eirene

Requiem

2011-11-22T20:21:00.001-06:00

Last Wednesday, late afternoon, my wife got the call. Her father's number, but not his voice, “Are you Karen's daughter?” Yes. “Well, I'm very sorry to tell you, but she's died.” My wife had spoken with her just the evening before: small talk, without foreshadowing.

We were on next available flight. Her father had been swept into Texas's adult protective services. We'd spend the next three days canceling inessential services at their house, and getting him released to my wife's custody. We flew back with him on Sunday, and had him admitted to a trusted assisted living facility nearby. He's only asked a couple of times about his wife, who he loved and protected fiercely for fifty years. In the last few years, their roles had reversed, and she'd become his caretaker and his protector, a constant companion as he slid unsteadily into dementia. Alzheimer's is a terrible disease, which stole him from her, and her from him.

Karen lived big in her own way. She was passionate about country music and line dancing. She was a constant ambassador for a lifestyle and a set of values that often left me feeling like an anthropologist in my own country, perplexed but curious, “What are the natives doing?”

They grew up Protestant, conventional and unfervent in their faith. They were not church people when I knew them, yet they raised daughters who are rocks in their congregations, one Lutheran, one Catholic. Her funeral will take place in the context of a Catholic mass, courtesy of her son-in-law the deacon. He'll become a de facto member of our faith community, and again be receiving the body and blood of our Savior, as he did in his youth, as if the intervening decades of love and loss were but a dream. And the Bible that has rested on his nightstand since his confirmation rests beside him still, dog-eared and tattered, next to a photo of him and his vibrant wife, who now rests in peace.

Peace

Images of Creation

2011-10-26T11:43:00.001-05:00

I have a new blog up that I'm going to use for my astronomical hobby. If you're interested, please visit Images of Creation.

Leviticus 19:1-18

2011-10-23T21:06:00.001-05:00

This Sunday's lectionary readings were from Proper 25 of the Year A Revised Common Lectionary. They included a brief reading from Leviticus, intended (as the Old Testament readings usually are) to support the Gospel reading. The reading was discontinuous: Leviticus 19:1-2, 15-18. I'd like to consider the whole, and then the envelope.

The LORD spoke to Moses, saying:

Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them: You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy. You shall each revere your mother and father, and you shall keep my sabbaths: I am the LORD your God. Do not turn to idols or make cast images for yourselves: I am the LORD your God.

When you offer a sacrifice of well-being to the LORD, offer it in such a way that it is acceptable on your behalf. It shall be eaten on the same day you offer it, or on the next day; and anything left over until the third day shall be consumed in fire. If it is eaten at all on the third day, it is an abomination; it will not be acceptable. All who eat it shall be subject to punishment, because they have profaned what is holy to the LORD; and any such person shall be cut off from the people.

When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the LORD your God.

You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; and you shall not lie to one another. And you shall not swear falsely by my name, profaning the name of your God: I am the LORD.

You shall not defraud your neighbor; you shall not steal; and you shall not keep for yourself the wages of a laborer until morning. You shall not revile the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind; you shall fear your God: I am the LORD.

You shall not render an unjust judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great: with justice you shall judge your neighbor. You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not profit by the blood of your neighbor: I am the LORD.

You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD. (Leviticus 19:1–18 NRSV)

In the first place, I'd like to characterize the reading. This is, it seems to me, a freer rendering of the ten commandments, with more by way of illustration.

But it seems to me that this is a surprisingly important passage, especially for being in a book that is so seldom read. I'll start by picking a view things out.

Here we have, of course, the scriptural warrant for the tradition of not gleaning the field, which was so important in the story of Ruth. But I think this is reflected in the social criticism of the OWS movement: the sin of Wall Street isn't that they're rich, it's that they take everything, when the law obligates them to leave enough for the poor and the alien.

You shall not defraud your neighbor; you shall not steal; and you shall not keep for yourself the wages of a laborer until morning. (Leviticus 19:13 NRSV)

Here, we have the scriptural warrant for the tradition that a laborer should be paid before sundown, which figured in the Matthew 22 reading from a couple of weeks ago, and the subject of the preceding post.

I thought the following passage was especially relevant to our present, troubled times:

You shall not render an unjust judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great: with justice you shall judge your neighbor (Leviticus 19:15 NRSV)

I believe this can be read as a criticism of central tendencies of the Democratic and Republican Parties respectively. Is there perhaps wisdom enough in this passage to pull us through? I wonder.

Finally, I'd like to note a strong parallel between the reading as it appeared in the lectionary, and Jesus's words from the Gospel. First, Leviticus:

The LORD spoke to Moses, saying:

Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them: You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.

Next, Matthew:

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:34–40 NRSV)

Note how Jesus's epitome of the law parallels the beginning, and even more explicitly, the end of Leviticus reading. This lead me to ask the question: was it an idiom of oriental thought to refer to an entirety obliquely by mentioning it's beginning and the end? It took a couple of hours for the answer to occur to me, in the writings of John of Patmos:

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty. (Revelation 1:8 NRSV)

And so, I invite a more diligent, more prayerful contemplation of Leviticus 19:1-18, for upon them hang all the law and the prophets.

Peace

The Role of the Rich

2011-10-17T19:58:00.001-05:00

Matthew, in material unique to him, tells a parable known as “the Workers in the Vineyard,” but it's actually about the owner of the vineyard:

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” (Matthew 20:1–16 NRSV)

Why does the owner of the vineyard go out to the market at noon, at three, and again, finally, at five? Does he expect that their work will provide as much value to him as that of the men he hired early in the morning? Of course not. For he is not hiring men, early or late, for the value they can provide to him. He is hiring men out of his abundance for the value he can provide to them, a wage sufficient for the day in return for honorable service. He understands the responsibility of the rich in society: it is neither to hoard wealth, nor to dissipate it, but instead to use it purposefully to advance the health of society.

Let us consider our society today, a society beset with sustained high unemployment. We hear from the voices privilege that the problems our our society are due to to the poor. It is the poor who don't contribute enough. Yet the poor still seek work, and if they don't find it, it's not because God has not provided. It is because those he's entrusted with wealth have nurtured the delusion that their wealth is a reward for their own merit, and its sole purpose is their self-indulgence. The problem we have today isn't that the poor aren't working, it's that the rich aren't hiring. It's that the rich that aren't doing their job.

Let us pray:

Dear Lord, Heal our society. Call the rich to their duty, or give us new rich who will do it in their stead. In Jesus's name we pray. Amen.

Peace

A New Dark Ages

2011-09-15T13:34:00.001-05:00

These thoughts were inspired by a conversation over at John Hanson's blog, De Gustibus, we all need something, and I'd like to acknowledge my double debt to Brother John, not only for initiating and hosting that conversation, but also for a gentle and generous comment here that agitated me to write again.

Robert Maynard Hutchins coined the notion of “The Great Conversation,” which is defined as, “a characterization of references and allusions made by authors in the Western canon to the works of their predecessors.” This notion became, in due course, the seminal idea upon which Hutchins and others ultimate built “The Great Books.” The question as it came up on De Gustibus considered the status of religion in the Great Conversation, and the sense that religion is being relegated to a marginal and mostly honorary role in that Conversation. I think this is an important question, but it is not today's question. Today's question regards the health of the Great Conversation itself.

I'll begin by illustrating and expanding a bit on Hutchins' idea. Melville's novel, “Moby Dick,” is built upon references to the Old Testament, from the first sentence, “Call me Ishmael,” to the last, “It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan.” Here we see a pattern of references he could assume would be meaningful to his readers. References which would enable him to say less, but mean more. His novel does not stand alone, but it builds on that which came before, and indeed, I suspect that more people today associate the name “Ahab” with the Great White Whale than with Jezebel or Elijah. Melville entered the conversation.

At this point, I'd like leverage this example into three related digressions:

If “Moby Dick” is a part of the Great Conversation by dint of its references to the Bible, doesn't this mean that the Bible is also a part of the Great Conversation? Yes. Isn't this obvious? It certainly was to the authors of “the Great Books,” who in their introduction made the point that they didn't include the Bible in their collection simply because they expected any of its readers to already have multiple copies. Indeed, if we remember that the Bible is not a book, but a collection of books, we can already see the Great Conversation at work within the Bible, as one book quotes another.
Hey, isn't the Great Conversation supposed to be about the Western canon? The Bible is a lot of things, but it is mostly written from the very different perspective of oriental culture. The first thing you have to understand about Western culture is its acquisitive nature. We claim the Bible. You don't like it? We don't care.
What about other cultures? Don't they have conversations too? Isn't it both arrogant and limiting to focus on the Western canon? Alright then. The second thing you have to understand about Western culture is that it is arrogant. But yes, it is limiting, which is both good and bad. What gets sometimes gets lost in the “Dead White Male Lit” vs. “World Lit” debate is a willingness to acknowledge what both sides have right. There is a distinctive Western conversation (nods to the right), but it is itself in conversation with other culture's conversations (nods to the left). The Bible, one of the foundational documents of the Western canon, is very much a case-in-point, but hardly a unique one. I'll cite Hesse's “Siddartha”, Achebe's “Things Fall Apart,” and the cinematic conversation between Kurosawa and Leone.

But now we get to the question. What is the health of the Great Conversation today? How might we assess it?

This is a critical time for the Great Conversation. Even in the early 50's, Hutchins wrote about how then-recent events had challenged (but in his estimation, unsuccessfully) foundational values of Western culture. And perhaps it was revulsion to Hitler's racial interpretation of Nietzsche's elitist notion of Übermensch that lead Mortimer Adler to push the egalitarian notion that the best education for the best is the best education for all. And the Great Books grew out of this, as an explicit attempt to make the Great Conversation accessible to all. These challenges, while they have not yet overwhelmed us, remain unabated. And all the while, technology has been producing profound changes in the nature of publishing, driving down costs and increasing bandwidth, to the point where anyone with access to a public library, a Google account, and an axe to grind, can set up shop and hope to reach billions. The absence of a public library notwithstanding, this blog itself is a case-in-point.

My thesis is that the Great Conversation has all but collapsed. As more and more people have entered in, and as time-to-publication has fallen from years to milli-seconds, the Great Conversation has pivoted. We no longer consider so much the great minds of the past, nor do we hope to engage the great minds of the future. We write for today's comments, which after a week's time will live forever unread on Google: cache without value.

My thesis is that these are the New Dark Ages: that we've walled ourselves off from the past and future of the Great Conversation, in favor of more vigorous but ultimately ephemeral chatter. We know more facts, but possess less understanding, less wisdom. We are trapped in the ignorance of now.

But I see hope. Whether through nature, or through God, our excesses are inevitably corrected. Difficult times, which is simply another way of saying times that involve changes we don't understand, are times when we're compelled to look beyond us. And we face difficult times, perhaps difficult enough to tear us away from our inward gaze. If not now, soon.

Peace

Is Death a Social Construct?

2011-02-11T22:23:00.001-06:00

Over on Kirby's blog, G. M. Palmer posted a link to Easter, a remarkable poem by Jill Alexander Essbaum. Kirby felt the poem was “very secular.” This seemed to deeply miss the point of Essbaum's poetry, which struck me as a poignant reflection on a central paradox of Easter.

As Christians, we celebrate Easter as Christ's victory over death. We declare death vanquished. Yet we know, God's victory over death is ultimate, not present. Death surrounds us, and our own mortality presses in. We proclaim victory in defeat; we celebrate in despair. The ones we love pass on, and the threads that tie us to this life grow weaker, while the threads that pull us to, and we believe through, death grow stronger.

Why? JH has lamented the lack of the surreal over on Lutheran Surrealism. Let's have some here.

Is death a social construct? I'm thinking, yes.

Peace

Authority — a draft

2010-12-30T22:12:00.001-06:00

It's been a long time since I've felt as though I had anything to say here, which I regret. The following is a lightly edited comment that I made on Kirby's blog, which I believe is worthy of further development.

Kirby,

The question of authority is something I wanted to take up, and run with a bit.

Sounds like a plan...

If I might anticipate your thoughts a bit, let me start by positing that divine authority, and only divine authority, will not fail. Note that for atheists, this reduces to the simpler premise that all authority fails.

A corollary, which requires the additional premise that we are not gods, is that all human authority fails. This is one of the foundations of Nuremberg prosecution: as all human authority fails, you can't evade personal responsibility for your own actions via appeal to authority. You are responsible for the choices you make in the authorities you follow.

A core problem for those of us who accept the theological premise “God is,” and therefore believe that there is an infallible authority, is in discerning and interpreting that authority. For some, this question is mooted by God himself by direct revelation, but very few have been given the gift of standing with unshod feet before a bush that burns but is not consumed. For the rest of us, it is not so easy, and the very real phenomenon of false prophesy means that we can't simply take the word of those who claim the gift of direct revelation. Even the disciples doubted. We're again confronted with the premise that all human authority fails, and that prophets are human.

Turn now to scripture. Scripture has passed through human hands, and it is established beyond all doubt that the transmission of scripture, while remarkably good, has been less than perfect. Fundamentalists will cite 2 Timothy 3:16-17, All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work. (NRSV) as an internal proof text for scriptural infallibility, but this is a weak argument. Fallible sources often claim infallibility, but all human authority fails. In any event, it is very far from clear that the intended meaning of θεόπνευστος — God breathed — is anything like what fundamentalists mean when they use the word “inspired.” Ironically, they're not being literal enough in their reading of a central proof text.

The existence of variant texts is certainly clearer to us than it was to the reformers, who were inspired by finally having direct access to imperfect, but original language, texts, and so were in a position to call into question readings of the Vulgate, and arguments for the infallibility of the RCC hierarchy that had been built upon them.

So I see the claim of “scriptural infallibility” as well as “papal infallibility” as theological versions of the Nuremberg defense, resting on the same error. Human authority cannot be trusted blindly, since all human authority fails.

What then? Do I deny all human authority, or claim exemption from its demands upon me? By no means. We all depend on authority, and are subject to its demands. I am no exception. But we cannot use authority to evade personal responsibility, and therefore authority must be tested. And indeed, for this, I can cite scripture as well, for it often speaks of testing by both God and man to ascertaining righteousness, faithfulness, apostolic authority, etc.

Returning again to scripture, we might ask what its uses are. If we test it against the claims of 2 Timothy 3:16, useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, it passes, albeit with a few caveats. If we test it as a source of scientific knowledge, it often fails. It is our personal responsibility if we ignore the results of those testings, both where it succeeds and where it fails.

Peace

Political Correctness in the New Testament

2010-08-18T18:19:00.001-05:00

In a comment on Kirby's blog, I noted that “political correctness” is nothing more or less than the notion that our words and deeds should conform to our beliefs. As I've thought about this subsequently, it occurred to me that while "political correctness" in its current meaning dates to the 70's, and the conservative backlash to a few minutes after that, that the underlying idea is sound, and that I've encountered it in sources of far greater antiquity.

So I invite you to consider the first commandment,

Exodus 20:7 (RSV) You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.

and with it, the following exegesis by Jesus of Nazereth:

Matthew 6:9 (RSV) Pray then like this: Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

Consider that first petition, “Hallowed be thy name.” This is often misunderstood. Jesus is not asking that God's name be holy, for God's name is holy. Jesus is asking that God grant us that we conform our words and attitudes to our belief in the holiness of our Lord God, and the sanctity of his name. Is this not political correctness? Of course it is. Yet many of the same conservatives who bristle at “political correctness” pray this prayer every day without a twinge of irony.

And I believe it is worth considering what the first commandment was intended to proscribe. I do not believe it was the “God damns” that have been largely replaced in modern invective by more offensive speech. After all, “God damn” is formally a prayer. A flawed, self-centered prayer, but a prayer never the less. No, I believe that the usage was the casual elaboration of “I promise…” to “With God as my witness, I promise… .” For indeed, we may well find that God is a witness against us. Indeed, there's evidence to this in Jeremiah:

Jeremiah 5:1–2 (RSV) Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, look and take note! Search her squares to see if you can find a man, one who does justice and seeks truth; that I may pardon her. Though they say, “As the LORD lives,” yet they swear falsely.

And this leads us to a second commentary on the first commandment, which shares much with Jesus's, in the Epistle of James:

James 5:12 (RSV) But above all, my brethren, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath, but let your yes be yes and your no be no, that you may not fall under condemnation.

And while James is placid and magisterial, Paul of Tarsus knows how difficult this really is,

Romans 7:15 (RSV) I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.

It is not easy to set aside traditional patterns of language and attitude to account for a new truths, for habituation has a powerful hold on us. This difficulty accounts for much of the strident attitude by modern advocates of political correctness. Self policing our words and deeds is hard, as we undermine ourselves thoughtlessly and continuously. Paul was right, and we need to pray.

May our words and deeds conform to our beliefs. Amen.

Peace

Combinatorial Prayer

2010-05-09T16:21:00.001-05:00

Father, find me, draw me in. Jesus, save me, here I am. Spirit, heal me, draw me in. Father, teach me, here I am. Jesus, lead me, draw me in. Spirit, find me, here I am. Father, save me, draw me in. Jesus, heal me, here I am. Spirit, teach me, draw me in. Father, lead me, here I am. Jesus, find me, draw me in. Spirit, save me, here I am. Father, heal me, draw me in. Jesus, teach me, here I am. Spirit, lead me, draw me in. Father, find me, here I am. Jesus, save me, draw me in. Spirit, heal me, here I am. Father, teach me, draw me in. Jesus, lead me, here I am. Spirit, find me, draw me in. Father, save me, here I am. Jesus, heal me, draw me in. Spirit, teach me, here I am. Father, lead me, draw me in. Jesus, find me, here I am. Spirit, save me, draw me in. Father, heal me, here I am. Jesus, teach me, draw me in. Spirit, lead me, here I am.

Peace

Scholasticism

2010-05-05T21:52:00.001-05:00

I'd like to propose the hypothesis that part of the continuing distance between Lutheranism and Catholicism is due to their differing stances on Scholasticism.

Luther rejected Scholasticism, and favored arguments based on Augustine (he was an Augustinian monk, after all), the earlier Fathers, and Scripture directly. Part of this comes out of Luther's critique of monasticism, which Aquinas, Scotus, and other Scholastics held in high regard. Indeed, from a Lutheran point of view, the Summa was a scholarly apology for the religious status quo of Aquinas's day. There's no hint of critique, just a panglossian sense of whatever is, is as it must and should be. Our subsequent and sustained divergence from the Catholic Church and the structures reflected in the Summa is a living refutation of that, at least for us. Between the Aquinas's scholarly defense of a static and hierarchical world-view and Ecclesia Reformata, Semper Reformanda lies an almost unbridgeable difference in understanding the place and purpose of the Church in the world.

Part of the Lutheran skepticism, though, came from the primary intellectual stance of the Scholastics, that all truth points to God, and that some truth, some knowledge of God, was accessible to non-Christian thinkers. In this, the intellectual commitments of the Scholastics are more acceptable to the modern man than Luther's Christian exclusivity. Looking at Scholasticism more positively, which is to say, from outside of the circle of specifically Lutheran critique, the triumph of Scholasticism was to reconcile Aristotelian rational philosophy with Christian theology.

This gives rise to an entirely separate critique of Scholasticism, which perhaps appeals more to the modern man, who would applaud the implicit universalism that underlies Scholasticism, while noting that both philosophy and theology have moved on since the days of Aristotle and Aquinas respectively. In this, the Catholic instinct to defer reflexively to the Summa denies the fundamental intellectual commitments that underlay it. Stated metaphorically, the Summa was a milestone, not a goal, and the effort to reconcile all truths to a single universal truth ought to be addressing, embracing, and reconciling the new truths of our era, including but not limited to the truths of science, and our better understanding of the ancient near-Eastern cultures that incubated our faith. In this, the best work of our era (at least, that I'm aware of) comes from Polkinghorne (an Anglican priest and theoretical physicist) and Gould (a biologist and secular Jew).

Peace

While I take responsibility for the content of this note, I'd like to acknowledge my debt to my current diakonia teacher, Bruce Rittenhouse, for the phrase "philosophy and theology have moved on," and the argument that this phrase distills. There is in this condemnation enough in his remark for both Catholic and Lutheran, and perhaps in that a basis for moving on.

The Battle of the Evil Gods

2010-03-01T10:41:00.006-06:00

The Divinity School Coffee Shop is a staple of life at the University of Chicago. The Coffee Shop's motto is ”Where God Drinks Coffee,“ and the shop has cool and quirky attitude. Most (perhaps all?) of the employees are students at the Divinity School, which is relevant in what follows.

Like any self-respecting coffee shop, there's a tip cup out. But unlike most, the tips are used to decide head-to-head match-ups on the question of the day. Think "March madness" meets the Gallup Poll meets Change Wars. The tournament (single elimination, sixteen contestants) is set up by the employees (remember, divinity students?!), but the outcome of the tournament is a function of the tip-based voting. The clientele of the coffee shop is overwhelmingly university people: a bit more of a graduate student place than an undergraduate place, and a place that draws a lot of faculty from the main quads. (This means that professional school and biology faculty are somewhat under-sampled, whereas humanities, social-science, and mathematical sciences faculty are somewhat over-sampled).

Anyway, the most recent competition just concluded, a "Battle of the Evil Gods," and I think this is interesting as a touchstone for assessing the actual interests/priorities of this particular group of communities.

Here is an image of the final blackboard, which gives you a bit of the ambiance of the place, linked to a simple bracket diagram which is easier to read:

Note that the coffee shop is located in the basement, with classy brick walls, an expresso machine, etc.

Good luck reconciling either the cast of villains or the results of the voting with any preconceptions.

Peace

Remember you are dust ...

2010-02-17T21:24:00.001-06:00

… and to dust you shall return

Ash Wednesday is here. Lent is upon us. Jesus' journey to Jerusalem, to the cross, to death, is our journey too.

Peace

Who are we?

2010-01-27T08:16:00.002-06:00

I've mentioned that I'm taking diakonia, formal training for the ELCA's diaconate. The course I'm taking now is "Practical Ministry, III," and a homework assignment is to interview people in congregation's neighborhood, asking the following three questions:

What do you like most about this community?
What do you think the biggest needs are in this community?
What could a church do to be helpful to the people in this community?

I'm doing this in the community defined by physical proximity to the church I attend, but these seem like reasonable questions for this community too, and I would be interesting to have your answers as well.

Peace

Our Human Voice

2009-12-29T09:24:00.001-06:00

On Christmas Eve, we had an unusual service in my church, in which a sequence of songs alternated with scripture readings replaced much of the liturgy of the word, in unconscious reflection of the Easter Vigil. Having just led a three week adult session on the Psalms, I was particularly attuned to the role of song in this service, and was struck by how naturally it flowed, and I wondered about that.

In the Psalms, we sing praises and laments. Most secular songs, or so it seems without having done a formal analysis, are songs of love and loss, the same themes, intended for one another's ears instead of the ears of the divine. But songs draw us, naturally and powerfully. As Steve Jobs said famously of music more generally, "It's in our DNA."

So the thesis emerged that our speaking voice is an evolutionary development of growling. Our words, our sentences, are mere growls, chewed into shape. Our speaking voice is our animal voice, with which we convey our lesser emotions. Steve Jobs' effort to express the depth of our attachment to music was rightly intended, but wrongly formed: our attachment to song goes deeper into our humanity than our DNA. Our singing voice is God's gift to us, which we return to him in praise and lament, and which we share with one another. A voice that can convey our highest emotions, through which the Spirit itself intercedes, praying with “sighs too deep for words¹.” Our human voice.

Peace

¹Romans 8:26.

The Drums Beat More Quickly

2009-11-30T21:19:00.001-06:00

What is happening to time? I used to be able to think, to consider, to dream. The beat of my own drummer paced me, graced me. Now I am driven by outside drums. They drown that inner beat, Ever louder, ever more insistent, ever quicker. Oh, for the grace of a quiet place, Where I can hear my own drum, And think, and consider, and dream.

Peace

Who is our neighbor?

2009-10-30T23:05:00.001-05:00

Kirby, in reaction one of my comments on his blog, wrote a post in his usual incendiary style, WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR. At the center of our disagreement is a limited notion of neighborness on Kirby's part, vs. an unlimited notion on mine. Kirby thinks this is important, as do I.

Anyway, I wrote a long two-part comment in response to a challenge from Brett, who felt that I was resting too much of my argument on the parable of the Good Samaritan. I think he had a good point, but ultimately, my reading of the parable of the Good Samaritan reflected a much more broadly scripturally-based understanding of key concepts that occur in that parable, and in our discussion of it.

I'm taking this opportunity to correct some infelicities in formatting and language in that extended comment, and to develop my thoughts a bit further.

There is a serious philosophical problem here, and it should not be glossed over. How do we interpret scripture, and especially, the stories, teachings, and parables of Jesus. Does each story refer to a limited set of circumstances, or is it Jesus's (i.e., God's—we're trinitarians here) intent to illustrate the general through the specific? Clearly, I believe the latter. It cannot be, e.g., that the right definition of “neighbor” for Kirby consists of all of the people he feels positively disposed to, plus a Samaritan who lived and died two millennia ago. That would have robbed the parable of it's purpose.

I know that some will object, but I think Ockham's Razor applies here. We should seek the simplest theory that is consistent with scriptural evidence. My theory is that Jesus's intent is that everyone is our neighbor; that it is not God's will that we harden our heart to anyone.

Indeed, that is the classical language, to harden one's heart against someone, which means no more than to define someone as not being a neighbor, someone whose pain and suffering is immaterial to us, indeed, which we might even wish to cause.

In the NSRV, there are only four passages where the word “harden” and “heart” co-occur; three in Exodus, referring to God hardening Pharaoh's heart within the Exodus story, and the following, a major dissertation waiting to happen—

Isaiah 63:17 Why, O LORD, do you make us stray from your ways and harden our heart, so that we do not fear you? Turn back for the sake of your servants, for the sake of the tribes that are your heritage.

Forgiveness

In interpreting the story of the Good Samaritan, especially as regards the priest and robbers, I look to passages in the New Testament that deal with forgiveness:

Matthew 18:20–22 Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.

Admittedly, this refers only to members of the church—certainly an anachronistic claim in Matthew! But I think it is reasonable to assume that there is a legitimate Jesus pericope that underlies this, in which “church” would have been “neighbor.” Here is another:

Mark 11:25 “Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.”

This does have universality. If we're to forgive anyone who we hold something against, how can we then say that that person is not our neighbor?

And then, there's this verse:

Luke 6:37–38 “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you.”

Again, there is no limit w.r.t. whom we are to forgive. I assume that it means anyone who has given us offense. Everyone is our neighbor.

And to be perfectly honest, there is this:

John 20:22–23 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

The problem for the Kirbys of the world is that we don't get to interpret this in isolation. There are those other verses. How can we retain the sins against any one that is God's?

Neighbor

The notion of neighbor has a nontrivial history in Old Testament and New Testament thought, along with the notion of God. During the monarchical period, YHWH was viewed as a national God of Israel and Judah, and a clear distinction was made between citizen/neighbor (i.e., fellow Jew) and alien. Yet even so, God required of Israel and Judah that no distinction in treatment be made between neighbor and alien.

Leviticus 19:33–34 When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.

and again,

Leviticus 24:22 You shall have one law for the alien and for the citizen: for I am the LORD your God.

and this,

Jeremiah 7:5–7 For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your ancestors forever and ever.

But in the exile, the Jewish people began to develop a new conception. YHWH was not just the God of Israel (their only God), but indeed, the only God, and so God of all the nations. This is sometimes called “strong monotheism,” and it is hard to remember after 2500 years that a weaker monotheism was once the norm. But a concomitant of a universal God is the notion that all people are God's people. The word “alien” hardly occurs post-Ezekiel.

Finally, consider this:

Matthew 5:43–48 “You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

It is not just one story, but a consistent, coherent message. Our God is one God, the only God, and God of all people. Every one who is God's is our neighbor.

Peace

The Rivers of Babylon

2009-10-08T15:58:00.001-05:00

I'm going to be giving a three session class on the Psalms in December as a part of my congregation's adult education. It's a big topic, and not too soon for me to get started.

The Psalms are sometimes called “Israel's Hymnal,” which is surely an oversimplification. But having said so, the point behind today's essay is that the Psalms still inspire song writers, and not just hymn writers. By way of evidence, consider

Psalm 137. By the rivers of Babylon— there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our harps. For there our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” How could we sing the LORD'S song in a foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither! Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy. Remember, O LORD, against the Edomites the day of Jerusalem's fall, how they said, “Tear it down! Tear it down! Down to its foundations!” O daughter Babylon, you devastator! Happy shall they be who pay you back what you have done to us! Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!

This is a unique Psalm in many respects. Robert Alter, in the introduction to his commentary and translation “The Book of Psalms,” characterizes it as an “anti-Psalm.” Psalms of lament often follow an arc that ends with praise: this Psalm goes from lament, to curses, to fury. This Psalm seems in so many ways unpromising for a modern adaptation. Yet I could instantly name two songs from my iTunes collection that quote this Psalm:

“Jerusalem,” by Matisyahu, and
“City of Sorrows,” by Fernando Ortega.

And a couple minutes with Google revealed two more:

“On the Willows,” from the musical Godspell, and
“Babylon,” from Don McLean.

Look at that last one: Psalm 137 is quoted on the “American Pie” album. And yes, as I studied the lyrics for these songs in greater detail, it's clear that Ortega was relying more on Ezekiel for content than Psalm 137, but I still think the wording and rhythm relies on the Psalm.

Now, it seems to me that if this (initially unpromising) Psalm is so widely quoted, then the Book of Psalms must be quoted in thousands of contemporary songs, although I've not attempted a serious inventory. I would be glad for more examples of modern songs (as well as hymns) that rely on specific Psalms, and I'm more than a little surprised that Google didn't point me to a web page of thousands.

Peace

The Stars Know the Season

2009-10-06T22:35:00.002-05:00

I. The solstice came. The days were cool, the nights were cold. But it was not fall. Can stars know the season?

II. Sun is set, white clouds float in air so clear, I see stars, in a sky not dark. The stars know the season, fall is near.

III. Night comes, wind comes. Trees bend, leaves blow. Stars are near, fall is here.

Peace

Giants

2009-09-21T23:00:00.001-05:00

There's an odd passage in Genesis 6:

Genesis 6:4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward— when the sons of God went in to the daughters of humans, who bore children to them. These were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown.

I had the peculiar thought today that this might reflect an ancient oral tradition based on encounters (not necessarily sexual) between modern men and Neanderthals. A quick search of Google reveals my lack of originality in this, but I do wonder. One quick note is that the Hebrew word Nephilim (נְפִילִים — often translated "giants"), can also mean “monster” or “deformed.”

This can be compared to the Biblical flood, which is often associated with the filling of the Black Sea, c. ~5600 BCE. Archaeological evidence suggests that Neanderthals survived in the middle east until 40,000 years ago, and may have survived in western Europe until 24,000 years ago.

Peace

A Modern Creed

2009-09-13T17:04:00.001-05:00

I've thought for a while that this might be a good time to write a new creed. The existing creeds were written at a times when there was active controversy over what they confessed, and were biased by those controversies. And all of the creeds say far too little about the Holy Spirit.

Anyway, at a Church retreat yesterday, we were all invited to write a creed. Unsurprisingly, an exercise that seemed impossible given just a summer was easily completed in the twenty minutes allotted. I don't claim that the following creed is any sort of final word, and I would welcome suggestions as to how to improve it.

I believe in God the Father, source of all life, source of all love, creator of the Universe and all that is in it, including me. I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, fully human, fully divine, the only begotten son of the Father whose witness and sacrifice saves the Universe, and all that is in it, including me. I believe in the Holy Spirit, God acting in the world, the voice of the prophets, who animates the Universe and all that is in it, including me. These three are one God, the only God, my God. I believe in the communion of saints, the Church of the Father, Son, and Spirit, through which we are called to love one another as God loves us, to find identity and unity through baptism of water and spirit fellowship, remembrance, and forgiveness through Eucharist, and to seek the life eternal.

Peace

Circling the Well

2009-09-07T10:56:00.001-05:00

It's been an uncommonly long time since my last posting. What I've had to say was better said in other venues.

Likewise, other concerns have distracted me from the wells of inspiration that I've relied upon for content in this blog. I've had little time for the study of Greek, or for reading the New Testament in the language in which it was written. Little time for free study. Little time for reflection.

And war, endless war, oppresses me. A few days before my daughter's wedding, her high-school boyfriend and his wife and daughter stopped by. He was visiting family during his pre-deployment leave; he's now in Iraq. And the politics of our country have long stopped to be about moving us forward as a nation in justice and prosperity. Our belief in "mission accomplished" on January 20th has proved to be as evanescent as that of earlier claim.

War, endless war, stands between us and peace and justice. War with bullets and explosive devices. War with words, both written and spoken. War with filibusters, votes, and vetoes. War fought for money. War fought for pride. War fought with ignorance. War fought with lies.

Yet the Peace of the Lord will overcome war. Endless war will give way to eternal peace. Truth will outlive lies, and knowledge of God will triumph over ignorance. God's love acting in and through us will vanquish pride. We will know war no more.

Come, Lord Jesus, Come.

Peace

Martin and Teresa

2009-08-25T21:36:00.001-05:00

Over on Kirby's blog, in the midst of a peculiar discussion of what Martin Luther believed, jh asked, “what would luther have said regarding mother theresa of calcutta.” I begged for more time, because I don't think this is an easy question, and I think it deserves a careful answer. And part of the complication, which I'll acknowledge, is that jh is himself a monk, and therefore imbedded in his question, intentionally or not, is a more than a little bit of “what would Luther think of me?” I'd like to give answers (to the former explicitly, to the later implicitly) that are both sensitive and accurate.

The big complication in the case of Mother Teresa, and a major part of the reason that I asked for time to research and think, has to do with revelations of the spiritual “emptiness” that silently dominated the last half-century of her life. This engages a major theological concern of Luther, albeit in an extraordinary way.

My approach to this question will be to view Mother Teresa of Calcutta from three different perspectives, each of which aligns with particular Lutheran concerns, and in order from greater certainty to lesser how I think Luther would have reacted to each.

Good Works

Mother Teresa is known for her work in Calcutta, attending to the sick and dying, and eventually to orphans as well. Teresa has received many honors from her work, from both temporal and religious authorities.

Luther surely would have applauded Teresa's good works. His concern about good works was that many of the people of the day felt that they needed to earn their way into heaven through good works, and that this was an impossible obligation. Indeed, he'd have vehemently rejected the possibility that even Teresa's good works were adequate in and of themselves to earn salvation. But Teresa never said they were. She didn't do good works to get into heaven, she did good works because she felt a very specific “call within the call,” and so her good works were a direct response to faith. Luther would have approved.

Teresa's calling as a Nun

The Augsburg confession is divided into two major parts. The first part consisted of a summary of basic theological commitments that the German princes thought were relatively non-controversial, the “Chief Articles of Faith.” They were wrong—the Catholics found plenty in that part to object to. The second part, “Disputed Articles, Listing the Abuses That Have Been Corrected” they knew would be controversial. Article XXVII, “Concerning Monastic Vows” belongs to the second part.

This article, in large part, sets up a distinction between monastic communities of Augustine's time (which were viewed favorably), with the monastic communities of Luther's day. It seems to me that many of the particular concerns he had regarding the monastic communities of his day have been dealt with by subsequent reformers within the monastic orders, and he would only have minor concerns about contemporary communities.

A principle distinction was that monasticism during the Augustinian era was seen as a voluntary association of adults, whereas the sixteenth century communities (at least in Germany) were not. Instead, pre-pubescent children were coerced into giving final vows of chastity, long before they could give informed consent. And once these vows were given, the church was able to use the full authority of the state to enforce them as contracts. Teresa took final vows in her mid-20's, and was certainly willing and able at that point to give informed consent. Moreover, there is no evidence that I'm aware of that coercion played any role in Teresa's call to be a nun, or to remain a nun. The evidence seems quite to the contrary. Luther never denied the possibility that a person might be able to make and sustain a commitment to monastic service, and I believe he would have seen Teresa's call as valid, and her accepting of that call as honorable and laudable.

The reformers were also concerned that monasticism was presented as something superior to baptism. Remember that part of the theoretical justification for indulgences was supererogation, the notion that the church possessed a reserve of excess merit created by the monastic orders which it could dispense to those it chose. I don't see that this kind of consideration was relevant to Teresa, or indeed to the contemporary Catholic church more generally. Teresa was inspired by missionaries, and sought to emulate them as the most fulfilling kind of life for her. Again, I think Luther would have approved.

Indeed, Luther would have been greatly reassured by the temptations that Teresa experienced early in her special ministry to the dying to give up, and return to the monastery, and with Teresa's ability to withstand that temptation. Luther expected the virtuous to be tempted, and to have to struggle, but that through Christ's grace, they would persevere.

“Emptiness and Darkness”

No account of Mother Teresa's life can be complete without acknowledging the despair she felt for the last half-century of her life. The sense of the presence of God, which figured so prominently in her “call within a call” departed. And she felt a huge spiritual emptiness: no sense of the presence of God at all, “neither in her heart or in the eucharist.”

Luther felt that the works emphasis of the Catholicism of his day lead to despair. But while Teresa had the symptoms, she didn't have the disease. Her despair was not based on a fear that she wasn't doing enough, it was on the exceptional circumstance that the sense of the presence of God, once so powerful and life directing, was gone, leaving an unfillable void behind. I don't believe that Luther ever conceived of this possibility.

Certainly, he believed that the cure to existential crises over salvation was to embrace Christ's promises fervently and with confidence. Critics of Luther sometimes say that he's replaced the question of “have I done enough?,” with an even more problematic “have I believed fervently enough?,” not without justification. Teresa's experience would not have been easy for Luther to explain, or to handle within his system. I believe that Luther's own existential crises would have given him tremendous sympathy for Teresa. But I do not know how he would have judged her, and I cannot rule out the possibility that he'd have viewed her as condemned for her own lack of faith. I hope that someone who knows Luther's work more fully than I do can point to something that would rule this out.

A Concluding Thought

1 Kings 19:11-12 Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.

Teresa's experience is not unique among contemplatives. We're all familiar with St. John of the Cross's phrase, “the dark night of the soul.” This is what Teresa experienced. I cannot imagine how hard it must have been, yet she never departed from her “call within a call.” And although it would not have eased her pain to hear it, I believe that the LORD was in that sound of sheer silence in her soul.

Peace

Even When Steeples are Falling...

2009-08-22T17:25:00.001-05:00

As many of you know, the ELCA Assembly recently passed a social statement on human sexuality which condones monogamous same-sex relationships, and a separate measure that permits congregations to call pastors who are in monogamous same-sex relationships. It goes without saying that this has been a difficult time for my synod, and we face significant challenges.

The day this happened, a tornado blew the cross down at Central Minneapolis Lutheran, which is across the street from the main assembly, and in which some sessions had been held. Needless to say, this struck many who hold more conservative views on the matter as God having his say on the matter. Perhaps it is. But I was reminded of something else:

Built on the Rock the church doth stand, Even when steeples are falling; Crumbled have spires in e’ry land, Bells still are chiming and calling; Calling the young and old to rest, Calling the souls of men distressed, Longing for life everlasting. Not in our temples made with hands God, the almighty, is dwelling; High in the heav’ns his temple stands, All earthly temples excelling; Yet he who dwells in heav’n above Deigns to abide with us in love, Making our bodies his temple. We are God’s house of living stones, Built for his own habitations; He fills our hearts, his humble thrones, Granting us life and salvation; Were two or three to seek his face, He in their midst would show his grace, Blessings upon them bestowing. Amen.

We believe we are going where God is calling us. I hope you are where God is calling you to be, too.

Peace

The Beauty of Yellow Jackets

2009-08-20T19:12:00.001-05:00

So, I'm walking home from the train, my mind lost in thought, when all of a sudden, I get this electric pain in the back of my left calf. My legs and hands know what it is before my brain does. "Yow!!!" I find myself about 15 feet further down the sidewalk, looking back at a half-dozen or so yellow jackets flying in and out of a nest near where I was struck.

I suppose it's human nature to be angry at the yellow jackets, and certainly I don't appreciate the sting. But they are handsome insects, and the pain is nothing in comparison to value of the message: Be humble, you're not all that there is.

Peace

Heaven and Earth

2009-08-19T14:40:00.001-05:00

My pastor teaches the occasional adult study following a plan that he calls, “I've read this book, so you don't have to.” I usually read them anyway, surprising no-one. His current book is “Simply Christian,” by N. T. Wright. “Simply Christian” is a modern apologetic—a book whose primary purpose to make the case for Christianity to a non-Christian audience, but it's also enjoyable for any Christians who care to read it.

Wright defines heaven as the place where God lives, and earth as the place where man lives. Within the book, he describes three distinct options for explaining the relationship between heaven and earth. Let me outline his options:

Option 1: Pantheism

Pantheism identifies heaven and earth. Everything that is, is of God. This was a common belief in the pagan societies which Judaism encountered, and in some ways is a more fundamental commitment than the polytheism which often flows from it. The problem with pantheism is that it leaves you with the proposition that evil is of God too.

Wright also identifies a slightly less extreme version of this, which he calls panentheism—which holds that that God is present in everything. This weakening does not solve the fundamental problem of the relationship between God and evil.

Option 2: Deism

In deism, heaven and earth are entirely separate. God lives in God's place, and does not encounter, or even think very much, about humans. And we're in our place. We live, we die. The divine lives, but our paths do not cross. Deism was a common response to the enlightenment amongst the educated, even pre-Darwin. Many of the American forefathers were deists.

Option 3: Intersecting Heaven and Earth

The third option, which Wright identifies as the Jewish (and Christian) alternative in which heaven and earth are distinct, but overlapping. He points to the ancient Jewish understanding of the temple as a place where God lived, a specific location where heaven and earth were in contact; and to the Christian belief that our very bodies are temples of God.

My Reactions

There are certainly bits of option 1 present in Christianity, too. When we speak of God as omnipresent, what do we mean, if not option 1? And when we are in an especially receptive spiritual state, we actively perceive God in everything, sharing the experience that inspired our pagan ancestors. So it seems to me that Wright goes a bit too far when he labels option 3 as characteristic of Christianity.

But a couple of nights ago, I saw something that helped me in visualizing option 3 in a different way. Our congregation had an outing to the ballgame—White Sox against the Royals, Buehrle pitching for the good guys. But there was rain predicted for much of the day of the game. It was clear when we got together, and for the drive up to Comiskey (a.k.a., “The Cell”). But the rain came, delaying the start. When we got into the stands, the tarp was covering the infield.

A few minutes before the game started, the ground crew came out (to great applause) and began to roll up the tarp. As they folded the tarp in half, water and air together separated the top and bottom halves. As the ground crew walked across the tarp, the bubbles of air and water were displaced, and points of contact between the upper and lower halves were created, broken, and moved.

It seems to me that heaven and earth are like this. In a state of repose, heaven and earth are in contact everywhere. But sin has roiled our world—metaphorically injecting air and water between the layers, and breaking most points of contact between heaven and earth. God can chose to be in any place, just as the ground-crew can step anywhere and drive the air and water to other places. But he can't be everywhere at once without eliminating sin and its consequences.

I'd also like to emphasize that there is much more to “Simply Christian” than this. If this summarized argument holds any attraction, the book will draw you in.

Peace

So That's That...

2009-08-10T17:09:00.001-05:00

The wedding went off on Saturday with hardly a hitch. These are two young people who really belong together, and it was just a heck of a lot of fun.

We were privileged to have the use of the sanctuary at Ascension Lutheran Church (LCMS) of East Lansing, Michigan. Everyone at Ascension was amazingly welcoming and kind, and their church is both beautiful and filled with beautiful art.

The wedding was very traditional, presided over by our former Pastor who is now retired and living in Michigan. This Pastor confirmed our notoriously verbal, honest, and inquisitive daughter, so it was only fair that he had an opportunity to get in an uninterrupted last few words. We celebrated communion, which is unusual but not rare for weddings in the Lutheran Church.

The reception was likewise quite traditional, but did not feel stale. This was due in part to the venue, in part to the DJ, and more than anything else to tone set by the bride and the groom, their maid of honor and best man, and all the bridesmaids and groomsmen. Yes, we did the daddy-daughter dance to “Teach Your Children” by CSN&Y. Thanks again to GM for the suggestion!

There's an old joke in my family, about how in a wedding, you do not lose a daughter, you gain a bathroom. We feel as though we've gained a son, and a new set of wonderful relations from his side.

A curiosity of the Greek language is that there is not a separate word for ‘wedding’ and ‘marriage,’ as the word γάμος does duty for both. If the author wants to emphasize the celebration that marks the official beginning of a marriage, he'll include a form of the word γίνομαι, which has a tremendously long lexical entry which might be summarized by “comes into being by a natural process,” or more simply “be born,” as in the following familiar verse:

John 2:1 Καὶ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ τρίτῃ γάμος ἐγένετο ἐν Κανὰ τῆς Γαλιλαίας, καὶ ἦν ἡ μήτηρ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ ἐκεῖ·

John 2:1 On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.

γάμος ἐγένετο· ἁλληλουϊά.

Peace

Chaos in Life

2009-08-06T15:11:00.004-05:00

Our daughter—the bride—lives in Colorado. We live in Illinois. Therefore, naturally, the wedding is in Michigan, three and half hours away. One wedding, three states, three time zones. The groom's family is from Michigan, albeit a mere two and half hours further down the road.

On Tuesday, my wife and the maid of honor drove to the groom's parents for their shower, leaving me with a long list of paraphernalia to bring, everything from the bread she baked for communion at the wedding, to bubbles to chase the bride and groom from the church, to place labels and table favors for the reception. On Wednesday, I drove up the hotel with our son for the wedding, carefully making sure that everything on her list got packed. Check. Leaving my checkbook on my desk at home. Check. Not her fault—I should have had my own list.

So I'm thinking, can I do this without a checkbook? The credit card will get me pretty far, and they do have ATMs in Michigan. I should be o.k., assuming I haven't forgotten any bills that I can't cover on the charge card. My wife suggests that I call my folks, ask if they can bring a couple of checks just in case, and provide an emergency line of credit. I do, getting my Mom, who is well aware of the forgetful streak in our family, and with great good humor, she agrees to provide a backstop. What a relief! [One of her standard lines: Alzheimer's isn't detectable in my family—“they were always like that.”]

This morning, we took off after breakfast to pick up the tuxes. The groom is there with his best man, who's decided to surprise the groom by hijacking him for the day (Tiger's game, casino, etc.). Chaos in his life too. We run a few errands, including checking with the florist, getting the key for the church, etc. While we're at the church, I notice that they only have a few purificators (linen cloths used to wipe the edge of the chalices during communion), and we don't want to short the host congregation. This starts a minor quest for purificators (not something you find at Meijer's), which ends when the nice woman at the Potter's Vessel (a Catholic Church Supply company—they're out) points us to a local fabric store, where we pick up the appropriate raw materials.

While we're at the fabric store, I get a call from Mom. They were delayed flying out of Cincinnati (fuel problems on the connecting flight), and ended up on another flight. Unlike their luggage. So they're at the airport (an hour and half away, naturally), hoping the luggage will be on the next flight in. Maybe they'll be in for dinner, maybe not. Not the first time the luggage has gone AWOL, they know the drill. They'll be o.k.

We get back to our hotel room, to find the bride and her maid of honor crashed out. So my wife is now in the lobby, putting seams in the purificators, and talking to her mother and sister. I'm here quietly blogging, hoping to amuse friends I've never met, while waiting to hear from my folks, and wondering where the next curveball is coming from.

But life is good, and people I love are gathering here to celebrate a new union.

Peace

Update: Their luggage arrived, mysteriously, on the carousel with luggage from a flight from Salt Lake City, and they made it up in time for a (slightly delayed) dinner. The wedding party is off at the bar, and my wife and I spent much of the rest of the evening with my folks, and one of my wife's friends, carefully creasing the place holders along the perforations, and tearing them apart. Good times.

Unity

2009-08-02T16:55:00.001-05:00

GM asked for more translation posts. JA thinks I'm in over my head. Perfect! Let's try another.

Today's lectionary readings included Ephesians 4:1-16, which contains the familiar:

Ephesians 4:4-6 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.

We looked at this in adult education before service. My pastor commented on the repetition of “one,” and how powerfully this repetition drives home the unity of the Church. This alliteration, by the way, goes back at least as far as Tyndale's “Let ther be but one lorde one fayth one baptim.” So I took a quick look in Nestle-Aland, and here's the Greek:

Ephesians 4:4-6 Ἓν σῶμα καὶ ἓν πνεῦμα, καθὼς καὶ ἐκλήθητε ἐν μιᾷ ἐλπίδι τῆς κλήσεως ὑμῶν· εἷς κύριος, μία πίστις, ἓν βάπτισμα, εἷς θεὸς καὶ πατὴρ πάντων, ὁ ἐπὶ πάντων καὶ διὰ πάντων καὶ ἐν πᾶσιν.

There are a couple of things to notice here. The first is that Nestle-Aland (the Greek Text) sets this as poetry—fair enough. But the second is that the alliteration that is so powerful in the English isn't present in the Greek, because Greek is a declined language, and the form of the irregular adjective εἷς (heis) changes radically depending on the gender of the noun it modifies. In the critical, tight, confessional verse 5, it is εἷς—μία—ἓν, the masculine, feminine, and neuter singular forms respectively of the adjective “one.”

So here is my thought, and I'll grant that it's a stretch. While the alliteration of one—one—one isn't in the Greek, the sequence εἷς—μία—ἓν seems constructed too. And while it is certainly the case that humans love to impose imagined structure on top of randomness, I'm taking the position here that there are no accidents in poetry. Putting each of the genders of Greek in turn, as happens in verse 5, might be an allusion to a deeper union. Three-in-one.

So at this point, the mathematician in me takes over. What is the probability that a passage of three consecutive Greek nouns will hit all three genders? If we assume that each gender is equally likely, it's

3!/3³ = 2/9 ≈ 22%.

If we put in the actual distribution of masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns (243, 271, 111 resp.) in Ephesians, the probability estimate drops to 18%. Not compelling, not compelling at all. But suggestive.

My wife argued that the εἷς at the beginning of the 6th verse destroys the argument. Maybe. But I can easily accommodate this, as it looks to me as though the εἷς “closes the circle”: εἷς—μία—ἓν—εἷς. Hmm.

So, would a Greek ear hear this? Here I'll fully grant the justice of JA's disputing of my abilities and pretensions. I have no idea. But I like the thought, nevertheless.

Peace

An Anecdote

2009-07-31T20:13:00.001-05:00

OK, guys. On Friday nights, my wife and I often go out to the local Brewpub with friends. No big deal. Today, my daughter and her fiancé come in, earlier than I expect, and join us. No big deal. Another couple joins us too. No big deal. At the end of a pleasant meal, we divide the check, and I'm caught a bit short, because I hadn't expected the kids to come, and of course, daddy covers. No big deal. I apologize to my friends, collect the cash, and put the credit card in the holder. The waitress comes, and I pass the holder back to her. No card. Big deal!

My friends had seen me put the card in the holder, so its a mystery. We look under the table, around on the floor. I tear my wallet apart. My wife tears my wallet apart. No card. Now ordinarily, this is a problem, but something you work through. But this is also the card that I've used to guarantee the caterer at the reception for my daughter's wedding, a mere eight days (and 198 guests) hence. And I'm computing in my head, is there enough time to cancel the card, and get a new one. To explain to the caterer what the deal is, and to get everything sorted out. My chest is a bit tight at this point, as you can imagine!

About five minutes pass, as we lift the table, and generally make a scene of ourselves, figuring out trajectories, etc. Another waiter stops by, and suggests that sometimes the holders wear out, and the card falls through the pocket, into the holder itself. I check. Hallelujah! It's there. I am amazed, breathless, and thankful. What an evening!

Peace

The Goals of Debate

2009-07-30T08:02:00.001-05:00

Why do people participate in venues like this? Why do I write? Why do you read? Why do we enter into conversations through comments?

It seems to me to be too cynical to view blogs as interactive art: seductive, but ephemeral. No, I think we participate because we hope to learn, but even more to teach. We hope to be entertained, but even more to entertain. We seek community, but perhaps even more to establish our individuality. But we can become destructive when we get frustrated. Then we seek to sow confusion rather than knowledge, anger rather than entertainment, and to tear down others when we cannot build up ourselves. If I can't get what I want, then at least I can keep you from getting what you want!

Incivility is a consequence of frustration. Where does this frustration come from? I doubt there is a single cause, but it seems to me that a sense of powerlessness to meet our particular goals in debate is often a primary cause.

For example, we might enter a discussion hoping to convince the other participants of the rightness of a position we are strongly committed to. But the other participants come with their own experiences, their own prior beliefs, their own bound commitments. It may be the case that no matter how well informed our arguments are, or how artfully we've constructed them, no matter how passionately, how eloquently we argue, the other guy is not going to be budged. It is often at this point that we get frustrated. We realize that our goal—convincing the other guy—is not achievable, even in principle. What happens next is often not pretty. But does it need to be inevitable?

Tolerance matters. It is perfectly reasonable and appropriate to hope that our arguments will prevail; it is unreasonable to assume that when they don't, it is due to some character flaw in our opponents. It is often suggested by members of the left that intolerance is a characteristic of the right, and vice versa. Let me suggest instead that tolerance is a characteristic of maturity, and that immaturity correlates with both extremism and youth. The passing of youth is inevitable, but the passing from immaturity to maturity is not. Good examples, from both allies and opponents can help form maturity. We should aspire to be good examples.

I think we need to learn to accept secondary goals. If we cannot convince, then perhaps we can inform. Understanding isn't the same as agreement, but achieving understanding is rare enough and valuable enough to be a worthy goal in its own right. But there is a two way obligation here—if you want to be understood, you should be willing to understand the other guy's position too. You can understand without agreement, and there is nothing wrong with saying so. I understand your position, but I do not agree with it. Let us be at peace.

And I think that while we do well to understand differences, we do better when we acknowledge those things that hold in common: our humanity, our integrity, and our willingness to engage constructively with one another.

Peace

Civility

2009-07-27T18:56:00.001-05:00

I know that I'm a new kid on this block, but I've been around a few others. The truth is, public proclamation coupled with anonymity has been with us since the first graffiti (likely the equivalent of "Ogg smells!") appeared on a cave wall, and set the standard form and content of this sort of discourse.

When I was about ten years old, I saw a bit of doggerel in an outhouse:

Those who write on shithouse walls, roll their shit in little balls. Those who read these words of wit, eat those little balls of shit.

I had no problem finding this again via Google, exactly as I remembered it. It must have been all the rage in the mid-60s. It does speak a truth, though, that still applies. And what is the internet, but the world's most visible outhouse wall? As the preacher said:

Ecclesiastes 1:9-10 What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it is said, “See, this is new”? It has already been, in the ages before us.

Are we doomed? Must the rising tide of incivility drown us in moronic invective, bad speling, and ALL CAPS? Yeah, probably so. But there are things we can do to encourage civility, to reclaim our little corner of the world for passionate discourse with civility. It's not easy, but I do have a few concrete recommendations.

You can't advance the cause of civility by incivility. It seems obvious enough, but how many times have you seen someone try to shut up an obnoxious antagonist by insulting them? Usually their antagonist reciprocates, sometimes they just go away. But either way, the venue is brutalized.
The hair-trigger on Alexander Hamilton's dueling pistols didn't work out so well for him. Having a hair-trigger isn't going to work out any better for you. Be slow to take insult. If things are getting heated, slow down. Delay your next post, and let everyone cool down a bit. Be explicit in giving your opponent time to reconsider, and perhaps amend or withdraw his words.
Admit it when you're wrong. It won't kill you, and it won't diminish your authority in debate. We all know folks who believe themselves to be always right on every question. Think about them for a bit. Yeah. Do you want to be that person?
Be eager to support today's opponent. Treat him with consideration and respect. Surprise him with consideration and respect. You must might find that he's tomorrow's friend.

I'd be happy to consider any additional suggestions to this little list. I suspect that there will be occasion to return to this topic from time to time, even in a venue whose very name is “peace.”

Peace

Metanoia

2009-07-25T10:36:00.001-05:00

Over on Kirby's blog, in response to a question by Emmy Bea, I noted Luther's dissatisfaction with Jerome's translation of the Greek word μετάνοια as penance, and to my surprise (but great pleasure), these remarks met with jh's approbation. Moreover, his note contained some additional remarks on the meaning of μετάνοια, and as I'd had some similar thoughts, I'd like to develop this a bit further, to three distinct ends:

I believe the question of how to properly understand the concept of μετάνοια, as Paul intended, is important.
The issue of how best to translate μετάνοια is illustrative of the difficulties translators face, and why the hope for a “perfect” translation is misguided.
I see in this a good opportunity to develop the faith/works discussion, in a way that I hope is less bound by a priori stereotypes, and which I hope will make the Lutheran position more comprehensible to people with a Catholic mindset. Please note that I'm merely hoping to explain, not to win any arguments.

Μετάνοια

So let's recall the starting point. In Romans 2:1ff, Paul is talking about divine judgment, the consequences of sin, and he touches on the transformative effect of God's love. Let me mash up a bit of English NRSV and Greek:

Romans 2:4b Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to μετάνοια?

Jerome's choice of translating μετάνοια as penance was unfortunate, and Luther's choice of repentance was better, but it does not feel perfect. I believe that the imperfection is in that both Jerome and Luther translated μετάνοια in terms of the consequences of the transformation, rather than in terms of the nature of the transformation, and I believe Paul was talking more about the nature of the transformation.

According to BDAG, the base meaning is “primarily a change of mind,” and suggested translational phrases are “repentance, turning about, conversion.” It is worth noting that the roots are μετά + νοῦς. “Meta” is a proposition, the translation of which is always tricky and beset with language specific idioms, whereas “nous” refers to “mind, intellect, understanding, way of thinking, attitude” etc.

jh raised up phrases like, “turning toward,” “seeking understanding and love,” and even the analogy of lovers making up after a spat. I think these truly are at the heart of the matter.

The classic Lutheran understanding of sin is separation from God. What does God want? He wants relationship. He wants his love for us to be mirrored in our love for him and one another. To place this in terms of jh's suggestions, in sin, we have turned away from God. His kindness is meant to turn us back. This is indeed the making up of lovers after a spat, where the lovers are God and us.

Is this really all there is? Does God really require nothing more of us when we fail than that we return to him? In a word, yes. But to stop with that one word is immature.

It is in understanding the steps that a mature Christian makes after turning back towards God that Luther's word choice and Jerome's come into play.

A mature Christian will acknowledge the reality of their actions, that they were in fact the actor, and that God did not intend for them to act this way. They will acknowledge the consequences of their actions. They will feel regret. This is where Luther's choice of repentance hits the nail on the head. Maybe not quite the nail that Paul intended, but on the head, nevertheless.

The second thing a mature Christian will do is to take responsibility for their actions, and this means that they will do what they can to repair the brokenness that they have brought into God's creation. Often, our actions have injured others, and an appropriate step is to make restitution to that person—to make them whole. This is where Jerome not only swung at the wrong nail, he missed it. The focus on penance is a focus on punishment, not restoration of either the sinner or the injured. And as this came to be interpreted, it had the effect of transferred the restitution from the injured party to the church, so that the consequences of sinful acts remained uncorrected, the brokenness unrepaired.

Translation

It simply isn't possible to fit a discussion like that above into a single word choice, yet translators do not have the luxury of interposing explanatory paragraphs into the midst of their translations. Even the standard mechanism of footnotes is inadequate for even a brief discussion along the lines that I've given above. Such discussions are necessarily relegated to commentaries, or perhaps to translator's notes. Translators have to pick a word, or at most a short phrase, recognizing that their choices will tend to miss some of the nuances of the original, perhaps emphasizing this part a bit more, and that part a bit less. They have to trust that their work will not stand alone, but will be supported by others.

It is worth reflecting here on the specific kind of choice involved. Will a translator try for a translation in which there is a tight correspondence between the words in their original, and the words in their translation? If so, simply using the word “change” would have been an excellent choice.

Or does the translator allow themselves word choices that draw the reader further down the theological path that they believed that the author intended? This is the kind of choice that both Luther and Jerome made in wrestling with Romans 2:4. It is a reasonable thing to do.

Or does the translator allow themselves greater freedom, and forsake a word-for-word translation in favor of a freer translation, which they hope will nevertheless come closer to the author's original intent? Here, “change of heart,” rather than a more literal “change” or “change of mind” might have been suitable. The Message is a good exemplar of a translation that is made in this style.

I practice, no translation is going to follow a pure strategy. All translations will make choices that favor literal readings in some places, and sense readings in other. I believe it is important to understand the translation philosophy of whatever English-language bible you have, and very useful to look at multiple translations which follow different strategies in doing deeper Bible studies.

But I think that it is both wrong and unhelpful to say that one strategy is right and another is wrong. All of these strategies are trying to convey the original, they just do so with different priorities regarding the tradeoffs that must be met. If you want a book that fully conveys all the nuances of the original, you have to read the original.

Faith vs. Works

The debate over faith vs. works has resulted in much oversimplification of the Lutheran side, and perhaps of the Catholic side as well. The Lutheran side is often reduced to "salvation by grace through faith," or "sola fides, sola gratia, solus Christus." [Lutherans, by the way, do not affirm "sola scriptura," although some Protestants do, and this leads to confusion.] Often, the Lutherans themselves have done the reduction. But the notion that Lutherans don't value or understand works is incorrect, they've simply transferred the point in their theology to which works are attached, and thereby transposed the Catholic understanding of the causative relationship between works and salvation.

In the Lutheran view, our works don't save us, and can't save us. Only God working on and through us can save us.

But once are saved, how then do we live? What is the nature of Christian life? What are its obligations? How do we respond to this great gift that God has given us?

The gift that we are given is the gift we must return: love. And the remarkable thing about this is that giving love does not diminish our store of love, it increases it. It is only by hoarding this treasure that we risk losing it. It is in living a Christian life that we should find good works, not as a means of salvation, but as a joyful response to salvation. And mature Lutherans can read James with appreciation, nod our heads, and agree: if you claim you have faith, but you're not moved to share God's love for all of us with your fellow man, and you're not moved to ease the pain and suffering of the world, then what sort of faith do you have? We are not saved by knowledge of doctrine, as even the devil has a knowledge of history and of the nature of God. We are saved by grace through faith, and in particular by a faith that transforms us.

And I think in this, there is actually very little difference between the Lutheran and Catholic positions as regards the sort of life that Christians should lead. The disagreement is really just this: are we saved because of our good works, or do we do good works because we're saved? Either way, we have both salvation and good works. I believe that much would be gained by consciously embracing our agreements, instead of just obsessing over our disagreements.

Peace

What Song?

2009-07-23T18:51:00.001-05:00

A text message from my daughter, who will be married in 2 1/2 weeks, “What song for the daddy daughter dance?”

I don't know.

I've spent a good part of the afternoon looking. Most love-ish songs are inappropriate: let's jump in the sack, or I'm going to pine away now that you're gone. I like almost everything, except country. She likes almost everything, especially country. And I don't do maudlin, although that's the best way to describe my feelings during this afternoon's exercise.

Here are my current thoughts:

Turn! Turn! Turn!, The Byrds.
La Chanson de Claudine, Mason Williams.
Walk Away Renée, The Four Seasons.

I like the songs, none of them seem quite right. I've looked at a few websites, and was a bit surprised to find “Landslide.” I love the song, but doubt the appropriateness. My daughter told me a few days ago that “Butterfly Kisses” is popular, which to me is an argument against. And it violates the maudlin stipulation.

It's enough to make me think that writing the checks is going to be the easy part.

Anyway, serious suggestions would be gratefully received.

Peace

Fifty-five

2009-07-22T16:46:00.001-05:00

There are two kinds of drivers in this country: people who admit that they speed, and liars. This is a perfect model for a fallen humanity:

When we learn to drive, we're taught that we should "drive the limit," as if the boundary between legality and illegality, the very nexus of temptation, is the safest place to be.
We all know that we're safest, and will get to where we're going the quickest, if we're all going the same speed, so the traffic flows. We all know that the intended purpose of the speed limit sign is to establish a common and sensible convention for what that speed should be. Yet unless limited by traffic, it is a rare road where the average speed is less than five over. The temptation to go just a bit faster than the people around you is always present, as is shame at the thought that we might be the slowest person on the road.
The moment we see a police car, we all engage in the quiet hypocrisy of slowing down, and trying to look innocent. The police aren't fooled, they're just looking for even bolder (or younger, or blacker) sinners. We're ashamed if we don't sin, and even more ashamed if we get caught! And, of course, when the policeman tires of the hunt and decides to go home, he does so at a speed that would instantly earn him a ticket from himself, if he was anyone else.

For my part, I'd prefer to just set the cruise control at the speed limit, and not worry about whether or not there's a policeman three tickets behind this month's quota waiting around the turn. On four lane roads in the country, this is actually a feasible strategy. And when I do it, almost invariably, I pick up a tail of followers, all happy enough to be "legal," so long as they're not in the lead.

Try this on westbound I-80/94, heading into the city on a Friday evening, though, and you'll get killed. And this isn't hyperbole for "some nasty truckers are going to honk their horn at you." It's a euphemism—your death is going to inconvenience the local fire department.

So we make laws for our own protection, knowing that we are going to break them. We see crosses along side of the road, and know that there are parents or spouses who grieve over the lost, but we can't read the names because we're going by too fast. And we think we can save ourselves.

Peace

City Life, Country Life

2009-07-21T19:15:00.001-05:00

One of the deepest divisions in contemporary America is that between urban and rural society. There is really no getting around this: the typical life experiences associated with these two subcultures are quite different, and people from one subculture often look at people from the other with incomprehension, or even hostility.

It is not my purpose here to summarize the differences between the two, but I do want to set out a minor prescription for improving understanding, and to explore one particular issue where these two subcultures are at odds with one another.

My prescription is simple: people should spend a significant amount of time living the life of the other subculture. Here I do not mean playing the tourist, but instead trying to find a way to truly live within the other community long enough to understand and be influenced by its values. I recognize that this is not an easy prescription, and I don't have any great ideas how to implement it generally, I just know that my life has provided me this opportunity, and with it a valuable perspective.

I should be clear here, that although I identify more strongly with the urban side of this divide, I think it is more common for rural folks to have some experience of city ways than conversely.

The issue I want to address is guns.

From an urban perspective, guns bring death. The urban experience involves a fair amount of potential friction each day, but also help fairly close at hand. The problem is that potential friction can become real friction fairly quickly, and that guns act on much shorter time scales than police response.

From the rural perspective, guns are part of the culture. They can be a means to obtaining food, as well as a significant and satisfying challenge to master. Guns can be a basis for friendly competition (as is often witnessed by road markers). Also, in an area where family is often near, but other help is often far away, guns can be a significant contributor to both perceived and real security.

We tend to approach matters as if the law for one must be the law for all. In general, I agree with this precept, but misapplication of this principle in the case of guns is making life more difficult. We would all be better served with stronger gun control in urban areas, and more flexibility in rural areas. And indeed the law is still the same for all, for each can chose to live in one environment or the other. This is not a issue where we should be counting votes, but instead we should be showing proper consideration to one another, and to the real differences between city and country life, rather than trying to impose an artificial uniformity that serves neither well.

Peace

Sexual Ethics, III

2009-07-20T20:46:00.001-05:00

In earlier postings, I've tried to understand how God wants us to use the gift of sexuality. I recognize that my particular position is conservative in some respects, and liberal in others, and probably doesn't suit anyone but myself. So it goes.

In this posting, I want to understand how we as Church deal with individuals who fail to use sexually according to God's wishes.

Promiscuity

This one is relatively easy, from a theoretical point of view:

1 Corinthians 5:9-13 I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral persons—not at all meaning the immoral of this world, or the greedy and robbers, or idolaters, since you would then need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother or sister who is sexually immoral or greedy, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or robber. Do not even eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging those outside? Is it not those who are inside that you are to judge? God will judge those outside. “Drive out the wicked person from among you.”

There are, of course, practical problems. Although some fornicators (i.e., braggarts) self-report, this can't be relied on. Suspicions may form an adequate basis for proposing counseling, but they're inadequate to initiate church discipline. In particular, the biblical standard (cf., Num 35:30, Matt 18:16, 2 Cor 13:1) requires two or more witnesses, and as fornication is generally done in private with an equally guilty partner, any witnesses would be implicating themselves as well.

Thus, congregations who take this seriously have generally limited themselves to hounding out couples who are publicly “living together” without the benefit of marriage (or engagement, depending on interpretation). But this seems to misdirected. Couples who are living together are (it is to be hoped, at least) in the midst of forming a pair-bond/union. And this isn't what we ordinarily mean by a fornicator, which would be someone who has sexual relations outside of a relationship that could reasonably be expected to mature into long-term pair-bond/union, e.g., someone who has multiple partners within a relatively short period of time.

The imperative to forgive makes dealing with sinners in the church problematic, fornicators included. We want to believe that repentance is possible; we want to be receptive to God acting in the sinner to heal and reform them. When asked how often we should forgive, Jesus once said seventy-seven times. Undoubtedly there are fornicators who would exceed even this limit, but I don't believe that Jesus's intent was for us to keep score. It seems that about the best we can do is to throw notorious fornicators out, let a reasonable time (e.g.., a year, which is roughly equal to 1/77ths of a normal human lifespan) pass for reflection, and then let them petition for re-entry by providing evidence of repentance.

Divorce

It would seem the divorce is much like promiscuity in terms of church discipline, but it actually seems quite different. In my confession (ELCA) divorce/remarriage is discouraged, but not necessarily viewed as a disciplinary matter, although I suspect a pattern of divorce and remarriage would be. I suppose that the theory here is that the church should be present for all, and what matters is that people are making a good-faith effort in the relationships that they're in. A curious reality of confessions that do not excommunicate for divorce is that rarely do you see both members of a divorced couple remain in the same congregation. Almost invariably, one stays, and one goes.

In other confessions, e.g., the Catholic Church, the remarriage is illicit and grounds for automatic excommunication, and the only paths back into the church are annulment of the original marriage, or re-establishment of the original, broken marriage. To an outsider, the practice of annulment feels like selective justice—a remedy whose availability may depend as much on who you know, or how much you're willing to contribute, rather than any objective analysis of the original "marriage." It is important not to prejudge the Catholic Church for how it handles this situation, but I think also useful to be honest about how that process is sometimes perceived, even by people whose predilection is to give the Catholic Church every benefit of doubt.

Here again, I could imagine a church that handled divorce along the lines that I suggested for simple promiscuity: an appropriate period of separation for reflection and amendment, and then an opportunity to rejoin under the status quo. I am not aware of any church that handles the issue this way.

Clergy Sexual Misconduct

This is a difficult issue, which is often associated in the public mind with the Roman Catholic Church. This is grossly unfair, as every church has had to deal with this problem.

The way various church bodies have chosen to react depends a lot on the framing of the problem. I've heard of two extraordinarily different framings. I know that there are others.

Abuse of Power This framing holds that clergy sexual misconduct occurs through an abuse of power by the clergy member, who holds the office of the keys in some confessions, and is the personal representative of God in others. The model come-on line in such cases is "God wants us to be together," through which a clergy member leverages their spiritual role into an intimate role.

Enticement This framing holds that clergy become involved in sexual relationships because someone whom they are counseling exploits the clergy member's empathy.

I suppose we are all constrained by our experiences. I ended up on my local synod's advisory committee for women, and as such, was sent as a synodical representative to the original VOCAL conference (Victims of Clergy Abuse Link-up) in '92. While there, I heard a number of presentations by individuals who had been involved sexually with clergy, and felt abused by it. Surprisingly often, two such victims would discover with shock that they'd had the same clergy "partner." These stories had an authenticity, and as such a tremendous impact on all who heard them. I also heard Marie Fortune give a very powerful talk on power relations and sexual misconduct. This made a powerful impression on me, because it provided a strong theoretical way to understand issues of faculty/student sexual relationships, and what felt instinctively wrong to me about them, too.

So, obviously enough, I came to favor the first framing, and still do. True consent is only possible in a context in which there is not a strong asymmetry of power within the relationship. Obviously, clergy hold power over their flock, just as professors hold power over their students. True consent is not possible in either case. This often puts me at odds with some of my colleagues (who would structure University policies so as to provide licit means for faculty/student relationships). Moreover, what I've read, reinforced with the "victim's reunions" I observed at VOCAL, made it clear to me that the recidivism rate among clergy who have abused their flock is quite high, and that it is extraordinarily difficult even for leaders of good will and discernment to reliably determine who has been "rehabilitated," and who has not.

It seems to me that we should, in a spirit of Christian forgiveness, provide an opportunity for clergy who have so transgressed to return to the church, but there is no reason any confession should accept the risks associated with their continuance in ministry. I recognize that this creates a particular problems for confessions (such as the Catholics) which interpret ordination as sacramental, but this is how it must be for the safety of all, and for the integrity with which the gospel is preached and the sacraments offered.

This sort of consideration, by the way, is a good part of the reason why I would never choose to be a part of any "independent" congregation. It seems to me that clergy discipline can only be maintained in the presence of a synodical structure. And it is a matter of concern to me that the bishops (and here I mean in the Lutheran Church, as well as other confessions) are often expected to be administrators more than pastoral leaders in their own right. For it is the bishop's primary function to be a pastor to the clergy who serve under them.

Peace

Fruits of Ecumenism

2009-07-19T22:26:00.001-05:00

The ELCA is in full pulpit and altar fellowship with the Episcopalian Church, i.e., a congregation of either confession can call a pastor/priest from the other. I've thought this was a hypothetical adjunct to the ecumenical process, but no longer—I have a concrete instance of this having been done, and the person so called is an long-time (I would not say "old"...) and dear friend.

He was called jointly to two congregations, an ELCA congregation and an Episcopalian congregation in the same town. It's an area of great natural beauty, and a sizable proportion of the people who live in the area do so only during the summer. A joint call represents a great solution to their joint challenges.

Ordinarily, the congregations worship separately, but my wife and I were privileged to attend the first service at which they worshipped together. The Episcopalian congregation had previously arranged to hold their picnic at a local park. They decided to have the worship service as a part of that picnic, and to invite the Lutherans to both. So we worshipped in the Episcopalian style in a beautiful park overlooking an inland sea, and later enjoyed a very lovely church picnic, with Episcopalian brats and hamburgers. A great time was had by all, and I've heard that the Lutherans have plans to reciprocate.

The challenges of such a situation are worth reflecting on, but I find it delightful that these two congregations can now see the essential unity that they have as Churches of Jesus Christ, while retaining the ability hold on to and enjoy their distinctive traditions. This may be even better than union.

Peace

Sexual Ethics, II

2009-07-15T18:36:00.001-05:00

Marriage

At the center of Paul message (in the undisputed letters, anyway) is the radical equality of all who live in Christ. While there are good texts to this effect in 1st Corinthians (e.g., 1 Cor 12:14-26), the classic expression of this radical equality comes from Galatians:

Galatians 3:27-28 As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

I think it is important to really get this. Paul was not merely talking about a safe theoretical equality that doesn't require us to do anything differently—we're all the same before God—nor an equality that was limited to what happened within the congregation and its worship—slave, within these walls, you're my brother! He was creating a new society, a society in which everyone is equal, everyone is valued, and everyone is loved. As you read through 1st Corinthians, you'll see over and over again that Paul is battling the Corinthians' tendency to revert from his egalitarian vision to the norms of Roman society: divisions, food sacrificed to idols, sexual exploitation, the privileges of the rich, etc. And nowhere in the day-to-day life of a society are its norms more frequently encountered, or more rigorously enforced, than within marriage.

Roman society was built around the notion of power, the notion that some people had the right to do certain things to certain other people, or make those others do things for them. For the Roman, the law existed to define who had power, justice consisted of the unfettered application of the rights of power, and the legions existed to deal with anyone who resisted the perquisites of power. Within Roman marriage, men held power, and women did not. It was really that simple. The woman's role was to serve the man, and to be used by the man. Whatever power the woman had, e.g., over the domestic economy of the house, was delegated to her by the man, and the man could take that power away, or even cast her away entirely, if he chose. Women had no corresponding rights. In effect, women were property.

Christian society, as envisioned by Paul, is based on love, and radical equality. A Christian marriage is not built on power, nor even partnership, but union and love. Such high standards are difficult to obtain, especially when applied retroactively to marriages that formed under the old rules. Clearly the Corinthians struggled with this, at least this is the best explanation that I've heard for the following:

1 Corinthians 11:1-16 I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions just as I handed them on to you. But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the husband is the head of his wife, and God is the head of Christ. Any man who prays or prophesies with something on his head disgraces his head, but any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled disgraces her head—it is one and the same thing as having her head shaved. For if a woman will not veil herself, then she should cut off her hair; but if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut off or to be shaved, she should wear a veil. For a man ought not to have his head veiled, since he is the image and reflection of God; but woman is the reflection of man. Indeed, man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for the sake of woman, but woman for the sake of man. For this reason a woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels. Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man or man independent of woman. For just as woman came from man, so man comes through woman; but all things come from God. Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head unveiled? Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair, it is degrading to him, but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For her hair is given to her for a covering. But if anyone is disposed to be contentious—we have no such custom, nor do the churches of God.

The claim (and this comes from Borg & Crossan) is that married women were using their new freedom in Christ to practice celibacy, and shedding their veils amounted to a public proclamation of this choice. Understandably, both the choice of celibacy and even more so the advertising thereof would have been deeply shaming to their husbands. But there is nothing new here. How many times have we heard about the abuse of a new freedom? It takes time and experience to learn to use any freedom responsibly and well. It is no wonder that the Corinthians struggled.

I do not doubt that there were loving unions in ancient times, just as there are abusive marriages today. But societal norms change. Sadly, the sense of radical equality advanced by Paul was lost as church and empire compromised with one another. It seems to me that the church, contrary to Paul's teaching, took upon itself the role ensuring that a woman's place in marriage was one of subjugation. This has changed in some of our churches, but not all.

It seems hypocritical to me that some churches decry the damage that has been done to the institution of marriage by the sexual revolution, when they've done far greater damage themselves by preaching and defending an unhealthy (Roman) view of marriage against a healthy (Pauline) view. Indeed, I believe that the sexual revolution has resulted not in a decline of marriage, so much as a winnowing of marriage, with healthy marriages encouraged and deepened, and diseased marriages healed or euthanized.

Homosexuality

I know that my readers are eager to continue the discussion of homosexuality, and Paul's apparent condemnation thereof, which began in Can't Anyone Here Play This Game. I'm sure that you'll all remember the distinction between μαλακός and ἀρσενοκοίτης in 1 Cor 6:9, and the observation from BDAG that what is condemned here are catamite (man/boy) relationships.

I came across an amusing source a few months ago, “Orgy Planner Wanted” on the remainder shelf at Powell's. (For the cognoscenti, that would be the original Powell's, on 57th Street, next to the Metra station.) This book does a fairly broad survey of occupations and lifestyles in the Roman world. It's written in a generally light and humorous style, and therefore is the kind of book that one hesitates to bring up in serious conversation. But it was great train reading, and offered some fascinating information that I think gives tremendous insight into why Paul condemned this particular kind of relationship.

In the Roman (and Greek) world, male-on-male sexual activity occurred between relatively rich men, and vulnerable young boys. Sometimes, this was a simple money-for-sex transaction (i.e., male prostitution), and sometimes it grew out of ‘mentoring’ where an older man would “take an interest” in a young boy. I suspect you already knew this.

But here are some particulars that you might not have known.

These were inevitably temporary relationships, even in the ‘mentoring’ case: the emergence of facial hair changed the older man's feelings towards the younger from desire to disgust. So the boys we're talking about here would have been roughly between the ages of 9 and 15. We all know how Paul felt about intercourse: it created a life-long union through the merger of two into one flesh. Moreover, the older man would have himself already been married, and therefore this was not only a promiscuous union, it was also adulterous.

If it became known in these societies that a male was anal-receptive, then they would lose their citizenship (if they had it). Moreover, they would be taken, stripped, have a radish shoved up their anus with the leaves hanging out, and paraded through town so that everyone knew. There was no corresponding lost of stature for older, penetrating male: Hey, if you want to bonk boys, that's fine by us, just let us know when you find one who's willing, so that everyone can get in on the fun! Thus, a catamite relationship incurred great risks for the boy. If discovered, he was invariably reduced to male prostitution until puberty, and then slavery or death. There was no path to re-entry to society.

So these relationships, practically by definition, were temporary, promiscuous, adulterous, inequitable, and exposed the vulnerable partner to catastrophic risks. You hardly need to get into the ‘ick’ factor to understand why Paul would have opposed such relationships: our obligation as Christians is to support and lift up one another, not to exploit or degrade one another; moreover, we should recognize ourselves as the vessel of God that we are, and not consent to our own degradation.

Finally, I'd like you to consider the following—that other “proof text against homosexuality” from Paul, in light of this discussion:

Romans 1:26-27 For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.

How many times have you read or hear this, and heard in the last line that the crime was the punishment? On one hand, this seems ludicrous, if homosexual sex is the punishment for homosexual sex, then I suspect that most gay guys would say, bring it on! What's the problem here? And why does the church insist on adding other punishments to those that God has already imposed? Perhaps it's a bit different if you imagine a young boy, sick with pain and humiliation as he is marched through the marketplace, naked, with a radish up his ass and its leaves trailing behind like a tail.

The Greek text, by the way, reads “ἄρσενες ἐν ἄρσεσιν,” literally, “males in males,” which is a good deal more explicit than our squeamish English translations. But what I want to call your attention to is Paul's choice of ἄρσην (male) rather than ἀνήρ (man). Every modern English Bible I have except for HCSB translates ἄρσενες in Romans 1:27 as ‘men,’ which bends the underlying meaning so that it seems targeted against homosexuality as we understand it today, whereas Paul's particular word choice conveys maleness, without conveying adult. It seems particularly worth noting given that Paul uses ἀνήρ forty-three times in the consensus epistles, and ἄρσην only four times—three times in this very verse—so Paul's word choice is very much an intentional choice to convey a nuance that the standard English translations (I suspected equally intentionally) obscure.

So how should we regard modern homosexuality, which is very different from the catamite relationships Paul condemned? Note here that promiscuity is certainly sinful, and nothing that I've written should be taken as supportive of promiscuity, irrespective of sexual orientation. But we also know of dedicated same-sex partnerships that have essentially all of the attributes of healthy Pauline marriages (modulo plumbing): they represent true unions, in which two faithful partners chose to live lives together, sharing joys and sorrows for so long as both live. How should we react to these relationships? Shall judge them by the old taboos, even distorting scripture to do so? Or shall we consider how such relationships impact the people who enter into them?

Matthew 7:18-20 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits.

So here at last is the answer. If the fruit is good, so too is the tree that it came from. Lifestyles that support the life and health of the participants, which lift them up, should be supported. Lifestyles that cheapen life, or damage the health of people involved, should be opposed. So put down that cheeseburger, get some exercise, love and serve the people around you, and if you have a partner, give them a good squeeze so that they know that they are loved too.

Peace

A Zwischenzug—Paul

2009-07-14T22:11:00.001-05:00

Paul. That's what this post is going to be about—Paul. I'd hoped to get into his radical reinterpretation of marriage, and a discussion of his comments (specifically in 1st Corinthians) regarding same-gender sexuality, but this preliminary discussion of Paul has proven to be quite lengthy, so we'll put those discussions off for tomorrow and beyond.

Although we know a lot about Paul from his letters, it would be helpful if we knew more, because what we don't know raises some interesting questions of interpretation. I'd like to start from a somewhat conservative stance regarding Paul—I will give him the benefit of the doubt when it comes to what he reveals about himself 1st Corinthians (and other consensus letters), and will consider evidence from other sources (disputed letters, Acts).

A key initial question regards Paul's own sexual history, because the more we know about this, the easier it is to evaluate what he has to say. We know that Paul was unmarried at the time he wrote 1st Corinthians [1 Cor 7:8]. He also wrote, “It is well for a man not to touch a woman [1 Cor 7:1].” He implies very strongly that he is a practicing celibate, but also that he views the ability to practice celibacy as a gift that not all are given [1 Cor 7:7]. Regarding Paul's celibacy, there are three theories that I am aware of:

Paul was a life-long celibate.
Paul was a widow, who chose not to remarry.
Paul was a non-practicing homosexual.

In favor of option 1 is both Paul's language of ‘gift,’ and the lack of reference to a wife in Paul's letters. This option is sometimes favored by those called to a life of celibacy themselves.

Option 3 is sometimes favored by gay theologians and their supporters. It provides an explanation for both Paul's celibacy (acting on homosexual urges would have been so contrary to his beliefs as to destroy him spiritually), and also a framework for discounting his remarks on homosexuality (“Methinks thou dost protest too much...”). Finally, consider this:

Romans 1:18-27 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse; for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools; and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles.

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.

This is worth reading carefully. Paul presents “degrading passions” as God's punishment upon those who “by their wickedness suppress the truth” about God. Paul, as Saul, persecuted the early church, and perhaps he integrated his own desire for sexual contact with men by viewing it as punishment for this phase of his life. Likewise, Paul's description of male-on-male sexual activity seems a bit too explicit: who but gay people think that much about the mechanics of gay sex? It seems to me that these are attractive arguments, if less than compelling.

Finally, we come to option 2. I've heard the claim that Acts attributes a wife to Paul, but I haven't found an unambiguous proof text, and even if I did, I'd discount it without confirmation in Paul's own writing. But I do find some evidence for this proposition in 1st Corinthians. First we have this:

1 Corinthians 9:5 Do we not have the right to be accompanied by a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?

Doesn't this sound like a widower who still mourns his wife, and feels aggrieved that she's been taken from him? And his complaint to the Corinthians on this topic seems a bit misplaced, as I can hardly imagine that they would have objected to him getting married. But what if his beloved (and believing) wife died while accompanying Paul on his missions? Then their gain would have been inextricably tied to his loss, and him addressing this complaint to them is a bit easier to understand.

Also curious is his discussion about entering into marriage:

1 Corinthians 7:8-9 To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain unmarried as I am. But if they are not practicing self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion.

Note who can marry, if they cannot practice self-control: the unmarried and widows. Note a missing category? Widowers.

So, perhaps surprisingly, I tentatively favor a “romantic” theory of Paul's sexuality, which builds on option 2: He was married, and had a wife that he loved deeply. His marriage was unusually equitable for his time and place, and his radical views on equality were based on how his own marriage worked, and his esteem for the gifts and worth of women flowed from his esteem for his wife. His wife accompanied him on his early missionary journeys, but died before he started writing epistles. This may have even been causative: without a wife to talk to, maybe he turned to cathartic letter writing. Finally, I suspect that Paul did not believe in remarriage. This ties into slightly later Montanist beliefs that favored celibacy and denied remarriage (c.f. Tertullian). It is worth remembering that the Montanists were distinctly more Pauline than the Roman church of their era, and moreover were based in Asia Minor, where much of Paul's missionary activity took place.

This is perhaps easiest to understand if placed in contrast with one of the relatively few teachings on marriage that we find in the Gospels:

Mark 12:18-25 Some Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him and asked him a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that ‘if a man's brother dies, leaving a wife but no child, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother.‘ There were seven brothers; the first married and, when he died, left no children; and the second married her and died, leaving no children; and the third likewise; none of the seven left children. Last of all the woman herself died. In the resurrection whose wife will she be? For the seven had married her.”

Jesus said to them, “Is not this the reason you are wrong, that you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God? For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.

In this (and parallel passages in the other synoptics, plus Luke 20:34), Jesus says that marriages are part of our earthly existence, and will not be preserved into the afterlife. Contrast that with this:

1 Corinthians 6:15-17 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Should I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that whoever is united to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For it is said, “The two shall be one flesh.” But anyone united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.

In this, Paul stakes out a position that is about as far from Jesus's teaching as one can easily imagine. In it, Paul views sexual activity as equivalent to marriage, resulting in a union of flesh, and therefore of person. And indeed, the passage suggests that by a kind of transitivity, if we, who are spiritually united with Jesus, unite sexually with a prostitute, then we unite her with him to our own condemnation. Since Jesus is dead (although resurrected as first fruits of the afterlife) it seems that Paul believed that marriage survives death (and since the Gospels were unwritten, they could not have contradicted him in this view). Moreover, through his sexual contact with his wife, they had become one body, and so she would have continued to live on through him! So he still believed his marriage vows were binding.

As a bit of self-disclosure, I've been married for thirty-one years to a wife whom I love deeply, and with whom I live and have lived a shared life in the Pauline model. So perhaps my preference for the “romantic option” is no different from the celibate's preference for a celibate Paul, or the homosexuals preference for a homosexual Paul. Maybe there isn't enough information to know, and so we recreate Paul according to our own vision, whatever that vision might be. But this is the vision I have, and that vision will matter as I look more deeply into Paul's writings on sexuality in the following posts.

Peace

Sexual Ethics, I

2009-07-13T22:41:00.001-05:00

The comments on Can't Anyone Here Play This Game? lead me to hope that a more extended discussion specifically on sexual ethics might be productive.

For the first of these postings, I'm going to set aside scriptural proof texts, along with issues of church discipline, divorce, and abortion, and lay out instead where I stand on some more basic issues, and ask any who want to participate to do likewise. Here is why:

It is very easy to mine scripture for proof texts that support a priori beliefs, and I believe this constitutes a misuse of scripture. When we turn to scripture, we should be listening to its voice(s), and not trying to impose ours upon it. This is a lot easier if we grant ourselves the license to speak for ourselves first.
When we do look to scripture, it will be important to distinguish between Paul's culture (e.g.), and our own. This adds a complication to the discussion, and it's better to get our a priori commitments out first.
If we involve church discipline, we have to discuss forgiveness. This is important, but represents a kind of “exception handling” that greatly complicates analysis. Let's the common cases first, and then worry about exceptions. The same consideration applies to issues like divorce and abortion.

My commitments:

I am big into faithfulness. We should keep the vows we make, and we should expect society to support us in keeping those vows. If our vow is a vow of sexual fidelity to a partner, we need to honor that vow. If our vow is a vow of celibacy, we need to honor that vow. Of course, the usual caveats regarding contracts apply—contracts are valid only if the parties to them are sufficiently mature to understand what they're agreeing to, and if they were free from coercion in making them.

I believe that life presents us with a succession of choices, and we should make each choice based on love for God's creation, ourselves included. Many of the most important choices we make impose great limits on our future behavior, but we can gladly accept those limits because of the benefits we believe will follow from the choice we make. It is important to take the long view. A choice to form a partnership, or to forego forming partnerships at all, is one of the most important life choices we will make.

I believe that if we reserve sexuality for committed partnerships, we enrich them. To indulge in casual intercourse today, at the cost of cheapening a future committed partnership, is a life-damaging decision.

So...

I oppose promiscuity, which cheapens sexuality, and reduces its effectiveness in maintaining a lifelong partnership. That said, it is not a wedding ceremony per se that creates a lifelong partnership, it is the couple themselves. I believe that the conventional tendency to view the wedding as if it was the starting gun for coitus can damage a partnership: the distinction between καιρός and χρόνος applies to couple formation, and a wedding is a χρόνος event. The purpose of a wedding is to obtain public ratification and protection for a pre-existing private contract, which might or might not have already been sexually ratified, and might not be so ratified until long after the ceremony. When this occurs is none of anyone else's business, and sexual activity that might occurs before marriage as a natural part of the formation of a lifelong partnership should not be carelessly confused with promiscuity, nor should a mutual decision to wait be viewed as unnatural.

Nothing in the foregoing is specific to heterosexual partnerships. I believe that people have their sexual orientation hard-wired in, and most folks are AC, a few are DC, and there are fewer still who could “go either way.” As for the later, I believe that a commitment to a partner comes with a decision to set aside the possibility of exploring the “other side” of their sexuality. The choice to “cleave only to one” is the choice to cleave to no other, irrespective of gender. I believe that folks who invoke “natural law” to condemn homosexuality (or heterosexuality, and yes, I've heard this too, and not just in La Cage Aux Folles) as “unnatural” are making the mistake of believing that everyone is just like they are (or, at least, everyone should be just as they are), and that this is an all too common and uninteresting kind of petty hubris.

Heterosexual partnerships come with the additional complication that their sexual activity may produce children, which can be either a great blessing or a great curse. Heterosexual couples have a responsibility to manage the reproductive consequences of their sexuality, and the joys and challenges that come if they do have children.

I also believe that partnerships should support the health of both partners. This results in all but inevitable sexual tension within partnerships, since it is a rare partnership indeed in which the sexual desires of both partners remain in sync at all times. In a healthy partnership, this discrepancy gets negotiated out (not necessarily verbally), so that each partner feels reasonably satisfied, and neither partner feels abused. Similar tensions exist over money, space, time, etc. I don't believe that it is possible in a healthy marriage for one partner to be rich, and the other partner to be poor. There must be balance, and a deep sense of a shared life, with shared joys, and shared challenges: we're in this together, come sunshine or storms.

Peace

Can't Anyone Here Play This Game?

2009-07-12T20:00:00.001-05:00

Today was the fourth of four discussions at my congregation on the ELCA's draft sexuality statement. Something odd happened, which I'd like to recount.

A member of the congregation—one of those who in the language of the statement is, “on the basis of conscience-bound belief ... convinced that same-gender sexual behavior is sinful, contrary to biblical teaching and their understanding of natural law,” read 1st Corinthians 6:9-10 from the RSV. I'm sitting there with my laptop, trying to catch up. So I switch to the RSV, and do a word search for “homosexual,” a word that was emphasized in her reading. It's not there—anywhere in the entire RSV—so I search by verse, find it, and am left wondering whether she'd added the word herself. Here's what I had:

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sexual perverts, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God.

No “homosexuals” there. So I show it to her after class, and she shows me her RSV— and there it is, “homosexuals” where “sexual perverts&rdquo is in mine. A quick check of the copyrights shows a 1952 copyright on her RSV, and a 1971 copyright on mine. There's also a very strange footnote in the 1952 RSV, “Two Greek words are translated by this expression.” Since I was the cantor at the next service, I didn't have time to dig any further, so off I went.

One thing that was really strange about this, and struck me as strange at the time, was her insistence when she read the passage on both the RSV version and the 1952 copyright. In retrospect, I believe she was aware that there were multiple editions of the RSV, and that they differed in how they translated this particular passage. Her purposes were better suited by her edition's language. And so she viewed the 1952 translation as authoritative, and subsequent changes as reflecting the efforts of those who would dilute God's word to excuse their own sinful behavior.

After service, I go back to the laptop, and check out Nestle-Aland (the current best version of the original Greek text), search out the underlying words, ἀρσενοκοίτης and μαλακός, and look at their respective entries in BDAG—A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature, 3rd edition—a standard reference work for New Testament studies. I can't say that the resulting entries will set your hair on fire, but if you're used to this kind of reference, you'll recognize that it is not for lack of trying.

BDAG is pretty graphic in terms of what is actually intended: μαλακός refers to the passive partner in male-on-male anal intercourse, and moreover emphasizes that this likely refers to catamites, an English word that wasn't part of my vocabulary until today. According to Wikipedia, a catamite is “the younger partner in a pederastic relationship between two males, which was a popular arrangement in many areas of the ancient world.” Websters gives a different, but supporting gloss, “a boy kept for unnatural purposes.” OK, I knew the concept and the context, if not the particular word. But BDAG goes further, taking a calculated swipe at two major translations of 1 Cor 6:9: “ ‘male prostitutes’ NRSV is too narrow a rendering; ‘sexual pervert’ REB is too broad.”

The definition of ἀρσενοκοίτης complements that of μαλακός, it refers to the dominant (and, in the likely case of a pederastic relationship, elder) participant in male-on-male anal intercourse. Moreover, the criticism of particular translations really ratchets up here: “on the impropriety of RSV's ‘homosexuals’ [altered to ‘sodomites’ NRSV] s. WPetersen, VigChr 40, '86, 187–91; cp. DWright, ibid. 41, '87, 396–98; REB's rendering of μαλακοὶ οὔτε ἀρσενοκοῖται w. the single term ‘sexual pervert’ is lexically unacceptable.” This is pretty dense, in keeping with the style of the reference, citing with specificity two scholarly articles regarding the proper interpretation of ἀρσενοκοίτης, contradicting the translation(s).

For a neutral, scholarly text, this is remarkable language: ‘impropriety’ is a hapax legomenon in BDAG, a word that occurs only this one time; ‘unacceptable’ occurs only four times, and in each of the other three occurrences, it is used in defining the lexical entry, rather than as a commentary on a translation's word choice. These are, within the confines of this kind of scholarship, fighting words.

I've also looked at every occurrence of ‘RSV’ and ‘NRSV’ in BDAG, and there is not a single other occurrence in which the author (presumably the most recent reviser, Fredrick William Danker) criticizes either translation. Likewise, the REB, which gets it coming and going in this sequence, although often cited in BDAG, otherwise escapes anything that resembles pointed criticism.

And it's not as if unnamed translations do any better. ‘Homosexual’ is used by the NIV, NASB, NAS95, GWORD, ESV, HCSB, NET, NLT. ‘Sodomites’ is used by NJB. I suspect that the only translations that would evade criticism from Danker for mistranslation are Messsage and BBE, both of which are be too vague to inform discussion or behavior. It appears that pretty much every English-language Bible does a disservice to the reader in translating 1 Cor 6:9. With apologies to Casey Stengel, can't anyone here play this game?

This is why I believe it is important to learn Greek, and to be willing and able to refer to the original texts, and to be willing and able to refer to the scholarly resources that are available. Because an error of superficial scriptural literalism, for which this passage constitutes the major proof-text, has resulted in the full or partial alienation of a significant fraction of the population from our churches.

As for the inconsistent readings of 1 Cor 6:9 with the RSV that got this whole ball rolling, it turns out that there were two major editions of the RSV, and the term ‘homosexuals’ was changed to ‘sexual perverts’ in the 2nd edition. Strangely, while the introduction to the 2nd edition talks about many of the changes that were made, it is mute on 1 Cor 6:9. I didn't know.

Peace

Farmers Market

2009-07-11T13:10:00.001-05:00

For those of us who live in sub/urban areas, farmers markets are a gift from the Lord. Down in Florida, where my parents live, the farmers markets are closed for the summer—it's just too hot. Naturally, up here in the land of two-seasons (winter and road-repair), ours just opened. And so starts a weekly ritual that will take my wife and me through October.

Saturday mornings. Caribou coffee, and a chat with a group of men from the church who meet there every Saturday morning, year round. Then off to the farmers market. We'll buy veggies from the two ladies, from the man and his mom, and from sad guy: green beans, zucchini, yellow squash, green peppers, cilantro. Later in the season, there will be watermelon and sweet corn, then spaghetti and acorn squash. There's the jam lady, my first stop. Yum!! If you see her, make sure to get some of the raspberry-orange and bitter orange marmalades. Then the breads: ciabbata, raisin-pecan baguettes, sourdough and multi-grain boules. The cheese guy started coming last year. I picked up a nice piece of chipotle-cheddar for kicks, but he also has craft farm cheeses that are unbelievable. You can't get everything all at once! Pace yourself!! There were two nice additions this year: a young couple from Michigan selling fruits and berries, and a couple of women from in town selling the most amazing flower bouquets, lettuces, and herbs, grown in backyard gardens. I'd love to see those gardens!!

The seasons turn, life is good.

Peace

Paul's Christology

2009-07-10T23:24:00.001-05:00

The Apostle Paul was no Trinitarian. I do not say this to question or discredit Trinitarian theology, or to discredit Paul. He was a man of his time and place, and while the theology of the Trinity finds scriptural support (even in Paul's writings), it is much more a product of the fourth century than the first. So what did Paul believe about Jesus?

I'll restrict my exploration to Crossan's "First Paul" list: Romans, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, 1st Thessalonians, Galatians, Phillipians, and Philemon. My feeling is that this list includes enough material of sufficient variety to give a reasonable level of insight into Paul's thinking, even if you think that Crossan's analysis is dubious. If you think this list is unrepresentative, feel free to create your own.

Here are some attributes that Paul ascribes to Jesus:

Attribute	verse count
Christ	105
Lord (κυρίος)	69
Son of God	3
Paschal Lamb	1
Rock	1
Image of God	1
God	??

The question marks about God come from the fact that Paul never says “Jesus is God” but he often speaks of “God through Jesus Christ” or “God in Jesus Christ.” How you count these is up to you, but I think that what is actually happening here is Paul saw Jesus as a human, adopted by God, in whom God chose to be uniquely present. For those who enjoy a more technical theology, this is a kind of unidirectional, non-Trinitarian, perichoresis. But I also see this as falling short of an actual identification of Jesus with God, or viewed Jesus Christ as a co-equal person with God the Father.

The closest I can find in this corpus to a statement actually equating Jesus with God is this:

Philippians 2:6-11 who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

But as the indentation suggests (and this is even clearer in Nestle-Aland's Greek New Testament), this passage takes the form of a hymn, and it's not immediately clear whether Paul wrote it, or is quoting it. My intuition is that it differs enough in Christology from what I see elsewhere in Paul that he is quoting it despite its Christology, because it supports the point he wants to make: Christ was humble, so you should be humble too.

A particularly interesting passage is the following:

1 Corinthians 15:19-28 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “All things are put in subjection,” it is plain that this does not include the one who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who put all things in subjection under him, so that God may be all in all.

This is not easy reading, and it's worthwhile reading carefully, making sure you've sorted out each of the pronominal references. Note also the very end—“When all things are subjected to him (God the Father), then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one (God) who put all things in subjection under him (God), so that God may be all in all.” It's not easy to reconcile subjugation of Christ to God (the Father) with Trinitarian theology.

I believe that Paul never stopped believing himself to be a Jew. Yes, he had a particularly mission to the Gentiles, and yes, he was an apostle of Christ, but I believe he never viewed this role as inconsistent with his Judiasm. And so he was intellectually committed to one God, but also a heavenly host with God, which includes angels, (perhaps as a separate person) the Holy Spirit, and that he incorporated Jesus Christ within this heavenly host.

Indeed, I think that the following is particularly telling:

Romans 1:1-4 Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord,

Got that? Declared, not begotten. Indeed, in this corpus, the Greek word that is sometimes translated as begotten (γεννάω), occurs only six times, and never refers to Jesus Christ. On the other hand, “promised beforehand” suggests Jesus's role was intended prior to his birth. This, I hope, is not too scandalous, after all, Paul often places flesh in contrast with spirit, in some ways paralleling Jesus's contrast of baptism by water vs. spirit. So I suspect that Paul's theory of the origins of Jesus, were that Jesus was born of women in flesh, in the usual way, but adopted through the Spirit as the Son of God, pre-existing in intent, revealed in prophesy, but not pre-existing as a distinct person of God.

As is this:

Romans 8:34 Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us.

Again, got that? Jesus is at the right hand of God, i.e., the foremost of God's companions, his principal lieutenant within the heavenly host. But the companions are not equal to the King, they are subject to the King, as Paul saw Christ subject to God.

Where do we go with this? I don't know. The Trinitarian consensus runs deeply through Christianity, and is not something to be rejected just because it wasn't worked out (or articulated) in the first few years of the Christian era. Perhaps working this out and understanding helps in understanding why there were so many heresies through the first four centuries, and that orthodoxy evolved, and was not handed down whole. Perhaps it is worth remembering that Trinitarianism is a human attempt to penetrate the great mystery of God, and the relationship between God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, and that while it explains much, perhaps other models have their utility too. In particular, the Christology I attribute to Paul makes the gap between Judaism and Christianity seem much narrower than it is at present, and perhaps even capable of closure. This is an ecumenical pipe dream, but what man cannot do, God can do.

Peace

Redemptive Death

2009-07-08T18:37:00.001-05:00

Kirby and I got into a brief discussion of the Battle Hymn of the Republic in the comments to American Civil Religion. A big part of that brief discussion was the bowdlerization of the hymn that has taken place over the century and a half since it was written.

While I still find the Hymn to be beautiful and moving, I've come to see it also as a seductive and dangerous piece of propaganda, which intentionally interleaves Christianity with the American Civil Religion, using the former to legitimize the later, and to encourage its listeners to confuse the two. I'd like to take apart one little piece of the Hymn, which I think is a key to understanding.

The original fifth verse of the Hymn was:

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me: As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on.

The fourth line of that verse (italicized) is often rendered these days as “... let us live to make men free.” Kirby and I both commented on this—both of us preferring the original. I said that the original “explicitly acknowledged the sacrifices the troops were expected to make,” while Kirby described it as “sadder.” We're both right, but I think we both missed the point that makes the original so potent, and so dangerous.

Consider the full phrase, “As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free.” This explicitly sets up an equivalence between Christ's death on the cross, and death on the battlefield, and in particular, between Christ's redemptive or sanctifying death (i.e., a death that frees men from sin, and thereby makes them holy), and the Union soldier, whose purposeful death on the battlefield might hasten the abolition of slavery. Stated more bluntly, the equivalence claimed is between the formative event of Christianity (real religion), and what an individual might hope to achieve on behalf of the state (i.e., within the ersatz civil religion).

I think it is worthwhile to turn to Drew Gilpin Faust's brilliant “This Republic of Suffering,” which analyzes how dying and death were experienced within, and changed by, the Civil War. Soldiers in the Civil War expected to die. Whether Union or Confederate, they felt their cause was just, and that it was worthwhile for them to sacrifice their life to advance that cause. But soldiers also knew that there were many forms that death could take, most of which were not purposeful in the sense of advancing their cause, e.g., deaths by disease, which were approximately twice as likely as deaths due to combat.

Shocking as it may seem to our ears, the phrase “let us die to make men free” expresses a hope, which is rational if the alternative is a purposeless death. Moreover, and this is where I think the Hymn becomes most intensely problematic, the parallels that are set up imply that death in combat is not merely purposeful, but redemptive if the cause is just, and indeed redemptive specifically for the individual who makes that sacrifice. In other words, the Hymn argues that an individual might gain eternal salvation by sacrificing their life on behalf of political goals of the state. You might ask, “Where does the Hymn mention individual salvation?” It doesn't need to, because it set up exactly the parallels that will cause its listeners to recall this:

Matthew 16:25 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

This is how a religion of non-violence gets twisted to justify violent action on the part of its believers.

So, who cares? Lutheran's would say, “we are justified by faith through grace,” and therefore would seem to be immune to the theological overreaching of the hymn. If we're not saved by works, we're certainly not saved by our own death. Certainly, these days, no one would buy into such propaganda, and it was in a good cause anyway. Right?

9/11

Peace

An Immigration Debate

2009-07-07T18:01:00.001-05:00

The alien comes to this land to reside.

It's not fair, saith the conservative, that this man enjoys the benefits that come from living in our land, which we provide for out of our taxes and our military service for the good of all who live here. It's a good argument, and therefore the laws are written in such a way that alien is obligated to pay taxes, and to serve if called, and these obligations (and the state machinery for receiving them) are decoupled from the legality of his residence here.

It's not fair, saith the liberal, that this man pays into the common treasury, and serves at our call, yet is not entitled to the benefits that come from these contributions for the common good. It's a good argument, and therefore many (but not all) of the benefits that come from living in our land are made available to the alien. But since it is a good argument, that is the direction things tend to go.

It's not fair, saith the conservative, that this man should be allowed to convert his status from citizen de facto, to citizen de jure, because his coming here was tainted with the original sin of illegality of undocumentation.

At which point, the liberal saith, “This sin, as you call it, you were willing to overlook when it was in your interest to do so—when you wanted lettuce and tomatoes picked, when you wanted taxes for our treasury, when you wanted soldiers to fight in our war. Do you not understand the notion of precedent? Now, having overlooked his so-called sin of undocumentation when it was in your interest to do so, you have an obligation to overlook it when it is in his.” It's a good argument.

And what does the Lord say?

Exodus 12:48 If an alien who resides with you wants to celebrate the passover to the LORD, all his males shall be circumcised; then he may draw near to celebrate it; he shall be regarded as a native of the land.

Leviticus 19:33-34 When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.

Numbers 15:29-30 For both the native among the Israelites and the alien residing among them—you shall have the same law for anyone who acts in error. But whoever acts high-handedly, whether a native or an alien, affronts the LORD, and shall be cut off from among the people.

Deuteronomy 24:17 You shall not deprive a resident alien or an orphan of justice; you shall not take a widow’s garment in pledge.

Jeremiah 22:3 Thus says the LORD: Act with justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place.

Malachi 3:5 Then I will draw near to you for judgment; I will be swift to bear witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired workers in their wages, the widow and the orphan, against those who thrust aside the alien, and do not fear me, says the LORD of hosts.

What did David say?

Psalms 39:12-13 “Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear to my cry; do not hold your peace at my tears. For I am your passing guest, an alien, like all my forebears. Turn your gaze away from me, that I may smile again, before I depart and am no more.”

As David realized, we are all aliens, because this is not our land. It is God's land. And we belong to God's kingdom, not as citizens by birth, but as naturalized resident aliens, through rebirth and adoption.

Peace

The Saved and the Lost

2009-07-06T21:20:00.001-05:00

I just did a word search for various forms of the words “saved” and “lost” in the Bible. (As an aside, having a good program for searching the Bible, and knowing how to use it, is a real joy. I use Accordance, and recommend it highly.)

Briefly, here is what I found. In the Old Testament, there is a lot of saving and losing, but you're saved or lost in ordinary life. You can be saved from your enemies generally (e.g. Numbers 10:9, Deuteronomy 33:29, 1 Samuel 4:3, and many others), the Philistines specifically (1 Samuel 7:8, 2 Samuel 3:18, etc.), lions (1 Samuel 17:37, Psalms 22:21, Daniel 6:27), and other temporal threats.

It is in Jesus's teachings that we first see the words saved and lost used in contexts that extend beyond ordinary life, e.g.,

Mark 8:35 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.

The issue, of course, is with that second occurrence of “save,” which it seems can only refer to some transcendent notion of salvation, rather than to an ordinary, temporal salvation. John seems even more explicit in a parallel verse:

John 12:25 Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

This is interesting to me, precisely because it tests my world view, which is that Christianity today is too hung up on the notion that our purpose is to seek a good afterlife, whereas I think that our purpose in life is to serve God through love by working for justice and peace in this world. Yet the obvious interpretation of the “eternal life” seems to be the afterlife.

But is it the correct interpretation? Does God look forward to the afterlife? Does God think about what he does in terms of his own salvation? Of course not! God doesn't dwell in the past, because dwelling in the past would mean dwelling on our sin. He doesn't dwell on the future, for he knows that he will be there when it comes. God loves us, and seeks relationship with us in the here and now. He loves eternally, hopes eternally, and seeks eternally. He does not love us to save himself. He just loves us. When we, in love, place someone else first, without thought of ourselves, aren't we living as God lives? Isn't that the eternal life, lived in the present, through our finite selves? Isn't that what Jesus was talking about?

And what do we gain from such an interpretation? Coherence. We align the Old Testament and the New, so that each helps to illuminate the other, rather than contradicting one another. The God of the Old Testament is the God of the New Testament.

Peace

A Novel Theory of Punishment

2009-07-05T16:49:00.009-05:00

Robert N. Bellah's article, “Civil Religion in America,” quotes Benjamin Franklin (italics mine):

I was never without some religious principles. I never doubled, for instance, the existence of the Diety; that he made the world and govern'd it by his Providence; that the most acceptable service of God was the doing of good to men; that our souls are immortal; and that all crime will be punished, and virtue rewarded either here or hereafter.

I've heard a number of theories of punishment: retribution, opportunity for amendment, framework for rehabilitation, and protection of society. Perhaps you can think of a few others. But I don't believe that I've ever considered punishment on earth as a merciful prophylactic against punishment in the hereafter, as Franklin seems to imply.

Likewise, I think it is interesting that this passage also implies that unrecognized virtue is in some ways superior to recognized virtue, for the latter will find its reward in the afterlife. This, at least, is a more familiar notion:

Matthew 6:1-20 “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. “So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. “And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. “When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

“Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. “And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal.

As for the punishment aspect, I find the Franklin hypothesis—punish now, to avoid punishment later—uncomfortable. It seems to me that all arguments of the form, “this for your own good,” should be approached with considerable skepticism.

Peace

American Civil Religion

2009-07-04T11:15:00.000-05:00

On the Fourth of July, perhaps the highest of the holy days of the American civil religion, it seems worthwhile to me to reflect on the relationship between US polity and religion. Today I will focus on one aspect of this, the way that universal religious ideas are a part of the constitutive self-understanding of the American republic.

As a starting point, I recommend Robert N. Bellah's article, “Civil Religion in American.”

There is a long tradition of criticizing the civil religion as a false religion. Bellah's article mentions this strand, but takes a more neutral point of view. For my part, I see the civil religion as deeply ambiguous, in that it founds some of what is uniquely the best, and also uniquely the worst, aspects of our republic.

On one hand, our civil religion confesses the reality of God as creator, and ultimate judge of our actions. As such, it stands as a measuring stick against which governmental policies that are purely self-seeking might be judged. For example, the US (at least, post-civil war) has not been a territorial empire, but has been general content with its holdings. Yes, critics might note a few acquisitions of territory, e.g., Puerto Rico and Hawaii, but these seem somewhat anomalous. For example, the same event that resulted in US possession of Puerto Rico also resulted in US possession of Cuba and the Philippines, both now sovereign nations. Likewise, territory conquered in war (again, post-civil war) has generally been ceded back, e.g., Japan was under US occupation after World War II, but it has been restored to full sovereignty, albeit in reconstituted form. To take a more modern example, whatever one might think of the war in Iraq, no one believes that the US has territorial ambitions in Mesopotamia.

On the other hand, our civil religion often leads us to demonize our opponents, and it imbues US policies with an often unconscious self-righteousness. The US truly believes itself to the the new Israel, granted a special role by the creator as a lamp to the nations. Such hubris runs a real risk that we will forget God, and remember only our particularity.

I think it is incumbent on all Americans with true religious commitments (and by this, I mean to more than the ersatz American civil religion) to repeatedly call our government to the better part of it's ideals. To remember that if we are indeed in a special relationship with God, we should be humble, not arrogant. To remember that we are called to protect the weak—the widows and orphans and those dispossessed from the land. To remember that, to the extent to which believe ourselves to be God's chosen, we need to respond as God's people, doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly.

Peace

Holocaust of the Pines

2009-07-03T20:41:00.007-05:00

I've spent the day with my family, much of it at elevations over 8,000 feet. We hiked around Monarch Lake, in Arapaho National Park.

Some doubt the evidence for global warming. The National Park Service does not. Increases in winter temperatures have meant a greater survival rate for bark beetles, and with it, a higher rate of kills of pine trees. Evidence of their activity was pretty clear as we drove up from Denver, in large reddish brown strips of dead trees, climbing up the mountains.

Five years ago, my wife and I vacationed in Alaska, and saw the exact same phenomenon, albeit at much lower altitudes, and in a much more developed form. In Colorado, the death of the pines will mean ascendance for the aspens, and there will be a more or less reasonable succession. In Alaska, the succession will be more difficult, because the time scales are smaller, and the distance scales larger.

For those who deny the reality of global warming, and what it means with respect to our stewardship of God's creation, I offer this:

Isaiah 45:19c I the LORD speak the truth, I declare what is right.

A War Winds Down

2009-07-01T17:46:00.007-05:00

Yesterday, the US pulled combat forces out of the cities of Iraq, according to the timetable negotiated between the Iraqis and US last year. The Iraqis called this “sovereignty day,” which is hyperbolic, but it is an important step in the process. US combat troops remain in Iraq, and are not scheduled to leave until August 2010, with complete withdrawal not scheduled until the end of 2011.

Still in all, this seems like a reasonable time to reflect on war. I'd like to set aside this particular war, since the basic facts of this war are likely to be in dispute, which makes rational discussion all but impossible.

This could be a stepping off point for the more abstract question, “Is there such a thing as a just war?” Moral theorists have debated this for a long, long time.

I'd like approach this from a different direction. As Christianity grew and expanded, it changed. Indeed, within three hundred years, it changed from a religion that confronted the injustices of Roman Empire into the official religion of that very empire. Now, Rome changed too, the accommodation was mutual.

It seems to me that the theology of a just war is a linchpin in this mutual accommodation. After all, empires grow and sustain themselves through war and the threat of war. Christianity became a religion of emperors and soldiers, and nations were conquered by troops carrying the banner of the Prince of Peace.

And I believe that Christianity diluted itself in the process, and lost much of its distinctiveness in God's plan. We should stand as witnesses against the violence of war.

Peace

The Great Conveyor

2009-06-30T11:42:00.005-05:00

My wife and I are at the “empty nest” stage of life. This week, we're visiting my daughter and her fiancé, in Denver. They're to be married, in a little more than a month. Our son is coming down from Laramie to visit for the 3rd and 4th.

It is interesting, reflecting on the stages of life, what I call “the great conveyor.” People climb on the conveyor at birth, and pass through many stages: infant, toddler, little kid, big kid, young adult. The conveyor metaphor captures well the sense that we are carried forward, always forward, at a rate we can neither slow down nor speed up. What it fails to capture though, is the sense of discrete stages. Oh, you don't always notice the transitions, but they're there. My daughter is now at the stage of commitment. It's good to see that she chose (and was chosen) well.

And it is wonderful to see the bonds of commitment grow. Their individual life plans are blending into a common plan. They have their first dog, a Siberian husky puppy. There is both seriousness and joy that illuminates their lives right now. He's in professional school, she's working, and considering going back to professional school too. They'll take on student loans, but they're investing in themselves. They're good risks.

Summa

2009-06-29T13:27:00.001-05:00

jh suggested that I should take a look at Aquinas, which I will admit is not prominent on the Lutheran syllabus.

For those of you who, like me, haven't tried to tackle the Summa, let me describe its organizational structure as being somewhat reminiscent of Wittgenstein's Tractatus.

Here's an early snippet, which illustrates the structure, where I ran into a roadblock:

[I.1.2] Whether sacred doctrine is a science?

Objection 1: It seems that sacred doctrine is not a science. For every science proceeds from self-evident principles. But sacred doctrine proceeds from articles of faith which are not self-evident, since their truth is not admitted by all: “For all men have not faith” (2 Thess. 3:2). Therefore sacred doctrine is not a science.

Objection 2: Further, no science deals with individual facts. But this sacred science treats of individual facts, such as the deeds of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and such like. Therefore sacred doctrine is not a science.

On the contrary, Augustine says (De Trin. xiv, 1) “to this science alone belongs that whereby saving faith is begotten, nourished, protected and strengthened.” But this can be said of no science except sacred doctrine. Therefore sacred doctrine is a science.

I answer that, Sacred doctrine is a science. We must bear in mind that there are two kinds of sciences. There are some which proceed from a principle known by the natural light of intelligence, such as arithmetic and geometry and the like. There are some which proceed from principles known by the light of a higher science: thus the science of perspective proceeds from principles established by geometry, and music from principles established by arithmetic. So it is that sacred doctrine is a science because it proceeds from principles established by the light of a higher science, namely, the science of God and the blessed. Hence, just as the musician accepts on authority the principles taught him by the mathematician, so sacred science is established on principles revealed by God.

Reply to Objection 1: The principles of any science are either in themselves self-evident, or reducible to the conclusions of a higher science; and such, as we have said, are the principles of sacred doctrine.

Reply to Objection 2: Individual facts are treated of in sacred doctrine, not because it is concerned with them principally, but they are introduced rather both as examples to be followed in our lives (as in moral sciences) and in order to establish the authority of those men through whom the divine revelation, on which this sacred scripture or doctrine is based, has come down to us.

So here's the problem, as I see it. Aquinas argues that sacred doctrine is a science by moving the “articles of faith which are not self-evident” and “individual facts” of sacred doctrine to the “science of God and the blessed.” But simply naming the reservoir for these exceptional stipulations “the science of God and the blessed” does not make it a science, this must be argued. And indeed, any attempt to argue it runs into the same difficulty that Aquinas tried to evade by introducing it in the first place, as these exceptional stipulations are not any more self-evident or any less individual facts within this “higher science” than they were before.

And it seems to me that even though the proposition that Aquinas wants to establish must fall, there should be no difficulty in defining sacred doctrine as the application of reason to a well-defined collection of individual facts and articles of faith, e.g., individual facts as established by scripture, and articles of faith as established by the ecumenical councils. In modern nomenclature, this would make sacred doctrine an applied science as opposed to a pure science.

Thoughts?

Peace

Gift and Trust

2009-06-28T19:23:00.001-05:00

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America will consider a social statement this summer, Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust. As this social statement does not take a hard line against homosexuality, there is every expectation of controversy, and the expectation that we will be anathematized by some of our more conservative brethren. Again. While at the same time being accused of being milquetoast knuckle-draggers by our more liberal brethren.

So it goes. Christianity suffers from many divisions, with each side of every issue fully convinced in heart and mind that it is right. One of the great challenges that the ELCA faces is that so many of these fracture lines run through our synod, and issues of sexuality, especially the stance the church should take towards committed homosexual couples, are such issues. The draft social statement does not attempt to resolve these questions, but instead it tries to establish a clear scriptural and confessional framework for discussion going forward, and setting a tone of respect and consideration for all points of view.

The social statement is 35 pages long, but it deserves a slow and careful read. Mining quotes is a bit too easy—almost any sentence is quotable in some context. I'll include a few here that struck me. The first few deal with sexuality in the context of the individual relationships.

Page 10, lines 351-2. Sexuality finds expression at the extreme ends of human experience: in love, care, and security; or lust, cold indifference, and exploitation.

Page 11, lines 366-8. Sexual love—the complex interplay of longing, erotic attraction, self-giving and receiving defined by trust—is a wondrous gift. The longing for connection, however, also can render human beings susceptible to pain, isolation, and harm.

Page 11, line 378. Though sexual love remains God’s good gift, sin permeates human sexuality as it does all of life.

Page 13, lines 440-1. Sexual relationships may be among our most profoundly intimate, crucial, and self-giving expressions of trust.

The next few deal with “social structures that enhance social trust.” Here, the idea is that marriages are both social contracts, protected by civil law, and blessed by God. Thus, both society generally and the church specifically are bound into the relationship, and obligated to protect it.

Page 14, lines 501-2. Marriage is a covenant of mutual promises, commitment, and hope authorized legally by the state and blessed by God.

Page 14, lines 521-3. Because of promises of fidelity and public accountability, marriage provides a context of love, trust, honesty, and commitment within which a couple can express the profound joy of relationship as well as address the troubles they encounter throughout life.

People who want to excoriate the ELCA for its stance on divorce will find things to offend them on Page 15ff, beginning at line 537. People who find anything other than outright condemnation of homosexuality to be unscriptural can skip to Page 16, line 596, and begin their seething without delay. And our more liberal brethren can jump straight to Page 18, and stand appalled at our lack of decisiveness.

But for us, the Lutheran expression of the way of Jesus Christ, this is an important step forward as we continue to lead the march to modernity from the rear, with prayer, caution, and deliberate theological reflection.

Peace

Why I Believe, II

2009-06-27T18:11:00.001-05:00

God intervenes in our world.

And because God intervenes in our world, many people have experienced God in direct ways. Over the course of more than three thousand years, they've passed their experiences along through the way that they've lived, through what they've written and said, and through a respect for the sacred that is the foundation for religion tradition.

The writings and stories that have been passed down to us reflect very different modes of though, and social structures. But a consistent picture is revealed through the old testament of a God who protects and loves us, and a humanity whose receptiveness to that message varied with their need. Finally, in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, we learn God how tried to reach across the gulf that separates us from Him, and sent his son, our Lord. And we killed him. And we continue to kill him, but God loves us still.

The stories were written by men and women who had a direct experience of the divine. They anchor a long tradition. I don't believe that they got everything right, God is too big, and we are too fallible. But they got enough right to make sure that those who followed within their tradition would continue to struggle with what it means to live in relationship to a loving, merciful God.

Finally, am an heir to that tradition, which passed to me from both of my parents, and from my experiences in a succession of churches where the word of God was preached, and his sacraments offered. I believe that my wife and I have passed this tradition on to our children, and that they to struggle to live in relationship to a loving, merciful God. As an heir, I recognize both the privileges and responsibilities that come professing to follow Jesus, and the still greater challenges and rewards that come from actually trying to do so.

Peace

Why I Believe, I

2009-06-26T20:34:00.001-05:00

In this, I am not going to consider actual evidence for the existence of God (I'll save that for a later post), instead, I want to address aspects of my personal philosophy—habits of my mind—that I believe have made me receptive to Christian belief.

I believe that we are capable of understanding much (if not all) of the world around us. I hope that as our understanding grows (and along with it our ability to impact the world), our wisdom will grow too.

I believe that reason is a guide to understanding, but that the world cannot be fully comprehended on the basis of pure logic alone. Instead, we must discover various physical laws, contingencies, etc. But as a mathematician, I believe that elegance is indicative of truth. Thus, the best applied theories derive a lot of observational evidence from modest non-tautological stipulations and a lot of pure reasoning. I.e., I believe that Occam's razor is a reasonable means for preferring one hypothesis over another.

For example, the theory of evolution explains a lot from a little. It not only explains the variation in species today, it explains how they've varied over time, and the relationship of historical species to current species. It explains why analysis of shared characteristics permitted Linnaeus to organize extant species into tree, and it explains why phylogenetic reconstructions based on DNA produce essentially the same tree. It makes testable predictions, e.g., that intermediate forms between fish and amphibians existed, which have subsequently been confirmed.

Contrast this to creationism, or it's illegitimate stepchild intelligent design, which attempts to explain only the variation in species today, and which makes no testable predictions.

Likewise, the theory of a loving God explains a lot from a little. It explains not only the existence of religion, but the miracle of faith. It explains why the physical constants of the Universe seem so finely tuned to enable life. It explains why humans who indulge in altruistic behavior are often satisfied by that behavior, whereas humans who indulge in selfish behavior often find only transient satisfaction.

Yes, there are other explanations for each of these, e.g., the “multiverse” hypothesis of cosmology, which ends up by arguing that life had to happen somewhere, and this is the place, but I am aware of no other common explanation for these diverse observations.

Yes, there is a little bit of Polkinghorne in these explanation, but I'll justify this by saying that he did a particularly good job of articulating what I already believed :-).

Peace

Being George Tiller

2009-06-25T21:24:00.001-05:00

Kirby Olson asked, in a comment to What Makes a Christian? the following question:

By the way, do you think it's possible to be an abortionist like Dr. George Tiller and still be a Christian. Is he doing unto others? to the mother, yes, but what about to the babies?

It soon became clear to me that there was no way my reply was going to fit within the 4095 character limit for comments, and also no particularly sensible way to divide the reply into pieces. And so, a post.

I think the record is quite clear that Dr. Tiller was a Christian. I'd like to consider two more subtle questions, though, that I believe are at the heart of Kirby's question.

How did he reconcile his livelihood as an abortionist with his Christian beliefs?

It is not difficult to conjecture, although I think there are a lot of Christians who would disagree with some of his premises. I suspect he believed something like the following:

The value of a human life is a function of our investment in it and its potential, and the investment in an undesired fetus is minimal.

We as society have invested a lot in the mothers, who might on average be a woman in her low-20's, with 12 years of compulsory education and 1-2 years of college. On the other hand, society as a whole has a fairly minimal investment in a fetus, and the great majority of that investment has come from the mother. To be blunt about it, she can probably make another if she wishes.

Of course, this sort of thinking can easily lead to infanticide (which I distinguish from abortion by applying the obvious criteria), euthanasia, and even eugenics, so generally speaking people who believe in this way apply limiting threshold tests (you don't kill infants, you only euthanize those who request it, and where that request meets certain criteria, etc.). But the logical extreme of this kind of thinking is the society of “Logan's Run.”

This kind of economic thinking pervades a lot of decisions about who lives and who dies, and you'd have to be extraordinarily naïve to believe otherwise. Consider, for example, that back when the military draft was active, we drafted men as they exited high school. We drafted men, because the biological ability of a society to replenish itself is proportional to of the number of females of child-bearing age, the number of men hardly matters so long as the female:male ratio doesn't fall too much below 10:1 (Remember Dr. Strangelove?! Come on guys, you know you were all suddenly very alert when you heard that line.). Or, as one of my hunting friends says, "if you want to thin the herd, you have to shoot the does." We don't draft younger men (in whom we have less of an investment) because they're not yet physically ready, and we don't draft them much older because we have a larger investment in them, and they've acquired responsibilities (care for a spouse and possibly children) that it would be expensive for society to provide for otherwise. I would argue that the education deferment of the Vietnam War was a particularly clear example of how this kind of thinking plays out in terms of governmental policy.

I think it probable that Dr. Tiller believed that the “value” of a woman (to herself, if not society at large increased as a result of the procedures he performed. Maybe she'd be able to go back to college (and live an upper-middle class life) instead of having to go to work as a waitress to support herself and her child (likely consigning her to a lower-class life). He might have even thrown in the expected value of her offspring (not just the present fetus, but future children too). Being able to delay when you give birth might mean that the children she ultimately bore would be better fed, better educated, etc.
Fetuses are not yet human.

The observations of various pro-life groups that they can feel pain, etc., would not have been material to this kind of thinking. After all, biologists often cause pain to laboratory animals, and no one thinks that their capacity for pain makes them human. In some ways, this mode of thinking parallels (1)—it believes that humanity is something that is acquired over time by biological animals of the species homo sapiens sapiens, along with societal value. In this kind of thinking, it is perfectly reasonable to say that a 12 year old is “more human” than a 3 year old. We'll set aside for now the special case of 15 year olds, who often seem less human (at least to their parents) than 12 year olds ;-).

Again, this kind of thinking can, and historically did, lead certain cultures to infanticide, euthanasia, etc. But these steps are not necessary, and there are philosophically defensible positions that permit abortion, but preclude infanticide. To put it differently, yes, there's a slippery slope, but the grade is not steep, and there are plenty of good handholds for those who want to use them.
Abortion is not murder.

While there's a lot of scriptural guidance on murder specifically, and violence generally, there's not a lot of scriptural guidance on abortion specifically. Indeed, you might want to read Numbers 5:11-28, which describes how a Priest should use an abortificiant as test of faithfulness for pregnant wives whose faithfulness is in doubt. Yes, the LORD told Moses to attempt to induce abortion in women whose faithfulness was in doubt.
Doctors decide when people die.

Again, Doctors decide when people die. You probably don't think about this, and you probably imagine that that Doctors fight for life their patient's life until the very end. Death is part of life, and when possible, death is a medically managed process. Doctors, who understand all too well the alternatives, want “good deaths” for their patients. It would not surprise me if Dr. Tiller thought in these terms—that the prognosis for the fetus was a difficult life (after all, their mother's didn't want them, and this is a bad start for anyone), and this was a “managed” death, much quicker and less painful than their life of unrealized humanity would be expected to be.
He did not set out to be an abortionist, instead he was forced into this role by the anti-abortion movement.

Please, hear me out on this one, which may seem counterintuitive.

The testimonials I've read to Dr. Tiller on the more liberal blogs reflect a diversified obstetrics/gynecology practice. Abortion would have started out as a tiny part of that, and likely one that was limited to fetuses that were not viable or where abortion was necessary to save the life of the mother (e.g., ectopic pregnancies).

But the record of attempted intimidation of Dr. Tiller (including a previous murder attempt in which he was shot in both arms, and legal harassment by the Kansas Attorney General, who abused the full power of his office to entangle Dr. Tiller in litigation) proves, if nothing else, that Dr. Tiller was a courageous, and indeed, possibly stubborn man. As his colleagues stopped doing abortions because they were intimidated, he became increasingly the only person in central plains who would perform the procedure.

I think it is likely that the tactics of intimidation were less affective on the demand side of the abortion equation. The women seeking abortion would have been more desperate, and the anti-abortion terrorists (note that I am not using this phrase to imply that everyone who opposes abortion is a terrorist—but rather to separate the pro-life population into a very large proportion of ethical people who oppose abortion by nonviolent means, and a miniscule proportion of unethical people who use violence to achieve their ends) would have fewer opportunities and a lot less time to intimidate them. Thus, the effect of the activities of the anti-abortion terrorists is asymmetrical, reducing the number of people willing to perform abortions much more quickly than the number of women seeking abortion, and therefore necessarily increasing number of abortions performed by those who are sufficiently courageous to continue to perform them.

It is clear the existence of a few doctors like Dr. Tiller who became de facto professional abortionists, is a consequence of violent anti-abortion terrorists. Indeed, this could have been their strategy all along—intimidate those whom you can, using the law, using violence, and by enlisting the nonviolent ethical pro-life people to demonstrate and maintain pressure, and finally, to murder the few that remain.

I want to be clear here—I buy into some of this, but not all of this. And the question isn't whether or not you or I agree with this kind of thinking, it is whether or not there exists a self-consistent set of beliefs that includes a reasonable interpretation of the Christian faith, and still allows one to practice a livelihood that involves abortion. I believe there is. A related question is whether or not there exists a self-consistent set of beliefs that includes a reasonable interpretation of the Christian faith that permits an armed man to shoot and kill an unarmed man while he worships in church, because he is following a particular, lawful, profession that you object to. Or the same, for people who support and arm that man, and have foreknowledge of his intent. After all, the question of whether abortion is murder is something over which people of faith disagree. But the question of whether or not murder is murder should not admit the same kind of variation.

Can Dr. Tiller can be saved?

This is for God to decide, not us. Dr. Tiller was Lutheran, and presumably he believed that he passed the “faith by grace” test. I am reluctant to try to delve into the mind of God as a judge. I believe him to be merciful (and I sincerely hope that this applies to me as well as to Dr. Tiller), but we must remember Isaiah 55:8, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD,” and remember to be humble. So, in the worlds of Iris DeMent, I'll just “let the mystery be.”

A question for ethical pro-life readers...

Why do you shelter and nourish murders in your churches? How do you reconcile that with your Christianity? Why do you try to focus the issue on the man that was murdered, as if by doing so you could create a justification for righteous murder?

Peace

What Makes a Christian?

2009-06-24T15:41:00.001-05:00

Is a Christian someone who follows Jesus, e.g., proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God, baptizing, taking up their cross, etc.?

Or is a Christian someone who believes certain things about Jesus, e.g., he died for our sins, or that he is one of the three persons of the Trinity, etc.?

It's certainly possible to say, “both,” but it seems to me that this is a two-masters kind of thing, and people who think of themselves as Christian tend to be mostly one or mostly the other. It seems to me that the church historically has tended to focus on the second definition, e.g., we Christians believe that Jesus is both human and divine, those heretics deny his divinity.

Without denying the importance of the second alternative, I believe we need to place more emphasis on the first.

Peace

The Power of the Sword

2009-06-23T20:58:00.001-05:00

Today, I'd like to take a first pass with you, my friends, about a topic that I find difficult, in large part because this is a topic wherein I believe that Luther made serious errors. I refer specifically to the relationship between Christians and civil government.

Let me start by saying that the New Testament is deeply divided on this question.

In one corner, we have Jesus of Nazareth, Galilean peasant and carpenter.

It is worth considering for a moment what it meant that he was a carpenter. Some might think that carpentry is a profession, and this puts him one step higher in the class hierarchy of the time than mere merchants and farmers. A comfortable, but unlikely point of view. Farmers owned land. Fishermen owned boats and nets. The tradesmen of the towns were day laborers, people without land or capital. They were at the bottom rung of legitimate society, and were barely hanging on.

Jesus' public preaching was largely devoted to the concept of the kingdom of God, a vision of a radically just society centered on God, which he raised in contrast and opposition to the extractive government of Roman occupation and Jewish collaboration that oppressed him and people like him. And the Roman occupiers, assisted by their Jewish collaborators, killed him because of his message.

In another corner, we have Paul of Tarsus.

Paul was both a Jew and a Roman citizen. After his Damascus road experience, he would repeatedly use his Roman citizenship to appeal to the Roman governors for protection. Needless to say, his attitude towards Roman civil government was very different from Jesus'. Here is a hugely significant passage:

Romans 13:1-4 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you wish to have no fear of the authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive its approval; for it is God’s servant for your good. But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for the authority does not bear the sword in vain! It is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer.

Think about this for a moment. “For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.” OK, Paul, how then do you reconcile Jesus' conduct with his treatment at Roman hands?!

This is not to say that Paul's position on this question was entirely opposed to Jesus'. Both realized that it would be counterproductive to use violence against the Roman regime. In Jesus' case, this meant a taking his message forcefully but peacefully to the center of Jewish collaboration, and therefore facing the certainty of death. He hoped that his death would change things. In Paul's case, he seems to have been more concerned for the safety of the tiny band of Christians then in Rome, and he did not want them to act in a way that bring them to the attention of the authorities. It is worth noting, of course, that the Romans killed Paul too. His confidence in the benign treatment men of good conduct could expect from authorities proved to be sadly mistaken in the end, a simple fact that people who like to quote this passage never seem to remember.

Finally, in the third corner, we have Martin Luther, a former monk, and a professor of Old Testament at the University of Wittenberg, under the protection of Prince Fredrick III, Elector of Saxony.

Martin, too, faced a deadly threat. His excommunication by the Catholic Church after the Diet of Worms meant that he was an outlaw, and someone that could be legally killed by anyone. So Luther would be drawn to a Pauline view—Fredrick was his protector. So for Luther, the government (which protected him) was good, and the Catholic Church (which threatened him) was bad. These views came into internal collision at the Diet at Augsburg, where his proxies faced the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, emphatically both Catholic and the personification of government. And while Charles would very much have preferred a Holy Roman Empire unitedly Catholic, he had his problems too, the Turkish siege of Vienna had just been lifted, and he feared they would come back and attack a Roman Empire divided by religious controversy. So Luther's protectors took a careful tactical approach. The would not give Charles what he wanted (an empire unitedly Catholic), but they would give him what he needed, a promise both of peace in the present, and their support in the war against the Turks.

Thus, the Augsburg Confession begins:

Most Invincible Emperor, Caesar Augustus, Most Clement Lord: Inasmuch as Your Imperial Majesty has summoned a Diet of the Empire here at Augsburg to deliberate concerning measures against the Turk, that most atrocious, hereditary, and ancient enemy of the Christian name and religion, in what way, namely, effectually to withstand his furor and assaults by strong and lasting military provision; and then also concerning dissensions in the matter of our holy religion and Christian Faith, that in this matter of religion the opinions and judgments of the parties might be heard in each other's presence; and considered and weighed among ourselves in mutual charity, leniency, and kindness, in order that, after the removal and correction of such things as have been treated and understood in a different manner in the writings on either side, these matters may be settled and brought back to one simple truth and Christian concord, that for the future one pure and true religion may be embraced and maintained by us, that as we all are under one Christ and do battle under Him, so we may be able also to live in unity and concord in the one Christian Church.

and later says

Of the Worship of Saints they teach that the memory of saints may be set before us, that we may follow their faith and good works, according to our calling, as the Emperor may follow the example of David in making war to drive away the Turk from his country. For both are kings.

A consequence of all of this has been a detachment by Lutherans from the political sphere, and a general acquiescence in the activities of the civil governments of their day. This was not especially problematic for Lutherans, until Hilter's government came to power. At this point, most Lutherans acquiesced, a moral lapse of historic proportion. Yes, we point with pride to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose (mostly) non-violent opposition to Hitler's regime would ultimately cost him his life, but at a point when the world needed more Bonhoeffers, he is our one example.

So where does this leave us? I think, first of all, we have to acknowledge that Paul got something important wrong—there are regimes which are so unjust that we must oppose them. But both Jesus and Paul were right in using non-violent techniques. History has judged people who used non-violent opposition to unjust regimes in a very positive way: Jesus himself, Bonhoeffer, Ghandi, and Martin Luther King, Jr., to name a few.

As a citizen of the US, I believe that our polity, in which we have a secular government (often, as now, lead by men of faith), which guarantees religious freedom, and which seeks to maintain an orderly society, is, of all the alternatives, the one most likely to be just.

But beyond this, I think that we need to participate actively in governments like ours. We simply cannot assume that they will act in just ways.

Peace

The Kingdom of God

2009-06-22T21:47:00.001-05:00

Jesus' public preaching style was elliptic, even to the point of being cryptic. Scripture makes clear that his apostles were often unable to interpret his public preaching, despite their familiarity with his style, and relied on the private interpretations he offered later. In some cases, these private interpretations are preserved in scripture, but in many cases they are not. Our problem in trying to interpret Jesus' public pronouncements in those later cases is much greater than the apostles; for not only do we have a far more limited corpus of Jesus' teaching than they had, the public messages we do have have passed through many additional filters: the original gospel writers, the transmission of their works through many hands, our participation in a very different culture, and finally, the translation of the resulting texts into English.

A practical consequence of these difficulties is a lack of consensus over the most fundamental concepts of Jesus' preaching, two thousand years worth of the development of doctrine notwithstanding.

Today, I'd like to consider one of these concepts: the kingdom of God, or as Matthew calls it, the kingdom of heaven.

I believe it that Jesus was presenting the kingdom of God as an alternative to the earthly kingdom of Rome. His essential claim is that God deserves our complete allegiance, not the Emperor. This claim is easily adapted, mutatis mutandis as us math types like to say, to the present day. Indeed, the good news of Jesus' ministry is the coming of the kingdom of God.

Luke 4:43 ... he said to them, “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities also; for I was sent for this purpose.”

But what and where are the kingdom of God? In Jesus' language, the kingdom of God is near, or far. It is something that we might hope to enter, and indeed, unless we get our righteousness together, tax collectors and prostitutes might enter before us! It is the good news.

One interpretation of the kingdom of God comes from what might be called “great reward Christianity.” These are Christians who believe that their duty is to follow the law, to believe the right things about God/Jesus, and to endure, so that they might obtain personal salvation through a life in heaven. For Christians such as these, the kingdom of God is the great reward, essentially synonymous with an afterlife in heaven. The good news for them is that they get to go to heaven, whatever the disappointments of this life.

I am not this kind of Christian, and I consider this kind of thinking to be misguided. This is not to say that I consider great reward Christianity to be a ticket to hell, for I also believe that through the mercy of God, the afterlife will be a joy for the many and not the few. But I also believe that by failing to participate in the kingdom of God in this life, these Christians have not only failed to let the Word of God thaw their hearts, they've cheated themselves out of the joy that comes from being so close to God, even momentarily, that your will is submerged into his will.

So what do I believe? I believe that the kingdom of God is emergent in this world. I believe that when we act in just ways, e.g., protecting and providing for the weak and caring for God's creation, we bring the kingdom of God closer. And when we act in unjust ways, e.g., by failing to protect and provide for the weak, or by damaging God's creation, we drive the kingdom of God further away. I don't believe we will ever achieve a perfected kingdom of God on earth—our status as fallen beings won't allow that. And I don't believe we can ever drive it completely away—God is too powerful for that. But I do believe that we all benefit if it is closer, as we all suffer if it is further away, and that it is God's will for us that it be nearer rather than farther. In short, we are asked to provide our complete allegiance to God now, not later, and this means that we are to live our lives in the present as his agents in the world.

A common theme of the kingdom of God parables is the tremendous change that a little bit of the kingdom of God can have on the world. How else can we interpret the parable of the yeast, or the parable of the mustard seed? What can these parables possibly mean if kingdom of God refers only to the hereafter?

As for the afterlife itself, it is not something that I think about very much, and I think it gets much more attention in Christian thinking than it deserves. Indeed, I think we should limit ourselves to this: those who have served God on earth will have the opportunity to serve him in heaven, and those who have worshipped God on earth will have the opportunity to worship him in heaven. Probably others will too—it is for God to choose, and we know of his mercy and love. And just to be clear here, I am not advocating works righteousness, but I am advocating that we seek peace and justice in this world, and that we do whatever works that requires, not because this will result in our personal salvation (only Jesus acting through us can do that—Lutherans may insert the formula “by faith through grace,” which is the same thing), but rather because God wants us to.

Peace

Ascents and Descents

2009-06-21T17:29:00.001-05:00

I am learning Koine Greek. This is not easy, as I do not seem to be particularly gifted when it comes to languages. This is work, but it must be remembered that work is not a bad thing. In my case, this is a timely discipline, and I am thankful for the opportunity to follow it.

In reading the following, please keep in mind that I am an utter beginner in Greek, albeit a beginner who is willing to take risks. I fully expect any response to this to be of the form, “of course, we've known that all along.” Or, “What cluelessness!” I don't mind, either way, so long as the case is argued well enough that I learn something from it.

Greek has a number of words that convey the sense of personal movement. I've learned ἔρχομαι, πορεύομαι, ἀναβαίνω, and καταβαίνω, to name four. I always wonder in such cases why a language has multiple words. In English, this sometimes means little more than that borrowings happened from different languages, but even in then, a particular choice can shed light on the speaker, and their level of education and/or pretension. But in a language like Greek, it is more likely that the difference is semantic rather than contextual, and therefore a higher likelihood that the choice has significance.

I want to focus now on two of the four words of motion above: ἀναβαίνω—to go up; and καταβαίνω—to go down. I was working through John 2, when I came across these words used in rapid succession: Jesus goes down from Cana to Capernaum, and then he goes up from Capernaum to Jerusalem. Why down? Why up? So I check out the map. OK, I get it. From Cana to Capernaum is a 700 feet drop in elevation, and from Capernaum to Jerusalem is almost 2400 feet of increase. So the up and down can refer to elevation, and the necessarily greater awareness that elevation changes will have among those who walk from one place to another. But is that the complete story?

The worlds ἀναβαίνω and καταβαίνω occasionally co-occur, when there is a desire to create a particular contrast. Here are some examples:

Mark 1:10 And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. (NRSV)

Here we have the attractive vision that the significance of Jesus moving up while the Spirit moves down is that they are moving towards one another. Matthew 3:16 is a parallel passage, which contains the same imagery. Somewhat surprisingly, Luke 3:22 contains only the image of the descending dove.

John 1:51 And he said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” (NRSV)

This recalls the story of Jacob's ladder, where the same juxtaposition occurs in the Septuagint:

Genesis 28:12 And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. (NRSV)

In translations, ἀναβαίνω is often rendered as “come up” to express ordinary human motion involving a change of elevation, whereas it is “ascend” when there is a spiritual objective, or a supernatural agent involved. Jerusalem, because of its physical situation, is a location that you ἀναβαίνω to, or καταβαίνω from. You don't ἔρχομαι to Jerusalem. I want to argue that there is a theological pun here, which is more visible in Greek than in English translations.

We know that the Bible often understands that there exist two Jerusalems: the Jerusalem of everyday experience, an imperfect earthly Jerusalem which is often the target of prophetic wrath; and the heavenly Jerusalem, where God reigns, and love and justice are perfected. Yet these two Jerusalems coexist, and might even be viewed as coincident in space. Thus, perhaps it is better to say that Jesus ascends to Jerusalem, prefiguring his ultimate ascent into heavan.

Peace

The Opposite of Love

2009-06-20T20:39:00.001-05:00

If you search for “the opposite of love,” you'll find a variety of opinions.

The obvious answer, of course, is that the opposite of love is hate. But there are other answers. According to Elie Wiesel, the opposite of love is indifference. His perspective certainly demands consideration.

But the formula that appeals to me is that the opposite of love is fear. Oddly enough, I first encountered this in a book about war—Google confirms “Gates of Fire,” a fictionalized account of Thermopylae—where the question was first posed the other way around: The opposite of fear is not courage, but love.

This is at first surprising, but if you work on it a bit, it makes sense. We know the fruits of love:

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

The exercise of negating each of these properties, and attributing it as a fruit of fear is left as an exercise to the reader. Moreover, this is a position that has scriptural support:

1 John 4:18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.

It seems to me that we have become a nation driven by fear. Fear of terrorism. Fear of job loss. Fear of disease -- be it HIV, or H1N1. Fear of change. Fear of government. Fear of the other. Sometimes, fear of all of these, all at once. We fear that the government we fear will fail to inspire fear into the terrorists we fear.

Fear drives out the possibility of love. It eliminates the possibility that we can convert enemies into friends. It makes us weak, vulnerable, and far indeed from the Kingdom of God.

2 Timothy 1:7 for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.

Galatians 5:22-23 the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Stated equivalently, the Spirit gives us love, with all of love's fruits.

It is time, time and past time, for us to set aside this childish thing called fear, and to take up our gift as Spirit-filled Christians, and love.

Peace

The Change We Seek

2009-06-19T17:22:00.001-05:00

During the recent US Presidential Election, candidate Barack Obama used the motto “The Change We Need.” The motto resonated with many in the electorate; I know that it resonated with me. And change we've gotten, to the delight of some and the consternation of others. Our government's policies were what they were, and now they are changing, at least in certain regards. But is change limited to the political sphere actually the change we need? Of course not, even though it is the only kind of change an election can reasonably be expected to deliver.

In my previous posting, Plurality, I suggested that we consider the question, “What is the proper role for Christians in society?” G. M. Palmer proposed

to love, and
to teach how to love.

This seems like a good starting place.

Mark 12:28-34 One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Then the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and besides him there is no other’; and ‘to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,’ and ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself,’—this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” After that no one dared to ask him any question

OK, so here's a thought experiment. If we were to poll non-Christians as to what they thought was characteristic of Christians, how likely do you think it is that one of the two principles enumerated above would be mentioned? Will they know we are Christians by our love? I don't think so.

And here's a practical experiment: I went to news.google.com, and searched for “Christian.” Ignoring stories about people whose first name Christian, and political stories about the Christian Democratic Party, and the like, here are the first ten stories that I found (honest folks -- I dreamed up the experiment first, and the number 10):

Interesting list, isn't it? There are some articles in here that I think are worth reading (3,8,9), and a couple of personal-interest pieces (4,7). I think the conservative Christian leaders in (6) are misguided, but they're definitely entitled to their positions, which were stated in much more civil and restrained language than I expected. But what can you say about the rest (1,2,5,10)? And sadly, you don't find the word “love” very often, and really only in a positive way in #9.

It seems to me that the public face of Christianity is a face of condemnation. Christians condemning non-Christians, and Christians condemning other Christians who think differently than they do. Of course, we all know that missions of mercy and compassion sustained over generations generate very few news stories, and therefore there is a natural negative bias to the news. But I don't think that our problem is merely a matter of bringing our external image into accord with our actual selves.

The change we should seek first is within ourselves.

Peace

Plurality

2009-06-18T15:10:00.001-05:00

Why are there so many religions?

I had the privilege to hear John Polkinghorne speak a few months ago. He was in Chicago for the AAAS Conference, and came to the University at the invitation of a half-dozen Lutheran and Anglican groups. Polkinghorne has a dramatic C.V.: he's both a Fellow of the Royal Society (in recognition of his work in quantum mechanics) and an Anglican Priest. But more than anything, he is a thoughtful commentator on religion, science, and their interaction.

One of the questions he posed, but did not answer, concerned the multiplicity of religions in the world. The issue here isn't the relatively minor divisions with Christianity, but the far greater diversity of great religions: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Zoroastroism, Jainism, Taoism, Sikhism, Bahá'í, and others.

We can try to rationalize the existence of so many different religions by saying that God manifested himself to all nations, and that each nation explained that manifestation in somewhat different ways. The problem with this kind of thinking is that if you restrict yourself to what is common to great religions, it's not much.

Even so, I'd like to float a hypothesis for thoughtful discussion.

Paul uses the metaphor of the body (e.g., 1 Corinthians 12:12-30), and the essential role that different parts of the body play in the functioning of the whole body, as a way to explain why, even as the Spirit grants different gifts to different people, enabling them to serve in different roles, all roles are important, and all of the members of the body of Christ are honorable.

Perhaps this is true of different religions as well. We should have no difficulty with the notion that Judaism continues to prosper because it's part of God's plan. There are copious verses in both the Old Testament and New that support this (e.g., Romans 11:26). Perhaps it is Judaism's place to serve as witness of God's purity. But perhaps other religions have particular roles too.

Remember that Jesus instructed us to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19, NRSV). This, and sayings like it, drive Christian missionary work. But maybe we've come closer to succeeding than we think. We tend to think not, because we haven't made disciples of all people, but maybe that's not the point. Maybe the point is that whatever it is that Christians are specifically intended by God to do, needs to be done in all societies. And maybe this is characteristic of all “true” religions, and so we shouldn't be surprised or offended by the existence of Buddhist Americans, or Islamic Americans. Maybe that's part of God's plan too.

This hypothesis is no excuse for slacking off on Christian missionary work. I don't think that there is any society today that has too many Christians, and certainly in the countries that we tend to think of as the “Christian west,” many have fallen away and have no religion at all. The potential harvest grows larger each year!

But I think that this hypothesis, whether we accept it or not, should give us cause to think hard about the question, “What is the proper role for Christians in society?” Indeed, this blog exists as a vehicle for trying to understand that very question, in more specific contexts. A very nice starting point can be found in the lyrics to the Taizé song, “The Kingdom of God,” which, even though I didn't know of it until a few days ago, is now the de facto theme song of this blog.

I gratefully acknowledge permission from Ateliers et Presses de Taizé to quote these lyrics. Their response to my request was prompt and generous, and noted that “the lyrics are based on Rm 14:7 with an echo of Ps 118:19.”

Peace

Diversity and Division, III

2009-06-17T17:28:00.001-05:00

What is necessary for Christian Unity?

This is a question that very much concerned the German princes and theologians, in those early days of the reformation, when they feared a breach with the Catholic Church, but feared their consciences even more. Their conclusion:

Augsburg Confession, Article VII — Concerning the Church. It is taught that at all times there must be and remain one holy, Christian church. It is the assembly of all believers among whom the gospel is purely preached and the holy sacraments are administered according to the gospel.

For this is enough for the true unity of the Christian church that the gospel is preached harmoniously according to a pure understanding and the sacraments are administered in conformity with the divine Word. It is not necessary for the unity of the Christian church that uniform ceremonies, instituted by human beings, be observed everywhere. As Paul says in Ephesians 4: “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism.” (quoted from the Kolb-Wengert edition of the Book of Concord, as translated from the German text.)

I think they got it right. This is a remarkably irenic passage. They do not identify the one holy, Christian church with their churches, nor do they in any way deny that the Catholic Church is a part of the one holy, Christian church. They clearly see this one holy, Christian church as something that transcended the divisions that were so painfully evident in their day, and so sadly remain in ours. Instead, they focus on the essentials: the assembly of all believers, the preaching of the gospel, and the sharing of the sacraments.

Now, the precise number of the sacraments (in both Lutheran and Catholic circles) has varied. But the big two in terms of Christian unity—Baptism and the Eucharist—have always been full citizens in both lists.

Peace

Diversity and Division, II

2009-06-16T18:16:00.001-05:00

Let's take a closer look at 1st Corinthians 11, per jh's suggestion. All quotations are from the NRSV (an English language witness for the churches of the conservative reformation). I have examined NJB (an English language witness for the Roman Catholic Church), and find, unsurprisingly, no great difference between them.

1 Corinthians 11:1 Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.

This verse appears to refer back to the discussion of 1st Corinthians 10, about food sacrificed to idols, and Paul's injunction that we should not use Christian freedom as a justification for actions that will be harmful to others.

1 Corinthians 11:2 I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions just as I handed them on to you.

This is an interesting and possibly important verse. By the principal of locality, it should group with the material immediately preceding or following, but the emphasis on traditions (rather than love) makes it a poor match for the section on eating food sacrificed to idols. So it must look forward.

To my eyes, the organization of the material in 1 Cor 11 is a bit jumbled. But in terms of content and tone, it seems to me that this particular verse must have been originally written as a prelude to 1 Cor 11:23ff: do what I did (1 Cor 11:2), because what I did came from the Lord (1 Cor 11:23). It is almost as if Paul was in the midst of writing one letter to the Corinthians, when he received a new letter from Corinth that informed him of difficulties in the new community, leading him to a hasty reworking of his letter-in-progress to address these problems.

But if we take this verse in situ, as referring to 1 Cor 11:3-16, it presents interesting presents problems and opportunities both for jh and for me. I'd be happy about women leading worship as a church tradition, while jh might not be. I believe that jh would be happy about traditional gender roles (e.g., the husband is the head of his wife), which I don't think deserve the imprimatur of 1 Cor 11:2.

1 Corinthians 11:3-16 But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the husband is the head of his wife, and God is the head of Christ. Any man who prays or prophesies with something on his head disgraces his head, but any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled disgraces her head—it is one and the same thing as having her head shaved. For if a woman will not veil herself, then she should cut off her hair; but if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut off or to be shaved, she should wear a veil. For a man ought not to have his head veiled, since he is the image and reflection of God; but woman is the reflection of man. Indeed, man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for the sake of woman, but woman for the sake of man. For this reason a woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels. Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man or man independent of woman. For just as woman came from man, so man comes through woman; but all things come from God. Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head unveiled? Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair, it is degrading to him, but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For her hair is given to her for a covering. But if anyone is disposed to be contentious—we have no such custom, nor do the churches of God.

This is an interesting passage, and one that gets bent in service of a variety of agendas in the general area of gender relations. I think that Borg and Crossan in “The First Paul” have a sensible way of handling this passage, but I'll set it aside for now.

1 Corinthians 11:17-22 Now in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. For, to begin with, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you; and to some extent I believe it. Indeed, there have to be factions among you, for only so will it become clear who among you are genuine. When you come together, it is not really to eat the Lord’s supper. For when the time comes to eat, each of you goes ahead with your own supper, and one goes hungry and another becomes drunk. What! Do you not have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What should I say to you? Should I commend you? In this matter I do not commend you!

I think that this was the passage that jh was actually pointing to, as it refers to divisions in the Corinthian church. The problem here appears to be that within the Corinthian church, the agape feast (the precursor to our communion/mass) amounted to several co-located picnics. Each party brought its own food and drink: the rich feasted, while the poor went hungry. I dare say that “prosperity gospel” churches have little use for this passage!

My personal opinion is that we've gone too far in reacting to the criticism that Paul makes here of the Corinthians, in that in our services, the elements represent only a symbolic witness to a feast. Jesus knew that when people ate and drank together, it broke down the barriers between them. It is a shame that our worship does not necessarily accomplish this. Indeed, I think that the standard Lutheran emphasis on communion as a means for forgiveness of sins results in an underemphasis on communion as fellowship creating and identifying sacrament. In my opinion, the ideal form for communion would be a meal embedded within a worship service—one part Mass, one part pot-luck. But this is both a digression and a personal heresy, as well as a tremendous logistical challenge for worship and music committees.

The problem in Corinth was that the very thing that was supposed to symbolic of and instrumental in bringing the community together (the agape feast) had become a vehicle for emphasizing social distinctions. And here, I believe, is where jh's position has the most traction. How can we preserve Christian unity, in the face of differences in worship style and tradition?

1 Corinthians 23-26 For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

The earliest witness to the Words of Institution. It appears to me that these words were intended to frame the agape feast—bread at the beginning, wine at the end, extending the traditional Jewish pre- and post-meal blessings. Again, it seems to me that these are the verses that Paul is pointing to in 1 Cor 11:2, when he spoke of preserving traditions.

1 Corinthians 11:27-32 Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord. Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves. For this reason many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.

When I was young, this passage was used to justify the Lutheran practice of first communion following confirmation, typically at the end of the eighth grade year (making confirmation remarkably like a Lutheran Bar Mitzvah). The point was it required education to understand communion, and thereby to guarantee that it would not be taken “in an unworthy manner.” More recently, the interpretation of this verse has tended to focus on the earlier section (1 Cor 11:17-22), and with this has come a freedom to offer communion to younger children, although standard Lutheran practice still requires a brief course as preparation. I don't know what current Roman Catholic practice is, but I expect it is what the older Lutheran practice followed. But here is a curiosity—the Orthodox churches do First Communion as a part of the baptismal service, offering the elements of bread and wine become body and blood to infants. Lutheran practice thus seems to be drifting from Catholic towards Orthodox, although the requirement of pre-communion education still makes it feel more Catholic than Orthodox, even as my daughter (now an adult) had her first communion at age five.

1 Corinthians 11:33-34 So then, my brothers and sisters, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. If you are hungry, eat at home, so that when you come together, it will not be for your condemnation. About the other things I will give instructions when I come.

Final exhortations on the subject of the agape feast, with emphasis on the particular issues of the Corinthian community.

To be continued...

Peace

Diversity and Division, I

2009-06-15T18:20:00.001-05:00

Commenting on Liturgy, jh suggested that 1st Corinthians 11 might have been more appropriate than 1st Corinthians 9 as a scriptural basis for discussion variation in worship practices. Although I continue to prefer 1st Corinthians 9 in this context, he does have a point.

Rather than dig straight into 1st Corinthians 11, I'd like to introduce a standard Lutheran concept, adiaphora (ἀδιάφορα), or matters of indifference, because I think it frames two distinct and essential tensions in this discussion. Adiaphora is the principle that doctrine should restrict itself to matters that are necessary for salvation. To which a confessionally literate Lutheran would instinctively add “and good order,” perfect proof, as if proof were needed, that the Lutheran confessions were written by Germans.

The pro-diversity side of this issue, represented by my original post, wants to use every tool available to bring people to Christ. For example, our faith does not mandate salvation by organ music. It does not prohibit guitars, bluegrass, or jazz, or even Ibo drums. Adiaphora constrains us not to turn instrumental preferences into doctrinal roadblocks.

The anti-division side, represented by jh's comment, and where 1st Corinthians 11 finds application, is that diversity in practice can create and sustain divisions in belief. And Christian unity is not a matter of indifference.

I hope that I am not forcing words into jh's mouth. In any event, I'm eager to concede both points that I ascribe to him in the preceding paragraph. So from my perspective, the question becomes one of accommodating as much diversity as possible while providing for mechanisms that create and sustain unity in belief. But I'm not confident that jh would be comfortable within such a framework, because the Roman Catholic Church does not accept a parsimony principle such as adiaphora to limit the scope of its doctrine.

Christian unity is important, not easy.

Peace

Tax Collectors and Sinners, III

2009-06-14T14:07:00.001-05:00

Matthew 9:10-13 And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” (NRSV)

This interaction has a distinctly different texture than the typical Jesus-Pharisee interaction of the Gospels, and especially Matthew. Although Jesus does criticize the Pharisees, “Go and learn what this means, … ,” he is also flattering them as well, implying that they are not spiritually ill. I am, of course, aware that many read this implication as ironic, rather than irenic, but it might be better to read it as intending both. Jesus was marvelously adept at disarming his opponents, and he did so not with weapons that cut flesh, but with words that cut to the heart. This is a skill we would do well to emulate.

Peace

Tax Collectors and Sinners, II

2009-06-13T17:28:00.001-05:00

Why was Jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners?

Jesus provided his own exegesis: he was a spiritual physician, come to tend to the needs of spiritually sick. And like the prophets before him, his emphasis was on mercy—what today we might call social justice—rather than on mechanical observances of the law.

Borg and Crossan (and I can hear the eyes of some of you rolling now, but please bear with me) push this in an interesting way. Judaism makes purity (a.k.a. cleanliness) a central concept, ascribing purity both as a primary attribute of God, and as a prerequisite for humans who want to approach God. This is largely operationalized by avoidance of contact with impure things, and by observances through which an individual who had become impure might regain ritual purity. The Pharisee's question, in a style that today we might call concern trolling, asks, “Why does your teacher voluntarily surrender his ritual purity through contact with the impure?,” and “Why do you chose to follow someone who is impure, and who involves you in impurity?” Jesus's counter-argument involves a fundamentally new understanding of contagion, in which contact with God's purity makes impure things become pure. This is a beautiful metaphor for the Kingdom of God in the world, and sets the expectations we should have for ourselves.

I'd like to take this is a somewhat different direction. We're often taught that sin does not consist of actions that are displeasing to God, but rather to a state of broken relationship with God. Concisely, sin is separation from God. Yet in the story above, it was the tax collectors and other sinner who were eating with Jesus Christ, and the Pharisees who were not. Who then was separated from God? And who was in relationship with him?

So what does this mean for us today? I think we are too hasty to judge people around us, and to view people who's differing circumstances have lead to different choices as “sinners.” I do not doubt the power or ubiquity of sin, but I think that too often, we see mere difference as a sin, and rush to judgments that we ought not be making. And I am even more convinced that we should not for a moment think of our churches as “God's club for the righteous,” lest we join the Pharisee of Luke 18:11, and pray, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.” Instead, let our churches be open to all who seek God.

Peace

The Wages of Sin ...

2009-06-12T17:06:00.001-05:00

Today's posting is a reflection on Tuesday's attack on the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. The basic facts of the matter will surprise few: a white-supremicist felon illegally obtained a rifle, and took it to the Holocaust Museum to kill. And kill he did. His victim was an African-American security guard, Stephen T. Johns, who died protecting others. Mr. Johns was described as a “warm man with a wonderful smile who acted courageously.”

Rom. 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (NRSV)

I'll let the English Professor explain why it's “wages … is,” and not “wages … are.” But possible subject-verb disagreement in the translation notwithstanding, who among us doubts that our life of sin ends in death? Or that death is a consequence of sin?

Yet Tuesday's tragic events show that there is no simple correspondence between sin and death. Mr. Johns died, not as a consequence of his sin, but as a consequence of the sin of his murderer. And the murder's underlying sin was hatred—a vile, long-standing and long-nurtured hatred of Jews and African-Americans. Those who nurtured the murderer in his hatred bear an awful responsibility, for just as the murder loaded, aimed, and fired his rifle, they loaded, aimed, and fired the man.

The following poem, “Prologue, intended for a Dramatic Piece of King Edward the Fourth,” by William Blake seems sadly apropos.

O for a voice like thunder, and a tongue To drown the throat of war! When the senses Are shaken, and the soul is driven to madness, Who can stand? When the souls of the oppressed Fight in the troubled air that rages, who can stand? When the whirlwind of fury comes from the Throne of God, when the frowns of his countenance Drive the nations together, who can stand? When Sin claps his broad wings over the battle, And sails rejoicing in the flood of Death; When souls are torn to everlasting fire, And fiends of Hell rejoice upon the slain, O who can stand? O who hath caused this? O who can answer at the throne of God? The Kings and Nobles of the Land have done it! Hear it not, Heaven, thy Ministers have done it!

In the face of hatred, who can stand?

We can stand. We must stand.

Peace

Liturgy

2009-06-11T17:46:00.001-05:00

1 Corinthians 9:19-23 For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law) so that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings. (NRSV)

In the comments on My Tribe, jh raised the issue of liturgy, and in particular of the Roman Catholic Church's interest in Eastern Rite Liturgies. The Lutheran and Anglican Churches use liturgies that are recognizably derivative of the Catholic Mass, enough so that it is easy for people who are accustomed to one to follow along in an other. My personal inclinations in such matters are perhaps best witnessed by my favorite hymn, “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence,” which comes from the Divine Liturgy of St. James. I am in so many ways a traditionalist, and within that, a seeker of ancient alternatives.

I see in traditional liturgies a number of admirable qualities. By participating in these liturgies, we feel connected not only to past and future generations, and thereby to the church triumphant, but also to the worship of heaven itself. Through repetition, the tones, the cadences, the images, and even the smells become identified with worship, and so help contribute to the sense of worship.

But I think that Paul's words above contain a message for us: we should be all things to all people, so that by all means some might be saved. In my opinion, the best form of worship for anyone is the form that brings them to and keeps them in Christ, and thus diversity in humanity more than justifies a diversity in worship styles. Indeed, I find value in participating in worship styles very different from those that I am accustomed to, as each speaks to me in a different way, even as I return to traditional forms for my regular worship.

The Spirit moves when, where, and how it wills.

Peace

Tax Collectors and Sinners, I

2009-06-10T13:27:00.001-05:00

WW, commenting on “What is to prevent me from being baptized?” remarked that she liked to reflect on the Gospels, and on how Jesus welcomed all to his table, even tax-collectors and sinners. A similar observation was made by jh, who remarked that “from the beginning the attraction of christianity was the openness to people as they were.” Amen to that, sister and brother.

I'd like to chew on this passage (and implicitly on related passages), in a sequence of postings.

Today we consider the question, “Who were the tax collectors, and why did they chose to do a job that alienated them from their community?”

The usual starting point for answering this question is the notion of tax farming, in which an individual or group pre-paid the taxes for a certain area, thereby gaining the right to extract and retain taxes from it. This was an intrinsically speculative business: the opportunity for profit came from the possibility that they might extract more than they paid. To make money, you had to squeeze, hard. The assumption is that the tax collectors are the tax farmers, and that their motivation was simple profit—indeed, the Wikipedia article on tax farming that I linked to above identifies St. Matthew as a tax farmer. In this post, I will challenge that assumption.

Let me make my own assumption here. The Romans weren't interested in penny-ante tax farmers. They wanted money, they wanted it now, and they wanted it with as little trouble as possible. Yes, they could always fall back on the legions, but legions were expensive, and they inevitably injured the productive capacity of the regions in which they imposed their will. Common sense indicated that they wanted to work with a few people, each of whom had a lot of money, and had it available up front. In short, they wanted it from the rich. So who was both rich, and empowered by their collaboration with Rome? The Sadducees. Indeed, what we know of their theology—that there is no resurrection, and therefore no punishment or reward for how we live our lives—seems particularly well adapted for people whose livelihood depends on selling out their people.

How does the rich man in Jerusalem recoup the taxes he paid for northern Galilee? He doesn't go door to door, himself. And he certainly doesn't advertise that he's the guy who stands to profit. No, he hires overseers, and they hire the actual tax collectors. And for the tax collectors to be effective, they have to know the community from which they will collect taxes. So who lives in a community, and is willing to be engage in judicial robbery of their friends and neighbors? It must be someone who is truly desperate. Someone who has debts. Someone whose children are starving. Someone who is facing slavery. In short, someone who has only bad choices, someone who was already victimized by society.

And so we shoot the messenger, blame the victim, and call the tax collector a sinner, because any of these are easier than to recognize the ways in which our society is broken, our obligation to fix it, and to pay the price that we must pay to do so.

Jesus, blessed Jesus, took the hard way, the narrow way. The way that lead to Jerusalem, and from Jerusalem to Calvary. The way that leads us on.

Peace

A Prayer Journal

2009-06-09T18:33:00.001-05:00

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

I am taking diakonia, a two-year course of study on Christianity and Christian service offered by a few of the synods of the ELCA. One of the recommendations that was made in my most recent class, coming from Bill Hybels's “Too Busy Not to Pray,” was to maintain a prayer journal. I've never been much for journals or diaries, but the suggestion was noted. We've also studied Dietrich Bonhoeffer's “Life Together,” in which Bonhoeffer suggested the praying of the Psalms as means of learning healthy prayer habits and structure.

Entirely coincidentally, my congregation has recently begun singing the Psalms again. I was asked to lead the responsive singing of the Psalms at our early service, making me de facto cantor. With this public role necessarily comes an increased respect for, and attentiveness to, the Psalms.

I've always been envious of contemplatives, and other people whose lives permit them adequate, defined, time and space to pray, study, etc. It hardly seemed possible for someone who lives a life that has as much chaos around it as mine does to satisfy, even in the most permissive sense, the injunction of 1st Thessalonians to pray without ceasing.

Finally, I recently read A. J. Jacobs's, "A Year of Living Biblically," in which he describes his experience in trying to live a prayer-filled life for a year, the extent to which he succeeded, and how doing so impacted his life.

This was a “perfect storm” for me. Although I've always enjoyed Bible study, I've never been much more than mechanical in my prayers, so I decided to do a mashup of Hybels's and Bonhoeffer's strategies. I'm going through the Psalms sequentially, one per day, praying them (or at least reading them slowly and with comprehension), and journaling as I go.

For me, this is working.

Some days, the journal entry is just a citation, e.g., Psalm 17. With increasing frequency, though, I write a longer entry, sometimes because the Psalm of the day seemed to speak to something that is happening in my life, and sometimes just because. And I now find myself much more inclined to pray at odd times of the day, and my prayers seem more flexible and certainly more spontaneous.

Peace

On the method of the blogger

2009-06-09T17:53:00.001-05:00

Friends, with the serene perspective that can only come from having made five whole blog postings, this one included, I'd like to reflect a bit on my thoughts about going forward.

I think I'd like to keep my contributions to the comments section brief and focussed. There are at least three interconnected reasons why.

Your comments seem to me to be a rich source for future postings. Given that postings are somehow more visible and flexible means of response than mere comments, it seems to me that if I have anything very extensive to say, it is better to say it in a post.
I'd like to establish a certain pace to this blog, one that encourages seriousness of reflection, and encourages and values comments and the building of community. It is, my serene perspective notwithstanding, ridiculously early in my career as a blogger, and I am less than perfectly confident that I'll be able to maintain a consistent pace. Being able to bank my more substantial replies as posts gives me confidence that this won't just be a flash in the blogosphere.
We all know people who insist on having the last word in any debate. It seems to me that bloggers who over-indulge in replies to comments risk being that person.

I want you to know that I value your comments, and I read and consider them, even if I don't reply immediately. If you're eager for thoughts on a particular issue in a more timely manner, please let me know.

In the meantime, I consider this kind of meta-discourse to be a poor sort of reward to my readers, so I'll put something else up that I hope is more suitable. Please let me know if I'm on the wrong track.

Thank you for your encouragement.

Peace

“What is to prevent me from being baptized?”

2009-06-08T15:37:00.001-05:00

Why do we fear the other?

In my congregation, we've been studying Acts during adult education, in parallel with the lectionary.

Acts 8:26-39 Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a wilderness road.) So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over to this chariot and join it.” So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” He replied, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this:

“Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth.”

The eunuch asked Philip, “About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?” He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. (NRSV)

So here, we have arguably the first gentile convert to the Church — a black eunuch. Or, as my pastor gently described him, “A man of unconventional sexuality,” and a man rich enough to risk a scroll by reading it while riding a chariot down a dusty road. The paradigmatic “other.” Those who love to quote Leviticus when it comes to condemning homosexuality might like to remember what the Old Testament has to say about men in this man's situation.

Deuteronomy 23:1 No one whose testicles are crushed or whose penis is cut off shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord.

And so my friends, which is it, when the other comes to worship with us — the ancient prohibition, or the Holy Spirit?

The Peace of the Lord be with you all.

My Tribe

2009-06-07T19:56:00.001-05:00

Yet all I see is “my tribe is better than your tribe,” and “my religion is better than your religion.” This doesn't contribute to understanding when we're talking Christian vs. Muslim, yet I'm seeing this kind of posturing between Christians. I know that I've contributed to this, so I need to be forgiven as well as to forgive.

My experience is that you can find good and bad in any sufficiently large group. Every religion can point to past glories, and their enemies can point to past outrages. I'd rather change the future than try to rewrite the past, but then, I've never been much for the easy way. Just his Way — in which we are one.

A Gravesian Ode

2009-06-06T12:04:00.001-05:00

Why? He stood alone in the sudden silence. He'd come where he'd been told to come, brought what he'd been told to bring, found what he'd been told to find, and done what he'd been told to do. The blood flowed through the dust of the altar, and joined with the dust of the ground. He reached out with his right hand, still holding the knive, and closed the eyes of his son. Why? Abraham's cry penetrated the thicket around him, echoing off of the nearby hills, it reached heaven, where it found no answer. This is not the story that is told in Genesis. But I've been given it to tell to you. God hears our every cry, God heard Abraham's cry, and God cried too. He had no answer for Abraham. He had no answer for Sarah. St. Paul wrote, as all died in Adam, all will live in Christ. But on the day his son Jesus died, God the Father remembered Abraham, and he remembered Issac. Why? Abraham's cry tore heaven open, and shook the ground that day. It ripped the veil of the temple in half, as God the Father stood among men who could not see, and closed the eyes of his son, who could, and knew.

About eirene

2009-06-06T10:33:00.000-05:00

Philippians 4:7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (NRSV)

Eirene (εἰρήνη) is the Greek word for peace. Our URL is an abbreviated transliteration of “Peace of God,” — εἰρήνη τοῦ θεοῦ.

God's peace be with you.