The Headbanger Theologian

Who is this Jesus guy anyway?

I watched Jesus Camp tonight. I’m trying to figure out who Becky Fischer is more in love with – Jesus or Joseph Goebbels. After watching her hateful indoctrination of such young, impressionable minds I would have to go with the latter.

Where is the message of Christ in this film, at her camp, or in her ministry? Where are the edicts of Christ? Where are compassion, peace, and forgiveness? For if Christ was anything, he was the embodiment of those three virtues.

During the film a group of children, some perhaps no older than 4 or 5, are asked if they are prepared to die for Jesus, their faith, and belief in a nation governed by individuals of a similar disposition. I had to stop the film at that point There is no need to die for Jesus because that is precisely what he did for those who believe in him. He died to forgive them their sins and to ensure that his message would not be forgotten or corrupted. That the tenets of love, compassion, and peace, above all things, are of paramount importance.

From

I've been reading Matt Good's blog on and off for a while. He is quite open about his life and beliefs in his posts. I have never read him profess belief in Jesus in any post. Because of this I am making the (possibly wrong) assumption that he is not a Christian.

Running with that assumption, I find it fascinating that those who have no particular affiliation or identification with Jesus get Him so much better than those of us who do. He watched a movie about a camp whose mission, at least in theory, is about bringing people into relationship with Jesus. As Matt found, however, Jesus' message wasn't mentioned once.

This just further reinforces my theory that Christianity isn't about Jesus and His message anymore. It has become about believing in a certain lifestyle and political ideology. What a pity.

Living with Islamists

This article is a must read.

When honoring the dead, a silent du'a is said. And it is said communally, such that when I sat down next to the chief minister, raised my hands, and softly said du'a kare, "let us do prayer," the whole tent in an instant responded by raising their hands with me in a wave of joint supplication—the politicians, the family, the elders with their canes—and praying in absolute silence for the soul of the departed. The moment of silence lingered, all eyes on us, until, in the traditional style, I passed my hands over my face and closed with a quiet Ameen.

In so many ways, my worldview differed from that of the people in the tent. Yet a communal prayer for a lost family member is a profoundly human moment. The image of that moment has stuck with me, because it is a picture of two things I found to be true of northwest Pakistan.

First, the vast majority of people I met were gracious to a fault, hospitable, and quick to condemn violence in the name of religion. They were, at the same time, largely uninterested in trying to delineate the boundaries of religion in public life. "Islam," I was often told, "is about all of life." Coming from an American culture in which religion is often considered unwelcome in the public square, this was a real change. For better and for worse, religion in Pakistan is more than the language of private devotion; it is still the most potent language of public life as well.

Second, in spite of feeling far from home, time and time again I found that I felt surprisingly comfortable in Pakistan, precisely because it was a deeply religious society. Despite the points of shared history and shared values, at the end of the day, I believe something quite different than the Muslims I met and lived with and prayed among. But I still came away admiring their devotion and appreciating a society in which religious conversation and values are honored.

I celebrated Easter in Peshawar as an outsider, as someone who had internalized only a small part of what it is to be a minority—the fundamental insecurity of being few among many. But for me, at least, even that fractional experience was enough to breathe new meaning into the words of the liturgy: Dying, he destroyed our death. Rising, he restored our life. Lord Jesus, come in glory.

What dissonance to be saying "Jesus is risen!" in the still-dark streets of an ancient Muslim city while surrounded by men with batons and Kalashnikovs. Part of me felt a measure of awe that a state—an Islamic republic, no less—would go to such lengths to protect a declaration that has no standing in its received revelation. Another part of me felt a despairing sadness that police were necessary and that Easter needed to be managed as a security event. Amid all this, in spite of the dissonance of it all, I kept coming back to a lingering sense that this experience must be truer to that of the early Christians than the grand, note-perfect pageants I had come to know as "Easter Sunday."

We also need to find ways to broaden the way we practice Christian witness in this post-9/11 world. When IGE invited Durrani to Washington, we came under criticism for hosting "bloodthirsty bigots." The criticism stung, but as my experience in Pakistan unfolded, what stung even more was finding that I had been sold a bleak picture of the Muslim world so at odds with my experience of the Pakistani people. What also stung was encountering hundreds of Pakistanis who had never before honestly interacted with someone from my country or of my faith.

I have come to think that this kind of interpretive witness is one calling of a true global citizen, and certainly of a Christian who takes seriously the way of Jesus. It is a witness that doesn't ignore the realities of politics and the brutalities of modern terrorism, but responds with something more than power and pragmatism. It is a witness that looks for ways to engage those who have divergent visions of faith and society and advocates for fundamental religious freedoms. More than anything, it is a witness that stitches together humility and conviction in the messiness of the real world—and does so in a way that points quietly, but inevitably, to the faith we profess.

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If Jesus only knew then what He knows now

Bear with me for a second. I am going to indulge in a little blasphemy here.

Do you ever wonder if Jesus looks back on events and wishes he handled them differently?

Jesus didn't know how everything will play out. I know that is a tough thing to comprehend, but He admits as much Himself when asked by His followers about when the end of days would come.

"But the exact day and hour? No one knows that, not even heaven's angels, not even the Son. Only the Father knows" (Matthew 24:36 The Message)

I guess what I am wondering is if Jesus wishes He had been been more clear or gave more instructions when He had the chance? For a specific example, look at when He appeared to the Apostle Paul. I wonder if He looks back and says, "ooooh I should have added a bit more. Something like 'hey Paul, do us both a favor and lighten up on the whole misogyny thing and the homophobia OK?' "

Another one that sticks out for me is the passage where Jesus said that He didn't come to "bring peace... but a sword." I have heard people use that verse as a justification for war. However, I am convinced that the way that verse is translated in The Message Bible gets much closer to Jesus' original intent. Jesus is indeed the Prince of Peace, however, walking with Him isn't always easy.

Do these questions suggest some kind of fallibility on the part of Jesus? Is He not perfect? I'm not sure. I mean, I believe that He is without sin, but it is true that He didn't know some things. I don't think that one precludes the other. He is perfect in that he never sinned, but He also lacked foreknowledge about some events.

If He did have that foreknowledge or had the chance to say things differently given a second chance, how much different would Christianity look today? We probably would have had women clergy from the beginning and the big hot button issue of today, homosexuality, would be a moot point.

There is, of course, another side to this whole idea. What if Jesus was deliberately cryptic? What if He intended to not be totally clear because scripture is something to be wrestled with, not just ingested like Pablum? When you look at the Hebrew Bible (commonly called the Old Testament) there are many passages that are less than clear. If one is to read them at face value, one could easily come to the conclusion that God is blood-thirsty and vengeful (Oh wait, that may have already happened... once or twice). Maybe the whole point of scripture isn't just what it says, but what it is saying.

Hopefully this blog post won't set me up for a smiting. If you hear about me getting struck by lightning, you know why. However, if there is some truth to what I have written here, what implications does it have for us as followers of Jesus?

What the Hell?

HELL is a place where sinners really do burn in an everlasting fire, and not just a religious symbol designed to galvanise the faithful, Pope Benedict XVI has said.

Addressing a parish gathering in a northern suburb of Rome, the Pope said that in the modern world many people, including some believers, had forgotten that if they failed to "admit blame and promise to sin no more", they risked "eternal damnation - the inferno".

Hell "really exists and is eternal, even if nobody talks about it much any more".

He recalled that Jesus had forgiven the "woman taken in adultery" and prevented her from being stoned to death, observing: "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her."

God had given men and women free will to choose whether "spontaneously to accept salvation...the Christian faith is not imposed on anyone, it is a gift, an offer to mankind".

He had wanted to reinforce the new Catholic catechism, which holds that hell is a "state of eternal separation from God", to be understood "symbolically rather than physically".

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Hang onto your seats folks, we're getting juicy today.

Since the good Pope was reinforcing the Catholic Catechism, I thought I would search it myself to see what it says is necessary for salvation. After entering the search string "necessary salvation" I came up with some interesting results.

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church not only is faith required for salvation. So is baptism,  the sacraments, and service and witness to the faith. This realization begs the question what kind of baptism achieves salvation, sprinkling or full immersion? Jesus was baptized by being immersed in the Jordon River but the Catholic Church prefers to sprinkle the foreheads of infants. Was Jesus wrong?

What about the sacraments? Are the sacraments of the Orthodox Church good enough to get me into Heaven? What if I have completed only some of the sacraments? Will only part of me get into Heaven? I would hate to spend the afterlife missing an arm or a leg. Or worse yet, as some disembodied head. Good luck getting St. Peter to talk to you when you are just a head floating around Heaven. He'll be off in the corner talking with St. Paul wondering what is up with the new guy.

I actually have to admit that I agree with Pope Benedict on one point. I believe Hell is a real place. I have read scholarship that explains Gehenna (the word that has been translated into Hell in our English translations) as a garbage dump outside the city of Jerusalem (which it was) and not a destination after death. However, I have also read other scholarship that explains Jesus' use of the word Gehenna as an illustration that his audience could understand.

Regardless, I believe that there is a literal place that we will, for the purpose of this discussion, call Hell. It is a place of eternal separation from God. A place of darkness and torment. Basically, it sucks. Sucks worse than a Barry Manilow concert.

Worse yet, we are all deserving of an eternity spent there. We have all messed up, we are all sinners. According to the Bible, these things that we have done make us deserving of an eternity spent in Hell. However, God is merciful. God took the burden of our sins and suffered and died the death of a criminal for them. So far what I am saying is pretty stock stuff. Nothing too wild here. It is the kind of thing you will hear in most any church on any given Sunday.

As I pointed out before, the Catholic Church believes that there are certain things we must do to "earn" our salvation. The Bible on the other hand, says something quite different.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16 NIV).

Or as my favorite translation, The Message Bible reads:

This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn't go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person's failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him (John 3:16-18 The Message).

I believe all that. I know it is a big cliche. In my church going life I have seen John 3:16 scrawled on napkins, posters, plates, signs at football games, ... well you get the point. It is everywhere. Just like the cross. And just like the cross, I believe that familiarity with this verse breeds a lack of awe. We aren't blown away by the simple beauty of what it says. Instead we try to add onto it. Sometimes for nefarious reasons, like exerting power over people. Other times because if life in this mortal coil has taught us one thing, it is that if something seems to good to be true than it probably is.

There is nothing we can do to earn salvation. No amount of hoop jumping, good deeds, or evangelizing will get us to Heaven. It is a free gift given at the pleasure of the Almighty. Anything else is wrong and in my opinion, borders on heresy.

Here is the real sticky part. I also believe that the free gift of salvation could be even better than that. I think it is possible that there will be people who never professed faith in Christ in Heaven. Now I know, for the guy who was throwing around the "H" word in the previous paragraph this is some pretty serious heresy.

Leslie Newbiggin wrote in his seminal work The Gospel in a Pluralist Society

It has become customary to classify views on the relation of Christianity to the world religions as either pluralist, exclusivist, or inclusivist…[My] position is exclusivist in the sense that it affirms the unique truth of the revelation in Jesus Christ, but it is not exclusivist in the sense of denying the possibility of the salvation of the non-Christian. It is inclusivist in the sense that it refuses to limit the saving grace of God to the members of the Christian church, but it rejects inclusivism which regards the non-Christian religions as vehicles of salvation. It is pluralist in the sense of acknowledging the gracious work of God in the lives of all human beings, but it rejects a pluralism which denies the uniqueness and decisiveness of what God has done in Jesus Christ (Pages 182-183)

This quote sums up my position much more succinctly than I could. Jesus died on the cross for the sins of the world, God only knows who will get to partake in that salvation.

There is so much more that I would like to write here but I hesitate to do so. I know that a long blog post can quickly become boring and unread. This is far too important a topic to fully explore in a few paragraphs. Suffice it to say that we are all a slobbering mess. None of us is any more deserving of salvation than anyone else. Thankfully God is a merciful God and we humans should never attempt to put limits on just how great that mercy can be.

A borrowed custom

One day people were standing around talking about the Temple, remarking how beautiful it was, the splendor of its stonework and memorial gifts. Jesus said, "All this you're admiring so much—the time is coming when every stone in that building will end up in a heap of rubble (Luke 21:5-6 The Message).

The Anglican Communion is facing what is being referred to as a schism over the Episcopal Church in the United State's acceptance of homosexuals. I know a lot of people are very concerned about this happening. They love their church and their denomination. However, I have a deep respect for those who are unwilling to back down from this accepting stance. Isn't the work of God more important than buildings?

It is kind of strange when you think of it. The fact that us gentile Christians decided to emulate the Jewish custom of a weekly temple meeting. I guess that we didn't know any other way and for many this has been the ideal religious experience. It is obvious that countless lives have been changed by this borrowed custom.

In my generation, however, it seems that a shift is happening. At least among the people that I come into contact with. So many are not at all interested in attending a weekly temple meeting. They are interested in God and getting to know God better, they just don't want the negativity they see that seems inherent within the church.

I wonder if here is where a new reformation is happening. The first reformation was a split with the institutional church of it's time. This split gave rise to new institutions with their own problems. We seem destined to make the same mistakes over and over again. This new reformation could see people entering into a relationship with God outside of the confines of a church. In the passage I quoted above Jesus seems to be saying that buildings are meaningless. We don't need buildings to get closer to God, we just need to turn to God. God is right there waiting.

Some of you who are reading this are probably regular church attendees. You may be enriched by your participation in your church. There isn't anything wrong with that in and of itself. I just can't help but wonder if more churches split and more denominational power and wealth are lost, Christianity could move to a healthier place. If it became normal for people to express their Christian faith in all sorts of ways, not just with attendance at a weekly service. If certain talking heads weren't seen to be speaking as a De facto pope for all of Christianity, maybe Christians would stop being segmented into little groups. Maybe Christians could be seen as coming from all walks of life and all kinds of different ideologies. Maybe this would cause more people to want to see what Christianity is really all about.

I guess what I am saying is, maybe doing away with this borrowed custom could be the best thing that happened to Christianity, since, well, Jesus.

Who is the greater sinner?

The self-assured believer is a greater sinner in the eyes of God than the troubled disbeliever” Soren Kierkegaard

Questions

Below is a response rhymes with kerouac wrote to a comment I left on his blog.

Paul - You know, I can't figure out why there aren't more questions asked in church. The older I get, the more questions I have, I never expected that - I thought the opposite would happen. Maybe God is in the questions - much more so than the answers.

Why is it that I feel closer to God when I have questions? How come answers and certainties leave me numb while questions and doubt sometimes stress me out, but always allow me to feel God's presence?

I used to enjoy certainty. Back when I had God all figured out and I knew for sure who was in and who was out, who was "saved" and who was going to Hell. It was great. Well, except for one small problem. I lost touch with myself. I had stopped caring about the things I really cared about, or at least I pretended I did. My personality was lost in a chorus of "amens" and sappy praise and worship songs. Still it was nice, my faith didn't challenge me.

What I was looking for then, and what I got, was a security blanket. I wore that blanket over my head and I was warm and cozy. Unfortunately, I was also suffocating. It was only when the worst thing that I could imagine happening happened that I came up for air.

You see, I was really scared of being shunned by my pastor and church. What I didn't realize at the time, but I now have the clarity to see was that we were shunned a hundred different times in a hundred different ways. I ignored it though, because I wanted to be in. I wanted to be part of a "community." I wanted this so bad that I would say things I didn't believe and go along with ideas that I didn't think were right because I had bought into the lie that that was what God wanted. Now I know better.

Funny thing is I believe God wanted us to go through that so we could get to the place we are now. Even funnier, I am pretty sure God doesn't want us getting into a "community," at least not now. I believe that God is using this time to teach us other lessons and give us more clarity. Maybe it will be used later as part of a church, maybe not. Like rhymes with kerouac said, God is in the questions.

So the next time you hear someone boasting about knowing "the will of God" or that we need to follow "the clear teaching of scripture" you can be pretty sure they are full of shit. Unless they are talking about one thing. One thing that supersedes questions, certainties, life, death, and everything else under the Sun. That thing is the love of God that became incarnate in Christ Jesus.

A lot of what religion teaches is constructs of men. However, this is not. It can't be. It is too good to be true and too simple. If people had made it up it would have all kinds of conditions attached and hoops to jump through. God could care less about conditions and hoops. God doesn't need us to be impressive. God is God. God is love.

Of this there is no question.

Morally sound

Last night as my head hit the pillow I began to go through my nightly ritual of prayers before I fall asleep. As I often do, some of my prayers involved me asking God to help me be a good person, a good father, and a good husband. These are pretty standard prayers for me. However, when I prayed for God to help me have good morals, something I don't usually do, my eyes popped open and my mind started to work.

Morals really are a relative thing. One person's good morals often don't line-up with someone else's. I have often heard Christian talking heads appeal to a return to "Biblically based morality" but that isn't exactly as cut and dry as it sounds either. As rhymes with kerouac reminded me yesterday, not everything in the Bible is representative of what I would define as morally sound.

When going through the Old Testament, one is often confronted by the Israelites doing some pretty horrible things under the onus that God told them to do it. I find this strange because the God that I know seems diametrically opposed to telling people to go out and slaughter their fellow human beings. When you consider this claim in our modern context it seems even stranger. Osama bin Laden and his cronies claim divine guidance for the terrible things they do. It is pretty obvious to me at least that they are mistaken in this. Could it be that the Israelites were just as mistaken?

I remember one Sunday in particular. Our pastor was preaching from the book of 1 Samuel in the Old Testament.

This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys (1 Samuel 15:2-3 NIV).

Then Saul attacked the Amalekites all the way from Havilah to Shur, to the east of Egypt. He took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, and all his people he totally destroyed with the sword. But Saul and the army spared Agag and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs—everything that was good. These they were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything that was despised and weak they totally destroyed (1 Samuel 15:7-9 NIV).

But Samuel said, "What then is this bleating of sheep in my ears? What is this lowing of cattle that I hear?"

Saul answered, "The soldiers brought them from the Amalekites; they spared the best of the sheep and cattle to sacrifice to the LORD your God, but we totally destroyed the rest (1 Samuel 15:14-15 NIV).

Now the gist of the pastor's sermon was that Saul had failed to follow God's instructions by not killing every living thing. We all shook our heads at Saul's folly and vowed to never do the same. The problem was that not one of us (including myself) stopped to consider that God had apparently just told Saul to commit genocide! More than that. Saul's sin was not the murders of numerous people but the fact that he failed to kill everything. Does genocide represent morally sound behavior? Is this the kind of thing that we as Christians should be aspiring to?

It is my belief that these actions do not represent the will of God. I am convinced that they are the dressing up of colonial aspirations in the robes of piety. The problem is that if we read the Bible at face value and don't bother to read between the lines we will get the mistaken impression that this is proper behavior. All the sudden we will be justifying all kinds of terrible things like racism, slavery, subjugation of women, intolerance towards homosexuals, etc. because the Bible says so.

The Bible also tells us that the Earth is the center of our universe and that the Sun orbits the Earth, not vice versa.

I can hear my detractors already. "If it isn't all true than it isn't true at all." That is just as cut and dry as the idea that the whole Bible is just perfect as it is. The problem is that nothing is really that cut and dry. Just because the writers of scripture were informed by a first century (and earlier) world-view doesn't mean that the Bible isn't true. It just means that it is our responsibility as people of God to use the minds and the knowledge that God blessed us with when we interact with scripture. Jesus is still Jesus, even if the Earth revolves around the Sun.

Christians gather to protest war

Thousands of Christians prayed for peace at an anti-war service Friday night at the Washington National Cathedral, kicking off a weekend of protests around the country to mark the fourth anniversary of the war in Iraq.

Afterward, participants marched with battery-operated faux candles through snow and wind toward the White House, where police began arresting protesters shortly before midnight. Protest guidelines require demonstrators to continue moving while on the White House sidewalk.

"We gave them three warnings, and they broke the guidelines," said Lt. Scott Fear. "There's an area on the White House sidewalk where you have to keep moving.

"This war, from a Christian point of view, is morally wrong and was from the beginning," the Rev. Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners/Call to Renewal, one of the event's sponsors, said toward the end of the service to cheers and applause. "This war is … an offense against God."

In his speech, the Rev. Raphael G. Warnock, senior pastor at Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church, lashed out at Congress for being "too morally inept to intervene" to stop the war, but even more harshly against President Bush.

"Mr. Bush, my Christian brother, we do need a surge in troops. We need a surge in the nonviolent army of the Lord," he said. "We need a surge in conscience and a surge in activism and a surge in truth-telling."

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It is great to see the church in it's natural role as the conscience of the state rather than being a pawn of the state, as it has been for the last few years.

 

Who are you?

To an extent, appellations such as American, mother, and rock bassist are mere labels, at least when compared to the potential depth and complexity of the individual, since each of us has our own take on what the roles we play mean to us. Labels are only as significant as we each want them to be. Some will find it more meaningful to identify as Jewish, or as a musician, or as an accountant, than others will. Still others may think it means something completely different. (It’s probably a good idea to be skeptical whenever you hear people speaking of, say, the black perspective, how women think, Christian values, or a bass player’s point-of-view.) No matter where we sit on each continuum, we can allow ourselves to be honestly informed by all the whos, whats, and whys that make us up, however we choose to interpret them. That’s the fun and challenging part of life: the continued search for that self to which we can strive to be true, and respecting others in their search as well.

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Modern Christianity has taught us to label people in one of two ways, saved or unsaved. As I move through my personal journey I am becoming more and more uncomfortable with that idea. Life and faith are much more complex than this black and white assessment. And God, well if God isn't more complex than our assessments than we aren't dealing with God anymore. God in a box of human construction is not God.

That being said I still seek to encourage people to get to know the God who became incarnate in Christ Jesus. I believe that this is the true God, the real God. I also believe that this is the God from whom salvation flows. Is this a paradox? Maybe, maybe not. I believe the scripture that says "there is no other  name given under Heaven by which we can be saved." However, I am convinced God will be much more generous with that salvation than we are able to comprehend.