30 Good Minutes

In a recent post about Diane Bulter Bass, I noted the link to Day1, one of the great old mainline media sources. Here I wanted to add another, if you are not familiar with it. The Chicago Sunday Evening Club has been broadcasting for most of a century now. Reworked as 30 Good Minutes, if provides weekly presentations by some of the best preachers around. Additionally, the site includes interviews and other resources as well as a way to subscribe for regular e-mail updates. There is a great sermon archives available as well.

This week’s 30 Good Miniutes is presented by Atlanta’s own, Dr. Tom Long, Bandy Professor of Preaching at Candler School of Theology.  I found his reflections on “hope” particularly interesting and wonder if we  might be some connection with the work John Cobb has been doing on “resistance.”

Murder is Murder; ABORTION IS NOT

[Note: I've not yet found the words to adequately express my grief at the terrorist event that happened in Kansas this past Sunday morning ads people were gathering in a house of worship. Not all take the same position that I take. I am conscious of that fact. But instead of stumbling around or getting iinto complex debate, instead I want to share the e-mail statement sent to me by Rabbi Arthur Waskow of The Shalom Center. in Philadelphia. His position is somewhat radical, and some may find it too radical. But I think it must be said and so I share it with you

I've disabled the comments for this post - maybe it is a time to listen rather than dump rhetoric in the wounds.].

Rabbi Waskow writes the following:

So another physician has been murdered for making it possible for women to actually use their constitutional right to choose an abortion.

All honor to Dr. Tiller, who joins the list of martyrs for ethical decency and human rights, killed for healing with compassion.  -   In his case, a religious martyr in the fullest classical sense,  killed in his own church as he arrived to worship, killed for acting in accord with his religious commitments and his moral and ethical choices.

And all dishonor to those vicious attackers like Bill O’Reilly who have egged on the kind of violence that finally murdered Dr. Tiller.  And who have blasphemously invoked the name of God to justify these incitements to murder.

There are two real-life cases of abortion that have shaped my own judgment on the practice, in addition to the Torah’s only comment on abortion – which makes utterly clear that it it is not murder.  (The Torah says that if someone causes an abortion but does no other harm to the mother, the agent owes a money recompense to the father for the loss of his potential offspring. And that’s all.)

I recognize that some other religious traditions do claim it is murder, but I both disagree with their theology and think they have no right to impose it on mine,  by state power or by murder.

One of these real-life cases of abortion that have shaped my views is that my father’s mother had already birthed five young boys when she became pregnant again in 1914.  She hoped to be able to concentrate her energy on raising those five instead of birthing more. Because abortions were illegal, she had a “back-alley” abortion – and it killed her.  So she was unable to raise any of them.  Her early death cast a shadow over my father’s life till his own dying day.

The second is that one of my friends and teachers, a great and eminent rabbi, was the child of a mother who fled Vienna after Hitler annexed Austria. His mother was pregnant again when the family needed to leave, and they knew that the underground “railroad” to freedom was bound to be too arduous for a  pregnant woman. The choices were: staying in Austria, to die together; leaving her behind, to die alone; or aborting the fetus, so that all of the family had a chance to live. She had an abortion. Today my rabbi friend says they thought then and ever since that she had given birth to the whole family.

I wish the President, when he spoke at Notre Dame,  had said explicitly what these stories teach me: that women are moral beings, possessed of moral agency and responsibility in this unique situation where their own bodies are intertwined with another’s; and that the lives of women would be endangered once again if abortion were criminalized again.

He chose instead to say only that the choices are difficult  and that unwanted pregnancies should be  minimized.

On this point, I wish he had been specific  — that  the US government  should subsidize comprehensive sex education and the provision of free condoms, The Pill,  and other contraceptives in all American high schools,  and should require health insurance companies to cover the cost of birth control and abortion.

And I wish that religious communities would begin providing comprehensive sex education as their children reach adolescence (and probably for adults as well). In the Jewish community, for example, this should be part of the preparation for bar/ bat mitzvah. This would in fact be rooted in the ancient rabbinic tradition which defined the moment when a boy became an adult bound by the sacred commitments of mitzvot as the day when he had two pubic hairs. Then the rabbis said that instead of checking individuals, they would settle on 13 years and one day. But the point about puberty and sexual maturity was made. (Indeed, it is probably precisely because of the imperative need for ethical sexual behavior beginning with the onset  of sexual maturity that the rabbis thought Jews should at that point be bound by the mitzvot.)

Unfortunately, in modern Jewish life this teaching is prudishly ignored.  What rabbi have you heard ever address the new Jewish adult and the adult community about sexual ethics, as part of the public ceremony of welcoming him/ her as a bar/bat mitzvah? Time to renew this ancient teaching!

Shalom, salaam, peace –

No Greater Love…..

The National Film Board of Canada, in association with the Cannes Short Film Corner and partner YouTube, has recently concluded its annual competition, now in its fifth year. This year’s winner is Sebastion’s Voodoo.

The film’s director, Joaquin Baldwin, is an Annie Award nominee director and animator from Paraguay. Living in Los Angeles, he is now finishing his MFA in animation at UCLA. He has received over 50 international awards for his animated films Sebastian’s Voodoo and Papiroflexia, and also several grants including the Jack Kent Cooke full Graduate Scholarship in 2006.

Do you hear an echo?

Tranformative Sarcasm

Tonight is the final in the Men’s March Madness, and I confess that I am cheering for Michigan State over North Carolina. Not so much because I am a Northerner at heart (my pick was Duke, although my preference was the Seminoles – I am just realistic), but because if Michigan State wins, I come 2^nd in my office bracket. Otherwise, I will be fourth. Go Spartans!

I promised this post about a month ago and it is still very rough. But, let me start with two quick points. 1) I need you to stay with me – My argument begins with reviews of the thinking of Danish Philosopher Soren Kierkegaard and French writer Albert Camus, but I promise that my review is more “pop” existentialism than in depth philosophical inquiry. 2) To anybody who knows these authors in depth, I apologize in advance for my surface treatment of these important thinkers. I am leaving a lot out – after all, this is a blog post! So here goes…

Soren Kierkegaard is considered by many the father of existential theology which provides much of the philosophical context for 20^th century neo-orthodox scholars. Finally, even process theology (which has been so formative for my own thought) is at heart existentialist. Kierkegaard wrote several books, but in particular, I want to reference his psychological treatise, Sickness Unto Death (see note). Published in 1849, Kierkegaard provides an analysis of selfhood, spirituality and the in-depth journey that we all take. SK understands that Christianity is finally about individuals and their relationship with God. I’m not sure what he would have thought about social activism or liberation theology.

Selfhood begins with the recognition of paradoxical elements in our being – finitude – eternality, possibility – necessity. In contrast to Hegel and his dialectic – SK rejects the thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis which becomes the new thesis model proposed by Hegel. Marx transforms the Hegelian model by using it to argue for a dialectical materialism. SK’s paradoxical model provides for no “upward” emergence of an ideal of spirit (manifest in the German people), but for an ever deepening journey with the dynamics of “spirit” grounded in the self’s relationship to the self.

SK analyses the dynamic of despair. Despair for him represents sin – the opposite of faith. Despair at heart is a dis-relationship to life in general and to the one who creates life in particular. Those of you who know Paul Tillich will recognize SK between the lines when he writes of separation from self, others and the “ground of being” as sin. Sin’s opposite again is faith – the reconciliation and transformation of the separation.

The gift of SK’s analysis has to do with the description of three stages in the journey of despair. Spirit (selfhood in depth), for SK is the process where I first relate to my relatedness, then take a deeper relationship to that relatedness and as I do that posit my relationship to the one who created me in the first place. Richard Niebuhr noted that to have a God is to have a self.

Stage one has to do with the refusal to come to terms with this very surface self. It represents a kind of naiveté – life is just screwed up – my despair has to do with my refusal to step back a bit – this is the despair of immediacy. If you will, it is refusing to have a self.

Stage two has to do with circumspection – it has to do not so much with refusing to have a self, but refusing to be the self that I am.

Stage three has to do with defiance. It has to do not so much with refusing the self that I am, but being the self that I am – and thereby shaking my fist at God – if God created me to be such a mess; then, by God I will be it. I will show the world how God screwed up. SK noted that this defiant despair shows up in both active and passive forms.

For Albert Camus, life was indeed paradoxical – but the paradox finally reveals that life is absurd. Camus saw no transformation – no Christ event, if you will – he simply called for a gesture of courage in the midst of the absurdity. Much of this is found in his short series of essays, The Myth of Sisyphus published in 1942. For Camus, this courage – this act of authenticity – manifests itself in three forms – the courage of the lover, the actor and the conqueror.

Some scholars have noted a relationship between SK’s stages of despair and the transformation that can happen in Christ at each stage and Camus’ pictures of courage. The transformation of despair as naivete can be seen as a kind of earthy affection for life itself and therefore God. The transformation of despair as circumspection can be seen as the ability to play any role necessary. I am reminded of Paul. The transformation of the despair as defiance can be seen as a born again person of faith who can move mountains.

So what does grace look like in each transformation? I’m not sure where I got this – perhaps it was one of those middle of the night conversations I participated in during the late 60s. But, naviete is transformed by expanding horizons – we all know the transformation our youth feel as they go on mission trips. Similarly, circumspection is transformed by shoving the nose of despair into real innocent suffering – You think you have it bad – look here! Finally, and here I know that I am stepping out on the water, but humor offers the opportunity for defiance becomes to become faith- might we suggest by means of transformative sarcasm – defiance can be transformed as the absurdity of one’s despair is revealed – do you know how silly you look shaking your fist at God?

So was Jesus sarcastic? Perhaps, I mean for a guy that preached about building one’s house on solid foundations, when Jesus nicknames Peter rock, given the gospel reports of his wishy-washy faith (shifting sands), how do you interpret this word to Peter that the whole movement will be built on your shoulders?

At this point, I need to offer some clarification – certainly, sarcasm can belittle as well. Sarcasm directed at naiveté and the resulting despair stops the journey. Sarcasm directed at circumspection easily turns into deeper despair and bitterness.

Yet we are called to be the light in people’s darkness, as others have been the light in our own. Light comes from many directions and perhaps in some cases sarcasm might challenge some to faithful living. – One note is that Jesus was crucified for his care – it’s dangerous.

So what do you think?

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Note: The title Sickness unto Death is grounded in the reference to John 11:4 speaking of Lazarus – This will not lead to death. For the Christian, physical death is only a doorway. For SK, the true death is desair – a spiritual death.

Archbishop of Canterbury Warns of Ecological Doomsday

God ‘will not give happy ending’

God will not intervene to prevent humanity from wreaking disastrous damage to the environment, the Archbishop of Canterbury has warned.

In a lecture, Dr Rowan Williams urged a “radical change of heart” to prevent runaway climate change.

Vision of an International Religion Charter

Sister Joan Chittester writes of her involvement in an interfaith meeting unlike any she might ever have expected.

http://ncronline.org/blogs/where-i-stand/connections-start-here