Category Archives: Spirituality

#65 “Duck Dynasty” Phil Robertson’s Theology: Dead or Alive?

03 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by in God, Philosophy of Religion, Religion, Spiritual Exercises, Spirituality, Theological Ethics, Theology

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Originally posted January 2, 2014, in Sightings, a publication of the University of Chicago Divinity School’s Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion.

Phil Robertson, patriarch of A&E's "Duck Dynasty" Image: screen shot

Phil Robertson, patriarch of A&E’s “Duck Dynasty” (Image credit: screen shot)

Since a recent GQ Magazine article outed his homophobic and pro-Jim-crow views, left-wing commentators have declared open season on Phil Robertson, the patriarch of A&E’s “Duck Dynasty.” Robertson, based on his reading of Christian scriptures, considers homosexuality a sin and predicts that homosexuals will be excluded from the Kingdom of God.

In Salon, Joan Walsh pronounced Robertson a “bigoted pseudo-Christian.” Another Salon author, Brittney Cooper, a self-professed “reluctant Evangelical,” took aim at Robertson’s “conservative theology,” denouncing the “violence” that it “does to gay people in the name of God.”

Cooper’s Bible and Robertson’s Bible are the same. However, Cooper’s practice of “hermeneutic [interpretive] consistency” differentiates her from Robertson who likely reads scripture literally (as if a literal reading were possible). Those of us who treasure scripture would do well to emulate a thoughtful and compelling approach like Cooper’s. Hers is a living theology.

For Cooper, the “first and foremost” truth disclosed by the Bible is that “God is love.” Intent on making scripture consistent with this fundamental truth, she rejects passages that contradict it. Cooper acknowledges that the Bible sanctions slavery. But since she is certain that a loving “God is not a racist,” she rejects racist scriptural passages. She agrees with Robertson that the Bible “declares sex between men to be an abomination.” But since she is certain that a loving “God is not a homophobe,” she rejects homophobic scriptural passages.

Robertson would find Cooper’s approach anathema. Literalist Christians consider scripture to be the verbatim transcript of God’s revealed laws, beliefs, and commandments.

Contra Robertson, a living theology, according to Jewish theologian, Michael Fishbane, treats ancient, sacred writings as more than simple and fixed storehouses of information. A living theology, Fishbane writes in Sacred Attunement, includes an intentional, ongoing effort of “adaptation and clarification” of religious texts. This effort helps us remain alert to the traces of transcendence that break through our everyday consciousness and to “sustain (and even revive)” them “in the normal course of life.”

Readers of the Bible who eschew the effort of adapting and clarifying scripture cut themselves off from traces of transcendence. Their theologies are dead.

Also, the unquestioning acceptance touted by such as Robertson is neither coherent nor honest. Though literalist Christians believe that they take scripture at face value, they necessarily, at some level, interpret it.

On some issues the Bible is inconsistent or opaque. Martin Luther, who advocated relying on scripture to decide all issues, discovered that, at times, it is silent on important questions—for example, child baptism. As a result, each of us, whether we are aware of it or not, constructs meta-Bibles out of passages we select from the actual Bible. We assemble proof-texts that make sense to us or align with our commitments and values. We downplay Biblical proscriptions that inconveniently conflict with our favored mores—for example, the indifference of many contemporary Protestants to Jesus’ prohibition on divorce. Contradictory passages are set aside (Cooper does this with admirable transparency and clarity of purpose) or hyper-interpreted until they harmonize.

Consider in this regard, Robertson’s likely view that God so loved us that he sent his only Son to die for us on the cross. This is an interpretation of the crucifixion to which St. Paul hints in the New Testament but which did not enter the arc of Christian thought as a fully rendered doctrine until Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) developed the satisfaction theory of Christ’s atonement.

Proof-texting and interpreting the Bible is unavoidable.

In addition, as Fishbane notes, the books of the Bible were spliced together. Varying worldviews and theological commitments are interwoven, sometimes within a single passage. Thus, scripture itself is an example of the work of interpretation and revision; its internal disagreements invite us—nay, prod us—to follow its lead and adapt and clarify. By doing so, we keep scripture and our theology alive.

Fishbane helpfully recommends reading events in the Bible as “theological expressions of primordial truth. The narratives of scripture thus become paradigms of perennial matters bearing on divine presence (both transcendence and immanence), as well as the human response to them.” More generally, “the old words of scripture are spaces for ever-new moments of spiritual consciousness and self-transformation.”

Christians like Robertson resist looking for such spaces and maintain their (imagined) literal grip on scripture. Joan Walsh calls Robertson a “bigoted pseudo-Christian” but she’s wrong about the “pseudo-Christian” part. Robertson is a Christian; his beliefs rest on interpretations at odds with those she prefers. There’s no doubt, though, Walsh is right about the “bigoted” part. Let’s be clear: Robertson’s dead theology is downright ugly.

References and Further Reading:

Magary, Drew. “What the Duck?” GQ, January 2014.

Cooper, Brittney. “Evangelical church’s ugly truth: ‘Duck Dynasty’ and Christian racists.” Salon, December 24, 2013.

Walsh, Joan. “2013: The year in whiteness. From Phil Robertson to Megyn Kelly, peddling white grievance became a bigger, crazier, more lucrative racket.” Salon, December 30, 2013.

Fishbane, Michael. Sacred Attunement: A Jewish Theology. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2008.

Axelrod, Jim. “A&E can’t win on ‘Duck Dynasty’ flap.” CBS News, December 28, 2013.

Fixmer, Andy. “A&E Ends ‘Duck Dynasty’ Patriarch Suspension.” Bloomberg, December 28, 2013.

Photo Credit: Screenshot of A&E’s “Duck Dynasty”

#64 Season of In-breaking Light and Love

19 Thursday Dec 2013

Posted by in God, Religion, Spirituality, Theology

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Credit: ellenm1 / CreativeCommons.org

Heading toward the final days of the year, the weather turning resolutely nasty, temperatures dipping into the single digits, snow threatening to clog side streets and motorways, ice making commuting a dangerous sport, the sun setting earlier every afternoon, adding the burden of ever shorter and drearier days—Christmas lights suddenly pop up everywhere.

The long autumn darkness that weighed on our spirits becomes the backdrop for bright lights in every shade on the color wheel.

In December, lights blink and twinkle and shimmer, bringing us cheer when the work day ends and we are released into the night. No more mood-dampening darkness; we are bedazzled by trees and bushes festooned with tiny electric stars, street poles decorated with shiny rows of candy-cane red and white, edges of balconies and eaves of houses dripping with brilliant icicles.

When these Christmas lights are taken down in January and placed in storage for another year, the solstice will have passed. The worst will be over and the loveliness of spring will feel within reach. The sky will be lighter when we leave work, and though the winter-weather will worsen, snow will fall more often, temperatures will stay in single digits, the early months of the year, with their gradually lengthening days, will be bearable.

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Credit: Martin Beek / CreativeCommons.org

For Christians, the birth of Jesus symbolizes the in-breaking of God’s love, just as it did among an ancient people who, too long trapped in the harshness of Roman domination and the nightmare of the tyrant Herod’s oppression, despaired of goodness and hope.

Many of the Israelites, when love broke into their midst, knew only the life of the subjugated, under the battering ram of a colonial power determined to control them physically and to mould their thoughts, their beliefs, and their ideals. Spirit-crushing poverty was the order of the day, unrelenting misery that we, Westerners, can try to imagine today but which we must fail to understand.

An ethos of meaningless brutality ruled from birth to death. And yet love could not be stopped.

Love that, in the narrative of Jesus’ birth, came in the form of a child, a child who appeared, not at an expected or convenient time, not to a middle-class or settled family.

Love broke through the sordid and violent times of domination in the form of a mother’s love for her child—a love beyond the reach of the most powerful empire the world had yet known.

Love, this story reminds us, can come any time, unbidden, unexpected, and without regard for whether we are ready.

Love this pure, this selfless, this strong, is rare. It is surely the most prized gift in anyone’s life.

Love, in this story, also appears in the more-complex love of a stepfather for his child. Because Joseph’s eyes, like Mary’s, shine with love as he gazes at the newborn Jesus.

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Credit: laszlo-photo / CreativeCommons.org

Just as light breaks into and brightens the ever-earlier nights of December, love breaks into and makes bearable the most desperate and dismal of circumstances.

Whether we are Christians or not, blessed light buoys us during these days of dreariness. And blessed love cradles us during days of trial (whether we are the bearer of love or its object).

During this season of light and love, or during any season, may love break into your life like the lights of Christmas. And may you, like the light, be an in-breaking source of love to others.

#63 The Theology of Nelson Mandela

15 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by in Religion, Religious Philosophy, Spirituality, Theological Ethics, Theology

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Image: Ashish Lohorung / flickr

Image: Ashish Lohorung / flickr

Much has been said and written about Nelson Mandela—except about his theology.

Because he became drawn to the ideology of Communists like Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, and Mao Tse Tung, many commentators (and their readers) assume that Mandela also embraced these thinkers’ atheism. Near silence about Mandela’s religious views has contributed to the plausibility of this reasonable, but misplaced conjecture.

Since Mandela’s death, only one, brief analysis probing his relationship to religion has appeared in the media: Fredrick Nzwili’s “Shaped by Methodists, Mandela paid tribute to the role of religion,” RNS, Dec. 6, 2013.

As Nzwili reported, the primary religious influence on Mandela was the Methodist Church which, with 7% of the population, is the largest mainline Church in South Africa. Throughout his life, Mandela was deeply attached to the Methodist tradition in which he was raised. In 1994, at the age of 76, he addressed the Annual Conference of the Methodist Church and, sharing his joy in participating, he explained that, for him, the Conference was a spiritual homecoming. “I cannot over-emphasise [sic],” he said, “the role that the Methodist Church has played in my own life.”

Though the impact of religion and of the Methodist Church on Mandela may come as a surprise to admirers and disciples, it is probably no accident that South Africa’s great anti-apartheid activist came out of the most anti-apartheid religious tradition in the country.

Mandela highlighted the Methodist Church’s strongly-held commitment to social-justice activism in his 1994 address:

It is fitting that this Conference is taking place in this particular Chamber, after the advent of democracy in our country. The Methodist Church was the only Church to be declared an illegal organisation under apartheid, and for ten long years you were forbidden to operate naat e Transkei bantustan. It is in this very chamber that this banning order was promulgated.

One cannot over-emphasise the contribution that the religious community made particularly in ensuring that our transition achieves the desired result. The spirit of reconciliation and the goodwill within the nation can, to a great measure, be attributed to the moral and spiritual interventions of the religious community.

Distinguishing features of the Methodist tradition are its dedication to helping the poor and its systematic approach to moral, spiritual, and educational development. In his 1994 speech, Mandela praised, in particular, the early commitment of the Methodist Church to building schools in remote areas and to educating black Africans.

According to the History of the Wesleyan Methodist Church of South Africa, the Church’s program of education began in a sustained way in 1815 when the Wesleyan Methodist minister, the Reverend Barnabas Shaw, and his wife set out from England for Cape Town with instructions to preach to the English soldiers stationed there and to the local white community, but mainly “to pay special attention to the large slave population.”

The Shaws opted to leave the comfort of city life and to travel some 500 km north into the thinly-populated land of the Namaqua tribe. By 1817, Rev. Shaw had baptized two Namaqua converts. As the Church grew, converts became schoolteachers, preachers, and tribal leaders; a few became missionaries to other tribes.

Additional Methodist missionizing activity, this time focused east of the Cape, began in 1820 when the Reverend William Shaw (no relation to Barnabas) arrived with British settlers. He, too, did not limit his attention to whites. By 1830, he established Wesleyville, planted six more mission-stations stretching east, and laid the foundation for another in the former Transkei.

In his 1994 speech, Mandela noted that the Methodist Church’s commitment to educating black South Africans had an invaluable and positive effect on the course of South Africa’s history. He was himself a beneficiary of the Church’s ministry of education.

Your Church has a proud record of commitment to the development of Africa’s sons and daughters in more areas than one. The great institutions of learning which spread from the Reverend William Shaw’s “Chain of Mission Stations” in this region shaped the minds and characters of generations of our people as well as many of our present leaders.

Note that Mandela uses the possessive pronoun, “your,” to refer to the Methodist Church instead of “our,” suggesting distance exists between himself and the Church. However, according to the Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church of South Africa, Bishop Ziphozihle Siwa, Mandela “remained a committed Methodist [throughout] his life.”

Born to a Transkei chief and a devout Methodist mother, Mandela was baptized Methodist and sent to a local Methodist school at the age of seven. Though his first-name was Rohihala, he was given the English name, Nelson, by his teacher, as was customary at the time.

Mandela’s father died when Mandela was nine and the boy was sent, by his mother, to live with his guardian, Paramount Chief David Dalindyebo. With Dalindyebo and his family, Mandela attended Methodist services every Sunday. Mandela also attended a Methodist mission school next to his new home.

For the start of his secondary education, Mandela chose to attend Healdtown, a Methodist college. Continuing his studies, he worked on a Bachelor’s of Arts at the University of Ft. Hare, where he joined the Student’s Christian Association and taught Bible classes in the local community. Of his education, Mandela said:

Although the dark night of apartheid sought to obliterate many [religious] institutions, the impact of their academic and moral teachings could not be trampled on. We who passed through them will not forget the excellent standards of teaching and the spiritual values which were imparted to us.

By 1941, Mandela had moved to Johannesburg where he attended Communist talks and gathering. However, he refused to join the Communist party, in part because its atheism conflicted with his Christian faith. In 1947, after he participated in founding the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL), Mandela tried to expel Communists who joined. The same year, as a member of the ANC Transvaal Executive Committee, Mandela successfully helped oust its regional president for his cooperation with Communists.

Not until 1950, when he was elected President of the ANCYL, did Mandela concede to welcome and cooperate with atheistic Communists.

Was Mandela’s increasing politicization caused by his growing interest in Communist thinkers like Marx and Lenin? No. The record makes clear that he began to devote more time to politics and to participate more frequently in direct actions (like boycotts and strikes against the apartheid regime) before 1950, when he was actively anti-communist.

It is more likely that Mandela’s increasing politicization grew out of his religious commitments.

A distinctive tenet of Wesleyan Methodism is that faith in Jesus Christ is only the first step toward salvation. What is required, from then on, is to lead a moral life and to devote oneself to good works and social justice. In Mandela’s words:

The sense of social responsibility that the religious community has always upheld found expression in [the Methodist Church’s] immense contribution to the efforts to rid our country of the scourge of racism and apartheid. When pronouncements and actions against the powers-that-be meant persecution and even death, you dared to stand up to the tyrants.

The Methodist Church of South Africa expressed its “sense of social responsibility” by objecting to the policy of apartheid from the moment its imposition in 1948. The Church’s opposition culminated in its election of the Reverend Seth Mokitimi as President in 1964—an election that put the Church at risk of being declared “black” and thus evicted from properties located in white areas.

According to Mandela:

Especially while political leaders were in prison and in exile, bodies like the South African Council of Churches and its member churches resisted racial bigotry and held out a vision of a different, transformed South Africa. Methodist leaders were prominent among the prophets who refused to bow to the false god of apartheid. Your ministers also visited us in prison and cared for our families. Some of you were banned. Your Presiding Bishop himself shared imprisonment with us for some years on Robben Island. This you did, not as outsiders to the cause of democracy, but as part of society and eminent prophets of the teachings of your faith.

Besides Mandela’s positive view of the difference religious communities can make in righting political wrong, little is known about Mandela’s personal religious views during, and after his prison years. Yet, while jailed on Robben Island, he attended Christian Sunday services and participated in Holy Communion.

There are several possible reasons for the sparseness of the public record about Mandela’s religious commitments. Possible reasons include: media interviewers and biographers did not ask; well-known to have been an intensely private person, Mandela may have been reluctant to discuss his beliefs; in the interest of inclusivity, Mandela may have wished to model how to welcome multiple traditions (according to Bishop Siwa, Mandela received Holy Communion from an ecumenical team while at Pollsmoor Prison); after leaving prison, Mandela was preoccupied with implementing his vision of a free and democratic nation-state.

In Bishop Siwa’s obituary for him, the Bishop affirmed that Mandela’s life “demonstrated the finest characteristics of the Methodist faith: tempered with graciousness; a strong ethic of industriousness; and honesty with reconciliation.” (Of course, we might say, Bishop Siwa would claim Mandela as part of his Methodist community—who wouldn’t?)

Whether Bishop Siwa’s assessment is accurate or not, it remains important to ask why, in recent news reports and in the plethora of published obituaries, so little has been said about Mandela’s religious views, because the absence of a substantive treatment of these views allows the millions inspired by Mandela’s life to ignore what, ultimately, may have inspired him most—his grounding in Methodist beliefs and values.

The absence of such details also sends the message (if only unwittingly) that his political commitments can be divorced from his religious commitments, although the latter, by all indicators, ran deep, informed his actions, and remained consistent until his death.

With the hope that scholars, media commentators, and biographers will at last turn their attention to Mandela’s under-examined theology and its relationship to his political advocacy, Mandela reminds us of religion’s ability to serve as a powerful moral force:

The Church, with its message of forgiveness, has a special role to play in national reconciliation. After so much suffering and injustice, the instinct for revenge is a natural one. But the transition we are going through shows that those who suffered under apartheid are prepared to bury the past. At the same time, those who enjoyed the fruits of unjust privilege must be helped to find a new spirit of sharing. Your message and example can enable that to happen.

Source for the text quoted in green above: African National Congress. “Address by President Nelson Mandela to the Annual Conference of the Methodist Church.” Delivered September 18, 1994.

Other sources: 1. Alistair Kee, The Rise and Demise of Black Theology (Burlington, VT:  Ashgate, 2006); 2. J. Whiteside, The History of the Methodist Church in South Africa (Capetown: Mssrs. Juta & Co, 1906); 3. “Methodists Mourn Tata Madiba: Statement by the Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church of South Africa, Bishop Ziphozihle Siwa, Johannesburg,” 6 December 2013; 4. Fredrick Nzwili, “Shaped by Methodists, Mandela paid tribute to the role of religion,” Religion News Service, December 6, 2013.

Note (added January 2, 2014). For an in-depth article about the role of mission schools in Africa, read Samuel Freedman’s December 27, 2013, International New York Times article: “Mission Schools Opened World to Africans but Left an Ambiguous Legacy.”

#60 An LGBT Mosque opens in Paris

30 Friday Nov 2012

Posted by in Prayer, Religion, Spirituality

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Courtyard in the Grande Mosquee de Paris (Credit: Rob Annable)

Courtyard in the Grande Mosquee de Paris (Credit: Rob Annable)

No way could I keep this good news to myself, so here’s my ultra-fast (and possibly mistake-ridden) translation of an article published on November 30, 2012, in the online version, LeMonde.fr, of the French newspaper, Le Monde.  Read and celebrate!

In the home of a Buddhist monk located in an exclusive part of an eastern suburb of Paris, Muslim homosexuals will join together for their first prayer on Friday, November 30.  The ten-meter square room which Ludovic-Mohamed Zahed, the sponsor of this project, is preparing will become the first ultra-progressive mosque in Europe, a gay and feminist friendly space where GLBT people will be welcome and where women will be encouraged to lead prayer.

The Buddhist monk, Frederico Joko Procopio, homosexual and militant supporter of LGBT rights, loaned him a part of his dojo out of solidarity.

Until then, Ludovic-Mohamed Zahed prayed every Friday with several thousand believers in the Grande Mosquée of Paris.  This Muslim homosexual appreciated the anonymity of this mosque and the content, never political, of the services held there.  But such a combination is rare, and even in the crowd, certain individuals, especially transitioning transsexuals or effeminate men, “stood out and were immediately identified,” he said.  He intends, then, to offer a place to all those who cannot feel comfortable in a traditional worship space.

 

Ludovic-Mohamed Zahed in 2012 (Credit: Jean-Philippe Ksiazek/AFP/Getty Images)

Married to a South-African since 2010, Zahed declares, “Muslims must not feel ashamed.  Homosexuality is not condemned anywhere, neither in the Qur’an nor in the Hadith.  If the Prophet Mohammed were alive, he would marry homosexual couples.”  He dreams of an Islam, “peaceful, reformed, inclusive” that accepts blasphemy since “critical thoughts are essential to spiritual development.

“AN ABERRATION”

Not a single Muslim organization has supported this initiative.  For many Imams and Muslim personalities in France, this project goes against religious teachings.

“There are Muslim homosexuals, they exist, but to open a mosque is an aberration because religion, that’s not it,” says Abdallah Zekri, president of the Anti-Islamaphobia Observatory under the authority of the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM).

“We don’t blame homosexuals, but we can’t make space for them to the point that their activities become part of society,” explains Dalil Boubakeur, Rector of the Grande Mosquée of Paris.  According to him, this mosque will not be recognized.  “It’s something outside of the community of faithful,” he says.

A PROGRESSIVE ISLAM

So-called “inclusive” mosques already exist in South Africa, in the United States, and in Canada, but the one in Paris is the first in Europe.  The organization, Muslims for Progressive Values, started in 2007 in the United States, has identified a dozen of such worship spaces in North America.

“The goal of Muslims who designate themselves progressive is not to focus on a ‘defense’ of sexual minorities against an interpretation of Islam that they judge intolerant and obsolete based on their experience of having been discriminated against,” explains Florence Bergeaud-Blackler, a research associate at the Institute of Research and Study of the Arab and Muslim World (IREMAM).  “They want to reform, to promote an Islam that is inclusive of progressive values,” she adds.

Source:  www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2012/11/30/une-mosquee-ouverte-aux-homosexuels-pres-de-paris_1798351_3224.html, accessed 30 November 2012.  See also:  http://www.rferl.org/content/gay-friendly-mosque-muslims-near-paris-tests-taboos/24785688.htm, accessed 30 November 2012.

#56 Ode to the “Little Way”

11 Sunday Dec 2011

Posted by in Philosophy of Religion, Religion, Religious Philosophy, Spiritual Exercises, Spirituality

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Powerless and powerful?  At the same time?

You’ve been diagnosed with lung cancer and told you have two months to live.

Powerless, right?

The message of Reinhold Niebuhr’s serenity prayer is familiar:  “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.”

But what about taking Niebuhr’s prayer a step further.  What if you actually chose the bad things you can’t change?

Without a doubt, you wouldn’t have chosen terminal cancer had been given a choice.  Who willingly chooses cancer?  Cancer chooses you.  But choose it in return and you’re back in control.

One of France’s favorite saints, Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, did just that.  Here’s how her version of Niebuhr’s prayer might have sounded:  “God grant me the serenity to embrace the things I cannot change, to choose them as if on my own terms, to choose them as if I wanted them.”

Thérèse, a Carmelite nun, died a drawn-out and painful death from tuberculosis.  She vomited blood.  Bedsores afflicted her.  Her Mother Superior denied her the relief of morphine.  Unable to take a sip of water or swallow a spoonful of food without suffering waves of nausea, she practiced what she called the Little Way—the choosing of what was handed to her.

One of Thérèse’s biographers, Monica Furlong, finds genius in the Little Way:  “to lie dying an excruciating death that took away the little privacies and forms of self-control which are precious to most of us, to endure almost unremitting pain, to have to rely on others for the smallest services…was to have ‘the last shred of dignity’ forcibly ripped away.  What else to do then but to ‘choose it,’ to respond to it out of freedom rather than out of necessity?”

Some interpret the Little Way as the way of subservience, especially for women.  But, as Furlong points out, the Little Way has “an almost ironic quality to it.  ‘If I may have nothing,’ it says gaily, ‘then I will turn reason inside out and make having nothing the most enjoyable of possibilities.’”  In essence, Thérèse charts a way “to live out an impossible situation.”

And so, faced with terminal lung cancer, the Little Way would say, “if I may lose my life to cancer in two months, I will turn reason inside out and choose the cancer.”  Seemingly powerless before the advance of one’s disease, one may choose snatch the cards one’s been dealt and play them triumphantly, powerfully, as if they were “the purest piece of luck.”

Did her practice of the Little Way as she succumbed to tuberculosis make Thérèse a saint?  According to Furlong, “at the time of her canonization Cardinal Vico described how, in the early days of the Catholic Church, people became saints by popular acclaim…  Several centuries had passed without a popular saint.” And yet, Thérèse became such a saint.  In her, ordinary people saw courage and strength.  From her, they drew encouragement to face the bad things in life.  They embraced her as their own.  Indeed, rare is the church in France without a statue of Saint Thérèse.

Often, the Little Way is not the best way.  The Little Way isn’t the best way for the Russians who are pouring into the streets to protest Vladimir Putin’s over-reach.  Many challenges are worth a good fight—like securing hot meals for underprivileged kids in public schools, or seeking refuge in a battered women shelter, or working to prevent contamination of the drinking water in your community, etc.  These are not scenarios that call for the Little Way.

But some scenarios come without options.  They have only one possible outcome.  A bad one.

May you never find yourself power-less.  If you do, the Little Way could return you to a sense of power-fulness.  You could decide to embrace the non-negotiables that life throws at you.  You could put yourself back in charge.

Resource:  Monica Furlong, Thérèse of Lisieux (Maryknoll, NY:  Orbis Books, 1987).

#46 Hikers on Pilgrim Routes: A Cautionary Tale

14 Wednesday Jul 2010

Posted by in God, Prayer, Spiritual Exercises, Spirituality, Theology

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No longer content to hike the Appalachian trail or climb Denali, devout secularists have turned their sights on pilgrim routes.  One such route is the Way of St. James which wends through rugged French terrain, up and over the Pyrenees, and across the desolate plains of Northern Spain until it reaches the city of Santiago, just short of the Atlantic coast that ancients believed to be the edge of the world.  The Way now attracts a great deal of attention not just from pilgrims but from such challenge-seekers.  Anxious to share the good news of this difficult, but achievable journey, some return home and write guides to assist their fellow non-pilgrims.  So what?  So this:  some of these writers, anxious to underscore their secular motivations, betray in their travelogues their distaste for religious piety.

Such is the viewpoint of Conrad Rudolph, Professor of Medieval Art at the University of California Riverside.  In Pilgrimage to the End of the World, his book about hiking the Way of St. James, he repeatedly reminds the reader that he is most definitely “not a believer in miracles or the otherworldly.”  The book’s very title serves as Rudolph’s first disclaimer.  A bona fide pilgrim undertakes the journey to reach the Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela because its Cathedral is reputed to house the remains of Jesus’ disciple, Saint James the Greater.  Rudolph, seemingly worried that he’ll be mistaken for a religious pilgrim, signals, in his title, that the real goal of his pilgrimage was not the purported relics of St. James but the Atlantic Ocean, the “End of the World,” which is three days further on foot.  No wonder then, that when Rudolph reaches Santiago, traditionally the “emotional high point” of the journey, he describes his arrival as “fun but not emotional.”

And so we have the novel phenomenon of pilgrimages undertaken by secularists, so embarrassed by the religious trappings of their journeys that they feel compelled to trumpet their lack of faith.

Rudolph defends his decision to hike The Way by explaining that he is merely following the ancient tradition of the “curious” onlooker.  According to him, even in Medieval times, “many were highly curious about the world around them.”  Apparently, this condition was so widespread that it was common for condemnations to be issued against those who made pilgrimages merely for reasons of “curiosity.”

Okay, point taken.  Except that Rudolph’s curiosity never extends to wondering what it might be (or have been) like for pilgrims to undertake the journey to Santiago out of faith.  Indeed, most pilgrims, are not “inveterate hikers” like Rudolph and so they, like their Medieval forebears, likely endure greater suffering as they negotiate rough terrain with heavy backpacks.  What motivates them to keep going day after day?  How does their faith sustain them when they are ailing, hurting and still weeks from reaching their goal?  If Rudolph asked these questions of pilgrims he met along the way, he does not share the answers in his book.

The Way of St. James was especially popular during the Middle Ages.  It attracted many pilgrims from France but pilgrims also set out from Germany, Poland, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, the eastern Austrian domains, and Slovakia.  Before they could officially begin their treks, they first had to reach the town of Le Puy in France’s Massif Central.  Then, braving bandits, persistent hunger, unpredictable weather, and ankle-busting paths, they set off to walk the thousand miles to Santiago.  There’s every reason to suspect that the roundtrip journey would have lasted six months since Medieval pilgrims covered, on average, about 15 miles a day.  While they belonged to all social classes, most pilgrims were penniless agrarians, serfs who set out for Santiago after becoming too broken down to provide useful labor to their masters or freeholders who “were better off in theory only.”  Although poverty-stricken and often in ill health, tens of thousands set off on pilgrimage every year.

Why did these Medieval serfs and freeholders choose to undertake this journey?  According to William Melczer, a Medieval scholar, they had many reasons.  Pious love for St. James was the most common.  Some went simply to pray.  Others wanted forgiveness for a laundry-list of minor transgressions.  Many used the journey as penance to atone for particularly soul-searing sins.  Still others made their way to plead for better health and relief from pain.  Their spirits were open to God and they had faith.  How often they must have prayed, especially when they looked at the path ahead, knowing full well that having overcome one challenge, they would reach another.  They rarely had enough food, often they had only pathetic shelter.  Somehow, though, every morning, they found fresh courage and set off anew in spite of the hardships they had already endured and in spite of the hardships that awaited them.

Interestingly, theologians have discouraged pilgrimages.  Church Doctors like Augustine railed against them.  In his opinion they were “pointless” because the holy cannot “be localized in any given place.”  And since the holy is everywhere, it follows that the holy is not found in extra measure in places where sacred relics are housed.  No matter.  For hundreds of years, pilgrims have ignored these theological directives.  They know that when life follows its regular rhythms, the holy, though everywhere present, is easy to ignore.  So they walk to be with God.  During a thousand miles of contemplation, the holy is close—as close as one’s breath.

Why did Rudolph undertake this journey?  He’s quite unclear on that score, fuzzy even.  He writes about wandering through the early dawn light along a mountain ridge in northwestern Spain where the wind rustled the grass, the sun sparkled, and sheep bells sounded faintly from far off vales.  His language is evocative and lovely, his prose pleasant.  From time to time, he invokes the language of magic, saying “it was almost as if a spell had been cast.”  Perhaps afraid of venturing into intellectually indefensible territory, he changes his mind and rejects magic, writing that, after all, “experiences like these can happen anywhere.”  And then, he recants, explaining that, unlike walking Appalachian trail or hiking Denali, there is a special pay-off to pilgrimages because these experiences “don’t often happen with either the regularity or the strength that they did on the pilgrimage, where every day is an adventure…”  Hmmm, not sure most hikers would agree.

In the end, Rudolph shifts gears again.  It is not the “almost-magic” quality of his experiences, he decides, but the people he meets who made the journey a special event.  The people are, he recalls, “almost consistently as interested in what you’re doing as you are yourself.”

Oh oh.   Wait a minute here.  There’s just a little problem.

People were consistently interested in what Rudolph was doing because they assumed that he was travelling to Santiago out of deeply-felt, religious convictions.  Although a hiker, he decided to wear a clamshell tied to a cord around his neck.  The clamshell is the symbol of St. James.  By wearing it, Rudolph styled himself as a pilgrim.  It placed him, he admits, in a “special group…worthy of immediate public informality, warmth, and help, no questions asked.”  He recounts how, in a small mountain village, two old women “bless” him when they learn he is a pilgrim.  Even more notable, he says, are those who ask him “to pray for them; one horribly desperate man clearly needing it, or something, very badly.”

For unfathomable reasons, Rudolph accepts those prayer requests.  Sort of.  After he arrives in Santiago and enters St. James Cathedral, he explains (with a clear conscience) that, “no,” he didn’t pray for the “horribly desperate man.”  Nor did he pray “for any of the others who had asked [him] along the way to pray for them.”  It is enough, he decides, to “think about them” as he stands in the transept.  How lame is that?  Would the “horribly desperate man” agree with him or would he hope that even a hiker like Rudolph would, upon reaching the Cathedral at the end of the road, drop his pride, bend his knees, and pray?

These, then, are some of the quandaries you will face if you are a devoutly-secular hiker interested in hiking the Way of St. James or some other pilgrimage route.  Why choose this option instead of a hike through one of America’s or Europe’s fine national parks?  Will you wear the pilgrim’s badge?  Will you accept the kindness of strangers even when you realize they offer it because they mistake you for a pilgrim?  Will you accept prayer requests?  Will you honor those requests?  How?

Whatever you decide, you will be just as welcome on the pilgrim routes as you would have been in Medieval times.  To close, here are some verses from “La Pretiosa,” a 12th Century hymn about a hospice for pilgrims on the road to Santiago.  Other stanzas describe how monks would wash the feet, cut the hair, and trim the beards of male pilgrims—services you are, sad to say, unlikely to find today.

Its doors open to the sick and well,

to Catholics as well as to pagans,

Jews, heretics, beggars, and the indigent,

and it embraces all like brothers.

Resources:  David Gitlitz and Linda Kay Davidson, The Pilgrimage Road to Santiago:  The Complete Cultural Handbook (New York:  St. Martin’s Griffin, 2000); William Melczer, The Pilgrim’s Guide to Santiago de Compostela (New York:  Italica Press, 1993); Conrad Rudolph, The Pilgrimage to the End of the World:  The Road to Santiago de Compostela (Chicago:  The University of Chicago Press, 2004).

#42 Inviting Jesus to his Birthday bash

17 Thursday Dec 2009

Posted by in Religion, Spiritual Exercises, Spirituality

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Are you satisfied with a purely secular approach to the Christmas season?  If not, you might consider spending some time reading the New Testament gospels and reflecting on the life and teachings of Jesus that they depict.

Skeptics will resist this suggestion but could soften their stance when they learn that respected thinkers like Thomas Jefferson and Martin Buber (yes, the 20th Century Jewish philosopher!) would have nodded their assent.  Both considered the gospels to be sources of immense wisdom.  They had no illusion about the human authorship of the Bible; this did not prevent them from engaging it energetically and with seriousness of purpose.  In so doing, they testify to its importance.  Both adopted unique approaches to Scripture; their approaches offer helpful examples of how we too might to read it.

Although he didn’t consider Jesus to be divine, Thomas Jefferson was inspired by the Biblical Jesus’ message—albeit in its distinctly human dimension.  New Testament verses concerning morality and sin met with Jefferson’s approval but the miracles and Jesus’ resurrection struck him as implausible.  Jefferson decided to extract the passages reflecting his ideas about Jesus from the four Gospels to create a single, unified gospel.  Over a period of several years, he selected passages from six different (hardcopy) Bibles, cut them out (with scissors—yup, the old, old-fashioned way), and pasted them together (with glue) to create his own, integrated gospel.  His Bible selection included excerpts from the King James Bible, a Greek Bible, one in Latin, and two more in French.  He entitled his cut-and-paste Bible:  The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth.

What follows is the narrative of Jesus’ birth from Jefferson’s Bible.  Because this account only appears in the gospel of Luke, Jefferson relied on uniquely on Luke to redact his version of the nativity:

And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.  Lk 2:1

(And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.)  Lk 2:2

And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. Lk 2:3

And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem (because he was of the house and lineage of David.)  Lk 2:4

To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.  Lk 2:5

And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.  Lk 2:6

And she brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them at the inn.  Lk 2:7

And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called JESUS,  Lk 2:21

And when they had performed all things according to the Law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own city Nazareth.  Lk 2:39

Although this passage doesn’t include the moral teachings so important to Jefferson, it does show that he had no qualms about altering sacred Scripture to make it his own–including the story of Jesus’ birth.

Given when and where he lived, it isn’t surprising that Jefferson considered Jesus, the man, a source of inspiration.  However, it is surprising that Martin Buber, best known for his book of Jewish theology, I and Thou, considered Jesus his great brother.  Buber found much significance in Jesus’ suffering, his self-doubt and his death.  Indeed, Buber wrote:

“From my youth onwards, I have found in Jesus my great brother.  That Christianity has regarded and does regard him as God and Saviour has always appeared to me a fact of the highest importance which for his sake and my own, I must endeavor to understand…  my own fraternally open relationship with him has grown ever stronger and clearer…  For nearly 50 years, the New Testament has been a main concern in my studies.”

In Jesus, Buber found a great son of Israel.  He found the genuine Jewish principle manifest in Jesus’ teachings.  He also felt a strong kinship to the Jesus depicted in the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke—that is to say, a strong kinship for the plain and embodied man grappling with concrete situations.

For Buber, it was this Jesus, the one who, struggling in the depth of the actual moment, found eternity.  He had the highest regard for the man who lacked certainty about his nature, who experienced shocks to this certainty, and whose last question was ‘Why’?

If Buber had less affinity for the version of Jesus depicted in the gospel of John, this was because John’s Jesus entered the spiritual realm where he was no longer open to attacks of self-questioning.

Buber ascribed enormous importance to passages like the following one from the Sermon on the Mount (in the gospel of Matthew): “Love your enemies and pray for your persecutors SO THAT you may become the children of your Father in heaven.” Based on his research, Buber held that until Jesus spoke those words, nowhere else had love for others been described as the path to becoming a child of God.

In Buber’s view, Jesus’ statement rose out of Israel’s faith, it implied it, and yet at the same time, supplemented it.  It opened the door to all those who really love.  Buber celebrated Jesus as the religious leader who challenged human beings, for the first time in our history, to Love our enemies and pray for our persecutors so that we might become what we were meant to be, brothers and sisters to one another.

Should you, like Buber or Jefferson, decide to revisit the Bible during this season of Advent then, like them, you will want to acknowledge the ugly parts of the gospels, or of any other Biblical book for that matter, if that’s what those passages deserve.  Neither Buber nor Jefferson approached Scripture with naive reverence.  They relied on their analytic and critical skills to winnow “the grain from the chaff.”

Jefferson explained his approach in a letter he wrote to William Short, a Unitarian with whom he corresponded about religious matters during the years he worked to create his personal Gospel.  In one of those letters, he said:

“We find in the writings of [Jesus’] biographers matter of two distinct descriptions.  First, a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstitions, fanaticisms and fabrications.  Intermixed with these, again, are sublime ideas of the Supreme Being, aphorisms, and precepts of the purest morality and benevolence, sanctioned by a life of humility, innocence, and simplicity of manners, neglect of riches, absence of worldly ambition and honors, with an eloquence and persuasiveness which have not been surpassed.”

If you (re)visit the gospels, why not start with the gospel of Luke?  Not only does this gospel contain the story at the core of this season’s Christmas celebration, but it is prized for its literary elegance, its great interest in the poor, the “lost,” women, Jews, Samaritans, and Gentiles.  Luke’s book has received much praise for what has been called his universalism based on his willingness to be inclusive of a variety of interests and audiences.  Some have even speculated a woman wrote this gospel.

Who knows, after reading Luke’s account, you, like Jefferson and Buber, might discover beauty and truth in the Biblical story of Jesus.  You might even, in this busy and often spirit-draining time of Advent, find a meaning in Jesus’ birth that’s all your own, enabling you to invite him to the bash you’re throwing in his name.  On some level this holiday is universal–there’s something in it for everyone–Jews, Muslims, Mormons, Buddhists, Christians and atheists.

So go ahead, pick up a Bible and find the gospels.  Read a passage.  Or two.  What is there to lose–except the sinking feeling that Christmas is little more than an opportunity for gift-giving and sweets-eating?

References:  Thomas Jefferson, The Jefferson Bible:  The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth (Boston:  Beacon Press, 1989); Martin Buber, Two Types of Faith, trans. Norman P. Goldhawk (London:  Routledge & Kegan, 1951).

#37 This little light of mine

20 Tuesday Oct 2009

Posted by in Religion, Spirituality

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5th August 1858: Beacon Hill, Boston, the site of the oldest surviving Black Church and a centre of the abolitionist movement. (Photo by MPI/Getty Images)

5th August 1858: Beacon Hill, Boston, the site of the oldest surviving Black Church and a centre of the abolitionist movement. (Photo by MPI/Getty Images)

Did some African American slaves prefer suicide, even if they were afraid of dying?  How many chose to end their lives?  How many regretted not having the means to do so? Suicide requires courage, but requires less courage than submitting to torture. Death is not always the worst outcome, what’s worst is suffering that goes on and on, horror without pause. Whereas hope is a leap of faith, courage is an act of will. It is willful courage that is required to face torments one cannot change or escape.

Yet, in spite of the brutality and dehumanization of slavery, African Americans developed a strong tradition of song, often inspired by their religion.

There is no greater testament to the tenacity of the human spirit than the songs of slaves.  We, regardless of our heritage, have much to learn from the ways they dug deep within to discover, beyond their physical and mental suffering, embers of joy and loving-kindness, embers they, with willful courage, turned into light.

Matthew 5:15-16  (Part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount):

15  No one lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house.
16  In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that you may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

This Little Light of Mine (African American spiritual, circa 1750-1875):

This little light of mine
I’m gonna let it shine.
This little light of mine,
I’m gonna let it shine.
This little light of mine,
I’m gonna let it shine.  Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

Ev’ry-where I go,
I’m gonna let it shine.
Ev’ry-where I go,
I’m gonna let it shine.
Ev’ry-where I go,
I’m gonna let it shine.  Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

Building up a world,
I’m gonna let it shine.
Building up a world,
I’m gonna let it shine.
Building up a world,
I’m gonna let it shine.  Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

References:  “This Little Light of Mine,” Hymn #118 in Singing the Living Tradition (Boston:  Beacon Press, 1993); Between the Lines:  Sources for Singing the Living Tradition, edited by Jacqui James, 2nd ed. (Boston:  Skinner House Books, 1995).

#25 Spiritual (But Not Religious)

08 Monday Jun 2009

Posted by in God, Religion, Religious Philosophy, Spirituality, Theology

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dreamstime_9033984Have you ever noticed how some opinions say more about the opiniators themselves than the thing they’re opiniating about?  God would be one such example.  The opinions people have about God often say more about who they are than they do about who God is.  But, uncharacteristically, God is not the topic of this post. 

“Spiritual but not religious” is the topic at hand.  And according to the work of Heinz Streib, a psychologist of religion at the University of Bielefeld in Germany, the ever-more popular phrase, “spiritual but not religious,” mostly reflects ambivalence about organized religion.  

Surprising?  Maybe not.  If you’ve paid attention, folks out there who label themselves “spiritual but not religious” usually add a wave of the hand and a shake of the head to indicate their disapproval of religion in-general and their level-headed decision to embrace ‘spirituality’ instead.

While spiritual and religious are different words, the difference may end there.  At least, that’s what was revealed by a recent study conducted by another psychologist of religion, Peter Hill (as reported by Streib).  Participants in the study identified themselves as either religious or as spiritual but both groups ended up with equivalent scores on a test for ‘religiosity.’  In essence, then, the test-subjects who considered themselves ‘spiritual but not religious’ actually qualified as ‘religious.’  Yikes.  Probably not something the ‘spiritual’ types wanted to hear.

But spirituality and religiosity both refer to the feelings, thoughts, and experiences that arise during one’s search for the sacred.  In fact, Streib ended up wondering whether it makes any sense for scholars of religion to spend time studying spirituality in addition to religion.  Better, he concluded, to stick with the single category of ‘religious.’

Too bad, really, that members of organized religions, including non-doctrinal ones like Unitarian Universalism, call themselves ‘spiritual not religious.’  They’re members of organized religions after all; but, instead of claiming, with pride, their chosen faith, they use a label that underscores their ambivalence toward any religion, including their own.  

Sure, they may have trouble putting down the burden (bad memories, anger at clergy, rejected teachings) of their previous religion(s).  But, who knows, reclaiming the word ‘religious’ might just indicate a healthy level of healing.  It would announce that they’ve moved on.  As for those who have always been unchurched, the willingness to call themselves ‘religious,’ in this most pluralistic of times, would announce a desirable respect for religion (with a capital R).

So, “spiritual but not religious” people of the world, here’s a challenge.  Try calling yourselves ‘religious’ for a couple of weeks.  No handwaving or headshaking please.  See how it feels.  You might just discover the label fits after all.

#21 Love like the whip used to start a top

05 Tuesday May 2009

Posted by in God, Prayer, Spiritual Exercises, Spirituality, Theology

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dreamstime_3200609Those who turn over part of their day to spiritual exercises know that a process like the four-step lectio divina process takes dedication and practice.  Without a doubt, the more transcendent the God, the harder it is to reach that God.  Because smart readers want to know, and there were smart readers during the late medieval ages (the golden age of mysticism), a whole host of spiritual ‘how-to’ guides were written and circulated.  Their purpose?  Not much different from today’s–to offer helpful tips to monastics and devout lay-people trying to make a connection with an invisible, unknowable God through ascetic devotions. 

One such manual was written by a Spaniard called Francisco de Osuna in the early 1500’s.  A Franciscan monk whose life was dedicated to prayer, he not only meditated on the passion of Christ but he also practiced what he called ‘recollection.’  This term doesn’t mean ‘to remember,’ but rather to collect one’s self again and again—the way we use the word when we say something like:  “she’s always so calm and collected!”  For Osuna, becoming spiritually ‘collected’ was best achieved through a process of prayer designed to go deeper into one’s self rather than designed to turn outward to ‘mere word and reading’ (a dig at lectio divina?).  Perfect recollection “is a moderation and serenity of the soul that is as quiet as if becalmed and purified and disciplined in harmony within.”  Osuna wanted nothing less than to achieve a state of nearly-permanent recollection, or of alertness and receptivity to God.

Osuna’s recollection demands both mental concentration and active directing of the mind, but the pay-off of such hard work (so he claimed) is making friendship and communion with God possible—a friendship he described as “more sure and more intimate than ever existed between brothers or even between mother and child.”   

He wrote several books but the Third Spiritual Alphabet is the ‘how-to’ guide for recollection.  A ‘spiritual alphabet’ will strike some as strange.  Osuna decided to organize his maxims and treatises according to the letters (and the Spanish tilde) of the alphabet as an act of humility.  In his words, “We must become as little children, learning our ABC’s of spirituality.” 

Osuna’s alphabet proceeds logically, describing the process one follows as one ascends from the lower stages of recollection to the higher.  One is to move through the three major forms of prayer, from lowest to highest:

  1. vocal prayer (active)
  2. prayer of the heart (active)
  3. mental or spiritual prayer (passive)

Realizing that distractions and run-away thoughts can plague even the most experienced re-collector, Osuna recommends disciplining the soul gently and lovingly.  The exercise of recollection, he says, ‘is not achieved by force but by skill’ and ‘nothing is more skillful than love, which should be like the whip used to start a top so it will spin again and always turn without falling over.”

Osuna also warned that, especially at first, we must be ready to dedicate lots of time and effort (he recommended 2 hours per day!) to practicing spiritual prayer.  If we persevered, he promised that the day would come when we would realize that the highest stage, spiritual prayer, “is most certainly worth more than an entire year in vocal prayer.” 

Recollection requires that we learn to calm and quiet the understanding.  Since God (or at least the God recollection is designed to reach) is beyond the capacity of ordinary thought to comprehend, we cannot approach God via ordinary thought.  Instead, we must achieve the nearly-impossible feat (especially for the novice) of directing all of our spiritual attention to God.  If we pull this off, then “In the darkness of unknowing the soul feels reassured by the light of spiritual consolations, when it feels the stirring of joy in the soul as a result.”

To critics of spiritual consolations or to those who practice them for no other reason than to tap into the happiness-center of the brain (the left frontal cortex), Osuna would have countered:  as “long as we do not desire them for our own sake but for the sake of loving God, then they are entirely appropriate.”

So, if you’re one of those lucky people with a couple of hours a day to spare, then by all means, try Osuna-style recollection. Whether your God is utterly transcendent or not, no one ever promised exercise would be easy, not even the spiritual kind.

Reference:  Francisco de Osuna, The Third Spiritual Alphabet, trans. by Mary Giles (New York:  Paulist Press, 1981), 7, 22-23, 386-7.