Divine Transcendence and the Culture of Change

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Book Reviews, David H. Hopper, Francis Bacon, God, reformation, religion, Transcendence

Let me first thank Eerdmans Publishing Company for sending along a copy of David H. Hopper’s Divine Transcendence and the Culture of Change, for review.

David Hopper has set out an interesting premise in his latest book: Namely have we gone too far in tolerance? He essentially argues that statements such as “It doesn’t matter what a person believes just so long as he/she is sincere,” are the product of ill-educated minds who know very little of theological matters. In other words, it’s one thing to be tolerant in a prudent sort of way, but it is wrong to have no standards at all.

He argues that the divine transcendence of God has been lost in this thoughtless attempt to not step on toes.

Many have perhaps come to the same conclusion, but they have done so by laying the blame on the “scientific revolution,” and its concommitant inference that nothing is beyond the mind of mankind.

Hopper argues that the Reformation, in the guise of Luther, Calvin and others of the same persuasion also played a part, perhaps unknowingly, in fostering this climate.

He starts with the model set out by H. Richard Niebuhr in his Christ and Culture.  In it Niebuhr posited five expressions of Jesus and culture:

1. Christ against culture
2. Christ of culture
3. Christ above culture
4. Christ of culture
5. Christ the transformer of culture.

He places various movements, the monastic, Calvin, Mainstream Protestant, Catholic, Feminist, and so forth within this model at their most agreeing points.

Hopper sees in the Reformation movement and the following Enlightenment, a movement away from a “religious church-dominated culture” to one predominately secular, and one that has largely discarded its timeless orientation to the changeless and divine.

Luther addressed a church largely caught in the medieval concepts of Christ both above and against culture. The Church controlled the life of people by its claim to control their entrance into heaven. Luther of course had no intent to found a new sect, but rather intended to reform from within. And he of course failed, as the Church, seemingly receptive at first, recoiled at his more “heretical” thinking.

Heretical only in the sense that Rome rejected it, and so labeled it. Martin Luther’s “justification by faith” eliminated the idea that salvation was controlled by the Church. Indeed, Luther shockingly argued that it was faith in and adherence to the Scriptures, available to all of God’s people that was above the Church, and where mankind’s salvation was found. Free gift of grace.

Along with Calvin, others joined in and began to see Christ and the scriptures as calling for a salvation that was deeply imbedded within culture. In fact Calvin claimed that each person’s vocation was his opportunity to live out the Gospel message in service to neighbor.

While Luther did not extend his “Christ in Culture” to include much in the way of serious revamping of political institutions, Calvin did.

What is really new in Hopper’s analysis is that he brings Francis Bacon and the English reformation also into the mix. Bacon, in his “idols of the mind” laid the groundwork for a new way of looking at nature. In fact Bacon saw this as God’s will, that man was untruthful to God in leaving all things as mystery in God.

Bacon freed the mind of all the preconceived notions and “worldviews” and brought forth inductive thinking, pursuing a method of critical thinking. He claimed there were “attainable” truths “hidden by God” in nature, and these were open to being discovered.

Whereas Luther’s holy grail was 1Corinthians 1:18-23. The folly of the cross was God’s foolishness, wiser than that of men, Bacon believes that God has created man to discover the secrets of nature and to use them for the betterment of mankind.

Once married to American pragmatism and work ethic, scientific exploration exploded, and as our grip on a transcendent God seems to have slipped away.

In the end, Hopper argues for a return to a solid foundation in that transcendence. We are mired in our “consumerism” spirituality. We are driven by change for its own sake, and no longer see the limits of our own abilities. Only with a return to this foundation in the transcendent he argues, can we realistically address the common problems in our global world.

This is an interesting book, one for the more serious reader of theology and culture. But one that will seriously re-orient your thinking about progress and the price we are paying for it.

The Meaning of Mary Magdalene

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Book Reviews, gnostic gospels, Jesus, kenotic love, Mary Magdalene

My sincere thanks to Jennifer Campaniolo at Shambhala Publishing for sending me a copy of The Meaning of Mary Magdalene: Discovering the Woman at the Heart of Christianity.

First let me start out by saying, that this was not quite what I expected. I assumed it would be a scholarly biography of one of Christianity’s most enigmatic women. It certainly is that. But I expected it to be along the lines of a general work using the accepted tools of hermeneutics in examining the texts of the Gospel accounts of the New Testament.

That it was not quite, though it certainly examined all the pertinent texts thoroughly. However, much of Cynthia Bourgeault’s work delves into the so-called “Gnostic Gospels” of Mary, Thomas, Peter and Philip.  These were more or less known to the powers that decided the canon, but were omitted largely because they spoke of a more transcendent and ephemeral Jesus and his teachings. They were “gnostic” and heretical, having lost the battle to the growing “orthodoxy” of the Roman Church.

Rev. Bourgeault crafts with great care and precision her hypothesis that Jesus and Mary were “soul mates,” certainly lovers, although she doesn’t claim they were physical lovers, although she finds no reason why they may not have been.

She finds in Jesus a Nazarite, much like John the Baptist, but one who gave up the ascetic life, the life of denial, to move to the path of “singleness” where kenotic love became the center of his being. This self-giving or self-emptying attitude was one that he taught Mary and it is what allowed them to transcend his death on the cross. Their unitive love, whether physical or celibate, enabled them to reach the fullness of being human. It is this towards what his teachings point.

It is this message that Jesus sought to teach his disciples. It is what Mary learned, making her the foremost of all the disciples.

It is Bourgeault’s contention that the Gospel of John in the canon is perhaps the most clear about understanding Jesus truest teaching. She argues that the Mary of Bethany is in fact Mary Magdalene, or at least created to expouse upon some of her qualities. She would claim that many of the Marys in the Gospel accounts, or I should say many of the women (the woman at the well for instance) are also created composites of Magdalene qualities.

The reason why the Magdalene is so “hidden” in this way is simply because it became increasingly impossible for a patriarchial and male dominated church to accept that a woman had been the closed companion of Christ. It was unseemly to a church that slowly but surely hide sex behind a heavy door, and made chastity the only possible “pure” expression of “the Way.”

If you have ever read the gnostics, as I have, you undoubtedly were quite puzzled. They read more like Eastern mystical works. We are unfamiliar with the words and their meanings.

Cynthia Bourgeault, with patience and deep care, unravels the intracacies of these passages, explaining their meaning, joining them to the Semitic eastern mysticism of the time of Jesus. She has devoted more than forty years to Mary, and has traveled to parts of France where there is a very old tradition of the Magdalene’s later years there and the mystical veils that surround her.

It will, no doubt be hard for a first time reader, to digest all this “new thinking” about this mysterious woman that we know so little about, yet are still so utterly fascinated with. Bourgeault is both Episcopal priest and part-time hermit. She has studied with many who have lived their lives in these traditions of mysticism. So, her claims are not to be dismissed easily, yet, they remain, reasonable conclusions based on often quite slim evidence.

Even if you are not prepared to “buy” all the conclusions, you will I promise you come away with a vision of both Mary and Jesus that are profoundly different than before. As never before, they become fully human to us, who so desperately need human models to emulate. Bourgeault brings the scriptures alive, and quite frankly, through her interpretation, once difficult or puzzling passages suddenly ring with clarity.

All the Gospels recall Mary as the first to receive the “good news” of the resurrection. Her voice, since stifled, was so powerful to the infant church that this truth could not be denied. Although each writer in some way minimized her importance, she could not be denied her place in the narratives. It is she, Bourgeault contends, who was the source of the “annointing” ministry that she may well have shared with Jesus, and which comes down to us today as a sacrament.

What I came away with, is a deeper appreciation of Mary Magdalene. I have for some time considered her to be an ignored apostle, but I believe now she was much more than that. She was the only one who truly “got it.” As such, she does so much for us as women in the church. She restores us to our rightful place, as integral to the church. She gives us something that a virgin mother never can. She gives us a model of real humanness, fully expressed, fully embodied.

I can’t wait to read more of Bourgeault’s work. I believe she has much to teach me about my journey. After reading this book, I believe you will feel the same way.

Thomas Merton: A Life in Letters

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Book Reviews, Thomas Merton

My deepest gratitude to Ave Maria Press for sending along this book for review.

Thomas Merton: A Life in Letters, is quite simply divine. It was pure joy to read and deeply enlightening.

Merton, as some of you may know, was a Trappist monk who lived his religious life at Gethsemani Monastery in Kentucky. He was a prolific writer, but even more so when it came to letter writing.  His correspondence included more than two thousand individuals and comprised over his life ( he died tragically in 1968) more than twelve thousand pieces.

This book, edited by William H. Shannon and Christine M. Bochen, attempts to collect the best of those letters around common themes. They include his vocation as a monk, his life as writer, his contemplative experience, his views on culture, war, and the Church, and his deep commitment to finding unity with other faiths especially Asian systems.

In some sense, it is difficult to review such a work, since it is not really a “work” at all but, rather Merton’s responses to various letters written to him. In that respect, we  might find ourselves in a bit of a fix similar to when we encounter St. Paul–we have only half of the story. Yet, it is not much of a fix at all, since the letters stand on their own, and usually are quite explanatory of the initiating material to which he is responding.

What strikes one most clearly in reading Merton’s thoughts is how very human he was. As the editors point out, he was complicated, in some ways two men. One was, as they put it, conservative, traditional, while he was also revolutionary, active, and pushing the envelope of his calling as a monk.

It seems best, in order to give you, the reader, a flavor of his thoughts and ideas, to give you some enticing tidbits of his thinking on various subjects:

Although Merton spent his entire monastic life at Gethsemani, he often thought about moving to other monastic houses, seemingly in the hopes of attaining a more perfect situation. He was always drawn to the more hermit existence, and in the end, at Gethsemani was allowed to live in a small cabin on the property where he spent most of his day and night, coming to the monastery only for a single meal and mass.

Of the solitary time he spent he says:

“I am never less alone than when I am alone. When people are around I find it a little difficult to find Jesus. As soon as I am away from others, Jesus is there and all is at peace.”

Yet, to be sure, Merton’s enormous correspondence and his writing in general, served to powerfully connect him to the world about him.

However, he was conflicted in some sense about writing:

“Writing is deep in my nature, and I cannot deceive myself that it will be very easy for me to do without it. At least I can get along without the public and without my reputation! Those are not essentially connected with the writing instinct.”

On revolution and nonviolence:

“I believe that those who have used violence have betrayed all true revolution, they have changed nothing, they have simply enforced with greater brutality the anti-spiritual  and anti-human drives that are destructive of truth and love in man.”

 Thomas Merton was much troubled by the superficiality of American life (he was born in France and became a citizen of the US as an adult). He, even the early 60’s, had a firm grasp on the consumerism that plagued the country. He was deeply concerned about the Cold War and “the Bomb” and was in the end ordered to stop his anti-war writing.

Lesser men or women might have become disillusioned, however Merton concluded:

“For one cannot truly believe in God if one does not believe in mankind as well; . . .”

Much of his writing about the Vietnam war and the stand-off between the US and the USSR is still timely today, the players have only changed.

He speaks truth about America in 1962, and indeed today:

“The illusion of America as the earthly paradise, in which everyone recovers original goodness: which becomes in fact a curious idea that prosperity itself justifies everything, is a sign of goodness, is a carte blanche to continue to be prosperous in any way feasible: and this leads to the horror that we now see: because we are prosperous, because we are successful, because we have all this amazing “know-how” . . .we are entitled to defend ourselves by any means whatever, without any limitation, and all the more so because what we are defending is our illusion of innocence. . .”

On racism:

“. . .there is not one of us, individually, racially, socially, who is fully complete in the sense of having in himself all the excellence of humanity. . . .I am therefore not completely human until I have found myself in my African and Asian and Indonesian brother because he has the part of humanity which I lack.”

Much as he loved the Church, he was deeply supportive of the work of Vatican II. As we face in some sense a deconstruction of that work today, Merton’s words echo meaningfully:

“I personally think that we are paralyzed by institutionalism, formalism, rigidity, and regression. The real life of the Church is not in her hierarchy, it is dormant somewhere.”

In a letter to Zen Buddhist scholar, Daisetz T. Suzuki, he quotes Suzuki on God’s creative hand:

“God wanted to know Himself, hence the creation.”

Merton sees original sin as:

“Each one slaved in the service of his own idol–his consciously fabricated social self. . .This is Original Sin. . .But yet we are in paradise, and once we break free from the false image, we find ourselves what we are: and we are “in Christ.”

There are hundreds of other examples in the pages that comprise this wonderful book. His partners in letter writing are from the average person, to personages such as Pope John XXIII, Coretta S. King, Thich Nhat Hanh, Boris Pasternak, to various Latin American poets, to nuns, and bishops in the Church. His interests were broad, his knowledge deeper than most.

Truly, there is so much to be learned and pondered over. Do yourself a favor, and pick up this excellent source of Thomas Merton’s thoughts. You will, I suspect, then start collecting all his writings.

Fall to Grace

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Book Reviews, Fall to Grace, grace, Inspirational, Jay Bakker, religion

First my thanks to the Hatchette Book Group and Sarah Reck specifically, for offering this selection for my review. I am indebted to them for their many kindnesses over the last year or so.

Jay Bakker’s Fall to Grace: A Revolution of God, Self and Society, is something of a surprise to me. Bakker, as you might guess, or know, is the son of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, dis-graced (as Bakker puts it) leaders of the PTL club. Jim Bakker as you recall, went to prison and sadly Tammy Faye died not long ago from cancer.

Jay Bakker, candidly reviews his life, its ups and downs. Predictably he, as a young child, had a ball being in a famous and wealthy family. As the family’s fortunes fell, so did his own, and he went the route of many kids in his position: drugs and alcohol. Also, as you might suspect, his hold on faith broke as well.

Like many, Bakker struggled with how he could redeem him life after years of bad choices and bad living. It did not happen over night, but finally he “heard” the words of a friend who patiently stuck with him, repeating again and again, that God’s love never wavered. After long arguments, night after night, often in a fog of alcohol, Jay finally fell to Grace.

And grace is what Jay Bakker preaches, and what he believes with all his heart. He carefully explains the concept to those who may be unaware, largely through the voice of Saint Paul in Galatians, his admitted hero.

 Jay was undoubtedly brought up in a fundamentalist mind-set, but as regards the bible, he has grown from that limited view, into a more mature and nuanced understanding. He notes that not all of Paul’s letters may actually be written by Paul, and he notes the work of Robert Wright’s,  The Evolution of God, as well as the work of Karen Armstrong, and Henri M. Nouwen.

Those who might shy away from the book on the grounds that it is but another fundamentalist tract, need not worry. I found little in the book that I, as a fairly liberal/progressive Christian, would quarrel with.

What Bakker sets out to do, is to show others how they, steeped in their own screwed up lives, can find a way out of the wilderness through the offering of God’s unlimited grace. Grace, as he explains, is God’s offering of favor to us, completely unmerited by anything we have done or could do.

It is release from the Law, the Law that Paul spoke of as regards the Torah, but also the Law that we impose today in the manner of morals and accepted behavior in a modern world. We don’t have to live up to some mark, God is always offering us the grace of  forgiveness and favor.

When one comes to this belief, then and only then, Jay argues, one can by choice begin to see a better way of living, one that is not self destructive  and hurtful to others. We can begin to value ourselves as we now realize God values us. And that is the first step. Once we value ourselves we automatically want to do those things that enhance our newfound goodness as humans.

This leads, as we study Jesus’ words and Paul’s, to a realization that love is the controlling factor in the world. It is the aim of our lives, to love and to continue to grow in love, thereby squeezing out the fears, the angers, the greed, and jealousies we are all too prone to.

When love is freely given, not attached to our hope that it will gain us anything (salvation), then we begin to love the doing of things for others more than any other thing. We embody God’s grace, and offer it to others.

This is the way we change hearts and minds, this is the way we build the kingdom.

Perhaps in the most stunning fundamentalist reversal, Bakker has been able to find his way through the ugliness of homosexual bullying that is so prevalent in the fundamentalist world. He has correctly (in my analysis) understood the flimsy “biblical evidence” against homosexuality and come out the other side as a clear and loud voice supporting the gay community.

He, today, preaches to those he calls the freaks and geeks, the unlikely and the unwanted of society. I suspect he brings both comfort and joy to their lives.

While the experienced reading and thinking liberal Christian will not find much new here, those new to faith, or those who are outsiders and wonder if the church has a place for them, will find a welcoming spirit and reason for joy.

Related Articles

• Jay Bakker: Finding Jesus, in Drag (huffingtonpost.com)
• Jay Bakker Promotes LGBT Equality With New Book (pinkbananaworld.com)
• Clobberin’ time (slacktivist.typepad.com)

The Human Faces of God

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bible, bible contradictions, bible inerrancy, Book Reviews, Christianity, fundamentalism, God, Jesus, Thom Stark

Seldom have I anticipated a book more than Thom Stark’s The Human Faces of God: What Scripture Reveals When it Gets God wrong (and Why Inerrancy Tries to Hide It) . I can tell you, that the book does not disappoint.

Stark takes on the biblical inerrantists and simply demolishes them. Inerrantists, (fundamentalists) insist that “the Bible is inspired by God, without error in everything it affirms historically, scientifically and theologically.” Stark begins with their own founding document: The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, formulated in 1978. In it is found its hermeneutic tool: the historical-grammatical method. Stark shows how this method is used, except when it is not used. In other words, inerrantists profess it, and use it, until it doesn’t accomplish their result: an inerrant text. Stark calls their actual practice one of the “hermeneutics of convenience.”

A series of methodologies are alternated, all directed to reach the result that the bible does not err. This at times involves plain meaning, literalism, scripture defining scripture, fuller meaning, and in the end a resort to throwing up one’s hands and declaring that “God has not as yet seen fit to reveal the meaning to us.”

Stark moves through the troubling passages that allude to a belief in a pantheon of gods. Anyone familiar with the Hebrew scriptures knows that there are odd pieces here and there that seem to suggest that there were other gods than Yahweh. The Psalms are replete with such sayings such as God being mightier than the other gods. Exodus and Genesis make such references as well, as well as mention of the “council of the gods.”

Indeed, Stark’s claim that polytheism was the order of the day in ancient Israel, is nothing new. Yet he explains it to the lay reader perhaps better than anywhere else I have seen. The same can be said of his hard-hitting analysis of the  God of genocide, found in and throughout Deuteronomy, and the God who at least condones and accepts human sacrifice. These difficult and troubling texts are explained, carefully, and patiently with excellent reference to archaeology, other relevant texts of the time, and good literary critical exegesis.

Perhaps the area that will cause the most concern is his claim that Jesus, while many things, was most certainly an apocalyptic prophet. Stark points out that his prophecies regarding the end times were accurate, until the last one, the imminent return of himself, ushering in the full kingdom of God. In this Stark claims that Jesus was simply wrong.

This is hard to swallow, but Mr. Stark makes a very convincing argument, one well worth the time to read carefully and seriously. I suspect that if you get to that point in the book, you are trusting of  Stark’s careful analysis and will listen with an open ear and heart.

What is accomplished here, in this book, is more than just showing the errors and contradictions of the bible. There have surely been dozens that have done that already. Rather, Stark, explains how the “book” we call the bible, came into existence. Understanding it as a collection of documents written over more than 1000 years, and containing within disparate, and contradictory voices, helps us to see it for what it is: a people’s walk with God.

It is most singularly a human document, written over a long period and containing oral traditions that span even greater times. There are voices within it that argue for opposite things. In some cases, even some of the Hebrew writers attempted to reconcile difficult passages that were at odds. (The stories of David and Goliath are instructional here, and Stark lays out a wonderful explanation for the two different explanations for Goliath’s death, and why another writer, the Chronicler, tried to cover up the contradiction.)

Stark convinces, I think, that having to face up to the difficult and ugly passages in the bible is worthwhile and has much to teach us on their own. Rather than shrug, as inerrantists often do, or try to twist and warp them into some apparent sense, it is much better to accept them as human failings in living and in understanding of their God.

Better to allow God to speak through the hateful and unacceptable passages to us today and allow them to inform us as to our own shortcomings and roads to growth.

Stark is a believing Christian, one who has struggled with scripture and found that facing the unpleasant realities allows one to grow into a mature faith. In fact, he claims, and I tend to agree, that fundamentalism is an adolescent and immature view,  clinging to a world that one would prefer, but which simple does not exist.

We would all like certainty. But certainty doesn’t exist. The Bible cannot give us that, no matter how much we might wish it. We can pretend otherwise, but that leaves us mired in a fantasy world and helps us not at all in addressing the troubles of our world.

The last chapter is delightful, giving Mr. Stark’s own reflections on what these hard passages can offer us today.

Speaking of the problematic stories of Abraham and Isaac, of Jephthah and his daughter, and King Mesha and his son, Thom Stark reflects:

Today we denounce such practices as inhuman and reject as irrational the belief that the spilling of innocent blood literally affected the outcome of harvests and military battles. Yet we continue to offer our own children on the altar of homeland security, sending them off to die in ambiguous wars, based on the irrational belief that by being violent we can protect ourselves from violence. We refer to our children’s deaths as “sacrifices” which are necessary for the preservation of democracy and free trade. The market is our temple and it must be protected at all costs. Thus, like King Mesha, we make “sacrifices” in order to ensure the victory of capitalism over socialism, the victory of consumerism over terrorism.

If you would learn to understand the bible, and actually get the most out of it, then do read this book. It is about the best I’ve seen at showing us the dangers of inerrancy, and how we can grow in our faith through a truthful, honest and courageous examination of our sacred books.

* I am indebted to WIPF & Stock Publishers for sending this book free of charge for review. The only agreement is an implicit promise on my part to read, review and publish the results.

Luke: A Theological Commentary

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bible, biblical studies, Book Reviews, Justo L. Gonzalez, Luke, theology

Today I review the second in the new Belief series published by Westminster John Knox Press. Luke: (Belief: A Theological Commentary) is written by Justo L. González.

Again, I give my deepest thanks to WJK for giving me the opportunity to participate in reviewing this extraordinary series.

If Plachter’s book on Mark was excellent, this  second offering by González, meets that standard in every way. While Plachter perhaps placed more emphasis on the exegetical-historical aspects of the gospel, González focuses a bit more on the theological implications of Luke to our world today.

In the end, this seemed most right to me. Quoting Gustaf Wingren:

All good interpretation of the Bible is contemporary. If it were not so, it would not be good. . . .The Bible is not on a par with the subsequent interpretation; it is above it, as the text is antecedent to the commentary. And the interpretation is always an interpretation for the time in which it is written or spoken.

There is also a distinctive flavor of liberation theology which permeates the text. This also seems logical to me, since any fair reading of Luke renders the conclusion that Luke portraits a Christ who favored the poor and the marginalized as the true inheritors of the Kingdom of God.

Paramount in González’s theology of Luke is that the evangelist emphasized above all that Jesus’ teaching was one of the “great reversal.” His teachings were indeed revolutionary to his world. His was a world of power held by Rome, of patriarchy, of Temple priests and church hierarchy. His teachings again and again told of the coming Kingdom where none of this would be so.

The poor, the marginalized, the unclean, the unwanted, the unworthy, the sinners, the children, the women–all these would find a new world in God’s Kingdom, one in which those who were served would serve, those first would be last, those most religious and pious would often find themselves judged less than the most simple of the country folk of Galilee, that most marginal of lands.

In fact, Mr. González suggests that if one were to remove all the “reversal” stories from the text, there would be few pages left.

Perhaps the most stunning theological commentary comes with González’s explanation of the Paralytic. He shows how Luke weaves a story of how the teachers and scribes, the Pharisees sat around listening to the teachings of Jesus. The friends of the lame man could not get through the crowd of the listeners to reach the Healer. The end up opening the roof to lower the man to Jesus inside.

González reflects on these “circles” about Christ that we as church construct. We sit as pious listeners before the Word. We block the way for those who come in need of healing and comfort.

“Today, just like then, there are lame people who cannot reach Jesus, because access is blocked by the numerous and tight circles, circles of religious leaders and wise and profound theologians, circles of ecclesiastical, academic, and social structures. . .”

He points out that these people are not necessarily bad, but in their zeal to be at the forefront, they (we) block the way of others. We are cautioned to open the doors to those who are marginalized outside the circle. These are the people Jesus most came to help.

Of special importance to me, are the continued references to Jesus’ table hospitality. Too many of our churches set themselves up as arbiters of who is invited to the table of Christ. Any fair reading of Luke, suggests this is a grave error.

Time and time again, as González points out, Jesus welcomed the sinner to the table, and did not require any repentance as a condition to the invitation. He teaches that we should be inviting those who cannot repay our offer, instead of those who will extend a return invitation to ourselves.

González powerfully reminds us that:

“All too often  Christians have claimed control of the Table as if it were ours, and not his. We decide whose belief is sufficiently orthodox to share Communion with us, who is sufficiently good and pure, who belongs to the right church. . . .Rather than inviting those who seem most unworthy and cannot repay us, we invite the worthy. . .”

There is example after example of gentle, and not so gentle reminders to us as readers, that the Gospel of Luke calls us to a discipleship that is not easy, and not comfortable either. Luke tells of a Jesus who comes not preaching so much an afterlife of bliss but a life offered that is truly life. A full life, filled with the Spirit, faithful to God, bearing the cross of discomfort with the joy of knowing that we are doing God’s will as did He who was his image.

At the end, Mr. González ponders the church of tomorrow. And as we see a decline in the Western Church and a rise in the church of the South, the African, and the East, we see new thinking, new interpretation. We see reflections through the eyes of the poor and the marginalized. He asks:

“. . .could it be that God’s great gift to the worldwide church today is the growing church of the poor, who are teaching us to read the Bible anew? Could it be that God is using the last, the least, the poor, and the excluded to speak once again to the church of the first and the greatest?”

Is this the final reversal? Such questions as these do we ponder as we read this most excellent book. Do buy it. You will not regret the decision.

Mark: A Theological Commentary

Tags

bible, Book Reviews, gospels, Jesus, Mark, William C. Placher

It is with pure delight that I thank Westminster John Knox Publishing for sending me the following selection for review. This is the opening book in a new series entitled: Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible.

The first book in the series is Mark, by William C. Placher. It was published along with Luke, which I have also received and will be reviewing shortly.

WJK also publishes the Interpretation series, of which I have long been a fan, but after reading Mark, I suspect this new series may far outstrip that wonderful series.

The idea behind the Belief series is to bring together the latest exegetical work, along with literary, historical, archaeological, and other pertinent advances as they impact how we interpret the bible from a theological point of view.

In Mark, they have certainly attained their goal.  Professor Placher, unfortunately now deceased, has written a simply beautiful commentary. Not content to just tell us what the text means, or most likely means, Placher explores how Mark’s “good news” is still most relevant to the world we live in today.

For example, in the opening pages, he writes:

Americans today, therefore, read the Gospel of Mark–this story of a Middle Eastern man tortured to death by the most powerful empire of his time–when we are the most powerful nation of our time, and our forces are torturing people, sometimes to death. What does this imply about our values and the sort of people we have become?

Peppered throughout the chapters are “Further Reflections” on key phrases or words such as Kingdom of God, Miracles, and Ransom. Each of these probes into the historical record and juxtaposing that against our modern notions, finding common ground and points of comparison.

Quotes are boxed throughout the text as well, and are wide-ranging in their authorship, including Luther, Barth, Basil, Tertullian, Philo, Cicero and many others. These highlight themes introduced and explored by Professor Placher.

What is most compelling is the breath of sources. You will meet the likes of Karl Barth, and Luther of course, but also the likes of Calvin, John Dominic Crossan, and Gustavo Gutiérrez. Majority opinions are explained, but plenty of minority opinions are given with their rationales. Of course, Placher gives his choice and the reasons for it in the end.

We are a  world more and more polarized along religious lines. Placher offers us, for example,  a theological explanation of chapter 12:28-34. Here Jesus is questioned by a scribe as to which commandment is first. Jesus famously says “love God and love your neighbor.” This is all well and good, but in answering, Jesus shows us that even though many of his arguments are with scribes, not all scribes are bad, some come with honest questions. Barth points out that this the Hebrew Scriptures often engage “outsiders” to do the will of God, and thus Jesus shows us that good can often come from those who are not like us. How useful it is to remember that today.

The point always is, that when we read scripture, and Mark in particular, there is much that speaks to our condition today, both individually and as communities and nations. Every minister, priest, and preacher, every teacher seeks to make the scripture relevant to their listeners. This is no more than Mark did himself, in trying to tailor the stories he told to the issues present in his community.

How could Jesus help them? How can Jesus help us? As students of scripture, we have much to gain here in understanding, but if we are also preachers and teachers, we have even more, for here we can find new insights, new interpretations, new connections where we never realized them before. For every minister who has sat late into Saturday evening, still trying to find something “new” to say on tomorrow’s gospel, she or he will likely find help here.

We squabble, some of us in our respective traditions with rules about who can join us, and who cannot join us. We have our own brand of “unclean”. Yet, Jesus did not teach us that. He taught us the opposite. He regularly ate with sinners and those ritually unclean, and he never made it a condition for sitting at table with him that repentance was a pre-requisite. What does that say to us today?

Page by page, Placher explores, teases out, and conjoins text from not only Mark, but from other texts as well both in and out of the bible. The picture sharpens and Mark’s words take on added significance. We see in a new way, hopefully a better one.

I simply enjoyed this commentary more than I can say. I found it easy of explanation, yet profound in its theological depth. Placher has drawn from a broad spectrum of experts, and has intertwined them to make coherent and useful conclusions. He gives us a foundation from which to explore.

As I said, teachers and preachers will find this commentary invaluable as they search for new ways to marry scripture to today’s world. Individuals will see application in their own lives and spiritual journeys.

If the rest of this series can be predicted upon the basis of this opening publication, then we are in for a rich treat indeed. You may indeed want to consider the entire series, as it comes out. I have barely begun Luke, and I can already see that it carries on the fine standards established in the first offering. Do yourself a favor and pick this one up. You won’t be sorry.