I am not a Bible-waver.
Let me explain. The other day, I was describing my work to an old friend I hadn't seen in awhile. I explained the mission of The Beatitudes Society as "equipping the next generation of progressive faith leaders to advocate in the public square for justice, inclusion, compassion and peace."
"What do you mean 'advocate in the public square'?" she asked.
"Show up, speak up, enter public conversations about issues that matter to people," I answered. "You know, the kinds of issues you and I have always cared about: the environment, war, health care, immigration."
"Really, Anne?" she said, "Really? Why would anyone want to hear from church people? When church types show up in public, they just wave Bibles at each other -- liberal wavers and conservative wavers. Your Bibles are your bumperstickers. We don't need any more screaming bumperstickers."
Ouch. My friend is right, of course. We don't need any Bible-wavers. We never have.
And we sure don't need any more screaming. My inbox and my Facebook feed fills up every day with screams from my favorite progressive organizations and people, faith-based and otherwise. I can tune in to all the screaming I want from my favorite progressive news and nooz broadcasts and from The Others who are not my favorites. There is no end to the trading of screams, as we've just witnessed in the Capitol Hill back-and-forth about the federal budget.
What we do need are some voices of reason. We do need folks who can join the public debate, and speak about our budgets and our schools and our workers and our children and our planet and our wars with some facts (not just slogans) and some grounding in ethics and morals and, yes, even religion. This doesn't mean waving Bibles.
It means, first of all, keen attention to our inner lives, so that we can speak with authenticity. It means recognizing our self in that other, and seeing the shadow within ourselves, acknowledging both our better and our lesser angels. It means holding opposites in tension through the long process of reaching understanding. It means not jumping to resolution of differences but spending time on bridge-building. It means remembering that the common parlance of all the world's great religions, as Karen Armstrong and so many others have championed, is compassion.
And it means not screaming, but listening.
Among the emails in my inbox this week was one about the "inward work" of being a democracy, from Krista Tippett's weekly foray into the public square at On Being. The email included some lines from her 2003 interview with philosopher Jacob Needleman in which he said, "Shouting is not thinking." Quoting Isaiah (without waving a Bible), Needleman says, "Come let us reason together" and describes such moment of reasoning: "I spoke to some members of Congress not long ago. We had a very quiet evening together and we started opening up. ... And they said, in effect, you know, 'We never get a chance to do this. We're in there trying to, you know, speak to television cameras or make points with electorates or with lobby groups, but we never...' I said, 'You mean you never come together and just reflect together?' And they said no. To me, that's the dirty secret of America at the moment. That's the problem."
That is a dirty secret. It was dirty back in 2003, and even worse, it's not all that secret now. This story from Needleman breaks my heart, but it doesn't surprise me.
How about we imagine some new ways to get together and "just reflect together?" How about we show up, put down our Bibles and our bumperstickers, and listen to each other? We can do that in local conversations about our libraries, our parks, our kids' health, and we can do that in our blogs and our Facebook posts. We can listen to one another and talk about what we need to build stable and healthy communities. We can't wait for folks in Washington to do it. We have to show them how. I pray it's not too late.
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Stephen Menendian: The 150th Anniversary of the American Civil War: Our Legacy Considered
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This would be good. But in the realm of faith, every person tends to believe they are right and anyone who disagrees with them is wrong.
So when someone says you have to follow the Word of God, the question is, Whose interpretation? There are lots of viewpoints about the Scripture. There are 25,000 different Christian denominations/sects in the United States alone. Each one tends to think they hold *the* truth, while everyone else is wrong somewhere. It gets maddening.
There are general principles which can be agreed on. But then, people can justify their anger, their intransigence, their bitterness, and any other reaction by some verse or two from the Bible. People justify wanting to get rid of unemployment insurance by the Biblical statement, "If a man will not work, neither let him eat." Forget all the verses about compassion.
We have a lot of people who purport to speak for God but far fewer who are willing to let God speak to them. Those who purport to speak for God don't believe they have anything to listen to, since they have all the answers. They want you to listen to them, but they will not return the favor. Or if they listen, it is only with a view to "instruct" you later.
You want to debate war, discuss how to turn swords into plowshares.
You want to discuss the environment, debate what it means when God gave man authority over creation.
You want to debate health care, what did Jesus spend much of his time doing and empowering his disciples to do regarding the healing of the sick?
It all starts and ends with the Bible...
Lets face it, nobody knows who god is. Anybody that does is just forcing their OPINION on everybody else.
Unless of course god has spoken to you directly.
Therefore, yes, the other "thousands of religions" are wrong. They might have pieces of truth in them where they mimick and or twist God's revelation, but overall they do not teach of the one true God who has redeemed mankind.
Why must we choose between these two extremes: Bible waving and putting our Bibles down to listen? Why can't we have something in between, where we listen respectfully while reasoning from the Bible? The book of Acts tells us repeatedly that Paul reasoned with people from the scriptures. In Luke 24 we find the resurrected Jesus walking the road to Emmaus while he "interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself". In Paul's letter to Timothy the virtues of scripture are extolled.
If we put aside our Bibles we put aside the message of salvation that is meant to be proclaimed to all people. That's why the Gospel is "Good News". It's meant to be talked about.
I urge you and your readers to consider this third choice, the example put forward for us in the scriptures themselves.
The Bible is God's word to humanity. You can walk in your own counsel, but it has nothing to do with God.
Isaiah 5:21 Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!
The minute a religion enters the picture, the majority of the people are excluded.
Also, it's a good idea to have your OWN thoughts, instead of deferring to human beings who may or may not have written a book in the bible almost 2,000 years ago. When making an argument, deferring to a bible passage is known as an "appeal to authority." In doing this, you're telling the other person that there is an authority greater than they.
Religion only serves to divide. This is evidence in the over 38,000 brands of Christianity available for purchase worldwide. They are all vastly different, don't agree on much, and all assume that THEY are the ONE true path.
I could defer to Jesus and say that even he claims in the bible that he has come to divide, but that would just be another appeal to perceived authority.
And it is unfortunate that more people aren't listening to the religious among us because in my experience regardless of religion the religious often have surprising and thought-provoking things to say.
Unfortunately, most non-religious people only see and hear the preachers on TV, who in my experience are too much like our politicians and do not exemplify the religious people working in the community.
Why not turn off the TV and go visit a religious center in your community? You might be surprised to find more serious thinkers right in your neighborhood than you'll ever see on TV.
That is because we have become a society that only wants to hear sound bites. Most people can't even be bothered to vote, so it should come as no surprise that politicians can get away with running a campaign on buzz words.
"And it is unfortunatÂe that more people aren't listening to the religious among us because in my experience regardless of religion the religious often have surprising and thought-prÂovoking things to say."
You could say the same thing about nearly any group of people. Myself, I would like people to listen to atheists more, because from my experiences, atheists have been some of the most level headed, rational, and compassionate people I have met.
"UnfortunatÂely, most non-religiÂous people only see and hear the preachers on TV, who in my experience are too much like our politicianÂs and do not exemplify the religious people working in the community."
Doubly unfortunate is that the people squawking the most and getting the most attention are some of the most extremist Christians out there, and while they may be a minority among Christians, they have gotten their agendas passed in parts of the country.
"Why not turn off the TV and go visit a religious center in your community? You might be surprised to find more serious thinkers right in your neighborhoÂod than you'll ever see on TV."
Why not instead, go out and try to make a difference? Sitting around and talking about how bad things are, or going to church and praying for changes, don't actually get things done. Actions get things done, and actions don't happen unless there is a person to facilitate it. If people took more initiative and participated more, things might be a little different. But we sadly live in a country full of lazy people who want to be completely hands off.