Tag Archives: Faith

Studying Theology Exposed Me to What God, Is

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idolsMysticism put me in touch with God, that golden thread running roughshod through the energy of the cosmos.

Theology didn’t do that.

Theology isn’t the study of God, but rather the unveiling of gods.

And what are our gods?  You know them.  We bow to them daily.

A popular god is money.  Mammon, if you want to use an older term.  It invites you to cherish it, promising you fulfillment, but then continually moves the goalpost.  This god is insatiable, delightful, and cruel.

Another popular god is conformity.  Most churches are built around this god.  Oh, sure, the cross may be front and center, but if you look past the cross to the people in the pew you’ll see their clean shoes and spotless teeth, a thin lacquer covering rotting insides intending to keep up with the Jones’s. You know quickly if you don’t fit in here because you’ll sit in the wrong pew, suggest the wrong hymn at the hymn-sing, clap to that one song, or bring your boyfriend to church and suffer the stares when he doesn’t fit in (and, now, neither do you).

Nationalism is a popular god.  American-Christians (in that order) are found in every congregation.  They complain when you don’t play a patriotic hymn on the Sunday closest to the 4th of July, or when you don’t adequately honor 9/11 somehow.  They’re not interested in singing a song in Spanish, but will insist on having Veterans stand up on Veterans Day.

Community is a god.  A benevolent god, usually, but a god nonetheless.  Community is a god who takes care of the flock, but doesn’t really like any feathers to ruffle in the nest.  Community will encourage people to bow, especially when they have a controversial idea.  Community will send you a casserole if you’re sick, but sometimes will question in hushed voices what you did to deserve the illness.  Community tries to love the followers, but often can’t meet all the needs, and so people will worship for a while, and then stop, if this is their god.

Right Answers is such a popular god that everyone has their own depiction of it!  People usually worship this god in quiet, assuming that everyone else is worshiping this god, too.  Until you show that your depiction isn’t the same as theirs, and then they take their god and leave. People who pride themsleves as “free thinkers” usually are strong adherents to this god, and you’ll know it because, well, they’ll tell you about it…

Some people think Science is a popular god, but Science is not a very good god because Science changes its mind as it gets more details.  This frustrates humans, because they like their gods to be largely immutable (and also largely mute).  When people say their god is Science, what they’re usually referring to is Right Answers (see above).  Interestingly enough, people who trust Science usually don’t equate it as being a god at all because, well, as I said, science doesn’t really work like that.

The Bible is a very popular god, especially among Christians.  But it is a god of mixed-messages, and so is not very reliable when it comes to rule-making and order.  Plus, no one can really agree on what the Bible is or says, so really anyone who bows to this God bows to a tailored version of their own preferences, and that quickly becomes the god of Right Answers (see above).

I know we talk about God as a who, but really we need to talk honestly about gods with the word “what.”

Theology is not the study of God, but of gods, and how we worship them.  Theology exposed me to what god, is.

And, oddly, those who trust their faith is the purest are usually the most pantheistic.

Feel free to add a god that you know…there are thousands.

“Girls Can’t Be Pastors” and Other Lies I Believed from Church

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female-pastorI’m, in fits and spurts, working on a larger piece of work that explores and exposes some of the falsehoods I was led to believe as a child, either implicitly or explicitly, through Christian faith formation.  Here’s a short piece for a chapter tentatively titled “Women are ‘Different'” Note: this is not a finished product, nor even a finished portion, just initial thoughts.

Today, on the day when we celebrate 50 years of women’s ordination in the ELCA (and predecessor bodies), I think it’s an appropriate offering.

She sat on a stool up by the blackboard, chalk in hand, religious text-book precariously balanced on her knees.

Every day started with announcements and the invitation from the disembodied principal over the intercom to stand and face the Stars and Stripes and recite the pledge of allegiance, hand over our hearts.  Then, directly after those words, hands remaining on our hearts, we’d pivot just slightly to face the “Christian flag,” with blood-red cross over blue and white background, and recite a pledge there, too:

I pledge allegiance, to the cross
Of our Lord Jesus Christ,
And to the faith,
for which it stands.
One Savior,
King Eternal,
With mercy and grace for all.

We were Americans.  We were Christians. We were American-Christians.

We’d take our seats and, without fail, would start the day with Religion, the foundation of our schooling in that parochial school.

She sat up at the board and we all dutifully turned to the lesson of the day: ministry.

“There are different kinds of ministers,” I remember her saying.  “Some work in schools, like this one, where they teach.  Some work in churches as pastors.  Some are Sunday School teachers and administrators.  There are different kinds of ministers.”

I remember being onboard for this part.

“Men and women can be teachers and administrators, though the Bible is clear that women shouldn’t be over men when it comes to authority,” she said looking out at us.  “And only men can be pastors.  Men aren’t better than women, but women are just…different.”

My eight year-old brain can’t recall all the particularities of the lesson, but I remember being stuck and struck by that phrase: “And only men can be pastors.  Men aren’t better than women, but women are different.”

Don’t you love that little word, “but?”  It’s the word that people use when they want to sound generous but stick to their problematic opinion, right?

Like, “Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not sexist, but…” or the ever-popular, “I’m not a racist, but…”

Don’t cough or you might miss the remark that nullifies their qualifier.

I raised my hand.

Now, I think it’s generally true that most students assume their teacher doesn’t like them, especially in these early grades.  But I didn’t have to assume; I knew she didn’t like me.  I knew this because she rolled her eyes every time I raised my hand.

Especially during Religion.

“But Mrs. L,” I said, “I know women pastors.”

She closed her book, sighed, and looked at me.

“I’m sure you know women who call themselves ‘pastor,'” she said, “but God’s word is clear on this: they are not pastors.”

“But…” I began, and she held up her hand.

“You come from a different faith,” she said slowly, as if I had trouble understanding the English language, “and in this class this is what we teach. Women are different.  Girls cannot be pastors.  They can do lots of great things!  They can be teachers, and administrators, and music directors, and can serve God in all sorts of ways!  But only men can be pastors.”

“…we have a women pastor…” I continued.  We did.  She was an intern at our church at that very moment.

“Tim,” she said, “why don’t you go out into the hall?”

That year the hall and I became good friends, and not for no reason.  I was a talker, there was no question about that.  And I was known to get off topic and draw and couldn’t keep my desk clean to save my life, all reasons for which the hall was an apparent remedy.

But sometimes I was sent into the hall, especially during religion class, because I couldn’t believe the things they were telling me.  Or, more rightly, wouldn’t believe them.

At least I didn’t think I did…

Fast-forward to middle school, a different place and time, where I met another woman pastor, an excellent preacher, a gifted theologian.  I found myself not only admiring her, but encouraged by her.

But (see? There it is…), I also found myself saying things like, “Well, I think the pastoral role is generally best suited for a man, but you’re awesome!”

Patriarchy, beloved, is like a thief in the night, stealing those perspectives that make it impotent and replacing them with dead-end thinking and misogynistic memes.

____________________________________________

He stared up at me, grinning from ear to ear.  That’s not the first thing I noticed, though.

No.  The first thing I noticed was how his wife sat by his side, her face downcast, not even looking at me.

“We’re so glad you’re here, pastor,” he said, shaking my hand with vigor. “It’s been years since we’ve been here.  When that woman got here we decided we couldn’t come anymore.”

I took back my hand.

“Because,” he continued, grin never failing, “we believe what the Bible says about women.”

What does the Bible say about women?

The aged prophet Elizabeth has some thoughts, as she speaks into Mary’s heart, “Blessed are you…and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”

The warrior Deborah is the only one in the book of Judges with enough guts to go up against Jabin’s army.  And Queen Esther is identified as being made, “for such a time as this.”

We grin so much when we feel like God aligns with our prejudices.

And his wife.  I tried to engage her in the moment, but when she looked up at me all I could see was a vast nothingness in her gaze.  As her husband made her culpable to his disdain for women as religious leaders, I couldn’t catch a feel for her thoughts at all.

He withstood exactly two Sundays of my preaching before leaving in a tersely worded emailed huff.

_____________________________

It’s amazing for me to look back at my youth and realize that, although my particular church never taught me that women can’t or shouldn’t be pastors, Christian culture imparted it upon me, anyway.  My teacher even went so far as to say, “Girls can’t be pastors,” which is either an indication of the age of the students in front of her, or indicative of her thoughts on gender and roles and the diminutive nature of females.

Is this peculiar to American-Christian culture, or Christian culture in general?  I’ve not made heads or tails on it, but the issues feels as connected as those two pledges were to the start of my every-adolescent-day.

And it’s amazing for me to see how many still sit in the pews of congregations belonging to denominations who have ordained women for decades, and still think it’s an aberration of the call, and not the rule.

Just look at a contemporary list of so-called “outstanding preachers,” across denominations.  You’ll be hard-pressed to find one with more than one or two female preachers on there.  And how many women do you know who serve large congregations?  It’s abysmally small, and this is not a result of ratios, my friend.

It’s a result of structure.  I mean, look at that Christian pledge I was forced to recite.  “King eternal,” does not leave much room for the feminine imagination, right?

The statistics are a result of thinking “women are ‘different,'” in all the ways that phrase is unhelpful.

Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like if “Jesus of Nazareth” had been “Jean of Nashville.”  What if the Savior had been Jean, or Julie, and identified as female?  Would Jean ever be able to be, as the so-called “Christian pledge” says, “One Savior, Queen eternal?”

Or is the word “King” above less a description of Jesus (I mean, honestly, only Pontius Pilate calls him that, and not in a flattering way), and more a description of us and our propensity to equate male with all things powerful and godly?

Hell, what if God came embodied as a woman, and we all just missed it because we were expecting a man?!

Don’t say such things too loudly in the presence of the faithful, though.  They have a tendency to invite such ideas into the hall…

Down from Their Thrones

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statuesGod has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. -Luke 1:52

It was quite the grilling.  Unexpectedly tense.

I was interviewing to be the pastor, and the interviewers were clearly conflicted, not the least bit over me.  In the weeks prior I had taken my Confirmation students to see the movie Selma as part of our curriculum.  There were questions and concern from some of them, though not all of them.

Would I be doing that with their Confirmation students?

“It’s quite possible,” I said, honestly.  “It would depend on what is needful in the moment.”

And then one of them had some pictures printed out, of me at a march in the streets of Chicago over police violence.  Would I be doing that, there?

“It’s possible,” I answered, trying to be honest.

“And Confederate Monuments,” one asked, “would you advocate for vandalizing them?”

I was stunned.  To me this was an odd line of questioning, but was illustrative of the times I guess. Would I, as a pastor, advocate for the destruction of public monuments?

The newspaper headlines today mirror the headlines back in those days, except ten-fold.  I eventually took that call, and about two years into my service there a student at a local university, one who had grown up at the church, contacted me.  She had been involved in the toppling of a Confederate monument on campus, “Silent Sam” as he was known.

I was proud.  She wanted to write up a reflection about it for the congregation to see.

And that’s when my pride turned to hesitancy. I remembered that interview, the conflicting viewpoints in the room, the tepid response to my honest answers from a few of them.  Would this be too much?

That student had, after all, been raised in that community, taught in those classrooms, and had come to learn such acts of holy resistance through the scriptures.  But would it be too much?

We never ran the article.  It’s one of my big regrets.

Because, had I listened to the scriptures, had I heard the voice of another young woman, Mary, in the early chapters of Luke, I would have seen the inevitability of the current situation.  “God will cast the mighty down from their thrones,” she sings out.  And these monuments, mighty in size, looming over the public lands entrusted to the people, and looming over the psyche of those on the margins in silent intimidation, they are not just mighty in size, they’re mighty in force.  And while they may appear to be innocuous reminders of a long-gone past, we don’t have to search too hard to find evidence that oppression is not a thing of the past, but a very present reality, and these monuments were erected to ensure that present stays ever-present, in stone and marble and iron.

When I was asked by that member of the interviewers if I would advocate for the toppling of such statues, I hedged my bets and, after a moment of thought necessary to collect myself after such a blind-sided question, I said, “No…those are public property.  But I can see why someone would topple them.”

Because, well, where should we erect a statue of the person who lawfully murdered your grandmother?

I was nervous about saying yes, being too radical.

It is a hard thing to discern when revolution is holy.  It is not easy, and it can be messy.

But we have voices along the way to guide us, like young Mary, and Amos and Micah before her.  Like Jesus himself, who toppled the statues of Mammon in the temple of his day, and continues to knock over the idols I erect for myself of money, work, and prestige.

I know that there are questions about when enough is enough to this toppling.  Must all of our statues who led checkered lives in regards to slavery and oppression be demolished?  Washington and Jefferson, too?  Woodrow Wilson was a known racist.  His portrait as well?

I have come to the conclusion that I’m not the one to answer that question or set those boundaries, as I’m part of the offending party, ally though I try to be.  Instead we need to sit at the feet not of these statues, but of those who cry out in pain and anger at their very presence, to listen and really learn for once.

Literally, for once.

Because we’ve been here before, Beloved.  And I’m hoping that this time will not be like those other times, when it all died down and we once again turned our back on the cries of our sisters and brothers when they told the world how hard it is for them to breathe.

I’ve changed my mind, by the way.

If I were to be asked today if I’d advocate for Confederate monuments to be torn down, I think I’d reply, “It’s a good first step. As soon as possible.”

The Looming Philanthropic Storm

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hurricane_florencejpgThere’s a hurricane out there.  It’s name is Michael.

Michael, as it turns out, is the most popular name of a Millennial, at over 1.1 million children graced with that name in the 20-year span that encompasses the Millennial Generation.

But, should Michael not suit your fancy, the hurricane could have also been named Jessica, the most popular feminine name at over 750,000 persons having that namesake born between 1982-2004.

Regardless, it’s looming out there…and all of us in the philanthropic world, from church leaders to non-profit workers, know it, but we rarely speak about it.

What am I talking about?

The ability to amass wealth.  Or, more correctly, the inability to amass wealthy by Millennials.

And it’s not their fault.

Philanthropies survive off of the expendable wealth of donors.  I know you know this, but it’s important to repeat because if you’re not in the world of non-profit budgets, like pastors and non-profit workers are, you don’t often think about it, especially that one, necessary, all-important word: expendable.

Think about this: in 1972, roughly when many of our parents graduated from college, the average price for a home was $27,000.  When I graduated from college the average price of a home was $195,500.

“Yes,” you say, “but Tim, you didn’t count for inflation and adjusted value and…”

OK.  In 1972 that $27,000 was roughly equal to about $118,000 in today’s spending power.  The math is not that hard, and I’m not great at math.

How would I make up that extra $70,000 to purchase a house out of school, like many of my parent’s generation did?

Well, it certainly didn’t come from work.  At least, not for your average Jane or Joe.

The greatest increase in wealth, unsurprisingly, is reserved for the top 1%, and for the last four decades this has remained steadily the case.  What hasn’t remained steady is the rate.  In the last four decades income for the top 1% has grown by over 200%, compared to a growth rate of just 46% for the bottom 90%.

And that middle section between the 1% and the 90%?

That’s the so-called “Middle Class,” slowly shrinking as the top blows through the roof, and the economy continues to drop more into that lower (and overwhelmingly larger) bracket.

Also consider that most families need two cars because they have double incomes now.  But those double incomes?  They don’t have near as much buying power as a double income family of the Boomer Generation.  From 1960-present day, our purchasing power has, as this Pew Research article notes, “barely budged,” even as our checks have gotten larger.

What’s this mean?

It means that our (including myself here because I’m technically on the lower-end of the Millennial landscape) ability to amass meaningful wealth is dismal compared to the previous three generations.  And despite the chance that we might become heirs to some of that, there is another problem to contend with: we’re living longer.

And that long life-span means savings must be used for sustaining the living, not gifting toward charities.  And that makes sense, right?  Can’t fault people for that, right?

Certainly not.  But it’s all a recipe for a calamitous future for non-profits and organizations who live off of the generosity of others.  Because while indicators point to Millennials being much more generous than previous generations, we frankly have less we’re able to give.

And I have to imagine that some of that generosity comes from the stark realization that, well, we’re just not going to be able to amass the wealth our grandparents and parents had/have, and so we might as well give more away.

Now, it is true that we’re more choosy about where our gifts go; we want to see a tangible difference in the lives of whatever we give toward, whether it be humans, animals, or the planet.  But that’s also part of this whole dilemma, because Millennials are not willing to prop up institutions that have, heretofore, not been able to make good on their promises of better life quality, security, and wholeness…which means that the little wealth we do have, we spread deep and narrow, excluding many historic non-profits from contention (for better and worse).

The non-profit sector has exploded, rising by about 10% in the last 10 years alone. When you compare that to the modest 2-3% growth in the for-profit sector, you’ll see the issue. Rising competition in a sea of shrinking assets means, well, a hurricane of chaos in the not-so-distant future.

So, what can we do?

Well, I think we can be innovative.  Cottage industries attached to non-profits are not a bad idea.  These industries take some of the burden off of pure fundraising, and provide some stability…if the industry is done well and moderately successful.

We can also imagine a situation where large institutions, like the church, take a hard look at sustainability and make the decisions necessary to tackle the problem rather than just wait until the hurricane hits.  Darwinism looks like cannibalism when it hits the church…and I think it’s largely true across non-profits that serve a similar population.

And on the political front, we can vote for meaningful change.  Increased wages for common workers.  We can lobby to make industry changes, getting rid of the notion that everyone must have a Master’s degree to be qualified for work that, in years past, barely needed an Associate’s Degree.  Wonderful teachers and nurses were sent into their fields with Associate’s in year’s past, staving off crippling debt and providing real good to those they served.

And what is with everyone having to have an MBA these days?

Want to talk about an unsustainable rise in cost?  Look at college and higher education.  Yet another reason why my generation has no wealth: we’re paying it back to institutions we needed to attend to be ensured jobs that paid us enough to make good money which we now cannot save!

This Sisyphean cycle is not only unsustainable for the individual, but it will eventually cripple institutions set up for doing good.

You know, it’s funny, I was having a conversation one time with a doctor, an M.D.  Not a friend, just an acquaintance.  They paid over half a million in student loans by the end of their training, and at 50 years old, had just paid it off, mostly because of their generous salary.

But we were talking and they noted that the CEO of the Red Cross made six figures, and “how terrible for the head of a non-profit to make so much.”

I said, “That non-profit is not only huge, but does a huge amount of good in the world.  It takes a skilled leader to head up that kind of organization.  Look at the CEO of Amazon and the billions (at the time) he makes.  You think he’s more deserving than the CEO of an international aid organization that does so much good?”

“Yes,” the doctor said, taking a sip, “because he earned it and that’s not a non-profit.”

I downed my drink and walked away.  I can’t understand that kind of logic, a kind that buys into the false narrative of meritocracy.

But unfortunately, despite the generosity we see from this generation, a meritocracy may be all we’re left with as non-profits fall victim to a poorer and poorer population…which will require more non-profits to fill in the gaps, but funded by who and how?

Organizations that are making a difference, doing real good now, are facing down a hurricane just off-shore.  It’s slow moving…but picking up speed.

But there’s no evacuation route, and nowhere to hide.

So, what will we do about it?

 

 

Hugs and Hand Grenades

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download“Do you need a hug?” my five year old asked as I sat on the couch staring at the TV.

He must have seen it on my face.  The President had just finished his Rose Garden address and, as if watching a split screen of dual realities, before the final words of his horrifying speech the pops of smoke grenades and screams of tear gas victims rang out.

Holding shields and charging the peaceful protest, the public park was cleared to make way for the President.

He was going for a stroll.

Having been sequestered in a bunker last night (welcome to our world, Mr. President), he now wanted to show strength…he feared being seen as weak.

And flanked by the Attorney General and his security advisors, he walked.

To where?

An empty church left vacant by both the pandemic that still plagues our land and the fire that raged last night in its basement, mirroring the rage in so many hearts at the reality that the plague of racism still has no vaccine.

I mean, that’s the truth, right?  We’ll get a vaccine for Covid-19.  But to extinguish racism and white supremacy we need a collective heart transplant, and unfortunately elective surgery is still not happening in many places…

Well, and most aren’t electing to have such a transplant, anyway.

On a friend’s social media feed she posted that we need to teach our white babies not to shoot or harm black and brown babies.  Immediately the feed was pounced on by well-meaning but fragile folks who reminded her that “no one should shoot or harm anyone” and “that’s what we need to teach.”

Ok. But we need to start with our white babies…because, well, read the headlines.

Read history.

And so he walked from the Rose Garden after a speech that could be generously described as taken from the papers of an aspiring dictator, and strolled to stand in front of a vacant church.

And there he held aloft a Bible which was, I kid you not, upside-down. At least, upside-down for him, making it not only unreadable for him, but also no more than a prop of some sort.  It was backward for everyone…but both backward and upside down for him.

And just stood there.

Backward and, for him, upside-down.

I mean, I’m not one to think that symbolism is everything; it was obviously a mistake.  Who holds up a book backward?  What reader reads a book upside-down?

But, who knows? Maybe the book just refused to cooperate.

The scriptures have been known to do that.  Too often they don’t cooperate with what I want them to do and say, either, in the end.

It’s like the book was an unwilling participant.

Wait, no. As someone well-versed in the stories of that bound volume, let me be clearer: it was an unwilling participant.

Because the scriptures are always unwilling to participate in oppression.

When the military is used against civilians, it should be in order to protect their Constitutional rights.  Historically, that’s what it has been used for.

Eisenhower did this in Arkansas over school integration.

Kennedy did the same in Alabama.

And sure, in times of riot the Guard has been mobilized in an effort to control the situation.  Notably this happened after the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King in the 60’s, and the military came to Chicago, Washington, and Baltimore as outrage spilled out of the homes and onto the streets…understandably so.

But even in those cases the military at least gave the appearance of using force to quell a situation that was bubbling over (and again I say that the bubbling over was UNDERSTANDABLE).

But today the military was used against peacefully protesting civilians so that the President could take a walk to a vacant church and get his picture holding up a backwards Bible.

So, yes Alistair, I need a hug for multiple reasons.

Because today the rights of those people were hijacked.

Because today the military was forced to do something that, arguably, is unconstitutional.

Because today the scriptures that I have dedicated my life to studying were used in a publicity stunt.

Because today a church building, a sanctuary, was used to provide the backdrop for someone who has made it part of their political platform to deny sanctuary to immigrants.

Today Christianity was once again used as a prop in the ongoing narrative of white supremacy and oppression in the United States.  It, along with our current pandemic, is a plague upon the land. What is it with this penchant for prop-holding that politicians do with our scriptures and creeds, turning them upside-down for their own political agendas?

So yeah, I could use a hug.

In the battle between hugs and hand grenades, I still contend that hugs will overcome.

But today was not that day…so bring on the hugs, because we’ve had enough of the political, and literal, hand grenades for June 2020.

Already.

 

On Anger Getting the Best of Me (An Apology) and Keeping it Compassionate

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67784A few days ago I let anger get the best of me.  It’s not pretty when that happens, especially publicly.

It was on a social media post, something I never encourage and usually try to discourage…but anger got the best of me.

In a season of great frustration: pandemic, politics, the politicization of a pandemic…well, there are tons of reasons.  No excuses, mind you.  Just plenty of reasons.

It felt bad. In the clear light of the morning, I took down the whole post and exchange.  I had to.  None of us were at our best in that moment.

Part of what kills me about the current state of politics is the seeming disconnect between what our vote, our support for a candidate, seems to say about us…and it’s something I struggle with.

Because the candidate I will vote for (and Lord, I pray he has a good, solid, exciting running mate) has an accusation of sexual assault against him, which he denies.  And he recently made a careless remark about race (which, while not racist, was certainly careless…and for which he apologized for).  And, while I don’t expect anyone to be perfect, I mean…c’mon.

The more laughable/sad part of it all is the supposed outrage by the other side that he’d say something like that, but their deafening silence when their candidate has done far worse.

But I don’t like “whataboutisms,” and there’s no excuse for the above.

In a normal voting year, I would not be voting for him.  This is frustrating for me.

But I don’t see this as a normal voting year.  Because the current occupant of the White House not only has an accusation of sexual misconduct against him, but has 24 such accusations.  And this all comes after a weekend where he (once again) re-Tweeted posts calling another politician a “skank,” fat-shaming another female politician, and disparaging mental-illness.

On top of that he has continually made racist or misogynistic remarks, not to mention supporting policies that continue to keep the marginalized on the margins (low unemployment numbers for African Americans are empty when the jobs are not living-wage jobs…that’s all gone now, anyway).  Did you forget the “Muslim ban?”  Did you forget how he remarked on Hillary Clinton’s backside?  Or his disparaging comments about the appearance of Carly Fiorina?  Have you forgotten how he made fun of a physically disabled reporter in front of thousands who cheered?

Do you laugh at that kind of thing?  If you do, I don’t want to know…

On top of that, we’re nearing 100,000 dead in this pandemic, and will soon surpass our dead from World War I, and the delayed response from this administration still does not have anyone taking any sort of blame.

And on top of that, I see a politician continually manipulating my religion for his benefit…even though he doesn’t even practice my religion, though he claims to.

And on top of that he has cruelly suggested putting alligators in a moat across the Southern border, or “shooting to maim” people who cross the border, or even punishing women who have an abortion somehow…it almost seems like cruelty is the point.

And on top of all of that, he hasn’t even adhered to the fiscal responsibility the party he leads has repeatedly championed, unmasking that responsibility for the clanging gong that it is: a political ploy without conviction.

But what frustrates me the most, and what made me the most angry the other night, is that I’m having a difficult time divorcing a vote for him from the support of his rhetoric, his racism, his fat-shaming, his misogyny, his bald-face lying, his inability to accept responsibility (that “The Buck Stops Here” sign Truman championed found its way to the trash), and his constant politicization of everything (do you even wear a mask?).

For me it’s a spiritual issue.  In our spirits, how can we support with our vote, with our rally, a candidate who exemplifies our basest inclinations?

I’m having a hard time not seeing the people who vote for him as racist and misogynistic and absolutely OK with being lied to and manipulated.

It’s just true.  And it makes me angry.

It makes me angry that I’m having a hard time divorcing him from those who vote for him.  It makes me angry, and makes me afraid: are his supporters like him? Deep down inside, do they think those things?

And, if I’m honest, it makes me angry that now I will cast a vote for someone who has been accused of sexual assault, too, because he is the lesser of two evils (unless he chooses an awesome running mate, which could turn a sad vote into a glad vote).

That anger got the best of me the other night…and I regret that.

I’m sorry for that.

Instead of just letting it hang out there, I thought it might be good to give you a glimpse into what’s going on behind the scenes in my heart and mind.  I think it might be important to put out there that I’m not sure how to divorce the candidate’s rhetoric from the voter’s vote, you know?

Like, if my friends and family members who vote for the current President are as racist and misogynistic and willing to laugh at Tweets and comments that tear people down…well, I don’t want to know that about them, you know?

It makes me angry to think that they’re someone who would do that, because frankly, I don’t want my kids around that.  Hell, I don’t want to be around that.

That’s not what my family is about.

And maybe you feel stuck, too, right?  Maybe you feel like you’re stuck between two bad choices, and Trump is the least-bad of the choices.  I can understand that feeling, I have the mirror of it, and would welcome that conversation.

But the gleeful support?  The cheering and goading on of the terribleness? The re-posting of the heartlessness?

Some people say that he’s “raw and real.”  Mike Rowe feels raw and real to me.  Hell, Joe Biden feels raw and real to me.

Our current president feels “rude and manipulative” to me.

Are you rude and manipulative?

Do you laugh at racist jokes?

Do you allow your children to pick on other children?  Then why would you allow, with your vote, your president to do that to other people?

This is where I’m coming up short, and it makes me frustrated.  It feels like a vote for him is a vote of support for the racism he espouses (would you ever call a White Nationalist a “good person?”), and for the misogyny he exudes, and for the heartless proposals he’s put forward…and I don’t want to think of you as blatantly racist, sexist, and heartless.

I don’t want to…but I’m having a hard time not doing that because, well, we’ve seen four years of it, and you want to sign on for four more?

Maybe the damage is done…

But, I have to say that, I feel like I’m being manipulated in all of this, too.  Clear-eyed, I see it now.  The mantra “Keep them angry” has been running through my head.  It’s a mantra that an operative used to describe the tactics of our day that push out the vote by the Right, but it certainly could be applied to the Left, too.

And anger always gets the best of us.

There’s certainly a ton of reasons to be angry, and good ones, too.  But I’m deciding to go in a different direction.

I’m deciding, today, to “Keep it compassionate.”  Compassion for the people being demonized, demoralized, and degraded will spur my vote this year.

Compassion even for those folks who might vote for the other side, because I have a desire to break the anger-spell driving the divisive politics of our day.

By the way, I don’t see compassion as weak.  In fact, I think it’s about the strongest thing you can be because, well, it’s easier to give into the anger, honestly.

I’m still frustrated that I don’t have a better ticket to vote for (Yet!  That running mate could do it!), but I won’t let the anger get the best of me…or, at least I’ll try not to.

But I do want to ask, absolutely without a shred of rhetorical questioning: how do you separate the vote from horribleness?  How do you separate the vote from the cruelty?  Is a vote for a candidate a vote for their words, beliefs, and ideas, too?

I know it’s not always a vote for their actions…we all make mistakes.  But what if there’s not only no remorse, but indeed a doubling-down?

I don’t know what to do with that, because a vote for that feels like rubber stamping, or even agreement with, those ideas.

And we can’t just say “it’s about the policies,” because as I point out above, the policies seem to be laced with that vitriol, too.

But even in this case, then, I’m going to go with compassion.  The kind of compassion that says, “God, they know not what they do.”

I’m still angry at the injustice…but that’s on all sides. No one is not guilty of that.

But when I enter the booth this year, I’ll be “Keeping it compassionate.”

Solid Ground is Overrated

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solid-javascript“On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand…”

I love the hymn, but it lies.

It doesn’t mean to, of course. It means to tell a deep truth…but I think the way it is put in practice, at least, is a lie.

Because while we may talk about God as “solid ground,” and the God seen in Christ as “solid ground,” we also talk about God as breath and wind.

So which is it?  As Nicodemus asks Jesus, “How can this be?”

Well, it is because it’s not true…it’s deeper than truth.  It’s more than true.

What I’m getting at is: it’s all metaphor. God may be unchanging, but is also the “wild goose” of Celtic wisdom, running roughshod and rampant across existence.  “God can’t be boxed in or pinned down,” we say, and yet we sing of God as “the rock.”

Faith turns into lunacy when the metaphor becomes the idol.

And let’s be honest: you don’t want solid ground.  Solid ground is difficult to till.  Solid ground is brittle, and breaks but doesn’t give in the way you need useful ground to give.  Solid ground may not shift, but living things need shift.

You cannot root in solid ground.

You cannot breathe in solid ground.

Solid ground is a tomb which could not contain the Christ.

The quest for the spiritual seeker, then, is not to find the solid ground and build a house there, but rather to embrace the uncertainty of life and living.  Hug change and keep it close.  Learn to keep your heart nimble, to dance when the “earth moves under your feet” as St. Carol of the Kings sang.

Because God is only solid ground insofar as existing in God allows you to shift and move with the waves of life.

Because God is only secure insofar as rooting yourself in God pushes you toward the skies, toward change and growth…and nothing alive escapes change, Beloved.

Base religion speaks of God and God’s ways, “God’s laws,” God’s edicts as airtight and immovable.

And yet the Christ spoke of God’s ways as moving mountains (Mark 11:23) and likened them to weed infestation. (Matthew 13:31-32)  Dynamic, not stoic.

I knew someone who told me that they, when visiting Colorado, had told a mountain to move.  They stood at the base of a mountain and did this. They were so secure in their faith, they said, that they were certainly hopeful, if not certainly certain, that it would shift ever so slightly. Or, perhaps, a stone would fall at that very moment.

Something.

Nothing happened, of course, because the analogy is not reality. It is truer than reality…we have trouble grasping that, but that’s kind of the point: it can’t be grasped.

Instead of viewing God as a solid rock, or an old man in the sky who sent a memo in the form of the Bible giving instructions for life (which, honestly, is largely what base religion has taught us: that God is just a more perfect version of the most powerful self we know, giving orders), try viewing God like a doe deep in the woods who you have trouble seeing, but chase after.

Imagine the chase as being the goal, the pursuit. Imagine the tracks you find here and there, as enough evidence to give your soul hope and nourishment that something is worth following, and that the playful way the prints dance gives you a hint that the doe knows you’re following, knows you even, and desires the chase, too.

And when you spot the doe, those times that you do, you only do so because the doe lets you watch it eat, and you’re still enough to notice it.  Both things have to happen.

Solid ground is overrated, Beloved.

God is only solid in being fluid.  God is only secure in God’s wildness.

I mean, it’s almost like the kind of paradox Jesus spoke about all the time, right?  That “lose your life to gain it” thing?  I mean, it’s almost like Jesus was dropping hints, making tracks for us to follow the whole time, but we were too busy making him into an idol to see it…

 

The Passion According to St. John

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I worked on this with Rev. Jason Chesnut, Rev. Lenny Duncan, and Tracy Radosevic so, if they needed to, churches could use it at the center of their Good Friday virtual worship.

Or, for anyone actually.

Take a listen.

“The Passion of Christ as told by the writer of John’s Gospel stands at the center of the holiest three days of the Christian year, the Triduum.

It’s a drama, and is not read so much as told. It’s told because it’s a story worth passing on, worth hearing in all of its intrigue and inflection, in all the ways it challenges presuppositions, powers, and principalities just in its very recitation.

The Passion of Christ is not a Biblical reading so much as a word to a weary world about the Word.”

Jesus Died on a Friday, Right?

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ET_ecQpXsAEESMcJesus died on a Friday, right?

I don’t think so.

In fact, I’d say, probably not.

Maybe, though…

In yet another file on “the scriptures aren’t internally cohesive and that’s OK because they weren’t written to be,” we take a quick look at the Last Supper-Crucifixion-Resurrection arc in the gospels.

Also: don’t @ me, bro.  I know you may not like what follows, but…well…pastors really should be more intellectually honest about this stuff.

This question is particularly timely for two reasons.  First, it’s Holy Week and these events are on the minds of Christians today.  And secondly, tonight begins the Jewish feast of Passover, so it is especially timely.

There is a third reason, though…but I’ll get to that in a minute.  Just wait.

I should note that Passover and Holy Week don’t always align, though…and Christians are surprised to hear this.  Passover in the Jewish calendar is on a fixed date. But on the Gregorian calendar the date of Passover changes because the lunisolar calendar, on which the Jewish calendar is based, doesn’t align with the Gregorian calendar precisely.

Easter is also based on the lunisolar calendar, but on a fixed sign: the Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox.

Confused?  Yeah, there’s a lot of qualification there…

Bottom line: they don’t always line up, and aren’t meant to.

And maybe it’s better that they don’t always line up because, and here’s the big kicker: Jesus was preparing for Passover in Jerusalem when he was arrested, tried, and crucified, but his “Last Supper” was actually not the Passover meal.

Probably.

I know. Your Sunday School teachers and parish pastors oversimplified things a bit, but it is more than likely, in my estimation, that Jesus was not celebrating the Passover at the Last Supper.

In fact, and here’s the other reason that I think this conversation is important today (Wednesday, April 8th 2020) of all days: I’m pretty sure that tonight is the memorial of the Last Supper for Jesus…even though Christians will celebrate Maundy Thursday tomorrow night.  Which means the Last Supper was on a Wednesday, and Jesus may have died on a Thursday.

Why do I think this?

Well, tonight starts Passover on the Jewish calendar.  But they won’t they eat the Passover meal until tomorrow night, right?  That’s the important thing to remember: though Passover starts tonight, they won’t eat the meal until the end of the day (sundown-sundown).

Today is all about preparation.  In the gospels Jesus sends his disciples to go and prepare a place for them to celebrate the Passover meal…which they do, in all the Gospel accounts.  And it says they finish preparations, and then have a meal.  But is it the Passover meal?  It never indicates it is.  It just says they make preparations and then share a meal.

This is a pretty important detail to leave out of the account.

And because it’s never clearly spelled out, and for the reasons below, it actually seems more likely that the meal that Jesus shares with his disciples is actually the meal before the Passover meal, not the Passover itself.

Another indicator that it’s not Passover, but actually just the meal before, is that Jesus is not celebrating with his mother and sisters.  As the head of the household, he wouldn’t miss celebrating Passover with his family.

It’s also worth noting that the word used in all of the Last Supper accounts for the bread, artos, points to a regular yeast-loaf.  Were it the unleavened bread of the Passover, matzos would have been used.

Now, despite all this, Matthew, Mark, and Luke do present the Last Supper in such a way that it would be easy to point to Jesus dying on a Friday and the Last Supper being a Thursday Passover.  In fact, it may be that those Gospel writers did think that, though they also could have had a copyist make revisions, placing it on Thursday-Friday-Saturday path (which is a long story…primarily about a copyist adding the word “again” into a certain line in Luke 22:14 to do all this, but we need not go there today).

John seems pretty convinced that Jesus died on a Thursday, though.  How do we know?

He writes that the Last Supper happened “before the festival of Passover.” (John 13:1)  The writer of John’s gospel also notes that, when they handed Jesus over to the authorities, the accusers wouldn’t enter Pilate’s courtyard because they would be unclean and therefore unable to eat the Passover “that evening.” (John 18:28)

It’s also worth noting that, after the crucifixion, they wanted to remove Jesus’ body from the cross because it was a Sabbath day of “great solemnity.”  Now, to the untrained ear, that would be an “ah-ha!” moment pointing to a Friday death.  Sundown on Friday is the start of the Sabbath, yes?

Except…

There are other marked Sabbaths in the Jewish calendar, including any Passover.  And in this particular year it appears that there are two Sabbaths back-to-back, which does happen (as it does this very year, 2020!): there is the Passover Sabbath break, followed by the weekly Sabbath break.

In addition to the above, the indicators outside of the gospels themselves point not to a Passover, but to a meal before the Passover.

In 1 Corinthians, which provides for us the language of the liturgy, the Apostle Paul, a Jewish leader, does not mention that Jesus was at Passover when he took the bread and blessed it, but rather notes instead, “on the night in which he was betrayed…” (11:23)

Why would he leave that important detail out?  And his writing was the first one we know about on the matter.

Another little tidbit comes from one of the only extra-Biblical sources of the time that mention Jesus at all (a blog for another day), the Talmud notes that, “They hung Joshua the Nazarene on the ‘eve of the Passover.'” (b. Sanhedrin 67a and 43a)

And finally, though not really finally because we could certainly go down the rabbit hole farther, it’s important to note that the tradition that Jesus was in the tomb “for three days and three nights,” which is internally consistent in the gospels, cannot be accurate by the Jewish calendar if Jesus died on a Friday.  If Jesus died on a Friday, assuming he was placed in the tomb just before sundown, he was actually only in there about two days and two nights.  I mean, while this little detail could be chocked up to hyperbole or whatnot, it’s worth noting that for this particular arc of the Jesus story, the days and nights are significant because it tied Jesus back to the salvation story of Jonah, which they wanted to do.

By this point you may be asking yourself: why does any of it matter?

Well, I think it’s significant for a couple of reasons.

The first?  It’s further evidence that any attempt to say that the scriptures are inerrant or infallible is a fool’s errand.  They are internally inconsistent in a number of ways, and the magical “innerancy/infallbile” cults are literally ruining the beauty and complexity of the religion not only for the rest of the faithful, but also for the unfaithful who can’t even begin to look at a faith they find so ridiculous on the face.

The second?  There’s no such thing as a “Christian Seder,” and we really shouldn’t be celebrating them.  It is absolutely fine to attend a Jewish Seder as a guest and enjoy the hospitality of our Jewish sisters and brothers, but to usurp a sacred festival for our own use is something Christians just shouldn’t do.  So many Christians think they can Christianize a Seder based off of the Last Supper account…but we can’t. And shouldn’t. It’s not ours.

A third reason?  The connection between Jesus and the Passover lamb is important for the faith, but only in analogy and not in actuality.  We even sing that Jesus is the “lamb who was slain,” but when we do so we sing it as a point of theological reference, not necessity.

What I mean is: Jesus was not sacrificed for humanity.  Jesus was certainly killed by humanity, but what that means is complex, not simple.  It’s not an exchange of blood for blood. God is not bloodthirsty. And when we make Jesus the Passover lamb, and only that, instead of just use it as an important tool of imagery that would have connected with the ancient people, we make God a bloodthirsty deity who demands sacrifice.

According to the prophet Micah that’s not what God desires, right? (Micah 6:8)  So why do we continue to make Jesus exactly what God does not desire?

A critique on all this comes from theological corners concerned with our sacramental theology.  “Didn’t Jesus change the Passover meal to be about him?” some sacramentalists would ask.

I mean, maybe.

But the sacrament of Holy Communion, while heavy on Passover imagery, remains just as heavy utilizing Sabbath meal imagery.  Jesus may be seen and spoken of as the Paschal lamb, but the bread of life is not sacrificed every Sunday in a Christian church.

Praise is sacrificed.  This is why it’s probably the best practice to not break the bread at the altar during the Words of Institution…it sends the wrong signal.

Note: this last critique is heavy on the insider imagery…I digress…

In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, it appears that Jesus may have been celebrating the Passover.  In John, where Jesus pretty clearly dies on a Thursday, it appears he was not.

So what day did Jesus die?

I don’t know.  No one knows.

Was Jesus’ Last Supper a Passover?  I don’t know…but I don’t think so.  No one knows.

The Gospels don’t agree on it all.  And those first scholars who put the Gospels together surely saw that it was not internally consistent, and it didn’t really bother them…so it probably shouldn’t bother us either, right?

But if Jesus did die before the Passover meal on a Thursday, then it lines up with this year’s Jewish calendar in such a way that’s it’s pretty poetic, pretty interesting, and, I think, pretty beautiful.

What Your Church Teaches Has Consequences

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teaching_preaching_church_teachersCame across a quote from Isaac Asimov today on social media.  It’s from 1980, but I fear has a shelf-life well beyond thirty-nine years…and was certainly true even before it was spoken.

The quote is,

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States…[It is] nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”

Whelp. If that’s not a punch in the old stomach-of-truth I don’t know what is, and it’s being displayed in full force these days, especially in these White House briefings happening on the regular where the President gives his opinion about the effectiveness of this drug or that drug, contradicting the experts around him.  He follows it up with, “What do you have to lose?”

I mean, anytime it comes to ingesting chemicals of any sort that aren’t naturally found in your body, I think there’s QUITE A BIT YOU COULD LOSE just by going off a hunch.

Or take the news reports out this morning about the in-fighting in the administration where one official wants to push a drug on the public that “could work” over and against the trained doctors in the room who caution it.  And the official’s defense?  They’re a “social scientist”…which, apparently, gives them the right to endanger human health, just because “scientist” is in their discipline’s title.

Opinion and expertise are not the same.

I digress, though.

I saw this quote on social media and I responded, “Looking at you, church…”

And I wrote that for two reasons.

The first? I had just been in a conversation with a friend who comes from a different theological point of view. They have no formal training, but take issue with my theological analyses quite openly, and even went so far as to suggest that their years of Sunday School and small group studies was equivalent to scholarly theological rigor.

The sum was, in effect, “It’s just a different point of view.”

The problem with this “point of view” is not that it’s different, though, it’s that it’s ill-informed at best, and uninformed at worst.

Now, I’m not suggesting that I’m always correct. By no means, just ask my partner. I’m wrong all the time, as much as I hate to admit it.  But I do know the difference between informed work and opinion, and so much that flies around as “theology” today is just mere opinion, brought on by years of the church, writ large, encouraging people to buy into the idea that their thoughts about the Bible, or their desires for what it means, trumps scholarly, rational, and even scientific study.

This is why I have so much trouble with churches who explicitly or implicitly teach that the Bible is inerrant and/or infallible.  It creates such a closed-loop system of truth inquiry that the oxygen is sucked out of the air and you end up with nonsense and the necessity of having to deny things that are plainly true. For example, the statement “there are two different, unique, and theologically divergent creation stories in Genesis 1 and 2” should be open for scholarly debate and discussion, using all the tools available to investigate that claim.

This is not a problem, unless you need there NOT to be two different, unique, and theologically divergent creation stories because inerrancy and/or infalliblity are the foundation of your argument.  And so you end up making all sorts of excuses and qualifications for how there are not two different accounts with unique, divergent theological claims…which is nonsense. There clearly are.

That’s a small thing.

But think on this: if, with such a small thing, you’re having to go around your ass to get to your elbow proving something can’t be what centuries (literally) of grammatical analysis, language study, theological inquiry, and historical, anthropological, and archeological research indicates it is, what about the big things?

The big things like not staying home during a pandemic because your religion teaches you, nay, encourages you to gather anyway because “God must be glorified and no one will tell me not to worship.”  Or, as someone legitimately offered just the other day, “Jesus died for me already, so I have nothing to fear by gathering at church.”

If the scriptures, or even your amorphous faith, is the center and locale of all truth because it is where inerrant and infallible authority rests, we create a system where your opinion becomes dangerous for our collective health.

And it starts with the small things.

If a collection of stories, full of contradictions, histories, myths, letters, apocrypha, and all sorts of kind of literature becomes the center for all your truth, then evidence will not convince you otherwise.

Normally the above is not a huge issue.  But in a pandemic, it can be.

And the second reason I wrote it?

Because I really want people to take a look at what their church teaches and consider the consequences.

I have friends who recently left their little church to go to the mega-church down the street. “It has better kid’s programming,” they said.

I get that to some degree, though if you want good children’s programming in a church, my suggestion will always be: create it, then.

But here’s the thing: their new church teaches a literalist understanding of the scriptures.  And although their “children’s church” is all sorts of flashy, the lasting intellectual incongruencies that their children may get as a result of an anti-intellectual approach to scripture will ultimately not be good for them.

Imagine being a doctor who can bring their brain to work, but not to worship.  This happens all the time, by the way, and I don’t know how people can look at evidence through a microscope or study the intricacies of a discipline Monday through Friday but endure a religious life that amounts to little more than a Sunday School lesson for infants throughout their life.

Or imagine a retributive God.  This pandemic could very well be seen as a response to human action, rather than the natural thing that happens when competing lifeforms compete.  Think of the mental anguish that is already stacked on top of the physical anguish that comes when we have to think that we are being punished by a God who supposedly “loves us.”

What your church teaches matters.

A friend of mine said once, “It’s nice to not have to think.”  Which, I guess it must be if you don’t think your religious life is consequential in this one.

But it is.

After posting my response, a good friend pushed back honestly suggesting that I not broad-brush the church.  I welcome that critique. And he’s right, of course.  I come from a tradition that encourages intellectual rigor in all parts of life, including spirituality. I don’t like being lumped in with those who don’t share my beliefs or practices.

And it is true that the church has done much, so much, to point humanity toward truth, encouraging intellectual inquiry and rigorous discipline.  I’m thinking specifically of our contributions in astronomy, sociology, art, architecture, philosophy (at times), and anthropology.

But, here’s the thing: I’m woven into the Christian fabric.  Which means the anti-intellectual parts of it are not “some other” part of it, but a close cousin to me.  And, like the “me too” movement forced me to wrestle with toxic masculinity even though I try not to fall into the trappings of it all, I need to be forced, even from my liberal corner, to wrestle honestly with the anti-intellectual history and contemporary factions of the church.

And one way I wrestle with it is by calling attention to it.

Because it may not, in most situations, seem like a big deal to attend a church that doesn’t take the life of the mind seriously, has a closed-loop view of scripture, and feels that pointing out truth in other faiths (or even in the secular world) threatens their own sense of truth.

But I really think it is a big deal.

Because if we disregard evidential truth, scholarly inquiry, and the like in one arena, chocking it up to “a difference of opinion,” we call into question, in an unhelpful and even dangerous way, truth in all arenas.

And, as we’re seeing, that has consequences.