tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16628738437027649172024-03-08T13:20:14.746-05:00Divine SalveA Postcritical, Progressive Christian ViewpointDavid Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07650300919139654311noreply@blogger.comBlogger47125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1662873843702764917.post-8334352661731554542015-06-11T15:20:00.001-04:002015-06-11T15:20:27.425-04:00Prepared Remarks for Kentucky Annual Conference 2015I didn't say all of this from the floor of conference because I was not among those recognized for the petition I wanted to speak against, but I did say some version of these remarks by the time I was recognized fifth a related petition.<div>
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David Miller, Chaplain at Union College</div>
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Bishop Davis and members of The Kentucky Conference, I would like to speak against this petition and all of the petitions before us related to human sexuality, either directly or indirectly. I speak in order to give witness to my convictions, borne by my understanding of the vows I took at my baptism and at my ordination. </div>
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Kentucky Methodism is in my DNA. I'm a fourth-generation Kentucky Methodist. I was introduced to God's love in Christ as a child via Kentucky Methodism. I learned to think critically about faith, about privilege and systemic injustice, and about Wesley's Way of perfect love via Kentucky Methodism. I love Kentucky Methodism.</div>
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But I have to say that sometimes it feels like some in our conference are a bit entrenched when it comes to theology. Even though it may feel like to some that there's only one acceptable way to look at things, there really is a diversity of opinion, of belief, and of conviction within our own conference, our own home churches, and even within our own homes. </div>
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It seems to me that these petitions attempt to extend that entrenchment to the General level and to stifle any diversity regarding this issue. I have long been convinced that the struggle related to sexual orientation, both within our denomination and outside it, is part of a larger struggle for justice, interconnected with the struggle women and people of color are also engaged in. These petitions before us are about the use of raw, unfettered, institutional power to force one way of looking at this important issue onto everybody. What happens when we disagree on some other important issue? Do we take our pension plans and go home, or do we continue the Methodist way of holy conversation?</div>
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If you don't want to dismantle our beloved church, pension plan by pension plan, church property by church property, then vote no to all of these petitions. If you don't think it's right to force other people to outwardly conform in lockstep with a monolithic worldview, vote no. And if you have an inclusive view of God's love that is poured out on everyone regardless of how God created us, but you just don't know whether that's acceptable within Kentucky Methodism, you are not alone; vote no.</div>
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Thank you. </div>
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David Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07650300919139654311noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1662873843702764917.post-71927852165405673282014-01-20T13:00:00.000-05:002014-01-20T17:40:11.646-05:00My Speech at Martin Luther King RallyI was asked to be one of the speakers at our community's Martin Luther King Rally today. Here is my speech, which I was asked to keep to three to five minutes:<span style="font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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First giving honor to God, who is the head of my life. It is my honor to participate in this celebration of the life and work of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. I have always lived in a world partially shaped by Dr. King. I was in kindergarten when he was assassinated. So everything he ever did, every speech he ever gave, all that happened before I had any awareness of Dr. King or of the Civil Rights Movement. It was all "history" to me.<br />
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It was not until I graduated from Union College, went to seminary, and became the pastor of an African-American congregation that I began to understand the import of King’s life and work. I became good friends with a member of this congregation. He was (and still is) seven or eight years older than me. One day he and I were watching the Reds, and he was telling me about playing baseball in school. He mentioned the name of a school and said, “Of course, we never could play against them.” Mystified, I asked why. He said, “Rev, when I started Little League, I went to a black school. We weren't allowed to play against the white schools.” This friend of mine, just seven or eight years older than me had experienced segregation firsthand. My perspective of the world whirled a little in my head that day.<br />
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This congregation taught me how to preach. After I'd been there a few months, the Pastor/Parish Relations Committee sent Brian (my baseball friend) to talk to me about my sermons. He said they liked what I had to say, but they wished I'd just preach it like I <i><b>believed </b></i>it. Seminary may have taught me how to write a sermon, but this congregation taught me how to deliver it. The people there also taught me how to be a pastor out in the community, being a voice for people who may not have much of a voice in the community. I learned so much about the privilege I have, benefits I didn't earn but which are simply given to me because of the color of my skin.<br />
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When I graduated from seminary and it was time for me to move to another church, as we were packing my belongings into a horse trailer -- yes, the church I was going to moved us in a horse trailer -- people from the congregation we were leaving came and saw us off, family by family, person by person. They hugged our necks and wished us well. As I drove off to my new church, I sang spirituals and cried the entire way. This congregation taught me not just how to be a pastor but to be more fully a human being. As I was preparing these remarks, I said I just had to honor Ebenezer United Methodist Church in Cynthiana, Kentucky, even if I didn't mention them by name. Of course, I just <i>had</i> to mention them by name.<br />
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A provocative blog post making the rounds this week, but actually written three years ago, is entitled “<a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/29/1011562/-Most-of-you-have-no-idea-what-Martin-Luther-King-actually-did" target="_blank">Most of you have no idea what Martin Luther King actually did</a>.” In it author Hamden Rice says that Dr. King did more than march and give speeches. He says, “Dr. King ended the terror of living . . . as a black person, especially in the south.” How did he do it? Rice says King “crisscrossed the south organizing people, <b>helping them not be afraid</b>, and encouraging them, <b>like Gandhi did in India, to take the beating</b> that they had been trying to avoid all their lives. <b>Once the beating was over, we were free.</b> It wasn't the Civil Rights Act, or the Voting Rights Act or the Fair Housing Act that freed us. It was<b> taking the beating and thereafter not being afraid</b>.”<br />
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Rice doesn't go into King’s philosophical or religious background that gave him the tools to organize people in this way, but I think this is the core of King’s work. He trained people to prepare themselves spiritually before a nonviolent direct action, to purge themselves of hatred and to prepare themselves to accept suffering without retaliation. I don't know how they did this or if I could ever do it myself.<br />
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We gather today at this courthouse under no threat of police dogs, no threat of fire hoses, no threat of billy clubs, no threat of vigilantes meeting us with guns. King and others like him taught people how to meet those threats and those realities, how to accept them, and how not to retaliate against them. Because the triple evils of poverty, racism, and militarism are still strong, we could do worse than to engage King’s dream through our own spiritual preparation for nonviolent direct action in order to confront these triple evils and in so doing to bring about the Beloved Community that King described as one “where justice prevails and persons attain their full human potential.” <br />
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Thank God for what Martin Luther King has done in the past, and thank God for what others are doing now and will do in the future for the sake of God’s vision for the world. With Dr. King we invoke the prophet Amos and beseech God, “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”<br />
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Amen.<br />
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David Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07650300919139654311noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1662873843702764917.post-75123598455869927642014-01-19T18:41:00.000-05:002014-01-19T18:41:21.956-05:00My Personal Calling StatementThe theme of this evening's episode of <a href="http://www.darkwoodbrew.org/" target="_blank">Darkwood Brew</a> is that of Calling. I made a few comments about a Personal Calling Statement I wrote for myself in 1999, which I have used (as updated when needed) as a road map ever since. Here is the statement, for those who might be interested:<br />
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">My
Personal Calling<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">is
to accept love, to grow, and to love others into growing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">My mission in life is to accept myself as I
am while striving to become a person of complete and mature love and to accept
others as they are while simultaneously helping them to grow in love as they
move toward their own life destinies. I
feel that I am most fully engaged in this while enjoying life with my loved
ones and while engaged in the pursuit of integrating the life of the mind and
the life of the spirit. My spiritual
roots are Christian, and for many years I have been nourished and nurtured by
inclusive Protestantism. I honor these
roots by walking the way of love taught, practiced, and lived by Jesus, even as
this love impels me beyond the bounds of Christian tradition as I seek goodness,
truth, and beauty in every person and in the world’s wisdom as expressed in religion,
literature, history, music, art, philosophy, and science. I see these expressions of wisdom as gifts of
the divine that liberate people from whatever binds them and that help people
grow into their own life destinies. Wherever
it is found, I will study this wisdom appreciatively, critically, and with a
postcritical naivete; I will teach it in ways that are appropriate to the
development of those around me; and I will practice it in ways that are
integral to who I am now and to who I hope to become.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">My life is guided by these values:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Unconditional
love: My life is rooted in the
lives of those who have loved me no matter what: my <b>God</b>, my wife <b>Grace</b>
and son <b>Keith</b>, my best <b>friends</b>, and my <b>mentors</b>. They empower me to share that love with
more and more people.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Relationships: As I seek proactively to establish new
relationships, I will strengthen existing ones by returning people’s love
and acceptance and by being there for them.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Growth: As I grow, I pledge my love to others
during their own life discoveries, their successes and their failures, by
encouraging them to grow into their own life destinies, without pressuring
them to be what I want them to be.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Justice: My heart aches at systems that keep
people from actualizing their God-given potential.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Joy
(and Joy’s little brother Fun): I have come to experience God more fully
when I lose myself by experiencing play, beauty, ecstasy, imagination, and
wonder.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">My vision is to become . . .<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">a whole soul</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">,
whom love has liberated and healed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">a loving person</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">,
who touches more and more people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">a spiritual teacher and leader</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">,
with both a large heart and skillful “hands” engaged in organizing and
communicating ideas, creating processes, casting vision, inspiring passion, and
mentoring leaders.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">so that . . .<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">let God’s light shine in my life by
actively seeking to see that light in others.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">engage in spiritual practices, alone
and with others, that penetrate to the depths of who we are so that we can be
liberated from what binds us and lifted up to become the persons we were
created to become.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">have finished my dissertation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">my family and friends are strong and
joyful, finding Spirit in the flow of love,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">in particular, so that my son Keith,
who has become an adult with an array of competencies for living, based on
love, acceptance, and continued growth into his own destiny, will develop such
a mutual relationship with his new wife Auburn,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">and that my wife Grace and I are more
in love than ever.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">those around me experience the love
and acceptance that gives strength to find and take their next steps of
development </span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">toward
fulfilling their own unique life calling,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">particularly
that my students learn spiritual wisdom and experience love, rooting them in
their own faith traditions and exposing them to other life-giving traditions,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">and
particularly that Union College will have specific, functioning systems for helping
students, faculty, and staff engage in the spiritual quest by walking the way
of love in all its<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">breadth—intentional
practices of love, hospitality, welcome, and inclusion so that people know
that, no matter who they are, they are loved and welcome at Spiritual Life
activities.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">depth—practices
of love that go all the way to the core of who we are, digging down deep in our
spirituality, learning who we are by studying the Bible and other spiritual
writings, by praying and worshiping together, and by serving others together.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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love that lift us up to become persons characterized by love, joy, peace,
patience,</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> kindness, generosity, faithfulness,
gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).</span><span style="font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
David Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07650300919139654311noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1662873843702764917.post-57140180855716839132013-11-17T00:41:00.002-05:002013-11-17T00:41:38.409-05:00The Bishop's Wedding Band"Do you know the General Rules of our Church?" the bishop asked us as we stood before the Clergy Session. "Will you keep them?"<br />
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These General Rules originated in John Wesley's Methodist Societies, and one of them is a prohibition of "The putting on of gold. . . ." This is under the heading of "doing no harm." I was taught in seminary that it had to do with Wesley's insistence that he could not wear gold when his neighbor had no bread, although I don't actually recall reading that in any of Wesley's writings. (I'd be happy if someone were to tell me where that might be found, if it is true.)<br />
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Anyway, the irony is that both the bishop and I (and others of my fellow ordinands) were wearing wedding bands made of gold. None of us were winking and nodding at each other when we were asked those historic questions and when we answered in the affirmative. We understood that our context is not that of Wesley. We understood that the specific rules Wesley imposed on his Societies are not timeless, whereas the General Rules to do no harm, do all the good we can, and to stay in love with God (to use Bishop Job's updated language for the third General Rule) ARE timeless.<br />
<br />
So when bishops claim they have no choice but to follow the specific letter of canonical law regardless of whether doing so is an act that does harm, I think they have their priorities backward. Covenants are living and changing, made of flesh and blood, bone and sinew, love and grace, and not simply words in a book. So I'll continue to wear my wedding band without the slightest feeling that I'm threatening the integrity of our clergy covenant by doing so, and I'll continue to minister with and to all persons regardless of sexual orientation and without reservation.<br />
<br />
What it means to do no harm, to do good, and to stay in love with God changes over time. Look at our bishops' wedding bands and think of the harm it does to LGBTQI persons to deny them their right to wear one.David Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07650300919139654311noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1662873843702764917.post-67910059841089052662013-05-19T19:49:00.000-04:002013-05-19T22:21:20.310-04:00Does Being a Jerk Automatically Make You Racist?I recently ran across a wonderful series of blog posts about "<a href="http://www.christenacleveland.com/tag/listening-well/" target="_blank">Listening Well as a Person of Privilege</a>" by Christena Cleveland. As a straight, white, educated, middle-income male, I am such a person of privilege. In <a href="http://divinesalve.blogspot.com/2012/08/why-i-keep-ranting-about-gay-rights_20.html" target="_blank">a previous blog post</a> I have recounted my introduction to the idea of privilege a long time ago. I don't want to have privilege at others' expense, but that doesn't change the fact that I do. And I don't want my attempts to be an ally to those who do not have my privilege to be clumsy and counter-productive, but surely they sometimes are.<br />
<br />
A few days ago Cleveland posted "<a href="http://www.christenacleveland.com/2013/05/we-have-the-best-version-of-the-gospel-diversity-repellent/" target="_blank">We Have the Best Version of the Gospel</a>," which began in this way:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px;">Last month I heard a prominent leader of a national movement of mostly white Christians give a talk in which he compared his group’s beliefs to various other Christian groups (including more ethnically-diverse groups). While extolling the virtues of his group’s beliefs he proudly proclaimed, “We have the best version of the Gospel.” Now I’m not interested in busting any one person’s (or group’s) chops, and in fact, I give him a lot of credit for saying publicly what many of us say behind closed doors and in our hearts. But as a minority group member sitting in the audience, I found his statement to be unfriendly to diverse voices.</span></blockquote>
The unnamed prominent leader wound up being Tony Jones, who posted <a href="http://www.christenacleveland.com/2013/05/we-have-the-best-version-of-the-gospel-diversity-repellent/#comment-3857" target="_blank">this comment</a> to the blog:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="background-color: #fefefe; border: none; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 25px; outline: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
You got the quote wrong. I said, “We have a better version of the gospel.”</div>
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“Best” would foreclose discussion and conversation. Thus, I would not say that.</div>
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“Better” was clearly aimed at the conservative, evangelical, penal substitutionary model that is regnant in America today.</div>
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Your misquote of me makes all the difference. But it seems a misquote works in your favor.</div>
</blockquote>
Cleveland updated her blog, changing the word "best" to "better" (except in the URL), but, as far as I can tell, she changed nothing else. Jones later posted "<a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tonyjones/2013/05/16/im-tired-of-being-called-a-racist/" target="_blank">I'm Tired of Being Called a Racist</a>" to his own blog, which has fueled much heat on the intertubes. The whole thing is somewhat reminiscent of a previous brouhaha surrounding a post of his entitled "<a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tonyjones/2012/11/28/where-are-the-women/" target="_blank">Where Are the Women?</a>" in which he wondered aloud why his blog audience is overwhelmingly male.<br />
<br />
Until the end of the conference in question in which he gave this talk, every online interaction I've ever had with Jones had been prickly. In those various interactions, he accused me of misrepresenting him. He ignored my most scathing Socratic questioning of his positions (obviously because he had no response; victory is mine!). <br />
<br />
And I was part of the chorus of Twitter criticisms of the very talk of his mentioned by Cleveland. I don't have a photographic memory or anything (what's the aural equivalent of that?), so I don't know for certain that Jones said "better" rather than "best." But he posted <a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tonyjones/2013/04/06/can-postmodern-theology-live-in-our-churches-stn2/" target="_blank">his notes</a> for that talk the day after he gave the talk. Those notes read, "We have a better version of the gospel than the regnant view of the gospel in the West today." This matches up with <a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tonyjones/2013/02/13/why-a-crucifixion-a-proggod-challenge-with-prizes/" target="_blank">something he wrote earlier this year</a>: ". . . I think that progressives have a better version of the gospel than conservatives. . . ."<br />
<br />
That seems to me to be something entirely and categorically different from "We have the best version of the Gospel," and it doesn't seem at all to me that he "compared his group’s beliefs to various other Christian groups (including more ethnically-diverse groups)" as Cleveland claims.<br />
<br />
It's been a few days, and I haven't read anyone actually engage what he said, so I <a href="https://twitter.com/dkmiller/status/335992759733329922" target="_blank">tweeted </a>that sentiment last night. I've had a few responses, some of which linked to posts that the respondent thought addressed what Jones actually said. None of them do so, though. Every one of them indicate that he said he has the best version of the Gospel or some paraphrase of that misquote. None of them quote him or characterize accurately what he actually said. Not one. Zero. I'm drawing this out intentionally. NONE of them accurately report what he said. Some people whom I read regularly and whom I respect are still perpetuating the inaccurate quote and are inexplicably (to me, anyway) pointing me to the posts with the inaccurate quote as if those posts are engaging what he actually said.<br />
<br />
When I point this out, I get three kinds of responses:<br />
<br />
1) "Better" is no better than "best." It's still the same.<br />
2) Jones is a jerk in general and in his response to Cleveland in particular, which proves Cleveland's point.<br />
3) Cleveland is a person of color and, if she says Jones's comment was racist or racially insensitive or antagonistic to diversity, then it was. She gets to decide.<br />
<br />
Response type # 1: "Better" is no better than "best." It's still the same.<br />
<br />
Cleveland herself says almost the same thing in <a href="http://www.christenacleveland.com/2013/05/we-have-the-best-version-of-the-gospel-diversity-repellent/#comment-3859" target="_blank">her response</a> to Jones's comment on her blog: "I think a key to welcoming diverse voices involves active, intentional and demonstrative 'interpretive humility' that would tend to shy away even from adjectives like 'better.'" Really? The Emergent movement isn't better than Pat Robertson? This is what Jones was saying, not that his version of the Gospel is better than that of "more ethnically-diverse groups."<br />
<br />
I'm a mainliner. We have our own problems, including racism both personal and systemic. I don't self-identify as part of the Emergent movement, and I'm neither an evangelical nor a post-evangelical. There is a critique of Emergent that it is led by white males and that it excludes other voices. That's a related conversation and one that is worth having. That's not what I'm addressing, though.<br />
<br />
Trying to overcome racism is better than perpetuating it. Becoming aware of one's implicit racism is better than remaining blind to it. Accurately quoting someone is better than misquoting them. Am I discouraging diversity by saying out loud these things I believe to be better than others? If so, so be it, but I tend to think not.<br />
<br />
Response type # 2: Jones is a jerk in general and in his response to Cleveland in particular, which proves Cleveland's point.<br />
<br />
It's hard to be on Jones's side in all this, and when he reads what I say here he might wish I hadn't taken up his cause. He really is, as I've characterized him above, prickly. He quite often sounds hostile, defensive, and overconfident in his own Ivy-League education (a 2-degree Ivy Leaguer). As a person of privilege, he has not listened well to Cleveland. But neither have others listened well to him. It's hard to listen well to someone who is pushing your buttons. I don't know whether he has pushed Cleveland's buttons, but it seems to me that he has done so for those who point to his jerkiness as proof of what Cleveland says about him.<br />
<br />
As one respondent to my tweet <a href="https://twitter.com/ggbolt16/status/336205871690416128" target="_blank">said</a>, "I’m just unclear about whether or not the comments were racist or not is the conversation," to which I <a href="https://twitter.com/dkmiller/status/336214515848970241" target="_blank">replied</a>, "Ah, I think that was my original point." The conversation has become about Jones being a jerk, which somehow proves he's a racist or that he discourages diversity. Is this actually true, though? I don't see how. His responses to Cleveland's post and his subsequent responses to others in the conversation cannot determine whether the initial charges are true. Regardless of whether Jones is a jerk, no one is talking about what he actually said in the talk. That is apparently, to some people, not the question, but it's my question.<br />
<br />
Response type # 3: Cleveland is a person of color and, if she says Jones's comment was racist or racially insensitive or antagonistic to diversity, then it was. She gets to decide.<br />
<br />
I was once privileged to attend a National Workshop on Christian-Jewish Relations. I think it was in 1990. My (mainline) seminary sent me, along with two other students. In the Q&A at the end of one of the sessions, someone in the audience, who I later learned was Cornel West, used the word "holocaust" to describe the experience of African-Americans. One of the Jewish attendees objected, saying that for West to use that word in reference to anything other than the Jewish holocaust was antisemitic, designed to diminish what the Jewish people have suffered. Was it? If so, was it antisemitic because of the inherent content of West's statement, or was it because a Jewish person in the audience said it was? If one of the African-American attendees had decided that the Jewish person's objection was racist, would that have made it so?<br />
<br />
People of privilege certainly must learn to listen well, and I don't think Jones has done this at all. But the corollary to that cannot be that anything a person of color declares to be racist or antagonistic to diversity automatically and uncritically is so.<br />
<br />
<br />
So is it "unfriendly to diverse voices" to say what he actually said, "We have a better version of the gospel than the regnant view of the gospel in the West today"? Or is it even a comparison with "more ethnically-diverse groups"? For the life of me, I can't see how.<br />
<br />
I'm willing to listen, and I want to listen well.David Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07650300919139654311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1662873843702764917.post-31414138173724283482013-05-11T19:41:00.001-04:002013-05-12T16:44:34.134-04:00My Meditation at the Union College Board of Trustees Meeting, Spring 2013<br />
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">David Miller<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Meditation<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Union College Board of Trustees, Spring 2013<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">In 1986 (I think), Union held a Methodist Heritage Day in the
chapel. President Phillips spoke a bit
about our Methodist heritage. The
District Superintendent was here, and he had a few words. There was music and a performance by Dr.
Pettys’s Oral Interpretation class. I
was a member of that class, and we presented a group oral interpretation of
James Weldon Johnson’s poem “The Creation,” which ends in this way:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Then God sat down –<br />
On the side of a hill where he could think;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">By a deep, wide river
he sat down;<br />
With his head in his hands,<br />
God thought and thought,<br />
Till he thought: I’ll make me a man!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Up from the bed of the
river<br />
God scooped the clay;<br />
And by the bank of the river<br />
He kneeled him down;<br />
And there the great God Almighty<br />
Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky,<br />
Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night,<br />
Who rounded the earth in the middle of his hand;<br />
This Great God,<br />
Like a mammy bending over her baby,<br />
Kneeled down in the dust<br />
Toiling over a lump of clay<br />
Till he shaped it in his own image;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Then into it he blew
the breath of life,<br />
And man became a living soul.<br />
Amen. Amen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 12pt;">The passage of Scripture from which
Johnson took his inspiration contains the two creation myths found in Genesis. Dr. Eric Elnes, who will be our Staley
Lecturer in the Fall, </span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">explains
the message of Genesis 1 & 2 in relation to another, influential creation
myth existing at the time the biblical story was being told, written, and
edited. He says that Genesis contains creation myths written in
conversation with the creation myth of the Babylonians. He says, if we read only the Bible and not also
the Babylonian myth, it’s like hearing one side of a telephone
conversation. We can only make sense of Genesis
if we hear the conversation it is having with this other text. So let’s listen in to both sides of the
conversation.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
Babylonian myth says creation is the result of a storm god’s slaying of an
ocean goddess, symbol of chaos, in the form of a dragon or sea serpent.
The heavens and earth are created when her body is cut down the middle.
Creation is violent and chaotic.
Genesis replies back, the heavens and the earth are created when God
speaks. Creation is rational and
orderly.<br />
<br />
The Babylonian myth says only the king is created in the image of the gods. Genesis responds, all of humanity is created
in God's image. The Babylonian myth says human beings are formed by the
gods from the clay of the earth and are infused with the blood of the slain
chaos monster. Genesis says, yes, we are formed from the dust of the
earth, but we are filled, not with the blood of a chaos monster, but with the
very breath of God. The Babylonian myth
says we are darkness. Genesis says we
are light, so let our light shine!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I
think a liberal education functions in a similar way. I don’t want to make some false equivalency
between the Bible and higher education, but I do believe an analogy can be
made. Students are inspired to see
themselves as possessing a depth and breadth and height that other voices whispering
in their ears would deny. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Some
voices tell students they are no more than consumers. Service learning says they have the capacity
to give. Marketing tells them they are
nothing more than their demographics.
Enlightenment philosophers say they are individuals possessing
inexhaustible potential. Materialism
says they are nothing more than biochemical processes. Performing “The Creation” at a chapel service
says they are living souls. When they
read Faulkner or discover their capacity for reason when a professor uses the
Socratic Method or excel when no one had believed in them before, these false
voices of darkness are revealed to be lies.
Our students are light! Let our
light shine! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A
liberal education reveals to students that they are more than they have been
led to believe. The depth and breadth
and height of the human spirit are revealed to students in their studies and
other collegiate experiences.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But,
as the following stories in Genesis attest, we are fallible human beings, so
sometimes our collective voice joins the chorus of the false voices. This happens when we fail to expect students to fully
experience the depth or the breadth or the height that we know they possess or when
we treat them as means to an end, perhaps an institutional end—and we know we
all sometimes do both of these. We can also
do this when we, whether members of the board, of the administration, the
faculty, or the staff treat each other as merely means to institutional ends or
to personal agendas—and we know we all sometimes do this too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Despite
this fallibility, an important part of what we are engaged in at Union is the development
of the soul, both in the biblical and in the classical sense. A liberal education inspires students to see
themselves in a different light, to bring to light aspects of themselves they
never knew existed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Union
College students, staff, faculty, and board members, we are created in the
image of God. Let our light shine! Amen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
David Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07650300919139654311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1662873843702764917.post-40524807902992017602013-05-08T02:49:00.001-04:002013-05-08T02:49:17.549-04:00Cleanup<br />
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Cleanup<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Clorox bottle stuck in a tree <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
twenty feet above the waterline.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Come on in. The water’s fine<o:p></o:p></div>
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as long as you don’t mind the shit and the pee<o:p></o:p></div>
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streaming from the straightpipes.<o:p></o:p></div>
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What keeps me up late nights,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
though, is the knowledge that I drink this stuff.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Even with a filter,<o:p></o:p></div>
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this is out of kilter!<o:p></o:p></div>
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What’s even worse than that is the slough<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
from the mining runoff.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This is no one-off.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It pours into our water supply every day.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Heavy metals.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Regulator settles<o:p></o:p></div>
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for a pittance, considering the way<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
we have to swallow<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
what flows into our hollow.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Seems like it’s the case that the trash in the river<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
is the least of our worries.<o:p></o:p></div>
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EPA’s in no hurry.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
They make their promise, but they rarely deliver.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Government’s been bought.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Don’t do what they ought<o:p></o:p></div>
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to. And we all just accept that’s
the way it is.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Well, maybe not all of us.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Some fools say, “Follow us<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
down to the river for a daytrip<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
cleanup.” And other fools get
arrested<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
trying to get the water tested.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
And even other fools line up in front of the Whitehouse,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
zipties on their hands,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
calling out, “Clean up our land!”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
You know, maybe those fools are a lighthouse,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
revealing the danger,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
trying to arrange our<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
response to mind-numbing irresponsibility.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Will it work?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Regardless, I can’t shirk<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
my duty to try with all my ability.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Pick up that trash.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Make a splash<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
in the halls of the powerful by pestering<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
them. Call attention<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
to their pretension.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
If we don’t do something, this will just keep on festering.<o:p></o:p></div>
David Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07650300919139654311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1662873843702764917.post-63663601372080335562013-03-26T17:13:00.000-04:002013-03-27T23:12:09.381-04:00Why I Include Anyone and Everyone in Spiritual Life Activities<br />
In this blog post, I want to address the reasoning behind why I include people of all faiths or even no faith at all in every Spiritual Life activity we have at Union College. The main reason is that The United Methodist Church values both Christian spiritual formation and interfaith engagement. In every report I send to the college trustees or to the denomination about our campus ministries, I report on both of these areas. When Union is evaluated by The United Methodist Church, to determine whether we are working according to the standards of the denomination, I am asked by a denominational representative, “What are you doing to make sure the spiritual needs of people of other religions are being met.”<br />
<br />
Some religious groups might separate the two, Christian spiritual formation and interfaith engagement, but, because of the teachings of The United Methodist Church, I don’t make much of a distinction. The United Methodist Church does not teach the binary opposition of saved/unsaved that some other churches make. Certainly some individual persons and some individual churches within The United Methodist Church do so, but our common theology does not.<br />
<br />
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, taught that the “scripture way of salvation” is a process, and, while there are landmarks to be observed along that process, there is no point before which one can definitively say that one is “unsaved” and after which one is “saved.” For the Methodist all three statements are equally true: I have been saved. I am being saved. I will be saved. A Methodist understanding of salvation, in the words of Wesley, has as its goal that we would be “saved to the uttermost” (and I’ll explain what that means).<br />
<br />
This process of salvation is a journey along a path and not simply a destination. The landmarks along this path are:<br />
<br />
+ prevenient grace—God prepares us to say “yes” to God. <br />
+ justifying grace—God declares us to be just or right with God. <br />
+ sanctifying grace—God makes us holy, actually just and righteous people. <br />
+ glorifying grace—at death, God removes all aspects of our lives that were not wholly just and righteous. <br />
<br />
In this view, salvation is not simply a ticket into heaven or an escape from hell, but it is a process by which we are perfected in love. That is what being saved to the uttermost means. Wesley goes so far as to say that we can become as holy, just, righteous, and loving as Jesus was. This is the goal. When I was ordained, I was asked, “Are you going on to perfection? Do you expect to be made perfect in love in this life?” These are questions Wesley asked all his preachers. <br />
<br />
The word “perfection” meant something a bit different in those days than it does now. Now we think of something perfect and we picture something as if there is nothing in it that could be made better. In Wesley’s day it meant something more like “fully mature” or “complete.” So when I say that I expect to be made perfect in love or that you can expect to be made perfect in love in this life, I do not mean that we won’t make mistakes or won’t do the wrong thing on occasion. I mean that our lives will become completely oriented around love. I certainly don’t claim to be there yet, but that is the goal.<br />
<br />
Wesley sometimes used a house as an analogy for this “order of salvation.” Imagine the porch of prevenient grace, where anyone can sit around in rocking chairs getting to know each other. There are no requirements of any kind to sit at this porch. We can’t reject prevenient grace, and we can’t accept it. It’s just given to us freely. Everyone receives this kind of grace from God. This porch is the place where we meet to decide whether to walk through the door into the house. The porch is where we learn what walking through the door would mean. On the other side of the door is a life of becoming perfected in love. That is God’s desire for everyone, that we would actualize the potential for love that God has breathed into our soul. What do you have to do in order to enter this kind of life, one in which we are being perfected in love? Bishop Reuben Job updates the language of Wesley’s rules for the first Methodists:<br />
<br />
+ Do no harm. <br />
+ Do good. <br />
+ Stay in love with God.<br />
<br />
This is the “scripture way of salvation.”<br />
<br />
The door is Jesus’ teachings about love, Jesus’ practices of love, and Jesus’ life of love. Walking through the door would be my way of saying “yes” to God’s desire that I become perfected in love and would be my way of making a commitment to do no harm, do good, and stay in love with God. This is justifying grace. There is a condition to this grace. I can reject or accept it. It is my choice whether I walk through the door, but I can’t exercise that choice without God having given it to me in the first place.<br />
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Being saved to the uttermost means cooperating with God’s sanctifying grace, whereby we are made holy, just, and righteous. And this happens by becoming more and more loving. <br />
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This is the question I pose to any and all who would walk this path with me. Do you want at the center of your life the way of love that Jesus taught, practiced, and lived? Imagine me sitting on the porch, asking a student or a faculty member that very question. Imagine them saying “yes.” Imagine us opening the door only to find a wall with a sign that says:<br />
<br />
+ Progressives only<br />
+Mainliners only<br />
+Traditional Christians only<br />
+Evangelicals only<br />
+Orthodox only<br />
+Straights only<br />
+Creationists only<br />
+Christians only<br />
<br />
The Book of Ephesians has a name for that wall—“the dividing wall of hostility” (2:14). This passage uses temple language, and the interpretation of the passage that makes the most sense to me is that the dividing wall of hostility is the wall that kept Gentiles out of the temple proper. They could come in so far, into the Court of Gentiles, but no further. Some of the Christians at Ephesus were trying to make everyone who came to Jesus first convert to Judaism. The author of Ephesians says there is no place for such a division, for such a dividing wall of hostility. There is no difference between Jews and Gentiles. Christ has torn down the dividing wall of hostility, allowing any and all to enter into the presence of God.<br />
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If, as The United Methodist Church teaches, the goal of salvation is to save us to the uttermost, to perfect us in love, anything that gets in the way of that is a dividing wall of hostility. So I say, “Down with the walls.” <br />
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Imagine me sitting on the porch of prevenient grace with a Buddhist student. (This is entirely hypothetical. I have had no such conversation with a Buddhist student. But imagine it.) I describe the life that is centered on the way of love that Jesus taught, practiced, and lived. This person says, “This reminds me a lot of what is said in the Urdana-Varga: ‘Do not treat others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.’ I might be interested in walking with you along the path you describe.” Should this person reject their Buddhism and become a Christian? Maybe. That’s certainly a possibility, if that’s what the person, after much discernment, decided to do. But that’s certainly not why I’m on the porch talking about Jesus’ way of love.<br />
<br />
There are Christians who are as far away from being saved to the uttermost as it is possible to be. Wesley said that a Christian who started along the path but who was not nurtured toward love often became more “a child of the devil” than when they’d begun. On the other hand, there are others, who may not identify themselves as “Christians” for one reason or another, whose lives are filled with justice, righteousness, and, most importantly, love. It seems to me that those persons, regardless of whether they are Christians or not, are being saved to the uttermost. I would be honored to walk the way of love with a Buddhist or any other human being on the planet, without regard to their culturally identified religion. Any dividing wall of hostility that would keep these people out? I’m going to do everything I can to tear down that wall!<br />
<br />
Does that mean I think all religions are the same? No, some expressions of religion are driven by purity, which in their most radical forms, turn into hate. Other expressions are centered on love. Which religion(s) does God prefer, I wonder? I think God prefers those expressions of religion that convert people to love.<br />
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God doesn't care whether you're Methodist or Muslim, Adventist or Atheist, Jehovah's Witness or Jewish, Baptist or Buddhist, Holiness or Hindu, Presbyterian or Pagan. If your religion turns you into a hateful person, it's the wrong religion for you. On the other hand, if your religion turns you into a loving person, you are born of God (1 John 4:7), regardless of what your religion might be or might not be.<br />
<br />
So here we are, you and I, sitting metaphorically on that porch of prevenient grace. Wesley once said, “If your heart is as my heart, give me your hand.” My heart is set on walking the way of love that Jesus taught, practiced, and lived. My heart is to be made perfect in love and to shepherd others along this path. Is your heart as my heart? If it is, I invite you to walk through the door with me, to help me become perfected in love as I help you to do the same, to do no harm, to do good, and to stay in love with God. I invite you to share your spiritual treasures with me, as I share my spiritual treasures with you. No matter who you are, I invite you to walk with the Union community as we move closer to love.David Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07650300919139654311noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1662873843702764917.post-39946450531627585792013-03-24T17:18:00.002-04:002013-03-24T17:24:56.916-04:00American Jesus Madness -- My Round-Four PicksThe past few days have been busy for me, and I'm way behind in my picks for American Jesus Madness. The <a href="http://theamericanjesus.net/?p=9322" target="_blank">results </a>for Round Three were devastating to my bracket standings, knocking me off my perch at the top all the way off the leader board. Hurting my bracket, Scot McKnight handily beat #RickWarrenTips, and Mark Sandlin's army of voters demolished Christian Humility. Stephanie Drury, for whom I advocated in my <a href="http://divinesalve.blogspot.com/2013/03/american-jesus-madness-my-round-three.html" target="_blank">last post</a>, even though I did not have her down to make it this far in my original bracket, had almost five times the number of votes as Ann Voskamp. The only aid to my bracket was Rachel Held Evans's win over Rob Bell's Missing Glasses. I take total credit for her win (no Christian Humility here, either), with my video of her steamroller going over those glasses. (/begin humility Truth be told, her tweeting my blog post that had that video gave me twice as many pageviews as I've ever had on this blog. /end humility) I'm still taking credit for her win.<br />
<br />
This leaves the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Considering that half of the horsemen are women, I'm calling them the Four Buckaroos of Biblical Proportions. Inclusive language is important. Silliness is even more important.<br />
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<h3>
Scot McKnight vs. Mark Sandlin</h3>
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What can I say? Mark's followers vote until their fingers bleed. Scot's a nice guy, but nice guys finish last. Buh bye. Mark Sandlin will have ten times the votes Scot will have, or my name isn't David My-Bracket's-Busted Miller.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>Rachel Held Evans vs. Stephanie Drury</b></div>
<div>
Rachel was the runner-up last year, so I am told. I didn't have Stephanie making it this far. I had Rachel going up against Homebrewed Christianity in this round. I had Homebrewed Christianity taking Rachel down this round, but that's not going to happen. Stephanie had 3,837 votes last round, while Rachel had only 1,374. I'm rooting for the underdog, which at the moment looks like Rachel. <a href="http://theamericanjesus.net/?p=9322" target="_blank">Vote for Rachel</a>.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
Did I mention my bracket's busted?</div>
David Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07650300919139654311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1662873843702764917.post-91413719309738112672013-03-22T01:09:00.001-04:002013-03-22T22:15:12.557-04:00Union College, Let Your Light Shine and Let Your Soul Fly FreeThis is going to be a little personal and more than a little long. My apologies for the length.<br />
<br />
Some months ago I began intentionally, at the beginning of each worship service, to open myself to encounter God. It might be anything in the service, something the pastor said, the flames of the candle, a hymn, a song by the choir, anything. One morning last fall, I sat down after the passing of the peace and noticed one of the parishioners, Elizabeth, still standing, waiting for one of her friends to join her. Elizabeth was 90 when I became her pastor in 2000. She was still driving then, picking up friends and bringing them to church. When she gave up driving a few years after that, if the weather was good, she walked everywhere. She walked the several blocks from her house to church, many more blocks to the post office, everywhere. She's not doing that so much anymore, as she's now over 100 years old.<br />
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There she stood, and I smiled as all that ran through my mind. I thought of her being at church Sunday after Sunday, as a witness. In my imagination, I began to see light streaming from her as she let her light shine, and I played with that image. I began to feel a flow of love streaming from her, and I thought, "Oh, an encounter with God." All of a sudden, I imagined light and love streaming from everyone in that sanctuary. It was more than a little emotional. My throat was all constricted, and I could barely croak out the words of the hymn that I found myself singing. Later in the service, during the time for prayer requests, I shared my experience. They give me a little latitude there, letting me speak briefly sometimes when others might not. I was their pastor four years, before becoming the chaplain at the college in town. I told them about my experience, saying that I didn't want to keep it all to myself and that I had come to realize that all of us, having been made in the image of God, is always shining, blazing with the fire, the light, and the love of God, but that we're just not always aware of each other in that way. After the service, one of the parishioners thanked me for sharing my revelation. I politely thanked her for her kind words, but internally objected that I had not claimed to have received a revelation, only that I had played with this image in my imagination and had found it powerful. Upon reflection, I have decided that the two interpretations can both stand. If that imaginary scene builds me up and builds up my community of faith, by faith I receive it as a revelation from God.<br />
<br />
A few months later, I attended a continuing education event about campus ministry. During a worship and prayer time, I intentionally opened myself, asking, “How can I encounter God in this time?” We sang a few songs and prayed, and I had the distinct impression of a human figure, a person, hunkered over against the wind. Suddenly that person stood up and held out their arms. They had one of those wing suits or glide suits, you know, with the webbing between the arms. It was all in one fluid motion. Snap, like the sails of a boat catching in the wind, and this person flew straight up. Now, this image has several different meanings to me. One, it had a very personal meaning for me as an individual. But, two, I began thinking about campus ministry in a new way. We have some good programs here, and every year is a bit stronger than the previous one. But I knew there were many ways I had been hunkering down against the wind of finances, the wind of problems with facilities, the wind of being a mainline ministry in a very conservative area, the wind of the fear of being too churchy to students who are fleeing toxic church backgrounds. I thought and prayed and meditated on these two images for a long time -- the light of the image of God shining, blazing even, from everyone if only we have eyes to see and the hunkered figure who finally stands up and flies.<br />
<br />
So I did what no sane person should ever do. I told my district superintendent, the pastor who oversees about forty other pastors as middle management for the bishop. Middle management likes numbers and stability (stable growth is preferred, to be sure, but stability nonetheless), not talk of fire and light and wind. But he was asking me whether I wanted to stay another year at this appointment or to move on to another place. I had to tell him what was in my heart, so I did. And I cried in front of my boss. I told him if I stayed, I was going to seek eleven people on campus -- Jesus could shepherd twelve, but I'm no Jesus -- who would commit to spending an hour of worship with me each week, an hour a week in small group, and an hour a week one-on-one. I said, if I could find those eleven people, the spiritual life of Union College would fly. He gave me all the support I could hope for, encouraging me to do just what I was feeling I should do.<br />
<br />
So I talked to my student leaders. I gave them each a stone with a cross engraved into it, and I told them a story about spiritual depth. Then I told them about my two images. I told them that I see the beauty, truth, and goodness of God inside them. I told them that any of them who would commit to be one of that eleven, I would commit to helping them to dig deep; to discover who they are; to find their own unique beauty, truth, and goodness; and to polish the image of God within them until it shone, until it blazed, until they could spiritually fly. And I cried in front of my students.<br />
<br />
One of them texted me later that day: "Your words this morning were so uplifting. Thank you so much for the rock. It holds a special place in my heart. I stepped out of the room and felt like a whole new [me] just by listening to your words. Thank you!" I share this not because I think my words are so great but because this is a testimony of the fire that she feels burning inside her and her yearning to fly spiritually. And others of my student leaders -- not all but several -- share that yearning for depth, a yearning for more.<br />
<br />
Each meeting we've had since then, we've included worship and prayer time. Each meeting, I've expanded my vision of what we can become together. I explained <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerging_church#Centered_set" target="_blank">centered-set Christianity</a>, where there is no in-group and no out-group, but that the center of our common spirituality could become the way of love taught, practiced, and lived by Jesus. I said that whoever is moving toward that way of love, regardless of what they believe, regardless of even whether they identify as a Christian, would be living the spiritual life that Jesus calls us to live. As the first of the <a href="https://progressivechristianity.org/resources/the-phoenix-affirmations-full-version/" target="_blank">Phoenix Affirmations</a> puts it: "We affirm that the Path of Jesus is found wherever love of God, neighbor, and self are practiced together. Whether or not the path bears the name of Jesus, such paths bear the identity of Christ." Each meeting, I've invited them to share what they are receiving from God in their own personal spiritual practice. Together we are weaving a common vision of what we yearn to become together.<br />
<br />
Today at lunch, I shared this with a faculty member, and she was very encouraging. This evening, over dinner with some students and that faculty member, I started a discussion of the "nones." You know, the growing number of people who answer the question of religion with "none of the above." I also mentioned that Marcus Mumford of Mumford & Sons <a href="http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctliveblog/archives/2013/03/mumford-and-sons-namesake-favors-jesus-not-christianity.html" target="_blank">recently said that he wouldn't call himself a Christian because of the baggage the word carries</a>. I opened the table and mostly sat back and let the students talk. They agreed that "Christian" is in some ways a bad word, that they sometimes feel like apologizing for being a Christian because Christianity seems to be against everything they are for. (I want to note that not all of the student leaders in this campus ministry are Christians. The vast majority of our campus community will self-identify as either Christian or some kind of post-Christian like the "nones." But a small segment of our campus community are members of other religions, and I have made certain that some of the student leaders in our campus ministries come from other religions. Most of those leaders self-identify as Christian, but not all.)<br />
<br />
Some of what they said tonight has always been the case. There have always been hypocrites in the church. But much of what they said shows an increasing divide between what the church has been (and still is in most places) and where the spirituality of people, not only this generation, is headed. They cited the same things the polls have cited; Christianity is anti-gay, anti-science, too interested in one specific brand over against all others ("My clique is holier than your clique"), doesn't pay enough attention to social media as ways of connecting and learning about spirituality. These are the student leaders of the campus ministries at my college. We need to listen to them!<br />
<br />
Later this evening, I attended a concert on campus with the band <a href="http://www.appalatin.com/" target="_blank">Appalatin</a>. It is a fusion band, its members coming from South America, Central America, and Eastern Kentucky. Appalachian Latin. Appalatin. The small son of one of the band members was right down front, bobbing and dancing to the music, and I thought of his light shining, teaching those of us who have been socialized into just sitting there and nodding our heads or tapping our feet, if only we had eyes to see. Then I imagined all of us shining, blazing forth with light and love. It was an enjoyable image, and I thought of how we squeeze God into church services and don't think of spirituality in such a secular setting. But I was experiencing spirit or Spirit or whatever you might want to call it.<br />
<br />
I was startled when the band introduced a new song, saying it was about letting our light shine and letting our soul fly free. Light shine and soul fly free? After just talking today with my friend at lunch about this very thing? And after just thinking about that child teaching us how to shine and how to fly? I perked up! I wish I could link to the song or at least its lyrics, but, alas, it is not yet released and not available anywhere except at their live performances.<br />
<br />
So is this coincidence, synchronicity, or God? Yes, of course. It is all three. I do not believe in some magical figure in the sky pulling strings, controlling my destiny. But I do not discount the magical and the mythical, even while embracing the empirical and the rational. See my blog post entitled, "<a href="http://divinesalve.blogspot.com/2012/09/simultaneously-embracing-magical.html" target="_blank">Simultaneously Embracing the Magical, Mythical, Empirical, and Rational</a>" for a full explanation of this. This post is already too long.<br />
So here is how Appalatin has inspired me tonight.<br />
<br />
The life of the Spirit at Union College (Spiritual Life) can become our common life as lived out in the tension between the rootedness of home and the fusion of my spiritual home and your spiritual home. There can be no in-groups who think we have all the answers, that we are the only holy ones. There can be no out-groups that are considered to be wrong or ugly or bad. We all have spiritual treasures to share with the rest, just as Appalatin has Appalachian musical treasures and Latin musical treasures. Their fusion creates music that is unique and beautiful, and the fusion of our spiritual lives at Union can create something unique and beautiful, too. I'm not talking about some easy lowest-common-denominator kind of spirituality. Traditional songs from Ecuador gain new beauty when played with an Appalachian twang, and "Shady Grove" does so when played with a Latin beat.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/KMfnWufsb5U?rel=0" width="480"></iframe><br />
<br />
Spiritual Life at Union can become our common life as lived out in the tension between the handcrafted and mass culture. One of the musicians of Appalatin plays on traditional Ecuadoran instruments that he made himself. Many of the songs they play are written by themselves. But they also play on mass-produced instruments and play songs known and loved by many. Try "My Old Kentucky Home" in an Appalatin style (unfortunately, also not yet available online) as an example of both rootedness/hybridity and handcrafted/mass-culture. In worship at Union, we're going to sing songs by Mercy Me (or plug in your own mass-produced Christian music) and by John Newton ("Amazing Grace"), and we're going to handcraft our own songs and our own way to sing them together. We're going to help each other discover who God has created each one of us uniquely to become, and we're going to stay in touch with each other via text, Facebook, and Twitter. We're going to share inspiring material we find online (I hope not sickly sweet, false stuff; I hate that stuff), and we are going to write our own liturgies that express the longings, the hopes, and even the fears of our own hearts.<br />
<br />
Lastly, Spiritual Life at Union can become one that spreads the love around (and this bears repeating from above), centered on the way of love as taught, practiced, and lived by Jesus, regardless of whether you call yourself Christian; regardless of whether you call yourself anything at all; regardless of whether you have experienced the fullness of God or whether you feel empty, fractured, wounded right now. We can all spread the love around by recognizing the beauty, truth, and goodness in each other, and by engaging together in our rooted/hybrid, handcrafted/mass-produced spiritual practices of love.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/G_xYDbXB6NU?rel=0" width="480"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
So there! That's me standing up! I'm through hunkering over. I feel more than a little vulnerable, but, if you've read this far, I suspect you're sympathetic to what I've had to say.<br />
<br />
If you're one of the eleven God is sending to stand up with me, to commit to spending an hour a week together in worship, an hour a week in small group, and an hour a week one on one, contact me. If you have been inspired by this vision and want to be part of what's happening, but can't quite commit to all that, contact me. If you can be my partner in this endeavor in any way, please contact me. And lastly, if you are the person God is sending to be my spiritual director, with whom I can meet for an hour a week (in person or online) to be guided by your beauty, truth, and goodness as I continue to discover my own beauty, truth, and goodness, which comes from God, please contact me. I need you!<br />
<br />
Union College, let your light shine and let your soul fly free!<br />
<br />
God bless!David Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07650300919139654311noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1662873843702764917.post-17764182715845149882013-03-21T16:49:00.000-04:002013-03-21T16:49:30.366-04:00American Jesus Madness -- My Round-Three PicksThe second round of American Jesus Madness is <a href="http://theamericanjesus.net/?p=9297" target="_blank">in the books</a>. First the bad news. Homebrewed Christianity, which I <a href="http://divinesalve.blogspot.com/2013/03/american-jesus-madness-my-round-two.html" target="_blank">had predicted to win this round</a> and to eventually take it all the way, lost to Ann Voskamp. I totally blame myself. If I had found some decent music on their podcast, I'm sure that would have swayed the voters. Now for the good news. That was the only match-up I got wrong this round, which puts me in the sole lead with 44 points. Boo yah!<br />
<br />
Now for my pics for <a href="http://theamericanjesus.net/?p=9302" target="_blank">Round Three voting</a>:<br />
<br />
<h3>
#RickWarrenTips vs. Scot McKnight</h3>
<div>
McKnight had more votes (778) in the last round than #RickWarrenTips (741), but that's not much of a difference. The way I see it, #RickWarrenTips might have been a flash in the pan, but it was a brilliant flash. Can't explain all the.... You know the drill.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
Christian Humility vs. Mark Sandlin</h3>
<div>
I have a confession to make. I have Christian Humility over Mark Sandlin in my bracket. But I have to gotten to know Mark a bit in the past few days. Not much, just online banter. But that's enough for me to suspect that he might take this round, too. This suspicion has absolutely nothing to do with his 4,630 votes in Round Two. Absolutely nothing. Still, if I am to continue my winning streak, Christian Humility must continue its streak and proudly defeat Mark. Nothing personal, Mark. Please don't turn the Christian Left against me.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
Rachel Held Evans vs. Rob Bell's Missing Glasses</h3>
<div>
Last round, I called Rachel a "juggernaut, rolling over all comers." Watch this video of a steamroller going over a bunch of glasses, as you <a href="http://theamericanjesus.net/?p=9302" target="_blank">vote for her</a>.</div>
<object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://swf.tubechop.com/tubechop.swf?vurl=5MhVAl3TaXs&start=58.77&end=64.38&cid=1043726"></param>
<embed src="http://swf.tubechop.com/tubechop.swf?vurl=5MhVAl3TaXs&start=58.77&end=64.38&cid=1043726" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />
<br />
<h3>
Ann Voskamp vs. Stephanie Drury</h3>
<div>
I hadn't revealed this before, but...</div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none">
@<a href="https://twitter.com/trippfuller">trippfuller</a> @<a href="https://twitter.com/homebrewedxnty">homebrewedxnty</a> You are not requiring nearly enough paperwork and butt-kissing in order to become a Deacon.<br />
— David Miller (@dkmiller) <a href="https://twitter.com/dkmiller/status/301504420192063488">February 13, 2013</a></blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none">
@<a href="https://twitter.com/dkmiller">dkmiller</a> now you are official!!<br />
— trippfuller (@trippfuller) <a href="https://twitter.com/trippfuller/status/301506333755203584">February 13, 2013</a></blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
<div>
So, as a Homebrewed Deacon, I'm taking Homebrewed Christianity's loss personally. I will use all of my considerable resources to take Voskamp down! (Actually,that exclamation point was about the extent of my resources.) <a href="http://theamericanjesus.net/?p=9302" target="_blank">Vote for Stephanie Drury!</a> (I managed to find another exclamation point, doubling my available resources.)</div>
David Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07650300919139654311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1662873843702764917.post-35224927216035112032013-03-20T19:43:00.000-04:002013-03-20T19:43:59.584-04:00American Jesus Madness -- My Round-Two PicksThe <a href="http://theamericanjesus.net/?p=9267" target="_blank">first round of American Jesus Madness is history</a>, and <a href="http://divinesalve.blogspot.com/2013/03/american-jesus-madness-my-first-round.html" target="_blank">my picks</a> have me in a four-way tie for first place among the bracket leaders. Our domination of this first round (14 out of 16 is 87.5%) is only surpassed by the beatdown The Next Pope gave to Pope XVI (92% to 8%). And our knowledge of American Jesus Madness is even greater than Christian Humility's victory over Mark Driscoll, a mere 78% over Mark Driscoll's 22% (which is still an ass-kicking).<br /><br />As for the two I got wrong, one was a squeaker and one was a blowout. Joel Osteen's Mullet, which must die(!), edged out Joel Osteen's Smile 53-47, but Stephanie Drury annihilated Tony Jones 86-14.<br /><br />
<h2>
My Second-Round Picks</h2>
<h3>
Tim Tebow vs. #RickWarrenTips</h3>
<div>
I like funny, and Tebow is never intentionally funny. On the other hand, take my #RickWarrenTips, please. Okay, they're funnier than that, so vote for them. Just like sirloin tips, #RickWarrenTips are best served with a nice, brown gravy. Still not funny? Take my word for it, #RickWarrenTips' jokes are a huge upgrade to mine.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
Scot McKnight vs. The Next Pope</h3>
<div>
When the bracket first came out, nobody knew who The Next Pope would be. When I filled out my bracket, The Next Pope had been named, but I didn't know much about him. Now there's been lots of coverage, and I'm starting to wish I had The Next Pope to beat Scot McKnight. But I don't, and I'm nothing if not loyal... to my previous self. So I predict that McKnight will overcome all this media hype and beat The Next Pope (who shall not be named).</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
Joel Osteen's Mullet vs. Christian Humility</h3>
<div>
The mullet is vainglorious and must be humbly smitten by the humblest humility there is, Christian Humility.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
"DJesus Uncrossed" vs. Mark Sandlin</h3>
<div>
Mark complained that my vote in Round One wasn't confident enough, then he offered me alcohol. DJesus, on the other hand, promised he wouldn't djrink of the fruit of the vine (corn comes from a vine, right?) until we djrink it together in the kingdom. Followers of DJesus have been saying for centuries the kingdom is near, the kingdom is at hand, but the kingdom never quite arrives. I'm pretty sure I'll be in Greensboro before DJesus comes into his kingdom. Here's my <i style="font-weight: bold;">vote of confidence</i> for Mark Sandlin.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
Rachel Held Evans vs. Peter Enns</h3>
<div>
Enns, who must have had an inside track with the Creator, didn't sweat Round One, instead jumped straight to Round Two by exclaiming, "What, I have to go head to head with Rachel Held Evans (assuming I get past Ken Ham)?" He's right. RHE is a juggernaut, rolling over all comers -- Lifeway Christian Stores, Biblical Womanhood, and now Peter Enns. Sorry, Peter, gotta call it like I see. Evans for the win.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
Chick-Fil-A vs. Rob Bell's Missing Glasses</h3>
<div>
I feel so dirty that I had to vote for either Hobby Lobby or Chick-Fil-A that I desperately need to redeem myself by projecting Chick-Fil-A (a person, according to the Supreme Court, a loathesome, loathesome person) to lose to an inanimate object. Glasses it is.... er, Glasses it are.... er, Glasses they are.... Vote for Glasses.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
Homebrewed Christianity vs. Ann Voskamp</h3>
<div>
In my first-round picks, I commented on the horrible music on Voskamp's web site. Listen to the <a href="http://traffic.libsyn.com/homebrewedchristianity/FINALCaputo5thCelebration.mp3" target="_blank">opening music</a> on this episode of Homebrewed Christianity. Ugh, wait. Try <a href="http://traffic.libsyn.com/homebrewedchristianity/The_New_Materialism_Jeffery_Robbins.mp3" target="_blank">this one</a>. Can barely hear that one. Anyway, surely there's some good music in a podcast that has a recurring Theology of Rock theme..... Still hunting. Just vote for them while I find good tune-age on one of their episodes.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
Christian Decency vs. Stephanie Drury</h3>
<div>
I underestimated Drury in Round One, which I am not going to do in Round Two. I predict there will be nothing decent about the way Stephanie Drury treats Christian Decency. She will trounce it like she was Reese Witherspoon in Pleasantville.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So go <a href="http://theamericanjesus.net/?p=9281" target="_blank">vote</a>. There are only a few hours left.</div>
David Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07650300919139654311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1662873843702764917.post-44975307117834274132013-03-20T12:33:00.001-04:002013-03-20T12:33:16.422-04:00Clergy Authority and Controversial Subjects<br />
In response to Rob Bell's recent <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-carey/rob-bell-comes-gay-marriage_b_2898394.html" target="_blank">statement </a>which seems perhaps to be affirming marriage equality, <a href="http://homebrewedchristianity.com/2013/03/19/rob-bell-is-gay-affirming-but-not-everyone-is-happy-about-it/?hubRefSrc=twitter#lf_comment=64482227" target="_blank">Homebrewed Christianity asks</a>, among other questions, "How do we give voice to issues that our congregations may not be 100% with us?" Here is an anecdotal answer from me.<br /><br />In 1992 the General Conference of The United Methodist Church was held in Louisville, just a few hours from where I was serving my first full-time appointment as pastor. As it was within easy driving distance, I went to the Conference a few days. When I returned, one of the prominent members of the tiny, rural, United Methodist Church where I was the pastor asked me if I had put those delegates straight about homosexuality (yes, we as a denomination have been arguing about this since before then). I answered, "Yes, I did. I told them they were sinning by excluding people based on their sexual orientation and that they should repent and follow Jesus." His eyes widened, but he didn't respond in any way, and he never brought it up again.<br />
<br />
When I was doing my paperwork for ordination, way back when, I said that I felt that my calling and my request for ordination was multi-leveled. I am certainly called to present the faith as it has been historically passed down through the centuries. I am also called to present the faith as uniquely expressed in my specific tradition, that of The United Methodist Church. In addition, while I am not called to be Reverend Lone Ranger, I have a calling to speak from my own individual conscience, which may or may not align with official pronouncements of the church at large or of the UMC in particular.<br />
<br />
As it relates to homosexuality, I said, I will obey the rulings of my denomination, but I will do everything within my power to overturn those rulings in order to minister to all people and to allow all people to minister, regardless of their sexual orientation. When I met with the ordination committee, not one question was posed to me about this. This surprised me because Kentucky is the home of the most conservative stream of United Methodism. I asked my counseling elder about this, and his response was that the committee was satisfied that I had wrestled with the issue using all the resources of the church and that agreement with official positions of the church is not a requirement for ordination, while obedience is.<br />
<br />
I am frustrated with the slow movement of my church on this matter, and I am less inclined to obey than I was as a young man. But I still feel that a multi-leveled calling and authority are operative for me. Sometimes I am called and have authority to say, "Thus says the Lord." Sometimes, "Thus says the church." And sometimes, "I personally feel the church is wrong about what God is saying in this context." I think it's important to be clear about what level of authority I am exercising at any given time, but all three, I think, are indispensable.<br />
David Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07650300919139654311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1662873843702764917.post-44974317602056925272013-03-15T00:50:00.003-04:002013-07-23T02:07:33.088-04:00American Jesus Madness -- My First-Round PicksThe <a href="http://theamericanjesus.net/?p=9173" target="_blank">American Jesus Madness 2013 bracket</a> is out. It's irreverent; it's timely; and it's loads of fun. Before I reveal my first-round picks, I have to say that I'm disappointed that <a href="http://darkwoodbrew.org/" target="_blank">Darkwood Brew</a> and <a href="http://wildgoosefestival.org/" target="_blank">Wildgoose Festival</a> aren't in the playoffs. Maybe next year.<br />
<br />
Okay, here we go!<br />
<br />
<b>Tim Tebow vs. Ray Lewis</b><br />
Tebow can't pass, and Lewis is overrated. But my pick has nothing to do with football. <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/early-lead/wp/2013/02/21/tim-tebow-cancels-appearance-at-controversial-dallas-church/" target="_blank">Tebow canceled his speech/sermon at that gay-hating church</a>, while <a href="http://www.mjkimpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/raylewis.png" target="_blank">Lewis thinks Psalm 91 is plural</a>. Tebow for the win.<br />
<br />
<b>#RickWarrenTips vs. Mark Driscoll Tweets</b><br />
<a href="http://www.christianpost.com/news/mark-driscoll-sermons-tells-mars-hill-congregation-god-hates-some-of-you-video-61361/" target="_blank">Mark Driscoll says things that are so vile</a>, that I will never vote for him to win anything. So I've got to root for #RickWarrenTips. <a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tonyjones/2013/02/21/rickwarrentips-explained/" target="_blank">Can't explain all the reasons here.</a> (Like no one else blogging about the brackets will say that tag line. It's gold, baby!)<br />
<br />
<b>Scot McKnight vs. Albert Mohler</b><br />
I follow<a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/" target="_blank"> McKnight's blog</a>. He's more evanglical-ish than I am (which is not at all!), but I enjoy reading him most of the time. Albert Mohler, on the other hand, never ever ever says anything I could possibly advocate. I even Googled "<a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=albert+mohler+says+something+kind&aq=f&oq=albert+mohler+says+something+kind&aqs=chrome.0.57j60j65l2j0l2.4487&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8" target="_blank">Albert Mohler says something kind</a>" just to see if there was anything, and nope. Nada. I'm writing Scot McKnight's name in my bracket.<br />
<br />
<b>Pope Benedict XVI vs. The Next Pope</b><br />
The Next Pope is now The New Pope, who has the disadvantage of not looking like Emperor Palpatine, but he does have the advantage of being accused of being involved in the kidnapping and five-month torture of two priests in his diocese who leaned toward liberation theology. Innocent-looking evil wins over evil-looking evil every time. The Next Pope.<br />
<br />
<b>Mark Driscoll vs. Christian Humility</b><br />
I'm not sure why Mark Driscoll gets in here twice. Maybe his tweets are sublimely Driscoll-esque or something. No clue. It's interesting that Christian humility should compete for something. "Look at me! I'm Christian humility, and I beat Mark Driscoll!" But I'm voting for Christian humility anyway. I hope Christian humility kicks Driscoll's ass!<br />
<br />
<b>Joel Osteen's Smile vs. Joel Osteen's Mullet</b><br />
Look, I had a mullet. Once. In the mid-80s. For a little while. But even Bono got rid of his. Eventually. Didn't he? Surely, he did. Anyway. I don't trust Osteen's smile, but the mullet has to lose.<br />
<br />
<b>History Channel's "The Bible" vs. "DJesus Uncrossed"</b><br />
Despite the fact that Southpark did a better violent Jesus, I'm not too partial to depictions of myths as "history." Besides, if you vote the wrong way, DJesus will kill you.<br />
<br />
<b>Mark Sandlin vs. Justin Lee</b><br />
I follow Mark Sandlin and his blog <a href="http://www.thegodarticle.com/" target="_blank">The God Article</a>. Good stuff. On the other hand, I had to Google Justin Lee to see who he is. I recognize his pic, and it looks like he does good stuff, too. But it has to be Sandlin.<br />
<br />
<b>Rachel Held Evans vs. Biblical Womanhood</b><br />
Not only can RHE beat biblical womanhood in this bracket, she <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1595553673?ie=UTF8&camp=213733&creative=393185&creativeASIN=1595553673&linkCode=shr&tag=divisalv-20&qid=1363319677&sr=8-1&keywords=rachel+held+evans" target="_blank">beat biblical womanhood every day for a year</a>. Evans, hands down.<br />
<br />
<b>Peter Enns vs. Ken Ham</b><br />
Peter Enns <a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2012/05/whats-the-real-problem-with-no-historical-adam-really/" target="_blank">does not believe in a historical Adam</a>. (Neither do I.) That means he does not believe that <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/wp-content/blogs.dir/470/files/2012/04/i-59eafdc68837f8a1edebef9b216580aa-giddyap.jpeg" target="_blank">human beings rode dinosaurs</a>. That's no fun, at all. But <a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/02/02/ken-ham-doesnt-believe-his-own-lies/" target="_blank">Ken Ham now claims he doesn't believe humans rode dinosaurs</a>, even though <a href="https://lh3.ggpht.com/-QUM3Ng0B0HI/UPFqH_ySAAI/AAAAAAAAAKM/XyHb0c7UAGk/s1600/scan0083.jpg" target="_blank">this </a>is in one of his books. So I'm bummed about not getting to vote for someone who believes that humans rode dinosaurs. But, since Peter Enns and I are in touch with the same reality, whereas Ken Ham is crazy, I'll have to vote for Enns. Reality wins! (I hope. Please let reality win this time.)<br />
<br />
<b>Hobby Lobby vs. Chick-Fil-A</b><br />
Hmm, should I vote for those who beat down those sinner heterosexuals or those who beat down those sinner homosexuals? American Jesus Madness, you have indeed put me in a dilemma. (Mmmmmmmm, chicken!) Chick-Fil-A wins. I feel so dirty.<br />
<br />
<b>Rob Bell's New Tan vs. Rob Bell's Missing Glasses</b><br />
Don't care. God loves both his new tan and his missing glasses equally. Flipped a coin. Rob Bell's Missing Glasses it is.<br />
<br />
<b>The Gospel Coalition vs. Homebrewed Christianity</b><br />
I don't know anything about the Gospel Coalition. It's like Justin Lee. I can't know <i>everything</i> nerdy and theological. But I do know Homebrewed Christianity. They are featured prominently in every issue of my <a href="http://paper.li/dkmiller/1312686465" target="_blank">Emerging & Progressive Christianity newspaper</a>. Just this past issue Tripp Fuller was in it four times: 1) "tripp drinking a Straight Up Saison on Untappd," 2) "tripp drinking a Saison d'Epeautre on Untappd," 3) "tripp drinking a Dasein on Untappd," and 4) "tripp drinking a Dead Guy Ale on Untappd." Anybody who can drink that much and still say "ontological difference" without slurring, gets my vote every time.<br />
<br />
<b>Ann Voskamp vs. Tim Challies</b><br />
I have no idea who either of these people are. I'm voting for the woman. I don't care <i>what</i> the conservatives on the Supreme Court think about Affirmative Action. Ann Voskamp gets the vote. (Oh, God! I just Googled her and went to <a href="http://www.aholyexperience.com/ann-voskamp/" target="_blank">her website</a>. The automatic music on that site is awful! Then I found and went to Challies's web site, where his <a href="http://www.challies.com/articles/the-history-of-christianity-in-25-objects-augustus-of-prima-porta" target="_blank">latest blog post</a> looks very interesting. I wish I had done this before submitting my official bracket. Maybe Affirmative Action <i>is</i> wrong. I'm so confused.)<br />
<br />
<b>John Piper vs. Christian Decency</b><br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fkSB9f8V6w" target="_blank">"Jesus doesn't love everybody the same way"</a> (John Piper). 'Nuff said. Christian Decency for the win.<br />
<br />
<b>Tony Jones vs. Stephanie Drury</b><br />
I'm voting for Tony because he's a man! Affirmative Action will not get the best of me this time. <a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tonyjones/2012/11/28/where-are-the-women/" target="_blank">Where are all the women</a> on my blog? And where are all the men? Nobody ever reads my blog. Could I be both misogynistic <i>and </i>misanthropic? Or just boring? *sigh*<br />
<br />
<br />
So there you have it, folks. My picks for Round One of American Jesus Madness 2013. What are <i>your </i>picks?<br />
<br />
--------<br />
<br />
<b>Update: </b>It was late when I first posted this, and I left out the Popes, the Bible, and DJesus, just what my conservative friends say I do all the time. I've corrected that in this post, but not yet in my life in general.David Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07650300919139654311noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1662873843702764917.post-69516071213896164122013-02-25T18:22:00.000-05:002013-02-25T18:22:22.546-05:00Atheism for Lent, Stages of Faith, and Pastoral Matters<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have followed with great interest the online conversation about Peter
Rollins’s <a href="http://www.atheismforlent.net/" target="_blank">Atheism for Lent</a> project.
Micah Bales has offered a <a href="http://lambswar.blogspot.com/2013/02/should-we-give-up-god-for-lent.html" target="_blank">critique</a> of this project, and there has been
some <a href="http://peterrollins.net/?p=4320" target="_blank">back</a>-and-<a href="http://lambswar.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-radical-within.html" target="_blank">forth </a>between Bales and Rollins.
One of the sharpest points of Bales’s critique was the assertion that
some people find themselves in such dire straits that they could not possibly
continue if they gave up God for Lent.
Bales writes, "How can someone ask me to give up God for Lent? I might
as well give up breathing!"<br />
<br />
As a college chaplain, I encounter people all the time, faculty, staff, and
students alike, who find themselves in a season of doubt. Some, when they express this, are defiant
toward me, expecting that I will condemn them for their doubt. Others are apologetic, and still others
fearful. Some are suffering a dark night
of the soul, and their experience of the profound absence of God leaves them
with a sense of great loss.<br />
<br />
I never condemn any of them, neither the defiant, nor the apologetic, not the
fearful, nor the suffering. Instead I
tell them that questions, doubts, agnosticism, and even atheism are all
perfectly legitimate stages of faith. I
then share with them a brief synopsis of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060628669?ie=UTF8&camp=213733&creative=393185&creativeASIN=0060628669&linkCode=shr&tag=divisalv-20&qid=1361829747&sr=8-1&keywords=stages+of+faith" target="_blank">James Fowler’s work on this subject</a>. As our cognitive abilities
develop, our experience of faith develops along with our developing conceptions
of God.<br />
<br />
Very briefly, the faith experience of the infant is one of trust in whatever it
is that meets the infant’s immediate needs; the infant trusts the nipple that
feeds and the stroke that comforts. The
toddler has a magical faith that functions as wish fulfillment. The older child moves to a mythic-literal
faith in which maybe mountains don’t get moved today by faith, but they did “back
then” in the time of the ancient stories.
The adolescent moves into a conventional faith and believes the things
that the people important to him or her believe, people like parents, peers, and
authority figures.<br />
<br />
Most people stay in this stage of faith and never really reflect on their
faith. Some people, though, move into a
new stage, which Fowler calls the Individuative-Reflective Stage, one in which
the faith that has been bequeathed to them is critically examined. Critical thinking itself becomes one’s mode
of faith. Most of the time, there is
some form of demythologization that takes place.<br />
<br />
It may be the case that someone critically examines the faith bequeathed to them
and largely accepts it as their own, albeit in a new, demythologized form. For these people, the process is simply part
of their maturation process, one that is fostered by the people and
institutions important to them.<br />
<br />
A large number of people negotiating this new stage of faith, however, do not
have persons and institutions in their lives that encourage questioning and
doubting. For some, it is not merely the
case that questioning and doubting are discouraged, but it may be that persons
who question and doubt may even be expelled from institutions and emotionally
cut off by family and friends. This is a
double loss for those who find themselves in this situation. Not only are they losing the way they once
processed their faith, but they are losing the powerful dynamic of community
and relationality.<br />
<br />
So what I do is promise a safe environment, a community filled with
relationships that can handle questioning, doubts, agnosticism, and even
atheism. Everyone is actively welcomed. No one gets condemned. This community includes people who haven’t
yet begun to doubt and who are startled when the chaplain of the college gives
them permission to do so. It includes
people who are actively doubting. It
includes people who have given up the notion of God and who make no claim to be
religious in any way at all.<br />
<br />
It also includes people who have gone through this stage of faith toward
another stage that holds this critical questioning/doubting/unknowing in
tension with a renewed sense of trust in the tradition that holds their symbols
and stories of the divine, of the sacred, of God. This is an attempt to retrieve the magical,
the mythical, and the conventional but not in a literal fashion. This is a stage of faith that focuses on the
tension, one that honors the symbols and stories of faith but that declines to
return to a pre-critical form of faith.<br />
<br />
Atheism for Lent is a project decidedly in the critical,
Individuative-Reflective stage of faith.
It cuts away the magical, the mythical, and the conventional. Some have argued that Rollins should hold up
whatever God may exist after this cutting-away in order to keep people from
despairing at the loss of that which is being cut away. He <a href="http://peterrollins.net/?p=3587" target="_blank">writes elsewhere</a> that his project "<span style="background: white; color: #212121;">starts from the affirmation (God as
some-thing) enters the negation (God as no-thing) and unfolds a negation of
negation (God as a some-no-thing or, in a Kierkegaardian sense, as radical
subject found beyond the realm of thing-hood – in the affirmation of life)."</span><br />
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I don’t know his plans for writing, but I look forward to his books that
explicate this last move. I want to hear
what he has to say when he is focused on God in this way, in addition to what
he has to say when he is focused on the second move. But I think he is saying right now that we shouldn't jump so quickly to the last move.
It seems to me that doing so would short-circuit his second move.<o:p></o:p></div>
David Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07650300919139654311noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1662873843702764917.post-31623625663291921002013-02-16T17:27:00.000-05:002013-02-16T17:27:17.759-05:00What's Wrong with this World is the Idea that God Loves Everybody?<br />
Westboro Baptist Church spokes-hater Steven Drain <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=64SwnQimL_4#!" target="_blank">says </a>"that mainline Christianity is chiefly to blame for legitimizing" same-sex marriage in part by "erroneously preaching that God loves everybody."<br />
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I think he might be right, except for the "erroneously" part. Christianity, like the Judaism from which it sprang, has had two streams. One stream says God is primarily holy or sovereign or some other such characteristic that separates God from humanity. God loves only the particular group that is likewise pure, whether said purity is moral, doctrinal, or simply by God's elective fiat.<br />
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The other stream says that God's primary characteristic is love. God loves everyone and exemplifies that love via the particularities of the Jewish and Christian peoples.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.thechristianleftblog.org/uploads/5/2/2/3/5223897/6321705.jpg?450" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://www.thechristianleftblog.org/uploads/5/2/2/3/5223897/6321705.jpg?450" width="136" /></a>These two streams have been in conversation with one another and indeed have struggled against one another. I believe that Jesus took sides in this conflict and chose love. He didn't say the most important commandments in his tradition had anything to do with staying pure or believing the right things but simply loving God and loving one's neighbor.<br />
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If God expects me to love my neighbor, as <a href="http://www.thechristianleftblog.org/1/post/2011/09/love-thy-neighbor-t-shirts-by-the-christian-left.html" target="_blank">The Christian Left</a> reminds us, it means to love my homeless neighbor, my Muslim neighbor, my black neighbor, my gay neighbor, my immigrant neighbor, my Jewish neighbor, my Christian neighbor, my atheist neighbor, my disabled neighbor, and my addicted neighbor. If I am to love all these neighbors, surely God loves them more. And that makes all the difference in the world in how we treat each other.<br /><br />WBC says we love our neighbors by telling them God hates them. I think we love our neighbors in part by telling them God loves them and by treating them as I would want to be treated myself.<br />
David Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07650300919139654311noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1662873843702764917.post-33261869526152733132012-09-01T22:35:00.000-04:002012-09-03T00:24:29.943-04:00Simultaneously Embracing the Magical, Mythical, Empirical, and Rational<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Eric Elnes, Senior Pastor of Countryside
Community Church (UCC), has begun thinking about what he sees as a "convergence" trajectory for post-evangelical Christians and postliberal Christians. He thinks those two
groups are moving toward one another from different places. He has
written a great blog post, "<a href="http://www.onfaithonline.tv/darkwoodbrew/characteristics-of-convergence-christianity/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">The Characteristics of Convergence
Christianity</span></a>," in which he identifies "something these
communities [both post-evangelicals and postliberals] generally are letting go
of, and the new reality they generally are embracing."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">His remarks are
interesting, but not all of them describe who I am or what I see in others who
are postliberal progressives. For instance, he begins by saying,
"They are letting go of the notion that their particular faith is the
only legitimate one on the planet." Perhaps
post-evangelicals are letting go of that, but "the notion </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">that their particular faith is the only legitimate one on the planet" </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">has not been part of the
liberal or postliberal tradition. Most of his twelve characteristics, in
my view, describe what post-evangelicals are letting go of. I would like
to think about what postliberals are letting go of and what we are
embracing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A note on terminology: Eric speaks of postliberals, while </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">I speak of postliberal progressives</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">. I
have never identified myself as a postliberal. Some who use that label or
who have that label applied to them seem to have returned to traditional
Christianity rather than moving on to a new form beyond liberalism.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">If I were to think of myself as a postliberal, I would therefore think of myself as a postliberal
progressive rather than simply as a postliberal, which might include both
postliberal progressives and postliberal traditionalists.</span></div>
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So what is it that I think postliberal progressives are letting go of, and what
are we embracing? W</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">hat follows in the next few paragraphs comes in response to questions posed to me by my good friend
Danny Nettleton, whose poetry blog, </span><a href="http://danielnettleton.wordpress.com/" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Words and Spaces</span></a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">, you should definitely follow.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Persons
in different stages of faith, a la James Fowler's <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060628669?ie=UTF8&camp=213733&creative=393185&creativeASIN=0060628669&linkCode=shr&tag=divisalv-20&keywords=stages%20of%20faith&qid=1346534922&ref_=sr_1_1&s=books&sr=1-1" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Stages of Faith</span></a></i>,
experience different socially constructed realities. Faith is experienced
differently for persons in different stages, and truth is understood
differently. When I was in a magical stage of faith and first learned that
Jesus said faith the size of a mustard seed could move mountains, I prayed that
God would move the barn across the road to show me I had enough faith. Is it
true that faith moves mountains? Was my prayer a true prayer? Was my lack of
faith responsible for the barn never moving? Was Jesus untrue when he said
this? (Did Jesus even say it? A question from a later stage of faith.)</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Since the Enlightenment, empiricism and rationalism have been privileged
over other ways of knowing and over other kinds of truth. This has brought us
great boons, including boons in the realm of the critical study of religion.
Historical criticism helps us to understand the context of the writings in the
Bible, and it helps us to figure out who wrote what when. Rationalism and
empiricism help us decide that some of the things written in the Bible can't be
true in the sense that empiricism and rationalism dictate. Some people have
bought into the Enlightenment paradigm to the extent that they see truth only
in this way. The magical and mythical elements can't be true for them. This
is grounded in the work of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century
theologians, biblical scholars, and religious scholars who sought to
demythologize Christianity. I once was there, thinking we had to rid
Christianity of its mythical elements.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Postmodern
thought, though, has discredited this imperialistic notion that empiricism and
rationalism have a monopoly on truth. Paul Ricoeur writes about coming through
the stringent criticisms the "masters of suspicion" have about
religion, taking those criticisms to heart, but returning to the myth and the magic
in a willed naïveté or second naïveté. This is not a return to a pre-critical
understanding of religion but a re-embracing of ways of knowing that the
critical methods of the Enlightenment had cast away. Fowler calls this the
"conjunctive" stage of faith, holding in paradoxical tension
positions that seem to be antithetical to one another.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Eric Elnes, with whom I
began this blog post, in addition to being pastor and author, is the host of an
online show, <a href="http://www.onfaithonline.tv/darkwoodbrew/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Darkwood Brew</span></a>, which its
website describes as "a mind-opening exploration of Christian faith for
the modern world. This weekly program blends ancient worship practices
developed by Benedictine monks with cutting-edge media technology."
In <a href="http://www.onfaithonline.tv/darkwoodbrew/episodes/#/?ep-id=47916336" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">one episode</span></a>, Eric speaks
with Brian McLaren via Skype (Skype interviews are a regular part of each
episode) about the notion of Convergence Christians. At around 34:00,
McLaren speaks about Ricoeur's notion of the willed, second naivete and about
some mainline Christians becoming post-critical Christians. This is
exactly what I think postliberal progressives are letting go of and what we are
embracing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">What would this look
like? How can I let go of empiricism and rationalism as the only forms of
truth and still embrace magic, myth, and empirical, rational forms of
knowing simultaneously? In another Darkwood Brew episode, <a href="http://www.onfaithonline.tv/darkwoodbrew/episodes/#/?ep-id=48265572" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Failing, Falling and Flying: Genesis
Stories of Original Grace – Week 1: “Imago Dei – Rethinking Our Creation”</span></a>,
Eric incarnates this posture perfectly. He has a Ph.D. in Biblical
Studies from Princeton. (To my chat buddies on Darkwood Brew, drink! Inside
joke, for everyone else. Sorry.) He has a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies
from Princeton, so he utilizes the best critical scholarship regarding the
creation story in Genesis 1, but instead of demythologizing them, he explains
their message in relation to another, influential creation myth existing at the
time that the biblical story is being told, written, and edited. He
contends that Genesis 1 is a creation myth written in conversation with the
creation myth of the Babylonians, found in the <i>Enuma Elish</i>.
He notes both similarities and differences between the two texts and
says that reading only the Bible without understanding the <i>Enuma Elish</i> is
like overhearing one side of a telephone conversation. We might think we
know what Genesis 1 is saying, but without hearing the <i>Enuma Elish</i>,
its conversation partner, we can't get the real gist. I encourage you to
watch this wonderful episode, but I'll share just a couple of Eric's points.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">In the <i>Enuma
Elish</i>, creation is the result of the slaying of an ocean goddess, symbol of
chaos, in the form of a dragon or sea serpent, by a storm god. The
heavens and earth are created when her body is cut down the middle. Human
beings are formed from the clay of the earth by the gods and infused with the
blood of the slain chaos monster. In this view, we are inherently chaotic
and violent. In contrast, Genesis 1 has no such violence and, while
Genesis 2 has the first human formed from the </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">dust of the earth, it is
God's own breath that makes humanity a living soul. In Genesis 1,
humanity is created in God's image, but, in the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Enuma Elish</i>, only the king is created in the image of the
gods. Eric is saying that the stories in Genesis 1-11 are largely a
conversation with the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Enuma Elish</i> and function as both a
counter-narrative and a cautionary tale. When the
serpent, symbol in Genesis 2 of the Babylonian myth, whispers in our
ears and we think of ourselves in the way the Babylonian myth characterizes
human beings, we do descend into chaos and violence, but we are not created to
be that way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In seminary I learned everything
about the <i>Enuma Elish</i> that Eric mentions in this episode, but
I think it's important to think this way about the Bible in the context of the
convergence with which this post began. Eric uses the best of critical
study of the Bible<span style="background: white;">—Enlightenment tools—not to
demythologize the Bible but to help us better appreciate the message and the
power of the mythical elements in Genesis. This, I think, is precisely
what postliberal progressives are embracing, but it is only possible to do so
after we have let go of the notion that empiricism and rationalism are the only
forms of truth.<br /><br />Are post-evangelicals also arriving at this spot? I'm not sure of that. Post-evangelicals like Brian McLaren seem to be arriving there, so some post-evangelicals are there or will be there at some point. Postliberals and post-evangelicals are coming from different places, though, and are moving in different directions. We may converge on the same territory for a while, or at least similar territories, but it may wind up being the case that we part ways again as we continue on our respective journeys. I am not yet convinced that convergence is the best metaphor for the cross-fertilization that is taking place between post-evangelicals and postliberal progressives, but I will be happy to walk with post-evangelicals as long as we are in the same vicinity. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="background: white;">And I am very excited that there seems to be some sort of movement among progressives to become the kind of conjunctive Christians Fowler describes, to take on Ricoeur's willed, second </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">naïveté. I think this could breathe fresh life into mainline churches, as long as we don't try to hang on to the institutional aspects that are so obviously failing. But that is another blog post.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">(Also published at <a href="http://progressivechristianity.org/resources/simultaneously-embracing-the-magical-mythical-empirical-and-rational" target="_blank">ProgressiveChristianity.org</a>)</span></div>
<br />David Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07650300919139654311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1662873843702764917.post-22935325715637672732012-08-20T01:31:00.001-04:002012-08-20T02:18:29.720-04:00Why I Keep Ranting about Gay Rights: Part 2 — Me and My ShadowThis is my second post in a short series about experiences that have contributed to my quite vocal advocacy for gay rights. My <a href="http://divinesalve.blogspot.com/2012/08/why-i-keep-ranting-about-gay-rights.html" target="_blank">first post</a> tells about my feeling of liberation upon encountering the critical study of religion and of learning to interpret the Bible in ways other than literally. This post will be about encountering my own shadow and having the powers that systemically oppress unmasked.<br />
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While in seminary, I was the
white pastor of an African-American congregation. I had grown up in a family that made racist remarks on occasion and in a community that was completely bereft of African Americans. Racial slurs coming from the mouth of my friends were not uncommon, nor were racially derogatory jokes. My father once, upon seeing a mixed-race couple in a car, exclaimed to my sister and me that he'd better never see us do anything like that. When filling out my housing application for college, he made me write in the "Special Considerations" section that "I am a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant with deep Southern convictions." I remember those words exactly because they troubled me considerably. This was 1980. I had been a voracious reader growing up and had read a lot about racism in the South. (I know there is racism everywhere, but I mention the South because of what Dad made me write.) I was from poor, rural Kentucky and had no "deep Southern convictions" of the kind he had in mind. I nevertheless complied.</div>
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Seven years later, I went to this African-American congregation with the naive notion that my commitment to the gospel and my conscious repudiation of racism had eradicated it from within me. Simply put, I was wrong. Regardless of my conscious decisions and my exercise of will, there were times when I was afraid while walking in my own neighborhood at night. I would meet an African-American male or a group and would sometimes think, "I wonder if they know who I am. If they don't know, I wonder if they will attack me for being a white guy in the black part of town at night." During the four years I was there this fear eventually left me, but at first it was pretty powerful. I didn't want to be afraid. I consciously repudiated whatever it was that was bubbling up from within me, but it was there nonetheless.<br />
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Early in seminary, in a Pastoral Care and Counseling class, I began to learn about unconscious behavior, about family-systems theory that talked about individuals fulfilling roles because the family system demand they do so, and about the notion of the shadow. (Some people feel that the very terminology of the shadow and its negative connotations is itself racist. I haven't decided what I think about that, but I will use the familiar terminology of the shadow for clarity.) The shadow might be understood as everything about oneself of which one is not consciously aware (Jung), or it might refer to the aspects about oneself that one doesn't want to acknowledge and so it gets repressed (Freud). In this second understanding of the shadow, it is almost completely negative. I do think this is true and that it plays itself out personally, socially, societally, and systemically.</div>
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During the time I was there, I read an
article about social justice by, I think, the General Board of Church and
Society of The United Methodist Church, my particular denomination. It suggested, in order to understand systemic
injustice as distinct from personal prejudice, that the reader walk around
their own neighborhood and simply pay attention to the condition of the
sidewalks. I did just that. I walked all over that small town in central
Kentucky, noticing nothing but the sidewalks.
In the affluent parts of town, the sidewalks were perfect. In other parts of town, they were functional
but not perfect. But in the parts of
town in and near the housing projects (where I lived, by the way), the sidewalk
might as well not be there. Chunks of it
were missing. Sometimes it would
disappear for blocks. Sometimes adjacent sections
of the sidewalk might be inches or even a couple of feet apart in height, like
an earthquake had hit it. </div>
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I delved
deeper into the concept of social justice, and I learned about systemic
classism, systemic racism, systemic sexism; and I would soon couple that with
systemic heterosexism. There are
structures in place that benefit some people at the expense of other
people. This is not the same as personal
prejudice. Sometimes people with no
personal prejudice benefit from these structures without even realizing
it. Look at me, a white, straight,
male. I benefit from systemic injustice
without even wanting it. People treat me
differently simple because of this. </div>
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Sometimes, though, structures exist to enact prejudicial treatment,
while masking the personal aspect of it.
“I’m not racist, but there are laws against whites and blacks going to
school together.” “I’m not sexist, but
the rules say that only men can be in this club.” This systemic expression of the shadow goes beyond the personal.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I saw this in action after an
instance of racial violence in the high school while at the congregation I've been talking about.
As my congregation expected its pastor to be active in the community to further and to protect its interests, I was part of the conversation
afterward. Sometimes the school
administration invited me to meetings about the event that it didn’t invite the
African-American pastors in town (see my above comments on white
privilege). I guess they thought I was
on their side. Here’s their side: The
black kids, of course, started the fight that turned into a riot. They started the fight by being on the wrong
side of the hall. In the mind of these
(all white) administrators, the African-American kids were in the wrong simply
by being in the “white” zone. This was
in 1990, if you can believe it. Believe
it. </div>
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Another instance involved small
children being terrorized on the bus by others writing racial slurs in the fog
on the bus windows. The mother reported
this, and the administration’s response was basically, “Kids will be kids.” They did nothing. This mother and her two small children sat in
my living room, telling me about it.
They were hoping and expecting that I could do something about it. I did speak to the school administrators, but
they didn’t think it was important enough to worry about. In the end, the only thing I could do was to
tell those children that they were beautiful, that God had made them with skin
that is a beautiful color just like God made me with skin that is a beautiful
color, being “black” was beautiful just like being “white” was beautiful, that
the kids who wrote those mean things didn’t know that yet, but that maybe they would
learn it someday. The mother wept and thanked
me, saying she’d never heard a white person say anything like that before. That’s quite a “something” that happened to
me, something that has changed me forever.<o:p></o:p></div>
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My last post in this short series will apply my North Star of biblical interpretation and my understanding of the personal and systemic shadow to the issue of gay rights. Once again, I want to thank you for reading this. I know that the forthcoming post about gay rights will contain opinions and perspectives with which some of you will not agree. I can only offer them as my own. I love you and respect you, but I wholeheartedly think that Christians who oppose gay rights are misusing the Bible and are engaged in behavior, whether conscious or stemming from the "shadow," that systemically oppresses a class of people. And, if you are one of those persons, I will oppose you.</div>
David Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07650300919139654311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1662873843702764917.post-20564596203581869332012-08-13T17:01:00.000-04:002012-08-20T02:19:35.183-04:00The Reprehensible Ethics that Underpin Paul Ryan's Politics<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 13.5pt;">Now that Romney has chosen Paul
Ryan as his running mate, I've decided to write briefly on the philosophy of
Ayn Rand, whom Ryan credits as the inspiration for his policies and proposals.
I'm particularly concerned with Ryan's draconian budget proposal and his
proposals to privatize Social Security and to eliminate Medicare and Medicaid.
There are many places where the budget and his other proposals are
critiqued, but I want to write about Rand's philosophy. Ryan's proposals are not merely compatible with Rand's philosophy, but he credits her philosophy as the bedrock of his own thought. His only caveat is that he does not agree with her atheism. My perspective on this is that there is much more about her philosophy that is antithetical to Christianity than her atheism, which is of absolutely no concern to me.</span><br />
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<br />
I've read <i>Atlas Shrugged</i> and several, but not all, of the essays that comprise <i>The Virtue of Selfishness</i>. I find her explication of ethics as solely
self-interest to be reprehensible. She <a href="http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=objectivism_essentials">sums it up</a>: "Man—every man—is
an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his
own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to
himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness
is the highest moral purpose of his life." The Ayn Rand Institute
adds this addendum, which is completely consistent with what I've read in <i>The
Virtue of Selfishness</i>: "Thus Objectivism rejects any form of altruism—the
claim that morality consists in living for others or for society." </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">This, I think, is the antithesis of every form of spiritual wisdom, which she reviled, whatever the tradition. I also wholeheartedly disagree with her
metaphysics, epistemology, and politics, but mainly because they express her
ethics, just from a different angle.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">I do agree that one should not sacrifice others for oneself, but
the systems that would be set up by objectivism do just that. Just
because an individual does not personally stand on the throat of another
individual, that doesn't mean the systems set up don't function in that way
for the benefit of the so-called "producers" over against the so-called
"looters" or "moochers" Rand describes in <i>Atlas Shrugged</i>.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Rand's entire philosophy centers around the idea that an
individual owes nothing to any other person or, even worse from the perspective
of objectivism, to any group of people. It sees everything that an
individual owns as solely owned by that individual, with no social or societal
obligation. An individual may choose to provide care for another
individual, usually a family member, but that is only because it is in the rational
self-interest of the individual to continue genetically through offspring.
But, even then, it would be left up to the individual as to whether one
extends care (functional care, not psychological feelings) or whether one
withholds it. Any other instance in which one sacrifices for others is
ethically wrong, according to Rand.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">A society grounded in this philosophy would be, in my
estimation, a horror. No other political philosopher (and I don't know of
any actual philosophers who hold to objectivism) sees society in this manner,
not the most optimistic about human beings and not the most pessimistic.
The Enlightenment political philosophers whose underpinnings are most
responsible for the establishment of the modern democratic or republican state
-- Kant, Hobbes, Locke, and Jefferson -- all speak of a social contract.
Hobbes, who was the most pessimistic about human nature, saw the state as
a monster, hence _Leviathan_ as the title of his most well-known work, but a
necessary monster to which individuals cede some measure of our autonomy
(sovereignty) because the alternative, humanity in our "natural"
state, is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short." That's
what I see if any society were to embody Rand's objectivism</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">, which is what Ryan would like to see.</span></span></div>
<br />David Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07650300919139654311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1662873843702764917.post-48852249856997822262012-08-06T18:22:00.000-04:002017-01-05T11:42:56.165-05:00Why I Keep Ranting about Gay Rights: Part 1 — My North Star of Biblical InterpretationSomeone on a Facebook thread a
few days ago said that something must have happened to me in the past to make
me have such a strong conviction in favor of gay rights. That same person later described my
expression of said convictions to be ranting.
So I decided to explain why I keep “ranting” about gay rights. I’m going to break up this explanation into a
few separate blog posts.<o:p></o:p>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
I didn’t start out life with a
rant in mind. I grew up in rural
Kentucky in the 1970s, and I learned stereotypical homophobia from the guys I
ran around with. We made jokes about the
sexuality of one another, implying that whomever was the butt of our joke
(don’t make anything out of that) was gay.
But we didn’t know anything about real gay people whatsoever. There were certain individuals in school who
were rumored to be gay. There were a few
guys who had what we thought of as effeminate characteristics and a few girls
who seemed masculine to us. Quite
frankly, I never really cared, but, to my shame today, I engaged in the same
anti-gay banter into which I had been enculturated.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">In college, one of the “somethings” that must
have happened to me for me to so strongly express solidarity with the civil-rights
struggle of GLBTQI persons actually happened.
This first “something” that happened to me was that I learned to think
critically. That’s one of the things a good education
teaches, despite the <a href="http://s3.amazonaws.com/texasgop_pre/assets/original/2012Platform_Final.pdf">Texas Republican Party’s insistence otherwise</a>. I learned to examine my own prejudices and to
re-evaluate them, particularly, as a pre-ministerial student, my religious
prejudices. While a student at the same
United Methodist college where I am currently the chaplain, I learned to apply
these critical-thinking skills to religion in general and to the Bible in
particular.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm1.staticflickr.com/68/190168058_0b4429c4be_m.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/68/190168058_0b4429c4be_m.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From Coda's Flickrsteram,<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/coda/190168058/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/coda/190168058/</a> </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">This continued in seminary and is epitomized by what Old Testament professor Dr.
George Coats said on the first day of class.
He told us about the first time he kissed the woman who would become his
wife. He described climbing a hill in
his hometown in Texas. He told about
looking into the night sky after the kiss.
He held up a large print of a photo of the night sky. He said that the facts were that the sky
looked something like this. But the <i>truth</i>, he said, holding up a print of
van Gogh’s <i>Starry Night,</i> was that he
experienced something like that. He said
that much of the Hebrew Scriptures were the artistic expression of a people who
had experienced intimacy with God. In
the same way that <i>Starry Night</i>
expresses a truth about the night sky and about the depth of what it means to be human that a factual
photo cannot express, the Hebrew Scriptures contain both factual information
and artistic expressions of faith that point to truth that mere facts
cannot express. This became my North Star of
biblical interpretation and has been my approach ever since. This is the first “something” that happened
to me. It guides me through the
analysis of biblical criticism and beyond to a place where I can appreciate and
appropriate what the biblical authors wrote during the intoxication of their
intimacy with God without always having to view what they wrote in a literal or
factual manner. In doing so, I engage in
what I consider to be part of my life’s mission – the integration of the life
of the mind and the life of the Spirit.</span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ea/Van_Gogh_-_Starry_Night_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg/757px-Van_Gogh_-_Starry_Night_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="253" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ea/Van_Gogh_-_Starry_Night_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg/757px-Van_Gogh_-_Starry_Night_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From Wikipedia Commons<br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Starry_Night">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Starry_Night</a>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"></span>
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">My next post will deal with my experience as the white pastor of an
African-American congregation and my becoming a social-justice Christian as I
learned about structures of racism that go far beyond personal prejudice. I will finish with a post that applies both
my North Star of biblical interpretation and my experience of structural racism
to the issues of gay rights and marriage equality.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I don’t think my experiences or my perspective trump those of everyone else,
and I thank you for taking the time to read about my perspective. I offer it with love toward those who may
disagree with me but with passion and conviction that the repression of persons
for any reason, including that of sexual orientation, is contrary to the best
impulses of Christianity.</span></div>
David Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07650300919139654311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1662873843702764917.post-14837552221799103552011-09-07T23:43:00.000-04:002011-09-08T00:04:12.247-04:00Regarding the Evangelical Kerfuffle about the Historicity of Adam and Eve<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/42/Tizian_091.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/42/Tizian_091.jpg" width="249" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 8px;">Science was the best vehicle for determining whether Galileo was right. Church leaders who feared the crumbling of their Aristotelian theologies were not the best persons to make such a determination. Likewise, the discipline of history is the best vehicle for determining the historicity of Adam and Eve. Church leaders who fear the crumbling of their evangelical theologies are not the best persons to make such a determination. (By the way, non-sectarian historians overwhelmingly say there is absolutely no evidence for historicity in this regard.)</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 8px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 8px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 8px;">Theologies come and go -- patristic, scholastic, humanistic, fundamentalist, evangelical, progressive. The truth of the gospel is not dependent on our speculative theologies, nor is it threatened by a mythical understanding of any part of the biblical narrative. There is something good in each of these and other theologies, but they are not the gospel.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 8px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 8px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 8px;">Regarding the idea that Moses wrote any part of the Bible, the written form of the Hebrew language emerged at the end of the second millennium BCE or the beginning of the first. Moses is supposed by Christian tradition to have been born around 1600, at a time before there would have been written Hebrew. The emergence of Hebrew script at the turn of the millennium aligns with mainline scholarly consensus that the earliest portions of the Torah were written around the time of David.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 8px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 8px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 8px;">I am a Christian clergyperson. I am not trying to destroy the Bible, Christianity, the gospel, or salvation. None of these are harmed in any way by acknowledging the truth of our best critical understanding (which always changes anyway, because it is human understanding) of science and of history. If our theologies cannot stand the test of scientific or historical examination, we must change those theologies rather than stubbornly hold onto them because we're afraid to let them go. We've been changing our theologies for thousands of years. We can do it now, and the new theologies that emerge will become the next orthodoxy to guide a robust community of faith as long as it can continue to hold together. Then it will be time for the next theology to come along.</span></span>David Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07650300919139654311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1662873843702764917.post-29846456266614188272011-07-12T00:06:00.006-04:002011-07-12T01:20:50.424-04:00N.T. Wright's Scripture and the Authority of God<span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://s-external.ak.fbcdn.net/safe_image.php?d=AQAIbrGVGUIubsDo&url=http%3A%2F%2Fecx.images-amazon.com%2Fimages%2FI%2F516zXo8UHjL._SL160_.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 105px; height: 160px;" src="https://s-external.ak.fbcdn.net/safe_image.php?d=AQAIbrGVGUIubsDo&url=http%3A%2F%2Fecx.images-amazon.com%2Fimages%2FI%2F516zXo8UHjL._SL160_.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a></span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Problems I have with N.T. Wright's <a href="http://t.co/jbsdScA"><span style="font-style: italic;">Scripture and the Authority of God</span></a></span><br /><br />Wright insists that the authority of scripture really means God's authority exercised through Scripture without making the case that this is so. It seems to me that the authority of scripture is also related to the authority of the church.<br /><br />His insistence that there is an overarching narrative which he imposes on the scriptures. I think he treats that narrative in such a way that it rules scripture rather than the other way around.<br /><br />He treats the New Testament as different from and better than the Old Testament. Although he claims the Old Testament is not "a lesser revelation" (171), he calls the Torah "a temporary dispensation designed to advance a larger project" (188). The Hebrew Scriptures must always, in his method, be interpreted in light of the Christian Scriptures. This, I believe robs the Hebrew Scriptures of their original context and meaning. I don't see Jesus under every rock in the desert or behind every burning bush. While I believe that Jesus gives new meaning to some passages of the Old Testament, I don't think they were written in reference to Jesus.<br /><br />His interpretation of scripture leaves out marginalized voices in favor of "authorized" (115) or "accredited leaders" (137), although he does include the caveat that authority is not always structural but spiritual.<br /><br />He restricts biblical interpretation to discovering "what the writers meant" (135), ignoring other forms of interpretation that he does not consider to be "loyal to the Christian community through time and space." Yet, when he actually engages in interpretation in the two Case Study chapters, he does not really inquire into who the authors were or what their perspective might have been; he actually interprets through his overarching narrative.<br /><br />He dismisses any postmodern critique of the scriptures as something that only "achieves . . . a nihilism in which the only relief is a kind of hermeneutical narcissism, taking one's pleasure with the text and letting the rest of the world go by unnoticed" (99-100). Any feminist interpretation, he says, risks treating the text as wholly untrustworthy.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">What I appreciated about the book</span><br /><br />The two chapters in which he actually interprets the scriptures were full of interest tidbits, for instance:<br /><br />The connection of creation with other ancient stories about gods building temples in which the image of the god is placed casts the universe as God's temple in which humanity in placed after having been created in God's image. The sabbath rest is then seen as the time when God goes about "'taking his ease,' taking up residence and being at peace in his new home" (148).<br /><br />Being with Jesus is an experience in which the social justice aspects of the Jubilee and sabbath are realized. Jesus reveals time and space, the here and now, to be sacramental, "shot through with both memory and anticipation" and, quoting Gerard Manley Hopkins, "charged with the grandeur of God" (165).<br /><br />After he deals with what he deems the inappropriate notion of Sunday as the Christian sabbath, he does ask, "What are <span style="font-style: italic;">you</span> going to do this Sunday that is creative, that brings justice and mercy, that offers healing and hope?" It's hard to fault this perspective, regardless of how he got there.David Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07650300919139654311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1662873843702764917.post-43200026363076911752011-07-07T22:06:00.005-04:002016-04-26T11:20:51.014-04:00Saving Paradise -- Part 2: Paradise Needs to Be Saved<a href="https://s-external.ak.fbcdn.net/safe_image.php?d=AQCx2bt0KcQtuaoC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fecx.images-amazon.com%2Fimages%2FI%2F51JnE2vogUL._SL160_.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://s-external.ak.fbcdn.net/safe_image.php?d=AQCx2bt0KcQtuaoC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fecx.images-amazon.com%2Fimages%2FI%2F51JnE2vogUL._SL160_.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 160px; margin: 0 0 10px 10px; width: 107px;" /></a>This is the second part of my review of <a href="http://t.co/H5VWWgf"><span style="font-style: italic;">Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire</span></a> by Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker. The <a href="http://divinesalve.blogspot.com/2011/07/saving-paradise-part-1-paradise-as.html">first part</a> of my review focused on the book's description of the church as paradise in this world and as resistance against the violence of empire. I interpreted this part of the book to be about the salvific power of paradise, thus rendering the book's title to mean a paradise that saves.<br />
<br />
Part 2 of the book deals with the decline of paradise on earth in the theology of the Western church and the concomitant ascent of a theology of crucifixion that pushes paradise out of this world and into the afterlife. Such a theology functions to support rather that resist empire in this world. I interpret this part of the book to be about a paradise that needs to be saved.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gerokreuz_full_20050903.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/Gerokreuz_full_20050903.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 420px; margin: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 258px;" /></a>The crux of the book (pun only partially intended) is the chapter about the oldest existing crucifix, the Gero Cross, found in the Cologne Cathedral in Germany, pictured on the left. Charlemagne, having been crowned emperor by Pope Leo III in 800, was constantly expanding his territory, forcing the peoples he conquered to convert to Latin Christianity. One of the groups thus forcibly converted were Saxons who were already Christians, but not Latin Christians. They included a deep reverence for nature as part of their practice of Christianity. Christian rituals and those devoted to the Norse gods took place side by side. Carolingian (Charlemagne's) forces subdued the populace and enforced Latin Christianity in part by cutting sacred trees such as the sacred oak of Thor. The Saxons were told that they were responsible for Christ's crucifixion and that, if they did not convert to Latin Christianity and give up all aspects of paganism, they would die without being forgiven for crucifying Christ and would therefore go to hell. Ironically, the Gero Cross was fashioned out of oak by the great-grandchildren of those subdued by point of sword and by threat of hell.<br />
<br />
Accompanying this new emphasis on guilt for killing Christ and the pushing of paradise into the afterlife was the acceptance of killing. Earlier Christians had refused to kill other people under any circumstance, and, when Christianity had been co-opted by the Roman Empire, Christians who had been conscripted into the military were treated as penitents for a year upon their return home. This prohibition against killing was turned on its head by the time of the Carolingian Empire. Killing those outside the empire was acceptable because they were considered to be the enemies of Christ.<br />
<br />
Monasteries became the place where paradise was preserved in this world. It became the norm that everyday people couldn't be expected to live lives of paradise, experienced both in nature and in communal relationships, so paradise was cloistered. This led to the idea that the empire was the cloister of Christianity and that everyone outside the "walls" of the empire were outside paradise.<br />
<br />
Eucharistic theology and practice began to change, as well. No longer a celebration of the risen Christ and the risen faithful, it became an experience of sacrifice, in which the death of Christ was both commemorated and recapitulated during each Mass. The violence of empire, rather than being resisted, became an integral part of Christianity. The authors draw a straight line from this to the Crusades and to the so-called "redemptive suffering" that made torture acceptable.<br />
<br />
Paradise was discovered in this world once again by the "discovery" of the New World. The annihilation of its inhabitants was considered to be completely acceptable because of the violent theology of the church, which sanctioned slavery to subdue the New World and make it into a paradise in which Christians can live.<br />
<br />
The authors do see hope in the twentieth century in the theology and practice of Walter Rauschenbusch and Martin Luther King, Jr. For both, this world, rather than the next, is the place of God's saving activity.<br />
<br />
I was refreshed by Part 1 of this book. Part 2, on the other hand, recounts the imperialization of Christianity as a violent religion, one that punishes, kills, and enslaves. The greatest challenge put forth by the book was the idea that pushing paradise out of this world and into the afterlife creates the sense that we are always "lost' in this world (not the evangelical sense of "lost," but in the sense that, even as Christians we don't belong in the world but only in the afterlife). This, the authors convincingly contend, creates the twin feelings of nostalgia and hope, that justify all kinds of atrocities in the hope to restore the world to that imaginary state that only exists in our nostalgia.<br />
<br />
I therefore will resist the temptation to yearn for how the church used to be. Instead, as the authors suggest, I will endeavor to love the world as it exists in the here and now. I will find beauty in the world and enjoy it. I will create relationships of mutual love. I will recognize that paradise is in this world and that it includes those who have died in Christ. I will attempt to live non-violently in my actions and in my theology. I will seek justice for all. I will live the resurrected life in communion with the risen Lord and the risen faithful. I can't do this alone. We need each other to grow into the image of the divine meant for us by God. As you can see, I recommend this book wholeheartedly.<br />
<blockquote>
</blockquote>
David Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07650300919139654311noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1662873843702764917.post-54204553446518806382011-07-06T18:55:00.007-04:002011-07-06T19:42:12.057-04:00Deliver Us from Evil<a href="https://fbcdn-photos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/73039_152898368088953_152895518089238_282085_6352791_a.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 180px; height: 480px;" src="https://fbcdn-photos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/73039_152898368088953_152895518089238_282085_6352791_a.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" ><a href="http://www.onfaithonline.tv/darkwoodbrew/" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; ">Darkwood Brew</a><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"> is an online community of faith that streams a weekly service on Sundays at 6:00 ET that utilizes jazz, Lectio Divina, Skype interviews, and online chat. It is currently in the middle of a series on the Lord's Prayer. Posted today on the Darkwood Brew <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Darkwood-Brew/152895518089238">Facebook page</a> today was the following: "</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14px; ">We're focusing this week on 'Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.' If you could choose which side of this phrase to discuss, which side would you choose and why?"</span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; " ><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; " >When I read this, <span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; ">I couldn't come to any conclusion about which side I preferred to discuss. I put aside my laptop and opened Brian McLaren's <i><a href="http://t.co/X32WiFP">Naked Spirituality</a></i>,<a href="https://s-external.ak.fbcdn.net/safe_image.php?d=AQD1iQLLM9WRRu-p&url=http%3A%2F%2Fecx.images-amazon.com%2Fimages%2FI%2F41Qm0dDKxJL._SL160_.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 107px; height: 160px;" src="https://s-external.ak.fbcdn.net/safe_image.php?d=AQD1iQLLM9WRRu-p&url=http%3A%2F%2Fecx.images-amazon.com%2Fimages%2FI%2F41Qm0dDKxJL._SL160_.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a> which I've been reading slowly, one chapter a day. McLaren begins today's chapter, entitled "Help: Tapping into the Current of Power," with <i><a href="http://t.co/ADzMFmM">The Prayer of Jabez</a></i>, which was very popular several years ago. He quotes the last part of Jabez' little prayer, using the NKJV, which is the version used by the book: "[K]eep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!"<br /><br />I don't use the NKJV, and I didn't think much of <i>The Prayer of Jabez</i>. This juxtaposition, though, gives some poignancy to the above question. Jabez' name meant "pain" because his mother had a painful delivery. That's a pretty harsh name, so a prayer that says keep me from evil so I won't keep on being a pain would seem to be one that's rising up from his very identity. He's asking for grace to transcend that identity.<br /><br />My name is biblical and means "beloved." That's not a name I need to run from, but rather run toward. As I think about being delivered from evil, I am prompted to pray, "Keep me from evil, that I may live up to being beloved, that I may live a life of love." As a communal prayer, the Lord's Prayer, prompts me to pray, "deliver us from evil, that we may be Christ's body redeemed by his blood" (a little Eucharist blessing thrown in there). Or, identifying the Lord's Prayer with all humanity: "deliver us from evil, that God's image might shine forth in our lives."<br /><br />Just a few thoughts prompted by a bit of synchronicity between this week's question and my devotional reading.</span></span></div>David Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07650300919139654311noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1662873843702764917.post-42901062934771688922011-07-03T12:30:00.005-04:002016-04-26T11:14:30.484-04:00Saving Paradise -- Part 1: Paradise as Salvific<a href="https://s-external.ak.fbcdn.net/safe_image.php?d=AQCx2bt0KcQtuaoC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fecx.images-amazon.com%2Fimages%2FI%2F51JnE2vogUL._SL160_.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://s-external.ak.fbcdn.net/safe_image.php?d=AQCx2bt0KcQtuaoC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fecx.images-amazon.com%2Fimages%2FI%2F51JnE2vogUL._SL160_.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 160px; margin: 0 0 10px 10px; width: 107px;" /></a>I just finished reading <a href="http://t.co/H5VWWgf" style="font-style: italic;">Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire</a> by Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker. I bought the book last summer, but wound up not having time to read it, as my father's health began to decline about that time. I began spending more and more time with my parents during this time, and my father died in the fall. I insisted that Dad's pastor, a "low-church" United Methodist, use the United Methodist Service of Death and Resurrection at the funeral. Those words, inscribed upon my heart from the numerous times I have said them, mean a great deal to me. The opening words at Dad's funeral were:<br />
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Dying, Christ destroyed our death.</div>
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Rising, Christ restored our life.</div>
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Christ will come again in glory.</div>
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As in baptism Harry Miller put on Christ, so in Christ may Harry be clothed with glory.</div>
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Here and now, dear friends, we are God’s children.</div>
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What we shall be has not yet been revealed; but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In addition to the explicit reference to baptism, the Eucharist is implied, as the first three lines invoke the mystery of faith proclaimed in the Eucharistic liturgy: "Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again." It is meaningful to me to say these words with the community of faith. The pastor of the church I am attending is another "low-church" United Methodist, and the few times we've had Communion since Dad's death, I don't recall his having used the liturgy. In April, I and a colleague took a group of students to visit a Greek Orthodox Church. Immediately upon seeing the iconostasis -- the panel of icons re-presenting (re-presencing?) to the gathered faithful that great cloud of witnesses composed of those who have died in Christ -- I became aware of Dad's presence filling that place within myself where I had been experiencing nothing but absence for months.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I indulge in this bit of self-revelation </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif;">not</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, I hope, as a form of exhibitionism but as a practical example of the importance of the life-affirming theology found in this book. The book is written in two parts, the first of which has refreshed my spirit and which will be the subject of this post. The book begins with a description of the authors' travels to view Christianity's earliest art. To their surprise, a dying or dead Jesus is nowhere to be found until the tenth century. Rather, Jesus is always depicted as being alive, whether those depictions are of a youthful Jesus tending sheep or of a resurrected Jesus pronouncing a blessing on those looking at the artwork.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif;">They also discovered a paradise motif. Over and over, Jesus is shown in the context of greenery, trees, and rivers. Not just any paradise is depicted, either, but none other than the Paradise of Genesis, the Garden of Eden. Having been thus sensitized to this motif, they discovered a plethora of written material from the church "fathers" and even some mothers that described the church as paradise on earth. Rather than seeing paradise as a promise of afterlife, <i>Saving Paradise</i> paints a convincing picture of a Christian emphasis on the here and now as the ultimate time and place of God's blessing.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Each chapter develops this motif from a different angle, forming a mosaic as beautiful and inspiring as the actual mosaics they describe. The elements of the mosaic include the location of paradise (Garden of Eden) being perceived as on earth, paradise as resistance to the evils of empire, </span><span class="Apple-style-span">the church as paradise on earth, paradise as the communion of the living and the dead, baptism as the "portal" to paradise, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Eucharist as a ritual of resurrection, and salvation as theosis -- the process of humans becoming divine, "ingodded," as one quote puts it. As the mosaic is completed, paradise comes to be expressed as the integration of the spiritual and the material, the human and the divine. Paradise is relational and communal; it includes meeting the material needs of people as well as the spiritual, and it includes working for justice in an unjust empire.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Each one of these elements deserves elaboration, but I will confine my remarks to those most relevant to my self-revelation above, the chapters entitled "So Great a Cloud" and "The Beautiful Feast of Life." The point is made that Judaism began to include resurrection into its rabbinical theology during the time of martyrdom depicted deutero-canonically. If empire is killing the faithful precisely because they insist on remaining faithful, resurrection is the ultimate expression of the conviction that the violence of empire has no power over the faithful. Empire may kill the faithful, but a faithful God will erase those deaths. This is a new idea to me. I have previously understood resurrection to have entered Jewish consciousness through contact with Zoroastrianism. They cite Jon Davies' <a href="http://t.co/SkRi2K5" style="font-style: italic;">Death, Burial, and Rebirth in the Religions of Antiquity</a>, and this merits more investigation on my part.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Making the connection between these Jewish martyrs and early Christian martyrs, the book envisions the Eucharist as a ritual that has the power to bring Jesus and all our deceased loved ones into our presence. (This part of the book builds on Brock's earlier work, particularly her <i><a href="http://t.co/iOdiyXW">Journeys by Heart: A Christology of Erotic Power</a></i>, which examines the phenomenon of the living experiencing visits from the dead.) The Eucharist is the place where the power of the divine suffuses our existence here on earth. In the presence of the risen Christ and the risen faithful, we receive power to continue to resist the violence of empire, power to continue to meet the physical needs of people, power to see the spiritual in the material, power to engage in the work of justice, and power to live in paradise in the here and now.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span">On what seemed at the time to be his deathbed, my father said to me, thinking his words then to be his last to me (he lived another week), "We'll meet again. I believe this to be true." Through my tears, I said, "I believe it, too, and I love you." Because of my theological education, there are lots of ways in which my understanding of an afterlife (if there be such a thing) differed from Dad's, but it didn't matter; the two parts of my response to him were inseparable. The reciprocal love -- Brock calls it "erotic" love in her earlier book, love that finds value, beauty, truth, and goodness in another and that expects a loving response -- the reciprocal love between us demands that I believe it to be true. The reciprocal love between us, a love that reveals human/divine integration, makes it true. And now, thanks to this wonderful work of history and theology, I realize I don't have to wait for it to be true. It is true in the here and now. I was already inclined to think of the work of salvation as that of theosis, of the kingdom of God (or of heaven) as God's will on earth, and of the work of justice as essential to Christian discipleship, so I didn't have to be convinced.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span">The first part of <i>Saving Paradise</i> released many positive emotions within me, and I am grateful for it. I hope my self-revelation has not been merely self-indulgent on my part, but I hope it has been an example of the difference a here-and-now theology can make. The second part of the book, on the other hand, is a challenging and bracing account of the church's move from finding paradise in the here and now to yearning for it in the afterlife. There are numerous ethical considerations in such a move. In Part 2 of my review, I will deal with these.</span></div>
David Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07650300919139654311noreply@blogger.com0