When I decided some months ago to start blogging again, I intended to avoid politics; I was just going to write responses to the lectionary.
However, when the current frontrunner for the Republican nomination feels that it's appropriate to criticize President Obama for a "phony theology" that is "not based on the Bible," I can't help myself.
When Republicans in Congress can summon an all male panel of clergy to complain that their rights are threatened by insurance coverage for women's healthcare (and simultaneously deny an opportunity to speak to a woman who was prepared to speak to how the laws impact her), something has gone off the rails.
When I say "what Santorum gets wrong," I don't plan to do a point-by-point rebuttal of his various statements and claims. The last thing the world needs is more Christians pointing fingers at each other and saying, "I'm right, you're wrong."
Today, however, is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. While there is a heightened focus on sin and all our various collective and individual failures, there is also necessarily an emphasis on forgiveness and salvation. What Santorum and people like him appear to have not understood - perhaps conceptually, intellectually, but clearly not in their hearts - is that salvation isn't up to us.
Oh, we can have a long argument about salvation by faith versus salvation by works, but that misses the point, too. It's not up to us. It's salvation by God.
The writers of the New Testament reached a pretty clear consensus that grace is a gift, freely given. We don't earn it, and in fact, we can't earn it. There is no person so good, so pure, so virtuous that they can enter into eternal life by their own efforts. No one deserves to go to Heaven. The astonished disciples asked Jesus, "Well, then who can get into Heaven?" He said, simply, "For mortals, it is impossible." Remember, this is the guy who also said, "If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can tell a mountain to uproot itself and fall into the ocean." But Heaven? "For mortals, it is impossible."
And then he says, "For God, all things are possible."
A lot of people - hopefully most people - concede this, even if they maybe don't really believe it. The most self-righteously pious, judgmental blowhard televangelist will also probably be the first person to say he's a sinner, but he's also a lot like that pharisee in the classic parable, pointing at the tax collector and saying to God, "I may not be perfect, but at least I don't sin as much or as badly as that guy." That's really where we find ourselves. "I may not be perfect, but at least I do not have sex outside of marriage/I do not use birth control/I have not had an abortion/[fill in the vice of your choice]." That's basically Rick Santorum: I assume he wouldn't dare say (and doesn't believe) that he's not a sinner, but at least his theology is "based on the Bible," not like that other guy's. It is a classic case of "holier than thou," in the most pathetic and literal (if illiterate) sense.
So it begs the question: if no one is perfect, then just how imperfect can we be, and still get into Heaven? And if that sounds like we're framing the question too much in a "works-based" theology, then let's rephrase: no one fully understands God or gets everything right, so...how wrong can we be and still be "right enough"?
But there again we fail to remember it's not up to us.
The Bible, which is sometimes described as a record of the history of salvation, is not a book full of inspiring, feel-good stories about virtous people, or, at the very least, that would be a grotesque oversimplification. It's a book full of troubling - but ultimately inspiring - stories about a whole lot of very real human beings who say and do all kinds of dumb, mean, fearful, selfish things. What we're meant to take away is that people are complicated, and that God can work with us and through us even though we screw up in ways big and small, all the time. Our brokenness is not an obstacle for God. Paul strenuously insisted that nothing can separate us from God's love, one of many verses the literalists prefer to pretend come with an asterisk.
And so, even laying aside the incredibly sad state of affairs that a self-professed defender of the Constitution does not understand why it's irrelevant, inappropriate and offensive to comment on whether the president's "theology" is sufficiently orthodox for the office, Santorum's own biggest mistake is failing to understand that no one's theology is sufficient.
You just can't legislate people into heaven, Rick.
Showing posts with label People Who Miss the Point. Show all posts
Showing posts with label People Who Miss the Point. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Having Trouble With Genesis
No profound insights or conclusions here, just something that I noticed recently that has been nagging at me.
The Old Testament readings appointed for the Daily Office in Year 2 begin with Genesis so that by the time we get to the end of Lent we are reading about the plagues in Egypt and, in the first week of Easter, the story of the Exodus.
Last night, the eve of the fourth Sunday after Epiphany, Abraham was visited by the "three angels" (about which I have some things I do want to say in another post that was meant for yesterday but for which I didn't have time...), and today God (at least in the text...) turns his attention toward Sodom and the evil people who live there. In a remarkable exchange, Abraham wants to know if there might yet be any "righteous" people in Sodom, and whether God intends to destroy them along with the evildoers. As it is rendered in the KJV (18:25), "That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"
Abraham gets God to agree that if there are fifty righteous people in Sodom, he will spare the city. "But...what if there are only 45?" asks Abraham. God concedes that is close enough. "What if there are only 40?" God says, "Okay, for forty righteous people, I will spare the city," and so forth, on down to 10. (And now I want to ask Abraham, why did you stop at 10? What if there is only one righteous person in Sodom?)
Here's my question: how does God define "righteousness" at this point?
Just before the story of Abraham we have the story of Noah, where the Bible tells us that the entire world, save Noah, was so awful and wicked that every last human on earth had to be destroyed; and not only the humans, but all of the animals, except for a breeding pair of every kind, to be taken into the ark to start over.
I have a LOT of questions, of course. Like, what is the point, really, of killing off all the animals because of the wickedness of humanity? And, even if that were necessary, why can't God just start over with a new creation? And why does there have to be a natural disaster, a physical cause for the death of all life on the earth -- couldn't God just snap his fingers and presto! everybody's gone?
But all of that is secondary and trivial in the shadow of my larger question: how does God define "righteous" and "unrighteous" and "evil"?
There are no ten commandments. There's no torah. Certainly no Gospels. God has told people to "be fruitful and multiply," but that's about it. He has, so far as the Bible tells us thus far, not sent any prophets to teach or warn people. If God has not yet set forth laws and expectations and given humanity some frame of reference upon which to determine morality, then how does he condemn them as immoral? As so hopelessly evil that they have to be destroyed?
I'm probably missing the point. The Bible, I know well -- particularly this part of it -- cannot be read too literally, or you'll miss the forest for the trees, as I am almost certainly doing.
My guess, at this point, is that there is an assumption that even if it hasn't yet been written out on stone, God's law (which can be summed up as: love God, love your neighbor), was already written on the hearts of humanity. That humans came with at least a vague understanding that "God is good." That's how Abraham can question God's intention to destroy Sodom: "Surely the judge of all will not destroy the good with the wicked?"
I often think that the reason that there is so much emphasis on "Adam and Eve" and "creation" and "Sodom and Gomorrah" is because many people who set out to "read the Bible" start with page 1 and just keep going until they can't -- which I'm guessing is somewhere toward the end of Exodus, or somewhere in Leviticus, or certainly by Numbers. What starts as a series of really dramatic stories becomes an endless list of strange and repetitive regulations, many of which are irrelevant to modern life. So this is the part of the Bible with which they are most familiar (and also because the stories of Genesis and the patriarchs form the basis of a lot of early Sunday School education).
It's easy to get the idea from Genesis that God is easily angered and that the result is terrible destruction. I think this is why so many "casual Christians" buy easily into the notion that God sends plagues like HIV/AIDS to destroy the sexually immoral; in their limited understanding, it seems perfectly consonant with the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. And it's easy to understand why so many people turn away from Christianity altogether; if stories like the flood and Sodom and Gomorrah are what you know, then it seems in rather hopeless conflict with the idea that "God is good."
Just thinking out loud.
The Old Testament readings appointed for the Daily Office in Year 2 begin with Genesis so that by the time we get to the end of Lent we are reading about the plagues in Egypt and, in the first week of Easter, the story of the Exodus.
Last night, the eve of the fourth Sunday after Epiphany, Abraham was visited by the "three angels" (about which I have some things I do want to say in another post that was meant for yesterday but for which I didn't have time...), and today God (at least in the text...) turns his attention toward Sodom and the evil people who live there. In a remarkable exchange, Abraham wants to know if there might yet be any "righteous" people in Sodom, and whether God intends to destroy them along with the evildoers. As it is rendered in the KJV (18:25), "That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"
Abraham gets God to agree that if there are fifty righteous people in Sodom, he will spare the city. "But...what if there are only 45?" asks Abraham. God concedes that is close enough. "What if there are only 40?" God says, "Okay, for forty righteous people, I will spare the city," and so forth, on down to 10. (And now I want to ask Abraham, why did you stop at 10? What if there is only one righteous person in Sodom?)
Here's my question: how does God define "righteousness" at this point?
Just before the story of Abraham we have the story of Noah, where the Bible tells us that the entire world, save Noah, was so awful and wicked that every last human on earth had to be destroyed; and not only the humans, but all of the animals, except for a breeding pair of every kind, to be taken into the ark to start over.
I have a LOT of questions, of course. Like, what is the point, really, of killing off all the animals because of the wickedness of humanity? And, even if that were necessary, why can't God just start over with a new creation? And why does there have to be a natural disaster, a physical cause for the death of all life on the earth -- couldn't God just snap his fingers and presto! everybody's gone?
But all of that is secondary and trivial in the shadow of my larger question: how does God define "righteous" and "unrighteous" and "evil"?
There are no ten commandments. There's no torah. Certainly no Gospels. God has told people to "be fruitful and multiply," but that's about it. He has, so far as the Bible tells us thus far, not sent any prophets to teach or warn people. If God has not yet set forth laws and expectations and given humanity some frame of reference upon which to determine morality, then how does he condemn them as immoral? As so hopelessly evil that they have to be destroyed?
I'm probably missing the point. The Bible, I know well -- particularly this part of it -- cannot be read too literally, or you'll miss the forest for the trees, as I am almost certainly doing.
My guess, at this point, is that there is an assumption that even if it hasn't yet been written out on stone, God's law (which can be summed up as: love God, love your neighbor), was already written on the hearts of humanity. That humans came with at least a vague understanding that "God is good." That's how Abraham can question God's intention to destroy Sodom: "Surely the judge of all will not destroy the good with the wicked?"
I often think that the reason that there is so much emphasis on "Adam and Eve" and "creation" and "Sodom and Gomorrah" is because many people who set out to "read the Bible" start with page 1 and just keep going until they can't -- which I'm guessing is somewhere toward the end of Exodus, or somewhere in Leviticus, or certainly by Numbers. What starts as a series of really dramatic stories becomes an endless list of strange and repetitive regulations, many of which are irrelevant to modern life. So this is the part of the Bible with which they are most familiar (and also because the stories of Genesis and the patriarchs form the basis of a lot of early Sunday School education).
It's easy to get the idea from Genesis that God is easily angered and that the result is terrible destruction. I think this is why so many "casual Christians" buy easily into the notion that God sends plagues like HIV/AIDS to destroy the sexually immoral; in their limited understanding, it seems perfectly consonant with the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. And it's easy to understand why so many people turn away from Christianity altogether; if stories like the flood and Sodom and Gomorrah are what you know, then it seems in rather hopeless conflict with the idea that "God is good."
Just thinking out loud.
Friday, December 16, 2011
The Parable of the Capitalist Jerk
Matthew 25:14-30
The Gospel appointed for today is the "parable of the talents," the story of the rich man who went on a journey and left some of his money with his servants. To one he gave five "talents," to another two, and to a third just one.
I feel like most explanations say that the master is Jesus, who has blessed each of us with certain "talents" (though we don't all get the same talents, in the same quantities), and expects us to do something with that treasure. We will have to give an account to Jesus/the master when he returns of what we did with the "talents" he gave us. According to this interpretation, it's pretty clear from the end of the story that we are expected to do something with those gifts. The story shows up in the lectionary in Advent season, and following as it does immediately on the heels of the story of the wise and foolish maidens waiting for the bridegroom, sounds like it is alluding to the second coming and the judgment.
But I just don't see how that can possibly be.
Here's how the story unfolds: the first two servants take the money (five and two talents, respectively) and invest it, doubling the initial amount. When the master returns, he praises them ("Well done, good and faithful servant!") and says, "You have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master."
The third servant simply returns the original talent, having buried it in the earth, and then rather brazenly says, "I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours."
The master furiously responds, "You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest." The master takes the talent back and gives it to the first servant (so that he now has eleven, total) and then dismissing him as "worthless," orders that he be thrown "into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
Where is Jesus in this parable? Frankly, I don't think he's in it at all.
The story is also told in Luke (19:11-27), and I think there are several clues that reinforce the suggestion that this "master" is the furthest thing from Jesus. Luke says that the reason Jesus tells them the story is "because [the people] supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately." This time, rather than "a man going on a journey," Luke is specific that the master is "a nobleman [who] went to a distant country to get royal power for himself."
Again, it seems that the easy allusion here is to Jesus, who has "gone on a journey," so to speak (or is, at least, not physically present with us as he was with the disciples) and will return crowned as the King of Heaven. But I am uncomfortable with Luke's actual language here: "to get royal power for himself." Jesus, who is and who was and who is to come, was always the king; hence the magi who bowed before the child and presented royal gifts. Jesus did not have to die and "go away" in order to claim his kingship; he doesn't have to "get" royal power. And does he do this for himself?
I don't think Luke prefaces the parable meaning to explain that the kingdom of God is not near because the master still has to go on his journey, so listen up to what y'all are supposed to do with the "talents" he's going to give you. I think he sets it up this way precisely to illustrate that the Kingdom of God is not near because this is the sort of story that is happening right now, all around us. Luke and Matthew are saying that the kingdom and our relationship with God will be very, very different than the master/servant paradigm to which we are accustomed.
Here's the test for me in this story: let's say the third servant had taken that talent and used it to buy food for hungry people. What do you think this master's response would be?
Is Jesus a harsh man, reaping what he does not sow and gathering what he doesn't plant? And wherefore is this slave "wicked"? Wicked? Which commandment has he violated? What sin has he committed? What law has he broken?
"You ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest!" says the master. Do you know, in the KJV, instead of "interest" it says "with usury"? I would have received what was my own, plus what was not. That is exactly what the servant is saying: you make money from money. You don't make anything, you don't plant anything, you don't do anything for anyone, you just put your money in the bank -- or have people do it for you -- and you get more money. After all Jesus has told them during his ministry: sell all your possessions and give to the poor, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle, blessed is the widow who donated two cents because it was all she had, pass out free food to five thousand people, take people you find lying by the side of the road and pay for their lodging and medical expenses...all of that, and now suddenly Jesus is warning us that come judgment day, he will be mighty pissed off if we haven't wisely invested his money?
I think our discomfort with what seems like a cognitive dissonance has caused us to read this story metaphorically, that Jesus is not really talking about "money," he's talking about "talents." Do something with the "talents" God gave you. But this story is, emphatically, about money. A story can have multiple layers of meaning and can make sense literally and metaphorically, but if you have to read it metaphorically because the literal reading is nonsensical, then something is wrong.
What's "wrong," what does not make sense, is Jesus as this particular master. "For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away."
This is not the Kingdom of God, this is the world we live in right now. This is not an illustration of what is to come, this is a scathing indictment of what is already wrong. It is a parable right out of Occupy Wall Street.
The Gospel appointed for today is the "parable of the talents," the story of the rich man who went on a journey and left some of his money with his servants. To one he gave five "talents," to another two, and to a third just one.
I feel like most explanations say that the master is Jesus, who has blessed each of us with certain "talents" (though we don't all get the same talents, in the same quantities), and expects us to do something with that treasure. We will have to give an account to Jesus/the master when he returns of what we did with the "talents" he gave us. According to this interpretation, it's pretty clear from the end of the story that we are expected to do something with those gifts. The story shows up in the lectionary in Advent season, and following as it does immediately on the heels of the story of the wise and foolish maidens waiting for the bridegroom, sounds like it is alluding to the second coming and the judgment.
But I just don't see how that can possibly be.
Here's how the story unfolds: the first two servants take the money (five and two talents, respectively) and invest it, doubling the initial amount. When the master returns, he praises them ("Well done, good and faithful servant!") and says, "You have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master."
The third servant simply returns the original talent, having buried it in the earth, and then rather brazenly says, "I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours."
The master furiously responds, "You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest." The master takes the talent back and gives it to the first servant (so that he now has eleven, total) and then dismissing him as "worthless," orders that he be thrown "into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
Where is Jesus in this parable? Frankly, I don't think he's in it at all.
The story is also told in Luke (19:11-27), and I think there are several clues that reinforce the suggestion that this "master" is the furthest thing from Jesus. Luke says that the reason Jesus tells them the story is "because [the people] supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately." This time, rather than "a man going on a journey," Luke is specific that the master is "a nobleman [who] went to a distant country to get royal power for himself."
Again, it seems that the easy allusion here is to Jesus, who has "gone on a journey," so to speak (or is, at least, not physically present with us as he was with the disciples) and will return crowned as the King of Heaven. But I am uncomfortable with Luke's actual language here: "to get royal power for himself." Jesus, who is and who was and who is to come, was always the king; hence the magi who bowed before the child and presented royal gifts. Jesus did not have to die and "go away" in order to claim his kingship; he doesn't have to "get" royal power. And does he do this for himself?
I don't think Luke prefaces the parable meaning to explain that the kingdom of God is not near because the master still has to go on his journey, so listen up to what y'all are supposed to do with the "talents" he's going to give you. I think he sets it up this way precisely to illustrate that the Kingdom of God is not near because this is the sort of story that is happening right now, all around us. Luke and Matthew are saying that the kingdom and our relationship with God will be very, very different than the master/servant paradigm to which we are accustomed.
Here's the test for me in this story: let's say the third servant had taken that talent and used it to buy food for hungry people. What do you think this master's response would be?
Is Jesus a harsh man, reaping what he does not sow and gathering what he doesn't plant? And wherefore is this slave "wicked"? Wicked? Which commandment has he violated? What sin has he committed? What law has he broken?
"You ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest!" says the master. Do you know, in the KJV, instead of "interest" it says "with usury"? I would have received what was my own, plus what was not. That is exactly what the servant is saying: you make money from money. You don't make anything, you don't plant anything, you don't do anything for anyone, you just put your money in the bank -- or have people do it for you -- and you get more money. After all Jesus has told them during his ministry: sell all your possessions and give to the poor, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle, blessed is the widow who donated two cents because it was all she had, pass out free food to five thousand people, take people you find lying by the side of the road and pay for their lodging and medical expenses...all of that, and now suddenly Jesus is warning us that come judgment day, he will be mighty pissed off if we haven't wisely invested his money?
I think our discomfort with what seems like a cognitive dissonance has caused us to read this story metaphorically, that Jesus is not really talking about "money," he's talking about "talents." Do something with the "talents" God gave you. But this story is, emphatically, about money. A story can have multiple layers of meaning and can make sense literally and metaphorically, but if you have to read it metaphorically because the literal reading is nonsensical, then something is wrong.
What's "wrong," what does not make sense, is Jesus as this particular master. "For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away."
This is not the Kingdom of God, this is the world we live in right now. This is not an illustration of what is to come, this is a scathing indictment of what is already wrong. It is a parable right out of Occupy Wall Street.
Monday, December 05, 2011
The Length of Advent
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 4
ADVENT 5
The sign at the entrance to my suburban Episcopal parish might well have puzzled visitors. Advent 5? There are only four Sundays in Advent...and three more weeks to go until Christmas. What gives?
Advent, for readers not cued in to the liturgical tradition, is the first "season" of the Christian year; for most Christians, Advent begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas Day. It is a time of introspection, waiting and preparation. As "Retail Christmas" now starts earlier and earlier and becomes an increasingly cheap orgy of gaudy materialism having essentially nothing to do with Jesus at all, Christians are finding renewed meaning in Advent. The Christmas "season" in American culture, which begins to appear in stores by mid-November at the latest and explodes on Thanksgiving weekend in a flurry of print and TV ads and the media frenzy of "Black Friday" shopping, has become an extended period of stress and chaos, so that by December 25 we are exhausted and bored and sick of it all.
The frustration with the way Christmas has been robbed of its joy and beauty and co-opted for the glory of the Dollar Almighty (and become a tedious culture-war touchstone for the fundamentalists) has led many Christians to reconnect with the traditions of Advent, and some are advocating expanding the season to seven Sundays instead of four. The Eastern Orthodox Church has long celebrated Advent for the 40 days prior to Christmas, just as Lent is the 40 days prior to Easter. Our parish is one of several around the country experimenting with a longer Advent this year.
I was skeptical at first, but my priest is a very wise (and liturgically generally very conservative) man and I wanted to be open-minded; I also believe the church does itself no favors with blind adherence to tradition. In explaining his decision to give this a try, the priest pointed out that the lectionary (the three-year cycle of Bible lessons appointed for Sunday worship) already begins pointing to Advent themes in November, and gave voice to the kind of inchoate general Christian sense of helplessness in the face of Retail Christmas by making a bigger deal out of Advent.
Without heading off into a complicated tangent about the Christian calendar (which I could easily, passionately do), let me just point out that the calendar is meant to be cyclical, not linear. We don't "number" our years, and we don't celebrate a "New Year's Eve" when Pentecost passes into Advent again. In figuring out that "lectionary" system for appointed readings for various holidays and seasons of the Christian year, the ancient church drew a parallel between the coming of Christ into the world as a newborn at Christmas and the anticipated second coming at the end of time. And so, while it may seem ironic and incongruous in the weeks leading up to Christmas at the beginning of the year, the worship directs our attention to the End.
This was the angle that most piqued my interest; not only am I in favor of Christians standing up and telling the world to slow the heck down before Christmas because they are really missing the point, the crazy eschatology (theology of the "end times") of some of our fundamentalist brethren has so dominated the popular imagination that the orthodox understanding of the Second Coming has been almost entirely eclipsed. Complicated timelines and checklists for identifying "the Antichrist" and predicting the Second Coming are so common that even wild-eyed crackpots like Harold Camping can make international news by predicting -- as he did twice this year -- the "precise" date of the End of the World. (He was, not surprisingly, wrong both times, and made himself and every other Christian look like fools in the process.) So, yes: the mainline churches standing up to counter the perversions of fundamentalist eschatology and reclaim Christmas from Wall Street? Count me in!
In practice, however, this experiment has been disappointing. I think, frankly, that my beloved priest overestimated the cultural impact of bringing out the blue altar cloths three weeks early.
Instead of feeling like a counter-action to the ever-earlier creep of Retail Christmas, starting Advent early seemed like surrender. And while we dutifully sang the traditional Advent hymns like, "Sleepers, Wake!" and read the appointed lessons full of warning, that seemed all we were able to muster. Granted, we still have two Sundays of Advent left so maybe I should not throw the manger out with the four-candle Advent wreath, but so far this process has not deepened in me a greater awareness of or appreciation for eschatology or supported my interest in a truly counter-cultural Advent. We have had no fiery sermons on the end-times texts or passionate calls to resist secular culture's idea of Christmas. We've not had any meaningful parish activities to further either goal. It's been Advent just like every other year, except longer. And no wreath.
Ultimately, I don't think I'm going to come down on one side or another as to how long Advent should be. The folks who support an expanded Advent have the right idea, and I am completely, totally and utterly in favor of making a much bigger deal out of Advent. But I'm also afraid my initial misgivings were correct: if you want to do Advent better, you have to really do it better, not just longer.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Proper 11, Thursday, Year 1
Mark 5:1-20
I have vague memories from Sunday school at the Lutheran Church where I was brought up of a video of the story of the demons that were cast into the herd of swine; I remember the image of pigs tumbling down an embankment into water, and I remember thinking that was pretty hilarious and strange.
Today, however, I find this story one of the most beautiful, moving, compassionate and terrifying segments in all of the Gospels.
So, last we talked about Jesus, he and the disciples were crossing the Sea of Galilee when a terrible storm arose and threatened to sink the boat and drown the passengers. Jesus calmed the winds and the waves, and the disciples were terrified.
Now they come at last to the far shore, and immediately they encounter a naked lunatic. This has to be one of the scariest images in the Bible, especially in the New Testament (outside of the Revelation): a naked man who lives in the hills among the tombs, howling incoherently, so violent and strong that he cannot even be chained down, for he rips the fetters apart, and he cuts himself with stones.
Do you believe in demonic possession?
For my part...yes, at least I think so. But there is also the reality of mental illness, and I think it's entirely possible that conditions which are diagnosable today would have been inscrutable in the first century and, not unreasonably, attributed to demons. Today I think maybe the opposite is true, that possession is often considered merely mental illness. I do not think they are the same thing, but they probably share many external characteristics.
My heart breaks reading about this man. For some reason, the image I have is of a young, strong adult who, if he weren't filthy and deranged, would be considered exceedingly attractive. He's bright, he's sensitive, and he's deeply troubled. He cuts himself with stones! And people are frightened by him.
I certainly get that. Having lived in Manhattan for many years, and now back in Portland which has a famously large street population, I've certainly beheld many people suffering from mental illness, and it can be very scary; it's that level of unpredictability and the knowledge/fear that you can't necessarily reason with them.
For me, the most terrifying part is when Jesus asks "the unclean spirit" what his name is, and the response comes, "My name is Legion; for we are many." It's the stuff of cheap horror movies, and yet I just...I can't quite articulate it. I really believe it. It raises the hair on my neck.
There is also a very deliberate political subversion happening here. A "legion," of course, was the basic unit of the Roman military; Rome was the violent occupier of Palestine and the empire that murdered the Christ. Scholars tend to think that the author of "Mark," whatever his (her?) name really was, was a follower of Peter (also murdered by Romans, in Rome), and the Gospel may even have been written in Rome. This is loaded and rich language, associating the demonic possession of a human with political and military occupation.
So, the demons negotiate a deal with Jesus to be cast into the swine, the herd of pigs leap into the sea and drown, and the man becomes his old self again.
Then what happens? Then people came to see what it was that had happened....and saw the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the legion; and they were afraid.
Once again, we are shown how people witness the healing and saving power of God in spectacular fashion, and their response is not joy or comfort, but fear.
I have vague memories from Sunday school at the Lutheran Church where I was brought up of a video of the story of the demons that were cast into the herd of swine; I remember the image of pigs tumbling down an embankment into water, and I remember thinking that was pretty hilarious and strange.
Today, however, I find this story one of the most beautiful, moving, compassionate and terrifying segments in all of the Gospels.
So, last we talked about Jesus, he and the disciples were crossing the Sea of Galilee when a terrible storm arose and threatened to sink the boat and drown the passengers. Jesus calmed the winds and the waves, and the disciples were terrified.
Now they come at last to the far shore, and immediately they encounter a naked lunatic. This has to be one of the scariest images in the Bible, especially in the New Testament (outside of the Revelation): a naked man who lives in the hills among the tombs, howling incoherently, so violent and strong that he cannot even be chained down, for he rips the fetters apart, and he cuts himself with stones.
Do you believe in demonic possession?
For my part...yes, at least I think so. But there is also the reality of mental illness, and I think it's entirely possible that conditions which are diagnosable today would have been inscrutable in the first century and, not unreasonably, attributed to demons. Today I think maybe the opposite is true, that possession is often considered merely mental illness. I do not think they are the same thing, but they probably share many external characteristics.
My heart breaks reading about this man. For some reason, the image I have is of a young, strong adult who, if he weren't filthy and deranged, would be considered exceedingly attractive. He's bright, he's sensitive, and he's deeply troubled. He cuts himself with stones! And people are frightened by him.
I certainly get that. Having lived in Manhattan for many years, and now back in Portland which has a famously large street population, I've certainly beheld many people suffering from mental illness, and it can be very scary; it's that level of unpredictability and the knowledge/fear that you can't necessarily reason with them.
For me, the most terrifying part is when Jesus asks "the unclean spirit" what his name is, and the response comes, "My name is Legion; for we are many." It's the stuff of cheap horror movies, and yet I just...I can't quite articulate it. I really believe it. It raises the hair on my neck.
There is also a very deliberate political subversion happening here. A "legion," of course, was the basic unit of the Roman military; Rome was the violent occupier of Palestine and the empire that murdered the Christ. Scholars tend to think that the author of "Mark," whatever his (her?) name really was, was a follower of Peter (also murdered by Romans, in Rome), and the Gospel may even have been written in Rome. This is loaded and rich language, associating the demonic possession of a human with political and military occupation.
So, the demons negotiate a deal with Jesus to be cast into the swine, the herd of pigs leap into the sea and drown, and the man becomes his old self again.
Then what happens? Then people came to see what it was that had happened....and saw the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the legion; and they were afraid.
Once again, we are shown how people witness the healing and saving power of God in spectacular fashion, and their response is not joy or comfort, but fear.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Proper 11, Wednesday, Year 1 - Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Amelia Bloomer, Sojourner Truth & Harriet Ross Tubman
Mark 4:35-41
Alas, I don't have much to say about the amazing women who are remembered in the calendar today, other than just how proud I am to be part of a church that recognizes their contributions to our modern world and honors them with a regular religious observance.
Instead, I have another reflection on the value of reading multiple translations of the Bible. Today's Gospel passage is the familiar story, found in all three synoptic Gospels, of Jesus and the disciples crossing the Sea of Galilee in a boat, only to have a terrible storm arise, threatening to swamp the boat and drown them. Jesus is asleep in the back of the boat, and the apostles wake him in terror and cry, "Do you not care that we are perishing?"
Jesus "rebukes" the wind and says to the sea, "Peace, be still." The wind dies down and the sea becomes calm, and Jesus says, "Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?"
The reader, of course, has the benefit of knowing who it is in the boat with them and, also, of not being in a small, fragile craft in the middle of a tempest. It's easy for us to scoff and think, "Pfft, they were with Jesus, really...what did they think could happen?"
But from their perspective, they were on the verge of imminent and unpleasant death, and their leader was not only not concerned or trying to help, he was asleep. It's not so strange that they were panicking.
The lesson for us is that Jesus asks us to trust that even now, right now, Jesus is in that boat with us. And yet, do we live our lives like that? How many of us have confidence to weather the storms, as the metaphor goes, without anxiety? That's hard, because to us it often does seem that perhaps Jesus is asleep or not paying attention; we need help, we want assurance of safety, and we want it right now. The Bible asks us to believe that we do have it, right now and always. "Have you still no faith?"
Note, however, the disciples' collective response to this miracle.
The King James Version has Jesus ask, "Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?"
And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?
Beautiful. Why are ye so fearful?....And they feared exceedingly. So typical, right? It doesn't seem to matter how often God comes to our rescue in life, or how spectacularly obvious the intervention is, we cling to our fear. In this case, the miracle not only didn't inspire faith and confidence in the disciples, they became more afraid.
The language here matters, and this seems to be yet another occasion when the KJV, for all its shortcomings, strikes closer to the original Greek, which can be translated, "And they feared a great fear." "Fear" is the important word, we are to note that "fear" is the response to "why are you afraid"?
The NRSV, however, phrases it, "And they were filled with great awe." No!
I understand the editors' desire in many places to use "awe" instead of "fear" because this common phrase "fear of the Lord" doesn't make much sense in the context of God's repeated invitation, "Fear not." Awe, not fear, is the appropriate response in the presence of the Divine.
But the disciples do not respond appropriately; they are not filled with holy awe at the miracle they have just seen, they are filled with fear. That matters for the meaning of the story.
Alas, I don't have much to say about the amazing women who are remembered in the calendar today, other than just how proud I am to be part of a church that recognizes their contributions to our modern world and honors them with a regular religious observance.
Instead, I have another reflection on the value of reading multiple translations of the Bible. Today's Gospel passage is the familiar story, found in all three synoptic Gospels, of Jesus and the disciples crossing the Sea of Galilee in a boat, only to have a terrible storm arise, threatening to swamp the boat and drown them. Jesus is asleep in the back of the boat, and the apostles wake him in terror and cry, "Do you not care that we are perishing?"
Jesus "rebukes" the wind and says to the sea, "Peace, be still." The wind dies down and the sea becomes calm, and Jesus says, "Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?"
The reader, of course, has the benefit of knowing who it is in the boat with them and, also, of not being in a small, fragile craft in the middle of a tempest. It's easy for us to scoff and think, "Pfft, they were with Jesus, really...what did they think could happen?"
But from their perspective, they were on the verge of imminent and unpleasant death, and their leader was not only not concerned or trying to help, he was asleep. It's not so strange that they were panicking.
The lesson for us is that Jesus asks us to trust that even now, right now, Jesus is in that boat with us. And yet, do we live our lives like that? How many of us have confidence to weather the storms, as the metaphor goes, without anxiety? That's hard, because to us it often does seem that perhaps Jesus is asleep or not paying attention; we need help, we want assurance of safety, and we want it right now. The Bible asks us to believe that we do have it, right now and always. "Have you still no faith?"
Note, however, the disciples' collective response to this miracle.
The King James Version has Jesus ask, "Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?"
And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?
Beautiful. Why are ye so fearful?....And they feared exceedingly. So typical, right? It doesn't seem to matter how often God comes to our rescue in life, or how spectacularly obvious the intervention is, we cling to our fear. In this case, the miracle not only didn't inspire faith and confidence in the disciples, they became more afraid.
The language here matters, and this seems to be yet another occasion when the KJV, for all its shortcomings, strikes closer to the original Greek, which can be translated, "And they feared a great fear." "Fear" is the important word, we are to note that "fear" is the response to "why are you afraid"?
The NRSV, however, phrases it, "And they were filled with great awe." No!
I understand the editors' desire in many places to use "awe" instead of "fear" because this common phrase "fear of the Lord" doesn't make much sense in the context of God's repeated invitation, "Fear not." Awe, not fear, is the appropriate response in the presence of the Divine.
But the disciples do not respond appropriately; they are not filled with holy awe at the miracle they have just seen, they are filled with fear. That matters for the meaning of the story.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Proper 11, Tuesday, Year 1 - St Macrina
1 Samuel 25:1-22
I have mentioned before that for this two-year lectionary cycle I am studying with the King James Version. This evening I was reading along, following a typically awful Old Testament-style story of betrayal and bloodshed in 1 Samuel (the chapter which begins, by the way, with the death of Samuel...even though there are five more chapters to go, plus 2nd Samuel) but was taken aback when I got to the last verse of the lesson where David is praying to God for assistance in avenging an insult by slaughtering a bunch of innocent people, vowing by morning to have killed "any that pisseth against the wall."
Come again? LOL.
Curious, I turned to the other translations on my shelf (the NRSV, the NIV and the NKJV), all of which instead simply (and preferably...) refer to "men" or "males."
I Googled the phrase, and while admitting it's not like I spent hours of research on this, it does appear that in fact the King James has the more literal rendering of a Hebrew idiom for "men." (The phrase "that pisseth against the wall" appears in the KJV a second time in 1 Samuel 25, and in four verses of 1 & 2 Kings.)
But what really blew my mind was a video that came up of a Baptist pastor citing these verses to insist that God wants men to pee standing up. I won't link to it, you can find it yourself, if you're of a mind.
He relates a story about visiting Germany and seeing signs over toilets asking men not to pee standing up, and, explaining that his wife is German, he asked her, "Is this a joke?" and she apparently said, "No man in Germany pees standing up." "That's where we're headed in this country," says Pastor Steven L. Anderson.
Where to start?
I lived in Switzerland for a year and have visited Germany a couple of times. I lived in a university dorm in Zurich and, yes, there were signs over the toilets in the restrooms saying that peeing standing up was verboten. Now, this isn't because Switzerland has been taken over by anti-Christian feminist zealots, it's because, well, some men have really terrible aim, and no one likes to have to wipe someone else's pee off a toilet seat before using it. Duh. It's called etiquette.
But the idea that there is some sort of Teutonic cultural prohibition against urinating in a vertical position on principle is ridiculous. Any public restroom -- especially in train stations, etc -- will have urinals. In fact, in Switzerland, where the German dialects are sprinkled with French words, the common name for a men's restroom is a pissoir, where there's not a toilet in sight, and not even individual urinals, but just one long porcelain wall (!!!) with a drain at the bottom.
Moreover, "Sitzpinkler" -- which literally means "one who sits to pee" -- is a very common German derogatory word for a less-than-manly man, specifically one who can't stand up for himself.
Anyway, this has nothing to do with poor St Macrina, whose feast unhappily coincides this year with this particular lesson, and who deserves a better post.
Pastor Anderson goes on to caution his listeners against judging him for using bad language by arguing that this word "pisseth" comes directly from the mouth of God, via the Bible. He rails against other translations, including the New King James, for rendering the euphemism as "males" instead of keeping the word-for-word idiom, and cites this as evidence of the extent to which anti-Christian feminizing political correctness has infested even the church itself, in what basically amounts to a xenophobic, sexist, homophobic rant where a holy concept of "masculinity" can be so narrowly defined as to require certain orthodox, patriotic postures for peeing.
I lament that this is the sort of sermon that gets regularly posted to YouTube, and this is what has the potential to go viral. When I think of the hundreds or even thousands of thoughtful sermons that must be given in all kinds of churches every Sunday, to think this is the sort of pathetic nonsense that will form or reaffirm some people's ideas about Christianity and the Bible, I am filled with anger and despair.
I have mentioned before that for this two-year lectionary cycle I am studying with the King James Version. This evening I was reading along, following a typically awful Old Testament-style story of betrayal and bloodshed in 1 Samuel (the chapter which begins, by the way, with the death of Samuel...even though there are five more chapters to go, plus 2nd Samuel) but was taken aback when I got to the last verse of the lesson where David is praying to God for assistance in avenging an insult by slaughtering a bunch of innocent people, vowing by morning to have killed "any that pisseth against the wall."
Come again? LOL.
Curious, I turned to the other translations on my shelf (the NRSV, the NIV and the NKJV), all of which instead simply (and preferably...) refer to "men" or "males."
I Googled the phrase, and while admitting it's not like I spent hours of research on this, it does appear that in fact the King James has the more literal rendering of a Hebrew idiom for "men." (The phrase "that pisseth against the wall" appears in the KJV a second time in 1 Samuel 25, and in four verses of 1 & 2 Kings.)
But what really blew my mind was a video that came up of a Baptist pastor citing these verses to insist that God wants men to pee standing up. I won't link to it, you can find it yourself, if you're of a mind.
He relates a story about visiting Germany and seeing signs over toilets asking men not to pee standing up, and, explaining that his wife is German, he asked her, "Is this a joke?" and she apparently said, "No man in Germany pees standing up." "That's where we're headed in this country," says Pastor Steven L. Anderson.
Where to start?
I lived in Switzerland for a year and have visited Germany a couple of times. I lived in a university dorm in Zurich and, yes, there were signs over the toilets in the restrooms saying that peeing standing up was verboten. Now, this isn't because Switzerland has been taken over by anti-Christian feminist zealots, it's because, well, some men have really terrible aim, and no one likes to have to wipe someone else's pee off a toilet seat before using it. Duh. It's called etiquette.
But the idea that there is some sort of Teutonic cultural prohibition against urinating in a vertical position on principle is ridiculous. Any public restroom -- especially in train stations, etc -- will have urinals. In fact, in Switzerland, where the German dialects are sprinkled with French words, the common name for a men's restroom is a pissoir, where there's not a toilet in sight, and not even individual urinals, but just one long porcelain wall (!!!) with a drain at the bottom.
Moreover, "Sitzpinkler" -- which literally means "one who sits to pee" -- is a very common German derogatory word for a less-than-manly man, specifically one who can't stand up for himself.
Anyway, this has nothing to do with poor St Macrina, whose feast unhappily coincides this year with this particular lesson, and who deserves a better post.
Pastor Anderson goes on to caution his listeners against judging him for using bad language by arguing that this word "pisseth" comes directly from the mouth of God, via the Bible. He rails against other translations, including the New King James, for rendering the euphemism as "males" instead of keeping the word-for-word idiom, and cites this as evidence of the extent to which anti-Christian feminizing political correctness has infested even the church itself, in what basically amounts to a xenophobic, sexist, homophobic rant where a holy concept of "masculinity" can be so narrowly defined as to require certain orthodox, patriotic postures for peeing.
I lament that this is the sort of sermon that gets regularly posted to YouTube, and this is what has the potential to go viral. When I think of the hundreds or even thousands of thoughtful sermons that must be given in all kinds of churches every Sunday, to think this is the sort of pathetic nonsense that will form or reaffirm some people's ideas about Christianity and the Bible, I am filled with anger and despair.
Friday, June 10, 2011
Friday in Week 7 of Easter, Year 1 - Ephrem of Edessa
Luke 10:38-42
The video here doesn't really have anything specifically to do with today's lectionary, but it's a good example of the stuff I love to listen to.
I've always been very uncomfortable with Luke's story of Jesus' visit to the home of Mary and Martha; as a perfectionist and control freak myself, I relate to Martha. I can only imagine the emotional state I'd be in if freakin' Jesus were coming to my house. I would be frantically trying to make sure that everything was absolutely perfect, and I, too, would be very annoyed if someone I thought should be helping abandoned me altogether and went to the party, as it were.
Maybe it seems a little juvenile of Martha to go to Jesus and say, "Can you tell her to help me, please?" instead of talking to Mary directly and saying, "I really need your help for a little bit."
Perhaps there's a lesson in that, too: how often when difficulties in our various relationships arise, do we turn to God in prayer and ask, "Can you please tell her to help me?" or "Can you please help him understand what I'm going through right now?" If you are conflict-averse, like me, that's probably your preferred strategy, rather than confronting the person.
Now, Martha's request frankly doesn't seem all that extraordinary. Really, why should Martha do all the work by herself while Mary's off having a grand time? So I'm always really bothered by Jesus' response: "Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her."
What's that about? Mary called dibs on hanging out with Jesus so Martha has to suck it up and do all the work by herself?
Well, let's back up, here. So Martha complains, but first Jesus says to her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things." This is a very comforting statement; there is compassion here. Imagine Jesus saying this to you: "You are worried and distracted by many things." How would you respond? I would probably say, "Totally." And Jesus continues, "There is need of only one thing."
This is one of those "lilies of the field" moments, a speech that Jesus is working toward in chapter 12 of the same Gospel; "Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?" Oh...busted.
I think what has troubled me is the language of the NRSV, "Mary has chosen the better part." I'm no Greek scholar (understatement...) so for all I know, Luke's original text is best translated "better." But again, this year I am reading the KJV, which instead renders it, "But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her."
Maybe what Jesus is really saying here is not so much, "Sorry, Martha" but rather, "Stop putzing around in the kitchen and trying to do too many things and come sit by me and listen for a while." Stop being resentful of Mary and realize that she has chosen well: to not worry so much about this that and the other thing and just go and sit quietly at the foot of the Lord. I like this wording, "that good part," because it implies that Martha (and the rest of us) can choose it, too, that those of us who are busy working hard behind the scenes to make sure everything is right and perfect need to trust more that a) that is not the most important thing and b) that our needs will be met, and scurrying around trying to make perfect what God has already made perfect is wasted energy.
I don't know. Maybe that's not the point of this passage, at all. But it's always been one of my least favorite readings, as I had this notion that Jesus was condescending and dismissive of Martha. Now I have an avenue toward understanding it differently.
The video here doesn't really have anything specifically to do with today's lectionary, but it's a good example of the stuff I love to listen to.
I've always been very uncomfortable with Luke's story of Jesus' visit to the home of Mary and Martha; as a perfectionist and control freak myself, I relate to Martha. I can only imagine the emotional state I'd be in if freakin' Jesus were coming to my house. I would be frantically trying to make sure that everything was absolutely perfect, and I, too, would be very annoyed if someone I thought should be helping abandoned me altogether and went to the party, as it were.
Maybe it seems a little juvenile of Martha to go to Jesus and say, "Can you tell her to help me, please?" instead of talking to Mary directly and saying, "I really need your help for a little bit."
Perhaps there's a lesson in that, too: how often when difficulties in our various relationships arise, do we turn to God in prayer and ask, "Can you please tell her to help me?" or "Can you please help him understand what I'm going through right now?" If you are conflict-averse, like me, that's probably your preferred strategy, rather than confronting the person.
Now, Martha's request frankly doesn't seem all that extraordinary. Really, why should Martha do all the work by herself while Mary's off having a grand time? So I'm always really bothered by Jesus' response: "Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her."
What's that about? Mary called dibs on hanging out with Jesus so Martha has to suck it up and do all the work by herself?
Well, let's back up, here. So Martha complains, but first Jesus says to her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things." This is a very comforting statement; there is compassion here. Imagine Jesus saying this to you: "You are worried and distracted by many things." How would you respond? I would probably say, "Totally." And Jesus continues, "There is need of only one thing."
This is one of those "lilies of the field" moments, a speech that Jesus is working toward in chapter 12 of the same Gospel; "Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?" Oh...busted.
I think what has troubled me is the language of the NRSV, "Mary has chosen the better part." I'm no Greek scholar (understatement...) so for all I know, Luke's original text is best translated "better." But again, this year I am reading the KJV, which instead renders it, "But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her."
Maybe what Jesus is really saying here is not so much, "Sorry, Martha" but rather, "Stop putzing around in the kitchen and trying to do too many things and come sit by me and listen for a while." Stop being resentful of Mary and realize that she has chosen well: to not worry so much about this that and the other thing and just go and sit quietly at the foot of the Lord. I like this wording, "that good part," because it implies that Martha (and the rest of us) can choose it, too, that those of us who are busy working hard behind the scenes to make sure everything is right and perfect need to trust more that a) that is not the most important thing and b) that our needs will be met, and scurrying around trying to make perfect what God has already made perfect is wasted energy.
I don't know. Maybe that's not the point of this passage, at all. But it's always been one of my least favorite readings, as I had this notion that Jesus was condescending and dismissive of Martha. Now I have an avenue toward understanding it differently.
Monday, June 06, 2011
Monday in Week 7 of Easter, Year 1
Luke 9:51-62
Today's Gospel passage contains a fascinating episode highlighting the importance of understanding what you're reading by knowing something about historical and cultural contexts and the history of biblical texts themselves.
The lesson opens with the beautiful phrase, "When the days drew near for [Jesus] to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem," a unique Semitic idiom expressing resolve. Jesus spent the majority of his ministry in rural areas around the Sea of Galilee, and so from this point the story proceeds both geographically and spiritually toward his destiny in Jerusalem, marking a significant shift in the narrative.
In order to reach Jerusalem from Galilee one had to pass through Samaria; Samaritans revered a version of the Torah and considered themselves the true descendants of the ancient Israelites, objecting to the temple worship in Jerusalem as a fabrication invented after the Babylonian exile. Naturally, tremendous tension existed between Jews and Samaritans (a recurring theme in the gospels), and the Samaritans were not inclined to be hospitable to Jews traveling to Jerusalem.
That, then, is the important background for understanding why Jesus was not "received" by the Samaritans. The brothers James and John - the Gospel of Mark tells us Jesus referred to them as boanerges, or "sons of thunder" in Aramaic - react to this affront by asking if they should "command fire to come down from heaven and consume them," referencing one of the tales of Elijah told in 2 Kings. In the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), the preferred text of the Episcopal Church, Jesus "turned and rebuked them."
However, for this lectionary cycle I am reading from the Authorized, or "King James" version (KJV), in honor of the 400th anniversary of its publication. Whatever its scholarly or linguistic shortcomings compared to modern translations, it remains one of the greatest achievements in the English language and, for better or worse, is the source of the Biblical texts that most people recognize or can quote.
This is one of those occasions for which it is instructive to read multiple translations. Whereas Jesus "rebuked them," full stop, in the NRSV, the KJV says Jesus "turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them." (The NRSV puts this language in a footnote, "Other ancient authorities read...".) I would be interested to know why the editors feel the shorter text is the more authentic; presumably it has to do with the preponderance of manuscripts deemed more reliable.
We could wade deep into the weeds beating our heads against the proverbial wall at the idiotic intransigence of the folk who insist the Bible is the inerrant "Word of God," period, when the simple truth is that we have none of the original texts and the surviving manuscripts - case in point - do not always agree. Alas, it's a tired and unoriginal complaint, and one not remotely compelling or successful with the "inerrant" crowd. Criticizing fundamentalists for their lack of academic rigor is truly shooting fish in a barrel. Hooray for us contemplative eggheads who are interested in these sorts of complexities.
What caught my attention here is that the KJV is oft betimes the preferred translation of the fundamentalists, kind of in the same way that for centuries the Vulgate was the only permissible version of the Bible, even though not a single word of the original texts was in Latin. The NRSV indicates that Jesus rejected James and John's suggestion, but does not provide any further explanation. The KJV, on the other hand, has Jesus dismissing the invocation of divine violence against sinners and saying, "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of," implying that what James and John think is righteous is actually demonic. This is, sadly, one of the things that is least understood about the Devil; we are not enticed to do "evil" things, we just become confused. Little wonder that the serpent tempted us with the fruit of the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, that we might become like God. One of the Enemy's most successful strategies - sadly illustrated by centuries of church history - is suggesting to us and thereby convincing us that acts of dire evil are actually God's will. And this power of darkness is not merely aimed at those who are weak in faith or poor in theology; this is James and John, for goodness' sake. That should be a warning to us all.
What makes the story even more interesting is that this is not some random idea the brothers came up with; they are inspired by the story of Elijah, who in fact did successfully call down fire from heaven against a hostile army. There is, so to speak, biblical precedent for their suggestion.
Jesus then goes on to say that he did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them.
Do you ever get the feeling that folks like Pat Robertson would just love to call down divine fire on people who believe different things than he does? Bible, Bible, Bible...that's all a lot of these "Christian" extremists can talk about, and yet their referencing of it is so selective as to be comical, if it weren't so painfully serious. You can, like James and John, find plenty of Biblical support for praying for violence against sinners or enemies; the psalms are full of imprecations. But here's Jesus saying bluntly, "That's not what I'm about." And still we get "Christians" referencing Psalm 109 - "Let his days be few; and let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow" - on anti-Obama t-shirts and bumper stickers. In fact, much of the Evangelical culture is built around this heretical and unbiblical notion that Jesus is coming back precisely in order to rain fire down upon the unorthodox and the unbelievers.
The only way to arrive at such a sick notion is to rip various verses from the Bible free of their important contexts, and string them together in a way in which they were not intended to be associated, and you have to completely ignore or deny a bunch of other passages.
As the saying goes, you can take the Bible literally, or you can take it seriously. You can't do both.
Today's Gospel passage contains a fascinating episode highlighting the importance of understanding what you're reading by knowing something about historical and cultural contexts and the history of biblical texts themselves.
The lesson opens with the beautiful phrase, "When the days drew near for [Jesus] to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem," a unique Semitic idiom expressing resolve. Jesus spent the majority of his ministry in rural areas around the Sea of Galilee, and so from this point the story proceeds both geographically and spiritually toward his destiny in Jerusalem, marking a significant shift in the narrative.
In order to reach Jerusalem from Galilee one had to pass through Samaria; Samaritans revered a version of the Torah and considered themselves the true descendants of the ancient Israelites, objecting to the temple worship in Jerusalem as a fabrication invented after the Babylonian exile. Naturally, tremendous tension existed between Jews and Samaritans (a recurring theme in the gospels), and the Samaritans were not inclined to be hospitable to Jews traveling to Jerusalem.
That, then, is the important background for understanding why Jesus was not "received" by the Samaritans. The brothers James and John - the Gospel of Mark tells us Jesus referred to them as boanerges, or "sons of thunder" in Aramaic - react to this affront by asking if they should "command fire to come down from heaven and consume them," referencing one of the tales of Elijah told in 2 Kings. In the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), the preferred text of the Episcopal Church, Jesus "turned and rebuked them."
However, for this lectionary cycle I am reading from the Authorized, or "King James" version (KJV), in honor of the 400th anniversary of its publication. Whatever its scholarly or linguistic shortcomings compared to modern translations, it remains one of the greatest achievements in the English language and, for better or worse, is the source of the Biblical texts that most people recognize or can quote.
This is one of those occasions for which it is instructive to read multiple translations. Whereas Jesus "rebuked them," full stop, in the NRSV, the KJV says Jesus "turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them." (The NRSV puts this language in a footnote, "Other ancient authorities read...".) I would be interested to know why the editors feel the shorter text is the more authentic; presumably it has to do with the preponderance of manuscripts deemed more reliable.
We could wade deep into the weeds beating our heads against the proverbial wall at the idiotic intransigence of the folk who insist the Bible is the inerrant "Word of God," period, when the simple truth is that we have none of the original texts and the surviving manuscripts - case in point - do not always agree. Alas, it's a tired and unoriginal complaint, and one not remotely compelling or successful with the "inerrant" crowd. Criticizing fundamentalists for their lack of academic rigor is truly shooting fish in a barrel. Hooray for us contemplative eggheads who are interested in these sorts of complexities.
What caught my attention here is that the KJV is oft betimes the preferred translation of the fundamentalists, kind of in the same way that for centuries the Vulgate was the only permissible version of the Bible, even though not a single word of the original texts was in Latin. The NRSV indicates that Jesus rejected James and John's suggestion, but does not provide any further explanation. The KJV, on the other hand, has Jesus dismissing the invocation of divine violence against sinners and saying, "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of," implying that what James and John think is righteous is actually demonic. This is, sadly, one of the things that is least understood about the Devil; we are not enticed to do "evil" things, we just become confused. Little wonder that the serpent tempted us with the fruit of the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, that we might become like God. One of the Enemy's most successful strategies - sadly illustrated by centuries of church history - is suggesting to us and thereby convincing us that acts of dire evil are actually God's will. And this power of darkness is not merely aimed at those who are weak in faith or poor in theology; this is James and John, for goodness' sake. That should be a warning to us all.
What makes the story even more interesting is that this is not some random idea the brothers came up with; they are inspired by the story of Elijah, who in fact did successfully call down fire from heaven against a hostile army. There is, so to speak, biblical precedent for their suggestion.
Jesus then goes on to say that he did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them.
Do you ever get the feeling that folks like Pat Robertson would just love to call down divine fire on people who believe different things than he does? Bible, Bible, Bible...that's all a lot of these "Christian" extremists can talk about, and yet their referencing of it is so selective as to be comical, if it weren't so painfully serious. You can, like James and John, find plenty of Biblical support for praying for violence against sinners or enemies; the psalms are full of imprecations. But here's Jesus saying bluntly, "That's not what I'm about." And still we get "Christians" referencing Psalm 109 - "Let his days be few; and let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow" - on anti-Obama t-shirts and bumper stickers. In fact, much of the Evangelical culture is built around this heretical and unbiblical notion that Jesus is coming back precisely in order to rain fire down upon the unorthodox and the unbelievers.
The only way to arrive at such a sick notion is to rip various verses from the Bible free of their important contexts, and string them together in a way in which they were not intended to be associated, and you have to completely ignore or deny a bunch of other passages.
As the saying goes, you can take the Bible literally, or you can take it seriously. You can't do both.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Obama's First Huge Mistake
The selection of evangelical megachurch pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at the inauguration of Barack Obama on January 20 is absolutely astonishing and tremendously disappointing.
President-elect Obama's defense of the choice is ironic: claiming that he wants to honor and represent the diversity of America, he has gone with a pastor who has stood in public opposition to that ideal.
Rick Warren is entitled to his religious views that homosexuality is incompatible with Scripture and to hold the belief that marriage should be between one man and one woman. He is even entitled to disregard all the available scientific research on the subject of sexual orientation and continue to maintain that homosexuality is a "lifestyle choice" that can be "treated." He was entitled to support California's Proposition 8 and to campaign on its behalf.
What Pastor Warren was not entitled to do, however, was to participate in a campaign of dishonesty about the "threat" the civil marriage of same-sex couples posed to religious freedom and freedom of speech. He claimed that any religious figure who spoke out against homosexuality or same-sex marriage could be "charged" with hate speech and fed the silly fear that churches would be "forced" to hold same-sex wedding ceremonies.
Either Mr. Warren does not understand his own first amendment rights that he claims to be so worried about, or he is a liar.
The legalization of civil marriage for same-sex couples does not restrict in any manner any person's fundamental right to speak in opposition. Just look how many people were censored or arrested for "hate speech" in California during the four months that same-sex marriage was legal there: zero. And how many pastors were forced to bless same-sex unions agains their deeply held religious beliefs? None.
It is true that Warren's rhetoric has been more moderate in tone than many other conservative religious leaders, but the content was no less poisonous. It is odious that in the name of "diversity" Barack Obama has given this honor to a person who used his pulpit to call for the elimination of existing rights for a minority population based on prejudice -- whether protected speech, or no.
Barack Obama's victory was in large part possible because the nation chose to soundly repudiate the politics of pander perfected by Karl Rove in targeting people like Rick Warren and his supporters. It is disheartening that this selection reinforces the notion that to be a credible religious figure in America one must be socially conservative. Why couldn't Obama have picked a progressive member of the clergy, like evangelical activist Jim Wallis? Or why not Katharine Jefferts Schori, the first woman presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, who is also a scientist? Or perhaps a prominent African American scholar like Harvard's Peter Gomes?
Consider me extremely disappointed.
President-elect Obama's defense of the choice is ironic: claiming that he wants to honor and represent the diversity of America, he has gone with a pastor who has stood in public opposition to that ideal.
Rick Warren is entitled to his religious views that homosexuality is incompatible with Scripture and to hold the belief that marriage should be between one man and one woman. He is even entitled to disregard all the available scientific research on the subject of sexual orientation and continue to maintain that homosexuality is a "lifestyle choice" that can be "treated." He was entitled to support California's Proposition 8 and to campaign on its behalf.
What Pastor Warren was not entitled to do, however, was to participate in a campaign of dishonesty about the "threat" the civil marriage of same-sex couples posed to religious freedom and freedom of speech. He claimed that any religious figure who spoke out against homosexuality or same-sex marriage could be "charged" with hate speech and fed the silly fear that churches would be "forced" to hold same-sex wedding ceremonies.
Either Mr. Warren does not understand his own first amendment rights that he claims to be so worried about, or he is a liar.
The legalization of civil marriage for same-sex couples does not restrict in any manner any person's fundamental right to speak in opposition. Just look how many people were censored or arrested for "hate speech" in California during the four months that same-sex marriage was legal there: zero. And how many pastors were forced to bless same-sex unions agains their deeply held religious beliefs? None.
It is true that Warren's rhetoric has been more moderate in tone than many other conservative religious leaders, but the content was no less poisonous. It is odious that in the name of "diversity" Barack Obama has given this honor to a person who used his pulpit to call for the elimination of existing rights for a minority population based on prejudice -- whether protected speech, or no.
Barack Obama's victory was in large part possible because the nation chose to soundly repudiate the politics of pander perfected by Karl Rove in targeting people like Rick Warren and his supporters. It is disheartening that this selection reinforces the notion that to be a credible religious figure in America one must be socially conservative. Why couldn't Obama have picked a progressive member of the clergy, like evangelical activist Jim Wallis? Or why not Katharine Jefferts Schori, the first woman presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, who is also a scientist? Or perhaps a prominent African American scholar like Harvard's Peter Gomes?
Consider me extremely disappointed.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
I Thought I'd Seen Everything
You know, I feel like more than 13 years of living in Manhattan allows me to be pretty jaded about quite a lot of stuff.
Nonetheless, when I was strolling around downtown Portland this morning and witnessed a man with his pants down around his ankles humping a trashcan, I have to say I was surprised.
Nonetheless, when I was strolling around downtown Portland this morning and witnessed a man with his pants down around his ankles humping a trashcan, I have to say I was surprised.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Continuing Saga of the iTunes Genius Sidebar FAIL
I know I have taste in music that runs outside the mainstream, but seriously...what's going on at iTunes? Why is it that when my selection is "Il segreto per esser felice" from Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia sung by Marilyn Horne that the iTunes "Genius" recommendation is "Con te partiro" as "sung" by Andrea Boccelli? This would be like me going into a restaurant and remarking that I like Veuve Clicquot and having the sommelier respond by suggesting a glass of Diet Pepsi. WTF, people?
Friday, September 12, 2008
Earmarks vs Pork
One of the strangest themes of John McCain's campaign is his crusade against earmarks.
Congress exists to write and pass laws, yes. But another important job is to take taxpayers' money and divvy it up in appropriate ways, to determine how this money can most effectively be spent. We voters send our representatives and senators to Congress to fight for our piece of that pie. This is how Congress works; this is how Congress was intended to work. Specifically, "under Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, Congress has the power to direct appropriations of money drawn from the national treasury. This includes the power to "earmark" funds it appropriates to specifically designated projects."
An "earmark" is just a piece of tax pie that Congress decides will be set aside for a particular program or project. Earmarks help fund all manner of projects, from public transportation to education and research. The Iraq Study Group was funded through earmarks. Earmarks can also be used for the national infrastructure like, oh, I don't know, let's say...umm...levees in New Orleans and, um, bridges in Minneapolis. Not incidentally, all of our aid to Israel is earmarked. Is John McCain really opposing aid for Israel?
Now, let's be honest: Congress is not infallible. Sometimes they screw up. Sometimes they want to fund projects for political purposes that will cost the taxpayers more than they will yield in public benefit; that's not an earmark, that's pork.
In the second part of her interview with ABC's Charles Gibson that will air tonight, Governor Palin will say this: "And it's not inappropriate for a mayor or for a governor to request and to work with their Congress and their congressmen, their congresswomen, to plug into the federal budget along with every other state a share of the federal budget for infrastructure."
That's right. That is one of the main responsibilities of Congress. No argument from me.
But this statement comes in response to a reasonable question about her repeated claim to have "told Congress thanks, but no thanks, on that Bridge to Nowhere."
The plain fact of the matter is that Congress stripped the earmark of funds for the bridge in November 2005.
Sarah Palin did not become Governor of Alaska until 2007.
In fact, as she campaigned in late 2006, she expressed support for the bridge.
The first time Sarah Palin told Congress "thanks, but no thanks," was at the Republican National Convention in August 2008, almost three years after the bridge became a national laughingstock.
That's not change you can believe in.
But wait, this gets better. Recently McCain and Palin accused Barack Obama of requesting "nearly $1 billion" in earmarks for the state of Illinois. But Obama has requested no earmarks for 2008, and in 2007 only $311 million, which works out to $25 per Illinois resident.
This year, Sarah Palin asked Congress for $198 million in earmarks. That's $295 per Alaska citizen. In 2007, she requested $256 million. While she was mayor of the tiny town of Wasilla, she hired a Jack Abramoff-affiliated lobbyist and secured "14 earmarks totaling $27 million."
Here are some sterling examples of recent Alaska "earmarks."
Congress exists to write and pass laws, yes. But another important job is to take taxpayers' money and divvy it up in appropriate ways, to determine how this money can most effectively be spent. We voters send our representatives and senators to Congress to fight for our piece of that pie. This is how Congress works; this is how Congress was intended to work. Specifically, "under Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, Congress has the power to direct appropriations of money drawn from the national treasury. This includes the power to "earmark" funds it appropriates to specifically designated projects."
An "earmark" is just a piece of tax pie that Congress decides will be set aside for a particular program or project. Earmarks help fund all manner of projects, from public transportation to education and research. The Iraq Study Group was funded through earmarks. Earmarks can also be used for the national infrastructure like, oh, I don't know, let's say...umm...levees in New Orleans and, um, bridges in Minneapolis. Not incidentally, all of our aid to Israel is earmarked. Is John McCain really opposing aid for Israel?
Now, let's be honest: Congress is not infallible. Sometimes they screw up. Sometimes they want to fund projects for political purposes that will cost the taxpayers more than they will yield in public benefit; that's not an earmark, that's pork.
In the second part of her interview with ABC's Charles Gibson that will air tonight, Governor Palin will say this: "And it's not inappropriate for a mayor or for a governor to request and to work with their Congress and their congressmen, their congresswomen, to plug into the federal budget along with every other state a share of the federal budget for infrastructure."
That's right. That is one of the main responsibilities of Congress. No argument from me.
But this statement comes in response to a reasonable question about her repeated claim to have "told Congress thanks, but no thanks, on that Bridge to Nowhere."
The plain fact of the matter is that Congress stripped the earmark of funds for the bridge in November 2005.
Sarah Palin did not become Governor of Alaska until 2007.
In fact, as she campaigned in late 2006, she expressed support for the bridge.
The first time Sarah Palin told Congress "thanks, but no thanks," was at the Republican National Convention in August 2008, almost three years after the bridge became a national laughingstock.
That's not change you can believe in.
But wait, this gets better. Recently McCain and Palin accused Barack Obama of requesting "nearly $1 billion" in earmarks for the state of Illinois. But Obama has requested no earmarks for 2008, and in 2007 only $311 million, which works out to $25 per Illinois resident.
This year, Sarah Palin asked Congress for $198 million in earmarks. That's $295 per Alaska citizen. In 2007, she requested $256 million. While she was mayor of the tiny town of Wasilla, she hired a Jack Abramoff-affiliated lobbyist and secured "14 earmarks totaling $27 million."
Here are some sterling examples of recent Alaska "earmarks."
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Why Sarah Palin's Family is Fair Game
"I have said before and I will repeat again: People's families are off limits," Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama said on Tuesday. "And people's children are especially off-limits. This shouldn't be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Governor Palin's performance as a governor or her potential performance as a vice president. So I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories. You know my mother had me when she was 18 and how a family deals with issues and teenage children, that shouldn’t be a topic of our politics."
Noble words, with which I'd happily be first to concur. But no...not until I hear the same principled stance from Republican activists who have made discrimination and fear-mongering a rallying cry and make people like me political props in their campaign of distraction.
The 2008 Republican Party Platform explicitly calls for writing discrimination into the Constitution, seeking both to deny same-sex couples the right to marry and to deprive the courts of their proper role in protecting the civil rights of all citizens from the tyranny of the (shrinking) majority.
Their defense of "traditional" marriage is lined with all the discredited tropes of the waning anti-gay movement. They insist that restricting marriage to heterosexual couples protects "our children's future," although the government neither requires nor recognizes procreative intent or capability as a characteristic of civil marriage. The platform paints a disparaging view of children who grow up "in homes without fathers," while failing to note that the research they cite exclusively refers to the children of heterosexual mothers whose fathers chose not to live up to their responsibilities, not the children of committed same-sex partners. We are meant to ignore that some children of single-parent households turn out just fine (see Obama, Barack) and others have two fathers.
You see, according to Republicans like Sarah Palin, a family like this one is a better place for children than this one. The belief that any pairing of married heterosexual parents provides a stabler, healthier home than any same-sex couple could possibly offer is just not born out by any sort of evidence, at all.
Never mind their foreign policy disasters or the tanking economy -- look out! Here come Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi! Give me a break.
This is not a trivial issue. Palin and her ilk have literally campaigned on the promise to protect America from gay bogeymen (and women). Sure, in an ideal world, Bristol Palin and her circumstances would be irrelevant. They should be. And so should the private lives of millions of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans, taxpaying, hard-working citizens. But when the RNC uses us to scare up voters, I refuse to sit idly by and not point out the egregious hypocrisy of people like Sarah Palin.
So Bristol Palin is 17, pregnant, and scheduled to marry the teenage father. Now, who knows? Maybe these two are genuinely in love and will live a happy, committed life together. It's entirely possible. My grandmother was pregnant (turns out, with someone else's child, my father) when she married her husband, and they're still married 65 years later and raised three kids, two of whom are divorced. But the research shows that pregnant brides are 50% more likely to get divorced, and that's factoring in a heterosexual divorce rate that isn't anything to be proud of.
Here's why Sarah Palin's family matters. You won't find anyone to argue that Bristol was being responsible by getting pregnant while unmarried and still in high school, even if they now assert she's doing the right thing by marrying the charming father. Though McCain aides may protest that the "liberal media" is smearing Palin's family, it was the GOP that first trotted out the Palins as a model to be emulated.
If you agree with Barack Obama that this subject should be off-limits, then you're at odds with James Dobson, whose activist organization Focus on the Family -- note the name -- is at least as political as it is religious. Here's his statement on the Bristol Palin situation.
Now, let's reflect back on his comments regarding the daughter of a sitting vice president who got pregnant outside the bonds of civil marriage.
Seventeen year-old Bristol Palin is about to marry a fellow teenager; they will have full government recognition and protection for a relationship that is, let's face it, a last-ditch attempt to make right a stupid mistake made in a brief moment of passion. Sarah Palin thinks this is just great. Yet compare that to Mary Cheney, who had been in a committed relationship with her partner for 15 years when they made the conscious decision to raise a child. (They're now at 17 years together, 6 years past the average heterosexual marriage duration of 11 years.) Sarah Palin thinks that Mary and Heather deserve no recognition or protection; Mary is the biological mother, so in the unfortunate event of her death, Sarah insists that Heather has no claim to the child. Sarah thinks Heather should not have been allowed to be present in the hospital for the birth, nor should she be allowed to be with Mary in the hospital under any circumstances. The couple, according to Palin, is not entitled to any insurance, inheritance or social security benefits.
Sarah Palin is receiving heaps of praise for supporting her teenage daughter's decision to have a child before she even completes high school and to marry another student who openly boasted on his MySpace profile that he doesn't want kids while simultaneously insisting that Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, who had been in a committed relationship longer than Sarah has been alive, deserve no protection or recognition.
John McCain, Sarah Palin's running mate, cheated during his first marriage which ended in divorce.
Gay folk get scapegoated for the political gain and moral failures of uninformed ideologues like Sarah Palin, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, and David Vitter. I will heed Barack Obama's call to leave her family alone just as soon as she stops blaming me for everything that is wrong with heterosexual marriage.
Republican, heal thyself.
Noble words, with which I'd happily be first to concur. But no...not until I hear the same principled stance from Republican activists who have made discrimination and fear-mongering a rallying cry and make people like me political props in their campaign of distraction.
The 2008 Republican Party Platform explicitly calls for writing discrimination into the Constitution, seeking both to deny same-sex couples the right to marry and to deprive the courts of their proper role in protecting the civil rights of all citizens from the tyranny of the (shrinking) majority.
Their defense of "traditional" marriage is lined with all the discredited tropes of the waning anti-gay movement. They insist that restricting marriage to heterosexual couples protects "our children's future," although the government neither requires nor recognizes procreative intent or capability as a characteristic of civil marriage. The platform paints a disparaging view of children who grow up "in homes without fathers," while failing to note that the research they cite exclusively refers to the children of heterosexual mothers whose fathers chose not to live up to their responsibilities, not the children of committed same-sex partners. We are meant to ignore that some children of single-parent households turn out just fine (see Obama, Barack) and others have two fathers.
You see, according to Republicans like Sarah Palin, a family like this one is a better place for children than this one. The belief that any pairing of married heterosexual parents provides a stabler, healthier home than any same-sex couple could possibly offer is just not born out by any sort of evidence, at all.
Never mind their foreign policy disasters or the tanking economy -- look out! Here come Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi! Give me a break.
This is not a trivial issue. Palin and her ilk have literally campaigned on the promise to protect America from gay bogeymen (and women). Sure, in an ideal world, Bristol Palin and her circumstances would be irrelevant. They should be. And so should the private lives of millions of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans, taxpaying, hard-working citizens. But when the RNC uses us to scare up voters, I refuse to sit idly by and not point out the egregious hypocrisy of people like Sarah Palin.
So Bristol Palin is 17, pregnant, and scheduled to marry the teenage father. Now, who knows? Maybe these two are genuinely in love and will live a happy, committed life together. It's entirely possible. My grandmother was pregnant (turns out, with someone else's child, my father) when she married her husband, and they're still married 65 years later and raised three kids, two of whom are divorced. But the research shows that pregnant brides are 50% more likely to get divorced, and that's factoring in a heterosexual divorce rate that isn't anything to be proud of.
Here's why Sarah Palin's family matters. You won't find anyone to argue that Bristol was being responsible by getting pregnant while unmarried and still in high school, even if they now assert she's doing the right thing by marrying the charming father. Though McCain aides may protest that the "liberal media" is smearing Palin's family, it was the GOP that first trotted out the Palins as a model to be emulated.
If you agree with Barack Obama that this subject should be off-limits, then you're at odds with James Dobson, whose activist organization Focus on the Family -- note the name -- is at least as political as it is religious. Here's his statement on the Bristol Palin situation.
Now, let's reflect back on his comments regarding the daughter of a sitting vice president who got pregnant outside the bonds of civil marriage.
Seventeen year-old Bristol Palin is about to marry a fellow teenager; they will have full government recognition and protection for a relationship that is, let's face it, a last-ditch attempt to make right a stupid mistake made in a brief moment of passion. Sarah Palin thinks this is just great. Yet compare that to Mary Cheney, who had been in a committed relationship with her partner for 15 years when they made the conscious decision to raise a child. (They're now at 17 years together, 6 years past the average heterosexual marriage duration of 11 years.) Sarah Palin thinks that Mary and Heather deserve no recognition or protection; Mary is the biological mother, so in the unfortunate event of her death, Sarah insists that Heather has no claim to the child. Sarah thinks Heather should not have been allowed to be present in the hospital for the birth, nor should she be allowed to be with Mary in the hospital under any circumstances. The couple, according to Palin, is not entitled to any insurance, inheritance or social security benefits.
Sarah Palin is receiving heaps of praise for supporting her teenage daughter's decision to have a child before she even completes high school and to marry another student who openly boasted on his MySpace profile that he doesn't want kids while simultaneously insisting that Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, who had been in a committed relationship longer than Sarah has been alive, deserve no protection or recognition.
John McCain, Sarah Palin's running mate, cheated during his first marriage which ended in divorce.
Gay folk get scapegoated for the political gain and moral failures of uninformed ideologues like Sarah Palin, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, and David Vitter. I will heed Barack Obama's call to leave her family alone just as soon as she stops blaming me for everything that is wrong with heterosexual marriage.
Republican, heal thyself.
Monday, September 01, 2008
Andy for GOP Secretary of State
If John McCain wins in November, I think based on my extensive foreign policy experience that he should definitely consider me for Secretary of State.
First off, I was born in the State of Washington, which is on the border with Canada, and I have even visited Victoria. I grew up in Oregon, which is right across the water from Korea, which means that I am familiar with the threat posed by Kim Jong Il. After a year in Los Angeles (which is close to Mexico), I spent nearly fourteen years in Manhattan, which, as everyone knows, is the home of the United Nations.
In high school I traveled as an exchange student to Japan, which is close to China. I also visited Hawaii, which has only been a state since 1959 and so barely counts as the U.S., which is why Barack Obama is only kinda-sorta an American. From 2000-2001 I lived for 10.5 months in Zurich, Switzerland, which is a real diplomaticky sort of place, and I spent a major percentage of my time there as an ambassador for our nation, explaining to the citizens of "Old Europe" why it was that the candidate who received fewer popular votes was actually the rightful winner of the election and assuring them that, despite what they had heard about George W. Bush, everything would be fine. "What's he going to do," I asked them. "Start a war?"
During this time I also sang for the Mayor of Zurich and the President of Switzerland. I have met hundreds, if not thousands, of queens.
In addition to Switzerland, Canada, Japan and the Kingdom of Hawaii, I have also traveled to Mexico, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Italy. While in London, I saw Buckingham Palace. I speak fluent English, conversational German, passable Italian and can read French. Perhaps more importantly for present times, I have sung in Russian, Spanish and Hebrew. I also took three years of Japanese in high school, and once slept with the son of a Brazilian diplomat. (Okay, twice.) Oh! and a friend of mine is married to woman from Zimbabwe.
I have never been to Washington, D.C., but this just means that I would confirm McCain's outside-the-beltway-box thinking and his maverickyness.
Though I admit I have never served on the PTA, my stepfather was a teacher. I was elected to the Vestry in January of 2008, which means I have held elected office longer than Barack Obama has been the Democratic nominee.
Given the depth and range of my foreign policy experiences, I believe I would make an outstanding Republican Secretary of State. Oh, and as for the vetting process, I assure you that Rocky and Starbuck are up to date on licenses and vaccinations. Thank you.
*******
PS, on an unrelated note, prayers for the people of New Orleans.
First off, I was born in the State of Washington, which is on the border with Canada, and I have even visited Victoria. I grew up in Oregon, which is right across the water from Korea, which means that I am familiar with the threat posed by Kim Jong Il. After a year in Los Angeles (which is close to Mexico), I spent nearly fourteen years in Manhattan, which, as everyone knows, is the home of the United Nations.
In high school I traveled as an exchange student to Japan, which is close to China. I also visited Hawaii, which has only been a state since 1959 and so barely counts as the U.S., which is why Barack Obama is only kinda-sorta an American. From 2000-2001 I lived for 10.5 months in Zurich, Switzerland, which is a real diplomaticky sort of place, and I spent a major percentage of my time there as an ambassador for our nation, explaining to the citizens of "Old Europe" why it was that the candidate who received fewer popular votes was actually the rightful winner of the election and assuring them that, despite what they had heard about George W. Bush, everything would be fine. "What's he going to do," I asked them. "Start a war?"
During this time I also sang for the Mayor of Zurich and the President of Switzerland. I have met hundreds, if not thousands, of queens.
In addition to Switzerland, Canada, Japan and the Kingdom of Hawaii, I have also traveled to Mexico, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Italy. While in London, I saw Buckingham Palace. I speak fluent English, conversational German, passable Italian and can read French. Perhaps more importantly for present times, I have sung in Russian, Spanish and Hebrew. I also took three years of Japanese in high school, and once slept with the son of a Brazilian diplomat. (Okay, twice.) Oh! and a friend of mine is married to woman from Zimbabwe.
I have never been to Washington, D.C., but this just means that I would confirm McCain's outside-the-beltway-box thinking and his maverickyness.
Though I admit I have never served on the PTA, my stepfather was a teacher. I was elected to the Vestry in January of 2008, which means I have held elected office longer than Barack Obama has been the Democratic nominee.
Given the depth and range of my foreign policy experiences, I believe I would make an outstanding Republican Secretary of State. Oh, and as for the vetting process, I assure you that Rocky and Starbuck are up to date on licenses and vaccinations. Thank you.
*******
PS, on an unrelated note, prayers for the people of New Orleans.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
No, Wait; Second Worst Vacation Ever
It occurred to me that the worst vacation I ever took was a trip to Victoria, B.C., with my father when I was 16, in a risky attempt to repair our relationship after I came out. He asked me, "So...am I supposed to start buying you dresses for your birthday?"
I didn't speak to him for about a year and a half after that.
I didn't speak to him for about a year and a half after that.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
The Antichrist is a White Male Evangelical Christian in his 60's from Sullivan County, Indiana, Who Drives a Blue 1998 Nissan Sentra
Is Barack Obama the Antichrist?
Short answer: no, long answer: what kind of biblically illiterate douchebag asks such a question?
Last week, the McCain campaign released an ad that purports to mock Obama's alleged "messiah" status with his followers (who would be, according to any and all available polling, a majority of the nation), but numerous observers have noted that, as Eric Sapp of The Eleison Group puts it, "If the McCain camp was trying to spoof Obama as Messiah, they missed a number of more obvious images and did a very poor job with this ad. If they were trying to draw parallels to Obama as Antichrist, they nailed it."
I continue to be appalled, saddened, infuriated and frightened that so many people insist on pushing the myth of "the Antichrist" while citing a "literal" interpretation of the Bible. A genuinely literal reading of the handful of relevant passages -- all from the first and second epistles of John -- would require one to acknowledge that "even now many antichrists have come."
So despite the fact that by the end of the first century the apostle John (as the tradition of authorship holds) is telling us that multiple antichrists are already in the world, many people today are on the lookout for "the One."
In an article for Time rife with errors on the Barack-as-Antichrist meme, Amy Sullivan points to a chain e-mail currently in circulation that "claims that the Antichrist was prophesied to be "a man in his 40s of MUSLIM descent."
Here is where Sullivan truly misses the boat. She points out that "the Book of Revelation was written at least 400 years before the birth of Islam." It's more like 500, but that's irrelevant, especially since the point here is that End Timers assert that Revelation predicts the future. First, the phrase "the Antichrist" is not found in Revelation, nor in Daniel, another apocalyptic writing she points to but messes up the reference. She refuses to call the bluff of the literalists who insist the Bible says what it plainly does not say.
In one particularly embarrassing instance, Sullivan compares Barack Obama to the description of the Antichrist (in the character of Nicolae Carpathia) in the popular (and nonsensical and heretical) Left Behind novels of Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins; in one sentence she gets multiple facts wrong about both Carpathia and Obama.
Here, though, is where she could really have gone in for the kill and written a great piece. In a predictably excellent post on the McCain ad, Slacktivist quotes LaHaye himself (via The Wall Street Journal) debunking the Obama rumors: "The Antichrist isn't going to be an American, so it can't possibly be Obama. The Bible makes it clear he will be from an obscure place, like Romania." [Emphasis mine.]
How is it that if the Bible is so clear on the identity of the Antichrist, no one agrees on who it is?
Jerry Falwell insisted that the Antichrist would be Jewish.
Others say he will be homosexual. (I guess that's not mutually exclusive.)
Historically, the favorite candidate has been the Pope.
Maybe it's Putin. Or Ahmedinejad. Or Suri Cruise. Here's an article that claims the Pope says George W. Bush is the Antichrist.
And all of this absurdity is pushed by people who insist they're just reading the Bible "literally."
The real story here isn't that some people think Barack Obama is the Antichrist; it's that the "Rapture" and "the Antichrist" are extra-biblical myths hawked by charlatans -- false prophets, if you will -- who distort Scripture to support their own secular agendas and call it "literalism."
Short answer: no, long answer: what kind of biblically illiterate douchebag asks such a question?
Last week, the McCain campaign released an ad that purports to mock Obama's alleged "messiah" status with his followers (who would be, according to any and all available polling, a majority of the nation), but numerous observers have noted that, as Eric Sapp of The Eleison Group puts it, "If the McCain camp was trying to spoof Obama as Messiah, they missed a number of more obvious images and did a very poor job with this ad. If they were trying to draw parallels to Obama as Antichrist, they nailed it."
I continue to be appalled, saddened, infuriated and frightened that so many people insist on pushing the myth of "the Antichrist" while citing a "literal" interpretation of the Bible. A genuinely literal reading of the handful of relevant passages -- all from the first and second epistles of John -- would require one to acknowledge that "even now many antichrists have come."
So despite the fact that by the end of the first century the apostle John (as the tradition of authorship holds) is telling us that multiple antichrists are already in the world, many people today are on the lookout for "the One."
In an article for Time rife with errors on the Barack-as-Antichrist meme, Amy Sullivan points to a chain e-mail currently in circulation that "claims that the Antichrist was prophesied to be "a man in his 40s of MUSLIM descent."
Here is where Sullivan truly misses the boat. She points out that "the Book of Revelation was written at least 400 years before the birth of Islam." It's more like 500, but that's irrelevant, especially since the point here is that End Timers assert that Revelation predicts the future. First, the phrase "the Antichrist" is not found in Revelation, nor in Daniel, another apocalyptic writing she points to but messes up the reference. She refuses to call the bluff of the literalists who insist the Bible says what it plainly does not say.
In one particularly embarrassing instance, Sullivan compares Barack Obama to the description of the Antichrist (in the character of Nicolae Carpathia) in the popular (and nonsensical and heretical) Left Behind novels of Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins; in one sentence she gets multiple facts wrong about both Carpathia and Obama.
Here, though, is where she could really have gone in for the kill and written a great piece. In a predictably excellent post on the McCain ad, Slacktivist quotes LaHaye himself (via The Wall Street Journal) debunking the Obama rumors: "The Antichrist isn't going to be an American, so it can't possibly be Obama. The Bible makes it clear he will be from an obscure place, like Romania." [Emphasis mine.]
How is it that if the Bible is so clear on the identity of the Antichrist, no one agrees on who it is?
Jerry Falwell insisted that the Antichrist would be Jewish.
Others say he will be homosexual. (I guess that's not mutually exclusive.)
Historically, the favorite candidate has been the Pope.
Maybe it's Putin. Or Ahmedinejad. Or Suri Cruise. Here's an article that claims the Pope says George W. Bush is the Antichrist.
And all of this absurdity is pushed by people who insist they're just reading the Bible "literally."
The real story here isn't that some people think Barack Obama is the Antichrist; it's that the "Rapture" and "the Antichrist" are extra-biblical myths hawked by charlatans -- false prophets, if you will -- who distort Scripture to support their own secular agendas and call it "literalism."
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Not One of the Gifts of the Spirit
I kid you not: "An Oklahoma church canceled a controversial gun giveaway for teenagers at a weekend youth conference.Windsor Hills Baptist had planned to give away a semiautomatic assault rifle until one of the event's organizers was unable to attend." [Emphasis added.]
UPDATED JULY 15: They've changed their minds; the gun-giveaway is back on again. Money quote: "Windsor Hills Baptist apparently has a history of worshipping God through firepower, and last year ran a shooting competition as part of its annual shindig." Now, that is some snarky reportage! Bravo.
UPDATED JULY 15: They've changed their minds; the gun-giveaway is back on again. Money quote: "Windsor Hills Baptist apparently has a history of worshipping God through firepower, and last year ran a shooting competition as part of its annual shindig." Now, that is some snarky reportage! Bravo.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
A Follow-Up
It's been a crazy couple of weeks. Work has been busy and then of course on Wednesday we had the memorial service for my stepfather, which was a moving and fitting tribute attended by a couple hundred people (including a couple of this blog's readers; thank you, again).
* * * * *
My company has "summer hours," which means that we can leave at noon on Fridays until September, provided the boss is satisfied that everything that needs to be done is done. I worked like a crazy person for four hours yesterday morning and disappeared precisely at the stroke of 12. A few minutes later I could be found reclining on a chaise by the pool at my apartment complex, basking in dry, 83-degree bright sunshine with a gentle breeze, exhaling a deep sigh of exhaustion.
There was a familiar face hanging out with a couple of friends. They were deep in vapid tweentalk which I tried hard to ignore, until suddenly their voices dropped to a hush. My ears pricked up, because I'm wise enough to know that meant they were actually going to say something interesting. Here's what I overheard:
Girl 1: ....
Girl 2: How do you know that?
Girl 1: He told me.
Girl 2: What, he just came out to you, like, randomly?
Girl 1: Umm...it's a long story.
I can only imagine she was referring to this.
* * * * *
Readers may note that I have disabled anonymous commenting for this blog. It seems I have tremendous difficulty restraining myself from feeding the trolls. So now, if you'd like to comment, you'll need to sign in.
No doubt "Anonymous" will once again accuse me -- or would, if he were still allowed to comment here -- of being unwilling to debate (note the blog title), but the truth is, I will happily engage differences of opinion as they relate to a common set of what are known as "facts." "Anonymous" accuses me of not wanting to know "the truth" about Barack Obama, and then proceeds to insist that he is a stealth Muslim who, like all blacks and Hispanics, hopes to initiate slavery reparations using white folk's 401(k)'s.
For a time I found attempting to educate this dullard entertaining, but I've grown weary of it. His repeated "threats" to not return to my blog have not been kept, and he has ignored my pleading to go the hell away.
* * * * *
My company has "summer hours," which means that we can leave at noon on Fridays until September, provided the boss is satisfied that everything that needs to be done is done. I worked like a crazy person for four hours yesterday morning and disappeared precisely at the stroke of 12. A few minutes later I could be found reclining on a chaise by the pool at my apartment complex, basking in dry, 83-degree bright sunshine with a gentle breeze, exhaling a deep sigh of exhaustion.
There was a familiar face hanging out with a couple of friends. They were deep in vapid tweentalk which I tried hard to ignore, until suddenly their voices dropped to a hush. My ears pricked up, because I'm wise enough to know that meant they were actually going to say something interesting. Here's what I overheard:
Girl 1: ....
Girl 2: How do you know that?
Girl 1: He told me.
Girl 2: What, he just came out to you, like, randomly?
Girl 1: Umm...it's a long story.
I can only imagine she was referring to this.
* * * * *
Readers may note that I have disabled anonymous commenting for this blog. It seems I have tremendous difficulty restraining myself from feeding the trolls. So now, if you'd like to comment, you'll need to sign in.
No doubt "Anonymous" will once again accuse me -- or would, if he were still allowed to comment here -- of being unwilling to debate (note the blog title), but the truth is, I will happily engage differences of opinion as they relate to a common set of what are known as "facts." "Anonymous" accuses me of not wanting to know "the truth" about Barack Obama, and then proceeds to insist that he is a stealth Muslim who, like all blacks and Hispanics, hopes to initiate slavery reparations using white folk's 401(k)'s.
For a time I found attempting to educate this dullard entertaining, but I've grown weary of it. His repeated "threats" to not return to my blog have not been kept, and he has ignored my pleading to go the hell away.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
I Was Thinking Someplace with a Menu
With all that's been going on in the past couple of weeks, I haven't had a chance to get together with my father to celebrate either my birthday, which was last Monday, or Father's Day, which was the day before and which I observed by marching in the Gay Pride Parade, aka, not my father's sort of thing. What with my stepfather's recent passing, it occurred to me that I hadn't seen my grandmother -- who's lingering in a nursing home on the other side of town -- in quite a while. I proposed that the two of us go have lunch for father's day/my birthday and then go visit her. Kill three birds with one stone, as it were.
I called him up and suggested that we meet somewhere for lunch tomorrow at 12:30, after I get done with church, and then go over to the home.
My father says, completely serious: "Well, they serve lunch at the home at 11:45."
Yes, because for my birthday I want applesauce and creamed corn on a tray with a side of tapioca in a plastic dish and a glass of grape juice to wash it down. Not.
I called him up and suggested that we meet somewhere for lunch tomorrow at 12:30, after I get done with church, and then go over to the home.
My father says, completely serious: "Well, they serve lunch at the home at 11:45."
Yes, because for my birthday I want applesauce and creamed corn on a tray with a side of tapioca in a plastic dish and a glass of grape juice to wash it down. Not.
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