Whenever trying to understand a text, one first needs to define terms, figure what kind of genre the text is, etc. So many bad errors--often with horrible results--have come about through sincere individuals and groups misunderstanding and misapplying writings from the past. I've already given the horrendous examples of people of faith justifying war in previous blogs so I will skip that.
One of the more sad personal examples is the case of Origen, a great thinker, writer, and interpreter who literally mistook Jesus' hyperbole and mutilated himself. Even more tragic are the parents who try and follow the Bible literally. Several years ago one mother in the United States thought she should follow Abraham--have enough faith to let her baby die from a serious illness, but then God would raise her little one to life.
This terrible evil has happened many times repeatedly. Yet in a counter text of the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament), one prophet adamantly stated that human sacrifice NEVER was God's will. Scripture is a library of contrary views--not a legal guidebook.
Who knows why, but so many Christian leaders latch on to the worst verses in the Bible, and ignore the overreaching ethical truths. For instance, I was told by our Christian youth leader that God will call us Christians to sometimes commit immoral acts!
What was his basis for this horrendous advice? He said that God had told Hosea to marry a prostitute. In the first place, this leader had misunderstood the book of Hosea in my opinion. Hosea wasn't being called to do anything immoral. In the second, this action of Hosea wasn't some kind of all time moral pronouncement that all followers of God should know God will call them to do what is evil. On the contrary, Hosea married a prostitute to help her and to bring about good.
The first step we need to learn about ancient Middle Eastern thought is that it wasn't primarily logical or rational, but image-based and often given to exaggeration to emphasize a particular point, not usually to make a legal universal standard. To a certain extent this is still true today. Read many Middle Eastern newspapers or websites and you will be astonished by the extreme exaggeration, even heavy diatribe.
Various biblical scholars from William Barclay to James Kallas have pointed to the paradoxical nature of much of biblical literature. Furthermore, the Bible seldom gets philosophical and almost never dwells on the empirical in the Greek or modern scientific sense.
Also, keep in mind that even in the modern West, we often use exaggeration for effect, sometimes very superficially. Many times I've heard individuals say "I'm starving," yet they have eaten not more than 4 or 5 hours previously, and have never been without plenty of food.
When Jesus, in the space of two verses, seems to contradict himself, saying both to fear not and fear greatly, he isn't thinking or talking like a philosopher, but as a prophet, in strong poetic language not legal prose. You won't understand Jesus' way if you are looking for a logical system or a legal code.
Jesus focuses on vivid, even stark, images and extreme hyperbole. Remember at one point he gives a parable where he compares himself to a sneaky thief; in another parable he says disciples should act like an embezzler! What?!
He even compares God to a ruthless unfair judge!! The point had nothing to do with God's true essence. The odd analogy's meaning is that if even a bad judge will help us if we keep pestering him, then surely the God of the whole universe (who is essentially good, true, and just) will help us.
In another story, Jesus talks of God as our loving father, yet speaks of God throwing people into the burning garbage dump of Gehenna. What father would do such an act? NO normal father would ever do that. Only abusive ones. (At first I was going to supply the verses for these comments to verify what I am saying, but then realized that would miss the whole point. I am not trying to proof-text a few verses in the New Testament, but rather to show that we need to approach poetic literature such as the Bible very differently from how modern fundamentalists and skeptics do.)
For instance, consider the "hate" passage. In Luke, Jesus said we must "hate" our parents, our wives, our children, our selves, etc.! But we must read this in context. In the first place, this isn't a call for hatred in the modern sense of active hostility. It's an extreme case of hyperbole. In comparison to our dedication to Ultimate Truth, the Absolute Good--we need to love our loved ones less.
We can see this is so by cross-referencing the same passage in Matthew where the words of Jesus aren't of "hate" but rather "he who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me." Either Jesus varied his message or the writer of the Matthew thought he needed to soften the force of the hyperbole because people might misunderstand, as indeed they have and still do.
Some people ask, why didn't Jesus speak in legal code or philosophical moderation? I've even wished at times Jesus would be more reasonable. But Jesus seeks to get behind legality, respectability, the intellect, and even our moderate civility, to our inner self.
He doesn't want "nice" people--such humans often judge, expel, even kill those different from themselves. What God wants are individuals who are committed unconditionally to Truth, Goodness, and Love, ones who reach out to rescue the lost, the despised, the poor, the bad, even the evil people.
For another extreme example consider Jesus's most extreme words. He said if we wanted to be his disciple we need to be electrocuted in our electric chair/asphyxiated in our gas chamber! We need to be hanged. Well, in his case he was referring to a much worse form of execution that included long torture before dying--the Roman method of crucifixion reserved for only the worst sorts of individuals.
Why would Jesus use such extreme words--to some a very revolting and repulsive statement? Well, there's another long blogpost to write in the future:-) Right now, I am only trying to deal with only three words--fear, hate, and Hell.
And, I've only given the background so far.
Also, check out the comment by Ken Schroeder in the responses. He explains all of this from a somewhat different angle but is very clear.
To be continued
In the Light of God,
Daniel Wilcox
Friday, September 18, 2009
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Encountering Jesus Part 2
Jesus said, But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. Luke 12:5
What? Sounds like a horrible contradiction to Jesus' emphasis on love in Luke 12: 6-7, does it not?
And what about 1 John 4:18? There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
And 1 John repeatedly claims, God is love. Yet is God also fear? And doesn't all of this sound like so much double-talk?
Should we teach our children to react to God like many religious children of the past and the present, who grovel in fear and anxiety so very afraid they might not be of the few predestined to salvation or that God loves to cast millions of them into Hell?
As a young adult trying to understand the Bible, even after college, I tended to see verses propositionally and logically--the fading shadow of my fundamentalist upbringing. So I was baffled and had no answer for skeptics. Whenever Scripture made extreme statements, especially ones which seemed contradictory, I got confused and lost my way.
Check out Luke 14: 26 If anyone comes to me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.
Now there's a winner. Probably won't gets points from Focus on the Family. And it's an isolated verse atheists love to heave at people of faith, like a biblical Molotov cocktail.
So now we have Jesus demanding we fear God, fear Hell and then Jesus also orders us to hate our family!
I don't claim there are any easy answers to such difficult verses--and there are many pages of them in the Bible. However, I do think we grow when we sincerely struggle spiritually.
What I don't want to do is to twist the verses into easy answers. It used to frustrate me to no end when reading commentators and they would try and get around (or eliminate) difficult minefields like this. Dietrich Bonhoeffer (the famous German theologian hanged by the Nazis) gave a brilliant satire on this habit of humans in his book, The Cost of Discipleship. He made fun of those who turn Scripture into the opposite of its plain meaning:
Where Jesus says to give up all you have to become his disciple, Bonhoeffer has the modern Christian say, what Jesus really means is to keep all you have and get more.
I have learned much over the years about what Jesus means in Luke 12, but before I share my understanding this time, I thought, first, I would throw out the spiritual grenade;-) to you other bloggers and see what your take is on these vitally important verses.
In the Light of God,
Daniel Wilcox
What? Sounds like a horrible contradiction to Jesus' emphasis on love in Luke 12: 6-7, does it not?
And what about 1 John 4:18? There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
And 1 John repeatedly claims, God is love. Yet is God also fear? And doesn't all of this sound like so much double-talk?
Should we teach our children to react to God like many religious children of the past and the present, who grovel in fear and anxiety so very afraid they might not be of the few predestined to salvation or that God loves to cast millions of them into Hell?
As a young adult trying to understand the Bible, even after college, I tended to see verses propositionally and logically--the fading shadow of my fundamentalist upbringing. So I was baffled and had no answer for skeptics. Whenever Scripture made extreme statements, especially ones which seemed contradictory, I got confused and lost my way.
Check out Luke 14: 26 If anyone comes to me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.
Now there's a winner. Probably won't gets points from Focus on the Family. And it's an isolated verse atheists love to heave at people of faith, like a biblical Molotov cocktail.
So now we have Jesus demanding we fear God, fear Hell and then Jesus also orders us to hate our family!
I don't claim there are any easy answers to such difficult verses--and there are many pages of them in the Bible. However, I do think we grow when we sincerely struggle spiritually.
What I don't want to do is to twist the verses into easy answers. It used to frustrate me to no end when reading commentators and they would try and get around (or eliminate) difficult minefields like this. Dietrich Bonhoeffer (the famous German theologian hanged by the Nazis) gave a brilliant satire on this habit of humans in his book, The Cost of Discipleship. He made fun of those who turn Scripture into the opposite of its plain meaning:
Where Jesus says to give up all you have to become his disciple, Bonhoeffer has the modern Christian say, what Jesus really means is to keep all you have and get more.
I have learned much over the years about what Jesus means in Luke 12, but before I share my understanding this time, I thought, first, I would throw out the spiritual grenade;-) to you other bloggers and see what your take is on these vitally important verses.
In the Light of God,
Daniel Wilcox
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Encountering Jesus Part #1
Jesus said, Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God..Don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. NIV Luke 12:6-7
These loving words mean so much--that God cares even for the sparrows and so very much for all humans, every single unique individual who has ever lived.
Indeed this may be the central reason to be a theist--to have deep hope for all people we meet now, and hope for all the millions lost in wrong harmful ways in this life. And hope especially for all past humans who so terribly suffered and died in the Holocaust, the genocides of Rwanda and Cambodia and Turkey, the pestilences of the Black Plague, malaria, tuberculosis, AIDS and cancer; the tragic loss of life in the tsunami in Indonesia, and endless death from other forms of havoc and evil in the past, and the multi-millions who suffer abuse and die so young in childhood...
NONE OF THEM HAVE DIED FOR NOTHING if somehow all will be made good.
There is not the despair as in a nontheistic cosmos where ruthless determinism or chance rules.
No!
We have God's Yes--Faith, hope, and love are eternal:-)
For those millions of humans and all others, and even countless lesser creatures--they all are loved by God and cared for living within God, and as the NT says, and many people of faith have trusted, God will bring all into the loving realm of total goodness and blessedness in the end.
That, dear Friends, is the Good News, the Glad Tidings, the Ocean of Light--God IS and loves us deeply and endlessly:-)
Nothing can separate us from the love of God.
The Love of God
by Frederick M. Lehman and
Meir Ben Isaac (from his Jewish
poem Hadamut written in Aramic
in 1050 A.D.)
The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches to the lowest hell;
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled,
And pardoned from his sin.
Refrain
O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints’ and angels’ song.
When years of time shall pass away,
And earthly thrones and kingdoms fall,
When men, who here refuse to pray,
On rocks and hills and mountains call,
God’s love so sure, shall still endure,
All measureless and strong;
Redeeming grace to Adam’s race—
The saints’ and angels’ song.
Refrain
Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.
Refrain
Next in part 2 we will look at the rest of the Luke passage.
In the Light of God,
Daniel Wilcox
These loving words mean so much--that God cares even for the sparrows and so very much for all humans, every single unique individual who has ever lived.
Indeed this may be the central reason to be a theist--to have deep hope for all people we meet now, and hope for all the millions lost in wrong harmful ways in this life. And hope especially for all past humans who so terribly suffered and died in the Holocaust, the genocides of Rwanda and Cambodia and Turkey, the pestilences of the Black Plague, malaria, tuberculosis, AIDS and cancer; the tragic loss of life in the tsunami in Indonesia, and endless death from other forms of havoc and evil in the past, and the multi-millions who suffer abuse and die so young in childhood...
NONE OF THEM HAVE DIED FOR NOTHING if somehow all will be made good.
There is not the despair as in a nontheistic cosmos where ruthless determinism or chance rules.
No!
We have God's Yes--Faith, hope, and love are eternal:-)
For those millions of humans and all others, and even countless lesser creatures--they all are loved by God and cared for living within God, and as the NT says, and many people of faith have trusted, God will bring all into the loving realm of total goodness and blessedness in the end.
That, dear Friends, is the Good News, the Glad Tidings, the Ocean of Light--God IS and loves us deeply and endlessly:-)
Nothing can separate us from the love of God.
The Love of God
by Frederick M. Lehman and
Meir Ben Isaac (from his Jewish
poem Hadamut written in Aramic
in 1050 A.D.)
The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches to the lowest hell;
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled,
And pardoned from his sin.
Refrain
O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints’ and angels’ song.
When years of time shall pass away,
And earthly thrones and kingdoms fall,
When men, who here refuse to pray,
On rocks and hills and mountains call,
God’s love so sure, shall still endure,
All measureless and strong;
Redeeming grace to Adam’s race—
The saints’ and angels’ song.
Refrain
Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.
Refrain
Next in part 2 we will look at the rest of the Luke passage.
In the Light of God,
Daniel Wilcox
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
10 Acts from the N.T. in Modern Language
1. Love "I Am/I Will Be"--the Personal Ultimately Real, the Eternal Good, Truth, and Loving with all of your self, all of your heart, all of your mind, and all of your strength.
2. Don't make any finite thing, idea, goal, or person the center of your life. Your focus is to be the unseen Center, the Eternal 'behind' all that is visible and temporary.
3. Be sacred in your words and thoughts. don't ridicule what is true or ultimate.
4. Take at least one evening and day a week for worship, reflection, and re-creation. This time is to help and revitalize, not to limit or to legalize.
5. Honor and help others, especially your own aging parents.
6. Love all, including your enemies as yourself. Don't violate others in thought, word, or deed, certainly don't kill anyone.
7. Be faithful and loyal to one other person for life, in an ultimate sense through intellectual, emotional, and physical union. Sexual fidelity and purity are very important.
8. Share your things with those in need. Don't take what doesn't belong to you.
9. Speak the truth always in love, in compassion and mercy. Be honest and forthright.
10.Simplify; be content with what is good and necessary. Don't long for what others have.
In the Light,
Daniel Wilcox
2. Don't make any finite thing, idea, goal, or person the center of your life. Your focus is to be the unseen Center, the Eternal 'behind' all that is visible and temporary.
3. Be sacred in your words and thoughts. don't ridicule what is true or ultimate.
4. Take at least one evening and day a week for worship, reflection, and re-creation. This time is to help and revitalize, not to limit or to legalize.
5. Honor and help others, especially your own aging parents.
6. Love all, including your enemies as yourself. Don't violate others in thought, word, or deed, certainly don't kill anyone.
7. Be faithful and loyal to one other person for life, in an ultimate sense through intellectual, emotional, and physical union. Sexual fidelity and purity are very important.
8. Share your things with those in need. Don't take what doesn't belong to you.
9. Speak the truth always in love, in compassion and mercy. Be honest and forthright.
10.Simplify; be content with what is good and necessary. Don't long for what others have.
In the Light,
Daniel Wilcox
Sunday, August 16, 2009
The Ocean of Light
Mathieu sat looking dumbfounded as the red liquid seeped out on the wood of the cafe table.
In Jean-Paul Sartre's classic novel Age of Reason, the main character Mathieu suddenly comes to a shocking nadir of awareness--his own "age of reason"-- realizing how much of what he has thought, perceived, and done that is all so delusionary (as will most humans shortly because it is 1938 and only months before the Nazis launch humankind's own nadir, one of absurd unreason).
So suddenly, Mathieu, shocked with this personal awareness of the existential, stabs a knife through the palm of his hand daggering it to the scarred wood of the cafe table in Paris. And looks confounded as his blood seeps out while his friends look on bewildered.
I've encountered my own nadirs, and that's how I've felt, metaphorically, like a knife jabbed through me.
Would you like me to get melodramatic;-)?
Despite his pierced hand, Mathieu is no christ (he's getting his mistress to have an abortion).
And neither am I like Christ...though I seek to be, though I yearn to be.
I've been reflecting back through my recent posts of the last few months--times of deep spiritual crisis where I've lost my spiritual home, discovered I've been living in religious illusion. And now realize anew, I spend way too much time ruminating on and grieving over the "no" and "the ocean of darkness," and not nearly enough time on the "Yes" and "the Infinite Ocean of Light."
So here's a few of my Lightful lines:
Perception in Late Night
I work the graveyard shift in ‘67
Stock shelves of Marlboro ‘Country’
For California slickers, tubes of
Ultra Brite ‘sex appeal’
Brushed by grim oldsters,
And Olympia, ‘it’s the water’
For partying young adults;
I close the flashy cooler,
Pick up the empty card boxes,
Crumple and dump them in the trash bin;
Across the street a Texaco filling station
Slogans forth still, “Trust you car to the man
Who wears the star,’ but its ‘vacant for lease’ sign
Came from the only auto to ford
Those shallow words.
I lean on a metal stool behind
The counter, no customers; its past
The midnight hour; so I
Close my tired eyes,
Rub my warm forehead,
The feel of bone so arched like a vault,
My skull under skin
Almost Neanderthal,
And my sense of self in that inner cave
Of stored ads, memories and procedures;
What will be left in the finite end?
Suddenly like a lighted tidal wave
Overwhelming self and night,
Wide a w a r e n e s s
Oceans deep--
Awash in God.
______________________
The Mythic Mask
The vast kaleidoscoped cosmos
On black velvet background
Galactic star swirls,
One great masked Chagall
Above us in infinite light years,
Visioning vivid rose and royal blue,
We cover the earth,
Weeping colors of bowed rain
In this troubled world’s lastness,
From the very beforeness,
Out from
The great cosmic Blast,
A hooded violet trope
That hurtled
Us into the question
Before the asking;
Our distraught masks
Cascading;
Yes, we turn our
Stained-glassed faces
Away from the harshness
Of wintered survival rage
To stare at the flaming sun,
Ruby, emerald, and sapphire
Gleaming through,
Not mindfully blind
Behind metaphor’s
Translucent veil,
Seeing the True Face,
Ever-becoming visually real.
One finally white endless strobe
Of the brightness of becoming,
Unlimited strophe of the Masque
Of all Dancing.
In the Ocean of Light,
Daniel Wilcox
In Jean-Paul Sartre's classic novel Age of Reason, the main character Mathieu suddenly comes to a shocking nadir of awareness--his own "age of reason"-- realizing how much of what he has thought, perceived, and done that is all so delusionary (as will most humans shortly because it is 1938 and only months before the Nazis launch humankind's own nadir, one of absurd unreason).
So suddenly, Mathieu, shocked with this personal awareness of the existential, stabs a knife through the palm of his hand daggering it to the scarred wood of the cafe table in Paris. And looks confounded as his blood seeps out while his friends look on bewildered.
I've encountered my own nadirs, and that's how I've felt, metaphorically, like a knife jabbed through me.
Would you like me to get melodramatic;-)?
Despite his pierced hand, Mathieu is no christ (he's getting his mistress to have an abortion).
And neither am I like Christ...though I seek to be, though I yearn to be.
I've been reflecting back through my recent posts of the last few months--times of deep spiritual crisis where I've lost my spiritual home, discovered I've been living in religious illusion. And now realize anew, I spend way too much time ruminating on and grieving over the "no" and "the ocean of darkness," and not nearly enough time on the "Yes" and "the Infinite Ocean of Light."
So here's a few of my Lightful lines:
Perception in Late Night
I work the graveyard shift in ‘67
Stock shelves of Marlboro ‘Country’
For California slickers, tubes of
Ultra Brite ‘sex appeal’
Brushed by grim oldsters,
And Olympia, ‘it’s the water’
For partying young adults;
I close the flashy cooler,
Pick up the empty card boxes,
Crumple and dump them in the trash bin;
Across the street a Texaco filling station
Slogans forth still, “Trust you car to the man
Who wears the star,’ but its ‘vacant for lease’ sign
Came from the only auto to ford
Those shallow words.
I lean on a metal stool behind
The counter, no customers; its past
The midnight hour; so I
Close my tired eyes,
Rub my warm forehead,
The feel of bone so arched like a vault,
My skull under skin
Almost Neanderthal,
And my sense of self in that inner cave
Of stored ads, memories and procedures;
What will be left in the finite end?
Suddenly like a lighted tidal wave
Overwhelming self and night,
Wide a w a r e n e s s
Oceans deep--
Awash in God.
______________________
The Mythic Mask
The vast kaleidoscoped cosmos
On black velvet background
Galactic star swirls,
One great masked Chagall
Above us in infinite light years,
Visioning vivid rose and royal blue,
We cover the earth,
Weeping colors of bowed rain
In this troubled world’s lastness,
From the very beforeness,
Out from
The great cosmic Blast,
A hooded violet trope
That hurtled
Us into the question
Before the asking;
Our distraught masks
Cascading;
Yes, we turn our
Stained-glassed faces
Away from the harshness
Of wintered survival rage
To stare at the flaming sun,
Ruby, emerald, and sapphire
Gleaming through,
Not mindfully blind
Behind metaphor’s
Translucent veil,
Seeing the True Face,
Ever-becoming visually real.
One finally white endless strobe
Of the brightness of becoming,
Unlimited strophe of the Masque
Of all Dancing.
In the Ocean of Light,
Daniel Wilcox
Monday, August 10, 2009
What is Love?
Christians for many centuries, over and over, have stated, "God is love." Most famously, St. Augustine said, "Love God and do as you like."
All this sounds so good, so pious, so wonderful, but tragically like so many philosophical and ethical assertions, the devil is in the details:-(--
not the God of Jesus.
The same St. Augustine of the famous "love" quote supported the persecution of other Christians, torture, killing, etc.
Augustine abandoned his common-law wife of 10 years, with plans to marry an aristocratic Roman lady instead.
From his era down through hundreds of years of cruelty, injustice, and slaughter to the present, Christian Churches in the name of "love" have commited all the horrific acts.
Millions of humans have been slaughtered, burned, hanged, shot, bombed, and drowned--
all in the name of Jesus and this religious ideal of Christian "love."
A more recent case is that of Christian soldier Stonewall Jackson and tehologian R. L. Dabney who ordered the death of many thousands during the American Civil War.
They gave all thanks to Jesus Christ and God for their killing success, and yet at the same time, emphasized the importance of love to God and others. Read the excellent and powerful biography, Stonewall Jackson: Portrait of a Soldier by John Bowers.
What a great general Jackson was! And what a devout believer and how personable and kind to those of his own kin and group.
But what a ruthless killer of others, and in his killing, he gave all the praise for his successful slaughters to the Christian God! He often prayed, worshiped, and read his Bible in the midst of battles!
Not that Christianity has a corner on these strange demonstrations of "love." When I lived in the Middle East, I visited a restaurant. On the wall was a sign which listed all the characteristics of love in Islam.
Yet, then (and in the past and now) Muslims quote the Qur'an to justify slaughtering civilians.
So it goes.
And check out secular history. Humanists who reject religion for all its horrors, also, often define "love" as a worthy human goal, yet their actions are contrary, too.
On a minor note back during my university days (late 60's), Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlavsky came to the University of Nebraska to do a poetry reading. Allen emphasized that "love" is the answer to the world's problems.
I, a naive, small town kid was impressed,
but an older former beatnik told me, "Don't to be deceived."
Later we learned how deceptive talk of "love" can be. One of the young girls in our group was allegedly left pregnant and alone by Orlavsky who moved on to their next poetry reading.
Young men of other worldviews tried to persuade us that a man could have multiple relationships with women and it was "love." Forget all the tragic results of these "love" affairs.
And since then all manner of distortions continue to be put forth as "loving."
Thinkers have even claimed the intentional bombing of thousands of unarmed civilians, even hundreds of thousands including children is an action of love and justice!
And more and more, acts of euthanasia, abortion, etc. are said to be expressions of love!
Indeed, the devil is in the details. Evil hogs them.
Why is it God always gets left holding the bag of evil?
Enough of the very bad news!
What is the nature of true love--the kind that doesn't result in hell on earth?
The great Vietnamese Buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh gives some very good clear examples if you wish a definition which isn't centered in the New Testament. However, since I am a Friend of Jesus, that is where I find my understanding of what love is.
Check out Luke 10:27. Jesus said, YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.
Well, the problem is in the details again though, because most of the killers, slave-owners, etc. of the last 2,000 years have claimed to believe Jesus' words, indeed have done their evil with this verse on their lips, praying to Jesus and reading the Bible as they did their horrific deeds.
So we need to go deeper.
A lawyer questions Jesus--sounds legalistic doesn't it--asking exactly, WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?
Jesus isn't going to be caught in parceling out humankind, the ones who we must love versus the ones we can ignore or even hate such as, say, the Romans or the national traitors or bad sinners. (Remember, in Jewish culture, the men wouldn't even eat with Gentiles!)
Jesus reverses the thinking of the lawyer with the Parable of the Good Samaritan, pointing out we should be loving like a heretic and national enemy and show active compassion and practical deeds of help including personal involvement, the giving of our money and our time.
This is a continuation of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5: 38-48) where he even contradicts such Jewish heroes as David and says that we should love our enemies.
And so his followers wouldn't get the wrong idea (like so many later would despite his very words), Jesus emphasizes that "loving one enemies" means practical actions on our part.
For instance if an enemy nation conquers you and its soldiers abuse and execute your people and these killers demand you behave as a servant by carrying their military bags for a mile, then you are to offer to carry these enemy killers' things for another extra mile.
When enemies HATE YOU, BLESS THOSE WHO CURSE YOU, PRAY FOR THOSE WHO MISTREAT YOU (Luke 6: 27-38).
Of course, for most of us (like Jesus' disciples who wanted to kill the Romans and call fire down to destroy the Samaritans, etc.)
we need even more directions of what the word "love" actually means and so the N.T. provides many more definitions and examples. The best is 1 Corinthians 13:
Love is patient,
love is kind
and is not jealous;
love does not brag and is not arrogant,
does not act unbecomingly;
love does not seek its own,
is not provoked,
does not take into account a wrong suffered,
does not rejoice in unrighteousness,
but rejoices with the truth;
bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails. (NASB)
No doubt these love commands from Spirit of Christ are overwhelming. Probably that is part of the reason why the disciples and Paul felt then that it was impossible to be a true follower of Jesus.
How can we possibly love individuals of the Taliban or the Islamic State!?
The murderers of Boko Haram in Nigeria?
The Saudi Muslim planners of 9-11?
The criminal who stabbed us?
A parent or leader who abused us?
A co-worker who lied about us so that we lost our job?
One way is to remember as Martin Luther King cautioned, we aren't called to "like" such evil doers, but are rather called to show them benevolence in order that they might turn from their evil ways.
This is Jesus' walk, what it means to be Friends. If Jesus loves and died for all of us, how can we do less?
Jesus' call: To love everyone into the realm of God:-)
In the love of Jesus,
Daniel Wilcox
All this sounds so good, so pious, so wonderful, but tragically like so many philosophical and ethical assertions, the devil is in the details:-(--
not the God of Jesus.
Augustine abandoned his common-law wife of 10 years, with plans to marry an aristocratic Roman lady instead.
From his era down through hundreds of years of cruelty, injustice, and slaughter to the present, Christian Churches in the name of "love" have commited all the horrific acts.
Millions of humans have been slaughtered, burned, hanged, shot, bombed, and drowned--
all in the name of Jesus and this religious ideal of Christian "love."
A more recent case is that of Christian soldier Stonewall Jackson and tehologian R. L. Dabney who ordered the death of many thousands during the American Civil War.
They gave all thanks to Jesus Christ and God for their killing success, and yet at the same time, emphasized the importance of love to God and others. Read the excellent and powerful biography, Stonewall Jackson: Portrait of a Soldier by John Bowers.
What a great general Jackson was! And what a devout believer and how personable and kind to those of his own kin and group.
But what a ruthless killer of others, and in his killing, he gave all the praise for his successful slaughters to the Christian God! He often prayed, worshiped, and read his Bible in the midst of battles!
Not that Christianity has a corner on these strange demonstrations of "love." When I lived in the Middle East, I visited a restaurant. On the wall was a sign which listed all the characteristics of love in Islam.
Yet, then (and in the past and now) Muslims quote the Qur'an to justify slaughtering civilians.
So it goes.
And check out secular history. Humanists who reject religion for all its horrors, also, often define "love" as a worthy human goal, yet their actions are contrary, too.
On a minor note back during my university days (late 60's), Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlavsky came to the University of Nebraska to do a poetry reading. Allen emphasized that "love" is the answer to the world's problems.
I, a naive, small town kid was impressed,
but an older former beatnik told me, "Don't to be deceived."
Later we learned how deceptive talk of "love" can be. One of the young girls in our group was allegedly left pregnant and alone by Orlavsky who moved on to their next poetry reading.
Young men of other worldviews tried to persuade us that a man could have multiple relationships with women and it was "love." Forget all the tragic results of these "love" affairs.
And since then all manner of distortions continue to be put forth as "loving."
Thinkers have even claimed the intentional bombing of thousands of unarmed civilians, even hundreds of thousands including children is an action of love and justice!
And more and more, acts of euthanasia, abortion, etc. are said to be expressions of love!
Indeed, the devil is in the details. Evil hogs them.
Why is it God always gets left holding the bag of evil?
Enough of the very bad news!
What is the nature of true love--the kind that doesn't result in hell on earth?
The great Vietnamese Buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh gives some very good clear examples if you wish a definition which isn't centered in the New Testament. However, since I am a Friend of Jesus, that is where I find my understanding of what love is.
Check out Luke 10:27. Jesus said, YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.
Well, the problem is in the details again though, because most of the killers, slave-owners, etc. of the last 2,000 years have claimed to believe Jesus' words, indeed have done their evil with this verse on their lips, praying to Jesus and reading the Bible as they did their horrific deeds.
So we need to go deeper.
A lawyer questions Jesus--sounds legalistic doesn't it--asking exactly, WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?
Jesus isn't going to be caught in parceling out humankind, the ones who we must love versus the ones we can ignore or even hate such as, say, the Romans or the national traitors or bad sinners. (Remember, in Jewish culture, the men wouldn't even eat with Gentiles!)
Jesus reverses the thinking of the lawyer with the Parable of the Good Samaritan, pointing out we should be loving like a heretic and national enemy and show active compassion and practical deeds of help including personal involvement, the giving of our money and our time.
This is a continuation of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5: 38-48) where he even contradicts such Jewish heroes as David and says that we should love our enemies.
And so his followers wouldn't get the wrong idea (like so many later would despite his very words), Jesus emphasizes that "loving one enemies" means practical actions on our part.
For instance if an enemy nation conquers you and its soldiers abuse and execute your people and these killers demand you behave as a servant by carrying their military bags for a mile, then you are to offer to carry these enemy killers' things for another extra mile.
When enemies HATE YOU, BLESS THOSE WHO CURSE YOU, PRAY FOR THOSE WHO MISTREAT YOU (Luke 6: 27-38).
Of course, for most of us (like Jesus' disciples who wanted to kill the Romans and call fire down to destroy the Samaritans, etc.)
we need even more directions of what the word "love" actually means and so the N.T. provides many more definitions and examples. The best is 1 Corinthians 13:
Love is patient,
love is kind
and is not jealous;
love does not brag and is not arrogant,
does not act unbecomingly;
love does not seek its own,
is not provoked,
does not take into account a wrong suffered,
does not rejoice in unrighteousness,
but rejoices with the truth;
bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails. (NASB)
No doubt these love commands from Spirit of Christ are overwhelming. Probably that is part of the reason why the disciples and Paul felt then that it was impossible to be a true follower of Jesus.
How can we possibly love individuals of the Taliban or the Islamic State!?
The murderers of Boko Haram in Nigeria?
The Saudi Muslim planners of 9-11?
The criminal who stabbed us?
A parent or leader who abused us?
A co-worker who lied about us so that we lost our job?
One way is to remember as Martin Luther King cautioned, we aren't called to "like" such evil doers, but are rather called to show them benevolence in order that they might turn from their evil ways.
This is Jesus' walk, what it means to be Friends. If Jesus loves and died for all of us, how can we do less?
Jesus' call: To love everyone into the realm of God:-)
In the love of Jesus,
Daniel Wilcox
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Am I Weird or Deluded or What? And being a pinball...
Am I weird or deluded or what? Or just still a very naive Nebraska village kid? For some reason I yet think most humans I meet are--underneath their vocalized differences and doctrinal tags--basically of similar spiritual faith and inner devotion and ethical concern.
But again this weekend, I discover for the umpteenth time--It AIN'T So.
Years ago, I became of the Friend's persuasion, leaving Evangelical Christianity partially because so much of the latter represents that which is most abhorrent in religion.
And I am a Friend because I love the centrality and experience of open worship where God is present right now in deep biblical "knowing."
Yet more and more I am finding there are many Friends who don't think God is. I keep trying to understand their view (such as the dialogues I've had with the bloggers on Nontheist Friends.org and elsewhere).
But I admit Untheism baffles me. If the God whose essence is love (of the NT and Friends for 360 years)
ISN'T,
then why are we meeting for worship? Are we not truly deluded as Richard Dawkins claims?
And in my dialogue with Evangelical Christians again this week, I realize to an abyssed degree that not only do I disagree with their central beliefs, but I don't really have faith in the same God as them. We use many of the same biblical terms but mean very opposite values.
I do live in a totally different cosmos from such humans.
Where is there a window where I can go and scream...
And last night, I was invited over to a couple of my friends and we had a great talk fest for four hours! At least we are in the same cosmos:-) but their views also seem so contrary to everything I trust and think true.
So I am like the small pinball in one of those classic game machines that bounces from other worldview to other worldview, all so incredibly different from my own faith and wondering where all of this is leading.
I am too much of an intellectual doubter to think everyone else must be bonkers;-) and only my group--Theistic Friends--understands Reality. So I struggle.
On my more despairing days--for instance yesterday, the day for worship--I wonder if maybe Friends, and indeed all religion, is delusion.
Maybe only Existentialism is true.
Maybe this is an absurd world like Albert Camus said and where The Plague wrecks havoc and we are brief consciousnesses for no reason and then the abyss...
Thank God, today I have renewed hope. I may be hanging in emptiness or am pre-damned, etc.,
but today I experience God's love
and am
in God's
Presence.
But again this weekend, I discover for the umpteenth time--It AIN'T So.
Years ago, I became of the Friend's persuasion, leaving Evangelical Christianity partially because so much of the latter represents that which is most abhorrent in religion.
And I am a Friend because I love the centrality and experience of open worship where God is present right now in deep biblical "knowing."
Yet more and more I am finding there are many Friends who don't think God is. I keep trying to understand their view (such as the dialogues I've had with the bloggers on Nontheist Friends.org and elsewhere).
But I admit Untheism baffles me. If the God whose essence is love (of the NT and Friends for 360 years)
ISN'T,
then why are we meeting for worship? Are we not truly deluded as Richard Dawkins claims?
And in my dialogue with Evangelical Christians again this week, I realize to an abyssed degree that not only do I disagree with their central beliefs, but I don't really have faith in the same God as them. We use many of the same biblical terms but mean very opposite values.
I do live in a totally different cosmos from such humans.
Where is there a window where I can go and scream...
And last night, I was invited over to a couple of my friends and we had a great talk fest for four hours! At least we are in the same cosmos:-) but their views also seem so contrary to everything I trust and think true.
So I am like the small pinball in one of those classic game machines that bounces from other worldview to other worldview, all so incredibly different from my own faith and wondering where all of this is leading.
I am too much of an intellectual doubter to think everyone else must be bonkers;-) and only my group--Theistic Friends--understands Reality. So I struggle.
On my more despairing days--for instance yesterday, the day for worship--I wonder if maybe Friends, and indeed all religion, is delusion.
Maybe only Existentialism is true.
Maybe this is an absurd world like Albert Camus said and where The Plague wrecks havoc and we are brief consciousnesses for no reason and then the abyss...
Thank God, today I have renewed hope. I may be hanging in emptiness or am pre-damned, etc.,
but today I experience God's love
and am
in God's
Presence.
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