The Little Denomination that Could Have

Column by Rev. Gretta Vosper on 22 June 2017 12 Comments

It’s been four years since I decided to publicly identify as an atheist. After the manner of time’s calming influence upon things about which we were once so passionate, my perspective on the wisdom of the decision has altered. And as we so often do, I revisit that decision from time to time and wonder if, given the opportunity to relive those days, I would make it again.

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Question

What are your feelings about singing hymns in churches where salvation requires the portrayal of Jesus as a sacrifice who shed his blood to cleanse us from our sins? Are these ideas still meaningful to anyone?

Answer

Dear Sandra,

What a tough question. Perhaps you have similar experiences to mine of these dear old hymns: As a child I used to travel into the Idaho foothills with my parents, grandparents, and the many aged members of my grandparents’ Presbyterian congregation for an Easter sunrise service where we sang hymns like “The Old Rugged Cross” and “Amazing Grace” by heart.

On a hill far away, stood an old rugged Cross
The emblem of suff'ring and shame
And I love that old Cross where the dearest and best
For a world of lost sinners was slain

So I'll cherish the old rugged Cross
Till my trophies at last I lay down
I will cling to the old rugged Cross
And exchange it some day for a crown

Many years later, while I was teaching English in Japan, I expressed an admittedly nostalgic wish to my friends there to watch the sunrise for Easter. They introduced me to the Japanese version of watching the sunrise—staying up all night, singing karaoke!—and then led me to an empty Tokyo canal as the sun rose between the skyscrapers. Huddled with my friends on the sloping concrete, I explained the double meaning of “sunrise” in the Christian tradition, taught them how to sing Amazing Grace, and we shared a beautiful moment together.

Amazing Grace!
How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost but now am found
Was blind but now I see

Are these hymns, by default, morally wrong simply because their content reflects an earlier era? For the individual person who feels a sense of connection and affinity for a hymn, no, I do not believe so. These hymns speak to all-too-human experiences such as failure and redemption, loss and renewal, loyalty and standing up for what is right. Indeed, many of these hymns have long histories that also make them special to us in a more personal way, such as my memories of my grandparents and friends.

Should we jettison a hymn simply because it reflects the beliefs of its era? I think that’s not fair, any more than we should stop reading books like Huckleberry Finn or Shakespeare’s plays (which are unbelievably raunchy, by the way). These classics all reflect outmoded ways of thinking, yet we still love them. Incidentally, some literary curmudgeons do argue we should no longer read these works, lest you think this is a problem confronted by religious types only!

However, it is the responsibility of each generation to create new works of art that reflect our realities and our values and, let’s be honest, our foibles. If our message is not more compelling than “Amazing Grace” and the “Old Rugged Cross,” how is anyone going to believe it is “good news” (gospel)? It’s hard work to convince people to accept new songs to love, but the effort is worth the challenge. I’ll close with a few lines from one of my favorites, a Unitarian Universalist hymn “Blue Boat Home” by Peter Mayer:

I was born upon the fathoms
Never harbor or port have I known
The wide universe is the ocean I travel
And the earth is my blue boat home

~ Cassandra Farrin

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Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited

The Terrible Texts: The Attitude of the Bible Toward Women – Part IV

Spong

"Now the serpent was more subtle than any other wild creature the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God say, 'You shall not eat of any tree of the garden'?"

And the woman said to the serpent, "we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die' "But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate.

Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons (Gen: 3: 1-7, RSV).

The ancient Hebrew myth, which opens the Book of Genesis, describes the biblical understanding of many things, one of which is how evil entered the world. Since a man undoubtedly framed these legends, it is not surprising that a woman was depicted as the villain. In the man's world women have been blamed for many things from that day to this. If a man rapes a woman, it is because she tempted him. If a man abuses a woman, it is because she irritated him. If a man divorces a woman, it is because it was no longer tolerable to live with her. It is always the woman's fault.

Male putdowns are everywhere. If a woman is competent at playing the man's game in business, she is at best a hussy and at worst a bitch. If she resorts to feminine wiles to achieve her goal, she is said to be "playing the female thing for all she is worth." Nothing has changed since the Garden of Eden. Eve, says the Bible, was the reason for humanity's downfall.

In the beginning God, viewing the world, pronounced it good. Creation was finished so God could take a day off to rest from the divine labors and thus to establish the Sabbath. In that perfect world God placed Adam and his helpmeet Eve to be God's stewards. They were to live in Eden, where all their needs were supplied. There was ample water, gold and even onyx, vegetables, fruit trees, everything that human beings could want. There was no separation since God lived in a perfect relationship with Adam and Eve, which was symbolized by the fact that God walked with Adam and Eve each day in the cool of the evening.

There was but one rule in this garden. A tree stood in its midst, the fruit of which was forbidden to human beings. It was called the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil." It did not become an apple tree until Jerome translated the scriptures into Latin in the early years of the fifth century. Jerome's clever designation has enriched our language by designating the nervous cartilage that vibrates in the throats of some men as "Adam's apple." Apparently, the forbidden fruit was stuck permanently in the throats of some of the Sons of Adam. Adam and Eve accepted this prohibition and began their life together in the Garden of Eden.

Forbidden fruit casts a peculiar spell when it enters our fantasies. One gets the impression that in the first family this tree was the topic of conversation and mouth-watering anticipation. Nonetheless, Adam and Eve remained faithful to the divine command, until one day when the woman was circling the tree alone. As Eve stared at that fruit, the story says, a serpent walked up to her on two legs, for that was the way snakes walked in those days. "Miss Eve." said the snake, "did God really say you could not eat the fruit of this tree?" "Yes, Mr. Snake," Eve responded, "God said that if we eat the fruit of this tree, we will surely die!"

"You won't die, Miss Eve," said the snake, "God knows that if you eat of this tree, you will be as wise as God. God doesn't want his creatures to compete with the Holy One!"

"You, Eve, can be as wise as God!" That was an intriguing idea to Eve and it offered her a vision of being something more than any of her dreams or fantasies had yet been able to create, and as such was a determinative temptation. She succumbed and ate the fruit. Then she called Adam over and urged him to try it. He did. The deed was done. God's perfect creation was wrecked. Disobedience had entered the human arena through the woman, the weak link in God's creation. After they ate, the story told us their eyes were opened. They discovered they were naked. They felt ashamed. They scurried to cover their nakedness with fig leaf aprons.

Suddenly, they realized that it was nearing the time for God's evening stroll through the Garden. Before their disobedience, God was their friend whose presence they looked forward to with pleasure. After their disobedience, God was their judge, the elicitor of their guilt whom they feared. They decided that they could not endure the divine presence so, in an act of wonderful naiveté, they invented a game called “Hide and Seek.” God was to be “It.” In a primitive way, they would hide from God in the bushes. So it was done.

This strangely human God, who was clearly without the divine quality of being all seeing, began the divine stroll through the garden, but could not find the man and woman. So God called out for help. “Adam, Adam, where are you?” Since this was the first time that “Hide and Seek” had ever been played in human history, Adam did not quite understand the rules, so he cried out, “Here we are God hiding in the bushes.” “What in the world are you doing in the bushes?” God asked. Then it suddenly dawned on the apparently limited divine consciousness, just what this behavior meant. So God asked, “Have you eaten of that tree?”

“It was not I,” said Adam, “It was that woman. You remember that woman you made.”

“It was not I,” said the woman, “It was that snake.” The process of blame had begun.

Then the punishments were handed out. The man would scratch his living from a hostile earth. The woman would endure pain in childbirth. The serpent would slither on its belly through all eternity. All must leave the Garden. From that moment on, life would be lived “East of Eden,” to borrow John Steinbeck’s title. Finally, all were destined to die. The universality of death would demonstrate the universality of that original sin, which was to be the defining characteristic of humanity, corrupting every person and making it impossible for human beings ever to restore their relationship with God. All of this resulted from the weakness of the woman. She bears the blame and the guilt. She is the source of the death that we all must endure. It was a terrifying charge to lay at the feet of the female. But that is the reason, according to this primal myth that evil and death are the clear distinguishing marks of our humanity.

We refer to women, even today, as the “temptresses” of men. They are the “forbidden fruit” for which our bodies yearn. They are the corrupters and polluters of human holiness. They are to blame for male powerlessness. Holiness in Western Christianity became associated with sexlessness. Virginity in women, celibacy in men came to be called the “higher way!” Even marriage was defined as a compromise with sin, used primarily by the weak. Jerome, that great translator of the scriptures, who would be better remembered if he had stuck to translating, once observed that the only redemptive aspect of marriage was that it produced more virgins.

A mighty rush began in the Christian tradition, to guarantee at least the holiness of one woman, the mother of Jesus, by establishing her virginity. The Church defined her first as a virgin mother. Then later added the status of being a permanent virgin, in an instant transforming Jesus’ brothers and sisters, mentioned both by Paul and Mark, into being cousins or half siblings. Next, as history rolled on Mary was declared to be a postpartum virgin. Not even the birth of Jesus violated the sacred hymen of the Blessed Virgin. Stories circulated that perhaps Jesus had been born out of her ear. This doctrine was then under girded by a quotation from the prophet Ezekiel, writing in the 6th century B.C.E. that the gates of the city were closed and only the Lord could come in and out (Ez. 44:1). With not even a blush of embarrassment, the “Fathers” of the Church leapt upon this text to prove that postpartum virginity for the Blessed Virgin had been prophesied in the Old Testament. Then to make sure that Mary was born without the stain of the fall, she was declared to be immaculately conceived in the 19th century and then bodily assumed into heaven in the 20th century. Before this primary female figure, in the Christian tradition, could enter the heavenly place, the Church was saying, she had to be desexed and dehumanized. It was fascinating to see that since it was through the woman that sin entered history, the only antidote to this sin was that both her sexuality and humanity should be removed from her. Women were the source of evil. We have met the enemy and it is the woman!

This is how a terrible text works. It is born in the attempt to explain a mystery. It is incorporated into a defining myth that people first think of as literal history. Then the literalness fades as knowledge grows, but the poisonous assumptions are still present in the bloodstream of Western civilization, living, growing and victimizing again and again through the centuries. Indeed until relatively recently, this evil was not even challenged.

This strange aspect of Christianity has claimed victims in every generation. Its dark side needs to be exposed and then transcended. Next week I will outline how the male dominated Church throughout history has acted out this definition of women. It is not a noble story.

~ John Shelby Spong
Originally published January 21, 2004

 

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