HOW SCOTUS PRESERVED MARRIAGE AND RELIGOUS FREEDOM

[Please note a change of Title to this recent post.]

The long awaited decision on same-sex marriage by the US Supreme court has finally arrived.  Same-sex marriage is now legal in all 50 states.  I spent my Sunday reading the court's majority decision written by Justice Kennedy and the dissenting remarks.  I wanted to capture the full flavor of the arguments before commenting.

MARRIAGE PRESERVED

Contrary to those who believe the majority ruling has destroyed the institution of marriage, I would say that marriage has been preserved in this decision.  Had the court chose not to review this case or had it ruled against the petitioners, the civil role for marriage in society would have been put at risk.  I will explain further on in this post. 

The dissents to the majority ruling are, in my opinion, more entertaining than substantive.  The lack of substance in the dissenting opinions should have led them to agree with the majority, were they being objective about this case, rather than letting their subjective views get in the way as clearly demonstrated in Justices Scalia's and Alito's dissenting remarks.  Contrary to the suggestion that the majority decision has rendered the court's action legislative, I would say the court acted as the court should, interpreting existing laws in the light of Constitution. 

This Court did not define marriage, state legislatures did through their legislative procedures, and when they did the way was paved for the Court to adjudicate their legislative decisions.  The fact is several states deferred action regarding the rulings of federal judges to the Supreme Court.  They could have opted to comply with the Federal Court ruling and go back to the drawing board to revamp their laws or they could have petitioned the court itself.  They chose not to, choosing to passively side with the respondents in this case.  Click here to see the Court's ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges.

The respectful dissent given by Chief Justice Roberts that the Supreme Court acted legislatively does not seem to hold true given the course of events that led up to its hearing Obergefell v. Hodges as mentioned in the preceding paragraph.  The court did not invite nor did it invent these cases, they were brought to the court through the appeal process by the petitioners and in accordance with the Supreme Court's judicial procedures. With all due respect for the Chief Justice's dissent, a ruling against the laws of a given state legislature by the Court is not legislation, it's adjudication.  There is abundant precedent for doing so, as Justice Roberts well knows. The court ruled within the scope of the Constitution's 14th Amendment.

As much guff as Justice Kennedy has received by those dissenting the majority ruling, he did a brilliant job in citing and using legal precedent.  Justice Kennedy premised  the majority's ruling on the respondent states placing an undue burden on the dignity of the petitioners. In this case the dignity of the petitioners was burdened by state laws solely because of their identity or sexual orientation. The majority ruling specifically cited the type of burdens these individuals had to deal with because of disparate laws existing in various states.   It acknowledged that this decision expanded fundamental right of two people, regardless of their identity, to marry as protected by the Constitution of the United States under the 14th Amendment.  In particular,  he cited three previous cases ruled on by the Supreme Court that reversed existing state legislation regarding the identity of people seeking the benefits of marriage:  Loving v. Virginia (1967), Zablocki v. Redhail (1978) , and Turner v. Safley (1987). 

Loving ruled that racial identity was no barrier to marriage between people of two races , Zablocki ruled that an identified father behind on child support could not be used as a barrier to the father getting remarried.  Turner ruled that individuals could not be denied the right of marriage because they were identified as prison inmates.

Justice Kennedy also cited Griswold v. Connecticut (1965).   In citing Griswold, Justice Kennedy referred to a definition of marriage cited in that ruling protecting the rights of a couple to the use of contraception.  Here is what Justice Kennedy quoted: 

"Marriage is a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degree of begin sacred.  It is an association that promotes a way of life, not causes; a harmony in living, not political faiths; a bilateral loyalty, not commercial or social projects.  Yet is an association for the noble a purpose as any involved in our prior decisions." 

This is probably the most definitive language regarding marriage found in case law relevant to the case at hand.  It's breadth is inspiring.  It's lack of specific language regarding an identity as to who can be married is as inspired as anything written in the Constitution, which was purposely left open ended and definitively vague so as not to impede the social and political progress of this great nation.

In that same spirit, the decision to legalize same-sex marriage says nothing about who should or shouldn't be married, but rather that those desiring marriage, as defined in Griswold, should not be prohibited because of identity.  This has not prohibited states from legislating other matters regarding marriage, such as age requirements, etc..  The majority ruling simply states that personal identity, as set by legal precedent, is not sufficient to prevent two people from being married and enjoying the privileges and responsibilities thereof and is thus protected under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.    As such, marriage has been preserved as foundational to our common understanding of society and as the means of establishing and providing for the familial and personal relationships it encompasses.

The dissenting justices pointed out that the constitution has no definition for marriage. That's true. The fact is the constitution doesn't define a lot of things that the Supreme Court has had to rule on throughout its history.  This ruling did not define marriage.  In actuality, marriage is difficult to define conceptually. The functional definition of marriage found in Griswold is probably as succinct a definition that one will find anywhere. 

At best, marriage is the communal recognition that a covenantal bond exists between two individuals.  As such, marriage is not specifically defined in the Bible either.  The closest Chief Justice Roberts could come to finding a specific definition of marriage was in Noah Webster's Dictionary which he quoted in his dissent.  All the dissenting judges pointed to the "long standing tradition" of marriage meaning one man and one woman.  Chief Justice Roberts, however, pointed out his fear that polygamist would see their chance to legalize polygamous marriages. 

The fact is there exists a longer tradition of polygamy than there is of monogamy with regard to the tradition of marriage and in forwarding his fear, Justice Roberts inadvertently admitted the "tradition" of marriage has changed throughout the centuries.  The majority ruling did not change the monogamous state of marriage that is law in all 50 states.

If tradition is what marriage is to be based on, by all means polygamists should have their day in court.  In fact, I don't see how the dissenting justices could argue against it, now that they have brought up.

Thankfully, tradition is not law and to cite it as such enters precarious terrain.   

Had the court not decided in favor of the petitioners, marriage, as a foundation of our society would have been put at risk. It would have resulted in the need, at some point, to create a separate means for people in same-sex relationships to acquire the same rights and responsibilities of those is marriages as in recognizing civil unions. 

Marriage, from a societal perspective, is a civil union - a legal covenant between two individuals that can be dissolved by court of law.  Renaming same-sex relationships as civil unions only and opposite sex unions  as marriages would have created a double-standard that I suspect would have, in the long-run, consigned the institution of marriage to that of a historical anachronism.

Had this ruling not been given, marriage would have been defined and identified by its "traditional" role that has come down to us via religious tradition, rather than secular tradition, since a strictly secular tradition does not exist.  It does now.  Marriage is now divorced from its being solely defined by its "traditional religious" connotations.  The brouhaha by some conservative religious leaders is evidence of that.  The founding fathers would not have seen a need to do so at the time the Constitution was written.  Times have changes and with it the need to broaden that tradition has arrived. The fact is there are many long-standing religious denominations that welcome this broadening of the marriage tradition.

The wall separating state and church has been preserved.  Thank God and thank the Court!

The division between church and state is one of the United States finest traditions and it should not be tampered with.  Religious institutions have it very good in this country.  Religion has flourished primarily because it enjoys freedoms of expression that have been long standing and not found elsewhere in the world.

That hasn't been changed by this ruling.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM PRESERVED

Those who have expressed angst over this ruling as having violated religious freedom have been and are being misled by those who are saying this ruling compels them to marry same-sex couples which they, by their religious beliefs, are forbidden to do.  This is blatantly false contention.  This ruling upholds the First Amendment and the right of religions the free exercise thereof.  To quote the majority ruling: 

"Finally, it must be emphasized that religions, and those who adhere to religious doctrines may continue to advocate with utmost, sincere conviction that, by divine precepts, same-sex marriage should not be condoned.  The First Amendment ensures that religious organization and each persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths, and to their own deep aspirations to continue the family structure they have long revered.  The same is true of those who oppose same-sex  marriage for other reasons.  In turn, those who believe allowing same-sex marriage is proper or indeed essential, whether as a matter of religious conviction or secular belief, may engage those who disagree with their view in and open and searching debate.  The Constitution, however, does not permit the State to bar same-sex couples from marriage on the same terms as accorded to couples of the opposite sex."

The majority ruling has preserved the traditional role of marriage in this country both as a function of the state and a function of religion.  Nothing there has changed. 

There is no denying that marriage throughout the centuries has been understood to be the coming together of a man and a woman for the purpose of sharing their lives, for better or for worse, until the death of one or the other.  Marriage was also understood to be the proper state or environment for raising children and of defining common property and the rights associated with it.  That is the traditional understanding of marriage in its simplest form. 

Traditions that endure, however, do so because they can absorb change when circumstances change - when understanding changes.  Until very recently no one would have considered same-sex marriage viable, but things have changed, circumstance have changed, understanding has changed. 

What hasn't changed is marriage.   

Let me provide an example from science.  For centuries it was literally a matter of faith in the Christian world that the earth was at the center of cosmos and the Sun and Moon revolved around it. That understanding stood for millennia . It was such an article of faith, at one time that the that great Galileo was censured, silenced and forced to retract his writings that the Earth is not the center of the Cosmos; that the Earth revolved around the Sun and the moon revolves around the Earth and forced to live out the rest of his life in isolation. 

My point is this:  Regardless of whether one believes the Sun and Moon revolves around the Earth or the Earth revolves around the Sun,  the Sun  and Moon still rise in the East, as do they set in the West.  This new information has not changed our experience of sunrises, sunsets and the moon rising and the moon setting, but the discovery and the new understanding brought about by Galileo and others has broadened our appreciation of what's involved in these processes, of the universe as something far more than what it was prior.  As with sunrises and sunsets, the beauty of marriage has not been altered by this decision.  It's been broadened.  It has likely attained greater depth and meaning.

In addition, the Bible really doesn't define what marriage is.  The Bible describes its function, but not its essence.  For example, we read in Genesis 2:24, Matthew 19:5, and Mark10: 7, the following:  "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and a woman shall leave her home and the two shall become one flesh."

That's more a commentary on marriage rather than a definition.  It's describing how it functions.  "The reason" is not specifically spelled out.  The reality is throughout history people become married for a number of reasons.

Love was not considered essential for marriage in ancient times.  Marriages were arranged and bargained. Love might have been the icing on the cake, but it was certainly not considered a main ingredient of the cake.  Women and children were more often considered property of the man than anything else.  Love frequently resulted because of such unions, but was not always present at the onset of such arrangements.   That has changed and, in historical terms, is a relatively recent change. [See my posts "Senseless Sex in the Bible" and "Is this the end... of Marriage?" ].

Polygamy was very much the practice of the day in the Middle east when these comments were made.  There is no biblical prescription, for example, stating that marriage must consist of one man and one woman only.  Even in the Epistles, which talk about married life between a husband and wife there is no true definition of what marriage is or how its established.   The simple fact about marriage is that it requires a communal recognition that two individuals, historically involving a man and a woman, coming together to share each others lives. 

In ancient times this process could be repeated by men several times, resulting in a man of means having several wives and a whole bunch of children.  The only Biblical prescription regarding marriage as being between only one man and one woman is in the Christian epistle, 1 Timothy 3:2 where it states that a bishop should be the husband of one wife.  That's as far as the Bible goes in defining marriage as being between one man and one woman. 

What has changed is that we now know and acknowledge that two people of the same sex can fall in love and desire to share their lives in the same matrimonial state as opposite sex couples do.  We now know that same-sex couples are capable of having children of their own genetic composition (thanks to advances in reproductive science), adopting children, and raising children such as opposite sex couples do.  In that sense, the circumstances have changed, but marriage hasn't.  Marriage remains what it has always been, a coming together of two individuals for the purpose of sharing their lives together in intimacy.  [Justice Scalia's comments about intimacy in his dissent is worth the read.]

I am well aware that there are sincere religious people who feel very threatened by the Court's decision, who see this as an affront to God's will.  I would ask them to take a deep breath and consider for a moment:

Is it possible that the Court carried out God's will to give us new understanding, a new depth to our understanding of human relationships?  

The Court won't go there, but God, as I understand God, frequently within Biblical scriptures used those outside of the framework of religion to inform religion - including the use of mythical donkey by one account.  Religions can become root bound to the extent they stop growing. They become enmeshed in their dogmatism to the point of having said it all.  I've belonged to a church like that; where every sermon was essentially a regurgitation of every other sermon I heard in that church since a child.  In fact, if you say something different in those churches' people complain you're not preaching the Gospel.  They can only find comfort in hearing the same old messages. One really doesn't understand how brainwashing religion like that can be until one steps away from it.

When fear becomes the dominant theological position taken by a church, for example; when all that can been seen is gloom and doom ahead, that church has lost its bearings.  It's root bound.  It can't think beyond its fears. God sometimes, shakes the foundations to get things going again.  If same-sex marriage is shaking the foundations of one's faith, maybe it needs a good shaking out to enliven it. 


Beware of Wolves in Sheep's Clothing

Religious freedom can only be put at risk by the religious themselves.
 
Attempts to try and turn this into some sort of religious battle is misleading, to say the least.  Since Obergefell v. Hodges was presented to the Supreme Court for review, I have heard all sorts of bizarre rhetoric used to frighten people.  I find it interesting that many opponents to gay rights, yet alone, same-sex marriage talk in terms of Gay Nazis trying to take over the nation, of  saying the Supreme Court does not having the final say regarding the laws of this land, that God's law takes precedent over US Law - trying to paint theocracy as democracy.  Obviously, such individuals have no sense of history or religion.

Gay Nazis are a contradiction in terms - an oxymoron.  Gays were as much persecuted by the Nazi's in Germany as the Jews.

This nothing more than a wolf in sheep's clothing approach to the issue; that is, wolves trying to act like sheep by pointing to other sheep and describing them as wolves.

I have heard some try to describe the effort to promote same-sex marriage as being kin to ISIS, another wolf in sheep's clothing argument. 

Haven't they been watching the news?  ISIS has been shown to kill gays in public.

Who are these people trying to fool?  There are times when I think I was listening to an old Warner Brother's cartoon.

It seems to me the purpose for making such outlandish statements is that if one doesn't have a rational argument to make against something one opposes, then make the argument so irrational and outrageous as to garner the attention of the inattentive who just might buy into one's point of view simply because it is outrageousness and being published in the news and social media. 

Unfortunately, there are those who think the more outrageous something is there must be some truth to it, especially if it backs their beliefs about something. It works on the young and weak minded.  Its a troubling to see so called educated people utilize such scare tactics on those most prone to radicalization - those who will take matters into their own hands.   I have often wondered why those espousing such outrageous notions are not cited as accomplices after the fact when those very ideas lead to violence in this country.

Then there are those who are saying churches and religious institutions may end up losing their tax exempt status if they refuse to marry same-sex couples.  This is an interesting ploy.

Money, always seems to hit home - even among the religious - or perhaps more so.  Churches have long set their own standards by which they will or will not marry individuals.  No couple seeking to be married in a church or synagogue  has a right to be married in a church, synagogue or temple because they want to.  Such religious places are permitted to have and exercise their own policies with regard to who they will or will not marry. 

That is not going to change. 


The fact is, there are many churches who already are performing blessings on same-sex couples, and in states where same sex marriage has been permitted, they have willingly performed such marriages. Nobody has forced them to or forces churches who do not want to marry a given couple to do so. 

What is more likely to happen over the course of time is that churches who support same-sex marriages will lose some of its membership and churches who oppose same-sex marriages will lose some its membership.

Religion is a free and open market in the US.

People, for the most part, are no longer attached to a specific denomination in the United States.  If you don't like the church you're in, you have choices to consider, or you can stay at home.  Religious denominations can no longer count on membership loyalty because someone was born or married in a particular church, synagogue or temple.  Those times are long gone, and its been a healthy development for the sake of religion in America.   Religious leaders frequently lament that fact, but it encourages growth.  It is forces religions of various types to take a hard look at themselves and what they teach.

Then there are the Republican Presidential candidates who lining up to make this a political football in the upcoming presidential election.  Oh well, nothing new here.  Such is the politics of desperation.  If you have nothing to offer, block those who do with a barrage of fear-mongering rhetoric.

I remember the time when interracial marriage was a much discussed topic in my plain's state conservative Lutheran church.  I remember hearing the argument against interracial marriage, between black and whites in particular, put this way:  "Black birds don't mate with Blue Birds. It's not natural."  This is the same argument some religious leaders are saying about same-sex marriage.  "It's unnatural."    In time, however, interracial marriages became considered natural and the Court helped us broaden our religious perspective on that.

I suspect when all the fluff about this settles, no one will bat an eye about same-sex marriages.  It too will be natural.  The sky didn't fall when blacks and whites married, and it won't fall with the marriage of same-sex couples. 

The biggest threat to religious freedom, as I have said earlier, comes from those who have their own notion of religion they wish to protect.    Its very easy to predict (which I don't do very often) that if social conservatives try to create fear over the tax exempt status of religious institution by creating laws to protect them,  they will be inviting scrutiny of the tax exemptions these institutions now enjoy. 

Social conservatives simply don't understand how the creation of law results in the scrutiny of such laws. They simply don't get it. 

Or do they?  Hmmm.... 

I hope the leaders of all religions in this country are weary of any politician trying to protect religion.

Hopefully, this furor will abate quickly.

 Marriage has not changed.  It's been expanded. 

Religious freedom has been affirmed and remains in tact.

No need to mess with any of it. 

Let it be.


Until next time, stay faithful.











     

GUNS, RACISM, GOVERNMENT, AND RELIGION

WHEN IDEOLOGIC BELIEF IS CONFRONTED BY FAITH

 

 CHARLESTON, 2015

The violence done in this nation is distressing.  I am writing this post in the wake of the recent violence done at Mother Church Immanuel, AME, in Charleston, South Carolina.  My heart is sickened over the senseless killing of nine faithful members of that congregation in Bible study by a young ideologue who could not see the human beings in front of him because of their skin color. 

I am listening in amazement to the amazement expressed by various members of the news media in response to family members of the victims repeatedly standing in a court room telling the young man who took the lives of their loved one's that he was forgiven by them.  I am not so much amazed by their comments as I am hopeful because of them.  They obviously are true followers of Jesus.  They understand that the only true defense against such evil, in the form of ideological racism, is the power of forgiveness.   They get it and may they be sustained by it. 

I too feel sorry for the young ideologue who committed such evil.  He is as much a victim of his beliefs as those he killed.  As yet, he does not appear to understand that it is he and his ideological beliefs [See post of Belief I & II] that have been defeated in the face of faith expressed by members of the Immanuel congregation.  [ See post of Faith I & II]. 

Racism is an outcropping of the differentiating paradigm of religion [See post on Religion] where such individuals have not moved beyond seeking differences as a means of defining their own identity. They have abandoned humanity's original religious impulse, "We need each other."  Of course this isn't the first time we have seen such violence committed by one individual. and I fear it will not be the last. 

 

NICKEL MINES, 2006

 

This incident brought to mind another incident where an individual walked into a school room of Amish children and opened fire, killing five students in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania in 2006.  There too, forgiveness was the response of that faith community to the evil visited upon them.  In fact, if memory serves me, they helped the perpetrator's wife and children in the aftermath of that event. In that case, the violence appears to have stemmed from the perpetrator's mental issues.  This does not appear to be the case in Charleston, where racial hatred appears to be the motive, at this time. 

 

SANDY HOOK, 2012

Sandy Hook should have been the turning point with regard to gun violence, and violence in the United States, but it wasn't.   As much as there appeared to be a public outcry against gun violence and consensus to implements some form of gun control in this country,  the gun industry, their lobbyists, and their money held sway. 

Sandy Hook struck close to home for me because my wife, at the time, was a High School teacher and my daughter and Elementary School counselor. At the time of Sandy Hook, I wrote a letter that I never sent to the one and only senator from my state I thought might actually read it or, at least, thought one of his staff might have.  [Undoubtedly, no one in Washington is going to read one of my lengthy letters, but I can't help making sure I explain my reasons for writing.]  That senator is no longer a senator and currently I have no doubt that sending it to my state's current congressional delegation would end falling on deaf ears. They are in the gun rights corner, lock, stock and barrel. So here is my original, unedited and unsent letter:

 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

Dear Senator... ,

As I write you, I have in front of me one of our nation’s most sacred documents, “The Constitution of the United States,” whose preface is both a pledge and promise to the American People and serves as the premise upon which its articles and amendments are based:

“We, the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessing of Liberty to ourselves and our Prosperity, do ordain and establish the CONSTITUTION for the United States of America.”

As a republic, citizens like me imbue elected officials like you not only with the power to regulate but to be public guarantors of the assurances made in the preface, on our behalf.  There is little question in the in my mind that gun violence must be addressed.  It is also apparent that doing so will be a contentious undertaking and will demand a committed will by all federal, state, and locally elected officials. 

THE ISSUES

 CONTROL or REGULATION

The issue of gun violence is complicated by the rhetoric surrounding it. This is not about “Gun Control” or the government taking a gun from someone’s “cold dead hands.” It’s about elected officials taking their constitutional responsibilities seriously, to provide reasonable regulation in order to keep the promise of domestic tranquility and the common defense. 

I maintain most gun owners are decent, law-abiding citizens who own guns for personal protection and recreation and who use them responsibly and safely.  I believe reasonable gun owners would favor some form of regulation to ensure public safety, a free state, and their right to responsible ownership.

Those opposed to gun regulation have attached it to the Second Amendment and “the right of the people to keep and bear arms” without consideration of the preceding amendment and “the right of the people to peaceably assemble;” such as, the right to assemble with members of congress in a public forum, go to a movie theater, gather at a temple or church, or to attend an elementary school without having to fear gun violence occurring in such places.    

Somehow opponents to regulation have managed to occlude the importance of the Constitution’s Preface and the First Amendment by making the Second Amendment the premier rights issue of our time.  It is not.  The Second Amendment is a right premised on the preface, preceded by the right to peaceful assembly, and predicated on a well-regulated militia protecting a free state. The fact is mass killing through the use and availability of assault guns deprives and threatens to deprive citizens the promise of tranquility, the right to peaceful assembly, and from living in a state free from the tyranny of one person with the capacity to inflict massive casualties.

Unfortunately, the anti-regulation camp would interpret the promise of defense as an individual responsibility to fend for oneself and would reframe “We, the people” into “Me, the person.”  In addition they would to reframe the responsibility of elected officials to ensure tranquility and defense of a free state as infringement.  Such opponents of regulation appear romantic in their entertainment of “old west” vigilantism by arming teachers and schools personal with guns to shoot someone suspected of or engaging in gun violence as the most effective means of protection. 

The opposition to regulation fails to realize that permitting guns in schools and other public institutions ultimately will result in increased regulation by needing to define who would bear such responsibility, under what circumstance could guns be used, what type of weaponry, and how it would be stored in a facility with public access, not to mention the litigation and backlash that would ensue should an innocent student or bystander be killed as a result of poor judgment or a knee jerk response by a school official or public employee.

In the long run, it would be more efficient if there existed a clear definition in law identifying the type of weapons capable of inflicting massive lethal casualties, banning them and their ammunition from public sale, enforcing ownership registration, and taking steps to stop gun proliferation by closing all loopholes including banning the private sale of weapons without background checks and registration.  While this is complex, it is far less complex than the legal battles that will inevitably ensue if regulation is left vague, questionable, and results in countless innocent lives being lost.

This issue is about protecting the public from gun violence due to the insufficient regulation that has allowed the proliferation of automatic assault weaponry.   Every individual has right to defend themselves as a last resort, but the government has a responsibility to protect to the public through the rule of law in order to reduce the need of individuals to have to fend for themselves.

 MENTAL HEALTH

While there seems to be a trend in recent  mass shootings of perpetrators having a mental condition, it is clear that most  who perpetrate gun violence, apart from mass killings, would not fall into that category; that they are angry people, thoughtless people, or people with a reasoned, personal agenda to do harm to others.   While I agree mental health needs to be addressed, I see this as secondary to the issue of the availability and proliferation of automatic guns and ammunition, whose purpose is to kill multiple victims.  

Targeting those with mental disorders as the problem is misleading and serves as a dodge to the issue of gun regulation.  As a person who has worked in the mental health field all my life, I believe we can do more to help those with mental illnesses.  Having said that, I also know it is easier to regulate things than it is to regulate people.  The issue of mental health needs to be handled very carefully.  The reality is we’re all diagnosable when it comes to mental health. 

It is difficult to determine who would commit such atrocious acts even if they are in the mental health system, a system which for the most part does not exist in any functional or real sense.    It is always easier to look back at such tragedies and find the ever-present link between atrocity and derangement, especially when it involves a lone perpetrator. Most people with mental disorders and illnesses are not dangerous to others.  Most are more likely to be victimized by others than victimize others. 

Sadly, when dysfunction arises in our nation there is a tendency to target vulnerable populations as the problem; in this case, those with mental illnesses. We sincerely need a mental health system that is both compassionate and passionate in its endeavors to safely restore those with mental illnesses to the community rather than store them away.  We need a system that has both the ability to report clientele who pose a real and present threat to others and one that will help them.  We need a mental health system that takes seriously the rights of persons with a mental diagnosis; protecting them from being criminalized by association, protecting them from stigmatization, and from being unjustly stripped of their rights because of illness.

PERSONAL NOTE

As the husband of high school teacher and the father of an elementary school counselor, I can attest that my wife and daughter did not enter the field of education with the idea of having to use a gun as part of their jobs.  The responsibility of teaching and counseling the young is what they love to do and what they do best.  Protecting their students by removing them from harm should be their first objective should such a situation arise. Attempting to take out an assailant could result in not only their deaths, but the deaths of countless students should they fail in that endeavor. 

Any requirement or permissiveness on the part of federal or state elected officials to promote legislation that fosters the presence of guns in a school is a dereliction of their oaths and duty to defend and protect the constitution and people of the United States.   As an elected official I implore you to support and vote for reasonable regulation of automatic guns, their ammunition, and proliferation.

Sincerely,

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

GUNS

What made me think of this letter was a news segment on TV in regard to South Carolina's gun law which permits guns to be carried into public building, less than 24 hours after the incident.  A lawyer for a gun rights advocacy group strongly intimated that had the pastors of Immanuel permitted guns in their church, this could have been avoided. 

Hmmm...    Let's just think about that for a moment. 

If I recall, even in old westerns people entering churches hung their gun in the cloak room.  That might be movie fiction more than fact, but it gets the point.

At any rate his comment prompted me to recall the letter I had written after Sandy Hook about the persistent 2nd amendment argument that inevitably surfaces after such incidents.  

The fact that congress refuses to address this issue at all is sending a message to such ideologues as this young man with the implied message, "It's okay to take matters into your own hands, because you have a fundamental right to protect what you see is your way of life."  Grant it, no member of congress would condone what this young man did, but by not addressing the means by which he carried it out, conveys a misrepresentation of our nation's Constitution and its Bill of Rights.

FLAGS

I was listening to the news the other day and heard a black man being interviewed explain that he didn't think the issue of the Confederate flag flying on the state capitol grounds merited the attention it was getting - after all, he surmised, it's just a symbol and people of South Carolina need to make a decision about it.  Obviously this person was well educated and was, in my opinion, trying not to ruffle the feathers of those southern conservatives who have an emotional attachment to the flag as a symbol of their past. 

Flags are not "just" symbols.  They are a display of the ideologies attached to them.  The young ideologue who killed nine black individuals in a church was attached to this symbol and the ideologies he and others believe it stands for. 

I would agree that the people of South Carolina need to make a decision about the display of  the confederate flag, a symbol that is now associated to the present mayhem caused by one of  it worshipers.  I have addressed the phenomena  of  flag worship in the posts that I have referenced above and see no need to go into it here, but I am not one to dismiss the power and influence of symbol in eliciting the type emotional response demonstrated in this tragedy.  

As I am writing this, the South Carolina state senate is debating whether to remove the Confederate Flag from the capitol grounds.  It looks very promising that they will.

 

RACISM

Racism is a virus that is always present, but for the past couple of decades, there has been a relaxing of the tension between the races as a whole and it seemed to me that while there remains much work to be done to ensure equal opportunity and fair playing level for all races and ethnic groups, there was a sense of slowly moving forward, of making progress. When this nation elected its first Black president, many of us hoped we had crossed the median of the bridge to a more unified nation, where race and color no longer mattered.

Obviously, that bridge is far from being crossed. 

Instead of coming together, as was hoped in the election of our first Black president,  political opposition to President Obama has been tinged with racism from the start.  Everything from his name to his birth has been questioned under the guise of concern about his loyalty to this country.  The opposition never addressed his race outright, but in questioning his name, his parentage, his birthplace, and attacking and attempting to block everything our president has attempted to do for the people of this country smacks of racism.  In a sense, because of their actions, whether one is white, black, yellow, or brown, we've all suffered the effects of  their racism.  Our president won't say it because he would be accused of playing the race card, but his opposition has played it without naming it as such.  They may fool themselves and some of their constituents, but they have not fooled the vast majority of us who re-elected President Obama to a second term.

Like any viral illness, racism takes a long time to heal and there was real healing happening in United States  and around the world; that is, until social conservatives gained power and attempted to reverse the course of history under the guise of concluding that the wounds of racism were healed enough to no longer require the social prostheses that propped up and prompted equal opportunity and a fair field as a means of fending off victimization for people of color.

In this country, social conservatives saw such social prosthetic devices as unfair advantage to their advantaged lives. 

Who would think it fair or equal to remove a crutch from someone with wounded leg or tell a person who is reliant on a wheel chair to walk without it because they have legs and they're just not using them?

I live in hope that there will be a time when such devices will not be necessary.

I live in hope, that there will come a time when those who need such devices will cast them aside and walk freely. 

But that time is not now. 

Racism has crippling effect on all societies where it remains unchecked. When any part of our society is not permitted to keep pace with progress, we all slow up.

GOVERNMENT

Racism is enculturated and systemized and acts very much like the social virus it is.  To address this issue requires more than social prosthetics, it requires the medication of education and vaccines that are cultured on our common human heritage and our shared humanity.  We must inoculate our systems against prejudice and apathy.  Recovery is never reached simply because something or someone looks better on the surface. 

Viral racism has resurfaced because it has never gone away. 

It has not been effectively treated. 

Our nation has not been allowed to put this issue to rest.

Apathy and ennui has trickled down onto the streets of our society from the halls of congress because our congressional leaders appear more focused on blocking progress than addressing the needs of the day. 

They have not addressed gun violence.

They have not, as yet, addressed the increasing rise of racial tension created by the mindless killing black individuals by a few knee-jerk police officers who appear to have a mindset of "shoot first and ask questions later" in response to the most petty situations involving black individuals.

Will they remain silent in the face of this event, also? 

Will they consign what is an increasing occurrence to the "Lone wolf" excuse, or enmesh it as a problem of mental health that they have yet to address? 

We have elected people to congress who appear better at fear-mongering in order to play off the fears of their constituencies as their means to stay in office than they are at honing the craft of statesmanship.

For all practical purposes it appears that the majority of  our elected representatives are better at playing some sort of "Block and Dodge the Issue" video game that sends the messages, "You're on your own.  Every person for themselves" than doing anything substantive to rebuild our nation that is in a state of increasing deterioration.

That may not be how they see themselves in congress, but that is how congress looks like from the streets of America. 

No message sends a message. 

No action causes actions.

In order to preserve and protect requires clear messages and collaborative actions on the part of federal and state leaders.

If we, as a nation, do not progress in our social agenda, we will certainly regress. 

We look to our elected congressional leaders to set the pace and send the right messages to ensure the growth, safety, and well-being of our nation. What we have experienced from the past several congresses is any but that.

In spite of all this, I live in hope because I see people of every race, color, and creed coming together at times like these to be present for each other - perhaps the greatest medicine of all. 

In addition, we are fortunate in this country to have local and civic leaders who take these issues very seriously, like the mayors of our major cities who have to deal with the streets of society they oversee.  They get it!

Black lives matter - All lives matter - We need each other. 

RELIGION

Most of what I have to say about religion and violence I have already said in my post "Religion."  What I would add here is that Immanuel AME Church, like the Amish community at Nickel Mines demonstrate why we need theistic religion.

Religion is the only long-standing human innovation that has allowed ourselves, over the centuries, to objectively examine who we are, that has allowed ourselves to forgive and move on.  [See my post on Forgiveness]

Forgiveness is not natural in the animal kingdom.  Humans came to forgiveness because we are the aware creatures who have survived and thrived against all odds.  Humans, long ago, came to understand that we are our own worst enemies.  No other animal species is capable of killing us off (unless it be some one-cell virus or bacteria) better than we can kill ourselves off.  Vengeance and violence go hand in hand and it was killing us. Theistic religion gets this better than any other human institution. The long standing question that remains pertinent in every age is, "When do we let the past remain in the past?  When do we forgive?"  

The young, 21 year old, ideologue who killed nine human beings in a Bible study did so because he wanted to restart an old war that is in the past.  He killed them because of the color of their skin.  That's it.  His hatred of them was fueled by a fear he didn't understand, which tuned out the love he faced in that Bible study group.  He did not recognize that the open door of that church was its open heart; the very heart of God.

I was neither amazed or surprised by the forgiveness shown this young ideologue by the family members of those he killed.  I am grateful for that Love, their love, the love that hatred and fear cannot kill. 


Until next time, stay faithful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GOD IS LOVE

For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks?

Psalm 6:5

Perhaps the above verse is an odd way to start a discussion on God is love, but to say God is love begs some questions about God.  To love is an action that fulfills the need to be loved.  Love is not isolative.  Even love of one's self requires an objective view of one's own being as differentiated from other beings. Who is the me that I love?  One cannot love without love returned or having experienced love's return. Someone who has never experienced being loved has no compass by which to love. So to say God is love has given me pause to wonder:

Does God have needs?

Does God need us?

Does God need me?

As a Christian, it has been drilled into my mind that God loves me and everyone, but if I don't love God back, God doesn't need me.  I'm dispensable.  I can go to Hell. 

God doesn't want me to, go to Hell (or so I've been told) but then again, it's the only free choice I have in this relationship, according to either/or-ness of salvation theology.   As the letter to the Ephesians points out, I am saved by grace and that not of myself.  Which roughly translates there is little if anything that I can do that has any real value to God other than to be an object of salvation or subject myself to salvation.  Undoubtedly this subjugating quandary prompted John Milton to surmise in "Paradise Lost", "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven."

If God doesn't need me, if God doesn't need anyone or anything, does God really love me or anything? Can God be love? 

THE NEEDINESS OF GOD

Psalm 6:5, as quoted above, would suggest that God  has needs, otherwise the case for saving the psalmist's life, based on the perceived need of God to be remembered and to receive thanks, would be pointless.  In other words, if God doesn't have a need to be remembered or acknowledged via thanksgiving, the psalmist was wasting his breath.  One cannot make an appeal, such as the psalmist did,  to someone who has no needs upon which an appeal can be directed.

Psalm 6:5 undermines the whole notion that we are dispensable in the eyes of God.  In fact, amidst all the mixed messages one can derive out of the Hebrew Scriptures, one thing emerges:  God cares about what happens because it's important to God.  If something is important, it is because it fulfills a need.  

Grant it, the Hebrew scriptures appear to be mostly geared to the relationship between God and his Chosen People, the Israelites, and offers a fine example of the differentiating paradigm found in all religions, but as the story develops the paradox within the paradigm emerges and it emerges early.  

For example, in the story of Noah and The Flood (pre-Abraham) God's need of us is intimated in the reason God does not destroy all of God's earthly creation. The story begs the question why God just didn't completely start over.  I realize this is a complex story, but let's face it , God sought out Noah because God could not be without a recognizing other, and it is in Noah's recognition of God that deems him righteous in the eyes of God. The same is true for most of the stories in the Hebrew Scriptures - righteousness is connected to recognition.

So, does God exist without us? 

Well - from a human perspective,  I'd say no!  If we humans don't exist (as far as we humans are concerned), God doesn't exist either.

So, in the story of Noah and Flood, God repents of the thought of destroying everything and the deed of drowning most everyone and everything.   Why?  Because God can't BE without us.  At the very least, he needs a couple of us (male and female) to keep love going, as told in this story.

As shocking and arrogant as this may sound, it's not intended to be.  God made us to be sentient creatures to fulfill a need of God that the psalmist reminds God of; to be recognized, to be remembered, to be appreciated.  In other words, the psalmist makes a very bold case to God that if he, the psalmist, doesn't exist, for all practical purposes, God doesn't either (at least as far as the psalmist is concerned).

As I have mentioned in my post, The Bible, Myth, Mystery, and Theology , it would appear that God wanted mankind to develop an independent sense of self, and the only way to accomplish that is if we had the capacity to rebel and chose our own path.  God's purpose in this, at least mythologically speaking, was to have a sentient beings, us, who could love God independently, to love God for who God is, so we became the object of God's love that can freely respond to it.  This is the reason the universe exists, the reason we exist.  God loves what God creates.  God needs us to respond to God's love, at least on this speck of cosmic dust known as Earth. 

SALVATION THEOLOGY

Salvation theology doesn't get this important aspect of our relationship with God.  In salvation theology, everything comes from God.  We are so flawed that we no longer have the capacity of being co-creators with God in our little corner of the universe. We're the needy ones in what amounts to be a codependent relationship with God where we must return God's love or face the consequences.  In salvation theology, it's all about our helplessness and hopelessness, as indicated in the 1John 4:8-10:

"He that loveth (agapon) not knoweth not God; for God is love (agape).  In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.  Herein is love (agape), not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." 

The imposed self-deprecation for being human that is thrust upon us in these verses sounds pious and humble, but it misses the point of God being love (the point the author is trying to make, but fails to do so).  It misses the point that we were created not only for love but also to love - to love God.  [I cannot overstate my appreciation of the fact that English has only one word for love, Love- but that's a topic for another post.]

But if the above verses from 1 John are correct, how can we say we that we love God of our own free will?   Apparently, the only free choice we really have (according to 1 John) is not to love God.  If we love God, it is because God first loved us (or so I was told in Sunday School).  But this begs other questions:

Do I say that I love God because I'm afraid of the consequences of saying I don't love God?

If I love God for fear of not loving God, is my love true?

Can true love be compellable?  Can we be forced to love because we are loved?

Salvation theology says,  Yes.  The only way to love God is to acknowledge God's unmerited love for us and accept it. In fact there are Christian movies titled, "Compelled by love."

I would say no.  True love is never forced, and loving someone who demands my love is what the  ancient Greeks defined as mania.  Need I say more.

Of course, salvation theology, itself, indicates the neediness of God.  Even 1 John begs the question of God's need for us.   Why did God see a need to save us?  Why did Jesus have to pay the price for our sins? [See posts on Salvation: Part I & Part II] 

Sometimes the answers given by theologians are vague; such as, God requires justices be met because God is unchanging and consistent.  Since God condemned us to die because of sin, the only way to help us escape everlasting death is to have Jesus pay the price, and so on. 

They totally skip over the obvious conclusion that God needs us.

Let's face it, people don't want a needy God, but we do want to be needed.  We want to be loved and God, like us, cannot truly love us without a true need for us. 

JESUS' SOLUTION

Jesus, himself, offers different perspective from that of 1 John.  For Jesus, the type of love he expressed towards God was a familial love. [For Greek scholars this would be storge (familial love)  as opposed to agape (mostly translated by Christians as God's love, or unconditional love)].

Salvation theology goes whole-heartedly with the agape type of love, but Jesus goes a different route when talking about his love for God and God's love for us.  God is father, or daddy, and this was the type of love relationship he tried to get his followers to understand. To do so he employs both the impulse of religion and the paradox within the differentiating paradigm of religion.

Jesus does this by offering a slight, but significant alteration to a verse from Hebrew Scriptures found in Deuteronomy  11: 13:

"And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day, to love the Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul."

In Matthew 22: 37-40 Jesus quotes Deuteronomy with an addendum:

"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

Jesus circumvents the dilemma of having to love God out of fear, or from being compelled to love God because of a legalistic obligation by making it a willful choice on our part.  Grant it he employs the legalistic language his listeners were use to hearing (particularly the scribe who was asking him about the most important law), but he is really opening a way to love God freely and deeply. 

In essence what Jesus is saying is that the way to love God is to love what God loves, us.  In this is both a challenge and a solution.  Jesus is saying one cannot directly love God in isolative manner.  One cannot love God and ignore what God has created or love God without addressing the human need to be loved. In fact, Jesus connects our image of hell, not to a failure of loving God, but to a failure of loving other humans.  In other words, our needs are God's needs.

Jesus approach values humanity for being human.  Jesus elevates the love of our own kind as tantamount to loving God.  If one wants to freely express one's love of God, love yourself, love your neighbor, love your enemies.  In short, love what God loves.  That's the restorative message of Jesus.  For Jesus, that is redemption -to no longer hide from each other, to no longer hide from God, to love who we are and to love what others are. There is an immense richness to what Jesus is talking about.  God loves diversity.  

Anyone in a loving relationship with another person knows that we don't always like the same things, the same food, the same music, etc. but loving relationships extend beyond mere likes and goes to a deeper need between those in love.  It is loving the other, in the midst of all the diversity that exists between both, that somehow fills each other out.  This is complimentary nature of love.  Love is the expression of the paradox that so often is associated with the presence of God.

Now, back to the original question, does God have needs?

Yes, God needs us to fill God out.  God needs to be loved, just as we need to be loved by God.  God's neediness is a universal expression of the religious impulse:  "We need each other," and because of that, according to the Biblical narrative, God created the universe.  What Jesus fleshes out for us is that to love God is to take on the challenge to love the diversity that God offers. God's love for us fills us out, because everything that is, is in God. 

The Hebrew scriptures are much better at telling this narrative.  God chooses a people to choose God. Creation itself is an expression of God's neediness, the need to be perceived, the need to be recognized, the need to be loved.  Love is complex and so much more so when it comes to God.

Love says need, says desire, says longing, says life. 

I can hear some saying that I am trying to attribute to God human feelings.  I would say quite the opposite.  It is the very image of God that is expressed in our collective human feelings, in our desires, in our longings, and in our need to be loved.

God is love and God be loved.

Until next time, stay faithful.
 

THE FATALISM OF GRACE

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,

that saved a wretch like me.

~John Newton~

JOHN NEWTON

By all accounts, including his own, John Newton was a wretch; being involved in the African slave trade during the eighteenth century, attaining the level of captain of his own slave ship. It took a fateful encounter with nature, in the form of a storm at sea, which could have ended his life that woke him up to how weak and wretched he was.  The important and overwhelming feeling John had during this experience was that of being saved.  So strong was this sensation of being saved that John Newton later became an ordained Anglican curate and composed his famous hymn, "Amazing Grace."

For Newton the sense of being spared the ravages of a storm led him to encounter a unitive experience in which he sensed a connection to the OTHER, the holy.  Why was he saved, when others in similar situations were not? Was there a purpose to this storm?  Was this storm about him? Such questions could have crossed his mind. If so, Newton might have  concluded that if this storm was about him, then everyone affected by it was in some way connected to him and he with them.  He would have and likely did see the true connection between slave and master.  They are the same, human in all aspects.  Slave and master shared the same fateful storm.  The storm didn't differentiate between slave and master, between white skin and black skin. The fear of the slave was the same as the master and vis versa.  In the midst of the storm Newton reportedly cried out, "Lord have mercy."

When he, his crew, his ship, and his human cargo made it through the storm, it is said Newton recalled his crying out for God's mercy and was converted on the spot.  Newton identified this moment as a moment of grace.

GRACE

Grace is such an interesting word.  In Christianity, grace is viewed as an attribute of God. In the Christian New Testament,  Ephesians 2:8, grace is defined as a free gift, "For by grace are you saved by faith, and not that of yourself, it is a gift of God."  What one encounters in this definition of grace is that, while grace is identified as a free gift of God, it is a conditional free gift based on one's faith, which seems to support the well known American adage, "There's no such thing as a free gift."

In all theistic religions there exists some form of a behavioral or moral economy.  For example, in Christianity one could liken its economy to a credit based system.  Metaphorically speaking, everyone is given a credit account and everyone's account is filled with grace due to Jesus's salvific act.  Grace is the only means to gain salvation.  Of course, not everyone is aware they have a divine credit account just waiting to be accessed. Access is accomplished by employing the access code of faith.  Faith, in this context, is a synonym for possessing a trusting belief in Jesus's salvific act.  If one believes that they are or, as in John Newton's case, can be saved by grace through faith, they have access to their grace account and are saved.  According to Christianity, these accounts can never be depleted.

Once John Newton uttered his converting cry, "Lord have mercy," he accessed his account.  He was credited with grace by virtue of his faith, according to this system.  I doubt that John would have thought of it in those terms.  It was far too personal for him to attempt any speculative assessment of his experience.  His humility would have rightfully prohibited him from doing so, and be it far from me or anyone to question his or another person's personal experience with grace.

The term grace appears throughout both the Hebrew and Christian testaments but is utilized differently.  In the Hebrew scriptures, word used for grace is chen, which connotes a sense of favor, mercy, approval, or gracefulness.  In the Hebrew scriptures, however, there is no sense of there being a universal credit account. Grace is related to God's mercy, but used in the Hebrew scriptures is displayed as a random act of God, to show approval or favor because God wanted to make a point.  Whereas, in the Christian testament, the Greek word for grace, charis, is liberally used in the apostolic epistles.  It  connotes a sense of chen, but is invariably associated with Jesus's salvific act, and is considered unmerited, that there is nothing one can do to earn it.  It's available to all those who have faith in salvation.


What I find interesting in Christian scripture; namely the gospels,  is that Jesus never talks about grace.  In fact, the only gospel it is mentioned is in John, the first chapter. A sense of grace is also found in Gabriel's announcement to Mary that she would be Jesus's mother, however, in some translations the term used is in keeping with the Hebraic sense chen, favor. The only place Jesus is quoted as using the term is in Paul's second letter to the Corinthians 12:9, "My grace is sufficient... ." The point is it becomes a teaching about Jesus, rather than something Jesus taught. The term grace abounds in the apostolic epistles where salvation theology is a given.

THE DIFFERENTIATING PARADIGM

While the apostolic letters are remarkable for their broad application of grace, they cannot escape the differentiating paradigm found in all religions. Grace, as a free gift, is not freely dispensed.  It's only dispensed if accessed.  One can argue that this is essential in order to preserve free will, which basically is argument for saying no one should be forced to be saved. This is the point where salvation theology begins to fall apart.

Predestinationalists believe only those who were or are predestined to be saved have been credited with God's grace because they were predetermined by God to have the access code, faith.  Of course, the concept that Jesus died to pay the price of sin for all simply disintegrates in this theology. Predestination is nothing more than a rationale for why some don't appear to be or act saved.

Universalists, who believe in universal salvation (and there are a growing number of theists, particularly progressives Christians who think this way) are attempting to ignore the differentiating paradigm of religion as it relates to salvation theology. [See post on Salvation]  If grace has been dispersed to all, it no longer requires knowledge of or faith in the salvific act of Jesus.  At best such a faith merely becomes a nice way of acknowledging what Jesus did, but is nonessential for salvation.

John Newton's experience with grace could be expressed differently.  I doubt that it would have resulted in his composing a favorite hymn, but what Newton encountered was an awakening to the paradox that resides within the differentiating paradigm. The paradox that results in seeing same  or the unitive connection between the identified different. [See Theory and Theology in Religious Intuition]

A BEATIFIC REALIZATION

If I were to put this in mystical terminology, I could say that John Newton had a beatific vision or realization when recognizing his wretched state. No, the heavens did not open.  He did not see the throne of God, or the angelic hosts. He saw something far more  beatific; his own vulnerability, his own enslavement to the forces of nature, his oneness with the human cargo his ship was carrying. It was not, as he believed, that he cried out, "Lord have mercy."  It was that he cried out as the vulnerable human being he and all of us are.  He encountered the religious impulse, "We need each other" because we're all in the same boat.

The storm did not occur to allow him to experience grace by being saved from death at that moment.  He eventually died as we all will.  Frankly, his experience could be viewed as a fateful moment as much as a grace-filled moment, and whether it was fate or grace is matter of perception determined after the fact of him surviving the storm.  Nevertheless, the feeling of grace John Newton experienced left him feeling fated to do something different with his life, and he did.

JESUS AND GRACE

As mentioned above, Jesus didn't talk about grace, which should give us pause to wonder why or to wonder how it became so prevalent in salvation theology.  In some ways, grace becomes the Christian response or the equivalent of the ancient world's concept of fate. The primary difference between fate and grace is that, although both involve some form of determinism, the outcome of fate generally is not known until an outcome or destination is achieved or reached.  Fate can neither be accessed nor avoided per se.  We are all victims of our own fate. Grace, as understood in salvation theology, has a predetermined known outcome, salvation.  In salvation theology, grace cannot be accessed or recognized apart from faith, but grace can be avoided because of a lack of faith.

If I were to extrude a theology of grace based on what Jesus taught, I would say that Jesus saw life - being - itself, as a state of grace.  Life is unmerited. It happens because God is happening.  Based on what Jesus said in his parables and his sermons, Jesus was not about saving lost souls, but reclaiming a lost sense of our own worth and the original goodness of creation in the eyes of God; a sense of God's abundant kingdom in our midst.  Such a sense of grace is more in keeping with chen rather than charis. There is a gracefulness to life, in being alive.

Jesus makes a direct appeal to our primal religious impulse by teaching us to love our neighbors as ourselve and to love our enemies as the only means to love God.  We need each other.  Grace, understood here is accessed in the act of living love.  Faith, as I have posted before is more attuned to living than believing. [See Faith Part I and Part II]

FATE AND GRACE

In the end grace, like fate, is a retroactive feeling about or an understanding of an occurrence that is the byproduct of one's ideological beliefs.  One feels graced or one feels fated as a result of a life-changing experience such as the one John Newton experienced.  We feel graced when the change leads us to a positive outcome. We tend to feel fated, if the outcome is negative.  Christians, for the most part, don't like the idea of fate.  Devout Christians tend to seek grace in the most fateful experiences. There is nothing wrong with that, and as I said earlier I cannot be judgmental of the feelings others have.

Grace and fate share the common bond of determinism. Determinism is, itself, a retroactive deduction based on past occurrences suggesting the future follows a designed trajectory.  Determinism continues to be debated in both scientific and philosophical circles.  What is undeniable is that  humans are very much programmed to think in these terms. We are, after all, emotional, feeling creatures and our feelings are linked to our capacity for intuition.  To feel graced is to feel loved. According to what Jesus' intuitive teachings tell us we have always been fated to be graced with God's love.

Until next time, stay faithful.

GOD IS LIGHT

"God is Light"

1John 1:5



One of the most intriguing descriptions of God is the statement, "God is light."  It is clear that in the context this statement was made in the first letter of John, light connotes a sense of God's right-knowing or righteousness:  God is righteous and is the light to a lost people.  People who seek or see the light are right-knowing or righteous as opposed to those who do not seek or see the light and lack the knowledge of what is right, who are considered unrighteous and remain in the darkness of sin.  That's all good and well and a generalization of what John's use of light means here, but I am going to rip this statement from it contextual setting to examine the statement, "God is light" by using light as a direct simile for God rather than a metaphorical description of righteousness.

My reason for doing this is to once again consider the being of God or ways of conceptualizing God.  God as light brings to mind the nature of light.  In Quantum mechanics light can be viewed in two distinct ways. Light can be understood as a wave and light can be understood as a particle. The distinguishing factor is dependent on the question one asks.  God may very well be like light in this regard.

In one of my earlier posts, I described God as a verb, as BEING. In that post I quoted Psalm 46:4-5.  In this psalm there is a description of the City of God. In the midst of the City is a flowing stream, God. This psalm depicts God as a stream, or we could say a light wave.  In that post, the wave-like nature of God is explored.(See God is a Verb)

THE PARTICULARED GOD

In this post, I will consider the particle-like nature of God.  The likelihood is that most theists will have no difficulty understanding God's particle-like nature. Unlike quantum mechanic's determinant factor regarding light's property being based on the type of question one asks, whether God is viewed as as a wave or particle is determined whether one is asking a question about or of God.  Once questioned, God instantly becomes a thing, individualized, a distinct other.  In essence God is treated as particle, the creative factor by which all things came into being. As a particle, God stands outside of the created universe. As a wave, all that is, the entire cosmos is permeated with God.  All things are in God and God flows; gives being to all that is.  As a wave, God is ever-changing, ever-emerging.

As a particle, God appears beyond the entirety of the cosmos, as a constant, unchanging other.  It is God as particle that most find accessible. The God-nature that is prayed to is by far more likely to be understood as the particle nature of God. Worship and prayer is evidence of this religious preference of a particulared God.  Worship and prayer requires directionality. Even in spiritual religions; such as, Native American religion, prayer is literally directional, to all four geographical locations to ensure that the flow of the Great Spirit is encountered.  Even in monotheistic religions like Judaism and Islam prayer is directional.

The particulared God has a direction, has a place; such as, heaven or as in the religions of antiquity where the gods were believed to occupy mountaintops or other geographical locations or had sacred places assigned to them. Over time the particulared God became internalized, residing in the heart or minds of the believer. Even this more spiritual understanding of God as present in multiple locales at one time remains the particulared God, acting as certain identical particles in quantum mechanics do, working in tandem at different, extremely distant locales in the universe at the same time, without having any apparent connection or reason for doing so.

The particulared God, is the personal God many monotheists envision. While this may be nothing more than a version of directionality and the need to provide an identity,  the personage of God is essential in any act of prayer or worship. The intuition in monotheism that God cannot be turned into a concrete image, an idol, does not eliminate the particulared God. I feel that it is the particulared God that atheists struggle with most.

Even if one does not believe in God, it becomes difficult to not imagine God. I feel what most atheists and theists give little consideration to is the wave- like nature of God, which I will identify as the radiated God.

THE RADIATED GOD

As mentioned above, I have already discussed this topic in my post,"GOD IS A VERB."  The wave-like property of God is so pervasive, so permeating that it cannot be adequately described or quantified.  The very existence of the cosmos is so intertwined with IS-NESS of God that one cannot discern one from the other. The radiated God is ever-changing and ever-emerging, just as the universe is ever-changing and ever-emerging.  The radiated God flows through and is present in everything that is. We radiate God in our being or, perhaps better said, God radiates through our being.  Our being radiates the very BEING known as God.  In us resides both the particulared and radiated God; the image and light of God.  The  radiated nature of God is the embracing aspect of God; that Being in which we live, move,and have our being (Acts 17:28), and the particulared nature of God is that aspect of God that can be embraced as the divine other.

GOD IS LIFE

God is both a particle and a wave; both particulared and radiated. Seeing a distinction between the particulared and radiant aspects of God is merely a matter of the question being asked about God. The radiant nature of God cannot be fully comprehended apart from all that is.  In reality the distinction  between these two perspectives of God is just that, a matter of perspective. It is the questioned God that is revealed as the particulared image of God.  The radiant God is the unimagined God that permeates all that is. Yet God is one, the singularity from which all that is emerged and will emerge.

If God is light, then God is life.  Biology will tell us that light is a necessity for life to emerge. Even those life forms that seemingly live in utter darkness are dependent on the life force generated by light.  Theism gets this.  Realizing that science has little or no use for the God concept as a way of explaining life and the universe, it is, ironically, the God concept that science is attempting to discover in its exploration of life and light.
Whether scientists would identify or recognize this as a goal of scientific exploration and research, is irrelevant. The work of science is vital to understanding who we are, the universe, and helps us to understand that God is light.

Until next time, stay faithful.