The Sacred Page

Seek (in the trash) and you shall find...

2008-06-03T14:54:00.000-07:00

Freegan update...For about a year, I've wanted to have a greenhouse, not a really big one which would be too expensive, but a small, portable one. Well, last week, imagine my surprise when I found a small, portable greenhouse in good shape in the trash last week in our neighborhood. It's about half as tall as me, with 2 shelves and an open bottom, so it can be used as a cold frame to grow lettuce, spinach, and other crops in the ground during cold weather.

Apparently, trashpicking is garnering media attention, as evidenced by this MSNBC piece dated today (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24879628/). I feel so hip...

My Freegan Finds

2008-05-04T13:27:00.000-07:00

One of my passions is simplicity and cost-cutting. Reading about freeganism today, I fondly recall the following items that I have trash-picked:

--an upholstered rocking chair that is currently in our basement (covered with a flannel sheet)
--broadcast seed and fertilizer spreaders (not just one, but two!!)
--two matching white 70's era lamps also in basement(bought new shades and good to go)
--2 brass floor lamps
--one volume of a kid's science encyclopedia and 2 videos: Lady and the Tramp, Milo and Otis(latest finds)
--barely used box of laundry detergent
--brand new package of plastic Dixie cups
--two tricycles (our kids had trash-picked play vehicles until age 5)
--electronics rescued from trash to take to recycling instead (my good deed for the Earth)
--a soccer goal without a net; purchased new net and "Santa Claus" brought it for Christmas
--a wooden porch swing with chains that -- alas -- we never used on our porch in Maine
--kid's bike that I'm going to donate to a local project that fixes bikes and gives to them away

The key to good trashpicking is always having your eyes peeled. Visiting college campuses at the end of the semester is fruitful as well. Happy picking!

Mitt Romney: The Anti-JFK?

2007-12-20T12:37:00.000-08:00

Is Mitt Romney the anti-JFK? This is what David Sarasohn of The Oregonian (Portland, OR) thinks. He writes in his article, "Romney's anti-JFK speech," that Romney's recent speech actually is the antithesis of what JFK was aiming for in his own historic speech: to convince voters to choose him in spite of his Catholicism (a faith that is still suspect today; just ask John Kerry) since his faith was private, not public. Rather, Romney argues that voters should choose him because of the religious views he would bring to the presidency.

Whence cometh the current obsession with religion on the part of the presidential candidates? The "values voters" of 2004 probably have a lot to do with it. The Democrats running this time are much more conversant with mainstream evangelical Christianity than the Democratic front runners of 2004.

Reading Romney's speech, it eventually becomes clear what is missing from it: any mention of the possibility of Americans who have no religion. The America portrayed in his speech is 100% theist and overwhelmingly Christian. In his America, there seems to be simply no room for unbelievers or doubters of any stripe. The only mention of unbelief is in the passage in which he denigrates Europeans as "too 'enlightened'" to pray. Surprisingly, at least here he seems to recognize that it is the establishment, not the absence, of state-supported religion that inevitably diminishes the religious vibrancy of a nation.

There is one statement Romney makes with which I fully agree: "We face no greater danger today than theocratic tyranny..." However, it is not just from the radical Islamists that Romney mentions. This danger comes from radical Christianists as well.

Contentment

2007-12-13T15:39:00.000-08:00

I just found a great site: The Little Brown Dress Project at www.littlebrowndress.com. It is a blog by a woman who has experimented with "intentional wardrobing" by wearing the same little brown dress for one year. Her next year-long project was to wear only clothing that she sewed herself, made from clothing that she already owned. You can read her reflections on what she learned from both projects on the blog.

The Little Brown Dress website caught my attention because, since reading Judith Levine's book, Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping, I've been wishing that I could try an anti-consumerism project of my own. I've tried to go even one week without buying anything (other than food) and have never been able to do it. The closest we've gotten lately was the 4-day Thanksgiving 2007 weekend.

However, while it seems impossible to reduce our non-food purchases to zero, lately I have had very little desire to purchase "stuff." My mantra of late has been, "I have everything that I need." It is soothing and comforting to repeat this mantra to myself. The material side of our lives just seems completely sufficient right now, and the contentment that comes with not wanting more stuff is rewarding in itself.

Of course, much of this contentment is due to the generosity of others. Our kids are having a ball playing with their "new" 30-year-old Legos (including police and fire stations, medical clinic, and moon explorer's base) which used to belong to my brother. I've been incredibly lucky to receive tons of used clothing from friends, including a pair of black leather pants, a beautiful dress for warm weather special events, and six classic wool skirts, vintage 1980, exquisitely hand-sewn by an elderly friend of mine. And, I just discovered that the library where I work subscribes to my favorite magazine, Mother Earth News...forget buying copies!

The desire to consume is an exceedingly difficult one to extinguish, or even to diminish. Sometimes, the stuff you have requires you to purchase more stuff to go with it. In order to wear the black leather pants to a New Year's Eve party, I just had to buy a purple top and silver earrings to go with them. And just about a month ago, new black leather boots were calling my name...of course, they were the perfect accompaniment for the wool skirts.

I have everything that I need...I have everything that I need...I have everything that I need...Hopefully this mantra will carry me through the Christmas season and well into the 2008. There's probably not a better way to have a happy new year.

New England and Megachurches

2007-12-04T17:01:00.000-08:00

This week's New Yorker has an article by Frances Fitzgerald, "Come one, come all: Building a megachurch in New England." It describes the challenges faced by a young evangelical preacher in New Milford, Connecticut who is trying to grow a megachurch there. Along the way, Fitzgerald includes details on megachurches in general (and their pastors); why they are so attractive to many Americans today; and a laundry list of beefs that Christians in other churches have against them. Her takeaway message is this: New England is the most difficult place in the country to establish a megachurch.

One of the reasons given for the lack of megachurches in New England is that church is not a "way of life" for this culture to the same extent that it is in other areas of the country. This fact was illustrated for me when we moved from Maine to Central Pennsylvania. In northern Maine, the church scene there was pretty quiet. My coworkers and neighbors rarely discussed their religious commitments. Catholic, Methodist, and Congregationalist churches seemed to predominate. Interestingly, there seemed to be a significant contingent of Pentecostals, judging from the many women seen there wearing no makeup, very long skirts, and long hair piled on top of their heads.

In contrast to Maine, the number and size of churches in central Pennsylvania is amazing. In fact, it was one of the differences that we recognized first. Sizeable churches are seemingly on every street corner. There are three huge (if not mega) churches of pseudo-nondenominational character close by where we live. In our town alone, there are large churches of Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Church of God, and Catholic stripe--several of each. Anabaptist churches such as Mennonite, Brethren in Christ, and Church of the Brethren are found in significant numbers.

The other thing we noticed pretty quickly was that people here often don't hesitate to talk about their faith. When I was doing business with an insurance representative a few days after arriving, he encouraged me to check out his church if we were "looking for a church home." The Welcome Wagon and Mary Kay ladies did that as well. It was low-key, but unsolicited nonetheless.

Finally, each and every day the Harrisburg newspaper contains at least one, and usually multiple, letters to the editor in which the writer chastises someone for not following God's commands. I don't ever recall that being true in any place I've lived before.

Blogs I Wish I Could Write

2007-11-27T17:07:00.000-08:00

It's been quite a while since I've blogged in earnest. October was a very busy month at work, and I'm just getting back to normal. Six days spent at home with family (four of them with my husband) has helped.

Tonight, as I perused The Simple Dollar -- one of my favorite blogs -- I had the same thought as I usually do: "Why didn't I write this?" Then I started thinking about the blogs I wish I could write (in addition to writing on The Sacred Page more frequently):

1) "A Christian Reads the Koran": I heard an NPR interview once with a Jewish man who decided to read the Hebrew scriptures in their entirety (usually referred to by Christians as the "Old Testament,") and blogged about his experience. He suggested at the end of the interview that someone do the same with the Koran. Sounded like a great idea to me.

2) "Living Within Your Means": Tried and tested ways to save money and consume less. My mantra lately is: "I have everything I need." I tried writing it on the bathroom mirror with a washable marker, but my husband didn't like staring at it every day, so now I'm thinking of cross-stitching it and hanging it on the wall.

3) "Your Personal Librarian": This blog would give tips on finding all kinds of information in and out of libraries: everything from more efficient ways to do a Google search to highlighting different information sources on specific topics (like career information, how to find out about toxic waste releases in your community, government information, how to find out which of your acquaintances owes back taxes, how to mooch free services at your nearest college or university library, services offered at your average public library that most people know nothing about, etc.) . Hmmmm...the more examples I write here, the more excited I get about this idea...

Conscious Consuming

2007-10-16T14:46:00.000-07:00

I've been tagged by my friend Valerie with a Conscious Consuming meme. Here's the info: "The purpose of this meme is to inspire some reflection about how we shop and what we purchase. The idea isn't that consumption itself is somehow bad, but that we all could probably stand to put a little bit more thought into what we buy. And, of course, it's supposed to be fun. So here goes!

Pick a recent shopping trip -- for clothes, shoes, groceries, doesn't matter. The only guideline is that it will be easier to play if you purchased at least a few things. Now tell us, about your purchases:
1. What are you proud of?
2. What are you embarrassed by?
3. What do think you couldn't live without?
4. What did you most enjoy purchasing?
5. What were you most tempted by? (This last one may or may not be an actual purchase!)"

Ok, I'm going to combine my last two trips to the local farm market. Here are my answers:
1. What are you proud of? I've been really trying to purchase local foods since reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. It requires extra time and effort to do so, since it means I have to shop at one of 2 local farm markets and then go to the supermarket to get everything that the farm market doesn't have. So, I'm proud that I'm at least making the effort, even though sometimes I must, for convenience and for keeping my DH happy, buy far-away foods instead of local. (Like last week when I had to buy apples from Washington State when we live right next door to one of the best apple growing areas in the country: Adams County, Pennsylvania. However, my husband wanted apples for his lunch the next day, and the farm market was closed.)
2. What are you embarrassed by? That I will have to buy Brussels sprouts from the farm market when they are available, instead of harvesting my own from the four plants that I planted last spring but never watered at all.
3. What do you think you couldn't live without? Local apples.
4. What did you most enjoy purchasing? One of the farm markets sells local meat and I bought bacon, ground beef, and chicken. I won't buy chicken from the grocery store anymore; the farm market chicken is so much better. Purchasing local meats makes me feel virtuous...plus it tastes better.
5. What were you most tempted by? Both the farm markets I frequent sell mouth-watering, homemade pies, and I saw a Concord grape pie last week. It had a bottom crust with a brown sugar topping. I've never had a grape pie before, and really wanted to try it, but it was $3.75 for a very small pie, so I didn't buy it. I'm on the cheap and lazy diet...I don't buy things like grape pie because I'm cheap and convince myself that I will make it myself to save money. Then, I'm too lazy to do it!

The Case of the Disappearing Government Information

2007-09-20T16:17:00.000-07:00

This post has nothing to do with religion, but as a librarian I feel compelled to post a link to an extremely informative and well-researched site documenting how the public's right-to-know is steadily encroached upon by the United States government.

Take a look at http://www.library.okstate.edu/Govdocs/chronchart.doc. It is a list of specific instances of the withholding of information, and in some cases the removal of information that was formerly available to the public, by the U.S. government. This list was compiled by Barbara Miller, a librarian who is (was?) a member of the Government Documents Round Table of the American Library Association. Unfortunately, the chronology ends at October 31, 2002.

If anyone out there knows of a list that takes up where this one left off, please let me know.

Left Behind and teenagers

2007-09-13T16:58:00.000-07:00

We began a new year of Christian education at church last Sunday. I will be one of the teachers of the high school/middle school class. The first couple of months' worth will be taught by our assistant priest and his wife. We have a set of DVDs that present Bible stories with some pretty well-known actors (McDreamy plays Paul, I think), and they'll will view and discuss a portion each week, comparing it with the Biblical text.

The priest went over the options for class content. We'll start with the Genesis DVD. Next, did they want to study Jesus, Esther, Solomon, Paul? In a unanimous decision, the kids chose the Apocalypse! I heard comments like: "I've read Left Behind -- that was cool!" "The Antichrist? I want to find out more about that!" Amazingly, our priest had never heard of the Left Behind series. He was visibly stunned that they were interested in the topic.

Actually, I think out of any of the topics, the Apocalypse might be the BEST one to study with the class. It's very much part of popular culture, which will pique their interest. It will give us a chance to reveal the questionable basis of dispensational premillenialism, and to present an alternative to this belief. I'm sure our study will generate all sorts of questions about the interpretation (and manipulation) of scripture, as well as the relationship between end-times scenarios and the genuine Kingdom of God. I'll keep you posted.

The difference between Episcopalians and Evangelicals...in a nutshell

2007-09-11T16:52:00.001-07:00

A dear friend who is a "cradle" Episcopalian once unwittingly provided me with a great description of the difference between Episcopalians and Evangelicals. She was going to apply for a volunteer position with an evangelical-oriented service organization but decided not to after seeing one of the questions on the application. “They wanted me to describe my relationship with Jesus,” she said, “and I just think that’s kind of personal.”

What I Gained From the Church of Christ: End-Times Skepticism

2007-09-04T17:51:00.000-07:00

I recently received a new book to review entitled, Have a nice Doomsday: Why millions of Americans are looking forward to the end of the world. The author, Nicolas Guyatt, explores the uniquely American, Christian subculture that's obsessed with end-times speculation. He points out that denizens of this subculture often fluctuate between two attitudes: a wish to save America from the wrath to come and a wish to, in the words of our President, "Bring it on!"

This got me thinking about what the church of my youth taught about the end times. Although the Church of Christ of my youth had very strong fundamentalist overtones, I don't recall any sermons or Bible studies on end times prophecies. In fact, the first I ever heard of the Rapture was as a teenager when a friend from another denomination explained it to me. The supposed end-times prophecies in the books of Revelations, Daniel, and Ezekiel were rarely topics of discussion. The general approach to eschatological specifics in the Church of Christ seemed to be: It's pointless to worry about when or how it will happen, since it is all in God's hands, and we aren't supposed to know.

In retrospect, I'm thankful that the Church of Christ did not plant in my head any speculative theories about the Rapture, the tribulation, the Antichrist, the millenium, and so forth. At least, now that I've left, it's one less teaching to purge from my brain.

The question is, how did the Church of Christ remain free of the influence of eschatological speculation? I think there are two reasons:
1) End-times prophecy and timelines are based on tenuous linkages between Bible verses found in many different places in scripture. The Church of Christ traditionally prized a common sense, black-and-white reading of scripture. These end-times theories were probably based too much on speculation.
2) The early Church of Christ leaned toward optimism and a belief in human progress. (This was one of Alexander Campbell's stamps on the movement.) They wanted to affect society, not defect from it. It seems that this type of attitude is the opposite of what is prevalent in many churches that speculate on end times. (Note: Early in the twentieth century, a significant premillenial contingent of the Church of Christ was "silenced" by a vocal, postmillenial contingent. Richard Hughes' Reviving the Ancient Faith has a whole chapter on this. Hughes points out that while apocalyptic beliefs were part of the viewpoint of CofC premillenialists, dispensationalism, or a mapped-out end-times scenario, was not.)

With the breaking down of denominational barriers, though, I wouldn't be surprised to find if many members of the Church of Christ do become caught up in end-times prophecy, since it is so influential among evangelicals.

Labor Day

2007-08-30T17:24:00.001-07:00

Three day weekend coming up. I wish I could say we have something fun planned, but no: we are getting the kitchen cabinets painted on Tuesday, so my husband has to fix the cabinets before then, and I have to move everything out of the cabinets. That's how we'll spend the last weekend of the summer!

When I went to Harding University, we went to class on Labor Day! That was very strange for a girl from Motown...you didn't mess with Labor Day in Detroit. In the car company culture (being from Dearborn, we were a Ford family), the workers held an exalted role. So, I've always wondered why Labor Day was a non-event at Harding. Was it because George Benson looked upon the celebration of "labor" as a Communist plot? Or is Labor Day just not a Southern thang in general?

Lunacy

2007-08-28T15:05:00.000-07:00

Hello. I've been taking a summer break from blogging, but not from reading and thinking about religion. Fall is almost here!

We watched the total lunar eclipse this morning. My husband woke me up around 5 a.m. when the moon was about half covered (what's the word?). I went back to bed and went out again at 6 a.m. to watch until it had completely disappeared. I could not see it in the sky at all, maybe because the sky was too light with the sun already starting to rise. I kept watching and waiting for the lunar rim to peek out again, but I think the moon had dropped below the treeline by the time that happened, so I never saw it.

Did ancient peoples dance, drum, or perhaps sacrifice babies to lure the moon back during lunar eclipses? What did an eclipse mean to them? I checked the Encyclopedia of Religion , 2nd ed. (2005, Thomson Gale) and found this on pg. 8835:

Eclipses of both sun and moon were experienced with great dread.
[However,]...Some North American Indian tribes, on the other hand, believed that
the sun and moon were eclipsed when they held their infants in their arms.
In Tahiti it was believed that eclipses occurred when the sun and moon were
mating.

What wonderful images! What do these images say about the cultures that created them?

5 books that made their mark

2007-06-21T15:56:00.000-07:00

In the order in which these books came into my life:

1) The harlot by the side of the road: Forbidden tales of the Bible by Jonathan Kirsch.
Reading this book led me to realize, for the very first time, that the Bible needed to be read with some scholarship in order to be truly understood. This is the polar opposite of the approach that I was familiar with: that the biblical text is flat, black and white-- and that all the meaning is there on the page. I began to see that instead of asking what a biblical text tells us about God, it might be just as interesting and perhaps even more appropriate to ask, "What does this passage tell us about the culture that created it?"

2) Reviving the ancient faith: the story of Churches of Christ in America by Richard T. Hughes.
I'm newly arrived at the University of Maine, working as a science librarian. Familiarizing myself with their electronic catalog, I type in the phrase I always use to test out a literature database: church of christ. Usually nothing comes up (besides for United Church of Christ stuff, which is vastly different) but this time, something does. I devoured this book, then my husband did the same, then we bought a copy for ourselves and another for my parents, who were still members of the Church of Christ. In Hughes' history of the Churches of Christ, I felt that I had found one of the keys to my own personal history. Suddenly, so many attitudes, teachings, and even snippets of conversations from years past were finally understood in the context of history -- a history that is rarely, if ever, acknowledged by the church itself. Anyone who is now or ever has been a part of this church should read this book -- not because it will make you want to leave the church as I did (Hughes' is a sympathetic portrayal) but rather, will help you understand the church on a much deeper level.

3) The historical Jesus: the life of a Mediterranean Jewish peasant by John Dominic Crossan.
Ironically, this member of the "Jesus Seminar"--a group much despised by many evangelicals for its pronouncements on the authenticity of the statements attributed to Jesus -- is the author of several books on the historical Jesus that revealed to me the full humanity of Jesus, which led me to truly love Him as never before. In this book I got a glimpse of just how radical Jesus' message really was -- much more than anything imagined by all the white-bread, middle class churches I had ever attended. I also faced, for the first time, the possibility that Jesus Christ is a mythical figure and the realization that it is possible to love, believe, and find salvation in that myth (as I believe Crossan himself does).

4) Albion's seed: Four British folkways in America by David Hackett Fischer.
My father introduced me to this book, which was my first encounter with the social sciences side of historical studies. Fischer describes in detail the folkways of the four majority cultures comprising pre-Revolutionary America: the Virginia cavaliers, Delaware Valley Quakers, New England Puritans, and backcountry Scots-Irish. Again, I felt as if I had uncovered another key to my personal history; so many details Fischer includes about Scots-Irish folkways are still evidenced in my extended clan today--down to the baby naming patterns and characteristic speech patterns of my grandmother. I constantly refer to this book when reading works about any of these cultures.

5) A religious history of the American people by Sydney Ahlstrom
I'm still in the middle of Ahlstrom's magisterial work, but early on in my reading I knew it was going to be a Bible of sorts. It provides crucial background information required to understand much of the other religion-oriented books I'm reading. Plus, I'm hoping, by osmosis, to achieve some degree of Ahlstrom's masterful use of the English language.

A Recurring Nightmare: 1 Corinthians 14:34-35

2007-06-21T14:41:00.000-07:00

Mike Cope's blog has a great discussion going about his latest post regarding women's roles in the church, "Avoiding Counternarratives." Several commenters there suggest that even in churches (as in Churches of Christ) where there is no open dissatisfaction with women's non-role in the church, there may be silent pain about this issue. That reminded me of one of my recurring nightmares when I was a girl. I really did have this dream many times when growing up, and each time I woke up terrified. In order to understand this dream, you have to first understand that the church in which I grew up interpreted 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 quite literally.

<start nightmare>

I'm in Sunday morning worship service. The ceiling fans whir; lights gleam on the back of the polished wooden pews; the congregation contentedly settles back to listen to a sermon and perhaps, doze off.

The preacher gets up to deliver the sermon and begins to speak. The voice sounds a little higher than normal and I look up, startled, to find that instead of a man, there is a woman at the podium. I sit straight up in my pew and after the initial shock subsides, I take a look around at my fellow listeners. While I am horrified by this unsilent female, no one else seems to be bothered by the fact that they are listening to a woman preach.

Astounded and beginning to panic, I stand up and try to get the attention of other people around me...A woman should remain silent....Stop it...We shouldn't be listening to you...You shouldn't be up there! My pleas grow louder and louder, and eventually I'm shouting, demanding the woman to stop speaking and begging the onlookers to make her stop. But no one listens to me. The woman keeps preaching over my screams.

<wake up>

Years later, my husband surprised me with his own analysis of my nightmare: "Little did you know, the woman was you." Maybe that's why I was so frightened.

So the commenters on preachermike's blog post are correct. Even though you may not be able hear any complaints about the silencing of women in your churches, look around. The female half of your congregation --were they to be truthful with you -- might have their own nightmares to share.

3 thoughts on thinking

2007-06-19T15:31:00.001-07:00

When I think about thinking, these are the thoughts I think:

1) Jesus' statement in John 8:32:

"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. "

I know that this quote isn't about thinking per se, but to me it says that not only is there such a thing as Truth but that learning the Truth is freeing, no matter how painful it may be.

2) T. S. Eliot's lines of poetry in Little Gidding:

We shall not cease from exploration/And the end of all our exploring/Will be to
arrive where we started/And know the place for the first time.

When I die, please write that on my tombstone.

3) And finally, a story. I can't remember where I have heard this one, but it's about a group of rabbis during the Holocaust. They are all in the concentration camp, and are continually discussing and debating the existence of God. They finally all unanimously agree that based on the undeniable fact of the existence of Evil that they stare in the face each day, God cannot possibly exist.

They go their separate ways.

Then, at the next time of prayer, they gather a minyan, and offer prayers to God.

I think the story says something about the intersection of faith and intellectual exploration, but I haven't been able to cogently describe what it says just yet.

Anti-intellectualism in the early Churches of Christ?

2007-06-15T12:15:00.000-07:00

Update: When I wrote this piece, I did not know (but should have) that the Churches of Christ had, by the mid-1860's, begun many colleges, academies, and seminaries, so my point in the sixth paragraph about "a denial [by those in the Church of Christ] of the value of education for preachers and those in the pew alike" is incorrect. A friend called to my attention that by that time, the CofC was known for its interest in education. I should have remembered this from reading Richard Hughes' book, Reviving the ancient faith: the story of Churches of Christ in America.

Anti-intellectualism is my mini-obsession of late. But what exactly is it? Yesterday I read a great article that attempted to define it, written by Daniel Rigney entitled, "Three kinds of anti-intellectualism: Rethinking Hofstadter" (published in 1991 in Sociological Inquiry 61(4)). Rigney analyzes Hofstadter's Anti-intellectualism in American life and comes up with three types of anti-intellectualism, in a nutshell, below (drum roll, please):

1) Anti-rationalism. There are two strands of this. One is the view that emotion and reason are polar opposites and that emotion is much to be preferred since it is warm, touchy-feely, and spirit-filled. The second strand is absolutism vs. relativism. This arises from the fear that reason leads to the questioning of moral absolutes and ultimately to the view that all morals are relative.

2) Anti-elitism. This is especially seen in American history, where a rebellion against hierarchies and an emphasis on democracy often led to a suspicion of intellectuals and an elevation of "common sense" above theory.

3) Unreflective instrumentalism. This is defined by Rigney as "devaluation of forms of thought that do not promise relatively immediate practical payoffs." A perfect example of this is the concept of higher education as simply a means to an end-- marketable skills -- and not of learning for learning's sake.

So, my question to you, dear reader, is: do any of these types of anti-intellectualism describe your church, school, or community? I am most familiar with the Churches of Christ and found that the answer was not so clear-cut. (This is based on personal experience as well as Richard Hughes' excellent history, Reviving the ancient faith: the story of the Churches of Christ in America.)

On the one hand, in the early CofC (not so much now) there was a denial of the value of education for preachers and those in the pew alike; it was even seen as harmful to the clear interpretation of scripture which, after all, could be understood by anyone who was able to read it. The church was largely from the ranks of poor people in those days, so there was a strong anti-elitist strain as well. (Take a look at any CofC parking lot and you'll see why this view is largely absent from the CofC now.)

On the other hand, the dominant strain in the early CofC was very anti-emotional and frowned on revival- type methods; faith was often stressed as simply an assent to logical propositions; much of the preaching was on the logical framework of the church's doctrines; and many preachers were fond of flexing their logical muscles in debates with leaders from other (and their own) denominations.

For those of you out there who are familiar with the CofC, what do you think? And for those of you from other traditions, do you see any of these three types today?

A True Friend

2007-06-13T12:20:00.000-07:00

A friend is someone who you can call when you are enraged and frustrated because you have to clean up an unbelievable mess made when your child flung around a torn, full diaper and the diaper gel crystals are all over the hallway, dining room floor, table, and chairs. And they are almost impossible to wipe up.

A True Friend is someone who shows up on your doorstep a few minutes later with homemade chocolate chip cookies and offers to help you clean it up, even though you didn't ask.

Thinking about a Christian college? My advice...

2007-06-11T19:35:00.000-07:00

I'm excited...recently I began reviewing religion books for Library Journal and today I received my second book, Beyond megachurch myths: What we can learn from America's largest churches, by Scott Thumma and Dave Travis. I'm not a fan of megachurches but I'm sure that some of my beliefs about them are false (but not "myths"; I like to preserve the integrity of that word) and will be corrected by this book. Based on the subject matter, it's not something I would purchase, but I'd definitely check it out from a library. It will inspire some blog musings, I'm sure.

In a recent comment on this blog, Donna B., author of Union, Trueheart, and Courtesy -- a blog well worth reading -- wrote:

I am committed to inquiry without fear and academic freedom, and believe
that it serves students better (despite any ideological "party line" that
might exist at secular schools) than the rather paradoxical attempt to
create liberally educated (that is, "free") human beings through
conservative indoctrination. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

[Sorry, readers, I can't get my Blogger quote thingy to work. --Nancy]

So far a couple of thoughts have gelled, along the lines of advice to prospective Christian college students. Please note that my background is limited mostly to evangelical Christianity tinged with a hint of fundamentalism. I don’t know what the intellectual environment is like at most Catholic colleges, for instance. Here’s my advice:

1) Although there are some outstanding evangelical colleges, “consumers” of Christian education need to know that evangelicalism is well-documented as one of the most anti-intellectual religious traditions around. (One place to begin with this is the Pulitzer Prize-winning Anti-intellectualism in American life by Richard Hofstadter.) Therefore, right off the bat, the odds are stacked against receiving a truly liberal education at an evangelical college.

2) If a school does have a Christian and even an evangelical focus, then intellectual exploration will be enhanced if professors and students come from many different Christian viewpoints. Take a look at the school's statistics concerning how many students come from various denominations: is it overwhelmingly from one denomination? Does the school only hire professors from a particular denomination? If so, then it will probably be difficult to experience there the exchange of ideas that would naturally happen among a more heterogeneous population. Why did my alma mater get it so wrong (at least for me) back twenty years ago? Mostly because the students (and all of the professors) were overwhelmingly from the Church of Christ, which in my opinion was (at the time and in that locality) really "majoring in minors". Beyond bedrock Christian beliefs such as the existence of God and the divinity of Jesus, professors had to defend and promote such lesser principles as acapella singing in worship, a particular hermeneutic, a particular view on baptism, various moral principles, etc. To the degree that you add to the number of "untouchable" doctrines, that is the degree to which intellectual inquiry is stifled.

Prospective students of Christian colleges need to be very cognizant of the mission and purpose of a Christian college. Decide for yourself whether it is to encourage intellectual inquiry, or whether it is to keep their charges “in the fold.” It is often very difficult to achieve both ends.

A Surprising Lord's Prayer

2007-06-09T20:34:00.000-07:00

Tonight at dinner, our 6-year-old son offered to lead prayer. He launched into the Lord's Prayer, and my husband and I looked at each other with amazement...we didn't know he knew it by heart. But I guess we shouldn't be surprised, he hears it in church every Sunday, works on it in church school, and I've said it in his presence several times. That got me thinking about prayer.

One of the similarities between the Church of Christ and the Episcopal Church is that each places great emphasis on prayer. In the Church of Christ, I learned how to pray and the importance of prayer. Deep commitment to prayer was modeled for me by many Christians there. An important (and often lengthy) part of every worship service was extemporaneous prayer led by several members of the congregation.

We never actually prayed the Lord's Prayer, though. Sure, it was a topic of study and the source of material for many a sermon series, but we never said it during the worship service. Even though this prayer was a model prayer taught by Jesus to his disciples, it would have still been considered a "memorized" prayer, therefore not heart-felt and one of those "vain repetitions" spoken about in Matthew 6:7. That, and what I've always felt to be the unspoken primary concern in the CofC: the Lord's Prayer was "too Catholic."

In the Episcopal church, prayer is equally important, but the practice of prayer is vastly different. First of all, no prayers during the service (unless led by the priest during the sermon) are extemporaneous; all are spoken verbatim from the prayer book. Many people who are not used to this find it numbing. What I found, though, is that it enables me to participate in prayer much more fully: since I know exactly what the words are going to be, I find myself praying right along instead of simply listening to someone else's prayer. Usually I don't even have words in my head, but images from my own life that I visualize when following along with the prayer. I see the people in Iraq when we pray for “victims of injustice and oppression;” I see our older neighbor who lost his wife recently when we pray for “those who are alone.” Now, when I find myself in a church where they don’t have a prayer book, it’s all too easy to become frustrated and lost when I don’t know “where the prayer leader’s going next.”

A second way prayer is different in the Episcopal Church is that it takes many different forms. It can be done via prayer beads, meditation, complete silence, icons, lectio divina, and many other ways. It is not just words in your head...mindful completion of any task that is to be done can even be considered a form of prayer.

So, I am grateful that my Church of Christ past taught me to pray from the heart and I am grateful for prayer as practiced in the Episcopal church. The fact that my son now knows the Lord's Prayer by heart is a product of Episcopal worship. I'm glad that he now shares one more thing in common with Christians the world over: he knows the prayer that Jesus taught us.

Is Birth a Sacrament?

2007-06-06T12:25:00.001-07:00

This is a response to "Is Birth a Sacrament" at the blog, Trying to Follow.

When I think of my experiences giving birth to my two sons, I think of the Celtic Christian concept of thin places. Celtic Christians believed that there were certain physical locations where the boundaries between God and humans were much "thinner" and the chasm between the two more easily crossed. Donel McClellan writes,

These places speak of the junction of boundaries, of transitions from one state
into another. In a similar way, the Celts celebrated those places on their
calendar where one season met another. Their festival days were times when the
world we see and the unseen world seemed to be in close proximity.

Perhaps that is because of the heightened mental and physical state of the birthing mother. At certain points, I felt reduced to almost a primitive animal-like state, experiencing my body totally out of control and working on its own; heightened emotions that I can't describe -- not happiness, not fear, but certainly a feeling of terrible awe; and at the final moment of birth, a slowing down of time, followed by an exquisite but short-lived feeling of incredible, monumental relief.

Perhaps it is even more because of the transition of the newborn from being within and completely dependent upon another human being to being a person in his or her own right. Being present at this moment -- a new human being's very first moment of entry into this world of sorrow and joy -- is truly a holy and perhaps even sacramental experience.

In the same way, presence at the time of death can be holy. It is also a thin moment, when a human being leaves this state and enters into a new experience. My husband had the terrible gift of being present at his own father's bedside when he died earlier this year. I like to think that just as he helped me give birth to our sons, he helped his father as he was born into a new state of being.

Monica Goodling, Messiah College, and the Persecution of Christians

2007-05-29T19:35:00.000-07:00

Is Monica Goodling being persecuted for her Christianity and her evangelical educational background? Lots of newspaper stories and blogs have reported on her and they seem to be fascinated with her academic resume, which includes degrees from Messiah College and Regent University, two evangelical schools. For some of this in action, check out her testimony to the House Judiciary Committee on May 23, 2007. (The relevant testimony is on pg 31 & 32.)

What did Monica do to deserve this? First off, before capitulating and testifying before Congress, she originally pled the 5th amendment. That wouldn't be your first answer to the well-known question, WWJD? Nobody likes a hypocrite, and even less so a Christian hypocrite.

Secondly, as a graduate of a Christian college myself (Harding University) I can say that Rep. Cohen's appraisal of the quality of an evangelical college education, at least according to what I experienced almost 20 years ago, is correct. I believe that Mark Noll said it best when he wrote “The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind”….the scandal is that there isn't much of one. Evangelicalism’s legacy of anti-intellectualism is well-documented (try this for starters). What I experienced at Harding (except for the science and math courses which don't normally lend themselves to deep reflection anyway) could hardly be called an education. Indoctrination was the name of the game and if any real thinking threatened to break loose, it was quickly shut down. Thankfully, I transferred to Harding from two years at a state school where almost all of my intellectual development in college actually took place. Hopefully the situation at Harding and other schools like it has changed, but the negative public perception persists. Because I know several faculty members at Messiah, I know for a fact that it really does have great academic credentials, but unfortunately it gets lumped in with other evangelical schools.

So if Goodling is being persecuted for these reasons, then perhaps it's understandable.

The supreme irony of the Monica Goodling story, though, is that her alma mater, Messiah College, traces its roots to an Anabaptist sect. Historically, Anabaptism includes a strong current of pacifism and a worldview that assigns primary importance to Christians' citizenship in the Kingdom of God rather than the nation-state (but unlike the Religious Right today, they didn't try to wrest the nation-state INTO the Kingdom of God) . Due to their denial of the supremacy of the nation-state, members of this radical branch of Christianity REALLY WERE the target of severe and bloody persecution in centuries past. And to this day you won't find an American flag flying at Messiah College. If Goodling learned anything of this legacy, unfortunately she must have forgotten it, because now she is part of an administration that is steeped in a version of Christianity far, far removed from the peace-making counter-culturalism of Messiah's founders.

Things Found in Books

2007-05-15T14:47:00.000-07:00

There is a great thread at MetaFilter on "Things Found in Books." Unfortunately, new users cannot post comments unless they pay a one-time fee of $5. I'm not going to do that, so I'll just post my comment here:

The best thing I ever found in a book was when I was working at the Henry Ford Museum Research Library in Dearborn, Michigan. I had been tasked with boxing up hundreds of old, dusty, brittle books in a back room for "deaccessioning." One of the volumes was a book of Robert Frost's poetry. Being a fan of Frost, I opened it up and inside the front cover was a hand-written copy of one of my favorite Frost poems, Fire and Ice, signed by Frost himself. Oh yeah, and it was a first edition copy. Nobody was aware that the volume was in our collection.

The second best thing I ever found in a book was a pressed four-leaf clover. It had been a particularly bad day, and when it fell out of the book, I took it as a sign that everything was going to be OK.

Campbellites? Nay, Cranmerites! My Response

2007-05-03T15:05:00.000-07:00

nJTB at the Rude Truth blog posted these questions recently and I am pleased to respond:

1. Why the Episcopal Church? Why not something closer to home--like Disciples of Christ, for instance?
The sheer beauty of the ancient liturgy. Feeling connected to generations of saints long since past. Meaningful, weekly (and even more frequently) Eucharistic services. Emphasis on Eucharist rather than sermon. Worship involving both mind and body (standing, sitting, kneeling, genuflecting, sign of the cross, walking forward to receive Eucharist, getting splashed with baptismal waters at Easter Vigil...etc.). Candles sometimes. The church year. Acknowledgement that Christian history is worth studying. Being able to study the Bible and theology with all of my intellect.

These last two MIGHT be features of something closer to home, but not the liturgy and the particular emphasis on the Eucharist.

2. How many other churches did you check out before choosing the Episcopal Church as home?
We tried a small-town United Methodist, Calvary Chapel, Unitarian Universalist (my husband sang in their choir for a while), Assembly of God, 2 different Baptist ("Friendship Baptist"...NOT), all in the same little town (Orono, Maine). Most of these we tried for at least 4 services (UU for several months). I finally tried the local Episcopal church, never imagining I'd like it, because it was within walking distance and an acquaintance who I respected went there. My first service included a baptism, and I was hooked.

3. What continuities do you see between the Episcopal Church and Churches of Christ?
Emphasis on the Eucharist, although with the CofC it's more of a task to be checked off of a list, not the central aspect of worship as in the EC. The CofC taught me the incredible importance of communion but the EC practices it in a way that's truly meaningful. Prayer is very important in both churches, although practiced in very different ways.

Christians in both churches love Jesus. That is a very humbling realization for a former CofCer.

4. What was the last theological/doctrinal "hurdle" to overcome in joining the Episcopal Church?
I had to do a lot of thinking about infant baptism at first. This had more of an urgency for me as a parent. However, I started realizing that grace was in operation there, whether or not the person being baptized understood it. And, I started accepting that infant baptism was something that was practiced for 2 millenia by most of Christendom. Kind of presumptuous of me to argue against that.

5. Aren't vestments cool?
Vestments help me to get into the spirit of the season (church season, that is). Jesus didn't wear them, did he? Certainly they are not in fitting with the "priesthood of all believers" concept. But, some of that emphasis in our CofC heritage comes from the democratization of the church in America and the levelling of hierarchies.

6. How long have you been Episcopalian? Do you still maintain any CofC ties? Does your family pray for your salvation or are they cool with your Episcopalian-ness?
I first began worshipping at an EC in 1999. My husband joined me in 2001. We were confirmed in 2002 and our sons were baptized in 2005. All of our families (parents, siblings, grandparents, much of extended families) are still in the CofC. My parents and brother are very cool with our E-hood and have attended when visiting us. My in-laws are not as cool although my brother-in-law has attended with us. I think it's more a question of being uncomfortable that it's so different rather than a question of hellfire and damnation. We still attend the CofC when visiting family.

But, to tell you the truth, the CofC has affected me so deeply that I don't know when I'll actually be able to say that I'm an Episcopalian, even if I worship there for the rest of my life.

7. Have you met many other former CofCers? Why do you think so many turn to the Episcopal Church when they leave the CofC?
I have not met any former CofCers at any EC I've attended with one very notable and serendipitous exception. Most ECers I meet do not even know what the CofC is. But I'm constantly trolling the Internet to try and find evidence of CofC-to-EC converts. This is not just a CofC phenom...I think the EC is attractive to people who are looking for a place to seek religious truth in an environment that doesn't focus on black/white dichotomies...where you don't have to be a registered Republican like you do in so many evangelical churches ...but where you are connected to ancient Christian ritual.

8. Give us your vote--do we baptize Clare as an infant or not? (Not that sacraments are a matter of majority rule or anything...)
Our sons were baptized at ages 4 and 2. We were hemming and hawing about having them baptized that young and kept putting it off. It was kind of cool to have them know what was going on, and they still remember it (at least the older one does). But, see answer 4 above.

Visible saints: the history of a Puritan idea

2007-04-17T15:57:00.000-07:00

Just finished reading this excellent book by Edmund S. Morgan. It is a tiny and readable classic which I found listed in numerous bibliographies and footnotes, then tracked it down to read it. It traces the rise and fall of the Puritans' theology of the church (ecclesiology), specifically their concept of church membership. The author proves in the book that a definite (even datable) conversion experience was first required for church membership by non-Separatist Puritans in the New England colonies, not in England as many historians had assumed. Therefore, I guess you might say that being "born again" is an American innovation.

Much of the book explained the latent dilemma in Puritan ecclesiology, which was, "How do we keep from purifying ourselves out of existence?". One of the best quotes in the book was on page 125:

"The way of the world even in Massachusetts was to be born, grow old, and
die...the world has its own ways of controlling those who propel themselves too
far from it; and the New England churches were eventually brought back to earth,
not by the corruptions of its flesh, but by its biology."

Though the original generation of Puritan colonists sought to purify the church completely, oftentimes their children didn't quite measure up. What then? If their offspring didn't have the required "born again" experience, but were otherwise well-behaving, professing Christians, should they remain members of the church? If not, when should they be removed from the church? Should the children of such offspring be baptized? The "Halfway Covenant" was the answer to these questions, and it showed that even for Puritans, blood was thicker than Spirit. For in the end, they decided that church membership would still be extended to unregenerate ("un-born again") children, and children's children, although they would not be allowed to join in the celebration of the Lord's Supper.

Two interesting points from this book:

1) One of the biggest objections to this New England system was that the Puritan churches were doing nothing to evangelize the world. They let the other "impure" churches do the work of teaching and forming Christians, then they would cherry-pick converts from other churches. Hmmm...have you ever heard of any of churches today that are busier taking care of themselves and deciding who's in and who's out, than helping anyone in the world or extending God's Kingdom?

2) The desire to purify the church is a continuous cycle; it rises and falls, then begins again. This is something that we see again and again over the centuries, to the present day.