Bill's 'Faith Matters' Blog

A major Catholic Church crisis: 11-5-18

Several times since the 2013 election of Pope Francis (pictured here), and especially recently, I've written here and elsewhere about the troubling divisions in the Catholic Church.

The split in Catholicism now has reached what many people consider a crisis on the scale of the start of the Protestant Reformation 501 years ago. I'm not quite sure it's that bad, but it's bad.

Vanity Fair has done this excellent piece about the internal Catholic fighting. It pays special attention to the fact that the former pope, Benedict XVI, who resigned just prior to the election of Francis, still is at the Vatican and has become a counter force there, making life increasingly difficult for Francis.

"Today," writes John Cornwell, "the Catholic Church is riven by an internecine power contest between conservatives and liberals that rivals the battle of the angels in Milton’s epic Paradise Lost. Who are the powers of light? Who are the powers of darkness? It depends whose side you take in the onslaughts of texts, tweets, and blogs, as well as the trumpetings of the Catholic media. . .

"What makes this prospect of a division within the Church more severe, and far riskier, than the usual bickering is the presence of two Popes, both resident in the Vatican, each with his own loyal and vociferous following. The liberals have Francis, but the conservatives have his predecessor, Benedict XVI. If Francis is the living, reigning Pope, Benedict is his shadow, the undead Pope emeritus."

An even deeper analysis of the situation is found in this editorial by The National Catholic Reporter, which for 50-plus years has been the voice of progressive Catholicism in the U.S.

It focuses on a recent letter from Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, former nuncio to the United States, who charged that there has been a widespread cover-up of sexual abuse allegations against former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. That same letter blamed Pope Francis and suggested that for the good of the church he should resign.

A key paragraph in the NCR editorial said: "Viganò was able to rattle the church with his fanciful claims and gather around him some of the more eccentric expressions of Catholicism in the United States because of the leadership vacuum created by both the deeply compromising damage of the clergy sex abuse scandal and the lingering effects of John Paul II's episcopal appointments. It is known that the late and sainted pope valued loyalty far more than leadership in his bishops. In the United States, that meant a national conference that once wrestled with major cultural issues was reduced to much internal squabbling over minutiae."

The church, says NCR, has reached a point where "the questions are no less essential than what it means today to be ordained and what it means to be Catholic."

This is the kind of visible battle that drives people not only from the Catholic Church but also from religion generally. If religion is mostly about who holds power in institutional expressions of faith communities, then how is it different from any other part of the world? And why would anyone want to become a pawn in this power game?

As I've said before, the world needs a strong and healthy Catholic Church. My view is that Pope Francis is doing his best to achieve that, but the forces arrayed against him are increasingly strident and even devious. Francis has made some errors along the way, but his direction is right and his instincts are good. If he fails in his reformist agenda, the church may well regret it for a long, long time.

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O, CANADA, YOU'RE GETTING IT RIGHT

Canada, it turns out, is becoming quite a religiously pluralistic country. So it makes sense that the Parliament of the World's Religions is meeting there this week -- in Toronto. The RNS story to which I've just linked you will give you some details about Canada's diversity and about what's going on at the Parliament. I hope some of the good lessons of diversity and cooperation can be brought home from Canada to other countries.

New books to consider for holiday giving (and reading): 11-3/4-18

Giving books as holiday gifts shows recipients you care about their minds and that you are the type of person who is thoughtful enough to have considered what subject the recipients could use some help understanding.

So if you have people on your list this year that need a bit of fixing or educating when it comes to matters of faith, I've got some suggestions for you.

I won't be doing full reviews of these new books here but I will tell you enough, I hope, that you'll know whether you want to explore them further. And I'll give you a link to a site (usually Amazon) from which you can order the book.

So let's begin:

-- The Bible Unwrapped: Making Sense of Scripture Today, by Meghan Larissa Good. In recent years there have been lots of good books published to help people understand what the Bible is and how to make sense of it. This new one by a Mennonite pastor has much to recommend it, despite a couple of matters in it that bothered me.

This is a highly Christocentric approach to the Christian Bible. As Good writes, "The primary purpose of Scripture is to disclose precisely what lies beyond the pages of Scripture: Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, the Risen One who lives to be encountered." Later in the book she calls the Bible "a solar system in which every piece orbits a single radiating Star. Some planets may orbit closely and others at further remove, but all of them trace a path of meaning by their relationship to Christ."

Good writes clearly and engagingly. This is not a stiff academic treatment but is, rather, written for people in the pews who want a better grasp of what the faith's sacred book is supposed to be all about and what difference it can make in their lives. She writes: "The Bible's invitation is to a life of creative, risk-taking engagement. Its movement drives us toward a relationship still unfolding and a story still being written -- in us, in our children's children, and in generations yet to come."

What I found disturbing about the book was an unmistakable hint of supersessionism, which is a theology of arrogance that believes Christianity has made Judaism irrelevant and unnecessary. It can be, and often is, a continuation of the anti-Judaism that has scarred Christianity almost from its beginning. (My essay on that subject is here.) For instance, here is something Good writes: "The people of Israel were always in real relationship with God. They spoke with God, they listened for God's voice, they experienced God's power in very real ways. But without the light of Jesus, they were living in the dark. In the dark it's still fully possible to see the outline of true shapes. But it's also possible on occasion to step on a slipper that turns out to be your sleeping cat."

Most readers, I would guess, would understand that Good is saying in those words that Jews even today continue to live "in the dark." But there is no need to find fault with one religious tradition to promote or explain another. The claims of Christianity can be made clearly without criticizing Judaism or Jews. I found Good here being gratuitously -- though perhaps unintentionally -- offensive.

She also makes the common but anachronistic error of saying that the Apostle Paul "converted to Christianity." (Those are her words in quotes.) No. Paul was always a Jew, though he became part of that segment of Judaism that believed the long-promised Jewish Messiah had come as Jesus of Nazareth. After Paul's time that segment finally separated itself from Judaism and became known as Christianity. But calling Paul a Christian is a category error that leads to all kinds of misunderstandings, especially between Christians and Jews today.

If you want to pass on this Bible introduction book but still want something to help you know more about the Bible, here's a list of books -- most of them pretty recent -- that you may find helpful:

• Making Sense of the Bible: Rediscovering the Power of Scripture Today, by Adam Hamilton.

• Bible Babel: Making Sense of the Most Talked About Book of All Time, by Kristin Swenson.

• How to Read the Bible: History, Prophecy and Literature — Why Modern Readers Need to Know the Difference and What It Means for Faith Today, by Steven L. McKenzie.

• How to Read the Bible, by Harvey Cox.

• A Romp Through the Bible, by William R. Phillippe.

• A Visual History of the English Bible: The Tumultuous Tale of the World’s Bestselling Book, by Donald L. Brake.

• Good Book: The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous and Inspiring Things I Learned When I Read Every Single Word of the Bible, by David Plotz.

• The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart, by Peter J. Gomes.

• How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now, by James L. Kugel. (Kugel writes about the Jewish Scriptures.)

• The Bible as It Was, by James L. Kugel.

• How to Choose a Translation for All Its Worth: A Guide to Understanding and Using Bible Version, by Gordon D. Fee and Mark L. Strauss

• Reading the Bible from the Margins, by Miguel A. De La Torre

 -- Once We Were Strangers: What Friendship with a Syrian Refugee Taught Me about Loving My Neighbor, by Shawn Smucker. This is the really well written true story by a novel writer from Lancaster, Pa., who becomes friends with a refugee from Syria. The author did not expect to find himself friends with this Muslim man named Mohammed, but he was drawn into the connection in a way that challenged some of his thinking and eventually had him living out what it looks like when someone really does love his or her neighbor. In the end, Smucker writes, "I know now what I was missing out before I met him -- what all of us miss out on when we don't reach out to our neighbors. The sitting down together, the coffee, the sharing of stories, the community." This is a powerful argument against the politics of fear.

-- Making Faithful Decisions at the End of Life, by Nancy J. Duff. In recent years, especially since Thomas G. Long published his terrific 2009 book, Accompany Them with Singing: The Christian Funeral, lots of good books and other resources about death and dying have been made available, especially for people of faith. This new book by a professor of Christian ethics at Princeton Theological Seminary, may be among the most helpful. In just 134 pages, it covers almost every imaginable subject related to preparing for the end of life. It is clear, well organized and, in terms of Christian theology, spiritually solid. If I were a Christian pastor, I would make sure that every family in my congregation had this book -- and read it.

-- The Integrity of the Body of Christ: Boundary Keeping as Shared Responsibility, by Arden F. Mahlberg and Craig L. Messan. What can "boundary keeping" mean in faith communities? A great deal, it turns out. That work has to do not simply with dogma or doctrine but, rather, with how congregations and other groups operate with common decency and integrity as they seek to hold true to the reason they exist at all. "Good boundary practices," they write, "cultivate (a) holistic posture of love in ourselves and in others. By necessity, it includes what we do within our hearts and minds, not just what we do overtly." The leaders of any faith community seeking to assure its future would do well to make sure congregants are thinking openly about what it means to keep safe, reasonable but loving boundaries, and this book can guide that discussion.

-- How to Read Islamic Calligraphy, by Maryam D. Ekhtiar. The author is associate curator of the Department of Islamic Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Clearly this is an obvious book for Muslims, but its beautiful illustrations and careful explanations of the practice of calligraphy should interest anyone who cares about either art or religion -- or both. It's a coffee-table book to return to again and again. And at the end of the book you will find a terrific bibliography and a useful glossary.

-- Grace in the Valley: Awakening to God's Presence When He Feels Far Away, by Heath Adamson. This book is rooted in the famous 23rd Psalm, which begins, "The Lord is my shepherd." In that psalm, there is mention that at some point each of us will walk through "the valley of the shadow of death." Adamson says here that it's possible to find God's grace right in that valley: "Sometimes we simply need to know who is near and remember who we are within. We do not walk alone. Like he was present on the ancient streets of Jericho, where the blind men taught us all to see, God has been with us all along. This is the foundation David built Psalm 23 on." Well, many of the psalms are attributed to King David, but, in fact, good biblical scholars now suggest he may not have written any of them. That reality, however, doesn't take away from their power or from the lessons that Adamson draws here.

-- Marked by Love: A Dare to Walk Away from Judgment and Hypocrisy, by Tim Stevens. This is a plea to take seriously the idea that people of faith are called, first, to love -- and not just in nebulous ways but in the harsh specifics of life. "When you are marked by love," he writes, "you can't help but reach out to others with compassion and love. Sometimes that means stopping long enough to listen. Other times it means preparing a meal or meeting a physical need. Stop reciting Bible verses long enough to look into someone's eyes and let them know you really care, that you will be there for them, that they will get through this and that you won't leave them until they do."

-- Seeing Jesus in East Harlem: What Happens When Churches Show Up and Stay Put, by José Humphreys. The author is pastor of a church in East Harlem, one that deals with what it means to be a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural congregation in a large city. His argument is that his and other congregations need to be in it for the long haul, though to be constantly aware of their congregation's changing contexts: "We need the Spirit's power for a sustained engagement that will allow us to see God's work again and again in real time. We can practice a discipleship that earnestly engages the breaches, testifying to how God has rebuilt our disconnections."

--  Last Call for Liberty: How America's Genius for Freedom Has Become Its Greatest Threat, by Os Guinness. It has been said by scholars of history that one reasons nations fail is that they launched wars against themselves. Guinness, a well-known author and speaker, raises the question here of whether that is now happening to the United States. Our deep and strident political divisions make the question uncomfortably relevant. Guinness comes at these questions from what some might call a politically conservative position, but in any case he usually raises interesting and good questions: "The point is not that if we think about freedom, we will all end up in agreement. We won't -- however noble and well intentioned we may be. Nor is that point that if we think clearly, we will come to a common mind. It is rather that we all need to make our decisions about freedom in light of where those different choices are likely to lead. . .Living with our deepest differences means that we must acknowledge and negotiate different ways of seeing freedom."

-- Braving the Future: Christian Faith in a World of Limitless Tech, by Douglas Estes. This book, to be published Tuesday, is a description of the important technologies that are rapidly changing how we live. The question for Christians is how to respond to such changes and whether they can stay true to the faith as the world around us becomes substantially different than the one that existed just a few years ago. What Estes, who teaches New Testament at South University, says is the "crux of the matter" is this: "How far do we trust technology. . .Where, if anywhere, do we draw the line?" Good questions, ones this book engages in interesting ways.

-- Faith in a Pluralist Age, edited by Kaye V. Cook. When scholar Peter L. Berger argued that pluralism, not secularism, is what is changing the world today, he didn't have much to say about religion itself. This book brings together several Christian voices to respond to Berger, and gives him another chance to add to his earlier argument. Lots of interesting points of view are represented here. It may challenge your thinking whether you believe pluralism is a positive or negative for our culture and whether you believe Christians have figured out how to be true to their faith tradition in a pluralistic society or not.

-- Anchors for the Soul: Daily Wisdom for Inspiration and Guidance, by Joyce Rupp. The many fans of long-time Catholic writer Joyce Rupp will be grateful to have this collection of daily devotionals to guide them through the coming year. These short meditations, presented in poetry style, will offer a daily anchor for souls who tend to sway in any breeze that comes by.

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A GATHERING OF WORLD RELIGIONS

The Parliament of the World's Religions -- which first gathered in 1893 in Chicago -- is meeting this week in Toronto. It's one of those gatherings that can offer a vision of what healthy religion can add to the culture and is worth our attention. This RNS story provides some background about the parliament and why it matters.

Listening to Eugene Peterson's wisdom: 11-2-18

A time or two since his death on Oct. 22, I have mentioned the Rev. Eugene Peterson (pictured here), most well known for his paraphrase of the Bible called The Message.

But because he was an important Mainline Protestant voice with a reach far beyond that branch of the Christian faith and even beyond Christianity itself, I want to share with you today some thoughts from a pastor to whom Peterson meant a lot.

This Patheos blog post by Brad Roth lists several things that Roth, a pastor and author, learned from Peterson.

You can -- and I hope will -- read that post for yourself, but I want to highlight just one of Roth's points. He says that Peterson taught him "To listen deeply to the word."

Roth has in mind here paying close attention to scripture, of course, but there's more to it than that, and I think Peterson would agree with me that listening to the word includes listening deeply to others because they bear the image of God, the imago dei, and because people are what Christianity calls temples of the Holy Spirit.

Listening is a skill that is terrifically hard to hone. I confess I could be a lot better at it than I am. Like many of you, I divide often my conversation time between listening and preparing what I want to say next -- with more emphasis on the latter task than the former.

That habit devalues people whom God loves. It assumes that what we have to say is so much more important and so much more correct than whatever words are drifting out of the mouths of others that we are right to prepare to say them well while the other person is droning on.

It's arrogant. And arrogance is not becoming.

Recently my own pastor, Dr. Paul T. Rock, spoke about this matter in this sermon. It especially focuses on the need for males to learn how to listen carefully to females. I hope you'll watch the video.

An early 19th Century English clergyman, Charles Caleb Colton, got it right when he wrote this: "Were we as eloquent as angels, yet we should please some men, some women and some children much more by listening, than by talking."

Not only will that practice lead to us learning something eventually, but it also honors the image of God in the person to whom we listen.

And if you want to spend some quality time thinking about faith, I suggest that you do some listening to the late Eugene Peterson through one of his many books.

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CATASTROPHES CAN CAUSE OR REVEAL DIVISIONS

Reaction to the recent massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue is revealing -- or at least illustrating -- divisions within the city's Jewish community, this Atlantic report says. Not surprising. These sorts of disasters can cause -- or exacerbate -- fissures within any kind of group affected by them, including small families. For instance, the 9/11 terror attacks ripped apart some families -- at least for a time. It's one more cost of trauma -- one that's too rarely considered.

Even undocumented immigrants are to be valued: 11-1-18

As people of faith argue about immigration policy in the U.S., it's helpful to think about what our various faith traditions tell us about welcoming strangers.

A primary answer is simply this: Just do it. Why? Because we're all part of the same human family.

For instance, the Qur'an (49:13) quotes God as saying this of humanity: "We have created you of a male and a female and made you tribes and families that you may know each other. . ." Some translations use "recognize" instead of "know." The point is that human diversity is part of the divine plan and we should be eager to celebrate the great variety of human life.

But don't undocumented workers, who slip into the U.S. illegally, cost the rest of us a lot of money? (Native Americans might well have asked that some centuries ago and concluded the answer was definitely "yes.") Well, the broad answer today is no, and this Patheos blog entry explains why: "The average immigrant will pay in $80,000 more over the course of a lifetime than they will ever take out in services across the board."

To back up that argument, the piece quotes The Wall Street Journal this way:

“Immigrants fill in the gaps of our labor market, at both the high and low ends of the skill spectrum. . . America’s educational system does not produce enough scientists and engineers to meet the needs of a growing technology sector, (so) this means that some of the brightest minds from across the world come to the U.S. (usually lawfully). But there are also major gaps in low-skill jobs, [those which don’t require a college degree, or even a high school degree].

". . .very few Americans are content to endure the long hours required of agricultural work, for example, which is why 50% to 60% of the food that touches our table was touched by immigrant hands along the way. Because immigrants are willing to do this hard work…we all enjoy inexpensive produce. The same logic applies to many other sectors of our economy, and we all benefit.”

The author of the Patheos piece is not arguing -- and I certainly am not arguing -- that we don't need to have good, fair immigration laws and a system of border security that works well and protects us from those who want to come here and do us harm. But much of the anti-immigration rhetoric coming from President Trump and others in his administration is based on misinformation and inaccurate impressions about what immigrants bring to the U.S. -- immigrants like my maternal grandparents (from Sweden) and my paternal great-grandparents (from Germany), who, as far as I know, came here legally in the 1800s.

The Bible -- both the Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament -- is full of admonitions to treat immigrants and strangers kindly. That's certainly the place for Christians and Jews in the U.S. to start when thinking about immigration policy. The fact that even undocumented immigrants bring more economic value to the country than they cost is just icing on the cake.

If our government worked right, we would have almost no undocumented people in the U.S. The immigration system would be fair and would meet our nation's economic needs but also, as much as possible, the needs of people seeking to flee violent and otherwise-unstable countries. You'd think all that would be possible in a country in which even our First Lady is foreign-born.

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A CATHOLIC LGBTQ OPENING?

A new document from Catholic bishops may open up a new discussion within the church about human sexuality, particularly homosexuality and whether the church's condemnation of it should stand. But don't get too excited yet. It takes the church a long time to make any substantial changes -- even in areas, like this, when the church should be a leader, not a reluctant follower.

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THE BOOK CORNER

Brother John: A Monk, a Pilgrim and the Purpose of Life, by August Turak, with paintings by Glenn Harrington. This is a beautiful book that republishes an essay that won a John Templeton Foundation prize a few years ago. It's about the author's encounter with a monk, Brother John, at a Trappist monastery, Mepkin Abbey, in South Carolina. John is a quiet, loving soul who models what living out the Christian faith should look like. This gentle monk is nothing if not self-giving. As Turak writes, "Brother John loves God so much he doesn't know what to do with himself. He doesn't know what to do with himself, so he stands outside on a cold Christmas night with an umbrella, waiting. Waiting to offer us some protection and human comfort on our long journey home." The paintings in this book are moody, evocative, spectacular and worth the price alone. (Come back here to the blog Saturday and I'll introduce you to a whole stack of new faith-based books.)

What we must do after Pittsburgh: 10-31-18

 

Fifteen or so years ago, I attended a conference in the Washington, D.C., area for the benefit of journalists who cover religion.

One of the speakers was a rabbi who helped to lead a national Jewish group. His opinion was that at the time most American Jews had little personal experience of antisemitism. Things have improved, he contended, and he made a persuasive case for his point of view.

I am certain he would say no such thing today. And if the U.S. actually had then found a kind of non-antisemitic sweet spot for a time, it didn't last long.

The massacre Saturday at a synagogue in Pittsburgh is just the latest evidence of resurgent antisemitism, both here and around the world. The global picture of this distressing phenomenon was painted in a 2013 book called Resurgent Antisemitism, by Alvin H. Rosenfeld, which I reviewed at the time here for the National Catholic Reporter.

The growth in antisemitic acts that Rosenfeld describes across the globe has found its way back to the U.S. In fact, the Anti-Defamation League reports that in 2017 antisemitic incidents in the U.S. surged nearly 60 percent.

The proper response to this is, of course, WTF. But it cannot be our only response.

Kansas Citians certainly know this violent antisemitic extremism first hand because of a neo-Nazi's attack on two Jewish facilities here in 2014 that resulted in the murder of three persons, though none of them was Jewish. After that, we've seen the terrific response to this hatred led by the Corporon and LaManno families whose loved ones were murdered that day. They've created the annual Give Seven Days events, along with much else.

Modern antisemitism, which first appeared in the 1800s and which can issue in this kind of violence, can trace many of its roots to theological anti-Judaism, which the Christian church preached officially and unofficially for most of its 2,000 years. I describe that long, sad history in this essay found elsewhere here on the blog.

Anti-Judaism is theological in nature. That is, its foundations are built on the idea that Jews killed Jesus Christ and that they rejected the will of God that Christ represented. The result of such thinking is the belief that Judaism today is irrelevant and has been superseded by Christianity.

Modern antisemitism, by contrast, is more racial, economic and political in nature. It views Jews as greedy conspirators who want to control the world, starting with the institutions of finance and communications.

It's not hard to see how gullible people with real or imagined complaints about how the world is working can be easily led into antisemitic thinking and, ultimately, behavior, especially when our national leaders use rhetoric that seems to give people permission to hold extremist views. Antisemitism provides a simplistic answer to terrifically complicated questions.

The reality is that none of this is new. Antisemitism is, perhaps, the world's oldest hatred. David Nirenberg tells that story in his book, Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition, which traces anti-Jewish sentiment all the way back to Egypt in pre-Christian days.

What we know today, especially after Pittsburgh, is that antisemitism is a phenomenon of evil. It may affect only a small group of people in ways that cause them to act violently, but its subtler forms are visible in many places and it demeans both Jews and the people who hold antisemitic views.

What can be done to counteract antisemitism and similar hatreds, including racism? Each of us has a responsibility to speak up whenever we see such phenomena. That's a start. But education remains a key, too. Which is why on Sunday evening I was glad to attend the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education, at which actor Henry Winkler spoke. (He is pictured below.)

"Everyone of you," Winkler told the almost 500 people at the event, "is here for a very important reason. Because we cannot forget." And it's a goal of the center to make sure society doesn't forget the Holocaust and, by extension, other examples of anti-Jewish thinking and action.

Indeed, the importance of memory has been a core Jewish value from the beginning. And memory is vital now as we go through this period of renewed antisemitic violence so that we remember that the world has been through this before and that Judaism always survives.

"You will tell the story to one person, just one other person," Winkler said. "And they will tell the story. And we will just continue to remember."

It seems like a small thing, a mild thing. Maybe even an ineffective thing. But it's not.

Further proof that coming together and remembering was found on Monday evening at the Kehilath Israel Synagogue in suburban Overland Park, Kan. For a vigil service to honor the Pittsburgh victims, several thousand people crowded into the sanctuary.

Several speakers sought to offer comfort and a way forward. For instance, the Rev. Adam Hamilton, pastor of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kan., said to the Jewish community, "We love you simple for who you are."

Akhtar (Art) Chaudry of the Muslim-Jewish Advisory Council told the crowd that "tonight, we are all Jews."

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., referencing the book of Ecclesiastes in the Hebrew scriptures, said that "there's a time to keep silent, but, my friends, this ain't it. . .Silence right now sounds. . .like complicity." (The photo above shows Cleaver speaking to the crowd at K.I.)

I can't be positive that these kinds of gatherings help, but I do know that doing nothing is not an option in the face of any kind of hatred.

Nor do I know if antisemitism ever can be destroyed for good. But I do know that it will continue to burrow its way into the minds of people if we don't stand against it in public repeatedly. Sometimes bad ideas can perish of their own weight, but not without help from people who recognize the evil in those ideas. So that's our renewed task now as we seek to respond to Pittsburgh and to other examples of people being dehumanized simply because of who they are.

(At the Monday night gathering at Kehilath Israel, various rabbis lit candles in memory of the 11 people murdered in Pittsburgh. You see those candles in the photo above left.)

* * *

PROTECTING HOUSES OF WORSHIP

This Times of Israel piece describes the many security precautions that synagogues in Europe take and asks whether synagogues in the U.S. are headed in that same direction. And this Kansas City Star article describes how synagogues here already make security part of their routine. In fact, given attacks on houses of worship of various faith traditions, churches, mosques and other worship centers, not just synagogues, are going to have to figure out how much armed security they need. How sad. But worshipers must be protected.

The awful stench of some college athletics: 10-30-18

I admit that I did not follow the recent NCAA payment scandal and subsequent convictions at a trial very closely. It's not that I don't care about whether college athletics is on solid ethical ground. It's just that I had far too many other things on my plate and radar screen.

And some of those things -- a bomber sending explosive devices to prominent Democrats, an antisemitic loose cannon murdering 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue, the needs of my own grandchildren -- were, frankly, more important.

But that doesn't lesson the putrid smell of greed and illegality coming from college athletics.

As Inside Higher Ed reports in the story to which I linked you in the first paragraph, "Federal prosecutors successfully argued that universities, namely the University of Louisville and University of Kansas, were victimized. On the surface, that rationale may strike some observers as odd, given that the institutions' teams (and their finances) clearly benefited from these top players. But these universities gave scholarships to ineligible players and now face possible NCAA sanctions, which was enough to persuade jurors that they had been harmed."

And as that report also notes, "Observers said the proceedings laid bare an open secret: the influence of apparel companies in the high-profile sports of football and men's basketball, and how common these payments have been (at least among elite players)."

Somehow people with the morals of a vacuum cleaner are -- and long have been -- corrupting college sports. And those of us who are fans at almost any level of competition are partly to blame for supporting teams by buying tickets and merchandise when we know that our money bolsters a rigged system.

The world's great religions all teach the necessity of honesty and integrity. Those lessons are being dishonored almost every week in parts of college athletics when it's those very games that should be tools for reinforcing those lessons.

Perhaps when the fan base of major college athletic programs leaves because of the stench, those corrupting the system will discover that there's no market for what they're offering. Are you willing to forego a few slam dunks this upcoming college basketball season if it will help clean up this disgusting mess?

(By the way, I found the image used here today at this site.)

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WHEN HOUSES OF WORSHIP ARE TARGETS

The murderous attack Saturday on a synagogue in Pittsburgh was part of a terrifying trend of houses of worship becoming targets of violence, this Vox report notes: ". . .the attack on Tree of Life is part of another, wider, and no less worrying trend: the degree to which places of worship have become targets for acts that could be classified as domestic terrorism. In the past decade, houses of worship — from synagogues to Christian churches to Sikh temples — have increasingly become targets for extremist violence. Many of these attacks have been explicitly white supremacist or right-wing in nature, targeting perceived liberals, ethnic minorities, or women." By attacking houses of worship, the perpetrators aren't going after individuals but, rather, the whole community and even the broader social fabric. What each such worship center must answer for itself now is how to respond in ways that keep members safe but don't violate a commitment to being a welcoming community.

The impending failure of Halloween: 10-29-18

Halloween, as you know, shows up later this week. For reasons perhaps only God and Sarah Huckabee Sanders could explain, it is becoming an increasingly popular and increasingly secular holiday.

Once upon a time, people of faith, especially Catholics, knew the day as All Hallow's Eve, given that it preceded All Saints Day, which occurs Nov. 1 and has done so since Pope Gregory III moved it to that date back in the 700s. You can read about that and other connections that Halloween has to religion in this ThoughtCo. piece.

I find Halloween intriguing in the U.S. because for most of the year we are reluctant to talk about or think about death and its mysteries. But on Halloween, death, of a sort, is front and center. I say "of a sort" because Halloween doesn't give us a chance to talk about how to prepare for the end of life or about what happens to us after we die. Rather, Halloween garishly dances through our lives in costumes that mock death.

And, trust me, death deserves to be mocked.

But it also deserves to be understood, confronted, woven into our lives. Here on the blog and elsewhere I've said more than once that if we don't understand our own death we'll never understand our own life.

Sad to say, Halloween doesn't really give us a chance to make progress in that quest. Rather, it behaves like a run-amok two-year-old having an emotional meltdown. In a fun way. Halloween, which, as All Hallow's Eve, focused people's minds on the reality and inevitability of death, now is simply an excuse to party and not think about death in any serious way.

Which would be fine if only Americans had other, better opportunities to absorb the realities of death, to ponder eternity in a way that could help us integrate death into a healthy life. In some ways that's what Mexico's "Day of the Dead" provides. So good for Mexico.

As for Halloween in America, well, it at least gives us a chance to introduce our children to one of the most pervasive values found in our politics -- extortion. And when they get to be grownups, the kids are going to need to know how and why that works.

(The photo here today is one I took a few years ago at a cemetery near my home.)

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THE SPEED OF HATRED TODAY

There once was a time when hate traveled slowly. Person to person. Or through the printed word. Or in speeches given live. Today hate travels with the speed of light via the internet. So we find that the man charged in the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre Saturday had used an alt-right social media platform called "Gab." Free speech concerns may prevent shutting down such sewage-spewing sites, but at least we can and should be aware that they exist and denounce them when they are nothing but tools of hatred.

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THE BOOK CORNER

Every Step an Arrival: A 90-Day Devotional for Exploring God's Word, by Eugene H. Peterson. I mentioned here the other day that this author, whose paraphrase of the Bible, called The Message, has been so popular, just died. It's a terrible loss. But just before his death, this lovely little devotional book came out. It draws from Peterson's many writings to offer readers daily insight not just into theological questions but, more to the point, into a deeper relationship with God. One of Peterson's insights found in this book is, in some ways, reason enough for the whole book itself: "So many times in the biblical narratives, we learn more of ourselves in reading them than we do of ancient history."

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P.S.: My latest column for Flatland now is online here. It's about an innocent man imprisoned for 24 years and how he's now using his hard-fought freedom.

When it's time to change religious rules: 10-27/28-18

Every religious tradition carries with it various customs, practices and rules. The rules are both written and unwritten.

For instance, in the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Mainline Protestant denomination to which my congregation belongs, one of the written rules is that if you are elected to be an officer of a local congregation -- either an elder or a deacon -- you must take the vows printed in the denomination's Book of Order. Those vows are taken in a public ceremony.

One of our unwritten rules is that our coffee offered in fellowship halls usually sucks. But I can't attest to that because I don't drink coffee.

Now and then there are challenges to both sets of rules. A really interesting one recently challenged in the Conservative branch of Judaism has to do with whether its rabbis may even attend -- much less officiate at -- an interfaith marriage ceremony.

The Conservative movement's Rabbinical Assembly, which is the movement’s "central authority on Jewish law, has announced that rabbis can attend weddings between Jews and non-Jews," according to this story in The Forward.

In the report, there's a funny, if sort of painful, quote about all this:

"The decision overturns over four decades of assumptions that the movement’s rabbis could be kicked out simply for being a guest at an interfaith wedding. Over the years, rabbis skipped out on countless weddings of close friends and family members lest they get found out, and end up sacrificing their careers.

“'If it was found out that we even attended an intermarriage, meaning standing in the back of the venue, wearing a Groucho Marx disguise, we would be kicked out of the Rabbinical Assembly,' Rabbi Jason Miller told the Forward."

I suspect any rabbi attending a wedding in a Groucho Marx disguise might be vulnerable to being kicked out of the Rabbinical Assembly for reasons beyond attendance, but that's just a suspicion.

Many of the rules adopted by faith communities are for theological consistency and for emphasizing certain points about how the faith developed over the years. The latter is especially true of things like dietary laws or social customs such as not drinking alcohol or dancing or playing cards or wearing makeup. In the former category are such practices as who, in Christian churches, is eligible to receive the sacrament of Holy Communion or how the Bible can be interpreted.

But from time to time it's useful for faith communities to do an inventory of both written and unwritten rules and customs to see if they are serving any useful purpose. Sometimes those rules and customs turn out to be useless barnacles on the ship of faith.

If it were up to you, what customs or rules in your faith community would you abandon and why? If you haven't had a conversation about that with others in your group, maybe it's past time to do that, as Conservative Judaism just did about letting rabbis attend (not yet officiate at) interfaith marriages.

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THE BIBLE IN ONE ACCORD(ION)

Working alone for years, a now-deceased German artist, we now learn, created a picture Bible that, when stretched out from its accordion folds, would be almost a mile in length. It's now on display at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. Wait. Won't this play into the hands of skeptics who think of the stories in the Bible as stretchers?

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P.S.: Application forms for the 2018/2019 Margolis Scholarship offered by Kansas City Lodge 184 of B'nai Brith now are available. It's an essay contest for graduating seniors from high schools in the KC metro area and there's a $2,000 prize for the best essay on "The importance of Interfaith Dialogue Between Christians and Jews." For an application, download this pdf:  Download B-brith-form

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ANOTHER P.S.: Since Saturday's massacre at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, people on social media and in person have asked where this antisemitic trash comes from. One sad answer is from Christian history. My essay describing that stain is here.

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ALSO: My latest column for Flatland now is online here. It's about an innocent man imprisoned for 24 years and how he's now using his hard-fought freedom.

Why are Americans biased against atheists? 10-26-18

Do you know any true atheists? Not agnostics, not religiously unaffiliated people, but true atheists?

In the U.S., they're pretty rare, though some among them, often referred to as the New Atheists, have been fairly aggressive in promoting their disbelief.

Despite -- or maybe because of -- their relative rarity, atheists tend to be viewed with considerable skepticism in the U.S., if not downright distaste, as this intriguing New Yorker article reports.

"Americans, in large numbers," the story says, "still do not want atheists teaching their children, or marrying them. They would, according to surveys, prefer a female, gay, Mormon, or Muslim President to having an atheist in the White House, and some of them do not object to attempts to keep nonbelievers from holding other offices, even when the office is that of notary public. Atheists are not welcome in the Masonic Lodge, and while the Boy Scouts of America has opened its organization to gays and to girls, it continues to bar any participant who will not pledge 'to do my duty to God.'”

What do you call such an attitude? Simple prejudice.

In the U.S., citizens are not -- and should never be -- required to hold any particular religious beliefs. The fact that the early founders of this country were mostly Christians or deists and the fact that you can find references to God in some of our founding documents does not change that reality.

But some of our political leaders seem to be at the forefront of promoting prejudice against atheists. As the New Yorker story notes, President Trump at last year’s Values Voter Summit said this: “In America, we don’t worship government — we worship God.” The New Yorker then added: "As that remark suggests, the one wall the current Administration does not want to build is the one between church and state."

The story also notes that Americans' widespread prejudice against atheists "has its roots both in the intellectual history of the country and in a persistent anti-intellectual impulse: the widespread failure to consider what it is that unbelievers actually believe."

If you get to know some atheists in some depth, you often discover they have cherished moral values, many of which match or even exceed in enthusiasm, the moral values of people of faith. My own belief, however, is that these values are rooted in convenience and safety rather than in divinely inspired spiritual truths. That is, their commitments to treating each other kindly, to not committing crimes, to honesty are founded on a practical understanding that for society to function there must be in place certain standards of behavior to prevent chaos and anarchy. By contrast, those same values in people of faith have other sources beyond human thinking.

In any case, there is no cause for Americans to demonstrate prejudice against atheists. They have the same civil rights and duties as the rest of us and are entitled to respect and dignity as fellow human beings.

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WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY

Have you, too, noticed that clergy are performing fewer weddings these days because the couple being married ask a friend or family member to do the ceremony? The rabbi who wrote this blog post has noticed and has some interesting thoughts about that trend. I'm not clergy but I have performed several weddings as a deputy civil marriage commissioner. I've also conducted several  funerals. And my record so far is perfect. Everyone I've married is still married and everyone I've buried is still dead.

Voices Methodists need to hear in LGBTQ struggle: 10-25-18

The United Methodist Church -- a 12-million-member denomination that includes about seven million Americans -- is considering three plans for how to answer the questions regarding possible ordination of LGBTQ pastors and of same-sex marriage.

At the moment, the church's rules forbid such ordination and forbid pastors from officiating at such weddings.

I already have weighed in here on the three plans, describing them as inadequate and flawed. And earlier I wrote this column about the efforts of the Rev. Adam Hamilton, founding pastor of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in suburban Leawood, Kan., to prevent a schism in the denomination.

The decision about all of this won't come until next year, but I find it intriguing that the internal Methodist debate is resulting in publication of books that the authors, no doubt, hope influence the outcome. What's also interesting, though I'm not sure what to make of it, is that the two books I have in mind have been published by Westminster John Knox Press, the publishing house of the Presbyterian Church (USA), the denomination to which my congregation belongs.

One is Surrendering My Ordination: Standing Up for Gay and Lesbian Inclusivity in the United Methodist Church, by J. Philip Wogaman.

Wogaman, now a professor emeritus of Christian ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary, had been ordained as a United Methodist pastor for some 60 years. But in May 2017 he gave up his ordination. He didn't leave the church or ask others to give up their ordinations. But he felt it was a personal act he could do to support changes in church rules to allow ordination of otherwise-qualified gays and lesbians.

Wogaman describes a case of a woman in a same-sex marriage whose ordination was being stalled or prevented. He knew the woman and was deeply troubled by the denomination's actions: "How could I remain in the clergy circle when such a fine person was excluded?" he writes. "I had to act."

So he gave up his ordination, but asked others not to: "If you think as I do, let me be your representative, carrying with me your affirmation of those who have been excluded and your resolve to seek healing of church law and practice."

Wogaman's short book (113 pages) fills in the story. He's not exactly a voice crying in the wilderness, but his is an important voice that the church would do well to hear.

Another book on this subject is Together at the Table: Diversity without Division in the United Methodist Church, by Karen P. Oliveto, described as "the first openly LGBTQ bishop in the United Methodist Church."

Oliveto's election as a bishop in 2016 was then -- and remains now -- controversial, though the denomination has not overturned that election or refused to let her serve.

This book, focused on the sacrament of Holy Communion, or the Eucharist, is a plea for finding what connects people and rejecting what divides them.

"We need to understand and embrace our connectedness now more than ever before," she writes. "We need to restore our relationship with the earth, with all living creatures, with one another. We cannot erect walls to keep us separate."

Her argument is that at the Communion Table, "enemies become friends, strangers become companions and community is established and affirmed. Differences are not diminished but are welcomed."

Whether such thinking can prevent schism in the United Methodist Church is unclear. What is clear is that unless voices like Oliveto's and Wogaman's are listened to carefully, schism may be inevitable. And what a terrible witness to the world that would be.

(To read my own essay on what the Bible really says about homosexuality, click here.)

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TIME FOR MR. AND MRS. PRIEST?

It looks as if the question of whether there should be married priests in the Catholic Church is working its way toward some kind of official discussion, this Associated Press story reports. It certainly would help with the growing priest shortage around the world. And the Protestant experience with married clergy has been mostly good, though there can be problems with both models.