Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring

To take a tangent that I hope will bring lightness to your heart:

I hope you enjoy listening to this YouTube version of Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring, by J. S. Bach. Bach's tempos are wonderful for projects such as this.

Wikipedia gives a translation of the German choral accompaniment to the music.

Well for me that I have Jesus,
O how strong I hold to him
that he might refresh my heart,
when sick and sad am I.
Jesus have I, who loves me
and gives me as his own,
ah, therefore I do not leave Jesus,
lest I should break my heart.

—from BWV 147, Chorale movement no 6

Jesus remains my joy,
my heart's comfort and essence,
Jesus resists all suffering,
He is my life's strength,
my eye's desire and sun,
my soul's love and joy;
so will I not leave Jesus
out of heart and face.

—from BWV 147, Chorale movement no. 10

Miroslav Volf on Allah: A Christian Response

I had an unexpected opportunity to hear Miroslav Volf, Prof. of Systematic Theology at Yale Divinity School, speak about his new book, Allah: A Christian Response. This wonderful surprise was made possible by the fact that I'd traveled to Pennsylvania to fellowship with colleagues in ministry, and one of them mentioned that Volf was speaking only 5 minutes away. (Thank you, Matt!) I had two reasons to delay my trip home: one was the strong commendation from Fuller Prof. Charles Scalise of Volf's work on reconciliation, and the second was my long-standing commitment to the message of reconciliation through Christ and our call to be his "ambassadors." (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:16-ff.) I'll do my best to summarize Volf's remarks. Any mistakes in conveying his thoughts, the history behind his work, or in the spelling of unfamiliar names are due to my own scribbling & mental processes!

The central question we face, today, according to Volf, is "how can we combine religious exclusivism with social-political pluralism?" There are two major realities that we must contend with:

1. Globalization – we are not simply interconnected people, any longer, but we are increasingly interdependent. We can no longer expect that actions we take in an isolated part of the world do not have repercussions or reverberations elsewhere.
   
   1. We live in social places which are increasingly pluralistic.
      
2. It is not evident that religious adherence is decreasing, numerically; in fact, it is clear that religions are drawing more adherents.
   
   1. Religions are more socially assertive, too, and individuals engage with others along religious lines and outside of their own religious faiths. "Faiths cannot be sequestered, anymore."
      

The Common Word Initiative began in Jordan. At the behest of Prince Ghazi of Jordan, 38 Muslim scholars wrote a response to Pope Benedict XVI, after the Pope's address in Regensburg, in September, 2006. The questions they considered were, "do we espouse 'exclusive faiths'?" and "how may we treat equally those with whom God is displeased as we treat those with whom God is pleased?"

The Pope had opened his lecture by quoting a medieval discussion in which the Christian questioned the supposedly violent character of the Muslim God. The medieval claim was that the Christian God was rational and reasonable, beginning with the Word of God; this reasonableness helps to found democracy. On the other hand, the medieval dialogue contended, Allah was a God of arbitrary will and thus underwrites totalitarian forms of governance. Because some furor erupted over the Pope's use of this medieval discussion, even though the rest of the Papal speech mitigated or nuanced many of its assertions, Muslim scholars felt the need to respond openly. Their open letter to the Pope helped found some positive work in open dialogue and promotion of reconciliation between Muslims & Christians on the ground of faith we share. A Common Word Between Us & You was the result of the expanded work and collaboration of Muslim authorities and scholars from major streams of thought within Islam. Prof. Volf has participated in resulting discussions with Islamic scholars, as have other Christians committed to loving God and neighbor. The "traditional and mainstream Islamic position" of respecting Christian Scripture is reaffirmed in the work of A Common Word, and their site states, "Indeed, the most fundamental common ground between Islam and Christianity, and the best basis for future dialogue and understanding, is the love of God and the love of the neighbor."

Volf stated that the main argument in his book is that we do, Christians and Muslims, believe in the same God, but "in a qualified way." He agrees that what binds our 2 faiths together are the conjoined commands to love God and to love neighbor. From the standpoint of human societies and communities, he considers that we need to have religious reasons to live in peace, because if humans fail to act corporately, the "privatization" that resulted from the Enlightenment is insufficient to sustain a broad peace. [From my interpretation of his argument, Volf sees religious enterprises as those bonding enterprises which promote our common humanity, truth and communities within this world.] "The more religious we are, the more at peace we will be with our neighbors." (Volf) If it is true that what binds us together is love of God, and love of neighbor, then we need to consider if we share common definitions of the terms: love, neighbor, God. Volf sees religion to take "us out of our own private ways of perceiving reality."

Volf paraphrased a Sufi scholar [I believe the scholar's name is Habib Ali], who perceives and teaches that God is loving and God is justice. Per Volf, Ali has stated that all God's actions [in the world] are regulated by mercy and justice. God, as depicted in the Old Testament, is an obstacle to Muslims because God seems unjust, in many stories. [Many Christians have the same misgivings!] However, regarding the question of the Trinity, which seems to be Tritheism to many orthodox Muslims, Volf pointed out that many of the stated objections by Muslims to the Trinity would be agreed upon by orthodox Christians. In other words, orthodox Christian belief is not Tritheism and the latter is considered a heresy. Thus, Muslims could understand the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams' statement that the Trinity describes the "numerical identity of indivisible divine substance."

According to Volf, no peace in this world can be achieved at the sacrifice of people's integrity and their religious integrity. I understood him as underlining the commitment to human freedom in religious affiliation and belief. Obviously, the extent of freedom is too frequently compromised for particular persons according to particular rationales. Regarding a statement Volf made that women's bodies are "the most contested space of religious discussion", I'll soon write another blog in the series, Misogyny in Secular & Religious Traditions.

However, once that freedom is acknowledged, religious adherents can agree that worship has both "vertical and horizontal modes". The horizontal mode is how we live in this world, and takes seriously "that our lives reveal who we worship." "That from which you draw your ultimate security is your god." It is possible for Muslims to claim that they worship the same God, and for Christians to claim that they worship the same God, but "our deeds reveal otherwise!" I completely resonated with Volf's statement that "our deeds are a more significant indicator of who we worship than our words are." [From my work in reconciliation, I'd concur with Volf and then, I'd add a supplement. Words themselves are a form of deeds, scripturally, and we need to be mindful of James' & Proverbs' injunctions vs. the unruly and unloving tongue (or pen, or writing), and Paul's admonition to speak "only what is useful for building up" one another. I'd venture a guess that Volf would agree, because we're all very aware of how words are used to provoke, demean, antagonize and incite others, today.]

To illustrate Volf's contention (with which I heartily agree!) that "our deeds are a more significant indicator of who we worship than our words are", he said that it seems clear that the Crusaders who, "in the name of" Christ, slaughtered Muslims taking refuge in the Temple (until the blood was "ankle-deep" in some reports) worship the same bloodthirsty god as do the suicide bombers of today who slaughter innocents while shouting "Allahu Akbar". He also used the example of the Muslim leader, Saladin, who became a figure exemplifying principled chivalry to Muslims and Christians.

We need to look at the deeds for their testimony to whom we/others worship. While acknowledging that we who are committed to love God and love neighbor in words and deeds are worshiping the same God, yet we can accept that there are significant and important tensions in understanding the nature of the true God. Questions of salvation and of Godself can only be safely
answered when integrity and freedom of persons is honored as we love our neighbors. In order to further dialogue and promote peace, Volf distinguishes that we need not contend over differences in the ways of salvation in Islam and Christianity, when we can promote the values and common word we share of loving God and neighbor.

Volf added and refined his remarks further in a question and answer session, but I'll save those for a follow-up post.

Misogyny in Secular & Religious Traditions (pt 2)

The discussion could transfer from here to whether religions, in general, are the cause of women being disrespected and abused. Women may be poorly treated by Christian men, by Muslim men, by Buddhist men, by Hindi men, by men in any cultural setting or religion…and by men, without regard to any religious reasoning, whatsoever. Genuine religious endeavors result from human efforts to reflect a truthful ordering (if there is one…) within a cosmic reality that predates us and human historic & contemporary relationships. False religious endeavors result from human efforts to maintain a status quo or counter-create a false ordering by unjust and inequitable means, and all religious endeavors succeed or fail according to the integrity or its lack in the humans who propagate them. If indeed there is a truthful ordering, one which justly perpetuates life, healthy communities and relationships, religions may be in accord or discord with that deeper reality. (An atheist in this framework would not be one who intellectually doubts the existence of a Deity or deities, but one who actively works against or lives in ways that counter life, community, relational reconciliation and justice.) Legal systems are derivative of religious understandings of appropriate and just ordering.

Chicken or egg? What came first, the religion-based ill-treatment of women, or men's ill-treatment of women which they seek to justify according to some religion, or according to purported intellectual, physical, emotional strengths in men or weaknesses in women? (I'd heard it said that women were incapable of handling finances, when I began working in financial markets & economics 30+ years ago. There have been endless debates over purportedly innate feminine weaknesses, throughout our lifetimes.) Insofar as humans anthropomorphically project their flawed understandings onto religious and legal systems, justice and truth are not served.

Yet, that question of where alienation began might seem irrelevant to the situation in which we find ourselves, now – the endless loop of relentless justification of alienation, devaluation and polarization between genders and belief systems.

The crux of the problem doesn't lie in our gendered differences, but in our non-gendered human abuses of power. Historically, men have held more power and women were among the permanently disenfranchised underclasses of sub-humans (still are, in many regions, and to many men). One obvious form of power can be physical strength and size. But, women aren't the only members of the underclasses. Power-abusers may abuse other families, classes, races, ethnicities, cultures, the physically different, the diversely gifted, as well as the other gender; they may abuse and bully any person with whom they don't identify. Most certainly, a power-abuser will abuse and seek to destroy any person or group who threatens their power base. Consider all the contemporary historical situations within our lifespans where those who have previously been oppressed have turned into power-abusers and money-hoarders, themselves. Proverbs 29:13-14 reads, "The poor and the oppressor have this in common: the LORD gives light to the eyes of both. If a king judges the poor with equity, his throne will be established forever."

Returning to the gospel of John, consider the literary situation of the Samaritan woman's story within the text. Chapter 3 presents the story of Nicodemus, "a leader of the Jews" who came to Jesus "by night." Jesus spoke to Nicodemus, and chided him for his lack of understanding when Nicodemus expressed his puzzlement at Jesus' words. The dark night is surely linked to the darkness in Nicodemus' ability to comprehend and his unwillingness to be seen by fellow Jews with him (cf. Jesus' words in 3:19-21). The scene shifts to John, the Baptist, whose disciples are in discussion with another "Jew" about ritual purification. Who is clean? Who is not clean? Who is "allowed in"? Who is excluded? [The gospel writer uses "Jew" or "Jews" and the place, "Judea" to depict those who are in power, in positions of worldly authority, and which authority is too frequently not congruent with the authority by which God moves.]

The response of John, the Baptist, to his disciples' concern that people were leaving him to follow Jesus offers us a key to Nicodemus' darkness, and the light in the responses of John, the Samaritan woman, and the royal official to Jesus. John responded with the humility. First, he recognized that the real authority he possessed was given by God, in the first place. Second, John knew the Source of all true authority, and he knew himself in God's light: "You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, 'I am not the Messiah,
but I have been sent ahead of him.'" (3:28) Finally, that was enough, and John rejoiced in that awareness. John didn't seek to grasp more than God had given to him. (cf. Phil. 2:6) "He who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. For this reason my joy has been fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease." (3:29-30)

So, let's revisit the story of the Samaritan woman in the light ("It was about noon." 4:6) of John's responses to Jesus, and its literary situation in the text. As a woman, a Samaritan, and one who – for reasons completely irrelevant to the purpose & message of the story the gospel writer was telling – had been married to 5 men, she came to draw water, joyfully received Jesus' prophetic words and mission, and went immediately to tell her village about him. Just as John's disciples first believed Jesus because of John's words, so the villagers first believed Jesus because of her words (4:39-40). Then, they believed Jesus because of his own words, and just as John decreased, so did the Samaritan woman (4:41-42). We sense the joy among the villagers to know Jesus, as "the Savior of the world." (The subtext is that Jesus is not chosen to be the Savior of the worldly, powerful insiders.)

Too often we wrongly believe that reconciliation comes at the cost of our selves. Perhaps we may recall the childishness of our youth when we rarely commended other children, for fear that commending them diminished us. Actually, reconciliation will come at the cost of our false selves, the selves that are perpetuated by lies and abuse of whatever power we possess or seek to exert over others. That power misleads and blinds us to Godself and to God's signs in and mission to the world, when that power is based in our flesh – whether gender, ethnicity, race, economic, political, educational, or religious situation, to name some examples. In order to know Jesus, who Jesus is and to accept God from whom Jesus comes,

• we recognize the gifts we possess are not from/in/of ourselves,
  
• we know ourselves and know how to discern wisdom in humans around us (Aside: there's hope here for Nicodemus! Cf. 3:2),
  
• and finally, we joyfully allow ourselves to decrease and be replaced by God and God's Son in others' sight.
  

Other posts in this series: Part 1

Misogyny in Secular & Religious Traditions (pt 1)

David Lose, the Director for Biblical Preaching at Luther Seminary, points out what seemingly should have been obvious for the past 2 millennia of Christianity in a column at The Huffington Post: the woman at the well is never described in John 4 as a prostitute, or as a promiscuous woman. Jesus doesn't even mention sin in his conversation with her. [Predominantly male] commentators, theologians and church pastors have consistently described her in terms that purport her to be sexually loose, adulterous, and/or promiscuous, and perceive Jesus' words to her as calling her out of her sin.

Johannine scholar, Prof. Marianne Meye Thompson of Fuller Theological Seminary encouraged her students to look at John with fresh eyes. Although we used Raymond Brown's hefty 2-volume commentary on John, Dr. Meye Thompson did not wed us to his interpretation. Brown's view of the woman at the well, "immoral" was his term, was not matched in the words of John and was not clearly supportable in the sociological and cultural ANE context. When we got to this passage, which I had just worked through for another seminary class, we challenged Brown's interpretation.

It is not at all unlikely that a woman of good reputation might be married a number of times. Men could easily divorce women, but women had little right, if any, to divorce men. If a beautiful woman was barren, for instance, she might be divorced for lack of children, lack of sons, or sadly, for "any reason" a man might give.

There was no "labor market" for women, then. They could be gainfully "employed" as daughter, wife and widow. Few women had sufficient property to exist without the support of men. If a woman wasn't gainfully employed in family endeavors, if she had not the means to survive on her own, and if she was not marriageable, she could depend on the generosity of extended family and neighbors (Ruth, & perhaps, Mary – the mother of Jesus), or become "self-employed" – as a prostitute.

In Robert Kysar's book, John: The Maverick Gospel (Revised Edition), one appendix was entitled, "The Women and the Gospel of John." (I hope he's incorporated this into his 3^rd Edition, rather than left it as an after-thought!) Kysar pointed out how remarkable John's presentation of women's faithfulness in the gospel was, for that historical period. The Samaritan woman is discussed in contrast to the disbelieving Nicodemus in ch. 3, as the 2nd evangelist* in the gospel (the 1^st was John the Baptist) – an outsider, Samaritan, woman, rejected (the 5 marriages). The text does not support casting her as an immoral person, and in fact, her discussion with Jesus is very perceptive and he treats her with dignity. She not only believes (where Nicodemus couldn't/didn't), but then she goes and tells her town and THEY believe her. (This could count as another strike against assumptions that John depicted her as immoral -- the testimony of women was irrelevant & the testimony of the immoral people was suspect.) Kysar considers the Samaritan woman as the female counterpart to John the Baptist.

Significant women are consistently portrayed as believers in the gospel: Jesus' mother (ch. 2), Samaritan woman (ch. 4), Martha (ch. 11), Mary (ch. 12), women at the foot of the cross (ch. 19), and Mary Magdalene (ch. 20 - 1st witness/evangelist to the resurrection).

The fact that the woman was married multiple times indicates that she was probably not considered a "fallen woman" in her community. (She would have been stoned to death for adultery, for instance – cf. John 8) It seems far more likely that she was barren, or had been married to older men, or had husbands die, or all of the above. That she was living with a man could be that she was living with a relative of her own, or with a relative of a husband, or as a dependent on others (which might explain why she's carting water, but then again, women to this day have the job of carting water in Africa!).

This post continues: Part 2

a dearth of ongoing righteousness & justice

<sup>The historical setting for Ezekiel's word of the LORD is the unwillingness of the people of God, the family of Israel, to be righteous in their ways, to love one another & their neighbors in their actions, every day. Israel has been invaded by Babylon.

30</sup>“As for you, son of man, your people who talk together about you by the walls and at the doors of the houses, say to one another, each to his brother, ‘Come, and hear what the word is that comes forth from the LORD.’
³¹And they come to you as people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear what you say but they will not do it; for with their lips they show much love, but their heart is set on their gain.
³²And lo, you are to them like one who sings love songs with a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument, for they hear what you say, but they will not do it.
³³When this comes—and come it will!—then they will know that a prophet has been among them.”
(Ezekiel 33)

What does it mean to "pass judgment"? (Take Two)

Is it passing judgment to discern that, according to a certain understanding (aka, "religion") of reality, truth, wisdom, and trajectories of consequences (years, decades & generations), certain choices, behaviors, actions & words don't build up individuals, families, communities & posterity? Discernment is always a function of responding to explicit and implicit law-based parameters. Broadly speaking, Law is always set in physical embodied reality, and defines what actions are right/wrong, healthy/unhealthy, wise/unwise, and constructive/destructive for people to take. (cf. Romans 2:12-16)


OR: is "judgment" taking an action based on that discernment -- for instance, legislating against behaviors and mandating subsequent actions in consequences (fines, banishment, imprisonment, excommunication, etc.). Judgment can also be a supportive action, commending and approving of others' actions in the community or in the written laws governing that community. (Biblical examples of supportive judgments would be the commendation of the care of widows and orphans, or the just treatment of aliens.) However, sinful judgments also exist in human societies; "gossip" is considered a sinful judgment on others, according to Scripture. Thus, one person exercising wise or unwise discernment can sin against others with that discernment. Likewise, discernment can be followed by a choice to love (act patiently, kindly & with delight in truth, without envy, pride, quick temper, boastfulness, self-seeking, recording wrongs, etc.).



If a person doesn't commend or approve a behavioral course of action based on his/her discernment & parameters, does that mean s/he is "passing judgment", even should s/he follows love's paths with those behaving thus? (Biblically-defined Love is not hormonally, affinity or preferentially based.) Fundamentally, to require that person to approve of something that s/he hadn't approved of, heretofore, is to ask her/him to change the parameters (or laws) by which they discern reality, truth, wisdom and consequences.



It seems prudent to be clear: it is asking people to change their religion when, for the sake of maintaining relationships, they are required to commend, approve of, or disapprove of and disavow behaviors and actions which their lives &/or the canon by which they've been living have not commended, approved of, or disapproved of & disavowed those behaviors/actions. According to my understanding, that requirement defines proselytizing, not loving others. My religion calls me to love and serve others, not to proselytize them.


The tension of loving ourselves & others while not approving of everything we or they do is difficult to sustain. (I'd say that it's impossible to sustain without the empowering of the Holy Spirit!) Our natural human cop-out is to make new law, or appeal to old law, and use that law to pass judgment on others; thereby we relieve ourselves of the tension and can choose which persons we will choose to "love" and which persons are unworthy of "love". We then use our law to choose whom to include in our circle, and whom to exclude.


But, God's love is perfect (Matt. 5:43-48), and Jesus us calls us to "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." The telos - the goal - of God's law is love.

Militarism or Diplomacy?

Why is it that those whom I know who are most pro-military endeavors seem to be the least likely to support government efforts to alleviate poverty, to ameliorate power/financial class/opportunity & educational imbalances and to support reconciliation initiatives?


The correlation seems to occur far more often than is warranted by statistical coincidence. Is it also coincidental that so much of current wealth & political power are enmeshed with military power & the manufacturing and sale of armaments? Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times points out the widening chasm between military spending and better budgeting, here.

Proverbs clearly indicates that the wealthy find their refuge in their wealth: "The wealth of the rich is their fortress; the poverty of the poor is their ruin." (Prov. 10:15) The Hebrew word for fortress has military implications, too, and can also mean might, strength and fortifications (ramparts) of a town. Contrast this "strength" to the use of the same root word in Proverbs 14:26: "Fear of the LORD is a stronghold, a refuge for a man's children." (Tanakh)

Prov. 14:32 reads, "The wicked are overthrown by their evil-doing, but the righteous find refuge in their integrity." (cf., Psalm 52:7) The NT concept of being found "in Christ" has strong OT parallels to the Psalmists' and Proverbial understanding of refuge. Military images, such as those found in Ephesians, are replaced with weapons of truth, faith, the Word of God, righteousness, and the gospel of peace.

From my perspective on current events and scriptural studies, there seem to be strong indications that the hard work of developing healthy human relationships and shared community responsibility is easily deferred by most leaders and followers throughout history in favor of force, whether that force is evidenced in military power, academic/intellectual argumentation, facile rhetoric, gender or racial or ethnic domination, bullying or social ostracism, to give a few examples. The righteous are those who find their refuge in God, and whose lives evidence the integrity and holiness of God's ways.

Perhaps the name of this post might be, "Domination or Dominion?" Food for thought & prayer!