How did our religion come to be? How pure is it? What do we mean by pure?

Our religion did not emerge as a pure unsullied stream separate from the religions of our neighbors. Rather it is more like stone soup, with many added ingredients. It has never been pure. It has always been a work in progress.

Animal sacrifice was an improvement over human sacrifice. But where did this custom of sacrifice come from? It certainly was not unique to Judaism. The Canaanite priests and prophets sacrificed too.

Where did angels and demons come from? During the early years of the development of Judaism the struggle was between monotheism and polytheism. There was not much talk about angels. But after monotheism’s victory during Israel’s defeat to Babylon, Zoroastrian angels and demons entered Jewish beliefs.

And what is the relationship between Christianity and Judaism? Is Christianity a kind of Judaism with the Old Testament belonging to us as much as it belongs to Jews. Or is Christianity a Roman Mystery religion, that picked up Jewish scriptures by its accidental connection with the historical Jesus?

The point of asking all this is that the purity of our religion does not come from a clear and separate past. So the world religion question is not new, but is as old as we are.

Our religion can be compared to the old wedding custom,

Something old,
something new,
something borrowed,
something blue,
and a sixpence in her shoe

Like a bride entering into a covenant with her partner, we are in a relationship with God. And just as a person brings her history into the relationship, we bring our history into our relationship with God. Some of those things from our past continue to prove themselves valuable and useful. Other things we learn to cast aside in the light of our new covenant.

There is nothing wrong with our religion that it emerged this way. It is just how it is. What is always happening with God is that we shape ourselves to maintain a wholesome connection with God and each other.

James wrote it like this. “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep unstained by the world.”

In the sermon on the mount Jesus says, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

So it would seem that it is a distraction to attempt to extricate our religion from the complexities of history. And it is a distraction to attempt to hold to some sort of pure catechism devised from theologians of the 16th century.

Rather purity is about how we care for those who are most vulnerable in society. Purity is about not being caught up in the pomp and circumstance of secular status competitions.

And this is how we can come to see God at last.

If you wish, try this prayer,

Eternal Heart of the Universe, I offer my self to the most vulnerable persons on earth. I will do something good for them today. Forgive my many missteps and shortcomings. I am not done yet. Spirit of the Living Christ help me. Amen.

My parents were both school teachers. They tried to teach me to read and write well. Mostly they did this through a good example. Furthermore I went on in my education through college and seminary.

I wrote papers in the old days before computers. I don’t know how many term papers I churned out through the years. But I remember making as many of them about Kierkegaard as possible. I did this because I was fascinated by his life and his teaching. I was not as bad as a certain Professor who wrote the book “Christian Anarchy” among other things. I did not name my first child “either” and my second child “or”. 

But despite my education, I still frequently misspell words, and misspeak.

The rule goes, “i before e except after c” The word receive is an example. Perhaps this was difficult for me because my own name Heilman, is an exception. Thank God for spell check today!

There is another interpretation of “I” and “E”. This is to suggest that some people are “I over E” or intellect over emotion. And others are “E over I” or emotion over intellect.

Bowen family systems, Buddhism, and Stoicism highly value the rational intellectual side of being human. Artists, Romantics, and Patriots, value the emotional part of being human.

Ideally we should be rational when rationality is called for, and emotional when that is helpful. We should be balanced.

What does that have to do with Jesus and world religions?

There is another playful way to look at “I” and “E”, It would go, “I before E except after C.” Only here the “C” would be Christ.

The Idea is that the rational contemplation and imitation of the life of Christ, are subordinate to the passionate experience of the living Christ.

For example John Wesley was a hard core systematic Christian. He was a strict student and disciplined disciple of Jesus Christ. But what he really needed, he experienced after a Moravian meeting. God warmed his heart. And that made all the difference.

Without Wesley’s Alders gate experience, I suppose John would have soldiered on within the English religious bureaucracy. But the fire broke his bonds and a new thing was born.

“I before E, except after C”.

The order of the universe for a Christian like me is that God was in Christ. Christ changed my heart. And now I try to understand and explain it.

It is not mostly that I tried to understand life, changed my heart, found Jesus, and met God. Although it was a bit of that.

John the apostle wrote. We love because God first loved us.

Are we Christians alone in believing this?

Is this true for you?

More later…

What is freedom?

It seems to be a matter of attitude. There are people with loads of money that can do whatever they want, and go wherever they want, and yet in  some fundamental way are not free. And there may be others who though locked in prison, but because they have gotten used to it, and have faith in God, and a purpose in life are in some fundamental sense free.

According to the Gospel of John, Jesus says, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

Ask an atheist existentialist if the truth has made them free. They may say yes, but it probably has not made them happy. But they prefer the bitterness of truth to the cloying platitudes of inauthentic belief.

Religious freedom has to do with commitment. Rather than vacilating about whether to believe in God or not, the choice is made, the life is set.

Religions are human wisdom traditions that tell us who we really are, how we should live, and what we can hope for.

Islam teaches that there is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is God’s prophet. It teaches that humans should pray five times a day, to help themselves remember ultimate reality. Islam teaches that everyone is responsible for the welfare and happiness of the community and must give a portion of their wealth to the needy. And during the month of Ramadan everyone should fast and strive to become more completely in harmony with God’s will. And if possible, once in their life, they should travel to Mecca the holy city, during the time prescribed for the Haj, and there in equality and unity with Muslims of every nation, class, and color, share in the holy acts of dedication and remembrance that are prescribed there.

Hasan is a Muslim. He lives his faith within the constraints of the prison. He has learned Arabic, memorized numerous verses from the Qur-an, and knows Hadith or the sayings of the prophet Mohammed.

I am a Christian pastor. I order my life around God as the creator, and ever present deepest reality of the universe. I see the model of human perfection in Jesus Christ, who illustrates for me the character of God. In the path of Jesus Christ through incarnation, liberation, confrontation, and vindication, I find the direction and meaning of my life.

Let me explain that a bit more. Incarnation means that we must accompany one another as equals. Jesus was fully human. We too must be fully human, and join with the oppressed.

Liberation is prefigurative politics. Jesus did not wait for the government or religious authorities to approve of him touching lepers, healing on the Sabbath, teaching women with the men, or blessing children. In the same way we are to be the change we wish to see in the world right now. This is why I affirm lesbian gay bisexual and transgender safety and dignity. I support women in ministry, and I renounce war, as a means to engineer a better world.

Confrontation is how the thirst for fairness and justice motivated Jesus to act out against the hypocrisy and religiously engineered theft of the Roman Temple alliance. He threw over the money changer’s tables, and drove the sacrificial animals out of the temple grounds. If course this meant he would be betrayed, arrested, tortured, and murdered by the state. In the same way it is not enough for us to like justice. We are called to do justice. If we are not upset and doing something about how millions of persons starve to death every year we don’t know God. If we are not upset over all the wars and abuses of power going on in the world, we don’t understand Jesus. If we are not willing to accept our agency and do something to fix our broken world we are not truly in the path of Christ. This is why I am involved in our local occupy movement. We are doing something.

Vindication is the act of God. It is the power of God that raised the dead Jesus to the living Christ. It was Jesus’ continuation in the church which is his body. Vindication is our hope that if we do the right thing, we will win out in the end. Even though we may never see it, there are those who will be able to look back some day and say “Thank you.” And of course it is the “Well done, good and faithful servant.” from God, which is the ultimate affirmation of our lives.

How will a deeply committed and educated Christian and a deeply committed and educated Muslim get along?

Before I go on I must share with you a concern I have that was brought to me by Martha Stout PhD. in her book, The Sociopath Next Door.

My position as a Christian has been that redemption is for everyone, and that no one is beyond the possibility of God’s salvation. While Dr. Stout does not overturn this idea she lowers the bar regarding what salvation might look like for some very damaged people.

Essentially in her book that is largely descriptive and anecdotal, she argues that some people, perhaps around 4% of the population are permanently morally deficient. She means that they do not share the internal compass of right and wrong like the rest of humanity.

Dr. Stout helped me to understand that a sociopath is not a mass murderer or serial killer. Many of them are quite normal in their lives. They are habitual liars and manipulators, but not necessarily violent.

In addition I learned more about attachment disorder that some persons suffer because of a deficient early childhood environment. These persons share some traits with sociopaths, but the origin of the condition is not the same.

Interestingly enough using group selection theory, there seem to be times where a sociopath belongs. In Chris Hedges book, War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning, he describes the Yugoslavian civil war. He points out that in war morality is inverted. Murder and lying become assets. He points out the sad possibility that in low tech conflicts like Yugoslavia, it was our monsters against their monsters.

My point is that I am against cruel and unusual punishment. I am against the cruel society that criminalizes color and poverty. And I am against prisons for profit as an industry that is clearly demonstrating a conflict of interest with the common good. But I believe violent sociopaths need to be kept separate from general society.

I believe there are dangerous people in the Ohio State Penitentiary. Some may be simple criminals. Others may see themselves as revolutionaries or vanguards for various causes. Some may have just needed to defend themselves. In any case. I am the student here. I have much to learn.

Hasan was waiting for me when I came into the little glass room.