The Little Friar

One of the more important recent works that explores the relationship of Christianity to politics is C Gavin Rowe's World Upside Down:  Reading Acts in the Greco-Roman Age .   Rowe is associate professor of New Testament at Duke Divinity (Go Devils!) and therefore commands a great deal of my own personal attention when it comes to interpretation issues.  (Though he and I are on different sides of the universalism issue, I have a great deal of respect for his work.) As someone who is concerned with the New Testament's reading of "empire", this book captivates my attention.  That's because his reading is somewhat at odds with the way in which I've learnt to read the New Testament.  According to Rowe, the consensus view among the scholars mitigates against reading the bible as an anti-Empire polemic.  Consensus views in NT scholarship don't end up being consensus views for no reason. There is something in the book of Acts that anti-Empire Christians ne...

Here are my three steps for creating a better world. Step 1:  Cosmopolitanism We need to recognize that, despite our differences, we all seek the same things in life.  We are each citizens of the world.  A global village.  As JFK said, "For in the final analysis, our most basic common link, is that we all inhabit this small planet, we all breathe the same air, we all cherish our children's futures, and we are all mortal". Step 2:  Kindness I recently read a quote from the Dali Lama that said, "My religion is kindness".  I love that sentiment. The troubling thing for me is how so few Christians view kindness as being at the heart of their religious practice.  I see this as a serious problem.  I think this is because the Christian moral vision is often too heroic.  Christians say that love -- that big and heroic vision -- is at the heart of their practice.  But as they say this they tip waiters poorly, criticize co-workers too har...

If you ask Roman catholic believers what it is that makes the church distinctive, they will probably begin speaking of the sacramental hierarchy by which the whole church is ordered and held together.  Put the same question to contemporary Protestant theologians, and they will start telling you about 'practices,' those communal behaviors by which the church marks itself out as an alternative social order.  But if you ask a Russian Orthodox believer what makes the church distinctive, she will think at once of holy lives:  when she says the word 'church,' it is not the face of the bishop that comes to mind, nor merely her own face, but the faces of the saints. Why are all the walls of Russian churches so crowded and cluttered with icons of the saints?  It is not because the Orthodox love pictures, but because they love light.  For the icons are not art works, but windows: they are the small openings through which the light of God bursts in upon the gathered ch...

From Thomas Halik 's  essay at Religion and Ethics on two ways of reading the relationship between the Crucifixion and Easter, an argument he makes in his Night of the Confessor : The Easter story can be read in two quite different ways.  Either as a drama in two acts:  in the first act a just and innocent man is sentenced to death and executed, and then, in the second act, is resurrected and accepted by God.  Or as a drama in one act in which both versions of the story take place at the same time. In the first interpretation the "Resurrection" is the happy ending, and the entire story is a typical myth or optimistic fairy tale.  I can hear a story like that and think to myself that that was more or less the way it happened (which people confuse with "faith"), or I can conclude that it didn't happen like that -- or at all (which people confuse with "lack of faith"). Nevertheless it is the second interpretation, the "parallel" one, ...

One of my professors from seminary, Stanley Hauerwas, has assessed American Christianity, and it didn't turn out so well .  He claims we're "too spiritual", that the concerns and life of the Church have become other-worldly and detached from life right here and right now.  The church rarely prays, "Thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven".  Rather, the prayer is, "May we get to heaven when we die". I witnessed this yet again yesterday.  So, I have to admit:  Stan is onto something here. Take, for example, the word love  in the Church these days.  Has that word been overly spiritualized? I think it has. Christians often say that they "love everyone".  Their faith compels them to extend love to every person on the planet, friend and enemy alike.  But how do Christians understand this call to love?  What does it mean to love people? As best I can tell, it means the following: To love someone is to wish that they go to heaven. ...

The church is dark as we enter just a few small flickering candles dancing on the windowsills keeping the Vigil so it is hard to see you huddled, as we are, in what seems the gloaming which it isn't because the dawn is coming with its soft light accompanied by birdsong to dance through the open door (shouldn't every church door stand open always?) and fill the long windows with flames allowing us, now in the Easter light, to see each other to see you, my sisters, my brothers as you dance in the aisles and listen to the story of the one who has called us here and given us life, and each other as we pass the bread of heaven and share what was split by the Lamb who was slain He is risen, you say and we respond as the day has now arrived He is risen indeed

Matthias Grünewald's Isenheim Altarpiece , 1512-1516. You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless , Christ died for the ungodly .  Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die.  But God demonstrates his own love for us in this:  While we were still sinners, Christ died for us . Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! For if, while we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!   Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned -- To be sure, sin was in the world before the law w...

Prof Canon Stanley Hauerwas (one of my profs from seminary) on preaching:

As we walk into the Triduum today, it's appropriate to take a look back over Lent.  What did I learn over the past 40 days?  What did I give up and what cross did I bear? Well, I gave up detours. The Lord, in the Gospel, explains in what His new commandment consists.  He says in St Matthew:  "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'  But I say to you, love your enemies ... pray for those who persecute you."   No doubt, we don't have any enemies in Carmel, but there are feelings.  One feels attracted to this Sister, whereas with regard to another, one would make a long detour in order to avoid meeting her.  And so, without knowing it, she becomes the subject of persecution.  Well, Jesus is telling me that it is this Sister who must be loved ... In this passage from St Therese of Lisieux's Story of a Soul , she describes how we often take "detours" around the annoying and unlikable peop...

I've been thinking a good deal lately about the satan.  A friend and I have been engaging in some conversation about her own life -- particularly, how the accusations and insults that were hurled at her throughout her life, have become the very things she deeply believe about herself.  And it's been an ongoing part of that conversation about the role that the satan plays in those sorts of accusations. I thought this morning of this passage from Luke 10. The seventy-two returned with joy and said, "Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name." Jesus replied, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven." What might his passage mean? I think it's important to focus on the Hebrew word הַשָּׂטָן ( ha-satan ) -- accuser.  So what might it mean that our accuser has "fallen from heaven"? "I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning", Jesus tells us. I think it's important to notice right off the bat that the satan isn...

I tend to resist those theological anthropologies such as are enshrined in the original version of " Alas, And Did My Savior Bleed ".  You know the sorts.  It makes all the rounds during Lent: Would he devote that sacred head   for such a worm as I ? The popularity of this sort of theological anthropology is reflecting in the likes of nonetheless than CS Lewis : Whenever we find that our religious life is making us feel that we are good -- above all, that we are better than someone else -- I think we may be sure that we are being acted on, not by God, but by the devil.  The real test of being in the presence of God is that you either forget about yourself altogether or see yourself as a small, dirty object. It's derived, of course, from Augustine (in Catholic circles) or Calvin (in Protestant circles).  What I find so difficult about it, though, is that it begins in the wrong place.  I think anthropology should begin in Jesus Christ, not in Ada...

With the election of Francis I, there's been a good deal of talk about "humility" in the news.  That word -- humility -- conjures up notions of self-esteem (or, rather, lack thereof) as the principal definition.  For lots of folks, humility is short-hand for thinking less of one's self.  This is a problem, especially for women in our culture.  It's yet another way of controlling and manipulating folks into submission (often assumed to be a negative thing).  So is there a way to define humility in such a way so as to remove the power-plays and manipulation while promoting something (what the Bible calls "edification")?  I think there is.  First, I want to call attention to a little known work that is going to inform how I proceed here.  Tex Sample's White Soul is one of those books that has received less attention from serious theology types.  And that's an impoverishment of our work.  I grew up listening to country music.  E...

The oldest gospel we have, the gospel of Mark, ends in the most curious of ways : When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus' body.  Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, "Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?" But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away.  As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. "Don't be alarmed", he said.  "You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified.  He has risen!  He is not here.  See the place where they laid him.  But go, tell his disciples and Peter, 'He is going ahead of you into Galilee.  There you will see him, just as he told you.'" Trembling and bewildered, the ...

The prophetic tradition proclaims that God desires "holiness, not sacrifice".  For most of us, though, holiness carries with it a number of responses, particularly psychological.  Most of us see holiness as exclusionary, that holiness calls for a withdrawal from the world. The basic claim I want to make:  Holiness is a means toward an end, not an end in itself.  Holiness is a bit of missional equipment, a missional tool.  What sort of tool? I take my cue here from Jesus, how he frames the relationship between holiness and mission in his High Priestly Prayer in John: My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.  They are not of the world, even as I am not of it.   Sanctify them by the truth ; your word is truth.  As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world .  For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified (John 17.15-19. emphasis added).   T...

I'm reminded today of Henri Nouwen's Selfless Way of Christ .  The little book contrasts the cultural push for "upward mobility" with Christ's example of "downward mobility".  Nouwen's description of the lure of upward mobility and how we work to support its mythology in our culture: We are taught to conceive of development in terms of an ongoing increase in human potential.  Growing up means becoming healthier, stronger, more intelligent, more mature, and more productive.  Consequently we hide those who do not affirm this myth of progress, such as the elderly, prisoners, and those with mental disabilities.  In our society, we consider the upward move the obvious one while treating the poor cases who cannot keep up as sad misfits, people who have deviated from the normal line of progress. In contrast to this upward progress, Nouwen points to the downward mobility of Christ: The story of our salvation stands radically over and against the philoso...

With the election of Francis I to the papal office, I want to set out a renewed vision of what the papal office might be into the 21st century. First, some background on why this revision is necessary. Calls against the corruption of the institution of the Church -- in light of the sex abuse scandals that currently rock the Church worldwide (most prominently in America and in Ireland , but I'm doubtless have existed elsewhere) -- have been made by several of my friends.  They rightly point out that those who harbor and aid abusers of power are, themselves, guilty of fracturing the unity of the Church and the holiness of Christ's Body, so they deserve to be handed over to the temporal authorities for responsibilities that arise from those actions.  I can't hide from the fact that the power of Caesar's sword has been exercised by the Church throughout history -- not just here and now (in the sex abuse scandals) but also throughout the world (in silencing theolo...