‘Thanksgiving,’ a sample sermon about Abraham Lincoln

October 19, 2013 by David Crumm

By DUNCAN NEWCOMER

(Note from ReadTheSpirit: In this historic year of Lincoln remembrances—the Rev. Dr. Duncan Newcomer is writing a series of columns about the legacy of our 16th president. Read more about Duncan at the end of this column. TODAY, Duncan provides a sample sermon about Abraham Lincoln, which we welcome you to share, use, discuss and even republish.)

Suggested Bible readings
Philippians 2:1-7

“This poor word”—that’s how Evelyn Underhill refers to “Thanksgiving” in her classic book Worship.

It’s true, isn’t it? A poor word.

What do we mean by “Thanksgiving”? Is it now just the meaningless name of a holiday for food, football and frenzied shopping? Just another annual trigger for stress and guilt? Who are we supposed to thank, anyway? And, for what?

And, the biggest question: Is the most frequently forgotten guest at our dinner tables—God?

I used to teach Family Medicine residents what they called “Behavioral Science.” One lesson was this: It is better not to tell patients, “Try to relax.” Trying to relax is a contradictory effort. “Just let yourself relax” might work better.

“Try to be thankful” suffers from the same kind of disappearing act: The harder we try, the less thankful we feel.

When Abraham Lincoln made Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863 we got off on the wrong foot with the word “thanksgiving.” While I praise Lincoln for being a secular-religious prophet, one of the problems in translating religious sentiment into civil society is the language that is used. Thanksgiving in a synagogue, church or mosque means something that is hard to translate into society, even if it’s a great idea.

The word “thanksgiving” is a better verb than noun, but it really isn’t either. The word refers to an act: We give thanks. At my childhood dinners, oddly I thought, people were asked to “return thanks.” I wondered: Who took it? And, where were they hiding it? Was “thanks” the stolen goods needing to be returned before anyone is allowed to eat?

A new custom for our secular-religious time might be to ask people to bring an object to the Thanksgiving dinner table and to symbolically offer it up, to place it before us all, or even to give it away. Not exactly a sacrificial lamb or a first-born son, this would be a giving of thanks that fits the verb form of thanksgiving.

On the other hand, as is our custom, for a person to say words as a blessing may not mean what it could. We don’t often believe that someone has the power to bless us, to give us or a meal a blessing. I remember once being asked at a Thanksgiving table to “say the blessing” while Robert Penn Warren, our nation’s Poet Laureate, was sitting right across from me. I didn’t feel, as a young seminary student, that I could bless him, or anything near him, by giving my words. I feared, also, that I was the sacrificial offering.

Evelyn Underhill describes this poor word “thanksgiving” as an act in a holy place. It is a ritual act acknowledging the glory, the power and goodness, of the Creator. We are off on the wrong foot, it seems, if thanksgiving is about us. Ideally, this is a ritual act performed before the glory of God. It is, at least, about a higher power or a mystery that invites awe. A temple, a church, a mosque—a sacred place bigger than a house and home table—seems required.

SHARING OUR VALUES;
FORGING A COMMON BOND

At the core of thanksgiving is gratitude. Brother David Steindl-Rast says that gratitude is the heart of prayer. Our own value and worth is revealed in our feelings of being grateful. At a Thanksgiving meal or gathering, consider asking people to go around the circle and share what each is grateful for.

As these different stories of gratitude are voiced, a common feeling of gratitude forms. We are hearing inner stories that we treasure because they also represent our value and our worth—given as offerings as the stories are told. This practice encourages stories that are quite different from the typical heralding of our own powers and successes, for which we pretend to be thankful. Rather, we encourage stories that we humbly and honestly lay out side by side, building a common bond.

The King James translation of Psalm 90 invites such a practice: “Lord, thou has been our dwelling place in all generations. … We spend our years as a tale that is told. … So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.”

As the Psalmist indicates, our individual tales weave into a story of common destiny—moving from a shared origin to a shared journey for generations. Together, we move from individual thanksgiving toward a far larger story that makes the future, and our humility, possible.

To give thanks then is the opposite of pride in one’s self. It is a form of self-humbling that comes out of a full heart of gratitude. Somehow, filling up with gratitude empties us out of ourselves. Empty of ourselves, we seem held in one large … well, one large Something Else. You can name that mystery what you will.

GRATITUDE FOR A LIFE WITH LINCOLN

This leads me to a story about the passage from Philippians and my relationship to Abraham Lincoln. This Thanksgiving I am filling up with gratitude for my life with Lincoln. It is making me thankful for, even to, Lincoln. Lincoln becomes an object of glory, of thanksgiving, for me. I’m not sure what to give—except more and more of my interest, attention, and the creativity of my responses.

I suppose I need to give thanks to God for giving me—for giving all of us—Lincoln. I start with my gratitude, which leads me to express thanks for the glory, the goodness, the greatness, of this one man. It is not that I see him as God or even as a god. But I do see the better angels of our nature so abundant in him that I am overwhelmed. The truth is, most of the people I know who read and write about him have this inner story and feeling, too.

Philippians 2:1-7 is a New Testament letter that is user friendly with Buddhism and with the mystic traditions that I know. It is about being of one mind, participation in the Spirit, and acting from humility, emptying yourself of yourself, as Jesus did. The word often used here is a Greek word, kenosis. Self-emptying.

Among Lincoln’s many values, it is his natural way of emptying himself that is the most astounding. He shows how such a spiritual quality has both personal and political power. You can be president and still be humble! Kenosis is pragmatic, for all its spirituality. As a boy, then later at the height of his power, and even as a soon-to-be-martyred president, Lincoln shed his ego self, that self we all have so much trouble letting go.

I love the story of big, strong, 13-year-old Abe Lincoln catching some of his friends—boys he grew up with—secretly making off with melons from his family’s melon patch. He easily could have beaten the boys and left them to nurse their bruises. Instead, he never stopped seeing these boys as his friends. He did startle them, but then he sat down among them—and helped them eat the stolen fruit!

At a moment when he could have vented his self-righteous power, he chose to share with mutual joy a common meal. The story is true to his nature and probably true to history. It could be seen as his first Thanksgiving meal. We see that same magnanimous nature brought to bear on the South at the end of the mighty war to restore the huge region of the Union that Southerners had tried to make off with. Lincoln never stopped seeing Southerns as fellow Americans and friends. Despite the war, they were not enemies, he insisted.

The biography of Lincoln is full of astonishing stories in which he moved beyond looking out for his own self interest—to look out for the interests of others, as Philippians describes: He emptied himself, seemingly every day in the final years of his life, and took on the form of a servant. His efforts changed the world: freeing slaves and establishing human equality as the theme of our national story. I am thankful that Lincoln remembered what America should be, re-imagined what America could become and then acted decisively to renew America.

Looking for a reason to feel awe at Thanksgiving? Try remembering how much we are all sons and daughters of his greatness to this day. I give thanks for Lincoln by reading and writing about him. Lincoln is my work, these days. I am full of gratitude that I get to feel close to his value and worth, his fulfilling humanity.

And, I am grateful for ReadTheSpirit and its readers who share with me in this expansion of self, this shared inner story, and the common destiny—one new story—made possible. I believe it is opening up a better future for all of us.

Amen.

The Debbie Blue interview on Consider the Birds

October 14, 2013 by David Crumm

WHAT IF God is less like an eagle—and more like a … vulture?

What if the Spirit of God is less like a dove—and more like a … pigeon?

These are just a couple of the startling questions explored by the innovative Minnesota pastor Debbie Blue in her new book, Consider the Birds: A Provocative Guide to Birds of the Bible. You may have discovered Debbie Blue before today’s interview. You might have heard one of the popular podcasts she posts from her congregation: House of Mercy, in St. Paul, Minnesota. You may have heard this line that often is used to describe Debbie: “She approaches scripture like a farm wife handles a chicken, carefully but not delicately, thoroughly but not exactly cautiously.” House of Mercy often is called: “a pretty great church.” If this is sounding like a story by Garrison Kiellor, then you’re not far off the mark. Debbie and her congregation have been featured on Minnesota Public Radio.

And, just like listening to Garrison Kiellor, you may not agree with every story Debbie tells. But, you will think about the world a little differently after the encounter. You’ll definitely think about the Bible in new ways.

HIGHLIGHTS OF
OUR INTERVIEW
WITH DEBBIE BLUE
ON ‘CONSIDER THE BIRDS’

DAVID: Your church is in St. Paul but you really are a farmer, right?

DEBBIE: My family and I live on about 80 acres with four other families. We share the land together and, yes, we do some farming—but mostly we have what you would call gardens. We’ve been doing the House of Mercy for 18 years, so we’ve been at this for a while. I have a son who just went off to college for the first time and a daughter who is 13.

DAVID: It’s not what we would call a “commune,” though. For example, you’re not like a Bruderhoff Community with a shared kitchen and evening meals together. Your living situation is looser than that.

DEBBIE: We all have our own dwellings here. Our community has been going on for 18 years and I think it works because we’re not that intense of a community. We’re good friends who share the land. We do have occasional meals together.

DAVID: And it’s relevant to this book that you know what you’re talking about on a very practical level when you write about the natural world and our relationship with animals and birds. Or, as readers think about that promotional line comparing your qualities to a “farm wife”—well, the truth is, you do know something about farming.

DEBBIE: Yes, but the way I got interested in writing this new book actually was through my interest in medieval bestiaries.

DAVID: These were a bit like centuries-old encyclopedias of life on earth without the science. These medieval versions were created to draw Christian lessons from the animals.

DEBBIE: There had been a Christian tradition of trying to divide “man” from “beast” and the natural world from supernatural truth. But the medieval bestiaries took a different tack. In Job, it says: “But ask the animals, and they will teach you; the birds of the air, and they will tell you. Ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you.”

The creators of these bestiaries believed that every animal, every plant, every rock—every created thing—possessed a truth of God. Often, the bestiaries were illuminated prayer books or Psalters that included these images of wild creatures. The thought was that these images could teach us something about God.

Yes, these medieval versions were full of pre-scientific ideas and some of the morality in these books was quite different than what we would teach today. But I think of my book as a contemporary version of a bestiary—looking for truth in things that are not of human construction.

The creators of the bestiaries paid such careful attention to these creatures, assuming that they might unlock windows for us that we normally keep closed. So, I love being part of that tradition. This really goes back to Jesus himself, who said: “Consider the birds.”

DAVID: It’s in Matthew, although some of the newer translations now render it, “Look at the birds …” It’s part of Jesus’s “Do not worry” teaching—and there’s a version of it in Luke as well.

Then, I want to bring up another great selling point for your book: Millions of Americans love birds! The latest U.S. Fish and Wildlife Survey says there are nearly 50 million American bird watchers—the most intense kind of bird lovers. If you add in all the people who have bird feeders, who love birds in comic strips and animated movies, who sing about birds in popular songs—well, this is a very crowd-pleasing idea! It’s great for individual reading, for small group discussion and imagine preaching a sermon series on Consider the Birds? People would flock to church.

Are you a birder with a Life List?

THE ROMANCE OF BIRDS

DEBBIE: I’m not as serious about birding as I once was—as I explain in the book. Back when I was courting my husband, I was pretty serious about birding and he taught me how to identify warblers. I was totally smitten with that idea. We paid a lot of attention to birds for a while, then we had kids and I started a church and it didn’t seem feasible to tromp through fields and woods with binoculars for hours, anymore.

Birding does give you this attentive space, though, that I wanted to experience again. One reason I wanted to write this book was that it required me to go outside again and spend time being attentive to birds. In the discipline of birding you come to appreciate waiting—using your body and mind as you pay careful attention. As in any devotional practice, birding creates a space in our lives that our culture desperately needs.

DAVID: Let me read a little passage from your book’s Introduction. You write: “Falling in love and identifying birds have similar effects. Normal life is altered; every experience heightened; what was mundane begins to explode with meaning. You think birds are just birds—undifferentiated fluttering, then you find one magnified in your lens. You recognize its unique markings, lines and color. Your heart pounds. It is a cerulean warbler. It is your new mate. I believe both things have equal power to change your life. I’m not kidding. Jim and I spent our courtship looking for birds. We drove to Nebraska to see the cranes do their mating dances.”

But I should quickly add that, while this book is about appreciating the birds in the Bible in surprisingly new ways—this isn’t a book about bird watching per se. Here are the 10 birds to which you’ve devoted 10 chapters: Pigeon, Pelican, Quail, Vulture, Eagle, Ostrich, Sparrow, Cock, Hen and Raven.

IS GOD LIKE A VULTURE? (AND OTHER WINGED QUESTIONS)

DAVID: Like your beloved bestiaries, you play with the bird images in this book. So, let’s talk about two specific sections that certainly caught my eye and are likely to prompt a whole wave of sermons and group discussions coast to coast. I can just see the sermon titles out on the roadside sign boards—and curious folks showing up to see whether their local pastor has gone a little nutty.

Let’s start with your chapters on the Vulture and the Eagle. There are so many thought-provoking ideas, so much historical information and so many spiritual insights in these 40 pages that my copy of your book now has the corners of many of these pages bent down—lots of notes in the margins, too. I won’t try to explain everything you cover in these two chapters, except this:

You open our eyes to a whole new interpretation of the Hebrew term “nesher.” You write, “The Hebrew word nesher is often translated in our English versions of the Bible as ‘eagle,’ but most scholars agree that ‘griffon vulture’ is at least an alternative …”

Now, I’ve checked with rabbis on this point, because it is such a striking idea: God may be like a vulture. And I would say the consensus I’ve heard—not being a Hebrew scholar myself—is that you’re onto something here. While most would agree with the usual “eagle” translation of this term, the fact is: “Nesher” means a bird that tears with its beak and references in ancient scriptures do claim that this bird was the highest-flying of all birds.

The griffon vulture was one of the ancient birds known to the Jewish people—and flies far higher than eagles. In fact, one type of griffon vulture is confirmed to have flown more than 36,000 feet. We know that because it was ingested into the jet of an airliner over the Ivory Coast at that altitude. You’ve also got a pretty good ally in Rabbi Natan Slifkin, who writes for Zoo Torah.

DEBBIE: I like that you’re hearing this is a possible translation from the people you’ve consulted. At this point, though, I understand why Westerners can’t seem to bring themselves to more commonly translate nesher as vulture. Our culture regards vultures as horrific. We don’t like them. They eat dead bodies. I understand this. In Minnesota, we have mostly turkey vultures and it’s hard to appreciate them as physically beautiful. Their red faces look like they’ve had their skin pulled off.

So we may not be too eager, at first, to translate God telling Moses that God bore the Israelites on vulture’s wings or to translate Isaiah as saying we will rise up on vultures’ wings. Eagles are such powerful birds and we’ve come to respect them.

But think about this for a moment. Eagles are known for killing. Vultures hardly ever kill or hurt a living thing—they eat what’s already dead. Vultures are remarkable purifying machines. They take care of rotting remains that otherwise might spread disease. They have these crazy-strong digestive juices that kill bacteria. The Mayans refer to vultures as “death eaters.” That begins to make sense to me: We need something to rid death of its toxicity in our world. Vultures stare death in the face—and death passes right through their bodies, rendered harmless. I like this idea that God can take anything in and make it clean.

And vultures do fly higher than other birds—tens of thousands of feet in the air! I love the idea of a slowly waiting God who is soaring and ever-patient. Have you ever watched vultures soar? It makes me cry to see it. It’s really gorgeous.

And I also like the way that talking about this bird imagery in new ways questions some of the symbols we associate with nationalism and patriotism. The symbol of the eagle now is almost hopelessly laden with images of massive power, fierce patriotism, killer instinct. I think it’s time to rethink this.

THE PIGEON-DOVE QUESTION

DAVID: Well, compared with the Eagle-Vulture discussion, the Pigeon-Dove issue is crystal clear. They’re the same, really—all Columbidae. The point you raise in this part of the book is that the dove, as a symbol, has become boring from over-use. You write, “Maybe because it is such a familiar scene or because I’ve seen too many bad illustrations of it, or because the white dove has been overused as a symbol in commercial Christianity.” So, instead, you suggest that readers consider the possibility that dove references in Christianity might apply to pigeons in general.

DEBBIE: The dove is probably the most familiar bird in Christian symbolism. In each of the four gospels the Spirit appears at Jesus’s baptism as a dove. In the popular imagination, this has always been a snow white dove. But this story changes a lot when you realize that the bird at the baptism was probably more like a rock dove, which we might more commonly call a pigeon.The dove now is totally bland, but what happens when we think of the Holy Spirit as a pigeon? We tend to think of pigeons as dirty; we call them “rats with wings.” I love it that the symbol of the Holy Spirit might be a hair’s breadth away from human trashiness.

Yet, think of pigeons for a moment. They are everywhere! They leave droppings on our sidewalks and our window sills. What if the Holy Spirit is like the pigeon? What if the Spirit is always underfoot to the point that we almost hate the constant presence—always leaving signs of the Spirit’s presence—everywhere!

When we think of the Spirit as something rare and pure as driven snow, then we forget that the Spirit of God is far more complex than that—fuller, messier, everywhere in life. We can get hung up on purity. But, remember, when we say God created all life, everything was teeming and multiplying and swarming. Maybe the Spirit is more creative than pure. Maybe we need to rethink what holy truly is.

DAVID: What I like about this section of your book is the realization that you don’t have to travel all the way to St. Peter’s at the Vatican and pray in front of the snow-white-dove stained glass window there. You might have just as full of an experience of God’s presence on a park bench in New York City, feeding the pigeons.

DEBBIE: That’s my hope. I hope we can experience God everywhere and find that grace everywhere, not just in rarefied settings.

DAVID: If you could talk to readers finishing your book, what would you tell them to do next? How do you hope your book will affect people?

DEBBIE: I hope people will start paying attention to what’s around them everyday—the birds and the bushes and the grace of God around us all the time. Emily Dickinson wrote: “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers …” and, if that is true, I hope we can increase people’s passion for keeping the world as beautiful as it is, now. I hope we’ll see more people working against climate change.

I hope people think about this: Hell would be a place without birds.

And I hope that I can help people to read the Bible in new ways—especially those who just can’t engage with the Bible now. I’m saying: There are layers and layers of meaning you can discover in the Bible. You can turn it—and turn it again—and look at it in new ways. There’s so much here, if we just look!

CARE TO READ MORE? OR HEAR MORE?

GET THE MUSIC! Debbie Blue’s House of Mercy also is a haven for musicians. Here is the overall House of Mercy music site. For the release of her new book, Debbie and her friends compiled a musical companion for readers who may be immersing themselves in the creative possibilities of birds for the first time. Visit this CD webpage for Bird Music, which describes the 15 tracks this way: The collection ranges from the old-time country sound of “The Great Speckled Bird” to the folk-pop of “Awake” to the jazzy cover of “Early Bird.” Tucked in-between these diverse styles is the gorgeous a cappella version of “His Eye Is on the Sparrow” that slows down and draws the listener in.

GET THE BOOK! Amazon offers Consider the Birds: A Provocative Guide to Birds of the Bible in paperback and Kindle editions.

ENJOY MORE ON READ THE SPIRIT: One of our own popular books is Conversations with My Old Dog, by Rob Pasick. You’ll also enjoy our interview with Marc Bekoff on The Animal Manifesto and Dr. Laura Hobgood-Oster on The Friends We Keep. We also highly recommend the Faith Outreach department of the U.S. Humane Society. If you are interested in the spiritual values of farm life, you’ll enjoy our recent interview with Mennonite author Shirley Showalter. And—new this week—FaithGoesPop writer Jane Wells tells us about a record-setting discovery about one amazing kind of bird.

(Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion, spirituality and interfaith and cross-cultural issues.)

Brian McLaren, Evangelical author and activist: Interviews & book reviews

July 28, 2013 by David Crumm

Brian McLaren
Resource Page
for Small Groups

Read The Spirit helps individuals and small groups nationwide. This Resource Page gathers, in one place, links to our extensive coverage of author and activist Brian McLaren. Please feel free to share this helpful information with friends (click on the blue-“f” Facebook icon above, or the envelope-shaped email icon):

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Brian Mclaren was born in 1956; he published his first book in 1998 in his early 40s and he became a nationally influential Christian leader just before he turned 50 in 2005. A Google Trends analysis of his popularity shows that the all-time peak of online search activity for his name was 2005 to 2006, shortly after TIME Magazine named him one of the “Most Influential Evangelicals.” However, Americans have never thought of him exclusively as an “evangelical.” The millions of men and women Googling to find out more about him tend to associate his name with the phrase “emergent church,” Google Trends reports. He also spiked in Google searches in 2010 around the time he published A New Kind of Christianity and again in 2012 around the release of his 9/11-and-interfaith themed book (find out about both of those books below).

A WIDELY VARIED MINISTRY: Brian McLaren earned a BA and MA in English from the University of Maryland; he also has been given honorary doctorates in divinity. Over the years, his studies and talents have ranged from literature and philosophy to Christian history and music. In 1982, he helped to co-found Cedar Ridge Community Church, near Washington D.C. He became a close friend of Rob Bell, Tony Jones, Phyllis Tickle and other emergent church leaders; he also has worked closely with Sojourners. Then, as his ministry evolved into a national calling as a speaker, writer, consultant and activist, he left his pastoral ministry at Cedar Ridge in 2006. He now lives in Florida with his wife Grace. They have four adult children and several grandchildren.

Christianity Held Hostage

A defining theme runs through Brian’s work—a belief that Christianity has been taken hostage by politically conservative forces that push churches toward lock-step allegiance in political campaigns. He was an early evangelical voice calling for inclusion of gay and lesbian Christians, for example. He also preaches that Christians must be concerned for the welfare of the world’s most vulnerable people, especially the poor. In honoring him in 2005, TIME wrote: “If his movement can survive in the politicized world of conservative Christianity, McLaren could find a way for young Evangelicals and more liberal Christians to march into the future together despite their theological differences.”

Misunderstood Religious Words

In 2006, during the period when he was bursting into national news media, New York Times religion writer Laurie Goodstein reported on evangelicals and described McLaren as “a leader in the evangelical movement known as the ’emerging church,’ which is at the forefront of challenging the more politicized evangelical establishment.”

Goodstein also quoted McLaren: “More and more people are saying this has gone too far—the dominance of the evangelical identity by the religious right,” Mr. McLaren said. “You cannot say the word ‘Jesus’ in 2006 without having an awful lot of baggage going along with it. You can’t say the word ‘Christian,’ and you certainly can’t say the word ‘evangelical’ without it now raising connotations and a certain cringe factor in people. Because people think, ‘Oh no, what is going to come next is homosexual bashing, or pro-war rhetoric, or complaining about ‘activist judges.’ ”

Brian McLaren’s warnings about the dangerous baggage packed in Christian language has been obvious since his break-through book in 2004, which had the extremely long title: A Generous Orthodoxy: WHY I AM a missional, evangelical, post/protestant, liberal/conservative, mystical/poetic, biblical, charismatic/contemplative, fundamentalist/calvinist, anabaptist/anglican, methodist, catholic, green, incarnational, depressed-yet-hopeful, emergent, unfinished CHRISTIAN. Many love his message; many take issue with it. To date, for example, Generous Orthodoxy has nearly 200 Amazon reviews: He scores 100 rave reviews (4 and 5 stars) and is panned in 70 reviews (1 and 2 stars).

BRIAN McLAREN 2014:
‘We Make the Road by Walking’

In 2014, McLaren published We Make the Road by Walking: A Year-Long Quest for Spiritual Formation, Reorientation, and Activation. And ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm interviewed him about this important new book. Here are just some of the words of praise for this book-length invitation to take a year-long Bible study with McLaren …

“This is one of the most remarkable documents in recent Christian writings … There is no evangelizing here, and no preaching, only a sinewy, but orderly and open, presentation of the faith that holds. The result is as startling as it is beautiful.”
Phyllis Tickle, author of The Age of the Spirit: How the Ghost of an Ancient Controversy Is Shaping the Church.

“A ton of people have been waiting for this book—they just didn’t know it! Brian has biven us a clear and compelling guide to walking the Jesus path together, around the table, in the living room, discussing and learning and growing. This book is going to help so many people.”
Rob Bell, author of What We Talk About When We Talk About God.

“This is Brian McLaren at his best, and I think this is what so many readers want from him. Deeply rooted in scripture, yet offering fresh, even radical, readings. We Make the Road by Walking will surely be a benefit and blessing to many.”
Tony Jones, author of The Church Is Flat: The Relational Ecclesiology of the Emerging Church Movement.

Read our in-depth interview with Brian McLaren on We Make the Road by Walking right here.

AND in 2014:
PREFACE for ‘UNITED AMERICA’

In January, McLaren provided the Preface for United America, a book by University of Michigan sociologist Dr. Wayne Baker reporting on years of research into 10 values that unite all Americans. In his Preface, McLaren appealed for a rebuilding of American communities (a goal he encourages in his own 2014 book). He writes, in part:

“If we want to strengthen the key subsystems that make up the American system, we will promote the deep values that Americans share. That means that even in disagreement, we will practice civility and a respect for others. We will build on our common ground of both symbolic and critical patriotism. We will emphasize our shared love for freedom, security and self-reliance. We will celebrate equal opportunity, the dream of advancement, and the pursuit of happiness. And we will unite around a sense of wider connectedness.

“Just as destructive interventions target multiple points in a system, healing interventions must arise system-wide.”

BRIAN McLAREN 2013:
‘Men Pray’

In 2013, McLaren offered the opening section of the SkyLight Paths prayer book, Men Pray: Voices of Strength, Faith, Healing, Hope and Courage. This nearly 200-page collection of prayers by dozens of men, down through the centuries, is worth buying especially to read McLaren’s moving 8-page introduction in which he describes his own grandfather’s example of prayer as Brian observed it when he was just a boy. After telling that personal story, McLaren concludes with this appeal:

If men like us don’t pray, where will emerging generations get a window into the soul of a good man, an image of the kind of man they can aspire to be—or be with—when they grow up? If men don’t pray, who will model for them the practices of soul care—of gratitude, confession, compassion, humility, petition, repentance, grief, faith, hope and love? If men don’t pray, what will me become, and what will become of our world and our future?

The book includes prayers by Daniel Berrigan, Wendell Berry, St. Francis of Assisi, Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, Robert Frost, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Father Thomas Keating, C.S. Lewis, Nelson Mandela, Thomas Merton, John Philip Newell, Rumi, W.B. Yeats and many others. The collection also includes prayers by two Read The Spirit authors: Benjamin Pratt and Daniel Buttry.

BRIAN McLAREN 2012:
The 9/11 Interfaith Book

Brian McLaren’s most recent major spike in Google Trends was around September 2012, when he released a book with a seemingly humorous title: Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road? Christian Identity in a Multi-Faith World.

Click here to read our entire in-depth interview with Brian McLaren about that book. In reviewing Why Did …, we began this way:

In his 19th book, the prophetic evangelical author Brian McLaren is publishing his first interfaith book. It’s timed to appear on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks that opened and still define this turbulent new century. As you will read in our interview with McLaren, the best-selling writer argues that this new book is far from the typical appeal for interfaith understanding that other writers are producing these days. While many of those books are noble, he has a different purpose. While readers are smiling over the old joke in the book’s main title—he doesn’t want us to miss the book’s real focus, which lies in the sub-title about “Christian Identity.” This book is a passionate appeal to enrich Christian appreciation of cross-cultural relationships by doing some thorough house cleaning within Christianity itself. In this book, Brian is primarily writing to the Christians who comprise a majority of the American population.

In the interview, Brian says, in part:
One of the biggest insights that came to me, as I was researching this book, is the realization that it’s not our differences that are keeping us apart. What’s keeping us apart is something we actually have in common: The way we often try to build our own identity through hostility. Leaders build loyalty among “us” by building hostility toward “them.” It won’t work to simply rush off into interfaith dialogue until we deal with some of the deep work within our own identity. We won’t get far in our relationships with others until we deal with some of the often hidden ways we have defined ourselves through our hostility.

BRIAN McLAREN 2012:

3 politically satirical novellas

In the midst of the 2012 campaigns, McLaren released three e-books—a trio of short, razor-edged satirical novellas: The Word of the Lord to Democrats, The Word of the Lord to Republicans and The Word of the Lord to Evangelicals. (Those links go to the three books’ Amazon pages for Kindle.) In our coverage of those books, we described them as “Fiction with a Sting.”

Read our entire review of the first volume in the series, which includes quotes from Brian McLaren and a brief excerpt from the Democrats book.

At the time, Brian McLaren was saying, “When you’re silent on issues of injustice, your silence tacitly supports the status quo. So even silence ends up being political.”

In our review of the Democrats volume, we called it “broad-brush humor more than deft farce.” We said, in part:

Borrowing the kind of acerbic style we normally associate with New York Times commentator Maureen Dowd, McLaren is firing off a series of short, political e-books cast as fiction. … McLaren says he hopes this dramatic switch in styles will cause Americans both to laugh and to think in fresh ways about the sorry state of politics in 2012. That’s the bottom line: If you’ve cheered Brian’s stances in the past, then you’ll have fun with these e-books.

We also wrote:
This book is a far cry from Saturday Night Live comedy and mainly McLaren focuses on his provocative central question: What if God did come back in the voice of a female prophet, sent to shake up the 2012 U.S. presidential campaign? That’s really not a laughing matter and, in the end, this book isn’t intended as a joke.

At the time, McLaren described the three novellas as “warm up” books for the release of his 9/11 interfaith book, Why Did …

BRIAN McLAREN 2011:
‘Naked Spirituality’

In 2011, Brian McLaren described Naked Spirituality: A Life with God in 12 Simple Words by saying, in part:

This is a book about getting naked—not physically, but spiritually. It’s about stripping away the symbols and status of public religion—the Sunday-dress version people often call “organized religion.” And it’s about attending to the well-being of the soul clothed only in naked human skin. As a result, it must be a vulnerable book, tender in tone, gentle in touch. You won’t find much in the way of aggressive arguments here, but rather shy experience daring to step into the light.

Not only is this book deeply inspiring and a fresh pathway to reviving our spiritual practices—its focus on redefining sloppy and sometimes dangerous “Christian language ” was a step toward his later 9/11 book. First, read our initial interview with Brian McLaren about the release of Naked Spirituality.

In the interview, he says, in part:
We have to find ways to deal with the conflict. If I am filled with conflict in my soul, then it’s going to be very hard for me to contribute to a more peaceful world. If I’m filled with greed and unbridled desires, it’s going to be very hard for me to contribute to a sustainable world. The solution, I believe, is to rediscover the missional and spiritual dimensions at the core of our faith. Yes, I am a person of hope, but I’m also a person who has never felt more urgency about this need to create honest conversation. If we fail, if we give up, the consequence is beyond scary. I am a person of hope. Week by week, I’m inviting people to build on the hope at the center of our faith.

We also published, at that time, some brief samples of the more unusual passages in Naked Spirituality.

A bit later that year—in one of our most popular efforts in Read The Spirit magazine—we published a combined interview with Richard Rohr and Brian McLaren talking about spiritual perspectives on aging. Richard Rohr had just published his book Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life. Richard Rohr welcomed this approach, saying:

I consider Brian a dear brother. Think of how he comes from an evangelical background and I come from a Franciscan Catholic background—so this truly is an example of the emerging Christianity. Yes, we’re on the same page—sharing many of the same details! It’s amazing!

You can read the entire three-way interview between McLaren, Rohr and Read The Spirit Editor David Crumm starting here.

BRIAN McLAREN 2010:
‘A New Kind of Christianity’

One of Brian McLaren’s most popular early works was the 2001 fictionalized call to religious transformation, A New Kind of Christian: A Tale of Two Friends on a Spiritual Journey. (We still recommend reading that book; and it’s still available, if you click that linked title and visit Amazon.)

Then, a decade later, Brian McLaren issued a far more ambitious manifesto with a similar title: A New Kind of Christianity, Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith. In reviewing the book, we wrote, in part, that Brian was:

Not merely producing yet-another-book-for-small-group-study. He’s packaging spiritual dynamite and shipping it to cells of believers nationwide who are so restless with the bondage of “church life” that they want to blow the roof off and start again. Of course we’re talking about this metaphorically! Brian is world-renowned as a peacemaker, among other things. But that language captures the urgency and the dramatic scale of this transformation Brian—and Read The Spirit—see unfolding for millions upon millions of men and women.

We published a short version of the ’10 Questions’ in the book’s subtitle.

We also published an in-depth interview with Brian McLaren about A New Kind of Christianity. In that interview, he said, in part:

This is a very, very exciting time. In the first half of this new book, I talk about theological pregnancy. We’re in an era of very positive rediscovery of the treasures buried in our own back yards. But to access those treasures, it requires us to dig up some of the sod. This will get messy before we can move on.

Later in the same interview, he poked fun at himself as he argued:

We preachers are always so sure that a sermon can actually solve people’s problems. (laughing) We underestimate how deep and difficult this transformation is! I’m so happy that this book is shaped around questions, rather than statements. And, I don’t answer all the questions. That wouldn’t get us where we need to go. This is why Jesus taught in parables so often rather than just issuing pronouncements. The very form of the parable invites us into a space where we’re using our imagination and reflection. We actually have to understand the story before we can even begin to agree or disagree.

BRIAN McLAREN 2008:
‘Finding Our Way Again’

In 2008, Brian McLaren worked with author and editor Phyllis Tickle on producing a landmark series on Ancient Practices for Thomas Nelson. This was a landmark partly because of the high caliber of the authors Tickle assembled to produce the series. Other examples in this series were Scot McKnight writing Fasting and Joan Chittister writing The Liturgical Year: The Spiraling Adventure of the Spiritual Life. The series also was historic because it represented one of the world’s most famous evangelical publishing houses, Thomas Nelson, offering its readers deep explorations of practices that Protestants once might have dismissed as “too Catholic.” Going even further, this series pointed out that versions of these ancient practices are shared by Jewish and Muslim communities.

Brian McLaren wrote the first and perhaps the most important book in the series, Finding Our Way Again: The Return of the Ancient Practices. At that time, still soaring from the pinnacle of his 2005-2006 role in national news media, McLaren was a prophetic guide working with Phyllis Tickle to urge evangelicals toward these deeply rewarding Christian traditions.

In reviewing the book, we wrote in part:

Other leading Christian voices have pointed in this direction over the past year, including Tony Campolo and N.T. Wright. But what’s remarkable about the series Brian is kicking off right now is the authors’ affirmation that these practices are valued, as well, by our Jewish and Muslim brothers and sisters. This is a milestone in interfaith relations—a warm hand reaching out to other men and women in this Abrahamic family of faiths.”

Read our entire in-depth interview with Brian McLaren about Finding Our Way Again.

In that interview, he says in part

One of the things that is so appealing about Abraham in what we might call our post-modern, post-colonial, post-“Christendom” context is that Abraham was directly in touch with who we Christians, Muslims and Jews believe was the Creator of the universe. Abraham was directly in touch with God without a religion. Abraham was before Judaism as we know it, and of course he was long before Christianity or Islam were established. Abraham had that primal calling from God to be on a pilgrimage, on a journey. He’s not the representative of a dominant religion -– certainly not a state or an imperial religion. He becomes a sole believer in a transcendent God in the midst of a polytheistic, pluralistic world. This idea of Abraham as having faith before a religion was organized makes him a very, very important figure for us when many of us are struggling to have faith in spite of the religion we see around us today.”

At that time, we also published a story with Phyllis Tickle, architect of the series for Thomas Nelson. That story includes a very quotable excerpt from Phyllis’s Foreword to the new series that says, in part:

Young men and women of faith, especially, are crying everywhere, “Give us a faith that costs us something! … Teach us the things that will mark us as children of God! …” Their demands swell out with heat and vision, and what they foretell is that Christianity must be a way of living life as much as it is a system of belief. What they envision are Christians who belong to each other in common cause, regardless of place and circumstance, a tribe of people marked by how they are and live as a nation peculiar unto God, regardless of where they may exist on this earth. It is a soul-shaking concept.

Please, Share this Brian McLaren Resource Page with Friends:

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(Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering spirituality, religion, interfaith and cross-cultural issues.)

Open Outcry: How sharing ideas inspires people nationwide

June 29, 2013 by David Crumm

SHARING is a vital part of Read the Spirit. We welcome readers to share our content as long as you include an appropriate link to our online magazine. Yesterday, we saw a dramatic example of this unfolding—and we’re now sharing the whole story with you.

TWISTS & TURNS IN THIS VIRAL SHARING: Last year, our popular author and columnist the Rev. Dr. Benjamin Pratt was touring Chicago when his imagination was captured by a phrase related to that city’s Mercantile Exchange: Open Outcry. He returned home to Virginia and wrote a column, headlined Call to Compassion: Hearing the Open Outcry. Then, his column was republished via the website for the Day1 radio network. Author and hospitality expert the Rev. Henry Brinton is pastor of Fairfax Presbyterian Church in Virginia. Late last year, Read the Spirit published an in-depth interview with Brinton about his work in promoting hospitality. Brinton and Pratt were following each other’s work via Read the Spirit—and Brinton wound up preaching his own Open Outcry sermon on Sunday June 30 (we are publishing that sermon, below, so you can see the latest version of this influential idea).

Meanwhile, the idea already is moving further across the landscape. Brinton writes for Homiletics Online, where this sermon also will appear for subscribers to that influential preaching magazine. (So, the sermon below is published with permission of http://www.homileticsonline.com.)

On this particular Sunday, Brinton’s congregation—which practices hospitality on a regular basis—hosted a group of Turkish Muslim families. Brinton mentions their presence in his sermon. Pratt also visited Brinton’s church and took today’s photograph.

Open Outcry

June 30, 2013
Written and Preached by the Rev. Henry Brinton, Fairfax Presbyterian Church
Psalm 5:1-8

Ben Pratt was a pastoral counselor here in Fairfax for many years, and is now retired. On a recent tour of Chicago, he made a discovery.

He learned about a system called “Open Outcry.”

This system is used at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, where milk and butter are traded, along with interest rates and currencies. The traders gather in a large trading pit, and all of the communication about buying and selling is by hand gestures. This system is Open Outcry.

“Open Outcry,” said Ben to himself. “I couldn’t get the phrase out of my head. For more than a century, that phrase has captured the emotional, split-second, make-or-break trading system that fuels a major part of our economy …. Yet, somehow, I hadn’t heard that phrase until our tour of Chicago — or had I?”

Psalm 5 is an Open Outcry: “Give ear to my words, O LORD, give heed to my sighing. Listen to the sound of my cry, my King and my God, for to you I pray” (vv. 1-2).

Open Outcry.

I am so glad that members of the Ezher Bloom Mosque are with us in worship today. One of the things that unites us is that we all pray to God, and ask for his help. We need God to hear us and respond, especially in times of trouble.

The writer of Psalm 5 is crying to God, asking for help. Facing the threat of violence, he begs God to destroy those who are telling lies (v. 6). Perhaps he has been accused of wrongdoing himself, and is now pleading his case to God (v. 3). The psalm can be used today by anyone being threatened by wicked, evil, boastful, bloodthirsty, or deceitful people.

All of us have been threatened by violent people, here in the United States and abroad. We need God’s help in the face of these threats. After the bombings at the Boston Marathon, the parent organization of the Ezher Bloom Mosque issued this statement: We condemn “the actions of those responsible for the horrific incidents in Boston yesterday. Our heartfelt sympathies go out to the victims and their families, the wider Boston community and all Americans. Terror, violence and the killing of innocent people can never lead to beneficial results.”

Our Turkish brothers and sisters joined their voices in an Open Outcry after this act of violence. And for that, we are grateful.

So how are we helped by crying out to God? First, we find relief by offering our honest prayers to God. “O LORD, in the morning you hear my voice,” says the psalm – this verse reminds us that God actually hears what we say. “In the morning I plead my case to you and watch. For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil will not sojourn with you” (vv. 3-4).

Believe it or not, we can gain relief simply by speaking honestly about our troubles. “Talk therapy” is the technical term for this, and it can do a lot of good for people feeling depressed, stressed, or anxious. “Don’t bottle it all up inside — you’ll explode,” says the website of the JFK Medical Center in Florida. “This may seem like another cliché, but it has truth and value. Talking about your feelings can really help.”

So talk about your feelings with God. In the morning, plead your case — ask for help with neighbors, spouses, coworkers, and relatives. Pray for strength to face the challenges of the day, knowing that the Lord is “not a God who delights in wickedness.”

Second, bring your Open Outcry to others. Following his tour of Chicago, Ben Pratt talked with his fellow travelers including two men from New Jersey. They were struck by the beauty and opulence of Chicago, as well as by the sight of street people begging for money. Their conversation turned into a discussion about economics and taxes.

“I don’t mind that a lot of people make a lot of money,” said one of the men from New Jersey. “That’s the way of our system. What really bothers me is that so many children in our nation don’t have food for breakfast or they go to bed hungry at night.”

When people do evil to us, we should begin by crying out to God. But our Open Outcry should never stop there, especially in a society in which we have the power to improve the world around us. Just as we have reason to scream when a family member lies to us, we should also be shouting when our community fails to provide breakfast for children.

In the Bible, Open Outcries are directed both to God and to other people:

We cry to God: “Give ear, O LORD, to my prayer,” says Psalm 86; “listen to my cry of supplication. In the day of my trouble I call on you, for you will answer me” (vv. 6-7).

We cry to others: “Cease to do evil, learn to do good,” says the prophet Isaiah; “seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow” (1:16-17).

We cry to God: “My God, my God,” cries Jesus from the cross, “why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34).

We cry to others: “Know that it is evil and bitter for you to forsake the LORD your God,” says Jeremiah; “the fear of me is not in you, says the Lord GOD of hosts” (2:19).

Throughout the Bible, God’s people are not afraid of Open Outcries. Sometimes the cry goes up to God, saying, “Give ear, O LORD to my prayer.” Sometimes it goes out to other people, saying, “Cease to do evil, learn to do good.” In either case, passionate words are being spoken and heard. In the face of evil and deceit, we should never stand silent.

This is another area in which Christians and Muslims can stand together. We can join together to feed the hungry children who are living in motels along the Lee Highway corridor. We can work together to make sure that affordable housing is preserved here in the City of Fairfax. We don’t mind that people make money in the United States, since this country has long been a land of opportunity. But we don’t want children to go to bed hungry, nor do we want them displaced from their affordable apartments because the buildings are being replaced by luxury units.

Mary, the mother of Jesus, shared these concerns. That is why her first extended speech in the Gospel of Luke is an Open Outcry: God “has brought down the powerful from their thrones,” says Mary, “and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty” (1:52-53).

Mary’s words reveal the kind of God we worship—one who brings down the powerful and lifts up the lowly. Her cry also reminds us of the work we are supposed to do as followers of God—feeding the hungry while also telling the rich, “Hey guys, you’ve got enough.”

Open Outcries remind us of the true identity of God, and of our own true identity as well. I think this applies equally to people of faith who are Muslim and Christian.

“As people of faith, we are called to welcome the Open Outcry,” writes Ben Pratt. “It’s not an arcane system of signals that we can claim to have forgotten. Those of us with even modest means need to respond with compassion. Even humble Mary is crying out the vision to us today: Our God leads us toward exalting the humble and filling the hungry with good things.”

Finally, Psalm 5 starts us on the path toward rediscovering our identity as people of faith. “The boastful will not stand before your eyes,” says the psalm; “you hate all evildoers. You destroy those who speak lies; the LORD abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful” (vv. 5-6). “Lead me, O LORD, in your righteousness because of my enemies; make your way straight before me” (v. 8).

You’ve probably heard the expression “the best defense is a good offense.” You’ll certainly hear it as the Washington Redskins go into training camp in July. In this case, what’s true in sports is also true in the life of faith. Following God in the way of righteousness is going to have the effect of preoccupying your opposition. Walking a straight path is going to confound your enemies and reduce the chance that they will do you harm.

So go ahead: Kill your enemies with kindness. As the apostle Paul says to the Romans, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals upon their heads” (12:20). Remember what our Turkish brothers and sisters said after the Boston Marathon bombings: “Terror, violence and the killing of innocent people can never lead to beneficial results.”

Abraham Lincoln showed kindness to his enemies when he chose three of his presidential opponents to serve on his cabinet during the Civil War. These three men had run against Lincoln for the Republican nomination in 1860, and they disdained him for his backwoods upbringing and lack of experience. But Lincoln soothed their egos and turned them into allies, finally winning their admiration and respect. Together, they led our country through one of its most challenging times.

Lincoln destroyed his enemies by turning them into his friends. That’s our challenge as well, especially as we get ready to celebrate the birth of our country on Independence Day: To destroy our enemies by turning them into friends.

When facing opposition or attacks, don’t keep your feelings to yourself. First, lift them to God in an Open Outcry. Second, call out to the people around you, and work together to seek justice and help the oppressed. Finally, turn to God for help as you seek to walk in the path of righteousness. Treat your neighbors fairly, and turn them into friends.

In the most desperate of situations, God will hear your cry. And respond. Amen.

Sources:
Pratt, Benjamin. “Open Outcry.” Read the Spirit Website, October 6, 2012, readthespirit.com.
“The Benefits of Talk Therapy,” JFK Medical Center Website, April 18, 2012, http://blog.jfkmc.com. Burgess, Tina. “‘Team of Rivals’: Lincoln, Doris Goodwin, Steven Spielberg, Daniel Day-Lewis,” Examiner, November 10, 2012, www.examiner.com.

Want to keep this sharing going?

You can do a great deal to keep this inspiring idea spreading further across the nation and around the world. Simply click on the blue-“f” Facebook icons at top and bottom of this column and share it with friends. Or click on the little envelope-shaped icons and email to friends. Come on! Please, tell a friend.

The retired Bishop John Shelby Spong interview on one of the world’s most loved and feared books: the Bible’s Gospel of John

June 23, 2013 by David Crumm

the gospel of John may be the world’s most loved and feared book. How could that be? First, there’s no question that the Bible is the world’s all-time best seller and Gallup polling of American readers shows John neck and neck with Matthew as the New Testament’s two favorite books. John is proclaimed in signs at football games and splashed across billboards on rural roads. However, John also is packed with confusing and dangerous references to “the Jews” and has been singled out, within the Bible, to fuel deadly violence over many centuries.

And the other John in today’s story? Retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong certainly is one of the world’s most loved and feared religious leaders. He’s better known to readers around the world as the best-selling, controversial Episcopal “Bishop Spong”—or simply as “Jack” to his thousands of fans. Why is he feared? Jack also is quite comfortable as a firebrand foe of Fundamentalism, the still widespread belief that the Bible’s text is literally true. Fundamentalist critics fear that he is undermining Christianity itself. Now, in his 24th book, Jack Spong tackles his namesake book in the Bible—hoping to guide his readers in thousands of congregations to a greater appreciation of this sacred text while avoiding its lethal dangers.

If you’re looking for a great summer discussion series in your congregation, order a copy of The Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic today from Amazon. As in many of his past books, the text here is welcoming as the retired bishop draws on his lifetime of Bible scholarship to teach about this beloved Gospel. This is a personal and passionate book.

Excerpt of John Shelby Spong’s The Fourth Gospel

How is this book “welcoming” in its teaching? Consider this brief excerpt:

I have wrestled with the Christian faith for all of my now 82 years, and I find myself at this moment, to the surprise of my traditionalist critics, I’m sure, more deeply committed to my Christ and to my faith than ever before. My commitment is, however, to a new understanding of both the Christ and Christianity. I am increasingly drawn to a Christianity that has no separating barriers and that does not bind me into the creeds of antiquity. It is a Christianity that cannot be contained by or expressed through traditional liturgical forms. I have no desire to find certainty or to embrace religious security. I choose rather to live in the unbounded joy of embracing the radical insecurity that is the nature of human life and by doing so to discover that I am in fact walking the Christ path.

ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm has known now-retired Bishop John Shelby Spong since the late 1980s, while reporting on Spong’s activist role in the worldwide Anglican Communion at the Lambeth Conference for American newspapers. They have spoken many times over the past three decades. Here are highlights of David Crumm’s latest interview with Jack Spong:

INTERVIEW WITH RETIRED BISHOP SPONG
ON RETHINKING JOHN, ‘THE FOURTH GOSPEL’

DAVID: The vast majority of Americans own a Bible and tell pollsters that they regularly read it but when Gallup asks them a few basic questions about the Bible, the majority of Americans can’t even name the four Gospels. Let’s start with why John is such a widely loved Gospel.

JACK: First, I agree with what you’re saying: The majority of the American population cannot identify a book of the Bible if a passage is read aloud. Most people can’t distinguish between the four gospels.

So why do we know John? Most people know the Gospel of John because we encounter it many times throughout our lives. John is among the favorite passages read at funerals: “Let not your hearts be troubled …” has comforted so many people. That’s John 14:1. People who do crossword puzzles know it, because John 11 contains the shortest verse in the Bible: “Jesus wept.” John is the only gospel that gives us all of the “I am …” passages like “I am the vine …” in John 15. Ask people to recite a verse of the Bible they know by heart and many of them will give you “For God so loved the world …,” which is John 3:16. And, of course, we see people waving those John 3:16 signs at sports events. The Gospel of John has permeated our culture from top to bottom.

DAVID: No question, it is one of the most beloved books in the world. But it’s also a dangerous book. It has been quoted in witch hunts, in heresy trials, in anti-semitic rampages. This is likely to surprise many of our readers, so let’s explain why this book has such seemingly angry language slamming the actions of “the Jews,” which becomes a shorthand reference for Jesus’s enemies. If we properly understand the first century, though, we know that Jesus and his followers all were Jewish. Your book puts the whole Gospel of John in much deeper context. Give us a brief explanation of all the seemingly anti-Jewish language in John.

JACK: Yes, John is overtly quoted in anti-Semitic literature because of these references to “the Jews.” But we have to remember that this was written as the Jewish people were suffering through an era of war with Rome. The Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. There was conflict between Jewish groups about who controlled the synagogue—about their future. Eventually, the followers of Jesus, who were primarily Jewish, were excommunicated from the synagogue. So this revisionist party who followed Jesus referred to the Jews still within the synagogue as “the Jews.” It is confusing to readers today, but what actually was happening was: Jews were arguing with Jews in a very turbulent era.

What we are reading about, in those references, was an internal Jewish debate. If you go back and recover the history of the early church in this era, you’re seeing Christians emerge from within Judaism and trying to separate themselves from other Jews. Today, people might experience this kind of conflict in a church where there may be a liberal group and a Fundamentalist group vying for the future of the church.

Through the centuries, John also was widely quoted as the standard for what came to be known as orthodox Christianity. The Christian creeds were based largely on John and, along with the creeds, came things like the heresy hunts and the inquisition. It was as though this one gospel gave the world the final rules for our faith.

DAVID: We should say that the tragic history of anti-Semitism draws on a whole lot of sources, including other passages in the Bible. It isn’t just the Gospel of John that’s problematic.

JACK: That’s right. There are other passages manipulated by these people. Matthew 27 has the line, “His blood shall be on us …” that shows up in anti-Semitic literature. I believe that we all need to be clear in saying that the deepest stain on Christianity is our history of anti-Semitism. The Second Vatican Council in the 1960s was directly shaped by the horrors of the Holocaust. The Christian church largely stood by and ignored the horrors of the Holocaust as it was happening. Yes, today, we still hear about the heroes like Dietrich Bonhoffer. But the fact that we remember this handful of heroes really shows how exceptional it was for Christian leaders to take action.

BISHOP SPONG ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN:
DON’T TAKE THE TEXT TOO LITERALLY

DAVID: We’ve talked so far about why the Gospel of John matters so much. We’ve talked about why it’s unique and why it’s potentially confusing. In your book, you take readers through a complete rethinking of what John means. At least, I think, most American readers will find your interpretation of John fresh and inspiring. One of the first points you make, as you start your interpretation of John, is that this gospel should not be read literally.

This gospel is spiritual; this gospel tells stories that illustrate major themes about Jesus’ teachings and the birth of this new Christian movement. This gospel is a sacred masterpiece, but it wasn’t written for every detail and every story to be read as literally true. That’s what you argue and I should say, for the benefit of our readers, that this is the same general point that a lot of other Bible scholars have made about John. It wasn’t meant to be literal, 2,000 years ago.

JACK: People will never understand the true message of John’s gospel until we stop regarding it as literal history. In fact, John keeps telling readers not to be too literal.

Early in John, we read about Jesus himself making fun of people who take things too literally. We read the story of Nicodemus. Jesus is saying that people must be born again, but Nicodemus is a literalist. He asks Jesus: “How can I climb back up into the womb again?” Jesus makes fun of him. Jesus says: You’re supposed to be a teacher, yet you don’t understand what I’m saying? I’m talking about a new birth.

DAVID: In your book, you point out that literalism continues to be a problem for millions of Bible readers. Most of us take too many things in the Bible literally.

JACK: That’s right. Today, I don’t know how many people still believe that the earth is square because the Bible refers to “the four corners of the earth,” but I do find that people widely believe in things that just aren’t in the Bible. And people believe the Bible says things, based on a literal reading, that just isn’t what the Bible is trying to say.

BISHOP SPONG ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN:
OPENING UP INSPIRING INSIGHTS

DAVID: Let’s talk about a couple of examples from your book where you open up inspiring new interpretations of the stories in John. One example is the way John begins the gospel. John starts with the famous “In the beginning was the Word …” and then immediately Jesus is choosing disciples. There is no Nativity story here. No “Christmas” story. Then, right away, in John 2, we see Jesus as an adult at a wedding in Cana where his mother pretty much orders him to make wine out of water. Jesus says he’s not ready for this. She insists. You say, in the book, that this story represents a lot more than a miracle of changing beverages.

JACK: This story is important for a lot of reasons that I explain in the book. This wedding is where the mother of Jesus is first introduced in John. There is no birth narrative in this gospel. His mother acts as the one who gets Jesus into the action—and then she doesn’t appear in John again until the foot of the cross at the end. I think Mary is meant to be a symbol of Judaism in this gospel. The story John is trying to tell is that the limits of Judaism are being expanded by Jesus. This gospel was the first time that the wedding story appears. It isn’t in the other gospels. And we shouldn’t think of this as a literal story. In fact, John has Jesus turn the water into a measurement that is 150 gallons of wine! It’s a huge—ridiculously huge—amount of wine.

John is telling us that we shouldn’t read this wedding story as a literal account. Then, at the end of John, Mary appears again at the foot of the cross and Jesus commends her to the beloved disciple. You can read more about this in my book, but I’m basically arguing that Mary stands for Judaism in the gospel and Jesus is saying to the beloved disciple—the ideal believer—to bring the mother, Mary or Judaism, with him. The ideal Christian becomes the caretaker of Judaism in this reading of the gospel. If you begin to read past the literalism of the story, this becomes so much more powerful.

BISHOP SPONG ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN:
THE IMAGERY OF VINES AND GOD’S PRESENCE

DAVID: We are talking, here, about entire sections of your book that take many pages to explain to readers. So, I’m sure readers of this interview are likely to have many more questions about Mary within the Gospel of John. We can say: Read the book. Then, let’s touch briefly on one more example: the grape vine and vineyard imagery in John.

JACK: This vine image is a very Jewish image. You’ll find a lot of places in the Hebrew scriptures and the Prophets in which Israel is referred to as God’s vineyard. And, as he makes so many references to this imagery, Jesus is trying to talk about where we experience God. He’s saying God is not—out there. Of course, most modern people realize that God is not a deity sitting on a throne up above the dome of the sky. We haven’t believed that since the modern scientists have begun charting the cosmos for us. We now know that there isn’t a dome over us. The universe is vast. Light travels for millions of years across the universe. So the notion of God sitting up on a throne above the dome of the sky—an ancient image of a deity—doesn’t make much sense to people.

But if you see God as a permeating presence—and I think John does that over and over again—then this vine imagery takes on new meaning. Jesus is saying that, if we stay attached to the God presence, then we become bearers of God. We are the branches of the vine. God permeates all that there is. I can say that God was in Christ but I can also say that God is in you, David, and God is in me. What Jesus is calling us to do is to break the old boundaries of humanity. Jesus is calling us to break out of the barriers that separated Jew from gentile, men from women, wealthy from poor. We have to break out of the boundaries that separate Protestant from Catholic, gay from straight, all the boundaries in which we seek to wall off people to this day. This is a different Christian message than the old Christian banner that marched around the world for so many centuries—all about conquering and dominating the whole world in the name of a deity on a throne above the sky.

In writing a Christology today, I would say that, as we experience God in the life of Jesus, we realize that every barrier falls in front of him. As Christ lives more deeply into humanity, he becomes the humanity through which we see the ultimate meaning of God. Jesus is not to God what Clark Kent is to Superman. Jesus is not God in disguise. Jesus is a human who transcends the limits of humanity so God can dwell in him and he in God. That’s a very powerful mystical experience.

BISHOP SPONG ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN:
LEGACY OF THE BISHOPS AND ‘HONEST TO GOD’

DAVID: Finally, I want to put on record in our interview, here, the big tribute you pay to Anglican Bishop of Woolrich John A. T. Robinson. I invite readers who recall Robinson and his landmark manifesto, Honest to God, to click on the blue-“f” Facebook links at the top and bottom of this interview today—or to use the email links at top and bottom—to share this with friends. Jack, in your new book, you make a connection with Robinson that I think readers will find moving. (And I also will tell readers that, if they are interested in rediscovering the huge turbulence of theological debate Robinson touched off, the SCM Press book The Honest to God Debate is still available in used editions on Amazon.)

Journalists who know the history of freedom of speech consider Robinson a hero for his public defense of publishing freedom. He famously risked defending D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover in court, for example. Most importantly, he courageously began breaking down barriers in Christian theology right after World War II. He was a mentor to you. And, by coincidence, his last book was—about the Gospel of John.

JACK: Yes, I knew John; I spent time with him and I was close to his widow after he died in 1983 as a relatively young man, just 64, of cancer. I’ve had the privilege of sitting at his desk while writing a little of my book—just so I could say that I had the experience. He was a gigantic figure and I thank you for asking about him. More people need to remember him and spread the word about what he was trying to tell us. I can remember reading his book as if was yesterday. I was rather snobbish when the book came out. I actually refused to read it at first. Then, when I read it—I couldn’t stop. I read it three times! My theology was never the same. I had to wrestle with how I could take the literalism I had picked up in Sunday school and put it into these new categories.

Yes, John Robinson was my mentor. We corresponded regularly. I had him scheduled to lead a clergy conference in my diocese when he died. At the Lambeth Conference in 1978, which was the first one I attended, John Robinson was there as a theological consultant. He was teaching at Cambridge, at the time. So, he and I would talk when things got boring at Lambeth. We would take walks in the woods in the English countryside, stop somewhere to have a pint and talk about the New Testament. That was a transformative experience in my life.

When he died, I felt absolutely alone. If you look in the opening pages of my book A New Christianity for a New World, I write about how much John meant to me. John and I are a generation apart but I tell readers in the opening of that book: I am trying “to reissue Robinson’s call for a radical reformation and to face the fact that the pre-modern biblical and creedal concepts communicate even less well today than they did when Robinson lived.”

There are not that many differences between us, as I think about it. Like John, I have lived my life inside the organized church. I’ve been a priest and a bishop and I have done all of my work within the context of the institution. I’m not a scholar lecturing to academics. I’m talking to people in the pews. In church after church, I put adult classes into the Sunday morning schedule and I teach the Bible the same way to people in the pews that I would teach at Harvard or all of the other universities where I have taught over the years.

Make no mistake: There is a vast audience out there of people who are modern, educated people and they can’t twist their minds into 1st Century pretzels, so they largely stay away from organized religion. They don’t engage with our churches. They simply don’t have time for Fundamentalist preachers anymore. But there is this enormous interest in our Christian story if we dare to talk about it in new ways, if we dare to break down barriers.

My hope is to bring the Christian church institutionally into the 21st Century and I really believe that this can be accomplished. People are eager—if we dare to be honest. That’s what John Robinson taught before me; that’s what I continue to teach today.

WANT MORE ON RETIRED BISHOP JOHN SHELBY SPONG?

MORE FROM SPONG HIMSELF: As a journalist, Read the Spirit Editor David Crumm has covered Spong’s career for decades. An earlier interview with Jack Spong focused on his book Re-Claiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World.

MORE ON BARRIER BREAKING AND PEACEMAKING: Read the Spirit Books publishes a series of inspiring books about forming friendships across religious and cultural barriers—and about peacemaking in today’s often-violent world.

PLEASE, help us spread the news to friends: Click the blue-”f” icon, either at top or bottom of this story, and share this article with your friends on Facebook.

(Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion, spirituality, interfaith news and cross-cultural issues.)

Chris Stepien: The story behind ‘The Boy Messiah’

June 1, 2013 by David Crumm

Each year, thousands of first-time authors produce their own books, thanks to a growing array of online publishing options. Most of these authors tackle such a monumental project because of a passion for their subject matter. Recognizing this trend in publishing, ReadTheSpirit invited new author Chris Stepien to write about his inspiring pilgrimage into e-publishing.

My Long Walk with Yeshua

By CHRIS STEPIEN

Life had brought me to my knees.

I could have changed my name to Job. My business, health and extended family life suddenly seemed to be cursed. Turmoil, chronic illness and genuine life-and-death tests mounted around my wife and me. Plus, there was that little responsibility of parenting our two teenage sons as they confronted their own angst.

I prayed like our survival depended on it.

As a Catholic, my rosary was among the first things I grabbed. After all, the eight fingers and two thumbs on my hands could represent ten beads. I told Mary, the Blessed Mother, I’d pray at least one decade of the rosary each day, hoping to get a lot closer to her son. It worked.

Like many Catholics, I couldn’t name all 20 decades or Mysteries of the Rosary. Traditionally the Church had given us 15 of them, each one a biblical scene on which to prayerfully reflect in a way that leads toward a greater spiritual awareness. For example, contemplating the Mystery of Jesus’s Baptism in the Jordan leads us to be more open to the Holy Spirit in our own lives. About 10 years ago, Pope John Paul II added five more to bring the total to 20.

One of the oldest Joyful Mysteries is Finding of Jesus in the Temple (Luke 2:41-52)—one of the hardest for me to contemplate. I’d ponder the 12-year-old boy Messiah, separated from His parents for three days—on His own near the massive, magnificent Temple in Jerusalem, following Passover. Slave traders, Roman soldiers, Temple guards, lepers, priests and street merchants surrounded Him.

Mary and Joseph must have panicked as they searched for Him. As a husband and father, I would have. Was young Jesus ever in jeopardy? Who did He meet? Where did He sleep? Sure, He astonished the scribes and scholars with His wisdom and knowledge, but what happened to Jesus when the old dudes went home?

Often, I prayed my daily decade while briskly walking for exercise. Every 20 days, that Temple scene came up and my mind exploded with images. As a former TV writer-producer-director, this story was rich with possibilities. I considered writing a screenplay. But I just didn’t know enough about the times, the culture.

The more I prayed and contemplated, the closer I got to this boy Jesus and his family. I wondered: What did He study in school? What was His house like? How did the Nazarene caravan prepare for the journey to Jerusalem? How long was the walk to the Temple? Did He see His teenage cousin, John the Baptist, on His Passover pilgrimage?

As my spiritual journey deepened, my health and family situation improved. The more I healed, the more I wanted to write about this boy Messiah’s adventure. Pretty soon I couldn’t resist the urge. But first, I needed to research His ancient lifestyle.

CHRIS STEPIEN: Biblical Resources at Our Fingertips

One of my old friends is an Emmy-award-winning actor and now a priest, the Rev. Joseph “Bernie” Marquis. He turned me on to a great resource, Jesus and His Times (Reader’s Digest Books). This well-respected perspective on first-century life includes a chapter on the Temple and what the boy Messiah would have seen. I poured over the 300-plus pages. The Web provided many more excellent resources, plus rapid search for additional materials as I needed them.

I wouldn’t presume to speak for Jesus, so everything I wrote for Him to say was a Scripture verse, organically woven into the dialogue. I’d simply Google a topic and find a myriad of passages to consider.

What format should my story take? A screenplay was too limiting. I needed more space to tell my story and develop Jesus’ character. I decided to pen a novel in a very visual style, easy to adapt for the screen.

I used Jesus’s Hebrew name, often rendered Yeshua in English, and wrote about things like His hobbies, favorite foods and friends. I thought: He should be real for readers. We know “Jesus wept” (John 11:35), but He must have smiled and laughed, too. The words poured out of me. The child I had come to know in contemplative prayer was inspiring—the same Messiah that had quenched my thirst for peace and calmed my fears.

I wrote whenever time permitted, usually during the day. When business clients canceled meetings, I’d laugh joyfully and write more. Was I crazy? I was putting business third, behind my family and this book. I’d pause to read each chapter to my wife, Ellen. She’d offer ideas and edits, and always say, “Keep writing.” I began in February 2012. In September, I completed and copyrighted a first draft, working all weekend at the end to finish. My copy of Jesus and His Times fell apart, encyclopedia volumes stacked up, and Web references swelled my MacBook.

Until the first draft was done, I wasn’t sure I’d finish. I had won Emmys at WXYZ-TV, Detroit, crafting and capturing words, images and sound, but I had never written a novel. My deadline experience helped me keep things moving. Every weekday I worked on the book, even if just for an hour. More than two-thirds of the way through some 82,000 words, I was still refining my premise for how Yeshua became separated from His parents.

I paused during the holidays. Another priest read my first draft, and in January 2013, encouraged me to publish it for Lent or Easter. I’d already reached out to several literary agents. There were no takers. But my test readers praised it. A colleague urged me to join the eBook revolution and self publish. I feverishly wrote 13 more drafts. Late night edits and inserts replaced my trips to the fridge. My neighbor, Gary Ciccarelli, an illustrator, donated his services and designed the cover.

Chris Stepien: Choosing E-Publishing

On March 4, I released my eNovel, Three Days: The Search for the Boy Messiah on Amazon.com at $4.99 a copy. The Facebook, Twitter and PR push began immediately, as I simultaneously pursued readers and traditional publishers. Three newspapers and a radio station interviewed me. Clergy and spiritual types responded encouragingly, and Facebook analytics say people are talking. Yet sales are slow. I need an endorsement to trigger a viral surge that rings the register or prompts a publisher’s offer. I did email the Vatican.

Several influential Christian gatekeepers, including at least one publisher, are now reading the book. Meanwhile, I’m snatching up all the low-hanging fruit I can, contacting archdioceses, Christian youth organizations, university Newman Centers, home-school associations and congregations. Writing the book was a love affair. PR and marketing are a grind.

“Print it,” many friends urge. If I spend ten grand to crank out some 1,000 basic paperbacks, I could sell more—and that may be the investment I need to risk. But with an eBook, I have the luxury to be patient. There’s no warehouse full of expensive stacks to unload. And with the recent success of The Bible series on the History Channel, I’m also tapping my Hollywood contacts.

Besides, I just got my first national review and it was better than I imagined. Each day brings another unexpected blessing on my long walk with Mary and her son, Yeshua.

(Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion, spirituality, interfaith news and cross-cultural issues.)

Shavuot: Festival connecting harvest with the giving of the Torah

May 13, 2013 by David Crumm

PLEASE ENJOY this sample chapter from Debra Darvick’s This Jewish Life, which tells about the season of Shavuot. Click the book cover image to learn more about her complete collection of stories.

All souls stood at Sinai, each accepting its share in the Torah.
Alshek. q Ragoler, Maalot HaTorah

While there is no Biblical link between the Shavuot holiday and the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai, the Talmud does draw a connection between the two. The rabbis calculated the dates of the agricultural festival of Shavuot and the time of the Revelation and deemed them to be one and the same. This link enabled the rabbis to bring new relevance to an agricultural holiday at a time when many Jews were living in urban areas.

Shavuot, literally “Festival of Weeks,” is so named because it occurs seven weeks and one day after the beginning of Passover. Shavout is also called Chag Habikurim, Festival of the First Fruits, and Chag HaKatzir, Harvest Festival. These names reflect the holiday’s origin as the time marking the end of the spring wheat harvest. The 50 days between the second day of Passover and Shavuot are called the counting of the omer, omer being a unit of measure. In Temple times, on the second day of Passover, the priests would offer up for sacrifice an omer of wheat, to mark the start of the seven-week wheat-growing season.

Tikkun Leil Shavuot

Many communities hold a Tikkun Leil Shavuot, an all-night study session that enables those present to prepare spiritually for the morning’s service, when the Ten Commandments are read. During the recitation of the Ten Commandments, the congregation stands, thus symbolically receiving them, as our ancestors did at Sinai.

Ruth’s Role

The Book of Ruth is included in the Shavuot morning service for several reasons. Ruth’s loyalty to her mother-in-law, Naomi, was such that she converted to Judaism. By consequence of that conversion and her subsequent marriage to Boaz (their court- ship is said to have taken place during Shavuot), Ruth became the ancestor of King David, who, according to the Talmud, was born and died on Shavuot.

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