Essay Archives View as a list
14 June 2006: A Life Well Lived
Reading obituaries is a remarkably insightful pastime. Each of us does it more and more as we grow older. The obituary writer obviously cannot recall all the twists and turns of a single life. Indeed, for the world to take note of a particular death in the obituary pages of a major newspaper at all, …
Q & A:
Besides enjoying your audiotapes from the Westar
Institute, I am enjoying the audiotapes from Bart
Ehrman from The Teaching Company. This company also
offers tapes from a man named Luke Timothy Johnson.
On your audiotapes of the resurrection, you mention
several times a Luke Timothy Johnson who has been
critical of your ministry. From your description of
him and their description of him, it sounds like they
are the same person. My question is are they the same
person? If so, would you recommend me investing in
purchasing his tapes?
7 June 2006: The Columbus, Ohio, Episcopal Battlefield
I hope my readers will pardon me for spending a second week dealing with issues within my own Episcopal Church. I do not do so out of some presumed hubris that makes me think that this small denomination of less than 2,000,000 members in the United States is deserving of special attention. I do it …
Q & A:
If we accept the fact that Jesus was a man with a
beautiful and powerful teaching and not a Savior,
Messiah or the Christ, is it not time to make the
shift away from calling ourselves Christian? Perhaps
Jesuian or Jesuist, something more affirming of Jesus
the man and not as Christ and away from the Almighty
Father God toward what you describe as a non-theist
ground of being? As I move enthusiastically and
rapidly to this new and wonderful horizon that you and
a growing number of others point toward, I find I can
not call myself Christian or even a liberal one any
longer. Isn't it time to differentiate this new
religious sense with a new name that affirms the new
direction and the new way of being in the world?
31 May 2006: The California Episcopal Election
The headline in the Washington Post said: “Episcopalians Reject Gay Hopefuls.” It was the typical hype of the media. The story went on to say that the Diocese of California (the San Francisco area) had elected Mark H. Andrus, the Suffragan bishop of Alabama, to be the Bishop of California. They described him, interestingly enough, …
Q & A:
Just read your latest mailing with great delight but
sadly must comment that there are too many educated
people who are still ignorant about the origins of
homosexuality including - sadly - many members of my
medical community. I recently went to a church in New
Mexico where the pastor was a physician as were
several "high rolling" members, who made it quickly
clear to me that they were a branch of the (Episcopal)
church that separated from those who let homosexuals
in. I was both disgusted and amused because, in
looking round me, there were numerous homosexuals in
the church group. As a psychiatrist, I am probably
more aware of this than the "ordinary" member. Had I
been more than visiting, I probably would have made a
loud noise about the whole thing as I have in other
churches. I applaud you for your continuing efforts
to bring reason to society about this issue as many
others of us also do in our own ways.
24 May 2006: On Viewing “The Da Vinci Code”
Separating fact from fantasy is not always easy. This is especially so when the two are skillfully woven together by a very competent novelist named Dan Brown and then projected onto the screen by one of Hollywood’s premier directors, Ron Howard. When this combination of fact and fantasy is then woven around Christianity’s origins and …
Q & A:
I have just been fired as a Jr. Hi Sunday School
teacher at the First Presbyterian Church in Oak Ridge,
TN, because I would not represent the Bible as perfect
and infallible to the children. I have lots of proof
to the contrary: I have many versions of the Bible on
my hard drive and can search any of them for any word
or phrase in a fraction of a second. It is possible
that I have found ugly and evil content of which you
are unaware. I would be pleased to send you a list of
what I have found. Apparently "The Sins of the
Scripture: Exposing the Bible's Texts of Hate to
Reveal the God of Love" is exactly what I need. I
intend to procure a copy soon.
17 May 2006: Easter Imagined and Recreated
As I mentioned last week my lifetime study of the five Easter narratives in the New Testament (I Corinthians 15:1-58, Mark 16:1-8, Matthew 28, Luke 24 and John 20, 21, listed in their historical time order) has led me to establish four clues through which I measure the authenticity of each resurrection account. I repeat …
Q & A:
In one of your recent Questions & Answers a woman
asked about her friend saying "Go to God" for the
ethics on homosexuality and you interpreted this as
"go to the Bible." You asked her to question the Old
Testament principles that, as you point out, include
not only homicidal homophobia but also ruthless
misogyny and regulated slavery. Fair enough, but one
can also point to God's promise that no one who seeks
him is excluded and his refutation of the use of laws
to oppress humans. But on the point of "Go to God,"
may I share that as a gay teenage Christian (thirty
years ago), I had questions arising from the
condemnation others put on my own romantic attraction.
I didn't go the Bible for answers. I went to God in
my heart. I then knew deeply that my Creator neither
hates me nor made me to be hateful nor hated and that
my profound romantic love for a certain guy at school,
a homosexual love if you like, was a divine gift. It
may be that for many people if we "go to God" in our
own hearts, we may have some feelings indicating
whether we should buy into hateful divisive prejudices
or find it in ourselves to love our neighbors as
ourselves.
10 May 2006: Easter Explained
Last week I shared with my readers the time in my life when I devoted a semester at Cambridge University to making sense, at least for me, out of the meaning of Easter. I could no longer be bound by the literal texts of the Bible for they described the resurrection of Jesus in fanciful …
Q & A:
In your answer to the humanist question, you seem to
suggest by your final quotes that secular humanism is
"descended" from Christianity. I don't know if that
indeed is what you intended. It seems to me, however,
that secular, humanist values might parallel those of
other religions. Might the parallels with Jesus"
teaching that you correctly cite instead be a
coincidence?
3 May 2006: Easter Revisited
The biblical narratives purporting to tell the story of Easter have always held a particular fascination for me. As early as the summer of 1959 I gave a series of lectures on the gospel accounts of the resurrection at the Kanuga Conference Center in Hendersonville, North Carolina. From that starting point until today my interest …
Q & A:
How do you personally, and Christian doctrine in
particular, reconcile the contradiction of that
biblical prohibition against child sacrifice with the
claim that "God sacrificed his child" in explaining
the horrific death of Jesus? It seems to me that
rather than the "sacrifice of Jesus" being of benefit
to Christians, it serves more to threaten them with
death and/or eternal punishment if they are not
obedient to the wishes and decrees of the Church.
26 April 2006: The Gospel of Judas – A Hyped Insignificance
“Calculated sensationalism and scholarly complicity” were the words Peter Steinfels of the New York Times used to describe it. “Consciously misleading” were the words applied to the story by Professor James M. Robinson of Claremont Graduate University. What was the subject of these quotations? It was the “newly-discovered” Gospel of Judas presented during Holy Week …
Q & A:
A Sunday school kid once asked his teacher, "What I
would like is more data about God!" I totally accept
your concept of God as that "in whom we live and move
and have our being." But what do we have to say about
ideas such as that in the Psalm that says: "God is our
refuge and strength, a very present help in times of
trouble"?
19 April 2006: R.I.P. – William Sloane Coffin, Jr.
“Let us resolve to be patriots always, nationalists never. Let us love our country but pledge allegiance to the earth and to the flora and fauna and human life that it supports
Q & A:
I have read many of your books and would like to pose
a simple question. I am a chemical engineer by trade
and my best friend is a Russian Orthodox minister.
What do you think Jesus would think of Christianity,
as it exists today? He started the process with a
tightly wound ball of ideas for living a
counter-cultural lifestyle in a very difficult time in
history. Since then those wonderful ideas have
"snowballed" for over two thousand years and are now a
huge mass called the Christian Church. Some things I
think Jesus would like. But other things,
particularly the elitism of each sect that only they
have the true "keys to the kingdom" would upset him.
This scientist and priest would like to hear your
answer.
12 April 2006: The Final Days: Walking from Palm Sunday to Easter
We Christians are now in the midst of Holy Week, the most solemn season of the liturgical year. This sacred time still exercises compelling power since church attendance always rises on Palm Sunday, the first day of Holy Week and reaches its crescendo for the year on Easter, the last day. Whatever the Christian faith …
Q & A:
I believe I have read all your books, and find your
philosophy and theology compatible with my own. In
fact, your books share "probable cause" for this, I
suspect. My question is this: Is there a Bible
concordance or reference work that you would term
"liberal" or "progressive"...one that comports favorably
with your current ideas about Christianity and its
necessary evolution?
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