The Explanation and It’s Damage
Rev, Yme Woensdregt
A few months ago, Richard Beck wrote in his blog about a thought experiment in which he imagined something he called “The Explanation”. It was a thoughtful and delightful piece of writing. I’ve been thinking about this blog for some time now. Let me recapitulate it for you here.
Imagine, if you will, that the Bible gave us an explanation for why there is so much pain and suffering in the world. It would be a way in which we could understand why cancer takes so many of us, why children die, why evil and good live side by side in the hearts of all of us.
Now imagine that the Bible gave us “The Explanation” in a specific text, something we could easily quote and share.
The fancy theological word for this is “theodicy”. The word was first used by Leibniz in 1710 in an essay in which he tried to show that the evil in the world does not conflict with the goodness of God. Theodicy is, thus, a way of trying to justify God’s goodness in the face of evil.
We all engage in this work when we try to understand why evil happens. Rabbi Harold Kushner was writing a theodicy in his 1981 book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People. Whenever we try to answer the question “Why did this happen?”, we are engaging in a theodicy.
So imagine that the Bible gives us the theodicy we all want, The Explanation we’ve all been asking for.
Once you’ve imagined that … now imagine how The Explanation would be used.
Imagine the thousands of sermons sharing The Explanation. Hundreds of books would be devoted to The Explanation, teasing out every possible way how The Explanation comforts us and helps us figure out why life is the way it is.
Imagine how The Explanation would be printed on t-shirts, coffee mugs, bumper stickers and home decor, just like we do with every other inspirational Bible verse. Imagine it in needlepoint kits, and portrayed on bodies as a tattoo. You’d see it on billboards and neon signs … you’d find it everywhere.
Now imagine how we would use The Explanation with each other whenever any of us face some kind of pain or suffering. Imagine how people would use it to try to comfort themselves and others. Imagine how we would use it to try to explain the unexplainable.
Why did the Holocaust occur? Well, because The Explanation.
Why did my child die from cancer? Well, because The Explanation.
Why is there sex trafficking? Well, because The Explanation.
Why are LGBTQ people targeted? Well, because The Explanation.
Wherever suffering is found, we’d share The Explanation. With every war, every natural disaster, every hateful act, we’d share The Explanation. We would share it so often that it would become automatic. Cliché, even.
And when you think about it, about what it would be like to have The Explanation, you’re struck with just how much damage and violence we’d do to each other with The Explanation.
Every time we encountered a victim or a suffering, hurting person, we’d throw The Explanation at them. We would be even less empathetic than we are now, because we would have The Explanation for everything that happened. We would become less compassionate, because we have a formula now to explain it all. We would blame victims as being the cause of their own suffering because they refused to accept or believe The Explanation.
So it seems to me that the most loving thing God could do for us, in the face of suffering, is to refuse to give us The Explanation. Even if we cried out in the darkness for the Explanation. Because without The Explanation we’re forced into silence and solidarity. Which is exactly where we need to be.
Compassion and love can never be found in The Explanation or any other simple theodicy. Compassion and love must always be learned as we exercise it with each other.
Maybe that is why we’ll never have The Explanation.
We can’t be trusted with it.
If we had it, we’d hurt each other.
What’s in the Charter for Compassion?
Rev. Yme Woensdregt
Last week, I wrote about the Charter for Compassion which was unveiled in 2009. So what is to be found in this Charter?
At the heart of the Charter is the recognition that all the major religions in the world has a version of what Christians call “the Golden Rule”. Scholars call it the “principal of ethical reciprocity”. However you name it, this ethical teaching is shared universally.
The Christian version is found in words of Jesus: “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 7: 12).
Buddhists say, “Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.” (Udana–Varga 5:18)
Hindus teach, “This is the sum of duty: do not do to others what would cause pain if done to you.” (Mahabharata 5:1517)
A Muslim saying says, “None of you [truly] believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.” (Number 13 of Imam “Al–Nawawi’s Forty Hadiths.”)
The Jewish Torah says in words familiar to Christians, “you shall love your neighbour as yourself.” (Leviticus 19:18)
Black Elk, the Oglala Sioux leader who died in 1950, said “All things are our relatives; what we do to everything, we do to ourselves. All is really One.”
Even non–religious folk believe it: “Humanists acknowledge human interdependence, the need for mutual respect and the kinship of all humanity.” (British Humanist Society)
A delightful story is told about Rabbi Hillel and Rabbi Shammai, two influential Jewish leaders from the time of Jesus. A stranger came to Rabbi Shammai, who was known for his strictness, and asked the rabbi to teach him the whole Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) while standing on one foot. Shammai got angry at the man’s impudence and chased him away.
The man then went to Hillel and asked the same question. Hillel stood on one foot and replied, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour. This is the whole Torah; all the rest is commentary. Go and learn it.”
It is a universal belief: we are to be compassionate people. This is what it means to be human. We are called to exercise our moral imagination, putting ourselves in others’ shoes. We are called to act towards others as we want them to act towards us. At the very least, we should refuse, under any circumstances, to carry out actions which would cause them harm. At our best, we act to heal others, to make the life of creation more whole, to actively seek reconciliation among all the world’s peoples, and all the world’s creatures. Even our enemies.
All the world’s religions share this belief.
The key, however, is not what we believe. The key is how we act. Karen Armstrong reminds us, “religion isn’t about believing things. It’s ethical alchemy. It’s about behaving in a way that changes you, that gives you intimations of holiness and sacredness.”
The Charter for Compassion invites us to become more compassionate, to exercise our moral imaginations, to fight any ideology which breeds bigotry or hatred, to work tirelessly to alleviate the sufferings of our fellow creatures.
As I wrote last week, we live in a dangerously polarized world. There are all kinds of groups out there ready to tear the world apart because you believe differently … because you think differently … because you behave differently … because you’re gay or straight or conservative or liberal.
In such a world, we have a choice to make. Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama remind us that we can “choose to be aggressive and exclusive, as has happened in practically all religious and secular traditions … or we can cultivate an ethic that speaks of compassion, empathy, respect and what Confucianism calls jian ai — ‘concern for everybody’.”
It seems to me that the more creative approach would be to work together “to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world”.
The Charter for Compassion
Rev. Yme Woensdregt
About 8 years ago, the Charter for Compassion was unveiled to the world. I’ve written about it before, but thought it was worth revisiting this important movement.
The Charter for Compassion was the dream of Karen Armstrong, the former Roman Catholic nun from Britain who left the convent to pursue a degree in modern literature at Oxford. Since then she has written more than 20 books about religion. Her general focus in her books is to discover the common themes found in the world’s great religions. As she writes, “religion isn’t about believing things. It’s ethical alchemy. It’s about behaving in a way that changes you, that gives you intimations of holiness and sacredness.”
Armstrong was one of the winners of the TED Prize in 2008. TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to “Ideas Worth Spreading”, and brings together people from three areas of human enterprise: Technology, Entertainment, Design — TED.
Every year, TED awards a prize to three winners. Each winner receives $100,000 and “One Wish to Change the World”. TED works with the winners, finding other partners, to make their wish a reality.
Armstrong’s wish was to “create, launch and propagate a Charter for Compassion crafted by a group of leading inspirational thinkers from the three Abrahamic traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam and based on the fundamental principles of universal justice and respect.” Her wish came into existence when the Charter for Compassion was unveiled in 2009. People from all cultures and religions, as well as atheists, spent a year working on it.
The process began online. Ordinary people from all around the world were invited to post their views about compassion. Over 150,000 comments were received from people in over 100 countries. It was an amazing success.
A group of 18 religious leaders, the Council of Conscience, met to draft the Charter. The Council includes prominent leaders from the world’s major religions — Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and Confucians. It includes artists, scholars, bishops, rabbis and activists. Some names we will recognize; others will be new to us.
The Charter for Compassion is intended to inspire the world to live more compassionately. The goal is to help us learn to stand in the others’ shoes, to seek empathy and learn to live and work together for the welfare of all people and all creation.
As of this writing, the Charter has been affirmed by an estimated 2 million people, including the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, Queen Noor of Jordan, Deepak Chopra, musicians like Paul Simon and Peter Gabriel, actors like Meg Ryan and Goldie Hawn, religious leaders and ordinary people like me … and, I hope, like you. You can affirm it here.
Learning compassion is an urgent need. Our world is dangerously polarized, and it seems as if the polarization is becoming deeper. Religious extremists, for example, are prepared to do anything to fight for their cause. The Taliban and ISIS are prominent examples. So are suicide bombers, who take texts from the Q’uran dangerously out of context.
The same thing is happening in the realm of politics. Politicians are increasingly unable to work with each other, and spend much of their time pandering to the worst impulses in their constituencies.
But it’s not just in religion and politics. It’s happening all around us. We divide people into “us” and “them” much too easily. People on the left can’t seem to speak with people on the right. School bullies act with impunity. People attack others who are “different” on subways and buses, in playgrounds and ball fields. Ugly bumper stickers are more common, and there are increased instance of people spraying hateful slogans on buildings and public spaces.
There are all kinds of examples of this hatred: the bombing at the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester; a van plowing into pedestrians in London; a rainbow crosswalk vandalized in Fernie; US Senators shot at a baseball game; an attack on the Parliament Buildings, and threats at the Canada 150 celebrations; a shooting at the gay nightclub in Orlando. It’s scary stuff out there.
We live in a dangerously polarized world. We are losing the ability to talk to each other in respectful ways. Too many people think that only their point of view is correct, and they are willing to do whatever they need to do to eradicate other ways of looking at life. So they spew their hatred against Muslims … or Christians … or members of the LGBTQ community … or indigenous peoples or any people of colour … or medical clinics which allow women who choose to do so to have an abortion … or women … the list, which is seemingly endless, goes on and on.
We need to learn the language and the ways of compassion in this world. Karen Armstrong’s dream is desperately needed in this world. I encourage you to read the Charter and all the ways in which it is affecting our world.
Four Things that Skew Western Christianity, Part 2
Rev. Yme Woensdregt
Last week, I wrote Part 1 of this column about four things which skew our perception of Christian faith. Our North American culture differs significantly from the cultures in which the Bible was written. The Bible grew up in a middle Eastern culture over a course of 1400 years, from about 1250BCE to 125 CE.
Last week, I suggested that our faith is skewed because it is, firstly, overly intellectualized, which is to say that we have been taught in North America that faith is about learning the right answers. Secondly, I suggested that our approach to Christian faith in North America is overly individualized. In fact, much of the language of the Bible needs to be understood as plural. It is written to “you” as a community, not to “you” as an individual. It’s meant for y’all … or as a southern US friend tells me, it’s meant for “all y’all.”
I ended that column by suggesting that this highly individualized worldview leads us to miss the prophetic cry for justice in the Bible. That’s the third element in this list of four.
Most of the Bible is written for oppressed people. Here’s another way in which the original audience for this literature was different from us in North America. Most of us are not oppressed. Most of us have no idea of what it means to be oppressed. Most of us rarely need to cry out as the Psalmists do about being treated with injustice or prejudice or violence. Most of us don’t need to worry about being pulled over by the authorities.
Most of us, in fact, are part of the dominant culture. We can pretty much go where we please; we can pretty much do as we desire, simply because we are part of the “in group”. Society is organized in ways which generally benefit us.
Ancient Israel, on the other hand, was not like that. Except for very brief periods of time, Israel was in the way of the major empires of the day—the Egyptian empire to the southwest, the Babylonian and Mesopotamian empires to the southeast, the Assyrian empire to the northeast, the Hittites to the north. At various times in its history, these empires overran Israel as they sought more power and more land. They were conquerors; Israel was conquered. In the New Testament, Israel lived in thrall to the Roman empire.
Furthermore, most of our ancestors in the faith were illiterate peasants living at a subsistence level in the desert. They could barely scrape by day to day. As a result, the Bible calls out for justice over and over again.
Now most people think of justice as getting your just deserts for having done something wrong. We tend to think of justice as retribution: retributive justice. But the Bible most often means something else by justice. The primary way in which the Bible talks about justice is in terms of distribution: distributive justice. Justice is primarily about a fair distribution of God’s world for all of God’s people. The wealth of the world is meant for all, not just for the 1%.
That brings us to the fourth element which skews our perception of faith. In terms of the rest of the world, we are pretty rich. We don’t often reflect on it. Now, I’m not rich rich. I’m a priest, for heaven’s sake. But by global standards, I’m still rich. I own a car; I live in a house with three bedrooms, all by myself; I have a refrigerator, stove, running water, cable, internet, ceiling fans and heat. I have enough income to live pretty comfortably, and some left over for discretionary spending. My income puts me in the top 8% of the world’s people. I’m rich.
Most of us have a similar standard of living. (In the middle of this heat wave, I’m thinking that some of us are even lucky enough to have air conditioning!)
Our wealth affects our life of faith. The more we have, the less conscious we are of a deeper truth, that our lives are to be lived in trust of God rather than in what makes our lives artificially comfortable. Jesus said things like “Blessed are the poor” and “If God takes care of the birds of the air and the grass in the field, won’t God also take care of you?” and, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” And so forth and so on.
Our western culture prizes wealth as a sign of success. This is what we aim for. Marcus Borg reminds us that the three goals of our society are Appearance, Achievement and Affluence. Those goals get in the way of living by the deeper truth of trust in a God to whom we pray to receive “our daily bread”—enough food for today, not enough food to fill our ever expanding cupboards.
I know that our society depends on wealth to make it work. We pay salaries and maintain buildings and try to accomplish neighbourhood projects which is for the benefit of all. This is how the system works—and that’s precisely my point. We’re stuck in a system where it is hard to critique wealth, and it is so easy to get caught up in it.
But as I said last week, it’s not about playing the blame game. It’s more about insight, seeing more clearly what’s going on, so that we can move forward with greater understanding. It’s about being aware of our culture, and seeing how it skews our vision so that we can deal with it in healthy and helpful ways.
Four Things that Skew Western Christianity, Part 1
Rev. Yme Woensdregt
As I consider the landscape of faith in North America, I run into some things that cause us to misinterpret and misapply our Christian faith. Our faith gets a little skewed because we can’t help but be deeply touched by the culture in which we live … and the cultures in which the Bible was written are fundamentally foreign to our culture today.
I don’t mean to complain and I’m not trying to lay blame. Some of these things are part of the way I approach Christian faith as well. This culture is part of who I am. It is what it is, and the only way in which we can figure out where to go from here is to be aware of it and to own it.
First, as western Christians, our faith is overly intellectualized. The church in North American is dominated by the idea that being Christian means being right. It’s as if we were trying to tap into the data base of the universe and come up with the right answers. To put it in more “religious language”, we have been taught the Christian faith is about having the mind of God.
When that happens to the extent that it has, no room is left for mystery. We have lost the spiritual benefit of not–knowing. We turn the essential truths of our faith into a head trip, and we lose any sense that Christian faith is more about a relationship than knowing the right stuff.
Now don’t misunderstand me. I’m NOT against rational processes, or using our minds to think about things. After all, “reason” is one of the three foundational elements of an Anglican approach to truth. But when “truth” is something that can only come to us through our rational activities, then there can be no room for mystery—indeed, no room for other ways of being, no room for other ways of experiencing the divine.
The other thing about such an overly rational approach to faith is that we focus all of our energies on learning, on teaching and being taught. The Bible talks a lot more about “doing”—
- loving God rather than thinking about God;
- loving your neighbours—all your neighbours, whether they think right or not;
- taking care of creation, rather than using it for our own purposes;
- living with compassion and grace, rather than thinking about the right way to live and the right doctrines to believe.
The trouble with “doing” is that it’s so much more difficult and uncomfortable for us. Thinking is much easier. Learning to parrot the right answers is so much easier. Doing, however, will transform us. It’s easier to think the right thoughts. It’s much more difficult to live as compassionate and loving human beings.
The second thing which skews Christian faith in the West is that it has become overly individualized. We tend to see ourselves, far more often than I care to admit, as if we were the centre of the cosmos and that the Creator does too. We behave as if it were all about us.
Personally, I don’t pray for a good sale at the mall or for a great parking spot when I get there. But I know people who do. And there are times when I catch myself while I am praying or pondering some thought about God, faith, life—as if it were all about me. And I have to remind myself that it’s not about my own little life.
The Bible, and Christian faith generally, grew up in a culture which knew nothing about that kind of rampant individualism we take for granted. The ancients lived deeply within community.
It is very much like the concept of ubuntu. Desmond Tutu describes it this way: “My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in yours. We belong in a bundle of life. We say, ‘A person is a person through other persons.’”
We have lost that deep sense of community. We hold up the rugged, solitary individual as a model for how to live. So it happens that there are people who think that the key question about faith is, “Do you know where you will end up after you die?” As if that is the central question in Scripture and the primary concern of the Creator. It is not.
Part of the difficulty in correcting this skewed perception is the English language itself. When we read the word “you”, our default is to read it in the singular. You, a person, an individual. But the word “you” is also plural. It means you all. You are a group of people, a community.
In Greek (the language of the New Testament), there are different forms for the singular and the plural form of the pronoun “you.” The vast majority of instances in the Bible are in the plural. The Bible is a library of books about community. It is about a people living together, sharing the wealth of the universe, living with hope and compassion and grace. Together.
But our default in the West is to read it as singular. And so we miss a lot
One of the things we miss by reading it in the singular is the sense of justice … and I’ll have more to say about that next week in Part 2.
Beyond Canada150
Rev. Yme Woensdregt
I was going to write a column this week about the juxtaposition of National Aboriginal Day (June 21) and the upcoming celebration of 150 years of Canadian Confederation.
Canada150 is a huge deal. Unless you live in a cave with no access to the internet and television, it is impossible to have missed the news of this great and glorious event. National Aboriginal Day has not received quite the same level of attention. That’s unfortunate.
In the middle of all this, our Governor–General David Johnston made an unfortunate remark in which he referred to Indigenous people as immigrants. Some critics have said that this reflects “a deep–seated colonial mentality.” I can’t judge whether or not Mr. Johnston has such a mentality, but I believe his apology and his statement that he misspoke. He has acquitted himself honorably in his service as Governor–General. I was delighted to hear Perry Bellegarde, AFN National Chief, say the same thing, and call Johnston a good, caring kind and honorable man.
My column was going to explore some of the issues around our celebration of 150 years of Confederation and our relationship with our Indigenous brothers and sisters. As I was working on the column, a statement from the chief pastor of the Anglican Church of Canada, Archbishop Fred Hiltz was sent out. It explored some of the same themes I was going to explore. I will use some of his words in this column.
Our celebration on July 1, he says, will be “a time of national thanksgiving, and rightly so, for among other things the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms with the benefits we enjoy as Canadians. It will be a time for reflection on our place in the family of nations committed to peace and freedom for all peoples in the world.” Many people will celebrate with fireworks and special events to mark this occasion. I have some friends who decided that they were going to travel to Ottawa to “do it up right this year.”
At the same time, it is also true, says Hiltz, that “for many #Canada150 will pass with much less of an air of celebration given the history of relationships between the First Peoples of this land and the Settler Peoples. For some, #Canada150 is now #Resistance150, as #Canada150 is a reminder that this country’s founding is inextricably linked to this relationship. This relationship is marked by an imperial arrogance that became enshrined in a Federal Government Policy of Assimilation of the First Peoples into the culture, social structures and governance established by colonial powers.”
Let me give only one example of this arrogance. In the 1880’s, our Canadian government established Indian Residential Schools as a way of assimilating indigenous peoples into the prevailing, English culture. It is a shameful episode in our history, which was marked by slogans such as “beating the Indian out of the child.” Scores of residential schools were established, tearing children away from their parents and communities, shaming them, denying permission to remember their heritage. The last school was closed only 20 years ago, in 1996. The Government finally issued an apology in the House of Commons in June 2008, but “the legacy of those schools lives on.”
In December 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) presented its report after listening to thousands of stories of pain, humiliation and shame. It listed 94 Calls to Action which include the following: establishing a National Council for Reconciliation; funding a National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation; erecting a Residential Schools Monument “to honour survivors and all children who were lost to their families and communities”; “marking the 150th anniversary of Canadian Confederation in 2017 by establishing a dedicated national funding program to commemorate projects on the theme of reconciliation”; repudiating the Doctrine of Discovery (a Papal Bull issued in 1493 which said that when European nations “discovered” non–European lands, they gained special rights over that land, such as sovereignty and title, regardless of what other peoples live on that land); and taking steps to “ensure that Aboriginal peoples are full partners in Confederation”.
If we as a people, and we as individuals, commit ourselves to these Calls to Action, they will mark a profound shift in the relationship between indigenous peoples and the rest of us who are settlers on the land.
The work of reconciliation is long and hard. The TRC report defines reconciliation as “an ongoing process of establishing and maintaining respectful relationships.” Justice Murray Sinclair, who chaired the TRC, remarked that it took generations for this to happen; it will take generations for us to learn to live together in peace.
Fred Hiltz ends his letter by quoting the last of the Ten Principles underlying the 94 Calls to Action, namely that “Canadians must do more than just talk about reconciliation; we must learn how to practise reconciliation in our everyday lives—within ourselves and our families, and in our communities, governments, places of worship, schools, and workplaces. To do so constructively, Canadians must remain committed to the ongoing work of establishing and maintaining respectful relationships.”
This Canada Day, may we all make a new commitment to working towards reconciliation in all our relationships. In future years, may we celebrate National Indigenous Peoples Day and Canada Day with the same fervour.
This ‘Meddlesome Priest’
Rev. Yme Woensdregt
No, the title doesn’t describe me. Just in case you were wondering …
Like many other political junkies, I watched former FBI director James Comey testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee. My ears perked up when I heard him use this phrase about the meddlesome priest. He said that President Trump “hoped” he would drop the investigation into Michael Flynn and his connections to Russia. When he was asked if he took that comment “as a directive”, Comey responded, “Yes, yes. It rings in my ears as kind of ‘Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?’”
Where do these words come from?
Allegedly, they are the words that King Henry 2 of England cried out in 1170, when he was frustrated by the political opposition of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. Four royal knights immediately rushed off to Canterbury and murdered the “meddlesome priest”.
Often, contemporary politicians will refer to an historical incident in a way that skews what actually happened “back then”. But it strikes me this time that Mr. Comey’s reference to this incident in English history is more apt.
The point he was trying to make was that when a powerful leader expresses a “hope” or a “desire,” it is tantamount to an order. When Republican Senator James E. Risch noted that the president had merely “hoped for an outcome,” Mr. Comey replied, “I mean, this is the president of the United States, with me alone, saying ‘I hope this.’ I took it as, this is what he wants me to do.”
In the same way, the four knights attending King Henry also assumed that the king’s wish constituted a command. Like Trump, King Henry denied any intention of inciting murder. Nevertheless history has widely held Henry responsible for Archbishop Becket’s death. And not just history. In his time, the pope issued an order prohibiting Henry from attending church services or participating in the sacraments (excommunication), and the king was eventually forced to do penance for the violence perpetrated in his name.
The main issues at stake in 1170 were divided loyalty and institutional independence. King Henry 2 was known as an energetic and ruthless ruler, who spent much of his energy trying to expand the borders of his kingdom. He also wanted to assert royal supremacy over the English Church. Not unexpectedly, Thomas Becket, as Archbishop of Canterbury, opposed him.
There are notable parallels with the situation between Trump and Mr. Comey. Although Trump has offered various reasons for the firing of Comey, it is clear that Trump thought Comey’s allegiance to FBI protocol to be a form of disloyalty. Trump asked Comey for his personal loyalty to him, rather than to the position he occupied.
The same thing with Becket and Henry 2. Before he had been elected Archbishop, Becket had been a close friend and faithful servant to the king. Henry had engineered Becket’s election in the expectation that, as Archbishop, Becket would continue to serve royal interests. It was not an unreasonable assumption. For centuries bishops had performed dual roles, acting as temporal as well as spiritual lords. They commanded armies, enforced royal decrees, and took it for granted that the rulers who appointed them could claim their loyalty.
It was not until the 1070s that secular control over bishops began to be challenged by a series of popes who sought to free clerics from secular influence and insisted that bishops’ first allegiance was to the church. This goal was rarely fully realized — kings were generally closer than the pope and more able to dispense both patronage and punishment. But to Henry’s fury, Becket unexpectedly embraced reform. He became a vigorous defender of church privilege and a critic of royal interference. Henry felt intensely betrayed. Becket died not because he was “meddlesome,” but because, in the king’s view, he was disloyal.
The Becket episode may likewise help explain why Trump’s advisers did not prevent him from firing Mr. Comey. King Henry expected all his officials to share his fury at Becket and saw any failure to do so as a betrayal as well.
King Henry, however, probably did not call Becket a “meddlesome priest.” That was a later invention, made famous by Hollywood in the 1964 film “Becket.” Henry’s actual exclamation — or at least the cry attributed to him in the medieval sources — was “What miserable drones and traitors have I nurtured and promoted in my household, who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a lowborn clerk!’”
No wonder the four knights were so eager to take the hint. Henry’s courtiers may well have feared that if they didn’t make a conspicuous display of loyalty, the king might turn on them next. Treachery was a capital offense.
Finally, the aftermath of the Becket episode may resonate in one final way. Although Henry had longed to get rid of Becket for years, he presumably came to rue the day his words of rage were heeded. In addition to performing humiliating penance, he had to swear obedience to the pope, make a series of concessions to the church and eventually face rebellion.
One suspects that Trump might also come to understand the wisdom of the words “be careful what you wish for.”
It’s Not About Paris, It’s About Our Planet
Rev. Yme Woensdregt
It came as no surprise. But I was still dismayed by Trump’s decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement. He claims that this is part of his “America First!” campaign, and that this will save jobs in the US. His decision, however, is short–sighted and potentially the most tragic decision he has made yet. It is also just plain dumb.
Care for the environment is not a nationalist concern. It’s a planetary concern. The recognition of the looming and very real planetary crisis is why leaders from 195 countries signed the Paris Agreement in 2015.
Trump, however, has decided that climate change is a hoax. He chooses to ignore the work of leading scientists, and the general consensus among them, that our actions are slowly destroying the climate on our planet.
The primary goal of the Paris Agreement, which represents a broad consensus of the leaders of nations in the world, is stated in Article 2 of the Agreement:
- To pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre–industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change;
- Increasing the ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change and foster climate resilience and low greenhouse gas emissions development, in a manner that does not threaten food production;
- Moving [towards] low greenhouse gas emissions and climate–resilient development.
Willis Jenkins, associate professor of religious studies and knowledgeable about climate change writes in his book The Future of Ethics: Sustainability, Social Justice, and Religious Creativity:
“Decades of observation show that global average temperatures are rising, and that, consistent with temperature rise, the ice cover is retreating while average sea level is rising. Temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere during the late 20th century were likely ‘the highest in at least the past 1300 years,’ and the warming has already begun to affect basic biological rhythms like leaf unfolding, animal migrations, and reproductive cycles. On this there is no doubt: the climate system is steadily absorbing more thermal energy in ways that affect systems of life.”
It’s difficult for scientists to predict with complete accuracy the extent to which air pollution and other factors will directly impact global average temperatures. They agree on the severity of the crisis. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that “a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide equivalent concentration (from a preindustrial 280 ppm to 560 ppm) would lead to a 3°C rise in temperature, although it could be as low as 1.5°C or higher than 4.5°C.”
So which will it be? 3°C warmer? 4°C? or 1.5°C? And does it really matter?
Here’s how Jenkins describes potential scenarios, with the impacts of sea–level rise, stress on agriculture, water shortage, etc., that will be the results of warmer average global temperatures:
“The difference between a rise of 2°C and 4°C over the coming century may represent the difference between the capacity for grain agriculture maintained or lost in some regions, or the difference between an extinction event of one quarter of life’s species and one in which more than half of species are lost. ‘Impact’ may be the wrong metaphor for changes that would necessitate a different from of human society altogether, but the World Bank has begun to consider how to help societies meet the impacts of 4°C warming.”
That is the logic behind the Paris Agreement. World leaders have resolved to do everything humanly possible to stay under a 2°C rise–and to aim for 1.5°C. The consequences of warming are real.
Our planet cannot afford people who want to sit around waiting for more data to come in. All nations have to work together to resolve the issue. The Paris Agreement is but one step.
And in the meantime, polar ice is melting, sea levels are rising, people living in coastal regions are being displaced, species are becoming extinct, water is warming, barrier reefs are fading and habitats are dramatically changing.
And Donald Trump is pulling the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement, because “I was elected to represent Pittsburgh, not Paris.”
Here’s the thing. The Paris Agreement isn’t about Paris. It’s about the planet.
Sallie McFague, an environmental theologian, reminds us that God cares about nature. God’s urgent call to followers of Jesus is that we also must care about creation. The earth is vulnerable as never before. The wealthy have exploited it, instrumentalized it, and colonialized it.
Inevitably, climate change will affect the poor most acutely. Eventually, it will affect us—and all of earth’s creatures.
In the story of creation, Christians affirm that God has entrusted creation to our care. We have done a terrible job of it. Creation matters to God. It should matter to us—because it is our home.
And our home isn’t just Pittsburgh, or Paris, or Peterborough, or Penticton or Prince George. Our home is the planet.
The broad, inclusive love of God
Rev. Yme Woensdregt
Frederick William Faber was born in 1814, the son of an English Anglican clergyman. He followed in his father’s footsteps, being ordained as an Anglican priest, but switched to the Roman Catholic Church in 1846. As a Roman Catholic priest, Faber wrote a number of hymns, some of which are still sung today. One of his hymns includes the following verses:
There’s a wideness in God’s mercy,
Like the wideness of the sea;
There’s a kindness in His justice,
Which is more than liberty.
For the love of God is broader
Than the measure of our mind;
And the heart of the Eternal
Is most wonderfully kind.
It seems to be to be more and more important these days to be able to speak with each other in honest, open and respectful ways. It has become more acceptable, somehow, to dismiss people with whom we disagree. We call them names. We label them in a particular way, and we think that allows us to ignore them and their opinions. After all, we think, they’re just plain wrong. Or worse, they’re idiots.
We live in a world which has become increasingly divided. Fanaticisms of all kinds are on the rise. Extremists of all stripes are willing to do whatever is necessary to get their point across. We have seen too many instances of attacks on Muslims … or Jews … or people in the LGBTQ community … and the list goes on. People stare at each other across great divides, or worse, we attack each other when we disagree.
So let me say it again—more than ever, we need to learn to talk together. Who knows — we might even learn from other people, especially those who think completely differently from us.
One of my favourite definitions of dialogue is that it is “the willingness to have our opinions changed.” When we enter fully into dialogue with someone else, we listen to them with open minds and open hearts. We listen beyond and behind the words, so that they may enter our lives and have an effect on the way we think. Dialogue requires the willingness to move from where we were to another place. It’s not about winning. It’s about growing and learning from each other.
That’s a dangerous undertaking, in some ways. It might mean that we will have to change. We don’t deal well at all with change, and particularly so with cherished beliefs and matters of faith. It is much easier to say, “This is what I believe, and anyone who disagrees with me is wrong.” It’s easier … but not particularly faithful or helpful.
In matters of faith, it’s easy to condemn someone else who thinks differently from us. We are dealing with eternal things, and something inside of us says that we have to protect those beliefs. So we label other people as being unfaithful. We denounce the opinions of others as just being wrong. We refuse to be in dialogue with them, because it threatens beliefs that are deeply and profoundly held.
But that’s a perilous way. Faber had it right almost two centuries ago. God is larger and wider and broader and deeper and higher and more profound than any one of us can understand or comprehend. God’s love is wide enough to contain all the world’s perspectives. God’s exuberant passion embraces all the world’s peoples. God’s tenderness for the world is limitless. God’s lavish delight in creation welcomes all shapes, sizes, and shades.
The heart of God is inclusive, not exclusive. I dare to believe that God’s heart is much more inclusive than we can ever imagine. And if we claim to worship and follow such a God, then it is incumbent upon us to be as broad, as open, as compassionate, as tolerant as we can possibly be. To follow Christ is to follow one who embraced all people and who calls us to loving above all else.
In 2004, Brian McLaren wrote a wonderful book with the title, “A Generous Orthodoxy”. I love that title. It reminds me to be open in the way I live out my faith, and in the way I talk with other people. We are to be generous, not only with people who believe the same way we do, but especially with those who believe differently. This includes people of other faiths as well as people who claim to have no faith.
I try to be broadly inclusive in my approach to Christian faith. The largeness of God’s heart embraces all people, so who am I to limit the saving grace of God to Christians alone? I believe God is working in the hearts of faithful and generous people, no matter their tradition.
So let’s keep our conversation going. Let’s keep talking. I want to hear what others think, and especially those who disagree with me. I want to talk with others and listen to others in an honest, open, respectful and faithful dialogue. I want to learn from their insights, and I want to be generous in my dialogue with them.
I also believe that as we do so, as we learn to talk with each other, as we work at building bridges, we honour God.
A Short History of Hell
Rev. Yme Woensdregt
Two weeks ago, I looked briefly at the ancients’ understanding of the world as a three–storey universe. We live in the middle, on the earth. Above us is heaven. Below us is the underworld, where the dead go. This is how the ancients described their understanding of how the world worked, and it was largely a neutral kind of description.
But that all changed. The place of the dead became identified as a place of eternal punishment. Hades became hell. How did that happen?
It’s a complex story. Religions, like other parts of human life, develop, and the story of Hell is a good example of that.
Early Israelites had only a shadowy concept of life after death. They had no belief at all in a place of reward or punishment. The Hebrew word Sheol, which is often mistranslated “hell”, means nothing more than a place where a body is laid to rest.
Unlike the Mesopotamians (their neighbours to the east) or the Egyptians, ancient Jews had very little interest in the afterlife. For them, God’s blessings were found in this life, not in some existence yet to come.
To be fair, the Old Testament does contain a few verses that reflect the possibility of an afterlife. They are scattered here and there, but there is no consistent teaching that there is life after death.
That all began to change about 300 years before the birth of Jesus. A concept of the afterlife began to develop, which included both reward and punishment. It happened while Israel was dominated by foreign powers. It was risky to remain a faithful Jew. The penalty for refusing to bow to idols or to eat foods prohibited by their laws was death. The book of Daniel (written about 165 BC) reflects this developing understanding.
It’s not so difficult to understand that a persecuted people would begin looking for justice, something to balance the scales. They couldn’t find it on earth. Despite remaining faithful to God, they were being persecuted. They hoped that their faithfulness would be rewarded … if not on earth, then in the future.
And what of Jesus? I am convinced that Jesus was more in line with the ancient Jews in stressing the importance of living faithfully in the present age. He didn’t ignore the future. But the purpose of human beings is to live fully in the present, living compassionately and gracefully with all people, and especially with those who are less fortunate. That’s the goal of our life, and whatever happens after we die is in God’s hands.
So why is hell such an important feature for so many Christians today? Television preachers warn us regularly that if we don’t follow Jesus, we will be damned for eternity. They claim that if we don’t claim Jesus as “our personal Lord and Saviour,” we are condemned to an eternity of hellfire and eternal conscious torment.
Personally, I don’t believe that. Not for an instant. However, it has been an important feature of Christianity ever since the 11th century.
In 1098, a Roman Catholic archbishop of Canterbury named Anselm wrote a book called Why God Became Man. It contained his theory of the atonement, which is the work of Christ on the cross. His theory has carried great weight in Christianity ever since. Living in a world dominated by feudalism, Anselm pictured God as a feudal lord.
Anselm’s argument went like this. Adam and Eve sinned in the garden. The honour of the Sovereign Lord was offended. Adam’s sin was passed on to all succeeding generations through the act of procreation (this is what is meant by “original sin”). All human beings are guilty, and all must be condemned. Because we are all guilty, none of us can restore the harmony of God’s creation or satisfy God’s honour.
Nevertheless, according to Anselm, God’s honour requires some form of restitution. That’s where Jesus comes in. He is both human and divine. Born of a virgin, he is not tainted with the original sin of Adam. When Jesus gives up his life on the cross, it’s a death he doesn’t deserve. He builds up a balance of merits which can be credited to all those who believe in him.
In Anselm’s feudal society, this made sense. The king had power of life and death over those who lived in his territory. Anselm presented a God whose chief concern is justice and honour, because those were the concerns of his society and his day.
It is possible — even necessary — for us to think of the atonement differently today. It’s a different world. We understand God differently today. God is not a distant potentate who is chiefly concerned about protecting his honour. We live in an age where we know much about human nature, about the human mind and its workings, about inter–relationships, and so on.
We also live in an age of profound despair and hopelessness. Could it be that in such an age as ours, the good news needs to centre more on the loving acceptance of God of all people than on the ways in which we offend God? Could it be that hell as a place of eternal punishment no longer serves as an adequate part of our faith? Could it be that the emerging way, which focuses more on tolerance and compassion for other people, is more adequate than a highly individualistic vision which asks where I will spend eternity?
Clearly, my answer to that is yes.