Recent

Social Aspects of Early Christianity

by Abraham Malherbe (l983), reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

I know it’s an old book, but after I reread it after many years I realized how insightful Malherbe had been in focusing differently on the biblical writings.

One of the major changes in the biblical landscape has been the interest in religious studies in universities and colleges not affiliated with ecclesial bodies; ‘the perspective from which early Christianity is studied is no longer that of the church’ (p 3).

Malherbe widens the interpretation of early Christian literate and the communities with which the writings are associated.  ‘It is at least possible that some documents were rescued from obscurity not because they represented the viewpoints of communities but precisely because they challenged them.  It is too facile to view literature as the simple product of communities; (p 13).  And the New Testament deals with concrete situations and should be understood in relation to these precise situations.  Any sustained attempt at homogenization will lead to imprecision’ (p 17).

Malherbe cites writers whose emphases have been on the historical/cultural background of the material.  Where church history tended to emphasize doctrinal development, he (and others like Wayne Meeks and Gerd Theissen) worked at sociological analysis, and characterization of belief and ethics seen from the reactions of the biblical letters.

Social Aspects probes church history with analysis of literary scope, house churches and hospitality (with particular reference to 3 John).

Of sharp interest to me was his treatment of thiasos, ‘guild’ or ‘association’, which was one of the names given to the early Christian bodies (pp 88-91).

A good read, again and still! And a helpful hermeneutic.

Vern Ratzlaff is a pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

From Jesus to Christianity

by L. Michael White (2004), reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

A fascinating summary of the first four generations of storytellers who created the New Testament and Christian faith, the story of the origins and developments of the Christian movement as told by the people who lived it.  White deals with the story as reflecting four generations (a generation is about forty years).

The first generation runs from the death of Jesus to the end of the first Jewish revolt against Rome (70 CE); the second generation runs from 70-110 CE and deals with the changes that took place within the Jewish movement; tensions between the Jesus sect and other Jews begin to emerge; the third generation (110-150) shows the movement breaking away from its Jewish roots and becoming a separate institution; issues of church leadership, relation to the Roman state and regional diversity make up this period; the fourth generation (150-190) sees the Christian movement coming of age socially and intellectually.

This is the generation that sees the first efforts to shape the New Testament canon.  ‘The New Testament is the source for much of our understanding of the development of early Christianity, but it is also a product of the development.’

White writes a fascinating story of that dialogue, probing the implications of the oral traditions that shaped the written form (p 118).  One example:  Paul’s account of the institution of the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor 11:23-26); the account of the Lord’s Supper is about 30 CE, Paul’s letter is about 53 CE, the written form (the gospels) are 70 CE (or later).  Of real value is White’s summary of non-canonical writings that shaped the developing theology of the community of faith (eg 1st Enoch, Gnostic writings, Acts of Paul and Thecla).

A superb read of the origins of our canon and our faith.

The Social Gospel of Jesus

by Bruce Malina (2001), review by Vern Ratzlaff

‘The Bible is necessarily misunderstood if one’s reading of it is not grounded in an appreciation of the social system from which its documents arose’ (p 5).  This is the basic orientation of Malina’s discussion of the New Testament documents, as he examines cultural anthropological dimensions and backgrounds.

Malina identifies the social institutions comprising the biblical story:  kinship, politics, religion and economics (of which only kinship and politics were of explicit focal concern’ (p 5). Biblical authors never spoke of economics simply…the vocabulary of the various ideologies expressed in the bible worked within kinship and politics.  ‘Religion is to be understood through belonging and power (not reasoned influence).  Economics is meaningless unless convertible into honour, and thus has no focus in and of itself’ (p 17).

The two major Mediterranean social institutions were kinship and politics; patronage marked the relationships within these.  Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom of G-d challenges these institutions and their embodiment in Roman structures.  For the Kingdom of G-d to make sense to Israelites living in Galilee and Judea, it would have to speak to what was wrong:  ‘the Roman political economy and its appropriation by the local Israelite aristocracy.  This is  the role that the G-d of Israel would play on behalf of his people: not that of monarch but of ‘Father’ (p 84).  ‘The kingdom of G-d was to take the form of personal and representative theocracy’ (p 161).

A good treatment of the interplay of social structures in Jesus’s proclamation.

Vern Ratzlaff is a pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

News, views, notes, and quotes

Signs of the Times  •  23 June 2016  •  No. 78

Processional. “Siyahamb’ e-kukhanyen’ kwenkhos" (“We are marching in the light of God”), Oração popular da África do Sul.

Above: Strawberry Moon Over Yellowstone-Full Moon on Summer Solstice. Photo by Bruce Gourley.

Invocation. “Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin / Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in / Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove / Dance me to the end of love.” —Leonard Cohen's "Dance Me to the End of Love" performed by Madeleine Peyroux (Thanks Mark.)

A special issue on
July 4th, US Independence Day

Call to worship. “Be forewarned, you nation of frivolous piety: / You who turn the Most High God into a mascot for your charade of innocence while deceitfully invoking the Sovereign’s blessings on your affairs. / Let there be no more God bless America, for your hands are full of blood.” —continue reading Ken Sehested’s “Nation of frivolous piety,” a litany for worship on patriotic occasions

Liberty Bell history. “There are four great ironies behind the ‘Liberty Bell,’ associated with the founding convictions of the United States of America and inscribed with the phrase ‘Proclaim Liberty throughout the land and unto the inhabitants thereof.’” —continue reading Ken Sehested’s “Proclaim liberty throughout the land: History of the Liberty Bell”

Oligarchy rising. A new study by political scientists Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page concludes “that rich people and organizations representing business interests have a powerful grip on U.S. government policy. After examining differences in public opinion across income groups on a wide variety of issues, the researchers found that the preferences of rich people had a much bigger impact on subsequent policy decisions than the views of middle-income and poor Americans. Indeed, the opinions of lower-income groups, and the interest groups that represent them, appear to have little or no independent impact on policy.” —John Cassidy, The New Yorker

In July 2015 Former US President Jimmy Carter, on the national syndicated radio broadcast “Tom Hartmann Program,” said the US is now an “oligarchy” in which “unlimited political bribery” has created “a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors.” —Jon Schwarz, The Intercept

Hymn of praise. “This Land Is Your Land,” Woody Guthrie.

 ¶ A collection of quotes on “freedom” and its many—often competing—meanings.

        § “Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” —James Madison, considered the “father” of the U.S. Constitution and fourth president of the US, in "Political Observations" (1795)

        §  “We are willing enough to praise freedom when she is safely tucked away in the past and cannot be a nuisance. In the present, amidst dangers whose outcome we cannot foresee, we get nervous about her, and admit censorship.” —E.M. Forster (1879–1970), British novelist, essayist

        § “Unlike most countries, we have no overt national religion; but a partly concealed one has been developing among us for two centuries now. A religion of the self burgeons, under many names, and seeks to know its own inwardness, in isolation. What the American self has found, since about 1800, is its own freedom—from the world, from time, from other selves.” —Harold Bloom, The American Religion

Left: "Freedom Tree" by Kim A. Flodin, kelekilove.com.

Confession. “Having bought truth dear, we must not sell it cheap, no not the least grain of it for the whole world.” —colonial pastor Roger Williams

        §  “It must now be obvious that we cannot live in a free, pluralistic society, enjoying our CD players and eating at Burger King and driving cars from every point on the globe without realizing that there must be a cost for such freedom. . . .” —letter to the editor, Memphis (TN) Commercial Appeal, shortly after the 1991 Gulf War

        §  “Our country has always held freedom in high regard, though these days the concept seems more likely championed by people who feel oppressed by their cell phone plan.” —Becky Upham, in “Hank III,” ashevillescene.com

        § “Altruism is incompatible with freedom, with capitalism, and with individual rights. One cannot combine the pursuit of happiness with the moral status of a sacrificial animal.” For her, the Great Commandment to love your neighbor is tantamount to “moral cannibalism.” —Ayn Rand, novelist and philosopher, The Virtue of Selfishness. US House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan credits Rand’s writing with his entry into political life.

Words of assurance. “I will lay this burden down / That I have carried for so long / My own hand placed this mark upon my brow / Don’t need to wear it now / I will water this thirsty heart / With tears of healing rain / I’ll learn to lay this burden down / And never shoulder it again / Never again.” —Aoife O'Donovan and Childsplay, "Tears of Healing Rain/ After the Rain"

        § “We know the road to freedom has always been stalked by death.” —Angela Y. Davis

        § “The vocation of humans is to enjoy their emancipation from the power of death wrought by God’s vitality in this world. The crown of life is the freedom to live now, for all the strife and ambiguity and travail, in the imminent transcendence of death, and all of death’s threats and temptations. That is the gift of God in Christ’s Resurrection.” —William Stringfellow

        § “The state can't give you freedom, and the state can't take it away. You're born with it, like your eyes, like your ears. Freedom is something you assume, then you wait for someone to try to take it away. The degree to which you resist is the degree to which you are free.” —Utah Phillips, labor organizer, folk singer, storyteller, poet and Christian pacifist

Hymn of intercession. “Freedom,” Richie Havens, improvising “Motherless Child” at Woodstock 1969.

        § “One can hope . . . that the new concern for “spirituality” that has gripped many of our contemporaries is more than just a bourgeois extension of fashionable value-prioritizing rhetoric—that is contains within itself some intuitive awareness of the need for genuine transcendence if we are to survive the self-destructive propensities of our so-called freedom.” —Canadian theologian Douglas John Hall

        § “As the British political philosopher Isaiah Berlin wrote: 'Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow.' In the absence of protections for the weak and the vulnerable, free markets can lead to oppression just as surely as unjust governments. . . .
        “Freedom? Always ask, for whom?” —George Monbiot, “This bastardised libertarianism makes 'freedom' an instrument of oppression,” The Guardian

        § “I know that sound . . . it’s the sound of freedom.” —comment in a speech by Sen. John McCain, Republican presidential candidate in 2008, during the annual motorcycle rally in Sturgis, S.D. in response to the roar of motorcycle engines revved in his support

        § What to the Slave is the Fourth July? “Had I the ability, and could I reach the nation’s ear, I would today pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake." —Frederick Douglass, 5 July 1852. Listen to James Earl Jones read Douglass’ famous address.

        § “America is beyond power, it acts as in a dream, as a face of God. Wherever America is, there is freedom, and wherever America is not, madness rules with chains, darkness strangles millions. Beneath her patient bombers, paradise is possible.” —John Updike, Rabbit Redux

Hymn of exhortation. “Oh Freedom!” The Golden Gospel Singer.

        § “Government should protect every man in thinking and speaking freely, and see that one does not abuse another. The liberty I contend for is more than toleration. The very idea of toleration is despicable; it supposes that some have a pre-eminence above the rest to grant indulgence, whereas all should be equally free, Jews, Turks, Pagans and Christians. . . . Let every man speak freely without fear, worship according to his own faith, either one God, three Gods, no God, or twenty Gods.” —Baptist pastor John Leland, in 1790, when many states had an established church

        § “The moment we choose love, we begin to move toward freedom.” —bell hooks

        §  “An enormous conflict between words and deeds is prevalent today: everyone talks about freedom, democracy, justice, human rights, about peace and saving the world from nuclear apocalypse; and at the same time, everyone, more or less, consciously or unconsciously, serves those values and ideals only to the extent necessary to serve himself and his “worldly” interests.” —Vaclav Havel, Czech writer and statesman

        § “Sometimes it seem like to tell the truth today is to run the risk of being killed. But if I fall, I'll fall five feet four inches forward in the fight for freedom. I'm not backing off.” —sharecropper and civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer

        § “The great enemy of freedom is the alignment of political power with wealth. This alignment destroys the commonwealth—that is, the natural wealth of localities and the local economies of household, neighborhood, and community — and so destroys democracy, of which the commonwealth is the foundation and practical means.” —Wendell Berry

Preach it. “Economically, freedom has come to mean resisting any restraint to the penetration and control of other countries’ economies under the guise of free trade.
        "Politically, freedom means virtually unlimited corporate investment in elections, bringing new realism to the phrase “the best politicians money can buy.”
       "Militarily, freedom is now associated with the US policy of preemptive war as articulated in the 2002 National Security Strategy, bypassing even the appearance of just war reasoning and further distancing the president’s war-making capacity from congressional control.
        "And, in the church, freedom language has come to mean don’t ask me to make commitments." —Ken Sehested

Call to the table. “Let all who are dispossessed return home. / Let all who wander find welcome at the table. / Let all who hunger for liberation / come and eat.” —Rabbi Brant Rosen, excerpt from a Passover prayer

Altar call. “After fleeing Pharaoh’s slavery through / the Red Sea’s baptism, the people of the / Most High assembled in covenant assembly / at the mountain of promise for instruction / in freedom’s demands. / Abandon every god of metal: / whether nation or spear or bandolier, / each Tomahawk and Trident, / every nuclear racketeer. / Do not sanction your vengeance by / the Name of the Beloved. / Border the harvest of your production / with fallow sabbath rest. / Not all of life can be monetized.” —continue reading Ken Sehested’s “Instruction on freedom’s demands”

Benediction. “Fear of God is not cowering, frightened intimidation. Those who fear God are not wimps and are not preoccupied with excessive need to please God. They are rather those who have arrived at a fundamental vision of reality about life with God, who have enormous power, freedom, and energy to live out that vision. Fear of God is liberating and not restrictive, because it gives confidence about the true shape of the world.” —Walter Brueggemann

Recessional. “E Te Atua” (translated from the Maori language as "ancestor with a continuing influence," sometimes as "God") performed by the Dilworth School Fortissimo Choir.

Just for fun. Take a ride on this 736 meter (nearly half a mile) slide in the Swiss Alps near Kandersteg. (1:24)

#  #  #

Featured this week on prayer&politiks:

• “Proclaim liberty throughout the land: History of the Liberty Bell”

• “Nation of frivolous piety,” a litany for worship on patriotic occasions

• “Proclaim Liberty,” a litany for worship around US Independence Day

• “Instruction on freedom’s demands,” a litany for worship

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Language not otherwise indicated above is that of the editor. Don’t let the “copyright” notice keep you from circulating material you find here (and elsewhere in this site). Reprint permission is hereby granted in advance for noncommercial purposes.

Your comments are always welcomed. If you have news, views, notes or quotes to add to the list above, please do. If you like what you read, pass this along to your friends. You can reach me directly at kensehested@prayerandpolitiks.org.

Nation of frivolous piety

A litany for worship inspired by Psalm 99 & Isaiah 1:15

by Ken Sehested

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that Divine justice cannot sleep forever. A revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is possible. The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest.*

Be forewarned, you nation of frivolous piety:

You who turn the Most High God into a mascot for your charade of innocence while deceitfully invoking the Sovereign’s blessings on your affairs.

Let there be no more God bless America, for your hands are full of blood.

Instead, let the nation bless God by its love of justice and its honoring of truth.

For the nations shall tremble, the earth shall quake, at the stirring of Holy Intent.

For the Beloved awakes to the cries of the poor, to the mourning of land and sky.

Requite and redeem by avenging mercy, O Blessed Redeemer: our hands rise in praise!

*quote from US President Thomas Jefferson, slightly adapted
©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

 

Instruction on freedom’s demands

A litany for worship, inspired by Exodus 20

by Ken Sehested

After fleeing Pharaoh’s slavery through
the Red Sea’s baptism, the people of the
Most High assembled in covenant assembly
at the mountain of promise for instruction
in freedom’s demands.

Abandon every god of metal:
      whether nation or spear or bandolier,
      each Tomahawk and Trident,
      every nuclear racketeer.
Do not sanction your vengeance by
      the Name of the Beloved.

Border the harvest of your production
      with fallow sabbath rest.
Not all of life can be monetized.

Honor your father from whose seed you now flourish;
hallow your mother, whose womb issued breath.

      Do no murder:
            life is not yours to take.
      Don’t stoop to infidelity:
            no body is available for frivolous consumption.
      Steal not:
            or you destroy life’s fabric.
      Slander not:
            you’ll poison life’s well.
      Covet not:
            your own health is tied up with
            that of your neighbor.

Let not threat of sword nor promise of reward
      cause you to forget this holy accord.

For this, now, is your creed:
      Once slaved, now freed.
            As liberated from greed,
                  by righteousness proceed.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

News, views, notes, and quotes

Signs of the Times  •  17 June 2016  •  No. 77

Processional. “Dedication,” San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus sings in solidarity with Orlando victims. (Click the “show more” button for more background. Thanks Patrick.)

View more photos of Michael Grab’s extraordinary artistry as a “rock balancer.” He uses no strings, wires or other aids—only gravity and the shape of the rocks. —Catie Leary, Mother Nature Network.  See Grab’s “Gravity Glue” page on Facebook.

Prelude: “Steal away to Jesus”
        I was planning an abbreviated edition of “Signs of the Times” to allow time this week for other projects. The Pulse nightclub butchery, in a location named by many of its patrons as a “sanctuary,” sent us all tumbling into ravaging emotions of grief, horror, anger and despair.
        I’m not alone in the work of attempting to write my way out of such despondence. (See “Hate crime vs. terrorism: How our language highlights or disguises violence.”)
        In such moments, we are inevitably caught in the conflicting needs of making sense of such tragedy and mourning it. Some do these very different tasks more or less together. Others separate them. Both demand attention, both needs must be met.
        Then my friend Susan sent this note on Facebook:
        “In the thinnest grasp on hope this morning, would folks share where they have recently witnessed kindness?”
        I knew instinctively that what I needed to do was round up a collection of stories responding to Susan’s timely plea. And there were more than I imagined—see the annotated list below. (I hope you will add your own, in the “reader comments” section at the bottom of this page.) —continue reading Ken Sehested’s “Steal Away to Jesus: When the pulse is imperiled, find what is needed to keep on keeping on”

Invocation. “Steal Away (to Jesus),” Michael Tippett arrangement, East Tennessee State University Chorale.

Call to worship. “The beginning of hope is to be conscious of despair in the very air we breathe, and to look around for something better.” —Walker Percy

Hymn of praise. “No fight left or so it seems / I am a man whose dreams have all deserted / I've changed my face, I've changed my name / But no one wants you when you lose / Don't give up / ’cause you have friends / Don't give up / You're not beaten yet / Don't give up / I know you can make it good.” —Sinead O’Connor and Willie Nelson, “Don’t Give Up”

Confession. “Come Ye Disconsolate,” Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway.

Juneteenth marks the date, 19 June 1865, when the official news of slavery’s end reached Texas.

        •“The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.” —Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger, General Orders, Number 3; Headquarters District of Texas, Galveston, June 19, 1865

        •“The slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery.” —W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction

Words of assurance. “Don't give up / It's just the weight of the world / When your heart's heavy / I will lift it for you / Don't give up / Because you want to be heard / If silence keeps you / I will break it for you.” —Gosh Groban, “You Are Loved (Don’t Give Up)”

Hymn of intercession. “Kyrie,” Emmylou Harris with John Paul White. (Thanks Randy.)

 

Candles are visible in Orlando’s dark aftermath.
You need not ignore the latter to focus on the former.

Here is some of the evidence.

        § A grandmother on her way to Orlando to be at her grandson’s funeral received a JetBlue plane load full of condolences. Her grandson, Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo, was one of those killed in the Pulse nightclub shooting. As she rolled her cart down the aisle, flight attendant Katie Davis Karas (and her co-workers) quietly asked each passenger if they would like to sign a card to the woman. Read what else happened. —Colby Itkowitz, “Orlando-bound flight crew, passengers comfort grieving grandmother," Chicago Tribune

        § “‘My Heart Has Changed': Utah Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox Apologizes To LGBT Community.” —a moving interview by Kelly McEvers, National Public Radio (audio and script)

        § “Megachurch pastor Joel Hunter: 'Evangelicals must repent of LGBT oppression.'” —Florence Taylor, christiantoday.com

        § On Tuesday evening First Baptist Church of Orlando held a special service in memory of the lives lost in the Pulse nightclub shooting. A significant contingent of the city’s LGBT community were present, and Victoria Kirby York, national campaign director of the National LGBTQ Task Force spoke.
        York, who grew up in the area, made reference to the Bible: “That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.”
        She said: “It didn’t say whosoever who’s black, or whosever that’s white, or whosever that’s Latino or Asian or indigenous. It didn’t say whoever that’s cisgender or transgender or lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer or questioning. It said whosoever, full stop. . . . “So in our prayer, I urge you tonight and every night to pray for those graceful conversations that will help bridge the gap in communities and in families here in Orlando and across the world.” —David Smith, The Guardian

        § “Queer Muslims exist—and we are in mourning, too. We are now used to the fact that, every time a criminally misguided Muslim commits an act of violence, the entire religion and all its followers are questioned and placed under suspicion in a way that isn’t replicated with other faiths. We—and this of course includes queer Muslims—have to take extra care walking down the street at night and entering our mosques for fear of Islamophobic attacks.” —Samra Habib

        § See Samra Habib’s “Just Me and Allah: A Queer Muslim Photo Project.” 

        § “Here’s Your List Of Muslim Leaders Around the World That Condemned the Massacre in Orlando.” —Evelyn Anne Crunden & Adrienne Mahsa Varkiani, Think Progress

        § “Chick-fil-A [not known as a queer-friendly company] typically closes on Sundays, but this Sunday was different. Workers from the Chick-fil-A in Orlando, Florida, went to work Sunday to offer free food to those lining up to give blood to help those injured in the shooting at LGBT club Pulse. Food went to those on line as well as law enforcement working the scene.  —Cavan Sieczkowski, Huffington Post

¶ “I was once asked by a senior British diplomat to evaluate a rural development scheme in the Caribbean run jointly by Rastafarians and Christians.  ‘Can't make it out, Elliot’ said the diplomat, ‘They give away what they don't need.  And when I asked them what it was all in aid of, d’you know what they said? ‘It's all for love, man, all for love.’ My God, Elliot. if that gets around, there's no knowing where it will end.” —Charles Elliot, Anglican priest and former director of Christian Aid, an ecumenical relief and development agency in the UK

Preach it. “There are, to be sure, moments of high drama in the / work of holy obedience. . . . / On rare occasions, the whole world is watching. / Much more often, the storyline of faith is lived without / notoriety, is forged without fanfare: / in familiar places, / in small acts of courage against petty tyrants, / with commonplace forbearance in the midst / of garden-variety stress.” —continued reading Ken Sehested’s “Faith without fanfare,” a litany for worship inspired by Galatians 5

Today is the first anniversary of the terrorist attack on Bible studiers at “Mother” Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, one of the nation’s oldest African American congregations, in Charleston, SC. Pictured at left are those who lost their lives. The shooter, 21-year-old Dylan Roof, said he hoped to start a race war.

Call to the table. Oh, you're in my blood like holy wine / You taste so bitter and so sweet / Oh, I could drink a case of you, darling / And I would still be on my feet / Oh, I would still be on my feet.” —Joni Mitchell, “A Case of You”

For the beauty of the earth. Watch the fierce beauty of lightening storm in Florida filmed at 7,000 frames per second.  —Florida Institute of Technology

Altar call. “Oh my love, you have grown so cold / To the world outside, to the house next door / She who has been loved much, has so much to give / Mercy is the fragrance, of the broken / Justice will roll down, oh justice will roll down / From high upon those mountains with a mighty river sound.” —Sandra McCracken, “Justice Will Roll Down”

On the night before my Dad’s funeral in 2001, my wife found this card (right) in his Bible. He had at some point typed it out, hunt-and-peck-one-finger method, on their old manual typewriter. Author unknown.

Like most holidays, Father’s Day has its competing histories. The dominant one seems to be the story of Sonora Smart Dodd, a woman who in 1909 wanted to honor her father, William Smart, a Civil War veteran whose wife died giving birth.
        Ironically, Ms. Dodd came up with the inspiration after hearing a Mother’s Day sermon in her church and later convinced her pastor to dedicate a Sunday to fathers. Later US presidents endorsed the idea, with Lyndon Johnson signing a declaration in 1966 and, in 1972, Richard Nixon signing legislation making it a permanent holiday.
        So the holiday, signed into law by a president who very nearly overthrew our constitutional government, is actually a recognition of the struggle of single parents. All of us with children know how difficult parenting can be even when shared by two people. So, yes, we can honor the special circumstances of single-parent households, particularly those where the surviving parent has to be less absorbed with power-tool sales and more attentive to laundry and dark-of-night cries and stretching food budgets. —Ken Sehested, from a 2005 Father’s Day sermon

Benediction. “A spontaneous prayer which—oddly, for a deep-water baptist—I’ve come to love, broke from my lips. ‘Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.
            “And also with you. To meet this day will require the fearless presence of all who live in full awareness that death does not have the last word.” —continue reading Ken Sehested’s “Hate crime vs. terrorism: How our language highlights or disguises violence”

Recessional. “As my soul slides down to die. / How could I lose him? / What did I try? / Bit by bit, I've realized / That he was here with me; / I looked into my father's eyes. / My father's eyes. / I looked into my father's eyes. / My father's eyes.” —Eric Clapton, “My Father’s Eyes”

Lectionary for Sunday next. “Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads of a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.” —Galatians 5:25-26, Eugene Peterson’s The Message translation

Just for fun. Bird goofing around with golf balls. (32 seconds.)

#  #  #

Featured this week on prayer&politiks:

• “Steal away to Jesus: When the pulse is imperiled, find what is needed to keep on keeping on”

• “Faith without fanfare,” a litany for worship inspired by Galatians 5

• "Steal Away," a litany for worship

• “Hate crime vs. terrorism: How our language highlights or disguises violence”

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Language not otherwise indicated above is that of the editor. Don’t let the “copyright” notice keep you from circulating material you find here (and elsewhere in this site). Reprint permission is hereby granted in advance for noncommercial purposes.

Your comments are always welcomed. If you have news, views, notes or quotes to add to the list above, please do. If you like what you read, pass this along to your friends. You can reach me directly at kensehested@prayerandpolitiks.org.

Faith without fanfare

A litany for worship inspired by Galatians 5

by Ken Sehested

There are, to be sure, moments of high drama in the
work of holy obedience:
      marches to be made,
      confrontations to be staged,
      dangers to be endured,
      corruption to be exposed,
      trips made to distant and unfamiliar places,
      maybe even jail cells to be filled.

On rare occasions, the whole world is watching.

Much more often, the storyline of faith is lived without
notoriety, is forged without fanfare:
      in familiar places,
      in small acts of courage against petty tyrants,
      with commonplace forbearance in the midst
            of garden-variety stress.

Much more often:
      with family and friends and neighbors,
      in traffic lanes and grocery store lines,
      with tired children and anxious partners.

Even—Can you believe this!—even in church.

Even more often:
                        with yourself.

To be sure, dragons need to be slain. Much more often,
                        though,
            gardens need to be groomed.

©ken sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

Steal away to Jesus

When the pulse is imperiled, find what is needed to keep on keeping on

by Ken Sehested

        I was planning an abbreviated edition of “Signs of the Times” to allow time this week for other projects. The Pulse nightclub butchery, in a location named by many of its patrons as a “sanctuary,” sent us all tumbling into ravaging emotions of grief, horror, anger and despair.

        I’m not alone in the work of attempting to write my way out of such despondence. (See “Hate crime vs. terrorism: How our language highlights or disguises violence.”)

        In such moments, we are inevitably caught in the conflicting needs of making sense of such tragedy and mourning it. Some do these very different tasks more or less together. Others separate them. Both demand attention, both needs must be met.

        Then my friend Susan sent this note on Facebook:

        “In the thinnest grasp on hope this morning, would folks share where they have recently witnessed kindness?”

        I knew instinctively that what I needed to do was round up a collection of stories responding to Susan’s timely plea. And there were more than I imagined—see the annotated list below. (I hope you will add your own, in the “reader comments” section at the bottom of this page.)

        Among the urgent reminders needed for us enlistees in what Clarence Jordan called “The God Movement” is that pastoral nurture and encouragement is not in competition with prophetic arousal and challenge. The trick is to practice both in needed measure and sequence. The work of spiritual discernment is to figure this out in every given moment and circumstance.

        My sense is that no theme in Scripture is more consistent than the exhortation to faithful persistence. Find what is needed to keep on keeping on. In the classical refrain from the disciplined study of Christian ethics, grace is both a gift and a demand. Our task as faithful respondents is to maintain the vigorous conversation between both.

        The greatest insight I’ve gained from my eldest daughter, a bodyworker, was in her Pilates class as we practiced balancing exercises. “The secret to balance is movement,” she repeated. Not stasis, as seems commonsensical. Learning to balance on one leg does not mean cessation of effort but the reliance on different sets of muscles working in tandem.

        “Stillness”—a more familiar term in spiritual formation, and also another of Scripture’s reiterated appeals—is not inactivity but a collaboration between initiative and receptivity: When to stand at the city gate relaying Heaven’s demand that justice flow like the waters and when to take shelter under the Beloved’s wings.

        Not quite “knowing when to hold’em, knowing when to fold’em,” but you get the idea. There is a time for hallowed action and a time for holy idleness, for giving and for being given, for speech and for silence, for taking to the streets and for solitude's sequestering.

        Sensing when to do which is key. For instance, the US House of Representatives’ “moment of silence” for the victims of Orlando’s atrocity—when its members consistently refuse to extend civil protections to the queer community and approve commonsense gun control legislation—was an abdication of responsibility. When rallies in support of the LGBTQ community drone on with speechifying, rarely pausing long enough for grief and lament to do their work, is likewise irresponsible.

        What we need, in the words of one of my teachers, the German theologian Dorothee Sölle, is revolutionary patience. Not the idleness of perpetual delay—remember the harsh words Dr. King’s wrote in response to the demand for patience made by the liberal clergy of Birmingham, Alabama, in their resistance to civil rights demands. “This ‘Wait’"—King wrote in “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”—"has almost always meant ‘Never.’”

        Rather, the patience needed entails a certain realism acknowledging the seemingly intractability of the forces of injustice. “Seemingly” is the operative word, for the ability to see beyond what the horizon dictates involves a capacity of knowing which the immediacy of the eye and the ear cannot yet fathom. Revolutionary patience assumes a beatific vision powerful enough to penetrate realism’s dark fog to a safe harbor and fecund fields beyond every available calculation and brute strength’s capacity.

        Legendary singer-songwriter-activist Pete Seeger spoke of defiant optimism. He was the inspiration for a movement to clean up the southern end of the Hudson River, long used as a cesspool and garbage dump by the metropolitan New York City region. Seeger liked to say, “We did it with our little teaspoons.”

        His image makes me think of modern science’s estimation that the total number of healthy bacteria in each human body—the microscopic organisms that regulate health—total around 100 trillion (give or take a few billion). By and large, this is the scale of advocacy we each supply to creation’s health on a daily basis. While occasions may present themselves when one or more of us will participate in big, bold, audacious events that have large public effect, the overwhelming number of hours we live present microscopically small opportunities, in the grand scheme of things, where we choose life over death, hope over despair, repair over retaliation, kindness over callousness.

        Random acts of kindness add up.

        Saying so is not in opposition to the need for structural analysis and patient labor designed to undermine the very foundations of oppression. But never make the best an enemy of the good. In the words often attributed to John Wesley, we each do all the good we can, by all the means we can, in all the way we can, at all the times we can, to all the people we can, and for as long as we can.

        To stay present—to not lose heart, to remain steady and not faint, to carry on in the face of pulsing atrocity—requires, in the language of that great spiritual, that we find time to “steal away to Jesus” for refreshment, perspective, sustenance, and instruction.

        To “steal away to Jesus” is not submission to injustice or passivity in the face of evil. Rather, it represents a strategic retreat to gather the weapons of the Spirit needed to reengage enemies in ways they fail to fathom and ultimately cannot thwart. Enemies are destroyed, by and by, when enmity itself is swallowed in death.

        Steal away to Jesus, sisters and brothers, when the pulse is imperiled. Steal away home, to find the sustenance needed to carry on, for love is coming, to us all.

©ken sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

Hate crime vs. terrorism

How our language highlights or disguises violence

by Ken Sehested

            Headlines about the Orlando nightclub slaughter regularly include the phrase “largest (or worst) mass shooting in U.S. history.” (See some of the photos and all of the names of those killed in this ABC News post.)

            Hardly. Not by a long shot.

            •There were dozens of attacks against Native Americans by white colonists that tallied higher body counts before and after the Revolutionary War up into the final decade of the 19th century. In one of those incidents, when the Pilgrims torched a Pequot village on the Mystic River, Plymouth Colony Governor William Bradford wrote:

            “It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire and the streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the stink and scent thereof; but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and [we] gave the praise thereof to God.” That’s not a part of U.S. Christian history we hear much about. Things got so bad that dissenting Pastor Roger Williams wrote that it is “directly contrary to the nature of Christ Jesus . . . that throats of men should be torne out for his sake.”

            •At least 4 race riots targeting African Americans generated a higher death rate: New York City (1863), whose targets included an orphanage; Wilmington, N.C. (1898), which actually overthrew a democratically-elected city government; East St. Louis (1917); and Tulsa, Okla. (1921), mention of which disappeared from local and state histories until a 2001 state-commissioned report established the facts. The recommended reparations were ignored.

Right: Artwork by Meg Hess.

            •The 1862 Civil War battle at Antietam, near Sharpsburg, Md., led to over 22,000 casualties in a single day. Union General Tecumseh Sherman’s 1964 “March to the Sea” from Atlanta to Savannah, Ga., burning everything in its path, is considered by many historians the modern precedent to “scorched earth” tactics allowing the targeting of civilian in flagrant violation of anything resembling “just war” theory.

            •The designation of Orlando as “worst” completely omits that part of U.S. mass killings of civilians perpetuated outside U.S. borders. On the night of 9-10 March 1945, the military's Operation Meetinghouse, intentionally targeting the civilian population in Tokyo, killed upwards of 100,000, the deadliest bombing raid in history—nearly as many as the subsequent atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.

            •It’s unlikely we’ll ever know the number of “war on terror” prisoners killed or maimed at Guantanamo prison and some 50 other secret “black” sites scattered across an estimated 28 countries. Just last month the CIA’s inspector general says it “mistakenly” destroyed its sole copy of the 6,700-page report from 2012 on tortured prisoners.

            •In the U.S. targeted assassination program using pilotless drones, one study estimates that 90% of the fatalities in Afghanistan were civilians. Another, that an estimated 1,147 were killed in strikes targeting 41 suspected militants. This, despite President Obama’s pledge that no strikes occur unless there is “near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured.” Just a month ago Chaplain 1st Lt. Chris Antal resigned his commission in protest over drone warfare carnage.

            These episodes, too, are part of “U.S. history.”

            You will (accurately) protest that several of the examples above were not limited to single-occasional events. I list them not to win an argument but to illustrate the fire-sale price put on human life when fear and hubris ignite in the bloody conflagration known as terrorism and hate crimes, inspired by one or another narrative of redemptive purpose.

            The purpose of terrorism is not killing. The purpose is instilling fear, to intimidate enemies and cower populations, for the purpose of political and economic advantage. Can you think of a better description of the role of nuclear weapons?

 

Hate crime? Terrorism? (poTAto, poTAHto)

            One of the public accounting tugs-of-war (still unfolding) in reporting and responding to the Orlando massacre is whether terrorism or homophobia was Omar Mateen’s principal motivation. Our nation’s political fracture was highlighted in the responses of political leaders, almost all Republicans naming the former, most Democrats the latter.

            This differentiation in our speech—hate vs. terror—is one of the ways our language allows us to prioritize harm, assigning greater or lesser degrees of menace. Hate crimes are mostly what we do to ourselves; terrorism is what outsiders do to us. In our national narrative, the latter is by far considered more threatening.

            •More than 30,000 die each year in traffic accidents. When was the last time, before going to the grocery, you thought to yourself, “I wonder if it’s worth the risk?”

            •The average daily rate of gun deaths in the U.S. is nearly twice the body bag count from the Pulse nightclub. No other country in the world comes near our nation’s per capita gun ownership rate—which currently is about one for every man, woman and child, even though the per household gun ownership rate has dropped dramatically in the last generation. If you define a “mass shooting” as involving four or more casualties in a single event, we now average more than one per day in the U.S.

            But Congress continues to insist there’s nothing we can do.

            I suggest this is because “faith and freedom,” hallowed words in our history, have been hijacked, emptied of their meanings, and put into service of an imperial presence in the world.

            A week ago, at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s “Road to Majority” conference in Washington, D.C., Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) encouraged participants to pray for President Obama in a particular way, “like Psalm 109:8 says, ‘Let his days be few.’” It was a thinly-veiled death wish (if not an actual threat), since the following verse reads “May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.”

            Why the Secret Service did not interrogate him, or put him on a “watch” list, is testimony to the hysterical season we are in. No problem, though—we can handle homegrown hysteria.

 

Preparing for the “long war”

            The distinction we make between hate crimes and terrorism is fatuous. The FBI’s own definition of terrorism has two principal clauses: violence that attempts to (1) intimidate or coerce civilian populations and/or (2) influences government policy. Hate crimes, by their name, attempt one or both of these clauses.

            •On average in the U.S., every two minutes a woman is assaulted by a man. How is this not a form of terrorism? Can you honestly say that the Orlando queer community does not feel terrorized?

            •In 2015 more toddlers killed Americans than terrorists.

            •There has yet to be an instance where a transgendered person sexually assaulted someone in a bathroom.

            I did not know until minutes ago that “long war” is a “partial conversion mod for the turn-based tactics video game XCOM: Enemy Unknown and its expansion, XCOM: Enemy Within.” I confess I do not know what the previous sentence means. I was looking for a citation for something else.

            Every four years the Pentagon releases its Quadrennial Defense Review. Typically it reviews the past and says, essentially, more of that. But in 2006 the report, with its opening sentence, sounded a more ominous note.

            “The United States is a nation engaged in what will be a long war."

            We are, in effect, on the threshold of a permanent war footing. This is likely the only thing our two presumptive presidential nominees agree on.

            This leading sentence from a document few citizens read helps explain social media’s continuing descent into puerile trivia, on the one hand, and anonymous venom on the other. It helps explain television and movie absorption with dystopian melodramas marked by nonstop shoot-em-up special effects. We have a constantly-evolving cast of elusive targets, constantly threatening to slip by security screenings, so terrifying they are referenced as the “undead.”

            Today, there was yet another moment of silence in the House of Representatives, by now a familiar tradition after mass murders in places where mass media has easy access. House Speaker Ryan, a devoted Roman Catholic, crossed himself. Silence in my own spiritual tradition is preparation for the Spirit's storm pushing me to risky places where I might not otherwise want to go. In this case, though, it was more like the House saying, "Don't look at us—we got nothing."

            A spontaneous prayer which—oddly, for a deep-water baptist—I’ve come to love, broke from my lips.

            “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”

            And also with you. To meet this day will require the fearless presence of all who live in full awareness that death does not have the last word.

#  #  #

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org