Progression of Faith

Moving Beyond The Religious Wars

2008-05-09T07:55:00.004-05:00

This audio interview is wonderful! It is one of the best interviews I've heard expressing emerging Christianity. Bishop John Shelby Spong presents a way to move beyond the war between secular left and fundamentalist right. He gives us a postmodern option for Christianity to emerge beyond this modern battle.

The first half of the interview is a biographical sketch of his experience, the second half contains one of the most clear and concise explanations of emergent faith that I've ever heard. Don't miss out on this gem. Many people discount Bishop Spong based on a few surface level prejudices. Evangelicals are scared of him because he doesn't use their canned terminology, but they should listen. There is plenty of common ground and opportunity to move beyond the modern construct that forced our division. I think something wonderful is emerging in Christianity and his voice is an important part of the process.

I'm an Obama Girl!

2008-05-06T22:17:00.011-05:00

Say it! Say it! Hillary, you know you want to say it.

In a flash of historic irony, the Clinton legacy may be solidified, not by a 3rd Clinton term, but by their faithful enthusiastic support of the first black American President. This is a potential story book ending. In some ways, it could be the best way to play out their story. So Hillary, just say it while you can still make a graceful exit and a powerful statement about American politics. Say it while it still means something. Shed a tear (you've almost done it before). Embrace your role as a person who helped the cause without claiming the spotlight. This is the moment you've been waiting for since you first heard Dr. King speak as a teenager. Not the moment your husband would be President, but the moment you would help reconcile race relations in America by supporting the most literal manifestation of Dr. King's dream. This is your calling. This is your brightest moment. Just say it out loud and let yourself be carried away! Hold his hand, walk with him out on the stage and say it. Give him your support, loan him your husband's political savvy. This is what your career has been all about. Join the team. We'll accept you. Just say it!

Making the Bible an Idol

2008-05-06T10:24:00.009-05:00

I really appreciate and share John Piper's love of the Bible and I think that underneath his narrow polarizing language there is a valid criticism of "trendy faith". His ability to inspire emotion is amazing and takes me back to my early childhood experiences of faith. However, I wonder if Piper is suggesting that we become blind to the Christ that lives in the world today in many people, places and things. Do you think he is so caught up in the particular stories that opened his own eyes to the love of Christ, that he now discounts the many ways other people find Christ?

It seems to me that sharing culturally relevant stories that communicate the central meanings about God’s love and community is not only ok, it is an act of being true to Jesus by imitating his own love of symbolic parables. Why must we favor our own stories and myths over the universal meanings hidden within them?

"The best way to waste your pulpit is to preach your own thoughts, instead of preaching God's thoughts" - John Piper

Isn't this another way for a preacher to say...

"Don't think, just check your brains at the church door. Of course, I can think because my thoughts are really God's thoughts."

If Piper really believed what he said, then why does he preach? Wouldn't he just read scripture from the pulpit? What is he really suggesting here?

The Bible is a lens to understand how particular people experienced God. We can learn so much for its texts, but when we make it an idol, it feels like we lose sight of the living Christ that is at work in the world. Christ is present. I’m in complete support of Piper’s devotion to Christ, but we shouldn't have to limit Christ to the works and experiences of the past.

Operation Disgust

2008-05-06T08:31:00.005-05:00

Rush Limbaugh is continuing his campaign to get more Republican voters to cross over and vote for Clinton in the primaries. Over 100,000 people switched to the democratic party in Ohio. I suspect that number will be much higher today in Indiana and North Carolina. We may never know the exact numbers, but I don't think you can ignore the impact of this tactic. I suspect the real motivation is the money Limbaugh would make if Clinton were elected. This is a way to hedge his bets. The Clinton years made Limbaugh's career a success. Another term would solidify his listeners.

Here is the quote from his site used to sell bumper stickers.

"Make your gas guzzler a rolling support vehicle for Operation Chaos! It's all part of Rush's effort to keep the Democrat Party in disarray. The sticker features the red, white and blue Operation Chaos logo. We used the national colors because Operation Chaos is patriotic!" - (taken from Rush Limbaugh's website)

The good news is that this type of partisanship is exactly what drives many voters to Obama.

Tax Holiday? Obama Wins This Debate

2008-05-01T07:28:00.002-05:00

The issue of a summer Gas Tax holiday is proof positive that Obama is the only candidate who places America's best interests above his own political goals. Do we really need to feed the machine of consumerism with tax cuts on Gasoline? It is nothing more than another subsidy for the oil industry. I'm not sure Mickey Mouse really needs a hand out either. Borrowing more money from China so that families will have an extra $5 in their pockets when they get to his theme park is not a good investment. Is Obama the only candidate who thinks the government should keep its hands out of our business?

Gasoline is still cheaper than beer. Maybe we should cut the alchohol tax?

Where Wright Goes Wrong

2008-04-29T19:46:00.004-05:00

Does Rev. Jeremiah Wright have a split personality? His criticism of our government was perfectly acceptable and within his rights as an American citizen. I didn't even mind the clips played over and over on YouTube because I've read enough to know the true context. His interview with Bill Moyers last week was truly inspirational. However, the words of Rev. Wright the last few days have been puzzling. I was taken back by his comments to the NAACP about how African Americans instinctively interpret music differently and are predisposed to being right-brained (creative) instead of left-brained (logical). That smacked of the same kind of ignorance that exists in the people he criticizes. It does nothing but feed prejudice and discrimination. Maybe he was just out of his element. Maybe he meant to do that. Maybe he was trying to create the kind of uneasy feeling found in the movie "Crash" where racism is thrust out into the open spaces of dialogue for all to see in its ugly details. If he was, then it was at best poor timing and at worst devious.

I've supported Rev. Wright on this site and I still marvel at the few sermons I've listened to, but I'm not about to suggest that I blindly support his latest words. I'm saddened by his those words. Barack Obama is right to distance himself, but he is also right not to disown him as a friend. I have friends who are bigots. I have friends and family who are ignorant and I firmly believe their religious beliefs and political views are harmful, yet they are still my friends and family. I love them. I would not expect Obama to disown Rev. Wright because he said something wrong, and it doesn't then make his previous statements wrong also. Those statements are still valid, but his latest are certainly not.

Emerging Atheism

2008-04-28T21:47:00.002-05:00

There has been a surge of books by atheists in the last few years. Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens are the holy trinity of neo-atheists. Fortunately, there are less demeaning voices among the atheist community. In her book "The Age of American Unreason", Susan Jacoby has given us a fresh voice that is less angry and more conversant than her atheist cohorts are.

For Jacoby, the big problem we face is not religion, but instead the problem is anti-rationalism. Fundamentalist strains of religion can certainly become a catalyst for anti-rationalism, but she is clear to state that religion doesn't always have to be that way. The real culprits are poor education, the rise of junk-science, the degradation of our media, and a growing distrust of intellectualism. Jacoby also points out that we have lost our ability to have conversations. We've learned to mimic what our media sources present to us as examples. Unfortunately, that means we spend more time talking past one another rather than listening. The recent political debates are perfect examples.

As Christians, we could learn a great deal from the voices of reason. Many of their criticisms are valid. If we have any hope of emerging from our polarized past, we need to invite this perspective to the table. Rationalism does not exclude faith, but it does force the conversation to a level deeper than flimsy rhetoric and ancient dogma.

Is there a possibility for faith that goes beyond a simple rejection of reason? Is there a case for an emerging post-atheism?

Jeremiah Wright an American Hero

2008-04-26T07:01:00.004-05:00

Rev. Jeremiah Wright was interviewed by Bill Moyers last night. You can watch the entire interview online. Over the last few months, my feelings for Rev. Wright have gone from disdain to concern to an awkward appreciation. I appreciated his rhetoric but in the back of my mind I wished he had been more politically correct. I saw him as a person with good motives but poor taste. I was wrong. After this interview, I can only say that I wish he were my own pastor. I'd gladly give my time and effort to the cause of supporting his message. He has more than my respect as a prophetic voice of descent, he has my admiration as a true American hero. I'm saddened by the fact that our society has forced Barack Obama to speak out against this great man. Rev. Wright's comments about America's mistakes were not "over the top". He was not too harsh, misguided, or of poor taste. His comments were right on the mark and he has a life of service to back up this message.

The most powerful tools of imperialism are amnesia and numbness. The citizens of empire forget their historic mistakes and gradually lose their ability to see and feel pain. Our only hope is that some brave prophet may jar our memory and awaken our consciousness.

Sexpelled

2008-04-23T12:15:00.002-05:00

Check out this great parody of the new creationism propaganda move "Expelled".

Tagged

2008-04-23T10:39:00.006-05:00

I don't usually play these, but here goes...

I was tagged by Bob Cornwall:

The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.

Each player answers the questions about himself or herself.

At the end of the post, the player then tags five people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

1. Ten years ago I was doing . . .

I was working for a small software company and moonlighting in a Christian rock and roll band (FYI.. I hate Christian rock now!). I had just sold my house, bought a van, and informed my boss that I would be leaving my career behind to “follow God’s calling”. People who know me now are laughing because I retired my guitar, I now run that software company, and I would never use the phrase “God’s calling” for anything.

2. Five Things on Today's To Do List

Prepare a project proposal for a local non-profit

Requirements definition meeting w/ customer

Weekly staff meeting

Finalize rules for employee “Green Initiative” ($75 subsidy for each employee to buy energy efficient light bulbs)

Bi-weekly client billing

3. Things I'd do if I were a billionare

Live somewhere else for a couple of years (maybe san Francisco).

Buy a beach resort and reserve the whole place for my friends and family year round

Pay somebody to build me an electric car built.

4. Three Bad Habits

I don’t clean

Late night snacking

I’m too critical

5. Five Places I've lived

Athens, Ga

Braselton, GA

Augusta, GA

6. Five Jobs I've had in life:

Farm Hand
T-shirt Printer

Yard maintenance

Computer Programmer

It manager

7. Tagged Ones

Daniel

John

Chris

Veronica

Andrew

Foster Parenting

2008-04-23T09:23:00.002-05:00

Veronica and I are attending foster parent training at the Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS). The class is a product of a bureaucracy that wanted 20 hours of training but only had 1 hour of material. Oh well, we have to do it. We are 6 hours into the brain numbing nightmare. I’m taking a book next time.

The silver lining is that it gives us 4 weeks to decide if this is the right thing to do. It isn’t an easy decision. Many people in the class are struggling with the temporary nature of foster parenting. However, the most difficult part for me is imagining the ambiguity of the assignment. I like that the job is temporary and that the goal is to reunite the child with their birth parents, but I'm not wild about the uncertainty of my commitment. I like to know what to expect when I start something. I'm a planner. I won't know if I'm signing up for 10 days, 10 weeks, or 10 years. This will be tough for me.

Rob Bell on Suffering

2008-04-16T07:27:00.003-05:00

This clip is from the Seeds of Compassion Interspiritual Day.

Rob can occasionally come across as a bit sappy, but this response is wonderful. One of the things I really liked is how he used the metaphor of resurrection in the midst of a inter-faith dialogue. We often create a false set of choices. We feel like we need to loose our own religious identity in order to dialogue with others. That can leave us empty. He showed us how specific religious symbolism can work in a pluralistic environment. Rob demonstrated how the resurrection of Jesus can be a pluralistic symbol understood by anyone of any faith. You can easily adhere to your own symbols and metaphors while reaching out to others. The key is getting beyond the symbol and using it as a pointer to the deep meanings it is intended to represent. Those meanings are universal even if the individual symbols are not.

Beautiful response Rob!

Finding Darwin's God

2008-04-12T08:14:00.001-05:00

Brown University professor Kenneth R. Miller looks for his own answer to the question, what kind of God do you believe in? After some thought, his response is, “Darwin’s God”. Miller does a great job of detailing evolution and the scientific rejection of intelligent design. He also looks for a way to reconcile his own Catholic faith with the science of evolution. Miller is great at explaining science, but he falls short in the area of theology. I do think this book is important and many will find it helpful. He is top notch at debunking intelligent design. However, I’m still not sure about Darwin’s God. I don’t feel Miller made much progress in answering that part of the question. I feel like I would appreciate Darwin’s God if I found it, but this book didn’t exactly paint a clear picture or spark a new creative idea about what it might be. Maybe that is the point. Maybe his goal was to drive home the idea that we can’t narrowly define God or explain God with a scientific experiment. If that is what he means, then I agree.

This book is great if you want a detailed dismantling of creationism or want a more in depth understanding of the shady history of Intelligent Design. If you want to learn 1001 ways to rephrase the statement “Science is not at odds with faith”, then you’ve found the perfect book. Unfortunately, I got it the first time and grew tired of the repetition.

The good news is that Miller is a wonderful speaker. He loves science and that enthusiasm is contagious. My recommendation is to skip the book and listen to this lecture. It is pure gold!

Purple State of Mind

2008-04-09T21:21:00.003-05:00

I just got my copy of Purple State of Mind and watched it with my wife tonight. We both enjoyed the film. I highly recommend this movie for small discussion groups. It is bound to start a few deep conversations and stretch your perspective of faith.

Oh No! Not Science

2008-04-09T08:35:00.004-05:00

Thanks to The Onion for this photo.

Charter For Compassion

2008-04-06T21:38:00.000-05:00

Karen Armstrong gives her TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) wish of a worldwide charter signed by leaders of the world's primary religions. The charter would recognize the common goals of compassion rather the divisive abstract beliefs of all these faith traditions. I've enjoyed several of her books and few people have as much knowledge of world religions as Karen Armstrong.

""Belief, which we make such a fuss about today, is only a very recent religious enthusiasm. The word belief itself originally meant to love, to prize, to hold dear. In the 17th century it narrowed its focus... to include an intellectual ascent to a set of propositions."

Bipartisan Support for the Planet

2008-03-31T22:32:00.007-05:00

Al Gore is mixing things up. This is cool! He is launching a $300 million ad campaign putting famous rivals together in support of lowering green-house gases. He used his own proceeds from his movie, his Nobel prize award, and other donations to fund the project. The first spots will bring together a prominent Democrat, Nancy Pelosi, and a prominent Republican, Newt Gingrich; a clergyman on the left, the Rev. Al Sharpton, and a clergyman on the right, the Rev. Pat Robertson; and country singers with sharply differing ideologies, the Dixie Chicks and Toby Keith.

Nice touch Mr. Gore and bravo to the participants. We need more of this. People need to know this isn't a partisan issue. Global warming doesn't kill along any party lines or with religious bias.

full story

Evolution and Disinformation

2008-03-30T22:21:00.001-05:00

It seems like everyone has received one of those "Obama is a Muslim" emails by now. It is amazing how soon false propaganda can work its way into the common understanding of society.

With the pending release of the movie Expelled, creationists are making another attempt to bring down modern science by spreading lies about evolution. I find myself in more and more of these debates lately (I live in the Bible-belt). I ran across a wonderful series of videos compiled by a journalist in Australia. He addresses many of the attempts at disinformation by creationists. I was amazed at how efficiently he is able to communicate a large amount of information from the Big bang to human migration out of Africa. You can watch the whole series on his YouTube page. Here are a couple of my favorite episodes debunking the propaganda and providing a wealth of information:

There's no way I came from a monkey!

It's only a "theory"! Science won't listen to all viewpoints.

Stroke of insight

2008-03-30T14:14:00.010-05:00

This TED talk, is amazing!

Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened -- as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding -- she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another. - ted.com

Where Does The Money Go?

2008-03-29T13:29:00.006-05:00

Scott Bittle and Jean Johnson are editors of Public Agenda Online. In this book, they've done a wonderful job of sorting through information, disinformation, and partisan rhetoric to bring the monstrous federal budget into the grasp of average citizens. They do this without glossing over the bad news, over-simplifying solutions, or creating hype about one particular pet issue. This book needed to be written. I hope many people will read it during this election period. It isn’t an attempt to bash government or make a partisan plea for votes. It is well balanced and focused on educating citizens about the realities of our complex budget. No simple solutions or silver bullets exist. Fixing our budget crisis is a critical problem but these authors remain hopeful. Feasible solutions exist even if they are not easy to swallow.

We need to realize that the answer isn’t on the left or the right. The answer is in owning up to our responsibilities and facing reality. The book closes with a plea for each person to exercise a little self-examination. Are you part of the problem?

Five Signs You’re Part of the Problem
You can name every part to the legal entanglements surrounding the death of Anna Nicole Smith, but you don’t recognize the name of the vice president or the speaker of the house.
You’re getting all your news from comedians
You watch every single game in the NCAA tournament, but you don’t have time to keep up with politics.
You’re focused on your family. Politics doesn’t matter to you.
The news is depressing. You’d rather not know.
"Where Does The Money Go" - Bittle and Johnson

If you're curious about how much of the problem is government waste, tax-payer fraud, lazy people collecting welfare, politician's salaries, tax-cuts, or those nasty "earmarks" we hear so much about, then this book will help quantify each issue. The answer is that correcting any one of those problems won't make a dent in the budget crisis.

Pledge For Peace

2008-03-27T07:05:00.000-05:00

Blake Huggins has given a wonderful speech at Oklahoma City University in opposition to the war. It is worth a read. I'm giving him a virtual standing ovation as I join in his pledge.

"And so today we gather. ‘We the people’ gather to raise our voice against this glaring injustice and we stand in protest of this heinous atrocity. We stand united for the cause of peace and we stand in solidarity not only with our troops, but with the Iraqi people, who, as we speak are suffering under our occupation. We stand with those that have gone before us as a prophetic witness to ask, 'How many more must be killed for a lie? How many more lives must be lost before our government takes responsibility admits they were wrong? How many more must be murdered before we admit that there never was a smoking gun to become a mushroom cloud? How much more death will we allow? How much more blood will be on our hands before we take responsibility?'
[...]
And we must remain fervently indignant, unwavering in our commitment to prophetic truth, unwavering in our solidarity with the oppressed and the suffering, and unwavering in our hopeful affirmation peace with justice, and reconciliation through healing. We believe that another world is indeed possible. And right here, right now, today, in this moment, we pledge to make that world a reality." - Blake Huggins, blakehuggins.com (2008)

Brueggemann on Jeremiah Wright

2008-03-24T21:34:00.002-05:00

I immediately thought of Walter Brueggemann when I heard the recent criticisms of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's prophetic rhetoric. I felt certain that somewhere Dr. Brueggemann was shaking his head and wondering aloud if once again Christians skipped over one of the most important parts of our Bible. Two months ago I spent the weekend listening to Dr. Brueggemann speak at length about the prophet Jeremiah and his key role in our faith tradition. Here is what Dr. Brueggemann wrote in a recent comment printed in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution:

The current spasm of "righteous indignation" concerning Jeremiah Wright, Sen. Barack Obama's pastor, smacks of embarrassing ignorance. Such a critique of Wright is ignorant of black preaching rhetoric and the practice of liberation interpretation. It is also disturbingly ignorant of the prophetic traditions of the Bible that regularly expose the failures of society in savage rhetoric. I am grateful for the ministry of Wright, a colleague of mine in the United Church of Christ, who for a very long time has been a faithful pastor and a daring prophetic figure. It is odd when right-wingers misconstrue this belated Jeremiah as they do the original Jeremiah, who knew about God's passion for truth-telling in risky places.

Walter Brueggemann - professor emeritus of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary

Is Jesus Dead?

2008-03-22T01:13:00.006-05:00

This is the real question we must wrestle with on the Saturday before Easter Sunday. Most of my faith journey felt like one long confusing Saturday. Brian McLaren wrote a song called “I Am an Atheist”. This song makes the provocative statement “I can’t believe what they believe in you [but] I believe.” I can identify with that song. As an adult, I could no longer believe the things I was taught about Jesus as a child, but I still believe. I kept hoping for Easter to make sense. Most of the stories in the bible were easy to see as symbolic language. Easter was a bit more difficult to reconcile. It remains a stumbling block for many, but we can’t live our whole lives in the shadows of Saturday. We have to find our way to Easter Sunday.

The first time I saw this book by Bishop John Shelby Spong, “Resurrection: Myth or Reality?”, I was so shocked by it that I put the book down after reading the first few pages. Now, I would say this book has been more helpful than any other book on the subject. It is so much more than a philosophical discussion about the reality of resurrection or a dry academic search for the historical Jesus. If you think you know Bishop Spong or could guess his answer to this question, then you might be wrong and you may want to pick up this book and take this journey.

To dismiss these familiar biblical details as legendary does not end our search for the truth of what happened, it only drives us to another level where we ask a different question. What happened that gave birth to the legendary details that gathered around the moment of Easter? Why did they gather? Hundreds of millions of people have lived and died on this earth - some of them famous, powerful people – and no similar legends gathered around them. Why this one man, at this time, in this place?
[…]
Our great failing was that we did not know anything about midrash, so we literalized narratives that were not intended to be literalized. The Jerusalem Easter legends are not to be dismissed as untrue. They are meant to be probed for clues, as I trust I have done adequately. Behind the legends that grew up around this moment, there is a reality I can never deny. Jesus lives. I have seen the Lord. By that faith and with that conviction I live my life and proclaim my gospel. - John Shelby Spong

For Bishop Spong, the key to understanding the gospels and the early Christian development of faith is grounded in the tradition of Jewish literature called Midrash. I’ve been blogging about that for the last couple of weeks. Understanding the New Testament as Midrash may save Christianity in the 21st century from dying the slow death of ridicule and irrelevance.

My own wilderness moment, my Saturday, my period of mourning the death of Jesus, ended at some point in my journey. I found Easter Sunday when I found a Jesus I could believe in. The Gospels poetically describe resurrection as symbol for the moment when the mourning ended and the meaning of Jesus’ life sunk in. It was an enlightenment experience. At some point, possibly first in the mind of Simon Peter, the light bulb came on. The reason for Jesus’ life and death finally made sense. His followers couldn't remain silent. All they needed to do was envision it through the lens of their religious ancestors and begin telling this powerful life-changing story. That was the moment of Easter and it became the defining moment in history. It happened the moment that these early Christians knew Jesus’ life could not be silenced by his death. Each community immortalized Jesus with their own specific narrative about his life, baptized it in the allegory of Jewish antiquity, encapsulated the whole story into Jesus’ defining ritual of bread and wine, and then placed their own understanding and words deeply into the dialogue and action.

Is Resurrection a myth or a reality? I believe something real happened in the lives of these real people that lead to these important stories. I also recognize that the Resurrection is a myth about a transcendent reality that could not be described through any other means.

Midrash and Allegory

2008-03-20T07:01:00.001-05:00

Midrash texts make heavy use of literary allegory to illustrate meaning. A common technique is to tell us about new characters by having them replay events or speak words of older Biblical characters. In fact, in Jewish literature, every story that can claim inspiration must somehow be connected with a sacred moment of the past. This was something common to even the canonized Torah. The story of Joshua is told through the lens of Moses. Rich allegory is used to paint Joshua (Yahoshua, Hebrew for “Savior”) as the new Moses who takes over as the next heroic figure in Jewish antiquity. The Joshua story draws on symbolic acts of Moses including the way they told about the Israelites crossing the Jordan River in a miracle that is clearly an allegory to the Red Sea crossing a generation earlier. Even the Garden of Eden stories and their more developed Midrash complimentary texts appear to be formed as allegoric reference to the Promised Land.

Why is this important to Christians? To understand our own defining texts (the Gospels), we need to recognize their roots in Midrash. Long before western thinkers literalized our myths and symbols, Jesus (Greek for Joshua or savior) had his own life captured by writers steeped in Midrash tradition. Starting with a birth story that compares Jesus and Moses as survivors of infant genocide and ending with an ascension to the heavens that grounds Jesus in the legend of Elijah, the gospels tell us about Jesus through well known stories of Jewish antiquity. In between those two events, these symbolic Gospels include a story about the parting of heavens that is set in the Jordan River, another story about a walk across water, a dramatic set of new commandments delivered from a mountain, and a Palm Sunday donkey ride borrowed from the prophetic words of Isaiah. That merely scratches the surface of the allegorical texts in the gospels. All seem to point to the creative techniques of Midrash.

When studying midrash, students realize the question to ask of the texts is not, Did it really happen? That is a western question tied to a western mind-set that seeks by sensory perception to measure and describe those things defined as objectively real.
…
The proper question of the midrsh tradition is, what was the experience that led, or even compelled, the compilers of the sacred tradition to include this moment, this life, or this event inside the interpretive framework of their sacred past? What was there about Jesus of Nazareth that required the meaning of his life to be interpreted through the stories of Abraham and Isaac, Moses and the Passover, Exodus and wilderness, Sinai and the promised land, Hnnah and Samuel, David and Solomon, Elijah and Elisha, the servant figure and the son of man, Pentecost and Tabernacles, and a thousand other choices that served to incorporate the life of Jesus into the meaning of God known in the history of the Jewish people? That is the midrash question of which we were ignorant for so long, the question that could not be asked in any substantive way until we developed Jewish eyes and Jewish minds with which to read and understand our own holy gospel. – Bishop John Shelby Spong, “Resurrection: Myth or Reality” (p.9)

When I first began to look at the Gospels as symbolic narratives, I was concerned about the implications. Had we been lied to? Was this a 2000-year-old hoax? Was the modern liberal attempts to trivialize the stories the only way out of this problem? I think the answer to each of those questions is, No. Understanding the Gospels as products of Midrash tradition eliminates the intention of hoax and it provides for a reconciliation of ancient stories, modern scholarship, and postmodern deconstruction.

From Lament to Hope – Words Matter

2008-03-19T07:41:00.004-05:00

Barack Obama made a speech yesterday that proved words do matter. Having a president with command of language, a cool temperament and a level head is crucial to our success as a nation. It would be a dramatic change to the present administration and the old methods of Washington politics.

The words of Rev. Jeremiah Wright echoed the Old Testament prophets. Obama correctly addressed the meaning of those words and placed them in the category of painful mourning. Those words remind us of the heartfelt cry of the book of Lamentations. The book of Lamentations is critical to the Old Testament message of eschatological hope. We need Lamentations. We must morn our loss of justice, our painful racism, and the exile from freedom just as the Israelites did. This is noteworthy during Holy Week. We cannot find our resurrection until we grieve our loss. There must be a Saturday, before their can be an Easter Sunday. Obama helped us feel that yesterday.

Obama's speech yesterday said all of those things to me. Essentially, he said the problem with Wright’s sermon was that he (or maybe the media's coverage of him) only got as far as Lamentations. Obama called us to move on and to recognize our progress. We live in a post-Easter world and to lament without hope would be to deny Jesus his vindication. Obama said clearly that we've already made great strides in this world and the kingdom of God is not only a possibility, but it is also a growing reality. The justice filled kingdom of God is at hand. Obama is proof. We need more of it.

God, damn the ways of empire! God, bring your kingdom in full!