(Ir)religiosity

Thanks to Nick and Josh on and their podcast, the Nick and Josh podcast (which everyone should be subscribed to) I was able to read a chapter from Tony Jones’ new, forthcoming book The New Christians (which you can get now on amazon, go buy it. Do it now!). In chapter one Tony refers to an interview on CNN’s CrossFire were Jon Stewart called out the corporate media world and the pundits for “hurting America,” eventually leading to the cancellation of the show.

Now, as much as I love Tony, I my knee jerk was “no way!” So I did some research and Stewart’s interview was indeed the beginning of the end. And then of course, I had to find the interview and watch it. And oh, man. . .Jon owns them. Take a look:



~bh ><>

Introduction | Part I | Part II | Part III

Ok, before anyone calls me out on it, I borrowed this image from a book. And a book I haven’t completely read, which is dangerous.

So far I’ve dealt almost exclusively with political images and metaphors to describe the kingdom of God. But the kingdom is just as much economical as it is political, and although “commonwealth” is a political term, I think of economics when I hear the word.

I don’t know. This may be failed attempt from the get go because I don’t hear anyone using the word “commonwealth” anymore. I looked it up on Wikipedia, and apparently states like Kentucky and Massachusetts are designated commonwealths, but I sure as hell don’t hear the Sean Hannitys or the Lou Dobbs throwing it around on their polarizing, propaganda steeped “news programs.” But then again maybe I shouldn’t be too surprised, they are in service to the empire after all, being fueled by our suicidal political machinery, if I may borrow Brian McLaren’s verbiage.

When you break the word apart it’s not surprising at all that nobody “likes” the word, especially now, especially here.

Common – wealth.

Now, I don’t know much about economics, I’ll be the first to tell you that. But on the most basic, semantical level this seems pretty simple. People holding their “wealth” in “common.” People acting humanly. People sharing. People not hoarding up wealth privately for themselves but giving it away to whoever is in need. People being treated equally as people who bear the image of God.

Now, I’m sure that sounds communist or socialist or whatever else you’d like to label it, we do like to label things don’t we? It sort of makes it easier for us to dismiss “that” or “them.” But don’t take my word for it. I seem to remember Jesus saying something like “give to whomever asks.” “Be generous to the needy among you.” Or how about that chapter in Matthew about “the least of these.” Jesus didn’t talk about damnation and punishment much, but he sure did there, and take note of who the hottest fires of hell are reserved for, those who neglected and ignored the least of these. Hmm.

People are really getting excited about “the early church” these days. Whatever that means. I see people all the time (mis)quoting Acts 2:47 to justify church growth, consequently making them feel better about building huge monolithic buildings and buying expensive state-of-the art you fill in the blank. They always miss the verse before that, verse 45 to be exact, where the followers of the Way sold all their possessions and distributed the proceeds to anyone who had need. Anyone. Who. Was. In. Need. Not just the whites, or the men, or the sober, or the clean.  Anyone. Or, how about a couple of chapters later in Acts 4:32 where it says that no claimed private ownership or possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. . .huh. . .that makes the cries of consumer oriented mega-churches, and hyper-capitalists governments ring rather hollow.

“Sell it all and give it all away to the poor.” Why don’t we take that seriously? Didn’t Jesus mean it? Or, was he just screwing around? Why do we insist on being greedy, ignoring the call of the poor, starving, addiction stricken Jesus in our slums and in our ghettos? Damn us all.

I think Barbara Ehrenreich was right when she wrote, “Christ crucified rules, and it may be that the true business of modern Christianity is to crucify him again and again so that he can never get a word out of his mouth.” But even that phrase “Christ crucified” means nothing to us. We’ve domesticated it’s jarring subversiveness. Perhaps it would better to say we’ve castrated Jesus, or we’ve waterboarded Jesus to death. Yes, we’ve castrated and waterboarded Jesus so he cannot turn over the coffee tables in our living rooms. Damn us all indeed.

The Commonwealth of God.

People truly being people.
People genuinely being treated equally.
People authentically living as people together.
People sharing and giving to help each other without reservation.
People acknowledging and honoring the divine mark upon the other’s being.

Imagine that.

~bh ><>

…the great satan.

I’m not a superstitious person at all. But I couldn’t resist this. I digg a lot. There’s a link to my digg account at the top of the right sidebar, along with links to some other places I hang out regularly. Except Myspace, I’ll probably be nixing that soon.

Anyway, I was digging the other day and came across this story, which is pretty funny in and of itself, but before I clicked to digg it, I noticed the number of diggs. That’s right. 666. 6-6-6. Too funny.

Not too shabby for guy that keeps a man-sized safe in his office.

~bh ><>

The life cycle of a blog post. Pretty cool.

I’d like to meet the person that designed this structure. Awesome.

It seems like almost every group or institution is putting out some sort of voters guide these days. I once heard someone say that the most important part of any voters guide is what gets left out. Anyway, here’s an interesting one.

Speaking of voting, what would happen if the whole world voted. The American left-wing just thinks it’s progressive.

I think this best describes how I feel most of the time. Especially during election season.

It case you missed it, the Super Bowl was amazing. The patriots got what was coming. Enough said. But I sure to feel bad for this guy. What was he thinking? [Ht. Bill Reichart]

~bh ><>

Introduction | Part I | Part II

Now that I’ve got the whole political/(a)political reasoning off my chest I can move into some more metaphors. Again, I’d love to hear from you, if you have an idea don’t hesitate.

I originally envisioned this being two different posts, one on “the democracy of God” and one on “the republic of God.” Then I started pulling together my thoughts and I realized that not only would each of these not make a full post in their own right, but that they were both connected in ways I hadn’t initially realized. I briefly mentioned this last time and I’ll mention it again in a minute. So, anyway I decided to mash them both together in a single post.

Hopefully, if my choice of language accomplishes what I intended, the thought of a “democracy” or “republic” of God seems quite awkward and brash, perhaps even oxymoronic, I dare say brazenly iconclastic. Before you stop reading, let me explain. First, it seems to me that one of the obvious characteristics of Jesus’ teachings is that he frequently uses familiar language or a familiar metaphor in an unfamiliar manner, perhaps even in a contradictory manner that doesn’t quite seem to be complete on its own, but is still very provocative and subversive.

That being said, I’m still somewhat hesitant to use words and images such as “republic,” or “democracy” to describe God’s cosmic undertaking, mainly because they aren’t complete metaphors. They’re good metaphors for a such context and a certain locality, but they can’t really stand by themselves. And that’s why I will keep reiterating that any image or metaphor is always already incomplete. Metaphors need to be local and contextual. They need to be vernacular and visceral. So, don’t take these to be the end all be all. They’re only possibilities. Good possibilities, but only possibilities for a certain context, namely the American context. Obviously it can get much more local than simply “American,” but that is the trajectory I want to work from.

In my last post, I briefly mentioned two main reason why the word “kingdom” would have been very native and politically charged for his 1st century hearers: 1) it (“kingdom”) conjured up the ancient image of the Davidic rule, the golden-age of prosperity and security in the collective consciousness of the 1st century subordinates to the Roman empire; and 2) it referred to the current oppressive and imperial rule of Caesar and his Galilean puppet Herod.

So, I’ve got an image for both reasons. For #1, the republic of God. For Americans, “republic” should instantly conjure up images of the post-War of Independence, pre-Civil War period of history, the “golden-age” similar to the 1st Mediterranean peastants’ reflection and memory of the rule of king David before the exile. A rich period of history, a time of prosperity and success. A sort of sentimental time of history in the collective American consciousness—the way things were in the good old days. That’s why it’s important. It’s familiar and contextual.

For #2, the democracy of God. This language refers to our current situation (aside from the fact that we don’t have a true democracy, let’s just forget about that for the moment). Just as Jesus’ first century hearers would instantly be reminded of the Roman imperial occupation sustained through territorial rulers, so we, as Americans will—when we hear the word democracy–be reminded of our current political situation. The presidency. The nationalism. The flag. The military. The bald eagle. The national anthem. War. Terrorism. All those things. A very familiar image.

Now, I understand that there are obviously some problems here and many of the things that happened during the “republic” period of history and that are taking place in our current period of time are completely antithetical to what God has in mind, however, the language is very vernacular and familiar. Remember, I said that Jesus used familiar language in an unfamiliar and even contradictory manner. Just read the parables. So, with that in mind, I think we could (re)imagine a republic and a democracy of God. But not in the way we would think. We have to use the familiar language in an unfamiliar way. We have turn it inside out and screw it all up. We have to (re)imagine a republic where God is in charge not the white male and a democracy were God is president not George Bush or any other politician.

That’s what Jesus had in mind. That’s the message he proclaimed. What would the world be like were God in charge and not Caesar?

~bh ><>

Because apparently Democrats are terrorists?

Story here.

McCain is set to speak to the same crowd later this afternoon.  It’s about to get really interesting for the GOP.  I think they’re scared stiff of Clinton and Obama and are trying to really around someone before there’s a frontrunner.  I don’t think it’s gonna work.

~bh ><>

The three funniest guys on late night TV battle it out. And although I believe Mike Huckabee is a religious fanatic, who, if elected will further plunge the US down down the road we currently find ourselves, it’s good to see at least one politician that can “play.” Don’t vote for him though, if you do, I might have to make a run for Canada.



~bh ><>

Today is Super Tuesday. And my state denies me the right to vote solely because I refuse to crawl into bed with a particular party. I considered changing my political affiliation (or lack thereof) just so I could vote in this election (because I think this is a very important election, more than usual). But I didn’t. And I won’t. I refuse to conform to the system we’ve been forced to comply with, I refuse to further perpetuate the false dichotomies that the powerful elites have given us, and I refuse to let an institution do my thinking for me. I will continue to remain aggressively nonpartisan. So today I am not officially allowed to cast a vote, but I will visit my precinct regardless. I hope they’re ready.

Closed primaries are divisive and unconstitutional. Fight the power!

~bh ><>

I’ve decided to alternate my “Weekend Link Blast” series with “Friday is for Quotes.” This way I can concentrate on compiling a better, longer list of links. So, every other week I’ll post a quote that I find to be blogworthy. With school and everything else I don’t really have time to post full blown book reviews, though I’d like to. I’ll try to post quotes from things I’m currently reading and I promise I won’t just throw up one-liner clichés. If I have time I may even post some commentary to hopefully spark the conversation.

So here we go. The following is an exerpt from the Dalai Lama’s Ethics for the New Millennium. Not exactly a new book, but a good book nonetheless. Here he discusses the difference between “religion” and “spirituality;” an important distinction I think we too often overlook. However, he differentiates the two in a manner we (Westerners) often don’t.

“I believe there is an important distinction to be made between religion and spirituality. Religion I take to be concerned with faith in the claims of salvation of one faith tradition or another, an aspect of which is acceptance of some form of metaphysical or supernatural reality. . .Connected with this are religious teachings or dogma, ritual, prayer, and so on.

Spirituality I take to be concerned with those qualities of the human spirit—such as love and compassion, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, contentment, a sense of responsibility, a sense of harmony—which bring happiness to both self and others. . .There is no reason why the individual should not develop them, even to a high degree, without recourse to any religious or metaphysical belief system. This is why I sometimes say that religion is something we can do without. What we cannot do without are these basic spiritual qualities.

. . .Each of the qualities notes is defined be any implicit concern for others’ well-being. . .Thus spiritual practice according to this description involves, on the one hand, acting out of concern of others’ well-being. On the other, it entails transforming ourselves so that we become more readily disposed to do so.”

It has been my experience that this distinction between religion and spirituality is usually made like this: religion is often described as an institution interested in spreading particular set of beliefs or dogma in order to further perpetuate itself. People will often describe this as “organized religion” making the connotation even more negative. This isn’t all that different from the Dalai Lama’s characterization.

The difference lies in his description of spirituality. It seems to me that many people now like to describe themselves as “spiritual,” but not “religious.” Most of them, at least in my experience are still using the word spiritual in a metaphysical sense (not that that is bad) and are rejecting the dogmatic, legalistic confines of organized religion. These persons still feel a connection with God, or ultimate reality, or some other metaphysical reality just without the rigidity.

Now, I don’t think there is anything wrong with that per se, in fact, I suppose I would fit into that category. But I think I can still be “spiritual” and miss the larger point the Dalai Lama is making—the emphasis on compassion, responsibility, reconciliation and so on—and in that sense I’m still holding on to “the religious.”

And to do that, I believe, is to deny the humanity that unites us all.

~bh ><>