Category: Uncategorized

The Religious Counterculture: An Open Letter to Religious Liberals

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Uncategorized1 Comment

This is an interesting article that I have mixed feelings about.  On the one hand, I am fully with the author in her call for a radical, committed, active, counter-cultural, and fully liberal practice of faith.  Those of us who go by this label absolutely have to get away from the idea of diluted civil religion that only serves as the chaplain to the dominant society.  We have to get away from defining ourselves by what we don’t believe.  We have to re-engage with our traditions, our sacred texts, regular spiritual practice, and active involvement in our faith communities.

On the other hand, the author seems to be calling for the kind of rigid legalism that caused many of us to flee from more conservative expressions of faith.  Am I to believe that liberal religion should now mean pulpit-pounding, rule-making, and fear-mongering over issues environmental rather than pelvic?  No thank you.  As one who has endured the guilt and fear within fundamentalism, I can testify that it doesn’t work.  It creates self-righteous, Pharisaical bigots.  We would become the mirror image of the fundamentalisms we judge: compromising compassion and integrity for the sake of our own narrow-minded agenda.

What’s more is that the author’s stated end for these means is the increase of “political power” and “butts in the pews”.  I don’t share these goals.  An increase in attendance might be a by-product of a community’s spiritual growth, but it should never be an end in itself.  The loss of political dominance in society is a blessing, in my opinion.  It seems that almost all religious communities tend to be at their worst when they are on top of the heap.  That’s when they tend to stagnate, persecute others, and generally sow the seeds of their own destruction.  The marginalization of liberal religion has placed us in a position to actualize James Luther Adams’ vision of “the prophethood of all believers.”  Small, committed communities of believers working in solidarity with each other have the power to change the world at the grassroots level.

What we need, in my opinion, is a fundamentally different way of relating to the Sacred.  We must start from the place of radical grace and acceptance that extends from the inside out to include all beings (even fundamentalists).  This, I believe, is the good news of liberal religion that has the power to transform and liberate.

That being said, the author’s core point is one that I’m on-board with.  This article is very much worth the read, even where one disagrees with it.

Reblogged from Huffington Post:

by Rev. Ana Levy-Lyons

If you look at any of the traditional markers of religiosity, we religious liberals are less religious than the conservative or orthodox. Liberal Jews tend to not keep kosher; liberal Muslims tend to not pray five times a day; liberal Christians have been known to have premarital sex. As religions have liberalized and modernized over the years, communal religious practices have fallen away and religious fervor has cooled. This may seem obvious and inevitable, but when you think about it, there is no necessary correlation between the substance of a person’s theology and the amplitude of her religiosity. We religious liberals have erroneously forged this correlation and, beyond just making us the butt of jokes, this has really cost us.

Click here to read the full article

7 Ways to Be Sure You Are a Martin Luther King Jr. Kind of Christian (Reblog)

On By J. Barrett LeeIn UncategorizedLeave a comment
Image
By New York World-Telegram and the Sun staff photographer: DeMarsico, Dick, photographer. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

 

Reblogged from Huffington Post

By Paul Brandeis Rauschenbusch

To understand the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. one should first look to his Christian faith, which gave him the language, spiritual strength and community to fuel and sustain his singular efforts for justice, peace and freedom.

Faith was at the center of his life.

However, as we honor the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. it is worthwhile to consider the kind of faith King embodied. Because there isn’t just one kind of Christian; and not all faith leaders lead towards freedom.

Click here to read the full article

Belhar Pt I: Prologue and Article 1

On By J. Barrett LeeIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Series on the Belhar Confession, one of the most significant recent theological statements coming out of the Reformed tradition in the last 30 years.

allthingswwb's avatarThat Reformed Blog

hands-up

“Belhar’s relevance is not confined to Southern Africa. It addresses three key issues of concern to all churches: unity of the church and unity among all people, reconciliation within church and society, and God’s justice.” ~ From The Belhar Confession’s Prologue

Over the next couple of weeks we’ll be talking about The Belhar Confession.

************************************************

1992. That is the year that I learned that I am white. Before that I had never once thought about the color of my skin, only the color of those who had different skin. The other. African-Americans. Latin-Americans. Asian-Americans.

“In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate,” wrote  Pulitzer Prize recipient,  Toni Morrison in the January 29, 1992 edition of The Guardian. A year later she would also receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.

“I wish I could say that this Nation had traveled far along the road to social justice and that liberty and…

View original post 1,184 more words

16 Ways Progressive Christians Interpret the Bible (Reblog)

On By J. Barrett LeeIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Reblog from Patheos.com by Roger Wolsey:

I’ve long stated that

Atheists and fundamentalists each tend to read the Bible in the same wooden, overly literalistic manner. The difference is that atheists reject what they read in that manner, while fundamentalists believe it.

There’s a lot of truth to that – enough that it tends to piss off members of both of those groups off when they come across what I said.

However, I’ve also said that

All Christians pick and choose which portions of the Bible literally, progressive Christians simply admit this and share how we discern.

That observation has resonated with many people – including many fundamentalists who are honest with themselves and who rightly contend that they don’t read “all of the Bible literally.” Some of these more self-reflective fundamentalists have asked me, “So, how do you progressives “discern” and interpret the Bible? Seems like you just read into it what you want it to say; twist it; and don’t take it seriously.” I generally respond by reminding them that – that which we criticize most in others, is often that which we struggle with most ourselves.

While no doubt true, and I fully stand by holding that mirror up to them, they deserve an actual response.

I can’t speak for all progressive Christians, but here’s how many progressive Christians approach, discern, and interpret the Bible:

Click here to read the full article

Listening for Echoes

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Uncategorized2 Comments

An article reblogged from the Bellingham Herald about the Rev. Charis Weathers, a seminary classmate of mine who is planting a new progressive church community in Bellingham, WA:

During my four-year hiatus from pastoring a vision had begun to grow, one that had at its center a church that makes the larger community in which it exists a better place to live. A church that doesn’t see its greatest success in the number of butts in the pews, but in the work that it does and the larger community that it builds. A church that isn’t only inclusive of all persons, but includes care for animals, forests, landscapes. A church that doesn’t make a belief system the primary determinant of who’s in or who’s out, but instead supports the good work that is already being done by others, offering blessing and help. A church that champions honest dialogue, values the arts, and takes poverty issues seriously.

Echoes is the name of this new church. I don’t know if it will live up to my vision, but I have hope.

Click here to read the full article

Pregnant With God

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Uncategorized2 Comments

By Urmas Haljaste (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

I beheld the fullness of God in which I beheld and comprehended the whole of creation, that is, what is on this side and what is beyond the sea, the abyss, the sea itself, and everything else.  And in everything that I saw, I could perceive nothing except the presence of the power of God, and in a manner totally indescribable.  And my soul in an excess of wonder cried out: “This world is pregnant with God!”  Wherefore I understood how small is the whole of creation – that is, what is on this side and what is beyond the sea, the abyss, the sea itself, and everything else – but the power of God fills it all to overflowing.

-St. Angela of Foligno (1248-1309)

Passage retrieved from http://datinggod.org/2010/10/01/the-world-is-pregnant-with-god/

Too Small A Thing

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Uncategorized2 Comments

We’re having our Annual Congregational Meeting today at North Church, so I don’t have a sermon to share.  But my wife, Rev. Sarah Schmidt-Lee, is preaching at First Presbyterian Church in Decatur, MI.  Here is her sermon on Isaiah 49:1-7.

In 1954 a 25 year old pastor, fresh from seminary, started serving his first congregation in Montgomery, AL. It would have been so easy for the church to eat up all his time. To teach him everything he didn’t learn in seminary. To rely on him to keep their doors open and their bills paid. But they knew that focusing on what was going on inside that church building was too small a thing for their pastor. They supported him as he took leadership in community organizations, and within his first year as their pastor, Martin Luther King, Jr. involved with the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and at 27 he helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. This young pastor had such a tremendous influence beyond the scope of his own congregation that we honor him with a national holiday tomorrow. It was too small a thing for that church to demand their pastor’s energy be focused solely on them and their needs. They knew they were called, and he was called to something bigger—to be a part of God’s work of changing the world.

“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

When I was in college, I had the privilege of meeting a homeless man named Bill Smith. In the course of volunteer work I did, I heard stories from Bill about how frustrated he was by churches in the area around Charlotte, NC. Many of them would send vans downtown to the rescue mission each Sunday to pick people up and bring them to church, which seems like a really great ministry. The problem was that once they got to the church building, these homeless men and women were usually ushered into the back pew, where no one would see them, and they were treated like an evangelism project. The church members seemed intent on sharing Jesus with them, despite the fact that most of them were Christians, already. As Bill put it, “Most of them would not have survived this long if it weren’t for their deep faith in Jesus. Those churches should stand those men and women up front to tell their stories, not stick them in the back and treat them like outsiders.”

One day, during my junior year of college, an excited Bill Smith shared with me how one congregation in town had partnered with the rescue mission to give Bill a part time job counseling other homeless men and speaking as an advocate for the homeless in area churches. That congregation recognized they had an opportunity to experience God in new ways, through new eyes, and sticking those homeless brothers and sisters in the back pew and treating them as outsiders to convert—it was too small a thing. They needed to hear the stories and learn about God from people who were struggling in different ways than they were.

“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

A few years ago a congregation in Tulsa, OK took a big risk, and decided to give all of their undesignated plate offerings away to other organizations. Disaster response, relief work, humanitarian projects overseas—there were a number of groups they already gave to, and they would add more. They are a large congregation, and in 2003, those undesignated offerings amounted to about $20,000 that many church leaders worried they couldn’t spare. But they took the risk in faith, and in 2004, the congregation gave away $150,000 in plate offerings.

But the biggest surprise? Not only did the weekly offering increase dramatically, the money given specifically to the budget increased by 10%, too. The leaders of this church recognized that meeting their own institutional needs was too small a thing—they needed to give generously to the world. And when they took a leap of faith, they discovered that their whole congregation understood this, too. Funding their own programs was too small a thing. When they saw the opportunity to give toward a bigger purpose in the world, the congregation rose to the occasion and was more excited about supporting the institutional needs, too. They could see that the institution was serving a higher purpose.

“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

In our gospel text for this morning, we see John the Baptist after he has baptized Jesus, and what is he doing? He is redirecting his own disciples to Jesus. Here is a man with a meaningful ministry, drawing people from far off cities into retreats where they confess sin and get baptized in the Jordan as a sign of cleansing and a fresh start. But when John encounters Jesus and sees what he has to offer, he realizes that his own ministry is too small. He cannot offer what these followers really need. Jesus is the one who can really give them new life.

In traditional paintings of John the Baptist, he is always pointing his finger away from himself. It’s as if he is always in that posture of redirection—I am not the Christ. I am not the one you need. Look to Jesus. Follow him. That’s the way.

“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

This passage from Isaiah was written during a time when a large proportion of Israel was in exile in Babylon, and the nation was in ruins. The prophet spoke of a servant of God who would lead the nation back to Jerusalem and back to prosperity and health. But here, in these words of God spoken to the servant, we hear the heart of God. “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel. I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation might reach to the ends of the earth.”

God’s dream for Israel was bigger than rebuilding the temple, or returning to Jerusalem from exile. God’s dream for Israel was that it might shine out as a beacon so that the whole world would see God’s love and justice and recognize that the God of Israel was on their side, too.

Some people describe the current situation of the Mainline Protestant church in North America as a kind of season of exile. Generations ago, the Protestant church stood at the center of American culture. Attending church, or at least sending your children to Sunday School, was practically a civic duty. Nearly everyone knew the Lord’s Prayer, and Amazing Grace, and Psalm 23.

That is no longer the case, is it? Sending kids to sports programs is a much higher parental duty in today’s culture than making sure they get to Sunday School. And most Americans have far more commercial jingles than hymns memorized. Church is not anyone’s default setting, anymore.

And we feel it, don’t we? We see Sunday School classes getting smaller and smaller, and budgets getting tighter and church staff growing fewer, with fewer hours to work with. Most churches I’ve encountered spend a lot of time worrying about these changes, which are for the most part completely out of our control. We cannot change the tide of our culture any more than those Israelites who were carried off to Babylon could wish themselves back to Jerusalem. We can grieve the losses. We can remember who we have always known God to be. And we can learn to look for God in our new situation.

But it is too small a thing to focus on our own survival. As numbers shrink and budgets tighten, it is so tempting to focus our energy on keeping what we still have. Keeping the building in repair. Keeping all the same staff, but cutting their hours and benefits. Keeping all the Sunday School classes, even though we only have one or two kids in each age group. Keeping the Presbyterian Women’s program on a weekday morning even though all the younger women in the church are at work, then.

It is too small a thing to try to preserve the church, or restore it to its former glory. We need to discover the new possibilities God has in store for us. It is too small a thing to worry about our programs and budgets, when there is a whole world out there, and God is in it!

So, how are you pointing away from yourself, and toward Christ? How is your congregation and its money serving a higher purpose in the world? How are you seizing the opportunity to discover God in new places and in new people? How are you supporting your pastor and your members to be agents of change in the world?

If these questions are intimidating, or challenging, or frightening, that’s okay. You don’t need the answers today. You need only a desire to listen again to the heart of God—the God who called you to this community in the first place and marked you as a beloved child. Because God has a dream for you and for this church, and it is not a small dream. It is a big dream.

“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

Are Liberals Too “Special” to Go to Church? (Reblog)

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Uncategorized1 Comment

Reblogged from Religion Dispatches:

New research from psychologists from the New York University suggests that the desire to feel unique can undermine consensus, cohesion, and mobilization—at least in political contexts.

My hunch is that this may extend to religious contexts as well.

Chadly Stern and colleagues reported in the journal Psychological Science in November 2103 on the findings of a study on “truly false uniqueness” and “truly false consensus” among political liberals, moderates, and conservatives.

The study looked at two things. First, the researchers considered the degree to which participants over- or underestimated their sense that their beliefs were the same as those of others in the same political grouping (liberal, moderate, conservative). Second, the team measured the degree to which participants in the study were motivated by a desire to feel unique versus a desire to feel the same as others in their group.

Overall, Stern, et al found that “liberals underestimated their similarity to other liberals, whereas moderates and conservatives overestimated their similarity to other moderates and conservatives.”

Click here to read the full article

The Journey of Transformation

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Uncategorized1 Comment
Image
Nicolas Poussin [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

I think it’s a funny coincidence that this Sunday is the week when we remember the baptism of Jesus in the river Jordan because I got to have a very “baptismal” moment earlier this week when I showed up to work on Thursday and discovered “rivers of living water” coming out of a broken pipe in the kitchen downstairs.  I’m thankful to report that the repair crew told me it looks like I found the problem and acted on it quickly enough that the damage isn’t too bad, but the whole affair made me want to throw my hands up in the air and cry out, in the words of our Jewish ancestors: “Oy vey!”

Speaking of Judaism…

One of my favorite things about Matthew’s gospel is the way that it is so rooted in Jewish tradition.  The author, who was probably a Jewish Christian living in the first century, wants to demonstrate to the readers that Christianity stands in continuity with traditional Judaism.  Matthew goes to great lengths to identify the story of Jesus with the story of Israel and he does it in two ways:

First, by quoting liberally from the Hebrew Bible (Christians sometimes refer to it as the ‘Old Testament’).  In fact, that happens in today’s reading: When Jesus is baptized and is coming up out of the water, the text says the heavens were opened to [Jesus] and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

This is actually a quote from two different verses in the Hebrew Bible.  When the author does this, it’s kind of like someone singing one line from an old, familiar song (e.g. “Here she comes, just a-walkin down the street, singin…”).  The familiarity immediately triggers memory and makes the audience perk up and go, “Oh yeah, I know that one!”

The other way that the author connects the story of Jesus with the story if Israel is by dropping lots of little hints in the text that remind the audience of famous stories from Israel’s history.  For example: At the beginning of the book of Exodus, there is an evil king (Pharaoh) killing baby boys.  In Matthew’s gospel, another evil king (Herod) is doing exactly the same thing.  Later in Exodus, Moses brings God’s message (the Ten Commandments) to the people of Israel from the top of Mount Sinai.  And what’s the name of Jesus’ most famous message in Matthew?  The Sermon on the Mount.  In Exodus, before the people of Israel can enter the Promised Land, they must wander in the wilderness for forty years.  As Jesus begins his ministry, he fasts and prays in the wilderness for forty days and forty nights.  This is not just a series of coincidences.  They are intentional.  Once again: the author of Matthew’s gospel is trying to identify the story of Jesus with the Israel.

Just one more example, and it’s the one I really want to talk about today:

At the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry, he is baptized by John in the Jordan River.  This is another one of Matthew’s hints.  As Jesus begins his ministry, he passes through the waters.  In the same way, the people of Israel “passed through the waters” on the way from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land.  Again, this is no coincidence.  Matthew is setting Jesus up as a kind of “New Moses” who leads God’s people from slavery to freedom.  The Christian journey of salvation, according to Matthew, is one where those who follow Jesus through the waters of baptism are liberated from slavery to sin and set free to live the life of the kingdom of heaven on earth.

Speaking in terms of (some of) the Ten Commandments, the Christian journey of salvation is one that takes us from violence to peace, from lust to love, from lies to truth, from greed to giving, and from envy to gratitude.  It’s a journey of personal transformation and baptism is the symbol of our agreement to take that journey with Jesus.  In the sacrament of baptism, we make a promise to ourselves, to each other, and to God that we will follow Jesus into a new way of living, just like the people of Israel followed Moses out of Egypt, through the waters of the Red Sea, and (eventually) to the Promised Land.  And it’s not a journey that we take on our own.  We travel by Christ, with Christ, and in Christ.

Here’s what I mean by that:

First of all, this journey of transformation is initiated by Christ.  Christians see Jesus, not just as an historical figure who taught some important ideas 2,000 years ago, but as a living presence who is involved in our lives today.  We believe that the person of Christ is the revelation of the heart of God to humanity, which is to say that, in Christ, God reaches out to us, meets us, and gets the divine hands dirty with the blood, sweat, and tears of this world.  When we are lost, Christ finds us and brings us home; when we are blind, Christ opens our eyes; when we are ignorant, Christ teaches us; when we are sick or wounded, Christ heals us; when we are dead inside, Christ brings us back to life again.  In the midst of the brokenness of this life and the selfishness of our hearts, while we are still hostages in Egypt, Christ shows up, liberates us from the slaveries of the past, and enables us to make a new beginning.  The journey of transformation is initiated by Christ.

Second, the journey of transformation is sustained with Christ.  We do not travel alone.  Christ guides us through the Word of God in Scripture and feeds us in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.  The Spirit of Christ empowers our spirits and gives us strength to keep walking the path.  The love of Christ fills our hearts and picks us up when we stumble and fall on the road.  Christ walks beside us and promised never to leave us alone until the journey is through.

Finally, the journey of transformation is completed in Christ when we begin to love like Jesus loves.  That’s ultimately where all this is going; that’s the main principle underlying each of the Ten Commandments: Love.  Jesus said as much when he said that you could sum up all the commandments of the Bible with, “Love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself.”  It’s all about love.  St. Irenaeus, one of the early fathers of the church, famously said that, in the incarnation of Christ, “God became what we are so that we might become what God is.”  And what exactly is God?  According to 1 John 4:16, “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.”  Love is who God is, therefore love is who we are.  Love is where we’re going in the end, therefore love is all that matters.  Love is the heartbeat of the cosmos and the foundational law of the universe, which is where we find the strength to say to one another, Sunday after Sunday:

I love you, God loves you, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Be blessed and be a blessing!