual contradiction in a character lighting a cigar and tapping out a pipe. Perhaps the character finished smoking his cigar in the midst of telling his story, took out his pipe and smoked it until he finished the tale. Or, maybe he had a cold pipeful of ashes in his pocket and was, in fact, still puffing away at his cigar when he emptied the pipe into the campfire. You have to admit that it could be.

These are two possible ways that an inerrantist Dickian might explain the seeming contradiction of the cigar and the pipe. Both explanations are possible and even plausible. So the point of this (admittedly silly) thought experiment is to ask, which explanation makes the best sense of the evidence before us? Is it to say that there was no error in a non-existent original manuscript of Deadwood Dick on Deck? Is it to deny that there is actually a contradiction in lighting a cigar and tapping out a pipe? Or does it make the most sense to say that Edward L. Wheeler simply made a mistake?

More to come.




If any of my reader's owns a copy of Deadwood Dick on Deck, I would appreciate a little fact checking. What was the name of the character who lit a cigar and tapped out a pipe? In which chapter did this occur? Etc. The picture of Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 138 came from this website.

Merry Christmas

Some of us never tire of puppets singing parodies of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. Okay, to be precise I never tire of puppets singing parodies of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. And so...

Blessed Christmas to you!

More on the War on...

CHRISTMAS

I will not name him as I do not have his permission. I am probably quoting him inaccurately anyway. The point is that this thought is not original to me. It comes from a member of my social network, a friend who has been described as "sarcastic and wise." He said,

People forget that "Happy Holidays" includes both Christmas and New Year. So when I wish someone "Happy Holidays" and they say, "No, you mean "Merry Christmas'" I tell them "Fine. Have a *****y New Year."

Yesterday Chris "The Lutheran Zephyr" Duckworth wrote a snarky blogpost about The War on Christmas in which he said:

Even though the Gospel of Luke reports that Jesus brings good news to the poor and sends the rich away empty, to fully participate in Christmas America-style, an upper-middle class income or higher is really necessary, because Christmas in America is about the gifts.  (Frankincense, gold and myrrh didn't come cheap, bucko.)  And so Christians established Christmas as a holiday that can truly be shared in its ideal form only by those who are well-off, further thrusting Christ into the center of the American yearning for wealth and material goods.

Read the entire post here, and don't miss the comments. Snark begets snark.

Today, Chris posted again. This time his words are more measured. A sample:

And so by the mid-to-late 19th century Christmas was widely celebrated in America, with a growing emphasis on gift-giving and elves, a large man in a red suit and reindeer.  Washington Irving's popular writings made celebration of the home and hearth central to our understanding of Christmas.  Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, widely read in America by the 1860s, further sentimentalized Christmas as a holiday of kindness and compassion.

This is not all bad, but it ain't Baby Jesus, either.  The imperative to care for the poor and to share gifts surely has roots in Christian tradition and teachings, and Christians should be glad that the wider culture promotes works of charity at this time of year.  But it is hard to deny that in the 19th century Christmas - the Christ Mass - was branded by a variety of cultural traditions and emphases that had less to do with explicitly religious celebrations of the birth of Christ and more to do with good cheer, generosity, and the comfort of the hearth.

Again, the entire post is worth reading. Find it here.






The detail from Giotto's fresco of the Nativity was found here.

The War on Christmas: Take Two

TWO OTHER TAKES

Dr. James McGrath is a prolific, and frequently brilliant, blogger. Last Sunday, in a post titled "Christmas: The Christian War on Solstice," he wrote:

Today in my Sunday school class I decided to turn our attention to seasonal matters. Soon, the topic of being wished "Happy Holidays" as opposed to "Merry Christmas" came up. And so I took that opportunity to talk about what I consider one of the great Christmas miracles: the fact that long ago Christians managed to "hijack" the already-existing solstice festival, and turn it into a Christian celebration so thoroughly and so effectively that, more than a millennium and a half later, cultural Christians can complain about the "hijacking" or "secularization" of Christmas without any sense of irony.

Read the rest of his post here.

Meanwhile, over at the Huffington Post, Father James Martin has an article titled, "The War on Christmas is Over...And Christmas Lost." Father Martin advises:

So what's a Christian to do?

For one thing, surrender. Stop fighting. Enough with the embarrassing and endless "War on Christmas." It's embarrassing because we've lost. It's a waste of time because corporations have more financial firepower than churches, and the consumerism will only to get worse. Get ready for Santa to show up around Labor Day. (You laugh now; you won't in a few years.) Can't fight City Hall? Much less can you fight Madison Avenue -- which has more money than City Hall. Give it up.

Capitulate Christmas? Read the rest of his article here.




The Solstice Card illustration came from Dr. McGrath's site.

Keep X in Xmas

THE HOLIDAY SEASON WOULDN'T FEEL THE SAME WITHOUT PEOPLE GOING OUT OF THEIR WAY TO BE OFFENDED BY NOTHING. --Jon Stewart

My friend is a PhD now, a church consultant, but a little over a quarter century ago, she was one of my fellow students in seminary. And I remember one December when she jokingly admonished me to "Keep X in Xmas."

This was well before the talking heads had trumped up an imaginary "War on Christmas" to keep the culture warriors on alert. Back then there was only a vague concern among Christians that the celebration of Jesus' birthday was being obscured by Santa, Rudolph and Frosty. Some worried that a  cultural accretion of tinsel and sleigh bells was deafening us to the angel's announcement: "To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ, the Lord." I am all for keeping Christ in Christmas, but...

There was no "War on Christmas" then. There isn't one now.

It is time we all faced the fact that we live in a pluralistic society. No one is keeping Christians from keeping Christmas. Ours is not, however, the only religion in town. Many people of many faiths celebrate holidays around the time of the Winter Solstice. It is not an insult to wish someone, whose faith you may not know, "Happy Holidays." If you take offense at a kind wish, it only reflects badly on you.

There is a drug store in my town with a marquee sign out front. This time of year they advertise special prices on "C-MAS CARDS" and other "C-MAS" merchandise. I think I see what they are doing. The sign is only so large. An abbreviation for the word "Christmas" is useful. They are a retail establishment. Offending customers is not a wise business practice. They worry that some Christians will take umbrage if they use the abbreviation "Xmas." So they have taken the "X" out of Xmas and replaced it with "C" for "Christ."

I wonder, though, if they realize the "X" in Xmas is not the English letter "Ecks" at all. It is not a mathematical symbol. It does not signify the unknown. It is, rather, the Greek letter "Chi," the initial letter of "Christos" from which we get our word "Christ."  The cruciform letter Chi, which is written "X," has been used for centuries as an abbreviation for "Christ." The abbreviation "Xmas" is not blasphemous. It no more takes Christ out of Christmas than does the abbreviation "C-mas."

Xians who take offense at the abbreviation "Xmas" only show their ignorance of their own faith. Even if "Xmas" were an insult, taking offense would be a betrayal of the Teacher who told us to "turn the other cheek." So this year, I will be keeping "X" in Xmas. My friend was smarter than I even before she got her PhD.





Got 10 minutes? Enjoy Jon Stewart's humorous take on the "War on Christmas" here.

The Fourth Use of the Law

AND YOU THOUGHT THERE WERE ONLY THREE!

Lutheran theology divides the Word of God into two distinct categories: Law and Gospel. Gospel is the good news of forgiveness by God's unmerited grace revealed in Jesus Christ. The Law is all of the rules and regulations, the shoulds, and shalts and shalt-nots that the Word of God places upon us.

Theologians talk about three "uses" of the Law. Without getting too technical, the first use of the Law is to give order to our life in community. Drive on the right (or left)  side of the road. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not commit murder. Clean up after your dog. We need the Law to prevent chaos. This civil use of the Law is sometimes described as a "compass" because it directs our actions.

The second use of the Law is to convict us of our sinful nature. If we examine our conscience in the light of God's Law, especially as it is interpreted by Jesus in Matthew 5, we find ourselves coming up short. Unable to meet the Law's demands, we are driven to seek God's grace. This pedagogical use of the Law is sometimes described as a "mirror," because in it we see ourselves for the sinners we truly are.

The third use of the Law is to teach us, once we have been justified by grace, to live in ways that are pleasing to God. This third use is controversial among Lutherans. Some argue that even for those who have been justified it is impossible to keep the Law. To me it seems that the third use of the Law will always return us to the second. Since Christians are both saints and sinners we will not be able to keep the Law wholly. We will always transgress. We will always be driven back to repentance. This third, pedagogical, use of the Law is sometimes described as a "gift."

I have discovered a fourth use of the Law, one that seems to have escaped the attention of theologians. The fourth use of the Law is to make us feel better about ourselves by condemning others. Other people may be fornicators, dancers, drunkards, homosexuals, Pharisees, gum-chewers, or what-have-you but not us. We're better than that. A friend and colleague describes the fourth use of the Law as a "weapon."

The only problem with the fourth use of the Law is that it is entirely illegitimate. Saying "You hypocrite! Take the beam out of your own eye before you pick at the speck in your neighbor's eye," Jesus roundly condemns the fourth use of the Law.

Why, then, are Christians so fond of it?




I would like to wish a slightly belated "Happy Thanksgiving" to my U.S. readership, and a much belated "Happy Thanksgiving" to any Canadians who are reading this. I cribbed the pic of Charlton Heston playing Moses from the Washingtonian's website, here.

I Got Re-posted

HOW ABOUT THAT?

I was blog-blocked for a while. I just was not satisfied with anything I wrote. I think the problem was that I had a really snarky little essay that I wanted to write, but it was not appropriate to post here. I finally wrote it just to get it out of the way, and shared it with a few trusted colleagues and relatives.

Before I got that out of my system, I kept trying to write other things. I must have made a half-dozen attempts at writing my last post, the one about the Diakonia Program and Crises of Faith. Even when I got it finished, I was not quite happy with it somehow. Still, I posted it because I thought it was good enough and because a blogpost from me was overdue.

So, I was surprised--delighted, mind you, but still surprised--when I received a request from LivingLutheran.com to re-post that little essay. If you have not seen it yet, LivingLutheran.com is a recently-launched website of the ELCA. Check it out. There is a lot of good content there. Re-posting my piece was the only lapse of judgment I could spot.

Something else you should see, if you haven't yet, is ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson's contribution to the "It Gets Better" project:



Thank you, Bishop Hanson.

Diakonia

 AND WHY A CRISIS OF FAITH CAN BE A GOOD THING

If you were brought to this post by a link from the Augustana College website, the correct post, the one in which I wrote about Dr. Levin can be found by clicking here.

The Diakonia program is a two-year school of theological education for laypeople. The twelve courses that make up Diakonia each last five weeks and are typically taught by pastors. The subject matter includes the Old and New Testaments, Practical Ministry, Theology, Ethics, Lutheran Confessions and Church History. Classes meet once a week for three hours. Obviously this represents a considerable commitment  on the part of the students.

I am a big supporter of the Diakonia program.

A handful of ELCA synods have a Diakonia program. The Northern Illinois Synod, of which I am a part, has five sites at which Diakonia classes are taught. I have now taught the New Testament course three times. I find it gratifying to teach people who are so interested in exploring their faith more deeply. Most recently I taught at a brand new Diakonia site. Although I did not accomplish all of my teaching goals, I was pleased to watch the eleven students pull together into a community of support.

Our synodical Diakonia director has said that the program can cause a crisis of faith for some students. Looking closely and critically at the Scriptures may lead some students to question things they had previously assumed to be true. Learning that the Bible was written by human beings, and that those human beings did not always agree with one another, comes as news even to some lifelong Christians.

Hearing that Diakonia might cause some students to have a crisis of faith gave me pause. I had to ask myself whether I, as a pastor, should be in the business of causing faith crises. Most often my job involves inculcating faith or shoring it up. After due consideration, and some discussion with my students, I concluded that my mission as a teacher is to tell my students the truth. A crisis of faith, hard as it may be to go through, can lead a person to a stronger and more informed faith.

Of course, a crisis of faith might also lead to a loss of faith. It is hard for me to say this, but, in some cases that, too, might be appropriate. If taking a clear look at the Bible leads someone to lose their faith, then their faith was misplaced to begin with. They were putting their faith in the Bible, not in God.






Diakonia is a Greek word meaning "service." It is the root of our English word "deacon." St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, was a deacon, appointed to assist the Apostles in the administration of the church in Jerusalem. His story is told in chapters 6-8 of Acts. I found the picture of St. Stephen above here.

How Many Angels

CAN DANCE IN AN EMPTY TOMB?

Dr. Arnold Levin taught in the Religion Department at Augustana College, Rock Island, when I was a student there many years ago. He introduced me to the critical tools that scholars use to study the Bible. I don't think I ever told him thank you.

Though it is probably not fair for me to say it, I sometimes thought that Dr. Levin took a special delight in tormenting Fundamentalist freshmen. I remember a particular class session in which he had us compare the resurrection accounts from Matthew, Mark and Luke. He asked the question, "How many angels did the women encounter at Jesus' empty tomb?"

The Gospel of Mark tells us that the women met "a young man dressed in a white robe." Matthew describes vividly how "an angel of the Lord" whose appearance was "like lightning, and his clothes white as snow" descended from heaven, stunning the guards at the tomb and declaring Jesus' resurrection to the women. Those guards, by the way, only appear in Matthew. Luke's Gospel says that the women met "two men in dazzling clothes."

There are several conclusions to be drawn from this. Since, most likely, Matthew and Luke used Mark as a source for their Gospels, we can conclude that they both felt free to expand on their material. We can conclude that Matthew, Mark and Luke were more interested in proclaiming the resurrection than in giving factual, newspaper-like accounts of the event. We can conclude that the three Synoptic Gospels were not intended to be harmonized.

Students who came from faith traditions that stressed the inerrancy of Scripture often had a hard time with Dr. Levin. Some of them thought that Dr. Levin was the devil, or at least one of his minions, come to destroy faith. Those students must not have attended chapel on Wednesday evenings.

I used to see Dr. Levin in campus church, paying close attention to the sermons, sometimes jotting notes, occasionally preaching himself, standing to sing the hymns loudly and lustily. Dr. Levin was a person of faith. Perhaps without intending it, Dr. Levin taught me that one can read the Bible critically, carefully, closely, intelligently and even question its facticity and still be a person of faith. I don't think I ever thanked him for that either.

So, let this blogpost stand as my belated appreciation for Dr. Levin with gratitude for the things he taught me.




Danish artist Carl Bloch painted the image of the resurrection accompanying this post. He apparently agreed with Luke (contra Matthew and Mark) that there were two angels at the empty tomb.  The Gospel of John, we may note, also agrees with Luke and Bloch.

Even Pretty Good Things

MUST COME TO AN END

I like to check my Blogger "stats" from time to time. They can be interesting, if not instructive.

For example, my stats show that the vast majority of pageviews for this blog come from the United States. Curiously, South Korea comes in second, with  Canada a distant third. I suspect that there may be a bot in South Korea visiting me. A handful of pageviews come from such far-flung places as Germany, the UK, China, Latvia, Romania (Hi, Fr. A!), Japan and Russia.

The "referring URLs" section of my stats shows that most of my pageviews came from Susan Hogan's Pretty Good Lutherans site. If you have not seen it yet, Susan posted this note in the sidebar of her site:

So long …

Dear Readers,

This site launched in early September 2009 as the ELCA entered a critical transition period. It provided a hub for you to find all of the "secular" media coverage about your denomination post-CWA09.

It's also been a place to examine issues together and to lift up your voices. Your response was incredible. Please know that I'm truly grateful.

Now that the year has passed, I'm discontinuing this site to move ahead with other projects. If I reprise the site in the future, I'll let you know. Again, thank you for your generous support.

With gratitude,
Susan
9/10/10

Personally, I am sorry to see prettygoodlutherans.com go. I have enjoyed the regularly updated content, the Lutheran bloggers featured in the sidebar, the links to various news sources, and, well, just all of it.

Bloggers like myself are only opinionated editorialists. Susan Hogan is a journalist.

Susan, if you happen to read this, thanks for a year of prettygoodlutherans, and God bless you in your future endeavors.




The stick figure illustrating this post was lifted from prettygoodlutherans.com. Susan Hogan used this figure to represent bloggers who were featured on her website but who did not provide a suitable photograph. She used the blue bordered stick figure as my picture for quite a while. Funny thing is, I actually look like that.

Catching Up

DID YOU MISS ME?


Well, it happened. I sold one house, bought another and moved all of my earthly goods from thither to hither. It has been a difficult, but rewarding, process and has necessitated my absence from this blog for a little more than two weeks.

Oddly, the world has not stood still while I was away.

The North American Lutheran Church (NALC) has been constituted. I have promised myself not to be snarky about it. So, you won't hear me comment about the "realignment of Lutheranism in North America" involving only 16 congregations. Nor will I point out the irony of this new church body sharing its initials with LC/NA.*

If I may be uncharacteristically sincere for a moment, I actually wish the NALC well. They may not represent a seismic shift in Lutheranism, but I am sure that they will grow. Many of their constituents will be people I consider friends, colleagues, even teachers and mentors. I understand that their consciences are bound such that they no longer feel they can remain members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). "Go in peace. Serve the Lord."

We have much in common. I truly believe that there is only one issue separating us, and it is not the interpretation of Scripture. I hope that we can stay in touch.

I surmise that the NALC will practice open Communion, at least with those who, like the ELCA, affirm the Real Presence of Christ in the bread and wine of the Sacrament. I hope that I will be welcome at the NALC's altar rail. Members of the NALC will certainly be welcome at mine. Okay, it's not mine. It's the Lord's table. I will not put any impediment in the way of an NALC member from receiving the means of grace.

Here's a crazy idea: what if the ELCA and the NALC worked out a full Communion agreement? The ELCA has been able to make full Communion agreements with other denominations, why not the NALC with whom we have so much in common? It would be the first such agreement that the ELCA has made with another Lutheran church body. (No one fights like family).

In the meantime, the ELCA's first presiding bishop, Herb Chilstrom lit up the blogosphere with an article posing three pointed questions to those leaving the ELCA. There have been a variety of responses, some downright rude. None that I have seen has answered Chilstrom's first question to my satisfaction. The Bishop asks, Why this issue? What is it about sexuality that became the tipping point for you? Most replies have been to the effect that "It's not about sex. It's about the interpretation of Scripture." All right. I will accept that. Chilstrom's question still stands unanswered. Why is it the intepretation of Scripture about sexuality that has nudged you to leave the ELCA?

Elsewhere on the internet, Father Anonymous has blogged about the Brothers of John the Steadfast, a bunch of Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod (LC-MS) conservatives **, adopting the motto "Your Grandfather's Church." I commend Father A's blogpost for your reading. I will only add that the LC-MS is not my grandfather's church either.

One of my grandfathers was an Irish Protestant. I do not think that he was particularly observant, though I am told that he recited a ribald toast to the Pope upon occasion. He did have a brother who pastored a spiritualist church, though he did not personally conduct the seances.

My other grandfather was alienated from the Church by an LC-MS pastor. He was not alienated from a life of faith, prayer or spirit. He was simply made to feel unwelcome in Church.

Let me also note the appropriateness of the phrase "Your Grandfather's Church" by a church body that marginalizes women from leadership roles. The LC-MS was not my grandmother's church by any measure.

More to the point, I would not want to belong to a church that has not progressed since my grandparent's day. The world has changed. Startling advances have been made in technology, science and scholarship. The Gospel must be proclaimed in ways relevant to our new and ever-changing circumstances.



Finally, ***  I feel a need to weigh in on Terry Jones, the Florida preacher who has garnered undue attention by announcing plans to burn copies of the Quran on the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center (WTC). I will not mince words. Terry Jones is a publicity whore and a hate-filled extremist. He does not represent any form of Christianity that I recognize. He does not speak for the God I worship.

To my Muslim neighbors:  Just as I do not assume that the terrorists who destroyed the WTC are representative of Islam, I ask you, please, do not assume that Terry Jones is representative of Christianity.







* Sorry about the implied snark. 

** "Conservative" is a relative term. That is to say, the Steadfast Lutherans are conservative even for the LC-MS.


*** I usually try to keep these essays around 500 words in length. If you are still reading, thank you for indulging me.

I Wish I'd Written This

Pondering Pastor Earl Janssen has written a thoughtful Open Letter to Lutheran CORE as they are about to form the new North American Lutheran Church. Here's the teaser:

Please, don’t offer the extreme examples of what you find offensive in the ELCA as normative.  You know that great variety exists within the ELCA and will exist even within NALC in a relatively short period of time.  Remember Luther’s explanation of the 8th commandment and make that the cornerstone of of your public and private comments.

Please keep in mind that you are not the only faithful Christians with the name Lutheran.  Ryan Schwartz is quoted in the August edition of “CORE Connections” saying, “Lutheran CORE will seek to help faithful members of the ELCA and ELCIC to continue to uphold the authority of scripture in an increasingly challenging environment …”  Many faithful (to Christ) members of the ELCA uphold the authority of scripture in a way different than you.  I consider myself one of those, and will not need your help.  In fact, your rhetoric is part of my increasingly challenging environment.

The entire post is worth reading. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

This Just In: Obama is NOT a Muslim

AND THE ELCA IS NOT A UNIVERSALIST CHURCH

The news broke yesterday that 18% of Americans believe that President Barak Obama is a Muslim. Read about it here. Why do people believe this patent falsehood? It is at least partly because it has been insinuated by fear mongering pundits. The insinuations do not have to be true, they just have to scare people. And why do the pundits traffick in fear? Because it works. It keeps the troops on alert. It gets frightened people off the couch and into the voting booths where they will help elect candidates who will promote the pundits' interests.

Click the cartoon to enlarge.

It seems to me that the charge of universalism that is leveled, falsely, against the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is a scare tactic. Pastors, who should know better, use it to stir up their congregations to leave the ELCA. The sexuality issue by itself may not be enough to motivate some of the laity to vote with their feet. After all, the '09 Churchwide Assembly allowed for a "local option" which means that no congregation will be forced to call a same-sex partnered pastor...or any other pastor for that matter. I know that some bishops have promoted the local option heavily, even offering assistance to congregations that want to append a "no gay clergy" resolution to their constitutions. So, the trumped up charge of heretical universalism is used to scare people who do not bother to check further.

Mnphysicist's theological blog has a nicely written post refuting the charge of universalism in the ELCA. Read it. And if you still think that the ELCA promotes universalism, read it again.

In the meantime, I am left to ponder just what is it about universalism that frightens people? Is it the idea that Barak Obama might get to go to heaven?




I "borrowed" the cartoon from the Progressive Involvement blog, here.

The Apostle Paul Kissed a Boy

AND HE LIKED IT

If the title of this blog post offends you, then you will probably do well to avoid reading  R.W. (Obie) Holmen's book A Wretched Man: A Novel of Paul the Apostle. If, on the other hand, you find the title of this post intriguing, then you will find a lot to like in this fictional portrayal of Paul, or I should say "Paulos." Holmen does not anglicize the names of his characters. Instead he gives them their proper Greek and Hebrew names. Paul is Paulos. James is Ya'akov. And so on.

Holmen gives flesh to his characters. They eat, drink (sometimes too much) and void waste. They feel love, anger, jealousy, joy and sorrow. They fight and make up. Or not. These Apostles are not Sunday School flannel-graph cut-outs, but  complex, three-dimensional human beings. Paulos is portrayed as a "rigidly controlled gay man" (quoting from Bishop Spong whom Holmen cites in the book's  epilogue) who by tireless effort and strength of personality brings his Gospel of God's grace apart from Torah to the Gentile world. His arguments with Ya'akov and difficult relationship with Cephas (Peter) are believably motivated.

It is clear that Holmen has done his homework. Everyday life in the first century Mediterranean world is evoked with detail and description. The author has also digested a great deal of current New Testament scholarship and woven it seamlessly into his narrative.

Most importantly, Holmen spins a good yarn.

No doubt some readers will take offense at  Obie Holmen's speculative portrayal of the personalities who shaped the Christian faith. But if you, like me, are not offended by the idea that the Apostle Paul kissed a boy, then I can recommend A Wreteched Man. You're in for a good read.



Regular readers of this blog will already know that I am a fan of Obie Holmen's blog "Spirit of a Liberal." Observers of popular culture will recognize that the title and subtitle of this blog are lifted from Katy Perry's song "I Kissed a Girl."

In Memoriam

ROBERT BRATCHER, WHO EDITED MY THIRD BIBLE

My first Bible was a small, gilt-edged King James Version (KJV) with a white "imitation leather" cover. It was given to me in June, 1957, a Baptismal gift from my godparents. This was before my godfather got religion, left his wife and went to live in a commune in Texas. So I am told. I have never known my godparents except by name. I still have the Bible, barely used, in its original box. The cover is yellow with age. I keep it as a memento of what was, arguably, the most important event of my life.

My second Bible was a  Revised Standard Version (RSV) in a black bonded leather cover with gold lettering on the spine that says "Helps." This is the Bible I used in Confirmation classes. I still have this one, too. It is falling apart. (It looks a lot like the Bible in the picture above. Said picture was found at this website). The RSV is the Bible version that I heard read in church when I was young. It was based on better textual evidence than the KJV but maintained much of the earlier version's non-standard English usage. The RSV also kept the "thees" and "thous" of Jacobean English in its poetic passages. When I hear the RSV read, it sounds like the Bible to me.

In 1966 the American Bible Society published a paperback new testament in "Today's English Version" (TEV). The cover sported a newsprint design. This was my third Bible. I have at least one dog-eared copy of it around. In those days before Bible translators concerned themselves with gender in language, the New Testament was titled "Good News for Modern Man."  A decade later the entire "Good News Bible" (the abbreviation GNB has replaced TEV) was published in a gold hardcover edition.  Read aloud, the GNB does not sound like the Bible. It sounds like plain, written English, like a novel or a newspaper. This is a good thing.

Although it has gotten a bit long in the tooth, and even though I rarely use it anymore, I admire the Good News Bible.

Until this week, I did not know the name of Robert Bratcher, the editor who oversaw the translation of the GNB. In the August 10 edition of Christian Century magazine, I read an article, pulled from the Associated Baptist Press, reporting Bratcher's death, at age 90, on July 10.

Bratcher was, apparently, something of a controversialist. A paragraph from the Christian Century article:

"Brachter drew the ire of Southern Baptist fundamentalists in 1981 over his critical remarks at a seminar in Dallas. 'Only willful ignorance or intellectual dishonesty can account for the claim that the Bible is inerrant and infallible,' Bratcher said. 'No truth-loving, God-respecting, Christ-honoring believer should be guilty of such heresy. To invest the Bible with the qualities of inerrancy and infallibility is to idolatrize it, to transform it into a false god.'"

Bratcher was not pulling any punches. The Bible Researcher website includes a fuller verson of Bratcher's words, which ends with a particularly Lutheran sounding statement. "The locus of scriptural authority is not the words themselves. It is Jesus Christ as THE Word of God who is the authority for us to be and to do."

Though I do not think I would call it "heresy," I agree with Robert Bratcher that a doctrine of biblical inerrancy is intellectually untenable. Rest eternal grant him, O Lord; and let light perpetual shine upon him.

Dear Godparents, if you are reading this, thank you for the Bible. It means more to me than you can know. Even though you were largely absentee godparents, it's okay. I think I turned out all right. I pray that you have both known God's grace in your life.

God bless.

Brant

God Has A Grammatical Gender...

NOT A PHYSICAL SEX

God is neither male nor female. In spite of the picture many of us carry in our heads, God is not an old man in the sky. God is not a woman in the sky, either.

Human beings are the image of God. Human beings are female and male. The image of God is male and female.

God encompasses the categories of male and female. God transcends the categories of female and male.

The Bible is a product of a patriarchal culture. It uses mostly masculine images for God. Still, there are a few, scattered, feminine images for God to be found in Scripture. Recognizing the limitations of human language in describing the divine, it is legitimate to use both feminine and masculine images for God.

We can have a personal relationship with God. That is, we can relate to God as we relate to another person. God is not an object. God is not an "it."

We have no experience of persons who transcend the categories of male and female. The English language has no third person singular personal pronoun that encompasses and transcends the categories of female and male.

It is awkward, and nearly impossible to avoid the use of third person singular personal pronouns when speaking about a person, even when that person is God.

I was born and brought up in a time when humankind was collectively refered to as "man" as a matter of routine. The assumption underlying such a use is that maleness is the normal condition of humanity. The corollary to that assumption is that femaleness is a lesser or defective human state. Think about that. It's nuts.

In those distant days, God was refered to exclusively in masculine terms. Old habits die hard. I still sometimes call God "he." When I get called on it, my almost reflexive response is the title of this post: "God has a grammatical gender, not a phyiscal sex." That's pure banana oil, of course, but it usually buys me enough time to finish my thought without getting sidetracked by a discussion of gender language.


Forgive me.

I am writing this post on the second day of a three day symposium in Chicago called "Language Matters." Hosted by the National Council of Churches, the symposium deals with inclusive (or "expansive") language concerns. When it is all over, I am sure that there will be head-shaking, finger-wagging and tongue-clucking from some quarters. But as for me, I applaud the intent of the symposium, pray for its success, and look forward to hearing about its proceedings.







Thirty-five or forty years ago, this clever, though amateurish bit of animation introduced me to inclusive language concerns. Take two minutes to enjoy a blast from the past.

Apparently the Lord WAS in the whirlwind...

...AND IN THE SOUND OF SHEER SILENCE


In her book Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott says many good things. Among them:

"You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do."

I really do not know how I overlooked it before, but a former ELCA pastor named Mark Herringshaw blogged an angry rant in response to the ELCA's Rite of Reconciliation welcoming 7 LGBTQ pastors on July 25.

Herringshaw says that the tornado that hit downtown Minneapolis last August was God's judgment against the ELCA's sexuality policies. He also says the fact that nothing happened in San Francisco at the reconciliation service was a sign of God's judgment.

Methinks perhaps Pastor Herringshaw is projecting.

On a more positive note, you might want to read a smart blogpost by Marvin Lindsay that provides an interesting historical perspective on our current sexuality debates.

And to further provoke your thoughts, over at Magdalene's Egg, Father Anonymous does a nice job refuting those who would quote one of my old theology profs as "proof" that the ELCA is a universalist organization.

Happy reading!




If the title and subtitle of this post elude you, read 1 Kings 19. "Sheer silence" is the the New Revised Standard Version's translation of the words rendered "still, small voice" in the KJV.

Of Jesus and Vampires

MAHATMA GANDHI AND A TATTOOED LADY PREACHER

I read it first on the Progressive Involvement blog. Author Anne Rice, who has written novels about vampires and Jesus, announced today that she is leaving Christianity.

"I quit being a Christian.  I'm out.  In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life."

 

I can relate. 

 

If I believed that being Christian involved being anti-all that stuff, I'd be out, too. I am not ready to quit, though. I am not ready to concede the faith to its worst representatives.

 

On her Facebook page, Rice cites the famous words of Mahatma Gandhi.

"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

She also provides a couple of horrific examples of Christianity at its worst: Westboro Baptist Church and a "Christian" rock band called, "You Can Run But You Can't Hide." God help us.

 

She also posted, approvingly, a link to this article in the New York Times concerning the Rite of Reconciliation which received  seven same-sex partnered pastors into the ELCA. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is now, unquestionably, a church body with partnered gay clergy. Anyone who has been observing my ELCA knows that this action, inevitable since the 2009 Churchwide Assembly, is controversial and divisive.

 

Personally, I am proud to be a member of the ELCA and applaud the brave stand that it has taken regarding same sex unions and same sex partnered clergy. Flame on, naysayers, I'm wearing my asbestos drawers.

 

Nadia Bolz-Weber, the tattooed, emergent, post-modernist and unapologetically Lutheran  pastor of House for All Sinners and Saints, was the preacher. Her graceful, gospel centered sermon can be found here. After you have streamed the video or read the manuscript, check out Erik Ullestad's excellent blog post about it.

 

 

 Nadia Bolz Weber is the author of one of my favorite recent books, Salvation on the Small Screen? 24 Hours of Christian Television. I snagged the picture of Anne Rice from her Facebook page.

Fanaticism, Doubt and Compassion

A few months ago, Roger loaned me a book, In Praise of Doubt: How to Have Convictions Without Becoming a Fanatic, by Peter Berger and Anton Zijderveld. A short time later, Jeff loaned me You Don't Have to Be Wrong for Me to Be Right: Finding Faith Without Fanaticism by Brad Hirschfield.

I showed the two books to my friend Eric. I asked, "Do you see a theme here?" He replied, "Face it, Brant, you're a fanatic." That is, to my knowledge, the only time that I have ever been called a fanatic and of course, Eric was being sarcastic.

The dangers of fanaticism should be clear to all of us in this post-9/11 world.

Winston Churchill wryly observed that "A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject." I have been working on my own definition of fanaticism. It is less witty than Churchill's and still somewhat tentative, but I present it here for your consideration.

Fanaticism is dogmatic belief without compassion.

In my earlier thinking, I was toying with the idea that fanaticism is belief without reason, but upon consideration I realized that fanaticism usually has its own internal logic. Also, all religious faith transcends reason. So although I have left reason out of my definition, I do think that fanaticism is marked by its lack of compassion.

Building on that definition, a fanatic is a person who, convinced that they are right, believes that those who do not share their belief system are of less value. Because of this, while a convicted believer might be willing to die for their faith, a fanatic might be willing to kill for their faith.

The two books I referenced above suggest strategies for dealing with fanaticism. Berger and Zijderfeld advocate a kind of methodological doubt as a middle ground between crippling relativism and dangerous fundamentalism. They would subject every truth claim to rigorous questioning. They invoke the principle that "human dignity is inviolable" as the guide for moral deliberation. This, they say, leads to a "politics of moderation." At a time when political and religious conversation is increasingly polarized, some moderation would be welcome.

Orthodox Rabbi Hirschfield's book is written more in the vein of memoir. Hirschfield says that we can, and even should, hold firm convictions, but we must also allow that others are equally passionate and convicted about their own faith. By emphasizing the things we hold in common (e.g. love of God, and the value of life) we may not reach consensus but we can at least respect and understand one another. Hirschfield admits that his vision is idealistic, but insists that it is not naive.

If I am right in defining fanaticism as dogmatic belief without compassion, then less dogmatism and more compassion are the antidote to fanaticism. Showing compassion toward the fanatic will obviously strain one's own faith. I will be praying for more compassion in my own life.

I recently came across two blog posts that epitomize compassion. John Gustav-Wrathall, who blogs as "Young Stranger" is a gay Mormon (a "Moho"!) who has written about Tom Brock, the anti-gay, anti-ELCA Lutheran Pastor who was recently outed by Lavendar magazine. Read this post. And this one.






Illustrating this blogpost are the covers of In Praise of Doubt by Peter Berger and Anton Zijderveld and You Don't Have to Be Wrong for Me to Be Right by Brad Hirschfield. Both books provide plenty of material for consideration.

A Special Note to Followers of Harold Camping

AND ALL WHO BELIEVE THAT THE WORLD WILL END IN 2011

Don't even bother replying to my blog. I will not publish your comments. I have given Harold Camping's apocalyptic worldview more than enough publicity. Anyone who wants to know more about it can follow the links in my previous post. There is plenty of information there.

I am not interested in debating you. You will not convince me that your belief is true. I am sure that I will not convince you that your belief is based upon false premises. May 22, 2011 will tell the tale. It is not that far off. We will all just have to wait a little while.

I am a Lutheran. I believe that I am made right with God by grace through faith. I do not fear death. I do not concern myself with the date of the end of the world as we know it. I trust that God is in charge of these things. I am not interested in escapism. Grateful for God's gift of grace, I try to spend my life serving God and doing some small good in this world.

Martin Luther, when asked what he would do if he knew the world were going to end tomorrow answered that he would plant an apple tree. This seems to me a healthy attitude.

Rev. Chuck Currie, in the comments to this post on his blog has said:

Anyone who has made a comment here claiming the world will end May 21, 2011 and is still alive on May 22, 2011 is hereby required to make a $2011 contribution to Church World Service.

http://www.churchworldservice.org/site/PageServer?pagename=how_donate

Start saving.

I like that idea. Let me build on it just a little.

If you believe now that the rapture will occur on May 21, 2011, and wake up disappointed on May 22, do not despair. Instead, give up idle speculations about the end times. Then reach out to feed the hungry, visit the sick and imprisoned, clothe the naked...you know...all that stuff Jesus talked about in Matthew 25. Or maybe just plant an apple tree.

AND NOW TO EVERYONE ELSE:

The point of my previous post was that we are all well served by an attitude of humility and perhaps even skepticism regarding our interpretation of Scripture. I have learned in this life that when we think we have everything figured out just right, God usually has a surprise in store. I will return to this theme.

God bless!

It's the End of the World as We Know It

AND I FEEL FINE

I saw the vehicle in town twice about a month ago. I think it was a shrink-wrapped bus. It was white, had no visible windows aft of the driver's compartment, and was printed on every visible side with Bible verses, admonitions to listen to Family Radio, and most prominently the warning, "May 21, 2011 - Judgment Day."

My curiosity was piqued, so I did what any twenty-first century digital citizen would do: I googled. The results of my search pointed to a radio preacher named Harold Camping, who believes that Jesus will return to rapture all true Christians out of the world on May 21 of next year. Those who are left behind will suffer a five month period of torture and tribulation. Finally, according to Camping, on October 21, 2011, the world will come to an end and the wicked will be annihilated.

Could Camping possibly be right? I am thinking that the bookmakers would give him long odds. Every other doomsday prophet who has set a date for the end has been wrong so far. It might be worth noting that this is the second time Harold Camping has predicted the end of the world. His first predicted date for Judgment Day was September 6, 1994. I am sure that I don't have to tell you it did not pan out.

Please understand. I do not mean to mock Harold Camping or any of his followers. I have no reason to doubt Mr. Camping's sincerity. I simply believe that he is wrong. It is possible to be both sincere and wrong. On May 22, 2011 we will all know one way or the other

Harold Camping puts me in mind of William Miller. If you do not know the story, Miller was a Yankee farmer who, in the early decades of the nineteenth century, studied his King James Bible, along with Bishop Ussher's Annals of the Old Testament, and came to the startling conclusion that Jesus would return to earth sometime between March 1843 and March 1844. At first Miller was hesitant to publish his findings, but eventually he found himself the leader of an interdenominational Adventist movement.

Miller was always reluctant to set a specific date for the Second Coming. Others in the Millerite movement (as it was called) were less reticent. When March of 1844 passed without incident, hasty recalculations were made and the date of Jesus' return was announced as October 22, 1844, a day that later came to be known as "the Great Disappointment." The problem was not with William Miller's calculations. The problem was with his premises. The most rigorous logic will still yield false results if it proceeds from false premises.

William Miller's story ought to serve as a caution, not only to Harold Camping, but to anyone who would put undue confidence in their particular interpretation of the Bible. It is possible to be both sincere and wrong.




The title and subtitle for this blog are borrowed from a catchy little song by REM. The photograph was taken from Rev. Chuck Currie's blog. His entry, and particularly the discussion it engendered, make an interesting read.