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!