Tolstoy on Christianity

I have probably sounded like a Marxist lately. This wont help.

This is a quote from a Count Lyev Nikolayevich Tolstoy or Leo Tolstoy. I found this in a book that is a collection of different religious voices for peace. I am not an expert of ole' Leo, but I am pretty sure in his later years that he denounces Christianity, probably for the contradictions in the faith he identifies here. Either way, this is a cool quote.

Enjoy

"This pervasion was accomplished long ago in the time of that scoundrel the emperor Constantine, who for doing it was enrolled among the saints. All subsequent governments, especially our Russian government, do their utmost to preserve this perverted understanding, and not to allow the people to see the real meaning of Christianity; because having seen the real meaning of Christianity, the people would perceive that the governments, with their taxes, soldiers, prisons, gallows, and false priests, are not only the pillars of Christianity they profess to be, but are its greatest enemy." -Leo Tolstoy

Dorothy Day Quotes

Here are a couple of quotes from my main lady Dorothy Day. She was an activist, a writer, a catholic, and never swayed from calling herself a Christian anarchist. Anarchy gets a bad wrap in America because we believe in a big government with a lot of control. But it actually is something a lot different than the common misconception of a society in pure chaos. Anyways, thats besides the point. Enjoy these quotes from an innovative and faithful lady.

“To be a follower of Jesus, one would certainty not seek after authority, or look for political office. It is thrust upon one by ability and recognition of that ability by others, as it was in the case of St. Peter. St. Abros, Dius XII and so on.”

“The social order which depends on profits which does not consider the nature of man’s needs, as to living space, food and work, is a bad social order, and we must work to make that a kind of order in which it is easier for man to do good.”

Life as a House

I watched the movie Life as a House for the second time this weekend. This go around my attention was drawn more to how broken and down right f'ed up the character's lives were. Sexual brokenness, addiction, unloving fathers, illness, crappy marriages, homosexuality, etc plagued the lives of the different characters. One man's realization of his brokenness and his quest to redeem his life through building a house, transformed his life and everyone around him. By inviting others into the process of redeeming his brokenness others were changed, grew, and became new.

Is this not what we do as followers of Christ? As readers of the Gospel we are acutely aware of how broken and incomplete

this world is. We also know just how shattered the individual can become in this broken world. So really ... are Christians anything more than people that have a more realistic view on ourselves and this world that we live in and know someone (God) that is in the process (with or without us) of redeeming and reconciling the brokenness of the entire creation? With humility, hope, and patience we enter into a relationship with the creator who is redeeming the world. Knowing that while working to redeem this world alongside God that God will in fact redeem us, and by working on our own brokenness we will also join in the process of redeeming creation. Kind a vis versa or paradox concept.

Last night, we celebrated and remembered Jon and Annie Houghton's house they have lived in for the past 6 or 7 years. Unlike other people, their lives were not their own, the house was not their own, their family even was not their own, food, couch, tv, etc was not their own. And because they were aware of their brokenness and knew the creator that was redeeming them they invited literally thousands of young people to come into their home ask questions, laugh, cry, and pray all in the hopes that they themselves would be offering a safe place or a sanctuary for young kids to come to move forward and out of their brokenness. Praise God for their willingness to sacrifice privacy, comfort, and quiet for all some many lives to be transformed.

A house is never just a house. It is not inherently anything. The people living in that house get to decide what it becomes. And how powerful of a thing for a family to realize that their house has the potential to become a direct tool for ministry. To offer a place for questions to be raised, maybe answered, for hope to be created, and for love and grace to be poured out on those that walk through the door.

A few year ago I wrote this piece during my internships as a community organizer in urban Indianapolis. Also called Life as a House, but with a different perspective.

Our Western Conception of God

Today in Buddhism class, we watched a movie on Zen Buddhist "hermits" or ascetics who live in the mountains FAR away from society. They live off only what they need and read and meditate when they are not farming or doing other necessary work to sustain life. They all live completely alone.

I do not know what came over me, but I took a scrap sheet of paper and just started writing. This is what came out: (these are just thoughts, not formed ideas or conclusions by any means)

Maybe, our conception of God as a "being" or any other contained force is just way off.

Almost every religion has this idea that we are all of the earth and will one day return to the earth. Also, almost every religion I have studies is more concerned with what is under the surface. Ideas like desire, meaning, purpose, substance, intention, etc. are all central religious themes.

In the west, we think of God as a contained being that has a home. Heaven or something. But when we talk about and describe God, we use language that beckons transcendence, omnipotence, and more simply; that God is everywhere all at once.

I think, eastern religions have a better, and more logical way to describe God.

Scientifically, we know that heaven is not just beyond Earth's atmosphere, In fact, it is no where to be found so far. (granted we have and never will search every square inch of the universe). But more importantly, do we really think that heaven and God are contained in some space anywhere? I think, in the west we think like that and even talk like we believe that sometimes. Theologically and scientifically, we can throw out the idea that heaven or "where god dwells" is a physical contained space that we will ever be able to see.

God is everywhere? How is this possible unless God is either IN everything, a PART of everything, or God actually IS everything. I suppose, that God could also be in the space in between everything invisible to us.

I don't know.

But any person that uses a conception or rhetoric that makes God out to be trancendent, omnipotent, or all at once everywhere, and uses any other conception or rhetoric that confines God to any sport of space or describes God as a confined being; is in error.

I have no answers.

But just as Eli Wiesel would say, there is just a big question mark hanging over my head.

These are just thoughts. Not meant to persuade anyone but merely to vent what rambles in my mind.

Taking the Bible Literally

How to read the Bible? Is a question not so easily answered. One approach is to read the Bible "literally" and well...I do not really know what that means.

The dictionary on my computer defines the word "literal": Taking words in their usual or most basic sense without allegory or methephor. Also literal implies free of exaggeration or distortion.

"This is what taking the bible literally in that sense would mean: A literal reading of the Bible means reinstitution of slavery coupled with the understanding that the slave master has the right to beat his slave without mercy since "the slave is his money" (Exodus 21:21). Children who strike or curse a parent are to be executed (Exodus 21: 15, 17). Those who pay homage to another god "shall be utterly destroyed" (Exodus 22:20). Menstruating women are to be considered unclean (Leviticus 15:19-32). The blind the lame, those with mutilated faces, those who are hunchbacks or dwarfs and those with itching diseases or scabs or crushed testicles cannot become priests (Leviticus 15:19-32). And "if the spirit of jealousy" comes upon a man, the high priest can order the jealous man's wife to drink the "water of bitterness". If she dies, it is proof of her guilt, if she survives, of her innocence (Numbers 5:11-31). Women, throughout the Bible, are subservient to men, often without legal rights, and men are free to sell their daughters into sexual bondage (Exodus 21:7-11)."

-Chris Hedges, American Fascists

Not to mention Jesus call to love our enemies, The ant-Jewish tone of the Gospel, The crazy crazy book of Revelation. The epistles often confusing view of women and slaves. and well...etc.

Is there no way to read the Bible than "literally", as so many right winged conservative christians profess they do?

Story of Stuff and Jesus

What does Jesus have to do with anything political, social, or economic? If you haven't watched this video you freaken need to click it and not move for 20 minutes.

This is what I know: systems either hurt or help people. And Jesus cares about hurting people.

If you do watch this video listen to how Annie Leonard asserts how the systems we live under hurts people, it tells them they are worthless, and it exploits them. Jesus and the Gospels have everything to do with these matters.

Enjoy.

Sharing your Faith

Pen Gillette, of Pen and Teller, raises some really interesting questions about sharing and not sharing your faith.