You wouldn't really expect any other 1,900 year old literary collection to reflect the cultural sensitivities of a completely foreign contemporary setting, but that's exactly what many of us do with the Bible. We are surprised and sometimes taken aback when we expect the Bible to express itself one way, and what it really says is something strikingly different.
Case in point. Many contemporary thinkers and church people are uncomfortable with the phrase "kingdom of God." Some are uncomfortable with the "male-ness," the "assumed patriarchy" of something called a "king-dom." Those who pay attention to these kinds of concerns have attempted to alleviate that tension by translating male terms for monarchs and monarchies with non-gender-specific words (eg. "Sovereign" for "King," "realm" or "reign" for "kingdom" and the like. That makes some old favorite hymns a little difficult to sing ("Lead on, eternal sovereign" doesn't roll off the tongue for many as does "lead on, o king eternal), but it kind of lets folks at least talk about what the Bible means when it mentions it.
Another way to approach the whole "kingdom of God" discussion is the way author Frederick Buechner does in his remarkable little book Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC, published the year I graduated from college. In Wishful Thinking Buechner offers brief essays on a number of very common but often misunderstood and confusing personalities and ideas in a way that makes them accessible. Here's what he writes about "The Kingdom of God:"
"It's not a place, of course, but a condition. Kingship might be a better word. 'Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,' Jesus prayed. The two are in apposition.
"Insofar as here and there, and now and then, God's kingly will is being done in various odd ways among us even as this moment, the kingdom has already come.
"Insofar as all the odd ways we do God's will at this moment are at best half-baked and half-hearted. the kingdom is still a long way off, to be more precise and theological.
"As a poet, Jesus is maybe at his best in describing the feeling you get when you glimpse the Thing Itself -- the kingship of the king official at last and all the world his coronation. It's like finding a million dollars in a field, he says, or a jewel worth a king's ransom. It's like finding something you hated to lose and though you'd never find again -- an old keepsake, a stray sheep, a missing child. When the kingdom really comes, it's as if the thing you thought you'd never find again is you."
Monday, October 25, 2010
Friday, October 8, 2010
Notes from Marcus Borg
When Marcus Borg wrote The Heart of Christianity, he was interviewed by Deborah Caldwell for Beliefnet. In addition to recommending that website to you (www.beliefnet.com), I found this interview fascinating, and very relevant to our conversation in a couple of weeks (Tuesday, October 19, 6:30 PM at First Church).
Why Be Christian? (from www.beliefnet.com)
In renowned Jesus scholar Marcus Borg's latest book, The Heart of Christianity, he responds to an audience of readers who, over the years, have asked him about the essence of their faith. How, they ask, can Christianity be relevant in a time of ever-expanding historical and scientific knowledge? In a conversation with Deborah Caldwell, Borg answers that question, touching on the afterlife, living in a multi-cultural society, the meaning of salvation, and being born again.
You say that Christianity in North America and Europe is going through a paradigm change-that a new vision of how to be Christian is emerging. What is it and why is it happening?
Broadly speaking, there are two different visions of Christianity in North America today. The earlier vision is the product of the last few hundred years, especially the last 150 years. This earlier vision of Christianity is literalistic in its understanding of the Bible, absolutist in its understanding of the ethical teachings of the Bible, and exclusivist--meaning Christianity is the only way.
That's the vision of Christianity that the majority of us grew up with, whether we are mainline Protestant, Catholic, or conservative Protestant. But that way of seeing Christianity has become unpersuasive to millions of people--who can't be literalists or absolutists or exclusivists. But now there is an emerging vision, an emerging paradigm.
The conflict between these two paradigms can be seen in many different places. In the second half of the 19th Century and early in the 20th Century we saw conflict over evolution. Thirty years ago the conflict was over ordination of women in mainline denominations, and of course today we see the conflict about gays and lesbians in the church. For Protestants, the two visions have everything to do with biblical authority. The earlier vision sees the Bible as divine product with a divine guarantee to be true. The emerging vision sees the Bible as a human historical product, the product of two ancient communities [Judaism and Christianity]. It tells us what they thought, not what God thinks.
My book has almost an evangelistic purpose--to show that Christianity makes persuasive and compelling sense, that the intellectual stumbling blocks that many people experience with Christianity are unnecessary and artificial and largely the creation of the last few hundred years. I'm persuaded that Christianity, rightly understood, makes sense--and so do Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. And they make very much the same kind of sense.
You say the original way of seeing Christianity has become untenable for a lot of people. How do you know this?
Mainline denominations have seen a membership decline of roughly 40% over the last 35 years. But most of the people leaving mainline denominations have not joined more conservative churches. They've simply dropped out. Presumably, a major reason many of them dropped out is that the form of Christianity they learned growing up ceased to make compelling sense to them. If it had made sense, they still would be in the church.
Another example: The vast majority of Americans, according to polls taken in 2002, cannot be religious exclusivists. Only 18% of people surveyed in two different polls taken in 2002 said yes to "My religion is the only true religion." Another example: In a Gallup poll taken in 1963, 65% of the sample were biblical literalists. By 2001 that figure had gone down to 21%.
But hasn't this issue of the paradigm shift, how to make Christianity relevant, been going on for at least 35 years? What is different now?
The shift has been going on in seminaries for over a century. It actually began a couple hundred years ago, but then it was a tiny circle of theological elites. Maybe in the last 10-15 years it's become a major grassroots movement among the laity. If you look at the number of religious bestsellers on the New York Times list, all of them reflect the emerging paradigm, with the exception of the Left Behind series.
Monday, September 27, 2010
No Faith Journey meeting September 28
We're having a little trouble getting our gatherings scheduled, so we're wondering if either the 3rd Monday or 3rd Tuesdays would work better for folks. Could you e-mail me at rhatfield@firstchurchoflombard.org and let me know, and then, hopefully, we'll get things rolling again in October.
Thanks for your patience.
Thanks for your patience.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Martin Marty
For decades, one of historian Martin Marty’s greatest gifts is his ability to drill down through the cultural foolishness of the day and get down to brass tacks about what’s going on around us. I’ve mentioned his weekly e-newsletter Sightings before. This is what arrived in my inbox yesterday. It speaks for itself.
Sightings 9/13/2010
Franklin Graham on Islam and Violence
-- Martin E. Marty
Aestas horribilis, Queen Elizabeth might call the summer just past, or those who care about civility in religious discourse and interfaith relations might judge it to have been. While Sightings took August off, forces, agencies, and voices of prejudice and, frankly, hate-mongering, did not. “Protest mosques,” “Restore America,” “Burn Qur’ans” and many more are keywords in our internet memory. One set of these keywords is so illuminating and nearly normative that it merits comment before we enter a new but not necessarily more promising season. I refer to the pronouncements of evangelist Franklin Graham on Muslim genetics, competition for souls, Islam as killer, and scriptures.
Genetics first: There is no need to repeat Graham’s bizarre charge that Islam is passed through the genes of a father to a son. Scholars of Islam find that idea nowhere in its teachings. Conversion-expert Graham should understand that one becomes a Muslim the way the born-again in Graham’s tradition become Christian: by making a profession of faith and a commitment through word and action. We won’t go into the political dimension of this issue with reference to Graham’s subject, the President of the United States, because, as long-time readers know, Sightings does not “do” Presidents.
Competition for souls, second: Graham’s work is often positioned along lines crossed in Africa, where Muslims kill Christians and Christians kill Muslims. There is little point in going into “Who fired first?” or “Who killed most?” In religion-based warfare, there is never really a first and a second; there are only debates about first and second. Graham has chosen to attempt conversion in the second most tense area known to the two faith communities. Without doubt, there is ugliness and murder, but we picture militant Muslims speaking of Christians the way Graham speaks of Muslims. Call it a draw. (By the way, “the undersigned” is a Christian who sees a place for evangelism.)
Islam as killer of Christians, third: Graham has repeatedly charged this year that Islam, which he frequently calls “a very wicked and evil religion” is mandated to kill, and that it kills. He does not qualify his remarks, as the word “very” suggests and even though he is often cautioned about the possible lethal consequences for Christians and Muslims if things get more heated. Historians have no difficulty finding Muslims in killing modes. The problem is that historians also find Christians in killing modes, from most years of Christendom, when the sword advanced Christianity, down into our own time. Think of the Christian justifications in World War I. Think Christian killing Christian in Rwanda, Northern Ireland and elsewhere.
Fourth, scriptures: It is easy to find passages in the Qur’an and other classic Muslim texts in which Allah’s people may or should kill to advance God’s cause. Isolating these chunks of the Qur’an which are by now most familiar to Americans calls for overlooking Islam’s many peace-promoting texts. And it also means overlooking parallel biblical texts. There are far more pictures in the biblical texts of a warrior God licensing and, yes, commanding “omnicide,” the killing of men and women and children who stand in the path of God’s people. Yes, all that was long ago. Now, you will never (at least I never) find Jews or Christians who think that killing people of another faith is a scriptured mandate for them.
Let’s hope and work for a less horrifying autumn.
Martin E. Marty's biography, current projects, publications, and contact information can be found at www.illuminos.com.
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Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.
Submissions policy
Sightings welcomes submissions of 500 to 750 words in length that seek to illuminate and interpret the intersections of religion and politics, art, science, business and education. Previous columns give a good indication of the topical range and tone for acceptable essays. The editor also encourages new approaches to current issues.
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Columns may be quoted or republished in full, with attribution to the author of the column, Sightings, and the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.
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Please send all inquiries, comments, and submissions to Shatha Almutawa, managing editor of Sightings, at DivSightings@gmail.com. Subscribe, unsubscribe, or manage your subscription at the Sightings subscription page. Too many emails? Receive Sightings as an RSS feed. Sign up at http://divinity.uchicago.edu/rss/sightings.xml.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
As If
Last week a friend reminded me of a commencement address delivered 5 years ago by David Foster Wallace in which he talks about the most valuable gift of a good education is the ability to make responsible and reasoned choices about what to think about. To introduce his point, he tells two goofy little stories.
The first: "There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, 'Morning boys. How's the water?' And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, 'What the !@#$ is water?"
The second: "There are these two guys sitting together in a bar in the remote Alaskan wilderness. One of the guys is religious, the other is an atheist, and the two are arguing about the existence of God with that special intensity that comes after about the fourth beer. And the atheist says: 'Look, it's not like I don't have actual reaons for not believing in God. It's not like I haven't experimented with the whole God and prayer thing. Just last month I got caught away from the camp in that terrible blizzard, and I was totally lost and I couldn't see a thing, and it was 50 below, and so I tried it: I fell to my knees in the snow and cried out, "O God, if there is a God, I'm lost in this blizzard, and I'm gonna die if you don't help me."' And now in the bar, the religious guy looks at the atheist all puzzled. 'Well then, you must believe now,' he says, 'After all, here you are, alive." The atheist just rolls his eyes. 'No, man, all that was was a couple Eskimos happened to come wandering by and showed me the way back to camp.'"
After which, Wallace says:
"Because we prize tolerance and diversity of belief, nowhere...do we want to claim that one guy's interpretation is true and the other guy's is false or bad. Which is fine, except we also never end up about just where these individual templates and beliefs come from. Meaning, where they come from INSIDE the two guys. As if a person's most basic orientation toward the world, and the meaning of his experience were somehow just hard-wired, like height or shoe-size; or automatically absorbed from the culture, like language. As if how we construct meaning were not actually a matter of personal, intentional choice. Ples there's the whole matter of arrogance. The nonreligious guy is so totally certain in his dismissal of the possibility that the passing Eskimos had anything to do with his prayer for help. True, there are plenty of religious people who seem arrogant and certain of their own interpretations, too. They're probably even more repulsive than atheists, at least to most of us. But religious dogamatists' problem is exactly the same as the story's unbeliever: blind certainty, a cloase-mindedness that amounts to an imprisonment so total that the prisoner doesn't even know he's locked up.
The first: "There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, 'Morning boys. How's the water?' And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, 'What the !@#$ is water?"
The second: "There are these two guys sitting together in a bar in the remote Alaskan wilderness. One of the guys is religious, the other is an atheist, and the two are arguing about the existence of God with that special intensity that comes after about the fourth beer. And the atheist says: 'Look, it's not like I don't have actual reaons for not believing in God. It's not like I haven't experimented with the whole God and prayer thing. Just last month I got caught away from the camp in that terrible blizzard, and I was totally lost and I couldn't see a thing, and it was 50 below, and so I tried it: I fell to my knees in the snow and cried out, "O God, if there is a God, I'm lost in this blizzard, and I'm gonna die if you don't help me."' And now in the bar, the religious guy looks at the atheist all puzzled. 'Well then, you must believe now,' he says, 'After all, here you are, alive." The atheist just rolls his eyes. 'No, man, all that was was a couple Eskimos happened to come wandering by and showed me the way back to camp.'"
After which, Wallace says:
"Because we prize tolerance and diversity of belief, nowhere...do we want to claim that one guy's interpretation is true and the other guy's is false or bad. Which is fine, except we also never end up about just where these individual templates and beliefs come from. Meaning, where they come from INSIDE the two guys. As if a person's most basic orientation toward the world, and the meaning of his experience were somehow just hard-wired, like height or shoe-size; or automatically absorbed from the culture, like language. As if how we construct meaning were not actually a matter of personal, intentional choice. Ples there's the whole matter of arrogance. The nonreligious guy is so totally certain in his dismissal of the possibility that the passing Eskimos had anything to do with his prayer for help. True, there are plenty of religious people who seem arrogant and certain of their own interpretations, too. They're probably even more repulsive than atheists, at least to most of us. But religious dogamatists' problem is exactly the same as the story's unbeliever: blind certainty, a cloase-mindedness that amounts to an imprisonment so total that the prisoner doesn't even know he's locked up.
Monday, August 30, 2010
35 years ago...
35 years ago today was a very hot Saturday, at least in Metamora, Illinois. My childhood friend, Dan, and I found some locals (including Peggy's kid sister, Becky, who was already at her tender age the best athlete among all those gathering that day) and played softball for a couple of hours, during which one of us unleashed a wild throw and dented the aluminum siding on Peggy's Mom and Dad's house (to this day, Becky insists it was my wild throw, but she threw so much harder than I). We got mildly sunburned, went back to the hotel to clean up and get ready for the evening's activities. Peggy had picked out brown tuxedos (brown was fashionable in August of 1975 - or so she said), so best man Dan and 4 friends from Eden Seminary - Gregg, Jim, Dave, and Greg - and I put them on and headed to the Christian Union Church in beautiful downtown Metamora.
I spent a lot of energy that late afternoon and early evening trying to appear unflustered, and the only person I was fooling, I'm sure, was me. Another friend started singing, Henry Nieschlag began playing the processional, and I spent the longest 2 minutes of my life trying not to pass out and wondering if Peggy was going to pull a runaway bride thing while a parade of sisters and women friends cascaded in ahead of her.
I knew it even then when I was young and kind of cocky - I knew I was "marrying up," and that Peggy was totally out of my league, and that I was so nuts about her that I would have simply been vaporized had she decided to not be with me. Convincing her to marry me, given what I felt was a calling and she called my "chosen profession" was no simple task. To this day I'm not completely sure whether I finally convinced her or if I just wore her down, but she didn't run (though she kind of tried to at the last minute -- seriously, Mr. Nieschlag was in the middle of the processional when she told her dad she couldn't go through with it and he said, "oh yes you will" and the rest is, as they say, history).
I am not making any of that up - even the brown tuxes! That Saturday 35 years ago, I was the luckiest guy on the planet. Still am today.
I spent a lot of energy that late afternoon and early evening trying to appear unflustered, and the only person I was fooling, I'm sure, was me. Another friend started singing, Henry Nieschlag began playing the processional, and I spent the longest 2 minutes of my life trying not to pass out and wondering if Peggy was going to pull a runaway bride thing while a parade of sisters and women friends cascaded in ahead of her.
I knew it even then when I was young and kind of cocky - I knew I was "marrying up," and that Peggy was totally out of my league, and that I was so nuts about her that I would have simply been vaporized had she decided to not be with me. Convincing her to marry me, given what I felt was a calling and she called my "chosen profession" was no simple task. To this day I'm not completely sure whether I finally convinced her or if I just wore her down, but she didn't run (though she kind of tried to at the last minute -- seriously, Mr. Nieschlag was in the middle of the processional when she told her dad she couldn't go through with it and he said, "oh yes you will" and the rest is, as they say, history).
I am not making any of that up - even the brown tuxes! That Saturday 35 years ago, I was the luckiest guy on the planet. Still am today.
A Little Research Project
Here's a little research project for anyone who wants a head start on what we're talking about in church this Sunday, or who has nothing better to do with the last week before Labor Day.
For this project, you will need a copy of the Gospel of Luke (doesn't matter which version), a piece of paper, a pencil, and, if you're lousy at math, a calculator, slide rule, abacus or really smart young person to help you with the numbers.
The basic premise of the project is that thing we've talked about over and over again about reading the bible that requires no great knowledge of ancient languages and cultures, but only a grasp of simple arithmetic. That premise: if a piece of biblical literature repeats itself over and over again, or it the characters in that piece of biblical literature do the same things over and over again, we can be certain that the writer is not trying to bore us to tears, but rather trying to make sure that we understand how important something is.
To begin, sit down and read the Gospel of Luke in one sitting (it will take you no longer than 20 minutes if you choose to not be distracted.) Then, answer these questions (correct answers are below... read Luke, and don't cheat!)
1) How many chapters are there in the Gospel of Luke?
2) How many of those chapters deal with the trial and crucifixion of Jesus?
3) How many of them deal with the birth of John the Baptist and Jesus?
4) How many of them deal with Jesus' family tree?
5) Take the answer to #1, and subtract the answer to #2, #3, and #4. What do you get?
6) What very common human activity appears in the Gospel of Luke the same number of times as the answer to # 5?
7) What do you suppose the Gospel writer is trying to tell us?
Don't Peek!!
S
c
r
o
l
l
D
o
w
n
f
o
r
a
n
s
w
e
r
s
1) 24
2) 3
3) 2
4) 1
5) 24 - 3 - 2 -1 = 18
6) Eating, feasting, sharing a meal, being fed. 18 times in 18 chapters; if you count all 24 chapters, that's 75% of the Gospel of Luke that include something about being at someone's house for dinner, or eating together or observing a feast, or feeding hungry people.
7) What do you think?
For this project, you will need a copy of the Gospel of Luke (doesn't matter which version), a piece of paper, a pencil, and, if you're lousy at math, a calculator, slide rule, abacus or really smart young person to help you with the numbers.
The basic premise of the project is that thing we've talked about over and over again about reading the bible that requires no great knowledge of ancient languages and cultures, but only a grasp of simple arithmetic. That premise: if a piece of biblical literature repeats itself over and over again, or it the characters in that piece of biblical literature do the same things over and over again, we can be certain that the writer is not trying to bore us to tears, but rather trying to make sure that we understand how important something is.
To begin, sit down and read the Gospel of Luke in one sitting (it will take you no longer than 20 minutes if you choose to not be distracted.) Then, answer these questions (correct answers are below... read Luke, and don't cheat!)
1) How many chapters are there in the Gospel of Luke?
2) How many of those chapters deal with the trial and crucifixion of Jesus?
3) How many of them deal with the birth of John the Baptist and Jesus?
4) How many of them deal with Jesus' family tree?
5) Take the answer to #1, and subtract the answer to #2, #3, and #4. What do you get?
6) What very common human activity appears in the Gospel of Luke the same number of times as the answer to # 5?
7) What do you suppose the Gospel writer is trying to tell us?
Don't Peek!!
S
c
r
o
l
l
D
o
w
n
f
o
r
a
n
s
w
e
r
s
1) 24
2) 3
3) 2
4) 1
5) 24 - 3 - 2 -1 = 18
6) Eating, feasting, sharing a meal, being fed. 18 times in 18 chapters; if you count all 24 chapters, that's 75% of the Gospel of Luke that include something about being at someone's house for dinner, or eating together or observing a feast, or feeding hungry people.
7) What do you think?
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