Category: Theological Rant
Paragraphs from SSCSJ
Two paragraphs from Sacred Steps: Children’s Sermon Journal this week. One from the First Testament and one from the New Testament. These are part of the Lectionary readings for June 17.
1 Samuel 15:34-16:13
The story of how David was selected from among Jesse’s sons reminds us of many of the stories in Genesis. While a patrilineal society, like Israel, gave preference to the eldest son, time after time, God chooses the younger child to carry forward God’s covenant (e.g., Isaac over Ishmael, Jacob over Esau, etc.). This is just one example of how God’s ways are not those of the dominant group. God chooses an elderly, barren couple to be the parents of a nation. God makes a covenant with an Egyptian slave woman that her offspring will be a great nation. The list could go on. Here, in I Sam 16, we see, once again, this Divine characteristic. While the human tendency would be for Samuel to choose the strongest and oldest son as the next king, God’s choice is the exact opposite. In fact, in this text, God explicitly states what we’ve seen in the preceding stories: “for the LORD does not see as mortals see” (v 7b). What can we learn from this example, along with the many others, of how God “looks on the heart” of people, while we put too much stake in outward appearances? What role does character really play in how we identify and choose leaders in all arenas of life? How can we develop the ability to see people as God sees them? Is that how you look upon the children on the sacred steps?
2 Corinthians 5:6-10, 14-17
“From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. 17So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”
This is one of those “stumbling” block phrases for much of Christendom, because our categories, walls, boundaries, borders, justice systems and economic systems are all based on a human point of view. For me, humanity is not necessarily, or even by nature, bad, evil, or dirty. I am an “original blessing” person rather than an “original sin” believer. I’m content with my personal humanity and my breathing existence in a world of beauty and of a community that is weighed down with injustice, hunger, greed and death.7 When compared to the life of an undocumented immigrant, a person nearing the end of unemployment benefits, someone caught in human trafficking, a person battling chronic disease, an abandoned child, and many others, my worst days are paradise. But, I, and you, participate in systems, secular and religious, that perpetuate a human point of view that divides, degrades, and discriminates against the children of God, often “in the name of God”.8 Is that not a “human point of view?” What, then, does it mean to say that, if one is in Christ, then that one (read “you”) is a new creation, no longer seeing others from a human point of view? This is a great struggle of being called to a ministry of reconciliation.
the Latest Sightings
Commonweal’s “Bishops and Religious Liberty”
— by Martin E. Marty“The Bishops and Religious Liberty,” the cover topic in Commonweal this week, brings together opinion by six Catholics who know their way around and through issues of “church and state.” What prompts the issue is the action by Roman Catholic bishops in the United States to declare war against government proposals and policies which the bishops declare to be a war against liberty. While all the writers find something or other to criticize in administration concepts and actions on the “health care” front, they all are critical of the bishops and ask them to “cool it,” not to exploit the scene for political advantage, and more. Several critics also argue that the bishops are hurting, or likely to hurt, themselves, their church, and their cause, not because they are wholly wrong but because of their stridency and refusal to deal with the government when it adjusts and compromises. It’s “winner take all” for them at the moment.
Let me lift out some summary sentences by the writers and editors. “There are compelling reasons within modern states to carve out a protected space for dissenting moral voices. But in the end, the tensions between the laws of the state and the demands of faith cannot be fully resolved.” Amen. We’ve long argued that there is no way to draw lines between “religion and the civil authorities” (James Madison’s term) in ways that can satisfy all legitimate but necessarily conflicting interests. William A. Galston, Michael P. Moreland, Cathleen Kaveny, Douglas Laycock, Mark Silk, and Peter Steinfels, authors whose names will be familiar to anyone who reads “church-state” arguments, have sympathy for the bishops, but find their present arguments of no help. Thus the “bishops cannot base their teachings on opinion polls, but if they intend to argue effectively for religious liberty, they need to acknowledge the difficult ground on which they stand.”
The ground is difficult partly because the wider public and Catholic faithful are highly aware that the bishops have not convinced their own faithful of their case, certainly as it is, against birth control, less every year on same-sex marriage, though they hold their own against (most cases of) abortion. Many Catholic theologians point out, as the authors in this Commonweal insist, the bishops are not making an argument; they are not even trying to make an argument. They are merely asserting, insisting, and declaring their viewpoint when they should set out to make their case. (Some of the arguments by some of the authors in Commonweal provide some arguments bishops could use).
Since regular readers know that I do not butt in on intra-church arguments, I turn such over to Sightings readers. (You can follow the link provided below and acquire online what take up fifteen pages in Commonweal!) However, in this case—as in so many other church-state issues—the church leaders are engaging in public sector arguments and make no secret of the fact that they want directly to influence the forthcoming election, continuing legislation, and urgent court decisions. Peter Steinfels here reminds readers that Quakers, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and, come to think about it, no other thoughtful and intense religious people will be able to have all their interests satisfied, and their consciences quieted. That’s how things are in a republic, including this one, where there is not, our writers agree, a war against religion. Instead, there are legitimate conflicts which await legitimate argumentation. Commonweal supplies some of that, in an argument without end. An argument which, in a healthy republic, cannot end.
References
“The Bishops and Religious Liberty,” Commonweal, June 15, 2012.