Recommended Reading 5-9-14 Edition

 Each week I send out a weekly e-mail of my thoughts to folks in my church.  I include in it what I found worth reading in the past week.   Here's some stuff I found meaningful to read this past two weeks (since I didn't sent out any last week:

• If you are interested in where my sermon will be going on Sunday, check out this article by Diana Butler Bass "The Radical Feminist History of Mother's Day."
• In case you missed the national news about the United Church of Christ filing a lawsuit against the state of North Carolina over its law prohibiting clergy from officiating marriage ceremonies without a state wedding license (obviously that includes same gender weddings since they are not recognized in NC), you can click here and see information about the case and links to media coverage.  By the way, currently in the state of MO, I officiate strictly religious weddings for same gender couples, because  the state does not recognize same gender weddings--if I were in NC, I could face a fine and jail time.   
•  This week clergy from across Missouri--most of them African American--went to the state capital to protest the state legislature's failure to expand Medicaid according to the guidelines of the Affordable Care Act.  The clergy--among whom were colleagues from MORE2 congregations and our own Seminarian Karon Harper--chanted and disrupted the legislature.  Some of those clergy were even arrested.  Barbara Shelly's column in the Kansas City Star makes it clear why the MO legislature demonstrates that it does not care about low income people getting healthcare: "The state's current threshold is a tragedy. A parent can earn no more than 19 percent of the federal poverty level, an annual pay of just more than $4,000 for a family of four. Childless adults aren't eligible at all.  The legislature's refusal to expand eligibility has left nearly 300,000 Missourians, mostly working people, in a coverage gap. They make too little to participate in the new insurance exchange and too much to be eligible for Medicaid."  Shame on them!   
• I may have given up being Baptist long ago, but the kind of Baptist I was raised to be was one who fiercely believed in the Separation of Church and State.  Ceremonial prayers before government meetings violate that separation in my mind, and they aren't really prayers as far as I'm concerned.  Too bad the majority of the Supreme Court feels differently.  Church historian (and Baptist) Bill Leonard argues my point far better than I can.     
• Speaking of my Baptist days, the Christian ethicist who influenced most of my mentors in college and seminary was Glenn Stassen.  Stassen was an avowed Evangelical, but he felt like following Jesus didn't mean the narrow individualistic ethics of the Religious Right, but rather following Jesus meant opposing the buildup of nuclear weapons and thus he was active in the nuclear FREEZE movement in the 1980's.  He also felt like debating whether a war was just or not was too little too late, so instead he advocated what he called "Just Peacemaking" which means working to prevent wars in the first place through realistic pragmatic steps.  His obituary in the NYTimes is worth reading, as is this piece by UCC theologian Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite (see also the video of Stassen explaining Just Peacemaking).  .   
• As I have shared with you before, I love tacky Jesus stuff.  If you are ever looking for a gift for me (hint, hint), number 9 on this list of "Thrift Store Finds That You Simply Must Buy" is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about.  
• I read this article: "Why Nonprofits are Replicating the Startup Model" and I couldn't help but think it was relevant for church in the 21st century.  To use a business analogy--we aren't guaranteed customers anymore, especially when our method of doing business was at its peak a century ago.  The 21st century church needs to have a startup mentality! 
•  The Pitch continues to do an incredible job of reporting on the unjust nature of Missouri's system of capital punishment.  Their latest issue contains an article you should read if you care about the fact that both MO and KS are killing people in your name.  
• Roeland Park City Councilman Jennifer Gumby deserves our support.  She's trying to pass an ordinance prohibiting discrimination against LGBT people but she is facing stiff opposition from other councilmen and outside groups who claim to be "protecting" marriage. 
• Did you see this powerful story about KC parents supporting their child through a gender identity transition?  
• Last Sunday I preached about the Christian obligation to respond to Climate Change.  If you are interested in some of the articles  I was working from, here they are: "Cliff Notes for Climate Change?", "Obama's Last Shot",  "What Climate Change Means for Africa, Asia and the Global Poor," and "Fact Sheet" The Connection Between Global Warming and Recent Extreme Weather Events." 
   Also, check out this article about an Evangelical Christian who happens also to be a climate scientist and who is working to change the minds of conservative Christians on climate change.   
• Matthew Vines, a member of a conservative Presbyterian church in Wichita who happens to be gay, has written a book God and the Gay Christian.  It seems to really be upsetting conservative Evangelicals, and I haven't been able to figure out why.  As far as I could tell the arguments in his book have been around for decades in liberal and moderate Christian circles.  It turns out, he didn't write his book for liberals or moderates but for conservative Christians who hold a much higher view of biblical authority.  Earlier arguments could be dismissed by conservatives as the work of liberals who don't believe the Bible, but now one of their own is using their own tools to speak up for LGBT rights.    
• Can you name the 10 Commandments?  (I didn't think so.)  Take this quiz to find out some other stuff you didn't know about them.  
• I think our church's Board of Evangelism should watch Stephen Colbert's idea for boosting church attendance.  

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The Jews Did Not Kill Jesus

I wrote the following words on Good Friday, but due to the crush of Holy Week for someone in my profession, I did not send them out.  The news cycle has moved on from the shootings at two KC Jewish institutions, but I feel these words are still worth sharing now (and hopefully worth reading).   

I attended the interfaith memorial service for William Corporon and Reat Underwood who were killed last Sunday at the Jewish Community Center and Terri LaManno who was killed a few minutes later at Village Shalom.  The terrorist attack by a white-supremacist maniac shook Kansas City.  The victims were all Christians, but the intended targets were Jews.  Church members who knew I was attending the service looked for me on the TV broadcast, but when all the clergy present were called up to the stage I was in the very back and could not be seen.  That's just fine with me, because I wasn't there to be on TV.  On the back row, I got to put one arm around an Imam and one arm around a Rabbi while we sang "Oseh Shalom."  That was a special moment for me.

One of the speakers at the service declared that Jesus was killed by the Roman occupying army rather than by Jews.  I was glad to hear that said, but I wish he had stated it even more clearly, perhaps repeated it two or three or a hundred times, because the message doesn't seem to be getting out there.  The historical and biblical fact that Jesus was killed by Roman authorities has eluded Christians throughout the centuries and continues  to elude many today.  The idea of Jews as "Christ killers" has been an excuse for atrocities against Jewish people for centuries: ethnic cleansing, pogroms, the Holocaust, etc.  The image of the Jewish "Christ killer" has been propagated by such notable figures as Shakespeare (think Shylock in the Merchant of Venice), Martin Luther and Henry Ford (who distributed the scurrilous tract The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion).  The hateful idea spreads not just by the lunatic fringe spouting conspiracy theories about Jewish world domination but also by preachers in church pulpits around the world who declare, "Jesus was killed by his own people."

To be fair to those preachers who preach, "Jews killed Jesus," they are only preaching from the Bible.  In Matthew 27, the Roman governor Pilate speaks to a crowd who demand Jesus' death.  It reads: "All the people answered, 'His blood is on us and on our children!'"  This verse has been interpreted for centuries to mean that not the Roman authorities, not just the crowd saying those words but all Jews in every time are responsible for Jesus' death.  Similarly, the Apostle Paul, who elsewhere has positive things to say about his kin, states in 1 Thessalonians 2: "the Jews who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to everyone."  The Gospel of John doesn't help matters much by its depiction of "the Jews" a term it uses about seventy times.  "The Jews" don't come off too well in John, especially in chapter 8 where Jesus says to some Jews who believed in him, "You are from your father the devil, and you choose to do your father's desires."  If Jesus said that about the Jews who believed in him, how bad were the words he used about the Jews who didn't believe in him?  The idea that Jews are "children of the devil" has inspired depictions of Jews with horns and cloven hoofs for over a thousand years.

   

Historians and critical interpreters of the New Testament argue (persuasively, I think) that these early Christian writings came about in a time when Judaism and its daughter religion Christianity were parting ways.  Like all family fights, this particular fight got nasty.  Furthermore, it should be noted that the early Christians (many of whom were in fact Jewish) wrote from the point of view of a minority movement rather than a majority one.  These verbal attacks against Jews were read differently when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire.

   

Furthermore, historians and critical interpreters point out that while some Jewish religious leaders-particularly the Jerusalem elite-may have conspired to have Jesus killed, only Rome had the power to crucify someone.  The decades before and after Jesus' death are filled with plenty of rabblerousers being executed by Roman authorities.  Rome feared the power of crowds to assemble and wreak havoc.  The reason Pontius Pilate bothered to come to Jerusalem every year during Passover was because he was worried about all those Jews gathering together celebrating their victory over another subjugating empire (read Exodus if you've forgotten that story).  A Jewish rabbi who was being hailed as the King of the Jews and the Messiah would not have been tolerated by Roman authorities.  The first and second centuries C.E. contain numerous leaders of Jewish revolts who claimed to be God's Messiah; Rome killed all of them too.  The so-called "cleansing of the Temple" when Jesus drove out the money changers would have been seen as a threat to Jerusalem's religious establishment, but to the Romans it would have appeared Jesus was inciting a riot.  Such troublemakers were quickly disposed of by the might of Rome.

Critical historical inquiry of the New Testament doesn't stop hatred of Jews-at least not in and of itself.  What really changes people are relationships.  When people encounter others as people rather than as an abstract concept, common humanity is found.  Ultimately, interfaith relationships are what reveal the lies of anti-Semitism.  Jewish New Testament scholar, Amy-Jill Levine, in her wonderful book, The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus, writes these words:  

"To engage in interfaith conversation means to understand that what is dogma to one participant is danger to another, that what is profound may also be painful.  Jews and Christians need to read the texts together.  Christians need to recognize the impact that the problematic [New Testament passages] have had on Jews.  In turn, Jews should be aware that most Christians do not consciously read the texts anti-Jewishly and even resist any anti-Jewish implications.  Although the New Testament can be seen as anti-Jewish, it need not be.  Words-inevitably-mean different things to different readers.  We need to imagine how our words sound to different ears."

For centuries, Christians have declared Jews are "Christ killers" to justify violence against Jews.   We have a lot of years to make up for, so we had better get started calling out that lie.  Let's hope it doesn't take two thousand more years to eradicate it.  May we be bold declaring our love for our Jewish brothers and sisters, so that we might drown out the voices of hatred and violence raised against them.   

Grace and Peace,

Chase   

Here are some related writings on the subject that I found meaningful to read:

• Paul Brandeis Rauschenbush--"The Thing I Never Want to Hear on Good Friday Again" 
• Hampton Stevens--"Frazier Glenn Miller Would Like to Kill Every Jew Like Me"
• KC Star Editorial--"Senseless Act of Violence at Two Jewish Centers Steals Three Lives in Overland Park"  

You can read more thoughts from Chase and keep up with what he's reading on his blog: www.revpeep.blogspot.com and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. 

Recommended Reading 4-25-14 Edition

Each week I send out a weekly e-mail of my thoughts to folks in my church.  I include in it what I found worth reading in the past week.   Here's some stuff I found meaningful to read this past two weeks (since I didn't sent out any Thoughts last week due to Holy Week):: 

• On June 12, MORE2 (Metro Organization for Racial and Economic Equity) will hold their annual banquet.  This year the guest speaker is Rev. Dr. William Barber, a Disciples of Christ minister from North Carolina who is leading the "Moral Mondays" movement there to stand up against state government cuts to aid for the poor.  He is an incredible speaker--here's a video preview.  Also, check out this profile of him in Mother Jones Magazine and another one by Bill Moyers.     
• You may have read about the discovery of an ancient manuscript that may state Jesus had a wife.  There is no evidence from any reliable historical sources that Jesus did have a wife, but it is interesting to think about what difference it would make if Jesus had been married?  I found this essay which was sparked by the so-called "Gospel of Jesus' Wife" and addresses views of sexuality and women in the history of Christianity to be worth reading.  Of course, I think Stephen Colbert's take on "Jesus' wife" is worth consideration as well.   
• Easter came on April 20 this year, which happens to be the 15th anniversary of the massacre at Columbine High School in LIttleton, CO.  In that 15 years no meaningful gun control legislation has been passed by the federal government.  
• During Holy Week we once again remembered the political machinations of Pontius Pilate--his form of pandering to a bloodthirsty political base continues today. 
• In case you missed the story I shared a while back about the statue of a homeless Jesus erected in front of a church in North Carolina which upset the church's wealthy neighbors, here is some more about the story.  Expect for this story to appear in a future sermon.
• The Archbishop of St. Louis told MO politicians to learn from Pope Francis' example and care for the poor of Missouri--Medicaid Expansion was his suggestion on where to start.   
•  The NY Times had a story today about the important improvements in working conditions for migrant workers in Florida who pick most of the tomatoes consumed in the US.  The United Church of Christ supported this important justice effort, and CCCUCC's own Erin Balleine worked directly on it when she was on staff for the national UCC.  
• If you've been in my office, you hopefully have seen my collection of tacky Jesus stuff.  Here are a few items I'd like to add to my collection. 
• Did you know that most camera film cannot actually capture skin colors other than Caucasian?  This is a story worth reading by anyone who wonders what institutional racism looks like and/or by anyone who is interested in photography.
• This article asks "Can You Question the Resurrection and Still Be a Christian?"  If you heard my Easter sermon, you know my answer to this question is "yes," even though I personally believe in it.  Read what others think about the question.  

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Come and See

It's Holy Week, so I've been busy and it's taken a week to post this.  I sent this out to my church a week ago on April 11.  It's a reflection meant to help us enter Holy Week together--given the subject matter, it is still appropriate to share on Good Friday.

Come and See

This past week I preached from John 11:1-45.  John's gospel is different from the other three we have in the New Testament.  Matthew, Mark and Luke, which are called the Synoptic Gospels--from the Greek "see together" or "look alike"--all follow the same plot structure and often have the same words, but John's gospel looks very different from them.  Only in John do we find the story of Jesus raising his friend Lazarus from the dead--the passage I preached on.  This story is the culmination of the miracles of Jesus in John; miracles which are called signs.  The signs reveal Jesus' identity, and this final sign, the raising of Lazarus, demonstrates God's power over death through him.

As I said in my sermon last Sunday, I know within our church there is a wide range of beliefs when it comes to the divinity of Jesus or lack thereof.  I ask those with doubts about John's picture of the divine Jesus to enter for a while John's narrative.  You don't have to give up your beliefs about Jesus but just take time to understand the point John is trying to make.  In the end, whether you believe Jesus is divine or not, the story still has something to offer.

Unlike in the Synoptic Gospels, John contains no scene in the Garden of Gethsemane.  Although Jesus does enter a garden in chapter 18 where he is arrested, he does not pray in agony over his soon to come torture and death.  In chapter 11, Jesus does weep, however, just before he raises Lazarus from the dead.  In verse 33, Jesus is "greatly disturbed" because of the grief of those gathered to mourn Lazarus, and then in verse 35 are the famous words: "Jesus wept."  Those around him assume Jesus is weeping for his dead friend--so do most commentators, but is Jesus only weeping for Lazarus?  After all, according to John, Jesus knew even before Lazarus died that he would come and raise Lazarus from death.  Why is Jesus crying when he knows everything will be okay?

Bible scholar and master preacher Fred Craddock writes that this is the Gospel of John's Gethsemane story.  Unlike the other gospels, Jesus does not weep on his last night but rather weeps before he does something that will set his death in motion.  Once Jesus raises Lazarus from death, he effectively signs his own death warrant.  The religious powers that be understand that Jesus is a threat they must eliminate.  Only a few verses later they have made the decision to have him killed.

Jesus is weeping, because his own faith will be put to the test.  Once he performs this last miracle there is no turning back for him.  In verse 34, just before Jesus weeps, he asks those gathered where Lazarus has been laid?  They respond, "Lord, come and see."  The words "come and see" in John have special meaning.  One of Jesus' first disciples, Philip, urges his brother Nathaniel, "come and see" the Messiah.  The Samaritan woman urges her fellow townspeople to "come and see" the Messiah.  Now, ironically, it is Jesus who must "come and see" what kind of Messiah he really is.  Soon he will be inhabiting a tomb, just like Lazarus.  Soon he will see what it is to be in need of being raised from the dead.

If Jesus is divine, what might it mean to think that God might know fear of death?  What might it mean to think of God weeping over the power death holds over those whom God loves?   What might it mean that God knows what it is to fear death not only intellectually but also experientialy?  These are the questions about God that John's Gospel asks.  Often John is understood as portraying a divine-looking Jesus who is in control the whole time, but if Jesus is weeping for himself as well as for his dead friend, in this moment at least, Jesus is not in control.

Is it more comforting to you or less to consider a God who knows firsthand what it is to fear death?  I take great comfort in a God who identifies so closely with what we humans must endure.  Whatever you believe about Jesus' divinity or lack thereof, each of us  must at some point "come and see" if what we have faith in will hold up in light of our mortality. 

With our faith and our doubt, let's journey together into Holy Week to hear the old stories one more time.  Together, let us "come and see" what they have to teach us about death and life, despair and hope.  I look forward to seeing you on Palm Sunday.

Grace and Peace,
Chase

Recommended Reading 4.13.14 edition

Each week I send out a weekly e-mail of my thoughts to folks in my church.  I include in it what I found worth reading in the past week.  Here's this week's recommended reading (okay, actually it was last week, it took me a long time to post this):

Here's some stuff I found meaningful to read this past week:

•  I'm really not a fan of David Brooks, but his column this week on suffering was a powerful meditation on the subject.
• Once again, Leonard Pitts is copying from my sermons.  Although, be sure to read this response to Pitts' article from UCC minister Rev. Jane Fisler Hoffman, member at Southwood UCC in Raytown. 
• Historian George Marsden literally wrote THE book on American fundamentalism and evangelicalism over 20 years ago.  Now, he has a new book coming out explaining why conservatives and liberals talk past each other.  It looks to be supremely important and powerful.  
• The Noah movie is still generating some good discussion out there about the meaning of the flood narrative from the Torah.  Did you know that similar flood narratives from Babylonia and Sumeria pre-date the Bible?  What about similar flood narratives in Islam and Hinduism?  Here's a good discussion of them.  
• Bill Tammeus has powerful words about the sad events this week at Southwest Early College Campus (formerly Southwest High School) which sits directly across Wornall from our church.   
•  I still love Chick-Fil-A's food, even though I have big problems with the politics and religious views of the family that owns the restaurant chain.  I'm glad to read that the current CEO, Dan Cathy, has at least learned from the uproar generated when he spouted off about his opposition to same gender marriage.  I doubt his personal views have changed, but I respect that he is listening to people in the company whose views differ from his and even to LGBT rights activists.  He is also a smart businessman and recognizes that the tide of history is against him if he wants to be publicly anti-LGBT while he tries to market to the Millennial generation.     
• Katherine Edin moved her family to the impoverished post-industrial city of Camden, NJ to learn firsthand about poverty in America.  What she found upends much of what ivory tower writers on poverty have traditionally thought.
• Now that Stephen Colbert will be taking over David Letterman's spot when the latter host retires, that means a devout Roman Catholic will be hosting one of the premiere late night shows on American TV.  Colbert not only teaches his kids' Sunday School but also explains good Catholic social teachings on caring for the poor to Congressmen.   

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What the Hell Does It Mean to Say "Christ Descended Into Hell?"

I grew up Southern Baptist and knew nothing about the historic creeds of the church.  Southern Baptists once were adamantly "non-creedal" declaring that each believer had the freedom to interpret scripture with guidance from the Holy Spirit and the church community.  (Of course, when fundamentalists took over the Southern Baptist Convention all sorts of doctrinal statements were enforced.)  It wasn't until I took theology and church history classes in college and seminary that I even learned what the Apostle's Creed and Nicene Creed were.  To this day, I have never committed them to memory and couldn't recite them if I tried. 

When I joined the United Church of Christ, I did so in the northeast in the heart of the Congregationalist part of our denomination.  Our Congregationalist forebears may have recognized various creeds and confessions throughout their history, but over time they too were fiercely protective of both an individual's and congregation's freedom of belief.  Sure, I read about the other denominations that merged to become the United Church of Christ--including the two founded by German immigrants: the German Reformed Church and the German Evangelical Synod of North America, but it really didn't register that I had joined a denomination in which some churches took the creeds seriously.

Although I serve now a congregation that had been Congregational before the UCC was formed in 1957 and just across the state line in Kansas there are a bunch of Congregational churches that were founded back when John Brown and his abolitionists came to Kansas, most of the UCC congregations in Missouri were originally part of the German Evangelical Synod of North America.  These "Evangelical" churches founded by German settlers eventually joined the German Reformed Church (centered around Pennsylvania) to form the Evangelical and Reformed Church (often abbreviated E&R).  They took church unity so seriously they kept uniting and joined with the Congregational Christian Churches to form the UCC.  (You can read a good summary of the UCC's history here.) Yet, if you go into most UCC churches in Missouri on a Sunday morning, you will be walking into a former E&R church.  Many of those churches--unlike the Congregational ones--will recite the Apostle's Creed each Sunday.

The idea of reciting the Apostle's Creed in a morning worship service may not seem strange to you if you grew up Catholic, Lutheran, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, or even United Methodist but it still seems completely alien to me.  If I had to do it in a service, I would probably be looking over my shoulder for the Inquisition coming to check and make sure I really believed what I was saying.  If pressed, I would have to admit that no, there's some stuff here I don't believe--at least not in the traditional way it has been understood for centuries.

I was talking recently to a fellow UCC minister--who like me came from another denomination that didn't recite creeds.  He serves a former E&R congregation where they say the Apostle's Creed each week.  Every time they get to the part where it says, "he descended to the dead," he thinks to himself, "What the hell does that mean?"  A more traditional version of the Apostle's Creed says, "He descended into hell," although it should be noted the creed has had numerous forms throughout the centuries.
  
The United Church of Christ is quick to state, our denomination declares the historic creeds and confessions and even scripture itself are "testimonies of faith" not "tests of faith."  The UCC declares that "God is Still Speaking" and just because the historic church understood God in one way using particular language in a given historical context, that does not necessarily mean we are bound today to that same understanding of God.  With "God is Still Speaking" in mind, I've been thinking about this peculiar phrase regarding Jesus Christ descending into hell or the realm of the dead.  I may not feel comfortable reciting the Apostle's Creed as a part of my own worship, but plenty of other UCC folks do each week.  Perhaps there is something for me in it as well.

First, a very quick overview of how this phrase has been interpreted in church history.  There's not much in the New Testament to help us understand what this phrase means.  1 Peter 3:18-20 says the following: "For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey. . ."  That is vague to say the least and not much help.  Later on, in 1 Peter 4:6 it says, "For this is the reason the gospel was proclaimed even to the dead, so that, though they had been judged in the flesh as everyone is judged, they might live in the spirit as God does."  That's still not particularly clear.

In the early centuries of the church, interpreters understood these verses along with other passages of scripture such as Psalm 139 (which says, "If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.") to mean that after Jesus Christ died on the cross he descended into the realm of the dead (Hell or possibly the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible concept of Sheol or the Greek underworld) to give those who had died prior to Christ's coming a chance at redemption.  These interpreters argued whether Christ offered a chance at grace to all the dead or just to the righteous dead, but many began to believe that between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, Christ dwelt in the depths of the earth preaching to the dead.

Some in the early centuries of the church understood Christ to be the triumphant victor who had defeated death and then raided death's domain to free the souls trapped inside.  Reformers like John Calvin balked at a literal descent into Hell and interpreted it figuratively to mean that on the cross Christ took on the full wrath of God, even experiencing condemnation to Hell to save humanity from having to bear such a punishment. 

I like what contemporary theologian Keith L. Johnson writes, "When we confess that Christ 'descended into hell,' we are not merely making a claim about an event that happened in the past; we are making a claim about the One who lives in and through us in the present."  Instead of getting stuck on the particulars of what happened between Good Friday and Easter Sunday--if anything happened at all--what if we interpreted confessional statements like this to mean that the presence of God is capable of being with us whatever trials we face.  Even when we walk in the "valley of the shadow of death," God goes with us.  Not even death is a barrier to prevent God from coming to us. 

When I visit someone who is homebound or in a hospital bed, I often read from Paul's letter to the Romans where he writes in chapter 8: "Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . . For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."  It is a comforting thought to remember that not even death can keep God away from us.

I guess if I think about it in these terms, saying this bizarre line in the Apostle's Creed doesn't seem so bad after all.

Grace and Peace,
Chase

Recommended Reading 4-4-14 edition

Each week I send out a weekly e-mail of my thoughts to folks in my church.  I include in it what I found worth reading in the past week.  Here's this week's recommended reading:

Here's some stuff I found meaningful to read this past week:

•  Lots of discussion on the interwebs this week about the new movie Noah.  I haven't seen it yet, but I'm interested in all the different critiques of the movie, especially the writer/director's use of sources in addition to the book of Genesis to tell the story such as rabbinic midrash, Kabbalah and Gnosticism.  One African-American theologian noted that the decision to cast only Caucasian actors was an offensive choice, especially since the Biblical account of Noah's curse of his son Ham was used to justify slavery and later segregation.   Otis Moss III, a noted UCC minister who also happens to be African American, didn't like the all-white casting choice but did like the movie overall.   Here's a critique of the movie by an evangelical scholar who thought the movie was based on the Kabbalah and Gnosticism.  And finally, here's a response to the last critique that agrees there is influence from the Kabbalah but rejects the idea that it's Gnostic.    
• Speaking of Noah, here's an on-line quiz to see how much you know about the Noah story in Genesis.  I scored poorly on it.   Maybe it's time to re-read the early chapters of Genesis.
• The week before last the Christian humanitarian group World Vision shocked the world of conservative Christians by declaring it would remove its ban on hiring LGBT employees.  After the ensuing outrage, World Vision reversed itself two days later.  The writer and (former?) evangelical Rachel Held Evans eloquently expresses her outrage over the reversal and protests evangelicals' oppression of LGBT people.   
• If you are looking for a preview of what I will be preaching on Easter Sunday, here's a column by Molly Marshal, president of Kansas City's Central Baptist Theological Seminary on alternatives to understanding Jesus' death in a way that justifies violence.  
•  More thoughts on what Jesus' death accomplished: The modern Christian understanding of Jesus' death is called "penal substitutionary atonement" which means Jesus took the punishment ("penal") for humanity's sins in humanity's place ("subsistutionary") in order to reconcile humanity with God ("atonement").  Despite how often this is preached in American churches, there are real difficulties with such views, for example why must God be satisfied by violence?  if Jesus is God's Son, doesn't this mean God is committing child abuse?, throughout Christian history this understanding of Jesus' death has promoted an idea of redemptive violence, and so on.  New Testament scholar N.T. Wright has some thoughts about this Christian doctrine that may help alleviate some of these problems.   
• Do you remember the mega-best-selling apocalyptic fiction books in the Left Behind series by Tim Lahaye and Jerry Jenkins.  Their particular mash up of biblical apocalyptic writings offers a distorted but wildly popular view of the end of the world.  A man named Fred Clark has been reading the series and posting his criticisms of the bad theology therein--here's a bit about how the Christian characters in the series seem unconcerned about the eternal fate of one of their non-Christian friends when he dies.   
• Okay, I agree that Buzzfeed's so-called articles that are merely lists are part of what's wrong with the internet, but I did like this one which listed 11 great times when people of different religions demonstrated compassion for one another.  
• As a white father of two brown-skinned boys, I appreciated this article on how to talk with your children about race.  (Not talking about it does not help.) 

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