Game On!

Things that have come up since I went on hiatus:

• Why are people amazed that there is a religious studies section at OSU that allows you to focus on the Bible. I recently got this question, "Can you do it without all that 'Liberal' stuff?" I answered, "Yeah, you can, but I'm a bit liberal myself, so we all get along." I told Jaime this and she came back with, "What do you mean by liberal?" Then it occured to me--What do they mean by liberal? That I disagree with them or that I disagree with the Bible? By liberal, do they mean that I focus on caring for the poor, needy and outcast of society at the expense of alleged personal righteousness? Like Jesus, right, who was called a drunkard and a sinner, because he kept such good company? If you mean liberal like that, then yeah I'm a liberal. That might smack too much of sarcasm...oh well. Why is liberal a bad word anyway?
• How can Christians vote for the Democrats, don't they just want to do the job that the Church should be doing anyway? This question kinda' sat in my craw for awhile. I used to think that way, but just gave up on turning my back on the poor. I couldn't get the Church to do anything, but I felt like I at least had a voice in the government, that could vote and say, poverty is wrong and we need to take care of it. But thinking about this question, I realize that it's making a distinction that I don't make personally anymore, and maybe that's why it's so hard for me to answer. That is, isn't any endeavor taken up by Christians (a distinction that I'm not quick to make; cf my Good Samaritan post) in any arena, a church related endeavor? Or in another way, isn't anything that seeks to alleviate poverty following Jesus' way and thus a Christian endeavor regardless of the environment within which it occurs?
• On a new blog I'm checking in on was a link to this test. This was to see how bad of a christian you really are (bad is good in this case). This is for some fundi-organization. I scored a 15, placing me in the socialist world view, and thus a bad christian! Yay! I knew I had it in me. *sniff*
• I really like George Clinton and the P-funk all stars. I would like to say that my parents were all cool and introduced me to the Parliament Funk, but no, I wouldn't become aware of them until I saw the movie PCU...I need to see that movie again.
• While looking for the clip of George Clinton in PCU, I found this instead:

Response to Anne on Jesus Camp

Okay, the third time I tried writing this. Anne Marie said this. To which Jaime brilliantly replied this. In response to an up coming documentary called Jesus Camp.


So what's my take? I find that stuff scary, repulsive and...scary. I feel so bad for those kids, they're growing up learning to hate other religious traditions, to see that confrontation not dialogue is love and to see time as running out so patience is not a virtue anymore, especially when it comes to people's souls. This is so the opposite of what I want my girls to grow up with, and it's part of the anxiety I have with our current main stream evangelical church. They don't talk in the rhetoric that is seen in the clips from the video, if they did I would run for the hills, but they do constantly push "making a choice for Jesus..." getting your friends to "make a choice for Jesus..." and all that other evangelistic rhetoric that I'm very uncomfortable with.

We often find ourselves correcting certain aspects of the church's teaching, and one of my greatest fears is that she grows up to be like them (as in sign on their dotted theological line). So why do we go there? They fit a need that we had when we left our old church. They were huge so you could get lost if you wanted to, but they also had lots of kids for our girls to play with, and they have so much fun. And even though I disagree with some of what the church teaches, I love the people. They are genuine in their belief and sincere in their love for other people, and if the church leaders would help facilitate it, they have the money, resources and desire to make a huge difference for the poor people on the west side of Columbus

For our kids, I want them to grow up and love all people regardless of their religion, etc. I want them to respect all forms of spirituality that are positive and acknowledge those forms that are negative. I would love for them to grow up directly following the teachings of Christ, but if they grow up and choose a different tradition, I hope they continue caring for the poor and needy, fighting injustice and loving and respecting all people. That's my main goal for them. I don't have verses(sorry Jaime!) not because they don't exist, but I don't have the time or desire to find them.

Anne's post sparked a lot of other ideas which I'll write on later, but she wanted direct feedback on what we do/desire for our kids. So there you go.

P.S. I echo Jaime's apology for being a self-righteous bitch (maybe that doesn't work for me. Anne, just insert your own gender appropriate cuss word for me). I'm sorry I made you feel guilty, unable to speak your mind and disagree. I'm sorry for anything we've done that wasn't truly loving you, but seeking out a righteous image. NOW, we don't judge anything you do and part of why I am honest with you about so much of my questions is because I want to correct all that image, judgment, etc. Truly sorry.

Something I Learned About Myself Today

3 years after my mother died from cancer, I'm still not okay with it. I wish she were around to see all her grandkids, to see me in grad school to see the wonderful women that her two girls are becoming. I try to put her death in perspective, like it happened for a reason, but I fail to see it directly. I try to think of her in a better place or at the least not suffering anymore and the only thing that's driving these bouts of depression and missing her is my own selfishness so I should just get the hell over it and move on. Okay...fine.

But then I think that it was a hellish end of her life. Emaciated and in constant pain using all of her strength just to be lucid. Why did it have to be like that? But isn't that the way most people die? Even in its most beautiful circumstances Death is horribly ugly...it's scary...Maybe there is a lesson learned in the suffering of death and dying, perhaps it is the greatest lesson to be learned and we can't learn it until that time comes. Perhaps it is my own inability to suffer that drives this questioning and this pain and if I would just accept suffering as a part of life, then I would get better.

I guess that leads me to my current conclusion about the purpose of suffering and dying. Suffering has no purpose unless we give it one. That is, if the suffering that I go through because my mother died from cancer without being able to see her grandchildren grow up has no effect upon my life then it has no purpose. I have not given it any. However if it drives me to visibly change my life as a result of that suffering then it has a purpose, because I have instilled it with a purpose. Otherwise, I'm not sure I can find a reason for all the suffering around me right now.

Death, as far as I can tell, could have two possible reasons. The first is, as I mentioned above, that death is the ultimate suffering and must have some ultimate lesson behind it, if we allow it to have that effect. Second is that death is really the biggest reminder that we are not God. In the Genesis story the only difference between the Divine and Humanity is initially that people didn't know the difference between good and evil. Once that knowledge was gained, God decided that the new difference would be that people would now have to face death. So dying reminds us that we are not the Divine. Perhaps that is the lesson to be learned from it, perhaps it is something else...I don't know.

Labels: A long Post....

Typically I'm opposed to labeling people, including myself. It always seemed so restrictive and demeaning. How could I possibly be confined to a set of words? Am I Jewish? Am I Christian? Am I something else? What are you? Is it at all important? I'm starting to think that for some reason people need labels for things. It helps to put the world in perspective, and know where you stand in relation to other people. But I think it's important that the label applied to the person is one that they accept and embrace and not something that we impose on them.

How does this come up? It came up for several reasons, but mostly because I'm not really comfortable with being called a Christian (as I mentioned before). I connect Christianity with something else...Pat Robertson, Christian Coalition, Campus Crusade, Rick Warren, etc. None of whom I really...connect with...none of whom really speaks to me/for me as a believer in God and Jesus' teachings.

This sort of mini-identity crisis came up because I'm constantly asked what I am. I'm not Jewish, I haven't converted, and don't plan on it. But I love the teachings of the Rabbis and much of what traditional Judaism offers. I know the tractates of the Talmud; I know who the Tanaim and the Amoraim are; I know what the difference is between Halacha and Agadah and can use them in an argument with most of my Jewish friends.

But I can also flop between the Rabbis and Jesus in the same breath, and arguing for the same point. On one message board, it brought confussion as to whether or not I believed Jesus was the Son of God because I moved between the Talmud and New Testament without batting an eye. I love the teachings of Jesus and I don't see a great difference between what he taught and what the Rabbis taught (e.g. both hold Deuteronomy 6.4-9 as the greatest commandment). I study the gospels quite a bit and know most of the storie fairly well. I'm learning Greek so that I can read the New Testament (among other things) in Greek because I hate translations (I should add that to the list of things I'm skeptical about) I really want to know what he was saying and try to understand all of the implications.

At the same time, I don't believe that you have to believe in Jesus to be saved (honestly I think of eternal salvation as a moot point). I think anyone from any religious background can merit salvation by loving their neighbor. The dividing line for Jesus was not belief in him, but how you treated the poor and downcast (a la the sheep and goats, etc). I hug this dividing line between the two traditions which makes both sides not quite comfortable with me (although my non-Christian friends tend to be more comfortable around me than my Christian friends).

So what am I? This question has been plaguing me for sometime, and only recently have I come up with something that I can feel comfortable with: Existential Christ-following Humanist. Let me break it down for you, so that we're all on the same page:

Existential: This world is what matters more than the next. We are to take care of people now, the planet now and should be ultimatly concerned with what is happening here.

Christ-Following: For me, the ultimate example of God's love is seen in Jesus. Not so much in his death but in the life he lived. The life that lead to his dying. Where oppressive authority structures were challenged, care for the poor and needy was the ultimate concern and how we treat others is ultimately how we treat God.

Humanist: I believe man can achieve the realm of God. We are to be the agents of God in building his kingdom. God has chosen humanity to be the image of the divine in the secular. We cannot continue to think we are worms and dust, but that we are glorious creatures made in the image of God. We are in a sense a part of the Divine, and we should try to find that part in all of us.

Honestly I was quite surprised by how freeing labeling myself was. Maybe it reflects a lack of maturity on my part, but to be able to say, "Look this is what I am..." actually offers a bit of stability for me. Maybe labels can be beneficial in some degree or another. Unless your Jaime and choose to label yourself a Christian Sociopath....

Thoughts On Various Profound and Unprofound Topics

Jesus never publicly declared who he was, and never gave any direct formulaic argument on his relation to God, or other apologetic discourse. Instead he said that his actions told who he was and all his teachings had to do with how we treat other people. Therefore, if we try to convince people with apologetics, or try to make a case for Christ, etc are we committing a sin? We aren't following the example of Jesus who we're supposed to be imitating nor following his teaching of letting our good works be seen by men that they might glorify our father in heaven. I find it interesting that we use the teaching of salt and light, being a city on a hill and those other images to teach that we should be "witnesses." In reality, those teachings are purely ethical; they were meant to encourage us to righteousness (deeds) not formulaic arguments on who Christ is or the four spiritual laws as a way to eternal life.

I'm growing increasingly uncomfortable with the label of Christian for myself. There's just too much baggage with it (both personally and within society). So I offer the new non-threatening label: Puppy Pals of Jesus... of course, if your allergic to dogs that might have it's own baggage.
Seriously, as far as labels go here's my new one for me: Existential Christ Following Humanist.

The first season of 24 has too many plot holes, are they covered in the next season or just dropped? If they just leave them, I don't know if I really like the show, too sloppily written...also too many camera men were seen on camera, aren't they supposed to be behind the camera?

Do people make gay jokes because they're uncomfortable with their own sexuality? Is it really that scary that you have to demean the people by making them a by-word for something bad? That's so hetero!

Brice, you should just give up on MSN and start over on blogspot. Come to the new evil empire: Google! I use their search engine, blog, calendar and e-mail. I no longer have a soul, but I'm very organized (not to mention addicted to Google Earth).

Have to get this off my chest:

Since I was a Jewish Studies major and am now getting my masters in Hebrew, the first question out of every Christian (a gross generalization, sorry) I meet is, "What do you think about what's going on in Israel?" The frequency of this question has obviously increased over the past month, and there is a direct correlation to my frustration and the frequency of these questions.

Why you ask? Because I think Israel really screwed up on this one. Are the hundreds of civilians that have been killed in the bombings on both sides really worth the lives of the two soldiers taken by Hezbolah? I don't think so. It also doesn't help that I'm a pacifist and find any form of violence appalling. So then I inevitably get into a debate about violence and pacifism and the teachings of Jesus, defending so called "just wars," which I don't think exist.

Then the conversation invariably (unless of course I manage to duck out before it gets that far) goes to an end times/rapture/dispensation argument. I have to point out that prophecy doesn't really foretell the future, as much as warn about likely scenarios. That apocalyptic literature really has nothing to do with our times as much as it has to do with the political maneuvering of the time of the writer. It usually comes out that I don't believe in the rapture, that humanity is supposed to build the kingdom of God and we've done a piss poor job of it because we keep responding to violence with violence. If people would just understand that violence does nothing other than beget more violence, and that turning the other cheek and loving our enemies could have amazing political implications the world would be amazing.

Really, that teaching is one of the main reasons I'm a Christian. Out of all of the monotheistic religions, Christianity is the only one that (at least originally) teaches non-violence at all costs. It doesn't teach retaliation, it doesn't teach justification of war via spiritual means. Instead, Jesus teaches to love your enemies, to bless those who curse you and not drop bombs on them.

Back to Matthew 18

Okay, go here and here to see the previous posts on Matthew 18.15-17 also see the comments left by Lauren especially her post on her on-line journal that I linked to in the second post.

I've been wanting to go back to this passage and creatively reinterpret it, but I had been delaying because I couldn't really find another interpretation other than the mainstream interpretation. If that interpretation is accurate, as I posted before, I really reject that train of thought as not being a valid teaching of Jesus. However, having read Rabbi Greenberg's book on Homosexuality and his description of the Jewish view of the Bible has inspired me to follow Lauren's suggestion and to look for a different interpretation.

Having said all that, I feel like I need to be completely honest here. I still find verse 17 problematic as a teaching from Jesus. The use of the Greek word translated here as "church" (ekklesia) is used in all of the gospels only one other time also in Matthew (16.18) which is best understood as a comment from Jesus that a new community will be built upon Peter's declaration of Jesus as messiah. But if we read ekklesia in Matthew 18 as the specific community built around Peter you're still dealing with the Church, and you have the problem of Jesus giving advice on how to run the Church many years before it began.

Also, I have to admit that the reading of "gentiles and tax collectors" that I propose is unique to the meaning of gentiles and tax collectors as Jesus employs those terms, especially in Matthew. These terms are used in Matthew specifically to represent those who are wicked, evil or highly impure and should be avoided. So that, if Jesus did give this teaching about his coming community, it really could have no other meaning than to make the unrepentant outcasts. This seems to me to go against everything that Jesus represented in his life and other teachings...that is that God is found in the outcasts, forgiveness is unending (for instance the question from Peter in Matt 18) and other teachings of acceptance and love.

However, if we remove only verse 17 which is the only problem verse in this scenario (it mentions church and gentile/tax collector). The rest of the passage makes much more sense. Once the passage of condemnation is removed, the statement of wherever two or three are gathered connects directly to the number of witnesses needed as Jesus quotes Deuteronomy in 16 and the connection to the following question of forgiveness by Peter, flows nicely as well. All of this leads me, if I'm going to be honest, to continue to argue that verse 17 is added in by a later scribe seeking to justify their harsh treatment of dissenters (Christian scribes are notorious, btw, for amending texts to suit their theological needs).

But there is still a part of me that says that this is scripture, and should be treated with respect and, even so called "trouble passages" should be left in for a possible new interpretation. So I offer the following re-reading in an attempt to leave this verse in the text and still understand it within the larger framework of Jesus' teaching.

It must be pointed out that the passages of binding and loosing, and where two are gathered in the name of Jesus are specifically referencing forgiveness (or condemnation) of the offender's sin (see John 20.23). Jesus is telling the apostles that they have the authority to condemn or forgive anyone. As far as Jesus is concerned, their decisions are final. So, when immediately following this passage, Peter asks Jesus how often they should forgive, it seems likely that he is seeking further guidance on this teaching. Jesus' response is then a clarification on his earlier teaching--the clarification being to always forgive.

Therefore, the command to treat those Christians as "gentiles and tax collectors" seems to me not to encourage excommunication, but rather shows a status within the community. They should be regarded as weak in faith or as young Christians (see Romans 14) which their actions reveal them to be. To me it seems counter productive to keep people from the communion table, let alone fellowship with the community. It is, in a sense, declaring someone a non-Christian. It is a stance of unforgiveness, which goes against Jesus' clarification with Peter later on. Therefore to use this passage as a guideline for church discipline with some form of disassociation with the believer is actually, in my opinion, to loose the meaning of the passage.

An Interesting Verse

In church this week, our pastor was arguing for an inclusive Christianity. While he probably wouldn't take it as far as I would, he did point out an interesting verse:

1 Timothy 4.10 (NASB95)
We have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers.

Is Paul arguing for an inclusive Chrisitianity? Regardless of how you believe, God is the savior of all men?

The Good Samaritan

I have been thinking about the story of the good Samaritan lately. And the offensive nature of the story on first century Jewish ears cannot be under estimated. To make the good guy to be a Samaritan really has no equivalent in modern day society. These people were universally despised by every Jewish person, and the feeling was mutual. Both the Jews and the Samaritans made the claim to being the true descendants of Israel. Both would rather see the other people be wiped out and destroyed. In fact a few generations before Jesus, one of the leaders of the Jewish people went up to Samaria and Mt Gerizim and destroyed the whole darn thing. These people hated each other. This is truly loving your enemies, that's why it's so disturbing to the man trying to justify himself that the person who showed himself to be a true follower of God's commands was not a pious Jew, but a pious Samaritan. As I was thinking about it, I came up with the following modern twist to emphasize a possible secondary understanding....

Jesus was in a church one night teaching about the greatest commandment and loving your neighbor. Afterwards, a man on the board of the church Jesus was teaching at, came up to him and asked, "but who exactly is my neighbor?"

Jesus proceeded to tell him this story:

One night a Christian man was walking down the dark streets of the south side of Chicago by himself. It was raining and he couldn't see where he was going. Eventually he took a wrong turn and was jumped by a bunch of thugs who beat the crap out of him, took everything of value and left him for dead.

Not long after that, a preacher came by and saw the man half lying in the alley and half lying out. He was considering stopping to help, but just then his cell phone rang; the rain had made him late for his board meeting and they were calling to see where he was. "I'm on my way, just got delayed in the rain is all," the preacher said, and he quickly went off. He's probably dead anyway, he thought to himself to assuage his conscience, not much I can do for him now.

Just as the preacher turned the corner, a worship leader came walking down the same street. He too saw the man dying in the alleyway, he glanced at his watch and noticed that he was already late to practice. We've got a lot of new music to cover tonight, he thought to himself as he passed by, I really can't stay. I'll say a prayer for him, when I get to practice, and he continued on his way.

The worship leader was just out of sight as a fundamentalist Muslim man approached the alley. He saw the man left for dead, and quickly ran to his side. The Muslim noticed the man was wearing a cross, but that didn't stop him. He quickly got out his cell phone and called for an ambulance. When the ambulance finally arrived the Muslim was still there waiting with the victim. He found out where they were taking the man and quickly found his way there. He stayed the entire night in the waiting room of the ER waiting for news of the status of the stranger. When he found out that the victim was in critical condition, but would be alright, the Muslim left all the cash he had with the nurse to give to the man when he recovered and took down the address of the hospital so he could send more money later, and then went on his way.

Jesus looked at the board member and asked, "Who was the neighbor to the man left for dead?"
The board member answered, "The one who called the ambulance."
To which Jesus replied, "Then go and do as the Muslim did."

I'm telling this story like this because I want to get beyond the obvious teaching of the story (i.e. everyone is my neighbor) and instead get to a more subtle implication. I wonder if we can extrapolate a teaching that may be uncomfortable to our exclusivist Christian minds. If someone, who is not Christian, by their actions actually affirms the teachings of Christ (i.e. loving your neighbor), whether they realize it or not, doesn't that show that they are really followers of Christ.

This kind of flows from Paul's argument in Romans. Don't those who obey the Torah, even though they never received it, show that it is in all actuality written on their hearts? The implication being, who are we to say that anyone, regardless of their faith, is actually an enemy of God when they end up doing the very thing that God commands. Don't their actions show that their heart is actually in line with God's teachings and as such are a part of God's kingdom, whether they realize it or not?

Matthew 18 Continued

In a previous post, I asked a question about church discipline and the authenticity of Matthew 18 as a teaching of Jesus. To which Lauren beautifully and graciously responded here. Talking to Jaime about this and then reading Lauren's response has brought up some important issues for me, that I'm really trying to address. So allow me to clarify:

I am not saying that there is no call for correction within the church. I do have a problem with the overly systematic approach that many have taken when trying to correct someone. Lauren rightly points out, "I'd guess that one reason you...are sensitive to this idea of 'accountability' within the church is that we've seen too many examples wherein this process has been applied abusively, without love or grace." This is certainly true, and(sadly) has been my experience in every church that I have been a part of. I'm saying this as someone who has taken part in the judgmental attitude that has driven people away. And this is part of what I'm reacting to: my guilt for having been in environments where people have been ostracized for everything from being angry at a parent to dating someone outside the church. Some people's misdeeds were truly serious and some were minutiae, but few, in my opinion, were really grounds for completely removing a person from their church community. (Because of these experiences I may be overcompensating).

Part of the problem I have with a systematic one-size-fits-all approach is that rarely, if ever, are situations so similar that a system can be applied. Systems also remove the greatest catalyst for reconciliation: relationships. Often these corrections take place outside of Christ centered relationships. People say--and, I believe, honestly think--that the hurtful things that are being said in the discipline are done out of love and based on relationships. However, I suspect, that if you ask the person being disciplined, they would say the relationship really isn't there and it doesn't feel like love. I would argue that if the person doesn't feel loved, there's a good reason: they're not being loved.

We all tend to get out of joint when corrected (it's not always great for one's ego). Relationships and love make correction tolerable and, ultimately, the blessing it is meant to be. That's why it's such a pity that so many people in the church take the cold approach. Sins are pointed out because they can be and for no other reason. Intimacy isn't taken into account. Before confronting someone we should all ask ourselves if we really have the "relationship capital" to do so. Have I loved this person? Have I put the in the work required of a close relationship? Are we really friends or just acquaintances? We should also ask ourselves if this is the right time to point out a sin. Is it really necessary to bring this up right now? Is it a life and death issue or is it something they should be allowed to see in their own time. Allowing people to work at their own pace is something a lot of leaders give lip service to and then quickly disregard. Faith is a process, an evolution of the soul. It's not instant and complete the moment a person begins to trust in God. We can't expect the same level of good deeds from all people.

Lauren also points out, "that with just the slightest shift in your interpretive grid, you might be able to see this as a teaching in reconciliation rather than ex-communication." To this I have to concede and will attempt to do later on (in a different post). What I don't want to do is simply remove a passage from the Bible simply because I don't like that it's been used in sinful ways due to bad interpretation. I'm finishing up John Shelby Spong's The Sins of Scripture, and he ultimately just rejects Bible passages because they have been used sinfully. I don't like it. I appreciate many of his conclusions, but I don't like his method. I prefer finding a way to look at the passage in a non-sexist, non-demeaning, non-whatever sort of way if possible (admittedly of late I have lost focus on that). I also think Christians need to acknowledge the humanity of the people who wrote, compiled and handed down the Bible we have today, and be willing to challenge at least the traditional interpretations that have been given.

Anyway, excommunication seems to me to be the opposite of Christ's teachings. At times people leave Jesus, and eventually he is abandoned completely, but it is never because he rejects them-- they reject him. I'm fine with letting people walk away, I'm not fine with pushing people out. If there is ever the threat of excommunication, it kills the encouragement to the best communication: confession. Why confess something if I'll just get harshly corrected or threatened with excommunication? Why be open and honest with where I am at if my walk with God will be constantly questioned? Why confess any deep-seated sin if my place within the community (that God intended to be the source of healing) is threatened? It seems to me the plain meaning of this passage is clear: a formula for excommunication. But I'm willing to reinterpret the passage positively if that is possible.

Accountability, Church Discipline and Jesus

Recently, a church in Texas has made the news because of the "controversial" way they handled a certain church discipline. Because I'm not familiar with the details of the situation, I'm not going to say anything specific about it, but it does bring up certain questions I've had about accountability and what the Bible says about it.

The standard passage used by churches to help define the method by which they perform official church discipline is Matthew 18.15-17. Essentially there are four steps:

• Correct the sinner privately, if that doesn't work:
  
• Correct the sinner with another person, if that doesn't work:
• Tell it to the church, if that doesn't work:
• "let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector" (vs. 18)

When churches want to use this passage to defend their actions against a member, the first question I want to ask is this, "Does it strike you as odd that Jesus is talking about "Church" discipline years before the Church was ever in existence?" They usually don't mention that this teaching in Mathew is in a really wierd place right between Jesus' parable of the shepherd going out to find the one lost sheep and Peter's question about how often he should forgive someone (70 times 7; i.e. always). Suddenly, in between teachings of forgiveness and reconciliation is a teaching about how to kick someone out of a church? A church that doesn't exist? It seems to me that this passage was added later and should not be used as a teaching from Jesus himself.

(My wife is lecturing me right now about slippery slopes and all that, but I am tuning her out. Honey, you can't avoid something just because it's a slippery slope. And I don't know why you're using that phrase anyway because you hate it.)

Anyway.

Many people respond that the Church needs some way to hold people accountable for their actions. Does it really? The only reason (that I can think of) for this would be to maintain power and control. If you were to look at all the times in the bible the word "account" (i.e. give an account, be accountable, etc.) is used, never once does it mention people being forced to give an account to each other for their sin. Instead everyone has to give an account to God. It's really between the person and God. When it does talk about people giving account to each other, it is always confessional and always initiated by the sinner. It seems to me, from my experience at least, that people who want to initiate some form of accountability on someone else are usually the most judgmental and least loving. The powers that be use it to maintain a power structure which usually puts them at the head.

One last thing on the Matthew 18 passage: what does it mean for Jesus to tell his disciples to treat the unrepentant sinner as a gentile or tax collector? He was notorious for his association with the outcast (i.e. gentile and tax collecter) and not disassociating himself from them, but accepting them where they were! This statement is so out of character from everything else the gospels tell us about him, it makes me suspicious...any thoughts?

Will you be left behind?

I offer for your horror the following article:

Mega-church minister linked to paramilitary video game

As far as I have been able to research, everything in this article is accurate. The company web site is here.

Let me just say a few things:

1. I don't believe in the Rapture and find the escapist dispensationalist theology worthless
2. My seven year old can write better than Tim Lahaye and Jerry Jenkins
3. I'm a passivist because Jesus was one too
1. Jesus was freakin' murdered you idiots! He didn't walk around with a freakin' sword stabbing the random people who disagreed with him, or the Roman soldiers who were trying to kill him! Are you so damned stupid you can't get that through your thick violent skulls !?!
4. It's people like these that give Christianity a bad name...if there is a hell, I can almost guarantee that Lahaye and Jenkins will be there....without butter! (sorry Cold Comfort Farm reference, if you haven't seen it, do. The best scene is when Ian McClellan is preaching a hell fire and brimstone message. I repeated that scene about three times and am still laughing.)
5. This is one of the many reasons that the Left Behind books are more dangerous to Christianity than the DaVinci Code.
6. That's all I can think of now...
   

I'm a Flexible Vegetarian

This will probably confuse everyone, but here goes. I'm a vegetarian...sort of. In my house, we don't eat any meat, don't let meat in the door, nothing like that. (We'd been toying with the idea of going back to a vegetarian house for a while and finally took the plunge about 5 months ago.) One person I know (who I respect very much) expressed her veganism as a part of her spirituality and I can relate to that. The reasons that I don't eat meat is based solely on decisions governed by my spirituality.

I posted before about being completely pro-life and what that means, including the humane treatment of animals. For me, that means among other things, not eating meat. Killing things just doesn't seem like humane treatment...call me silly. Genesis, specifically in the story of Noah, describes all animals as being filled with the breath of life, the same breath from God that filled Adam in Genesis 2. To me, that means we're really dealing with something special here, special treatment should be given to animals.

Another part of this spirituality, comes with the great weight that God puts on spilling animal blood, the blood of life. Eating anything with the blood still in it is a big no-no in the Bible (and in Judaism to this day). In fact, eating animals is a sort of concession God makes to humans. According to several other ancient texts and traditions the very reason for the flood was not sexual immorality as much as it was the polluting of the ground with blood. Animals were being slaughtered horribly and their flesh eaten, people were killing people and just leaving them to die and be picked clean by the scavenging animals. So God, seeing that man would inevitably eat meat, prescribed the proper way to kill the animal so that it would be humane (that's sort of a relative term) and respect the value of blood. God's original intent was for people to not eat meat (ala the Garden), so I strive to fulfill that original intent.

As anyone who grew up with me or has known me in person for any amount of time in the past, you probably know that I'm not really a veggie kind of person. When I was a kid (even to the present, really) I was a meat and potatoes kind of guy. I wanted big pieces of steak for dinner cooked as rare as you could get it and french fries on the side. A baked potato if I had to, but I would refuse to eat the skin. I tell you this because this gets to the flexible side.

I see vegetarianism as a higher level of spirituality. Something that is very difficult to maintain, especially in this culture of everything must have meat. (Do you realize every salad at Wendy's has meat on it except one? Does this seem weird?) I'm also very sensitive to the fact that many people are put out, can be judgmental, etc about vegetarians. Being vegetarian can be a dividing wall between us and the meatetarians. And I take very seriously the idea of not putting up walls when spending time with other people. Usually people don't even notice we don't eat meat and it's not an issue. But, if a friend doesn't know we're vegetarians and at their home all they offer us is meat, we eat the meat. It's not a big deal, because we're in fellowship and that's the higher goal. In every situation, we'll try to find ways to avoid meat (the vegetarian fajita at Chipotle, by the way, is the bomb), eating the cheese pizza, etc. but sometimes it just doesn't work out.

Anyway, I just thought I'd explain my spiritual pseudo-vegetarianism.

Breaking the Silence

Hello all, sorry for the radio silence here! It's the end of the quarter which means papers, tests and other fun stuff. I have a long list of books to read this summer, and I am looking forward to studying what I want to study for at least 3 months, and catch up on some postmodern theological reading.

Here's a question that Jaime has posed to me often, especially as of late. What is it about Evangelicals/Conservatives that bothers me? At first I would reply that I don't have a problem with them, but the problem I have is that they would have a problem with me. Just because I ask "dangerous" questions or come down with some "unorthodox" answers, I must not believe in Jesus. Just because I read him differently or think Paul should be read as dealing with a specific situation and it would be wrong to push the application of that teaching beyond that specific instance. Just because I'm trying to find answers that make sense to me, I must lack faith.

I don't lack faith, I lack certainty and I'm fine with that. That doesn't mean I stop looking for answers, but I find that certainty is often the opposite of faith. We try to grab onto and hold to dogmas that we've made up and call that faith. So it's faithless if we say, "Wait a minute, where did that come from? Maybe we should do away with that."

If we look at the great people of faith in the Bible it wasn't an extreme certainty they had in spite of everything else, instead they trusted that God was good and would provide for them and that was that. (In fact faith was less belief than it was action). Abraham argued with God all the time, and yet today we see the idea of arguing with God as lacking faith. Isn't the willingness to dialogue with someone (be they human or divine) the greatest show of respect? So why can't we have faith that God wants us to argue? Why is certainty the ultimate expression of faith? Isn't moving forward even with doubt or questions the real statement of faith? I don't know where my current questioning and dialoguing with God will lead me, but I trust that it will be someplace good. So I keep moving forward...

Does Culture Matter?

In the comments to the post on questioning scripture, Jaime brought up the issue of the hierarchy in the Jewish Bible. Questions were then asked about the Bible contradicting itself, how can that be if it's really God's word, etc. My quick answer would've been, yes it contradicts itself and yes it's God's word...I don't have a problem with that. Fortunately Jaime thinks about what she says more than I do and brought up the issue of culture. I think that this is an important question that we both have and so I thought I'd bring up here in an actual post.

Does the Bible contradict itself? Again, I think quite obviously it does, and there are many scribal errors that have permeated the text we have now. Some examples that Jaime gave:

• In 2 Sam 24, it is the anger of the Lord that incites David to count his men, and so brings a plague among the people of Israel (interestingly this is one of the passages where God repents and changes his mind...but that's a different post). In the parallel passage in 1 Chron 21, the Chronicler had a problem with God punishing Israel for something that was His idea, and makes Satan the bad guy.
  
• Gen 20.12 makes it clear that Abraham and Sarah are half-siblings, a marriage which is not allowed in the Torah.
  
• Just for fun, a large scribal error is in 1 Sam 11. At some point the scribe missed a whole paragraph that gives some background to this story. We have a copy of the paragraph in the Dead Sea Scrolls (4QSamA).
• Even in the same set of books though, there are differences, the most famous being with the Ten Commandments: Why are the Jews supposed to observe the Sabbath? Exodus 20: because God made the heavens and the earth in six days and rested on the seventh. Deut 5: because you were slaves in Egypt so give your slaves a rest. Which is the right one?
  

This list could go on and on. Is it all God's word? This, honestly, I'm a bit hesitant on. Right now, I'll say yes, because I believe in a dynamic God--a God who takes into account people where they are and what they believe or know. God addresses different cultures and different people, well....differently. Very few things in the Bible are set in stone. The problem is how do we know what is cultural and what is truth?

I'm against the death penalty, because I believe in a God of second chances and forgiveness...but the Torah certainly shows a God endorsing the death penalty for everything from adultery to children who disrespect their parents. I think of it as God dealing with people and where they're at in their societies and times . We (most everywhere in the world but the US and fundamentalist Muslim regimes) have moved into a society that acknowledges the worth of people's lives over an arcane sense of justice. Isn't this a better place to be?

What else is a case of God responding to the culture of the time? Could homosexuality be one of those things? Certainly the role of women in the Church; certainly slavery and animal sacrifice. I guess this is the question: What's cultural, what's not? What should we die for and what should we be willing to be merciful on? Any thoughts?

Completely Pro-Life

Yes, I'm pro-life. I don't like to say I'm anti-abortion, because, for me, that only touches on one point of being pro-life. For me this is what being pro-life means:

• Against abortion, except when the life of the mother is in danger.
• Against the death penalty, period.
• Against genocide and any activity that suports, encourages or ignores it.
• For the civil rights of all people regardless of race, creed, color, sex or sexual orientation.
• For caring for the poor and needy, orphaned and widowed.
• For the humane treatment of animals.
• For responsible protection of the environment.

This is why I generally vote Democratic. As stated before, I have a real problem with people who want to equate Christianity with the Republican party. They only hit on one of my issues, and honestly, while I hate abortion, it is really only a blip on the screen as far as the Bible is concerned. I don't know of one passage in the Bible that is directly against abortion, but I know I can show you so many passages against the oppression of the poor it will make you dizzy. I can even show more verses for the ethical treatment of your animals than I can about abortion. So yes, I'm against abortion but I'm more for life and living than anything else.

All Apologies

The past few days a Christian student group (Chai Alpha, I think) has been out on the oval handing out fliers and free Bibles to people passing by. Meanwhile they have someone nearby giving a dramatic reading of the Gospels. Part of me finds this rather inoffensive, it's certainly less offensive than most of the "Christian" activities on the oval.

But another part of me finds this really offensive. It's the part of me who has to deal with my friends who are offended by this stuff. One of my Jewish friends again vented to me because of an exchange she had with the people handing out the Bibles. She is so tired of the Christians on the oval trying to force feed Christ into her life. She's said there are parts of Jesus' teachings that intrigue her, but those people make her really not interested in learning anything because they're not willing to learn anything about her faith.

She's a little high strung and is becoming more in tune with the teachings of Judaism and how they differ from the traditional Christian point of view. Combine that with several bad run ins with arrogant insensitive Christians and I understand why she's so pissed off. I initially just chalked her current frustration up to all of this and thought that in a normal scenario this handing out of Bibles wouldn't have bothered her a great deal.

But then she brought it up to another one of my Jewish friends, who is not all that observant, and she felt the same way. This made me back up and re-think this whole thing. This other person is pretty laid back and easy going, so if it's offensive enough for her to say something, then there must be something wrong.

Thinking about it some more and dialoguing with my friends I decided this is why it's offensive: There is a feeling of superiority to these actions. The fact that the people on the oval don't know the students they're trying to talk to shows a lack of love and true concern for people. This combined with their pushiness makes them highly offensive. Put it this way, what makes the Jehovah Witnesses' and the Mormon evangelizers so offensive? Isn't it because they're strangers who invade your space claiming to know just what you need? If the Mormons were to be passing out the Book of Mormon on campus wouldn't those same Christians be offended? I think they would.

So anyway, all I could do through all of this was acknowledge my friends' anger and frustration and apologize for the ignorance of many Christians. I hope that this will at least help them to not hate all Christians.

I was Evangelized!!!

Yes, my dear readers, I was evangelized for your sake. In a desperate attempt for material to write about (that's right--it's all for you) I sat down by one of the open air preachers this week. I know most of you would not require such sacrifices, I know you'd be crying out, "STOP! Write about your cute kids instead! For the love of all that is holy! This isn't necessary!" And I must admit it wasn't all for the sake of my meager readership. Part of the reason I decided to sit down was because one of my Jewish friends had walked by earlier on her way to our Hebrew class and was accosted by one of our classmates. Aparently, the preacher was his pastor. (You ever get one of those bad vibes about somebody the first time you see them and you don't know exactly why, except you decide to stay far away from them...that was this guy...and now I know why I got the bad vibes.)

Anyway, since the preacher guy had totally offended my friend she barraged me with a ton of questions about Christianity and what Jesus taught, so I thought I should go listen to the guy. And as street preachers go, he was offensive, but he ain't no Brother Jed. Brother Jed has his daughters walk around with signs reading "Faggots burn in Hell," (get it--faggots...burn...) "Jesus is your Judge," and other friendly, loving things to say. This guy just stood there and shouted at people all day. . . amateur.

One thing he did bring with him was his own team of crowd minglers. They would walk the crowd and ask people what they thought of the guy, what he was saying, etc. Eventually, they would get to the point of asking if you knew Jesus as your "Personal Lord and Savior." If you said you were a Christian, as I did twice, they would ask if you could pin point a date, an exact moment when you became a Christian. Seeing where the conversation was headed I said, "yes,"and pointed to my adult baptism when I was 19. (I really wasn't in the mood to point out to the people that praying to receive Christ as your personal savior is not really a biblical idea. The magic get out of hell prayer isn't what salvation is about, that salvation is a life lived for God, serving Him with what you do for others, not your belief and words.)

For the guy that is in my class (let's call him J), the conversation was a little less strange than the first fellow, since I had a little bit of familiarity with the man, but it ended with the following conversation, which I had to share:

J: So, Ben, what's your major?
Me: Jewish Studies
J: With a confused look on his face, starts to open mouth to ask, "Why is a Christian majoring in Jewish Studies"
B Seeking to avoid said question: What's yours, J?
J: Hebrew.
B: Why are you majoring in Hebrew?
J: I feel like I know the New Testament pretty well and I wanted to study the Old Testament. I'll be going to get my M. Div when I graduate, so I thought I should take something that will keep my interest and be useful.
B: You know, J, If you don't know the Old Testament, I guarantee you don't really know the New Testament at all.
J: Confused look on his face
B: Well, it was good talking to you! I gotta go catch my bus! See ya in class tomorrow.

To J's credit, he still had the guts to invite me to his Church's student group that meets on campus. I did the polite, "I'll think about it (i.e. no thanks)" answer. And got out of there with my life intact.

It could have been worse, really. But I've already been told I'm going to hell and have AIDS--what else can they do to me? Really if you're have a terminal illness and you're going to hell, there's only one thing worse--becoming a psychotically judgmental street preacher.

I really hope my current writer's block will end soon, because I really don't want to become that.

Promises

Jaime and I watched this documentary the other night. It is an amazing look at the complex issues surrounding the Palestinian/Israeli conflict from the perspective of 7 children. These kids are both Israeli and Palestinian and all live in or around Jerusalem including the camps just outside Jerusalem in the West Bank. If you haven't seen this movie you must, you really must.

As a Christian majoring in Jewish Studies, one of the first questions I get asked by conservative Christians is what I think about the conflict in the Middle East. They mention the book of Daniel and Revelation and the "prophetic" declarations of the coming Jewish state. I grew up in churches that saw the Rapture and the second coming of Christ in every news event that comes out of the Middle East. For example, the Anti-Christ moved from Kadafi to Gorbachev to Saddam Hussein and this was taught from the pulpit.

There's so much misunderstanding out there due to ignorance about the role of apocalyptic literature. The point of apocalyptic literature is not to prophesy in the sense of telling the future. The point is to show the present history of the writers in a way that emphasizes the spiritual behind the physical reality, a battle between good and evil, light and darkness. It's a reassurance that good will win even when it looks like the evil will be the victor. Lord of the Rings is a fantastic example of modern apocalyptic literature. It's an intense battle between the forces of light and the forces of darkness and Tolkien had deeper meanings behind the symbols.

A biblical example occurs during the time period of the exile when the temple has been destroyed by the Babylonians and it looks as if God has abandoned them forever and there's no hope of rebuilding or going back. The book of Daniel places this earthly conflict into a cosmic reality that shows that God is in control and promises the Jews will return to Jerusalem. The Jews have never viewed the book of Daniel as prophetically predicting the future.

Jaime recently had a conversation with her mom about the documentary. Jaime was talking about how sad it was that the most religious people, people who worshiped God (whatever God that might be) were the ones least likely to seek peace, that out of the Jews in the documentary it was only the secular ones that considered reaching out to the other side. She said until someone decides to be the one to lose, to be the one to make a concession, to give up something for peace, the fighting and killing will never end. At this point Jaime's mom (who is genuinely saddened by the violence and lack of peace in Israel) said, "No, there will never be peace. Only when the Antichrist comes will there be a false peace for a time. And if America doesn't support Israel, we're done for."

This kind of thing is taught as gospel by many churches across America. Rapture, pre-tribulation, post-tribulation, etc. etc. are put into doctrinal statements like these views are cut and dry, like they matter in a person's Christian walk, like these views will impact our world. And, unfortunately they do impact our world but not for the better.

It's no secret that the American Dispensationalist Religious Right does have political influence. The conflict in Israel is one of the areas they use this influence. These people don't want peace. They want to hurry the Second Coming which in their minds means Israel will have control over not only the traditional land of Israel but all of the Middle East. In their minds the promise of possessing the land from the Nile to the Tigris must happen at all cost. Obviously no concessions on Israel's part will be supported by this group.

Christians like these support the ultra-religious Jews in their aggressive maneuvers to occupy land. Who cares if the Palestinians are oppressed or unable to make a living because prophecy must be fulfilled. And besides, any Palestinian could be a terrorist. They blame them and yet they create them. Each provocative action taken by Israel or Israeli settlers only creates more hard feelings. Each person killed creates another martyr in the cause. Each grieving family member left behind becomes the next potential terrorist because of their pain and need for revenge. And vice versa. Each suicide bomber that blows up a bus full of women and children creates an Israeli willing to do anything to suppress the Palestinians and their cause. Each bomber makes the check points more necessary. And each check point humiliates and hardens the heart of another Arab.

It's so ironic. So many Christians are being taught these false views of prophecy. They're taught that Daniel and Revelation speak directly to current events in the Middle East and so they essentially support unnecessary war. Somehow Jesus' teachings on peace, love and justice are suspended when the supposed "End Times" must be fulfilled. The irony is that the true meaning of these texts are about trusting God when others are doing violence to you. They don't teach to pick up the sword or that the end justifies the means.

Even if, and I don't believe this, even if these texts were prophetic and these crazy things were going to happen, believers are never called to act in a certain way to make them happen. It would be out of their control. Even if these texts were prophetic, Christians would still be accountable to follow what Jesus says, feeding the poor, helping the oppressed, the imprisoned, the widows and the orphans--NOT creating widows and orphans by supporting war and dissension. But somehow these people see it as their role to hurry things up, make the prophesy come to pass no matter what.

Whenever I think about all of this I'm reminded of this verse--"Woe to you who wish for the Day of the Lord! Why do you want this Day of the Lord? It shall be darkness not light."

Amos 5:18

New Observant Theology Post!

Just so that you know, I've got the second of three posts on my critique of Original Sin and what I believe to be a more accurate understanding of what the Bible teaches. I'm going to start an Observant Theology notice on the side bar, letting people know when I update since I post less consistently there!