According to the Inter-Lutheran Commission on Worship (ILCW) Lectionary (1973), as contained in the Lutheran Book of Worship (1978) and Lutheran Worship (1982)

Above:  A Vineyard

Image in the Public Domain

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Acts 8:26-40

Psalm 22:24-30 (LBW) or Psalm 22:25-31 (LW)

1 John 3:18-24

John 15:1-8

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O God, form the minds of your faithful people into a single will. 

Make us love what you command and desire what you promise,

that, amid, all the changes of this world,

our hearts may be fixed where true joy is found;

through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord,

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, now and forever.  Amen.

—Lutheran Book of Worship (1978), 22

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O God, you make the minds of your faithful to be of one will;

therefore grant to your people that they may love what you command

and desire what you promise,

that among the manifold changes of this age our hearts

may ever be fixed where true joys are to be found;

through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord,

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, now and forever.  Amen.

—Lutheran Worship (1982), 53

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A common thread running through the readings for this Sunday is asking and receiving.  For example:

Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.  And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.

–1 John 3:21-23, Revised Standard Version–Second Catholic Edition (2002)

In other words, if we want what God desires, and if we pray for that, we will receive it.  That makes sense.  This message contradicts Prosperity Theology, an old heresy popular in certain quarters these days.  If I, for example, need reliable transportation, praying for that is morally and spiritually acceptable.  And I may receive a Chevrolet, not a Cadillac.  I will, however, get from Point A to Point B safely and reliably.  On a related note, the good life, in terms of the Book of Psalms, includes having enough for each day, not necessarily being wealthy.

Elsewhere in the New Testament, one can read about having the mind of Christ.  That concept applies to the material for today.  We have Jesus as, among other things, our role model.  We, as Christians, must follow his example.  We must love as he loved.  When we consider that Christ’s love led to his execution, we realize that this mandate is serious business, not a mere slogan.  The Right Reverend Robert C. Wright, the Episcopal Bishop of Atlanta, says to

love like Jesus.

Bishop Wright understands that this is serious business, not a mere slogan.

Think, O reader, what may happen to you if you were to love like Jesus in your context and to pray for causes consistent with the will of God?  How would that change you?  How would it change your community, your nation-state, and the world?  What repercussions might you face for loving like Jesus?  How many professing Christians would oppose you?

During my research for my M.A. thesis, I found a case in point.  J. Robert Harris was the pastor of the Fort Gaines Baptist Church, Fort Gaines, Georgia, in the early and middle 1950s.  He left that position under a cloud between August and November 1955.  The chatty local newspaper never mentioned his departure, which followed either his firing or his forced resignation.  (I read two versions of the story.)  Harris had publicly supported the United States Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and involved an African-American youth in his church’s vacation Bible school.  Harris became the pastor of the Plains Baptist Church, Plains, Georgia, which he served until his resignation in the late 1960s.  Failing health was the official cause of the resignation.  However, the pastor’s recent sermon in favor of civil rights had been unpopular with his congregation.  Harris had once preached a sermon in which he had asked his flock, in so many words:

If being Christian were a crime, would there be enough evidence to convict you?

In the case of J. Robert Harris, the answer was affirmative.  He loved like Jesus and ran afoul of other professing Christians entrenched in racist social norms.

Loving like Jesus makes one a radical in a world with upside-down standards.  Loving like Jesus entails living the Golden Rule.  Loving like Jesus entails living both versions of the Beatitudes (Matthew 5 and Luke 6).  Loving like Jesus entails bearing much fruit (John 15:8).

Psalm 22 speaks of God acting.  In Hebrew thought, the actions of God reveal the divine character.  Likewise, my actions reveal my character.  And your actions, O reader, reveal your character.  Is it a godly character?

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

MARCH 22, 2023 COMMON ERA

THE TWENTY-FIFTH DAY OF LENT

THE FEAST OF SAINT DEOGRATIAS, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP OF CARTHAGE

THE FEAST OF EMMANUEL MOURNIER, FRENCH PERSONALIST PHILOSOPHER

THE FEAST OF JAMES DE KOVEN, EPISCOPAL PRIEST

THE FEAST OF THOMAS HUGHES, BRITISH SOCIAL REFORMER AND MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT

THE FEAST OF WILLIAM EDWARD HICKSON, ENGLISH MUSIC EDUCATOR AND SOCIAL REFORMER

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Adapted from this post

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READING THE BOOK OF PSALMS

PART XI

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Psalm 12

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I write this post in politically perilous times.  A vocal element of the body politic in the United States of America–my homeland–is openly authoritarian and fascistic in its inclination.  Some elected members of the United States Congress support Russia in its war against the people of Ukraine and with that the insurrection of January 6, 2021, had succeeded.  They say so openly.  Antisemitism is more commonplace and edging back into the political mainstream.  So is its equally vile cousin, Christian Nationalism, laced with racism.

Words matter in the Bible.  Mythology tells us that God spoke the created order into existence (Genesis 1).  The Law of Moses condemns bearing false witness.  The penalty for perjury in the Law of Moses is to suffer the same fate one would have had the innocent person suffer.  Psalm 12 condemns those with slippery and slick language–those with pernicious speech and flattering words.  The imagery of cutting off lips and cutting off tongues is vivid in Psalm 12.  This may disturb a reader, but, in context, those lips and tongues form words that serve as a weapon or an army for the wicked.

Poetry is poetry, of course.  I oppose maiming anyone, especially in the name of God.  Neither does this text favor maiming any person.  Psalm 12 uses shocking language to attract attention.  Shocking and sometimes inexact language is a rhetorical tool commonplace in the prophetic books and the Book of Psalms.

Words matter.  Just as God, mythologically, spoke creation into existence, our words–in oral and written forms–help to shape our circumstances and those of others.  This is why libel and slander are offenses that lead to court cases.  This is why language that provokes violence falls outside the bounds of constitutional protection.  This why if I were to engage in speech that led to someone’s needless injury or death, I would be criminally liable.  I am a nice person who tries to keep faith with objective reality and live peaceably with others individuals in community, fortunately.

We ought to interpret Psalm 12 in the context of mutuality, a virtue hardwired into the Old and New Testaments.  We human beings, who depend entirely upon God, depend upon each other, too.  We are interdependent.  We have responsibilities to and for each other.  So, slick, slippery, and pernicious speech endangers the common good.  Those who engage in such speech may be self-serving, but they also endanger themselves.  The common good is their good, also.

May your words, O reader, build up the common good.  And may you oppose those whose words endanger the common good.  The love of God and your neighbors compels such attitudes and actions.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

DECEMBER 24, 2022 COMMON ERA

CHRISTMAS EVE:  THE LAST DAY OF ADVENT, YEAR A

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READING THE BOOK OF JOB

PART VII

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Job 18:1-19:29

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As I have already written, I have no interest in analyzing the Book of Job line by line.  One can read books in which others have done that.  I own some volumes of that sort.  No, I choose to focus on the proverbial forest and to examine a few trees along the way.

My lens as I write this series of posts is intensely personal.  I know the feeling when the bottom falls out of one’s life.  I report two such periods.  I know the feeling of wishing that I were dead, for that would be easier than continuing to live.  Fortunately, I also know the presence of consoling people at such times.

So, I recoil in disgust at air bags such as Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar.  They are also full of something else, which I leave to your imagination, O reader.  This is a family-rated weblog, after all.  Such pneumatic individuals should not only be slow to speak, but silent.  If they cannot say anything helpful, they ought to say nothing.

Instead, such wind bags–in this case, Bildad the Shuhite–torment Job.  They gloat.  They insult him.  They are rude to a suffering, innocent man.  They blame the victim.  And they do so in the name of God.

Job has a relationship with God, whom he correctly blames for the plight.  This complex relationship leads Job to rely on God as his Kinsman-Redeemer/Avenger/Vindicator (19:25).  This is not a prediction of the resurrection of Jesus, despite the Christian tradition of reading Job 19:25 at and near Easter.  No, this is an expectation that God will defend Job’s rights.  God is Job’s only candidate to fulfill this role because the other relatives are dead, and the alleged friends are gas bags.  And, on that day, the alleged friends will, ironically, suffer the judgment they have predicted will befall Job.

False certainty is dangerous.  It harms the falsely certain person, inflicts damage on that person’s victims, and drives people away from God.  In my culture, many people–especially young people–are rejecting organized religion.  They perceive it as an instrument of intolerance and oppression, as well as a mechanism of control.  They are partially correct; antisemitism, racism, homophobia, sexism, nativism, xenophobia and other sins find theological cover in many sectors of organized religion.  These properly morally outraged critics ought not to reject organized religion entirely.  No, they should reject only the segments of organized religion that practice these sins.

An Episcopal priest I know has a wonderful way of speaking to people who claim not to believe in God.  Father Dann asks them to describe the God in whom they do not believe.  Invariably, they describe a version of God in which he does not believe either.

That priest also says that if being a Christian were not an option, he would be a Jobite:  God is.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

NOVEMBER 28, 2022 COMMON ERA

THE SECOND DAY OF ADVENT, YEAR A

THE FEAST OF SAINT STEPHEN THE YOUNGER, DEFENDER OF ICONS

THE FEAST OF ALBERT GEORGE BUTZER, SR., U.S. PRESBYTERIAN MINISTER AND EDUCATOR

THE FEAST OF KAMEHAMEHA IV AND EMMA ROOKE, KING AND QUEEN OF HAWAI’I

THE FEAST OF JAMES MILLS THOBURN, ISABELLA THOBURN, AND CLARA SWAIN, U.S. METHODIST MISSIONARIES TO INDIA

THE FEAST OF JOSEPH HOFER AND MICHAEL HOFER, U.S. HUTTERITE CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS AND MARTYRS, 1918

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READING LUKE-ACTS, PART XLII

Above:  Icon of Christ Pantocrator

Scan by Kenneth Randolph Taylor

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Luke 17:1-10

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Luke 17:7-10 is one of the passages many Antebellum Southern (U.S.) defenders of race-based chattel slavery twisted to argue that the “Peculiar Institution of the South” was compatible with the Bible.  17:7-10 uses imagery from the social world of the Roman Empire.  However, the passage is about accepting salvation via grace and responding faithfully to God.

Faithful response to God is the core of Luke 17:1-10.  Faithful response to God necessarily spills over into how we think of and behave toward others.  Faithful response precludes leading people astray.  Faithful response requires forgiving the penitent, regardless of how often they sin.  Faithful response entails trusting God.  Faithful response mandates humble service to one another in the name of God.  Faithful response entails imitating God.

Jesus is the ultimate example of faithful response to God.

May we imitate Jesus in imitating God, by grace.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

JANUARY 22, 2022 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF JOHN JULIAN, ANGLICAN PRIEST, HYMN WRITER, AND HYMNOLOGIST

THE FEAST OF ALEXANDER MEN, RUSSIAN ORTHODOX PRIEST AND MARTYR, 1990

THE FEAST OF BENJAMIN LAY, AMERICAN QUAKER ABOLITIONIST

THE FEAST OF SAINT LADISLAO BATTHÁNY-STRATTMAN, AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN ROMAN CATHOLIC PHYSICIAN AND PHILANTHROPIST

THE FEAST OF SAINT VINCENT PALLOTTI, FOUNDER OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE CATHOLIC APOSTOLATE, THE UNION OF CATHOLIC APOSTOLATE, AND THE SISTERS OF THE CATHOLIC APOSTOLATE

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READING LAMENTATIONS, PART II

Above: Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem, Rembrandt van Rijn

Image in the Public Domain

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Lamentations 1:1-22

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The book of Lamentations was written, not simply to memorialize the tragic destruction of Jerusalem, but to interpret the meaning of God’s rigorous treatment of his people to the end that they would learn the lessons of the past and retain their faith in him in the face of overwhelming disaster.

–Theophile J. Meek, in The Interpreter’s Bible, Volume 6 (1956), 5-6

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The two poetic voices in Lamentations 1 are the Poet (verses 1=10, 17) and Fair Zion (verses 11-16, 18-22).

I unpack the Poet’s section first:

1. Widows were vulnerable, dependent upon male relatives.  Jerusalem, once like a princess, has become like a widow in verse 1.
2. The reference to weeping bitterly (or incessantly, depending on translation) in verse 2 indicates intense weeping.
3. The friends (or lovers, depending on translation) in verse 2 were political allies of Judah who did not come to that kingdom’s aid.  The Hebrew word, literally, “lovers,” indicates idolatry.
4. Verse 3 compares the Babylonian Exile to slavery in Egypt.  See Genesis 15:13; Exodus 1:11; Deuteronomy 26:6.
5. Verse 4 overstates the matter; many people remained in Judah after the Fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C.E.
6. Verse 5 accepts the Deuteronomic theology of divine retribution for sins.
7. “Fair Zion” verse 6 conveys the sense of “dear little Zion.”  It is “Daughter of Zion,” literally.
8. The personification of Jerusalem occurs frequently in Hebrew prophetic literature.  Examples include Isaiah 1:8; Isaiah 52:2; Jeremiah 4:31; and Micah 4:8.
9. Verse 8 reads, in part, “seen her disgraced.”  This is literally, “seen her nakedness,” connoting shame.
10. Verse 9 uses ritual impurity (regarding menstruation) as a metaphor for moral impurity–idolatry, metaphorically, sexual immorality.
11. Verse 10 likens the looting of the Temple to rape.

Then Fair Zion speaks:

1. Verse 12 likens the Fall of Jerusalem to the apocalyptic Day of the LORD.  Other references to the Day of the LORD include Isaiah 13:13; Joel 2:1; Amos 5:8; Obadiah 15.
2. Jerusalem has nobody to comfort her.  Therefore, she cannot finish mourning.
3. A line in verse 20 can mean either “I know how wrong I was to disobey” or “How very bitter I am.”
4. Verse 20 refers to the Chaldean/Neo-Babylonian army being outside the walls of Jerusalem and plague being inside the city.  (See Ezekiel 7:15.)
5. Chapter 1 concludes with a prayer for divine retribution against the Chaldean/Neo-Babylonian Empire.  Maybe Fair Zion will receive some comfort from this divine judgment.  Yet God is silent.

The Book of Lamentations deals with trauma by telling the truth.  This contrasts with the dominant cultural pattern in my homeland, the United States of America–the “United States of Amnesia,” as the late, great Gore Vidal called it.  Certain Right-Wing politicians and private citizens outlaw or try to outlaw the telling of the truth in public schools, sometimes even in public colleges and universities.  Not telling the difficult truth stands in the way of resolving the germane problems and moving forward together into a better future, one that is more just.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

JUNE 17, 2021 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF SAMUEL BARNETT, ANGLICAN CANON OF WESTMINSTER, AND SOCIAL REFORMER; AND HIS WIFE, HENRIETTA BARNETT, SOCIAL REFORMER

THE FEAST OF EDITH BOYLE MACALISTER, ENGLISH NOVELIST AND HYMN WRITER

THE FEAST OF SAINT EMILY DE VIALAR, FOUNDRESS OF THE SISTERS OF SAINT JOSEPH OF THE APPARITION

THE FEAST OF JANE CROSS BELL SIMPSON, SCOTTISH PRESBYTERIAN POET AND HYMN WRITER

THE FEAST OF SAINTS TERESA AND MAFALDA OF PORTUGAL, PRINCESSES, QUEENS, AND NUNS; AND SAINT SANCHIA OF PORTUGAL, PRINCESS AND NUN

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READING NAHUM, PART IV

Above:  Nahum

Image in the Public Domain

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Nahum 3:1-19

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I recommend reading the Book of Nahum aloud.  Choose a translation or translations with fine literary quality, O reader.  Why should the Bible not function as high literature, as well as scripture?

The vivid imagery of Nahum 3:1-19 is disturbing.

1. It describes the massacre of civilians in Nineveh.  The targeting of civilians in warfare should disturb anyone.
2. The cultural lens of mysogyny in verse 13 (“Truly, the troops within you are women….”) would do more than raise eyebrows in more churches if the Revised Common Lectionary included Nahum 3:13.  Without being a cultural reactionary and a mysogynist, I read such passages through the lens of historical analysis.  A given text includes the words it includes, in a particular set of contexts.  I interpret within those contexts.  Ancient texts may not reflect contemporary sensibilities.  I cannot change this reality.

I can and do read through ancient mysogyny and the explicit metaphors of sexual shaming.  They exist throughout the Bible.  I argue with those cultural assumptions, but I do not alter the texts to suit my sensibilities.  I take greater umbrage to the slaughter of civilians.  Nahum 1-3 tell us that God approved of the slaughter of civilians in Nineveh in 612 B.C.E.  I accept that the texts tell me this, but I disagree with the texts.

Jennifer Wright Knust, a theology professor, a minister in the American Baptist Churches USA, and the author of Unprotected Texts:  The Bible’s Surprising Contradictions about Sex and Desire (2011), made a cogent point during an interview with Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) Radio years ago.  Knust spoke of perceiving an unfortunate tendency in some of her students.  They affirmed ideas they would otherwise consider repugnant if they did not believe that the Bible supported these ideas.

High regard for scripture is fine, abstractly.  It can be fine in application.  High regard for scripture can, however, easily turn into a slippery slope toward disobeying the Golden Rule.  Consider the long and shameful historical record of parts of the Church quoting the Bible to bolster slavery, racism, racial segregation, economic exploitation, mysogyny, nativism, xenophobia, and homophobia, O reader.  Sadly, much of this remains in the present tense.  Many devout Christians justify the unjustifiable partially out of high regard for scripture.

Sometimes the faithful response is to argue against a text.  Does this passage violate the Golden Rule?  If so, how should one, the Church, whatever–interpret this passage?

The Book of Nahum concludes on an ironic note.  “Nahum” means “comfort” or “consolation.”  Yet there is nobody to console Nineveh (3:7).  3:19 offers no pity:

There is no healing for your hurt,

and your wound is fatal.

All who hear this news of you

clap their hands over you;

For who has not suffered 

under your endless malice?”

—The New American Bible–Revised Edition (2011)

Those who live by the sword will die by the sword.

Thank you, O reader, for joining me on this journey through the Book of Nahum.  I invite you to continue with me as I move along to my next destination, the Book of Habakkuk.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

JUNE 5, 2021 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF SAINT DOROTHEUS OF TYRE, BISHOP OF TYRE, AND MARTYR, CIRCA 362

THE FEAST OF BLISS WIANT, U.S. METHODIST MINISTER, MISSIONARY, MUSICIAN, MUSIC EDUCATOR, AND HYMN TRANSLATOR, ARRANGER, AND HARMONIZER; AND HIS WIFE, MILDRED ARTZ WIANT, U.S. METHODIST MISSIONARY, MUSICIAN, MUSIC EDUCATOR, AND HYMN TRANSLATOR

THE FEAST OF INI KOPURIA, FOUNDER OF THE MELANESIAN BROTHERHOOD

THE FEAST OF MAURICE BLONDEL, FRENCH ROMAN CATHOLIC PHILOSOPHER AND FORERUNNER OF THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL

THE FEAST OF ORLANDO GIBBONS, ANGLICAN ORGANIST AND COMPOSER; THE “ENGLISH PALESTRINA”

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READING ZEPHANIAH, PART V

Above:  Icon of Zephaniah

Image in the Public Domain

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Zephaniah 3:14-20

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The Book of Zephaniah, in its final form, from after the Babylonian Exile, has a dominant mood of apocalyptic gloom and doom–the justified wrath of God on Judah and her neighbors for their persistent, collective, and unrepentant sins for generations.  Hints of the return of the remnant of Judah after the Babylonian Exile exist in Chapter 2, though.  Zephaniah 3:14-20 concludes the book on a strong note of hope.  The final word in some Hebrew prophetic books is not hope, but hope is the final word in the Book of Zephaniah.

Divine judgment and mercy remain in balance.

Clinging to hope can be difficult.  Grief can be overpowering.  Jobs can be scarce.  The economic system may be rigged to keep many people in poverty.  The legal system may be rigged to benefit the wealthy and the White.  Addictions may be difficult to break.  Temptations may be extremely challenging to resist.  One may feel powerless to improve one’s lot in life despite following the rules.

Yet God is sovereign.  Hope based in God is never in vain.

In the case of the visions in Zephaniah 3:14-20, the ideal, Godly future has no Messiah.  The ideal, Godly future in some of the four prophetic books I read before Zephaniah does include a Messiah, though.

Thank you, O reader, for joining me on this journey through the Book of Zephaniah.  I invite you to remain with me as I move along to the Book of Nahum next.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

JUNE 4, 2021 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF SAINT STANISLAW KOSTKA STAROWIEYSKI, ROMAN CATHOLIC MARTYR, 1941

THE FEAST OF SAINT FRANCIS CARACCIOLO, COFOUNDER OF THE MINOR CLERKS REGULAR

THE FEAST OF JOHN LANCASTER SPALDING, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP OF PEORIA THEN TITULAR BISHOP OF SEYTHOPOLIS

THE FEAST OF SAINT PETROC, WELSH PRINCE, ABBOT, AND MISSIONARY

THE FEAST OF THOMAS RAYMOND KELLY, U.S. QUAKER MYSTIC AND PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY

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Above:  King Josiah of Judah

Image in the Public Domain

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For the First Sunday Before Lent, Year 2

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Lectionary from A Book of Worship for Free Churches (The General Council of the Congregational Christian Churches in the United States, 1948)

Collect from The Book of Worship (Evangelical and Reformed Church, 1947)

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O Lord, who hast taught us that all our doings without love are nothing worth;

send thy Holy Spirit and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of love,

the very bond of peace and of all virtues,

without which whosoever liveth is counted dead before thee.

Grant this for thine only Son Jesus Christ’s sake.  Amen.

—The Book of Worship (1947), 141

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2 Kings 22:8-20

Psalms 15 and 16

Romans 5:13-25

Luke 7:1-16

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God calls Jews.  God calls Gentiles, too.  God also cares deeply about how we humans treat each other.  Orthopraxy is the practical side of orthodoxy.  Deeds reveal creeds.  Faith without works is dead.

I grew up around an evangelical subculture in small towns and communities in rural Georgia, mostly in the southern part of the state.  The cultural milieu was primarily racist, provincial, conservative, conformist, homophobic, anti-intellectual, anti-scientific, and anti-Roman Catholic.   I grew up United Methodist in a subculture the Southern Baptist Convention defined.  My latent Roman Catholic tendencies ceased to be latent after a while.  My intellectualism and acceptance of science added to my marginalization.  My rebelliousness in the face of continuous pressures to conform increased.  Fortunately, my parents raised me to think for myself.  They also raised me to oppose racism.

So, O reader, know that I am a churchy person with a sometimes jaundiced view of the institutional church.  I recall examples of life-long church members protesting they were not racists as they opposed funding a denominational scholarship fund for African-American college students.  I know the pressures to fit into an ecclesiastical subculture in violation of my personality type.  I know the feeling of having people indicate that my preference for contemplative prayer over oral, extemporaneous prayer (which they preferred) is inherently defective.  A difference is not necessarily a defect.  I know that the church has shot many of its own, so to speak.  It has shot me, so to speak.

Deeds reveal creeds.  Works reveal active faith.  God has created an astounding variety of personalities.  Each of us has received spiritual gifts.  All of them are essential.  So are all the personalities.

Deeds reveal creeds.  Do we believe that diversity is crucial in the church?  Do we believe that there are no outsiders and marginal characters in Christ?  Some of us do.  Others do not, based on their deeds.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

DECEMBER 13, 2020 COMMON ERA

THE THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT

THE FIFTEENTH DAY OF ADVENT

THE FEAST OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, “THE GREAT MORALIST”

THE FEAST OF CHRISTIAN FURCHTEGOTT GELLERT, GERMAN LUTHERAN MINISTER, EDUCATOR, AND HYMN WRITER

THE FEAST OF ELLA J. BAKER, WITNESS FOR CIVIIL RIGHTS

THE FEAST OF PAUL SPERATUS, GERMAN LUTHERAN BISHOP, LITURGIST, AND HYMN WRITER

THE FEAST OF PIERSON PARKER, U.S. CONGREGATIONALIST MINISTER, EPISCOPAL PRIEST, AND BIBLICAL SCHOLAR

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a moral revolution of values.

Above:  The View from the Camera Built Into a Computer on my Desk, June 14, 2020

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We live in times of rapid social and political change.  Change–even that which is morally proper–causes disorientation and disturbance.  Sometimes we ought to be disturbed.  Injustice ought to disturb us. The root word of “conservative” is “conserve.”  Whether one’s conservatism is morally defensible depends on what one seeks to conserve.  Sometimes one should conserve x.  In certain times, reform is proper.  On other occasions, however, only a revolution is morally defensible.  Yet, even in those cases, nobility must extend beyond the cause and encompass the methods, also.

Call me politically correct, if you wish, O reader.  Or call me a radical or a fool.  If you call me a radical and a revolutionary for justice, I will accept the compliment.  I support what Martin Luther King, Jr., called

I favor the building of a society in which people matter more than money and property.  I favor social and political standards that brook no discrimination and bigotry while granting violators of those standards the opportunity to repent.  I favor altering society and institutions, inculcating in them the awareness that keeping some people “in their place,” that is, subordinate, underpaid, poorly educated, et cetera, harms society as a whole.  I support building up the whole, and individuals in that context.  I oppose celebrating slavery, discrimination, racism, and hatred, whether past or present.  I stand (socially distanced and wearing a mask, of course) with all those, especially of the younger generations, who are rising up peacefully for justice.  The young will, overall, have an easier time adapting to morally necessary change than many members of the older generations will, no matter how devout and well-intentioned many older people may be.  To quote a cliché,

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

St. Paul the Apostle offered timeless advice for confronting evil:

Do not be mastered by evil, but master evil with good.

–Romans 12:21 (The New Jerusalem Bible, 1985)

May all who seek a more just society pursue that goal with shrewdness, courage, and goodness.  To create a better society without incorporating goodness into methodology is impossible, after all.  May all who reshape society remain positive and focused on the morally justifiable.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

JUNE 15, 2020 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF JOHN ELLERTON, ANGLICAN PRIEST AND HYMN WRITER AND TRANSLATOR

THE FEAST OF CARL HEINRICH VON BOGATSKY, HUNGARIAN-GERMAN LUTHERAN HYMN WRITER

THE FEAST OF DOROTHY FRANCES BLOMFIELD GURNEY, ENGLISH POET AND HYMN WRITER

THE FEAST OF SAINT LANDELINUS OF VAUX, ROMAN CATHOLIC ABBOT; SAINT AUBERT OF CAMBRAI, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP; SAINT URSMAR OF LOBBES, ROMAN CATHOLIC ABBOT AND MISSIONARY BISHOP; AND SAINTS DOMITIAN, HADELIN, AND DODO OF LOBBES, ROMAN CATHOLIC MONKS

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If one has a siege mentality, one should seek to rid oneself of it.

I recall hearing a true story years ago, at either Georgia Southern University or The University of Georgia.  A professor of Latin American history had, in one lesson, referred to abuses in which the Roman Catholic Church was complicit.  A few days later, the department head received an angry telephone call from the mother of one of the students.  The professor had allegedly insulted Roman Catholicism.  His (the professor’s) source had been the Roman Catholic Church, which had acknowledged those sins.  Pope John Paul II had publicly apologized for them.  The Roman Catholic student in question and his mother seemed unaware of this.   The department head understood that the student and his mother had reacted out of a siege mentality.  Being a Roman Catholic in the Bible Belt is not like being a Roman Catholic in many other regions.

I have a way of speaking objectively and dispassionately.  One of the criticisms I have heard of myself over the years is that I am too matter-of-fact.  The criticism seems odd to me.  How are remaining grounded in objective reality and staying calm negative?  I have a long track record of speaking objectively and calmly in classrooms, especially about religious history, and of offending students.  The fault has been with the students and their siege mentalities, not with me.  Some of them, I know, have thought of me as an antitheist.  And I have known myself to be a devout Episcopalian!

In the 1990s, when I was undergraduate at Valdosta State University, I explained a piece of church history to a fellow resident of my dormitory.  I, citing verified historical dates, explained that the Church determined the table of contents of the New Testament.  I was objectively correct.  The other resident took my word for it.  He also took offense.  He asked, “How dare they?”  His Christian fundamentalism had led him to assume that the New Testament had descended from on high, fully formed.  Church history and his religion were incompatible.  As Karen Armstrong has written, fundamentalism is ahistorical.

For the record, the Church did an excellent job of determining the table of contents of the New Testament.  They got it right.  That is my opinion and statement of faith on the subject.

I have also triggered a fundamentalist by pointing out St. Paul’s use of allegorical interpretations of scripture, as well as the presence of Greek philosophy in the New Testament.  I was not being critical of St. Paul or of the Letter to the Hebrews.  Rather, I merely stated objective reality regarding them.

A siege mentality in faith and religion stands in the way between one and the calm recognition of objective reality.  Facts are facts.  Objective reality is what it is.  We can know much of objective reality, given sufficient information.  (Call me an Enlightenment-style modernist if you like; I will accept the compliment.)  And more of us need to reserve outrage for offenses (such as racism, police brutality, etc.) that should make us livid.

Here ends the lesson.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

JUNE 4, 2020 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF SAINT STANISLAW KOSTKA STAROWIEYSKI, ROMAN CATHOLIC MARTYR, 1941

THE FEAST OF SAINT FRANCIS CARACCIOLO, COFOUNDER OF THE MINOR CLERKS REGULAR

THE FEAST OF JOHN LANCASTER SPALDING, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP OF PEORIA THEN TITULAR BISHOP OF SEYTHOLPOLIS

THE FEAST OF SAINT PETROC, WELSH PRINCE, ABBOT, AND MISSIONARY

THE FEAST OF THOMAS RAYMOND KELLY, U.S. QUAKER MYSTIC AND PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY

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