I just finished a wonderful book by Robin R. Meyers called Saving Jesus from the Church (HarperOne 2009). Meyers argues that Christians should concentrate on the message of Jesus, rather than the question of whether Jesus was the divine Son of God. Or, as Meyers puts it in the subtitle of the book, "How to Stop Worshipping Christ and Start Following Jesus.” If we go down this path, we don’t need to struggle over whether Jesus was a man or a man and God combined, or whether he was equal or subordinate to God – the questions that occupied the Catholic Church for centuries. These controversies continue to create religious fault lines around the world and often do little or nothing to help us live more loving and meaningful lives.
Whatever one thinks of the nature of Jesus, his words (or at least the words attributed to him) reflect the greatest insights of all the words of wisdom in the Bible. Recall the trick question posed to Jesus by the rabbis, hoping to discredit him. What is the greatest commandment, they asked? Jesus replied: “And thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength; this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.” Mark 12: 30-31. That is a remarkably progressive message, which has nothing to do with rigid religious laws or rituals. In my view, if we are to take one central unifying idea from the New Testament, it is the ideas found in that passage.
Too often, though, the Church has strayed from this basic message to find itself bogged down in disputes over abstract doctrines and elaborate theological constructs that are not to be found in the words of Jesus or, in fact, in the Bible at all. In a way the question boils down to this: If you are a Christian and have to pick one of these verses from the New Testament for your bumper sticker, what would it be: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16) or the passage from Mark above?
The familiar passage in John, which all Christians learn as children, focuses on God loving us and the requirement that we accept Jesus as the Divine Son of God. It is a beautiful thought, but it is all about us -- and the requirement to accept a certain creed. Compare that to the passage in Mark, which focuses on our loving God and our neighbors. Your choice should tell you something about what Christianity means to you.
*Correia takes a profound look at the doubt and uncertainty millions face when presented with the traditional conception of God. The Uncertain Believer: Reconciling God and Science (SterlingHouse Publisher, Inc., 2009) addresses the skepticism and indecision that plagues those who no longer find it easy to accept the existence of a supernatural creator. Confronted with the often unappealing alternatives of agnosticism, atheism, and blind faith, The Uncertain Believer offers readers a fresh look at the meaningful role God can play in our lives.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
What Does God Have to do with the Earthquake in Haiti?
The earthquake in Haiti is one of the great human disasters of this young century. Imagine how many thousands of times Haitians have asked themselves: Where is God? Why did He allow this to happen? That is a natural reaction, based on centuries of looking to God to explain natural disasters. But as I discuss in The Uncertain Believer, man has steadily looked to science to understand the phenomena of nature, from the beautiful to the terrible. But this intellectual advance is not universal and, even among those who tend to reject “divine” explanations , it still may be difficult to think God has nothing to do with such overwhelming destruction and loss of life.
Consider three possible roles for God in the Haiti disaster. The first is the one we associate with our primitive ancestors who understood natural disasters as punishment by God. Evangelist Pat Robertson is a good example of someone who takes this position. On his television shows, the “700 Club,” he claimed that the disaster was God’s revenge for a “pact with the Devil” that Haitians had made to gain their independence from France over 200 years ago.
One of the few virtues of this explanation is that it is dramatic, much more interesting than a scientific analysis of the tectonic plates beneath the Caribbean. Another is that it assumes a rational cause and effect calculus by God that is part of the complex rules that govern the universe: If you make a pact with the Devil, I will punish you. This at least means that God is not handing out suffering arbitrarily and on a whim, as the Greek Gods sometimes did.
On the other hand, how can Pat Robertson or anyone else love (or at least respect) a God that is too weak to prevent a pact with the Devil in the first place and is so cruel as to inflict this level of suffering two hundred years after the transgression. Wouldn’t a loving God have simply used His power to prevent the pact in the first place? And, while he was at it, give Haitians the education, health care and economic development to prevent the squalid poverty in which they have lived for centuries? If we go down this road with Pat Robertson, we arrive at a conception of God that is so far removed from a loving God that we may have a sense of despair.
Another approach is to say that God is nature itself, both the terrible and the beautiful. This is the conception the Vatican sees in the movie Avatar and was concerned enough to issue a statement condemning this vision. It is certainly possible to conceive of God as nature. One can be particularly attracted to this vision when we experience spectacularly beautiful or amazingly complex phenomena. They literally take our breath away. Some philosophers (Spinoza for one) held that God is nature and primitive pantheism finds God in rocks, trees and rivers. If we go down this road, we see the Haitian earthquake as one of the infinite aspects of God, but there is no rational cause and effect calculation, no idea of punishment. God is simply God – beautiful and ugly, destructive and constructive, life-giving and life-taking. Step back and behold.
But if we go down this road, we begin to see all the problems with this conception, too. If God is everything we see around us, what guidance does that give us about our lives ? Is there a framework for living in the mountains, rivers and earthquakes? How does this idea of God help us in our relationships? How does it lead to a better world? We are at a dead end because, once God becomes everything, the idea of God fades into the background of everyday reality, and, paradoxically, God can become nothing.
The third conception of God is the one that makes sense to me and this God is glaringly evident in Haiti. This is God as the ideal of unqualified compassion for others. I argue in The Uncertain Believer that this is the central unifying idea of all major religions.* If we conceive of God in this way, we see God at work in the heroic efforts of rescue workers and in those who comfort the dying and those who have lost loved ones. We even see God in the response of nations throughout the world to send recue ships and pour in supplies, and to commit resources to rebuild a devastated society. Yes, there is self-interest at work in much of this, as there always is, but there is genuine compassion, too. This idea of God does provide a framework for living. It provides hope for the future of the world.
*Correia takes a profound look at the doubt and uncertainty millions face when presented with the traditional conception of God. The Uncertain Believer: Reconciling God and Science (SterlingHouse Publisher, Inc., 2009) addresses the skepticism and indecision that plagues those who no longer find it easy to accept the existence of a supernatural creator. Confronted with the often unappealing alternatives of agnosticism, atheism, and blind faith, The Uncertain Believer offers readers a fresh look at the meaningful role God can play in our lives. (see www.uncertainbeliever.com)
Consider three possible roles for God in the Haiti disaster. The first is the one we associate with our primitive ancestors who understood natural disasters as punishment by God. Evangelist Pat Robertson is a good example of someone who takes this position. On his television shows, the “700 Club,” he claimed that the disaster was God’s revenge for a “pact with the Devil” that Haitians had made to gain their independence from France over 200 years ago.
One of the few virtues of this explanation is that it is dramatic, much more interesting than a scientific analysis of the tectonic plates beneath the Caribbean. Another is that it assumes a rational cause and effect calculus by God that is part of the complex rules that govern the universe: If you make a pact with the Devil, I will punish you. This at least means that God is not handing out suffering arbitrarily and on a whim, as the Greek Gods sometimes did.
On the other hand, how can Pat Robertson or anyone else love (or at least respect) a God that is too weak to prevent a pact with the Devil in the first place and is so cruel as to inflict this level of suffering two hundred years after the transgression. Wouldn’t a loving God have simply used His power to prevent the pact in the first place? And, while he was at it, give Haitians the education, health care and economic development to prevent the squalid poverty in which they have lived for centuries? If we go down this road with Pat Robertson, we arrive at a conception of God that is so far removed from a loving God that we may have a sense of despair.
Another approach is to say that God is nature itself, both the terrible and the beautiful. This is the conception the Vatican sees in the movie Avatar and was concerned enough to issue a statement condemning this vision. It is certainly possible to conceive of God as nature. One can be particularly attracted to this vision when we experience spectacularly beautiful or amazingly complex phenomena. They literally take our breath away. Some philosophers (Spinoza for one) held that God is nature and primitive pantheism finds God in rocks, trees and rivers. If we go down this road, we see the Haitian earthquake as one of the infinite aspects of God, but there is no rational cause and effect calculation, no idea of punishment. God is simply God – beautiful and ugly, destructive and constructive, life-giving and life-taking. Step back and behold.
But if we go down this road, we begin to see all the problems with this conception, too. If God is everything we see around us, what guidance does that give us about our lives ? Is there a framework for living in the mountains, rivers and earthquakes? How does this idea of God help us in our relationships? How does it lead to a better world? We are at a dead end because, once God becomes everything, the idea of God fades into the background of everyday reality, and, paradoxically, God can become nothing.
The third conception of God is the one that makes sense to me and this God is glaringly evident in Haiti. This is God as the ideal of unqualified compassion for others. I argue in The Uncertain Believer that this is the central unifying idea of all major religions.* If we conceive of God in this way, we see God at work in the heroic efforts of rescue workers and in those who comfort the dying and those who have lost loved ones. We even see God in the response of nations throughout the world to send recue ships and pour in supplies, and to commit resources to rebuild a devastated society. Yes, there is self-interest at work in much of this, as there always is, but there is genuine compassion, too. This idea of God does provide a framework for living. It provides hope for the future of the world.
*Correia takes a profound look at the doubt and uncertainty millions face when presented with the traditional conception of God. The Uncertain Believer: Reconciling God and Science (SterlingHouse Publisher, Inc., 2009) addresses the skepticism and indecision that plagues those who no longer find it easy to accept the existence of a supernatural creator. Confronted with the often unappealing alternatives of agnosticism, atheism, and blind faith, The Uncertain Believer offers readers a fresh look at the meaningful role God can play in our lives. (see www.uncertainbeliever.com)
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Does the Islamic Faith Condone Violence?
On the last day of 2009, the Washington Post ran a story on its front page about Nidal Hasan, the Army psychiatrist who killed a dozen people at Fort Hood in November. The article explored the influence of Islam on Hasan’s views about military service and his apparent conclusion that he was justified in killing Americans in the military. The front page prominently displayed two quotes from the Quran. “And whoever kills a believer intentionally, his punishment is hell; he shall abide in it, and Allah will send His wrath on him and curse him and prepare him for a painful chastisement.” (Chapter 4, verse 93) The second quote was: “[D]o not kill anyone whose killing Allah has forbidden, except for just cause.” (Chapter 17, verse 33).
It is possible that Hasan interpreted the first verse to mean that the United States, by sending troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, deserved punishment from Allah. It is also possible that Hasan interpreted the second verse to mean that he, not just Allah, was justified in killing “unbelievers” at his base. One can go even further and say that this is not just Hasan’s interpretation of the Quran. It is the INTENDED interpretation. In other words, one could argue that the Quran, and by extension, the Islamic faith, holds that killing “unbelievers” is justified, at least if they are involved in a military occupation that results in the loss of Muslim lives. That principle could apply to Israel’s control of the West Bank, to U.S. actions in the Middle East, to any nation or person who is viewed as being “at war” with Muslims.
There is no doubt that many in the radical Islamic movement believe violence, even against innocent civilians, is justified by the Quran. There is also no doubt that the traditional interpretation of the Quran, the one held by the vast majority of Muslims around the world, rejects this view. As in the case of all religious movements that have been historically intertwined with political and social conflicts, armies have marched in the name of Islam. But that is also true of the ancient Jews, who conquered tribes in Palestine, and Christians, who launched the Crusades in the eleventh century to “retake” the Holy Land. The issue is not whether violence has been practiced in the name of a religious movement but what are the core values that it represents today. Islam, like all other great religious traditions teaches us to love others as we loves ourselves. (See Mohammed’s version of the Golden Rule as well as that of other religions at www.religioustolerance.org/reciproc.htm.)
The problem is not the core teachings of Islam. The problem is a widespread and growing radical Islamic movement that is a perversion of traditional Islam. The causes for that movement are many, but at least one is that moderate Islamic leaders around the world are not vocal enough about how the traditional teachings of Islam are being distorted. It is essential to separate the political conflicts over the Middle East from the central teachings of the great religious traditions. We can have fundamental disagreements over the former, but we are to a great extent united about the latter. That is a message we need to hear from all religious leaders, but more than ever, we need to hear it from Islam.
It is possible that Hasan interpreted the first verse to mean that the United States, by sending troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, deserved punishment from Allah. It is also possible that Hasan interpreted the second verse to mean that he, not just Allah, was justified in killing “unbelievers” at his base. One can go even further and say that this is not just Hasan’s interpretation of the Quran. It is the INTENDED interpretation. In other words, one could argue that the Quran, and by extension, the Islamic faith, holds that killing “unbelievers” is justified, at least if they are involved in a military occupation that results in the loss of Muslim lives. That principle could apply to Israel’s control of the West Bank, to U.S. actions in the Middle East, to any nation or person who is viewed as being “at war” with Muslims.
There is no doubt that many in the radical Islamic movement believe violence, even against innocent civilians, is justified by the Quran. There is also no doubt that the traditional interpretation of the Quran, the one held by the vast majority of Muslims around the world, rejects this view. As in the case of all religious movements that have been historically intertwined with political and social conflicts, armies have marched in the name of Islam. But that is also true of the ancient Jews, who conquered tribes in Palestine, and Christians, who launched the Crusades in the eleventh century to “retake” the Holy Land. The issue is not whether violence has been practiced in the name of a religious movement but what are the core values that it represents today. Islam, like all other great religious traditions teaches us to love others as we loves ourselves. (See Mohammed’s version of the Golden Rule as well as that of other religions at www.religioustolerance.org/reciproc.htm.)
The problem is not the core teachings of Islam. The problem is a widespread and growing radical Islamic movement that is a perversion of traditional Islam. The causes for that movement are many, but at least one is that moderate Islamic leaders around the world are not vocal enough about how the traditional teachings of Islam are being distorted. It is essential to separate the political conflicts over the Middle East from the central teachings of the great religious traditions. We can have fundamental disagreements over the former, but we are to a great extent united about the latter. That is a message we need to hear from all religious leaders, but more than ever, we need to hear it from Islam.
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