I remember word-for-word the conversation where I first heard of Unitarian Universalism.
"I don't go to church," my lab partner in my high school Oceanography class (a goth chick who has several freshmen believing that she was an actual vampire) said. "But my parents are Unitarians." She spoke the last word like it was the most tremendously uncool thing to ever be.
"What do Unitarians believe?" I asked.
"They believe that you can believe whatever you want."
"That's a stupid religion." I said.
"No kidding"
And our conversation moved on to other matters, none of them relating to Oceanography.
As many times as I've corrected UUs of various ages (mercifully skewing towards kids) on the specifics of refining belief through reason, I can totally see why "you can believe whatever you want" is a little kid version of UUism.
Similarly, the little kid version of Christianity I grew up with was along the lines of "Be good and do good stuff and you will go to heaven. Pray and God will give you stuff. Take care of the poor because Jesus said to."*
I took some theology classes and developed a more sophisticated understanding of Christianity before I rejected it as a spiritual path, but I found those little kid tenets to be quite tenacious as far as my own thinking about these matters went and part of me still sees Christianity as a religion very focused on who gets what from God.
This line of thought has me really glad that I'm a YRUU advisor. We didn't have sunday school classes for teenagers when I was a Presbyterian teenager because we didn't have any teenagers who wanted to attend except me. (And this was at a decently-sized church in the middle of DC). As I've mentioned, the multi-church youth group I was in was all about keeping us from having sex with each other and not so much about anything else. I remember two lock-ins, a charades game, a retreat, a trip to the movies ("Groundhog Day") and a stream cleanup. There had to have been more in four years of high school but that's literally all I remember doing.
Also, there was one discussion where we were supposed to talk about our hero and lots of kids said "my mom" and lots of kids said "God" and Teenage CC said "Katharine Hepburn."
So yeah, there wasn't much moving on to becoming a mature Christian adult in there. It's not a big shock that I didn't stay.
Conversely, Jana-who-Creates grew up in Atlanta and tells lots of stories of driving across a state or two to go to a youth con and how YRUU cons were really where she fit in. She grew up getting Unitarian Universalism on a deep level because there were people who wanted to teach it to her. And she met Richard Simmons.
Here's hoping that the youth I know and the youth you know have a better grasp of the faith they are growing up in than I did and that like YRUU did for JwC it truly becomes a place where youth can fit and where they truly get what their religion tries to teach.
CC
*It bears mentioning that not all kids get the little kid version. LittleCSO had so many pointed questions about doctrine that his Sunday School teacher eventually had him meet with the minister, who told him straight out that if he didn't believe X, Y and Z then he wasn't a Lutheran. So theCSO stopped going to church as he was not a Lutheran. The actual truth of this story might be slightly less awesomely precocious, but that's how he tells it.
Showing posts with label Christianity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christianity. Show all posts
Sunday, November 08, 2009
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Huh?
I've been hitting the UU theology mailing list pretty hard recently. Someone posted this today:
Both atheist Christopher Hitchens and pastor Douglas Wilson concur that
society has no use for Christianity if its core story is not true and
it's reduced merely to moral and ethical doctrine. But does this view
act as a challenge to 'religious humanism'?
__________
By David Edwards and Daniel Tencer [edited]
Monday, October 26th, 2009
If the story of Jesus Christ isn't literally true, then Christianity is
a fraud that promotes "a positively wicked doctrine," Christopher
Hitchens told Fox & Friends Monday morning.
Hitchens discussed the role of religion in American society in the wake
of a recent study that shows the number of Americans who claim no
religious affiliation has roughly doubled in the past two decades, from
8.2 percent in 1990 to 15 percent in 2008.
The study, conducted by Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut,
predicts that a full one-quarter of Americans will have no religious
affiliation by 2028. The study notes that the number of non-believers
among younger people is considerably higher than among older people,
suggesting that the trend of Americans growing less religious will
continue in coming years.
Hitchens said Americans are increasingly turning against organized
religion "because they want to push back against theocracy and the
parties of God and the awful challenge they pose to us internationally."
"By the way, your side seems to be winning in public schools, at least
across America," host Gretchen Carlson told Hitchens.
Hitchens appeared on Fox with pastor Douglas Wilson, who appeared along
with Hitchens in the recent documentary Collision, which explores the
battle of ideas between the religious and the non-religious.
The two came to unexpected agreement on one issue: They both attacked
the notion, popular among some secular thinkers, that Christianity is a
socially positive thing even if it's not true.
"If Jesus didn't come back from the dead, then Christianity is appalling
-- it's an appalling fraud and delusion and every unbeliever should
attack it," Wilson said. "Christianity is not good for the world because
it makes people decent and sober and that sort of thing. At the end of
the day, if it's not true -- if it's not objectively true -- then I
don't have any more use for it than Christopher does."
Hitchens echoed that idea, but made it clear he does actually consider
Christianity a fraud.
"They say, well the Bible story's not really true -- they're morality
tales. Don't listen to it, because if it's based on a fraud, if the
virgin birth and the resurrection and the miracles did not occur --
which they did not -- then those teachings are immoral, they teach that
sins can be forgiven by throwing them on to a scapegoat -- a positively
wicked doctrine."
Is it just me, or does this argument not make a lot of sense?
Admittedly, I was raised by liberal Christian parents who taught me that the less-believable parts of the bible were metaphor. Though the article and the guy who forward it to the list attribute this idea to secular thinkers, I hear it a lot more from liberal Christians than I hear it from secular folks.
To me, the idea that a religious story's meaning and value should be evaluated separately from its literal truth makes perfect sense and I'm not sure why anything else would be the case. After all, Jesus himself acknowledged that not all of his stories were literally true. If inventing a story to get a spiritual point across was good wnough for Jesus, one would think it would be good enough for the Reverend Wilson.
Thoughts?
CC
Both atheist Christopher Hitchens and pastor Douglas Wilson concur that
society has no use for Christianity if its core story is not true and
it's reduced merely to moral and ethical doctrine. But does this view
act as a challenge to 'religious humanism'?
__________
By David Edwards and Daniel Tencer [edited]
Monday, October 26th, 2009
If the story of Jesus Christ isn't literally true, then Christianity is
a fraud that promotes "a positively wicked doctrine," Christopher
Hitchens told Fox & Friends Monday morning.
Hitchens discussed the role of religion in American society in the wake
of a recent study that shows the number of Americans who claim no
religious affiliation has roughly doubled in the past two decades, from
8.2 percent in 1990 to 15 percent in 2008.
The study, conducted by Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut,
predicts that a full one-quarter of Americans will have no religious
affiliation by 2028. The study notes that the number of non-believers
among younger people is considerably higher than among older people,
suggesting that the trend of Americans growing less religious will
continue in coming years.
Hitchens said Americans are increasingly turning against organized
religion "because they want to push back against theocracy and the
parties of God and the awful challenge they pose to us internationally."
"By the way, your side seems to be winning in public schools, at least
across America," host Gretchen Carlson told Hitchens.
Hitchens appeared on Fox with pastor Douglas Wilson, who appeared along
with Hitchens in the recent documentary Collision, which explores the
battle of ideas between the religious and the non-religious.
The two came to unexpected agreement on one issue: They both attacked
the notion, popular among some secular thinkers, that Christianity is a
socially positive thing even if it's not true.
"If Jesus didn't come back from the dead, then Christianity is appalling
-- it's an appalling fraud and delusion and every unbeliever should
attack it," Wilson said. "Christianity is not good for the world because
it makes people decent and sober and that sort of thing. At the end of
the day, if it's not true -- if it's not objectively true -- then I
don't have any more use for it than Christopher does."
Hitchens echoed that idea, but made it clear he does actually consider
Christianity a fraud.
"They say, well the Bible story's not really true -- they're morality
tales. Don't listen to it, because if it's based on a fraud, if the
virgin birth and the resurrection and the miracles did not occur --
which they did not -- then those teachings are immoral, they teach that
sins can be forgiven by throwing them on to a scapegoat -- a positively
wicked doctrine."
Is it just me, or does this argument not make a lot of sense?
Admittedly, I was raised by liberal Christian parents who taught me that the less-believable parts of the bible were metaphor. Though the article and the guy who forward it to the list attribute this idea to secular thinkers, I hear it a lot more from liberal Christians than I hear it from secular folks.
To me, the idea that a religious story's meaning and value should be evaluated separately from its literal truth makes perfect sense and I'm not sure why anything else would be the case. After all, Jesus himself acknowledged that not all of his stories were literally true. If inventing a story to get a spiritual point across was good wnough for Jesus, one would think it would be good enough for the Reverend Wilson.
Thoughts?
CC
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Response from Janet Hayes re: Post-Christian
Reprinted from an email with permission, though Hayes requests that if there are further comments for her, people contact her directly.
So I guess she's not looking to become a Chalicesseur.
Ah well.
CC
Dear (CC):
If spokespeople had editing rights on all published news articles, reading the morning paper would be a very different experience.
In the 20+ interviews I did after the Knoxville shootings, I spoke mostly with reporters who knew very little about Unitarian Universalism, and nearly all of them wanted a yes-or-no answer to the question, “Is Unitarian Universalism a Christian church?” My usual response is something like the explanation included in the Post article: "We include the teachings of Jesus and we appreciate the wisdom of the Bible, but we don't limit our sources of inspiration to the Christian faith." When there’s a reasonably in-depth discussion, as there was in this interview (it lasted nearly an hour), I can add more information about our theological history and current diversity. But I can’t control what gets printed. And, to be fair, a reporter can’t control how her copy gets edited after she submits it. So PR people learn to be very forgiving. In this case I explained that, while we have individuals and congregations who identify primarily as Christian, the Association as a whole is no longer under the Christian umbrella, although sociologists often include us among “post-Christian” religious groups. The term is technically accurate and relatively useful in that it communicates our Christian heritage, but it’s not as meaningful, in my opinion, as the more nuanced explanations we prefer (sadly, news writing is rarely friendly to nuance).
So, even though the reporter didn’t get that one point precisely right, I’m grateful to her for including the lengthier and more revealing explanation. She also did several things that add tremendous value to an “earned media” placement. She interviewed a UU theologian, covered a local event, included recent GA resolutions on social justice issues, quoted Bill Sinkford, and refused to play Sophomore Journalism by seeking a contrary opinion from “the other side” (usually a representative from a group hostile to UUism or its values). Most importantly, she was genuinely engaged in the topic, and my office is developing a good relationship with her.
This may not seem like much to someone outside the profession, but it represents far more work and effort than go into the vast majority of news articles. Most of the 400+ stories published about the UUA’s response to Knoxville simply snipped a few lines from our press releases -- which is why we write press releases in the first place, so that’s fine. But we’re thrilled when a reporter goes so much further.
I always tell UUs that the best public relations work comes from individual Unitarian Universalists. In the end, it’s not about finding the right category to define us, or what words I do or don’t use in an interview. It’s about how UUs all over the world are living and representing our faith. Many UUs have responded to the Knoxville tragedy with letters to editor, op-eds, and invitations to reporters to visit their congregations. I hope you’ll consider doing something similar by reaching out with your own message to your local community. The more voices we lift up, the more complete our message will be.
If you have other questions, please feel free to call me to discuss them.
Sincerely,
Janet Hayes
Public Relations Director
Unitarian Universalist Association
25 Beacon Street
Boston, MA 02108
617-948-4386
So I guess she's not looking to become a Chalicesseur.
Ah well.
CC
Dear (CC):
If spokespeople had editing rights on all published news articles, reading the morning paper would be a very different experience.
In the 20+ interviews I did after the Knoxville shootings, I spoke mostly with reporters who knew very little about Unitarian Universalism, and nearly all of them wanted a yes-or-no answer to the question, “Is Unitarian Universalism a Christian church?” My usual response is something like the explanation included in the Post article: "We include the teachings of Jesus and we appreciate the wisdom of the Bible, but we don't limit our sources of inspiration to the Christian faith." When there’s a reasonably in-depth discussion, as there was in this interview (it lasted nearly an hour), I can add more information about our theological history and current diversity. But I can’t control what gets printed. And, to be fair, a reporter can’t control how her copy gets edited after she submits it. So PR people learn to be very forgiving. In this case I explained that, while we have individuals and congregations who identify primarily as Christian, the Association as a whole is no longer under the Christian umbrella, although sociologists often include us among “post-Christian” religious groups. The term is technically accurate and relatively useful in that it communicates our Christian heritage, but it’s not as meaningful, in my opinion, as the more nuanced explanations we prefer (sadly, news writing is rarely friendly to nuance).
So, even though the reporter didn’t get that one point precisely right, I’m grateful to her for including the lengthier and more revealing explanation. She also did several things that add tremendous value to an “earned media” placement. She interviewed a UU theologian, covered a local event, included recent GA resolutions on social justice issues, quoted Bill Sinkford, and refused to play Sophomore Journalism by seeking a contrary opinion from “the other side” (usually a representative from a group hostile to UUism or its values). Most importantly, she was genuinely engaged in the topic, and my office is developing a good relationship with her.
This may not seem like much to someone outside the profession, but it represents far more work and effort than go into the vast majority of news articles. Most of the 400+ stories published about the UUA’s response to Knoxville simply snipped a few lines from our press releases -- which is why we write press releases in the first place, so that’s fine. But we’re thrilled when a reporter goes so much further.
I always tell UUs that the best public relations work comes from individual Unitarian Universalists. In the end, it’s not about finding the right category to define us, or what words I do or don’t use in an interview. It’s about how UUs all over the world are living and representing our faith. Many UUs have responded to the Knoxville tragedy with letters to editor, op-eds, and invitations to reporters to visit their congregations. I hope you’ll consider doing something similar by reaching out with your own message to your local community. The more voices we lift up, the more complete our message will be.
If you have other questions, please feel free to call me to discuss them.
Sincerely,
Janet Hayes
Public Relations Director
Unitarian Universalist Association
25 Beacon Street
Boston, MA 02108
617-948-4386
Friday, August 15, 2008
Masters of the Obvious
I've been participating with great enthusiasm in the debates about UUA spokesperson Janet Hayes' use of the term "Post Christian" to describe us in the Washington Post.
Over at Infidelity, the Administrator was asking what the deal was as he/she saw it as a legitimate description, and I answered as follows:
I’m of the camp that no matter the theological accuracy of the term, it sounds really snotty.
The comparison I used at Radical Hapa was the word “Niggardly.” Now “Niggardly” comes from Norwegian, means “stingy” and is a perfectly grammatically correct term to use if you want to describe, say, Uncle Scrooge.
That said, it is a term that SOUNDS offensive to the average audience and spokespeople shouldn’t be using the term because it distracts from the message by drawing a lot of attention to itself because it sounds like it means something offensive even though it doesn’t.
Much like you can say “niggardly” all you want in Oslo, the term “post-Christian” is perfectly OK in theologically educated company that knows what it means. (There are smart people on both sides of the question of whether it applies to UUism, but it is, at least, something that can be argued.)
But if you’re using the term, say, in an interview with reporters, and not explaining it, you are likely needlessly pissing people off and if you’re a spokesperson, you shouldn’t be doing that.
Steve Caldwell pointed out that Hayes had given the term the following explanation:
“We include the teaching of Jesus and we appreciate the wisdom of the Bible, but we don’t limit our sources of inspiration to the Christian faith.”
And the frightening thing is, a lot of people who go to our churches probably do see that as sufficient justification for giving ourselves a new name, e.g. "post Christian."
The fact that looking beyond the Christian faith for inspiration is really freaking obvious even to (non-post) Christians seems to go unnoticed. I mean, my Dad is a serious Christian, but if you had asked him to name five inspiring things, I can guarantee you that he would've responded with five peices of music.*
Along similar lines, I am constantly urging UUs not to answer "what do UUs believe" with the seven principles. Because the seven principles are, well, obvious to most people who are even remotely relgiously liberal. I again invoke my parents and the Chalicerelative, because I know their take on Christianity pretty well. None of them would bat an eyelash at the Seven Principles.
Looking over the seven principles, once you get past the "What does inherent dignity mean and are you sure Hitler has it?" discussion that everybody always wants to have, the only point I can see as being even remotely controversial is "use of the democratic process within our congregations," and that's only controversial in churches where the polity really differs from ours.
Some people really like the seven principles, but I'd say they are pretty meaningless as definitions go.
My answer to "What do UUs believe?" varies with my perceptions of the audience but is usually along the lines of "I can't tell you what all UUs believe, because we believe different things. I can tell you what I believe, and I can tell you that UUism isn't so much a belief system as a system of arriving at and exploring belief by refining it through reason."
And then I wait for the "Well, do you believe in...?" questions to begin because people never quite get that on the first hearing.
But returning to the intended central point of this post, I am flummoxed by how often people will define us in these loose, weird ways and by stating beliefs that are really pretty self-evident.
I've observed in the past that sometimes really smart people have a poor grasp of what's obvious to the rest of us. One of the smartest people I know once very carefully and slowly explained the concept of what was essentially "immortality through one's work" to me as he'd thought of it himself and he wasn't sure I could get it. I mentioned Woody Allen's take on the issue* and it seemed to surprise him that the idea was popularly understood.****
But I don't think us all being too smart to get what's obvious is really the issue.
Any ideas on what is?
CC
*When he could talk, but that's another story
**Also, because the seven principles are an ideal that we don't live up to. I don't have a problem with UUs not always living up to their principles, I haven't ever run across a religion where everybody did, but I tend to like to answer questions from outsiders within a more reality-based framework.
*** "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying."
****This can also work the other way. LinguistFriend and the future Mrs. Linguistfriend once slipped into German at the breakfast table, not noticing the flummoxed expressions on the faces of everyone else at the table. It was adorable.
Over at Infidelity, the Administrator was asking what the deal was as he/she saw it as a legitimate description, and I answered as follows:
I’m of the camp that no matter the theological accuracy of the term, it sounds really snotty.
The comparison I used at Radical Hapa was the word “Niggardly.” Now “Niggardly” comes from Norwegian, means “stingy” and is a perfectly grammatically correct term to use if you want to describe, say, Uncle Scrooge.
That said, it is a term that SOUNDS offensive to the average audience and spokespeople shouldn’t be using the term because it distracts from the message by drawing a lot of attention to itself because it sounds like it means something offensive even though it doesn’t.
Much like you can say “niggardly” all you want in Oslo, the term “post-Christian” is perfectly OK in theologically educated company that knows what it means. (There are smart people on both sides of the question of whether it applies to UUism, but it is, at least, something that can be argued.)
But if you’re using the term, say, in an interview with reporters, and not explaining it, you are likely needlessly pissing people off and if you’re a spokesperson, you shouldn’t be doing that.
Steve Caldwell pointed out that Hayes had given the term the following explanation:
“We include the teaching of Jesus and we appreciate the wisdom of the Bible, but we don’t limit our sources of inspiration to the Christian faith.”
And the frightening thing is, a lot of people who go to our churches probably do see that as sufficient justification for giving ourselves a new name, e.g. "post Christian."
The fact that looking beyond the Christian faith for inspiration is really freaking obvious even to (non-post) Christians seems to go unnoticed. I mean, my Dad is a serious Christian, but if you had asked him to name five inspiring things, I can guarantee you that he would've responded with five peices of music.*
Along similar lines, I am constantly urging UUs not to answer "what do UUs believe" with the seven principles. Because the seven principles are, well, obvious to most people who are even remotely relgiously liberal. I again invoke my parents and the Chalicerelative, because I know their take on Christianity pretty well. None of them would bat an eyelash at the Seven Principles.
Looking over the seven principles, once you get past the "What does inherent dignity mean and are you sure Hitler has it?" discussion that everybody always wants to have, the only point I can see as being even remotely controversial is "use of the democratic process within our congregations," and that's only controversial in churches where the polity really differs from ours.
Some people really like the seven principles, but I'd say they are pretty meaningless as definitions go.
My answer to "What do UUs believe?" varies with my perceptions of the audience but is usually along the lines of "I can't tell you what all UUs believe, because we believe different things. I can tell you what I believe, and I can tell you that UUism isn't so much a belief system as a system of arriving at and exploring belief by refining it through reason."
And then I wait for the "Well, do you believe in...?" questions to begin because people never quite get that on the first hearing.
But returning to the intended central point of this post, I am flummoxed by how often people will define us in these loose, weird ways and by stating beliefs that are really pretty self-evident.
I've observed in the past that sometimes really smart people have a poor grasp of what's obvious to the rest of us. One of the smartest people I know once very carefully and slowly explained the concept of what was essentially "immortality through one's work" to me as he'd thought of it himself and he wasn't sure I could get it. I mentioned Woody Allen's take on the issue* and it seemed to surprise him that the idea was popularly understood.****
But I don't think us all being too smart to get what's obvious is really the issue.
Any ideas on what is?
CC
*When he could talk, but that's another story
**Also, because the seven principles are an ideal that we don't live up to. I don't have a problem with UUs not always living up to their principles, I haven't ever run across a religion where everybody did, but I tend to like to answer questions from outsiders within a more reality-based framework.
*** "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying."
****This can also work the other way. LinguistFriend and the future Mrs. Linguistfriend once slipped into German at the breakfast table, not noticing the flummoxed expressions on the faces of everyone else at the table. It was adorable.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
LINGUISTFRIEND ON BIRDS, BEASTS, AND FRIENDS
I spent most of yesterday on rereading a Ph.D. dissertation in German on the acoustic communication of chinchillas, and then spent time in the afternoon with a colleague and a student of his who is starting to work in this area and needed access to the results of the dissertation. I was going through with her, for instance, the acoustic description of what happens when mother chinchilla comes home to her brood after foraging for food, and gives the position call which indicates “Here I am!”, which is followed by the babies’ uttering another call which means ”Suckle!”, immediately getting down to business. The dry descriptions of the behavioral context of these acoustic productions have inescapable charm, although they are completely factual. Since all mammals have roughly the same numbers of heartbeats and breaths during a healthy lifetime, the lives of these small Andean rodents presumably have the same subjective length as our own; although chronologically their lives are shorter, their hearts and respiration function proportionately more rapidly than ours. That is part of the phenomenon called physiological time, an application of biological scaling which is sometimes used in order to generalize scientific findings across species.
During a break in my work with the student, I checked my e-mail and found a message forwarded by my former wife, a note from her college roommate describing the ongoing last days of the life of her husband of forty years, to whom she was introduced by my mother, who had an uncanny and embarrassing knack for such things. He is a fine man, a logician who somehow found a place for himself in aeronautical research, and produced an able son with his new wife in addition to the two beautiful daughters whom his departed wife had left to his care. Their long life together was happy, and they were the only mutual friends of my former wife and myself who maintained positive interactions with both of us after the divorce, for which I was deeply grateful. His present situation is such that I was reminded of Ms. Kitty’s recent discussion of theodicy, the issue of how an all-powerful and just God could allow such things to happen (I am not claiming that he does).Yes, the Job problem, and many others, of course. I do not weep often, but I wept last night.
Earlier this fall, I came across an old Loeb edition of the major Latin works of the Anglo-Saxon historian Bede (about 673-735 AD) in a Toledo bookstore, and since then I have browsed in it. Last night I was reminded of a passage in his treatise on the early history of the English church, which I found after a little searching. In it, Bede describes how the Saxon King Edwin of Northumbria consulted with his advisors and chief pagan priest to decide whether his kingdom should convert to Christianity, as urged by the Christian bishop Paulinus (d. 644). The events described took place about 627 AD or a little before. I have revised the published translation of the comment of one advisor of Edwin on the basis of the Latin text:
“King, for the comparison of our uncertain time to live, the present life of men on earth seems to me such, as if while you were sitting at table with your captains and thanes, in the winter time, for instance while the fire had been lit in the middle and the dining room being made warm, but outside everywhere there were raging storms of winter rains or snows, and one of the sparrows entered the house and flew through very rapidly, which when it entered at one doorway, it soon exited through another one. Which only during the time that it is inside, it is not touched by the storm of winter, but however once the brief time of good weather has passed in a moment, soon from winter it returns to winter, and escapes your eyes. Thus the life of men appears briefly; but of what will follow, or of what has gone before, we do not know at all. Wherefore if this new doctrine has brought us something more certain, it seems worthy to be followed.“
Of course, neither do I know any answer to this question, but I do know that we must value the birds, and beasts, and friends that we have, at Christmas and at other times. Have a good holiday season.
During a break in my work with the student, I checked my e-mail and found a message forwarded by my former wife, a note from her college roommate describing the ongoing last days of the life of her husband of forty years, to whom she was introduced by my mother, who had an uncanny and embarrassing knack for such things. He is a fine man, a logician who somehow found a place for himself in aeronautical research, and produced an able son with his new wife in addition to the two beautiful daughters whom his departed wife had left to his care. Their long life together was happy, and they were the only mutual friends of my former wife and myself who maintained positive interactions with both of us after the divorce, for which I was deeply grateful. His present situation is such that I was reminded of Ms. Kitty’s recent discussion of theodicy, the issue of how an all-powerful and just God could allow such things to happen (I am not claiming that he does).Yes, the Job problem, and many others, of course. I do not weep often, but I wept last night.
Earlier this fall, I came across an old Loeb edition of the major Latin works of the Anglo-Saxon historian Bede (about 673-735 AD) in a Toledo bookstore, and since then I have browsed in it. Last night I was reminded of a passage in his treatise on the early history of the English church, which I found after a little searching. In it, Bede describes how the Saxon King Edwin of Northumbria consulted with his advisors and chief pagan priest to decide whether his kingdom should convert to Christianity, as urged by the Christian bishop Paulinus (d. 644). The events described took place about 627 AD or a little before. I have revised the published translation of the comment of one advisor of Edwin on the basis of the Latin text:
“King, for the comparison of our uncertain time to live, the present life of men on earth seems to me such, as if while you were sitting at table with your captains and thanes, in the winter time, for instance while the fire had been lit in the middle and the dining room being made warm, but outside everywhere there were raging storms of winter rains or snows, and one of the sparrows entered the house and flew through very rapidly, which when it entered at one doorway, it soon exited through another one. Which only during the time that it is inside, it is not touched by the storm of winter, but however once the brief time of good weather has passed in a moment, soon from winter it returns to winter, and escapes your eyes. Thus the life of men appears briefly; but of what will follow, or of what has gone before, we do not know at all. Wherefore if this new doctrine has brought us something more certain, it seems worthy to be followed.“
Of course, neither do I know any answer to this question, but I do know that we must value the birds, and beasts, and friends that we have, at Christmas and at other times. Have a good holiday season.
Monday, November 05, 2007
Any suggestions?
There are a couple of ladies in main office of the law firm where I work who will periodically send out mass e-mails with pithy religious sentiments and/or poorly thought out political essays.
These folks are not attorneys, but are the sort of staff who have a great deal of power to make your life suck if they decide they don't like you. I have a bad record of pissing people like that off, though I've managed to stay off of the radar screen at this job so far.
Today's email (A screed about how much the world hates us, what we should do to the terrorists, how we shouldn't give out money to people starving in other countries, and how we should deport illegal immigrants) ended with the words:
If you agree with the above forward it to friends...If not, and I would be amazed, DELETE it!!
I am tempted to do what I always do and heed the advice of the email and delete it.
But part of me would also really like these folks to stop it with the Jesus and the conservative politics.
I'm half tempted to use one against the other and email back saying that I follow the teachings of a carpenter who told us to take care of the poor. But that's not entirely true. And it would probably get me even more Jesus e-mails.
I'm also tempted to say that I find the emails sort of distracting and to please stop sending them to me. But I really don't want to cheese these people off. So maybe not making waves is the best idea.
Any thoughts?
CC
These folks are not attorneys, but are the sort of staff who have a great deal of power to make your life suck if they decide they don't like you. I have a bad record of pissing people like that off, though I've managed to stay off of the radar screen at this job so far.
Today's email (A screed about how much the world hates us, what we should do to the terrorists, how we shouldn't give out money to people starving in other countries, and how we should deport illegal immigrants) ended with the words:
If you agree with the above forward it to friends...If not, and I would be amazed, DELETE it!!
I am tempted to do what I always do and heed the advice of the email and delete it.
But part of me would also really like these folks to stop it with the Jesus and the conservative politics.
I'm half tempted to use one against the other and email back saying that I follow the teachings of a carpenter who told us to take care of the poor. But that's not entirely true. And it would probably get me even more Jesus e-mails.
I'm also tempted to say that I find the emails sort of distracting and to please stop sending them to me. But I really don't want to cheese these people off. So maybe not making waves is the best idea.
Any thoughts?
CC
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Updates to the previous couple of posts
1. Jeff's comment on the Reverend Al Sharpton is well taken, and did a bit to revise my opinion of Sharpton. That said, I think I'm far from alone in my kneejerk mistrust of Sharpton and I still don't think he does causes many favors from showing up. I would consider him more honest that Michael Moore, but in the same basic ballpark.
2. I really didn't give sufficient background on the bible stories topic, so here are a few clarifications:
-My youth seem to know many of the basic bible stories, especially those that Unitarians like and/or those that are particularly palatable to children. They aren't totally ignorant and I'm certainly not planning to teach them all of the Bible in an hour or attempt to.
-A couple of weeks ago, I was reading a case for Property class where the Judge makes a reference to the Tower of Babel wherein he not only assumed the reader knew what it was, but assumed the reader knew it well enough to apply its implications to the situation at hand. I of the Presby upbringing was ok. It made me wonder how well my youth would do with it, though.
Thus, I am looking primarily for bible stories that aren't so well known that they would know them already, but do come up in society.
That said, the responses here have convinced me that a series of classes on this are in order.
Thanks, guys!
CC
2. I really didn't give sufficient background on the bible stories topic, so here are a few clarifications:
-My youth seem to know many of the basic bible stories, especially those that Unitarians like and/or those that are particularly palatable to children. They aren't totally ignorant and I'm certainly not planning to teach them all of the Bible in an hour or attempt to.
-A couple of weeks ago, I was reading a case for Property class where the Judge makes a reference to the Tower of Babel wherein he not only assumed the reader knew what it was, but assumed the reader knew it well enough to apply its implications to the situation at hand. I of the Presby upbringing was ok. It made me wonder how well my youth would do with it, though.
Thus, I am looking primarily for bible stories that aren't so well known that they would know them already, but do come up in society.
That said, the responses here have convinced me that a series of classes on this are in order.
Thanks, guys!
CC
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Help me prepare a Christianity Cheat sheet for young UUs.
This week in YRUU, I’m teaching. In reading some of my cases for school, I’ve noticed over and over that certain Christian stories are referenced in a way that suggests everybody should know what they mean.
As our youth mostly weren’t raised to get all the implications possible in a short references to say, the Tower of Babel, I thought I would put together a Bible story cheat sheet of biblical stories you need to understand to function in our culture. Right now, I’m thinking of summarizing each story in a few sentences, then giving a few sentences about the story’s typical cultural interpretation as I understand it.
I will stick it up here afterwards so Chalicessuers can use it for themselves, too.
So, please, give me some bible stories that I should make sure the youth know about...
CC
As our youth mostly weren’t raised to get all the implications possible in a short references to say, the Tower of Babel, I thought I would put together a Bible story cheat sheet of biblical stories you need to understand to function in our culture. Right now, I’m thinking of summarizing each story in a few sentences, then giving a few sentences about the story’s typical cultural interpretation as I understand it.
I will stick it up here afterwards so Chalicessuers can use it for themselves, too.
So, please, give me some bible stories that I should make sure the youth know about...
CC
Thursday, December 21, 2006
An unbeliever on Christmas Eve
In a recent post PB writes I remember the years before I was at all interested in, or knowledgeable of, the Bible. I would go to church services now and then and it was all absolutely meaningless to me. No one ever suggested to me that if I wanted to get anything out of this, I would actually have to put some intellectual effort into it. Church was like a magical social club -- if you were a member, you'd just "get it," and your heart would be opened by some great priestly abracadabra, and you could sit there with dewy eyes and feel moved by all this archaic language about begating and prophecying and parable-ing and healing lepers or whatever other crazy biz was going down in that day's reading.
This fascinates me because it is 180 degrees from my own experience as an unbeliever. I was raised by liberal Christians who explained the bible as metaphor Healing lepers and the like were symbols that I either understood on some level or accepted that I didn't. Now even to this day, there are some things about the bible's metaphors that really turn me off. God's utter indifference to human life excepting the people he REALLY likes is too pervasive a theme to be written off as symbolism alone. I realize a lot of old epics are like this, but still...
For me it was Christianity that was the club, but I wasn't faithful enough to get in. In retrospect, my rather screwed-up home life made my own unworthyness very easy to accept. I tried to believe though, though. I built a little alter at the edge of my playroom, I conducted church services for the cats and put on elaborate biblical skits. But I still felt left out. My grandmother talked about faith in God as a gift that I was lucky to have as it meant I wasn't going to hell. That alone was good for a few sleepless nights*.
My lack of belief and my not knowing how to tell my parents about this continued through my teenage years. My skits had given way to an elaborate yearly pageant for which I wrote the script and did much of the directing. (Every other high school kid in my church had quit going seemingly guilt free, I stayed and kept working and remained anxious. That's CC for ya.) The church got a new minister, a woman, who now shows up on this blog occasionally still as "Mary-who-Dances." She was really good and she made me think, and I started to hope there might be a future for me an Christianity after all. By the time I went to college, I was taking classes on religion, though not actually attending church. I actually continued my at that point life-long habit of lying and professing a belief in God so God club members would think I was in.
My freshman year in college, I came back to visit for Christmas. Still not believing, still anxious, I sat in the back of the church at the Christmas Eve service and listened to the hyman and the readings I'd heard so many times before. I didn't believe in God, but the familiarity was still comforting. It was a candle service, but our candles weren't lit yet. I dug deep grooves into mine with my thumbnail.
Near the end of the service, Mary stood at the front of the church and asked every child under thirteen to come forward. (Neatly excluding my brothers, who were thirteen.) The kids came up and Mary lit their candles and talked to them seriously about their duty to spread light to the world. I gripped the candle, my eyes never leaving Mary.
The kids turned, and with majestic and serious expressions slowly walked back toward the pews. I understood then why churches use so many candles. People carrying candles instinctively adopt an expression that tells the world they are doing reverent and serious business. I understood this intellectually, but was still deeply moved. The kids got that bringing light to the world was a dangerous activity. One was likely to get burned or look stupid if wax got on the carpet. And they brought the light anyway. Because it was their job.
Mary watched the kids start to touch candles with the people on the ends of the pews, who then leaned over and touched candles with the person next to them, spreading the light. Seemingly spontaneously, Mary began to sing softly and almost to herself.
"Go, tell it on the mountain,
over the hills and every where..."
And the congregation picked up the words and began to sing along, mimicking Mary's soft and thoughtful tone...
"Go, tell it on the mountain,
that Jesus Christ is born..."
The kids walked and lit, and we all kept singing...
While shepherds kept their watching
Over silent flocks by night
Behold throughout the heavens
There shone a holy light...
On what I'm sure is a simplistic level, I get the theatrical mechanics that went in to creating this incredibly spiritual, deeply moving moment for me, where I felt instinctively that the light, not the belief behind it, was the point. But it still worked.
The service ended and I left, determined to spread light.
It's been ten years. The church fired Mary three months later because she's a lesbian. I had another deeply spiritual moment when I was sitting in my first UU church and Katy-the-Wise calmly mentioned how illogical it is to assume people can believe whatever they want. My doubt wasn't just OK, in this new faith it was damn near a sacrament.
But of course, ten years later, I am sitting here thinking about that moment and writing about it and I find myself wanting to renew my commitment to spreading light.
Not bad, for an unbeliever.
CC
*Christians, on the whole, really do seem to feel that one can believe whatever one wants to. Tim LaHaye's books assume this for example. Pascal's Wager does too and I recall having it explained to me from an early age by a well-meaning older man who assumed I was on the believer's side and who wanted to give me ammunition against doubt. Pascal's Wager also served as an example to little CC of how Christianity was all about what you could get God to give you and one didn't necessarily follow God for Gods own sake. I get now that this was the simplified version (Be good! Get stuff in Heaven!) that they explained to kids.
This fascinates me because it is 180 degrees from my own experience as an unbeliever. I was raised by liberal Christians who explained the bible as metaphor Healing lepers and the like were symbols that I either understood on some level or accepted that I didn't. Now even to this day, there are some things about the bible's metaphors that really turn me off. God's utter indifference to human life excepting the people he REALLY likes is too pervasive a theme to be written off as symbolism alone. I realize a lot of old epics are like this, but still...
For me it was Christianity that was the club, but I wasn't faithful enough to get in. In retrospect, my rather screwed-up home life made my own unworthyness very easy to accept. I tried to believe though, though. I built a little alter at the edge of my playroom, I conducted church services for the cats and put on elaborate biblical skits. But I still felt left out. My grandmother talked about faith in God as a gift that I was lucky to have as it meant I wasn't going to hell. That alone was good for a few sleepless nights*.
My lack of belief and my not knowing how to tell my parents about this continued through my teenage years. My skits had given way to an elaborate yearly pageant for which I wrote the script and did much of the directing. (Every other high school kid in my church had quit going seemingly guilt free, I stayed and kept working and remained anxious. That's CC for ya.) The church got a new minister, a woman, who now shows up on this blog occasionally still as "Mary-who-Dances." She was really good and she made me think, and I started to hope there might be a future for me an Christianity after all. By the time I went to college, I was taking classes on religion, though not actually attending church. I actually continued my at that point life-long habit of lying and professing a belief in God so God club members would think I was in.
My freshman year in college, I came back to visit for Christmas. Still not believing, still anxious, I sat in the back of the church at the Christmas Eve service and listened to the hyman and the readings I'd heard so many times before. I didn't believe in God, but the familiarity was still comforting. It was a candle service, but our candles weren't lit yet. I dug deep grooves into mine with my thumbnail.
Near the end of the service, Mary stood at the front of the church and asked every child under thirteen to come forward. (Neatly excluding my brothers, who were thirteen.) The kids came up and Mary lit their candles and talked to them seriously about their duty to spread light to the world. I gripped the candle, my eyes never leaving Mary.
The kids turned, and with majestic and serious expressions slowly walked back toward the pews. I understood then why churches use so many candles. People carrying candles instinctively adopt an expression that tells the world they are doing reverent and serious business. I understood this intellectually, but was still deeply moved. The kids got that bringing light to the world was a dangerous activity. One was likely to get burned or look stupid if wax got on the carpet. And they brought the light anyway. Because it was their job.
Mary watched the kids start to touch candles with the people on the ends of the pews, who then leaned over and touched candles with the person next to them, spreading the light. Seemingly spontaneously, Mary began to sing softly and almost to herself.
"Go, tell it on the mountain,
over the hills and every where..."
And the congregation picked up the words and began to sing along, mimicking Mary's soft and thoughtful tone...
"Go, tell it on the mountain,
that Jesus Christ is born..."
The kids walked and lit, and we all kept singing...
While shepherds kept their watching
Over silent flocks by night
Behold throughout the heavens
There shone a holy light...
On what I'm sure is a simplistic level, I get the theatrical mechanics that went in to creating this incredibly spiritual, deeply moving moment for me, where I felt instinctively that the light, not the belief behind it, was the point. But it still worked.
The service ended and I left, determined to spread light.
It's been ten years. The church fired Mary three months later because she's a lesbian. I had another deeply spiritual moment when I was sitting in my first UU church and Katy-the-Wise calmly mentioned how illogical it is to assume people can believe whatever they want. My doubt wasn't just OK, in this new faith it was damn near a sacrament.
But of course, ten years later, I am sitting here thinking about that moment and writing about it and I find myself wanting to renew my commitment to spreading light.
Not bad, for an unbeliever.
CC
*Christians, on the whole, really do seem to feel that one can believe whatever one wants to. Tim LaHaye's books assume this for example. Pascal's Wager does too and I recall having it explained to me from an early age by a well-meaning older man who assumed I was on the believer's side and who wanted to give me ammunition against doubt. Pascal's Wager also served as an example to little CC of how Christianity was all about what you could get God to give you and one didn't necessarily follow God for Gods own sake. I get now that this was the simplified version (Be good! Get stuff in Heaven!) that they explained to kids.
Friday, December 01, 2006
Potato, poTAHto, or something else?
PB has a great post where she writes about a peice of internet glurge she got, "What makes this an eye-roller to most people I know, however, is not the theology (break it down and it's just like yours and mine: Every human being possesses inherent worth and dignity, if God is present in the world, it is through the work of human hands, people are to be cherished more than things, etc.), but the sentimentality of the writing, the inclusion of angels, the effusive praise of God's grace, the misplaced quotation marks, the misuse of the word "literally," and the fact that this woman actually took her child to McDonald's for breakfast. How often do we conflate pure class snottiness with theological superiority and sophistication? How often does it close our ears and keep us from spiritual solidarity with others?"
I don't know. I have an orthodox Catholic friend who is as committed a church member as I am. When we talk about surface stuff, such as sunday school, jumble sales and potlucks, we get each other. When we talk about the really important stuff, we have some disagreements (that some Christians can read the bible and not come away with the message that it's our duty to take care of the poor mystifes me, but one sees such people all the time, ask Joel Hunter,) but mostly get each other.
But it's the issues in the middle where we feel so different.
One time I said something about not going to church to be told what to believe.
"You don't?" He said, and I almost thought there was an implied 'why else would you go?' in his tone.
I've had a Mormon very seriously ask me why I didn't run around doing evil all the time since I had told her I honestly don't believe that God is lying in wait at the end of my life to punish me for my sins. A friend's mother is very concerned that if her granddaughter should die in a car accident tomorrow, she will go to hell because my friend hasn't taken her to church.
Another Christian once told me that she didn't mind torture because it saved the lives of soldiers like her husband. I asked her if she was sure her husband's life was worth so much more than an Iraqi woman's husband's life and the question seemed to flat out amaze her. Her husband was a Christian. He was saved. He was on God's side in this war. Duh?
All of these times, I felt a huge gulf opening up between the person I was talking to and me. (OK, except when I felt the gulf between the friend's Mom and me as I heard that story secondhand.) It felt like a theological gulf rather than a cultural one, but I'm willing to be talked another way on the issue. Actually I'd LOVE to believe that greater solidarity does exist but is getting lost in translation. It's a far more optimistic vision.
OK, Chalicesseurs, what do y'all think? Are we missing that the message is roughly the same because of cultural differences? Or do the differences run much deeper than that?
CC
I don't know. I have an orthodox Catholic friend who is as committed a church member as I am. When we talk about surface stuff, such as sunday school, jumble sales and potlucks, we get each other. When we talk about the really important stuff, we have some disagreements (that some Christians can read the bible and not come away with the message that it's our duty to take care of the poor mystifes me, but one sees such people all the time, ask Joel Hunter,) but mostly get each other.
But it's the issues in the middle where we feel so different.
One time I said something about not going to church to be told what to believe.
"You don't?" He said, and I almost thought there was an implied 'why else would you go?' in his tone.
I've had a Mormon very seriously ask me why I didn't run around doing evil all the time since I had told her I honestly don't believe that God is lying in wait at the end of my life to punish me for my sins. A friend's mother is very concerned that if her granddaughter should die in a car accident tomorrow, she will go to hell because my friend hasn't taken her to church.
Another Christian once told me that she didn't mind torture because it saved the lives of soldiers like her husband. I asked her if she was sure her husband's life was worth so much more than an Iraqi woman's husband's life and the question seemed to flat out amaze her. Her husband was a Christian. He was saved. He was on God's side in this war. Duh?
All of these times, I felt a huge gulf opening up between the person I was talking to and me. (OK, except when I felt the gulf between the friend's Mom and me as I heard that story secondhand.) It felt like a theological gulf rather than a cultural one, but I'm willing to be talked another way on the issue. Actually I'd LOVE to believe that greater solidarity does exist but is getting lost in translation. It's a far more optimistic vision.
OK, Chalicesseurs, what do y'all think? Are we missing that the message is roughly the same because of cultural differences? Or do the differences run much deeper than that?
CC
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Terminal Uniqueness is thrust upon CC
A few days ago, I was talking to one of my friends, who happens to be a Christian, about how I was feeling blue. I explained that I feel blue often during the Christmas season* It's not seasonal affective disorder. It's this holiday. I really don't like Christmas.
"Well, of course you don't," she said, her voice the tiniest bit snippy. "You don't have any reason to."
I probably shouldn't have been, but I was a little bit appalled to hear it that way. She gave me significant crap about it when I became a UU, but I thought we were kinda past that. Guess not.
I thought about explaining the "Christmas as a celebration of that Peace on Earth, Goodwill toward Men** concept," but didn't.
Perhaps it would have been worth saying "Actually, it's not the lack of a savior that's the issue or Easter might well depress me, too. My beef is more the enforced cheer and family togetherness aspects. Christmas with my folks and brothers isn't exactly a great time and hanging out with a happy family around the holidays is fun, but at the end of the night, I often feel like Scrooge standing out in the snow, watching the Crachits celebrate together inside."
I didn't bother to say any of those things, though. I just changed the subject
CC
*Though I generally don't write about feeling sad much as reading a depressed person's blogging doesn't even sound fun to ME.
**Because I know LinguistFriend is going to read this, I feel I have to mention that I know the "Goodwill toward men" bit is a misquotation and the phrase in the properly-translated bible isn't nearly so inclusive or loving. But UUs can still celebrate "Goodwill toward" everybody, and we often do.
"Well, of course you don't," she said, her voice the tiniest bit snippy. "You don't have any reason to."
I probably shouldn't have been, but I was a little bit appalled to hear it that way. She gave me significant crap about it when I became a UU, but I thought we were kinda past that. Guess not.
I thought about explaining the "Christmas as a celebration of that Peace on Earth, Goodwill toward Men** concept," but didn't.
Perhaps it would have been worth saying "Actually, it's not the lack of a savior that's the issue or Easter might well depress me, too. My beef is more the enforced cheer and family togetherness aspects. Christmas with my folks and brothers isn't exactly a great time and hanging out with a happy family around the holidays is fun, but at the end of the night, I often feel like Scrooge standing out in the snow, watching the Crachits celebrate together inside."
I didn't bother to say any of those things, though. I just changed the subject
CC
*Though I generally don't write about feeling sad much as reading a depressed person's blogging doesn't even sound fun to ME.
**Because I know LinguistFriend is going to read this, I feel I have to mention that I know the "Goodwill toward men" bit is a misquotation and the phrase in the properly-translated bible isn't nearly so inclusive or loving. But UUs can still celebrate "Goodwill toward" everybody, and we often do.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Poverty, Chastity and Obediance are like my three least favorite things
That said, what the Rev. Sue Spencer is doing seems really cool.
I don't know why the monastic, contemplative life has a sort of pull for me. I'm really, really obviously unsuited for it. I don't remotely have the attention span, for one thing. The article suggests that Spencer will literally be doing more prayer before breakfast than I do in a month.
But I'm still intrigued, fascinated even. I find myself wishing she would write a book about her life.
I guess there's something amazing in loving something so much and feeling so connected to it that you're willing to give up everything else in the world for it.
CC
I don't know why the monastic, contemplative life has a sort of pull for me. I'm really, really obviously unsuited for it. I don't remotely have the attention span, for one thing. The article suggests that Spencer will literally be doing more prayer before breakfast than I do in a month.
But I'm still intrigued, fascinated even. I find myself wishing she would write a book about her life.
I guess there's something amazing in loving something so much and feeling so connected to it that you're willing to give up everything else in the world for it.
CC
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
On discussing the DaVinci Code as a non-expert
PB said a few days ago:
Probably many times, especially with those who come musing about their reactions to some religiously-themed item from pop culture, such as The DaVinci Code. Instead of just listening to their thoughts about the possibility of a married Jesus, I jump immediately to correct their credulous ignorance, greeting their enthusiasm with Important Information and establishing myself, not as a sister seeker, but as an Authority On the Subject.
I have an advantage on this one.
I'm not an expert.
As the non-holder of a theology degree, I can assure you that discussions about the DaVinci Code among the non-theologically educated I've had included the following points.
1. The book was a fun read.
2. the movie was a little slow.
3. Who cares if Jesus was married? Most people are married?
4. Shouldn't somebody have sex with Sophie really soon? What if she gets struck by lightening and there are no more Jesus relatives?
5. I hear the book was factually pretty crappy, but I don't know the details.
6. Weren't the Dead Sea Scrolls Jewish? How could they have talked about Jesus?
7. Maybe they talked about the messiah in general.
8. That's not what Teabing said.
9. I wonder what it would have been like if Jesus was born a girl.
10. Probably no one would have listened to her.
11. So is the Catholic Church pissed because of the Jesus marrying thing or because the movie makes them look evil?
12. I think it's mostly the evil part.
13. So did Sophie heal what's-his-name's headache? Does she have Jesus powers?
14. I didn't finish it.
So there y'all go.
CC
Probably many times, especially with those who come musing about their reactions to some religiously-themed item from pop culture, such as The DaVinci Code. Instead of just listening to their thoughts about the possibility of a married Jesus, I jump immediately to correct their credulous ignorance, greeting their enthusiasm with Important Information and establishing myself, not as a sister seeker, but as an Authority On the Subject.
I have an advantage on this one.
I'm not an expert.
As the non-holder of a theology degree, I can assure you that discussions about the DaVinci Code among the non-theologically educated I've had included the following points.
1. The book was a fun read.
2. the movie was a little slow.
3. Who cares if Jesus was married? Most people are married?
4. Shouldn't somebody have sex with Sophie really soon? What if she gets struck by lightening and there are no more Jesus relatives?
5. I hear the book was factually pretty crappy, but I don't know the details.
6. Weren't the Dead Sea Scrolls Jewish? How could they have talked about Jesus?
7. Maybe they talked about the messiah in general.
8. That's not what Teabing said.
9. I wonder what it would have been like if Jesus was born a girl.
10. Probably no one would have listened to her.
11. So is the Catholic Church pissed because of the Jesus marrying thing or because the movie makes them look evil?
12. I think it's mostly the evil part.
13. So did Sophie heal what's-his-name's headache? Does she have Jesus powers?
14. I didn't finish it.
So there y'all go.
CC
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Christianity doesn't really work for me.
That's the simple truth of the matter. I guess I realized it the most deeply when I read Peacebang's post on the word "Lord." Her love doesn't come from the meaning or even really the symbolism, but from the affect the word has on her. For PB, the word "Lord" resonates.
I guess I'm immune.
The words in Micah PB frequently quotes do stir the soul a bit. But lots of things stir my soul.
"Cowards die many times before their deaths,
but the vailant taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I have yet heard,
it seems to me most strange that mean should fear,
that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come"*
Stirs my soul just as much, to be honest.
And even less dramatically phrased sentiments,
"It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is better still to be a live lion. And usually easier."+
The bible, and biblical terminology, has no special ability to move me.
I've known that for awhile, though. Linguist Friend had never been to a Christian Sunday Morning Church service before, so a few years ago I took him to Church of the Pilgrims, the Presbyterian church I grew up in. I really didn't like it. Reading prayers in unison, begging God for forgiveness with dramatic words spoken in a rote monotone. And people constantly talking about Jesus, what Jesus would have wanted, what Jesus expects of you. Nothing wrong with any of that if it's your thing, I've just realized how deeply and profoundly it is not mine.
I'm not angry, I'm even a little sad about it. My grandmother did have me quite scared of hell as a child, and the period of religious fervor I did have came from that. It in many ways had a lot of positive emotions, but that it was basically rooted in fear sort of depresses me. But my grandmother interpreted everything to her own ends, so I don't blame Christianity.
I do have a quiet sort of faith these days, a little stream flowing through my life. But it's not the bucking ocean of salvation and sacrifice that Christianity was. As a kid, I was God's warrior, out to valiantly resist the forces of evil and save my own soul in an epic struggle. Now the holy would like me to pick up a carton of milk on the way home, if that's OK, and if, by the way, I could do a little bit to help the people in my life strive for the highest and best, that would be nice.
I realize that's lacking in passion, but it's where I am.
The Christians I've known did not abuse me, they in the great majority have treated me well. My issue is not that Christians have done bad things, though they have. I do agree with Kim that it is a bit disingenous for the Christians here to pretend that the instutition of Christianity had little to do with that, though I get that people here are going for the good things Christianity encourages without the bad things it also tends to encourage. Kim's analogy that what they are saying is like pretending that the institution of slavery had nothing to do with slavery, slavery was just individual slaveholders is a more inflammatory comparison than I would have chosen, but I still think her basic premise has merit. My analogy would be have been capitalism, but I won't bother to fully sketch that one out.
At the same time, the drama of everybody's reaction to Kim's relatively minor verbal slights at the beginning of this suggests to me that Christians who feel they've been taking grief from athiests for years saw a few more shots across their bow than Kim actually fired. (Though, I have to say that I have a thing about passive-agressive "I'm sorry you took that rude thing I said as rude, a misunderstanding that occurred because you have the following flaws..." apologies, so I do have some sympathy for both sides. I had a boyfriend once who pulled the "saying something obviously insulting, then pretending that if you actually were insulted, you must be oversensitive" routine a lot. He and I didn't last long. If you're sorry, apologise genuinely. If you're not, don't apologise at all. It's just that simple.)
So I don't know what to do. I don't know what UUism should do. I agree with Jamie that I don't want the Christians in UUism to be hurting all the time.
But Christianity as a practice doesn't feed my soul the way a more humanist approach does. I'm OK with a balanced approach, but it sounds like a balanced approach isn't enough for the Christian folks. But what they want I don't think would work for me.
It's not because I'm a Christianity-hater, I'm not. That the Christian approach doesn't work for me just seems to be the way it is.
Sigh.
I would suggest letting people vote with their feet on what kind of services they want, but what people want isn't always what they need. I don't percieve Christianity is what I need, but I'm not going to completely deny the possibility. On beliefnet there was a lady who would occaisionally inform the angrier folks that they "needed Jesus." I always agreed with her that they needed something, though I would have had a different word for it.
So enough bitching at each other already. How do we make this work?
CC
ADDED LATER: LF clarifies that he went to chapel and some Sunday services at boarding school as a kid. He also takes issue with my spelling.
*Shakespere's Julius Caesar, but you knew that.
+Heinlen's Time enough for Love, and yes I know that one's roots in Ecclesiasties, but I prefer Heinlen's take.
I guess I'm immune.
The words in Micah PB frequently quotes do stir the soul a bit. But lots of things stir my soul.
"Cowards die many times before their deaths,
but the vailant taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I have yet heard,
it seems to me most strange that mean should fear,
that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come"*
Stirs my soul just as much, to be honest.
And even less dramatically phrased sentiments,
"It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is better still to be a live lion. And usually easier."+
The bible, and biblical terminology, has no special ability to move me.
I've known that for awhile, though. Linguist Friend had never been to a Christian Sunday Morning Church service before, so a few years ago I took him to Church of the Pilgrims, the Presbyterian church I grew up in. I really didn't like it. Reading prayers in unison, begging God for forgiveness with dramatic words spoken in a rote monotone. And people constantly talking about Jesus, what Jesus would have wanted, what Jesus expects of you. Nothing wrong with any of that if it's your thing, I've just realized how deeply and profoundly it is not mine.
I'm not angry, I'm even a little sad about it. My grandmother did have me quite scared of hell as a child, and the period of religious fervor I did have came from that. It in many ways had a lot of positive emotions, but that it was basically rooted in fear sort of depresses me. But my grandmother interpreted everything to her own ends, so I don't blame Christianity.
I do have a quiet sort of faith these days, a little stream flowing through my life. But it's not the bucking ocean of salvation and sacrifice that Christianity was. As a kid, I was God's warrior, out to valiantly resist the forces of evil and save my own soul in an epic struggle. Now the holy would like me to pick up a carton of milk on the way home, if that's OK, and if, by the way, I could do a little bit to help the people in my life strive for the highest and best, that would be nice.
I realize that's lacking in passion, but it's where I am.
The Christians I've known did not abuse me, they in the great majority have treated me well. My issue is not that Christians have done bad things, though they have. I do agree with Kim that it is a bit disingenous for the Christians here to pretend that the instutition of Christianity had little to do with that, though I get that people here are going for the good things Christianity encourages without the bad things it also tends to encourage. Kim's analogy that what they are saying is like pretending that the institution of slavery had nothing to do with slavery, slavery was just individual slaveholders is a more inflammatory comparison than I would have chosen, but I still think her basic premise has merit. My analogy would be have been capitalism, but I won't bother to fully sketch that one out.
At the same time, the drama of everybody's reaction to Kim's relatively minor verbal slights at the beginning of this suggests to me that Christians who feel they've been taking grief from athiests for years saw a few more shots across their bow than Kim actually fired. (Though, I have to say that I have a thing about passive-agressive "I'm sorry you took that rude thing I said as rude, a misunderstanding that occurred because you have the following flaws..." apologies, so I do have some sympathy for both sides. I had a boyfriend once who pulled the "saying something obviously insulting, then pretending that if you actually were insulted, you must be oversensitive" routine a lot. He and I didn't last long. If you're sorry, apologise genuinely. If you're not, don't apologise at all. It's just that simple.)
So I don't know what to do. I don't know what UUism should do. I agree with Jamie that I don't want the Christians in UUism to be hurting all the time.
But Christianity as a practice doesn't feed my soul the way a more humanist approach does. I'm OK with a balanced approach, but it sounds like a balanced approach isn't enough for the Christian folks. But what they want I don't think would work for me.
It's not because I'm a Christianity-hater, I'm not. That the Christian approach doesn't work for me just seems to be the way it is.
Sigh.
I would suggest letting people vote with their feet on what kind of services they want, but what people want isn't always what they need. I don't percieve Christianity is what I need, but I'm not going to completely deny the possibility. On beliefnet there was a lady who would occaisionally inform the angrier folks that they "needed Jesus." I always agreed with her that they needed something, though I would have had a different word for it.
So enough bitching at each other already. How do we make this work?
CC
ADDED LATER: LF clarifies that he went to chapel and some Sunday services at boarding school as a kid. He also takes issue with my spelling.
*Shakespere's Julius Caesar, but you knew that.
+Heinlen's Time enough for Love, and yes I know that one's roots in Ecclesiasties, but I prefer Heinlen's take.
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
On calling God "Lord"
PB wrote on her blog:
I'm waiting for the day a UU actually asks me what *I* think of the word "Lord" and why I would intentionally reclaim it. But this probably won't happen in my lifetime; not at the rate we're going here, anyway.
PB mentions earlier that she has an education from a well-regarded progressive seminary and does indeed understand that some people don't like the term "Lord."
Not actually having a degree from a place like that, despite what they seem to think, I actually hadn't thought through the word "Lord" much.
I was raised liberal Christian, but sensitive to gender neutral language. I frequently used feminine forms of the language, but somehow "Lord" escaped my attention, perhaps because the feminine form sounds so odd in the vocative. The word "Lady" lacks majesty and brings to mind exclamations like "Lady, could you move your car? I'm trying to back out here and you've got me blocked in..."
Also, I don't remember hearing "Lord" a whole bunch as a liberal christian except as direct quotes from the bible. I think I really didn't pick up the word for casual conversation about religion until I moved down south and started to befriend Baptists. Expressions like "Doing the Lord's work" roll off my tongue, but phrases like "a sub rosa agreement" do, too. Both feel like understood phrases in a foreign language.
I have to say, I don't think the term "Lord" has much to recommend it for serious conversations, though I know Peacebang will show me in no uncertain terms that this is not the only rational point of view. God as I perceive God doesn't have a personality in the sense that humans do and is more of a force, so debates over how exactly God would like to be addressed are pretty moot. I can understand that a certain level of formality seems appropriate when addressing a diety, but the word Lord seems a suboptimal choice. It comes from the Old English for "loaf bearer," one who provides food for his followers. I recognize one develops a certain loyalty to the being who feeds one, but I somehow think one's affection for one's God should be above that, even when the food is spiritual. One thing I've never liked about Christianity is what seems to me to be a rather serious focus on what one can get out of God. The term Lord, when fully undersood, seems to emphasize this dynamic. Other uses of the term make it even less suitable for something to call one's deity, IMHO. I mean, doesn't God deserve at least a Dukedom?
OK, I like a good discussion about words. What do y'all think of "Lord?"
CC
Ps. PB fans read this.
I'm waiting for the day a UU actually asks me what *I* think of the word "Lord" and why I would intentionally reclaim it. But this probably won't happen in my lifetime; not at the rate we're going here, anyway.
PB mentions earlier that she has an education from a well-regarded progressive seminary and does indeed understand that some people don't like the term "Lord."
Not actually having a degree from a place like that, despite what they seem to think, I actually hadn't thought through the word "Lord" much.
I was raised liberal Christian, but sensitive to gender neutral language. I frequently used feminine forms of the language, but somehow "Lord" escaped my attention, perhaps because the feminine form sounds so odd in the vocative. The word "Lady" lacks majesty and brings to mind exclamations like "Lady, could you move your car? I'm trying to back out here and you've got me blocked in..."
Also, I don't remember hearing "Lord" a whole bunch as a liberal christian except as direct quotes from the bible. I think I really didn't pick up the word for casual conversation about religion until I moved down south and started to befriend Baptists. Expressions like "Doing the Lord's work" roll off my tongue, but phrases like "a sub rosa agreement" do, too. Both feel like understood phrases in a foreign language.
I have to say, I don't think the term "Lord" has much to recommend it for serious conversations, though I know Peacebang will show me in no uncertain terms that this is not the only rational point of view. God as I perceive God doesn't have a personality in the sense that humans do and is more of a force, so debates over how exactly God would like to be addressed are pretty moot. I can understand that a certain level of formality seems appropriate when addressing a diety, but the word Lord seems a suboptimal choice. It comes from the Old English for "loaf bearer," one who provides food for his followers. I recognize one develops a certain loyalty to the being who feeds one, but I somehow think one's affection for one's God should be above that, even when the food is spiritual. One thing I've never liked about Christianity is what seems to me to be a rather serious focus on what one can get out of God. The term Lord, when fully undersood, seems to emphasize this dynamic. Other uses of the term make it even less suitable for something to call one's deity, IMHO. I mean, doesn't God deserve at least a Dukedom?
OK, I like a good discussion about words. What do y'all think of "Lord?"
CC
Ps. PB fans read this.
Monday, June 19, 2006
Those wacky trinitarians.
According toThe New York Times, the Presbyterian Church has voted to "receive" a paper of gender-neutral language. Congregations who wish to express the Trinity as ''Mother, Child and Womb'' or ''Rock, Redeemer, Friend' may now do so.
From the time CC was a little girl, she was switching the gender for God in hymns at the instruction of the ChaliceRelative. (The ChaliceParents didn't do this themselves but were tolerant of the practice in me.) One time in church when we were A-womenning (as I called the practice) and heard a lady doing the same thing in the pew behind us. We turned around to find the minister's wife.
I'm guessing we weren't alone. And indeed, the aim of the measure seems to be to seek other ways to describe God in a way that will promote a more complex view of the holy. Always a good thing.
Naturally, as Boy in the Bands reports, homosexuality didn't fare as well, though the big vote on that is tomorrow.
On an indecisive day, I could be talked either way on the traditional vs gender neutral language. I tend to favor the gender neutral but think it should have been brought in a little more subtly than this.
But it's still interesting that they are looking into something like Gender Neutral language. It's hard to imagine the people I went to church with as a kid getting into that.
Of the trinites mentioned in the article, I think "Creator, Savior, Sanctifier" has the nicest feel, although I'm only 1 for 3 on believing in God as those things.
Hat tip to Linguist Friend, who sent me article.
CC
From the time CC was a little girl, she was switching the gender for God in hymns at the instruction of the ChaliceRelative. (The ChaliceParents didn't do this themselves but were tolerant of the practice in me.) One time in church when we were A-womenning (as I called the practice) and heard a lady doing the same thing in the pew behind us. We turned around to find the minister's wife.
I'm guessing we weren't alone. And indeed, the aim of the measure seems to be to seek other ways to describe God in a way that will promote a more complex view of the holy. Always a good thing.
Naturally, as Boy in the Bands reports, homosexuality didn't fare as well, though the big vote on that is tomorrow.
On an indecisive day, I could be talked either way on the traditional vs gender neutral language. I tend to favor the gender neutral but think it should have been brought in a little more subtly than this.
But it's still interesting that they are looking into something like Gender Neutral language. It's hard to imagine the people I went to church with as a kid getting into that.
Of the trinites mentioned in the article, I think "Creator, Savior, Sanctifier" has the nicest feel, although I'm only 1 for 3 on believing in God as those things.
Hat tip to Linguist Friend, who sent me article.
CC
Saturday, June 17, 2006
He couldn't even remember "adultery"
Peacebang wrote a few weeks ago about how all ministers should know the 23rd Psalm.
A few nights ago, the Rep. Lynn Westmoreland showed the world that if you're going to sponsor a bill about putting the Ten Commandments in the courthouse, you should probably be able to name them.
(That part comes in about 6 minutes into the video. But the whole thing is pretty funny.)
CC
A few nights ago, the Rep. Lynn Westmoreland showed the world that if you're going to sponsor a bill about putting the Ten Commandments in the courthouse, you should probably be able to name them.
(That part comes in about 6 minutes into the video. But the whole thing is pretty funny.)
CC
Friday, May 26, 2006
LINGUISTFRIEND PUZZLES OVER THE LORD'S PRAYER
Summary
The Lord's Prayer is compared to gospel parallels and to other early related Christian and Jewish texts. Such comparison constitutes a telescope that to some extent makes it possible to look back at the process of development of the gospel text which is the basis of comparison, although what we see there may be unexpected.
The Lord's Prayer, often considered the central Christian text, may well have been part of the sayings-text Q which contained textual material shared by the gospels of Matthew and Luke, but not Mark. It certainly circulated independently as a prayer taught to new Christian converts, probably already in the first century AD. Much of the text is dependent on and perhaps a simplification of Jewish models. It is not distinctively Christian, the first part being modelled on the Jewish Qaddish prayer. The requests which are appended to the praise of God which is the central feature of the Qaddish are consistent with Jewish usage (also in the Amidah prayer), as is the final doxology.
________________________________________________________________
The Texts
Recently I was bemused when I heard a Unitarian minister comment on the use in some Unitarian-Universalist congregations of the Lord's Prayer as the classic text of Christianity. Some readers of these lines will have learned by heart at some time a somewhat more archaic version of the Lord's Prayer, Mt 6:9-13, which in the NRSV reads (following W.J.Harrelson ed. New Interpreter's Study Bible 2003):
"Our father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And do not bring us to the time of trial,
but rescue us from the evil one."
Perhaps preferable translations would be, in the next to last line, "into temptation",
and in the last line "from evil". Few people learn or pray with the shorter parallel version found in Luke 11:2-4, although the form of its text is probably more original:
" Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial."
Mutual Relation of the Texts
Luke's text may seem incomplete. A number of variant manuscript readings in Luke can be accounted for as signifying a tendency on the part of scribes to import the fuller text of Matthew on the assumption that something has been left out of the available text of Luke. B.M.Metzger has pointed out this tendency for scribes to harmonize discordant parallel passages (Text of the New Testament 4th ed. 2005; Textual Commentary on the Greek NT 2nd ed. 1994, pp.130-132). The oldest Greek manuscript of Luke's version, papyrus P75 from the late second century AD, shows no such harmonization, and agrees perfectly with the text above apart from spelling details. However, of more significance is the fact that there is no corresponding text in the gospel of Mark. This passage belongs to those 220-odd verses in the gospels referred to as coming from a written Greek source labelled "Q" for the German word Quelle, used to indicate a common source of textual material which appears in both Matthew and Luke, but not in Mark, their mutual main source.
So, if there was a source text in Greek, what did it say? Did Luke cut down the fuller text in Matthew, or did Matthew elaborate on something like the shorter text of Luke? It is widely regarded that Luke's version was the original one, while it is likely that Matthews's version was elaborated for the liturgy. As the older Peake's Commentary (1937) comments in a brief but significant clause, "liturgical formulae tend to expansion rather than abbreviation".
Should churchpeople all over the world use the shorter text of Luke instead of that of Matthew? Is there any text to serve as a third witness that can clarify the issue? Of course, these are not new questions. The most common answers that I encounter come from two classic treatments of the synoptic problem, that of J.C.Scott (Horae Synopticae 1909), and that of B.H.Streeter ( The Four Gospels 1924/1956). Scott (p.108) lists the parallel texts of Matthew 6:9-13 and Luke 11: 2-4 as being by definition part of Q. This is still a common view of many responsible scholars. Streeter's comments suggest (p.277) that "the difference between the two versions of the Lord's Prayer, Lk. xi.1-4 and Mt. vi.9-13, is so great as to put a considerable strain on the theory that they are both derived from the same written source". Streeter notes that each version falls in a block of material peculiar to that gospel, and concludes that Q did not include the Lord's Prayer, a view that is maintained occasionally in modern discussions.
Streeter further advocates (p.508) the view that there is a third witness, but it is not in the canonical gospels. The Didache or "Teaching of the Lord through the Twelve Apostles" is an early Christian Greek text that might be described as an answer to the question "How can I be a Christian?" in a moral and liturgical sense. Occasionally I suggest that it would be a good idea to print the Didache in the NT instead of e.g. Revelation or one of the more obviously non-Pauline epistles, but so far I have no takers. Although our only Greek manuscript of the Didache was written in 1056 AD (published only in 1883), the text is widely (not universally) accepted to come from the first century AD. In the Didache, the convert is instructed to say the Lord's Prayer three times a day, in a long version (verses 8:2-3) which differs very little from that which is found in Matthew (the three forms can be found together in Kurt Aland's Synopsis quattuor evangeliorum 1996). It could be argued that any shorter form of the prayer would have been assimilated to Matthew by scribes who copied the text, as was usual in Byzantine texts of the Lord's Prayer in the gospel of Luke. However, argues Streeter, a number of other passages in the text of the Didache come from Matthew, which is referred to in it as "the Gospel", besides a single passage which appears to derive from Q. Consequently, he concludes, it is reasonable to infer that Matthew's form of the Lord's Prayer as it stands in the Didache is old and circulated independently and early in liturgical usage outside the gospel context, so that its history cannot be conceived in the same terms as those of other passages included in the sayings-source Q.
Nature of the Texts
A. Glorification
Now let us turn to a different aspect of this enigmatic text. Where does it come from? What sort of a milieu does it reflect? The first word is generally considered to represent the Aramaic word "Abba", "father". The longer form in Matthew with "in heaven" corresponds to Jewish usage, as I.Howard Marshall points out in his admirable commentary on Luke (1978) which I follow here. The first petition "hallowed be your name" corresponds to the Jewish Qaddish prayer "Exalted and hallowed be his great name in the world which he created according to his will". Qaddish is the prayer praising God, which is spoken at the conclusion of each section of the Jewish service. Five different forms of it are used for special occasions, such as when mourning for a death.
The same Qaddish prayer continues, following Marshall still, with an emphasis on the sovereignty of God, "May he let his kingdom rule in your lifetime and in your days and in the whole lifetime of Israel, speedily and soon", which is clearly parallel to "Your kingdom come". So far, the two prayers are essentially the same, except that the Christian version has been simplified and (especially in Matthew) is presented in the context of the eschatological assumption that the kingdom of God is at hand.
The third petition in Matthew "Your will be done" was absent in the original text of Luke's gospel, although it is often found there in manuscripts as a result of synoptic influence from Matthew, where it is original. A.H.M'Neile in his substantial (1915) commentary on Matthew gives a collection of Rabbinic quotations which make quite clear how much in a Jewish spirit is this line. Some take this verse as equivalent in meaning to the preceding one.
The line "on earth as it is in heaven", absent in Luke, on the other hand, has no Jewish source that my references know. M'Neile points out a similar correspondence between heaven and earth in Mt. 16:19, 18:18, and adds "If the clause was not originally part of the Prayer, its origin cannot be determined."
B. Requests
This is followed by a transition in both Luke and Matthew which M'Neile states clearly: "Aspirations for God's glory are followed by petitions for human needs" (p.79), in the line "Give us this day our daily bread", in which the Greek word translated "daily" is unusual and difficult to explain. The form of the verb "give" has more temporal generality in Luke than in Matthew. The addition of specific requests to the Qaddish is consistent with Jewish usage (R.Werblowsky and G.Vigoder Oxford Dict. of the Jewish Religion 1997); personal petitions are also part of the Amidah prayer (R.L.Eisenberg JPS Guide to Jewish Traditions 2004). Biblical sources are possible but not obvious.
"And forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors" (Mt.), "And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us" (Luke) is a Jewish conceptualization of sin as equivalent to debt for which M'Neile cites parallels both in the NT and in Jewish texts. The Greek verb "forgive" is used of forgiveness of both sins and debts in both Jewish and gentile texts. M'Neile suggests that an original Aramaic source contained a participle which does not specify tense, making possible varied tense interpretations in different versions of the prayer.
"And do not bring us into temptation
But rescue us from the evil one".
There is no reason to print the NRSV rendering as "time of trial" since the expression of time lacks justification in the Greek; which in this line is identical in Matthew and Luke. Marshall reads the text of the first line as a request to God to "cause us not to succumb to temptation" in a Hebrew usage, and M'Neile also draws on a parallel in Jewish prayer. The last line appears to have been absent in the original form of the text of Luke. The last noun phrase may equally well be translated "from evil". M'Neile points out that the adjective "evil" is well attested in the NT literature in both a masculine (the devil) and a neuter (abstract evil) form, and that either interpretation may be justified.
C. Doxology
Many manuscript sources add a doxology "For the kingdom and the power and the glory are yours forever, Amen" (NRSV) with various expansions. Metzger (Textual Commentary pp.13-14) confirms that the doxology (ascription is his term) was an adaptation of the prayer for liturgical use. The doxology was eventually incorporated into the gospel textual tradition, resulting in its presence in the KJV. The newer Peake's Commentary (1962) comments on this verse "It was a Jewish practice to end public prayers with a doxology, although they were not in the text."
Conclusion
The Lord's Prayer has somehow survived well through successive transformations from its origin when Jesus introduced an Aramaic variant of the Jewish Qaddish to his followers. Especially in the secondary and longer liturgical version of its Greek translation, for Christians it became what Tertullian called "a summary of the whole gospel", and it is still meaningful for many Unitarians and Universalists. This has been possible because its meaning is very general, and ultimately does not reside in the text itself, but varies from one speaker of the prayer to another. On the other hand, there has been enough stability in these factors to make the Lord's Prayer a viable and central part of Western religious tradition. When it is considered in terms of its origins, however, it is a different part of this tradition from what it has often seemed to be.
LinguistFriend
Unitarian
Lord/'s Prayer
Christianity
The Lord's Prayer is compared to gospel parallels and to other early related Christian and Jewish texts. Such comparison constitutes a telescope that to some extent makes it possible to look back at the process of development of the gospel text which is the basis of comparison, although what we see there may be unexpected.
The Lord's Prayer, often considered the central Christian text, may well have been part of the sayings-text Q which contained textual material shared by the gospels of Matthew and Luke, but not Mark. It certainly circulated independently as a prayer taught to new Christian converts, probably already in the first century AD. Much of the text is dependent on and perhaps a simplification of Jewish models. It is not distinctively Christian, the first part being modelled on the Jewish Qaddish prayer. The requests which are appended to the praise of God which is the central feature of the Qaddish are consistent with Jewish usage (also in the Amidah prayer), as is the final doxology.
________________________________________________________________
The Texts
Recently I was bemused when I heard a Unitarian minister comment on the use in some Unitarian-Universalist congregations of the Lord's Prayer as the classic text of Christianity. Some readers of these lines will have learned by heart at some time a somewhat more archaic version of the Lord's Prayer, Mt 6:9-13, which in the NRSV reads (following W.J.Harrelson ed. New Interpreter's Study Bible 2003):
"Our father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And do not bring us to the time of trial,
but rescue us from the evil one."
Perhaps preferable translations would be, in the next to last line, "into temptation",
and in the last line "from evil". Few people learn or pray with the shorter parallel version found in Luke 11:2-4, although the form of its text is probably more original:
" Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial."
Mutual Relation of the Texts
Luke's text may seem incomplete. A number of variant manuscript readings in Luke can be accounted for as signifying a tendency on the part of scribes to import the fuller text of Matthew on the assumption that something has been left out of the available text of Luke. B.M.Metzger has pointed out this tendency for scribes to harmonize discordant parallel passages (Text of the New Testament 4th ed. 2005; Textual Commentary on the Greek NT 2nd ed. 1994, pp.130-132). The oldest Greek manuscript of Luke's version, papyrus P75 from the late second century AD, shows no such harmonization, and agrees perfectly with the text above apart from spelling details. However, of more significance is the fact that there is no corresponding text in the gospel of Mark. This passage belongs to those 220-odd verses in the gospels referred to as coming from a written Greek source labelled "Q" for the German word Quelle, used to indicate a common source of textual material which appears in both Matthew and Luke, but not in Mark, their mutual main source.
So, if there was a source text in Greek, what did it say? Did Luke cut down the fuller text in Matthew, or did Matthew elaborate on something like the shorter text of Luke? It is widely regarded that Luke's version was the original one, while it is likely that Matthews's version was elaborated for the liturgy. As the older Peake's Commentary (1937) comments in a brief but significant clause, "liturgical formulae tend to expansion rather than abbreviation".
Should churchpeople all over the world use the shorter text of Luke instead of that of Matthew? Is there any text to serve as a third witness that can clarify the issue? Of course, these are not new questions. The most common answers that I encounter come from two classic treatments of the synoptic problem, that of J.C.Scott (Horae Synopticae 1909), and that of B.H.Streeter ( The Four Gospels 1924/1956). Scott (p.108) lists the parallel texts of Matthew 6:9-13 and Luke 11: 2-4 as being by definition part of Q. This is still a common view of many responsible scholars. Streeter's comments suggest (p.277) that "the difference between the two versions of the Lord's Prayer, Lk. xi.1-4 and Mt. vi.9-13, is so great as to put a considerable strain on the theory that they are both derived from the same written source". Streeter notes that each version falls in a block of material peculiar to that gospel, and concludes that Q did not include the Lord's Prayer, a view that is maintained occasionally in modern discussions.
Streeter further advocates (p.508) the view that there is a third witness, but it is not in the canonical gospels. The Didache or "Teaching of the Lord through the Twelve Apostles" is an early Christian Greek text that might be described as an answer to the question "How can I be a Christian?" in a moral and liturgical sense. Occasionally I suggest that it would be a good idea to print the Didache in the NT instead of e.g. Revelation or one of the more obviously non-Pauline epistles, but so far I have no takers. Although our only Greek manuscript of the Didache was written in 1056 AD (published only in 1883), the text is widely (not universally) accepted to come from the first century AD. In the Didache, the convert is instructed to say the Lord's Prayer three times a day, in a long version (verses 8:2-3) which differs very little from that which is found in Matthew (the three forms can be found together in Kurt Aland's Synopsis quattuor evangeliorum 1996). It could be argued that any shorter form of the prayer would have been assimilated to Matthew by scribes who copied the text, as was usual in Byzantine texts of the Lord's Prayer in the gospel of Luke. However, argues Streeter, a number of other passages in the text of the Didache come from Matthew, which is referred to in it as "the Gospel", besides a single passage which appears to derive from Q. Consequently, he concludes, it is reasonable to infer that Matthew's form of the Lord's Prayer as it stands in the Didache is old and circulated independently and early in liturgical usage outside the gospel context, so that its history cannot be conceived in the same terms as those of other passages included in the sayings-source Q.
Nature of the Texts
A. Glorification
Now let us turn to a different aspect of this enigmatic text. Where does it come from? What sort of a milieu does it reflect? The first word is generally considered to represent the Aramaic word "Abba", "father". The longer form in Matthew with "in heaven" corresponds to Jewish usage, as I.Howard Marshall points out in his admirable commentary on Luke (1978) which I follow here. The first petition "hallowed be your name" corresponds to the Jewish Qaddish prayer "Exalted and hallowed be his great name in the world which he created according to his will". Qaddish is the prayer praising God, which is spoken at the conclusion of each section of the Jewish service. Five different forms of it are used for special occasions, such as when mourning for a death.
The same Qaddish prayer continues, following Marshall still, with an emphasis on the sovereignty of God, "May he let his kingdom rule in your lifetime and in your days and in the whole lifetime of Israel, speedily and soon", which is clearly parallel to "Your kingdom come". So far, the two prayers are essentially the same, except that the Christian version has been simplified and (especially in Matthew) is presented in the context of the eschatological assumption that the kingdom of God is at hand.
The third petition in Matthew "Your will be done" was absent in the original text of Luke's gospel, although it is often found there in manuscripts as a result of synoptic influence from Matthew, where it is original. A.H.M'Neile in his substantial (1915) commentary on Matthew gives a collection of Rabbinic quotations which make quite clear how much in a Jewish spirit is this line. Some take this verse as equivalent in meaning to the preceding one.
The line "on earth as it is in heaven", absent in Luke, on the other hand, has no Jewish source that my references know. M'Neile points out a similar correspondence between heaven and earth in Mt. 16:19, 18:18, and adds "If the clause was not originally part of the Prayer, its origin cannot be determined."
B. Requests
This is followed by a transition in both Luke and Matthew which M'Neile states clearly: "Aspirations for God's glory are followed by petitions for human needs" (p.79), in the line "Give us this day our daily bread", in which the Greek word translated "daily" is unusual and difficult to explain. The form of the verb "give" has more temporal generality in Luke than in Matthew. The addition of specific requests to the Qaddish is consistent with Jewish usage (R.Werblowsky and G.Vigoder Oxford Dict. of the Jewish Religion 1997); personal petitions are also part of the Amidah prayer (R.L.Eisenberg JPS Guide to Jewish Traditions 2004). Biblical sources are possible but not obvious.
"And forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors" (Mt.), "And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us" (Luke) is a Jewish conceptualization of sin as equivalent to debt for which M'Neile cites parallels both in the NT and in Jewish texts. The Greek verb "forgive" is used of forgiveness of both sins and debts in both Jewish and gentile texts. M'Neile suggests that an original Aramaic source contained a participle which does not specify tense, making possible varied tense interpretations in different versions of the prayer.
"And do not bring us into temptation
But rescue us from the evil one".
There is no reason to print the NRSV rendering as "time of trial" since the expression of time lacks justification in the Greek; which in this line is identical in Matthew and Luke. Marshall reads the text of the first line as a request to God to "cause us not to succumb to temptation" in a Hebrew usage, and M'Neile also draws on a parallel in Jewish prayer. The last line appears to have been absent in the original form of the text of Luke. The last noun phrase may equally well be translated "from evil". M'Neile points out that the adjective "evil" is well attested in the NT literature in both a masculine (the devil) and a neuter (abstract evil) form, and that either interpretation may be justified.
C. Doxology
Many manuscript sources add a doxology "For the kingdom and the power and the glory are yours forever, Amen" (NRSV) with various expansions. Metzger (Textual Commentary pp.13-14) confirms that the doxology (ascription is his term) was an adaptation of the prayer for liturgical use. The doxology was eventually incorporated into the gospel textual tradition, resulting in its presence in the KJV. The newer Peake's Commentary (1962) comments on this verse "It was a Jewish practice to end public prayers with a doxology, although they were not in the text."
Conclusion
The Lord's Prayer has somehow survived well through successive transformations from its origin when Jesus introduced an Aramaic variant of the Jewish Qaddish to his followers. Especially in the secondary and longer liturgical version of its Greek translation, for Christians it became what Tertullian called "a summary of the whole gospel", and it is still meaningful for many Unitarians and Universalists. This has been possible because its meaning is very general, and ultimately does not reside in the text itself, but varies from one speaker of the prayer to another. On the other hand, there has been enough stability in these factors to make the Lord's Prayer a viable and central part of Western religious tradition. When it is considered in terms of its origins, however, it is a different part of this tradition from what it has often seemed to be.
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Wednesday, May 03, 2006
A new book I'm really enjoying
On my way back up north from Margaret's funeral, I stopped at the Ava Gardner Museum in Smithfield, NC. It was a small town museum and quite charming for what it was. (Item: In addition to teaching, Margaret ran a small town museum, so the trip felt like something of a pilgrimage.)
At the time, I found the story of Bert Pfeiffer, a dutch artist obsessed with Gardner far more interested in Gardner's own. Pfeiffer survived a concentration camp only to become obsessed with Ava Gardner and spend the rest of his life endlessly painting her. Now that's a story.
Even though Gardner's own small-town-girl-made-good history has less pathos, I became interested in Gardner and have tivo'd several of her movies since coming back. I asked Edie to find me a copy of her autobiography. Edie came through and I started it tonight. It is really delightful, actually far better written than Katharine Hepburn's autobiography, and y'all know I'm loath to admit that anybody can do anything better than Kate.
Here's a passage I especially liked:
My parents' sedate form of religion didn't appeal to me, but Elva Mae, the sweeet little blakc girl who helped Mama out in the kitchen, used to take me to services at the Tee's Chapel. And I just fell in love with the singing and the preaching and the rest of that old time religion.
It would start with everything quiet and reverent. The preacher would warm up with a few quotes from his bible. Then, out of nowhere, he'd catch fire and give everyone hell. I'm here to tell you, there ain't much forgiveness in that old time religion. That particular savior was a mean son of a bitch. If you sinned, honey, he was going to get you, no doubt about it. "All of you down there in this congregation is sinner," the preacher would thunder, "An not sinner's going to escape hellfire and damnation, no sirree, no siree.
Crouching down next to Elva Mae,, I jsut knew I was one of the real dyed-in-the-wool sinners. Sinning when I broke a school house window during the summer so that Al and my friends could play in a classroom. Sinning when I hung out with Preston Lee and his brothers, boys who knew all the best cuss words and weren't afraid to teach me how to use them. Mama, though, would have a fit if she caught me saying them, and they slip out to this day. They sure do give a satisfying jolt to a sentence.
And most especially I was a sinner at watermelon harvest time, when we raided our neighbors' fields. Not that we needed to. So many watermelons were grown that lots were left to rot in the fields. But we were theives, we were excited by the dark notion of going out and stealing someone else's. And it was hard work, too. When you're six or seven, the damn things weigh a ton--you could barely struggle along with one in your arms. But it was worth it when you got into the shade of a tree and started munching.
My private catalogue of sins was invariably interrupted by a "shouting." A woman in the congregation would suddenly leap to her feet and scream "Oh, my Lord! Oh, my Lord! I"m in the arms of Jesus! I'm in the arms of Jesus! Let me pray in the arms of Jesus!"
That kind of outburst was like a red flag to the rest of the folks. All the sinners would go wild, shouting, praying, running down the aisles, leaping in the air. I guess it helped to drive the sinning out of them. I watched, holding my breath, my little eyeballs out on stalks. Then the frenzy would ebb out of them, the preacher would ease them back to normal, and we'd sing another hymn or two. Those lovely, surging, soaring spirituals sung in harmony and lifting the soul. Then we'd file out, peaceful and purified. And I'd plod home with Elva Mae, making pious resolutions about that watermelon-stealing stuff.
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