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Author: mhelbert

The Third Option

Published by mhelbert on June 15, 2020

I hope you all had a great weekend!
It’s Monday and time to get back at it.

Today I’m going to add a final piece to my thoughts on “Third Options” as regards the current political activity surrounding Black Lives Matter.
To be clear, I fully support this movement. For, a movement it is. People from all walks of life have seen enough injustice and pain. Those of us who have retained remnants of the Civil Rights Movement and other movements led by activists seeking systemic change to our culture are happy to be a part of this.
But, alas, we are also saddened and frustrated that these issues still need to be addressed.
Baby steps, I guess.

Last week a wrote about how our culture tends to view all issues of morality, culture, politics, and society through binary lenses. Our worldview sees everything in black/white; right/wrong; us/them.
This is not only counter productive to a healthy culture, it is simply wrong.
Our entire universe and existence is made up of not only black and white. But, it contains all of the millions and millions of colors that live between those extremes.
Our reality is not either/or. But, in almost all cases it is both/and.
Please understand that.
We exist in a paradox.
Even if our tiny gray cells can’t seem to grasp that entirely, it is the truth.

So, what does that have to do with so-called ‘Third Options’?

I recently saw an interview with a guy named Miles McPherson. He is the pastor of a large church in San Diego as well as a motivational speaker.
He published a book in 2018 entitled, “The Third Option: Hope for a Racially Divided Nation.”
I have not read the book, but here is a link to a YouTube presentation in which McPherson discusses its contents.
What struck me was how he changed the idea of having ‘Conversations’ about race to having ‘Race Consultations.’ This may seem like splitting semantic hairs, but there is something new about the approach.
And, it is an approach that I think is inherently aligned with what should be the position of anyone who claims to follow Christ.

Let me explain.

I usually don’t go in for wide generalizations, but bear with me for a minute as I muse about a couple things.

I wrote last week that I have spent most of my adult life informally studying religion. I am by no means expert on the subject. But, there are a couple observations that I would like to make. Please don’t hesitate to call me out in the comments if something I write is glaringly inaccurate! You won’t hurt my feelings. And, I might even learn something new!

Form where I stand, I see most of the world’s great religions focused on what the practice can do for me.
For instance, Buddhism was developed by a guy named Siddartha Gautama after he witnessed human suffering. He desired to help people move beyond suffering toward a higher, (better?), existence in the world. It is primarily a way for people to live peacefully in this life. The hope that is eventually, the individual will be caught up into a universal nirvana where individuality merges with the Cosmos.
Other religions also look to enabling adherents to reap some kind of eternal reward for following certain rules or principles.
Even many indigenous religions seek to perform rituals in order to please the spirits of ancestors or deities that can help with crops and weather and fertility. All of these are in one way or another, self-seeking.
Not self-seeking in a selfish way. But, the deity or spirits or disciplines are sought and practiced for ‘My Benefit’ in this life or the next.

I know that I’m painting with a really broad brush here. But, this is, after all, only a blog post and not a doctoral dissertation.

I want to preface this next part by saying that I am aware that people who claim to follow Jesus are fallible humans who, by and large, get it wrong. As I wrote in earlier posts, we are programmed by evolution to watch out for ourselves and our tribes. That is why what I am going to write is so counter-intuitive, yet so bloody important to understand.

As I read and study the Christian Bible, particularly the Gospels, I am struck by something that seems unusual.
The person, Jesus, doesn’t seem to behave like a normal person. The words he speaks and the actions that he performs all tend toward the ‘Other.’
He “sees” lepers. He “looks intently” into the eyes of those who are possessed by evil spirits. He has compassion and weeps over someone else’s loss.
In Jesus I see empathy in action.
Jesus modeled what McPherson might call “Consultation with the Other.”

Now, please don’t get me wrong. I am in No Way saying that someone must believe in or follow Jesus in order to live a life that looks outward. That’s just not true. There are many people of various beliefs or no belief who live this type of virtuous life.
What I am trying, however successfully or not, to say is that religion is a major factor that mitigates or controls(?) the actions of people. Not saying that’s good or bad. It’s just a fact.
So, if there is a religious example that may be helpful as we move forward toward what I hope is a brighter and more inclusive future, Jesus is not the worst example that we can have.

I don’t think that I can overstate the importance of empathy in our lives together. We absolutely must learn, not just to live together harmoniously, but to look deeply into the eyes of others and see the spark of common humanity that resides there. Then, use what ever means we can to flame that spark into a fire that consumes the hatred, fear, and distrust that lives and festers within.

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Still More Options

Published by mhelbert on June 12, 2020

A couple of days ago I wrote about options. Choices that we as Sisters and Brothers within our Human family may make that may help us along the path to Conciliation with our other Sisters and Brothers who look, talk, or live differently than we.
These are the People whom evolution has trained us over millennia to distrust because of the possible danger of anything, or anyone, who is “Other.” These fears are deeply ingrained into the very fabric of our being.
And, they are not easily removed so that healing can take place.
I also wrote that not only are the Oppressed victims of these fears. Oppressors, too, suffer lasting hurt. We cannot do things to others without searing our own consciences and minds.
We cannot, like Christopher Columbus, feed children to dogs or amputate limbs from helpless, indigenous people and NOT do lasting damage to ourselves.
Healing is something that we all must work for.
Healing is also something that I cannot do for myself.
Just as we engage in horrific practices of “Othering” within a specific group of people, so must we heal within groups of others.
I cannot simply sit in my office and turn off generations of implicit and explicit biases alone. These biases were developed by the communities that I have been a part of.
They have been reinforced through social and cultural conditioning to the point that I am unable to see how they live and affect me. I NEED Others to walk alongside me and support me and help me see the blind spots that are there. And, I need these Others to be Other than I am. For if I only look to my own clan, we will collectively remain blind.

I have debated whether or not to take this discussion in the direction that I will. Especially, since in my previous post I lumped religion, myth,and philosophy together and cited them as being ineffective. And, in fact, when looked at through the lens of history, they have in many ways not only been ineffective, but have aided in the cultures of abuse and hatred that we are now seeing the fruit of.
But, I am a religious person. I’ve spent much of my adult life studying and reflecting on religion and its effects on people. I have found very little that can have as profound or lasting effects on people and communities, for good or ill, than religion. We need only look to the shootings at churches, mosques, and synagogues in our own country. Not to mention female, genital mutilation and honor killings in many Muslim cultures.
But, then, there are those who risk their lives to care for that sick and hungry. In the Middle Ages it was the religious who went into the homes of plague victims to comfort the dying.
Religion has the ability to bring out the very best and the very worst in humanity.
Can we focus that influence to specifically Good outcomes?

Ever since the first hominins gathered together into communities religion has been a part of life. Flashes of lightning and crashing thunder made them look to the heavens and ascribe personality to these phenomena. Great beasts were endowed with supernatural power and divinity. Rituals to appease these great powers developed. If only we can produce the correct offerings given in the correct ways, perhaps the Powers will bring the rain when we need it and keep destruction away.
Proto-religion was born.
The priests and others who became the spokespeople for both Divinity and humanity were granted authority to make sure that all was done properly. Of course, this authority was itself rife with abuse.

The reason that I share this at all is because I believe, (you certainly don’t need to), that there is a part of us that feels a disconnect from a spiritual Reality. We attempt to reconnect to that using all sorts of different means and methods. Some sources take the word ‘religion’ and see in it the root religare, “to bind fast.” Similar to our word ligament as something that binds one thing to another. In this case humanity binds itself with a deity or power through various practices and rituals.

So, I look around. I try to see what religion does in and through people.

Unfortunately, I see very little good. Besides the violence and abuses that any religious fundamentalism brings, there are dogmas and rules that are used to control how people think and behave. People cite holy books and writings for justification to seize power. In the 14th and 15th centuries Papal Bulls were issued that resulted in the enslavement and deaths of countless African and Indigenous people. All justified by god’s representatives on earth.
“I was just following god’s will!” they cry.

No. Sorry. You were not.
You were following your own appetites and desire for riches and powers.
You corrupted something that was good. Something that we used in order to ‘re-connect’ and ‘hold fast’ to God you used for your own corrupt and damnable aims.

Ok, so why the lesson on religion?

Simply stated, as I mentioned above, religion is a powerful motivator. It can motivate us to good or ill.
I also alluded to that part of each person that seeks connection with something greater than itself. A deity or power or whatever. There is a longing for that.
For myself, I believe that there is actually a Divine with Whom we may connect.

And, I believe that this Divine is inherently Good.

By looking at the many abuses that followers of the Divine inflict on others in the Name of God, I can see that may be a difficult argument to uphold.
But, I think it can.

Like I last wrote, now is not a time when we should be looking outward in order to see what Others are doing. We only do that in order to judge them. Don’t do that.
Instead, look within.
Let us see what is living within our own hearts.
Shine a light into the dark corners of our hearts to expose the beasties that may hide there.
Or, to show the emptiness that is there. Both are real possibilities.

This is a place to begin.
Self-reflection.
Self-criticism.

I don’t think that self-improvement is an option.
There are, however, options that we may take together.
At least, I hope so.
More about that later.

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Options

Published by mhelbert on June 10, 2020

Recently there has been a lot of talk about things like “Systemic Racism” and “White Privilege.” Truthfully, I don’t think most folks know what these terms mean, or even care.
I’m not going to try and explain these. There are myriad others who have taken on that task to various degrees of success. Y’all are smart enough and can Google those terms and educate yourselves.

I’m not sure that those terms are even appropriate. They too conveniently separate things that are, I think, truly inseparable.
When we point our fingers at “This” or “That” and pontificate that “THIS IS THE PROBLEM!” we oversimplify and misname what is a very complex matrix of culture, mores, and most importantly, Identity.

What we call Systemic Racism isn’t something that can be fixed. It’s not a true System. Yes, there are many moving parts to racism. There’s overt racism like we see at Liberty University. There were also Jim Crow and Redlining. There’s over-policing in the neighborhoods that were established through unjust housing practices. Health care; education; social support. These and many other things make up what many are calling a “System.”

I think it’s much deeper than that.
I think it’s much wider than that.
I think it’s an issue that reaches to the core of who we are as human beings.
Racism; anti-LGBTQ+; anti-Women; anti-immigrant; anti-Islamic; anti-(you fill in the blank).
These are all part of the very soil from which our many cultures dig their roots into and receive sustenance. We suck up these nutrients and they flow through our cultures and spread out into the branches. They fill the fruit that is born on these branches and become part of the very fabric of the cultures themselves.
No, “system” doesn’t quite get the whole picture.
And, perhaps more concerning, “system” gives the false picture of an object that can be reworked into something that in fact does works.

If this is the case, then the so-called “Two Options” that people are talking about today are moot.
These options are:
1) Racism is a corrupt system embedded into the foundation of the U.S. Therefore, we must rework the system in order to root it out and create a more equitable system.
I think that I already showed that this a losing endeavor.
2) Racism is a hoax. If African Americans would only pull themselves up by their own bootstraps and accept their own personal responsibility to good citizenship then all of these troubles would take care of themselves.
To this I have only one thing to say…Bullshit.

There are some out there that are trying articulate “Third Options.”
I have to give them kudos for looking outside of the obvious.
These include:
1) Those in the majority taking time to listen to African Americans and to their concerns.
2) White Americans using whatever privilege they have in order to uplift and empower African Americans.

These and others sound virtuous. No! They really do!
In our minds we can visualize the problem and develop action plans to do something.
Then, while we’re doing something, we can pat ourselves on the backs and say, “Look at us! We’re Doing Something! Yippee! Yay! Yahoo!”

I think that you can tell that I don’t put much stock in any of that, either.

There is something else that no one seems to be talking about except a man named Mark Charles. Mark is an indigenous Navajo man who writes about racial “conciliation.” Not reconciliation since that word intimates that there was at one time a good relationship that has gone sour. Mark has noted that minorities, or any group that has been labeled as “Other” aren’t the only victims of racial inequality. Those in the majority cannot possibly perform the acts of oppression and violence they have and not be affected deeply themselves. In his thinking, not only do we need to work toward the healing of the oppressed, we must also try to help heal the oppressor as well.
Of course, oppressors are usually neither willing nor able to see their own illness.

All of this leads me to a place where I have to stop and contemplate. As I’ve alluded, there is more, much, much more, to the issue we face today, (and have faced, um, forever?), than the simple fact that racism is evil. Of course it is! But, so is xenophobia, and sexism, and hatred of LGBTQ+ people, and…and…and…

The issues that we face today are as old as the first humans. Perhaps, evolution has conditioned us to be wary of any person or group who we view as “Other.” A natural means of protection and self-preservation. If that is true, then we have a lot of work to do. Human nature doesn’t just change because we want it to.
We’ve tried this approach for aeons. Religion; myth; philosophy; self-help gurus. We’ve tried all of those and then some.

As I gaze about I do see some patterns, though.
Now, remember, I’m not a very smart man. There are many of you out there far better equipped than me. And, Lord knows that there have been many who have come before who have struggled with these very questions and come up empty.
No, I just offer a couple of observations.
Observations that may help us to see a tad more clearly through the haze of our inherited character and maybe see through to a viable Third Option. (Maybe 4th or 5th?)

I will write about some of these in another post.
Today it’s sufficient to simply begin to think.
Think about where each of us fits within our little corner of humanity. Self-reflect on where we’ve been, what has influenced us,
and, maybe, where we would like to see ourselves going.

I know that I am oversimplifying very complex social and cultural issues. But, most of us aren’t going to pursue Ph. D.’s in these studies. We just want to be able to live simply and peacefully with one another.
If you have ideas or concerns, please use the “Comments” to share them.s

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I’m So Tired

Published by mhelbert on June 9, 2020

I’ve struggled with writing this post.
The reason for the difficulty is that
I’m tired.
I’m tired of listening to the news day in and day out
about how the Left hates America and the Right hates everyone.
I’m tired of hearing that Covid-19 is a hoax and that the
murder of innocent children and educators at Sandy Hook was staged.
Right now the streets of the country are filled with righteously indignant people protesting yet another act of Street Justice Capital Punishment inflicted on an African American man.

ANOTHER ONE!!!

How. Freaking. More. Lives. Must. Be. Lost?
I’m really tired because we’ve been through this all before.
Apparently, to no avail.
So I guess I can add frustrated to tired.
I’m tired and I’m frustrated.
And, I’m losing hope.
I was a kid in the early 1960s. I didn’t watch the news. I was only interested in Superman and Roy Rogers. But, by the time ‘65 and ‘66 rolled around I was beginning to see scenes of people marching with signs and police officers and soldiers trying to stop them.
My father, whom I loved dearly, grew up in small town America. He had no use for these people with the signs. And, he was fairly vocal about it.
1967, “The Summer of Love,” came around and, again, the news was flooded with images of people dressed rather unconventionally dancing and getting high. Rock-n-Roll was definitely here to stay.
The images of people being killed in some far-away jungles were also appearing on the nightly news. In all honesty, I had no clue what that was all about. I was a 12 year old aspiring rock-n-roller who spent most of his time with a guitar in his hands. Oh, and chasing 12 year old girls. Yeah, that was important, too.
In 1968 I sat in front of the TV and witnessed the murders of MLK and Bobby Kennedy. Soon, the nation was burning and people were getting their heads caved in on the streets of Chicago.
More people marching with more signs.
More police and soldiers standing in their way.
And, you know what?
Some things actually changed.
In the mid-60s the Voting Rights Act was passed.
People began to talk to one another.
Flower Children planted flowers in M-16s.
By the time I graduated from high school in 1973, we began to
have hope that the Times, They Were A-Changin’.

Then, something changed.

In the words of Steppenwolf, I think we “grew fat and got lazy.”
We thought that the Monster was dead. But, it had just slunk into its hole somewhere to lick its wounds.
We grew up. We started families and gained responsibilities: bills to pay; jobs to work; soccer practice…
Reagan promised us prosperity and we believed him.

Now, here we are.
Again.
Throwing rocks and tear gas at each other.
Shooting unarmed Black men and wearing body armor.
Squeezing every cent out of poor people who can’t afford to be squeezed. Watching the poorest bear the brunt of a global pandemic while politicians squabble about pennies.

I really hate some cliches, but it seems to be a truism that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

And, I’m tired of it.
I’m too fucking old to keep seeing this play out the same damned way time after time after time after God. Damned. Time!

Is there hope?

No. Not if we try to deal with society and culture the same way we did 50 years ago. If we simply throw money at it the Monster will simply sate its appetite and demand more.

Perhaps, there is a way to slay the beast. Or, at least one tactic in the battle.
I’ll muse about that in another post.

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Why Follow Jesus?

Published by mhelbert on May 18, 2020

Of course, there are many reasons why people choose to follow Jesus.
“He was a great teacher,” some say.
Others may reply as his original disciples did, “You have the words of Life.”
Many, perhaps too many, say that they follow Jesus because of the promised blessings.
And, still others say that they are worried about an eternity in hell. Jesus provides them with the necessary fire insurance.

None of those reasons are really very good.
I mean, the Buddha was a great teacher. As were Confucious, Moses, and Muhammed.
These, and others, have also laid claim to having the words that lead to a full and satisfying life. Granted, other than Muhammed, the others don’t promise any blessings. But, Jesus is still not unique in this. Where hell is even mentioned, there have been many who profess a way to avoid it.

So, again, why should anyone follow Jesus?

The following text was one of the lections for worship yesterday,

22 So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects.
23 “For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.
24 “The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands;
25 nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things;
26 and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation,
27 that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;
28 for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’
29 “Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man.
30 “Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent,
31 because He has fixed a day in which He will judge cthe world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.”

New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). (Ac 17:22–31). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.

Within that short passage are the words,
“That they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us.”

Those few words have been grasped by folks who, in our post-enlightenment, post-modern Western culture, take that as a promise that everyone has a chance to know God if they only pay attention to the world around us.
God may be found in the delicate beauty of a flower or in the awesome vastness of the night sky. After all, Paul stated that God was the Creator of the world and all that is in it. We should be able to recognize God’s Hand in all things.
And, if we can detect God this way, then we may worship God as the true God worthy of our worship.
So, those religions that focus on nature may have a better understanding of the Creator God than others.

If that’s true, then again I ask, Why follow Jesus?

If there are ways to know God other than what the Christian Church has taught, what makes this Church special?

Again, back to Paul.

The context for the above passage tells the reader that Paul arrived in Athens after he was chased out of Thessonlinica and Berea by Jews who didn’t like him talking about a crucified Messiah.
While in Athens Paul walked around town observing things. He became distressed at all of the temples and idols that were there. So, he began to proclaim Jesus and the resurrection to the Jews in the synagogue and to anyone who would listen to him in the Agora, the marketplace.
Eventually, some of the locals decided that Paul was teaching about some foreign deity. They led him to the Areopagus where there was apparently a council who judged whether a philosophy or religion would be permitted to be taught in the city.
They questioned Paul, asking about this strange, new teaching.

Paul immediately opened his résumé that confirmed his status as a teacher of this new religion. After observing how religion was of great importance in Athens, he pointed out how he had spotted an altar To An Unknown God.
He said, “Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.“
This is not to say that the Athenians truly worshiped God when they worshiped before this altar. How could they? They did not even know who this God was!

Paul stood before them and proclaimed, (the word that was used was one that inferred a Prophetic speech), Jesus the Messiah and His resurrection.

And, that’s part of the reason, Why follow Jesus.

Yes, God may be observed in Nature. God may be observed in some human actions like empathy and self-sacrifice.
But, rather than this developing a true Natural Theology, it invariably results in Natural Idolatry. This was the gist of Paul’s statement when he wrote to the Church at Rome,

“For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made.”

New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). (Ro 1:20). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.

So, followers of Jesus have the privilege of letting people know who the Unknown God is.
We may share that this God is not far away, but is near to each of us. We are all part of God’s Grand Story. Those who follow Jesus are the storytellers who also are those who welcome others into God’s family.

Of course, writing this post like this begs the question,
What is that story?
Why is it worthwhile hearing?
Those questions are ones that I hope to muse on in upcoming posts.
So, I invite you along as we hear,
Once Upon a Time there was this God…

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Kenosis

Published by mhelbert on May 3, 2020

5 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
6 who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
7 but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
8 he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.

9 Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
10 so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989). (Php 2:4–11). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

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But, The Greatest of These…

Published by mhelbert on April 28, 2020

For most of us, this moment in time is a bit, well, unsettled. There is more uncertainty swirling around in the world than there usually is.
Coronavirus;
Politics;
Economy;
Find Waldo, er, Kim Jung Un.

You get the point.

We are frustrated and, if we’re honest, a bit afraid.
Not necessarily afraid of Covid-19.
We’re afraid of the uncertainty.

This is completely understandable.
Especially, in a society that prides itself on being in control and self-sufficient.
A culture where the idea of the Individual is elevated to near god-like stature.
It is disconcerting to feel alone and, perhaps more importantly, not in control.
So, yeah, I get it.

People need to vent their frustrations.
We see this in the protests over stay at home orders.
We see it in people ignoring those orders to open businesses and churches.
There is a wave of ‘righteous indignation’ flowing over us.

None of us can see the ramifications of these actions.

That’s the problem, though, isn’t it?
None of us can see…….

We can, however, see how all of this is affecting us.
I look around at the way that business and industry have stepped up to provide necessary equipment for those who put themselves in harms way to care for the rest of us.
I see the food pantries and volunteers doing whatever they must in order to help those who have suddenly found themselves in dire need of basic necessities.
Those of us who are daily putting our own needs and desires aside and staying home and practicing Personal Distancing so that those who are on the ‘front lines’ may have a chance to do their jobs, well, “Good Job!”

There are people who say that there is little to no hope for our species. Or, the world, for that matter. They say that unless drastic measures are taken immediately we will go the way of the Dodo…soon.

There are others among us who say that this is just the beginning of judgement. Soon God will appear and the whole Cosmos will roll up like a scroll and burn.

I want to take issue with both of these outcomes and any others that would follow this kind of Doomsday script.

We all have choices.

We can choose to be Human.
We can choose to let Empathy, rather than selfishness and fear, rule in our hearts and minds.
There is Hope.
If we can have Faith.
And, more importantly, if we can extend Love.

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Freedom

Published by mhelbert on April 26, 2020

When he came to the village of Nazareth, his boyhood home, he went as usual to the synagogue on the Sabbath and stood up to read the Scriptures. The scroll of Isaiah the prophet was handed to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where this was written:

“The Spirit of the LORD is upon me,
for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released,
that the blind will see,
that the oppressed will be set free,
and that the time of the LORD’s favor has come.”

He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the attendant, and sat down. All eyes in the synagogue looked at him intently. Then he began to speak to them.

“The Scripture you’ve just heard has been fulfilled this very day!”

Tyndale House Publishers. (2015). Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Lk 4:16–21). Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers.

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Telling Our Story

Published by mhelbert on April 22, 2020

I remember well a particular moment in seminary. One of my professors included in our syllabus a book by a guy named Brian McLaren. The book was titled, “A New Kind of Christianity:Ten Questions That are Transforming the Faith.” The reason that he assigned this particular book was because he knew that some time in our ministry we would run across the kind of heresy that McLaren advocated. He wanted us to be able to recognize it and to refute it.
So, I read the book.
And, it changed my life.
I recognized myself in those pages. A questioner. A skeptic. A thinker.
Instead of preparing me to do battle against this post-modern heresy, McLaren provided me with language to understand what I was already thinking.
For me, knowing that there were others like me out there, this was a moment when a lock on the chains that had me bound to abusive religion clicked open.

If that sounds like a pitch for the book, ok, it kind of is.

However, as I’ve grown and reflected on my faith there is at least one area of McLaren’s book where I take issue.

In the book he provided a couple of images that contrast two views of how the Bible is read and understood.
The first way is how many people in Western evangelicalism understand it.
For them, the Bible is like a Constitution of a nation. It contains the rules of government and the laws that people must follow. For many, like me, this distills to the Bible simply being a Users’ Manual or a rule book. It contains the do’s and don’t’s that make humans somehow palatable to an angry God. Follow the rules and you win. Break them and, well, just don’t.

McLaren offered an alternative image.
He wrote that the Bible should really be taken as a library. In it are 66 separate books that contain the stories of God’s interaction with humanity. Especially, God’s love for us. These books come in all shapes, sizes, and genres. There are legal books. There are stories to titillate our senses. There is poetry and narrative and correspondence. When we read each according to the genre we may glimpse a bit of God’s heart. We may begin to understand the love and pathos that God “feels” toward the Cosmos.

That was just what I needed to hear at that point of my journey in faith. It opened up a whole new way to think theologically. In fact, as I wrote a couple days ago, I had some new encouragement just to “Think”!

Now, however, I’m beginning to view the Bible in a slightly different way. Not to say that McLaren was mistaken. No, I see the point that he made and don’t totally disagree with it.
I’m just not sure that he took the idea far enough.

Long before I went to seminary, I was becoming convinced about the error of reading the Bible as a rule book. That idea just didn’t sit well with me. I considered it more as story.
Specifically, a love story about Yahweh’s love for us. I couldn’t articulate what I was thinking exactly. Mostly because I wasn’t sure of what a ‘story’ actually was.
I did know, however, that I liked me a good story!
From the Three Little Pigs to Tokien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, I loved immersing myself in the worlds that these stories inhabited.
Now, having learned more about the craft of writing and doing a bit of writing myself, I’m more convinced than ever about the Bible’s coherence as Story.

From Genesis 1 to Revelation there is One story being told.
This story has a protagonist: God.
God is the main character throughout the entire story. God is responsible for all of the action. The Creation story is all about God acting to bring order from chaos and build a world in which every creature could thrive and grow.
God’s activity contains act of power. A flood; a crumbling tower; plagues.
Eventually, God’s greatest act of power was through God’s own love for the Cosmos. This was shown to us through the life, death, and resurrection of God’s own Son, Jesus.

The story also contains the necessary antagonist. And, it’s not who you may think.
The true villain in this story is Sin. He shows up early in the story and stands in opposition to God and God’s purposes on virtually every page.
Now, you may have thought the antagonist was that guy we call Satan. Well, this character is there, for sure. He is better known as the adversary. But, Sin is the one who actually calls the shots. Satan only exploits what Sin has already done.

There is a coherent plot to this story.
In the beginning there is an idyllic world where all of God’s creatures lived and thrived in peace. God chose humanity to be God’s helpers in caring for this world. However, this plan was turned upside down by the entrance of the antagonist, Sin, using the Adversary as the means of disruption.
The entire rest of the story is about God’s plan to set things right.
Yeah, you read that correctly.
THE ENTIRE REST OF THE STORY!

As every good story goes, there is a time when an apparent solution is presented. This shows up by way of the giving of Torah to the people who God chose to work with, Israel.
This turns out to be a false solution. Torah, as good as it is, could not restore humanity or the creation to the way that God intended.
Through many subplots and characters the condition of the Cosmos seems to spiral toward a nasty and messy end. In fact, it appears that all hope is lost. God cannot make things right.
Nothing takes our hope away and dashes it on the rocks of despair more than when the story introduces a new character…Jesus.
It seems that maybe this guy can be the One who finally performs the miracle of restoring the Cosmos. Yay! Look at him healing people and talking about God’s Kingdom peeking over the horizon signalling a new dawn of hope! Again, order coming out of chaos.

But, then, the story does what a good story must. It shows us that, alas, all hope is indeed lost. This new character, the One who seemed to be able to bring God’s good creation to fruition,
Dead and buried.

This would have been a pretty sad story if it had ended here.
Darkness and despair defeating Light and hope.

But, the story didn’t end there.
We find out that Jesus really was God’s Person of the hour.
God’s faithfulness to God’s Purposes and Covenant was vindicated.
The new creation had, in fact, begun.
And, the Good News of all of this is that all of humanity, already part of the story, can join with God in order see this new creation grow and prosper.

Ok. I can read the papers, too.
The world is not a new Eden.
It is still a horrible mess.
And, it will be until the time when we all get to the end of the story.
And, no, I don’t know what that end will look like.
I do know what it won’t look like, though.
There will not be a mass escape by humans who think that God is going to rescue them before God completely destroys the World. That idea isn’t in the book. In fact, it goes against everything else that the story was trying to build.
It won’t be a theocratic dictatorship where everyone walks around bowing in obeisance to some glowing deity sitting on a huge throne somewhere.
And, it definitely won’t be a place where smug survivors smile and say, “At least I’m not like those ‘sinners’ who got fried”!

Yeah, the Bible is a long story of God’s faithfulness to the Cosmos. There are a lot of twists and turns along the way. There is drama and tragedy. There is love and war. There is despair and hope. And, lots of action.
All elements of a good story.
So, rather than reading the Bible like a rule book or a collection of different and disparate books in a library, maybe we should begin to read it as One Story with many chapters. Although there are many different subplots and characters coming and going, it is still the same story.

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Mind Your Mind

Published by mhelbert on April 20, 2020

Besides simply venting my opinions on this here blog thing, I also share a lot of autobiographical musings. I believe that sharing some things may be helpful to others who, like me, may feel that I am the only person on the planet that is experiencing this.
Well, I’m not.
And, neither are you.
We share in this being human thing. Not least, the hurts and miscues and out-and-out total fuck ups.
Together, however, we can be “community” to one another. We can encourage and help each other to heal.
Or, we can just be a dick and say, “Yeah, I always knew you were an ass.”
Hopefully, we won’t be dicks.

That said, I want to share a little background to what I hope to share in the next day or so.
I think that having a foundation for these thoughts will be helpful to the structure I hope to build.

I started following Jesus when I was a teen. I was excited about this new faith that had sprouted in my life. My eagerness led me to go ‘all in’ to try and learn about what a Jesus Follower should be.
I became more active in my local church. Through the youth group there I became aware of others who were vocally and visibly demonstrating christianity. So, I started to hang out with them. Together we grasped onto something that was more of a lifestyle than a rigid belief. We started our own “Community” that we thought was modeled on the first communities as we read about them in the early chapters of the Book of Acts. We lived together and shared our resources. We were truly Jesus Freaks! And, we loved that identification.

One of the first things that we constructed was a hierarchy of sorts. We recognized a couple of men as Elders. These men exercised absolute authority in our community. After all, didn’t the Bible tell everyone to ‘obey the elders’ and ‘don’t make their job difficult?’
So, we sat at their feet and soaked up all of the God-given wisdom that came out of their mouths.

This was our reality.

We were told how to behave; how to spend our time and money; how to treat our spouses, how to raise our children. We were pretty much told to put our brains on hold and simply follow directions.

As that original community aged, it morphed into a more ‘presentable’ church. We found ourselves in line with most conservative evangelical churches in the U.S. Even in this iteration of community the same power structures were maintained. We gathered so that one of the male leaders, (always male), could unscrew the tops of our heads, pour some kind of propositional teaching into our brains, then screw the tops back on.
We called that ‘discipleship.’
We were taught that our ‘minds’ were dangerous things. They were part of what they called the “soul” of a person. That soul defined as the part of humans that contained the “mind, will, and emotions.” These were always seen in opposition to the pure spirit of a person. Let’s see, Spirit-Good; Soul-Bad. Sounds like Plato to me. But, that’s another post.
I think that this idea came as a knee-jerk reaction by some christians to the Enlightenment and Modernity. Science was growing by leaps and bounds. And, of course, Darwin!
People of faith became alarmed at how human intellect was becoming elevated over faith in God. We are still dealing with the fallout from that today. Just watch the news and see how people react against so-called Intellectuals and the Elite.

But, something happened to me on my journey through this intellectual desert called evangelicalism.
I began to think. With thoughts came questions. And, if there’s one thing that evangelicals will not tolerate, it’s questions!
I decided that I needed to know more about all of this. I NEEDED answers!
So, I entered Ashland Theological Seminary in search of answers.

Something happened there.
In my second quarter I took a class, Theology 1. A good place to start, I guess. Now, I had studied theology at my church. We used a systematic theology written by a conservative evangelical man. For those of you who are not familiar with systems like this, let me put it simply. One person has asked the accepted questions about God and the Bible and provided proof texts for the answers. These are then to be poured into your brain and accepted as the way God actually is.
Sound familiar?
Anyway, back to seminary.
My professor quickly dispelled that idea. She opened us up to many different ways that people had done theology over the years. We were shown how those who came before us had wrestled with the Bible and tried to understand what God might say to them in their own time and in their own lives.
One night in class I suddenly realized, It’s OK for Christians to THINK!
Tears began to fall as this realization washed over me.
No. You can’t understand the impact of that if you’ve never been caught up in an authoritarian culture where individual thought and questions were considered “fleshly” and “evil.”

Throughout the rest of my time at Ashland the idea of Thinking Theologically, that is thinking and reflecting deeply, was encouraged. It was demonstrated by the professors every day. these folks were examples of people who knew the importance of using our minds.

All of that brings me to this point.

The Apostle Paul wrote a lot about the mind. He never said that it was the part of that ‘soulish’ trio that I mentioned earlier. In fact, when you come down to it, the will is animated by the mind and emotions are a construct of it. The Mind is central. And, apparently, it cannot be separated from the body. Together, at least according to the earlier testament, the body animated by God’s Spirit becomes a living soul. A single entity. So much for Plato.

One passage that Paul wrote became a key for me as I continued to learn and grow.
It is found in his letter to the Church at Rome.
He wrote, “don’t let yourselves be squeezed into the shape dictated by the present age. Instead, be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you can work out what God’s will is, what is good, acceptable and complete.” (Paraphrase from N.T. Wright in “Paul and the Faithfulness of God”, Fortress, Minneapolis, 2013, p.1,123.)

Be transformed by the renewing of your minds.

I don’t know, but that looks to me like our Minds are pretty important.

Paul goes on in other places to build an argument that people must be able to think clearly so that they can navigate life with wisdom and integrity. So that they can develop what he calls “the Mind of Christ.” He wrote that we must be able to think, and think deeply, so that we can figure out what salvation looks like right now; in this particular situation.
It’s not simply a case of learning rote instructions that one would then copy and paste into unrelated circumstances. But, it is a living, breathing reality to bring all of our faculties to bear on our lives.
That includes our mind.

Thinking is not a problem.
For too many in the church, and the world at large, NOT thinking is.

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