Jesus Outside Our Box (1)

A friend mentioned how he struggles with Jesus’ hard, categorical statements. You know what he means. The gospels are full of such things:

“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Matthew 5:48

“If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.” Luke 14:26

“I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment.” Matthew 5:21

My friends said he falls short and feels like such a failure. I get it. These bother me too. After listening, my counsel (to him and me) was: “Stop reading the Bible like a 21st-century North American, and start reading it like a first-century Jew.” What did I mean? he wondered.

All of us in the western world are infected by the Enlightenment and its insistence on logic, science, and reason. Nothing wrong with those, but they create problems when they are elevated as the only, supreme sources of knowledge and truth. (Romanticism commits the opposite error when it elevates our personal emotional responses above all else.)

Christians today are likewise affected. We often read the Bible through that wooden, mechanical lens of Enlightenment absolutism. The Bible is robbed of its meaning and authority by being flattened into a scientific literalism that has no depth or ambiguity. The biblical writers  had an entirely different viewpoint—one that first-century Jews, including Jesus, embraced.

Consider one aspect. Jesus acted much like a prophet or sage in the Wisdom tradition of Israel. He bore resemblance to, for example, the way the Preacher in Ecclesiastes operated. He’d say seemingly strange and hard to understand things—on purpose. He meant to startle and confuse. The Enlightenment way is to be clear, straightforward, plain, flat. Jesus often did the opposite. Why?

As with much Wisdom literature, the point was to arrest attention, get listeners to stop and reflect on whatever they have taken for granted. He wanted others to mediate on, take time with, ponder whatever issue was at hand.

He then wants them to try, however haltingly, to work it out in life. His point was not to dispense easily consumable bits of information or precise rules for life. The process of meditation and of maturing through such a process was the point at least as much as whatever conclusion one might draw at the end.

For Jesus, largely that process was one of, “Will you follow me? Will you pursue me . . . even when I say strange things you don’t understand and put barriers in your way?”

Jesus did this time and again. I’ll consider how in my next post.

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Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

Am I Overdoing It?

I belong to four book clubs. Am I overdoing it?

I’ve been part of our neighborhood book club the longest. For almost twenty years about ten of us have met five times a year. So, yes, we are nearing a hundred books. Once a year each of the five households picks a book, hosts the meeting, and leads the discussion. A fun dimension is that often book-themed food is served by the host.

For next month I have chosen Hamnet to discuss. Maggie O’Farrell was courageous to write a novel about the great playwright William Shakespeare and his wife Anne Hathaway. But she skillfully, imaginatively, and movingly carries it off.

Recently I started joining three other friends who meet monthly. This second group doesn’t meet in person. We gather on Zoom since we are spread around the country. The format hasn’t hindered our lively discussions at all. And we often keep the ideas (and banter) flowing between sessions with group emails.

The book for our next Zoom meeting is Jeff Crosby’s World of Wonders: A Spirituality of Reading. Though I’ve known Jeff for over twenty-five years, another member of the group was the first to suggest we read it. I was delighted to dig into the reflections of someone who has lived with and loved books his whole career as bookstore owner, book distributor, publisher, and now president of a Christian publishers’ trade association.

My third book club consists of a group of men from my church. Instead of talking about a whole book in one session, we meet every other week, usually discussing a chapter at a time. Right now we are in the middle of Francis Collins’s latest volume The Road to Wisdom. The subtitle is On Truth, Science, Faith, and Trust. But Collins also considers another key dimension: Humility. He freely shares where he made mistakes and how he learned from those who disagreed with him. That also is wisdom.

The fourth book club started a few years ago when my oldest grandson, then in high school, called to say he wanted me to be part of his book club. “Who will be in it?” I asked.

“You and me,” he said. He wanted to read Camus and Dante and Kierkegaard . . . and so we did!

We paused as he began college, but he called a month ago to say he wanted to start up again and dig into whatever has been on my to-read list. Richard Reeves’s Of Boys and Men has been on my mind for several months.

I’ve been hearing that while much good has happened for women in the last fifty years, the trends for males have not been good. Reeves says we don’t have to choose between helping men and helping women. We can do both. I’m a few chapters in and he is making a thought-provoking case. Since my grandson is in the center of the demographic Reeves focuses on, I’ll be interested to hear what has to say.

Overdoing it with book clubs? I don’t think so. I’d say it’s just right.

Fighting the Fear Factory (Part 2)

All news sources inevitably distort the world because they focus on what is happening today. And that is almost always not of lasting importance or significance. They rarely consider long-term trends and forces the way books do.

Another reason to be skeptical about network news, social media, talk radio, and late-night comics is that they are trying to get attention, capture eyeballs, make money, improve ratings. They are in the entertainment business not the information business. Some don’t pretend to be objective. Even those who do, however, are still shaped by these other major considerations.

In my last post I considered two ways to stop following the news in order to be better informed and better citizens—(1) read books and (2) help people locally. Here are two more.

Third, stop following the news and start making friends.

As I’ve mentioned before in Andy Unedited, liberals and conservatives both agree on a surprising reason our society is so polarized—loneliness. Because we have fewer close relationships, we more easily gravitate to virtual tribes with their extreme outlooks. As David Brooks says,

According to research by Ryan Streeter of the American Enterprise Institute, lonely people are seven times more likely than non-lonely people to say they are active in politics. For people who feel disrespected and unseen, politics is a seductive form of social therapy.

Politics seems to offer a comprehensible moral landscape. We, the children of light, are facing off against them, the children of darkness.

Politics seems to offer a sense of belonging. I am on the barricades with the other members of my tribe.

Politics seems to offer an arena of moral action. To be moral in this world, you don’t have to feed the hungry or sit with the widow. You just have to be liberal or conservative, you just have to feel properly enraged at the people you find contemptible.

Over the past decade, everything has become politicized. Churches, universities, sports, food selection, movie awards shows, late-night comedy—they have all turned into political arenas except this was not politics as it is normally understood.*

David Brooks entire book How to Know a Person is an essential reminder about the seemingly lost art of making conversation and making friends. Joining a local book club, bringing cookies to a new neighbor, talking to other dog owners as you take your pet for a walk—we desperately need to take advantage of these simple opportunities.

Another option is to reconnect with old friends. Think about those you really enjoyed and resonated with, people you haven’t been in contact with for a while. Send an email or text or make a call to renew that valuable relationship. And when you do, don’t talk about the news.

Fourth, stop following the news and start remembering God.

As important as our country is, it is not the most important thing. It could fall apart or democracy could end, and that would be tragic. But our hope is not in our nation. Our hope is in God.

God is our refuge and strength,
    an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
    and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam
    and the mountains quake with their surging. (Psalm 46:1-3)

When the apostles were beaten and jailed, they did not rail against the government or rage about being under siege by an evil culture. They rejoiced they could suffer for Christ, sang hymns, and talked about Jesus (Acts 5:41-52; 16:19-34).

We may not be in jail, but we also have an opportunity every day to show love, compassion, and tell any who will listen about the real king.

Outwardly it may seem like the world is falling apart, but if we see the world from God’s viewpoint, that puts worry in its place. It means that instead of focusing on the news, we can focus on the two things Jesus said were most important—loving God and loving others.

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*David Brooks, How to Know a Person, p. 101.

Image: Pixabay

Fighting the Fear Factory (Part 1)

Every week or two somebody tells me how agitated the news makes them.

As a teenager in the 60s, I watched NBC’s The Huntley-Brinkley Report most nights of the week. I appreciated the work and partnership of the two anchors (as well as the theme music under their closing credits from the 2nd movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony).

The news was not easy that decade—Vietnam, demonstrations, assassinations, riots. But we also had elements of hope in landmark Civil Rights legislation and men going to the moon. The news industry wasn’t perfect. But with the Big Three networks dominating coverage, we had the assumption of middle-of-the-road attempts at objectivity, to help us be better, more responsible citizens.

No more. The main strategy of politicians and news/opinion outlets is not to provide evenhanded information and considered judgments but to make us distressed and angry. Talk radio and late-night comics do the same. All these fear factories are succeeding wildly in these efforts. Why put up with it?

Tell me I’m nuts. But I have an answer for my anxious friends. I firmly believe we can be better informed and better citizens. It is fourfold. Here are two. I’ll cover two more in my next post.

First, stop following the news and start reading books.

Granted, some people need to follow some parts of the news. If your livelihood is in sports, you need to follow sporting news. If your livelihood is in banking or business, you may need to follow financial news. But most of us do not need to regularly consume political news.

Inherently the news industry gives the impression that what is new today is the most important thing. It is not. In a few months we will forget the latest celebrity divorce, scandal in Congress, or outrageous comment by a pastor, politician, or pundit.

Long-term trends that don’t make the news are much more important—like the epidemic of loneliness among adults or the mental health crisis among teenagers. Books are more likely to take the long view (looking at the last ten, forty, or one hundred years), and to go in depth on issues rather than focus on fleeting sound bites.

Second, stop following the news and start helping others.  

Part of our anxiety about the news is because we can’t do anything about it. Once every couple years we can vote but that is not enough to compensate for the daily waves of worry the news can cause. 

Rather than encouraging love, joy, peace, kindness and the rest of the fruit of the spirit, the news engenders anger, frustration, and helplessness. If we intentionally fill our minds with troubles, our hearts will also be full of troubles. That’s why the apostle Paul says:

Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. (Philippians 4:8)

If we are thinking daily about how terrible, stupid, and evil people are who disagree with us, we will be shaped by that anger and become harsh, mean, and hateful people ourselves.

While we may be helpless in the face of national and international news, we are not helpless when it comes to serving people and making a difference with those around us.  We can visit friends in the hospital, donate blood, or help out at a food pantry. We can volunteer as a tutor, at a job training program, or at Habitat for Humanity.

All it takes is googling “local volunteer opportunities,” and you’re sure to find access to dozens of options, one of which is sure to fit your skills, interest, and schedule.

We have other highly practical ways to fight the fear factories. I’ll cover two more in the next post.

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Image: Wikimedia Commons

The Christian Revolution

Rather than a history of Christianity, Tom Holland’s six-hundred-page Dominion is more a series of historical essays. His purpose is not to provide “objective,” even coverage of the key events, people, and trends of the last two thousand years but to make a point.

And the point? The ideas that “human beings have rights; that they are born equal; that they are owed sustenance, and shelter, and refuge from persecution”—all these, whether proclaimed by atheists or believers, derive historically from the Bible’s claim that humans are made in the image of God, that Christ died for everyone, and that in him there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female (540). We are all heirs of the Christian revolution.

He tells his impressionistic history through the use of vivid, selective stories from the past which are sometimes obscure (e.g., Quaker Benjamin Lay) but which he sees as representative of an era, epitomizing the theme he wants to emphasize.

Though he makes a positive case for the influence of Christianity in the world, he does not stint on bloodshed. Over and over he tells how Christians perpetrated violence and death against others and each other in likely every period since Constantine. The book is no whitewash.

Along the way he seems to make some odd choices, however. Though the book emphasizes the critical importance of the place of natural law, Holland barely spends two pages on Thomas Aquinas, likely the most influential theologian in all of church history who lifted natural theology to a place of near supremacy. Yet Holland finds time to spend six pages on Spinoza.

And then there is the peculiar claim that Irenaeus invented the canon when much consensus in the early church already existed on which books should be in the New Testament. Such swashbuckling analysis about something I know makes me wonder about his other judgments regarding things I know less well.

He is a lively storyteller who makes the pages fly by. Yet while I appreciate his efforts at artistry, his poetic prose too often lapses into obscurity. Or to put it more plainly (as I wish he did more often): his ornate sentences are sometimes so convoluted that it can be hard to understand what he means.

So, yes, while I see merit in the book’s overall thesis, a three-star rating accurately reflecs my ambivalence.

No One Wants to Be Fooled

While some conspiracy theories are blatantly ludicrous (such as, the U.S. government has dug a secret railroad tunnel from Nevada to Ohio), they often have appeal.

We don’t want to believe the world is full of chance events that have monumental consequences. Could a lone, random shooter really have killed President Kennedy in 1963? There had to be more of a reason than that, we think.  

Another reason we might be drawn to conspiracy theories is that we don’t want to look like fools. We want to think we won’t fall for a fabrication, a lie, a deception. We want to believe that we are smart enough to recognize when someone is trying to trick us. 

Of course this impulse can go both ways. We could be deceived the government, or we could be deceived by a theory that the government is lying. 

All this brings us to Area 51, the top-secret region in Nevada owned by the U.S. government. Annie Jacobsen’s book by that name details the spy planes and other weapons testing that has gone on there and nearby over the last eighty years.

Much is now known due to many documents which have recently been declassified. We learn, for example, that the use of drones is not a new phenomenon. The Air Force has been deploying them since World War II. Little has been declassified about nuclear testing, however. And there are some documents which despite repeated efforts, both by citizens and government officials, have never been declassified. 

One of the questions I have is, Why? Technology from eighty years ago is completely out of date. Why hide it? Some conspiracy theorists believe the government is covering up how it faked the moon landings at Area 51 fifty-five years ago despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Others think it is hiding evidence of alien landings beginning with Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947. 

The author’s explanation for what the government called a weather balloon that crashed at Roswell is certainly more believable than aliens. What crashed, says Jacobsen, was a Soviet spy plane built with the help of Nazi scientists taken after the war. But many questions remain. Why have we never seen equivalent technology from the Russians since then? Why keep it secret even decades later?

Perhaps government agencies find an advantage in allowing conspiracy theories about UFOs and thousand-mile tunnels to run rampant. It keeps attention off what they actually have done and are doing.

At the end of the book the author presents (admittedly, with the least documentation of anything in the book), perhaps the most disturbing speculation as to why some government activities have never come to light—and it has nothing to do with secret technology. According to the author, the government has been engaged in what would be universally condemned by Americans and by the international community—human experimentation.

No one wants to be made a fool. Jacobsen reminds us several times that one of the best strategies to follow is Occam’s razor—the simplest explanation tends to be the best. A good reminder when we’re not sure what to believe.

We Never Know Who We’re Talking To

A skinny twenty-two-year-old was freezing in Chicago one November day in 1986. It was 10o. A recent college graduate, he was depressed and had lost fifty pounds. A few years earlier his father and brother had died in a crash. He kept going to Mass for a while, but he had become an atheist. He was angry and certain God didn’t exist.

He had spent much of his time in college smoking weed and reading books. Eventually he stopped smoking pot because it got in the way of his reading. In college it had been kind of cool to be an atheist. He liked nurturing the image of an intellectual. Despite his depression and smoking habit, he got good grades.

Now he had a job in Chicago. As he walked in the frigid weather, someone from the Gideons handed him a free copy of the New Testament with Psalms and Proverbs. It was small, about the size of a pack of cards. It had a green cover with a pebble finish. It was so cold that the book was frozen. He had to slap it on his knee to get the pages to open.

In the back he saw a listing of what to read when you have certain feelings or problems. “Anxiety” caught his eye. The listing directed him to Matthew 5–7, and he began reading the Sermon on the Mount. It struck him profoundly, speaking to him directly. He was amazed by how easy it was to take in and how true it seemed.

Do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his span of life?And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. (Matt 6:25-29)

Shortly after that he lost the book. The following week he was on a bus going to a job when he noticed that the girl next to him was reading a similar edition. “I had one of those but I lost it,” he told her.

“Oh, here,” she said, “take mine.” He has had that copy with him for the last forty years. He carries it with him in his bag wherever he goes. He doesn’t know who that girl was, but Stephen Colbert still has her edition with her underlines and her notes on the gospels.

Colbert is one of the most well-known entertainers in the country. Unusual for someone in that industry, he has been quite public about his Catholic faith and how it affects his life, his ideas, and how he interacts with people–a faith he renewed after two people took time to connect with him.

When we encounter a waitress with a blank look on her face, when we see someone in line at the store who is disorganized, when we sit next to a skinny kid on a bus—we have no idea who we may be talking to. We may think we know who these people are, but we would be wrong.

Unless we talk to them. Ask some friendly questions. Act with generosity. Treat them like human beings. And not put them in a box.

It could change their life. And ours.

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Note: Stephen Colbert tells this story on a July 7, 2025, podcast, The Spiritual Life with Fr. James Martin, S.J., which you can listen to here on Apple Podcasts or watch here on YouTube. I recommend listening to the whole interview.

Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

Cancel the Past or Learn from It?

Should we learn from the past or cancel the past? We have more options than those two. But in general, it is better to learn from the past than ignore it. 

Take for example two people on opposite sides of the Civil War. As has been pointed out, even though Lincoln emancipated the slaves and prosecuted the Civil War which ended slavery in the country, he was probably not pure in his views about the races. He thought they should be politically equal but was much more uncertain about whether they should be socially equal to whites. 

Does that mean Lincoln was a reprobate we should completely denounce? No. It means he was a flawed hero.

Then take Stonewall Jackson. He was a stalwart defender of the South and slavery while he was also a very devoted Christian. In contrast to Lincoln whose Christian credentials were ambivalent at best, Jackson read and believed his Bible devoutly. 

Does that mean we should uniformly valorize Jackson? No. He was a man who embodied deep contradictions.

What can we learn from this? We can learn that people are complex. We are each a mixture of motives, of good ideas and good practices and many that are less than ideal. By learning the stories of imperfect heroes and of villains with virtues, we learn about ourselves.

No matter how pure and right, we think our ideas and motives are, they probably aren’t. We should approach ourselves and life with humility.

It means that we may be wrong. Any who have ever changed their minds about anything are admitting they were once wrong—and so could also be wrong now. History, even our own history, teaches us that we should nurture the attitude that we have something to learn from everyone.

Image by Mark Thomas from Pixabay.

My Funeral Plans

Nope. Not dying. At least not yet.

My adult children asked me recently if I had thoughts about what I’d like for my memorial service. Thankfully, I don’t think they are anxious to see me move on to my reward. Nonetheless, it’s a bit of a surprising question, especially since I have no significant health issues. Of course any of us can go at any time. And I am of an age where, statistically, it’s more likely to be sooner than later.

My initial reaction was, “Hey, a memorial service is for you. Not me. I won’t be around. Do whatever is good for you, whatever helps you.”

Then I thought more. When someone close dies, whether suddenly or after an extended illness, the shock and grief can make it hard to make decisions. The brain just doesn’t work as well. Having a bit of an outline of what to do ahead of time, especially when there are plenty of other details pressing in, can make it easier for those left behind. And a plan can help minimize disagreements.

In addition, I’ve come to realize that there is comfort in doing what our loved one wanted, of honoring his or her wishes. Some people want nothing after they die. No funeral. No party. Nothing. Sometimes they are just private people or aren’t uncomfortable with public attention, even positive attention. They’d rather family and friends move on with life with as little interruption as possible. That’s how they want to show their love and care for those left behind.

Others are comfortable giving loved ones a chance to show and share grief, to remember and tell stories of love and laughter. They are aware that deliberately taking time to process our emotions can be important and healthy in moving on.

In either case, knowing one is honoring the person we lost is healing in itself. As a result, I’ve decided to outline a few ideas, giving those I leave behind freedom to modify things as makes sense at the time. (After all, a lot can change in twenty-five years, right!?)

Here are some initial thoughts:

  • Music. I have always loved music. Classical or traditional is good with me. But anything you want will be fine.
  • Hope. Grief and loss, appropriately, are going to be there at such times, likely whether we want them or not. Make room for hope.
  • Love. Make sure everyone knows how much I loved my wife, my kids, and my grandkids. It is a lot. More than I can possibly say.
  • Remembrance. My two older children spoke at their mother’s memorial service. Maybe the two younger ones can have their turn speaking at mine.
  • Don’t fight. That may seem like odd advice, but it is what my parents told me and my siblings before they died, and it was incredibly wise. Grief is strong at such times. Emotions run high. It’s easy to get upset and say things in anger. It’s better to go along with what you think is wrong than to risk breaking relationships.

What else should I be thinking about? I’d love to hear your ideas.

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Image: Andrew Le Peau

Concerns about The Unseen Realm

Part 5

Michael Heiser’s largely academic book, The Unseen Realm, has had a wide influence well beyond the scholarly world. I was sent a photo recently when the book was spotted for sale in the gift shop of a high-end resort in Mexico.

The fascination is not new. For millennia humans have sought to understand (and often sought to control) whatever powers may lie behind the physical world. This was not just a matter of curiosity but of survival in a wild and dangerous world.

C. S. Lewis saw two opposite errors in today’s “civilized” world–one is to not believe in the devil and the other is to have an excessive interest in the demonic. While I have given much praise to Heiser’s book over the course of this series of posts, in the spirit of balancing belief with caution, I offer a few concerns.

First, Heiser often seems too confident about his viewpoints. While I think he is largely on track, he would have been better to recognize the strengths of other perspectives and acknowledge that he may not be absolutely right at each point.

One particular example comes in chapter nine regarding predestination and free will. Though his distinction between what God foreknows and foreordains is helpful, I don’t think this solves these contentious issues as much as he thinks they do. Nor does he resolve the related topic of the problem of evil, an issue which probably can’t be answered this side of glory.

Second, Heiser says little or nothing about possible implications of rebellious spiritual beings influencing nations in our day. Might this lead us to categorically condemning all people from certain national or ethnic groups as evil and irredeemable, thus justifying violent, inhuman treatment of them?

The world is complex. Even the one nation in the Bible that was God’s inheritance (Israel) rebelled and did many evil things. At the same time, other nations besides Israel can turn to God (Ninevah). Likewise today, no nation is entirely pure nor purely evil.

As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn famously said in The Gulag Archipelago:

“The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts.”

Finally, it is important to remember that while Heiser highlights an important biblical theme, a neglected one, and a misunderstood one, this is not the only theme nor necessarily the main one in the Bible. It is one piece of a multifaceted story.

We can, for example, view the whole Bible through the lens of the Temple. Though it is often said the Bible begins in a garden (Genesis) and ends in a city (Revelation), both images are ways of understanding all of creation as a Temple—a place where God dwells, a place where heaven meets earth.

The Exodus event is another theme threaded through the whole Bible. It is foreshadowed in Genesis, takes center stage in the book of Exodus, and then makes major reappearances in the Psalms, in Isaiah, in Mark, and elsewhere. We can easily think of others such as: creation, de-creation, re-creation; or mercy and justice; or freedom and slavery; or faith, hope, and love.

The conflicts of the earthly and the unseen realms are, as Heiser says, found from Genesis to Revelation. This and the wealth of other such themes are worth a lifetime of meditation so that we may be more fully shaped by God and his Word.

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Image credit: Susan DeCostanza