We often hear that this country was founded by Christians for the purpose of freedom of worship. We hear this so often that to question it’s historical accuracy is sometimes seen as apostacy. I recommend the works of David Korten to learn a more accurate history. In the American Baptist seminary from which I graduated in 1986, I learned a bit of this. First, we were not founded on the separation of church and state. The various colonies had their own state religion and the determination to force ones’ religion on the rest of the state (whether that religion be Puritanism or Catholicism or whatever) was a part of the plan. The Baptists were quite the minority out there in the dinky state of Rhode Island. They literally fought for the separation of church in state with their lives.
Thomas Jefferson was himself a Deist Deism rejected religion in general and Christianity in particular. Their understanding of God was God as the clockmaker of the Universe who then left the Universe to function on it’s own.
There is clearly a movement away from the separation of church and state in our current political winds of the USA. If we lose that, we lose the freedom to seek and to speak of God who speaks to us. A politically acceptable religion and sets of approved beliefs and ministers is not the Way of Christ. The god projected through a state religion is more like Zeus than like Abba, the Father God revealed to us by Jesus Christ, the Divine Lover who is not owned by any nation or any race, the Creator who seeks us, the One who cannot be captured by words or images but embraced by faith alone.
Archive for the ‘Fine Lines’ Category
USA a Christian Nation?
Posted in Fine Lines, The Other Side on August 30, 2006| Leave a Comment »
Aged Wisdom from Graham and Taylor
Posted in Fine Lines, People I Meet on August 24, 2006| Leave a Comment »
I happened to read and hear the musings of two aging spiritual giants this past week: The Rev. Billy Graham and The Rev. Gardner Taylor, both men in the 80’s. Graham is featured in this week’s Newsweek and Taylor was interviewed on PBS Relgion and Ethics Newsweekly Each man spoke of a similiar regret in life. This is my interpretation of their regret: that they did not spend more time in simply being in God’s presence. In Taylor’s words:
Taylor keeps busy, but in recent years, he says he’s begun to practice what 19th-century British pastor Alexander McLaren called “sitting silent before God.”
Rev. TAYLOR: This is not praying, it is not reading, it is just opening oneself. It’s a mystic kind of thing. But we do so little of it, and we who preach are likely to engage ourselves in so many things and to neglect that aspect of being open to what God has to say. And I wish to heaven I had practiced this more early on in my ministry.
Graham speaks more of a desire to have studied more but returns each night when he wakes from a restless sleep, to repeat the 23rd Psalm. The writer describes Graham this way:
“A unifying theme of Graham’s new thinking is humility….I believe the love of God is absolute. He said he gave his son for the whole world and I think he loves everybody regardless of what label they have.”
I’m about three decades short of these men’s years and likely eons short of their wisdom and paltry in terms of effectiveness in ministry. But I certainly do know of what they speak. The sweet priviledge of simply sitting in God’s presence is something that doesn’t have to wait until we leave this earthly realm. God longs for us to just be present and life becomes so much less chaotic and confusing when we do.
Simply put: Either embrace the Mystery or be destined to confusion.
The Mystery of the Trinity
Posted in Fine Lines, Resources on August 10, 2006| Leave a Comment »
The Divine Dance: Exploring the Mystery of the Trinity is a CD of Richard Rohr, OFM lectures on the Trinity. It is by far the most profound and helpful discussion/explanation of the doctrind of the Trinity I have ever experienced.
In my research about mystical traditions across cultures and religions, I have been surprised to find the concept of the trinity to be central to each. It is a doctrine that has been central to the teaching of the church from early on and I believe the Church universal has suffered from ignoring this mystery of the divine. This prayer by Richard Rohr gives a glimpse of the mystery:
God for Us, we call you Father
God Alongside us, we call you Jesus
God Within us, we call you Holy Spirit
You are the Eternal Mystery
That enables, enfolds and enlivens all things,
Even us, even me.
Every name falls short of your Goodness and Greatness
We can only see who you are in what is.
We ask for perfect seeing.
As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, Amen
Addictions and Grace
Posted in Fine Lines on August 10, 2006| Leave a Comment »
I know many people who suffer from addictions and I offer these thoughts:
FIRST I do not think it is helpful to look at a compulsive behavior as sin. Although it certainly is on one level because it interrupts the flow of love from God to us, dealing with a compulsion simply as sin usually doesn’t erradicate the compulsion.
SECONDLY I have found Gerald May’s book Addiction and Grace very helpful to understand the neurological basis of a habit becoming a compulsion. In brief, there are neurological pathways in our brains that are laid down as if in concrete and they do not go away. Those pathways demand the compulsion.
THIRDLY The way of Grace is to layer a healing habit on top of it. For that I recommend the Jesus Prayer – practice this ancient prayer “Lord Jesus Christ Have Mercy on me a sinner” repeatedly. Do not just say it once but repeat it outloud and in your mind over and over again. I do this for a minimum of half an hour a day intentionally. Over time it becomes a prayer always on your mind.
FOURTHLY – a compulsion can be the doorway to grace on a level so profound it outdoes the compulsion. M. Scott Peck wrote about this in Further Along the Road Less Traveled. This book is a series of lectures and one of them is about the specific gift of being an alcoholic In his experience, those with addictions have an unusually deep desire for God.
FIFTHLY – You cannot fight a compulsion on your own. It isn’t a matter of the will alone. Do not let your shame keep you from getting the help you need. Personally, I would begin with a Christian doctor and then a 12 step group.
FINALLY – the Cross has covered this. Nothing you do can change the fact that God loves you just as you are, compulsions and all, whether you like it or not. This compulsion just may be a way God is bringing you to God’s heart in a far deeper way.
Barach Obama
Posted in Fine Lines on June 30, 2006| Leave a Comment »
Senator Obama: Reach out to Christ — and to evangelicals
Washington, June 29, 2006 –The National Council of Churches USA and
other faith groups applauded remarks Wednesday by Senator Barack
Obama (D-Ill.) testifying to his faith in Christ and calling upon
progressive politicians to reach out to evangelical Christians.
“You need to embrace Christ precisely because you have sins to wash
away — because you are human and need an ally in this difficult
journey,” Obama told Call to Renewal’s Pentecost 2006. “It was
because of these newfound understandings that I was finally able to
walk down the aisle of Trinity United Church of Christ on 95th Street
in the Southside of Chicago one day and affirm my Christian faith …
The questions I had didn’t magically disappear. But kneeling beneath
that cross on the South Side, I felt that I heard God’s spirit
beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to
discovering His truth.
That, said Obama, is “a path that has been shared by millions upon
millions of Americans Â- evangelicals, Catholics, Protestants, Jews
and Muslims alike; some since birth, others at certain turning points
in their lives. It is not something they set apart from the rest of
their beliefs and values. In fact, it is often what drives their
beliefs and their values.”
An NCC spokesperson said, “The senator speaks a profound truth for
all Americans, and I hope all Americans read his address.”
The full text of Obama’s address follows:
More on my favorite author
Posted in Fine Lines on June 27, 2006| Leave a Comment »
I just found this old inteview on-line with Susan Howatch very interesting. A Novelist Looks at Faith and Fiction
Here’s a quote from it:
I think if mystics try to operate outside a church framework, they go over the top into gnosticism and cloud cuckoo-land. You need a framework to stop you from being dishonest. In the Starbridge books the mystics had to have spiritual directors to focus—otherwise how do you know if you have it spot on or not?
The Divine Feminine
Posted in Fine Lines on June 9, 2006| Leave a Comment »
I graduated from seminary two decades ago. At that time, I was adamantly NOT a feminist. I usually began my prayers with “Father God” and balanced this (in my own mind) with the belief that the Holy Spirit was the divine feminine principle of the Trinity. I recently re-read some of those seminary papers and was surprised at all I once knew about this subject. In truth, the whole question of the gender of God has always seemed very silly and a moot point. How could the Divine be confined to any sense of gender?
(more…)
Favorite Fiction
Posted in Fine Lines, People I Meet on May 11, 2006| Leave a Comment »
I’m about half way through a series of novels by Phil Rickman featuring an Anglican priest by the name of Merrily Watkins. Although these are mystery novels, they are also well researched in areas of mystical Christianity versus New Age religions, paganism, Pentecostalism and much more. The main character being an ordained woman and single parent of a teenage young woman is especially intriguing and more than a little close to my own history. I am enjoying them immensely and learning various historical nuances of New Age and other religious practices. For example, I did not know that Wicca arose in the 1960’s as a conglomeration of celtic pagan practices.
An older set of novels by Susan Howatch have long been be my favorite. The series on the Church of England and various ministries of healing and deliverance are probably the only books I have read two or three times. These novels are set in the 1920’s through the end of that century and therefore do not deal with more recent challenges to the ways of Christ. However, the quotes at the beginning of each chapter and some sections of the novels themselves are so profound and challenging that I re-read them as spiritual food.
Theotokos Prayer
Posted in Fine Lines on May 1, 2006| Leave a Comment »
“He whom the entire universe could not contain was contained within your womb, O Theotokos.”
From a Hymn of the ancient church
“O Marevlous Palace of the Master, make me to be a house of the Divine Spirit.”
From a Russian Orthodox Prayer Book
Recently Overheard
Posted in Fine Lines, Spiritual Lessons from My Father, The Other Side on April 22, 2006| 1 Comment »
“Did anyone notice that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, not an Elephant?” (from my Democrat father)
“Chaos in life on the outside starts with chaos on the inside” (the Practical Mystic)
thesoulpurposedotorg 