Happy New Year of the Ox!

New Year’s greetings in Japan are generally not given before January 1, so again this year I am posting this on the morning of December 31 here in the U.S. but after the New Year has already begun in Japan.

The Year of the Ox

In the countries of East Asia, including Japan, 2021 is the Year of the Ox—although in Japan it is more common to represent the year by a cow (牛 ushi) than by an ox. There is a 12-year cycle in the Asian zodiac, each named after an animal. December 31 ends/ended the Year of the Rat.  

(The Chinese, or lunar, New Year, which is celebrated not only in China but also in other Asian countries with strong Chinese influence, doesn’t begin until February 12 this year.)

If you were born in 1937, 1949, 1961, 1973, 1985, or 1997 you were born in the Year of the Ox and the new year would be considered a special one for you if you lived in East Asia, for it is your ataridoshi, your “lucky year,” since it is the year of the zodiac animal in which you were born.

Those born in the Year of the Ox/Cow are said to be “patient, mentally alert and when required to speak are skillful. They have a gift for inspiring confidence in others. This allows them to achieve a great deal of success.”

According to a Chinese website, people born in the Year of the Ox “are honest and earnest. They are low key and never look for praise or to be the center of attention. This often hides their talent, but they’ll gain recognition through their hard work.”

This latter statement sounds a lot like June, my wife, who was born in the Year of the Ox. Marian, our oldest granddaughter, and David, our oldest grandson, were also born in the Year of the Ox, and I am happy to say that they both also definitely seem to be honest and earnest people.

The Need to Work Like an Ox

Barring some drastic happening, Joseph R. Biden’s election as President of the United States will be certified by Congress on January 6 and he will be inaugurated as the 46^th President on January 20.

What challenges await President-elect Biden! Even though he was born in the Year of the Horse rather than in the Year of the Ox, he will need to exert all the characteristics of those born in the Year of the Ox; that is, he must be hardworking, persistent, determined, and diligent.

He will need to “work like an ox” (or like a horse) in confronting all the challenges facing the nation. I pray that he will have the physical and mental stamina he needs in the months and years ahead.

And while many of you may not need to work like an ox in the upcoming new year, I pray that you will be healthy and able to meet successfully all the personal challenges you will face in 2021.

Happy New Year to each of you—and especially to you who were born in the Year of the Ox!

Grieving After-Christmas Massacres

It was not long after that joyous first Christmas that things turned violent in Palestine. Although it didn’t happen as soon as depicted in most Christmas pageants, not long after Jesus’ birth there was a horrendous after-Christmas massacre.

The “Massacre of the Innocents”

According to Matthew 2:16~18, Herod the Great, the reigning king of Judea, ordered the execution of all male children two years old and under in the vicinity of Bethlehem.

The Catholic Church has long recognized those massacred baby boys as the first Christian martyrs and celebrates the Feast of the Holy Innocents on December 28.

That terrible “massacre of the innocents,” as it is often called, has been depicted by famous artists such as Raphael and Rubens in their paintings of c.1512-13 and 1611-12. But those works are so “busy,” I am sharing this 1860-61 painting of Italian artist Angelo Visconti:  

The Indian Massacre of December 26, 1862

What was at the time the largest one-day mass execution in U.S. history, 38 Dakota men were hanged on this date, Dec. 26, in 1862.

The Dakota War of 1862, also known by several other names (including Little Crow’s War), began that year on August 17—in the middle of the Civil War raging mostly on the east side of the Mississippi River.

That “Indian war” was between the U.S. and several bands of the Native Americans known as the Dakota and also as the eastern Sioux. It began in southwest Minnesota, four years after its admission as a state.

Treaty violations and late annuity payments led to hunger and hardship among the Dakota. Their desperation led to extensive attacks on White settlers in the area and resulted in the death of some of them.

Hundreds of Dakota men were captured, and a military tribunal sentenced 303 to death for their deadly use of violence. President Lincoln commuted the sentence of 264 of the condemned men, and one was pardoned shortly before the remaining 38 were hanged.

It was a sad, day-after-Christmas massacre.  

The Indian Massacre of December 29, 1890

The end of the Indian wars came 130 years ago this week, on Dec. 29, 1890, with the Wounded Knee Massacre.

The story of that massacre is told in some detail in the last chapter of Dee Brown’s widely read book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (1970). (The highly popular TV movie with the same name was aired in 2007.)

That after-Christmas massacre took place near Wounded Knee Creek on the Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. (The Lakota and Dakota are the same Native American nation that is usually called the Sioux by Whites.)

By the time the massacre was over, more than 250 Native Americans, including women and children, had been killed—and perhaps as many as 50 more died later from wounds received on that fateful day.

Most of those who died were needlessly and unjustly killed. Accordingly, in 1990, a century after the massacre, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution expressing “deep regret” for the grievous slaughter.  

Beyond the Massacres

Some of those injured at Wounded Knee were taken to the Episcopal mission at Pine Ridge. Dee Brown ended his book (on page 445) with these words:

When the first torn and bleeding bodies were carried into the candlelit church, those who were conscious could see Christmas greenery hanging from the open rafters. Across the chancel front above the pulpit was strung a crudely lettered banner: PEACE ON EARTH, GOOD WILL TO MEN.

That reminded me of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s wonderful Christmas carol, “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” The third verse of that carol, written during the Civil War, says,

And in despair I bowed my head:
“There is no peace on earth,” I said,
“For hate is strong, and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.”

Then verse four exults,

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
God is not dead, nor doth He sleep
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With peace on earth, good will to men.”

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**For more about Longfellow and his 1863 poem, “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” see my 12/25/18 blog post titled “Can You Hear the Christmas Bells?”

Pondering the Birth/Death of Jesus, the Slave

During the Christmas season, we sing/hear many hymns/carols. In the New Testament, though, there are few hymns. Philippians 2:6~11 is most likely one of those hymns, and there Jesus is referred to as a doulos, the Greek word for slave.

“The Christ Hymn”

The words of Philippians 2:6~11 are often called “the Christ Hymn,” and they are a significant summary of the nature of Jesus Christ’s existence. Verses 6~8 emphasize Jesus’ humiliation and verses 9~11 highlight his exultation.

Even though most English versions of the Bible translate the word doulos (in v. 7) as servant, its primary meaning is slave. And Jesus, the slave, ends up being crucified, which according to Black theologian James Cone is the equivalent of slaves and, later, their descendants during the Jim Crow years being lynched.

Those of us who grew up in evangelical churches, and those who are evangelicals today, see the first three verses mainly as linked to Jesus’ death on the cross as the means of providing atonement for sinful human beings.

Be that as it may, Jesus was crucified as a common criminal by the usual Roman means of capital punishment. Moreover, the Jews of Jesus’ day knew that the Hebrew Bible states that “anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse” (Deuteronomy 21:23).

The last half of “the Christ hymn” emphasizes the inexplicable exaltation of the crucified Jesus. Certainly, both Jesus’ humiliation and his exaltation must be recognized and affirmed. Most of us, though, perhaps fail to grasp the full impact of the ignominy of Jesus’ being “lynched” as a dissident slave.

“The Gospel according to Mary Brown”

In July, a youngish blogger in California posted a long and thought-provoking blog article titled “The Cross and The Lynching Tree by Dr. James Cone.”

On pages 6-7 of his post, the blogger introduces W.E.B. Du Bois’s “The Gospel According to Mary Brown” and provides this link to the “Xmas 1919” issue of The Crisis magazine with, scrolling down, to Du Bois’s brief three-page story.  

Du Bois co-founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1909 and long served as the founding editor of The Crisis, the official publication of the NAACP.**

In that 101-years-ago issue of The Crisis, Du Bois took the conventional Jesus story and brought it to his Black readers living in the Jim Crow South. He replaced Jesus with Joshua, a black baby born to a single mother (Mary Brown) sharecropping in the rural South.

That re-telling of the narrative about Jesus was consistent with a central point Du Bois had made in his The Souls of Black Folk (1903) and other essays. He condemned “white religion” as an “utter failure.”

As Cone points out in his book mentioned above, for Du Bois, true Christianity is defined by “the life and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth and the Golden Rule.” But, Du Bois emphasized, “the white church’s treatment of blacks was “sadly at variance with this doctrine” (Cone, pp. 103-4).

As we celebrate Christmas this year—in ways far different from usual because of the covid-19 pandemic—let’s celebrate not only the birth of Jesus as the Savior but also the one who came “to liberate the oppressed” (Luke 4:18, CEB).

In Du Bois’s story of Joshua, “the White Folk” were offended by what he said. They complained, “What do you mean by this talk about all being brothers—do you mean social equality?”

And they also said to Joshua, in Du Bois’s words, “What do you mean by saying God is you-all’s father—is God a nigger?"

These White Folk finally brought Joshua before a judge from the North—but he “washed his hands of the whole matter.” The White crowd then seized Joshua and lynched him.

Since in our land today 100 years later there are still problems of discrimination and oppression because of race and/or class, perhaps this is the “Christmas story” we need to hear and to ponder this week. What do you think?

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** My 9/15/18 blog post was written in honor of Du Bois (1868~1963).

What about the Jefferson Bible?

The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth was written/extracted by Thomas Jefferson and completed in 1820. Long known as “the Jefferson Bible,” a book by that title was published earlier this year to mark the bicentennial of Thomas Jefferson’s 84-page book. 

The Purpose of Jefferson’s Bible

In spite of what many contemporary conservative evangelical Christians emphasize about the early years of the United States, not all of the “forefathers” were pious evangelical Christians.

In particular, many of Thomas Jefferson’s contemporaries thought that he was anti-Christian and perhaps even an atheist.

It seems clear that Jefferson disliked evangelicalism. But it is also clear that he liked Jesus of Nazareth, at least the teachings of Jesus, which he called “a system of the most sublime morality which has ever fallen from the lips of man” (in a 10/31/1819 letter to William Short, his lifelong mentee).

It is somewhat of a misnomer to refer to “the Jefferson Bible,” for it contains only what Jefferson extracted from the four canonical Gospels.

Jefferson’s intention was to separate “the diamond from the dung hill,” that is, to free Jesus’ lustrous words from the “dross of his biographers.” The resultant book is a short one of seventeen chapters, beginning with Jesus’ birth and ending with his death and burial.

Jefferson’s purpose was to present the teachings of Jesus unencumbered with anything “supernatural.” Thus, for example, there is no inclusion of Jesus’ “virgin birth,” his miracles, or his resurrection.

In passing, it is interesting to note that in 1902 Tolstoy, about whom I posted a blog article on Nov. 20, published The Gospel in Brief, a book similar to Jefferson’s “Bible”—and similarly deleting the “supernatural” elements surrounding Jesus.

The Value of Jefferson’s Bible

As there are many people—and, no doubt, a far higher percentage today than in Jefferson’s time—whose “scientific worldview” prevents them from considering anything that is unproven/unprovable by natural science to be true or real, Jefferson’s Bible can be commended to such people.

Upon recently reading The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth for the first time, I was impressed not by how much was deleted from the canonical Gospels but rather by how much was included from them.

(In spite of hearing about “the Jefferson Bible” for many years, I was happy to purchase a Kindle copy of it, for only 99 cents, and seeing firsthand what it included. The Introduction is by Cyrus Adler, who in 1895 purchased Jefferson’s book for the Smithsonian and published it for the first time.)

The Problem of Jefferson’s Bible

The Jefferson Bible: A Biography, the bicentennial book mentioned above, is by Peter Manseau, a current curator at the Smithsonian. This smallish book by Manseau (b. 1974) is both scholarly and quite readable.

I found “The Quest for the Jeffersonian Jesus,” the third chapter, to be of greatest interest. There the author says that Jefferson rejected “the supernatural, the miraculous, anything suggestive that Jesus might believe the divine things said about him” (p. 66).

Consequently, in Jefferson’s Bible we have “what Jefferson believed to be the words of Jesus, but no real sense of why anyone would have listened to him. With miracles hinted at but never delivered, forgiveness discussed but never offered . . . .”

Manseau then remarks that Jefferson’s book “often has the feeling of a series of jokes without their punch lines” (p 72).

As is true for so many other people and so many other issues, Jefferson was right in what he affirmed (the great significance of Jesus’ teaching) but wrong in what he denied (the “supernatural” referent to Jesus’ life and teaching).

Further, there is little evidence that Jefferson actually sought to live in any marked manner according to the teachings of Jesus included in his book. He certainly did not do that to the extent that Tolstoy did—but that is the same for most of us, even those of us who claim to believe the canonical Gospels.

In Admiration of Beethoven and His Ninth Symphony

The great musical genius Ludwig van Beethoven was born 250 years ago this month. Although I made a blog post about Beethoven in 2017, I am writing about him again and especially about his marvelous Ninth Symphony.

Here is the image of his portrait that Joseph Karl Stieler painted 200 years ago, in 1820, when Beethoven was 50 years old: 

Composing the Ninth

Beethoven’s compositions consist of 722 works written over forty-five years, from his earliest work in 1782, when he was only twelve years old, until his last work just before his death in Vienna in 1827.

Beginning with Symphony No. 1, which was first performed in 1800, Beethoven composed nine symphonies. He composed No. 9, also called the “Choral” Symphony, between 1822 and 1824.

His Ninth Symphony is regarded by many critics and musicologists as Beethoven's greatest work and one of the supreme achievements in the history of music.

One amazing aspect of Beethoven’s composing the Ninth Symphony is that he was completely deaf during that time. He began to lose his hearing when he was still in his early 30s, and by 1815 he was totally deaf.

How one of the world’s greatest composers could write his greatest work, a complete four-part symphony, while being totally deaf is almost beyond comprehension.

Performing the Ninth

Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 was first performed in Vienna in 1824, and since then it has been one of the most performed symphonies in the world.

At that initial performance, it seems that Beethoven was not the main conductor, but he was on the stage facing the orchestra. When the performance concluded, the contralto went over to Beethoven and turned him toward the loudly cheering audience whom he could not hear.

The Ninth is still being performed by premier orchestras around the world—and a number of those performances are, happily, available on YouTube.

In preparation for writing this article, I listened to the performances of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO, here), which has been viewed over 25,600,000 times since 2015, and the (audio only) London Symphony Orchestra (here), accessed an inexplicable 106 million times since 2010.

There is a long tradition of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony being performed in Japan since it was first introduced there by German prisoners during WWI. The CSO’s website reports that in 2016 the Ninth was performed 175 times in Japan.

In Osaka, there is now a 20-year-old tradition of performing Beethoven’s Ninth with 10,000 musicians! (Here is the link to the fourth movement of their 2012 performance.)

Enjoying the Ninth

It is the fourth movement of Symphony No. 9 that makes it so enjoyable to so many people. In that movement, Beethoven used Friedrich Schiller’s 1785 poem "Ode to Joy,” in which he enthusiastically celebrated the kinship and unity of all humankind.

That fourth movement later morphed into one of my very favorite hymns, “Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee," the hymn text written by Henry van Dyke in 1907.

A year ago, there were plans for many performances of the Ninth in this 250^th anniversary year of Beethoven’s birth, including a performance of “All Together: A Global Ode to Joy” in Carnegie Hall this month. But, alas, the covid-19 pandemic has caused cancellations of most performances.

Nevertheless, thanks to the Internet, we can enjoy the Ninth in the comfort (and safety) of our own homes this month—and there are lessons we can learn from Beethoven along with enjoying his exquisite music.

A year ago, before the beginning of the pandemic, Arthur C. Brooks wrote about a lesson we can all learn from Beethoven: “Deafness freed Beethoven as a composer because he no longer had society’s soundtrack in his ears. Perhaps therein lies a lesson for each of us.”

Further, an article in the Nov. 21 issue of The Economist points out that like the pandemic-hit celebrations of his 250^th birthday this year, Beethoven’s career was a struggle against adversity. Yet, “Fate has amplified Beethoven’s voice not as a struggler, but as a healer.”

So this month (and later), let’s listen expectantly (and repeatedly) to Beethoven’s stirring Ninth Symphony and enjoy deeply the encouragement found there, finding joy and hope in spite of the solemn times in which we now live.

The Bruderhof: Celebrating a Century of Christian Discipleship

In 1920, Eberhard and Emmy Arnold founded a Christian community in the Weimar Republic (Germany). That community came to be known as the Bruderhof, the German word meaning “place of brothers.” 

Emmy & Eberhard Arnold

The Bruderhof through the Years

The Arnolds started their first community in the little German town of Sannerz, about 50 miles northeast of Frankfurt. Amid their outspoken opposition to the Nazi regime in the 1930s, Eberhard suddenly died in November 1935 at the age of 52.

Because of their anti-Nazi stance, the Bruderhof had to leave Sannerz in 1937. They moved briefly to Liechtenstein and then to the Cotswolds in England. Since they were Germans, the Bruderhof faced harassment there in the early years of WWII, so they then moved to Paraguay in South America.

In 1954, the Bruderhof moved again, this time to New York, and the number of their communities began to expand. After moving to the U.S., they were headed by Eberhard and Emmy’s son Johann Heinrich from 1962 until his death in 1982 and then by grandson Johann Christoph from 1983 to 2001.

The Bruderhof Today

Currently, there are 28 Bruderhof settlements on four continents with about 3,000 members. They are all trying to live out the vision that the Arnolds began with in 1920.

On their www.bruderhof.com website, the Bruderhof introduces their communal way of life and their Christian vision:

Love your neighbor. Take care of each other. Share everything. Especially in these challenging times, we at the Bruderhof believe that another way of life is possible. We’re not perfect people, but we’re willing to venture everything to build a life where there are no rich or poor. Where everyone is cared for, everyone belongs, and everyone can contribute.

We’re pooling all our income, talents, and energy to take care of one another and to reach out to others. We believe that God wants to transform our world, here and now. This takes a life of discipleship, sacrifice and commitment; but when you truly love your neighbor as yourself, peace and justice become a reality. Isn’t that what Jesus came to bring for everyone?

The Bruderhof’s Plough

In 1920, Eberhard Arnold started a publishing company that has long gone by the name Plough Publishing House. In the early years of the Bruderhof, their livelihood was supported by the books written and published by Arnold. 

Now located in Waldon, New York — and on the Internet at www.plough.com —Plough has published numerous worthwhile books, and since the summer of 2014 has also published Plough Quarterly, an outstanding periodical. The current editor is Peter Mommsen, a great-grandson of Eberhart and Emmy.

Two of my favorite books published by Plough are Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard (1999) and The Gospel in Tolstoy (2015), which I read before posting my Nov. 20 blog article about Tolstoy.

I am especially fond of the Quarterly, and early this week I received the Winter 2021 issue (No. 26); the theme is “What are Families For?” The ecumenical nature and diverse viewpoints presented in each Quarterly make it a valuable publication, and I read it “from cover to cover” each time.

The delightful new issue contains six main feature articles written by a New York Times columnist, a female member of the Bruderhof in Australia, a Catholic Cardinal, a Haitian woman poet, a teacher of Christian history, and Rabbi Jonathan Sacks who died just last month.

The issues of Plough Quarterly now have 112 pages and contain many beautiful images and appealing artwork. Thus, it affords much viewing as well as reading pleasure.

In addition, each morning I enjoy reading Plough’s “Daily Dig,” short meditations that Plough sends by email—and which can be subscribed to (here) for free. This week’s “digs” have included brief passages by Karl Rahner, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Madeleine L’Engle.

Hearty congratulations to the Bruderhof for their century of faithful Christian discipleship! 

Learning from the Indomitable Mother Jones

For some reason, I have never known much about the indomitable woman known as Mother Jones. But noticing that she died 90 years ago, on November 30, 1930, I decided to read some about her and to share some of what I discovered about that most remarkable woman. 

Mother Jones, 1924

Learning about Mother Jones

In her autobiography published in 1925, Mary Harris Jones claimed that she was born in Ireland on May 1, 1830. Well, the country is correct, but the date probably isn’t. Most likely she was born shortly before her Catholic parents had her baptized on August 1, 1837.

In the late 1840s, Richard Harris, Mary’s father, emigrated to the U.S. and then a couple of years later Mary’s mother and siblings joined him in Canada where he was then working.

By 1861, Mary had moved to Memphis, and the next ten years were filled with joy and tragedy. In that Tennessee city, Mary married George Jones and in the next five years they had four children. But then in 1867, George and all four of their children died of yellow fever.

Mary then moved to Chicago and started a dressmaking business, only to lose it and most of her possessions in the Great Fire of 1871.

In the 1870s, Mary Jones became affiliated with the Knights of Labor (KoL) and became lifelong friends with Terence Powderly (1849~1924) who was the Grand Master Workman of KoL from 1879 to '93.

After the demise of KoL in 1893, Mary became heavily involved with the United Mine Workers. When she began working for that fledgling union in the 1890s, it had 10,000 members; within a few years, 300,000 men had joined, and it became the largest union in the U.S.

Claiming to be older than she actually was, Mary started being called Mother Jones by 1897.

Her tireless work, and success, in organizing strikes for the betterment of working conditions for miners and other laboring people prompted a West Virginia district attorney in 1902 to call her “the most dangerous woman in America.”

The danger, though, was to the wealthy mine owners and others who profited off the labor of their insufficiently paid workers. By contrast, for some fifty years she was instrumental in helping improve the working and living conditions for common laborers across the United States.

Mother Jones’s funeral in 1930 was held at a Catholic church in Washington, D.C. She was then buried in Union Miners Cemetery in Mt. Olive, Illinois, after she was honored with another funeral Mass in that small Illinois town.

Learning from Mother Jones

Here are some important lessons we today can learn from the indomitable Mother Jones:

** Pressing on in spite of adversity. The five years between 1867 and 1871 was a terrible time for Mary Harris Jones. Can you imagine losing four children, your spouse, your business, and all your possessions in the space of five years?

And yet, Mary pressed on becoming increasingly involved in seeking to help others. In spite of her personal tragedies, for nearly fifty years she lived mostly to help the working poor across the country. What an inspiration!

** Recognizing that “silence is violence.” The lifework of Mother Jones, a lifelong Catholic, is expressed in these oft-quoted words of hers: “Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.” She was a woman who wouldn’t keep silent, even though harassed and jailed repeatedly.

** Expressing faith in deeds, not words. Although a Christian, Mother Jones was not a “pious” churchwoman and seemingly didn’t talk a lot about her faith. But her indefatigable activity for others was in harmony with the kinds of things Jesus noted in Matthew 25:31~40 about his true followers.

These are just three of the many things we might learn from Mary Harris Jones, who probably did more for laboring people than any other woman in the history of the U.S.

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Links: Here is the link to the Mother Jones Museum website, which has a wealth of information about Jones.

Also, see this link to access Mother Jones, the politically progressive/liberal magazine that was founded in 1976 and named in honor of Mary Harris Jones. 

Advocating the Radiant Center

On this day before the American Thanksgiving Day, I am thankful that I am in the last stage of publishing the updated and slightly revised edition of my book The Limits of Liberalism. This post is based on the concluding chapter of that book. 

What is the Radiant Center?

In The Limits of Liberalism, I repeatedly call for a position between the “extremes” of the liberal Christian left as well as the “extremes” of the conservative evangelical Christian right. I struggled, though, with what to call the envisioned theological position between the polar opposites.

One term I seriously considered was “radical center,” a term used by Adam Hamilton, the Methodist megachurch pastor in greater Kansas City. Hamilton wrote about that in his book Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White (2008).

Hamilton used the words “radical center” as a term that is “able to hold together the best of the right and the left” (p. 232). It is the position that “seeks to build bridges rather than walls, and refuses to be the wedge in anyone’s theological or culture wars” (p. 235).

But because of the baggage born by the term “radical” and the general unattractiveness of the color gray, I decided to call the position Hamilton was promoting, and which I badly want, the radiant center.

The center between the extremes of black and white doesn’t have to be gray. Rather, it can be a brilliant blue, a gorgeous green, or a rousing red. Yes, a radiant center.

Who Is Included in the Radiant Center?

As I envision it, the radiant center is composed of both progressive evangelicals and conservative liberals as well as all those in between. Moreover, it has ever-widening boundaries, becoming more and more inclusive.

Not everyone, however, is included, or wants to be included, in the center. So, I am not advocating a radical center that includes everyone. I still want, though, to be open to dialogue with those who are not a part of the envisioned center, and I don’t want to exclude anyone from friendship.

While I certainly want to have “malice toward none and charity for all,” not everyone is included in the radiant center because, frankly, some don’t want to be grouped with people with whom they have serious theological disagreements.

The radiant center can’t include those who are not willing to accept and affirm those with quite different beliefs; that is, the radiant center can’t accept “fundamentalists” of the right or the left, that is, those who think that they, and only they, are right.

Advocating the Radiant Center

I close my book by strongly advocating the radiant center as I envision it.

The radiant center radiates the heat (passion and compassion) and light of the teachings of Jesus Christ and the gospel about Jesus.

The radiant center is generous, for it spreads out to warm and enlighten everyone within its reach. Its effects radiate out to all alike, to the right and the left and to those not even on the spectrum.

The radiant center is progressive. While it may not go to the extremes of some contemporary liberal Christianity, neither will it be constrained to the confines of much Christian conservative evangelicalism.

Here, then, is how I close Limits of Liberalism:

I pray that other Christians who are fed up with fundamentalism but who are also aware of the limits of liberalism will join me in searching for, affirming, and then helping to build a radiant center for contemporary Christian faith.

Will you join me in this endeavor?

In Memory of Leo Tolstoy

It was 110 years ago today that Count Lev Nikolayevich (Leo) Tolstoy, the famous Russian writer, died at the age of 82, a month younger than I am now—and except for the mustache, my covid-19 pandemic beard now looks much like his as seen in the following picture taken near the end of his life. 

Remembering Tolstoy as a Novelist

Leo Tolstoy was born on August 28, 1828, about 200 kilometers south of Moscow. The third son of a landowning aristocrat, he inherited an estate consisting of a huge manor house and property with nearly 500 serfs.

After spending his young manhood in profligacy, in 1851 he joined the Russian army. He was an artillery officer during the Crimean War and was a part of the forces the British light brigade charged against, as described in my Oct. 20 post.

Reacting negatively toward that war, Tolstoy left the army and after traveling around Europe for a while, he began founding schools for peasant children in Russia. During the 1850s, even while still a soldier, he began to write novellas.

In the next decade, then, Tolstoy became a full-fledged novelist. War and Peace, his first, and very long and complicated, major novel, was published in 1869. It was followed by another lengthy novel, Anna Karenina, published in 1878.

Tolstoy wrote many novellas and literary works of many kinds, but his only other major novel was Resurrection, which was not published until 1899. Yes, with just three major works, and the third not widely read, Tolstoy is still recognized as one of the best novelists the world has ever seen.

Remembering Tolstoy as a Christian

Although baptized and brought up in the Russian Orthodox Church, Tolstoy wrote that by the age of 18 he had “lost all belief in what I had been taught.” Those are words from Confession (1882), the book he wrote in his early 50s about becoming a follower of Jesus Christ.

So, for the last 30 years of his life, Tolstoy lived and wrote as a Christian believer—but not as a member of the Orthodox Church, which, in fact, excommunicated him in 1901.

Tolstoy’s writings during those years were largely of a man who sought to follow the teachings of Jesus, especially as found in the Sermon on the Mount.

Selections of Tolstoy’s Christian writings are published in a 325-page book under the title The Gospel in Tolstoy (2015), and I much enjoyed reading that book this fall.

“My Way to Faith,” the fourth chapter, is an excerpt from Confession in which Tolstoy wrote, “As long as I know God, I live.” Also, “To know God and to live come to one and the same thing. God is life.”

Chapter 20 is “What Is the Meaning of Life?” from one of Tolstoy’s most theological writings, The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894).

Remembering Tolstoy as a Teacher 

Although Tolstoy was never a teacher in a formal sense, through his writings some of the world’s best-known people, and a multitude of unknown people, have learned important lessons from him.

Tolstoy became an important teacher for Mahatma Gandhi, for Martin Luther King Jr., and for Dorothy Day. And although certainly not widely known, he was also a teacher for Nishida Tenko-san, the subject of my 2/24/13 blog post, and I encourage you to (re)read that post.

Actually, Tolstoy has had much influence in Japan and is still seen as a trustworthy teacher there. In 2018 a Japanese woman published an article titled “What Today’s Youth Can Learn From the Great Russian Writer Leo Tolstoy.” She mentions Nishida (1872~1968) in her thoughtful article.

So, even though he died 110 years ago, Tolstoy is still remembered and honored as a brilliant writer—and as one who by his life and writings taught what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ.

Elections Have Consequences: 1844 and 2020

James K. Polk, the 11^th President, was born on November 2, 1795. As mentioned in my Oct. 30 post, Polk’s 125^th birthday anniversary in 1920 was the day when Warren G. Harding celebrated his 55^th birthday—and was also elected the 29^th POTUS.

Polk, elected in November 1844, was a successful President. His four years in office clearly indicates that elections have consequences—as they all do. 

Polk: One of the Best Presidents?

Presidential historian Andrew Bergen ranks Polk as the seventh best President of the first 43 in the history of the U.S. (see here). That is higher than what is found in most rankings, but Polk is regularly ranked in the top one-third. And yet, he is not widely known—although ten states have a county named for James Polk.

(Polk County, Missouri, where June was born and where we were married, was named after James’s grandfather. And now we live in Clay County, Mo., named after Henry Clay, whom Polk defeated in the election of 1844. My 4/20/17 blog post was titled “The Feats of [Henry] Clay,” and mentions his loss to Polk.)

Harry Truman summed up Polk’s legacy in these words: “James K. Polk, a great President. Said what he intended to do and did it.” Accordingly, Bergen states, “Polk followed through on every single campaign pledge that he ran on in 1844,” and that included not running for re-election.  

Election Consequences of 1844

But Polk’s “successful” presidency doesn’t mean that we should broadly praise him. Rather, there is much that should be denounced. Elections have consequences, and those consequences from the 1844 election were not good for many people in the U.S.

Polk is regarded as a protégé of Andrew Jackson, instigator of the deplorable Indian Removal Act of 1830, and that is one reason the consequences of the election of 1844 were not good for many. He was a strong advocate of “manifest destiny” (a term coined in 1845) that resulted in the extermination of many Native Americans.

Further, the annexation of Texas, which he strongly supported, was linked to the strengthening of slavery in the U.S., for annexation gave slavery room to expand. Subsequently, one indirect consequence of Polk’s election was the Civil War, which started just twelve years after his presidency ended.

Election Consequences of 2020?

The guest host on the Nov. 9 Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC kept repeating the words “radical normalcy” with reference to President-elect Joe Biden. That is one of the hoped-for consequences of this month’s election—a reversal of the abnormalities I wrote about in my 10/30 post and that this very lengthy WaPo Magazine article details.

Just as he promised, President-elect Biden has already set up a panel of experts to draw up plans on how best to find ways to control the covid-19 pandemic. And as an indication of the “radical normalcy” in that move, there were no family members or cronies selected for the team.

As a Nov. 9 WaPo article says, Biden’s appointed task force is “a group made up entirely of doctors and health experts, signaling his intent to seek a science-based approach to bring the raging pandemic under control.” This will surely lead to one very positive consequence of the Nov. 3 election.

Further, according to this Nov. 11 WaPo article, another encouraging consequence of the recent election is how “Biden aims to amp up the government’s fight against climate change.”

Of course, some evangelical Christians see negative consequences resulting from the election. For example, on Nov. 10, a conservative Christian Post reporter declared, “Biden planning to reverse Trump’s pro-life policies by executive order.”

It remains to be seen, of course, what all the consequences of the 2020 presidential election will be. I am hoping for, and expect, mostly positive ones that will, indeed, help save the soul of the nation.

Life: A Brief Candle or a Splendid Torch?

With the presidential election in the U.S. apparently settled, our attention can now be given to other, more important personal matters—such as the meaning of life and how to live.

Life as a Brief Candle

Contending with Romeo and Juliet as well as Hamlet, Shakespeare’s Macbeth is regularly ranked as one of his bests plays. Consider this oft-quoted passage in that tragedy: In Act V, Scene V, King Macbeth exclaims,

Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

What a negative, even cynical, view of life!

While unlikely to express themselves so eloquently, I’m afraid Macbeth’s words, sadly, characterize the way many contemporaries see life.

Life as a Splendid Torch

Regularly rated among British dramatists as second only to Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw was an interesting and complex character about whom I have mixed feelings.

There is much that is objectionable in Shaw, who was born in 1856 and died 75 years ago, in November 1950. For example, he promoted eugenics and opposed organized religion.

But I have been impressed by these words of Shaw:

In the sentence before those notable words, Shaw declared, “I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live.”

Perhaps the impact of that statement is lessened somewhat when we realize that he wrote them in 1907, the year he turned 51. But he did live a long and productive life, writing his last full-length play in 1948, at the age of 92, and a short play the year of his death.

Life as Both a Brief Candle and a Splendid Torch

In numerous sermons through the years, I have cited James 4:14 (in the New Testament): “What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” (NRSV).

That verse resonates with Macbeth’s view of life as a brief candle, although in context it certainly doesn’t see life as signifying nothing.

J. Mike Minnix is a Baptist pastor in North Carolina, and in a 2012 sermon based on James 4:14, he stated, “You will never live your life as you should unless you recognize how quickly your life is passing.”

Pastor Minnix then quoted Psalm 90:12 – “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Following his example, I calculated how many days I have already lived.

The number of my days is now 30,039. That is a lot of days! And I might even live another 4,000 more days, which would take me to a couple of months past my 93^rd birthday. Or maybe not.

Even the biggest candles eventually burn up. Accordingly, although I have lived more than 30,000 days, I do recognize that, indeed, that life is short.

Regardless of how many, or how few, days I have left, though, I want to be like Shaw and to “burn as brightly as possible” for as long as possible.

Rather than spending most of my time thinking and talking about the past, as we oldsters are inclined to do, I want to keep thinking about the future and about what (little) I can do to help create a better world for my grandchildren.

In that regard I want to keep taking seriously the words of Shaw that were slightly paraphrased and made widely known by Bobby Kennedy in the years before his untimely death (brief candle, indeed!) in 1968: 

TTT (Things Take Time)

For many years, I have used the abbreviation TTT for my book Thirty True Things Everyone Needs to Know Now (2018)—and I still encourage people to read that book. But this post is about a different meaning of TTT, one that I learned from a Japanese friend decades ago: things take time. 

The Presidential Election: TTT

As everyone knows, the U.S. elections were held two days ago, on November 3. But the results of the presidential election are not certain even now, although it is most likely that the Biden/Harris ticket will narrowly win.

The election results for most states won’t be “officially certified” until November 23 or later. And actually, the result of the presidential election is not official until January 6, the day a joint session of Congress meets to count electoral votes (cast on December 18) and declare the winner.

Things take time, and this year it is taking a much longer time than usual for the apparent results of the presidential election to be ascertained—and who knows what will happen between now and Dec. 18 or Jan. 6.

There will be recounts, lawsuits, angry tweets, and falsehoods told by the likely loser, who late on election night made numerous false and misleading statements in speaking to his supporters (see here).

The Return to Normalcy: TTT

As I wrote in my previous (Oct. 30) blog post, the election of Joe Biden would be the beginning of a return to normalcy as the many abnormalities I mentioned in that post—and that was by no means a complete list—would be righted.

However, even if Biden is inaugurated on January 20, current adverse conditions in the nation won’t get better immediately. Things take time.

The ongoing effects of the pandemic, the lingering economic/unemployment challenges for many, and current cynicism about government, etc. will take a long time to overcome and for there to be a sense of normalcy again.

Some, no doubt, will be disappointed, feeling that change/recovery is happening too slowly. There will likely be criticism of the new administration for not doing enough fast enough.

But, again, things take time—and patience seems to be much more difficult for us USAmericans than for the people of Japan, whose national beginning is said to have been in 660 BCE, a very long time before 1776.

The Re-building of Environmental Protection: TTT

Over the past nearly four years, we have seen much that has been wrecked in this country—and it takes much longer to build, or re-build, something than to wreck it.

The lead article in the October 31 issue of The Economist reports, “Of the 225 major executive actions in a studiously catalogued list of the Trump administration’s deregulation 70 . . . are environmental rollbacks.”

With broader criteria, an articlein the Oct. 30 Washington Post claims that “as Trump’s first term winds to a close, he has weakened or wiped out more than 125 rules and policies aimed at protecting the nation’s air, water and land, with 40 more rollbacks underway.”

There are numerous critical challenges that the new President faces. Of immediate urgency, of course, is controlling the spread of the covid-19 pandemic and dealing with the lingering problems caused by it.

But perhaps the biggest challenge, the one that is most critical for the future well-being of the country and the world, is re-building programs necessary for protecting the environment—and then taking bold measures to combat global warming.

Things take time—but dealing wisely and effectively with environmental issues is something that needs to be done sooner rather than later.

A Return to Normalcy?

No one in this country is unaware that next Tuesday, November 3, is Election Day. Many U.S. citizens have already voted, but what result can we expect from the presidential election? Can we expect a return to normalcy? 

Is this also Decision 2020?

Past Appeals for Normalcy

In his campaign for the presidency in 1920, Warren G. Harding’s slogan was “return to normalcy.” On May 14, he made his famous “Return to Normalcy” speech that included these words:

America's present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; . . . .”

That sentiment proved to be an effective and fruitful appeal to the American voters, who were ready to move back to “normal” after the disastrous “Great War” and the equally disastrous effects of the Spanish flu.

On November 2, which happened to be his 55th birthday, Harding was elected, receiving over 60% of the popular vote, the highest percentage in a presidential election up to that time.

While the same words were not used, there was some similarity with Dwight D. Eisenhower’s campaign of 1952. There was no pandemic just before that election, but the effects of WWII were still being felt, and then the Korean War had been raging since 1950. Many hoped for a return to normalcy.

Eisenhower won that election with over 55% of the popular vote and over 83% of the electoral votes.

In “What Joe Can Learn from Ike,” a perceptive 10/10/20 article in The Atlantic, author Ted Widmer points out that “Eisenhower instinctively understood how deeply Americans wanted to calm down and get back to normal.”

Accordingly, Widmer states, Ike “pursued a policy of strategic blandness.” That was a successful strategy, for as noted, he won by a landslide.

Present Need for Normalcy

This is a time of considerable abnormality in the USA. As in much of the rest of the world, the covid-19 pandemic has greatly altered the normal activities of most Americans and taken the lives of more than 230,000—and at present, the situation is steadily getting worse, not better.

But perhaps the greatest abnormality is linked to the man occupying the White House. Without elaboration, here are some of the most blatant abnormalities associated with DJT.

** It is abnormal for a President to lie so much.

** It is abnormal for a President to seek political help from the heads of other countries, especially those who head a totalitarian government.

** It is abnormal for a President to have so many family members working in the White House.

** It is abnormal for a sitting President and his family to profit financially so much while in office.

** It is abnormal for a President to be so disrespectful of women, Blacks and other People of Color, immigrants and asylum seekers from other countries.

** It is abnormal for a President to expect the Department of Justice to serve his personal and political interests.

** It is abnormal for a President to be personally involved in the celebration of a new Supreme Court justice.

** Etc.

Future Hope for Normalcy

Many of us are eagerly hoping for the election next week to be the beginning of a return to normalcy in this country. Such a return would not happen immediately, though. Things take time, and I plan to write more about that next week.

It will certainly take many more months for life to return to anything like normal because of the covid-19 pandemic.

But I am hopeful that next week will be the beginning of a return to an administration committed to truthfulness; to respect for, and the endeavor to seek the well-being of, all citizens; and to civility.

Maybe the USA was never fully like that, though, so instead of a return to normalcy my main hope and prayer is for the beginning of a much-needed new normal that embraces, among other things, truthfulness, respect, and civility.

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

FYI: November 2 was also the birthday of James K. Polk, the 11^th POTUS. The election of 1844 was from November 1 until December 4, although Polk is said to have won the election on November 5.

Following the example of Heather Cox Richardson, I am posting below some hyperlinks to articles directly related to what I have written above.

“Trump is averaging more than 50 false or misleading claims a day” (WaPo, 10/22)

“Ballrooms, candles and luxury cottages: During Trump’s term, millions of government and GOP dollars have flowed to his properties” (WaPo, 10/27)

“Former U.S. attorneys — all Republicans — back Biden, saying Trump threatens ‘the rule of law’” (WaPo, 10/27)

“All the small things you can look forward to in a Biden administration” (WaPo, 10/27)