An Excerpt from "What We Talk About When We Talk About God," by Rob Bell

What We Talk About When We Talk About God (EXCERPT)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rob-bell/what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-god-excerpt_b_2839028.html?utm_hp_ref=tw

 

by Rob Bell, Author of Love Wins

March 12, 2013

 

I realize that when I use the word God, there's a good chance I'm stepping on all kinds of land mines. Is there a more volatile word loaded down with more history, assumptions and expectations than that tired, old, relevant, electrically charged, provocative, fresh, antiquated yet ubiquitous as ever, familiar/unfamiliar word God?

 

And that's why I use it.

 

From people risking their lives to serve the poor because they believe God called them to do it, to pastors claiming that the latest tornado or hurricane or earthquake is God's judgment, to professors proclaiming that God has only ever been a figment of our imagination, to people in a recovery meeting sitting in a circle drinking bad coffee and talking about surrendering to a higher power, to musicians in their acceptance speech at an awards show thanking God for their hit song about a late-night booty call, when it comes to God, we are all over the place.

 

Like a mirror, God appears to be more and more a reflection of whoever it is that happens to be talking about God at the moment.

 

And then there are the latest surveys and polls, the ones telling us how many of us believe and don't believe in God and how many fewer of us are going to church, inevitably prompting experts to speculate about demographics and technology and worship style and this generation vs. that generation, all of it avoiding the glaring truth that sits right there elephant-like in the middle of the room.

 

The truth is, we have a problem with God.

 

It's not just a problem of definition -- what is it we're talking about when we talk about God? -- and it's not just the increasing likelihood that two people discussing God are in fact talking about two extraordinarily different realities while using the exact same word.

 

This problem with God goes much, much deeper.

 

As a pastor over the past 20 years, what I've seen again and again is people who want to live lives of meaning and peace and significance and joy -- people who have a compelling sense that their spirituality is in some vital and yet mysterious way central to who they are -- but who can't find meaning in the dominant conceptions, perceptions and understandings of God they've encountered. In fact, those conceptions aren't just failing them but are actually causing harm.

 

We're engaged more than ever by the possibilities of soul and spirit, and by the nagging suspicion that all of this may not be a grand accident after all; but God, an increasing number of people are asking -- what does God have to do with that?

 

I've written this book about that word, then, because there's something in the air, we're in the midst of a massive rethink, a movement is gaining momentum, a moment in history is in the making: There is a growing sense among a growing number of people that when it comes to God, we're at the end of one era and the start of another, an entire mode of understanding and talking about God dying as something new is being birthed.

 

There's an ancient story about a man named Jacob who had a magnificent dream, and when he wakes up he says, "Surely God was in this place, and I, I wasn't aware of it."

 

Until now.

 

The power of the story is its timeless reminder that God hasn't changed; it's Jacob who wakes up to a whole new awareness of who -- and where -- God is.

 

Which brings me back to this moment, to the realization among an increasing number of people that we are waking up in new ways to the God who's been here the whole time.

 

I'm aware, to say the least, that talking about this and writing a book about it, naming it and trying to explain it and taking a shot at describing where it's all headed, runs all sorts of risks.

 

I get that.

 

We're surrounded by friends and neighbors and family and intellectual and religious systems with deeply held, vested interests in the conventional categories and conceptions of belief and denial continuing to remain as entrenched as those traditional conceptions are. There are, as they say, snipers on every roof. And being controversial isn't remotely interesting.

 

But love and meaning and joy and hope?

 

That's compelling.

 

That's what I'm after.

 

That's worth the risk.

 

The great German scholar Helmut Thielicke once said that a person who speaks to this hour's need will always be skirting the edge of heresy, but only the person who risks those heresies can gain the truth.

 

And the truth is, we have a problem -- we have a need -- and there's always the chance that this may in fact be the hour.

 

First, then, a bit more about this God problem...

 

When I was 20, I drove an Oldsmobile.

 

Remember those?

 

It was a four-door Delta 88 and it was silver and it had a bench seat across the front with an armrest that folded down and it fit seven or eight people easily and in a feat of engineering genius the rear license plate was on a hinge that you pulled down in order to fill up the gas tank and the trunk was so huge you could put five snowboards in at the same time or a drum set, several guitar amps, and a body if you needed to. (I'm just messing with you there, about the body.) My friends called it "the Sled."

 

It was a magnificent automobile, the Sled, and it served me well for those years.

 

But they don't make Oldsmobiles anymore.

 

They used to be popular, and your grandparents or roommate may still drive one, but the factories have shut down. Eventually the only ones left will be collector's items, relics of an era that has passed.

 

Oldsmobile couldn't keep up with the times, and so it gradually became part of the past, not the future.

 

For them, not us.

 

For then, not now.

 

I tell you about the Sled I used to drive because for many in our world today, God is like Oldsmobiles. To explain what I mean when I talk about God-like Oldsmobiles, a few stories: My friend Cathi recently told me about an event she attended where an influential Christian leader talked openly about how he didn't think women should be allowed to teach and lead in the church. Cathi, who has two master's degrees, sat there stunned.

 

I got an email from my friend Gary last year, saying that he'd decided to visit a church with his family on Easter Sunday. They'd heard a sermon about how resurrection means everybody who is gay is going to hell.

 

And then my friend Michael recently told me about hearing the leader of a large Christian denomination say that if you deny that God made the world in a literal six days, you are denying the rest of the Bible as well, because it doesn't matter what science says.

 

And then there are the two pastors I know who each told me, within days of the other, how their wives don't want anything to do with God. Both wives were raised and educated in very religious environments that placed a great deal of importance on the belief that God is good and the point of life is to have a personal relationship with this good God. But both wives have suffered great pain in their young lives, and the clean and neat categories of faith they were handed in their youth haven't been capable of helping them navigate the complexity of their experiences. And so, like jilted lovers, they have turned away. God, for them, is an awkward, alien, strange notion. Like someone they used to know.

 

And then there's the party I attended in New York where I met a well-known journalist who, when he was told that I'm a pastor, wanted to know if all of you pastors use big charts with timelines and graphics to show people when the world is going to end and how Christians are going to escape while those who are left behind endure untold suffering.

 

I tell you about Cathi sitting there stunned and Gary hearing that sermon and me at that party because
whether it's science or art or education or medicine or personal rights or basic intellectual integrity or simply dealing with suffering in all of its complexity, for many in our world -- and this includes Christians and a growing number of pastors -- believing or trusting in that God, the one they've heard other Christians talk about, feels like a step backward, to an earlier, less informed and enlightened time, one that we've thankfully left behind.

 

There's a question that lurks in these stories, a question that an ever-increasing number of people across a broad range of backgrounds and perspectives are asking about God:

 

Can God keep up with the modern world?

 

Things have changed. We have more information and technology than ever. We're interacting with a far more diverse range of people than we used to. And the tribal God, the one that is the only one many have been exposed to -- the one who's always right (which means everybody else is wrong) -- is increasingly perceived to be small, narrow, irrelevant, mean, and sometimes just not that intelligent.

 

Is God going to be left behind?

 

Like Oldsmobiles?

 

* * *

 

For others, it isn't that God is behind or unable to deal with the complexity of life; for them God never existed in the first place. In recent years we've heard a number of very intelligent and articulate scientists, professors and writers argue passionately and confidently that there is no God. This particular faith insists that human beings are nothing more than highly complex interactions of atoms and molecules and neurons, hardwired over time to respond to stimuli in particular ways, feverishly constructing meaning to protect us from the unwelcome truth that there is no ultimate meaning because in the end we are simply the sum of our parts -- no more, no less.

 

That all there is is, in the end, all there is.

 

This denial isn't anything new, but it's gained a head of steam in recent years, this resurgence seemingly in reaction to the God-like Oldsmobile, the one more and more people are becoming convinced is not only behind, but downright destructive.

 

I was recently invited to participate in a debate at which the topic was "Is religion good or bad?"

 

Here's the kicker: the organizers wanted me to know I was free to choose which side I'd take!

 

How revealing is that?

 

All of which brings me to Jane Fonda. (You didn't see that coming, did you?) Several years ago in an interview she gave to Rolling Stone magazine the interviewer said this:

 

Your most recent -- and perhaps most dramatic -- transformation is your becoming a Christian. Even with your flair for controversy, that's pretty explosive.

 

It's a telling statement, isn't it? You can sense so much there, as if there's a question behind the question that isn't really a question -- that hidden question being what the interviewer really wants to ask her: "Why would anybody become a Christian?"

 

That's a question lots of people have -- educated, reasonable, modern people who find becoming a Christian an "explosive," not to mention an inconceivable, thing to do.

 

In her response, Jane Fonda spoke of being drawn to faith because "I could feel reverence humming in me."

 

Reverence humming in me. I love that phrase. It speaks to the experiences we've all had -- moments and tastes and glimpses when we've found ourselves deeply aware of the something more of life, the something else, the sense that all of this might just mean something, that it may not be an accident, that it has profound resonance and that it matters in ways that are very real and very hard to explain.

 

For a massive number of people, to deny this reverence humming in us, to insist that we're simply random collections of atoms and that all there is is all there is, leaves them cold, bored and uninspired.

 

It doesn't ring true to our very real experiences of life.

 

But when people turn to many of the conventional, traditional religious explanations for this reverence, they're often led to the God who is like Oldsmobiles, the one who's back there, behind, unable to keep up.

 

All of this raising the questions:

 

Are there other ways to talk about the reverence humming in us?

 

Are there other ways to talk about the sense we have that there's way more going on here?

 

Are there other ways to talk about God?

 

My answer is yes. I believe there are. But before we get to those others ways, I need to first tell you why this book comes bursting out of my heart like it does.

 

One Sunday morning a number of years ago I found myself face-to-face with the possibility that there is no God and we really are on our own and this may be all there is.

 

Now I realize lots of people have questions and convictions and doubts along those lines -- that's nothing new. But in my case, it was an Easter Sunday morning, and I was a pastor. I was driving to the church services where I'd be giving a sermon about how there is a God and that God came here to Earth to do something miraculous and rise from the dead so that all of us could live forever.

 

And it was expected that I would do this passionately and confidently and persuasively with great hope and joy and lots of exclamation points. !!!!!!!

 

That's how the Easter sermon goes, right? Imagine if I'd stood up there and said, "Well, I've been thinking about this for a while, and I gotta be honest with you: I think we're kinda screwed."

 

Doesn't work, does it?

 

I should pause here and say that when you're a pastor, your heart and soul and paycheck and doubts and faith and hopes and struggles and intellect and responsibility are all wrapped up together in a life/job that is very public. And Sunday comes once a week, when you're expected to have something inspiring to say, regardless of how you happen to feel or think about God at the moment. This can create a suffocating tension at times, because you want to serve people well and give them your very best, and yet you're also human. And in my case, full of really, really serious doubts about the entire ball of God wax.

 

That Easter Sunday was fairly traumatic, to say the least, because I realized that without some serious reflection and study and wise counsel I couldn't keep going without losing something vital to my sanity. The only way forward was to plunge headfirst into my doubts and swim all the way to the bottom and find out just how deep that pool went. And if I had to, in the end, walk away in good conscience, then so be it. At least I'd have my integrity.

 

This book, then, is deeply, deeply personal for me. Much of what I've written here comes directly out of my own doubt, skepticism and dark nights of the soul when I found myself questioning -- to be honest -- everything. There is a cold shudder that runs down the spine when you find yourself face-to-face with the unvarnished possibility that we may in the end be alone. To trust that there is a divine being who cares and loves and guides can feel like taking a leap -- across the ocean. So when I talk about God and faith and belief and all that, it's not from a triumphant, impatient posture of "Come on, people -- get with the program!" I come to this topic limping, with some bruises, acutely aware of how maddening, confusing, frustrating, infuriating and even traumatic it can be to talk about God.

 

What I experienced, over a long period of time, was a gradual awakening to new perspectives on God - specifically, the God Jesus talked about. I came to see that there were depths and dimensions to the ancient Hebrew tradition, and to the Christian tradition which grew out of that, that spoke directly to my questions and struggles in coming to terms with how to conceive of who God is and what God is and why that even matters and what that has to do with life in this world, here and now.

 

Through that process, which is of course still going on, the doubts didn't suddenly go away and the beliefs didn't suddenly form nice, neat categories. Something much more profound happened. Something extraordinarily freeing and inspiring and invigorating and really, really helpful, something thrilling which compels me to sit here day after day, month after month, and write this book.

 

Which leads me to two brief truths about this book before we go further.

 

First, I'm a Christian, and so Jesus is how I understand God. I realize that for some people, hearing talk about Jesus shrinks and narrows the discussion about God, but my experience has been the exact opposite. My experiences of Jesus have opened my mind and my heart to a bigger, wider, more expansive and mysterious and loving God who I believe is actually up to something in the world.

 

Second, what I've experienced time and time again is that people want to talk about God. Whether it's what they were taught growing up or not taught, or what inspires them or what repulses them, or what gives them hope or what fills them with despair, I've found people to be extremely keen to talk about their beliefs and lack of beliefs in God. What I've observed is that while we want more of a connection with the reverence humming within us, we often don't know where to begin or what steps to take or what that process even looks like.

 

So if, in some small way, this book could provide some guidance along these lines, I'd be ecstatic. In saying that, I should be clear here about one point: This is not a book in which I'll try to prove that God exists. If you even could prove the existence of the divine, I suspect that at that moment you would in fact be talking about something, or somebody, else.

 

This is a book about seeing, about becoming more and more alive and aware, orienting ourselves around the God who I believe is the ground of our being, the electricity that lights up the whole house, the transcendent presence in our tastes, sights and sensations of the depth and dimension and fullness of life, from joy to agony to everything else.

 

* * *

 

Now, about where we're headed in the following pages.

 

This book centers around three words. They aren't long or technical or complicated or scholarly; they're short, simple, everyday words, and they're the foundation on which everything we're going to cover rests.

 

These three words are central to how I understand God, and if I could CAPS LOCK THEM THE WHOLE WAY THROUGHOUT THE BOOK, I would; or write them in the sky or etch them in blood (on second thought, maybe not) or graffiti them on the side of your house (let's not do this either, though I'd love to see what Banksy would do with them), because they're the giant, big, loud, this one-goes-to-11 idea that animates everything we're going to explore in the following pages.

 

They've unleashed in me new ways of thinking about and understanding and most importantly experiencing God. They've made my life better, and my hope is that they will do the same for you.

 

But before we get to those three words, we first have two others words we're going to cover. (Nice buildup, huh?)

 

It's these two words that will set us up for the three words that form the backbone of the book.

 

First, we'll talk about being open, because when we talk about God we drag a massive amount of expectations and assumptions into the discussion with us about how the world works and what kind of universe we're living in. Often God's existence is challenged in the conversation about what matters most in the modern world because haven't we moved past all of that ancient, primitive, superstitious thinking? We have science after all, and reason and logic and evidence. What does God have to do with the new challenges we're facing and knowledge we're acquiring? Quite a lot, actually, because the universe, it turns out, is way, way weirder than any of us first thought. And that weirdness will demand that we be open.

 

So first, Open.

 

Then we'll talk about talking, because when we talk about God, we're using language, and language both helps us and fails us in our attempts to understand and describe the paradoxical nature of the God who is beyond words.

 

First Open,

then Both.

 

And then, after those two words, we get to the three words, the words that will shape how we talk about God in this book. The words are (I feel like there should be a drumroll or something...):

 

With,

 

For,

 

Ahead.

 

With, because I understand God to be the energy, the glue, the force, the life, the power and the source of all we know to be the depth, fullness and vitality of life from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows and everything in between. I believe God is with us because I believe that all of us are already experiencing the presence of God in countless ways every single day. In talking about the God who is with us, I want you to see how this withness directly confronts popular notions of God that put God somewhere else, doing something else, coming here now and again to do God-type things. I want you to see both the irrelevance and the danger of that particular perspective of God as you more and more see God all around you all the time.

 

Then for, because I believe God is for every single one of us, regardless of our beliefs or perspectives or actions or failures or mistakes or sins or opinions about whether God exists or not. I believe that God wants us each to flourish and thrive in this world here and now as we become more and more everything we can possibly be. In talking about the forness of God, I want you to see how many of the dominant theological systems of thought that insist God is angry and hateful and just waiting to judge us unless we do or say or perform or believe the right things actually make people miserable and plague them with all kinds of new stresses and anxieties, never more so than when they actually start believing that God is really like that. I want you to see the radical, refreshing, revolutionary forness that is at the heart of Jesus' message about God as it informs and transforms your entire life.

 

Then ahead, because when I talk about God, I'm not talking about a divine being who is behind, trying to drag us back to a primitive, barbaric, regressive, prescientific age when we believed Earth was flat and the center of the universe. I believe that God isn't backward-focused -- opposed to reason, liberation and progress -- but instead is pulling us and calling us and drawing all of humanity forward -- as God always has -- into greater and greater peace, love, justice, connection, honesty, compassion and joy. I want you to see how the God we see at work in the Bible is actually ahead of people, tribes and cultures as God always has been. Far too many people in our world have come to see God as back there, primitive, not-that-intelligent, dragging everything backward to where it used to be. I don't understand God to be stuck back there, and I want you to experience this pull forward as a vital, active reality in your day-to-day life as you see just what God has been up to all along with every single one us.

 

All of which leads us to one more word to wrap it up: so. So what? So how do we live this? So is the question about what all this talking has to do with our everyday thinking and feeling and living.

 

To review, then:

 

Open,

 

Both,

 

With,

 

For,

 

Ahead,

 

and So.

 

It's a fair bit of ground to cover, and my hope is that by the end you will say, "Now that's what I'm talking about."

 

- Rob Bell 

 

 

 

 

Making the God Who Is Wholly Other Into Our Own Image

I find in the article below a very powerful caution to all of our many religious judgments placed upon people and upon one another. As well as a very powerful motivator to return to the object of our affections in Jesus.

The church of the 21st century is struggling with loss of identity and meaningful relativity to society. Its traditions and customs have been called into question. Its importance to community and nation has eroded. Its beliefs found harsh and unappealing. Its command center for action, the Bible, with its rules and dogmas, have been severely displaced. There is nowhere a Christian can go without finding loss of interest to their message and organization. Pluralism has created a mosaic of authoritative loci, many of them multi-ethnic and humanistic, causing the church to lash out against the very society it has been sent out to minister to. To love and redeem.

Added to the church's frustration has come within its own ranks self-proclaiming prophets telling of its doom and destruction should it not repent and return to its own first love, that of Jesus. Prophets without proper pedigree or training, without institutionalized authorization or cathedral appointment. Whose schismatic messages rankle fellowships when hearing of their failure to meaningfully display, or sufficiently offer, that very thing they wished to have shown - the Jesus of their redemption, their rescue, and divine atonement. Discovering that its very products of message and methodologies have idolatarized the God they have chosen to avow. Falling short of the mark they had pinned life's energies, monies, education, service, hopes, family and friendships upon so many, many years long ago. To discover that the church itself has fallen into disfavor and ruin with the God of their election. Not unredeemed, sinful humanity, but they themselves.

It hurts. And it hurts deep within the pre-postmodern Christian soul when finding God has rejected the church's message for miscreants unaffiliated to itself. Shameful, irritating, divisive prophets who should be wandering about their own personal wildernesses and hells in beggarly rags seeking alms and supplications. Not hailed as friends to sinners and drunkards, prostitutes and whores, Samaritans and Hollywood thieves. How can such a holy God do such a thing? How can He chose to bless His holy message through such an unholy lot of unanointed men and women? Why does He not wash out the bowl of His holy discontent beginning with them and be done with the lot?!

And yet, for the church to reform, to repent, is too painful to contemplate. Too hard a thing to do against the pride of injustice with its impurity of heart and soul. Nay, can such a land be recovered before certain exile arises its ugly head against the unholy satisfactions of one's avowed enemies? One's bastardized, idolatrous enemies who have taken the high ground of God's love and favor against that of His own church? Can such a thing be true? Has God's anger been poured out upon His people misled in their worship and affections for the idols of their religion? Ignoring His holy pleas that redemption is meant for all, to all, through all, because of all?

Since when did the church's message become diluted with its own internal messages and restrictions upon the love of Christ? Eh, there's the rub, isn't it? For ever has it been, and ever shall it be, unless the message of Jesus is found to be holy other. Other than ourselves. Other than our own moiling likes and selfish preferences. Other than our prideful wants and misdirected needs. Other than our criticizing judgments and self-sure proclamations. Yea, the gospel of Jesus is holy Other. Wholly uncentered in us. And fully centered around the lost sinner for whom Jesus died. And until that day of enlightenment comes to the religious heart full of pride and good works, exclusionary religion and dead faith, it remains ruined upon the judgment's of God's purifying grace.

Fear not the devil without, but fear the devil within. For this be the very thing that God has come to do. To divide and displace, destroy and ruin, lift up and throw down. Unless it begins at the house of God, amongst the people of God who seek His favor and delight, it cannot be done at all. For it shall arise from without to go to the stones of the sea, to the rocks of God's everlasting hills, crying out God's holy name. Proclaiming a people not found within, but without, desperate for a Savior, lost and alone in sin's dark darkness.

That is the message of postmodern enlightenment. That is the message of the postmodern church and its preachers, its fellowships, its prayer warriors, its servants and attenders. That we have idolatarized the God we proclaim, making from Him our own image, and not that of a seeking Savior reaching out to a lost world through every voice, eye and ear that would breathe His name. Let us repent and let the Spirit of the Lord blow afresh upon us today. Let God change our own unlovely heart, learning to listen to wisdom and discretion, to unite with our brothers and sisters in holy fellowship under the banners of love, mercy, and forgiveness. Amen and amen.

R.E. Slater

March 20, 2013

 

 

 

 

On March 2, 2013

 

Everyday Idolatry: My God

http://jonathanstorment.com/2013/03/everyday-idolatry-my-god/

by Jonathan Storment

“You can safely assume you’ve made God into your own image, when it turns out God hates all the same people you do.” -Anne Lammott

 

It was June 7th, 1964. They had all gathered at the local Methodist church like always. They were having another one of their get-togethers, and as usual they started with a prayer.

 

Of course, they prayed, they were God’s chosen people, after all, saved by Jesus to bless the world. But on this particular night, someone wrote down their opening prayer. Sam Bowers, their “preacher and leader” opened them with prayer.

 

Here’s what he said:

Oh God, our Heavenly Guide, as finite creatures of time and as dependent creature of Thine, we acknowledge Thee as our sovereign Lord. Permit freedom and the joys thereof to forever reign throughout our land…May the sweet cup of brotherly fraternity ever be ours to enjoy and build within us that kindred spirit which will keep us unified and tong. Engender within us that wisdom kindred to honorable decisions and the Godly work. By the power of Thy infinite spirit and the energizing virtue therein, ever keep before us our…pledges of righteousness. Bless us now in this assembly that we may honor Thee in all things, we pray in the name of Christ, our blessed Savior. Amen

And then the members of the Klu Klux Klan said Amen, got up, and started planning how to carry out “God’s goal” for white supremacy.

 

Taking Sides

 

A few years ago I was talking with a man who was a professional conflict mediator who had worked with Presidents and international government officials. He had helped nations resolve international conflicts bordering on war, but if you asked him who was the hardest assignment, he wouldn’t blink an eye before he told you,

 

“That’s easy…Churches”

 

There’s a bizarre little story in the book of Joshua where Joshua is leading the people of Israel into the land of Canaan, and he is suddenly visited by an Angel of the LORD, and Joshua has such tunnel vision that he immediately asks the angel, “Are you for us or for our enemies?”

 

And the angel says, “No. I’m not on either, as the Commander for the LORD I have come.”

 

I love this little story, because it’s exactly what we religious people do.

 

There are days when I wonder if church is really good for the world. In out better moments, God’s done some incredible stuff through the church, but often church just gives religious people language to be more mad than they would normally be.

 

Now they’re not just angry, God is angry too. Now their not just indignant they are filled with a “righteous” indignation. All because we never question the idea that God is on our side.

 

We approach the Divine like Joshua, “Are you for us or for our enemy?”

 

 

And I think God’s answer is still “No.”

 

The Faces of Jesus

 

A few years ago, I read a fascinating book called American Jesus: How the Son of God became a National Icon. What’s interesting is that the book doesn’t talk about the popularity of Jesus, but the diversity of Jesus. Turns out, there are lots of different Jesus’ out there. There’s Republican Jesus, Democrat Jesus, Hot Air Balloon racing Jesus, Nascar Jesus, Moralistic Jesus, Buddy Jesus, and Sweet baby Jesus among others.

 

Each one gives us a picture of a Jesus who knows how to take sides.

 

So after the KKK dismissed they left armed to the teeth with shotguns and rope, to fight the civil rights movement that was “invading their Mississippi” and within a few days 3 civil rights workers were killed….In Jesus name.

 

It’s easy to see, looking back how far this group was from the heart of God, how they had made Jesus into a god of their own image. But I think we do this exact same thing all the time. At least I do.

I’ve noticed that Jesus tends to vote the same way I do. He’s never against a war that I’m for, and he’s rarely interested into calling me toward self-sacrifice or mercy to people different than me. That’s the Jesus that I am most comfortable with, and it’s most certainly an idol.

 

I like the way N.T. Wright talks about how to deal with letting Jesus stand on his own:

“My proposal is not that we know what the word ‘god’ means, and manage to somehow to fit Jesus into that. Instead, I suggest, that we think historically about a young Jew possessed of a desperately risky, indeed apparently crazy vocation, riding into Jerusalem in tears, denouncing the Temple, and dying on a Roman cross–and we somehow allow our meaning for the word “god” to be re-centered around that point.”

In other words, the scandal is not that Jesus is like God. The scandal is that God is like Jesus. He’s a God who picked a certain place and time, and entered into it. He came to show us who he really was…and who he really wasn’t.

 

He came as a Jewish carpenter, in a particular time and place, not to speak about every little agenda we have, but for the redemption of the entire world.

 

I understand why in conversation or worship lyrics we sometime refer to God as “My God” but never mistake that as meaning God belongs to you.

 

Because God’s not on your side.You can pray in his name all you want to but you’re enemies are not his enemies.

 

He’s bigger than your problems, because he’s more than just your God.

 

Just ask Joshua.

 

Ancient Cosmologies and the Creation Story of Genesis

John Walton, "Genesis Through Ancient Eyes"

http://www.apologeticalliance.com/blog/2012/10/28/4302/

by Thomas Larsen
Octorber 28, 2013

A common objec­tion to Chris­tian­ity is that there’s supposedly a fundamental conflict between the bib­li­cal and sci­en­tific sto­ries of the ori­gin and devel­op­ment of the uni­verse, the Earth, life, and so on and so forth.

John Wal­ton, ((John Wal­ton has a Ph.D. in Hebrew and Cog­nate Stud­ies from the Hebrew Union College–Jewish Insti­tute of Reli­gion, Cincin­nati, Ohio.)) in his talk on “Gen­e­sis Through Ancient Eyes,” responds to this objec­tion with the claim that the ori­gin sto­ries in Gen. 1–3 in the Bible are about func­tional rather than mate­r­ial ori­gins.

Here’s a sum­mary from BioLogos:

In this talk, orig­i­nally deliv­ered at the BioL­o­gos President’s Cir­cle meet­ing in Octo­ber 2012, Dr. John Wal­ton dis­cusses the ori­gin sto­ries of Gen­e­sis 1–3, and why their focus on func­tion and arche­types mean there is no Bib­li­cal nar­ra­tive of mate­r­ial origins.

This is very inter­est­ing. Wal­ton, for exam­ple, thinks that the days in Gen. 1 are lit­eral 24-hour days, but that they are about the inau­gu­ra­tion of the cos­mos as God’s tem­ple, not mate­r­ial ori­gins, so that this fact says noth­ing about the age of the uni­verse, or the Earth, or life.

Here are the four parts of the talk (roughly 51m.16s in total), with very rough sum­maries:

Part One 8m.26s	Scrip­ture is author­i­ta­tive, and we need to hon­our and under­stand the text Scrip­ture was writ­ten for us, but not to us: the orig­i­nal texts were not writ­ten in our lan­guage or our cul­ture, and trans­la­tion is required there are sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ences between ancient (Israelite, Egypt­ian, etc.) cos­mol­ogy and con­tem­po­rary sci­en­tific cosmology we need to see the Gen­e­sis texts in the same way as the ancient Israelites would have
Part Two 14m.42s	there is no sci­en­tific rev­e­la­tion in the Bible ancient Israelites under­stood exis­tence in func­tional rather than mate­r­ial terms and focused on func­tional rather than mate­r­ial origins for ancient Israelites, to name some­thing was a cre­ative act: this is reflected in Gen. 1–3 Gen. 1 is about God bring­ing order from non-order Gen. 1 explains the ori­gins of our home (our per­sonal, spir­i­tual place), not our house (the phys­i­cal place where we live)
Part Three 11m.23s	the word bara’ (cre­ated) often refers to func­tional rather than mate­r­ial cre­ation in the Bible Gen. 1 focuses on func­tional over mate­r­ial ori­gins (e.g. time, weather, food) Gen. 1 is a tem­ple story ((This notion helps to explain what it means for human beings to be made in the “image of God.”)) the sev­enth day (rest) is impor­tant in the cre­ation story: rest expresses con­trol over ordered sys­tem, and God comes to rest in the cosmos—not to sleep, but oper­ate (see e.g. Psa. 132.7–8, 13–14)—and estab­lishes it as his “home” ((Why the Sabbath, then, in light of Ex. 20.8–11? Because God’s in control, and we need to remember that—not because God decided to “take a day off.”)) the days in Gen. 1 are lit­eral 24-hour days, but they are about the inau­gu­ra­tion of the cos­mos as God’s tem­ple, not mate­r­ial ori­gins, so this fact says noth­ing about the age of the uni­verse, or the Earth, or life
Part Four 16m.45s	the phrase “it was good” is about proper func­tion, not moral­ity (see e.g. Gen. 2.18) what­ever order God estab­lished was good, but not every­thing was ordered (e.g. sea, ser­pent, out­side the Gar­den of Eden) the sec­ond account of cre­ation in Gen. 2–3 is a sequel to, not a syn­op­tic retelling of, the first account in Gen. 1 (e.g. like Luke/Acts as opposed to Matthew/Mark) the peo­ple in Gen. 1 aren’t nec­es­sar­ily the same as in Gen. 2–3: the sec­ond account of cre­ation doesn’t need to fit into the sixth day in the first account of creation the sec­ond account of cre­ation con­tains arche­typal rather than sci­en­tific descrip­tions, so there is no bib­li­cal account of mate­r­ial human origins humans were made in the image of God and given priestly roles: to serve and keep (Gen. 2.15), with Eve to help Adam in his sacred task appli­ca­tion: we need to min­is­ter bet­ter to scientists appli­ca­tion: we need to do bet­ter at evan­ge­lism, and not keep peo­ple out of the king­dom because of their sci­en­tific con­clu­sions about origins appli­ca­tion: we need to do bet­ter at deal­ing with attri­tion that results from young peo­ple believ­ing that, in accept­ing sci­en­tific con­clu­sions, they’re forced to give up the Bible and their faith in sum­mary: we need to stop mak­ing the Bible what it isn’t

 Dr. John Walton: What Is the Ancient Near East[ern Context?]
A Seven Minute Seminary






THE EGYPTIAN COSMOS

of Geb and Nut

Links to:

Sumerian Cosmology

Akkadian Cosmology

Egyptian Cosmology

Ancient Hebrew Cosmology

Also: 

 Preview: John Walton's, "The Lost World of Genesis"

YEC or Evolution? Breaking Away from a False Dilemma

http://exploringevolution.com/essays/2013/03/18/false-dilemma/#.UUcwqgE8h29.facebook

 

by Stephen M. Smith

March 18, 2013

False dilemma - a logical fallacy which involves presenting two opposing views, options or outcomes in such a way that they seem to be the only possibilities: that is, if one is true, the other must be false, or, more typically, if you do not accept one then the other must be accepted.¹

Despite having been raised since birth in the Church of the Nazarene, I never encountered the ideas of Young Earth Creationism (YEC) until I was almost 17. That's not to say that my church teachers accepted evolution, but none of them seemed to have a problem with the age of the earth. Much has changed in our church during the last 40 years.

 

I first encountered Creationist thought during high school in 1974 when I read the book Scientific Creationism² by Henry Morris, the acknowledged father of the modern Creationist movement. This book explained how the earth was created about 6,000 years ago during six 24-hour days, how all of the fossil-bearing rock layers were deposited during Noah's Flood, how biological evolution was impossible, how scientists had conspired to make up theories that denied the evidence of Creation, and how true science confirmed a literal reading of the book of Genesis. Each chapter addressed an issue as a simple choice with only two answers (e.g., Evolution or Creation?, Accident or Plan?, Old or Young?, Apes or Men?), and those choices were summarized in the conclusion with the following statement.

"There seems to be no possible way to avoid the conclusion that, if the Bible and Christianity are true at all, the geological ages must be rejected altogether."³

With a high-school level understanding of science and theology, I was convinced by this "either-or" argument and, to my knowledge, became the first Young Earth Creationist in my local Nazarene church. I knew the enemy and the enemy had a name. It was Evolution.⁴

After high school, I enrolled at Olivet Nazarene University. Initially, I had no goal in mind other than possibly studying science. I was placed in the Chemistry program and spent the first year getting required courses out of the way. One of those required courses was Old Testament Bible, during which I frequently argued with the professor whenever ideas were presented that didn't support a literal reading of Genesis or a Creation event only 6,000 years ago. By the end of my freshman year, I felt led to change my major to a combined Geology-Chemistry degree. I had always loved collecting minerals, rocks, and fossils and dreamed of a career where I could travel to remote mountains and wild places. But geology also presented another challenge. I had heard that the geology professor didn't necessarily believe the earth was young.

Book Link

I remember going to that first Geology class armed with every available Creation Science argument, ready to do battle for the faith. Yet despite my preparation, it was for naught. I found myself walking the same path as the earliest geologists, who, starting from a perspective of a Biblical Creation about 6,000-years in the past, saw evidence in the rocks for so many different events and environments, which convinced them the earth was much older than a few thousand years. I saw how rock layers could be grouped into larger "geologic ages" based on their depositional environment and fossil content with boundaries defined by major environmental changes or an extinction event. I was shocked to discover that these geologic ages had been identified and named, not by God-denying Evolutionists, but mostly by Christians and even ministers who saw their work as glorifying to God.

 

Not only were the geologic ages real and the earth older than 6,000 years but the fossils within them told a story of change: starting in the oldest rocks with strange creatures unlike anything seen today, followed in order by the earliest appearances of fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammal-like reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and placental mammals and with the youngest rocks containing fossils of extinct animals that closely resemble those extant. Thus, the rocks even supported one of the lines of evidence used by Charles Darwin in his argument for descent by modification (now called evolution).

 

Although I was fascinated by geology and had found a scientific field that I loved, my faith was in shambles. Based on what I had believed and read in the Young Earth Creationist literature, if the geologic ages were real, if the earth was old, if evolution had happened then the Bible was false, Christianity wasn't true, and Christ's death on the cross was meaningless. So what was left? I felt betrayed and seriously considered leaving the church. In retrospect, two factors kept me from leaving: (1) the support of a strong Christian family (and a young lady soon to be my wife) that gave me the freedom to question without condemnation; and (2) the strong witness of my Olivet geology professor, who had not only faced all of the same scientific evidence but was one of the most Christ-like men I had ever met. But before I could move on, I had to recognize that I had been snared by a false dilemma and that the Bible didn't need to be read as a scientific treatise on how to create a world. That was a time of turmoil and what I needed most was theological support that would allowed me to reconcile what I read in the Bible with what I saw in the rocks.

 

Yet, in another way, I was fortunate. I had only lived with this false dilemma for 3 years before having to deal with scientific evidence that shook my faith. Unlike my own youth, today many young people in our churches have been inculcated since birth with these either-or statements through Sunday School, VBS, homeschool textbooks, and church-sponsored schools. How much harder is it for these students to study sciences like geology, astronomy, anthropology, paleontology, or biology and still preserve a faith that has been supported by a false dilemma? I have seen students break down into tears as they stood on an outcrop of rock and saw evidence that contradicted what their church had taught them. I have comforted my own daughter when she was told by a Sunday School teacher that she couldn't be a Christian if she accepted evidence for evolution. I have talked with scientists who were once raised in a church and are now bitter agnostics because the church "lied to them" about science.

 

My hope in these discussions is not that we all come to the same scientific or theological understanding of evolution or age-of-the-earth issues but that we can move away from the false dilemmas forced by an exclusive and rigid mode of Biblical interpretation. God is too great and majestic to be confined in man's theology. We have to allow Him to inspire and even surprise us from all of his Creation and not just from the Bible.


Steven M. Smith, Geologist

 

Steven M. Smith earned a B.S. degree in Geology/Chemistry from Olivet Nazarene University in 1981 and an M.S. degree in Geology (specializing in Exploration Geochemistry) from the Colorado School of Mines in 1985. He has worked as a Mineral Exploration Geochemist and Environmental Geochemist for the U.S. Geological Survey in Denver, Colorado since 1982. This work has included mineral resource assessments of U.S. National Forests, BLM Wilderness Areas, and Indian Reservations; research in new geochemical exploration methodologies; and geochemical studies on the impact of mineral deposits and mining in the environment. Steve’s projects have involved fieldwork in remote mountains and wild places from Alaska to Mexico and from Virginia to California. Currently, Steve is the Project Chief for the USGS National Geochemical Database. Steve has served 21 years as the NMI president in his local church and currently serves as Worship Leader.

  

-----------------------------------------
 

¹ http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/False_dilemma

 

² Henry M. Morris, Scientific Creationism (General Edition) (San Diego, CA: Creation-Life Publishers, 1974) .

 

³ Morris, p. 255

 

⁴ For many Christians today, the term evolution doesn't just refer to the concepts of common ancestry, descent with modification, or natural selection; it has been expanded to include issues with the age of the earth, geology, cosmology, nuclear physics, paleoanthropology, and a host of other scientific ideas that are perceived to be in opposition to Young Earth Creationism. As one wag put it, "Evolution is all the science I don't believe in."

 

 

 

The Divide of LGBT Marriage Equality for the Church

While I can appreciate the wisdom of silence of David Fitch's article below, it seems the church might chose the route of voicing its care and love in need to the hour at hand. To be quiet on the issue of homosexuality is to mislead those on either side of the issue. Rob Bell's outspokenness for the church to own up to the sexual brokenness around itself is a clarion bell of solidarity to the harmed and unloved excluded from fellowship and ministry.

Consequently, we must recognize that there are some within the outreach and ministries of the church who are legitimately GLBT by image and by nature. They cannot be other than themselves. To these we must say, "Enter into God's love and fellowship" without exclusion or enmity. But to those hetero-sexuals and homo-sexuals wantonly engaging in adulterous relationships we do still recognize this activity as biblical sin falling into the ranks of lust, pride and hedonism. Which is no less a sin than the sin of greed, libel, lying, cheating, ill-compassion, anger, or unkindness, if we are counting sins. As such, we should look no further than the log in our own eye instead of to the sins of others.

So, then, I give two reports today, and let you, the reader decide to which persuasion you may fall. I would also urge a fuller reading of the comments pertaining to each article in order to apprehend a fuller persuasion one way or another. I have only included a select few, trying to avoid making this discussion a Rob-issue but rather a church v. cultural issue as we have in past articles (sic, see sidebar below).

For myself, I must choose the route of compassion for those innocents around us, unloved and berated, without voice or help. Jesus went to the same - to those rejected by the Jews - and spoke to each God's love, blessings, and peace. Let us  do the same as followers of Jesus.

R.E. Slater

March 19, 2013

Rob Bell and Marriage Equality

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2013/03/18/rob-bell-and-marriage-equality/

by Scot McKnight

March 18, 2013

From HuffPo, by Greg Carey:

This Sunday Rob Bell spoke at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral and openly endorsed marriage equality. Grace Cathedral is the Episcopal Cathedral of the Diocese of California, and I thank Julie Harris, Assistant Director of Marketing and Communications, for alerting me to his message (audio here). Bell was speaking to the Cathedral’s Grace Forum in an appearance presented in partnership with his publisher, HarperCollins.

In response to a question regarding same-sex marriage, Bell said, “I am for marriage. I am for fidelity. I am for love, whether it’s a man and woman, a woman and a woman, a man and a man. I think the ship has sailed and I think the church needs — I think this is the world we are living in and we need to affirm people wherever they are.”

Bell went on to say that while it used to be fair to equate evangelicals with social conservatism, that assumption no longer holds true. More pointedly, he said, “I think we are witnessing the death of a particular subculture that doesn’t work. I think there is a very narrow, politically intertwined, culturally ghettoized, Evangelical subculture that was told “we’re gonna change the thing” and they haven’t. And they actually have turned away lots of people. And i think that when you’re in a part of a subculture that is dying, you make a lot more noise because it’s very painful. You sort of die or you adapt. And if you adapt, it means you have to come face to face with some of the ways we’ve talked about God, which don’t actually shape people into more loving, compassionate people. And we have supported policies and ways of viewing the world that are actually destructive*. And we’ve done it in the name of God and we need to repent.”

When the Very Rev. Jane Shaw attempted to get Bell to take a firm position as to whether Christians “know” the truth in some ultimate sense, Bell veered in a different direction. “I would say that the powerful, revolutionary thing about Jesus’ message is that he says, ‘What do you do with the people that aren’t like you? What do you do with the Other? What do you do with the person that’s hardest to love?’ . . . That’s the measure of a good religion, is – you can love the people who are just like you; that’s kind of easy. So what Jesus does is takes the question and talks about fruit. He’s interested in what you actually produce. And that’s a different discussion. How do we love the people in the world that are least like us?”

*I linked AlterNet's article above, that if true, is yet another form of purposeful destruction by well-meaning Christians who have seriously mis-evaluated the political arenas into which they have interjected themselves. Coming out on the side of international oppression and injustice, serious maltreatment and harmful ruin to women and gays, their families and friends, instead of on the side of God's love and mercy. Something we cannot support nor overlook.

- R.E. Slater

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Select Comments

 More Comments

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16

Matt says:

Mar 18, 2013 @ 11:42 at 11:42 AM

This topic is the dividing line that has emerged most strongly within evangelicalism these days. I plan to listen to Rob’s words online, but can anyone clarify if he is addressing this from a biblical/theological perspective or cultural/political perspective?

Some may disagree with my division here, but I think it is very relevant to our discussion. Even in the comments given so far, it seems clear that we may be approaching the topic from very different angles.

36

Joe says:

Mar 18, 2013 @ 16:43 at 4:43 PM

I agree with those who concur with Bell’s conclusion but who are concerned about how he got there. While it is true that the world is moving on with respect to gay marriage and leaving the Church behind, that is not necessarily a good reason for the Church to change.

On the other hand, I believe there are some solid theological reasons for the Church to support (or at least not oppose) state-sanctioned same-sex marriage. For me, it is a simple application of the Jesus Creed. The state sanctioning same sex marriage has nothing to do with what Christians believe about the morality of homosexuality.

More to the point, it’s probably about time the Church severed the connection between state-sanctioned marriage and Church-sanctioned marriage. This has always been an unholy alliance and there is no better reason than this to do what should have been done a long time ago.

38

Kim says:

Mar 18, 2013 @ 16:54 at 4:54 PM

[Quote] - “We cease to be the Church when we allow society to change our values. We are not counter-cultural.”

I’m not sure opposition to marriage equality was Jesus’ dearest desire for us in the way of being counter-cultural. He didn’t mention it.  Jesus did, however, talk about turning the other cheek, love for enemy, radical grace toward the other, loving others as much as we love ourselves, and more. If we lived these out we would be counter cultural in the extreme.

59

Andrew says:

Mar 19, 2013 @ 8:17 at 8:17 AM

MatthewS; Jesus only called people out for their wrong actions and hypocrisy... he never tore someone down simply because they were born a certain way. His one statement about about “not giving to the dogs (non-Jews)” he ended up correcting himself.

I don’t understand the fuss about gay marriage b/c logically the arguments against it don’t hold up, so then you end up appealing to Scripture. And appealing to Scripture against sound logic/scientific knowledge is one reason why young people are leaving Christianity in droves. A majority of scientific literature points to homosexual attraction having genetic roots. That also makes sense to me given that I personally have no “hidden desire” for homosexual sex, and most of the gay people I’ve known came from good families (i.e., it wasn’t a byproduct of abuse/poor upbringing etc.)

So if a minority of people are naturally born a certain way, why not affirm healthy choices they make with other people of that makeup? That’s the fundamental question. Until a conservative evangelical can adequately address that, they will continue to be trounced in this debate.

60

Phil says:

Mar 19, 2013 @ 8:27 at 8:27 AM

A man who abuses his wife does not need affirmation where he’s at, nor does a man who refuses to provide for his family due to being lazy or substance-addicted.

I do think that there is room for interpretation in regards to what Bell meant with his statement, but on its face, Rob did not say that we need to affirm people’s behavior whatever it is, but rather, he said, “we need to affirm people wherever they are”. There is a difference between those two statements. People do need affirmation. Even the person who is living in open rebellion against God can be affirmed in the sense that we can affirm that they are loved by God and God sees them as having infinite worth.

That’s the thing about unconditional love. It ceases to be unconditional once we add an “if” to it. Now if someone wants to talk about whether certain behaviors are the best or most God-honoring, sure let’s have that conversation. But let’s only have that conversation if we agree that we make it about all of us, not just about some of us.

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Why You Shouldn't Have a Position
on LGBTQs

http://www.outofur.com/archives/2013/02/why_you_shouldn.html

by David Fitch

March 18, 2013
Comments

Taking a public stance on homosexuality does more missional harm than good.

One of the best discussions I’ve had in a long time happened on Facebook over the weekend. It was a discussion about the ‘dreaded’ issue of Christianity, the church, and LGBTQ sexual relations. The discussion started with my statement which was something like:

To the question, “What is your position on LGBTQ?” I think the best answer (in these times) is “we have no position” The question itself misses the point of any other answer? Agree?

To which I got good fruitful pushback from all sides. I was “abnegating!” I was doing the equivalent of “standing aside and being silent during the civil rights movement.” “There is no neutral on this!” some said. From this discussion, I came away with four points that need clarifying as to how/why someone would say “I have no position.” These four points push us as Christians (no matter what sexual issues we are involved in at this time) toward a new posture regarding alternative sexualities that opens doors for mission and God’s Kingdom to break in.

1) TO DECLARE A “POSITION” (PUBLICLY) FORECLOSES THE MOST IMPORTANT POSITION.

By taking a non-position to this question, we are not feigning neutrality. We are refusing to either single out a particular person’s sexual brokenness as an issue above others, or act like there is no sexual brokenness at all in any of us. Instead, our position is that we are ALL in some way or another sexually broken and moving toward maturity in Christ, and this means that we all submit our brokenness to the healing and reconciling work of Christ in the context of Christian community?

When we take “positions,” we buy into anti-relational dynamics which thwart God’s Kingdom. We see people as categories rather than individuals. Conceptualizing distances us from the people Christ loves. By refusing to make an aprior judgment against anyone, we are in essence saying the only prejudgment is that we are all sexually broken and we come seeking redemption. And if you are sexually whole and have no need for redemption, you are blessed. But we who are broken come as real people in real situations to submit together to what God is doing in and among us. This to me is the opening of space for God’s Kingdom to break in on any issue.

2) TO DECLARE A POSITION (PUBLICLY) REINFORCES SEXUALITY AS AN IDENTITY MARKER.

Taking a position on the LGBTQ issue feeds the political conditions that have made sexual orientation a person's primary identity. So, evangelicals who make public statements about their position of not affirming LGBTQ relations, are in effect reinforcing what they deny. They lift LGBTQ above other sexual issues, and make it the one issue. Likewise, the progressive Christians do the same when they lift up LGBTQ relations as a banner issue, ignoring all the other sexual issues of our time. This works against God in Christ doing anything different among us and our sexual lives. In essence, by playing into the elevation of LGBTQ as a “position,” we cement the status quo firmly in place with all its antagonisms. The state of our sexual lives, including any and all sexual pathologies that may exist among us, are now firmly in place. We get nowhere. There is no open space for sexual redemption. On the other hand, to not take a position, in effect creates space for a whole new conversation, a space for a new dynamic (what I would seek as the Kingdom of God). Sadly, my guess is, neither side wants this.

3) TAKING A “POSITION” CAN ONLY INFLAME, THEREBY SEPARATING US FROM MISSION.

Posting one’s “position” (any position) as Christians to outsiders in a culture which does not understand who we are or why we do what we do is communication-suicide. It can only be misunderstood as judgment and hate. Instead, we must have a compelling way of life, a richness to our sexual purposes, as displayed in a way of life (the way we marry and have children, and the way we incorporate singles into families) from which to speak to others about God’s redemptive work in sexuality. People in these post-Christendom days in the West need to be on the inside to make sense of our thick descriptions of God’s sexual order. This means the church in the West must first cultivate our own sexual faithfulness as a way of life. For instance, Christians do not believe sex is for self-satisfaction or personal-fulfillment. It is for mutual self-giving and ultimate pro-creation. The fact that this does not make sense to the outsider (even in our own churches) means that the church must first live this, and then offer it as an embodied witness, communicate it to people we come into contact with who ask, “What manner of life is this?” Again, we should focus on witness and refuse to take “positions.”

4) IN MISSION, I ONLY USE THE WORD "PATHOLOGY” TO DESCRIBE MY OWN SEXUAL STUFF.

When I am living and intersecting with real people, or discussing sexual issues, I do not discern sin in other people’s lives when I do not know these people, when I am not in relationship with them, and I have not lived “with” them. I should refuse to take such “positions” mainly because (a) I do not even know these people, and (b) they do not know what I might mean by the word “sin” even if I did know them. Instead, I will only name sexual pathologies of my own life. I will testify of my own story of redemption. This is “witness.” I also will commit to sitting with people in my own Christian community whom I know and love, who share in the language and story of Christ, and can participate with me in the naming of sexual “pathologies” when we gather to mutually submit to the Spirit in prayer. This is good and important work, the inbreaking of the Kingdom as well. But here we have the language and posture to receive the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit in His Kingdom. Other than these situations, I refuse to name other people’s sin. This kind of work comes only after being “with” people.

For all these reasons, when I am asked “What is your position on LGBTQ sexual relations?” I respond by saying “I don’t have one.” What say you?

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Some Thots from Homebrewed Christianity

Rob Bell is Gay Affirming but not everyone is happy about it

http://homebrewedchristianity.com/2013/03/19/rob-bell-is-gay-affirming-but-not-everyone-is-happy-about-it/

Big Platforms Coming Out For Marriage Equality

 http://homebrewedchristianity.com/2013/03/19/big-platforms-coming-out-for-marriage-equality/

Excerpts

... I have had a couple great conversations with some fellow young progressive Jesus lovers. They were bemoaning all the slow moves towards embracing the LGBT community and advocating for Same Sex Marriage. If you are supportive any move that direction could be a good one but sometimes you just want people to ‘break on through to the other side’ so we can spend our energy on bigger issues like justice & caring for the planet....

---

... 58% of the country is supportive of [same-sex marriage] (SSM). The longer the church continues to sound backwards and advocate against a human right they will continue to be dismissed when they describe a God who knows and loves all of humanity.

No one is bullied and shamed when we advocate for fidelity in covenants, forgiveness in relationships, healing & wholeness in our sexuality, or insist that a marriage & a home with parents is the ideal place to welcome a new child of God into the world.

When we get over this issue we can start doing real life ministry! Being a human is hard work. Being married is hard work. Being a parent is hard work. But it is also beautiful! So many of my GLTBQ brothers and sisters are left to outside of the church or are keeping silent within the church because too many Christian gate keepers miss the boat on marriage. I long for the day when the church is invested in the content and character of the marriage and the home it supports rather than the parts people use to celebrate their love in the bed room.

History Channel's Promotion of Fundamentalist Christian Stereotypes in the Mini-Series "The Bible"

Black Samson and White Women on the History Channel
http://www.urbanfaith.com/2013/03/black-samson-and-white-women-on-the-history-channel.html/

By Rev. Wil Gafney, Ph.D
March 14, 2013
Comments

In portraying the biblical story of Samson, the History Channel offers viewers a modern day Mandingo fairy tale that reinforces racial stereotypes.

 

The History Channel’s miniseries on the Bible is a ratings blockbuster. The Bible is an incredibly important text in the history and culture of the United States, Western world and has its roots in the Eastern world. One would think that a media outlet which entitles itself the “History Channel” would be concerned about those roots. One might even think that the History Channel would endeavor to expose and explore those roots. But last night on episode two, the ill-named History Channel offered us a modern day Mandingo fairy tale.

 

The choice to cast Nonso Anozie (a black man in a bad dreadlock wig) as Samson as is in no way an attempt to demonstrate the visual and ethnic diversity of the ancient Near East in which this story is set, specifically the West Asian, East and North African context of the scriptures. The absence of characters of African descent up to this point makes that clear. (Just as the use of Black and Asian actors for angels makes them wholly “other” in the cast and not legitimate human bodies.)

 

Nonso Anozie portrays Samson
in the History Channel miniseries,
The Bible

That Samson is a big black man with brutish strength and a predilection for white women is no accident in this casting or production. One of the hallmarks of Rona Downey’s and Mark Burnett’s vision of the Bible is the erasure of Afro-Asiatic Israelite ethnic identity and its replacement with a white, American fundamentalist Christian identity. They do this in several ways.

 

1) Casting: they cast an abundance of white American and European actors and occasionally paint some dirt on their faces to make them look a little brown. Consider the creation of humanity, told in a flashback. Humanity was created from the humus, an earthling from the earth, in Hebrew an adam from the adamah. Instead of the rich brown-red soil native to Israel, Palestine, and the Great Rift Valley which descends from the Holy Land down into Kenya and Tanzania, the producers use sandy white soil from which springs a sandy white man. However, Satan is played by a Middle Eastern man, Mohamen Mehdi Ouazanni. While widely advertising a “Hispanic” Jesus, the producers actually cast a Portugese actor, Diogo Morgado, with white skin as Jesus. His skin has to be white since Roma Downey (of Touched By An Angel fame, part of the powerhouse team along with Mark Burnett behind this anachronistic whitewash of the bible) cast herself as the Blessed Virgin Mary – shades of Mel Gibson casting a white Jesus so he could insert his own feet into certain shots.

 

2) The second way the production replaces authentic Israelite identity with a white American fundamentalist and evangelical construction is in the use of quintessentially American race motifs like that of the big black buck or Mandingo, the brutishly strong, bestial black man and his preferential taste for white women. By transforming all of the Afro-Asiatic Israelites into white people, “simply” casting an Afro-British actor as Samson stages a lynching propaganda piece that the Klan would be proud of under the cover of the bible and “diversity.”

 

3) The third re-writing strategy of the team involves gender. The Bible is an androcentric and patriarchal text. It is also a text that has many women’s narratives, including those of strong women wielding power and authority in spite of their patriarchal and androcentric context. There is no room in the Burnett-Downey recreation of the Bible in their own image – right down to their own skin tones – for strong biblical women so they simply exclude them. A partial list of the women who have been cut from the narrative include: Yocheved, Moses’ mother and the Hebrew midwives Shiphrah and Puah, Zipporah, Moses’ wife and her sisters so that Moses is not the product of a strong community of women all of whom save his life in different episodes, but a lone ranger, a man who became a hero on his own. Hoglah, Milcah, Maacah, Noah and Tirtzah, the daughters of Zelophehad who are mentioned in more biblical books than there are Gospels, for whom God changed inheritance laws in the Torah that women might receive an inheritance – not worthy of attention. The great woman-warrior, Prophet and Judge (sharing those titles with Moses and Samuel and no one else, not even Joshua) Deborah, who ruled the nation – excised. Hannah, the theological revolutionary who taught the priesthood how to pray – unnecessary.

 

There is a final whitewashing, silencing strategy employed by the producers. That is sanitizing genocide, slavery – when the Israelites are the slavers, sexual violence, and heterodox theologies. The Bible is a wonderfully rich, complicated, challenging, illuminating, revelatory text. It is also horrifically violent and does not say what we want the way we want it to. We must take it in its entirety seriously as a cultural and historical artifact and as scripture – if that is our confession. But this series erases the texts in which Joshua and the Israelites slaughter babies, kill their mothers, fathers and brothers and take their sisters as war-brides as long as they haven’t had sex – prepubescent girl-children – on the orders of Moses and God. They ignore the texts in which God calls for the enslavement of non-Israelites and their children in perpetuity – the scriptural and theological basis for the Atlantic slave-trade and American slavocracy. They ignore the texts in which entire ethnic groups are exterminated by divine command. And they even ignore the horrific sexual violence perpetrated against women and girls within Israel: Lot’s offer of his daughters to be raped by a mob, Israelite fathers selling their daughters into sexual slavery with the permission of God and Moses, a Judge of Israel sacrificing his daughter like an animal and celebrated as a hero of faith in the New Testament, abduction, rape, forced pregnancy used repeatedly as tools of war. Bathsheba’s abduction and rape recast as consensual adultery.

 

In the American context when rape is being redefined while male bible-thumping legislatures require physicians to forcibly insert instruments into women’s vaginas one day and deny them access to legal medical procedures the next, it matters that and how the Bible is being distorted in primetime. Whereas evangelical leaders like Jim Wallis watched with “great delight,” I watched with horror.

 

In the American context the Israelite identity has been claimed by Christians and particularly by Western, European Christians who were also constructing the categories of white into which they placed themselves and the Afro-Asiatic Israelites. And, the United States was viewed, claimed and seized as a new Canaan for the new Israelites to conquer and subdue, hosting the reincarnation and reenactment of biblical slavery painted in black and white. This is why the whitewash of the bible on the History Channel is so pernicious. It is a continuation of slave-holding racist exegesis. And they ought to be ashamed.

 

 

About the author, Rev. Wil Gafney, Ph.D.

 

Wil Gafney, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament at The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, and is an Episcopal Priest canonically resident in the Diocese of Pennsylvania. She is also a member of the Dorshei Derekh Reconstructionist Minyan of the Germantown Jewish Center in Philadelphia, PA. She has co-taught courses with and for the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Seminary in Wyncote, PA. For more information, visit WilGafney.com or follow her on Twitter: @wilgafney.