.jpg)
The Christian Church began life as a group of Jewish believers who began to follow the teaching of Jesus. Until the Jewish revolt again the Roman occupation, it seems that these early followers remained within Judaism and attended synagogue, as the Acts of the Apostles suggests (Acts 2.46). The revolt was one of a number over many years attempting to throw off Roman rule. The Maccabean revolt, (c.140-40BCE), was the most successful giving the Jewish people around a hundred years to rule themselves.
In the revolt of 70 CE, the Christian group within Judaism refused to join the rebellion against Rome. For the failure of the revolt the followers of Jesus were blamed. The argument was that their following of the teachings of Jesus, against such things as Sabbath observance and food and cleanliness laws rendered them unclean and as such led to Yahweh’s anger toward the people. So they were ostracized from synagogue and temple.
Since that time the history of the Church is littered with a sad history of support for and in some cases the prosecution of war as a solution to international disagreements. The history of the churches support for war is a scandal. From Constantine to the Crusades, the wars of the Reformation, the thirty years war in Europe and countless local wars the Church has given either open, or tacit, support to them. The Christian Church has been as guilty of prosecuting holy war as any other religious group. Internally it warred against its own in the Inquisition. It has supported Apartheid, genocide, and slavery. Its record on human rights is appalling. That is not to say that individuals and groups have not stood out against such evil, but they have been essentially protest movements against the mainstream of the Church.
Mohandas K. (Mahatma) Ghandi is famed for his aphorisms, one of which says, “an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.” Our human history is littered with examples of one group seeking to put out the eyes of another. Jesus’ response to an eye for an eye was to suggest giving the coat off your back to the one you perceive as your enemy, or turning the other cheek. The latter having the effect of drawing the teeth of the anger against you!
It is the task of followers of Jesus to stand firm against war in all its forms. Christians talk at this time of the year about God being incarnate in Jesus, the word becoming flesh, and sing about Emmanuel, that is, ‘God with’, or, ‘within us’. It seems that we must mean it is within us but not the other girl, or guy, otherwise how could we contemplate killing him, or her? We pray religiously (sarcasm intended) for peace on earth, but we want it at the least possible cost. We seem to want it just to arrive and, if not, then we seem to think that the only way to get it is by violence. The history of humankind gives the lie to that.
War, who ever ‘wins’, is a defeat for humankind.
As Chair of the Peace and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Desmond Tutu was asked what it meant to forgive. His answer was that we abandon the right that someone else gives us by the violence they do to us to retribution, or revenge and in so doing open the door to them, and so to us, for a new beginning.
“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall — think of it, always." M.K.Ghandi
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Monday, December 17, 2007
Baby Jesus
Unless you view the birth stories of Jesus in the gospels of Matthew and Luke literally, Christmas can be a theological minefield. It seems the ‘magic of Christmas” has to be preserved. Santas, and snow, log fires, gifts and crèche scenes seem to encapsulate those feelings of ‘magic’. They appear tied up with folks feelings of hope for things like peace in the world, freedom from anxiety, and harmony in their relationships and within them. I think that is also true of the ‘popular’ Christian story!
The Christmas Story which we know is a creation of the different stories contained in Matthew and Luke. Parts have been taken from both and fitted together into a whole. It is, however, full of inconsistencies as an attempt at a cohesive, or historical, or convincing story of what happened. As a factual account, it doesn’t work, even though it makes a good story.
It turns out that it is the story that matters.
The stories are not fact, though you can read them literally if you wish, and the events did not happen in history, other than the birth of a child. So what’s going on? Are Matthew and Luke charlatans, seeking to tell a tale as if it were fact? If that is not the case, then something else is going on here. The question is, “What is going on?”
Examining the stories in detail, every element can be traced back from the Christian story to Judaic origins. Stars and shepherds, and sages, a virgin, (or more correctly young woman), oxen, lambs, flights into Egypt and even Bethlehem as the birth-place of Jesus, all have antecedents in Hebrew Scripture.
It turns out that it’s the connection that counts.
To understand what’s going on we need to think ourselves into the time after year 70 of the Common Era. Between then and about 100 the gospels of Matthew and Luke were being constructed. Their purpose was to recommend the person and teachings of the man, the prophet, the teacher, the healer, Jesus bar Joseph of Nazareth. This is the man for whom some dropped everything they were doing to follow. This is the man in whose presence people found their broken lives and bodies transformed. Having met Jesus they were not the same people any more. Some would describe it like being in the presence of God, certainly in the presence of holiness, which for some meant wholeness. Here was a teacher who showed how it was possible to live in a way that was not about dominance and competition for scarce resources, but about compassion in lives of abundance.
How do you tell that story? A biography was certainly possible. It would not solve the problem of factuality. Biographies are still interpretative of a life.
What we have is perhaps like a painting. It’s an interpretative portrait at one level. That too is a problem. Almost certainly, to begin with, the Jesus story was told, not written. What was told was an experience and, of themselves, experiences are difficult to put into words. Experiences are about what we sense, and feel, about someone, or something. When we try to describe those, we can come up with some pretty wild language. Think about how you might describe a life-changing experience. What language, or image, might you chose? The contemporary followers of Jesus are trying to tell us that in some way, some how in Jesus they had experienced the presence of God in a way that defied language.
How could it happen and how can you explain to some one how, to put it crudely, God got into Jesus in this way? The gospel writer, Matthew, resolves the issue of how the divine, the holy could be experienced in the life of Jesus, by a story about an angel declaring that Jesus had his origins in the Godhead, he used specific language that Jesus was the son of God, (what that term meant I’ll deal with in another blog). The gospel of Mark, not having any birth stories, puts it in the context of a divine announcement of Jesus’ identity at the moment of his baptism as an adult, in the River Jordan. Luke’s gospel embellishes Matthew’s story of the nativity and has Jesus identity announced to his father, Joseph, in a dream. The gospel of John, in that reading from his first chapter so often used at Christmas, says that there never was a time when Jesus was not part of God.
As they tell the story two things happen. The first is that they understand Jesus in the context of the Judaism from which both he and they come. So before anyone invented what we now commonly call the New Testament, the Jesus story, still within Judaism, was still part of what has been called[1] ‘salvation history’, that is still part of the epic story of how Judaism understood itself in relationship to it’s god and it’s world.
As I read that continuing story, I know that in stories of stars, shepherds and stables, sages and virgin births, I have entered the realm of mythology. I do not mean to suggest that, therefore, what we are dealing with is untrue. I mean that it is not fact. I mean that it is true in a way that fact obscures and limits. I am told that certain Native American story tellers begin telling their tribal stories to young people by saying something akin to, “I don’t know if this happened, but I know it’s true.”
So, in the same way, the birth stories of Jesus are not fact, but they are true. Their truth lies, not in whether or not they happened, but in how the writers understood the holiness they called God, Yahweh, Elohim, El, Jehovah, and Adonai, challenged the way in which they lived together. It’s a story about how we are able to change the normal ways of dominance, and competition, and religious, political and social control and oppression.
It begins with an unlikely story of a defenseless child, born to a peasant family in an oppressed community, who grows up to offer ways to change the way the world can be.
[1] Rudolf Bultmann, (1884- ) I believe, originated the concept in Offenbarung und Heilegeschehen (1941)
The Christmas Story which we know is a creation of the different stories contained in Matthew and Luke. Parts have been taken from both and fitted together into a whole. It is, however, full of inconsistencies as an attempt at a cohesive, or historical, or convincing story of what happened. As a factual account, it doesn’t work, even though it makes a good story.
It turns out that it is the story that matters.
The stories are not fact, though you can read them literally if you wish, and the events did not happen in history, other than the birth of a child. So what’s going on? Are Matthew and Luke charlatans, seeking to tell a tale as if it were fact? If that is not the case, then something else is going on here. The question is, “What is going on?”
Examining the stories in detail, every element can be traced back from the Christian story to Judaic origins. Stars and shepherds, and sages, a virgin, (or more correctly young woman), oxen, lambs, flights into Egypt and even Bethlehem as the birth-place of Jesus, all have antecedents in Hebrew Scripture.
It turns out that it’s the connection that counts.
To understand what’s going on we need to think ourselves into the time after year 70 of the Common Era. Between then and about 100 the gospels of Matthew and Luke were being constructed. Their purpose was to recommend the person and teachings of the man, the prophet, the teacher, the healer, Jesus bar Joseph of Nazareth. This is the man for whom some dropped everything they were doing to follow. This is the man in whose presence people found their broken lives and bodies transformed. Having met Jesus they were not the same people any more. Some would describe it like being in the presence of God, certainly in the presence of holiness, which for some meant wholeness. Here was a teacher who showed how it was possible to live in a way that was not about dominance and competition for scarce resources, but about compassion in lives of abundance.
How do you tell that story? A biography was certainly possible. It would not solve the problem of factuality. Biographies are still interpretative of a life.
What we have is perhaps like a painting. It’s an interpretative portrait at one level. That too is a problem. Almost certainly, to begin with, the Jesus story was told, not written. What was told was an experience and, of themselves, experiences are difficult to put into words. Experiences are about what we sense, and feel, about someone, or something. When we try to describe those, we can come up with some pretty wild language. Think about how you might describe a life-changing experience. What language, or image, might you chose? The contemporary followers of Jesus are trying to tell us that in some way, some how in Jesus they had experienced the presence of God in a way that defied language.
How could it happen and how can you explain to some one how, to put it crudely, God got into Jesus in this way? The gospel writer, Matthew, resolves the issue of how the divine, the holy could be experienced in the life of Jesus, by a story about an angel declaring that Jesus had his origins in the Godhead, he used specific language that Jesus was the son of God, (what that term meant I’ll deal with in another blog). The gospel of Mark, not having any birth stories, puts it in the context of a divine announcement of Jesus’ identity at the moment of his baptism as an adult, in the River Jordan. Luke’s gospel embellishes Matthew’s story of the nativity and has Jesus identity announced to his father, Joseph, in a dream. The gospel of John, in that reading from his first chapter so often used at Christmas, says that there never was a time when Jesus was not part of God.
As they tell the story two things happen. The first is that they understand Jesus in the context of the Judaism from which both he and they come. So before anyone invented what we now commonly call the New Testament, the Jesus story, still within Judaism, was still part of what has been called[1] ‘salvation history’, that is still part of the epic story of how Judaism understood itself in relationship to it’s god and it’s world.
As I read that continuing story, I know that in stories of stars, shepherds and stables, sages and virgin births, I have entered the realm of mythology. I do not mean to suggest that, therefore, what we are dealing with is untrue. I mean that it is not fact. I mean that it is true in a way that fact obscures and limits. I am told that certain Native American story tellers begin telling their tribal stories to young people by saying something akin to, “I don’t know if this happened, but I know it’s true.”
So, in the same way, the birth stories of Jesus are not fact, but they are true. Their truth lies, not in whether or not they happened, but in how the writers understood the holiness they called God, Yahweh, Elohim, El, Jehovah, and Adonai, challenged the way in which they lived together. It’s a story about how we are able to change the normal ways of dominance, and competition, and religious, political and social control and oppression.
It begins with an unlikely story of a defenseless child, born to a peasant family in an oppressed community, who grows up to offer ways to change the way the world can be.
[1] Rudolf Bultmann, (1884- ) I believe, originated the concept in Offenbarung und Heilegeschehen (1941)
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Why this blog at all?
I have been thinking theology, that is thinking about the nature and meaning of things, since I can remember. Where I now find myself is the result of the journey from then to now.
What I understand to be the current Christian paradigm, (that is the Christian way of seeing the world and the nature and meaning of things), seems to have been the mainstream paradigm for most of my journey and no longer accords with how I now understand the world and the nature and meaning of things. So it no longer meets my needs.
I am in a place where what Marcus Borg called the ‘emerging paradigm’ allows me to continue to explore the nature of who I am in relation to the world and that which lies beyond my current experience, or understanding.
My intent is to invite you into a dialogue about that ‘emerging paradigm’. It will mean for me taking some risks in thinking, the “What ifs” of open thinking. I have to say I am not really interested in engaging in an argument about who might be right, or wrong. Orthodoxy, in the sense of right belief, is not an interest of mine. To change the image, achieving orthodoxy would be like arriving at a terminus from which I could no longer continue an exciting journey which remains to be completed.
A wise Philosopher - was it Socrates or Plato? – said something along the lines that, rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of a wise man. For me, things like 10 commandments and 39 articles, denominational covenants, confessions, or statements fall into that category. Current arguments within churches about right belief seem to me to be sterile in their attempts to set boundaries about who can be counted a ‘believer’, ‘member’, in or out. They feel to me to be essentially about control when used as tests of orthodoxy.
Jesus, as I understand his teaching, was concerned with relationships, most especially ours with each other and the divine, the holy, God, to express that which lies beyond either our experience, or control.
If this is your journey I would be delighted and honored if you wish to travel with me.
Simply respond with your comment. All I ask is that you identify yourself.
What I understand to be the current Christian paradigm, (that is the Christian way of seeing the world and the nature and meaning of things), seems to have been the mainstream paradigm for most of my journey and no longer accords with how I now understand the world and the nature and meaning of things. So it no longer meets my needs.
I am in a place where what Marcus Borg called the ‘emerging paradigm’ allows me to continue to explore the nature of who I am in relation to the world and that which lies beyond my current experience, or understanding.
My intent is to invite you into a dialogue about that ‘emerging paradigm’. It will mean for me taking some risks in thinking, the “What ifs” of open thinking. I have to say I am not really interested in engaging in an argument about who might be right, or wrong. Orthodoxy, in the sense of right belief, is not an interest of mine. To change the image, achieving orthodoxy would be like arriving at a terminus from which I could no longer continue an exciting journey which remains to be completed.
A wise Philosopher - was it Socrates or Plato? – said something along the lines that, rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of a wise man. For me, things like 10 commandments and 39 articles, denominational covenants, confessions, or statements fall into that category. Current arguments within churches about right belief seem to me to be sterile in their attempts to set boundaries about who can be counted a ‘believer’, ‘member’, in or out. They feel to me to be essentially about control when used as tests of orthodoxy.
Jesus, as I understand his teaching, was concerned with relationships, most especially ours with each other and the divine, the holy, God, to express that which lies beyond either our experience, or control.
If this is your journey I would be delighted and honored if you wish to travel with me.
Simply respond with your comment. All I ask is that you identify yourself.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)