The Methodist church down the street has one of those standard issue church signs out front. The latest content, which has been up for some time, reads: "It’s not about belonging, it’s about forgiveness." I’m a Methodist. I work at a church across town, but I’ve not had a very cozy relationship with this particular sign. It seems to me that too often it succumbs to the temptation to host smug and/or cutesy sayings that are designed to look like the church is trying to minister to people outside its walls (by getting them to come inside) but in reality winds up alienating them further. At least, that’s what it looks like to me. So you’ll understand where I’m coming from when I discuss my reactions to the latest minor assault by church sign:

The average person probably won’t have any idea what this battle is about, but as a person just shy of forty, I could hear some generational discontent in it. I happen to know that this particular church is mainly comprised of people over 60, and is shrinking. In this respect it is similar to a majority of Methodist churches in this country. People from this generation have very different pre-occupations than do persons who are younger, and often these people feel that theirs are superior to the ones held by succeeding generations. Being human beings, this is perfectly natural. This would explain why there are two apparently viable options on this board, and one is being upheld at the expense of the other. If you grew up in mid-century, when Billy Graham Crusades were popular, this is how you were supposed to think. It can’t be about both forgiveness and belonging. It has to be either/or. So let’s examine both of these options and see what happens:

The first is belonging. If you or I are walking past that church, feeling lonely, confused, hurt, not sure who to believe or what is right or where you fit, the idea of belonging would seem pretty attractive. And you don’t need to be a scared adolescent to feel that way. On some level, at some time in our lives, everybody looks for someplace to belong. This seems so natural that it hardly needs to be put into words. The kittens at the pet store sleep in heaps because it is safe and natural and welcoming to have companionship. No degree in theology or animal behavior is required for that one to make sense.

Forgiveness, on the other hand, seems like more of a religious concept. In order to understand why forgiveness is such a good thing, you need to know something about sin, especially as the people of this church probably understand it. You need to feel that you have sinned, or are sinning, and need to be absolved. Forgiven. Because otherwise, you are in a whole world of theological hurt. Your soul is in trouble. You need forgiveness, and you’d better ask for it. Otherwise, you aren’t acceptable to God. This is roughly the doctrine as it has been understood by Christians for a long time. Some have emphasized it more than others, and even have understood it quite differently than I’ve summarized it, which would be a great shock to older American conservative Christians who often tend to assume that true Christians have basically agreed on all the important doctrines down through the ages and there have been no fights over what to believe and how to believe it. For much of Christian history, in fact, people have argued quite strongly (when they weren’t torturing or killing each other) about the proper way to understand these doctrines. Mostly, it was the intellectuals, or the ones trying to be intellectuals, who did the debating. For the nature of a doctrine is to be a theoretical abstraction. We can posit that it will have very real consequences in the next world, but right here and right now, it doesn’t seem to manifest as anything obvious to the senses. People don’t turn colors as a result of having unconfessed sin in their heart. In practice a doctrine can be as compassionate and warm as it practitioners, but for some of us, a doctrine is just something you have to believe before people will let you in their building. Even if it seems pretty simple: somebody does something bad to you and you forgive them for it. It might be something you were taught to do in Sunday school (if you attended), whether you feel like it or not. Forgiveness doesn’t have the immediacy of belonging because it seems to suggest that there are requirements necessary before you are allowed to have any of the privileges.

Exactly right, say the high moderns, those who came of age mid-century and are anxiously trying to save the church from the directions it appears to be going courtesy of those rebellious succeeding generations. Belonging is too easy. It doesn’t demand anything. It coddles to the gimme society. It is about what I can get from the church rather than what I give it. Belonging isn’t even a recognized church doctrine. Paul doesn’t address it anywhere (not in the popular verses, anyhow). It is just some kind of touchy-feely watered-down good-vibes concept that doesn’t require a belief statement or any particular shape to our religious experience at all. It’s just too ill-defined. Perfect for all those people who like to be "spiritual" without the discipline to practice any of the constraints of particular religions. New-agers who like to feel a reassuring connection with all things without the need for the blessed assurance that comes from realizing you are washed in the blood of the lamb and now it is time to get down on your knees and thank Jesus. Forgiveness is a teaching of Jesus. Belonging is just cardboard.

Fast forward a generation. Not only has technology changed the way we think, the rhetoric is completely different. Far less often is something a question of either/or. Evangelists in mid-century were fond of saying that Jesus’s claims to be the Messiah meant he had to be either had to be the son of God or a lunatic. No middle ground. You are either born again or you are going to hell. No in between. And if you are saved, you know it by golly, and if you have doubts, you aren’t saved. That is still a rather popular way to think in some segments of the church, and even among some young people. But I have the sense that this way of thinking is largely on its way out among people under fifty. Things are allowed to be a little bit more complicated than that. Some doctrines, or ways of thinking about God, are still more important than others, but that doesn’t mean there is one thing that is supreme and the rest should be completely rejected, or fought off at all costs. This kind of combat may, in fact, be completely missing the point. In other words, making sure we correct somebody else’s thinking (so it squares with our own, which is obviously how God sees it, too) before we even extend the hand of friendship doesn’t seem as moral as it used to. Maybe what it means is people are allowed to grow in their faith rather than sign a contract and just show up every Sunday.

As threatening as that sounds to some people, all it really means is the way we think about things is changing, not that the things themselves (which are too big to be pinned down in words) are changing. If the people of that church with the sign in front of it really thought about it, they’d realize that belonging was pretty important to them, too. Otherwise, what are they doing belonging to the same church for 40 years? I’ve been around enough older church members to know that belonging is pretty important to them. They even give awards to those who have been part of the body for a number of years. I have yet to see anybody get an award for forgiveness.

But when it came to the rhetoric to put on the sign, somebody couldn’t help themselves. Pure doctrine had to be defended from the world, it seems. It had to be either/or. And so, instead of reaching out to the community in friendship, telling them that they belong, and then telling them that however messed up they think their lives are they can be forgiven by both God and the members of a caring church, the sign reads It IS about forgiveness, It is NOT about belonging. As in, don’t even think that! You have to have your sins washed away first and then maybe you can think about coming in here. Maybe the people who put up the sign don’t read it that way. But I have a feeling that the people inside the church will resonate with the sign’s message, while the rest of the (unchurched) community won’t. Does that automatically make it the fault of the community?

I heard somebody recently complain about allowing the people who know the least about our faith to determine how we do things. I think they’ve got a point. A good point. But remember, this sign is outside the building. It isn’t for the initiates. It is for the people who aren’t inside yet.

So would I turn that sign around to read "It’s not about forgiveness, it’s about belonging?" No. That’s no better than the other way around. Doctrinally it’s worse. But anybody who is not steeped in Christian doctrine, who hasn’t grown up in a Methodist Church, who is just walking by that sign and noticing that church building for the first time is going to have to be invited in if the church is ever going to minister to them. They have to feel they belong first. If they didn’t grow up on Billy Graham crusades and Sinner’s Prayers and emotional comings to Christ they are probably going to assume that this church is trying to make them feel guilty for something they’ve heard the church gets preoccupied with: sin. And that, on some level, that church thinks that the people on the inside are always the ones that need to do the forgiving because somehow you’ve sinned against them. And they aren’t really going to forgive you for it, not all the way, because you wouldn’t really need them anymore.

Sound twisted? The older you are, and the longer you’ve been in the church, the weirder that last paragraph sounds. But we live in a college town, and the majority of the people passing that sign are likely to be young, and from a wide variety of backgrounds, most of which are not Methodist. They are ‘outsiders’. And it seems to me that that sign requires just a little too much familiarity with Christian doctrine to seem friendly, or cogent. Worse, it underscores the fact that the people inside are not on the same wavelength as the people outside and either have no idea, or believe it is their mission to convince the young heathens just how wrong they are. I don’t like either option.

So while the sign may be just what you need to hear if you are familiar with Christian tenets and are at least 50, it is likely to be a big "keep out" sign to the rest of us. That might be the way folks like it. The sign used to change every so often, but this one’s been up for nearly a year, so it might mean they’re proud of it. And they are going to get their way, most likely. But someday, that sign won’t be around anymore to correct the wrongheaded passersby of their "incorrect" worldviews. And neither will that church!

There's a quote I can't get out of my head lately. A philosopher whose name I can't recall said that "Religion is the mechanism whereby society worships itself." The reason the quote won't go away is that the more I think about it, the truer it seems.

We have a long tradition in this country of something we like to call "freedom of religion." This phenomenon means that from the earliest days of colonial America, different religious groups, persecuted in their own country for worshipping in their own manner, set up shop in America and promptly began persecuting others who didn't worship their way! This really didn't originate with Americans, though. For as long as there have been Christians there have been arguments over the right way to worship, with a lot of ink, and blood, spilled over the disagreement. One of the fascinating things about the Bible is that it not only records the emergence of new ideas about God, it also records the violent disagreements about those ideas. So, for example, when Paul wrote that Jesus came to save everybody, and it didn't matter whether you observed Jewish customs or not, Peter, who had gone to a lot of trouble observing those difficult customs which Paul considered unnecessary, was not too pleased with him. We can read about it in several places in the New Testament. There is an incident in the Gospel of Luke, a Gospel probably influenced by Paul, in which Jesus himself causes a riot in the Synagogue by telling the people that they are stubborn and won't listen and that therefore he will preach his message to non-Jews. His message didn't square with their notions of how things were supposed to work; worse yet, I suspect, he was expressing an interest in other cultures, and they didn't like it.

For some reason we tend to ignore things like that and focus only on the doctrines that were, eventually, accepted as the way God always intended things to happen, bypassing the messy process. This causes, I think, a pretty big disconnect between what we see as the way God's plan has unfolded throughout history and what is happening in our own time and place, since anybody who has grown up in a church has seen folks argue bitterly over something--often a detail that doesn't seem to have much importance in the grand scheme, such as the color of the new carpet or the sanctuary chairs. I don't have a problem with people expressing their opinions over these things--recently Kristen and I had to make some decisions about our wedding gift registry and despite the relative triviality of something like the pattern on our china plates I kept thinking "Ok, what pattern do you want to look at for the rest of your life?" Under those circumstances even a minor detail can become pretty important. But there comes a time when it is obvious to everyone that the parties concerned are willing to sacrifice peace, harmony, and the unity of the believers--everything, in fact, so they can get their way. The fundamental, non-negotiable core of one's religion comes to the surface in time of such conflict, when everything else may have to be sacrificed in order to preserve the most important thing. And that, with a depressing frequency, seems to be about style.

At a church session I attended a few years ago intended to provide feedback about the music program, I asked the moderator about what sorts of comments she was getting so far from other participants (there were several such meetings); whether any of them had anything to do with the theology expressed in the music. "No" she said, seeming to read my thoughts, "they're mostly about the style of the music."

So a couple of months ago, when a substitute at one of my churches saw in the bulletin what I was playing as a Prelude at the other, she said to the Pastor, amazed, "Can they do that?" She said this because I had chosen something that was not based on a hymn tune or published by a Christian publishing house; something that might be referred to as a piece of classical music. "Secular "classical music.

The people at my churches seem to get by this with surprising ease, possibly because it pleases their ears so they don't much care were it came from. To some it is part of their philosophy. A woman I was talking to last week said as a matter of course "God likes all music." (I think this may be going a bit too far in the other direction, but I like her attitude of toleration) But to some people this obviously presents a stylistic hurdle that they simply can't, or don't want to, get their minds around.

One such fellow wrote an essay that I came across on the internet. It is called "The Music God Likes" and it makes no bones about telling you exactly which style of music God prefers. I'll save you the suspense. It is Southern Gospel Music. That God prefers it is obvious from the fact that he has "blessed" some of its chief practitioners by making their albums sell into the millions, he argues. I imagine he wouldn't apply that typical fundamentalist argument when it came to somebody like Brittany Spears, who is "obviously" much more pleasing to God because her records sell at about ten times the rates of Bill Gaither! Yet somehow, large churches and wannabe large churches think that popularity means God is smiling down on them. I wouldn't assume that because they are big they can't be of service to God, but I don't think the opposite is necessarily true, either. Maybe it's even less likely. It's easier to be popular when you don't ask much of people. Like living the gospel.

Many churches employ what they consider "classical" music in their services, although that word means for most people anything that is not contemporary, and sounds well-behaved. It is code for the "good music"--the stuff that isn't loud or threatening, but bland and pleasing to those who want to use it to meditate. We can safely draw boundaries around this sort of music and assume that it isn't going to do anything we haven't anticipated. Probably we have heard the tunes hundreds of times; we like what we know, and we know this music very well. There's no worry that we might not like it because we aren't venturing into the unknown. It's our music. Our culture. Our symbol.

I can't remember a single time in scripture that God came to people in a way they were expecting. In fact, it happens so often it gets thoroughly predictable. Throughout the Old Testament God always picks the second son instead of the firstborn to do his work, upsetting social convention; you'd think people would have figured that out after a while. He is constantly telling barren women that they will have children. And when he comes to Elijah, he doesn't come in the earthquake or the flood--we'd expect him to do that, of course. Instead, the still small voice is a surprise. But, centuries later, we think that is the only way God's going to show up.

Well, some of us do. Down the street there is a congregation that likes their music loud and boisterous every Sunday. To them, this tame music of ours is a sign of weak faith. We might counter that they are mistaking an emotional high for the presence of God. We're probably both right.

There are people who think that everything has to have a drumbeat; then there are those who consider drums in church an abomination. Some folks won't have anything written after 1950 in their congregation, and others disdain anything written before last Tuesday. Or not in the top 40 (Christian, of course).

What's common to all these approaches is that it involves a formula. It allows people to relax and enjoy the music they like without having to sit through something they night not. If they find themselves doing that, they might pick the church down the street next Sunday, and if they "like the music" they might stay. I wonder how many people think to themselves, I hate the music, but they seem faithful to God, so I'll stick around.

I bring that up mostly because I wonder if anyone at my churches have ever considered whether I might or might not like the musical offerings each week. I'm responsible for choosing most of the hymns, and many people probably assume that I like them; that everything I pick is my kind of music. Which makes me chuckle, because a lot of it isn't. Not even remotely. Sometimes I choose sappy, ill-rendered tunes because the words illustrate the scripture in a way that is important, sometimes I choose a style that I really don't care for because the hymn is beloved by many people in the congregation (provided it is appropriate in the context of that particular service; this isn't request hour). People who are used to bullying for their own way, or refuse to celebrate anyone else's vision of good music are unlikely to consider that someone else may be compromising on their behalf, but I assure you, it has happened often, though I do it quietly.

I remember getting a back-handed compliment once after a service in which I played mainly "old hymn"-based organ pieces from a woman who said that it was so nice and that it finally felt like church. I had, of course, been playing other types of music in previous weeks (and using the piano in some cases!) which probably meant that the poor old woman had been suffering through church for some time!

Part of my strategy is to offer a wide variety. Even the most single-generational, set-in-their-ways churches have members who don't agree on what constitutes the "good music", but it isn't just to try to please a diversity of ears that I do that. For one thing, that simply doesn't work. Play a variety and some people just get mad. One week recently I got a suggestion from a woman that we do some old hymns. I asked as politely as I could if "Blessed Assurance" and "Standing on the Promises" qualified as old hymns, since we had sung both of them during the service that morning (they did). We had also sung a couple of more contemporary songs, and I'm afraid that that woman was so unhappy about the inclusion of some pieces she didn't like that she forgot about the ones she did.

But there is a much more important reason for such diversity of music. It is an echo of the diversity of life. People aren't all the same. We can't insist on our own way all the time if we want there to be any community. We can't tell them God wants it this way, or God wants it that way because we aren't God. Paul tells us to consider that some other people may be fed by what we ourselves don't consider important, and to take the whole community into consideration, not just our own opinion. In that passage that everybody reads at weddings (1 Corinthians 13) but was in fact written to a church community that was having trouble with internal squabbles, Paul says that love "does not insist on its own way."

Music sometimes presents a challenge to people. We tend to like what we know, but if you've ever seen some of the things that live at the bottom of the ocean you know that the Creator of this world delights in doing some things that seem pretty strange to our small selves. The world is filled with an enormous, prodigious variety. And we need to get some kind of grip on this or else heaven is going to wind up being a lot like Harford road [the road in Baltimore where my previous church was located—there were at least a dozen churches within a mile of ours], with a lot of separate rooms so we can all worship in our separate little congregations the way we like it. I don't suspect we'll be able to make much noise that way.

I've been challenging myself recently to branch out and play some things during the service that I'm not used to; exposing myself to music ancient and modern that I'm not even sure I like at first but which reflects a fascinating story of men's communications with their God, and perhaps some of that God's message to us. If we will hear it. It isn't always a pleasant, easy to digest message. You can't always go out the door whistling the tunes and feeling so good about life that it doesn't feel like you need to be in service to anybody because everything's fine the way it is.

There are a variety of opinions about this, and some people like, or dislike, my offerings every week. I don't think we can point to a theology that suggests that this is supposed to matter one way or the other; except, quite possibly, for the position that Paul takes when trying pacify some of the churches he founded, churches which set an example for the ones to come by quarreling about everything they could think of, apparently. Paul suggests that we do what we can so that other members of the community not "stumble" in the faith--not insist on our own way at the expense of everybody else.

Which presents an interesting conundrum. Suppose a church had been doing things the same way--singing the same 10 hymns, listening to the same 20 choir anthems, only organ music, of course, reading the same few dozen passages of scripture--and some crazy music director comes in there and starts messing with it. Isn't that "causing people to stumble?"

Only if that's were their faith resides. If it's all about the culture and the atmosphere then he would be tampering with a sacred cow. And we all know that any time that happens folks are going to get upset. And we know that one could easily turn that argument around and say "well, now, isn't that crazy music director insisting on his own way? Shouldn't he only play stuff that the people like because that will strengthen their faith?"

I wish it would. But I think that too often the tried and familiar is just a way of avoiding growth. Jesus didn't tell people that their neighbor was the guy in the next pew who likes the same hymns they do. He deliberately chose a foreigner from the wrong part of town to be the hero in his parable of the good Samaritan; he didn't eat with good Jewish folks who upheld the law of Moses all the time, he ate with Roman tax-collectors, with the "un-approved" people in society. He got in plenty of trouble over it.

Paul did pretty much the same thing. In his scheme of things, you didn’t have to observe all the Jewish laws and traditions first and then come to Christ on top of it, because Jesus was a new way, not an add-on to an already long list of regulations, and the sole possession of one ethnic group. Paul helped spread Christianity all over the known world as a result. If Peter, who declared Jesus was only for the Jews, or that Christians had better in effect become Jews first, and then Christians—if Peter had gotten his way, Christianity might have become an exclusive club that would have died out in the 1st century.

There are obviously considerations to take into account. I don't play pieces randomly because I feel like it; I try to choose pieces that complement the scripture readings for that morning. They might be familiar pieces everybody knows, or they might be from a different culture and new to everyone, including myself. One morning I played some Greek music. Paul was preaching to the Athenians in our New Testament reading. It also happened to be Greek Orthodox Easter, but that was a lucky accident. (although, ask the people who put together the lectionary; maybe it wasn't) Some folks liked the music, some probably did not, but as I said, I don't think that is supposed to be the point. The music spoke in a voice we hadn't heard; it wasn't a style I was used to playing in, so it stretched me right along with everyone else, but I think it may have, in some small way, led us to God, and to an appreciation of part of His creation. Maybe it didn’t speak to everyone. That’s alright, since I don’t think my part of the service need be an oracle from God (not every week, anyway!) Besides, there is also a sermon, a scripture, some hymns, even coffee and donut time after the service. Maybe, for somebody, God shows up during donuts. How do I know? I won’t presume to tell Him he can’t, that it has to be during an old hymn because that’s how we like it. Or during a challenging offertory either.

I find it really odd that, in worshipping the God who is said to have created absolutely everything we have such narrow confines about how we should worship this God. We are dealing with huge issues in a very small manner. I've never managed to get my mind around this conflict, no matter how tortured my logic.

Unless that philosopher is right. Then it makes perfect sense. If it is our culture, even our specially created church culture, that is the object of our devotion we will resist anything that is not a part of it. We will fight tooth and nail for the way things were, or the way they are, or the way we think they oughtta be, and we won't allow any deviation from this narrow path; any variety, any difference of opinion, any plurality of approaches. There is another dirty little secret about singing the same five hymns every Sunday and only using the pipe organ; or the praise band (yes, contemporary folks can be just as narrow about what they will accept in the church as the traditional ones). We don't have to think about it much if it is always the same way. We can just show up for an hour on Sunday, go home feeling good, and forget about it until the following week. It's much more comfortable that way, and, judging from the abundance of entertainment options that offer strict, no-surprises formats in our society, that's the way most people prefer things. But is that the point?

Read the fine print. Most bibles are in pretty small type, but the good news is that it is all the same size. Jesus’ unpopular sayings are the same size as the popular ones. It’s a pretty serious challenge this election year to be confronted with the closest written record we’ll have to the real Jesus of Nazareth, but when you finish (which is truly never) you’ll know who you are following. Or if you still want to…

To: Martin Luther, the afterlife, in whatever region or realm he may be found, definitely not purgatory!

From: Michael Hammer, a protestant from five centuries later, from one of those troublesome splinter groups called Methodism, an impetuous thinker who insists on cleaving to the incubus called independent thought; an impudent questioner of his great forbear’s outlook and decision making, a spiritual descendant and 100^th generation or so heir to the movement of which you are known as the founder, beneficiary of the blessings, sufferer of the consequences

Sir: I have been reading about your meeting in 1529 with the Swiss Protestants. It appears that at that meeting you passed up a golden opportunity to recognize and respect those whose doctrinal positions were slightly different from your own, and thus to make a sort of truce. I realize, of course, that such a compromise was not in your nature, nor was it a fashionable idea in anyone’s mind in your long, bloody, intolerant century, but I think you might have spared Europe many years of killing and destruction if you had in fact allowed in practice what you preached in theory: that individuals might make up their own minds about such matters. Doctrines are sufficiently abstract items that they do not often affect the health or welfare of those who hold them, except that people who believe in predestination or have an obsession with the idea of damnation may be very depressed and afraid, spending their lives in fear that they cannot hope to please their holy and exacting Father. It is thus possible for those with different opinions about spiritual matters to live next to each other in this world without negative effect, as we have found in those parts of the world that do indeed allow religious tolerance. Some of us may, of course, be wrong about certain matters, but allowing us the freedom to hold those views also allows our neighbors time to persuade us with arguments from scripture and with a loving example. Segregating people into religious districts where they are forced to accept a whole slate of beliefs which they can barely understand and which they may not examine for themselves only shows a low opinion of mankind generally, and by your logic, condemns certain portions of it to hell simply because of their geography.

In the end, I think Christ would get far less worked up about the specifics of these matters than yourself, as doubtless you have already discovered. What seemed to be bother him particularly was the application of these doctrines in a way that caused people to suffer. Not being allowed to heal on the Sabbath, for example, because there was doctrine against it. The doctrine may have gotten its start in a commandment of God, but it had since grown details, and become a way to oppress rather then renew. It had become a rule taught by men. Even the power of God was not supposed to get in its way. (i.e., God was not allowed to interfere with good doctrine) Jesus got very angry about such things.

To the subject at hand: My understanding is that at your meeting, you insisted that the Swiss delegation accept a 16-point statement of beliefs, not one of which was open to any interpretation but your own, and did not include a line-item veto: the Swiss could not agree to 15 of those points and still be considered brothers in the faith. This is a pretty rigid standard.

Among those beliefs was the idea of consubstantiation at communion: the idea that Christ is present literally in the bread at communion. This is not to be confused with transubstantiation, of course, which you define as a priestly magic trick—it is not by invitation, or by order, of the priest, but rather by Christ’s own volition, that he enters the bread. As violently as you opposed the Catholic doctrine, it does not have occurred to you that such a presence might in fact be symbolic. Your Swiss brethren (if I may use the offending term brethren to describe those whom you held in such contempt) could not see their way to thinking that symbolism or promise was nothing but a poor substitute for material possession of their God as flesh and blood. Which was why you wrote, in chalk on the table, the phrase "This is my body", a direct quote from scripture, with which, like many a good Christian before and after you, you assumed to close your case, sharing the common weakness to make an idol out of one’s own logic.

Had I been present at your meeting, there are two points I should liked to have addressed regarding your defiant graffiti. The first is that this sentence you have scribbled is most probably a metaphor. While it looks like a declarative sentence, this is unlikely. It is an unfortunate grammatical trick that metaphors often masquerade as declarative sentences and it is this tragedy that allows literal-minded persons like yourself to miss their meaning altogether.

The reason for my observation is this: Christ often used metaphors such as this one. When he said "I am the vine, you are the branches" he did not literally mean that he was a vine and that his disciples where branches. When he said "I am the sheepfold gate" he did not accomplish a miracle and turn himself into a gate on the spot for the disciple’s wonderment.

It is true that he also used similes, or that some of his expressions have been translated into similes, which makes them easier to detect. Thus, the kingdom of heaven is LIKE a mustard seed, or LIKE a bit of leaven in a lump of dough. But Jesus seemed to trust his audiences to note the difference between actual statements of fact and statements describing things which cannot be described in ordinary prose. Perhaps he ought to have been less optimistic, for when he told his disciples to "beware the yeast of the Pharisees" they thought he was angry with them for not bringing bread for the journey across the sea of Galilee. Jesus must have soon realized that even the twelve had slower minds than his and tended to see what was before them in the present rather than the possibility for what might await them, indeed the whole world, in the future. Visionaries continually confront this problem.

Still Jesus persisted in mixing dry fact and imaginative fiction. He was continually telling stories which he did not trouble to ground in historical happening. Suppose he had. What might the parable of the two brothers have sounded like if Jesus were taking it entirely out of personal observation rather than making up a story in order to make a point, a story whose details were there simply to get attention before driving the thesis home?

THE TRUE STORY OF THE BROTHERS

And Jesus said to them, " One fine spring day in the summer of 6…no we had an especially hot spring and summer that year, must have been 07. That was the year that Roman soldier taxed us the extra bushel of wheat and my uncle got killed for not paying it…no, that wasn’t it. It must have been in 06, right after we had that big rainstorm. Anyway, we had a vineyard up the road, and this man lived with his two sons. Apparently he needed them to help with the cultivating or something. Unless it was the harvest, but that wouldn’t put it until two months later…we never had any grapes, couldn’t afford them, didn’t have the land. Dad was too busy with carpentry anyway. But I think that’s about the right chronology. And if I remember, migrant workers were kind of scarce that year, so he probably would have needed all the help he could get. So anyhow, he asks the older son for help and the fellow says "sure, dad, I’ll help" and the next thing you know he’s gotten up a game of marbles with some of the boys from our neighborhood until one of the big marbles, you know, the shooter, gets lost in a ravine somewhere and then we were playing blind ma’s bluff until evening. Boy, that sure was fun."

It was getting late, and the disciples were hungry, so Peter asked him, "Lord, was there a point to this story?"

Jesus said, "Did you like to play that game as a boy?"

This is not Jesus the wise teacher son-of-God, this is Jesus trying to be Mark Twain—with moderate success. But like Mr. Twain, I have digressed from the path. Forgive us our digressions.

The point is that statements of fact, if that is your main concern, do not necessarily point to anything beyond themselves. As stories, they can become cluttered, confused, and complex, as life is. A storyteller can select just those details which will make the message come through—which is already a kind of filtering. But a metaphor doesn’t even have time for that. It is so compact that it must make its point immediately. Even one that can’t be easily understood by those who can only think of what they know, which, necessarily, does not include the fulfillment of the kingdom of heaven, whether in paradise or on earth.

You said that you would change your positions if any of your arguments could be refuted on the basis of scripture. It is too bad that it is too late for this. If it were not, I would ask you to mull over the myriad of statements like "you are the salt of the earth" or "I am the light of the world" (which is a wonderful way to describe the way Jesus "shines" truth on the world, but if it is not a symbolic light, would make him the sun, which literally provides light to this world, thus going outside on a bright day would have to be a sacrament equal to communion!) When you get to the end you will find that Jesus practically never makes a statement that can be taken as a descriptor of literal (earthbound) fact anytime in his ministry!

I have belabored this point because there are so many today who also cannot wrap their minds around symbols or metaphor and, when it suits them, take literally the words of the Bible. When it does not suit them, they ignore those passages. They stir up a great deal of strife and vituperation, and, frankly, make it a difficult thing for thoughtful, compassionate persons to want to be Christians.

You will pardon me if I make my other point quickly before I go. It is designed to appeal to the literal-minded among us. To my mind it is closer to legalistic quibbling, but I think it will speak to you more than my other observation. When Jesus said "This is my body, broken for you" he was sharing dinner with his disciples. He had not yet given his body to be broken for us. Thus, the broken bread that the disciples were eating could only be a foreshadowing of the actual sacrifice, and could not have been the actual broken body of Christ, who was still standing among them. In fact, it was he who broke the bread, which would have make him, if his presence were literally to enter the bread, both the bread, and the one breaking the bread. I’m sure an omnipotent God could pull that one off, but I don’t think that kind of legerdemain would appeal to a parochial outlook such as yours.

Instead, you chose to insist that you had the only true and proper understanding of the way in which the communion works. It is reported that you refused to shake hands with the leader of the Swiss delegation, and that one of your companions marveled at how they could describe yourselves as "brethren" since they did not agree with your doctrine. Have you considered that Jesus might even wish us to love those with doctrinal differences? Or is that really going too far? Enemies, perhaps, Jesus would have us love. People who are ethnically mixed, like Samaritans (whom the Jews of his time hated beyond all reason). But people with different ideas about church doctrine: never!

Like many religious minds you seem to have felt that allowing diversity of opinion on such matters would lead to chaos, or perhaps to uncertainty on some points, which, once they had entered your consciousness, nagged to be neatly resolved. I fear that in doing so you succumbed to another error which does not get much treatment by theologians. By believing that you had the proper interpretation of what is surely a divine mystery and could accurately distinguish proper from improper, right from wrong, you showed us that you share greatly in the inheritance of those who partook of that forbidden fruit so long ago. How wonderful, thought Eve, to be able to distinguish good from evil, right from wrong, and thus to be just like God. It seems she was prodded into this decision by one snake, who prophesied the results of her decision in the most rose-colored terms.

Her disaster, it seems, was in believing that the snake was telling the truth. As was yours. And your contemporaries’. Many people killed each other over such certainties. From this distance, and as a man who has lived up till now a peaceful life, I cannot fathom how one would make war over something that seems so little connected to the essence of living. And I believe Jesus was similarly frustrated over such things when he warned the Pharisees that they "lived by rules taught by men" and not God. Nonetheless, I am willing to consider where I may not be perfect in my knowledge, and to offer my hand in courtesy from a distant posterity. Will you refuse to shake it also?

You must have a lot of eternity on your hands these days. If you would, please pray for my soul. Your doctrines have taught me to understand that there is no point in praying for yours. Nonetheless, I wish you peace.

M Hammer

I was reading an article in the newspaper on mystery writer Patricia Cornwell when a bomb went off. Not a physical bomb, but a psychological one. I had a strong reaction to something she said, and, in the age of blogs I naturally marched off to my computer and began to pound out this little ditty.

I happen to know somebody who reads every book she can from this best-selling author so while I was flipping through the paper at lunch I thought I'd read a little bit about her. She doesn't like to share details about her private life, which is understandable, because who wants everybody in the world discussing your private life? This isn't about that.

One of the things I learned about her is that she is gay. This was not the bomb. Many persons who consider themselves religious find it impossible to treat homosexual persons like they are actual human beings, and some believe they have good reasons for it. I think she is rather brave for saying so, even late in 2008, and I imagine she is getting a large volume of hate mail right about now. I wish her luck and a thick hide. And more compassion than some of those letter writers have.

Another thing I learned about her is that she had a very difficult childhood. This really isn't all that surprising. Many of the most successful people in our world had, for one reason or another, to scramble for their existence early in life, and it caused them to work harder than the rest of us.

I learned that she was grateful, during those early years, for help from a neighbor. This neighbor was named Ruth Graham. She is the wife of the popular revivalist Billy Graham. Don't you find that a little interesting? Who would have thought about evangelist Ruth Graham and mystery-novelist Patricia Cornwell crossing paths in a significant way? That takes a little imagination from whoever is writing the script for this movie.

But here is how Cornwell summed up their relationship, and this IS the bomb. Ready?

"It was about kindness. It had nothing to do with religion."

You can't tell, because it is inert, in newsprint, without a tone or a gesture to tell how she meant that, but it caused me to wonder. Did she just toss that observation off causally, backed by assumptions that she hadn't thought about much recently, or is there a firm conviction behind those words? Does she assume that religion is, by nature, exclusive and hate-filled, or at least narrow of mind, and that the kindness her neighbor exhibited went beyond that, or was in spite of that? Did she assume that since her neighbor wasn't trying to get her baptized that her kind gesture couldn't have anything to do with her religious outlook? Maybe Graham would interpret things a bit differently. But we all know people who are regular saints who don't advertise their religious affiliation on their sleeves. Maybe they don't have any. And there are plenty of holy SOBs on this earth, too.

So here is the question of the day! Does religion have anything to do with kindness?

For many of us, religion is chiefly concerned with ceremony and/or doctrine. In other words, going to church and believing the right stuff. Kindness is sometimes thrown into the mix somewhere, so long as it does not interfere with the first two. Most churches have some kind of outreach or mission program, though it is frequently treated like an afterthought. So it is hard to give Cornwell too much grief for assuming the two aren't connected somehow. The article didn't say whether she had had much involvement with religious institutions or people connected with them besides Graham. She might be assuming a lot of brutishness and hypocrisy from a distance and want nothing to do with any of us 'religious types,' which is a bit unfair, and an ugly stereotype. On the other hand, she would have more than enough examples of real life religious idiocy if she wandered into some churches that it would merely confirm those ideas, not to mention the hate mail. If there were a way to be sympathetic to all this while issuing a challenge to get more involved and see if her assumptions aren't called into question at times in the same sentence I would do it. Will that last sentence answer?

But there isn't much point in blasting Cornwell for her ideas about a religion which does not imply any compassion. Better to check for the logs in our own eyes first. There is a long tradition of persons critical of the practice of religion that is separate from decent human behavior: a series of laws, ceremonies, customs, doctrines, empty rhetoric, and the like, without bothering with justice and mercy and love. If we were getting it right the prophets of old wouldn't have had much to write about.

Consider this gem from 1 Samuel:

"Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord?"

Or the ever popular Micah passage: (6:8)

"What does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."

Jesus couldn't resist quoting Micah a couple of times. It is an either/or passage. "I desire mercy, not sacrifice" it reads. In other words, God would much rather you show love to your neighbor than show up for church. You can do both, I imagine, but that passage doesn't seem to suggest it. Maybe Micah had gotten so sick of religious people who embodied the worst characteristics of humanity, getting the ceremony right and ignoring the needs of the people (and probably exploiting them) that he wasn't even prepared to temper his remarks a little.

You can see why Jesus had had his fill of such people. When he tried to heal somebody on the Sabbath he fell afoul of a rule that said you can't do any work on that holy day of rest. Not even to improve somebody's life by an act of compassion. Because it's against procedure. "But" he protested "you have a loophole that allows you to get an animal out of a hole if he's fallen in. You rich guys get to protect your assets even on the Sabbath, but you don't give a rat's tail end about actual people!" He didn't use the term 'rat's tail end,' but I suspect he employed rather strong language. Some of the language that did make the gospels, like calling the Pharisees "whitewashed tombs" doesn't sound very harsh now but was actually a pretty strong insult.

There are thousands of such passages in the bible, even if they aren't the most popular. Meanwhile, churches are busy trying to get more members to join their club and show how their understanding of God is superior to the guys down the street. Acting compassionately toward your neighbor is too much of a risk. Besides, What if that neighbor turns out to be somebody like Ms. Cornwell who doesn't assume that your compassion springs from your particular brand of Christianity and doesn't just want to run out and get baptized? Your kindness toward your neighbor may just wind up being that, and stop short of an act of salesmanship into the bargain. At that rate, your church--maybe even THE church, will never take over the world! Zounds!

I do have one self-serving request to make of Ms. Cornwell, though. If her difficult experiences have taught her to work for justice and to have compassion on her fellow humans, I hope she joins our cause in some way. It doesn't have to include showing up for church on Sunday. I say this, not because it will save her soul, but because it will mean we have become a more charitable and forgiving and just church by one more person. Somebody who, despite the shocks and indignation some of those on the "inside" might feel having a gay murder novelist among them, might be a lot closer to the kingdom of heaven then they are, because she is closer to understanding the most important commandments as Jesus pointed them out, which have nothing to do with religion as it is popularly understood by so many both on the inside and the outside: "Love the Lord your God....AND, love your neighbor..."

Is that really so hard?

A few weeks ago I was approached by some salesmen. The first sued for my friendship while I was out mowing the yard. This, I soon realized, can be a hazardous occupation.

The product for sale was a 50-dollar jug of a solution that was intended to get stains off my driveway. I will mention this up front because if you are like me that is the essence of the situation and you want to know it immediately. I only found this out after a good deal of questions and a lot of listening.

My saleslady was in high gear, making jokes, attempting to get me to laugh, flattering me on the exquisite condition of my lawn, trying to know me in 30 seconds so she could comment favorably on all the choices I have made in life, perplexed that I was not laughing uproariously at her jokes, and a bit slow to respond to her rosy assessment of my journey through life. I was still overcoming an illness, and my head was thick with viscosity, but even through the fog I managed to get down to the bare facts. Of course, the bare facts were not what my friendly assailant was interested in, and she begged me not to be interested in them either. I was supposed to buy the solution in order to help her get off the street. Suds not drugs, she kept saying. Anyhow, my wife wouldn’t want to see those stains, she’d make me do something about them, and do you know how much the average homeowner spends every year trying to make the driveway stain-free? $200, that’s what, so look what you are saving! She rushed me through a demonstration which made it appear the product would not work anyway, flashed her colorful brochure which appeared to belong to someone else’s company and had been altered with a magic marker, insisted I needed to buy now rather than considering it and getting back to her or calling the number on the brochure because it wouldn’t get her the sale, and, when finally I told her I really wasn’t interested, told me she was sorry I was passing up such an opportunity. It’s not likely I’ll see her again. Oh, did I mention the neighbors bought some? It must be a good product if the neighbors bought it.

The next day a couple of college kids showed up at my door selling a more heavenly product. Not that they announced this right away, no. They were doing a religious survey. Doing a survey is a time-honored technique that allows you to zero in on a customer’s demographic before you give out your sales pitch. In fairness to the kids, it wasn’t going to change much anyway.

The kids found out I was raised a Presbyterian and became a Methodist. I didn’t volunteer that I’m the church organist; I assumed they would be trying to get me to join their church. I found out they were Lutherans because I thought it was only fair (or courteous) to ask about them (I wasn’t doing a survey or anything), and that they had come from a church in Texas which had a strong emphasis on evangelism. I suspect they aren’t very happy with their current church’s (non-aggressive?) approach to theology and decided to take matters into their own hands. But that’s just a guess. I wonder how enthused their church is about sending them out. But who knows. I’ve never been there. Then I got my first ‘toughie.’ The girl wanted to know if I thought I was going to heaven and how I knew. I figured my answer wasn’t going to impress them, but I knew what theirs was going to be and I am not a big fan of the game they were playing. I said something about God’s mercy and made it sound like I was hopeful but not certain I would get it. (If this answer sounds really strange to you you might want to look up the part were Jesus tells the Pharisees that because they think they see they are actually blind, which sounds a lot like "don’t be too sure of yourselves, guys!")

Then it was time for the pitch, the one I could see coming a mile away. They pulled out their favorite verse of the bible (which is John 3:16 for certain brands of evangelists everywhere; a few, who like to stress sin and your need for forgiveness pull out the verse from Romans: "for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God"; John 3:16 is the favorite single verse out of the millions in the Bible on which to hang your thesis if you are selling salvation—obviously nobody is going to choose "Benaniah…went down into a pit on a snowy day and killed a lion" [note: actual Bible verse! 1 Chronicles 11:22] They read the verse to me, with additions.

It turns out John 3:16 didn’t have enough doctrine in it so they had to amplify it to include things like how Jesus suffered and died for my sins. They made sure to include my name everywhere it was possible to substitute it so I could see how personal this was. This is one of the reasons I began my account with the incident with the other saleslady—the two encounters had much in common. One of them was to let me feel the personal concern for my situation and emotional intimacy that only comes from 30 seconds of asking questions of a total stranger.

I remain civil during these encounters but I find the approach repugnant: being friendly and appearing to do courtesies for the other party just so you can rush ahead to the part where you sell them something and not having the decency to be more subtle about it, probably because you are in too much of a hurry to sell to other customers to really take the time on the front end. Both sales pitches were rushed, in other words.

Now these kids weren’t selling Jesus so much as the assurance that I was going to heaven when I died. This bothers me a little because it assumes the whole point of my relationship with God is supposed to be about making sure I get my own butt into heaven. And if I believe properly I don’t have to worry about it. Let’s say I arrive at the pearly gates and Jesus looks at me and says, "I’m afraid not" I can just whip out my Bible to John 3:16 and say "On the contrary: you promised. I believe. I’m in. Nothing you can do about it!"

It’s so nice to have a legal contract in such cases, binding the parties to action. You know, just in case one party wants to back out. Just in case Jesus wants to know if I love my neighbor or something inconvenient like whether I followed any of his teaching (Matt 7:24) which is a lot harder than just ‘believing’ (whatever that means)

Now when the girl explained to me that she was sure she was going to heaven because Jesus had died for her sins I simply shrugged and told her that she was talking about the doctrine of atonement and nodded to suggest this was certainly one valid way of looking at things, at which point her partner checked off a box on his clipboard, as if to signal "mission accomplished" or "ok, he passes" and the "survey" was over. Something told me that, at this time, on this day, there wasn’t much point in getting into a discussion about how there might, in fact, be a whole lot of theological ground she was missing, and how, if she was really all that concerned about people’s salvation she might consider entering into actual dialogues with them instead of assuming salvation was some kind of instant process, just add water.

But I was reminded of a parable. Some of you may be wondering at this point where I am getting my crazy (or heretical) ideas, and I’ll tell you. From the bible. Jesus tells a story which appears to be about final judgment. It isn’t the only place he talks about heaven or hell, but it is the only place I can think of where he describes two groups of people, and divides them into the ones bound for his kingdom and the rest, who are going to the "outer darkness." It is found in Matthew 25, where it is commonly known as the parable of the sheep and the goats. Jesus places people on his left and on his right and passes judgment on each of them as he reveals their ultimate destination. He tells the group bound for hell that "I was hungry and you did not feed me. I was naked and you did not clothe me. I was sick and in prison and you did not visit me." What he does not ask is if any of them have a personal relationship with their lord and savior Jesus Christ, or whether they believe in his name. He wants to know what they have actually done for each other. The hellbound group is mystified by the criterion. They certainly didn’t expect this. They probably thought they were bound for heaven.

It is a very disconcerting parable in a gospel filled with such uncomfortable pronouncements. Matthew has Jesus telling us that even people who claimed to have cast out demons in his name might not be enter the kingdom (Matt 7:21) or that trying to save your life is actually the best way to lose it.

Which is what brings me around to the kicker. It isn’t just the hellbound group that doesn’t recognize how they were going to be judged. The group that Jesus exalts doesn’t understand it either. After Jesus tells them that when he was hungry they fed him, and when naked he was clothed, and how they visited him when he was sick or in prison, they asked "Lord, when did we see you [in these situations, and do these things for you]?" Then Jesus delivers the punch line. I was all of those people, he says. When you did it for them, you did it for me. What is surprising to me is that he has to spell it out for them. They don’t seem to have had any assurance that they were going to heaven. They don’t nod their heads and say, but of course! We believed the right doctrines and we just knew we were going to heaven. After that it was just a matter of saving souls and marking time. They have to ask him why they got on the ‘good list.’ It’s almost as if they were just busy loving God and loving their neighbor (the two most important commandments according to Jesus in three of the Gospels) that they either didn’t have time to worry about whether or not they had salvation locked up, or, in harmony with several other sayings in the gospels, (see above) their uncertainty actually worked in their favor (maybe because it didn’t make them arrogant or complacent).

In any case, I wish these young people well, and I hope they grow spiritually as they age. I haven’t seen them since, and I don’t expect to. I hope they begin to conceive of spirituality as more of a relationship and less of a sale pitch. I hope they are as willing to listen as they are to present. In a world hungry for quick answers and no maintenance I know they’ll always find some buyers, people who just want to be assured that everything is going to be ok so they can go on with whatever seems like fun at the time and not worry about it. But I hope that they’ll be willing to dig deeper than that and find some really good questions along with the ready-made answers, doubts and uncertainties that open up new possibilities that they can share with other people on similar and not-so-similar journeys. The way is difficult sometimes. If they are in doubt about this, they should read up on what happened to their CEO.

Continuing my habit of ‘getting into it’ with eminent personages of the past, I would now like to pick a small bone with Mr. Thomas a Kempis. It will be done in the form of a rebuttal to the opening section of his classic ‘The Imitation of Christ’ which I have begun to read, and it will, like many articles written by critics of literature, have the last word, Mr. a Kempis being too safely dead to do anything about it.

On the plus side, I have found many things to admire in his writing, which I hope amounts to giving him a fair say (in addition to the text of the entire book, which you may read at Christian Classics Ethereal Library). A new form of literature has sprung up among us, in which one pastes the text of someone else in paragraph form, and interlards these with his or her reactions to it, point by point, civil or uncivil. I didn’t want to be left out of this innovation; on the contrary, I should like to be in the forefront of this new literary movement. Forthwith, and without the slightest dose of humility, onward I proceed:

The first thing I wish to note about Mr. a Kempis’s work is what appears to be its topic sentence, which, derived from the book’s title, I judge to have something to do with the subject matter at hand:

"The teaching of Christ is more excellent than all the advice of the saints, and he who has His spirit will find in it a hidden manna. Now, there are many who hear the Gospel often but care little for it because they have not the spirit of Christ. Yet whoever wishes to understand fully the words of Christ must try to pattern his whole life on that of Christ."

Great. Then we are going to discuss the life and teachings of Christ and what it means to imitate them. At least, to my dull brain that is how it seemed. So far, however, and I admit I have only read the first section, there have been proverbs, a bit of Ecclesiastes and plenty of admonitions to humility and the shunning of worldly things like knowledge and reputation, but very little from the gospels directly. Perhaps our author is only warming up. I suspect he is also, in some regard, justifying his own lifestyle, which I’ve read was that of a mystic. Living only for books and quiet contemplation, he naturally prefers these, and imagines that we would all be better off if we did likewise. It would be uncharitable to disagree. Nevertheless, I don’t recall Christ himself professing anything similar, and I wonder whether he’ll find Our Lord a suitable witness for his case, when and if he gets around to it. I hope 'hidden manna' is not code for imitating behavior and teachings that have nothing to do with what we have on record of Christ himself, but some other proclivities altogether, which more befit a mystic nature.

If he does get around to it, I could suggest some scriptures that he might have to stretch a little to the purpose, but no more than the early apostles did. I understand he was expert in his knowledge of scripture, however, which suggests it would be impudent to make this offer. I retract it and pause for a moment in bowed silence.

Being a more double-minded individual than most Christian writers think is good for the soul, I will defend my good author. Were I in the appropriate mood I should no doubt find these a wonderful series of meditations on the joys of detachment from the distracted world and all of its perilous pursuits. A calm would fill my soul like a sustained pedal note and I would have no need of vanities like attending to the subject matter promised, or treating matters not touching on the forsaking of all that hectic foolishness we moderns like to call society. There must certainly be a large market for these reflections, these devotionals, as there have been in all ages, calls to escape the rat-race of life and retreat to quietude and a feel that by simple contemplation of one thing (the idea of Christ without the teachings of same) we can save ourselves the trouble of trying to smelt truth out of our surroundings like ore out of a rock. It is just too hard to ‘work out [our] salvation with fear and trembling.’ It is much more gratifying to think that his ‘yoke is easy.’ I understand the pull toward that stillness, that putting down of our burdens. I also think it is dangerous when all of Christian thinking begins to resemble that one desire, suggesting that it is merely an antidote to the anxiety of what we necessarily think of as ‘real life’—and one we don’t take very seriously, else we wouldn’t have to keep talking about it. The grass of still contemplation is greener than our experience of mundane (worldly) life, but we keep gazing over the fence. Lucky Thomas, he is there. Rash Thomas, he must depend on others to mow his lawn and no doubt will disavow their work.

Though he has nothing to say about manual labor, he, like many, discusses mental labor, and finds it wanting. Didn’t Paul suggest that if he had all knowledge but had not love he would be nothing but noise? Yes, but he did not on that account suggest that one should be ignorant. He did not contrast the two and use one to bully the other. But many writers since have done this. No surprise that its note is sounded here. Should we love humility and love more than learning? It would change the world. But should we therefore despise learning? Careful, my long-dead friend, when you, like so many Christian writers, write as though only one thing is needful and the rest must be thrown away. It is rhetoric, it could not stand in reality—if you had not considered learning valuable I could not be reading your words because you could not have written them.

"What good does it do to speak learnedly about the Trinity if, lacking humility, you displease the Trinity? Indeed it is not learning that makes a man holy and just, but a virtuous life makes him pleasing to God. I would rather feel contrition than know how to define it." Ah, but Thomas, how can you feel contrition if you don’t know what it is? Perhaps our common ground is in the difference between knowledge and being able to express that knowledge. Inarticulate contrition may still be counted contrition. But contempt for persons who know the word is ignorance envying erudition. A person may know its definition and be able to live its meaning. Or he may not. It seems to me, on rereading several of these passages, that they are more fair in this regard then I had supposed, and I less so. But you keep after it so that I suspect you are less kind to learning than you would seem. Even though we agree that learning can quickly become pedantry, and a means to uncharitable power, it does seem by sheer repetition you are suggesting something less conciliatory. And while we are being fair, you suggest that those who pursue knowledge pass away, and are not remembered. Doesn't the same thing happen to those who pursue love and servanthood? Eventually all our sandcastles will crumble, of whatever sort they are made. Isn't it fair simply to ask whether they were worth building in the first place? (more unfortunate for your argument, perhaps, is that some wise philosophers and intellects have cast quite a shadow on history as well. It may be vanity to pursue these things, but our notion of their worth should not stand on the idea that they are impossible to acquire.)

"This is the greatest wisdom—to seek the kingdom of heaven through contempt of the world." At the risk of sounding like Pilate here, ‘what is the world?’ Is it all knowledge, all wisdom, anything that does not produce the calm joy of what you believe to be Christ? I don’t wish to demolish your idea of Christ, but to add to it. Christ engaged the world, even if some passages in the Gospel of John warn about too much attachment to it.

"Shun too great a desire for knowledge, for in it there is much fretting and delusion. Intellectuals like to appear learned and to be called wise. Yet there are many things the knowledge of which does little or no good to the soul, and he who concerns himself about other things than those which lead to salvation is very unwise."

Too great a desire—now, that sounds reasonable. We want to balance things. There is the fretting, of course, but that tends to happen when you want something that has not happened. One could just as easily fret over the coming of the kingdom of God, unless we are too rapt in contemplation to want something so lofty. Delusions, there are plenty of. I see them everywhere. Especially when we think we are the ones not being deluded, because we see, while those around us are blind. There is another symptom of the disease of knowledge gathering that he does not mention here but concerns him often—the proud arrogance that comes with it, inseparably, in the minds of those who don’t have such knowledge. We must be humble, even if that in itself leads us into a contest of ultimate humility. But if we are being reasonable, we must admit that knowledge can be an excuse to think very highly of oneself. Are we not likely to be led into the opposite error? To assume our ignorance is automatically more Godly? If I want to make Christianity accessible to large numbers of people, will it not be more attractive if I tell them that Christ scorns the pursuit of anything that seems like it would require effort?

"The more you know and the better you understand, the more severely will you be judged, unless your life is also the more holy. Do not be proud, therefore, because of your learning or skill. Rather, fear because of the talent given you. If you think you know many things and understand them well enough, realize at the same time that there is much you do not know. Hence, do not affect wisdom, but admit your ignorance. Why prefer yourself to anyone else when many are more learned, more cultured than you?"

I like this passage, it seems admirably balanced, and it is reason for fear. It makes me uncomfortable, which is why it is to be commended. I have thought about the burdens of talent long enough, and the hazards of acquiring skill. It is too bad he had to test the edges of this kernel; in the ground it would have grown into a tree. But he will not let it lie there.

"Truly to know and despise self is the best and most perfect counsel. To think of oneself as nothing, and always to think well and highly of others is the best and most perfect wisdom. Wherefore, if you see another sin openly or commit a serious crime, do not consider yourself better, for you do not know how long you can remain in good estate. All men are frail, but you must admit that none is more frail than yourself."

It is not enough to be humble, I must be nothing, the lowest and most frail of men. Is there not a sort of reverse pride in this sort of thing? Have not monks and saints continually prostrated themselves as low as they could think to go hoping to gain a better seat on the heavenly plane? This is not done with any regard to others at all, but to appear large in one’s own eyes in a reverse way. Would you have us engage in such a perverse sport under the gaze of our Heavenly Father? I suppose even your hammer is smaller than mine. All men are frail, and I am certainly among them, but am I to take seriously the notion that I must be the most frail of all of them when so far there are a host of sins I have yet to accomplish? And should I always think well of everyone, including those who are harming others whom I ought to think well of? Truly, it is easier if I post everyone’s pictures on my refrigerator, whether or not they want to eradicate each other.

Love, too, is a much simpler thing on paper, this is true. We can love all men in the abstract, which I suppose is the reasoning behind this bit from the eighth chapter: "We ought to have charity for all men but familiarity with all is not expedient." If we knew these people it would be harder to love them, wouldn't it? And this is difficult for me to write for I too love solitude.

Forgive me, for I have gone on too long, and I note that you prefer short chapters. And short sayings. Many are very wise and very profound. I particularly cite the ninth chapter on 'obedience and subjection' which is filled with interesting observations, and perhaps, at its outset, sees its subject from two angles, a rarity, it appears, in your style.

 I will note before I go that I have begun to prefer the later chapters to the earlier; that I am warming to your observations and wisdom, and your humility. And here and there I have noticed things which might indirectly pertain to teachings of Christ. As one example :"Many people try to escape temptations, only to fall more deeply. We cannot conquer simply by fleeing, but by patience and true humility we become stronger than all our enemies. The man who only shuns temptations outwardly and does not uproot them will make little progress; indeed they will quickly return, more violent than before. (ch. 13)" Indeed, the evil spirit will find the house swept and empty on his return and will bring with him seven more of his friends! (Mt 12:43-45)

But the heart of the book is about letting go--attaining peace (not a sword).

"If you rely more upon your intelligence or industry than upon the virtue of submission to Jesus Christ, you will hardly, and in any case slowly, become an enlightened man. God wants us to be completely subject to Him and, through ardent love, to rise above all human wisdom."

It is a beautiful thought, but dangerous. Perhaps I protest it too much because I value intelligence too much. But perhaps also, the church has used thoughts such as yours down through the ages to ensure that people are passive and submissive to their leaders, surrendering their power of independent though, which makes them easier to manage when their leaders do something questionable. Before I conclude, let me step away for a paragraph to summarize my review:

There is much wisdom in The Imitation of Christ; there is much to be smelted away. This is the writing of a mystic who would rather reject a complicated society and a messy creation and dwell on the unchanging light of what he thinks of as Christ, whose life and teachings he may know well, though they do not touch on his central concerns, which are renunciation of the struggles of society and the intellect. He would rather see things in stark terms, and as such he gives us many wonderful aphorisms which are worth contemplation, even if their practice is more hazardous. And truly, I will not gain much picking a fight with such a revered personage, who does not seem to have ever had an unkind word for anyone. It is vanity, but then reckoning with humanity often seems like vanity, and yet, our theologians tell us that God himself never tires of it. He did once or twice, but has thought better of it each time. We call them the flood and the exile.

I will continue reading, sir, testing everything, ‘hanging on to what is good’—and you must have the patience to deal with my impetuous humors. For there is much humor in the foregoing, whether it seems to be there or not. It is hard for me to find any in your style, either, to tell the truth. But I misjudged you once. I assumed that, like many, you had had a tempestuous youth and grew weary with the race to acquire reputation and learning, and had renounced both, and, like many a good convert, became passionate about these ideas. I did not notice how great the mystic air all around you was, and how early you were entranced by its spell. I see that you were a quiet recluse all of your life. Forgive my disturbing you.