[Oe List ...] 8/20/2020, Brandan Robertson: Progressing Spirit,Humility: The Key To Our Salvation; Spong revisited

Thu Aug 20 05:54:03 PDT 2020

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Humility: The Key To Our Salvation
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|  Essay by Rev. Brandan Robertson
August 20, 2020
“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you know so much…”
Job 38:34 (New Living Translation)

One of the most fundamental postures of any mature spirituality is that of humility, and yet on both the left and the right it seems that humility is always in short supply. Throughout human history we have craved to know the answers to the big questions that seem to endlessly loom above us: Why are we here? Who are we? Where are we going? Is there a purpose to any of this? Many philosophers and sages have risen on the scene seeking to provide answers, some of them even claiming to have gained access to the absolute and eternal truth. Humans flock towards such an offer - what could we desire more, in a world of constant turbulence and insecurity than the answers to the deepest existential longings within us.

While absolute religious, scientific, and philosophical answers can, for a moment, soothe the raging waves of anxiety within our souls, it doesn’t take very long for us to realize that the answers are ultimately insufficient. Perhaps a tragedy strikes that causes us to question how a loving God could actually be in control of the world. Maybe a miracle happens that makes us wonder if the naturalistic and scientific way of understanding reality is missing something significant. Maybe we just start to sense that the answers that we’re clinging to just don’t feel complete - and so we begin to experience moments of doubt.

Whenever these moments happen, we are faced with two choices: Either we can give in to our curiosity and suspicions and begin to explore outside of the rigid worldviews that we have embraced, or we can double down, either quelling our doubts by reciting the fundamental claims of our life philosophy, or by simply denying the existence of the very thing that has led us into doubt in the first place. The first response invites us to humility - we become opened to the possibility that perhaps we are wrong, which may prove to be a costly realization, but also is the very fuel to propel us forward on our journey. The second response unleashes an arrogance within us, rooted in the fear that if our system of belief is wrong, we will be cast once again into the stormy seas of existential doubt and insecurity. And that fear is well placed.

Every human that has ever walked the face of the earth has lived in the tension between the uncertainty about this whole experience called life and absolute certainty about the purpose and aim of everything that exists. Not one person has ever unlocked the “answer” to the conundrum we find ourselves in - not even those people that we laud as prophets and gods. Even Jesus experienced profound doubt, fear, and insecurity – and they appear in the pages of the very texts that are seeking to prove that he is God. In the face of this realization, we can either hunker down in our narrow worldviews (again, I mean both progressive worldviews and conservative ones) in order to soothe ourselves, or we can take that brave and risky path - the one of humble awe.

Humility is born out of coming to terms with our finitude and the absurdity of the circumstances we find ourselves in. No system can accurately describe just how strange and beautiful it is to be experiencing life. The more we learn about the nature of reality and the workings of our universe, the more we find ourselves dumbfounded. Things we believed were mere supernatural fantasies, beliefs of simple-minded ancestors, are turning out to be profoundly true. Our basic assumptions about who we are as human beings are continually called into question, and in turn, so are our fundamental beliefs about God (or the lack thereof).

When we bravely gaze up into the night sky, with the modesty of intellect to admit that we are but specks of stardust floating in the grandeur of the eternal, what can we do but allow ourselves to be humbled? There is no other reasonable choice. What can we do but be filled with gratitude to be here, in this moment, whoever we are, wherever we may be? What can we do but remain open to the reality of the most fantastic thoughts and dreams our minds can conjure up, while also remaining deeply skeptical and curious about everything?

In the modern world, we have been conditioned to eschew such openness. We have been lulled into believing that either science or faith can give us ultimate answers. We have been enticed by those who can speak with such passion and confidence, and the result has been an era of unprecedented smugness towards anyone who dares to think differently than us. This has given birth to extreme polarization and division, which in turn create a new reason to be uncertain and anxious - that we may bring about the worst possible destruction and judgement upon ourselves. 

The answer, of course, is not to stop thinking, exploring, or probing the depths of our understanding in search of truth. It’s not to stop experimenting, challenging, and debating our best ideas. It’s not to keep striving to create the more ethical and just world that humans have dreamed of since the dawn of time. No, the answer is to season our exploration with courageous humility, rooted in the realization of our smallness and our seeming inability to ever grasp a hold of the fullness of truth.

Our enemy is not the person who views the world differently than us - even if they believe the most outlandish claims about reality. Our enemy is certainty. It’s the hubris that it takes to believe that you’ve even gotten close to the Ultimate Truth of reality. That’s what brings war, division, and polarization. Certainty is the surest sign of spiritual and intellectual immaturity. While it is not an unreasonable desire, in the least, it is perhaps the one and only impossible desire for humanity. As Voltaire once wrote, “Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one.”

In our present age, each of us would do well to examine our own minds and souls for where we might have allowed the root of proud certainty to flourish. Wherever we find it, maybe do the brave work of surrendering it - allowing our hearts and minds to be opened to the curiosity at the perspectives and experiences of others, and the wondrous possibilities that exist in this wild adventure we call life. When we become a people, who value humble curiosity over the illusion of certainty, then we might just cross the threshold that at last opens us up to Ultimate Truth.

 ~ Rev. Brandan Robertson

Read online here

About the Author
Rev. Brandan Robertson is a noted spiritual thought-leader, contemplative activist, and commentator, working at the intersections of spirituality, sexuality, and social renewal and the author of Nomad: A Spirituality For Travelling Light and writes regularly for Patheos, Beliefnet, and The Huffington Post. He has published countless articles in respected outlets such as TIME, NBC, The Washington Post, Religion News Service, and Dallas Morning News. As sought out commentator of faith, culture, and public life, he is a regular contributor to national media outlets and has been interviewed by outlets such as MSNBC, NPR, SiriusXM, TIME Magazine, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Associated Press.
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Question & Answer

Q: By Marion

One thing I fail to see addressed anywhere is the mayhem of blacks upon blacks in cities such as Chicago. Do black lives matter only when death is caused by a law enforcement officer?

A: By Rev. Dr. John C. Dorhauer

Dear Marion,

The red herring of 'black on black' crime often gets cited when the Black Lives Matter movement gains a foothold. 

I call it a red herring largely because it's raised exclusively by whites as a way to resist exploring the source and origin of racial bias in law enforcement in general, and more specifically the ongoing epidemic of white police officers murdering unarmed black and brown detainees. It wants to deflect attention away from this very serious matter by focusing on something else. Doubt can be cast on the ethical capabilities of the black community writ large by reinforcing the notion of black on black crime. Whites don't really care about 'black on black' crime except as a trope they can use to perpetuate the larger narrative of the black man as savage beast. The simple utterance of 'black on black' crime is intended to remind white audiences that the black male is an animal who cannot control his rage. This is intended to create a context in which the violence perpetrated by white police officers against unarmed black bodies is justified.

For white police officers who are sworn to serve and protect, the order to shoot to kill is mandated when they feel that a detainee or suspect is a real and present danger to the police officer or the community. By perpetuating tropes and narratives that consistently reinforce white fear of black bodies, whites - police or otherwise - have a long conditioned and internal fear of black skin. The black skin itself is perceived as threat. When on the job and calculating whether a real and present danger persists, the color of the skin itself factors into whatever calculus is used to determine the level of fear/danger. Black bodies are easily and often perceived as dangerous by white officers. Rehearsing narratives of black on black crime reinforces this. 

According to the 2018 Criminal Victimization report published by the Department of Justice, the offender in a violent crime was of the same race as they victim in 70% of violent incidents involving black victims and 62% of incidents involving whites. However, never do whites think about, talk about, ask about, show curiosity about white on white crime - even though it is almost as likely to be the case in the majority of violent crimes. 

What is ignored is that in far larger numbers, black voters favor stricter gun laws. The vast majority of gun deaths in the US are not homicides, but suicides - and over half of those are committed by white men. Whites are largely silent about this. In addition, over the last two decades the trauma of white on white mass shootings in schools and malls and churches has not garnered enough white support for gun control. Whites continue to focus more attention on the trope of 'black on black' crime than on the largely white violence of suicide, mass shootings, and police homicide of unarmed black suspects. 

Do blacks commit crimes against blacks? Yes. And those really interested in this pattern should read all they can about what sociologists, anthropologists, and criminologists have to say about the reasons for that. But if they are not AS interested in white on white crime, they should interrogate their motive for asking the question. When the question is offered as a defense for white police brutality that stems from racial profiling, the more profitable exploration should be the internal race bias behind the question itself. 

~ Rev. Dr. John C. Dorhauer

Read and share online here

About the Author

Rev. Dr. John C. Dorhauer was granted a Doctoral Degree in White Privilege Studies in 2007 from United Theological Seminary in Dayton, OH. He also has degrees in Theology and Philosophy. He is the author of two published books, Beyond Resistance: the Institutional Church Meets the Postmodern World and Steeplejacking: How the Christian Right Hijacked Mainstream Religion. He is a recipient of Eden Seminary's "Shalom  Award," given by  the student body for a lifetime of committed work for peace and justice. John was ordained as a Christian minister in 1988. He currently  serves as the 9th General Minister  of the United Church of Christ, one of the USA's most progressive faiths, whose vision is "A Just World for All." He is a frequent speaker on  the subject of white privilege, and is especially committed to engaging white audiences to come to deeper understandings of the privilege. He is  particularly interested  in how whites manifest privilege every day and how it impacts people of color, two things whites remain largely either ignorant of or in denial about. He has been devoted to his bride Mimi  for over 36 years, and they have parented three children - a composer/musician, an author/painter, and a poet.  John and Mimi have two grandchildren they dote on constantly. 
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Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited

The Origins of the New Testament, Part V:
Interpreting the Life of Paul

Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong
November 5, 2009

The first person to crack the silence and write anything that we still possess about Jesus of Nazareth was the man known as Saul of Tarsus, who later changed his name to Paul. His conversion to being a believer in and a disciple of Jesus occurred, according to the work of the 20th Century Church Historian Adolf Harnack, between one and six years after Jesus’ crucifixion. If we adopt the generally accepted date of 30AD (CE) for the crucifixion, then Paul’s conversion would be located between the years 31 and 36. The story of that conversion, with which most people are familiar, is hardly history, since it was written by the author of the book of Acts more than thirty years after Paul’s death and perhaps sixty years after his conversion. I doubt if Paul would have recognized any of those details. In his own authentic writings Paul never refers to a life-changing experience on the road to Damascus. He never mentions the bright light that supposedly rendered him temporarily blind, or the vision he was supposed to have had, which involved a conversation with Jesus, or his baptism at the hands of Ananias. I suspect that the narrative in Acts was a fantasy created by Luke to give content to what Paul does say about his pre-Christian life. In his Epistle to the Galatians, written in the early 50s, Paul writes, “You have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the Church of God violently and tried to destroy it”. Perhaps the closest Paul ever comes to describing his conversion experience occurred when writing to the church in Corinth: “I know a man in Christ”, he said, “who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven – whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know, God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into paradise and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter”. Whenever there is a conflict between an account of Paul’s activity as recorded in the Book of Acts and the authentic writings of Paul himself, the weight of scholarship always comes down on the side of Paul’s own work.

>From autobiographical notes found in his Epistles, we get the picture of Paul as a religiously zealous student, devoted to the Torah and proud of his Jewish heritage. He calls himself “a Hebrew of the Hebrews” and a “son of Abraham”. It was into this Jewish faith tradition that he was born and from which, in his mind he never left, since he saw Jesus as the fulfilment of both the law and the prophets. Paul says of himself, I was “circumcised on the eighth day”. He identifies himself as “a member of the tribe of Benjamin” and as “a Pharisee”. He calls himself “blameless under the law” and claims that he actually advanced far beyond his peers in the pursuit of holiness. He presents himself as the star pupil in the rabbinical school, so it should surprise no one that he came to understand Jesus by applying familiar Jewish symbols to him. By studying Paul carefully we can begin to regain the perspective that Paul had, namely that Jesus was a Jew, as were his disciples and all of the writers of the books that now constitute the New Testament. The followers of Jesus were at the time of Paul regular worshipers in the synagogue. That is indeed, as I have suggested in a previous Discussion (see 29th October – “The Origins of the New Testament – Part IV: The Oral Period”) the setting in which the oral tradition developed. Christianity did not become a religion separate from Judaism until the latter years of the ninth decade, by which time we need to understand that at least the gospels of Mark and Matthew were written, and perhaps even Luke. John is thus the only gospel clearly written after the synagogue and the church had split. So during the years in which Paul was writing, the disciples of Jesus, known then as the “Followers of the Way“, were still members of the synagogue. Paul can thus only be properly understood when we hear his words in this Jewish context.

In the epistle that we today call I Corinthians, Paul suggests that the two principle events in the life of Jesus, namely the crucifixion and the resurrection, happened “in accordance with the scriptures”. The only scriptures that existed at that time and thus the only thing to which he could have been referring were the books of what we now call the Old Testament. Paul had obviously used the Jewish sacred writings to help him interpret Jesus. The first layer of interpretation that was laid on the memory of Jesus was to see him as the fulfilment of these scriptures. The earliest interpreters of the meaning of Jesus were Jewish people who saw him as their expected messiah who would bring about the Kingdom of God. That was why they wrapped the images found in the Old Testament around him. Separating the person of history named Jesus from the interpretations applied to him by zealous followers based on the scriptures is not now and never has been easy. The death of Jesus was given purpose primarily under the influence of the writings of a prophet we call II Isaiah (Chapters 40-55 – see the discussion for 1st October 2008 – The Origins of the Bible, Part XIII: II Isaiah – The Figure of the “Servant”). This unnamed person, whose words were attached to the scroll of Isaiah, thus giving us his name II Isaiah, wrote after the devastation of the Babylonian Exile, to paint a new vocation for the people of Israel in their defeat. They could no longer aspire to greatness. II Isaiah thus drew a portrait of one he called the “Servant” and called the Jews to emulate this figure. The “Servant” found the meaning of his life not in victory or glory, but by absorbing the world’s pain, bearing the world’s hostility and even by enduring death handed out by the world and transforming it into life-giving love. It was the “Servant” vocation to draw negativity from the people of the world and to leave them whole. This understanding of the crucifixion to which Paul was alluding when he said that Jesus died “in accordance with the scriptures”, was destined to grow and to find an even fuller expression by the time the gospels were written.

It was not just the scriptures, but the worship life of the synagogue that also shaped Paul’s understanding and interpretation of the life of Jesus. When Paul said that Jesus “died for our sins” he was quoting directly from the liturgical day in the Jewish liturgical year known as Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement. In synagogue worship on that once-a-year holy day an innocent lamb, chosen for its physical perfection, was sacrificed “to atone for the sins of the people”. The blood of the animal would then be smeared on the mercy seat of God in the Holy of Holies, that part of the Temple where God was believed to live. The blood of the sacrificed animal was

supposed to make it possible for the people to enter God’s presence for they travelled “through the blood of the Lamb” and thus had their sins covered by the lamb’s innocence. So far as we know from the available written records, it was with Paul that the death of Jesus came to be viewed through the lens of the sacrifice of Yom Kippur. When Catholic Christians say today that in the Eucharist “the sacrifice of the mass” is re-enacted, or when Protestant Christians say, “Jesus died for my sins”, they are both reflecting in a literalized form, this early identification of Jesus with the sacrificial lamb of the Day of Atonement. Paul has clearly made this identification in his epistles.

By the time the gospels are composed, well after Paul’s death, the crucifixion has also become located inside another Jewish liturgical celebration that we call the Passover. Mark, Matthew and Luke have identified the Last Supper as a Passover meal. That was a post-Pauline development of which Paul was certainly not aware. Paul dates the institution of the Last Supper only with the words that it occurred on “the night in which he was handed over”. Later, in I Corinthians 5: 7, Paul calls Jesus the “new paschal lamb”. The gospels exploited that identification to locate the crucifixion in the season of Passover.

Paul saw in the death of the Passover lamb, as well as in the death of Jesus, an action in which the power of death itself was broken. Recall that, according to the book of Exodus, it was when the people of Israel placed the blood of the Passover lamb on the doorposts of their homes that the angel of death “passed over” and death was banished from their households. Paul was suggesting that long before the crucifixion story was identified with the Passover, in the death of Jesus the cross had become the doorpost of the world and the blood of the new paschal lamb on that cross also broke the power of death for all who came to God through the life of this Jesus.

So in the writings of Paul we get the sense that the memory of Jesus was interpreted through the Jewish Scriptures and related to the synagogue’s liturgical cycle with its holy days like Yom Kippur and Passover. That identification will expand greatly by the time the gospels are written. Paul is thus the first window into this Jewish interpretative clue, but it will grow and develop as the New Testament and the Christian creeds come into being, well after Paul’s death.

There is one other detail in Paul that we need to examine before we begin to look at his writings in more detail. It is found in his constant denigration of himself found throughout his epistles. I refer to such words as “O, wretched man that I am who will deliver me from this body of death …” (Romans 7: 24)”, or “I am carnal, sold under sin. I do not understand my own actions, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate …” (Romans 7: 14-15). “I can will what is right but I cannot do it …” (Romans 7: 18)

Do these words fit a pattern? If so, what do they reveal? We will look at that next week.

~  John Shelby Spong
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