Paul-Galatians

Paul’s messages in the Epistle: (1) he has received his commission directly from God; (2) that no human teacher had authority to change the Gospel that he, Paul, had preached; and (3) that the original Apostles at Jerusalem

had recognized the rightfulness of his mission to the Gentiles. He then emphasizes the futility of trying to live by ‘works of the law’ and maintains that the way in which a person is justified in the sight of God is not that of ‘law’ but of ‘faith’.

Chapter Summaries:

(1) In addition to his greetings and the usual opening remarks Paul goes out of his way to mention that he is an apostle and that his apostleship is not based on a human commission but from the divine (perhaps contrasting himself with the twelve). After the initial greetings Paul, atypically, instead of going into the usual thanksgiving remarks, rolls into a shrill tirade against the Galatians. He tells them of his astonishment that they are deserting his teachings and hearkening to a different Gospel. He disdainfully refers to individuals who are teaching a different Jesus story than that which he has crafted and in verse 9 pronounces an anathema against them. He then makes some comments on his understanding of the Gospel. Towards the end of chapter one Paul begins to share his biography. He tells of his time persecuting the Jesus Movement, his Damascus road experience, his visit to the Jerusalem Church where he meets Peter and James, after which he preached in the northern Levant.

(2) Paul continues his story with his account of the conference at Jerusalem. He makes some harsh judgments about those that differ in opinion with him in verse 4-5 after which he relates the concord reached between him and “the pillars”. Paul then shares his version of the conflict with Peter in Antioch, and interestingly, he does not tell us Peter’s reaction, relate the argument of the Jerusalem representatives, or share with us the outcome of the conflict.

(3) He puts forth his own views with zealous enthusiasm, the core of which can be found in 3.1-5.1 Paul is showing us a little of the Paul behind Paul, and it’s easy to imagine him worked up to a feverous pitch at this point. He then changes tack from accusatory to argumentation and spends the rest of chapter three trying to use the story of Abraham to bolster up his own position.

(4) In verses 4-5 he shares his Christological views and in 6-7 what he believes it means for humankind. Paul continues, telling how he had come to reside amongst them and bemoans the state of their current relationship. He then proceeds with yet another ad hominim attack on the motives of other Christian messengers who have come among them and contrasts that to his own loving concern over their well being. Paul closes chapter four with another reference to characters from Hebrew Scripture this time using the stories of Hagar and Sarah to illustrate his point.

(5) Paul opens five by reminding them that it is for freedom that the Christ had set them free and exhorts them to stand firm and refuse to return to enslavement. He tells them that if they get themselves circumcised (follow Jewish law?) Christ will benefit them no more. He tells them that if they follow one law they will end up having to follow all the laws and find themselves outside God’s grace. He moves into the most horrific attack upon his opponents, suggesting that perhaps they should indulge in self castration. Paul wraps up five with the usual Pauline rhetoric.

(6) Paul closes up the entire Epistle by playing up his dominant themes, making a few last jabs at the teachers amongst them and tells them not to let others make trouble for him in the future for he bears the marks of Jesus upon his body.

Paul-Thessalonians

What are your first impressions of this early Christian missionary? My first impression of Paul is his concern for his own authority and his desire to remain in control. Further, I discern a distinct lack of humility on his part, perhaps a bit of self righteousness, and a “father knows best” mentality. And, perhaps most disturbing he strikes me as unenlightened and overly harsh in his vilification of the Jews.

Does Paul's self-description coincide with characteristics that you infer from your reading of the 1st Thessalonians? In chapter two for example; Paul plays the braggart when he states that despite all of the outrages his party suffered they declared the gospel fearlessly (2.2). He states that he does not resort to flattery but his writing is filled with it (2.5). He believes he has the right of power over the Thessalonians but stays his hand (2.7). He plays the part of the martyr when he reminds them how he had to work for a living while amongst them(2.9) He exhibits self righteousness as he calls on them to witness how devout, just and blameless he was (2.10) He claims his teachings as the very word of God (2.13). He judges his former religious brethren harshly, his statement can be seen as a precursor to anti-Semitic movements and pogroms through the ages (2.15-16).

What do you think of his conversation with the Thessalonians regarding expectations for the end-times? Paul seems to be most concerned with patching up the holes in his eschatological teaching. It appears to me that Paul was teaching an immanent eschatological transformation as had Jesus (Matthew 16.28, 23.36, 24.33-35) This miscalculation required some revision which eventually resulted in the Parousian adjustment. Paul had to address the concerns of the Thessalonians as their peers began to die before the promised return of the Christ figure. Paul responds by claiming to speak for the Lord (4.15). He puts forth the argument that all that die in Christ will rise and share in the Parousia. The framework of his original teaching remained intact. He could claim that neither he, nor Jesus, had been wrong; their hearers had only misunderstood their original intent.

What else would you like to learn about Paul as you encounter him in other letters? Was Paul a Gnostic and were his original teachings glossed over by later writers to promote orthodox conformity as claimed by Elaine Pagels? Was Paul as homosexual as suggested by Bishop Spong and others? Could Paul have created Christianity by combining elements of Rabbi Yeshua ben Yusef’s teachings with the Mystery religions?Why is Pauline Christianity so different from what appears in the synoptics, especially the words of Jesus himself?

The Epic of Gilgamesh

The epic’s prelude offers a general introduction t0 Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, who was two-thirds god and one-third man. He built magnificent ziggurats, or temple towers, surrounded his city with high walls, and laid out its orchards and fields. He was physically beautiful, immensely strong, and very wise. Although Gilgamesh was godlike in body and mind, he began his kingship as a cruel despot. He lorded over his subjects, raping any woman who struck his fancy, whether she was the wife of one of his warriors or the daughter of a nobleman. He accomplished his building projects with forced labor, and his exhausted subjects groaned under his oppression. The gods heard his subjects’ pleas and decided to keep Gilgamesh in check by creating a wild man named Enkidu, who was as magnificent as Gilgamesh. Enkidu became Gilgamesh’s great friend, and Gilgamesh’s heart was shattered when Enkidu died of an illness inflicted by the gods. Gilgamesh then traveled to the edge of the world and learned about the days before the deluge and other secrets of the gods, and he recorded them on stone tablets.

The epic begins with Enkidu. He lives with the animals, suckling at their breasts, grazing in the meadows, and drinking at their watering places. A hunter discovers him and sends a temple prostitute into the wilderness to tame him. In that time, people considered women and sex calming forces that could domesticate wild men like Enkidu and bring them into the civilized world. When Enkidu sleeps with the woman, the animals reject him since he is no longer one of them. Now, he is part of the human world. Then the harlot teaches him everything he needs to know to be a man. Enkidu is outraged by what he hears about Gilgamesh’s excesses, so he travels to Uruk to challenge him. When he arrives, Gilgamesh is about to force his way into a bride’s wedding chamber. Enkidu steps into the doorway and blocks his passage. The two men wrestle fiercely for a long time, and Gilgamesh finally prevails. After that, they become friends and set about looking for an adventure to share.

Gilgamesh and Enkidu decide to steal trees from a distant cedar forest forbidden to mortals. A terrifying demon named Humbaba, the devoted servant of Enlil, the god of earth, wind, and air, guards it. The two heroes make the perilous journey to the forest, and, standing side by side, fight with the monster. With assistance from Shamash the sun god, they kill him. Then they cut down the forbidden trees, fashion the tallest into an enormous gate, make the rest into a raft, and float on it back to Uruk. Upon their return Ishtar, the goddess of love, is overcome with lust for Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh spurns her. Enraged, the goddess asks her father, Anu, the god of the sky, to send the Bull of Heaven to punish him. The bull comes down from the sky, bringing with him seven years of famine. Gilgamesh and Enkidu wrestle with the bull and kill it. The gods meet in council and agree that one of the two friends must be punished for their transgression, and they decide Enkidu is going to die. He takes ill, suffers immensely, and shares his visions of the underworld with Gilgamesh. When he finally dies, Gilgamesh is heartbroken.

Gilgamesh can’t stop grieving for Enkidu, and he can’t stop brooding about the prospect of his own death. Exchanging his kingly garments for animal skins as a way of mourning Enkidu, he sets off into the wilderness, determined to find Utnapishtim, the Mesopotamian Noah. After the flood, the gods had granted Utnapishtim eternal life, and Gilgamesh hopes that Utnapishtim can tell him how he might avoid death too. Gilgamesh’s journey takes him to the twin-peaked mountain called Mashu, where the sun sets into one side of the mountain at night and rises out of the other side in the morning. Utnapishtim lives beyond the mountain, but the two scorpion monsters that guard its entrance refuse to allow Gilgamesh into the tunnel that passes through it. Gilgamesh pleads with them, and they relent.

After a harrowing passage through total darkness, Gilgamesh emerges into a beautiful garden by the sea. There he meets Siduri, a veiled tavern keeper, and tells her about his quest. She warns him that seeking immortality is futile and that he should be satisfied with the pleasures of this world. However, when she can’t turn him away from his purpose, she directs him to Urshanabi, the ferryman. Urshanabi takes Gilgamesh on the boat journey across the sea and through the Waters of Death to Utnapishtim. Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh the story of the flood—how the gods met in council and decided to destroy humankind. Ea, the god of wisdom, warned Utnapishtim about the gods’ plans and told him how to fashion a gigantic boat in which his family and the seed of every living creature might escape. When the waters finally receded, the gods regretted what they’d done and agreed that they would never try to destroy humankind again. Utnapishtim was rewarded with eternal life. Men would die, but humankind would continue.

When Gilgamesh insists that he be allowed to live forever, Utnapishtim gives him a test. If you think you can stay alive for eternity, he says, surely you can stay awake for a week. Gilgamesh tries and immediately fails. So Utnapishtim orders him to clean himself up, put on his royal garments again, and return to Uruk where he belongs. Just as Gilgamesh is departing, however, Utnapishtim’s wife convinces him to tell Gilgamesh about a miraculous plant that restores youth. Gilgamesh finds the plant and takes it with him, planning to share it with the elders of Uruk. But a snake steals the plant one night while they are camping. As the serpent slithers away, it sheds its skin and becomes young again.

When Gilgamesh returns to Uruk, he is empty-handed but reconciled at last to his mortality. He knows that he can’t live forever but that humankind will. Now he sees that the city he had repudiated in his grief and terror is a magnificent, enduring achievement—the closest thing to immortality to which a mortal can aspire.

Belief-O-Matic

Belief-O-Matic makes the serious practice of choosing a faith into an experience that resembles online dating. Answer 20 questions on a Web site and the tool spits out a list of religions or faiths best suited to your answers. The digital religion engine, which is part of the popular, multi-faith religion web site Beliefnet, welcomes guests with the one part mystical, one part pop-psychology greeting, "Even if YOU don't know what faith you are, Belief-O-Matic knows." Like online dating surveys, users can identify what they believe and rate their beliefs according to their importance. But while online daters seek compatibility with complete strangers, Belief-O-Matic is more like choosing a date from a line-up of old flames. For a question about life after death, one answer includes a reference to the final judgment, another to resurrection and another to rebirth. If people with spiritual experience answer truthfully, the idea is they will likely end up matched to the religion they already practice. So, what is the algorithm/equation that determines one’s belief system, and what, exactly, is the point? Is it just a fun game, or is it an attempt to confirm and bolster the religious identities that site visitors bring with them?

Belief-O-Matic tries to help you find out what religion or faith best suits you. It asks questions like, "What are the origins of the physical universe and life on earth?" and, "Why is there terrible wrongdoing in the world?" The multiple-choice quiz typically offers between three and eight answers to choose from. For example, users answering the first question can choose among answers like, "All matter and life forms are manifestations of the eternal Absolute," or "God is creating and controlling the phenomena uncovered by scientists." Users considering the second question will find answers like, "Humans inherited sinfulness, or a damaged nature, or tendency to yield to Satan's temptations from Adam and Eve, who committed the original sin against God. Users can also classify their answers as high priority, medium priority and low priority, according to the answer's importance in their spiritual life.

Belief-O-Matic's results are based on numbers and human research. Each possible answer in the 20-question quiz has a different numeric compatibility value for each religion. For each answer chosen, there is a religious practice that is most compatible with that belief. There is also a religion that is the least compatible with that answer. For example, if the question is, "Do you believe in God?" and the user chooses NO, then Atheism would receive 100 points, because that is the most compatible religious belief for people who say they do not believe in God. Born-again Christianity might receive zero points for this question because the answer is an emphatic yes. (The questions are more complicated than, "Do you believe in God?" but this simple example illustrates the way the quiz evaluates answers.) Most belief systems will have a number in between zero and 100 for each question. When the user finishes, the quiz uses an algorithm to total all the numeric values for each possible result and display in percentages the degree to which the user is compatible with each religion. The quiz results appear as a list of religions, with the highest compatibility percentage at the top.

The Way

The Universe Infinite, with Nature Eternal, my God and Goddess,
The World, its Wonders Diverse, my Sacred Temple and Altars,
Science, the Name of my Religion,
Mathematics, the Foundation of my Faith,
Reason and Rationality, my Guide and Prophet,
Logic and the Laws of Physics, my Holy Scriptures,
The Body, the Mind, and the Spirit, my Holy Trinity,
Thought and Imagination, my Shrine and Sanctuary,
To Create, a Better World, my Path and Goal,
Achievement of Excellence, my Heaven,
Continual Improvement, my Quest,
The Good I have made and for all leave behind, my Afterlife,
The Divine Beauty of this Natural Pantheism, my Immortal Truth...

...and, that which no other belief-system provides...
Ample Empirical Evidence from Repeatable Experiment by Anyone, my Proof,
Accurate, Verifiable, Generic-Phenomena Prediction & Explanation, my Justification.

Channing on Thoreau

Henry retained a peculiar pronunciation of the letter r, with a decided French accent. He says, "September is the first month with a burr in it;" and his speech always had an emphasis, a burr in it."

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Once when a follower was done up with a headache and incapable of motion, hoping his associate would comfort him and perhaps afford him a sip of tea, he said, "There are people who are sick in that way every morning, and go about their affairs," and then marched off about his.

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He also had the firmness of the Indian, and could repress his pathos; as when he carried (about the age of ten) his pet chickens to an innkeeper for sale in a basket, who thereupon told him "to stop," and for convenience’ sake took them out one by one and wrung their several pretty necks before the poor boy’s eyes, who did not budge. He had such a seriousness at the same age that he was called "judge."

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A pleasing trait of his warm feeling is remembered, when he asked his mother, before leaving college, what profession to choose, and she replied pleasantly, "You can buckle on your knapsack, and roam abroad to seek your fortune." The tears came in his eyes and rolled down his cheeks, when his sister Helen, who was standing by, tenderly put her arm around him and kissed him, saying, "No, Henry, you shall not go: you shall stay at home and live with us."

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Being complained of for taking a knife belonging to another boy, Henry said, "I did not take it," — and was believed. In a few days the culprit was found, and Henry then said, "I knew all the time who it was, and the day it was taken I went to Newton with father." "Well, then," of course, was the question, "why did you not say so at the time?" "I did not take it," was his reply.

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A school-fellow complained of him because he would not make him a bow and arrow, his skill at whittling being superior. It seems he refused, but it came out after that he had no knife.

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An early anecdote remains of his being told at three years that he must die, as well as the men in the catechism. He said he did not want to die, but was reconciled; yet, coming in from coasting, he said he "did not want to die and go to heaven, because he could not carry his sled with him; for the boys said, as it was not shod with iron, it was not worth a cent."

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Another school experience was the town school in Concord, which he took after leaving college, announcing that he should not flog, but would talk morals as a punishment instead. A fortnight sped glibly along, when a knowing deacon, one of the School Committee, walked in and told Mr. Thoreau that he must flog and use the ferule, or the school would spoil. So he did, by feruling six of his pupils after school, one of whom was the maid-servant in his own house. But it did not suit well with his conscience, and he reported to the committee that he should no longer keep their school, as they interfered with his arrangements; and they could keep it.

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In height, he was about the average; in his build, spare, with limbs that were rather longer than usual, or of which he made a longer use. His face, once seen, could not be forgotten. The features were quite marked: the nose aquiline or very Roman, like one of the portraits of Caesar (more like a beak, as was said); large, overhanging brows above the deepest set blue eyes that could be seen, in certain lights, and in others gray, — eyes expressive of all shades of feeling, but never weak or near-sighted; the forehead not unusually broad or high, full of concentrated energy and purpose; the mouth with prominent lips, pursed up with meaning and thought when silent, and giving out when open a stream of the most varied and unusual and instructive sayings. His hair was a dark brown, exceedingly abundant, fine and soft; and for several years he wore a comely beard. His whole figure had an active earnestness, as if he had no moment to waste. The clenched hand betokened purpose. In walking, he made a short cut if he could, and when sitting in the shade or by the wall-side seemed merely the clearer to look forward into the next piece of activity. Even in the boat he had a wary, transitory air, his eyes on the outlook, — perhaps there might be ducks, or the Blondin turtle, or an otter, or sparrow.

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Once walking in old Dunstable, he much desired the town history by C. J. Fox; and, knocking as usual at the best house, went in and asked a young lady who made her appearance whether she had the book in question: she had, — it was produced. After consulting it somewhat, Thoreau in his sincere way inquired very modestly whether she "would not sell it to him." I think the plan surprised her, and have heard that she smiled; but he produced his wallet, gave her the pistareen, and went his way rejoicing with the book.

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If he needed a box on his walk, he would strip a piece of birch-bark off the tree, fold it when cut straightly together, and put his tender lichen or brittle creature therein. In those irritable thunderclaps which come, he says, "with tender, graceful violence," he sometimes erected a transistory house by means of his pocketknife, rapidly paring away the white-pine and oak, taking the lower limbs of a large tree and pitching on the cut brush for a roof. Here he sat, pleased with the minute drops from off the eaves, not questioning the love of electricity for trees. If out on the river, haul up your boat, turn it upside-down, and yourself under it. Once he was thus doubled up, when Jove let drop a pattern thunderbolt in the river in front of his boat, while he whistled a lively air as accompaniment. This is noted, as he was much distressed by storms when young, and used to go whining to his father’s room, and say, "I don’t feel well," and then take shelter in the paternal arms, when his health improved.

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When Thoreau laughed, like Shelley, the operation was sufficient to split a pitcher.

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As an honorary member, Thoreau appertained to the Boston Society of Natural History, adding to its reports, besides comparing notes with the care-takers or curators of the mise en scène. To this body he left his collections of plants, Indian tools, and the like. His latest traffic with it refers to the number of bars or fins upon a pike, which had more or less than was decent. He sat upon his eggs with theirs. His city visit was to their books, and there he made his call, not upon the swift ladies of Spruce Street, and more than once he entered by the window before the janitor had digested his omelet.

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When asked whether he knew a young miss, celebrated for her beauty, he inquired, "Is she the one with the goggles?"

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As long [sic] he could possibly sit up, he insisted on his chair at the family-table, and said, "It would not be social to take my meals alone." And on hearing an organ in the streets, playing some old tune of his childhood he should never hear again, the tears fell from his eyes, and he said, "Give him some money! give him some money!"

St. Wonder Woman

Charles Moulton, who did his most creative work under the pseudonym William Molton Marstan, will never be canonized as a saint of the church. Yet I suspect that Charles Moulton will be credited with having done more to bring about the emancipation of women than the Virgin Mary. I certainly do not mean to offend the sensitivities of those who have been taught to revere the Virgin as the ideal of womanhood, but I do intend to examine the effects on woman of Mary when compared with the creation of Charles Moulton.

Who was Charles Moulton? His name is not a household word, but his creation is. In 1941 Moulton launched a comic strip character named Wonder Woman. Moulton was a psychologist. He was also the inventor of the lie detector. In an autobiographical note in the Wonder Women Archives Vol. 2, he describes himself as "an early feminist," who believed that "a woman's rightful place was as a world leader, not servant or helpmate."

Sharlene Azan, a staff reporter for the Toronto Star, described Wonder Woman as the "hero of my adolescence," who "helped me imagine myself out of a life where being a good girl meant being quiet and obedient." Wonder Woman countered this definition, imposed on most young girls by their mothers, teachers, and the social order. Wonder Woman encouraged self-confidence, not passivity. Her message to her female followers was a single one: "Girls, you can do the same thing." It was a banner no one else was flying in the forties and even in the fifties, when home economics rather than physics was thought to be the proper elective for female students.

When Ms. Magazine hit the newsstands in 1971, the cover featured a picture of Wonder Woman, who had by then become the patron saint, if you will, of the feminist movement. Gloria Steinem said of her, "She symbolized many of the values of the women's culture that feminists are now trying to introduce to the mainstream: strength and self-reliance for women, sisterhood and mutual support among women." The impact of Wonder Woman on women over the last 50 years is hard to measure. There is no mythic comic strip character who has replaced her for girls and young teens today.

But that does not strike me as a problem, because mythic roles are not necessary if those women who had their imaginations opened by Wonder Woman simply went out and did great things.which they certainly did. They are today the Ruth Bader Ginsburgs, the Sandra Day O'Connors, the Margaret Thatchers, the Diane Feinsteins, the Elizabeth Doles and Hillary Clintons. They are also the young women who crashed through glass ceilings in business, education, law, science, and finance.

I look at my own four daughters for documentation. One is a managing director of a major Southern bank, one is an attorney, one has a doctorate in physics from Stanford, and one is a Captain in the U.S. Marine Corps, the second woman ever to pilot the attack helicopter known as the Cobra. Fantasy role models are not necessary when you have real life ones. That is what Wonder Woman helped to produce.

Compare and contrast for a moment the freeing, empowering influence of Wonder Woman with what women have historically received from the Virgin Mary. Mary's power was never direct, it was always secondary--like girls, it was said, were supposed to be. The Virgin Mary's power was that of intercession, a kind of "divine pillow talk." She was so pure and so gentle that she was thought to be able to move with her requests the father God or the judging Son Jesus, both of whom had the real power.

The pattern was continued in Mark, the earliest Gospel, written between 70-75 C.E. or 40 to 45 years after the earthly life of Jesus came to an end. Once more, there is no story here of a miraculous birth. There are, however, two references to Jesus' mother, but neither is flattering. She appears in this first Gospel to be embarrassed by Jesus, to think him "beside himself," and Mark says that she went with Jesus' four brothers, James, Joseph, Judas and Simon, and his two sisters to "take Jesus away" [see Mark 3 and 6]. That is hardly the behavior one would expect from a woman who had been visited by an angel and who had been told that she was to be the Virgin Mother of the Son of God.

The Virgin story entered the Christian tradition in the early 9th decade gospel of Matthew, some 55 years after the death of Jesus. It was repeated in the late 9th or early 10th decade gospel of Luke, and then it disappeared in favor of the concept of Jesus' divine pre-existence in the 10th decade Gospel of John. The mythology of Mary, however, was destined to expand in the development of Christian history.

By the early years of the 2nd century, the idea of the Virgin as the ideal woman began to grow. First, it was said of her that she was a virgin mother. Next, she became a permanent virgin, making it necessary to transform the biblically mentioned brothers and sisters of Jesus into half-siblings or cousins. Next the church fathers claimed for her the status of being a postpartum virgin which caused the hierarchy of the church to go through intellectual gymnastics to prove that the hymen of the Virgin Mary had not been ruptured even during Jesus' birth. Tales circulated that perhaps Jesus was born out of his mother's ear! Then someone found a text in Ezekiel [see Chapter 44:1], which suggested that when "the gates of the city were closed only the Lord could go in and out." Without either shame or apology that verse, written about 800 years before the birth of Jesus, was said to demonstrate that Jesus could be born without disturbing the gates of his mother's womb.

Next, in the 19th century, the Virgin was declared to be immaculately conceived. Even her own birth was now said to have been miraculous. The stain of human sin found in the myth of the fall of humanity (in the Garden of Eden) was not allowed to touch her. Finally, in the 20th century, literally at the dawn of the space age, Mary was proclaimed to have bodily ascended into heaven. This new doctrine was based on the fact that no one knew her place of burial. The reason, the Church's leadership suggested, was that she had never died.

Is this a feminine role model that today's young women will or should follow? Hardly. Yes, Mary was a woman, but she was both de-sexed and dehumanized by a condescending and patriarchal hierarchy before she was finally said to have been lifted into God. The clear message of Mary was that both the body and the sexuality of a woman were evil. The ideal woman was not a flesh-and-blood woman-no, she was portrayed as sweet, passive, docile, compliant, obedient, virginal, and unreal, hardly the qualities that would empower young women to break out of their stereotypical expectations.

Mary's call was a call to obedience, a call to conformity. The Virgin Mary's chief problem was that far from being a woman who could inspire real women to new heights, she was a construct of a male world. She was the kind of woman the defining males of the time, who were overwhelmingly the ordained clergy, wanted women to be. When the priesthood of the church became open to celibate males only, they wanted a woman who would not threaten their virtuous calling. A perpetual virgin was the perfect answer.

The result of this history is that the Christian Church today is still one of the most sexist institutions in Western civilization. The patriarchal man wants purity in his wife, as well as a mother for his children. The Virgin Mother filled that need, but she was hardly an ideal woman. What man wants to be married to a permanent virgin? We need to remember that the world that proclaimed the Virgin Mary to be the ideal woman treated all women as second-class citizens.

Today, one cannot help but note that in the nations of the Western world that most honor the Virgin Mary, the status of woman remains low. She has not been an asset in the quest for the emancipation of women. If I were holding before my daughters or my granddaughters a model for their lives, and my choices were the Virgin Mary or Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman would win hands down.

If the goal of organized religion is to call people to the fullness of their humanity, as I believe it is, then perhaps church leaders ought to look at those they hold up as role models. Both Wonder Woman and the Virgin Mary are mythological figures. The church does not like to admit that, but it is true. Neither woman, as we have come to know them, ever lived in history. Only one of them pretends to be historical, the other freely admits she is not.

But Wonder Woman has done more to break the culturally imposed boundaries on women than the Virgin Mary ever did. Wonder Woman has shaped, freed, and transformed more women's limits than the Virgin Mary has done in 2000 years. If it were possible to do so, I would nominate her for sainthood.

John Shelby Spong

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Just a little something of a personal nature

I'm just going to say it, for years I have been ashamed to call myself a Christian. When the subject came up I would stress that I was a universalist or a religious pluralist. I would let them know that in no uncertain terms that I was not "Christian" as such. A more apt description would be that my beliefs sprang from the Christian tradition. That I had evolved beyond traditional beliefs and had adpoted practices from many spiritual paths across the spectrum.

Maybe it's because of where I live. Idaho is not known for it's religious moderation. To be identified as a "Christian" in my world is to be identified with the LDS Church, Conservative Evangelicals, Fundamentalists or maybe even one of the Neo-Nazi organizations that operate under the guise of religion. They vote conservitive Republican to a man/woman, and seem to stand in opposition to everything I hold dear. The beliefs they espouse seemed to range from naive to downright dangerous.

I found myself rejecting most everything stemming from the Abrahamic religions in favor of the Dharmic paths. All the Abrahamic religions seemed to teach intolerance and exclusivity. Yes, there are some voices who speak out against such rhetoric, but all we have to do is look at the media and see who's voice is loudest. I've turned my back on them and have walked a Buddhist-Philosophical Taoist path for some time now, supplementing my faith with the Gospels of Thomas, Truth, and Silvanus. Binding it all together with the tethers of personal mysticism.

Somethings has happened lately....I don't know really how to describe it. It does not feel like a spiritual leading or any sort of nudge from the divine, yet it smacks of the personal revelatory experience. As I've been moving through my texts I've been reading tangential materials. And...much to my surprise, I find myself being consumed with renewed interest in a tradition I had all but abandoned.

There are schools of thought within the Christian tradition that resonate with me. Creation Spirituality as envisioned by Matthew Fox, Process Theology, Borg, Spong, Crossan, Funk and others speak deeply to my condition, even more than at the height of my Jesus Seminar years.

I'm still not sure weather or not Jesus ever existed, or was a morphing of Hellenized Jewish thought and Mystery religions. I'm still filled with doubt that even if he lived, that his death was anything but a tragedy. But, that's not important to me anymore. What is important is what the mythos surrounding Jesus might be able to do for us, and maybe even for me.

I doubt I'll ever move back into the tradition of my youth fully. But, perhaps I might be able to glean something from "the faith that once was" and incorporate, or should I say reincorporate it into my current spiritual makeup.

My take on pluralism and interfaith dialouge

It has been suggested by some that my particular take on the Christian tradtion might me a bit to broad and loose. That the influence of "other traditions" has diluted my faith to one that has passed outside the pale of "Christian thought". That may be the case but I am of the considered opinion that ones faith is there own and their journey is their's to make. that being said I would like to take this opportunity to speak out upon something near and dear to my heart...Religious Pluralism, and in doing so adress some of the concerncs that have recentley been aired in hopes that perhaps I may better make my perception on this matter better understood.

I'm of the view that as long as we operate under the premise that, "Pluralism is too open an approach and that we should undertake "the more modest task of analyzing Christianities own internal coherence and historical development." we run the risk of only preaching to the choir. And, that choir may only reflect the narrow denominational affinities of our particular faith tradition or personal predelictions.

Pluralistic approaches are the future as the world shrinks around us. When I was growing up pretty much everyone in my home town was either secular humanist (perhaps I'm being overly generous to my more worldly brothers and sisters...be that as it may), Episcopalian, Methodist, or Roman Catholic. Now some decades later I live within a stones throw of all those and more; Buddhists, Taoists, Mormons, Pagans, Hindu's, and others of who's religious tradition I'm uncertain. We should be moved to engage them in dialogs and the exchange of ideas. Everyone can learn something from someone else's tradition. Perhaps, we may even incorporate something we learn into our own beliefs, perhaps they could learn something from us. Theological pluralism must be approached in an intentional manner. without doing so we risk insulating ourselves in what we think we know, and what we choose to believe and in doing so risk missing choice opportunities the spiritual development of our faith.

I guess that it boils down to where one draws lines or maybe even if we should. I don't think you can have a real discussion on faith and spirituality without taking into account the spiritual landscape around us. 1500 years ago you could not talk about Christianity without speaking in the context of Ortho-Catholocism or Heresy. Now days I don't think we can talk about Christianity or any other spiritual path without acknowledging and understanding the religions which surround us. Pluralism is everywhere, its all around us, even inside our own traditions and most of us are influenced to some degree or another by that "otherness" which surrounds us.

For some, admittadly, the us/them boundry lines they have been drawn are stronger than ever as they seek to entrench themselves within the security of what they want to believe. For others, their faith has been intertwined with and has evloved in great part due to the influance exerted upon it by other traditions it has come into contact with.

To exclude from the discussion these important elements and influences is to draw up boundaries that might exclude the Christianity practiced by some whom others have defined outside the pale . It narrows the field of expression to such an extent that some may not be able to express their personal theologies fully, only and a manner that is proscribed by the majority...that is, to me, wrong. Who has the right to define someone out of the Christian tradition or suggest that their practice is not worthy of inclusion in the dialouge. My faith may well have just as much to owe to Buddha and Lao Tzu as anothers does to Calvin.

Some may say that you can not have a discussion of Christianity in any context without lines drawn as to who's perception is valid and shall be permitted to be expressed. But their are many who can not express their personal Christianity without referencing others] traditions who's contribution to their faith development was just as important or perhaps more so than Jesus. Christians need not fear or anathemize those who's Christianity is non-traditional or may have evolved beyond traditional positions to encompass a broader more inclusive worldview.

I accept that my individual theological make up is of mixed ancestry and owes it;s formation to as much eastern and earth-centered traditions as it does to "The Bible" . If we were to proceed along the lines as has been suggested much of who and what I am would have to be excluded from the breadth and depth of the conversation. Why can't we each let everyone express their own faith, Christian or otherwise, in their own fashion. If you want to speak in a Christ centered way, If you consider Jesus your personal savior, or not, or whatever, please do so. If I wish to talk about Dhukka and Sin or compare and contrast the Spirit and the Tao how does that threaten or harm anyone. The Christian tradition has a big enough tent for all of us...really it does. We may well each be enriched by the exchange.


If the "truth" that we are espousing does not stand up to the light of day it deserves to wither and die so a new and more enlightened truth can rise up in it's place.

Public Radio's Speaking of Faith

Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippett is public radio's conversation about religion, meaning, ethics, and ideas. Each week, Tippett probes the myriad ways in which religious impulses inform every aspect of life and culture, nationally and globally. Speaking of Faith fills an important and neglected need in American media by addressing the intellectual and spiritual content of religion head-on, illuminating the ideas and practices that form the headlines from the inside.

Now in its third year as a weekly program, Speaking of Faith has brought an unprecedented range of religious perspectives, voices, and topics to listeners on-air and on-line. The Columbia Journalism Review says of Tippitt: "To listen to her show is to hear how intelligent and thoughtful religious people can be when they are allowed to be subjective and not merely regurgitate dogma."

(A note from the host...Krista Tippitt)

Hearing people talk from their experience, out of their story, is fundamentally different from hearing their conclusions and doctrines first. With Speaking of Faith, we are introducing a new way of talking about religion, one which will be both informative and illuminating as well as complementary to existing religion news coverage.

Journalistic reporting about religion often asks people to speak for a tradition, or for God. And for understandable reasons it favors guests — including religious leaders — who are willing, even bound, to do so. Therefore many discussions about perspectives that religion/faith/belief could bring to our civic life begin like this:

"Christians believe…"
"Judaism asserts…"
"Muslims insist…"
"The Bible says…"

The trouble is, these kinds of pronouncements put listeners on the defensive. In fact, they even foster division within traditions.

The first-person approach behind Speaking of Faith sidesteps the predictable minefields and opens the subject wide, making it inviting, both in ambiance and substance. It insists that people speak straight from the experience behind their own personal beliefs. How did they come to hold the truths they hold? How are religious insights given depth and nuance by the complexities of life?

This way of speaking also has the effect of opening the listener's mind. I can disagree with another person's opinion; I can't disagree with his or her experience. Because I know where they are coming from, I am capable of some understanding — even compassion — about why they think that way. Moreover, because I have heard their story I am able to attach a person, a humanity, to their conclusions, and I will never quite be able to dismiss that position or denomination in the abstract in the same way again.

Speaking of Faith, however, doesn't stop at the story. The first-person approach, after all, could be just another dead end if it didn't move beyond personal confessional. That is where my role as a theologically-trained journalist is critical. I engage people at that personal level, but I also invite them to articulate the important ideas and the deep, relevant perspectives that faith can add to our private and public lives.

Pantheism & Panentheism

In Greek pan means "all," theos means "god," and en means "in." Pantheism means that all is God; panentheism, that all is in God. The two doctrines can be definitely distinguished. When considered together they may be called the pan-doctrines.

Although theism is often contrasted with pantheism and panentheism, the idea of all, or totality, is prominent in every form of theism as a doctrine of the high religions. Thus it occurs in the terms all-knowing, all-powerful, creator of all, and still others. Nevertheless, the most usual form of Western theology, sometimes called classical theism, holds or implies that the world of creatures is outside God. Yet it is also said by those in this tradition that in God is knowledge of all things. Can anything be outside knowledge-of-all-things? To many great minds this has seemed an unendurable paradox. To escape this apparent absurdity of a knowing that does not include the known and yet also to avoid including the world in the divine life, Aristotle denied knowledge of particular things to God, who, he held, was aware only of universal forms or ideas. Divine thought then knows only itself: it is pure thinking of thinking. Therewith Aristotle fell into other paradoxes, including that of exalting as divine a being ignorant of us and our world and hence, it seems, inferior to us. Yet classical theists accepted Aristotle's formula "unmoved mover" (meaning unchanged changer) as descriptive of God. This conception implies that there can be nothing changing in God. Was then Paul, who said, referring to God, "For in him we live and move, and have our being" (Acts 12:28), a pan-theologian?

When we human beings know things other than our own minds and bodies, the known things seem to be outside us. However, our knowledge of these outside things is extremely incomplete and uncertain. God must know everything at least as well and as certainly as we know our own pains and pleasures. Nothing can be so external to an all-knowing God as most things are to us. Accordingly, Plato, the first great philosophical theologian, believing in a divine Soul of the World (who knows us and whose body is the universe), made it clear that nothing was simply outside this deity: the universe as divine body is "in" the divine soul rather than the reverse. Plato was certainly a pan-theologian.

The essential difference between the two forms of pantheology is manifest in their answers to the question "Do the creatures have genuine freedom of decision making, or does God determine everything?" Classical pantheism was a form of theological determinism: God decides or determines everything, including our supposed decisions. Both the ancient Greek Stoics and Spinoza (1632–1677) held this view. Panentheists object that, if one power determines all, there is, causally speaking, only one agent in all action. The Stoic-Spinozistic doctrine is an extreme monism rather than a genuine pluralism. Or, at best, its pluralism is unclear or ambiguous, for reality is active agency or nothing. As Plato said, "being is power"; for him every soul is "self-moved." This agrees with panentheism, which admits a plurality of active agents within the reality of the supreme agent.

Life after death in the Graeco-Roman world

As is the case with other cultures, the Greeks and Romans entertained a variety of ideas about the afterlife, some of which were mutually exclusive; they called on different ideas as the situation required. Thus, they spoke of the dead as present and angry when ill luck and a guilty conscience suggested that the deceased might be wreaking vengeance; they spoke of them as potential benefactors when paying them cult; and on yet other occasions they spoke of them as if they were completely absent from the world of the living. Both because the attitudes varied and because our information for this, as well as most other aspects of Greek and Roman antiquity, is lacunose, any survey, including the one that follows, tends to impose an artificial order on what were actually complex matters.

Although the Greeks and Romans shared many beliefs and practices concerning death, there were also significant differences between the two cultures and they must be treated separately. Greece will be considered first.

Children and other surviving kin were expected to ensure that the dead received proper funerary rites; if they did not, the deceased could not be considered truly dead and its soul might wander restlessly between the upper world and the underworld. What "proper rites" varied from place to place and time to time, but honorable disposal of the corpse by burial or cremation was the very least that was required, lest the corpse otherwise become prey for scavengers. Even symbolic burial, such as Antigone performed for her brother by sprinkling dust over his body, would suffice. If a body were irretrievable, rites might be performed for the deceased anyway, in hopes that the soul would find rest. People who turned up alive after having had such rites performed were called "double-fated" (deuteropotmoi) and had to undergo a symbolic rebirth.

Ideally, the deceased's female relatives would wash the body on the same day as death had occurred and wrap it in a shroud for burial. The next day would be given over to mourning—the informal mourning of family members being supplemented with that of hired mourners when the family could afford it and the sumptuary laws of the city allowed it. Gifts would be given to the deceased, including small objects such as he or she would have used in life. On the third day, counting inclusively, the body was buried or cremated. Libations were poured into the grave where the body or ashes had been buried and were repeated periodically, usually for at least a year. Survivors might also cut their hair and lay it upon the grave; an absent survivor could dedicate hair at a later date. A marker was set up and could be decorated with ribbons and myrtle branches. Other rituals might also be performed, depending on the desires of the deceased and his or her family. People who had no family could join funerary associations that ensured all of these rites would be carried out.

Although any soul could become a ghost—that is, return to wander among the living—the souls that lacked proper funerary rites and the souls of those who had died too early or violently were particularly likely to return in order to cause problems for people whom they blamed for their misfortunes or people whom they envied. Whole groups of people might suffer because a soul was unhappy: cities beset by famine and pestilence sometimes sought relief by paying special cult to the ghosts of local individuals whom they assumed were causing the problems. There were means of averting ghosts as well; wreaths of a thorny plant called rhamnos were hung on doors and windows in the belief that this would prevent ghosts from entering a house. In some parts of Greece, annual festivals such as the Anthesteria invited ghosts back into the world of the living and treated them well for a few days; the underlying logic seems to have been that if the ghosts were satisfied by this extra attention they would remain peaceful for the rest of the year. Even then, however, special precautions were taken to ensure that the returning ghosts did not take too many liberties while among the living, or outstay their welcome. Other festivals, such as the Genesia (a word formed on the gen- root, meaning "birth" in the sense of those related to one by birth), honored dead relatives, but it is unclear whether the dead were expected to actually return at these times or simply enjoyed the festival from within the underworld.

Sometimes ghosts were useful. Specialists knew how to create small lead "curse" tablets engraved with words that compelled ghosts to return to the land of the living and do their bidding. Typically, the specialist commanded the ghost to attack someone on behalf of a paying client. The ghost might be charged with imposing insomnia on a woman whom the client loved, for example, in hopes that she would acquiesce to his demands. It was not only the ghosts' victims who feared such activities; the ghosts themselves resented being called up from their rest in the underworld. For this reason, practitioners frequently focused on the ghosts of those who had died too early or unhappily, or whose bodies were unburied, because, as mentioned above, the souls of such unfortunates could not really enter the underworld, and thus they were more readily accessible (they were also, in their anger, probably more ready to injure the living). The specialists might also promise the ghost that, if it cooperated once, the specialist would protect it from ever being bothered again. The ghosts of dead heroes were considered stronger than ordinary ghosts and were expected to help the living with all sorts of problems: they helped women conceive, aided their native cities during war, and gave prophetic advice, for example. Heroic ghosts, however, could also be much more dangerous than other ghosts when angry.

Souls might return to earth as ghosts, but most souls, most of the time, stayed in the underground kingdom called Hades, which was ruled over by a god who was also named Hades and by his queen, Persephone. In earliest times, the Greeks seem to have believed that everyone there was treated in the same way. The souls existed in a state that was neither pleasant nor unpleasant; literary portrayals, such as that in Book 11 of the Odyssey, suggest that the underworld was dank and dark, and that there was little to do to pass eternal time. In the Odyssey and elsewhere, souls usually are portrayed as looking like their former bodies (thus women who were famous beauties while alive remained attractive, and mighty warriors still wore their armor). Souls also retained the desires and grudges they held while alive: the soul of Ajax, who felt he had been cheated by Odysseus while alive, refused to return Odysseus's greeting when they met in the underworld. And yet, in spite of the other ways in which life after death replicated what went on before, the souls lacked one of the most important abilities they had while alive: they could not communicate with the living except under special circumstances. In the Odyssey, it is only after Odysseus pours out the blood of a ritually slaughtered ram for them to drink that the souls can chat with him (this probably is a reflection, although exaggerated, of normal funerary ritual, which includes pouring libations into the grave). Physical contact is impossible, too, because souls have no substance: Odysseus cannot embrace his mother's ghost.

A few people do suffer punishment in a special part of the underworld according to the Odyssey and other Greek literary texts, although it is not clear whether the Greeks considered them to be truly dead or to have been transported to the underworld while still alive. Among the most famous are Tantalos, who endures eternal thirst and hunger, and Sisyphos, who is doomed to push a boulder uphill repeatedly. But these are unusual cases of people who had done unusually wicked things; there is no indication that the average person expected to be punished after death. There are also examples, in myth, of people who get extraordinary rewards at the end of their lives, due to their special relationships with the gods. Menelaus, Helen's husband and therefore Zeus's son-in-law, knew he would be carried off to the paradisiacal Elysian Fields at the end of his life, for example, instead of dying.

Myth also tells of judges in the underworld. Most commonly mentioned in this role are Minos, the former king of Crete, who was renowned for his fair judgments; his brother Rhadamanthys, who had been a lawgiver in Crete; and Aeacus, who had ruled Aegina. These judges are presented as settling disputes among the dead, rather than deciding the fate of a newly arrived soul; in other words, they also continue with "life" in much the same way as they had before death. It is only in certain mystery cults or philosophical contexts that we hear of judgments or tests that determine the fate of the soul upon its arrival. Aeacus sometimes serves as the gatekeeper for Hades instead of one of its judges. Kerberos, the many-headed dog of Hades, whom the dead souls had to distract with a piece of food in order to enter the land of the dead (and who prevented the souls from ever leaving again), and Charon, who ferried souls across the river Styx, which divided the world of the dead from the world of the living, played a similar role insofar as they also helped to mark the boundary between life and death. In doing this, they made death seem more permanent and irreversible, but they also made the transition seem more familiar, more like the transitions one encountered in life. Most of these figures are mythic only; however, it is unlikely that the Greeks really "believed" in them. Charon is the possible exception: by the Hellenistic period, people began to bury coins with their dead, with which the souls could pay for their passage across the river. The god Hermes, in his role as Psychopompos (guide of souls), was also a figure of real cult. He was expected to help the soul reach the underworld safely and also to guide it back and forth to the upper world again when necessary (for example, during the Anthesteria, when the soul's family needed its help or when a specialist called on it to harm an enemy).

In contrast to the earliest Greek beliefs, the late archaic period saw the development of a system in which the common person might expect to receive either rewards or punishments after death; this concept was fairly widespread by the classical period. In most cases, one's lot was said to depend on one's behavior while alive—things were supposed to be evened up after death.

Given this idea, preparation for death should have required nothing more than good behavior. But few people led lives of perfect virtue, and most were therefore left anxious about what awaited them. Perhaps because of this, we also find, beginning in the late archaic period, the idea that one can escape from the postmortem effects of bad behavior and even guarantee bliss after death by being initiated into one or more so-called mysteries cults while still alive (the most famous being that at Eleusis, near Athens). Initiates could expect to spend the afterlife in a meadow or other pleasant place, eating, drinking, and dancing. Non-initiates, however exemplary their conduct had been during life, would wallow in mire forever.

The flaw in this system, as its ancient critics already saw, was that once initiated, people could behave however they liked for the rest of their lives. "It would be absurd," said Diogenes the Cynic, "if Agesilaus and Epaminondas [two Spartan generals known for nobility of character] end up in the mire after death, while worthless people, simply because they have been initiated into the mysteries, dwell on the Islands of the Blest" Although a few mystery cults may have required initiates to follow certain rules of ritualized purity for the rest of their lives (e.g., not wearing wool), there does not seem to have been any expectation that they would follow a moral or ethical code.

A variation on this theme suggested that all humanity was doomed to punishment in the underworld because of its connection to the death of Persephone's son, the god Dionysos. Dionysos had been dismembered and eaten by violent gods called Titans; Zeus incinerated the Titans with a thunderbolt, and humanity arose from their smoldering remains. Persephone thereafter held each human responsible for the loss of her son. All that could save one from postmortem misery was to be initiated into mysteries sponsored by Dionysos (who had been reborn following his consumption by the Titans). The Dionysiac mysteries are particularly interesting because they gave the initiates special knowledge of underworld geography: they taught initiates which path to follow and which to avoid once they went below, and also which infernal bodies of water were safe to drink from and which would inflict forgetfulness. Forgetfulness was dangerous because the initiates had to remember to declare in front of certain underworld divinities or guardians who would judge them that they were pure and that Dionysos had released them from any need to atone for his death at the Titans' hands. Reminders of what the initiates learned while alive were engraved on tiny gold tablets that were buried with them.

Reincarnation shows up in a few texts connected with Dionysiac mysteries and in some philosophical systems influenced by Pythagoras and Plato. Although the soul still won rewards or suffered punishments in the afterlife in these systems, it eventually was sent into a new bodily life. Souls that managed to conduct themselves properly for several cycles could win release from incarnation altogether.

The eschatological aspects of mystery cults represent a novel way of thinking about the afterlife that subsequently influenced many other religious and philosophical systems in later antiquity, including Christianity. But it must be stressed that, for whatever reason, most ancient Greeks were not initiated into them. The standard expectation for the afterlife was probably, at best, a rather boring existence and, at worst, retribution for earthly deeds.

Scholars face two problems in dealing with Rome: there is little evidence for Roman beliefs and practices in early periods, and, as time went on, the Romans adopted from the Greek literary texts that they admired Greek modes of expressing ideas about death—and probably Greek beliefs and practices as well. Thus, for example, Book 6 of Vergil's Aeneid, where Aeneas visits the underworld, models itself closely on Book 11 of the Odyssey. It does add some interesting variations: Vergil adds a Limbo-like realm for the souls of infants and of those who died after falsely being accused of crimes, as well as a special area for suicides; he also seems to draw on Pythagorean ideas of reincarnation in some parts of Book 6. Whether these additions reflect actual differences between Greek and Roman beliefs or, rather, Vergil's interest in them for thematic and narrative reasons is impossible to say. We also know that the Romans were influenced by the Etruscans in their religious beliefs, and that they were highly interested in death and the afterlife—but because we can say little about the Etruscans themselves with certainty, this does not help much. Moreover, some "Greek" ideas that the Romans may have borrowed are also found in Etruscan sources, making it hard to say whether the Romans got them from the Greeks or the Etruscans—or perhaps even whether the Greeks themselves borrowed them from the Etruscans early on. Charon, who seems to be related to a figure called Charu in Etruscan sources, is a case in point. The survey that follows points out a few salient ways in which the Romans differed from the Greeks, but most of what was said above about the Greeks is generally true for the Romans as well (e.g., they particularly feared the ghosts of the unburied and thereby put a high value on funerary rites).

When a person was about to die, his nearest relative bent over to kiss him, so as to catch his last breath. The same person closed the eyes of the deceased, and then all the relatives began a practice called conclamatio, or "calling out to" the dead, which was periodically repeated until the body was cremated. Timing of the burial differed from the Greeks as well; Romans kept the body of the deceased within the house for up to seven days and expected family members to continue lamenting and eating only meager amounts of food during the entire period. Before cremation, a little bit of dirt was thrown on the corpse to symbolize burial, or else a small part of the body, such as a finger, was cut off to be buried. The rest of the body was burned. After the funeral pyre had consumed the corpse, survivors poured milk and wine over the ashes and bones, to feed the deceased. (Later, the bones were interred in a tomb.) For nine days following cremation, family members continued to set themselves apart from the rest of the community. During this period, a sow and a gelded ram were sacrificed and the grave was formally consecrated.

As soon as a son, when sifting through the ashes of his father's funeral pyre, found a bone, he proclaimed that the father had joined the Di Manes, or "divine spirits"—in other words, the ancestors. As in Greece, care was taken to keep these spirits happy and beneficent through funeral banquets and other graveside offerings—especially red flowers, which were offered at a festival called the "day of roses," or at another called the "day of violets." A nine-day festival called the Dies Parentes (days of the parents) was held in February and concluded with a day called the Feralia (the "carrying" of food and other gifts to tombs); this honored the dead as kindly beings who watched over their descendants. During another festival, the Lemuria, which was held for three days in May, the head of each household had to perform rituals at night to rid the family of malevolent ghosts (lemures or larvae). In particular, he had to toss black beans onto the floor with his eyes averted, while he asserted that the beans were meant to redeem himself and his family. The ghosts were expected to gather up the beans and leave contented.

The Romans asserted from an early time that certain founding fathers had become gods after their deaths—Romulus and Aeneas, for example. Starting with Julius Caesar, the Roman Senate went further, regularly deifying exceptional individuals after death, particularly emperors and members of the imperial family. The Greeks had occasionally done this as well for important rulers, starting in the Hellenistic period, but had never fully embraced the idea.

Fox's 95 theses for a second reformation

Like Luther, I present 95 theses or in my case, 95 faith observations drawn from my 64 years of living and practicing religion and spirituality. I trust I am not alone in recognizing these truths. For me they represent a return to our origins, a return to the spirit and the teaching of Jesus and his prophetic ancestors, and of the Christ which was a spirit that Jesus’ presence and teaching unleashed.

1. God is both Mother and Father.

2. At this time in history, God is more Mother than Father because the feminine is most missing and it is important to bring gender balance back.

3. God is always new, always young and always “in the beginning.”

4. God the Punitive Father is not a God worth honoring but a false god and an idol that serves empire-builders. The notion of a punitive, all-male God, is contrary to the full nature of the Godhead who is as much female and motherly as it is masculine and fatherly.

5. “All the names we give to God come from an understanding of ourselves.” (Eckhart) Thus people who worship a punitive father are themselves punitive.

6. Theism (the idea that God is ‘out there’ or above and beyond the universe) is false. All things are in God and God is in all things (panentheism).

7. Everyone is born a mystic and a lover who experiences the unity of things and all are called to keep this mystic or lover of life alive.

8. All are called to be prophets which is to interfere with injustice.

9. Wisdom is Love of Life (See the Book of Wisdom: “This is wisdom: to love life” and Christ in John’s Gospel: “I have come that you may have life and have it in abundance.”)

10. God loves all of creation and science can help us more deeply penetrate and appreciate the mysteries and wisdom of God in creation. Science is no enemy of true religion.

11. Religion is not necessary but spirituality is.

12. “Jesus does not call us to a new religion but to life.” (Bonhoeffer) Spirituality is living life at a depth of newness and gratitude, courage and creativity, trust and letting go, compassion and justice.

13. Spirituality and religion are not the same thing any more than education and learning, law and justice, or commerce and stewardship are the same thing.

14. Christians must distinguish between God (masculine and history, liberation and salvation) and Godhead (feminine and mystery, being and non-action).

15. Christians must distinguish between Jesus (an historical figure) and Christ (the experience of God-in-all-things).

16. Christians must distinguish between Jesus and Paul.

17. Jesus, not unlike many spiritual teachers, taught us that we are sons and daughters of God and are to act accordingly by becoming instruments of divine compassion.

18. Ecojustice is a necessity for planetary survival and human ethics and without it we are crucifying the Christ all over again in the form of destruction of forests, waters,
species, air and soil.

19. Sustainability is another word for justice, for what is just is sustainable and what is unjust is not.

20. A preferential option for the poor, as found in the base community movement, is far closer to the teaching and spirit of Jesus than is a preferential option for the rich and powerful as found in, for example, Opus Dei.

21. Economic Justice requires the work of creativity to birth a system of economics that is global, respectful of the health and wealth of the earth systems and that works for all.

22. Celebration and worship are key to human community and survival and such reminders of joy deserve new forms that speak in the language of the twenty-first century.

23. Sexuality is a sacred act and a spiritual experience, a theophany (revelation of the Divine), a mystical experience. It is holy and deserves to be honored as such.

24. Creativity is both humanity’s greatest gift and its most powerful weapon for evil and so it ought to be both encouraged and steered to humanity’s most God-like activity which all religions agree is: Compassion.

25. There is a priesthood of all workers (all who are doing good work are midwives of grace and therefore priests) and this priesthood ought to be honored as sacred and workers should be instructed in spirituality in order to carry on their ministry effectively.

26. Empire-building is incompatible with Jesus’ life and teaching and with Paul’s life and teaching and with the teaching of holy religions.

27. Ideology is not theology and ideology endangers the faith because it replaces thinking with obedience, and distracts from the responsibility of theology to adapt the wisdom of the past to today’s needs. Instead of theology it demands loyalty oaths to the past.

28. Loyalty is not a sufficient criterion for ecclesial office—intelligence and proven conscience is.

29. No matter how much the television media fawn over the pope and papacy because it makes good theater, the pope is not the church but has a ministry within the church. Papalolotry is a contemporary form of idolatry and must be resisted by all believers.

30. Creating a church of Sycophants is not a holy thing. Sycophants (Webster’s dictionary defines them as “servile self-seeking flatterers”) are not spiritual people for their only virtue is obedience. A Society of Sycophants — sycophant clergy, sycophant seminarians, sycophant bishops, sycophant cardinals, sycophant religious orders of Opus Dei, Legioneers of Christ and Communion and Liberation, and the sycophant press--do not represent in any way the teachings or the person of the historical Jesus who chose to stand up to power rather than amassing it.

31. Vows of pontifical secrecy are a certain way to corruption and cover-up in the church as in any human organization.

32. Original sin is an ultimate expression of a punitive father God and is not a Biblical teaching. But original blessing (goodness and grace) is biblical.

33. The term “original wound” better describes the separation humans experience on leaving the womb and entering the world, a world that is often unjust and unwelcoming than does the term “original sin.”

34. Fascism and the compulsion to control is not the path of peace or compassion and those who practice fascism are not fitting models for sainthood. The seizing of the apparatus of canonization to canonize fascists is a stain on the church.

35. The Spirit of Jesus and other prophets calls people to simple life styles in order that “the people may live.”

36. Dancing, whose root meaning in many indigenous cultures is the same as breath or spirit, is a very ancient and appropriate form in which to pray.

37. To honor the ancestors and celebrate the communion of saints does not mean putting heroes on pedestals but rather honoring them by living out lives of
imagination, courage and compassion in our own time, culture and historical moment as they did in theirs.

38. A diversity of interpretation of the Jesus event and the Christ experience is altogether expected and welcomed as it was in the earliest days of the church.

39. Therefore unity of church does not mean conformity. There is unity in diversity. Coerced unity is not unity.

40. The Holy Spirit is perfectly capable of working through participatory democracy in church structures and hierarchical modes of being can indeed interfere with the work of the Spirit.

41. The body is an awe-filled sacred Temple of God and this does not mean it is untouchable but rather that all its dimensions, well named by the seven charkas, are as holy as the others.

42. Thus our connection with the earth (first chakra) is holy; and our sexuality (second chakra) is holy; and our moral outrage (third chakra) is holy; and our love that stands up to fear (fourth chakra) is holy; and our prophetic voice that speaks out is holy (fifth chakra); and our intuition and intelligence (sixth chakra) are holy; and our gifts we extend to the community of light beings and ancestors (seventh chakra) are holy.

43. The prejudice of rationalism and left-brain located in the head must be balanced by attention to the lower charkas as equal places for wisdom and truth and Spirit to act.

44. The central chakra, compassion, is the test of the health of all the others which are meant to serve it for “by their fruits you will know them” (Jesus).

45. “Joy is the human’s noblest act.” (Aquinas) Is our culture and its professions, education and religion, promoting joy?

46. The human psyche is made for the cosmos and will not be satisfied until the two are re-united and awe, the beginning of wisdom, results from this reunion.

47. The four paths named in the creation spiritual tradition more fully name the mystical/prophetic spiritual journey of Jesus and the Jewish tradition than do the three paths of purgation, illumination and union which do not derive from the Jewish and Biblical tradition.

48. Thus it can be said that God is experienced in experiences of ecstasy, joy, wonder and delight (via positiva).

49. God is experienced in darkness, chaos, nothingness, suffering, silence and in learning to let go and let be (via negativa).

50. God is experienced in acts of creativity and co-creation (via creativa).

51. All people are born creative. It is spirituality’s task to encourage holy imagination for all are born in the “image and likeness” of the Creative One and “the fierce power of imagination is a gift from God.” (Kaballah)

52. If you can talk you can sing; if you can walk you can dance; if you can talk you are an artist. (African proverb and Native American saying)

53. God is experienced in our struggle for justice, healing, compassion and celebration (via transformativa).

54. The Holy Spirit works through all cultures and all spiritual traditions and blows “where it wills” and is not the exclusive domain of any one tradition and
never has been.

55. God speaks today as in the past through all religions and all cultures and all faith traditions none of which is perfect and an exclusive avenue to truth but all of which can learn from each other.

56. Therefore Interfaith or Deep Ecumenism are a necessary part of spiritual praxis and awareness in our time.

57. Since the “number one obstacle to interfaith is a bad relationship with one’s own faith,” (the Dalai Lama) it is important that Christians know their own
mystical and prophetic tradition, one that is larger than a religion of empire and its punitive father images of God.

58. The cosmos is God’s holy Temple and our holy home.

59. Fourteen billion years of evolution and unfolding of the universe bespeak the intimate sacredness of all that is.

60. All that is is holy and all that is is related for all being in our universe began as one being just before the fireball erupted.

61. Interconnectivity is not only a law of physics and of nature but also forms the basis of community and of compassion. Compassion is the working out of our shared interconnectivity both as to our shared joy and our shared suffering and struggle for justice.

62. The universe does not suffer from a shortage of grace and no religious institution is to see its task as rationing grace. Grace is abundant in God’s universe.

63. Creation, Incarnation and Resurrection are continuously happening on a cosmic as well as a personal scale. So too are Life, Death and Resurrection (regeneration and reincarnation) happening on a cosmic scale as well as a personal one.
64.
Biophilia or Love of Life is everyone’s daily task.
65.
Necrophilia or love of death is to be opposed in self and society in all its forms.
66.
Evil can happen through every people, every nation, every tribe, and every individual human and so vigilance and self-criticism and institutional criticism are always called for.

67. Not all who call themselves “Christian” deserve that name just as “not all who say ‘Lord, Lord’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven” (Jesus).

68. Pedophilia is a terrible wrong but its cover-up by hierarchy is even more despicable.

69. Loyalty and obedience are never a greater virtue than conscience and justice.
70.
Jesus said nothing about condoms, birth control or homosexuality.

71. A church that is more preoccupied with sexual wrongs than with wrongs of injustice is itself sick.

72. Since homosexuality is found among 464 species and in 8 percent of any given human population, it is altogether natural for those who are born that way and is a gift from God and nature to the greater community.

73. Homophobia in any form is a serious sin against love of neighbor, a sin of ignorance of the richness and diversity of God’s creation as well as a sin of exclusion.

74. Racism, Sexism and militarism are also serious sins.

75. Poverty for the many and luxury for the few is not right or sustainable.

76. Consumerism is today’s version of gluttony and needs to be confronted by creating an economic system that works for all peoples and all earth’s creatures.

77. Seminaries as we know them, with their excessive emphasis on left-brain work, often kill and corrupt the mystical soul of the young instead of encouraging the mysticism and prophetic consciousness that is there. They should be replaced by wisdom schools.

78. Inner work is required of us all. Therefore spiritual practices of meditation should be available to all and this helps in calming the reptilian brain. Silence or contemplation and learning to be still can and ought to be taught to all children and adults.

79. Outer work needs to flow from our inner work just as action flows from non-action and true action from being.

80. A wise test of right action is this: What is the effect of this action on people seven generations from today?

81. Another test of right action is this: Is what I am doing, is what we are doing, beautiful or not?

82. Eros, the passion for living, is a virtue that combats acedia or the lack of energy to begin new things and is also expressed as depression, cynicism or sloth (also known as “couchpotatoitis”).

83. The Dark Night of the Soul descends on us all and the proper response is not addiction such as shopping, alcohol, drugs, TV, sex or religion but rather to be with the darkness and learn from it.

84. The Dark Night of the Soul is a learning place of great depth. Stillness is required.

85. Not only is there a Dark Night of the Soul but also a Dark Night of Society and a Dark Night of our Species.

86. Chaos is a friend and a teacher and an integral part or prelude to new birth. Therefore it is not to be feared or compulsively controlled.

87. Authentic science can and must be one of humanity’s sources of wisdom for it is a source of sacred awe, of childlike wonder, and of truth.

88. When science teaches that matter is “frozen light” (physicist David Bohm) it is freeing human thought from scapegoating flesh as something evil and instead reassuring us that all things are light. This same teaching is found in the Christian Gospels (Christ is the light in all things) and in Buddhist teaching (the Buddha nature is in all things). Therefore, flesh does not sin; it is our choices that are sometimes off center.

89. The proper objects of the human heart are truth and justice (Aquinas) and all people have a right to these through healthy education and healthy government.

90. "God” is only one name for the Divine One and there are an infinite number of names for God and Godhead and still God “has no name and will never be given a name.” (Eckhart)

91. Three highways into the heart are silence and love and grief.

92. The grief in the human heart needs to be attended to by rituals and practices that, when practiced, will lessen anger and allow creativity to flow anew.

93. Two highways out of the heart are creativity and acts of justice and compassion.

94. Since angels learn exclusively by intuition, when we develop our powers of intuition we can expect to meet angels along the way.

95. True intelligence includes feeling, sensitivity, beauty, the gift of nourishment and humor which is a gift of the Spirit, paradox, being its sister.



Matthew Fox is a former Dominican priest.

He has over 25 years of teaching and lecturing experience. He is the author of 25 books, translated into many languages.

Fox contributes numerous articles on creation-centered spirituality to American and European journals and is a renowned keynote speaker. He is the President of the University of Creation Spirituality which he founded in Oakland, California. He is an ordained Episcopal priest.

MA, Aquinas Institute of Theology
PhD, Institute Catholique de Paris
Post Doctoral Studies, University of Munster

Spong's Call

A Call for a New Reformation

by John S. Spong

In the 16th century the Christian Church, which had been the source of much of the stability of the western world, entered a period of internal and violent upheaval. In time this upheaval came to be called the Protestant Reformation, but during the violence itself, it was referred to by many less attractive adjectives. The institution that called itself the body of Christ broke first into debate, then acrimony, then violence and counter-violence and finally into open warfare between Protestant Christians and Catholic Christians. It produced the Hundred Years War and the conflict between England and Spain that came to a climax in the destruction of the Spanish Armada in 1588. That destruction was widely interpreted as a defeat for the Catholic God of Spain at the hands of the Protestant God of England.

Yet, when looking at that ecclesiastical conflict from the vantage point of more than four hundred years, there is surprise at how insignificant were the theological issues dividing the two sides. Neither side was debating such core teachings of Christianity as the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, Jesus as the incarnate son of God, the reality of heaven and hell, the place of the cross in the plan of salvation or the role of such sacraments as Baptism and Communion. These rather were faith assertions held in common.

Of course this conflict was not without theological issues, though they seem quite trivial in retrospect. Protestant Christians and Catholic Christians disagreed, for example, about whether salvation was achieved by faith alone, as Luther contended, or whether faith without works was dead as the Vatican, quoting the Epistle of James, argued. There was also debate over the proper use of scripture and the role of ordination. Despite the hostile appellations of "heretic" hurled at Protestants and "anti-Christ" hurled at Catholics, anyone viewing this debate from the vantage point of this century would see that, while an acrimonious and unpleasant fight, it was nonetheless a fight that pitted Christian believers against Christian believers. The Reformation was not an attempt to reformulate the Christian faith for a new era. It was rather a battle over issues of Church order. The time had not arrived in which Christians would be required to rethink the basic and identifying marks of Christianity itself.

It is my conviction that such a moment is facing the Christian world today. The very heart and soul of Christianity will be the content of this reformation. The debate which has been building for centuries has now erupted into public view. All the past ecclesiastical efforts to keep it at bay or deny its reality have surely failed and will continue to do so. The need for a new theological reformation began when Copernicus and Galileo removed this planet from its previous supposed location at the center of the universe, where human life was thought to bask under the constant attention of a humanly defined parental deity. That revolution in thought produced an angle of vision radically different from the one in which the Bible was written and through which the primary theological tenets of the Christian faith were formed.

Before that opening salvo of revolution had been absorbed, Sir Isaac Newton, who charted the mathematically fixed physical laws of the universe, weighed into the debate. After Newton the Church found itself in a world in which the concepts of magic, miracle, and divine intervention as explanations of anything, could no longer be offered with intellectual integrity. Once more people were forced to enter into and to embrace a reality vastly different from the one employed in the traditional language of their faith tradition.

Next came Charles Darwin who related human life to the world of biology more significantly than anyone had heretofore imagined. He also confronted the human consciousness with concepts diametrically opposed to the traditional Christian world view. The Bible began with the assumption that God had created a finished and perfect world from which human beings had fallen away in an act of cosmic rebellion. Original sin was the reality in which all life was presumed to live. Darwin postulated instead an unfinished and thus imperfect creation out of which human life was still evolving. Human beings did not fall from perfection into sin as the Church had taught for centuries; we were evolving, and indeed are still evolving, into higher levels of consciousness. Thus the basic myth of Christianity that interpreted Jesus as a divine emissary who came to rescue the victims of the fall from the results of their original sin became inoperative. So did the interpretation of the cross of Calvary as the moment of divine sacrifice when the ransom for sin was paid. Established Christianity clearly wobbled under the impact of Darwin's insights, but Christian leaders pretended that if Darwin could not be defeated, he could at least be ignored. It was a vain hope.

Darwin was followed by Sigmund Freud who analyzed the symbols of Christianity and found in them manifestations of a deep-seated infantile neurosis. The God understood as a father figure, who guided ultimate personal decisions, answered our prayers, and promised rewards and punishment based upon our behavior was not designed to call anyone into maturity. This view of God issued rather into either a religious mentality of passive dependency or an aggressive secular rejection of all things religious. After Freud, it was not surprising to see Christianity degenerate into an increasingly shrill biblical fundamentalism where thinking was not encouraged and preconceived pious answers were readily given, but where neither genuine questions nor maturity were allowed or encouraged. As Christianity moved more and more in this direction, contemporary people, who think with modern minds, began to be repelled and to drop out of their faith commitments into the Church Alumni Association. Between these two poles of mindless fundamentalism and empty secularism are found the mainline churches of Christendom, both Catholic and Protestant. They are declining numerically, seem lost theologically, are concerned more about unity than truth, and are wondering why boredom is what people experience inside church walls. The renewal of Christianity will not come from fundamentalism, secularism or the irrelevant mainline tradition. If there is nothing more than this on the horizon then I see no future for the enterprise we call the Christian faith.

My sense is that history has come to a point where only one thing will save this venerable faith tradition at this critical time in Christian history, and that is a new Reformation far more radical than Christianity has ever before known and that this Reformation must deal with the very substance of that faith. This Reformation will recognize that the pre-modern concepts in which Christianity has traditionally been carried will never again speak to the post-modern world we now inhabit. This Reformation will be about the very life and death of Christianity. Because it goes to the heart of how Christianity is to be understood, it will dwarf in intensity the Reformation of the 16th century. It will not be concerned about authority, ecclesiastical polity, valid ordinations and valid sacraments. It will be rather a Reformation that will examine the very nature of the Christian faith itself. It will ask whether or not this ancient religious system can be refocused and re-articulated so as to continue living in this increasingly non-religious world.

Martin Luther ignited the Reformation of the 16th century by nailing to the door of the church in Wittenberg in 1517 the 95 Theses that he wished to debate. I will publish this challenge to Christianity in The Voice. I will post my theses on the Internet and send copies with invitations to debate them to the recognized Christian leaders of the world. My theses are far smaller in number than were those of Martin Luther, but they are far more threatening theologically. The issues to which I now call the Christians of the world to debate are these:

1. Theism, as a way of defining God, is dead. So most theological God-talk is today meaningless. A new way to speak of God must be found.
2. Since God can no longer be conceived in theistic terms, it becomes nonsensical to seek to understand Jesus as the incarnation of the theistic deity. So the Christology of the ages is bankrupt.
3. The biblical story of the perfect and finished creation from which human beings fell into sin is pre-Darwinian mythology and post-Darwinian nonsense.
4. The virgin birth, understood as literal biology, makes Christ's divinity, as traditionally understood, impossible.
5. The miracle stories of the New Testament can no longer be interpreted in a post-Newtonian world as supernatural events performed by an incarnate deity.
6. The view of the cross as the sacrifice for the sins of the world is a barbarian idea based on primitive concepts of God and must be dismissed.
7. Resurrection is an action of God. Jesus was raised into the meaning of God. It therefore cannot be a physical resuscitation occurring inside human history.
8. The story of the Ascension assumed a three-tiered universe and is therefore not capable of being translated into the concepts of a post-Copernican space age.
9. There is no external, objective, revealed standard writ in scripture or on tablets of stone that will govern our ethical behavior for all time.
10. Prayer cannot be a request made to a theistic deity to act in human history in a particular way.
11. The hope for life after death must be separated forever from the behavior control mentality of reward and punishment. The Church must abandon, therefore, its reliance on guilt as a motivator of behavior.
12. All human beings bear God's image and must be respected for what each person is. Therefore, no external description of one's being, whether based on race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation, can properly be used as the basis for either rejection or discrimination.

So I set these theses today before the Christian world and I stand ready to debate each of them as we prepare to enter the third millennium.

John Shelby Spong retired as Episcopal Bishop of Newark, New Jersey, in February 2000. Raised a fundamentalist in North Carolina at a time when the Bible was quoted to justify segregation, Bishop Spong came to believe that insistence on an inerrant, literal view of the Bible obscures truth and destroys faith. His subsequent challenges to the Church's position on human sexuality, the virgin birth, and the physical nature of Christ' resurrection had made him the target of fundamentalist hostility and fear. At the same time, it has offered hope to countless others who yearn to believe in God but reject premodern literalizations masquerading as faith.