For the Common Good

Community Christian Church
Roger Ray, pastor
Jan. 13, 2013    Epiphany 2

I Corinthians 12:1-11                  
Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. 2You know that when you were pagans, you were enticed and led astray to idols that could not speak. 3Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says "Let Jesus be cursed!" and no one can say "Jesus is Lord" except by the Holy Spirit. 4Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; 6and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. 7To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 8To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.

This week the famous French film star and producer,  Gérard Depardieu, officially gave up his French citizenship and went to Russia to accept a new passport directly from the hands of Vladimir Putin.  Depardieu still lives in Belgium but his paper defection is in an attempt to avoid the top French income tax rate of 75%.  He likes France.  France has given him opportunities, a career and fabulous personal wealth but he doesn't want to turn the majority of his income over to pay the bills for running France.  His move is certainly being applauded by many tax revolutionaries but I wonder how much wealth he would have had if he had made the move to Russia forty years ago?

It goes to one of the campaign issues of last fall when President Obama was quoted as having told business owners "You didn't build that."  Many people took to the media to shout, "I did too build that," though they failed to mention that in the process of building that they had taken millions of dollars in loans from the federal government, and depended upon hiring a work force educated at public expense, and that their product is moved on roads paid for at public expense and they are protected by police and firemen who are paid for at public expense..... but they built their business all by themselves with no help from anyone.

Rather more quietly, without much media coverage, the author of the Harry Potter book and movie franchise, J. K. Rowling, has remained in Great Britain.  She was a single mother on welfare who wrote her first book sitting in a coffee shop while her children were in school because the coffee shop would give her free refills all day.

Rowling said, "When my life hit rock bottom, that safety net, threadbare though it had become under John Major's Government, was there to break the fall. I cannot help feeling, therefore, that it would have been contemptible to scarper for the West Indies at the first sniff of a seven-figure royalty cheque. This, if you like, is my notion of patriotism."

There is a line in our pericope from I Corinthians chapter 12 that is almost a throwaway line in our culture because it is almost impossible to hear what you do not understand.  When someone talks about something you know nothing about, that is not a part of your life experience, your mind tends to gloss over it.... you don't hear it, you don't remember it, you don't think about it...... and trust me, I'm not just talking about my university students.

Paul is talking to people in the church about their various talents, what he calls, "gifts of the Spirit," and he says to them, it is in verse 7.... may I ask you to look on the text in your bulletin and focus on what he is saying:

7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

The reason that this is such a throwaway sentence for us is that we have a much more visceral, real and felt identification with Gérard Depardieu than we do with J. K. Rowling.  We understand the desire to keep what is ours for ourselves and for our children and to resent anyone around us who appears to get something for nothing.

And I can be as irritated by lazy people who have an entitlement disorder as anyone but, do you remember last fall when Mitt Romney talked about how much it damages children to have only one parent and you realize that both Obama and Bill Clinton were raised by single mothers, who were dependant upon welfare benefits.  That our president was one of those people fed by food stamps..... just like J. K Rowling was on welfare on her way to being in a position to pay millions of Euros in taxes back into the system?

The challenge for modern Americans, the challenge for the modern church, is to not always see everything from a perspective of self interest.  Sure, indulge yourselves.  Eat from the vineyard you planted.  Enjoy the fruits of your labor, but remember that you don't live alone and someone sacrificed to give you a chance in life and there is always another generation coming along behind you.

Paul is reminding the church to think about their community.  It is great if you have a high IQ, or if you are a natural in the business community, or you have great talent in art, music, science or carpentry but Paul wants to tell you that you were not given that talent to make you either rich or comfortable but rather you were given that talent so that you could be a blessing, a resource, a support for your family, your community, your nation.

We've been so trained to always be afraid.... to be afraid that we won't make end's meet, that we won't survive the next economic downturn, that we might become unemployed and unable to support ourselves and as real as those fears can be, if we allow those fears to make us forget about the community around us then I guarantee you that those fears will be realized.

The only thing that makes it possible for us to live a decent life is if we make sure that everyone else gets to live a decent life.

Honestly, it is so disappointing to me when I hear people who are in such rebellion against taxes that they literally would rather have 90% of 4" pie than half of a 12" pie because they can't be satisfied with what they have if they think that anyone else is getting something.

We don't want to fund public health, public education, state universities, food stamp programs or public housing but because we don't see that poverty among a large portion of the population is literally, not just figuratively, but literally like trying to feed your right arm and left leg while starving the other two to save money.

Poverty drives both crime and addiction and then crime and addiction drives up the crime and prison population, taking people out of productive taxpaying careers and putting them on the most expensive form of public assistance there is, incarceration.

There are people in Great Britain right now who would like to cut the assistance given to people like J. K. Rowling a few years ago, and here we have huge disdain for the welfare moms like the ones who raised Bill Clinton and Barack Obama but whether you like either their literature or their politics, they have turned out to have been a good investment.

I'm not saying anything too complicated here.  I'm just saying don't starve your left leg so that your right leg can be stronger and more healthy.  As long as there is a hungry child in this city who goes without proper nutrition, as long as there is a senior citizen who is being denied the health care they need because we, as a society, are willing to cast off our weakest members then we are poisoning our own bodies.

This is not a complicated spiritual idea but it is a hard one to let sink in.  So, you can trust me to bring it up again.  We are born selfish little pigs, but through worship, study, service and by practice of faith, we give birth to a new character defined by radical compassion.  None of us are entirely there yet but the good news is that we have another week in which we can work on getting better at it.

A Prayer for Good Government

Community Christian Church of Springfield, MO
Roger Ray, pastor
Epiphany 1

Psalm 72:1-7, 12-14            
¹Give the king your justice, O God, and your righteousness to a king's son.
²May he judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice.
³May the mountains yield prosperity for the people, and the hills, in righteousness.
⁴May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor.
⁵May he live while the sun endures, and as long as the moon, throughout all generations.
⁶May he be like rain that falls on the mown grass, like showers that water the earth.
⁷In his days may righteousness flourish and peace abound, until the moon is no more.
¹²For he delivers the needy when they call, the poor and those who have no helper.
¹³He has pity on the weak and the needy, and saves the lives of the needy.
¹⁴From oppression and violence he redeems their life; and precious is their blood in his sight.

Everyone knows that the most fundamental rule for any social gathering is to avoid talking about either religion or politics.  As a pastor, religion professor and a journalist who writes political essays, I'm about as dangerous to a pleasant social gathering as a tsunami at a beach vacation.  I don't watch sports and I am often uncertain as to which professional sport is in season but when I am at a loss for words, I often just throw out a, "How about those Bears?" and hope that it hit it lucky.

But the truth of the matter is, at least for me, that there is no way to avoid, not only religion or politics, but more accurately, I always have to have the two together.  Though there are certainly those who cry out against any mixture of religion and politics, it is a rather absurd complaint.  Almost everything in scripture and serious religious practice has a political implication.

I find that people only cry foul when you are saying something with which they don't personally agree.
 No one says that the Catholic Church is meddling in politics when they are publicly opposing abortion, or that the Quakers are political when they are opposed to war or the Baptists are against almost anything that is especially fun to do.

Anyone who reads the prophets and the gospels should not be surprised when we in the progressive movement advocate for peace, protecting the environment and the equal rights of all races, genders and sexual orientations.  In fact, specifically because we take the prophets and the gospels seriously, we have fought to lower the interest rates charged by predatory lenders, to raise the minimum wage to a living wage, for poverty related services and access to health care and addiction treatment.  That may seem political to people who only want us to pray, baptize and serve communion but those people don't get to tell us what it means to be spiritual people.

There is a common misconception that the involvement of the faith community in politics is something new, a perversion of pure religion.  That is, what we call in technical theological language, pure hogwash.  Look at this reading we have this morning from Psalm 72.  This is an example of what we call an "enthronement psalm," but if you look at it, it is little more that a public prayer for a just and ethical government.

Verse 4 that asks that the ruler of their nation "defend the cause of the poor ...., give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor," that's exactly what we are all about..... and that's 3000 years old!

Jesus and the ancient prophets were not imprisoned and killed because they were extolling people to pray more often, make sacrifices and memorize scripture.
They were imprisoned and killed for exactly the same reasons that Gandhi, Martin Luther King, the Berrigan brothers, Archbishop Romero and Dorothy Day were imprisoned or killed or both.  They criticized the government.  They opposed military service.  They were a threat to the economic system that involved the rich taking advantage of the poor.

Jesus wasn't killed for making claims to be the messiah or for matters of religious doctrine.... they killed him because he was a threat to the established order of government, of banking, of business and the institutional religion that supported government, banking and business.

This is the point where we often find ourselves parting company with the more traditional churches that insist upon a fairly literal reading of the gospels.  Reading the gospels in their historical setting helps us to see that the titles the early church heaped up on the executed Jesus were the exact same titles that were traditionally reserved for the Caesar, the emperor of the empire.

The statues, banners, even their coins referenced the Caesar as either god incarnate or the son of God.  They called their emperors "lord" and even "savior."  You were told in Sunday School when you were a child that "Christ" was not Jesus' last name.... "Christ" means "king" and yet our Sunday School teachers rarely put 2 and 2 together to let us know what that meant.

Imagine what it would mean if we put on our sign out front, not "Dr. Roger Ray, pastor" but rather, "Roger Ray, the President of the United States."  That has a rather more ominous ring to it doesn't it?

The cry of the early church, "Jesus is Lord!" was a defiant proclamation that the Caesar was not the lord.  To call Jesus "the Christ" meant that Caesar was not the king.  I doubt seriously that during his lifetime anyone called Jesus "Christ" or "Lord" or "Savior" and certainly no one called him "son of God," but right after the government had him executed the people who were still gathered around his message saw the stark contrast between the message of Jesus and the domination of Rome and by the time Paul started writing letters to churches fifteen years after the first Easter, it was already common anti-empire language within the church to say that Jesus was God's son, the savior, the Christ and our Lord.

With good reason there are many among progressive religious folks who don't like using any of those titles because they are so closely associated with the domination of empire and, when you think about it, they are mostly pretty strongly male dominant as well.  I find myself avoiding these titles most of the time because I don't want to be misunderstood but when I do use a word like "lord" in reference to God or to Jesus, I want you to understand that I am saying that the message of Jesus is what I prize, not any king, emperor, president or employer.  When we say that Jesus is lord what we are saying is that the economic and political powers of this world do not own us.... they are not our lords because we have a given our allegiance to the message of Jesus of Nazareth.

The anti-empire implications of those titles were not lost on Paul.  He was a citizen of Rome and was willing to exploit his citizenship in the Empire for his missionary purposes but there is no credible way that he could have been unaware that the language he used was revolutionary.

Still, Paul started a process of shifting attention away from the cry for mercy for the oppressed, relief for the poor, justice for the downtrodden and towards a hope that was more invested in a kingdom that was to come in heaven than the kingdom where we have a street address, businesses, schools, slums and leper colonies.

There is no shortage of books that detail the differences between the religion of Paul and the teachings of Jesus.  I believe that there was a world of difference between the two but that wades into a lot of historical speculation because even our canonical gospels were written long after Paul's letters were commonly read and Paul had more influence on the final shape of those gospels than, frankly, he really should have.

That's a value judgment on my part though I don't say that to drive an unnecessary wedge between progressive Christians and traditional Christians.  The final redaction of New Testament materials and the selection process of what to leave in and what to take out was influenced by the agenda of the empire.

I am convinced that the Jesus movement was distinctly anti-empire, was fully invested in advocacy for the poor and was a message of radical compassion.  Paul expressed those values within a more theologically contrived structure that unfortunately played into the hands of the interests of Constantine and his successors.  The faith that started by being a thorn in the side of the empire was transformed into being the tip of the spear of the empire's exploitation of the poor.  Frankly, I believe that every reform movement in the history of Christianity has to one degree or another, been an attempt to take Jesus back from the empire and give him back his message of radical compassion, liberation and hope.

For me, turning Jesus into a god and worshipping him takes away most of the relevance and power of his message.  Thankfully, there are those who have a very high christology who are joining us in our prayers that the government will defend the weak, heal the sick, feed the hungry, provide for, as the psalmist says, "prosperity for the people and defense from violence and oppression."

We have sometimes been known to be dismissive of traditional religious people because they are too emphatic about Jesus being the lord of heaven and they have been dismissive of us because we are so emphatic about the message of Jesus being the lord of the earth.  The gospels insist that God is lord of both heaven and earth so, perhaps, in this case, we both get to be right.

I don't know much about heaven but I've gotten a pretty good taste of the earth.  I've seen children making rugs in wretched circumstances in Egypt.  I've seen old people worked so hard in Ecuador that their skeletons are bent and their bare feet look like the feet of an elephant.  I've been in many villages in Nicaragua where some children are blind from malnutrition and where many have died.

I know people who live in their cars in Springfield.  We regularly feed children who live below the radar of child protective services and school truant officers.  And so, I think it is only right that we take up the prayers of our ancestors in the faith so that we also pray that our government will judge the poor with justice and work for prosperity among the people.  That our government will defend the cause of the poor, give deliverance to the needy and crush the oppressors..... and if they don't, they will have reason to imprison and kill a few more prophets because we intend to do more than pray.

A Way of Living

Community Christian Church of Springfield
Roger Ray, pastor
December 30, 2012    Christmas 1

Colossians 3:12-17
12As God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. 13Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. 16Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. 17And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

The first Hindu temple in the United States was dedicated in 1977.  Hindus were late coming to the United States but large numbers of Indians made their way to our shores in the late 70's and early 80's and it was then that their faith was met with a question they were not prepared to answer.  Curious Christians in Sunday School classes, excited by the exotic presence of a new religion, politely asked, "What do Hindu's believe?"

They expected to be handed a holy book, like the Bible, and to be introduced to hymns, prayers and worship services and probably a story about an incarnation of God in human form.  And while Hindus have such things, in fact, not just one of any of them but many gods, incarnations, texts and traditions but never in India had anyone demanded a list of beliefs.

To satisfy those who could only approach faith from that perspective, a list of beliefs was eventually formed but it would not prove to be very satisfactory, neither to inquisitive Americans nor to the native practitioners of Hinduism.

What I think might have surprised many of those Sunday school classes struggling to understand Hinduism is that early Christians would not have gotten their question very well either.  If you had asked Jesus of Nazareth what he wanted people to believe he would likely have just stared at you.  Paul might have had an answer but he wouldn't have spent much time on it.

The earliest name for Christians was "followers of the way."  The word "disciple" means to be a student, an understudy of sorts.  The question early Hindu immigrants could have answered that would have made more sense to them would be, "How are you Hindu?"  or "What do you do?"  That is the question that Jesus or Paul might have more likely been interested in answering.

The New Testament offers several bits of insight and guidance in what it means to live the Christian faith but interestingly, a lot of those passages have historically been read over with haste to get to the good stuff..... what you are supposed to believe to go to heaven.

When I was in seminary, a passage such as the one we read today from the third chapter of Colossians would most commonly be called a "holiness code" or a "household code."  We didn't pay much attention to them.  They didn't seem to be very theological.... They were more like what your grandmother might put into a needlepoint wall hanging than what we scholars were in grad school to discuss.

In grad school back in those days, we talked about orthodoxy..... we didn't generally approve of it but we knew what it was.  The word I did not hear until years later, the word we should have been talking about, was orthopraxi.  Orthodoxy is about right beliefs.  Orthopraxi is about right actions.
Only in the last decade have I realized how irrelevant beliefs are when compared to practices.  Now, granted, some religious practices are rituals.... Praying, going to temple, mosque or church.  Some are reflective of a kind of scorched conscience... washing, refraining from sex, alcohol or meat.  The purity practices often appear to be extreme and even psychologically unhealthy but if you pull back the wide angle lens a bit and listen to the life this holiness code is actually describing.  We don't believe that Colossians is an authentic letter from Paul but rather this is how the church looked back on the founders of the faith and summarized their teachings.  They tell us:

clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. 13Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful.

This passage and many like in the New Testament ask the fundamental question about orthopraxis. It doesn't say that you have to go to church every week though I certainly appreciate those of you who do.  It doesn't say anything about baptism, communion, confession or inviting Jesus into your heart.  The concept of praxis is that by following a certain path, you draw near to God..... it is not be reciting a creed or participating in a religious ritual.... it is by showing compassion, by being forgiving, by loving others, tolerating their irritating quirks and celebrating their strengths.  The question we really want to answer is not "what do you believe" but rather, "what do you do."

On the cover of each Sunday's bulletin we print our mission statement and the 8 points of progressive Christianity.  We do this to be clear about who we are trying to be.  And if you notice, the 8 points are not so much about beliefs as about praxis.  We are somewhat more concrete than this passage from Colossians.  We are trying to be specific in saying that we are concerned for the environment, for social justice and for tolerance among different races, sexual orientations and religions but we're saying the same things in principle, we're just fleshing out some details.

None of that is to say that I or we don't care about beliefs.  I do.  I teach Bible and religion in college classrooms and I assign papers and give tests and I expect to see well thought out answers that at are at least approximately what I have told them in my lectures and I'm not afraid to give bad grades to bad answers.

Bad beliefs can lead to bad behaviors and so I can be fairly adamant about things like:
God didn't write the Bible.  Flawed people in ancient circumstances who had personal agendas wrote most of it and so you have to be careful in how you use it for guidance in modern days.
Evolution happened and is happening still..... except in Texas school books.
Women have all the same rights as men and they get to govern their own bodies.
Owning a gun is not a God given right.
God is not a Democrat or a Republican.
America is not God's chosen country and Israel isn't either.
Non-Christians don't burn in hell for eternity, not even your ex-spouse.
Homosexuality is not a sin and the shared life of consenting adults is none of your business no matter how dissatisfied you are with your own intimate life.

I could go on but I suspect that you have already gotten the point.

The decision to be a progressive Christian is not summed up in simply rejecting magical thinking and superstitious religious beliefs.  As weary as most of us are with that Constantinian religion, just changing the way you think about such things doesn't have much of an impact on the world.

For us, meaningful religion is a transforming way of living, not just some kind of imaginary divine fire insurance.  The real promise of being a disciple is that we can be changed, not simply in some mystical internal way but in the way that people actually experience us.

As we face the symbolic turning of the calendar to a new year, I encourage you to seriously consider what a New Year's resolution is really all about.  Henry David Thoreau said, "I know of no more encouraging fact than that a person can elevate his or her own life by conscious effort."  We are not victims of the choices made by our parents or the circumstances of our lives.  We are not trapped in our prejudices, narrowness of vision or even our character flaws.  We have chosen to live in a way.... to follow a praxis, to be disciples of a Jewish boy whose unknown date of birth is observed in this season of the year because we believe him to be the teacher of compassion.
A Hindu was once asked about the saying from John's gospel in which Jesus is reported to have said, "I am the way, the truth and the life."  The guru replied, "Yes, I believe that because Jesus was the teacher of compassion and living a life of radical compassion is, in fact, the only way to God."

Mary the Radical (Who Suffers From a Good Reputation)

Community Christian Church
Roger Ray, pastor
Dec. 23, 2012    Advent 4

Luke 1:46-55        
46And Mary said, "My soul magnifies the Lord, 47and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, 48for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; 49for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. 50His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. 51He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. 52He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; 53he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. 54He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, 55according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever."

Images of Mary, the mother of Jesus, may be the most easily recognized in all of the world though we know almost nothing about her.  Of the four gospels in the New Testament, Mark and John have no interest in telling us about the circumstances around the birth of Jesus or of Mary's unique story.  Matthew has a long narrative but as is classic of literature of the period in that place, no woman gets a speaking line in Matthew's story.  He tells the Christmas story from Joseph's perspective even though he is relegated to a "D list" role.

Luke is the only one to turn the spotlight on Mary and leave it there long enough for us to hear what the young mother has to say.  And in spite of all of the statues, icons, stained glass windows, rosaries and pictures, very few people could summarize her short Christmas speech because what she has to say is quite revolutionary.

I think that Mary suffers from the ill effects of a good reputation.  She is portrayed as a sweet, virgin child mother.  She has put in more post-mortem appearances than Elvis and yet no one seems to actually listen to her.  I never tire of pointing out the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church where most of her statues are to be found but if she were to walk into one of those churches in the flesh, they would not allow her to speak because she comes with the wrong set of genitalia.
But we shouldn't gloat too much about that because even in the more progressive churches where women are allowed to preach, they wouldn't long tolerate what she has to say.  When Mary rises from the pages of the New Testament to tell us what she thinks, she forcefully insists that what her boy is going to do is to challenge all of the powers that currently exist.  That the presidents, kings, prime ministers and bankers are going to be cast to the ground so that the poor and marginalized will be put in power.  She says that all of us who have been used to being over fed are going to have to learn to live with going hungry so that the people have never had a place at the table will be allowed to eat their fill.

If Cesar Chavez had been there for that sermon he might have said, "Slow down girl, you need to turn that stuff down a notch."

Now, as a biblical scholar, let me say that I do not take this account of Mary's song as being historical.  It is fairly evident for reasons I'll not go into now that there was an earlier version of Luke that did not have any of this birth narrative and when this was added to his gospel Jesus, Mary nor Luke were still alive.  This is an account of the early church looking back on events.  They are creating a theological narrative to preach their own convictions and yet.... And yet, there is an echo in this.... An echo of a historical reality.... Traces left of the anger a young woman might really have felt at the injustice, the violence, the hunger, the oppression of the world in which she lived who might have said something exactly like this and even if she didn't, the early church said it and, my good friends, damn us if we are afraid to say it now.

Like Mary, we live in a world full of violence, hunger and oppression.
Unlike Mary, we do not have an occupying army in our nation but we are occupied by an arrogant and sick mentality exemplified nowhere better than in the statement made by the executive vice-president of the NRA one week after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary school.  As our nation is still in shock and grief, we waited to see if the NRA would make a sane offering in response to the carnage for which they are, in large part, directly responsible.

Sadly, no Republican elected official was willing to make an official statement on the topic until their owners and operators, the National Rifle Association, had made their statement.  When I was a child, growing up in a home where there were many guns, with a father who took both his sons and his daughter out to teach us how to shoot and safely manage a weapon, the NRA represented both the 2nd Amendment and sane gun regulations.

In the past two generations, that once helpful organization has become nothing but a lobbyist group representing gun manufacturers, ginning up the paranoia and blood lust of a hugely profitable industry that sells weapons that no sane person would ever use and the sanity of anyone who wants to own it has become suspect.

LaPierre decried our nation's unwillingness to maintain a national list of the mentally ill, but based on what he said in his statement, I'm inclined to think that there may be a list of the majority of the nation's mentally ill..... forgive me for saying it, but if what he said represented the rank and file members of the NRA, that is list enough of the people who have no business owning a gun of any kind.  Of course, we know that he does not represent the actual citizen membership of the NRA.... He really only represents the manufacturers who are getting nasty rich by exploiting the frightened, the paranoid, the insane.
For LaPierre, the unnecessary deaths of more than 30,000 Americans is insufficient to warrant a change in gun laws.  So we are forced to wonder how many people would have to die before the NRA might reconsider their intransigent position?  Would 300,000 deaths be enough?  Would 3 million do it?  Would the blood from human carnage have to rise to be knee deep?  Would it have to come up to his neck before he would accept that something must be done?  My fear is that if 30,000 deaths are acceptable that 3 million would be just as acceptable because what he is telling us is that he does not care about human life.

Several of you are psychologists, can you imagine being asked to certify the sanity of someone who has applied to own a weapon that has no practical use other than to kill dozens of people in a matter of minutes?  Jesse James has been a famous outlaw for 150 years, but people, in his entire career, Jesse James killed 16 people!

We have people all around us now who go to Walmart or Bass Pro and say, "I would like to own a weapon that if I ever decided to use it for its intended purpose dozens of children, innocent theater goers, high school students, politicians will die and then we say that we should only sell these to people who are certified to be mentally healthy?  What are we looking for here?  Do they have to serve red wine with fish before we realize they might not be sane?

LaPierre squandered a real opportunity to come back to sanity.  Rather than advocate for some sane regulations he returned to the same obfuscating tactics used after ever other mass murder insisting that it is not the guns.... It's video games, its our judicial system, it's the movies, it's the music.....in total disregard for the fact that it is clearly the proliferation of guns.

In Japan the kids play violent video games more than in the United States but they only have three or four gun deaths a year in their entire nation when we have upwards of 30,000.  These are the people who bombed Pearl Harbor, who raped and pillaged their way through Korea and the Philippines.  These people came to terms with their violent lust for world domination and they changed the very character of their nation.  They don't have private ownership of guns and now for every Japanese citizen who is a victim of gun violence there are 10,000 American deaths.

This was not a new statement, it was an old lie.  It is an official policy that says rather than doing what we know works, what has worked in other nations, we should actually make the situation much worse by putting more guns into the hands of citizens.  Spending billions of dollars to put armed guards in a 100,000 public schools knowing that there were armed guards at Columbine High School and they could do nothing to stop the murders there.

America is not occupied by cruel Roman legions the way Mary's world was.... We are occupied by violence loving, greedy NRA representatives and their bought and paid for politicians and they stay in power because people of faith have chosen silence over standing up next to Mary and belting out a song that actually says something.

We live in a society surrounded by lies.  We'll do almost anything to anesthetize our ability to think until we are able to forget.

Religious tradition has hidden the radical world changing message of Mary behind the image of a sweet, pretty teen-aged girl full of tranquility and virtue..... not at all the Mary we meet in the Bible.

In this time of painful crisis, I discovered a new image of Mary in the form of a 60 something, obese lesbian folk singer....Cheryl Wheeler, who wrote a song about the NRA obfuscation of the facts shortly after the Jonesboro School Massacre in 1998.  If you will allow me to read the lyrics, this Mary sang:

Maybe it's the movies, maybe it's the books
Maybe it's the bullets, maybe it's the real crooks
Maybe it's the drugs, maybe it's the parents
Maybe it's the colors everybody's wearin

Maybe it's the President, maybe it's the last one
Maybe it's the one before that, what he done
Maybe it's the high schools, maybe it's the teachers
Maybe it's the tattooed children in the bleachers

Maybe it's the Bible, maybe it's the lack
Maybe it's the music, maybe it's the crack

Maybe it's the hairdos, maybe it's the TV
Maybe it's the cigarettes, maybe it's the family
Maybe it's the fast food, maybe it's the news
Maybe it's divorce, maybe it's abuse

Maybe it's the lawyers, maybe it's the prisons
Maybe it's the Senators, maybe it's the system
Maybe it's the fathers, maybe it's the sons
Maybe it's the sisters, maybe it's the moms

Maybe it's the radio, maybe it's road rage
Maybe El Nino, or UV rays
Maybe it's the army, maybe it's the liquor
Maybe it's the papers, maybe the militia

Maybe it's the athletes, maybe it's the ads
Maybe it's the sports fans, maybe it's a fad
Maybe it's the magazines, maybe it's the internet
Maybe it's the lottery, maybe it's the immigrants

Maybe it's taxes, big business
Maybe it's the KKK and the skinheads

Maybe it's the communists, maybe it's the Catholics
Maybe it's the hippies, maybe it's the addicts

Maybe it's the art, maybe it's the sex
Maybe it's the homeless, maybe it's the banks
Maybe it's the clearcut, maybe it's the ozone
Maybe it's the chemicals, maybe it's the cell phones

Maybe it's the fertilizer, maybe it's the nose rings
Maybe it's the end, but I know one thing.

If it were up to me, I'd take away the guns.

Kicking the Darkness Until it Bleeds Daylight

Community Christian Church
Roger Ray, pastor
December 16, 2012   Advent 3

Luke 3:7-14
7 John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our ancestor'; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 9 Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire."
10 And the crowds asked him, "What then should we do?"
11 In reply he said to them, "Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise."
12 Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, "Teacher, what should we do?"
13 He said to them, "Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you."
14 Soldiers also asked him, "And we, what should we do?" He said to them, "Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages."

We gather here together this morning, where else would we go?  Something horrible has happened that demands to be undone but it cannot be undone.  We demand answers to questions for which there are no answers.  Yesterday, the famous poet and sometimes prophet, Maya Angelou, said, "Our country is grieving. Each child who has been slaughtered belongs to each of us and each slain adult is a member of our family. It is impossible to explain the horror to ourselves and to our survivors. We need to hold each other's hands and look into each other's eyes and say, 'I am sorry.'"

I think that she is right.  We must start with sympathy for parents and grandparents of children, 20 elementary school aged children, senselessly and violently murdered for no reason and with no warning.  Sympathy for the spouses and family members and co-workers of six, no seven adults because even the shooter leaves behind family and friends, neighbors and a brother who carry a burden of both grief and guilt.

We say, "I'm sorry" and try to move towards empathy, towards sharing their pain and helping to lift the burden.  We say "I'm sorry," to begin to find our compassionate legs to know how we can personally respond in a way that brings both healing and a determination that this must not happen again.

I am not sure what all Maya Angelou meant, but I believe that saying "I'm sorry" needs to have a larger meaning this time.  There is a part of it in which we need to say "I'm sorry" to take personal responsibility for this happening.  To own the fact that we are a part of a society that has now, in 2012, set a record for these kinds of mass murders.  And to say, "I'm sorry" because those 27 deaths were only unique in that they came all in one place but there are more than 30 gunshot homicides in America every day and I can tell you, spreading them out across 50 states doesn't really change much.

Something is wrong in America.  Somehow we have a violence sickness, a gun addiction. We murder one another at a rate unprecedented in any other nation in any other century.  If you look at it per capita, there a very few nations of the world where you might be more likely to be murdered than in the USA such as Mexico, Brazil, Nicaragua, Columbia, Panama and El Salvador.   But to be completely honest, most of those nations have homicide rates directly related to the American gun industry and money from our drug trade. So, even there, we have reason to say, "I'm sorry."

I suspect that Maya Angelou was inviting us to mourn rather than to blame....to feel grief rather than anger.  I hear that but with all due respect to Ms. Angelou, I can do more than one thing at once.  I am grieving and I am angry.

The gun lobbyists hypocritically always insist that we not discuss gun laws in the aftermath of an incident such as this one.  They insist that we must respect the victims and not politicize a tragedy.  That is just a bunch of bull.  They know that the public's stomach for thinking about these things makes us turn our attention quickly away.  The shooting in the movie theater in Colorado this summer where 12 people were killed and 58 were wounded did not receive as much press coverage as when Rush Limbaugh called Sandra Fluke a "slut" or when, to the surprise of no one, Anderson Cooper told us that he is gay.

Tragedy happens but the gun industry has learned that if they can just cap the debate for a couple of weeks, nothing will come of it.  All of us who let these events pass onto the back burner can say "I'm sorry" to all of the victims.  We need to put this issue on the front burner and make it all we talk about and all we do until meaningful reform is in place, even if we have to gag every journalist who says the words, "fiscal cliff."

Early in 2007, Molly Ivans made a pledge that she would devote every column she wrote to ending the war in Iraq until the war was ended.  She did not know that her own death would come right on the heels of having made that pledge and I am forced to wonder if newspapers would have continued to run a steady drum beat of anti-war columns for five years but I think that it is time for those of us who know that our nation's gun safety laws must be changed to make a similar pledge.  We cannot let go of this issue without substantive change.

And, in fact, even the majority of NRA members agree.  A big part of the problem is that most of the huge financial resources of the NRA does not come from its members.  If you are not aware of this already, then I beg you to pay close attention to what I am saying right now:  the majority of the money the NRA has to bribe politicians and prevent sane gun legislation from being passed does not come from citizen members but from the deep pockets of gun manufacturers.

The money made on the sale of semi-automatic and assault/military style rifles is what is driving this insanity.  Only so many guns will be sold for hunting or home protection and many of those will last within families for more than a hundred years.  The only way to make increased profits is to manufacture demand for a product that is not only not at all necessary but is entirely dangerous.  These weapons are slipping across our border to arm drug cartels in Central and South America.  They end up in the hands of terrorists, white supremacists, anarchists and people with serious mental illnesses.

I used to take my daughter to the Bass Pro shops when she was little to see the turtles, the fish tanks, the ducks and the big stuffed bear but hunting and fishing is not going to move the sports goods business along fast enough so they are remodeling to offer weapons for people with paranoid personality disorders and Jason Bourn fantasies. They now have a "tactical weapon" shopping area replete with dummies armed with hand guns..... the double entendre in that sentence was intended. Soon they will open an entire NRA museum intended to spark the yearning for more and bigger weapons.

They will try to tell you that it is a second amendment right, even though shooting up elementary schools has nothing to do with a well regulated militia and semi-automatic assault rifles with 100 round clips is not what the framers of the constitution had in mind in any event.  All I want to hear from the gun lobby is what Maya Angelou said that we should all say, I want to hear them say...... "I'm sorry."

And the gun fanatics will trot out their absurd false equivalencies, saying that more people die from auto accidents than from gun shots as if we could ride a hand gun to school or work, or transport their wounded to the hospital on the rifle that wounded thousands or dig a grave for their victims with their banana ammo clips.  I don't want to hear any more of their dodges and stupid defenses.  What I want to hear them say is.... "I'm sorry."

And the lobbyists will cry out that if only we would repeal the existing gun restrictions, if only everyone in that Colorado theater had been armed and, I suppose the kindergarteners and first graders in Connecticut had been armed, they could have stopped this shooter sooner..... without any logical appreciation for the fact that it is the proliferation of guns that has driven up the number of fatalities in our nation, not the absence of guns.  No, all I want to hear from the lobbyists right now is..... "I'm sorry."

And to Republicans who have held onto office by catering to the absurd whims of the gun manufacturers and the Democrats who decided to have campaign photos taken holding a hunting rifle in your hands to curry the dumb down vote, I don't want to hear any more false pretense out of you when you know that all you are doing is clutching onto power with any kind of deal you can make with the devil in spite of more than 30,000 gun deaths every year in the nation you have sworn to serve.  All I want to hear out of you is..... "I'm sorry."

On this third Sunday of Advent when we traditionally give John the Baptist a moment to speak, we desperately need the practical theology of the guy who says that if you have extra food to share it with the hungry and if you have two coats to give one to someone who doesn't have a coat.  We need the practical wisdom of a truth telling prophet who can say, "In the choice between your hobby and 30 deaths a day of my brothers and sisters, my children and grandchildren, don't you dare tell me about how much you enjoy your hobby.  All I want to hear out of you is..... "I'm sorry."

I have no instant solutions to offer.  Guns, once manufactured and sold remain in use for generations and there is no effective way of calling them back.  We can, however, make a meaningful start by both addressing the immoral culture that turns so easily to violence, that so quickly denies mental health treatment to troubled young men while offering them weapons next to the toy department of Walmart.  We can eliminate sales of guns without background checks.  We can put a stop to gun shows.  We can take semi-automatic and hand guns off the market and we can outlaw high round count ammo clips.... And make bullets very very expensive.  Even in small ways, as the song, Lovers in a Dangerous Time, says: we must kick against the darkness until it bleeds daylight.

This sermon is a call to action in honor of the twenty children murdered on Friday and in honor of a few special people whom I feel compelled to name:
The school's principal, Dawn Hochsprung, and school psychologist, Mary Sherlach, who, though unarmed, when other adults were hiding under tables, ran out into the hall and threw themselves at the assailant to try to stop him and lost their lives in the process.
And 27-year-old Victoria Soto, a first grade teacher, who used her own body to shield a child, saving the child's life while losing her own.  Tell me again, Gov. Scott Walker, what a bunch of freeloaders that public teachers are in your twisted little mind!

These women make me want to be a better man.

To all of my friends who tell themselves that your guns will never be used in a mass murder and that you need your guns for your own protection... I encourage you to man up and be as brave as Dawn Hochsprung, Mary Sherlach and Victoria Soto.  Destroy your weapons and live with courage for a better and more sane world.

My literature friends often cringe at rhyming poetry but I must close today with Edna St Vincent Millay's "Dirge Without Music"

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely.  Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know.  But I do not approve.  And I am not resigned.

No More Silly Religion for Me

Community Christian Church of Springfield, MO
Roger Ray, pastor
December 9, 2012     Advent 2

Malachi 2:17-3:4                    
17You have wearied the Lord with your words. Yet you say, "How have we wearied him?" By saying, "All who do evil are good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them." Or by asking, "Where is the God of justice?"
3See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight--indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. 2But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap; 3he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness. 4Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.

Christmas came a little early for me this week.  I didn't know that there was any chance of getting same sex marriage considered by the Supreme Court in this session but the announcement that two related cases will be reviewed by the court this year is good news to me and reason for you and all progressives who have been trying to raise this civil rights issue to national attention for the past twenty years to give yourselves a round of applause.  They say that the court doesn't consider popular opinion and that is every bit as true as saying that the sky is green and grass is blue.  The nation's highest court has a long history of acting only when the prevailing public opinion makes it obvious that it is time to change and because people like you have had the courage to speak up, I am very hopeful that we will see a landmark decision handed down in the next few months.

But that was not my only Christmas gift this week.  I have to admit that my darker side rejoiced when I heard that Fox had removed Carl Rove from their programs.  Rove now gets to join Glenn Beck in that special little Darwin's Waiting Room reserved for people who are too crazy, even for Fox, and that is quite a water mark to rise above.  Rove was a part of what many are now calling the "conservative entertainment industry," blaming them for a part of the loss of stature and credibility of the Republican party.
I think that is a fair analysis.  You expect certain commentators or consultants to be partisan.... It is their job to get a particular candidate elected and so they understandably want to exaggerate the positive and down play the negatives but there is still a fundamental expectation of being devoted to both reality and honesty and that has been absent from many in the conservative entertainment industry.  I know that there are offenses on both sides of political spectrum but the score of misleading statements or entirely fabricated facts is distinctly in favor of the Glenn Becks, Karl Roves and Rush Limbaughs of the media.

Now that the election is over, I for one, am glad to hear Republicans doing some soul searching to rid themselves of dishonest advocates and to try to restore intellectual and moral credibility to the political process.

But I don't want to stand up here and crow about credibility and honesty because as a Christian pastor, I am a part of an institution that is in bigger trouble in the arena of both intellectual and moral credibility than our modern political parties.

This is the fourth advent and Christmas season that Sean and I have worked together and every year when this season rolls around we get ourselves all tied up in knots trying to deal with both the scripture readings and the songs that are traditionally used in churches during December.

And in spite of what a wonderful job that Handel did in setting several of the favorite Old Testament texts used in this season to music in his epic work, The Messiah, honesty demands that we preachers begin to say clearly that there is nothing in the Hebrew Bible about Jesus.

The early church was determined to take texts entirely out of context from Isaiah, the Psalms, Genesis and Exodus as well as this text from Micah that we read today, to say that the prophets were foretelling the coming of Jesus.

If you have any lingering doubts about this, I would be willing to lead a class for as many weeks as necessary to treat each of these texts individually but I hope that you will trust me on this one.... Early Christian preachers did not have a New Testament so they turned to their revered Hebrew scriptures and interpreted them to fit their situation.

Sure, it was a part of their tradition to use scriptures in this way, just as it is a part of the tradition of political advisors to manipulate polls, statistics and history to suit them but it is still dishonest.  

I just finished my college lectures on the letters of Paul this week.
For our last reading assignment in that class, I ask my students to read the oldest Christian letter that did not make it into the New Testament.  It is written by Clement who was a bishop in Rome and he was writing to the church in Corinth right around the end of the first century.

The apostles were all dead at this time and even though Paul's letters and the synoptic gospels were in circulation, Clement does not quote from them. At that time, the only scripture that had authority in the church was the Hebrew Bible.  Exhaustively, Clement quotes from Isaiah, Exodus, Genesis and Psalms, building these really bad arguments for why and how the Corinthian Church was to understand Jesus.

Finally, in attempting to prove to them that a physical resurrection is in God's plan for them, he turns to nature, saying that resurrection is at work all around them in the daily movement of the sun from light to darkness and the annual change of the seasons that always brings life giving spring back to us.

But then he goes on to tell them about a certain bird that lives in eastern lands, called the Phoenix.  The Phoenix, he tells them, lives for 500 years and when its time of dissipation is upon it, it builds a nest out of frankincense and myrrh and dies in it. The Phoenix, he tells them, attracts a particular kind of worm that feeds on the carcass of the dead bird and then begins to grow feathers and these worms become a new Phoenix.

The Phoenix, he tells them, is evidence of the resurrection of Jesus.  There were other reasons why I and II Clement didn't make it into the New Testament, but at least a part of it had to be, even though he manipulated the Hebrew Bible about the same way as his early church peers did, this Phoenix thing is kind of tell tale.

The ancient church held a lot of beliefs that we need to be able to generously allow to them because they lived in a pre-scientific age but we need to just as generously allow ourselves to move on.  The earth is not flat.  There is not a firmament above us nor are there angels and demons populating the air.

Though the prophets of the Old Testament did not know that Jesus was coming and they did believe in sea monsters, giants and even unicorns, they were not limited in their moral vision.

For centuries the church has used the writing of the prophets like hand puppets, manipulating them to serve the purpose of giving congregants false assurances like Karl Rove telling their constituents that their party would win.... The church has told us to believe things about Jesus that Jesus wouldn't have believed about himself and we shouldn't either.

Getting our credibility back, getting our facts straight and our message oriented to reality, we come back to these prophetic texts to see that in every case they were calling the people of their day back to living up to their own spiritual conscience.

The Micah text read in churches all over the world this morning begins with chapter 3, verse 1, with those familiar words, "Behold, I am sending my messenger to prepare a way."

And the lectionary would have preachers in pulpits on seven continents look right into the eyes of their parishioners and tell them, "See, the Hebrew prophets foretold that John the Baptist would prepare the way for Jesus to come."

But if those corpulent clerics would just trouble themselves to read the passage in context, it is immediately evident that this is has nothing to do with John or Jesus.  Micah mocks the people of his day because they have become morally lax.  They have taken advantage of the poor and the weak and they say, "See, God never does anything about it so it must be okay with God!"  They taunt the prophet saying, "Where is your God who loves justice?"

So Micah is the messenger he references in his preaching.  Micah is the messenger who tells the ruling class of Israel that they are about to be destroyed because they have abused the poor, neglected the sick among them and waged war on their hungry neighbors.  Micah is the prophet we know for the beautiful imagery of turning our spears into pruning hoods and our swords into plowshares.  Micah is the prophet that tells the people that God will show compassion on them when they start to show compassion on the vulnerable around them.

You know, a lot of our critics in the religious community here in Springfield insist that we are not really Christians.  In many ways, I'm starting to agree with them.  I like to think that we are devoted to the message of Jesus and the prophets but the message of the Christian Church seems to me to be weighed down with a lot of superstition, magic and no small amount of fundamental dishonesty and sloppy thinking.

In our life times, the American Civil Rights movement was born in churches that embraced a prophetic message of liberation and civil rights were codified by Supreme Court decisions only when the belief in racial equality became deeply rooted in the conscience of America.  The Supreme Court didn't rule on even mix race marriages being legal until 1967 and that not until persons of conscience demanded an end to the discrimination.

You cannot trace the genesis of women's reproductive rights directly to churches but I can tell you that among that movement's most outspoken proponents were courageous communities of faith.  It took a long time to being our war in Vietnam to an end but moral outrage began in progressive houses of worship.

Much of my discomfort with the religious traditions of this season is that so much of it seems to trivialize the liberating message of Jesus and the moral challenge of the prophets.

No number of recitations of "Away in a Manger" and "Joy to the World" would ever have made the Supreme Court decide that it is time to take the yolk of oppression off of the shoulders of our gay sisters and brothers.  No "Little Town of Bethlehem" will ever address the people who have been turned out of their jobs and their homes and turned away from necessary medical care.

Micah's critics taunted him, "Where is your God who loves justice?"  His answer was to stand up to the corrupt leaders of his nation and say, "God is right here, in my flesh, in my words, in my witness for justice."

And to you, in this Christmas season, we may ask, "Where is this Jesus who is born King of the Jews?"  And the answer is not in a crèche scene in front of McDonalds nor in a Constantinian church in Bethlehem.... He is born right here, in each of you, when you decide that you will not tolerate injustice, you will speak up for liberation, you will defy the oppressors and seek justice for the weak.

Sure, I'll have a merry Christmas, as soon as all devoted loving couples can marry one another, and all sick people can see a doctor, and everyone who wants to work can have a job and everyone who works can have a home.  Where is the God who loves justice?  Right here and woe be unto our own government if they dare to turn their backs.

Fear, Hate or Violence in God's Name is Blasphemy

Community Christian Church of Springfield, MO
Roger Ray, pastor
Dec. 2, 2012     Advent 1

Psalm 25:8-10
8 Good and upright is the LORD; therefore he instructs sinners in the way. 9 He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way.10 All the paths of the LORD are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep his covenant and his decrees.
Teaching the same university class, semester after semester, can be a bit like being trapped in the movie, Groundhog Day.  Most semesters I teach a class for Drury University on world religions.  Every semester I get a new batch or largely Midwestern students who have grown up with the assumption that the Bible was written by the finger of God and that their evangelical Christian religion is the only true religion and that all other world religions are some kind of silly idolatry. 

Many leave my class still believing that, only adding to their list of beliefs that Roger Ray is a raving heretic. For those who have the courage to look seriously at the history and evolution of religion, there can be some very painful dawning realizations.  The Bible did not fall to earth, leather bound, from heaven.  Clearly, ancient agricultural and earth religions influenced the development of both eastern and western religions.

Zoroastrianism obviously influenced ancient Judaism to the point that you can really talk about Judaism as two different religions.  The ancient Canaanite religion before the exile, and a post-exilic faith that picked up entirely new ideas about angels, demons, the devil, heaven and hell that had not been a part of the more ancient kind of Judaism.  And you can see that Judaism, Christianity and Islam influenced one another and they all borrowed traits from neighboring cultures.

Some of my students insist that religions that do not have a formal doctrine of how to go to heaven and how to avoid going to hell are not really religions.
Especially religions that do not have a concrete conception of the nature of God, such as Buddhism, some aspects of Hinduism and certainly Confucian and Taoist faiths, often are not, through a western lens, thought to really be a religion.  Now, Buddhists, Hindus, Taoists and Confucians think that they have a religion but they don't pass the smell test for Western evangelicals whose primary interest is in certainty regarding the afterlife.

Of course, you can have a religion without some anthropomorphic deity in the clouds.  This may come as a surprise to many evangelicals and it may not be a satisfactory religion for them, but a religion is really an expression of absolute concerns, your highest values, your most treasured truths, beliefs, even myths and rituals.

I have, for example, owned a few Honda motorcycles over the past 30 years and several people have suggested that I ditch my Japanese bikes and buy a Harley, to which I always reply, "No thanks, I don't need a Harley.  I already have a religion."

I'm not seriously saying that anything can be a religion but I am saying that you can have a religion without an imaginary friend in the clouds.  In fact, I prefer forms of spirituality that deal with what can be known rather than focusing too much on what cannot be known.

Some say that there is a place of eternal torment where those who are not saved will be punished in an afterlife.


I say that there are 700 people living under bridges and in the cars around Springfield, there are more than a 1000 children who have been taken from their parents in this county and placed in foster care to protect them from the people who are suppose to care for them.  There are about 10,000 addicts in our area, 20,000 unemployed and half of our children are growing up in poverty...... don't waste my time with your speculations about a hell you have not seen and you do not know anything about because I can show you a hell that we know and that we can change through our action as a spiritual community.

A religion that addresses what cannot be known, cannot be seen and for which there is not a shred of proof or evidence but ignores the very real circumstances of life is not much of a religion to me.... It is a kind of spiritual anesthesia but if you put a Christian who is obsessed with how to believe the right things in order to go to heaven in a set of spiritual scales with a Buddhist who is concerned with showing compassion, leading a life of peace and self denial in the interests of others and I think that you will quickly see that there is a better case to be made for a non-theistic belief system like Buddhism being a real religion over the Christian evangelical who has little to show for their faith other than magical thinking and a lack of orientation to reality.  I hope that I am not being vague about this.

One of the most difficult aspects of moving from an evangelical faith towards a more progressive faith is just this:  It is the frightening move from false certainty to honest uncertainty.  Fundamentalist religions of all stripes offer absolutes, they offer the security of certainty..... now, it is not an honest certainty.... In fact, in most cases, you pretty well have to assassinate your brains to keep up belief that a snake talked to Eve in the garden, that Jonah lived in a fish's stomach, that Jesus walked on water, or that Mohammed flew up to heaven on a horse or that Joseph Smith found magical golden tablets buried in the hills of New York.

The great Danish philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, said, "There are two ways to be deceived.  The first is by believing what it not true and the second is to fail to believe what is true.  Honest spirituality embraces what is true and rejects what is false.... And should be at least suspicious of any truth claim that cannot be honestly known.

People will try to force themselves to believe things at a synagogue, church or mosque that would be an insult to their intelligence anywhere else.  But once you give up on trying to act like you are certain about things that cannot be known then we find ourselves becoming literally dizzy with the fact that we no longer have a painted cathedral roof over our heads or a reliable floor under our feet.

So a student will insist, "If Jesus is not the only son of God how can you know that anything he said is true?  How can you know what is really good and what is really evil?"  And that is the rub.... You cannot abdicate from the personal responsibility for thinking and even when you try very hard, it remains entirely impossible to know anything with absolute certainty. There are things that are right in one age, in one set of circumstances that become evil in another.

We are left to existentially figure it out.  We don't always arrive at the same conclusions.  That is what makes some hard topics so hard.  There are good and reasonable reasons to be opposed to abortion.  There are good and reasonable reasons to defend a woman's right to manage her own reproductive life.  There is no word from on high that resolves these issues.... Persons of conscience, persons of good will, the spiritual community, must try to grapple with these things and come up with the best possible answers we can.

Existentially, there are a few a priori truth claims from which we can function.  I regard the field of ethics to revolve fundamentally around the highest value of discerning what is the greatest good for the largest number of people.
And so I tend to oppose government or economic systems that consolidate resources into the hands of a tiny elite leaving the majority of people in poverty.  The relevant question for me, as a spiritual person, as a person of conscience is,
"What gives the greatest good for the largest number of people in a certain situation?"  And sometimes that answer will be capitalist and sometimes it will be socialist, sometimes it will be communal.

When I was a kid the joke about communist idealists was that they didn't want to take over America because they depended upon us for food.  Now, as much noise as we make about communism, we are funding our government with money borrowed from communist China.  The world is not simple and we have to be able to think about the greatest good for the largest number of people without becoming too stagnant about any one way of thinking.

When it comes to religion, I am fond of the way that Karen Armstrong sums it up in her autobiography: "If your understanding of the divine made you kinder, more empathetic, and impelled you to express sympathy in concrete acts of loving-kindness, this was good theology. But if your notion of God made you unkind, belligerent, cruel, or self-righteous, or if it led you to kill in God's name, it was bad theology."

The Bible, for us, is a resource, it is a repository of ancient spiritual insight and wisdom, but you cannot quote scripture to prove anything or to give you certainty about modern issues of marriage, family, warfare, abortion, racism or gay rights.  There is no way to avoid the hard work of figuring out what is faithful, what is ethical, what is right for us in our time and place.

We do that individually and we do that as a community, challenging, teaching and pushing one another into mature, healthy spirituality.

Institutional, rigid, doctrinal religious views can be helpful.  A solid evangelical Sunday School education can encourage people to be honest, hard working, loyal to their spouse, law abiding and even generous and brave.  But it can also keep women trapped in abusive relationships.  Force women to have babies they are not prepared to love and care for.  It can justify enslavement of minorities and oppression of gays and lesbians.  It can lead people to fight unnecessary wars and to persecute those who are even slightly different in the most subtle of ways.

We believe that you can have the positive aspects of a healthy spiritual life without indulging in the abuses of a rigid, doctrinal monotheism.  We believe that if we are committed to seeking the greatest good for the largest number of people, being willing to advocate for justice, to teach peace and to live lives of radical compassion that we will find ourselves in the embrace of the most holy religion imaginable.

This is not the last time you will hear me say these things but there is an old church tradition that says that the apostle John was the only one of the twelve who lived to die of old age.

It is said that he preached his last sermon to the church in Ephesus saying only these words that are found in 1 John:

7 Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.