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blog:the narrow way

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April 26 , 2008 - "UCC Truths” Exposes Risks of Improper Theology

Imagine, if you will, the following scenario; you notice a lump growing somewhere on your skin, and worry you may have skin cancer. You prudently make an appointment with your doctor to have growth given a biopsy. Upon arrival, the secretary leads you to an examination room, glances at the growth and says, “Oh don’t worry, it’s just a cyst.” Puzzled and concerned, you ask “Where’s the doctor?” The nurse replies, “Don’t worry – I’ve been working in a physician’s office for twenty years. I’ve never been to medical school, and I’ve never read a book on cancer pathology, but I think I know enough from just having been here.”

While this situation is unlikely, it illustrates the concept I’d like to examine. None of would consider it appropriate to allow untrained individuals to do the work of professionals, a fairly axiomatic idea to be sure. We rely on those with specialized knowledge to manage such vital aspects of our existence as our health, our finances, and our national governance. Yet in the area of religion, or specifically theology, from which religion takes its existence, everyone is considered an ‘expert’ simply by their association with one faith or another. Many believers scoff at the idea of hierarchal organization or at the very least insist that one doesn’t need to have a theological education to be a good Christian, Jew, Muslim, and so on.

I’m a great believer in equality in all spheres, and especially (given the uneven history of religion as both a boon and bane to society) in religion, where the dangers of accepting a spiritual ‘elite’ have been amply proven. No one should ever be perceived as spiritually superior – closer to God or less prone to error – to others. But, remembering again the difference between theology and religion, it is a grievous misunderstanding of faith to suppose that all are equally endowed with theological wisdom. Theology, which is properly understood as the intersection of scripture, tradition, reason, and revelation (or according to some viewpoints, culture or context) is not apprehended fully by all; indeed, more often than not it is wrongly understood or accepted only in part. A good example was provided by a recent Gallup poll which found that only 40% of self-identified Christians can name more than 4 of the Ten Commandments, and only half can name any of the four Gospel authors (referenced here in Harper’s Magazine). And, amazingly, while over half of Americans call themselves “creationists” only half of that same percent can identify Genesis as the first book of the Hebrew Bible. This is a shocking lack of basic knowledge in a nation that overwhelmingly identifies itself as ‘Christian.’ Poll data is scarce on this matter, but I would speculate with some confidence that fewer Americans could name one theologian, or accurately describe the difference between Catholicism and Protestantism (I’ve been called “Father” enough times to demonstrate this point), or recount what Martin Luther or John Calvin did for Christian history. Fewer still, I’m sure, could name any of the Gnostic gospels or New Testament apocrypha.

I can hear the cynics saying “So what? Are any of these things really important to being a good Christian?” Faith is primarily of the heart, of this I concede. Yet I would say just as forcefully that a faith without reason and knowledge faith is irresponsible and dangerous. Does it matter that the Biblical account of Jesus is only partial – that other writers told the same tale with notable differences? I think so. Is it important to know who wrote the four Gospels (answer: we have no idea) or that the Hebrew Bible was redacted by several different authors over the course a millennium? Again, I believe it is – I imagine it would change people’s views of their faith quite drastically.

Part of our collective laziness about theology is due the distinctly American notion that faith is a fiercely guarded private matter; that one is entitled to cling to their beliefs no matter how inaccurate or ridiculous they are. The recent Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints fiasco proves that you can do just about anything, including assaulting children and abusing women, for years and get away with it under the mantle of “religious freedom.” A more substantial factor, however, is the rise of anti-intellectualism that came with the surge of Christian fundamentalism – an anti-science, anti-reason hysteria well documented in Susan Jacoby’s recent book “The Age of American Unreason.” The end result of this way of “un”thinking is that science is now painted as just another subjective viewpoint, and personal intuition about what is “true” has a greater value than established empirical realities! No critical thinking regarding the utility and the humanity of religious beliefs is applied – no one asks, in short, what bearing that wild religious concepts defined as absolute truths have on the world around us.

Time and time again, unquestioned religious belief has lead to great harm – the deaths of millions of innocents, the suppression of knowledge, the unchecked destruction of the environment. Harvard professor emeritus Gordon Kaufman rightly reminds us that everything we say about God is imaginative in nature – we have no perceptual understanding of God, therefore we must create images, words, and rituals to understand God. How we choose to envision our deities and the model we construct of the divine tells us more, perhaps, about our own nature than it does about any actual phenomenon we might call “God.” What does the dominant concept of the Christian God today – patriarchal, vengeful, unforgiving, a promoter of conservative capitalist ideals – say about us?

Theology should not be left to the unskilled. I cannot think of a better example than that of James Hutchins and his website UCC Truths, which claims that the UCC’s denominational leadership has “shifted away from the needs of the local church and have set on a course of dishonest political activism that few in the local church are aware of and, often unknowingly, contribute to.” Mr. Hutchins does not provide any personal credentials on his website, but the above statement reflects exactly the sort of trend in Christian thinking I’ve described here – a faith that looks backward instead of forward, disengages with the culture in which it exists, and makes arbitrary judgments without rational grounding. How is “political activism” defined? On what basis is it concluded to be “dishonest?”

On the other hand, theology should not be the province of an elite group of clergy or academics either. The best course, in my view, is for people of all faiths to be constant seekers of greater knowledge and understanding about the beliefs they cherish. It is not enough to say “I’m a believer” and set the cerebral autopilot on. Faith should never be a shield to protect us from truth, or a weapon to harm those who act and think in other ways. With open-minded honesty about the nature of our views of God, we can reject literalism, sectarianism, and fundamentalism as aberrations of authentic faith and barriers to the forward movement of humankind.

April 19 , 2008 - Is Anybody Listening to This Man....Anybody?

…Unfortunately, the answer to the query posed by the title of this article would undoubtedly be “yes.” Ben Stein – Nixon speech writer, game show host, and evident sufferer of dry eyes – is taking on evolution in a new film that opens this weekend. Titled “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” the alleged documentary seeks to create controversy with its premise that academia is perpetrating an inquisition against Intelligent Design proponents. Stein is on the hunt for the secret lair of geologists and biologists who teach evolution, where no doubt they orchestrate a worldwide plot to convince humankind that Darwin’s theories are true.

Trouble is, most of America already believes in creationism. And therein lies the problem with Stein’s misguided quest – there’s no controversy, no conspiracy, and certainly no persecution of Christians in the United States. The reality is quite the opposite – though the evidence overwhelmingly supports evolution, most Americans don’t care. Indeed, evolutionists are more often hounded and persecuted for their practice, while creationist Christians are evidently doing well enough to construct a ludicrous “Creation Museum” to promote their loony ideas.

A cursory examination of the current political race is evidence enough that Christians are at no risk regardless of how untenable the ideas they advance. Several of the candidates at the first debate proudly identified themselves as creationists. No candidate is taken seriously without proving their “cred” as Christians (and conservation Christians at that). Democrats and Republicans both court the endorsement of popular religious figures – not one, to my knowledge, has lobbied for endorsement by Stephen Hawking or Roger Penrose. The bottom line: there is no conspiracy against Christians in the United States.

It is tempting to seize upon easy answers to teleological questions, but to do so only causes our species great harm. Carl Sagan once mused that it is “better to understand the Universe as it really is than persist in delusion, no matter how comforting or reassuring it is.” Our survival depends on our ability to accurately understand reality – not without pragmatic consideration of the our emotional and creative nature, to be sure. Stein has nothing more to offer but the wearisome “God of the gaps” argument that’s long been disproved by empirical reasoning and, frankly, isn’t a very satisfying spiritual concept. He plays on fear and drums up spurious evidence to cater to the zealots on the religious right. In the end, it will be all too appropriate that he and his kind will be “expelled” from the forum of legitimate scientific thought.

March 18 , 2008 - In Defense of Jeremiah Wright

As a UCC pastor, it's been difficult to bear the media feeding frenzy surrounding Trinity UCC Pastor Jeremiah Wright's comments, which have been aired unceasingly on Youtube and, unsurprisingly, by FOX News. Conservative yes-men are latching on to the story like Eliot Spitzer to a high priced call girl, demanding everything from a Obama’s disassociation with the congregation to a revocation of the church’s non-profit status. The current Trinity pastor has rather accurately described the unfolding drama as a "crucifixion" of the church and Wright, fueled by latent conservatism in the press and dark undercurrents of racism in the American population.

Wright's comments are radical, to be sure. Yet they’re only surprising to those oblivious to the traditions of liberation theology and the historical injustices perpetrated by our government and citizens against African Americans. Trinity and Jeremiah Wright carry on a proud tradition of the social gospel of Christ, which unflinchingly points to the glaring inequality of American society and gallantly demands an end to the status quo. Wright's comments may seem incendiary to middle class Americans fed a tepid diet of comfortable Christian theology, a shameful idolatry of prosperity and uncritical thinking, but it resonates with the more worldly faithful. Those who are keenly aware of the ongoing violence and oppression in America against its own citizens and those of other nations can only conclude that the real reason for the outrage over Wright's sermons is simple: the truth is too much for them to swallow.

It certainly seems odd that Obama is being held to the fire for Wright’s views, while Republican nominee John McCain received only a cursory review despite courting the favor of radical nutcases like John Hagee and Pat Robertson – characters that McCain himself labeled “agents of intolerance.” Hagee, you may recall, is the evangelical pastor who called the Catholic church a “cult” and, evoking a spurious but oft-quoted hermeneutic of Revelation, the “whore of Babylon.” He joined the Falwell/Robertson club of theological idiocy by blaming gays and lesbians for Hurricane Katrina (Robertson blamed 9/11 on the same, as well as unwed mothers, the ACLU, and feminists). It is only through a spectacular act of Quisling-like cowardice that McCain now courts the affection of these detestable charlatans.

But political circus stunts aside, it was with the greatest sadness that I observed some of the responses to Wright's sermons from the public. It’s easy to shrug off the predictable slander of radical right pundits (that Obama is a closet Muslim, that he is a radical black extremist), but the reactions of average citizens in blogs and forums is more telling and therefore, in this case, more heartbreaking. I saw, for the first time, in several blogs the dreaded word that, if history were at all just, should have been consigned to an unvisited cemetery of the past. I saw ignorance and hatred, alive and well and surging forth from the very sewers of human indecency, which affirmed that Wright, beyond a doubt, was absolutely correct.

Was Jeremiah Wright outspoken and shocking in his rhetoric. Certainly. Does he, a graduate of eminent academic institutions, a scholar who’s spoken in churches around the world, a humanitarian with 36 years of leadership and outreach to his name, deserve to be reduced to a racial slur for 30 seconds of comments cherry-picked from 300,000 hours in the pulpit? If America succumbs once again to racism rather than saying, as Obama has asked us to say, "not this time," then we damn ourselves. Not as Wright implies by God’s judgment, but by our own hands, grasping faith like a blunt weapon of oppression and violence, will we fall.

October 4 , 2007 - The Death of An Historic Church

Heartbreaking news from the Springfield Republican today - historic Old First Church of Springfield, UCC will close its doors forever after nearly four centuries as a congregation. Says the report:

"Faced with dwindling numbers of worshipers and insurmountable expenses, members of the Old First Church voted to disband the 370-year-old congregation at the end of the year and to explore options for selling the historic Court Square landmark. The congregation voted 70-1 at a meeting on Sunday to cease all church services and activities and close the building down on Jan. 1 [2008]."

Five employees of the church, including the pastor Rev. J. Thomas Gough will be laid off when the church closes. In addition to its long history as a pillar of the community, the church had the distinction of being a stop on the Underground Railroad and home to several prominent abolishionists. President John Q. Adams lay in state there in 1848.

The closing of Old First Church is the latest in a sad string of historic UCC church closings this year. In August, 100-year-old Saint Paul's Church in South Buffalo New York closed after its membership dwindled to a mere dozen members. Holy Ghost United Church of Christ in St. Louis Missouri held its final service on August 26, 2007 after 173 years of operation. The church had shrunk from a membership high of 350 at its peak to just 18 members this year.

Mainline churches - particularly the UCC, who was loss leader in membership according to the National Council of Churches 2006 Census - are facing extinction. The tragic church closings are just an example of the decline of mainstream Christianity in the United States and worldwide. For far too long, we've buried our heads in the sand and refused to deal with this issue, dismissing it as a short-term trend. It is not. Without drastic change, in fact, it is highly unlikely that many of the mainline denominations will exist in another fifty years.

September 7 , 2007 - Killing Us Softly: The Death of Mainline Churches (Part 1 of 3)

In the prolific discourse on trends in mainline Protestantism a particular subject has dominated the discussion for much of the past twenty years: why are mainline churches closing, why are members leaving, and are these denominations failing to attract new attendees? Theories abound; yet the over-arching dynamic of mainline decline is almost universally acknowledged to be rooted in a major cultural shift – the advent of the post-modern era. Though the date of onset of the postmodern age is debatable, many historians and commentators place it at the end of the second World War. The postmodern age derives its mantle from the preceding historical period, often called the Modern Era. The Modern Era sprung out of the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. The ethos of the time was one of confidence in rationality and reason, imperialism, the essential goodness of human beings, the conviction that moral principles were as universal and absolute as natural laws of science, and the rallying cultural elitism of manifest destiny. To the person living in the modern era, nothing was impossible. The physical and the spiritual and moral realms were entities subject to the scrutiny of the scientific method; with the right tools and a rational mind, nothing was inexplicable, only explained. It was a time of indomitable optimism in the power of human beings to conquer and tame everything from physics to the inferior beings that inhabited the “dark” continent of Africa.

It is without hyperbole to state that the Modern Era came to crashing end with the arrival of world wars, whose massive destruction and global reach dashed the optimism and foundational convictions of Western society. Modern human beings had seen what science and absolutism could do for the benefit of our race; now they witnessed with sheer terror the destructive potential of unchecked technological superiority and absolutism without the temperance of conscience. No other example is better than World War II and fascism of the Nazis. Without the technology of warfare or the unquestioning loyalty brought about imperialist absolutism, the Nazis could not have executed death on such a massive scale or rallied the complicity of a nation in a plan to exterminate an entire race of people. The unshaken optimism in the “goodness” of humankind crumbled as the horror of the Holocaust and the utter depravity of the Nazis was revealed.

Postmodernism is not merely a historical phenomenon, however, but is rooted in the complex interweaving of events and ideas. Postmodern thought arose equally from the events of the early twentieth century as it did from philosophical ideas introduced by Nietzsche, Camus, and Sartre. Although many of those authors wrote with the events of their time in mind, it was the rise of existentialism, nihilism, and later moral relativism that made the cultural soil fertile for the growth of postmodernism. Shunning the natural law perspective advanced by previous philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Thomas Aquinas, the philosophers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries explored instead the notion that morality is context dependent, not universal.

It is this quality, above all, that defines the substance of postmodernism. In postmodern thought, nothing is assumed to be true beyond the individual experience of truth, no universal laws of ethics or morality are assumed to exist, and “right and wrong” are predicated on time, culture, age, experience, and other contextual independent variables. The maxim “murder is wrong,” for instance, is subject to scrutiny based on definitions of “murder” and “wrong,” the place in which the act took place and by whom, or any of a multitude of other factors that might come into play. The extreme form of philosophical relativism, nihilism, suggests that there is no universal law, no supreme being or God, and no action or reaction can be deemed better or worse than another.

June 20, 2007 - Between The Candle and the Star

"We are gray. We stand between the candle and the star." - Delen, Babylon 5

i wanted to elaborate a little on this metaphor, borrowed from contemporary culture as any good theologian ought to do, and how it relates to the hope of God. In this week's sermon, I reflected on the power of one soul to hold out in the universe, remarking that it was like a candle - a common image, even cliched, but useful. The power of God to maintain and support I likened to the star.

We stand, as individual souls, between these poles - two directions, two commitments. The beauty of this image, for me, is not only in its encompassing scope, recognizing that we are indeed citizens of the cosmos, as God is ruler of it, but also in its universal accessability. At once Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, and kin to all faiths that worship if truth and spirit, I find this a powerful cipher because it zeroes in on the fundamental human condition.

We stand between the self, and God. The candle, the star. Where are we going?

June 9, 2007 - Fixing UCC/Jewish Relations

UPDATE: June 12, 2007: It seems that a rally called "The World Says No to Israeli Occupation," attended by The UCC's own Rev. Diane Ford Jones (who was on the steering committee and spoke at the event) was held in Washington D.C. this past weekend. While I can't verify the source of the information per se, it does seem to have been endorsed by the UCC. A few photos of the event have surfaced on ucctruths.com, and I've linked them below.

It goes without saying that these images are, to be blunt, disturbing. If the ADL or other Jewish advocacy groups see these images, UCC/Jewish relations will get much, much worse than they already are. The UCC has already been called "anti-semitic" by at least one major Jewish group, and no doubt this event will not help erase that label. I'm heartbroken, to be honest.

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Original Article (June 9)

The present status of relations between the United Church of Christ and some Jewish advocacy groups (and by extension, a portion of the Jewish community) is lamentable. It is not hyperbole to say that UCC/Jewish relations are at an all-time low. The situation has been deteriorating over the past few years, but culminated this week with a press release released by the Anti-Defamation League entitled “ADL Assails United Church Of Christ for Ignoring Israeli Suffering in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.” The release slams the UCC for statement signed by President John Thomas and released on the 40th anniversary of the Arab-Israeli War, which read in part: “The Palestinian people have lived under occupation…the Israeli people have lived with an ongoing debate.”

Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, responded in the press release saying, "In focusing on Palestinian suffering, you [the UCC] demonstrate that you place the onus for the Arab-Israeli conflict solely on Israel. By emphasizing the effects of the conflict on the Palestinians, you devalue the loss of Israeli life and the suffering inflicted on the people of Israel as a result of years of unrelenting terror attacks.”

Indeed, the UCC statement seems extremely one-sided on an issue that involves tragedy and loss for both sides. However, this statement should come as no surprise – the UCC passed a resolution at the 2005 General Synod which came down strongly in favor of the Palestinians by calling for divestment from all Israeli businesses. The national leadership has been readily willing to use divestment as a form of leverage against Israel for their perceived oppression of the Palestinians. This position has led to a widespread and harsh criticism from Jewish media and advocacy groups – from the Jerusalem Post to the Institute for Religion and Democracy. The Wiesenthal Center, in an open letter to John Thomas written on behalf of the “over 400,000 members” said, in part:

“It boggles the mind that a major denomination could even think of endorsing such a slogan [General Synod Resolution #16: “Tear Down the Wall”]. We cannot fathom what mixture of naivete, lack of a real grasp of the facts on the ground, and wholesale embrace of the Palestinian narrative produced such folly… While paying lip service to security for the Jewish state, the programs, literature and website of the UCC have shown a decided preference for Palestinian voices and carefully sanitized opinions from the extreme of the Israeli left.”

John Thomas responded to these comments in a speech at Gettysburg University with conspiratorial accusations that the Wiesenthal Center, the David Project and the Anti-Defamation League were attempting to “disrupt and ultimately control the mainline to promote its own political agenda,” through “an ongoing strategy of disinformation and disruption."

Though the battle has been raging for several years now, the latest comments from the ADL should be a red flag to all of us that UCC/Jewish relations are in a downward spiral that must be halted quickly, if long term repercussions are to be avoided. When the most prominent and respected Jewish advocacy group in America sounds off about UCC policies, we need to pay attention. The intent of the denominational leadership is immaterial; the perception from the Jewish side is that the UCC is pursuing an anti-Semitic, anti-Israel policy and that perspective is causing long-term damage to our credibility. How can we ignore the reality that the Israel-Palestine conflict is causing great loss of life and suffering on both sides?

Our commitment ought to be to healing and peace, not to the punishment of the one side that we perceive holds the moral high ground (which, of course, is itself a highly untenable position). Many other mainline denominations have rejected or reversed divestment proposals, recognizing the need for dialogue and progress. I certainly hope and pray that as a denomination we open ourselves to discussion with the Jewish advocacy groups in the hope of restoring the bonds of friendship, and uniting for the cause of peace.

June 4 , 2007 - Keeping Reason in Religion

David Brooks wrote a wonderful piece in the New York Times last week on the issue of faith and reason, reflecting in part on Al Gore's new book "The Assault on Reason." He said, in part:

In fact, if you really wanted to supercharge the nation, you’d fill it with college students who constantly attend church, but who are skeptical of everything they hear there. For there are at least two things we know about flourishing in a modern society. First, college students who attend religious services regularly do better than those that don’t. As Margarita Mooney, a Princeton sociologist, has demonstrated in her research, they work harder and are more engaged with campus life. Second, students who come from denominations that encourage dissent are more successful, on average, than students from denominations that don’t.

This embodies the social gospel annex to the quasi-religious creed: Always try to be the least believing member of one of the more observant sects. Participate in organized religion, but be a friendly dissident inside. Ensconce yourself in traditional moral practice, but champion piecemeal modernization. Submit to the wisdom of the ages, but with one eye open.

I believe that the postmodern church needs to create a worship experience. I'm keenly aware of younger people walking into my congregation to check it out, sitting through a standard, traditional liturgy ("The Old Rugged Cross" and all) and walking out looking like they'd just had a root canal. It doesn't work.

By contrast, I've visited contemporary worship services with rock bands, power point sermons, lights and sounds - and the pews were packed with teens and twenty-somethings. I don't think we have more than 2 twenty-somethings in my church. Bottom line: traditional church does not appeal to the X-Box generation. It takes a lot more. On the other hand, there's something distinctly lacking from mega-churches that are all heart and no head. I am wary of any theology that doesn't incorporate a modicum of rational thought - theologies like that tend to lead to buffoonery like the recently opened Creation Museum.

Indeed, President Gore writes extensively of the loss of reason in American culture in his book, and touches on the influence of the radical right in dismantling sane thinking in religion. In his book "Postmodern Pilgrims," Leonard Sweet observes, "In this New World, you don't have to explain everything" (44). Sure, mystery is a vital part of our relationship with the divine. Take that sentiment too far, however, and you end up with wars grounded in myths, faiths that condemn gays and lesbians just because it "seems wrong," and lackadaisical preachers who contrive new doctrines based on one or two proof texts from scripture. Faith is a powerful tool, but for both good and evil.

Reason and rationality are the only barriers protecting our world from the worst excesses of human nature. I couldn't agree more that our aging Protestant traditions are in serious need of an overhaul, but one hallmark of our past that hope we never surrender is a commitment to educated, critical-thinking clergy and laypeople.

-JB

May 19, 2007 - Goodbye Mr. Jerry Falwell

"To forgive is not to forget. The merit lies in loving in spite of the vivid knowledge that the one that must be loved is not a friend." - Mohandas K. Gandhi.

There's no easy way to say this: I was no fan of Jerry Falwell. Though I suspect he felt, in his heart, that he was acting for the best interest of humanity, from my perspective he was a hateful man who tainted the image of religion worldwide. His well publicized comments on feminism, homosexuality, and liberal politics were counter to the loving message of Jesus and harmful to the cause of tolerance and justice for a broken world.

Apparently, many others agree. The newspapers were fairly unbiased in their reporting of Falwell's passing, but commentators and pundits had a near field day delighting in his death. Editorial cartoonist Pat Oliphant summed up the tenor of media reaction by depicting Falwell standing in the fires of Hell, declaring "there must be some mistake." Rob Rogers was more ironic: Falwell is depicted in teletubby Tinky Winky's outfit observing that he thought halos would be round in Heaven. "Who said anything about Heaven?" a nearby Saint Peter quips.

I see three possible responses to Falwell's death. The first is to rejoice in it, to hate the man and what his life represented. The second is to love the man despite his evil deeds, and try not to judge or hate in the same manner he did. And the third is simply apathy.

I'm choosing the second response, as I believe it conforms most closely to the teachings of Christ and the nature of God as ultimate love. Rather than dancing on his grave, people of faith everywhere ought to be asking why Falwell became so phenomenally popular. We should also be scrutinizing the theology he sold to millions across the world to discover just how Christian it is, no matter how attractive it appears clothed in piety. Falwell's death may be, by God's grace, the first event in the decline of American Christian fundamentalism and the advent of enlightened dialogue on matters of faith. In my view, Jerry Falwell, like many fundamentalists, made several crucial mistakes in his theology:

1. He assumed the Bible to be the inerrant word of God, rather than divinely inspired texts written in a historical context;

2. He assumed conformity is equal to faithfulness;

3. He projected the qualities of humankind on to God, so that God fit more to what he desired, rather than seeking to discover what God might want of humanity;

4. He failed to realize that the proof texts he so often quoted from the Old Testament (specifically, those related to homosexuality) were nullified by the New. Jesus, the apostles, and the New Testament authors repeatedly state that the Law of Moses (essentially, the Old Testament) no longer applies, and that Jesus' teachings replace them. The apostles in Acts 15 call the old laws a "burden we could not bear," the writer of Hebrews calls Jesus the "mediator of a better covenant," and Jesus himself says that all of the law and prophets are to be summed up in one teaching: Love God and your neighbor.

Falwell's mighty empire of million dollar homes and draconian political influence seems a world apart from the simple message of Jesus to exist humbly in service to others. The secular world pointed to Falwell not as an example of perfect faith or the healing power of religion, but as the ultimate expression of the worst of human impulses. Tragically, Falwell lead many to conclude that spiritual leaders and the enterprise of religion bring out the worst of humankind, not the best. I suspect the man made more atheists than Christians.

Falwell's message took hold because in this increasingly impersonal world, awash in tragedy and short on hope, humans are increasingly needy. They're needy for respect, love, dignity, and comfort. They desire to have their basic needs met - clean water, adequate food, a safe place to raise a family and have friends. Above that, they desire to feel as if their lives are meaningful and productive. The problem is, of course, that so many people lack these very things. If these needs were being met, maybe people woudn't covet other means of self-gratification. Falwell, like his ilk, promised self-fulfilment and meaning through easy answers. He peddled intolerance as the cure for doubt. He gave people a scapegoat, an enemy, so that his followers could feel better about themselves by hating the "other."

As a Christian, I share one thing in common with Jerry Falwell: I too, believe faith is the means of hope for impoverished lives. I only differ with Falwell in the means. My understanding of faith tells me that if people are hungry, you feed them. It says that you treat every human being you meet - regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or culture - with love and kindness. It compels me to do no harm. Above all, my faith teaches that intolerance and self-righteousness will not create heaven on Earth, but loving service to all just might.

Please join me in praying for the friends and family of Mr. Falwell. Pray for his soul and hope that wherever he is now, he is awake.

May 12, 2007 - The Divine Feminine?

A popular tale in Buddhist mythology tells of the day that the Buddha attained nirvana. As he strolled down the dirt path of his home town, a man coming the way other beheld the radiant visage of Buddha, and wondered aloud “Are you an angel, or a god?” The Buddha replied simply: “I am awake.”

I’m often reminded of this great parable when asked by a layperson about the gender of God. Is God a male or a female? Of course, for many, many centuries the model of God was strictly a masculine one, in the Christian tradition and among Jewish and Muslim believers as well. We’re only beginning to imagine that the divine nature might possess more than one anthropomorphic visage, more than a masculine nature.

But for me, the question itself is – for lack of a better word – absurd.

To ascribe limiting qualities to the creator of the universe, that being who contains all of the unseen aspects of time and space, is to both grossly misunderstand the concept of God and to curtail the imaginative enterprise which deistic thought so clearly affords. If God is truly as scripture suggests the alpha and omega, the infinite good, then God must contain the good of all life; God is necessarily both male and female, black and white, slave and free, and so on. Thus, we have perhaps been collectively unconscious or in denial when we’ve asserted the maleness of God throughout the history of faiths. Our model of the ideal God mirrored our model of the ideal social hierarchy: the male, believed to be the dominant, aggressive and therefore superior sex, ruled over the female. As it was on earth, so it ought to be in heaven, the thinking went.

I’d like to optimistically hold forth that the social norm of a patriarchal society has begun to pass away, at least in some cultures. If this is true, then it is likewise time to rethink and reimagine the divine. Our rethinking is not, to be sure, intended as a concession to the enterprise of feministic spirituality or popular liberalism, but rather is hoped to awaken people of faith to a long lost truth that will empower, sustain, and even magnify us. Rediscovering the feminine divine has the potential to transform us all into more conscious, loving beings who recognize the inherent value in every soul, no matter the vehicle it arrives in.

Personal transformation is the first step in renewing a broken society. When we begin to understand God, as individuals, to be the embodiment of loving equality then we are compelled to live the Great Commandment and love others completely. As feminist theologian Marjorie Proctor-Smith posits: “What would happen if many women, thousands of women, millions of women, told the truth about their lives? Perhaps together we could weave new traditions, weave new religious communities, weave a new world.”

-JB

May 4, 2007 - The Doors of Prayer

God waits on the other side of an invisible and almost unperceivable barrier, transcended by a simple letting go, a shift of perception, that reveals the doorways that invite us home. This is how I’ve always conceived of the realm of the divine as it stands in contrast – or in complement to – the world of human concerns, the thick and noisy abode of human thought.

I recently read Emilie Griffin’s Doors Into Prayer, and as I did so my mind returned again and again to a familiar refrain from a favorite band: “The gate is straight, deep and wide; Break on through to the other side.” This line, from a song by the appropriately named sixties band The Doors, really summed up much of Griffin’s reflections on prayer, often perceived as a challenge and chore, but becoming easy with a shift of perception. Far too frequently, I’ve been prone to view God as distant and untouchable. The barrier to the divine was formidable, God herself so massive and significant that I couldn’t imagine that the divine was woven into the very world around me. The subtle shift that Griffin advocates is an awakening to the presence of God here and now. Much as Esther de Waal observed in The Celtic Way of Prayer, the practice of prayer and most importantly one’s lifeline to God, is greatly strengthened when one perceives that God is a part of everything we do. Our ability to open the lines of communication with God depends on not seeing God as beyond the barrier, but seeing God “right here in the middle of things with us” (page 53).

Perhaps I’m making it sound simple. Of course, as with any worthy task it does take work. I’ve discovered this myself throughout my life when I try to focus on God outside of comfortable settings like a sanctuary. How easily the mind strays and becomes occupied, once again, with the minutiae of life: getting to work, making a living, picking up groceries at the market. In my attention to details I, like many of us, unknowingly shift my focus off the God who is in the details and worry about the details alone. To keep the doors into prayer open requires the training and focus, the discipline that an athlete summons to train for a decathlon. Finding time for solitude, to be with God and maintain an open line of contact is a must.

As I consider the ways to "break on through" to the divine as Griffin instructs, I am struck by the Buddhist notion of the soul as an ever-opening flower. I've often understood this metaphor to suggest that we are always changing and growing, and I think that is the intention, but finding in looking for doors into prayer a new possibility has come to me: that being the ever opening flower is about attentiveness to the care of God. For just as the sun sustains and raises the flower, we are nourished by the affection of our Creator. Growth and the possibility to flourish is a matter of keeping our mind and hearts open to the nourishment of the divine at the moment we rise in the morning to our repose at night. "Attention is the beginning of prayer; in a sense it is both the beginning and end of prayer, to focus our attention on God,” Griffin notes, where we perk up our antennae and prepare not merely to broadcast our gratitude, our heartache, or are praise, but to accept the sustaining power of the divine through our attention to the feelings and words God gives us.

So, I’ve been working on my ability to see the doors of prayer by shifting my perception, trying to be attuned to God among us and seeking with the discipline of patience and perseverance. I’m seeing prayer less as a one way message and instead as an ongoing dialogue. Behind the doors of prayer is the sunlight of the divine, that nurtures and sustains us, and we all make our spiritual journey by keeping those portals open, that we might learn and grow through the blessings of God.

-JB

April 4, 2007 - "Happily Ever After?"

What is it that really matters in our lives? What can we count on to always be there?

I have no doubt that love is the highest ideal. But of course there are many types of love. Which is the purest? And which endures through all circumstances?

We express love to many people throughout the course of out lives. Our relationship with God is maintained through loving devotion to Him in prayer and service. We tell our families we love them, and our friends. We say "I love you" to that special someone we hope will be our partner for life. All these forms of love - faithful, familial, and romantic - are important and valid, essential to healthy and happy lives. But I believe that nothing trumps the love of God.

Have you noticed that the types of love we learn earliest are the ones that endure the longest? God's love for us begins before we're even born, in the womb. Our experience of familial love begins at birth, and then much later we experience romantic love. Perhaps this is why romantic love is the shakiest of all forms. Ironically, many of us idealize romantic love, placing it highest on the pyramid. We claim that we love our partner "forever and ever." Sound familiar? And yet, think of how many people have a past littered with failed romances that we were sure would never die. We made lofty promises and were given impossible promises in return. At the end of the day, we were left standing dumbstruck and hurt because the one we placed all of our trust in failed; they lied, they cheated, they failed to fulfill our romantic "Ever After" plans.

Let's face it, human love is far too prone to temptation: to greed, to lust, to anger, to false pride. Still we buy into the notion of a "perfect" relationship, as if romantic love is somehow immune to the dark forces at work in the human consciouness. And why not? It's an easy trap to fall into - reinforced by countless pop songs, movies, and romance novels that repeat the same message: "If you're not with somebody, you're nobody."

The truth is this: we are never alone. When has God ever abandoned us? Has God ever broken a promise to us? When God says "forever," he means it. So, I worry when I hear so many people, many Christians among them, fretting and worrying about "finding true love." They already have it, freely and unconditionally. Find God's love first, and then the rest will follow. We must keep this perspective. Our human love must first come from divine love. If we are plugged into the love of God, we can channel that love to others - family, friends, husbands or wives, and even to strangers - that's the power of God's love. The message of the scripture is clear in this matter: Seek first a right relationship with God and righteousness. If the love of God is not our first priority, then all other love will stumble and fall.

I hope that many of us can keep this in perspective as we celebrate the upcoming Pentecost. In Jesus, God's love for every one of is manifest. In Christ's sacrifice, we see that God loves us so much, he gave his only son. Our response of a loving relationship with God is the one true love that leads to a "happily ever after."