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The Prophet Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight

The Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus and tested him by asking him to show them a sign [“miracle”] from heaven.2 He replied, “When evening comes, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,’ 3 and in the morning, ‘Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs [forecasts] of the times.[a]4 A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a sign [miracle], but none will be given it except the sign [past reflection] of Jonah.” Jesus then left them and went away.  (Matthew 16:1-4).

Jesus is messing with the Pharisees in this lecture from the Gospel According to Matthew. They ask for a “sign,” meaning “miracle.” He says they wouldn’t know a sign, meaning “forecast,” if it they saw one.  Then he gives them the “sign of Jonah” which means a “reflection” on a past event, giving it new meaning.

What did he want us to understand by “the sign of Jonah”? It must be important, because Jesus said it was his only sign: 4 A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.” Jesus then left them and went away (Matthew 16:4).

Matthew, the Gospel writer, theorized that —the three days Jonah spent in the whale [technically a “sea monster] symbolized the three days Jesus would spend in the earth after his crucifixion. That would be a forecast of an event to come. That  seems a little simplistic to me, like a college student struggling to find symbols in a poem. As we have all learned by now, symbolism is in the eye of the beholder.

In this case “signs” are not ” miracles,” because Jesus refuses to perform one for their entertainment. What if signs are indications of something in the past as witnessed in the present, something we might have missed the first time we read about them? A “reflection of things past.”  What if the “sign of Jonah” is Jesus’s commentary on diversity, equality and inclusion?

Both Matthew and the writer of the Gospel of Luke offered this other interpretation: Jesus was shaming the Pharisees for not realizing that Jesus himself was a sign of God’s message in the present.  Jesus was telling the Pharisees, rather cryptically, that, despite their status as the people chosen by God (the Israelites), they had missed the most important sign God had sent: the love of diversity, equality and inclusion. Stay with me now.

Obviously Jesus knew nothing of DEI, but he knew a lot about love, and he interpreted the story of Jonah to show God’s love for all nations. What did Jesus say in his first sermon?

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free (Luke 4:18).

Understandable that the Pharisees did not get this.  After all, they were enslaved by the most powerful of pagan nations, the Romans. The Romans were the cruel adversaries of their Chosen nation.

You may remember that Jonah tried to run from his responsibility to preach to a pagan city. This is the part where Jonah gets swallowed  by a whale and, after three days, “spewed out” (literally) from his holding tank to do his job and preach to the Ninevites.  The Ninevites were famous for their cruelty and, definitely not “chosen” of God. Like the Romans, right?

The book of Jonah says that,  beside being a city of cruel pagans, Nineveh was huge: Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it (Jonah 3:3). Some commentators think this was an exaggeration, because what city is that big? But the point is 4 Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” 5 The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.(Jonah 3:3). Mass conversion of the most evil city of Assyria!

Clearly one of the most successful evangelical rallies in recorded history. Yet Jonah was not hoping that the pagans would be converted. When he found out that he was supposed to preach to the Ninevites, he had run away. He was prevented by a perfect storm and thrown overboard to appease the furious God.  The sea calmed and  along came a whale, etc.

To me, this is the funny part. In Jonah, Chapter 4, Jonah admits his real reason for running. He was familiar with the Torah. The Book of Exodus said: “you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.” (Exodus 34:6-7). He was appalled that God was “gracious, merciful, and slow to anger.”

A rather strange attitude for the most successful evangelist in history!  Jonah says,”Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.” Jonah was so revolted by the Ninevites that he preferred to die rather than live to see God’s mercy on such an evil city. Some prophet! This is why I call him “the prophet who couldn’t shoot straight.”

This is the crux of Jonah’s problem: tribal anger at the heathen, the “unclean,” and the assumption that God would judge them. He could not live with God’s mercy to pagans. As he finally explains, that was his original reason for taking a ship to the end of the known earth (Jonah 4: 1-2): prejudice and resentment.

Back to Jesus’s commentary on the “sign of Jonah.”  As he often does, Jesus connects the Hebrew Bible to his contemporary predicament: “The people of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah and see, something greater than Jonah is here” (Matthew 12:41-42).

Jesus sides with the Ninevites in this story, not the Hebrew prophet. God continues to be “gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.” God shows his love of diversity, equality and inclusion through Jesus. God included , along with the “Chosen people,” the pagan city with the worst reputation.    God asserted the diversity and equality of the worst of the worst: because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah and see, says Jesus, meaning himself: something greater than Jonah is here” (Matthew 12:41-42).

This is not what an exceptional people want to hear: the pagans are now forgiven just like us. Everyone receives God’s favor. This is a long trip to DEI, but there is no question that the Book of Jonah was talking about the most despised group in biblical history. That God would have mercy on them with his DEI. “The sign of Jonah” is saying “mercy,”and so should we.

Are we going to die on this battlefield of exclusion like Jonah? Or accept the equal mercy of God on the diverse people of the world?

 

 

 

 

 

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The Disastrous Abomination

“History doesn’t repeat itself , but it often rhymes.” Mark Twain’s wry observation comments on how the past anticipates the present and  the present rhymes with the future.

Upon viewing the Temple at the threshold of Jerusalem, Jesus’ disciples marveled at its magnificence. To make a point, Jesus said, “You see these great buildings? Not a single stone will be left on another; everything will be destroyed” (Mark 13:2).  The words might have been attributed to Jesus in retrospect, or maybe he was an astute political observer who foresaw the sacking of Jerusalem by the aggressive Empire of Rome. His words showed the insignificance of human construction compared to the ultimate verdict of history. The grand structures of mankind can be reduced to rubble.  Does Jesus’ prophecy rhyme with our  institutions today?

Extending his discourse, Jesus made another puzzling prophecy: “When you see the disastrous abomination [or detestable thing of desolation], then those in Judaea must escape to the mountains”  [12:14]; Scholars have pondered what this “abomination” might  be. Some speculate the attempt of the Roman Emperor Caligula to place his statue in the Temple around 40 CE. Others remark on the revolt of the Zealots and their betrayal of Israel [Levine, A.J. “The Little Apocalypse,” The Gospel of Mark].

What, then, could be the modern equivalent  of the “disastrous abomination,” something that rhymes with the sacrilegious  defilement of the Temple? Those who witnessed the January 6 television broadcast of  the siege of the Capitol Building, the desecration of the House of Representatives, the battering of Capitol officers with American flags and clubs, could not be blamed for calling it a “disastrous abomination.” It was an unthinkable violation of an institution revered by American citizens.

I remember thinking: This violence will finally expose the extreme nativists and contrast them from peace-loving protesters. We had all witnessed the “disastrous abomination” on live television. We had seen President’s Trump’s inaction in real time. We had seen it all rhyme with the worst desecrations of world history.

Some might say the very same election that inspired the violence was an abomination, because it fraudulently elected President Trump’s successor. Most of a major political party thinks the 2020 election was an abomination.

Some others might say the series of prosecutions of the beleaguered former President were a conspiratorial abomination, the weaponizing of the legal system.  Justice must now be viewed in the eye of the beholder.

Like the legal system, history has had its revisionists who re-shape past events to suit their purposes.  People have short memories. But usually the original memories, like the assault on the Capitol, survive over a generation. It is the later generations who succumb to revisions, the reframing of the past to suit the schemes of the present.

Not in the land of social media. We have seen the footage of the “abomination” over and over and revisited the violence in the Congressional investigation. Incredibly it dissolved into revisionist history in a matter of months. Since that January 6, President-elect Trump and  his supporters have reframed the “disastrous abomination” into a

  •  “normal tourist visit.”
  •   “day of love”
  • “simple protest” that “got out of hand,”
  • “legitimate political discourse” (You.Tube 2024 poll)

It is historically unprecedented for a “disastrous abomination” to be revised into “a day of love” in less than a Presidential election cycle. How porous are our memories to be bombarded with the actual media coverage for weeks, only, less than four years later, to interpret those events as a “day of love”?

Apparently overwhelming evidence can be misconstrued by a few quotes on social media. A voting majority of citizens can say that a “disastrous abomination” was “legitimate political discourse.” The most demoralizing realization is that voting-age citizens can be so easily deceived. Now the master of historical revision has been re-elected with the complicity of malleable memories.

I’m not sure if Jesus prophesied this moment in U.S. history, but I’m willing to believe that his prophecy rhymed with it. We have had our own  “disastrous abomination,” but have not heeded prophetic warnings. Some of us are surely contemplating an “escape to the mountains.”

 

 

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The Modest, True Believer

The last President to be famous for his personal faith was also a staunch advocate for the separation of church and state, refusing to use his authority to favor churches or religious interests. In his strict adherence to this principle he alienated himself from leading evangelicals, such as Jerry Falwell and Billy Graham.

The primary advocate for the “wall of separation” interpretation of the First Amendment to the U.S.  Constitution was President Thomas Jefferson. In a letter addressing the establishment clause of the First Amendment, the President wrote:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should `make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and state. Letter to the Danbury Baptists, January 1, 1802 (https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/danpre.html).

The expression “wall of separation” inspired a judicial tradition of keeping publicly financed institutions clear from religious beliefs and practices.  The doctrine became controversial when the Supreme Court ruled against the recitation of any prayer in the public schools in Engel v. Vitale: ” . . .the Supreme Court stated that the school-sponsored prayer violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment, even if the students could be excused from the room or remain silent.” (1962). https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/educational-resources/educational-activities/first-amendment-activities/engel-v-vitale/facts-and-case-summary-engel-v-vitale

This ruling became the target of conservative Christians in the latter Twentieth Century, as they faulted the government for “taking prayer out of the schools.” In this context Jimmy Carter came to office.

Carter practiced the personal faith that was central to Billy Graham’s ministry.  Graham affirmed the church as a community of believers, but what mattered most to him was the personal relationship between the believer and God. That distinction continued to grow after the fall of Richard Nixon, who had thrived under the spiritual endorsement of Graham.  Without making a public pronouncement Graham began to distance himself from the White House. That was too late for Jimmy Carter. Graham had already judged him for honoring the “prayer in the schools” ruling.

Carter’s personal faith naturally opposed governmental advocacy for a particular faith. “Personal” implied that all citizens could choose if, or how, they practiced religion without the influence of public funding or support. The church stayed on its side of the wall and government stayed on its side.

With the founding of the Moral Majority by Jerry Falwell in 1979 the language of evangelicalism began to step over the wall. On the issue of abortion Falwell and some conservative Christians began a four-decades-long campaign to flex political muscle and overturn Roe v. Wade. They supported those candidates who publicly avowed their opposition to Roe, making a religious argument a plank on political campaign platforms.

President Carter, himself, did not believe in abortion, but allowed for exceptions such as rape or incest. He also supported Roe vs. Wade as public policy, while it was in the crosshairs of conservative Evangelicals. The Moral Majority believed they could control the public narrative around religious issues by claiming the Christian foundations of America prior to the Constitution.  They claimed that Court rulings like Engel v. Vitale showed contempt for the roots of religious practice in America. They advocated for “Right to Life” for moral, historical and religious reasons.

Carter never gave quarter to policies that threatened the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. As he said in 2003,

When a group of Christians tr[ies] to implant through government our beliefs on others as superior, that subverts the basic constitutional prohibition concerning separation of church and state. And when we try to use the federal government to intercede in religious affairs, it inherently weakens the unique character of Christ’s kingdom. https://www.au.org/the-latest/press/jimmy-carter-death-church-state-cham

Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth ” ( Matthew 5:13). In his context salt was a preservative and “used for medicinal purposes,  to disinfect wounds, check bleeding, stimulate thirst, and treat skin diseases.”(Debie Thomas, Into the Mess and Other Jesus Stories: Reflections on the Life of Christ Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2022), 164, 165, 166.)

As Jesus could have said,”Salt at its best sustains and enriches life. It pours itself out with discretion so that God’s kingdom might be known on the earth—a kingdom of spice and zest, a kingdom of health and wholeness, a kingdom of varied depth, flavor, and complexity.” (D. Thomas).

As President, Jimmy Carter did not favor one spiritual diet over another.  Jimmy Carter was salt.

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The Getaway

Now that we are returning from our seven-day cruise, we should call our ship, the “Been-There-Away” because most of the incredible management of 4500 cruisers is done. The 1400-person crew has masterfully boarded and discharged at least 3500 of those passengers every day.

This is my second cruise, so I should not have been surprised, but the ebb and flow of passengers did not strike me before. On “The Getaway.” we filed two-by-two, like Noah’s original cruise ship, while every Id was checked into the massive data base of passengers and the same routine coming back on board, according to schedule. A slightly less rigorous routine with the thirteen-odd dining rooms at dinner every night. The logistics of mass movement is incredible.

Some highlights of the voyage:

  •  Lunch at Fort Consolation in Honduras, where a nineteenth century fort was re-purposed as a restaurant about half a mile from the pier.The gun-ports  and  the cannons had been preserved, so I could capture our ship down the barrel of one cannon. The pork belly and plantains captured the essence of old Honduras. More authentic and less attractive, the garbage strewn and fractured sidewalks of the path just a few yards from the tourist village.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Intimate Taste of Mexican Tacos,” with the full range of chicken, pork and seafood tacos right in the middle of the local market. Surprise! We  had a Tequila workshop at the end with five rounds of sampling and quart and pint bottles for sale. We bought a pint.
  • Guided tour of the Chacchoben Mayan ruins, viewing the majestic pyramid-temples, hearing about the amazing calendar-mastery of tenth -century scientists, climbing one modest pyramid with steps enough for the feeble, as well as the athletic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • “The Million Dollar Quartet,”  a musical reunion of Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and Gerry Lee-Lewis set in the 1950’s at Sun Records, based on the actual event. We had seen a similar performance at the Rep in St. Louis just before leaving, but these performers were so talented, the lighting so other-worldly, the music so varied that we attended two performance of the same production on ship.
  • “Broadway Unplugged,” adaptations of musicals “from Oklahoma to Hamilton,” in tempos and rhythms you’ve never heard before. Many performers were also stars of  “Million Dollar Quartet,” although their virtuosity in this performance was less than optimal.
  • Motown Revue by New Generation in the mid-ship Atrium on Thursday. The host and lead performer playfully entertained with numbers by Otis Redding, The Temptations, Smokey Robinson, and their contemporaries. Clapping, dancing, singing  gave expression to our collective soul.As with any cruise, the food was excellent, the service exemplary, the recreation satisfying. Probably overstepped my generational limits by taking the waterslide from the top. Ten seconds of gentle sliding bookending ten seconds of dark, terrifying spinning. Recovered the next day in the hot tub, with an hour of moderate boiling. Cannot over-emphasize the therapeutic effects of hot tubbing.

Lowlights include

  •  the hour-plus boarding of the same 4500 passengers.  Suggestion: Pay for the expedited boarding.
  • The  unlimited drink feature, which induces too much sour mouth and unnatural gas,  even hangover? There has got to be a compromise between paying individually for drinks and paying for all the drinks you can consume in seven days.  You have to buy an individual unlimited drink package, meaning you cannot buy someone else a drink at the same time you buy your own. For  two unlimited packages and shared alcoholism you can pay twice the price.
  • the conservation of wi-fi and the cost of multiple users.  You have no wi-fi in your cabin, unless you pay for it. Then you pay for each device you use, so you can’t use your phone and computer wi-fi together, and adding a second user requires more fees. The public wi-fi also has a trip-budgeted usage. I think this is a special cruel economy of Norwegian Cruise Lines. I don’t remember having such severe limitations on Princess.
  • the infirmary options: take a pain pill or see the doctor for $149.50 to get an over-the-counter antacid pill. Got mine from a pharmacy in Harvest Caye, Belize. Not ideal: the Directions for use in Spanish. I hoped I remembered the maximum dosage for Pepto-Bismol tablets.

At the Cafe Du Monde NO: Victoria, Sandra,Matt

I’ll give this cruise a three stars out of four, but some of the problems of all 2000+ capacity cruises — size and expense– are two stars out of  four. It’s all about the problems of expediting huge throngs of people. So what is amazing is also excruciating. It could be solved by going on high-priced, lower frustration cruises. You have to decide what you can afford. Did not have to go on a cruise to realize that.

L to R Sean, Spencer, and Jason

Victoria Witnessing the Illuminated Pyramid.

 

 

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Nawlins

The Big Easy has the charm of a nineteenth century JazzTown.  We heard Jazz in

in Preservation Hall, a 63-year-old venue that looks like somebody’s basement, but rings with local bands playing for jazz innocents and sophisticates alike. Their final number was a jazz Jingle Bells, which I recorded, but could not upload to this fussy website.

 

We went to Frenchmen’s Bay to hear local club acts, like this one at the Spotted Cat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We heard Jazz on the  street, like this one outside the Cafe Du Monde near the River.

 

Sign on Canal Street. Two things can be true at the same time, especially in Nawlins.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Victoria toasts with a Sazerac at the famous Icehouse in the French Quarter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A friendly alligator invites you to dine on Canal Street

 

 

Riding the St. Charles Streetcar

 

 

 

 

 

A high school jazzz band at the Riverwalk

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The Vine

I am the vine,  you are the branches. . . (John 15:1)

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%2015&version=ESV)

 

At first,

The vine seemed

A connection like the blood

In the arteries to the heart.

It flows because  it has nowhere else to  go.

The vine  flows both ways

Life from the branch and 

Life from the vine–

Our life to God

God’s life to us.

Love is what we have to give

And what God gives back to us.

Our living

Depends on God;

God’s life does not depend

It is.

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The Kingdom Coming

Does the grammar of the Lord’s Prayer matter? How do you say these words when you pray them?

“Your kingdom come; Your will be done

On earth as  in heaven.”

We usually say,

     Your kingdom come, (pause)

Your will be done, (pause)

because “come” and “d0ne” rhyme (technically half-rhyme),  we connect “kingdom come” with “will be done.”

Grammatically the phrase should connect “Your will be done”  with “on earth.”  “Your will be done on earth.”  We ask for the kingdom and the will of God to be “done on earth.”  (Sorry for the grammar lesson–former English teacher)

That’s the way we treat Christmas, as a rhyme, not a request or a hope. The kingdom does not come with a forced rhyme, but by receiving the kingdom of heaven that is already coming. .  The kingdom of heaven is coming, but it is not here and will not be here as long as we attempt to bring it in with frenzied activity.  We have to say the prayer “your will be done on earth” and  mean it.

We obstruct the kingdom with endless responsibilities and anxieties: Christmas shopping for the perfect gift,  preparing the most magnificent feast ever,  attending as many Christmas celebrations as possible, getting out the annual Christmas letter (my specialty), taking on the burden of peace in the Middle East. Rounding up the spirit of Christmas on time and in the right place.

It’s all in the Christmas spirit, but it’s taken to excess, because we gravitate to responsibility like lemmings swarming toward the cliff.  We believe the harder we work, the more likely the kingdom will come, whatever we consider the kingdom to be. We are hurrying toward the best, the utmost, the utterly rewarding and forgetting the kingdom is coming without human fanfare.

It’s no news to anyone who’s watched “It’s a Wonderful Life” or “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” yet we stumble into the same trap of excess every year; we run toward same treacherous cliff of responsibility. We believe we will bring the kingdom by our earnest insanity.

“Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” What if this prayer was answered without our intervention?

The irony of the Lord’s Prayer is that we are asking for God’s presence, but acting as if we were bringing it by our intensity.  We could  leave room for the coming kingdom, whatever that kingdom may be. It could be the innocent baby in the manger, the community of a stressed-out family, or peace in Syria. It comes because we make room for it, not because we try to handle more than humanly possible.

“Your will be done on earth, as in heaven.”  Let  us pray. And wait. The kingdom is coming.

 

 

 

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Wise Journalism

 

The pundits of print, broadcast and internet journalism could learn something from the famous Wise Men. Two thousand years ago, they journeyed from the east to learn about the birth of a peasant child in a remote colony of the Roman colony. They demonstrated reverence for “the other,” an eagerness to listen to the voices of alien prophets, and a wariness of political entanglement.  Today’s partisan voices of various public media neglect their curiosity, their persistence, their openness to revelation.

To introduce readers, or remind them, of the story of the Wise Men, here are some highlights of the story:

The Wise Men, or Magi, were presumably astrologers in the sense that they found prophecies in the stars. In search of a prophesied king, they traveled from “the East,” and so were not of the Hebrew tradition. Arriving in Palestine, they went to the provincial authority, Herod, to find out local news of the “king” to be born. They disturbed King Herod, who was not prepared to give up his throne to anyone. Herod received the interpretation of the prophesied king from the priests and “teachers of the law,” who revealed the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem of Judea. Before the Wise Men went in search of the infant king, the King instructed them to inform him of what they found. The familiar scene follows: the Wise Men find the prophesied baby and present their gifts in worship. Then they are warned in a dream not to return to bring news to Herod, so they “returned to their country by another route.” (Matthew 2: 1-12)

The Wise Men understood:

  1. Discovery of truth is a journey
  2. Voices of “the other” (believers, prophets, priests, etc.) should be respected
  3.  Quests may bring you to strange places
  4.  Politics is a dangerous distraction

The fallout of the 2024 election threatens to polarize our community for another four years, unless we advocate for the wisdom of truth and reconciliation, like the restorative justice courts at the end of apartheid in South Africa.  Dialog begins in a public forum, where timely issues are addressed, and healing strategies proposed. To mediate the language of outrage and diatribe, we need voices with faith, affirmation of hope, and advocacy for love. These voices could be called “Belief-Ed”—Editorials about Belief.

If you would like Belief-Ed to be part of the offerings of the Post-Dispatch, take action and write to the Editors (editors@post-dispatch.com). The more who speak out, the more likely we will be heard. A once-a-week column could convert the dire messages of threat and despair to hope and reconciliation.

This is not to disqualify the necessary partisan voices of the Op-Ed pages, which deserve their exposure. We should be grateful for their insight and honesty. Their voices provide intelligent dialogue for sorting out political truth from deception.

However, we need reconciling voices to offset conflict and anger, recognizing that truth is not always partisan and honesty is not always divisive.

St. Louis has more than enough spokespersons of faith, such as:

Rev. Gabrielle NS Kennedy, MBA, MDiv (she/her/hers), Pastor of St. Luke AME Church, Founder & Executive Director, Faith HEALS.

Rabbi Daniel Bogard,  member of a rabbinic team at Central Reform Congregation,  Senior Rabbinic Fellow of the Shalom Hartman Institute, adjunct faculty at Eden Theological Seminary

Dr. Matthew Kaemingk, Richard John Mouw Assistant Professor of Faith and Public Life at Fuller Theological Seminary and Co-creator of the podcast, Zealots at the Gates.

Dr. Deborah Krause, President, Eden Theological Seminary and Professor of New Testament

Rabbi Susan Talve and Carla Mae Streeter, OP, authors of Avoiding the Sin of Certitude: A Rabbi and a Theologian in Feminine Interfaith Conversations from Disputation to Dialog

 Other diverse voices of faith from the Inter-faith Partnership, https://interfaithstl.org/

Many more than I can mention here. Belief-Ed would speak to the differences among our faiths as well as our consensus.

Belief-Ed would help us feel less cynical about our future.  Why shouldn’t these voices receive attention in the Post-Dispatch and other media outlets with a wide audience? Where can secular citizens hear them? What about others who are isolated on denominational islands?

When I was a teen-ager, our local newspaper, The Long Island Press, had a maxim atop its editorial page: “Without a vision, the people perish” [Proverbs 29:18]. The Post-Dispatch could earn the distinction of offering a vision, if the Opinion editors reserved a place for faith and reconciliation among their editorial voices.

Advocate for Belief-Ed!

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Your Kingdom Come

My Theology

“Your kingdom come; Your will be done

On earth as  in heaven.”

(All Translations from the New Zealand Prayer Book).

The kingdom of God is coming, but  the kingdoms of earth are not subject to God. We would not pray for what we already have. We pray for God’s kingdom because that perfection exists only with  “God” or “Lord’ or “Mother/ Father.” Where is heaven ? I surely don’t know. But we are praying for its  coming. It is not already here.

C. S. Lewis, in his trilogy that begins with Out of the Silent Planet, imagines that Earth is a singular planet in the Solar System that is separated from God. Lewis would be the first to call the trilogy fiction, not theology, but his ideas are intriguing experiments in understanding a good Creation fallen and violence threatening to destroy it.

The idea of Earth being a singular “silent” planet develops from the imagined planet being disconnected from the rest of the planetary beings. It is “silent” (called “Thulcandra”) because God has been rejected in favor of a secular civilization.  The voice of Earth no longer communicates with the other planetary presiding spirits.

This is a crude theology that tries to account for a good Creation in the midst of conflict and violence, a concern that humanity is on a path to destroy itself. I am optimistic about the wonders of science, art, and nature, but not about the ruling powers that threaten to conscript them.  I think this would have been Lewis’ view of the predicament of Western civilization.

“Romanticism,” at least the Wordsworthian version, seems more optimistic of the perfectability of humankind.  The unspoiled world of Nature will rule over the spoiled civilization so that humankind’s  best impulses will eventually rule.  Romanticism is optimistic, at least in the present age. Romanticism does not believe we are a fallen world that God must rescue.

“Our Father in heaven

hallowed be your name.

The prayer is addressed to a male figure, but I assume that God is not gendered, because it would be a limitation of God’s identity. We worship  God when we say “hallowed.”

“Your kingdom come; Your will be done

On earth as  in heaven.”

The prayer expresses a hope, but not a confidence, that God will control our destiny.  The primary distinction comes from “on earth as in heaven.” We pray for the reign of God, but it is not yet fulfilled.

” Give us today our daily bread”

Some of us are not in need of tangible bread, but we recall that Jesus said “I am the Bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry”(John 6:35). That bread we all need.

“Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”

To me, this is the core of the Good News: we are forgiven our shortcomings, but that entails forgiving our neighbor. I don’t think of this as conditional. God forgives us regardless of what we do.  But receiving the “Bread of Life” could entail forgiving, because God forgives those who offend us.

“Save us from the time of trial and deliver us from evil.”

I find this line comforting. To me it says that God may spare us from attack, temptation,  bad judgment, and the consequences.  Most likely, God will allow what is necessary for our deliverance from evil, not immunity from necessary trials.

“For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours,

now and forever.”

The conclusion tells me that power and glory belong to God, and that is how God plans to finish the story of earth. The kingdom is coming.

I find this prayer more dependent and responsive to the choices of humans, than the ideals of Romanticism.  Both Romanticism and Christianity celebrate the freedom of humans to act responsibly, but only Christianity connects that freedom to the consequences of human failure.  Christians rely on their hope for the kingdom of God and their actions in the quest of the kingdom . Forgiveness is  necessary for this kingdom to come–both God’s and God’s creatures. But come it will.

We stand halfway between the kingdom coming and the kingdom come. We believe that God will assume “the power and the glory forever.”

This tension between the kingdom and the kingdom coming defines Christianity’s expectations and its distinction from Romanticism.

 

 

 

by

Romanticism and Christianity: A Divergence

And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.
William Wordsworth, “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798”
Is  Christianity a Romantic faith?

Christianity believes in a fallen world, where God’s kingdom is still coming.

Romanticism believes in an ideal world, however threatened by man’s industry.

Christianity believes in the incarnation of God in man.

Romanticism believes in the incarnation of God in nature.

Christianity identifies the Holy Spirit as the source of spiritual truth.

Romanticism believes in the imagination as the source of  spiritual truth.

Perhaps these are over-generalizations. Christianity and Romanticism resist definitions, but they are surely not the same. That is why I am alarmed for John Philip Newell when he “gave my ordination back” for a better setting to experience “the presence of the divine in all things.” He paraphrased his journey as leaving the “temple” for the “wilderness.”

To me, that sounds like the move from Christianity to Romanticism.  Perhaps Newell would not describe it that way.

Newell described his spiritual journey on December 4 on a Zoom interview on  “The Cottage,” Diana Bass Butler’s Substack platform.  His talk was based on his new book: The Great Search: Turning to Earth and Soul in the Quest for Healing and Home (HarperOne, 2024).

Wordsworth’s rendition of the Romantic ethos sounds like the life Newell has chosen for himself.

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.

These lines, especially the  final three lines, remind me of  J. Philip Newell.  That is not so much heretical as it is divergent from the path of  a priest of Christianity.  In spite of all this:

  1. I agree with Newell’s assertion that we should love God and every species as yourself.
  2. I agree with his mentor and “geologician” Thomas Berry, when he says “God has been domesticated to serve us.”
  3. I am an admirer of Newell. I have lived on his devotional books, Celtic Treasures and Celtic Prayers from Iona.
  4. However, my reverence for nature has been limited to the birds and the deer in our backyard.
  5. Besides, I haven’t read his book.

With all these disqualifications, my comments could be taken with a grain of salt. I will make them anyway. How does Newell’s journey differ from the Romantic poet who worshipped nature without reference to God? How does his worship of God in the Creation account for the incarnation of God in the community of human beings? How does his quest serve the needs of the hungry,  the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick in Matthew 25? Possibly this question is answered in his book. Mea culpa.

The withdrawal into the wilderness suggests the path of John the Baptist.  He managed to attract the curious and baptized many of them. Is this what Newell plans to do? I do not hear that in his discovering  “the mystique of earth.”

Jesus admired John, but he chose a life in the throng of needy people. “The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life for a ransom for many”(Mark 10:45). St. Francis  retreated to the wilderness, but with a vow of poverty and dedication to the needs of the poor.  The wilderness is never an end in itself in the Christian life.

On Day Three in the “Power and Justice” chapter of Celtic Treasure  J. Philip  Newell offers this prayer:

Lover of the poor,

defender of the needy,

sanctuary of the rejected. . .

We seek for them, O God, the gifts that are dear to us:

food for the table,.

drink for the soul,

shelter in the night,

and open arms to welcome us. ( p. 23)

This sounds like the former J. Philip Newell, the one who stood at the door to the temple, the one who invited every needy person to the feast.

May his temple of the wilderness continue to serve this “sanctuary of the rejected.”