Was Mary a Virgin? Does It Matter?

Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.
Luke 1:34-35


A Facebook friend posted a column by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof titled, “Was Mary a Virgin? Does It Matter?” In the column, Kristof reports a question and answer session with the popular Evangelical writer Philip Yancey.

We might argue about the first question, but there can be no doubt about the second. The answer is a firm “No.” It does not matter at all whether Mary was a virgin.

Not surprisingly, from his perspective within Evangelicalism, Yancey sees it differently. The virgin birth is central to his understanding of Jesus as the Son of God. But to his credit, he stops short of saying that is essential to being a Christian. At the close of the interview, when Kristof asks him whether he can call himself a Christian if he is skeptical of the virgin birth, the miracles and a physical resurrection, Yancey says, “I would rephrase the question and toss it back to you: Are you a Jesus follower?”

Earlier in the interview, Kristof explained some of his frustrations with the Christian right:

“One of the problems I have with the evangelical church is that it seems more dazzled by the miracles than the message. Particularly in the age of Trump, conservative pastors weaponize God to support a president who is trying to cut Medicaid and school lunches for the poor. Shouldn’t conservative Christians believe as much in the good Samaritan as in the Virgin Birth?”

And Yancey basically agreed. “I grew up in what I now call a “toxic” fundamentalist church in the South,” he said, “and I view with dismay the contemporary mixing of politics and religion, including some of the policies you mention. Churches often end up on the wrong side of issues — such as the blatant racism I heard from the pulpit as a child.”

Believing in the virgin birth has no impact on how we live our lives. You can believe in the virgin birth and still be a racist. On the other hand, if you believe in the Sermon on the Mount it has to make a difference in how you live your life. 

In his wonderful commentary on The New Testament, William Barclay calls the Virgin Birth “one of the great controversial doctrines of the Christian faith.” Wisely, he says, “the church does not insist that we believe in this doctrine.”

Today, when much of the Christian Church has become captive to the biblical literalism of the Religious Right, it is important to reflect on Barclay’s perspective. When he was writing, in the middle of the last century, Barclay was one of the preeminent biblical scholars, and the very embodiment of orthodox scholarship. His work defined the center of Christian biblical scholarship and theology.

We may choose to believe it, says Barclay, based on a literal reading of this passage as well as Matthew 1:18-25. And, he writes, “It is natural to argue that if Jesus was, as we believe, a very special person, he would have a very special entry into this world.”

But there are also excellent biblical reasons not to take the story literally. First, the genealogies in both Matthew and Luke trace Jesus’s ancestry through Joseph. Second, when Mary and Joseph finally find Jesus in the temple (Luke 2:48) she tells him that “Your father and I have been looking for you anxiously.” Third, there are other references to Jesus as Joseph’s son (Matthew 13:55, John 6:42). And finally, the rest of the New Testament (Mark, John, and Paul’s letters) knows nothing of this story.

Barclay sets the story in the context of Jewish belief. “The Jews had a saying that in the birth of every child there are three partners—the father, the mother and the Spirit of God. They believed that no child could ever be born without the Spirit.” So these stories are “lovely, poetical ways of saying that, even if he had a human father, the Holy Spirit of God was operative in his birth in a unique way.”

This is more than an academic discussion because it goes to the very heart of how we understand the Bible. The insistence of literalism in this case suggests a literalistic approach to the Bible as a whole. When Christians (especially pastors and Sunday School teachers) insist on a belief in the Virgin Birth, they invite prioritizing literalism over religious meaning.

And, as Kristof points out, when we focus on literalism, it's easy to lose the meaning altogether.






Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish. 

The Way We Were: Remembering Bishop White

He has told you, O people, what is good; 
and what does the LORD require of you 
but to do justice, 
and to love kindness, 
and to walk humbly with your God?
Micah 6:8

Bishop C. Dale White passed away yesterday, March 29, 2019, at the age of 94.

For many of us the loss is personal, but it is also a loss for our denomination and for the larger church. In remembering Dale, we remember the way we used to be and we remember what we have lost.

In his lifetime he embodied the best of United Methodism. He was a faithful and effective witness for social justice, and a fearless advocate for the core values of the Gospel. He had deep faith and uncompromising integrity. He always spoke the truth, even when the truth was hard to hear, and he always spoke the truth in love, with genuine caring for those who did not see things as clearly as he did.

Dale was my first District Superintendent. He called me to go to my first appointment, in Mansfield, Massachusetts. And I called him for advice more times than I have called all of the District Superintendents since then. And he was always patient and helpful. Just before he left for the Jurisdictional Conference at which he was elected Bishop, he called and asked me to go to Mathewson Street in Providence to work with Bill Ziegler.

In an article in UMNews, Linda Bloom reports that Jaydee Hanson, a longtime friend and former staff member of the United Methodist Board of Church and Society, described Dale as having a “gentle fearlessness” that engaged people. “Dale had an abundance of vision but offered it in a way that people could adopt it,” he told United Methodist News Service.

Dale was genuinely pained by the way that the causes he advocated so relentlessly were unsettling and disorienting to those who were stuck in old paradigms. He knew the cost of doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly in the ways of God.

After his retirement as a Bishop he preached at our Annual Conference about the role of the pastor in the life of a congregation. One of the most difficult aspects of our calling, he said, is the responsibility to always be ahead of the curve on issues of social justice. If we are faithful we will always be in the lonely position of advocating for causes that have barely entered the consciousness of many of the people we serve. 

Retired Bishop William Boyd Grove, a friend and colleague of Dale’s, spoke of his interest in interfaith relations, international affairs and the lives of people everywhere which landed him in some unusual places. In the early months of the Iran hostage crisis, Grove recounted, Dale was part of a seven-member U.S. delegation that traveled to Iran in hopes of helping the situation by “reaffirming and restoring friendship between the American and Iranian peoples.”

Grove observed that one of Dale’s most significant contributions was the 1986 public statement of the United Methodist Council of Bishops called "In Defense of Creation: The Nuclear Crisis and a Just Peace."

More than any other bishop, said Grove, Dale was responsible for that pastoral letter and study guide. “It was Dale’s idea and he chaired the task force, and it was really his baby.” And it had a profound impact on the church and beyond the church, by moving the nuclear arms debate beyond politics and foreign policy.

In 1996 Dale joined with fourteen other United Methodist Bishops who chose to break their silence and speak out in opposition to the prohibition of LGBTQ persons serving in ordained ministry.

Not surprisingly, Bishop White was not just the embodiment of everything that the church has traditionally stood for, he was also the incarnation of everything the right-wing groups have opposed.

If you knew Dale, you knew him to be a person of deep faith. But for those who equate faith with right-wing politics and quasi-fundamentalist theology, they could not believe that he was a “real Christian.” He was frequently asked if he was “born again.” He would smile and say, “Yes, just this morning.” Faith was, for him, a constant process of renewal and rebirth. We are continually being made new.

Finally, or maybe we should say, “firstly,” there was his marriage to Gwen. Gwendolyn Ruth Horton and Clarence Dale White were married on August 25, 1946. They were married for more than 70 years before Gwen’s death in 2017. They shared the same deep faith and the same openness to the spiritual journey. Together they raised six children and left a legacy of shared love and discipleship.

The way they were is the way the church ought to be.

Rebuking the Demons of a Faithless and Perverse Generation

On the next day, when Jesus and Peter and James and John came down from the mountain, a great crowd met them. Just then a man from the crowd shouted, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son; he is my only child. Suddenly a spirit seizes him, and all at once he shrieks. It convulses him until he foams at the mouth; it mauls him and will scarcely leave him. I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.” Jesus answered, “You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here.” While he was coming, the demon dashed him to the ground in convulsions. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father. And all were astounded at the greatness of God.
Luke 9:37-43

When they had come down from the mountain

Fifteen years ago on Transfiguration Sunday when I preached on this text, we had just gotten home from a Mission Trip with our Youth Group to the Rural Mission on John’s Island near Charleston, South Carolina.

John’s Island is a place of incredible natural beauty and yet it is also a place of devastating poverty. We had worshiped the previous Sunday with St. James United Methodist Church and it was wonderful, as it is every year. To sing James Weldon Johnson’s “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” with a Black congregation was an incredibly moving experience. When they sang, 

“Stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod,
felt in the days when hope unborn had died,”

I could not help thinking that the people in worship with me were, in fact, the great grandchildren of those who had been sold at the market in Charleston, just a few miles away.

I came to church on that Transfiguration Sunday emotionally exhausted from an experience that maybe gave just a glimmer of what the disciples experienced with Jesus. I think I felt some sense of what they felt when they came down the mountain.

Every great experience ends and we have to go back to life as it was. Whether it’s a retreat, or a summer camp, or a terrific vacation, or an anniversary celebration, or a graduation, or even a memorial service; eventually it ends. We go through those high moments of insight and inspiration and emotion, but eventually we have to come down. Peter wanted to make dwellings there, but you can’t stay on the mountain top. The experience ends, and you have to come down.

“Teacher, I beg you to look at my son; he is my only child.”

When you come down, reentry is difficult. That’s what happens for Jesus and the disciples. They come down, and they find a crowd gathered. There’s a man whose son has a demon and he wants desperately to have that son healed. “My son,” he says, “my only child.” And he describes what happens to the boy: “It seizes him and mauls him and throws him to the ground, and sometimes he foams at the mouth.” Can you hear how deeply and desperately this man cares for his son?

You know what that’s like.

One of Jesus’ great gifts and one of his expectations of us is to care just as deeply as the father. To care just as deeply as the parents; not only for that child, but for all the other children across the whole human family. 

“You faithless and perverse generation!”

The desperate father; the disciples powerless to do anything; and Jesus says, “You faithless and perverse generation! How much longer must I put up with you?” Words that are eternally contemporary. I suspect that Jesus is just as frustrated with us as he was with them.

You come down from the mountain and the world is still crazy. There are still problems and still issues to address.

I checked my email when I got home from the Mission Trip and there was an invitation to a press conference on Tuesday morning for religious leaders supporting equal access to marriage; supporting Gay Marriage.

I read that and I said to myself, “I do not want to do this.” I walked into the kitchen, and I said to Elaine, “I’ve got a decision to make.” And I explained the situation. She said, “What’s the decision?” I said, “Well, I need to decide whether or not I’m going to go.” And she said, “Why would you not go?” “Because,” I said, “I don’t like to make people unhappy. It’s a controversial issue and it will make some people unhappy.”

“So,” she said, “You don’t want people to be uncomfortable.”

And then after a pause she said, “Some people have been uncomfortable their whole lives.”

I told the congregation why I had decided to go.

I said I knew it was controversial and I knew that some people saw this as a threat to marriage. But for me the threats to marriage were lack of commitment, lack of communication, and lack of trust. The fact that there were people of the same sex who want to make that commitment was something that we should celebrate. 

It was a good thing. For years the gay community has been criticized for promiscuity and yet there has been no avenue for a legal and sacred commitment. In an age when it is so hard to get anyone to make a commitment about anything, and at a time when commitment is in such short supply in the heterosexual community, I found it incredibly moving to see gay and lesbian couples lining up to promise their lives to each other.

I asked myself, “What would Jesus do?” And the question is answered as soon as it is asked. Jesus is always on the side of compassion.

Jesus says to the people, with great frustration, “you faithless and perverse generation!” 

Why is he frustrated? It’s not because they were good when he left and they’ve been bad while he was away, and now he has to correct them and get them back on track. The problem is not that they were good and now they are bad. The problem is that they are just the same now as when he left. 

The problem is that they have not changed. They have not grown. And over and over throughout the Bible, that is the problem. The people of Israel want to go back to Egypt because they are uncomfortable moving forward through the wilderness. Growth is always uncomfortable. But, like the people of Israel, we need to move forward.

The next step is always hard. And honestly, sometimes people just need time. Over time, we meet people, we experience things and we live through it.

I believe with all my heart and soul and mind and strength that the benediction I pronounce on Sunday morning is true, “that God loves us and accepts us just the way we are.” But I also believe just as deeply that God does not expect me to be in the same place today that I was yesterday. 

The purpose of God’s unconditional love and acceptance is to give us room to grow. We cannot take the risk of growth unless we know that love is there. That’s why it’s so important that children feel loved and accepted. We don’t want them to stay eighth graders forever. When they are three and four we may feel like we want them to be preschoolers forever, but we really don’t. And heaven knows we don’t want them to be teenagers forever. We want them to grow. And God wants us to grow.

The frustration Jesus has with this group of people is that they have not changed. They have not grown. And isn’t that the problem with the Traditionalism? The wilderness is hard and they want to go back to Egypt.

Jesus rebuked the demon, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father.

Jesus expresses his frustration and then he rebukes the demon. The language is hard for us. It seems very strange to speak of demons, but it’s a symbolic way of speaking about the evil in our lives. And it says something that we know is true: there are demons in our lives. Materialism, greed, the lust for power, and selfishness; those are all demons in our lives. Racism and xenophobia are demons. 

And homophobia is a demon. 

The demons seize us and convulse us and sometimes they even make us foam at the mouth. There are times, many times, when those demons must be rebuked. 

And all were astounded 

at the greatness of God.

When the demons are rebuked and we are healed it is astounding. It is testimony to the greatness of God.

In our United Methodist Church on this Transfiguration Sunday in 2019, we are not there yet. We are still mired in the demons of a perverse and foolish generation. We need to move forward. We need to rebuke the demons.


Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish. 

In the Bleak Midwinter

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.

Luke 2:15-19

Christina Rossetti was born on this day in 1830.

Every year we sing her wonderful Christmas Carol, “In the Bleak Midwinter.” It was first published in 1872, and simply called “A Christmas Carol.”

As I write this in Rhode Island, it feels like midwinter. And much of the northern half of the United States is caught in a deep freeze. But Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (and Bethlehem, New Hampshire) are very different from Bethlehem in Israel, where the high today will be in the upper 50’s and next week it will be well into the 60’s.

The weather described in the Christmas Carol is very different from the usual winters in Israel.

And, of course, scholars tell us that it is very unlikely that Jesus was actually born in December anyway. We celebrate his birth in the winter because some very clever Christians co-opted the pagan celebration of the winter solstice.

(So in a way it is only fair that the pagans seem to have reclaimed it. Looking at how it has become a celebration of consumption, we may well think that Holden Caulfield was right when he said that if Jesus could see Christmas, he’d puke.)

But whatever our reservations about the loss of true meaning and the departure from the historical realities of Jesus’ birth, we love Christmas.

And we love the carols, and I especially love this one. It is not first on my list, but it is up there.

And within the carol, I love the idea that “heaven cannot hold Him,” and I love the last verse.

What can I give Him,
Poor as I am? —
If I were a Shepherd
I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man
I would do my part, —
Yet what I can I give Him, —
Give my heart.

Of course, most of us who sing those lines in North America are not poor. By global standards, we are rich. Our problem is not that we cannot afford to give something to Jesus, but that we don’t want to. And we make believe we can’t in order to assuage our guilt.

We tell ourselves that although we cannot give something substantial in material terms, we will give our hearts. And by that, what we really mean is that we will feel all warm and fuzzy about Jesus and Christmas and our neighbors—at least for a few minutes in the glow of candles and Christmas lights.

I want to tell myself that this year will be different.

I really will give my heart to Jesus (again).

One of the great tragedies of modern Christianity is that for so many so-called Christians, it all comes down to believing. The only question is, do you believe the right things?

But to give one’s heart is more than believing.

Christian faith is not an intellectual exercise; it is an existential commitment.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish. 

Faith Is Not about Orthodoxy; It's about Following Jesus

Jesus said to them, “Come and follow me . . .”
Matthew 4:19

According to the Gospel records, Jesus issues that same simple invitation repeatedly. He tells the fishermen that he will teach them to fish for people and he calls on a rich young man to first, “go and sell all that you have, and give it to the poor.” He asks Levi to leave his work as a tax collector.

The invitations are simple and direct.

He does not ask them for an affirmation of faith. He does not ask them to believe in him or have faith in him or believe anything about him. He does not ask them to believe anything at all. They don’t have to affirm a doctrine or recite a creed, or even say a prayer.

They are simply invited to follow.

I thought about the simplicity of that original invitation as I read a recent post by Mark Tooley on the “Juicy Ecumenism” blog of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD). His essay is a critique of a blog post by Rev. Roger Wolsey, a United Methodist elder, who was writing about Progressive Christianity.

Mr. Tooley begins by quoting what Rev. Wolsey says he doesn’t believe:

“Friends, Jesus isn’t God. Jesus didn’t die for our sins. Jesus wasn’t killed instead of us. God isn’t wrathful or vindictive. There isn’t a hell (other than ones that we create here on this earth). Going to heaven after we die isn’t what the faith or salvation is about. God didn’t write the Bible."

That sounds a lot more radical than it is.

One of the hazards of Progressive Christianity is that it is too often more about what we don’t believe than about what we do believe.

But one of the reasons Progressive Christians expend so much energy on what they don’t believe is because allegedly “orthodox” Christians say so many things that require response. The affirmations of the current “orthodoxy” are often little more than a thinly veiled biblical and creedal literalism. And sometimes the literalism is not veiled at all. Consequently, Progressives often find themselves correcting notions they thought had been laid to rest in the middle of the twentieth century.

Tooley does not quote the whole paragraph of Wolsey’s disbelieving. And the last part sounds more like mainline Christianity:

“Jesus’ resurrection didn’t have to be understood as a physical one for it to be a real and meaningful one (Paul and many of the early disciples encountered a spiritually risen Christ). Science and faith aren’t incompatible. God didn’t create the Creation in 6 literal days. The earth isn’t only 6,000 years old. Human aggravated global warming isn’t bogus. God isn’t male. Women are fully equal to me. Homosexuality isn't a sin.  Being transgender isn’t sinful or to be rejected. Racism is sinful. And Christianity isn't the only way for humans to experience salvation.”

Given his perspective on the far right end of what he calls “orthodoxy,” Tooley’s critique is not surprising, and he makes his points without a great deal of rancor. At the center of his criticism of Wolsey is his rejection of what he calls “the old modernist Protestant liberalism,” which he declares to be “mostly dead.”

He correctly identifies the major problems with the old modernist liberalism as the deification of science and rationality.

But his critique of Wolsey’s progressive Christian vision has two major problems.

The first is inherent in the very idea of “orthodoxy” itself. It’s a long way from the original invitation of Jesus. The spiritual journey to which Jesus invites his followers ought not to be confined by a narrow orthodoxy. It ought to be broadly expansive and open to new ideas and insights. We should be looking for more light and more insight, not trying to find ways to limit our thinking. The Council of Chalcedon (or any other) may be a great subject for historical inquiry, and that study can certainly teach us things, but it ought not to limit our faith.

The second problem is identical with his critique of modernism.

The current rebirth of biblical literalism might seem to be the very antithesis of the modernist “deification of science and rationality,” but it isn’t. Literalism is anti-science, but it arrives at that position by treating the biblical witness as if it were its own kind of science.

Scholarship and science argue that facts matter. Literalism counters by turning faith into fact.

The majestic poetry and deep religious symbolism of the Bible are reduced to factoids. The narrative is just a list of events. The warmth that was so vital to the evangelical witness is lost in the insistence on facts.

Rooting out heterodox theology is not the path to authentic faith. Maybe we could just help each other follow Jesus and see where he leads us.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish.

Jesus without Content

Dear Lord Jesus,
I know that I am a sinner and need Your forgiveness. I believe that You died on the cross for my sins and rose from the grave to give me life. I know You are the only way to God. So now I want to quit disobeying You and start living for You. Please forgive me, change my life and show me how to know You. In Jesus' name. Amen.

It is commonly known as “The Sinner’s Prayer.” That particular version comes from the Christian Broadcasting Network.

I visited their website in search of an interview they did with Donald Trump.

If you click on a link labeled “Know Jesus” you will find yourself on a page called “Peace with God.” They have a very simple four step process ending with the Sinner’s Prayer.

Step one is recognizing that God loves you.

Step two is realizing that we are separated from God by our sin which, if unforgiven, will lead to death. But God’s gift is eternal life through Jesus Christ.

Step three is understanding that Jesus Christ paid the penalty for our sin and bridged the gap between God and people.

Step four is receiving Christ as your personal savior. You must do that in order to be saved. Jesus is the only way to God and the only way to escape the punishment we deserve. But (lucky for you!) you can give your life over to Christ right now. All you need to do is to pray the prayer.

As near as I can tell, you don’t even need to be sincere, although that is not clearly spelled out.

G.K. Chesterton famously observed that “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.” But the CBN version of Christianity is not difficult at all.

Never mind taking up the cross, or loving your enemies, or turning the other cheek, or going the extra mile, or selling all that you have and giving it to the poor, or any of those other teachings of Jesus that seemed so difficult. You don’t need to worry about clothing the naked or feeding the hungry. 

Just say a prayer.

And just to be clear, you don't need to say a prayer for those who are poor or sick or oppressed. You just need to pray for Jesus to save you.

Don’t worry about doing justice, loving mercy and walking humbly with God. Don’t worry about letting justice roll down like a mighty river. Don’t worry about what Jesus taught or how Jesus lived, or what he actually asked of those who follow him.

What does it mean “to quit disobeying You and start living for You”? If we were looking at the teachings of Jesus, that could be a very challenging endeavor, but in terms of the Sinner’s Prayer, one suspects it is a vague reference to conventional morality.

If we reduce Christian faith to such meaningless jargon, it is no wonder that people can call themselves Christians and still embrace racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and other forms of oppression. Jesus without his teachings is just an empty shell. You can fill it with whatever suits your fancy.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish.

Dealing with Bullying and Religion

Outsports founder Cyd Zeigler Marries His Partner Dan Pinar 

You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.

Exodus 20:7

Cyd Zeigler was the first person I knew personally who could dunk a basketball. As basketball players go, Cyd was not very tall by today’s standards. I’m guessing he was 6’2” or so. And he played center. Today there are taller high school guards. But in the Cape League in the late 60’s he was tall, and he could jump. He was also a very nice guy.

His son, also named Cyd Zeigler, was an even more accomplished athlete in high school. He led the Harwich High School track team in scoring for three straight years and he set two high school records. He went Stanford University and became a very successful sports journalist.

The younger Cyd Zeigler is gay.

He founded Outsports.com with Jim Buzinski, with whom he also co-authored a book “The Outsports Revolution: Truth & Myth in the World of Gay Sports.” He broke the story or John Amaechi coming out as a gay professional basketball player as well as the coming out of Michael Sam. He has been on ESPN, MSNBC, and Fox News. In the world of gay sports and sports writers, Cyd Zeigler is a big deal. 

He will return to Cape Cod on October 6 to speak at a special program called “Identifying the Intersection of Athletics, LGBTQ Diversity and Anti-Bullying Rhetoric.”

In an introduction to the event, he writes:

“From fourth grade until I graduated I was teased for being gay, despite not even knowing I had any attraction to boys until about eighth grade. As I succeeded more and more in sports, winning team MVP awards and setting school track & field records, the teasing abated the last few years of high school.

“. . . I hope the schools across the Cape . . . will send their student-athletes to this great event created . . . . and I hope some parents, coaches and teachers join us too. I know I'll be sharing some powerful stories . . . .”

It sounds like a great event and an important milestone in how our schools can support and affirm our LGBTQ youth. 

But I was particularly struck by this paragraph:

“Growing up a very closeted gay athlete in Harwich, Massachusetts, had a profound effect on me. My experiences in that small town on the Cape helped shape the person I am today, from dealing with bullies and religion to taking time to listen and learn.”

He will talk about “dealing with bullies and religion.”

As a Christian, I find the juxtaposition of “bullies” and “religion” heartbreaking.

In our increasingly secular age, Christianity specifically and religion generally, are often criticized. Many of these criticisms are false or misguided. 

But on this issue we are guilty as charged.

A century ago, perhaps even half a century ago, our embrace of a cultural taboo was understandable and unsurprising. There are many places where the biblical witness is no better than its cultural and historical context, and one of the great challenges of biblical interpretation is separating the passages which are time bound from those that speak across the ages. But on this issue our understanding has evolved over time. We know things now that we didn’t know even a few decades ago.

But we have been slow learners.

We have bullied our LGBTQ youth. And we have done it in the name of God.

That last part is what the Bible calls “blasphemy.” 

We have made “wrongful use of the name of our LORD.”

Our religious bullying has left a trail of broken hearts and minds and bodies from coast to coast and around the world. Perhaps the most remarkable thing is that even now there are people who call themselves Christian who persist in this profoundly unchristian oppression and harassment. 

In a video about the event, Zeigler says that as a young person he was “very religious.” I have no idea where he might be now in his spiritual journey, but he must have lived through a very painful time as he came to terms with his sexual orientation. I cannot help thinking how different his growing up might have been if his religious experience had been more open, accepting, and affirming.

Beyond the unconscionable pain inflicted on LGBTQ youth and their families, the Christian church has done great damage to its place in the world. 

If you belong to a church, by which I mean a local church, you know that it is a remarkable place. At its best it really is the body of Christ in the world. And as Saint Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.” At its best, the church is a place of healing and wholeness, where people accept us as we are and help us to grow into our best selves.

The Christian Church has never been perfect. From the smallest individual local church to the largest denominations, there have always been flaws. But the church has also been a force for enormous good in the world.

That great legacy has been done great harm by our unfaithfulness on this one issue. Our failure on this issue has jeopardized our witness on everything else. 

This should not surprise us, “for the LORD will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.”

Thank you for reading this post. Please feel free to comment here or on Facebook. Please share on social media as you wish.

An Atheist's Perspective on Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton preaching at Foundry UMC in September 2015. AP Molly Riley Photo

He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” He said to them, “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial.”
Luke 11:1-4

On a Blog site called “About Religion,” Austin Cline wrote a short summary of Hillary Clinton’s beliefs and practices. 

He writes from the perspective of an atheist.

For the most part, his description is straightforward. 

“Hillary Clinton grew up in a Methodist household,” he writes, “She taught Methodist Sunday school like her mother, is a member of a Senate prayer group, and regularly attends the Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington.”

Cline notes that in spite of her obviously sincere beliefs, she has been regularly portrayed by the Christian right as being “godless.” Conservative radio host Michael Savage described her as the “most godless woman in the senate,” and accused her of talking about her religious convictions only when it was politically expedient.

According to Cline, Jerry Falwell went further than Savage, “by declaring that she would energize the Republican ‘base’ of conservative evangelicals even more than if Lucifer were running as the Democratic candidate for president.” 

And he makes the important observation that by demonizing Hillary Clinton, Falwell and his followers can transfer the responsibility for the hatred “from the people who hate Hillary Clinton so much onto Hillary herself - if she's demonic, then people have no sane choice but to hate her. Furthermore, this ensures that there is no reason to hold back in attacks on her: you negotiate and compromise with political equals, not with demons.”

In contrast to Falwell and Savage, Austin Cline is convinced that Clinton is sincere in her beliefs. Of course, since he approaches this from an atheist perspective, that is at best a mixed blessing.

“There is no evidence,” he writes, “that Hillary Clinton's religiosity is superficial or an affectation; her behavior is consistent with her professed beliefs and she has explained more than once how important faith is for herself personally and her family. She has also said that prayer - trying to communicate with a god - is important in her life.”

I cannot be certain of how Hillary Clinton approaches prayer, but I think I can say with absolute certainty that she does not think of it as “trying to communicate with a god.”

Instead of the simple statement that Hillary Clinton “has also said that prayer is important in her life,” he inserts his definition of prayer as “trying to communicate with a god.”

It could be that Mr. Cline is just trying to have a little fun twitting the occasional Christian who might read “About Atheism.” It’s not “communicating,” it’s “trying to communicate.” And it’s not God, it’s “a god.” 

LOL.

But maybe he is sincere.

And if he is sincere then that reveals a much bigger problem: we are not even talking the same language.

When atheists and literalists debate, they may talk right past each other, but they are at least talking the same language. For both atheists and literalists, religious language is meant to be taken literally. But for Austin Cline, and for many other atheists, the symbolic nature of religious language is lost. When atheists converse with mainline Christians, they are not even using the same language. In our increasingly secular age, this is no small thing.


Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish.

Georgia on My Mind

Dr. Georgia E. Harkness

“Religion is perhaps its own worst enemy. For religion, masquerading under the guise of archaic creeds, and impossible literalisms, and ecclesiasticism indifferent to human needs, has brought about an inevitable and in many respects wholesome revulsion.”

Georgia Harkness

I think I first heard the name of Georgia Harkness when I was in elementary Sunday School. Maybe it came up because we were singing her hymn, “Hope of the World.” Maybe we were looking at contemporary Methodism. Maybe I saw a book that my mother was reading. I knew about Georgia Harkness before I knew anything about Tillich or Barth or Bonhoeffer or the Niebuhrs.

But the truth is that her name was almost all I knew, and across the years I did not pay much attention. She was one of the lesser lights of twentieth century theology and I was focused on the stars.

She is on my mind now because I referenced her in a blog post about covenant. I listed her as a part of the church I was joining when I was ordained. In truth, I listed her because she was the only female Methodist theologian I could think of.

Georgia Harkness.

Just saying her name brings me a certain comfort.

In our current precipitous and disastrous tilt toward literalism, doctrinal Puritanism, and worship of the Book of Discipline, I find it comforting to remember a time when we were not like that.

Georgia Harkness reminds me of my Methodist home, a place of openness, hope and grace. She reminds me of the family, the faith, and the church in which I grew up.

In her 1957 book, “Understanding the Christian Faith,” her chapter on “Understanding the Bible” lays out the perspective I grew up with, that the Bible is a sacred book, written over a period of about a thousand years. It is “heavenly treasure in earthen vessels.” It was not written for scientific or historical accuracy, but to convey the timeless message of God’s love and care. Some of it is time bound by the culture in which it was written, but at its heart it holds timeless truths about God and humanity. It is up to us, as we read the Bible, to separate the heavenly treasure from the earthen vessels.

Writing about “Jesus Christ Our Lord,” she states, “The question as to whether Jesus was born of a virgin is one on which the opinion of Christians differ, and the biblical accounts do not throw clear light upon it.” And on the resurrection, she declares, “We cannot be sure of the details of what happened that first Easter morning, but the central fact is certain. To the disciples . . . their Leader was not dead but present with them.” 

If she were alive today, we might call her a Progressive Christian. But in her own time, for a Methodist, her theology was predictably orthodox.

After forty years of relentless attacks by the IRD (Institute on Religion and Democracy) and Good News, and their allies, the United Methodist Church has become an institution that Georgia Harkness would barely recognize. We have become “our own worst enemy.” Although she passed away more than forty years ago, her description of the direction in which we are heading is prophetic in the biblical sense of that word. 

"Under the guise of following archaic creeds and impossible literalisms," we have engaged in an "ecclesiasticism" that is "indifferent to human needs." And there are consequences. This has brought about “an inevitable and in many respects wholesome revulsion.”

We have replaced the hope of the world with a rigid religiosity that values creeds over human beings. And on the fundamental issue that divides us as a church, the inclusion of LGBTQ persons, we have chosen ecclesiasticism over human needs.

Though I believe that the church today needs to hear her voice, her time was hardly a golden age. It is important to recognize that she grew up in an age of intense racial and gender discrimination. 

After graduating from Cornell in 1912 she was not able to attend seminary and train for the ministry. She taught high school for six years but that was not her calling. She wanted to pursue a theological education and enrolled at Boston University. She was denied entrance to the School of Theology because she was a woman, but she was accepted in the School of Religious Education and eventually in Department of Religion of the Graduate School, where she studied with Edgar Brightman and earned a Ph.D.

She taught religion and philosophy at Elmira College (which was a women’s college at the time) and then was Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Mount Holyoke. In 1940 she was appointed Professor of Applied Theology at what is now Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, becoming the first woman to teach theology at any seminary in the U.S. Today Garrett honors her with the Georgia Harkness Chair of Applied Theology. She retired in 1960 from The Pacific School of Religion.

In 1948 she attended a meeting of the World Council of Churches where she had an iconic interchange with Karl Barth.

Barth, along with a few other men, participated in a section on the “Life and Work of Women in Churches.” Just before the discussion began, the chairperson surprised Harkness by asking her to state the theological basis for the work. She recalls, “I said briefly that in the Old Testament it is stated that both male and female are created in the image of God; in the New Testament Jesus assumed always that men and women were equal before God, and in our Christian faith is the chief foundation of sex equality.”

She reports that as soon as she finished, Barth addressed the group and said that she was “completely wrong, that the Old Testament conception of woman is that she was made from Adam’s rib and the New Testament that of Ephesians 5, that as Christ is the head of the Church, so man is the head of woman.”

After that they had a lively interchange in which, as she recalls, “I did little more than quote Galatians 3:28 (“There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”) Her judgment was that “Barth convinced nobody.” And she concludes her recollection of the event this way: “A year later when a friend of mine asked him if he recalled meeting a woman theologian from America, his cryptic reply was, ‘Remember me not of that woman.’”

Barth did not want to remember her, but I do. 

Donald Trump and the Pope: Walls and Bridges, Faith and Politics

“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I tell you? I will show you what someone is like who comes to me, hears my words, and acts on them. That one is like a man building a house, who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock; when a flood arose, the river burst against that house but could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who hears and does not act is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the river burst against it, immediately it fell, and great was the ruin of that house.”
Luke 6:46-49

It was weird.

Even by the standards of this year’s very strange presidential campaign, it was weird.

Not long after Pope Francis celebrated mass on the border between Mexico and the United States, and commemorated those who had lost their lives trying to make that crossing, as he was traveling back to Rome, the Pope was asked what he thought about Donald Trump’s proposal to deport eleven million illegal immigrants and build a wall along the border. Could an American Catholic vote for Trump?

On the issue of whether or not a Catholic could vote for Trump, he gave no papal directive, but he did comment on Trump’s proposals.

“A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian,” said Francis. “This is not in the Gospel.”

When asked “if an American Catholic could vote for a person like this?” Francis responded, 

“As far as what you said about whether I would advise to vote or not to vote,” he commented, “I am not going to get involved in that. I say only that this man is not Christian if he says things like that.” 

Then, more reflectively, he added, “We must see if he said things in that way and in this I give the benefit of the doubt.”

Trump’s response was swift and certain. He called the Pope’s comments “disgraceful.”

We will pause now to reflect on the supreme irony and apparent total lack of self-awareness in Mr. Trump calling what someone else said, disgraceful.

This is the same man who began his campaign by slandering all Mexican immigrants, who spoke first of Fox commentator Megyn Kelly, and then of Hillary Clinton, and still later of Ted Cruz, in language that cannot be repeated in polite company. This is the man who said that John McCain was not a war hero and insisted that thousands of American Muslims in New Jersey were cheering as the twin towers went down on September 11. Disgraceful has become the Trump brand.

In his official response, Trump began with an imaginary scenario that sounds like an idea for a television movie:

“If and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISIS’s ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the Pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been President because this would not have happened.”

How weird is that?

Roughly translated, I think he is saying that if the Pope really understood what is at stake in this election, he would be praying for Trump to win the presidency.

Somehow, I doubt it.

In the closing paragraph, Trump tells us what he finds disgraceful in the Pope’s remarks:

“For a religious leader to question a person’s faith is disgraceful. I am proud to be a Christian . . . . No leader, especially a religious leader, should have the right to question another man’s religion or faith.”

On a positive note, it’s clear that Mr. Trump does not have an army of public relations professionals massaging his statements for either style or content. His written comments, like his speeches, seem totally void of critical reflection.

A few weeks ago Mr. Trump said that he could shoot someone in broad daylight in New York City and his supporters would still be behind him. By that standard, calling the Pope disgraceful is nothing. Not surprisingly, his comments caused no defections from the ranks, and his supporters took to social media to voice their approval. It was a landslide.

As one news commentator summed it up at the end of the day, “Trump 1- the Pope 0.” 

Two serious observations:

First, I don’t think the Pope was questioning Donald Trump’s faith. He was only commenting on Trump’s policy proposals and public statements. We cannot know what is in another person’s heart. Trump is right about that, we shouldn’t question another person’s faith. Public statements and policy proposals are another matter. 

Second, the Pope did not say that American Catholics should not vote for Mr. Trump. He made an important distinction between criticizing some of Trump’s policies and declaring his candidacy off-limits to faithful Christians. Like the Pope, I am deeply troubled by some of Mr. Trump’s proposals. I am also troubled by his bullying tactics. But deciding for whom we will vote is a complex matter of weighing many competing issues, and fundamentally it is a matter of conscience. Though it is tempting, that is a place where we dare not judge.