Monday, December 28, 2015

THE MYSTERY OF FAITH

   
                       Therefore we proclaim the mystery of faith:
                                                          Christ has died,
                                                          Christ is risen,
                                                          Christ will come again.
                                                                                           from the Book of Common Prayer


One of the biggest struggles some Christians have is being able to differentiate between the teachings of Jesus and the teachings about Jesus.  This is an important distinction that Christians need to be very clear about if Christianity is to remain relevant.

There also appears to be a disturbing ambivalence amongst a number of ordained clergy and some theologians about this.   The ambivalence that I am talking about is in regard to whether or not it matters if the person in pew understands the difference between literal and metaphorical interpretations of scripture.

JONAH

Let's consider the story of Jonah for a moment.  Some will say it doesn't matter whether people in the pew know it as an allegorical story intended to help the people of Judah in the 6th century BCE understand God's acceptance of all people, especially those considered to be less pure Jewish in their midst at a time when there was a movement by some to purge the land of Judah and Judaism of anyone not considered to be 100% pure Jew. [Does this sound familiar?]  It's a warning to those who think they know God's will, who think they know better than God, who, in their foolish arrogance, try to correct God's thinking.

Some scholars are content with the notion that as long as they get the general message, there's no need to worry whether someone in the pew insists that Jonah was actually swallowed by a large fish (a whale by deduction) and lived for three days in its gastric juices with virtually no breathable air only to be spit out at the place he was destined by God to go to, Nineveh (Israel's hated and feared enemy). The story tells us that Jonah was chosen by God to prosephy to the hated people of Nineveh their impending doom for the unbelievable purpose of providing them the opportunity to repent and being saved.

This was the last thing Jonah wanted to happen, the last place on earth he wanted to go to, the last thing he wanted to be known for doing; so much so, that he was on the run and willing to die rather than to participate in what he considered a goofy, ill-thought plan, even if it was God's plan.

Jonah is a story about what happens when people lose faith and try to take matters into their own hands. God is faithful in and through all creation.  Everything acts in accord with God's faithfulness. The only choice Jonah gave himself in this story was to be the miserable wretch he was throughout the ego trip he was on.

The fish is a metaphor for Jonah's ego that arrives at the precise moment when Jonah, at the height of his arrogance, thinks he has offended God so much so that his stubbornness finally has defeated God's plan to offer Nineveh a chance to be spared by being thrown into the sea and drowned.  The stormy sea he asks these foreigner to throw him into is a metaphor for the turbulence of his self pity and Jonah finds himself swallowed by his own ego in whose own juices his is allowed to stew for awhile.  Jonah is stubborn, but his stubbornness is no match to God's patience, and in the end Jonah delivers God's message and Nineveh, much to Jonah's consternation, is spared.

Clergy and biblical scholars who are ambivalent about such matters do not comprehend that literal belief in the improbable distorts understanding of the possible. The story of Jonah is as relevant today as it was when it was written, unless someone is foolish enough to consign it to historical fact. The same is true when it comes to the teachings of Jesus and the teachings about Jesus.

AN IMPOSSIBLE QUESTION

For the most part the teachings of Jesus are straightforward and reflect teachings found in the Hebrew scriptures.  Jesus clearly used allegory and metaphor in his teachings. We know these as his parables.  What most do not know is that the Gospels also use metaphor in a real time manner when talking about Jesus as a means to portray the unitive incarnation of God and humankind in the person of Jesus as the Christ.

What Jesus brought new to the religious understanding of his time and place was the concept that every individual is a uniquely rendered child of God, like himself.  That Jesus understood he had an intimate, familial relationship with God as his father is central to what he taught and how he taught.

This beloved teaching of Jesus, however, left a void in the understanding of his followers as to how he came to this unique, radical relationship with God.  It raised deep theological questions that was expressed in Mary's question, "How can this be?"  Such questions would not be left alone.  They needed a tangible answer, no matter how improbable.

THE IMPROBABLE ANSWER

What Jesus's Judaic followers had available to them were the Hebrew Scriptures in which there was terminology and prophetic context that provided an explanation about Jesus's origin as God's Son. They were also surrounded and immersed in Greek culture that had a mythic mindset in which credibility was given to the notion of  divine parentage of someone like the messiah, a king, or the Roman emperor; language that found its way into our understanding of the Christ; as in, Christ the King.

What is important to remember is that in Jesus's teachings (the teachings we can be fairly certain were Jesus's) he invited his listeners to consider themselves as having the same relationship with God as his.  The prime example of this is found in the prayer he taught his disciples, The "Our Father" or  "The Lord's Prayer."

The synoptic gospels of the New Testament represent an amalgam of teachings; the teachings of Jesus and the teachings about Jesus. In answering the question how Jesus came to see himself as God's Son each of these three gospels treats it differently.  The earliest gospel, the Gospel of Mark treats it as a revelation that occurs during Jesus's baptism in the Jordan by John the Baptist.  In the Gospel of Matthew, it is Joseph who is given a dream in which the angel Gabriel explains Jesus's divine parentage to him and instructs Joseph how to deal with the situation..  The most detailed explanation is found in the Gospel of Luke in which Mary is visited in real time by Gabriel who provides Mary with a direct answer to her (and our) questions "How" and "Why."

The Gospel of John is a mystical work devoted to teachings about Jesus, replete with allegorical stories, such as the Wedding at Cana, and Nicodemus's meeting with Jesus during the darkness of night.  In John, it is John the Baptist who makes it clear who Jesus is as the foretold by prophets, after John goes to great lengths in establishing Jesus as Word (God's creative force) made flesh.  Throughout the Gospel of John impossible questions are posed to Jesus by those who approach him. In response, Jesus offers them improbable answers - the stuff of mystic myth; the aim of which is to get at truth, revealed in Pilate's final question to Jesus, "What is truth?" John's point being, "Pilate, your looking at it."  In essence, John's message to the Christian Church is that in contemplating Jesus as the Christ we find truth.

MYSTERY

Mystery is a word I am very cautious with.  Yet, mystery abounds.  Life, itself, is mysterious.  In many ways, we are wrapped in mystery, but we tend not to notice as we go about our daily lives.

Jesus's birth, resurrection, and ascension are considered a mystery on two levels. There is no factual frame of reference for the type of Jesus's birth, his resurrection, or his ascension as described in the gospels.  If these accounts are taken literally, they are mysterious in the sense of being incomprehensible, but if seen as mythic mystery they become an invitation to probe for hidden meanings like in the story of Jonah.

The purpose of mystery in theism is to offer us a lens by which to examine the abstruse. Mystery addresses topics or concepts difficult to explain without the aid of metaphor or allegory.  Mystery presented as allegory, metaphor, and myth allows us to digest or internalize the improbable answers to our impossible questions.

In this regard, mystery welcomes us into a greater reality, a reality in which all is inter-related as opposed to the mundane reality in which we find ourselves separated, if not isolated, from each other. Mystery opens us to the unitive power that is God.

Mystical work; such as,  "The Gospel of John," "The Cloud of Unknowing," "Revelations of Divine Love," Interior Castles," "The Dark Night of the Soul," and others are largely allegorical and suggest a path to knowing that transcends the realm of ideological belief and fact; a way of contemplating, a pathway to faith.

FAITH

Faith is, itself, a mysterious force that every human has.  As a species we would be immobilized without it.  In Christianity, faith is largely treated as synonymous with belief.  I do not treat them that way. They are connected but not synonymous. Belief is an intellectual function. Faith is a motivational function.

The Letter of James in the New Testament makes the case for this important distinction; that faith without works (that doesn't motivate) is dead. In other words just believing one has faith doesn't mean a thing if your not being motivated to do something by it, to participate in the creative activity of God in redeeming/restoring the world.

Every human possesses a deep repository of faith; a driving force that enables us intelligent beings to do things that the skeptical, self-serving side of our intelligence might prevent us from doing (Jonah being a prime example).

Losing faith is a serious condition, not only spiritually, it is also detrimental to our mental and physical well-being. Losing faith renders a person overtly skeptical about things in general and deprives such individuals of the ability to enjoy life.

If faith is not restored, self preservation and an obsession to control every aspect of life becomes evident. When the futility of this task becomes evident; that we control very little in what takes place in our lives, depression sets in and the focus on self preservation and controlling one's mundane life is no longer tenable.

Unless faith can be re- awakened controlling one's death becomes the only control switch left.  Faith is an essential element in human life.

GOD IS FAITHFUL

When Christianity talks about the mystery of faith it is tied to an understanding of God's active participation in our welfare, in our very being.  Our faith mirrors God's faith.  The formal expression of this within liturgical worship is found in the Eucharistic prayer mentioned at the beginning of this post. It is positioned to be said at the unitive highpoint of this liturgy in which we figuratively jump into communion with Christ Jesus's, God's, continual redeeming act.

Christ presents Jesus as the Everyman (every person) in this prayer. Christ is the unitive metaphor of humankind and the active force that is God combined as symbolized in recalling the story of Jesus's suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension during the Eucharistic prayer.

The "sacrifice" of Jesus is, in essence our own, not merely for us, but more importantly with us.  It is, in very dramatic and graphic terms, the sacrifice, the offering up, of our individual, egotistical selves in the faith (the active involvement) of being interrelated to all creation, being part of everyone, being part of everything that has been, that is, and that will ever be, as belonging to that Being in which we live, move, and have our being.

ALL IS ONE IN CHRIST JESUS

We cannot separate ourselves from the Christ Jesus concept. Everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike are part of Christ Jesus. This is the meaning of Christ died for all (2 Cor. 5:14).  This is the mystery of the faith that motivates us to participate in redeeming, in restoring, our world and reconciling us to our true selves as uniquely rendered Children of God.

With Christ Jesus our egotistical selves are freely given up - "Not my will...".  With Christ Jesus we are brought to new life, a new perspective of who we are. With Christ Jesus we are engaged in God's ever being, with God's ever coming into our lives, again and again.

Christ Jesus is the manifested conjugation of the Verb that God is; past, present and ever-becoming. This is the Mystery of Faith.

Until next time, stay faithful.



























Monday, December 21, 2015

SAVING CHRISTIANITY

This may seem like an odd topic for a post.  To some Christians this idea may strike them as offensive, to non-Christians it may be considered pointless.  I can imagine a large number of Christians who believe that Christianity is eternal and in no need of being saved and a large number of non-Christians who feel life and the world might be better without it.

As I have said in past posts (click here and here), religions as something we humans have created. Religions emerge from a void in our understanding which is expressed in the perennial question, "Why?"

For instance:  Why do we exist?  Why did something that happened happen?  Why is there evil?

The reality is we don't let such questions hang, we give them answers, and with those answers come derivative meanings applied to other existential crises that continue to invoke the perennial question and it's sequential questions,  how, what, and who.

That religions emerged from our collective attempts at understanding ourselves and the world in which we live over the eons is what makes us the religious animals we have evolved into, addicted to the pursuit of finding answers to impossible questions.

Evidence of this can be found in all theistic literature.  For example, in the Judeo-Christian scriptures we read of Abraham's and Sarah's questioning laugh at hearing Sarah would bear a child at her old age, of Moses' questioning who was sending him to free the Israelites, of Mary's question regarding how she would give birth as a virgin, and of Jesus' question on the cross regarding why he was forsaken.

New religions evolve from older religions as new existential questions arise.  As I have mentioned before, science is itself a religious exercise seeking to find answers to impossible questions in order to fill the void in understanding our reality.

IS CHRISTIANITY WORTH SAVING?

It is -

But if Christianity is going to survive, it needs to evolve. Some might ask what it is being saved from.

The answer to that question is simply saving it from itself, from its own meltdown.  Christianity is in a fractured state that is increasingly fractal in scope with new denominations popping up every time a group of Christians within a group of Christians disagree about something they can't or don't want to resolve.

Demagoguery is rampant on the ever twigging-out evangelical stage where personalities can loom larger than God for a moment. When they pass on or more likely become exposed as the fraudulent individuals they are, their followers either find another larger than life personality to cling to for awhile or join the unaffiliated Nones.  A few might trickle back into a mainline denomination.

The Church of Personality is a difficult fix.

In fact, the more twigged-out an evangelical type church becomes the less it becomes recognizable as Christian in a substantive sense.

The Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and mainline Protestant churches are in the best position to save Christianity. They have stood the test of time and have, for the most part, avoided The Church of Personality. Their ability to do so, however, is hindered by their traditions of form and structure and a shared reluctance to speak honestly to those sitting in their pews for fear of losing members. There are, however, some within these denominations who are being honest, but there is a need by all mainline churches to redefine themselves both in terms of substance and function in an effort to present an honest theology to their members and the world.

When  speaking of a change in theological substance, I'm not talking about creating new theologies, ex nihlo, but rather looking deeply into the theological traditions that already exist on which to build fresh theological perspectives; ones that seek common ground and a shared theological language when addressing  the issues of the day.

I believe such perspectives exist, but they are likely buried beneath a mound of doctrinal baggage that has accumulated over the centuries or has been sublimated by ecclesial form and structure.  The other challenge is that most people seated in a church pew are largely ill informed about Christianity in general, especially those who attend doctrinally biased, navel gazing Bible studies.

I think it is safe to say that most Christians do not possess a critical understanding of Christianity.  Most view the Holy Bible as words given by God rather than words about God. Most have been indoctrinated not to question it, to just to believe it even though they struggle with understanding it.

A critical understanding of Christianity is essential to its salvation.  People of the Book should avoid becoming people by the book, at all costs. This is particularly difficult for book-based religions. So let's examine the difference between "of" and "by" the book as it applies to Christianity.

PEOPLE OF THE BOOK

A good place to start is with using Richard Hooker's three-legged stool regarding ecclesial polity as a model.  Hooker's masterful work is a chore to get through and my intent here is not to attempt to explain it but simply use his metaphor to present my thoughts on this subject.

Scripture

Properly understood, scripture is a collection of varied writings and literary types. They were written in different time periods, some of which addressed issues of the day in which they were written or reflect past incidences that were part of a much older oral tradition. Scripture is also a repository of wisdom. All of these writings speak of the relationship between human kind and God and how that relationship shapes our relationships with one another.

The Holy Bible cannot be fully appreciated in the breadth of its scope as the "Word of God." Rather, it is best grasped as words about our these relationships as seen through a lens focused on a particular tribe of people, the Israelites.  Christian scriptures simply opens this lens on the world stage. As such, scripture acts a viewfinder, a lens for looking at our world and framing the questions we should ask rather than looking at it for the answers.

Tradition

Hooker's three pronged approach to ecclesial polity reminds us that tradition refines our inquiries in any theological discourse.  My interpretation of this approach is that while scripture is foundational to Christianity, tradition is the repository of Christianity's collective wisdom that results from a distillation of scripture and experience, guided by what Christians identify as the work of the Holy Spirit, the active Wisdom of God, in the endeavor to search the pathways through the problems faced throughout our history as a means of finding a pathway through a current situation. Tradition, in this sense, is not about form or structure.  Tradition is about function and substance.

Reason

Reason is essential in staying clear of becoming people by the book.  To begin with, reason needs to be placed in the sequential framework that reflects Jesus' circular understanding of process (the first coming last and the last becoming first). Using this as a model places scripture, the first amongst sources, secondary to reason as the needed awareness to access scripture and tradition in seeking solutions.

Reason is what we bring to the table, our God-evolved analytic and intuitive minds. Once we have properly identified the question (scripture), we can access the collective wisdom (tradition) to determine if there are functional or substantive solutions that apply, but in the final analysis, given all that has been discerned, it is up to our informed and wisdom-guided minds to decide; to add to the collective wisdom, to allow the Word to live in a new and meaningful ways, which may then reach beyond the reasoning logic of the time in ways we could not have predicted, that reveal the mind of God.

In this way Christians maintain the nomen of being "People of the Book."  People of the Book are engaged in the alchemy of turning questions into wise solutions.

PEOPLE BY THE BOOK

People by the Book don't like questions.  Their answers to any perceived problem is to go directly to the Book and get the answer even if the situation of the day has no relation to the situation addressed over two thousand years ago.

The concept of Biblical inerrancy has rendered the Holy Bible both inaccessible and unassailable. The result is a form of Bible idolatry or Bible blindness, treating the Bible as God's direct communique on how to solve any problem or seeing every human event as directly related to something (largely prohibited) in the Bible.

One can see examples of this, particularly in the United States, where bible passages are taken out of context and displayed on protest placards as the solution to uncritically examined situations, a sign of those who are People by the Book.

When faced with a perceived existential crises, there is a tendency for many people to seek definitive, quick fix solutions.  They are attracted to displays of power, either in the form of someone who promises to keep the "bad people" away or someone who appeals to the sense of God's power and righteous judgment, who will lay waste His creation; punishing the many unrighteous in order to save the righteous few as a means to make a new creative order.

This us not the fatherly God of Jesus's teachings.

This is the God of fascism.

This form of nihilistic righteousness has been slowly eroding the function and substance of Christianity since its inception.   Unfortunately, it hasn't been until recently that some within Christianity are seeing the effects of its own meltdown.

Perhaps a better question is whether Christianity can be saved.

Yes!

SO...  HOW?

In a word, honesty.  It is only in being honest that Christianity will have any relevancy, any ability to heal our war torn world.

Truthfulness is in rare supply because it has been associated over the centuries as meaning right belief.

This needs to be undone quickly. There is a desperate need for people to be able to differentiate between belief and faith and facts and truths.

For instance, we need to understand that what one believes has no actual impact on what is apart from one's own reaction to those personal beliefs. As Christians we are prompted to walk by faith, not by sight (not by our ideological beliefs).

We simply, as a species, must have this capacity in order to survive, and here is where theistic religion can be helpful, if it strives to be honest.  In the case of Christianity, this must start by engaging in a critical examination of its most foundational teachings about Jesus's birth, life, death, resurrection and differentiating them from what is likely to be Jesus's actual teachings.

No theistic religion can afford to persist in insisting that improbable events serve as answers to impossible questions.

To this end every religion must embrace the concept of myth as an essential element within their theologies. I realize this notion flies in the face of most monotheistic religions who take issue with the concept of mythology, especially as applicable to their particular branch of monotheism.

All theistic religions have their "personalities" that became larger than any other humans, who are viewed as synonymous with God or reverenced as God's right hand envoy. This is understandable. It is hard to relate to an imageless divinity that is so pervasive and yet intimate with us. We imbue God with an avatar-like, human personality we can readily relate to.

Imbuing such personalities with divine traits or imbuing God with human traits is the stuff that myths are made of.

No single person can or should be placed above any other human being in this regard; including Jesus, Mary, Mohammed, Moses, Elijah, or Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha). All of them have been subjected to a mythological makeover in order to personify God or give God a personality we can relate to.

Only God is holy (other) and no single person compares, none. Collectively, however, we reflect the creative activity that is God, we are all, each and every person a uniquely rendered incarnation of God and we need to start wrapping our brains around that concept and the concept  that God is a verb, not a noun, not a thing. God purely IS and is always Being or Becoming.

In this respect Judaism has a head start, because Judaism has had to be honest about its existence and it's faith beyond any belief in order to survive. Its insistence on prohibiting the making of an image to represent God underscores that we, the collective we, are the only image needed to understand God. Being able to wrap our minds around that would give us a totally new understanding of our world and who we humans are.

No other religion has encountered repeated existential crises and survived as has Judaism.  In the process it has had to ask a lot of questions that were shaped by the Hebrew scriptures and the experiences they encountered throughout their history.  These question and debates between their scholars resulted in texts that reflect the cumulative wisdom in texts such as the Talmud and Midrash.

Christianity must adopt such a questioning and discerning process. We must ingest and digest the teachings of Jesus who raised the value of every individual human being to that of being a uniquely rendered child of God (a deeper sense of being made in the image of God) as opposed to being mired and tied to the teachings about Jesus being God's only begotten Son (originally, I suspect, a somewhat subversive teaching  meant to poke the imperial cult of the Roman emperor being that and which then became codified as a central tenant of orthodox Christianity during the Council of Nicea in 325 CE).

In addition, Christianity must change its theological emphasis from the next world in order to save this world, to redeem and restore it to the intended glory of its creator, as must all theistic religions do in their theologies.  What happens after this life must simply be left in God's hands.

Christianity must focus on bringing what Jesus called the Kingdom of God, the peaceable kingdom, to fruition in tangible ways. Doing so is the only means by which Christianity will have any relevancy; any ability to save itself, any ability to help save the world we currently live in.


Until next time, stay faithful.


P.S. In my next posts I will begin examining the evolution of Christianity, starting with, "The Mystery of Faith."


























Monday, December 14, 2015

ON RADICALIZING RHETORIC


FEAR

What is placing our world at great risk is new type of tactical weapon, radicalizing rhetoric.  I believe Pope Francis is correct in saying we are currently engaged in World War Three, but this world war is proving to be far more insidious by employing a new type of warfare that renders the conventional understanding of warfare ineffective.

As a such, the civilized world must adapt in order to defeat those waging it without costing millions, if not billions of lives.  More than any other time in our collective history, people who care about life and care about this planet must give careful consideration to what they say and how they say it in order to defeat radicalized terrorism.

The target of terrorist radicalization is squarely aimed at destroying the concept of liberty and the sacredness of individual dignity and human worth. Terrorism by its very nature is effective because of the fear it creates.  It is effective because unbridled fear distorts reason, and putting a bridle on fear is no easy task.

Even intelligent individuals can succumb to its effects. If fear becomes endemic in a given society, mass hysteria results and fear will rule the day, and where fear rules human existence is at risk.

THE WEAPONIZED HUMAN BEING

Radicalization as a tactical weapon and tool of warfare has demonstrated its capability of taking an individual and turning that individual into a weapon of mass destruction.

Hate groups of various types have at their disposal an impersonal pathway, the internet, to spread their message without question and present it with all the features of a cinematic or internet gaming event.  There is no need to personally know the people who will succumb to such rhetoric. Those who spread their message of hate and fear have no personal interest in the person they will exploit.

Those who do this, do so passively but aggressively by inviting an individual who feels marginalized in some way and offering that individual a false sense of transcendence by assuring a certain glorious outcome, a glory that ironically overrides the individual's sense of personal safety to the point of seeing her or his self as some sort of transformed powerhouse that can destroy other humans at will. The momentary benefit such individuals gain is in the realization of that transcendent sense of glory experienced in the brief moment of exercising power over life in the act of destroying others and themselves.

This experience has been repeatedly described as "surreal," a word we hear from those who witness and survive such events; a word that connotes a sense of dark transcendence; the hellish feeling of terror.

In essence, such dispossessed individuals become easily weaponized, and those who create and conjure forth such monstrous effects on these, "the least of" our human family, represent the presence of evil in human form.

While groups like ISIL certainly come to mind, a greater concern is the spreading and utilization of this type of warfare by homegrown, terror-minded groups in the United States and other nations who have nothing to do with radicalized Islamic terrorists, but share the same goal of destroying liberty and the sacredness of individuality and human worth.

RADICALIZING RHETORIC IN POLITICS

Even more disturbing is the radicalizing, fear-based rhetoric being used by some present-day politicians to garner support for their presidential nomination bid and who  have ready access to the news media and crowds of fear-prone, angry people who are looking for a quick fix to their problems, which such politicians and their audiences largely project as being caused by people who don't look like them or are of a different religion or ethnic background.

While most intelligent people understand that such rhetoric plays into the hands of foreign terrorist groups, its use by political pundits to garner votes in an age where people quickly receive such messages and act on them because a public figure seemingly agrees that their fear is justified is a new twist on the political scene. Politicians who use such rhetoric appear to be unaware that they are radicalizing and weaponizing such individuals.  Their carelessness in speaking is done under the guise of being straightforward and not having to be "politically correct" in the use of language.  The fact is politically correctness is a language art form that makes a politician think before speaking, to realize the power of language, and the need to present ideas civilly so that people are not radicalized into doing violent acts. 

During a general election, politicians easily fall subject to the lure of popularity. As they see their stars rise or fall, the temptation is to the read the tea leaves of fortune in order to find the quickest path to being nominated.  Thus far the leaves have pointed to the rhetoric of fear as the quickest way to win the hearts of some voters, since fear is also the quickest way to bypass their minds, but fear is viral and has a life its own, and those who play with it have no idea what they are toying with.

The Republican Party in the United States is a prime example of this. It has largely served as a petri dish for spawning viral fear about our own government.  In fact, it has become a victim of its own fear-based, deconstructive approach to governance and it seems clueless about the danger it poses to this country in its approach on winning elections no matter what the cost to this nation's wellbeing.  It does not, as yet, seem to realize that it has opened the door to radicalization.

All of this party's frontrunners have expressed plans to address outside threats; such as, closing our boarders to keep out the bad people and sending our troops to kill the bad guys in their own backyards, but such individuals offer no civil and substantive plans beyond their firecracker rhetoric.

Mostly, they have, with a good amount of prompting by the news media, spent their time attacking each other with a vehemence that would suggest the Republican Party is the only option the citizens of this nation have when it comes to electing our next president.

It is not.

You wouldn't know that, however,  if you listened to televised news media which has spent an inordinate amount of air time on the Republican Party's verbal boxing matches and granting free air time in the form of interviews to the most outrageous contenders, as if that's the most newsworthy event taking place during this election season.

Fortunately, not all Republicans seeking the presidency are deconstructionists, and a few actually possess the essential attribute of statesmanship in seeking the highest office in the land; such as,  Sen. Lindsey Graham, who said this past week that if Mr. Trump is nominated as the Republican candidate, it would be better for the party to lose the presidency than to see the highest office fall into the hands of a demagogue.

Senator Graham is a rare person in the Republican Party, nowadays, a person who actually cares about this nation and the road we take. There are others, but none, including Senator Graham, are any where close to being the frontrunner at the moment.

"BREAKING NEWS"

Freedom of the press is sacrosanct in the United States. The press and other news outlets have a responsibility to report the news, however, such reporting is more motivated by their bottom line than keeping the public well informed.

Anymore, the major networks treat the news as entertainment rather than providing a straight forward delivery of information.  For instance, every tragic event is assigned background music that reflects the mood we're supposed to have. Political issues are set to a backdrop of patriotic or military music.  They have created a crisis mentality in this nation with the term "Breaking News" which is played over and over again even after the fact that the news they are reporting is no longer new or breaking.

Major networks readily jump into speculation rather than simple fact telling by inviting armchair experts to speculate for them.  This may look like honest reporting, but it isn't.  There's an agenda in this to keep viewers wrapped into "staying tuned" and keeping that network's ratings up.

Speculative drama is addictive, and the public is prone to dramatic effect.  In fact, most large news media outlets are addicted to their own drama. For example, the "Trump Phenomenon," as it's called by the news media, has most news outlets hypnotized by the fact that, no matter what outrageous things Mr. Trump says, his poll numbers keep rising.

They act as if they don't get it. They should.  It's called marketing.

I suspect they are fully aware that they are fueling the "phenomenon."  They are, after all, into the marketing business and know that as Mr. Trump's poll numbers rise they have an opportunity to up their ratings. They have a commercial interest in keeping Mr. Trump in the presidential playing field for as long as they can.

What is disturbing is that, with or without intention, the major news outlets are spreading the virus of radicalizing rhetoric when they veer from straightforward, informative reporting.  The "Press" has a choice in what they report and how they report it. They know that they can generate news by what they report and televise.  In a time where radicalization is pervasive there is a need by the press to avoid sensationalized rhetoric and take measured, sober approaches to keeping the public well informed by limiting knee-jerk responses to crises in the form of armchair speculation as to why this or that event happened or what it means before there is information to back such hypotheses. Above all, they need to be cautious in what they say about those who are diligently figuring things out.

RADICALIZED POPULISM

We are subject to a new zeitgeist that contains familiar elements but which act in unfamiliar ways to most U.S. citizens.  Populism is one such element.

When frustration and fear are present, populist movements are likely to emerge in democratic countries. When segments of a majority population in any democratic country feels that their lifestyle is being threatened, there is a tendency to listen to anyone who openly addresses such fears in a seemingly direct fashion.  Populism's appeal is largely fueled by radical rhetoric rather than substance.

The person who sounds the strongest and appears most capable of offering the public rhetorical solutions, gets the vote.  In essence that is how populism works. Substance and function are largely ignored by people enmeshed in their personal fears and enamored by populist rhetoric.

People subject to populism are not worried about the road ahead, they just want to know there's a road leading away from their current fears. They are not, at the moment, concerned where that road leads. They just want someone who will lead them down it, to tell them where to go, and how to think.

IF IT SOUNDS TOO GOOD...

People in the United States have always maintained a healthy skepticism when it comes to someone telling us they have the power do to make our lives better. The adage that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true has always made us wary of the quick fix.  Considerable segments of the voting public in the United States seem have forgotten that adage.

For example, any politician who says the solution to immigration is building a fence around our borders or who says that we can keep ourselves safe from weaponized human beings by prohibiting any Muslims from entering this country and telling us that our lives will be "so" much better off if he or she is elected to the highest office of the land is attempting to subject us to unsupportable, radicalized rhetoric.

RADICALIZING RHETORIC AS A RUSE

This nation's forefathers understood the concept of tyrannical democracy when constructing this republic and writing its constitution, with its system of checks and balances.  The world has witnessed within the last one hundred years the results of democratic processes leading to tyrannical rule.

Most people have forgotten that Hitler was voted into power on a populist agenda, whose speeches and inflammatory rhetoric were just what the majority thought they needed to hear; a virtuous path from  their frustration and fear that would lead to a much better life and would dispense with those perceived as bothersome types, such as, Jews, Jehovah Witnesses,  homosexuals, or the mentally and congenitally disabled.

Sound familiar?

There are some people in the United States who never give our nation's Constitution serious thought, who think it is there to protect their personal interests, and it does. What they don't consider is that The Constitution, itself, needs protection against those who would make it subordinate to their own populist views or tyrannical whimsy.

Something for those who yearn for the leadership of a strong man or woman to consider is the road ahead. A public personality who targets a religion, a culture, a race, or ethnic group as questionable and gives reasons to exclude them from our soil is in league with tyranny and is a tyrant in the making.

SOME THINGS TO CONSIDER

Consider that a public personality who gets away with using radicalizing rhetoric to target a theistic religion could also get away with doing so to your church, synagogue, temple, charitable organization, or your social club.

Consider that radicalizing rhetoric can weaponize any marginalized person to serve an unspoken agenda aimed at eliminating those targeted, as demonstrated in the case of those who have recently attempted to intimidate Muslims attending a Mosque by surrounding it armed men in military fatigues,  by setting fire to a Mosque, shooting people in a church because they're black, or shooting people at a Planned Parenthood clinic. There also seems to be an increase in homophobic hate crimes committed in certain parts of the nation as a result of those who are appealing to an evangelical backlash to garner votes.

The people who do such things are not insane (at least no more than others who commit capital crimes). What is obvious it that they were weaponized by the radicalizing rhetoric of politicians, armchair political pundits, news personalities, and preachers who targeted these groups in broadcasted speeches and interviews they made.

If a politician or a news personality starts fingering whole religious, racial, or ethnic groups as a problem to our national security, and if someone acted on that information, as has occurred recently, they should be considered radicalized by what that political, religious, or news media personality said.  Although there are laws against inciting people to violence, we seem to have granted immunity to political, religious, and news media personalities who do so.

Consider, for a moment, that a public personality who would have mosques or any religious facility monitored on the basis that he or she is keeping an eye out for the bad people is just as likely to take your guns away or nationalizing the gun industry in order "to protect the majority" if such a would-be demagogue begins to feel personally threatened by the public having such possessions.

Once faith is placed in a demagogue to solve our problems, that demagogue is capable convincing the masses to give up any and all rights for fear of being perceived as not being on the right side of power. It's happened before. (HINT: Nazi Germany)

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It is unlikely that any current foreign power could deprive the people of the United States their sense of liberty and the sacredness of individuality and human worth.  The biggest threat to these foundational principles is from within, from the demagoguery being displayed by radicalizing news media personalities, armchair pundits, and the current frontrunners for the Republican Party's presidential nominee.

Consider that, and consider that if it sounds "sooo" good to be true, it probably is to good to be true.


Until next time, stay faithful.





















































Monday, December 7, 2015

A TALE OF TWO CHURCHES


In Part I of my posts on "WHY I GO TO CHURCH," I mentioned attending two church services on Sundays.  The reality is I attend two different Episcopal churches on any given Sunday. The first is the Episcopal church my family attends, Christ Episcopal Church in Yankton, South Dakota and the second church I attend is thirteen hundred miles away in New York City, Trinity Wall Street, which offers videos of all of its worship services and much more.

CHRIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH


I've already talked about how we came to be members of this small congregation.  Christ Church as we call it, has about one hundred members.  If forty of them show up on any given  service, it's a good day.  Christ Church, like many Episcopal churches in this country is a historical church.  It is the first church to be established in the Dakota Territory back in 1861 and has been conducting regular worship service in its current edifice since 1882.   Check out its website: http://christepiscopalchurchyankton.com/

The church building has been well cared for and its historical and original architecture well maintained. It is particularly known for its unique, eclectic stained glass windows.  The structure was made from locally queried chalkstone which was then covered with locally made red bricks.  The interior has a ceiling of dark pine or walnut wood, the floors of light oak.  All the furniture, pews, and woodwork were locally made from pine by a local craftsman.

The church was designed in a traditional Anglican cruciform structure, including a wooden reredos separating the choir from the church's nave.  The church can seat one hundred fifty people.  All the wood and soft colors provide the church with a particularly warm and inviting ambience.

This church also possesses a aural beauty.  It's original pipe organ was an Odell organ that was replaced in 1959 with a five rank Moeller pipe organ.  The original seventeen ornate façade pipes of the Odell organ still embellish the organ chamber.  The organ's console was recently upgraded to a solid state, fiber optic system, that has resulted in a much better use of the organ's five ranks. The organ has both warm and majestic tonal qualities that render it suitable for Anglican hymnody and liturgical music.

The Church also was gifted with a 1920's Steinway Piano four years ago that has been kept in excellent playing condition and I try to play it at some point in every Eucharist service.

I've taken time to describe this church in order to give you a sense that this is a very beautiful place to worship, pray, and to meditate in.  It's an honor and privilege to be this congregation's organist and music director.  The challenge of such a beautiful place, however, is to not get too caught up in the physical or aural beauty or its historical significance which is easy to do.

This church has a sense of itself that comes with being around for so long.  This can be a strength, but it can also be a weakness if that sense turns into a club mentality.   Like many Episcopal congregations, Christ Church is a mix composed of old moneyed families, well-educated professionals  of various types who are active in the community and the state along with poorer families. Our diocese is over fifty percent Native American who represent some of the poorest people in our state and in our nation, and our congregation reflects this to a lesser degree than the diocese as a whole.

After joining this congregation, I became aware that I was, in many ways, more Anglican in my liturgical and musical tastes than they were.  In fact, I was somewhat dismayed and disappointed that they obviously did not know their church's own musical heritage or all that interested in getting to know it.  Their tastes in hymnody were very Midwestern protestant.  I have been able to slowly change this since being their organist for the past sixteen years.

After a nasty kerfuffle over placement of the Steinway piano, related to a demonstrative intransigence on the part of those who refused to remove several "historical" and largely unused pews to accommodate its greater functionality in worship services and which intransigence was the obvious result of what happens when worship of a church's beauty and its past gets in the way of the church's function and purpose in the present, we left the church.  I won't go into the details, but the result was when we returned, others left.  It was a messy time and churches can be messy places.  Hopefully, those who left will rethink their leaving also and come back.

As a result of all that bother, I believe our little congregation has become a more open and inviting place. We have become more contemplative; having a Centering Prayer group that meets weekly, a weekly meditation group that studies and practices Buddhists meditation, and an early Sunday morning service called Serenity which uses meditation and contemplative prayer, along with lectio divina, a monastic contemplative practice to discern the meaning of a passage from scripture.

We practice open communion, in which everyone present is invited to partake.  We have practioners of healing touch who are available once a month during one of our Eucharistic services to pray for and over people who approach them.  We are an inclusive congregation in an area where churches tend to be far more conservative, even some Episcopal churches.  We are in many ways a true community church. People who attend our Centering Prayer, meditation groups, and Serenity services are members of other churches who don't have what we offer or who clearly identify as being "Nones."

This little congregation has a big heart that struggles to keep its head above water and from going under financially or going by the wayside as a result of aging out. We have a very active sense of lay ministry in our church in addition to our non-stipend deacon and our priest who decided to go part time in order to help the congregation financially.

In many ways Christ Church represents the challenges most rural communities are facing, dwindling congregations and financial resources, along with clergy shortages. These challenges, however, afford churches opportunities that they did not see before.  In order for any church to survive it needs to have an informed laity involved in active ministry, and this little congregation gets that.

I think Christ Church is developing a renewed sense of self that is based on the teachings and ministry of Jesus in the light of other traditions.  It's developing a sense of inner beauty that comes with being contemplative, open-minded, and open-hearted.  It is the place where I take my responsibility and culpability in being a Christian seriously in my service to this congregation as it's minister of music and a member of its worship team.

TRINITY WALL STREET



 

I mentioned in my earlier posts that being an organist has led me out of and into churches.  Trinity Wall Street in New York City is one of those churches.  The reason I and my family became acquainted with Trinity Wall Street is because Christ Episcopal Church was in the process of upgrading its organ and I was tasked with looking into several options regarding this process.  One of the options was replacing or supplementing the current pipe organ with a digitally voiced organ or a digital voicing component to enhance the current pipe organ we have.

In the process of doing some research on-line about digitally voiced church organs, I ran across the fact that Trinity has such an organ as a result of  the event of 9/11in which the debris that fell from the twins towers covered Trinity, which is located nearby. The tremendous amount of dust rendered Trinity's Aeolian-Skinner pipe organ unusable and necessitated a quick replacement which came in the form of their current digital organ built by Marshall Ogletree Associates, Inc. 

Since we were headed to New York to visit our youngest daughter, my wife and I decided to go to Trinity to check out the organ.  I knew of Trinity, but had never visited it until a warm summer day in 2012.   I believe we attended their 9:00 AM service.  We arrived early and the choir made up of the men of their choir was rehearsing shortly after we arrived.  Being in Trinity reminded us of being the cathedrals we visited in England.

I had my misgivings about digital organs because there is a certain feel or sound-feeling one gets from real pipe organs, but I also have a digital keyboard at my home that I love and I have played digital organs before and know that this is an area that is getting better and better at voice sampling and reproducing actual pipe organ voices. I wasn't disappointed with Trinity's organ, but that wasn't what caught my attention. 

What caught my attention was the warmth of the people, the mix of people, the friendliness and a sense of welcome that pervaded the place.  At the time, Trinity was the focus of protests against Wall Street and the church made it known that they were not behind the perceived corruption that was being protested, but Trinity has its own properties and was deeded land by the English monarchy in 1696 and owns some very prime real estate in the area.

Regardless of the protestors, the service that we participated in was not only beautiful, but moving.  We had the pleasure of hearing one of the best preachers I've heard that Sunday, their pastoral care priest, Dr. Mark Buzetti-Jones, and since that time I have listened to other wonderful preachers and priests who serve this unique congregation. 

There is a sense of inclusion at Trinity that I have not felt elsewhere.  It's a place of color, of all colors, Black, White, Yellow, Brown, you name it is there.  There are straight people and gay people, old people, young people, rich people, not so rich people, middle class people, and poor people.  People living in lush apartments and people living on the street.  It's a church on the move; literally.  People come in an out of the church during the service and the service continues amidst any distractions.   

Above all it is a church, a congregation with a sense of purpose and a sense of responsibility and culpability about being Christian.  It takes being Christian seriously and it speaks truth to power in a way that other congregations don't.  It's not afraid to openly talk in a homily or sermon about the issues of the day and goes far beyond preaching to study those issues in ongoing seminars, inviting experts in various fields to come to their church and present what they have to offer, to better inform their congregation and anyone interested.  Many of these sessions are videoed and archived on their website, https://www.trinitywallstreet.org/

I fell in love with Trinity, and when I found out that their services are videoed, I became a regular viewer.  My daughters fell in love with Trinity also.  They may not be regular church goers, but when our oldest daughter visits our youngest, Trinity is on the agenda as a place to go.  Their music ministry is outstanding and deeply awe-inspiring, from choral selections to organ preludes, postludes, and improvisations. The beauty of worship is clearly evident in this place.

Undoubtedly, Trinity is a church with the financial means to carry out a number of ministries.  It doesn't deny that.  It is a giving church in so many ways, locally, nationally, and internationally.  It feeds the hungry with weekly meals and is constructing housing in its neighborhood to help address the homeless population in the New York. It is quite obvious that beside their extensive ordained clergy resources, there is a very active and involved lay ministry.

I look forward to watching the videos of the weekly services every Sunday, after attending Christ Episcopal.  When one is an organist or worship leader during a Sunday morning service, one doesn't fully worship in the way one does when sitting in a pew.

I like the way that Trinity does not edit their videos.   They are well done, but they show the service as is; with any hiccup or mistake that might occur.  It makes it all so real and family-like for me because being an organist I understand hiccups.


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Trinity reminds me of Christ Episcopal Church.   They are a family, just as Christ Church is.  I'm not naïve about churches.  Like a family there is always a certain amount of tension and drama in the works.  People walking out, slamming doors and people coming back in.  I should know.  I'm one of them.

Like families, you don't get to choose who's a member, but you do have a responsibility to love those who are part of your family even when there are times you can't stand to be in the same room with each other. Then there are those moments when you fully get why you're part of this messy family; that you are needed and that you need the other members of the family.  Churches are very much like that if they are truly loving places.

I wanted to present this post as way of giving some of my readers a little more background on where I'm coming from.  I think this may be important in discussing the concept of religious singularity.  What I've said here, I have no doubt that people in other churches and in other theistic religions can attest to; the sense of family that is derived from their places of worship.

Since I am a Christian, I will talk about my religious experiences and my thoughts about Christian practices in a way that will hopefully resonate with those of other theistic religions.

I believe there is a thread of commonality that is universal to all theistic religions, but is often ignored in order to preserve a sense of identity.  My purpose in talking about religious singularity is not remove anyone's religious identity, but rather show a way of speaking a common language without forfeiting identity.

Until next time, stay faithful