I’m halfway through a book that is finally putting a wooden stake through the heart of a monster in my life. But at the same time I wonder if the author is going to address the question, “What’s left now?”
Frustration started with childhood questions unanswered. Then some anger, even today. Why weren’t we told?
Centuries ago, when science confronted the scriptures, and the church, over issues of factuality the response was violence and the threat of violence. Today, we are getting apologies and acknowledgement of error from the church. It took that long.
But more conflict followed. And for me, hints of a crack in the foundation of church dogma were first openly and gingerly discussed at seminary, 1970-74. Sadly, my class and others could not share this with their congregations for fear of losing their jobs and perhaps their careers. Most of us sold out for “practical considerations” and for that I offer my heartfelt apologies to those young people who I misled out of cowardice and lack of faith in God’s direction for us.
In the decades following my ordination, so much more has been learned both from science and from history. The author I’m reading now is among many scholars who think that beliefs we have (about) Jesus, and the most likely picture of the Jesus of history, are far different. He maintains that the budding church in the first and second centuries faced extinction unless it organized itself and developed an enforced system of belief (about) who Jesus was. This system of belief, written in the creeds and dogma of the church, served the purpose of addressing fears and problems among Christians. It was, and is, not factual, and it worked in terms of rescuing the church as an organization.
That leaves two persons: the Jesus of history and the Jesus of dogma. But I would guess that the vast majority of people don’t even want to deal with this. Let’s get real, I don’t expect everyone to be interested in history or theology any more than I’m interested in cooking.
Nonetheless, there is something basic that we all desire and recognize.
There’s not the slightest shred of evidence from honest study of scripture or history that Jesus intended to organize some kind of “church.” Churches have a record of being in the business of business, and control, and influence. Jesus had something more important to give and that something can be found living within, and subverting, any human institution.
I now try to worship the God that Jesus worshiped, a God who Jesus intended to be seen as a parent – a mother or father figure. (I have heard from so many sources of dying soldiers calling for their mothers, and we virtually ignore this very real part of our humanity and God’s reality.)
I can’t bring myself to harm any person I really know, even if that person is not like-able. I can only work for good when I see a person, or nature, or even an object, as part of myself. Justice is about oneness (giving of self), not about division (punishment). The monster of literalism is dead in me now, replaced with the loving and challenging world I share with a living God.
(Ironically, many of the non-factual metaphors about Jesus that were endorsed by the church in its early history were most likely seen by Christians then for what they were: non-factual. Perhaps they knew that saying “is” makes for a static, lazy way of thinking, but saying “is like” compels us to think and imagine and be moved. These metaphors/myths pointed people to greater truths and gave them strength and hope. They bring us to God, but we have taken away their power and spirit by falsely presenting them as factual.)
(Van Hagen, John. Rescuing Religion, How Faith Can Survive Its Encounter with Science: Polebridge Press, 2012.)
Best Christmas gifts ever:
Rossmoyne steel and aluminum toy fire truck almost two feet long and intricately detailed. I kept it for forty years.
Benjamin .22 cal pellet rifle. I wish I still had it.
7-speed English-made touring bicycle – glad it’s gone.
Working miniature steam engine.
All the food. All the anticipation.
Then there was the graduation-present car that I never got when I was eighteen. In 1964 I only wanted a ’57 Ford. The kid down the block got a new GTO. I understood. We didn’t have the resources but it was still bitter.
It never occurred to me that I could arrange my life for a higher income. I wasn’t brought up that way. My mind did not recognize or travel that path. I had no hope because I didn’t know that hope could exist. Poor folks have poor ways, they say.
Now I’m a little better, and I really, really want to hold on to that insight when I see the lives of my poor friends. Can they be given hope, some kind of hope? Isn’t that a kind of faith, a carrying of our minds beyond what we know?
I’m adamant. That’s what Jesus was about.
I confess that my life is, at times, taken over by an obsession. I am a machinery freak. I love to tinker with them, ride them, drive them, look at them, handle them, shoot them, talk about them, read about them.
On the other end of the scale, a lot of us don’t talk much about our faith journey – that which has liberated us from spiritual bondage. Is it because this hasn’t really happened in our lives? The joy and excitement with which we talk about our machines, or our gardens, or our grandkids may not be reflected in our spiritual lives. Is that because we do not have a spiritual life to speak of?
I think it’s discovery that prompts genuine witness. Yes, we’re willing to defend that which we’re afraid of losing. We will argue for certain beliefs that are important to us but I’m not sure that we are really witnessing when we do that.
I discovered that it was not necessarily God’s call that I follow family tradition in my career choices - 25 years late. I discovered that all of the disturbing texts in the Bible are not God’s inerrant words. Rather, I should be disturbed by the distress of my sisters and brothers in this world. I discovered that I’m God’s child best when I’m real about myself and that says more about God than it does about me and it saves me.
You who are on the road
Must have a code that you can live by
And so become yourself
Because the past is just a good bye.
Teach your children well,
Their father's hell did slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they picked, the one you'll know by.
Teach your parents well,
Their children's hell will slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they picked, the one you'll know by.
Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you would cry,
So just look at them and sigh and know they love you.
(Graham Nash)
Petty, pathetic little lives mostly wasted… Ernest Hemingway said that a day spent without going fishing was a waste. He didn’t say anything about writing.
Snowed in… at seventy degrees the imagination said that being snowed in would be a great opportunity to catch up on reading and balance the checkbook, but that doesn’t happen… just moping around the house imagining doing something else.
Nelson Mandela spent years of his life in a prison cell while wealthy, self-righteous politicians were calling him a terrorist.
The clueless scattering of people that was the church in the second century developed legends about Jesus to keep him alive in people’s minds.
But life doesn’t depend entirely on our plans or our efforts. Life can come out of that energy, but life can also come out of wasted time and inactivity. It isn’t about us, it’s about God’s spirit also working in our inactivity, our misdirection, and even our resistance.
There are times to let go and let God.
One of my heroes is a girl named Phoebe Ann Moses, a person whose story you have already heard.
She was born into such abject poverty, here in the U.S., that her widowed mother was forced to put her into a situation of near-slavery to another family.
Between her impoverished family and her forced labor she managed to survive. As a small child she learned to trap, and sold game to local merchants. She eventually entered show business and was such an adept performer that she became internationally known. She enjoyed a long career.
But when she was about forty-four years old, a wealthy newspaper magnate increased his fortune by publishing a false report, stating that she had been arrested for illegal activities in support of a drug habit. She spent years taking his various publications to court in defense of her reputation. She won most of her cases (54 out of 55), but the awards from the courts could hardly cover her expenses and lost income.
When she was sixty-two, she and her husband were seriously injured in a car accident. She wore a brace on one leg for a year and a half, and upon recovery returned to show business.
She died at age sixty six. Her husband was so broken by the loss that he stopped eating, and died himself days later.
I think today’s media would hold her up as an example of a person rising out of poverty by sheer grit and hard work. But this is a false impression. It misses the most important part of her example. It oversimplifies her life and tries to apply a false value to all people. The fact is, hard work does not ensure success and I see something in her life that has far greater value.
In spite of all the terrible things done to her and the tragedies that dogged her life, Annie Oakley never made her life a quest for revenge. Evidently she didn’t have it in her, and the fact that her husband loved her so, and her audiences too, is a testimony to a great heart, not a great ambition. This is the thread that runs through great religions, great nations, and great people.
(I acknowledge that I get much of my information from Wikipedia, unlike some public figures who present it as their own.)
