FYI: February 22 newsletter lost somewhere in cyber space... <div id="AOLMsgPart_2_167dd8c9-667a-434d-8348-019914b0a8c7"> <div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" class="aolReplacedBody"> <div class="aolmail_moz-forward-container"> <div dir="ltr"> <div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family:georgia,serif"> </div> <div class="aolmail_gmail_quote"> <div style="height:100%;margin:0;padding:0;width:100%;background-color:#78a3b4"> <span class="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862mcnPreviewText" style="display:none;font-size:0px;line-height:0px;max-height:0px;max-width:0px;opacity:0;overflow:hidden">The Christian Right needs to listen to the right Christians.</span> <center> <table id="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862bodyTable" style="border-collapse:collapse;height:100%;margin:0;padding:0;width:100%;background-color:#78a3b4" height="100%" width="100%" align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody> <tr> <td id="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862bodyCell" 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center/cover;background-color:#ffffff;background-image:none;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-position:center;background-size:cover;border-top:0;border-bottom:2px solid #eaeaea;padding-top:0;padding-bottom:9px" valign="top"> <table class="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862mcnTextBlock" style="min-width:100%;border-collapse:collapse" width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody class="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862mcnTextBlockOuter"> <tr> <td class="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862mcnTextBlockInner" style="padding-top:9px" valign="top"> <table style="max-width:100%;min-width:100%;border-collapse:collapse" class="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862mcnTextContentContainer" width="100%" align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody> <tr> <td class="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862mcnTextContent" style="padding-top:0;padding-right:18px;padding-bottom:9px;padding-left:18px;word-break:break-word;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left" valign="top"> <h1 style="display:block;margin:0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:26px;font-style:normal;font-weight:bold;line-height:125%;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:left">When we close our hearts to refugees</h1> <a style="color:#2baadf;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://ProgressiveChristianity.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=ac33a967dc&e=7e96263227"><img style="border:0px initial;width:125px;height:108px;float:left;margin:0px 10px 0px 0px;outline:none;text-decoration:none" height="108" width="125" align="left" src="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/b51b9cf441b059bb232418480/images/c5ed3e3e-57d0-4f58-ada6-d85039b0a36b.png"></a> Essay by Rev. Irene Monroe March 1, 2018 <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">President Trump’s proclivity for racist remarks comes as no surprise to me. His recent infamous comment stating a preference for immigrants coming from a Scandinavian country like Norway rather than from Africa and Haiti which he depicts as “shithole” countries with nothing to offer the U.S is based solely on his ignorance (Also, Mr. President, Africa is a continent.). As a matter-of-fact, black African immigrants are the most educated demographic group in the U.S., surpassing those of us born here- black or white. According to the Los Angeles Times, they come from five major countries: Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and South African.</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">Since Trump’s anti-immigration comments I’ve been thinking about the biblical mandate in Matthew 25: 35 that says to welcome refugees. Jesus speaks directly to the issue where he says, “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink; I was a stranger and you took me in.”</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">Jesus in this Matthew verse speaks from experience because he and his parents, Mary and Joseph, were Middle Eastern refugees. The nativity scene depicts them desperately looking for lodging, only to be told there were no vacancies. Soon after Jesus’s birth, we learn Mary and Joseph fled to Egypt from violence with their newborn as refugees.</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">Holocaust survivors speak from experience of fleeing violence, too:</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">“<em>Seventy-five years ago my mother’s family was being murdered in Poland because they could not escape</em>,” said Leora Tec, Founder and Director of Bridge to Poland, which offers tours to Poland focusing on Jewish life before and after the Nazi’s occupation. Her mother, 85 year-old Nechama Tec, survived the Holocaust by posing as a Catholic girl sheltered by a Catholic family and wrote about her rescue in her book, <em>When Light Pierced the Darkness: Christian Rescue of Jews in Nazi-Occupied Poland</em>. Leora explains how the fate of her mother and her mother’s family may have been different had it not been for people taking them in as refugees, which is what they were considered at the time.</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">“In 1946, after the war, people wanted to murder my grandfather in Poland so my mother’s family left. They were refugees in Germany,” she said. “Refugees are not a caricature, a uni-dimensional creation of a limited mind. What they really are are human beings. They could be you or me tomorrow, and very likely there were some in your family’s not so distant past.”</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">Leora added, “<em>knowing that people will stand up for others even under the threat of death gives me hope in these dark times</em>.” Her mother was fortunate to have survived, but so many others didn’t. However, it is very likely that they could have, had the U.S. opened their borders to them – which is strikingly foreshadowing of what we are seeing today with Trump’s recent immigration policies.”</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">Oddly, the first group of settlers in America was refugees- the Pilgrims. And like refugees today, the Pilgrims were seeking a better life. However, the Pilgrims, who sought refuge here in America from religious persecution in their homeland, were right in their dogged pursuit of religious liberty, but their actual practice of religious liberty came at the expense of the civil rights of Native Americans. The actions of the Pilgrims brought about the genocide of a people, a historical amnesia of the event, and an annual national celebration of Thanksgiving for their arrival. Trump views refugees as bringing harm to America, but the only refugees who did so were the Pilgrims.</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">While Trump’s comment will now make it more difficult for immigrants from “shithole” countries to enter the U.S., the challenge, however, will be particularly arduous for its LGBTQ asylum seekers. These people flee their countries to avoid criminalization, torture, violence, public persecution, political scapegoating and moral cleansing.</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">Many of the governments they flee argue they do not like the world’s interference in their business, especially the U.S. They contend that being LGBTQ are anathemas to African and Afro-Caribbean identities, cultural and family values, and it’s one of the many ills brought over by white Europeans (a similar homo/transphobic polemic still argued among religious and uninformed conservative African Americans). Sadly, the debate between” authentically “African” and Western colonial remnants always finds some way to dispute the reality of the black LGBTQ existence. Therefore, coming out LGBTQ in many of the African and Caribbean countries is dangerous.</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">For example, approximately thirty-eight of fifty-four countries in the African continent criminalizes same-gender consensual activity.</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">We all have heard of the human rights abuses of Uganda’s LGBTQ population. The country’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill dubbed “Kill the Gays bill” criminalized same-sex relations. And, depending on which category your sexual behavior was classified as —” aggravated homosexual” or “the offense of homosexuality”—you’d either receive the death penalty or if lucky life imprisonment.</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">Gay activist David Kato was the father of Uganda’s LGBTQ rights movement. He didn’t live to receive either punishment. Kato, beaten to death with a hammer, was murdered in January 2011.</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">John “Longjones” Abdallah Wambere, a friend of Kato’s and co-founder of Spectrum, an LGBTQ rights organization, is an activist too. Fleeing from persecution Wambere was approved asylum in 2014. He now lives in my ‘hood” of Cambridge, MA.</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">And last summer, at the 2017 DignityUSA conference in Boston, Warry Joanita Ssenfuka, director of Freedom and Roam Uganda (FARUG), spoke on being a Catholic lesbian activist in Uganda, where LGBTQI people have no legal protections, and frequently suffer violence and imprisonment. Ssenfuka is a plaintiff in “Sexual Minorities Uganda v. Scott Lively.” Lively, a white racist, homophobic Pentecostal pastor of Springfield, Massachusetts, is accused of persecuting LGBTQI people abroad, resulting in the introduction of an Anti-Homosexuality Bill he helped engineer in Uganda, which was prosecuted as a crime against humanity under international law.</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">Throughout the African continent, there are stories of homophobic bullying, trans bashing, and every kind of abuse of its LGBTQ population. However, the one country you don’t expect to hear anti- LGBTQ rhetoric and human rights abuses from is South Africa.</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">South Africa is the first African country to support openly LGBTQ civil rights. But South Africa has a problem with its LGBTQ population, especially its lesbians. South Africa’s method to remedy the problem with lesbians is “corrective rape.”</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">On any given day in South Africa, lesbians are twice as likely to be sexually molested, raped, and gang-raped than heterosexual women. A reported estimate of at least 500 lesbians are victims of “corrective rape” per year. And in Western Cape, a province in the south west of South Africa, a report put out by the Triangle Project in 2008 stated that as many as 86 percent of its lesbian population live in fear of being raped.</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">And, in Haiti, a country that is predominately Roman Catholic homosexuality is condemned. Among Haiti’s LGBTQ middle and profession classes they find ways to socialize out of the public “gaydar” and with impunity. However, for the poorer classes of LGBTQ Haitians who live, work and socialize in the densely populated and impoverished capitol city of Port-au-Prince and its countryside, discrimination on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender expressions is commonplace. The 2002 documentary “ Des Hommes et Dieux (Of Men and Gods)” by anthropologist Anne Lescot exposed the daily struggles of Haitian transwomen. Blondine in the film said, “When people insult me because I wear a dress I am not ashamed of how I am. Masisis (gay males) can’t walk down the street in a wig and dress.”</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">Regrettably, a certain group within white evangelicalism agree with Trump’s stance on refugees. For example, Rev. Franklin Graham, the president of the international Christian relief organization Samaritan’s Purse, said immigration is ‘not a Bible issue.’</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">“It’s not a biblical command for the country to let everyone in who wants to come, that’s not a Bible issue,” Graham told HuffPost. “We want to love people, we want to be kind to people, we want to be considerate, but we have a country and a country should have order and there are laws that relate to immigration and I think we should follow those laws. .”</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">However, the Christian Right needs to listen to the right Christians. Last February this time more than five hundred prominent evangelicals from across the country took out a full-page ad supporting refugees.</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">“Our care for the oppressed and suffering is rooted in the call of Jesus to “love our neighbor as we love ourselves.” In the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), Jesus makes it clear that our “neighbor” includes the stranger and anyone fleeing persecution and violence, regardless of their faith or country,” the letter stated.</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">“As Christians, we are committed to praying for our elected officials. Our prayer is that God would grant President Trump and all our leaders divine wisdom as they direct the course of our nation.”</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">Trump’s administration may very well make it difficult for Africans and Haitians to come to the U.S. But, he cannot stop asylum seekers.</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">Legally, it is a universal human right to seek asylum, and the U.S has been offering asylum to LGBTQ people from around the world since 1994. And, morally, governments have an obligation to come to the aid of those fleeing persecution, a minimum standard any decent government recognizes.</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">When we close our hearts and doors to refugees, we close ourselves from the world.</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">~ Rev. Irene Monroe Read online <a style="color:#2baadf;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://ProgressiveChristianity.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=d996cd3a78&e=7e96263227">here</a> <strong>About the Author</strong> The Reverend Monroe is an ordained minister. She does a weekly Monday segment, “All Revved Up!” on WGBH (89.7 FM), a Boston member station of National Public Radio (NPR), that is now a podcast, and a weekly Friday commentator on New England Channel NEWS (NECN). Monroe is the Boston voice for Detour’s African American Heritage Trail, a <a style="color:#2baadf;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://ProgressiveChristianity.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=3c9b96f999&e=7e96263227">Guided Walking Tour of Beacon Hill: Boston’s Black Women Abolitionists</a>. Monroe’s a Huffington Post blogger and a syndicated religion columnist. Her columns appear in cities across the country and in the U.K, Ireland, Canada. Monroe writes a column in the Boston home LGBTQ newspaper Baywindows, Cambridge Chronicle, and Opinion pieces for the Boston Globe. Monroe stated that her "columns are an interdisciplinary approach drawing on critical race theory, African American, queer and religious studies. As a religion columnist I try to inform the public of the role religion plays in discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people. Because homophobia is both a hatred of the “other” and it’s usually acted upon ‘in the name of religion,” by reporting religion in the news I aim to highlight how religious intolerance and fundamentalism not only shatters the goal of American democracy, but also aids in perpetuating other forms of oppression such as racism, sexism, classism and anti-Semitism.” Her papers are at the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College's research library on the history of women in America.</p> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <table class="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862mcnDividerBlock" style="min-width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;!important" width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody class="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862mcnDividerBlockOuter"> <tr> <td class="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862mcnDividerBlockInner" style="min-width:100%;padding:10px 18px"> <table class="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862mcnDividerContent" style="min-width:100%;border-top:5px solid #694f0d;border-collapse:collapse" width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody> <tr> <td> <span></span> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <table class="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862mcnTextBlock" style="min-width:100%;border-collapse:collapse" width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody class="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862mcnTextBlockOuter"> <tr> <td class="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862mcnTextBlockInner" style="padding-top:9px" valign="top"> <table style="max-width:100%;min-width:100%;border-collapse:collapse" class="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862mcnTextContentContainer" width="100%" align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody> <tr> <td class="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862mcnTextContent" style="padding-top:0;padding-right:18px;padding-bottom:9px;padding-left:18px;word-break:break-word;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left" valign="top"> <h1 style="display:block;margin:0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:26px;font-style:normal;font-weight:bold;line-height:125%;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:left">Question & Answer</h1> <h3 style="display:block;margin:0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:20px;font-style:normal;font-weight:bold;line-height:125%;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:left"> </h3> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left"><span style="font-size:18px"><strong>Q: By Ginny from Canada</strong></span> <em>What Bible translation would you recommend for a progressive?</em></p> <h3 style="display:block;margin:0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:20px;font-style:normal;font-weight:bold;line-height:125%;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:left"> <span style="font-size:18px"><strong>A: By Rev. Gretta Vosper</strong></span></h3> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left"><a style="color:#2baadf;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://ProgressiveChristianity.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=eaa28b429f&e=7e96263227"><img style="border:0px;width:125px;height:145px;margin:0px 10px 0px 0px;float:left;outline:none;text-decoration:none" height="145" width="125" src="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/b51b9cf441b059bb232418480/images/9d1fabc2-63f8-4f38-b027-d0d499a4a6ce.png"></a> Dear Ginny,</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">I am fortunate to work with a congregation that challenges me to choose readings for each Sunday that are not from the Bible. We use texts that offer us the opportunity to explore major issues related to being human. They come from ancient and modern literature, poetry and pop culture, movie scripts and love letters. As long as they are worthy of the people who will receive them, and fall within the purposes of our gathering – to ground ourselves in the interconnectedness of life, to be guided in our choices by love, and to grow in wisdom – we can read it.</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">That doesn’t mean that I don’t read the Bible. Each week, I read its lectionary passages and find within them a theme I use to create the Sunday Gathering. The passages I read, however, are not for that Sunday; they are for the following year. I work a year ahead so I can create resources for clergy who use the lectionary but wish to explore non- or post-theistic themes.</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">Many of my peers use the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) because it is the updated version of the classic Revised Standard Version (RSV) upon which many of us grew up. Published in 1989, the editors recognized that much misunderstanding had entered into the interpretation of the text because English is inherently biased toward the masculine. In order to mitigate such abuse of the text, all references to humanity are gender-neutral. So it is really one of the better “inclusive language” texts despite it continuing to provide exclusively male language in references to God. At the very least, I would recommend that you not read anything that hasn’t managed to get to a place of gender neutrality with respect to humanity.</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">Oral reading of any sort in any setting, unless done by someone with excellent reading skills, can be snore-inducing. There is nothing compelling about something badly read. But when you start with a text that is already verbally challenging, you may as well provide several minutes of silence. That is the NRSV from the pulpit. It is wooden, difficult, and uninspiring. Whether you are looking for a book to read to your congregation in Sunday services or a book to inspire you with the depth and breadth of the skill and wonder of the biblical poets and authors, I would invite you to steer clear of the New Revised Standard Version.</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">Not surprisingly, given that it began as the result of explorations of how English is both read and heard, the Contemporary English Version (CEV) avoids the challenges the NRSV falls into. You might call it the Good News Bible (GNB) for subsequent generations despite the fact that it has no official relationship to the GNB and none of the GNB’s iconic line drawings. It, too, provides gender-neutral language except for references to God. I have used the CEV since it was first published in 1995, finding it easier to share orally and easier to consume privately. Indeed, it is written for a lower reading level than the GNB and miles below the NRSV. But don’t let that make you feel stupid. You’re not. You simply want to enjoy reading something written for people two thousand years ago. Keeping that simple is one of the hardest things to do.</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">The CEV, my favourite, is now over twenty years old. There may be newer, more engaging versions available. If you really want to read the Bible, explore and find something that you will satisfy you. These few tests will help you find a version you’ll want to go back to over and again: look several versions up online to see what the principles guiding the writing were, specifically, if they included gender neutrality – that’s an easy test of contemporary sensitivities; choose a passage (not a favourite) and read it in as many versions as you need to find one you like then check out your favourite passages. If you like your favourites even in the new version, you have found a new friend. If not, keep looking.</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">Reading the Bible is a pastime in which an enormous amount of time is invested. Your time is limited. Choose what you read wisely. And if it is a Bible, make it a good one.</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">~ Rev. Gretta Vosper Read and share online <a style="color:#2baadf;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://ProgressiveChristianity.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=a4c04deafa&e=7e96263227">here</a> <strong>About the Author</strong> The Rev. Gretta Vosper is a United Church of Canada minister who is an atheist. Her best-selling books include <em>With or Without God: Why The Way We Live is More Important Than What We Believe</em>, and <em>Amen: What Prayer Can Mean in a World Beyond Belief</em>. She has also published three books of poetry and prayers. </p> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <table class="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862mcnDividerBlock" style="min-width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;!important" width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody class="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862mcnDividerBlockOuter"> <tr> <td class="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862mcnDividerBlockInner" style="min-width:100%;padding:10px 18px"> <table class="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862mcnDividerContent" style="min-width:100%;border-top:5px solid #694f0d;border-collapse:collapse" width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody> <tr> <td> <span></span> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <table class="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862mcnTextBlock" style="min-width:100%;border-collapse:collapse" width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody class="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862mcnTextBlockOuter"> <tr> <td class="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862mcnTextBlockInner" style="padding-top:9px" valign="top"> <table style="max-width:100%;min-width:100%;border-collapse:collapse" class="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862mcnTextContentContainer" width="100%" align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody> <tr> <td class="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862mcnTextContent" style="padding-top:0;padding-right:18px;padding-bottom:9px;padding-left:18px;word-break:break-word;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left" valign="top"> <h1 style="text-align:center;display:block;margin:0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:26px;font-style:normal;font-weight:bold;line-height:125%;letter-spacing:normal">Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited</h1> <h3 style="text-align:center;display:block;margin:0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:20px;font-style:normal;font-weight:bold;line-height:125%;letter-spacing:normal">The Connection between the Crucifixion and the Passover Part VI</h3> Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong on March 9, 2005 <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left"><img style="border:0px;width:125px;height:125px;margin-right:10px;outline:none;text-decoration:none" height="125" width="125" align="left" src="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/b51b9cf441b059bb232418480/images/84fbd945-363f-48e0-97f1-129010755fed.jpg"> Today, as a way to round out this series on the biblical accounts of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, events which most scholars date around 30 CE, I want to take what might seem to some to be a detour. I will line up these biblical sources in their chronological order, which stretches from about 50 to 100 CE. I will then walk you, my readers, through this material from the first writings to the last, pointing out overt contradictions, places where the story grows, and illustrations of how the miraculous has been heightened. In this manner I hope to demonstrate the inadequacy of trying to interpret the Bible literally. My goal is to assist my readers to step into a new vision of the reality of the resurrection, which requires first a step away from our blurred, culturally imposed understanding of Easter. The old vision is primarily a collage drawn from several incompatible sources. It is biblically inaccurate, and is not informed by any of the scholarship of the last 200 years. Still in many places even within the Christian Church, that understanding of Easter continues to masquerade as “orthodoxy.”</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">I begin with Paul, the first writer in the New Testament, and in particular with I Corinthians, an epistle dated around 55 CE. This is not only the earliest written account of the final events in Jesus’ life that we possess, but it is the <u>only</u> account the Christian Church had until the early seventies. We need to recognize that Paul had died before the first gospel was written; so step number one in the interpretive process is not to read Paul through the images created in the later gospels about which Paul knew absolutely nothing. Those people, who seem to think that Paul took the simple religion of Jesus found in the gospels and corrupted it into convoluted theology, do not understand anything about early Christianity. The gospels assume the writings of Paul. Paul does not assume the writings of the gospels.</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">The first thing one notices, when Paul is isolated and treated as the oldest Christian source, is that there are no narrative details connected with his descriptions of the final events in the life of Jesus. All that Paul says about the crucifixion is that, “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures.” In this Pauline material, there are no stories about Gethsemane, the betrayal, the trial, the torture, the crown of thorns, the two thieves, the behavior of the crowd, the words from the cross, or the darkness at noon. There is no mention of the moment when Jesus breathed his last. Perhaps Paul knew nothing about these stories. Perhaps he knew about them but chose not to relay these details. Those are the only options. Since human experience suggests that stories grow in the telling, the former is far more probable than the latter.</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">Next Paul says that following Jesus’ death, “He was buried.” Note that there is no mention of a tomb, or of Joseph of Arimathea. The suggestion is that he knew nothing about either tradition. Then Paul says quite sparsely that, “He was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.” There is no account of the women coming to the tomb on the first day of the week and finding it empty. Certainly there is no suggestion that these women ever saw the risen Christ. Indeed, Paul relates no narrative content describing anyone’s experience of ‘seeing’ the risen Christ. He simply lists those to whom, he asserts, Jesus had appeared. They were in Paul’s order: Cephas (i.e. Simon Peter), the twelve, 500 brethren, James, the Apostles and finally Paul. Though this is the earliest list of witnesses we have, it is nonetheless full of questions. Why does Paul say that Jesus appeared to the twelve? Does that mean that he did not know about Judas? Matthew will say later that the first time the risen Christ appeared to the disciples, it was only to the “eleven.” It was at least 35 years after the death of Paul before the story of Matthias being chosen to succeed Judas entered the Christian story. Who were the 500 brethren? There is no hint in any of the later gospels that anyone has been able to correlate with that Pauline reference. Who was James? There are only three possibilities: James, the son of Zebedee, James, the son of Alphaeus, and James, the brother of Jesus. Which one does Paul mean? Who were “the Apostles?” Are they different from the twelve? Paul appears to think so. Finally, Paul says, “he appeared to me.” Please note that Paul is claiming that his experience of ‘seeing’ the risen Christ was like all the others except that his was last. Since no one I know thinks that Paul confronted a Jesus who had physiologically walked out of a tomb, it begs the question as to what the earliest Christians meant by the resurrection of Jesus. The best estimate as to the date of Paul’s conversion, according to church historian Adolph Harnack, was one to six years after the crucifixion. In either case, Paul’s witness is that what he saw was no different from that which all the others on his list saw. This fact certainly works against anyone attempting to claim that the resurrection of Jesus involved a physical, bodily resuscitation. That is all Paul says about the crucifixion, burial and resurrection which means that this was all the Christian Church had in writing until Mark wrote in the eighth decade.</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">Having previously looked at Mark’s story of Jesus’ passion in this series, I will focus in this column only on what Mark specifically adds to the developing Easter story (see 16:1-8). Mark introduces the women. They are Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James, and Salome. He says these women go to Jesus’ tomb “to anoint him.” As they journey they wonder how they will roll back the stone from “the door of the tomb.” To their surprise on arrival they find it already rolled away. How that happened is not explained. They enter the open tomb only to see, not an angel, but a young man dressed in a white robe who announces that Jesus has been raised and urges them to go tell Peter and the disciples, “he is going before you to Galilee, there you will see him.” That is all Mark says about the resurrection. Please note that the risen Christ never appears to anyone in Mark’s gospel. The authentic part of Mark’s text ends with the women fleeing in fear and saying nothing to anyone. This means that when the early church had only the writings of Paul and Mark, which is all that existed prior to the 9th decade, there was not yet a description of a physically resuscitated body that would lead anyone to believe that the resurrection was understood as the restoration to life in this world of the three days dead Jesus.</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">Matthew finally introduces that idea in his gospel, which is generally dated in the mid-eighties. There is no doubt that Matthew had Mark in front of him when he composed his work, so by reading them both we can watch the changes that Matthew makes in Mark’s text. Matthew drops Salome from Mark’s list of the women who came to the tomb at dawn. He gives no purpose for that visit as Mark had done. Matthew has also added an earthquake in which an angel descends out of the sky and rolls the stone away. Matthew, who alone had added a retinue of Temple police to stand watch at the tomb to guard against any miraculous circumstances occurring, now says that the appearance of this angel caused that guard to become so fearful, they “became like dead men.” Matthew has the angel tell the women that Jesus has been raised, and to urge them to tell the disciples that Jesus “is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him.” Contrary to Mark’s account, in which the women “said nothing to anyone,” Matthew’s women obediently go at once to tell the disciples. Jesus meets them in the garden and speaks to them. The women, Matthew says, “took hold of his (presumably physical) feet and worshiped him.” That is the first account in Christian written history suggesting that the resurrection was somehow physical. A minimum of 50 years has passed since the time of the crucifixion.</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">Matthew then adds further intrigue to his story about the guards. When they awakened and found the tomb empty they plotted to tell people that his disciples stole his body while they were asleep. Matthew concludes his narrative by relating that promised appearance of the risen Christ in Galilee. It took place on a mountaintop. Jesus appears to have come out of the sky, clothed with the “authority of heaven and earth.” He commissions them “to go into all the world and promises that he, Jesus, will be with them “to the close of the age.”</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">When we move to Luke’s gospel, which is generally dated between 88-93, the story has grown even more. In Luke the women go to the tomb with spices as if to finish the burial process. The list of women is once again different. The named ones are Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James, and Joanna, but Luke covers his bases by saying that some other women were also there. The announcing figure, who was a young man in a white robe in Mark and a supernatural angel in Matthew, has now become two supernatural angels in Luke. The promise that the disciples will meet the risen Christ in Galilee has, however, been dropped. Luke will deny any association of Galilee with resurrection. The women, who do not see Jesus in Luke, report these things to the disciples. Luke then adds the Emmaus Road story, told nowhere else in scripture. In this narrative Cleopas and his partner recognize Jesus in the breaking of the bread, then rush back to Jerusalem to tell the disciples, only to be told that Jesus has by now already appeared to Simon Peter.</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">While they are talking, Jesus appears. This is the first moment in written Christian history in which the risen Jesus and his disciples are said to have come together in Jerusalem. Jesus is very physical. He offers his flesh for inspection. He asks for food to eat. He opens their minds to understand the scriptures that explain why Christ had to suffer. Then, telling them to remain in Jerusalem until they are clothed with power from on high, he led them out to Bethany and parted from them by being carried up into heaven. Later, when Luke writes Acts, he will put 40 days between the resurrection and the ascension. That is not so in his gospel.</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">Finally in John, writing near the turn of the first century, only one woman, Magdalene goes to the tomb. She finds the stone rolled away and runs to report this to Simon Peter and the “disciple whom Jesus loved,” both of whom have come to the tomb to verify her story. It is here that the story of the grave clothes, wrapped neatly in two separate places as if Jesus has simply risen out of them, first comes into the Christian tradition. The disciples return to their place of hiding while Magdalene comes back to the tomb to mourn. She looks again into the tomb and this time sees two angels who inquire as to the cause of her tears. “Because they have taken away my Lord and I do not know where they have laid him, she replies.” Then Jesus appears. Mistaking him for the gardener, she asks him where he has placed the body so that she might reclaim it. He speaks her name. Magdalene recognizes him. He tells her that he has not yet ascended and urges her to go tell the disciples that “I am ascending.” She obeys and exits.</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">That evening, John continues, the now ascended Jesus appears to the disciples inside a locked room. He breathes on them and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Thomas is absent. A week later the story is repeated with Thomas present. Jesus offers his wounds for inspection. Thomas believes. The narrative concludes. However, in the next chapter, another resurrection story, this time set in Galilee not Jerusalem, is told by John. Peter is confronted and told to “feed my sheep.” Then John concludes the chapter and the book a second time.</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">These are the raw biblical data. Next week I will seek to interpret these narratives in the final section of this series leading us toward Easter.</p> <p style="margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left">~ John Shelby Spong</p> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <table class="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862mcnDividerBlock" style="min-width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;!important" width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody class="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862mcnDividerBlockOuter"> <tr> <td class="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862mcnDividerBlockInner" style="min-width:100%;padding:10px 18px"> <table class="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862mcnDividerContent" style="min-width:100%;border-top:5px solid #694f0d;border-collapse:collapse" width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody> <tr> <td> <span></span> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <table class="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862mcnTextBlock" style="min-width:100%;border-collapse:collapse" width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody class="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862mcnTextBlockOuter"> <tr> <td class="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862mcnTextBlockInner" style="padding-top:9px" valign="top"> <table style="max-width:100%;min-width:100%;border-collapse:collapse" class="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862mcnTextContentContainer" width="100%" align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody> <tr> <td class="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862mcnTextContent" style="padding-top:0;padding-right:18px;padding-bottom:9px;padding-left:18px;word-break:break-word;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%;text-align:left" valign="top"> <h1 class="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862null" style="text-align:center;display:block;margin:0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:26px;font-style:normal;font-weight:bold;line-height:125%;letter-spacing:normal">Announcements</h1> <h2 class="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862null" style="text-align:center;display:block;margin:0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:22px;font-style:normal;font-weight:bold;line-height:125%;letter-spacing:normal"><font size="4"><strong><a style="color:#2baadf;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://ProgressiveChristianity.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=c951ebbb72&e=7e96263227"><img style="border:0px;width:125px;height:135px;margin:0px 10px 0px 0px;float:left;outline:none;text-decoration:none" height="135" width="125" src="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/b51b9cf441b059bb232418480/images/4915ed4c-7767-45c3-b031-2ddd9b4c13f7.jpg"></a>A Grateful Evening with Diana Butler Bass</strong></font></h2> <p style="text-align:left;margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%"><strong>The Arizona Foundation for Contemporary Theology</strong> is excited to welcome <strong>Diana Butler-Bass</strong> to Phoenix on <strong>March 1st, 2018 </strong>at 7 p.m. This “grateful” evening will be in Nelson Hall at the Church of the Beatitudes Church, <a style="color:#2baadf;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://ProgressiveChristianity.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=5dfe4860e0&e=7e96263227">555 W Glendale Ave, Phoenix, AZ</a>.</p> <p style="text-align:center;margin:10px0;padding:0;color:#202020;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:16px;line-height:150%"> Click <a style="color:#2baadf;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://ProgressiveChristianity.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=f0f7377343&e=7e96263227">here </a>for more information.</p> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </td> </tr> <tr> <td id="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862templateFooter" style="background:#fafafa none no-repeatcenter/cover;background-color:#fafafa;background-image:none;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-position:center;background-size:cover;border-top:0;border-bottom:0;padding-top:9px;padding-bottom:9px" valign="top"> <table class="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862mcnFollowBlock" style="min-width:100%;border-collapse:collapse" width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody class="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862mcnFollowBlockOuter"> <tr> <td style="padding:9px" class="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862mcnFollowBlockInner" valign="top" align="center"> <table class="aolmail_m_-8877184950195836862mcnFollowContentContainer" 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