I took a couple of ethics classes in college, but natural law was only given a cursory review, so I only had a limited understanding of the concept. I’ve always wanted to know more about it, so while doing my walking this week, I decided to listen to a lecture series on natural law taught by Father Joseph Koterski, S.J., a Jesuit priest and associate professor of philosophy at Fordham University.
Natural law starts with the presumption that there is a higher law than the written, legislative laws of a particular state and the customs and mores of a society. Father Koterski gives us three examples to help us understand. The play Antigone by Sophocles (441 BCE) tells the story of a woman who gives her brother a proper burial after the ruler of Thebes decrees that he is not to be honored with a burial. Antigone claims this simply isn’t right, and Creon, the ruler, is being unjust despite the fact that he is the authentic leader and lawgiver of the city. The Nazis were tried for crimes against humanity at Nuremburg because none of the laws of the Allied nations applied since the Nazis operated outside of their jurisdiction, and the Nazis were careful to create a legal framework for their aims inside of Germany. Martin Luther King said segregation violated a higher law.
Natural law theory starts with Aristotle. Aristotle believed that things have a basic nature that exists in nascent form from the very beginning, and this nature is driving toward a particular goal or telos. The essence of an oak tree exists in the acorn, and it is the telos of an acorn to become an oak tree. Beings have an instinctive, intrinsic understanding of this telos, but it takes discipline to achieve this goal smartly and efficiently.
Natural law also draws on the Stoics who believed in living in harmony with nature and stressed balance.
Natural law didn’t take off within Christianity until Thomas Aquinas advocated the idea in the 13th century. Before then, church leaders were skeptical of the ability of humans to figure out right and wrong on their own because of the concept of original sin, especially as espoused by Augustine in the 4th century. Augustine believed that human nature was fundamentally flawed and fallen due to Adam’s original sin. To be moral in the early church was to be obedient to revealed law. Aquinas focused on another part of the Adam and Eve story, the part about how human beings were made in the image of God. He concluded that our powers of reason were unique and God-like, and our reason was restored to a large degree through grace after accepting Jesus through faith. Aquinas didn’t dismiss Augustine’s views, but he wasn’t so pessimistic about the abilities of the faithful.
From there you get Christians insisting that they know the nature of things and their telos by way of their God-like reasoning, and anyone who doesn’t agree is unfaithful, sinful and confused about reality.
It’s assumed that the nature of human beings is to propagate the species by marrying and rising children in stable homes. Any attempt to thwart reproduction is supposedly a violation of this telos. Every embryo is a human in acorn form, and to thwart it or view it in any other way is a violation of its telos. Every human being must be allowed to live out their natural life, and no one can participate in euthanasia with or without the patient’s consent because that’s a violation of our telos, our goal, of our natural law. Men and women are given specific roles to play in the process of continuing our species. It’s all black and white. No grey. To act outside of these roles is to violate natural law. If you disagree, then your God-like reasoning process is messed up do to your obvious faithlessness and sinfulness.
All of this reminded me of the time Rick Santorum insisted that marriage equality is wrong because people of the same sex getting married simply isn’t marriage. He pointed to a glass of water and said it was a glass of water no matter if you insisted it was something else. In his mind, he knew the truth because he had been taught he was looking at the world with God-like reason and those who disagreed with him were messed up in some way.
LGBT people know what it’s like to live outside of the laws and customs of their society. They know what it’s like to rely on and believe in truth that supersedes common beliefs, but that’s because we know what it’s like to be LGBT, and we know from first hand experience that the laws and customs against us are based on false assumptions and assertions.
Many believe in God, but it’s not a forgone conclusion that God is real. And even if you do have faith, I think it’s extremely arrogant to assume your powers of reason are God-like. Humans make stupid mistakes with great regularity, and they often have a hard time figuring out the most basic concepts. Is that really God-like reasoning in play? If so, God help us. And even if something has an intrinsic nature, how arrogant to assume you know that nature so clearly.
I think if you want to understand human nature better, you might pay more attention to biology and psychology. (Well, to be fair, Father Koterski did refer to an expert on psychology to justify his natural law assumptions about sexuality and gender. He spoke of Freud. Never mind that Freud formulated his ideas without the benefit of scholarly research and that his views are now widely thought of as outdated and false.) I think human experience and science indicates sex and gender are not black and white, and sexuality isn’t merely a matter of reproduction. And I don’t think it takes a genus to figure out that if we really are interested in the survival of our species, it’s probably not a good idea to overpopulate the earth.
I don’t pretend to know with absolute assurance what is right and wrong, and I don’t work from a systematic understanding of ethics. I’m flying by the seat of my pants. I am glad to have a better understanding of natural law, but I don’t think much of it or those who use it in an attempt to give legitimacy to their claims about morality.
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
Saturday, March 26, 2016
Realistic Goals
This past week while doing my daily walks, I listened to lecture series on cognitive behavior therapy taught by Jason M. Satterfield, Ph.D., Professor of Clinical Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Cognitive behavior therapy is not the type of therapy I had in my youth, so I wasn’t quite sure what it was, but now I have a clearer picture of it. So that’s good.
CBT is symptom based and generally short term. There’s this thing called the CBT triangle that’s examined in therapy, and the three points are behavior, cognition and emotions and how those things influence and connect to one another. People have little control of their emotions, so the therapist tries to help you focus on thoughts and behaviors that are driving those emotions. Thoughts are either helpful or hurtful, so the therapist attempts to assist you supplant hurtful thoughts with positive ones. There are other methods used to assist you like meditation and visualization. It’s a very practical approach, and the therapist encourages you to set realistic goals. In other words, Satterfield doesn’t promise you a rose garden.
Unlike a quack you might see on the Oprah Show who insists that if you buy his book, your life will be nothing but sunshine and daisies from here on out, Satterfield gives some stone cold facts about human behavior. He’s a scientist, and what he’s offering is science based, so he doesn’t sugarcoat anything. It was a bit of a downer hearing all of that. Addicts are apt to fall off the wagon. Those who have experienced a depressive episode are more likely to experience another, and after two, your changes of having a third increase even more. It keeps going like that until a future episode is almost a sure thing. Those who experience social anxiety are likely to never be the life of the party. And those who want to lose weight might lose a few pounds but then gain it back within a year.
According to Satterfield, nearly 70% of adults in the U.S. are overweight, and about half of those are obese. That statistic is way up sense the ’60s and early ’70s. Something is happening in society at large, so it’s not merely a matter of a lack of will power. And this phenomenon is not confined to the U.S. Satterfield claims it is expected that nearly 60% of the world’s population will be overweight by 2030. Maybe humans simply aren’t designed to deal with an abundance of food. On the bright side, it’s better to have overweight people than starving people.
A few years ago, I discovered William Gedney’s Appalachian poverty photos from the ’60s. They resonated with me because they reminded me of my early childhood. The people in the photos were often very thin. But that’s not because they had better eating habits back then. They couldn’t afford to buy enough food.
Satterfield recommends that you look at things in a more sensible way. Practicality is a big part of CBT. People often make themselves miserable by expecting too much of themselves and others. If you’re overweight, you might not ever look like a fashion model or the personal trainer at the gym. But you can lose a few pounds, increase your fitness level, and prevent yourself from gaining any more weight. If you have serious social anxiety, that might always be with you, but you might be able to make a few friends and establish a strong social network. If you’re prone to depression, you can learn to weather the storms a little better. Perfection isn’t the goal. Doing reasonably better is the thing to aim for.
May you have freedom. May you have peace. May you have grace and courage.
CBT is symptom based and generally short term. There’s this thing called the CBT triangle that’s examined in therapy, and the three points are behavior, cognition and emotions and how those things influence and connect to one another. People have little control of their emotions, so the therapist tries to help you focus on thoughts and behaviors that are driving those emotions. Thoughts are either helpful or hurtful, so the therapist attempts to assist you supplant hurtful thoughts with positive ones. There are other methods used to assist you like meditation and visualization. It’s a very practical approach, and the therapist encourages you to set realistic goals. In other words, Satterfield doesn’t promise you a rose garden.
Unlike a quack you might see on the Oprah Show who insists that if you buy his book, your life will be nothing but sunshine and daisies from here on out, Satterfield gives some stone cold facts about human behavior. He’s a scientist, and what he’s offering is science based, so he doesn’t sugarcoat anything. It was a bit of a downer hearing all of that. Addicts are apt to fall off the wagon. Those who have experienced a depressive episode are more likely to experience another, and after two, your changes of having a third increase even more. It keeps going like that until a future episode is almost a sure thing. Those who experience social anxiety are likely to never be the life of the party. And those who want to lose weight might lose a few pounds but then gain it back within a year.
According to Satterfield, nearly 70% of adults in the U.S. are overweight, and about half of those are obese. That statistic is way up sense the ’60s and early ’70s. Something is happening in society at large, so it’s not merely a matter of a lack of will power. And this phenomenon is not confined to the U.S. Satterfield claims it is expected that nearly 60% of the world’s population will be overweight by 2030. Maybe humans simply aren’t designed to deal with an abundance of food. On the bright side, it’s better to have overweight people than starving people.
A few years ago, I discovered William Gedney’s Appalachian poverty photos from the ’60s. They resonated with me because they reminded me of my early childhood. The people in the photos were often very thin. But that’s not because they had better eating habits back then. They couldn’t afford to buy enough food.
Satterfield recommends that you look at things in a more sensible way. Practicality is a big part of CBT. People often make themselves miserable by expecting too much of themselves and others. If you’re overweight, you might not ever look like a fashion model or the personal trainer at the gym. But you can lose a few pounds, increase your fitness level, and prevent yourself from gaining any more weight. If you have serious social anxiety, that might always be with you, but you might be able to make a few friends and establish a strong social network. If you’re prone to depression, you can learn to weather the storms a little better. Perfection isn’t the goal. Doing reasonably better is the thing to aim for.
May you have freedom. May you have peace. May you have grace and courage.
Wednesday, March 23, 2016
The Angry Heavenly Overseer
If there is a god, I don’t think this god expects, wants or demands worship, sacrifices or adherence to any rules. I think religion is for human beings, not a god.
I think when early humans developed a larger brain, they began to contemplate the mystery of life, and they sensed their environment was infused with spirit. Maybe they were right and there was some unseen force in the world, or maybe that sensation and belief was something their imagination imposed on reality as a kind of quirk of the human mind.
When the Neolithic Revolution occurred about 10,000 years ago, human beings began to raise crops and livestock. This meant that human beings were now fixed to one spot. They couldn’t easily pick up and move on if conditions were unfavorable where they were at. They became dependent on the right weather conditions. This caused them to look at the skies and notice seasons and patterns in weather. And I think this is when human beings began to think that God (or gods or a spiritual force) was not part of nature but over and above it, and when things weren’t going right, that meant that God was angry. I think that led to the idea that worship, sacrifice and following certain rules and rituals would satisfy the heavenly overseer and they would be blessed with the right amount of rain and sunshine and safety from invading neighbors.
I think when early humans developed a larger brain, they began to contemplate the mystery of life, and they sensed their environment was infused with spirit. Maybe they were right and there was some unseen force in the world, or maybe that sensation and belief was something their imagination imposed on reality as a kind of quirk of the human mind.
When the Neolithic Revolution occurred about 10,000 years ago, human beings began to raise crops and livestock. This meant that human beings were now fixed to one spot. They couldn’t easily pick up and move on if conditions were unfavorable where they were at. They became dependent on the right weather conditions. This caused them to look at the skies and notice seasons and patterns in weather. And I think this is when human beings began to think that God (or gods or a spiritual force) was not part of nature but over and above it, and when things weren’t going right, that meant that God was angry. I think that led to the idea that worship, sacrifice and following certain rules and rituals would satisfy the heavenly overseer and they would be blessed with the right amount of rain and sunshine and safety from invading neighbors.
Thursday, March 10, 2016
Reading Between the Lines
Recently, I listened to a lecture series about the origins of religion from an archeological perspective taught by Professor John Hale. It was 36 lectures long, but even Professor Hale admits that was merely the tip of the iceberg.
Interestingly, there is evidence that even the Neanderthals ritualized the burial of their dead. They laid their dead to rest in caves. Then we get those early prehistoric cave paintings. Throughout the ages and across many cultures, caves, both natural and artificial, have been used as sacred spaces. Even churches and cathedrals can be dark and cave-like. The cave is all about the womb and Earth Mother and the mysterious forces of birth and creativity. Animism was also quite common in these early hunting and gathering cultures. Everything had spirit. Everything was sacred.
Then something happened about 10,000 years ago during the Neolithic Revolution. When human beings gradually transitioned from hunting and gathering societies to agriculture based societies, they began to focus on the sky, toward the sun, seasons and weather. Of course, that makes sense because they were much more dependent on the seasons and weather now that they were fixed to one location. They couldn’t just pick up and move. They needed conditions to be right where they were. Their lives depended on it.
I think this is were you get the idea of a moody god that needs to be appeased with worship and sacrifices. Sacrificial religious activities spread everywhere. They were very common. They were common in the ancient Mediterranean world and the Middle East. It’s no wonder that this idea was so strong with the ancient Jews. That’s what the Temple in Jerusalem was all about. Many Jews went to Jerusalem during Passover so they could have a priest sacrifice their lamb in the Temple.
With the advent of agriculture, you gradually get civilization, greater specialization, and private property, wealth and status. Some have more money, land and status, and this leads to political and military power.
I think apocalypticism and Jesus’ message is a reaction to the inherent injustice of a stratified society, and specifically to Roman occupation and elite Jewish authorities in control of the Temple who capitulated to Rome. I think Jesus imagined a more just, equitable and compassionate society, and I think he was killed because he challenged the status quo. I think it was only after he was killed that some of his followers superimposed this sacrificial scheme onto his message as a way of making sense of his death and continuing the message. Sacrifice was already a deeply entrenched idea in the culture.
Can I prove this? No, I can’t. Admittedly, I’m reading between the lines (with the help of several Biblical scholars). But there isn’t any actual proof that Jesus died for our sins either.
Interestingly, there is evidence that even the Neanderthals ritualized the burial of their dead. They laid their dead to rest in caves. Then we get those early prehistoric cave paintings. Throughout the ages and across many cultures, caves, both natural and artificial, have been used as sacred spaces. Even churches and cathedrals can be dark and cave-like. The cave is all about the womb and Earth Mother and the mysterious forces of birth and creativity. Animism was also quite common in these early hunting and gathering cultures. Everything had spirit. Everything was sacred.
Then something happened about 10,000 years ago during the Neolithic Revolution. When human beings gradually transitioned from hunting and gathering societies to agriculture based societies, they began to focus on the sky, toward the sun, seasons and weather. Of course, that makes sense because they were much more dependent on the seasons and weather now that they were fixed to one location. They couldn’t just pick up and move. They needed conditions to be right where they were. Their lives depended on it.
I think this is were you get the idea of a moody god that needs to be appeased with worship and sacrifices. Sacrificial religious activities spread everywhere. They were very common. They were common in the ancient Mediterranean world and the Middle East. It’s no wonder that this idea was so strong with the ancient Jews. That’s what the Temple in Jerusalem was all about. Many Jews went to Jerusalem during Passover so they could have a priest sacrifice their lamb in the Temple.
With the advent of agriculture, you gradually get civilization, greater specialization, and private property, wealth and status. Some have more money, land and status, and this leads to political and military power.
I think apocalypticism and Jesus’ message is a reaction to the inherent injustice of a stratified society, and specifically to Roman occupation and elite Jewish authorities in control of the Temple who capitulated to Rome. I think Jesus imagined a more just, equitable and compassionate society, and I think he was killed because he challenged the status quo. I think it was only after he was killed that some of his followers superimposed this sacrificial scheme onto his message as a way of making sense of his death and continuing the message. Sacrifice was already a deeply entrenched idea in the culture.
Can I prove this? No, I can’t. Admittedly, I’m reading between the lines (with the help of several Biblical scholars). But there isn’t any actual proof that Jesus died for our sins either.
Wednesday, March 9, 2016
They Laughed
Click here to listen to a recording of Reagan's press secretary laughing about gay men dying of AIDS.
This short recording really brings things back. It demonstrates the Reagan Administration’s utter contempt for LGBTs, but it also reminds us how extremely homophobic our culture used to be. Reagan got away with ignoring the AIDS crisis, politically speaking, because most people just didn’t care and didn’t want to hear about it. Reagan’s press secretary laughed and made a joke of it when he was told about gay men dying of a mysterious illness. He laughed. He thought it was funny that gay men were dying. But the White House press corps also laughed. The press secretary wasn’t the only one laughing.
Back then, we were held in such contempt that respected, upstanding, educated citizens could openly laugh about us dying without fear of paying a social price. No one was going to think less of them for laughing at a dying homo.
That’s where we were then. Who has the strength to live in a society where respectable people can laugh at you if you’re dying?
This short recording really brings things back. It demonstrates the Reagan Administration’s utter contempt for LGBTs, but it also reminds us how extremely homophobic our culture used to be. Reagan got away with ignoring the AIDS crisis, politically speaking, because most people just didn’t care and didn’t want to hear about it. Reagan’s press secretary laughed and made a joke of it when he was told about gay men dying of a mysterious illness. He laughed. He thought it was funny that gay men were dying. But the White House press corps also laughed. The press secretary wasn’t the only one laughing.
Back then, we were held in such contempt that respected, upstanding, educated citizens could openly laugh about us dying without fear of paying a social price. No one was going to think less of them for laughing at a dying homo.
That’s where we were then. Who has the strength to live in a society where respectable people can laugh at you if you’re dying?
End Times
I heard a lot of talk about the “end times” and Armageddon when I was growing up. The old bromide that we live in an increasingly wicked and doomed world could pop up in conversation at any time. Adults would warn about this, and TV preachers would spew scary sermons about how we had better be prepared because it could happen at any moment.
Armageddon talk was usually triggered by something the doomsayer didn’t like…a TV show with a gay character, a movie showing naked people, music that wasn’t considered wholesome, women wearing pants. It was an accusation. The underlying message was that this world was going along pretty good until these nasty people messed things up.
Armageddon talk was usually triggered by something the doomsayer didn’t like…a TV show with a gay character, a movie showing naked people, music that wasn’t considered wholesome, women wearing pants. It was an accusation. The underlying message was that this world was going along pretty good until these nasty people messed things up.
But the world hadn’t been going along pretty good. The world has always been pretty shitty for a large number of people, and the things the fundamentalists were complaining about seemed pretty petty. Is seeing a naked ass on the big screen really all that horrible compared to slavery and genocide?
They used it as an excuse to turn their back on everything and everyone they didn’t like or understand, while proclaiming themselves to be morally superior. It was the fundamentalist equivalent of a “humph.”
Back then, when they got into the specifics, they were sure, absolutely sure, that it would all come to a showdown between the United States (the good guys) and the Soviet Union (the bad guys).
Now that the Cold War has been resolved, they plug in new conflicts and recycle the same old bullshit and pretend they never made those earlier bad predictions.
I’ve been hearing about the “signs” since I was a baby, and I figured out early on that if I strayed too far from their aesthetic, I might become a “sign” myself. I lived in fear of the putdown, the humph, the rejection, and when I figured out I was gay at age 11, I was sure that many in my family and community would insist that I was one of those nasty so-and-sos who was going to cause God to destroy the world if they found out about me.
The funny thing is, the people who continuously made the dire predictions never actually seemed to prepare for them. They continued to buy stuff and make plans for upcoming weddings and vacations.
And aren’t the fundamentalists supposed to be looking forward to this cataclysmic event where all of us sinners get our just desserts while they float up in the sky to be with Jesus?
They used it as an excuse to turn their back on everything and everyone they didn’t like or understand, while proclaiming themselves to be morally superior. It was the fundamentalist equivalent of a “humph.”
Back then, when they got into the specifics, they were sure, absolutely sure, that it would all come to a showdown between the United States (the good guys) and the Soviet Union (the bad guys).
Now that the Cold War has been resolved, they plug in new conflicts and recycle the same old bullshit and pretend they never made those earlier bad predictions.
I’ve been hearing about the “signs” since I was a baby, and I figured out early on that if I strayed too far from their aesthetic, I might become a “sign” myself. I lived in fear of the putdown, the humph, the rejection, and when I figured out I was gay at age 11, I was sure that many in my family and community would insist that I was one of those nasty so-and-sos who was going to cause God to destroy the world if they found out about me.
The funny thing is, the people who continuously made the dire predictions never actually seemed to prepare for them. They continued to buy stuff and make plans for upcoming weddings and vacations.
And aren’t the fundamentalists supposed to be looking forward to this cataclysmic event where all of us sinners get our just desserts while they float up in the sky to be with Jesus?
Inerrant? Are you shitting me?
“Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.”
Romans 1:26-27 (NIV)
Fundamentalists insist that this is a condemnation of homosexuality. Maybe it is. But if you keep reading, you get to this…
“Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.”
Ephesians 6:5 (NIV)
Take this literally? Believe it is the inerrant word of God? I don’t think so. This looks like the errant word of human beings to me.
Romans 1:26-27 (NIV)
Fundamentalists insist that this is a condemnation of homosexuality. Maybe it is. But if you keep reading, you get to this…
“Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.”
Ephesians 6:5 (NIV)
Take this literally? Believe it is the inerrant word of God? I don’t think so. This looks like the errant word of human beings to me.
Tuesday, March 8, 2016
Fundamentalism
I think fundamentalism is based on the idea of a singular, cohesive, objective truth, and I think Christian fundamentalists claim this truth comes from the Bible. But I suspect a large number of Christian fundamentalists don’t actually read the Bible all that much. They merely assume they know the important parts. Others might read it, but with preconceived notions of what they will find and what it all means. In other words, I think they attempt to reconcile what they read with what they already believe even though they claim their beliefs come from the Bible.
I personally don’t find a cohesive message. I think each of the four Gospels are distinctive, but they all give me the impression that Jesus was concerned with interpreting Jewish law in a compassionate way. But I don’t think he gives a systematic interpretation that we could extrapolate to any and all circumstances.
Jesus seems concerned with comforting people in their minds and bodies. I’m skeptical of the miracles, but Jesus seems to perform them in order to help those he encounters. He feeds the hungry, heals the sick, raises recently passed loved ones from the dead, and rids people of the torment of demons. He seems to urge his followers to adopt a more generous and compassionate attitude, especially toward the poor.
Of course, the accounts of Jesus’ life were written decades after Jesus died in a language not his own by anonymous authors, and we don’t have a single original manuscript. I can see how the story of Jesus’ life as we know it can be compelling, but the fact that it comes to us in such a mysterious way doesn’t seem to bother the fundamentalists.
After the Gospels and Acts, we get to Paul’s letters. Paul doesn’t seem to be much interested in Jesus’ life. For Paul, it’s all about believing in Jesus as a blood sacrifice. This, according to Paul, is what is important, and believing this is what saves us. He claims the law doesn’t save, but, on the other hand, he urges Christians to follow it, but only the parts that apply to everybody. He doesn’t think Christians should become Jews. I don’t think he provides a method for us to determine which laws are for Jews only and which ones are for everybody. I don’t think Paul’s theology is cohesive, and I don’t think it is in lockstep with the Gospels.
I think it’s important to keep in mind that we’re reading Paul’s letters which he wrote to specific communities and for specific purposes. Maybe he would have said something different if he knew we’d be reading the letters 2,000 years later. Maybe he wrote other letters that have been lost. What did they say? Maybe he changed his mind about certain things. Some of the letters that made their way into the New Testament might not have been written by Paul.
I’m sure there are fundamentalists who would be glade to help me reconcile all of these things. I’ve heard at least some of their explanations, and I’ve noticed lots of discrepancies. Those who claim there is one, cohesive message don’t seem to agree on what that message is. So far, I remain unconvinced that the Bible gives a clear, objective message. I believe that if there were a loving god who expected us to follow a set of rules to the letter and intended to punish us if we didn't, that god would have provided the rules to us in a way that we can all understand.
I personally don’t find a cohesive message. I think each of the four Gospels are distinctive, but they all give me the impression that Jesus was concerned with interpreting Jewish law in a compassionate way. But I don’t think he gives a systematic interpretation that we could extrapolate to any and all circumstances.
Jesus seems concerned with comforting people in their minds and bodies. I’m skeptical of the miracles, but Jesus seems to perform them in order to help those he encounters. He feeds the hungry, heals the sick, raises recently passed loved ones from the dead, and rids people of the torment of demons. He seems to urge his followers to adopt a more generous and compassionate attitude, especially toward the poor.
Of course, the accounts of Jesus’ life were written decades after Jesus died in a language not his own by anonymous authors, and we don’t have a single original manuscript. I can see how the story of Jesus’ life as we know it can be compelling, but the fact that it comes to us in such a mysterious way doesn’t seem to bother the fundamentalists.
After the Gospels and Acts, we get to Paul’s letters. Paul doesn’t seem to be much interested in Jesus’ life. For Paul, it’s all about believing in Jesus as a blood sacrifice. This, according to Paul, is what is important, and believing this is what saves us. He claims the law doesn’t save, but, on the other hand, he urges Christians to follow it, but only the parts that apply to everybody. He doesn’t think Christians should become Jews. I don’t think he provides a method for us to determine which laws are for Jews only and which ones are for everybody. I don’t think Paul’s theology is cohesive, and I don’t think it is in lockstep with the Gospels.
I think it’s important to keep in mind that we’re reading Paul’s letters which he wrote to specific communities and for specific purposes. Maybe he would have said something different if he knew we’d be reading the letters 2,000 years later. Maybe he wrote other letters that have been lost. What did they say? Maybe he changed his mind about certain things. Some of the letters that made their way into the New Testament might not have been written by Paul.
I’m sure there are fundamentalists who would be glade to help me reconcile all of these things. I’ve heard at least some of their explanations, and I’ve noticed lots of discrepancies. Those who claim there is one, cohesive message don’t seem to agree on what that message is. So far, I remain unconvinced that the Bible gives a clear, objective message. I believe that if there were a loving god who expected us to follow a set of rules to the letter and intended to punish us if we didn't, that god would have provided the rules to us in a way that we can all understand.
Friday, March 4, 2016
Shake It Up
For the last four years, Eli has been all business. He has a near perfect GPA, and he did great on his SATs. He dressed preppy, got involved in student government, and now he was heading toward the Ivy League in the fall. But there was one thing Eli wanted that he didn’t have—jock boy Hunter.
Eli had finally talked Hunter into going out with him last weekend, and he thought the date was going well, but at the end of the night, all Hunter did was give him a chaste little kiss and told him that maybe he would call him. Eli knew he was getting the brush off, and he almost accepted it, but before getting out of Hunter’s car and letting the dream of the hot football player go, Eli said, “What is it? I thought we had a good time tonight. I had a good time.”
Hunter said, “You’re a sweet kid, Eli, but you seem so innocent. It makes me feel a little creepy. …I guess I prefer to date guys who aren’t so buttoned down.”
The next morning, Eli didn’t put on his customary chinos. Instead he slid on the tightest pair of jeans he owned, and that morning at school, he waited at his locker for Hunter to show up. Then he started twerking in a way that let Hunter and everybody else know that he wasn’t a “sweet kid.” If Hunter wanted sexy, he’d give him sexy.
Hunter stood there stunned, and when Eli was finished, he got his books and said to Hunter has he passed him, “If you have the balls to take me out again, I’ll do that while sitting on your lap.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)