Our Faustian Deal

Justo Gonzalez in his The Story ofChristianity says: 

 "Finally, the scheme of history that Eusebius [historian and contemporary of Constantine] developed led him to set aside or at least to postpone a fundamental theme of early Christian preaching:  the expectation of the full Reign of God.

 Although Eusebius does not go as far as to say so explicitly, in reading his works one receives the impression that now, with Constantine and his successors, the plan of God has been fulfilled.  No longer will Christians have to decide between serving the coming reign and serving the present one--which has become a representative and agent of the Reign of God.

Beyond the present political order, all that Christians are to hope for is their own personal transference into the heavenly kingdom.  Christian hope came to be relegated to the future life or to the distant future, and seemed to have little to do with the present world.  Religion tended to become a way to gain access to heaven, rather than to serve God in this life and the next.

The earlier notion, that in the resurrection of Christ the new age has dawned, and that by baptism and the Eucharist Christians become participants in it, was now abandoned, and Christian hope was now limited to the individual's life after death."


In one swift action, the Church relinquished any say about God's Kingdom on earth in exchange for absolute power over life after death. We have suffered ever since.

To be relevant in the 21st century, we must repudiate this deal the church made with the devil and proclaim that the Christian faith has almost nothing to say about life beyond the grave. The Christian Faith frees us to love and serve God - especially the poor and oppressed.

Why do good if there is no hell?

The creator of the very popular TV series "Breaking Bad" was on the radio today. The protagonist of this show is a good man who falls on hard times and is in desperate need of money. He is a high school chemistry teacher. It occured to him that he could use his skills to make methamphetamine, which he does.

As the series progresses, this very good man becomes a very evil man.

On the radio, the creator of the show askes the question, "without a final judgement in the hereafter, why would anyone choose to do good?" This question assumes that people, by nature are evil.

The church has an answer to this question. Jesus would never choose evil over good, why then would we make such a choice.

The Buddhists also have an answer to this question in the four nobel truths.

1. Adversity is authentic. All humans suffer adversity. There is no attempt by the Buddhists to explain why this is - it just is.
2. These adversities arouse passions within the the one who suffers. Another statement of fact.
3. Each person is free to choose how to react to suffering. They can choose an outward focus and serve others  - think of Ghandi, Mandela, MLK. Or they can choose an inward focus toward self and revenge - think of our response to 911.
4. Those who choose the former are enlightened.

The Lutheran doctrine of free will is close to the four nobel truths of Buddhism. Article 18 of our Augsburg Confession says that we have free will regarding all things earthly - like how will we love and serve the poor. We have no free will regarding things heavenly - like salvation, or who gets to go to heaven.

Lutherans embrace the concept of moral ambiguity but that does not mean that we should never take a stand. It means only that in the final analysis, our conscience is our guide and we should sin boldly.

Luther's answer to those who demand a rule book for what is good and what is evil ....

No one needs to tell lovers how to love one another

Ten years after 911

On September 16th I wrote an op-ed in the Houston Chronicle and I said that the thirst for vengance is the not the way of brother Jesus. Returning evil with evil always leads to yet more evil.

Our country has spent two trillion dollars in the ten years since 911 mostly to satisfy our thirst for blood and to calm our fears. For our blood thirst, we invaded two countries and killed thousands of our own soldiers and our "enemies". To "calm" our fears, we spent nearly a trillion dollars on homeland security.

The church was largely silent during this obscene waste of human and economic resources.

It is our responsibility to show that the way of love and compassion is the way of Jesus. The people who sit in our pews have to use our combined power and influence to change the way our country spends human and economic capital.

The politicians lie to us and we let them get away with it. When I speak to church groups I always ask if the people think that our country spends too much to help the poor. The response is a universal "yes".

Then I ask how much do they think we spend. The answers are that we spend somewhere around 20% of our budget on foreign aid.

The next question is, "what do you think we should spend?" Here, most people will say, "no more than 10%."

The entire foreign aid of the United States of America amounts to less than one tenth of one percent of our total budget. 

Americans are good decent people. We want to help but we have been lied to. Imagine what our world would look like if the two trillion dollars we wasted on death and destruction for the last ten years had been spent on projects like those we funded after World War II under the Marshall Plan.

I believe the church has a role to play in these decisions.

From the ELCA Churchwide Assembly

“Remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall — think of it,

ALWAYS.” 

 Mahatma Gandhi

Here is an excerpt from Bishop Hanson's sermon at the Churchwide Assembly. Lutherans will be relevant in the 21st Century when we follow his advice to move out of our sanctuaries and into the public square to act in the way of truth and love.

Finally Jesus caused such disruption with God’s gracious

word of promise that the cry, “How can this be?” turned into

shouts of “This must not be. Crucify him! Crucify him!” Even

the angel’s announcement on Easter morning, “He is not here. He

is risen” left Jesus’ followers fearful and bewildered, asking,

“How can this be? How can it be that not even death has the final

word with us?”

But it is tempting for us to stay there, is it not? It is tempting

for us as the ELCA to be content as a “How can this be” church,

a community that finds its comfort zone among the ponderers.

Skepticism becomes our first response when someone tells us of

God’s disrupting, interrupting grace in their life. Suspicion

becomes is our first posture toward our neighbor.

So are we ready for the Holy Spirit to move us with Mary?

I believe that, as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, we

are being moved by the power of the Holy Spirit to sing Mary’s

song of God’s disrupting, dislocating, relocating power.

Oh, yes, I believe the Holy Spirit is moving us to sing Mary’s

Magnificat not only in the security of our sanctuaries, but also in

the public square. It will take the Spirit’s power to embolden us

to sing of God scattering the proud in the thoughts of their hearts

and bringing down the powerful from their thrones.

In the midst of the gridlock over the debt ceiling and debt

reduction debate, I went to Washington, D.C., to join other

religious leaders in singing Mary’s song about God’s promise to

fill the hungry with good things. But, I can tell you, the refrains

of Mary’s song were not resounding throughout those halls of

power. There seemed to be more willingness to dismantle

programs than to draw a circle of protection around those

programs that serve the hungry, the homeless, the most vulnerable

in our land and around the world.

Friends, you know and I know that religious leaders singing

Mary’s song are not packing people into sports stadiums for

so-called religious rallies. In a consumer-oriented, competitive,

what-has-God-done-for-me- lately? religious marketplace, we are

not going to hear much about God dismantling structures that

marginalize and exclude people in poverty or those whose race or

gender or citizenship or sexual orientation, physical or mental

abilities or health make them unwanted, unnoticed.

But that is Mary’s song, and it is Mary’s song that the Holy

Spirit will give you the courage and voice to sing. It is Mary’s

song of God bringing the despised and the marginalized, the

outcast and the downcast, the defeated and the denied, and even

the dead into a new place. The place where God is building the

new creation—the new community in Christ.

When we have been disrupted by God’s grace, when we have

been dislocated, when we have been knocked off balance by

God’s word of judgment and left wondering, “How can this be?”

the Holy Spirit moves us. The Holy Spirit relocates us into God’s

abundant mercy, into a community of faith that with Mary

believes “Nothing will be impossible with God.”

Oh yes, this is who we are as the Evangelical Lutheran

Church in America—a community freed in Christ to serve. So let

this assembly unfold. Come, Holy Spirit. Come with your

power, Holy Spirit. Move us as you moved Mary. Move us to

sing, to live Mary’s song. Move us to faith. Move us to a living,

daring confidence in God’s grace. Move us to respond with

Mary, “Here am I—here we are. Let it be to me—let it be to us,

the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, according to your

word.”

So, like Mary, are we ready to be moved by the power of the

Holy Spirit? Don’t forget—by adjournment Friday, we will have

given our answer. Amen.

Do the right thing

Do the right thing. Easy to say. Not so easy to determine.

We Lutherans, however, are comfortable when we struggle with this problem. We are not moralistic. We know that right behavior does not determine our value before God and we embrace a profound sense of moral ambiguity.

We understand that faith is trust in God. It is not the acceptance of a set of teachings. The consequence of faith is service to neighbor. God’s radical adoption of a sinner by grace leads to a radical freedom. Freedom from coercive requirements and a freedom to serve others, especially the poor and oppressed.

I remember when the old LCA (Lutheran Church in America) was debating whether or not the church should stop investing in companies that did business in apartheid South Africa. Emotions ran high. The treasurer of the LCA at the time was an executive with Mobil Oil who did business in South Africa. He argued that his company did more for the victims of apartheid by doing business there than if they stopped doing business there. His argument was compelling to me. He was a leader in the church I love and he was a good man. Certainly, with his business sense and knowledge of the world, he and his company would do the right thing.

However, the LCA voted to withdraw all of our investments from companies doing business in South Africa.

Why?

We listened to the VICTIMS of apartheid who begged and pleaded that the churches of the world stop supporting companies doing business with that corrupt and immoral government. We, the Lutheran Church in America, did the right thing because we stood in solidarity with the poor and oppressed.

Now the question is – where does Jim Shields get off telling us what the right thing to do is? Good question. Welcome to the world of moral ambiguity.

I believe that the church must be a community of moral deliberation. There are no moral absolutes and we have to participate in this messy world.

Regarding the issue of homosexuality, our church conducted a twenty year study of human sexuality and produced a policy that was adopted by two thirds of the church wide assembly. With that foundation, the church wide assembly approved the ordination of homosexuals in committed relationships.

Emotions ran high during this debate and a few of our members have chosen to leave the church.

But did we do the right thing?

I say yes because our policy favors the victims of what I see is an injustice. Some members of Christ the King are homosexual. Some members have children who are homosexual. Rebecca and I have known these people and their children for many years. They are wonderful people. When we heard homosexuals being described with words like, “unnatural”, “abomination”, “sinful”, and deviant, our hearts broke. We could never use those words to describe the people in our midst who we know and love. Yet these beautiful people had to sit in silence while some factions in our church used horrendous language to describe their sexual orientation.

We do the right thing when we speak out on behalf of the poor and oppressed.

You did it to me

When asked why she devoted her life to serving the poor, Mother Theresa said her answer contained five simple words.

Lutherans in the 21st century are relevant when we focus on service to the poor. The work that we do in this country through Lutheran Social Services and worldwide through The Lutheran World Federation keeps us grounded. We can do more through our existing agencies.

In this world hatred is not dispelled by hatred; by love alone is hatred dispelled. This is an eternal law.

This eternal truth is from the Buddhist canon. 

Jesus said the same thing in fewer words.

Love your enemies.

or

Love one another.

There can be no argument that the three statements say the same thing about an eternal truth.

We all understand what we mean by eternal truth. Never changing, applicable to all human conditions, unconditional, from God.

The problem comes when we use the word "eternal" as an adjective for life. Just what is "eternal life?" The church has taken possession of this term and linked it to something that has to do with life beyond the grave. I don't think that the biblical writers had this in mind. 

Lutherans will be relevant in the 21st century when we admit that the Church of  Jesus Christ has almost nothing to say about life beyond the grave. We have a lot to say about those eternal truths which affect us here in God's Kingdom on earth. We have nothing to say about God's Kingdom in heaven. We trust that to God.

Lutherans are Universalists

A few years before my father died at age 93 he asked me what we Lutherans believe about heaven. This is from a man who grew me up in the Lutheran church. I told him that I really didn't know but would find out. I read Sittler, Luther, Robert Marshall, Martin Marty and others and the real answer is that we Lutherans have no idea if there is a heaven.

I go to church assemblies and meetings a lot. A while ago, I began a very unscientific survey of pastors.When I meet new people, especially pastors, I will introduce myself and then ask,"pastor, I believe Lutherans are Universalists. What do you believe?"

In the 10 or so years I have been doing this, nine out of ten pastors I meet agree  that Lutherans are universalists. With enthusiasm.

In the early 2000's, Lutheran theologian, Walter Bouman, was the scholar in residence at my church in Houston. Naturally, I asked Walter this question and he equivocated saying that he really didn't know but he lived in the trust that there is a heaven but could not say who got into heaven.

Then in 2005, Walter was diagnosed with terminal cancer and wrote an open letter to the church which was published in the November issue of The Lutheran. I have included it at the top of this blog. This wonderful letter from Walter to all of us contains much needed advice and you will note that in his dying days, Walter came to accept God's Universal Salvation.

Joseph Sittler writes:

The Bible really has nothing to say about eternal life. That sounds like a shocking statement, but it's literally true: there is not a single clear and concrete word in the Bible about life after death. It affirms that life with God is life with that which does not die. But any specification about life after death is steadily avoided by the biblical writers. 


Paul made an effort to address the question, but it's a bum effort: 'What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body which is to be, but a bare kernal, perhaps of wheat or some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. For not all flesh is alike, but there is one kind for men, another for animals , another for birds, and another for fish.' (1 Cor: 15: 36-39) He tries by natural analogy to say something. Interestingly, he never tried it again. 

Sighs too deep for words

Our hearts break for the senseless murders this weekend in Norway.

The violence was fueled by a highly combustible mixture of hate and fear. Before it was announced that the murderer was a right wing Norwegian who hated Muslims, you could sense that the right wing in our country was poised to cry out for revenge and violence against Muslims. In their mind, only Muslim terrorists could be capable of such terrible violence.

This thirst for blood is not the way of Brother Jesus.

In the time of Luther, the question was, "How can I find a gracious God?"

The question for our time is, "How can we find God in our enemies?"
n

We can no more save ourselves from our enemies than we can save ourselves from sin . God’s amazing grace offers to save us from both.

nFalse prophets today cannot mention love of enemies . Listen to the voices on the right wing of our political and religious spectrum. Their thirst for blood is sickening.

They will tell you that  the way of Brother Jesus is impractical, idealistic, and out of touch with the "real world." The evidence of the "real world" totally repudiates such thinking.

In 1989, 13 nations – 1.7 billion people – 32% of humanity experienced non-violent revolutions. Add up all countries touched by major non-violent actions since 1986 the figure reaches 3.3 billion people – a staggering 64% of humanity. All this in the teeth of the right wing claim that – “non-violence does not work in the real world.”


No such irrelevancy is charged against the myth of redemptive violence even though evidence shows that violence almost never works. Imagine our world if the followers of Jesus had been successful in stopping the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan in 2003. A trillion dollar war would have been averted. We created more terrorists than we could ever kill and we will pay that price for a long time. 

God is all inclusive. Jesus says love your enemies because God does – Matt 5:45 – Luke 6:35. Much of what passes as religion denies the existence of such a God. Jesus became one of us not because judgment is an end but a beginning- not to consume but to purify – not to annihilate but to redeem. Jesus forgave sins – now you can repent.

God loves you – now you can lift your eyes to God

This is the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

n

The rich and the poor

 The budget debate has a central moral dimension. Christians are asking how we protect “the least of these.” “What would Jesus cut?” “How do we share sacrifice?”


So said religious leaders who signed the  Circle of Protection document presented to President Obama yesterday, July 20, 2011.

Walking to the White House

Yesterday, ELCA Bishop Mark Hanson (purple shirt), Bread for the World (BFW) President, David Beckmann (right foreground), former BFW board member Tony Hall, and five other religious leaders met with President Obama to lobby on behalf of the poor and oppressed while the debate over debt and government spending rages in Washington, DC.

Last week, when Episcopal churches in New York City debated whether or not to officiate at same sex marriages, the issue made the front page of the New York Times. Yesterday's meeting with President Obama where our religious leaders demanded that the budget not be balanced on the backs of poor people barely made the news.

We have our work cut out for us. The Church of Jesus Christ has a special option for the poor. The people in the pews must hear this Good News preached on a regular basis. We will respond. Our leaders know this and are doing their part. Now it is up to us.

Who wrote the bible?

150 CE						Second Peter
120 CE					Luke/Acts	Barnabas Hermas
100 CE				John	John’s Ltr John’s Rev	1st  Clmt 1st Peter
90 CE		Matthew			Ephesians
80 CE		Q2	Mark		Colossians
70 CE		Pronouncement Stories
60 CE					Paul’s Letters
50 CE	Q1	Miracle Stories
40 CE		Oral Tradition
30 CE	Jesus Died	Lore Teachings
20 CE	Jesus in Galilee
	Galilee	Northern Palestine	Southern Syria	Northern Syria	Greece Asia Minor	Rome

There are many people who will tell you that God wrote the Bible and they will beat you over the head with their interpretation of the Bible. Many more people are really turned off by this "God said it, I believe it, case closed" bumper sticker mentality.

Lutherans and others have done serious scholarship on the subject and I think it is important that we are clear about our position on the Bible. The diagram above is one that I put together from Burton Mack's book, "Who wrote the New Testament."

It is commonly accepted that Jesus was murdered around 33 CE. For the next 30 years, there is no written record of the life and teachings of Jesus. An oral record was created by various Jesus cults and societies. Many scholars speculate that two documents existed but have since been long lost that were written records. They are called Q1 and Q2.  "Q" is the first letter of the word "quelle" which is German for "Source."

Paul's letters are the first written evidence of Jesus and Paul was not an eyewitness to the life and death of Jesus. Mathew, Mark and Luke are thought to have been based on the Q documents because they are so similar. No one knows who wrote the Gospels and ascribing the names Matthew, Mark, Luke and John is simply something that happened over time. We know that the author of Luke is the author of Acts because he says so in the first chapter of Acts.

The Bible is a collection of various documents that were written over a very long period. From the chart above, you will see that the books and letters in the New Testament were written to various audiences over a period of 100 years. The books and stories in the Old Testament were written over a period of thousands of years and many were changed over time. The book of Job, for example is an ancient fable that was split in two and someone inserted a middle part.

In the 4th century, Constantine appointed a bishop named Eusebius to cobble together a single volume which would be the Bible. This list of documents is called the canon and various versions exist. The Roman Catholics, for example, include several books that Lutherans do not. Scholars and theologians debate to this day whether or not the canon is closed.

The point is that all of the documents were written by men and women and almost none are historically accurate and certainly none are books of science or geology.

It is also not arguable that the Bible has been used over the centuries for nefarious reasons. Slavery was defended on the basis of scripture and today, homosexuals are castigated from holy scripture.

Luther was clear about the use of scripture. He said that scripture is one way that the Great Mystery reveals itself to us. There are other ways. Music (Lutheran great, J.S. Bach, is often called the fifth evangelist), art, literature, poetry are others. The book of James is so full of great arguments for works righteousness that Luther said it was an epistle of straw and should be removed from the canon and be replaced with a letter written by his buddy Melanchthon. Luther opposed works righteousness.