The Charles Marsh interview on Dietrich Bonhoeffer and ‘Strange Glory’

July 28, 2014 by

From Left to Right and all around the world, Dietrich Bonhoeffer is everybody’s hero. This courageous young pastor stood up to the Nazis in the 1930s, eventually took part in a plot to kill Hitler and finally was hanged in a prison camp before the war ended. Nelson Mandela talked about the inspiration he drew from Bonhoeffer’s example. But Bonhoeffer supporters cross the entire political spectrum. In American right-wing politics, Glenn Beck considers Bonhoeffer such a hero that his online store sells wall-size posters of the bespectacled pastor’s face over Bonhoeffer’s famous lines:

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

Glenn Beck tells his listeners: “This is a guy you should teach your children about!” And then Beck engages in what commentators from Left and Right like to do when they speak, write or preach about Bonhoeffer: hold him up as a mirror for each side’s approach to courageous defiance of authorities.

Within several years of Bonhoeffer’s death on April 9, 1945, at the age of 39, his books began appearing in English. However, according to Google tracking of trends in American publishing, Bonhoeffer did not become hugely popular in American culture until the mid 1960s. His most widely read book, The Cost of Discipleship, which was first published in 1937 in German, struck a chord 30 years later among young Americans working for change in the turbulent 1960s. In the book, Bonhoeffer tells readers: “Cheap grace is the mortal enemy of our church. Our struggle today is for costly grace.”

When Glenn Beck talks about his hero, Beck scoffs at activists who claim that Bonhoeffer was “a social justice guy.” Beck says: Not so! Beck recommends a different biography of his hero: the 2010 book Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, written by the journalist Eric Mataxas and published the conservative Christian publishing house Thomas Nelson. That book does the best job of emphasizing Bonhoeffer’s evangelical purity, Beck argues.

Today, ReadTheSpirit online magazine recommends Charles Marsh’s new biography, Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer published by Knopf. Marsh compellingly tells the story of Bonhoeffer’s deep Christian faith, but he also more clearly describes Bonhoeffer’s life-changing experiences while studying for a year in the U.S. Most crucial to his transformation was his regular attendance at worship in a famous black church in Harlem—and a road trip Bonhoeffer took through the American South around the time of the infamous “Scottsboro Boys” trial.

Once Bonhoeffer returned to Germany after his year in the U.S., Mataxas’s book makes it seem obvious that any Christian leader with a spine would oppose Hitler from the beginning. From the first page of his biography, Mataxas describes Hitler and his “legion of demons” as ushering in an “evilly contorted and frightening” era in Europe. Marsh’s book, in contrast, explains how very difficult it was for religious leaders to understand the extreme danger during Hitler’s rise to power in the early 1930s. In fact, Bonhoeffer comes across as a much more remarkable prophet in Marsh’s book for clearly seeing the danger in the Nazis’ first tentative steps that would lead to the Final Solution.

ReadTheSpirit Editor interviewed Charles Marsh. Here are …

HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR INTERVIEW
WITH CHARLES MARSH ON
‘STRANGE GLORY’ AND DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

DAVID: Most Americans recognize Bonhoeffer’s name, but most of us don’t know a lot about him. Recently, when I’ve visited various groups, I’ve asked people what they know about him. Usually people say: He defied Hitler and the Nazis killed him. Some of them know that he could have moved away from Germany, but made a conscious decision to stay. In general, people don’t know much more than that. I think lots of our readers will find your book absolutely fascinating.

CHARLES: Well, those details you just mentioned are true. That’s what makes Bonhoeffer’s life so compelling, but it’s also true that the facts of his life create misunderstandings. He was a theologian on a restless journey.

DAVID: In reading about his childhood, I was reminded of other famous religious figures who began life with great privilege—St. Francis, the Buddha and others—but later gave that up to follow their vocations. Your book describes Bonhoeffer’s childhood as living in the lap of luxury and opportunity. His family lived in Berlin’s well-to-do Grunewald district, since the late 1800s an area known for its big homes and elite families.

CHARLES: He was a golden child, raised in privilege and yet, as an adult, very early in the 1930s he was able to see with great clarity and prescience that the appointment of Hitler as chancellor of Germany constituted the emergence of what Bonhoeffer would call the great masquerade of evil.

He was restless in his studies, his travels and his conversations. At one point, his long journey led him to reach out to Gandhi in correspondence to see what Gandhi advised about creating intentional communities for peacemaking.

He was a pacifist, but later he also was part of a conspiracy to kill Hitler as he served as a pastor and theologian to the resistance. He was clear, at that point, that killing the madman was a responsible course of action, his principled pacifism notwithstanding.

Just as you’re describing it, I am fascinated to find so many people interested in Bonhoeffer: evangelicals, liberals, conservatives, believers, nonbelievers, humanists, activists, Jews, Christians and Muslims. They all find inspiration in aspects of Bonhoeffer’s life and work. In this book, what I’ve tried to do is invite readers along on this journey of Bonhoeffer’s life, trying to show how vivid and complex a person he was.

DAVID: Some of the other books on the market portray him as a pure saint from start to finish, almost glowing on every page.

CHARLES: In my book, I wanted to move beyond that kind of hagiography to respectfully probe his character, which had so many complex dimensions.

BONHOEFFER IN NEW YORK AND THE SOUTH

DAVID: My advice to readers is to enjoy the opening chapters about Bonhoeffer’s youth—then, I think most of our readers will really start turning pages in the middle section of this biography. I read your section on Bonhoeffer’s year in America twice. He shows up in New York City to study at Union seminary in 1930 under the great Reinhold Niebuhr, who had just arrived from Detroit two years earlier. Niebuhr was teaching “practical theology,” based on his experiences in the urban crucible that was the city of Detroit. Niebuhr’s church had been in what is today called Detroit’s New Center area.

They collided in New York—Niebuhr and Bonhoeffer. As a hot young German scholar, Bonhoeffer thought Niebuhr was a theological lightweight, compared with the world of German academia.

CHARLES: That’s true. He arrived as a straight arrow academic with no sense at all that America had lessons he might want to learn. Initially, he was quite taken aback by the way theology and ethics were taught at Union Theological Seminary. He once asked Reinhold Niebuhr after one of his lectures, “Is this a seminary or a training center for social activists?”

DAVID: But your book shows that Niebuhr and Union and New York City had a profound impact on Bonhoeffer’s life. Among other things, Bonhoeffer began attending the church led by the Rev. Adam Clayton Powell Sr., who boasted the largest Protestant congregation in the U.S. with 10,000 members: the famous Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem.

He became angry over the infamous Scottsboro case in which a group of young black men were framed on charges of raping white women on a train. Bonhoeffer called it a “terrible miscarriage of justice.” He got back to Germany and summarized what he had seen of white Americans’ treatment of black citizens as so fundamentally unjust that it was “darker than a thousand midnights.” As Bonhoeffer described this evil system, he mentioned American policies on “blood laws, mob rule, sterilizations and land seizures.”

CHARLES: His travels abroad gave him a different sense of his own country’s problems. I also point out that Bonhoeffer met with officials from the American Civil Liberties Union while he was in New York. Remember that the ACLU formed partly over concerns with deportations and abuses heaped on resident aliens in this country. Bonhoeffer wrote to his older brother to say, “We will need an ACLU in Germany.”

When I was reading Bonhoeffer’s papers in the archives, I was amazed at how thick his files were from his year in America and how attentive he was to groups like the ACLU that focused on human rights and social dislocation. Bonhoeffer read news reports on lynching, on homelessness. He looked into the whole constellation of human rights organizations while he was there at Union.

DAVID: He didn’t spend much time in the South, but he did make an epic road trip into Mexico and, as you point out, he did pass through the South on his return to New York. So, in addition to reading news reports about conditions there in New York City, he did see conditions in the South for himself.

CHARLES: Bonhoeffer always had a distrust of authority and his experience in the United States showed him some of the dangers that could arise when authority over minority groups was abused.

BONHOEFFER: THE CLARITY OF HIS VISION

DAVID: This is the point in your book when I couldn’t stop reading. Bonhoeffer goes back to Germany in 1931 and he begins studying under the famous theologian Karl Barth. He’s right back in the center of the world’s most elite theological circle of scholars—people far more concerned about academia than about the real lives of ordinary people.

Then, in early 1933, Hitler is rising in power and places the “Aryan paragraph” into Germany’s civil service laws. Very soon, this limited ban on Jewish employees is extended to schools. By June 1933, it’s extended to ban intermarriage. But, this is two years before the 1935 Nuremberg Laws appear and, suddenly, everybody is seeing these frightening posters about racial purity. Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass, wouldn’t happen until late 1938.

Here’s what I found fascinating: Immediately in early 1933, Bonhoeffer saw the danger and knew how to respond. You document in your book that his great hero, Karl Barth, was willing to simply ignore the Nazis as a bunch of brutes and idiots. But not Bonhoeffer. You argue that his year in America and his passionate faith let him see what was going to happen years before others in Germany could guess at the danger that lay ahead. In the summer of 1933, Bonhoeffer was helping to draft a manifesto, the Bethel Confession, that warned of the Nazi’s treatment of the Jews.

CHARLES: It is true that there were dramatic differences between the two men. Bonhoeffer was part of the original drafting of the Bethel Confession. (It went through several versions and Bonhoeffer had left for England by the time the final version was published.)

DAVID: Your book points out that Barth refused to openly defy Hitler until 1934, a year later, and when Barth did issue his declaration it was all about the rights of the churches to be free of Nazi control. Barth was mainly concerned about confronting Hitler’s God-like status and Hitler’s authority over Germany’s churches. Bonhoeffer’s early work in 1933 made statements about the Christian defense of Jewish communities that the world wouldn’t see again until Vatican II passed Nostra Aetate in 1965. Talk about a visionary prophet!

CHARLES: That’s right and that’s such an interesting part of this story. Everyone who knows about this era wants to celebrate Barth’s declaration in 1934, but in many ways Bonhoeffer’s earlier work on the Bethel Confession was the more important document.

DAVID: I keep asking myself how he was able to see the larger issue—the Christian need to oppose the Nazi’s treatment of the Jews—so much earlier than Barth or other leaders.

CHARLES: Remember that Bonhoeffer had grown up in this upper-middle-class neighborhood in Berlin that was also populated with Jewish families. His family socialized with prominent Jewish families, so this awareness was part of his upbringing.

Later, after several versions of the Bethel Confession had been revised already and Bonhoeffer was no longer in Germany, the final draft was worked on by two theologians who would become pillars of the Nazi church. They deleted references to the significance of the “Aryan paragraph.”

But you are right in mentioning Nostra Aetate. Bonhoeffer in 1933 was wanting the statement to clearly say that Jesus, who Christians follow, was a Jew. And he wanted to point out all that should follow from that.

DAVID: As I read that section, I thought: The world wouldn’t see this kind of affirmation for another 30 years and, in between, Hitler would carry out the Final Solution. So tragic that other Christian leaders didn’t listen to Bonhoeffer in 1933.

BONHOEFFER: FROM FAITH TO ACTION

CHARLES: Ultimately, just as you have been describing this, I hope that readers will find this book a compelling narrative of an amazing life. I hope that I can bring readers into this beautiful and yet heartbreaking world—Bonhoeffer’s world. And, I hope that readers will come away with a different way of understanding the life of faith among those we consider our saints today.

I hope that Bonhoeffer emerges not just as a hero from another century, but as a Christian for our time, as well. The power of his life crosses so many boundaries, bridges so many divides and illuminates so many conflicts and passions—that I believe his life story becomes an extraordinary gift to us today.

DAVID: I want to close our interview by point out that this kind of connection between faith and action is an ongoing part of your professional life at the University of Viriginia. You are part of the Lived Theology project. You’re also part of the really remarkable archive called the Civil Rights Digital Archive, which contains lots of stories about largely unknown figures in the American civil rights era, including links to original documents.

CHARLES: The Project on Lived Theology began as a way to put bricks and mortar on Bonhoeffer’s own response to what he found in America in 1930 and 1931. These were his concerns. When he arrived at Union seminary, Bonhoeffer was shocked to see his professors leading student out of the classroom to take part in lived theology in the throes of the Great Depression. He was amazed to hear students asking: What are faith’s social obligations? And, how can we use our skills as pastors and theologians to make a difference and to relieve human suffering?

Later, Bonhoeffer said that these experiences helped him to turn from the “phraseological to the real.” What was poignant about Bonhoeffer’s return to Berlin is that he tried to find space at the university for this kind of transformative approach to theology and he was not able to do that for many reasons. That’s the vision of our Project on Lived Theology. It’s to create spaces within a major research university where scholars and theologians can work alongside each other and can turn the phraseological into the real.

ALSO NEW TODAY—Award-winning journalist William Tammeus writes a personal column about why he dedicated the time to report a book about Holocaust rescuers in Poland. Tammeus and his Jewish co-author are traveling to spread awareness of their book, as well.

Care to read more?

GET THE BOOK: Click on the book cover, above, to visit the book’s Amazon page.

READ MORE INSPIRING STORIES: ReadTheSpirit also hosts Interfaith Peacemakers, a growing archive of inspiring stories of men and women who often risked their lives on behalf of world peace.

MORE INTERFAITH HEROES: ReadTheSpirit Books publishes books by international peacemaker Daniel Buttry.

(Originally published at readthespirit.com, an on line magazine covering religion, spirituality, values and interfaith and cross-cultural issues.)

Interfaith Cooperation Brings Health and Hope

June 22, 2014 by

By DAVID CRUMM
Editor of ReadTheSpirit online magazine

Religious and health-care leaders gathered in Detroit for a one-day conference to discuss collaborating more closely as they serve needy families. As Editor of ReadTheSpirit online magazine, I was at the heart of that gathering as moderator for the conference’s lineup of speakers.

That’s where our publishing house wants to be: connecting men and women with diverse religious and health-giving resources. Why? Because, as ReadTheSpirit expands to publish many new kinds of books, our core mission remains: publishing information that builds healthy communities.

In this column, I will tell you more about the inspiring conference in Detroit, but first—you’re also sure to be inspired by these resources …

WHAT HAPPENED
AT THE DETROIT CONFERENCE?

The annual one-day conference was hosted by Michigan’s Interfaith Health and Hope Coalition. The coalition involves many groups, but it’s 2014 gathering was chiefly sponsored by the St. John Providence Health System. Dr. Cynthia Taueg represented St. John, which has a long history of promoting Faith & Community Nursing and St. John also is part of an innovative Healthy Neighborhoods program in Detroit.

Addressing the crowd, Dr. Taueg said improving neighborhoods begins with improving individual lives: “We understand that you can’t have healthy communities without healthy people.”

As a lifelong Detroiter, Dr. Taueg said, “We’re at a crossroads in Detroit. By the time I finally transition from this life, I want people to say: Oh, you’re talking about Detroit? I know that’s one of the healthiest places in America to live.”

To achieve such a grand goal, Dr. Taueg said, health systems must work with faith communities. Throughout the day, Jewish, Christian and Muslim clergy talked with the crowd about the importance of promoting expanded health-care coverage and getting congregations more involved in caregiving partnerships, overall. Also, Taueg was joined by leaders from other health-care programs who talked to the crowd about current challenges in meeting their larger goals.

The Rev. Timothy Ahrens, pastor of First Congregational Church, a United Church of Christ congregation in Columbus, Ohio, talked about his own public campaign for expanded health coverage in Ohio.

Faith leaders must play a role, he urged. “You represent hope. Your imaginative faith brings hope alive. Your brain and spirit—wired to hope—allow others to grab hold when the waters of despair are sweeping over them.”

Kelly Herron, executive director of Cabrini Clinic in Detroit—known nationwide as America’s oldest free clinic—said that religious groups need to continue supporting free clinics. Even as medical coverage expands nationwide, many men, women and children will continue to need help.

“We’re the safety net for the safety net,” she said.

Herron also urged religious leaders to help members in their communities navigate the complex new layers of health care. She described how her clinic is helping clients to register for health coverage, but signing up is only the first step.

“As they are approved, our patients cry. They’re so happy. They are overwhelmed,” she said. “Then, they ask us: ‘Now what?'” Countless men and women are coming into health-care systems this year for the first time. Many of them have no experience accessing doctor’s offices, hospitals and pharmacies. Congregations can share helpful information to smooth this often rocky transition.

Melissa DaSilva—director of operations for Advantage Health Centers, which specialize in linking government programs especially with people who are struggling with homelessness—told the crowd that health care is more than a matter of dispensing treatment.

“Health care is also about helping people to achieve wellness by obtaining a housing wage and affordable housing,” she said.

As DaSilva urged participants to think broadly about health and caregiving in their communities, many heads nodded and pens scratched notes about her recommendations. Other speakers echoed her broader vision of the challenge shared by health care systems and religious groups.

Marcella Wilson, president of MATRIX Human Services, talked about the MATRIX method of linking a wide range of programs to help men and women move out of chronic cycles of poverty. It’s not enough simply to treat a medical condition, or provide a shelter, or serve food—or provide any one response disconnected from others, she said. Helping people climb out of poverty requires many kinds of partnerships. She urged faith leaders to find out how they can contribute to such efforts, wherever they are based.

This is hard work, Wilson told the crowd. “As leaders in a city with desperate need and boundless optimism, we need to remember that vision without backbone is hallucination!”

Renee Branch Canady, chief executive of the Michigan Public Health Institute, echoed Wilson’s and DaSilva’s appeals for broad vision in meeting the needs of people living in poverty. Canady’s nonprofit advocates at all levels—from local communities to Washington D.C.—on behalf of collaborative programs to build healthier communities.

“I don’t want my grandchildren to still be having this conversation,” Canady told the crowd. One way to inspire the hard work of forging cooperative new programs is to tap into our deepest values, including the values within faith communities. “We must invite our values to the table with us,” she said.

Adding to the list of issues that congregations can address, Canady said one challenge religious groups might tackle is easier access to everyday, healthful activities. An example: Many neighborhoods don’t have safe and barrier-free areas where residents can go walking each day.

“We must look at the built environment around us,” she said. “If we want people to get exercise by walking more, then we have to provide places they can walk. We have to make the healthy choice the easy choice. Can people walk around your neighborhood?”

The Rev. Dr. Urias Beverly told the crowd about the deep roots of these issues in the Abrahamic faiths. Beverly is the director of the doctor of ministry and the Muslim chaplaincy programs at the Ecumenical Theological Seminary in Detroit. He also serves as professor of pastoral care and counseling,

“Health and religion have been wedded as long as there have been men and women on the earth,” Beverly said.

Tom Watkins, president of the Detroit Wayne Mental Health Authority, closed the conference by reminding faith leaders that mental health issues are an essential part of congregational caregiving.

“There is not a zip code in the United States that is not touched by the mental health care system,” Watkins said. “And if your own family and friends have not been touched by mental health issues—then it’s only a matter of time before someone you know is a part of this.”

He urged religious leaders to go home and spread the word: “Without quality mental health care—you don’t have quality health care.”

(Originally published at readthespirit.com, an on line magazine covering religion, spirituality, values and interfaith and cross-cultural issues.)

 

The James Martin SJ inteview on ‘Jesus: A Pilgrimage’ to Jerusalem

May 25, 2014 by

“Jerusalem stirs the imagination of billions of people and is the beating heart of our world today.”

That’s the conclusion of a powerful new IMAX film, which is narrated by the BBC’s Sherlock Holmes (Benedict Cumberbach) and promotes both tourism and peaceful co-existence in the holy city. (You can watch a preview of the movie here.) That idea of Jerusalem as a life-changing destination also runs through the popular Jesuit author James Martin’s latest book, Jesus: A Pilgrimage.

Martin is famous as America magazine’s Editor at Large, regularly writing about Christianity for a huge audience—but he admits in this new book that, for decades, he rejected the idea of making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He resisted for many reasons: It’s just a tourist trap, he told himself. Or, if he did go, then what he would see in the “Holy Land” might conflict in jarring ways with his own fond images of Bible stories.

He admits he was surprised by this journey! When friends all but pushed him onto an airplane bound for Israel, Martin writes that the experience turned out to be “one of the high points of my life.”

Now, he can’t imagine why he waited so long to make this pilgrimage! In the book, he describes the trip as “overwhelming. It was almost unbelievable to visit the places where Jesus had lived. When I first caught sight of the Sea of Galilee, its shimmering blue-green waters surrounded by pinkish sandy hills under a blazing sun, it was like a dream.” He adds, “the pilgrimage taught me things that I had not learned from books.”

The result is an inspirational memoir that stands as a fresh perspective on Jesus. The book starts with Jesus’s birth and follows sequentially through his crucifixion and beyond to Emmaus. Each chapter includes some of Martin’s travel narrative—truly the best parts in this page-turner of a book. Then, in each case, he adds a bit of Bible study that is both scholarly and inspirational, perfectly pitched for general readers. Remember that Martin is popular with his young and old readers, these days, because of his fluid, and sometimes even amusing, magazine-style prose. This book definitely is a “mash up” of styles—but Martin makes it work!

This is a great choice for small-group discussion. The book’s 18 chapters could let you run a series over an entire season of the year, or you could pick favorite chapters for a shorter series. Word of Warning: If you use this book in your congregation, plan ahead to investigate options for participants to take their own pilgrimage. (Consider getting people excited by inviting them to see the Jerusalem movie.)

ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm interviewed James Martin SJ. Here are …

HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR INTERVIEW
WITH JAMES MARTIN SJ
ON ‘JESUS: A PILGRIMAGE’

DAVID: America magazine lists you as Editor at Large. Our Catholic readers are familiar with America, but many of our other readers may not know that this is a century-old publication that combines journalism with Christian inspiration. Tell us a bit more.

JAMES: America is a national Catholic weekly magazine that’s been around since 1909 and I’ve been here for the last 15 years, most recently as Editor at Large. As a Jesuit priest, I live a life of poverty, chastity and obedience; and part of poverty means that everything I earn goes to my religious order. This is true of my work with the magazine, which is owned by the Jesuits, and it’s true of this book. All proceeds from this book go to support our ministry here at America. I don’t get a penny myself.

DAVID: Beyond the pages of America, more than 80,000 people are connected to you through Facebook. I checked on your Facebook stats and they’re very impressive: In mid May, you had 25,000 Facebook friends “talking about” you and your posts. And this is impressive, too: Facebook reports that you’re popular with people aged 24 to 54—so this isn’t a case of a bunch of Catholic senior citizens reading your material. These are lively young adults.

JAMES: A few years ago, a publisher suggested I start a Facebook page and my first reaction was: “Forget about it!” I thought it wasn’t worth it. Now? It’s become a big part of my ministry as a Jesuit priest. It’s a way to share information, videos, photos, meditations and prayers with people all over the world. And I’m amazed at the number of people who respond and tell me they’ve found it helpful.

It’s all about bringing people to God. That’s why I now see it as such an important part of what I do as a Jesuit. I get questions about people’s spiritual lives. I get requests for prayers. I get beautiful comments from people telling me different ways that they’ve met God through what I post. I especially like writing prayers and meditations throughout the day, then posting them there on Facebook. The most moving thing I’ve experienced recently is a woman who came up to me at a religious-education congress I attended. She said, “I’m a mother of four and I’m largely at home all day. And, I can’t tell you how much I look forward to your Facebook posts. They’re a link for me to the Catholic and Christian world.”

A “MASH UP” ON THE LIFE OF JESUS

DAVID: You offer all kinds of things, day by day, on that Facebook page and I suspect that’s why you felt so free to publish this “mash up” of a book on the life of Jesus.

JAMES: I’d say this book is a straight Life of Christ, but written in these three forms. There’s the story of my real-life pilgrimage, but then I do add the latest in Bible scholarship about whatever I am considering in that chapter. And then I try to offer a message for readers about what all of this means for them today in their daily lives.

DAVID: And, when you say “Bible scholarship,” we’re talking about references to some famous scholars: Raymond E. Brown, John Dominic Crossan, John Meier, Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza, N.T. Wright to name a few.

JAMES: There are a lot of books that just summarize the life and times of Jesus for readers and take the Bible stories at face value, so they ignore the historical research. There are books that just describe someone’s pilgrimage. I think the scholarship is important, too, so I wanted to include that. I’m trying to do all three in one book.

There is something naturally appealing about Jesus and that’s the person I want to introduce to people. This book is for everyone from the doubtful seeker to the longtime church person. I don’t assume readers know anything about Jesus. So, I hope that all readers can gather around this book and find out about the person of Jesus Christ.

DAVID: I agree with you. This is a book someone could enjoy without knowing anything about Jesus or the Bible. You walk readers through the whole story.

JAMES: I was very intentional that this not be just a book for Catholics. I do speak about my own Catholic background because—but Jesus wasn’t a Catholic. The gospels aren’t “Catholic books.” My book isn’t about Catholicism. Frankly, Jesus didn’t come for just one group of people.

“FORMS OF CHRISTIANITY YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF”

DAVID: The stories you share from your travels include lots of men and women who aren’t Catholic. Israel-and-Palestine is an amazingly diverse little corner of the world, isn’t it?

JAMES: When you go to Jerusalem, as an American, you see forms of Christianity you’ve never heard of. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre itself is divided into so many parts, controlled by so many different Christian groups, that you realize how frustratingly elusive Jesus’s wish—that they may all be one—has been through the years. It also reminds you that Jesus Christ appeals to all kinds of people, all around the world, not just Westerners. One of the most interesting experiences was our visit to the Church of St. Mark, a Syriac Orthodox church near the Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem.

DAVID: I’ve been there. It’s a bit off the beaten track and pilgrims who sweep through Jerusalem without much time may never find the place. But it’s one of those little wonders you discover on the side streets of the Old City.

JAMES: I end the book with that scene, because our guide at St. Mark’s sang the Our Father in Aramaic for us. It was so unexpected!

DAVID: You write, “She opened her mouth and in a strong, clear voice began singing. Our new friend wasn’t an opera singer, but it was probably one of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard—because it was in Jesus’s language. She sang in the lilting cadences of Aramaic, more and more strongly as she went on, and her prayer echoed throughout the ancient church that we had found by accident on our last day of our pilgrimage.”

I’ve got to say, having worked on several reporting projects based in Jerusalem, throughout my career—it’s that kind of amazing little scene that shows your readers the wonders of this city! And, I love it that you also include the surprises that take pilgrims in other directions, as well. One scene that comes to mind is your visit to what scholars believe was the real site of Jesus’s own baptism in the Jordan River. There’s a lovely spot further to the north, where a lot of tour guides tell you Jesus was baptized—but the real spot is pretty, well …

JAMES: It’s “pretty gross.” That’s what my friend told me to discourage me.

DAVID: It’s called Qasr el-Yahud and you describe it vividly in your book. Way back in the year 2000, I was there as a journalist covering an Israeli-government convoy of journalists and tourism officials to take a look at the site that the government planned to finally open up for pilgrims. It was a startling place even at that time. I remember people getting off those buses, in our convoy, and being so moved at the sight that they went into the water and some of them actually drank the stuff!

JAMES: It’s definitely a very unusual holy site. It’s a decommissioned militarized zone in the middle of the desert and it’s very simple. There are some bleachers on the Israeli side, now, that go down toward the water. What’s most surprising is the water itself, which I describe as “neon green, more like Mountain Dew than water.” That’s the result of a lot of pollution and a lot of irrigation further to the north and the lowering of water levels. This was the opposite of the Sea of Galilee, but it was a fascinating experience.

DAVID: Well, I enjoyed reading that section. And, overall, your book already is doing very well in terms of sales and reader reviews on Amazon. I see there’s also an audio version, which readers could get through Amazon.

JAMES: It’s read by Yours Truly—all 18 hours of it. There will be a paperback edition, which I’m working on now.

DAVID: I’ve interviewed you, over the years, about some of your other books. Most recently, we talked about your book on religious humor, Between Heaven and Mirth. I get the sense, though, that this new book is special among the 10 or so you’ve written. Is that fair to say?

JAMES: Yes, I would call this the most satisfying writing experience I’ve ever had. It certainly was the most enjoyable. I loved spending time with the gospel texts as I wrote. That was my favorite part of this book. I learned so much. And, now, I hope readers will, as well.

(Originally published at readthespirit.com, an on line magazine covering religion, spirituality, values and interfaith and cross-cultural issues.)

Ann Morisy Interview: Hope always … springs up.

March 17, 2014 by

“HOPE has never trickled down. It has always sprung up.”
Studs Terkel

That’s the final line in theologian Ann Morisy’s manifesto for discouraged congregations, Bothered and Bewildered: Enacting Hope in Troubled Times. Her books are loaded with research drawn from sociology, political science, economics and theology. From that solid foundation, she raises her call to arms: The revival of Christianity—and the accompanying revival of communities—begins with small circles of men and women unleashing the power of their faith, their compassion and their creativity.

If you have never heard of Ann Morisy’s name until today, you should know that she stands in a long line of prophetic British writers whose appeals to conscience have crossed the Atlantic and built huge followings in America. That line certainly includes Charles Dickens (ReadTheSpirit is starting a Dickens reading group this week) and includes C.S. Lewis (see our earlier cover story on Lewis’ enormous legacy). That prophetic line also includes writers, teachers and musicians who have sprung from Scotland’s Iona Community (as examples, see these profiles of John Philip Newell and John Bell).

Care to read more on UK-US connections? All this week, sociologist Dr. Wayne Baker is writing about our up-and-down trans-Atlantic relations in his daily OurValues.org columns.

Care to see and hear Ann Morisy? She occasionally comes to the U.S. and will appear March 21-23 at the First United Methodist Church of Ann Arbor adjacent to the campus of the University of Michigan. Sorry—yes, we know that most of our readers don’t live in Michigan, where ReadTheSpirit’s core staff is based, but we couldn’t resist heralding Ann’s visit with this interview.

DICKENS, LEWIS, IONA and MORISY

There are echoes of Dickens, Lewis and the Iona writers in Morisy’s work. She preaches that congregations should not wallow in their anxieties about the future. Congregations are not poor, besieged outposts waiting for some do-gooder to come save them. In fact, every congregation is made up of men and women, and the truth is that each person can contribute in an “economy of abundance,” one of Morisy’s favorite phrases.

In other words, even if your options in life are extremely limited—perhaps you are wheelchair bound in an assisted living community—you still have a lot you can share with the rest of the world. Your contribution to abundance may amount to your compassionate smiles and encouraging words to others. There is no excuse for refusing to share, she argues. And, in fact, the vast majority of men and women are not so extremely limited—and can give far more on a daily basis.

The problem, Morisy argues, is that our societies—especially in the UK and the US—are tragically out of whack. Most Americans, today, know about the yawning wealth gap between the “rich 1 percent” and the rest of us. But Morisy’s preaching and writing doesn’t let the 99 off the hook. She asks audiences: Are you a Baby Boomer? Then, to those in that generation, she says: You’re contributing to the imbalance. Aging Baby Boomers—and she is one of them, she admits—are demanding that the majority of the world’s resources flow toward them. In other words, even if you’re among the “99 percent,” you’re not free of a moral responsibility to share.

“I write as a Baby Boomer, and on reflection it does indeed seem as if I have had an uninterrupted stream of benefits throughout my life,” Morisy writes in her book, Borrowing from the Future: A Faith-Based Approach to Intergenerational Equity. “But maybe I and my fellows are in for a shock. Our confident expectation of financial security rolling steadily into deep old age is threatened. The collapse of banks and the ensuing unsustainable mountain of debt that nations face mean that the future is going to be tough—even for the blessed generation of Baby Boomers. All the components are lining up for an intense bushfire as Baby Boomers and younger generations have come to terms with their—oops, I mean our—hampered desire to acquire and consume.”

OUR UNUSUAL INTERVIEW

As Editor of ReadTheSpirit, I have conducted many of our Cover Story author interviews via long-distance connections with other countries, including the UK. However, Ann is based in Streatham on London’s south side, working out of a home office that runs on an intentionally modest budget. Her own telephone connection is via the Internet and has such limited capacity that our 90-minute interview was interrupted dozens of times. Eventually, Ann turned off all the lights and other electrical devices in her office in the hope that it might improve her connection. It didn’t. So, in the end, it was impossible to publish a typical ReadTheSpirit Question-and-Answer transcript.

Here are some of the things Ann did say, between Internet disconnects.

She is proud to be part of the laity in the Church of England; although she is a theologian, she is not ordained as a priest. She says: “To distinguish myself from academic theologians, I call myself a community theologian because I like theology that grows from the ground up.”

Ann is 61 and teaches a lot, these days, about the need for older men and women to keep learning—and contributing to the larger community. “As Baby Boomers are getting older, we are a pioneering generation entering this very long old age that people are experiencing today.” She works across the UK training communities in multi-generational dialogue. “We try to encourage churches not just to respond with pastoral care in relation to older people—but to encourage older people to think and reflect—and do their damnedest—not to be a pain in later life. … If we fall prey to being a pain in later life, we can really wreck the lives of those around us—for decades.”

That kind of in-your-face preaching and teaching is guaranteed to spark some anxious responses, and Morisy says she has not been eager to establish a personal website or other online column. Shifting to slang, she chuckles and says, “I like me privacy. I like to keep me head down.”

Fortunately, although she values her privacy, Ann isn’t shy and chooses when to emerge with her best shots—sometimes in book form and often in public workshops and talks, usually across the UK. This week, she brings her prophetic ministry to Michigan. We encourage our readers to find out more about this remarkable teacher. No, we won’t see most of you in Michigan—but you can sample Ann’s books and you can seek her out in the future.

This report is by ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm. You are free to repost and quote from this column.

(Originally published at readthespirit.com, an on line magazine covering religion, spirituality, values and interfaith and cross-cultural issues.)

Interview with Ken Wilson on ‘Letter to My Congregation’

March 03, 2014 by

AMERICAN attitudes toward our gay and lesbian relatives, friends and co-workers are changing so dramatically that the Pew Research Center ranked this shift as the first historic milestone among 13 changes that researchers identified over the past year.

TODAY, two major evangelical voices—and two highly respected observers of American religious life—are joining in the launch of a new book: A Letter to My Congregation. The four are …

  • KEN WILSON, author of this book-length letter, which he wrote to his large congregation in the Midwest to explain why even devoutly evangelical Christians should welcome gay, lesbian and transgendered men and women.
  • DAVID P. GUSHEE, based at Mercer University, where he is a theologian and author widely read in evangelical congregations. Most significantly, Gushee decided to publicly change his stance on this issue in the opening pages of Ken Wilson’s new book. (His Wikipedia entry.)
  • PHYLLIS TICKLE, a scholar and journalist who is highly respected for her books, magazine articles and lectures about trends in American religious life. (Her Wikipedia entry.)
  • And, TANYA LUHRMANN, based at Stanford University, where she is a leading anthropologist studying religious movements—including the Vineyard denomination in which Ken Wilson is a pastor. (Her Wikipedia entry.)

Tickle, Gushee and Luhrmann explain why they are supporting Ken’s efforts in a series of introductions to his new book—and you can read all three introductions on our new resource page for A Letter to My Congregation.

In this daring and compassionate journey of faith, the Rev. Ken Wilson apparently becomes the first pastor of a large evangelical congregation in America to so publicly reverse centuries of condemnation of gays and lesbians—and bring his congregation with him in welcoming gay and lesbian members at all levels of the church.

With the launch of this book, many people nationwide are asking: How did Ken Wilson do this?

In today’s interview you will learn: He did it by slowly and carefully studying the Bible, praying about these matters and talking with families in his congregation. The result, according to early online reviews of his book, “adds incredible freshness and insight” to a debate that threatens to tear churches and families apart. Reviewer David C. Sinclair writes that Ken “shows us a way forward that embraces our differences. … And, most importantly, he cogently argues for unconditional inclusion as we seek God together.”

ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm talks with Ken Wilson in …

HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR INTERVIEW
WITH KEN WILSON ABOUT
‘A LETTER TO MY CONGREGATION’

DAVID: The Pew Research Center reports that we’re at a historic turning point on this issue, based on their tracking of data nationwide. But, beyond all that data, what have you seen from a pastor’s point of view? Can you see and feel the change among the people you encounter everyday?

KEN: Yes, 10 years ago, as an evangelical pastor I didn’t know gay people and a lot of the people in my congregation would have said they didn’t know gay people—but that has shifted dramatically. Now, most people say they have at least one gay friend. And, even more importantly, for young people this is a non-issue. Of Millennials who leave the church, a large number leave over the church’s exclusionary stance on LGBT people. Young people just can’t understand that exclusion. They know plenty of LGBT people personally and they don’t want to be part of a church that excludes their friends.

Now, this has become a big issue for parents who have children who are affected by this in various ways. They’re losing their kids over this question, whether those kids are LGBT themselves or they know and care about someone who is. The question for men and women in the church becomes: Do I care so much about the ideology of this issue that I’m willing to lose my children over this? This is an issue where parents and their children are absolutely affected everyday in local congregations.

I had a small group of people from our church who reviewed an early version of this letter with me. We went around the room and asked each person to tell us: What’s my personal stake in this conversation?

Every single person had a gay friend or loved one or family member and each one told the group—often with tears in their eyes—how much this mattered to them. This included people who accepted gay relationships and people who still had moral questions about gay relationships. We all were affected. This really is a historic change.

DAVID: I’ve been a journalist covering religion in American life for nearly three decades and I believe it’s accurate to say that you’re the first pastor of a large, evangelical church to go public about such a dramatic change on this issue with your congregation coming along on the journey. Millions of readers know that Rob Bell and Brian McLaren have changed in their public stance on this issue, but that was after they had left their congregations.

For readers wondering about this claim, I want to clarify: We’re talking about large, traditionally evangelical congregations and pastors who have gone so public in reversing their LGBT policies with their congregations. I’m not seeing them, at this point. If you’re out there reading this, please email us at [email protected]

But, having said all of that, let me ask: Are you aware of anyone else we should mention here?

KEN: I’ve been looking, too, and I am aware of some other evangelical congregations across the country that are moving in this direction. I don’t want to name them because they’re still on this journey and they’re not wanting to go public right now. And, just like you, David, I’d love to find and talk with others who are on this journey. I’d love to learn from them about how to do this—and how we can help others to do this.

‘The eyes of the world …?’

DAVID: Since David P. Gushee is also putting his name on the line with this book, the two of you were invited to speak at the California LGBT film festival, called Level Ground, last week. The festival was covered in the Los Angeles Times and other news media. Do you feel the eyes of the world are upon you?

KEN: No, I don’t feel that way and I don’t want to focus on the psychological pressure. My first responsibility is to lead my church through this transition successfully. Yes, I know there is a lot at stake here. There are many evangelical pastors out there whose hearts are inclined to go in this direction, but they can’t even begin to talk about this. I think once we can demonstrate that, yes, it can be done—then I think there are going to be many evangelical congregations that will follow. Before long, there is going to be a strong and growing expression of evangelicalism in America that is making space for gay people.

DAVID: How do they start? I can imagine a lot of readers of this interview—and readers of your book—wanting to know: How did Ken do it? How can I start this process?

KEN: The first thing is to convince pastors that they should give themselves permission to start asking the questions. There are so many pastors and other church leaders who want to do that, but they are inhibited from even starting the process. They see this as a “loser” issue for them. They don’t see any way to build a coalition around this—no way to build a consensus in their congregation. So, they don’t even start lifting up the questions that their hearts want to ask.

DAVID: You found the courage. Now, you have opened up the conversation in your church to a point at which you realize how deeply many families care about this issue. But we’re talking here about the very first, private steps—the first moral questioning. Give us a little sense of how that began for you.

KEN: Well, for me, I asked myself: Why am I willing to make so much space in the church for people who are remarried after divorce—despite the Bible’s very strict teaching against that—and I’m not willing to make space for gay and lesbian people? And I kept asking myself: Why does this particular moral stance of the church about LGBT people cause so much harm?

‘Is this really the teaching of Jesus …?’

DAVID: Let’s talk about the harm. In your book, you make an eloquent appeal: We can’t keep waiting on this issue. We can’t keep kicking these questions down the road. Every day, real people are being harmed by the church’s rigid condemnation.

KEN: When I started pondering these questions, I realized that this particular stance of the church really is harmful. When a married man in a congregation has an adulterous affair with another woman—and he’s confronted about it—we don’t have suicides as a result. But, we do have teenagers committing suicides at higher rates when they are part of congregations that have these exclusionary teachings about homosexuality. Is this really the teaching of Jesus when our exclusion of people is contributing to a rise in suicide?

DAVID: These are tough questions for evangelical leaders to ask. There’s a lot of fear around even raising the questions, isn’t there?

KEN: The church is an anxious system. It’s organized around the most anxious members, including those who threaten to leave if exclusionary policies aren’t upheld. In fact, pastors become so anxious about these members that we tend to overestimate how many in the congregation share these views.

‘My worst fears …’

DAVID: You were afraid, right?

KEN: I had a lot of fear about this! I dreaded it! And, you know what? My worst fears have not been realized. Not even close to my worst fears. Yes, I have lost some key people and, yes, we have lost some income over this and it has affected attendance—but not nearly as badly as I had expected.

If you’re a pastor, it’s easy to exaggerate the fear. As pastors, we have to find ways to duck out from under this big cloud of fear that surrounds this issue.

‘A healer’s heart …’

DAVID: This took time. This book describes a journey with your congregation that began years ago. How long ago?

KEN: Phyllis Tickle is a big part of this story from the very beginning. Our Vineyard church in Ann Arbor began working with Phyllis Tickle on prayer about 10 years ago. Our church helped Phyllis to promote praying The Divine Hours and we became an online host for the Divine Hours. She visited our congregation in 2005 and, as I got to know her, she became a personal confidant. I would send her prayer updates as I began experiencing a significant shift in my own prayer life. Eventually, my wife Nancy and I were invited to their home outside Memphis. And that’s how I met Dr. Sam Tickle, Phyllis’ husband, a leading doctor in the Memphis area and, some years ago, one of the first to begin treating people in the AIDS crisis.

A a result of all this, Sam and Phyllis had a lot of gay and lesbian friends and they took us to a church that was filled with gay and lesbian and transgendered people. It was as if someone had gathered a congregation of sexually excluded Christians and I was just taken aback by the clear presence of Jesus in that assembly of people. The cognitive dissonance I was experiencing—as a traditional evangelical pastor—was just through the roof! I credit Dr. Sam Tickle with really helping me in this journey. He was so obviously a compassionate and caring physician and Christian and he related to people with a healer’s heart that was just infectious.

DAVID: Everyone on the cover of your book played a role in this journey, including Dr. Tanya Luhrmann, the famous scholar and researcher. Tell us how your paths crossed.

KEN: Tanya is a world-class anthropologist who had done research on how evangelical spirituality mediates an experience of God. She studied this in Vineyard churches and I became aware of her work. I read her book When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God and I thought it was brilliant. Her book helped me to be a better pastor and I got to know Tanya herself through a gathering of Vineyard scholars, where we both talked about her book.

‘Describing a journey
and inviting others …’

DAVID: You found many of Tanya’s ideas to be very helpful, especially the questions she raises about how a person can communicate a personal spiritual journey to others. You also worked with a prayer exercise Tanya provided and, in the midst of that exercise you found your method: writing a letter.

KEN: How would I communicate all of this? I thought a lot about that. And, I decided to write out the whole process of what I was going through as a pastor struggling with these questions. Through this letter, my struggle could become a representative struggle for others. I wasn’t writing an argument. I was describing a journey and inviting others to accompany me.

DAVID: Then, I also want to ask you about David P. Gushee, who dramatically decided to go public with his own change on this issue in the opening pages of your book. How did that come about?

KEN: I met David Gushee in 2006 through another issue we were working on. We were in a gathering of evangelical leaders with top-level environmental scientists—people like E.O. Wilson—to talk about climate change and environmental concerns.

So, I had known David and I had worked with him on that environmental issue. He is the co-author of Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context, which is a top book in evangelical seminaries. I liked that book, too, but the one section I thought was weak in Kingdom Ethics was the section on homosexuality. I called David and I said, “I love your book, but I have questions about this one section. It feels to me like you’re just rehearsing the traditionalist views.” And I asked him, “Where are you on this—now?”

He told me that someone close to him had come out as gay and his views were changing. I sent him the manuscript of my letter, then, hoping that he might say something like: Well, I don’t agree with Ken’s conclusion, but this is a legitimate part of the conversation. That was as much as I could hope.

DAVID: Instead, you got a shock.

KEN: It was a shock! His reply was: “What can I do to help you?” And, then, he wrote such a powerful Foreword to the book. I mean, I was feeling way out on a limb here and it was such a blessing that he came forward and was so supportive of this. I’m a pastor. I’m not the kind of scholar that Dr. David P. Gushee is. And yet he stepped forward and has been so supportive of the whole thing.

‘Who wants to go up against 2,000 years …?’

DAVID: The Pew Research Center captures the historic opportunity we all have, right now, to help people make a transition on this issue. In just 10 years, Pew reports, Americans have gone from less than half of us saying “homosexuality should be accepted by society” to 60 percent today! Then, there’s another dramatic jump when the question is asked another way: “Is same-sex marriage inevitable?” Then, more than 7 in 10 Americans say: Yes.

Those two answers show us millions of Americans who are in turmoil on this issue. Millions know this change is coming—but still can’t find a way to accept LGBT people as a part of society. One of the brilliant strategies in your book is to say: Church members don’t have to be united in our personal moral conclusions—but we must unite in welcoming people into the church. Am I saying that correctly? You’re not demanding that everyone immediately agree on moral acceptance, but you are saying that it’s time for the church to fully welcome LGBT people.

KEN: Right. The problem is that so many people in the evangelical community—and in the faith community in general—want to find a way to accept and include gay and lesbian people, but they have serious questions based on their faith tradition. Who wants to go up against 2,000 years of Christian consensus on an issue? But, already, many people do know that our hearts are telling us something else. People are realizing that, even if they don’t fully understand how to think through this issue, there’s a more serious question we’re facing: the do-no-harm test.

‘What is the Good News of Jesus?’

DAVID: Yes, Pew explains this shift in American experience. This has become personal for Americans nationwide. Pew reports that a huge number of people—7 in 10 Americans—say they know “some” or “a lot” of gay or lesbian people. In other words, we know who we’re hurting if we condemn gay and lesbian people. They’re our friends, our family.

KEN: Right, we’re talking about a lot of people! And, this issue is the tip of a much, much bigger iceberg, which is the branding of Christianity—ever since the rise of the Religious Right—as this movement of people who primarily are “against things” and, even worse, as a movement that is “against people.”

Christianity is losing followers in America because of this. What’s at stake is more than just individuals with gay friends. What’s at stake here is how Americans make friends with Jesus. The bigger question is: How can the church promote human flourishing? Have we reduced the message of Jesus to a rigid list of things that people are forbidden to do—or, worse yet, to a list of people we’re mad at? Are we just a movement that stigmatizes and excludes people?

We’re really asking is: What is the Good News of Jesus? What does Jesus stand for?

DAVID: These are the emotionally wrenching questions you’re hearing from families, as a pastor, right?

KEN: Exactly. I began to realize this when parents started coming to me privately as their pastor, telling me that a teenage son or daughter thought they were gay. I saw how much fear, how much distress—and how much harm—was happening in these families. I began to realize: Something is wrong with this picture.

Parents were having to choose between their faith and their own children. This was a profound problem! Of course, some parents tried to adopt the approach of “loving the person but hating the sin,” and that might sound like a nice bromide if you’re not actually living in these relationships. In real lives, in real human relationships, that is such an alienating thing to say.

The truth is: There are gay young people in all congregations, whatever the congregation teaches about homosexuality. So, we’ve got a dangerous situation here when we condemn and exclude people. Just look at the data on suicide rates. As a pastor, I began to realize: This can’t be the fruit of the Spirit. There’s something wrong here.

‘The Gospel is an invitation.’

DAVID: You’re sure to draw a lot of criticism, along with all the appreciation that’s sure to come your way, as well. What final thought do you want to leave with readers—critics and supporters of your work?

KEN: I hope that people who care about the church will ask themselves: Don’t we care about the harm being done to vulnerable people? Do we really want to sacrifice our children? Is that the message of Jesus? Or, is the Gospel an acceptance of us that is so powerful that it is life changing? And, as a result, we want to invite others into the company of Jesus. I think the Gospel is an invitation.

LEARN MORE ABOUT KEN WILSON
AND ‘A LETTER TO MY CONGREGATION’

VISIT our resource page for the new book, which includes all three introductions by Gushee, Tickle and Luhrmann … plus much more! Order a copy of the book, right now, from Amazon (via links with this interview)—or use the links in the resource page to order from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or other online retailers. Bookmark our resource page for the book, because—in coming weeks—we will be adding free Discussion Guides.

PLEASE share this interview with friends. You are free to republish this interview as long as you include the credit line (see the italic line at the end of this post). Or, you can share this by using the blue-“f” Facebook icons or the tiny envelope-shaped email icons.

ALL THIS WEEK, read more about the latest research into changing American attitudes on these issues in the OurValues.org project, hosted by University of Michigan sociologist Dr. Wayne Baker.

(Originally published at readthespirit.com, an on line magazine covering religion, spirituality, values and interfaith and cross-cultural issues.)

Read the interview in which Pope Francis startles the church

September 20, 2013 by

In a stunning move, Pope Francis coordinated with journalists in a carefully orchestrated, in-depth interview published simultaneously by Catholic media around the world. In English, the complete version of the lengthy interview appears in America Magazine.

NEWS ANALYSIS by David Crumm, Editor of ReadTheSpirit:

To be clear, Pope Francis did not change church doctrine. Not a line of the church’s canon law was revised by this interview. But—in a shot heard round the world—he broke open a window into what the world’s billion-plus Catholics consider to be the Mother Church. Then, he stood at this newly opened portal and waved the reluctant toward what he regards as Home.

As a journalist, I have reported from the Vatican a number of times during the reign of Pope John Paul II, who was followed by Pope Benedict XVI. During those papacies, the Vatican sought to gather more and more authority in an effort to purge the church of what Benedict viewed as heresy. Benedict openly talked about the need to lead a smaller, purer church in an era of history that he viewed as a threat to faith itself. During those decades, traditionalists in the church’s grassroots and Catholics with a political agenda—in growing numbers—would conduct their own witch hunts in regions of the church and send charges directly to the Vatican. In this interview, Francis clearly rejects that approach and urges that most future disputes over doctrine be handled “locally.”

For all the high liturgy and all the media glitz of Francis’s election and inauguration in March, this seems to be the true deck-clearing start of Pope Francis’s papacy. Remember that, for decades, his official motto has been miserando atque eligendo, drawn from Bede‘s homily on Matthew 9:9–13 in which Bede wrote: “because he saw him through the eyes of mercy and chose him.”

That entire passage from Matthew 9 says: As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him. And as Jesus sat at dinner in the house, many tax-collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax-collectors and sinners?” But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”

POPE FRANCIS ON CHURCH LEADERSHIP:

In the thousands of news media reports about Pope Francis’s interview, one of the most overlooked sections of the interview is his explanation—through several Questions and Answers—of his own dramatic evolution in understanding church leadership. He admits and actually seems to apologize for being too authoritarian as a young man, thrust into a position of power in the church in his mid-30s. Now, he realizes that earlier style was wrong. Here’s the key paragraph in which he describes the true wisdom of the Church:

“The people itself constitutes a subject. And the church is the people of God on the journey through history, with joys and sorrows. Thinking with the church, therefore, is my way of being a part of this people. And all the faithful, considered as a whole, are infallible in matters of belief, and the people display this ‘infallibilitas in credendo,’ this infallibility in believing, through a supernatural sense of the faith of all the people walking together. This is what I understand today as the ‘thinking with the church’ of which St. Ignatius speaks. When the dialogue among the people and the bishops and the pope goes down this road and is genuine, then it is assisted by the Holy Spirit. So this thinking with the church does not concern theologians only.”

POPE FRANCIS ON THE CHURCH AS ‘FIELD HOSPITAL’:

Then, here is a sample of the portion mid-interview where Francis startles the world:

“I see clearly,” the pope continues, “that the thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I see the church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else. Heal the wounds, heal the wounds…. And you have to start from the ground up.

“The church sometimes has locked itself up in small things, in small-minded rules. The most important thing is the first proclamation: Jesus Christ has saved you. And the ministers of the church must be ministers of mercy above all. The confessor, for example, is always in danger of being either too much of a rigorist or too lax. Neither is merciful, because neither of them really takes responsibility for the person. The rigorist washes his hands so that he leaves it to the commandment. The loose minister washes his hands by simply saying, ‘This is not a sin’ or something like that. In pastoral ministry we must accompany people, and we must heal their wounds.

“How are we treating the people of God? I dream of a church that is a mother and shepherdess. The church’s ministers must be merciful, take responsibility for the people and accompany them like the good Samaritan, who washes, cleans and raises up his neighbor. This is pure Gospel. God is greater than sin. The structural and organizational reforms are secondary—that is, they come afterward. The first reform must be the attitude. The ministers of the Gospel must be people who can warm the hearts of the people, who walk through the dark night with them, who know how to dialogue and to descend themselves into their people’s night, into the darkness, but without getting lost. The people of God want pastors, not clergy acting like bureaucrats or government officials. The bishops, particularly, must be able to support the movements of God among their people with patience, so that no one is left behind. But they must also be able to accompany the flock that has a flair for finding new paths.”

ON HOMOSEXUALITY:

Here is the key section, which often is quoted only in phrases or single sentences in news media reports:

“We need to proclaim the Gospel on every street corner,” the pope says, “preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing, even with our preaching, every kind of disease and wound. In Buenos Aires I used to receive letters from homosexual persons who are ‘socially wounded’ because they tell me that they feel like the church has always condemned them. But the church does not want to do this. During the return flight from Rio de Janeiro I said that if a homosexual person is of good will and is in search of God, I am no one to judge. By saying this, I said what the catechism says. Religion has the right to express its opinion in the service of the people, but God in creation has set us free: it is not possible to interfere spiritually in the life of a person.

“A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of homosexuality. I replied with another question: ‘Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?’ We must always consider the person. Here we enter into the mystery of the human being. In life, God accompanies persons, and we must accompany them, starting from their situation. It is necessary to accompany them with mercy. When that happens, the Holy Spirit inspires the priest to say the right thing.”

READ THE ENTIRE INTERVIEW:

In English, the complete version of the lengthy interview appears in America Magazine.

READ ABOUT ANOTHER POPE WHO STARTLED THE WORLD:

This year, the world is rediscovering Pope John XXIII—especially since Francis plans to canonize him as officially recognized saint.

Brian McLaren, Evangelical author and activist: Interviews & book reviews

July 28, 2013 by

Brian McLaren
Resource Page
for Small Groups

Read The Spirit helps individuals and small groups nationwide. This Resource Page gathers, in one place, links to our extensive coverage of author and activist Brian McLaren. Please feel free to share this helpful information with friends (click on the blue-“f” Facebook icon above, or the envelope-shaped email icon):

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Brian Mclaren was born in 1956;  he published his first book in 1998 in his early 40s and he became a nationally influential Christian leader just before he turned 50 in 2005. A Google Trends analysis of his popularity shows that the all-time peak of online search activity for his name was 2005 to 2006, shortly after TIME Magazine named him one of the “Most Influential Evangelicals.” However, Americans have never thought of him exclusively as an “evangelical.” The millions of men and women Googling to find out more about him tend to associate his name with the phrase “emergent church,” Google Trends reports. He also spiked in Google searches in 2010 around the time he published A New Kind of Christianity and again in 2012 around the release of his 9/11-and-interfaith themed book (find out about both of those books below).

A WIDELY VARIED MINISTRY: Brian McLaren earned a BA and MA in English from the University of Maryland; he also has been given honorary doctorates in divinity. Over the years, his studies and talents have ranged from literature and philosophy to Christian history and music. In 1982, he helped to co-found Cedar Ridge Community Church, near Washington D.C. He became a close friend of Rob Bell, Tony Jones, Phyllis Tickle and other emergent church leaders; he also has worked closely with Sojourners. Then, as his ministry evolved into a national calling as a speaker, writer, consultant and activist, he left his pastoral ministry at Cedar Ridge in 2006. He now lives in Florida with his wife Grace. They have four adult children and several grandchildren.

Christianity Held Hostage

A defining theme runs through Brian’s work—a belief that Christianity has been taken hostage by politically conservative forces that push churches toward lock-step allegiance in political campaigns. He was an early evangelical voice calling for inclusion of gay and lesbian Christians, for example. He also preaches that Christians must be concerned for the welfare of the world’s most vulnerable people, especially the poor. In honoring him in 2005, TIME wrote: “If his movement can survive in the politicized world of conservative Christianity, McLaren could find a way for young Evangelicals and more liberal Christians to march into the future together despite their theological differences.”

Misunderstood Religious Words

In 2006, during the period when he was bursting into national news media, New York Times religion writer Laurie Goodstein reported on evangelicals and described McLaren as “a leader in the evangelical movement known as the ’emerging church,’ which is at the forefront of challenging the more politicized evangelical establishment.”

Goodstein also quoted McLaren: “More and more people are saying this has gone too far—the dominance of the evangelical identity by the religious right,” Mr. McLaren said. “You cannot say the word ‘Jesus’ in 2006 without having an awful lot of baggage going along with it. You can’t say the word ‘Christian,’ and you certainly can’t say the word ‘evangelical’ without it now raising connotations and a certain cringe factor in people. Because people think, ‘Oh no, what is going to come next is homosexual bashing, or pro-war rhetoric, or complaining about ‘activist judges.’ ”

Brian McLaren’s warnings about the dangerous baggage packed in Christian language has been obvious since his break-through book in 2004, which had the extremely long title: A Generous Orthodoxy: WHY I AM a missional, evangelical, post/protestant, liberal/conservative, mystical/poetic, biblical, charismatic/contemplative, fundamentalist/calvinist, anabaptist/anglican, methodist, catholic, green, incarnational, depressed-yet-hopeful, emergent, unfinished CHRISTIAN. Many love his message; many take issue with it. To date, for example, Generous Orthodoxy has nearly 200 Amazon reviews: He scores 100 rave reviews (4 and 5 stars) and is panned in 70 reviews (1 and 2 stars).

BRIAN McLAREN 2014:
‘We Make the Road by Walking’

In 2014, McLaren published We Make the Road by Walking: A Year-Long Quest for Spiritual Formation, Reorientation, and Activation. And ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm interviewed him about this important new book. Here are just some of the words of praise for this book-length invitation to take a year-long Bible study with McLaren …

“This is one of the most remarkable documents in recent Christian writings … There is no evangelizing here, and no preaching, only a sinewy, but orderly and open, presentation of the faith that holds. The result is as startling as it is beautiful.”
Phyllis Tickle, author of The Age of the Spirit: How the Ghost of an Ancient Controversy Is Shaping the Church.

“A ton of people have been waiting for this book—they just didn’t know it! Brian has biven us a clear and compelling guide to walking the Jesus path together, around the table, in the living room, discussing and learning and growing. This book is going to help so many people.”
Rob Bell, author of What We Talk About When We Talk About God.

“This is Brian McLaren at his best, and I think this is what so many readers want from him. Deeply rooted in scripture, yet offering fresh, even radical, readings. We Make the Road by Walking will surely be a benefit and blessing to many.”
Tony Jones, author of The Church Is Flat: The Relational Ecclesiology of the Emerging Church Movement.

Read our in-depth interview with Brian McLaren on We Make the Road by Walking right here.

AND in 2014:
PREFACE for ‘UNITED AMERICA’

In January, McLaren provided the Preface for United America, a book by University of Michigan sociologist Dr. Wayne Baker reporting on years of research into 10 values that unite all Americans. In his Preface, McLaren appealed for a rebuilding of American communities (a goal he encourages in his own 2014 book). He writes, in part:

“If we want to strengthen the key subsystems that make up the American system, we will promote the deep values that Americans share. That means that even in disagreement, we will practice civility and a respect for others. We will build on our common ground of both symbolic and critical patriotism. We will emphasize our shared love for freedom, security and self-reliance. We will celebrate equal opportunity, the dream of advancement, and the pursuit of happiness. And we will unite around a sense of wider connectedness.

“Just as destructive interventions target multiple points in a system, healing interventions must arise system-wide.”

BRIAN McLAREN 2013:
‘Men Pray’

In 2013, McLaren offered the opening section of the SkyLight Paths prayer book, Men Pray: Voices of Strength, Faith, Healing, Hope and Courage. This nearly 200-page collection of prayers by dozens of men, down through the centuries, is worth buying especially to read McLaren’s moving 8-page introduction in which he describes his own grandfather’s example of prayer as Brian observed it when he was just a boy. After telling that personal story, McLaren concludes with this appeal:

If men like us don’t pray, where will emerging generations get a window into the soul of a good man, an image of the kind of man they can aspire to be—or be with—when they grow up? If men don’t pray, who will  model for them the practices of soul care—of gratitude, confession, compassion, humility, petition, repentance, grief, faith, hope and love? If men don’t pray, what will me become, and what will become of our world and our future?

The book includes prayers by Daniel Berrigan, Wendell Berry, St. Francis of Assisi, Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, Robert Frost, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Father Thomas Keating, C.S. Lewis, Nelson Mandela, Thomas Merton, John Philip Newell, Rumi, W.B. Yeats and many others. The collection also includes prayers by two Read The Spirit authors: Benjamin Pratt and Daniel Buttry.

BRIAN McLAREN 2012:
The 9/11 Interfaith Book

Brian McLaren’s most recent major spike in Google Trends was around September 2012, when he released a book with a seemingly humorous title: Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road? Christian Identity in a Multi-Faith World.

Click here to read our entire in-depth interview with Brian McLaren about that book. In reviewing Why Did …, we began this way:

In his 19th book, the prophetic evangelical author Brian McLaren is publishing his first interfaith book. It’s timed to appear on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks that opened and still define this turbulent new century. As you will read in our interview with McLaren, the best-selling writer argues that this new book is far from the typical appeal for interfaith understanding that other writers are producing these days. While many of those books are noble, he has a different purpose. While readers are smiling over the old joke in the book’s main title—he doesn’t want us to miss the book’s real focus, which lies in the sub-title about “Christian Identity.” This book is a passionate appeal to enrich Christian appreciation of cross-cultural relationships by doing some thorough house cleaning within Christianity itself. In this book, Brian is primarily writing to the Christians who comprise a majority of the American population.

In the interview, Brian says, in part:
One of the biggest insights that came to me, as I was researching this book, is the realization that it’s not our differences that are keeping us apart. What’s keeping us apart is something we actually have in common: The way we often try to build our own identity through hostility. Leaders build loyalty among “us” by building hostility toward “them.” It won’t work to simply rush off into interfaith dialogue until we deal with some of the deep work within our own identity. We won’t get far in our relationships with others until we deal with some of the often hidden ways we have defined ourselves through our hostility.

BRIAN McLAREN 2012:

3 politically satirical novellas

In the midst of the 2012 campaigns, McLaren released three e-books—a trio of short, razor-edged satirical novellas: The Word of the Lord to Democrats, The Word of the Lord to Republicans and The Word of the Lord to Evangelicals. (Those links go to the three books’ Amazon pages for Kindle.) In our coverage of those books, we described them as “Fiction with a Sting.”

Read our entire review of the first volume in the series, which includes quotes from Brian McLaren and a brief excerpt from the Democrats book.

At the time, Brian McLaren was saying, “When you’re silent on issues of injustice, your silence tacitly supports the status quo. So even silence ends up being political.”

In our review of the Democrats volume, we called it “broad-brush humor more than deft farce.” We said, in part:

Borrowing the kind of acerbic style we normally associate with New York Times commentator Maureen Dowd, McLaren is firing off a series of short, political e-books cast as fiction. … McLaren says he hopes this dramatic switch in styles will cause Americans both to laugh and to think in fresh ways about the sorry state of politics in 2012. That’s the bottom line: If you’ve cheered Brian’s stances in the past, then you’ll have fun with these e-books.

We also wrote:
This book is a far cry from Saturday Night Live comedy and mainly McLaren focuses on his provocative central question: What if God did come back in the voice of a female prophet, sent to shake up the 2012 U.S. presidential campaign? That’s really not a laughing matter and, in the end, this book isn’t intended as a joke.

At the time, McLaren described the three novellas as “warm up” books for the release of his 9/11 interfaith book, Why Did …

BRIAN McLAREN 2011:
‘Naked Spirituality’

In 2011, Brian McLaren described Naked Spirituality: A Life with God in 12 Simple Words by saying, in part:

This is a book about getting naked—not physically, but spiritually. It’s about stripping away the symbols and status of public religion—the Sunday-dress version people often call “organized religion.” And it’s about attending to the well-being of the soul clothed only in naked human skin. As a result, it must be a vulnerable book, tender in tone, gentle in touch. You won’t find much in the way of aggressive arguments here, but rather shy experience daring to step into the light.

Not only is this book deeply inspiring and a fresh pathway to reviving our spiritual practices—its focus on redefining sloppy and sometimes dangerous “Christian language ” was a step toward his later 9/11 book. First, read our initial interview with Brian McLaren about the release of Naked Spirituality.

In the interview, he says, in part:
We have to find ways to deal with the conflict. If I am filled with conflict in my soul, then it’s going to be very hard for me to contribute to a more peaceful world. If I’m filled with greed and unbridled desires, it’s going to be very hard for me to contribute to a sustainable world. The solution, I believe, is to rediscover the missional and spiritual dimensions at the core of our faith. Yes, I am a person of hope, but I’m also a person who has never felt more urgency about this need to create honest conversation. If we fail, if we give up, the consequence is beyond scary. I am a person of hope. Week by week, I’m inviting people to build on the hope at the center of our faith.

We also published, at that time, some brief samples of the more unusual passages in Naked Spirituality.

A bit later that year—in one of our most popular efforts in Read The Spirit magazine—we published a combined interview with Richard Rohr and Brian McLaren talking about spiritual perspectives on aging. Richard Rohr had just published his book Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life. Richard Rohr welcomed this approach, saying:

I consider Brian a dear brother. Think of how he comes from an evangelical background and I come from a Franciscan Catholic background—so this truly is an example of the emerging Christianity. Yes, we’re on the same page—sharing many of the same details! It’s amazing!

You can read the entire three-way interview between McLaren, Rohr and Read The Spirit Editor David Crumm starting here.

BRIAN McLAREN 2010:
‘A New Kind of Christianity’

One of Brian McLaren’s most popular early works was the 2001 fictionalized call to religious transformation, A New Kind of Christian: A Tale of Two Friends on a Spiritual Journey. (We still recommend reading that book; and it’s still available, if you click that linked title and visit Amazon.)

Then, a decade later, Brian McLaren issued a far more ambitious manifesto with a similar title: A New Kind of Christianity, Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith. In reviewing the book, we wrote, in part, that Brian was:

Not merely producing yet-another-book-for-small-group-study. He’s packaging spiritual dynamite and shipping it to cells of believers nationwide who are so restless with the bondage of “church life” that they want to blow the roof off and start again. Of course we’re talking about this metaphorically! Brian is world-renowned as a peacemaker, among other things. But that language captures the urgency and the dramatic scale of this transformation Brian—and Read The Spirit—see unfolding for millions upon millions of men and women.

We published a short version of  the ’10 Questions’ in the book’s subtitle.

We also published an in-depth interview with Brian McLaren about A New Kind of Christianity. In that interview, he said, in part:

This is a very, very exciting time. In the first half of this new book, I talk about theological pregnancy. We’re in an era of very positive rediscovery of the treasures buried in our own back yards. But to access those treasures, it requires us to dig up some of the sod. This will get messy before we can move on.

Later in the same interview, he poked fun at himself as he argued:

We preachers are always so sure that a sermon can actually solve people’s problems. (laughing) We underestimate how deep and difficult this transformation is! I’m so happy that this book is shaped around questions, rather than statements. And, I don’t answer all the questions. That wouldn’t get us where we need to go. This is why Jesus taught in parables so often rather than just issuing pronouncements. The very form of the parable invites us into a space where we’re using our imagination and reflection. We actually have to understand the story before we can even begin to agree or disagree.

BRIAN McLAREN 2008:
‘Finding Our Way Again’

In 2008, Brian McLaren worked with author and editor Phyllis Tickle on producing a landmark series on Ancient Practices for Thomas Nelson. This was a landmark partly because of the high caliber of the authors Tickle assembled to produce the series. Other examples in this series were Scot McKnight writing Fasting and Joan Chittister writing The Liturgical Year: The Spiraling Adventure of the Spiritual Life. The series also was historic because it represented one of the world’s most famous evangelical publishing houses, Thomas Nelson, offering its readers deep explorations of practices that Protestants once might have dismissed as “too Catholic.” Going even further, this series pointed out that versions of these ancient practices are shared by Jewish and Muslim communities.

Brian McLaren wrote the first and perhaps the most important book in the series, Finding Our Way Again: The Return of the Ancient Practices. At that time, still soaring from the pinnacle of his 2005-2006 role in national news media, McLaren was a prophetic guide working with Phyllis Tickle to urge evangelicals toward these deeply rewarding Christian traditions.

In reviewing the book, we wrote in part:

Other leading Christian voices have pointed in this direction over the past year, including Tony Campolo and N.T. Wright. But what’s remarkable about the series Brian is kicking off right now is the authors’ affirmation that these practices are valued, as well, by our Jewish and Muslim brothers and sisters. This is a milestone in interfaith relations—a warm hand reaching out to other men and women in this Abrahamic family of faiths.”

Read our entire in-depth interview with Brian McLaren about Finding Our Way Again.

In that interview, he says in part

One of the things that is so appealing about Abraham in what we might call our post-modern, post-colonial, post-“Christendom” context is that Abraham was directly in touch with who we Christians, Muslims and Jews believe was the Creator of the universe. Abraham was directly in touch with God without a religion. Abraham was before Judaism as we know it, and of course he was long before Christianity or Islam were established. Abraham had that primal calling from God to be on a pilgrimage, on a journey. He’s not the representative of a dominant religion -– certainly not a state or an imperial religion. He becomes a sole believer in a transcendent God in the midst of a polytheistic, pluralistic world. This idea of Abraham as having faith before a religion was organized makes him a very, very important figure for us when many of us are struggling to have faith in spite of the religion we see around us today.”

At that time, we also published a story with Phyllis Tickle, architect of the series for Thomas Nelson. That story includes a very quotable excerpt from Phyllis’s Foreword to the new series that says, in part:

Young men and women of faith, especially, are crying everywhere, “Give us a faith that costs us something! … Teach us the things that will mark us as children of God! …” Their demands swell out with heat and vision, and what they foretell is that Christianity must be a way of living life as much as it is a system of belief. What they envision are Christians who belong to each other in common cause, regardless of place and circumstance, a tribe of people marked by how they are and live as a nation peculiar unto God, regardless of where they may exist on this earth. It is a soul-shaking concept.

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(Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering spirituality, religion, interfaith and cross-cultural issues.)