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Love

If I were asked to sum all of Christian faith in a single word, I would answer, “Love.” Love is the center of Christian faith, ethics, understanding, and life. As St. John the Theologian tells us in his first epistle “God is love” and only those who know love know God (4:8). St. Paul tells us in Romans that if we love others, we have fulfilled the Law of God:

8 Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not bear false witness,” “You shall not covet,” and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”10 Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

To understand Christianity, to understand the most holy Trinity, to understand our faith’s ethical commandments, we must look always through the lens of love. Without love we walk in darkness, blundering and lost, but with love we walk in light with Christ as our guide.

St. John Chrysostom outlined beautifully some of the practical effects of true Christian love acting in the world in his 32nd homily on 1 Corinthians:

Wherefore also He saith to Peter, “If thou lovest Me, feed My sheep.” (John 21:16.)

And that ye may learn how great a work of virtue [love] is, let us sketch it out in word, since in deeds we see it no where appearing; and let us consider, if it were every where in abundance, how great benefits would ensue: how there were no need then of laws, or tribunals or punishments, or avenging, or any other such things since if all loved and were beloved, no man would injure another. Yea, murders, and strifes, and wars, and divisions, and rapines, and frauds, and all evils would be removed, and vice be unknown even in name. Miracles, however, would not have effected this; they rather puff up such as are not on their guard, unto vain-glory and folly.

…

Wherefore, having said, “The first and great commandment is, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God,” he added, “and the second—(He leaves it not in silence, but sets it down also)—is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” And see how with nearly the same excellency He demands also this. For as concerning God, He saith, “with all thy heart:” so concerning thy neighbor, “as thyself,” which is tantamount to, “with all thy heart.”

Yea, and if this were duly observed, there would be neither slave nor free, neither ruler nor ruled, neither rich nor poor, neither small nor great; nor would any devil then ever have been known: I say not, Satan only, but whatever other such spirit there be, nay, rather were there a hundred or ten thousand such, they would have no power, while love existed. For sooner would grass endure the application of fire than the devil the flame of love. She is stronger than any wall, she is firmer than any adamant; or if thou canst name any material stronger than this the firmness of love transcends them all. Her, neither wealth nor poverty overcometh: nay, rather there would be no poverty, no unbounded wealth, if there were love, but the good parts only from each estate. For from the one we should reap its abundance, and from the other its freedom from care: and should neither have to undergo the anxieties of riches, nor the dread of poverty.

…

Therefore Paul saith, that the love which we are speaking of is the mother of all good things, and prefers it to miracles and all other gifts. For as where there are vests and sandals of gold, we require also some other garments whereby to distinguish the king: but if we see the purple and the diadem, we require not to see any other sign of his royalty: just so here likewise, when the diadem of love is upon our head, it is enough to point out the genuine disciple of Christ, not to ourselves only, but also to the unbelievers. For, “by this,” saith He, “shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another.” (John 13:35.) So that this sign is greater surely than all signs, in that the disciple is recognised by it.

Such is a world ruled by Christian love. It is a world without wealth or poverty, without rulers and laws, without oppression, injustice, or violence. In short it is the Kingdom of God. It is a far cry from the world in which we live, because to our shame, too few Christians practice Christian love. We are easily beset by our own daily cares, by personal differences, by sectarianism, and strife. Often we fail even to show our dearest loved ones true Christian love. We are imperfect creatures in an imperfect world, but Christ gave us his example of perfect love and perfect humanity. It is our duty as Christians to follow his example, to love everyone with our whole hearts, to love even to hardship and death. Only by giving of ourselves to our neighbor, to the destitute, to our enemies, can we put an end to suffering and sin. Only by giving of ourselves can we hope to be worthy of the Kingdom of Heaven. Only by giving of ourselves can we express our love for God and His creation just as God expressed His love for us when He became flesh in the person of Jesus of Nazereth, was crucified, and then raised Himself from the dead, thus freeing us from death. Let us not merely love in word or in tongue, but let us love in deed and in truth, for St. John wrote:

20 If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? 21 And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also. (1 John 4)

Posted 11 July 2011 † admin § Ethics § New Testament § Patristics § St. John Chrysostom § St. John the Theologian § St. Paul ‡ Comments (1) ° Tagged: ,

Pilgrim’s Progress? (Part 4)

In high school, I began to get involved in politics. I took up with far left folks, mostly anarchists. I had previously toyed with libertarianism à la the Libertarian Party. Their stance on personal liberty appealed to me, but I couldn’t get into their hyper-capitalist economics. Anarchism echoed the libertarian call for personal freedom, while maintaining a strong call for economic and social justice.

My involvement with this group of people continued after high school and, for a while, my political affiliation became the closest thing to faith as I had. From each according to their ability. To each according to their need.

Most of my fellow activists were atheists who viewed Christianity as a repressive and patriarchal religion and over time I began to absorb this view. But there was a wrinkle. Two activists in the community were Christian, yet held anarchist beliefs. One identified as a fundamentalist and the other, a friend from high school, identified as an evangelical. They should have been part of the Christian Right, fighting to destroy the rights of women, gays, and the poor. Instead, they had reconciled their backward, hate-filled religion with a political philosophy based on freedom and equality.

At first this contradiction remained a mere oddity to me. Although my own religious upbringing had never seemed oppressive, the idea became ingrained in me deeply enough that I did not question it.

The evangelical, X, and I had gone to prom together and moved into an apartment with two other friends right after high school. She and I had flirted, on and off, in high school and after living together for several months, we began sleeping together. This more or less casual sex eventually evolved into a serious, if fundamentally damaged, relationship. It was through this relationship that I began to question my assumptions against Christianity. If X could be both a Christian and an anarchist, then she was either able to deal with cognitive dissonance well,  or the contradiction between the two was less than I had imagined.

We began to discuss her faith and how she reconciled it with her politics. I also began to read Christian writings. I started with Rosemary Radford Ruether’s Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology, which I borrowed from X’s father. I followed this up with C. S. Lewis’ Mere Chistianity before being willing to believe that there might be something to the religion I had rejected some seven years earlier.

We went to Hastings, where I had once stolen tarot cards, and I bought a small, black, bonded-leather edition of the Bible, the New King James Version. I read the entire New Testament for the first time in my life. What I found shocked me. This was not the bland, complacent religion of my childhood. Nor was it the hardhearted conservatism of Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell. Christ preached radical social and economic equality. The despised of Judea, such as tax collectors and Samaritans, were exalted, while the rich and powerful were condemned. Love, forgiveness, and mercy were its central teachings, not rhetoric and dogma. God was not some mystical presence drawn from a dry hymn, He was in the beautiful truths I found in that book.

Scales fell from my eyes. I once was lost, but now am found. Was blind, but now I see. I was born again. I was ready to take up the cross. All that jazz. For the first time in my life, I was a believer.

But one thing still troubled me. Along with the calls to love God and neighbor, there was also a clear prohibition against sexual immorality. I knew God would want X and I to marry or stop having sex. I was not ready to marry. My attraction to X had been and was still one based primarily on lust. I knew what I had to do.

“We are fornicators,” I said at last.

She looked up from her bed, “Do you repent?”

I wanted to say Yes. But I enjoyed the feel and look of her body. Give me chastity and continence, but not yet. I enjoyed the sensation when I came. I enjoyed not being alone. I enjoyed being validated by the physical attention of another person. I waffled. “I think so.”

For a short while afterward, we held our passions at bay, but only for a short while. Lust conquers all. I may have become a Christian, but I was far from a good one. Maybe someday, but not yet.

—

The above is the final part of a narrative of my spiritual journey from early childhood through my early twenties.

You can find Part 1 here.

You can find Part 2 here.

You can find Part 3 here.

Posted 24 June 2011 † admin § Personal ‡ Comments (1) °

Pilgrim’s Progress? (part 3)

By the second half of my sophomore year, I was dating a Hindu girl named Nandini. At first her faith held little interest for me. I had known her since junior high and her exotic religion seemed commonplace. Eventually, though, the faith of her and her family drew me in.

My first encounter with Hindu worship was on a trip to Chicago with her family for a Rath Yatra festival. Hundreds of Hindus were in the streets, pulling a large, colorful wagon with long lengths of rope. Her family took up a section and encouraged me to help. I ended up taking hold of the rope, but it felt sacrilegious to me. Here I was participating at the center of a religious ceremony I did not understand or even know the name of at the time. The festival clearly had large significance for those participating, and in my non-belief, I felt I was defiling the whole event.

Driving back from Chicago, we listened to an audiobook of Robert A. Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land. In between furtive groping sessions with Nandini in the back of her families Suburban, I listened as Valentine Michael Smith founded a loving and egalitarian religion. Thou art God. Now that was something I thought I could grok, if only it weren’t science fiction.

My later experiences with Hinduism were less reluctant. Once or twice I worshiped with Nandini and her family in their home. Their services were joyous and wonderful events. Her father would play a drum strapped across his shoulders while another man would sit on the floor and play a small, hand-pumped harmonium. Everyone would do a little shuffling dance in place while chanting, “Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare.”

The joy of the worshippers on these occasions was obvious and infectious. I chanted and danced along with them, happy and alive. This was a far cry from the dull, dry, white-washed worship of my childhood. Gone were the dragging, off-key hymns and dull sermons. Just music, dance, and chanting. This was what worship should be, I thought. This is the way a good God would want his followers to feel.

While participating in their worship, I could almost feel God, or Vishnu, but afterward, all I had was a pleasant memory of dancing and music. Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare. Close, but not close enough. Again.

***

During this same period, Nandini and I decided to attend a Christian Scientist service. There was a Church of Jesus Christ, Scientist not far from my house and I used to walk past it on the way to school in junior high. It had long made me curious and one morning we dressed up in good Sunday clothes and went. The church was small, plain, and simple. There was no priest or preacher, only two women sat at the front of the small congregation alternately reading passages from the Bible and commentaries from Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health. Periodically, a man would lead the congregation in song of the same uninspiring variety I remembered from childhood.

This service was my first encounter with feminine language addressing God. Eddy’s text referred to God as “Father-Mother.” This wasn’t some neopagan idea of Mother Earth, but a re-imaging of traditional Christian thought.  It was a revelation, but it did little to grow my interest in Christian Science beyond the size of a mere mustard seed.

***

By my senior year, Taoism and Buddhism, particularly Zen Buddhism had become the flavor du jour. I read parts of the Tao Te Ching and various short, introductory Buddhist texts. Initially, my interest did not extend too far beyond this. I tried loosely to follow the Eight Fold Path as I understood it, which was not well. I tried, for a few days, to live without desire, to try to take things as they came.

There was a Zen center in town. Like the Christian Science church, it was not far from my junior high school, and it’s Sunday practices were open to beginners. One Sunday, I talked myself into going. I stepped awkwardly into the center a half-hour before the practice began. A man greeted me, instructed me to take off my shoes, and began to explain how their practices worked. He  told me that during the hour-long practice, I should try to sit still and clear my mind. If I needed to adjust myself at any point, though, I was free to move quietly. Once we sat down, I got nervous and began to tense up. I was uncomfortable, but I didn’t want to do anything wrong and disturb the practitioners who found meaning in their meditation. Instead of clearing my mind, I worried about my discomfort and trying to sit still, which made the tension in my back rise exponentially.

After the practice was over, there was a brief social gathering. I had some tea and tried not to let the shame of my un-Zen-like nervousness show.

I never went back.

—

The above is the third part of a narrative of my spiritual journey from early childhood through my early twenties. Stay tuned for Part 4.

You can find Part 1 here.

You can find Part 2 here.

Posted 21 June 2011 † admin § Personal ‡ Comments (2) °

Pilgrim’s Progress (part 2)

After I left the church, I to started to look for God elsewhere. I made my first foray into another religion, neopaganism, by way of shoplifting. In truth, it started a little before that through the magic of a Gateway 2000, Windows 95, and a dial-up internet connection. Why I began looking into neopaganism, I am not sure. It may have been my two Wiccan friends. It may have been my love of the esoteric. It may have been that I just started browsing the Yahoo! religion category and stumbled across it.

Something about the homespun Wiccan websites I found peaked my interest and I soon combined it with my other newfound interest: shoplifting. I’d shoplifted before. In fifth or sixth grade, a few friends and I had briefly made it a pastime before we got too worried about getting caught. I’d even shoplifted once when I was six and my mother wouldn’t buy me a cheap, little rabbit toy from a drug store. I had huffed and pretended I wouldn’t leave until my mother bought it. When she turned and faked leaving without me, I quickly pocketed the toy and ran after her, feigning the chastened child.

But this new shoplifting was principled. I wouldn’t steal anything from local shops, only large, corporate stores that could afford it. That being the case, I walked into the local Borders, which had put my favorite bookstore out of business a few years before, and snagged a copy of Wicca for Men. Some time later, I complemented this book with a deck of artsy tarot cards that I stole from the Hastings across town.

Wicca offered an alternative for me that didn’t require boring church services. I could worship the Goddess, cast spells, and maybe even roughly divine the future. Its close tie to nature and its simple principles were appealing. An it harm none, do what ye will. Of course, the spells were far less potent than I’d imagined. Instead of granting me Faustian powers, it became quickly clear that the spells were roughly equivalent to prayer, and I was not the praying type. I also lacked the patience to learn to use the tarot cards, which I had gotten mostly for their visual appeal anyway. The newness of the religion, at least as it was presented in my pilfered book also sat odd with me. The earliest adherents of Wicca were still alive or recently dead. It seemed to me as if they had just conjured it up one day out of thin air.

In the end, my interest in Wicca waned almost as quickly it had waxed and the book made its permanent home on the bottom shelf of a bookcase in our spare room. My flirtation with shoplifting went the same way. I did not want to get caught.

***

By ninth grade, I was firmly agnostic, well, as firmly as one could be agnostic. It seemed a perfectly reasonable position to me. I had not found God, nor had I found Goddess, but that did not mean that there wasn’t something out there. Somewhere.

Of course, to the handful of atheists in my junior high, I must have seemed wishy-washy. I recall one blond kid, a proud atheist who taunted me, saying, “Agnosticism’s for people who don’t want to take a stand.”

I suppose he wasn’t entirely wrong. I flirted with atheism throughout junior high and high school, but  could never commit to it. I couldn’t ever completely convince myself there was no God anymore than I could convince myself there was One. My faith in faithlessness was weak, and although I wanted to take a stand, I could not find one to take.

***

That same school year, I became entangled in a youth group at the local Disciples of Christ church. I had this dream of starting a band, but had no one to start it with. One Wednesday, my friend Ashley mentioned there was a boy in her youth group named Ethan who played guitar. They were meeting that afternoon and, if I wanted, I could walk down with her and another friend. Going to the youth group didn’t particularly appeal to me, nor did starting a band with a complete stranger, but I went along. Once there, I got roped into participating for the whole afternoon. When the chance finally came to speak to Ethan about the band, shyness held my tongue.

The next week I went back and continued to go back for a few months. My friends, I felt, expected me to go and I didn’t have the nerve not to. Nor was I entirely opposed to going. Sure they sang goofy songs like “Our God Is an Awesome God” and made hand signs for rain when they sang, “He reigns from heaven above,” but most of the kids in the group were pretty fun.

One of them was downright pretty. Her name was Lisa Roberts. She was happy and vivacious, with blond, boy-cut hair and a vaguely hippy-ish fashion sense. During one of our prayer circles, when everybody joined hands, instead of taking my hand in the usual dull clasp, she intertwined her fingers through mine. Her hand was warm and I was afraid my palm would sweat too much.That was one of my favorite prayers.

Another time, we were standing apart from the rest of the group, and she whispered to me, “I’m not a Christian.”

“Neither am I,” I whispered back conspiratorially. It seemed like an intimate connection at the time, but nothing came of it. As with most of my junior high crushes, to avoid making the wrong move, I never made any move at all.

One Wednesday, I missed youth group and began to slip out of it as effortlessly as I slipped into it. The more times I missed going the easier it was not to go and the more awkward it was to think about going back. Eventually, I gave up all pretense of going back.

I never did talk to Ethan about the band.

—

The above is the second part of a narrative of my spiritual journey from early childhood through my early twenties. Stay tuned for Part 3.

You can find Part 1 here.

Posted 18 June 2011 † admin § Personal ‡ Comments (2) °

The Rich Young Man in Context

Matthew 19:

16 Now behold, one came and said to Him, “Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?”
17 So He said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments.”
18 He said to Him, “Which ones?”
Jesus said, “ ‘You shall not murder,’ ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ ‘You shall not steal,’ ‘You shall not bear false witness,’19 ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”
20 The young man said to Him, “All these things I have kept from my youth. What do I still lack?”
21 Jesus said to him, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”
22 But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

Not long ago I was at a local church where a woman interpreted this passage as applying only to this specific rich young man. She said Jesus’ statement should be understood in its context. She elaborated that Jesus said this to the young man because He knew it would grieve the rich man’s heart to give up his wealth. She saw it as a specific statement meant to elicit a specific reaction from a specific person. Her interpretation was met with general murmurs of agreement.

While I agree with her that it’s important to understand Jesus’ words in context, I disagree with her interpretation. Firstly, such an interpretation ignores Jesus’ words that follow in verses 23 and 24:

23 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

He does not say it is hard for this one rich man, but for “a rich man,” for any rich man to enter heaven. He universalizes this particular incident with one rich man to speak to all rich people.

Such an interpretation also ignores Jesus’ words as recorded in Luke 12:

16 Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. 17 And he thought within himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?’ 18 So he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.”’ 20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?’ 21 “So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”

22 Then He said to His disciples, “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; nor about the body, what you will put on. 23 Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing. 24 Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap, which have neither storehouse nor barn; and God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds? 25 And which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? 26 If you then are not able to do the least, why are you anxious for the rest? 27 Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 28 If then God so clothes the grass, which today is in the field and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will He clothe you, O you of little faith? 29 “And do not seek what you should eat or what you should drink, nor have an anxious mind. 30 For all these things the nations of the world seek after, and your Father knows that you need these things. 31 But seek the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you. 32 “Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell what you have and give alms; provide yourselves money bags which do not grow old, a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches nor moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Here again Jesus speaks of a rich man in generic terms, making him a symbol of all wealthy persons. Here he tells not only the rich, but all His disciples to sell all they have and give to the poor.

To pretend that Jesus’ words to the rich young man applied only to that rich young man is not to put His words into context, but to intentionally ignore their context. But why would a faithful Christian go to such lengths to misinterpret the word of the Lord? To understand the appeal of such a false interpretation, it is important to view it in it’s proper context. The interpreter was middle-class, white woman in a predominately middle-class, predominately white congregation. These were people who, while probably not as wealthy as the Biblical young man, had much to lose should they follow Christ’s command in search of perfection. They were privileged people and to follow this particular command to the letter would likely grieve their hearts enormously. Understandably so, it is a harsh command that few follow.

But should such a command be brushed off so lightly as none applicable just because it grieves our hearts as greatly as it did the rich young man’s? Should we go away sorrowful from this unpalatable command? Matthew saw fit to record this incident in his gospel, something that seems unlikely if the early Church saw this statement as meaningless. To presume that this passage holds no applicability for Christians leaves open the door to suggest that other passages of the Bible can be dismissed with the same sort of exegetical gymnastics.

In it’s proper context the command to sell what one has to give to the poor fits perfectly with God’s teachings of economic justice, which pepper the Bible from Genesis onward. Christians ought to be poor both in spirit and in wealth. When we have excess, it is our duty to  share with those who lack. As Christ, our Lord God, taught, “Give to everyone who asks of you. And from him who takes away your goods do not ask them back” and “You cannot serve God an mammon” (Luke 6:30, Matthew 6:24). When we are tempted by mammon, by wealth, by our middle-class comforts, we risk accepting facile interpretations that miss the depth of God’s word.

Now, of course, not all of us will give up every cent we have and trust in God alone to provide for us. Not all of us will seek perfection, but even for us, this passage still holds relevence. It reminds us that to serve God we must give up whatever we cherish over the love of God and neighbor, even if it is not wealth. For the Lord taught:

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:19–21).

Posted 16 June 2011 † admin § Ethics § New Testament § Scripture § St. Luke the Evangelist § St. Matthew the Evangelist ‡ Comments (0) °

Pilgrim’s Progress? (part 1)

One Sunday, when I was thirteen years old, I realized I did not believe in God, or rather, I had never felt God’s presence. I was in church, but God did not seem to be. If God was with our congregation, if our church was truly God’s house, then I should be able to feel Him. For at least a few weeks after this realization, I tried to find God. I paid attention to the details of the service and to our priest’s every word. I sang hymns with more fervor than I ever had before. I tried to wring from their words the faith I felt I should feel.

On one particularly sunny and beautiful Sunday, I thought I had found my answer. The light outside streamed through the stained glass windows of our church. The room was radiant. Through the beams of light the Spirit of God touched my heart. I was happy, but I was not entirely satisfied, and that dissatisfaction grew. After church, I mulled over what I had felt in the church. I had hoped it was God. I had wanted it to be God, but it was not. It was only the strength of my desire.

The next Sunday, when my mother woke me up for church I told her I didn’t want to go anymore.

“Well, since you are already up, why don’t you go today?” she replied.

“I’m not going to church.”

This made her angry enough to yell, but I stayed in bed. She and my brother went to church without me. After she got back, she apologized for yelling at me. I did not go to church again for some time and my mother made no further attempts to check my apostasy. I had lost my faith, or, more accurately, I had found I never had any to lose.

***

I was raised within the Episcopal Church primarily, with a small taste of Methodism after my parents divorced, but I was not raised religiously. Outside of church, my family did not pray or talk about God or religion much. We went to church on Sundays and that was it. Once, my parents got me a cardboard Advent calendar. This is the only time I remember getting a religious gift and it would be years before I realized what it even meant. It had little doors I could open each day to reveal a new picture. The final picture was larger and featured a double door. I remember wanting to see what was behind those double doors. I would like to remember what I saw when I opened them. I would like to remember if I opened them.

To the best of my knowledge, I was baptized as an infant. I know my brother was. I remember getting ready for my brother’s baptism when he was still a baby. I was dressed in a baby blue sports coat and wore a clip-on tie. I had on a dress shirt, slacks, and fancy black shoes that were so unlike what I usually wore. I would wear this same basic outfit not long afterward in our last family photos. I remember standing near the font at the back of our church and watching our priest, a short man with a brown and gray beard who would tell stories to my first grade class at school, dribble water onto my brother’s head while he cried.

In my earliest recollections of church, I am in Christ Church in Greenville, South Carolina. I am sitting on the kneeler with a small box of crayons and a child’s program for the service. I am drawing. In the children’s programs, there was always a place to draw. It is meant for inspirational pictures, as a way to meditate on God through art, also as a way to keep little children quiet during service. I always drew, every Sunday, but I rarely followed the instructions on the program. I drew primitive, smudgey, crayon monsters, snakes, and violent scenes. I drew what interested me at five and six. Snakes and snails and puppy dog tails.

After my parents divorced, my father took us to a Methodist service on the Sundays he had my brother and me. By this time I was too old to sit on the kneeler and had to sit in the pew for the whole service, but I continued my habit of drawing pictures in the children’s programs. The Methodists, like the Episcopalians, left a portion of their children’s programs blank for inspirational pictures. One day, while I was drawing my usual gruesome scenes, my father told me to stop. My pictures of monsters and mayhem were no longer acceptable. I was growing up.

When I could no longer draw creatures from my imagination, I quickly lost interest in drawing any pictures at all. Bending my crayons to the task of portraying Jesus helping a child did not appeal to me. I sat still and for the first time and paid attention to the details of the service. That is not to say I properly paid attention. I do not remember a single sermon from this period, but I do remember trying to estimate how much longer the service would be by seeing what stage we were at: second prayer, third hymn, sermon, peace be with you, done.

It was while going to church with my father that I had my first and only experience with Sunday school. I was taken to a room with a strange teacher and strange students. We played a board game that involved Biblical trivia. My classmates, most of whom surely had attended Sunday school for years, could answer the questions easily. I was at a loss. I had never read the Bible and did not listen to sermons or hymns. Instead of joining my classmates in their eagerness to answer questions about Moses, I ducked my head and tried to avoid being noticed.

The Methodist church we went to served grape juice and hunks of wheat bread for communion. I liked the grape juice better than the wine I avoided at Episcopal services, but I missed the way the Epsicopal wafer would melt on my tongue, so the two were equivocal. What won the Methodist church my slight favor was that after the service my father would take us to Ryan’s buffet. On Sundays with my mother, after we moved to Kansas, my brother and I usually only got Lunchables. They were good, but they could not measure up to the cheese cubes on the Ryan’s buffet.

—

The above is the first part of a narrative of my spiritual journey from early childhood through my early twenties. Stay tuned for Part 2.

Posted 19 May 2011 † admin § Personal ‡ Comments (1) °

You Can Ring My Bell

“The book is about the urgency of Christ’s call to respond and live now and partner with God in bringing heaven to earth. The book is about the urgent, present availability of the kingdom, of eternal life now, of conscious connection and vibrant union with the good of the universe who wants to shape us and transform us and meld our hearts and do something about the hells on earth right now.”—Rob Bell

Personally, I’m not that familiar with Rob Bell. I don’t come from an evangelical background and don’t have a lot of contact with evangelical traditions. However, even I haven’t missed the dust up over Bell’s book Love Wins. So when this video popped up on my Facebook feed, I thought I’d watch it. It was a very interesting 27 minutes. Bell’s thoughts on history and his emphasis on the Christian duty to love one’s neighbor and to work toward building a heavenly kingdom on earth are quite compelling.

I do have to commend Bell for helping to put the “good” back in “good news” and for helping shift the public Christian dialog away from right-wing political co-option toward a more faithful Christian message.

Posted 05 May 2011 † admin § Current Events § Ethics ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged:

On the Death of bin Laden

I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy.—Jessica Dovey*

Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.

Osama bin Laden is dead. It’s a lot to process for someone who finished high school in the shadow of 9/11. I’ve spent nearly a third of my life watching from afar as my country started two wars that cost the lives of thousands of Americans and thousands upon thousands of Afghans and Iraqis that had no connection to Al-Qaeda. I’ve spent nearly a third of my life watching as my country illegally arrested and imprisoned hundreds of people. I’ve spent nearly a third of my life watching my country do its best to justify the maniacal actions of bin Laden and his henchmen. Now he’s dead.

I believe the world is a better place without bin Laden, but I can’t celebrate his death. I am frankly disturbed by those who celebrated his death in front of the White House last night. To cheer the death, even of one’s worst enemy, is a sin.

John DiGilio over at elephant made this point better than I can, so I’ll let his words speak for me:

…this is neither a time to celebrate or mourn.

This is a time to reflect on a near decade of fear and violence. It should be a time to step back and say “never again”.

The news that United States forces had finally caught up with the mastermind behind the infamous 2001 attacks, as well as many others, comes to most as a surprise. The reaction has been varied. From sighs of relief, to celebrations, to outrage, bin Laden is as polarizing in his end as he was in life. Perhaps the hardest images for me to watch right now are those of revelers in front of the White House. It is troubling not because I cannot identify with what they are feeling. Until the day I die, I will never forget the scenes of terror barely a decade ago. I remember well my own anger and utter sadness. What strikes me though is that these images recall for me similar sights of people celebrating in the Middle East as the Towers came down. Were we not all outraged at those pictures?

Do not get me wrong, I believe that justice and karma have been served. Osama bin Laden died as violently as he lived. Part of me wants to shout out in relief. But I cannot help but think that this is not the time for such behavior. The death of a man, any man, is not something to celebrate. Regardless of how or why the end came, a death should cause us to stop and reflect on the life that was lived. Bin Laden was an angry man, whose hatred so overflowed his earthly vessel that it continues to sweep up lives around the world in a torrent of violence and death. His beliefs and rhetoric were not born over night. They were the products of decades, no centuries, of misunderstandings, misdeeds, and misconceptions by forces bigger than him. Tonight, the man may be dead, but the anger and fear that empowered his cause continue to thrive. This is the fight that lays ahead for us all.

Before any of us raises a shout in celebration of bin Laden’s end, we should perhaps stop and raise the penultimate question. What now?

It is time for the whole world to take stock of what it has learned from this terrifying and deadly game of cat and mouse that has played out globally over this last decade. The loss of life, down to the Osama’s own death, has been staggering. When will it end?

No, I am not celebrating tonight. I am waiting for the day when men no longer feel the need to kill or be killed for the sake of righteousness or hatred. On that day, I will party with the best of them. Tonight and in the days ahead, I will be praying and working for that moment.

To this, I can only add that it would be in our best interest to heed the words of God’s Wisdom:

Do not rejoice when your enemy falls,
And do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles;
Lest the LORD see it, and it displease Him,
And He turn away His wrath from him.
—Proverbs 24:17–18

—-
* [Edit: May 3, 2011] I initially attributed this quote to MLK. It appears that Jessica Dovey is the originator of this statement, which she followed up by quoting MLK on a Facebook post. If you’re so inclined, you can read more about it here.

Posted 03 May 2011 † admin § Current Events § Ethics § Old Testament ‡ Comments (3) ° Tagged: , ,

The First Shall Be Last

Here’s an essay I wrote for an English class. Let us not be fooled by false prophets.

To the Poor
By Anna Lætitia Barbauld (1743–1825)

Child of distress, who meet’st the bitter scorn
Of fellow-men to happier prospects born,
Doomed Art and Nature’s various stores to see
Flow in full cups of joy—and not for thee;
Who seest the rich, to heaven and fate resigned,
Bear thy afflictions with a patient mind;
Whose bursting heart disdains unjust control,
Who feel’st oppression’s iron in thy soul,
Who dragg’st the load of faint and feeble years,
Whose bread is anguish, and whose water tears;
Bear, bear thy wrongs—fulfill thy destined hour,
Bend thy meek neck beneath the foot of Power;
But when thou feel’st the great deliverer nigh,
And thy freed spirit mounting seeks the sky,
Let no vain fears thy parting hour molest,
No whispered terrors shake thy quiet breast:
Think not their threats can work thy future woe,
Nor deem the Lord above like lords below;—
Safe in the bosom of that love repose
By whom the sun gives light, the ocean flows;
Prepare to meet a Father undismayed,
Nor fear the God whom priests and kings have made.

In 1795, Anna Lætitia Barbauld composed her poem “To the Poor” in response to “sermons in which the poor are addressed in a manner which evidently shows the design of making religion an engine of government” (Damrosch 31–2). In “To the Poor,” Barbauld masterfully uses the language of such sermons subvert their message and to call into question both established religion and government. By deftly developing a countercurrent alongside her condescending message of patience to the poor, Barbauld ultimately transforms “To the Poor” into a condemnation addressed to the rich and powerful.

Barbauld begins her dual message by addressing the poor as a “Child of distress” whom she calls “Doomed” and to “fate resign’d” (1, 3, 5). She treats poverty in these opening lines as an unchangeable condition, as a matter of destiny. She reinforces this point by juxtaposing the condition the rich and powerful whom she characterizes as “fellow men to happier prospects born” to whom “nature’s various stores…/ Flow in full cups of joy” (2, 3–4). If poverty is a matter of fate, then wealth and power are a birthright.

After establishing the naturalness of the existing social order, Barbauld advises a Job-like forbearance to the poor saying, “Bear thy afflictions with a patient mind” (6). In lines 7–10, she lists the afflictions the poor face before telling them again to accept fate in lines 11 and 12. In lines 13–21, Barbauld tell the poor not to worry when they die, for they will find repose “Safe in the bosom” of God (19). The poor may be fated to suffer, but if they quietly bear their suffering, Barbauld seems to say, they will be recompensed by the Lord.

Running parallel to this pablum is a social critique that continuously undercuts the comforting message Barbauld puts forward. Even as she establishes the roles of the rich and poor as predestined, Barbauld makes it clear that the rich, not fate, are the source of suffering for the child of distress. It is from those born to happier prospects that the poor receive “bitter scorn” (1). Even as the rich fill their cups with natures stores they share none of this earth-born bounty with the poor “Whose bread is anguish” (10).

Barbauld further indicts England’s existing social order when she enumerates the afflictions of the poor calling them “unjust” and “oppression” (7, 8). If the suffering of the poor were determined by God as a means of purifying their souls for heaven, their afflictions would be justified by the such a great reward. Being destined for heavenly freedom could not be oppressive. Barbauld furthers this point when she tells the poor a second time to bear what they are given. No longer to they face morally neutral afflictions, but they must bear “wrongs” (11).

As she moves toward the end of the poem, Barbauld’s subtle criticisms become more and more explicit. “Bend thy meek neck beneath the foot of power!” she tells the poor in line 12. This echos the Biblical “blessed are the meek” and the more dangerous “the meek shall inherit the earth,” but again Barbauld uses contrast to undercut the comfort of this allusion. The line establishes the image of the poor bending their necks in meek and humble prayer, yet they are not bending their necks to God, but because they are being trampled by earthly powers.

It is through this contrasting of the heavenly and the earthly Barbauld brings her poem to its forceful conclusion. As she tells the poor to expect heaven after death, she tells them not to “deem the Lord above, like Lords below” (18). In contrast to the suffering they faced at the hands of earthly lords, the poor can repose in the love of God, “By whom the sun gives light” and “the ocean flows” (19–20). God, who made the earth, has destined the poor not for suffering, but for eternal happiness. Barbauld’s description of the real God as loving and kind gives an added power to the closing line of her poem when she tells the poor not to “fear the God whom priests and kings have made” (22). It is not the creating God that demands that the poor suffer, but the created god, made in the image of corrupt priests and rulers. It is not God, but the bitter scorn of the rich and powerful that have fated the poor to suffer. It is not the Lord, but lords below that predestined the poor to be trod beneath the oppressive foot of power while the rich drink from full cups of joy.

This powerful last line not only invalidates the surface message of patience, but inverts the entire poem. Instead of addressing the poor, Barbauld’s true audience is the rich and powerful. Instead of delivering a message of hope, Barbauld issues an unmistakable condemnation, accusing priests and political rulers not only of abusing the poor, but of blaspheming by preaching a false god.

By choosing not to directly address the true subject of her poem until the last line, Barbauld reinforces her argument by modeling her poem’s form on the biblical line “But many who are are first will be last, and the last will be first” (New Revised Standard Version, Matt. 19:30). She places the poor, those who are last in status on earth, first in her poem and address them directly throughout. The priest and kings she condemns she never address directly, placing them behind the poor in importance. Her initial reference to priests and kings are vague in the beginning, “fellow men to happier prospects born,” and are not made explicit until the last line (2). She has made the last first and the first last.

Barbauld’s poetic condemnations gain further strength when taking into account certain historical considerations. Barbauld’s advice of restraint and forbearance to those “Whose bread is anguish” takes on a sharply ironic tone when one becomes aware of the bread and grain shortages in the year Barbauld wrote “To the Poor.” As grain prices increased that year, desperate towns and cities appealed to the Privy Council for emergency grain and a few seized grain destined for other places. When such measured did not suffice, the hungry took matters into their own hands, not by bearing their wrongs, but by rioting (Stern 169–72). There were at least 13 riots in Devonshire county alone, where one group of rioters declared “if they were to suffer they might as well be hung as starved, and they would run the risk of making their situation better, for worse cou’d not be” (Bohstedt and Williams 5, 22).

Likewise, Barbauld’s condemnation of church and state gains added force when it is remembered she is was a Dissenter, one who belonged to a church other than the national Church of England. In addition to resenting sermons that supported the suffering of the poor, Barbauld also had personal reasons to feel rage toward church and state. As a result of the Test and Corporation Acts, those who, like Barbauld, did not belong to the state church were barred from holding any public office and from attending Oxford or Cambridge, a condition Barbauld publicly decried (Kramnick 508, 514). By the time she wrote “To the Poor,” Barbauld was already well in the habit of condemning the unjust practices of church and state.

Although knowing something of the historical context of “To the Poor” gives the poem an added note of defiant anger, most of the poem’s power resides in Barbauld’s use of language. Barbauld sought to turn the unjust world on its head. In “To the Poor,” Barbauld is able to emulate the language of conservative priests to pointedly attack them, the government that supported them, and to condemn the rich who cause the poor to suffer in the name of a false god.

Posted 29 April 2011 † admin § Arts & Culture § Ethics § New Testament § Scripture ‡ Comments (0) °

The Life of the World to Come

For the lazy music nerd out there who, like me, enjoy the Mountain Goats Life of the World to Come (2009) but never bothered to look up the Bible verses each song takes its title from here they are in one convenient location. The following quotes are drawn from the New King James translation.

1. 1 Samuel 15:23

For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft,
And stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the LORD,
He also has rejected you from being king.

2. Psalm 40:2

He also brought me up out of a horrible pit,
Out of the miry clay,
And set my feet upon a rock,
And established my steps.

3. Genesis 3:23

therefore the LORD God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken.

4. Phillipians 3:20–21

For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.

5. Hebrews 11:40

God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.

6. Genesis 30:3

So she said, “Here is my maid Bilhah; go in to her, and she will bear a child on my knees, that I also may have children by her.”

7. Romans 10:9

that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

8. 1 John 4:16

And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.

9. Matthew 25:21

His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.’

10. Deuteronomy 2:10

The Emim had dwelt there in times past, a people as great and numerous and tall as the Anakim.

11. Isaiah 45:23

I have sworn by Myself;
The word has gone out of My mouth in righteousness,
And shall not return,
That to Me every knee shall bow,
Every tongue shall take an oath.

12. Ezekiel 7

Moreover the word of the LORD came to me, saying, “And you, son of man, thus says the Lord GOD to the land of Israel:

‘An end! The end has come upon the four corners of the land.
Now the end has come upon you,
And I will send My anger against you;
I will judge you according to your ways,
And I will repay you for all your abominations.
My eye will not spare you,
Nor will I have pity;
But I will repay your ways,
And your abominations will be in your midst;
Then you shall know that I am the LORD!’

“Thus says the Lord GOD:
‘A disaster, a singular disaster;
Behold, it has come!
An end has come,
The end has come;
It has dawned for you;
Behold, it has come!
Doom has come to you, you who dwell in the land;
The time has come,
A day of trouble is near,
And not of rejoicing in the mountains.
Now upon you I will soon pour out My fury,
And spend My anger upon you;
I will judge you according to your ways,
And I will repay you for all your abominations.
My eye will not spare,
Nor will I have pity;
I will repay you according to your ways,
And your abominations will be in your midst.
Then you shall know that I am the LORD who strikes.
Behold, the day!
Behold, it has come!
Doom has gone out;
The rod has blossomed,
Pride has budded.
Violence has risen up into a rod of wickedness;
None of them shall remain,
None of their multitude,
None of them;
Nor shall there be wailing for them.
The time has come,
The day draws near.

‘Let not the buyer rejoice,
Nor the seller mourn,
For wrath is on their whole multitude.
For the seller shall not return to what has been sold,
Though he may still be alive;
For the vision concerns the whole multitude,
And it shall not turn back;
No one will strengthen himself
Who lives in iniquity.
They have blown the trumpet and made everyone ready,
But no one goes to battle;
For My wrath is on all their multitude.
The sword is outside,
And the pestilence and famine within.
Whoever is in the field
Will die by the sword;
And whoever is in the city,
Famine and pestilence will devour him.
Those who survive will escape and be on the mountains
Like doves of the valleys,
All of them mourning,
Each for his iniquity.
Every hand will be feeble,
And every knee will be as weak as water.
They will also be girded with sackcloth;
Horror will cover them;
Shame will be on every face,
Baldness on all their heads.
They will throw their silver into the streets,
And their gold will be like refuse;
Their silver and their gold will not be able to deliver them
In the day of the wrath of the LORD;
They will not satisfy their souls,
Nor fill their stomachs,
Because it became their stumbling block of iniquity.
As for the beauty of his ornaments,
He set it in majesty;
But they made from it
The images of their abominations—
Their detestable things;
Therefore I have made it
Like refuse to them.
I will give it as plunder
Into the hands of strangers,
And to the wicked of the earth as spoil;
And they shall defile it.
I will turn My face from them,
And they will defile My secret place;
For robbers shall enter it and defile it.
Make a chain,
For the land is filled with crimes of blood,
And the city is full of violence.
Therefore I will bring the worst of the Gentiles,
And they will possess their houses;
I will cause the pomp of the strong to cease,
And their holy places shall be defiled.
Destruction comes;
They will seek peace, but there shall be none.
Disaster will come upon disaster,
And rumor will be upon rumor.
Then they will seek a vision from a prophet;
But the law will perish from the priest,
And counsel from the elders.
The king will mourn,
The prince will be clothed with desolation,
And the hands of the common people will tremble.
I will do to them according to their way,
And according to what they deserve I will judge them;
Then they shall know that I am the LORD!’”

Posted 26 April 2011 † admin § Arts & Culture § New Testament § Old Testament § Scripture ‡ Comments (0) °