28Apr

How the Resurrection of Jesus transforms our view of the Bible

Like most, I find the Bible to be a difficult book. I don’t merely mean that it is a lengthy collection of writings, and therefore a task for which I have trouble finding time. Nor do I mean that it is riddled with sometimes arcane or obscure terminology. Nor that it is full of challenging passages. Nor that original meanings sometimes get lost in translation.

More than this, it is tempting to approach the texts with 21st century assumptions. We tend to presume a naturalistic view of life that excludes the miraculous. We tend to fall into a fallacious and prideful assumption of moral and intellectual progress–that recent thinkers are smarter than those from antiquity, and our current values are superior to theirs. In short, we tend to look down our noses at our predecessors and their writings. We judge them from within our own parochial biases.

Within liberal Protestantism exists a large “fifth column”, a herd of skeptical critics who are currently inhabiting influential seats of power on church councils and in seminaries. These lend a veneer of authority to support a dismissive approach to understanding the Bible.

As one who reads widely, who has been through the rigors of higher education, who values scholarship, and whose work bastes me in scientific data on an ongoing basis, I am also particularly vulnerable. Doubt is my main demon–doubt, and perhaps pride. There are times when my own skepticism rises up against me. For me, I must retreat to my “touchstones” of faith, the greatest of which is the Resurrection of Jesus. The Resurrection is the claim that splits Christian believers from all other people examining these mysteries. I’m convinced that this miracle is no fable but actually true.

That a historical Jesus, a teacher, existed in 1st century Palestine and died on a cross is not controversial–this is not a point for which lengthy arguments are needed. But how do we know he didn’t stay dead?

There is the mystery of the empty tomb. Much more could be said about this.
We have eyewitness testimony, in the form of the 4 Gospels, and furthermore Paul the Apostle lists some of those who encountered the post-resurrection Jesus in 1 Corinthians 15:5-8.
From this same passage, written probably in the year 55 (merely 22 years after Jesus’ death), Paul refers to an older tradition. Taking this idea of an older tradition, along with the great song to Christ (the “kenosis hymn”) of Philippians 2:5-11, we have evidence that before Paul was writing his letters, within a few short years after the crucifixion, Jesus was being revered as God in human form by a sizable number of people.
These people were Jews, who by their history and religious faith would have been almost the last people on earth in any era of history, to have embraced such an idea.
We have the evidence of changed lives: Jesus’ disciples were transformed from cowering in fear after the crucifixion, to boldly proclaiming the Gospel, even to their own gruesome martyrdoms.
For me, one of the more persuasive arguments is that Jesus’ own earthly brother, James, came to believe in him after seeing him in his resurrected body. If I made a claim to my own divinity, the last person who would probably believe me is my own brother, because we grew up together.

Other arguments can be made, but I will defer for now.

If the resurrection is really true, then we can handle other parts of the Bible that are difficult. Once we grasp the miracle of miracles, then the other recorded miraculous events are not a significant intellectual problem, including the parting of the Red Sea by Moses, and the fish story of Jonah. We can handle the purity codes of the ancient Hebrews. We can draw meaning from the story of the Garden of Eden. We can handle all the parts of the Bible that are difficult for us to grasp in a post-enlightenment era. If the resurrection is true then we can have faith that those narratives were collected for us for a good reason.

If Jesus really came back from death, then we must transform how we look at the ancient texts he held sacred. We no longer judge the Bible by our standards but rather let the Bible judge us by its standards.

24Apr

Unhappy Days for Erin Moran

The tragic and mysterious demise of a beloved child star is still under investigation. Erin Moran was adored by millions as “Joanie” in the 1974-84 sitcom “Happy Days”, and its spin off show “Joanie Loves Chachi”. The web is full of stories today about her troubles following the end of her sitcom TV family.

One lesson to learn here is that fame and stardom don’t guarantee a good life or a happy end. Those who reached out to her have said that she rebuffed their attempts. Paul Peterson, a former child star and child-actor advocate, has been quoted as saying, “Erin had friends and she knew it. Abandonment was not the issue… We did our best with the resources available to us, but it was a very dark room. Some don’t find the light switch in time.” (Fox News). Her inner demons apparently included hard drinking, and it was partly drinking and partying that led to her becoming destitute.

Also, there appear to have been issues with her husband. People magazine reported in 2002 that “Moran later married Steve Fleischmann, a Walmart employee, in 1993. The couple moved into Fleischmann’s mother’s trailer in Indiana so Moran could act as her caregiver.” On the surface this might appear to be a compassionate act, but a 2013 public altercation reported by a tabloid calls this into question:

Steve was so angry he stormed out of the bar, and an intoxicated Erin hurled insults at him, like “Get the hell out of here, you big crybaby! Go home, crawl into bed and suck your thumb as you cry yourself to sleep, you mama’s boy!” (National Enquirer)

If this incident truly happened then it raises a question whether she may have been the victim of a “MEM”, or a “mother-enmeshed man”. (Of course this would be but pure speculation here).

What are we speaking of? A mother enmeshed man is the human wreckage left of someone raised by a narcissistic or otherwise domineering mother. A MEM is a man who in many ways is “married to mom”–some of these ways are obvious (particularly if she still calls the shots) and many are much less so (manifesting perhaps as emotional distance, or difficulty with trust). Such a man may be emotionally eviscerated and still controlled by the first great relationship of life–the mother-child relationship. (This can happen to daughters also). By the way, full disclosure here, it hurts me to speak of this, because I may have a whiff of this in my own life, my own marriage.

If you are in a relationship with a MEM, or if you are a man who feels that this may be you, then seek professional help. A helpful 2007 book on this subject is When He’s Married to Mom: How to Help Mother‑Enmeshed Men by Kenneth M. Adams.

Of course, we at this site would remiss if we did not advocate much prayer. And if you are in a covenant of marriage, the closer each of you grows in your relationship to God, the further and dimmer will be the other troubles, and the easier it will be to set healthy boundaries and overcome dysfunctional influences.

09Apr

Bombs on Palm Sunday

Two churches in Egypt were attacked today during Palm Sunday services, killing scores of worshippers. Our prayers go out to our persecuted brethren.

In Tanta, news footage shows people gathered at the church, singing hymns. The video then quickly switches to bars as harrowing screams and cries echo in the background.
“Everything is destroyed inside the church” and blood can be seen on marble pillars, said Peter Kamel, who saw the aftermath of the carnage.

You can read more at CNN.

07Apr

Tulips and the Scope of Redemption

I know that spring has arrived, when a patch of dirt by our front lamp post erupts in dark green shoots. Days later a feast of color bursts upon the eye as the tulips fully bloom.

Spring brings also the yearly commemoration of the passion, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. One interesting controversy centers on the scope of Christ’s atonement, and tulips also remind me of this.

By 1610 a controversy had erupted in Holland, over a rift that had emerged between followers of Jacobus Arminius, and the rest of the reformed community who hewed to what we would today call Calvinism, after the theologian John Calvin. Eventually the Synod of Dort (which seated only the Calvinists) settled the matter in 1619 in favor of Calvinism.

The dissidents were known as the “remonstrants” who took issue with five theological points. These points are sometimes called the “Five points of Calvinism”, and they form an acrostic that reminds us of the tulips of Holland:

T-Total depravity
U-Unconditional Election
L-Limited Atonement
I-Irresistible Grace
P-Perseverance of the Saints

A lot could be said about each of these things, but this would get out of hand fairly quickly. I’ll focus on one: The “L” in TULIP is the idea that Christ didn’t actually suffer and die for all humanity. He died only for the Elect, for those particular people who have been chosen by God from the beginning of time to receive his Grace. Jesus seems to have come out and said just this in his upper room discourse on the night before his death (the same occasion that gave us the institution of Communion or the “Lord’s Supper”). As St. John recorded, Jesus prayed aloud for his disciples and all who would believe through them, in what is often referred to as his “high priestly prayer”:

“I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. … I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.” (John 16:6, 9; Holy Bible, English Standard Version)

This idea of limited atonement is at one end of a spectrum, the opposite of which would be the idea of Universalism, which teaches that Christ’s atonement is universal in scope and that his death saves everyone, whether they believe or not. No one is lost. Universalism is a very comforting philosophy, but unfortunately only a tortured reading of Jesus’ words would permit one to reach this conclusion. Jesus’ teachings are clear that in the end some are saved, but many will perish. This is a deep and troubling mystery that confounds us. For those who take Jesus’ teachings seriously, Universalism is not a viable option except as a vague hope–in the end only God knows what He will do with Buddhists and agnostics. Universalists are on the fringe of Christianity.

Between these extremes would be the idea that Christ’s death is universal in scope (he died for all) but that not all people will avail themselves of his grace and therefore are not saved–each person must choose whether or not to accept Jesus. He died to take away all sin, and thereby to make salvation available to everyone who chooses in faith to turn to him.

Calvinists and non-Calvinists would tend to agree with the formulation that Christ’s death is “sufficient for all but efficient only for some.” The point of the controversy really comes down to the mysterious interplay between human free will and God’s will. It comes down to whether God intended that only a few be saved, or perhaps rather that He had a blanket desire that everyone be saved, but sadly God’s will is thwarted, as he leaves it up to us and our own free will to decide, each one for himself or herself.

We currently take the position here at this site that both viewpoints are Christian, and within the bounds of orthodox Christian belief. Therefore we don’t take a strong stance. There are faithful people on both sides of this question of free will versus determinism.

What all traditions would agree, is that for you as an individual, if you are a believer, then there is no limitation on God’s grace. Christ’s atonement is as unlimited as it is unmerited. It is shocking in its scope. However heavy a bag of sin you carry, you can lay it all at the cross.

The God of Christianity is the same who was praised by the psalmist for treating us not as we deserve but as children:

For as high as the heavens are above the earth,  so great is his love for those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,  so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
(Psalm 103:12-13)

Saint Paul probably recalled this when he wrote his letter to the believers in Rome:
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39, New International Version).

Reflect on this as you witness the unfolding of the tulips, and the unfolding of the drama of the death and resurrection of our Lord.

02Apr

The New Campus Crusade

If it seems like certain viewpoints on college campuses are being enforced with a zeal that is almost religious, that’s because they are. Even as Christian student groups have been getting booted off campuses, a new and intolerant religion has been rising, complete with zealots and a rigid dogma.

NYU Psychology professor Jonathan Haidt has been studying the phenomena. In an editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal, associate editor Bari Weiss discusses Haidt’s view that it is natural for humans to create “quasireligious experiences” out of secular activities. This is having the downside of wreaking havoc on intellectual freedom and freedom of speech, and ultimately releasing students into a workforce that they are ill equipped to handle.

These believers are transforming the campus from a citadel of intellectual freedom into a holy space—where white privilege has replaced original sin, the transgressions of class and race and gender are confessed not to priests but to “the community,” victim groups are worshiped like gods, and the sinned-against are supplicated with “safe spaces” and “trigger warnings”.

Unfortunately, this can also lead to violence. True believers are agitating to purge dissenting viewpoints and punish those who violate the norms.

“What we’re beginning to see now at Berkeley and at Middlebury hints that this [campus] religion has the potential to turn violent,” Mr. Haidt says. “The attack on the professor at Middlebury really frightened people,” he adds, referring to political scientist Allison Stanger, who wound up in a neck brace after protesters assaulted her as she left the venue.

The article is worth a read.

25Mar

The Annunciation: Mary Showed her Character and it is Better than Ours

(In many churches, March 25 marks the Feast of the Annunciation, which commemorates the visit to Mary by the archangel Gabriel, to announce that she would bear Jesus).

I have been reading Lionel Shriver’s interesting book We Need To Talk About Kevin, a tale of the birth and development of a (fictional) boy who would go on to become a monster, a psychopathic killer. The story is told from the mother’s perspective in a series of flashbacks contained in letters to her husband. I was struck by the descriptions of how Eva reacts to her pregnancy. Even though her son’s birth would be legitimate, emerging out of union with her husband, she looks upon it with dread. She fusses. She mourns that she can no longer quaff a glass of wine:

Although I didn’t think I had a problem, a long draught of rich red at day’s end had long been emblematic to me of adulthood, that vaunted American Holy Grail of liberty.

… I did not care so much about being deprived of a glass of wine per se. But like that legendary journey that begins with a single step, I had already embarked upon my first resentment. A petty one, but most resentments are. And one that for its smallness I felt obliged to repress. For that matter, that is the nature of resentment, the objection we cannot express. It is silence more than the complaint itself that makes the emotion so toxic, like poisons the body won’t pee away. Hence, hard as I tried to be a grown-up about my cranberry juice, chosen carefully for its resemblance to a young Beaujolais, deep down inside I was a brat.

She muses about how pregnancy is depicted as infestation in horror movies such as “Rosemary’s Baby” and “Aliens”:

In Alien a foul extraterrestrial claws its way out of John Hurt’s belly.

She feels humiliated, demoted to an inferior state, from “driver to vehicle, from householder to house”, for a “nine month freeloader.”

She frets about the effects of pregnancy on the woman’s body. She recalls a meeting with a young mother:

…she had recently given birth to her own first child, and I needed only to say hi for her to begin spewing her despair. Compact, with unusually broad shoulders and close curly black hair, Rita was an attractive woman — in the physical sense. With no solicitation on my part she regaled me with the irreproachable state of her physique before she conceived.

Apparently she’d been using the Nautilus every day, and her definition had never been so sharp, her fat-to-muscle ratio was unreal, her aerobic conditioning topping the charts.

Then pregnancy, well it was terrible! The Nautilus just didn’t feel good any more and she’d had to stop—. Now, she was a mess, she could hardly do a sit-up, much less three sets of proper crunches, she was starting from scratch or worse—! This woman was fuming, Franklin; she clearly muttered about her abdominal muscles when she seethed down the street. Yet at no point did she mention the name of her child, its sex, its age, or its father. I remember stepping back, excusing myself to the bar, and slipping away without telling Rita good-bye. What had most mortified me, what I had to flee, was that she sounded not only unfeeling and narcissistic but just like me.

In a sense, the character of Eva speaks for us today. She expresses our individual and cultural ambivalence toward motherhood — nay, toward parenthood of any sort:

“Motherhood was harder than I’d expected,” I explained. “I’d been used to airports, sea views, museums. Suddenly, I was stuck with the same few rooms, with Lego.”

Compare this now with the reaction of Mary to her upcoming birth, as recorded in the Bible. She had good reason to look upon her role as the bearer of Jesus with some degree of dread. Her son’s birth would most likely be perceived as illegitimate, since she was not yet married and Joseph wasn’t involved in the conception. People in ancient Israel were not any more gullible than we are. Mary faced ruin and scandal. She faced abandonment by her family, and by her fiancé, Joseph, who could have walked away.

And yet, she responded to the angel Gabriel with firm assent: “be it unto me according to thy word…” (Luke 1:38) Lest there be any thought that her “fiat” was grudging, this was followed by an outburst that revealed that her heart was singing with joy. Her “Magnificat” has been read, recited and sung for centuries: “My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit rejoiceth in God my Savior…”

As one pastor stated, “a teenage girl has shown us all up.”

24Mar

Deaths of Despair vs Lives of Hope

In a shocking study published in 2015 by Princeton University economists Ann Case and Angus Deaton, it was shown that mortality has been mysteriously rising for an unexpected swath of the populace, high school educated whites. The authors of that earlier study have further elaborated on their work, as reported today in the Wall Street Journal:

Driving the uptick are increases in “deaths of despair”—from drugs, alcohol-related liver diseases and suicide, as well as a slowdown in progress against death in middle age from heart disease and cancer, the nation’s biggest killers, wrote Anne Case and Nobel Prize-winning economist Angus Deaton, her husband.

By the numbers we are looking a tragedy of proportions that would spur the nation into a froth if we were talking about terrorism victims, or casualties of a battle. Questions naturally arise: Why this is happening, and what can be done about it? Here are my initial reflections.

Globalization is partly to blame, as it has brought wage stagnation and loss of manufacturing jobs to middle class workers without a college degree. However, this disaster is not purely economic, but is also associated with social disintegration:

Those changes have come along with trends such as a decline in marriage, more temporary relationships and children out of wedlock, and a rise in social isolation that have made life less stable, they said.

Looking at the age cohort graph it is startling to see how abruptly things changed, beginning with the Baby Boomer generation, a group who really revolutionized society. Poverty–grinding and crushing poverty–has existed for whites before and after the 1960s. It exists for other racial and ethnic groups. Somehow, people have been able to cope better at other times. They had something that is missing now.

The Baby Boomers came of age at a time of postwar prosperity, when manufacturing blossomed and the “American Dream” came to include a good paying job, suburban houses with TVs in every room, multiple cars, and mostly the optimistic sense of permanent upward mobility. The old cohesive forces of family, community, and church were simultaneously dealt a body blow–for a variety of reasons beyond the scope of a short essay–thereby kicking aside a crucial support needed later when the “Dream” proved to be illusory.

But the problem goes deeper than merely lacking social support at a time of greatest need. A Sunday School teacher of mine was fond of saying that each of us has a “God-sized hole” that only God can fill, though in God’s place we try our best to fill that hole with other things–idols of our own devising. This may be part of the problem. Making an idol of work and a particular kind of lifestyle can only shatter you when those things are yanked away. Christianity doesn’t call people to be rich and successful, nor does it endorse the heretical view that wealth and status are the guaranteed symbols of a life blessed by God. Success that is merely an external papering over of an existential void will only be an illusion. It is like Jesus’ parable of the two builders, where the house built on the sand eventually collapses.

Work success and the illusion that this provides–take it away and what is left? A life that is not integrated with God at the center will be more likely to yield to identity crises. There will be a tendency toward loss of community, and fragmentation of relationships. It may be the culprit behind that overwhelming despair that is driving the suicides, cirrhosis deaths, and drug overdoses.

Of course, this is a lot of conjecture. It would be interesting to drill down deep into the data to see exactly what going on in the spiritual lives of these victims of despair. Only God knows.

Whatever the reason for this despair, it suggests a tremendous need for assistance, assistance that is not merely economic, but existential. This is a mission field. This is a wake up call to Christians reach into that void with God’s love.

17Mar

A Prayer for the Feast Day of St Patrick

God our Father
You sent Saint Patrick
to preach your glory to the people of Ireland.
By the help of his prayers,
may all Christians proclaim your love to all men.
Grant this through Christ our Lord.

(Christian Prayer: The Liturgy of the Hours, from the website www.churchyear.net)

(Image credit: Saint Patrick stained glass window from Cathedral of Christ the Light, Oakland, CA. Posted to FLICKR by user SICARR, obtained from Wikimedia Commons.)

07Mar

White Woman Insists She is Transracial

Rachel Dolezal now styles herself Nkechi Amare Diallo. The white civil rights activist and former NAACP leader had lied about her past, claiming to be African American, which allowed her to rise to become a lecturer in Africana studies at Eastern Washington State University, and president of the Spokane chapter of of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). She lost both of these positions, and gained a heap of notoriety, when she was outed by her estranged parents in 2015 for passing herself off as black. (Subsequently, investigations have suggested that 8 hate crimes she alleges to have been perpetrated against her when she was living in Idaho are also fraudulent).

Defiant to the end, Ms. Dolezal has borrowed from the debate about gender identity, insisting that race isn’t purely biological, but can be chosen.

For her part, Diallo is doubling down on her insistence that she is “transracial” — a woman who is the product of two white parents but identifies mentally, emotionally, physically and culturally as black. “I feel that I was born with the essential essence of who I am, whether it matches my anatomy and complexion or not,” Dolezal told The Guardian earlier this week. “I’ve never questioned being a girl or woman, for example, but whiteness has always felt foreign to me, for as long as I can remember. I didn’t choose to feel this way or be this way, I just am. What other choice is there than to be exactly who we are?”

Jesus is The Answer, and Ash Wednesday Tells Us the Question

“Jesus is the answer!” So proclaims numerous road signs, Facebook posts, and bumper stickers. For those posting such things, it is an expression of their faith, of their confidence in Jesus. It a touchstone of peace and happiness for them and perhaps also for many who see it–but not for everyone. To a great many others, this statement provokes rather a sense of bewilderment, and begs a follow up question: “If Jesus is the answer, then what is the question?”

This thought brings to my lips a smile as I recall the analogous situation in Douglas Adams’ humorous Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, in which a planet-sized super computer named “Deep Thought” was constructed and directed to come up with “the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything”. The program ran for millions of years, and finally returned an answer: “42”. Unfortunately neither the Deep Thought nor his designers knew what the ultimate question happened to be. The pan-dimensional beings seeking this answer were then forced to construct another planet-sized super computer to figure out the ultimate question.

Ash Wednesday is a Christian celebration that reminds us of the question for which Jesus is the answer. Or, more accurately, we are reminded of the problem for which Jesus is the solution; That is, the problem of death:

“Remember, o man, dust thou art, and to dust shalt thou return.”

Thus intones the priest in many a ceremony as ashes are imposed upon the foreheads of penitent Christians, these words echoing God’s curse in Genesis 3, pronounced upon humankind as punishment for sin.

Death is literally the bane of our existence. It destroys all that we hold dear. Try as we might to banish it from our thoughts, death catches us all. We recoil from it as we simultaneously yearn for permanence and significance. The idea of the extinction of our consciousness into an eternal nothing is difficult for us to fully grasp, for “God has set eternity in the hearts of men.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

Death is universal. We all die, because of our sin. Death is universal because sin is universal.

Fortunately, Ash Wednesday is merely the prelude to Easter. Whereas Ash Wednesday reminds us of our mortality, in essence saying, “Ye are dead”, Easter tells us: “Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3).

The good news of Christianity is that God has set eternity in our hearts for a reason. It isn’t a dreadful taunt, or a meaningless musing. Jesus, the Christ, has died our death, in order that we might live his life. “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

As the old Easter canticle proclaims:
“But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.
For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.”
(This comes from 1 Corinthians 15)

Jesus’ resurrection from death foretells our own liberation from it, and not only in the future, in an eternity after physical death. We may be liberated from its shadow, and its dread, and its power over us even in this life.

In the light of this good news, St Paul exults in his first letter to the Corinthians: “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”

As John Donne, the 16th century poet we recently profiled, elaborated so eloquently:

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
(Sonnet X)

Brother James’ Airs

Author: BrJames