Since Easter is coming up and is an occasion where the supernatural traditionally plays a role, I thought I should do a top five list of superstitions that I don't, as a Progressive Christian, have to believe in.
Coming back to church after an absence of 18 years, I wasn't sure how I would handle the Christian beliefs that I considered rather supernatural. It was a bit like asking an adult to believe in Santa Claus.
I had the fortune of happening upon Irvine United Congregational Church, which subscribes to (very) Progressive Christianity. It's a non-dogmatic, non-creedal church that is deeply involved in social justice issues. We are against war, support gay marriage, and are in favor of health care reform. In our area, we have a reputation for being "That Church." Over the last few years I discovered that Progressive Christianity does not require me to give up the rational side of my mind. Here are the top five beliefs that I no longer need from my days attending a conservative Baptist church.
1. The Bible as the inerrant word of God.
The Bible should be read as literature, the same way that we do with Shakespeare. We need to understand the cultural context at the time that it was written to make sense of central, essential message in the text. Human beings wrote the Bible for their own purposes. I find it very hard to believe in a God who manipulates people like puppets and makes spelling mistakes.
2. Virgin birth
The notion that Jesus was born to a woman who had not previously had sexual intercourse is due to a translation error. The Hebrew word used to describe Mary was almah, meaning "young woman." But in the 3rd Century CE, the Bible was translated into Greek and the word became parthenos, which means "virgin." It's good news to me that I don't have to believe in something biologically improbably and likely supernatural, in order to accept that Jesus of Nazareth walked the Earth at some point.
3. Jesus arising from the dead.
The Easter story where the formerly dead Jesus leaves a tomb is a parable. The underlying message is that love and hope go on, even in the darkest hour. Easter is about resurrection, not reanimation. It's about restoring something that that was lost, not making a former corpse walk the Earth again. It was such a relief to me that I didn't have to believe someone came back to life (zombie, anyone?) in order to call myself a Christian.
4. Sin is breaking God's law.
Sin is not violation of some arcane rule in the Bible or some inference from a passage in the Bible. In PXnty, sin is any action that increases emotional and spiritual distance between a person and loving Creator. This model is beautiful to me, because it's so personal, subjective, and immediate. It also a definition that works through the ages. I like believing in a God who isn't a rules lawyer, who makes decrees about corner cases, such as whether a white lie is a real lie. A God who doesn't micromanage our lives makes so much more sense to me, as does the emphasis on how I live my life and my relationship with God.
5. Hell is where sinners are sent after we die.
If sin is an action that increases distance between a person and God, then heaven and hell are not where people go in the afterlife, but consequences of how we live in this life. Someone who commits a lot of sins will have a uncomfortable consequences to deal with, such as damaged relationships, guilt, sadness, etc. All these negative emotions are hell in and of themselves. They don't require further condemnation from others. By the same token, heaven on Earth is not just an abstract concept, but a specific state. In the absence of sin, we can be perfectly loving, perfectly compassionate, perfectly courageous, and perfectly just.
A God who would create a place where people are sent to be tortured forever after they die is a monster, in my book. Eternity is a long time. It's an even longer time to be boiling, freezing, whipping, or starving someone who was alive for at most a little over a hundred years. I refuse to believe in a God who uses more advanced interrogation techniques than the CIA.
Showing posts with label Bible. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bible. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Friday, January 7, 2011
What did Solomon know about motherhood anyways?
There is a famous story in the Hebrew Bible about how Solomon adjudicated a dispute between two women both claiming rights to a child. The story is intended to show how wise Solomon was.
This story, and the interpretation of it, drives me nuts. It feels very unfair and imposes a very narrow view of how a mother should be have. It emphasized the self-sacrificing aspect of motherhood and makes this an expectation of all "good" mothers. Why is it not possible for a "real" mother to prefer that her child die than go to some one else? Someone who might not be a good mother, such as a child abuser or drug addict? At the same time, I would be very sympathetic to a mother who has been looking after a demanding, colicky baby and has become completely fed up with the situation. Long term sleep deprivation (I'm talking months here, not days or weeks) is a nasty thing. I could see King Solomon's offer to divide the child in half being the last straw-- "You want him? Fine. Take him."
It would be more productive for all concerned to think of "mother" as a verb, and not just a noun. Mother, the noun, is like a job title. It’s static. Once you give birth, adopt, foster, or marry into a child, you are given this label. It does not say anything about how, or even if, you fulfill any of the duties of the position.
Mother, the verb, is an action that needs to be performed over and over. It’s a process that needs to be sustained on a daily basis. You do this by caring for and nurturing someone, by paying close attention to their emotional, physical, spiritual, and intellectual needs.
Some of us have a mother (the noun), who isn’t very good at mothering (the verb). Maybe they were too young or immature when they had us. Perhaps they may were struggling with their own demons of mental illness or addiction. Or they were in need of a mother themselves. For people like us, Mother’s Day can be awkward and bittersweet.
Some of us have people in our lives who are good at mothering, but aren’t necessarily mothers (the noun). We may have had a relative, teacher, or neighbor who looked after us when we needed it. Men can mother too. The stay-at-home dad in my family is proof of that.
So, what did Solomon know about motherhood anyways? Did he give birth to a child? Was he responsible for the care and feeding of a child on a daily basis? How many nights has King Solomon stayed up walking the floors with a baby who won't stop crying? There is little historical evidence to answer these questions definitively. But it would be fair to answer in the negative. Raising children tended to be women's work and not in the job description for a royal prince. (To be fair, not necessarily work for a royal princess or queen, either.)
So did Solomon get it right? We don't know. But if Solomon were alive today and making judgments using the same categories, it's more than likely that he wouldn't have. It's not as easy to be wise, when you're not living in a narrative, people are not stereotypes, and categories are in flux.
1 Kings 3:16-28 (New International Version, ©2010)
A Wise Ruling
16 Now two prostitutes came to the king and stood before him. 17 One of them said, “Pardon me, my lord. This woman and I live in the same house, and I had a baby while she was there with me. 18 The third day after my child was born, this woman also had a baby. We were alone; there was no one in the house but the two of us.
19 “During the night this woman’s son died because she lay on him. 20 So she got up in the middle of the night and took my son from my side while I your servant was asleep. She put him by her breast and put her dead son by my breast. 21 The next morning, I got up to nurse my son—and he was dead! But when I looked at him closely in the morning light, I saw that it wasn’t the son I had borne.”
22 The other woman said, “No! The living one is my son; the dead one is yours.”
But the first one insisted, “No! The dead one is yours; the living one is mine.” And so they argued before the king.
23 The king said, “This one says, ‘My son is alive and your son is dead,’ while that one says, ‘No! Your son is dead and mine is alive.’”
24 Then the king said, “Bring me a sword.” So they brought a sword for the king. 25 He then gave an order: “Cut the living child in two and give half to one and half to the other.”
26 The woman whose son was alive was deeply moved out of love for her son and said to the king, “Please, my lord, give her the living baby! Don’t kill him!”
But the other said, “Neither I nor you shall have him. Cut him in two!”
27 Then the king gave his ruling: “Give the living baby to the first woman. Do not kill him; she is his mother.”
28 When all Israel heard the verdict the king had given, they held the king in awe, because they saw that he had wisdom from God to administer justice.
This story, and the interpretation of it, drives me nuts. It feels very unfair and imposes a very narrow view of how a mother should be have. It emphasized the self-sacrificing aspect of motherhood and makes this an expectation of all "good" mothers. Why is it not possible for a "real" mother to prefer that her child die than go to some one else? Someone who might not be a good mother, such as a child abuser or drug addict? At the same time, I would be very sympathetic to a mother who has been looking after a demanding, colicky baby and has become completely fed up with the situation. Long term sleep deprivation (I'm talking months here, not days or weeks) is a nasty thing. I could see King Solomon's offer to divide the child in half being the last straw-- "You want him? Fine. Take him."
It would be more productive for all concerned to think of "mother" as a verb, and not just a noun. Mother, the noun, is like a job title. It’s static. Once you give birth, adopt, foster, or marry into a child, you are given this label. It does not say anything about how, or even if, you fulfill any of the duties of the position.
Mother, the verb, is an action that needs to be performed over and over. It’s a process that needs to be sustained on a daily basis. You do this by caring for and nurturing someone, by paying close attention to their emotional, physical, spiritual, and intellectual needs.
Some of us have a mother (the noun), who isn’t very good at mothering (the verb). Maybe they were too young or immature when they had us. Perhaps they may were struggling with their own demons of mental illness or addiction. Or they were in need of a mother themselves. For people like us, Mother’s Day can be awkward and bittersweet.
Some of us have people in our lives who are good at mothering, but aren’t necessarily mothers (the noun). We may have had a relative, teacher, or neighbor who looked after us when we needed it. Men can mother too. The stay-at-home dad in my family is proof of that.
So, what did Solomon know about motherhood anyways? Did he give birth to a child? Was he responsible for the care and feeding of a child on a daily basis? How many nights has King Solomon stayed up walking the floors with a baby who won't stop crying? There is little historical evidence to answer these questions definitively. But it would be fair to answer in the negative. Raising children tended to be women's work and not in the job description for a royal prince. (To be fair, not necessarily work for a royal princess or queen, either.)
So did Solomon get it right? We don't know. But if Solomon were alive today and making judgments using the same categories, it's more than likely that he wouldn't have. It's not as easy to be wise, when you're not living in a narrative, people are not stereotypes, and categories are in flux.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Bible Stories that Bug Me
We had a great sermon last Sunday (July 11, 2010) by Rev. Dr. Paul Tellström on the Mary and Martha story from Luke 10:38-42. In the story, Martha is working hard looking after the guests while Mary is sitting at the feet of Jesus while he teaches. Martha comes out of the kitchen and says, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!" Jesus' response is "Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."
The sermon did a wonderful job of picking apart the sibling rivalry, the use of indirect communication by the participants, gender issues, and interpreting Jesus' presence in the home of two women in a historical context. But best of all was the progressive Christian interpretation of the story: Some of us like to study and some of us like to do. But don't be distracted, because only one thing is needed. Choose the better. Don't let it be taken away from you. It was a beautiful re-casting because of the way it made room for everyone and they way that they serve. It struck a chord and I heard many people talking about it on the patio after church.
Although Pastor Paul helped me to like this story more than I did before, it's still one of the Bible stories that bug me. In the Mary and Martha story, I always identified with Martha. I had to be the responsible one, when I would have rather sat and listened.
I have a similar feeling about the Prodigal Son. I was the dutiful child who stayed home and got screwed out of a good time, the opportunity to spend my part of the fortune, and my parents never threw a party for me.
These stories only make sense when interpreted from a particular point of view. The prodigal son story on makes sense from the father's point of view. The story is a parable for God's relationship with us. The Mary and Martha story is a parable about how to serve. In makes sense from Mary's point of view or, as Pastor Paul points out, as a metaphor from an external point of view.
My reaction and the persistence of these stories illustrates two points about narratives. One, stories are a highly compelling way to pass on knowledge and routines. They work especially well when used orally. That's why we still hear them in church. Two, fluidity in interpretation is a relatively modern concept. When these stories were originally authored, the point of view or vantage point for interpretation was given or prescribed. There was only one way to tell and understand the stories and the characters existed only to make the telling possible. In other words, the plot was privileged and the characters were marginalized.
So maybe this is just my post-modern sensibility coming through, but I have a hard time with these stories. (Don't get me started on the one with Solomon and the two mothers.) So, what do you think? Are there any Bible stories that bug you?
The sermon did a wonderful job of picking apart the sibling rivalry, the use of indirect communication by the participants, gender issues, and interpreting Jesus' presence in the home of two women in a historical context. But best of all was the progressive Christian interpretation of the story: Some of us like to study and some of us like to do. But don't be distracted, because only one thing is needed. Choose the better. Don't let it be taken away from you. It was a beautiful re-casting because of the way it made room for everyone and they way that they serve. It struck a chord and I heard many people talking about it on the patio after church.
Although Pastor Paul helped me to like this story more than I did before, it's still one of the Bible stories that bug me. In the Mary and Martha story, I always identified with Martha. I had to be the responsible one, when I would have rather sat and listened.
I have a similar feeling about the Prodigal Son. I was the dutiful child who stayed home and got screwed out of a good time, the opportunity to spend my part of the fortune, and my parents never threw a party for me.
These stories only make sense when interpreted from a particular point of view. The prodigal son story on makes sense from the father's point of view. The story is a parable for God's relationship with us. The Mary and Martha story is a parable about how to serve. In makes sense from Mary's point of view or, as Pastor Paul points out, as a metaphor from an external point of view.
My reaction and the persistence of these stories illustrates two points about narratives. One, stories are a highly compelling way to pass on knowledge and routines. They work especially well when used orally. That's why we still hear them in church. Two, fluidity in interpretation is a relatively modern concept. When these stories were originally authored, the point of view or vantage point for interpretation was given or prescribed. There was only one way to tell and understand the stories and the characters existed only to make the telling possible. In other words, the plot was privileged and the characters were marginalized.
So maybe this is just my post-modern sensibility coming through, but I have a hard time with these stories. (Don't get me started on the one with Solomon and the two mothers.) So, what do you think? Are there any Bible stories that bug you?
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