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Faiths
and Beliefs
a
column by Vern Barnet every Wednesday in
the FYI section of the Kansas City Star,
[printed
and Star web versions versions and versions here may vary]
copyrightThe
Kansas City Star.
539. 041227 THE STAR'S HEADLINE:
Lesson to learn one of repentance, renewal
My son answered the door and politely greeted the strangers.
They asked for me. He explained I was out. They said they did not like
my Mar. 3 column on Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” and then bloodied
his face. I returned home a few minutes later, helped him with his still-bleeding
nose and called the police who created a “hate crimes” report.
The story of the Christ is about vicarious suffering,
but I still would prefer to have been punched myself rather than my son
receive the blows on my behalf.
One of the nastiest comments on the column came from a
professor at a local conservative Christian seminary. I don’t understand
why some people who claim Christ employ disrespectful and even foul language
to lure me to their personal savior. Being cursed in the name of Jesus
doesn’t really deal with the problems I saw in the movie.
The Dec. 1 column about revising the Pledge of Allegiance
also generated a lot of responses, mostly positive. The heritage we claim
understands God as Lord of the Universe, and I would like the Pledge to
recognize that the whole world, not just my nation, is “under God.” I’m
still thinking about some of the suggestions readers sent, and next year
you may find here a refinement of the text I proposed.
But I think the most important column I wrote this year
was for Sept. 8, before the anniversary of 9/11, reprising what I had written
in 2001: “In religious literature we can find at least three metaphors
to describe what happened Sept. 11: crime, war and disease. Each metaphor
has its virtue, and the situation is so complex that no one metaphor is
sufficient.”
But we have employed mainly the war metaphor. This year
the results have become arguably clearer. They may include increased hatred
of our nation, deaths and injuries of our own soldiers and others in unanticipated
numbers, a multiplication of terrorists, financial damage and instability.
The Buddha said, “Hatred does not cease by hatred but
only by love; this is the eternal rule.” Jesus said, “Love your enemies,
bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you.” It is a teaching
found in most faiths, but we make exceptions when we are threatened. We
lack the vision and the leaders to put it into practice. It seems so unrealistic
or inapplicable to the situation, whatever it is, when we are stirred up.
But that is the point. We cannot see clearly when we allow
fear rather than faith to rule our lives. Thoughtfully and lovingly diagnosing
the cause of trouble and developing an effective treatment may ultimately
prove a more sufficient metaphor than mutual slaughter. Returning evil
in the name of good is a delusion religions warn against, and a temptation
to which we too often yield until, alas, it is too late. Perhaps this new
year is a time for repentance and renewal.
538. 041222 THE STAR'S HEADLINE:
Best holiday gift lifts us up
Whenever he heard the complaint, “I wish they’d put Christ back in Christmas,”
a colleague of mine used to respond, “Heck, I’d be happy if they’d just
put Christmas back in December.”
Our commercial, secular society drapes itself in tinsel
for a time but only vaguely remembers the teachings of Jesus. He warned
about the accumulation of wealth. He said to care for the oppressed. We
should love our enemies.
The ironies of the way we celebrate Christmas are almost
overwhelming. Jesus, the Prince of Peace, is the “cover” for a culture
where violence erupts in sporting events and seems to be the point of computer
games. “Action figures” are toys under the Christmas tree. The nation pursues
combat abroad that many think violates every principle of Christian “just
war” theology. “Blessed are the peace-makers,” he said, but we are spending
nearly half a trillion bucks each year on making war an instrument of policy
while we spend little more than nothing on making peace. Adding “God” to
the Pledge of Allegiance fifty years ago does not seem to have made us
a more righteous nation, but only more self-righteous.
So how is a Christian, or any person of faith wishing
to honor the season, to assess the hypocrisy of our private and public
purchases while we ignore the grief of the battle and the misery and injustice
our over-medicated and escapist entertainments distract us from seeing?
An answer might begin by recalling that Jesus was not
born into an ideal environment, as was, say, the prince who became the
Buddha. The gospel writers Mark and John have no birth stories to tell,
and Matthew and Luke present very different accounts of the Savior’s birth,
some of which have parallels in the tales of other faiths. Still, from
the very earliest Christian narration to the end of the gospels, we see
a corrupt society contrasted with the spirit of perfect love.
The gospel stories of the crucifixion and resurrection
do not end with the reformation of society; society remained profane. But
some individuals were reformed—spiritually reborn— and they expected Christ
to return before they died to set things aright.
When this expectation was not fulfilled, a deeper understanding
of Christ as an indwelling power developed, always ready to be born in
the hearts of those touched by divine love.
So even in the perversion of our culture’s observance
of the birth of the Christ child is the longing for something greater than
our isolated selves. Paradoxically, through the freshness, the honest cries
and the vulnerability of a babe we can find within ourselves new life and
vision and service to others. The season’s parties and the merriment can
be viewed as attempts to experience what a redeemed society might be like.
In greetings, in spending time with those dear to us, and in giving gifts,
whatever they are, we have the possibility of reaching beyond the finite—and
imitating, however poorly, the gift of transcendent love.
537. 041215 THE STAR'S HEADLINE:
Response to Islam provides perspective
Regular readers of this column know I believe that studying others’
faiths deepens one’s own. Reports from lay people and my own experience
in the ministry assure me this is so.
For the testimony of another clergyman, I invited the
Rev. Jim Eller to write about his response to Islam. He has served All
Souls Unitarian Universalist Church as senior pastor for the last six years.
Perhaps he has a head start in understanding different perspectives because
his wife is a United Methodist minister. Here is what he wrote:
“Studying Islam has made a positive change in my religious
and family life.
“Prairie Group, a scholarly ministerial gathering, convenes
each fall for shared reading, presenting papers and discussion on a pre-selected
topic. This year our study focused on liberal Islam. The required reading
included Islam Today by Akbar Ahmed, and Islam and Muhammad, both by Karen
Armstrong. I read several other related books. I particularly enjoyed Azar
Nafisi’s Reading Lolita In Tehran. The result has been a kind of personal
conversion experience.
“We hear so many bad things about Islam that I wanted
more depth than what we get on the evening news or in other causal references.
I wanted to better understand one of the fastest-growing religions in the
world.
“In the study of zakat, almsgiving and charity, one of
the “five pillars” of Islam, I found a thoughtful way of managing wealth
and privilege.
“Another pillar, salat, invites people to pray five times
a day. I admire the frequent reminder that we are called to spiritual awareness
throughout the day, especially in a culture like ours that has so many
distractions.
“Sawm, another pillar, is fasting during the month of
Ramadan.
“The very name of the faith, Islam, means surrender or
submission to the will of God—Allah in Arabic. It also means the peace
that arises from this submission.
“In these pillars I find remarkable devotion. This level
of discipline is more than I want personally, but I was so inspired by
my study I knew I wanted to follow some of these practices, as a way of
increasing my own and my family's spiritual life.
“So I invited my family to begin our morning with a time
for family scripture reading and prayer. It has proven to be a wonderful
way of strengthening our family and teaching our children about prayer.
My younger son looks forward to blessing us, and we are blessed in the
process.
“The path of Islam is followed by over 1.2 billion people.
It now is also an inspiration for me.”
Pastor Eller’s two recent sermons on Islam are available
at www.allsoulskc.org by clicking on “sermons.”
536. 041208 THE STAR'S HEADLINE:
Events show profusion of perspectives
A Kansas City potpourri for this week’s column.
* Church leaders this week were buzzing about the refusal
of CBS and NBC to show the United Church of Christ ad promoting its inclusive
approach to religion as “too controversial.” You can see the ad at www.stillspeaking.com.
* W. Grant McMurray resigned recently as president of
the Community of Christ, a world-wide denomination headquartered here.
His achievements for his church have often been celebrated. McMurray also
retains the gratitude of those supporting interfaith work. Two examples.
His behind-the-scenes assistance with the Kansas City Interfaith Council’s
“Gifts of Pluralism” conference held six weeks after the 9/11 attacks helped
make the area’s first such gathering a success for the 250 people who participated,
and the many others who have been affected by it since. A year later, his
ideas helped shape the city’s central day-long anniversary observance of
9/11 into a remarkable opportunity for spiritual renewal.
* Aside from being important Kansas City area names, what
do Henry W. Bloch, Carl DiCapo, Peggy Dunn, Sr. Rosemary Flanigan, Gary
D. Forsee, Michael R. Haverty, Shirley Helzberg, Thomas M. Hoenig, Carol
Marinovich, Mahnaz Shabbir and Cantor Paul Silbersher have in common? Although
they represent different faith traditions, all were recognized, with about
50 others, at a Speakers’ Alumni Luncheon last week for the Cathedral Center
for Faith and Work.
Alumnus Irv Hockaday noted that the workplace is a primary
source of community, and that people want to make a contribution. Spirituality
“is action undertaken in the belief that there is a good or purpose higher
than one’s own self-interest.” But today moral guardrails are weakened.
Hockaday praised the Center’s work is as point of intervention, to transmit
values to future generations.
One of the things I love about this town is that leaders
are accessible. Through the Center’s breakfast and lunch programs, in their
eighth year, you can converse with them about the news of the day—and about
eternal questions.
* Another organization observing its eighth year is the
Crescent Peace Society, which held its annual Eid dinner Sunday evening.
Its mission is to “enhance the understanding of Muslim cultures” in our
community. Award recipients, speakers and guests came from several faiths,
and
had important things to say. But none touched me quite as deeply as 6-year-old
Manahil Khan, who was one of a series of students presenting brief speeches
describing different countries and explaining why they made their particular
selection. In her simple way, she found words that all Americans, regardless
of political persuasion, might honor: “I chose Iraq because I feel sorry
for the war.”
535. 041201 THE STAR'S HEADLINE:
Revised pledge could help unite nation
The division of our nation, so vividly encoded as “red states, blue
states,” cries for healing. This hurt is felt by both the right and the
left, as well as moderates. Is there a spirit that can restore us?
I wrestled with that question on KCPT’s “Kansas City Week
In Review” last Friday. I suggested that one way we might bridge the divide
is to reframe how we look at ourselves, specifically in the Pledge of Allegiance.
My proposal was immediately dismissed by fellow panelist, Jim Jenkins,
former vice president at Focus on the Family, but other groups to which
I’ve presented the idea have applauded. So, dear reader, here it is for
your comment.
First, a little theology and a little history. Most people
believe that God is universal; in the words of the old hymn, “He has the
whole world in his hands.”
But I’ve been troubled by the current pledge which fails
to recognize that universality. Instead it is explicit about only “one
nation under God.” Isaiah called such a vision “too slight a thing.” Would
not most Americans agree that God is Lord of the universe, not just the
God of the United States?
The history of the Pledge begins with Baptist minister
Francis Bellamy, a Christian socialist, who wrote the original version
in 1892. He considered including “equality” in the phrase, “with liberty
and justice for all,” but knew that some in the educational system for
whom he prepared the Pledge, opposed equality for women and blacks, and
so left it out. As the Pledge usage widened, other revisions were made.
In 1954, Congress added “under God.”
This history shows the Pledge is a living document, not
cast in stone. Perhaps it is time to add back “equality” and to recognize
our duty is to all the world and its ecology. So for what it might be worth,
here is my current proposal, ready for additional editing and comment:
I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of
America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation of many nations,
whose environments on this fragile planet we vow to respect, as Providence
guides us toward liberty, equality and justice for all.”
I did not employ the word “God” because atheists, agnostics,
Buddhists, Taoists, and other non-theists are just as good Americans as
Christians, Jews, Muslims and other theists, and deserve to speak the Pledge
without feeling their conscience violated. Because “God” was omitted from
the version I presented on KCPT, Mr. Jenkins objected.
So in the spirit of compromise, in this version I’ve included
“Providence,” a capitalized term found in the writings of our nation’s
founders, so theists can understand it to mean God and non-theists can
interpret it poetically as a power moving in history toward the good.
Vision is a fundamental religious energy. How we envision
America is a religious project. Reframing who we are beyond red or blue
is the spiritual challenge we face.
534. 041124 THE STAR'S HEADLINE:
There are multitudes of aspects to religion
Recently I was the guest preacher at an area church. I spoke about a
Christian fundamentalist who worked through a problem in his life as he
“saw” Jesus in his living room. I said that “even the atheist in me” admired
how he interpreted this vision in a way to move his life forward.
A number of people who heard me, and some who heard about
the sermon, have asked me if I am an atheist, as occasionally readers of
this column do.
I have several responses. This week here is the first,
a word about what religion is. Faith is much larger than belief; it is
how we stand before ultimate questions: Who am I? Why are we here? What
is death? How do I best relate to my neighbor? How can I love and be loved?
How can I be saved from my fear and dread?
Religion can be described as how people respond when they
experience these mysteries. Even atheists ask such questions. Even atheists
experience awe. In my entire career, no one better described the birth
of his child to me with a profound reverence than an atheist friend.
Most people in the West have been so affected by the dominance
of Christianity, even those from non-Western religions, that the Christian
emphasis on belief becomes a primary way of looking at other faiths. However,
for most religions, correct belief is a secondary matter.
And even if one person says God exists and another says
Not, I want to embrace the perspectives of both. I recall Walt Whitman:
“Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself. (I am large,
I contain multitudes.)” The Infinite, which for me is another way of naming
God, cannot exclude anything, though every particularly thing, including
finite beliefs, cannot fully express the Whole.
I heard a bright young graduate student familiar with
Hindu philosophy, and a bit anxious about it, put a question to a Hindu
sage visiting this country. “Which of the three classical positions, Advaita,
Dvaita, or Visista Advaita, is correct?”
(You don’t need to understand these terms to get the gist
of the anecdote, but in case you are wondering, these are philosophies
of Non-dualism, Dualism, and Qualified Non-dualism. A simplified explanation
is that the Non-dualist says that the only reality is God. The Dualist
says that God and the world are two separate realities. The Qualified Non-dualist
says that both God and the world are real and separate, but the world and
the self are dependent on God. In their cultural context, these three positions
have considerable implications.)
The sage responded to the student this way: Why do I have
to decide? Each view helps to explain our rich and often contradictory
experience. Sometimes one view is useful, another time, another view works
better.
This Thanksgiving, I am grateful I don’t have to be consistent;
I contain multitudes.
533. 041117 THE STAR'S HEADLINE:
Shrine of the muses and spirituality
The human longing for the eternal is often invigorated when cultures
intersect. When the Aryans invaded India, the portable, external deities
of the sky they brought to the Dravidian culture were soon transformed
into servants of consciousness. When a Jewish teacher’s life was interpreted
by those acquainted with Hellenistic religion and Roman philosophy, the
doctrines of Christianity developed that still shape much of that faith.
And when Buddhism migrated from India to China, this faith,
first with a foothold, then with a sudden and astonishing fluorescence,
manifested its inherent capacity to adapt to many regions of the world.
Born in India, Buddhism as a separate faith hardly exists
there today, though many Buddhist themes have been reabsorbed into the
Indian tradition out of which Buddhism had first emerged.
In twenty years’ time on either side of the ending of
the Fifth Century, a thousand years after the Buddha lived, the monastics
in the northern Wei empire multiplied from less than a hundred thousand
to two million. The Chinese had resisted foreign influences, so we must
ask: What caused such a rapid expansion of this new faith? And how did
a simple and spare faith become so complex and rich?
An answer begins with the disintegration of the Han empire.
Official Confucianism, with its focus on worldly manners, lost its credibility.
Buddhism, on the other hand, recognized the vivid experience of suffering
and impermanence, and offered an eternal pattern, a consolation, a salvation,
which made sense of the chaos.
This new faith was soon embraced by both rulers and ordinary
folk, and the teaching was elaborated in elite and popular doctrines and
scriptures. Buddhism was expressed and promulgated in personal and public
art as the country again prospered.
Many such answers reside in the stories of the sculpture
fortuitously collected at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, in the newly
reinstalled gallery, “The Glory of the Law.”
This past week-end Kung Shih, a Chinese Buddhist nun living
in St. Louis, visited the gallery. She said she was grateful that
this artistic record of her faith has been saved from destruction, and
was accessible here in this country, to benefit people all over the world.
Coincidentally, the designer of the gallery, Museum director
Marc Wilson, will be recognized Sunday at the Kansas City Interfaith Council’s
twentieth annual family Thanksgiving Sunday ceremonial meal, this year
held, appropriately, at the Rime Buddhist Center. Wilson and his predecessor,
Laurence Sickman, who acquired much of the Chinese collection, are being
celebrated “for advancing the Museum’s treasury of art through which the
world’s great spiritual traditions may be explored.”
532. 041110 THE STAR'S HEADLINE:
Yogi stil alive in his teachings
Later he would be known as Yogi Bhajan. At the age of eight he began
to study yoga. At sixteen, he was declared a master of Kundalini Yoga.
At eighteen, he led his village of 7,000 people on a 32-mile trek from
what is now Lahore, Pakistan, to New Delhi, India, during the turmoil of
the 1947 partition creating boundaries between these two countries.
In 1968 he came to the United States, began teaching,
and founded 3HO, the Healthy Happy Holy Organization. In 1971, his efforts
led to the incorporation of Sikh Dharma in the U.S. His efforts to bring
a Sikh ministry to the West were recognized by Sikh authorities in Amritsar,
India, and he came to know three US presidents and other political and
religious leaders around the world. This Oct 6, at age 75, he died at his
home in New Mexico.
At the memorial service, former UN ambassador, now New
Mexico Governor, Bill Richardson, spoke with humor and gravity about their
30-year friendship and his advice about Richardson’s weight, his pronunciation
of Spanish, his politics and even about international security issues.
Richardson saluted his work for world peace,
Karta Purkh Singh Khalsa, the leader of the Kansas City
Sikh Dharma community, knew Yogi Bhajan well, and studied with him each
year. I asked Karta Purkh to comment on Yogi Bhajan’s motto, “If you can't
see God in all, you can’t see God at all.” Karta Purkh said that Yogi Bhajan
“saw within everyone that divinity that he acknowledged within himself.
There was no one undeserving of his love and compassion.” Beyond yoga and
Sikhism, “his wisdom extended into the realms of communication, the healing
arts, business, religion and government.” A founder of the International
Peace Prayer Day, Yogi Bhajan traveled the world promoting tolerance, peace
and equality for everyone.
Karta Purkh is an American whose life (and name) was changed
by encountering Yogi Bhajan’s Kundalini Yoga, a highly energetic and integrative
physical and spiritual form of meditation. Karta Purkh, now a member of
the Kansas City Interfaith Council, said, “I found that the experience
I was seeking through the alteration of mind by the use of drugs was available
in a healthy” practice, peeling “away the onion layers of fear, superstition,
anxiety, desire, doubt, denial, confusion, neurosis, regret, intellectual
vanity, societal training, guilt, habit and egoism to see what was really
at my core, why I was there and what I was to do with that knowledge.
“I truly feel that (Yogi Bhajan) is still alive within
his teachings. He never proselytized any of us but his . . . life inspired
us to be like him. His yogic teachings were the methods we could all use,
no matter what religion we adhered to, to live . . . in truth and faith
and full confidence that we are doing the right and righteous thing.” Sikh
Dharma, like all religions is “how an enlightened person is to live his
or her life. He showed us this by his example.”
.
531. 041103 THE STAR'S HEADLINE:
Resist the urge to condemn in celebration
“The news of the day is invariably bad,” said world religions scholar
Huston Smith, in Kansas City several weeks ago. “But the news of Eternity
is always good.”
I’ve been puzzling about that statement, especially as,
four days in advance, I try to write this column for the day after the
election.
If the candidates and issues you favored won, you may
find the news of the day good, so how could Smith’s statement be true?
I’m sure that Smith would happily admit his error if these victories ushered
us into a paradisiacal age.
I’m predicting, four days in advance, that this has not
happened. The injustices to be redressed, the oppressions to be lifted,
the healing of divisions, the elusive search for peace and safety, the
greed, the fear, the impurities in our souls—these remain.
But what might be the “always good” news from Eternity?
Smith left his listeners to work out their own answers. Here is mine. What
is yours?
The context for my answer is the pull on one hand to focus
on the discovery of truth, the experience of beauty, the delight in the
good we call love. I could listen to a recording of Vivaldi’s “Autumn”
and enjoy a cup of hot chai in the company of someone I love while we spend
the morning light simply enjoying the colors of the leaves on the tree
outside my window and contemplate the miracles of photosynthesis, the seasons
and the gift of sight. There is so much to enjoy.
On the other hand, the world is full of suffering, and
I am pulled to do something about that. The Power that moves through history
toward justice may be sure, but the cost to the innocent may be great.
That Power appeals to me to do what I can to reduce the terrors that
happen every day in this city and to confront the evils that remain embedded
in the structure of relationships with people we don’t even know around
the globe, and in our desecration of God’s ecology. There is so much work
to do.
Being pulled in opposite directions, toward pleasure and
toward service, is my dilemma.
But from Eternity comes the paradoxical news that may
resolve my problem. As William Blake put it, “Eternity is in love with
the productions of time.” This may mean that Eternity speaks through the
paradox. The world is filled with horror, but also with generosity beyond
miracle.
Redemption is not in private pleasure’s retreat from the
world’s agony, nor in the self-destroying drudgery in obligation to it.
Rather enlightenment may come when we heal within ourselves the split between
the desire to celebrate and the urge to condemn. We can savor the world
even as we seek to save it; even as we recognize evil, we can bless our
chance to serve; each day we can find eternal joy in duty to the world.
530. 041027 THE STAR'S HEADLINE:
Breaking bread provides and American parable
The first evening of Ramadan, about 40 Muslims, Jews, Christians
and Buddhists were guests at a breaking of the fast at a Muslim home here.
Before the meal was presented, the Muslims shared with us dates and water,
the first elements of fast-breaking, and then performed ritual prayers.
Then the host prayed extemporaneously. With tears in his eyes, he pleaded
for those whose hunger would not be broken with food, and all who suffered
from deprivation, oppression and war.
How will God respond?
The normative answer in the scriptures of the monotheistic
faiths is that God responds by requiring humans to do good to one another.
The Hebrew prophets like Amos and Jeremiah criticized the ruling class—both
king and priest—for taking false comfort in their religiosity while neglecting
the poor. The prophets often criticized their own nation more vigorously
than others and called it to repentance.
The prophets did not speak abstractly about God’s holiness.
They addressed the social, political and international issues of their
day in the light of God’s will.
The three faiths understand God as a power working in
history towards justice.
It is exactly this view of Providence that Abraham Lincoln
expresses in his Second Inaugural Address. Lincoln, facing the devastation
beyond what anyone could have imagined before the Civil War began, spoke
as a Hebrew prophet.
Condemning slavery and interpreting the horrors of the
war as the price to be paid for ending it, Lincoln also noted the ironic
religiosity in both North and South—“both read the same Bible and pray
to the same God.” Like the prophets who sometimes moved from damning speech
to hymns of consolation, Lincoln concludes with words of comfort.
I wonder what kind of oracles the prophets would pronounce
today.
Surely they would see that religiosity is evident in many
political campaigns. I can hear them cry, “Hypocrisy!” Perhaps they would
rend their garments and parade through the shopping malls: “Woe unto you!
You were united three years ago after the attacks, but look what has happened
to you since! You are divided, torn and tattered like my shirt!
“You have become a nation of secular consumers seeking
your own personal benefits, special interests and partisan advantages.
Where are the citizens with sacred concern for the commonweal? Once you
carried the promise of the ages, but now few nations look to you with faith.”
Still, among the guests in that home that first night
of Ramadan was a delegation from Algeria. The host said he wanted them
to see Christians, Jews and Muslims eating together in the American heartland
as a parable of the way the world can be. I think he is doing the work
God wants us all to do.
529. 041020 THE STAR'S HEADLINE:
World is full of messy questions
The world is not black and white but full of color. Our bodies are not
mechanical drawings; they are messy, luscious, vulnerable, moving societies
of protoplasmic cells and such. The path we follow is seldom straight;
there are zigs and zags, unexpected turns, stops and goes and surprises.
Some deny or denigrate this and want us to live instead
in a world of unforgiving clarity, where truth is absolute and moral decisions
are unquestionable.
The death Oct. 8 of Jacques Derrida, a founder of what
is called “Deconstructionism,” reminds me of the debate that goes back
at least as far as Plato. Is there an Absolute Reality of which our world
is but a shadow, or is the computer acronym, WYSIWYG, “what you see is
what you get,” a better gospel?
I don’t know any religion that excludes mystery. The western
tradition specifically warns against idolatry, concretizing the Absolute
in specific form. In a way, God’s name revealed to Moses,
Yahweh—which can be translated “I am that I am” —is a theological expression
that anticipates the computer term. And Deconstructionism is a reminder
that saying anything more than that is actually saying less because every
finite expression excludes what it does not express. Our language is contradictory,
full of exclusions and exceptions
Take “Situation Ethics.” All morality is situational.
It is wrong to lie, but if I am a Christian hiding a Jew from interrogating
Nazis, is it not better to lie and save a life? A commandment requires
keeping the sabbath by doing no work; but Jesus, seeing his disciples hunger,
defended violating that law so that they might eat. “Thou shalt not kill”
is another commandment, but many people make exceptions according to situations:
self-defense, justifiable war, capital punishment.
One messy question on which faiths differ is when life
becomes human. Some faiths teach a person comes into existence at conception.
Others say “ensoulment” occurs at the time of “quickening,” the stage in
pregnancy when a woman can feel the fetus move. Others, citing Ex. 21:22,
say a fetus does not become a human person until birth. Many traditions
favor saving the person of the mother over the less certain personhood
of the fetus in situations where a choice must be made.
Some Eastern traditions, instead of eschewing idolatry,
multiply images so profusely that they make the same point as the West:
the Infinite cannot be reduced to any single entity but rather, in a mysterious
way, sways within and over all of existence.
Derrida, who in his later years became especially interested
in religion, suggested that doubt as well as belief are essential to the
spiritual life. Knowing we are embedded in messy situations can paradoxically
help us to practice compassion.
528. 041013 THE STAR'S HEADLINE:
Taking the threefold path of a pilgrim
One of the great paradoxes of faith is that we sometimes need to go
somewhere else to discover where we are. Sometimes religious leaders try
to save us the trouble of a quest for what we already know or possess,
but have forgotten. Po Chang said that searching for enlightenment was
like riding an ox in search of the ox.
But other times, a pilgrimage may be the best way to find
the spiritual insight we need. Scholars identify three kinds of pilgrimage.
* The first is an interior pilgrimage. It may be the fussing
we do with ourselves as we follow a path from one job to a new one, or
a relationship beginning or deepening or ending, or even a class reunion.
What makes such journeys of the soul a pilgrimage is that we deliberately
search for the meanings of the experience.
The inner pilgrimage is often portrayed as
an actual journey. One of the greatest books in the English language, John
Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, discusses such inner pilgrimages in the metaphor
of the journey from the slough of despondency past vanity fair to the celestial
city. In other writings, gods, monsters, beasts, and angels are mere symbols
to move and awaken the mind, to call it past itself, to confront the ineffable
mystery on which our lives depend.
* A second kind of pilgrimage is the literal travel to
some sacred space as if it were the intent of religion itself. Thus when
Henry II needed to show penitence for the murder of Thomas Becket, archbishop
of Canterbury, he went on a literal pilgrimage in sack cloth and ashes
to Canterbury in bare feet, and Canterbury became a major Christina shrine
in memory of Becket. And as we know from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, pilgrims
learned a great deal about life as they traveled with one another on the
path.
For Hindus, a pilgrimage to the Ganges River, for Hindus
to Mecca, for Buddhists to Sanchi, for Sikhs to Amristar — the external
pilgrimage engenders an internal, spiritual exploration.
But a pilgrimage need not be a visit to a place already
thought to be holy. It may be a first and only time. The three wise men
journeyed under a star, found the babe, and returned to their own lands.
The Mayflower Pilgrims never returned, and sanctified these shores with
their courage and ideals.
* The third kind of pilgrimage, scholars say, is the trip
one makes periodically to one’s local holy place — church, temple, mosque,
synagogue, gurdwara, shrine, or meeting house. At some level of awareness,
even in our routine, we seek holy ground, desire refreshment and growth,
honor the Infinite, and affirm the religious path.
Departure and return, forgetting and remembering, may
be a basic rhythm of the spirit.
527. 041006 THE STAR'S HEADLINE:
A week going round in the interfaith circle
The tag at the end of this column says I do interfaith work, and sometimes
people ask me what that means. Here are excerpts from my schedule for several
days last week.
Tuesday evening at the Lyric Theater, I watched the Whirling
Dervishes of Rumi from Turkey gracefully spin in their white skirts, not
like tops but as perfectly centered human beings held by divine magnetism
in the very heart of being. I needed to be there, not only to witness this
event, but to support the interfaith impulse which generated the evening,
introduced by a 20-minute discourse from one of the organizers to an audience
of many of my friends from many traditions.
Wednesday morning I attended a report meeting on physician-clergy
dialogue at the Institute for Spirituality in Health, on whose interfaith
board I sit.
The most stunning scene of the week for me was when Thursday
I walked into Gallery 204 of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. It had been
a dark, uninviting space in the building, but now it celebrates Chinese
Buddhist works in stone, a collection unmatched anywhere in the world.
Then I taught a class on Confucianism and Taoism at Central Baptist Theological
Seminary. That evening I helped a couple valuing my interfaith background
to design their wedding ceremony.
When, Friday morning at the Cathedral Center for Faith and Work
breakfast, Adelle Hall reverently disclosed the spiritual crisis she experienced
following the Hyatt disaster, the room was transformed with the intimacy
of holiness. That evening, I got to chat with world religions authority
Huston Smith before he spoke on “Why religion matters more than ever today”
at Country Club Christian Church. In his lecture, he noted that Jesus taught
us to love our enemies, not kill them. And, he said, the message in the
Qur’an is “exactly the same.” He deplored how politicians corrupt faith
by demonizing the enemy, us imitating those we oppose.
Saturday another religious teacher of world-wide fame,
Matthew Fox, was in town, and he led a group at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church.
He arranged us in a giant circle, and we chanted, “We are earth, we are
fire, we are water, air and spirit,” and danced and twirled as a reminder
of our embodiment. “All indigenous people pray by dancing,” he said and
joked about sneaking into churches Saturday night with screwdrivers to
remove the pews to open up space for such bodily worship.
In between I worked on several writing projects, handled
administrative concerns for my own organization, responded to calls and
correspondence from folks wanting guidance about religious matters and
prepared for a conference Oct 13 at Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral for
clergy and lay-leaders, “Introduction to world religions and the faith
communities of Kansas City.”
I like what I do because I get so many opportunities to
learn, to share what I’ve learned and to be with people from many faiths
exploring what is sacred.
526. 040929 THE STAR'S HEADLINE:
A three-point plan for better spiritual health
Matthew Fox, controversial ex-Catholic priest, thinks America’s spiritual
health is poor. He proposes a three-point plan for changing “a very dangerous
time, a Dark Night of our Species,” to a time when the environment is protected,
people understand themselves and what they are doing, and we live in wholesome
community.
Fox is Founding President of the University of Creation
Spirituality in Oakland, CA, and speaks in Kansas City this week-end about
the latest of his 25 books, One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from
Global Faiths.
In 1989, he was silenced for a year, after which he renewed
his public appearances with the words, “As I was saying before I was so
rudely interrupted . . . .” He was ordained in the Episcopal tradition
in 1994 after he was discharged from the Dominicans. Some call him a heretic.
Others think he charts a way to the recovery of basic spiritual truths
found in all traditions.
In my interview with Fox, he outlined his three-point
plan for change:
* First, we must “reinvent education using the new cosmology
and creativity” as its core. Fox’s “cosmology” affirms the scientific vision
of the universe infused with the mystical apprehension of its holiness.
What he calls “Creation Spirituality” sees God’s work as an original blessing,
which he emphasizes over the doctrine of original sin. The universe in
which we participate with infinite relationships is the mystical body of
Christ.
* Second, Fox says we must “reinvent work. Work is where
we invest our blood, sweat, tears, time and talent the most.” He defends
a traditional understanding of work as a sacred activity, fulfilling the
person and contributing to the community. He says that “consumerism
is in fact just the contemporary word for the ancient capital sin of gluttony.
An economy built on gluttony/consumerism is sick for the soul as well as
for the body.”
* Third, we must “reinvent worship. There is no community
without ritual and we need post-modern rituals in post-modern language
to bring community alive.” Fox is concerned about the loss of the sense
of community today, and listed ecological perils, wars, divisions between
rich and poor, and a “politics of fear” as evidence of our difficult situation.
His new book identifies “consensus” from the world’s religions
that amplifies related topics—from sacred sexuality to what happens after
death.
Fox wants people to appreciate all religions. He cites
the Dalai Lama’s view that the chief obstacle to interfaith understanding
is a “bad relationship with their own faith without even knowing it.” What
Fox calls “Deep Ecumenism” is a way of discovering the depth of one’s own
tradition by encountering others.
525. 040922 THE STAR'S HEADLINE:
Does Iraq war qualify as just?
Especially in the past few months, readers have asked me if the war
in Iraq is justified by Christian teachings. Some regard this question
as the most critical intersection of religion and politics today. Since
political appeals are sometimes based on religious principles, I asked
Robert E. Johnson, associate professor of church history at Central Baptist
Theological Seminary and editor of American Baptist Quarterly, to summarize
the development of “just war” theory in Christian thought. Here is his
response:
Earliest Christians believed that war and Christ’s teachings
(especially his Sermon on the Mount) were incompatible. Consequently, many
felt Christians should not be in the military at all. During the second
century a few Christians served as soldiers, although at least three significant
theologians wrote in condemnation of the practice—Hippolytus, Tertullian,
and Lactantius. After Constantine, Christians became much more open to
participation in war. Western Christianity’s subsequent melding of church
and state caused the distinction between Christian ethics of war and patriotic
priorities gradually to become less clear.
Once large numbers of Christians accepted the possibility
that war might be morally defensible, theories emerged to identify when
warfare might be acceptable. Augustine’s “just war” theory as it developed
included six major components, all of which must be satisfied. War had
to (1) be fought to restore peace and secure justice with a reasonable
chance of success, (2) be conducted under the direction of a legitimate
ruler and be motivated by Christian love, (3) be a last resort (after all
else has been tried and failed), (4) have limited objectives (the total
obliteration of an enemy is not sanctioned), (5) safeguard against unnecessary
violence, massacres, and looting, and (6) observe the immunity of noncombatants.
Thomas Aquinas’ views might be summarized into three conditions:
conducted under a legitimate ruler, for a just cause, and intended to promote
good (or at least to avoid evil). In the sixteenth century Francisco de
Vitoria added that the war must be waged by “proper means.”
With the magnified destructive potential of nuclear and
other forms of modern warfare and their “collateral” damage, a number
of noted Christian moralists in the twentieth century question whether
a “just war” is any longer possible.
Some Christians worry that the international community
overwhelmingly feels the Iraq war it does not meet (3) the “last resort”
criteria, (6) that it has not adequately safeguarded noncombatants, and
that it failed to be (5) conducted in an honorable and proportionate manner.
In this case, the outcome of the war is not likely to be peace but more
prolonged and bitter violence, thus violating (1) the proper purpose of
a war. While some Christians justify the war in terms of pre-emptive self-defense,
other Christians observing “just war” theory believe this war has damaged
Christian witness, not advanced it.
524. 040915 THE STAR'S HEADLINE:
Coin of the realm can be found in Revelation
Can a book over 1900 years old, written to Christians in the land we
now call Turkey, during persecutions of those who refused to worship the
Roman emperor, say anything to us today?
Professor David May at Central Baptist Theological Seminary
thinks so and has written Revelation: Weaving a Tapestry of Hope about
the last book in the New Testament.
But May warns against reading Revelation with preconceptions
about it. “Revelation is misused when it is simply used as a blueprint
for the future and when it is used as a warrant in order to push particular
theological or political agendas. It is abused when it is popularized in
ways that highlight violence instead of redemption and good news of resurrection.”
In fact, although some read Revelation as a call to arms,
May notes that “while on the surface it appears that Revelation is filled
with blood imagery and is war-like, actually a close and careful reading
illustrates that Christians never fight. It is a book of pacifism! Never
do the Christians shed blood; rather it is the blood of Christians being
shed. Christians do not retaliate with violence against evil, justice is
in God's hand. Christians conquer evil ‘by the blood of the Lamb
and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even
unto death’ Rev. 12:11).”
While the book is complex, its “basic plot is very simple:
persecution, punishment for the persecutors, and salvation for the persecuted,”
May says. “It may appear that the Emperor is all powerful and in control
of the world and individual Christians’ very lives, but this is a lie”
because God is ultimately in control of history and the cosmos.
Revelation was written to encourage and inspire Christians,
under threat of persecution and martyrdom. Their neighbors thought Christians
were anti-social and even treasonous because the Christians refused to
participate in the cult of the Emperor, the patron of the cities where
they lived.
Among other messages for our time, May finds Revelation
speaking “to being seduced by wealth and power. The portrayal of Babylon
in Revelation, while originally aimed at Rome, seems most appropriate to
America. Revelation is a warning to a country which has economic wealth
and military power. It thrusts the question to Christians today about where
does their trust and allegiance reside.”
While the book is often classified with apocalyptic literature,
May prefers the epic genre, which he says “is telling history from the
big picture. It deals with the present but uses themes from the past, symbols,
prophecy. Just as Virgil wrote the Aeneid in order to glorify the ascending
power of the Augustan Empire, so John writes Revelation in order to define
the true glory of the continuing reign of God.”
May is currently working on an article on Revelation which
uses the iconography of old Roman coins to interpret symbols found in this
ancient but enduring text.
523. 040908 THE STAR'S HEADLINE:
Three ways to respond to injustice
Several weeks after 9/11 I wrote, “In religious literature we can find
at least three metaphors to describe what happened Sept. 11: crime, war
and disease. Each metaphor has its virtue, and the situation is so complex
that no one metaphor is sufficient.”
Those three metaphors merit re-examination as we approach
the third anniversary of what still remains shocking to our sense of security
and human decency. More profoundly, it has renewed the ancient question,
“How could an all-knowing, all-powerful and all-loving God permit such
wickedness to assault the innocent?”
Even Billy Graham admits he has found no satisfactory
answer to this question. As we await the resolution of this mystery, the
three metaphors suggest ways for us to respond to life’s injustices.
* Crime. Almost all faiths seek justice. Whether it is
the Jewish Ten Commandments or the Hindu Laws of Manu, religions have often
provided a framework for behavior. Until 9/11, terrorism in the U.S. was
usually considered a crime, like other forms of violence. This first metaphor
has been useful in most societies when individuals or groups of individuals
disobeyed the rules of society.
* War. With 9/11 the United States shifted from treating
terrorism as a crime to characterizing it as war, with war a proper response
to iniquity. The Western religious heritage supplies many precedents. By
divine command, Joshua waged war to conquer pagan Canaan.
Condemned by early Christians, once Christianity had become
the state religion, force was used against the Donatist sect, and war was
justified as holy in the Crusades of the Middle Ages. It became a frequent
tool in Europe as one Christian group sought to extinguish the views of
others, or at least dominate them. The Thirty Years War between Catholics,
Lutherans and Calvinists, and the English Civil War between the Puritans
and the Anglicans are painful examples in the 17th Century. Today books
based on ideas from the Apocalypse suggest war is divinely ordained.
* Disease. The third metaphor is found in traditions like
Taoism and Buddhism with their emphasis on healing. Presented in personal
images, such as the “Medicine Buddha,” this metaphor suggests that ailments
arise from venoms such as greed, ignorance and hate. If our outlook is
poisoned by selfishness, misunderstanding and enmity, we cannot possibly
perceive why injustice has befallen us and why we remain under threat.
Curing begins with replacing greed with generosity, using
intelligence instead of reaction, and purifying our emotions so that
we can hear the Buddha say, “Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only
by love,” or Jesus teach, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you,
do good to them that hate you.” Such instruction is a difficult pill to
swallow, but it may also be an effective prescription, the only ultimate
cure.
522. 040901 THE STAR'S HEADLINE:
Kubler-Ross' lessons were for the living, too
“What is your gut reaction?” she asked her students after she concluded
her interviews with dying patients behind the one-way mirror at the University
of Chicago hospitals. Such questions made Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, M.D.,
one of the most memorable teachers I’ve ever had. In 1969, while she was
teaching those of us in the Divinity School’s clinical pastoral education
program, the best known of her 20 books, On Death and Dying, was published.
Thirty years later, Time magazine listed her as one of the “100 Most Important
Thinkers” of the past century. She lived 78 years and died Aug. 24, working
on yet another book.
This petite woman was known as “the death lady” because
she complained that when she came to Billings Hospital as assistant professor
of psychiatry in 1965 and asked the doctors to identifying dying patients
so she could work with them, the doctors told her they had no dying patients.
Perhaps more than anyone else, Dr Ross, as we addressed her, challenged
the culture of denial and enabled America to talk about the reality of
death.
Yet she insisted it was the dying person, not her, who
had the most to teach us. Her incredibly sensitive and caring interviews
amazed us as she succeeded with her invitations to the patients to discuss
their own deaths, especially as we learned that their own families were
too frightened to broach the subject with them, and they often needed to
talk with someone about what it was like to be dying.
From her hundreds of interviews with dying children and
adults and their families, she developed her famous theory of the five
stages of grief: denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression and
acceptance. When we students reported on our own work with dying patients,
we found that asking which stage each patient seemed to be in was a great
help in guiding us in thinking through how to be most helpful at that particular
time. Her ground-breaking theory has since been rightly challenged as inadequate.
But it remains a useful starting-point.
Seared into my memory is a private conversation the two
of us had in the chaplain’s office after the day shift left. Always firey
in her defense of the dignity of the dying person, she revealed to me her
firm, almost fanatical, belief in a spiritual world and personal survival
after death, ideas about which she would later write. The way she spoke
frightened the skeptic in me, but I came to cherish her willingness to
challenge me.
Still, that oft-repeated question, “What is your gut reaction?”
is how I best remember her. What she meant was that until one knows oneself,
until one is fearless in acknowledging one’s own faith and doubt, one cannot
leave that aside and enter into the world of the patient, to truly be present
with the patient, in the moment of death.
It was also a great lesson in being with people as they
live.
521. 040825 THE STAR'S HEADLINE:
Interfaith Council provides a passport to other faiths
In 1989, I had the pleasure of calling together men and women from 13
faith traditions to organize the Kansas City Interfaith Council. Its first
purpose was to make the metro area aware of the fact that so many different
faiths were practiced here: American Indian, Baha'i, Buddhist, Christian
Protestant, Christian Roman Catholic, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Sufi,
Unitarian Universalist, Wiccan and Zoroastrian.
The Council grew out of a continuing tradition begun in
1985. Each year on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, folks from different
faiths gather to share the meaning of gratitude from their various faiths
and a full meal with a text and symbolic foods to reflect upon the American
promise of religious freedom.
Cooperating with the Kansas City Press Club in a day-long
conference on “Religion and the Media” in 1990, the group supported developing
new ways for newspapers, radio and TV to report on the Heartland’s increasing
religious diversity. After 9/11, the Council’s work became the subject
of national media attention, including a half-hour CBS-TV special.
Still, most of its work has been routine, such as providing
speakers for groups who wish to learn about particular faiths, whether
a Sunday school class or a program for training hospital chaplains.
Recognition of the area’s faith diversity has led to expansion of faith
representation in community events, such as the annual Martin Luther King
Jr observances.
On Sept. 16, 2001, Kansas Congressman Dennis Moore invited
the Council to bring the community together in an observance of “Remembering
and Renewing” as a way of recognizing the devastation of 9/11 and affirming
our mutual support for one another.
One month later, the Council, which had been planning
a conference for over a year, opened a two-day interfaith meeting, “The
Gifts of Pluralism,” attended by 250 adults and youths from every faith
mentioned plus those from Christian Orthodox and Free-Thinker traditions.
From the conference, an auxiliary group formed, Mosaic,
which set about collecting stories from 70 area people about their lives
and faith. Many of these gripping stories were scripted into a play, “The
Hindu and the Cowboy,” performed locally in several venues, including last
spring’s annual Harmony Week Luncheon. Mosaic also started an interfaith
book club and developed an “Interfaith Passport.”
From the unanimous “Declaration” concluding the conference,
the Council itself has established three task forces, on the environment,
on personhood and on society, to bring the wisdom of all the faiths to
respond to the dangers of secularism.
The Council, which has never had its own funding, has
just received a technical assistance grant from a national interfaith organization.
For more information about the Council, visit www.cres.org/ifc.
520. 040818 THE STAR'S HEADLINE:
Interfaith groups: Part 2
In my rant last week about Kansas City not having a metro-wide religious
organization open to all congregations, I promised to discuss the KC Interfaith
Council this week. But calls from readers have convinced me another preliminary
is required.
So let me back up. My teacher at the University of Chicago
Divinity School, Mircea Eliade, is sometimes credited with studying religion
sui generis, that is, in its own right. Previously non-Christian faiths
were often viewed in seminaries in terms of Christian theology, rather
than in the ways each faith presents itself. And in secular schools, psychologists,
sociologists, anthropologists and philosophers examined religion through
their own lenses, rather than allowing religion to be studied as a separate
and distinctive discipline with its unique methods.
For Eliade, the key to understanding religion is the experience
of the sacred. While he utilized the insights of other disciplines, he
insisted religion could not be reduced to any one of them, nor a compilation
or combination of them. Religion deserves to be studied in its own right.
People often assume that interfaith work is about cooperation
between faiths toward some socially significant goal, whether it is folks
of several traditions joining to build a Habitat for Humanity house, ending
racial discrimination or pursuing world peace.
Such efforts deserve praise and support. But this parallels
the anthropologists and theologians using their own lenses instead of asking
of religions, “What can you teach us?”
I frequently learn of organizations wanting to employ
the Interfaith Council not to receive the wisdom of the world’s religions
but rather to deliver the organizations’ messages or services or receive
the Council’s support. That’s fine, but specific intentions cannot replace
folks of different faiths being open to the sacred. The sacred cannot have
any agenda placed on it; it is what creates the agenda. The sacred is not
a delivery vehicle; it is the driver.
That said, it is important to recognize interfaith groups
that make contributions to civic life like the Kansas City Interfaith Peace
Alliance, Project Equality, Worker Justice, the Independence Ministerial
Alliance, the Kansas City Office of the National Conference for Community
and Justice, the Wyandotte Interfaith Sponsoring Council. They are interfaith
in the sense that they involve people from several traditions, but not
in the sense that their focus is on the sacred as revealed through different
faiths.
Congregational Partners, a program of Kansas City Harmony,
now involves 29 congregations and is growing. It provides opportunities
for committed people of various faiths to meet repeatedly, develop friendships
through various activities and learn about their traditions.
Thank you, dear readers. Now, unless there are other objections
or clarifications, next week I write about the KC Interfaith Council.
519. 040811 THE STAR'S HEADLINE:
More interfaith cooperation needed
Every few years readers of this column must endure my rant about Kansas
City not having a way for all congregations to communicate with each other,
to learn from each other, to support each other, to work together.
My rant begins with the frustration of not being able
to hear both of two world-renowned teachers who will be in Kansas City
to discuss interfaith issues the same week-end, Oct. 1 and 2. Huston Smith,
author of The World’s Religions and interviewed by Bill Moyers in a PBS
series, gives lectures at Country Club Christian Church. Those same days,
famous (or infamous) ex-Catholic priest Matthew Fox, author of Original
Blessing and president of the University of Creation Spirituality, lectures
at Unity Temple on the Plaza and St. Paul’s Episcopal Church.
If Kansas City had even a rudimentary system of cooperation
between religious agencies, this scheduling conflict, among countless others,
need not have occurred.
The rant deepens with the 24 pounds of letters and other
papers Maurice Culver generated in 1990 when he, then head of Project Equality,
took a sabbatical to study metro-wide religious associations in other cities
and to explore whether one might be possible for Kansas City. Through Project
Equality’s current head, Kirk Perucca, Culver has just entrusted these
records to me, and, looking at them, I weep again because what his bottom
line then was remains true: financial support for such an organization
does not exist here.
Since 1990, there’ve been other proposals and studies
with the same result. The 1996 Religion/Spirituality Cluster of Mayor Cleaver’s
Task Force on Race Relations recommended establishing such a body, but
instead of finding new money as specified in the recommendation, three
existing organizations were tasked to carry out the mandate with insufficient
funding, another dead end.
In 2000, an ad hoc group was asked to plan an interfaith
ceremony to conclude the Kansas City sesquicentennial “peak week.” After
months of work, the group had to cancel the event because such an effort
required a network, infrastructure and funding that does not exist.
Many of us hoped that Spirit of Service would develop
into such infrastructure, but expected funding never appeared and the organization
effectively folded in 2002.
In the spring of 2003, the Heart of America United Way
concluded another study with the same result. A few months later, during
the debate on the demolition of B’nai Jehudah’s facility on Holmes, another
conversation erupted briefly about a diversity center there or elsewhere,
to serve all religious communities, but money never materialized for the
project.
The one metro-wide association that has provided slender
but significant services is the Kansas City Interfaith Council, about
which I write next week.
The musical “Cats” may be the greatest source of fame for T.S. Eliot
(1888-1965), but he also may have written the greatest religious poem of
the 20th Century. Born in St. Louis, Eliot became a British subject in
1927. He published the last poem of his “Four Quartets” in 1942, in the
gloom of World War II. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948.
While rooted in the Christian tradition, Eliot,
who had studied Sanskrit in his youth, makes use of themes from many texts,
including the Bhagavad Gita, the best loved of all Hindu scriptures.
As unlikely as it seems, these abstruse poems are part
of the romance between Kansas City lawyer Tom Brous and his graphics designer
wife. He says, “On our third date, I arrived at Mary Lou’s apartment with
a copy of FQ . . . . I hoped that she would find value in them (as I had).
Mary Lou said, ‘You are not going to believe this.’ And she showed me a
copy of Eliot’s Complete Poems with portions of FQ highlighted. Tom “was
surprised to meet someone who . . . knew FQ as well as I did . . . and
(this) had a lot to do with the immediate attraction we had for each other.
Later, at our wedding, I read the final section” of the last poem.
Tom recently gave a series of lectures on FQ at Grace
and Holy Trinity Cathedral (Episcopal), where he also serves as Chancellor.
For Tom, FQ “affirms the continual presence and accessibility of the divine
in the present where suffering occurs. In other words, the Incarnation
can be experienced. God has entered the world.
“FQ is a sacred text and could provide spiritual support
to many people, if they only knew” about the poems, Tom says.
Yet many people of faith have yet to discover FQ, though
some passages have gained some familiarity, such as, “We shall not cease
from exploration/ And the end of all our exploring/ Will be to arrive where
we started/ And know the place for the first time.”
Tom’s interest was stimulated over 20 years ago by hearing
a lecture that led him to explore stillness and silence as ways to deeper
spiritual life. In his reading, he found repeated references to FQ, read
the poems, and “felt challenged to master their meaning—that led to John
of the Cross, Dame Julian of Norwich, The Cloud of Unknowing, George
Herbert and others.”
Today I read many lines differently than when I first
encountered the poems 40 years ago—for example: “Do not let me hear/ Of
the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly,/ Their fear of fear and
frenzy, their fear of possession,/ Of belonging to another, or to others,
or to God.”
FQ’s insights and beauties seem endless, and the ineffable
meaning of the poems as a whole finally appears, an incarnation itself,
with unassailable spiritual power.
517. 040728 THE STAR'S HEADLINE:
Rotary Club helps bring prayer around
“How do I pray in public?” is a question put to me so often that I’ve
placed a detailed answer on my web site, www.cres.org/pray. But now there
is a new resource, a set of examples drawn from members of the Overland
Park Rotary Club.
Greg Musil, a member of the club, an attorney with Shughart
Thomson & Kilroy and a former Overland Park City Council member, compiled
and printed a set of 35 invocations because, he says, “I was inspired,
invigorated, challenged and moved by what my friends and colleagues drafted
or found to share.”
Musil prizes the prayers “because those who give the invocation
put a great deal of time and thought into it, incorporating not only current
events but the Rotary theme of ‘service above self.’ (The prayers are)
directly meaningful to anyone but especially to charitable souls like we
find in our Rotary Club.”
In gathering the prayers, Musil found they were similar
in including “tolerance and respect for others different from ourselves,
whether it be in skin color, religion, culture, etc. We also seem to have
a keen awareness that we are blessed with so many material goods (not the
least of which are food, shelter, clothing and medicine), and so many intangible
but critical assets like education, friendships, security, etc.”
He also noted differences. “Poems, quotes, personally
drafted thoughts, use of humor verses more somber thoughts, all demonstrate
the individuality of the club members.”
I asked him, “What is the value of prayer in a setting
such as a service club meeting?” He said, “Taking 30 to 60 seconds to close
one’s eyes and relax in our busy day is, in itself, a spiritually renewing
experience. Hearing good thoughts related to your work, service, family
or business, and being inspired to do or to continue to do good in your
community has an immeasurable value, at least to me.”
Many organizations whose participants come from different
religious background have found it difficult to continue a practice of
prayer or inspirational moments in their meetings because they fear offending
someone. It is a legitimate concern. It is an awesome and intimidating
responsibility to utter words on behalf of others at a sacred moment.
Still, the effort to bring awareness of the Infinite and
the Eternal into a particular place and time is what the life of the spirit
is all about.
As a member of Musil’s Rotary Club myself, I’ve watched
the group over the years wrestle with prayer and ultimately decide it was
too valuable to abandon. Perhaps members of other groups might be inspired
by this example to discover the diverse riches available when their own
members invoke the sacred.
516. 040721 THE STAR'S HEADLINE:
Shifting attitudes could lead to acceptance
“Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments,” begins
one of Shakespeare’s many sonnets to his young male friend in the Age of
Elizabeth. Today the question bedeviling people of faith is not mental
marriage but legal union of same-sex couples.
Senator Wayne Allard (Colo.) has proposed an amendment
to the US Constitution which he said “defines marriage as it has been defined
for thousands of years in hundreds of cultures around the world.” Missouri
voters Aug 3 will decide on a similar state amendment.
But even in the West, does the Biblical heritage justify
the notion that “traditional marriage” has maintained a consistent meaning?
Nowadays we think love is the motivating factor for marriage.
But consider Solomon with his 700 wives and 300 concubines. Are we talking
political alliances, procreation, property rights, honored servants, companionship,
sexual opportunities — or love? Stability was valued more highly than the
emotional variation associated with love.
Marriage did not originate in love between partners but
as a compact between families or groups. This is why in the Bible, most
marriages were arranged by the parents, sometimes when the children were
infants, though Isaac was 40 years old when Rebecca was chosen for him.
Women were like property. But David won King Saul’s daughter not by the
conventional method of buying her but by presenting the foreskins of 200
Philistines as evidence of his worthiness.
Onan’s father commanded him to have sex with his dead
brother’s wife in order to perpetuate the family line. This custom, the
“levirate” marriage, continued into the time of Jesus.
While in Mark’s gospel Jesus forbids all divorce, Paul’s
epistles have been interpreted to permit divorce and remarriage when one
partner becomes a believer and the other does not and this situation generates
intolerable friction. Paul also says that wives are to be subject to their
husbands who should treat them lovingly, in the context of the social inferiority
of the female.
Marriage was not declared a sacrament within the Roman
Catholic Church until 1215, perhaps influenced by Muslim writers and musicians
who elevated the importance of love, in contradiction to the medieval dictum
that “to love one's wife with one’s heart is adultery.”
Few people now insist that the sole purpose of marriage
is to produce children. Instead we sing, “Love and marriage go together
like a horse and carriage.” Will such sentiments lead to another stage
in the evolution of marriage to include unions based on love regardless
of the sex of the partners? In civil law, we permit divorce and remarriage,
though some faiths prohibit it. Will civil law come to afford same-sex
couples whose partnership has been sanctified by their faiths the same
legal recognition heterosexual couples enjoy in celebrating their love?
515. 040714 THE STAR'S HEADLINE:
A liberating message about women
Should women be religious leaders? Gene Flanery and his wife, Gloria,
think so. The Kansas City, Kans. couple will present their view in a workshop
in August in Kerrville, TX to the World Indigenous Missions meeting of
200 folks from all over globe. Gene, a missionary for over 20 years, has
done mission work in Mexico, the Philippines, India, Thailand, China, Czechoslovakia,
Romania and Spain. Gloria has been with him in places for extended stays
and earned a Masters of Divinity degree from Central Baptist Theological
Seminary last year.
I asked Gene and Gloria how they deal with scripture attributed
to Paul that suggest a women should not have authority over men and should
keep silent in church.
Gene asked me, “When you think of Jesus, do you think
of him as a liberator or an accommodator or culture?” I responded, “Jesus
was a liberator.”
“And what about Paul?” Gene asked. I said, “Paul’s concern
was to found and strengthen the churches in a sometimes difficult culture,
and he wanted Christians to appear respectable, to eliminate any unnecessary
impediments that would take attention away from his essential message,
so I’d say he was more the accommodator, as when he declined to free a
slave.”
Gene interprets Jesus as liberating women while Paul tried
to accommodate culture.
“Yes,“ Gloria said. “Paul wanted to move things forward,
but he had to work with specific situations in the context of his time.”
Gene noted that in 1 Cor. 11:6, Paul instructed women
who were prophesying to have their heads covered (many translations use
the expression “veiled”). In this, Paul recognizes the spiritual capacity
of women to teach while, at the same time, seeking manners that minimize
criticism from potential Christians who were immersed in cultural customs
about how women should appear.
Gloria said passages of scripture that seem to place limits
on women should be understood in the larger context of Paul’s declaration
in Gal. 3:28, that in Christ there is neither male nor female. Tabitha,
Priscilla, Phoebe, Lunia and other women are called apostles or given other
terms of religious leadership. The apparent inconsistencies in New Testament
writers can be explained by noting the specific circumstances for which
each instruction was fashioned.
Scripture, Gloria said, is not static. The whole of the
Bible must be our guide, not a particular passage lifted out of context.
“We sometime try to make the Bible a rule book, but I don’t think that
is its purpose. Christians today do not follow many of the instructions
found in the Bible because those instructions were culture-bound and the
circumstances have changed. The Bible is about the workings of the Spirit
in various settings, and we need to find the Spirit moving in our own lives
with today’s realities.”
514. 040707 THE STAR'S HEADLINE:
Moore film has its role to play
Sometimes the Hebrew prophets, who were not very popular anyhow, had
visions and did weird things as they condemned the political and religious
establishments of their times, decried economic exploitation and abuse
of power, and issued warnings about international relations. They said
they spoke for a God who demanded justice.
* Isaiah made a placard with the inscription, "Spoil-soon-prey-quick"
(Isa. 8:1), got it witnessed, and then told a mother to use it for her
child’s name, which became a prediction about Damascus, Samaria and Assyria.
[He also walked about naked and barefoot (Isa. 20:2-3).]
* Jeremiah was told to get a linen girdle, and after wearing
it, to put it in a hole in a rock by the River Euphrates. When he was later
instructed to retrieve it, he found it was mildewed and useless, as God
found the stubborn and prideful nation to be spoiled. You can imagine he
was not welcome in polite society when he said that God employed Babylon
to punish Judah for its forgetfulness.
* God instructed Ezekiel to cut his hair, weigh it on
scales, divide it into three parts, burn one part in Jerusalem, strike
a third with a sword, scatter a third to the winds and tell the people
this represents the punishment due them for their iniquity. (Ez. 5)
The prophets could be wrong and sometimes disagreed with
each other. Isaiah, for example, said that Jerusalem would not fall (31:5)
but Micah declared the city and the temple would be laid waste (3:12).
Unlike the primal faiths which find the sacred disclosed
in the world of nature, and unlike the Asians faiths which find ultimate
meaning by looking within, the Hebrew prophets examined the history of
their covenanted nation and asked, What does this social or political event
mean in the unfolding revelation of God’s plan for peace and justice?
Jeremiah, about whom we have the most biographical information,
is described by scholar Robert Davidson this way: “a prophet who in the
eyes of the establishment of his day was both traitor and heretic.”
When I've tried to explain the role of prophets to my
students, I’ve often compared them to the newspaper columnists and TV pundits
of our time who seek to place current events in a larger pattern. But unlike
many of the Hebrew prophets, such commentators, even when they disagree
with each other, are a respected part of society.
Now, however, I can point to anti-establishment figure
Michael Moore and the antics in his film, “Fahrenheit 9/11” as perhaps
a contemporary equivalent of Hebrew prophecy. The movie, fairly or unfairly,
seeks to discern a pattern in which the events of our day have meaning.
And in his own controversial way, Moore calls us to his particular view
of justice with the passion so evident in the Hebrew prophets.
513. 040630 THE STAR'S HEADLINE:
Universe draws us to enlightenment
Once upon a time, millions of eons ago, a king heard the Buddha preach.
The king was so stirred that he decided to relinquish his rule so that
he might pursue Buddhist studies as a monk. He took the name Dharmakara
which means “storehouse of Buddhist doctrine.”
In practicing with his teacher, Dharmakara learned of
many Buddhas, and that each Buddha resided in a land of perfection. He
asked his teacher to manifest the myriad of these lands so he could contemplate
the specific perfection of each realm. If one offered a perfection in musical
sounds, another might contain the most delicious food, and so on.
Dharmakara meditated on what he had seen for five kalpas.
(A kalpa can be considered the length of time it would take for a hunk
of rock 100 miles wide, deep and high to be worn away to nothing by a garment
brushing up against it once every hundred years.)
After being thus absorbed, Dharmakara determined to found
a realm which would combine the various forms of excellence he had seen
in all the other lands. But of course to do this, he himself had to accumulate
sufficient merit to be able to create such a place. Thus for countless
kalpas he performed good deeds on behalf of others.
He took 48 vows to insure, among other things, that the
pure and happy land he was creating would be available to any sincerely
desiring it to escape karma and be reborn there. (Karma is the law
of moral cause and effect which brings a person, in this life or the next,
the consequences of one’s acts.)
Ten kalpas ago, Dharmakara achieved his goal and now shines
in his land, emitting 7,056,000,000 rays of light in every direction
from his body of unimaginable size and glory, though he can also shrink
to a mere eight feet high. His land is sometimes called the Western Paradise.
He became the Buddha Amida. Amida (the Japanese form of Amitabha, the Chinese
name) means “infinite light.” A statue of Amida is on the stairs to the
third floor of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.
The story echoes and amplifies the tale of Siddhartha,
a prince who abandoned his royal sway to bring relief from suffering to
others and became the historical Buddha.
Amida is interpreted variously in different schools of
Buddhism, but he is generally regarded as an example of active compassion,
of doing good on behalf of others. Despite the extravagance of the story,
the message is simple. Merely by reciting Amida’s name or attempting to
imagine him, one is saved.
The Amida schools can be compared with Lutheranism in
Christianity, which emphasizes salvation not through our own merit, but
by God’s grace. There is something about the universe that draws us to
Enlightenment. Amida can also inspire us to imitate his compassionate acts.
Perhaps this way we can create the Pure Land now.
512. 040623 THE STAR'S HEADLINE:
What's your religion quotient?
Quiz time. How much do you know about the early developments of various
faiths? Of these thirteen statements, which are true? The answers appear
below; nine correct is a good score.
1. Some scholars suggest that after the Buddha’s death,
his followers added to his teachings the Hindu idea of reincarnation
— that after death, one is reborn in a new body, animal or human, to begin
another life.
2. The American Indian Ghost Dance was developed in prehistoric
times.
3. Although the Zoroastrian faith developed in ancient
Iran, more Zoroastrians now live in India where they are called Parsis.
4. Early Christian church leaders forbade Christians from
being judges who might have to impose capital punishment because they believed
the shedding of blood was always wrong.
5. The church father Tertullian (160-225) asked women
not to wear anklets and necklaces because such worldly adornments might
suggest their unreadiness for martyrdom.
6. Similarly, war was unanimously condemned by all Christian
writers before Constantine (288-337), so far as existing texts indicate.
7. The doctrine that Jesus and the Holy Spirit were not
equal to God the Father was hotly debated in the Christian churches until
381, with disagreements persisting for centuries after.
8. Augustine (354-430) developed the “just war” theory
as Christians considered the use of force to settle a theological controversy.
9. In 1054, an argument over the Trinity led to the split
between the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox churches.
10. The two main forms of Islam, the Sunni and the Shi’a,
have radically different views of God.
11. The tenth Sikh guru, Gobind Singh (1675-1708) announced
that the next and final guru would not be a human, but rather the Guru
Granth Sahib, a collection of writings including Hindu and Muslim texts.
12. All Baha’i scriptures were originally in Persian.
13. The first Jewish “denomination” to appear in America
was the Orthodox.
Answers. 1, 3-9 and 11 are true. 2 is false; the dance
was a reaction to the encroachments and oppression by white folk in the
late 19th century. 10 is false; the Sunni and the Shi’a theologies are
largely indistinguishable; they differ on who should have succeeded the
prophet Muhammad. 12 is false; some are in Arabic, and Shoghi Effendi (1897-1957),
the great grandson of founder Baha'ullah, wrote in English. 13 is
false; the Reform movement was the first to organize, with a platform declared
in 1885 in Pittsburgh.
511. 040616 THE STAR'S HEADLINE:
The place of Reagan and Romans in religion
[second draft]
Unlike the ancient Romans who made gods of many of their emperors, we
do not consider former presidents divine. Still, it may be useful to compare
Roman practices with what some observers have called the apotheosis of
President Reagan.
But first, a word about Roman religion. The Romans recognized
the achievements of other cultures, but they saw their own virtues rooted
in a special capacity to be religious. Cicero wrote, “We excel all people
in religiosity and in that unique wisdom that has brought us to the realization
that everything is subordinate to the rule and direction of the gods.”
The Romans did not conceive of religion so much a matter
of the soul as of the state; religion concerned outward behavior more than
inward spiritual life.
Our very word “religion” derives from Latin, and
its original meaning is often described as “scrupulous carefulness,” following
deliberate custom. We still use the term this way, as in “I play golf each
week religiously.” Our legal system derives in part from Roman ritual which
was a way of sealing contracts and determining judgments. The lawyers’
expression, “I pray to the court,” echoes the pre-Christian religious basis
of our legal system, still strewn with Latin expressions.
How did an emperor, dead or living, become a god? The
Senate voted. Our legislature doesn’t make gods, but it does have similar
powers to bestow honors and compel recognition.
Emperor worship was important as a way of
uniting disparate cultures under Roman rule. The statue of the emperor
commanded the kind of veneration many of us give to the American flag.
The Romans respected the gods of the peoples they conquered so long as
they made a place for the emperor. The state religion was an integral part
of government. Early Christians refused to confound the state with the
Divine and some were thrown to the lions.
The state and religion were united in the obsequies for
President Reagan in many ways. While the coffins of ordinary soldiers killed
in Iraq are not available for public viewing, his coffin draped with the
flag was prominently displayed and revered in the rituals. Government offices
were closed and taxpayer funds were expended for the observances. Leaders
of government were intimately involved in the rites. Proposals to place
President Reagan’s image on coinage and on Mount Rushmore are being considered
in the Congress.
Perhaps the union of religion and state during these ceremonies
was appropriate. In 1980, Ronald Reagan spoke to the Religious Roundtable
in words that augured the growing influence of conservative religious groups
on government: “I continue to look to the Scriptures today for fulfillment
and for guidance. Indeed, it is an incontrovertible fact that all the complex
and horrendous questions confronting us at home and world-wide have their
answer in that single Book.” Are we developing a religious sensibility
like the pride of the Romans?
[first draft]
The official state obsequies for President Reagan reminded me of the
ancient Roman apotheosis of the emperor. While our legislature does not
do what the Roman senate did — vote to make the nation’s leader a god —
functionally we do much the same. In what some might consider a violation
of the commandment to make no graven images, we place the likeness of dead
presidents on our coins. The religious ceremonies honoring the deceased
are intimately entwined with government sites.
It might be difficult for an ancient Roman, thrust by
a time machine into last week’s observances, to distinguish our ritual
intents from those of his culture. Deification of the emperor, after all,
was a civic recognition in the context of religious practices which themselves
were an expression of government. In practice if not in theology, worship
of the emperor is analogous to our pledge of allegiance to the flag, so
revered that Constitutional amendments have been proposed to outlaw its
“desecration,” implying the piece of cloth is sacred. People of some faiths
conscientiously refuse patriotic exercises because, like early Christians
thrown to the lions, they object to confounding the state with the Divine.
Cicero recognized that other peoples were
superior in many respects to the Romans, but that the Romans excelled in
religiosity “and that unique wisdom that has brought us to the realization
that everything is subordinate to the rule and direction of the gods.”
Our very word “religion” derives from Latin, and its original
meaning is often described as “scrupulous carefulness,” following deliberate
custom. We still use the term this way, as in “I play golf each week religiously.”
Our legal system derives in part from Roman ritual which was a way of sealing
contracts and determining judgments. The lawyers’ expression, “I pray to
the court,” echoes the pre-Christian religious basis of our legal system.
In 1980, Ronald Reagan spoke to the Religious Roundtable
in words that augured the growing influence of conservative religious groups
on government: “I continue to look to the Scriptures today for fulfillment
and for guidance. Indeed, it is an incontrovertible fact that all the complex
and horrendous questions confronting us at home and world-wide have their
answer in that single Book.”
Such pronouncements and support for particular religious
causes made it possible for many Christians professing to honor the Bible
to ignore the fact that Reagan was divorced and remarried, disresgarding
the teaching of Jesus in Mark 10:11-12. Nevertheless, conservative pastor
Jerry Falwell a few days ago called Reagan “a true hero to people of faith.”
Even if we don’t make them gods, making political leaders
religious heroes tempts us to ignore their human frailties. While it is
right to honor service to others, we should not confuse a comforting conventional
or sentimental religiosity with the demands of genuine faith.
510. 040609 THE STAR'S HEADLINE:
'Before the common era' is worth a look
A thoughtful reader responded to last week’s column which said Confucius
was born about 552. BCE. He prefers the calendar designation “B.C.”
He writes, “I am a Christian but have, for example, worked
in Saudi Arabia without being offended by their Islamic calendar. As a
society I think we’ve completely gone overboard on ‘political correctness,’
trying to avoid offending rather than trying to accept other cultural differences.
I don’t think we should try to be all things to all people, and loose our
own identities.”
First, information about the terms and then a comment
about cultural identity.
B.C. is the abbreviation for “Before Christ” and A.D.
comes from the Latin, Anno Domini, “In the Year of the Lord.” B.C.E. stands
for “Before the Common Era,” and C.E. means “In the Common Era.” The numbers
for the dates are identical.
The former two terms are widespread, but scholars increasingly
use the latter terms when dealing with world history. That is why B.C.E.
seemed appropriate for a column on Confucius.
Now, about identity. I doubt that I lose my identity by
using B.C.E. any more than I become a Confucian because I eat noodles,
which we think were brought to the West from China by Marco Polo. Nor for
that matter do I become Italian!
It is difficult to think of anything that does not have
antecedents in prior civilizations. Take something as pervasive as television.
Without detailing why historian of science James Burke includes a medieval
Jewish translation of Arab texts as part of the development of TV, one
has only to look at the word itself — “vision,” derived, we now know, from
the same linguistic root as “video” and “Vedas,” the earliest Hindu scriptures
— to see that we are indebted to a previously unacknowledged set of common
interrelationships.
Another example. I have never heard of a Christian taxpayer
complain about losing one’s identity because the government uses Arabic
numerals. Dear reader, would you like prepare your tax forms using the
Roman numerals employed throughout most of Christian history?
I’ve recently been examining college texts for the study
of the New Testament, and they use the “C.E.” system since it is difficult
to fully understand the scriptures without acquaintance with the world
cultures of the times in which they were written.
So I don’t see the scholars as being “politically correct.”
They simply recognize that we now know enough to acknowledge that we are
part of a larger human story.
Just as a person does not lose identity by gaining friends,
so faiths are not compromised by recognizing others. I do not lose my individuality
by submitting to traffic lights, and I don’t think Christians become less
Christian if, when dealing with other cultures, they use B.C.E.
America has been called the most religiously diverse nation
in history, and among Western nations may be the most religious. Just as
Baptists and Episcopalians did not lose their identity but were strengthened
by the First Amendment, so I don’t have to deny my faith by recognizing
the faith of others. In fact I can honor it appreciate my own more deeply
by seeing its We are now more keenly aware of the
many civilizations on this planet. I don't feel any loss of my identity
by recognizing other people in the world and by claiming their history
as part of my own. Confucius, Moses and Queelcoatl are a part of a world
heritage I claim, just as I enjoy Chinese, Jewish and Mexican foods, and
the art of Mu-Ch’i, Marc Chagall and Diego Rivera. For that matter, I can
be an American without wearing the wigs the Revolutionaries wore.
While you may not agree with me, I hope you will
understand my respect for the faiths in Kansas City, from A to Z -- American
Indian to Zoroastrian -- and an embrace of how their cultures have enriched
ours.
I hope different religions will maintain their various
calendars, A.H. for Muslims, B.E. for Bahais. A.M. for Jews, S.E. for Hindus,
K.E. for Sikhs, Y. for Zoroastrians and A.D. for Christians, I am glad
we can also share a Common Era.
509. 040602 THE STAR'S HEADLINE:
Learning more about Confucianism
While Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha and other religious figures are
increasingly familiar to many of us as we seek the wisdom of world traditions,
Confucius is often neglected. Born about 552 BCE near what is modern Shantung,
he lived during a time of great social confusion, when power seemed more
important than justice and peace. Here are three points about the Confucian
faith that deserve to be better known.
* Humans are born good. Confucius’ main concern was the
nature of humanity, jen in Chinese, sometimes translated “humane
aim.” Like the Hebrew prophets, Confucius proclaimed society was headed
in the wrong direction. Unlike the Hebrew prophets who delivered messages
from God to the rulers and the people, Confucius spoke from an optimistic
regard for the sacred humanity inherent in each person, with only conventional
reference to the gods. A society driven by force instead of mutual respect
corrupted the people, so he asked how society could be organized around
the value of human dignity instead. His answer looked to the past for lessons
but did not slavishly imitate the past.
* Key to social relationships is “the rectification of
names,” by which he meant that a thing should be called by what it is.
This sounds obvious, but it would be interesting if he could comment on
our culture’s misleading advertising and our tendency to rename things
for our own purposes of obfuscation, such as calling tax increases “revenue
enhancements” or prisoners of war “illegal combatants,” now a term with
technical meaning in some legal systems. It is hard to think clearly when
we misuse language to gain some kind of advantage.
* Another key is li, ritual. We recognize the dignity
in others by showing them respect through social ceremony. Thus in our
culture, when we meet, we shake hands; in China, bowing was the proper
rite.
To emphasize this idea, Confucius compared the individual
to a ritual vessel. It may be beautiful; it may have precious contents.
Still its value arises from its function in the ceremony, just as the recognition
of our shared humanity, even if we disagree about many things, is expressed
in the handshake.
As the sacrificial vessel becomes sacred in the context
of the ceremony, so we achieve jen through genuine relationship with others.
Virtue does not exist in isolation, he said. Regard for others lessens
the temptations of power and keeps our language honest.
Confucius’ focus was neither on the individual nor the
group, but rather on the holiness of the ceremony itself. When a clerk
greets me with a sincere “Good morning,” that ritual reveals the clerk’s
humane aim and recognizes my own humanity.
With the increasingly sharp political divisions appearing
in our nation, such ritual recognitions may keep us from being torn asunder.
508. 040526 THE STAR'S HEADLINE:
KC arts save a space for spiritual experience
Some examples and a thought about religion and the arts.
Recently, like everyone around me at the Lyric Theater,
I was on my feet to applaud a strong performance of Shostakovitch’s “Fifth
Symphony,” surely one of the great spiritual testaments of the 20th Century.
Though the communism the Soviet composer knew may now be dead, his despair,
yearning and compassion in the face of the state’s brutality moves us still
because the soul of our age must also struggle against oppressive forces
to reclaim its own humanity. Thank you, Kansas City Symphony.
Earlier this month, the Kansas City Ballet performed “Lambarena,”
uniting the expressiveness of traditional African dance with classical
pointe work in homage to the theologian, organist, physician and humanitarian,
Albert Schweitzer. The music spliced tribal sounds with Bach and revealed
a seamless essence of praise.
The Lyric Opera’s production of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni”
explored questions of character, morality and damnation.
The Friends of Chamber Music brought us “Daniel and the
Lions” at Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral, a story of the triumph of faith
when God shut the mouths of the lions in the den into which Daniel was
thrown, and from which he emerged as a signal of justice.
The ancient myths from Ovid were enlivened with a pool
of water as the set in the Missouri Repertory Theater’s production of “Metamorphoses”
and we saw both gods and humans metaphorically in the sea of desire.
In addition to the religious issues raised by the George
Catlin exhibition this winter at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the permanent
collection is an amazing assembly of objects, many of which convey sacred
inspiration. As museum director Marc Wilson writes, “Man has always invested
meaning in symbols and images . . . to define his relationship with the
cosmos. . . . It is not surprising, therefore, that religions generally
have spawned much of mankind’s artistic production.” Indeed, an inscription
on the north exterior of the building proclaims, “True painting is only
an image of the perfection of God.”
I could give many other examples. My point is this: Kansas
City is blessed by arts that enrich the spiritual adventure.
Faith, unlike a creed, is not a set of words; it is the
way one is pointed toward life. While a season of worship each week and
ongoing study of ancient scripture may give us bearings, religion is the
way we live our lives. We may talk theology, but art is the “body language”
of the soul. While separate, sectarian exercises are important, public
places for the arts, where folk from all faiths congregate in a shared
experience, may also be essential in growing the spirit of our community.
507. 040519 THE STAR'S HEADLINE:
Can we learn from the gods of war?
Service in war can be ennobling or debasing. Many of the world's religions
recognize this by including gods of war and human warriors—winners and
losers—in their traditions. Scholar of myth Joseph Campbell has argued
that both the soldier and the war-protester can be considered heroic insofar
as they give their lives to a larger cause.
While the gods are not seen in the new movie, “Troy,”
they manipulate the action in Homer's Iliad on which the movie is
based. Two Greek war divinities are most important. Ares, later assimilated
into the Roman god Mars, is recalled in the name we use for the third month
of the year. Ares is rash, brutal and blood-thirsty, his chariot pulled
by the horses Terror and Fear.
He ultimately loses to the goddess Athena, patron of Athens,
presented in the Parthenon. Athena is ethical and disciplined, a fighter
with foresight. Over time, she becomes a goddess of peace.
Even with all his powers, the god Krishna cannot prevent
war in the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, so he counsels the warrior
Arjuna to fight without passion, without thought of gain. Krishna says
“Victory and defeat are the same.”
At times the Hebrew Yahweh is a warrior God. In Numbers
31, he commands Moses to instruct his generals to slaughter the Midianites.
Killing men and burning towns are insufficient, so Moses demands
killing all the children and women as well, except the soldiers were allowed
to keep the female virgins. Subsequently, Joshua, with a genocidal ferocity,
destroys over thirty Canaanite cities. Psalm 144:1 praises divine bellicosity:
“Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my
fingers to fight.”
While the most famous Christian scripture of battle may
be Revelation, where God presides over cosmic conflict, including a war
in heaven (12:7), later Christian songs maintain the theme. In a famous
Thanksgiving hymn, the original words include, “We all do extol Thee, Thou
leader in battle.” “Onward Christian soldier,” “The Son of God goes forth
to war,” and many other martial hymns are important elements in Christian
worship.
Whether we study the Assyrian god Asshur, the Chinese
Kuan-ti, the Aryan-Vedic Indra, the Shinto Hachiman, the Polynesian Tu,
the Slavic Svantovit, the Tutonic Woden (for whom Wednesday is named),
or other war deities, we find the history of religion reveals a keen interest
in fighting.
Sometimes, as in the Bible, one side is good, the other
bad. Other times, as in Homer, figures may act with valor in ambiguous
circumstances within the terrible destruction of war, and from them a remnant
of hope and healing may emerge.
We want to think of religion as a path of peace. But the
fighter seems more exciting than the healer. Can we learn from the gods
of war? Or should we dethrone them—peacefully?
506. 040512 THE STAR'S HEADLINE:
Prose and poem show perspectives of Job
The one book in the Hebrew scriptures for which I am most grateful is
Job. Its author has been called “the Shakespeare of the Old Testament.”
Luther considered it “magnificent and sublime as no other book of Scripture.”
Here is what it means to me.
Job asks, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” We
also see how someone afflicted almost beyond measure relates to God with
integrity. Unlike most other books of the Bible, Job concerns mainly the
spiritual life of the individual, rather than the meaning of events affecting
an entire people.
The prose Hollywood beginning and ending appear to have
been written by someone other than the one who composed the main body of
the work, which is a poem. The prose calls God Yahweh and the poem uses
Hebrew terms like Elohim and Shaddai. Scholars cite other
evidence for distinct authorship.
I say “Hollywood” because the opening and closing of the
book make the story, while the poem is a focused theological treatise.
The drama presents God testing Job’s devotion by destroying
his family, possessions and health. Job is righteous; and in the prose,
Job is amazingly patient. The story ends with Job restored several times
over.
But in poem, Job is anything but patient. He is angry
and confronts God over his distress. “Comforters” are unsuccessful in their
attempts to explain why misery has befallen their friend. They accuse him
of sin and pride.
In Job 38-39, God finally answers from a whirlwind and
majestically puts Job in his place. This power-play is so compelling we
are almost so distracted that we forget that God fails to offer any justification
for what he has done to Job. Job never questions God’s might; he disputes
God's justice, and on that point, God has nothing to say.
In our culture’s drive for worldly winning, we have seen
scandal in business, sports and politics. ’Twas ever so. Those who
get caught may be a fraction of the wicked. Job complains not only is his
suffering undeserved, but the success of those who cheat and bully also
makes it hard to see how God is just. The book of Job is an antidote to
the poison of assuming those in power are therefore righteous.
In the end, God rebukes Job’s comforters because they
defend God with a false understanding of His nature, and He commends Job
for speaking truthfully. And Job prays for those who insulted and betrayed
him.
505. 040505 THE STAR'S HEADLINE:
Biblical inquiry goes beyond yes and no
[This version elaborates The Star’s text.]
Readers sometimes ask me to choose between saying either
“the Bible is true” or “it isn’t.”
For me, many religious questions are
not that simple. Language is an imperfect tool to describe ordinary things.
And when we try to speak about the realm of the sacred, about the best
language can do is to point beyond itself. Otherwise we mistake the finger
pointing to the moon for the moon itself. We take the map to be the territory.
Even in the ordinary realm, many matters cannot be decided
by a simple either/or choice. Take this sentence: “This sentence is false.”
Is it either true or false? Either option involves a contradiction. In
order to discuss the sentence, we have to step out of the either/or framework.
I want to escape the “either/or” trap of responding in the terms in which
the question is posed.
If I ask, “Did you see the sun rise today?” and you say
“No, the sun doesn’t rise; the earth rotates; I saw the sun appear
to rise,” you’ve rejected my everyday language in favor of a precious astronomical
view. But although you said “No,” your answer actually was “Yes” in the
way we usually talk. It is hard to reduce this to a simple either/or statement.
Is a zebra a white animal with black stripes or a black
animal with white stripes? Or perhaps an invisible animal with black and
white stripes? We should not confuse descriptions with the reality they
seek to describe.
Readers tell me “Jesus is the only way.” Does this
have to be an exclusive statement? Gentlemen: Is your wife the most beautiful
woman on earth? I hear many men saying, “Yes!” But you can’t all be right
– unless I take your affirmations as expressions of commitment rather than
a beauty pageant judgment. Interpreting passages like John 14:6 out of
historical context is like taking an expression of devotion to be a contest
award.
Take the famous Rubin figure shown here.[click
to see image] Is it a goblet or two faces? It depends on the
way you view it, and your view can shift. To be forced to say it is either
a goblet or two faces fails to respect its capacity to convey both goblet
and faces. If a simple black-and-white image can be multivalent, why cannot
a profound spiritual truth have many possible seemingly contradictory meanings?
Sometimes a frame of reference makes us say things we
don’t believe in other contexts. For example, if you ask me what troubled
Hamlet in the first act of Shakespeare’s play, I’ll say “the ghost of Hamlet’s
father.” But if you ask me if I believe ghosts exist, I’ll say, “No.” If
I ask, “How many step-sisters did Cinderella have?” and you say, “Two,”
I'll respond, “Correct” even though the question and answer make sense
only in terms of the fairy tale. If you ask me a Biblical question like,
“Did a whale swallow Jonah?” I’ll say, “Yes—or a `big fish’” in terms of
the story, even though I doubt the story is actual history. I don’t
have to believe that a whale swallowed Jonah in order to find the Biblical
story inspired.
Although my personal background is Protestant,
I prefer the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation – the wine and the
bread of the Eucharist become the very blood and body of Christ. Yet no
one thinks a chemical analysis of the consecrated elements would reveal
whether Jesus had type-A blood. We use inadequate language in an elevated
way to propel us into a mystery of salvation.
Take the subject of physics. For centuries the debate
was whether light is a wave or a particle because it could not be both.
Now physicists say light is both. Further, Robert Oppenheimer said of the
atom, “if we ask if the electron is at rest, we must say ‘no’; if we ask
whether it is in motion, we must say ‘no.’”
Surely some theological questions are even more inscrutable.
God must be either transcendent (beyond experience) or immanent (within
experience). Yet most theologians want to say God is both.
The impulse to define the Divine is as useful as striving
to trap sunlight in a canning jar. In the cellar the brilliance is gone.
Yet in a sense sunlight is captured in photosynthesis carried on in trees
and other plants, just as I believe the Bible, like other scriptures, contains
awesome records of human encounters with the Ultimate.
So, dear readers, I am suspicious of either/or questions.
The Bible is worthy of consideration far beyond a simple either/or answer.
Religion is about the Infinite intimated in multitudinous finite contexts.
Word formulas often fail. Yes or No answers may not be adequate to honor
that which above all should be honored.
504. 040428 THE STAR'S HEADLINE:
Spiritual dream a call to wake from secular slumber
On Apr. 27, 1994, this column began. In these ten years, I’ve seen my
readers increasingly identify this paradox: religion is both a cause of
conflict and a path of peace.
This paradox arises from our overwhelmingly desacralized
society. Our culture treats religion as a tiny corner of life to which
we must bow from time to time. There is little vision of how all things
involve each other, of what things are most important, of what really counts.
We pursue separate, private agenda, selfishly; special interests govern
our politics, rather than the common good; our entertainment glories in
the verisimilitude of violence, not in conflict healed with compassion;
our environment is a collection of objects for us to trash rather than
a holy arena for us to revere.
Yet the very meaning of spirituality is seeing things
whole; spirituality is pervasive and persuasive; it cannot be crammed into
a corner. Religion offers us the big picture; faith enables us to know
who we are in the cosmos, how to treat others, and where we find meaning
in the patterns of life that include suffering and death as well as affirmations
and thrills.
Our culture gives little support for such faith. The sacred
is ignored or demeaned. In reaction to the culture, some folks have fashioned
answers to the problems facing us that admit little doubt. Often using
texts of their traditions – Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and so forth
– they read back into their scriptures the secular divisions of the present.
Rather than healing the wound of secularism, such certainty further fractures
society. The forms of fracture include economic exploitation, totalitarianism,
terrorism and war.
This fracture causes some to ask, for example, “Will the
‘prophecy’ of Armageddon (Revelation 16:16) be fulfilled not because it
is God’s will but because those who believe in it will gain sufficient
power to bring the disaster upon us?”
On the other hand, other folks seem to dismiss religious
questions because they reject certain answers to those questions. Familiar
with only one idea of the Absolute (a religious term for ultimate Reality),
they assume there are no other moorings for the spirit, and that secular
options are better than religious judgments.
Yet these ten years also suggest a deepening yearning
for a spirituality whose sacred fruit is love. In the urgency of our time,
within every tradition, increasing numbers see the paradox of religion
- both causing conflict and affirming peace - as a call to awaken from
secular slumber, to purify, energize, and magnify the life of faith.
503. 040421 THE STAR'S HEADLINE:
For all his flaws, Don Giovanni knows himself
The figure for whom the opera is named goes to hell in the end. According
to the tally his servant Leporello keeps, he has seduced 640 Italian, 231
German, 100 French, 91 Turkish and 1003 Spanish women. Yet it seems he
loves not a single one. It is the adventure, the conquest that thrills
Don Giovanni. Sure, it’s kinda funny. Lots of jokes. But also dreadful.
I’ve been puzzling over this ominous opera for years.
How could Mozart and his librettist, da Ponte, shift from their previous
opera, the shining Marriage of Figaro, to this dark and troubling excursion
into selfishness and sexuality?
It is not just Don Giovanni who bothers me. Donna Elvira
is really messed up. Don Giovanni’s “bride,” she vacillates between fury
and forgiveness. She pursues him through he scorns her, yet she easily
accepts the advances of Leporello disguised as his master - if she is so
easily deceived, does she really know her man?
And how could anyone be as insensitive as Don Ottavio?!
He offers himself as a substitute father to Donna Anna a moment after ordering
her father’s corpse removed from her presence so he can continue with his
wooing.
All the characters are flawed in their knowledge of themselves
and therefore exploit others. None of them are completely admirable - Mozart
and da Ponte reveal their characters almost as carefully as if they were
charting personality types. Only the identified exploiter, Don Giovanni,
knows himself completely. He will not renounce the unholy zest he has in
charming others. Even when offered a last chance to repent, he refuses
redemption and is pulled into demonic smoke and flames.
Yes, the Don’s use of his wealth and position was a way
for Mozart to display the rape of the lower classes by the upper society
of 1787, two years before the French Revolution. Yes, Act I ends with everyone
singing “Viva la liberta!” Still, from Don Giovanni, it sounds more like
a sexual than a political slogan. Liberty is to be praised, indeed, but
can it flourish without responsibility?
Regardless of Mozart’s intent and the expectations of
his audience 200 years ago for a tidy, moralistic ending, today I am uncomfortable
with the characters delighting in the eternal punishment Don Giovanni receives.
In a sense, they are worse than he. He knew he misused others; they can’t
see how they do it.
Watching others caught up in their selfishness evokes
both hell and heaven for us to contemplate. And the music miraculously
converts our horror to compassion for everyone who seeks the miracle of
love.
The Lyric Opera presents Don Giovanni beginning Apr. 24.
Not to miss.
502. 040414 THE STAR'S HEADLINE:
Learning from George Catlin
When I was a youngster in Omaha, I liked to visit the Joslyn Art Museum
there. I liked "grown-up" art, not the childish displays about the uncivilized,
primitive Indians. They were heathens. My attitude was similar to many
Americans in 1800 who regarded Indians as subhuman. Often Indians were
nuisances or threats.
But George Catlin, a Philadelphia lawyer, thought Indians
were people. In the 1830s he made five trips west to encounter, to record
and "to rescue from oblivion" the Indians of the Plains in words and in
painting. He eventually produced some 500 images, over 120 of which you
can see here at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art these final days before
the show, "George Catlin and His Indian Gallery" closes Sunday.
Catlin began his explorations of Indians in their cultural
contexts just as the Congress enacted the Indian Removal Act, which forced
Indian resettlement. Such encroachments transformed and, in many cases,
eliminated tribal life. Some have used modern terms like "genocide" and
"ethnic cleansing" to awaken us to the history. At a minimum, a culture
observed, even for purposes of honoring it, is by the very act of being
observed, changed.
But when we look at the paintings-portraits, landscapes,
dances, sporting events, village panoramas, rituals, hunts, horsemanship,
food preparation and feasting, healing and even what might remind us of
the Christian "Madonna and Child" motif-when we look at these images, we
are also changed. Catlin's paintings proved what he wrote: "They are human
beings with features, thoughts, reason and sympathies like our own."
Of course I knew that. Long ago I outgrew my childish
view that Indian stuff was for children only and religiously unworthy.
I've since visited reservations, participated in Indian ceremonies and
have Indian friends. Still, the power of this exhibition was a surprise
to me.
I keep wondering how the white culture, instead of conveying
to the Indians its "contaminating vices and dissipations," to use Catlin's
words, might have instead been uplifted by more appreciative acquaintance
with cultures with a sacred sensibility about all things. I keep asking
whether our fragmented, secularist, special-interest-driven civilization
continues to ignore opportunities to understand ourselves better and regain
a shared sense of the holy by approaching those of other faiths who protest
against our commercialism, our profanation of power, our preoccupation
with celebrities, our worship of violence.
Catlin then may have romanticized the Indian as we today
may sentimentalize the exotic. Still, to raise such questions, the imperfect
mirror of these thrilling paintings is much better than none.
501. 040407 THE STAR'S HEADLINE:
Spring yields its own witness to resurrection
It was cold weeks ago, but in my front yard the purple crocus bloomed
with the promise of spring. Now green is everywhere, and my daffodils prove
the season’s glory is arriving. The flowering trees around the city, though
expected, are so fresh and beautiful, it is like a surprise. It is not
hard for me to understand why ancient folk attributed the miracle of resurgent
life to the gods.
For many years scholars tried to find parallels to Christ
with dying and rising deities associated with the seasons of nature--Adonis,
Attis, Baal, Tammuz--but similarities are fragmentary and strained. The
Osiris cult, for example, was widespread when Jesus lived. Osiris’ rejuvenation
following his murder was an expression of the reanimated earth each year.
This differs from the Christian story with its claims on this life and
the purpose of history. Osiris chose to rule the dead who live in a different
sense when they righteously identify with him in the nether realm, not
in this world. Osiris remained a god of nature, not a figure with a role
in what we understand as historical progression.
The Greek “mystery religions,” whose rituals involved
grain or eating flesh and drinking wine to share the savior’s life, seem
also to be fertility cults, rather than faiths with historical direction.
The Christian notion of resurrection also differs from
reincarnation in Hinduism, though some Hindus consider Jesus to be an avatar
of Vishnu, who also appeared as Rama and Krishna. Reincarnation is rebirth
into this realm repeatedly and does not require the death and resurrection
of a savior. Christ’s resurrection is taken as a promise that Christians
will also be given life after death in a new and eternal existence.
Puritan America refused to observe Easter. The holy day
grew in importance after the Civil War as a comfort to the bereaved.
“Easter” is derived from the same root as “east” and suggests
the importance of the spring sun. St. Bede (c. 673-735) says the Christian
holy day’s name has its origin with Eastre, a goddess of springtime. The
traditions of Easter bunnies and eggs recall the persistent themes of fertility
and revivified nature. Easter’s date depends on an astronomical, not a
historical, calculation: the Sunday following the full moon after the vernal
equinox.
But the Christian story says something more than a fact
of nature, that new life appears after the earth seems dead in winter.
It says more than after severe disappointment, new and redeeming meanings
may develop. When with the ears of the spirit I can hear the tomb of the
earth yield up its flowers in my front yard, I can also hear the Christian
witness of the soul reassured that the accidents of personal and historical
travail and tragedy are embraced with love in a larger and sacred pattern.
500. 040331 THE STAR'S HEADLINE:
Teach all nations, but learn from them
How should Christians understand the "Great Commission" (Matthew 28:19-20)
to take their faith to all the world? Two distinguished theologians visited
Kansas City recently with their answers.
M. Thomas Thangaraj, a Christian from India, lectured
at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Now a
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