We are in Anchorage, Alaska, and the trees are covered with inches of fresh snow from the night skies.  The mountains behind my sister’s house are straining to be seen, but we know that they are lurking behind the clouds.  I’m not sure whether the clouds are purple because of thick moisture, or because they are actually very thin, and the purple hue is actually hinting of the dark mountain bulk.

We are just a shave beyond the winter’s solstice, so Alaskans are on the upswing toward light, minute by minute.  Even so, we still don’t see the full sun until 10-ish, and must wave it goodbye at close to sometime around 3:00, give or take.

For this reason, lights adorn houses and trees here, not only in honor of Christmas, but in honor of light.

It’s awfully beautiful.

Once I heard a truism: that if you have a room filled with light, and a room filled with dark, separated only by a door, when the door opens darkness does not enter the light, but light enters the darkness.

Here, in more ways than one, we are surrounded by light.  We feasted on grilled fresh oysters, king crab, greens with pomegranates, freshly baked bread, and pavlova and rum pudding for dessert.  This morning we opened a bounty of presents, and savored a breakfast that was made with all hands, big and little, helping in the kitchen and at the table.

That said, I am keenly aware that there is darkness.

So the truism isn’t quite true.

I know of sadness, brokenness, anxiety, loss, and regret in my life and others.

And this year, death has made itself known of late in the lives of those whom I know and love, apparently paying no heed to the season.

So it has knocked on doors anticipating opening up to the Christ child, and not to the grave.

The families have no choice but to let death in and then let death go, leaving with their loved ones, leaving the living standing in the doorway, dumbfounded and disconsolate in the darkness.

Dan Swets, Augustana College professor, died in a tragic, fiery charter plane crash a week ago Friday.  I married him and his bride Robyn three years ago, and not even a month back, they celebrated their son’s first birthday.  He has three older, extraordinary children.

Dick English died, also an Augie professor, just weeks into his retirement.  Our first Christmas in Sioux Falls, also under grim circumstances, was made brighter by him and his wife who mischievously left gifts from a Christmas Spirit on our doorstep in the days leading up to Christmas Eve.

I never knew Connie Skovlund, although she went to High School with my father.  She birthed one of my five closest friends, a woman who has made my life immeasurably better.

Not more than a couple of months ago, Paul Freese also died.  He owned a bar in the town I served as pastor, along with his wife Eileen.  Before we flew back to the States from Germany with so-injured little boy Karl and so-tiny baby girl Else, Paul sent me an email saying, “Be sure and let us know when you are flying through the skies so we can stop praying.  We don’t want anything to get in the way of the plane bringing you home!”

They are all buried, now, dust returned to dust, cold bodies taken back into cold winter earth.

And the families are left in darkness.

Unless we recall the darkness, the light seems not brilliant but mocking, even artificial.

That’s the tension that Christmas offers.  Jesus, human and divine, coming into the mess of life, promising light, and water, and life to a world of darkness, and parched lives, and death.

Last night, during our Christmas service, there were several babies crying, mostly of the infant variety.

When, however, the lights dimmed and the candles for Silent Night were lit, then there was modified silence: cooing, perhaps, and astonished eyes that followed the flames, but generally, there was no more weeping.

The light from others calmed those who were sad.

On this Christmas morning, I remember those who are Christmas mourning, and I pray that I may be an ambassador of the light.  I pray that the promise of God incarnate be seen in incarnate acts of kindness, of mercy, of justice, of righteous anger, of righteous reconciliation, of comfort, and of the news that it is dark, but the light is breaking in, and will, in the end, overcome, act by act.

Merry Christmas.  May his light overcome your darkness in this season and all.

He finds himself at Radio City Music hall for their Christmas festival.  I’m excerpting the whole Passage of Interest:

I came in when the goddam stage show was on. The Rockettes were kicking their heads off, the way they do when they’re all in a line with their arms around each other’s waist. The audience applauded like mad, and some guy behind me kept saying to this wife, “You know what that is? That’s precision.” He killed me. Then after the Rockettes, a guy came out in a tuxedo and roller skates on, and started skating under a bunch of little tables, and telling jokes while he did it. He was a very good skater and all but I couldn’t enjoy it much because I kept picturing him practicing to be a guy that roller-skates on the stage. It seemed so stupid. I guess that I just wasn’t’ in the right mood. Then, after him, they had this Christmas thing they have at Radio City every year. All these angels start coming out of the boxes and everywhere guys carrying crucifixes and stuff all over the place, and the whole bunch of them—thousands of them—singing “Come All Ye Faithful!” like mad. Big deal. It’s supposed to be religious as hell, I know, and very pretty and all, but I can’t see anything religious or pretty, for God’s sake, about a bunch of actors carrying crucifixes all over the stage. When they were all finished and started going out of the boxes again you could tell they could hardly wait to get a cigarette or something. I saw it with old Sally Hayes the year before, and she kept saying how beautiful it was, the costumes and all. I said old Jesus probably would’ve puked if He could see it—all those fancy costumes and all. Sally said I was a sacrilegious atheist. I probably am. The thing Jesus really would’ve liked would be the guy that plays the kettle drums in the orchestra. I’ve watched that guy sine I was about eight years old. My brother Allie and I, if we were with our parents and all, we used to move our seats and go way down so we could watch him. He’s the best drummer I ever saw. He only gets a chance to bang them a couple of times during a whole piece, but he never looks bored when he isn’t doing it. The when he does bang them, he does it so niche and sweet, with this nervous expression on his face. One time when we went to Washington with my father, Allie sent him a postcard, but I’ll bet he never got it. We weren’t too sure how to address it.

I confess: when I have listened to arguments about how high communion cups have been filled, or complaints about who borrowed the church coffee pot without following proper protocol, I have often thought, “Did Jesus really die for this?”

That’s not nearly as colorful as, “Old Jesus probably would’ve puked.”

I strolled downtown last week, Christmas shopping.  I was in a bit of a sad spirit, I admit.  I was alone, and the combination of Christmas glitz and glam, Dean Martin, Mannheim Steamroller, and potential presents audibly crying out, “Buy me me me me me” just about took me down.

And good old Holden came to my mind.

In the face of all that, well, Christmas, missing only angels popping out of boxes, I felt just like Holden at Radio City Music Hall: a sacrilegious atheist.

It’s an interesting term.  One could argue that it’s hard to be religious, let alone sacrilegious, if you don’t believe in religion.

The word ‘sacrilegious’ actually has nothing to do with religion, but has to do with temple robbery, with stealing something that is sacred.

It’s even more interesting since I am hearing an awful lot this year about people purportedly trying to steal the sacredness of Christmas.

For example: the indignant astonishment at people who “take the X out of Christmas….” excepting that X is the ancient Greek symbol for Christ.  Just like the old Prego commercials, “It’s in there!”

More perplexing for me, though, is the trouble caused by the phrase, “Happy Holidays” over against “Merry Christmas.”

I’m seeing complaints about it everywhere: in the media, on Facebook, overheard in conversations.

I know and I appreciate that folks who believe strongly about this term are staking a claim that they believe is about  protecting and honoring their faith.

But I am doing my best to wrap my mind around the question, “Why this claim?” and I’m having a tough time of it.

For starters, it’s not Christmas.

It’s Advent.

Even today, December 19th.

We’re still in Advent.

At the very least, one could argue that it’s a sign of faith to not wish people Merry Christmas…at least not yet.

On top of all that, I’m left to wonder, what is gained in foisting a Merry Christmas, even once it really is Christmas, on a Jew, say, not to mention a sacrilegious atheist, anyway?

How would we Christians feel if some Jew lobbed a “Happy Hanukkah” our way, and added a spurious glance which clearly questioned our American credentials and faithfulness to God if we said, “Happy Holidays” to them back?

Why is this an issue?

And so I think again of Holden, and wonder if Jesus is puking.

But fine, if I have to think about Christmas in Advent, let’s roll up our sleeves and peek at Christmas in the texts, with the help of the magazine Sojourners.

Its editor Jim Wallis writes:

What is Christmas? It is the celebration of the Incarnation, God’s becoming flesh — human — and entering into history in the form of a vulnerable baby born to a poor, teenage mother in a dirty animal stall. Simply amazing. That Mary was homeless at the time,a member of a people oppressed by the imperial power of an occupied country whose local political leader, Herod, was so threatened by the baby’s birth that he killed countless children in a vain attempt to destroy the Christ child, all adds compelling historical and political context to the Advent season…

In Jesus Christ, God hits the streets.

It is theologically and spiritually significant that the Incarnation came to our poorest streets. That Jesus was born poor, later announces his mission at Nazareth as “bringing good news to the poor,” and finally tells us that how we treat “the least of these” is his measure of how we treat him and how he will judge us as the Son of God, radically defines the social context and meaning of the Incarnation of God in Christ. And it clearly reveals the real meaning of Christmas.

The other explicit message of the Incarnation is that Jesus the Christ’s arrival will mean “peace on earth, good will toward men.” He is “the mighty God, the everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace.” Jesus later calls on his disciples to turn the other cheek, practice humility, walk the extra mile, put away their swords, love their neighbors — and even their enemies — and says that in his kingdom, it is the peacemakers who will be called the children of God. Christ will end our warring ways, bringing reconciliation to God and to one another…

Making sure that shopping malls and stores greet their customers with “Merry Christmas” is entirely irrelevant to the meaning of the Incarnation. In reality it is the consumer frenzy of Christmas shopping that is the real affront and threat to the season. [Old Jesus probably would've puked]

Last year, Americans spent $450 billion on Christmas. Clean water for the whole world, including every poor person on the planet, would cost about $20 billion. Let’s just call that what it is: A material blasphemy of the Christmas season. [Old Jesus probably would've puked]

Imagine Jesus walking into the mall, seeing the Merry Christmas signs, and expressing his humble thanks for how the pre- and post-Christmas sales are honoring to him. How about credit cards for Christ? [Old Jesus probably would've puked]

While we’re at it, here’s another point of clarification: The arrival of the Christ child has nothing to do with trees or what we call them. [Old Jesus probably would've puked]

Evergreens and wreaths, holly and ivy, and even mistletoe turn out to be customs borrowed from ancient Roman and Germanic winter solstice celebrations, assimilated and co-opted by the church after Constantine made peace between his empire and the Christians.

Upshot seems to be that Merry Christmas means more than Facebook graphics with snowmen and Christmas trees and happy faces–none of which are Christian symbols, anyway–asking us to repost if we agree that sacrilegious atheists are stealing our sacred holiday.

Instead, Wallis is making that case that Merry Christmas means actively working on behalf of the poor, actively standing up against legislation and legislators which and who harm them, actively working for peace and reconciliation even when searingly painful and apparently hopeless, actively caring for the incarnate world on behalf of the least of these.

Now, so that you don’t think I’m a complete snarky scrooge, there is room for merriment.

I think Holden is right about Jesus getting into the kettle drummer.  A syncopated downbeat, contra schmaltz, contra glop, contra bogus litmus tests of committed faith, euphoric in announcing a different and unexpected rhythm, Jesus is into that.

I do believe that God loves the stuff of life: earth, laughter, wine, butter, lovemaking, sunlight, art, babies’ burps, love letters, ocean sounds, flannel sheets, puns, eskimo kisses, hard rolls, potatoes pulled right from the dirt.

God is not opposed to merry Christmases, or any other time of the year, for that matter.

And, for what it’s worth, neither am I.

I am not, despite the last two blogs, a curmudgeon.

So to you Christians, I earnestly wish you a blessed Advent.

When the time is right, I’ll wish you an earnest Merry Christmas, in all senses of the term.  I am kicking off the season in Alaska, where I will celebrate with my sister and her family.  Our annual Boggle Contests (I will lose) coupled with ample Cosmopolitans, and snow, and moose noses on her windows, and Christmas goose or offerings from the Alaskan waters, and trees be-twinkled with white lights and real candles, and gentle singing of Silent Night in the deep black night of Anchorage, will come together and create long-lasting merriment.

To you others, perhaps especially you sacrilegious atheists, I wish you earnest happy holidays.

I look forward to making the world merrier, and happier, with you all.

And there are a lot.

Some days there seem to be more questions than on others.

I am speaking from experience.

For individuals, couples, or groups who are curious about gaining more knowledge, about clarifying beliefs, about identifying new congregational directions, about wondering out loud, consider spending some time with OMG.

Until the end of December, one-hour individual and couple sessions, either on-site or via Skype, are $60.00 per hour, plus tax.

Although I don’t fit under a tree, and certainly not in a stocking, an OMG gift certificate does.

Contact OMG for more information at anna@omgcenter.com, or at 605-275-1004.

Below is a link and then the full text of a piece I wrote for our Sioux Falls local paper, the Argus Leader. It was published this last Saturday.

http://www.argusleader.com/article/20111112/LIFE/311120037/St-Homobonus-clarifies-money

____________________________________________

For the same reason that I savor the change of winter to spring to summer to fall to winter again, and the rhythm of the morphing seasons in the church, I enjoy delving into the lives of the saints. The habit anchors me in traditions far wider and deeper than my immediate world and is a reminder that it’s not just about me, or even just about me and Jesus.

I’m thinking about saints these days, with All Saints’ Day on Nov. 1 and the post-dated celebration Nov. 6 in worship.

So given an opportunity to write this week, naturally, I flip to the calendar of the saints.

Here’s one new to me: St. Homobonus. His name means “Good Man,” in Latin.

He lived from 1111-1197, dying on Nov. 13, the day of his commemoration.

Son of a wealthy businessman, he inherited significant monies and a significant desire to do business well and honorably. He gained a reputation not only for his commercial success, but most notably for his donation of the better part of his profits to the poor.

He has since become the patron saint of business people and tailors … though curiously, not the poor.

(Interestingly, if you google “Homobonus,” you’ll find his plastic statue in packaging that promises that with it, you’ll “make a fortune!” Another site marketing the piece says, “It’s a tough economy. We’ll take whatever edge we can get.” Perhaps they’re missing the point.)

The more I look into him, the more I realize that Homobonus caught my attention because of All Saints’ Day, but also because of recent headlines on the economy and the Occupy movement.

Homobonus did not see money as evil.

He also didn’t see it as an end-unto-itself or as something that was his because he earned it; nor did he see that he needed to sacrifice his principles to gain more of it.

He saw money as a gift to be given to others because it was itself a result of gifts that were given to him by God.

As we think on money, the economy and political decisions regarding it, we would do well to remember St. Homobonus. His life reminds me, at least, that “my” money isn’t just about me, nor is it mine, and that it does have something to do with me and Jesus, and in fact something wider and deeper than my immediate world.

1.  I do not believe that people who do not believe in my notion of God–or any other notion, for that matter–are going to hell.

2.  This conviction translates into really, honestly, having no drive to convert anyone to Christianity away from some other framework of belief.

It should also be said that I like being a Christian, I think that there is much to be said for Christianity, and I am not afraid to talk about what I think Christianity is about and what it can offer to the table.

But I have no compulsion whatsoever to “save souls for Jesus.”

I don’t even understand the notion, and frankly it makes me start to hyperventilate.

Suffice it to say that I’ve never been asked to serve on an evangelism committee.

Engage in mutual conversation? Yes.

Engage in conversion for the sake of conversion?

No.

I trust in grace entirely.

And I trust that I may have it wrong.

3.  I do not believe that there is such a thing as an atheist.

The word, in Greek, breaks down to mean no-God: a-theist.  Someone who is an atheist is someone who believes that there is no God.  (An agnostic, then, breaks down to mean “someone who doesn’t know: a-gnosis).

I am in line with Luther and Tillich who believe that a person’s god is that in which or in whom you place your ultimate trust.

That can change, from moment to moment, but generally we all have some guiding principles, the most central belief(s) that shape and inform who we are.  It could even be that our god is ourselves, or our trust in reason, or science, or, to take it a different way, my children, or in yet down another path, an addiction, a relationship for which we’ll sacrifice all things, a pursuit after money or fame, and so forth.

That is: there is nothing innate about the word “God” that necessarily implies something “supernatural.”  In fact, strictly speaking, the notion of a supernatural god is decidedly not Jewish, and therefore not Christian.  It is Greek, however, and that influence undoubtedly shaped the early Church…and everything that came after.

That said, I know that the word has a commonly understood meaning, namely one who does not believe in a specific “supernatural” god who is worshiped through rituals and actions.

I’ll work with that, then.

Even so……

4. The question is less whether god exists, and more which god is it in which you believe?

This is not a minor point.

Often, when I hear people tell me that they don’t believe in God, I ask them what they understand God to be, and it turns out that I don’t believe in that God either.

So before conversation begins about God, in any way, shape, or form, the conversation partners have to have a common working definition about what they are talking about!

Pat Robertson, Fred Phelps, the Pope, and I…we all have very different notions of God.  That shapes what we think about following God.

Often, I’m discovering, those who argue against Christianity argue against a notion of God that many don’t hold anymore: a God who looks awfully Zeusian.  I’m all for indignation, but before I get my undies and innards in a knot, I’d rather make sure that we’re in agreement that we ought to be arguing in the first place, and in the second, that we’re in agreement about what we’re arguing.

Again, even self-identified Christians can’t agree what God means.

5. This is all to say that a Christian is not a Christian is not a Christian.

Regardless of the group being considered  (women, blacks, gays, Muslims….Christians) we run into problems when we speak of  the “them” as a monolithic group.  Not least of all, en masse-speak furthers stereotypes and misrepresentations, and reveals more about the teller’s lack of knowledge and nuance than it reveals about the subject of the teller’s telling.

The same, of course, is true of atheists: i.e., an atheist is not an atheist is not an atheist.

6.  I like atheists.

Not all atheists.  I don’t like all Christians or all Democrats either, for that matter (I do tend to like all my family, thankfully, but you get my point).

But often, atheists pose valid questions, and keep people of other faiths engaged in their claims.

And remember, my husband was killed and my son suffered a traumatic brain injury, a trauma that affected more than just his beautiful brain.

There is reason to raise questions about God.

I get that.

I respect that.

7. Yes, I did say “of other faiths.”

Atheists have faith in their belief system, as do Christians and Muslims and Jews and so on and so forth.

Faith is trust in something that is not provable.  One cannot prove that there is a supernatural God.  One cannot prove that there is not.  One might be able to prove that there was a big bang (though there are different “denominations” of beliefs about that within the scientific community) but one cannot prove what happened immediately prior to it, or how whatever happened was there to have something happen to it in the first place.

They have faith.

_____________________

That’s the background for the intent of this blog, which is really about the rising angry rhetoric from atheist fundamentalists.

Yep.

Religious Fundamentalism is not just for Christians or Muslims anymore.

Atheists got game here too.

Let me throw a couple of links your way, an increasing array of articles written with such vehemence, such vitriol and misunderstanding that I am moved to put a few thoughts to the blog.

http://www.politicususa.com/en/the-second-oldest-profession-lying-for-christ

Note the title, here: “The Second Oldest Profession–Lying for Christ.”

It’s an interesting piece, a glowing review of Bart Ehrman’s recent book Forged.

It’s true that Ehrman is a well-trained biblical scholar.  His M.Div. and Ph.D. are from Princeton, he studied under a premier scholar of Greek, Bruce Metzger, and now he teaches at the University of Chapel Hill in North Carolina.  He has served in the leadership of the Society of Biblical Literature, the reigning professional association for biblical theologians.

All of these facts make it all the stranger that he writes what he does.

For example:

Ehrman provides an example from these early days, the New Testament’s letter to the Ephesians:

• “Fasten the belt of truth around your waist (6:14);
• The gospel as “the word of truth” (1:13);
• The “truth is in Jesus” (4:21);
• “Speak the truth” to your neighbors (4:24-25); and,
• The “fruit of the light” is found in “truth” (5:9);[3]

The problem, after all this truth-talking, is that the author of Ephesians is as dishonest as the day is long. As Ehrman says, it’s ironic that the author of Ephesians is lying about who he is, pretending to be Paul of Tarsus. That he is, in fact, a forger. A liar.

Jeepers.

That’s quite a way to begin a conversation.

The author of the review explicitly calls Christians liars (not to mention the implication that we are prostituting ourselves, following on the heels of the fabled “oldest” profession in the world), and the author of the book, Ehrman, calls the author of Ephesians a forger and a liar.

There are a number of ways to go about responding.  I’m not interested in doing a point-by-point refutation, but I do think it’s worth noting that not all biblical scholars believe that Ephesians is pseudographical (namely written by one person in the name of another) and in noting that many believe that what to us, now, smacks as plagiarism was then a form of honoring a teacher.  You can read a bit more about both claims here:

http://bible.org/seriespage/ephesians-introduction-argument-and-outline

http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/vox/vol01/pseudepigrapha_guthrie.pdf

These are but two online links (volumes about this matter have been written, not that one would know that to read Ehrman) to discover information that points out that it’s hardly as simply as forgery and lying…and scholar Ehrman ought to know better than to suggest that it is.  Ironically, his blithe dismissal of an extended conversation in the world of biblical scholarship suggests his own proclivity to telling untruths.

(I’m not the only one who is concerned about Ehrman’s approach.  Here’s just one person who has similar objections: http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/03/review_of_bart_d_ehrmans_misqu.html)

But Christians are not only called liars amongst atheist extremists, but hypocrites who “cherry pick” our own beliefs.

Take a look here:

http://www.alternet.org/story/152210/progressive_religious_believers’_big_hypocrisy:_cherry-picking_the_parts_of_religion_they_like_and_ditching_the_rest?page=entire

This author directs her attention not only to the conservatives, but rather to the progressives, who, although well-intentioned, still miss the fact that they arbitrarily pick and choose what parts of the Bible they like.  Listen:

See, that’s the thing about “looking into your heart” to decide which of your religion’s cherries are the good, tasty ones that you should gobble right up, and which are the nasty, rotten, poisoned ones you should avoid at all costs. Believers tend to conveniently overlook the fact that other believers are looking just as deeply into their hearts… and are coming up with the exact opposite answers to these questions. Some people sincerely believe that God intends marriage to be strictly between one man and one woman — others sincerely believe that God intends marriage to be between any two people who love each other and want to make a lifetime commitment. Some people sincerely believe that God created women and men as equals, to live their lives as they best see fit — others sincerely believe that God created women and men with radically different roles in life, and that women’s divinely ordained role is to be subordinate to men. Etc. Etc. Etc.

And there’s no way to find out which of them is right.

Trouble, is, it’s not like that–or at least not consistently.

The Bible is also known as the Canon.  It comes from a word meaning “yardstick.”  It’s the check to make sure that something is “measuring up.”

But there is indeed another phrase called “The canon within the canon.”  Lutherans, for example, we’re all over Paul.  We love Paul.  And we tend to read more Pauline inspired texts than, say, James.

The author is right, that there is a danger of cherry-picking.  Three things, however:

1. This is why I love being a systematic theologian.

We get to consider the texts, recognize that there are inconsistencies to them, and then say, “What is an appropriate framework for interpreting what this says and what this means?”

It’s like a constitutional lawyer.  Or a parent.  ”I know I said you could stay up late last Sunday night, but not tonight!  This Sunday night Mama is watching Masterpiece Mystery! Now Go To Bed!”

It’s called thinking. Not hypocrisy.  Not cherry-picking.  Thinking.

2. One “cherry-picker test” is to note what cherries is a person going after.

A cherry picker is going to find the best of the offerings.  But generally, Jesus offers instead some bitter crabapples.  ”Take up your cross.” “Sell what you have.” “Those who lose their lives will save them.”

At least among a fair portion of Christians, we follow the idea that we are to act on behalf of the poor, the oppressed, the hungry…even if that means that we give up something that would benefit us.  We believe we might just be called to, how did the author put it? Oh yes:  pick “the nasty, rotten, poisoned ones” that others might “avoid at all costs.”

3.  Atheists have the same quandary and quagmire.

An atheist is not an atheist is not an atheist.  At the end of the day, an atheist makes a choice.  What is the rule of thumb?  Is it consistently applied?  Why or why not?  Are there allowable exceptions to rules?  Who choses when that might be?

It behooves all of us, Christians and atheists alike, to be aware of our moral code and how we have come to it and whether we apply it uniformly or, well, cherry pick it.

Then we have gleeful Ding-Dong-The-Witch-Is-Deady articles, like this one:

http://www.alternet.org/belief/151947/goodbye_religion_how_godlessness_is_increasing_with_each_new_generation/?page=entire

Read this:

Most large Christian sects, both Catholic and Protestant, have made fighting against gay rights and women’s rights their all-consuming crusade. And young people have gotten this message loud and clear: polls find that the most common impressions of Christianity are that it’s hostile, judgmental and hypocritical. In particular, an incredible 91% of young non-Christians say that Christianity is “anti-homosexual“, and significant majorities say that Christianity treats being gay as a bigger sin than anything else. (When right-wing politicians thunder that same-sex marriage is worse than terrorism, it’s not hard to see where people have gotten this impression.)

On other social issues as well, the gap between Gen Nexters and the church looms increasingly wide. Younger folks favor full access to the morning-after pill by a larger margin than older generations (59% vs. 46%). They reject the notion that women should return to “traditional roles” — already a minority position, but they disagree with it even more strongly than others. And they’re by far the least likely of all age groups to say that they have “old-fashioned” values about family and marriage (67% say this, as compared to 85% of other age groups).

While it is true that the Roman Catholic tradition has not welcomed gays and lesbians into their pulpits, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has, as have the Episcopalians, the Presbyterians, the United Church of Christ members, some Mennonites, the Metropolitan Community Church….

And while it is true that some Christian traditions encourage “traditional roles,” Lutherans, Methodists, Episcopalians, UCCers, Presbyterians, and on and on would scratch their heads at this claim.

The author would be advised to read Diana Butler Bass’ recent book entitled Christianity for the Rest of Us, or to learn about the Emerging Church movement, and get caught up to speed on the dynamism and progressivism that is becoming the norm; is and has been the norm for many years.

Interestingly, one can make the case that there is a strand of atheism that is positively evangelical.  Take a look at this:

http://www.daylightatheism.org/2009/12/happy-holidays-atheism-is-growing.html

Note the euphoric emphasis on material success (not a hallmark of progressive Christianity, which instead emphasizes the call to give up for the sake of the other), and more interestingly this line:

These people are the low-hanging fruit whom atheists can reach. We need to deliver a strong, effective message that belief in God is not necessary for the things human beings care about – that nonbelievers can justify morality with reason and conscience, and build a secular community without reference to faith. And given that our audience’s sympathies are already leaning in that direction, we should continue to make the case that religious belief is archaic superstition, contains many immoral rules, and has no solutions for the ethical problems humanity faces today. Let the theologians and mystics continue to carp and complain that atheists are being disrespectful, that we’re not acknowledging the magnificence of the emperor’s new clothes. We don’t require their consent, and they’re not our target audience anyway. The continuing growth of atheism throughout the world is all the encouragement we need to speak out.

“Low-hanging fruit whom atheists can reach?” “Build a secular community?” “The continuing growth of atheism throughout the world is all the encouragement we need to speak out?”

Jeepers.

All they’re missing is “Go out to all the world, and don’t baptize in atheism’s name!”

If one really is an atheist, then I’d expect one to have the kind of conversionist’s bent that I do.

Rod Liddle, a British BBC journalist, recently produced a documentary entitled “The Trouble with Atheism.”  You can see it here: http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/trouble-with-atheism/.

It’s worth the 47 minutes to watch it.

He makes an awfully persuasive case for the religious extremism of some pockets of atheism, and is concerned that it is picking up steam.

Additionally, he interviews leading atheists and leading scientists and even a theologian, John Polkinghorne, who is both a scientist and a theologian.

He’s interested neither in saying that there is a God, nor that there isn’t.

He is interested in saying that Dawkins (note here some assumptions about Christians and the uniformity of belief) and others who assert with no hesitation that Christianity is “stupid” or “wrong” and that atheists are “right” and “they have no doubt” are, well, arrogant.

So, again:

I like the questions that many atheists raise.

I appreciate entertainer Penn, to a degree, who in this article writes with articulate humility that he doesn’t know…although later he states, “I’m not going to use faith to fill in the gaps.”

But if he doesn’t know (and who does, really?) that’s exactly what he is doing.  Using faith to fill in the gaps.

It’s what we’re all doing.

These sites below show how atheists can raise really good questions, and do it in a way that doesn’t demean Christians, or any other faith group.

http://being.publicradio.org/programs/atheism-religion/index.shtml

http://blog.onbeing.org/post/5800224899/sam-harriss-scientific-fundamentalism-couched-in

http://being.publicradio.org/programs/new_humanism/index.shtml

http://blog.onbeing.org/post/86951938/theres-a-new-power-in-america-atheism

And if you’re into longer literary interludes, check out this book called The Divinity of Doubt: An Agnostic Probes the God Question.

Upshot?

My problem isn’t with atheism per se.  If it were, I wouldn’t be the advocate for ecumenical conversation and cooperation that I am.  I recognize that I might be wrong, and others (atheists included) might be right.

And that’s o.k.

I trust in grace entirely.

My problem is with the haughty atheist contingent which demonstrates the very vim and vigor and contempt and arrogance and ignorance of the Christian extremism they ostensibly detest.

And so when I read the articles like I do above, I think of the quote that I have read to Christians with the same purpose, a quote from Czeslaw Milosz from his book The Captive Mind.  It is from “an Old Jew of Galacia,” who said:

When someone is honestly 55% right, that’s very good and there’s no use wrangling. And if someone is 60% right, it’s wonderful, it’s great luck, and let him thank God. But what’s to be said about 75% right? Wise people say this is suspicious. Well, and what about 100% right? Whoever say he’s 100% right is a fanatic, a thug, and the worst kind of rascal.

Regardless of one’s faith, I believe that this old Jew might not be wrong.

Please consider joining OMG on the Augustana Campus on September 23 and 24th as we consider how different Christian theological systems, or frameworks, end up in different places (so to speak) about life (or not) after death.

We’ll meet from 4:00-6:00 p.m. on Friday, and from 9:00-4:00 on Saturday.

Registration is $175.00, which includes a snack on Friday, as well as breakfast, lunch, and snacks on Saturday.

Contact anna@omgcenter.com to reserve your spot.

Not in heaven.

Just for the workshop.

The Right Questions: Anna Madsen and OMG: Center for Theological Conversation

We’ll look at several different theological systems of belief, and how they shape their believers’ views about heaven and hell.

The agenda will not be to stake a claim on one conclusion or another, but will be to better understand why different traditions arrive in different places.

So to speak.

Cost for the weekend is $175.00, including a snack on Friday, as well as breakfast, lunch, and snacks on Saturday.

We’ll meet from 4:00-6:00 p.m. on Friday, and from 9:00-4:00 on Saturday.

Contact info@omgcenter.com for, well, more info, as well as to make a reservation.

Seating is limited to 25!

Let’s hope heaven has more room.

Grin.

A Video Invite can be found here.

June 19th: 7 year anniversary of the accident which killed my first husband, and which gave Karl his awful traumatic brain injury.

June 20th of that year (June 19th this): Father’s Day.  That year, I had actually bought ahead of the day a fancy Swiss Army knife for Bill that he’d been coveting at a shop down the way from our apartment, and a fine pen set across from our favorite grocery spot.  I still have them, and will give them to the children when they might be ready to receive them.

June 22nd, the anniversary (this year, 15th) of his and my combined ordination on Lake Poinsett, here in South Dakota.  It is also my sister’s birthday.

June 23rd, my late husband’s birthday.

And this year, we have Trinity Sunday to kick the series of anniversaries off.

Here’s what the Online Etymological Dictionary has to say about the word “anniversary.”

early 13c., originally especially of the day of a person’s death, from M.L. anniversarium, from L. anniversarius (adj.) “returning annually,” from annus (gen. anni) “year” (see annual) + versus, pp. of vertere ”to turn” (see versus). The adjective came to be used as a noun in Church Latin as anniversaria (dies) in reference to saints’ days.

The roots of the word being tied to year (annus) and turning (versus) do not surprise me, but the original and particular association of it with the remembrance of a person’s death, and to saints’ days, does.

Oddly enough, I was just telling daughter Else yesterday about how her papa taught me about sainthood.  (For the record, she brought sainthood up, thanks to another conversation she was having with someone else and for the life of me I can’t remember what spurred that one.  Oh yes!  Now I do!  A Saint Bernard had been in a story she had been reading!)

I had been asked by my seminary Alma Mater to preach about Monica, mother of Augustine.  You can read about her here.

Point is, in the calendar pastors were given then, saints’ days were marked along with why each person was considered a saint.

Keep in mind that we Lutherans don’t really get into the whole sainthood thing.  That we mark them at all in our calendar is noteworthy, and necessitates an explanation of why they are there.

So people were listed as saints because they were martyrs, or educators, or missionaries….you get the gist.

Monica?

She was a saint because she was a mother of Saint Augustine.

That bugged me.

It bugged me for obvious feminist reasons.  She was considered a saint….because she mothered a man?  And a man who didn’t in the long run do women a whole boatload of favors–though asked several of them, if you get my meaning?

Greatly perturbed, irritable, and frustrated (not to mention nervous because I was preaching in front of my esteemed former professors, and what was I thinking to accept the invitation in the first place), I flung myself on the back yard lawn on a sunny day exactly one day before I was to preach.

That’s where Bill found me.

“Babe,” he said, with a faint grin on his face.  ”Um, whatcha doin’?”

“Pouting,” I said, quite honestly.  ”I’m really ticked that the only reason we remember Monica is because of her relationship to another!”

And Bill said, in his quiet way, “Babe?  Isn’t that the point of  a saint?”

He was right.

It is the point of a saint.

And he wrote my sermon for me in that singular statement.

Feminists have in fact done much to draw attention to the idea that the Trinity is really about relationship: Relationship between Father/Son/Holy Spirit; relationship between God and creation; relationship between humans and humans, and humans and creation.

Each of these impending and imposing dates in my little world signifies either a birth or a death: the death of a man loved, the birth of a sister and husband loved, the birth of a new role as man, and the birth of a new vocation.

And, not so coincidentally, each event signifies a new relationship to a person, to people, or to a reality.

And, note, each relationship has a beginning and an end.

Although strict beginnings and endings are difficult, dates help in remembering.

“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.”

So it says in 2 Corinthians 13:11-13, and it has become the traditional Trinitarian Greeting.

Grace, Love, and Communion.

It’s hard to do that alone, outside of relationship.

In relationship, it takes one’s breath away–both when the relationship is vibrant and alive, and when it dies.

So the Trinity is so confusing it is a day most wise preachers vacation (I’m talking to you, Lori).

And tragedy and transitions are so confusing it is on occasion unbearably difficult to see how one can get through, let alone whether a God is beside you.

That said, on loaded anniversaries I find that there is something to be said about grace, and love, and communion–both of the Spirit and of the saints–and relationships.

And while I brace myself for this week of anniversaries weeks ahead, at the very least I am reminded of Monica, of saints, and of the myriad of relationships which claim us, define us, hold us accountable, call us, cherish us, and which mark us as loved, even if believing it is the starkest impossibility in our minds.

Grace, and love, and communion be with you all.