The Irony

I'm reading this book just for the irony:



Actually, I heard it's really good and a must read for anyone getting ready to do graduate work, so I'm hoping it'll help out. But I'm also really enjoying the irony right now....

Books...

Jaime said that I'm being too curmudgeony and cranky lately. She thinks I'm being too overly negative and not excited and in love with life. I'm too picky. So now that I've read this little pamphlet in honor of my sister Anne Marie:


I'm about to follow Jaime's prescribed medicine for Church Malaise: A healthy dose of Anne Lamott:

How to Control the Masses Without Really Trying...

Have you ever read a book that everyone is talking about, and says it's completely amazing, but when you read it you see something completely different and so appalling you're amazed people get away with it? That's how I feel about A Tale of Three Kings by Gene Edwards.

A good friend of mine had recommended it and my dad had it on his book shelf, so I borrowed it. The reviews on Amazon and elsewhere that I've read on it all talk about how it's a great book for people who are suffering. People who maybe are (or recently have been) under tyrannical/abusive relationships with other believers or authority figures in church. But when I read it, I didn't walk away feeling better about myself or challenged to live a better Christian life, as many of the reviewers said I would. I walked away from it thinking, "Are people really buying into this bullshit?" (Sorry about the language, but it's really bugging me).

Here's my take on the theme of the book: if you're in a bad relationship in a Church or if you're in a church with an abusive pastor; sucks to be you. Grin and bear it, you can't leave or offer up any sort of dissent because that rebellion comes from ego, and if you give into that rebellion you're no better, or could potentially become that person. No wonder this book is being taught from the pulpit! It essentially says put up or shut up. You can do nothing about your situation, because the person who is abusing you might not really be abusing you in God's eyes, and the big man upstairs isn't going to tell you. So don't rock the boat, if you do you're bad!

Pastors are handing out this little $9 booklet left and right and I can't imagine why. You have problems with what I'm doing? I'm sorry, I'll do better. Here read this nice book, it'll help put things in perspective and quell any further criticism you may have. Wow, you just came from an abusive church so you're kinda' grumpy, why don't I not acknowledge your abuse and help you work through it; instead give you this nice booklet that tells you not to be too critical because I don't need another person to rock the boat here.

I mean, come on people! The one group of people that Jesus was critical and harsh with were the religious leaders of his time. The implications of many of the stories of demon possession is that the very religious system that Jesus was challenging was the enabler of the demon and they could be seen as in collusion with one another. Didn't the Reformation come from people challenging the abusive authoritarian powers of the Church at that time? I find it telling that this book is getting mass publication and reading during a time when many people are seeing a new reformation on the horizon. It seems a thinly veiled attempt at establishment trying to quiet the mass of those who would seek to challenge the answers of an age that is increasingly becoming irrelevant.

Anyway, sorry, rant is over...

Oh, and can you really trust someone whose glossy looks like this?

A New Christianity for a New World

So I just finished this book today. Generally speaking, I don't care for Bishop Spong's writings, his scholarship is dated and his treatment of the Bible is, at times, too reckless. But let me say that I really enjoyed reading this book, and I would recommend anyone who is looking to expand their view of Christianity and get a vision for a new type of Church to read this.

Once again, I don't agree with everything that Spong argues, especially in the first part of the book. His deconstruction of Theism is, for me, deeply flawed. I have run into too many "coincidences" in my life, to believe that God is completely uninvolved, but I've also run into too much suffering to believe that God is completely involved (at least to the degree that most mainline evangelical Christians believe). Spong continues to be, for me at least, too far out there in his dismissive nature of the role of the Divine in our everyday lives.

But the last half of the book, his reconstruction of Christianity, evangelism, prayer and the Church is completely compelling. Ironically, in this section, many of his conclusions, I would like to take even further. If you already have problems with the way Christianity currently operates, you could even skip the first six chapters and start with his vision of Christianity beyond "Theism" in chapter seven. Or if you're not sure, or appreciate new challenges to your way of thinking and understanding the world take the time to read from the beginning, it's worth your time.

If nothing else, even though much of Spong's methodology doesn't resonate with me, I'm appreciating more and more his willingness to think outside the box that we tend to put God into. His challenges to traditional understandings push me to reconsider the foundations upon which my own beliefs and faith issues stand. If you come from a traditional background but have yet to find a Christianity that is significant to you read it today.

A Jewish Reading of Scripture

I'm reading the book Wrestling with God and Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition by Rabbi Steven Greenberg. Rabbi Greenberg is an Orthodox Rabbi and he's also openly gay (he came out many years after his ordination and the first chapter is his story of dealing with the fact that he's gay). Because he's Orthodox he feels compelled to read the Torah as the word of God; because he's gay he has a problem dealing with those verses that condemn male homosexuality. If you're interested in a way of reading the text that both honors it and moves it beyond it's probable original intent this is a great book. But that's not what I'm writing about.

He describes the Rabbinic view of scripture very succinctly, and the way they handle the Torah has always been something that I have greatly admired. So here is his description of Torah from a Jewish point of view:

"While [Judaism] refused to relegate scriptural passages into a distant and irrelevant past, it also refused to read the Torah as if it meant and has always meant only one thing. The Torah is black fire upon white fire, which bears specific and different meanings depending on the living-reading-observing community. In the first century the schools of Hillel and Shammai differed greatly on many issues and often had competely opposing interpretations. The rabbis claimed that 'both these and those are the words of the living God' (Babylonian Talmud Eruvin 13b). If two opposing understandings of Scripture can both be the word of God, there must be no final reading of any verse. All verses in the Torah are pregnant with multiple meanings, some on the surface, others more deeply hidden, and some yet unborn.

"Traditional reading demands that one approach the verses in Leviticaus as covenantal duty. That we ought to be committed in advance of our reading to uphold the verses in question is not to say that we know in advance what they actually forbid or require us to do. Even though they may have meant something particular in the past, they also speak today. As the psalmist teaches, the Torah is given 'today--if you will hearken to his voice' (Ps 95.7).

"Those unfamiliar with Jewish reading of Scripture may find the barage of questions...unusual. Questions are a hallmark of Jewish spirituality. They are a great cultural paradox in that they both destabilize and secure social norms. Questions tend to spread power around; they are a democratizing force. Comfort with questions conveys a fundamental trust in the good sense of people...

"It is for this reason that God loves it when we ask why. We celebrate challenging the Torah to make sense and above all to be a defensible expression of divine goodness. When we ask good questions, the Torah is given anew on Sinai at that very moment."

The Life of a College Graduate in Limbo

Almost a week since my last post! So busy? No...just in limbo. So I've graduated (still waiting to actually get the diploma in the mail) and now I've nothing to do until the fall...yep. I've actually checked out a ton of books from the library and have a ton on the way, and I'm sure I'll never get through them all, but hey, a boy can dream can't he...so far, here's what I've found out:

1. John Shelby Spong: Not too impressed so far. I've only read one of his books, The Sins of Scripture, and I have to tell you, this former bishop of the Anglican Church knows as much about the Old Testament and first century Judaism as I know about Rocket Science...not much. Not only that but his polemics against circumcision and his ill conceived notions of Judaism read like the old anti-semitic polemics from the early church and pagan historians. And the scholarship he's using, source criticism (the J,E,D,P) theory has been basically discarded by modern biblical scholars as grossly inaccurate or at best an over simplification, but he treats it like it's a given. The Homeric scholars who initiated the whole methodology don't even use it...It's not even good enough for Homer, but it's good enough for the Bible? In the end he feels less postmodern than a modern liberal. He's got this sort of take it or leave it mentality (he generally chooses to leave it) that doesn't strike me as the true honoring of diversity and goodness in a variety of traditions that I've come to associate with Postmodern Theology.
   
2. Philip K. Dick (Minority Report, Blade Runner, etc) is obsessed with LSD...
3. Geza Vermes, I love this guy. I've come across a good bit of his work in my scholarly research, and am reading one of his books geared toward a more popular audience (The Authentic Gospel of Jesus) and I have to recommend it to anyone who's looking for a cursory look at the teachings of Jesus, with commentary from a Jewish perspective. A little too Bultmanian for me, but his knowledge of both first century Judaism and Christianity is inspiring.
4. N.T. Wright: I get a mixed bag from this guy. I've read some of his online essays and am now going through The Last Word. He offers some interesting insights into Paul, but he certainly doesn't understand the Pharisees or first century Judaism either. This is also the feeling I thought I would get, based on Brian McLaren's books. He cites Wright as a big influence on his theology and I'm constantly amazed by how often they totally miss what Judaism teaches. It's like the New Testament, Josephus and the early church fathers are the only source for first century Judaism. Like Pharisaic/Rabbinic Jews didn't create or write their own works (the Midrash, Mishnah, Talmud, Tosefot) to explain what they were thinking.
5. I have way too much time on my hands...and still can't write a decent post.
   

I've Been Bitten

I have officially been bitten by a bug... the emergent church bug. I feel like I've been an ostrich with his head in the sand and perhaps have wasted too much time. Oh well, must keep moving forward.

I just finished reading Brian McLaren's A Generous Orthodoxy and all I can say is....WOW. It is sort of an affirmation of most everything I have recently wanted to believe, but was too afraid to really say so . . . Afraid of another excommunication and all that.

A little less than a year ago our family left a church that we had been involved in deeply for about 10 years. Some really good and healing things happened there, but in the end it became destructive for us. It was better for everyone involved that we left, and it was very emotional for reasons that won't be delved into here. But you can imagine having to leave behind the only relationships you've had (outside your family) for the past ten years and the life change that throws you into. It was very difficult, but now it's done and Jaime and I both feel so much better for everything we've gone through. We're hoping now to move on with the new relationships we're building and the old we're rebuilding (insert apologies here for completely alienating our families.)

Needless to say everything feels new and we've felt free to relax and explore new ways of thinking and living; to explore things that we'd always felt were right but weren't free to talk about or really live.

So recently I've been spending too much time at a blog called Tall Skinny Kiwi where he recently had a pretty strong rebuke for the Emergent Church in the US. This of course piqued my interest on top of other references this week to the whole thing (how's that for deliberately vague?) and I found their web site. Got my hands on the Generous Orthodoxy book and have been bit.

When I'm bitten by something, I get obsessed with it and have to learn everything I can about it, which means lots of Library books on my book shelf for way too long and Jaime getting mad at me. But fortunately for her, I've got two big projects coming up in school and probably won't have time to hit the libraries. Since our public library seems to be short on titles that the Emergent folks recommend, it will take some time to dig them up (I may just have to buy one or two, heaven forbid).

I'm still not ready to jump in with both my feet, though the pull is very strong. I'm still trying to figure out all the details. Anyway, check them out. Several links are on the left. Enjoy.

Book Recomendations I

*ahem* A confession here....I....uh....I don't have a TV. Really. The only way I watch anything is when it becomes available on DVD at the library, and then I can watch it on my computer. Needless to say this allows me some mad amount of reading time, and since other people do movie/tv reviews and I can't necessarily do that, I thought I would give some recomendations and reviews on books that I have been reading lately. Today's topic Jewish understanding of the Hebrew Bible. So viola:

Understanding Genesis & Exploring Exodus
by Nahum M. Sarna

I loved both of these books and his other popular book On the Book of Psalms. These two however explain in detail the cosmology of the ancient world, ancient texts of the Middle East that influenced many of the stories in these books and examines them in light of what we have received in the Bible. The most enlightening part is the differences between the Biblical stories and the other various texts and Sarna is quick to point them out, and expound on them. One warning, he was an ordained Rabbi but he was also a keen academic, teaching at the Jewish Theological Seminary and eventually retiring from Brandies University where his son now teaches. All that means is that sometimes, this book gets real heavy, and you have to read and re-read sections just to understand what he's saying. But they are definately worth the effort.

The Prophets
by Abraham Joshua Heschel

If you can slog your way through the first portion, go for it. Heschel goes through each of the literary prophets and gives a sort of commentary on what makes them and the prophets in general tick. Very interesting, but the best section is the second half. And you don't need to read the first part to understand it, so skip it if you want! In the second half Heschel deals with the idea of an emotional god. That is one who creates, cares for His creation and is concerned with what goes on. He calls this characteristic Pathos (ala Greek) and shows how God can only be truly perfect with this trait and the more popular "Stoic" God (unchanging, unconcerned, kinda like a bully at best) is certainly less. It will seriously challenge your perception of God in the prophetic writings. He also is an academic and Rabbi, but easier to read than Sarna. Anything by Heschel is usually worth the effort, I also highly recomend The Sabbath, Man's Quest for God and God in Search of Man.