Category: Theology

1 Corinthians_Unity pt. 3

Published by mhelbert on June 24, 2020

Oy, will those kids ever stop arguing????

When I go to weddings the first thing I do is look at the program for the ceremony. In almost every case there is one passage from Scripture that appears that is one of the most misused passages, (and, there are Many!), of any. This passage is 1 Corinthians 13.
The “Love” chapter.
I cringe when I see that listed as a reading. Usually, it will be read by one of the bride’s friends from childhood. You know the one, she stayed up late with the bride doing each others’ hair and joking about the length of the quarterback’s, well, you know.
The reason I find this particular passage so distasteful is because it was NEVER meant to be read only at weddings. In fact, the content alone is not about the love found in some fairy tale of wedded bliss.
This passage was placed in this particular spot between chapters 12 & 14 for a specific reason by St. Paul.
As we are learning in our Bible study at St. Barnabas, the Corinthian church had a serious identity problem. They were all excited about the personalities who came to visit them.
Paul, Apollos, the M&Ms Guys…whoever. They were totally enamored by the kinds of Spiritual gifts that they could flaunt at one another. People took pleasure in standing up in the midst of their gatherings and saying something wise, or at least esoteric sounding enough to make people applaud them.
They were all about what each of them thought of themselves.
So, right in the middle of trying to straighten out their thinking on gifts and order and stuff, Paul tossed in “a more excellent way.”
He wrote:

“If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. 3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
8 Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! 9 Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! 10 But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things will become useless.
11 When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. 12 Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.
13 Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.”
Tyndale House Publishers. (2015). Holy Bible: New Living Translation (1 Co 13:1–13). Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers.

Read that carefully.
Note that what Paul was saying that Love is Hard.
He wasn’t talking about some warm and fuzzy feeling in my chest. There are many people who follow Jesus who Do think about love that way.
No. Paul talked about sacrificing his body and experiencing ecstatic plateaus of spirituality. He wrote of all knowing and understanding.
All things that the church at Corinth prized as the highest reward for their troubles.
These are also things that many in today’s church cultures most value.
“I have the correct doctrine!”
“I understand the hidden things of the Bible and prophecy!”
“I am an enlightened progressive who really gets inclusiveness!”

But, there is a more excellent way.

John the Elder wrote:

“The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”
New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). (1 Jn 4:8). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.

Jesus revealed what he considered the two greatest commandments.
The second one,

“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). (Mt 22:39). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.

That’s enough to make my point, I think.

I find that I can sit and spend meaningful time with those I disagree with. There are usually areas of common concern that we can talk about. Perhaps, we can disagree amicably. Even though it’s unlikely either of us will be swayed to think differently.
There still is that part of us that shares faith in the One God who has called us to faith in Christ.

Can I sit down with someone whom I think is a bigoted, hateful Christian and share a meal?
I would hope that I could.
Would I let that person off the hook for their bigotry and hatred?
Not on your life!!!
They would get an earful from me.
I would do my best to paint them into a corner where they would either need to repent or get up and leave.

There is NO ROOM in the Body of Christ for Hatred or Exclusion!!

Yet, as far as it depended on me, I would hope that I could extend the Unity of the Spirit toward such a person. For I am called to Love them.
I may not succeed well. (Or, at all!)
But, I would be compelled to try.

I am not responsible for siblings with whom I disagree.
I can pray for them.
For sure, I can rebuke them and encourage them to join me on a better path.

At the end of the day we are each responsible for our own thoughts and actions. As I lay my head down at night and take a time of Examen to consider the day, I can only take credit or blame for myself.

Is it hard?
Damn straight it is!

Can I go to a church where I know that I will be triggered with anxiety?
No. I know my limitations.
Can I see Jesus in people who DO go to those churches?
I hope that I can.
I pray that I can.
And, I try to enact that love and acceptance as best I can.

That’s all we can do.

It is a more excellent way.

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1 Corinthians_Unity pt. 2

Published by mhelbert on June 23, 2020

The last time I shared I wrote that the answer to my reader’s question about whether we should strive for unity with people whose faith is in opposition to ours. How can we achieve unity with people who are simply so far afield from us?

That leads us to what the real question is:
Are those others even Real True Christians?

If we answer in the negative, we are essentially off the hook. “They aren’t part of the Church, so I don’t need to strive for unity with them. Hell, I don’t even need to talk to them!”

When we try to do this we commit the logical fallacy known as the “No True Scotsman” fallacy.
This tack seems to let us proclaim that our brand of (fill in the blank) is what a true (same fill in the blank) looks like. Therefore, any deviation from what we think is (blank again) cannot be a True (fill in the blank).

This reader could then say, “Christians love others. That person doesn’t love everyone. Therefore, that person is not a Real True Christian.”

The argument is a fallacy because one changes the subject without any logical reason to do so. There is no, as some say, a falsifiable fact involved. It’s simply a subjective statement to try and create a false dichotomy.

The fact is, Falwell Jr., Franklin Graham, Bob Jeffress, et al are IN FACT CHRISTIANS!!
We don’t get to make judgments about their faith any more than they get to do that about us.
In fact, these people would come out and say that All Progressive Christians are NOT Real True Christians.

So, what do we do about the seeming disparity in what we believe about God and Jesus?
It appears that the chasm is great and there is no way to bridge it.

Taking Jesus as our Exemplar once again, perhaps we can begin to see a way forward.

Those of us who have read the stories about Jesus, the Gospels, understand that Jesus was not a simple, monochrome person. He was solid as a rock about some things. A little more colorful or even ambivalent about others.
One of the things that he was solid about was that many people who claimed to be leaders of Israel were behaving in ways that God simply was opposed to.
Many of these people tried to confront Jesus and trip him up.
One time when Jesus was eating with so-called “tax collectors and sinners,” those people questioned his judgment about the company he kept.
Jesus said, “It’s the sick who need a physician.”
In the 23rd chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew, Jesus pronounce ‘8 Woes’ upon those same people. He called out their hypocrisy, hate, and bigotry. His language was hard as he pointed out how they erred from the Way of God.
Jesus used Judgment language to denounce cities where the people did not accept the miracles he performed as proof of God’s Presence among them.
These were powerful and hard words.

Yet, at no time did Jesus say that they were not Real True Israelites.

In fact, I think that he was able to use that kind of language with them precisely because they were family.

Jesus example provides us with a way to engage others with whom we disagree. It’s not to point fingers at them and pronounce them “Unclean!”
But, we may engage them and try to show them that there is another way to walk in Faith.
We don’t need to be exclusive and build walls to keep out the “Other.”
In fact, it’s closer to our job description to be demolition experts who tear down walls!

What if those others refuse to listen and rebuff us?
Can we wipe the dust off of our sandals and walk away?

I really wish that I could say, “Yes!!! Just walk away!!!”

I’m not sure that I can say that, though.

Because, I think that there may be a “still more excellent way.”

But, that will need to wait til next time.

For now, perhaps we can reflect on what it means to be members of a dysfunctional family. We have no control over who our siblings are or what they will do.
But, in the end, we ARE still Sisters and Brothers.

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1 Corinthians_Unity pt. 1

Published by mhelbert on June 18, 2020

Yesterday I wrote a response to a reader’s questions.
At issue is whether or not seeking unity is possible when there are others who hold such diametrically opposed positions on faith, belief, and praxis.
In fact, it would seem that some of the differences that we see in today’s American culture are insurmountable. We would be better off simply not engaging with those folks. It would be better for our own sanity and peace.
We could always cite texts within the Bible that state things like, “what does darkness have to do with light? Therefore, don’t associate with darkness.”
Makes sense. Right?

Of course it does.

That may be the crux of the issue.

I wrote a few days ago, Here, about how evolution may play a role in how we view “Others.”
In order to protect our tribe so that we can flourish, reproduce, and live our lives, we construct barriers that insulate ourselves against those others.
Those barriers include ideas and beliefs. Even if we find ourselves in physical closeness with one another, say for commerce or other concerns, we still keep the barriers up. In this way we can clearly see any potential danger from outside influences.
I highlight Influences because that is precisely what it seems that we do when when we listen to the voices of our own echo chambers.
Whether those voices are conservative or liberal, Democrat or Republican, Muslim or Jew,
working class or ivory tower Elite, we naturally gravitate toward the voices that resonate with our tribe.
As I wrote then, I think that this kind of thinking is at the heart of many of the issues that we deal with in our society today.
It’s all Us or Them.
And, nary the twain shall meet.
Period.

This was part of the problem that St. Paul saw in the fledgling church at Corinth. They had divided up into factions that ‘Liked’ one personality over another. Paul came right out and called these schisms. These schisms threatened to derail all of the work that Paul and friends had done with this church. The Koinonia, or Fellowship, that Paul saw as foundational to the Gospel that he proclaimed was in danger of fracturing.
And, Paul was not having any of that nonsense.
For, to him, it was nonsense.
Over the course of this letter he will lay out what he sees, why it makes no sense, and what he expects the followers of Jesus in this community to do about it.
So, we’ll touch on some of that later.

What I want to address now is the idea of Unity that Paul calls for.
Does Unity really mean Unity?
I mean, I can achieve some level of unity with folks who think like I do.
But, what about everyone else?
Do I need to strive for Unity with “Them”?

The short answer is ‘Yes,’ we do.
Neither Paul nor Jesus leave us a way out of that.

Jesus told his followers:

43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
[The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989). (Mt 5:43–48). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.]

Pretty clear. Jesus felt pretty strongly about the idea of loving the “Other.”

Even in some of our own traditions the words of our Baptismal Covenant ask us,
“Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?”
“Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?”
(Taken from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer.)

I realize that all of this sounds difficult, if not counter productive to our own aspirations to work for peace and justice in society. We are simply going to have to admit that we will be up against stiff opposition from other tribes who are trying to maintain their own boundaries and integrity. Just like we are.
So, let’s fight and press our position, our Rights, until we defeat those other folks.
After all, we ARE right!
Right?

Well, definitely, maybe.

While unity and respect, if not outright Love, are what’s called for, simple acquiescence to what those other folks think is NOT.

That’s a topic for another post.
For now, take the time to think about your own positions on the pressing issues that face us today.
Then, take a moment to place yourself in the position of someone who may not agree with you.
Can we empathize with them at all?
Or, are they so far off of the rails that only a crane will help right them on the tracks?

Because, looking intently at the “Other” and discerning the flicker of Divine Light, that Imago Dei, that may still dwell within them is what Jesus did.
For those of us who claim to follow Jesus, he is our Exemplar in these things.
He treated both friend and opposition this way.
Perhaps, we should learn how He did that and follow.

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1 Corinthians_A Digression

Published by mhelbert on June 17, 2020

Yesterday I wrote a little about what I think was St. Paul’s over-arching concern for the churches that had contact with.
That concern was for unity. As he wrote, he desired that the folks in the fellowship of believers at Corinth would “be like minded and of the same consent.”
So, it’s no surprise that one of my reader would pose the following questions:

“So is it possible to apply this call to unity as you understand it to the Fundamental/Evangelical portion of the church? What does that unity look like? Must unity be reciprocated or can it be only one way? Do I have a responsibility to pursue unity even if others don’t want to have unity with me? If you believe a group within what we would consider the Body of Christ holds hurtful, or even evil doctrines regarding women, gays, minorities, immigrants, etc. must we attempt to live in peace and unity with them? Can we express unity over spiritual matters but go to war with one another over political positions?”

Some of you reading may not understand the questions. They seem to be a way of dodging the responsibilities that Paul appeared to lay upon the folks at Corinth.
“Of course! Unity is unity! We should strive for it with all people.”

And, for those of you who may ask that question I have a reply that may explain where such questioning may originate.

If you were never a part of a conservative, evangelical church you really have no idea how questions like those asked of my reader are important.
Many of us came to follow Jesus at a time when there was a lot of social and political unrest in the U.S. We were part of the so-called “Jesus Movement” of the early 70s. We built our faith and identity on our understanding of the Church as it was described in the first few chapters of the Book of Acts. We willing gave away our belongings and identity in order to “follow Jesus just like the first Church!” Hallelujah!
Part of our concept of how to do this was to become “Disciples.”
We understood that the term Disciple shared an etymological root with the word Discipline. So, we instituted a church government that we believed mirrored that which Paul and Peter and the rest established in the first century.
We had elders who held absolute authority over the church. We took the words that folks should not cause the elders any grief because they worked for God and not themselves.
We believed that such elders or even so-called apostolic ministry was ordained by God for the building up of the Body of Christ so that we could live counter-culturally and witness to the Good News that the Bible taught us.
As our churches grew, we got older. We began to see cultural issues as battlegrounds where our faith was tested. Abortion became a rallying cry for us. Secularization in government and wanton corruption in entertainment caused our leaders to decry how our culture had fallen from its original mandate to establish a City on a Hill that would beckon those seeking religious freedom to our cause.
As you can see, our church culture was ripe for authoritarian abuse. Those elders and leaders we had entrusted our faith to led us into culture wars where we soon saw ourselves as a persecuted minority.
Those of us who did not hold positions of authority were expected to do as we were told.
We met when we were told to meet. We raised our children according to the ways prescribed by our leaders. We had marriage retreats where husbands were told that they were neglecting their duty as the “Authority and covering” for their wives and children. In some case we were told how to spend our free time and how to vote.
The church was our life.
We were instructed by people like second-rate psychologist and theologian wannab James Dobson on how to raise children.
He was wrong on so many levels. But, we didn’t realize it at the time.
We were becoming disciplined disciples who disciplined their children in a disciple-making manner.
Many of us still suffer from the dysfunction that lingers to this day.
Our elders controlled how wives should submit to their husbands in all things including sex.
Wives, we were told, didn’t have control over their bodies, their husbands did. And, husbands were told that we were simply sexually driven animals who really didn’t have any control over their bodies either.
This led to abuses, adulteries, slut shaming, and a purity culture that shamed girls and women.

Many of us, myself included, suffer today from some form of what is termed
“Church PTSD.” Walking into an evangelical church for me is a triggering event that causes anxiety and anger associated with our natural ‘fight or flight’ reaction to perceived danger.
I know people who absolutely cannot walk into ANY church because of the abuses they incurred.
I’m not talking about physical abuse in my case.
Emotional and Spiritual abuse, however, have left me and my family scarred.

So, for those of us who escaped from that milieu, we react viscerally when someone suggests that we should strive for unity with those we feel abused us.
This is what leads us to ask the kinds of question my reader posed.

How can we seek unity with our abusers?
Is there any common ground that we can find with the haters and bigots who were spawned by this fundalelical movement?
Can we sit with the likes of Franklin Graham or christian nationalists like Robert Jeffress, pseudo-historian David Barton, or the Liar Tony Perkins?

From my description of these folks you may assume that I don’t see a way.

That may not be entirely accurate.
I do take the Bible seriously. I take my trust in the Faithfulness of God seriously, also.
So, what to do with our personal histories and beliefs?
I think that we’ll continue this discussion for a while.
We may even find some hope in Paul’s letter to that troublesome church at Corinth.

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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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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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On A Positive Note…

Published by mhelbert on April 16, 2020

I have spent a lot of time over the years trying to expose the negative side of the Church.
The abuses of authority; the harmful theology; the elevation of ME above all else.
These criticisms are well deserved. People have been harmed by the Church. And, it really doesn’t matter what flavor Church. Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox are all culpable in the abuses.
The public results of these abuses, besides lives ruined, includes the loss of any claim to the so-called Moral High Ground.
In other words, the Church has destroyed her ability to be a Blessing to the Cosmos.

So, what should things look like?
Honestly, no one can say for certain what God has planned for it.
But, we can sketch a few things.
Things that, rather than tearing down, may reveal a way forward in Love and Faithfulness.

So, let’s start.
In the beginning….

The writers of Holy Scripture were people just like us. They lived in a particular time, place, and culture that colored the words that they wrote. So, for them such things as a cosmos that was created Ex Nihilo was just the way things were.
These writers presented their readers with a problem. The problem was, God created the Heavens and the Earth. In God’s abundant Love humans were made for the expressed purpose of caring for the Earth as God’s Special Envoys. The intent was for humanity to embody God’s glory as Eikons of God. They would rule jointly with God over the creation.
But, there was a problem. Humanity could not live up to God’s calling. They were, after all, made of the same stuff that the cosmos was…dust.
Soon the problem came to a head when humanity took it upon themselves to listen to and embrace other creatures. Idolatry and the corruption that comes with that began to mar the Very Good Cosmos that God had made.
But, God was still convinced that humanity MUST be a part of God’s plan for guiding and caring for the World.
So, God ‘elected’ a family.
For those who know a little about the story of Israel, you will have heard of a guy named Abraham. God chose Abraham and his descendants to become the agents of God’s blessing for the Cosmos. The story continues through Abraham’s grandson, Jacob, to the selection of a community, Israel.
Israel’s history was checkered at best.
But, God had made a covenant with Abraham that, because of Abraham’s faithfulness to God’s promises, stated that the entire Cosmos would be blessed.
God took that Covenant seriously and was faithful to it in spite of Israel’s inability to live up to its calling.
In time, God, who had chosen Israel as the people through whom the blessing would come, raised up One Person from Israel.
This One Person became God’s own Image-bearer. An image-bearer who would do what the original humans, nor Israel, could.
Through the death of Jesus the problem of humanity’s inability to live up to God’s Glorious Calling at the beginning was solved. The resurrection of Jesus from the grave proved God’s faithfulness to set things right.

Ok, nice story.
But, so what?

God had done something that no one expected.
Because of the faithfulness of Jesus, all of humanity had the opportunity to share in Jesus’ faithfulness. We, in fact, have been joined together into the family of God’s Promise to Abraham. We are benefactors of God’s Covenant with Abraham.
God, in God’s own love and Being, put us into a Community.
A living Community where God’s own Spirit lives and brings life.
We are not a bunch of individuals going about our own personal business. Living in our own personal salvation.
No.
We are, as Peter wrote, ‘A royal priesthood and a Holy Nation.’

We. Belong. Together.

Together we are to be a blessing to the whole Cosmos.
Together we reflect the Glory of God to each other, to God, and to the World.
Together!
Together!

That is our hope and our calling.
And, that’s a good thing.

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The Rugged Individual

Published by mhelbert on April 15, 2020

One of the hallmarks of life in the U.S. is the ideal of the “Rugged Individual.” While it seems that this image had been brewing ever since the birth of the nation, it really didn’t take off and become a mark of American exceptionalism until after the Second World War.
We have become a nation where everyone considers their right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness is a personal guarantee that no one, especially not the government, can tell me what I can do, when and where I can do it, or ask me why I’m doing it. After all, the Constitution says so.
Of course, when the Constitution says that I can do something that you want to do and there’s a conflict, my rights always supersede yours. And, if you don’t like it, we’ll see you in court. Because, you know, my rights are given to me by no lesser authority than God!

What escapes most people’s attention is that those so-called ‘God given rights’ are not in the Constitution.
They appear in the Declaration of Independence. And, as I have said in many other places, Context is everything.
The Declaration, besides being a rallying point for the nascent United States, was first a notice to King George III that the American Colonies would no longer put up with British rule. The inalienable rights part, especially the God given wording, let George know in no uncertain terms that God was the only source for these rights. The crown was not.

So, there was a war and a new nation was born that began a long experiment in democratic government that is still under way today.

Soon, individuals began trekking into the wilderness of this land. They fought and worked and died in order to provide for themselves and their families.
It didn’t matter what obstacles lay in their path toward this inevitable destiny. They had a God given right to this land and its bounty. So, facts like the land was already populated by Indigenous people were tossed aside.
“God gave this land to us. Not to you.” (But, that ‘s another post.)

As I began to deconstruct the Ziggurat that was my protestant, evangelical life, I started to wonder about this.
To explain a bit…
In Protestantism individual faith is paramount. After all, Jesus died for me. Yeah, he may have died for you, too. But, that’s between you and God and doesn’t effect me at all.
It’s all about Me and Jesus! Hallelujah!
In the church that I was a part of at that time this was absolutely the underlying ethic to their theology. It was no more apparent than when, once a month, we had Communion. We asked that the head of each family, or family unit, would come and take the bread and cup back to their individual clan. There the elements would be taken. I questioned the leaders about this. Because, to me anyway, it seemed that the celebration of Communion should be a community celebration. Not an individual family thing. This seemed more like a fracturing of the Body of Christ than a joining together in communal Thanksgiving.
Silly me for thinking such things!

Eventually, I did leave that church. There are many, many reasons why. But, that idea of fracturing the Body of Christ is near the top.

Here, in an admittedly compressed version, is what I have learned, and am convinced of, since my departure.
The church I left, and all of those churches that think that same way, follow a modern version of Reformation theology. Every individual is a sinner in need of grace. Ok, so far so good. This thinking also leads to the idea that every individual is responsible for how they live that faith. That pretty much means that I can do what ever I believe God wants me to do.
Of course, there are the big ‘Sins’ that must be avoided. But, if it’s not listed as sin, then I’m good to go.

That idea has driven much of our Western culture as it formed over the ensuing 500 years. It led, inevitably, to our old friend the Marlboro Man. It is readily displayed in the people who yell about their own rights. Just look at the churches that are openly defying stay at home orders during the current Covid-19 crisis. Their rallying cry?
“No government can tell me what to do! My God is bigger than you. And, My God has given me the inalienable right to gather. So what if the virus is spread among the congregation and then back to their homes and friends and family.”

And yet, the very Bible that these people tell us that they believe in and follow is clear.
“Consider others above yourself.”
“Anyone who tries to save their own life will lose it.”
All of the letters written by the Apostle Paul are attempts to build communities who live their lives sacrificially in order to display God’s mercy to the world.
The idea that we are all just individuals who should live our lives in isolation from one another would be totally foreign to the people who actually wrote the Book.

As I wrote before, the in the Body of Christ there is no room for me; my; mine. It is always “Us.”
We are a community.
We must live like it.

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