God Called, She’s Mad

So there’s an old joke that goes something like this.

One day in Rome the Pope is sitting in his study and a group of his closest cardinals burst through the door shaking and pale. The Pope sees their concern and asks them what’s wrong. They reply that God is on the phone. The Pope says “that’s wonderful, why are you so frightened?” The cardinals respond, “She’s mad.”

One of the basic tenets of humour is that you give your audience something unexpected, and the reason this joke works is because God is a ‘he’, right? Now when it’s a joke people laugh and move on. But what happens if you suggest that God is a she in a forum other than humour? Just ask Eliel Cruz, a writer who covers issues of faith and sexuality and a voice I strongly recommend listening to, about some of the responses to a piece he wrote in which he referred to God as she. Closer to home you could ask my wife (whose painting, photography and sketching can be found at http://kiamsaco.deviantart.com/) about the response to her posting of a quote on our church’s facebook page in which God was referred to in the feminine.

After talking to these people you can see that there are a range of responses, some incredibly positive – but many very, very negative. There is a very hostile attitude toward references to God in the feminine from traditional Christians. It’s a hostility I can, to a point, understand. After all the references to God as masculine are very obvious in scripture, while the references to God as feminine are fewer and often entirely obscured in English since our nouns don’t have a gender. Jesus was a man, he referred to his father, and the pronouns from Genesis to Revelation are masculine. We were brought up with the notion that God was a he. To this day my default pronoun for God, and that of most people with whom I speak, is still he; and I think that is rather harmless. The problem is not in picking a pronoun for God, that’s something language requires of us. The problem is when our picking of a pronoun warps our view of God.

You see, while we refer to God as he – God is not a man.

Jesus, who those of us with a Christian perspective pretty much have to agree has the best knowledge of who God is, says very clearly that God is spirit. Also we can go back to the very beginning and see that both male and female were created in God’s image. Beyond these fairly obvious readings that should bring us right out of the need for a debate of God’s sex, there are a large number of references to God as Mother in the Old Testament and in Hebrew there are a number of occasions where the word for God is grammatically feminine. This is not to say that God is a woman, God is spirit.

The problem as I see it is that we are, as always, trying to define the divine in human terms. We’ve got the whole thing backwards! We ascribe masculinity (or femininity) to God, when what we should be doing is finding the fingerprints of divinity in women and men. God doesn’t embody masculine or feminine traits – humans have the image of God in ourselves. God is perfection, we are the ones with traits and characteristics of it. She doesn’t have our traits, we have his.

Where our problem becomes an issue isn’t in a debate over which pronoun to use for God, both work and both are biblically appropriate. The problem is when we mistake our linguistic need for pronouns, for God being limited to our understanding of masculinity and femininity. When we insist that God is a man, we exclude many wonderful aspects of divinity that are expressed in typically feminine qualities. When we insist that God is man we exclude our mothers, wives, sisters and woman-friends from the image of God they deserve. When we insist that God is a man we limit our thinking of the powerful ministries godly women can and should perform. When we insist that God is a man we end up with the Mark Driscolls of the world.

We need to be able to see God in spirit and in truth, and we need to be able to see her image in her daughters as much as we see his image in his sons. We also need to be able to be free to change our approach. God as a father can be a beautiful and powerful image, but what about the child of an abusive father? Do we really want to insist that a person brought up by an evil man think of him every time they picture God? Even within our humanity – how much better off would we be if we could see God in our children when they exhibit qualities associated with the other sex? Instead of calling a boy who cries a sissy we affirmed him as sharing traits of God and told him that even Jesus wept?

God doesn’t have a sex, but she’s awesome and I’m glad to be her son.

Bring Back The Prophets

Another week and another white police officer goes free for killing another unarmed black man.

Another week and another $300,000,000 is made in profit by Wal Mart (in the US alone) while 30,000 people in Canada were homeless.

Another week and nearly another 10,000 women were raped in Canada.

And if these facts from the US and Canada disturb you, I regret to inform you that they get worse when you look into the poorer parts of the world.

Injustice is a plague, inequality is at levels that has, in generations past, led to revolutions, violence is rampant and every time I read the news the bad news seems to get worse. What makes it worse yet is when I see people like me, who aren’t directly impacted by it, either pretending it’s not so bad or even blaming the victims. How many white men said that Eric Garner should have just submitted to the police? How many middle class people say that the poor just need to work harder? How many men say that those women should have dressed more modestly or stayed home with their knitting? I’ll confess there were times in my life when I’ve said all those things. I was blind to injustice, inequality and violence. I was ready to blame the victims but something changed when I stopped talking and started listening to the voices of people who didn’t look just like me.

Something that makes all of this even worse is the deafening silence I hear from the (predominantly white middle-class) Christian community with which I associate. Particularly sickening when I hear those same insults coming from the lips (or keyboards) of my brothers and sisters. To hear a Christian say that the oppressed minority just needs to submit to unjust authority takes a theology that misinterprets Paul and forgets Jesus. To hear a Christian say that the inequality of our economy is acceptable, good or a natural result of people’s efforts utterly ignores Jesus. To hear Christians say that victims are responsible for the crimes committed against them insults the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

If we truly were the body of Christ as we are called in the New Testament, Christians would be at the forefront of the cries for justice. Furthermore it would be all Christians, not just those who also belong to the less privileged categories. Of course Christian people of colour speak out against racism, of course Christian women speak out against violence, of course Christian poor speak out against inequality. Although even in those categories you can find some who want so desperately to fit into the model of privilege idolized by the dominant church culture that they speak out against their own needs. I wonder how much of a difference we would see in our society if those of us in the positions of privilege took the welfare of all our brothers and sisters as seriously as we take our own?

What would happen if we called the sin of racism what it is? What would happen if we called the sin of greed what it is? What if we called the sin of violence what it is? What would happen if the church was once again filled with the Holy Spirit and the Gift of Prophecy?

Yes, I pray that God will once again gift the church with prophetic voices.

Here are some examples of Biblical Prophecy:

Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause. – Isaiah

Thus says the Lord of hosts, Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another, do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart. – Zecharaiah

Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty and did an abomination before me. So I removed them, when I saw it. – Ezekiel

Therefore because you trample on the poor and you exact taxes of grain from him … For I know how many are your transgressions and how great are your sins … I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies … Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. – Amos

These are prophetic voices and oh how we need them today. What makes it difficult is that our cultural dominance finds us in the position of oppressor more often than oppressed, and while the voice of prophecy is music to the ears of the oppressed it scares the daylights out of the oppressor. I also think it’s no coincidence that as the general understanding of prophecy has shifted from hard calls for justice to mystic predictions about the future that the tones of many culturally dominant Christians have hardened when speaking of others.

Until we learn to weep in white churches as loudly as in black churches when unarmed black men die at the hands of white authority we fail to understand what kind of kingdom Jesus was talking about. Until we accept that the malnourishment of those who can’t afford to eat equals the malnourishment of our own spirituality, we fail to understand what kind of kingdom Jesus was talking about. Until we understand that every act of violence hurts our whole society we fail to understand what kind of kingdom Jesus was talking about.

My prayer is that God will raise up a new generation of prophets to call us back to the faith and justice Jesus lived.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. – Jesus

Injustice in Ferguson

I should probably be polite and use diplomatic language to describe the way I feel – but hearing that Ferguson (Missouri) Police Officer Darren Wilson was not indicted by a Grand Jury for shooting Michael Brown has me pissed off.

I’m pissed off because another man shot and killed another boy and got away with it.

I’m pissed off because another white man shot and killed another black boy and got away with it.

I’m pissed off because another trained cop shot and killed another unarmed civilian and got away with it.

And if I, a white Canadian man, am pissed off, how much harder must this be for people who actually have something in common with Michael Brown? I am angry beyond what polite words can describe, and I haven’t lived any of the experience of Michael Brown. So I started to wonder, why do these cases bother me so? The conclusion I reached is one that makes me very uncomfortable.

 

The reason these injustices bother me so is not because of some imagined affinity with the victims, but because of how much I have in common with the perpetrators.

I’m sick to my stomach because if I were a few sizes smaller I’d look like Darren Wilson.

I’m sick to my stomach because if I were a few years older I’d look like Robert McCulloch (the St Louis County Prosecutor whose actions made sure the Grand Jury would never indict Officer Wilson).

I’m sick to my stomach because I look like all those commentators out there who don’t even understand how racist they are when they call Mike Brown a thug.

This case, and so many more like it, disturbs me to the core and the reason is that in every single one you could swap the photo of the police officer (or the security guard or the neighbourhood watch member) with mine and no one would blink. I’m not offended because of a connection with the victim, I’m offended because there is so little that separates me from the offenders. I’m not Darren Wilson – but before his face was splashed across the news you wouldn’t have any way of knowing that.

Injustice is real, and it benefits me

Racism is real. There are more opportunities available to me as a white man than there are for people of colour. There are doors that, both figuratively and literally, are open to me but not to others with a different skin colour. Now I know that there are those out there who will point out that there are affirmative action programs in education, that on job postings you see things like “women, visible and sexual minorities are encouraged to apply”. It’s true – but if you think that puts me at a disadvantage you don’t understand what’s going on. No one needs to encourage me to apply, no one needs to create a space for me in a classroom, no one needed to go to court or parliament for my right to marry the person I love. If we lived in a genuinely equal society we wouldn’t need to encourage minorities to apply because they would have the confidence that their application would be judged on its merit and not discarded because of an ethnic, or female name. I was born into a world that laid everything at my feet, and the fact that a few steps are being taken to give others the same chance I was born with doesn’t negate my privilege, it proves it.

And when it comes to life and death, being born who I am means that I’m far less likely to die at the hands of authority. I can go for a jog after the sun sets without being stopped by a passing police cruiser to ask what I am doing. I can go the 7-11 in jeans and a sweater for an ice tea and skittles without the neighbourhood watch getting anxious. I can walk past police at a public event and joke with them saying that “I didn’t do it” and get a laugh instead of being interrogated about what “it” was. I can walk in and out of banks and jewelry stores without drawing even a second glance from security guards. Even if I have done something wrong, odds are that I’m more likely to get a warning or a fine they are options, less likely to go to jail if I do get arrested and if it happens in a place with capital punishment I’m less likely to be sentenced to death than a person of colour convicted of the same offence. And the scenario where I would be shot by police is so far fetched that it’s not even worth writing. The system is set up to protect me at the expense of those who aren’t like me.

God hates injustice

Perhaps by now you’re wondering – why does all this bother me? Afterall, the whole thing is set up to benefit me. Well first of all it bothers me because I’m no more human than the so-called others who pay the price for my privilege. Our hearts beat the same rhythms, our lungs breathe the same air, our mouths eat the same bread. That’s all the reason I need to feel sick when another human being is subjected to injustice. But if I needed another I could turn to my faith in a God who hates injustice. Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin and hundreds of other young men of colour whose names I don’t know were created in the same image of God as me. The books of the prophets are filled with themes of justice, either calling an unjust nation to repent or promising an oppressed nation deliverance. The words of Jesus are filled with justice. Even Paul wrote that there was no division in Christ.

The injustice of our systems may benefit people like me in the short-term, but in the end I believe that God will bring justice to the world and those who are shedding the blood young black men will have to account for it before a perfectly just judge. What makes me so uncomfortable is how easy it would be to count me among those subject to that judgement. Now of course I believe in forgiveness and redemption. I am not saying that these people are lost, but that there is something for which they as individuals and we as a community need to repent.

I do have faith that the injustice of Ferguson and those like it can be redeemed, but for that to happen the community of people who look like me need to repent our sins.

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. – Jesus

The Church Of My Dreams Part 2

Last week I wrote a piece beginning to talk about the church I see in my dreams. I shared the notion that I believe that mutual love and a commitment to coming together in the service of others formed a better foundation for church community than agreement on theological principles. While stating that I do recognize that theology does play a role in anything like a church that we will have, so this week I’d like to share how I envision a church doing theology.

Participation not Preaching

I’m going to start with the part of this that is possibly hardest on me. You see, I like preaching. I like listening to a good preacher, I like the process of writing a sermon and I like standing up in front of a group of people and delivering that sermon. What’s more I’ve been told far too many times for my own good that I have a gift for it. Even people who don’t like what I have to say have given me compliments on how I said it. So it truly pains my ego to say this, since I have a gift for it and enjoy doing it; but preaching needs to go. This old notion of one man standing at the front behind a pulpit expounding with all the trappings of authority on what is correct needs to be quickly consigned to the history books. While it’s true that this form of communication can build a form of community I don’t think it’s a healthy one and I don’t think it’s either what existed or what was envisioned by Jesus and his apostles.

Instead, I see the communion table being more than just an object hauled out on a periodic basis for a ceremony a significant number of churchgoers are, according to the statistics, likely to avoid if they know it’s coming. I see the communion table being the centre of the church. I am far more comfortable with the idea of every person sitting around as equals, and having a dialogue with one another. Now I know my theory on this is “unique” but I don’t see communion as something rare and shrouded in mystery. On the contrary; there are plenty of elements from the passover feast that Jesus and the disciples were celebrating when he established communion that would have been uncommon. There are elements of the Seder that are eaten only with that meal, and I believe that if Jesus had wanted to establish a ritualised practice that used special elements he would have done that. Instead he took the only two elements of the meal that were common to every meal (and in most cultures of the time) and attached meaning to them. I think that Jesus was saying to those disciples, whenever you eat or drink, remember me. Therefore I think it is perfectly appropriate to share a meal every time we gather. Meals are where life is shared, and I believe that is what Jesus wanted to establish.

Who Can Sit at the Table

This is actually one of the most crucial questions facing church today, and it’s one to which I offer a simple (but not easy) answer. Anyone who comes. That’s right, I believe in a fully open practice of community and a discussion that involves anyone who wants to participate. If a person is willing to be part of a community that loves one another and serves their neighbours then they meet the religious requirements of my faith. How they come to the place of love and service and the way they view God aren’t reasons for division in my view. In fact, much the opposite, I hope and pray for diversity at the table. Adventist and Baptist, Protestant and Catholic, Christian and Muslim, Monotheist and Polytheist and even Atheist – I want all at the table. White and Black, rich and poor, liberal and conservative, straight and gay, male and female – I want all at the table and in an equal seat.

I desire this diverse table because I believe at a fundamental level that we are all one. My blood is no redder than another’s, my experience is no more valid than another’s, my faith is no more sacred than another’s. Now I know this position makes a lot of people uncomfortable. Going outside our boundaries always does. But I think that it’s only through genuine community and shared experience that we truly grow and it’s the only way for us to understand God. You see I value my faith, I never want to lose my faith, I believe that my faith has an incredible picture of God; but I do not believe for an instant that the succession of traditions that has led to my faith is the only path through history that God has revealed himself.

I’ll go into this in more detail in a future post, but in short I find that it paints a very petty picture of a God we call love to believe that there is only one line of chosen people throughout human history and all others are outside his grace. Yes I believe that God has revealed himself to my forefathers and foremothers, but I also believe that he has revealed himself to my Muslim friends’ forefathers and foremothers, to my Buddhist friends’ forefathers and foremothers and to my Pagan friends’ forefathers and foremothers. And I am secure enough in my own faith and identity to allow those friends to share their perspectives. I won’t become a Muslim, a Buddhist or a Pagan; but there is much I can learn from them. In the same way I have no expectation that these friends will convert to my religion; but I hope to be able to share the blessings I’ve received with them.

At the end of days I don’t believe that God is going to be checking membership cards, but judging hearts. And in my faith, the one after whom we are named said that it comes down to a question of love. So since all these people are capable of love all have a right to sit at the table, all have a right to contribute to the dialogue and I hope that all will give me the right to call myself their brother.

I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. – Jesus

The Church Of My Dreams Part 1

I have a dream; it’s about church. Yes, I really am that much of a nerd. But if you have a few minutes I’d like to tell you about it. If you read our earlier post you’ll know that despite the baggage that comes with it, I continue to identify as Christian. For all the flaws in my community it’s still mine and I value both my faith and the people with whom I share it. Now even if you’ve never been in your life, you likely know that Christians have a thing called church. Church is a concept that means different things to different people. For some it’s a building (let’s meet at the church), for some it’s an organization (Anglican Church), for others it’s a group of people (anytime you see the word in the Bible). 250,000 words in the English language and still…

Anyway, when I talk about church I generally mean the group of people. So how does this group of people come together, what makes a group a church? I grew up in an environment that (to oversimplify just a little) taught that it was agreement on theology that made us a church. I don’t really like that answer. If I’m being perfectly honest it’s probably because I’ve grown in a way that has caused me to challenge a few of the theological principles that hold my particular tribe of Christendom together, and since that was the instrument of unity I’m feeling left out. Why can’t we still be a church even though I disagree with some of the things the majority of the group believes? I still love the people, we still profess the same faith in Christ, I still want to accomplish the overall mission assigned to us.

Disagreement over theology seems a stupid reason to break up the band!

So what should hold us together? In my dreams, and one could argue there is a strong foundation in the Gospel for this position, a group of people who love one another is a great starting place. After we have that foundation of mutual love, I think a degree of agreement helps. But where I differ from many is over what we should agree. Where the church of my background suggests that theological agreement is the key, I think that agreement of purpose is a better place to start.

What’s the difference?

If we read the Gospels Jesus seems to be a pretty practical messiah. He healed the sick, he fed the hungry, he cast out demons, he raised the dead. Sure he also taught, but his teachings were less about the high-minded concepts discussed in the theology departments of Universities and Seminaries and more about what it means to love and be loved. I too think that the central theme of our group should be practical. We will still discuss ideas, and even engage in the foolishness of a group of mortals trying to describe the divine. But ideas don’t have to be the thing that holds us together.

If you’ve ever taken theology you’ve likely heard that one of the purposes of church is to provide a community setting for worship. I had one professor who made a point of instilling this idea into the heads of his students. To be fair to the good man, the class was called Worship. Now without getting too off topic and writing an essay on what worship is, been there, done that, got the B on my transcript, let’s say for the purposes of our discussion that, among other things, worship entails demonstrating our devotion to God. To that end I want to share a couple texts from scripture that have formed my thinking on what God wants in the way of service.

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction,

Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.

There are other things, of course. But because of the way I read the Bible, from the character of God I understand as expressed through Jesus and the inspiration I experience from the Holy Spirit – service to my fellow human beings is service to God. When Jesus walked the streets of Palestine he wasn’t handing out books explaining a theory of what the Kingdom of Heaven could be; he was feeding the hungry and healing the sick at the same time as telling them that the Kingdom of Heaven was already in their midst. It’s actually a pretty ubiquitous message in the gospel. So from my point of view, worshipping God is more about doing good for the people around me and less about being right in my ideas about him.

This is actually great news, because the hungry person doesn’t care if I have good eschatology as long as I can make a good sandwich.

So I dream of a church in which people are brought together by a desire to do good for their neighbours. You might say, well that sounds like a service club more than a church. To that I’ll say two things. 1: Ok. If the worst thing you can say about my church is that we spend too much time serving people you’re not going to hurt my feelings. 2: It is still a spiritual endeavour, the love of Jesus is my motivation for desiring to do this. And love is also vital. The church of my dreams is a community bound by love, not bound by intellectual agreement. When I dream of church I see a group of people who would do anything for the person sitting next to them. They would consider it an honour to help their brother or sister, they would look for opportunities to do good and they would treasure the friendship of those in the community. Generosity, mercy and joy are all pervasive in the community I see when I dream.

Now don’t get me wrong, ideas and the discussion thereof still play an important role in the church of my dreams. But that discussion looks very different than what I see when I meet with churches on the weekend. We’ll save that for another post.

By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another – Jesus

Justice And Mercy In South Africa

This morning I had occasion to listen to the sentencing ruling in the Oscar Pistorius murder trial live as the judge delivered it. To be honest I hadn’t paid incredibly close attention to the trial as it progressed, but a close and well-informed friend of mine had brought it up over the past few weeks and piqued my interest. I’m glad he did – because had it remained off my radar screen I would have missed one of the greatest acts of justice in our time.

The devil is in the details

If all you read are headlines this story seems to be confusing. The progress of the headlines went something like this: “Athlete Arrested For Killing Girlfriend”, “Athlete Confesses To Killing Girlfriend”, “Athlete Not Guilty Of Murder”, “Athlete Gets 5 Years For Killing Girlfriend”. On that tweetable level it seems like the story took a very wrong turn. Up until my friend got me more interested in the case (which happened the same time “Athlete Not Guilty” was going to press) all I knew was the headlines. Judging by the type of comments I am seeing on-line as the news is spreading – I think that’s all a lot of people know.

What happens when you read past the headline is you find a story that is much more complex than it first appears. Because while all those statements are factual, they ignore so much of what took place that I would consider them untrue. Yes, Oscar Pistorius did shoot and kill Reeva Steenkamp. Yes he confessed to the killing. However, he claims that he believed there was an intruder in his home and he was defending himself and the very woman it turns out he shot. Now I know there are many people who don’t believe his story on that aspect of the case, but the one person whose opinion counts (Judge Masipa) did. As she had all the evidence in front of her, and the rest of us do not, I have to defer to her judgement on the matter. Based on that evidence Judge Masipa found that a charge of murder was not supported, and instead found Pistorius guilty of Culpable Homicide (Manslaughter).

And then came the sentence

The judge took a long time explaining her reasoning before handing down her ruling, and I for one was glad that she did. Selfishly I was glad because having not followed the case closely enough in the early days, the long explanation did a good job of bringing me up to speed on the details of the case. From a broader point of view, hearing the judge give such detail provided a beautiful picture of justice. While a headline of “Athlete Gets 5 Years For Killing Girlfriend” might enrage the average reader; after listening to the judge I was not only prepared for her sentence, but satisfied that justice has been served.

All the factors

One of the things Judge Masipa did when announcing her sentence was, repeatedly, explain that there were a number of factors to be considered in sentencing. That headline, which has caused no shortage of outrage on-line, deals with only one factor: the crime. Judge Masipa made it clear that in sentencing the court has to consider 3 major factors; the crime, the criminal and the good to society. The crime in this case was the killing of a woman, although recall that the judge ruled it to be a case of manslaughter not murder. The criminal is the next factor; and in this case the criminal was a man with no prior record, who showed incredible remorse for his crime and in the court’s opinion was little risk to re-offend. Now I know there are accusations that his remorse was an act, but once again since I wasn’t in the courtroom and I don’t have all the evidence I am compelled to defer to the judge. The final factor is the good to society. The judge made it very clear that this case had broader implications than just one man killing one woman. She said that society demands a punishment for a life taken.

You see depending on which perspective you approach this, or any, case from; you can see a vastly different picture. Those who approach the case from the side of the crime are outraged. A woman died and the man who killed her was sentenced to only 5 years. Those who approach the case from the side of the criminal may feel it was too harsh. It was reckless to be sure, but his intent was not to kill her and he’s considered to be little risk to reoffend. Those who approach the case from the side of society, I think, will feel that on balance justice was served. On the one hand a life was taken so a punishment is deserved, but on the other hand since the criminal is not a continuing danger to society locking him and throwing away the key is neither just nor economical. Furthermore, as the judge rightly pointed out, there was nothing she could do to bring Steenkamp back.

The M factor

After all this, there was one more factor to be considered. Judge Masipa made it very clear that in addition to considering the 3 factors for a just decision, the consideration of mercy was also on her mind. This perhaps explains why the sentence was significantly shorter than some had expected. Of course it is worth remembering that had the judge not accepted Pistorius’s version of events and found him guilty of murder the sentence likely would have been longer. But even for culpable homicide, South Africa’s equivalent to our crime of manslaughter, there is a maximum penalty of 15 years. Interestingly, there is actually no requirement for imprisonment in a conviction of culpable homicide. The judge’s own words best explain how she reached her judgement.

I am of the view that a non-custodial sentence would send a wrong message to the community, On the other hand, a long sentence would not be appropriate either, as it would lack the element of mercy.

It is in this statement that I find a beautiful union of justice and mercy. Yes, a promising young woman died and justice demands a punishment for that crime. But in the sentence we still see mercy. Mercy is something I have struggled with, and I think that I am not alone. Our senses of justice are all more finely tuned than our senses of mercy. Today I was glad to be given a lesson by Judge Thokozile Masipa in how the two can exist together.

Blessed are the merciful – Jesus

Theological Pet Peeve #1

If there is one Christian catchphrase that annoys me more than others it is probably “biblical world view”. Just writing it sent a chill right up my spine. I hear it so often among church folk, preached from the pulpit and blogged about on Christian blogs. Every time I hear the phrase I want to stand up and shout 2 questions. The first, “do you understand what the Bible is?” The second is like it, “do you know what a world view is?” Because according to my understanding of both – they don’t fit together. Square peg, meet round hole!

I don’t look at my glasses through my glasses.

While I believe in the inspiration of the Bible it is still a collection of writings. World view is how I interpret the world, like a pair of glasses. That includes how I interpret written works, even the divinely inspired. Now that’s not to say that the core values of my culture, which include faith and religious beliefs, don’t play a role; they do. But it just doesn’t make sense in my understanding of world view to say that I have a view shaped by something that I interpret through that view. Furthermore, if there were a truly biblical world view then Christians of every culture would interpret both the Bible and the experience of faith the same way. We don’t and that’s because we filter everything, including the sacred texts we read, through our own world views.

The Bible is 66 (or more depending on your tradition) books, not 1.

Book stores are misleading places. You can go into one and find a shelf or more filled with Bibles. They have paperback, hard-cover and leather bound. They have formal translations (word for word out of the original languages) like the King James and English Standard, dynamic translations (phrase for phrase) like the New English Translation and paraphrases like The Message. Then many stores have the same options in languages other than English. But they are all lies! No, I’m not saying that the content of the Bibles is false. But this notion that the Bible is one book – that’s the lie.

If we accept tradition there are somewhere around 40 different authors writing over a period of about 1500 years. All the way from a Hebrew shepherd and revolutionary who lived somewhere around 3500 years ago and spoke a very primitive form of the Hebrew language to a Greek doctor and missionary who spoke a fairly well developed form of Greek just less than 2000 years ago. Even if you eschew tradition and accept the critical dates of modern scholars the dates range from about 1000 years before Christ to a few hundred years after and still written in different languages, different places and by vastly different authors. While I believe that the same God inspired each of these men to write, their circumstances and environments have a direct and powerful influence on their writings.

Moses, Micah and Matthew all had different world views – how can a book containing all 3 have just one?

Then there is the question of which lens you use to interpret the Bible. There are some who interpret the Bible as primarily historical, and read it from Genesis to Revelation as one grand epic. There are some who interpret the Bible as primarily allegorical and read the whole thing as if it were a sacred myth. There are some who interpret the Bible as primarily cultural, and others who interpret it with nothing other than a critical eye. Personally I try to use all methods as they are appropriate. The parts that are obviously cultural I read as culture, the parts that are clearly allegorical I read as allegories, the parts that are historical I read accordingly. And while I accept that God inspired the Bible writers – I read it with my brain turned on.

Believing that God inspired Paul and understanding Paul’s time and place are not incompatible ideas.

Of course after you have come to an idea of how you read the Bible there is the question many Christians want to avoid – how do you deal with the contradictions. Now I’m not talking about silly differences like a variance in counting or a year or two being recorded differently. I’m talking about big, bold contradictions. Like the time Jesus saved the life of an adulterous woman even though Moses wrote that God commanded she be put to death. Better still, the time that Paul wrote not to eat in the company of sinners even though Jesus did so all the time. They are there, the Bible is full of contradictions and while the apologists can spin themselves dizzy I’m prepared to admit that they exist. The question is how do we deal with them? For me it’s a pretty simple process. I try to compare what the whole of scripture says on the subject, because while one phrase here or there may be out of line the totality usually sends a consistent message.

Ultimately, for me, whatever the rest of it says, Jesus holds the trump card.

The reason for this is because while parts of the Bible are history, I don’t read it as a history book. In the same way, parts of the Bible are stories but I don’t read it as a story book. I read the Bible as a revelation of God. My purpose in reading the Bible is to understand him and if we’re being perfectly honest some parts of it reveal him much more clearly than others. Some of the Bible’s authors were messed up people living in evil times, and some of them had a pretty scary picture of God. But in Jesus I see the clearest picture.

I don’t want a world view that includes things like stealing wives from neighbouring tribes, stoning people and slaughtering entire nations. I don’t even want a world view that includes some of the stuff in the New Testament, like telling women to sit quietly in church and ask their questions when they get home. The Bible points me toward a God who I want to know, it gives me the story of Jesus who I want to be like and it promises me a Holy Spirit whose voice I want to hear. The world view I want doesn’t come from the pages of a book – but from having my heart and mind transformed by a living God. So you can keep your “biblical world view”, I want a Jesus world view.

I am a Christian, not a Scripturian.

If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him. – Jesus

How To Change The World

There is some pretty terrible stuff happening in the world. Don’t believe me, turn on the news, go to cbc.ca or listen to a preacher telling you how near the end of time is. Better (well in a way) yet, find a Facebook group that talks about the happenings in a given community. I made the morbid mistake of joining one such negativity-fests a few weeks ago, and since then I have seen nothing but complaints. The worst part about it is that while depressing, all the complaints come from some degree of truth. My hometown is facing significant property crime, still suffering the economic impact of the recession and enduring a drug abuse epidemic.

It’s not all bad – but the bad is real.

The question must then be asked – what are we going to do about it? I think we’ll find broad agreement that whether we are talking about our hometowns, overseas wars or global economic and social crises, there are a number of problems in our world today. Where the agreement begins to break down is when we begin to discuss what to do about those problems. There are a number of attitudes I have encountered. You have the defeatist who says “nothing can be done”, the alarmist who says “everything is wicked and there is no good left”, the prophet who says “this is just another sign of the end”, and the list goes on. Well perhaps I’m naive but I for one think that there are things that can and should be done – so here are a few suggestions.

Own it.

One of the things I hear a lot is how people talk about their community using third person adjectives. They are out of control. They need to fix this or that. They should work harder to make this a better place. My question is always, who are they? I am a part of this community – so if there is a problem I am part of they. We need to stop talking about them and start talking about us. If we truly care about our communities then we need to invest ourselves deeper into them. We need to take ownership and responsibility for the problems, and begin coming up with solutions.

Accept that we can change the world.

The most common question I hear when I talk about making the world a better place is – what can one person do about it? The answer is limitless. If you look through history you will see countless individuals who have taken a stand and made a difference. Of course then you will probably point out that none of these people actually accomplished anything truly on their own – but the same will be true for you. Once you start working on making a positive difference people will come alongside you. Become a leader for change.

See both good and bad.

Both are in the world. It’s not helpful to bury our heads in the sand and pretend that the bad isn’t there; because if we don’t see it we’ll never act to fix it. It’s also not helpful to be so focussed on the problems of the world that we lose our hope. We need to find a healthy balance of realistically identifying opportunities for change and seeking opportunities to laugh, sing and smile. It’s also in seeing the good of our communities that we begin to find solutions for the bad. In 1993 the new US President said in his inaugural speech “There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured with what is right with America.” The optimist inside me says that this is true of every community, every nation and of the whole world.

Don’t wait for someone else.

Especially not political leaders! Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to turn this into a politician bashing post. For every 9 crooks there is usually one honest woman or man fighting for their community! Jokes aside, there is good that can and should be done through the democratic process. I encourage all readers to take an active role in the civic affairs of your city, province or country, find leaders you support and engage with them and vote. But don’t think that voting every 4 years is enough to make your world a better place. And don’t expect that even with the best, brightest and most concerned leaders imaginable that you won’t still have work to do. If you see some good that needs doing – do it!

Be prepared to be the first one changed.

The hardest part about changing the world is that we often have to start with, as Michael Jackson put it, “The Man In The Mirror”. One of the things I’ve come to realize is that many of the problems I have identified around me have my fingerprints on them. Let me give a few examples. I want to see big changes made to the amount of oil we pull out of the earth and the ways in which we do it; but I still burn a tank of gas every week and I still use products made from petroleum byproducts (even the computer from which I am blogging). I hate the practices of companies like WalMart that underpay their workers and import their products from countries where slavery is virtually still practiced; but I still don’t want to pay more than $25 for a pair of jeans (my wife has been helping a lot with this one, and I’m happy to report that we haven’t spent a dime at that particular offender in over a year.) The point being – we all need to take personal responsibility to ensure we don’t contribute to the very problems we want to solve.

 

Finally; don’t let yourself be overcome with the weight of the world – make whatever difference you can, wherever you are.

Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me – Jesus

Baggage Claim

One of my absolute least favorite parts of air travel is baggage. Baggage is the reason I have to be up at 4 to catch a 7:30 flight from an airport less than 30 minutes from home. Baggage is the reason I look and feel like an idiot at check-in when it’s a jacket overweight. Baggage is why I am late for lunch despite landing at 10. It’s baggage that gets crushed, lost or sent to the wrong airport. The baggage claim at the airport, especially a major hub, is an excellent place to witness human misery. But the baggage difficulties of travel are trivial compared to the baggage we walk around with in our lives.

The baggage I am thinking about today is that which comes when I use the word Christian to describe myself. You see, as soon as I say that I am a Christian people who don’t already know me make assumptions about me. Typically they are not the assumptions I wish people would make. Studies have shown that the public perception of Christians is that we are anti-science, homophobic, and exclusive. I can protest those assumptions and even provide evidence that I am none of those things, but the perception exists and one man’s protest isn’t going to change it.

 To be fair, while those things may not be true of me, they are assumptions that, as a group, we’ve earned.

 So the question arises, what can I do to distance myself from these perceptions? How can I let people know that I accept scientific evidence even though it contradicts a literal reading of Genesis. How can I let the LGBT community know that I love them, want to see them treated with respect and dignity and afforded unconditional legal equality? How can I make it clear to people of other faiths that I respect their views, believe that their understanding is valuable, and even hope to grow by learning more from their wisdom? I won’t lie to you, the thought that the simplest way to do that would be to ditch the label associated with those negative perceptions has tempted me more times than I care to count.

If I just stopped calling myself a Christian I wouldn’t have to carry the baggage.

 But that doesn’t sit well with me. Because while everyone at the baggage claim may say that I have an ugly bag, what’s inside it is incredibly valuable to me. Just like I can’t take a trip without the things I’ve packed inside my suitcase – I can’t make the journey that is my life without my faith. You see, my relationship with Jesus means more to me than what the baggage of Christianity looks like at carousel 4. And what about all those ugly assumptions? The truth is that there is nothing I can do about what people assume when all they see is the bag – but I can make certain that those who see what is inside begin to see its value. That’s not to say that there isn’t work to be done within the Christian faith. We need to repent of the negative things we have done and start to make new impressions – but that’s not going to happen overnight.

In the meantime we still need our bags if we’re going on a journey.

 So here I am, bags in hand. On the outside a casual observer can make a myriad of assumptions. But what have I packed? To me Christianity is about Jesus. Inside my bag is a heart for all God’s children, a compassion for the disadvantaged, a love for the outcast and a passion for the oppressed. Inside my bag is a desire to feed the hungry, heal the sick and visit the lonely. In my bag are words of forgiveness and mercy for sinners and words of pointed chastisement for oppressors. Inside my bag is a burden to go out into the world and live a life that reveals the character of an all-loving and ever-merciful God. Nowhere in my bag will you find a demand to ignore or twist the evidence in the world around us to read a text in only one way. Nowhere in my bag will you find a hatred for another human being. Nowhere in my bag will you find a notion that my bag is the only way to pack for a journey.

 My hope is that when I meet someone who is put off by my baggage I will still have the opportunity to open it up and share what’s inside. It’ll take time to unpack everything and share that what’s inside is not as ugly as the bag. But I sincerely hope to have that time. I also do hope to one day be able to have the Christian faith seen from the outside the way I see it. But I understand that change will take even longer than the first. Despite this, it’s still my bag and I still need it for my journey.

My baggage may be ugly, but what’s inside is worth it. So I will claim it and head for the next leg of my journey – I hope you’re willing to join me.