Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

"The Gospel According to Hermes" by Ron Dart, Bradley Jersak, et al

New Book Release: The Gospel According to Hermes
Intimations of Christianity in Greek Myth, Poetry and Philosophy

by Ron S. Dart and Bradley Jersak

with Simon Oliver, Wm. Paul Young, and Abp. Lazar Puhalo

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Description

Tertullian famously asked, “What hath Athens to do with Jerusalem?”

Perhaps the title of this work will raise the question, “What hath Hermes to do with Christ?”

Quite a lot, as it turns out, by way of comparison, contrast, illustration, and prefigurement. Hermes, herein, represents far more than a particular figure in Greek mythology. Hermes functions as a placeholder, symbolizing the legacy of ancient Greek myth, poetry, and philosophy—and also the layered hermeneutics that classical Greek education contributed to both Jewish and Christian interpretations of the Scriptures, and the development of their theology, doctrine, and ethics.

Despite the unfortunate but popular assumption of a Jewish-Greek dualism among many scholars since Adolf von Harnack, the stubborn and happy fact is that the New Testament itself already demonstrates a profound integration of the Hellenized Judaism established in Alexandria. The first Christian theologians were not contaminating some imaginary pure Jewish Christianity with Greek accretions.

Rather, our authors will propose and demonstrate the confluence of both great streams in the development of the New Testament Scriptures, patristic theology, and hermeneutics. This collection of essays is but a faint echo of Simone Weil’s formidable work, Intimations of Christianity Among the Ancient Greeks, and is certainly inspired by her insights. 

Table of Contents

Preface: Bradley Jersak, “What hath Hermes to do with Christ?” / 7 

FROM HERMES TO PLATO 

1. Bradley Jersak, “Pushing Back: Greek Thinking vs. Jewish Thinking is a Dualistic Error” / 11 

2. Simon Oliver, “The Role of Plato in the Development of Christian Theology” / 25 

FROM HERMES TO JOHN 

3. Bradley Jersak, “Descensus: Hermes, Hades, and Christ” / 33 

4. Ron Dart, “Water to Wine, Johannine Hermeneutics, and the Alexandrian Tradition” (part 1) / 51 

5. Ron Dart, “Water to Wine, Johannine Hermeneutics, and the Alexandrian Tradition” (part 2) / 63 

6. Wm. Paul Young, “Fish Pi: Gospel of John (21) and Archimedes” (153)” / 75 

FROM HERMES TO THE PATRISTICS 

7. Ron Dart, “Heraclitus, Aeschylus, and the Jewish Zeus” / 85 

8. Ron Dart, “Augustine, the Inklings, Myth, and Hermes the Trickster” / 93 

9. Ron Dart, “Homerian Epic, Patristic Christian Tradition and Spiritual Formation” / 99 

10. Lazar Puhalo, “Nous: The Concord of Gnosis, Theoria, and Theosis” / 109 

FROM HERMES TO THE 20th CENTURY 

11. Ron Dart, “C.S. Lewis and Hermes: Greek Myth and Till We Have Faces” / 119 

12. Ron Dart, “Thomas Merton’s The Behavior of Titans – Sixty Year Review” / 127 

13. Ron Dart, “Owls, Hegel, Castalians, Classical Myths, and T.S. Eliot” / 134 

14. Bradley Jersak, “Pythagoras, Plato, and Christ: A Cruciform Cosmology of Consent” / 141 

BEYOND HERMES 

15. Ron Dart, “Servant Leadership in the Public Square: Four Markings” / 167 

Authors / 172 

The Fisheries Stand-off in Atlantic Canada: Understanding the Complexity of this Issue - Lois Mitchell

The Fisheries Stand-off in Atlantic Canada: Understanding the Complexity of this Issue (A Personal Perspective)

Lois Mitchell

[This paper was written last fall at the height of the dispute in Nova Scotia over the “moderate-living lobster fishery”, being conducted by the Sipekne'katik band (the second largest Mi’kmaq band in Nova Scotia). It was originally written as the tension was escalating because people in my own family and community – Deer Island, New Brunswick – had asked me to write about it and because the Indigenous Relations Working Group of the Canadian Baptists of Atlantic Canada (CBAC), of which I have been a member for several years, was trying to help pastors and churches (especially in the area of Nova Scotia where the tension was most pronounced, but throughout Atlantic Canada more generally) understand the issue and how they might respond in a way that is in keeping with our commitment as a denomination to reconciliation. After the article was published on the CBAC website (https://baptist-atlantic.ca/news/the-fisheries-stand-off-in-atlantic-canada-understanding-the-complexity-of-this-issue/), I posted it on my own Facebook page. Some good conversations ensued and eventually the issue subsided, in that the confrontations stopped and a special mediator was appointed by the Federal Government to “facilitate discussions” – see https://globalnews.ca/news/7418671/ns-lobster-dispute-ottawa-mediator/.

The article is being posted here to exemplify an attempt to engage in difficult conversations on complex issues by seeking a “more complete truth”. It begins by acknowledging our biases, but is driven by an honest desire to understand other perspectives in the hopes of finding common ground and a way forward that is both peaceful and just for all parties. Since writing this in October, 2020, there have been some new developments as Indigenous bands and non-Indigenous fishers and their organizations attempt to work with and/or around the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. I may, at some point, write an update but for now, what follows is the original article with a few very small edits made for clarity.]

October 2, 2020 

I am very heavy-hearted as I witness – from a distance - the stand-off in Saint Mary’s Bay between fishers of the Sipekne'katik band who have band-issued “moderate-living” lobster licenses, and traditional fishermen from the area (and beyond) who are frustrated with what they consider to be “illegal traps” that are being fished “out of season”. I don’t have all the answers and I’m just one flawed person, wanting to understand and act in a way that promotes right relationship in light of historic treaties.

CLICK HERE to download the full PDF of Lois Mitchell, "The Fisheries Stand-off in Atlantic Canada" 

For the Deconstruction of Faith: Could St. John of the Cross be a Worthy Companion? Ellen Haroutunian

Flikr/Lawrence OP

There is a clear exodus from both the institution of church and the Christian faith that shows no signs of abating,^[1] Thousands of people are experiencing what is being called the deconstruction^[2] of their faith. They are knocking down theological and religious constructs and elements of church culture that no longer make sense, and that may even have caused harm. They are not merely rebels or people who “just want to sin,” as some pastor friends have said to me. What many are seeking is an engagement with life and yes, even spirituality, with what is real and authentic, experienced and embodied, and it may never again look like what people in the church are comfortable with.

Karl Rahner once  said that the “Christian of tomorrow will be a mystic, someone who has experienced something, or else he or she will not be at all.”^[3] He was pushing back against the scholasticism of previous centuries, in which it was believed that the grace of God was given through externals— the proclaimed word and the sacraments of the church as isolated events, rather than personal encounter and experience. Harkening back to earlier mystics and the patristic era, he believed grace was everywhere, revealed in the “mysticism of everyday life,” and that God could be met and experienced in the moments of daily, ordinary life. In Rahner’s mind this mystical perspective was not a contrast to the arguments and reason of the scholasticism nor the sacraments and teaching of the church, but a logical continuation, outflow, and consequence of both.^[4]

His words also rightfully challenge some of the effects of the Reformation and the advent of modernism. Reformers like John Calvin pushed back against the localization of grace in things like the sacraments and rituals, because in their thinking that opened the possibility of human action in salvation. Instead, they emphasized beliefs in the abstract, emphasizing the priority of God’s grace and action. Thus it became the immaterial, abstract beliefs, not magical things like the host that are the means of grace. (Smith 39) Simply put, the rejection of sacramentalism by Calvin and other Reformers was unintentionally an opening to naturalism, effectively “disenchanting” the world. “If the church no longer had ‘good’ magic, then ‘all magic must be black,’ all enchantment must be blasphemous, idolatrous, even demonic.”^[5] We lost a deep knowing of the sacred as presence in the world and have dampened our own abilities to sense it.

CLICK HERE to download the complete PDF of Deconstruction and St. John of the Cross

Endnotes

[1] Pew Research Center, “In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace: An Update on America's Changing Religious Landscape,” Pew Research Center: Religion and Public Life (17 October 2019), https://www.pewforum.org/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace.

[2] The word deconstruction is borrowed from Jacques Derrida and others, who wanted to unmask the dualistic oppositions in western metaphysics and the privileging of certain words within its many dichotomies. Derrida’s insights may have pinpointed why so many are drawn again to mystery and a new way of being rather than merely a different kind of theology to re-establish certainty.

[3] Annemarie S. Kidder, introduction to The Mystical in Everyday Life: Sermons, Prayers, and Essays, by Karl Rahner, ed. and trans. by Annemarie S. Kidder (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1970),  xviii.

[4] Karl Rahner, The Mystical in Everyday Life: Sermons, Prayers, and Essays, ed. and trans. by Annemarie S Kidder (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1970), xix.

[5] James K. A. Smith, How (Not) To Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2014), 39.

The Good and Beautiful Shepherd - Kenneth Tanner

Middle Eastern shepherds in the time of the Bible did NOT break the legs of sheep and carry them on their shoulders to keep them from running away again, or “hold them close to their heart” or whatever myth you heard growing up.

 

It’s terribly impractical, for one thing. Sheep can weigh up to 75 pounds. It’s a tremendous hindrance to properly caring for the whole flock. It can also permanently disable the sheep.

 

Imagine having a number of immobilized or broken sheep in a flock. What a mess that would be.

The rod of the shepherd was used to defend the flock from predators, not beat the sheep. And the hooked staff was used to rescue them. The sheep trusted these tools and the shepherd who carried them.

 

They were not afraid of the shepherd and heeded his voice because he led them to green pastures and beside still waters and never mistreated them.

 

There is a midrash from about a thousand years ago: a sheep wondered away from Moses and his flock. Moses searches and finds the sheep drinking from a stream and says, “Oh...so sorry...I did not know you were thirsty.” God responds to Moses’ mercy and entrusts him with the people of Israel.

One of the rabbis commenting on this midrash writes:

 

“Moses realized that the kid did not run away from the flock out of malice or wickedness—it was merely thirsty. … Only a shepherd who hastens not to judge the runaway kid, who is sensitive to the causes of its desertion, can mercifully lift it into his arms and bring it back home.”

 

How often are we misunderstanding folks when they leave the fold? It would help, I think, if we were sensitive to the causes rather than censorious.

A Prayer for Gratitude and Trust Amid a Pandemic - Kenneth Tanner

 I have wrestled with the lack of gratitude and trust I’ve witnessed in Christians during the pandemic. I decided to write a prayer to confess these lacks in myself and reorient my heart to these virtues under God.

Father:

We are grateful for science and for humans who understand the intricacies of your microscopic creation, as order and disorder are present where our eyes cannot see. We confess we are reliant on the wisdom of others.

We trust that scientists and doctors and government leaders are acting by their best but limited lights in their attempts to bring healing.

We do not trust in human wisdom and ingenuity but in your Son’s love for us in laying down the divine life he shares with you and the Spirit so that, by ourselves dying with the Son for the world you love, we might also have abundant life.

We are grateful for leaders in the past administration that developed a vaccine to defeat this pathogen that destroys your image bearers—our family, friends, and neighbors—in record time. 

We trust the virologists and manufacturers of the vaccine intend to bring health and not harm to the human family, even as we admit this is only their best effort, their incomplete wisdom, guided where it is true by your hand, in the face of three million dead and many more disabled, slain by something they and we do not as yet fully comprehend.

We do not place our ultimate trust in their vaccines but we do trust your providence. We ask you to further enlighten us in our great need for you.

Make us participants in your healing energies. Grant us greater wisdom in our care for others and ourselves.

Where we are perplexed, bring clarity. Where we are divided, bring concord. Where we are certain, remind us that our vision is partial and opaque.

We do not place our ultimate trust in these vaccines; we trust in your Son’s body and blood which makes us participants in his divine life, a life that cannot be touched by death.

We are grateful for leaders in the present administration who have distributed these vaccines to our elderly and most vulnerable citizens with unprecedented speed.

We pray that those who are most susceptible to the virus continue to be our human priority, not only for our citizens but for the citizens of the world.

Let us not forget the privilege (or not?) of our wealth (for who knows what the right path is in the face of what we do not entirely understand?) that we might be as expeditious in loving the poor and the stranger and the prisoner as ourselves.

You are glorified in us and in our human efforts. You draw humans into your saving work.

We do not trust in our capacities and efficiencies and intelligence but in the divine  weakness displayed for all in your Son’s saving cross, his vulnerability of self-surrender, on which all the energy and healing and beauty and goodness in the cosmos is founded.

Cause us to reject the arrogance that we know what is best in this moment for ourselves, our neighbors, and the nations.

Give us patience with those who, sharing our human limitations, see alternative paths to victory over this disease and the deprivations it has brought—directly by death and disability, and indirectly by our fumbling, imperfect responses to it.

We are grateful we were made to slow down and ponder in stillness what human life and community are for, and to be thankful for the simple things like face-to-face presence, holding hands, sharing food and wine, and embracing one another without fear.

We trust that you are restoring our connection with one another, our ability to be present to each other in suffering, death and burial, and in the ecstatic joy of birthdays, marriage feasts, and commencements.

We who are called by your Son’s name, by the name of Jesus Christ, have not always in this pandemic sounded like the people of thanksgiving, or the people of trust. Forgive us. We have lead the world in cynicism and ingratitude.

Help us to enter your Son’s gratitude for this good world, the thankfulness that was and is his as our human brother, walking with us our common path of suffering.

Help us to enter his unfailing trust in you, our Father, a conviction that you have all of us in our life and in our death by the Spirit and that death is not the end of anyone but resurrection.

Help us be ever mindful of those whose risky and tireless labor in laboratories, hospitals, warehouses, and stores, on farms, plants, and highways, and at sea and in the air, have served the living and the dead with their minds, hearts, backs, and hands. They are participants in your selfless love.

Help us amid our arguments, distractions, impatience, and scapegoating to see in this long, dark season the folly of weaponizing pathogens. May we realize these experiments as fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and repent, so we do not eventually eat our collective death.

Above all help us to hear your Son’s words, words spoken also by all the holy angels in the many appearances of heaven to earth: “Do not be afraid!” May your perfect love cast out fear, and rebuke those who peddle it for profit, manipulate it for control, and misapply it for “power.”

All of this we pray to you, Father, with your co-eternal Son, Jesus Christ, in the power of your all-holy Spirit. Amen.

Protesting a 13-year-old’s Killing - Wayne Northey

Wayne Northey: A man in our Home Improvement Group once challenged us all: “Just try spending one day in my skin!” In 1959, a white Texan journalist, John Howard Griffin, did precisely that: for 420 days.

The 1961 book Black Like Me and the 1964 film of the same title tell the story.

We have close relatives in our family who spend all their days in such skins.

I have other close relatives who dismiss any such sensitivity as so-much-liberal/progressive-self-flagellating-unfounded-such-is-life-nonsense. . . Sigh. . . 

They could benefit from joining our Home Improvement Group. In it, we challenge men to discover or turn up the dial on empathy and compassion.  The former is of Greek etymology, meaning “in suffering (with).” The latter is from the Latin: “suffering with.” How their English use is distinguished in our presentation: one is passive; the other takes action. The former sees the pain of another; the latter moves if possible to alleviate it. Both have their legitimate place.

If you want to help others be happy, practice compassion.

If you want to be happy, practice compassion.—Dalai Lama

Bluntly: to go through life lacking empathy and not showing compassion misses out on the peace, the joy, the freedom, the sheer abundant life¹–and indeed at times the pain!–of what it means to be fully/fulfilled/full-throttle human. In short, one lives a stunted human existence.

For a grand portrait of what abundant life looks like in one instance, see: Superabundantly Alive: Thomas Merton’s Dance with the Feminine, by noted Canadian poets Susan McCaslin and J S Porter.

That Adam Toledo was at the age of 13 denied discovering such a life through yet another wanton act of murderous police brutality is utterly execrable.

CLICK HERE to continue reading

Stephen Leacock: Walking the Tightrope Between Nationalism and the Market Economy - Ron Dart

"Stephen Leacock was part of that curious and perhaps indigenously Canadian species which has been given the name of “Red Tory”                        

- Alan Bowker     

"Many writers have asserted that there is a common ground between conservatism and socialism; perhaps the most frequently cited similarities are an organic view of society, distrust of pure individualism, and a willingness to use the state to assert the rights of society, as distinct from the interests of powerful individuals. When both ideologies have legitimacy within a political culture, a  hybrid known as the Red Tory may emerge."                

- Ian Robertson   

"At McGill, as at Ottawa Collegiate, I was blessed with exceptional teachers. Stephen Leacock, head of the Department of Economics and Political Science, was one of the most brilliant men I have ever known….He was an ardent Conservative (though, also, like Sir Sam Hughes, a fierce Canadian nationalist."

-Eugene Forsey 

"Leacock was a great writer—one of the greatest we have ever  possessed."

-Robertson Davies

Leacock’s Historic Context  

Stephen Leacock (1869-1944) lived through a period of Canadian political and economic history in which two economic theories dwelt both in tension and in a confrontational mode. Canada was still very much part of the British Commonwealth ethos in Leacock’s maturing years, the notion of free trade was waxing, Canadian nationalism was emerging and many were the Canadians that supported closer economic integration with the United States. Where did Leacock stand in these conflicting theories (and their application) and why?

Leacock is mostly remembered in Canada and beyond for his many compact books laced with humour, political commentary ever-present. But, Leacock taught in the Department of Political Economy all of his academic life at McGill University. The larger economic questions were front and centre for Leacock in his maturing years, hence it is quite apt and significant, when doing his PHD at the University of Chicago, his thesis was entitled The Doctrine of Laissez Faire and completed in 1903. Needless to say, Leacock’s use of “doctrine” made it abundantly clear, that the economic battle had become a new religion of sorts, forms of orthodoxy, heterodoxy and heretical positions the new sacred reality for many.

"Judas, with the piece of bread." - Lore Wilbert

There’s some debate on whether Judas took and ate the bread and wine Jesus offered. Whether he partook of the sacraments, I don’t know, and I don’t know if we can know. But here’s what every translation of John 13:30 says in some form: he left with the bread.

It seems like every week another friend or acquaintance is saying they’ve found Christianity wanting. It’s not always Christ they find wanting, but his followers. Russell Moore wrote a strong and stirring piece this past week on why this might be, and I recommend you read it.

But this morning as I read John 13, I took a lot of comfort in this line, that Judas, whether he ate the bread or not, still brought it with him.

We have the opportunity to respond in a few ways when friends struggle or leave Christianity. We can write scathing prayers couched in sneering judgment, we can pity them and let them know how wrong they’ve got it. Or we can look to Jesus who offered bread and wine to the one who would reject him, who let him eat or take it with him, who didn’t call him out by name in public, but who let the scene play all the way out.

Judas still brought the bread with him. He brought the body of Christ with him, even in his rejection of Christ, even in his misplaced hopes. And I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t just give me hope for my friends who’ve walked away. It gives me hope for me. Because just yesterday I let a wafer melt on my tongue and just this morning I doubted God’s goodness to me. Just yesterday I whispered “Thanks be to God” as I received the body of Christ and just this morning I forgot him.

Who knows how many times our friends have received communion, their faith wobbly and the sins done against them and their own sin at the forefront of their minds? But they still took it then and brought it with them when they left.

That comforts me this morning because I believe Christ cares about the one. I believe Christ came to save all. And I believe all have eternity written within them, and some carry it with them as they go. And perhaps someday when they need it, they will find the bread, the body, just as available to them then as it was when they left.

“Everything is Connected”: Seven Stops - Lois P. Mitchell (PhD)

“Everything is Connected”: Seven Stops
SSU Convocation Address April 17, 2021
Lois P. Mitchell, PhD

Friends and especially graduates… It’s really a privilege to be invited to speak this morning. But of course, it’s also a challenge. What to say? Where to start, how to end? I’ve had fun trying to pull my thoughts together in some more or less coherent form– you’ll be happy to know that this is the abridged version. Even so, time is short so, here we go…

“Everything is connected. We can start anywhere and go anywhere. We will never know all the connections but we can know enough to get around.”

Those are the words of Dr. JEP Butler, now deceased, who I met 40 or so years ago (when I was about 23) and doing my PhD in Sociology at the University of New Brunswick and he was 86 – retired, of course, but still very engaged in reading and thinking. He became a mentor and friend. I’ve included this quote in nearly every syllabus I created at SSU. My talk this morning will be a sort of demonstration of the maxim – a tiny glimpse at how we can start anywhere and go anywhere – that’s the hope!

Imagine that we’re going on a road trip and we’re going to make some stops along the way - “scenic lookouts” or “points of interest”. There will be seven stops in all.

STOP ONE: RESILIENCE

I’ve always assumed that resilience is a good thing. Resilience is defined as “the ability to withstand adversity and bounce back from difficult life events.”¹ We celebrate people or communities that demonstrate resilience. We think, for example, of individuals who just seem to get knocked down, again and again, by life’s circumstances, and we call them “resilient” when they get back up, dust themselves off, and have another go; we call communities resilient when they refuse to give up after a disaster of some kind – natural or manmade - or through chronic challenges and misfortune. There are endless examples, from small communities to large, whole nations even – both rich and poor. And we call “ethnic minority groups” resilient when they survive the pressures and priorities of dominant cultural groups.

Life goes on… if you’re resilient. Surely then, to be resilient is something to celebrate. But then I hear about a new podcast called “Don’t Call Me Resilient”² – the promo says that “it’s a provocative podcast about race that goes in search of solutions for those things no one should have to be resilient for”, hosted and produced by Vinita Srivastava. Maybe there’s more to resilience than I’d thought.

What if – in the name of resilience - we are actually maintaining and even still developing policies that force resilience on whole communities or ethnicities of people? What if we are sometimes using resilience as a front for persistent INjustice?

As I say this out loud, it seems painfully obvious that this is, in fact, the case. We say we want to address poverty, or homelessness, or addictions, or mental health issues, and so on. We pour money into initiatives that we think will help and maybe we move the needle ever so slightly. But then the money runs out, the program ends and too often, nothing much has changed. Time passes and those who are IN the circumstances know that resilience is just another word for survival in the face of hardship. At some point, resilience shouldn’t be celebrated; it should be resisted. To be called “resilient” isn’t a compliment (in some cases) so much as a vote for the status quo.

Moving on… we’ll make a brief stop at our second “lookout”.

CLICK HERE to download the full PDF of Lois Mitchell, "Everything is Connected"

Lois Mitchell is the Director of International Studies at St. Stephen's University (NB).

#DaunteWright & Divine Rage against Injustice - Felicia Murrell

I don't enter into my comments as a learned biblical scholar or trained theologian. I am neither of those, but I was struck by the exegesis of Rabbi Sharon Brous as she spoke of the plagues (Exodus 9) in a way I'd never heard before.

 

Rabbi Brous says the plagues do not speak of God's wrath against humanity as much as they speak to God's divine rage against injustice. She said, God sent Moses to reason with Pharaoh, to invite him to let God's people go. And by sending Moses to Pharaoh first, God was saying that love, joy and liberation are available to us all -- even Pharaoh. He too could participate in his own liberation. Because all of our liberation is bound up in one another. But when Pharaoh opted to hold on to his supremacy, choosing power and dominance over freedom, when he opted to continue to oppress the people of Israel and see them as subservient, ones who should labor and failed to consider their humanity, the plagues were to show that God would not compromise when it came to issues of injustice, or with supremacy of any kind.

 

I admit I have spent a large part of the day asking God why it feels like humanity is okay with sacrificing Black bodies for systems, where is Love in the face of injustice. How will the Cruciform God redeem and restore even this? My cry today has been, "Show me Love in the face of pain." And "Why is the body so silent?? Why, dear God, does it take a video for people to be moved with compassion? Why have we grown numb to this unchecked, brazen display of disregard for Black lives?"

 

Rabbi Sharon said divine rage can be an expression of anguish with the world as it is. And the plagues were God's way of saying, NOT SO. This is not the world of Love that I have ordained to be. NOT SO. Take notice. Take sides with me. Love, joy, and liberation are available to all. But the way to liberation is not through oppression. It's not through Separation. Dehumanization. Criminalization. Commodification. Fragmentation. State-Sanctioned Terror. State-Sanctioned Murder.

 

Some things ought not be so, for #DaunteWright and for all Black bodies who fear getting pulled over by the police. Some things ought not be so.

 

And a video should not be necessary for your liberation to be bound up with mine. The silence is deafening. Where is the outcry? The divine rage? The righteous indignation? Where are the people who will not turn away?

 

When we as a people learn to access pain and see it in its purest form, we can feel compassion. Today is a painful day. Can you enter the depths of Black America's pain, a Black mother's pain? Can you allow our tears to mingle? Rabbi Sharon says, "Grief is an affirmation that every single one of us is precious and valuable." Every. All. Big inclusive words that leave no one out, cast no one aside, including #DaunteWright.

Everyone Belongs to God - Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt

Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt.  Foreword by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, Plough Publishing House, 2015.

Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt (1842–1919) was born in Möttlingen, Germany, at the very time his father, Johann Christoph Blumhardt, was engaged in the amazing events recounted in Plough’s book The Awakening. The younger Blumhardt was raised in an atmosphere of the reality of the presence of God, where faith was lived out practically and miracles came naturally. As his father had done before him, he began training for the ministry, studying theology at Tübingen. However, he became disillusioned with theology and decided, in 1869, to return home to Bad Boll to support his father in his healing ministry. In 1880 the elder Blumhardt died, and the son carried on his father’s work.

 

How can Christians represent the love of Christ in an age when Christianity has earned a bad name from centuries of intolerance and cultural imperialism? Is it enough to love and serve your neighbor? Can you be a missional Christian without a church?

Read a Sample

WN: The book highlighted is powerful and immensely hopeful! There is a free download available too.

From Plough’s Introduction:

About The Book

Gold Medal, 2015 Illumination Book Awards

How can Christians represent the love of Christ to their neighbors (let alone people in foreign countries) in an age when Christianity has earned a bad name from centuries of intolerance and cultural imperialism? Is it enough to love and serve them? Can you win their trust without becoming one of them? Can you be a missional Christian without a church?

This provocative book, based on a recently uncovered collection of 100-year-old letters from a famous pastor to his son-in-law, a missionary in China, will upend pretty much everyone’s assumptions about what it means to give witness to Christ.

Blumhardt challenges us to find something of God in every person, to befriend people and lead them to faith without expecting them to become like us, and to discover where Christ is already at work in the world. This is truly good news: No one on the planet is outside the love of God.

At a time when Christian mission has too often been reduced to social work or proselytism, this book invites us to reclaim the heart of Jesus’ great commission, quietly but confidently incarnating the love of Christ and trusting him to do the rest.

Read the foreword by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove.

Read excerpts from chapter three: See How Christ Is Already at Work.

 

Diane Tramutola-Lawson ’60 and CURE (Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants) - Wayne Northey

WN: Diane is one of the amazing volunteers in charge of Colorado CURE.

Please enjoy this brief interview: 

My wife and I have had the good fortune of being members, and I represent Canadian CURE. It has chapters in most American states, and internationally, especially in Africa.

The CURE Founders–Charlie and Pauline Sullivan–mentioned by Diane are truly amazing and selfless! Charlie travels to all the International Conferences, so my partner Esther and I have gotten to know him fairly well. I first met Charlie at a Conference in Toronto about 25 years ago. He always sent me their newsletter, and there was invariably a handwritten note.

Here is Charlie introducing CURE in 2009:

CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING

"I believe in the forgiveness of sin" - Kenneth Tanner

At the intersection of pop empowerment and “concentered-in-self” spirituality we boldly set this sign:

I believe in the forgiveness of sins.

This is a bedrock Christian trust. The sentence has more than one meaning. It first affirms that God forgives humanity and forgives humanity without conditions, before we ask or repent. God forgives as we beat, mock, torture, and kill God. Forgiveness begins with a God who forgives.

I believe in the forgiveness of sins. This also means we trust that sins can in fact be forgiven—really forgiven—because God forgives. This basic trust is now almost countercultural. We congratulate ourselves on withholding forgiveness, clinging to our injuries, even after persons have “paid their debt.” The forgiveness that begins with God lacks nothing and accomplishes its healing ends.

I believe in the forgiveness of sins. This also means we trust that when we forgive our enemy, our neighbor, our spouse, child, or friend, by participating in the apriori forgiveness of God for humanity, we are healed and grow in our likeness to God in whose image we are made. The forgiveness that begins with God divinizes humanity as we practice the pardon of God.

I believe in the forgiveness of sins. This finally means we trust that we, too, are forgiven. This might be the hardest reality to accept: that we are forgiven by God before we were born; that there is nothing we can do or not do to change our pardon by God. The forgiveness that begins with God ends in our acceptance of forgiveness.

I believe in the forgiveness of sins. It might by now be clear that we believe in the forgiveness of sins because the human God says from the cross “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

This is also the one who taught us to pray, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” (Not that God’s forgiveness follows ours, or only arrives for us or others after we forgive, but that we also forgive in imitation of the Father.)

I believe in the forgiveness of sins. The cross is where Christ sits enthroned. The cross is the “now” of the world’s judgment and all judgment is given to the Son. Jesus Christ does not, after his death, appear to his disciples to give eleven men the power to withhold a forgiveness he freely extends to all at the cross.

The risen Christ simply means ‘if you, my disciples, do not tell them that *I* have forgiven them, and if you do not forgive them yourself from the heart, they may not realize they’re already forgiven.’

I see a lot of entitlement around forgiveness; that we are allowed to withhold forgiveness, remain offended, forgive if we want...or not.

Not forgiving—and forgiving is a process—only harms the one who does not forgive. It often means nothing to the offender until they are truly aware of their offense.

I get that some leaders have used what Christians trust about forgiveness to enable and sustain abusive behavior and structures, to manipulate those they are called to serve.

Abuse of something doesn’t negate its goodness but it can make its goodness difficult to practice.

Abusive leaders sow terrific destruction when they abuse what Christians trust about forgiveness but this must be forgiven, too, and we cannot let their abuse cancel what we trust.

Pastoral Direction

Here’s a pastoral direction I give folks who desire to forgive but cannot:

If you are waiting to forgive someone in your own capacity yield instead to the forgiveness of Christ, which is yours by baptism.

Paul tells us that we are baptized into the death of Jesus. Paul says he is crucified with Christ.

Paul's identification with Jesus is that intimate, that vivid, that real.

He experiences a genuine participation in the cross because he is drowned by water and the Spirit in the sacrificial love that God is. So are you.

Our capacity to forgive is limited but the human capacity of Jesus Christ as God is without measure and it is this divine and human forgiveness that we join when we forgive others in the power of the Spirit.

Human forgiveness fails. The divine-human forgiveness of Jesus is inexhaustible.

Here's a practice to align your soul with this divine and human forgiveness that we see in Jesus Christ...pray something like this prayer:

"Lord Jesus, I cannot forgive and love [       ] in my own strength. In my weakness, I cannot pardon the pain and injury they have caused me. But you dwell in me, and I am on the cross with you, as Paul says, and from that cross I pray with you, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.' Lord Christ, may I see [        ] with your eyes, may I see them as you see them as you hang from the tree for the sins of the whole world; may your heart and thoughts for [       ] be mine. As with you in pain I breathe in, may I exhale forgiveness by your Spirit. Amen."

This is not an incantation or a mantra; it is not a way of bypassing, minimizing, or denying your wounds.

It may not bring reconciliation with the one who has offended or still offends. Reconnection with an abuser may be pre-mature, impossible, or unwise for a myriad of reasons.

But as your understanding of who you are in Jesus Christ grows by this practice, you will find your mind and heart yielding to the forgiveness of God.

The Apokatastasis Psalm - Peri Zahnd

I’ve long had a collection of psalms I refer to as “My Psalter.” These are the psalms that have become extra special to me, that I have lived into deeply, meditating on them “day and night.” The Book of Psalms is my favorite in the Bible and I regularly pray through all, in order. But these that make up “My Psalter” are an even more significant part of my prayer practice.  They have become both foundational and formational, they are truth in which I am both grounded in and growing into, making me like a tree planted by a stream of life-giving water, whose roots push deeper into the soil of the earth and whose branches reach with ever-intensifying longing for the heavens. I pray them often and they are mostly committed to memory, with very little real effort to do so.  

A few years ago I was very blessed to hear that Eugene Peterson also had this practice. He said in an interview not long before his death that “prayer matures into the practice of memory.” He said he had a few spirit-selected psalms that had become his old-age prayers, the prayers of a man whose life had been prayer.

Up until today, My Psalter had consisted of seven psalms, but today an eighth was formally admitted into the canon—a big deal! A psalm that I’ve been drawn to more and more-Psalm 87, which I’ve named the Apokatastasis Psalm.

On the holy mountain stands the city founded by the Lord.

He loves the city of Jerusalem more than any other city in Israel. 

O city of God, what glorious things are said of you! 

 

I will count Egypt and Babylon among those who know me—

also Philistia and Tyre, and even distant Ethiopia. 

They have all become citizens of Jerusalem!

 

Regarding Jerusalem it will be said, 

“Everyone enjoys the rights of citizenship there.” 

And the Most High will personally bless this city.

 

When the Lord registers the nations, he will say, 

“They have all become citizens of Jerusalem.” 

The people will play flutes and sing, “The source of my life springs from Jerusalem!”

Yes, Jerusalem—the scandal of particularity! Jerusalem is more beautiful and God loves it more than any city on earth! But the Psalmist prophesies—”All the nations of the earth have become citizens of Jerusalem!” Selah! And for those who take this passage very literally and consider the modern nation-state of Israel a fulfillment of prophecy, I remind them that the scripture says that everyone--Egyptians, Babylonians, (and evidently even Palestinians!) will enjoy the rights of Israeli citizenship!

Oh Lord, haste the day, when all the peoples of the earth will play flutes and sing, “The source of my life springs from Jerusalem!” Apokatastasis!

Restorative Justice: Peacemaking Not Warmaking - Wayne Northey

PLEASE NOTE: Below are excerpts of my paper for the above-noted Journal. At the very end of this post, one may click on the highlighted text, and read the full article in PDF. And of course one may also read it on the Journal’s website. Sign-up is free.

I chose to add “Notes:” at the end of each excerpt, that match those in the excerpt.

I chose also not to make clickable the numerous books and articles cited.

I chose finally to include all the References at the end of this post.

excerpts:

NOTE: Appreciation goes to Dr. Brad Jersak, friend, encourager, mentor. In October 2020 at his invitation a Q & A format was adopted for a presentation on what most commonly is known as “Restorative Justice.”[1] What follows is a reworking of that material and addition of new. I decided to retain the Q & A format.

 Wayne, you claim that the modern nation-state is closer in origin to what was dramatized by Marlon Brando’s character in The Godfather: namely the modern Western nation-state originated and operates on similar principles to a criminal protection racket. Historian/theologian William Cavanaugh states:

The main difference between Uncle Sam and the Godfather is that the latter did not enjoy the peace of mind afforded by official government sanction.[2]

 I understand you to mean: the State vis à vis external enemies—of whatever in-the-moment flavour—and in its exercise of population control (that is control of its domestic enemies—criminals).

Yes. One could get at this in several ways, of which I’ll give three pointers:. . .

The Kenarchy Journal - Wayne Northey

Wayne Northey: It is exciting to introduce The Kenarchy Journal!

Roger Mitchell, the editor and founder, created the neologism, "kenarchy," explaining:

Kenarchy is a newly constructed word signifying an innovative, inclusive reconfiguration of Jesus’ politics of love. It is derived from ken(osis): emptying out sovereign power and replacing it with a love measured by readiness to die for the other, even one’s enemy, and archy: a way of ordering or relating in social space. It has been articulated over the last 15 years by a growing network of theologians and activists around original work begun with and on behalf of them by political theologian Roger Haydon Mitchell. (See Discovering Kenarchy: Contemporary Resources for the Politics of Love. Roger Haydon Mitchell and Julie Tomlin Arram eds. Wipf & Stock, 2014). While based unapologetically in the Jesus story as found in the four gospels of the Christian scriptures, and drawing on the theology of trinity and incarnation, it configures an inclusive politics of love as a gift to people of all faiths and none.

While kenarchy is a gift for everybody, those of us who configure the politics of love in these terms are strongly motivated to do so in a way that deeply penetrates existing socially constructed mind-sets. This is why we combine applied academic research and writing together with grassroots social, economic and political activism. Kenarchy developed initially as a form of political theology and we make no apology for that, but it now embraces a wide and interdisciplinary perspective relevant to the politics and theology of love. The purpose of this Journal is to advance the applied research, and as such, it is an academic journal. It also includes an online forum that we very much hope will provide the opportunity for both thinkers and activists to engage with the applied research material.

CLICK HERE to continue reading

Let Judgement Begin in the House of the Lord: The Role of Theology in Oppression - Tabitha Sheeder

“There is perhaps no greater tragic irony than the scene that was surely played out at numerous black lynchings when both the lynchers and the lynched ostensibly cried out to the same God, the God of Jesus Christ.”

Introduction

In her book The Very Good Gospel, Lisa Sharon Harper describes the moment she stood in the Martin Luther King Center, staring at propaganda paintings from the Southern confederacy that featured scenes of happy, well-dressed slaves. She realized that many of the most atrocious acts in the history of the United States happened in the Bible belt, by “people who claimed to believe in Jesus and the power of the Cross for salvation. How could they believe the gospel and do this?”  It is naive and far too convenient for Christians to claim that slavery and genocide are things of the past, committed by individuals who were simply “people of their time.” Christianity both enforced and absolved these crimes against humanity. Denial of this has led to a resurgence in white supremacy and Christian nationalism, as was evidenced by the prominence of the confederate flag during the recent attack on the US Capitol building.

The White church has historically been complicit in violence against marginalized communities, either by its silence or its active participation. If the church is to have any role in establishing justice for these communities, we must examine the role doctrine has played in allowing such egregious abuse to flourish. While many doctrines have undoubtedly contributed to ideologies that impose suffering on humanity, this paper will focus on several troubling aspects of the most commonly accepted atonement theory, penal substitutionary atonement.

What We Believe Matters

Systematic theology is the narrative term for the building blocks of doctrine that show us what God is like, and how God intervenes in human history. 3 These beliefs play an enormous part in how we see the world, and by extension, how we treat others. Many theologians, particularly womanists, feminists, and pacifists, have offered alternative theories for the theological implications of the cross. 4 The purpose of this paper, however, is not to offer a solution to the complex and problematic doctrines that make up our understanding of the gospel. Rather, it is an examination of one commonly held theory, penal substitutionary atonement, and how it has contributed to oppression.

CLICK HERE to download the full PDF of "Let Judgement Begin in the House of the Lord"