The Serpent's Wisdom

Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon, feminist blogger, has chosen to resign from the presidential campaign of John Edwards after being embattled (by certain right-wing zealots) for several weeks. The final straw, in the eyes of the Catholic League's head, Bill Donohue, was this comment in her review of the movie Children of Men:

The Christian version of the virgin birth is generally interpreted as super-patriarchal, where god is viewed as so powerful he can impregnate without befouling himself by touching a woman, and women are nothing but vessels.

This apparently qualifies as a "vulgar" and "intolerant" anti-Christian comment. To say that critique is intolerant shows an utter misunderstanding of the concept of intolerance, which seems, from the perspective of people like Bill Donohue, to mean, "any act or utterance which offends our oh-so-delicate sensibilities."

The right has tirelessly labored to misappropriate the idea of intolerance, so that people think it refers not to efforts to counter structural power imbalance in our society, but to improve the niceness of language. By focusing on language they hope to take the focus off of actual oppression.

There is absolutely no measure whatsoever by which Christians are oppressed in this country. Keep that in mind. Christians run this country; they utterly dominate the public discourse, the cultural institutions, the laws, the mores, the standards of decency. Isolated instances of anti-Christian discrimination (which do occur) do not constitute institutional or state-sponsored oppression, exploitation, or disenfranchisement of Christians.

So, in order to accomplish the seemingly impossible task of misappropriating the idea of intolerance, they have to make people think that saying mean things (or things you claim are mean) in your blog is the equivalent of a pogrom, or a gay-bashing, or a clinic-bombing.  It is insulting to anyone who is working to end real intolerance in the face of violence and numerous other obstacles.

All that said, i also happen to think Amanda is absolutely right about the Christian idea of the virgin birth.

The gospels' authors must have felt some pressure to distance themselves from Pagans, who depicted divine impregnation of mortal women in a sexual way. In fact, Mary herself had to have been immaculately conceived, so that she would not bear the stain of Adam's sin -- because, apparently, sex itself befouls and stains your soul.

Amanda's comment about women only being a vessel applies too, because this was a widely-held belief about pregnancy in the ancient world: women were only a vessel through which men brought children into existence. This desire to cut women out of the picture is the very essence of misogyny. This view is most obvious in the account of the Gospel of John, whose author claimed that Jesus existed long before Mary did, making Mary's womb nothing more than a tunnel through which he passed into this world.

Saw Superman Returns with cowgrrl last night. I'll give it 2 1/2 stars out of four. The movie was engineered to feel very much like a direct sequel to the first two Superman movies with Christopher Reeve. It was too long. Special effects were good, acting was passable. The action scenes were the most engaging parts of the movie.

So, about that plot. ( mildly spoilerish analysis and poll )

My first homework assignment for Prof. Koester was to write 1-2 pages on Matthew 5-7, with some emphasis on how it reflected the Christians’ conviction that they were the heirs to the tradition of Israel.

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For a while i've been pondering how to reconcile these passages.

[Matthew 10:34] "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword."

[Matthew 26:52] "Put your sword back in its place," Jesus said to him, "for all who draw the sword will die by the sword."

Well, strictly speaking, they are not contradictory; it's possible that Jesus wanted us all to die (since this what he states is the consequence of taking up the sword in accord with his "wishes" in the first passage). (I suggest this only to be tongue-in-cheek, but every once in a while the suggestion has been seriously offered that early death brings the devout Christian to heaven sooner...)

But the first passage does not "gel" very well at all with the general pacifist thrust of Jesus' message. Is it an anomaly? Or was it a metaphor? Maybe he was quoting a saying that meant something differently 2000 years ago? Or is the first passage just spurilous?

One thought is that it represents change over time in Jesus' thoughts with regard to armed rebellion. One might detect some increase in angry radicalism, from the Sermon on the Mount (love thy enemies) to the cursing of the fig tree, to the attack on the moneychangers, to the Seven Woes... only to rethink the idea of violence at the last minute when the soldiers finally came for him.

'Hell is full of good intenions or desires.' -- Bernard of Clairvaux, Apothegm

Think of it as the way in which homophobia hurts ministers and priests.

No matter how good your intentions are or how pure and loving your heart, if you quote from the Bible about the wrongness of homosexuality, you are, whether you intend so or not, contributing to the environment of fear under which queer people live.

Here's what it looks like from my perspective. Every day, I restrict and restrain my gender expression in myriad ways, big and small, because I am afraid. I'm afraid I might lose my job, and I'm afraid I will be violently victimized. I'm afraid I'll be laughed at and won't be able to do business. On several occasions I've witnessed verbal harrassment by Christians, and every time I read something like this or this or this, that fear is intensified.

So, if you are someone who supports the idea that it is sinful to be queer, I am automatically afraid of you. It's not relevent whether or not you do anything to encourage that fear or even if you try to reassure me -- that fear is still there. I cannot afford to distinguish you from the people who picket schools and funerals, because you might turn out to be the oddball whacko who thinks God told you to stab me.

I am not telling you to ignore God's word. I am asking you to consider that there exists an ethical dilemma not easily solved by appeal to moral absolutes. If you want to be a bridge to Christ for people who been expelled from homes, families, churches, and jobs, you will not accomplish that by contributing to our fear.

Here's a thought on this. The key to solving the dilemma was given by Jesus in what he said were the two greatest commandments, and in the litmus test of good fruit vs. bad fruit. What action will uphold your love for all people, and bear good fruit?

Meditate on this:

[Luke 18:9] To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable:
[10] "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
[11] The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.
[12] I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'
[13] But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'
[14] I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

The counsel of Jesus here is that one cannot gain assurance of righteousness in God's eyes by clinging to the letter of moral law. It seems like a sure-fire way to stay righteous, but if it results in bad fruits, then "the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brings death" (Romans 7:10)

In the episode of the accused adulteress (John 8:1-11), Jesus again stood against those who clung to the letter of the moral code to prove their righteousness at the cost of another. If Jesus were a moral absolutist, he would have had no choice but to agree with the woman's accusers. On the issue at hand, the Law of Moses is clear. However, his response -- to point out the men's hypocrisy -- was counter to the letter of the moral law, but still represents a satisfactory resolution to the moral dilemma based on the two greatest commandment and the good/bad fruit litmus test. I like to think that Jesus also did so because he knew that from the dawn of history, women have been persecuted for their sexuality and have lived in fear of being publically punished or executed for having sex. From his perspective, protecting her gave the best hope of reaching her soul and assuaging her fears.

But if the idea of supporting efforts against homophobia makes you worried that we don't know the Bible says homosexuality is bad, don't worry. It's safe to say we've all heard.

In my last post yesterday, I don't think I articulated my thought well enough.

If there exists a divine presence, I believe that divinity wants humans to foster understanding and compassion. (If not, what good is it?) I believe that the most enduring religious movements have this at the core of their message.

To the point, I believe that this is the core of Jesus' message. There are many examples to illustrate this, but this point was made explicit when Jesus said the two greatest commandments in the law are to love God with all of one's heart, mind, and spirit, and to love one's neighbor as oneself (Matthew 22:34-40). He said these were the greatest commandments upon which all of the other commandments hang. Therefore it seems to me that all other commandments were meant to be seen as secondary to this concern.

If we take this to be the core of Jesus' teachings, then it creates a litmus test whereby we can test the validity of any doctrinal element or interpretation in the tradition.

I am not concerned with exploring how any one point of doctrine can be twisted to serve a purpose; rather, I am concerned with the effect of a doctrine when taken to heart as it is stated. Sure, there have been those who argued that killing a blasphemer was an act of love; but I do not see this as taking "love thine enemy" to heart. No one is fooled by that kind of cynical, self-serving mutilation of a religious teaching.

When Jesus said this, I believe that he was giving us a way of seeing through the cloud of claims to righteousness:

[Matthew 7:15] Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.
[16] By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?
[17] Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.
[18] A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.
[19] Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
[20] Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.
[21] Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
[22] Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?'
[23] Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'

This was directed as a warning against those who claim to bear religious righteousness, but who bring forth "bad fruit."

How does this cash out? That was demonstrated in John 8:1-11. As the Pharisees told Jesus, the Law of Moses demanded that a woman caught in the act of adultery was to be stoned to death. Technically speaking, they were right; that is what the Law of Moses demanded. If Jesus was, like many of his followers today are, a staunch upholder of religious law no matter who gets hurt, he would have told them yes, she must be stoned. Instead he challenged them, quite possibly putting himself in danger, because he understood that the crowd of Pharisees was bearing bad fruit.

When I say the end result of a doctrine (or its interpretation) can put the validity of the doctrine itself into question, I may be going beyond what Jesus meant to say. However, I think Paul meant to amplify this point:

[Romans 7:4] So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God.
[5] For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death.
[6] But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

On the face of it, Paul's argument in Romans, chapter 7 doesn't make sense until we ask, "What kind of sinful passions could Paul mean, that are roused by the law of Moses?" The entire thrust of this book's argument, though, is that we cannot rely on religious codes to ensure that we are acting from righteousness. Paul clearly believed that doing so was a trap that causes us to act inhumanely.

Instead of looking into books, then, the key is to judge a teaching or an idea or an action by the guidance of Spirit, in light of its effects on people -- whether it is good fruit or bad.

Sometimes Paul moralized, but where he did, he moralized not by arguing from what was written in the law of Moses, but from the conviction that he thought nature and real life would show certain things to be "inexpedient." In any case, Paul's argument about the newness of Spirit versus the oldness of the written code is not compatible with the use to which many modern Christians put his words, as justification for the perpetuation of oppression.

Edit. I have revised this post to reflect that what may be questionable is not necessarily a point of doctrine itself, but any particular interpretation thereof. Problems to which I point may stem more from interpretation than from doctrine itself, and it is helpful to keep that distinction in mind here.

While Jesus had many words of condemnation for different types of people, it occurred to me today that Jesus is rarely critical or harsh to anyone who is actually in his presence. For example, he is critical of "scribes and Pharisees," the rich, the Sadducees, and so on, when speaking of them abstractly. But it is truly unusual for him to be shown having a harsh word for someone in his presence. Often the people in his presence include those who would have been shunned by most.

Even when he addresses aloud the sins of people around him, his tone is matter-of-fact, as if he is not very concerned with their imperfections or transgressions. The only people who see his wrath directly are the moneychangers in the temple. Next to that, the sharpest rebuke was directed at "the Jews" in John 8, accusing them of being the children of the Devil (a passage which some scholars believe was added later). (Edit. But even then, it was not a criticism leveled at specific people for doing a specific thing.) To the adulteress he says merely, "Now go, and don't do it anymore." A Pharisee who asks him about paying taxes to Caesar is asked, "Why do you test me?"

Many people who grew up as Christians can tell you about fear and guilt which was instilled in them regarding their least transgressions. But it seems to me that Jesus was far less concerned with the transgressions of ordinary people than he was with oppression and exploitation. By far his strongest criticisms were saved for people who were rich, or those who were espousing certain religious codes which contributed to social stratification.

For example, the parable of the Good Samaritan was meant as a dig at the priests and Levites, who would walk past a man left for dead by robbers in a ditch in order to preserve their precious ritual cleanliness.

If we read the words of Jesus as if he were focused primarily on social or cultural evils, and less on individual transgressions, the meaning of his ministry looks very different. If he truly meant for people to walk around in a cloud of fear about their transgressions, he would have spoken directly to people in a much more critical way. Instead, he 'suffered' the presence of people who would have been shunned by most (tax collectors and prostitutes and so on), and was not shown being critical of them. It is sometimes implied that these people were accepted by Jesus because they had "reformed" and changed their sinful ways, but this is nowhere stated, and if it were important to the Christian message, I think it would have been.

If you think that compassion implies softness, there's no way I can describe compassion to you, absolutely no way, because compassion can be very hard. Compassion can be very rude, compassion can jolt you, compassion can roll up its sleeves and operate on you. Compassion is all kinds of things. Compassion can be very soft, but there's no way of knowing that. It's only when you become love -- in other words, when you have dropped your illusions and attachments -- that you will "know." from Anthony De Mello, Awareness.

I define compassion as the sense of being fully aware of the inherent dignity and value of every human being. It's not always an easy thing. But it doesn't always necessarily mean wanting to hug every person you meet, too; there are times when the best course of action involves confrontation, resistance, or even violence.

Compassion is the key to the best course of action in every case. Therefore it is essential in ethical education.

Unconditional compassion is the key that unlocks much of the perennial truth within the world's religions. Unconditional compassion removes the conceptual blockages we may have in contemplating or perceiving the interconnectness of life and spirit.

Unconditional compassion is a much harder road than compassion; think of it as the "high road." 'Compassion' merely asks us to be human to one another; unconditional compassion demands love in all circumstances. Krishna taught Arjuna about compassion while standing in a chariot on a battlefield, even while explaining why the battle had to proceed. Paul and Socrates, like Krishna, taught primarily from the standpoint of compassion. But Lao Tzu, Buddha, and Jesus, among others, taught unconditional compassion.

Those who wish to embody the Tao should embrace all things. To embrace all things means first that one holds no anger or resistance toward any idea or thing, living or dead, formed or formless. Acceptance is the very essence of the Tao. To embrace all things means also that one rids oneself of any concept of separation; male and female, self and other, life and death. Division is contrary to the nature of the Tao. Foregoing antagonism and separation, one enters in the harmonious oneness of all things. -- Lao Tzu, Hua Hu Ching 2

You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even gentiles do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. -- Jesus, Matthew 5:43-48

Edit: There is some tension here. What makes this tricky is that while unconditional compassion may be the centerpiece of religious perception, it does not necessarily give the best ethical guidance. It may offer the most spiritual way to perceive the world, but it is not always the best guide to action. Injustice, for example, should not be accepted, it should be opposed. Therefore I take "unconditional compassion" to be a guide to one's inner life; it allows one to cultivate inner stillness; but it is not a guide for living, for interacting with the cosmos.

Earlier this morning I wrote this as an extended answer to a post in challenging_god and wanted to recorded it here for posterity and reference.

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To put this in perspective. At the time of Jesus there was a movement, represented by figures such as Rabbi Hillel, to interpret "Torah" to mean not so much the physical manifestation of the Law in words on paper, but rather the process whereby divine guidance comes to humankind and the cosmos.

To describe this using the helpful language of programming, this would make the written Torah an instance of class "divine guidance and governance." How else could Hillel have claimed to teach the Torah in the time he could stand on one foot ("That which is hateful to you, do not do unto your neighbor; the rest is commentary")? The written Torah contains the key elements that defined Jewish identity and Jewish religious practice. Hillel's summary of Torah doesn't reflect that at all; instead it reflects a teaching that has arisen in all cultures in all times and places.

Hillel is not the only rabbi to have argued along these lines; similar thought was expressed by Akiva and other influential rabbis of the period.

My argument, then, is that Jesus was a rabbi of this tradition -- and so was Paul.

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