SATAN!

I'm reading a biography of Satan. Someone actually had the chutzpah to write about this diabolical character. Kudos to Henry Ansgar Kelly, the author. Kelly's purpose is to paint a more Biblical picture of Satan because current understandings of Satan are incorrectly based more on tradition and medieval mythology than on Scripture.

According to Kelly, it seems as if Satan has a kind of rehabilitative purpose in Scripture. I'm intrigued by this because, in Lutheran theology, that's one of the functions of the Law. It acts as a mirror to “show us our sin”. The Law accuses. The word “Satan” means “accuser”. It could safely be said, then, that the Law of God had a sort of “satanic” function.

So, I'm trying to figure out if Satan was working harmoniously with God or if he/she/it was God's unwitting stooge for comic relief. Either way, Satan was necessary.

I love thinking about this because the image of Satan as the being who tempts people to do bad things and causes all sorts of havoc around the world has got to go, along with the red suit, horns, goatee, and pitchfork.

Next?

GO WINGS!!

Further Thoughts on Virginia Tech

In the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre, Christians are coming out of the woodwork to be defense attorneys for God.

I think people are asking "Where was God?" because of the need to blame someone for this horrific atrocity. It's the ultimate theodicy question. Cho Seung-Hui is dead, so we can't attack him. Dead men tell no tales and can't be executed. I suppose we can spit on his grave and feel better. But someone must be held responsible for this, so why not God? After all, isn't God supposed to be some sort of Celestial Texas Ranger? So why didn't God show up and throw himself in front of the bullets like a Secret Service agent does for the president, or at least redirect the bullets? Or why didn't God decomission the guns? Or why didn't God foil the plot somehow, or give Cho a fatal heart attack? If God is almighty, as claimed, then why didn't God intervene somehow?

To wit, and to be perfectly honest, the answers given to these questions by the bulk of God's defense attorneys have been absolutely sappy and banal. And not helpful at all!

First, blame is diverted away from God and onto Satan, the Celestial Scapegoat. It's the Christian's favorite fall guy. But this just perpetuates the blame game. Second, reassurance is given that God will protect us. I don't even have to tell you how stupid that is. Third, attention is then place on Jesus, who died on the cross and rose again to show how much God loves us and is with us and can bring comfort to frightened hearts. Mission accomplished (ala George Bush)! God has been successfully defended! God is the good guy; Satan and the fertile soil of Cho's heart are the bad guys!

There's another way of looking at this whole episode and its aftermath.

Did you read or listen to the things that Cho said about other people, and then realize that he was guilty of the very things he accused others of doing? He had absolutely no idea that he was looking into a mirror. As Anais Nin once said, "We don't see things as they are. We see things as we are." The repression that he thought he was experiencing from without was actually coming from within. His external circumstances merely exposed what was going on in his own mind and heart. Things were as they were until he put his own interpretation on it. I wish someone would have gotten to him years ago to tell him this.

When we reflect on what happened at Virginia Tech on Monday, each of us will see something different. If we experience horror at the incident, please understand that the horror is coming from within. If you see the look of a madman in the eyes of Cho, he is exposing the madman in you. You are what you see. Once we place blame at the feet of anyone, we have been exposed.

What do we do? I would like to make some suggestions. First, we must rid ourselves of the image of God the Celestial Texas Ranger. God is not obligated to protect anybody. And besides, that's not what God is about anyway. God is a Revealer, not a Ranger. Second, we must realize that our hearts have been exposed, not for the purpose of assigning blame, but for the purpose of sheer honesty. What has this whole incident revealed about you? Answer that question honestly and gently. "O, happy the soul that saw its own faults," wrote 13th century Sufi poet Mevlana Rumi. Third, may this serve as a time of deep self-reflection and prayer, asking our God to create our hearts anew-- hearts that are cleansed and spirits that are renewed by the Spirit of Christ Jesus. Ask God to reveal God's love for you in Christ that it may pour out from you to others. Fourth, pray for the families of the victims. Pray for the wounded. Pray for the frightened and the terrorized. And pray for Cho's family-- they're going to experience a lot of crap from people who refused to look in the mirror.

God is a Composer, not a cop. Through Christ's death and resurrection, God has composed the Score. We die to self, we rise to God through God's forgiveness demonstrated in Christ, we rejoice that God is all in all, around us, in us, and between us!! That's the Score, the Script. It's God's plan of peace, and it's the only plan that actually works.

I'm just waiting for some 7oo Club automaton to blame the whole thing on campus homosexuals.

Why I Believe In God

I believe in God because God's story is more interesting and fascinating than anyone else's!

Yom Hashoah and Virginia Tech

We live in a violent world. That goes without saying, but occasionally we get very shocking reminders of this fact. I can't even begin to understand the shock and the horror occurring right now on the campus of Virginia Tech. They have understandably cancelled classes for the rest of the week.

Coincidentally, today is Yom Hashoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day. The Jewish people have had to deal with violence and hatred throughout their history as a people. The atrocities committed against them by Nazi Germany will be etched on the minds and hearts of Jews worldwide forever. I can't even begin to understand the grief and the sadness of this day.

These two events drive me to silence. As I reflect on these unfortunate events, I am sadly reminded of the violence that is contained in my own heart. "Whoever hates his brother is a murderer," I am told by the apostle James. Many times in my life I've harbored hatred and ill will toward others, and what is contained in the heart is manifested in outward action, which could be expressed in different forms.

The perpetrator of yesterday's shootings manifested what was in his own heart using firearms. Nazi Germany manifested what was in its heart through concentration camps, gas chambers, and mass graves. I manifest what is in my own heart by carrying grudges, ignoring people in need, sarcasm, and indifference. How does it happen with you?

The manifestations are different. The source is always the same. Perhaps one of the best ways of dealing with the violence in our world is to seek healing for the violence within ourselves. As Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh once said (and I'm paraphrasing), we can send all of our munitions to the Moon but it wouldn't make any difference because we would just make more. The problem is the human heart that finds it necessary to produce and use weaponry against fellow humans.

Paradox and Tension

Many Christians, especially of the Lutheran stripe, live in a paradox of “now and not yet”. We believe we are saved now, but that salvation has not yet come into its fullness. The spiritual tension that is brought by this paradoxical thinking will only be relieved in the unforeseeable future by either physical death or the visible return of Christ.This tension is very evident in the New Testament. Salvation was an ever-present but future reality. The first Christians carried that paradox very well and did not seek to resolve it. I've often asked myself why that was. What was it that compelled the first Christians to live in this paradox of “now, not yet”? They admitted that they were groaning under such conditions, but they “sucked it up”, as it were. Why were they successful at doing this and many of us Christians today seem to not want to live with that tension.

Here's my guess: The first Christians saw their tension as only temporary, and it will all be resolved within their lifetime. It's very obvious that the New Testament authors felt that they were living in the time of the end, and that “the end” was coming “soon”, that is, within their own generation. It's very apparent that they were waiting for something to happen, and this something they called “the end”. It's easier to live in a “now, not yet” tension if you are confident that “the end” is coming “soon” and “very soon”. If I had a headache today and was very confident that it was going to be gone by tomorrow morning, I can live with that. I'll put up with a headache today and look forward to being pain-free tomorrow. But if I was told that my headache was going to last for an indefinite amount of time unless I popped a couple of Tylenol, then I would start poppin'!

I think we've misunderstood the nature of “the end”. We're waiting for a cataclysmic destruction of the earth and the entire universe and a great big Jesus appearing in the sky surfing on a cloud. But I'm not so sure anymore that this is what is meant when the Bible talks about “the end”. Interestingly, the Bible never talks about the end of the world. It talks about “the end of the age”. Which age? The present age of the New Testament authors, which would then take us back to the first century. Something big was going to happen that marked the end of that age, that generation. I believe that “something big” was the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple by the Romans, which happened in the year 70. Jesus talked about it. The Apostles pondered it and even looked forward to it. It would be the resolution of the “now, not yet” paradox and its resultant tensions.

Today, our theology says that we must also carry this tension and live in this paradox. But if this tension is of unknown duration for the many generations since the first century, then this tension is no longer healthy. In fact, it's no longer tension. It's bipolar, and it results in hearts that are very sick indeed. People want and need relief from this bipolarity that they suffer as a result of being told to carry the tension that we in our day were never meant to carry. What if we Christians started to proclaim that “the end of the age” had already occured, that the book of Revelation (with its visions of monstrous chaos) is fulfilled in its entirety, and that God is not going to destroy this beautiful and marvelous universe we inhabit?

In the Beginning

In the beginning… (Genesis 1:1)
In the beginning… (John 1:1)
That which was from the beginning… (1 John 1:1)

The refrain of in the beginning intrigues me. It's as if there's a story here to be told.

Almost all agree that Genesis is an account of creation. It reflects a very ancient Hebrew cosmology and can be read as polemic against the cosmologies of other ancient peoples, in particular, those of the Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Mesopotamians. Genesis 1 seems to be very liturgical in tone, with oft-repeated phrases that would make it easy to memorize. God speaks from a distance, calling non-existent things into existence as if they already were existing.

Why did the author(s) of Genesis feel the need to challenge the beliefs of surrounding peoples, even if by implication? According to Genesis, the sun, moon, and stars are for the purpose of telling time and giving light to the earth. Implied is the belief that the luminaries are not deities to be worshiped, as was done throughout the Ancient Near East, especially in Assyria. Why do this?

Simply, it was designed to tell their own stories of who they are, who God is, and how they will interact with everything else. It's as if the Israelites were saying to all others, “Look, there's a new kid in town! Our God has formed us into a nation that embodies the truth about God through a covenant God made with us at Sinai. We are the image-bearer of God, thereby exemplifying true humanity. And we have come into your midst, into the land that our God promised to give to our forefathers in order to bring the light of God into the darkness that you have created.” Thus, it was the story of themselves using cosmic imagery.

St. John picks up on this in the beginning language to do the same thing, this time to proclaim Jesus as the true human image-bearer who has pitched his tent in our midst to bring the light of God into the darkness that we've created. It was to tell the story of Christ and his followers, the new creation of the new nation of the New Israel living under a New Covenant that was sealed with the body and blood of Jesus. It was the story of the greatest “do over” in history!

More at another time!

Creation

Since my being driven to Bible literacy a few years ago I've had the impulse to read the Genesis creation narratives anew. It's always good to see things with a fresh set goggles, but then I begin to worry that I'm going to launch out into territory in which I don't belong. I've made many shifts in thinking recently which I'm not completely comfortable with due to reactions I may receive from others who aren't ready to embrace what I've discovered. I'm not the type of person who likes to upset the applecart. I feel guilty when I do, and it would be all too easy to put all the apples back in the cart and forget the whole thing.

The church body in which I'm a member holds to a literal six-day creation as it is portrayed in Genesis 1. We believe in creation by divine fiat and creatio ex nihilo (creation out of nothing). In short, God commands something of tangible constituency to come into existence and it does! God said, “Let there be light!”, and there was light, particles and waves. The zenith occured when man and woman were created in the image of God. Of course, we have scientists and theologians from all of the disciplines who can demonstrate that all of this creating took place in a literal six-day period.

Some Christians believe that Genesis 1 describes a evolutionary process that endured for about 15 billion years, each “day” constituting an epoch of millions, or even billions, of years. Of course, these Christians also have scientists and theologians who can intelligently articulate this view, but then are met with disdain by the six-day folks, who will launch an effort to discredit the evolutionary view as “junk science”. Then the fighting begins, with each side strutting and posturing a supposed scientific superiority over the other side.

And then a guy like me comes along….

I'm of the mind that Genesis is not describing the creation of the physical universe, but is instead explaining the creation and origins of the nation of Israel using cosmic imagery. I don't have time to expand on this today. Suffice to say that it doesn't really matter to me how our universe and planet came into existence. I know that it's here with all of its marvel and magnificence, and that's good enough for me. I love looking at images from the Hubble telescope! What I'm more interested in is how God interacts with humanity and calls them to an awareness of being bearers of Spirit. And I believe it to be very significant when Pontius Pilate said of Jesus, “Ecce homo.” I'll elaborate on all of this some other time.

So What?

A guy two thousand years ago rose from the dead. So what? What good does that do me today?

You are raised (resurrected) with this man, who incidently, has the name Jesus! Now love others as you have been loved by God. Tell other people that they have been raised with Jesus as well. Then tell them to tell others. Stop trying to get everyone's doctrine straight. Embrace with all of your heart the life that you've been given!

Ashes to Ashes to the Olfactory Appendage

File this under "Duh!"-- There is something seriously wrong with Rolling Stone mediocre guitarist Keith Richards.

He snorted his deceased father's ashes like cocaine. He said he couldn't help himself.

Okay.

Now, I'm a really tolerant kind of guy. I really am! There aren't a whole lot of things in life that exceedingly disturb me. But I'm sorry folks. I have to draw the line somewhere. Snorting cremains has to be one of the creepiest things I've ever heard of. It's right up there with cannibalism.

There is one bright side, however-- at least he admits to inhaling.

I'm beginning to believe in an impending Apocalypse again!

Who's Going to Eat Chocolate Jesus?

Chocolate Jesus?! Yummmmmm!

My priorities must be all screwed up because people are arguing left-and-right about the appropriateness of the recently unveiled chocolate sculpture of Jesus, and I'm just wondering who's going to eat it! Have I no sense of decency??? Apparently not. I just love chocolate. I really don't care what it looks like!

So now we have another bugaboo on our hands just in time for Easter! One conservative commentator recently wrote that the liberal bias of the visual media has been exposed once again. How? Well, the networks refused to show those cartoons that placed Muhammad in a bad light out of respect for Muslims. But they had no problems showing Chocolate Jesus. Ergo, the media apparently has no respect for Christians.

I, for one, don't expect the media to respect Christians because to me it's insane to expect the media to respect anything. Sometimes they do, but I guess I don't need to have a talking head give credence to my faith when it appears to be under attack or parodied. It's like the whole "War on Christmas" controversy. The only people who really believe that there's a war being fought are those who are afflicted by a Don Quixote complex.

Honestly, the sculpture didn't bother me, and I don't feel slighted in the least. I can understand why some Christians would feel dissed. The media has trained them very well. What appears to be an attack on Jesus is really an attack on them. And they're right! Christians, conservative and liberal, have demonstrably been some the most boorish and rigid people in this country, and it's being dished back to them. In my way of thinking, if a chocolate sculpture of Jesus raises your ire, your problems are deeper than just media bias.

Expecting to be respected by anyone, including the media, is just plain nuts. After the barbs and bombs have been tossed from entrenchment to entrenchment, what will remain are bruised and bloodied people who fought an ideological war, a media that laughs and moves on to the next sensational story that will successfully expose the deep and wide barriers that we silly humans have constructed, and a Chocolate Jesus.

What should we do then? Be an agent of peace, ignore the ire-raising antics of the media, and eat some chocolate. Happy Easter!