The First Episode of ""Buffy"

Next Sunday I will post videos to watch after watching "The Harvest"

A Church That Is Not a Church

I want to begin a church that is not a church—at least not one that most would recognize. In today’s world, few churches exist in ways that I can respect. Many churches adopt literalistic interpretations of scripture without considering either historical context or the Jewishness of first-century Christians. Many churches ignore scholarship and modern-day knowledge in order to preserve “faith” in manifestations which most would call ignorance. Many churches abandon scripture in order to re-frame a powerful movement in such a way as to effectively reduce it to a feel-good movie-of-the-week. Many churches disregard rituals which have linked Christians in community through history and throughout the world.

Put bluntly, today’s communities exist as a dichotomy—Communities of closed-minded people clinging to an ignorant interpretation of perhaps the most layered and complex collection of literature in human history or communities of liberal-minded modernists who have managed to reduce a politically-charged, radically inclusive, intense movement of fearless, self-sacrificing individuals to a loosely-interpreted and loosely-followed philosophy which holds no more merit or inspirational quality than a Berenstein Bears book. I believe this is a false dichotomy. I believe there is another way—one which religious scholars have been screaming for for decades.

It is not an easy path—it requires the zeal which seems reserved for the Evangelical movement. It requires a community deeply committed to educating its congregants and freeing scripture from centuries of misinterpretation by not only promoting biblical literacy in new ways, but employing the resources which have been available to students of secular universities for some time. Truly walking the path of the Jesus movement requires commitment to religious education that most churches are afraid to ask of their adherents, but lest we are prepared to lose Christianity to the backward lunacy of the Religious Right, we need to be prepared to challenge ourselves in new ways to restore Christianity to an educated, informed, biblically-literate movement which produces the kind of radically compassionate society that we can call a Kingdom of God.

Anyone have several million dollars for me?

Why You Should Watch Buffy

Tomorrow I'll post some videos you could watch after watching the first episode.

Panentheism

As much as Jesus’ actions were calls against systems of dominance, they were also rooted in the Inter-Being of life.  God makes the rain fall and the sun shine on all of us, right?  That sense of Inter-Being and Love should be at the core of the Christian message, as I see it.

If you want to watch "Buffy"

If you want to start watching "Buffy" and are not immediately sold, I'll help you fast-track the first two season of the show.  I know many people who have told me they want to watch the show and have been told to by many people, but that they have difficulty with it.  The show is nearly 20 years old and works with formats that television has moved beyond.  It has some valid criticisms, many of which Joss Whedon tries to address in later seasons and in later works.  It was important for its time and continues to be important in the issues it raises and the conversations it helps young people navigate.  So, I'm going to use this space to help you watch the show, if you like, or to help you watch it and talk about it with your young people.

Here are the essential episodes of the first season:

"Welcome to the Hellmouth"

"The Harvest"

"Angel"

"Prophecy Girl"

I will fast-track the show here.  Each week, I'll post videos for one episode, by which I mean: one video on the "fast track."  I'll also post videos for the episodes I recommend that you skip, which will recap the episodes and its themes for you.  If you are not fast tracking the show, there may be multiple episodes for the week.

That is the speed at which I'll be progressing through the first two seasons.  There will be some episodes I will give "maybe" votes to, which means I think they are skippable, but that I recommend you watch if you are enjoying the show.  While some episodes and characters are not indispensable for the ongoing plot of the series, they will be referenced later.

So: go ahead and watch "Welcome to the Hellmouth", if you want.  I'll post some videos on Monday.

Robert Frost

"Anyone with an active mind lives on tentatives rather than tenets."

— Robert Frost

"Buffy"

SO.  I love "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and I think it is a great show for teenagers to watch and think about.  The series has a slow start, but it becomes a show that is worth talking about and touches on important themes and situations that one deals with growing up.  So I am going to start posting some playlists if you want to start watching the show.  The playlists will be to watch after watching the episodes.  I think they can help you talk about the show with your kids if you want to start watching it as a family.  The highest rating for the show is PG-14.  I started watching the show in 7th grade.  The show starts with its characters as sophomores in high school.

Who Was Jesus? Who Is the Christ?

Jesus was a teacher and healer who felt and understood his innate divinity more than any other being.

Christ is the way that the spirit and memory of Jesus vibrates and resonates in our world today.

Shadow Self

Mary Midgley (a Religious Studies Scholar) says that when most people commit an “evil,” it is against their better self. The evil exists in this “shadow self” that we like to deny exists and pretend doesn’t. It might not tell us (hopefully) to go murdering people, but it might tell us to speed on the freeway when we don’t think there are CHP around, or something of that nature. We like to deny that this shadow is a portion of our personality.

Jung: “Painful though it is, this [unwelcome self-knowledge] is in itself a gain– for what is inferior or even worthless belongs to me as my shadow and gives me substance and mass. How can I be substantial if I fail to cast a shadow? I must have a dark side if I am to be whole; and inasmuch as I become conscious of my shadow I also remember that I am a human being like any other.”

The Sermon Writing Process

The sermon writing process. #myccsm #seminary #internship #liberation

Process

caerdescri answered: You seem to be drawn towards process theology. What about kenosis theology in the vein of Gregersen and others? (I’ll admit Cobb’s much better at turning philosophy into pastoral work than the Emergentists are!)

I have to admit that neither my undergrauate nor graduate work has introduced me to Gregersen or kenosis theology.  From my very brief google search, it seems sort of the opposite of Process thought, which builds and builds on everything that comes before it.  I think that Process works for me in many ways, but this is one of the reasons why.  Biblical scholarship strikes me as a continual building on what has come before, so that we can try to continue getting closer to who that Jesus guy might have been.  

Again, I very briefly googled “kenosis theology,” which talked about emptying oneself.  This appeals to me as a spiritual practice (I enjoy attempts at emptying in meditation), but I wouldn’t use it as an approach to my scripture.  

Does that make sense?  I’m kind of winging this.

Future

"We may be a doomed species, destined for a short tenure in this little corner of the universe. Or, having exhausted violence and war, we could embrace our possibilities for peace. We, as a species, have moved out of some of our earlier barbarities."

— Daniel C. Maguire

Belief

"Tell me about the God you don’t believe in, and I probably don’t believe in that God, either."

—

Marcus Borg

REAL TALK.  It’s time to stop pitting religion/spirituality against science/atheism.  It’s a false dichotomy that implies there is no middle path, no rational, science-friendly form of religion, and no atheists/agnostics who have rejected their own traditions (or those of others) and make unfair generalizations based on their limited experience.  

I am an intersectional feminist who rejects gender roles; believes in evolution, global climate change, women’s rights, and full LGBTQ equality and inclusion; my definition of God was developed by a mathematician/physicist/philosopher; and I am a churchgoing Christian.  If you think these positions are at odds with each other, I invite you to consider your biases and preconceptions.  

Notes on Notes

“A text without a context is a pretext.” –Brent Walters

The layers of Biblical meaning are so intricate and sometimes hard to find that you’re cutting yourself short if you’re not coming at it from every angle possible.

The Bible was written in Hebrew and Greek. Our English translations are not only biased, but oftentimes simply literal translations. Religious scripture is not like translating “see Jane run.” Scripture has metaphorical value, poetic value, and allegorical value (among others) which are lost with literal translations. That’s why scholarly research and cultural understanding are important.

For example: During Jesus’ trial, Jesus tells Peter that he will betray him [x times, depending on version] before the cock crows. If we read that at face value, we’re imagining some rooster chillin’ in Jerusalem. However, if you understand the context, you know that 1) the “cock crow” was a term for a horn which signaled the switching of guards in the city and 2) there’s no way there would be a rooster running around in Jerusalem because it’s a holy city and such unclean animals were not allowed within its gates. In the context of this story, “before the cock crows” meant: “before midnight.” This is a small misunderstanding that is the result of ignorance on the part of translators, but imagine how many other times this happens (hello, the Bible’s kinda big) and how many other situations where that translation error could hold a lot more weight. The creation story is a shining example of this type of problem.