Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

Winnowed Wisdom 7 - Ron Dart

Felix Culpa

Many years ago there was once a fine athlete who delighted and excelled in sprinting and mountain climbing. The athlete soon distinguished himself as the fastest sprinter in his country and was chosen to represent his country at the Olympics. Much hope was placed on the athlete to win the gold medal. A few days before the Olympics the athlete and a friend took to the mountains for a couple of days to do some climbing. The weather was a beauty, the rocks clean, the night stars alluring. The two friends were climbing a pitch (that was not particularly difficult) and, suddenly, the athlete took a fall. The tumble to the ground was not critical, but both legs were broken. Needless to say, the athlete, friends and country were disappointed (the athlete was angry). A week before the Olympics war was declared by the state the athlete was to represent, and many of his friends joined the military to fight for their country. Obviously, the athlete could not go to war because of his broken legs. The war did not go well for the young athlete’s country, and many of his friends were injured or killed. The athlete recovered from his broken legs by war’s end, and, in time, he became the leading anti-war activist in his country, winning the Nobel Prize for his work.

Deus Ex Machina: Sic et Non

Many moon cycles ago there lived scattered communities of sages that met annually to discuss important and perennial themes.  The leading point of discussion for one of the annual gatherings was the relationship between God’s immanence in history and the ability of humans to adequately interpret God’s intervention in time.  There were three positions taken by the sages at the annual meeting, and positions taken did divide the wise elders that came from different parts of the world.

There was the ‘triumphalist tribe’ that argued that if humanity heeded God’s law and responded well and wisely to the teachings of the Divine, good and plenty would occur. Those who chose to ignore the insights revealed by God would live with dire consequences.  This do good, good will follow, do bad, bad will follow was the formula that was held in an unshakeable way by the ‘triumphalist tribe’---there were nuances in their understanding of how this worked out, but the conclusions reached were similar. There would be struggles on the all too human journey, but those who were faithful would reap a plentiful harvest.  Some might call this, at a more popular level, the Walt Disney formula, but such an approach has a much older history.

There was the ‘realist tribe’ that differed with the ‘triumphalist tribe’.  The ‘realist tribe’ took the position that, in reality, mediocre and evil often prospered and good people often suffered at a variety of levels.

The hard facts of human history did not confirm, in any absolute sense, that God would rescue the good from tragic and sad experiences. Many of the wisest and finest of prophets, who were one with God at the deepest level, were martyrs or died young of natural causes. God did not seem to intervene to rescue or save them from a painful end. The ‘realist tribe’ took the position that faithfulness to the Good was the alpha and omega of the human journey and there were no promises of fairy tale like happy endings or, as J. R. R. Tolkien suggested, a ‘eucatastrophe’. In short, there was no predictable guarantee that God would intervene in history to protect those who were the most faithful to the Divine Presence. The motto of the ‘realist tribe’ was “Be present to the Presencing of that which is Present—faithfulness not fruit”.

There was also the clan that embodied the skeptical position. The ‘cynics tribe’ took the position that God did, in all probability exist, but it was simply silly to think humans could, in any meaningful sense, understand the actions of God in history. It was humans who made history for good or ill, and it was naïve to think God rewarded those who did good with plenty or honoured those who waited upon the Divine.  The very facts of human suffering, tragedy, war, starvation and multiple illnesses made it abundantly clear that God did not intervene in human affairs. Humanity had to, in humility and charity, work out its own salvation in fear and trembling.

Such were the positions taken by the sages at their annual gathering many moon cycles ago, and such are the positions taken by many honest sages today. The realists and cynics seem to have more in common than both do with the triumphalists (which have had many followers then and now). All the proceeding from the conference were published and remain a landmark scroll in the history of sage lore.

Ron Dart   

 

Out of the Corner of My Eye - Blindman at the Gate

I think I caught a glimpse of truth out of the corner of my eye.
A ghost, a whisper, a suspicion, a subtle and subversive rumor.
So dangerous that every army would be commanded to march against it;
so beautiful that it would drive those who see it to madness
or sanity.
Does the whole of my kind suffer from mental and moral vertigo?
As Melville said of cabin boy Pip,
he saw the foot of God upon the treadle of the loom
and dared to speak it.
Henceforth his shipmates called him mad.
As Vladimir said when they came to bury Fyodor,
the spiritual leader must feel the falsehood prevailing in society;
the prophet must struggle against it, never tolerate it, never submit to it.
I think I caught a glimpse of truth out of the corner of my eye.
Have we been so blinded by the bright lights of advertisers’ lies
that the only true vision is peripheral vision?
In the age of constant commercialization and overblown hype
does truth shout with a whisper and stand out with subtlety?
I think I caught a glimpse of truth out of the corner of my eye.
It terrified me as I fell in love with it.
I said,
This explains everything.
This changes everything.
This challenges everything.
This threatens everything.
This transforms everything.
Dare I speak it?

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This post first appeared at www.brianzahnd.com

The Chicago Debate on Calvinism - with a Soldier's Review of Zahnd's (nonviolent) 'victory' - by D.L. Jones

Debate: Daniel Montgomery and Timothy Jones in debate with Brian Zahnd and Austin Fischer

Proposition 1 - Calvinism necessitates unconditional predestination and unconditional predestination is incongruent with the God revealed in Jesus Christ.

 

Proposition 2 - The cause of repentance and saving faith is not synergistic but monergistic.

 

Review by Lt. Col. David L Jones - a soldier's analysis of Brian Zahnd's [nonviolent] 'victory' 

Christ is in our midst!

 

Brian Zahnd is a poet.  Brian is a song-writer.  I am proud to call Brian my friend.  A few nights ago Brian participated in a team debate against two Calvinist pastors.

 

Strategically he owned the ground of the discussion.  Tactically Brian held the higher ground as you will see.  His arguments were clearly the most reasonable to follow and believe. 

 

Brian and his partner kept the heat to the Calvinists' feet about predestination of the damned/reprobate. The essence or center of the target is not that the God predestines some for glory (or for grace which is another topic) but that He predestines most to Hell. That view is actually a formally declared heresy of the Early Church called Predestinarianism.

 

Brian's opening remarks were pure poetry.  Pointing folks to Bruggerman, Wright, Hauerwas, and Hart showed the audience up front the best thinkers, writers and scholars are on our side. 

Aussie pastor under arrest: Jarrod McKenna

What drives Church of Christ pastor Jarrod McKenna, and more than 40 other Christian and Jewish leaders, to occupy politicians' offices with the expectation that they will be arrested? Record InFocus interview with Kent Kingston. Your feedback: [email protected]

Aussie pastor under arrest: Jarrod McKenna from InFocus on Vimeo.

One Story, Two Revelations, Four Voices: Reading Biblical Narrative Christologically - Brad Jersak

The Ongoing Issue of Biblical Authority

Back in the day, when the early Church first came to faith in Jesus as Messiah but still relied entirely on the Hebrew Scriptures as their only ‘Bible,’ gospel preaching focused on the myriad of texts fulfilled in Christ. They saw Jesus everywhere in what would become the Christian ‘Old Testament.’ Indeed, we read how Jesus himself perceived His life as woven across the whole fabric of Jewish narrative, hymnology, and prophecy (Luke 24:13-35). For decades, the continuity between the Jewish narrative and the Christian revelation was a continuous wonder of discoveries.

But by the end of the first century, believers were also noticing some disturbing discontinuities as well. They noted the disparity between the image of the Father revealed in Christ with the violent images, actions, laws and judgments associated with Yahweh on display throughout the Law, the Writings and the Prophets. It seemed impossible that the God whom Jesus called Father could be responsible for the pattern of hatred and atrocity often described in the text and ascribed to His name.

The issue was so acute that potential solutions triggered schism. Believers attempted three major contrary approaches. The Gnostics preserved the perfection of the Creator God by assigning OT destruction and retribution to lesser gods and demiurges—distortions of God’s will. They included Yahweh among this secondary, violent company. Others, like the Marcionites, could not bear the discontinuity and ultimately abandoned the OT altogether as sub-Christian and unfit for continued use as authoritative Scripture in the Church.

The Church fathers and mothers who represent orthodox Christian belief rigorously rejected these answers … but they did not ignore the question. They only came to peace with the Hebrew text by nodding to its literal origins but interpreting its meaning spiritually or allegorically. Origen systematized this hermeneutic, but he really represents the standard approach of the early scholars en masse. Spiritualizing the Bible was deemed necessary in light of the obvious (to them) discrepancy between God as “the man of war” (Exodus 15:3) and Jesus as “the Prince of Peace.” Up until the Imperial reign of the Holy Roman Empire, the great conquests texts of the Bible stood as real contradictions to the Cross of Christ unless interpreted figuratively as our spiritual battle with a spiritual enemy, a la Ephesians 6.

To download the full article, click here

Monte Wolverton's 'Chasing 120: A Story of Food, Faith, Fraud and the Pursuit of Longevity' - Review by Brad Jersak

I recently glimpsed a Facebook post that said only, 'I hate foodies.' I had no idea what a 'foodie' is so, fancying myself a researcher, I googled it. I discovered a whole new world of grand obsessions (especially with longevity) and frightful intrigues ... most of all, the conspiracies (fictional or not) around GMO food.  

What's a GMO, I asked? Genetically modified food. Now I must say, I'm ever so thankful for seedless grapes ... but some of the other stuff. And how about those mountains of supplements that could genetically modify me? Crikey! 

 

Nimbly backing out through the door, I moved on in happy denial. Not my cause. But I had to admit, these are the raw materials of a riveting suspense novel. Imagine a GMO backfiring in freakish ways, throw in a cultic-religious movement that offers 12 decades of vitality. Spiritual abuse, dietary legalism and a dangerous GMO twist. Now you've got a plot! 

 

Well, it depends who writes it. And don't be fooled, novels aren't just retreats from reality. They often bear important truths that non-fiction can never carry past our defenses. In this case, author, artist and syndicated cartoonist Monte Wolverton has delivered a page-turner that both entertains and illuminates the reader. Chasing 120: A Story of Food, Faith, Fraud and the Pursuit of Longevity, unveils Wellness 120, the religious health empire of a manipulative health guru, all allegedly based in Scripture.

 

The novel is not just fun ... it's important. Even aside from the GMO conspiracies, I believe Wolverton's tale speaks to the deep disillusionment of so many people who've been burned by religious hucksters and corporate pop-gurus--people who've built empires on whatever vulnerabilities we carry in our woundedness. It's not enough to upset ourselves with the injustice of spiritual abuse. We need to ask what conditions set us up for it in the first place. What is the desperate need the charlatans promise to fulfill? Rather than just stealing false hope, might there be a good word that delivers true hope? Monte takes us there in Chasing 120, without platitudes or cliches. It's an excellent read that leads to some healthy thinking.

 

Click here to find out more: https://www.ptm.org/uni/resources/order/form_chasing120.php

 

And here's a great 3 minute Intro with Monte: 

"Changing Course," Loving Our Enemies - Jim Forest

Chapter 1 of Loving Our Enemies: Reflections on the Hardest Commandment by Jim Forest. Orbis, 2014.

One day Jesus asked the question, “Do people gather figs from thistles?” The answer is of course no — you harvest what you plant. Plant thistles and thistles take root and thistles they become. If you want to grow figs, you need to start with fig seeds. With this question, Jesus implicitly ridicules the idea that good can be brought about by evil means. Violence is not the means of creating a peaceful society. Vengeance does not pave the road to forgiveness. Spousal abuse does not lay the foundation for a lasting marriage. Rage is not a tool of reconciliation.                    

Yet, while figs do not grow from thistles, in the world of human choice and action, a positive change of attitude and direction is always a possibility. Sinners are the raw material of saints. The New Testament is crowded with accounts of transformations.In the Church of the Savior in the Chora district of Istanbul, there is a fourteenth-century Byzantine mosaic that, in a single image, tells a story of an unlikely transformation: the conversion of water into wine for guests at a wedding feast in the village of Cana. In the background Jesus — his right hand extended in a gesture of blessing — stands side by side with his mother. In the foreground we see a servant pouring water from a smaller jug into a larger one. The water leaves the first jug a pale blue and tile-by-tile becomes a deep purple as it reaches the lip of the lower jug. “This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana, in Galilee, and manifested his glory; and his disciples believed in him.” 

This “first sign” that Jesus gave is a key to understanding everything in the Gospel. Jesus is constantly bringing about transformations: blind eyes to seeing eyes, withered limbs to working limbs, sickness into wellbeing, guilt into forgiveness, strangers into neighbors, enemies into friends, slaves into free people, armed men into disarmed men, crucifixion into resurrection, sorrow into joy, bread and wine into himself. Nature cannot produce figs from thistles, but God is doing this in our lives all the time. God’s constant business in creation is making something out of nothing. As a Portuguese proverb declares, “God writes straight with crooked lines.”                                                                                                                    

CLICK HERE to read the rest of the chapter

Winnowed Wisdom 6 - Ron Dart

Addictions

Many years ago a young man was hitchhiking across North America---he was most fortunate, as dusk was arrived, to be picked up. The driver of the car and hitchhiker soon fell into conversation. The driver mentioned that he had once been an alcoholic, but he was no more. He told the hitchhiker he was now working 12 hours a day. The hitchhiker suggested to the driver he had merely traded addictions. The driver thought about this for a few silent moments, then suggested to the hitchhiker that rootlessness, cynicism and wanderlust might also be an addiction. The conversation reflected further on a variety of crude and subtle addictive tendencies, given temperaments, that one and all must confront. 

 

Bap a Mole

There were once parents who annually took their children to the travelling circus. One of the booths at the circus was a game of bap a mole. A hammer was given to those who played the game, and the head of a mole (not real of course) would pop its head up through various holes, The task was to hit the head of the mole when it appeared and thereby win the prize---3 hits won the large prize. The mole, under the cover, thrust its head up, unpredictably so, through various openings. The children and parents, in haste, attempted to, with their hammers, hit the mole`s head before it disappeared under the surface tarp. The game ended with the parents and children only hitting the mole`s head from two opening—a small prize was awarded. As the family was leaving game, a woman, who had been watching them said, ``much easier, isn`t it, to hit the mole`s head in its various guises and appearances----much harder to actually get the mole of the egò and false self`” 

 

The Taper

A young man who had lived a busy and hectic life in the city decided to visit a wise woman at her hermitage just above the forest on an alpine ledge. The journey took three days, and the man arrived as dusk was appearing and a fine soft orange alpine glow coloured the glacier thick mountain across the valley. The man timidly and nervously knocked on the door and the woman greeted him warmly. She had prepared some fine wine, fresh bread and cheese for their meeting. The conversation turned in many directions, but as night and darkness came to dominate, a taper was taken down. The woman lit one end of the taper to provide light in the chalet. She handed the taper to the young man. The older woman then told the man she was going to light the other end of the taper. The young man momentarily protested and suggested that the taper would go out quicker if both ends were burning.  “Indeed it will”, the woman replied. “And so it is with those who are too busy with city life, victims of their drivenness”.

Ron Dart

Matrix of Hope - with Walter Brueggemmann

Walter Brueggemann looks at Peter Bruegel's Way to Calvary. This film by Joonhee Park was premiered at the CIVA JUSTart conference in Wheaton, IL in June 2013.

Learning to Love our Enemies - Jim Forest

Talk given (Aug 2014) at Iona pilgrimage with Friends of Orthodoxy on Iona, led by Metro. Kallistos Ware

By Jim Forest

One of the stories told about St Columba has to do with a custom still familiar to Orthodox Christians. How often we bring an object that has special significance in one’s life, for example an icon, and ask a priest to give it a special blessing. Blessing an entire home, room by room, is common. Columba was so highly regarded that a great many people came to him for such blessings. For Columba this must at times have been a distraction, something done when his thoughts were elsewhere. Thus it isn’t surprising that one day he gave a blessing to a warrior’s sword. In a flash he realized he had made a mistake. The very last thing he wanted to do was bless a deadly weapon. It was because of his complicity in war earlier in his life that he had left Ireland and sought penitential exile on the island of Iona. The question now was what to do with this freshly blessed sword? Columba decided to give a second, more restrictive blessing. He called on God to keep the blade sharp only so long as the sword were used in the kitchen. It would henceforth be a baker’s sword, perfect for slicing bread.

Not all legends told of the saints are true in the sense the word “true” would be used by a contemporary journalist or historian, but this story has the ring of unornamented truth about it.

Having witnessed the horror and fever of war, Columba had renounced swords and warfare. Once he arrived on Iona, he dedicated himself and his small brotherhood to a vocation of conversion and peacemaking. He sought a life modeled on the earthly ministry of Jesus and shaped by his words in the Gospel. Christ is a threat to no one. He blesses neither executions nor war. Instead he says, “I have come to give life and give it more abundantly.”

Christ told Peter to put aside his sword, but Christ’s attitude to enmity and conflict is not simply negative. It involves more than refusing to possess or use deadly weapons. Jesus builds on the commandment not to kill by adding a new commandment, the commandment to love, and to love not only friends but enemies.

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Ron Dart's 'Canadian Christian Zionism: A Tangled Tale' - review by Brad Jersak

 

If I told you, "You should never question your pastor or priest," how would you respond?

If I told you, "You should never question your president or prime minister," what would you say?

If I told you, "You should never question authority or the use of violence by authority," would you buy it?

I hope you would balk.

It's troubling then, when those in spiritual or political authority react when someone questions the actions of the state of Israel with the charge of anti-semitism ... and especially so when those raising objections include Israeli Jews and former IDF veterans. So often, the immediate response is that they are self-hating Jews. And why? For questioning their own government's domestic policy?

But what's especially strange is that Christians (not Jews) in another nation (not Israel), would hold an ideology that says, 'How dare you question Israel!' To fail to question anyone about anything creates the very conditions to which our Jewish sages have warned, 'Never again!'

Yet our own Canadian party leaders have rushed to assert unquestioning support of Israel's policies, politicizing their support, seemingly to position themselves for the sake of their political careers, as if this amounted to 'support.' To be clear, 'questioning' is not 'anti-' anything ... it's actually the most important part of processing Israel's long-term peace and security. 

Fear not -- Ron Dart's collection of essays does not question Israel. It faithfully examines and questions the phenomenon of Canada Christian Zionism.

"An eye for an eye" - Prot (KPAX)

"Let me tell you something, Mark. You humans, most of you, subscribe to this policy of an eye for an eye, a life for a life, which is known throughout the universe for its stupidity. "Even your Buddha and your Christ had quite a different vision; but nobody's paid much attention to them, not even the Buddhists or the Christians." Prot (from KPAX)

One day God planted a stake in the ground - by Jo Pestell

God spoke
        Darkness came
                        God was there

God spoke
        Light came
                        God was there

God spoke
        Creation overflowed
                        God was there

One day God planted a stake in the ground

"Everything I have is yours
    - share it with me or use it for yourselves"

They ate
         A different light came
         They were hidden from each other
                          But God was there

"Everything I have is mine"
    - but still a voice within whispers of a different way

One day God planted a stake in the ground

"This is my body given for you"
    - a gate or a stumbling block

Take, eat
          Their eyes were opened
                           And God was there

"Lord, it's hard to give my body to serve you"
    - but the Spirit comes and brings strength within

Still....

Sometimes when we speak
           Darkness comes
                           God be there

Sometimes when we speak
            Light comes
                            God is there

Lord help us speak
            "Your kingdom come"
                             God is here

 

This poem first appeared at http://dwellingspaces.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/one-day-god-planted-stake-in-ground.html

Winnowed Wisdom 5 - Ron Dart

The Prophet and the Raven

There once was a prophet who spoke searchingly and sternly to his people when they failed to uphold their high standards of justice and peacemaking. The prophet was often treated indifferently or opposed.

The ongoing rejection of the prophet by his people, in time, wore the prophet down, and anger, bitterness and other toxins grew in the depths of his soul. He soon became so disgusted with the folly of the people that he was called to care for that he fled to the desert. The desert was a quiet place but his heart was not. The fact he was rejected so often soon put him in a place in which he rejected his people. Brittle ideals had come to replace compassion and anger replaced mercy. A raven often visited the prophet in the stillness of the desert with the food of a message that, for months, the prophet could not hear---his dark and frozen heart had deafened him. In time, the faithful and daily visitations of the raven, and the growing loneliness of prophet, worked their wonders. The prophet had been unkind to the raven for many a turn of the night moon, but the raven daily returned unkindness with kindness. The prophet came to realize that the food the raven brought was the medicine his soul needed. The prophet spent many a month facing his demons of anger and bitterness, but, in time, the message of the raven could not be missed—prophet and people had to be transformed for different reasons. The prophet returned to his people—not all listened but many more did than before and the prophet was kind to those who did not listen and kinder to those that opposed and rejected him.

The Hawk, Dove and Owl

Once upon a time there dwelt a large community of valley people, who for many centuries, lived in a just and peaceful manner. The time came, though, when differences of perspectives emerged, harsh words were spoken and conflict erupted. The valley people became divided into different factions and war broke out. There were the hawks who thought a resolution could be brought by larger war machines and power—essential, so it was argued, to be realistic. There were the doves who pleaded that through dialogue, diplomacy and nonviolent mediation, the conflicts and war of all against all could be ended—doves built the nest of idealism and dwelt within such a perch. It was the owls, though (birds of wisdom) that clearly saw that the hawks and doves were both right and wrong. And so, the valley people called  the owls to convene a public meeting of which hawks and doves were asked to attend. 

Ron Dart            

What Should Christians Do About the Violence in Northern Iraq? — Andrew P. Klager

To answer my title right off the bat, I don’t really know. This piece won’t solve anything, but I think I’m in good company in this regard. The following might, however, help us change the way we think to avoid making the situation worse and perhaps move in a more positive direction.

I was originally going to write a piece on why I don’t post stories about persecuted Christians on social media, but I’ve decided that it would be inappropriate to do so given the real-life horrors in northern Iraq. If I couldn’t read my piece to the parents of a raped and beheaded child, I shouldn’t be writing it. “Holier-than-thou” pieces are stupid anyway.

Christians are asking what we should do in the face of such barbaric violence as that which ISIS has meted out against the Yazidis, Shi’a Muslims, Assyrian Christians, Kurds, and those Sunni Muslims whom they regard as kuffār (unbelievers) because they have entered a state of jahiliyya (the reemergence of the ignorance that preceded Islam, this time due to Western influence).

Now, I realize that I’m writing this from an elitist position in a peaceful society far removed from the brutality that has drenched the sands of northern Iraq in innocent blood. I get that. If you believe that I shouldn’t be writing about this situation because my relative comfort will inevitably render the following unrealistic and trite, I’ll understand. It’s not easy to keep emotions in check, to think straight while helplessly viewing images of unspeakable brutality through brimming eyes. I don’t think that anything I write below is easy to do. It certainly isn’t easy for me.

So, what are we supposed do? 

Winnowed Wisdom 4 - Ron Dart

The Rabbi

There was once a young student keen to learn about God and the world.  The hunger to learn and grow in learning consumed the young student. It did not take long before the young student had accumulated

many facts and much information about the religious life. It was just a matter of time before the student decided it was best to study with a wise and insightful rabbi. The journey to the rabbi took many days, but the dream of learning more and more drove the student forward and onward. Upon meeting the older rabbi, the student told the rabbi about his longing to learn ever more and how the rabbi might assist him in such a process. The rabbi looked at the young student and said,

“Instead of feeding you with many cucumbers, I’m going to put a few hot peppers under your tongue. Come again and see me in a few years and tell me what the peppers have taught you”. The young student walked away confused, but a decade later he returned to the rabbi.

Eden’s Tree

There once was a tree and those who delighted in its fruit and shade were nourished and lived wisely and well. A sage came by one day and encouraged those who lived by the tree to see their inner life like a tree. “Let the roots go deep, tend the soil, allow the fair sun and varied weather of life to mature the tree”. Many listened attentively to the wise woman. “And”, she said, “pick from the fruit of your best desires, but be wary of indulging and picking from the fruit of your lower desires”.  Those who heeded the words of the sage, day by day, lived fuller and fuller lives. Those who picked from the fruit of improper desires soon forgot who they were and wandered from the tree, increasingly lost, in search of meaning and food to live by.

Ron Dart

'Biblical Orthodoxy' in popular use - Brad Jersak

This article was inspired by and in response to Andrew Klager's piece on The Contradictory, Convenient, and Self-Serving Impulses in Selective Biblical Literalism. He addressed the buzz to and fro regarding Michael Gungor's supposed departure from 'biblical orthodoxy.' Nothing new under the sun. But I've noticed some oddities about this phrase 'biblical orthodoxy' in its popular usage. 

 

First, I like 'biblical.' I like 'orthodoxy.' I work very hard to be both, especially seeking to attend to the Scriptures and the Church Fathers. I seek to align with them rather than bringing something novel.

 

But something happens around that phrase, 'biblical orthodoxy,' when the two words are brought together and particularly in the kind of contexts where they're then used.

 

1. When the tagline 'biblical orthodoxy' comes up, also too frequently it's used in the context of condemning someone according to one's own standards of what that means -- or at best, according to some modern confession of faith from one's particular religious club. By nature, 'biblical orthodoxy' is a measurement, which is to say a judgment, which is to say, the grounds for condemnation -- based less often on whether something is biblical or orthodox, but sadly, on whether the target in question falls within the critic's personal range of acceptable belief. In other words, 'biblical orthodoxy' tends to mean 'me' or 'what I know to be [un]true because I [don't] believe it.'

 

2. 'Biblical orthodoxy' is generally used as a synonym for 'biblical literalism,' which as Andrew points out, isn't terribly biblical. To be truly 'biblical,' one must take the Bible far more seriously than literalism allows for. 'Biblical' should imply a careful examination of authorial intent, ancient contexts and especially the profound nuances of various genres. Typically, literal-ism does violence to the Scriptures with its so-called 'plain reading' of the text ... too often a trendy cipher for a surface examination of the words for how I want to apply them. My caution is that we double-check how 'biblical' our 'biblical orthodoxy' is when hauled out to crucify someone.

 

I think it would help when we hear the words 'biblical orthodoxy' to ask, 'What do we mean by biblical?' to ensure that we really are being biblical in the truest sense.

Christianity In the Age of Nuclear Weapons - Brian Zahnd

 Today is the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Saturday we will mourn Nagasaki. As we remember Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the quarter of a million casualties suffered, I would like to share a few words from A Farewell To Mars.

It’s easy to imagine that the world doesn’t really change — that it simply marches around the maypole of violence, trampling the victims into the mud same as it ever has. But as true as that may be, something has changed. We are post-something. If nothing else, we are post-1945 when the enlightenment dream of attainable utopia went up in smoke — literal smoke! — from the chimneys of Auschwitz and a mushroom cloud over Hiroshima.

After 1945 we lost our blind faith in the inevitability of human progress. A threshold was crossed, and something important changed when humanity gained possession of what previously only God possessed: the capacity for complete annihilation. In yielding to the temptation to harness the fundamental physics of the universe for the purpose of building city-destroying bombs, have we again heard the serpent whisper, “You will be like God”?

When Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, witnessed the first atomic detonation at Los Alamos on July 16, 1945, he recalled the words of Vishnu from the Bhagavad Gita…

“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

When the monstrous mushroom cloud rose over the New Mexico desert, did the human race indeed become Death, the destroyer of worlds? It’s more than a legitimate question. We’ve now lived for over a generation with the most haunting post-Holocaust/Hiroshima uncertainty: Can humanity possess the capacity for self-destruction and not resort to it? The jury is still out. But this much is certain:If we think the ideas of Jesus about peace are irrelevant in the age of genocide and nuclear weapons, we have invented an utterly irrelevant Christianity!

BZ

(The artwork is Mushroom Cloud by Luciano Civettini.)

The post Christianity In the Age of Nuclear Weapons appeared first on Brian Zahnd.

Victimhood: a double-edged sword - by Kevin Miller

As Stephen Pinker argues convincingly in his book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, our sensitivity toward victims has increased substantially over the last several centuries, leading to a drastic reduction in violence. By way of example, it’s practically impossible today for any government, organization or individual to act in a discriminatory, aggressive or violent manner before before the global community blows the whistle and cries foul. This is particularly true when a huge power imbalance exists between the two parties. As soon as word of potential discrimination or abuse of power gets out, people rally around the victim and seek to shame the aggressor into backing off. This isn’t to say victimization doesn’t still happen. But Pinker assembles a mountain of data that demonstrates not only that the number of such incidents has decreased substantially over the past few centuries, even when such situations do develop, they don’t persist for nearly as long as they once did.

To what should we credit this growing sensitivity toward victims, and its commensurate reduction in violence? Pinker spends much of his book seeking to answer exactly this question. 

CLICK HERE to read the rest of Kevin's review

The Contradictory, Convenient, and Self-Serving Impulses in Selective Biblical Literalism — Andrew P. Klager

Cartoon by David Hayward

There’s been a lot of online chatter about Michael Gungor’s recent admission that he doesn’t believe that everything in the Bible—particularly the OT—should be read literally. Here’s my two cents. I don’t claim that this is in any way original or mind-blowing, but it’s important to keep in mind nonetheless. The following is therefore meant as a neatly packaged response to the oft-repeated fear-based chorus lines that Christian fundamentalists have been singing in the face of this ostensible hermeneutical threat.

What I’ve noticed time and again is the accusation that refusing to read everything in the Bible in a literal way marks the beginning of a slippery slope toward denying the central tenets of Christianity: the virgin birth, Christ’s death and resurrection, etc. And this is what makes Gungor’s admission so threatening to them. It may seem like a minor, esoteric anomaly within the confines of the Evangelical world, but to the fundamentalist gatekeepers, admissions like Gungor’s call into question the authority of each and every word between the leather-bound, monogramed covers of their Bibles that many of them have abruptly enthroned at the right hand of the Father in a coup d’état to replace the One who preached the Sermon on the Mount, taught love of enemies, and absorbed our violence instead of fighting back. It’s a big deal to them.