DOUBT

 In theatre and often in literature, we’re obsessed with the human condition. It resonates deep within us. Its explanatory power is beyond words. It drives and gives arc to the stories we tell. It connects us.

I thought about this recently as a new religious historian was doing a lot of interviews about his new book on Jesus. More specifically than the broad category of history-writing, I’m fascinated by biography writing because it requires nothing less than empathy.

The act of writing a biography or of putting yourself in the shoes of another is a powerful, powerful exercise. This same act is something that helped to re-awaken Karen Armstrong who left her faith for years. If you ever encounter anyone you dislike or hate, simply begin to write his biography. Try to understand what motivated and motivates him, and the humanity--the very thing that runs in your veins--begins to fill the face of the other with colour . . .

As Lesley Hazleton, an award-winning, British-American writer, did just this while working on a biography of the life of Muhammad, she was amazed that, in Muhammad’s own words, at the moment of his revelatory vision, his first emotions were doubt. He didn’t believe what had happened and thought it was either a hallucination or a possession by an evil spirit that was trying to kill him. Afterwards, upon finding himself still alive, his first impulse was to finish the evil spirit’s job and kill himself and leap off the cliff. He came down that mountain in fear and doubt. And it was precisely this doubt that allowed Hazleton to afford him the integrity of the experience specifically because doubt is essential to faith. Strip doubt, and you’re possibly left with heartless conviction.

Hazleton has given a beautiful TED talk on doubt and her experience writing The First Muslim. You should watch it.

CONTEMPLATIVE ACTIVIST

I’m quite underwhelmed by myself and my response to the overwhelming issues facing the world, my country, my province/state/territory, my city, my neighbourhood, my community, my house, my family, my self. I’m overwhelmed sometimes just by the enormity of the problems and the energy required to care for victims of our day and age. And when you relate to all kinds of people you are put in touch with all kinds of problems. In these times, you are criticised often by the activists for being too reclusive or resigning to yourself too much. But then you are criticised by the contemplatives for being too activist and reaching out. When reaching out you’re criticised by those who work to address the systemic roots to the problem so that it never happens again. When you join in that work you’re criticised by those who simply care for the victims and manage the problem but don’t work towards eradication.

What I’ve learned is that a true life of contemplation leads to a true life of activism. And a true life of activism fuels a true life of contemplation. Is it not when a person truly contemplates the state of the world, the state of the environment, the poverty & equity crisis (the occupy movement), the annihilation precipice and security crisis, and the prosperity crisis that one is moved to action? They seemed to go hand-in-hand. In fact, this is what we find in the life of Martin Luther King, Jr.


I recently finished “Strength to Love” by MLK which included one essay about his contemplative translation into action. According to MLK, he first read all the theological liberalism he could and he thoroughly enjoyed it. But then he felt it was too overly optimistic about human nature and didn’t see how we could be darkened by wrongdoing or sin. He didn’t enjoy neo-orthodoxy (what was called neo-orthodoxy back then in the 50’s) because it was too pessimistic about human nature, stressing too much a hidden, wholly other, unknown God with a narrow, uncritical Biblicism.

Later, looking for some synthesis of the two, he began to read existential philosophers. He read Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Jaspers, Heidegger, and Sartre. What amazes me is that some of these men are famous “atheists,” and also read by one of my favorite contemporary activist, story-telling philosophers, Peter Rollins. After MLK did serious study of the 20th-century thinker Paul Tillich, he became convinced that regardless of its fashionableness, existentialism had grasped some important truths about the human condition including the concept of “finite freedom” and the various anxieties and conflicts man must navigate in life and our structure of existence. These anxieties threaten meaninglessness.

After starting in systematic theology and philosophy, MLK was more and more interested in social ethics. After experiencing segregation on the back of the bus or the segregated car on a train behind a curtain, the problem of racial injustice deeply concerned him. He saw it as morally unjustifiable and rationally inexplicable. He saw how the system exploited both blacks and poor whites (there are systems today that still do this).

As he continued to ponder these things, he entered theological seminary beginning a quest to find a method that would eliminate social evil. A huge influence upon him is a book by Walter Rauschenbusch whose great grandson is a colleague of mine. The book is called “Christianity and the Social Crisis.” This book is the book that gave rise to the social gospel movement or the involvement of Christians in a more systemic and organized way in social issues in the States. The anti-child labor movement and the worker rights movement are examples of two movements that came out of it. Through Rauschenbusch, MLK learned or became more convinced of the fact that the gospel deals with the whole man and not just his spiritual well-being. Any religion that professes a concern for a man’s spirit but doesn’t care about the slums that damn him, the economic conditions that cripple him, and the social conditions that harm him is an emasculated religion.

He then went on to study seriously social and ethical theories from philosophy. He saw love (turn-the-other-cheek and love-your-enemy) as a valid philosophy for individual contact but holding no power for group interactions. It wasn’t until MLK read the works of Gandhi that he saw the power of nonviolent love in group interactions. MLK became fascinated with the Gandhian concept of satyagraha [truth/love (satya) graha (force)]. He thought the Christian concept of love working through the Gandhian concept of non-violence could work to bring about change.

But it wasn’t until he was involved in the bus boycott of 1954 in Montgomery, Alabama that he had a situation in which nonviolent resistance could be applicable. Up till then he had only given nonviolent resistance intellectual assent. After being voted the spokesperson of the group and living through the days of the boycott, this idea to which he agreed became a committed way of life for him. Many of the intellectual issues which had not been cleared up for him were cleared up through the sphere of practical action. (At that time he saw love as practical for group relations, but still didn’t realize it could be used for international relations until later.)

Do you see how the contemplation and action wove together in his life? Moreover do you see how the contemplation of those he studied affected him? I often talk about the 4 M’s, but it’s quite important here because without Gandhi there really is no MLK. But without Jesus there is no Gandhi because Gandhi read the words of Jesus and studied his action. Gandhi was another contemplative. And Jesus, whom Gandhi studied, was another contemplative. But from the one called the Messiah to the one called the Mahatma to the one calk MLK, we move to another, a 4th contemplative, Mandela. From South Africa, Mandela studied the example and words of MLK in the States and appropriated such nonviolent resistance and love to help shape a new South Africa birthed from the struggling labour during apartheid.

I don’t know one major leader who doesn’t read, study, contemplate. Even more, the contemplative practice is more than just thinking and reading but truly sitting with a concept and thought, wrestling with what is good for people, and meditating upon these thoughts in silence, stillness, time away from others, time away from the daily grind.

It really isn’t either/or. It’s both.

BELONGING, BEHAVIOR, & BELIEF

(Thoughts sparked by Peter Rollins)

I said that I currently don’t think the Way Jesus lived and about which he spoke is based on belief. I do not mean belief is absent. I’m just saying it’s not fundamental, the way we use it to divide ourselves in North American society. I was reminded this the other day when I was thinking about a baby.

A baby is born into a family. And instantly it is accepted. It is welcomed. It is loved. It is given a first name and immediately has a last name. It belongs to the family. It belongs.

Later, the baby grows up and begins to take part in the life of the family. The baby becomes a child and shares in regular practices or rituals with the family. They eat together, they play together, they shop together. They may go to church together, sing songs together, pray together, dance together, and watch movies together. This child now shares in communal behavior. She behaves a certain way.

Later, still, the child begins to question some of the beliefs she was taught. This self-examination period could last an uncertain amount of time. But the child, now a teenager, begins to reaffirm some of the beliefs of her parents and dissents with other beliefs of her parents. Some become her own and others are rejected and let go.

What is amazing about this is not that she believes some things her parents do or that she does things her parents do or that she belongs to her family. The amazing beauty is the order. She first belongs regardless of beliefs. She then hangs out and shares in common practices and rituals regardless of beliefs. Finally she learns to believe certain things (many will be shaped by that experience).

Why is that novel? Well, in the church we have done the opposite. We have said you cannot be a part of us (you’re not one of us) unless you believe, until you believe. Even more, you cannot participate in our common practices and rituals until you believe, without belief. So we have been taught, learned, and continue the practice of exclusion based on belief. It is many arenas---democrat versus republican, left versus right, etc. I see it all the time in D.C. and it makes my stomach churn. Why does it matter? Jesus, the person on whom Christianity is supposed to based, did the opposite.

He first accepted unconditionally 12 guys, mostly from the lower class of society. He didn’t ask them what they believed, he didn’t ask them to believe anything. He just said, “Come and follow me.” They were welcomed and loved, without doing or believing a thing. In fact Jesus did this with a lot of people. As I write in another section, he didn’t hang out with ex-tax collectors and ex-prostitutes, he hung out with prostitutes and tax collectors among others. He loved people unconditionally before any change in belief or action.

Once in his circle (and there more than just the inner circle of 12), people joined him in communal practices and rituals. They broke bread and ate together. They sat and listened to stories and parables together. They hung out with the poor and children together. They fed people. They healed people together. They spent time with those with no friends, no family. They loved people. They befriended the unfriendly; they loved enemies. They spoke with the occupiers. They healed the lame, the blind, the lepers (those with skin diseases). All this was done without a single plea or appeal to change their belief of God or who hey thought Jesus was.

In fact, it wasn’t until after joining Jesus and after already participating in shared practices that Jesus asked them who people thought Jesus was. They gave him answers like “Some say Elijah” and “Others say John the Baptist.” Jesus then asked them who they believed (key word) he was. Peter spoke up and for the first recorded time, we find that he believes that Jesus is the Messiah, the awaited one spoken of in the scriptures of the Jewish community. Belief came last. Belief came last. Not only did it come last, it wasn’t fundamental but a natural outworking of belonging to this community of Jesus and learning to do the things that Jesus did.

I believe in the power of change by behavior especially behavior of service. It’s the guiding principle I accidentally “discovered” and used while teaching and still use to this day especially in my own life. I never saw Jesus exclude people on the basis of belief. And I love churches and places where people are accepted even if they disagree with what is said, where people are allowed to ask questions when they don’t understand including questions without answers, where people are loved, forgiven, and welcomed unconditionally into a community that practices the Way.

JESUS CAMP

I’m on a documentary binge, and I’m watching this documentary “Jesus Camp” which I mentioned last time. And my roommate is freaking out and saying negative things about Christians or those people in the film. And I have a church group coming to my house in 3 days; she’s repeating that they better not be like those people in the film. Ha ha! Don’t you love the tension.

I dated a girl once who introduced me to a friend of hers. This friend knew I was a Christian of sorts and the first thing she asked me was why I was a Christian. “I mean, when I think Christian I think judgmental, hypocritical, and self-righteous.” Man, what do you say to that? Aren’t you glad that the history of this religion of which I’m a part (of sorts) is filled with a tension, so that it’s not just known for the Crusades, witch hunts, slaveries and slave trades, wars, apartheid, Nazi movements, etc. but it’s also known for the abolition of slavery, the abolition of child labor (in many places around the world), St. Francis of Assisi, Jesus (pre-Christianity), liberation theology and Oscar Romero, redistributive principles, etc. That tension is palpable anywhere and everywhere and ever present in the religion of which I’m a part. To deny it is to cut off any chance for real dialogue for you’ve no where to start with someone different than you. Plus it probably means you have specks in your eyes. So daily, I wrestle with God (Israel) as what it means to be a Christian or Christ-follower in a world that feels hated by such and in a world that is loved by such (I won’t talk of proportions).


I have a very beautiful friend named Jeannie living in South Africa. She recently became more beautiful as she has worked to blossom more, care less about what others think of her, be embarrassed less, and just live and love. She asked me once if I was an “evangelical Christian.” The problem with the term is that there are a few meanings especially as you travel around the world, but yes. I know she probably took this to mean that I am trying to proselytize and convert people to a new religion but I didn’t bother explaining or correcting or challenging or conversing about it. I just said yes. The problem is if you try to convert me, I’m pretty resistant. I feel it when I talk with Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses (ok this isn’t true; I LOVE to dialogue with these people that share a similar book with me but originally when I was younger I didn’t look forward to it always). It’s the same way with Christian people trying to convert. I have tons of Pentecostal and charismatic Christian friends who talk about who they have reached hundreds for Christ themselves on the power of their prayer or through the power of reading the Bible or through the power of the Holy Spirit when they speak. I’ve never had that happen to me. In fact, the few people who have “become Christian” didn’t tell me when they decided to do it. For them, it was a gradual process. They told me I was a part of the influence that led them in that direction. And most of them never had deep conversations with me about it (meaning it wasn’t due to my words or some deep intellectual battle). They watched me, they interacted with me, they were loved by me. I guess people talk about the Word of God so much they forget that the Word of God isn’t real or formed until it is performed; otherwise it’s just words. Anyway, actions will speak louder than your words.

What I mean to say is that I’ve never seen people repulsed by Christians who follow Christ, they way I understand his words and teachings. That’s a different thing. People always seem to love those Christians, or people are unnerved by them and unsettled from constant hate or hurt.