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Seeing With the Heart: The St. John’s Bible tour, pt. 1

September 26, 2011
conversations, Kingdom, Living Orthodoxy, spiritual formation, spirituality, theology
4 Comments

This weekend my husband and I were fortunate enough to see an exhibit of the St. John’s Bible at the Benet Hill Monastery down in Colorado Springs. This Bible is the first handwritten and hand painted work commissioned by the Benedictines in 500 years. It is a work of theology and a work of art.

All of the text is done in beautiful calligraphy, with a script designed just for this project. There are 160 works of art designed in prayerful response to scripture passages. Fr. Michael Patella, OSB, 
(Chair of the SJB Committee on Illumination and Text) says, “The illuminations are not illustrations. They are spiritual meditations on a text. It is a very Benedictine approach to Scriptures.” Simply put, they are stunning. They are thresholds. If you love art and if you love the scriptures, these illuminations will feed your soul.

This experience does what a reading of the Bible is meant to do. We were stirred up into awe, wonder, worship, and surprise. Our souls quickened in delight. We were challenged and even offended as our small view of God and large view of ego was exposed. We rediscovered that our Bible is indeed a living text. Kathleen Norris has noted, “Most people don’t know what is in the Bible and when they find out, they become unglued.” We are never left unchanged. This encounter with the scriptures wooed us to the larger story that encompasses everything and everyone.

The monks who commissioned this Bible wanted it to reflect the Benedictine values of hospitality, justice and love. They hope it will enhance our engagement with the biblical text and with the arts. The illuminations are designed to reflect God’s all-embracing presence and His unending welcome that is offered to the whole world. They emphasize women, neglected peoples, and the poor. At the heart of it all is God’s global message of hope for all time, for all peoples, for all generations, and over all history.

Aram remarked that it’s so rare to see anyone have a long vision for a project such as this anymore. This Bible began about 12 years ago and will be completed sometime in 2011. In contrast, our culture demands immediate answers and immediate results. We don’t know how to wait. We dismiss the value of memory and time. Cathedrals used to take generations to build. Talk about job security and economic stability! We have forgotten how to work for something greater than ourselves to benefit generations that we may never meet this side of heaven. Monastics do everything prayerfully and slowly. I am grateful to them for this.

Below, I share some of what we learned from the lecture that we attended at the monastery. It was taught by Sr. Irene, a kick-ass nun and theologian from the Committee on Illustration and Text for St. John’s Bible. The images that I have posted here are obviously not as clear as they are up close and in person but I hope they speak to you. The Benedictines say, “Listen with the ear of your heart.” As we learned the practice of Visio Divina they added, “See with the eyes of your heart, too.”  And Sr. Irene gave us much freedom in our gazing by saying, “If you see it, it’s in there.”

Just FYI: Gold always represents God.

Creation (Genesis 1)
The seven panels represent the seven days of creation, of course. The panels are rough and unfinished on the edges, reminding us that creation is still happening. It’s a work in progress, and so are we. We are also reminded that God always brings order, beauty and life out of chaos. Day 3, when vegetation and plant life come into being, there is a satellite image of the Ganges River Delta. On day 5 when the waters are called to team with life, the artists included ancient fish fossils. On day six, the drawings of people are from aboriginal cave drawings from Africa and Australia. Gold (representing God) is present throughout of course, increasing to Day 7. Creation and re-creation is an overarching theme throughout the whole Bible.

The Genealogy of Jesus (from the Gospel of Matthew)
The Menorah is designed to recall the panels of the days of Creation as well as the tree of life. The Menorah is a symbol of Judaism, the people from whom Jesus was born. There are patterns of DNA molecules throughout, reminding us of His humanity. The Menorah was also the design of the lamp that lit the temple as described in Zechariah. Jesus is the Light.

The gold designs at the top of the piece are from the Koran. The circle (mandala) underneath is an Asian design. Within the menorah itself are all the names of the ancestors of Jesus. They included the names of all the women in His ancestry, not just the ones included in Matthew. The name of Hagar, second wife of Abraham and mother of Ishmael, is written in English, Hebrew and Arabic, for she is the mother of the Arab peoples. Christ is for us all.

The five “books” of the Psalms (divided up by some scribe way back when) each have a frontispiece that looks like a Torah scroll. They also look like painted Japanese screens. (There was an Asian art expert on the committee.) There are gold squares and designs all over, reminding us that Christ is present throughout. Gregorian chant notes were also represented by squares, so they reflect the heritage of the church age as well.

What is especially intriguing are the small squiggles throughout the scroll. These are actual digital voice prints of the Monks of St. John’s Abbey singing the Psalms. There also are voice prints of the monks singing a Native American song, and sacred songs from Hindu, Jewish, Taoist, Greek, and Buddhist traditions and probably some more that I am forgetting. It is indeed a living text. It is the tradition of Benedictine hospitality to honor all those who pray.

Luke’s “Anthology”

This piece reflects many parables that are unique to Luke. The first one is the woman who lost a valuable coin and looks everywhere for it. When she finds it, she throws a party. There are hints of angels in that panel, ready to rejoice with her. Sr. Irene reminded us that a larger theme of the book of Luke is the fact that Jesus ate with the wrong people. Often in His stories he says in effect, “You think I eat with the wrong people? My Father throws parties for them!”

Another panel shows the story of the prodigal son. The familiar characters are there – the returning son, the older brother, the running father, the pigs. Sr. Irene remarked that the mother seems to be missing from this story. But she relates a favorite tale which says that the mother was absent because she was busy fattening the calf for the party to come, polishing the ring and then is looking out and about for her son. The mother remarks, “And his father thinks this just happened!”

What is particularly moving is that all the stories are in diagonal panels of gold, leading upward to Jesus. These are stories about restoration and forgiveness. In the panel with the prodigal are the New York City World Trade Center Twin Towers, also in gold. This panel was being painted during the fall of 2001 after the 9-11 tragedies. They were included to offer the message that forgiveness is the way to move forward. Indeed, the very last panel which portrays Mary and Martha reveals the words “Only one thing is necessary” as all move towards Jesus. Forgiveness.

The Valley of Dry Bones (Ezekiel 37) “I will put my Spirit within you and you shall live.”
This is a particularly gripping work. The artists did not want to go towards “The foot bone’s connected to the leg bone” or “dem bones” types of imagery. The skulls and bones are reminiscent of mass graves. There are images that evoke the picture of the heap of eyeglasses seen at the Holocaust Museum. There is a watchtower. There are also junk and old cars, depicting throw-away people, used and abused by others. The oil from the old cars reveals a rainbow with flecks of gold. Even here, God is present. There are rainbows of promise overhead, filled with colors, filled with God. I ask you, can these bones live?

I will post part two later this week. Go here to page through this Bible yourself! http://www.saintjohnsbible.org/see/explore.htm

“The continuous process of remaining open and accepting of what may reveal itself through hand and heart on a crafted page is the closest I have ever come to God.” ~Donald Jackson, Artistic Director, St, John’s Bible

My 3 cents on Rob Bell’s new book

March 18, 2011
Bookses!, conversations, Kingdom, Living Orthodoxy, real church, stuff to ponder, theology
2 Comments

Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, by Rob Bell.

Well, there’s nothing like a good controversy to increase blog posts and book sales! Like many, I am saddened by the way the controversy is being handled. I chose to blog about this because it hits at the heart of something very dear to me: the oneness of the Church. Many who haven’t read the book (and probably some of those who have) may assume that Bell argues for an easy universalism, a cheap devil-may-care-and-nothing-matters-because-we-all-get-in sort of thing, and that there is no hell. Not surprisingly, many are on the warpath and are drawing dividing lines. I am simply hoping that we may foster some respectful consideration of one another.

Just to catch everyone up, the gist of the book is that the ideas Bell addresses have more to do with the nature and heart of God himself and the belief that “God is reconciling all creation to Godself” and that there is good reason to believe that he will succeed at this (hence the title, “Love Wins”.) Hell is a place we create for ourselves as we continue to resist and reject the life that God offers. I believe that opens up the door to larger ideas to discuss than just cheap grace.

To sum up this blog post (tl;dr): Relax everyone, and listen to one another.

Please consider:

1. This is not new stuff. This topic has been under discussion for 2000 years. Debate amongst Christians is not new either. Plenty of important issues such as, what is the exact nature of the atonement and what is hell and who gets to go to heaven and what does it mean to be saved and even how do we decide who is in the church have been discussed and debated zillions of times. There remains plenty of disagreement and we have survived and God still loves us.

There was a time during the formation of the early church in which the Apostles and others needed to keep the tightest reign on “sound doctrine”. This was particularly focused on what was understood about Jesus and the essence of the Good News. I can imagine Jesus’ followers standing around scratching their heads after he ascended back into heaven thinking, “What on earth just happened?” The early church leaders recognized that preventing confusion and lies about big, core issues like Jesus’ divinity and his death and resurrection were crucial to the budding life of this new entity called the Church and to the Kingdom Jesus had spoken about. They had to guard things carefully. And for them, it was truly an issue about for what and whom they would be giving up their lives. That’s a tad different than “my theological camp is superior to yours.”

Beyond the basics about Jesus, there has been and will continue to be much debate and questioning and rethinking doctrinal ideas within our ranks, just as there has been for 2000 years. It’s ok. Let’s use it for good and not for evil.

2. Nobody expected the Spanish Inquisition. We no longer have to sentence someone who disagrees with us to death or cover them in honey and push them onto an ant hill. This is probably what is most distressing about this whole kerfluffle. Christians are treating those who disagree with their stance badly. They judge and demean and slander. They feel proud of their “correct” position, and use it as a measuring rod as if it means anything about themselves and their relationship with God.

I honestly do not believe that when we stand one day before Jesus he will look at us and say, “So, I am concerned about your stance on the penal substitutionary theory of the atonement. Tsk. Tsk.” Or, “Were you dispensationalist or reformed?” No, I think he will be more concerned about how we treated the brother or sister who thinks about things differently. That truly seemed to be more important to Him. Oneness comes from making space for one another, not demanding conformity. And it also seemed to be his desire about how we are to show up in this world. “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” Jn. 13:35 That sounds like evangelism to me.

3. Dialogue is good for us. I recall a seminary professor from years ago who told us to be careful what we read because “there’s a slippery slope”. In other words, do not read anything that disagrees with our theological stance for to do so is dangerous because you might actually be changed by it. Back then, I never thought to ask what was at the bottom of the slippery slope. Now that I am older and wiser I have visited the other end of the slope, and you know what? Jesus is there, too.

If we do not allow ourselves to seriously engage thoughts and ideas that are different from what we hold, we stagnate. We also begin to believe we have actually apprehended and captured Truth, as if it all fits in our puny human minds. It creates a subtle shift in belief – right doctrine begins to trump the Person who is the Source of it all. Those who seem to be holding the “there is no more truth to be found” line (especially the neo-Calvinists/Puritanists these days) seem to hint that to not agree with them means you follow a different Jesus. (Some don’t merely suggest it, they state it outright. Seriously guys, stop it.) Sometimes it is expressed that to disagree with them puts your eternal security and even the quality of your personal character in jeopardy. That’s a lot of faith to be placed in doctrine!  And it follows that the issues at hand would become dividing lines in the church.

I must add though, that as much as the neo-Calvinists frustrate me (but they won’t take my blog seriously anyway because I am a woman so I can say whatever I want – ha!), they are not the only ones guilty of dividing church and community over a doctrinal position.

Perhaps we can try to value one another over being right?

4. Don’t you wish this were true? Why would any Christian not want there to be a way for all to be saved and go to heaven? Why is there resistance to believing that the work of Jesus on the Cross and the redeeming love of God could be that powerful? What does this say about us?

I think it might reveal something about our own smallness of heart. Our sense of justice often has much more to do with retribution and spite than with the desire to see all things set right. Admit it, often we need the idea of hell in order to feel that those who have hurt us will pay. There is something in us still that gets a smug satisfaction from seeing those who have hurt us stuck outside while we get treated royally.

I count myself in here. I do not have a heart that can forgive without some struggle. I don’t know that anyone does, really. I need the help of God to forgive. But I am drawn to the idea that God can make my heart a big enough space to receive all who come with Him –a heart that might actually be able to tolerate heaven and the magnanimous mercy and grace that is its essence.

I am not saying I don’t believe in hell- quite the opposite actually. I’m just saying that what we think about hell may say much more about our own issues than about God.

5. Won’t this belief kill evangelism? Perhaps it will, if selling a free ticket to heaven is the only reason to evangelize and if that is the full extent of the Good News. If there is more, which I would argue there is, those who hearts are passionate for it will continue the work of evangelism.

There is plenty to do. There is a Kingdom to co-create and usher in. There are mountains to bring down and valleys to fill. There is outrageous love to be offered.  There are outcasts to befriend. The message as we do these things is the same: This is Jesus, Son of the Most High. Hear Him!

Our love for one another as we do these things just might shine a light on what he is like for others to see and embrace. Whether you believe God tortures non-believers forever and ever without end or if you believe God allows us to create a hell of our own choosing, there is still work to be done.

6. Let’s face it, all of our theology is a “bottom up” effort. Theology is the product of our good and necessary attempts to make some sense of the mysteries of God. However, the only lenses we have is to try to comprehend God are our tiny, foggy selves. Therefore, all of our theology will have something of ourselves projected onto God, even with the Spirit’s help. God doesn’t seem to be too disturbed by that, being accustomed to our cute arrogance. I often wonder if he feels similar to how I feel about my cat when she believes she has caught the laser pointer beam in her paw. Her concept of reality is too limited to know that it’s made of light waves and not matter and she can’t possible catch it. But I let her enjoy her victory for a moment – and then I move the pointer.

I don’t know about you, but I am hoping that my concept of God continues to grow and expand and with it, my theology. For each of us, may God continue to “move the pointer” out from under what we think we know so we don’t get caught up in the lesser things that divide us. (Lesser than Jesus, that is.) God is far more good and loving than we can imagine and may it never be that we think we have him all figured out. In that light, may we humbly choose each other over the arrogance of thinking we know anything.

Reading The Bible From The Margins [October 2010 Synchroblog]

November 9, 2010
conversations, generative Christianity, GOD Moments, Kingdom, Living Orthodoxy, real church, social justice, stuff to ponder, Synchroblog
26 Comments

This post is part of a larger Synchroblog. This month’s topic is “seeing through the eyes of the marginalized.” I will post links to the other blogs as they come in.

I once had a conversation with a fellow Christian about what Jesus might be asking us to do about the poor. She insisted that she scrimped and saved and made good decisions all her life in order to have what she has now and those who are poor could do the same. Any discussions about laws or systems that discriminate against the poor (and thus help keep them in the cycle) were moot to her. She sincerely felt that this was the teaching of the scriptures. I recently wrote a blog post (here) about another friend who ministers in the legal system with young women in detention. Those woman are invariably low income folks, and of course, they have made really bad choices in their lives. But this friend understands that the ways in which the poor have been taught to think and understand life and finances are very different from those of us with more privileged lives, and that they need much intervention and mentoring before the things that seem like common sense to us can be understood, much less embraced. She has learned to see through their eyes.

It comes down to seeing. My first friend was unable and angrily unwilling to see through the eyes of those who had had different lives and opportunities than she. I can understand her frustration. It would be easier to “help” the poor if they were like us, that is, if it didn’t require that we enter into their worlds to see as they do. It is common for us to assume that others see and experience the world in the same way we do. We also assume that others experience God the same way and read the Bible the same way as well. Miguel A. De La Torre, author of Reading The Bible From The Margins (See what I did there? I stole his title!) says that it’s all too easy to assume that the Bible text has one clear meaning that existed in the mind of God and was revealed to the original hearer and we may ascertain what that was and apply it for all time and all people. However, interpretations of the “one meaning” often reflect the dominant culture – an androcentric, white, middle to upper middle class westernized reading. Then, if these interpretations are questioned, we become unsettled and even defensive as if we are messing with the biblical text itself. But just like my first friend, we can remain blind if this one perspective is the only set of interpreting eyes that we have upon the text.

Justo Gonzalez (quoted by Miguel A. De La Torre) shares a story of a sermon preached through the eyes of the marginalized. They were studying the part of the fourth commandment that says, “six days you shall labor”. The pastor asked the congregation how many had worked six days that week, then five, then four, etc. Very few hands went up. Then he asked how many would like to work for six days but were unable to find employment. All of the hands went up. The minister responded, “How then, are we to obey the law of God which commands that we shall work six days, when we cannot find work even for a single day?” Honestly, I had always just skimmed over that part of the commandment. I didn’t see.

De La Torre points out that the “eyes” of class privilege blind us to that first part of the commandment. We assume the privilege of being employed. We are oblivious then to the reality of those segments of our society that lack opportunity for gainful employment because of external prejudices towards race, ethnicity or class, or internal things such as brain-addling traumatic stress due to chronic poverty, neglect and abuse. Without being willing to hear and see the text through the eyes of the marginalized we miss this and probably much more. Our blindness keeps us from loving our neighbors as ourselves.

A few years ago I was invited to teach to a group of Christian pastors and leaders in Mozambique. I remember speaking about Sabbath and what it meant to keep that commandment. There with the poor was the struggle of finding the six days of work. I wondered what it would be like to move into discussion of the Sabbath Day, when their six days had not brought them the fruits of labor. However, the Africans seem to grasp a better sense of the need for Sabbath and the Shalom, human flourishing, wellbeing, connectedness, enjoyment and rest that the day was meant to bring, because their culture is much more communally oriented and not as production and success driven as ours. Even so, it became evident to me that they took everything I said as absolute truth and it was hard for them to believe that I truly desired their discussion and input. I became painfully aware that here I was, a white person of privilege standing “over” black Africans in authority as a teacher, just as plenty of white, western, well-meaning missionaries had done so many times before.

What would it be like to see the text through their eyes? It was one of the “help me God” moments. I sensed God say (no honest, I did), “Speak to them about their story.” So, with some trepidation, I did so. Mozambique was formerly Portuguese East Africa and at least a million people from that region had been kidnapped and sold into slavery a century and a half before. The Portuguese colonists had since ruled their land and made them into second class citizens. That rule did not end until the latter part of the 20th century. As we reflected on their story aloud, their eyes dropped to their laps. Shoulders sagged.

But, I said, the ten commandments were being given to a people who had just been led out from a life of enslavement to Egypt. What could this Sabbath commandment mean for them? The class began to see their story in the text. The Sabbath was a command for all. In this commandment they saw a decree of justice because the Sabbath rest and shalom was for all people, not just the privileged class, as had been their experience. They saw that no one was to be viewed or measured as their position or privilege that day. All were human beings and the playing field was flat. The party was for all. They believed this showed God’s true heart for them. Honestly, have you ever read the fourth commandment this way?

They began to bounce out of their seats. “Africa is blessed”, cried one man, “Because see? God loves it.” They showed me verses from which they had been taught by the colonists that they were black because they had sinned and needed the white man to rule them. They had believed that their “sin” was why they didn’t have work. But through their eyes on the text, the joy and delight of God in the African peoples sprang from the pages. We could have spent the class focusing on the theological and eschatological meaning of the “rest” of God as outlined in my notes, blah de snort. But instead we saw the scriptures come alive and bring freedom and restoration to these people. Their eyes on the text made all the difference.

Seeing through the eyes of the marginalized is not merely a means of administering social justice, though that is important. It is not merely an act of love, though that can hardly be a small thing. The eyes of the marginalized bring to everyone a fullness of understanding in the reading of the biblical text and therefore, to the reading of life. Yes, I learned the tools and rules of hermeneutics in seminary – all about the grammar, rhetoric, genre, historical and cultural contexts, and so forth. But even with such careful study, the biblical text has been used too often to justify horrific events such as slavery, apartheid, oppression of the Native Americans, subjugation of women, and the maltreatment of gays. Seeing through the eyes of the other is crucial to help us to truly hear the Word of God. It is a crucial work in bringing forth the in-breaking of the Kingdom. It is a crucial piece in becoming whom we are meant to be- like Him in this world. We cannot say that we know Truth without the gift of many kinds of eyes to bear witness to the fullness of meaning. We cannot say we know “neighbor” until her eyes become our own.

Check out these amazing voices:

Kathy Escobar Sitting at the rickety card table in the family room waiting for Thanksgiving dinner

George at the Love Revolution – The Hierarchy of Dirt

Arthur Stewart – The Bank

Sonnie Swenston – Seeing through the Eyes of the Marginalized

Wendy McCaig – An Empty Chair at the Debate

Christine Sine – Seeing through the Eyes of the Marginalized

Alan Knox – Naming the Marginalized

Margaret Boehlman – Just Out of Sight

Steve Hayes – Ministry to Refugees: Synchroblog on Marginalized People

Liz Dyer – Step Away from the Keyhole

John O’Keefe – Viewing the World in Different Ways

Andries Louw – The South African Squatter Problem

Drew Tatusko - Invisible Margins of a White Male Body

KW Leslie “Who’s the Man? We Christians are.”

Jacob Boelman – Seeing through the Eyes of the Marginalized

Peter Walker – Through the Eyes of the Marginalized

Cobus van Wyngaard – Addressing the Normalized Position

Tom Smith – Seeing Through the Eyes of the Marginalized

Christen Hansel – Foreigners and Feasts

Annie Bullock – Empty Empathy

Sonja Andrews – On Being Free

Are you willing to see?

November 7, 2010
community, conversations, generative Christianity, Kingdom, Living Orthodoxy, real church, reflections
5 Comments

We went to see the documentary Reconciliation: Mandela’s Miracle the other night at the Denver Film Festival. This film looks at the story behind Invictus, the major motion picture that recounts the story of Nelson Mandela and his relationship with the improbable world cup winning South African rugby team, the Springboks.

The Springboks had represented apartheid to the black South Africans. When the Boks would play, blacks would root for the other team. With Mandela’s release from prison and election to the highest office in the land, the black South Africans were understandably ready to change everything about the nation that reflected anything of apartheid, especially the Springboks. However, Mandela saw an opportunity to unite a very polarized and fearful nation. He insisted that the Springboks stay intact, and keep their apartheid-era team colors. Mandela believed that to treat the whites badly would mean confirming their worst fears and create more tension and polarization amongst the people. He would not return evil for evil, but overcome evil with good.

“Forgiveness begins today,” he often said.

It is a stunning story. How often does someone emerge from mistreatment and many stolen years in prison with forgiveness and reconciliation in their hearts? How many could endure such inequities and not demand their due? How many are truly willing to risk forgiveness? To do that in this case meant that you had to choose trust the heart of your former enemy. It looked foolish.

One of the producers of the film remarked to the audience that she has been a Buddhist for 40 years. This was because the only people she had heard of having such a startling and powerful attitude of forgiveness were Tibetan monks…and now Mandela. That is a powerful thought for us post-modern reformers. How is it that Christianity is not known as a people who espouse forgiveness? We may proclaim it as abstract truth in that we believe that God forgives our sins through the atoning work of Jesus. But perhaps the world gets to see the miraculous power of true forgiveness and reconciliation amongst real people with serious issues all too rarely.

Slowly, many of the white South Africans were awakened to the human rights abuses and cruelties of the system of apartheid. They chose to allow elections that would invite into leadership one who had formerly been seen as a terrorist against the state. It was all the more remarkable because no-one could know what this would mean for anyone, black or white. There was no certainty of outcome. There was no guarantee that the country wouldn’t erupt into chaos. The only thing that was sure was that this choice would change their world forever. And yet, they all chose to prefer and honor each other over their long term, firmly held beliefs, even Christian beliefs. Though they are not the only culprit, Christians in South Africa had justified the existence of apartheid through a particularly onerous version of Calvinism that permeated theological thought and culture and eventually became ensconced in the laws of the nation. In the film a former apartheid Minister of Law and Order admits, “I am a Christian. I love the Lord. But I did not see what was happening. I was blind. Now I see, and I pray I see all people as Jesus sees them”.

The story of Nelson Mandela and the creation of the “Rainbow Nation” is one of the most powerful incarnations of the gospel in human history. It causes me to wonder: We are often so sure of what we believe and so sure we are right. To what or whom are we still blinded? Are we willing to see, even if it changes everything?

Nelson Mandela and Springbok Captain Francois Pienaar

Not in my baqyard? Thoughts on the “Ground Zero” mosque

August 18, 2010
church and culture, community, conversations, generative Christianity, interfaith dialogue, Kingdom, politics, real church, stuff to ponder
7 Comments

How do we respond to the Cordoba Project, aka The “Ground Zero Mosque”?  Some say the placement of an Islamic place of worship near the hallowed ground of 9-11 is just plain insensitive. Others say to refuse it is a violation of the first amendment which guarantees freedom of religion. Still others say, well it’s not about freedom of religion because there are other precedents for not allowing something of this nature near a hallowed site, such as, land use disputes that battle a casino construction too close to a historic battlefield. That point seems to most deftly avoid the real issues of the heart. People are resentful and afraid. It is all about fear of this religion.

What is the Christian response to all this? It seems that in this day in which our country is more polarized than ever, and fear and self-preservation seem to have the loudest voices in the land, that we need to take extra care not to forget who we are. What is most unique about Christianity is the visible, radical hospitality of God who not only welcomes the other, He became the other, and ate and drank, lived, laughed and wept with the other.  Without the reality of the incarnation of God in the person of Jesus, we are just another moralistic system. Jesus is our precedent for how to treat those who are “different” (whatever that means), even those who are (real or perceived) enemies.

Radical hospitality cannot be offered without radical forgiveness. Indeed, I wonder if they are the same thing. Forgiveness opens the spaces of the heart that were slammed shut due to hurt, fear and shame. It’s easy to whip up feelings of fear and resentment for political gain, but where are the voices of forgiveness and reconciliation? And, where are the voices that preach the laying down of the desires of the ego so that Christ might be visible in us? These are some of our core Christian values.

What Bin Laden -who does not represent most Muslims- wants most is to goad us into a Holy War. Us against them. Religious beliefs against religious beliefs – tricking us into believing that Christianity must prove itself by postures of domination and power. Jesus took a radically different route by setting a table in the presence of his enemies. Of course some of his enemies couldn’t bear to sup with him, but that didn’t void the invitation.

What would it look like to put aside our own fears and harrumphs and accounting of offenses and set a table of hospitality?  Might it look like blessing the Islamic Community Center (whose community also lost people on 9-11) to proceed in peace? Remember, offering peace and reconciliation is rarely a nice, fluffy, feel-good process. It hurts. It is the embodiment of the gospel. And, it is the best way forward into healing.

**********

In addition, please check out the blog of Samir Selmanovic, a Christian pastor in NYC who is one of the most reasonable and empassioned voices in interfaith dialogue today. Find him at www.samirselmanovic.com. And read his book! (my review)

And once again because we all think way too highly of ourselves and need to laugh at ourselves a bit, the link below is some related humor on the issue. Jon Stewart and company rightly ask, should an entire religion be judged by its biggest assholes?
(sorry, can’t imbed)

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-august-16-2010/mosque-erade

A sad but good NYT article-How Fox Betrayed Petraeus

Anne Rice quits Christianity

August 4, 2010
church and culture, conversations, Kingdom, real church, stuff to ponder
9 Comments

By now most of us have probably heard of Anne Rice’s Facebook announcement that she has quit Christianity. If you don’t know of her, she is a successful author (see Interview With A Vampire) who had returned to her Catholic roots in 1998, stating that she would no longer write vampire novels but instead write to the glory of God. I have read her subsequent novels about the life of Christ. They are a bit too cheesy for some of my friends, but I liked them. But then I liked Interview With A Vampire too.

But Anne now says:

“I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being ‘Christian’ or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to ‘belong’ to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.”

And mayhem ensues. Some have attacked her outright, telling her she’s going to hell for thinking as she does, or for making the statement that she has made. Others nod in sad assent. Most of those are church refugees who felt cornered by the rigid views of what they had been told that devout Christians “should” believe that seemed to have little to do with Jesus and his gospel. Frankly, I sympathize with Anne’s point of view. We have a very syncretized Christianity in the US. So many things, political, cultural and what not, have become attached to Christian beliefs and it feels crazy-making to me.

I imagine she is frustrated and hurt, not to mention appalled by the dark side of us. I can see that it can become necessary to separate oneself from those whose thinking is so binary that no real discussion is possible. I have also had to remove myself from groups of people who preach a gospel of wall building and heartlessness. It felt damaging to be around and to exist within their walls meant either shutting down and conforming (looked upon as submissive and godly) or be attacked for speaking up. Sometimes you can’t love well without really, really good boundaries.

But what it comes down to is, what does this expansive gospel of ours ask us to do in situations like these?

In her memoir of her journey from Judaism to the Christian faith (Girl Meets God) Lauren Winner writes of friends who were concerned about her choice to become a Christian. She believed however, that when her friends asked about her new faith that they were less interested in theology than sociology. They were really wondering if she was becoming one of those “benighted, intolerant people who shun PG-13 movies and own a few polyester pantsuits”. And, “[Would I] vote for Pat Robertson, listen to Amy Grant, and believe that the earth is only 5000 years old?” She goes on to say that what she wanted to tell them is that she claims an evangelical theological orientation but “culturally, intellectually, and politically I am much more sophisticated than his stereotype of evangelism.”

But instead, Lauren concluded with a statement that has truly stayed with me. In answering her friends’ question, “Hey Lauren, are you one of them? A bible thumper?” She would simply say yes because, “I look around All Angels’ [her church] at a motley crew of Christians, some of whom buy clothes at Wal-Mart and some of whom wear Vera Wang, and I know that these people are my people, polyester, Amy Grant, and all.”

It comes down to the difference Jesus makes in us, I think. I do not believe he is all that impressed with our political positions or our moral codes or our beliefs. That may be upsetting to some because we spend quite a long time honing and sharpening these things and they make us feel strong and sure. And of course these can be important, but they are secondary. Nor do I think that we must associate being a Christian of any type (Evangelical, fundy, Catholic, mainstream, Orthodox, whatever) with what has become the Christian culture at large that many think of when they think of us and get irritated, whether it be shopping choices or political positions. Any hatefulness in us is an aberration; it is not truth. It is not us. In that light, I think what Jesus is and always has been most interested in is how we treat each other. He asserted that priority many times. This brings me to a place where I am learning to say, I may not agree with you, but you are my people. That’s really hard because that is rarely my first inclination. And ironically, I don’t believe Jesus ever meant to start a religion or a competing philosophy of life. He meant to bring the Kingdom and we bring the Kingdom forth as we live it out with and amongst each other. Loving our enemies literally begins at home.

I relate to Anne’s frustration and pain. I get it. I grieve over the many who have been confused about the heart of the gospel because of the craziness of some of us. I ache for those who have been deeply wounded by hateful speech and selfish actions. She is right- the things she describes are not Jesus. But I don’t know where Anne’s heart is at right now. She may need a time of drawing a smaller circle and pushing the church out. I needed to be angry at the church for a while too. And as it has been said, this is no great disappointment where there is no great love. Therefore, in the name of Christ may we draw a larger circle and welcome her right back in.

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