Sunday, November 18, 2007

Religious Earthquakes

This article by my rector, Ed Bacon, is from the cover of this week's "Saints Alive" -- the weekly newsletter of All Saints Church, Pasadena. I hope it's helpful in expanding on my push-back on language of violence in some of the recent comments on this blog.


Religious Earthquakes
by the Reverend J. Edwin Bacon
.
September 11, 2001 was a wake up call for religion.

On that day, religiously motivated people highjacked both a religion and four passenger airplanes, using them as missiles against the United States in the name of Allah.

The President responded to those crimes against humanity not by leveraging the phenomenal international sympathy for us to employ the rule of law, but by declaring a War on Terrorism. Using religious imagery, he called it a “crusade” and divided the world into us versus the “evildoers.” He employed the rule of war, not the rule of law. Across the world, religious people engaged in escalated levels of violence calling it holy even when it was clear to so many that to do so was suicidal.

Suddenly it was clear that to be religious in the 21st century was to be interreligious. As Karl Rahner had earlier put it, “Today everyone is the next-door neighbor and spiritual neighbor of everyone else in the world.”

The 20th century assumption that religion had become irrelevant to everyday life was proved false. At the beginning of this new century, to quote James Carroll, “The centrality of religion to life on earth, for better and for worse, had made itself very clear in a very short time.”

We felt we were in the midst of religious earthquakes. We saw the tectonic plates shifting daily underneath our feet--not only in Christianity, but in Judaism, Islam and other religions as well. Many of us began to see that no longer could we practice religion as usual, as though nothing had happened. Because of our sense of this new interreligious era we had to begin asking very important questions.

What is the impact of certain beliefs on those who do not share them? Hasn’t the time passed for religion to cease and desist from teaching in any way that violence is sacred? The writings of James Carroll became a seminar for many across this country and beyond, myself included, who want the church to be much more about inspiration than institutional preservation, and who want religion to be rational and compassionate rather than the fuel for wildfires of religious extremism, violence, discrimination, and injustice.

Several months ago at All Saints we began critiquing those Christian theologies which claim that God cannot forgive persons without a sacrificial penalty being paid by Jesus on the cross. That became our first tectonic shift. There have been others.
.
Now James Carroll returns to All Saints as a continuing resource of this project of calling Christianity back to its essence. He is writing a book on the new church that is emerging and will be with us Sunday in the Rector’s Forum for a conversation about this liberating venture. Come to learn; come with questions; come to be both shaken and empowered.
=====
More about James Carroll to come. Here's one of his earlier presentations at All Saints -- Iraq, Faith & Self-Criticism
.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Rev. Russell:

I want to make sure I understand clearly: Does this posting say that Christ did not die for our sins?

A sinner saved by God's Grace

Jim from Michigan

SUSAN RUSSELL said...

I believe it says something I have argued frequently -- and at length -- on this blog: That the point of Jesus' death was His resurrection not his sacrificial atonement for our sins.

If you're new to the conversation check back earlier this year around Holy Week/Good Friday.

In a nutshell, it's about sinners being saved by God's Grace ... not by God killing his son.

Anonymous said...

But Susan, what about:
"We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you,
BECAUSE BY YOUR HOLY CROSS YOU HAVE REDEEMED THE WORLD." (BCP 281)
or
"By his blood, he reconciled us.
By His wounds we are healed." (BCP 370)
or
"By the cross and passion of your Son our Lord,
BRING US WITH ALL YOUR SAINTS TO THE JOY OF HIS RESURRECTION." (BCP 269)

The Prayer Book is wrong, too??? Is there ANYTHING that should remain standing in this Church?

Should your viewpoint be voted on at the next General Convention?

SUSAN RUSSELL said...

OK guys ... it's been a long Sunday for a parish priest ... if you've got questions about my theology of the cross check out some of the stuff I wrote last Lent & Holy Week. Maybe I'll blog more about it later.

Here's the bottom line for me: they call it "the mystery of faith" for a reason:

Christ has died.
Christ is risen.
Christ will come again.