Women in Scripture

I notice that a common portrayal of women/female characters in religious stories is as a seductress. Is it possible that women are frequently portrayed as seductive because seduction was the only power that women had over men? Obviously, this isn’t true in all of these stories… many, if not most of the characters, have extraordinary abilities. Circe has the power to transform men into animals, for instance, and Morgan le Fay is a healer. Yet while these women have magical powers, it is probably true that most women in these societies lacked such extraordinary abilities… however, it might be true that women used seduction as a means of gaining control of certain situations, since women were typically deprived of most forms of control and choice. Although many men would have us believe that certain women simply have no control over their sexual desires, as Jason posits in the story about Medea, it seems to me that the underlying reality in many cases of seduction is that a woman was using what was possibly her only means of gaining control of a situation or manipulating a man into doing something that society prohibited her from doing herself. I would see these frequent themes of women as seductresses as a sign that these women were oppressed and had very little control over their own lives…

I also notice that women are also often portrayed as irrational, which makes me think of the way that many people go about arguing today. It’s easy for the person who has the upper hand in an argument (whether by deftly arguing or simply being backed by a larger/more powerful audience) to dismiss an opposing view as irrational, as if the person they are arguing with is too simple to really understand what the argument is “really” about. I hear a lot of that thrown out in abortion arguments, where the Pro-Life side will assume that the other person simply doesn’t see that there is a human life involved in the situation or the Pro-Choice person (often female) will just assume that a man shouldn’t be involved in the debate simply because he can’t understand what it is to be female. While both arguments might have merit, neither of them acknowledges the complexity of the issue when they simply dismiss the other argument as simple. It perhaps takes validity away from their own argument by making it seem as simple as “You’re not a Christian, so you can’t understand” or “you’re not a woman, so you can’t understand.” Perhaps it’s a tangent, but I was using it as an example… I believe it also applies to a lot of the ways that people argue (or don’t argue by dismissing the opposition as “irrational”).

African Proverb

"Until the lion has a historian, the hunter will always be a hero."

— African proverb

The Fourth Gospel

"I find [the Gospel of John] to be a book not about religion, sin and salvation, but about life, expanded life and expanded consciousness. I believe that this book leads us in an entirely different direction from the one traditional Christianity has followed from Nicea to this day."

—

Dr. John Shelby Spong

Spong, John Shelby. The Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic. 1St ed. New York: HarperOne, 2013.

Grace

Because defining things is fun.

Grace: the extravagantly generous extension of community to all of humanity (including the most self-righteous, the most downtrodden, the wealthy, the unwealthy, family, friends, and strangers) in a way that equalizes us all in the realization of God’s active presence spread in and through each of us so continuously that we cannot think of ourselves as separate from each other in any meaningful way.

Music for Earth Day

Danger: Bible

"Sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hand of another… There are just some kind of men who are so busy worrying about the next world they’ve never learned to live in this one, you can look down the street and see the results."

—

Harper Lee (via godinthebrokenness)

THIS!

Christianity should be concerned about showing the love of Christ to those around us hear on Earth.

(via 2ndhalfoflife)

(Source: godoftheoppressed, via 2ndhalfoflife)

Jesus Seminar

"We have been betrayed by the Bible. In the half-century just ending, there is belated recognition that biblically based Christianity has espoused causes that no thinking person or caring person is any longer willing to endorse. We have had enough of the persecution of the Jews and witches; of the justification of black slavery; of the suppression of women, sex and sexuality; and of the stubborn defense of a male dominated, self-serving clergy… We cannot, we must not shrink from engagement with the ignorance and misunderstanding that fuels such egregious misuse of scripture."

— Robert W. Funk, director of the Jesus Seminar

Blessing

Documentary: Dark Girls

Today I watched a documentary on Netflix: “Dark Girls.”  The documentary has to do with colorism in the Black community, especially against women.

Last night I had a conversation with a friend of mine about colorism within a variety of cultures.  She spoke about traveling once and being unable to speak the dominant language.  She asked someone where to find face wash in the store (or tried to explain it) and was directed to the aisle of face whitening products.  It’s an interesting contrast to my cultural perspective which privileges tan skin (as long as it's white!).

It’s a tragedy that so many people, in so many ways, especially women, are raised to believe that they are ugly, that certain qualities, many of which I find very attractive, are less beautiful than contrasting qualities.

As a young girl, I envied physical qualities unlike my own.  I still do.  I want every young girl (not that any are reading this) to know that for as many jerks out there that say mean things about your appearance, there are just as many people who think you are beautiful and desire your physical qualities.  

Security

"Security is so seductive, and insecurity is so frightening. But security is always false, and insecurity is always real. No religion can make anyone secure, though it, like the drugs on which our society is so dependent, can give the illusion of security. True religion enables one to grasp life with its radical insecurity and to live it with courage. It does not aid us in the pretense that our insecurities have been taken away."

— Spong, John Shelby. A New Christianity for a New World: Why Traditional Faith Is Dying and How a New Faith Is Being Born.  New York: HarperOne, 2002.

God

"

Our coming of age leads us to a true recognition of our situation before God. God would have us know that we must live as those who manage our lives without God. The God who is with us is the God who forsakes us. The God who lets us live in the world without with working hypothesis of God is the God before whom we stand continuously. Before God and with God we live without God.

…God is weak and powerless in the world and that is precisely the way, the only way in which he is with us to help us.

"

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Gospel of John

"It is about bringing God out of the sky and redefining God as the ultimate dimension of the human. It is about the spirit transcending the limits of the flesh, not in some pious or religious sense, but in opening the flesh to all that it means to be human. It is about seeing Jesus as the doorway into a new consciousness, which is also a doorway into God, who might be perceived as a universal consciousness."

— John Shelby Spong for the win

Music

"In the 1960s, not long after the Second Vatican Council, A Benedictine monastery in the south of France asked for help. Its members were listless, fatigued, and mildly (though not clinically) depressed. Though there was some anxiety about the Council’s reforms, the members’ physical symptoms had no obvious cause. Asked whether they had in any way changed their routine, they replied that they had eliminated several hours of Latin Gregorian chant. They were advised to reinstate it; when they did so, their health and morale rapidly improved."

— Brian Wren, from Praying Twice: The Music and Words of Congregational Song

Factory Farms: Humanity Slaughtered

Much of our experience of the food we eat as Americans is removed from its production.  Most of us purchase food from grocery stores and have very little idea how it got to that point.  We may hear things on the news or in a magazine that make us think we should avoid genetically modified food or that we should buy organic or free range, but few of us understand what modern industrial farms look like.  After all, the pictures on our food labels look like a scene from Charlotte’s Web.  We assume that companies must represent themselves truthfully.  We all understand that animals have to die if we’re going to eat them and we know that the beef we’re eating wasn’t raised lovingly in someone’s home and euthanized the way that our aging pets are.  We understand that there is a degree of violence in our meat consumption and we point to our canines as proof that “it’s only natural,” disregarding the reality that many mammals with canines bigger than our own are herbivores.

Whether or not we choose to eat animals, it makes sense that we should be aware of the practices of a “$140-billion plus a year industry that occupies nearly a third of the land on the planet, shapes ocean ecosystems, and may well determine the future of earth’s climate” (Foer, 32).  Instead of preserving land and animals with the abundant resources in our country, we contribute to the destruction of our lands by using vast portions of it to raise animals for food, a practice which is rife with animal cruelty and results in serious pollution of our land and spread of disease among its people.

Never mind that our justification for our animal consumption as “natural” looks very little like lions racing through African landscapes after antelope.  Most of us don’t even hunt food from a distance with a rifle.  The way we obtain our food looks more like Captain Picard from Star Trek: The Next Generation asking a computer to materialize his Earl Grey tea than it does a tiger stalking its prey or even an imaginary farmer from a children’s book.  We buy food wrapped in plastic and cut into neat rectangles that remind us very little of whatever animal it came from.  It is packaged to appear clean and sterile, wrapped in styrofoam and plastic, with a reminder in small print that if it is not thoroughly cooked, it may make us sick, because while it appears sterile and clean, factory farms breed disease by overcrowding animals into unsanitary spaces and giving them antibiotics to combat these conditions.  “Institutions as diverse as the American Medical Association, the Centers for Disease Control, the Institute of Medicine…, and the Word Health Organization have linked nontherapeutic antibiotic use on factory farms with increased antimicrobial resistance and called for a ban” (Foer, 141).  While many argue that research about antibiotic use in inconclusive, it seems reasonable that we should be concerned and aware of the the things we put in our bodies and the long term effects that they will have on us.  Not only do the unsanitary farm conditions lead to periodic recalls of unsafe meat that spreads disease (we all remember the swine flu and mad cow disease), but we may be creating resistance to the drugs which can combat such diseases.

The way we eat in today’s world is absurd.  Our farms display human capacities for greed and cruelty more than our desire for nutritious and affordable food.  Animal production is hidden and locked down like a Google campus.  It’s subsidized by our taxes; it’s protected by our laws.  Animal agriculture’s practices are defended in the name of efficiency and cost effectiveness while it should be logical to us that animals take more space and are more a drain on our natural resources than plant farming.  “It takes six to twenty-six calories fed to an animal to produce just one calorie of animal flesh” (Foer, 211).  We could feed more people if we focused on produce and foods that can be raised more sustainably.

As Christians, we should remember the story of Genesis.  While many find in its stories a justification for human dominance over animals, we can also see that God called all of creation good, including the elements of creation we treat as food.  God’s creation and abundant life is given to all creatures.   “‘To every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.’  And it was so.  God saw everything that [God] had made, and indeed, it was very good” (Genesis 1:29-31).  This passage shows a God who shows concern for people and animals, calling us to share our food and calling the animals good, just like humans.  If animals share the same goodness as humans and if they are created to participate in the abundance of life as we are, it stands to reason that they should be treated with respect.  Whether we see them as a source of food or as spiritual equals, we can see that torturing animals and creating conditions of abuse and cruelty for them to live their lives in are not in line with the spirit displayed in Genesis.  In Job, animals are portrayed as sources of wisdom to be learned from.  God implores Job to “ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds of the air, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish of the sea inform you” (Job 12:7-9).  It is hard to suggest that a God who sees animals as teachers of wisdom would respect a culture complicit in animal cruelty.  

While cows raised for beef are arguably the most humanely treated animals raised on factory farms, that truth is only because of how terrible conditions are for other animals.  While a cow’s natural lifespan can be 25 years, cows raised for beef are killed within the first few years of their life (aspca.org).  Within the first year of their life, they are sent to feedlots, where they are without pasture and made to stand in their own filth.  They are fed an unnatural diet of grain, which causes illness and digestive disorders which are painful and sometimes lead to earl(ier) deaths.  Cows are castrated, branded, and have their horns removed without painkillers (aspca.org).  While these conditions sounds terrible, they are far better than the conditions found among pork production.  Pigs, which are as smart are smarter than dogs, have a natural lifespan of 15 years, although they are killed on factory farms at 6 months (aspca.org).  Pigs are raised in dark buildings without windows or outside access and are kept in pens that are roughly the size of their body and which prohibit them from being able to turn around.  For nearly their entire lifespan, they are only able to sit and stand.  Because of the levels of waste, ammonia in their facilities rises to dangerous levels.  Since pigs are intelligent, curious animals, being confined to dark, unhealthy spaces where they are essentially unable to move makes them very frustrated and they sometimes begin to chew the tails of the pig adjacent to their pen.  Because of this, most farms cut off pigs’ tails without painkillers (aspca.org).  While these cruelties are deplorable, there are many other cruelties that pigs and cows experience on the vast majority of America’s farms.

Beyond the treatment of animals in farms, factory farms are also major sources of carbon emissions and pollution.  Studies by the United Nations show that “the livestock sector is responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, around 40 percent more than the entire transportation sector– cars, trucks, planes, trains, and ships– combined” (Foer, 58).  Larger animals like pigs and cows require a significant amount of space and consumption and the farms that raise them create substantial amounts of pollution.  Animal agriculture in the U.S. is responsible for “130 times as much waste as the human population… and yet there is almost no waste-treatment infrastructure for farmed animals… [or] guidelines regulating what happens to it” (Foer, 174).  This pollution has led to higher rates of disease among surrounding populations.  Residents living near hog farms report “nosebleeds, earaches, chronic diarrhea, and burning lungs while legislation passed to regulate such pollution “are often nullified or… unenforced” due to the powerful influence of the agricultural lobby (Foer, 176).  

The United Church of Christ, my home denomination, considers climate change and environmental degradation to be important issues within our tradition (ucc.org).  The UCC maintains that climate change and pollution are issues of justice not only because of the effects on our natural resources, but because these effects will disproportionately impact the poor and people of color (ucc.org).  It is our responsibility to understand how our own ways of living contribute to global climate change.  Animal agriculture, especially that of larger animals, is a major contributor to global climate change with many studies suggesting that is the largest source of greenhouse gases.  Since global climate change is a serious concern for our future as a species, it is imperative that we respond with action to prevent the destruction of our planet.  One of the most meaningful and effective ways we can do that is by cutting down on our consumption of animals, most especially beef and pork.

Most of us seek to lead ethical lives in which we do more good than harm.  As a matter of utility, it is clear to see that reducing our consumption of beef and pork is a meaningful way to slow global climate change, an issue that affects all of humanity.  Our consumption of such animals is a leading contributor to global climate change, with animal agriculture contributing more greenhouse gases than all transportation combined.  Consideration of Kant’s Categorical Imperatives can show us that reducing our consumption of beef and pork can lead to more autonomy with principles that can be universally applied.  Reducing or giving up consumption of beef and pork are responsible decisions that most of us can easily make and that can help the human family fight global warming by reducing the leading source of greenhouse gas emissions.  My tradition, the United Church of Christ, recognizes that global warming is a serious issue that we should all be engaged in.  It is an issue of justice.  Reducing our consumption of beef and pork is also in line with our values as Christians.  We see in scripture that God values the lives of animals; our current system is inherently cruel to God’s creation.  It is time that we recognize that some of our habits which we tend to think little about are having a real negative impact on our environment and involve complicity in animal cruelty.  Not only are the vast majority of farms deplorable in their treatment of animals, they are a major cause of global warming.  A simple way to fight these injustices is to make more responsible food choices– choices that are easy for most of us to make.  

Works Cited

1. Foer, Jonathan Safran. Eating Animals. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2009.

2. “ASPCA.” ASPCA. http://www.aspca.org (accessed May 14, 2014).

To Consider

"A good gauge of spiritual health is to write down the three things you most want and if they differ in any way, you’re in trouble."

— Rumi

John Shelby Spong

"I am constantly amazed at how threatened ecclesiastical representatives are when they confront the fact that the words they use to tell heir faith-story simply no longer communicate meaningfully in the world of today’s experience. Getting angry, being hostile, acting defensively, and engaging in the diverting attacks on extraneous issues are responses more symptomatic of the problem than they seem to realize."

—

Bishop John Shelby Spong

Spong, John Shelby. A New Christianity for a New World: Why Traditional Faith Is Dying and How a New Faith Is Being Born.   New York: HarperOne, 2002.

"[God is] God not of the dead, but of the living."

"[God is] God not of the dead, but of the living."

—

Mark 12:27, NRSV

The problem with salvation-based Christianity is that it too often neglects the very real issues of suffering in this world in favor of “welp, it’ll be gone soon because APOCALYPSE!”  

1.  Rapture theology is a modern phenomena, so the idea that it’s biblical is fairly ignorant and pretty much requires one to disregard much of the Bible in favor of a weird interpretation of Revelation.

2.  Jesus’ ministry was all about the here and now.  He healed the sick, spent time with “sinners,” was critical of his religious institution, challenged dominant theological paradigms and “rules,” fed the hungry, and spoke against government.  

The idea that THIS WORLD doesn’t matter is blasphemy.  Straight up.  

The Kingdom of God is possible… not if we are “born again,” tithe, pray real hard, or vote against marriage equality.  The Kingdom of God will happen when we start loving people like God would.  Agape is not passive, kids.

Jesus never told a homeless person to get a job or argued for trickle down economics.  He, with love, told wealthy people to sell their crap and follow him.  

God is not a God of the dead.  God is a God of the living. 

Prayer of St. Francis

A Short History of Eucharist

Christ’s presence at the Eucharist has been seen differently at different points in history.  While early Christian communities varied widely and evidence of their practices are few, the Didache, a 1st or 2nd century Catechism, uses trinitarian language around the eucharist and references a mystical union of all believers, paralleling the Christians with grains of wheat scattered on the mountains.  They use the prayer from the last supper and while there is mysticism in their discussion of communion, there is no sense that Christ is in any way physically present in the Eucharist.  It seems more that the meal remembers Christ and draws people into community through time and space.  As the Roman Catholic Church centralized and began to develop orthodoxy, the concept of transubstantiation was elevated to the orthodox position.  Transubstantiation meant that the bread and wine were ritually transformed via language and gesture into the literal body and blood of Christ.  While this framework dominated for many years, the Protestant Reformation led to a reimagination of Eucharist as symbolic or an act of remembrance.  For Reformers, transubstantiation made little sense.  For Zwingli, if Jesus did not mean that the bread and wine were blood and body at the last supper were literal (which he decided Jesus could not, since he was physically present, including his body and blood), that it was no more literal in our practice of it today.  Reformers countered dominant theology of their time in many ways.

The frequency of communion has also changed over time with different groups partaking in communion to varying degrees of frequency today.  Evidence from the Didache, the First Apology of Justin, the Apostolic Tradition, and the Pilgrimage of Egeria all suggest that communion was central to early Christian worship practices.  It is probable that early Christians took communion at every worship gathering.  As the church grew, an absence of clergy led to infrequent communion, often only annually.  In the medieval church, communion was “ocular” for laity and only partaken of physically by the priests.  These practices were reversed after Vatican II, which required active participation of the laity.  The Roman Catholic Church now practices Eucharist weekly with the entire congregation.  In Protestant churches, despite prominent reformers’ objection, communion became less frequent.  The minimum requirements of annual communion often became the norm.  Especially in frontier and revival environments, there was often a lack of ordained clergy and thus no one to properly consecrate the Eucharist.  Because of this, communion was less frequent and communities began to promote elders and other non-ordained clergy to having the ability to consecrate the Eucharist.  In today’s Protestant churches, there is variance.  Many churches practice communion monthly or quarterly, although some churches partake annually or weekly.  

Those individuals deemed acceptable to preside over the Eucharist have similarly changed over time.  Evidence from archaeological work suggests that women were once seen fit to preside over the Eucharist.  The early church lacked hierarchical organization in its beginnings, so “ordained” clergy would not have existed.  The Eucharist was likely a shared act.  Early on, as churches grew, elected positions were created to help communities run more smoothly.  Presidents and deacons were elected to serve Eucharist.  The Roman Catholic Church would decide that the consecration of Eucharist must be performed in precise ways and Gregorian reforms included specific instructions for Eucharist.  Protestant churches would likewise require that church leaders preside over the Eucharist.  As I mentioned above, in frontier and revival traditions, there was often a lack of ordained clergy.  Thus, church elders were elevated to positions allowing them to preside over the Eucharist and in some cases, communities took power into their own hands and performed the rituals themselves.  Most contemporary churches require ordained clergy to preside over the Eucharist.

In addition to the physical aspects of communion, communion has been understood through different metaphorical lenses.  From evidence of the earliest Christian communities, Eucharist has been seen as part of an act of thanksgiving.  In many early communities, the Eucharist was part of a full meal and a celebration and thanksgiving of the abundance provided by God and communal Christian living.  Prayers of thanks were part of the language surrounding communion in the Didache, the earliest extant Christian catechism.  Prayers of gratitude have been part of meals since before Christianity was distinct from Judaism.  In a world where many go hungry and many have abundance, we can be thankful for the physical food of communion as well as the spiritual nourishment that accompanies it.  Gratitude for the gifts of God can and should be pervasive in worship.

The Eucharist is also a commemoration of the last supper.  Before his execution, Jesus shared a passover meal with his disciples; sharing bread and wine are reportedly offering the metaphor of bread and body.  Christians remember Jesus and his death and resurrection through partaking in this meal that Jesus was also supposed to have participated in.  In so remembering the death and resurrection, we are reminded of the salvific nature of those acts and partaking in communion can remind us of the salvific acts of Christ and our salvation through and in him.  We remember his ministry that ended, in many ways, with that meal.  The eating of Eucharist honors the memory of Christ and the type of relationship he fostered with his followers.

Eucharist is also communion.  It draws us together in the body of Christ.  In partaking of communion, we act as a community sharing a meal and acknowledge the familial nature of that act.  We also share a meal with all Christians who have come and gone before us, or who still live in other areas of the world.  We are drawn together through time and space in the mysticism of a shared act.  We draw ourselves into relationship with God and Jesus Christ, partaking of the meal with them as well.  Emphasizing theologies of community helps to offer place in the world as well as in the cosmos and offers ways to view both personal and community relationships.  Eucharist is a shared act that we become part of as we partake in it.

Eucharist and the theologies and practices surrounding it have changed and evolved over time.  People throughout time in the Christian movement have tried to understand Jesus’ relationship and presence in the meal and have varied in how frequently the Eucharist was shared.  Sometimes the frequency of the Eucharist was dependent upon who was able to preside over it and people’s roles in presenting the Eucharist have changed over time.  We can understand Eucharist as an act of thanksgiving for the gifts from God and the gift of salvation.  Our salvation is remembered in commemorating the last supper and remembering the meal Christ shared with his followers before his execution and resurrection.  Finally, Eucharist draws us into a community of believers throughout time and space.  We participate in the whole body of Christ and are participants in his work together.  The Eucharist and its meanings are multivalent, offering meaning and interpretations to people in different ways throughout history.

Love is a Doing Word

Eating Disorders and Worship

Eating disorders present many challenges to worship and especially to communion practices because individuals with eating disorders will often experience discomfort with both the physical food of the eucharist as well as the bodily themes associated with it.  Cognisance of the issues presented by eating disorders challenges us to create communion practices that can be positive and meaningful for individuals in different places within the recovery process, such as blessing that can be taken with or in place of the bread and drink, as well as language that emphasizes how the body of Christ is OUR body-- suffering, bruised, hurting, and in solidarity with our own bodily struggles.  

Late Medieval Worship

Late Medieval worship is characterized by emphasis on clergy and orthopraxy.  The worship space was divided between clergy, choir, and laity, emphasizing the hierarchy between people and between people and God.  The space itself was ornate and beautiful, an offering itself to God, and often centered around a relic.  People’s piety was characterized by these hierarchical divisions; laity often could not hear or participate in liturgy (which was in Latin) and used worship time for personal prayer; they took part in ocular communion and “seeing God,” and clergy focused on precise ritual in both words and gesture.

Love is a Verb

"To do nothing is to do something."

— Jonathan Safran Foer

Freedom Time