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What follows is part two of my interview with Alex Doherty for the New Left Project:

2. In your sermons you take biblical stories to have metaphorical but not literal truth. What is a metaphorical approach to reading the bible?

If the Bible were literally true we would not need it. We do not need symbols for things on the surface of our experience, but the more deeply we wish to speak of life, the more we need poetry and ritual. . Reason does very well at apprehending spacial affairs like matter, it is not so good at apprehending time. Symbols describe aspects of life that are invisible at any one moment but play out over time.

As I studied the stories of the Bible I realized that they were often Jewish versions of much older stories. They weren’t about actual people. They were poems about life as a human experiences it. The figures in the stories weren’t historical but allegorical representations of experiential lessons. Science and history are attempts to describe our experiences from the outside in. Art is the attempt to express those same experiences from the inside out. Religion is that intuitive act that balances those two vital concerns. As the word implies, religion is reconnecting the pieces of our experience into a meaningful whole. We never have enough information, so that effort requires faith. We never can get complete control of events, so it requires hope. We are never completely what we strive to be, so it requires forgiveness and love.

If you want to skip ahead of this series and read the whole article, it can be found here.

Corporate interests are conspiring to pillage the pensions of people who still work in the public sector…

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Tomorrow I will begin a three week study at Seton Cove on the pre-Christian roots of Christianity. We will look at earlier pagan versions of Jesus’ miracle stories that show (to me anyway) the stories were to be understood as teaching illustrations, not as claims of supernatural power. This hymn by Cleanthes was clearly an inspiration to Paul, and may have been part of what John meant when he said, “In the beginning was the word.”

CLEANTHES’ HYMN TO ZEUS
(tr. M. A. C. Ellery, 1976)

Cleanthes (331-232 B.C.) was a disciple of Zeno the Stoic.

Most glorious of the immortals, invoked by many names, ever all-powerful,
Zeus, the First Cause of Nature, who rules all things with Law,
Hail! It is right for mortals to call upon you,
since from you we have our being, we whose lot it is to be God’s image,
we alone of all mortal creatures that live and move upon the earth.
Accordingly, I will praise you with my hymn and ever sing of your might.
The whole universe, spinning around the earth,
goes wherever you lead it and is willingly guided by you.
So great is the servant which you hold in your invincible hands,
your eternal, two-edged, lightning-forked thunderbolt.
By its strokes all the works of nature came to be established,
and with it you guide the universal Word of Reason which moves through all creation,
mingling with the great sun and the small stars.
O God, without you nothing comes to be on earth,
neither in the region of the heavenly poles, nor in the sea,
except what evil (human beings) do in their folly.
But you know how to make extraordinary things suitable,
and how to bring order forth from chaos; and even that which is unlovely is lovely to you.
For thus you have joined all things, the good with the bad, into one,
so that the eternal Word of all came to be one.
This Word, however, evil mortals flee, poor wretches;
though they are desirous of good things for their possession,
they neither see nor listen to God’s universal Law;
and yet, if they obey it intelligently, they would have the good life.
But they are senselessly driven to one evil after another:
some are eager for fame, no matter how godlessly it is acquired;
others are set on making money without any orderly principles in their lives;
and others are bent on ease and on the pleasures and delights of the body.
They do these foolish things, time and again,
and are swept along, eagerly defeating all they really wish for.
O Zeus, giver of all, shrouded in dark clouds and holding the vivid bright lightning,
rescue (humans) from painful ignorance.
Scatter that ignorance far from their hearts.
and deign to rule all things in justice.
so that, honored in this way, we may render honor to you in return,
and sing your deeds unceasingly, as befits mortals;
for there is no greater glory for (humans)
or for gods than to justly praise the universal Word of Reason.

We should not love the symbols of religion. We should love through the symbols. The symbols of religion are like corrective lenses for the human condition. When we love the symbols of the sacred instead of the sacred itself, religion leads us away from reality instead of into it. When we fall in love with ideas like “God”, or “Jesus”, or “heaven” — any human understanding of the Mystery; when we think we’re supposed to hold onto the images themselves, then when life changes it can tear our hearts out. This is why the Second Commandment warns us not to worship our images of the sacred. Religion is a bridge, woe to those who try to make of that bridge a home.

Very helpful map detailing global health conditions…

click here

The Pentegon is saying they need a bigger bunker buster bomb in case we’re “forced” to attack Iran. When soldiers are left without sufficient armor in combat, and underpaid to boot, you sometimes wonder if U.S. foreign policy is more about making and selling weapons than any geo-political strategy. Consider our fixation with killer drones…

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Last year I did an interview with Alex Doherty of the New Left Project.  This week I will run the interview as a serial, each day posting one of the six questions he asked.  The link to their website is at the bottom of this post.

1. Your journey seems to have been one of increasing politicization but without moving away from religion – can you describe that journey for us?

To me, religion is a fancy word for how we build our frame of meaning and politics is just a fancy word for how we treat each other. As a child I learned an apolitical version of Christianity and was duly offended if a preacher ever brought up social issues in a sermon. Religion, I was taught, was a personal relationship with Jesus. So I could sing “Jesus loves the little children, but did not feel any need to confront the possibility that my nation might be dropping napalm on them.

Nor did I consider myself political in college or seminary. Of course, I was political, I just didn’t know it because the religious worldview I had been taught was so in line with the dominant culture that my own politics were invisible to me. In my mind, I was just a white Christian male who happened to worship a white male version of Christ.

I wasn’t selling out consciously, but it was in my interest not to notice the power system that left me in a place of privilege. By viewing religion as politically neutral, I could disguise the unfair advantages that came from being a white Christian heterosexual male, My complicity with various oppressions was unconscious, but I knew enough not to explore other ways of thinking, so, I some level, I knew what I was doing.

When I began to work with survivors of rape I could feel the role my male privilege played in their trauma. Later, that insight grew to include what my heterosexual privilege meant to gay and lesbian persons. Finally, I came to understand that justice has to include the whole human family. I realize that most leftists have a well deserved contempt for religion, but I personally came to hear the gospel as a call to justice for all people, which is how many oppressed people have heard it from the beginning.

If you want to skip ahead of this series and read the whole article can be found here.

You have to at least admit that FOX is consistent at misrepresenting the poor and this President.
Click here.

It seems to me the church set itself up to be filled with hypocrites when it linked God with heaven and Satan with hell. Who wouldn’t at least pretend to love goodness if that is your ticket to a reward? Who wouldn’t at least pretend to hate evil if they knew it would be caught and punished? Such a religion is born of fear and leads not to love but only an enlarged and calculating selfishness.

Those who truly love would pay any cost for it. The true lovers of God would be those willing to go to hell if they knew that’s where love lived. I do not know about the afterlife, but in this world serving evil is much more likely to give you a golden mansion, and serving all God’s children is much more likely to put you through hell. The true lover of God chooses the punishments of love over the rewards of cruelty.

Every mystic is a one trick pony. If someone loves you, love them back. If someone hates you love them back. Thus and only thus is the world filled with love.

Very nice treatment of some of what went wrong with banking before the collapse.
click here.