So I see there’s this guy coming to Columbia to talk about how the Church can win back Americans lost in "soulless materialism." That sounds good. Then I see the guy is described as a "priest." But I see that in his picture that he doesn’t look like a priest.
Then I see that the Rev. James Allen is an Episcopalian, and retired at that. Oh. That explains the civvies. Okay. Anyway, maybe this is just my own prejudice as a Roman, but I’d just as soon see the Church wither away as save itself by the means he suggests.
Basically, it’s that same old depressing mantra you hear more and more these days: Here’s his way of putting it: "The emphasis on ‘right believing’ is what divides people, and it is only one theme of the Bible," opines the Rev. James Adams, founder of something called — and this is a heads-up in and of itself — "The Center for Progressive Christianity."
Well, maybe that’s so, if you’re speaking from your Cambridge, Mass., home. But down here among the great unwashed, among folks who’ve actually read the Bible (or, in my case, large swaths of it — remember, I am Catholic), it strikes a very dissonant chord.
Excuse me, but isn’t that what a religion is: A certain set of beliefs? If you don’t subscribe to those beliefs, you don’t subscribe to that religion. It’s a free country, and the door swings both ways. It’s up to you. If your goal is to be a megachurch, then you take the marketing approach and give the "customer" what he wants: Entertainment, gymnasiums, child care, coffee bars and the like.
But if you really want to discern and follow God’s truth, you’re going to have to be a grownup and accept a few "thou shalts" and "thou shalt nots" that you didn’t get to vote on. In other words, you’re going to have to be humble enough to submit to something greater than your own capricious will.
As for the Bible — yeah, there’s some parts in there about parting seas, and massacring one’s enemies, and a Lion’s den, and some songs of praise, and quite a bit of fornication here and there, but the fundamental heart of it is mostly about what we’re supposed to believe and do. In fact, it’s hard to imagine it being the continuing best-seller it is without those parts. Without the morals, it would pretty much be a collection of curious ancient literary antiquities like the Epic of Gilgamesh or some such.
He says that to be more welcoming, the Church needs to be a place of "open, free discussion where nobody has to be made wrong."
Now I find myself wondering: Would no one be wrong? How about somebody who decides that all that "love thy neighbor" and "judge not lest ye be judged" stuff was for the birds, and that it was OK to hit people over the head with a hammer if they didn’t agree? I wouldn’t want to have anything to do with such a Church, and I sort of doubt that Rev. Allen would, either.
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The Church will wither away if Christians keep insisting on a literal interpretation of the Bible.God,in some circuitous fashion,created man but man created religion.The Bible is not the word of God.He doesn’t write books.It is filled with great truths,the golden rule,love thy neighbor,etc.
It is possible to believe in God and be a spiritual person without subscribing to any religion.
I understand your problems with Rev Allen,only because I’m able to read between your lines.
Who’s insisting on a literal interpretation of the Bible? Certainly not I. I’m a Catholic, we don’t believe in that.
And that’s my point. There are things we believe, and things we don’t. That’s what being Catholic means. It should also be what subscribing to any religion means. A belief system is a belief system.
Does that mean I jump up and down with enthusiasm over every Catholic teaching? No. Take the Immaculate Conception, for instance. I don’t DISbelieve in it. If that’s what the church teaches, and asserting that is important to some people, fine. What I don’t understand is why it would be important to anyone.
My pastor may tell me I’m wrong about that, and if he does, I’ll have a frank exchange of views with him, and in the end respect him and the Church. I mean, who am I? Why should I think I have a monopoly on wisdom?
I still might see no reason such a teaching is important, and wish that the Church would spend energy it spends teaching that on something else, but I’m not going to go away and indulge in a childish sulk for the rest of my life because the Church told me something I didn’t want to hear.
And those are the kinds of sulky people it sounds like the Rev. Allen is looking to pull in.
The message of the Church is, and should remain, that God loves you no matter what you’ve done. And he forgives you. Now repent, and sin no more.
Sounds like Rev. Allen is going for people who believe all that — except for the last sentence. But you can’t leave that out.
Brad, on that website you referenced for the visiting preacher, there is a picture of a lady from Columbia, SC who is on their exec committee. I personally wouldn’t waste a lot of time on these “do your own thing” religious sects. For the most part, they are losing membership throughout N. America. Bishop Spong, the retired Episcopal bishop who got into hot water for ordaining “practicing” homosexuals is part of their leadership. These people would show more honesty if they called themselves The Church of Sodom and Gomorrah. Then their agenda would be out in the open. But, again, they aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.
Most churches teach that homosexuality is a sin.I believe God made us that way.I think Rev Allen is going for “progressive” Christians who feel the same but are rejected by many churches.
I’ve been to St Peters with my Catholic partner many times and was surprised by the number of gays in the church.We often argue about religion,but in the end,I respect his love for the Catholic Church just as he respects my “religion”-MUSIC.
I also respect your beliefs,Brad.
“God Bless Everyone.No Exceptions”
Does that fly as a slogan,or is it just a little too groovy?
By the way,my partner has read the Bible from cover to cover,THREE TIMES!,and can quote sripture faster than a street preacher.
Dave,
Thanks for proving my point.
Brad,
I give these people who claim to represent “Progressive Christianity” just about as much credence as I do of Tony Blair’s calling of himself a “modern social democrat” (I’m a modern social democrat-Tony Blair is neo-liberal posing as a social democrat). I’ll never understand the Jesus Seminar’s effort to turn Jesus into a secular humanist. Jesus was a liberal of the first order, and what we now call social democracy permeates His teachings. The Jesus Seminar mentality undermines the authority of Christ. Progressive Christianity, in my opinion, should be rooted the authority of the Gospels.
The Right ignores Jesus altogether and uses Paul to recreate first century prejudice in twenty-first century America. Whenever I cannot reconcile Paul’s teachings with the teachings of Jesus, then I’ll follow Jesus’ teachings instead.
Brad, you say that you are a Christian. When are you going to give workers a voice? When are you going to criticize the kinds of corporations that are destroying my former co-workers? I’ll be happy to take you to meet these common folk-then you can listen for yourself. I’m serious, I’ll take you to see my former co-workers any time you want, or I can bring some of them to you. What do you say?
Mark –
When will you acknowledge that Christ’s message was one of personal conduct and values? He was not a politician, he did not focus his message on groups, but on individuals.
Brad’s point seems to be that if you’re going to have a religion — beliefs concerning the supernatural, sacred, or divine, and the moral codes, practices, values, institutions and rituals associated with such belief — those beliefs should be evident and enforced.
It’s one thing to say “It’s important to have a belief system.” That’s a rather neutral statement open to subjective interpretation. It’s quite another thing to say “Here’s a belief system that will bring you salvation” and then identify the key components of that system. It seems to me that to identify a robust belief system, one test might be the ability to identify heresy.
Brad identifies what I’ve noted elsewhere as the Ten Suggestions. Hey, it’s cool. You want to covet, go ahead, but don’t murder. And if you want to murder, that’s cool too, just don’t be coveting. If you kill your folks, just honor them as you do it, okay?” Rather like a Chinese menu, pick two from column A and two from column B.
Folks who want guidance need to have answers from religion, not more questions. They won’t feel good by singing or listening to some preacher, but by receiving guidance on what a good life in these troubled times involves, what morality means. They need to be shown the consistency between belief and conduct.
That goes for business owners, union members, bystanders, the self-employed, those who stay at home, and those who preach religion. If one is to believe the message of most religions, one does not get to heaven by virtue of the group one belongs to, but by one’s own efforts. It’s an individual thing. That seems to be the message of most religions, and was certainly the message that Christ brought.
I have to agree with much that Mike has written, but disagree with his choice of term, “individual efforts.” It is imperative to distinguish between Law and Gospel, or “law and grace” in order to understand the Bible. Morality is one thing, and both Jesus and Paul confirm its importance, but Gospel, or “good news,” is another. And here, again, both Jesus and Paul are of one voice (I can’t figure out what Mark is on about in the two contradicting each other, but maybe he will explain it). Jesus saw His whole ministry focused on what He intended to accomplish (as the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53) in His death and resurrection, and commissioned His disciples to proclaim it, promising to be with them all the time. Paul confirms this same Gospel. Morality is important, but only Christ can change people. The key to it is faith, or infant-like trust. Faith is not effort. Faith is receiving. Faith leads to action, but it is not an “action” or “work” in itself. It is dependence. It is important not to confuse faith with efforts (works).
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of my favorite theologians, put it well (though he uses the absolute for the relative — “not about” — he is not putting down morality here, only putting it in perspective):
Bonhoeffer’s attitude toward the Bible is evident in how he taught his seminarians, and even more so in a letter he wrote to his sister (upon which I cannot lay my hands at present). Despite his brilliance, the man became essentially child-like in his relationship to His Creator, which I am sure is why he seems to have known Him so well, and accepted death without fear.
Bill, music is your religion. First time I have ever heard that one. That wouldn’t work for me since I like a wide variety of different music. I like to hear traditional ethnic music. For a treat for all, go to this site, pick the Irish Tunes, and then listen to “Kilgary Mountain”. The Irish lyrics are interesting too. Enjoy. Irish Music Site! The Scottish version of Amazing Grace is a keeper too.
Mike,
You are right, Jesus was not a politician. Jesus spoke to large groups of individuals about their collective and individual behavior. When individuals combine together to form a society and to form society’s morals, ethics, and laws, then their collective behavior is political. If you have a group of individuals who love God with their hearts, souls, and minds, and who truly love their brothers as themselves, and who follow Jesus’ command to not have a hierarchal society and his command against usury and his warnings against the accumulation of material wealth, then guess what: you’re going to have a society that is democratic and one that practices a form of what today we call socialism.
Christianity is not just about what you believe, it’s also about what you do. Churches are full of people living in sin. Advocating free market capitalism is sin because capitalism is based on usury and greed.
Herb my friend,
Here is a link to website that I mostly agree with-I’ve been a careful Bible reader all of my life, and I’ve always noted these same problem passages. I do not reject Paul altogether: I treat Paul as a commentator on theology. Paul was a man with human failings. I reject the way that the Right uses Paul’s cultural beliefs when it is obvious that Jesus meant something else entirely. Everything I need to know about salvation is in the Gospels-everything else is commentary.
Herb –
The point I was trying to make (poorly) is that in the final analysis for salvation it’s what the individual does and believes, not what group s/he belongs to. For example, simply identifying oneself as a Zoroastrian does not gain one Zoroastrian salvation; the individual must live by the principles of Zoroaster.
Dave,
I also love all types of music.Hearing Johnny Cash sing “Danny Boy”,the first movement from the Eighth symphony by Shostakovich,or “Amazing Grace”(I’ll check out your site)by a church full of lousy singers,makes me feel closer to God than any religion.Many composers will tell you that they don’t write songs,they just come to them.Any music that is truly inspired comes from God.Brad’s missing out.They don’t do “Amazing Grace”.
Mark, more on this later, but don’t you think it is peculiar that Paul can write such lofty passages as 1 Cor. 13 and seem so different a few pages later? Is it a contradiction — was Paul really that dense? — in other words, is your website right in thinking that Paul contradicts himself, or could it be that you starting the interpretation of Paul at the difficult passages, and then working backwards to interpret the others in the light of your disdain? And then this website ices the cake by a generalizing statement that “many scholars believe that there are several different authors to Paul’s letters” (quotation approximate) — that won’t do. Despite the arguments over the Prison and Pastoral epistles, no scholar in his right mind would attribute Romans and 1 and 2 Corinthians to any other than Paul. So the problem is still with you, because you’ve got the so-called positive staements and contradictory statements in one epistle, 1 Corinthians, already.
Maybe what you need to do is start with 1 Corinthians 9 and 13 (and the need to uphold the Law of God, about which both Jesus and Paul agree,), and interpret the problem passages in the light of the former. You might be surprised. In his context, Paul is absolutely liberating in his attitude towards women. (If you had ever seen a church service in the Middle East, you would know what I am talking about.) But we don’t understand his context, and we make ungrounded statements about him contradicting himself.
John Calvin made the same mistake in a way. He interpreted Pauline teaching on the basis of Romans 9, and concluded that God elects some to salvation, and some to damnation. AAAAAGGGHHHHHH! And he built a whole theology on that! The man refused to see Romans 9 in the context of chapters 1 to 8 and 10 and 11 (where Calvin’s theology totally breaks down, because the “damned” suddenly get elected again!), or he would have realized that what Paul was talking about in Romans 9 is that nobody gets to God by his works, but only by faith. Calvin was a great man at times, and he gets some things straight, but generally he fogs up everything by making God deterministic. This view of God is fatalistic and Islamic, not Christian.
It’s a good principle to go by in human relations, by the way. View people as God intended them, not as they are right now. Start at the positive intentions, and then you’ll have a context to put (what seems to be) the negative in. Jesus started at Genesis (“this is what God intended . . .”), and put everything in context. Another case in point is, “husbands love your wives, as Christ also loved the church . . .” (Eph. 5). Does that sound like chauvinism? My wife doesn’t think so. She appreciates it when I live it out.
Sorry, I wasn’t going to write much. But that website pushed my buttons! Methinks that Brad gets interpreted the same way at times . . . too many people assume that he doesn’t know what he is talking about, so they don’t give him a fair hearing. Or even worse, they assume that he isn’t capable of writing a paragraph without contradicting himself. I’m not trying to defend everything Brad writes, but he wouldn’t have gotten where he is if he couldn’t write a coherent paragraph. But I am going way off the trail now . . . .
Oh, and you might keep in mind this warning from the man Brad and others regard as the first pope. (I don’t put him on that much of a pedestal, but he still has apostolic authority.) It won’t convince those who conveniently get rid of the authenticity of Scriptures they don’t like, but don’t forget that the early church paid a heavy price in blood in the process of forming the NT canon. The question of which books belonged in the NT, and were thus worth dying for, was not a theoretical one.
Herb,
There are plenty of things that we surely do agree about and that we do have in common. Let me say also that I think Brad is a first rate writer.
Man, you’ve got to check out the following Aramaic bible translation project. I found this project a couple of years ago. Victor Alexander, the project translator, discovered (or re-discovered) that the entire Bible has been preserved in its original Aramaic language via the Church of the East liturgy! The first link is to his notes. The second link is to his online translation. Please check out Romans and the Gospels. Definitely take a look at Genesis! What do you think? My jaw just dropped when I first read this website. Could we in the West have somehow missed this?
Brad, I often agree with you but sometimes you write things that make me wonder if we’re living on the same planet. I don’t perceive the “hearing more and more” part of what you term Rev. Allen’s “same old depressing mantra.” Seems like what’s called “progressive Christianity” is a tiny faint voice swamped by a sea of loud and deafening evangelical, right-wing, homophobic, pro-greed, divisive, hatemongering religious spokespeople, at least in the media (mostly TV). Is Rev. Allen’s message really so omnipresent in religious discourse today? I don’t think so. Give this guy a break, Brad, even if you don’t buy everything he’s selling.
Phillip, what exactly are you referring to? I only get basic cable, so maybe you are talking about channels I don’t get (and don’t particularly want, I would imagine), but I fail to see where we are getting “swamped.” And why are evangelical “divisive” and “hatemongering” more than anyone else? You make us sound like a bunch of Nazis. Are you getting beat up on the streets by evangelical thugs or something?
Before you decry our presence, please remember that, by and large, it was evangelicals and conservative Roman Catholics who founded this country. The Puritans were not by any means perfect, but as the author of that article notes, they provided a lot of impetus for this country, including especially the fields of education and science:
Given this country’s history, it shouldn’t be any surprise to anyone that there are a lot of such similar people still around! But contrary to your venomous statements, I don’t think they are making life miserable for the rest of the population. Or do you simply despise anyone who disagrees with you?
Herb,
The last sentence of your post is patently unfair, but I realize you might not know that unless you had been visiting this blog dating back several months. Judging from your informed and interesting posts above and on other topics, it’s also unusually careless. But never mind. About despising those who disagree with you… that’s the whole point of Rev. Allen, or so it seems to me—to borrow a phrase from Dubya, it’s the religious right that “hates my freedom.” Or my respect and tolerance for diverse political viewpoints, religions, sexual orientation, you name it.
Back to the main body of your post—my use of the term “evangelical” was clumsy and over-broad relative to my point and I’ll gracefully withdraw it. I should have stuck to the phrase “religious right.” My point to Brad was simply that Rev. Allen’s viewpoint, however theologically un-rigorous Brad feels it to be, is certainly not the prevalent one in religious discourse in the current climate in America. One must acknowledge that the Falwells and Robertsons of this world (and their political counterparts like Rick Santorum) get their message out more frequently and with greater volume. The attack on the teaching of evolution in schools, the curious obsession that somehow gays getting married affects the “sanctity” of heterosexual marriage, the tragic meddling in the Schiavo case…it just doesn’t seem to me that Rev. Allen’s message is really the one heard “more and more” these days as Brad seems to think.
Herb, I don’t know where you get the idea that I’m attacking all religious people. And you’re certainly right about the many of the founders of this nation, though you’re leaving out one very important one:
“it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782
“I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent.”
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Hopkinson, March 13, 1789
I’m not an Evangelical Christian, but I’ve certainly been influenced by Evangelical Christianity (and Roman Catholicism). You know, if it hadn’t of been for Evangelical Christian influence, the Bible could have been relegated to total arbitrariness. That’s what concerns me about the “Jesus Seminar” mentality and why I in no way accept their theories. On the other hand, I can’t give all scripture the same weight because parts are from God Himself, and other parts are the interpretations of men, and sometimes these men make seemingly contradictory interpretations. I don’t question at all the authenticity of the Bible at all. I do sometimes question the translations (often because of idioms) and because of historical context. I don’t think that most Evangelicals are Nazis in any sense, yet our economic system promotes nascent fascism (we’re morphing into a corporate state now). Herb is a mighty liberal sounding Evangelical as compared to the other Evangelicals and Conservative Roman Catholics that I see on TV.
Oh yeah, and Brad, you never answered my proposal. There’s a corporation doing some mighty bad things to us peasant workers out here. Do you care?
Sorry, Phillip. Yes you are right. The last sentence of my post was unnecessary and demeaning. I think I was posting too early in the morning, if that’s an excuse.
Actually the whole last paragraph should have not been posted. It was plainly unfair.
Mark, you’re right, we do agree on many things. We share a common distrust in the Jesus Seminar, primarily because I have a lot more trust in the first century church to have worked through those issues. To accuse those Christians of having created a Jesus of their own making is to accuse them of idolatry and wishful thinking. I can’t keep people from belieing that, but my own experience with the text and with God moves me to take their word for it, and to assume that they knew what they were talking about.
There is an important sense in which the church of Christ is built upon the the foundation of the first generation eyewitnesses. Which is the reason that I’m probably not going to get too stirred up on any text purporting to be an Aramaic original of what Jesus said. Sorry about that, but aside from the fact that Jesus probably spoke Aramaic, Greek and probably Latin, too (and probably could have delivered his teachings to the disciples in any of those languages for them to learn by memory), the really important fact is the commissioning that he gave to his disciples. They were the ones to whom he promised help (i.e. His Spirit) in recording what he did and said, and still wanted to show to them. In other words, I don’t think we are in a position to re-open a question that the early church worked through and was willing to die for. We are better off to accept their accounts and meditate and build on them.
Bill’s posting earlier in this shows his basic distrust for every form of verbal revelation. But it means a whale of a lot to have objective truth to take refuge in, as evidenced by the despair of an unbelieving Will Durant:
I prefer the certainty of Scripture, especially in view of something as significant as life and eternity.
“WE LIVE IN A POST-COPERNICAN, POST-EINSTEINIAN WORLD AND WE HAVE OUR RELIGION STILL BEING ARTICULATED IN SYMBOLS AND THOUGHT FORMS OF A PRE- COPERNICAN, PRE-EINSTEINIAN WORLD. TO COMPOUND THE PROBLEM, WE HAVE TAKEN OUR PRE-COPERNICAN METAPHORS AND DECLARED THEM TO BE ABSOLUTE FACT.”
Richard F.Elliot,Jr
From his book-“Falling in Love With Mystery”
(it can be read online)
OK Bill, would you mind just translating a little bit for this “literalist”. I need to know what kind of “pre-copernican metaphors” you’re talking about. I know that I might find that out by reading the book on-line, but that might not help me to understand what your particular concerns are. Besides I’ve got a ton of reading that I’m supposed to be doing right now, so this lazy man would appreciate any details you can give.
“First, our religious discourse is conducted primarily in the language and images of the first century. It is as if going through the church doors takes us back to a cosmology that has been gone for a long, long time. It is rather difficult to imagine any excuse for such an incredible failure, but it is so pervasive among us that none of us gives much attention to it.”
Richard F.Elliot
Bill, you have a good point, on which I agree. The church needs to learn to speak the language. But that is a different matter from the content of the revelation itself, which I would contend needs to be in language that embraces all peoples of all times. And don’t forget that the “cosmology that has been gone for a long, long time” refers primarily to a mindset that is prevalent only in the West, and my guess is that three-fourths of the world’s population still thinks in the traditional tracks, unless I am totally misunderstanding what Elliot is saying.
And even we still talk about the “sun rising” and “setting,” which is obviously pre-Copernican.