Uncovering Jesus's Radical Message, Part 2: Love for Enemies

Consider this teaching from Jesus's Sermon on the Mount, found in Matthew 5:43-44 and Luke 6:27: "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy,' but I tell you, 'Love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you.'"

Let's plug that into modern America: 

"You have heard that it was said, 'Love America and hate terrorists,' but I tell you, 'Love terrorists and pray for ISIS and al-Qaeda.'"

Or how about this:
"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your country and hate North Korea,' but I tell you, 'Love Kim Jong Un and pray for North Korea.'"

Or plug in your own best friend together with that person at work who you can't stand. Or that guy from high school who was cruel to you. Or that old boss who treated you badly. Or that politician or celebrity you just despise.

I saw a post on Twitter recently that I really liked. It went something like this:

Jesus says there are two kinds of people:

Our neighbors, whom we are to love.
Our enemies, whom we are to love.

It's pretty simple, but radical and even subversive.

And hard to do.

How many Americans, after all, feel love for Kim Jong Un? How many victims feel love for their oppressors?

Being a follower of Christ isn't easy. If it is, I'd argue you're not following Christ. 

Uncovering Jesus's Radical Message: The Parable of the Pharisee and Tax Collector

It's been a while since I've written about Christianity, but I'm reading a book right now by a Jewish scholar about understanding the Jewish context in which Jesus lived and worked, and I've been inspired. This might be the first in a series of posts about uncovering the radical message of Jesus, or it may be a one-off thing. We'll see. 

The Gospel of Luke preserves a parable of Jesus known as the Parable of the Pharisee and Tax Collector. It goes like this: 

Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other.

To modern Christian ears, this parable is both familiar and totally not radical. We know pharisees, after all, were self-righteous hypocrites that Jesus was constantly bickering with, while tax collectors were common symbols of "sinners" who received the gift of forgiveness from Jesus (in addition to this parable, recall the story of the tax collector Zaccheus [the "wee little man" of children's song] and the tax collector Levi who became the disciple Matthew). So it comes as no surprise that the pharisee in this story is a hypocrite who extols his own virtues while the humble tax collector admits his sin and receives Jesus's grace.

The 21st century moral of the story is this: don't be a condescending hypocrite; humble yourself, confess your sins, and be forgiven. Full stop.

That was the 1st century moral of the story too, except for the "full stop" part. We've lost today the radical and even potentially offensive edge of the story that would have been fully appreciated by 1st century Jewish listeners.

In Jesus's day, pharisees weren't bad guys. They weren't regarded as self-righteous hypocrites. They were, in fact, well-respected and highly regarded religious leaders and scholars who represented the largest and most mainstream Jewish religious group. Think of them today like Roman Catholics in the northeast or Southern Baptists in the south.

But even that analogy isn't good enough, because today we are so accustomed to religious leaders who are corrupt or evil or perverts or whatever. We've all heard numerous accounts of pastors and priests and televangelists getting caught with strippers or prostitutes, putting hits out on people, laundering money, or molesting children. A bad priest? Big deal. A corrupt televangelist? Duh.

But in the 1st century, Jews wouldn't have had that sort of cynical view of their religious leaders. They didn't, after all, have 24-hour news stations, social media, whistle-blowers, or investigative reporters. Like Americans of an earlier, more innocent generation, Jews of the 1st century would have put their religious leaders on a special, almost untouchable pedestal at the pinnacle of society.

So in this parable, think of the pharisee not so much as an average religious leader, but think of him as someone like Mother Theresa or Billy Graham - a virtually universally-respected religious leader that no one would dream of criticizing. 

As for tax collectors, they weren't just guys who collected taxes and so therefore were looked down upon by society - they weren't, in other words, just agents of the IRS doing their unpleasant, but necessary, jobs. And they weren't looked down upon because they sometimes stole from people by taking more taxes than they should have, as is commonly assumed (I have an old "study Bible" which makes this argument in the accompanying commentary). Instead, they were looked down on because they were local Jews collaborating with a foreign power (Rome) that occupied and oppressed the Jews, taking hard-earned Jewish money and sending it to support the Roman emperor and his regime - and getting rich in the process, while everyone else suffered.

In 21st century America, it's hard to find a modern parallel for this. We aren't occupied by a foreign power, after all. Instead, imagine that Germany won World War II and took over and occupied the United States. In that scenario, imagine an English-speaking American - perhaps your neighbor - born and raised under Old Glory, now working with the Nazis collecting a huge war reparation tax from people, taking a cut of it, then sending the rest to Berlin to support Hitler and his regime of world domination.

You'd probably hate the guy, right? He's not only robbing you for the benefit of the Nazis - which is bad enough - but he's also a traitor and a betrayer and a collaborator with an evil foreign oppressor. Screw that guy!

Now you may be a little closer to understanding how Jesus's 1st century listeners would have responded to a story about a native Jewish tax collector working for Rome.

So let's plug our two analogies into the parable and read it again:

Two people went up to the church to pray, one was Mother Theresa and the other an American-born tax collector for the Nazi overlords. Mother Theresa, standing in front of the cross, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, drunks, cheaters, or even like this tax collector. I've won thousands of souls to Christ; I give millions of dollars to the poor.’ But the tax collector, standing at the back of the church, would not even look up at the cross, but fell to his knees with his face in his hands, crying ‘God, please forgive me for the terrible things I've done!’ I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than Mother Theresa.

How does the parable strike you now? There may be a number of reactions. You might think it's preposterous to describe Mother Theresa this way. You might even find it offensive. Mother Theresa wasn't a self-righteous jerk! She was a humble servant of Christ who brought people together and served the poor with humility! How dare you! Further, while you might grudgingly appreciate the tax collector's apology, you won't soon forget the thousands of dollars he took from you, which helped him build that huge house in the fancy neighborhood, bought him that Ferrari, and otherwise went to Hitler's treasury in Berlin so that the Nazis could continue their conquest of the civilized world. Meanwhile, you couldn't pay your bills because of the heavy tax burden, the bank subsequently foreclosed on your house, and you're now living with your family of 5 in a 1-bedroom apartment. Maybe if he sells everything he owns and personally repays you, THEN you might feel a little better. Otherwise, screw him!

This is how that parable would have sounded to and struck a 1st century Jewish listener. Preposterous. Offensive. Outrageous. But also challenging in the extreme. Challenging because it asks you to take a totally different perspective, to completely change your way of thinking. In the kingdom of heaven, well-respected religious leaders are not necessarily the winners, and people like Nazi collaborators are not necessarily the losers. Instead, it's the humble and repentant that inherit the kingdom of God, regardless of their past or their background or what good they think they've done.

Jesus's rural and largely uneducated Galilean listeners would have likely found the parable preposterous because it turned the world on its head, but they would also have undoubtedly liked it's message. Many Galileans, after all, tended to look down on the urban Jerusalem ruling elite - represented by the pharisee in the parable. Think of how many people in modern rural America look down on suburbanites and "the big city."

Still, it's not hard to see why Jesus made enemies and pissed people off - especially in Jerusalem, which is where he was eventually arrested and executed. A lot of people loved his subversive message, but some - especially those who stood to lose by his vision of the world - didn't care for it at all. It's no wonder they thought he was a rabble-rouser and wanted to get rid of him. He threatened the status quo by giving the oppressed Jewish people hope and by undermining the powers that be - both the political and religious powers that be, represented by Rome, its governors, and its legions, and by Jewish religious leaders who were seen as traitorous collaborators with those Roman overlords.

And before you condemn all those "Jews" who rejected Jesus, it's important to keep in mind that if Jesus were to come around today, preaching a challenging and subversive message like the one above, most Christians would reject him too. (I would argue most Christians HAVE rejected him, accepting in his place a watered-down, domesticated shadow that they find comforting and not at all subversive... but that's for another blog.)

Denying Jesus

So I saw this post today by someone on Facebook:

I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. He said deny me in front of your friends and I will deny you in front of my Father. Challenge Accepted: If you are not ashamed Copy and paste!!

I started to reply to the person, but refrained because I figured I'd regret it later, as I always do. I won't, however, regret blogging about it.

In chapter 10 of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says: "Whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my father in heaven." A popular verse among evangelical Christians, for sure.

This is the only gospel that records this saying of Jesus, making it among what textual scholars call the "M" material - meaning stories and sayings unique to the gospel of Matthew (compared with "L" material for unique stuff in Luke and "Q" material for stuff unique to both Matthew and Luke).

Most scholars would undoubtedly agree that Jesus never made this statement because it sounds suspiciously reflective of the early Christian society in which the author of Matthew was living and writing (80-85 AD) rather than the society in which Jesus lived and spoke (30s AD). The fact that no other gospel records it lends credence to this theory.  It's also worth pointing out that Matthew (as well as the other three gospels) also records the story of Peter denying Jesus three times before his crucifixion. Did Jesus therefore deny Peter before God? Is Peter in hell? If you take Matthew's gospel literally, that's the obvious conclusion.

In any case, whether you agree with scholars that this isn't an authentic saying of Jesus, the saying clearly held profound meaning for early Christians who were, at times, faced with persecution and even execution for being Christians (the main reason why this seems to come out of the culture of the 80s, and not the 30s - no one was being persecuted during Jesus's lifetime for following Jesus). Standing before a magistrate of the Roman Empire, many people denied being Christians so they could avoid being tortured or executed. But this saying was used to encourage Christians not to be afraid to stand up for their beliefs, even in the face of death or torture or social ostracism. The implication was that you might lose your salvation if you denied Christ. Many people were (unnecessarily) martyred in the name of this verse.

Why did the Romans dislike Christians so much? Because they considered them a new and insidious cult who had secretive rituals and who denied the Roman gods and refused to acknowledge the authority and, especially, the divinity, of the Roman emperor. This last point was the primary reason Christianity was frequently outlawed in various portions of the empire. Jews had long been given a pass on denying the Roman gods and the emperor's divinity, but that was because theirs were an ancient and well-respected religious tradition that predated Rome. Christianity, on the other hand, was new and had no antiquity to lend it credence. Think of how many people today feel about Mormonism - a relatively new and secretive cult, invented in America, and espousing strange beliefs and rituals. That's how average Romans viewed Christianity. There were all sorts of crazy rumors about what Christians did, including one that actually accused Christians of sacrificing, then eating, a baby while sitting at a table (which was undoubtedly a conflation of Christian interest in "baby Jesus" and the Lord's supper, where - in the eyes of Romans - Christians ritually ate their own god).

So how does this historical context relate to modern Christianity? To be perfectly frank, it doesn't. Modern Christians aren't persecuted and haven't been since the 4th century. Sure, there has been mistreatment of Christians in parts of the world where Christianity isn't the primary religion, and that continues to some extent even today, but in the Christian west, it's always been Christians doing the persecuting. In the United States, no one has to fear proclaiming their Christianity - depending on which poll you look at, anywhere from 70 to 85 percent of Americans identify as Christian - a vast majority.

That's why this verse has become a popular one for evangelical Christians. It's not about courage in the face of persecution, it's about proclaiming one's faith for the purpose of evangelizing. My Facebook friend isn't proclaiming Jesus even though she thinks she might be persecuted for it. She's proclaiming Jesus because she thinks that's what a good evangelical Christian should do.

In closing, let me also note that failing to copy and paste an evangelical proclamation of your faith on Facebook does not equate to "denying Jesus," as the post strongly implies. This post uses the old trick from the days of mass email forwarding where one was promised good things if they forwarded an email to a certain number of people, or bad things if they didn't. This post makes no promises like that, but the implication is clear that you are "denying Jesus," and Jesus will therefore deny you, if you don't copy and paste it to your profile.

I can't help but wonder if evangelicals like this have ever read another verse from Matthew which, interestingly enough, also is only found in Matthew (the "M" material). Matthew 6:5 says: Do not be like the hypocrites, who love to stand and pray in the synogogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward." The whole first part of Matthew chapter 6 is devoted to Jesus encouraging people to practice their religion in private and not proclaim their actions to the world.

Fare Thee Well Marcus Borg, 1942-2015

Having just mentioned him two days ago in my 2014 Reading List (I read two books by him last year), I learned late last night that my favorite Christian scholar and theologian, Marcus Borg, died yesterday at the age of 72.

There's not yet much information about what happened, but one Episcopal blogger, who is also a personal friend, said that Dr. Borg had died after a "prolonged illness."  This doesn't make much sense, since Borg was blogging himself as recently as December without any mention or indication of an illness.  

Either way, I am heartbroken to hear of his passing.  Here's what I wrote about him in a blog post last year:  

Marcus Borg is my favorite Christian scholar and writer.  To me, he's a modern-day Christian Bodhisattva.  Just reading his books gives me a sense of peace and tranquility.  He's also a brilliant scholar of the bible and the historical Jesus.  Unlike many academic biblical scholars, however, he's also a Christian theologian.  I had the pleasure of hearing him preach one Sunday morning in Lexington, Kentucky, a few years back.

Among my favorite scholars and theologians, he's the only one I've ever heard speak in person, and I've always regretted chickening out of going up to him after the service that day and introducing myself.  I especially regret it now that he has died. 

Borg was well-known as a scholar and theologian, a university professor in Oregon, a prolific and best-selling writer, and a major voice in the field of historical Jesus scholarship.  I've read a number of his books.  "Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary," published in 2009, is hands down the best book on the historical Jesus I have ever read.  I awarded it the Serene Musings Book of the Year Award in 2010, one of only two non-fiction books that I've ever given that title to.  I always tell people that if you are interested in getting beyond the Jesus of Sunday School and learning more about the Jesus of history, how he lived, why he lived, what motivated him, and what he was really trying to teach, this is the first book you should go to.  And that's true whether you are a progressive, conservative, liberal, traditional, evangelical, or an atheist.  Certainly if you are a traditional evangelical, you won't agree with everything you read in the book, but one of Borg's gifts was not just the ability to effectively communicate his ideas, but to do so in a gentle, compassionate, and inclusive way.  Of all the biblical scholars I read, I think Borg is the one best able to bring people together from all ends of the theological spectrum.  His kindness and gentleness towards ideas and beliefs contrary to his own are what sets him apart from most religious writers, in my opinion. 

Having grown up in moderate Southern Baptist churches, and having attended a moderate Southern Baptist college, I found myself, in my mid- to late-20s, having a sort of spiritual crisis.  Like a lot of reflective and cerebral people, I started questioning a lot of the things I had grown up believing.  Somewhat opposite of those stories you frequently hear in church, or from religious people, about experiences that "proved" to them that God is real, I had some experiences that, at the time, I could only view as more or less "proving" that God was either not real, or was, at the very least, totally different from what I had always believed.  

After a few years of struggling and questioning some things, I found myself in 2004, 29 years old, divorced, living alone, and questioning whether I could really believe in God at all anymore.

It was then that a therapist I was seeing suggested the books of Marcus Borg.  Specifically, he suggested Borg's book "The God We Never Knew: Beyond Dogmatic Religion to a More Authentic Contemporary Faith."  

I can say beyond any shadow of a doubt that, if not for this book, I likely would have lost my religious faith all together - something I have seen occur to a number of people around me.  This book, quite simply, allowed me to continue to believe in God.  And it set me on the path of religious discovery that I have been on ever since.  It's what started my now decade-long interest in religious scholarship, theology, and history.  I even considered, briefly, applying for graduate programs in the field of religious studies.  Though I obviously never did that, I did embark on a course of self-study that continues up to the present day.  For several years, this blog was basically my classroom, where I posted dozens of essays on religious scholarship, many of which are still among my favorites.  All of that, ultimately, goes back to "The God We Never Knew" and Marcus Borg's profound influence on my own spiritual path.  

Regardless of where you stand on life after death, one thing is undeniable: you continue on, here on earth, beyond your death, through the influence you've had on other people.  Your words, your actions, your behaviors...these are the things that continue to be real and tangible beyond your natural life.  In that sense, Marcus Borg will live on for a very long time in the countless lives, including mine, that his work and teachings have enriched.  Godspeed, Dr. Borg.

Well done, my good and trustworthy servant.  Enter into the joy of your master.      

Thoughts on Easter

For me, Easter isn't about empty tombs and Jesus's crucified body coming back to life. If you are like many people, that's what it is for you, and that's okay.

But for me, it's not important whether Jesus was bodily resurrected, or whether resurrection is better understood as a biblical metaphor.

What matters is its significance. What does it mean for us in the 21st century? And, more importantly, how does it change us?

For me, Easter is a celebration of the abundant life Jesus taught, embodied, and exemplified. It's a celebration of living life to the fullest - fully awake in the present moment - being the very best you can be, and loving to the fullest extent. It means embodying the lifestyle Jesus embodied - one of compassion, inclusiveness, selflessness, integrity, and hope. And those aren't just fancy words. There must be real action behind them.

Compassion: genuinely caring for the needs and concerns of others. Helping others.

Inclusiveness: recognizing that everyone, no matter what, is worthy of the love of God, and thus your love too. No one is excluded from God's kingdom.

Selflessness: putting the needs of others before your own. Living for others.

Integrity: embodying fairness and equality and honesty. Living ethically.

Hope: working to make positive changes now in order to make a better tomorrow for all people. Bringing about the kingdom of God.

That last one is important because hope isn't just about looking toward some future time when maybe things will be better. Hope is a proactive action. As one of my favorite bible scholars has shown, the advent of God's kingdom, in the biblical tradition, isn't a passive thing to be awaited. It's a collaboration between us and God. 

The kingdom of God becomes a reality on earth when we live this way. Jesus becomes Christ resurrected, and Easter becomes real, when we embody this life he modeled for us.

Book Report: Zealot by Reza Aslan

Zealot is the latest in a very long line of books by various religious scholars on the life of the historical Jesus.  Because it received a lot of attention in the press, it has very quickly become one of the best-selling such books of all time.

Like all books about the historical Jesus, Zealot attempts to draw a portrait of what the Jesus of history was really like, stripped of later theological language and images.  Where did he come from? What motivated him?  What was the core of his message?  How did he perceive himself and his own place in history?  What was he like, as an individual?  In short, books about the historical Jesus are biographies written by historians, not religious books written by theologians.

Aslan does a masterful job of setting the historical context of Jesus's life and times in first century Palestine.  Of all the books I've read about the historical Jesus, I don't think any other writer has built the historical context quite as well, or quite as deeply, as Aslan does.  I'd go so far as to call it brilliant.  It is definitely the best thing about the book.  The first six chapters are essentially a brief primer on Jewish life, culture, and religion from roughly 50 years prior to Jesus's life, through about 50 years after his death, with a specific focus on all the "messiahs" who came and went during that time.  First century Palestine was literally "awash in messianic energy" and this is vital to understanding who Jesus was and how his followers understood him.

As the title implies, Aslan's main argument is that Jesus was motivated by the Jewish notion of zeal - which he defines as "a strict adherence to the Torah and the Law, a refusal to serve any foreign master...and an uncompromising devotion to the sovereignty of God." This, according to Aslan, is what lay at the core of Jesus's personal philosophy and theology - a zealous devotion to God and to, ultimately, ridding the Jewish homeland of its Roman overlords.

The majority of Aslan's arguments are in keeping with mainstream Christian scholarship of the last thirty years.  There is nothing particularly new or ground-breaking for someone (like me) who is fairly well-read on this subject.  However, for someone reading their first book on the historical Jesus, Zealot is a treasure-trove of information written with a very readable style.  I can hardly think of a better place to start a study of the historical Jesus.  One of the book's strengths is that it reads a bit like a novel, so there is no need to fear a dry, scholarly treatise with this book.

Ultimately, I only had a few quibbles with Aslan's arguments. For instance, while he agrees that there is no evidence that Jesus ever advocated armed rebellion against Rome, he argues that Jesus was not the pacifist that he is commonly portrayed to have been.  He states that when Jesus said "love your enemies," he meant that in a purely Jewish context; i.e., love your Jewish enemies, but you can hate foreign or non-Jewish enemies all you want.

While I can agree that Jesus was much more fanatical than modern Christians like to imagine, I don't think the evidence suggests that Jesus excluded non-Jews from his worldview.  In fact, I think the evidence is overwhelming of exactly the opposite.  It is undoubtedly true that Jesus, like most Palestinian Jews of his day, avoided the impurities associated with non-Jews, but I think the evidence is strong that Jesus ultimately viewed his message as being for everyone, Jew and non-Jew alike.  Ultimately, I don't think Jesus was as militant as Aslan implies.  I think he viewed the "Kingdom of God" as something that all people would take part in.

The only other significant quibble relates to how Aslan makes his arguments.  He tends to make strong assertions, as though he is stating a widely-accepted fact, when in reality most conclusions about the historical Jesus (whether Aslan's or anyone else's) are up for debate.  There are also a few times when he draws conclusions on what I think is very sketchy evidence, but most of those examples relate to his narration of events after Jesus's life - events involving the early Christian communities.  
   
All in all, Zealot is a worthwhile book to pick up if you are interested in the historical Jesus.  If you've read books like this before, you won't necessarily find anything new or earth-shattering, but the historical detail about first century Palestine, alone, will make the book worthwhile.  And if you're new to this subject, Zealot is a good place to start.

My Thoughts on the Duck Dynasty Uproar

So A&E has suspended Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson for bashing gays in a recent article in GQ.  I won't quote the whole thing, but he likened homosexuality to sex with animals and adultery and said he just doesn't get why a man's "anus" is more alluring than a woman's vagina.

He also talked about how all the black people he knew in the South prior to "welfare and entitlement" were "godly" and "happy" and he never saw any of them treated badly.

Now we can debate about whether A&E should have suspended him (after all, what did they expect from such a person?).  Supporters, of course, are talking about free speech and what not.  But free speech has nothing to do with it.  He's not being jailed for what he said.  And I'm sure that there is probably language in his contract with A&E that gives them the right to suspend him from the show if he does or says things that reflect poorly on A&E.  The same way that you'll probably get in trouble if you say or do things that reflect poorly on your place of employment.

An evangelical Christian on Facebook likened this "censorship" of Phil Robertson to the silliness of people's reaction in the 1960's to the Beatles and Elvis.  Which I find odd since it was evangelical Christians who wanted to censor the Beatles and Elvis.  But anyway,  no one is "censoring," or even calling for the censorship, of Phil Robertson - as evangelical Christians did with the Beatles and Elvis. Being suspended from your reality show for making offensive comments in national media is not "censorship."  No one is burning Duck Dynasty DVD's.

Furthermore, how do you suppose, for instance, that TBN (an evangelical Christian network) would respond if one of their employees made comments in national media that were offensive to an enormous swath of TBN's viewership and not in keeping with TBN's own views? Keep them on the air?  Or suspend, or even fire, them?  I think we all know the answer.  

But what really annoys me is how so many of Robertson's supporters are acting like he's being persecuted or treated unfairly because of his views.  A friend of mine (who will likely read this post) referred today to Mark 13:13 in regards to this issue.  That verse has Jesus "predicting" that people will persecute (actually, it says "hate") future Christians because they follow Jesus.

Let me be very clear here: Phil Robertson has not gotten in trouble because he's a Christian or Christ-follower.  He's gotten in trouble because he's an unapologetic bigot.

Being an unapologetic bigot against gays is not part of what it means to be a Christian.  In fact, it's decidedly un-Christian in every sense of the word.

And I could care less what anyone thinks Paul said about homosexuality in 1 Corinthians or 1 Timothy or Romans.  After all, Paul also said, in Ephesians: "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up."  Why are no evangelical Christians condemning Robertson for tearing people down with hurtful words, likening their human relationships to illicit sex with animals?

I don't like Duck Dynasty.  It's amusing at times, but it's heavily staged and scripted and I'm not much a reality TV fan anyway.  Be that as it may, I couldn't care less what the stars of the show believe or think or do or say.  They have become heroes to evangelical Christians and that's totally fine with me.  Everybody needs their heroes.  It wouldn't have bothered me if A&E had not suspended Phil Robertson for what he said.  As I said above, what, exactly, do they expect from such a person?

But please don't act like these people represent Christianity, or all Christians, or act like Robertson's punishment is equal to censorship or persecution of Christians.  That's just nonsense.

Being "Non-Religious"

Many of you know that one of my favorite religious scholars is a retired Episcopalian bishop named John Shelby Spong.  He is one of the leading voices in progressive Christianity and his books have really gone a long way toward shaping my own religious views and beliefs.  Even though he's in his mid-80's now, he's still publishing new books (his most recent, which I haven't read yet, is on the Gospel of John), and he does a weekly Q&A via email newsletter, which I subscribe to.  

I thought this week's edition was worth re-posting. 

----
Question: 
What do you mean by the phrase you use so often "for the non-religious?" Do you mean those who don't go to church or do you mean those who don't believe in God? Or something else?

(Spong has written two books with this phrase in the title: "Jesus for the Non-Religious," and "Re-Claiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World.")

Answer: 

It is not that easy. Lots of people who do go to church are "non-religious." Lots of people who say they don't believe in God are profoundly spiritual and searching people.

What I seek to describe with the phrase "the non-religious" are those for whom the traditional religious images have lost their meaning. There is no God above the sky, keeping record books, ready to answer your prayers and come to your aid. There is no tribal deity lurking over your nation or any other nation as a protective presence. There is no God who will free the Jews from Egyptian slavery; put an end to the Inquisition or stop the Holocaust. If these goals are to be accomplished, human beings with expanded consciousness will have to be the ones to accomplish them. This means that the category we call “religious” is too narrow and limited to work for us in the 21st century.

The question I seek to answer is that when we move beyond the religious symbols of the past, as I believe our whole culture has already done, do we move beyond the meaning those outdated symbols once captured for us, or is the meaning still there looking for a way to be newly understood and newly symbolized? The word “God” is a human symbol. I believe though that the word God stands for a reality that the word itself cannot fully embrace and that no human being can define. To worship God in our generation means not that we must move beyond God, but it does mean that we will have to move beyond all previous human definitions of God. So to be “non-religious” is just a way of saying that the religious symbols of the past have lost their meaning. That does not mean the search for God is over; it means the quest for new and different symbols has been engaged.

A Discussion of Circumcision

Sounds like a rousing subject, no?  I thought so too.

Believe it or not, this has been a major topic of conversation at my place of employment this week due to a protest that took place a few days ago.  The hospital I work at has been doing research on the merits of different circumcision devices, and an anti-circumcision group called Intact America staged a protest outside the hospital.

OMG, right? 

In discussing this situation with various co-workers, it struck me that there are a lot of misconceptions about circumcision, its use, its purpose, and its history.  So, naturally, I decided a blog post was in order to provide a little education on the subject.

Though circumcision today is most commonly associated with Jews and Muslims, it has been practiced among humans for thousands of years.  The ancient Egyptians were practicing it, to one degree or another, as far back as 4,500 years ago.

This is a diagram of a carving in a tomb at Saqqara, Egypt, dating from around the time of the pyramids.

It's likely that the ancient Jews picked up the practice from their Egyptian cousins.  In the book of Genesis, when God establishes his "everlasting covenant" with Abraham, he establishes the practice of Jewish circumcision as a requirement for all Jewish males on the 8th day after their birth.  Circumcision, in fact, is not just "a thing" Jews are to do, but it is actually established as the very outward, physical mark of what it means to be a Jew: "it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you" (Genesis 17:11), and "any male who is not circumcised shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant" (v. 14).

In Luke 2:21, the infant son of Mary and Joseph is circumcised on the 8th day and given the name Jesus, in keeping with Jewish law and custom.

In his teaching life, Jesus is never depicted speaking or teaching about circumcision.  Like other Jews of his time, Jesus would have accepted the practice as the social and religious norm, required by God as a sign of his everlasting covenant with the Jewish people.

It was not until after Jesus's death that circumcision became an issue for his followers.  Like Jesus himself, the earliest Christians were all practicing Jews.  They followed all the Jewish rules and customs, ate only kosher foods, practiced all the sacrificial rites, and celebrated the traditional Jewish holidays, including the weekly Sabbath.  Like all Jews, they circumcised their sons.  However, when Christianity began to spread outward from Palestine into the larger Greco-Roman world, many Greeks and Romans were receptive to the message of Jesus, but not at all keen on "becoming Jewish" - that is, on following Jewish dietary laws or, especially, getting circumcised.  The Jewish leaders of Christianity at that time, namely Peter and James, insisted that new Greek and Roman converts must also get circumcised and become Jewish.

This soon became the source of a major rift among the early Christians, with the apostle Paul leading the charge against circumcision (in the book of Philippians, Paul calls Jewish Christians "dogs" and "evil workers" who "mutilate the flesh.")  According to the book of Acts, James and Peter eventually changed their minds and decided to allow new non-Jewish converts to forgo circumcision, as long as they followed certain dietary laws (Acts chapter 15).

Although conversion to Judaism, along with its required circumcision, continued to exist in small circles of Christianity for the next few hundred years, mainline Christianity after the time of Paul gave up the rite and began regarding it as part of the "old covenant" through Abraham, superseded by the "new covenant" through Christ.  Around A.D. 150 (roughly 100 years after Paul's arguments against circumcision) Justin Martyr wrote that circumcision had become a sign not of the covenant between God and the Jews, but a sign that Jews are "separate" from Christians and the rest of the world, and so that Jews, alone, would receive their "just punishments" from God, which Justin equated to the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and other Jewish towns.  These circumcised Jews, according to Justin, deserved to have their towns and cities destroyed because they crucified Jesus.

This vicious anti-Semite is one of the most beloved of the early Church fathers

A papal bull issued in the 1400's by Pope Eugene IV specifically outlawed the practice among Christians and established that it was a mortal sin which would cause "the loss of eternal salvation."
        
Like Christianity before it, Islam also has roots in Judaism, arising in Arabia in the 7th century A.D. (about 600 years after Jesus).  Islam reveres Abraham, Moses, and Jesus as prophets, but not Paul.  As a result, unlike Christianity, Islam never rejected circumcision.  Muslims, from that time to now, circumcise their sons as part of a religious rite.

With all this history in mind, why then do so many modern Americans, who are neither Jewish nor Muslim, circumcise their sons?

From the time of Paul, up through the end of the 19th century, circumcision was virtually unheard of outside of Muslim nations, Jewish communities, and Coptic Christian communities (a form of Christianity practiced in north Africa).  Folks like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln, not to mention their millions of fellow countrymen, were virtually universally uncircumcised.  The Encyclopedia Britannica of 1876 described it as a "bodily mutilation" practiced by Jews and Muslims and generally abhorred by Christian nations.

You know you're picturing it.

However, beginning in the late 19th century, doctors in mainly English-speaking nations began promoting circumcision for a variety of health reasons, claiming it could cure or prevent everything from kidney stones to joint disease.  By the first few decades of the 20th century, the practice had become widespread in places like the U.S., Canada, England, and Australia (it did not ever spread in any significant fashion to mainland Europe, Asia, or South America).

As time passed, however, and medical science progressed, it became apparent that the earlier claims for the health benefits of circumcision were not just untrue, many were patently absurd (one very prominent physician claimed the practice could cure childhood paralysis; another popular theory was that it somehow prevented masturbation).  As a result, circumcision began to decline rapidly in England after World War II, and eventually Canada and, to a lesser degree, Australia, followed suit.

In the U.S., however, circumcision has remained common.  Circumcision is practiced more widely in the U.S. than in any country on earth outside of the Middle East and northern Africa.  The practice is very rare (with rates less than 20%) across Europe, Asia, South America, southern Africa, and Central America.  The World Health Organization estimates that roughly 70% of the world's male population is uncircumcised.  Among those who are circumcised throughout the world, roughly 70% are Muslim.  Among non-Muslims and non-Jews, the U.S. has almost as many circumcised men as the entire rest of the world combined.

Even within the U.S., the practice is not geographically equal: it is far more common in the Midwest and Northeast, and less common in the South and (especially) the West (in the last decade, rates have been has high as 80% in the Midwest, and as low as 35% in the West).

Midwesterner, Rick Santorum.  Probably circumcised.

Westerner, Nancy Pelosi.  Probably not circumcised.

Advocates generally argue that circumcision prevents the spread of STD's and is a form of good hygiene.  Both of these claims are controversial.  According to various studies done in recent decades, STD infection is more likely among uncircumcised men.  However, opponents of the practice argue this is not a good enough reason to remove a portion of the penis, since simple safe sex practices can virtually eliminate the risk of STD's.

As for hygiene, though most acknowledge a need for increased care for uncircumcised people, opponents again argue that this is not a good enough reason for removing part of the penis.  The simple fact is that most human males throughout human history, up through the present day, have not been circumcised, and they've managed their personal hygiene just fine.

Despite how supporters of circumcision point to hygiene and STD prevention as reasons for circumcising boys, a WHO study in 2007 found that, in the United States, social conformity is the most commonly cited reason for parents choosing to circumcise their sons.  The same study showed a strong correlation with the father's circumcision status: 90% of circumcised fathers chose to circumcise their sons, compared with just 23% for uncircumcised fathers.

CONCLUSION

I have two daughters, so I never had to make this decision for my own children.  However, if I had had sons, I would have had them circumcised, and I would have made that choice primarily for social conformity.

Despite that, I am with the opponents of circumcision in spirit.  There simply doesn't seem to be any legitimate reason, in a First World nation, for widespread circumcision of male babies.  Safe sex practices and good personal hygiene eliminate the primary biological arguments for circumcision, and if we stopped circumcising, then the social conformity issue would quickly disappear too.

The simple fact is, the very thought of "female circumcision" is shuddered at and referred to as "ritual genital mutilation" (see this fact page from the WHO), yet the same standard is not held for mutilating the genitals of boys.  The foreskin is not an evolutionary accident; it's there for a reason.

In my opinion, there really doesn't seem to be any good argument for continuing its practice on a widespread basis, especially in developed countries where safe sex practices and good hygiene are the norm.

Christian Opposition to Gay Marriage: A Theological Argument

Read Part I - Christian Opposition to Gay Marriage: A Constitutional Argument

In this first part of this two-part series, we looked at how religious opposition to gay marriage goes against the principles of liberty and secular government, outlined in the Constitution.  It's not that religious people don't have a right to voice their opinion or to be opposed to something they view as sinful; but when religious opinions dictate legislation (as with recent gay marriage laws), the Constitution and civil liberties are thrown out the window.

In that first part, we saw how some modern political groups - most notably the Tea Party - claim to uphold the Constitution and to be rigorous defenders of Constitutional rights, but many of those same Tea Party groups are vocally opposed to gay marriage rights on religious grounds.  I stated that this is but one way in which many gay  marriage opponents are hypocritical.

The other way, of course, is within Christianity itself.  

Most people seem to think the question of gay marriage in general, and homosexuality in particular, is a "no-brainer" as far as the Bible is concerned.  The Bible explicitly condemns homosexuality and homosexual relationships, so any self-respecting Christian should be opposed to it.  In this regard, a Christian friend of mine, who is a minister, stated: "Scripture is clear.  Homosexuality is wrong.  There is no gray area."  In another place, he stated: "I can't just accept the parts about God's love and mercy and forgiveness, and skip over the parts about His holiness and judgement."  In other words, he can't just pick the nice parts, and ignore the difficult parts.  For this reason, he says, "I can't justify [a homosexual lifestyle] with a holy God who calls it a sin."

This "Pick and Choose" argument, as I call it, is one of the most common arguments that Christians use when discussing hot-button topics facing modern society.  I have heard it used in discussions on everything from gay marriage and homosexuality, to abortion, gender roles, and whether or not Jesus is the only viable means of salvation.  Indeed, this argument may be the most commonly used weapon evangelicals wield against "moderate" and "liberal" Christians who they see as watering down the Holy Word.

The problem with this argument, of course, is that there is no such thing as a Christian who does not pick and choose what they like from the Bible and discard or ignore the rest.  Even the most stringent Bible literalist doesn't actually believe everything the Bible says, and doesn't actually follow all of the Bible's teachings.  More on this in a bit.

First, I want to briefly discuss what the Bible does actually say about homosexuality.  I have written extensively on this topic in the past, so if any reader wants more information, they can find it here: Homosexuality and the New Testament.

To put it simply, the Bible has very little to say on homosexuality - but it seems like it says a lot more.  The Torah codifies homosexuality as a sin punishable by death (Leviticus 20:13).  Other passages in the Torah also condemn homosexuality as detestable to God.  In still other parts of the Old Testament, homosexuals are either put to death or expelled from the Jewish kingdom (for instance, 1 Kings 15:12).

There is a two-fold problem here, however.  First of all, anytime critics of Christianity point out all the absurd, and sometimes even downright horrific, rules of the Old Testament, Christians will defend themselves by pointing out that the Old Testament was replaced by the New Testament, and so the rules and regulations of the Old Testament are no longer valid.  Jesus did away with them.  If that's true, of course, it also applies to the Old Testament rules and regulations about homosexuality.  After all, many modern Christians may think homosexuality is a sin, but they don't advocate the death penalty for it.  So for Christians, using Old Testament passages to condemn homosexuality is theologically inconsistent.  Those rules aren't in place anymore, having been "fulfilled" by Jesus.

Secondly, and most importantly, the Old Testament doesn't actually say nearly as much about homosexuality as it appears.  In fact, outside of those outdated Torah rules about putting gay people to death, the Old Testament doesn't ever refer to homosexuality.  In all the many passages that have long been understood as referring to homosexuality, the Hebrew word used there doesn't mean "homosexual" at all, but instead refers explicitly to a temple prostitute.  In the ancient world, fertility cults were extremely common, and part of the way these cults worshipped included ritual sex acts, involving both men and women.  In the Old Testament, when kings are shown expelling "homosexuals" or "sodomites" from their kingdom, the text is actually referring to pagan fertility cults being disbanded.  This is so widely recognized today that even the widely-read NIV and the New King James Version have translated the word as "male temple prostitutes" instead of the traditional King James word "sodomites."

At this point, you might be asking, "But what about the New Testament?"

Like the Old Testament, the New Testament only seems to say a lot about homosexuality.  Famous passages in both 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy use a Greek word that has been translated as "homosexual" or "homosexual offenders" (or the classic King James phrase "abusers of themselves with mankind"), but linguists and scholars today understand that this word's meaning is basically unknown.  It is never attested in any Greek text prior to Paul's usage of it in 1 Corinthians, and it simply isn't clear what he was referring to - it has even been suggested that Paul coined the word himself.  There were, in fact, several widely-used words in ancient Greek that referred to homosexuality - "pedophilia," which referred to men having sex with boys, and "kinaidos," which basically referred to the size of one's rectum.  Whatever Paul's word meant, there simply isn't any reason to assume it meant "gay men."  In my own study of the issue, I think the most appropriate translation of the word is "pimp" - that is, someone who benefits monetarily from sex.  The link I provided above goes into a lot more detail about this issue.

In any case, we are left, in the New Testament, with just one passage that definitely talks about homosexuality, and that is a text found in Romans 1, where Paul laments men and women who give up natural relations in order to have sex with people of the same gender.  But here, as in the Old Testament passages, this reference to homosexuality is related to ritual sex in pagan temples.  The context of the passage makes that crystal clear, and Paul almost certainly had an eye on the Old Testament passages we saw above that talk about ancient Jewish kings expelling fertility cults from the land.  And remember, Paul was writing to the Christians in Rome, where fertility cults were commonplace.  He was encouraging them not to be led astray by these false gods, which were "man-made things" made to look like birds and reptiles (think of the animal gods of ancient Egypt).

With all these issues in mind, is it actually true that the Bible is crystal clear on the issue of homosexuality, as asserted by my minister friend?  Or are the waters much, much murkier?  In fact, I think the waters are unquestionably murky.  About the only thing we can say with confidence is that the Bible clearly condemns pagan fertility cults and those who take part in them.  Just about everything else is debatable.

As such, should Christians be attempting to legislate morality on an issue that is not even particularly clear in the Bible?  Shouldn't Christians be more concerned with issues that are, in fact, clear in the Bible, like feeding the poor, helping the sick, and living a lifestyle of unrestrained love and mercy?

Of course, I think the answer to that first question is no, and to the second question yes, but my theological argument goes even farther than that. I want to turn now to the "Pick and Choose" phenomenon I mentioned above.

As I explained, one of the first arguments sophisticated Christians make when confronted with social issues is that a Christian can't just pick and choose what they want to believe.  You have to accept the whole deal; you can't just follow some things, and reject the others.  This is sometimes referred to as "buffet-style Christianity," taking what you want and ignoring the rest.

And this is where the real hypocrisy comes into play in regards to Christians who are opposed to gay marriage on Biblical grounds.  Let's agree for a moment that the Bible actually is crystal clear on the issue of homosexuality.  Let's agree that homosexuality is an unquestionable sin and should be condemned.

Of all the sins and unrighteous ways of living outlined in the Bible, why is this one so important?  Not just so important that Christians need to voice their opinion about the sinfulness of the gay lifestyle, but so important that they actually need to amend their state constitutions - and maybe even the U.S. constitution - in order to deny gay people the right to get married?  Why this sin, and not something else?

In 1 Corinthians, there is a passage that is very frequently referred to by people arguing against gay marriage.  This is one of the passages I noted above where the meaning of the word used is unclear and probably did not refer to homosexuality.  But, as above, let's agree for a moment that it does refer to homosexuals.  In that passage, Paul is imploring his audience to live righteous lives and to flee from immorality.  He lists several sins which will keep believers from "inheriting the kingdom of God."  Among these are sexual immorality, drunkenness, greed, idolatry, adultery, and homosexuality.  Why is homosexuality the most important thing in that list?  Why not focus on greed, or drunkenness?  Why not re-enact the 18th Amendment and put Prohibition back in place?  Why not amend the constitution to outlaw sex outside of marriage?

The fact is, there is no legitimate justification for putting homosexuality above the others.  There is no Biblical justification for denying gays the same rights as everyone else, even if you think it's a sin.  You may think sex outside of marriage is a sin too, but you sure aren't trying to keep those who have had premarital sex from being able to get married!

And the biggest one here, of course, is adultery.  If you judge a sin's importance by how often it is referred to or condemned in the Bible, adultery is probably the Number One Biblical Sin.

And just what is adultery, by the Bible's definition?  Quite simply, adultery is when a married person has sex with someone other than their spouse, or when a non-married person has sex with someone who is married to someone else.  At its core, adultery is about infidelity and unfaithfulness.  This is why, throughout the Bible, "adultery" is used as a metaphor for unfaithfulness to God.

In the Gospels, Jesus speaks about adultery on several occasions.  In fact, Jesus uses the word "adultery" no less than fourteen times.  One of his teachings, which is repeated in Mark, Matthew, and Luke, dealt with adultery and divorce.  Here, Jesus states that even looking lustfully at someone who is not your spouse is the same as adultery.  He goes on to say that Moses was wrong in allowing people to get divorced for any reason.  In fact, he argues, if you get divorced for any reason other than infidelity, and then get remarried, you are committing adultery.

This passage, of course, has been the basis for many rules and regulations within modern churches about divorced people.  I grew up being taught that getting divorced for any reason other than unfaithfulness was a sin, and so was remarriage after such a divorce.  I also grew up in a church that did not allow divorced people to have leadership roles like minister or deacon; many modern churches still have rules like that.  If a divorced person wants to remarry, some churches won't allow them to have the ceremony in their church, and some ministers won't marry anyone who has been divorced.      

So with this in mind, and considering that adultery is essentially the biggest sin in the Bible, why aren't Christians fighting to ban divorced people from getting remarried?  Why aren't they arguing that such marriages harm the sanctity of marriage, as ordained by God?  Why aren't they pointing out that divorced people who get remarried are living a sinful lifestyle of adultery?

Scripture is clear.  Remarriage after divorce is wrong.  There is no gray area.

I hope you get my point here.  Christian opposition to gay marriage is inconsistent with the way Christians react to other teachings in the Bible.  I don't know any Christians who are fighting to amend a state constitution to ban divorced people from getting remarried.  I don't know any Christians who would disallow a divorced-and-remarried person to  be an active and accepted member of their church community.  I don't know any Christians who are "hung up" on people getting divorced and remarried.

And yet there are millions of Christians out there trying to ban gay marriage, ostracizing unrepentant gay people from their churches, trying "cure" gay people of their sins, and who are, in general, definitely "hung up" on gay rights.

And these same people, of course, will turn around and accuse a gay rights Christian of "picking and choosing" what they believe, while ignoring the fact that virtually no Christian believes it's a sin for a woman to have short hair, or a man to have long hair (1 Corinthians 11), virtually no Christian believes a woman should not be permitted to have authority over a man (1 Timothy 2), and virtually no Christian believes that slaves should be content in their way of life and faithfully obey their masters (1 Corinthians 7; Ephesians 6).

The Pick and Choose argument, in the end, is just a lot of hypocritical smoke and mirrors to justify prejudice against gay people, and legislating discrimination based on that prejudice.  It is an inconsistent argument that makes false assumptions about what the Bible actually says about homosexuality, and presupposes that "good" Christians follow everything the Bible teaches, even though that is demonstrably not true.

In the end, opposition to gay marriage is not about religion at all.  It's about the fact that many people are simply uncomfortable with gay people, afraid of gay lifestyles, and generally find the whole issue of homosexuality distasteful.  Many of those people then simply open their Bibles to find ways to justify their prejudice.  It's a method of operation that has been going on in Christian society for many hundreds of years.  700 years ago, Christians used the Bible to persecute Jews and other non-Christians.  500 years ago, Christians used the Bible to condemn Galileo.  200 years ago, Christians used the Bible to support and condone the institution of slavery.  100 years ago, Christians used the Bible to deny equal rights for women.  And today, they are using the Bible to justify discrimination against gay people.

Fortunately, history shows that they will lose this argument as they have lost all the others.  Fifty years from now, no one will have a problem with gay marriage, except for a few nutty people on the fringes of mainstream religion.  Gay people are going to win their rights to get married, and it will eventually happen in every state.  Christians today who are opposed to gay marriage will either die out or will reluctantly give in to the changing times and the irresistible force of progress, just as they did with slavery and women's rights.  In the future, the fact that there was so much opposition to gay marriage will be an embarrassment to self-respecting Americans.            

That, at least, gives me some hope.








 

Arguing Gay Marriage Rights

With North Carolina's passage of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, passions have run very high very fast, and I am certainly among those who has been fairly vocal and public in my opposition to this amendment.  I have probably said too much; have probably argued too forcefully.

A friend of mine who pastors a church in Indiana made a blog post calling for calmer heads and more respectful discussions.  He ended by using the example of Jesus, who, he says, always debated respectfully with the Pharisees.  I appreciate his thoughts and I think his post is worth reading.

However, I ultimately didn't agree completely with him.  Some issues require passion.  Some issues even require anger and calling people to the carpet.  Sometimes, that's the only way you can get people to listen.  Without putting too fine a point on it, we certainly don't look back now at the 1960's and suggest that African-Americans shouldn't have been so angry.  Their anger fueled social change.

Anyway, in order to explain my perspective on this, and to explain why I am so vocal on this issue, I thought it might be worthwhile to post my response to him here on my own blog, where my own readers can see it.  Of course, you can also just follow the link above, read the original post, and also read my response.  

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On many subjects, there are opinions, beliefs, and perspectives that are equally valid. Should the government cut taxes or raise taxes to spur the economy? Which is better and why, Papa John’s or Pizza Hut? What’s the best play in sports, the Grand Slam or the Triple Double? Is the Gospel of Thomas a mid-1st century, or a mid-2nd century text? What killed the dinosaurs, a cosmic disaster or a climatic disaster?

These are all questions that have valid arguments on both sides.

But not ALL subjects are like that. Should women be allowed to vote, or not? Should slavery be legal or illegal? Should we mandate jury trials in all criminal cases, or should we be allowed to convict people without a trial? Should we have religious freedom, or should the government tell us what we can and can’t believe?

On issues like that, there is only one perspective that has any real validity or legitimacy, and if someone argues against it, they certainly have the RIGHT to their perspective, but that doesn’t mean their perspective deserves any respect, or that their perspective has any legitimacy.

For me, the issue of gay marriage falls into the latter category. You are entitled to believe whatever you want to believe. But that doesn’t mean it has any legitimacy or deserves respect.

So while I agree that we should approach this topic with humility, that doesn’t mean that there is no right and wrong. That doesn’t mean that both perspectives are equally just and equally valid. Just as there was a right and wrong over the issue of slavery, and later of civil rights, there is also a right and wrong about gay marriage. And sometimes, you have to get angry in order for people to wake up.

And this, actually, is reflected in the gospel accounts of Jesus, which leads to another point about what you said….you say Jesus debated with the experts of the Law, but always respected them. There may be much lost in translation, but it seems pretty clear to me that Jesus didn’t just “debate” with the experts of the Law, but got into heated debates with them, and even downright angry arguments.

Matthew 23 is a great example. Jesus starts off by basically mocking and degrading the “teachers of the Law and the pharisees” and going into a long exposition about what incredibly unreasonable and enormous hypocrites they are. Then he goes on to deliver the so-called “Seven Woes” wherein he basically calls these people a bunch of nasty, dirty names, condemns them to hell, and states that all the “righteous blood shed on earth” is squarely on their heads.

There is nothing kind, conciliatory, or respectful in his tone.

Jesus’s clearing of the Temple is another example, especially the version in the Gospel of John where he’s brandishing a whip!

Finally, in Matthew 15, where again Jesus is giving a tongue-lashing to the Pharisees, he seems to have gone so far in what he said that even his disciples seem embarrassed. They approach him afterwards to tell him he “offended” the Pharisees. Jesus is unrepentant and basically says they deserved it, because they are “blind guides,” and he likens them to weeds that will be uprooted by God.

Jesus, clearly, understood that sometimes you can’t “debate” with people. Sometimes, people are just wrong. And sometimes, the only way to get people to wake up is to call them to the carpet.

I believe all of these things pertain to the issue of gay marriage.

Taking God's Name in Vain

If you are a regular and long-time reader of my blog, or if you have purchased my book "Christianity is a Verb," you will know that I have written on this topic before.  Never fear, my intention is not to rehash my arguments, but to provide an "update" of sorts.

In that previous post, I broke down the individual Hebrew words of the 3rd Commandment and argued that it is not talking about using God's name as an expletive (i.e., stubbing your toe and saying "Goddammit!"), but rather, it is talking about not accepting the name of God upon yourself if you don't really mean it; in other words, don't claim to be Godly (a Jew, a Christian, a Muslim, etc.,) if you aren't really living the lifestyle that goes along with it.

Everyone is familiar with this sort of argument - within Christianity, the notion of someone claiming to be a Christian, but not living like a Christian, is so widespread as to be almost banal.  When we hear of someone committing murder in the name of Jesus, we say they aren't really a Christian.  When we hear of Christian priests and monks fighting in the Church of the Nativity at Christmas, we say they aren't acting like Christians.  On the other hand, when we see someone who is a good, upstanding, ethical person, we call them a "good Christian," and say they are truly living like Christ.

This is what the 3rd Commandment is talking about.  Claiming to be Godly, but not acting Godly; claiming to be a Christian, but not living like a Christian.  The focus of the commandment is to be sincere in your devotion to God.

It has nothing to do with using words like "God," and "Jesus," and "Christ" as cuss words or expletives.  Many people find such language offensive, but when they point to the 3rd Commandment to back up that view (i.e., "Don't take the Lord's name in vain!!" after hearing someone say "Goddammit!"), they are simply misunderstanding what that commandment meant in its original context.  Saying "Goddammit" is not taking the Lord's name in vain.  Saying you are a Godly person, and then doing ungodly things: that is taking the Lord's name in vain.

It's true, of course, that many people would consider "foul language" to be ungodly.  In that sense, then, you could argue that the 3rd Commandment encompasses using God's name as an expletive - as well as any other explicit or foul language a person might use.  But I've sure never heard anyone scold someone for saying "shit" by telling them not to take the Lord's name in vain.

The fact is, when you read what the verse actually says, there is simply no reason to assume it had anything to do with using God's name as an expletive.  It's interesting to point out that the verse does not say: "Do not use the name of the Lord in vain," or "Do not speak the name of the Lord in vain."  It says: "Do not take the name of the Lord in vain."

This is interesting because in many modern English translations of the Bible, they have done away with this King James phraseology ("take in vain") and translated the word as "misuse" - "Do not misuse the name of the Lord."  This is true in both the popular NIV and the favorite of New Testament scholars, the NRSV.

But the word in question didn't mean "misuse."  I can only chalk this up to the modern translations being influenced by modern notions of what this phrase means (i.e., that it teaches not to use God's name as an expletive).  If you read Strong's Concordance with Hebrew and Greek Lexicon - which is the authoritative publication on the translation of words and phrases in the Bible - it is very clear that the Hebrew word in question meant nothing like "misuse."  It means "to take" or "to carry" or "to lift up."  When you read this same word in other passages, it's meaning becomes perfectly clear.  To give just one example, Genesis 13:10: "And Lot lifted up his eyes and beheld all the plain of the Jordan."  This word absolutely does not mean "misuse."

If the writers of the Jewish scriptures (or, God, if you prefer) had meant for the 3rd Commandment to be talking about using God's name as an expletive, wouldn't have the sentence read: "Do not speak the name of the Lord in vain"?  But it doesn't say that.  It says don't "take" the name of the Lord in vain.  "Take" doesn't mean "speak."  It means to grab something, or carry something, or accept something.  If I say: "Congress is useless," would you describe that as me taking something about Congress?  Of course not; that doesn't even make sense.  I have said something about Congress, not taken something.

"Taking" God's name in vain has nothing to do with speech or utterance.  It means exactly what it says: "take" means to carry something or accept something.  Thus, the commandment is telling us not to accept the name of God, not to carry the name of God on our shoulders, while at the same time doing nothing to imply that we are actually people of God.  A Chicago Cub wouldn't wear a Cincinnati Reds jersey, because he's not a Cincinnati Red.  He's a Cub.  In the same way, a person shouldn't take the name of God upon themselves if they aren't really a Godly person.

This is what the 3rd Commandment means.

The Theology of Jesus

I've been thinking a lot recently about the theology espoused by Jesus.  Yes, I admit, I sit around thinking about things like this.

In thinking about these things, I have come to realize - and even marvel at - how different Jesus's theology was compared to modern Christian theology.  For those who read my blog a lot, it may come as a surprise to discover that I have only just recently come to grips with a firm and clear understanding of what Jesus's basic theology entailed.  More on that in a minute.  

First, it might be important to define what I mean by "theology."  Simply put, theology refers to what you believe about God or supernatural things.  Ancient Egyptians, for instance, believed that when you died, you were judged by a divine tribunal, headed by the god Osiris.  Your heart was weighed against the feather of the goddess Ma'at.  If you had lived by Ma'at's precepts during your life (in other words, if you were a "good" person), you would pass that test and be presented to Osiris, who would ultimately grant you eternal life.  If your heart did not pass the test against the feather of Ma'at, you would be fed to the goddess Amemet, who was part hippo and part lion, with the head of a crocodile, and who had the job of devouring the hearts (and thus the life force) of the wicked.

This, then, is theology.  It's what you believe about divine things.  

When we look at the theology of modern Christianity, we find, of course, that it is all over the map.  This is why both Mother Theresa and a member of the KKK can claim to be Christians.  But it is certainly possible to describe the most common aspects of modern Christianity - those theological beliefs that are most widely adhered to by everyday, practicing Christians. 

In a nutshell, modern, mainstream Christian theology states that Jesus was the divine son of God who became a great prophet and healer, doing the work of God and spreading God's message to his followers.  He was crucified and buried, and then was physically resurrected through the power of God.  Because of his resurrection, human beings can be reconciled to God by accepting Jesus as their savior and asking forgiveness for their sins.  If they do this, they will go to heaven when they die, to live eternally.  If they do not accept Jesus, they will spend eternity in separation from God, which, for most Christians, means going to hell.

But when we turn to the pages of the New Testament itself, to see what Jesus, himself, actually did and said during his life, we find something completely different - virtually nothing like the theology of mainstream Christianity.  

Before I even begin here, I want to point out that what follows is not my own pet theory about Jesus.  It's not some harebrained idea that I've put together.  It is basically Jesus Theology 101, similar to what any student would be taught at any mainstream seminary across the country.  I stick to the basics and discuss only those things that are widely-accepted and established among scholars, historians, and theologians.     

To begin with, Jesus said explicitly that his message was only for Jews - for the children of Abraham.  This wasn't an effort on Jesus's part to be ethnocentric, or to exclude someone who was not ethnically Jewish.  Anyone could follow him, but following his teachings included following the teachings of the Jewish scriptures - including all the purity laws of Moses.  Doing so, however, would by definition make you a Jew.  A Jew is not just someone of a specific ethnic background, but also of a specific religious background.  In the same way that a person today can be ethnically non-Jewish, but Jewish by religion, this was true in the 1st century as well.  Jesus welcomed everyone, but he also taught that Jewish laws and customs had to be followed, because they came from God.  Ethical teachings from the Jewish scriptures were essentially the basis of Jesus's own ethical teachings.    

Secondly, Jesus was a firm and outspoken apocalyptist.  What I mean by that is that Jesus believed the end of the world was right around the corner.  He says this explicitly in the gospels, even affirming that the end would happen within his own generation, and within the lifespans of many of his followers.  No matter how uncomfortable this might make people, it is a fact that simply cannot be ignored.  It's right there in the texts of the New Testament.  For instance, in Mark, chapter 13, he tells his disciples all the things they are going to see at the end of the world, and then goes on to say: "When you see these things happening, you will know that [the end] is near, right at the door."  He follows this up even more explicitly by saying: "This generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened."  

So Jesus was a dyed-in-the-wool apocalyptist, believing that the world was coming to an end.  But what, exactly, did this end-of-the-world scenario look like?  What was going to take place?

In short, the world would descend farther and farther into chaos.  Wars would occur between nations.  Many people would die.  Eventually, Israel itself would be consumed and overrun.  But then God would intervene and establish what one scholar has called "the Great Divine Clean-Up" of the world.  His agent for this clean up would be a figure called the Son of Humanity (or "Son of Man" in earlier Christian parlance).  Many debates exist about who Jesus thought this person was, with the most common conclusion being that it was Jesus himself; but many other scholars argue that Jesus was talking about a different person all together, or maybe even using an expression meant to refer to the Jewish people as a whole.     

In any case, how can a person ensure that they are on the right side of God when the Son of Humanity comes to institute the Great Divine Clean-Up?  Easy; by following the path of righteousness taught by Jesus, which essentially meant being a good person and following God's commandments as outlined in the Jewish scriptures, especially the commandments about loving others, helping others, and performing acts of loving-kindness.  If you do that, Jesus said, you will be among God's chosen people; you will be on the right side of the fence when the end of time occurs.

So what, then, will happen during the Great Divine Clean-Up?  Put simply, God will sweep away all the powers and nations of the earth, which have grown out of the corruption of sin, going all the way back to Adam.  Essentially, God will push the "reset" button.  The kingdom of God, sometimes called the kingdom of heaven, will be enthroned here on earth, and will rule a new earth, transformed from the old, corrupted earth on which we now live.  It will be an earth like God originally envisioned for humanity, where human beings will live in harmony together, loving God and one another, and living for eternity in this blissful paradise that is essentially a remaking of the Garden of Eden.  No one will "go to heaven."  Instead, heaven, essentially, will come here, to this planet, to earth.  

Jesus says that the coming Son of Humanity will institute all of this, and will "gather his chosen ones from the four corners of the earth."  In other words, all of those who followed Jesus's path of righteousness will be gathered together, where they will become the inheritors of God's renewed earthly kingdom.  When Jesus said that "the meek" and "the poor" and "the persecuted" will inherit the earth, he wasn't talking metaphorically.  He meant that statement quite literally.  The ones who follow God will literally become the future rulers of God's renewed earth.

So what about evil people?  And what about those who are already dead when all this takes place?

As for those wicked people who are still alive at the end, they will effectively be cast out of God's renewed earth.  Their bodies (presumably still living), will be thrown into hell.  Hell, for Jesus, was not the supernatural dimension of Medieval Catholicism and modern day fundamentalism, but was instead a quite literal place, right here on earth - just as God's kingdom is a literal kingdom right here on the literal earth.  The word Jesus uses, which is translated into English as "hell", is the Greek word "Gehenna."  This Greek word, in turn, was a reference to the Valley of Hinnom, which was a literal valley on the southwest side of ancient Jerusalem that you can still walk through to this day.  At its most southern point, it met up with the Kidron Valley, which is also mentioned in New Testament writings (in the Gospel of John, Jesus crosses the Kidron Valley to get to the Garden of Gethsemane).

In ancient times, the Valley of Hinnom was essentially where Jerusalem's garbage dump was located.  As such, it was an immensely "unclean" place, where no self-respecting 1st century Jew would ever venture.  In addition to dumping refuse there, corpses would be placed there as well, if the deceased had no one to pay for a burial (such as a homeless person or criminal).  Ancient writers indicate that this enormous pile of garbage burned year-round.  

The Valley of Hinnom had long been associated with punishment and judgment in Jewish thought.  Jewish scripture (specifically, 2 Chronicles and Jeremiah) indicates that the Valley of Hinnom was the place where Canaanites performed religious rituals, including the sacrificing of children in fire, and another account - this time in Isaiah - indicates that the fires of the Hinnom Valley would consume the enemies of Israel (specifically, the Assyrians).  

So by the time of Jesus, the Valley of Hinnom was viewed as the unclean place where pagans, in the "olden days," had burned their children in sacrifices to their evil gods, and where now an enormous pile of garbage, topped with the corpses of criminals and other evil-doers, burned in perpetuity.

It is not hard to understand, then, why Jesus, and other Jews of his day, began imagining the Hinnom Valley as a place of divine retribution - Isaiah had indicated that very thing more than 700 years earlier.  

So whenever Jesus mentions "hell" in the New Testament, he is explicitly referring to the literal Valley of Hinnom, ancient Jerusalem's burning garbage dump.  His teachings indicate that the wicked who are still alive at the end of time will be cast into the Valley of Hinnom, where their bodies will be consumed and ultimately destroyed by the fires that never go out.  

And this is a key, and quite eye-opening, aspect of Jesus's theology.  He never says, not even one time, that wicked people will go to hell and suffer there forever (as many modern Christians, particularly evangelicals, believe).  I remember growing up and wondering how someone could live forever in hell, without ever dying.  It made me shudder to imagine experiencing the scorching pain of fire, for all eternity, without the ability to "die" and make it go away.  In fact, Jesus never, ever, ever, not even once, says such a thing about hell.  Instead, he says that the bodies of the wicked will be destroyed there.  It is the fire that is eternal, not the body inside the fire.  

For many modern Christians, the punishment of not following Jesus is having to burn eternally in hell.  Jesus wasn't nearly that vindictive.  For Jesus, simply dying, having your body permanently annihilated, and not getting to take part in the renewed earth, was punishment enough. 

As for the wicked who have already died, Jesus never really mentions this group of people explicitly, but one can assume that they will simply remain dead.  Their bodies have already been destroyed by natural processes.  They have already gotten their just desserts.  

So what, then, about the good people who have already died?  Those who followed Jesus's path, but who died before the End?  Unlike the wicked who have died, the righteous will be resurrected - their bodies will literally come back to life and rise up out of their graves and tombs.  The Son of Humanity, through God, will restore them back to life, to join up with the others who were are still alive.              

All these things, then, make up the gist of Jesus's theology.  The world is coming to an end, very, very soon.  Jesus, himself, brings the good news of the coming kingdom of God, and tells people what they need to do to prepare - essentially, they need to follow the teachings of Jewish scripture.  When the End comes, God will send the mysterious Son of Humanity, who will gather the living from around the earth, and separate the good from the wicked.  The good will inherit God's renewed earthly kingdom, and becomes its rulers from Jerusalem.  The wicked will be cast into the Hinnom Valley where their bodies will be destroyed.  Of those who are already dead, the righteous will be resurrected to join in the festivities of the new earth.  The wicked who are already dead will, presumably, just remain that way.  All of this is going to happen within a few years, or maybe a few decades at most.    

This is Jesus's theology in a nutshell.

And, of course, it doesn't take a theologian or Biblical scholar to point out that it is practically nothing like what modern Christians believe.  To modern Christian sensibilities, in fact, it would no doubt seem absolutely preposterous.  Heaven isn't on earth, it's up in the sky, or it's in some kind of otherworldly dimension.  You don't have to wait until the end of time to be resurrected - your soul is resurrected to heaven immediately upon your death.  People aren't sent to hell to be killed, they go there after they die, and they live there forever in torment and agony.  Jesus's message wasn't just to the Jews of his own day, it was to all people in all time periods.  Jesus didn't expect the world to end in the 1st century - that would mean Jesus was wrong about something!  

Unfortunately, these things simply are not consistent with what the New Testament gospels explicitly tell us about Jesus and his life and beliefs and theological dispositions.  For Jesus, heaven was the place God lived, not the place where humans go after death.  Human beings don't go to heaven.  They die and await resurrection at the end of time, where they will be raised up to live again on a renewed earth.  The end of time is not thousands of years in the future; it's literally going to happen in the next few years.  Jesus's message is for anyone who wants to hear it, but it involves essentially becoming Jewish by following Jewish laws and religious customs.  Wicked people don't burn in hell for all eternity.  If they are still alive at the End, they are thrown into the burning garbage dump of the Hinnom Valley, where their bodies are destroyed.  

It is my firm and passionate belief that if Christians want to step more fully into the lifestyle that Jesus taught and gave his own life for, it is vitally important to understand who he was, and what he taught, and why he taught it, even if those things are uncomfortable.  As many great theologians and Christian scholars have come to realize over the centuries, the fact that Jesus was, effectively, a failed apocalyptist, does not mean that Jesus, himself, was a failure, or that Christianity is a fraud.  It simply means that Christians have to come to a deeper understanding of what it means to follow Jesus and to be a practicing Christian in the 21st century.  And this frequently means jettisoning old ideas and old ways of thinking that simply do not hold up to scrutiny of the texts of the Bible.  It means joining Jesus on his path of righteousness, following him in his lifestyle of love, kindness, and living for others.  For Christians in the 21st century, this is what it means to attain salvation and commune with God.