Easton’s Song

Oh, God where is your grace? I don’t feel it right now. How can you sustain me? God, please tell me how.

I’ve always trusted you. My faith has been strong. Look at what you’ve put me through; Oh, what have I done wrong?

*Where is the salvation that you promised? If not from this, what will you save me from? Oh, I prayed for a miracle, but still I am left without a son.

I do not feel your comfort. I feel anger. I feel pain. Some say that this is what you went through, but I don’t think it’s quite the same.

Oh, why’d you make the world this way? I don’t think I can endure it. They say that pain brings compassion, but without pain there’s no need for it.

*chorus

so once again I ask, “Where are you in all of this?”  How can I believe you care when it feels like you’re not there?

And God I’ve never prayed like I prayed for my son. Paul says to pray without ceasing, and I didn’t stop—not once.

*chorus

I laid my hands on his chest and prayed that he would take a breath, that his body would work as it should. You would heal him. I know you would.

Yet, still we’re left here with emptiness in our hearts, pain in our chests

no baby in our arms.

*chorus

What explanation can you give

You can blame adam end eve

but there was no sin in my son

God, you should've saved Easton

Searching for Answers We Already Have

Why do we still read the scriptures? What exactly are we looking for? It's not that we shouldn't read the Bible, but too often we look at the Bible for magical “instant answers,” seeking some greater revelation that will finally help us make sense of the world. Those unfamiliar with the scriptures, or those not properly grounded in them may experience some sort of epiphany, or even various points of epiphany as they come to a fuller knowledge of the Gospel. However, the ultimate theological revelation is simple; it's love. Love is the foundation of all things Christian.

Far too often love is not even a factor in the lives of Christians; it is not even considered. Like many conservative politicians, many Christians see God as someone who takes their side, guarantees their dreams, and protects them from bad things. In other words, God is a magic talisman or a good luck charm, or a genie. There is no sense of knowing God, no sense of relationship. It often boils down to a mathematical equation: if we follow the rules, God will give us good things like a nice house and money. Such people read the scriptures hoping to find the formula that will unlock the magic blessing of God. Is this completely foolish? Absolutely. Is it grounded in scripture? You bet.

While one can make a case for the magical mathematics of YHWH, one cannot make such a case when looking at Jesus. What do we have to do to live a godly life--the "life of the ages"? We must give away all we have to the poor. So much for faithfulness leading to wealth. What happens when we live faithfully? Well, Jesus was executed, and most of his original followers were murdered. What about Paul? Well, he experienced quite a bit of abuse. So much for righteousness guaranteeing our security. Paul's blessings were spiritual. He was at peace; he was content. His peace rested in the fact that he was loved by God, rather than the circumstances in which he found himself, which were not very pleasant. None of these people thought that faithfulness would bring them a hot wife, a nice home, or wealth. Yet they lived faithfully, regardless. But what does living faithfully mean?

Faithfulness is not a complicated subject, at least in a general sense. We are to love God and neighbors. What does it mean to love God? Well, since God is not tangible, the way that we love God is by loving our neighbors. This is a double reinforcement. Those who want to love God but not other people don't have the luxury. Loving God is directly tied to loving our neighbors. This means that faithfulness is relational; it is not a one man play, but something we act out in concert with others. This is why John Wesley believed that Christian Perfection is realized through the practice of perfect love. When we fully love others, we are faithful to the way of Christ and the commands of God. To love others means to take their interests seriously and to work for their good, their benefit. To be righteous is to act in such a way so as to benefit others. This is the entire direction of the Christian life.

It is not single scriptures divorced from history that will save us from the various bits of stress and pain that we experience. Rather, it is a life grounded in the love of God through Christ that empowers us to persevere amidst trials and suffering. No single scripture will save us, but the love of God will.  

Jesus, Capitalism, and Civilization

I read a book not so long ago that lumped Christianity, capitalism, and corporations together. This bugged me since I know that the first has nothing to do with the second or third, but it is understandable given that here and now, the three do often seem to coexist as a sort of unholy triumvirate. This is not unintentional. In 1956, “under God” was added to the pledge of allegiance to set capitalism apart from “godless” socialism. Good god-fearing people were, according to this simplistic worldview, capitalists. And capitalism takes the form of large multi-national corporations, who, following the example of Jesus, take their worthless crap (Coca Cola, McDonald’s, Levi’s, and Nikes) to the “ends of the earth.”
But is capitalism in anyway Christian? The very word means belief/focus in money. Socialism, on the other hand, mean belief/focus in the community. One has the attainment of wealth for the good of the individual in mind; the other has the good of all members of society in mind. Which of these sounds more like the teachings of Jesus? (hint: the latter).

Does this mean we should be Marxists? No, Marxism doesn’t work for one main reason: it neglects the doctrine of sin. People are self-interested. This isn't good, but it's how things are right now, and probably how they've always been. It can work on a small scale among people of a similar worldview, but inevitably the next generation always abandons the goals set forth by the previous generation. Somehow, they weren't inspired by the same ideals as their parents; I can't say why. Perhaps, like so many parents, they simply took their worldview for granted and never directlty taught their children why one way is better or kinder or more just.

Nonetheless, how can we as Christians fit within a capitalist matrix? By subverting it. I don't mean bombing, or open revolt, or even Tea Parties, but working within the system to change it, to make it more communal. The economic system we have come to know has become increasingly individualistic and selfish. Pensions are all but gone, real wages are down, perks are all but eliminated. We work our lives away for nearly nothing, and then spend our "retirement" bagging groceries. Christians need to take their place at the head of businesses, but need to subvert the system by eliminating destructive greed from the equation. (In case it's unclear, all greed is destructive.) Christians in positions of power need to listen to Jesus and not the so-called prophets of capitalism. They need to look out for the well being or workers and the poor; they need to consider the interests of others before their own. In other words, an economics of love has to come before any other economic commitment, if such commitments are even possible.

It seems to be that such things need to be pragmatic, rather than dogmatic. We need to embrace systems that works. But what does it mean for a system to work? It doesn't mean increasing the wealth of stock holders and boards and CEO's. It means looking out for everyone. When Jack Welch made $900 million in a single year, that could have created 9000 jobs at $100,000 each. Which of these would be better for the economy? Which option is more just? We need to move beyond the stupid compartmentalized thinking that is the legacy of modernity and begin to recognize how connected things really are. What's good for Main St. will be what's good for Wall St, but not necessarily vice versa. By this I mean that instead of a trickle down system where wealth never really leaves the portfolios of the rich, a trickle up system will create more stability and stimulate the economy because people will have more real spendable income. (Trickle down theory is part of a brilliant mythology created by the powerful that makes regular working class people actually argue on behalf of those who exploit them. It's akin to a starving person arguing that they should give food to a fat person and hope for scraps. What a great irony!)

Any future shape that the economy takes though will have to have more than the well-bing of the middle class in mind, it must also take the environment into account. Arguments that taking the environment seriously will adversely affect the economy are stupid are short-sighted. It is like saying that a house will cost too much to build to code. It will cost a lot more to rebuild the house once it has collapsed, not to mention that people will be inside when it collapses. In the same way, preventing pollution will be a lot easier than cleaning it up later. Then there is the cost in life, both animal and human. We will soon be seeing victims of rising ocean levels due to global warming, but what about poisoned water and air? What is the legacy that we wish to leave our children? Do we want them to inherit a world devoid of green space, animals, and clean water? Jesus told us to pray "on earth as it is in heaven." I'm sure that when we said this, he did not have in mind that heaven is a toxic trash heap devoid of life.

What is Atonement?

Atonemnet is simply at-one-ment. It is to be at peace, or in harmony. It is friendship. What does it mean for the faith of Jesus? In terms of Jesus’ own teaching, it doesn’t mean much, at least not in the way that we think about it contemporarily. Despite the current majority opinion, Jesus did not come to die on the cross so that God would be capable of forgiving sins. What an uncharitable and irrational idea. The God of the universe—the One who created all things!—who is in essence Love cannot forgive apart from bloodshed? Nonsense! Such a theology hinges on just one verse, a very irrelevant verse at that, which has almost no historical usage and is surely not representative of even an ancient Jewish understanding.

Understood as satisfying God’s divine “need” for vengeance, atonement played no role in Jesus’ mission. In fact, Jesus’ mission undercuts this idea of atonement. Multiple times he forgave people. In none of those instances was blood involved. Prior to his ministry John the Baptist offered a baptism that symbolized repentance—the condition (or appropriation) of forgiveness. Forgiveness was recognized as coming through repenting of one’s sin, not through killing of any kind. Killing animals and offering them to God is nothing more than leftover pagan superstition that infected the Jewish tradition. While those are very harsh words, it is important that they be harsh, that God is not linked to such absurd barbarity.

The Scriptures even point out that such sacrifices are displeasing to God, though not unanimously. For example, Psalm 40:6 tells us: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but my ears you have opened; burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not require.” God doesn't require rituals-- especially rituals that are harmful to any of God's creatures--but ears that hear and a heart that is open. Likewise, the Psalmist also writes in Psalm 51:16-17 “You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” What God truly wants from us is repentance. God wants us to stop doing evil and continually do good. We do not need to shed blood, not now and not then. We do need to make reparations, however. When we have wronged another, we need to try and repair the damage that we have caused. We don't do this because of fear that God will cast us into hell if we don't, but because love reconciles. This reconciliation is what atonement is all about. Harmony is God's plan, is God's desire. Peace is atonement.

Should We Limit Love?

“When you're taught to love everyone, to love your enemies, then what value does that place on love?”—Marilyn Manson

I’m no Marilyn Manson fan. Though I do think he is both intelligent and articulate. Here, he is making a point. If we just throw love out to whoever, is it really valuable? If it’s valuable, shouldn’t we be more discriminating in who we love? I think his point makes some sense. What comes to mind is preachers who are very involved in their congregation, but neglect their families. St. Paul talks to us about that. If you can’t maintain your family, you have no business trying to run a church community. The needs of your immediate family need to be met. You can’t serve others at the expense of your family. To the responsibility of raising your children properly is a grave sin. Unfortunately, it is all too common. I think it is one of the reasons preacher’s kids have such a bad reputation, though there are other factors, of course.

My first reaction to this quote was to say that it is true if love is a limited commodity, but as I thought about it, it is limited, in a sense. By this I mean that we can only really invest in a limited amount of people because both our time and energy are limited. We have to choose wisely. However, we can love others without restriction in the broader sense of being concerned for their well being, and working to help improve it. We can give money to support charity (though this is limited by our available funds); we can volunteer at shelters; we can teach adults or children how to read; we can reconcile with those who are estranged from us; we can vote in ways that take the interests of the most people into account; we can use our time better so that we can do more to help others.

To teach children, or adults for that matter, to love everyone places the highest value on love. Love is not like money. If there is more of it, there is no inflation which causes it to have less value.

Love is so important because others are important, despite their stupidity, arrogance, and brokenness. Loving others is less concerned with love as an abstract thing, and more concerned with others as God’s children, and our brothers and sisters. We love because others are worth loving, despite themselves, despite ourselves.

The problem with the church and society is not that we are too free in our love, but that we are not free enough. How many people do you know that have broken past the insider/outsider binary? We tend to love those like us, and hate those who are different. Christians have not really been an exception to this, though Jesus called us to be. As he told his disciples, we must be better than the pagans, and love those who do not love us. Only when we do this will we be like God.

Such love is not a smug liberal self-serving love that assuages our guilt while remaining ultimately apathetic, nor is it a conservative love that is judgmental, loving in name only while secretly hateful. It works for the good of its object. As Christians, we must always work for the good of all creation, not just our own good. We must put aside hate, and look past difference. We must see with God’s eyes. We must be willing to put aside our negative feelings and selfish interests, and live compassionately. Every person is a son or daughter of some one. Every person is loved, if by no one else, then at least by God. And every person is broken and in need of kindness. We must be ready and willing to give them kindness, even when it hurts. We must not limit love.

Should Christians Be Vegans?

Being a vegan in church is probably like being a pacifist at an NRA meeting, or a Christian ACLU member. We’re just not that common. But why shouldn’t we be? There’s a lot that can be said about how the Church has conformed to a certain culturally conditioned means of understanding the world. It is anthropocentric and utilitarian in many ways. In other ways it is pessimistic and gnostic. These are all ways that it is unfaithful to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Jesus may or may not have eaten animals. I don’t know. In the gospel of John, he is depicted as cooking fish post-resurrection, but that’s the only story we have. Even then, some contend that the Greek says he ate some honeycomb, not fish. I’m not a Greek-reader so I can neither confirm nor deny this. Even if Jesus did eat meat, it would not have been often. Separated from food production as we are are, we rarely think about how what we eat is produced. Meat, for example, is very expensive to produce (about $35 a pound) and resource intensive (17 pounds of grain and 440 gallons of water for a single pound of cow flesh). It is the food of the rich. The 1st-century Jews would have eaten it on feast days, but that’s about it. The staples of their diet would have been bread, wine, olive oil, some dairy, and whatever garden vegetables and herbs they grew. From archeological discoveries we know they were prone to diseases like rickets and, overall, didn’t have very good nutrition. (This is why diet books flouting Jesus’ diet are absurd—though he probably was skinny, but from hunger!) 
Some do insist Jesus was a vegetarian (we have have an early gospel from the Ebionites insisting quite strongly on this point), others insist he was not, still others don’t care. Should we care? The scriptures say that “ a wise man has regard for the life/needs of his animal, but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel” (Proverbs 10:12). Are we wise? Do we have regard for the lives of the animals with whom we share the planet? Or are we cruel in our wickedness? Modern animal husbandry is indeed cruel. Animals are confined so that they are unable to move; they are denied natural food and light, kept in constant states of pregnancy only to have their young taken from them. Cows, vegetarians by nature, are even fed the remains of other cows who have died. That's how mad cow disease started.
These are just a few practices. In reality, the entire process is cruel, inhumane, ungodly, and sinful. Jobs at a slaughterhouse have a 100% turnover rate,  and are very dangerous, with assembly lines that run so fast and so ineffectively that 25% of cows are dismembered while still conscious. This is wickedness.
Even if killing animals for food could be done in a way that did not cause suffering and was not resource intensive, I still would not participate. Why? Because my morality is shaped by my allegiance to God's goodness. For example, Genesis 1:29-31 reads,
“ Then God said, 'I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.' And it was so.  God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.”
Though I do not read the creation story as a literal/historical event, I still understand this as representing God's intention for creation. God desired a world without bloodshed, not just between humans, but between all creatures. This is not the case, but we can still do our part to contribute to God's vision of peace. God desires harmony, not just "back then," but now and always. Harmony precludes unnecessary violence.

But what of sin? Since humanity is sinful such initial prescriptions are put aside in favor of a “grace” that allows permission for such things, doesn't it? Isaiah thought otherwise. Isaiah 11:6-9 reads:
The wolf will live with the lamb,
       the leopard will lie down with the goat,
       the calf and the lion and the yearling together;
       and a little child will lead them.
The cow will feed with the bear,
       their young will lie down together,
       and the lion will eat straw like the ox.
The infant will play near the hole of the cobra,
       and the young child put his hand into the viper's nest.
They will neither harm nor destroy
       on all my holy mountain,
       for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD
       as the waters cover the sea.
Even in a state of rebellion, of sin, God still calls us to exercise peace at the level of inter-species relationships, and to take the lead, just as the child led them. Such harmony is even associated with having knowledge of God.If we truly have God's knowledge then we must cease to inflict needless harm on animals. If we refuse to do so, we do not know God. To paraphrase I John, how can we love God. whom we do not see, and not love our fellow creatures who we can see? If we cannot love them, then we cannot love God." Tough words. John applied them to humans, but there's no reason that they can't be applied to animals.

Jesus tells us that God cares for animals, and the OT is full of various laws to protect them. Perhaps those who think themselves wise or righteous should be more willing to consider the rights of animals, to consider that God loved the "world" (John 3:16), and not just humans. Perhaps they need to raise their consciousness a little bit, and begin to expand their sphere of compassion. Such a thing would be quite Christian. Jesus challenged his listeners to move beyond the Jew/Gentile binary, to include more than just Jews in their sphere of concern. It's time we moved beyond just humans as well.

Toward a Fuller Reading of the Scriptures

Calvin told us that Scripture is the Word of God when it points to Christ. Such an idea is a proper hermeneutic in that it rightly places Jesus at the center of the narrative, using Jesus as the interpretive matrix through which to read the Scriptures. This helps us to determine God’s self-revelation from human distortions of God, attempts to make God ours, rather than recognizing that we belong to God. But this is not all that is necessary to understand the Bible. Reading the Bible, we can plainly see that there exist multiple genres of the written word. Paul writes in prose; Acts, the Gospels, and much of the OT are written in narrative form; the Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Solomon, and Ecclesiastes are wisdom sayings and poems. We also have apocalyptic writings which are shrouded in symbolism and mystery, which is appropriate and necessary given their subversive nature. And even these are not clear cut, as the Gospels contain poems and parables, and so on. Additionally, we have the difference of context to consider. Ancient biographies were not structured as contemporary biographies are. They were not the empty recital of fact, but contained what we would call myths or legends as ways of communicating truth. Such a means was necessary given that, like the apocalyptic, the Gospels contained much that was subversive to the dominant religious and political climate. In a certain sense, the Gospels needed to be hard to understand in order to help secure the safety of the original communities from enemies.¹

In that some parts of the Bible were written in “coded” language, the community’s knowledge was imperative for rightly reading the Scriptures. Such knowledge is now lost to us. There are many points where we might have strayed. Perhaps it was when Constantine incorporated Christianity into the Empire, perhaps it was when the Church became more gentile than Jew, perhaps it was even when Jesus died, leaving the disciples to muddle his message. However, contemporary means of reconstructing the past have helped us immensely to gather a clearer picture of the early church community and its life. With all that is known it seems still that much knowledge has been lost when it comes to rightly reading the Bible.

Regardless, how we read the Scriptures contemporarily does not represent the only way or even the best way to do so. To say that each person is his own interpreter and the text is clear is simply untrue. If the text was that clear we wouldn’t have so many different interpretations. There is probably not a single interpretation that can exhaust the meaning of the text. If we confess the Bible to be inspired, despite its failings, we believe it to express who God is and contain God’s self-revelation. This means that the text is as full as God is, virtually inexhaustible. This is seen in the early readings of the Church. Historically, the Church understood the text as having multiple senses. It had an allegorical or symbolic sense, a literal or historical sense, and a tropological or moral sense, for example. In such readings, dating back to Origen in the 2^nd century, the literal sense was always the least important. This is important because it demonstrates that symbolic readings find a deep affinity with the historical Church, even though our readings will be different. For example, I would argue that significant parts of the OT are to be understood as symbolic stories meant to communicate certain truths. The issue is not whether something is symbolic or true, but whether the truth communicated takes the form of history or allegory.

Such readings do not endanger the Scriptures, for even in a historical reading, the meaning is found in and derived from the symbols. An allegorical readings simply asserts that the symbols were meant to be understood as symbols, rather than history, and that it is in the Church’s best interests—for the sake of its credibility, and its intellectual and spiritual life—to affirm rather than deny such readings. The discipline comes in determining which parts of the overall narrative are to be understood as parabolic rather than having actually occurred. This is where the sciences of history, textual criticism, and archeology, among others, come into play. Such tools can help us determine how to read the Scriptures. However, the traditions of the Church and its readings are the primary means of determining how the Bible is to be read. This does not mean that we can never disagree with those from the past, simply that we heed their input as wise voices from the Church’s life. We ought to give their voices a say in the life of the Church, which is, as G.K. Chesterton described it, a “democracy of the dead.”

1 Early churches had “gatekeepers” at the entrances of house church meetings who functioned as bouncers in order to guarantee the safety of believers who risked their lives to gather.