THE QUESTION NONE OF US WANT TO ANSWER

Over at RD magazine, Hollis Phelps asked a question with which tends to make us uncomfortable.  Yet, the truth is, it is one I think almost all of us have wondered about at least to ourselves if not when we uncork the bottle and let our hair down among friends. 

Phelps takes the recent developments with the defrocking of Rev. Frank Schaefer by the United Methodist Church and the chastisement and "firing", Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson.

Rev. Frank Schaefer officiated his son’s gay wedding and as a result he was stripped of his ordination for forcefully and deliberately disregarding the teachings and discipline of his denomination.  For this Schaefer has become a Cause célèbre among gay activists and liberal Christians.

Phil Robertson on the other hand has raised the ire of liberals of all stripes (not to mention the guardians of the various "inclusive" pieties) for comments he made about homosexuality in GQ magazine.  His comments were, shall we say, quite critical.  As a result, citing the intolerance of divergent opinions by liberals and the powers that be, Robertson has become a rallying point among conservatives and traditional Christians.

Without getting into the right or wrong in these two different cases, Phelps broaches the taboo misgiving:

Both events have been the subject of intense, at times vitriolic, discussion on social media, especially, of course, among those who identify in one way or another as Christian. Both events have made clear once again the differences between “socially liberal” and “socially conservative” Christians when it comes to issues related especially to sexuality, with both sides appealing to the Bible in support of their opposing views.

 

Some of my more pastorally minded friends have intervened, urging mutual understanding and stressing unity among Christians. The sentiment generally goes something like, “Sure, we may disagree when it comes to issues such as homosexuality, but let’s remember that at the end of the day we all serve the same God.”

It’s a nice sentiment, one that is often appealed to to remind Christians that the church is, ultimately, “one body,” united in its common confession and worship of Jesus Christ, whom Christians take as God incarnate. In other words, the appeal is to some sort of transcendent commonality that unites the Christians across time and place despite differences, including differences on issues related to sexuality.

I’ve often wondered, however, if such a claim is accurate. Sure, it has theological merit and backing, but it tends to cover over the real differences that divide individuals and groups that identify themselves as Christian. I would suggest that if  we attend to these differences, there’s often not much in common between Christians who identity as “socially liberal” and “socially conservative.” In other words, I’d suggest that when disagreements among Christians flare up as they have in the past few days, we are not witnessing different expressions of an underlying, unitary tradition called Christianity. We are, rather, dealing with different “religions,” as separate from each other as one “religion” is normally taken from another.

Sure, “socially liberal” and “socially conservative” Christians share, to a certain extent and differences aside, a common book, a common language, and common practices. But if we dig further, if we do a little “thick description” as the anthropologist Clifford Geertz urged us, the extent of the commonalities is not at all clear. For instance, all Christians in one way or another take the Bible as a locus of authority, but how the Bible is read and how it functions as authoritative varies significantly for individuals and in denominations.

We only need to look at the difference between Frank Schaefer and Phil Robertson to see that this is the case. We often frame such differences as differences of interpretation, but perhaps it would be better to ask the question: Are they (Schaefer and Robertson, “liberal Christians” and “conservative Christians”) really reading the same book? I’m not so sure that they are.

Or take a practice such as baptism, which is, again, ubiquitous among those who identify as Christian. Is baptism in a Southern Baptist church the same things as in an Episcopal Church? At one level it is, since the practice in both contexts ultimately derives from a common source, Jesus’ baptism for the forgiveness of sins. But there is considerable difference between the two in when baptism is usually performed (believer/infant), how it functions (ordinance/sacrament), and its relationship to different understandings of community, sin, and salvation. Material similarities, in other words, don't necessarily mean that the practice is the same across contexts.

We could provide many more examples, and all of these would lead to one question: are “liberal Christians” and “conservative Christians” worshipping the same God? Again, I’m not so sure.

Such questions are sure to make many—on all sides—uncomfortable. But if we really want to understand the vast differences among those who identify as Christian, we should, perhaps, start thinking about these differences not in terms of degree, but in kind. That may not be theologically satisfying, at least initially, but it may be more descriptively accurate. 

Ok.  I am not prepared to declare that those Christians on the liberal side of the aisle are not my brothers; but one doesn't have to go the full distance with Phelps to acknowledge that he is getting at something. 

Long ago, a Lutheran pastor turned university professor and a bunch of us students were discussing the intricacies of Karl Barth or some other 20th century theologian--didn't seem to matter who.  In the middle, while mulling over his doubts about Luther's doctrine of baptism, he finally let it out.  Beholding the obstinate, divergent stances of his students, he said that within Christianity, across all denominations, there are really only two churches.  One liberal.  One conservative.  Both read from the same Scriptures.  Both use same words.  But we meant two entirely different thing by them.  Even in talking about Jesus, an outside observer would conclude we were talking about two different people who just happen to share the same name.

His considered opinion was that someday there would be a great sorting out with each side jelling into denominations of more like-minded consistency.  This may be the only way we can come to stand each other.

I suppose to some degree this is already happening.  From the ELCA has come the North American Lutheran Church.  The Anglican Church is on the verge of coming apart worldwide. Congregations of many communions has disassociated themselves from their respective denominations.  Even some traditionalists have taken the enormous step and escaped into Catholicism or Orthodoxy.

Is Jesus really as tolerant, non-judgmental, and accepting as liberal Christians would have it?  Or is Jesus really such a catalyst for disunion among the men and women of the world as the traditionalists hold?  Is there really something called the brotherhood of man?  Or is the only commonality among men that we are objects of His love and precious little else?  How is the Bible to be read and used?

It may well be that how one answers these questions (along with a host of others equality crucial) tells more about oneself than is convenient.  With both Liberals and Traditionalists charging the other with selling out to some non-faithful ideology, I don't see the two sides making peace anytime soon in spite of all the protestations of fellowship and good-faith dialogue.  Especially when talking often times makes it all the worse.

Don't think I'm particularly happy about this.

“RUSSIA WILL RISE UP AND MEET ISRAEL ON THE PLAIN OF MEGIDDO FOR THE LAST BATTLE. ישראל AGAINST GOG AND MAGOG-- AND THEN JESUS COMES BACK AND, BOY, HE IS PISSED”

Revelation is my least favorite “book” in the bible. Why? During my childhood fundamentalist years (ages 0-9), Revelation received a vastly inordinate interest—subject to much verbal diarrhea—which I had to endure.  All sorts of exotic phantasicagorical stuff—the most I have ever heard in church.  I hated it.  (Of course, our college bull sessions about this, that, and whatever rank right up there at the very top.) There apparently is something sexy about the whole world blowing up.

It was/is commonly said that the Bible is so arranged that the earnest student proggesses through the entire Scriptures leading up to its very pinnacle at the end.  Revelation was the culmination of all that had gone before and itself served as a sort of post doctrinal study.  Even as a little Christian, I knew there was something amiss in this assessment.  I mean,  isn't the Gospel of John  far more important?

With the whore of Babylon being the Catholic Church, the ten horns of some monster being the European Common Market, the United States mixed in there somewhere, and the restoration of Israel, all was being laid out before our eyes for Christ's imminent return.  No doubt about it!

To all this, one might remind our prophesy scholars that Jesus Himself said that of that day and hour only the Father knows. (Mark 13:32).   With all this stuff you folk spend so much time figuring out so definitely, aren't you claiming to know something Jesus Himself said He doesn't know?  To which they would reply:  "Well. yes Jesus said that very thing.  But God left us so many clues in the Bible.  All we have to do is put them all together!"

There is no stopping these guys.

Once my mother, brother and I converted to Lutheranism (Well, more like married into the Lutheran Church.), all that fell to the wayside.  Much to my relief.  No more bad dreams about the Devil rising from some black pit!

Indeed, we Lutherans recite "He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.  From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead" from the Apostles' Creed and pretty much leave it at that.  Still, it is hard to wash out of your mind all those hours of wraithlike prophesy.

Years past and while in college, thank goodness, I received the medicinal corrective of a scholarly few weeks of historical/critical commentary on the A. Of St. John with all that “what this means in the original Greek”, contextualization, formgeschichte, and sitz im leben regalia in my college biblical studies class.  As I say, it was a major corrective to all that B.S. of my early years.

Still, if I never ever have to listen to any more verbosity on Revelation, it would not be a minute too soon.

Not that I will have a choice in the matter!

POPE WHAT’S HIS NAME

Sorry to say the jury is still out for me with this new Pope.  I am warming up to him as time passes.  Yet, just as I am about to tip my Lutheran hat to him, he makes some turkey statement to the press. 

I know.  I know.  One shouldn’t expect to believe the press will be fair and report

accurately what the Pope says—especially considering they have a variety of axes to grind.  Still there is the issue of what is fair and accurately reported and what is not.  One knows the Pope is never going to say abortion is a viable option or the Christian model of family should be given over to more modern, enlightened conceptions.  But what about economics?  Does he even know what he is talking about?  Or does he and the press have no idea what he actually is saying?

[As many are surprised to find out, many of the doubts and criticisms Francis has been making have been bouncing around Conservative circles for years.  While Anglo-American Conservatives lean toward free market capitalism, they are not purely so.  A good indication of this is Irving Kristol’s Two Cheers for Capitalism.  (Note that he withholds one cheer.)

One major objections is that, while Conservatives are all for the creative nature of capitalism, they are less than enthusiastic for many of its destructive properties—particularly to human community (in the social sense), tradition, and family.

Another is moral and compassionate.  William F. Buckley himself advocated what he called Christian economics/capitalism.  He set up a particular example to show what he meant.  Suppose a disaster fell on the land and you were left with the one good, uncontaminated well.  Your neighbors are thirsty and are in bad need for water.  Under capitalism, one should be free to charge as much as you can get in selling buckets of your water to your neighbors.  But as a faithful Christian, you should, indeed must, instead give it away.  In order words, capitalism with moral limits, love, and compassion for one’s neighbor.  How different would our present condition be now if our movers and shakers had followed even a little notion of this?]

So, we’ll see eventually what to make of this Pope.  Turkey or Saint? 

THEY DON’T WRITE ‘EM LIKE THAT ANYMORE.

I give a big thumbs up for O Come O Come Emmanuel in this past Sunday’s worship!  (12-01-2013)  One of the five church hymns I actually like!!!  (The rest can just go to…  Well, maybe not there exactly.)  Anyway, Anyway, O Come O Come Emmanuel just rocks!  Too bad the Church relegates it to the Advent/Christmas season these days.  That is, at least at ol’e Faith Lutheran Church where my wife and I grew up, O Come O Come Emmanuel was sung four or five times across the year. 

Ah me, days long gone by…

THOU ART FAITHFUL TO THE CHILDREN OF MEN

While working on instructions for my funeral to be kept on file in my parish's office, I chose to have Psalm 90 to be one of the Scripture readings.  Psalm 90 has long been important to me since my sophomore year in college.  Nonetheless, I have always been unsatisfied with the last verse:  "Give us success in all we do".  So I decided to take a hand in writing my own paraphrase of the Psalm.  (However horrible that may sound.)  In the end, I may just retain Psalm 90 in the original and have this as a separate, personal "statement. 

The quote below is a rough rendering of what I came up with.  Mind…it is still a work in progress.  I would appreciate any and all suggestions in how to improve it.  After I wrote my first draft, I thought it was worthy of a modern day Shakespeare.  Since then, the pride of authorship has worn off and my own estimation of its quality has fallen several hundred notches.  Perhaps the average high school freshman could effortlessly do better.  I somewhat suspect so.

 

So anyway, here t'is.  Look it over.  Try not to lose your lunch.  And send suggestions by way of the comment box.  

 

Thanks.

 

Crabby Apple Mick Lee 

Thou art faithful to the children of men

And provide each according to their season

Thou feedst the creatures of the earth

And art mindful of the least of these

 

With the hosts of Heaven, may we praise Thy name

Let us awake in the morning filled with Thy sweetness

And may our future be as happy as our past was sad

The days we dwelt among the dead and shared our bread with ghosts 

Let Thy servants behold the work of Thine Hands

And in the world to come rejoice among the mountains of Heaven

All the we craft withers and is lost to the winds of the earth

But Thy goodness and mercy shall stand--now and forever of days

SOME THINGS REPUBLICANS NEVER LET GO

CURIOUS ASIDE OBAMA MADE TO BILL CLINTON  THE PRESS SOMEHOW MISSED DURING THE PRESIDENTIAL MEDAL OF FREEDOM CEREMONY.

“The Republicans wanted me to make sure to get your neck measurements right.  Then they said something about inviting you to a special neck-tie party tonight.  Sounds like they got a real big shindig in mind.”

REPRISAL FOR NOT VOTING FOR THE GUY?

 

Cartoon pretty much explains itself. 

On a personal note, because of requirements in complying with Obamacare regulations, my original Health Insurance policy through my employer no longer is available.  With the new insurance, my wife cannot be covered.  Thus, now we must have two separate policies.  The net result is that our combined insurance costs add up to more money out of our pockets.  We have higher deductibles as well.

Some reform.

MORMONS AND CHRISTIANITY

If you check in on realclearreligion.org now and then, one of the things you may notice among the twelve articles it highlights everyday from various sources is that at least one or two  concern Mormonism from a Mormon perspective.  In comparison, Mormonism claims to the 6.1 million adherents in the United States.  The total number of Lutherans in the United States is in the neighborhood of 7.4 million.  Yet aside from the past sexuality wars, articles about and by Lutherans appear only occasionally.

Justification for this might be Lutherans are just boring folk.  (In fairness, sometimes I wonder.)  Another more likely explanation is the often cited factoid that Mormons are the fastest growing religious group in America.  (Not true.  The fastest growing are the Amish followed by the Orthodox Jews.)  My personal sense is that this is a simple case of bias on the part of the realclearreligion editors.  Well…it is their website, so they can do as they wish.  Still, the imbalance is striking.

Be that as it may, if you chance to read these articles about Mormons, one common theme is the ongoing and intense resentment that most Christians do not regard Mormons as Christians.  If a Christian should happen to say Mormons are not Christians in casual conversation, it is highly probable a Mormon will respond with insults and vitriol.  Often one will hear vicious insults against what Mormons bitterly call the "Christianity police".  Yet among Mormons themselves the contempt and distain they have for "orthodox" Christians is brutally palpable. 

The reasons for this are many; but mainly Mormons believe they and they alone proclaim the true, original faith of the early Christian Church of the Apostles.  Somehow, either through oppression of the Catholic Church, the unwarranted influence of Hellenic thought forms, or cataclysmic disaster, this "original" Christianity was extinguished--non-existent until a set of golden plates were revealed to Joseph Smith by the angel Maroni.  (No such angel exists in any version of the Christian or Hebrew Scriptures.  Neither Moroni can be found in found in the traditions of each faith.  According to Mormon documents, Moroni was once a faithful man in the ancient Americas who became an angel.)  Through these golden plates, the true Christianity of the original Apostles was again made alive among men.  After Joseph Smith translated the golden plates, he said they were returned to Moroni.  Therefore, if the golden plates ever existed, they cannot be examined.

That most "orthodox" Christians regard Joseph Smith as a liar, counterfeiter, and a false prophet would be something of an understatement. 

Two years ago, I somehow got into a long conversation with a Mormon gentleman through a series of posts on another website.  Our discussion was characteristically stern.  It began politely enough.  But soon, he began to attack me personally and his remaining messages sarcastic and snotty most of the time.  I tried my best to be firm but restrained and respectful--although he may have seen it differently.  He abruptly ended exchanges; but not before he called me a bigot. 

He began with what he thought was his trump card.  Namely by going to the English dictionary:  Christian:  one who believes in Jesus Christ.  In his mind, this settled the matter once and for all.  I responded that lexicographers were not competent to pronounce on theological doctrines.  Whatever qualifications those who compile dictionaries may have, arbiters of who is actually is a faithful disciple of the Risen Lord they are not--and no one made them so.  (Certainly it is not a role they would insist for themselves.)  This repetitively infuriated him to no end.

Of course, if someone wants to call themselves "Christian", there is little that can be done to stop them.  It is one thing, however, to claim the descriptive "Christian" for oneself.  But it is quite another to compel other Christians to agree with you.  Lest we forget, even to this date, a sizable mass of Evangelicals and Fundamentalists do not believe Catholics (and in sometimes, Lutherans) are Christians either.

But Christianity encompasses more than to "believe in Jesus Christ".  It is important to ask what it means to be Christian if one rejects the two thousand year history of what in fact is historical Christianity. Christianity is doctrinal but it is more than a collection of doctrines. Christianity is the past and present reality of the society composed of the Christians past, present, and future. As is said in the Nicene Creed, “We believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.” That encompasses doctrine, ministry, liturgy, and a rule of faith. Christians disagree about precisely where that Church is to be located historically and at present, but almost all agree that it is to be identified with the Great Tradition defined by the apostolic era through at least the first four ecumenical councils, and continuing in diverse forms to the present day.  That is the Christianity that Mormon theology rejects and condemns as an abomination and fraud.

Indeed, true Christianity is marked by the adherence and subscription to the three ecumenical creeds:  The Apostles Creed, the Nicene Creed, and Athanasian Creed.  The Creeds do not condemn those Christians who have not been properly been taught and hold to uninformed theologies in ignorance.  Neither do they condemn those Christians who lived before the Creeds were adopted as statements of faith of the universal Church.  What they do censure and anathematize are those who reject the Creeds in informed malice.  And it is all three Creeds which Mormons refuse to subscribe--especially the Athanasian Creed.  It is true that there are Protestant Churches which do not adopt the Creeds out a sense that they are to trust only in the Bible; but they do not reject the substance taught by the Creeds.

Despite the sometimes insistence that they could agree to the Creeds, Mormons emphatically will not.  If Christian doctrine is summarized in, for instance, the Apostles' Creed as understood by historic Christianity, official Mormon teaching adds to the creed, deviates from it, or starkly opposes it almost article by article.

Mormons have insisted that the Creeds are formulations written years after the Apostolic age and thus are illegitimate and heretical.  The claim is that the "so-called" Christian Church was fraudulent, corrupt, and populated by impostors and the true Church did not exist after the passing of the Apostles.  With the revelation of the golden plates to Joseph Smith, the true Christianity of the Apostles was restored to mankind.

As a matter of course, all Christian Churches profess to preach the faith as taught by Christ and the Apostles.  Catholics especially claim a direct lineage and consistent teaching of the Apostles through the past to the present.  That the Mormons preach the Gospel of the "New Testament" Church is the matter of contention.  In its particulars, the faith of Apostles as recounted by Mormons is at serious variance with is known.  That Joseph Smith rewrote the Bible to reflect the "true faith" opens up the issue of whether Mormons and the historic Churches are using the same Scriptures.

A fair question would be to turn the inquiry around: according to Mormon theology, are any non-Mormons Christians?  This is a touchy matter.  But the consistent answer from the founders of Mormonism to the present day is "no".  Only in the Mormon Church is salvation to be found.

On the bottom line, Mormons are anti-Trinitarian.  They believe that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not one God--the "three in one".  Instead, Mormons believe the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three separate Gods.  They do not like the application that they are polytheistic.  Rather they prefer to be described as “henotheisic,” meaning that there is a head God who is worshiped as supreme.  Further Mormonism claims that God is an exalted man, not different in kind as Creator is different in kind from creature as taught by both historic Christians and Jews. The Mormon claim is, “What God was, we are. What God is, we will become.” Related to this is the teaching that the world was not created ex nihilo but organized into its present form, and that the trespass in the Garden of Eden, far from being the source of original sin, was a step toward becoming what God is.  With the possible exception of a few lone Process theologians and peculiar mystics, no Christian theology has ever made anything like such a claim.  Most would not hesitate to condemn these doctrines as heretical and blasphemous.

If Mormons wants to say they are Christians, no one can or will stop them.  That they are an exemplary people in many, many ways is beyond denial.  But while they agree that faith in Christ is necessary for salvation, they categorically reject the doctrine by which the Lutheran Church stands or falls: that we are saved by the Grace of God alone.

I leave it to you to decide for yourself whether Mormons are Christians.  But the weight of the evidence indicates they are not.  One doubts that the Christ they speak of is even the same Christ Lutherans and the rest of the universal Church worship as Lord and Savior.

DEBT, HEALTHCARE AND THE SHUTDOWN

Say what you will about the Republicans and the government shutdown (and thousands already have), it is indeed true that Obama refused the negotiate over the continuing resolution to fund the government or the debt ceiling.  The bottom line is that the Republicans got nothing for giving the President what he wanted.  Most Republican insiders--even those associated with the "tea  
party"--have pronounced the entire enterprise a massive failure for the party--one that will hurt them in the months to come.  Of course, those same Republicans were against the showdown strategy to begin with.  And maybe they were and are right.  Many hope this disaster will temper the hopes and movements of those Representatives and Senators who maneuvered the showdown.  And perhaps it will.

I have my doubts that this disaster will linger long in the memories of all involved and the public in general.  Politics has a short cycle.  Soon we will all be off to the next thing. 

My suspicion is that Obama and the Democrats never had any intention to deal and negotiate legislatively with any of the proposals the loyal opposition had in mind and are not inclined to do so now--especially on drawing back or delaying the implementation of Obamacare.  Even the proposal the Republicans had to eliminate all the exemptions Obama had given to some businesses and unions in the scheduled implementation has only a snowballs chance in hell..

Was it all worth it?  Most say not.  I mostly agree except I have one nigling thought in the back of my mind and it has to do with the tactics Liberals themselves employ in other avenues.

In my experience in Synod assemblies, Liberals bring forth many proposals which have no chance.  They can be resoundingly defeated and resented for wasting everyone's time.  But…and this is the big "but"…they will be back the next time with the same proposal.  They will do this again and again until they win.  The point in these fruitless efforts is to continually keep the issue before the assemblies and all future assemblies.  They will work through the various minor meetings and committees to advance their cause.  You have hand it to them:  they are relentless.

Conservatives in contrast typically will make their proposals once--convinced of the obvious rightness of their cause--and when they are defeated they will slink away, grouse about it, and that's that.

Perhaps the value in the shutdown is that it puts the national debt, excessive borrowing against the future, and the government increasing intrusion into this nation's healthcare "system" repeatedly before Congress and the public.  I don't know.  I don't know if it would ever work.  As with everything else, even with bad and detrimental policies, there are thousands who benefit and will fight hard to keep it that way.  Make no mistake, there are thousands who stand to make a lot of money and build careers from Obamacare--many have been positioning themselves for years to reap the benefits from government imposition into healthcare.

But nothing is gained by doing nothing and promising "we'll get 'em next time".

Just a thought.

ATHEISTS, INTELLIGENCE, AND WHAT MATTERS

An item that hit the web, various newspapers, and other media reports of a study completed by psychologist Miron Zuckerman at the University of Rochester concerning the relationship between religious belief and intelligence.  After reviewing sixty three scientific studies from 1928 to the present, they have concluded that there is a "reliable negative relation between intelligence and religiosity".  The take-away is that the brighter one is the more likely one is or will become an atheist.  The more mature and educated an individual with a high IQ becomes he will dispense with belief in a supernatural being--or as atheists are apt to say, a primitive. archaic "sky-god".

The authors of the study reason that atheists generally have IQ's in the 130-plus range (greater than 95 percent of the general population) and thus they have higher ability to reason, plan, solve problems, comprehend abstractions and complex ideas, learn quickly, and learn from experience.  There is a clear perception on their part that they are in control of their own destiny.  As intelligent people, they tend to have greater self-control, self esteem, and self-generated supportive relationships--all of which obviates the need for the purported benefits religion provides to its adherents.

To add insult to injury, since high IQ's are established to be the single most reliable predictor of success in the modern world, the extrapolation is that non-believers will make more money and acquire the more prominent positions in the professional spheres.

What is surprising is that they needed to spend good money for a study to inform us of this fact.  We already knew this.  How do we know this?  Why...because atheists themselves feel compelled tell us at every turn how smart they are.  Of course, if they say how more intelligent they are than the ignoramuses who believe in God, who are we to doubt them!

But Zuckerman himself is careful to point out that this review — known as a “meta-study” because it examines a range of other studies — does not mean only obtuse people believe in God.

“It is truly the wrong message to take from here that if I believe in God I must be stupid,” he said. “I would not want to bet any money on that because I would have a very good chance of losing a lot of money.”

The study also indicates that more intelligent people are less likely to believe in God because they are more likely to challenge established norms and dogma. They are also more likely to have analytical thinking styles, which other studies have shown tend undermine religious belief.

On the other hand, Zuckerman provides an additional contrast:  “The functions we cover imply that in many ways religious people are better off than those who are nonreligious,” he said. “There are things about self-esteem and feeling in control and attachment that religion provides. In all those things, there are benefits to being religious, and that is the take-home message for those who are religious.”

(This last part was not included in most accounts provided by the various media outlets)

A possibility which may provide a partial explanation to the correlation between non-belief and elevated intelligence and higher education is the insular culture typical of centers of advanced education.  That is, non-belief could be a response to a certain peer pressure as one moves up the educational ladder to dismiss all religion as primitive fundamentalism. In other words, atheism (conscious or functional) is socialized "into them".  We cannot say this definitively as there has been no study within cultural anthropology appears to have been done to explore this hypothesis.  For many of us who have dwelt and toiled in the halls of college and graduate schools, experience provides a certain intuitive sense that this is true.  At the very least, we can note that there is a definite lack of support networks in higher education for religious belief, practice, and discipleship.

Setting aside questions of intelligence, atheists protest that there are several stereotypes about them they wished the "religious folk" would disabuse themselves with.  One is the standard protest that one does not need religion to be a moral person.  Indeed, if they do say so themselves, atheists are more moral than most of their religious countertypes.  Be that as it may, Chris Stedman at CNN's Belief blog clarifies what is at root:

[I am reminded of] of a conversation I once had with a Catholic scholar.

The professor once asked me: “When I talk about God, I mean love and justice and reconciliation, not a man in the sky. You talk about love and justice and reconciliation. Why can’t you just call that God?”

I replied: “Why must you call that God? Why not just call it what it is: love and justice and reconciliation?

Another stereotype atheists dispute as thoroughly wide of the mark is that atheists have no awe of "creation"--meaning the natural order of the universe and the majestic wonders of the material world--or gratitude toward the gift of life.

As Carl Sagan remarked:  "When we recognize our place in an immensity of light‐years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual.”

Or as Diana Nyad  recently explained to Oprah Winfrey:  “I think you can be an atheist who doesn’t believe in an overarching being who created all of this and sees over it,” she said. “But there’s spirituality because we human beings, and we animals, and maybe even we plants, but certainly the ocean and the moon and the stars, we all live with something that is cherished and we feel the treasure of it.”

But from a Lutheran point of view, atheists testimonies of moral character and natural spirituality are beside the point.

Too many Christian apologists act if it would a major accomplishment to get otherwise intelligent non-believers to see the light and say that there is a God.  Entertaining atheists with speculations and proofs for the existence of God as well as dangling enticements involving the benefits belief brings to one's wellbeing have nothing to do with the Cross.

It is a cliché to point out that the God of the philosophers (or in this case scientists) is not the God of the Bible; but it is a cliché that happens to be true.  Instead of a general, abstract notion of a Supreme Being, the God of Christians is a particular deity with a specific name--an actor in real history--revealing Himself in concrete places and times.  A God that defies our notions of God:  a divine Spirit that does not shun the material--an utterly Holy "Otherness" which dwelt and continues to dwell among and within impure and corrupt men and women.  As Luther remarked in his Catechism, we cannot of our own power believe in such a God--and, even if it were possible to choose this God, we would not choose the Triune God.  A good, healthy, pagan pantheism is more our style.  For us, for all men, we cannot believe, accept, and follow this God unless the Father calls us.  The one true God is not discoverable to men by means the reason or observation.  So to convince an intelligent, well educated non-believer/atheist of the existence of God?   Big Deal.  As St James wrote:  "Even the demons believed in God". 

The "spirituality" which Sagan and Nyad speak when standing in awe of the universe or "communing with nature" (that which some outdoorsmen refer to as the "cathedral of the forest") also has nothing to do with the encounters with the Living God by His faithful children.  Oprah Winfrey, replying to Nyad, believes such natural experiences are in reality profound meetings with God.  But these experiences are not what so many believe them to be.  The Germans have a phrase which roughly translates as "unhealthy health".  "Unhealthy health" refers to the events where the terminally ill person temporarily will have a rally of well-being in which he appears to be getting better--only to be followed by a swift slide into death.  In the same way, the awe and perception of these "sacred" moments is in reality the false sign of life in the soul.  It is not a sign of health.  It is a salient sign of spiritual death.

The run-of-the-mill atheist/non-believer may or may not be more intelligent than the run-of-the-mill believer.  But that question is irrelevant to the life of faith and being claimed by the one, true God.  The meaning of life is not about "success", attaining wise "life lessons", acquiring profound understanding, or living by a superior code of ethics.  The meaning of life is a Person.

THE POPE AND THE NEW PRESIDING BISHOP OF THE ELCA

A friend and I were discussing the new Presiding Bishop (yet to be installed as of this date) Elizabeth Eaton.  After some length, he concluded his letter:

Speaking of Bp. Eaton, so far I’ve liked just about everything I’ve read from her and about her.  Gutsiness, intelligence, and humility seem to be her best features, much like the new Pope.  Is the Spirit at work here, do you suppose…??

On this, I shared a few thoughts:

There are things I like about Pope Francis' demeanor.  For now, I am reserving judgment.  I have a warm spot for both John Paul II and Benedict XVI; so you might understand my reticence at this point.  It is said that Francis is as conservative/orthodox as his two predecessors.  Nevertheless, interviews with "secular" journalists seem to be his nemesis.  Something is apt to pop out of his mouth followed by articles touting his departure from established doctrine.  These are followed by more articles explaining what he really meant or said.  A bit of back and forth, ending with more Catholic pundits saying that what Francis said has been Catholic doctrine all along.  (One correspondent wrote to me that universalism is in fact conventional within Church tradition!)  So I don't know whether the Francis I am getting is the actual Francis much of the time.  So, we'll see.  Time will tell.

Far less ambiguous is Bishop Eaton.  My sense is that despite far less news coverage, what you see is what you get.  I expect good things with her for the ELCA in the years to come.  Particularly gratifying is her stated intension to reach out and bring back into the fuller life of the Church those who disagreed with "2009".  She seems to genuinely understand the pain and estrangement "2009" caused.  Most who profoundly disagreed still remain in the ELCA--but not out of any particular love for it and certainly not out of any sense the ELCA loves them.

How she plans to do this and how much cooperation she will get from the rest of the Church is another kettle of fish.  Be that as it may, it looks like it is possible by her own charm, style and persuasiveness she might be able to accomplish what Bishop Hanson has not been able to achieve on this score.  (By the way, I trust Pastor Hanson isn't simply going to hang up his collar and go fishing.)

Movement of the Spirit?  I don't know.  As we are reminded, God has His own purposes.  Maybe those who come after us will be able to say better than we.

 

CRABBY'S RECORD COLLECTION SERIES # 3

The first song I remember liking was Walk Right In by The Rooftop Singers.  I was about ten at the time.  Later that year (1963), The Beatles came to America and I never was the same.  Thus I became a living fan of Rock music during the true golden age of Boomer "love, peace and rock and roll".  In the tumult of in the sixties, we believed that music could change to world.

By the seventies, we lost faith in the possibilities of music transforming the world.  What was left was the music.  It was the music we never gave up.  There was not much to recommend in rock to Christian sensibilities truth be told; but there was always a part of us that remained little pagans.

Sorry to say to the younger generations, but rock is over.  You missed it.  It was great while it lasted.  In the last half of the sixties and half way into the seventies, rock was robust with life.  Afterward, however, it began to die a slow and sometimes painful death.  While there were still signs of life, the eighties were terrible for rock as we knew it.  By the mid-nineties, with a few exceptions, it was over.

Every generation is entitled to its own music.  There is little reason for the young to harken back to when dinosaurs roamed the earth.  But, if you are interested in a little musical paleontology, we'll talk about the great albums of yesteryear and consider why they were so great.  The rest of us old-timers will engage in a little rusty nostalgia.  And, no, we won't visit the wonderworks of Justin Bieber or Lady GaGa.

Mick Lee.

Layla--Derek & The Dominos


Have You Ever Loved A Woman

Rolling Stone Magazine recently devoted a whole issue to the 500 best albums of all time. I was stunned that this album did not appear at least in the top 10. It drives me to drink that there are millions of rock fans out there who don't even know this music exists.

It is well known what the back-story is for this record. Clapton fell for George Harrison's wife, Patty. They had a fling and then she turned her back on him. The resulting emotional devastation for Clapton wound up expressed as these songs. When the original album came out, we knew none of this. For the first couple of years, Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs was overlooked not only because the public didn't know the story but also because most didn't even know Eric Clapton played on it. But on first listen, we knew "something" happened. For all we knew, some girl who worked in a teashop could have dumped him. It didn't matter. Something real and wretched happened-this wasn't show business.

 Most women, unfortunately, do not know men can feel this way this deeply. This is not to fault them. They simply fall into the common human mistake of assuming that if men do not express it then they do not feel it. Most men know well that these "blues" are all too real-they just rarely speak of them among themselves. Sometimes they can pretend they are immune to them. But deep down men know that "that certain woman" can destroy them.  For all too many the only way we can talk about these things is through the anesthesia of intoxication. While it is true that we often drink to forget, just as often we drink to remember because it is only with a numbness that we can deal and look at what's eating us. So it was with Clapton. He was taking large amount of drugs during the making of this album-heroin being just one. Some argue that it was only through the haze of drugs and alcohol that Layla could be made. Maybe yes. Maybe no. But even if were true that Layla had to have the "blessing" of intoxication to be made, it does not explain why this music is so beautiful.  I have listened to this album ever since 1971. Along the way, every single song at one time or another has become my favorite.

"I Looked Away" is the nice, gentle quiet before the storm. It is deceptively a "light" beginning; but it immediately tells the listener what's going on. "Bell Bottom Blues" is more dynamic but interestingly many dismiss it the first couple of listens. Upon repeated hearings one becomes aware just how much this song "cooks". Thematically, I would argue that Clapton's story is first summed up here. "Keep On Growing" seems to a positive, exciting "rave-up" except a few notes of self-doubt which seep in. The end of the first LP side of the album is wrapped up with "Nobody Know You When You're Down And Out". Compared to "Keep On Growing", "Nobody Knows You..." is more somber. It is a blues musing on how as times are good and bad friends come and go and after a while one is no longer so certain what those "friends" are worth.

Side Two begins with "I Am Yours", an acoustic pleading that in spite the loved one's coldness the singers love still flows from the heart. This followed by "Anyday". I am surprised how many people do not care for this song; but you would have to have a heart of stone not the feel the combination of hope and anguish as the refrain is repeated:

The second side finishes a long version of "Key To The Highway" and the third side opens with "Tell The Truth". These two songs may seem to have little to do with the main story until one recognizes that both deal with "leaving". The album then continues with "Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad". While good in its own way, this version seems to be a mere blueprint to the extended one which appears on the In Concert album: one of the all too few examples of where the "live" version is much better than the original. The third side concludes with "Have You Ever Loved A Woman". A sort of mediation and prayer over a love in which "the water is wide...I can't cross o'er". It seems it's all over.

But there's more. The fourth side opens with "Little Wing". Clapton worshiped the ground Hendrix walked on and he cried at Hendrix passing not because he left but because Hendrix didn't take Clapton with him. So it has been all the more surprising and delightful that Clapton took Hendrix' sad, quiet and gentle song and made it raw, emotional and thunderous. It is a successful example of two contrary emotions being expressed at the same time: the lyrics are worshipping and loving while the music is heartbreaking and cries of desperation. "It's Too Late" is a relatively simply and "clean" realization that "that one last chance" is gone. It is a little gem.  Then we end with "Layla". "Layla" restates the story of the whole album and begs the lost love to take the singer back. "Layla" ends with a dreamy, grand instrumental suggesting a sweet reconciliation of the two lovers. The time of distress and torment is over.  But with "Thorn Tree In The Garden" we realize that dreamy reconciliation existed only in the hopes of the singer. It is a new day and our lover is still gone.

This is one of the greatest rock and roll records ever made. Do yourself a favor and get it. Listen to it a lot. Make it yours. You will love it. And then maybe after twenty years you'll begin to understand it. May you never have to experience something like it for yourself someday.