The Popularity of Views that Deconstruct Jesus

One of the things I like most about my spiritual formation class on Sunday mornings is the fact that we get to pose all kinds of questions about traditional faith. One of the things I like least about the class is the fact that we get to pose all kinds of questions about traditional faith. It seems that, because of fifty or so years of training in a Southern Baptist church, I fall into an unusual category of believers: I am biblically conservative but socially liberal. The Bible has always been the source of authority for my faith, and I have been taught that it was written by a number of authors who were inspired by God. In my current class, there is an overt effort to deconstruct not only the Bible of us traditional believers but also even Jesus Himself.

For example, for the past few weeks we have continued a series of videotapes by two liberal theologians, Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg. It's called "Living the Questions." Last week's lesson centered on the week before Jesus' death and indicated that Jesus' Palm Sunday ride into the city on a donkey was not a triumphal entry at all but simply a mocking demonstration of the power of the Roman Empire. Also, the cleansing of the temple by Jesus as he overthrew the money changers' tables obviously made little difference to the powerful Jews of the day. It too was but was a simple demonstration much like those in our day who protest war: impressive but not faith-changing.

While I am familiar in literature and other disciplines with the theory of deconstruction as an academic tool for analysis, I myself prefer traditional scholarship. I would like to see, for example, a number of moderate and traditional scholars presented who believe that Jesus was the Son of God and that the Bible is Truth and Inerrant. That way we can have opposing viewpoints and make our own decisions regarding our faith.

At the Back of Beyond

My book club has been reading several novels recently that focus on the theme of violence against women. Several months ago, we read Roberto Bolano' 2666, followed by Pat Conroy's South of Broad, and now culminating with Stieg Larsson's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. All have been highly successful bestselling pieces. I believe that, for me personally, I have now overdosed on the theme. In Larsson's novel, one of the key characters moves to a small town in Sweden which is referred to several times as being at the "back of beyond." I believe all of these writers have moved to this position symbolically with their pushing the bounds of common decency.

As a victim myself of childhood sexual abuse, I realize that these crimes against children and women are certainly a reflection of real life. As we have to do is turn on the nightly news to see the latest examples of young girls being kidnapped and subsequently murdered, women leaving clubs alone only to have their bodies found a few hours later dumped into trash bins, and wives being brutally beaten and killed by their own husbands. Jane Velez Mitchell of CNN's news and views show often speaks of "a war against women." I believe this war is taking place in both reality and in fiction.

Why, I ask myself, have the subjects of sadomasochism, torture, incest, bestiality, and other forms of sexual deviation become such mainstream topics of interest for the average person to love these books and revel in reading the details? The war against children and women should be taken seriously, not frivolously, for entertainment only. How much longer can we continue to go beyond the back of beyond?

Cozying Up With the Enemy

Since the Easter season has arrived, my church and others have been studying the events leading up to the Crucifixion of Christ. On a recent trip to Wichita, I attended a United Methodist Church service with my sister-in-law, niece, and grand-niece. The title of the pastor's sermon was "Condemned by the Righteous," and the biblical text was from Mark 14. The pastor spoke primarily about the high priest's condemnation of Jesus the week of His death. As for me, I focused in on a couple of verses I had not paid previous attention to. Verse 53 indicates, "Peter followed him at a distance, right into the courtyard of the high priest. There he sat with the guards and warmed himself at the fire." Obviously, Peter had come into the courtyard to be a silent observer of the events taking place: Jesus' questioning and subsequent beating after He admitted He was indeed the Son of God. In the meantime, Peter is still "warming himself" when the servant girl of the high priest calls attention to Peter, asks if he is with Jesus, and is told, "I don't know or understand what you're talking about" (v. 68).

Symbolically, I think this scene represents so many of us as Christians. We profess to be followers of Christ, yet we cozy up with the enemy way too often. We essentially want to have life both ways: we see our devotion to Christ as being too limiting upon us, perhaps even opening us to ridicule should others know how serious we are about our beliefs. We, therefore, deny Him just as seriously as Peter denied Christ. We profess instead not to know or understand, as Peter did, when others think we are too rigid or dogmatic in the practice of our faith.

Where is the middle line, or should there be one? Is the solution found in Revelation 3, "I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other!" Like Peter, we are often called upon to speak up, take up His cross, and follow Him--not deny Him.

Choosing Life, Choosing Death

In the news for the past week are two high-profile families who have lost their sons Andrew and Michael through suicide: the Walter Koenig family and the Marie Osmond family. Both young men were depressed; one died by hanging himself and the other by jumping out a high rise building in Los Angeles. Throughout the coverage of the first one reported, the media repeatedly flashed up on the television screen pictures of both Andrew and actor Kirk Cameron. They starred together in a highly viewed sitcom in the 1980's. Kirk Cameron has starred in several of the Left Behind movies since 2000 and most recently in the Christian movie Fireproof. "What leads one to choose either life or death," I have always wondered.

The Bible in Deuteronomy 30:15 tells us, "I have set before you today life and good, death and evil." If we believe in the idea of free will, versus that of a determined fate, we appreciate this choice that God has given us. I know that clinical depression can be devastating for a person. My own mother suffered for years with it and made at least one suicide attempt that I am aware of. Families of those depressed also suffer greatly, often feeling very powerless in their attempt to help their loved ones. So many times, the depressed person chooses death over life.

Obviously, medical research is still very necessary to determine the causes and the cures for this disease. In the meantime, we must simply watch for the signs that give us concern in ourselves and in those we love.

Mississippi Stories

I was sound asleep last night when I opened my eyes (I think) and saw a looming image of my mother's face just above my head. I am sure it was a dream only, but it made me remember what I had forgotten: the date she died, February 24. I also thought immediately of Woody Allen's 1989 film entitled New York Stories in which the protagonist must deal constantly with an overwhelming mother. In several scenes, the mother appears as a giant in the sky still dispensing advice to her errant son. I wondered what I still needed to learn from my deceased mother, and it came to me. We needed, if possible even after death, to forgive each other for what we were and for what we weren't.

Up until this point I had thought that the whole idea of forgiveness was one-sided only. I needed to forgive my mother for not trying hard enough during her single years in Mississippi. She would always complain about my father's lack of responsibility for the family, yet my sister and I were required to raise ourselves as she lay in the bed for hours with stomach pain, headaches, and clinical depression. When she was up from the bed, she was often very critical and angry. After several years of this, she finally took us to her mother (a sixty-three year old widow) to complete raising while she worked in Memphis.

I now realize that I also needed forgiveness for what I was as well. I, as a result of being away from my mother so much during the formative teen years, was distant and non-communicative. The effort on my part seemed to be too great. I now realize I should have made that effort, at least called or written more often. When she would visit in the fall, I often did not have the time (at least I had convinced myself of that) to sit and talk the way she wanted.

If it is possible to communicate with those who have gone on before us, I believe I can say, "I'm sorry." Freud certainly had it right, though not on all points, that mothers are towering figures in our relationships both in death and life.

An Education

I have been waiting for several weeks to see the art film An Education based on Lynn Barber's memoir and Nick Hornby's screenplay. My husband and I finally saw it last Friday. The film is set in 1961 in England around a young woman who is being pushed by her father to achieve the grades and standardized test scores she needs in order to be admitted to Oxford. Of course, the protagonist, as a complication, immediately meets an older man, falls in love, loses her virginity, and confronts the choice of a lifetime: to marry or to get a higher education. I knew I would love this film because I was confronted with the same choice also as a senior in high school.

During the summer of my junior year, I met a second lieutenant stationed in Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi. My mother and I had gone down to the coast in order to renew our relationship since I had been living with my grandmother for the past four years. I was sixteen, and he was twenty-two. He drove a baby blue Corvette convertible. I had to admit I was smitten in many ways because it was with him that I discovered many of the activities previously reserved for adults only. I was able to go to the Officers Club on base, for example, and hear a blues singer in a darkened, smoky room singing, "When I Fall in Love" in her sultry voice. I was able to see him "protect" me when he thought one of his friends in the club was coming on to me. When I went back to the Mississippi Delta for my senior year, he came up one weekend to my grandmother's house and proposed. Of course, my mother said "no" with the usual arguments: she's too young, she doesn't know what she wants, she needs to consider college, etc.

Ultimately, the decision came down to what I wanted, and it was an easy decision. Since the ninth grade, I had wanted to go to college and become an English teacher. I did not know how I would accomplish this goal, however, so I told my friends I planned to work and perhaps attend college later. I did precisely that: I worked full-time, took two night classes per semester and in the summer, and eventually finished two years before I married. I admit though that I did briefly consider what it would be like to travel the world with my Air Force husband in uniform. Ultimately though, a small voice within me urging independence won out.

I have never regretted this decision, and I assume that Lynn Barber in her memoir feels the same way. Both of us are published authors and have achieved our career goals without making a decision to marry too early that we might have both been sorry for.

Why Does It Have to be So Sad?

I took my granddaughter last Sunday afternoon to the Arts Center in Little Rock to see a production of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. Of course, as the play was performed, one could hear many sniffles throughout the audience (primarily from the adults who were familiar with the novel upon which the play is based). These emotions flowed when Beth, one of the younger sisters, gives slippers to Theodore's Grandpa who had lost his granddaughter when she was young. Another scene occurs when the family fears their father, who is in the Civil War and very ill will die, and another when Beth contracts scarlet fever. At the conclusion of the play in the question and answer session, one of the young audience members asked this question, "Why does it have to be so sad?" I think it is a question many readers ask of literature no matter what their age, and it brings up the traditional question we ask about writing, "Should it simply entertain or teach?" I have always fallen into the category of believing writing should be realistic. As such we can learn the lesson once again, "We read to know we are not alone."

Yes, confronting difficult life experiences in literature is hard, but at the same time it teaches us to deal emotionally with our own issues. For example, our granddaughter is now eleven years old, a tween as she often tells us. Her parents divorced a year ago, and she has now dealt with her mother's new boyfriend and his daughters as part of the new family scenario. She and her brother spend six days a month with her dad. She is in that transition stage from childhood to adulthood; one days she plays with her Barbie dolls and the next day she watches the Twilight movies. I believe that reading literature and watching plays of children dealing with difficult situations in their lives is healthy. After all, it is one way that "little women" might become "compassionate good-hearted women."