Genderless

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Am reading Altars of the World, Barbara Taylor Brown, which enriches my walk with God. In my internet browsing afterward, I came across spiritual books by Sue Monk Kidd. She has embraced a feminist theology. I have always been afraid of this because I fear the goal of feminist "theology" is to reinvent God. So much of it seems to be focused more toward feminism (and so am I, to a point) than toward God (which is my ultimate focus). I have no desire to reinvent God. I have known him far too long to want to make him into someone who fits my idea of a perfect god. He is already perfect in ways beyond my comprehension.

If I am to reinvent, I want to reinvent myself into a more Christlike woman. (Actually, this is what Jesus does. I just need to not resist. "Open my eyes, Lord, that I may see. Open my ears, Lord, that I may hear.")

But I do know that I agree that God is genderless. He created us in his image, male and female. I could call God her and be just as correct as calling Her him. God is genderless or at least both genders. In that regard, I, too, am genderless. I always have been in regard to the way I think and identify. I didn't know women were expected to be different and were treated differently until I was a young adult woman and found that the workplace discriminated against women.

Maybe I can tread lightly and gain a little understanding of a feminist's point of view -- Kidd's, that is. I need to remove this fear of "religion for feminists" and look for God in all things, wherever She may be. After all, I should know He is there. (I will stop short of calling God a "goddess." To me, God is sufficient for God, just as man (mankind) is sufficient to include me.

It's time to grow some more. Thank you, Lord, for helping me overcome my prejudices against my own kind. This has been a long journey, Lord, (more that 50 years) to find where I, a woman, fit into your plan. I am blessed to have lived long enough to travel this far. I know I cannot now go back. I am coming forward, and soon I will meet you face to face.

The private sphere of faith...

A statement, and the pages leading up to and beyond it in Surprised by Hope by N. T. Wright, challenged me this morning. The statement is "... many people still today assume that faith lives in a private sphere, shutting itself off from history lest history make unwelcome inroads." (page 69 in the hardcover edition)

Previous to this statement, Wright is making a point that the resurrection cannot be explained within our framework of conventional wisdom. Our right (rational) brains don't process this concept because it has never happened before, it isn't something anything we even remotely expect, and we can't repeat it in a laboratory. By examples and words, Wright makes the case that believing the resurrection, this totally unscientific event, changes our entire worldview.

That's the point that caught my attention and challenged me this morning. How can we keep our faith in a private sphere if our entire worldview has been changed?

Our faith changes us absolutely, even if we don't admit to others that we're believers. We are never the same again. We can't be.

Having faith (belief) that Jesus "died, was buried, ... rose from the dead, ... ascended into heaven" means we can no longer say, for example, that we are moral because that's the right thing to be. We are now (or attempt to be) moral because there's an important (permanent) witness to all we say, do, or think. We believe in "God, the father almighty, maker of heaven and earth...," and that God knows all and holds us accountable. (Some might say we're not accountable because we're "redeemed," but if you think about it, the fact that we need redemption means that we've been held accountable -- and guilty.)

During the last several elections, there has been much talk about faith and whether the candidates are "people of faith." I remember being outraged 4 years ago when participants on a 60-Minutes segment made what I believed was an unhealthy, un-Christian comparison between members of the two major political parties.

All that aside, though, the lesson for me this morning is simply this:

• The way I choose to live my life is fundamentally based on what I believe. I don't know if I'd want to be ethical or moral if I didn't believe in a supreme being who is named, who is all seeing, knowing, and powerful, and who holds me accountable.
• I believe Jesus and all he taught. I believe he was man and at the same time God, and all he said and did showed me how God wants me to live and to think.
• Even if I want to keep my faith in a private sphere, I don't know that it's possible. To think that my faith is private is just fooling myself.
• Therefore, I might as well admit it. Why do I ...? (Fill in the blank.) The answer is: Because I believe.

There is nothing truly private. Our very lives are telling. Others can read us much more than we think they can. For those of us who are believers, we can only pray that the message we're sending with our lives is the one we want to send, the one we believe God wants us to send.

First Century Judiasm, John the B, Prophesy

Reading N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, this morning. Some interesting ideas:

• Some thought that prophecy had come to an end in the first century. That's true in these times, too. (Part II, 2, (i) First-Century Judiasm, pgs 151, 152 ...)


• Even so, there were a variety of prophet-types, including some that were hired by the occupiers of the area (Romans, I suspect) who spread false information to confuse the people and some who were inspired to keep the people on the path toward God's salvation for Israel. This seems true to me in my times, too - truth and false "prophets" abound. You have to be careful who you believe. We are not unlike first century people. (pgs 153, 154)


• John the Baptist (recognized as a prophet type by Josephus) offered, through baptism, "what you would normally get through the Temple cult." The idea of an alternative to the norm, an alternative that produces a surer and truer Way, intrigues me. I have never thought of John's baptism as being an "alternative." Like many Biblical stories, I just took John's baptism as fact and never thought beyond that point.

The hymn "Open my eyes, that I may see...." comes to mind. For whatever these ideas mean, it's my prayer that a greater understanding helps keep my faith fresh and true.

What if (God and Satan, vs God alone)

As Christians, we recognize two powerful and opposing personalities in the world - God and Satan. Sometimes, it seems that we give each of them equal time. What if we changed the way we think and recognized only one personality as powerful - God!

Instead of saying "The Devil made me do it," we would say something like "I wasn't paying attention to God, and I did it."

My thought isn't well developed, but it's a concept that's been on the fringes of my mind for many years. I always have a reaction (of some kind) when a fellow Christian says something like "Satan is tempting me" or "I am struggling with Satan." When we do that, our focus is on the thing that pulls us away from God. Why not see only God and say "God, I'm struggling. Let me hide (seek safety) in you." It seems that this would downgrade Satan, the fallen angel, and rob him of status, and, at the same time, give full due to the Lord God (where we really want to be).

Not well described, I'm afraid. Other thoughts that come to mind: Walking securely in the world, knowing that God's protection surrounds us; absence of fear or debilitating guilt; servanthood without apology for being a servant; centered (in God).

Pondering ...

N T Wright - Interesting reads

For some months, I have subscribed to an online e-mail group who discusses the writings of N. T. Wright. There's still more I DON'T know about him and his work than there is about things I DO know, but I find reading the daily digest or two from the group is something I enjoy each day. I don't participate. I'm a lurker.

Wright joined a conversation some years ago, begun by other scholars and theologians, about the times in which Jesus lived on earth and the culture in which Jesus lived. The idea is to get a better picture of the "real Jesus," something many believe we should do in every generation and culture because we are real Christians living in the now. Christianity is a living faith.

The Jesus Seminars were going on at the time, too, and one had to wonder where those were going to end up. In some of my reading back in those days, I remember thinking that some were so off the track that I was on that I just wasn't interested in reading them. I don't know if Wright comes from that tradition - or not - but I am convinced that this is a man who fully considers himself a Christian in the same vein that I consider myself a Christian. He is a believer and a worshiper. Wright is currently the Archbishop, I think, of Durham. I may have that wrong. I'm not an Anglican, so I very well could be misremembering what I've read.

Here's a site that has a huge collections of Wright's writings: http://www.ntwrightpage.com/

I think the site is worth reviewing, and his books look well worth reading. He has written so much, and he moves from the totally readable to extremely scholarly works. I am reading at the "totally readable" end of his spectrum.

Here's a quote, though, that I want to remember from time to time:

All writers about Jesus have to live with the old jibe that the historian is inclined to see his or own face at the bottom of a deep well and mistake it for the face of Jesus.

The quote is from his second book in the Christian Origins and the Question of God series - Jesus and the Victory of God. I found that I needed to have this book in order to understand another (easier-to-read) book he's written.

I think this statement applies not only to all "writers about Jesus," but about all students of Jesus, as well. We are always on the lookout for a "Christ like me" and "Christian friends like me" - and the thing to do is to remember to periodically check what Jesus is like and compare ourselves to Him instead of the other way around.

A new title for this blog .. the why of it

I started this blog on June 24, posted several thoughts almost in succession, and then nothing!

It's not that I'm not studying. Rather, it's that I'm studying people who believe, what they believe, and the why of it, instead of limiting my study to the Bible. If the purpose of this blog is to make a history of my thoughts so I can reflect and grow from my learning, then the original title, Bible Studies, indicating that I would record my thoughts only when I was studying the Bible, became a dead end for making notes. Although the Bible (actually, the study of God) is primary in my thoughts, the Bible isn't the only resource I use.

My quest for understanding and growth stems from one premise: There is one God, not many gods. Because I believe ethnic origins can't create the reality of many gods, then all peoples who seek God must be seeking the same (and only) God. Firmly believing that, then I am lead to wonder about the religious beliefs of those whose expression of god is different from mine.

Among Christians, there are different expressions of who God is and what he wants for and from us. And even among LCMS Christians, a group of Lutherans who band together under one banner (myself included), there is some lack of agreement about God and the ways we should live.

I know I will never understand all these things, but what better to do with my life than to spend some time in study and meditation and gain some glimpses of the "why."

The thing that I need to be wary of is getting off on a wrong track and losing something which I've already gained. It is my hope that my life experience in the presence of the One God I worship will remind me always that there is, indeed, a straight and narrow. It's the straight and narrow described by Jesus, though - not the straight and narrow prescribed by a brand of church. And it's on Jesus' straight and narrow that I must stay, even while my journey may give me a view of many paths chosen by others.

For myself, because I am a natural skeptic of the mandates and expositions of others, at least on the face of it, I feel compelled - even as a religious obligation - to understand God through my own eyes. So I read and listen to others for whom I have respect, and then I evaluate and fortify my own beliefs where I feel changed because of something new I learn. Here are some of my core beliefs and practices:

• There is only one God, and that God is the god of the Christian Bible.
• Jesus is God incarnate.
• The Holy Spirit is God within me (but the Holy Spirit is NOT me).
• Although Triune God is a concept I could never explain, I ascribe to the mystery. The Triune God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but only one God. The Athenasian Creed says it best. (Amazing that the site where I found this is maintained by a 16-year-old (now 17) boy!)
• I will never fully understand or know God, but because of the relationship I believe we should have with God, I feel compelled to learn to know him better throughout my life. (If I were in a business meeting, I might say that God is compelling!)
• My religious bend is Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS). That's not to say that "if the LCMS says it, I believe it," because that would be irresponsible of me, in my opinion. But I believe the basic fundamentals of the church is good; there are serious scholars throughout the history of the church and it's conservative enough to meet my liberal needs. I like the LCMS theology and its way of establishing it.
• I find myself naturally disinterested in excitable religion, light religion (a brand I would characterize as religion without study, including feel-good religion), or prosperity religion (I've never thought my relationship with God is about me, and prosperity is definitely about me. God might want me to be prosperous - He's definitely provided comfort for us during our lives, but that's not the point of the relationship.)
• God is a God of renewal (that's the work of the Holy Spirit within me). So I expect that I will be continually renewed and even changed as I continue my journey. The best example of renewal or change is a simple Christian thought. I am a sinner (Biblical terms). God continually changes that and counts me ok (without sin) in Jesus. So I expect to be changed as I go along; and I expect to be able to know the difference (discern) between changes that keep me on the straight and narrow path vs changes that lead me astray. I must continually be on guard for the latter! But I trust God to make that knowledge known to me.

So, Bible study really is God study for me. Changing the title of this blog opens the way for me to use it as I really wanted to - to make notes about my study of God during this period of time.