Is Plurality a Serious Problem for Religion?

In a recent post, John W. Loftus of Debunking Christianity directs our attention to an argument by Austin Cline concerning why atheists don't believe in gods. My purpose here is to address the first section of that argument, which asserts that the plurality of religions (or the pluriform nature of religion) is a real problem. At some point in the future I may address Mr. Cline's broader argument, but that is not my purpose here.

Before I address the argument itself, however, I'd like to say that I am pleased to see an atheist advance an actual argument, rather than just refute the claims of others. While I know that atheism is by its very nature negative (the prefix a is a negative prefix, negating the theism, from the root theus, meaning God) it has disturbed me that many critics of the religious project have satisfied themselves picking the nits of the beliefs of others without actually advancing anything themselves.

This impression may be an error on my part - I am by no means an expert on atheism, and so cannot say definitively that advancing theories rather than just refuting them is the dominant atheist project. But I can say that it often, from my perspective, seems that way. Perhaps this is because many of the atheists with whom I interact are "deconverted" evangelical Christians. After all, many evangelicals (and I still consider myself to be an evangelical) make it their project to knock down everyone else's religion so that there will be nothing left to do but to convert to the only religion left standing. So perhaps the atheists with whom I interact retain some of the distasteful methods of their former religion while also applying those methods to even that religion. Turnabout, it is often said, is fair play. But this mode of religious discourse does little to either improve interreligious dialogue or to arrive at anything resembling the fundamental truth of the universe.

That said, here is the first section of Mr. Cline's argument:

Multiple Gods and Religious Traditions:
It is difficult to credit any one religion as being True or any one god as being True when there have been so many throughout human history. None appears to have any greater claim to being more credible or reliable than any other. Why Christianity and not Judaism? Why Islam and not Hinduism? Why monotheism and not polytheism? Every position has had its defenders, all as ardent as those in other traditions. They can't all be right, but they can all be wrong.

The second section is similar to the first, and inherits the biggest problem of the first, so I will include it, too:

Contradictory Characteristics in Gods:
Theists often claim that their gods are perfect beings; they describe gods, however, in contradictory and incoherent ways. Numerous characteristics are attributed to their gods, some of which are impossible and some combinations of which are impossible. As described, it's unlikely or impossible for these gods to exist. This doesn't mean that no god could possibly exist, just that the ones theists claim to believe in don't.

The first section of the argument sees religions as principally in competition with each other. And, of course, many religious people feed into this belief. Rather than seeing our religion as one of many valid ways to experience the sacred, we too often see our religion as the only way, a set or rational and literal statements with a literal-historical truth-value. In the face of this, Cline asks:

Why Christianity and not Judaism? Why Islam and not Hinduism? Why monotheism and not polytheism?

and in doings so he echoes the concern of many religious people. But does he ask a question which is of use to the overall project of religion (to the extent that one can say that there is such a things a "religion," and that this thing "religion" has a project)? Is it, in other words, really the case that each religion is fundamentally in competition with each other religion, and that that competition (if it exists at all) is principally concerned with the literal truth-value of the epistemic claims of each religion? And, is it also the case that religions are fundamentally in disagreement with each other on more than just certain details, such that, for instance, they have as little in common with each other as each respective one has in common with, say, atheism?

To deal with the first question, the groundwork for an answer is laid by Mircea Eliade's The Sacred and the Profane, and in William James' The Varieties of Religious Experience. Eliade, the famous historian of religions [note: religions, as opposed to religion, as Eilade did not wish to engage too much in reductionistic thinking], argued that (again, to the extent that there is such a thing as "religion," and to the extent that this things "religion" can be said to have some purpose, role or function - see this post for my reasons for making that disclaimer) the purpose of religion is to facilitate an encounter with the sacred. The purpose of James' famous book was to study those encounters, generally lumped under the broad category "religious experience."

Whatever the details of any religion, each religion as a religion has in common that it posits a Sacred, the Other or the More. Of course the sacred is not always seen as a god or many gods, and certainly not all concepts of the sacred agree on what the sacred is. But they do all share this: they fundamentally disagree with the project of atheism, and in their disagreement with that project they have more in common with each other than any of them has with atheism.

Another thing that they all have in common - and this is important for understanding my objection to Mr. Cline's argument - is that they all speak of the sacred principally in metaphoric rather than in literal terms. While there are certainly disagreements between religions on the nature of the sacred, and while it is obviously not the case that all religions say exactly the same thing (in fact it is obviously not the case that all expressions of the same religion say the same thing); in general when religions make claims they are not making literal or exclusive claims.

This is the main point which Paul Tillich makes in the section of his Theology of Culture concerning symbolism: that the nature of religious language is symbolic. And while Tillich has a deeper understanding of the word "symbolic" than the common usage of that word (it would, for instance, make no sense to Tillich to claim that a certain use of language is "merely symbolic," as though that were something lesser than the literal) it is pretty easy to grasp that by symbolic, at the very least, he means not literal. And, quite possibly he means greater than literal.

But referring to Eliade, James and Tillich doesn't by itself make my point. After all, most religious people have probably never heard of any of them, and would certainly disagree with their presentation of the nature of religion. It could easily be the case that Eliade, James and Tillich presented some sort of "best case scenario" for the relationship between individual religions in light of the plurality of religious expressions. To answer this concern, let's engage in an honest thought experiment.

Does the average religious person (to the extent that there is such a thing) believe absolutely in a non-symbolic concept of God (by which I mean something more than just the claim that is not only a symbol - I mean, does the person believe that God is more or less accurately described by a single description which is understood purely literally)? Given how often religious people claim that God frustrates human language and human understanding, I expect not. It may be the case that some people do believe that a particular description of God is literally true, exhaustive and exclusive, but I doubt that such people can claim to represent the consensus of religious people.

So, by and large, when we are dealing with language concerning God we are dealing with symbolic rather than literal language. We are, in other words, dealing with metaphor. And it should not be a surprise to us when metaphors conflict. They are, after all, our way of rendering into language that which cannot be rationally described. They are our way of representing something which cannot be understood literally. They are our way, in other words, of wrestling with mystery.

And religion is principally concerned with mystery. Religion is a way of trying to understand and articulate that which can't be completely understood or accurately described. Religious beliefs are our rational response to the ineffable experience of the sacred. Religious language is a mingling of the transcendent with the particular; a way of expressing that which can't be expressed in the symbolic language of a particular culture.

As such, even while religions do in fact disagree with each other, and while it is important to understand that those disagreements are very real and serious and should not be carelessly glossed over as though they do not exist; it is certainly not fair or accurate to say that religions are principally in competition with each other for some literal truth-value.

Plurality does pose a problem for exclusivism, but it does not pose a problem for the essential project of religion. That is because each religion adds its voice to the others, saying that there is such a sacred, and that the sacred can be experienced. In this they are united in their rejection of modern atheism.

This is where is real debate should be: Does the fact that the overwhelming majority of humans throughout history have believed in and experienced the sacred - even though they haven't all described the sacred with the same terms or concepts - point to the existence of something beyond the realm acknowledged by modern empiricism? How do those who deny the sacred explain the epistemic intuitions of almost all humans? I am sure that they have answers, and very reasonable answers. But the argument against plurality is at best a sort of strawman argument in which the worst form of religion stands in for religion as a whole, and gets knocked down without a fight.

That said, Cline does ask a serious question for pluralists like me to consider, which I shall quote yet again:

Why Christianity and not Judaism? Why Islam and not Hinduism? Why monotheism and not polytheism?

Part of this question is a category error: the pluralist does not say one "and not" the other, if by that we mean that one is "true" and the other "false." But the religious person, pluralist or otherwise, still must choose the tradition in which they experience the sacred, the way in which they wish to be religious. If truth-value (in the absolute sense, at least) is removed from the equation, how do we choose?

If we weren't talking about religion, this wouldn't be a problem at all. How, for instance, do you choose what to eat? The absence of absolute truth-value is not a problem. That you can't say "apple is true, and not-apple (be it pizza, burrito, orange, or whatever) is false" doesn't give one pause. But is food a good metaphor for religion? Like all metaphors it isn't perfect, but perhaps it isn't bad.

When looking at both food and religion, you need to consider nourishment. With food you consider the needs of your body, with religion the needs of what we often call your spirit or your soul. Of course empirical studies have taught us what our body needs, but there can be no empirical study concerning the needs of the soul. Absent that, how do we choose a religion in terms of nourishment?

People were eating long before science told them what to eat. How did they decide what to eat? Obviously some of that had to do with what was available to them, but much of it also had to do with intuition. Our bodies communicate our needs to us. Of course this form of communication, absent perfect self-awareness, is very imperfect. Our intuitions aren't flawless. But neither are they totally bad. In the same way, I think, we have spiritual intuitions which communicate what we need in terms of spiritual nourishment. Those of you who are religious, and who have struggled with how to be religious, know what I am saying when I say that we know when our way of being religious isn't working any more. If we listen to the inner voice which tells us that this isn't working, we change important parts of our religious life.

So, intuitions inform us of how particular modes of being religious nourish us spiritually. But we don't just choose food based on the nutrients in it. We also consider aesthetics. There is also an aesthetic component to religion, though I won't go into that here.

We consult many other things in choosing how to be religious, but of the ones not yet mentioned, ethics may be the most important. At some point in the future we may consider the possibility of ethical critiques of religious expressions. But for the moment I think that I have demonstrated that removing absolute truth-value from our consideration of religion still leaves us plenty of ground to choose our way of being religious, while also allowing us to see the cooperative aspects of plurality rather than just the competitive aspects.

When we choose one religion over another, we are not saying that our way of being religious should be normative. Instead we are simply saying that it is our way of being religious, the way in which we experience the sacred. That does not discredit any much less all of the other ways.

Zen Garden Review

While typing up my last post, salivating at the many remembered meals of Zen Garden, I decided to post the review of that restaurant that I wrote a few years ago in a college writing class. Here it is:

Vegetarian Heaven

Nestled in the heart of Crescent Hill, on historic Frankfort Avenue, is a culinary nirvana. Zen Garden, Louisville’s first and only Asian restaurant with an all vegetarian menu offers a welcome relief from the samsara that is the local Asian restaurant scene, an uncreative wheel of birth, death, and rebirth for menu items. Not only is Zen Garden run according to Zen philosophy, with a focus on the health of the consumer, the value of animal life, and a passion for the needy (their menu clearly states “all profits from Zen Garden will go to help others in need,”) it provides a nearly perfect dining experience.

We arrived at Zen Garden at about six o’clock on a Monday night, to no wait. We walked right in and sat at a table. Immediately we noticed the peaceful décor, full of Buddhist shrines, pictures, icons and literature. There was bamboo on every table, and the lighting was soothingly dim. The light music in the background, which could be used for meditation, helped create an atmosphere of relaxation and contemplation.

Our waitress arrived at our table promptly, though we were so comfortable I doubt we would have noticed or minded if she had been late. She was friendly, and explained what she could of the menu, but the language barrier might have been a real problem. She didn’t speak English well, and I don’t speak Vietnamese well, but, after a moment of awkward silence, we learned to communicate using smiles and gestures. She was extremely pleasant, and didn’t do anything to disturb the effect of the ambiance on our moods.

I have always believed that the best environment is one that facilitates silence, and the best relationships are ones that do not demand conversations. Zen Garden is one such environment, and it encourages peaceful relationships unencumbered by frivolous dialogue. While we were waiting for our food I enjoyed the bliss of not having to speak, and not wondering what my wife was thinking. We were free simply to be. To be in love, to be at peace, and to be out on the town.

However, this peace was soon disturbed by the incessant ring of a telephone. While the lack of a crowd was good for our wait time, there was only one waitress on duty, so when the phone rang while she was taking someone else’s order, there was no one to pick up the phone. This broke the Zen spell for a moment, but after she finally answered the phone (on the fifteenth ring!) we quickly retreated back to our contemplation.

Then our first course arrived. We had ordered an appetizer – a combination of steamed dumplings and pot stickers which they were kind enough to stretch the menu to provide for us. They were wonderful. The steamed dumplings were literally dumplings, filled with tofu and vegetables, then steamed until they were soft and sticky. The pot stickers were just like the steamed dumplings, only pan fried to provide a slightly different texture. They were topped with a ginger and sesame sauce, which was both sweet and tangy.

While we were still polishing up our appetizer, greedily lapping up all of the sauce we could, our entrees arrived. I had the Egg Plant in Curry Sauce, which was Asian egg plant, fresh soybeans, shiitake mushrooms and shredded tofu in a spicy curry sauce. She had the Thai Rice Noodles, a variety of veggie meats, flat rice noodles and stir fried vegetables. Both were artfully presented on humble flatware. Mine was excellent, particularly the soft but firm egg plant, and the rich shiitake mushrooms. However, the side of steamed rice proved necessary to dose the fire from the “spicy” curry sauce. I should have considered the description a warning – it was certainly not a lie.

My wife, on the other hand, did not really like the Thai Rice Noodles. While they were beautifully presented, they were topped with a generous helping of fresh chopped mint, which she said overpowered the rest of the dish.

For dessert we had a guilt free treat, plantains in coconut sauce, topped with shredded coconut. It was as good as I can imagine a dessert being, and the sauce was well worth spooning up long after the plantains we gone.

The portions were generous, which was surprising given the modest prices. Appetizer prices ranged from $2.95 to $4.95, entrée prices from $6.50 to $9.50. We left full, but not sick, and we were able to bring a few leftovers home.

The location was gorgeous, on Frankfort Avenue, within walking distance of Carmichael’s Bookstore and many other unique local shops. It could be improved by replacing the concrete in the front with a Zen garden and some outdoor seating, but I doubt that either of those improvements would generate enough new business to offset the enormous cost. The insides, even the bathrooms, were impeccably clean.

All in all, we had one of the best times we’ve ever had eating out, which more than made up for the overreaching on our entrees. I highly recommend Zen Garden to anyone who is looking to have a good, non-rowdy night on the town. It is like visiting another world.

If you’re eager for a taste of nirvana, visit Zen Garden at 2240 Frankfort Avenue, in Louisville, KY. You can call (502) 895-9114 for directions. They don’t take reservations (you wouldn’t need them, anyway) but they will take Visa or Master Card.

Bits and Pieces

Yesterday I drove Adam to Frankfort, KY, to meet my mother half-way to my parents' house in Lexington. She's taking Adam for the weekend, making this the first time in his life he's been separated from his parents overnight. So far I don't miss him quite as much as I thought I would, but that's probably because Sami and I have packed so many things that we've been meaning to do into such a small space of time that we - or at least I - haven't had time to notice he's not here.

On the Interstate on the way to Frankfort I say a bumper sticker that just has to be relayed:

If my smoking bothers you,
DON'T BREATHE

I can't decide if this is a really shallow and callous smoker accurately representing their own reprehensible position (and I've seen more than a few smokers who represented this position boldly!) or if this is some anti-smoking satire.

After I got home from handing my son to his grandmother, a woman who, free from the tyranny of her son and his wife, is certain to be spoiling my little boy as I type this, I took Sami out on one of our first real dates in his lifetime.

Dating as a parent is tricky, complicated. You already have less money and time to play around with, because children take up so much of both. On top of that, dates get more costly because you have to either

a.) take this kid with you, making it much less of a date, anyone, since your primary concern is with the happiness and well being of your child rather than on listening to and spending time with your spouse - and forget any romance, or

b.) find childcare, which usually uses up either favors, money, or both.

Using the traditional date formula of dinner, a movie, and then if you're lucky a little bit of dessert or a drink after the movie, my wife and I, until last night, had never managed to have a complete date during our son's life. For her birthday we did manage to squeeze in lunch and a movie, but nothing after the movie. That date also had these two conditions on it:

1. We were in Lexington, staying with my family, so that they could watch Adam while we went out. It was part of their birthday present to Sami, but it meant that our date felt somewhat chaperoned, as we had a cell phone on us at all times waiting (fortunately in vain) for some crisis to arise. Also, of course, we weren't in our town. Lexington, to put it mildly, ain't Louisville.

2. Lunch, even at the glorious Joseph-Beth cafe, isn't dinner. A lunch date feels rushed. It just doesn't have the time to play out like a dinner date.

But last night we got to actually go out on a date, a real DATE! (Not that I'm happy about that or anything...) We stared the evening at Zen Garden, my all time favorite restaurant. I first went to Zen Garden to write a review of it for a college writing class. I may have to post that review here sometime. It was even better than usual, with improved presentation, and, even more importantly for my wife, with the cilantro on the side of the plate instead of mixed into the food. Cilantro always gives her trouble, but she never remembers to tell them that when she's ordering. This time, it seems, they read her mind, so she didn't have to meticulously pick it out of her food.

After our lovely dinner we went to Baxter Ave Theaters, locally owned and operated, and specializing in the sorts of movies that major chains don't bother to carry. We saw Thank You For Smoking, quite possibly the funniest movie I've seen in the theater since Gross Pointe Blank. And like Gross Pointe Blank, this movie is a dead pan satire looking at ethical conflicts. I won't say anything more about it, except to reiterate that it was insanely funny, and totally unforced. Unlike many recent comedies, this one didn't go out of its way to tell you that it was trying to be funny. It was simply funny.

We then went to Heine Brothers Coffee, a strange choice since neither of us drink coffee. But we had a great time staying up late pretending to be adults (parents often, as best as I can tell, feel more like children. At least I do. After all, I spend all day every day with only a fifteen-month-old to keep me company. At a certain point I sink to his level because God knows he can't rise to mine yet. But I digress...) drinking our hot chocolate (what we un-cool non-coffee-drinkers get at coffee shops) and picking at a pretty good macademia nut torte. Pretty good my ass! It was awesome. Adam doesn't get to eat nuts yet, so it was the sort of thing we could never eat around him, once again creating the illusion that we were real adults instead of just some semi-adult sub-species, the parents of a young child.

We talked about how, since Adam wasn't home to need to go to bed early and wake up with the sun, we could stay out all night and then sleep in in the morning. But, as usual, we were all talk. By ten o'clock we were at home, falling over each other to see if we could make it to bed before we fell asleep. And, sure enough, by 7 am, no child to act as the alarm clock that I haven't needed since his birth, I was laying awake in bed, reading Jews and Christians: A Troubled Family by Walter Harrelson (a former religion professor at Vandy, and a Christian) and Randall M. Falk (an esteemed Rabbi from Tennessee), waiting for my wife to wake up so that I could get out of bed and start my day.

Hard Core Gardening Granny

This story from the AP:

PUNTA GORDA, Fla. (May 11) - When a 5-foot alligator sank its teeth into her ankle, Connie Gittles fought back with a garden hose.

"I just whacked him right in the snout with the nozzle," the 74-year-old retiree said of the Tuesday morning attack. "After that, he took off."

Even though one of the three puncture wounds on her ankle went to the bone, Gittles finished her gardening before seeking medial attention.

"I'm a farmer's daughter from way back, so when I start a chore ... I finish it," Gittles said.

Wildlife trappers caught and killed an alligator whose teeth matched the bite marks on Gittles' ankle. State wildlife officials praised the retiree's reaction.

"She was spunky," said Jo Anne Adams, a spokeswoman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. "Beating him in the nose was a good thing."

Wildlife officials say alligators are more prone to wander during mating season, which peaks in May. Alligators who have been fed by humans are also more bold.

Adams said Gittles was lucky to escape.

"He could have grabbed her leg, pulled her down and killed her," Adams said.

To which I can only say, DAMN!

Letter to the campaign of Andrew Horne

Here is a copy of a letter I just sent to the campaign of Andrew Horne, a Democrat running for a chance to oppose Republican Congresswoman Anne Northup the 3rd District's seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. While I do not know Mr. Horne personally, he a member of Christ Church United Methodist, where I have preached occasionally, and is a friend of a friend of mine. I hope that he and his campaign seriously consider this short (for me, anyway) letter concerning his position on gay marriage and civil unions:

I am seriously considering voting for Andrew Horne, but I have one tremendous hang-up. While I suspect that he and I may agree on the moral value of homosexuality (that is, that homosexual sexual acts are not inherently immoral, and that their moral value does not depend on the sexual orientation of the parties involved, but rather on the nature of the relationship and internal factors specific to the situation, just as in heterosexual sexual acts) and that we agree on the basic humanity of homosexuals as persons; I am troubled by some of his quotes on social and legal issues related to the treatment of homosexuals.

To both the LEO and the Courier Journal he stressed his belief that while no one should be discriminated against on the basis of anything (which I took to include sexual orientation, though it was a very broad statement - "I don't believe in discrimination of any kind") he went out of his way to say that legal recognition of homosexual relationships was a state and local issue. While that may reflect his personal conviction (and I have no doubt that he is a man of conviction), it seems like a passing of the buck, or a ducking of a controversial issue.

Perhaps such passing and ducking is necessary when running a political campaign, but I wonder whether this is healthy. Saying of an issue related to discrimination and the recognition of the basic rights and humanity of any person that it is a "state and local issue" carries with it morally disastrous results. How long, for instance, was discrimination against blacks justified morally as a "state and local issue."

If the state of Kentucky passed an amendment to its constitution institutionalizing discrimination against, for instance, African-Americans, would anyone in good conscience be able to say that that is a "state and local issue" not subject to federal intervention? I hope not. And if homosexuals are, as homosexuals, a minority whose rights are to be protected rather that moral reprobates whose relationships are to be restricted by the state, we cannot say of their basic right to have legal recognition for their partnerships that it is a state and local issue.

I hope that, at some point in the future, Mr. Horne will be able to take a morally prophetic stand on this, just as he has on issues of economic justice. To do otherwise is to participate in institutional discrimination.

Chris Baker

Word of God?

Here are some questions for discussion which came out of my post, Exodus as a Macro Story:

What does it mean to say that the Bible is the "Word of God," and do you ever say that?

If you say that the Bible is somehow the Word of God, what do you mean by that?

If you are within the Christian tradition, and do not use that phrase to describe the Bible, why don't you use it? What phrases do you use to describe the Bible? How do you approach the Bible?

If you are outside the Christian tradition, what do you think of a group holding up a work like the Bible as in some form a communication of God and from God?

"Vincent, he picked up the blade and put it to his ear."

[note: This is my 100th post, which I suppose qualifies me for something, especially given the length of most of them.]

Today my wife Sami had her company picnic, a lovely opportunity for us to show off our cute son. On the way home from the picnic, since Adam, just like his Daddy, must be surrounded by music at all times, we listened to the Vigilantes of Love's album Blister Soul. Track three on that disk is called "Skin," Bill Mallonee's Vincent van Gogh metaphor for art, life and ministry. As I listened to it for, what, the 400th or so time, I knew I had to write something on it.

I've been staring at the lyrics for just a few minutes now, trying to pick some representative sample for you. But, like a good poem, I can't just cut some part of it out and let it stand in for the rest. It all kind of hangs together. Similarly, I can't exactly tell you what it's about. It isn't really about anything. Oh, sure, I could say that it is about this or that, and build an argument for that position. But as soon as I did, something would be lost. Force an interpretation on the song and, as soon as you do, all other potential interpretations are lost. I'm not yet prepared to do that.

So, in a gluttony of good words, I'm giving you the entire lyric. Like all great songs the lyric can't be easily separated from the music. But chopping off the music is less severe than chopping off the music and half the words. So, here is the lyric for the Vigilantes of Love's "Skin," written as always by Bill Mallonee:

now i'd seen him despondent
a few times as of late
sometimes the answer love gives
is the hardest one to take
now I know he was prone to paint the voice of his own fear
so vincent, he picked up the blade and put it to his ear

just look at yourself in the mirror
all rumpled red stubbled and gaunt
you walk a dead end path in a dry corn field
and now this morose response
and your princess
she don't want to see you
no your princess she don't want to hear
so vincent, he picked up the blade and put it to his ear

now look if you're gonna come round here and say those sorts of things
you gotta take a few on the chin
talking about love and all that stuff
you better bring your thickest skin

sometimes you can't please everyone
sometimes you can't please anyone at all
sew your heart onto your sleeve
and wait for the ax to fall

now you there with the paintbox
you there with paper and pen
me I got this blunt instrument
i'm gonna play on till the end
and you come with empty hands
or you don't come at all
you deal your best hand out in the marketplace
and let the chips fall
and the package, it comes wrapped up
there is a lesson here
and vincent, he picked up the blade and put it to his ear

now look if you're gonna come round here and say those sorts of things
you gotta take a few on the chin
talkin bout sin and redemption
you better bring your thickest skin

This song really speaks to me, and I'm sorry that I can't give you the music to go with these words. A great song is singular; you can't break it into its component parts, dissect it, and understand it. You have to take in the organic whole and let it live with you for a while. Then you'll see that, if it is a really great song, it doesn't just communicate some cognitive message or some emotive experience. Rather, it hits you on a level which slips right past description, touching the you that you'd forgotten about. This song reminds me of who I am, without bothering to tell me who I ought to be.

But, as the lyric says, "there is a message here." While it is impossible for me to describe everything that the song communicates (in part because what it communicates is not limited to what I hear in it or get out of it), I can draw some simple communications out of it for you. So here are some things which I hear in this song:

The first verse sets up the image of Vincent van Gogh cutting off his ear. Bill Mallonee is obviously not just relaying a historical event, but is instead taking an image from history and using it as a metaphor. Here it is easy to see how all the time we mythologize history. If history is merely relaying events, then it doesn't really speak to us, and there is no point in studying it. History is about the past, sure, but it is also about the present and the future. It is the past speaking to the present and helping to shape the future.

The van Gogh image is immediately, in the first verse, a metaphor for art. Vincent, when he picks up the blade and puts it to his ear, is doing it as an extension of his art. His art is very much like this act of self-mutilation. In his art he takes a part of himself, cuts it off or out, and places it - in paint on canvass - before us. He says, "Here, this is part of me. Take it."

This self offering is essential to art. It is the essence of art, as best as I can tell. And, as art, it transcends any particular artistic medium.

We in the blogosphere know a little something of this. One of the things which has simultaneously attracted and repelled me about blogging is that it blurs the private/public distinction. Blogging is often a very private act. It is a raw, unpolished, personal form of communication, often written like a private journal. Yet it is placed in public. Anyone with Internet access could theoretically read it.

This blurring of the private/public distinction has created many very bad blogs. I once, for instance, read a blog which consisted entirely of what a person ate for lunch every day. Clearly that blog was not interesting to a public audience, and as art failed. It should have remained private. As a creative writing teacher once scrawled on a particularly bad poem of mine, "Why should I care about this? If you need to say this, journal about it. But don't turn it in to me."

But there are parts of us, often buried deep inside us, which if made public can actually communicate something meaningful, which communicates to others. Finding these things, and presenting them in some form, can often feel very much like taking a blade to a part of your body and slicing it off. That act is a very private act. But when it is made public, both the public and the private are better off for it.

Ministry is very much like this. You could almost call it a work of art. Done right, or almost right, it probably is. Ministry requires a degree of vulnerability, a willingness to face all of those things that most of us don't want to face, and then having face those deep dark scary fears empowering others to turn and face them as well.

I remember once preaching at a funeral, meditating on my childhood fear of death. How, well... not quite ironic, but at least appropriate that I, who had once been so afraid of death that it kept me up at night, running in circles around my bedroom scared that if I fell asleep I might not wake up, was now staring straight at death on behalf of a community of faith. Wrestling with death, trying to existentially understand our impermanent nature, and lead other people to that same constructive understanding. It was, after all, what I'd been doing my whole life. My excessive fears, my crippling anxieties, were now being put to work in my ministry.

Henri Nouwen, in his great book The Wounded Healer, writes that our wounds are the only currency we have for ministry. Whether that's true or not I don't know, but it seems to be that they are at the very least our best, our most valuable, currency for ministry. The shape us, mold us into who we are. They are what we have to offer other wounded people. And we are all wounded.

But it takes some serious vulnerability to share our wounds with others. To say how we are wounded, where we are wounded. To admit that some wounds still hurt, still bleed. To be able to expose those wounds to people who may well, like Thomas, drive their fingers into the holes to make sure they aren't some saintly mirage. That takes vulnerability, and courage. What Paul Tillich called existential or ontological courage; the courage to be. To be who you are, to be yourself. To be yourself for others, living with authentic vulnerability before them. That is ministry.

But, as Bill Mallonee reminds us, if we're going to do that we'd better "bring our thickest skin." As a pastor my skin was not so thick. I made myself vulnerable, but I couldn't accept the fruits of that vulnerability. The inevitable rejection that you get from some people. And the problem with being your authentic self for others is that when they reject you they really are rejecting you.

Some people in my church once looked straight at me and called me an agent of Satan, sent to deceive God's people. Why? Because I faced the fears they wouldn't face, and had the courage to say that the theology I grew up with wasn't working? Maybe, but that makes me sound too much like a martyr. Whatever their reasons, the problem was that I didn't bring that "thick skin." I couldn't bring it, because I'd never found it. They helped me to find it.

I'm now embracing lay ministry, seeing it not as the loss of my standing as a pastor, but rather as the gain of my standing as an authentic lay person, part of the body of Christ with a mission and purpose no less valuable than that of the clergy. I am finding my new ministry.

Elsa Tamez, as I said in this post on James, turned my attention to a couple of verses which, to me, speak to the heart of lay ministry. I won't give a full treatment of the verses here, but I will challenge those of you who are not clergy and do not desire to be clergy, to consider how these verses impact your view on your relationship with the ministry of the church:

James 5:16

Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.

Notice that all in the community are called to give and receive confession. The task of hearing confessions, and the task of praying for others, is not limited to the clergy.

James 5:17

Elijah was a human being like us, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth.

This is an even richer verse, and I cannot possibly here capture the depth of that richness. But there are a couple of things we should notice. First, while Elijah is perhaps the most revered figure in the Jewish tradition, he is, according to James, "like us." Just another human being.

On top of that, in terms of the clergy/laity divide, Elijah is (from a lay perspective) just like us. He is not a priest, or a king. But as a prophet, though he opposes both the religious and political power, he is one who speaks for God.

We are Elijah, and he is us.

My point is that the laity cannot defer to the clergy for "ministry." We are also ministers in our own way, and so these thoughts on ministry and vulnerability, ministry and art, do not just apply to seminarians and pastors and theologians. They apply to all.

Ultimately our very lives are our works of art and our ministry. They should be lived with a balance of vulnerability and thick skin. And when we interact with people, in some very real way, if we are truly present, we are almost cutting off a part of ourselves and trusting them with it.

That trust can become mutilated when, to go back to the van Gogh metaphor, the object of our vulnerable love takes a look at our wounds, our vulnerability, our severed ear, and decided that they can't handle it. The rejection stings, and it also leaves us with less to give the next time we decide to become vulnerable. Without grace, without mercy, without the forgiveness which is the antithesis of bitterness and resentment, our ear never grows back, our wound never heals.

I'm starting to heal. I'm finding a new ministry. This week I started as the chair of the Education team at my church. I am now responsible for (gulp) children's ministry, youth ministry, and all adult education programs, including Sunday School, small groups, and our Wednesday evening forum.

If I had not been through the pain of losing my vocation to pastoral ministry, I would not be able to do this vital job.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Migraine Madness

We've reached Kentucky Oaks Day (here in Louisville time this season is marked by the Derby) and I still don't have my first post for the month of May. So far two promises have been left unfulfilled, as the second half of my post on James (with a heavy debt owed to Elsa Tamez) and my treatment of Robert N. Wennberg's criticism of utilitarian approaches to animal ethics have never made it past the pre-writing stage.

We've had a good discussion on Exodus, and some theological issues which come out of our reading of it, which has been a delight. But, alas, most of my time this past week has been wasted fighting a migraine which has almost literally scrambled my brain. I can pull it together long enough to post a few comments, but I have been painfully unable to compose any new material.

Hopefully in the next week my inexplicable and inexcusable head will calm down long enough for me to catch up on my writing.

Exodus as a Macro Story

I know that I promised the second half of my take on Elsa Tamez's interpretation of James - dealing with James' empowering and calling out the laity (though it is important to note that in the church at the time of James there was not yet a clergy/laity distinction). But, I'm sorry, something else came up.

DagoodS of Debunking Christianity has posted a well reasoned and relatively thorough refutation of a literal reading of the Exodus story of the ten plagues. In the comments section of that post I argue for a less literal reading of the Exodus story, saying that it represents a mythologized history whose value is not in the literal-historical truth value of the details of the story, but rather in what that story communicates to us, particularly about how ancient Israel saw their history in relationship with God.

But, of course, the inevitable question is, if the story is not "true" in the sense that we usually mean (literal-historical), then how can it communicate anything of value? I can push that question back a few steps, making arguments for a "truth" independent of a literal-historical truth, but at some point it is incumbent upon me to argue for some valuable meaning that these stories can communicate to us. I can't just say, "If you don't take it literally then it is still true and valuable." I must say something more, something constructive which recaptures what is lost in a literal reading. If I don't, then I'm not really adding anything to the discussion; I'm just saying that we shouldn't be so damned literal, and people weren't always like this.

So, what does the Exodus story communicate to us, apart from a literal-historical reading?

Before I answer that I do want to say that while the Exodus story is not entirely historical, most scholars think that it touches on history. That is, while stories like that of the ten plagues may not have happened, the broader story points to a real people who were enslaved in Egypt, and somehow broke free of slavery, left Egypt, and eventually formed what we call ancient Israel. As such, the Exodus story is not historically bankrupt, even if it is mythologized.

But it is mythologized, and the modern paradigm has been built on de-mythologizing history and religion. Modernity sees myth as at best primitive, and at worst false. If it communicates a truth, it communicates a lower-level truth, the superstitions of primitive minds which can't come up with a literal or scientific explanation for events, so the weave elaborate stories and posit a supernatural explanation.

But we are starting to recapture an appreciation for myth. This is because myth does not communicate falsehood or a lower-level truth, but rather a deeper truth which goes beyond a literal description of events and gets at their meaning. That meaning is a way in which we can become connected to the story, seeing it as something more valuable than just a true description of something which happened at a point in history. It becomes connected to our experience of life. But none of this theoretical framework answers the question of what the Exodus story, re-mythologized, means.

We can see Exodus as one of three Macro Stories within the Judeo-Christian tradition. These stories are found on both the Jewish and Christian scriptures, and help us to see how we relate to God. They help us to interpret our experiences, and our deeper experience of life [note: by "deeper experience of life" I mean a broader experience which transcends our individual experiences; the framework within which we interpret our individual experiences and make them part of our life narrative] and to provide those experiences with meaning. These stories are both the stories of our tradition - our collective past - and our own personal experiences. That is why they still speak to us, and are part of an enduring religious tradition.

The three Macro Stories of the Judeo-Christian scriptures are:

1. The Priestly Story (or the Temple Story)
2. The Story of Exile and Return, and
3. The Exodus Story.

To understand the concept of a Macro Story, I will briefly describe the first two stories, before I give a slightly more detailed treatment of the Exodus Story, particularly as it relates to the story of the ten plagues. My understanding of these Macro Stories comes in part from Marcus Borg, whose work introduced me to "Story Theology."

The Priestly or Temple Story is the most familiar Macro Story within the Christian tradition. It is the way in the role of Jesus as the Christ is most often seen, though I must confess that this story does not speak to me nearly as much as the other two. It is the story of our need for atonement.

Something has gone horribly wrong within us. We understand good and bad, we know right from wrong, and yet we so often chose wrong over right. We are corrupted. We do bad things. This creates a problem with guilt. There is a need for atonement, to make things right.

So God provides for us what we could not provide for ourselves, a sacrifice that balances the scales, that atones for our sins. In the Jewish tradition Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is the ritual completion of this story; their way of connecting themselves to the story. In the Christian tradition, the death of Jesus completes and connects.

At the very least the Christian take on this story turns a very bad thing (the crufixion of Jesus) into something constructive. It redeems a senseless death. But can this be taken literally? Can we say, as a matter of literal-historical truth, that Jesus died for our sins?

Certainly many Christians say just that, though they do not have in mind the distinction between mythological truth and literal-historical truth. The statement that Jesus as the Christ died for our sins, as the completion of the Priestly or Temple Story, is a tremendous part of the Christian tradition. It has spoken to Christians for nearly 2,000 years. But as a matter of historical fact, it is simply not true.

Jesus of Nazareth, the historical figure, was killed by Roman authorities because he was seen as part of a growing Jewish threat. There had been many Messianic figures in and around first century Palestine, mobilizing Jews to revolt against the Roman authorities. Such figures were crucified, a public warning to other would be revolutionaries about what happens when you mess with Rome.

But Jesus was seen very early on as a completion to this Macro Story. Jesus was seen as both a priestly mediator between God and humanity (even to the point of being seen as the way in which God is made incarnate to us), and as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. This was a way to connect Jesus to one of the important Macro Stories of ancient Israel. Its value is found in its enduring ability to speak to Christians, rather than in the literal-historical truth value concerning the primary reason for the senseless death of a spiritual leader.

But I will not here get into exactly how it communicates to Christians for a few reasons. Firstly, because it does not speak as much to me. The Priestly/Temple Story provides us with a solution for our existential guilt. At this point I don't experience that kind of guilt. That simply isn't my problem. But that it isn't my problem doesn't mean that it isn't a very real problem for many, many people. As such it has value, even if it doesn't speak to me, keeping me from being able to say exactly how it speaks.

Also, this Macro Story is not my primary concern here, but is instead offered as an example of a kind of Macro Story, building to the primary Macro Story we are considering, the Exodus Story.

The Second Macro Story is the story of Exile and Return. While this story is principally the concern of Diasporic Jews, it permeates the Jewish and Christian scripture. The story of Adam and Eve, particularly in third chapter of Genesis, can be seen as part of this story. They have been, because of their disobedience, exiled from their home. They live their life "East of Eden," outside not only "paradise," but also the only home they had ever known.

The story of Exile is a story of being far from home. It is the story of being existentially alone, wandering aimlessly with no security and no real meaning. It describes what is too often our human experience. But like all of the Macro Story, it describes both a problem and a solution. For while we are in Exile God comes to us. God is with us, in our Exile, making wherever we are a temporary home, while preparing us for our eventual return.

In the Christian tradition this story is perhaps seen best in Jesus' parable of the Prodigal Son. The son leaves home only to find himself in a self-imposed existential exile. Yet while he is away from home, he remembers his home, and he remembers his father. He turns toward home, only to find that his father has seen him coming and set out to meet him. While still away from home he meets his father who takes him home. Exile to Return.

Part of the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation sees Jesus as the Christ as the way in which God meets us in our Exile. While we are, existentially speaking, "strangers in a strange land," God through the Christ is with us, helping us to make a temporary home while awaiting return. In this way we know not only that our Exile is temporary (there will be a Return), but that we can find a home even in the midst of Exile. It is not the lonely, aimless wandering that it at first seems to be. It is instead a way in which God is made present to us.

But the Macro Story confronting us today is the Exodus story. The Exodus story says that while we were enslaved in Egypt, in bondage and oppressed, God listened to us and heard our cry, and has sent us a deliverer. This story is a recurring theme in the Hebrew scriptures, but it is also a way in Christians see Jesus as the Christ.

Jesus is the new Moses, sent by God to deliverer us from our slavery and oppression. This can be seen both in terms of spiritual slavery (that is, slavery to our sinful natures, trapped in a destructive pattern of behavior) or in more literal socio-political or economic terms. In fact, it should probably be seen in both ways, since both a very real problems.

This is easy enough to see, even if you don't believe in any sort of a God to hear our cry and answer our prayer, delivering us from our slavery and our oppression. But how does the story of the ten plagues, which presents us with a very ugly a wrathful God who kills the innocent with the guilty, fit into this re-mythologized story?

That is a question with which I have often wrestled, because I simply don't see God the way that God is often depicted in the Hebrew Bible. I can't worship a God who, external to our reality, comes down from time to time to smash those who do wrong, or even those who have the misfortune of living in a place where wrong is often done. As such, it is not immediately obvious how the story of the ten plagues on ancient Egypt could speak to me. Has it lost its voice for those of us who do not serve a bloodthirsty God?

No. It can still speak, and it can still speak to me. First of all, it tells me that the natural order rejects slavery and oppression. In the face of slavery and oppression, water turns to blood (Exodus 7:14-24); that which sustains lives becomes full of spilt life.

In the face of slavery and oppression frogs act unnaturally, leaving their river homes to swarm human dwellings (Exodus 7:25-8:11). The natural order of things has been overturned in response to the unnatural imposition on human freedom and dignity.

In the face of slavery and oppression the natural order, in fact, lashes out at the unnatural infringement on basic rights. Lice, or vermin, pests, are uncontrolled, feeding on the suffering (Exodus 8:12-15). Insects swarm and attack, (Exodus 9:1-7) and even the skin of the oppressor quite literally rises up against them, in the form of boils, as severe skin affliction (Exodus 9:8-12). Hail pounds down on the oppressors, as even the sky strikes out against them (Exodus 9:13-35), and in verse 25 we see that for the first time a human life is taken by the plagues. As the heart of the oppressor hardens, the consequences of the oppression worsen.

Finally locusts eat all of the crops, the basis for the economy which was built on the slavery and oppression (Exodus 10:1-10), and darkness descends (Exodus 10:21-29), mirroring the spiritual condition which is the necessary consequence of such hard heartedness in the face of the human suffering caused by their exploitation of foreign workers.

Finally the tenth plague, the death of the first-born sons, the inheritors of this exploitive economic legacy (Exodus 12:29-42). Ultimately an economy built on slavery, a society built on the backs of the exploited and oppressed, ends in death.

Economic exploitation and oppression is often justified in the name of immediate self interest. We say, sure this is a bad situation, but if we take any radical steps to correct it our whole economy will come tumbling down. One of the ways in which the plague stories from Exodus speak to us is that they tell us that when we say those sorts of things, when we engage in that kind of justification, we fundamentally misidentify our own self interests. Because God hears the cry of the slaves, the exploited, the oppress; and because God's nature violently rebells against such exploitations and oppression.

The value of the story, then, rests not on its literal-historical truth value, as though it were merely a report of something that happened once. Rather the value of it rests on its ability to communicate to us the message that God hears the cry of the oppressed.

There is one other contemporary point I want to bring out, before I get very briefly into a more historical point. That is this: in the story, there are no innocents. We may say that some people (Pharoah) bear more responsibility than others for the oppression and slavery of those who eventually became ancient Israel. But, in those who participated in exploitation come to the same end as those who orchestrate it. I'm not comfortable with the end they all come to. I don't worship a bloodthirsty God. But this story says that participating in exploitation and oppression makes one an oppressive exploiter; tolerating a slave-based economy makes one an enslaver.

And when one oppresses, exploits and enslaves, one is opposed to God; and in opposing God one is opposed to the natural order of things. And for that there are consequences, whether I like that image of God or not. I'm not trying to call down hellfire here. I don't even believe in hellfire. But I am saying that if we listen to the voice of this story, it calls us to not participate in economic injustice or socio-political oppression.

But, of course, we don't need the Bible to tell us that. This message, while part of the Judeo-Christian tradition, is not unique to that tradition. (And it has not always been heard by that tradition, though that is another story.) We can know that we ought not exploit, oppress or enslave others without reading about how ancient Israel interpreted the role of God in breaking their ancestors out of slavery in Egypt. But that failure to be unique does not make the message here less valuable.

This story is not just a moral or a message to us in our historical and cultural setting. Historically speaking, it is also the story of the origin of a people. It is a declaration that ancient Israel saw itself in relation with a God who brought them out of slavery in Egypt. It speaks to their identity. As such it has historical value. It is not reducible to that historical value, but that value is there nonetheless. It gives us insight into how these ancient people viewed their own history, the myth of their origins. As such it is a cultural treasure, whether or not it relates a literal-historical truth.

Elsa Tamez on James

In her book The Scandalous Message of James: Faith Without Works is Dead, Elsa Tamez, Professor of Biblical Studies at the Universidad Biblica Latinoamericana (Latin American Biblical University) in San Jose, Costa Rica, notes that while the Epistle of James shows solidarity with the poor and oppressed, and condemns their rich oppressors, James has often been read and interpreted by the rich and the powerful. This is because, since at least the time of Constantine (and there are indications that this trend was beginning even in the time of James) something about Christianity has appealed to the rich.

Today many of our churches, particularly in America, are fully of the affluent and well-to-do. The church I grew up in, in fact, was what I call a "status-symbol" church; that is, membership there confirms social status on the members.

I know of a Methodist pastor who, upon being appointed to a particular church, was give by that church a free membership to the local country club, because his "ministerial responsibilities" would often bring him there. The stories he told me about his "work" there came back to me as I watched the ill-fated show The Book of Daniel, in which the main character, an Episcopal priest named Daniel, would often do "church business" while golfing with an obscenely rich and powerful member of his congregation.

So prevalent in some churches is this "country club" mentality that a good friend of mine, an ordained Elder in the United Methodist church currently serving as the associate pastor of Louisville's largest and wealthiest Methodist congregation, often derisively calls himself "the God pro." He says that his job, as his congregation sees it, is to act like the pro at a country club, giving unchallenging lessons to the rich and their children, providing them with just enough of a distraction that they feel better about their lives.

This is not, of course, to say that all or even most Christians are either rich or powerful. It is to say, however, that far too often the voice which comes from the church, the dominant interpretive voice, is more informed by the concerns of the rich and the powerful than by the concerns of the poor, oppressed and marginalyzed. And when it is the voice of the rich and the powerful which is interpreting a challenging book like James, too often the message of James is either intercepted (as Tamez puts it) or sanitized (as I put it).

So Tamez, a Latin American "liberation" theologian, gives the poor back the book of James, ripping it from its comfortable American setting and placing it farther south, where the concerns are less about which meal we will eat today and more about whether or not there will be anything to eat.

Her book is divided neatly into five chapters, which I will briefly outline here. However, my purpose is to deal less with what Tamez actually says and how she says it, and more to wrestle with how her book made me think. I will particularly run with a very minor point which she makes concerning how a couple of verses in the fifth chapter of the Epistle speak to the role of the laity in the church. But first a brief summary, for those of you interested in Tamez's short but powerful book:

The first chapter is titled "The Intercepted Letter." In it she deals with how the radical message of James has been "intercepted" by the powerful and robbed of its provocative voice. She says, "If the letter of James were sent out to the Christian communities of certain countries that suffer from violence and exploitation, it would very possibly be intercepted by government security agencies." Why? Because it "vehemently denounce[s] the exploitation by landowners (5:1-6) and the carefree life of merchants (4:13-17)," and it "affirms that 'pure, unspoilt religion, in the eyes of God our Father is this: coming to the help of orphans and widows when they need it, and keeping oneself uncontaminated by the world' (1:27)."

Since for James orphans and widows represent all those who are vulnerable to exploitation, and particularly economic exploitation (they have no means by which to make money, and no powerful protectors, and so are at the mercy of charity in an uncharitable world), Tamez sees James as the answer to Christianity's Marxist critics. But in answering Marxist critics by meeting Marxist concerns with a moral challenge, James is far too radical for the church of the first-world capitalist countries. And so they have in their own way, like the hypothetical "government security agencies," "intercepted" the message of James. They have done this by interpreting "rich" and "poor" in "spiritual" terms, rather than in concrete economic terms. In her first chapter Tamez argues why this is a very real loss, and a misreading of the concerns of James.

Chapter 2, "The Angle of Oppression," begins a series of three chapters which take an interpretive angle on the text itself. As the title suggests, the second chapter views the text of James through the eyes of those who have been oppressed, giving voice back to the voiceless poor. It seeks to counter the "spiritualized" interpretation of James rendered by wealthy Christians who miss James' radical message of God's favorable disposition toward the poor. It also deals (a little unsatisfactorily) with the very real concern of what to make, in light of James' condemnation of the rich, of wealthy Christians. She does so by noting that most of the rich people condemned by James clearly do not belong to the church. But what of the ones that do?

Like all members of Christian communities, wealthy Christians ought not favor the wealthy and powerful. They ought not consider their wealth to be a virtue. They ought to work to meet the material needs of the poor and despondent. But they are not expressly condemn in the text, except for perhaps the oi legontes ("you who talk") in James 4:13-17. Of them Tamez notes, "Curiously enough, James does not call this group brothers [his term for those within the Christian community] nor does he call them rich [the oppressors]," but she still argues that "they are members of the Christian community" on account of the fact that "James reproaches them for not consulting the Lord about their plans and for not sharing what they earn with the poor."

Chapter 3, "The Angle of Hope," presents James' positive message for those who are being oppressed. I will not treat this chapter, except to say that it sets up her best argument, put forth in the next chapter, "The Angle of Praxis." Here she looks at how James views "patience."

She says that James calls the poor to a very militant kind of patience, by employing Greek military terms for patience, hypomone and makrothymia. Variations of the first term, which she says means "to persevere, to resist, to be constant, unbreakable, immovable," appear in three key places: 1:3-4, 1:12, and 5:11. Here in calling the poor to be patient James is calling them to have an inner strength, a very active patience which bears with the situation and refuses to be beaten down by it, while working to overcome it.

Variations of the second militant word for patience come in the last chapter, just after James' most brutal attack on the rich. Forms of the word makrothymia appear in 5:7, 8 and 10. Tamez says that this word, while not active like the first word, is not "passive in the traditional negative sense." Rather, it evokes an image of waiting for the right moment to begin activity. It is an anticipatory patience, which looks for the right time to strike.

In recapturing the Greek meaning of the words often translated as "patience," Tamez breaks the intercepted letter of James free from the interpretations offered by the rich and powerful, reminding us that while James does indeed call on the poor to endure with patience, that patience not only fails to justify exploitation, but actively works against it.

The final chapter, titled "An Open Letter to the Christian Communities," summarizes the message of James, and applies it to a contemporary setting. It is this chapter which was most helpful to me, and helped refine my thinking on the role and calling of the laity of the church. Here I will most intently engage Tamez's argument, and the depart from it. My departure should not be seen as a disagreement with Tamez as much as it is a taking from Tamez what applies to my situation, and then using it as a launching pad for my own thoughts.

That, however, will have to wait until next time.

Later tonight or sometime tomorrow I will deal with how Tamez helped me see how James 5:16 and 17 speak to the empowerment and calling of the laity in the church. This is of particular interest to me as I embrace my status as laity in a positive rather than negative sense. When I left professional ministry I first approached it as a loss. Now, however, rather than losing my (semi, I was not yet ordained, but still serving as a pastor and progressing toward ordination) clergy status, I see that I have actively taken up laity status. I'll explain what I mean by that the next time I get to a keyboard.