Last Paper; Last Class; Writing Begins Soon

My journey to a doctorate has been circuitous. I have wanted to study academic theology since I was an undergraduate at the University of Idaho. But life intervened. A career in the US Army Chaplaincy continually took me to remote locations without the kind of specialized educational facilities where I could earn a doctoral degree in theology or religious studies. Then I retired--to a church in Augusta, Georgia, which I quickly learned was the only city in the continental USA without a theological seminary. Well...that's not true. There are plenty of cities without seminaries, but it just felt like another isolated tour of duty. After thirteen years in Georgia, I took a church in Sacramento, California. Surely here would be an opportunity for advanced study!

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Nope. The closest theological seminary with a program I could enter was at San Francisco, three hours and many light years away from my small church in Sacto. And then it happened. Unity Institute decided to become a fully accredited theological seminary, and it advertised for Unity people to fill teaching positions--people with their doctorates in religious studies.

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Okay, that wasn't me. I had a only Master of Divinity albeit from a respectable graduate school, Lancaster Theological Seminary of the United Church of Christ (1976, Magna Cum Laude, first in class). I read the blurb asking for applicants with doctoral credentials in religious studies to Carol-Jean, my lovely wife, and added, "I wish them good luck. We don't have anybody."

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Well, that was an exaggeration. Of course, we have people with advanced degrees in Unity, but the statistical universe of a small denomination like ours means that the number of Unity people with those extremely specific, extremely high-level qualifications will be very small.

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A little while later, a subsequent blurb squeaked a plea for anybody with Masters degrees. I applied, and the desperate nature of our academic situation became apparent when they hired me for the job of upgrading theological education in Unity. One bright spot: A condition of employment was that I would seek and obtain a doctorate as quickly as possible. Since St.Paul School of Theology in KCMO offers a top-notch D.Min. program. After so many years of tailgating outside the academic arena, the game was finally ON.

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I joined the faculty at Unity Institute in August 2005 and began my studies for the Doctor of Ministry degree that January, 2006. If all goes well--and if my D.Min.project, Lyceum 2008, doesn't bomb--I should be getting my Doctor of Ministry degree in May 2009. One month short of my 63rd birthday. Better late than never. (It is a sobering thought that by the time the great medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas was my age, he had been dead 12 years.)

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The paper below is the last paper for the last regular class. It is a rewrite, because the first draft was not acceptable to the professor. (And I say: Good for her!) The paper talks about prophetic ministry, Unity's understanding of social and theological critique, and the place that Lyceum 2008 might play in awakening our people to the possibilities which may present themselves when we open scholarly dialogue with other denominations and other traditions. Anyway, here it is...not exactly deathless prose, but some of you will slog through it and perhaps find some good ideas folded into the completed assignment. (Some of my astute readers will note that this is a much longer version of the Blog written 08-21-08.)

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Note to my students: The next major writing I'm required to do will be my doctoral praxis thesis, a research/practicum document which may reach 150 pages. So, this is the last "short" assignment. Now, doesn't that make those itty-bitty 20 pp. papers I assign seem acceptably brief?
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CHS 515 Prophetic Ministry


POST-SEMINAR FINAL PAPER

Lyceum Project as Prophetic Ministry
Thomas W. Shepherd, M.Div.

August 31, 2008

Saint Paul School of Theology, June Term 2008

Dr. Patricia Beattie Jung, Instructor
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Lyceum Project as Prophetic Ministry

Walter Brueggemann’s central theme in his book The Prophetic Imagination (2001) is the identification of an ongoing conflict between prophetic consciousness and royal consciousness, the antiphonal struggle between the dominant political and economic institutions of society and the spiritual consciousness of a covenantal sub-community. Brueggemann defines this sub-community by four characteristics. 1) It would be a repository of deep memories which, through story and song, link the events of today with this long struggle for justice and fidelity to God. 2) It would share a sense of pain when interacting with the world, empathy grounded in Christ-like compassion. 3) It would be grounded in hope, a sense of the trustworthiness of God. 4) Finally, the prophetic sub-community would understand the need for generation-spanning discourse to reinforce its members in times to come.[1] “The prophet must speak metaphorically about hope but concretely about the real newness that comes to us and redefines our situation.”[2]

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At first reading, the specific thrust of his argument, indeed the argument of all the writers studied in this course, seems to be a rather Marxist view of the gospel in which the prophet calls for progressive confrontation of the wealthy and powerful with the aim of socio-political liberation and the redistribution of wealth and resources to the poor and weak. However, Brueggemann is sophisticated enough to see that biblical prophets were not merely calling for social action but for a truly radical transformation in the consciousness of their target audiences, Israel first, and later the world. He writes:

I believe that Moses did not engage in anything like what we identify as social action. He was not engaged in a struggle to transform a regime; rather, his concern was with the consciousness that undergirded and made such a regime possible.[3]

Brueggemann sees the prophetic call primarily as a summons to spiritual maturity and personal responsibility, which must predicate any specific redress of societal ills. Indeed, the danger for those who hasten to the prophetic call is not found in explicit acts of accommodation to royal consciousness; the hazard to prophetic authenticity is found in this ongoing tendency of religionists to move toward compromise and accommodation itself.

…prophetic ministry has to do not primarily with addressing specific public crises but with addressing, in season and out of season, the dominant crisis that is enduring and resilient, of having our alternative vocation co-opted and domesticated.[4]

Religious zeal too easily drifts from kneeling before YHWH at Mount Sinai to groveling at the feet of Pharaoh. From a pragmatic view the temptation to accommodation is enormous; the Establishment offers the most rewards to a royal prophet, not the least of which is a sense of all-rightness with the world. Brueggemann rightly sees that the chief danger for the prophet is not destruction but domestication, and he declares we will never truly understand The Prophetic Imagination “unless we see the connection between the religion of static triumphalism and the politics of oppression and exploitation.”[5] Social action alone, without a keen sense of this domesticating tendency in our religiosity, is inadequate. Brueggemann is effectively standing the Epistle of James on its head: works without faith is dead, and faith must be clear about for Whom it works.

However virtuous a program of socio-economic activism may be, one could just as easily argue that humanity actually needs spiritual liberation, a universal rise in consciousness from a self-image of “weak and poor” to “powerful and wealthy”, to unleash the potential of human creativity and transform this planet in a way that contributory, patronizing schemes of redistribution have never imagined. Brueggemann touches on this in his third characteristic, i.e., a prophetic sub-community maintains hope despite appearances to the contrary because God’s promises are trustworthy. Yet, he also knows that a self-defined, covenantal community is not automatically identifiable with the Kingdom of God on Earth.

Dangers of Ethical Monotheism
Indeed, virtually every religious assembly sees itself as the authentic, modern expression of the primordial faith. Roman Catholics trace their institutions back to Jesus’ commission to the Apostle Peter, yet Mormons celebrate the restored, biblical priesthood. Baptists proclaim the primitive gospel of Jesus Christ as the only begotten Son of God; Unitarians reason they have re-discovered the radical humanity in the man of Nazareth. Even my denomination, Unity, falls into step with this drum beat to exclusivism by claiming to teach the religion of Jesus instead of the religion about him. Yet, this kind of theological one-upmanship is ineluctable. The central Truth of the Christian faith must be found in the doctrine of one’s home church, or why stay home?

The conviction of the theological rightness of one’s faith is more-or-less required for all who profess a religious view of the world. All too easily this sense of rightness morphs into conflict with other viewpoints, especially when fueled by ethnical monotheism’s demand for justice and its metaphysical dualism between good and evil. If there is only one God, Who rewards good and punishes evil, it rapidly becomes necessary to identify and suppress all other points of view as not simply erroneous but as evil itself. My friend Bhante Wimala, the traveling Buddhist monk who is engaged in world-wide relief activities for the desperately poor or all faiths, has said to me that no army has ever marched to convert the world to Buddhism because Buddha saw humanity as one and the struggle to reach enlightenment as taking many different routes. It is an idea which the dualistic West has not yet embraced.

Royal Consciousness and the Challenge of Jihadis
With the passing of time this tendency toward stabilization and standardization slides smoothly into royal consciousness, ministering to the status quo and accepting the oppressive world order as divinely given. This movement toward cooperation between secular power and religious authority is the tendency against which prophetic imagination must struggle, Brueggemann insists.

If accommodation is a temptation for establishment religion based on ethical monotheism, radical religious organizations have their own set of dangers. Writing just before the momentous events of 9-11, Brueggemann had no way to anticipate the shock which Western religionists would experience after the United States was attacked by terrorists who thought they were doing God’s Will. Five years later, Harold J. Recinos reflects on the irony of a profoundly religious nation like the USA being attacked by self-sacrificial believers who think of our country as the Great Satan:

Mainline Christians who counted on religion to summon moral power for the good of all people find themselves today sitting at the foot of the cross grappling with silence. Who can believe that pious people motivated by religious belief can use violence and murder to promote their cause?[6]

The model which emerges when the thoughts of Brueggemann and Recinos merge looks less like a tug or war between the forces of royal and prophetic consciousness than a three-sided conflict with royal consciousness at one corner, prophetic at the other, radical pietism at the third—all pulling their way. Not only is the battle between prophetic insight and status quo, the third factor of violent activism threatens both covenantal prophetic community and chapel of the King. The events of 9-11 have shaken Western religionists profoundly. Some Christians and Jews appear simply unable to believe the murderous conspirators were men of faith. Yet, the undisputed fact remains that when the hijacked planes struck the World Trade Center and plunged to earth in Pennsylvania, the hijackers were praying, “God is great!” As a result of these tumultuous socio-political events, any theological work must consider the dangers of religious zeal when formulating a theory of prophetic ministry.[7]

What is Prophetic Ministry?
Brueggemann’s definition of prophetic ministry requires active verbs: “The task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us.”[8] (Italics original.) He rightly observes that prophets must not simply criticize but has an obligation to provide alternatives.

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However, Brueggemann says that establishment religiosity prizes harmony above all. Regardless of how well intended the prophetic propensity to sing solo may be, it invariably causes prophets to be plucked from the Temple choir and thrown in the Lion’s den. Status quo religion is “grossly uncritical, cannot tolerate serious and fundamental criticism, and will go to great lengths to stop it.”[9] Royal consciousness is tone-deaf to the psalm-like hymnody of well-phrased critical thought, even when the prophet sings of positive alternatives. Good temple musicians stroke their harps and puff into sonorous horns to summon and soothe the faithful; they are not shrill trumpeters or whistle-blowers.

Prophetic Ministry: Response and Servanthood
In his book Where Have All the Prophets Gone? (2006) Marvin A. McMickle describes prophetic preaching as that which shifts the attention of a congregation from what they are doing in the local church to what is happening outside the sanctuary.

Prophetic preaching then asks the question, “What is the role or the appropriate response of our congregation, our association, and our denomination to the events that are occurring within our society and throughout the world?”[10]

McMickle is helpful in expanding the definition beyond criticism to response. He drives this home later in the book when he talks about the standard, old church sign which reads, “Enter to Worship, Depart to Serve.” Too many American Christians, McMickle says, are comfortable with worship but have done little about servanthood in the world beyond the church building. McMickle identifies this lackadaisical attitude— prayer-and-praise without subsequent action in the real world—with Bonhoeffer’s category of cheap grace. He argues that Christians using a local church for the priestly functions of ministry, i.e., as their private prayer chapel or as a place for personal rejuvenation, runs contrary to the prophetic vision of a transformed people moving forward to transform the world.[11]

The servant model of Christian life requires an understanding of the issues which the people of God must face in their lives. McMickle wants parishioners to experience prophetic preaching that will follow the lead of Robert McCracken and 1) kindle the mind, 2) energize the will, 3) disturb the conscience and 4) stir the heart to action.[12]

Method or Message?
Although and specific content of the prophetic message presented in the books we have studied is profoundly liberal and progressive, one could argue that the method of the prophetic ministry is a separate consideration from any message which the prophet delivers. Who among us does not approach the themes discussed in these books with an embedded theology? Perhaps this is a critique of prophetic ministry in general. It is one thing to speak one’s truth with love; it is another order of magnitude to make the claim to be speaking the truth of God.

An example of misplaced prophetic energies might be Oral Robert’s infamous declaration that God told him so much money had to be raised by such-and-such a date or the Lord would call him home. The Rev. Mr. Roberts arguably fulfilled all four of McCracken’s categories. The “prophetic” message: 1) kindled the minds of his parishioners to the possibility that God was alive and active in their midst; 2) energized their will to contribute to Oral Roberts’ ministries; 3) disturbed their consciences when confronted with the idea that Rev. Roberts might actually die for the faith if they were inactive; and 4) stirred many hearts to action—they gave money, and we are still talking about it years afterward!

Permit me a personal example. During my twenty years as a US Army Chaplain I worked with ministers, priests and rabbis representing a cross section of American life. One memorable character I met while stationed at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, was Chaplain Billy Goodwin, who at that time was an ordained Assembly of God minister on active duty. He was an excellent counselor and an energetic speaker, but he had a tendency to make claims for special revelations from on high. Not surprisingly, he felt perfectly comfortable communicating theses divine bulletins to the worshipping military congregation. One day he showed me a letter he was about to send to soldiers and families who had been attending our chapel. It began: “God has directed me to write to you and say…”

Apparently, this was typical language for his home church, because he was surprised when I flinched at the wording. When I asked why he was telling them the message was from the Almighty, he said, “Well, because I believe God wants me to write to them!” I suggested another tactic. “Tell them, ‘I believe God wants me to write to you and say…’ That way, if they don’t like your suggestions, they are just disagreeing with you, not with God.” He smiled and said he would do that. Billy was an amiable fellow.

When I tell this story, it always occurs to me that every clergyperson faces the same problem as Chaplain Billy: How does anyone summon the audacity to stand before a group of people and with integrity tell them what you believe God wants them to know? In a larger sense, every sermon—perhaps every instance of pastoral interaction with a member of the congregation—is a form of prophetic ministry.

Bonhoeffer and King: “Finding Themselves” in Different Circumstances
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was also a chaplain; he ministered and preached to believers in German prison camps because that is where he found himself. One could argue for a double meaning to the previous sentence: Bonhoeffer found himself a prisoner and found himself in the role of chaplain to the helpless. Bonhoeffer’s journey to Grenzfall (tyrannicide) could be seen as an ultimate rejection of royal consciousness in favor of a total embrace of the prophetic mantle.[13]
Indeed, the buoyant optimism of nineteenth century American Transcendentalism and its European counterparts could not float in the turbulent seas of the twentieth century. Theology and Philosophy had moved beyond Absolute Idealism long before Bonhoeffer made his move. Idealism had died a generation earlier, summarized by the immortal words of a Canadian medical officer after the Battle of the Ypres salient in the spring of 1915:

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below. [14]

Yet, even in the pessimistic, existentialist twentieth century, not everyone responded to bloodshed by preventative killing. Although Martin Luther King, Jr., was sober realist, a man who had seen violent acts against his people, King never conceded the need for the prophet to take up arms and become a purveyor of violence. He found comfort in the same prophetic vision as Brueggemann, that of a covenantal community which joins hands to oppose the tendency toward royal consciousness:

As Christians we must never surrender our supreme loyalty to any time-bound custom or earth-bound idea, for at the heart of our universe is a higher reality--God and his kingdom of love--to which we must be conformed.[15]

As a young scholar King had become skeptical of what he saw as liberalism’s “superficial optimism” and undo emphasis on the perfectibility of humanity. He nevertheless continued to believe that people were made in the image of God and had the capacity to rise above their limitations.[16] King urged people to be wise in worldly affairs yet tender-hearted in their dealings with one another. He wanted people to become “disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace, and brotherhood.”[17] For King, this meant following the “Father, forgive them” model of Jesus and eliminating one’s enemies by transforming them into friends.[18]

Both men were aware of Mohandas K. Gandhi’s work, but events in Nazi-dominated Europe pushed Bonhoeffer to reject Gandhi’s demand for absolute nonviolence. One might ask if a conspiracy with fellow Christians to murder Adolph Hitler constituted an authentic act of prophetic consciousness or an inverse form of royal consciousness, i.e., did Bonhoeffer’s zeal to return Germany to its peace and stability cause him to act de facto for the State, albeit an idealized state, as he conceived it to be? Was Grenzfall an act grounded in biblical prophecy, Christian jihad, or power politics?

Martin Luther King, Jr., found himself in an entirely different set of circumstances. He had no single demonic figure whose removal might right the balance in the world. Furthermore, although King stood in prophetic opposition to an oppressive political and social order, the people of the Jim Crow South saw themselves as fundamentally moral and upright. They were good Christians. His task was to bring public attention to the actuality of suffering and oppression under segregation, but this would only have positive results if there were moral values which would be moved by the cognitive dissonance produced when “Christian” whites turned police dogs and water hoses on non-violent Civil Rights protestors. Using the biblical imagery of Moses and the Children of Israel fleeing Pharaoh’s chariots, King did not hesitate to label the segregationist practices of his white Christian neighbors with that fine old Anglo-Saxon word, evil.[19] Here he is one with Bonhoeffer, perhaps with most prophets in history. Naming the specific ills of the day seems to be a hallmark of prophetic ministry, even though Brueggemann insists this is ancillary to identifying the root cause of injustice in the power structures of society and the religiosity which supports them.

Critique of Confrontational Model for Prophetic Ministry
However, one could argue that as on-target as Brueggemann’s observations are, he is aiming at the wrong target. Certainly, religious systems which have successfully articulated their values to a given society are inclined to support the social order which they have in a large part helped to construct. How could it be otherwise? What is missing here is not the voice of a John the Baptist decrying Herod’s marriage to a brother’s widow, nor even the cry of a Jesus who momentarily, understandably, loses his customary broadmindedness, takes a whip, and drives the money-changers from the Court of the Gentiles. What is missing is a change in the value system of the larger society, which can only be brought about by changing one person at a time. I am not arguing for conversion or anything resembling a traditional decision for Christ. I am also not arguing that Bonhoeffer and King were wrong for taking decisive action in the world in which they found themselves; quite the contrary. Specific instances of social ills must be met with specific remedies: tyrannicide for Bonhoeffer, nonviolent protest for Martin Luther King., Jr.
I am arguing that prophetic consciousness, as described by Brueggemann and the other authors we studied in this course, can only reach its goal of a just society under God if it moves beyond confrontation to transformation of the individual. What is required, to borrow Brueggemann’s terms, is a radical transformation in consciousness and not just regime change within the Establishment.[20] In this sense, I would define consciousness as the emotional-intellectual-social weltanschauung of a postmodern, twenty-first century society.

Less than such a transformation can only spawn a new sense of injustice as those in power are ousted and become the new oppressed. This is the silent rage felt by suburban whites, who tend to vote against their best economic interests year after year because the Republican Party tells sends them subtle messages about returning to Ronald Regan’s vision of a white-dominated, middle class, suburban, post World War II America. Until the vision changes to that of a new generation, Israel must wander in the wilderness.

Idealism Re-visited
Despite wars and rumors of wars, Unity never relinquished the optimistic, monistic, idealistic vision of Transcendentalism. Our writers and theologians still affirm the divine nature of humanity, taking seriously the imago Dei regardless of appearances to the contrary. The prophetic tradition within our movement aims at calling people to the higher vision of their potential as sons and daughters of God. We see all sentient beings as fully divine and fully human, to include the main example of this indwelling divinity, Jesus of Nazareth. Such a prophetic word from our tradition, properly explored by theological reflection and communicated via modern networking, has the potential to transform the consciousness of humanity, one person at a time. The outrageous possibilities of such a claim remain unexplored today because the potential apologists for Metaphysical Christianity are unequipped to play in the major leagues of theological dialogue. In fact, one could argue that Unity’s longstanding aversion for intellectual discourse indicates we have yet to show up for spring training. To communicate a prophetic vision today requires an understanding of contemporary issues and their antecedents, plus the ability to translate one’s insights into the common language of Christian theology.

Means to the Goal: Lyceum and Journal
Therefore, I hold that establishing an annual academic conference open to religious scholars from around the world (“The Lyceum at Unity Village”) and offering its proceedings in a new publication, the Unity Institute Journal of Theology (UIJT) will, over time, contribute to New Thought Christianity’s fuller participation in the ongoing theological dialogue, increase Unity’s involvement with the wider Christian community, and measurably affect the consciousness of society at large. Such involvement will allow the powerful insights of New Thought to flow outward from Unity while the circulating exchange of ideas will bring new possibilities to us from thinkers and spiritual leaders of other traditions. This is my thesis project; this is also the center of my life’s work. There are, however, some major obstacles to overcome in the consciousness of the Unity Movement before two-way communication with religious scholarship beyond our borders can commence.

Anti-Intellectual, Anti-traditionalist
Historically, my home denomination, the Association of Unity Churches International, has been rather anti-intellectual and anti-traditionalist, so the insights, ideas and tools available to clergy and religious scholars from mainstream Protestant and Catholic traditions have seldom found their way into Metaphysical Christianity. Even among the ordained Unity clergy, there is almost no tradition of theological reflection, no widespread understanding of modern biblical scholarship, little sense of church history, and an appalling lack of awareness about the very tools required to make our gifts available to a wider Christian world. The intellect has been described as inferior to, and often in conflict with, intuitive insights gleaned in personal meditation.

Again and again, Unity foundational writings take a swipe at the intellectual approach to religion, like this supposedly objective question in the study guide of Fillmore’s 1939 book, Jesus Christ Heals: “Is it better to seek understanding through intellectual reasoning or through divine inspiration?”[21] Since dialogue among biblical scholars and theologians provides a context of continuity for the Christian community, it is precisely this juxtaposition of intellectual reasoning over and against divine inspiration which has perpetuated Unity’s isolation; we have been an archipelago somewhere over the horizon, far from the mainland of Christian thought.

Prophetic Possibilities: Mystical Consciousness
Nevertheless, the kind of prophetic ministry which Unity practices could be understood in the classical model of a call to righteousness, if such a call were expanded to include teaching and healing ministry aimed at introducing people to the imago Dei, which we identify as their inherent divine nature. Of course, few people reflect this in a developed way in this world, but as the process of spiritual education of humanity goes on the more Christ-like people will become. This hopeful vision coincides with the central goals of New Thought Christianity, i.e., to examine and demonstrate those categories of spirit which transcend apparent lack and limitations, to take seriously the power of God working in and through the Cosmos, and to develop specific, practical techniques for releasing such spiritual power into the real world. [22] Like Paul addressing the Athenians on Mars hill, Unity needs metaphors with which to translate the exciting, empowering insights of New Thought Christianity into the symbolic language of the twenty-first century Christian world.

Lyceum and Theological Journal as Prophetic Ministry
An established program of theological conferences and the publication of an academic New Thought Christian journal has the potential to mitigate some of the historic, anti-intellectual tendencies of the Unity movement, to inspire its scholars to explore and develop more fully Unity’s contribution to Christian thought, and to encourage ministers and laypeople to join the discussion about the role of the Church in service to humanity. Consequently, the title of my praxis thesis will be Converting Full-Length Mirrors into Open Doors: Offering New Thought Christianity a Lyceum for Theological Dialogue by Creating and Publishing a Unity Institute Journal of Theology.

If we see prophecy the way Walter Brueggemann does—as an ongoing, reappearing, God-intoxicated voice who speaks revolutionary truth to power and gathers a community around this new vision—then Unity does have a prophetic voice, especially in the area of spiritual development. It also seems unmistakable that this prophetic vision will be better served if people in my home denomination learn how to dialogue with scholars and pastors of other Christian denominations. An annual academic conference with its proceedings subsequently published in a new theological journal—targeted at Unity ministers, paraprofessionals, and college-educated members—could provide a venue for theological reflection and give our people a place to advance new ideas, perhaps encouraging greater involvement with progressive Christians wherever Unity people live.

Benefits of Lyceum and UIJT for Unity Movement
The work of prophetic ministry has a precursory educational component. People must be alerted to the need for change and given the tools to begin their great work, whatever the project may be. If we see prophecy the way Walter Brueggemann does—as an ongoing, reappearing, God-intoxicated voice who speaks revolutionary truth to power and gathers a community around this new vision—then Unity does have a prophetic voice, especially in the area of spiritual development. It also seems unmistakable that this prophetic vision will be better served if people in my home denomination learn how to dialogue with scholars and pastors of other Christian denominations. It is my hope that the Lyceum series and the ongoing publication of a Unity Institute Journal of Theology will provide a venue for the prophetic vision of Unity to interact with the wider Christian community for the mutual benefit of both.

A bonus effect of an annual theological symposium and ongoing publication of a theological journal would be to further the goal of upgrading Unity Institute’s Master of Divinity program to a fully accredited status. To be true to its calling, a graduate institution should offer the world a forum for unfettered, scholarly conversation about important issues. The special province of a theological seminary is to provide such a venue for religious and spiritual discussion at a higher level than is ordinarily found in other church-related gatherings or publications. Such a gathering of the brightest and best in New Thought Christian theology can inspire, encourage, challenge and empower serious discussion of the Unity message in academic settings across the world. I suspect this kind of transformative interaction is a goal of prophecy to which all the authors we studied could subscribe.
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Notes:
[1] Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 2001), xvi.
[2] Ibid., 67.
[3] Ibid., 21.
[4] Ibid., 3.
[5] Ibid., 7.
[6] Harold J. Recinos, Good News from the Barrio (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006), 71.
[7] Debra Burlingame, “On a Wing and a Prayer,” Wall Street Journal, 12/06/06, online source: http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009348 (accessed: 08-23-08)
[8] Brueggemann, 3.
[9] Ibid, 4.
[10] Marvin A. McMickle, Where Have All the Prophets Gone? (Cleveland, OH: The Pilgrim Press, 2006), 2.
[11] Ibid., 85-86.
[12] Ibid, 90-93.
[13]Larry Rasmussen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Reality and Resistance (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2005), 122.
[14] John McCrea, “In Flanders Fields” (Arlington National Cemetery Website: online source http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/flanders.htm), accessed 08-13-08.
[15] Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love (NY: Harper & Row, 1964), 11.
[16] Ibid. 166.
[17] Ibid. 15.
[18] Ibid. 47.
[19] Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love (NY: Harper & Row, 1964), 78-79.
[20] Brueggemann, 21.
[21] Fillmore, Jesus Christ Heals (Unity Village, MO: Unity Books, 1939), 202.
[22] “New Thought” and “Metaphysical Christianity” refer to a theological tradition flowing from nineteenth century idealism, transcendentalism and the “science of mental healing” movements. Christian Science is the best known example from that era, but New Thought theology differs significantly from that of Mary Baker Eddy, who denied the reality of matter. Unity is probably best described as a Christianized form of monistic panentheism.

Michelle, Ma belle

Monday night Michelle Obama showed America and the world what a happy, successful family looks like. She utterly charmed the Democratic National Convention and the television audience, and her autheticity, warmth and genuine goodness totally disarmed the TV pundits who normally pounce on every speech and tear the speaker to shreds. She converted me from a lukewarm supporter to a raving Obama maniac in less than 45 minutes. It was no easy task.

I have been a Hillary Clinton supporter. Maybe it's because I loved Bill Clinton's presidency so much, even with his indescretions. Maybe because Hillary represents so many women who have struggled to break through the glass ceiling. Maybe because I like her policies, or her unflappabled resolve to fight until the last round. Maybe because she looks good in pantsuits. But as much as I admire Hillary and wanted--read: still want--her to be president some day, Michelle Obama and her family have showed me something which the nation needs more desperately than I imagined before tonight. We need to believe in the goodness of people again, like we did during the Kennedy era.

Ted Kennedy's speech earlier was received with even more emotion by the delegates, many of whom remember his brothers. Several newsmen, including MSNBC commentator Keith Olbermann, mentioned the 1964 Democratic Convention at Atlantic City, held just nine months after the Kennedy Assassination, when the crowd greeted Robert F. Kennedy with twenty-two minutes of spontaneous, irrepressible applause.

I saw Jack Kennedy in 1960 when he came to my home town of Reading, Pa., and spoke from a specially constructed wooden platform in the city square. I was fourteen years old. The public schools in that heavily Democratic town released all students to go and hear the presidential candidate. Thousands of people of all ages gathered in Penn Square that sunny afternoon. His motorcade was late. Democratic officials filled the waiting time with speeches and introductions of local candidates. Then he arrived, and the raw excitement was elctrifying.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was ful of vigor, a tanned, well-groomed, young-looking man in his early forties. I recall he wore a dark suit and tie, not the typical white shirt without sports coat which today's politicians wear to shown they're one of us. He was a Harvard educated Kennedy; he was NOT one of us. But when spoke about the need to "get America moving again" after eight years of Dwight D. Eisenhower, something in his manner seemed...presidential? After a short stump speech Kennedy got in his motorcade and headed for Allentown, thirty miles away. He was already late for that crowd, which had doubtless gathered and was listening to the same lackluster local politicians stall for time until he arrived.

Four years later in August of 1964 I attended that Democratic National Convention held in Atlantic City, NJ. I wasn't a delegate; I was an 18-year-old soldier on leave after Basic Training, attending the Convention with my recently graduated friends from the Teen-Dems in Reading. I shamelessly capitalized on the fact that I was in uniform, mooching passes from delegates to a political convention and selling a few on the Boardwalk for a nice profit. Now that I reflect on what I was doing, I realize it was probably illegal, but back then I didn't see anything wrong with a little private enterprise. I got passes for the evening events and used them for myself and friends, too. I heard LBJ speak and Hubert Humphrey, too.

But the greatest moment came, as Keith Olbermann said, when we rose to greet Bobby. I was in the upper gallery that night, like one of the soldier-guests who are always invited to observe presidential speeches and political conventions. For twenty-two minutes, everyone cheered and applauded. Several times, Robert Kennedy tried to begin. He was drowned out every time. The chair tried to gavel the crowd to order, but we would have none of it. And every time Bobby tried to speak, the noise grew louder and he backed away from the microphone with that characteristic Kennedy smile. There was such an enormous outpouring of emotion. JFK's death had hit them hard, and here was his brother, the Attorney General of the United States, the next Kennedy in the line of succession. The crowd needed to cheer. They needed to hope. But you know the rest of the story, how four years later another assassin cheated America out of what could have been a restoration of Camelot.

Obama has stopped what some had seen as Hillary's attempt to re-establish another golden era. But this time it was the people who rose up and cheered him across the finish line. Instead of looking backward, people desperately wanted a future they could believe in. A post-racial, post-modern America that remembers its ideals.

Tonight, Teddy Kennedy closed the door and padlocked Camelot forever. Michelle Obama opened another door and showed us a future we can believe in, where all kinds of families work together and love one another and America regains its moral heritage. Raise high your torch, Lady Liberty, then pass it on to a new generation. The applause dies away, but the dream lives again.

Lyceum 2008 -- Prophetic Ministry?

Walter Brueggemann’s central theme in his book The Prophetic Imagination (Fortress Press, 2001) is the identification of a struggle between prophetic consciousness and royal consciousness, the antiphonal struggle between the dominant political and economic institutions of society and the spiritual consciousness of a covenantal sub-community. Brueggemann defines this sub-community by four characteristics. 1) It would be a repository of deep memories which, through story and song, link the events of today with this long struggle for justice and fidelity to God. 2) It would share a sense of pain when interacting with the world, empathy grounded in Christ-like compassion. 3) It would be grounded in hope, a sense of the trustworthiness of God. 4) Finally, the prophetic sub-community would understand the need for generation-spanning discourse to reinforce its members in times to come.[1]

“The prophet must speak metaphorically about hope but concretely about the real newness that comes to us and redefines our situation.”[2]

The specific thrust of his argument, indeed the argument of many socially conscious Christian writers, seems to be a rather Marxist view of the gospel in which the prophet calls for progressive confrontation of the wealthy and powerful with the aim of socio-political liberation and the redistribution of wealth and resources to the poor and weak. However virtuous this economic plan may be, one could just as easily argue that what humanity actually needs is spiritual liberation, a universal rise in consciousness from a self-image of “weak and poor” to “powerful and wealthy”, which could unleash the potential of human creativity and transform this planet in a way that contributory, patronizing schemes of redistribution have never imagined. Brueggemann touches on this in his third characteristic, i.e., a prophetic sub-community maintains hope despite appearances to the contrary because God’s promises are trustworthy.

New Thought Christianity and the Prophetic Tradition
This hopeful vision coincides with the central goals of New Thought Christianity, i.e., to examine and demonstrate those categories of spirit which transcend apparent lack and limitations, to take seriously the power of God working in and through the Cosmos, and to develop specific, practical techniques for releasing such spiritual power into the real world to improve physical and mental health, increase personal and societal prosperity, and improve the quality of relationships among the people. New Thought takes with utter seriousness the idea that the God-power within each person can actually do something in the physical world. We find ourselves called to announce to the world the great possibilities for health, wealth and happiness, for better relationships and deeper awareness of God. The central principle which underlies such a practical Christian belief system is often expressed in the phrase: “There is only one Presence and one Power in the universe, God, the Good omnipotent.”[3]

The newcomer to such claims might find them grandiose, naïve, perhaps even a touch narcissistic. Dietrich Bonehoeffer’s journey from pacifism to Grenzfall (tyrannicide) in some ways represents a movement in the opposite direction, away from optimism toward dark despair which provokes violent intervention by an essentially non-violent man. Indeed, the earlier buoyancy of Transcendentalism and its European counterparts was already absent in the thought-world of twentieth century theology before Bonhoeffer made his move.[4] Nineteenth century idealism had died a generation earlier, summarized by the immortal words of a Canadian medical officer after the Battle of the Ypres salient in the spring of 1915:

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below. [5]

Despite wars and rumors of wars, Unity never relinquished the optimistic, monistic, idealistic vision of Transcendentalism. Our writers and theologians still affirm the divine nature of humanity, taking seriously the imago Dei regardless of appearances to the contrary. The prophetic tradition within our movement aims at calling people to the higher vision of their potential as sons and daughters of God. We see all sentient beings as fully divine and fully human, to include the main example of this indwelling divinity, Jesus of Nazareth. Such a prophetic word from our tradition, properly proclaimed, has the potential to transform the consciousness of humanity, one person at a time.

Not a Player
The outrageous possibilities of such a claim remain unexplored today because the potential apologists for Metaphysical Christianity are unequipped to play in the major leagues of theological dialogue. In fact, one could argue that Unity’s longstanding aversion for intellectual discourse indicates we have yet to show up for spring training. Prophetic ministry has a spiritual dimension, therefore the promulgation of spiritual principles, i.e., a call to righteousness, is an important component in any prophetic vision. However, to communicate a prophetic vision today requires an understanding of contemporary issues and their antecedents, plus the ability to translate one’s insights into the common language of Christian theology.

Means to the Goal: Lyceum and Journal
I hold that establishing an annual academic conference open to religious scholars from around the world (“The Lyceum at Unity Village”) and offering its proceedings in a new publication, the Unity Institute Journal of Theology (UIJT) will, over time, contribute to New Thought Christianity’s fuller participation in the ongoing theological dialogue and increase Unity’s involvement with the wider Christian community. Such involvement will allow the powerful insights of New Thought to flow outward from Unity while the circulating exchange of ideas will bring new possibilities to us from thinkers and spiritual leaders of other traditions. This is my thesis project for the doctoral program I am completing as part of my professional development as instructor of Historical and Theological Studies at Unity Institute; this is also the center of my life’s work.

Anti-Intellectual, Anti-traditionalist
Historically, Unity has been rather anti-intellectual and anti-traditionalist, so much that the insights, ideas and tools available to clergy and religious scholars from mainstream Protestant and Catholic traditions have seldom found their way into Metaphysical Christianity. The largest of the New Thought denominations, Unity could arguably be described as a movement with excellent insights into the nature of spirituality but little sense of its relationship to the complex family of religions commonly called Christianity. Even among the ordained Unity clergy, there is almost no tradition of theological reflection, no widespread understanding of modern biblical scholarship, little sense of church history, and an appalling lack of awareness about the very tools required to make our gifts available to a wider Christian world. The intellect has been described as inferior to, and often in conflict with, intuitive insights gleaned in personal meditation. For a classic example, Unity co-founder Charles Fillmore wrote:

Some persons confound the realm of knowledge about things formulated through the intellect with pure knowledge. Intellect and its plane of activity are not pure mind as the realm of matter is not Spirit. The same essences of being enter into both, but wisdom is sadly lacking in the intellectual realm. Intellect has formulated its conclusions from the sense side of existence instead of from the spiritual side, and these two sides are divergent.[6]


Again and again, Unity foundational writings take a swipe at the intellectual approach to religion, like this supposedly objective question in the study guide of Fillmore’s 1939 book, Jesus Christ Heals: “Is it better to seek understanding through intellectual reasoning or through divine inspiration?”[7] Since dialogue among biblical scholars and theologians provides a context of continuity for the Christian community, it is precisely this juxtaposition of intellectual reasoning over and against divine inspiration which has perpetuated Unity’s isolation. The New Thought archipelago lies somewhere over the horizon, far from the mainland of Christian thought.

Prophetic Possibilities: Mystical Consciousness
Nevertheless, the kind of prophetic ministry which Unity practices could be understood in the classical model of a call to righteousness, if such a call were expanded to include teaching and healing ministry aimed at introducing people to their inherent divine nature. Like Paul addressing the Athenians on Mars hill, Unity needs metaphors with which to translate the exciting, empowering insights of New Thought Christianity into the symbolic language of the twenty-first century Christian world. For example, Unity could be understood as a renewed, somewhat Easternized form of Christian mysticism. Some critics have claimed New Thought has more in common with Hinduism than Christianity, but this is an overstatement.[8] Historically, one could make the case for Unity’s monistic vision and sense of the indwelling Spirit by drawing parallels with Dionysius the Aeropagite, John Scotus Erigena, Meister Eckhart, and George Fox.

Since the denomination “grew up” as a laypersons movement, significant early thinkers in Unity had little awareness of the many points of contact with the intellectual and spiritual heritage available to them. This theological and historical illiteracy, coupled with the revivalist tendencies on nineteenth century American religious scene, produced twentieth century Unity writings which continued to display a sense of isolation from mainstream Christianity. Too often this primordial, developmental ignorance has persisted in Unity circles, sometimes outpicturing as anti-traditionalism which borders on religious xenophobia. Some Unity people have become suspicious of the word theology itself.

An established program of theological conferences and the publication of an academic New Thought Christian journal has the potential to mitigate some of the historic, anti-intellectual tendencies of the Unity movement, to inspire its scholars to explore and develop more fully Unity’s contribution to Christian thought, and to encourage ministers and laypeople to join the discussion about the role of the Church in service to humanity.

_________________________________
[1] Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 2001), xvi.
[2] Ibid., 67.
[3] Myrtle Fillmore, Myrtle Fillmore’s Healing Letters, Francis W. Foulkes, ed., (Unity Village, MO: Unity Books, 1954), 132.
[4]Larry Rasmussen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Reality and Resistance (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2005), 122.
[5] John McCrea, “In Flanders Fields” (Arlington National Cemetery Website: online source http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/flanders.htm), accessed 08-13-08.
[6] Charles Fillmore, Atom-Smashing Power of Mind (Unity Village, MO: Unity Books, 1949), 89.
[7] Fillmore, Jesus Christ Heals (Unity Village, MO: Unity Books, 1939), 202.
[8] Anderson, online lecture (http://www.websyte.com/alan/parl.htm).

Goats on a Hillside in Crete

As a younger man, whenever I thought of Crete, I thought of an idyllic scene with goats on a hillside. Like the picture above.

When I got to Crete, I found those kinds of goat scenes...but also these...

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And these... .

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Unless you look closely, it seems like the goats are flying in those two pictures. They're actually stepping from hoof-hold to hoof-hold, because they've learned over thousands of years how to scamper up a cliff that would make a veteran rock-climbing human with all the right mountaineering equipment pause and reconconsider.

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That cliff is too steep to climb! But nobody told the goats that, so they go ahead and climb them every day. There must be a healing lesson in that, or maybe something about prosperity. I don't know. But I liked the little goats, standing up there on little ledges so small you felt like they were wearing hovergear. Those hooves must be jetpacks! They just wagged their little tails and went , "Baaa, baaaa.." And then went back to foraging for lunch well out of reach of any predator, which is probably why they started climbing the rock walls thousands of years ago.

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Got a problem that seems impossible, a hill too steep to climb? Look at those little goats.

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Deadline for Lyceum Papers Extended to Aug 15

It's not too late. The Lyceum 2008 deadline for abstracts has been extended to August 15, 2008!

Professional scholars, graduate students, faculty, ministers, teachers, Friends in High Places (or wherever): You are invited to submit an abstract of a paper to present at the 1st Annual Meeting of the Lyceum at Unity Institute, November 3-6, 2008 at Unity Village, Missouri. The general theme is “Culturally Christian, Spiritually Unlimited,” however submissions are encouraged on any topic relevant to the study of spirituality, theology, pastoral studies, theological ethics, world religions, Church history, religion in contemporary society, ministry, and metaphysical Christianity.

We are looking for your best work: Original, cutting-edge scholarship that is well composed, well researched, and mechanically/technically competent. (Turabian or Chicago Style attribution preferred.)

E-mail a one-page abstract plus your CV and bio (especially teaching/publishing experience you may have had), to Victoria Cromwell, Lyceum coordinator, via e-mail / MS Word attachment:

cromwellvj@unityonline.org

Lyceum 2008 - November 3-6, Unity Village, Missouri

Beginning in November 2008, Unity Institute will host “The Lyceum at Unity Village,” an annual educational symposium open to teachers, writers and students of spiritual and theological studies around the globe. Guest speakers, visiting scholars, UI faculty members and selected students will present scholarly papers and participate in panel discussions of ground-breaking, sometimes provocative topics in religious studies.

The response has been amazing--over 100 scholars have inquired about presenting papers at the first Lyceum.

The Lyceum 2008 program includes lectures by biblical scholar Bart Ehrman, feminist theologian Nancy Howell, and Bishop John Shelby Spong, plus break-out sessions featuring academic papers and group discussions on a wide variety of significant topics by an assortment of scholars, teachers and students of religious studies.

Come and hear Bishop Spong as he critiques “The Future of Western Christianity and the American Dream” on election night. Wednesday afternoon Dr. Nancy Howell looks at human spirituality from the study of primate behavior in her lecture on "Chimpanzees, Bonobos, and the Future of Theological Reflection." Wednesday evening biblical scholar Dr. Bart Ehrman speaks on “From God the Problem to God the Solution: Different Biblical Responses to Human Suffering.” (We’re hoping Dr. Ehrman is not being clairvoyant about the election results!)

Other presenters include UI faculty, selected students and visiting scholars.

Registration information: http://www.unityonline.org/education/lyceumCulturallyChristianSpirituallyUnlimited.html

Borrowing a Tool from John Wesley

The Methodist Quadrilateral, sometimes named the Wesleyan Quadrilateral after the father of Methodism, John Wesley, is a simple, effective tool which provides an easy-to-use formula to establish dialogue among four formative factors: Scripture, Tradition, Experience and Reason. I like to call these the Fantastic Four, and join authors Howard W. Stone and James O. Duke in shamelessly admitting to have borrowed the basic idea from the United Methodist Book of Discipline.[1]

More recently, I've been promoting the idea of a Unity Quadrilatetral: Scripture, Tradition, Experience and Reflection, the latter category divided into intuitive insight and intellectual analysis. Think of the Quadrilateral as a way of processing any religious or spiritual idea. Simply feed the concept into this handy theologizing machine and see what kind of insights you can achieve with your head and heart. The four parts are as follows:

1) Scripture—What did the authors of the foundational documents of the faith say to their target audiences, and what does that mean today?

2) Tradition—What have others thought about this, and how has it been incorporated into the life of the Church?

3) Experience—What have the events of my life and relationships taught me about this; what has science (including the social sciences) taught me about the world?

4) Reflection— In my earlier books, I invoked the exact language of the Quadrilateral (scripture, tradition, experience and reason). Now I am persuaded that the last category is better expressed by the word reflection, rather than reason. The term reflection better expresses the sense of this process, because theological thinking has a dual dimension, intellectual and intuitive/inspirational. Theological reflection really does have those two dimensions, intellectual and intuitive.

a) Intellectual Reasoning. What sense can I make of this by thinking it through logically and requiring it to remain consistent with other knowledge?

b) Intuitive Reflection. What imaginative insights come to me as I let these ideas play in my mind?[2]

Assuming the Bible contains a wealth of wisdom and Truth, which is a reasonable deduction when considering its positive influence through the centuries, one must nevertheless decide how to interpret the words of scripture to access those treasures. The first factor which comes into play when reading the Bible is the Scripture itself—the plain sense of the text. However, first the text had to be copied and recopied, edited and translated. Next is the whole history of how people have read and understood the passage (tradition). People also bring personal, cultural and societal experience to the reading of biblical texts. Finally, humans apply their power to refelect both critically and creatively, which includes intellectual reflection and intuitive vision.

This four-fold process can help with more than just biblical texts. One can use Scripture-Tradition-Experience-Reflection when mulling over any religious, socio-political, interpersonal, or ethical concern. For example, when attempting to locate the authentic Jesus in the contradictory and sometimes unpleasant gallery of gospel portraits, the Fantastic Four can provide some handy tools.

Every image of Jesus drawn from the New Testament must face the four-fold test. Is it really found in the scripture text or simply a cliché which interpreters have superimposed on the original words? Asking what others have said, written or done about Jesus in the past helps people to understand better today. The interaction of scripture and historical reflection on its words brings the second factor to bear, tradition.

Christian churches of all types share a rich tradition of biblical and theological reflection going back to the earliest days of the faith, a pluralistic tradition which speaks with a multitude of voices. For example, the tradition of mysticism insists that God can be known directly. One form of this is Christian monism, which recognizes only One Presence/One Power in the Cosmos. Add to this a belief in spiritual evolution, which discovers this Presence and Power at work within every sentient being to transform human consciousness into Christ consciousness, and the result is a creative process which moves from Divine Mind, to a self-perfecting expression in sentient beings like humans. This is effectively summarized by Charles Fillmore as Twelve Powers, the spiritual-mental centers from which flow gifts such as order, zeal, strength, power and love.

Naturally, looking at Jesus of Nazareth through the lens of One Presence/One Power means applying principles like these to any interpretation of his nature and person. Yet, anyone applying these concepts—even something as fundamental as OP2 itself—must dialogue with the evidence presented in Christian scripture as reflected upon by centuries of sincere, God-seeking people. Like any form of “the Way” which has come down to us since Jesus walked this Earth, a practical, post-modern understanding of Christianity cannot simply invent new religious principles and call them Christian without sacrificing its intellectual and spiritual integrity.

All who identify with Jesus Christ must allow both Scripture and Christian tradition to speak its mind and heart, allowing the writers and thinkers who came before our time to declare their truths authentically in the context in which they were created. Only after the voices from the past are given their due can Christian theology today apply new insights from its reflection upon the ancient faith. This is not an appeal for uncritical acceptance of scripture and tradition; it is an appeal for clarity, for taking the past seriously enough to hear what others actually have said when formulating contemporary theology.

Life brings learning, and no one can doubt that the experience of post-modern life has shaped the way we look at Jesus. His praise of the peacemakers, his love of truth, his blessing and approval of children, his acceptance of foreigners and outcasts in his stories, his willingness to speak to women as equals—these qualities come through the scriptural picture of Jesus only because life experiences have allowed us to see these qualities today as virtuous. That has not always been the case.

In the past, Jesus has been invoked as the avenging god of Christian warfare. His cross emblazoned the Crusader shields as the self-appointed warriors of God pillaged their way across Europe to rescue the Holy Land from the heathen Muslim. “Jesus loves the little children…” goes the popular hymn, yet in other eras children were physically abused in the name of maintaining “Christian” standards, like the parents of Martin Luther, who beat him for minor offenses until the blood flowed.

Like all the great prophets of the Hebrew tradition, Jesus called upon people to care for the orphan, the widow, the poor and downtrodden, yet until relatively recent times beggars and debtors were tossed in prison in Christian Europe, women had no rights, and even the mildest offenses merited death by hanging. Childhood had no meaning until the abolition of child labor, and African slavery made a mockery of the Sermon on the Mount with its “Blessed are the poor…” Only after humans had lived through these tough times did they begin to see in the words of Jesus a better way, thanks to the divine-human power of reasoned reflection, which combines understanding, judgment, and imagination and represents both an intellectual-analytical and intuitive-creative component.

The Unity Quadrilateral is a great tool for thinking theologically about matters metaphysical.
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[1] Howard W. Stone and James O. Duke, How to Think Theologically, Second Edition (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2006), 43ffl.
[2] IBID., 34-38

"Hear, O Israel..."

One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, "Which commandment is the first of all?" Jesus answered, "The first is, 'Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one.'" (Mark 12:28-29, NRSV)

Sometimes, it pays to listen for subtle sounds in the music of sacred writings. Everyone hears the brass band sounds of the Sermon on the Mount, the Concerto grosso of the Ten Commandments, the pastoral symphony of the Twenty-Third Psalm. But can we hear the sly melodies, tunes which slide along the air, barely tingling our eardrums? As with the songs of birds, the sweetest sounds are often hardest to hear.

Take the passage from Mark 12, mentioned above. When Jesus is asked to name the greatest commandment, he first replies with the Shema, the great declaration of faith prayed daily by Jews: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.” Although we’ve walked over this passage in our haste to get to the good parts which follow (“you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and…your neighbor as yourself...”), it was not by accident that Jesus began with those words. This affirmation has become the central creedal statement of Judaism, and it summarize metaphysical Christianity as well. It is none other than a call to recognize God as One Presence, One Power.

Jesus underscored the Absolute Oneness of God as the first principle of Judaism, a lesson many Christians quickly forgot. Within a generation after the crucifixion, his followers were proclaiming Jesus as a unique expression of God, and creating mechanisms to place a third entity—the Holy Spirit—in the Christian pantheon. All of the “persons” of the Trinity were seen as separate from each other and yet fundamentally One; yet they were related to humanity only in a subject-object role: Three Caesars on celestial thrones, lording over the subjects of their heavenly empire. This was not the vision of Jesus, who insisted on the Oneness of God and claimed an Intimate relationship to the Father, not just for Himself but for all humanity.

It’s time to re-claim that vision, to see God as Absolute Good, not just as One Presence/One Power, but as the only Presence and Power in the Cosmos. This vision of the Oneness of God requires spiritual insight. We walk over the evidence in our daily lives, but the illusions of lack, limitation, dis-ease, and separation from God are hard to overcome without conscientious effort. But overcome it we shall. Nineteen centuries after Jesus answered the question about the greatest commandment, H. Emilie Cady would write a modern vision of the Absolute Oneness of God:

“God is the name we give to that unchangeable, inexorable principle at the source of all existence. To the individual consciousness God takes on personality, but as the creative underlying cause of all things, He is principle, impersonal; as expressed in each individual, He becomes personal to that one—a personal, loving, all-forgiving Father-Mother. All that we can ever need or desire is the infinite Father-Principle, the great reservoir of unexpressed good. There is no limit to the Source of our being, nor to His willingness to manifest more of Himself through us, when we are willing to do his will.” [Lessons in Truth, 22]

Meditate on the Oneness of God. See yourself as an expression of Divine Love and Light. Try affirming: “The Father-Mother God and I are one.” And remember: The greatest commandment is to know that God is One…which means God is One with you!
__________________________
Carol-Jean and I will be visiting with Unity churches and study groups in the United Kingdom for the next two weeks, returning to Unity Village June 6. There may (or may not) be Theo-Blogs posted from internet cafes in London and Birmingham, so stay tuned..
_____________________________________
ONE LAST REMINDER: Theo-Blog's "Flying $20 Club" Church for the Month for April-May is...
Unity Southeast
3421 East Meyer Blvd.
Kansas City, MO 64132

If you feel called by Spirit to support this small but vibrant ministry, send your "Flying $20" contribution to the above address.

Building a Fence Around the Torah

Rabbis have long spoken about building a fence around the Torah, which is the Jewish Law, encompassed in the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. As Dr. Joseph H. Hertz, who at the time was Chief Rabbi of the British Empire, writes in his commentary to Pirke Aboth ("The Sayings of the Fathers"):

Surround it (Torah) with cautionary rules that shall, like a danger signal, halt a man before he gets within breaking distance of the Divine statute itself. On the Sabbath, for example, even the handling of work-tools is forbidden. [1]

Rabbinic thought proceeds from the desire to codify proper behavior in all aspects of religious life; it is the mirror-opposite of liberal Protestant thought, which proceeds from central principles (e.g., "Love thy neighbor") but allows maximum flexibility in the application of each principle. When practiced faithfully, both have produced vibrant, healthy spiritual communities.

Yet, this morning I find myself reflecting on some of the wisdom in the cautionary tone in Pirke Aboth. Build a fence around the Torah...Don't put yourself in a position where the next step is off the cliff. The alcoholic or former drug abuser who continues in the same circle of friends and pit-stops would do well to heed the rabbinic warnings about getting to close to points of danger. The same goes for the student who is always cramming for a test, or pulling an all-nighter to finish a massive research paper due the next morning. Ministers who prepare their Sunday talks on Saturday night also fit the category, and they are second only to that band of hardy (fool-hardy?) souls who show up at church with no preparation and let Spirit guide them as they wing their Sunday sermons, week after week. (I believe in letting Spirit guide me, but I find Spirit is much more articulate if I have done my homework first.)

Pirke Aboth is really talking about proper preparation as well as proper distancing from a source of distraction or temptation. This corresponds to that line which many people don't like in the Lord's Prayer: "Lead me not into temptation." (Most Unity ministers render this "Leave me not..." but I like "Lead me away from...")

The point is, think ahead. Take the danger spots seriously. And stop short of the place where you'll get yourself in trouble. Excellent advice. But who would expect otherwise from the Fathers of Israel?

[1] Joseph H. Hertz, Pirke Aboth: The Sayings of the Fathers (NY: Behrman House, 1945), 12.

________________________________________

REMINDER: Theo-Blog's "Flying $20 Club" Church for the Month for April-May is...

Unity Southeast

3421 East Meyer Blvd.

Kansas City, MO 64132

If you feel called by Spirit to support this small but vibrant ministry, send your "Flying $20" contribution to the above address.

Four Unpublished Poems

Had enough of my brilliant prose? (Okay...brilliant is a very relativistic term here.) The following four poems I've not published before today.


Angels not Required
By - Thomas Shepherd

I lay by the pool in the afternoon sun
Thinking my life was, for all intents, done,
When Jesus strolled by with His teaching parade
And asked if I wanted to end the charade.

His followers murmured as I tried to say,
“I’ve come to accept this, my invalid way.
For only an angel can trouble this pool,
And cure all afflictions— Sir, this is the rule:
The one who’s the fastest can dunk and get well,
But I’m so disabled, my chances are nil.”

Yet, Jesus ignored my confession of lack
And ordered me bluntly to get off my back,
To rise up and walk, abandon my mat,
And that’s what I did—as quickly as that!

I learned something basic when He called to me:
That life is a choice, so I choose to be free.
No matter the circumstance faith is my guide,
I don't need the angels to stir up a tide,
And I’m walking boldly since He passed that day;
I’ll spend no more time on the invalid way.


[The next two in memory of the season just past.]


Winter Sundae
by - Thomas Shepherd

Cold sunsets are the best,
When winter sun lingers at the horizon
Like the last bite of an orange popsickle.
Frozen night, come quickly;
Sprinkle stars and dip the moon in
Whipped cream clouds
To light a vanilla countryside.
Some look at bitter winter and see
Barren trees and sullen skies;
I see God’s sweetness topping every hillside,
Marking each cold season
Like a visit to the ice cream store.


If We Kept Christmas All the Year
by - Thomas Shepherd

If we kept Christmas all the year
There’s be no time for hate or fear,
We’d be too busy, meeting friends,
And touching candles, end to ends;
The nations end their endless strife
To celebrate the gift of life;
At temples, mosques and churches throngs
With joy-filled voices singing songs
Will every evening pause to pray
And vow that peace begins today,
And every day the prayer repeats
Until we are a world at peace;
God’s kingdom would at last be here,
If we kept Christmas all the year.


[And, just for fun...]


Mysterious Woman: Memories from an Alternative Universe
by Thomas Shepherd

Mysterious woman--exotic, bewitching--
Are you the reason my kneecaps keep itching?
Was it neglecting to meet you at noon?
I wasn’t expecting this hair loss so soon.

Or was it a lapse in my fervent attention?
A minor mishap—surely not my intention!
Maybe you saw me with Claire or Suzanne
Or found that hot letter I wrote to LeAnn.

Yet, was that a reason to gather your group
And chant evil curses to poison my soup?
You know that I love you, and I’d never lie,
So please take the pins out, before I shall die…

If you’ll stop enchanting and turn love to hate,
I’ll stop romancing that bimbo named Kate,
If we cannot settle, I must hit the road,
Or you’re to your kettle, and I am a toad.

Mysterious woman--exotic, bewitching,
Are you the reason my kneecaps keep itching?

_____________________________________________________________

REMINDER: Your Theo-Blog "Flying $20 Club" Church for the Month for April-May is...

Unity Southeast
3421 East Meyer Blvd.
Kansas City, MO 64132

If you feel called by Spirit to support this small but vibrant ministry, send your "Flying $20" contribution to the above address.

He Has a Nightmare

The hysteria surrounding recent hermeneutical hyperbole from the mouth of Barack Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, is another indicator of the gulf between two fundamentally different visions of the world. Obama represents the positive thinking of Martin Luther King, Jr., a non-violent approach to human relationships and to society at large: Give them a dream; bring people a higher vision and call it forth from them, while holding those in power accountable for the shortcomings of society.

Rev. Wright represents the combative voice of early Malcom X writings. Before that great African-American Muslim made his mind-opening pilgrimage to Mecca, his vision of the world was more like a nightmare: Conspiratorial actions by the majority society to destroy minorities and/or keep non-white Americans in economic, political, and cultural thralldom.

Having said this, let me add that both Malcom and Rev. Wright do make some valid points. Lingering racism is a cancer which may be in remission but has not yet vanished from the body of American life. And having taught public school I can verify that discontent for the members of majority culture by minority students sometimes breaks out in full indignation. One day an eighth grader student, a lovely young lady, blurted out in homeroom: "I hate white people!" I frowned and said, "Hey....I resemble that remark." She smiled warmly and said, "Oh, I'm not talking about you, Mr. Shepherd..." I knew she wasn't, but the frustration behind her declaration flowed partly from the fact that she lived in a sometimes-hostile world where she would always be a "minority" member.

The source of these conflicts runs deep. It has to do with people from different cultures sharing the same living space. There are plenty of locations around the planet where diverse peoples co-exist and co-mingle rather harmoniously; Brazil is everybody's favorite example of an integrated society, although it's less than perfect. However, in too many places people divide themselves along racial, ethnic, linguistic, or religious lines. I've seen this in middle school cafeterias and prison yards; by choice or necessity, birds of a feather really do together.

Yet, Dr. King's vision of a society of mutual respect, based on a positive vision of good will and cooperation, is ill served when ministers like Jeremiah Wright take the pulpit and declare that the US created the AIDS virus and set it loose on the black community: “The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. The government lied." Rev. Wright's comments do not just represent bad theology or rancorous thinking; these are paranoid delusions boardering on psychosis. Even if someone were to believe US government could get away with creating and releasing the AIDS virus without headline-hungry investigative reporters leaping on the story, how could a sinister central regime weaponize the AIDS virus? Consider how ineffective AIDS is as a weapon: there is neither an antidote nor protective vaccine for your troops, the disease is only transmitted by blood or bodily fluids, and it attacks everyone without regard to race, color, or creed.

In defense of Rev. Wright's prophetic tradition--if not his specific views--I recommend a fresh reading of the New Testament, especially for anyone who believes the Church should NOT address the social issues of the day. (Jesus did, and it got him crucified.) There are racial barriers still to overcome in this world. We have not yet arrived at ML King's vision of a society in which people are judged by not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. However, we are more likely to move toward a world of peace and justice if we shun the nightmares of Rev. Jeremiah Wright and keep our eyes on the prize, the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

We May Never Know

Even an apparently small act of kindness can have great consequences. Over a hundred years ago a young man became so sick he was admitted to a sanitarium, which was in those days the name for a nursing home where incurable patients rested until the end. The young man became so weak that one night he was certain he would not survive until dawn. He wrote to his wife:

"When morning came, I felt as if...darkness was all about me. I was utterly without hope. Blackness was in my mind."

It was Sunday morning. Someone had gathered a group of patients to sing hymns. The young man writes, "...from far down the hall I heard singing, heard the sound of a hymn. They were singing the song, 'God Will Take Care of You.' I listened and suddenly something inside me broke: I yielded myself to God. I said to Him, 'I can do nothing. Please take care of me...'"

The letter continues, "The darkness went away. It was as if someone had thrown back the curtains and turned on every light in the place. The room was filled with radiance. In my mind, in my heart everything was new. I was happy. I experienced an inflow of power such as I never knew was possible."

The name of the person who gathered the patients at that sanitarium and led the hymns one morning so long ago is lost to history. It was a random act of kindness. Perhaps by a staff member or hospital chaplain. Perhaps a visiting clergyman. We don't know. But we do know the name of the young man--J.C. Penny. He revived and survived to create a great chain of stores across America before his death at age 96.

We may never know the outcome when God uses us to bless people. We become, so to speak, God's secret agents, subverting the everyday world by random acts of kindness and drive-by explosions of love.

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Your Theo-Blog "Flying $20" Church for the Month for April-May is

Unity Southeast

3421 East Meyer Blvd.

Kansas City, MO 64132

If you feel called by Spirit to support this small but vibrant ministry, send $20 to the above address.

THE PARADOX OF GRACE

"God Alone Suffices"

As much as I hate to admit it, Jesus Christ didn’t come to teach theology. Oh, he waxed theological in his arguments with the Pharisees and Sadducees, but intellectual instruction wasn't the center of his faith. In many ways, he was more similar to an Asian guru than a traditional rabbi. He demonstrated an unflappable mastery over the challenges of life. Jesus taught a message of empowerment that helped people lead a better life in the here-and-now. So, people flocked to him for practical reasons, not just to hear a lecture. They brought the sick, and he healed them. They brought their doubts, and he showed them how to have faith. They were poor in spirit and just plain poor, and he taught them God provides for those who step out in faith. Jesus taught an abundant life message, not just a survival strategy.

You and I can have the same kind of power, mastery and dominion that Jesus promised his disciples, but the path to wholeness and abundance is not through luck or happenstance. Your abundant life comes to you not from winning a spiritual lottery, but through exercising your mental and spiritual faculties. True, it is a free gift of God, which the very definition of “grace”, but the blessings of Divine Order must be freely received. Here is the tantalizing paradox of God’s grace: We cannot earn the good which God has prepared for us, yet without conscious effort we cannot receive it, either. Even a free gift must be accepted, unwrapped, and put to use.

God is like the sunshine, constantly pouring its warmth upon the Earth. To bask in this sunny day, we must come forth from our caves of error-belief, cast off all vestiges of self-denigration and feelings of unworthiness, and simply accept the good, warm, life-sustaining light of God. As St. Teresa of Avila said long ago:

Let nothing disturb you,

Let nothing affright you.

All things pass.

God is unchanging.

Patience obtains all.

Whoever has God needs nothing else.

God alone suffices.

Destination Guaranteed – Flight Path Optional

The Rev. Dr. Norman Vincent Peale once took a flight to Hawaii, during which the pilots invited the famous minister into the cockpit. They showed him the various instruments and navigational aids that helped them fly from the West Coast to the island paradise. Dr. Peale noticed the Captain and Co-pilot making a series of slight turns, course corrections. The aviators said an aircraft actually flies a zigzag pattern along its flight path. Drift south and correct north, then vice-versa, crisscrossing the direct line of flight as they sailed above the vast Pacific. The Captain said they must adjust the course continuously to correct for winds aloft and other atmospheric and meteorological factors. But the plane arrives on time in Honolulu, even though it has been off course during most of the trip.

It seems that Jesus understood the principles of flight two thousand years ago. He repeatedly urged people to make “course corrections” as they stumbled across the path toward Oneness with God: Zaccheaus, the dishonest tax collector whom Jesus called back to honesty without mentioning taxes or money; the Samaritan woman at the well, whose relationships were a disaster and Jesus encouraged her to take life and faith seriously; Simon Peter, a self-confessed “sinful man” who became the Rock of faith; Mary and Martha, two sisters who represented reflective and active faith; the “rich young ruler” whose inability to handle wealth had become a burden that he could neither bear nor release; the woman caught in the act of adultery, whom Jesus challenged to make better choices; and the list goes one and on.

The New Testament shows a wild explosion of personal growth among the followers of Jesus. These transformations are even more amazing when we consider that the ancient world believed a person’s character was fixed and could not change. Jesus called people to begin a journey, and his disciples stumbled across the flight trajectory to higher consciousness as they followed their best route along the path demonstrated by their Wayshower. We can take heart from their example.
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ARE YOU A FLYING $20 CLUB MEMBER YET?

The "Flying $20" Church for the Month for April-May is

Unity Southeast
3421 East Meyer Blvd.
Kansas City, MO 64132

If you feel called by Spirit to support this small but vibrant ministry, send $20 to the above address.

We'll pick a new "Flying $20" Church for the months of June-July...Any nominees?

"Flying 20" Church of the Month Club

UNPUBLISHED LETTER FROM THE MAILBAG

Dear Tom: We have something in common, because I am a military retiree and you were a career Army Chaplain. Maybe you can identify with being assigned to remote locations, because today I live in a nice but rather isolated place with no Unity church nearby. I read my Daily Word and Unity Magazine, and I’m wondering is whether there’s any way I can support small Unity churches? Maybe I could help give a new church a flying start. Can you recommend a small church somewhere?

J.J., Newberry, SC

Dear J.J.: Good to hear from another military escapee...uh...I mean retiree. Your best way to support small ministries is by giving directly to the Association of Unity Churches International, P.O. Box 610, Lee’s Summit, MO, 64063. The AUCI website [www.unity.org ] along with the website of the Unity School of Christianity [www.unityonline.org/ ] can provide you with tons of information to keep in touch with other Unity people around the planet.

However, your words about our common military backgrounds and about giving small Unity churches a “flying start” have brought back an old memory. Not about a religious institution, but Army basic training at Fort Dix, New Jersey.

I remember so clearly, like it was last June, even though it was the summer of 1964. We were a motley bunch--volunteers and draftees and National Guardsmen and Reservists called to active duty for training. We came as a mob of strangers and left a team of soldiers. For some young men from deeply segregated communities, this was the first time they had ever associated with people of different races and religions. And we quickly learned the only color that mattered was Army green and the only doctrine we would be tested on was military discipline. It was a young man’s sport, and I joined a basically peacetime Army, just before the conflict in Southeast Asia escalated to war.

We began the pre-training at a place called the Reception Center. They issued us new recruits our first green fatigue uniforms and handed out new canvas duffle bags which we stuffed full of Army-issue equipment. (I still have my duffle bag, somewhat battered but still functional.) And of course were all stone broke, being 18 year old kids from mostly poor families. So the Army had this policy of giving everyone a tiny advance pay--we called it the “flying ten”--just before you shipped out from the Repo-Depot to your Basic Training Company (bus trip, ten minutes). It doesn’t seem like much money today, but in 1964 ten bucks could buy all the soap and razor blades you needed and still have a few quarters left over for soft drinks, even though they wouldn’t let trainees near a soda machine for many weeks.

So, when you mentioned giving churches a “flying start” an idea flashed in my head. What if we encouraged people to send a “Flying $20” (increased for inflation) to a different small church every few months? People could find a Unity center to support through the AUCI website [ www.unity.org ], but I’m guessing some readers might like to participate directly via my Theo-Blog. So, how about we try a prosperity experiment?

Let’s recruit “Shepherd’s Flying $20 Flock” right here and now. For the next few months, I’ll suggest a small or new church to which interested people could send a small donation ($20 is only a suggestion).

Now, to keep me out of trouble with my brothers and sisters in other churches, let’s agree that everybody who participates in the “Flying 20” will make this a special love offering above-and-beyond their continued tithing in support of their home churches, OK? The goal is to stimulate prosperity thinking by double-timing (jogging) the second mile.

For our first “Flying $20” church, I nominate:

Unity Southeast
3421 East Meyer Blvd.
Kansas City, MO 64132.

Unity S.E. [ www.unitysoutheast.org/ ] is a small, ethnically diverse, vibrant church in the Kansas City metro area. I’m certain Rev. Kevin Ross (affectionately known as "RevKev") would love to hear from you.

Furthermore, I invite readers to send suggestions for future Shepherd’s Flock churches by posting a reply to this blog.

And send the Theo-Blog link to all your friends and associates! Why should you suffer in solitude, when you can share the befuddlement of theology with others?

April Showers

Remember the old couplet?


April showers
Bring May flowers.


It is raining in Missouri this morning. I'm recalling another line, this one from an old Sunday school song we were taught at Zion's Evangelical and Reformed Church in Reading, PA. It's a faint memory from when I was a very young child. I think it was actually during the Truman administration (another Missouri connection). Just did a Google search and could not find the lyrics, so bear with this really primitive recollection:


The rain comes down with a pitter-patter-pit,
Showing God's great love...

One of the assigned books for the masters' level course I'm teaching in the May Intersession here at Unity Institute ("Readings in Western Spirituality: Two Novels and a Musical") will be James Michner's epic tale of a tell in Israel, The Source. Re-reading this book after a quarter century has brought new insights about how our ancestors probably lived. Domestication of grain began the long march to the comforts of suburbia, because it was only after food supplies could be regulated that ordinary people had the opportunity to pause, reflect, create, write, and inspire each other to greater heights.

But without the crops, disaster follower. There were no government bail-out programs, or at least not until Joseph temporarily took over the Welfare program in Egypt. Everything was dependent on fecundity and climate. It is no accident that the oldest deities of humanity are gods of storm and sky, goddesses of earth and fertility.

The little snippet from that long-ago Sunday school class owes its wellsprings to the tribal shaman who offered smoky tributes to maintain the harmonious balance between earth and the heavens. Without the rain, the crops die, and so do the people.

Prosperity thinking is not based on offerings to unknown gods, but on the kind of trust which inspired our ancestors to abandon nomadic hunting and gathering and to settle by their fields with confidence that the natural cycle of life would allow them to prosper. Or at least to eat next winter. It was a dangerous, bold turnining point, the domestication of grain. No wonder so many religious ceremonies celebrate food and the harvest. The great line from the best-beloeved Thanksgiving hymn, "Come, Ye Thankful People, Come" has lost its power in an age iof 24-hour shoppettes and Wal-Mart Super-Centers:

All is safely gathered in,
'Ere the winter storms begin.

We have now the power to change the climate by recklessness, and woe be unto us if we do not remember how hard-won have been the pleasures of civilized life in complex civilizations bulit on stable grain production and predictable cycles of weather.

It is raining in Missouri. Pitter-patter-pit. Showing God's great love...

Noah and the Raven

"At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made and sent out the raven." Genesis 8:6-7 (NRSV)


In June of 1843 Isabella Baumfree, having received a vision of God telling her to "travel up an' down the land showin' the people their sins an' bein' a sign unto them," left New York and changed her name to Sojourner Truth. She became one of the greatest abolitionists and women's rights lecturers in American history. This is from one of her speeches, “Ain’t I a Woman?”

Ain't I A Woman?

That man over there say a woman
needs to be helped into carriages
and lifted over ditches
and to have the best place everywhere.
Nobody ever helped me into carriages
or over mud puddles or gives me the best place,
And ain't I a woman?

Look at me—Look at my arm!
I have plowed and planted and gathered into barns
and no man could head me...
And ain't I a woman?
I could work as much and eat as much as a man--when I could get to it--
and bear the lash as well
and ain't I a woman?

I have born 13 children and seen most all sold into slavery
and when I cried out a mother's grief
none but Jesus heard me...
and ain't I a woman?

That little man in the back there say a woman
can't have as much rights as a man
‘cause Christ wasn't a woman.
Where did your Christ come from?
From God and a woman!
Man had nothing to do with him!

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough
to turn the world upside down, all alone,
together women ought to be able to turn it rightside up again.


She flew above the limitations of slavery like a raven sailing over the vultures and turkey hawks. You know, the raven isn’t considered a terribly spiritual bird. But I hope to change your mind on that subject this Sunday. The topic of this Blog is “Noah and the Raven,” but while considering these ideas I’d nevertheless like you to remember Sojourner Truth.

“The Raven” of Edgar Allen Poe is arguably the best known black bird in American literature. But today I will introduce you to his ancient ancestor. Most of us have heard the story of Noah and the Ark….how Noah built the ship on dry land, then gathered two of each kind. Actually, Genesis 7 says he gathered seven pairs of “clean” animals and one pair of “unclean” animals…and seven pairs of all the bird species, too. All the living creatures…together in one place. Lions and tigers and bears…oh, my. Feeding time aboard the ark must have been a real zoo…and I don’t even want to think about what that boat smelled like after a few days with no potty break.

And insects! There are more insects on earth than all the land, air and sea animals, combined. Where did Noah keep the insects…for example, his thousands of species of fleas?
Of course, we’re not dealing with an animal documentary here. The story is clearly mythological. Trying to make Noah and the ark an historic event is like trying to make history out of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

But just because it didn’t happen doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Some of life’s greatest truths are told in stories which have no relationship to actual events. As biblical scholar Fr. Paul Fitzpatrick S.M., famously said: “Everything in the Bible is true, and some of it actually happened.”[1]

There is an older tale on which the flood epic of Genesis depends for many specific details, the Epic of Gilgamesh. In the story, the author describes the pairs of animals, the ark, and other familiar landmarks, although the picture of the divine isn’t as majestic as the one drawn by the Hebrew Scriptures.

In those days the world teemed,
the people multiplied,
the world bellowed like a wild bull,
and the great god was aroused by the clamor.
Enlil heard the clamor
and he said to the gods in council,
"The uproar of mankind is intolerable
and sleep is no longer possible
by reason of the babel."
So the gods agreed to exterminate mankind.

In Gilgamesh, the gods decided to eliminate humankind by a flood because we were making too much noise…and that was before boom boxes, rap music and country rock. Furthermore, they outdid themselves with the flood…listen to these words from the ancient poet:

The gods were frightened by the deluge,
And, shrinking back,
they ascended to the heaven of Anu.
The gods cowered like dogs
Crouched against the outer wall.

The story sounds a little more like Noah when the ark comes to rest after the flood begins to subside.

When the seventh day arrived,
I sent forth and set free a dove.
The dove went forth, but came back;
There was no resting-place for it
and she turned round.
Then I sent forth and set free a swallow.
The swallow went forth, but came back,
There was no resting-place
for it and she turned round.

So…the dove failed in her mission, eh? Let’s see who succeeds, according to the Epic of Gilgamesh:

Then I sent forth and set free a raven.
The raven went forth and,
seeing that the waters had diminished,
He eats, circles, caws, and turns not round.

Gilgamesh comes to dry land and immediately offers sacrifice:

I made a sacrifice and poured out a libation
on the mountain top…
When the gods smelled the sweet savor,
they gathered like flies over the sacrifice.

Just how indebted to this early story is the Genesis account? Listen to the Hebrew Scriptures describe what happened when Noah comes to dry land:

Then Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And…the LORD smelled the pleasing odor…

Now, there is a minor point of disagreement here. In Genesis, Noah first “opened the window of the ark that he had made and sent out the raven”, which did not return. “…it went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth.” But the raven doesn’t get credit for finding land! Noah sends out a dove, which fails in the mission, so he sends it out again! The dove returns again, this time with an olive branch in its beak. You know we’re clearly into mythology here, because olive trees are among the slowest growing trees in the Mediterranean region. The dove gets sent out again; and this time it doesn’t return.

So, why did the dove get the credit for discovering Mesopotamia, instead of the raven, like happened in the older story? Remember “clean & unclean” animals? Guess which one is clean and which is unclean.

I think the raven was gypped. And I think we need to take a good look at the symbolism of the raven in this story. I’ll tell you why… If the raven had been hailed as the heroic bird of the Flood Story, think of how that might have changed subsequent religious symbols. What if, instead of a white dove, the Holy Spirit was portrayed as a black raven? How would that have affected our attitude toward things dark, maybe even people darker than ourselves?

So, lets indulge ourselves and look at Noah’s raven…Catholic Encyclopedia: Raven symbolizes the Jews, confession & penance. Unity co-founder Charles Fillmore said in Mysteries of Genesis that the raven represents uncertainty, whereas the dove represents peace of mind and confidence in divine law.

But that’s only because the author of Genesis overlooked the fact that the raven—which was the first bird released—did not return. Here was no uncertain bird.

That ancient feathered explorer said to himself, “Whoo-hooo! Dry land ahoy. Now, let’s see…Shall I go find a nice green forest to live in, or go back to that smelly old ark with Noah and his thousands of species of fleas?”

To me, the raven represents openness and a willingness to be led by Spirit to new heights. You know what the best possible score is in golf? Eighteen. Has anybody ever scored it? Very unlikely. So, a total score of 18 on an 18-hole coursed is possible….theoretically.

What the raven represents to me is the possibility of unprecedented success, maybe even on the first try. I mean, it’s important to hang in there and persevere, right? But what if God shows me the answer instantly? Do I fly back to the Ark, with Noah and the fleas? Or shall I make like a blackbird and start raven about my good fortune? (Sorry. Couldn’t resist that one.)

Edgar Allen Poe’s literary raven croaks woefully from its perch atop the "bust of Pallas". Here’s the opening and the ending of his immortal poem, "The Raven":

Once upon a midnight dreary,
while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious
volume of forgotten lore--
While I nodded, nearly napping,
suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping,
rapping at my chamber door…


The poem ends:


And the Raven, never flitting,
still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas
just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming
of a demon's that is dreaming
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming
throws his shadows on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow
that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted--nevermore!

Okay, Edgar, we’ve got to work on our positive thoughts, espceially light and life and prosperity. For the gloomy Mr. Poe, who struggled with alcoholism and probably drug abuse, the raven represented darkness, fear, hopelessness. And, yes, there is that side to the raven symbolism. Practitioners of dark magic are often shown with blackbirds. But the whole idea about “dark is bad, light is good” --which is found in mythologies and fairy tales cross-culturally and cross-racially--probably comes from the fact that humans are almost instinctively afraid of the dark, because we are a daylight-feeding, daytime-browsing species. We’re diurnals…day creatures. If we were nocturnals, imagine the difference.

In my science fiction novel, The Princess and the Prophet (see ordering information to the right of his column), one set of characters are warren-dwelling, furry creatures of high intelligence who travel through space on vast city ships. But because they are a night-active species, their religious language is exactly opposite from ours. Listen as the Captain Urlis Tarkamin of the furry creatures prays a benediction over his human guests:

“May the blessings of Holy Darkness descend upon you with its gloom of protection.”

Later, when his son, Hozaine, learns a great truth, here’s how I imagined it:

(Hozaine)…put a paw over his mouth as the Sacred Gloom of Wisdom descended upon him, blessing his mind with the Darkness of Divine Knowledge.

The incident of Noah and the raven can show what happens when prejudices take over. The raven should have gotten the credit, but the raven was “unclean” and the raven was…well… black. People are like that. We are afraid of things that are different. And as day creatures, we fear the dark. But darkness can be a good thing, especially if you’re alone with your honey on a starry night. And darkness is a good time for rest. Daylight is a good thing, too. Especially if you’re coaching a little league game or grilling hamburgers at a church picnic.

Ravens…doves….there isn’t much genetic difference between them. And Lord knows, we need to treat all our ravens and doves with love and respect. Not just in the outer world, either. Your raven thoughts are uncertain moments…you need to respect those hesitations. Sometimes, ravens are the voice of God saying, “Slow down...” Other times, they are like Noah’s bird that flies off boldly and finds its nest on the first attempt. The dove shows peace of mind and confidence in divine law…but I gotta tell you…there’s something to be said for the raven…the quiet, eager, opportunistic raven.

People need to be ready to fly straight through the open door when opportunity presents itself, too. That is part of raven consciousness…

Sojourner Truth was a raven. She saw her duty and flew right to it. She was not daunted by the prejudices of race consciousness. She was willing to follow her guidance instantly, and she never looked back. After slavery was ended, she fought endlessly for women’s rights.

Maybe, if Christianity had noticed that it was the raven who actually found the new earth, the raven might have become a great symbol of hope and faith and peace. Maybe the Holy Spirit would be immortalized in art as a raven. Maybe things would have been different. But if we realize that now, then we can make things different in our lives and in our attitudes. There is no place for bigotry. There is no place for fear.

There is only faith, trust, and certainty when we fly forth as bold ravens of the Lord God.

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Genesis 8:6-12

6 At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made 7and sent out the raven; and it went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth. 8Then he sent out the dove from him, to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground; 9but the dove found no place to set its foot, and it returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took it and brought it into the ark with him. 10He waited another seven days, and again he sent out the dove from the ark; 11and the dove came back to him in the evening, and there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf; so Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. 12Then he waited another seven days, and sent out the dove; and it did not return to him any more.


Hebrews 11:6-7

6And without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever would approach him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. 7By faith Noah, warned by God about events as yet unseen, respected the warning and built an ark to save his household; by this he condemned the world and became an heir to the righteousness that is in accordance with faith.






[1] Paul Fitzpatrick S.M., online source: http://www.qaya.org/blog//?p=414 [Accessed 04-07-08)