Vist to a Mega Church

A Visit to a Mega Church

For the first time in my life I decided it was time to find out firsthand what the mega church experience was all about. That’s mega, not maga. I half expected that the two might have merged into one, but was pleasantly surprised that politics was not mentioned at all. The closest was a banner that included the phrase “Thank God we live in America”, and one man out of 1000 who had on a T-shirt that told us about how he “stood for the anthem and knelt for the cross”.

Yes, there were perhaps 1000 people in attendance. The auditorium was divided into seats on the ground floor, augmented by the “stands” that rose sharply at the back, and probably could have held another 500. After parking in a very large grassy area accessed by blacktop drives, the entrance doors to the semi-circular front of the building opened directly into a gathering area 200 feet long where folks were standing around those tables that are high off the floor, chatting, sipping coffee and enjoying their pastry. There was a show at 8:30, a second at 10:30, with the social hour tucked in between. 

As I paused upon entering, people streamed by, going one way or another with little interaction. I refer to it as a show because that’s exactly how it felt. The whole building, inside and out, was totally devoid of any hint that this was a house of worship. No candles, no altar, no windows, much less stained glass. No Bible. Just recessed ceiling lights that dimmed on demand. The stage at the front of the auditorium stretched almost 100 feet, with a piano/harpsichord sounding keyboard off to the right and the instruments of a whole rock band set up center stage, waiting for a grand entrance. Lastly, a stool was set off to the left.  The piano played on, some nondescript almost- tune, as mostly elderly couples drifted in, none in a particular hurry. After a while, one man who was mixing it up with the crowd in the aisles and dressed in old jeans and a pullover shirt meandered onto the stage with a cordless microphone and bellowed out,”How ya’ll doin’?”. A low murmur was the response, and the show took off from there. The piano gradually came to a halt as the pastor spoke welcoming words while prancing back and forth across the stage.

A huge screen high above and behind the stage showed the coming attractions- a concert of Christian music next Sunday, a listing of all the many Bible studies happening next week, all items described by the pastor as the most wonderful and how you had to be there and punctuated by a dozen amens. Then the band came out, drummer, guitars and two female vocalists singing a slow testament to how mighty God was and how much Jesus loved us to die on the cross for us. Just as the comfortable seats were not the New England bench pews that I was accustomed to, so also the music was totally unfamiliar and, for my taste, not very good, despite the acclamations of the pastor and clapping of the audience. Everybody continued standing for two very long and repetitive songs, with some waving of the arms and clapping when ended, but for the most part, a subdued crowd who seemed to require pastoral inspiration. But then, they were all white seasonal transplants down in Florida escaping the wintry cold, and most likely behaving in the restrained manner that they exhibit back home. 

After some folksy comments, a collection was taken, the motivation for giving being a new building that was to be a youth education center. The request was low key, the main warning being that God did not like a non-cheery giver. And, as I discovered later, you did not want God to not like you. Then came what I assume was the main event: the sermon, or something like a sermon. The topic was about finding God in the midst of personal trouble. The presentation included pictures on the big screen interspersed with bible verses while the preacher marched back and forth on the stage, occasionally asking for a show of hands from those who had suffered such and such trouble. More than once the volume and pitch caused me to winch and want to cover my ears. But the intensity was modestly superficial until the pastor shared his own trouble, at which time a silence descended as all listened intently, including myself. His trouble happened while a teenager, when his mother had an affair with a man who ultimately shot and killed her. I don’t know if this story had been told before, but at that moment it was as powerful as it ever could have been. And that event, he went on to say, has enabled him to comfort others who have suffered great loss in trying times. God helps us get through the hard times so that we in turn can help others get through their hard times. The message was well received. And then it was all over, the attendees rising  and leaving down the aisles.

For a moment or two I was somewhat envious of those who were really into everything that had just happened, and not observing spectators. When I returned home to our rental, I googled Fellowship Church, saw quite a few big churches by that name spread across the country, mostly in the south, and wondered if they were all connected somehow. I also looked at what they believe, and whatever envy may have touched me earlier quickly evaporated. The Bible is the absolutely inerrant word of God and in order to be accepted by God you must believe that Jesus died for your sins. And finally, if you don’t believe, you will spend eternity in hell. 

Holy Week

Holy Week

There are many events included in what Christians call Holy Week. The Entry into Jesusalem, Jesus overthrowing the tables of the Temple money-changers, his soulful prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane asking the Father to spare him crucifixion if it be His will, having a Last Supper with his disciples, betrayal and arrest, appearing before the Jewish High Council, appearing before Pilate, all of this culminating in his crucifixion and resurrection. As one might expect, there is a great variety of opinion about the historicity and meaning of these “events”, due, no doubt, to the nature of our sources, which include at least three layers in the traditions of the first century. If we limit ourselves to Mark, the first of the Synoptic gospels, put in final form shortly after the Roman army totally destroyed rebellious Jerusalem and Judaea in 70 ce, we find these three layers: a) remembrances of Jesus, his words and acts, b) commentary on and combining of those sources by the early churches, and c) Mark’s own editing to make the story not only flow but also to make it more palatable to Rome, where he likely lived. 2000 years of ecclesiastical warfare have created and hardened differing interpretations of these “scriptures”, casting a veil of confusion and uncertainty over the actual events. Even modern scholarship, with all the tools of current literary and archaeological science, arrives at differing conclusions. Deciding who is right invites critique no matter what, and so we must always be open to changing our understanding. With this caveat, I offer a picture of “Holy Week” that makes sense to me.

The chronology of the week is where the difficulty originates. Most Christians believe that first Jesus was crucified, and then he rose from the dead. The reality is that first came the resurrection and then the crucifixion.  This is crucial.  

Being the charismatic person he was, Jesus impacted quite a few people. Some had their lives changed, continuing on their life’s journey with a new sense of purpose, meaning, and faith. We have documents from two such groups, the Gospel of Thomas and a source called Q, so we are reasonably certain that there were at least a few such communities. They lived with the assurance that, although they had physically left Jesus in Galilee, his Spirit lived in their midst. Not just a memory, but a new type of reality beyond human comprehension. For those mover-on disciples, Jesus was really with them, even though he was still walking around with those disciples who stayed with him. And for the stay-behind disciples, the same Spirit of Jesus was with them, both while he was alive and also after he was crucified. In the case of no disciple, stayer or mover on, was the crucifixion essential to their new faith and life. It was the Spirit, with them wherever they were, that emboldened and enlivened the community of disciples, but Spirit understood as a reality that cannot be analyzed by the rational mind, transcending human comprehension. That was resurrection.

It was common practice for Rome to execute trouble-makers- by the tens of thousands-, and the preferred method was crucifixion. Except in rare circumstances, the body was left hanging, striking terror into the imaginations of potential would-be rebels. We’ll never know if that was the fate of Jesus or if he was granted burial. But what we do know is that removal and burial was not a prerequisite for his resurrection. The resurrection of Jesus was, in the experience of the disciples, totally independent of what happened to his earthly body. We need to shift our attention away from the captivating image of an empty tomb and focus on the Spirit.

What then of all the events of this “Holy Week”? Did they really happen? and where did they come from? Let’s start with what is called Palm Sunday, a commemoration celebrating Jesus’ “triumphal” entry into Jerusalem. There is no doubt that Jesusarrived at Jerusalem, most likely with at least some of the disciples who stayed with him. He had become somewhat suspect as a teacher, but had there been the adoring crowds we read about in the gospels, Jesus would have been arrested right then and there. Jerusalem was a powderkeg at Passover, when untold numbers of Jews gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate their escape from Pharaoh, and Pilate, ever seeking Caesar’s approval, was prepared to stop any rebellion before it got started and quite probably had standing orders to arrest and crucify anyone like Jesus. If this is the case, then all the rest of the week’s story concerning Jesus, did not happen.

But suppose Jesus entered the city, not with a vast adoring crowd, but with disciples and some others. It is crucial to understand that none of the events of Holy Week, if they happened, change the fact of the resurrection, precisely because it had already happened. But we can take a closer look and ask about the probability that certain of these events happened. And we can look at another dimension of the situation, and that other dimension is this. A cadre of the rich and powerful controlled the economy of Israel, and Jesus threatened their monopoly of the patronage system, a situation presented in my book How the Rich Stole Jesus. They tried to exterminate the threat by crucifying the Leader, but the movement only grew, so as the century wore on, they both infiltrated the leadership of the church and altered the theology. That alteration was especially obvious in the crucifixion/resurrection narrative, with which we shall end, but also appears in other parts of the Holy Week story, as we shall now see, item by item.

A  Jesus might have entered the Temple. His whole life was a critique of the oppressive economy, and the Temple cult was the center of power. The High Priest was appointed by Caesar, all Jews were supposed to offer sacrifice and pay tax in the Temple, the whole scene representing the corruption of the economic system encased in religious garb. Jesus’ scathing critique of the whole system was too obvious for the rich to deny, but perhaps the critique could be shifted a bit, so that the target was not the Temple rich and powerful, but the money changers. They had the rather mundane job of changing foreign money into Jewish money because foreign money was forbidden in the temple. In other words, they performed a task essential to the operation of the system, and Jesus’ target was not them, but the system itself. The wealthy saw that if they  could transfer Jesus’ anger away from themselves and to the minor employees just doing their job, well, they could protect the system.

B  The image of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane while his three chosen disciples sleep is very powerful, evoking a deep sense of sympathy for and identification with the Savior. Jesus asks that this cup of suffering might be removed if it is the will of the Father, but suffer he must. For various reasons, scholars believe the event is not historical. After all, who would have heard Jesus’ prayer? But if your intent is to divert attention away from the fact that Jesus was crucified as a revolutionary, what better way than to promote the idea that his death was the key part in God’s plan of salvation? He had to die! The wealthy saw, again, that if they could turn attention away from his opposition to the economic oppression and to the personal salvation effected by his gruesome death, well, that would help preserve the oppressive system.

C  It is highly unlikely that Jesus was brought before the High Council of the Jews, charged and beaten, and then taken to Pilate for examination and probable execution. The story is just not consonant with the historical facts. There is no historical record of Roman crowds being offered a choice about which prisoner would be released and which crucified. That the crowd clamored for the execution of Jesus and not Barabbas puts all the blame on the Jews and exonerates Rome in the person of Pilate. It is most likely an editorial addition by the writer, Mark, given that he lived in Rome and wrote after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 ce, when anti-Jewish sentiment was high. By that time, the temple aristocracy, center of power and wealth, had been destroyed and replaced by a Jewish diaspora that spread across the empire. The “trial” of Jesus, seems, therefore, to be not a creation of the rich and powerful, but a redaction introduced by Mark.

D  The first mention of what has come to be called “The Last Supper” is found in Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth, a reference tucked into his discussion of the “common meal” celebrated in the first Christian gatherings. There were both rich and poor in the church, and with a vision of equality each person brought what they had for a common meal. Unfortunately, the meal had degenerated to the point where the rich came early, ate the food and drank all the wine, leaving everyone to fend for themselves. Paul was not happy. Importantly, the conjoined mention of the Lord’s Supper and the common meal tells us that in the decades after the crucifixion, both were being celebrated. Obviously, the sacramental Supper has survived to this day while the actual sharing of food and drink has not. A suspicious mind might suspect that, once again, the rich and powerful were only too happy to promote the one and not the other, to promote the personal communion between the believer and their God and forget a meal that involved actual sharing.

In addition to that background, the description of the Last Supper as presented in Mark has a ritualistic ring to it. Combining that with the earlier reference in 1 Corinthians, leads to the conclusion that there evolved a ritual narrative in the first decades after Jesus’ crucifixion, and Mark included this narrative in his gospel. But here’s the point: Jesus and his disciples certainly had a final meal together, either in Jerusalem or on the way. That would be a given. But the fact that the narrative references sacrificial death [my body, broken for you, my blood, shed for you] tells us that somewhere a decision has been made that makes the crucifixion central to salvation. This, I have argued, is a false conclusion. All the disciples, stayers and movers-on, experienced the new life in the power of the Spirit. That’s the resurrection experience, and had nothing to do with a horrible death that was a sacrifice to appease an angry God. Where might this narrative about the Last Supper have originated? The rich and powerful had the motive, and as time moved on, they had the means.

E  There is no doubt that Jesus was crucified. We don’t know if that happened before he entered Jerusalem or after. But we can be quite sure that he was murdered because he posed a threat to the elite establishment.  The details of the threat are outlined in How the Rich Stole Jesus. The problem for the rich was that getting rid of the leader did not solve the problem. There is no evidence that the church grew fast, but it did grow. The core belief that the Spirit of Jesus continued to lead the nascent church was a very threatening concept, and so the rich and powerful worked to undermine that faith. That Jesus was crucified because he was a revolutionary was transformed into the concept that his death was the key element in God’s plan of salvation. His sacrificial death saves you from your sins. And his resurrection is not a living Spirit that leads the community forward, but a walking out of a tomb on a specific, now past day. The focus of the church was transferred from transforming society to awaiting a return of the Lord some day in the future. 

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Emerging from the available sources are two primary assertions that are the core of all that we have looked at. First and foremost, the resurrection of Jesus cannot be seen as a walking out of an empty tomb. It is, rather, to be understood as a Spirit that empowered the first disciples to continue in the new life of love and peace. That Spirit is a form of being that the disciples could experience but not comprehend. Correspondingly, the crucifixion was not God’s plan. It was the result of the inability of human greed to comprehend and accept Jesus’ message that love is the quintessence of all that is. Had the early church followed that message, and had the rich and powerful not been successful in their coup, the history of Western civilization might have taken a different direction.

Patriarchy and Jesus

Patriarchy probably started about 12,000 years ago. If you google the word, there’s a good chance that you will be more confused than before you started. More knowledgable, but less certain. There’s the psychological dimension. And the sociological, the historical, the evolutionary, the political, and the list goes on. So when we say it started 12,000 years ago, that’s something of a choice, a decision, an admission of prejudice, but it seems to make sense. 

Agriculture, the planting of seed in a cultivated field, apparently began about 10,000 BCE. Prior to then, homo sapiens hunted and gathered food in small groups within which everyone pulled everyone’s weight for the survival of the whole, and women and men were equal in both task and reward, there being neither patriarchy nor matriarchy. New research indicates that women hunted as mightily as did the men, in addition to childbirth. Then came agriculture.

As any farmer or gardener knows painfully well, soil and weather will smile on some and not smile on others. Inevitably, some farmers will gain while others will lose, and therein, some argue, lies both the origin and the downfall of civilization. Good fields and bountiful storehouses of grain came to require defense from other marauding groups, and so the army was born. And that’s the key to the rise of patriarchy: because of their generally larger size, men made better soldiers 10,000 years ago, and the intricacies of first gaining and then keeping power put men in control. The loss of men on the battlefield meant that numbers had to be replaced, and so the role of women was to be mother and homemaker, birthing and training those who would become new warriors. Whether this anaysis is accurate or not, or whether it is just one piece of the puzzle, it does have an inner explanatory logic about it. 

And then along comes Taylor Swift, neither the first nor the last to challenge that role. I personally have never listened to one of her songs, heard her speak, or watched her perform. But she is a self-made woman, successful beyond measure in the world of business, relying on her own self and her own talent. At 33, not married, not a mother, idol of millions of young female followers. Is it any wonder that the Republican Party has shown their true nature as the patriarchs they are, attacking this female role model who does not fit into their pre-conceived notion of what a woman should be?? They may pretend that they worry about her enlisting a cadre of informed and young Democratic voters, and one hopes that to be true. But the truth lies much deeper. She shatters their own self image as male lords of the universe, sapping what little meaning and purpose remains in their pathetic, little lives. For that, she is perceived as dangerous, and so must be attacked. The conspiracy theories that they conjure up go beyond the pale of credulity.

There are no doubt millions of women and men, past and present, who, in their own way, battle the dehumanizing power of patriarchy every day. These Republicans making the news today wrap themselves in a christian religious masquerade, but it’s a lie. Jesus was the incarnation of equality. He gathered a community of followers, men and women, who treated everyone as equals. We so easily forget that Jesus had women as disciples, as well as men. And his attracting women to his movement meant that he offered women a role other than being a cog in the patriarchal system. They could be mothers and homemakers, or not. That, and being a disciple of the new Way, were not mutually exclusive. Jesus enabled them to be what they wanted to be because they were free. And the Republicans, despite their mouthing off about being good Christian followers of Jesus, well, they are not. Patriarchy has no place in the Way led by Jesus.

We Make it What we Want it To Be

Dei providentia et hominum confusione [In the providence of God and the confusion of humankind], this year Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday fall on the same day. There is no obvious connection for the simultaneity, except perhaps the dichotomy that we are mortal, but love is eternal. 

If one searches the origin and history of Valentine’s Day, one finds clouds and legends mixed with a bit of history. According to one account, the day [Feb 15] has its origins in the Roman festival of Lupercalia, what we today would call a fertilty rite. In the fifth century, Pope Gelasius I and his church people, no doubt upset by the whole notion of a fertility rite, sought to replace it by declaring the previous day [Feb 14] a holy day in honor of a saint, a man called Valentine. No one really knows who Valentine was, but the legend is that he was a priest who performed marriage ceremonies for soldiers. For this he was executed in 269 CE. Why? Because the Emperor Claudius II realized that men were refusing to join his army and go to war because they wanted to stay home with their wives and family, an easy choice, no doubt. Valentine flouted the emperor, and paid the ultimate price. 

No doubt the Christians of the 5th c relished the legend of Valentine, just as the Romans relished the legend of Lupercalia, each surrounding historical fact with legendary narrative. After a stretch of time, legend and fact became so integrated that a person could no longer differentiate between the two, and few cared to be bothered with such clarification. We have made Valentine’s Day into what we want it to be, and we celebrate accordingly.

The same is true for the Nativity story of the Christmas season just past. We have made it what we want it to be. The gospels of Mark and John have no stories about the birth of Jesus, and the two gospels who do have stories, Matthew and Luke, do not tell the same story. Luke tells of a decree going out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed, the registration for the tax requiring that everyone go to their home town. Not only is there no record of such a tax, but the logistics of everyone going to their hometown would be impossible. Matthew, on the other hand, tells of three magi [wise men? kings?] who came from the east, following a star that ultimately rested over Bethlehem, birthplace of a new king. They visited Herod along the way, inquiring of him where they might find this newly born king, and upon hearing their question, Herod became fearful and determined that he must kill the babe. Angels, however, warn both the magi and Mary that they must flee to Egypt for the time being, where they will be safe, and they do.

None of this ever happened. 

Matthew and Luke were trying to teach about Jesus and they fabricated elements to emphasize the points they wanted to make.  Matthew and Luke attached narratives to a historical event- the birth of Jesus- and over time the separate stories of Luke and Matthew morphed into one story, and the mythology, if we choose to call it that, today outshines the fact. In our current collective awareness, the story of Jesus is not about a revolutionary who was crucified because he challenged the greedy rich and powerful, which he was. It is instead about a babe in a manger, surrounded by animals, visited by three wise men and sheherds, and fleeing the wrath of Herod. The added narrative has become more popular that the original truth. The myth has become the thing, at least partially replacing the reality behind it. 

People want to believe narrative, fabricated or not. The licentious debauchers of Rome wanted to believe in the rites of fertility. The medieval Christians wanted to believe the story of St Valentine, as we do today. And the whole of Christendom wants to believe the Nativity stories. And there is nothing wrong with that desire provided that we not allow the myth to hide the foundational fact, which, of course, is precisely what we tend to do.

Mythology, however, is not limited to religious narrative. It invades the political realm as well. White “Christian” nationalists today are consumed by a myth that they themselves have fabricated, a myth they want to believe. Of course, there is a United States of America, with a history rooted in fact, the truth of which can be ascertained by investgation. But there is also a narrative that has been grafted to that history, a narrative not founded in reality, and that narrative for some has become more powerful than the truth. “The founding fathers intended the US to be a white Christian nation. We have a Manifest Destiny to rule the world. This god-given right authorized us to kill native Americans and take the land. Slavery of Africans was not as bad as it seems. People of color are inherently inferior. Anyone can be a success in America if they try hard enough.” The lies gain power when incorporated in a mythology, and as an eventual consequence, the hurtful myth lives on in the minds of its believers, even as the facts are lost. 

Not all myth is hurtful. In fact, we can and do learn much from mythology, embodying basic truths as it can. Valentine Day’s reminder to love is a wonderful motif, and the Nativity stories contain many good lessons we need to learn. But when we make a story into what we want it to be, and that is a hurtful lie, then our task is straightforward, and that is to speak the word of truth and expose the lie for what it is, especially when we are confronted with an integrated and hateful combination of politics and Christianity. 

Lent

In about three weeks, spring will have arrived in areas of the US, the Super Bowl will be a game of the past, folks will be recovering from Mardi Gras, and some people will have ashes on their forehead to mark the first day of a season called Lent. We can pretty much guess that the ashes symbolize mortality- ashes to ashes-, but Lent, what’s that about? 

According to the gospels, when Jesus was baptized by John, he heard a voice come out of heaven affirming his mission from God, and he left John the Baptist and went into the wilderness for forty days and nights, where “the angels ministered to him” and where the devil tempted him. 

Although fundamentalists will accept all this at face value, the story is symbolic but not historical. When Jesus left John after being baptized by him, he set off on his mission accompanied by some friends who were also former disciples of John, and he or they no doubt reflected upon their move. Having decided on a course of itinerant action he travelled about teaching and preaching God’s love and justice, and those who heard and followed were captivated by Jesus’ charisma. They got to see who he was. One of the key ingredients in their encounter with him was that he was not egocentric, he did not insist on his own way, he had no box into which he tried to force reality. A story -that of the temptation in the wilderness- came to be, describing how he continually refused the temptation to impose his will on others,- no matter how pure. Think of what the devil throws at him. “You’re hungry. Command these stones to become bread. You want the world to see God’s power. Throw yourself off a high place so that God can save you. You want all the world to do God’s will. Make them! …and bow down to me.”

What do these temptations represent? They embody the inclination to make the world as I want it to be. When Jesus encountered people he listened, he understood, he led along a path they could follow. He did not command or impose or insist that others lived according to his prescription. His charismatic self showed others what they could be and invited them to become what at heart they already were. And so his followers created a story to show that side of Jesus, a story about how he refused the temptation to impose his perception on others, instead inviting them to see reality in a new and non-egocentric way.

That’s what Lent is all about. Historically, the essence of the season is self-denial, based on the idea that Jesus was denied earthly comforts while in the desert, and therefore so should we. What we understand now is that what Jesus denied himself was the egocentricity that seems to develop as life moves along, accompanied by the invitation to us to follow him in denying that egocentricity in our own lives. Lent is not about giving up chocolate. It’s about uncovering the blindness in our perception and being open to what others have to share with us. The irony is that when we give up our narrow and blinding perspective, a whole new world is opened to us and life becomes expansive and joyful. 

This is not an exercise for Christians only. The Buddha also knew. Life is suffering, he said, and the cause of suffering is desire. When we desire, consciously or unconsciously, to have the world be according to our self- contained perception, we suffer, because reality refuses to be confined and distorted according to our ego, and we feel that refusal. The message from Jesus and the Buddha is clear: leave your cave, walk into the light, experience life anew. Whether we be Christian or Buddhist, agnostic or atheist, Lent is a good time to renew our unfolding process.

1-6-21

The events of Jan 6 can be seen from both a micro and a macro perspective. At the micro level various elements combined to create mob rule with murderous intent. These include an obvious lack of adequate security, individual police who played dubious if not also conspiratorial roles, senators and congressmen who were echoing Trump’s lie about a stolen election and coordinating with the mob, and mob leaders with intent and planning to capture, try, and perhaps execute members of Congress, including Pelosi and Pence. These elements are frightening enough, but there is more.

The macro perspective requires that we step back and understand the larger picture, consisting of at least five elements. To begin with, the near absolute inequality of wealth in our country continues to increase. The rich and powerful have created a population almost evenly divided between haves and have-nots. 42% of Americans do not have $400 on hand for emergencies, even as Bezos and Musk vie to see who will reach 200 billion first. Greed has created a class of disinherited people who have nothing left to lose. Neither Hitler nor Mussolini nor Trump arose in a vacuum, and Trump’s vacuum is the decades-long impoverishment of American workers, long deprived of adequate education, health care and a living wage, now reduced to opioid escape, crudeness, and early death. 

As long as there is order, the wealthy are able to further line their pockets, but when order descends into violence, even the oppressor loses. It is only when power and wealth begin to slip away that the establishment joins in the chorus that denounces the chaos. Unfortunately, history shows that once order is restored the oppression will likely continue as before, a fact known only too well by our Black and Indigenous communities.  

The second element is the power seekers, those deviates working to profit by the creation of chaos. Just as Hitler capitalized on the poverty in post war Germany, so too Trump has built his following on the poverty and anxiety of tens of millions of Americans, whom he showers with insidious lie after lie. “The wall will keep Mexican rapists at bay. A ban on Muslim immigration will guard our Christian heritage. The elite will be run out of the halls of power. Ignore the fake news by enemies of the people. We are all victims, and only I can be the savior.”  What we have before us is the self-creation of a would-be god who believes he will be reincarnated as his children continue the work of redemption. 

Power-seekers are not alone. They compete for the prize. Today, there are the hungry, like Hawley and Cruz, who see an opening now that the leader is weakened and perhaps banished. Unless the oppressors have a sudden change of heart, the poverty will continue, a new autocrat will fill the leadership vacuum, and the cycle will continue.

But it takes more than a messianic leader to ignite the violence. Without a platform through which to communicate, the leader is reduced to silence. There must also be the means to initiate and to spread the message, and this is where compliant media provides a necessary component. Cascading lies, one built upon the previous, are echoed by media and available on every screen at the flip of a switch. Such is the third element.

Success of the insurrection also relies upon the gullible masses, the fourth element. Poverty alone does not of necessity lead to desperation and violence. There must also be…what? This is the hard part to describe. Are the tens of millions who follow Trump, no matter how poor, lacking in morality? without reason? It is true that they have become fanatical adherents to a messianic mythology, but why? There will, no doubt, be a great deal written about this conundrum in years to come. 

It is well known that persons who are individually non-violent, can and do become a mob when they find encouragement among one another. This clearly has happened among Trump followers. Of course it is not genuine community, but rather a group ideology founded upon fear and hatred of the “other”, embodied in the US by Blacks and People of Color. Shattering the false myth of white Christian America, the announcement a decade ago that People of Color would soon be the majority, exposed the hatred concealed in our sub/consciousness. The election of Obama completed the uncovering and prepared the way for the autocrat to rally the masses. The mob is white supremacy unleashed.

This racism in part enables the fifth group, the anarchists, to commandeer the movement. Preying upon the fear and gullibility of the supremacists, anarchists introduce more violence and spin their webs of conspiracy theory. Their goal is simply to bring the system down, and the susceptible mob all too easily follows along. They become caught up in the destruction, led by those who have no goal other than to bring down that which painstakingly has been built up.

Although we have heard this before, the events of Jan 6 make clear the fragility of democracy. The elements combine, and autocracy appears on the horizon. There is, of course, a sixth group. The innocent by-standers, who watch in dismay as the building crumbles. The lesson for them-for us- is that in a democracy there is no free ride. Silent inaction is complicity. The details of what we must do call for honesty, civility, and expertise, never forgetting, to paraphrase an old quote, that eternal vigilance is the price of democracy.

The Other Virus

Last week was about as intense as it gets. Caught between a merciless virus and the cessation of social activity, beneath the surface calm lies a persistent tension ready to erupt. The anxiety was underscored by the two main religious mythologies that drive segments of our culture, the Passover and the Crucifixion/Resurrection of Jesus. The Passover evokes images of an angel of death splattering blood on the lintels of Israelites’ homes so that they might escape the wrath of the murdering Pharaoh. The crucifixion of Jesus sets before us a horrifying image of death at the hand of political and economic power. The stories have good endings: the Passover culminates in the Exodus, whereby the Hebrews escape Pharaoh’s chariots of death, and the cross of Jesus is overcome by the new life that emerges. Our problem today is that we are living between the two moments, before the good ending, when the resolution is not yet obvious.

We have been renewed in our awareness of interconnectedness and our capacity to sacrifice and love one another, and this is a very healthy re-discovery. But coupled with this knowledge we also have become painfully aware that there are those at high levels of power who act more like Pharaoh and Pontius Pilate than the caregivers they were supposed to be. Economist Paul Krugman recently articulated the sources of his own concerns, of which there are three. One is the virus itself, destroying the health and indeed life itself of so many. This is accompanied by the total societal upheaval required by attempts to contain and mitigate the spread of the virus. Lastly, this upheaval poses a severe threat to our democratic institutions. It is this last which worries him the most. There will be a vaccine, and the economy will rebound, but once democracy is lost, it might never return and could be lost forever.

Lest there be any doubt, Krugman is referring to Trump, his lackeys, and all Republicans who focus now on gaining power rather than providing service. Although the list is not inclusive, and grows daily, please allow me to support his fears, which are real and tangible.

To begin with the latest, Trump now wants to fire Dr. Fauci because he told the truth about more people dying because Trump procrastinated for political purposes. Trump thought perhaps we should have allowed the virus to rampage and have it over with, regardless of how many would die. Republican elected officials suggest that those dead were old and infirm and would have died anyway, so it’s no great loss, and, by the way, saves a lot of money. No doubt it was and is this attitude working in the minds of those who refuse to expand health insurance. Even Neanderthal, whom we love to denigrate, cared for their sick and wounded. What we have in America is not a clown for a president, but a murderer, not a fiscally conservative party, but a party of death and greed.

Protective equipment for health care workers is doled out by Trump to those governors who are his lackeys, and refused to governors, both Democratic and Republican, who are critical. The economic relief bill puts an inspector general  in charge of overseeing how 2 trillion dollars is distributed, but Trump has fired him.

The Republican senate continues to confirm incompetent Trump nominations for judgeships. The gerrymandered state of Wisconsin, where Republicans get 56% of the representation with only 36% of the vote, refuses to allow -last week- to extend mail-in voting, thereby forcing people to stand in line for hours, wearing masks hoping that they would not become infected. And this supported by the US Supreme Court, 5-4, after McConnell refused for a full year to even allow a vote on Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland for the court. All the while, voters are illegally removed from registration rolls and foreign countries are invited to interfere in our elections, doing so with impunity. Under the leadership of Barr, the Justice Department has just announced that the FBI will be investigated for investigating Trump’s Russia connection.

On and on. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said repeatedly in his pressroom that when a crisis hits us, the true mettle of people will come out. Those who love and are strong will shine. And those who are weak and/or evil (my word) will also be seen for who they are. We have two visions for America. One controlled by the Pharaohs and Pilates of our time, happy to sacrifice the sick and the poor for the sake of the stock market, the other manifest in all those who value service and compassion, strong in their love. There is no confusion on this. The battle lines are clear.

I think that we all know this, and that is why we are ready to explode. Yes, there is a great deal of fear created by the virus. Will we or our loved ones get sick, or even die? The economic aftershock is equally worrying. My business is destroyed. My retirement fund is wiped out. Will we be able to eat and find shelter? And beneath it all is the increasing feeling that not only is our president and his following totally incompetent, but that they also looking out for themselves and not the American people. As such, they too are a virus, dealing death and destruction. With the power that comes in the knowledge that love wins, we cannot allow that to happen.

Andrew Cuomo’s Faith for All

Andrew Cuomo today is a phenomenon. He speaks every day about the coronavirus and his press conferences have become must-see tv. Why? Many reasons, but at heart he speaks to spiritual yearning in all people, a yearning that focuses not on religion and/or God, but on the truth and depth of our common humanity.

The Governor of New York State has become the voice of leadership and compassion during the coronavirus pandemic. His daily talks have become a time to hear the facts, face the reality, and listen to a calm voice of reason, hope and challenge. Beyond the arena of New York politics, about which most Americans know nothing, he has been received by the nation as a man to whom we can relate. He helps us transcend political divisiveness and helps us realize that we are all human beings.

He is a Roman Catholic, but one that many in his church would choose to excommunicate. Under his guidance, New York recognizes gay marriage and has the most humane abortion law to be found in America. It is clear from his presence that he is a man of deep faith, but also one whose faith is not determined by institutional religious authority. One might argue that his ability to speak to everyone is a result of decades of honing his political acumen, but that would be a shallow understanding. At least in these press conferences, Cuomo strikes a deep spiritual chord that resonates with most people.

To begin with, he respects everyone, whatever their religion or lack thereof, whether they celebrate Passover, Easter, Christmas, Ramadan or Kwanza, and you cannot help but feel that his respect is genuine. For public safety, however, public gatherings are prohibited. There is no exception for religious services, weddings or funerals. The kind of flagrant violation of stay-at-home policy exhibited by arrogant ministers in other states is strictly forbidden by Cuomo in NY.

Along with his acceptance of respectful others is a self-confidence that enables honest straight talk, incorporating a stature that can empathize with those who are hurting, both emotionally and physically. Essential to this data-driven attitude is a refusal to speculate, whether about the future of the pandemic or indeed about anything that might be called mysterious or mystical. His boldest statement about mystery asserted that although we are socially distanced we are spiritually connected, but he didn’t know how.

The only use of the word “God” is in the context of describing someone who risks their life for others. “God bless them”. God is also intimated in the phrase “keeping them in our thoughts and prayers”. But in both instances, the phrase seems to be more a term of popular culture than an actual assertion of faith. The closest Cuomo gets to a confession of faith is in his assertion that love wins. Love wins out over fear and anger. It also wins out over economic considerations. And to the calls by right wing voices to let the old and infirm die because they contribute nothing to society anyway, Cuomo responds with scorn and utter disbelief. No one is expendable. Loving and caring for one another is the essence of our humanity. Life is not reducible to numbers. This holds true not only for the elderly and infirm, but also for the outcast of society, the poor and the weak, those who labor for naught and strive in vain. If there is any refrain in his speaking, it is Cuomo’s prophetic insistence that no one will be left behind, that love reaches out to all and compels us to create a just society.

This is a moment, he says, for the world, for our country and state, for us as individuals. “Moment” is a word that he uses often, referring to a time in our lives when great change becomes possible. Stripped of diversions and escapes, we are free to explore our inner angels, to learn, to read, to listen in silence to the silence. The great danger, Cuomo believes, is giving in to the fear of the unknown that awaits us vis a vis both the virus as well as our own future. Too easily reason succumbs to fear and is overtaken by irrationality and panic. It is at this point that he says that this not the NY way, by which he means that this is not the human way, the way of strength, smartness, unity, and…love.

This is a message that reverberates across the country and probably around the world. It does not say, hey look at me and my needs. It says we are all in this together. And it does not say: learn how to do yoga, or meditate, or pray, or become a mystic. It simply says, appreciate the moment, accept the pain, do good, look ahead and celebrate the time when you can be together again with friends and loved ones, and, most importantly, share your love with all.

Many Americans, it seems, hear and understand.

Biblical Billionaires and the Taming of Jesus

Part Three

I have previously argued in Part One that the rich, the powerful, and cultural inertia transformed the radical message of Jesus into merely an echo of existing social mores. The prophetic demonstration of love and equality in Jesus’ family of friends succumbed to the onslaught of established interests. In Part Two, I suggested that the takeover of the nascent movement by the rich and powerful created a theology that supported the existing corruption, rather than challenging it, and that what we think of as basic Christian belief is a product of reactionary forces rather than the revolutionary impetus set in motion by Jesus.

Thirdly, we now go to the evidence. The support for culture is painfully visible in much, but not all, of the later New Testament writing, especially as it pertains to the nature of the church, subjugation of women, obedience to existing authority, and the possession of slaves.

As the first century moved along, ultimately rolling over into the second, the coup described above is amply illustrated in the available documents, texts that are part and parcel of the Christian New Testament. Reference to Paul is here omitted, partly because he is a transition figure and partly because his thoughts are subject to various interpretations. What follows here are quotations that require not much interpretation, straightforward as they are.

From the Epistle to the Colossians, falsely attributed to Paul, written late 1st c.

 Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.

 Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.

 Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.

 Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.

 Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord.  Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters,  since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. Col 3:22ff

From the Epistle to the Ephesians, falsely attributed to Paul, written 70-80

 Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord.  For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.  As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands. Ephesians 5:22ff

 Slaves, be obedient to those who are your earthly masters, with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as to Christ;  not in the way of eye-service, as men-pleasers, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that whatever good any one does, he will receive the same again from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free. Masters, do the same to them. Ephesians 6:5ff

From the First Epistle of Timothy, written between 90 and 140.

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life, godly and respectful in every way. 1 Timothy 2:1

 I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling; also that women should adorn themselves modestly and sensibly in seemly apparel, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly attire but by good deeds, as befits women who profess religion. Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet woman will be saved through bearing children, if she continues in faith and love and holiness, with modesty. 1Tim 2:8ff

The saying is sure: If any one aspires to the office of bishop, he desires a noble task. Now a bishop must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sensible, dignified, hospitable, an apt teacher, no drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, and no lover of money. He must manage his own household well, keeping his children submissive and respectful in every way; for if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how can he care for God’s church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may be puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil; moreover he must be well thought of by outsiders, or he may fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.    1Tim 3:1ff

 Let all who are under the yoke of slavery regard their masters as worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and the teaching may not be defamed. Those who have believing masters must not be disrespectful on the ground that they are brethren; rather they must serve all the better since those who benefit by their service are believers and beloved. I Tim 6:1 ff

 As for the rich in this world, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on uncertain riches but on God who richly furnishes us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good deeds, liberal and generous, thus laying up for themselves a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life which is life indeed.  1 Tim 6:17f

From the book of Titus, written between the end of the 1st c and the end of the 2nd.

But as for you, teach what befits sound doctrine. Bid the older men be temperate, serious, sensible, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness. Bid the older women likewise to be reverent in behavior, not to be slanderers or slaves to drink; they are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be sensible, chaste, domestic, kind, and submissive to their husbands, that the word of God may not be discredited. Titus  2:1ff

Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for any honest work.  Titus 3:1

From the first Epistle of Peter, written between 80 and 96.

 Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right. For it is God’s will that by doing right you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. Live as free men, yet without using your freedom as a pretext for evil; but live as servants of God. Honor all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor. 1 Peter 2:13ff

 On the contrary

It is not the case that the church everywhere shared the opinions of Timothy and others of like mind. We also have the Epistle of James. Scholars debate the authorship, date, and location of this letter. It makes little reference to Jesus and has the tone of a Hebrew prophet. Quite possibly it was written by the brother of Jesus and originated in the church in Jerusalem.

But the rich should take pride in their humiliation—since they will pass away like a wild flower. For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich will fade away even while they go about their business.  James 1:9

My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?  But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court?  Are they not the ones who are blaspheming the noble name of him to whom you belong?

Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you.   James 2:1ff

Biblical Billionaires and the Taming of Jesus

Part Two

The time of Jesus was a time when the rich and powerful were utilizing all means at their disposal to become even more rich and more powerful. The government was in on it. Business was in on it. The religious establishment was in on it. Such economic exploitation was not unique to Israel, but it certainty was there as well.

1 Into this scene at about age 28, came Jesus from a small village called Nazareth in the province of Galilee. He and his disciples lived and taught a life that denounced the oppression that dominated society, offering instead the vision of a community based on caring and sharing. Catastrophically, by the end of the first century, that vision had been destoyed and supplanted by an organization ruled by priests and bishops. This type of institution was much more supportive of the existing exploitative system than were the revolutionaries Jesus had created.

2 As mentioned in Part One, the equality of men and women was an essential ingredient in the disciple band, an equality that disrupted the order and power of the existing patriarchy. From the establishment perspective, that had to change, and change it did. The biblical evidence is overwhelming, and includes much more than the reference to Timothy in Part one. We shall see how much more in Part Three.

3 In stark contrast to the inequality in society, Jesus’ family of friends shared, and essential to that sharing was food. The believers that centered on a single household no doubt had meals together, and perhaps some outside the extended family also participated. The practice was later incorporated into the larger congregations, common meals known as love feasts. From Paul we learn that at some of these gatherings the wealthy would neither wait for the poor to arrive nor would they share their food, and certainly not their wine. At some point, the common meal transformed into a commemoration of the assumed “Last Supper” Jesus shared with his disciples prior to the subsequent crucifixion. Soon only the church hierarchy was permitted to celebrate this sacrament, a restriction applicable even today. Such a controlled mystical sharing, as contrasted to the earlier actual sharing of food, presented no threat to the established economic order.

4  The greatest change in the thinking of the early church had to do with Jesus himself. The disciples found in Jesus a model of the person they too could become, and he was a person who preached justice and equality, love and kindness toward one another. To the authorities such people are suspect, and that, no doubt, is why Pilate had him crucufied. But as time went on, the role of Jesus shifted away from the revolutionary to the sacrificial. His death became a propitiation of an angry god, a socially much less dangerous role. Jesus, the one who had wanted to create a just and loving society, a kingdom of God on earth, became the one who had died for your sins, a role much more amenable to the existing culture. Sacrificial lambs do not threaten class and wealth stratification. Prophets do.

5 The same analysis holds for the resurrection of Jesus. The disciples fully believed that the revolutionary who had gathered them into a microcosm of the kingdom was now alive in their midst as spirit. Really alive, inspiring them to continue growing the kingdom. To them, the resurrection demonstrated that the power of evil evident in the crucifixion, the power of Rome, had been overcome by the power of God. Love ruled the universe, not death and destruction. Such conviction was dangerous for the existing order, challenging, as it did, the authenticity of violence as the norm of human life together. The solution for the established order was to transform the resurrection as revolutionary into the resurrection as resuscitation, and by accepting and promulgating this maneuver, the church lost its prophetic vitality and became the promoter of accepted and acceptable cultural norms.

6 As a result of these changes in the supposed role of Jesus, the meaning of his life, death and resurrection was shifted from the present to the future. Instead of the One who gave his life in the struggle to transform society, he became the one who would judge every individual at some future, undetermined time. God in the moment became God at the end of time, a god much more palatable to the existing order.

7 As a consequence, faith, which at first meant participation in the Way of the kingdom, a way of social justice and equality, now degenerated into acceptance of certain doctrines of belief, chief among them being that Jesus had died for your sins. Such faith posed little threat to the establishment.

8 Deviation from this established faith was forbidden. Initially, it was participation in the movement, and not adherance to beliefs, that defined one as a Christian.The earliest church was a varied group, incorporating many different beliefs. Some of these beliefs were forcefully repudiated by the apostle Paul, but he was not alone in this. The narrowing of acceptable belief expanded with time, the losers of controversy declared heretical and the winners declared orthodox. The definition of what it meant to be a Christian became increasingly under the control of the priests, bishops, and even the government. Although it was much later in 325, the definitive Council of Nicaea was ordered by Emperor Constantine, with the charge to force one and all to agree on understanding the divinity of Jesus. Disagreement within the church posed a danger to the unity of the empire, and as such could not be tolerated. We might assume that Constantine’s intervention was not the first of its kind. Empire, whatever its manifestation, cannot allow challenge to its power, and free thinking followers of Jesus represent exactly such a challenge.

9 Part of this containment included a change in how the Word of God was understood. The early church accepted the Hebrew scriptures, but also the words of Jesus, as divine guidance. There was openness to newness, and there were apparently many different perspectives on Jesus and his role, but that openness did not last long. Certain books gradually became accepted canon, and others were declared heretical, the church hierarchy claiming the power to decide those issues. The end result is what Christians call the New Testament, the ultimate Word of God. Because the Word of God was now believed confined to certain writings, it became paramount to understand exactly what that word said, and unsurprisingly, the Word of God was found, not to criticize, but to support the norms of the existing culture.

It is often assumed that Christian belief includes the following: the Bible is the absolute Word of God, Jesus’ death propitiated an angry god, and in this sense he “died for your sins”, he physically rose from the dead, Jesus will come again to judge, faith means belief in certain doctrine, and the Lord’s Supper is mystical communion with Christ. These assumed beliefs are not at all universal nor even a majority opinion in Christian theology. Some progressive theologians would argue that these beliefs do not at all represent the experience of the early church. But now we go one step further and argue that these beliefs are not only contrary to what Jesus intended, but are also the creation of reactionary forces in the culture and most likely also in the church.