Tag: Christianity

Unintended Consequences

Everything about this is despicable.
The violence against the peaceful protesters.
His arrogance.
The hypocrisy.
His pandering.
Holding I Bible which I doubt is his.
I would bet he doesn’t even have one of his own.
With little to no knowledge of what the Bible teaches.
Not believing for a moment what the church he is standing in front of values and does its best to practice.
Standing there to have his picture taken and then walking back to the White House through a corridor of armed officers.
Awful.
Just awful.

But his staged photo op has had unintended consequences.
For years…twenty, at least, probably more…the primary public voice representing Christianity in the United States has been conservative, homophobic, racist and anti-intellectual. Ralph Reed. Jerry Falwell. Jerry Falwell, Jr. James Dobson. Pat Robertson. Paula White. Robert Jeffress. Few moderate or progressive Christian voices were ever heard on the evening news or in the public square.
Until now.
Until President Trump cleared the way with tear gas and riot police.
And stood in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church to have his picture taken.
Then there was this.
Presiding Bishop Matthew Curry on the Rachel Maddow Show sharing an understanding of the Christian witness 180 degree different than Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell, Jr.
And, this.
The witness of the Rev. Gini Gerbasi, an Episcopal priest who as at St. John’s to be a peaceful presence among the protesters and to support medics who were on hand in case they were needed. This article is from the Religious News Service, but the story has been picked up by the Washington Post, the Huffington Post and The Guardian among others.
Two among many.
In the paper.
On the evening news.
Sharing their faith and their understanding of the Gospel.
The first time in a LONG time.

One evening of these thoughtful, articulate, compassionate voices is not going to undo the damage caused by Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, Jr., but it is a start.

For a moment, in the midst of a crisis, America got to see and hear a very different Christian witness. One which resonates more closely with the grand dream of liberty and justice for all towards which our country strives.

7 Questions: A Conversation

Following worship this morning, seven young men, who since last October, have been meeting on most Sunday afternoons with Kathy and me as a part of our Confirmation program, will meet with leaders of our congregation to share their Statements of Faith which they have been asked to write, and to talk about what their experience in Confirmation has been like including what they have learned and what questions they still have. Next Sunday we will recognize them. And celebrate with them and their families who they are and the faith and the questions and the hopes that are a part of their lives. It is a wonderful moment for them and for us.

A couple weeks ago, as Kathy and I were trying to wrap up the year and to pull together threads of the various conversations we had had, we came up with seven questions for our evening conversation. One question for each of the students. We wrote the questions on note cards and placed them face down on the table. One by one, each student drew a card, read the question and shared their response. Then the rest of us were invited to add our thoughts as well.

Which leads to this.
One of the comments I regularly receive as we approach the end of Confirmation is how impressed adults are with the ability of 14 year olds to put words around their faith. So, as I thought about them and what we ask them to do and thought about you and our time together this morning, I thought “Why don’t we give you the opportunity to do what we asked 14 year olds to do.” So, here are the questions we asked:

How would you describe God to someone who had never been to church?
What do you think prayer is? How do you pray?
What does it mean to follow Jesus (vs believing in Jesus)?
How would you describe BPC to someone else? And, describe why you are a part of BPC.
What does faith mean to you?
What do you do or can you do as a reminder of what it means to follow Jesus?
Is it possible to be a Christian (follow Jesus) and also believe other religions are just as worthy, meaningful and truthful?

We had a hour with them.
We only have 10-15 minutes with you, but we will give it a try.
Kathy has the cards and a microphone.
Who would like to chose one and start the conversation?
Besides being respectful, the only thing you are not allowed to make in Confirmation is “I don’t know.” That rule applies to this morning, as well.

And so the conversation began.

Foundational Stories

I read with interest the remarks a neighboring Rabbi made to his congregation at a recent Shabbat service. He spoke about an upcoming march/rally in support of our local immigrant community and of the increased pressure and fear that community is experiencing. In framing his remarks, he referenced the story of the Exodus, told and retold a week or so ago as the Jewish community celebrated Passover. Oppression. Slavery. Struggle for recognition and freedom. Journey to a new land. Their foundational story. Like the immigrant community, through that story, if not through their life experience, they know what it is like to be a stranger in a strange land.

In reading his remarks, I was struck by how different the foundational story is for Christians in the United States. Specifically, Christians whose heritage is European. Particularly western European. While our reference point is Jesus, a poor, itinerant Rabbi whose vision of a how life and world should be got him executed by the Roman authorities, our foundational story in this country has much more to do with manifest destiny and the ushering in of the new Jerusalem. A story which sometimes (often?) tilts towards arrogance and a sense of superiority.

To the extent that cultural Christianity continues to shape our national discourse, I wonder how much our different stories shape our understanding of the outsider. The stranger. The immigrant.

Changing the Story We Tell (About God!)

For most of human history…
Maybe even long enough for it to be embedded in our primal instincts, if not in our DNA…
Is the story of God on my side.
My God on my side versus your God on your side.
And, since most of the others, whoever they were or are , were strangers and therefore enemies to be dehumanized, even demonized, I was on guard and ready to fight.
To protect my family. My territory. My tribe. My God.
And the story I was taught and then told to others was God wanted me to do it.
Even commanded me to do.
And, then protected me when I did.
That understanding of God is woven through the Biblical narrative which we call Holy.
That understanding of God directed Joshua stretch out his sword and to attack and destroy Ai and, in another instance, Jericho. And that understanding of God justified Elijah slaughtering the prophets of Ba’al, and it formed the basis of Christian exceptionalism which led to the Crusades and the Inquisition and our treatment of Native Americans and to war upon war. And, that same way of reading ancient texts and that same basic instinct drives Islamic extremists and Jewish extremist and Christian extremists to this very day. Just read the headlines in the news from violent jihad and suicide bombers to God gave us this land to burning clinics and killing doctors.

Maybe that is not a great way to start a Sunday morning message, especially on a morning like this morning so, to give you a moment to catch your breath and, before I plunge in any further, getting to what I hope is good news. credit first to where credit is due.

The first acknowledgement is to the Biblical scholar, Walter Wink, who died a number of years ago, but who was the first Biblical scholar I read who called into question what he and others have called the myth of redemptive violence. A myth which is not only a part of the Biblical narrative which surrounds us, but a part of our literary narrative in everything from the Lone Ranger and the westerns with which I grew up, to JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings which I reread every couple of years, to, more recently, the Harry Potter series.

The second thanks goes to Emilio Sironi. Several weeks ago following worship, in a conversation about the refugee crisis in the Middle East and Europe, Emilio talked with me his understanding of tribalism which, if I remember our conversation correctly (and Emilio, forgive me if my memory is not correct), he would argue still informs our understanding of who we are and of who we are in relationship to who they are and is a part of the struggle to respond to the overwhelming number of refugees fleeing the Middle East.

And, as so often happens, in the swirl of my own trying to put together seemingly disparate ideas, I found myself thinking about this morning as we celebrate the global community and World Communion Sunday. And about the often destructive and divisive nature of religion and how it often reinforces the worst of our tribal instincts. And about my own faith and my own understanding of that which I know and name as God. And, about the story that has so often and for so long been told of God. The story of my God being better than your God. And about a different story which I believe you and I and others need to claim and to find ways to lift up and to live. The other story is the narrative pointed to in the verses we read from 1 John which stand over and against the narrative found in Joshua and 1 Kings and the Psalms and elsewhere in Bible.

As People of Faith…
As Christians,
As those who seek to follow Jesus…
We need to be able to say that the parts of the Bible which advocate me over you and/or glorify violence as a way to redemption are wrong. They are wrong in our sacred texts and wrong in the sacred texts of others. They grew out of world and a worldview which no longer matches the world in which we live. The Bible is not inerrant. And, we need to be able to say that. And then we need to begin to claim and to tell and to live a different story with intentionality and conviction.

We need to claim and to tell and to live the story which refutes tribalism and stands on the side of the entire human family.
We need to claim and to tell and to live the story which refutes violence as a way to resolve differences and, instead, stand on the side of peace.
We need to claim and to tell and to live the story which refutes the narrative that our differences and that which divides us is more important than our commonality and our shared humanity and the hopes we have for our lives and the dreams we have for our children and grandchildren.

We need to begin to tell and to live the story of the whole human family as the collective household of God.
Of my DNA being linked to your DNA.
Of my security being linked to your security.
Of my well being being linked to your well being.
Of my God being your God and your God being my God.

Yes, this story is out there.
And in many ways we tell and retell that story here each and every week, but in the face of our long history with that other, older story which still ripples through our country and around our world, here on this Sunday, I am reminding you, again, of how focused we need to be if this new story is going to become the larger and stronger religious narrative which not only shapes who we are and how we live, but also helps to reshape the world around us., We need to turn towards and to lift up and to live those texts and stories which speak of compassion and kindness and goodness and peace with an intensity and and a conviction which matches word for word and deed for deed the intensity and conviction of the fundamentalists and the extremists. I believe this new, old narrative has the ability to save. To save not just me for heaven, but to redeem us and to save us as a human family.

I grew up being taught and believing that the only way to be in God’s good graces was to believe in Jesus. And, that all other religions paled in comparison to my own. As I have said before, I no longer believe that to be true. I am at a point in my life when I need a better story in which to believe. One that pulls us together rather than pushes others apart. One that builds up rather than tears down and destroys. One that is reflected in this insight by John Shelby Spong, theologian, author and Episcopal priest:

God is not a Christian, God is not a Jew, or a Muslim, or a Hindu, or a Buddhist.
All of those are human systems which human beings have created to try to help us walk into the mystery of God. I honor my tradition. I walk through my tradition, but I don’t think my tradition defines God. I think it only points towards God.

May we find ways to live which point towards that which we know and name as God.
Not towards my God or your God, but the God of us all.
The God in whose image we each and all are made.
And, then, may we find ways to live that help others do the same.

Where Are The Other Voices?

In our debate about Muslims and the values and practice of Islam, how often have I heard or read:
“If Islam isn’t violent and extremist where are the other voices?
Why aren’t other Muslims speaking up?”
I found myself thinking about that again in the last couple of days.
Not in terms of Islam or Muslims,
but in terms of Christianity and Christians.
The public voice of Christianity seems to be Mike Huckabee and Kim Rowan.
Ben Carson questions whether or not a Muslim should ever be President.
Donald Trump thumps his Bible on a campaign stop and says, “See. I am one of you.”
And I wonder…where are the other voices?
Yes, we hear about Pope Francis, but where are the other Christian voices which, while we may disagree on some of the issues facing us, don’t denigrate or demonize those with whom we disagree or perpetuate the rumor that President Obama is Muslim and not an American citizen? Where are the other Christian voices that speak up for respect and compassion and kindness? Christians claim to believe in a God of love and yet the Christian voices we hear and read about are all about judgement and anger and finger pointing and blaming. To tell you the truth, if that is Christianity I don’t want to have anything to do with it.

Of course, there are the other voices.
In Christianity and in Islam.
(And Judaism and Buddhism and Hinduism and…)
They just don’t make the news.
Or the campaign stop.
Or provide sound bytes to post on Twitter.
They are the voices (and the people) who show up at food pantries across the country and do their best to provide much needed food for neighbors who are hungry. They are the ones who give a Saturday or a weekend and work to repair homes for those who live in substandard housing. They are the ones who open their doors and open their arms to provide places of welcome and safety to those who, all to often, find themselves on the fringes of the community.
They don’t shout.
They don’t scream.
They don’t make the news.
They just do their best to keep their families together and to make their communities better.

So, where is all this rambling going?
On my own little soapbox in my own little corner of the world, I want to do my best to say that Mike Huckabee and Pat Robertson and Donald Trump are extremist voices and DO NOT speak for me or represent what I understand to be the heart of the Christian witness.
They harm more than help.
They tear down far more than they build up.
They are divisive and mean spirited and hurtful and wrong.
To the extent that I am able, I am that other voice.
I am speaking up.

Missing the Mark

Here is some of what I have been thinking about recently.
I am pretty sure Christianity is not the only way to understand/experience that which we know and name as God. And…I don’t know enough about most of the other ways people understand/experience God to say that my way is the best way or a better way. All I can say is it is my way. And, I think those of us who are Christians worry far too much about Christianity and the future of what we call the church.

Jesus never worried about what we seem so preoccupied about.
Jesus never intended to launch a new religion.
He never intended to create a new institution.
He worried about the people around him and how they were treated and how they treated others. He worried about rules that got in the way of compassion. He worried about those who were so busy or preoccupied that they passed by those in need. He worried that religious leaders had tricked people into believing that God was locked in a temple and only placated by rituals instead of God being present and experienced in the midst and muddle of daily life. He told people to treat others as they would like to be treated. He redefined neighbor to include those who were, too often, considered one of them rather than one of us. He did what he could to heal and to help and to create hope and told us to do the same. That, it seems to me, is what we should be worrying about…if we can live that way and can encourage others to do the same. And, not to spend our time worrying whether or not they are Christian like I am Christian or even whether they are Christian at all.

Maybe what Jesus was trying to do was to make us more human.
And to show us ways to be more humane towards each other.
If I am even close to being right, then we might do well to follow his example.

Tags

Several things I believe: