jimrigby.org

A scientist in India faces possible charges for revealing that the water coming from a statue of Jesus wasn’t coming from miraculous sources, but from a stopped up drain in a nearby restroom. Leaders of two Catholic laity organizations have pressed charges against him for “deliberately hurting religious feelings and attempting malicious acts intended to outrage the religious sentiments of any class or community.” It is a wonderful thing to be moved by the mystery of existence, it is something else to turn that feeling into a magical belief system. To quote Saint Stevie, “When you believe in things you don’t understand, you suffer. Superstition ain’t the way.”

To read article, click here.

There was once a mouse who lived in an attic. One day she gave birth to a bunch of baby mice on an old monopoly board. Afterward, she fell asleep exhausted. Each of the baby mice looked down and assumed the place they had been born on the monopoly board was their station in life.

The mouse born on Boardwalk Avenue looked down on the mouse born on Mediterranean Avenue, and because every mouse got the same number of turns and two hundred dollars when they crossed “Go,” they assumed the arrangements were fair. When the mother mouse awoke she found some of her children rich and others poor. Some of her children had hotels, others were without homes. Some of her babies were even in jail.

The mouse born on Boardwalk ran up to the mother and blurted, “Aren’t you proud of me? I have been your most successful child. I even gave charity to some of your more disappointing children!” The mother mouse, shook her head and replied, “No one is a success who has forgotten to care for their brothers and sisters. You owed them more than charity, you owed them justice. I am not ashamed of my poorer children. They have failed at a game they never should have had to play, but you have failed at life itself.”

When I left my childhood home to go to college, I determined to develop a religious understanding that was true for all people and for all times. Of course, every religion has particularities, and no one completely escapes the limits of their place and time, but I was no longer interested in a God who loved some but not others, or a truth that worked in one place but not another. In other words, if I was going to bet my life on something, it needed to be three things: fundamental and universal and kind.

I also determined not to be a mere skeptic and live an uncommitted life. Just as I did not wish to live out an inherited faith, neither did I want to be content merely ridiculing the imperfect understanding of others. I resolved not to make my fundamental decisions out of guilt or shame.

Those determinations have acted like a filter or a talisman in my life. I still have had many selfish and foolish moments, but I intuitively knew not to base my life on second hand beliefs, nor to ever surrender responsibility to the church or state for how I would treat my fellow human beings.

There is no easy or safe path but we cannot go as far wrong if we hold the talisman to serve only that which is fundamentally true and universally helpful.

The patriot I would like to see today:

-Is more concerned with our nation being ethically great than militarily powerful.
-Wants our nation to be the example for the world, not the exception.
-Considers “citizen” to be the highest office in the land.
-Celebrates diplomats as fully as soldiers.
-Tells the story of our nation in a way we can learn from our mistakes.
-Considers pro-American propaganda to be a kind of drunkeness.
-Does not confuse capitalism with democracy,
-Nor calls financial success “the American Dream.”
-Understands we do more to help our country by civic duty than by waving flags.

Jesus said that we are to share the world in common but there aren’t probably two Christians in the world who believe it. Instead, we try to fit his teachings within our more fundamental belief in property and the right of our nation to dominate others.

The problems we face in the world are truly insurmountable until we understand two things. First, that we cannot organize our world based on violence. And, second, that amassing personal property demands that we commit acts of violence to protect it.

A world delineated by property rights means that some are born into wealth and others outside of it. We cannot build a just world on this foundation of privilege for some and poverty for others. The violence we celebrate on July 4th is not unrelated to the toys we celebrate at Christmas. As long as our economy is based on property rights instead of human rights, we will drift to war for reasons invisible to us. These days Cain does not need to kill Abel, but simply trust the market to do it for him.

I tripped across a site on the internet that had the following blurb before an article:

“The Rev. Jim Rigby is pastor of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Austin, TX, and a long time activist in movements concerned with gender, racial, and economic justice. Translation: he is an apostate and a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Anyone promoting the homosexual agenda in the name of Christ is deceived and a deceiver big time.” Bill Muehlenberg, Culture Watch, June 17, 2012

From time to time I get called a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” and so I decided to think about that metaphor a bit today. My qualifications for the title, according to this author, are apparently that I am concerned about gender, racial and economic justice issues. Obviously, no real Christian man would challenge his own privilege in this culture. The obvious implication of my advocacy of gay rights is that I’m secretly gay. And let’s be honest. My advocacy of women’s issues proves I’m probably secretly a woman, too. When I march for immigrate rights, you can be sure that I myself was probably born in Kenya next to President You Know Who.

These articles usually pose as rational responses to my emotionally driven self-delusion. But their arguments are peppered with words like “stupid” and “apostate” as if such insults were seamless parts of an Aristotelian syllogism. I am always genuinely amazed that such attacks never seem to directly confront my real arguments, but, instead dismiss whatever I say as an example of my sinister motives. “Mr. Rigby says “x” but he really means “y.” But these self-appointed defenders of the faith really have no real choice. If one has set up for oneself the task of rationally defending an irrational prejudice, the one thing one cannot do is remain rational for long.

The metaphor of a wolf in sheep’s clothing seems particularly unfortunate for the point they are trying to make. A sheep is a symbol of gentleness. A wolf is a symbol of cruelty. So a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” would be someone who pretends to be kind and gentle, but is actually abusive. If my crime consists in reducing Christ’s message to one of gentleness when, in fact, he actually wants us to sit in righteous judgment over sinners, then wouldn’t I really be a sheep in wolf’s clothing?

Why must these “gentle” ministers bare their fangs so pitilessly against any who say that Jesus taught us not to judge one another? Because, when Christ’s message of grace has been replaced by one of vindictive moralistic cruelty, then the actual teachings of Jesus are the ultimate heresy.

When we were children we played at making mud pies. In imitation of one parent, we made “chocolate” pies by stirring mud in a pan. In imitation of our other parent we might go to work in make believe cars carrying a “briefcase” made of cardboard. Much of what passes for religion is similar to children playing in their parents clothes. Great saints are rare. It is much more common to find those who repeat the words and actions of the great examples. Such imitations capture the external appearance of piety and faith, but fall short of the one thing that makes religion great, which is love.

We can still learn from such imitative religion. We can imagine what a parent might do for a living if we watch the child’s imitation. If the child crawls under a wagon we might reasonably assume that the parent is a mechanic. A child who stands behind a box and pounds on a book is probably the offspring of a preacher. We might even figure out what the child had for dinner by seeing their impression of the cooking process. We can learn much from observing such impressions, but we never want to eat the meal they have cooked.

Even scripture is an uneven affair. The church teaches that one Spirit inspired the whole Bible; still, it is quite clear that scripture was written down by people at various levels of understanding. We must face the disturbing truth that scripture seems to be spoken at these different levels. How can we tell the difference between a great and obscure revelation? It’s not really so hard. Jesus said that when we understand any scripture in its fullness we will hear a call to love. Childish religion isn’t like that. It doesn’t really feed or clothe us. It doesn’t give us light for living and loving. As Jesus said so many times, the test is always love. If we remember this one teaching, sifting through scripture is no more difficult than distinguish between pies made of real chocolate and ones made of mud.

It seems to me that “conservative” and “liberal” are a false dividing line for politics. The stereotype of a liberal is someone who just makes the rules up and wants change for change’s sake. The stereotype of a conservative is someone afraid of any change, and more afraid of any new thought.
You’ve heard the jokes:

“A liberal is just a conservative that hasn’t been mugged yet.”
“A conservative is someone who believes nothing should be done for the first time.”
“A liberal is someone who wants to be generous with other people’s money.”
“A conservative is someone who believes words of the dead should carry more weight than those of the living.”

Since “conservative’ and “liberal” are relative points on a continuum, we need to clarify what we are being conservative and liberal about. Neither response is sane out of context. To always be conservative would be like preferring to turn our car right regardless of where we really needed to go. Obviously, always being liberal would be the same image inverted.
Neither position is necessarily based on character or virtue. They are more like mindsets or moods. Unfortunately, the two party system can predispose us to divide into two camps on any issue. What will usually be missing in that discussion will be most important topic- our common good.

I vow not to let anything that happens this day rob me of my inner peace.
I promise to treat every ignorant word as opportunity to teach,
Every unfortunate event as a chance to learn,
And every happy moment as an opportunity to be grateful,
Without trying to possess it, control it, or make it permanent.
I vow to live this day in my own skin, not wishing I were different,
But, instead, striving to make my life a work of art.
I vow to spend this day as a good citizen of the whole,
And to be an ambassador for the common good.
I will be grateful for this day of life, remembering that the Universe owes me nothing.
Should I break any part of my vow, I will give no place to remorse, or shame,
But time and time again, I will return to my path.

Scripture is a poem that awakens our hearts and minds, not a paper and ink god that replaces them. Scripture is not a bully that tells us what to think and do. It is an illumination that tells us who we are. When we take the symbols of scripture literally, it is like having a watch that is not set to a standard time, or a compass not alligned to the magnetic field. We do not worship the symbols of religion as real. We worship through the symbols into reality.