02.09.12
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at 15:03
First, I will acknowledge my bias. I must admit that, theologically speaking, I am extremely unsympathetic to the Catholic teaching that the use of any form of birth control (except for medical reasons) is immoral. I think what is immoral is expecting impoverished married couples to either abstain from sex, or to have more children than they can afford to take care of.
But this isn’t really about that. It’s about the separation of Church and State. Which, just to be clear, comes from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson, not from the language of the First Amendment.
I’ve been thinking about this recently. I work for a 501(c)(3) religious organization. To what extent is my employment with them a religious affair, and to what extent is it a civic affair? Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, they are allowed to make employment decisions (hiring, discipline, promotion, firing) based on religion. But what does that mean? Does it mean they could fire me even though I’m a Christian because I disagree about one minor doctrine? Not that they would, but could they? Is that morally right? Religious doctrines cover nearly every aspect of life. To what extent can they dictate my activities while I’m not at work? Can they say I must go to church? Can they say which churches I may and may not attend? Can they dictate what I eat or drink? How I use the bathroom? What I do in my bedroom? What I read or watch or listen to?
Now my employer is not like this at all. But what if they were? What if I got written up for writing this blog post, for thinking for myself?
Honestly, I’m starting to think that employment falls in the State category and not in the Church category. Now appointment of ministers is different. That’s a church affair. And maybe it shouldn’t even be considered employment. If religious organizations want to stipulate that their ministers can only pee once per hour and must flagellate themselves and say ‘mea culpa’ afterward, let them knock themselves out. They might have trouble finding applicants, though…
For non-ministerial employees, I think religious organizations should have to demonstrate and document BFOQ (Bona fide occupational qualification), i.e. why it’s necessary that someone be a Christian in order to keep your books or build your website. And if they can’t demonstrate BFOQ but still want someone of their own faith… well, there’s always volunteers. Good luck with that.
As for the Catholic Church, it’s one thing to teach that the use of non-therapeutic contraception is wrong. It’s another to deny your employees medical care. Because even Humanæ Vitæ acknowledges that it’s sometimes medically necessary. And Catholic ministers? They’re male and celibate. Problem solved.
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01.31.11
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at 14:10
I looked up poverty. It’s a condition where one is unable to provide for one’s needs or basic comforts. Then I looked up wealth. It’s an abundance of material goods. Interesting. Nothing to do with money at all. He who dies with the most toys wins.
The more money you make, the more material possessions you have, and the more valuable the possessions. And, as a rule, this means a bigger house. Which means a bigger mortgage. Probably more or nicer cars and possibly boats/motorcycles/RVs, etc. So the richer you are, the more debt you have, and in most cases, the higher the negative net worth you have.
Now consider a homeless person, who has almost no basic comforts much less luxuries. Who also has no debt.
It’s interesting how the ubiquity of debt in our society has shaped our definitions of rich and poor. Net worth means nothing, disposable income – or perhaps more correctly, the ability to leverage assets for the acquisition of goods and services – means everything.
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10.20.10
Posted in Uncategorized
at 23:16
I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me. I was persecuted for being a homosexual and you did not stand up for me.
Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison or harassed, and did not help you?
I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.
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09.08.10
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at 04:30
Author Dan Brennan takes a closer look at the oft-neglected and sometimes controversial topic of intimate Christian friendship between men and women in this unique book. With an approach that thoughtfully combines a learned survey of material on the subject with a contagious enthusiasm for what is ultimately a beautiful mystery, Brennan convincingly, yet charitably, takes on the popular notion that men and women can’t be friends.
In an age where non-hatred passes for Christian love, and affection is sacrificed on the altar of personal piety and propriety, the Church can ill afford to neglect a topic so central to Christian discipleship – and to the Gospel itself – as neighbour-love, and by extension, friendship. This book dares to ask, humbly, ‘Who is my neighbour?’
For the champion of cross-gender friendships as well as the skeptic, Brennan offers an enlightening look at the role of these special relationships in the life of Christ and the history of the Church. His approach is decidedly descriptive rather than prescriptive, leaving room for the uniqueness of every individual and relationship.
Where this book perhaps lacks a bit of the polish found in the offerings of larger publishing companies, I believe it retains a bit of honesty and sincerity often lost there.
I highly recommend Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions.
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04.02.10
Posted in Uncategorized
at 09:52
A Maundy Thursday Reflection
Two thousand years ago, Jesus celebrated the Passover with his disciples. It was then that He instituted the Eucharist.
During the meal, He got up and washed his disciples feet. It was a very improper and upsetting thing for him to do. He, the Son of God, got on his knees and touched the feet of his followers. Foot-washing was a chore for servants, not leaders. He told them they were to love and serve one another as he had done for them.
After dinner, they went to the Garden of Gethsemane, where He asked His disciples to watch and pray with Him, until He was betrayed.
The Maundy Thursday service is a very powerful one. Feet are washed. The Eucharist is celebrated. And then all hell breaks loose.
The reserve sacrament is not placed in the tabernacle, but instead, processed out. The sanctuary light–the eternal flame–is extinguished!
This bit of liturgical trivia can also be found in synagogues, symbolizing the presence of God and hearkening back to the menorah in the the Hebrew temple.
So Jesus is arrested and taken away, and the reserve sacrament–the very presence of Christ–is carried off, and the candle is extinguished to let you know it.
The procession returns, sans Jesus, and the altar–the entire sanctuary is laid bare. No more altar clothes. No more cushions on benches and seats. No more sanctuary light. It’s as though the Grinch has stolen Christmas. The sanctuary is denuded and, for all practical practical purposes, desecrated.
And then after a solemn prayer, we leave in pensive silence. There are wordless hugs. The kind of hugs you see after a great public tragedy. Perhaps the kind of hugs the disciples exchanged after Jesus’ arrest.
Because we know what comes next, and we don’t want to think about it just yet.
I’m reminded of some very old words. They’re from the seder. “How is this night different from all other nights?” They’re a part of a catechism-like question and answer bit of the haggadah, meant to teach children (and remind adults) why passover is celebrated.
But I remember them from a different context. I remember those words coming from Mary’s mouth in the Passion of the Christ, a deeply troubled look on her face.
The Paschal Lamb’s fate is sealed. There will be more grief before there is joy.
But for now, we will keep watch with Him, in the place where the reserve sacrement was taken.
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03.18.10
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at 23:16
I’ve had a lot on my mind lately. I’ve been doing a bit of writing. But for various reasons, not writing I can share here.
But I’d like to share some of my thoughts.
I’ve been wondering about Christianity and morality. I’ve been thinking about Euthyphro and Socrates. Does God love Good because it’s good, or is Good good because God loves it? I’ve been thinking about Nietzsche and good/bad and good/evil. What kind of Good is Christianity?
Like a lot of deep questions, it doesn’t really matter that much. Either way, we are to obey God, right?
And yet I think it does matter. Because if whatever is Good pleases God, perhaps there’s room for good, too. There’s room for the things we know are right, even if we can’t back it up with scripture. But if whatever pleases God is Good, then good is useless because it is not Good.
I’m reminded of a phrase used to scold children. “You know better than that.” Knowing better. Being acquainted with a higher good.
I think a lot of times, Christians know better, but hide their laziness about the good behind the Good. They know better than to hold back or restrict their love for the people closest to them. But the Bible says to be pure and it’s easier to not have sex than it is to be vulnerable in relationships. They know better than to oppress gays, but since the Bible says homosexuality is not Good, fighting gay marriage is obviously the ‘loving’ thing to do. They know better than to make a lot of noise about abortion but not really do anything about it. It’s a lot easier to make something illegal than it is to put an end to it. They know better than to perpetuate a broken and unsustainable healthcare system that prices out the poor, bankrupts and kills the middle class, and makes (some of) the rich richer. But it’s a lot easier to toe the party line than it is to be informed.
In fact, it’s a lot easier to be politically active than it is to be spiritually active. It’s easier to wag a finger and wave a sign and preach to the choir and call someone on Facebook an idiot than it is to pray or volunteer or listen or entertain ideas that challenge your beliefs.
I get frustrated with Christians who can’t see the forest for the trees. They see the little rules. They pay lipservice to the big picture of loving their neighbor. But they don’t do it. Perhaps they think the little rules are loving God and therefore more important than loving their neighbor.
I get even more frustrated with Christians who acknowledge the problems with the Christian status quo, discussing them endlessly, but somehow in their disillusionment and cynicism, fail to emerge from it. And yet they still feel they’re somehow better than the others.
A certain ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.’” “All these I have kept since I was a boy,” he said. When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
Where have you been satisfied with just the commandments? Where have you stopped short at the Good and failed to do good too?
One final thought: Jesus wasn’t very nice to people who placed more importance on their own purity than on genuine love.
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12.23.09
Posted in Uncategorized
at 08:17
I occasionally get Visa gift cards. Here is a list of the ways they suck:
- There’s a front end fee. It costs a few dollars to buy a Visa gift card. Checks are virtually free.
- The buyer is essentially entering into a financial contract (which they haven’t read cause it’s folded up all tiny-like inside the cardboard thing) on behalf of the recipient. I got a gift card from GreenDot once. Open the package and the damn card’s not even in there! I had to go online, enter a bunch of personal information, and wait for them to MAIL me the card. Then I got charged a monthly fee until I used it up and closed my account. Then, after closing my account, I couldn’t unsubscribe form the mailing list because my account had been closed and I didn’t have access to the site. Grr.
- No debit, ATM, cash advance, balance transfer, or recurring transactions. Not that I use these much, but it would sure be nice to be able to move my money around. Like I could with a check.
- Because I can’t put the money in a bank account (like I could with a check), I can’t use it to pay my credit card bill. If I could, then I could be earning rewards points by buying with my real credit card.
- You have to either use or waste the exact balance of the card. If you go over, the transaction is declined.
- Because of the previous point, when making a purchase of more than the amount on the card, you have to tell the cashier to put a specific amount on one card and the rest on another. They may or may not be willing or able to do this.
- All the visa gift cards I’ve seen either expire or carry an inactivity fee.
I think there are probably more reasons they suck, but I’m done for now. Here’s my new brilliant strategy for dealing with Visa gift cards: I’m going to use Visa gift cards to buy store gift cards for myself.
“What?” you ask. “That’s silly.”
Au contraire, my dear reader. Here is a list of the ways store gift cards (presuming it’s somewhere I’d actually shop) are infinitely better:
- Gift cards cost exactly what they’re worth in the store. No activation fee.
- Many gift card systems are built to detect card balance and automatically handle multi-card transactions. With Starbucks and Target gift cards, I don’t feel at all bad handing them three cards with $0.98 each, followed by a credit card, because it’s so easy. They just swipe or scan it and it updates the total. I don’t even have to know how much is on the card.
- Because of the above, that last $3.17 doesn’t get wasted.
- If I don’t use the whole card, I get a receipt telling me how much is left on the card.
- I’ve been noticing that more recently, most gift cards I’ve seen boast having no inactivity fee and never expiring.
- Some stores will actually give you cash back if there are only a few dollars left on the card.
So that’s my strategy. I’m going to buy myself store gift cards with Visa gift cards, and get on with my life. No use wasting time being frustrated or paying fees and bugging friends by trying to set up some scheme to get the value into my PayPal account.
I’m going to be grateful instead of annoyed when I get them :)
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12.20.09
Posted in Uncategorized
at 09:19
It’s Advent. All of Christendom waits for the coming of the Saviour. They wait for a little Baby born two thousand years ago, and they wait for a King coming in glory to judge the quick and the dead, establishing with unequivocal finality His Kingdom.
And I wonder if it’s really right to call that latter advent the second coming. Because I believe as heralds and citizens of the Kingdom, we become in little moments and little ways, the Body of Christ. The members of the Son of God. We have inherited the Incarnation.
So perhaps we ought to wait for three comings at Advent – the coming of the infant Jesus; the coming again and again of Christ in us, tearing holes in the moment between the Already and the Not Yet (which is also unraveling from both ends) until time itself falls away in tatters, and all that remains is an Eternity where all things have been made new…or, you know, however all that plays out; and the coming of the King, which is a final coming and not a second one.
I want to live, not just reflect on, Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love.
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10.10.09
Posted in Uncategorized
at 01:10
I have to admit I was a bit puzzled this morning when I heard the news that President Barak Obama had received the Nobel Peace prize. I like the guy a lot, but, let’s be honest. He’s been in office less than a year. Even if he’d accomplished some grand act of peace-making in such a short time, wouldn’t it make more sense to wait and see if he did more? Perhaps at the end of his term would be a more opportune time. And if he’s like a lot of other former presidents, we can expect some good things from him even after that. So why not honor him later in life?
I tried to come up with a list of things he’d done to promote peace. Here’s what I came up with:
- Canning the European missile defense shield project
- Approaching Iran “without preconditions”
- Scaling back (responsibly) operations in Iraq and Afghanistan
- Taking a hard line on Israeli settlements
Personally, I think these are great things. But they haven’t, well…had much fruit yet. So what gives?
I decided to do a bit more research on the Nobel Peace prize. Here’s what I found. The Nobel prizes in general give grants to promising individuals in many fields. Often decades of work and accomplishments are behind the decision. But there’s a balance. Since 1974, posthumous Nobel prizes have not been given (except in one case where the recipient died between nomination and receiving the award). A grant doesn’t do a dead person much good, when the intention is to promote and encourage their work.
The Nobel prize, then, is really a sort of wager. “Keep your eye on this one. S/he has the potential to do great things.” Sometimes that potential is discerned based on the life’s work of an individual. Sometimes it’s based on a combination of ideas plus power and influence. The latter is more common with the Nobel Peace prize specifically.
So here’s my interpretation of Obama receiving the award: Mr. President, we like the way you’re approaching foreign policy. You have the support and respect of a large number of Americans, and you have the attention of the world. We’re counting on great things from you while you’re in office. Don’t let us down.
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02.20.09
Posted in Uncategorized
at 05:03
Open Theism addresses a number of problems with attributes popularly ascribed to God. Hellenistic influence has, throughout Church history, been a source of error. It is no surprise, then, that the immutability, impassibility, omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence of God should be put on trial. Unfortunately, this opens five cans of worms that cannot be very neatly closed again. I do not think Open Theism does a satisfactory job of closing all the loops any more than did the original attributes it calls into question.
If a well-thought-out doctrine espoused by numerous very wise theologians cannot do this in many, many books (most of which, I will admit, I have not read), I will not presume to do it in a single blog post. Instead, I will open the cans of worms, dump them all out on the counter, then toss them into the bin of agnosticism and start from scratch with a few praxis-centric assertions. In other words, I’m going to mess with you until you have a headache, then say, “Eh, screw it all, none of it matters. Here’s what does matter.” Read on at your own peril.
Immutability
The quality of being unchanging. If God is truly unchanging, then He is unable to be influenced by prayer. If, however, He is subject to change, then He is changing from one thing to something else. This implies that the way He was is not adequate, and that the way He is will not be adequate. God, if changing, is imperfect. He is still growing, still becoming. Cf. process theology/process thought.
Impassibility
The quality of not suffering pain. If God is impassible, divine mercy is not connected to empathy. Since God cannot suffer, He cannot share in our sufferings or empathise with them. Christ, being one person with two natures, will have suffered in His human nature only. Numerous modern theologians reject divine impassibility.
Timelessness/Omniscience/Foreknowledge/Predeterminism
Here’s where it gets really ugly.
It’s generally agreed that God is eternal. He existed before creation. He created the universe. Time seems to be a property of the universe, just like the laws of physics. Time was, therefore, created by God. If this is so, it would make sense that God is not subject to the limitations of His creation as we are. If God is not mastered by His creation and is also omniscient, He must possess foreknowledge. He must know the future. This means that the future must, in some sense, already exist (or it could not be known).
If the future is already “written,” however, human agency is destroyed. One cannot truly be held culpable for one’s actions if they are predetermined. It’s been argued that God, having created us, would be justified in damning some and extending grace to others based on divine whim, hence the doctrine of unconditional election. A consequence of this, however, is a disconnect between sin and atonement. If all are sinners (T) and some are elected based on divine wisdom (U) to receive redemption (L) they cannot resist (I) or lose (P), sin effectively becomes value-neutral. We are not damned because we are sinners (for some sinners are not damned, namely the elect), we are damned because we are not redeemed. Since we have control neither over our sinfulness (for all are sinful), nor over our redemption, we cannot be properly called guilty. If God in his wisdom chooses to save some and not others, I will not call Him a tyrant. But it cannot be said that those He does not choose are damned for their sin.
Open theism, on the other hand, contends that the future, strictly speaking, does not exist as such. Because future events have not yet happened, they do not exist to be known or not known. God, if He is omniscient, knows all that exists. Since the future does not exist, the lack of divine foreknowledge does not conflict with divine omniscience.
On the gripping hand, if God cannot know the future, a modified understanding of scripture must be adopted. A great deal of biblical prophecy is of the “God says” variety rather than the “this is what will happen in the future” sort. Furthermore, a number of the “this is what will happen in the future” passages are actually “God will do this in the future” passages. It is generally possible to reliably predict one’s own future actions (even for humans). Here’s where the problem arises: Christ. God (seemingly, at least) sent His Son into the world knowing/intending for Him to die. Here we have two bad options: 1) God foreknew that the Pharisees would hate and despise and ultimately kill Him, which is not possible since the future does not exist and cannot be known, or 2) God knew the Pharisees would hate and despise Him because He was predicting His own actions–that is, God forced the Pharisees to become agents of His wrath, thus destroying their own agency. Perhaps, then, God did not know that Jesus would be killed, which leaves us with two more bad options: 1) God never intended for Christ to be killed, or 2) God, knowing the hearts of the Pharisees, knew Jesus’s ministry would be terribly offensive to them. He could hypothesise that, given their nature, and the presence of the Roman garrison, there was a very good chance of Him being persecuted, and quite possibly dying, but He could not know for certain, when, where, how, or even if He would die at their hands.
Alternatively, it can be argued that knowledge of the future does not predicate a closed-ness thereof. In other words, God’s knowing what will happen does not mean what will happen cannot change. If a person plans to do something, say kill 500 people, God will have known about it since the beginning of time. If that person then changes his mind, the future is altered, and God’s foreknowledge is, from the beginning of time, accordingly altered. This does not mean that God had been wrong about the future, or that He himself had changed. It simply means that as something external to Him changed, his knowledge willen hoven change-frupt (sorry, I don’t know how to say that in Future Semiconditionally Modified Subinverted Plagal Past Subjunctive Intentional Tense) retroactively accordingly. If my house is white, God knows that it is white. If I paint it grey, God knows it is grey. He was not wrong in the past about its colour, but His knowledge was altered by the alteration of the house itself.
Free Will
The notion of truly free will is a chimeric abstraction. In reality, the choices of one ‘free’ agent limit the choices of another. If person A chooses not to build skyscraper B, person C cannot jump off of skyscraper B. If person D holds person E at gunpoint and demands her money of her, she cannot choose both to live and to keep her money. Similarly, the actions of God necessarily limit the freedom of humanity. There is, therefore, an ongoing interplay of billions of free agents, constantly creating and destroying possibilities for other free agents. In order for God to minimize (for He cannot eliminate) His constraints on human free will, he would have to, in essence, create the world and then step back from it. Cf. Deism. This would not, however, stop humans from increasing or decreasing the freedom of other humans.
Omnipresence
Is God in Hell too?
If you are not yet confused, read Wikipedia for a while. Start with the article on Free will, then move on to Open theism, Calvinism, Arminianism, Eternity, Determinism, Time, Omnipresence, Omnipotence, Omniscience, Impassibility, Immutability, Process theology, and Game theory. Also make sure to click on any links in those articles on topics you don’t fully understand and read those articles too. Then read all the books cited in all the articles you’ve read. If, after that, you still think any of it matters, let me know ;) To all of the arguments I’ve made in this post, there are counter arguments, and to those, counter-counter arguments.
So what does matter? None of that. I think Open theism is wrong (along with Calvinism and Arminianism) in that it starts with the wrong questions and assumptions. It is not possible to deal with all the issues brought up above with some perfectly designed philosophical/theological construct. And even if it were, it would be just that: a construct. But I don’t think any of those views are heretical.
Here’s where I start, and for the most part where I finish:
- God does not deceive us
- God responds to prayer
- God speaks to and offers guidance to us
- It appears to me that I have a certain degree of control over my actions, and, to that end, I desire to use that wisely
Thoughts? Opinions? Corrections, elaborations, arguments? I’mma get some Advil.
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