From William Stringfellow's book Free in Obedience:

[T]he people and the things which an ordinary Christian comes into contact from day to day are the primary and most profound issues of his faith and practice...For me, the day to day issues are like these:

--a young, unmarried, pregnant girl--who says she is afraid to confide in either her parents or her minister--comes to see me to find out how her unborn child can be adopted.

--a convict writes to ask if a job might be found for him so that he can be paroled from prison.

--a college student, unable to find summer work, borrows twenty dollars.

--a woman, who has found another man, wants a divorce from her alcoholic husband.

--a Negro is arrested because he protested discrimination in the city.

--a seminarian is discouraged and disillusioned about the churches and thinks he cannot and should not be ordained.

--an addict want to get out of the city to try again to kick his habit.

--a family is about to be dispossessed from their tenement.

--somebody is lonely and just wants to talk.

These represent, in my life, the real issues of faith, just as the daily happenings in your life, whatever they may be, are the real issues of faith for you. The real issues of faith for the Church have to do not so much with the nature and structure of the ecclesiastical institutions as with illegitimate childbirth, or imprisonment, or with the problems of those who are unemployed, broke, estranged, persecuted, possessed, or harassed by the premonition of death. The real issues of faith have to do with the everyday needs of [people] in the world and with the care for and service of those needs, whatever they may be, for which the Church exists.

One of the great locations of diversity among Christian traditions is in the practice of open versus closed communion. In closed communion only the faithful members of the church, however that is defined, are invited to participate in the Lord's Supper. Outsiders, even if confessing Christians, are not welcome to participate. By contrast, in traditions practicing open communion anyone in attendance is welcomed to the Lord's Table.

My tradition practices open communion. If you are in attendance at a Church of Christ worship service you are welcome to partake of communion.

(A bit of clarification. In more sectarian Churches of Christ the operating assumption is that baptized believers in the Church of Christ are really the ones who are supposed to take communion when the trays are passed. Still, this is an assumption rather than an explicit command. I've never seen a CoC communion service where visitors were told not to participate. In the more ecumenical CoC the practice is pretty straight up open communion with "everyone is welcome to the table" being a common meme.)

While there is great debate as to which practice is proper--open or closed?--I think the best theological reasons are in favor of open communion. Some of these reasons I discuss in Unclean. But let me mention one other powerful reason in favor of open communion.

Culturally and historically in many parts of the world, and in the Middle East in particular, it was and is assumed that you are to never act violently against someone with whom you've broken bread. To break bread with someone wasn't and isn't a casual affair. To break bread signals solidarity, a deep commitment that cannot be treated lightly. We might say that eating together forms a sort of covenant relationship between the two parties.

In short, eating together is a form of peace-making. By contrast, refusing to eat with someone signals hostility with the possibility of future violence still a live option. Given this, in many parts of the world people are prohibited from eating with enemies. Because if you eat with them you can't kill them.

In light of all this, there is a strong association between the Lord's Supper and peace-making. To break bread with others is a declaration of solidarity and non-violence. That the wall of hostility has been broken down in the shared meal of communion. The threat of future violence between the parties has been take away.

This, I think, is a powerful argument in favor of open communion. By welcoming everyone to the Lord's Table and breaking bread with them there we are engaging in acts of reconciliation. More, if we remember the cultural backdrop about eating and non-violence we find the Lord's Supper to be the ministry of reconciliation. The Lord's Supper isn't a ritual. It's a sociological intervention. The fact that Christians by and large have missed this point is due to the fact that we've not been aware of the cultural assumption that we are to live at peace with those with whom we've broken bread.

And if that's the case, we should break bread with anyone and everyone in the world. Just like Jesus.

A few years ago my church, the Highland Church of Christ, inherited a small, older church building in a poor part of town. The building had belonged to a church that shut its doors due to declining membership.

Highland renamed the building Freedom Fellowship and started hosting praise nights on the weekend. A small but faithful following soon grew with a lot of the Freedom community made up of low income and special needs populations. The church now worships every Wednesday night and they still host a monthly praise night on a Saturday. Meals are served before all the worship services.

I started going to Freedom in the fall and it's now my favorite place to worship. I really look forward to Wednesday evenings.

Worship at Freedom can look a bit, well, free. It's a small church with about 60 of us in attendance. There is a praise band. And during the worship it's not uncommon to have people swaying, dancing, or going up and down the aisles waving streamers. You can bring your tambourine. And pretty much everyone raises their hands with lots of "Amen's!" and "Praise the Lord's!" It's not Charismatic. It's just free and uninhibited. People just do what they want. And if you want to go up and down the aisle with a streamer, you go up and down the aisle with a streamer.

Me? Where do I fit in?

I'm not a hand raiser. I don't shout Amen. I may be the most inhibited person in attendance. But my heart soars when I'm there. The joy around me is infectious.

More, I go to Freedom because the people there aren't like me. Most are poor. Many are emotionally and intellectually handicapped. Some are homeless. Many struggle with addictions of various sorts. But I love the way these people worship.

Another thing I like about Freedom: One of the church leaders and I have a running conversation (and he might have this conversation with more than just me). A few months ago he came up to me and asked, "Richard, do you know why we come to church?" "Why?" "So God can kick us in the ass." Every week it's a variation on that theme. "Richard, did God kick you in the ass today?"

I smile and say yes.

A couple of weeks ago the leaders of Freedom asked if I might preach to the church after the praise time. There was a little anxiety on their part. Many speakers have floundered at Freedom. They just didn't know how to connect with a low income and mentally challenged audience. I was a bit worried about this myself, but my time teaching in the local prison has helped. My speaking repertoire has been expanding: I can speak to academicians, college freshmen, maximum security inmates and now, at Freedom, the poor.

Speaking of preaching to the poor, I'd always been troubled by this passage in the gospels:

Matthew 11.1-5
After Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in the towns of Galilee.

When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples to ask him, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”

Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.

I'd always felt that the poor were getting a bum deal in this text. The lame get to walk. The blind get their sight restored. The deaf get to hear. The dead, and this seems sort of like a big deal, are raised to life again.

And what do the poor get?

A good sermon.

That seemed kind of lame.

Well, it did until I started worshiping with the poor and listening to and sharing the gospel with the poor. Because when you do that you see what Jesus was talking about.

Many of the people at Freedom are at the absolute bottom of society. And they know it. But in the midst of worship and during the proclamation of the gospel they are transformed. They become citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. They are infused with an incandescent dignity that they cannot find in the soul crushing meritocracy of American life. There is a reason they pull out the streamers and the tambourines. During worship at Freedom the Spirit of God moves and tells those in attendance--tells me--that we are precious, wanted and loved. That we are not waste, trash, or failures. That we are human beings.

So I've come to see what Jesus was talking about. I've seen the gospel proclaimed to the poor. And it's a beautiful thing.

In a recent post I wrote about my leading a study on the book of Revelation at a local prison. In that post I discussed how one of the themes of Revelation is the contrast between two cities--Babylon and the New Jerusalem--and how the pastoral aim of Revelation is to call the people of God to "come out" from Babylon.

In this post I'd like to think a bit about one of the problems regarding how this contrast is made in Revelation. Specifically, one of the metaphors used to contrast Babylon and New Jerusalem is a Whore/Bride contrast. In Revelation Babylon is cast as a whore:

Revelation 17.1-5
One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the punishment of the great prostitute, who sits by many waters. With her the kings of the earth committed adultery, and the inhabitants of the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries.”

Then the angel carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness. There I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls. She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries. The name written on her forehead was a mystery:

BABYLON THE GREAT
THE MOTHER OF PROSTITUTES
AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.

By contrast, New Jerusalem is compared to a virginal bride:

Revelation 21.1-2
Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.

For those aware of feminist scholarship, you'll quickly see how the writer of Revelation is using the Madonna/Whore typology. This typology expresses the ambivalent nature of male feelings regarding female sexuality. On the one hand, the male sexual fantasy is to have a woman who is sexually uninhibited and insatiable. The female actresses in pornography portray this fantasy, a female who is sexually aggressive and can't get enough sex.This--the Whore--is the sexual fantasy of most if not the vast majority of males.

The ambivalence comes from the fact that while most males fantasize about having sex with the Whore--the sexually uninhibited and insatiable female--they don't want to be married to such a woman. When it comes to marriage men want the Madonna, the virginal and faithful bride.

There is a large literature exploring this Madonna/Whore dynamic and it sits behind many of the mixed and confusing messages the culture sends to women about "what men want." It also explains the switcheroo a lot of Christian women face after they get married. Christian women are to be the Madonna prior to marriage, vigilantly safeguarding their virginal purity. But then, after marriage, Christian women are to make a smooth and quick transition to being the Whore in the bedroom. And if she fails to make this transition adequately she can be blamed for not fulfilling her sexual obligations to her husband.

But again, I don't want to get into all this right now.

What I want to get into is why women are associated with whores when, in point of fact, women aren't very much like whores at all.

Historically, and even today, prostitution isn't about sexual insatiability. Prostitution for women is about economics. Women don't turn to prostitution because they can't get enough sex. Women turn to prostitution, when they aren't forced into it, because they need to eat and pay the bills.

Men, by contrast, do pursue prostitutes for pleasure. That is, whoring is being driven by an insatiable sexual appetite--but it's the appetite of of males, not females.

Generally speaking, women aren't very promiscuous. Males, by contrast, are extraordinarily slutty. And if that's the case, then why are women rather than men called sluts?

A psychological study in this regard. A group of researchers had attractive assistants approach men and women of the opposite sex on a college campus. After a few minutes of chit chat the assistant would sexually proposition the student. The question was, what percent of women would agree to have sex with an attractive man after a few minutes of conversation? And what percent of men would agree to have sex with an attractive woman after a few minutes of conversation?

Seventy-five percent of the males agreed to have sex. The women?

Zero percent.

Generally speaking, women are choosy and discriminating when it comes to sex. Men not so much.

In short, from an empirical standpoint men are the whores.

And if that's the case, why are women always cast as whores, even in the bible, as the sexually insatiable ones?

It is a product of Freudian projection. Throughout history, religiously conservative males have had to confront one of the greatest sources of their moral failure: the male libido. The male libido--the fact that men are sluts--is a sore spot of any male community wanting to pursue purity and holiness. And what has happened, by and large, is that rather than admit that males struggle mightily in the sexual realm, males have externalized the blame and projected their libido onto women. Rather than blaming themselves for sexual sin males have, throughout history, blamed women for being temptresses. The Whore was created to be the scapegoat to preserve male self-righteousness. Rather than turning inward, in personal and collective repentance, men could blame women, blame the whores, for their sexual and moral failures. It's not our fault, the men say, it's the whore's fault.

Examples of this sort of projection are too numerous to list. Christian campuses and youth group talks are full of this sort of stuff.

But let me bring this back to whores and brides in Revelation. Given the problematic nature of this metaphor, how are we to approach these images in the bible?

I'll tell you what I do. For me, I don't read the Whore as a woman. I read it as the Freudian projection it is. The Whore is the male libido projected onto women.

More simply, when I see the Whore in Revelation I don't see a woman.

I see a man.

I've written about Adolf Eichmann and the banality of evil before on this blog. I recently came across a powerful essay by Thomas Merton entitled "A Devout Meditation in Memory of Adolf Eichmann" in his book Raids on the Unspeakable. Some selections from the essay:

One of the most disturbing facts that came out in the Eichmann trial was that a psychiatrist examined him and pronounced him perfectly sane. I do not doubt it at all, and that is precisely why I find it disturbing.

If all the Nazis had been psychotics, as some of their leaders probably were, their appalling cruelty would have been in some sense easier to understand. It is much worse to consider this calm, "well-balanced," unperturbed official conscientiously going about his desk work, his administrative job which happened to be the supervision of mass murder. He was thoughtful, orderly, unimaginative. He had a profound respect for system, for law and order. He was obedient, loyal, a faithful officer of a great state. He served his government very well...It all comes under the heading of duty, self-sacrifice, and obedience. Eichmann was devoted to duty, and proud of his job.

The sanity of Eichmann is disturbing. We equate sanity with a sense of justice, with humaneness, with prudence, with the capacity to love and understand other people. We rely on the sane people of the world to preserve it from barbarism, madness, destruction. And now it begins to dawn on us that it is precisely the sane ones who are the most dangerous.

It is the sane ones, the well-adapted ones, who can without qualms and without nausea aim the missiles and press the buttons and will initiate the great festival of destruction that they, the sane ones, have prepared. What makes us so sure, after all, that the danger comes from a psychotic getting into a position to fire the first shot in a nuclear war? Psychotics will be suspect. The sane ones will keep them far from the button. No one suspects the sane, and the sane ones will have perfectly good reasons, logical, well-adjusted reasons, for firing the shot. They will be obeying sane orders that have come sanely down the chain of command. And because of their sanity they will have no qualms at all...

We can no longer assume that because a man is "sane" he is therefore in his "right mind." The whole concept of sanity in a society where spiritual values have lost their meaning is itself meaningless...

And so I ask myself: what is the meaning of a concept of sanity that excludes love, considers it irrelevant, and destroys our capacity to love other human beings, to respond to their needs and their sufferings, to recognize them also as persons, to apprehend their pain as one's own? Evidently this is not necessary for "sanity" at all...

...The worst error is to imagine that a Christian must try to be "sane" like everybody else, that we belong in our kind of society.

Driving back with a van full of students from our conference in Oklahoma last week we spent some time talking about God and faith. These are good times. The best times to be a college professor. Hanging out with students and talking about life.

At one point I shared how I read this famous passage from Ecclesiastes:

Ecclesiastes 3.1-8 (KJV)
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

No doubt there are some hermeneutical issues to be resolved in this passage. How do you read "a time to kill" and "a time to hate" in light of the Sermon on the Mount? (My take is that Christians shift all this language to the spiritual realm where our "battle is not against flesh and blood.")

Those issues aside, here's how I read this text. I think it's a call to being present, engaged and mindful. In this my reading finds some convergences with Buddhism.

There is a time for everything. And whatever you are doing right now that is the time for that. So be present in that moment. Don't be in a different time. Don't be ruminating on the past or worrying about the future. Don't live in guilt, regret or shame. Don't live with worry, fear and apprehension. Live into the moment. The time is right now.

There is a time to tuck your kids in at night. When it's that time be present. Do that well and fully.

There is a time (in my life) to teach a class. When it's that time I should do that work to the best of my ability.

There is a time to drink a cup of coffee with a friend or loved one. When it's that time I should savor the moment and not be picking up my iPhone to check my email.

There is a time for everything.

And when it's that time be there and nowhere else.

Awhile back I wrote a few posts about the spiritual aspects of mobile connectivity. The series was entitled "The Angel of the iPhone" and can be found on the sidebar. In light of that series let me point you to Sherry Turkle's recently posted TED talk. I found the talk, by turns, both scary and sad.

During Passion Week leading up to Easter there was a lot of discussion on religion blogs about the nature of the atonement. What exactly happened in the death of Jesus? Tony Jones had a good series on the subject leading up to Easter.

Here are some of my thoughts on this topic.

It think it's clear in the biblical narrative that there was some sort of "blockage" between God and humanity. We generally call this blockage "sin," though I think that is overly simplistic. Regardless, on our own humanity could not bridge the gap. So God, in Christ, makes a sacrifice on our behalf in an act of loving self-donation. This sacrifice is "atoning." That is, in the sacrifice of Jesus God and humanity are reconciled.

The most important aspect of all this is how the sacrifice at the heart of Christianity is a grand reversal of paganism. In paganism humans made sacrifices to appease a wrathful god. But in Christianity it is God who makes the sacrifice. Humans call out for blood--"Crucify! Crucify!"--and God hands Jesus over to appease us. The significance of this reversal cannot be overstated. In Christianity God is handed over to humans in an act of sacrifice. In Christianity God is killed. God isn't demanding the sacrifice. God is the sacrifice.

This is why the crucifixion is considered to be an act of love. The cross represents the self-donation of God, God being given to us, God suffering on our behalf. And this act of self-giving signals that the rift between God and humanity has been eradicated. In the gift of Jesus God reaches out and grabs hold of us.

This, as best as I can describe it, is the meaning of the atonement. And most Christians, liberal or conservative, would likely agree with my description.

So from where does the controversy come?

The controversy comes when people try to describe the machinery and mechanisms at work behind scenes. The most common machinery in conservative Protestant circles is penal substitutionary atonement. According to this machinery God is compelled to punish a sinful humanity. God requires a blood sacrifice, the death of the sinner. But wanting to save us God kills Jesus as a replacement.

The problem I have with this particular machinery and machinery generally is that God is not free. The act of self-donation is compulsory and, thus, not a free act of love. God must punish a sinful humanity. God has to have a blood sacrifice. God can't forgive without a death.

It's these must's, can't's, and have to's, that are the problem. They signal that God is no longer God, that a theological system--the machinery--is above God and that God must follow the rules of the game. These rules compel God to do this or that or block God from doing this or that.

In these theological systems God has to follow, like a computer program, an algorithm of salvation. But the question arises, if God has to execute the program who wrote the computer code? If God wrote the code then God doesn't have to do anything. God doesn't have to kill or punish. God can do whatever God wants to do to save or forgive. God is God and doesn't have to follow an algorithm of salvation. God's the programmer, not the program.

This, it seems to me, is the root problem. The grand strokes of atonement are largely agreed upon. God loves us and make a sacrifice to save us. The trouble comes when we posit some mechanism of atonement--an algorithm of salvation-- and then insist that God must follow the program. By doing so we make the cross an act of compulsion rather than an act of love. More, when we insist that God must be in obedience to an algorithm of salvation we engage in an act of idolatry. And idolatry is sin.

In my book Unclean I discuss how purity psychology regulates the divinity dimension. If you've not read Unclean, the psychologist Richard Shweder has suggested that three main moral codes regulate human experience. One of them is the divinity code which is experienced as movement along a vertical dimension. As we move higher on this dimension we experience sacredness and holiness. As we move lower on this dimension we experience degradation, spiritual pollution and defilement.

We need the divinity dimension to have an experience of the sacred. However, my worry in Unclean is when this experience is used to exclude or harm others. My analysis in the book is that Jesus addresses this situation by conflating the sacred with acts of inclusion. When Jesus is eating with tax collectors and sinners in Matthew 9 he says to the Pharisees, who are standing on the outside in an act of self-quarantine, that God desires "mercy, not sacrifice." The act of mercy and embrace becomes the sacred space. And the act of exclusion becomes the source of pollution and defilement.

I was thinking about the conflation of harm, violence, care and the sacred last week. I was in Oklahoma City for a conference. One morning I walked over to the Oklahoma City National Memorial that honors and remembers those killed in the Oklahoma City bombing.

Obviously, this is a sacred space. The grounds are high on the divinity dimension. People here are quiet and reflective. Being boisterous, littering or spitting on the ground would be highly insulting. This place is holy, set apart for special care and veneration.

As I pondered this, how various peoples set apart sacred spaces, it struck me how often these places are associated with violence. The memorial in Oklahoma City is holy because 168 people were tragically killed there. And beyond that violence the memorial and museum also honors the first responders and those who worked to recover the dead. These are acts of care.

To be sure, the sacred doesn't always overlap with locations of harm, violence and care. This is a point nicely made by Jonathan Haidt in his new book The Righteous Mind. However, reflecting in Oklahoma City last week I was struck by how often we converge upon Jesus's conflation. Places become holy when the ground becomes tragically blood-soaked. That violence moves us toward the demonic and we want, in response, to move in the opposite direction, to redeem the space and lift it toward the heavens.

We seek to embrace those who were satanically excluded to stand on holy ground.

For those interested in discussing, unpacking or pushing back on the ideas I discuss in Unclean, particularly in relation to the praxis of the missional church, let me point you to a open conversation going on at the blog Unclean Theology. The very talented hosts and discussants of the blog are getting the ball rolling out in front of Streaming (June 18-20) where I'll be in dialog with Walter Brueggemann and other missional church leaders about the book.

If you've read Unclean or are considering reading it and would like to unpack its implications for church life and missional communities jump into the conversation going on over at Unclean Theology.

Just wash your hands before you show up over there...

As regular readers know, I've been posting from time to time about my experiences leading a bible study in a local prison. One recurring theme in these posts is how different the bible sounds on the inside of a prison as compared to the outside.

I'm currently leading the class in a study of the book Revelation and I've again been struck by the change in the sound of this book.

We all know that Revelation is a very violent and blood-soaked book. Consequently, when we studied this book at my church last fall a lot of people expressed dismay. The violence of the book didn't sit well with our empathic, liberal sensitivities. Revelation in one of those embarrassments found within the pages of the bible.

What to do with all that blood and violence in the book?

Non-violent readings of Revelation look to Chapters 4-5 in the fusion of the Throne and the Lamb. Chapter 4 is dominated by the image of the Throne, a symbol of the Rule of God. The imagery is all about power. However, in Chapter 5 this is all thrown for a loop when we encounter the One who is standing on the Throne:

Revelation 5.1-6
Then I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne a scroll with writing on both sides and sealed with seven seals. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming in a loud voice, “Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?” But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth could open the scroll or even look inside it. I wept and wept because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside. Then one of the elders said to me, “Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.”

Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing at the center of the throne...

The Lamb Who Was Slain--the Agnus Dei--is how God rules, how God expresses and exerts God's power. God's power is sacrificial and self-giving love. The Lamb Who Was Slain expresses the Rule of God in our world and the next.

If you want to see the power of God in the world you point to Jesus on the cross.

With this understanding we read the blood and violence of Revelation through the cross. The War of the Lamb isn't violent. The War of the Lamb is fought by fighting, resisting and witnessing non-violently. This non-violent, martyrological note is sounded throughout Revelation. For example, the "sword" of the Lamb is truth, witness and testimony. The sword of the Lamb comes from his mouth:

Revelation 1.16; 2.12, 16; 19.15, 21
In his right hand he held seven stars, and coming out of his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.

...

“To the angel of the church in Pergamum write: These are the words of him who has the sharp, double-edged sword.

...

Repent therefore! Otherwise, I will soon come to you and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.

...

Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.” He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty.

...

The rest were killed with the sword coming out of the mouth of the rider on the horse, and all the birds gorged themselves on their flesh.

It's not surprising, given this imagery, that when Pilate and Jesus have a conversation about power (Does Pilate have the power to kill Jesus?) they end up talking about truth.

Following the Lamb into battle the faithful wage war with the non-violent methods of the Lamb:

Revelation 12,7-12
Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:

“Now have come the salvation and the power
and the kingdom of our God,
and the authority of his Messiah.
For the accuser of our brothers and sisters,
who accuses them before our God day and night,
has been hurled down.
They triumphed over him
by the blood of the Lamb
and by the word of their testimony;
they did not love their lives so much
as to shrink from death.
Therefore rejoice, you heavens
and you who dwell in them!
But woe to the earth and the sea,
because the devil has gone down to you!
He is filled with fury,
because he knows that his time is short.”

The faithful triumph over evil "by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony." Testimony is the weapon. And like Jesus, the faithful remain non-violent to the point of death.

These are some of the hermeneutical keys for those wanting to read Revelation non-violently. Like with most things in the bible, the key move is Christological--reading everything through the sacrificial and self-giving love of Jesus on the cross. So when you think of God's power and rule remember the conflation of Throne and Lamb in Revelation 4-5.

Still, the imagery of Revelation is pretty over the top. Which brings me to reading the book in prison.

The great pastoral objective of Revelation might be best captured in Chapter 18 in the call for the People of the Lamb to come out from Babylon:

Revelation 18.1-4a
After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven. He had great authority, and the earth was illuminated by his splendor. With a mighty voice he shouted:

“‘Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great!’
She has become a dwelling for demons
and a haunt for every impure spirit,
a haunt for every unclean bird,
a haunt for every unclean and detestable animal.
For all the nations have drunk
the maddening wine of her adulteries.
The kings of the earth committed adultery with her,
and the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries.”

Then I heard another voice from heaven say:

“‘Come out of her, my people.’
so that you will not share in her sins...

"Come out of her, my people." That's the heart of Revelation. That's why the book was written, to communicate that message. The book is about two rival cities, Babylon and the New Jerusalem. And the encouragement to the churches is to "come out" from Babylon to live under the Rule of the Lamb as citizens of the New Jerusalem. Despite appearances Babylon stands under God's judgment and those who are non-violently faithful to the Lamb will be vindicated in the end.

As I see it, the main trouble with reading Revelation as people of wealth, status and privilege is that we don't have much of a problem with Babylon. We're doing quite well in Babylon, thank you very much. Consequently, the prophetic indictment and cry to "come out" leaves us cold. We wonder, why is the author of Revelation so desperately angry?

Well, he's angry because he's screaming at a bunch of spiritual zombies. People who have become blind to the webs of oppression, immorality and violence that have entangled them and support their way of life.

Do you know who weeps first over Babylon in Chapter 18? Kings and merchants. Military power and marketplaces.

Revelation 18.9-13
“When the kings of the earth who committed adultery with her and shared her luxury see the smoke of her burning, they will weep and mourn over her. Terrified at her torment, they will stand far off and cry:

“‘Woe! Woe to you, great city,
you mighty city of Babylon!
In one hour your doom has come!’

“The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her because no one buys their cargoes anymore—cargoes of gold, silver, precious stones and pearls; fine linen, purple, silk and scarlet cloth; every sort of citron wood, and articles of every kind made of ivory, costly wood, bronze, iron and marble; cargoes of cinnamon and spice, of incense, myrrh and frankincense, of wine and olive oil, of fine flour and wheat; cattle and sheep; horses and carriages; and human beings sold as slaves.

The trouble is, as Americans, we benefit so much from American power--military and economic--that we can't see the sins of Babylon. So the prophetic indignation of Revelation just sails right over our heads. "That book is crazy," we say.

And Babylon rolls on...

But inside a prison it all sounds very different. Inside a prison the violence of Babylon is raw and exposed. The violence and economies of prison life are a microcosm of the larger world, Babylon distilled. Consequently, the men in my bible study are constantly tempted to give in to that violence and economy. The choices are stark and clear. Babylon or New Jerusalem? Lamb or Beast?

In prison they feel the Beast. They know very well what Revelation is talking about.

Inside the prison the call of Revelation rings loud and clear. The call to "come out" is felt within the gut. The life and death choice is acute. Prison inmates get the book of Revelation because they get Babylon. They fight against it every second of every day.

Us? Not so much.

And Babylon rolls on...

When you are college professor on a Christian campus you are often asked about your opinion as to if Behavior X is or is not a sin. The inquiring minds of college students want to know. And one can assume that their interest is more than philosophical.

There are times when the "is a sin"/"isn't a sin" binary judgment is the best way to answer the question. But life is so complex and the Christian ethical witness so diverse that at times it's a struggle to give a definitive answer. And it's at these times where I find the Wisdom literature of the Old Testament to be a better framing than the Protestant worry about escaping the wrath of an angry God.

Specifically, some things might not be sinful, but they can be decidedly stupid. Some things don't make you a bad person, but they can mark you as foolish. And some things aren't as immoral as they are immature.

Here are some advantages of using a wise/foolish frame over a not-sin/sin frame:

1. You avoid moralizing.
Sometimes you don't want to be preachy, paternalistic and schoolmarmish.

2. You force them to take responsibility.
As noted above, students aren't disinterested interlocutors. And very often they are acting in "bad faith," to use Satre's term. That is, they are running from their freedom and responsibilities. They are shopping for an endorsement from an authority figure when they need to start taking responsibility for the hard work of moral discernment and the resultant consequences of their behavior.

3. You avoid binaries.
These moral decisions often come in shades of grey. Think about, as an example, the classic youth group obsession about where "the line" is in regards to sexual activity. Sin versus not-sin is hard to impose on these underlying continua. Wise/foolish is better situated to handle the range of choices and situational complexities.

4. The frame is more holistic.
The focus on sin is often a narrow concern over God's judgment. The focus on wisdom forces you to consider a larger and longer view, how this particular behavior or path will affect me now and over the long haul. It forces you to think about things like identity and happiness. Who do I want to be? Looking back, will I feel proud of these choices? Will this behavior get me to where I want to go?

Interestingly, while it can seem that the wisdom frame is downplaying the notion of sin it is, upon consideration, making the notion of sin more robust. Think about it. Why does God prohibit certain activities? Because God is a Puritan? Or are God's commands forms of care? Spend any time at all with the Torah psalms and you quickly become aware that God isn't a schoolmarm, prude or finger-waving do-gooder. The commands of God are wisdom, patterns of life that promote psychological and social well-being.

You want adolescents and college students to avoid sin and be good?

My recommendation: Spend less time on the sin lists.

Teach them wisdom.

During the fall I got to sit down with Kevin Miller for an interview for his upcoming documentary Hellbound? As you can see from the just-released trailer, there are some pretty big names in the documentary so I don't know if my interview will make the final cut. Regardless, the documentary looks to be a provocative discussion starter. You can follow the film through the final stages of production at the Hellbound? website with its associated blog. The film is scheduled to be out in September.

Shortly after our interview Kevin and his crew were heading to New York City to film the remembrance of the 10th anniversary of 9/11. They were looking for footage to raise questions about the ultimate fate of people like Osama bin Laden. People like bin Landen and Hitler often come up in conversations about hell as hell is often posited as a mechanism of revenge and retributive justice. As Kevin and I were talking about this I pulled Miroslav Volf's book The End of Memory off the shelf and gave it to him to read. In the book Volf talks about the healing of memory, particularly the memory of victims, in the act of ultimate reconciliation with perpetrators. It seemed a particularly good book to have in mind when thinking about 9/11, hell, memory, justice, healing and reconciliation. Kevin shot me an email saying he was reading the book on the flight out to NYC and was, indeed, finding it helpful. More, he got Volf to be a part of the film.

So, even if I don't make it into the final cut I might have contributed in more indirect ways. I'm looking forward to the film coming out.

For Holy Saturday, parts of an older post about the Easter icons in the Orthodox Church:

Where is Jesus on Holy Saturday?

The answer from the Apostles' Creed:

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
who was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit
born of the Virgin Mary.
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended into hell.
On the third day he rose again from the dead.
He ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand
of God the Father Almighty.
From thence he shall come again to judge the living and the dead...

Orthodox Easter icons do not portray the empty tomb, the typical Easter scene within Western Christianity. Rather, the Easter icons of the Orthodox church depict the event known as the harrowing of hell.

The harrowing of hell refers to the events between Jesus' death and his resurrection. Specifically, the early church believed that after his death Christ descended into hell and rescued all the souls, starting with Adam and Eve, who had died under the Fall. Jesus breaks down the doors of hell and leads the souls of the lost into heaven.

This is an obscure teaching in the Western church, but the bible hints at these events:

1 Peter 3.18-20a
For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago...

1 Peter 4.6
For this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead, so that they might be judged according to men in regard to the body, but live according to God in regard to the spirit.

Ephesians 4.8-10
This is why it says:
"When he ascended on high,
he led captives in his train
and gave gifts to men."
(What does "he ascended" mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions? He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.)

This belief that Christ descended into hell is also captured in Peter's Pentecost sermon in Acts 2:

Acts 2.27, 31
because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,
you will not let your holy one see decay.

Seeing what was to come, he spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that he was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, nor did his body see decay.

In the Easter icons of the Orthodox church you see two common motifs. First, if you look at the three icons presented here, you see Christ standing over the broken gates of hell. In the second icon you also see two angels binding Satan in the pit of hell. In the top icon you see Satan crushed under the gates of hell.

Next, we see Christ pulling two figures up out of hell. This is Adam and Eve, imprisoned in hell since their deaths. Imprisoned, along with all humanity, due to sin. Eve is generally depicted in a red robe.

Beyond iconography, the harrowing of hell is also the dominant symbol of Orthodox Easter liturgies. Again, in Western churches the empty tomb is what you will see depicted on Easter Sunday. But Orthodox services recreate the harrowing of hell. Specifically, the priest exits the church with a cross. The sanctuary is immersed in darkness and the doors are closed. The priest then knocks on the door and proclaims, "Open the doors to the Lord of the powers, the king of glory." Inside the church the people make a great noise of rattling chains which conveys the resistance of hell to the coming of Christ. Eventually, the doors are opened up, the cross enters, and the church is lit and filled with incense.

By focusing on the harrowing of hell the Orthodox shift the focus of Passion Week. For Protestants the focus of salvation is on the death of Jesus and penal substitutionary atonement. We are saved on Good Friday. For the Orthodox the emphasis is on the resurrection of Jesus and the defeat of death, the Christus Victor themes. We are saved on Easter Sunday. The keys of death and Hades have been taken away from Satan and given over to Jesus:

Revelation 1.12-13, 17-18
I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and among the lampstands was someone like a son of man, dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest...When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades."

As a Good Friday meditation, some selections from an older post about the Isenheim Altarpiece.

The Isenheim Altarpiece was painted by Matthias Grünewald some time between 1512 and 1516 for the Monastery of St. Anthony in Isenheim (then in Germany). This complicated work of multiple panels depicts four biblical scenes--the Annunciation, the Crucifixion, the Lamentation, and the Resurrection. The first view of the altarpiece is of the Crucifixion (upper panels) and the Lamentation (lower panels). The Crucifixion panels are by far the most famous aspect of the altarpiece:


The Grünewald Crucifixion is considered to be one of the more painful crucifixions ever painted. Perhaps more horrific crucifixions have been painted since the Isenheim Altarpiece, but relative to the genres of its time (and even today) the Grünewald Crucifixion remains unique in the risks it took. But more than this, the fame of the Isenheim Altarpiece is largely due to the fact that this Crucifixion scene was used in a church. Few churches have a Crucifixion scene this difficult as the focal point of worship.

To come to grips with the Grünewald Crucifixion one needs to see aspects of the painting close up. First, a close up of Jesus' body:


One can see the torn flesh with many pieces of thorns or wood embedded in the body from the scourging. Even more difficult is the sickly green coloration that is employed:


These are difficult images. So difficult that we might ask: How could this horrific picture be the central worship image of a church?

The answer to this question comes from noting that the monks at the Monastery of St. Anthony specialized in hospital work, particularly the treatment of ergotism, the gangrenous poisoning known as "Saint Anthony's fire." In ancient times ergotism was largely caused by ingesting a fungus-afflicted rye or cereal. The symptoms of ergotism included the shedding of the outer layers of the skin, edema, and the decay of body tissues which become black, infected, and malodorous. Prior to death the rotting tissue and limbs are lost or amputated. In 857 a contemporary report of St. Anthony's fire described ergotism like this:

"a Great plague of swollen blisters consumed the people by a loathsome rot, so that their limbs were loosened and fell off before death."

The theological power of the Isenheim Altarpiece is that Grünewald painted the gangrenous symptoms of ergotism into his crucifixion scene. As the patients of St. Anthony's Monastery worshiped--and a more hideous, ugly and diseased congregation can scarce be imagined--they looked upon the Isenheim Altarpiece and saw a God who suffered with them.

In a fascinating insight, my colleague Dan at ACU has pointed out to me that when the Crucifixition panels of the Isenheim Altarpiece are opened we notice the following. In the upper panel, upon opening, the right arm of Jesus is separated from his body. Below the Crucifixion scene in the lower panels depicting the Lamentation the same opening separates the legs of Jesus from his body. In short, as the Isenheim Altarpiece is opened Jesus becomes an amputee, losing an arm and his legs. We can only imagine the power of this imagery among a congregation of amputees.

You can see Dan's observation best in the following image. I've highlighted the division in the panels with a bold white line. Again, note how when the panel is opened the right arm (in the upper picture) and the legs (in the lower picture) become detached from the body:


I don't understand a lot about what happened on Good Friday. But what I think about the most is how, in the crucifixion, God participated in the horror of the human condition and stood beside--eternally--the ugly, cursed, and god-forsaken. Like the congregation of amputees at the Monastery of St. Anthony in Isenheim.

Some selections from Jurgen Moltmann's book The Crucified God:

The crucified Christ became the brother of the despised, abandoned and oppressed. And this is why brotherhood with the 'least of his brethren' is a necessary part of brotherhood with Christ and identification with him. Thus Christian theology must be worked out amongst these people and with them...in concrete terms amongst and with those who suffer in this society...Christian identification with the crucified necessarily brings him into solidarity with the alienated of this world, with the dehumanized and the inhuman.

...

The church of the crucified was at first, and basically remains, the church of the oppressed and insulted, the poor and wretched, the church of the people.

...

But for the crucified Christ, the principle of fellowship is fellowship with those who are different, and solidarity with those who have become alien and have been made different. Its power is not friendship, the love for what is similar and beautiful... but creative love for what is different, alien and ugly...

My essay The Gospel According to Lady Gaga, originally posted here, but republished by Sojourners, continues to get some good traffic over there. Late last week the essay popped back up, thanks again to Facebook, on Sojourners's Most Read list.

Reading over some of the comments the post has received (at Sojo and on Facebook) I'd like to make some clarifying comments.

The gist of the critical feedback about the essay is that Lady Gaga isn't a very good role model, morally speaking, and that her lifestyle and lyrics promote licentious behavior.

That's a totally appropriate criticism. No quarrels on my end on that score.

But as a response I didn't write that post to hold up Lady Gaga as a moral exemplar. I think I'm clear about that in the essay. I kept my focus tightly on Gaga's appeal to kids being bullied on playgrounds. And my point was simply this: Does the church have this same appeal to these kids? Is the church experienced by them as a haven, a sanctuary? Is the church a prophetic voice in the community, leading the way on anti-bullying initiatives?

So, yes, while it is true that there's a lot to push back on regarding Lady Gaga, in this particular area who is doing more to reach out to these kids and speaking out about bullying? Gaga or your local church?

When was the last time, if ever, you heard a blistering sermon at your church about playground bullying? I mean, I don't mind people pushing back on the Gaga thing, but if you push back it would be nice to see you point to the anti-bullying program at your own church. And if there isn't one, well, let's let the sinners lead the way. The church can follow.

It wouldn't be the first time that has happened.

And speaking of Gaga, what's she been up to since my essay? Since I wrote that piece she's partnered with Harvard University to create the Born This Way Foundation to fight against, among other things, playground cruelty. Gaga donated $1.2 million of her own money to the effort.

Good on Gaga and Harvard. Now what about your local church? And how about Christian schools and universities?

Last week I was asked again to speak in the Crackers chapel on campus. To review, in the Crackers chapel you are to argue both sides of a controversial topic. You start by arguing for one side and then, halfway through, you switch and argue the other side. And the chapel ends on that open-ended note.

For this chapel I was asked to argue the question "Can Christians cuss?"

The "No, Christians shouldn't cuss" was pretty easy to do. I cited texts like Ephesians 4.29 and Ephesians 5.4.

Apparently, the church at Ephesus was a bunch of potty mouths...

The "Yes, Christians can cuss" was a bit more complex. Basically, it all boils down to context. I couldn't and wouldn't argue that Christians have a blank check to cuss, dropping the f-word anywhere and everywhere we want. So I had to describe certain situations where it would okay to use profanity.

The point I ended with had to do with our commitment to truth and how that might relate to a particular aspect of profanity. Specifically, profanity is intimately associated with our emotions. For example, if you hear the words "making love" it's likely, if you are under a brainscan, that only your frontal cortex would process this phrase. But if you heard the f-word it's likely that your Limbic system--where emotions are processed--would also light up. This is the psychological, almost visceral jolt--the Limbic system firing--you feel when someone drops the f-bomb.

This is one reason we don't like to be inundated by profanity. Profanity crosses a neuropsychological boundary, acting at a distance to jolt our emotions. So it feels like a violation.

And yet, it's this aspect of profanity, its ability to evoke some of the deepest emotions within us, that makes it an important player in our commitment to truthfulness.

Sometimes the truth is messy, harsh, profane and vulgar. Consequently, if we sanitize our speech and art we are handicapped in being honest witnesses. For example, a Rated PG movie about the Holocaust isn't going to be truthful. To tell the truth we're going to need to go to some pretty dark places.

I made a similar argument about profanity. Sometimes, I said, profanity is the only way to express the truth. Usually because the truth involves expressing deep, rarely expressed emotions. Emotions of pain, violation, outrage, despair, or rage. On these occasions speech is going to look a bit messy. I'm reminded of an argument Steven Pinker made along these lines:

[W]riters must sometimes let [their characters] swear in order to render human passion compellingly. In the film adaptation of Isaac Bashevis Singer's Enemies: A Love Story, a sweet Polish peasant girl has hidden a Jewish man in a hayloft during the Nazi occupation and becomes his doting wife when the war is over. When she confronts him over an affair he has been having, he loses control and slaps her in the face. Fighting back tears of rage, she looks him in the eye and says slowly, "I saved your life. I took the last bite of food out of my mouth and gave it to you in the hayloft. I carried out your shit!" No other word could convey the depth of her fury at his ingratitude.

In a similar way I'd argue that there are times when we, ourselves, are in situations like this. And like Pinker, I'd argue that no other words can capture the depth, breadth, and height of our emotions. At least not truthfully.

And so I ended the chapel on a paradoxical note. The f-word, I said, is holy. If used casually and flippantly we will cheapen the word, render it profane. Words like the f-word should be used rarely, and only when speaking to the deepest aspects of human experience.

Use the f-word, sure, but only on holy ground.