Uhhhh... Why Are We Here?

             In the destructive partisan chaos that defines our national identity, the principles and values in our Constitution have long been forgotten. Differences and disagreements, if approached with maturity, can be resolved, but only if both sides elect to work for reconciliation instead of just wanting to “win the fight.” When adversaries truly listen to each other, they almost always discover that they have more in common that in opposition.

But we’ve fought for so long that we’ve forgotten why we’re fighting--what's at stake. Causes and ideals have been discarded and now the only important thing is to destroy the “other side,” and the bloodier the better.

In the 19^th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament there’s an interesting story. Paul and the missionaries were successful at Ephesus, and many Ephesians believed. Consequently, the economy took a dip.

The economy centered on the Temple of Diana, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It stood 60 feet tall, was octagon shaped, 340 feet by 160 feet with 127 pillars, and was the largest stone building in the world at that time. Legend has it that gold was used to bond the marble blocks, one to another.

The temple supported many businesses—booths and kiosks with T-Shirts and postcards. The main business was the marketing of silver trinkets—phallic symbols and fertility charms—representing Diana and her shrine. Childless couples who rocked an empty cradle for years came to buy the amulets to hang on the bedpost, and to pray to Diana.

Paul preached that gods made with hands are not gods at all; and he was so convincing that the Ephesians, by the droves, gave up idolatry—and the silversmith trade became depressed.

A man named Demetrius was “Shop Steward” for the silversmiths, and he called a meeting. When self-interest is at stake and you want to stir people up and get them on your side (even if your methods are questionable), there are two basic ways of doing it: you can wave the flag or you can beat the religious drum. You’ll almost always get a following.

Demetrius employed both. He said, “People from all over the civilized world come to worship, and these people are reducing this great Temple to insignificance!” Soon he had a crowd chanting, “Great is Diana of the Ephesians!” And they got all worked up and stormed City Hall, where the city council was in session.

The council was caught totally by surprise. Luke says, “…everybody was shouting different things till the council itself had no idea what was going on; most of them did not even know why they were meeting.” [Have you ever been to a small-town City Council meeting? I won’t go there.]

The Jewish community became concerned. After all, they’d always been open in their opposition to idolatry. What if these people blamed them for their economic problems? It had happened before.

So, they chose Alexander and coached him to say, “It’s Paul’s fault. It’s the Christians!” But when the mob saw he was a Jew, they started chanting again: “Great is Diana of the Ephesians!”

This went on for a couple of hours, until the city clerk was able to quiet the crowd. Then he said, “These men are no threat to us. The whole world knows the greatness of Diana and this Temple. If you have a problem, take it to court; but if we keep this up, we’re going to have Roman soldiers all over the place. Go home!”

And the crowd broke up. That’s it.

Why does Luke include this story in Acts? What is there of value in it for us? There’s no clear message or moral; no bad guys. Demetrius and the silversmiths are simply businessmen fighting for what’s theirs. They’ve worked hard for what they have.

The Jews aren’t bad guys, either. They’re scared for their children. They’re an occupied people; they have to “get along.”

In the story immediately previous, there are bad guys: evil spirits, books of magic, practitioners of magic, false exorcists, demons… There are no bad guys in this story. They’re businessmen; family people—like you and me.

Still, damage was done. This incident ended Paul’s ministry in Ephesus. He had to leave town and was never able to go back.

Maybe the key to this story is in verse 32: “The assembly was in confusion: Some were shouting one thing, some another. Most of the people did not even know why they were there.” Everybody had his own agenda; and nobody was listening to anyone.

When partisanism and divisiveness rage, eventually “Most of the people didn’t even know why they were there.” But the church at Ephesus remained focused faithful to God’s calling to follow Jesus and be his disciples.

As a result, years later a man received a vision from God about end times. He committed that vision to writing, and that writing is now a part of Holy Scripture. And in that writing are these words:

"To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lamp stands: I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name and have not grown weary…. (Revelation 2:1-3 NIV)

It is possible to live in a world gone crazy—to live as people of faith—and not be swayed by the partisanism and divisiveness all around. It is possible to live in the midst of partisan chaos and hold to the principles and values that hold the only hope for humanity: integrity, dignity, and love.

That’s the way it looks through the “Flawed Glass” that is my world view.

Together in the Walk

Jim

Roots of Discord

Like most people who are not in denial or defending some vested interest, I see the racism, misogyny, and xenophobia that are endemic in much of American culture and blatantly rampant in some quarters of national leadership. And while I deplore them as much as anybody, I don’t believe these traits are chosen—they are not intentional or premeditated—as some would imply. 

I see us beating each other up with accusations of these evil, even demonic, qualities; however, short of mental illness or demonic possession, I don’t believe anyone would, upon reflection, decide: “I’m going to be a racist.” In fact, most people deny they are racist. For the most part, I repeat, it's not intentional or premeditated.

More than individual traits, these character flaws are systemic. They are embedded in the human ethos and have been manifested in virtually every human culture at least since the emergence of the conquest cultures during the Bronze Age. The conquest cultures, with their characteristic myth of redemptive violence, were clearly articulated and described as early as the Babylonian creation myth (The Enuma Elish), which dates to the 12^th and 13^th centuries BCE.

 Walter Wink describes that myth of redemptive violence, which he began to discern while watching the TV cartoons with his children during the 1960s. He writes:

“I began to examine the structure of cartoons, and found the same pattern repeated endlessly: an indestructible hero is doggedly opposed to an irreformable and equally indestructible villain. Nothing can kill the hero, though for the first three quarters of the show he (rarely she) suffers grievously and appears hopelessly doomed, until miraculously, the hero breaks free, vanquishes the villain, and restores order until the next episode. Nothing finally destroys the villain or prevents his or her reappearance, whether the villain is soundly trounced, jailed, drowned, or shot into outer space.”[1]

In the Babylonian myth, creation itself is an act of violence, and that mythic structure spread from Ireland to China. Wink continues:

“Typically, a male war god residing in the sky fights a decisive battle with a female divine being, usually depicted as a monster or dragon, residing in the sea or abyss (the feminine element). Having vanquished the original enemy by war and murder, the victor fashions a cosmos from the monster’s corpse. Cosmic order requires the violent suppression of the feminine, and is mirrored in the social order by the subjection of women to men and people to ruler.”[2]

If the Babylonian myth of creation describes a very early example of acculturated misogyny, the testimony of endemic racism dates at least a millennium earlier to the Hebrew Scriptures, where it emerges from the feud between Abraham’s jealous wife, Sarai and his concubine (Sarai’s handmaiden), Hagar. Ishmael, Hagar’s son and the source of Sarai’s jealousy, is banished with his mother, and became known as the father of the Arabic peoples. Ishmael hated Abraham and his tribe because of his banishment, which essentially cut him off from a rather affluent inheritance as Abraham’s first-born. That hatred became the basis of the relationship between the Israelites and the descendants of Ishmael (which continues today) and is an early depiction of acculturated racism.

In every manifestation of misogyny and racism, whether systemic and cultural or individual and personal, the root is an intolerance of differences—xenophobia. I submit that xenophobia is the foundation of virtually every human relations dysfunction, and I would emphasize the “phobia” part of that word.

In recent writings and addresses fear consistently is identified as a major factor behind the animosity that festers like an open wound and divides the American people.

The antidote to xenophobia, I submit, is that people simply become better acquainted. In training for pastoral care, a primary principle was (and still is) that between me and any other human there are infinitely more similarities than differences.  But it’s human nature to focus on the differences. And that focus eventually leads to fear.

When people become better acquainted with each other, it’s common for them to discover those similarities—common interests and hopes and ideals—that become a basis for cooperative, peaceful relationships. I suggest that the same is true in group and community relationships.

What are your hopes? Your dreams? What do you want to accomplish? If you share your responses with me, I suspect we’ll discover that I have the same kinds of hopes and dreams and objectives, and the foundation will have been laid for the growth of trust and friendship.

Sound too good to be true? Too easy? I don’t know. Has it ever been tried? Really?

Really?

That’s the way it looks through the Flawed Glass that is my world view.

Together in the Walk,

Jim

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[1] http://www2.goshen.edu/~joannab/women/wink99.pdf

[2] Ibid.

To Consider Unity

Are you sick of the belligerence that increasingly characterizes our culture and our way of living and relating? I am. Sadly, there are some who seem to relish the antagonism, and actually to delight in provoking it (“Let’s you and him fight!”).

Sometimes I lose hope of seeing humanity united and cooperating; of seeing people of different persuasions coming together to glean the best from each of their different outlooks, and creating a new reality better than their previously held dogmas.

In recent efforts to understand the roots of the current animosity, I looked to my own discipline: Christian theology and church history. Beginning with Augustine in the 4^th century, mainstream Christianity took a discernable turn toward law over grace.

That happens in virtually every movement, religious or otherwise. As entrepreneurial founders begin to age, they tend to become caretakers and defenders of their accomplishments. Thus, begins the paradigm shift from movement to institution.

Each succeeding generation adds to the growing set of rules and procedural codes (as in the Constitution of the United States with its amendments and expanding volumes of interpretive laws and codices).

In the Judaism described in the Bible, the trend reached its zenith in the pharisaism Jesus confronted. In Christian history the penchant for rules over grace maxed out under John Calvin and, later in England, the Puritans.

Oppressed in Europe, the Puritans came to America, and were the dominant socio/religious force in colonial America. Most Christian sects in America reflected the harshness of Puritanism, well into the middle of the twentieth century. During the infamously rebellious 1960s, a secularized[1][1] form of Christianity emerged. It rejected the harsh, judgmental, punitive images of God, in favor of a more Christ-like image.

That “more secularized” movement culminated in the last couple of decades into what some have called the “Emerging Church.” In response, the Calvinist/Puritan-oriented bodies doubled down own their insistence that their image of God, and only their image, was the truth, declaring open season on any who disagreed.

The trouble was, each denomination and sect claimed its own set of rules that defined truth; so, everybody was fighting with everybody, and the “spiritually yearning, institutionally disillusioned public”[2] was leaving the church. In the panic over the loss of members (and offerings), the institutional church ramped up its condemnatory rhetoric, which, in turn, drove still more members and offerings into the streets.

Essentially, the Calvinist/Puritan inflexibility was less about seeking truth, and more about proving that I/We already have the truth. The church generally was seen as issuing an ultimatum; and people (particularly those in the millennial generations) stereotyped all churches as judgmental and unforgiving, and they fled en masse from the model in which they were unable to sense the presence of Jesus.

I developed an hypothesis: Given that through the middle of the twentieth century, American culture generally was molded by some expression of Christianity, and given the generally judgmental and hostile stereotype into which all churches were lumped, it seemed reasonable that the current cultural and political fractiousness were in that mix, somewhere. I still believe there is a level in which that hypothesis is valid.

But the pre-Augustinian church already was divided. Paul’s epistles often address congregational division. Some creeds (the Apostles’ Creed and the Creed of Nicaea) emerged prior to the time of Augustine.

In colonial America the political divisiveness already was so bitter that duels to the death were fought.

So, the search for the origins of our current socio/political enmity is like peeling an onion. For the present, I lean toward considering it to be the nature of broken humanity. Maybe it’s not only what we have become. Maybe humans always have been like this; and we are living out our brokenness, rather than living out Jesus' prayer that his followers would become one, as he and his heavenly father were one (John 17:20-21).

Hard sins linked to sexual immorality or religious heresy notwithstanding, could it be that our primary need for repentance is from the primordial state of human brokenness out of which all other brokenness arises? Are we tinkering with symptoms and ignoring the cause?

Repentance does not require regret or remorse; nor does it necessarily involve penitence or penance. The word means, simply, to turn; essentially, to turn from one way of doing and being to another.

I try to not obsess over things I cannot control. Occasionally I even succeed! I don’t know how to influence the general turn of ideologies toward “us all becoming one.” But I can control how I respond; and I perhaps can influence one or a few persons to consider unity over division. That outlook forms the basis of my own repentance in regard to the focus of this writing.

How about this: evil always needs to be confronted; but, before we mount our white horse and charge into the fray, could we take a bit of time, first, to set aside the temptation to blame everyone but ourselves for the way things are, and to engage, instead, in some tangible act intended to make the world better, if only for a moment; if only for one other person?

If we could start each day planning to act or participate proactively in some constructive activity, before turning to the headlines or (worse) Facebook tirades or Twitter harangues, would a constructive outlook lead to a more effective way of responding to those who disagree with us? It’s at least an attempt to be a part of the solution, rather than the problem.

What is there to lose? Is our current culture of denunciation and vilification leading toward a better world?

That’s the way it looks through the Flawed Glass that is my world view.

Together in the walk,

Jim

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[1] Secular, not in rejection of God, Scripture or Christianity, but rather, in rejection of what was deemed a distortion of God, Scripture and Christianity. In other words, a rejection of the institutionalization of Christianity.

[2] A description coined by Thomas G. Bandy in Christian Chaos and other of his writings.