Faith at the Crossroads of the 21st Century (continued) (2) This takes us to the matter of the usefulness of religion to politics. And few subjects are as useful. This would be completely obvious except that most Americans have been conditioned to think of religion in terms of a false dichotomy. That is, we are told -in public schools, by the news media, by Hollywood, and by nearly all political figures- that there are two "facts" about religion and you must accept each as completely true: * Religion is a private matter, it has no place in the public square, and this is mandated by the doctrine of separation of church and state. This is because there are no empirical truths in faith, its all a matter of opinion, and * Religion in the public square is theocratic in character and is antithetical to the public good. Therefore, people should shut up about religion in public settings. Those who persist in making religion an issue of public policy are uninformed bigots and should be ostracized. . This is what it amounts to. And each is demonstrably false. . To be sure, there need to be ground rules for proselytization, there needs to be informal understanding that "forcing religion" on people is unacceptable, and we need to cultivate a sense of when it is appropriate to discuss religion and when it is not. And for most of us this is seldom a problem. But what is a problem is forcing people to be silent when their conscience tells them that they have a moral imperative to speak out. . We have every right to sometimes speak out in the public square.. . At least as one man's opinion, it seems to me that the Radical Centrist position should be that America is a Christian nation but one that respects and welcomes all good religions and is open to learning from them. Indeed, sometimes it is important to learn from other faiths. Christ can be central in your life, after all, at the same time as you study Buddhist psychology or try to discern how the Goddess Ishtar conceived as the Holy Spirit enables us to understand Christian teachings to best possible effect. . This does not mean "anything goes" in religion. Not at all. Which explains the phrase "all good religions." The implication is that there are a lot of good religions in the world but that some religions, most notably Islam, are not good at all and should be excluded. We have every right to make value judgements about religion -or religions- and we should do so, at least with the understanding that we also have the responsibility to make ourselves informed about religion as a phenomenon and about religions as important in all human societies. . After all, people make political decisions all the time based on religious values and beliefs. Or, as in the case of Atheists, based on anti-religion beliefs and values. Let's be honest about this, shall we? . Abortion is a political issue. Anti-abortion views are often associated with Christian conservatives but Buddhists are equally opposed to the idea and maybe moreso. Albert Schweitzer was opposed but not because he was conservative as a Christian but because he believed in reverence for life, a personal philosophy that he developed while he was a medical missionary in Africa. Hindus are also opposed, as are Jains and many others. And isn't it strange that the Left, which is overtly pro-Islam, finds itself in alliance with anti-abortion Muslims (virtually all Muslims detest abortion) about whose social values Leftists never comment on? . Observance of Christmas can be an issue, hence protests by believers when businesses tell employees to say "Happy Holidays" in lieu of "Merry Christmas," or schools that virtually outlaw mention of Christmas and substitute greetings for the 'Winter holidays' and the like. Such anti-Christian sentiments are resented by believers who argue, with cause, that this is a betrayal of America's heritage as well as an absurdity inasmuch as Christmas (sic) is a recognized Federal holiday. . Muslim demands for official recognition of some of their holidays can be an issue as can their demands for such things as special facilities in public spaces for Muslim prayers. There may also be demands for sex-segregated public swimming pools. . Is it always necessary for prayers at public functions to be all-inclusive? Why should it be? Some communities are virtually 100% Christian. Maybe it would be nice, for the sake of the national interest, to include, say, a Zoroastrian prayer, but why should this be regarded as necessary in all cases? . Atheists also crusade against religion on a regular basis. What should public policy be with respect to non-believers, especially anti-religion Atheists? . A case can be made -which I make- that the Bible should be taught in the public schools. The book is basic to historic American culture and Christian civilization at large. Moreover, its value as literature has been recognized for generations by a wide variety of scholars, by no means only Jews and Christians. But what are the best objectives for a course about the Bible? What kind of qualifications should someone who teaches this kind of class need to meet? It must be understood that a Bible course in a public school cannot be devotional in character but it should also be understood that many people do look on the book as a source for spiritual truths. . . (3) Objectivity about religion is entirely possible. That is, as much objectivity as normal people are capable of. We are never going to get to that place where everyone looks at matters of faith dispassionately, like a scientist in a chemistry lab looks at reactions of minerals in a Bunsen burner when heat is applied. But we can ask for and expect teachers of religion to be as objective toward their subject as journalists are when reporting on a news event. . What is essential for reaching some level of objectivity is the desire to make yourself objective. You need to want to become objective. Fairness about the relative worth of different religions has to be regarded as an outlook you think is necessary for you. . This means that two kinds of 'philosophy' of religion are incompatible with objectivity -for very different reasons. One is the exclusivist viewpoint, something that says that your faith is the only true religion on Earth and all the others are wrong. The other is the approach of those who see all religions as good, no religions as bad, no essential distinctions allowable. This is the extreme inclusionist viewpoint.
Not all exclusivists are the same, of course, and not all inclusionists are the same, either. But it nonetheless is useful to make this basic distinction. . Against exclusivists a number of Bible verses can be cited as refuting their argument. Not just a few scattered passages but many. However, to keep this as simple as possible all that is necessary is to quote one passage from the Old Testament and another from the New Testament. These are: . Deuteronomy 32: 8 - 9 When the Most High parceled out the nations, when he dispersed all mankind, he laid down the boundaries of every people according to the number of the sons of God; but the LORD’s share was his own people... . Acts 10: 34 - 35 Peter began: 'I now see how true it is that God has no favourites, but that in every nation the man who is godfearing and does what is right is acceptable to him . Acts 10 is important for many reasons but especially because it clarifies verse 12 of chapter 4, viz., in reference to Jesus: "There is no salvation in anyone else at all, for there is no other name under heaven granted to men, by which we may receive salvation." This passage is habitually misconstrued by Evangelicals and other normative Christians. The reason why this is so is because few believers have any idea that each of these verses are, in effect, bookends to a pericope that follows in function (not necessarily in form) the kind of progression in thought that is commonplace in Plato. Which is hardly unique to Christians, of course, many people are unaware of this fact. But there should be no mystery. What is usual in Plato's dialogues is for a speaker to start out affirming one position and then, in the course of the story, after considering other ideas, arriving at a very different view of things that he then makes his own, rejecting or overriding his earlier outlook. This is the pattern in Acts 4 through Acts 10. In that case it was Peter who in the process of examining his assumptions gains new insight rather than, say, Thrasymachus, but the principle is the same. . Why shouldn't various people in the New Testament have been influenced by Plato or other Greek philosophers? A large number of websites focus on the question of Greek philosophy and its influence on the Bible or early Christianity. And a who's who of Church Fathers -Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius, et.al, wrote glowingly of Plato and compared his views with their own, concluding that the clear commonalities in each were the result of inspiration from God. As Augustine put it, quoted at Logos Talk: “The utterance of Plato, the most pure and bright in all philosophy, scattering the clouds of error . . .” . Unfortunately, Evangelicals overwhelmingly reject the idea that the Bible cannot be fully understood unless you also read at least some of the literature which the Bible's authors would have been familiar with when they wrote various texts. For most Evangelicals the only way to interpret the Bible is in terms of itself; you can and should compare Revelation with Joel, for example, but never with Zoroastrian apocalyptic writings or anything else. However, it is possible to take the view that unless you read the writings that the Bible's authors were familiar with -as much as this is possible- you simply will miss point after point after point and end up misinterpreting half of what you study in the Judeo-Christian scriptures. . As for Deuteronomy, the worldview presented in the text should be completely familiar to anyone who has studied ancient Mesopotamian sacred literature, it is based on the exact same premises, namely, that the Lord (the highest God) appoints a lesser deity to administer each nation but each such God is legitimate and blessed and anything but unacceptable in his sight. That is, this would seem to be a very old passage within Deuteronomy that predates the period when the monotheists redacted the Torah and/or the Tanach. . To cite two additional passages that also appear in something like their original form but which also show signs of later editing, you might like to look at Psalm 82 and Psalm 89. . Of course if you operate on the (false) assumption that the only way to read the Bible is the way popularized by media caricatures of what believers do, or how the book is characterized in many Evangelical churches to be supportive of Evangelical theology and nothing else, you wouldn't know this, would you?. . In so many words, if the only way you read the Bible -if you read it at all- is by way of making every assumption made by most Evangelicals you may well get the impression that the book is dull, excessively pietistic, and unrealistic. Maybe a book intended for children. If your impression isn't this bad a very common opinion is that it is obsolete, a collection of myths and not much else, and in any eventuality you've heard it all before. . All of which merely demonstrates ignorance. It may also demonstrate the effects of traditionalist believers upon others including the young, but it still is a matter of ignorance. As soon as you approach the Bible as a book of its time, directly related to the world of ideas of the Assyrians or of the Roman Empire, presuming you know the relevant history, the book becomes alive, filled with challenging ideas, filled with historical questions that reverberate in our own world, and intellectually exciting. But the relevant history has probably not been taught to you because in the Brave New World we live in, history and the humanities are devalued and treated as nearly useless frills when compared with the STEM professions. . Which is a sure way to create a nation of cultural illiterates who don't know how to think and for whom any kind of reasoning except "shoot from the hip" is terra incognito. That is, for the most part, there is disciplined thinking and there is the blogosphere and almost nothing in between. Maybe this characterization is excessive but some days this is exactly how things seem. . However, criticism of the outlook of inclusionists must be just as severe as criticism of exclusivists. On what basis can anyone claim that all religions have equal worth? Where is there justification for this kind of belief? Are all political philosophies just as good -or just as bad? Are all cultures equal? Are all economic theories? . What is especially obnoxious are the effects this has on such teaching as there is in the public schools on the subject of religion. I'm not sure where this is written down but do know for a fact that policy is not to criticize 'other' religions. That is, in an American context it is perfectly acceptable to express reservations, disagreements, etc., with Christian faith. The Church is fair game. Increasingly Judaism is also an acceptable target for negative commentary. But no criticism is allowable when talking about Islam, to a lesser extent this also applies to Buddhism and East Asian faiths like Confucianism. In theory this also applies to Hinduism, and in the past it has applied to Hindu religion. But not any more. Cases in the California school system are current in which Hindu views are denigrated in order to advance a Muslim interpretation of national and religious history. . That is, we have entered an Orwellian world where all religions are equal except that Islam is more equal than others and disfavored faiths, especially Christianity and Judaism, now including Hinduism to some extent, are treated as less deserving. But the problems don't stop there. . What about honesty? Answer: It doesn't count. As a teacher of Comparative Religion in Eugene, Oregon, once explained matters to me, no criticisms of any religion are allowed in classes because that would contribute to ill will and probably generate arguments and recriminations on the part of students and parents of students. Courses in the subject could become 'war zones' where learning would become impossible. . There is some merit to that argument. However, such considerations have never stopped schools from teaching evolution, which is contentious in some school districts, or from teaching about the Reformation or the Crusades or interreligious wars in normal history classes. Then there is literature, where any number of novels and epic poems and the like are studied, books in which opinions are expressed about the faults of various religions. . That is, it is entirely possible for teachers to be reasonably objective and simply teach the facts without taking sides and calling names. You would think that would dispose of most of the problem. . If teaching Comparative Religion is regarded as a positive good -I certainly think it is inasmuch as we live in a pluralistic society in which there now are as many Hindus as Episcopalians, where Buddhists are about as numerous as Jews, and where Dearborn, Michigan, has become Dearbornistan- then we had better teach the young the facts about competing faiths. . And there are entirely positive-in-nature reasons; there is great beauty in the arts of East Asia, Sufi poetry is filled with insights, Baha'i architecture is inspirational, Norse literature provides windows to the European past that is worth knowing to better understand our shared culture, and so forth. We can become better persons for learning about these things. . Most of all, though, it is imperative to understand how other people think, where they derive their values from, what those values consist of. After all, in some places -think of Hawaii, much of California, most major US cities, most college towns, and states like Massachusetts and Arizona- citizens live side-by-side with people of 'other faiths.' Can anyone claim that ignorance about one another's religions is 'good' in any sense at all? . It seems to me that Comparative Religion should be an absolutely essential component of any public school curriculum in every school district in the country. And as a parenthetical, some religious bodies have a similar outlook. This is true for Unitarians, for many members of the United Church of Christ, for many congregations of the Disciples of Christ denomination, for some Reform Jews, for some Episcopalians, and still others. But how does it make sense to then lie about the religions you ask students to investigate? . Part of the views of nearly every religion on Earth include criticisms of other religions. Briefly, the Bible lambastes idolaters, has no use for most of Greek Pagan religion, most Roman religion, and various 'odd' cults that appear in its pages somewhere, like that of Simon Magus who is discussed in the New Testament. Confucians in China, although how much of this was written as scripture in some sense is unclear to me, became increasingly anti-Buddhist by late T'ang times. Buddha started out by being critical of 'orthodox' Brahminism, the forerunner of Hinduism. And on and on. . Worse in terms of criticism-by-fiat is Islam, which condemns Goddess worshippers to death because they venerate one or another female deity. Islam also condemns Atheists to death and any Muslim who converts to another faith. Pagans like Yazidis may be killed (or enslaved) with impunity. In some Islamic regimes Baha'is may be put to death for their beliefs, in other regimes it may be Buddhists or Hindus, in still others it may be Sikhs or the Druze or Ahmadis, who are non-orthodox Muslims. For that matter in some Muslim states in the past Sufis, who also are at least nominally part of Dar al-Islam, have been killed for religious reasons. . While Christians and Jews supposedly have special status as "people of the book" this is mostly a fiction in the Muslim world where such people are often persecuted, sometimes killed, and in any case at best have legally mandated second-class-citizen status. No-one is supposed to say anything about this? The fact that a few Muslim nations are religiously tolerant is true enough, the United Arab Emirates for instance, and parts of Indonesia, it is also a fact that this is the opposite of true for Saudi Arabia, Libya, Pakistan, Yemen, Sudan, and another twenty or so countries. Exactly why should this reality be ignored? . Which would be bad enough if all of this reflected nothing so much as local custom that predates Islam, but nearly all of the criminal values just alluded to are sanctioned in Muhammad's book, the Koran, which devout Muslims are taught to believe contain the exact words of Allah -viz., the Arabic word for "God." And incidentally I am well aware that Muslims do not regard the Koran as authored by Muhammad; they tell us that Allah provided the text. Its just that I regard this falsehood as nonsense and will not play a game of "let's pretend" on the subject. I do not think that this theory deserves the least respect. . The reaction of other religions to Islam has been varied, among those that survived the onslaught when Muslim armies invaded their lands anyway, but none moreso than Buddhism which offers us a text that happens to be central to the faith of the Dalai Lama, namely, the Kalachakra Tantra. . There is considerable discussion of this text online, something that dates to some time around 970 AD in its current form even if a prototype is said to date all the way back to the time of Buddha himself -which seems to be as unlikely as anything can get. In any case, the extant Kalachakra Tantra includes descriptions of Muslim armies which invaded India, probably Turkish peoples along with Arabs and some Iranians. . Historical descriptions in the book are somewhat confused but what is clear enough is that the authors, whomever they were, had lived through a period of military invasions during which the foreign soldiers acted like the worst kinds of barbarians, essentially organized terrorists who slaughtered large numbers of people -primarily Buddhists and Hindus- and destroyed Buddhist monasteries, temples, libraries, etc., only interrupted by the need for establishing political order in the conquered areas. . There is no question about who these invaders were: Muslims. The primary confusion concerns Buddhist conflation of these foreigners with Christians, Jews, and Manichaeans, all of whom were taken to be in the service of Islam. Various scholarly explanations suggest that the invaders the Buddhist writers knew from first hand experience might have been part of one or another sectarian movement, possibly Ismaili in origin, but just as likely expeditionary forces under control of the Abbasid Caliphate. It could be, too, that there were Christians among the invaders since it sometimes was Muslim policy to recruit (or compel) non-Muslims to swell the ranks of their armies; there may even have been small contingents of Jews and Manichaeans. . In any case, a number of famous leaders of western religions are mentioned by name, characterized as "demonic snakes," including Moses, Jesus and Mani. This seems to reflect both Buddhist scholarship of the time, viz, they knew something about these religions even if they got a number of details wrong, and probably knowledge about opposition to Buddhism from Christians, Jews, and Manichaeans. But there isn't any question at all that most -by far- Buddhist horror and revulsion was directed against Muslims and their religion. Indeed, the invaders are, overwhelmingly, characterized as "Mlecca," a term denoting “inhabitants of Mecca.” . The Koran is singled out as an evil book, the proper name for God in Islam, Allah, is made use of, and Islam is described as a "religion of violence." Moreover, Muslims are called subhumans who thrive on criminal behavior. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. . Muhammad appears in the Kalachakra Tantra as "Madhumati," which simply is the Sanskrit version of the name. Madhumati also appears in a Hindu text of the same era, The Bhavishya Purana, which also condemns Muslims for their violence and all around inhumanity. . An interesting detail is that in one passage there are comments about Muhammad and Mathani. The latter word means the "Mahdi" - a savior figure in Islam that has the function of "Messiah" for Jews and Christians. At the time, prior to the successes of Shiah Islam in Persia, 'Mahdi' would have referred primarily to the Ismailis. But no-one can be sure since maybe what this says is that the Buddhists identified the ruler of the Muslims in the 10th century as more-or-less the return of Muhammad. Which could be the Caliph. . As a result of Muslim depredations the final version of the Kalachakra Tantra paints a picture of a Buddhist apocalypse in which supernatural armies of spiritual beings, or humans with special powers, will arise in the future, led by Rudra Chakrin, who will kill all the Mleccha, and thereafter spread the message of Buddha to the entire world. The age of hoards of Muslims causing carnage and despoilation wherever they go will be brought to an end. Islam will cease to exist, and good riddance. . Whatever you may think of the theology one thing cannot be doubted, this is strong criticism of Muhammad's religion and of Muslims generally. Islam is a huge mistake, a plague upon the Earth, and an utter disaster for everyone else. The viewpoint is that the sooner it is destroyed, the better. And I, for one, whole-heartedly agree. Of course, as you don't need to guess, inasmuch as there are Buddhist 'liberals' as well as their Christian counterparts, much of what you will find in Web sources is extreme back-peddling in heroic efforts to explain it all away. Hence Alexander Berzin, certainly a scholar of Buddhism, goes to lengths to assert that all of the violence on the part of future Buddhists seeking revenge is entirely allegorical; it represents, so we are told, spiritual struggle, the killing of inner demons, and overcoming evil inclinations. What will be killed will be hatred, intolerance, unhealthy emotions like those that result in aggression, and wrong values. . About which there is a case to be made, but even if a sort of inner meaning is part of the scenario, the only reasonable conclusion to arrive at is that this would be a side effect of a real war set to happen years from now. That is, Berzin is dishonest. Because.....the whole apocalyptic is presented as a real solution to the problem of Islam and of the Muslims who invaded India in an era when much of the country still was Buddhist. The Muslims did not simply slay Buddhist thoughts and bad values, they killed millions of people, possibly most of them Buddhists, many others who were Hindu, and regarded doing so as virtuous. And after all, the Muslims are described as evil personified, beyond redemption, completely possessed by Mara, the Buddhist equivalent of Satan. A symbolic victory against the Devil can't be more than a stop gap, something rather than nothing, but far from what is necessary. Eventually an actual war will be necessary to wipe out all Muslims and to demolish their ugly and diseased religion. . So that you don't get the wrong impression it should be noted that most, by far, of the Kalachakra Tantra has nothing at all to do with an apocalyptic future in which Islam is discredited and vaporized. While there definitely are passages that describe Muhammad as a psychopath and Muslims as homicidal maniacs, 99% of the text is about such things as Buddhist initiation rituals, meditation practices, and such like. There are also lengthy passages on the subject of Shambala, the mythic Buddhist paradise on Earth which, depending on who is doing the interpreting, is some place that exists in another dimension or that can be found in some unknown fastness in the Himalayas -which, of course, morphed into the 20th century myth of Shangri-La. . As a footnote, since the Kalachakra Tantra became quite popular -as scripture- in the years from about 970 AD until maybe 1150 AD, it should be pointed out that it pretty much ceased to exist thereafter. The only location where the text survived as a popular book read by the literate public was Nepal, with continued interest among Buddhist monks in Tibet. Otherwise, for all practical purposes, it had vanished. What happened? . This is no mystery. Those were the years of the collapse of organized military resistance to Muslim invaders and the opening phase of the Hindu Holocaust as it has been called, actually a Hindu - Buddhist Holocaust, with some Jains and small numbers of Christians in the mix. The first of an estimated 70 million deaths took place in that era, with a similar number of people enslaved, in a process that really has not ended but that no longer was at massive scale by the middle decades of the 20th century. Muslim rulers would not tolerate a Buddhist book that characterized themselves as bloodthirsty villains. They may have been exactly that, but Muslims thought of themselves as holy warriors who were destroying false religions. Hence the Kalachakra Tantra was suppressed. But it did pass into Tibetan Buddhism as a key scripture which, in time, became the key text for the Dalai Lamas of history -including the present Dalai Lama. . So that you will know. . However, according to our 'liberal' brothers and sisters, we are supposed to relegate the book to oblivion, it is too embarrassing. It messes up the narrative of peace and harmony that supposedly underlies all religions and therefore is anathema. To hell with the truth of history, let the people believe in lies, in other words.. . What we are witnessing is the triumph of Theosophy. This is in reference to the rise of a number of religious philosophies in the early 1900s, not only Theosophy, each of which taught that there is a common substratum to all religions. This was a byproduct of the "age of empire" and the rise of the first era of globalization (from about 1850 until the outbreak of WWI). This ideology spoke to the need to keep empires together despite the great differences in the cultures each empire ruled and to maintain a system of law and order. . It also spoke to an emerging ideal of peace as a desired objective in human affairs -not only because peacefulness is regarded as a virtue in most religions but moreso because the benefits of capitalism are nullified if millions of people kill each other. This was the era of the rise of progressivism epitomized by Teddy Roosevelt, and real progress depended on extended periods of peace. As TR saw it, such periods themselves required battlefield victories by moral empires, but peace had to be the goal so that moral regimes could work their magic, and it takes time to convince semi-civilized people to cherish the values of true civilizations like, well, the United States. In any case, all of this helps explain why Teddy Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize. . This is an obviously oversimplified account of the historical period in question but it is close enough to explain a few fundamentals -and it allows us to make sense of the rise of religions like Theosophy. Also a factor of consequence was the Baha'i Faith, and a constellation of small scale religions characterized by William James as Mind Cure religions (New Thought, Christian Science, Religious Science, etc). Religions that could be interpreted as basically pacifistic also became at least somewhat popular for the first time in the West, especially Buddhism, but also Hindu groups like Brahmo Somaj. . The trouble is that, despite the great decline in importance of Theosophy since ca. 1910, it is now approximately 1% of what it once was, we are left with a privileged theology at the heart of what is today known as multi-culturalism. And exactly why should the key theological principle of Theosophy be allowed to have a central position in secular school curricula around the nation? Worse, honest criticism of Theosophy-biased multi-culturalism is disallowed just about everywhere with critics characterized as uneducated troglodytes who want to turn the clock back. . But the trouble is also that far too many critics are, in fact, poorly educated troglodytes. This is to speak of a certain kind of Evangelical Christian usually referred to as "fundamentalists," who, it must be said, have almost no idea of what they are talking about as soon as they are called upon to discuss anything at all outside the realm of Biblical religion and maybe Christian history as it has unfolded in the United States. . So there you have it. . Except to say that this is not intended to discredit the word "fundamentalism." I have no interest in any such thing. This is because, along with other views of religion, I consider myself to be a Radical Fundamentalist. . . Think of it this way: Axiomatic to what is usually designated as fundamentalism in the United States is the proposition that what is "truly true" necessarily is found in the original text of the Bible. This seems to be a reasonable position to take; the idea is based on the same kind of logic that gives us Constitutional originalism, which is received wisdom among many scholars, as well as Luther's position that it is vital to Christian faith to try and recover -as close as we can get to it- the nature of that faith as it was lived in the first century AD. Some very important dimensions of living culture are based on the principle that there is value to something in the here-and-now because it perpetuates the real virtues of heroes of history whom we look up to for inspiration. . What makes Radical Fundamentalism different than your average fundamentalism is that "RF," to call it that, is predicated on the view that much of the Bible is, in fact, derivative of much older literature. Indeed, whole texts are now known that provide us with the originals of stories in Genesis, like the Garden of Eden and the Flood, including the legend of the infant Moses. In other Old testament books we get the prototypes for the story of Samson, for the text of Lamentations, for the template which led to the Song of Songs, for Ruth and Naomi, and much else. Just about all of this is Mesopotamian in origin. . Needless to say this is not what a subset of American Christians had in mind in the early 1900s when they began their movement but this is exactly where their logic takes them. It takes us to Ludlul bel Nemeqi as the prototype for the Book of Job and it takes us to Queen Esther, her name simply a variant for Ishtar. It also takes us to such New Testament stories as Christ's descent to Hell, the so-called "harrowing of Hell" as recounted in the following verses -here taken from the Wikipedia article on the subject, slightly modified for reasons of format: . . Matthew 12:40: "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Acts 2:27: "For You will not leave my soul in Hades, nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption. 1 Peter 4:6: "For this reason the gospel was preached also to those who are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit." Revelation 20:13: "The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works." , The concept is that after the crucifixion, but before the resurrection, Jesus visited Hell to seek to redeem the wicked. This he did, presumably not all of them but those who repented, and led them into a new life of some kind. Perhaps along the lines of Jesus' promise to one of the two men crucified with him, "this day you shall be with me in paradise." The harrowing idea is not completely spelled out anywhere in the New Testament but we do know that it was common belief in the early Church and well into the Middle Ages. About which you are free to believe the story or not. What it is, in any case, is memorable mythology, something that teaches the Christian view that even the worst of sinners still have some hope, not all is lost for those who turn to Christ. At least this is true for those who have a sincere and deep rooted change of heart and are willing to face their responsibilities. . What this also is, even if 99.9 % of Christians are clueless, is a revised telling of the story of Ishtar's descent to the Netherworld, possibly the best known myth of the ancient world. In the original the Goddess, incarnate on Earth as a woman who actually lived in about 2650 BC, needed to die and visit the equivalent of Hell before she could be resurrected. Ishtar's specific purpose was to release her deceased husband, Tammuz, from death so that he could continue to rule as king in Mesopotamia. Ishtar's sacrifice also allowed nature to regenerate itself, for plants to return to life in Spring, for animals to reproduce, and so forth. After three days Ishtar was resurrected and took her rightful place as Queen of Heaven and Earth. There was no large scale resurrection of the dead in this story but there was, in related material, her threat to release all the dead -which did not happen but was something she could do. . The parallels are obvious and striking; not to understand, immediately, what this is all about would be perverse. Clearly several Christian authors who lived in the first century AD knew the Ishtar story and adapted it to their new faith. This isn't in the least doubt. So why not say so and be honest about it? . You do not need to believe in the literal meaning of either story; if you are at all objective you cannot take either story at face value. All that is necessary is to understand the truths each story tries to teach, about nature, about second chances, about still other things, and make these truths your own. Which is precisely where "real fundamentalism" takes you. Into the realm of historical fact and psychological truths and beautiful literary expressions. We are better off for having both stories just as we are better for it to know that the original Garden of Eden was a real place in today's Iraq, "Edin," and that in the story told in Mesopotamia there was one sacred huluppu tree in which lived a serpent, but also Lilith and an eagle. The woman in the story was named "Inanna" in the Sumerian language, which became Ishtar in Akkadian, the language of the Assyrians. Eve, in so many words, is one Hebrew version of the Goddess -and there are others. . Is it any wonder that the Holy Spirit in the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, is feminine? And why should anyone deny it? . There are a good number of books on the subject of ancient Mesopotamian religion and its relationship to the Bible but let me recommend just five: . Raphael Patai, The Hebrew Goddess, 1967, revised 1990; . Thorkild Jacobsen, The Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion, 1978; . Samuel Noah Kramer and Diane Wolkstein, Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth, 1983; Simo Parpola, Assyrian Prophecies, 1997; and . William G. Dever, Did God Have a Wife?: Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel, 2005, . These books are an education like few others. I cannot recommend any other texts on ancient religion that are directly relevant to the Bible that are quite as good as these -and there are still others that are very good. But these are special. They will go a long way toward explaining my view that true fundamentalism, taken to its logical conclusion, takes you into a world where henotheism is orthodox, where ancient Hebrew religion was henotheistic, and where you can see that the theological substance of original Christian faith rests on henotheistic foundations. . Could I possibly have gotten to the place where I could see where all of this added up without some version of "crossroads theology" taking form in my mind as my life as I explored the essential questions of religion? . There is an additional point to make: The nearly universal fixation of Western scholars on Judaism and Rome when trying to explain the origins of Christian faith is terribly misleading. This fixation throws everyone off the trail. Because, after all, the post hoc Pauline interpretation of earliest Christianity is predicated on the view that the first believers necessarily were, in effect, peaceful Quakers dedicated to pacifist principles who would not harm a fly. Even Robert Eisenman, otherwise a brilliant scholar who has blasted apart numerous shibboleths, has not been able to get the idea. . John Dominic Crossan seems to be right; in the very early years, Jesus did lead a peaceful movement. Indeed, there had been other peaceful religion-inspired movements in Roman Palestine. But they all only got so far and no further; in effect, despite a few limited successes, they all failed. The history of the faith that Jesus taught seems to have also begun that way; but then, here following Eisenman, the group understood that a messianic rebellion was the only way to expel the Romans and usher in the Kingdom of Heaven. Hence the violence of throwing out the money changers and the reported fact that at least some of the disciples were armed with swords. . This rebellion scenario owes nothing to Reza Aslan, by the way. While there may have been scholars long before me who also proposed a revolutionary start to Christianity, I was unaware of them when, in the mid 1980s, I wrote an unpublished book about Christianity and Zoroastrianism, circulated in Xerox copies at the time, which advanced this theory. What was missing in my book has since been largely supplied by Aslan, many of the nuts and bolts of organizing a rebellion and evidence for this development from ancient sources, discussed in his work. But Aslan made his own huge mistake, by interpreting Jesus, in effect, as a failed Muhammad. That is an example of the theological views of a religion that is a moral failure poisoning one's scholarship. For obviously Jesus had no intention of world military conquest. That sort of thing, if it came, would be the province of two major powers of the time, the Parthians and the Egyptians. What Jesus wanted was independence for Israel and freedom to establish a model kingdom that could become a light unto the world, a utopia on Earth -in alliance with Persia and Egypt. . But there is no evidence for any such thing? There isn't only if you are Judeo-Roman centric. If you are an actual scholar and can see in front of your nose, the evidence could not be more obvious. Here it is, or here is the most forceful statement of that evidence: . Matthew 12: 41-42 "At the Judgement, when this generation is on trial, the men of Nineveh will appear against it and ensure its condemnation, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and what is here is greater than Jonah. The Queen of the South will appear at the Judgement when this generation is on trial, and ensure its condemnation, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and what is here is greater than Solomon." . It would be helpful to remember that two wars were etched in the minds of Judeans in the time of Christ, or if not direct memories, the recollections of fathers or grandfathers. Somehow New Testament scholars have the greatest possible difficulty in remembering either -despite the years they spent at Harvard or Berkeley or Emory or anywhere else. These wars were: . The War between Antony and Octavian, involving Cleopatra VII of Egypt. This conflict lasted from 32 BC until 30 BC. It was preceded by- . the Parthian-Roman war of 40 BC - 37 BC. During this time the Persians liberated Jerusalem and Judea from Roman rule and reinstated a Hasmonean to the throne in Israel, Antigonus. Which suggests a date for a final redaction of Isaiah, you might think. . . In any case, it may well have seemed possible for a leader of Jews in the first century AD to look to either or both Parthia or Egypt for support. And especially Parthia inasmuch as it remained independent and, at times in this era, belligerent with the Romans. Indeed, there might be documentation of relationships between Persians and Jews of this era but scholarship in this field is the orphan of Bible studies; researchers simply cannot conceive that there could be any relevance. As if, for instance, scholars of American history ignored the contribution of the French to our war of Independence. . I mean, the situation is completely absurd. It is an outstanding case of willful ignorance regarded as laudatory. . Matthew provides another clue, of course, the story of the wise men, universally regarded as Persian religious leaders of some kind, Zoroastrians sometimes referred to as Magians, viz Magi. . What early Christians could not do was make such hopes explicit, that would invite Roman retribution. Instead a device that everyone would understand cold be employed, similar to the device made use of by John of Patmos when he wrote Revelation and had Babylon stand in for Rome. In Matthew 12 we get the Assyrians as stand-ins for the Parthians. And what would be more natural? Jesus spoke Aramaic, the language of the latter Assyrian empire, and hence, borrowings from the wisdom sayings of the Assyrian sage Ahiqar found in the Sermon on the Mount. . For Egypt the symbolism needed to be more opaque but reference to the Queen of the South would do nicely. On the surface this referred to the Queen of Sheba but, also as 'everybody knew,' this phrase had another meaning, namely, the Goddess Isis, the most important Goddess in Egyptian religion. Even the noble Roman Plutarch was a devotee. And maybe most important of all, Cleopatra was regarded as Isis incarnate. Hence, at Christ's advent with him will be Parthian and Egyptian armies. If that kind of alliance could be cemented there would be real possibility of a successful revolt. That did not happen but, for a season, it may well have seemed plausible. But is Matthew 12: 41-42 early? There is a parallel in Luke, of course, 11: 30-31. This passage is not found in Mark. Therefore, in all probability its goes back to the "Q" source. I'm not sure how you can go further into time than that. . Lastly, if anyone thinks that these allusions to Assyrian and Egyptian religion can possibly be taken as inconsequential in a spiritual sense you would be justified in thinking that such a person is clinically insane. . It means nothing that Jesus, according to Matthew / Luke / Q , thought that the Goddess Isis should be alluded to in a positive sense, with the implication that her devotees would make good allies? Indeed, if you know what to look for in the story of the Samaritan woman, it is entirely possible to read that pericope as symbolic of Isis. . It means nothing that Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian Empire and was named after the Goddess Ishtar? If you are not up on your Akkadian etymology here is a clue: "Nin" was a common nickname for Inanna; the city was founded in the Sumerian era before the popularity of the name Ishtar. Nineveh means something like "city of Ishtar." . It means nothing that with Christ as the advent will be many Ninevites, that is, Assyrians who worship Ishtar? O, yeah? . Actually all of this means a helluva lot. The issue has hardly been explored, it raises many important questions that so far have not been answered. The quest for answers is fascinating and could have momentous consequences. Jesus may arrive in the clouds, who can say? But whether people first see him in the sky descending to Earth or already on terra firma, he won't be alone, with him will be Assyrian Ishtar devotees and a form of the Goddess Isis. Not because I say so but because Matthew says so and Luke says so. . Which I have said many times before with always the same reaction: incomprehension -followed quickly by comments that indicate that nothing of what I said registered at all. . One thing I know for sure is that most people -in huge numbers- are so conditioned by prevailing orthodoxies that anything at all outside the preferred narratives of the orthodoxies they grew up with or now follow, falls on deaf ears because everything else seems abnormal. Call it the "Copernicus effect." At the time of Copernicus everyone, and this means 99. 99999999999% of the population, completely accepted the Ptolemaic geocentric model of the universe; it was regarded as the only thinkable position to have on the subject. People simply could not imagine that anything else could possibly be true. So it is with respect to really new paradigms of religion. Regardless, no-one can persuade me of the rightness of the existing paradigms of Judaism or Christianity: The facts all line up in refutation of those paradigms. Of course, there are good reasons to be skeptical of new paradigms of faith. Most such theories are wrong and whatever problems that orthodoxies embody, the problems of many new cults or sects can be much worse. There is also a sad fact, with Bart Ehrman as a prime example, another competent scholar with a lot to say, critical scholarship, rejection of the literal meaning of many Bible passages, then leading to Atheism. And I don't know about you, but for me, Atheism is not a good solution at all. . However, in a case like Ehrman's, the problem seems to be his rootedness in a form of thinking he has never been able to shed. He continues to accept as true the model of religion whereby the only choices are Christian faith in some form that includes at least 'weak' orthodox beliefs as its anchor in the world of spiritual ideas. Or Atheism. But why should that be? . Buddhism has nothing to say to Professor Ehrman? Hindu Tantra has nothing to say? Philosophical Taoism has nothing to say? Philosophical Zoroastrianism has nothing to say? I can understand why he would not want to even consider say, Sikhism or Mormonism, but what about faiths that could challenge him intellectually as much as was true for him in the years he struggled with Christian truth claims? . And there are, after all, any number of liabilities that go along with adopting an Atheist outlook, some of which are major. Why create a wall between yourself and your family and close friends? And why associate with some of the most narrow minded people on the planet even if their narrow-mindedness is the opposite of the narrow-mindedness of religious 'true believers'? Is it attractive to 'believe in' a system that is predicated on nihilism, antipathy to religion generally, and that is horribly disrespectful of the Bible and Biblical tradition? There is such a thing as philosophical Atheism, to be sure, and what is called philosophical Humanism, but these kinds of people simply are not typical of Atheists, are they? . . All of these considerations are Radical Centrist in character. Here the issue is religion. But there is no way to "contain" Radical Centrist thought and confine it to the world of politics. Which is also to say that religion manifestly is NOT simply about experiences with the unseen, it is not simply about emotions and devotionalism and belief. Religion sometimes may be these things, of course, but at other times that entire universe is beside the point. What religion is to me, most of all, is the quest for truth. This was mostly how I felt about religious issues when I was seventeen and it is how I feel about things now in my seventies. . . Sometimes people tell me that religion is irrelevant and that the Bible is hopelessly boring. My reaction, personally, is that I have no idea what they are talking about. Yes, these things may be true for them, but what this says to me is that their 'religious education' has been a bad joke. They have been taught a closed system in which nothing can possibly be new and dynamic because their orthodoxy has become a strait jacket. It is closed tightly to the findings of modern day scholarship, it is not only unwilling to examine the many thoughtful critiques of Biblical literalism, it is opposed to any such thing, and it is in this condition because it cannot be truthful about much of anything that is controversial. . What is left? Whatever you can memorize by rote. . That is the opposite of my faith. But what I do not mean is that I find inspiration in upbeat new songs or take heart because formality is no longer a necessity in church settings or because believers these days are not nearly as insular as was true in the past when focus was largely on individual salvation and who cares about what is happening in Congress or in the Hollywood film industry? These are good developments for the most part but are all secondary to the heart and soul of faith. And that essence has to do with truth more than anything else. About which Evangelicals and traditionalist Catholics fail miserably. . Can conventional religion as it is known in America remake itself? My opinion is that it cannot. If this assessment is wrong I would be glad to admit it. Religious diversity can be a very good thing. All of American religious history suggests exactly this. But after 150 years of something that can rightly be called serious Biblical scholarship, with reliable generalized scholarship of religion at large at least 100 years old, mostly we are still at Square #1, or at best a few squares from "Go." Almost everyone in the pews -or the equivalent for Buddhists and Hindus or others- is frightened to death of radical truthfulness. However, I welcome it. That is precisely what I thrive on. . Hence my deep interest in seeing the creation of what Saint-Simon called the "New Christianity." Not how he outlined it, except here and these, but to speak of the concept -a fresh creation of Christian faith based not only on a radical reaffirmation of the Bible, but an equally radical affirmation of the value of science and scholarship and new leadership with damned good new ideas. Which necessarily would mean Radical Centrist ideas. Which necessarily has to mean people who have a capacity for objectivity as well as experience. . About which, by the way, allow me to recommend one more excellent book, Ross Douthat's 2012 opus, Bad Religion, How We Became a Nation of Heretics. This is about as close to a Radical Centrist book about religion as you can find. Written in very readable journalistic style it nonetheless makes use of social science methodology, is about as close to an objective study as you are likely to come across anywhere, and it is relevant to just about every kind of Biblical religion currently active in the United States . What should the focus of religion be upon? . Claims to the supernatural are seldom what this is all about. It is important to leave the door open to exactly that, to be sure, to what is referred to as 'grace' in Biblical theology, but not as something that can be summoned at will whenever you want it; that is not remotely possible, rather, as the inexplicable and wondrous and unexpected over which none of us has any control at all. . What, then, can we call upon as inspiration in our lives? The Apostle Paul said it best in Philippians 4: 8, which says- "And now, my friends, all that is true, all that is noble, all that is just and pure, all that is lovable and gracious, whatever is excellent and admirable— fill all your thoughts with these things." . Exactly. This includes a million possibilities, everything that enriches life and gives you reason for living and reason for living for others. The one vital qualification is that whatever you choose must pass tests of morality as part of everything else, and of intellectual coherence. In some sense it should be true, not just for a moment but forever. . By definition it cannot include counterfeit 'beauty,' the pathological feelings of degenerates, the sickness of soul of bigots, the warped values of nihilists, or the rapaciousness of the greedy. But this leaves a universe to find beauty in, or to create new beauty from. . . Finally, a question: . Who is your model of a religious hero you identify with -that is, someone who lived in the 20th century or maybe still is alive in the 21st century? For me there isn't any question about it: Albert Schweitzer. He never called himself a Radical Centrist -the phrase did not exist while he was still among us- but that was what he was. Someone who cannot be classified as either on the religious Right nor on the religious Left. Someone for whom faith in Jesus was foundational to his life yet who didn't have the least reluctance to make use of the best critical scholarship available to him -and if that scholarship provided irrefutable evidence that the Bible contains errors or that there are very good reasons to think that ancient Hebrew religion was henotheistic rather than monotheistic, then honesty compels you to say so and change your personal theology accordingly. But through it all, Jesus was at the center, Jesus was the exemplar to try and live up to, and Jesus stood up for what is right regardless of the cost. . Schweitzer also took the religions of East Asia seriously; like his contemporary, E. Stanley Jones, he was especially interested in the religions of India. Indeed, the word "interest" is hardly adequate, he cared, he regarded these faiths as important and in some respects as bearers of truths he made his own. . But Schweitzer was not reluctant to offer criticisms of religion, -religions, plural- because unless you offer honest criticisms you are not honest about any religion. Moreover, it is vital to make objective criticisms of one's own faith and its traditions. All religions are imperfect because all people are imperfect and, as well, Satan exists and can cause havoc in any institution you can name and in the life of any individual you know. About which, of course, the Apostle Paul had much to say. And Schweitzer was a scholar of Paul as well as the world's leading critical biographer of Jesus. For Schweitzer, scholarship, if you have any talent for it at all, is necessary for faith. Maybe there is something to be said for the concept of sancta simplicissimus, there are times when it makes sense, but all the time because that is the limit of your intelligence? Have you no shame? . It would be unbecoming for me to say more about Schweitzer. Who can possibly live up to the example of his life of dedication as a medical missionary laboring in the tropical rain forest for free, year after year, approximately half of his entire life? The most any of us can be, if we are truthful, is a hummingbird in comparison to an elephant. But I want to be the best hummingbird I can be. Shouldn't you? I want to be a little like Albert Schweitzer, even just a little, it is the least I can do to honor his memory. This is what Radical Centrism, or "crossroads theology," means to me. What does your theology mean to you? . . . June 10, 2016 -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
