Month: October 2023

I attended a presentation this week by William & Mary professor Adam Potkay on Milton’s Paradise Lost and its relationship to scripture.  A poignant question was asked in the Q and A that followed, but no answer Prof. Potkay could give was satisfactory.  My guess is that the questioner had a tightly held understanding of what scripture says and that a satisfactory answer had to mesh with that understanding.  It’s a common response in adult Christian education that seems to come from two sources.  One is a well established understanding learned as a youth.  The other is a later understanding of scripture linked to a sociopolitical conviction.  Sometimes the two are compatible; more often they contend with each other. It creates a sort of four part matrix of cognitive dissonance that resists resolution.

In my observation, an adult often needs to relearn how to read scripture in order to move into a deeper, more mature faith.   I have nothing new to suggest how that should be done, yet there’s a method of reading scripture I learned years ago. In part it is rabbinic and in part from a decade old lecture by Rowan Willians.

First read a biblical passage to see the words.  Then, if necessary, look up definitions of unfamiliar words.

Read it a second time for basic understanding of what the words mean. It helps to have a good study bible with footnotes to explain obscure or controversial phrases of ancient languages hard to replicate in English.

Read the passage a third time to listen to what God may be saying through the words.  It’s not the same thing as a “plain meaning of the text.” This method requires a bit of work in order to sit quietly in reflection with an open mind.

Finally, and most difficult,  enter the text as both observer and participant in the scene. Join with others present, talk with them, ask questions, listen for answers.  I think this the hardest to do because people are afraid of seeing, hearing, doing, or saying the wrong thing if and when they let themselves get too close to the action.  God might get angry.  Nonsense.  Scripture is robust, you are not going to hurt it or put yourself in jeopardy with God.  I think most people have had the experience of discovering themselves so deep in a book that they forget they’re reading.  They’re just in the story almost as one of the characters.  

There’s no risk when it’s just a story, and it’s a wonderful experience.  But divinely inspired scripture, the word of God”? Maybe that’s too risky.  Get it wrong and go to hell. Get over it. Scripture invites each reader into relationship with God and to explore that relationship in company with the characters in the bible.  You may never get it just right, but God in Christ Jesus will always be there to guide you a little farther along the way. The only big mistake is to decide you have it all figured out, and any movement away is in the wrong direction. Staying where you are is the wrong direction.

God’s holy Word may be eternal and unchanging but your ability to understand what God said and what God is speaking is at hand. Now is always changing.  The Holy Spirit is ever at work prodding us to go boldly into what is new, unknown and unpredictable. To go with confidence requires trust in God’s presence and love.  The poem known as St. Patrick’s Breastplate is a reminder that Jesus is beside us, beneath us, behind us and ahead of us, binding unto ourselves the strong name of the Trinity  

And that’s enough for now.

Email subscribers may want to go to the website to read the Corrected version of today’s column.

Dianna made her final edit of. my draft, and I made a few more changes, sending it out without her final look. over.

Blind Guy Typing (For those who don’t know, I’m mostly blind)

Liberal democracy is messy, appears inefficient, and is never fully satisfying to anyone.  But is has one singular property that no form of authoritarian or autocratic government has.  It has moral content that respects the right of its opponents to voice their objections peaceably  without fear of government sponsored retribution.  The ideals of liberal democracy separate it from political movements that say they are democratic but dislike liberal democracy for  its messiness, believing governments capable of authoritative,  unequivocal decisions  with greater efficiency is better.

Every party, bloc and movement on the American political scene claims to represent democracy, the Constitution, and what it means to be American.  But not all agree liberal democracy is the best way, even though it’s been the foundation of the nation’s political ideals since the adoption of the Constitution in 1789.  With each succeeding generation, the understanding of what liberal democracy means has been modified in new ways, the Constitution amended to expand protection of civil rights, the franchise, more equal treatment under the law for more people, and so forth.   As times changed, the federal government took on more responsibility to see that food and drugs are safe, laws adopted to make businesses accountable to the public as well as investors and owners, and issues that knew no boundaries addressed on a national scale.  It’s an evolutionary process that is liberal democracy working for the common good of all and protecting the civil rights of each.  It is the process of creating a more perfect union.  Not everyone agrees it’s the America they want.  They want all the good things liberal democracy has provided but are distrustful of too many voices having a say in what the government does and how it operates.  It would be better if a few people with the right ideas and values were empowered to make decisions for the country. 

Just to be clear what has evolved into today’s far right has little to do with liberal vs. conservative.  Liberal democracy requires both liberals and conservatives to retain its health and vitality. Liberals tend to favor a more activist government addressing a broad spectrum of needs across the country.  Conservatives are a restraint on liberal enthusiasm.  They see no need to do something that doesn’t need to be done or spend money that doesn’t need to be spent.  While liberals want to expand civil rights, conservatives want to make sure existing individual rights are not jeopardized.  Both liberals and conservatives desire the best for the nation as a whole with each side well populated by big egos jockeying for position, power and t.v. airtime.  There was a time when Republicans were the liberals and Democrats were the conservatives.  The sides began to flip in the1920s, accelerated in the 30-40s, and were fully reversed in the 1950s.  Democrats have held the liberal torch and Republicans the conservative fire extinguisher ever since.

The current U.S. Congress, especially the House of Representatives, no longer has a classical conservative side.  What the media has labeled far right extremism has captured the GOP, at least for the present. Like every extremist movement, its many parts have a hard time cooperating. Each part attracts a camp of followers who are inclined to reject everything outside their camp.  One camp prefers a confederation of independent states under a limited federal government concerned mainly with defense and interstate transportation.  Another camp prefers a strong federal government under the authority of a unified executive to whom the legislature and judiciary are subordinate.  A third camp, generally called libertarians, wants a strong federal government but one that stays out of the business of business.  These camps have been around a long time and have become adept at pushing and prodding Congress and presidents to bend in their direction.  They have one thing in common, each defines itself by its own set of non-negotiable  social values it believes should be the law of the land, imposed on all without reservation.

There have always been malcontents with no real agenda, who traffic in political fear mongering and exhibit deep emotional distrust of government in any form.  They created a lot of noise and caused serious damage in the 20th century with hard driving scare tactics warning of an imminent communist takeover of the nation.  The 21st century has seen a new manifestation in the form of what’s loosely called Trumpism. Its followers seem intent on dismantling liberal democracy, replacing it with a vague idea about an authoritarian  executive who will impose a narrow, restrictive brand of Christian nationalism, whatever that is.   If they have any central value it appears to be the fear of things related to sex and gender.  It’s hard to tell but they seem to have a vision of an insulated U.S.A. walled off from demographic and social changes in order to become a (white) middle class paradise like they imagine once existed.

The health, welfare and future of America depends on a recommitment to liberal democracy and the reestablishment of a responsible conservative movement.  Can that happen?  I think it can but it will require a renewed commitment to the common good accommodating the welfare of all people regardless of class, color, ethnicity or (it seems ridiculous to have to say this) sexual orientation.   There is an American way and immigrants must be told what it is and what to expect.  It is not the mythical seat of a white middle class nuclear family, but the ideal of liberal democracy unique in its being One out of Many (E Pluribus Unum).

Revenge chasing vengeance around the block doesn’t result in justice.  Moments of ceasefire may come but never peace. Peace occurs when parties who differ significantly are able to live in harmony.  It does not require conformity or unanimity.  It requires mutual respect and commitment to working things out in acceptable ways. Right now the world is consumed with apprehension over the horror of Hamas’s cowardly acts of terrorism and Israel’s savage response, the cost paid almost entirely by civilians unable to protect themselves or flee to safety.  Whatever the reasons and excuses, it is an example of revenge chasing vengeance.

Overlooked globally in many places are smaller scale conflicts mirroring the Israel/Hamas situation.  The most obvious situations are like armed conflicts in Africa and cartel violence in Latin America. But they aren’t so very different from the same process of revenge chasing vengeance in Congress, state legislatures, our communities, neighborhoods and families.  Interviews with many residents on the ground in Israel and Gaza have a common theme: Why are “they” doing this to us?  We are human beings, “they are animals. “They” have to pay for what “they” have done.  True, not every interview shares that theme.  It’s a hopeful sign that some interviewed understand the need for mutual respect before peace can be had.  The Holy Land and environs have seldom known peace – long periods of truce, but not peace.  There have been too many generations of us against “them.””They” can never be trusted, and tolerated only if “they” know their place and stay in it.  It isn’t unique to Israelis and Palestinians.  The same is going on at different scales in every place and among all peoples.

I don’t know why, but we (including me and you) are quick to make disagreements about “us” against “them” with “them” as the root cause of what we fear.  It’s a scapegoating process more fully explored by the philosopher Renee Girard.  He examined the history of people experiencing social disorder scapegoating some vulnerable “them” who are not “us”  as the cause of the problems.  Only when extreme and often violent measures are employed to rid the community of “them”  can order be restored. Throughout the centuries it’s the story of pogroms, witch hunts, heresy trials, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.

It has now exploded on the global scene in the Holy Land.  In a sense what is happening there is an amplification of the less obvious dynamic at work in our own daily lives.  It’s what makes it so difficult to resolve painful situations such as estrangements between families and friends, and implacable political differences.  The “they” in our lives are always the ones who have made life more difficult than it should be.  Who are the “they” we so eagerly blame for disorder and failures in society?  Corporations, governments, people of other races or economic status, the poor or rich, members of our own families, we are quick to assign blame to innumerable “they” with unexamined certainty on the flimsiest prejudices, rumors and allegations.  We readily ignore the logs in our own eyes while examining and insisting “they” remove the specks in “their” eyes. It is hard work learning to love our neighbors, especially the ones we dislike and don’t trust.

Social disorder can and often is a legitimate threat, a real and present danger and cannot be ignored. The principles of responsibility, accountability and the consequences of one’s actions must hold, but only on the foundation of verifiable evidence.  The temptation of emotional knee jerk scapegoating must be avoided.  It isn’t easy.  Emotional reactions, including angry rage, are real and need to be expressed. The hard part is not letting that expression move onto the act of revenge chasing vengeance.  To be sure, nations have an obligation to defend their people from attack.  The struggle in Ukraine is a legitimate defense against a would be conqueror that wants territory and cares nothing about the people who live there. However, it is worth noting that Russia has tried to justify the war by setting “us” the good Russians against “them” the bad neo-Nazi Ukrainians who are a threat to all that is Russian.  It’s classic scapegoating that could easily devolve into revenge chasing vengeance.

I’v been reflecting on the internal disfunction that’s been festering in Israeli society for decades. We often hear reports about tension between Israel and Palestinian residents having spilled over into violence. Israelis have been subject to periodic attacks by Hamas and Hezbola terrorists.  Ancestral Palestinian Territories have been systematically dismantled to make room for Jewish settlements.  No matter what argument is made to justify them, events like these stoked hatred and acts of mutual vengeance.  Secular and reformed Jews have been at odds with orthodox sects over political and social issues.  Netanyahu has made common cause with orthodox factions while pushing the nation away from democracy toward autocracy. The media portray him as confronting every difficult issue with pugilistic threats.  Knesset sessions have sometimes looked like cage fights.  In the meantime, Netanyahu is up against serious charges of corruption that may well put him in prison, if he ever goes to trial.

Has Israel descended into national chaos?  Probably not, but the country is in such a mess that a gang of well armed thugs claiming religious righteousness figured it was an easy target for a massive attack of violent terrorism.  I doubt Hamas has any idea what it thinks it can achieve.  It only wants to attack and destroy in furious anger.  Like all terrorists, they have attacked the defenseless and unwary, too cowardly to take on anything more formidable. 

On a different scale and under different conditions, the U.S. has a similar record of decades long tensions making us look vulnerably dysfunctional.  I doubt any group seriously thinks they can take down the nation, but what an opportunity they have to wreak violent havoc in order to make America pay for its alleged sins – whatever they might be.

Our country has endured several decades of right wing extremists attacking society in the name of righteousness, religious or otherwise.  On one hand, secular and religious factions have angrily confronted and teamed up in strange alliances. On the other, domestic terrorists attempted a January 6 coup that unveiled how serious and dangerous they are.  As president, Trump declared he alone had the authority to run the country and his campaigns for reelection have celebrated his brand of authoritarianism.  His followers are loyal in the extreme even though he is under indictment on 91 felony counts, a finding of financial fraud and subject to several personal injury civil suits.  It’s the coming home to roost of a lifetime thumbing his nose at the law and disrespecting eveyone but himself.   Still, his rule by fear and intimidation with total disregard for truth has cowed political opponents in this own party and convinced millions of followers that he is the strong man leader they want in office. 

His four years as president so undermined American credibility that trusting the U.S. as an exemplary world leader has become problematic.   The current administration has done much to restore the nation’s reputation, reenergize its economy, and strengthen bipartisan democracy.  But it has had to fight for every inch of progress against entrenched factions in state legislatures and Congress who are intent only on destruction and dismantling, with no plan other than authoritarian rule imposing right wing ideology on an unwilling public. The similarities to conditions in Israel are obvious, and so is the likelihood that some terrorist group will see it as a ripe opportunity to inflict death and damage on unwary and innocent people.  I doubt that Russia, Iran or any other country would dare take the opportunity,  but I believe they would abet and cheer any Hamas like gang of fanatics who would. The frightening part is that in all probability, they wouldn’t be foreigners, rather elements of our own fanatical sects.

What is to be done, other than heightening vigilance?  The electorate must unite behind candidates who are willing to negotiate with others for the greater common good.  It must start with city councils and school boards, and it must continue through state legislatures and federal offices.  If successful, fanatics will complain that they have been suppressed, that their loud voices have been reduced to whispers, and they would be right. The private desires of the few that deny American ideals of the common good in which life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are freely open to all people without prejudice cannot be allowed destroy all that the U.S. stands for.

Deism was a popular form of spiritual belief in colonial times. It acknowledged a higher being, a god of some sort, uninvolved in human affairs. That idea left it up to humans to make their own way as best they could. The enlightenment had given them confidence that human reason alone was sufficient to make the way good and profitable for all people. Christianity, as they understood it, was OK as a fanciful excuse for avoiding human accountability, a refuge for those who could not appreciate the power of reason, and the church was a social institution that helped give order to the community to which superficial commitment was sufficient. Jesus was a wise teacher but as to his divinity, it wasn’t worth debating with believers. Let them believe what they wanted and wish them well. 

Deism has not gone away.  It’s been rebranded as the spiritual but not religious.  It might be uncertainty defined as belief in spiritual reality superior to ordinary daily human existence. Whether it is divine in some sense or the emanation of an enlightened human mind is a matter of conjecture.  One might add up to the other. In any case it holds out the promise of spiritual self realization bringing an abundance of blessings into one’s life according to the level of spiritual enlightenment one can achieve.

It borrows heavily from Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism, and adds random elements from mystery religions and pop culture. Spiritual but not religious aficionados have opened up an attractive market for an updated Manichaeism in which self styled gurus have offered classes and access to secret knowledge that would enable spiritual seekers to become enlightened masters, stage by stage, for a fee that promised all they desired…eventually. It is a niche market that hasn’t appeal to everyone.  Most spiritual but not religious are content inventing their own way, relying on whatever they’ve heard is the latest thing. 

The contemporary church has to shoulder a good deal of the blame for the rise of a new deism in the form of spiritual but not religious.  I suspect we clergy have too often tried to explain God  by comparing ‘him’ to known things and processes.  The bearded old man in heaven and the European looking Jesus portrayed in art are the worst examples, but not far behind are descriptions of God by the tasks assigned to ‘him’: creator, sustainer, redeemer, for instance.  However well intended, they represent God as an object.  A far different sort of object from all others, but an object nonetheless. Even my use of the masculine pronoun for God is misleading: it’s a weakness in the English language. As theologian Rowan Williams has observed, God is not an object among other objects.  God is being itself. It is not the same thing as a higher power.  A higher power is still an object and God is not an object.  God is also not an amorphous eternal oneness of the universe.

God is self revealed to humanity  as engaged with, concerned for, and intentional about the destiny of creation God has brought into being the spiritual and material existing in symbiotic relationship. It is most clearly revealed in God’s “word” made flesh for a time in Jesus.  God as being but not an object leaves humans too much adrift.  We can’t seem to help objectifying everything.  I guess it proves the saying that “seeing is believing,” and explains the popularity of idols like statues, crystals, money, careers, fame, and material belongings.  The perfect and only objectification of God is Jesus Christ as born, lived, taught, crucified, buried and and ascended.  He is the lens through which human eyes can behold the One who is being itself defined, if we must, as pure love.

If we clergy have not proclaimed that reality boldly enough, the rise of a new deism lies at our feet. I wonder if we have fed people too much with the empty calories of spiritual fast food rather than the solid food of the crucified and risen Christ.  It could be one reason why several generations have looked at Christianity and said “Nothing of value here, let’s look somewhere else.”  But God is the source of life and there is no other.  God has chosen to be made known to us through self revelation, and we must be bold in proclaiming it.  Platitudes offered as reasons to believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is more than not enough, it is a big mistake. The source of all being, of love, and of what is good and right is in God. However else God might be made known, ‘he’ is made known most fully in Jesus Christ, who is neither prophet nor sage but God incarnate.

History, as I learned it in school, was mostly the chronology of wars. There was an appendix of stories about great men (and a very few women) who made significant contributions to science, political philosophy, and social improvements.  They tended to be taught as episodes independent of other things going on in the world. To know history was to know wars. If you learned about other events in time, well that was nice too, but you were not graded on it. 

And why not?  The last century was a a hundred years of war interrupted by occasional periods of uneasy pauses euphemistically called peace.  So far in this century major countries have avoided serious war with each other but the world has not been at peace.  Armed conflicts continue throughout the world. I need not mention our own problems with right wing threats.  They add up as a constant threat to global peace and it can seem we are the children and progenitors of war.  If war has been our history does it have to be our destiny? Perhaps not if we taught history from another point of view.

History viewed through the lens of great ideas that moved humanity forward should be the core of the story. Ideas bequeathed to us by philosophers, scientists, composers, artists, theologians, and political leaders committed to a better life for all, these are the people who’ve given us hope for a better future. They’re the true heroes to be celebrated in every generation.

American democracy, for instance, is an idea made real through adoption of yet other ideas articulated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Americans didn’t come up with the ideas expressed by the founding documents.  They were the descendants of political philosophers and theologians from Socrates to Locke, Rousseau, Hobbes and others of the Enlightenment. Hamilton, Madison, Adams, Franklin, Jefferson and others refined them to create an entirely new form of representative democracy.  Moreover, the Constitution is a living document that has been amended and adapted to address changing conditions and to absorb new ideas, as well as to improve the well being of the nation.  It’s been far from a perfect process.  Not all ideas and the changes made when adopted were good ones. We’ve lurched forward with occasional relapses that have cost us dearly.

The resources available to thought leaders and decision makers are the products of other thinkers in each of the hard and social sciences.  They keep expanding the realm of what we know about earth, our island home, and its creatures, including humans.  Their discoveries have led to ever more sophisticated beneficial technologies, better health care, higher levels of education, and deepened understanding of what we must do to serve the earth so that it may continue to serve us. 

In trying to resolve disputes, we cannot get away from the ease with which humanity turns to the violence of war. Wars are important events in history that have affected the direction of human development but they are not the engines of humanity’s ascent.  Rather ideas generated by philosophers, theologians and scientists are.  History should be taught as the chronology of ideas, with due recognition of the effect wars have had on it.  It would be a reversal of the way I learned history, and I think, a hopeful sign of progress.