“The Touch of the Master's Hand”

Last month, a Facebook friend posted the poem “The Touch of the Master’s Hand,” a poem I remember reading and using in sermons, in the 1950s. Now, sixty-five years later, I have mixed emotions about that once-popular poem penned a hundred years ago.

Rather than take the space to paste the poem here, I am giving you this link to read it online. Or you can listen to it impressively recited on YouTube—and here is the link (with subtitles) to it being sung in 2017. 

The Poet

Myra Brooks Welch was best known for the poem introduced above. Myra (1877~1959) was born in Illinois, but in 1920 she and her family moved to La Verne, Calif. They were members of the Church of the Brethren, the Anabaptist denomination that was prominent in that city.

Ms. Welch reported that she heard a speaker address a group of students on the power of God to bring out the best in people. She said that she was inspired by what she heard and wrote “The Touch of the Master’s Hand” in just 30 minutes!

Her poem was published in the February 26, 1921, issue of The Gospel Messenger, the Church of the Brethren’s official church paper (now known as just Messenger).

The Poem

Myra Welch’s poem spread across the country, and I heard it and was favorably impressed by it, while still a teen-aged Southern Baptist in Missouri—and as some of you know, I started preaching in 1954 at age 16.

Wikipedia (here) gives a good, succinct summary: “The poem tells of a battered old violin that is about to be sold as the last item at an auction for a pittance, until a violinist steps out of the audience and plays the instrument, demonstrating its beauty and true value.”

Then comes the primary point: “The violin then sells for $3,000 instead of a mere $3. The poem ends by comparing this instrument touched by the hand of a master musician to the life of a sinner that is touched by the hand of God.” (Myra, though, no doubt considered Jesus Christ to be the Master.)

The Problem

While I have no doubt that there are many people whose lives have been significantly changed by having been touched by “the Master’s hand," sadly, there seems to be far too little evidence of such change in far too many people who claim to be followers of Jesus.

Those who are evangelicals, as I was in the 1950s, are the Christians most likely to resonate with the message of Ms. Welch’s poem. But now it seems that some conservative evangelicals are prominently pushing policies that seem opposed to the teachings of Jesus.

There are unfortunate moral lapses evident in the lives of some Christians in all denominations, as well as people of other religions and of no religion. But I am writing here not about personal piety but about problematic positions on public policy, of which there are many.

The problem is not just one in this country, however. Think of the situation in Ethiopia, for example. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is said to be (here) “a devout Evangelical Pentecostal Christian of the Full Gospel Believer’s Church.”

The Ethiopian PM reportedly attends church regularly and “occasionally ministers in preaching and teaching.” Further, “he frequently underscores the importance of faith.” By his public religiosity, he seems to be an example of a man who has been “touched by the Master’s hand.”

To the great chagrin of many, though, in the past year the policies of Abiy Ahmed have led to what is being called “war crimes.” While garnering little news coverage in this country, the civil war in Ethiopia has been marked by military atrocities as well as by a huge humanitarian crisis.

The Oct. 9 issue of The Economist reports that “Ethiopia is deliberately starving its own citizens.” Some 400,000 people in the northern part of the country are facing “ catastrophic hunger.”

How could such problems possibly result from the policies of a man who has been “touched by the Master’s hand?”

_____

** For a broader description of the current civil war in Ethiopia, see this article by Philip Jenkins in the Oct. 8 issue of The Christian Century.

Was Jesus a Socialist?

Breitbart News’s daily emails of “Latest News” often includes something labeled “Social Justice Jackass.” Under that label on Sept. 2 were these words (and this link): “Rev. William Barber: ‘Jesus Is a Socialist.” So what about it? Was Jesus a socialist, or is Rev. Barber a “jackass,” to use Breitbart’s inelegant word? 

Cartoon by Bill Day, 2009

Barber’s Assertion

Most of you know of William Barber II, the Disciples of Christ minister who has been president of the NAACP's North Carolina state chapter since 2006. (If you need to review a bit about Barber and what he has done, check out my 9/15/16 and 5/5/18 blog articles.)

The link Breitbart gave was just a short snippet of a longer interview with Barber and his friend Jonathan Wilson-Hargrove by Joy-Ann Reid on her regular Aug. 31 AM Joy program on MSNBC. (Here is the link to the whole 7.5-minute segment, including what Barber said in an Aug. 23 talk.)

Even the Brietbart website accurately states that Barber said that “if caring for the sick and poor is socialism then ‘Jesus is a socialist’”—and that is enough to label Barber (and maybe Jesus?) a “social justice jackass”??

When I printed off the Breitbart.com article more than a week ago, over 1,000 comments had been posted there. (I didn’t print them all!) The first ones that I read were almost all negative toward Barber and what he had said.

For example, “If idiots like Barber think Christ was a socialist, why do socialists recoil at his name?” He is “a Trojan horse sent to do the bidding of evil.” And, “Rev. William Barber is a MarxistAss clown.” Also, “For sure the ‘Rev.’ does not know what he’s talking about.”

The Republicans’ Strategy

It seems quite clear that Republicans, on both the national and more local levels, are using socialism as a “scare word” for political gain. Harry Truman denounced that use of socialism back in 1952 (see this Snopes article).

Just last Tuesday in North Carolina (hear here), DJT said that a vote for any Democrat in 2020 is “a vote for the rise of radical socialism and the destruction of the American dream.” Mark it down: this will be what we will repeatedly hear between now and Nov. 3, 2020.

Also last week, Missouri Governor Mike Parson kicked off his 2020 bid for re-election by warning against the “rise of socialism.” (The Kansas City Star article about this is here.)

This is all a part of the strategy to demonize or ridicule Democratic politicians and to win votes for GOP candidates. That was doubtlessly the intent of Breitbart’s calling Rev. Barber a “social justice jackass.”

The Plight of the Poor

Journalist Errol Louis (born in Harlem in 1962) recently wrote an op-ed piece titled “‘Socialism’ isn’t a boogeyman in an unequal world.” If you’ll notice, most of those who denigrate socialism in this country are white. By contrast, according to a June 2019 Pew poll, 65% of black Americans and 52% of Latinos have a “positive impression” of socialism.

The theme of the Summer 2019 edition of Plough Quarterly (published by the Bruderhof) is “Beyond Capitalism.” In the powerful opening editorial, Peter Mommsen (who is white) writes,

Socialism’s champions know how to take effective whacks at capitalism, and they get at least one thing right: the fact that we live in a society of immense affluence and desperate poverty is a public sin with which no person of good will can be at peace.

Because of great economic inequality — and the looming risk of catastrophic climate change! — something is badly needed. If Jesus wasn’t a socialist, maybe what he taught and the way his first followers lived do point to what is so badly needed today.

The Universal Christ

Many of you are familiar with the name Richard Rohr, the Franciscan friar who was born in Kansas in 1943 and who has long lived in New Mexico. A few of you may even remember “Listening to Richard Rohr” (pun intended), my 2015 article about him. This article is about his highly significant new book.

Rohr’s Potent Book

The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For, and Believe was issued on March 5 in hardback & paperback, and on Kindle. According to this National Catholic Reporter article, that potent book debuted at No. 12 on the New York Times best-seller list for nonfiction.

As indicated in my previous blog article, I spent 30-minutes (or more) every day for a couple of weeks carefully reading Rohr’s book, and I found it to be of great profundity.

Perhaps because I have been reading Rohr’s daily meditations for the last few years, I found the first part of the book more helpful than the latter chapters, which were mostly ideas that he had previously explored in his meditations.

Rohr begins his book with a fairly long quote from Caryll Houselander (1901~54), an English mystic whom I had not heard of before. Reflecting on her words, Rohr refers to “the Christ Mystery” as “the indwelling of the Divine Presence in everyone and everything since the beginning of time” (p. 1).

That is the basis for his thought-provoking exposition of the meaning and significance of the universal Christ.  

Rohr’s Main Point

More than anything else, Rohr emphasizes Incarnation on a far broader scale than most of us have ever seriously considered. Incarnation begins with Creation, he says, and thus we live in a “sacramental universe.”

Rohr’s viewpoint is one of thoroughgoing panentheism. He is clear about that point: “I am really a panentheist (God lies within all things, but also transcends them), exactly like both Jesus and Paul” (p. 43).

Thus, God is seen as present throughout and within the whole world. Rohr starts his fourth chapter with Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s words, which I have long liked:

Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God.

“Christ Is Not Jesus’s Last Name” is the title of Rohr’s first chapter, which I found to be the most challenging of the book. There he states clearly that “the first incarnation was the moment described in Genesis 1” (p. 12).

He goes on to say that “‘Christ’ is a word for the Primordial Template (‘Logos’) through whom ‘all things came into being, and not one thing had its being except through him’ (John 1:3)” (p. 13).

It was that “Template” (“Logos”) that became flesh in Jesus. So, Rohr clearly affirms both the particularity of Jesus of Nazareth and the universality of Christ.

This is all closely related to what I wrote about in the third chapter of my new book Thirty True Things Everyone Needs to Know Now, although I wrote it before having the benefit of Rohr’s lucid book.

The title of that chapter is “God Is Fully Revealed in Jesus, But the Christ is Not Limited to Jesus.” Rohr makes that point more emphatically than I was able to do there.

Rohr’s Key Emphasis

There is so much more that needs to be said about Rohr’s thought-provoking book, but the following words summarize a key emphasis found in it:

A mature Christian sees Christ in everything and everyone else. That is a definition that will never fail you, always demand more of you, and give you no reason to fight, exclude, or reject anyone (p. 33).

We Christians need to think long and hard about those words—and about Rohr’s entire book.

TTT #24 Who We Believe In is More Important than What We Believe

Although I have sought to make my as yet unpublished book Thirty True Things Everyone Needs to Know Now (TTT) of interest and of relevance to people who are not Christians as well as to those who are, this chapter speaks mainly to those who are (or have been) a part of the Christian faith.

Shifting Away from Jesus?

In recent years it seems that there has been an increasing shift away from the centrality of Jesus Christ in the thinking of some Christians.

It would seem that for Christianity to be considered as primarily about faith in Jesus would be a foregone conclusion, but there are now some Christians who seek to downplay the significance of Jesus for the sake of fostering better relations with people of other faith traditions

Christ and Christianity are largely relativized.

It is a shameful historical fact that Christians have often mistreated those of other religious faiths, and the move toward a position of respect for those who embrace different views is highly commendable.

But to what extent can one downplay the divinity or the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and still be a Christian in any meaningful sense?

Believing in Jesus

As I was working on this chapter, I just happened to read (again) the story of Augustine’s conversion. Upon hearing a child’s voice saying, “Take and read, take and read,” Augustine picked up the Bible and opened it at random to Romans 13:13-14. 

Those verses renounce the type of profligate life Augustine had lived for years. But they also, significantly, contain the words, “put on the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Augustine went on to become a committed Christian and then a great theologian. Some call him “the father of Western theology.” But his conversion experience was not nearly as so much in what he believed as in whom he believed.

His faith was “putting on” the Lord Jesus Christ. It was not his belief about Jesus but rather his belief (trust) in Jesus that formed the foundation for all he later wrote about belief about Christ.

When I was a teenager, I remember hearing Baptist preachers emphasize, fairly often it seems, the difference between believing in and believing that. The latter, of course, is about what we believe, but the former is about whom we believe.

Believing that has to do with intellectual assent to statements or propositions. Believing in has to do with trust in a person. That was, and is, an important thing to emphasize, and people still need to recognize that difference.

Trusting in Jesus

In many of those church services where believing in was emphasized, “Trust and Obey” was often sung as a congregational hymn. The words of that old hymn were based on a testimony given by a young man in an evangelistic meeting led by the famous evangelist Dwight L. Moody.

It was quite apparent from the young man’s words that he knew little about Christian doctrine, but he finished his testimony by saying, “I’m not quite sure—but I’m going to trust, and I’m going to obey.”

Belief that is merely intellectual assent and often has little relationship to how one actually lives. Belief equated with trust, however, is much different: it means commitment to the one in whom that trust is placed—and when belief is trust, it includes obeying.

For Christians, what they believe about Jesus—and the many other doctrines of the faith—is important. But as human beings, whether people believe/trust in Jesus or in some other savior, teacher, guru, or whomever is of the greatest importance.

Truly, who we believe in is more important than what we believe.

[Here is the link to the entire 24^th chapter, which I encourage you to read.]

In Praise of a “Half-naked Fakir”

A tragic assassination occurred seventy years ago next week, on January 30, 1948. That was the day that Mahatma Gandhi was shot and killed by a right-wing advocate of Hindu nationalism. This article is written in praise of Gandhi, whom Winston Churchill called “seditious” and a “half-naked fakir.”

The Life of Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born in 1869. He came to be called Mahatma, which is not a name but rather a term of respect. (“Mahatma” is Sanskrit for “Great Soul” and is similar to the English term “saint.”)

After studying law in England for three years, Gandhi returned to India in 1891 but then two years later went to South Africa where he lived and worked as a civil rights activist until 1914.

The first part of the movie “Gandhi” depicts his struggles for justice in South Africa. (My respect for Gandhi was so great that I went to a showing of the movie on its opening day in Japan, where I was living in 1983; it is still on my list of “top ten” movies.)

Following the end of World War I, Gandhi began to protest Great Britain's control of India. By 1920 he was the leader of the movement for Indian independence, which he finally saw come to fruition on August 15, 1947—just 5½ months before his assassination.

The Work of Gandhi

The lifework of Gandhi was multifaceted, but perhaps of greatest importance is his role in leading India’s struggle for independence from Great Britain.

In 1930 he launched a mass protest against the British salt tax, including civil disobedience activities such as leading the Salt March to the Arabian Sea where they could make their own salt by evaporating sea water.

That march galvanized opposition to Britain’s rule over India, and it resulted in Gandhi and some 60,000 others being arrested.

In 1931 Gandhi was released from imprisonment and allowed to attend the Round Table Conference on India in London as the sole representative of the Indian National Congress.

Earlier that year, Winston Churchill had referred to Gandhi as a seditious, half-naked fakir. (According to Merriam-Webster second definition, a fakir is “an itinerant Hindu ascetic.”)

Upon his return to India, and after being jailed and released again, Gandhi continued his work as the leader of the independence movement based on his core value: satyagraha (truth-force), which basically means non-violent resistance toward that which was considered evil.

Here is a picture of Gandhi in 1946 at an All-India Congress committee meeting with Jawaharlal Nehru, who became the first Prime Minister of India the following year. 

Gandhi’s long, hard, non-violent work led to India gaining independence in 1947.

The Influence on and of Gandhi

Gandhi was a Hindu, and remained so throughout his lifetime, although generally there is little difference between being Indian and being Hindu. But he had great admiration for Jesus Christ and in many ways lived and acted like a follower of Jesus.

A Methodist missionary to India has shared (here) these words he heard Gandhi speak:

I have a great respect for Christianity. I often read the Sermon on the Mount and have gained much from it. I know of no one who has done more for humanity than Jesus. In fact, there is nothing wrong with Christianity, but the trouble is with you Christians. You do not begin to live up to your own teachings.

As is widely known, Martin Luther King, Jr., was influenced by Gandhi and his practice of satyagraha.

There are many reasons to praise Gandhi, who, like King just 20 years later, was tragically assassinated in spite of his non-violent activities for truth and justice.

The Beginning of “Spiritual Warfare”

Tomorrow (Jan. 6) is “Epiphany” on the liturgical Christian church calendar. Among other things, it is a celebration of the visit of the Magi to the Christ child. That “Visit of the Wise Men” is told in Matthew 2:1~12. Matthew continues with “The Escape to Egypt” (2:13~15) and then with “The Massacre of the Infants” (2:16~18).

The “War” against Christ

In recent years there has been much talk, especially by the Christian Right, about the “war on Christmas.” But Matthew’s Gospel tells about the war on the Christ-child.

Properly understood, the attempt of Herod to destroy Jesus was the beginning of “spiritual warfare” seeking to destroy the one born to be the Savior of the world. Or to use different words, this was the beginning of the attempt by the “principalities and powers” to destroy the Christ.     

"The Flight to Egypt" (c. 1650) by B. Murillo

“Principalities and powers” are often interpreted as being “invisible” forces of evil that war against people of faith. But those words most likely refer to concrete, visible forces—such as King Herod.

The spiritual warfare that began soon after the Magi returned to their homes “by another road” was not just nebulous activities by unseen powers. No, it was the slaughter or massacre of the baby boys that was intended to include Jesus.

Stringfellow’s Explanation

In my Nov. 15 blog article, I briefly introduced William Stringfellow and his book An Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land (1973). A major theme of that impressive book is the author’s elucidation of the meaning of “principalities and powers.”

According to Stringfellow’s deep understanding of the Bible, the “principalities and powers” are not some esoteric spiritual forces of evil in a nonvisible realm. Rather, they are “all authorities, corporations, institutions, traditions, processes, structures, bureaucracies, ideologies, systems” and the like (p. 27).

Such principalities and powers inevitably reside in those, such as Herod, who have abundant possessions, power, and prestige – and, according to Stringfellow, they “are legion in species, number, variety, and name” (p. 77).

“Thus,” he avers, “the Pentagon or the Ford Motor Company or Harvard University or the Olympics or the Methodist Church or the Teamsters Union are all principalities” – as are capitalism, humanism, science and scientism, white supremacy, patriotism etc., etc. (p. 78)

Stringfellow even suggests that we should “perceive the President as a victim and captive of the principalities and powers (p. 142). (This was written when Nixon was in the White House but is certainly applicable to the current occupant as well.)

The Victory of Christ

The New Testament later testifies to the victory of Christ over the principalities and powers by his resurrection. That important emphasis is found in 1 Corinthians 15, which prognosticates “the end, when Christ hands over the kingdom to God the Father, when he brings every form of rule, every authority [principality] and power to an end” (v. 24, CEB).

The eventual victory of Christ, however, began on the cross. As Brian Zahnd elucidates in Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God (2017), “Jesus was killed by the principalities and powers” (p. 100)—embodied in the religious and political leaders who colluded to put Jesus to death: Caiaphas, Herod, and Pilate.

BZ goes on to state, “Paul says the cross heaps shame on the rulers and authorities that preside over structural sin. ‘In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities [principalities]. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross’” (pp. 106-7, citing Colossians 2:15, NLT).

The struggle against principalities and powers continues. In this new year let’s deliberately and definitely choose to be on the side of Christ, who will finally win through sacrificial love and unconquerable truth.

Does the Old Testament Prophesy the Birth of Jesus?

Forty-five years ago on December 23, 1972, Abraham Joshua Heschel, the eminent Polish-born American rabbi, passed away at the age of 65. He was one of the leading Jewish theologians/philosophers of the 20^th century.

Heschel’s Brilliant Book

Although he was the author of several books, the most notable was The Prophets, published in 1962. That was when I was a financially poor seminary student. But along with Here I Stand, R. Bainton’s book on Luther, Heschel’s book was one of the very few non-textbooks that I bought. I thought then that it was a brilliant book—and I still do.

Recently I looked to see how Heschel interpreted the Old Testament prophecies of the birth of Jesus. I was quite surprised that in the 16-page “Index of Subjects and Names” there are only two brief references to Jesus—and one of those is in a footnote—and nothing listed for Messiah.

Christians, of course, see numerous Old Testament passages as prophecies of Jesus. (This website lists “353 Prophecies Fulfilled in Jesus Christ.”) But Heschel apparently didn’t think a single one of those were prophecies about Jesus. 

Heschel’s Passion for Justice

According to Heschel, one of the main characteristics of the Old Testament prophets was their passion for social justice. In the opening paragraphs of the first chapter of his book, he cites Amos 8:4-6 as an illustration of the prophets’ condemnation of injustice. Then his 11^th chapter is titled simply “Justice.”

Heschel identified with the OT prophets in many ways. In the 1960s, he marched for justice with Martin Luther King, Jr., and his daughter says that he was “close friends” with Christian justice-seekers such as Daniel and Philip Berrigan as well as with William Sloan Coffin when he was the Protestant chaplain at Yale.

Sadly, though, it seems that not only did Heschel not see the birth of Jesus as having been prophesied in the Old Testament, he apparently did not even consider Jesus a Jewish prophet—although Jesus self-identified with the words of the prophet Isaiah at the beginning of his public ministry (see Luke 4:16-21).

In his book How God Became King, N.T. Wright emphasizes that the “fulfillment of Israel’s story” is “in the story of the Messiah” (p. 112). That clearly seems to have been Jesus’ understanding, and it certainly was the early church’s understanding of Jesus. But that was not something Heschel could accept or affirm.

Heschel’s Fate?

In his book Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God, which I introduced (here) earlier this year, Brian Zahnd tells about sitting with his dying father, who could no longer communicate with him. On one occasion in that situation, BZ said he was reading Heschel’s book The Prophets—which I found most interesting.

BZ makes only positive statements about Heschel—such as, “Everything I’ve ever read from Heschel has shown him to be a thoroughly God-saturated soul.”

As he was leaving the hospital that particular night in 2009, though, this question “erupted from some fundamentalist outpost” in his brain: “Is Abraham Joshua Heschel in hell?” BZ concluded that such an idea was “irredeemably ludicrous” (pp. 118-120).

Because of his worldview/faith, Rabbi Heschel could not accept the core beliefs of his Christian friends—or of others who are followers of Jesus Christ, such as BZ or me. But even though he could not acknowledge Christ or the prophecies about him, we can accept/affirm him as one who truly believed in “the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph. 3:1).

In this Christmas season, may we all nurture a passion for justice such as Rabbi Heschel—and especially such as Jesus Christ—embraced.

The Bible is Like a Rorschach Test

Long before I read Brian Zahnd’s new book Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God I had made a note to use the above title for a future blog article. Thus, I was surprised when I read this in BZ’s book: “Sometimes the Bible is like a Rorschach test: our interpretation of the text reveals more about ourselves than about God” (p. 14). Quite true!

Literal and Metaphorical Rorschach Tests

Rorschach inkblot #10

The story of the background and development of the Rorschach test is thoroughly told in a book by Damion Searls published earlier this year under the title The Inkblots: Hermann Rorschach, His iconic Test, and the Power of Seeing. (I have only scanned the book, but here is the link to Thinking Friend Clif Hostetler’s review of it.)  

Rorschach created the inkblots test for the purpose of psychological analysis and evaluation. But the popularity of those tests has resulted in their metaphorical use also.

In his book, Searls reports that in 1993 Hillary Clinton said to an Esquire reporter, “I’m a Rorschach test” (p. 263). And then in 2008 Barack Obama said to a New York Times reporter, with a somewhat different meaning, “I am like a Rorschach test” (p. 309).

Truly, as the Rorschach test amply illustrates, people look at the same thing, or same person, and come to widely different conclusions about the nature and significance of those things or persons.

That is true for the Bible also.

The Bible as a Rorschach Test

How people read and interpret the Bible varies greatly. For example, the Bible as seen by fundamentalist Christians is different in multifarious ways from how it is seen by those of us who are not fundamentalists.

The passages of the Bible a person chooses for evaluating current issues tells us a lot about that person. Their use of the Bible is, truly, like a Rorschach test.

For a case in point, consider Robert Jeffress, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. Last month (here) I quoted Jeffress saying that God has given Pres. Trump the authority to “take out” Kim Jong-un. That dangerous assertion is based on his selection and interpretation of “God’s Word” as found in Romans 13.

Then on Sept. 11, in commenting on the immigration issue and the “Dreamers,” Jeffress told Fox News (see here) that “God is not necessarily an open borders guy.”

According to the Dallas pastor, the Bible teaches that God has established borders and instituted the government to protect its citizens. Thus, he says, those Christians who emphasize compassion based on Gen. 1:27 are telling only one side of the story.

It seems quite clear than when Jeffress looks at the Bible, he sees a book that supports the current President of the U.S. and the bulk of the Republican Party. That doesn’t tell us much about the Bible, but it tells us a lot about Jeffress and the “evangelicals” who agree with him.

The Proper Criterion

In his book mentioned above, Zahnd emphasizes that all of the Bible should be read from the viewpoint of Jesus. That is, the Old Testament, the letters of Paul, and all other parts of the Bible must be interpreted in light of the life and teachings of Jesus.

Baptists used to have it right: the 1963 version of the Baptist Faith and Message clearly and importantly stated: “The criterion by which the Bible is to be interpreted is Jesus Christ.”

Thus, when Jesus is the basis for interpreting the Bible, we find a perspective considerably different from that of Pastor Jeffress.

What does your interpretation of the Bible say about you?

Sorry, Miguel, But Jesus Was a PaciFIST

Miguel De La Torre is Professor of Social Ethics and Latino/a Studies at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado. He is a brilliant scholar, prolific author, and past president of the Society of Christian Ethics.

Mainly because he was a Ph.D. student at Temple University at the same time as my daughter Karen, he has become a personal acquaintance and Thinking Friend. (Karen’s essay “Feminist Theology” is one chapter in Handbook of U.S. Theologies of Liberation, a 2004 book edited by Miguel.)

Last month Miguel wrote an opinion article for Baptist News Global (see here) entitled “Jesus, The Man of Violence.” In the first paragraph he writes: “. . . intellectual honesty forces me to recognize that Jesus was no pacifist.”

I’m sorry to say, though, that I found Miguel’s arguments for Jesus’ non-pacifism unpersuasive. I agree with his saying that “Jesus was a troublemaker, instigator or conflict, disrupter of unity.” But is that antithetical to his being a pacifist?

A few weeks ago my pastor spoke briefly about this issue in a sermon. She emphasized, that pacifism does not mean, or necessarily embrace, passivism. She used her former church’s basketball team as an example.

PaciFISTS was the name used by the women’s team of Bethel College Mennonite Church. Here is a picture of her jersey:  

Pacifism does not mean passive resignation to an undesirable status quo. (Somehow, Miguel seems to have overlooked that point.) Pacifists can, and should, stand up and “fight” against opponents—just like Pastor Ruth’s energetic, competitive basketball team, the PaciFISTS, did.

This stance hasn’t always been emphasized in Mennonite churches. But what some call (correctly, I think) Neo-Anabaptism has made an important shift from traditional passive non-resistance to active, non-violent resistance. The latter is the position of paciFISTS.

And that seems to be the stance Jesus took.

Last month the second edition of Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context by David P. Gushee and the late Glen H. Stassen was published. (It is now a whopping 550 pages.) They state, “For the first three hundred years of the Christian movement, the church was almost unanimously pacifist” (p. 317).

Why did Christians take that stance for so long, if they didn’t get it from Jesus?

Miguel says “it would be simplistic to argue that [Jesus] was a pacifist.” But isn’t it historically inaccurate to argue that he wasn’t? Or was his position just misunderstood for the first 300 years?

Miguel also says that “pacifism seldom works in the schoolyard.” Well, it didn’t work for Jesus either. And it didn’t work for the many martyrs in the early decades/centuries of Christianity.

But the blood of the pacifist martyrs became the seed of the church. On the other hand, the violent rebels in the Roman Empire in those years (such as Barabbas and his cohorts) were annihilated.

I fully agree with what Miguel says about the need to oppose and to “disrupt structures that support and maintain oppression.” Thus, arguing for pacifism must never support suppressing legitimate cries for justice by the marginalized and/or the oppressed.

For that reason, I agree with what Miguel says about “the need to joder,” although I don’t know enough Spanish to grasp fully what he means by that. I think it is consistent, though, with what I am saying about Jesus being a paciFIST.

Those of us who identify as pacifists need, like Jesus, to be paciFISTs, seeking to do what Miguel says needs to be done: “upsetting the prevailing social order designed to protect the power and privilege of the few.”

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Considering “Your Erroneous Zones”

“A careful look at Jesus Christ will reveal an extremely self-actualized person, an individual who preached self-reliance, and was not afraid to incur disapproval.” 

Those are the rather surprising words of Wayne W. Dyer in his bestselling book Your Erroneous Zones (1976)—surprising not because they seem untrue, but because Dyer was not a Christian (as least in the traditional sense).

Dyer was born on May 10, 1940, and passed away last August 29 at the age of 75. Your Erroneous Zones was the first of many books he wrote, and I read it with great interest when it was still fairly new—and again, hastily, this year. 

Dyer’s book is certainly worth reading, and re-reading. On the New York Times bestseller list for 64 weeks, it was one of the top-selling books of the twentieth century with an estimated 35 million copies sold.

Even though a religious pluralist, Dyer had great respect for Jesus, as seen in his statement above. While not in his 1976 book, he is also quoted as saying, “My beliefs are that the truth is a truth until you organize it, and then becomes a lie. I don’t think that Jesus was teaching Christianity, Jesus was teaching kindness, love, concern, and peace. What I tell people is don’t be Christian, be Christ-like.” 

He went on to say, “Don’t be Buddhist, be Buddha-like.” From such statements, it seems clear that Dyer was a person who was very spiritual, but not religious.

Another of his books that I read with interest and profit was Change Your Thoughts—Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao (2007), and he has other books about the ancient Chinese spirituality known as Tao (now sometimes written Dao, the way it is pronounced). 

Dyer also considered Swami Muktananda (1908-82), a Yoga guru, as his master. 

Dyer held a doctorate in educational counseling from Wayne State University and served for a while as an associate professor at St. John’s University in New York. But he is mainly known as the prolific author of self-help books and as a motivational speaker.
 

On his website, Dyer is introduced as “an internationally renowned author and speaker in the fields of self-development and spiritual growth.”

The reference to a “self-actualized person” in the quote at the beginning of this article is a term made popular by Abraham Maslow, who in other places Dyer refers to as one of his greatest teachers. (It is surprising that he doesn’t mention Maslow in his 1976 book.)

One of the best, or most important, chapters in Your Erroneous Zones is titled “The Useless Emotions—Guilt and Worry.” “Throughout life, the two most futile emotions are guilt for what has been done and worry about what might be done,” writes Dyer at the beginning of that chapter. 

He suggests strategies for eliminating both of those “erroneous zones” and then challenges his readers to learn to “live now and not waste your current moments in immobilizing thoughts about the past or future.”

The final chapter of his 1976 book is “Portrait of a Person Who Has Eliminated All Erroneous Zones.” It could also be taken as the portrait of a self-actualized person. That summary chapter is worth reading and considering at least once a year—if not once a month. 

According to Dyer, people who have eliminated all erroneous zones “are enthusiastic about life, and they want all that they can get out of it.” That statement reminds me of Jesus’ words: “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).