In my previous post, Tom recommended a book by Krister Stendahl. I looked on the Wikipedia entry on Stendahl and found his wonderful “Three Rules for Religious Understanding.”

1. When you are trying to understand another religion, you should ask the adherents of that religion and not its enemies.
2. Don’t compare your best to their worst.
3. Leave room for “holy envy.” (By this Stendahl meant that you should be willing to find elements in the other religious tradition and faith that you admire and wish could, in some way, be reflected in your own religious tradition or faith.)

The first rule hits home. I remember when I was younger and I would seek to learn about other faiths, I would read what Christians had to say about those religions rather than what the adherents of those religions would say about their beliefs. I wish we all would offer more charitable reads of ideologies different than our own by listening to those ideologies directly. I’m not saying those Christian voices were wrong in their critiques, but there is a difference of learning a position from someone trying to edify it from within and from someone trying to debunk it from without. It happened in seminary as well. I read enough works criticizing Martin Luther that by the time I picked up his writings, I was ready to disagree with him. By reading his own words, I can say both that I actually like Luther quite a bit and I agree with many of those criticisms of him, but not all of them. Stendahl’s rules offer a good analytical matrix for nearly any area of life, be it religious, political, economic, scientific, etc.

Time has a story on ten ideas that are changing the world. Coming in at number ten is “Re-Judaizing Jesus.” Writer David Van Biema begins with describing a spat between Ben Worthington and Rob Bell over how to correctly interpret Jesus’ Jewish identity. The main point, however, is not that they disagree about understanding Jesus’ Jewishness, but that they consider Jesus’ Jewishness to be vitally important to understanding who he is as portrayed in the Gospels. We Gentile Christians are saying to ourselves, “Just about every one of those fellows who wrote all those books in the Bible were of Hebrew background. I bet that’s an important detail.”

For centuries, the discipline of Christian “Hebraics” consisted primarily of Christians cherry-picking Jewish texts to support the traditionally assumed contradiction between the Jews — whose alleged dry legalism contributed to their fumbling their ancient tribal covenant with God — and Jesus, who personally embodied God’s new covenant of love. But today seminaries across the Christian spectrum teach, as Vanderbilt University New Testament scholar Amy-Jill Levine says, that “if you get the [Jewish] context wrong, you will certainly get Jesus wrong.”

The shift came in stages: first a brute acceptance that Jesus was born a Jew and did Jewish things; then admission that he and his interpreter Paul saw themselves as Jews even while founding what became another faith; and today, recognition of what the Rev. Bruce Chilton, author of Rabbi Jesus, calls Jesus’ passionate dedication “to Jewish ideas of his day” on everything from ritual purity to the ideal of the kingdom of God — ideas he rewove but did not abandon.

(HT: Emergent Village)

Is it just me, or does contemporary advertising not use jingles as much anymore? Or at least jingles that bore their way into my memory so that years later they continue to vex me because I can still sing them word for word. I woke up yesterday with this jingle from commercials in the 1980’s stuck in my head and couldn’t get it out. Share my misery, please.

Carey and I returned on Saturday from a vacation where we camped with friends at Leo Carillo State Park, camped at Montana de Oro State Park by ourselves, and then saw friends in the South Bay and San Francisco. I’m working on editing the pictures and will post them soon.

Today marks six months since Dad died. Lately, the reality of his death has come back to shock me. I walk around a corner and I feel suckerpunched. There are moments where it’s hard to breathe. Six months since hearing his voice or giving him a hug. I am immensely thankful for my mom and brother, who have lived through these six months with such honesty and grace.

In yesterday’s edition of Sightings, Martin Marty writes about interfaith relationships and praying for the conversion of others.

A week from Friday is Good Friday, a most solemn day for Christians. It is also a problem day for Jews, and for the evident Christian majority which is (or wants to be) sensitive to the sensibilities of Jews….

Then I chanced on this headline in the Jewish weekly Forward (February 29-March 7): CATHOLICS HAVE A RIGHT TO PRAY FOR US, above an op-ed by veteran Professor Jacob Neusner, a scholar of Judaism uncommonly informed about such matters. His main point will surprise many non-Jews and many Jews as well: “Israel prays for gentiles, so the other monotheists, the Catholic Church included, have the same right to do the same—and no one should be offended, as many have[.]”

Rabbi Neusner notes that a prayer “for the conversion of ‘all the wicked of the earth,’ who are ‘all the inhabitants of the world,’ is recited in normative Judaism not once a year, but every day.” He quotes several passages from standard Jewish liturgies, which “leave no doubt that when holy Israel assembles for worship it asks God to illuminate gentiles’ hearts.” Prayers of both covenanted sets of people have “an eschatological focus and mean to keep the door to salvation open for all peoples. Holy Israel should object to the Catholic prayer no more than Christianity and Islam should take umbrage at the Israelite one.”

I agree with Rabbi Neusner. Speaking as a Christian, I know that at their best, our prayers for the conversion of others are rooted not in judgment, but in love. When other faiths pray for my conversion, I know that at their best, they want me to participate in what they see as the good life in closest proximity with the divine. Proselytizing certainly can become oppressive as we have seen in history. Prayers for the conversion “the wicked” can take on the air of exclusionary superiority. It is strange to me, however, that we live in an age where any assumption that one’s faith is closer to the divine reality than other religions is tantamount to a hate crime. Evangelizing others is not an affront to people as human beings or an impingement on their functions as agents. As agents, they have the rationality to accept or reject the evangelist’s claims. Prayer for the conversion of others in and of itself is not an attack, nor should it ever be. Let us not be historically ignorant, however, of how prayers and proselytization have been used at times for domination, oppression, and vengeance. As we pray for others, may we seek their welfare and love them as children of God.

Marty’s column is well worth the read and an interesting companion to my earlier post about the Abrahamic religions finding common ground in loving God and neighbor.

Here’s an animated version of the five stages of grief.

I may or may not have exhibited these behaviors in my mourning for my dad. (Come on, I have to be able to laugh a bit, don’t I?)

Abraham Lincoln gave one of the great speeches in American history, his second inaugural address.

Fellow Countrymen:

At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. ‘Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.’ If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether’.

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

I’m not sure if people saw “Loving God and Neighbor Together,” but I just came across it. It is an open letter from many Christian theologians to Muslims, published in the New York Times in response to the Muslim letter to Christians, “A Common Word Between You and Us.” The Muslim clerics, scholars, and intellectuals from every branch of the faith write:

Muslims and Christians together make up well over half of the world’s population. Without peace and justice between these two religious communities, there can be no meaningful peace in the world. The future of the world depends on peace between Muslims and Christians.

The basis for this peace and understanding already exists. It is part of the very foundational principles of both faiths: love of the One God, and love of the neighbour. These principles are found over and over again in the sacred texts of Islam and Christianity. The Unity of God, the necessity of love for Him, and the necessity of love of the neighbour is thus the common ground between Islam and Christianity.

The Christians write back:

We find deep affinities with our own Christian faith when A Common Word Between Us and You insists that love is the pinnacle of our duties toward our neighbors. “None of you has faith until you love for your neighbor what you love for yourself,” the Prophet Muhammad said. In the New Testament we similarly read, “whoever does not love [the neighbor] does not know God” (1 John 4:8) and “whoever does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20). God is love, and our highest calling as human beings is to imitate the One whom we worship.

I find this dialogue extremely hopeful. I pray deeply that Christians and Muslims would be able to find common ground to live with one another. I am reminded of Eboo Patel, founder of the Interfaith Youth Core, an organization that seeks to engender deep religious convictions and cooperation across faiths. His vision isn’t that we all believe the same things, but that in embracing our traditions strongly and in learning from others’ traditions, we can find common ground. He wants the students who participate in his program to see that among many religions, and especially among the three Abrahamic faiths, that service of others is a core value. In a wonderful interview with the radio show Speaking of Faith, Patel says:

You have a gut-level respect for people’s identity when it comes to ethnicity, gender, class, race. Why not religion? And the second thing is religious people are changing our world. You can sit in a corner and whine about it, or you can be on the bus and figure out how we can all work together to build a world where people cooperate and live together in some sort of mutual loyalty. I’ll tell you something: Muslims are not going to stop being Muslim….

Christians are not going to stop being Christian. The question is, the challenge is, how do we promote a way of being Christian and Muslim and Jewish and Buddhist and Hindu that lives in cooperation with other people?

I already posted the following commentary over on my blog about the arts, The Space Between the Arts, but since it deals directly with matters of faith as well, I thought I would offer it here as well.

A simple warning: this, like most of my commentaries will discuss specifics about the work of art, meaning the commentary will contain spoilers.

Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson creates an incredible dance between his characters and the audience. Without using voiceovers or soliloquies, we feel characters’ emotions whether they are emotions we would want to understand or not. Take, for example, in Magnolia, when the uber-misogynist Frank T. J. Mackey (Tom Cruise) stonewalls the reporter (April Grace) for confronting him with his true history, we understand and feel his frustration all the while remaining disgusted with the vileness of his work and his lies. Like all great filmmakers, Anderson also has the ability to change our perspectives so that when we leave the theater, we look at the world a bit differently.

I have seen his latest work of wonder, There Will Be Blood, twice now and I cannot get this movie out of my head. There Will Be Blood takes a hard look at the amorality of frontier capitalism embodied in the terrifying character Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis in one of the great performances on film). Daniel protects his fabricated image enough to ingratiate himself to the people who own the land on which he wants to drill for oil. Because he inhabits nearly every scene of the film, we can view the bleak landscape through Daniel’s eyes that sees the “ocean of oil” underneath his feet. Daniel is percipient but horribly selfish. He sees through people to procure the best deal he can, often and perhaps intentionally at the other person’s expense. In an uncharacteristically candid moment, Daniel has the following exchange with Henry (Kevin J. O’Connor), the man posing as his brother:

Daniel: Are you an angry man, Henry?
Henry: About what?
Daniel: Are you envious? Do you get envious?
Henry: I don’t think so. No.
Daniel: I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed. I hate most people.
Henry: That part of me is gone—working and not succeeding—all my failures has left me. I just don’t care.
Daniel: Well, if it’s in me, it’s in you. There are times when I look at people and I see nothing worth liking. I want to earn enough money that I can get away from everyone.
Henry: What will you do about your boy?
Daniel: I don’t know. Maybe it will change. Does your sound come back to you? I don’t know. Maybe no one knows that. A doctor might not know that.
Henry: Where is his mother?
Daniel: I don’t want to talk about those things. I see the worst in people. I don’t need to look past seeing them to get all I need. I’ve built my hatreds up over the years, little by little, Henry. To have you here gives me a second breath. I can’t keep doing this on my own with these people.