A History Lesson for Christians

         It was just eighty-eight years ago that Adolph Hitler  was named Chancellor of Germany and the Reichstag  adopted the Enabling Act of 1933 giving him expanded authority, as “Fuerer” - leader of the “Fatherland.” It also enabled the Nazi party to rise to near absolute authority, carryout brutal ethnic cleansing in the nation & launch Germany into the Second World War.
       Hitler’s considerable oratory skills, passion and tendency to bully his opponents led to his rise in recognition and power in the Workers Socialist Party known as the Nazis.
       The German nation had been slowly emerging from its defeat and devastation following the First World War without assistance from the victorious Western Powers including the USA. The German economy was failing and unemployment was widespread.
       Still, the German people had always seen themselves as the leader in world culture; -in language, music, art, literature and religion. Hitler promised to lead the German nation to be great again – “Deutschland Uber Alles.”. 
       What American’Christians need to be aware of is the support that the German evangelical Christian church gave to the rise of German nationalism under Hitler. The German evangelical (Pietist) Church – heir to Martin Luther’s  Protestant Reformation – with it’s own evangelical zeal, was giving full sanction to this super-nationalist political effort of Hitler & the Nazis. And it was turning a blind eye to the resulting disregard for truth-telling and the human rights atrocities that would ensue.
       During this period, a group of more thoughtful & progressive Christians broke from the national German evangelical church to form the ”Confessing Church” of Germany, which opposed the racism and ultra nationalism of the Nazis. Most well known among its leaders was Dietrich Bonhoeffer, later executed by the Nazis.
       Christians have always been involved in politics since the days of our Lord Jesus Christ, who was murdered by the state for treason. The question facing Christians today, as always, is what kind of political leaders do we want to grant social, economic and military power over us? And can we remain vigilant and raise a prophetic voice when Christian & Human values, such as truth-telling, genuine care for the poor, humility, and human & political rights for all, are trampled in the name of power & “Greatness?”  

Unfair, Unjust & Deceptive

            Earlier this Spring, the Trump Administration, under the leadership of the President’s Son-in –Law Jered Kushner, released its comprehensive “Peace Plan” for Israel/Palestine. However, the United Nations not the United States, is the international body that legally partitioned the Land of Palestine  & determined the original parameters of the two potential states -“Israel” &” Palestine.” The United States, despite its clear bias in favor of the Israelis, - providing more than eight million dollars a day  (3 Billion $  a year)  to Israel in “foreign aid” and recently cutting its  much smaller support for the Palestinian government,  has  pushed the UN aside and taken over the role of the U.N. as the  sole “peace . broker” between these two peoples. Clearly, the US. favoritism of Israel  has made it a highly prejudiced and unfair “peace broker”: between these two peoples. 

            The recent Trump Administration’s “Peace Plan” has been totally rejected by the Palestinian government and is widely regarded by the international community as “unfair and unjust.”

            This in not surprising since the current US Administration has ignored & violated nearly all previously negotiated peace agreements between Israel and Palestine including the Oslo Accords, signed on the US White House lawn under President Clinton in 1993 which created a temporary peace agreement that was to evolve into a “Two State” solution giving the Palestinians nearly all of the “West Bank” territory.

    The Trump “Peace Plan” gives nearly all of the Jordan Valley – the largest part of the Palestinian West Bank – to the state of Israel plus all of the city of Jerusalem which was to be divided between the two states - East Jerusalem & West Jerusalem.  In addition, all of the currently illegal exclusively Jewish “Settlement Cities” in the Palestinian  West Bank are to be annexed to the state of Israel.

            In short,  the Trump “Peace Plan” has been declared in a report from the  Holy Land Christian Foundation,  “unfair, unjust and deceptive. “

Point of View & Viewing Point

            Some years ago a friend introduced me to a little book entitled “Mister God, This is Anna.” It is supposedly a true story of a little orphan girl found abandoned in the dock area of a British city and adopted by a dock worker.  Little Anna in her youthful innocence turns out to have a brilliant insight into the ways of God and “man.”

            She recognizes the distinction between a person’s opinion or “point of view,” and the place or “viewing point” from which that opinion comes.

“Mister God” says Anna, knows both our point of view and our viewing point and is continually trying to get us humans to understand the difference and to continually reexamine our “‘point of view” (opinion)  in the light of our “viewing points.’ (prejudices).

            Since then, I have been continually instructed by Anna in my own life to reexamine my opinions {point of view}  & my prejudices (viewing points) from which they come.  I have also noticed how difficult it is to remain alert to this task in the midst of a deeply divided & polarized society.

            This “election year” we are all asked to express our “point of view” in the midst of highly polarized and politically entrenched  “viewing points.”.  Who will we chose to hold the reins of governing powers in our national, state and local governments? 

            This is precisely where our religion and our politics should legitimately mix, with our religious values guiding our political discrimination & choices.   If Jesus is truly the Lord of our lives and consciences then our Christian guidelines are found in Jesus’s values of integrity, truth-telling, compassion, justice, humility, faithfulness, and above all love   

            It is often difficult to do the work of honestly re-examining our points of view and our viewing points. Yet, perhaps in no other area of our lives is God’s call to this task more significant for the future of our society, for the lives of our children and our children’s children for  generations to come; and currently, for the work of bringing the Reign (Kingdom) of God on earth as it is in heaven.

Changing Heaven into Hell?

         In Biblical imagery, all reality is arranged as a “three decker universe.” Heaven is up above the clouds & stars where God and his angels live in eternal peace, harmony & joy.  Hell is a place of fire and torment where Satan & his devils live, far below the surface of God’s creation which is a flat earth surrounded by an endless sea.  On this flat earth the Bible describes different tribes of people struggling with each other for power & control of a sustainable piece on this limited earth.
         That picture of the universe has completely  changed in our modern scientific view except that the struggle of different tribal nations for power and control of earth’s global territory & resources continues. As we all know, terrible wars bringing death to thousands, continue to be fought today in spite of our knowledge of the need for unity & peace on this fragile planet.
         Our own nation has shown itself willing to spend the bulk of its resources on an “arms race” to maintain its dominance in spite of known environmental threats that would bring global tragedy of almost unimaginable levels.
         And now, seemingly blind to this fate of our own creation, our nation has recently broken another international agreement – the landmark “Outer Space Treaty of 1967” which was put together by the US and the then Soviet Union and endorsed by nearly every nation.  This international treaty was designed to preserve outer space as a cooperative realm of peace. Up until last year, every signatory to this treaty has  followed and even worked for its fulfillment – except the U.S.   The current Administration  is establishing a “Space Force” that is intended to militarize outer space with high technological weapons. Why?  Because we think we need to keep ahead of the Russians or the Chinese, or Iran.  So in our fear driven quest for power and control, we could change the Biblical notion of  a peaceful, joy filed Heaven into a very real technological, fiery Hell.  
         Most thoughtful people and especially Christians are made aware by their faith and hope and love that greater security cannot be achieved by increased militarization, but rather through intelligent  & creative work toward peace and mutual security  for all people & all nations. Just as we work to keep our marriages, our families our neighborhoods and diverse communities places and relationships of creative harmony  & mutual flourishing, why are we unable to do so as nations?
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be known as the children of God.” (Matt 5:  9)
 
         For more information  on the “Space Force” Google Space News & the book, Weapons in Space, Karl Grossman, State University of New York.

Two Step Justice

            “I can’t breath,”  “Black Lives Matter,” “Defund the Police.”  These brief slogans emerging in the protest movement across America express sharply, if inadequately, the Christian, biblical and ethical call for social justice.

            The current national and worldwide uprising with all of its imperfections, can be understood by Christians as God’s call for human justice and righteousness in the way we seek “law and order” in our human society.

            In the biblical story of Jesus‘s encounter with the “rich young ruler” seeking “eternal life,” Jesus, recognizing his true piety and sincerity, called him to (1) throw off the chains of avarice and greed that had guided his life of “success” and to (2) follow the way of empathy, compassion, truth & justice – Jesus way.

            Achieving a “just world” requires individual persons who are willing to give up their social and economic privileges and also willing to work together  as necessary, to achieve justice for others who have been less privileged, just as Jesus had compassion on the poor and “down-trodden” and gave his life for them.

            Following Jesus means: (1) waking up to the corrupting influence of power and wealth; and (2) banding together to achieve equal opportunity and justice for all of God’s people.

            This is “two step justice:” giving up the personal privilege of “Whiteness” and working  - taking action- for those, especially people of color, denied access to justice and equal opportunity.

            

On Religion

         The British writer D.H. Lawrence wrote these lines using traditional religious language, which he entitled “On Being Religious.”

         “The Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is within you. And it is Ghost, forever a Ghost, never a Way or a Word. Jesus is a Way and a Word. God is the God. But the Holy Ghost is forever Ghostly, unrealizable. And against this unsubstantial unreality, you may never sin, or woe betide you.  Only the Holy Ghost within you can scent the new tracks of the great God across the Cosmos of Creation.  The Holy Ghost is the dark Hound of Heaven  whose baying we ought to listen to, as he runs ahead into the unknown, tracking the mysterious everlasting departing of the Lord God, who is forever departing from us.  We’ve got to find our way to God.  From time to time MAN wakes up and realizes that the Lord Almighty has made a great removal, and passed over the known horizon. Then starts the frenzy, the howling, the despair. Much better listen to the dark hound of heaven and start off into the dark of the unknown, in search.”

     Lawrence uses traditional religious metaphorical language to describe the religious or spiritual experience of the human mind and soul. We can never understand or comprehend the reality of God by our intellect.   Many philosophers of science agree that ultimate reality (God) is forever beyond human understanding. But never-the-less, there is Something – a sensing of purpose or meaning - that haunts the attentive human mind and soul, calling us to attend and pursue.

         For attentive Christians haunted by this spiritual or Ghostly call, the Way, the path that we are called to follow, is the way of the man from Nazareth . Heeding this prompting and following Jesus Way is what our religion is intended to help us do. 

         So religion is instrumental, a tool, and like all tools is in need of constant maintenance and improvement. We should never mistake our religious ritual for the inner spiritual or Ghostly call or the living Way of Jesus our Lord..  If our religious practice does not enhance and help us “tune-up” our attention to the “Ghostly “ summons and sharpen our eye & mind  to discovering the Way,  there may be something amiss with us or our religion.

Poetry & Life

 

“He never knew what was wrong with him

Until one night

He chopped up his bed for firewood

It was more comfortable that way

 

And then another night a year later

It came roaring up the street at him

As a sunset”

 

            - Witter Bynner

 

 

            What sort of nonsense is this? Funny perhaps, but surely nonsense & without meaning. This might be our first impression.  However, I’d like to offer another more serious interpretation: A symbolic insight into our human condition.

            As complex human beings we are both part of nature - evolved biological creatures with enlarged brains – but also part of the deeper spiritual reality – connected to God via our souls. As such we have both a conscious, sensual awareness of the time-bound material world around us and also an inner conscience & spirit  that relates us to the eternal world of God.

            Like the person in the poem, at times we never know what is wrong with us. Some of us are in a constant state of anxiety, “troubled” with our life and life in general. We are conditioned by the demands and standards of the world  - be rich, be successful, be beautiful, be recognized, be smart, be famous. These cultural standards continually pull and push us out of our true calling, our true Self, created by God and for God.  So, like the person in the poem, we  “never know what is wrong” with ourselves.

            However, at a deep unseen level, our conscience - our soul – keeps calling to us in our dreams, night dreams or day dreams. And this inner disturbance may drive us, like the person in the poem, to “chop up our beds” - our place of dreams – for firewood in order  to relieve & rid ourselves of our troubled conscience.  It is “more comfortable that way.”

            Some of us do this physically.  We leave the church & religion & all things that remind us of values and morality, of truth-telling, compassion , honor, justice, and other constraints on our drive for “success.” Others do it privately, secretly pretending to be persons of honor and integrity but driven by weakness or ambition. 

 

            But sometime later, perhaps in another night of dreams - near “sunset” - it comes “roaring up the street” at us.  Of course, “at sunset” suggests that we have wasted our lives, our time, our energy, our talent, being “comfortable,” free of a troubled conscience,  because we cut ourselves off from our own soul – the “bed” we have “chopped up” -  the deeper eternal reality of our lives. 

            The poem is a call to wake up – to begin to understand what  “is wrong with us” and to let the sometimes uncomfortable voice of God in our hearts call us to a truer, deeper more integrated, faith-filled life of service in and to the Kingdom of God both within and around us.  May this poem be for all of us both a humorous but serious wake-up call to live more courageously even if less comfortably..

The Religious Quest

         For many years I had followed the traditional orthodox Christian teaching and model of the religious quest by believing that Jesus was the unique “Son of God” and expecting God to accept me into “heaven” after my death if I maintained that belief. Nothing else really mattered, I was taught, since God would forgive my sins because  “salvation” from this temporal earthly life into eternal heaven depended entirely on my faithful belief in Jesus as the one & only savior of the world.

         Over the years, however, I have come to see that such a religious quest is shallow, self-centered and even anti-biblical. It has been based on church teachings hardened into “creeds” and propagated over the centuries by church leadership for dubious self-serving motives. 

         Jesus, I now believe, was a “god-saturated,” deeply sensitive, highly intelligent human being who realized, at an epic changing time in human history, that the divine calling was for all humans to awaken to their own souls  attachment to God. and to  give themselves to the task of becoming  fully human beings each with a unique divine calling, & using all the intelligence and gifts with which they are endowed to do so.
         Becoming fully human, of course, is the task of a lifetime and is hindered by our tendency to  self-centeredness which we call” sin..”
         Yet, a “heaven on earth” is possible if all humans were to realize and accept their connection to God and their divine calling or “vocation;”  hence the phrase in “the “Lord’s Prayer,” – “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” This is our life’s task, which includes loving others as we love ourselves, i..e maintaining a deep respect for the divine potential in every other person.
         Karen Armstrong , religious scholar and former Catholic Nun, put it this way in her autobiography: 
         “The idea (of the religious quest) is not to latch onto some superhuman personality or to ‘get to heaven’ but to discover how to be fully human …”(1)
         This humanizing  task can be very difficult and even discouraging at times as it was for Jesus who is described as praying “in agony” in the Garden of Gethsemane for strength and courage to face the consequences of his life‘s vocation of compassionate teaching and healing, and speaking truth to power.  
         The challenge to be fully human in our time is no less difficult, nor as followers of Jesus should we expect it to be.  We are all God’s children, called, as C.S. Lewis put it so well: “to be little Christs,” (2) or as the prominent 20^thCentury theologian Paul Tillich has suggested: God calls us to have “The Courage to Be.” fully human.(3) This is the “Religious Quest;” the pathway of faith, as I now understand it. 

(1)      The Spiral Staircase. 1978
(2)      Beyond Personality, 1945    

(3)      The Courage To Be, 1952

God in the 21st. Century - Part 1

         In ancient times, our ancestors believed that there were many Gods and each community or tribal group adopted their own set of Gods which were often understood to be in competition with each other just as individual humans were competing over the necessities of life

         Then, around 2,500 BCE, an epic breakthrough came in this pattern of religious belief and practice when one tribe in the area of the world we call the Middle East - the Hebrew tribe -  decided that there was just one God – their God – and He was superior over the “false gods” of other tribes.  

         The stories and history of this Hebrew tribe are written in what we now call the Old Testament. Their God, to whom they gave the name YHWH – “Jehovah” - or “Adonai,” was described as omnipotent – all powerful- and omniscient- all knowing. He created the world and all things In it.  He selected certain people as leaders and gave them moral laws to live by. Otherwise he was as capricious as any human being, displaying jealousy, favoritism, and requiring praise, adoration and sacrifice from His “chosen people.”

         A second epic breakthrough came from this tribal tradition around 25 C.E. when a man named Jushua  or Jesus,  began to teach that their God was not a tribal God but a universal God; a God of all and for all people; a God characterized by love, compassion and mercy. 

         Jesus’s teaching and action was such a radical re-interpretation of the God of his Hebrew tribe that the religious leaders saw him a treat to their own religious authority. So they accused him of political treason  and managed to get the political powers to arrest, try and execute him 

         A small group of his followers began to spread his radical message of the God of love, compassion and forgiveness which “caught on” and launched a movement that became known as Christianity. A number of writers told different versions of the story of Jesus life and teachings, some of which are included in our New Testament. The N.T.  was “Canonized”or made official,-by a group of church leaders in 325 CE  at a council called together by the Roman Emperor Constantine.  This Council voted to include some earlier writings about the life and teachings of Jesus & his followers, but exclude others

         Over time, the Christian religious tradition became hardened into creeds – statements of  belief -  which codify the “doctrines”  taught and enforced by the institutions of both church and state.  

         But other religious continued to exist in the human world and others were added creating competition and even wars between national religions, some of the worst in which Christianity has been involved are known as the “Crusades” and the “Hundred Years War”

                           (To be continued)

Power, Politics and Propaganda

         In Jesus day in the early part of the first century CE, the political power was in the hands of the Roman emperors Augustus & Tiburius Caersar. If you throw into the equation his modest lifestyle, affability  and approachability, his routine consultation of the senate, and genuinely impressive work ethic, and we have in Augustus one of the greatest and most skillfully manipulative politicians of any nation in any age.
 
In his later years, Augustus withdrew more and more from the public eye, although he continued to transact public business. He was getting older, and old age in ancient times must have been considerably more debilitating than it is today. In any case, Tiberius had been installed as his successor and, by AD 13, was virtually emperor already. In 4 AD.  He had received grants of both proconsular and tribunician power, which had been renewed as a matter of course whenever they needed to be. 

 In AD 13, Tiberius's imperium had beem made co-extensive with that of Augustus. While traveling in Campania, Augustus died peacefully at Nola on August 19 AD 14. Tiberius, who was en route to Illyricum, hurried to the scene and, depending on the source, arrived too late or spent a day in consultation with the dying princeps.. Whatever the case about these details, Imperator Caesar Augustus, Son of a God, Father of his Country, the man who had ruled the Roman world alone for almost 45 years, or over half a century, was dead. He was accorded a magnificent funeral, buried in the mausoleum he had built in Rome, and entered the Roman pantheon as Divus Augustus. In his will, he left 1,000 sesterces apiece to the men of the Praetorian guard, 500 to the urban cohorts, and 300 to each of the legionaries. In death, as in life, Augustus acknowledged the true source of his power.

An inscription entitled "The Achievements of the Divine Augustus"  remains a remarkable piece of evidence deriving from Augustus's reign. 

A Lenten Prayer

 

If I have wounded any soul today

If I have caused one foot to go astray

If I have walked in my own willful way

Dear Lord, forgive

 

If I have been perverse or hard or cold

If I have kept some lost one from the fold

When thou have given me some fort to hold

Dear Lord, forgive

 

Forgive the sins I have confessed to Thee

Forgive the secret sins I do not see

Oh guide me, guard me, and my teacher be

Dear Lord, Amen

 

Author unknown

Biblical Socialism

         It may come as a bit of a surprise, even shock to see the two words “biblical” and “socialism” appear together in the title of this essay. The word “biblical” suggests a sacred source; the written ground of our religious faith, while the word ‘socialism’ evokes an economic philosophy that has been adopted by most European countries though rejected in the USA.         

    However, the educated Christian mind may reflect on biblical passages in both the Old Testament and the New that recommend, even command an ethic and community practice of sharing the wealth accumulated by some to all, especially to those in need.

         The Old Testament reports God’s call for a moral code of wealth sharing in a common community that stretches well beyond charity  to  a periodic dividing of wealth accumulated by some  to all members of the community. The “Year of Jubilee” was indeed a time of jubilation because the divine law commanded the redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor
         Jesus , who was raised in this Hebrew tradition,  made it clear through many parables that those who merely allowed their wealth to accumulate for their own use were defying the will of God. Think of the parable of the rich man who build bigger barns to store his wealth with the aim to “eat drink and be merry;”         ( Luke  12:16-20   )

         In our modern American political-economic system called “capitalism,”people are encouraged to follow a contrary & self-serving  economic system of valuing the accumulation of wealth &  passing it on only to their heirs, or if generous, to a few chosen “charities.”

         However, imagine how different our society would look if Biblical-socialism were to become the standard  “law of the land.” The rich and super-rich would be required, through tax law, to have their excess wealth redistributed so that there might be: universal health care; free education to the level of one’s ability; the end of homelessness and hunger.

         Might the Christian Church, with its many millions of members, be a force for bringing the “ Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven,” by championing  some form of Biblical Socialism  in our time?