February 10, 2016: Ash Wednesday

Does God require a login and password?

I returned today after a long absence to the meditational prayer Website of the Irish Jesuits known as Sacred Space http://www.sacredspace.ie, where I was surprised to learn that  there was a problem with my username or password.

Then a spiritual quandary confronted me: Does God require a login and password when we come to pray? I suspect not. The sacrifices of God are a  broken and contrite spirit, the scriptures say (Psalm 51:17).

So I  guess the universal login for signing on with God is: brokenspirit; and the universal password must be: havemercy. And if the password must be unique or encrypted or something like that, we could make it haveJohn3:16mercy.

Not a bad password anywhere, I think; although, I've never particularly understood its popularity on placards at sporting events. Perhaps those placards should read "Jesus Saves," a bit of graffiti that was a favorite of a young woman I knew growing up and one of the frequent signs in the Baptist church we attended.

But such public displays came to be a joke around New England when I was in college. The joke went like this: "Jesus saves--and Esposito slaps in the rebound!" Of course, it helped to appreciate the quip if one was a Boston Bruins fan--or at least a fan of ice hockey--and knew that Phil Esposito had a habit of hanging around in front of the goal and exploiting rebounds to become one of the game's premier scorers.

The point of my whimsical meditation, of course, assures me that God's Website encourages free access. By the way, it is Jesus who slaps in life's rebounds.

Earth Day, 2013: A godly note

Today we celebrate Earth Day, 2013

Earth simply means "the ground" in the Old English from which the term derives.

Of course, it also refers to the third planet from the sun, the one that Eucharistic Prayer C of the Book of Common Prayer refers to as "this fragile earth, our island home."

It is noted that in English the planets of our solar system, with one exception, are named after Greek or Roman gods and goddesses; the exception of course is the Earth (the rules of capitalization of the word earth suggest that the proper name gets capitalized only when it is in the context of other celestial bodies).

Here are the planets of our solar system in order of their distance from the Sun with a note on the origin of their names:

Mercury, after the Roman god of travel and speed;

Venus, after the Roman goddess of love;

Earth, from the Indo-European words for "the ground";

Mars, after the Roman god of war;

Jupiter, the chief Roman god (Zeus to the Greeks, also the highest god);

Saturn, the Roman god of farming (Cronos to the Greeks);

Uranus, the Greek god of the sky;

Neptune, the Roman god of the sea; and

Pluto (recently demoted to a sub-planet, or dwarf planet), the Roman god of the underworld.

Other cultures have other names for the planets.

A most fascinating name for earth comes from ancient Hebrew. One Hebrew word meaning earth is adamah, referring to "the ground." An intriguing word considering the Genesis account of the first man whom God shaped from the dust of the earth and named Adam.

Gleanings from the Irish Jesuits at "Sacred Space"

For reference, take a look at the "Lenten Retreat" offerings of the Jesuits at:

http://retreats.sacredspace.ie/lent-intro

Here are my gleanings from a Valentine's Day reflection:


Story precis:
Parents tell young son, Paul, that their newborn baby, his baby brother David, "has just come  from God." Later, they hear Paul whispering into the ear of his baby brother, "What's God like; I'm beginning to forget."

"Ponder and be moved by the One who becomes humble and poor, who goes down the ladder of human promotion instead of up, and who stoops in love before his disciples and before you in order to wash your feet."

"Prayer may be likened to an artist’s studio. All that God desires is that I sit and allow him to paint his likeness in me."

On Attempting to Define an Evangelical

In a blog posted on the Sojourners site, I read Jim Wallis commenting about “The New Evangelical Agenda.”

I forwarded Wallis’s article to some friends and colleagues with this comment:  “You need to read this. Pass it on to anyone who thinks “evangelical” means “conservative white male Fox News hound.”

(Before you go on, it would be wise to look at Wallis’s essay.)

One of my friends responded: “Very interesting. Just how large is this liberal evangelical movement?”

Welcoming the opportunity to clarify, here’s what I told him [slightly edited]:

Here's my take on answering the “how big” question:

It's probably better described as “moderate” and falls into many classifications with labels such as, “new-evangelicals,” a late 20th-century group that deliberately sought to move away from the anti-intellectualism of Fundamentalism, to a later iteration of “progressive evangelicalism,” which often gets confused with the more theologically liberal “progressive Christianity.” Another label is “post-evangelicalism.” There's also a group referred to as “Red Letter Christians” that expresses many moderate evangelical views.

The best representatives of a more “liberal” (another catchword) evangelicalism seem to be people with a concern for social justice: Jim Wallis, Ron Sider, Tony Campolo, Brian McLaren, come to mind, along with popular writers such as Peter Yancey, Eugene Peterson, Frederick Buechner, Donald Miller, Walter Wangerin, Lauren Winner, and Anne Lamott, though she would probably eschew such a label, as would several of the others on my informal list.

Among theologians, the most representative among the living would be N.T. Wright, Donald Bloesch, Miroslav Volf, D.A. Carson, Clark Pinnock, Ben Witherington, and J.I. Packer (Wright and Packer are Anglican priests). Here, too, some would probably demur from being so listed.

There's also a host of Roman Catholics or Catholic sympathizers who probably fit the evangelical mode: Brennan Manning, Thomas Howard, Kathleen Norris come to mind.

Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Tim LaHaye and most of the TV evangelists who like to use the term evangelical because of its historic connection with “proclaiming the gospel,” would not fit any of the categories mentioned above, and, in fact, are guilty, I think, of being among those whom Wallis in the article refers to as having “co-opted” the term evangelical by re-uniting it with the “Fundamentalism” from which it was intended to distinguish itself. Politicians come to mind--Rick Santorum (Roman Catholic) and Mike Huckabee (Southern Baptist)--who seem to fit this pattern.

Clearly, few journalists and media people (and politicians) are alert to the distinctions, especially when referring to the evangelical right voting bloc.

Here's the three I suggest you read to get a taste of clearly defined moderate evangelicalism:

--Jim Wallis, Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It.

--Miroslav Volf, A Public Faith: How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good.

--Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

There are many others. My recommended shortcut to these thinkers is to read the Wikipedia articles (or the Theopedia articles) about them. The writings of moderate evangelicals are enough to keep you busy for years.

By the way, I could continue for pages on the subtleties of thought that make the term “evangelical” a philosophical and religious morass. I’ll stop here for the time being.