Who are we?

As I offered last week, we (Americans) are the Romans in the Gospel. And the man who introduced me to this concept, Cam Miller, preached a sermon about it on Sunday (and blogged it):

We are the Romans. We live far away from the margins of our empire. We live far away from the sources of our wealth and affluence. We live far away from the sweatshops where people make our clothing or the fields where migrants harvest our food or the factories where our drugs are produced or even the phone banks from where our credit cards are monitored.

We have no idea that, right now, Jesus and his buddies are being abused…exploited, even tortured and killed for our benefit.

That is who we are in the Gospel story. That is our story line. We need to read the story from our point of view rather than pretending that we can read it from the point of view of Jesus and his buddies.

Do read the whole thing…

Living the Questions

I’m back from Church where we had the last class in Living the Questions tonight. This makes me sad: because for the last 6 weeks I’ve felt rather connected to those folks. Apart from the two classes with Sare, I think I was the youngest one in the room - it’s not often I can say that anymore! And, for the time that I’ve been trying to connect in Buffalo, these folks provided the connexion. NEway…
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Living the Questions

I was at church last night for a class called, “Living the Questions 2″. Except the DVDs being used as the discussion seed somehow got scratched so we skipped from last week’s session 5 on The Lives of Jesus to something like section 9 or 10, The Prophetic Jesus.

A couple of things struck me…

During the first discussion, Cam wrote on the news print, “Faith as developmental instead of a fixed point.” For much of the evening that had me going: we’re so used to “Faith” meaning “I believe in God the way that some believe in the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy. I’m right, of course. God told me so.” Despite my constant writing on that theme in these pages - faith as a thing to do instead of something to to simply affirm - I’m just as bad at it: I have trouble understanding how to get from a list of things one believes (ie, the Creed, the Catechism) to whatever it is that is beyond belief.

And here it was, “Faith” as a journey - one taken in faithfulness - not reciting a list of things as if to say them over and over were to make them true: but to live as if they were true (even if they are not logical or provable).

You live a life of faith not by “having faith” but by acting faithfully.

Then, during the DVD, Winnie Varghese introduced this idea: Jesus, as prophet, did not do what the prophets of Israel did. Or if he did, he did it in a very unusual way. The ancient prophets spoke to the king - and through the king effected change. Jesus, however, didn’t speak to Caesar but, rather, to the people - a “royal priesthood.” It requires a slight paradigm shift: but Jesus didn’t protest in the streets against the king’s injustice. He brought the people to live justly.

At another point during the DVD, Bishop Yvette Flunder spoke a very true line: the churches that have a very high Christology seem to mess up on the social justice while the Churches that do really well on social justice seem to mess up on Christology. We need to get both of these functions into the same Church. It was interesting to hear Cam agree, acknowledging that Trinity is good on the social justice but weak on Christology.

And, finally, during the discussion after, Cam asked us to list the groups of people in the Gospels (not the individuals, but the groups): Disciples, sinners, scribes, Pharisees, temple clergy, etc… Then he asked us who was the large, silent group in the Gospel stories and, after several moments of guessing, he told us, “The Romans” - not the local petty dictators, but rather the upper crust of Rome, living off the fat of the land all around the Mediterranean and beyond and for whom the actions of some petty out-land kingdoms would never register at all. Yet the daily life in those out-lands was effected often by the economic and political choices made in Rome.

And, of course, we Americans live the closest parallel to the Romans: not the sinners or the scribes or the Pharisees. The Silent, Omnivorous, Oppressive, Economic Tyrants of the world, today.

As I wrote on Trinity Sunday, “To borrow furniture from Hooker, I believe the Trinity and the Incarnation and the Eucharist to be the three equal legs on the stool that is our salvation. One can not take those three doctrines collectively and still be a “neural Buddhist”. I don’t think you can be non-Theist and still accept the doctrinal images of Trinity and Incarnation (maybe Eucharist). But I don’t know if it is important to “believe” in them as on a Check list.”

I want to wrestle (in a faithful way) with all of these and find a way to live it.

Progressives…

Rabbi Michael Learner points out Obama’s Jewish Problem:

Obama is a spiritual progressive. He believes that human beings are equally valuable whether they are white or black, American or Asian or African or European. Apply that to the Middle East and you get policy inclinations very different from those which have been insisted upon by the Israel Lobby, supported by most of the establishment Jewish institutions which, through the power of their organized pressure have become the dominant policy supported by both parties in rare unanimity.

This seems to me to be a problem of the two religions functioning, in this case, within Judaism. Rabbi Learner mentions receiving “hundreds of emails from young Jews distraught at the television images of tens of thousands of Palestinians breaking out of the prison camp that Gaza has become, desperate for food, fuel and other goods that have been denied entry into Gaza by the Israeli army. A new generation of young Jews no longer blindly adopts the strategy of domination or salutes to the policies of the current government of Israel.”

Yet, another Rabbi chides Obama - and his supporters - because Obama actually wants to talk to Iran. Talking. ZOMFG. What next? Treating them like people?

It’s the younger generation that moves me. Leftward. There is hope. But, eh… most young people grow up into old farts (ie, Yer Host).

Brian in Asheville

Hey Folks!

Brian McLaren will be in Asheville for a Music event on Dec 15th - an evening of progressive spiritual music and conversation. It’s a Jubilee! Church.

Colour me there. Any others going?

Rabbi hosts Priestessing

I wanted to say “Rabbess” but I didn’t think it would make any sense. Over at the National Catholic Reporter, we find a St Louis Reform Temple is hosting two WomanPriest ordinations. This Rabbi welcomes sinners and eats with them!

Two Catholic women are being ordained by Roman Catholic Womenpriests here Nov. 11, prompting outrage from Catholic officials — outrage that, surprisingly, is directed less at the women aspiring to the Catholic priesthood, or at the movement ordaining them, than toward a rabbi who agreed to host the event.

The women to be ordained are Elsie Hainz McGrath, a retired writer and editor for a Catholic publishing house, and Rose Marie Dunn Hudson, a former teacher. Bishop Patricia Fresen, who was for many years a Dominican nun, ordained the women as deacons Aug. 12 and will perform the ceremony here. The women are among a growing number of deacons, priests and bishops ordained in the Roman Catholic Womenpriests movement. Based on responses to formal invitations, Hudson said organizers are expecting 300 to 400 to attend.

I like this. A Roman Catholic publication using words that might imply, to the uninitiated, that these folks are Roman Catholics with whom the Pope would consider himself in communion. It that’s not confusing enough…

Wait! There’s more.

Noting that ordaining women is forbidden by Catholic canon law, St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke wrote to Rabbi Susan Talve, senior rabbi at Central Reform Congregation — the synagogue host — urging her to revoke her offer of hospitality. Meanwhile, the director of the archdiocesan Office of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, Fr. Vincent A. Heier, has excoriated Talve for her role, likening it to a Catholic pastor inviting a Holocaust denier to speak, and describing Talve’s action as a major setback to the area’s strong, hard-won Jewish-Catholic relations.

This part I don’t understand at all. If these people are not Roman Catholics (ie are out of communion) then why is the Roman Catholic Hierarchy not simply saying “Hey, they’re not really Catholics… they can do whatever”? If these folks are pretending, in your opinion, why not say so? The article makes this clear towards the end, but the reaction of Burke and Heier is over the top. They wouldn’t care if the Rabbi hosted an Anglican ordination. Would they?

In other words, at least as far as the story goes, me thinks the Menfolk doth protest too much.

Sadly, in a divide-and-conquer move, they’ve also caused the Rabbi’s allies to rally against her. A Jewish agency has distanced itself from the Rabbi’s decision. But her congregation is 100% behind her.

I love this one:

This isn’t the first time Heier, the archdiocesan official, has found Talve’s values misguided. “She has done a number of things in the past few years that I think are borderline in terms of sensitivity, pushing an agenda I don’t always agree with.”

She probably has hosted Dignity or maybe done some gay weddings? Or maybe she’s come right out and said somethings about the political action of Archbishop Burke and his tax exempt status? (As I add that last I wish to make it clear: I think all religious groups should give up such status in order to be as political as they wish.)

(Props to Carl.)

irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid

Props to Yael over at No Mechitza In My World for this quote from Abraham Joshua Heschel:

Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion - its message becomes meaningless.

New from James Alison

Fr James Alison has released some MP3s of recent presentations from The Sixth National Symposium on Catholicism and Homosexuality (March 2007, Minneapolis, USA): Navigating Uncharted Waters: The Gift of Faith And Growing UP LGBT and The Shape of Daring Imagination: Coming Out and Coming Home.

As well as “He opened up to them everything in the Scriptures concerning himself” (Lk 24, 27b): How can we recover Christological and Ecclesial habits of Catholic Bible Reading? - Lecture for the “Voices of Renewal” Lecture series at Corpus Christi University Parish, Toledo, Ohio, 9 October 2007.

Right now the talks are on his front page but they are also available on his media page.

James Alison, a former Dominican, is one of the strongest voices for reform in the Roman Catholic community.

Why they hate us…

Over at Young Anabaptist Radicals, a post up about perceptions of the Church among young people.

Some of it I find, well, common sense - “One of the most frequent criticisms of young Christians was that they believe the church has made homosexuality a ‘bigger sin’ than anything else.” This is my usual criticism: many although certainly not all in the conservative religious communities (of various faiths), as we’ve discussed here, make light of issues like divorce, birth control and heterosexual philandering. But let the person in question confess to same-sex attraction and lo, all hell breaks loose. While these parties are not the only voices in their communities they seem to be the ones who want AND get the biggest share of the media.

Aside from that, I was interested in this paragraph:

I’m sure that many Christians will try to spin this as a result of increased persecution of Christians in the US or the influence of the secular, liberal media. But the study specifically highlights that perceptions are based on interactions with Christian friends or attending church. A whopping 80% of non-Christians surveyed had spent at least six months attending church. These are not casual cynics, jaded by the media. They are people who have tried Christianity and found it wanting. In other words, all of us Christians are responsible. We can’t just point our fingers at some other part of the church or secular society.
(Emphasis in the original.)

6 months?

I’ve just spent 5 years on a religious journey… and I know I didn’t get deep enough into the denomination I’d joined to find out anything. (That I’d had a bad experience or two is not intended to colour all of Orthodoxy.) Is 6 months supposed to be enough time to understand Church? As I commented over there, attending a church for 6 months is not enough time to get to know people’s names let alone form a non-cynical opinion of that community. There’s certainly no way to grasp the essentials of the faith in that time. I’m afraid that 6 months is about just the right time to become a casual cynic judging the person in the next row.

3 out of ∞

I picked up a cool book on vacation, by Rob Brezsny, who writes the “Free Will Astrology” piece seen in many alternative weeklies. The book is called PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. Here’s an essay that spoke to my heart during my recent travel woes: it took 27.25 hours to go door-to-door, returning from SF. It was a perfect vacation, but I almost forgot that until I read this:

Thousands of things go right for you every day, beginning the moment you wake up. Through some magic you don’t fully understand, you’re still breathing and your heart is beating, even though you’ve been unconscious for many hours. The air is a mix of gases that’s just right for your body’s needs, as it was before you fell asleep.

Read the rest! Buy the book at Amazon if you wish!