Feast of the Holy Innocents

The death of the innocent children of Bethlehem is what we today call in Orwellian language “collateral damage.” I realize that most American Christians don’t want to sully their sentimental version of Christmas with Matthew’s disturbing account... of King Herod’s collateral damage—it too easily reminds us of drone strikes gone awry that end up hitting wedding parties instead of terrorist cells. When contemporary superpowers adopt the tactics of ancient tyrant kings, we need to be honest about the fact that innocent people,

I’ve been to Bethlehem more than twenty times. I have Palestinian Christian friends who live there. I love spending time in the ancient Church of the Nativity that venerates the traditional birthplace of Christ. 1/6 On my writing desk I have a beautiful cross icon that I obtained at one of Bethlehem’s olive wood stores. I’ve found peace and beauty in Bethlehem. But I’ve also seen separation walls, rubber bullets, and teargas canisters there. 2/6

🧵The Church Painter scene is one of my favorite's in A Hidden Life.

Terrence Malick clearly got his inspiration for the lines in this scene from Kierkegaard.

(Malick is a Rhodes Scholar with a degree in philosophy from Harvard—he knows his Kierkegaard.) Søren Kierkegaard:

"It is well known that Christ consistently used the expression 'follower.' For this reason, he could never be satisfied with adherents who accept his teaching—especially with those who in their lives ignored it or let things take their usual course.

"Without a life of imitation, of following Christ, it is impossible to gain mastery over doubts. We cannot stop doubt with reasons. Those who try have not learned that it is wasted effort. The Savior of the world did not come to bring a doctrine; he never lectured. He did not try by way of reasons to prevail upon anyone to accept his teaching. If someone wanted to be his follower, he said to that person something like this, 'Venture a decisive act; then you can begin, then you will know.'

I have enormous respect for Cherith Fee Nordling (Professor of Theology, Regent College), so her endorsement of WEOF means a lot to me. Here it is:

"'The theologian who writes about God but never utters Oh, God in prayer is not a theologian I'm interested in,' says Brian Zahnd. And I find Brian to be a very interesting pastor-theologian indeed! His well-tuned heart resonates with the hope that comes from having lived a thoughtful, prayerful, and intellectually and emotionally engaged life of encounter and reencounter with God—oh, God—in the beauty

Today everything seems to be on fire because the fallen world we live in is marred by fear, hatred, and violence. We see it in fearmongering politics that appeal to all that is worst in us; we see it in the ugly persistence of America’s four centuries of white supremacist racism; we see it in the malignant gun culture and gun violence that terrorizes our land from Columbine to Sandy Hook to Everywhere, USA; and we see it in expressions of American Christianity that willingly embrace political policies that are unapologetically cruel and unkind.

What does the Crucifixion mean? It means everything. Everything that can be known about God is in some way present at the cross. It’s the pinnacle of divine self-disclosure, the eternal moment of forgiveness, divine solidarity with human suffering… …the enduring model of discipleship, the supreme demonstration of divine love, the beauty that saves the world, the re-founding of the world around an axis of love, the overthrow of the satan, the shaming of the principalities and powers…

Today I conclude my Strangers In A Strange Land series by preaching on The Exile Experience of the Early Christians.

In my sermon I'll use a quote from my favorite essay by David Bentley Hart: Perhaps the best moral sense Christians can make of the story of Christendom now, from the special vantage of its aftermath, is to recall that the Gospel was never bound to the historical fate of any political or social order...

The question isn’t can we find it in the Bible.

The question is can we find it in Jesus.

Jesus says to ever would-be disciple, “Follow me.” This is not a controversial statement. It's just not.

The Bible is not univocal on a number of topics, but the Bible does unerringly point us to Jesus, the one whom we are to follow.

There is a name for interpreting the Bible in the light of Christ: It's called Christianity.

A crowd under the influence of an angry, vengeful spirit is the most dangerous thing in the world. It is closely associated with the essence of what is satanic. The unholy spirit (think mood or attitude) of the satanic is the inclination to blame, accuse, and recriminate. 1/7 When the satanic spirit of angry blame and accusation infects a crowd, a perilous phenomenon is born. The crowd abandons truth as it searches for a target upon which it can express the pent-up rage it feels. I say “it” because the angry crowd takes on a life of its own. 2/7

A Christmas Prayer

Almighty God, it’s been a difficult year in which our lives have been disrupted and death has stalked our land. Nevertheless in this season of Christmas we find cause for hope, because, as the carol says, Yet in thy dark streets shineth, the everlasting light. We thank you that Jesus Christ is the light of the world and that this light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not overcome it. So we rejoice in the feast that celebrates the birth of Christ our King even as we look forward to a world without the specter of a pandemic.

"It's not the government's job to take care of the poor."

I'm regularly told this by a certain type of Christian.

Allow me to expose the theology behind their assertion:

Jesus is Lord.*

* Does not apply to governments; governments are exempt from the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Governments are simply a way that people organize themselves.

Is it good Christian theology to claim that there is a way people can organize themselves that exempts them from the Lordship of Jesus Christ?

No, that is not good Christian theology. #ItsReallyJustADodge

Spotify tells me these are my most streamed songs in 2020. Lots of Dylan, Rock, and Punk, with some Psychedelic thrown in. Seems about right. open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9d… I was surprised by how much Black Keys I listened to — but I suppose that’s become I really like them. I’ve been a fan since Thickfreakness.

I wrote this on July 18, 2018.

It's in "Postcards From Babylon" on page 142:

The presidency of Donald Trump has been a relentless tornado of chaos. The controversies connected with Donald Trump seem to change by the hour—it’s neo-Nazis having “some fine people,”... 1/4 ...then it’s paying off porn stars, then it’s children in detention camps, then it’s Putin and Russia. As I conclude the writing of this chapter, I’m on a flight from Toronto, and for all I know what I’ve written will be out of date by the time I land in Kansas City;... 2/4

Perceiving the kingdom of God as an actual political reality is a game changer. Once you see that Jesus has his own political agenda, his own vision for arranging human society, his own criteria for judging nations, then it’s impossible... 1/7 ...to give your heart and soul to the power-based, win-at-all-costs partisan politics that call for our allegiance. Unfortunately, what I’ve learned through bitter experience is that a lot of people don’t want the game changed. They want to win the game—not change the game. 2/7

During Columbus’ governorship of Hispaniola the Arawak people were either sold into slavery or forced to supply a certain quantity of gold every three months. Those who failed to meet the quota had their hands cut off. That’s when the mass suicides began. Modern scholarship places the population of Hispaniola in 1492 at no less than four million people. By 1520 it had fallen to 20,000. Do the math! The Niña, Pinta, and Santa María had brought Death to the Americas.

One of the most remarkable things about the first Christians is that they didn’t try to hide, downplay, or gloss over the fact that the One they worshiped as King of Kings had been crucified. Paul says “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” The early Christian hymn that Paul quotes in his letter to the Philippian church doesn’t merely say Jesus died, but that he was crucified. The earliest Christian creed doesn’t flinch from confessing that Jesus suffered under Pontius Pilate and was crucified.

For most Western people “God” is the amalgamation of all the philosophical “omnies”—omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, omni-everything. What we end up with in this approach to understanding God are our own ideas, preferences, prejudices, fears magnified to the omni-degree. 1/4 But a Christian understanding of God is entirely informed by Jesus. It is Jesus who gives definition to God, not the philosophical “omnies.” We don’t know God according to philosophical categories, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. (cf. Matthew 11:27) 2/4

We're expecting some turbulence. The seatbelt sign has been illuminated.

DBH on Christianity in America:

No nation in the wake of Christendom’s decline has done more to confuse the story that Christians should tell with the kind of stories sinful human beings long to tell. 1/6 In the American imagination our national history is one of a chosen people fleeing the wickedness that is in the world so as to become a holy nation set apart, called to recreate humankind in a new and Edenic condition. 2/6

I long ago left behind a literal reading of the Bible. But now, at least to a certain extent, I find myself leaving behind an analytical historical-critical reading of the Bible as well. 1/6 So today if I’m reading the Bible in the morning as part of my daily spiritual exercises and I read about the walls of Jericho falling down I don’t muse upon the fact that archeological evidence does not support this. 2/6