Including tradition.

So many things I could have blogged about this week. 

But I'm going to take on something that I should have written last week that is still bugging me.

I haven't been to church in over a year.  Part of that is that I've been very, very hurt by a church in the past, part of that is that I've moved 3 times and I'm not in a place with weak public transportation, and part of it is that I don't really know how to go to church anymore if I'm not staff.  And yet one more factor is that I am, as my blog says, quite eclectic in my theology, and it's hard to find a place where I'm comfortable. 

One of those eclecticisms is that I'm both traditionalist and progressive.  I love a lot of the classic hymns of Christianity, but I don't love a lot of the masculine language they contain.  Last week, I woke up from a dream with the hymn "Be Thou My Vision" stuck in my head.  This is a lovely hymn with 2 quite problematic lines.  The first appears in the second verse:

Thou my true Father and I thy true son

And the second is the first line of the third verse:

Riches I heed not nor man's empty praise

 The last church I attended was a moderately conservative Episcopal church, and I remembered that in the hymnal, that second line had been changed to

Riches I heed not nor vain, empty praise

which I think is nice, and works.  But I couldn't remember what the other line had been.

And that line has bothered me for a long time.  I know "man" has been used for "human" for a long time, and while I don't like it, I can kind of at least slide myself into it when I sing a traditional hymn.  But I can't be a son.  "Sons" maybe I can sort of include myself in because I know it's a clumsy translation in the Bible from בני b'nei or παιδός paidos (both of which, yes, can mean "sons" but they also stand in those languages generally for "children" especially in Hebrew which doesn't have another word for "children").  But "I thy true son" just doesn't work in my head.  And it was driven home strongly several years ago when the hymn was sung as a solo by one of the women on our music team.  She had a gorgeous voice, mezzo-soprano-ish, and that line just sounded utterly ludicrous when she sang it.  And it's funny because that community usually changed the pointless masculine language to inclusive language when it could.

I think the problem is the next line.  You see, the usual arrangement of this hymn is in rhyming couplets.  So it goes:

Thou my true Father and I thy true son
Thou with me dwelling and I with thee one

This also makes sense in the context of the original hymn, which was composed and sung by Irish monks.  They were all male, and they had dedicated their lives to a kind of life that centers around God and worship.  But as much as I might long for unity with God, I'm not a monk and I cannot really be a "true son."  I'm not so great with rhyme and rhythm language, and I couldn't think of a way to alter those two lines to keep the meter and rhyme.  "Child" really doesn't work - what in the world could it rhyme with?

So, as we do, I turned to the internet.  Googling "be thou my vision inclusive" doesn't, helpfully, bring up an inclusive version of the hymn, but instead a lot of people bitching about changing hymn lyrics.  Which, just, ugh. 

I don't mind traditional masculine language for God, as long as it's properly balanced by acknowledging that there is plenty of traditional feminine language for God and I do prefer if people avoid pronouns generally.  And I don't mind the "king" language, because that is rather part of God's character and what makes God God.  If God isn't ruler, no one is, and we are God's creation, so God has authority over us and the rest of creation.  I'm as pacifist as anyone, and I'm all for the church avoiding taking power and authority, but I don't mind if God has it.

But there are people out there who bitch about any change to any masculine language.  Including that referring to people.  Sometimes they claim it's about translation and respecting the original grammar, but somehow they're ok with never referring to the Spirit of God as feminine the way it is in Hebrew grammar.  So basically that argument is intellectually bankrupt.  Appeals to "original language" are just appeals to keep women from being fully included, and are no better than the Victorians leaving obscene bits untranslated "in the modesty of the original language" (which was, of course, perfectly understood by women in ancient Greece or Rome). 

One of the things that drove me away from the fringes of evangelicalism where I was and to the Episcopal Church was that I am just sick of fighting about gender.  I'm a woman (more or less), God called me to teach.  I'm not going to fight about it.  I'm just tired.  Other women are called to, and I'm glad for them.  But I'd rather be part of a community that lets me get on with doing what I'm called to do and not interested in deciding if it's ok first or not.  It reminds me of one of my professors at JTS.  He is orthodox, and JTS is conservative (which is to say, less observant and slightly more liberal).  I once asked him why he was at JTS and not YU and he said at YU, he would say something, and the class had to spend 20 minutes discussing whether what he said was heretical or not.  At JTS, they just engage in what he actually said.  I'm not interested in people debating whether I can talk or not.

It took me a while of slogging and fine-tuning the Google search, but I finally found a lovely inclusive re-phrasing:

Thou my true Father, thine own may I beThou with me dwelling and I one with thee

 Keeps the same theme and sentiment, just re-works the word order for a nice couplet.  So now I can sing this hymn again.  Thank God for community.

Rhetoric has consequences.

I hope I don't need to provide links.  There have been so many violent events recently that it would be depressing to go trawling through websites looking for examples of all of them.  Other people have done the reporting, and some have even attempted to look at the context.

What is, and I hate to use the word, but, interesting is that it seems to be a transnational western/northwestern global thing right now.  The rise of nativism and populism in the United States is trailing a similar rise in western Europe.  While the U.S. has a somewhat unique racial context and history to some that rhetoric, western Europe is itself grappling with the legacy of colonialism which radically and violently othered those with darker skin, and the philosophical underpinnings of those histories is quite explicitly shared.

At the same time, a new rhetorical power (from those of darker skin) is also rising right now and explicitly designed to cause its own violence. 

As long as those in power somehow believe that their history and wealth and light skin absolve them of the actual, real, violent effects of their rhetoric, as long as they lie to themselves and say, "they're not like us, we are rational and would never commit those acts," they will continue to cause them.  A friend of mine was lamenting to me today about the predictability of that violence.  This rhetorical and ideological world that is being created inevitably, logically leads to violence.

Yes, yes, everyone has to make an individual decision to be violent eventually.  Shut up.  The nativist,  populist, othering, even apocalyptic rhetoric that is coming from all corners is, in fact, creating an environment where making that decision to be violent seems logical, reasonable, and even praiseworthy.

As long as dehumanizing rhetoric is being used, humans will continue treating other humans as things, not human beings. 

As Jews and Christians (I don't actually know about Islam), we affirm that all human beings are created in the very image of God, that there is something divine and therefore worthy of respect and love in every single human being.  Colour of skin or religion or wealth are not enough to deprive anyone of that divine image.  The destruction of it in other human beings is an act of violence not only against them, but against the image of God in the one committing the violence as well.

State churches, ecclesiology, and history.

The news in part of the Christian world this week that is being quite talked about is the "suspension" of the Episcopal Church in the USA by the Anglican Communion.  Unfortunately, the mainstream press has gotten a lot of it wrong, and made outrageous statements about it.  I've been following it because for several years now I have been circling around the Episcopal Church and considering pursuing ordination in that denomination.

This is a ridiculous and illogical article.  The author complains that the Anglican Communion has "disciplined" the Episcopal Church in the USA for changing their rites to allow full gay marriage "while unambiguous sins of other leaders have gone unaddressed."  And those sins are supporting repressive and punitive anti-LGBT legislation in their own home countries.

It is completely illogical because the people who voted to discipline the Episcopal Church are the very same ones engaged in supporting anti-LGBT legislation.  Of course they are not going to chastise themselves for their sins; they think they are right!  It is not hypocritical at all, what it is is unidirectional bias and consistent thinking.

This is one of the things that, unfortunately, makes me lukewarm about the Episcopal Church.  I am not sure I want to be associated with an organization that has such virulent anti-gay attitudes. 

But there's another, deeper problem here for me, theologically.  The Episcopal Church, and the Anglican Communion in general, are descended from the Church of England.  And the Church of England is an established state church.  We don't have those in this country, so I think Americans often miss the theological dangers of state church traditions (Americans in general have pretty wide ignorance about state churches and their history.  I once read a journalist reporting on the German parliament ask indignantly what happened to the separation of church and state.  Newsflash: it doesn't exist in Germany).

Besides the inhumanity of anti-LGBT legislation, the African primates are not only within their rights to affirm such legislation, but the history of state churches encourages them to get involved in the legislative process.  Until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it was baptism in the state church that granted citizenship (this also, by the way, opens a huge window that most people ignore when discussing European anti-semitism and the Holocaust).  It was the state church that made marriages and therefore inheritance legal.  Bishops in England still officially have seats in Parliament.  And this has led to a certain theology of church and society, one where the "wheat and tares" of Jesus' parable refers to the general population as a whole, who are all baptized as infants and then don't make good on the Christian baptismal commission.

I was raised in an amalgam of Anabaptist traditions, and I do think they have a better ecclesiology.  The church is made of those who have joined it voluntarily, it does not look for power in the world, and it operates separated from the world's structures.  For an Anabaptist, love is the guiding principal, and political legislation is irrelevant to the church's practises.  Even were a Mennonite bishop anti-LGBT, he or she would never endorse legislation criminalizing their lives.  It was, in fact, the huge population of German Anabaptists in Philadelphia (from whom I'm partially descended), as well as William Penn's Quakers, who made it possible for the framers of our Constitution to consider the possibility of no state church at all.

So the other reason I get a little leery of the Episcopal Church is its state church history.  It was the state church of Virginia and many of the southern colonies until the Constitution, and many Episcopalians unconsciously associate their church with social and political power.  When I look at the history of the church global, especially the first few centuries after Jesus left it, I don't see a church that was formed for power.  I see one that was formed in social and political weakness and extended love to those on the edges and margins of society.  Any Christian claim to political power is, I feel, not a Christian claim at all.

ASGW Sleepy Hollow (ep 9)

Sleepy Hollow episode 10 airs tonight.  Only 3 more left!  I wonder if I'll manage to watch season 2.  This is the first season of TV since... I dunno, TNG that I have managed to watch a show every week.  I think it has something to do with the fact that the episodes are online, so I can watch them even when I'm away or forgetful.

Episode 9 was mostly about developing the various charactes' backstories.  For one, I so called it: Ichabod and Katrina had a baby.  A son, specifically, which will probably be important later on.  There was also some slight development in Abbie's story too, but not a whole lot.  Surprisingly, the captain got his fair share as well; we met his ex-wife and daughter for the first time, and his daughter was given some significant screen time.

This, if I may digress a bit, is why Sleepy Hollow rocks and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D doesn't.  Sleepy Hollow takes the time to put a kid on screen and give her her own monologue to establish her voice and backstory.  And she's just a supporting character, with no promise she'll ever even come back. Agents is so caught up in explaining the McGuffin of the week that we still don't know who the 6 top-billed characters are, and since we don't know, we don't care.  The only episode of Agents that really did any character-building was the one where Simmons got the alien flu.  Even Coulson explaining how Melinda May got the nickname "the cavalry" doesn't give us any insight into her character.  She's still a cipher, like everyone else on the show.

Anyway, nothing really objectionable in ep 9 for Sleepy Hollow except for the main antagonist.  Why does an Ancient Near Eastern god whose main characteristic is worship involving child sacrifice have a servant made of tree roots from deciduous North America?  I'm waiting to see if there is ever a connection between Molech's worship and Ichabod's and Katrina's child, but I'm not holding my breath.  There was no indication of it in the episode.

Ok, maybe, maybe you could draw something from Abbie's line, "As soon as your son was born, the creature attacked," but that sounds more like the baby is some kind of mystic key (hey, he's the child of a witch, right?), not that Molech needs more child sacrifice.

Speaking of Katrina, one nitpicky bit:  Why is the letter Ichabod wrote to her in case he was killed on the battlefield folded up and hidden in a book when she was right there when he died to cast the spell that kept him alive? preserved? in some kind of magical stasis? for 200+ years?

Also, after the first episode where Ichabod met her, Katrina has looked and dressed nothing like an 18th century Quaker.  I think I already addressed that as Katrina Van Tassel, a Dutch woman in rural New York, she shouldn't be a Quaker at all.  Oh I didn't?  Well, she shouldn't. Quakers were British and largely centered around Philadelphia.  They could have made her Mennonite, which would have fit better, actually.  Mennonites were/are pacifists, like the Quakers, and the Plain Mennonites grew out of the German immigrants, not the Dutch.  So it wouldn't have been out of place for her to wear those fancy dresses and jewelry.  Also, Quakers were disowned if they married non-Quakers, and Abraham was obviously not a Quaker. 

See?  I should be hired as a TV/movie research assistant.

intervention

i have been thinking about this whole Syria thing, and wondering what a good Christian, Christ-like,  response is.  i do believe that God calls God's people to intervene and offer relief to the suffering innocent, and that relief is real, physical, this-world relief, not just a promise of some kind of vague spiritual paradise.  but i also believe that Jesus taught a non-violent way.  and quite honestly, we've seen the results of violent intervention all over the middle east, and there's no reason to believe that Syria would be any different.

so this is the conundrum.  how do you intervene in the suffering of the innocent but without violence?

and it kind of hit me, well, isn't that what the cross is?  in becoming a victim of violence, Jesus conquered violence.  in receiving the ultimate judicial punishment that humans can devise, the cross stands as a rebuke against violence and death.  but even more so, by God becoming human and dying, God conquers death.  the way of Jesus, the way of the cross, is to offer oneself to suffer with the innocent and to gain power precisely in the abdication of violent, judicial power.

so i think the Christian response to what's going on in Syria ought to be to line up like the Freedom Riders and the lunch counter protesters of the civil rights movement and take the violence on us.  take the bombs and the gas and bullets and stand there in defiance of that violence.

it won't happen, of course.  for one, i can already think of hundreds of logistical objections, and Christians really aren't used to working in partnership globally.  we're more used to fighting each other.  and it's incredibly rare to hear Christian preaching that says, hey, give up your life.  no, really.  give it up like Jesus did.  we hear more about how to steward our finances and improve our relationships and do good, practical things to work for social justice (and these sermons, btw, have nothing to do with liberal or conservative).

Christianity has become so wedded to political, judicial power that we don't really take the "give up everything" call of Jesus seriously.  this is true both in western state and culture as well as in the middle east.  we can't answer that call anymore because we don't know how.  we are too used to having that kind of power that we've forgotten to look for solutions that don't use it.  but we've seen the results of intervening in a society nonviolently too, with the civil rights movement here, and India's independence movement, and the path that took Christianity from an illegal, persecuted sect to precisely that political power that it is today.

and as strongly as i feel this conviction, i know i won't go myself because this kind of widespread, systemic violence is precisely why we have the body of Christ.  i could go over there, and die, and maybe my husband or parents would publicize the story, but it wouldn't cause mass change in the Church Universal.  so i'm blogging instead, and learning a lesson and looking for somewhere here in my local life to intervene nonviolently.

but also, i believe that the local, Syrian Christians have a responsibility to their neighbours, and i'm not saying they're not hearing God or whatever and they're terrible Christians.  they show us in the west everything that is wrong about Christian power wedded to state power.  they are our mirror, not our scapegoat.  it's our fault too.  but Christians are in a place and a location and a culture, and the success stories are largely the stories of Christians acting from within their own culture, not from outsiders.

but imagine if Christians globally flooded Syria and stood between the innocent Muslim children and the violence of soldiers on both sides.  imagine what could be the result of that.  that, i propose, would be a picture of God's throne in heaven.

life and death.

update:  i'm glad to say that the doctors in El Salvador have figured out a way around the ridiculous decision of the court and have given the woman a cesarean section to remove the fetus.  it is worth pointing out here that the fetus was developing without a brain or most of a skull, so it was not a viable pregnancy to begin with.

the supreme court had said

"the rights of the mother cannot take precedence over those of the unborn child or vice versa, and that there is an absolute bar to authorising an abortion" under the Salvadoran constitution.

if forcing a woman to continue a non-viable pregnancy that may kill her is not giving the unborn child precedence over the mother, then i have no idea what is.

let's be clear here.  pregnancy kills women.  not all women, and not all the time, but it does.  and somehow, people have decided that the appropriate Christian moral and ethical response is to let 2 people die instead of 1.

i'm not sure i recognize that Christianity.

original post:

ok, so i am going to wade into a fairly controversial topic, but it's been bugging me.

in several countries, abortion is 100% illegal.  these bans are usually supported by religious people, especially Christians and the Roman Catholic Church.

the problem is, in my perhaps not-so-humble opinion, that these bans are actually making things worse.

they are done with the express defense of the life of the fetus.  life must be protected because it is a gift from God goes the logic.  and i do agree with that statement.  life must be protected because it is a gift from God.  and further, all human beings are created in the image of God, which makes all human beings, even fetuses suspected of having severe defects, inherently valuable and worth protecting.  i am a pacifist in the Anabaptist tradition; i do not believe in killing humans even in self defense, and i do not believe there is any such thing as a "just war."  if i buy meat, i try to buy meat from places that treat their animals well and slaughter them with a minimum of suffering.

however, i refuse to identify myself as "pro-life" in the "abortion debate."  this is because so often, the "pro-life" stance devalues the life and image-of-God-bearing body of the woman who is pregnant.  the fetus, potentially viable or not, is given priority over the life and physical and mental health and well-being of the woman in almost every case.

this has been especially brought to my attention with several news stories recently.  in august 2012, a pregnant teen in the Dominican Republic was denied chemotherapy because it might kill her fetus.  she died and so did the baby.

in Ireland, a woman was denied medical treatment due to internal bleeding while she was in the process of miscarrying because the fetus was technically still alive.  she died and so did the baby.

now in El Salvador, a woman has been denied the ability to terminate a life-threatening pregnancy.  i am hoping and praying that this does not end in 2 more deaths.

that is the problem in all these cases.  the fierce determination to protect the life of a fetus has lead to not one, but two deaths.  somehow, the logic of protecting life because it is a gift from God is leading to the logic that it is better that two people die than one.

i don't get this.  it seems to me to be a blindness, a devaluing of all women by saying it's better that their life be ended along with their unborn child's.  why are 2 deaths better than 1?  how is this defensible for a Christian?  i do not understand.

the ending of a child's life is always a tragedy.  i do not deny that.  but the ending of two lives is, it would seem, even more of a tragedy.  i fully support the medical option for terminating a pregnancy when the mother's life is obviously at stake.  also, as the survivor of sexual assault and as someone who lives with depression, i will not restrict this to just physical health in extremis.  in all of these cases, the fetus was going to die anyway.  it does not make it better, it does not protect life any more to doom the mother to death as well.

if Christians really want to be taken seriously in "the abortion debate" and really do care about protecting life, then i believe this is not only the only logical position to take, but also the only spiritually responsible one as well.  women are not lesser humans, and we are not baby factories.  we are bearers of the image of God, valuable and loved, and i cannot see how any Christian can say it is better to take a chance on two lives than end a potential life to definitely protect a life.