Category: Baptist

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Baptist Belief Finding Seeking

How Necessary Was the Crucifixion, or, How I Am Maybe Not a Christian

Last night I mentioned to Zach that I’m sort of “meh” about the crucifixion.

That came out terribly wrong.

No one should be crucified. I’m not ambivalent about the act of crucifixion. There are no great ways to be executed; each, like a Cabbage Patch Kid, comes with its own unique problems. But crucifixion is up there for me with “burned at the stake” and “beheading” as far as Terrible Ways to Go That Aren’t Natural Causes Like Dying Peacefully in My Sleep. When I say I’m “meh” on the crucifixion, what I mean is: I don’t think it’s necessary to Christian faith.

That also came out terribly wrong.

Of course the crucifixion is necessary to the Christian faith. Christianity is based on the birth (at least in Matthew and Luke), life (all four gospels), ministry (again, all four gospels) and state-mandated execution of Jesus of Nazareth. For some sects, the crucifixion is muy importante because Jesus is a sacrifice to atone for…something.

I mean, I know what the “something” traditionally is, but I don’t believe in Original Sin, so Jesus’s death can’t be for that, at least for me. I don’t believe humans need redemption via capital punishment as much as they need the love and care of each other to make it through any given day.

What I am saying, though, is that the crucifixion is not the salvific mechanism that establishes a relationship between you, the person who is pursuing Christianity, and God.

Sacrifice is a complicated concept to follow through both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. One of the things that made the Israelites unique in the Ancient Middle East is that their God eschewed human sacrifice. That is, allegedly, one of the “morals” of the Abraham and Isaac story: it looks like God is asking for a human sacrifice, but last-minute he pulls the worst PSYCHE! of them all and Isaac is spared, if not saved. “We don’t sacrifice people,” the Israelites said.

There is a story in the Hebrew scriptures, in the Book of Judges, about a man named Jephthah who, for job security reasons, swears aloud that “Whoever comes out from the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the Ammonites shall be the LORD’s, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.”

You know how this story ends, even if you don’t know how this story ends. Jephthah returns, triumphant, and sees his daughter (who isn’t named in the text, like most women aren’t named in the text) running out of the door of his house. And because he has made this oath, aloud and publicly, to God, he has no choice.

This is human sacrifice; however, it’s not God-mandated human sacrifice. God didn’t ask Jephthah for his daughter’s ritual murder (in the Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum, a first century re-write of the Hebrew scriptures, she is given a name, Seila); that was something Jephthah came up with all on his own.

There is another story about an evil king named Ahaz (who still ends up listed in Jesus’s genealogy in the Matthew*) who sacrifices his children to Moloch, a Canaanite god. But again, within the narrative of the Hebrew scriptures, God didn’t ask Ahaz to sacrifice his children to Moloch. That’s something Ahaz thought to do all on his own.

(* I will write a longer piece about this, but quickly: there are two versions of Jesus’s genealogy in the Christian scriptures: one in Matthew, which starts with Abraham and ends with Mary and Joseph. In Luke, Jesus’s genealogy is traced back to Adam. Both gospel writers have an agenda behind their genealogies. Mark doesn’t list a genealogy for Jesus at all — and doesn’t even bother with a birth narrative. John comes along, very late in the game, and doesn’t bother with a genealogy at all, and instead claims that the Christ — and there’s a difference between Jesus and Christ — was present with God at the very beginning of everything.)

So why would God ask for a human sacrifice when we get to the New Testament? He hasn’t required human sacrifice up to this point. Some might argue that the taint of Original Sin is so thick on humanity that a human sacrifice of a maybe divine being is what is necessary to clear the slate. I’m not convinced. I worry that we place too much faith in buckets of blood.

(There is this wonderful back-and-forth between two Puritan theologians in the Olden Timey times where witches were hanged and we called people Goody Osburn or Goodman Brown and the devil was everywhere. Roger Williams writes a tract titled “The Bloody Tenet of Persecution for Cause of Conscience.” Which causes a man named John Cotton to reply with his own tract, titled, “The Bloody Tenet Washed and Made White in the Blood of the Lamb.” Williams responds — and essentially drops the mic — with, “The Bloody Tenet Made Yet More Bloody by Mr Cotton’s Endeavor to Wash it White.” In my household we stan Roger Williams. John Cotton can choke on a bloody cloth.)

I think, as believers in God — and by God what I really mean is the Divine Mystery surrounding us all — and followers/fans of Jesus, who said a lot of great things about caring for the poor and needy, and opening his heart and life to everyone, we should sit down for a spell and really think about the crucifixion. Why are we so eager to pin salvation on the state-mandated capital punishment of a brown-skinned Middle Eastern Jew? Why is this incredible theological gift of universal love capped by murder? And what does that say about us as believers? Are we working backwards from the execution of Jesus in order to make him fulfill the promise of The Christ?

Which is where I am. Not sure about the necessity of the crucifixion. Not convinced about the Divine Origin of Jesus (but very convinced by his acts and his works). Not sold on the resurrection — but also not not sold at the same time. Probably, actually, if I give it my whole thought, not even really a Christian.

I deeply believe in God — or however you name the Divine Mystery. Maybe it’s Nature. Maybe it’s Pan. Maybe it’s whatever you need it to be when you stare at the night sky in all its dark crystalline wonder and hope something out there cares as much for you as you care for it. Maybe it’s science. Maybe it’s magic. But what I mostly want it to be is Love.

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1 Thessalonians Baptist Belief God New Testament Seeking

The Good Parts: 1 Thessalonians

1 Thessalonians in the Bible

But we were gentle among you.

1 Thess 2:7

For you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another; and indeed you do love all the brothers and sisters throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, beloved, to do so more and more.

1 Thess 4:9-10

So then let us not die as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.

1 Thess 5:6

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus.

1 Thess 5:16

Test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil.

1 Thess 5:21

May the God of Peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless.

1 Thess 5:23
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Baptist Belief God Seeking

God’s Love as My Love for My Cat

One way I wrap my head around the idea of God’s infinite and unconditional love (as I think of it — you may have an entire different relationship with God that is so personal you only whisper about it to each other and you may also just not have an interest in God even a little and you’re thinking, “Oof. JonBenet Mike was pretty rough; do I want to deal with God Mike too?” And you may not. And I love you anyway) is I think about my cat, Little Baby Fosco, and how it’s impossible he can understand the true depths of my love for him. He just can’t. He’s a cat. I’m a human. For you it may be a dog. My love for Fosco is literally unconditional and all-consuming. I hope to God your love isn’t a lizard.

(Btw, we all wanna say we love our partners with perfect unconditional love, but that’s a metaphor and we all know it. There are always some conditions there.)

There’s nothing that will ever make me stop loving Fosco. L i t e r a l l y nothing. He has pooped on the bathroom floor on ::more:: than one occasion, often out of spite, and Zach would only get maybe TWO accidents like that. See: conditions.

He is my world, this cat. I am MAYBE in his top 20. I don’t care. I love him with no reservations, no agendas, no emotional baggage. Oh, and by the way, there are two other cats in this house here and I love those fuckers equally as much too (except Peter, who I love, but…all of have sinned and fallen short and yadda yadda yadda).

Anyway, all that gushing about my cat is like God and me. I cannot comprehend something like God, or God’s love. I think I feel it, and I’m sure that’s real, and it’s also nowhere near to what God is thinking/feeling about me at any given moment. And God only ::sometimes:: makes it into my Top 50. (I could love God a lot more than I do. We’re still in the “Oh, you load the dishwasher ::that:: way” phase.)

AND GOD DOESN’T CARE. God isn’t holding emotional grudges. What’s being offered to me, to you, (unless you ::really:: don’t want it/don’t believe/are doing good on your own/gave at the office), to all of us is this exceptionally uncomplicated love.

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A Church in Four Months Baptist Belief God New Testament The Bible, KJV The Bible, NIV

The Vineyard Workers (2 September 2018)

The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16)
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

3 “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ 5 So they went.

“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. 6 About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’

7 “‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.

“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’

8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’

9 “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. 10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12 ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’

13 “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

16 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

Matthew is the only one who tells this story. There aren’t enough demons in it for Mark; Luke, the tax collector, could never wrap his head around the message; and if anyone ever figures out what John is saying every moment that he says it please never tell me my heart thrills for mystery.

* * * * *

This Parable of the Vineyard Workers invites us to imagine being paid the same wage for one hour’s worth of work as someone working eight hours. (It also invites us to really pay attention to contracts.) Matthew’s radical message, delivered by Jesus, is that the reward is the same for the person who has made a life-long profession of love for God as it is for the person who has only made an hour’s worth of profession. It is radical communism. And it’s upsetting.

(Pastor Jill brought the parable up to modern times, relating about an early job experience where, as a young professional with no family and no calls on her time, she was able to work long hours. She learned, however, that a colleague performing the same job function as Pastor Jill, who was also a single mother, with two kids who needed ferrying to school and then to whatever kids do after school, was paid the same amount for fewer hours. And what never occurred to Pastor Jill, or even to the people who promoted her for her performed extra work, is that unaccounted labor a single parent has to provide. All labor should be compensated.)

I think the parable wants us to get comfortable with the fact that Jesus spends most of his limited time on earth concerned — and getting others to be as concerned — with how we love our neighbor, rather than with, “Am I getting into heaven? Have I done enough? Is there a chance I could be found wanting?”

You cannot be found wanting. Heaven is already guaranteed. If we wipe all that accounting off the recknoning board, we’re left wondering, “Then why do any good works? Why should I care about what happens to anyone else within my sphere of even limited influence?” And you do it because not doing good (never mind if you are good) will cause you suffering. You can say, “Mike.” You don’t have to believe what I believe. “You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.” But you should do goodness and give lovingkindness because it is good for your soul. Because not only is it decreasing your own suffering, it is decreasing the suffering of another human being. Because Jesus tells us to love our neighbor as he has loved us.

* * * * *

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Peter Singer

The utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer argues that $30k a year is actually sufficient for anyone to live on; we just happen to be in a paradigm where millionaires control a lot of our well-being. Everything over $30k should be donated to social service networks and given directly to the poor.

This is a terrifying prospect for many to grasp. It puts us all at the same risk for needing assistance from time to time. But why is that seen as a weakness? Why isn’t our need a gift for those who have? Why are we unwilling to be humble and accept grace and charity? Why do we only feel as if we can give if we have extra, when what is expected is that we’ll give because it is needed. Think of any canned food drive you’ve ever participated in and consider what you donated. It was likely food you yourself weren’t all that crazy about eating. Was that an act of charity? They’ve likely been hungry longer than you’ve been hungry. How will you work out this moral calculus?

* * * * *

Whirling_Dervishes_courtesy_The_Dialog_Institute_web_t670
Whirling Dervishes

There’s a poem, attributed to Rumi, who is the Abraham Lincoln of Sufi mystics in that too many things get tagged with his name when he may or may not have actually said it. (He’s like Jesus and Paul in that way, too.)

Come, come
whoerver you are
wanderer
worshippper
lover of leaving
it doesn’t matter!
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times.
Come.
Come yet again.
Come.

That’s what the Parable of the Vineyard Workers is teaching us: even if we have broken our vows a thousand times, we are as worthy and deserving of God’s love the thousand-and-first time as we were at the beginning. Even yet again.

Categories
Baptist Belief Finding God New Testament Old Testament Seeking

Universal Salvation, Universal Love

I asked my pastor last night, an amazing woman named Jill McCrory of Twinbrook Baptist, what her most radical belief was w/r/t God and the Bible. She said, “Universal Salvation. We’re all saved. All of us.”

I said something similar a couple of days ago — that I don’t believe in sin, or I don’t believe in sin used as a weight against which we’re measured. And I wanted to write a bit more about that, because so often I better understand my own thinking when I’m ironing it out in print. So.

* * * * *

We are all saved. We were actually born already saved. All of us. Even the worst person you can imagine. Even that worst person. (Where I’m still working is: how necessary was Christ’s crucifixion? Is that the mechanism of salvation? Or can I rely fully on the idea of a loving God not hating any of his creation so much that he would send them to a place of permanent and utter torment? I mean, as I’m further and further into this parenthetical, I think I’m leaning more towards the “Loving God” side of the equation over the “Christ Died for Me” version.)

M.-Scott-Peck

Sin isn’t something God keeps an account of; it’s something we commit against ourselves and each other. In M. Scott Peck’s People of the Lie, he shares a shattering anecdote about a patient he was treating in private practice.

“What did you get for Christmas?”

“Nothing much.”

“Your parents must have given you something. What did they give you?”

“A gun.”

“A gun?” I repeated stupidly.

“Yes.”

“What kind of gun?”

“A twenty-two.”

“A twenty-two pistol?”

“No, a twenty-two rifle.”

There was a moment of silence. I felt as if I had lost my bearings. I wanted to stop the interview. I wanted to go home. Finally I pushed myself to say what had to be said. “I understand that it was with a twenty-two rifle that your brother killed himself.”

“Yes.”

“Was that what you asked for for Christmas?”

“No.”

“What did you ask for?”

“A tennis racket.”

“But you got the gun instead?”

“Yes.”

“How did you feel, getting the same kind of gun that your brother had?”

“It wasn’t the same kind of gun.”

I began to feel better. Maybe I was just confused. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I thought they were the same kind of gun.”

“It wasn’t the same kind of gun,” Bobby replied. “It was the gun.”

“The gun?”

“Yes.”

“You mean it was your brother’s gun?” I wanted to go home very badly now.

“Yes.”

“You mean your parents gave you your brother’s gun for Christmas, the one he shot himself with?”

“Yes.”

* * * * *

hyperliteratura-flannery-o-connor-headerSin and evil are human creations. They break our spirit, break our heart, break our will  — but they do not deny us any of the love of God. My belief is, God is utterly incomprehensible except for two things: he only wants to give love, and he only wants to receive love in return. I think, when we meet God in Heaven, wherever Heaven happens to be, some of us are going to be overjoyed, and some of us are going to be embarrassed or even hurt a little, at first, that people whom we were awful to, because we thought we were better Christians than they were, or better people than they were, are there, in God’s glory. We’re all a little like Mrs Turpin in Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “Revelation”:

At last she lifted her head. There was only a purple streak in the sky, cutting through a field of crimson and leading, like an extension of the highway, into the descending dusk. She raised her hands from the side of the pen in a gesture hieratic and profound. A visionary light settled in her eyes. She saw the streak as a vast swinging bridge extending upward from the earth through a field of living fire. Upon it a vast horde of souls were tumbling toward heaven. There were whole companies of white trash, clean for the first time in their lives, and bands of black niggers in white robes, and battalions of freaks and lunatics shouting and clapping and leaping like frogs. And bringing up the end of the procession was a tribe of people whom she recognized at once as those who , like herself and Claud, had always had a little of everything and the given wit to use it right. She leaned forward to observe them closer. They were marching behind the others with great dignity, accountable as they had always been for good order and common sense and respectable behavior. They, alone were on key. Yet she could see by their shocked and altered faces even their virtues were being burned away. She lowered hands and gripped the rail of the hog pen, her eyes small but fixed unblinkingly on what lay ahead. In a moment the vision faded but she remained where she was.

Ruby Turpin’s revelation is what Hell is, but it’s not forever. It lasts as long as we fight against loving everyone, against lovingkindness. So, Universal Love and Universal Salvation are where I feel God’s presence the most.

* * * * *

icm_fullxfull.170191212_fo7g5gimg7c4gw8o8wso

A woman named Susan is binding a Bible for me, with my favorite quote about grace from Flannery O’Connor: “All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful.” I asked her what her most radical theological belief is, and she says, “Oh boy, I’m not sure I even have a radical theological belief. Perhaps it is more of a hope. I sure do hope that all of the babies that have been aborted are with Jesus. My belief is that they are – same for those who have miscarried. I’m believing my grandchild who never saw the light of day on this earth is in heaven with Jesus. That gives me comfort.”

I want to say to Susan, “Your grandchild is with Jesus. And all the babies, too. And all the women who died from botched abortions because they weren’t legal and safe. And all the fathers who couldn’t get it together to be present. And all the children who ignored their parents. And all the parents who hurt their children. Everyone gets to be in the Kindgom of Heaven. The last, first; the first, last.”

All of us.