I Sing the Almighty Power of God

Been a long time. Sorry kids. This was my article in the last bulletin at the church where I work. It is based on the readings for this Sunday, Gn 22:1-2, 9a, 10-13, 15-18; Ps 116; Rom 8:31b-34; Mk 9:2-10. You can find those readings here. 

Like so many things Jesus talked about, power is one he continually upends. The Beatitudes are a series of statements that barely seem to make sense: the meek shall inherit the earth? What does that mean? When have you ever seen the meek gain anything?

We are told from an early age where power comes from. Sometimes it comes from force, sometimes from money, sometimes from manipulation. Having power is something to aspire to. What we often do not realize is that we already have power. We have power that does not come from force, money, or manipulation. We have power that comes from God.

Wait, which is it? Are we meek or powerful? And which one are we supposed to be? In today’s first reading, Abraham is told to be meek. He is told the unthinkable – he must sacrifice his son, the child of his old age and his heir. Any power Abraham had would have been passed to his son, and hopefully grown from there. Abraham was asked to kill his son whom he loved and essentially put a stop to his power. Fortunately, an angel is sent to stop him. Our reading ends with a promise that Abraham’s descendants will number as the stars and “all the nations of the earth shall find blessing – all this because you obeyed my command.”

Does this mean that if we just do whatever God tells us we will be wealthy beyond our imaginings? Ask any person of faith who recently lost their job and you will get a great big “no.” We will receive a promise Paul puts so eloquently in our second reading: “If God is for us, who can be against us?” As the beautiful vision of the Gospel today gives us, our God is present and powerful. Jesus took his dear friends to the mountain and gifted them with a glimpse of the power of God. That Power in dazzling white clothes, that Wisdom conversing with Moses and Elijah, that Love terrifying and trusting, is for us. Who can be against us?

I have known many teens and young people who feel powerless or think their power comes from something earthly. Some are bullies because that is the only time they feel in control; others get the latest gadget to attract attention. I once had a 14-year-old tell me there was not a person in his life he trusted. How powerless would you feel if you could not think of a single person you could lean on? For those of us who do feel powerful, who know our power comes from a God who created and loves us, we have to use that to help those who feel powerless. We have to be Uncle Ben telling Peter Parker that “with great power comes great responsibility.” We have to be meek enough in our own power to empower those around us. It’s not an easy task, but “if God is for us, who can be against us?”

Being Children of God

This is a response I wrote about a year ago for my Old Testament class. It was an online course, so we wrote responses to the readings every week. What the reading was is not hugely important to understand this particular response; just know it was from Deuteronomy.

The readings this week from Deuteronomy made me think about rules. Rules are in place usually with reason, to protect us in work and play. We are given rules are laid down by our parents, our teachers, our religion, our government from the moment we are born until we die. Some have very clear motivations, and are almost always applicable. The “no diving in shallow water” rule has an obvious reason with an obvious consequence. Some rules have convoluted motivations with frustrating consequences. A friend of mine is having trouble financially and the situation is made worse by the rule that she cannot claim her father as a dependent until she is 24. At 22 she is supporting herself and father who suffered a stroke last year and cannot work. However she cannot claim him as a dependent on her taxes because he is her father. This rule is probably in place because someone took advantage of the system at one point. Because of those consequences, my friend now suffers. No matter the authority that puts down the rules, these rules serve some purpose at some point. Some become archaic and are thrown out and some endure in usefulness. As a person grows up, the rules for them change in their house and the relationship between parents and child change. The same is true for the government, at least the one in which Americans live. As a person grows up, the laws applying to them change and a citizen has more power to influence the laws.

The rhetoric form of Deuteronomy is a speech given by Moses, the parent/teacher/religion/government figure of the Israelites. One of the things that Moses primarily does is speak for God. Moses begins by recounting the story of how the Israelites got to the place they are now. The primary theme is that God took care of them and provided for them. This reminds me of many a disciplinary lecture. A parent sits their teenager down and says “I feed you and clothe you and put a roof over your head so you will follow my rules!” A police officer says “it is my job to take care of this city so I am going to write you this speeding ticket.” Moses says that God takes care of them, so as long as they live under his roof they will follow his rules.

The new rules that God sets down are, like many rules, sometimes have obvious motivations with obvious consequences and some seem more convoluted. God tells them not to intermarry with the locals so they are not tempted to turn away from their faith (Dt. 7:3-4). This sounds very similar to a parent warning their child or giving advice on who to choose as friends and who to date and marry. Different parents will say different things, but hopefully that advice runs more like, “choose someone who will encourage you to be who you are and not turn you away from your values.” The laws concerning food seem a little more arbitrary to a modern audience (Dt. 14:3-21). Some of these at the time would have been considered a health issue. Shellfish, for example, were often ill-prepared and were a very big risk to eat (Dt. 14:10). Some were more of a ritual issue, like eating nothing that “dies of itself” or a “kid in its mother’s milk” (Dt. 14:21, note 14:21 Harper Collins Study Bible). While the shellfish rule is fairly obvious in motivation, the dying animal rule is not so clear.

What is termed the greatest commandment here is “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might” (Dt. 6:5). This rule was to be recited to oneself throughout the day to keep it fresh and important. It contains great meaning to the Jewish people today no matter if they keep kosher laws or not. For us as Christians, we see the Old Testament as part of our salvation history. This rule is recited by Jesus, whose life we might compare in this extended metaphor to how the rules change when you move out of your parents house or how the laws change for you at 18, 21, or 24. Jesus adds to it, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself,” and the rule is changed again (Mt 22:36-40; Mk 12:28-34; Lk 10:25-28). Our metaphorical son or daughter now has the keys to the car and votes. As God’s people develop and grow, so does how God treats them and gives the rules associated with them.

A Change of Pace

So. I haven't posted in forever. Like almost a year. Sorry kids, if anyone was interested. Let me say, though, that I am back and would really like to blog again. So I am changing the focus of this blog. Yes, it is still a religion blog, and you could even still call me a phenomenologist. I will be writing my thoughts about varying issues in religious life, maybe sticking in a reflection or two from my assignments. If you are interested at all, please read. If not, be nice!

The Higher Critics of the Bible

While I may disagree with Strenski on many points, I must agree with his inclusion of the Higher Critics of the Bible. After learning about them, I can not believe that they have been left out of the study of theory in religion. while they technically predate the study of religion as its own discipline, they influenced all the greats of modern Western religious thought. In the late nineteenth century, the people who began to look at the Bible in a new way were the deists, their critics, and liberal Protestants. Referred to as the Higher Critics, they “all shared the conviction that the Bible could and should be scrutinized like any other piece of literature – in a rational,, empirical, that is to say, naturalistic way, all the while recalling the ‘deist’ sense of human reason as a divine endowment” (Strenski 34). These deists and critics included such names as Jean Bodin, Herbert of Cherbury, John Locke, and David Hume.

My personal favorite of the Higher Critics, William Robertson Smith, believed that the work of the Higher Critics would add to the legitimacy of the Bible. A true Protestant, he thought that anything that added to our understanding of the Bible could only increase the faith. While he knew this might cause some problems for some people, he believed that “In this department of intellectual life science and faith have joined hands. There is no discordance between the religious and scholarly method of study. They lead to the same goal; and the more closely our study fulfils the demands of historical scholarship, the more fully will it correspond with our religious needs” (Smith 1881, p. 27, Strenski 35).

Before the Higher Critics, there was not much focus on the historical side of the Bible. The Higher Critics began to concern themselves with the historical context of the Bible, looking for non-Biblical sources that supported the stories everyone knew so well. This work is the basis for what we now call the search for the “historical Jesus” which still goes on today. This search added four new disciplines to the study of religion: history, philology, text criticism, and hermeneutics. While all valid and (somewhat) interesting, I am only going to discuss hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is “interpreting what the biblical texts meant in their original and present form, and how they should be construed in the future” (Strenski 44). This is where critical biblical interpretation begins to touch theology. Those who study the Bible secularly use hermeneutics to make connections between the text and how religion is practiced. Theologians use hermeneutics to better understand the messages in the Bible.

For over one hundred years the Bible has faced this scrutiny. I am sure that there were murmurs like the Higher Critics before. As a Christian, sometimes the conclusions drawn by people dedicated to the “historical Jesus” can be offensive. The writings of the Jesus Seminar are still debated with opinions ranging from “everything they say is wrong” to “everything they say is right.” It is hard to wade through the technical speak to understand what any of it means to your Christian life. How do we read the Scriptures? Once again, I turn to the lovely indexed Catechism:

While God is the author of the Scriptures, He chose certain men to write His word. They “consigned to writing whatever he wanted written, and no more” (CCC 106). “In Sacred Scripture, God speaks to man in a human way. To interpret Scripture correctly, the reader must be attentive to what the human authors truly wanted to affirm and to what God wanted to reveal to us by their words” (CCC 109). The Second Vatican Council offers these three guidelines: 1. “Be especially attentive “to the content and unity of the whole Scripture.”” 2. “Read the Scripture within “the living Tradition of the whole Church.”” 3. “Be attentive to the analogy of faith” (CCC 112, 113, 114). I realize that these guidelines bring up more questions, but if you look up the articles yourself you will find explanations. (I got tired of typing.)

Since we have our own guidelines for study and plenty of theologians for help, is there any merit in studying the Higher Critics? That I leave up to you, reader. If studying what Jesus ate and how that affected His digestion and how that affected what He taught on the Mount is your cup of tea, go right ahead with blessings! That is the door opened for you by the Higher Critics. If you really could give a squirrel’s tail about what Paul made his tents out of, but you really like that love is patient and kind that is fine, too. We each have our gifts that we can contribute to the understanding of Jesus.

Sorry it's been so long since I posted! I'll try not to wait so long before the next.

Natural Religion, Pt. II

In my last installment, I talked about how the knowledge of God is written in us. Somehow, our brains know that something out there is greater than ourselves and somehow our hearts know that something is personal. Going beyond that basic instinct is where we find our meaning. One could say that going beyond our basic instincts are what makes us human and not animal. That is where we find art, music, a desire for friendly competition (not over food, mates, or lives) and love.

“The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for” (CCC 27). This quote is from just before

the quote I used in the last post. Not only were we created with a knowledge of God but a desire for God. God is essential to our happiness and the meaning in our lives. Every time joy and goodness happens in our lives, it comes from God. Likewise, every time we create joy for someone else, we are reflecting the love of God and giving that gift back to Him.

You may be thinking, “Gee, this is great, but haven’t we gone pretty far afield from Natural Religion?” And yes, we have. But that’s the great thing about God – He’s infinite. You can start with a simple concept and end up down thirteen different rabbit holes.

Natural Religion, Pt. I

“‘Natural Religion’ – a form of religion that is alternately thought to be the oldest and primal, or that forms the common content of the many religions, or that constitutes what we could call the true and essential nature of religion.” (Strenski 9)

While there are different ways to define and look at Natural Religion, I like the version where “Natural Religion embodies the belief that religion is an innate, built-in feature of being human” (Strenski 10). Since religions are so diverse around the world, this tends to translate into an inherent ethical system and belief in the divine. In general, religions have an ethical system: stealing is bad; murder is bad; adultery is generally frowned upon. There are a few exceptions around the world, but speaking in a broad way religions carry rules of right and wrong that agree. (Versions of “the Golden Rule” and “the Silver Rule” have been found in religions since they have been written down.) Being an eternal optimist, I immediately latched on to this idea. If people can inherently know what is right and wrong then there is some hope in a world where we face evil in every headline and dark alley. The Catholic in me liked the idea that we are born knowing that there is some sort of force that is beyond us, something in us that wants to believe.

This idea is backed up by the Catechism of the Catholic Church, something I will be referencing frequently in this blog. “In many ways, throughout history down to the present day, men have given expression to their quest for God in their religious beliefs and behavior: in their prayers, sacrifices, rituals, meditations, and so forth. These forms of religious expression, despite the ambiguities they often bring with them, are so universal that one may well call man a religious being” (CCC 28). Sound familiar?

This section is nearly the same as the idea of Natural Religion, only more specific. We are born with a knowledge of the existence of God. We inherently know right from wrong. What the theorists of Natural Religion talked about in more vague terms the Church speaks of very specifically. So what does this mean for us? How does this apply to our lives? Stay posted for Part II.

How This Will Start

I figured the best way to start this blog would be to go back to where I got the idea, my Theories of Religion class. So I am going to start by going through what I found most interesting from the class, offering a Catholic viewpoint to many of the theories we discussed. I will be using the text from the class, Ivan Strenski's Thinking About Religion, as my guideline and main reference for my posts. I hope you find them interesting and please, comment away!