I, The Rev. Charles S. Currie, Jr., do herby solemnly swear not to purchase any additional books until the ones currently on my desk have been completed in full.
Oregon bookstores may suffer from this decision but all I can do is ask that people stop writing books until I have time to catch up.
Steeplejacking: How the Christian Right Is Hijacking Mainstream Religion
Tuesday the 4th, 7:00PM Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
An extraordinary look inside the battle for religion in America, Steeplejacking: How the Christian Right Is Hijacking Mainstream Religion (Ig Publishing) is an insider account by two ministers, John Dorhauer and Sheldon Culver, that shows how a strident theocratic minority is attacking — or "steeplejacking" — mainstream churches in order to eliminate progressive voices and take control of the churches.
The Rev. Dr. John Dorhauer, minister for the St. Louis Association of the United Church of Christ, will be at Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing to talk about the book. You can read more about John here.
If you don't already have plans for Tuesday night make this event a priority.
Related Post: Steeplejacking: How The Christian Right Is Highjacking Mainstream Religion
Back in May I challenged the Wall Street Journal to a duel (in jest, of course) to defend the honor of Walter Rauschenbusch. An op-ed piece in the paper had argued that Rauschenbusch’s work wasn’t Christian in character.
Rauschenbusch was the major proponent of the Social Gospel, a theology that, in the words of The Rauschenbusch Center, “emphasized that sin is not just a private matter between a person and God, but in the spirit of the prophets, there are also social sins against humanity that must be addressed for Christianity to have any relevance.”
Believe it or not, people have been arguing about Rauschenbusch’s work for a hundred years now. The WSJ article was in response to the republication of Rauschenbusch’s 1907 book Christianity and the Social Crisis.
Paul Rauschenbusch, Walter Rauschenbusch’s great-grandson and associate dean of religious life and the chapel at Princeton University, edited the re-release which includes essays from leading modern theologians and religious activists responding to Walter Rauschenbusch’s book. Paul Rauschenbusch was kind enough to have a copy sent to me and I took in along this week on vacation.
My own theological beliefs are deeply indebted to those who preached the Social Gospel early in the last century. There are, of course, valid criticisms of Rauschenbusch. He was too optimistic, his theology was too tied in with national goals, and he wasn’t as sensitive to the issues of race and gender as we would be today. In other words, he was a product of his time. But in re-reading Christianity and the Social Crisis this week I’m struck once again by what is right in his work: a deep and abiding belief that God calls God’s people to be more concerned with matters of justice than the practice of worship. Our common task is to build up the Kingdom.
“Rauschenbusch understood that we would never perfect this world,” writes Paul Rauschenbusch, “but he also knew that was not an excuse not to try.” Christianity and the Social Crisis remains current despite it’s age as a challenge to the church and to all who claim the title Christian.
This was the first story I heard on NPR this morning:
U.S. military officials have lost track of at least 110,000 AK-47 rifles and 80,000 pistols sent to help Iraqi security forces fight insurgents, according to a federal report.
It appears that some of these lost weapons are now being used to kill civilians and to fight U.S. military personnel.
Not only has President Bush created one of the most unstable military situations in a generation but the incompetence of his government has helped to arm people intent on killing Americans.
Just today I picked up John Dominic Crossan's God & Empire: Jesus Against Rome, Then and Now. Check out this paragraph from a discussion about the Roman Empire:
Augustus knew the difference between war and diplomacy. He understood about a river too far. He settled for imperial boundaries on the Rhine, not the Elbe, and for imperial limits on the Euphrates, not the Tigris. He also learned another vital lesson, this one from Arminius: when you train and arm tribal forces to fight for you, they can use that knowledge to fight against you as well. (pg. 27)
How does that old saying go?
"Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it."
Action Alert: Call for an End to the Bloodshed: Sign the Petition to End the Iraq War
I've not read her book (yet) but tonight there was a good interview on The Colbert Report with Kathleen Kennedy Townsend on faith and politics. Check it out:
I've sent her publisher a request for a review copy and once it arrives I'll read it and post more.
Tonight was one of those perfect Portland nights. It is dry and cool…in the upper 50s. After dinner we stopped by Broadway Books where I purchased, among other things, Al Gore’s new work The Assault on Reason. So with the girls in bed and Liz happily entertained by the television I built a small fire in the back yard and camped out there reading for several hours as Hugo and Hazel, our two pups, cheerfully sat by the fire keeping warm and staying on the lookout for a raccoon that has been visiting our house of late. Two chapters into Gore’s full fronted defense of Enlightenment thinking and American-style democracy (with appropriate post modern inspired caveats) my initial review is “two thumbs up” for the book. Tomorrow it will rain again (after all, the Rose Festival Parade is tomorrow and tradition demands that the parade be rained on) but tonight was one of those nights that remind you why we live in Oregon.
Sheldon Culver and John Dorhauer, two of my clergy colleagues in the United Church of Christ, have just published an important new book that outlines how conservative political organizations are seeking with intention to destroy mainline denominations in an effort to silence prophetic Christian voices on issues ranging from peace and justice efforts to global warming.
Steeplejacking: How The Christian Right Is Highjacking Mainstream Religion looks specifically at how well financed groups like the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) and their affiliates, such as Biblical Witness Fellowship, work to drive wedges between local congregations and their national denominations. As Culver and Dorhauer report, IRD and BWF even seek to bring churches out of the United Church of Christ and other mainline bodies and into more conservative alliances. This book is worth taking note of.
Related Post: Institute on Religion on Democracy Report Written By Bush Campaign Worker
Related Post: The Marriage Of David Horowitz And The Institute on Religion and Democracy
Read the comments on this post from the UCC Discussion Boards
Well, more specifically I challenge Joseph Loconte to a duel to defend the thoroughly Christian theology of Walter Rauschenbusch, the proponent of the Social Gospel.
Loconte recently wrote a column for the Wall Street Journal that claims that it “is hard to see….how Rauschenbusch's theology could be called Christian in any meaningful sense of the term.”
First, a little background from a modest paper I wrote on Rauschenbusch while in seminary:
By the turn of the last century a new theology emerged within the United States called the social gospel. Walter Rauschenbusch, the son of German immigrants and a Baptist, was the major proponent of this new theology. The social gospel sought to address issues of sin and salvation within the context of the Industrial Revolution and the great poverty it spawned in urban centers. The social gospel asked Christians and their churches to become advocates for the “least of these” in a society that had abandoned the poor. Rauschenbusch’s theology was optimistic. He saw human progress as an event always moving forward with the great potential for improvement of the human condition. The social gospel became the dominant theology within American churches until the optimism it expressed collapsed under the weight of two world wars and a growing sense among Christians that human progress was not always a forward event. Despite its shortcoming the Social Gospel remains one of the most important theological movements of the modern era and even today continues to impact the work of mainline Christian churches. There is much that we can learn from this theology and incorporate into the lives of our modern churches.
One of Rauschenbusch’s major works was the 1907 Christianity and the Social Crisis. As Loconte points out, the book has been republished to celebrate the 100th anniversary of this important contribution to theology. Loconte, like most writers for the WJS, is a right-wing ideologue. He has been associated with the Ethics and Public Policy Center and The Heritage Foundation, both arch conservative think tanks.
Here is part of what he wrote about Walter Rauschenbusch and the Social Gospel:
Surely there is much in the tradition for which to be grateful. Yet even a brisk reading of Rauschenbusch's work suggests crippling weaknesses, at least from the standpoint of faith. We're told that the larger social message of Jesus' teaching--especially his concern for the poor--was sidelined by the cultural assumptions of his followers. The culprits: the doctrine of sin and the "crude and misleading" idea of a coming apocalypse. Generations of believers wrongly came to regard earthly life as a snare and turned inward for personal salvation. "Such a conception of present life and future destiny," Rauschenbusch wrote chidingly, "offered no motive for an ennobling transformation of the present life."
Distorted ideas about heaven and hell have spawned great mischief in the name of Christianity, of course. Rauschenbusch must have seen plenty of it during a decade of ministry in New York City's "Hell's Kitchen" neighborhood. Indeed, the Christianity of his youth looked unfit to cope with the "industrial crises" of his day. Nevertheless, he seemed blithely unaware of others provoked by the very conceptions of sin and salvation he so despised--men such as William Wilberforce, John Wesley, John Jay, Lyman Beecher and William Booth--to champion reform efforts of all kinds.
Rauschenbusch's clever narrative of a faith held hostage was itself a captive of its cultural setting. It's no accident that phrases such as the "laws of social development," "scientific comprehension of society" and the "evolution of social institutions" litter his text. He presents not so much the teachings of Jesus, Paul and the Apostles as the dogmas of Darwin, Marx and Herbert Spencer. Richard Niebuhr called this "cultural Christianity," i.e., re-imagining the gospel according to secular nostrums about the march of human progress.
As such, Rauschenbusch's gospel had little need of a Savior. It merely displaced the problem of evil--the supreme tragedy of the human soul in rebellion against God--with the challenge of social iniquities. The Kingdom of Heaven would come soon enough, if only we put our hands to the plow.
Perhaps this earth-bound emphasis explains the social gospel's naïve embrace of morally dubious causes, including eugenics and abortion. We underwrite modern social programs with similar illusions about human nature. Thus drug "maintenance" programs, to take but one example, leave the scourge of addiction largely untouched because they do not address its moral and spiritual causes.
The centennial edition of "Christianity and the Social Crisis"--just published by HarperSanFrancisco--includes essays from various liberal and progressive admirers. Tony Campolo, a left-leaning evangelical, praises Rauschenbusch's "holistic gospel" for offering both eternal life and dramatic changes in the social order. Stanley Hauerwas calls him "an evangelist of the Kingdom of God." Jim Wallis likewise lauds Rauschenbusch's "Christian social ethic" as an "eloquent and necessary corrective" to privatized faith.
It is hard to see, though, how Rauschenbusch's theology could be called Christian in any meaningful sense of the term. It required no repentance or atonement and carried no fear of judgment or bracing hope of eternal life. He famously denied the doctrine of Christ's Second Coming--with its promise of perfect justice and enduring mercy. The result was a flattened view of the human condition. "It is not possible honestly to confess that Jesus is the Christ of culture," Niehbur wrote in "Christ and Culture" (1951), "unless one can confess much more than this."
The Christian confession of faith, by itself, offers no guarantee that either individuals or societies will be transformed. But, for believers, not even the smallest steps forward can be taken without it..
Loconte’s own analysis is simplistic, filled with errors, and written from the perspective of one whose organizations are often unconcerned with the plight of the "least of these." It is hardly justifiable to suggest Rauschenbusch’s Social Gospel cannot be called Christian. Rather then argue point by point let me simply reprint here what I wrote in 2004 and let those interested enough in the debate draw their own conclusions about the meaning and what I believe to be the positive impact of the Social Gospel.
Walter Rauschenbusch and The Social Gospel
(Please note that as a follower of Jesus I only believe in non-violent duels - perhaps over coffee and presided over by a moderator.)
This week I’ve been much more interested in reading then writing.
Last month for my grandfather’s 90th birthday I bought him a copy of Richard Clarke’s spy thriller Breakpoint. Normally I never read fiction (on television fiction is fine but it somehow seems a waste of time when in print) but for some reason I bought myself a copy and read it over the last few days. A main theme in the book dealt with how people might / will react to emerging biotechnologies that challenge our understandings of what it means to be human. That plotline made the book interesting to me as I have some minor background with the issue.
Yesterday and today I read Howard Thurman’s Jesus and the Disinherited, first published in 1949. How, Thurman asks, do subjugated people respond to issues such as fear, deception, hate and love in light of the Gospel teachings of Jesus. Life, he argues, is complicated but in the end only love and equality will finally save all of us – oppressed and oppressor alike. 58 years after first being published the book does not feel dated.
Today has been one of those days that never seem to end. There were dozens of phone calls to make and even more e-mails to respond to. But all and all it was a good day that ended well.
This evening at church we started a new small book group. We're reading Remedial Christianity: What Every Believer Should Know About the Faith, but Probably Doesn't. I highly recommend this book - one that I first came across before going to seminary. Reading it provides a good primer on some basic theological concepts and on different methods of Biblical interpretation. 13 members of our congregation signed up to be part of this 8-week discussion. Taking part in groups like this is really one of the best parts of ministry. How did I get to be so lucky?
Whenever anyone asks if there is one book to read that encapsulates the vision of the Christian faith that I teach and preach I direct them to Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time by Marcus Borg. Borg is a “Jesus Seminar Fellow” and professor at Oregon State University. His writings blend a commitment to serious historical research and a sense of the spiritual side of life.
Borg will be lecturing at Portland’s Trinity Episcopal Church on Friday, February 16th from 7:30pm – 9pm and Saturday, February 17th from 9am – 3pm. The evening lecture is $15 and the Saturday workshop costs $50. Click here for registration information.
Oregon is fortunate to have one of America’s leading Biblical scholars teaching in our university system. I hope to attend the Friday night event.
Still smarting from their defeat at the polls Republicans gathered in Washington, D.C. this week to pick new leadership. Republicans in the senate had the chance to offer the American people a fresh face as part of their leadership team.
Instead they picked Trent Lott from Mississippi as their second in command. Lott had once been the Republican leader in the senate but was forced to resign that post a few years back after saying America would have been better off had Strom Thurmond won the presidency in 1948.
Thurmond, from South Carolina, ran as a strict segregationist and spent most of his senate years opposing civil rights. Lott told a birthday party gathering for Thurmond that Mississippians were proud of their vote for Thurmond and that "if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems."
If Republicans like Lott are going to keep modeling their governing skills and political campaigns after figures like Thurmond the country is in for a few more difficult years.
But maybe Lott will surprise us all and make racial reconciliation the centerpiece of his tenure.
It seems to me he has a real choice now to either follow his old instincts of dividing people based on race or he could answer God's call for justice. It's up to him.
I'd write something tonight but I'm engrossed in Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church is Transforming the Faith. Pick up a copy.
Reprinted from United Church News
| Written by J. Bennett Guess | |
| Friday, 22 September 2006 | |
Attempting to break “hundreds of years of silence,” a new, controversial book argues that pervasive homophobia in the historically black church has reached “crisis” proportion.
 Horace L. Griffin, author of 'Their Own Receive Them Not' (The Pilgrim Press) “This black-church-sanctioned homophobia produces a lot of twisted black people,” he writes. Griffin, who is black and gay, grew up in a Missionary Baptist church. Based on his life and church experience, he has witnessed how “black church leaders and congregants have been resistant and even closed in treating gay and heterosexual congregants equally or, in many cases, of simply offering compassion to gay people.” In his 240-page book, he now attempts to deconstruct the history and legacy of homophobia in the black church using a sociological, theological and biblical lens. Comparing the plight of black gays and lesbians to “a game of Russian roulette,” where the children of the church are no longer welcomed by the church, black lesbian and gay Christians find themselves in “no-win situations,” he says. The end result robs them of “their soul, if not their integrity, family and lives.” Griffin, who teaches pastoral theology and directs field education at The General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church in New York City, says black church leaders use the bible to oppress gays and lesbians in a similar fashion to the approach once used by white church leaders to oppress blacks during slavery and segregation. The black church’s “sexual secrets,” says Griffin, have led to tragic outcomes, including a quiet complicity with the HIV/AIDS epidemic. “Even after two decades of AIDS research … African American ministers, for the most part, display almost no change in their attitudes that AIDS is God’s retribution on the ‘sinful,’” he writes. Griffin also believes the church’s “secrets” have led to less-than-honest sexual practices among its members. “Until black church leaders adopt different Christian approaches, ‘Down Low’ practices will continue,” Griffin writes in reference to closeted, sexual activities of some black men with other men. Available October 15, the hardcover book is being published by The Pilgrim Press, the publishing arm of the UCC. The book’s arrival on bookstore shelves comes at a time when the worldwide Anglican Communion is facing schism over issues related to homosexuality. The divide has pitted the largely-white Episcopal Church in the United States against the more-conservative and growing Anglican churches in Africa. Griffin says the black church often “rewards” its gay and lesbian ministers and members for staying in the closet. “Everyone within black churches realizes that there is reward and acceptance for those presenting themselves as heterosexual, while [out] gays and lesbians encounter ridicule and condemnation,” Griffin writes. “Even in churches where it is ‘known’ that the pastor is gay, black church Christians are content to remain in the church if the pastor is willing to present himself as heterosexual with a wife and children.” “Their Own Receive Them Not” is available for $24 (hardcover) from The Pilgrim Press at <thepilgrimpress.com> or by calling 800/537-3394. |
This morning I was joined on the phone by The Rev. Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, to discuss his new book Middle Church and the work of the council. We touched on a range of issues: the place of Scripture in driving our public policy advocacy, environmentalism and the new energy on that issue from conservative evangelicals, living wage campaigns, biotechnology and how we mentor new leaders.
Use the below link to download the podcast of this interview for your iPod or personal computer.
(click with the RIGHT mouse button on the hyperlink and choose "Save Target As" and save to your desktop or other folder - once downloaded click on the file to listen).
Make sure you also visit Rev. Edgar's new blog.
Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright will be the guest today on Air America's State of Belief. Should be a great program. It just happens that I picked up her memoir last week (a book purchased last summer and never read) and finished it last night. She has a new book out on religion and world affairs which promises to be equally good.
An interview with Oregonian Marcus Borg, the well regarded Biblical scholar and author of Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, is now available on the United Church of Christ website.
Noted theologian Marcus Borg is Professor of Religion and Culture at Oregon State University and author of "Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time." During a visit to the UCC’s national offices in Cleveland, he sat down with staff to talk about various aspects of Christianity and the UCC in today’s society.
Click here to take a look.
Here is a new resource to add to your church collection: Hunger for the World:
With weekly sermon/homily reflections, Hunger for the Word is an invaluable resource for pastors, liturgical ministers, and those interested in justice-oriented Bible study and spiritual growth. Also includes suggestions for musical worship, and ideas for children’s sermons to help spread God’s Word of activism, compassion, and integrity throughout the congregation.
The Rev. Nathan Day Wilson, a friend and colleague of mine, has three chapters in this new book available from Bread for the World. Nathan is a well respected and nationally known church anti-poverty activist and Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) minister. Check it out.
Garry Wills, professor of history emeritus as Northwestern University and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Lincoln at Gettysburg, tackles the life of Jesus in a new (though relatively short) work. What Jesus Meant is written to defend a fairly orthodox theological spin on what the Bible is (influenced by N.T. Wright in places and highly critical of the Jesus Seminar throughout) and to weigh in on the debate over the appropriate role of the Christian faith in politics (Wills argues that Jesus was non-political). "This is not a scholarly book but a devotional one," writes Wills (Garry Wills, What Jesus Meant (New York: Penguin, 2006), p. xxx.). You won't find me arguing with how Garry Wills professes his faith. I'm a fan of his body of work. However, I find that in this book there are sharp differences between my understandings of Jesus and how Wills presents Jesus. Jesus was political (in the best sense of that word and not in the partisan fashion we now think of) and the historical critical approach to biblical hermeneutics (the approach used by the fellows of the Jesus Seminar) provides great insight into Scripture.
Wills begins What Jesus Meant with a frontal assault on the Jesus Seminar. The Jesus Seminar, founded in 1985, is made up of over 200 biblical scholars. The fellows of the seminar debated and then voted on which sayings of Jesus seemed to them authentic. Few serious scholars would argue that every word or incident reported in the Bible literally happened and the search for the historical Jesus is the attempt to separate what Jesus actually did and said from how later Christian communities interpreted his words and deeds. Such an endeavor is critical for understanding the roots of Christianity. Wills, however, disagrees. "This is the new fundamentalism," he writes. "It believes in the literal sense of the Bible - it just reduces the Bible to what it can take as literal quotation from Jesus (Ibid., p. xxv.)." Wills unfairly misrepresents both what the Jesus Seminar has been about and the positive impacts their research has brought.
Many people have left the Christian faith because numerous churches require adherence to orthodoxy of some sort or another. You'll be told in these churches that to be Christian you must believe that Jesus said and did everything recorded in the Bible (and for that matter everything else in the cannon - which cannon depends on whether or not you're Roman Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox... each have slightly different canonical texts). What the Jesus Seminar asserts is that there are literal truths about Jesus, metaphorical Scriptural truths, and truths about how the early Christian community evolved to understand Jesus after his death. Wills writes that those involved with the Jesus Seminar "work from a Jeffersonian assumption that anything odd or dangerous or supernatural is prima facie suspect. That disqualifies the Resurrection from the outset (p. xxv)." Thomas Jefferson (yes, that Thomas Jefferson) once published a Bible with the miracles edited out. Is Wills' charge correct? Do those involved with the Jesus Seminar reject such basic Christian beliefs as the Resurrection? Some might but not all of the fellows are practicing Christians. Let me provide two examples, however, of people who are: Stephen Patterson, professor of New Testament studies at Eden Theological Seminary (one of my seminary professors) and Marcus Borg, professor at Oregon State University.
Patterson, who professes a belief in the Resurrection, writes in The God of Jesus that it is entirely understandable as to why people would question the Resurrection as an historical event given the sometimes contradictory accounts in the Gospel stories. But he goes on to say that:
Resurrection is not about the resuscitation of a corpse, that one great miracle that proves we are right after all. It is about the resuscitation of hope in the face of cruel realities. There is so much in our world that points in the direction of despair: war, hunger, racism, human degradation and abuse, fallenness. History easily suggests that if there is a God, if there is a reality that runs through and beneath it all, this reality is surely not a benevolent God. Resurrection is about the resuscitation of hope against all odds that there is indeed a God, and that God loves us beyond all our furthest imaginings. This is the God Christians claim to have met in the life and preaching of Jesus of Nazareth. If one cannot summon the faith and hope to believe that there is such a God, an ancient claim about one more savior rising from the dead will not be able to convince one that there is such a God after all.
The assumption that it could is perhaps that greatest error of Christendom. It is often argued today be evangelical theologians that without the miracle of the resurrection, it would be impossible to account for the rise and spread of Christianity, or even its survival past Good Friday. But this is precisely what differentiates those first followers of Jesus from his latter-day worshipers: they really believe that Jesus was right. They were convinced by what he said, excited about what he did, and chose to give themselves over to this person whom they experienced as gospel, completely. And they did all of this before Jesus' death. That is why they proclaimed the resurrection in the first place. For the earliest Christians the resurrection depends on whether or not Jesus was right about God. For latter-day Christians, that Jesus was right depends on whether the resurrection is a historical event. This shift is crucial, for it involves a shift in first commitments: from message to miracle, from gospel to power. John the evangelist, who writing near the end of the first century, had inherited from the tradition a host of miracle stories and resurrection tales, understood the danger this shift posed to authentic Christian faith. And so, after dutifully including many of these stories, he refuses to allow them to stand as the source and starting point for Christian faith. To Thomas, who demands proof of the resurrection before he will believe, John's Jesus offers the final word: "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe" (John 20:29) (Stephen Patterson, The God of Jesus (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 1998), p 239-240.).
Borg has written more generally about the subject saying that the "way of Jesus - the way of repentance and return from exile - involves dying to an old way of being and being born into a new way of being. Taken literally, it is the path of martyrdom, which may have been an issue when Mark was written. Taken metaphorically, it refers to the internal process at the center of the way of Jesus and the life of discipleship (Marcus Borg, Reading The Bible Again for the First Time (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 2001) p. 195.)."
Wills claims that the "only Jesus we have is the Jesus of faith (p. xxvi)" and that "the `historical Jesus' does not exist for us (Wills, What Jesus Meant, p. xxviii)." Rather than use this opportunity to illuminate and explore the debates and questions raised by the Jesus Seminar (and previous explorers of the historical Jesus) Wills has written a book that unfairly stereotypes scholars and dismisses the practice of historical research as it relates to Christianity. You would think that a history professor would know better. His intent escapes me.
Our nation (and the world for that matter) is racked by debates over the appropriate role of religion in public life. There are those who would argue that the United States is and always has been a Christian nation and that our government should be run on Christian principles. Some in the Religious Right would replace America's historical respect for religious pluralism and democracy with a theocracy. Are the teachings of Jesus a guide in this debate? "To put it boldly: compassion for Jesus was political," writes Borg. "He directly and repeatedly challenged the dominant sociopolitical paradigm of his social world and advocated instead what might be called a politics of compassion. This conflict and this social vision continue to have striking implications for the life of the church today (Marcus Borg, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1994), p. 49.)." Wills could not disagree more:
Many would like to make the reign of Jesus belong to this political order. If they want the state to be politically Christian, they are not following Jesus, who says that his reign is not of that order. If, on the other hand, they ask the state simply to profess religion of some sort (not specifically Christian), then some other religions may be conscripted for that purpose, but that of Jesus will not be among them. His reign is not of that order. If people want to do battle for God, they cannot claim that Jesus has called them to this task, since he told Pilate that his ministers would not do that.
Jesus, unlike other Jews of his time, renounced theocracy. That involves religion in state violence, and he never accepted violence as justified. He specially renounced political opposition to the Roman oppression, saying "Caesar's matters leave to Caesar" (Mk 12.17). He did not oppose paying the Roman tax, though he was accused of do that (Lk 23.2). But then people ask how there can be a Christian politics if Jesus renounces "Caesar's matters." The answer is that Jesus did not some to bring any form of politics (Wills, What Jesus Meant, p. 55.).
Wills argues that Jesus did not intend to influence political structures, as Borg would argue, or come to start a church.
If Jesus did not come to establish a church, why did he come? He said it over and over, from the outset. He brought us heaven's (or the heavens') reign. "The announced time is fulfilled, God's reign impends. Turn back, and trust in the revelation" (Mk 1.15, like Lk 10.9-11). The word for "reign" (basileia) is normally translated "kingdom," but that is a misleading term. It suggests a place or a political structure. The Christian reign is the personal presence of Jesus. (Ibid., p. 84.)
Patterson would, I suspect, debate the conclusion draw by Wills on the meaning of "basileia." I'll let his words make the argument:
....how would an ancient person listening to Jesus have heard this term basileia? When this word appears in a nonbiblical text from the ancient world it is usually translated as "empire." It is a very political term. It is the word ancients used to refer to empires, or more precisely in Jesus' day, the empire: Rome. There was only one empire in Jesus' world, and that was Rome. Jesus took this very political term and attached it to the words "of God." This was unusual. As Burton Mack has pointed out, the term "Empire of God (Kingdom of God), contrary to common assumptions, does not appear very often in the literature of the Roman imperial period. But this is understandable. To speak of "empire" is to speak of Rome. And why speak of an "Empire of God," that is, an empire as God would run it, if one does not have something critical to say about the empire as "you know who" runs it. To speak of an Empire of God would have been risky, to say the least. But Jesus chose this very political, very risky concept as the central metaphor for expressing what he was about (Patterson, The God of Jesus, p. 60.).
The issues Jesus concerned himself with, as Paterson points out, were not just matters of spiritual concern but were also matters of political concern. Jesus did not raise an army (something we can learn from) but worked to create social change on behalf of the oppressed of his time. `The heavenly reign, though it undercuts the earthly reign's claim to be more than what it is, does not exempt Christians from the duties of all human beings to be just to others, according to the rules of temporal conduct. But it goes far beyond those rules," writes Wills. "It treats the lowest person, the outcast person, as if he were Jesus (Wills, What Jesus Meant, p. 88.)." Wills doesn't seem to understand it but he is articulating a form of political resistance in the midst of empire. Jesus is killed by the Romans for his efforts. My own faith claim is that Jesus called his followers to be active in the world - to resist empire. The United Methodist Church Social Principles speak better to the appropriate role for Christians to follow in modern society than any other:
The United Methodist Church believes that the church has the moral imperative to act for the common good. For people of faith, therefore, there are no political or spiritual spheres where their participation can be denied. The attempt to influence the formation and execution of public policy at all levels of government is often the most effective means available to churches to keep before humanity the ideal of a society in which power and order are made to serve the ends of justice and freedom for all people. Through such social action The United Methodist Church generates new ideas, challenges certain goals and methods, and help rearrange the emphasis on particular values in ways that facilitate the adoption and implementation of specific policies and programs that promote goals that are congruent with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This task of the Church is in no way in contradiction with our commitment to a vital separation of Church and State. We believe that the integrity of both institutions is best served when both institutions do not try to control the other. Thus, we sustain with the first amendment to the Constitution that: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" We live in a pluralistic society. In such a society, churches should not seek to use the authority of government to make the whole community conform to their particular moral codes. Rather, churches should seek to enlarge and clarify the ethical grounds of public discourse and to identify and define the foreseeable consequences of available choices of public policy.
My respect for Wills is what draws me to write such a lengthy post reviewing his book. Over the years I have come to rely on his insights on a great many historical and contemporary issues. On the "political" issues of our day we have a great many similarities. However, I feel deeply that on many of the issues addressed in What Jesus Meant his distaste for historical perspective as it relates to matters of faith produces an inaccurate picture of who Jesus was.
The publishers sent over a copy of Dan Wakefield’s The Hijacking Of Jesus a couple of weeks back and yesterday I finally had the chance read it. Wakefield, a journalist by vocation and lay member of the United Church of Christ, has written a good 195 page recap of how groups like the Republican Party aligned - Institute on Religion and Democracy and other Religious Right groups have misused the Bible to further their own partisan political campaigns. He calls in the book for renewed efforts on the part of mainline churches to engage in social activism. Unfortunately, Wakefield seems to blame scholarly groups such as the Jesus Seminar (a group of well regarded Biblical scholars who study the historical Jesus) for some of the problems faced by mainline churches. Study of the historical Jesus, he asserts, doesn’t leave room for more evangelical Christians that are needed for the mainline churches to survive. You’re not going to get me to blame scholars for the loss of membership in mainline churches. Wakefield doesn’t offer any solid research to back his claim (and you won’t find any). The truth is that writers like Marcus Borg and my own professor Stephen Paterson have helped bring many people back to the Christian faith by helping to open of the dialogue about what it means to be a Christian in the post-modern era.
There is a profound difference between history and factory but there are moments that line is blurred and the two are confused. The Da Vinci Code, the best selling book and new feature film, is an example of such confusion. Twice in recent days people have explained to me that they’ve learned a lot about the history of Christianity through reading The Da Vinci Code. Let me say now that I’ve not read the book. But I know enough from reading the reviews and an assortment of commentaries that the book is a work of fiction and not history. It is my understanding the author doesn’t pretend otherwise. What to read some actual history? Check out The Story of Christianity: Volume 1 : Volume One: The Early Church to the Reformation and The Story of Christianity: Reformation to the Present Day by Justo L. Gonzalez for a good look at how the faith developed. History is always a matter of interpretation but taking fiction as fact distorts not only our understanding of history but our understanding of faith. I’m not saying not to read The Da Vinci Code (plenty of people have recommended it to me). Just know what you’re reading.
I’m nearly finished with Audrey Chapman’s Unprecedented Choices: Religious Ethics at the Frontiers of Genetic Science. Not being in seminary now for six months has slowed down my ability to read. When you’re in seminary you’re forced to read and read and read. Now I can read a chapter and then take a short 3 hour nap. The end result: I’m not reading as much as I’d like to be. But Chapman’s book has been useful. It is an overview of how different communities of faith have dealt with the issues raised by genetic technologies. It is worth a look if you have any interest in how faith groups have / are dealing with a subject so far removed from historical Christianity. I’m following-up Chapman’s book with Playing God?: Genetic Determinism and Human Freedom by Ted Peters. All this genetic / faith reading is related to my participation with Pacific University’s Faith Forum on Genetics. What else is on my desk to read? Borg and Crossan’s The Last Week, Dan Wakefield’s The Hijacking of Jesus, Michael Lerner’s The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country from the Religious Right, and President Jimmy Carter’s Our Endangered Values : America's Moral Crisis. After I’m done with this stack of books I need to get away from religious books for awhile. Before going to seminary I read lots of biographies and loved them. There is a new account out about the life of William Jennings Bryan (a favorite American historical figure of mine) and I’ve got to add this book to my list. Anyone else have any suggestions for good non-fiction reading?
While the rest of America was gathered around their television sets to watch The Oscars a few hundred of us in Portland, Oregon met at First Congregational United Church of Christ to hear Rabbi Michael Lerner discuss his new book The Left Hand of God. Rabbi Lerner spoke for an hour and a half and then stayed to answer questions and sign books.
Since I haven't yet read this book I cannot offer a review. But what I will say is that he spoke with great strength tonight about the need for progressive religious people to work with secular progressive groups on issues of common concern. I fully agreed with Rabbi Lerner that there are many in the political left who would feel religious people and religion itself should have no place at table.
So check out the book and visit the website of his new group: Network of Spiritual Progressives.
As always, Rabbi Lerner is doing good and important work.
He was also a guest today on State of Belief - Air America's religion program. You can hear the podcast tomorrow from their web site or via iTunes.
I'll write a more lengthily review of the book after I've read it.
Anyone tape The Oscars? How'd Jon Stewart do?
Good for the soul.
Robert Funk, a leading biblical scholar dealing with the “historical Jesus” and founder of the Jesus Seminar, passed away on September 3rd. News of his death made the papers just today.
I had the good fortunate of attending a two day seminar with Dr. Funk before coming to seminary and have regularly drawn on his writings.
The goal of the Jesus Seminar has been to “renew the quest of the historical Jesus and to report the results of its research to more than a handful of gospel specialists.” The group has tried to determine what words really came from Jesus and what acts were his (click here for more background on this field of biblical inquiry and its implication).
Dr. Funk’s official biography on the Jesus Seminar site reads:
Robert W. Funk is a distinguished teacher, writer, translator and publisher in the field of religion. A Guggenheim Fellow and Senior Fulbright Scholar, he has served as Annual Professor of the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem and as chair of the Graduate Department of Religion at Vanderbilt University. Robert Funk is a recognized pioneer in modern biblical scholarship, having led the Society of Biblical Literature as its Executive Secretary from 1968–1973. His many books include The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus (1993) and The Acts of Jesus: The Search for the Authentic Deeds (1998) (both with the Jesus Seminar) and Honest to Jesus (1996), and A Credible Jesus (2002).
The work of the Jesus Seminar – often controversial – has been profoundly important. Stephen Patterson, professor of New Testament at Eden Theological Seminary and also a member of the Jesus Seminar, wrote in his book The God of Jesus that the work of the Jesus Seminar has been particularly significant because:
...it invited others to listen in on this work: lay people, pastors, the news media. Scholars seldom do this. They prefer the library or the classroom to public debate. This has meant that over many years the only public voice speaking out on matters of religious faith in our culture has been a very conservative voice and, for the most part, one ignorant of biblical scholarship or opposed to it on ideological grounds.
You can learn more about the Jesus Seminar and Dr. Funk by visiting their web site. My prayers go out to his family, friends, and colleagues. We owe Dr. Funk a great debt for his work and leadership.
Related Link: Robert Funk, religion scholar
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Weaver, a United Methodist pastor well know for his efforts to research the activities of so-called renewal groups working to undermine mainline Christian churches, was in St. Louis this past week to meet with clergy in the St. Louis Association of the United Church of Christ. Dr. Weaver showed those assembled how right-wing secular foundations use groups like the Republican Party-aligned Institute on Religion and Democracy to attack the prophetic voice of mainline churches on issues of important social concern. He presented some of the work found in the new book Hardball On Holy Ground.
"Hardball on Holy Ground," a new book by Steven Swecker, chronic
