FredP

If I have its been too long ago. Where can I find it? I checked in "Aion" and "Alchemical Studies", both books I happen to have on hand and I don't see it. Do you know of an on-line source where the essay can be read in its entirety? lily <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I'm not sure it's online in its entirety (it's pretty long). It can be found in a smaller collection called Psychology and Western Religion, along with another great essay called "A Psychological Approach to the Dogma of the Trinity." The two make up the lion's share of the book. I have no doubt you'd dig them both.

I had a hunch you'd like this. Have you ever read Jung's essay called "Transformation Symbolism in the Mass"?

Exactly. Spong practically foams at the mouth in his virulent rejection of anything remotely orthodox. I think they both ultimately fail to offer a constructive enough alternative, but then I can't expect them to agree with me down the line either. I'll make my case someday.

Well, it's certainly more in-line with the historical understanding of the text. I've seen newer translations of passages (liberal and "hip/edgy" evangelical alike) that make me shudder. I'd rather start with a reputable scholarly translation and deal with these kinds of individual issues as they come up. You're only a few years early for mine. Marcus Borg's Reading the Bible Again For the First Time and The Heart of Christianity are good introductions.

You are not the appointed spokesperson for Progressive Christianity. Social justice is immensely important to me personally, but it is not what I'm referring to when I identify myself as a Progressive Christian. Progressive Christianity means just what it says: a movement to explore the meaning and practice of Christianity in a Progressive context. You can't throw your arms around the world with this label; it has to mean something more than a social agenda. My committment to Progressive Christianity will probably mean that my ideas dovetail significantly with those of other belief traditions, and that I won't be trying to convert them to a different outward religious form. It will even probably mean that our social agendas will overlap significantly. But a Zen Buddhist is not a Progressive Christian, nor would he identify himself as such. Do you see the difference?

You mean God cares more about the poor than about my sex life?

I actually really dislike "study Bibles." There is a real psychological force to seeing biblical commentary right there on the page, that subtly blurs the distinction between the original text and the (typically ideologically-directed) interpretation. A lot of people don't realize how influential the Ryrie Study Bible was to the rise of Protestant Fundamentalism in America in the early '20's. So personally, I'd steer away from those types of "study Bibles" and get yourself a book to take in on the side. As for versions, I think the New Jerusalem and NRSV are, scholarly and literarily speaking, the best you can find. NIV is pretty good too.

Etymologically, the word remember means to put back together what was taken apart (dismembered). So I don't think that "Do this in rememberance of Me" is some sort of mundane exhoration to hold the Last Supper in memorial. If what I've been suggesting is true -- that Jesus Christ is a sign of the Divine-human state of being in which we originally share -- then the call to rememberance means that by doing this, you literally put God and nature back together again. More accurately, you disclose in the world of space and time the Eternal rememberance of God and the world. In this sense, Eucharist and Crucifixion are the same thing. Which is why the body/bread is broken and wine/blood pours out...

The goal of Christianity is to be a witness to, and a sign of, the good news that the world comes from God, and is restored to God, and that a particular kind of life -- personal, social, spiritual, etc. -- necessarily flows from that. Not "helping the planet," though this is certainly a side-effect, and one that there should be a whole lot more of at that. I know you know this, but I felt it was worth mentioning.

Well, I never said that. Especially in traditions which view baptism as an "outward sign of an inward event," there's a huge difference between recognizing the validity of your baptism and recognizing the authenticity of your faith. I suppose in any tradition, you're going to have those who view it as a magical rite and those who see it as a sign of consecration. Much along the lines of what I was talking about re: Transubstantiation in my post yesterday. Isn't it nice when things dovetail like that?

Well, you said yourself that your baptism in JW was an initiation into a very limited, deficient understanding of God. Maybe "invalid" sounds harsh; but you yourself have rejected this understanding, so why would you be so turned off by a church who rejects it as well?

It may well be that most churches wouldn't recognize JW baptism as Christian baptism. Might vary from church to church though.

I was baptized Lutheran as an infant, then re-baptized ... err, Baptist? ... around elementary school age. Then confirmed Catholic as an adult. Point there is, most churches (other than the Fund. type) won't rebaptize you as an adult anyway. Baptism is a "one-time only" sacrament; ex. as I said, the Fund. type who don't recognize infant baptism as valid baptism. Other than that, I do understand what you're trying to say. If you're not drawn to it, why go through the motions? A lot of why I'm drawn to the sacraments is the historical continuity. Christian baptism has been going on for thousands of years... and Christian baptism draws on traditions that are even older, although it's as different from them as it is similar. I like the thought of, "Wow, for nearly 2,000 years people have been doing this, in much the same way." So that might be something that would draw you. There are negative connotations to almost everything. I don't stop listening to Beethoven just because I've seen A Clockwork Orange.

Lndz, I sincerely appreciate your enthusiasm on this subject, and I wish more young people were as passionate about what's going on in their country as you are. I have absolutely no love for George W. Bush or the Republican party at large, as I have repeatedly made known. That being said, I hope you can take this in the most charitable way possible. While your posts are strong on enthusiasm, they are also so full of red herrings and non sequiturs (sorry for the philosophical lingo, but it is a debate board), that it's difficult to know quite how to reply. (Thanks to James for trying.) You consistently respond to objections by pasting in copious amounts of quotes, and by making emotional appeals that barely relate to the objection raised. An obvious example: What does elementary school kids teasing each other about religion have to do with anything we're talking about here? You've all but credited Bush's use of Christianity with creating this problem, which is frankly ridiculous; but you seem to think by lots of capital letters and exclamation points, and threats of more, that you are arguing for something. I was a young philosophy major once; I understand the lure of enthusiasm! There's so much afternoon talk show philosophy going on out there, on TV and on the Net. It's so easy to get pulled in. But I also understand that enthusiasm is the best catalyst for change. I ask you, with all the sincerity I can muster, that you channel your enthusiasm into a real rigorous, in-depth study of some of these issues. I've already recommended reading Jim Wallis' God's Politics as a great start. But whatever you do, find some well-argued resources, and really get into them. Raise yourself above all the quote-flinging and bumper sticker politics that goes on out there -- on both sides of the fence. Take your Ben Franklin quote to heart! Fred

I guess what I'm trying to say is: why does a spiritual reading of the gospel material require a defense, when a straightforward literal one doesn't? "That's just what it says" isn't a defense: I'm reading the same text you are. "The Church teaches that that is what it means" is starting to grasp the scope of the problem: now we're at least self-consciously arguing about assumptions. If you've put yourself under the teaching authority of the Church, that will settle it for you, and this whole discussion will seem to be pandering about whose idiosyncratic reading is better than whose. If you haven't, you may or may not regard traditional doctrine with great respect (I do), but you aren't operating under the assumption that it is correct simply by virtue of its authority (that's the key). [As an editorial aside, I realize that this interpretation thing is not a cosmetic issue that we can simply agree to disagree about. It really does strike at the heart of our differences. For many people, it is the single defining element of the Christian system, upon which everything else rests. For me personally, it was the single thread that unraveled everything. Those are radically different approaches to the same raw material. I really appreciate those of you who come here as non-progressives to share your convictions and keep us on our toes.]

My church growing up did this too, usually referred to as "Baby Dedication" or some such. I don't have a real difficulty with infant baptism... I think it kind of symbolizes that, after we've been looking for God for some time, we realize that God started looking for us first.

Wouldn't this be his view of Pope John Paul II then? Cardinal Ratzinger is Pope Benedict.

What about having an a priori assumption that the obvious, straightforward meaning of a biblical text is what God intended to convey by it? Bottom line is: we both bring assumptions to this enterprise of understanding Scripture. I've tried to be as explicit as possible about mine. I do not mind people bringing assumptions to the table; in fact I encourage it. What else could we do? What I reject is the idea (it's actually a very modern one) that the Bible plainly both tells us exactly what it means, and provides ample evidence for that meaning, without relying on any other more foundational assumptions. I'm not talking about an either-or of "Do you believe in God or science?" -- personally, I believe God transcends science in every conceivable way. The question is, what presuppositions do you bring to interpreting the Bible? I don't believe that miracles are categorically out of the question, or that the laws of the physical universe constrain God's activity (any such constraint is self-imposed); but I also do not think that just because the Bible apparently says a miracle occured, that it just plain occured, and that's the final word on the matter. There's a deep self-referentiality problem to the idea that the Bible instructs us on how to interpret itself, and the problem doesn't go away by taking it at its most straightforward reading. The Catholic Church, incidentally, doesn't read the Bible this way, for that very reason. The authority to interpret comes directly from Christ, passed down to the teaching office of the Church through ordination. In this case, the operative assumption is that Jesus really envisioned a Catholic Church based on a hierarchical teaching authority, with Peter at its head, and that the chain is relatively unbroken. It's a two-way circular authorization (Bible <-> Magisterium), rather than a one-way one (Bible only). I'm not sure which one takes more faith to believe. Anyway... The Bible is not an almanac, a biography, or a scientific treatise. The Gospels are biographical, but they're not biographies. The fact that they contain numerous mundane details without any obvious "spiritual" meaning, doesn't mean the the purpose of the text is therefore historical rememberance, and so the event happened the way the text says it does. The purpose of the Gospel is to reveal the good news of Christ through Jesus. The mode is sometimes epic, sometimes biographical, sometimes liturgical. But to read each passage through an obvious, straightforward lens is still an assumption, not a lack of one.

Great thought! A progressive stance on abortion does not mean we're asking for the freedom to kill fetuses. I would love nothing more than the end of the abortion era, and the dawning of an age where every conceived child can enter the world and be cared for as they deserve.

I think there are two important things that are trying to come out of this discussion: 1) In our natural being, we are born, we grow, we develop, we die. We participate in a developmental process that is going on all around us, from the infinitessimal to the cosmic. As such, what is appropriate to a person at one level of understanding is inappropriate to someone at another. It is futile at best -- and destructive at worst -- to teach higher spiritual teachings and practices to those who have just begun a spiritual path, or to those who are still curious and don't even know if they want one. 2) In our eternal being, we are completely and utterly God, we have never stopped being God, we never will stop being God, we'll never become less God than God, and we'll never become more God than a speck of sand on the seashore. As such, each and every person is God's child, welcome at God's table, heir to the blessings of the life of God's good creation. If we don't try to steer between these two moorings, we're lost; but how to tie the two together? For one thing, we all agree that the process of initiation and growth is equally, freely available to all. The freedom to practice medicine means that anyone (economic situations being equal) can go to medical school: not that anyone can walk into the operating room and perform surgeries. For another thing, if the process is worth its salt, the participants know full well that their growth and development doesn't bring them closer to God in any eternal way, and that God remains both utterly beyond reach, and utterly at the true center of each of us, no matter who we are or how "evolved" we imagine ourselves. If it turns into a power play, that's the surest sign that the process has gone wrong somewhere. It's true that the practice of communion will differ based on how it's understood: is it part of the initiation process (1), or part of the recognition of our eternal status as utterly equal before God (2)? How we answer that question will probably determine the rules of our practice of it. The more important question might be beyond the specifics: how do we order our worship, so that neither of these ingredients is lost?

The Anglican/Episcopal tradition uses the notion of "real presence," which is a little vaguer, but it's much closer to it than the congregational belief that it's merely a memorial. I think Lutherans and Methodists probably take yet another step back, though if I'm correct, UMC does use the term "real presence" as well. Personally, I think Transubstantiation is one of the hidden jewels of Christian doctrine, and is in fact the key to understanding my entire Christology. In a nutshell: the Incarnation is so complete, that even a wafer of bread and a gulp of wine reveal the fullness of Christ without lacking anything. Of course, in their natural, outward form, they are precisely bread and wine, and never cease to be so. The conventional meaning, that they physically become flesh and blood, has never even been the official doctrine of Transubstantiation (which is that the essential substance of the bread and wine becomes the essential substance of the body and blood of Christ, not that their accidental physical characteristics become those of the man Jesus). What makes this the key to my entire Christological framework? Put the human being Jesus into the category of accidental physical characteristics, and Jesus Christ into the category of essential substance, and you've pretty much got it. The Virgin Birth, Resurrection, Ascension, Second Coming, etc. don't refer to magical transmutations of the physical matter of Jesus' human person. As for his human person, it was precisely as it was, just as bread and wine are what they are. Just as the bread and wine's "becoming the body and blood of Jesus Christ" doesn't mean that they magically transform into some other kind of material; so these theological statements about Jesus don't preclude his complete and utter humanity (as orthodoxy insists that they mustn't). It is perhaps tempting to transpose the eternal qualities of higher things down into "natural substance" as magical and legendary qualities; and perhaps it is truer to think of Jesus in this magical way, than to think that he was "just a man." But it's truer still to see in him Christ revealed, the hope of all glory, the way of being from which we come, and to which we are yet called. A way of being so competely and utterly transfused by God's presence, that even bread and wine partake fully.

But why would he do that??

Well, one reasonable response is that people don't walk on water, tell storms to stop, come back from the dead, or float up into the sky; and so when the Bible speaks of these things, it must not be referring to historical-scientific happenings, whether it seems to be doing so or not. Of course, your objection will be to say that the Bible judges our understanding of what is possible, and that is perfectly true, as far as it goes. But it's a long way from presuming that, unless there are significant reasons to the contrary, the obvious, straightforward reading of a Biblical text is automatically true. You may be committed to this view, or some more nuanced version of it, but it's not the only "reasonable" one, and it's not the only one that takes the biblical witness seriously.

Quite right. I am aware of this, but unfairly left it out of my original post! One thing to keep in mind is Ken Wilber's notion of an "average" or "dominant" vs. a "highest" mode of cultural consciousness. The average mode 2,000 years ago wasn't at the level of differentiating these various meanings, but those at the edge clearly were, and much of their brilliance has come down to us via the Bible. But I also think there's a fair amount of biblical material that isn't. I'm not completely antagonistic to it, but I have yet to be convinced by it in any form. Beyond believing that God is incarnated anew in every moment of creation, that is.

I agree that the biblical authors often explicitly wrote in "literal" language about spiritual realities, knowing full well that they would be appreciated by differently developed readers in different ways. I think the letters of St. Paul and John's Gospel are clearly in this category. I don't see the evidence quite as strongly in the synoptics (I think a "collapsing" of meanings was already underway), but I definitely don't discount the possibility that it was going on there too. I hadn't considered the reincarnation angle on the Ps. 8 passage before. That does shed an interesting light on it. It is pretty generally believed by scholars that there was a graudal progression in Judaism from a belief in no afterlife (or at least a really shadowy one), to a belief in a general resurrection. The Christian use of Ps. 8 to confirm the idea that Jesus' resurrection was the beginning of the general resurrection, fits quite well into this progression without relying on any reincarnation controversy though, so I'm personally a little bit hesitant to introduce it. That's just me. Really? Maybe I worded something badly. On the contrary, I think these NT passages are very much not literal history. I meant to say that, when the historical and spiritual modes of perception are not yet differentiated, the two sets of meanings get collapsed down into one, such that a passage like Ps. 8 directly implies certain historical/scientific facts, such as that Jesus' body could not have been left to rot in the tomb. But that implication is due to collapsing the two sets of meanings down to one. I didn't mean that was my view.