The Real Issues

I think Christiana in her response hits the real issues that many people struggle with. I decided it was better to try to address her responses better here than lost in a previous post.

1) God is a jerk. At least the Bible seems to suggest so.

Christiana writes: Is God a jerk? The Bible certainly portrays him as a total dick. Who’s the dude that God tricked into sacrificing his son to prove his love to God? Of course God took it back once he realized the poor bastard was more than willing to kill his son in the name of God. . . . And a God who required his only son (aka Jesus) to be tortured to death for us? Again…WHAT A DICK! No wonder Jesus had to go to the desert for 40 days—he wasn’t confronting Satan…he was confronting what a jerk his father was.

I think you got the problem right in front of you. But for me neither of those stories tell us who God is, the tell us who we think God is. You see, I do not believe that the Bible is the infallible word of God, neither do I believe that it is history. I believe that it is our attempt to explain who we perceive God to be, and in the context of the culture, the Hebrews and early Christians understood God as hateful and vengeful. I DON'T. I perceive God as a loving presence with me in the good and bad of life.

In other words, I don't believe God sacrificed Jesus for my (or your sins), I believe we murdered Jesus because his "Way" was to difficult for us to follow. I also don't believe that God demanded that Abraham sacrifice Isaac (Ishmael - in the Koran). They are stories about US attempting to understand God.

So no, I don't think God is a jerk --- I see God in the words of the great theologian Paul Tillich as "the ground of all being." Or as Moses understood God; as "I am".

2) The whole issue of trying to save people.

Christina writes: What's the deal with "saving" non Christians? Case in point: When white man began to assimilate the Indians in the New World, one of the things that REALLY messed with their heads was how amazingly hypocritical Christianity was/is. Cultural assimilation of native populations --- especially religious assimilation --- has done a lot of harm to cultures world-wide (I'm an anthropologist so I know a bit about it . . . )

Your right, and we can look all over the world at our attempts to enculturate people not just with our religion but our social/political systems. Is capitalism the best for the world? Sure it is, if you are on the consuming side, rather than the producing side. And we in America are on the consuming end of the arrangement and aren't in any hurry to switch sides.

The whole notion of "Saving" people comes from our presumptive idea that we have THE WAY rather than A WAY. And of course if religion (as an institution) is going to have power than you have to have some kind of carrot so that you can hit people with a stick. That is exactly what that we have done for 2,000 years. Believe this, give this. do this --- or you are going to hell. It is no wonder the sexual scandal that is going on in the church (particularly the Roman Catholic --- but not exclusively) when one can hold heaven and hell over you --- even the slightest implication, and many people are willing to do whatever you ask (demand). And it is evil!

We don't need to "Save" people from hell. What Christianity has to offer is I believe is the best way to know God, but I say that from my very cultural Christian position. But not the only way. And I am willing to acknowledge that if I grew up in a Jewish home, I would probably believe that that was the best way.

For me, the key is to help people have a relationship with God --- I just happen to do that through the lens of Jesus Christ.

3) Why do people become Christians.

Christina you are right as I just said, most are Christian because that is the cultural system that they were born into, or raised in, or live in.

But the bigger question is why do people remain Christians, and unfortunately I think I know the reason (and I wish desperately I was wrong). Christianity has learned to use as the greatest lever for people to remain Christians the notions of FEAR and GUILT. It makes me sick when I look back and see the times where I have used those very things (often very subtly) but have used them nonetheless.

I am a Christian because I have a relationship to God through the life/death/resurrection of Jesus. Jesus has helped me to understand how my life can be made more whole. I don't always do it, but it is the way that makes most sense to me.

4) What's up with heaven.

Christina writes: When I read what Jesus says (including the books that early Christian power mongers left out of the Bible for political reasons), it seems to me that Jesus was talking about a Kingdom on earth within our selves. I think he was referring to a self love and self acceptance that is all encompassing. When we love ourselves for EXACTLY who we are now, we achieve an inner bliss that is, indeed, heaven on earth. When we achieve that state, then we can effortlessly show that love and give a little bit of our inner Kingdom to others

I agree 100%. I think Jesus message was always earth bound. He invites us to a way of life here and now. And it seems to me, that if we live the way Jesus invites us to live right now, Heaven (whatever it is) will take care of itself.

Christianity has the opportunity to be a powerful force of change in the word. Not by beating people up with Jesus, but rather by living the WAY of Jesus.

• loving others
• not judging others
• sharing all that we have with others
• caring for others and the world

But that kind of God is hard --- it is easier to seek the God who wants to take care of me, give me stuff, and tell me that I am right and the rest of the world is wrong. But that God, the God of America --- the God of modern Christianity, isn't going to change the world for better.

Thanks Christiana for your honesty. That is what God wants more than anything else, is for us to have a faith with integrity!

Is God a JERK?

I had planned to walk into the Old City tonight, see the pilgrims coming to the Western Wall and stop and a store in the Jewish quarter to see if they had something Kathy had tried to get when the group from Ridge was here last November. But I didn’t make it. Instead I decided (or maybe I should say: God told me), that I needed to write. For two nights in a row, as I have sat down for dinner I have been embarrassed by Christians.

I have come to the conclusion that either God is an a**hole or many of us who claim to be Christians are. Why do I say that: the theme both nights was very much the same — If you are a Christian — you will be blessed by God, and if you don’t have things, then you are not doing what God wants you to do. And then how we need to save the Jews and Muslims.

Why are we Christians? Why are you? To get to heaven? To be blessed? Seriously, why? What motivates you? I don’t think we have a clue about the afterlife — how can we? Jesus almost never talks about an afterlife, instead he talks about a here life — the kingdom of God that should be growing inside us. And what does that kingdom look like? Well, listening to the table next to me tonight, or the gentleman who ate with me last night, it looks like a place paved with gold — just like the old hymns. Because God wants us to be children of the king and as the kings children do not live in poverty. What happened to "sell everything you own and follow me?" "Or clothe the naked, feed the hungry?"

Then of course they both launched into how the Muslims and Jews are all heathens (although the woman tonight kept saying how God would never break his covenant — I guess she meant with her, not with the Jews), and needed to be saved. Saved from what? Saved to what? America is one of the most violent nations in the world, with a higher level of social problems than almost anywhere else in the world — are we the model of what they should become? It made me sick, that we as Christians are so judgmental of everyone else in the world — that we believe everyone needs to become like us — or they will go to hell.

Here we are, in the land of the prince of peace, the one who came to bring hope and love to the least and the lost, the one who never judged – only loved, and yet I am filled with the voices of self-righteous angry people. I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I believe in a God who is bigger than my little mind, a God who loves not just me, but the Jews and the Muslims and the Hindus and yes, even the non-believers. Because God is not an a**hole. God doesn’t play favors, God invites us all to come and know that love.

Maybe that is why I am here. To really see a God who cares. To see a God who reaches out and weeps that we are filled with bitterness, racism, greed and claim those things in God’s very name.

Thank you — for reminding me who you are — and who I am not!

Almost Ready to Give Up

Thanks Christina who is a good friends sister who's blog I have been following. She to is on a quest to experience God --- coming at it from a different place in life --- but a similar quests none the less.

Sitting here in my hotel room in Disney Land Israel (there is a lot of similarities to how people pilgrim to Disney and how the pilgrim to Israel), I was about ready to say: "Why am I doing this?" Christianity is not going to change --- people want to live with the fantasies that they have created about God, Jesus and the Bible. They don't want "THE WAY". But she brought me back to my senses.

Christianity has to change. It has become angry and militant --- striking out at people throughout the world who don't believe what we do and who aren't willing to support the Western style of life. We are a people of Jesus, a man who was murdered because he wouldn't go along with the easy way. A man who was hated and vilified because he threatened the "conservative" position. Just like the prophets before, Jesus called us back into a "real" relationship with God. A relationship build on understanding that all of creation is God's, so when we pollute, we are breaking that relationship --- when we take advantage of others (buy products produced at ridiculous wages so we can have it cheap and easy), we are breaking that relationship. When we do whatever we have to do to protect "the American Way of Life", and not God's WAY, we have broken that relationship. And when we continue to create the fantasy that the American way and God's way are the same --- we have totally lost our minds.

Wow, didn't expect all that to come out of my head.

Better shut up before I get into too much trouble.

Introduction --- Wresting With God

OK, here is the introduction to my material --- Comments, suggestions, PLEASE!

It all began with Dan Brown and his novel THE DA VINCI CODE. Well, that is not completely true. It really began, for me, as a child. I read the Bible, I went to church, but to be honest — some things just didn’t make sense. My parents, raised me in the church (my father is a retired minister), but, more importantly, they raised me with a sense that it was O.K. to ask questions. I didn’t have to "believe" everything at face value.

I was a history major in college. Maybe that is where the blame lies. In learning history, I learned that everything is seen through the lens of those who are telling the story. The history of an event, told from opposing sides, sounds sometimes like it is two different events — yet, they both told the truth. That lesson seeped over as I began to earnestly study the Bible and the history of the early Church.

Maybe Albert Schweitzer, the great doctor and missionary is too blame. As I studied his quest to find the historical Jesus, I realized that the only Jesus that we have is not a Jesus of history, but a Jesus of faith. That doesn’t mean that Jesus didn’t live — I believe he did. But what we can know about the Jesus of history can never be isolated from the Jesus of faith.

While I have learned to live comfortably in that grey area of life, I know that many people struggle with this. I see this most profoundly in people who are what Bishop Spong calls "The Church Alumni". People who no longer can believe the doctrine of the church, yet are still looking for something. It is for them, and those who still toil in the church that I am writing this.

I want to share an e-mail I received from and 18 year old college student:

"I think it's a really good thing that you're working on a curriculum designed to help people deal with the questions and doubts that they should have about their faith. When I got old enough to realize how historically unreliable and intellectually fallible the Christian Bible is, I pretty much just gave it all up and was really angry because I felt like I had been lied to my whole life by teachers I thought I could trust at church. Kind of how a kid might feel when they finally figure out that Santa isn't real and that they were being systematically lied to.

As much as I wish I didn't, I still feel resentful.
It's really fascinating though, what an incredibly huge role religion plays in shaping the beliefs, views, and actions of huge groups of people all over the world. I am actually considering taking on a theology major because I think it would be a huge asset in my quest to better understand why the world works the way that it does. Right now I am taking a class called "Women In The Bible" and it is really very interesting, but I feel weird because the people in the class all believe in God and Jesus and stuff. I don't have anything against any person of any faith, but I guess I just feel like they probably look down on people like me. But I guess it's probably good for a little white suburban girl to start learning what it feels like to be in the minority for once.

It is to the Casey’s of this world that I am writing this. I believe religion matters. I believe faith matters. Maybe not how it is presented today, but I believe that it is only faith that can solve the worlds problems. Capitalism can’t because it just creates a world of haves and have nots. Socialism can’t because there is no motivation to achieve the greater good. Only faith offers that.

There is a great deal of excellent scholarship out there on the formation of the Bible and the early church. I claim no expertise. What I do claim, is that Christianity is still valid and important in the 21st Century.

The "Old" Christianity may be dead (or at least dying), but Christianity certainly is not. Jesus came to show us a way of life, and he died trying to teach us. My hope is that I will not simply de-construct the old, but will begin laying out a new understanding, a new glimpse of God through Jesus Christ.

I hope that you will join me on this journey as I wrestle with God. At times I will frustrate you, I times I will get you to rise out of your chair and tell me I’m wrong, and at times I will get you to say hallelujah. But more than anything I want to get you to think, to think about your faith — to think about what you do — and why you do it.

A Couple more pictures

I guess my dad's way of saying he misses me, is to keep sending me pictures. Here's one of the cutest baby in the world. Taken in August of 1960

The other picture is of two of the three prettiest girls in the world!

Great Day

Wow, today has been one of my best days here in Israel. The day actually started last night. David Aarons, my friend who is a guide, came and got me around 8:00pm last night to show me Jerusalem. We wandered all over the city, through some historic Jewish neighborhoods, to the YMCA, King David Hotel, Machane Yahoda Market, Zion Square (where all the young people hang out), and then around 1230 we heading back into the Old City to the Western Wall which was filled with thousands of Jews coming to pray as the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur begin. Got home around 1:30, but still managed to get up at 530 so I could talk with Nancy online.

After a quick breakfast I decided to head to Emmaus. Along the way I needed gas and I stopped at Castel, once a crusader castle, but known for the role it played in the 1948 War of Independence. I then wandered through Emmaus for a while. On my way back, I stopped at the place where many historians believe that Emmaus really was (today it is a shopping mall). What made it fun was today was like December 24th. Everybody was running around trying to get ready for the holiday. While there I stopped at Pizza Hut (yes I wrote that correct) for lunch.

This evening I was invited by Hillel and Hanna Kessler to join them at their Synagogue for worship. Hillel described it as a unique synagogue made up of a bunch of ex-hippies. He compared it to a "Conservative" Synagogue in the states, but this worship was down right hip. I understood very little of the Hebrew, but the love for God came shining through. It was a blast.

My father keeps sending me these old pictures, so since this is the Jewish High Holy Days, I put this wonderful picture from Christmas 1963.

Sunrise --- Sunset

David Aarons, a good friend who is the best guide here in Israel suggested that I drive up on the Golan Heights to catch a sunset. The ride up was frightening. And not the part that I was right next door to Syria and could see their military outposts. The road was the one of the windiest (is that a word) I have ever been on. I did not look forward to the return trip after dark!

Once I arrived it was worth the effort. I took over 100 pictures, I hope some of them turn out.

The next morning, I figures I needed to get both the ying and the yang in harmony so I got up and took sunrise pictures.

Here is one of both.

Off to Jerusalem tomorrow. My stay in Tiberias has gone by fast.

Steve

Been a While

Sorry, I am finding it nearly impossible to keep up the website and the blog site, I am concentrating more on the web, I am taking about 100 pictures a day, so as you can imagine, it is not easy to keep it together.

Today is Sunday, and I thought I would take it easy. I have been pushing the limits and my body this morning said NO MORE. So after getting up at 5:30 (I went to bed at 9:00 because I knew I was beat), talking on line to a number of you, eating breakfast, I decided to forgo my plans for today and just take it easy. So I grabbed one of the movies I brought and sat down to watch MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL. It was just what the Dr ordered. After I write this I am going to work on pictures --- Kathy wants me to select some to put up on the bulletin board at church, I am going to walk into Tiberias and eat lunch. If I feel up to it, I may go to Hamat Tiberias and Hamat Gader, but I kinda doubt it. I think I will just be lazy today. It seems like I have been running non stop, especially since I came to Tiberias (and this is supposed to be a laid back kinda town). There are just too many places that I still want to get to. I am really going to refocus and just concentrate on places that I have never been to before. And I will have to make some day trips from Jerusalem up here.

My father sent me a couple of pictures I thought you might get a kick out of. One is from around 1968, it is of Stewart and me (he is the younger one). It was titled first day of school, I assume he is entering kindergarten and I would be in 2nd grade. The second is from around 1977. The Glenview UMC would do musical theater once a year and this is take from "Little Mary Sunshine." I was a Canadian Mountie. Hope you enjoy the pictures, I sure did.

WOW

Check out the wonderful view off my balcony tonight. WOW!

Nothing

Worked all morning on pictures and still haven’t gotten then up on line. I need to try and figure out a better way of getting them up. At lunch time, I decided that I had enough time inside stuck on the computer and that I needed to head into the Old City. I grabbed my camera and off I trekked. My first stop was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and I am not sure why. It is the traditional site for the crucifixion and burial of Jesus. I walked around taking a look (I have been dozens of times) found a room that I read about, but did not have a flashlight with me, so I will have to return again. I started to walk out, but instead, found myself climbing the stairs to the traditional site of Calvary (all in the same building).

I found myself watching people. Again, like yesterday, there were not many people in the Church. What fascinated me was how people reacted. Some reacted just like I expected, deeply moved by the place, and tortured by what took place 2,000 years ago. Others, however, reacted very differently. The posed for pictures in front of the altar or the statuary. Now that is not strange, because many people have friends take their pictures at these Holy places, but they didn’t just take pictures, they posed and postured for the camera. It was as if they were getting their picture taken with Tom Cruse instead of a icon or altar for Jesus.

Now, I guess I should be really honest with you. I felt nothing. There is a song that talks about that, and it is driving me crazy — I think it is from a musical — maybe Chorus Line, and it kept playing in my head. I felt nothing. The death of Jesus, murdered at the hands of the Romans and the Religious elite, is a horrible reality — but for me, it is not an event to pose for the camera for, any more than I would in front of a display at the Holocaust museum.

Jesus died, because what he invited us to do, to become a part of what too tough. He died, because we didn’t like what he had to say. Yesterday, we got into a discussion about the "literal interpretation" of the Scriptures; are they the "exact" words of God. I don’t believe they are and I was sharing why I didn’t believe that when one of the women turned to me (knowing I was a pastor) and asked: "How many churches have fired you?’ Isn’t that what we did with Jesus? We didn’t like his message, so we fired him?

I needed to leave the Church and go someplace where I could "feel" something. So I wandered through the city to two of my favorite churches. The Dormition Abbey (the church where Mary is said to sleep), and St Peter in Gallicantu (the church remembering Peter’s denial of Jesus). I was alone in both places and I felt something. I felt the peace of God flow over me. A peace that comes despite the racism and religious intolerance that was all around me. A peace that said, we can make a difference — if only we are willing to stand up for what we believe (take up your cross and follow me, is how Jesus put it). As I write I feel that peace and pray that you too, can be filled with God’s gracious peace.