All Means All

A federal judge has struck down the Arkansas ban on gender-affirming care for children.

The Arkansas law is part of a nationwide Republican drive to gain “evangelical” and other bigoted voters by attacking anything resembling fair play for transgender people.

It would have prohibited doctors from providing gender-affirming hormone treatment, puberty blockers or surgery to anyone younger than 18. It also would have prohibited doctors from referring patients elsewhere for such care.

The judge ruled that the law violated the due process and equal protection rights of transgender youth and families. He said the law also violated the First Amendment rights of medical providers.

What? Transgender people have rights? Doctors have the right of free speech? What kind of world do we live in!

Maybe, thanks to this judge, a world that is less harshly intolerant than the right-wing utopia envisioned by these Republican legislators – a world in which everyone knows their place, dictated by the sovereign state, and does not venture out of their place, at risk of drawing the ire of petty tyrants in state capitals.

We are approaching the annual observance of Independence Day, when many a would-be despot will stand in front of the red-white-and-blue and shout the merits of freedom without ever understanding the meaning of that word.

It is true that eternal vigilance is the price of freedom, and to preserve our freedom we must stand against the efforts of all dictators at the local and state and federal levels. No book banning. No attacks on “woke” thinking. (Again, ever hear of the First Amendment?) And so on.

The equation is simple. If you are not free, I am not free. If I am not free, you are not free. Real conservatives know this. Real Christians, too. If you want to be free, you must not try to restrict my freedom, because in “winning,” you will lose – and because you are so centered on yourself, you will lose far more than you ever may know.

It’s freedom for all or freedom for none. And all means all.

Just Like Us All

A stained glass window in an old church in Rhode Island portrays Jesus and other New Testament figures as having dark skin.

Black Jesus? Maybe. Definitely the window depicts Jesus as a person of color – not as the White person he clearly is in other windows in the same church.

The window was discovered during renovation of the long-closed St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Warren. The Greek Revival church building, which opened in 1830 and closed in 2010, was being converted into a home.

The two-panel window was commissioned in 1878 in memory of two women whose families had ties to the slave trade. One panel shows Jesus with the Samaritan woman at the well. The other panel shows Jesus with Mary and Martha.

Experts know of no previous depictions of Jesus or the women as persons of color. Why this window is different from others in the church is also unknown. One clue may be timing. The window was commissioned right after the Compromise of 1877, which settled the disputed 1876 presidential election by ending Reconstruction and starting Jim Crow oppression of Black people.

Whatever the motivation for its creation, the window stands as a marvelous repudiation of efforts to whitewash Jesus. Jesus may not have been Black but no way was he White.

Why does it matter? Besides setting the historical record straight, it shuts down racist depictions of Jesus as Nordic, Germanic or Anglo Saxon. Blond hair, blue eyes and light-color skin are out. Black or dark brown hair, brown eyes and darker skin are in.

The distinction is partly about how a person identifies with Jesus. If you want to think of Jesus as White in your personal devotion, that’s probably OK. Just don’t imagine that this portrayal is historically accurate.

Yes, it’s important for you to know that Jesus is just like you in every way that counts. Yes, it’s also important to know that Jesus might not have been welcome in your circle of friends because he’s too “other.”

Jesus is both like you and not like you. He is human like you but also divine. He is like you as human yet he stands outside your social circle and beyond distinctions such as sex or race. If you are Christian, you devote your life to becoming more like Jesus. But trying to make Jesus more like you is simply idolatry.

Jesus is just like us all — all, without distinction.

It’s Time to Resist

The haters are out in force, emboldened by repressive Republican state legislatures and hate groups disguised as political action committees.

I’m talking, of course, about the widespread assault on the rights of LGBQT and transgender people, not to mention drag queens, not to mention freedom in general.

Hate enforced by law is the tactic employed by Republicans in many states. Many of these new rules are much harsher than the “don’t say gay” nonsense in Florida. It’s almost illegal now to be transgender in some states, and don’t look to anyone in government for help – or anyone in medicine either, because they could be prosecuted for helping you.

The book banners are all about running libraries, especially when it concerns books that offend them. It’s OK if they tell their kids not to read certain things. It’s not OK for them to deny other parents and kids the right to read what they want. Such censorship is simply evil. Got that? Evil.

In Florida, that bastion of oppression masquerading as freedom, one public library has restricted reading of Amanda Gorman’s presidential inauguration poem “The Hill We Climb.” Why? One reader wants it removed from the shelves entirely. Responding to the news, Gorman said, “I am gutted.” That’s the purpose of the attack, you must know. First you gut them, then you watch them die.

Terrorists forced Target to cut back its gay pride displays. Terrorists? How else do you describe people who damage store goods and threaten employees who try to stop them? Remember, some of these are the same folks who claim the right to carry loaded assault-style rifles in Target stores.

Chick-fil-A faces boycott threats for having a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) page on its website. Here you thought Chick-fil-A was conservative. Not conservative enough, apparently.

Sales of Bud Light have plummeted since the beer brand partnered with a trans influencer in a beer promotion. “Manly men” can’t drink the same beer as her. Real men, meanwhile, drink whatever they want. (Notice how I’ve resisted the urge to insert Josh Hawley comments here? Resisting is really hard, though.)

Meantime, some people who claim to be Christian want to boycott the popular TV series “The Chosen,” which is more or less about the life of Christ. Why boycott it? Because a promo for the series included a behind-the-scenes look at one scene, and a crew member had placed a small rainbow flag on a piece of equipment that was off camera. The producers say cast and crew come from a variety of backgrounds, and their off-camera views are their own. Not good enough for the purists, naturally.

Let’s not forget the flap over Dodgers Pride Night. In Major League Baseball, everybody gets their night in the spotlight – even the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. This is a drag group of “nuns” who use their gag act to raise money for charity. First the Dodgers invited them. After objections from some major mouths, the Dodgers disinvited them. Now they Sisters are back on the schedule for June 16. I wonder if any of them drink Bud Light, eat Chick-fil-A, shop at Target, or watch Jesus and friends on TV.

I could go on, but surely by now you see how seriously silly this has gotten. Those on the right, who used to wag fingers at libs for being so easy to offend, are now the ones so easily offended, and they screech for attention. I think I’ve given them more than enough of that. But you have to know about their attacks on others so that you can resist them. Many of them have always operated under the cover of darkness, but when they come out in the open in daylight, you know the forces of evil are on the march. It’s time to openly resist.

Taking and Receiving

“When Jesus wanted to explain to his followers the meaning of his death, he didn’t give them a theory; he gave them a meal.”

So N.T. Wright says in his book How God Became King (p.238). He’s right, of course. Whether we call it Holy Communion or the Lord’s Supper or Eucharist, this meal defines who we are as followers of Jesus.

Of course, Jesus never gave full instructions on how to share the meal; just to “do it in remembrance of me.” Christians have fought over the details for nearly 2,000 years now, and I suspect we’ll march on to eternity squabbling over how the bread and wine (or grape juice) should be shared with whom under what conditions, and so on.

Lately, though, I’ve been bugged over the issue of taking versus receiving. It may be a minor point to most everyone else, but to me it’s a big deal.

The issue comes up because several weeks ago I was asked to preside at communion in two different churches on the same Sunday morning – part of a two-point charge when the pastor was away.

I observed the same thing at both churches: Some people received communion, while others took it. I served both because I had not instructed people ahead of time that I would not be serving the takers, only the receivers.

I make no moral judgments here because what people do in church is what they have been taught to do, and in my opinion many people have been poorly taught. Preachers, this is on you.

I’m also speaking solely to United Methodists and others who serve communion by intinction. That is, the celebrant gives a piece of bread to the person and the person dips the bread in the cup and then consumes the wine-soaked morsel of bread while stepping away.

It’s the attitude of the person receiving the bread that concerns me. Some people approach the celebrant with one hand slightly cupped or two slightly cupped hands held together. The celebrant can then drop the piece of bread into the cupped hand or hands. No skin contact occurs.

Others, however, approach with one hand held out with three fingers pointed upward to receive the bread. The celebrant must then carefully place the bread within those three fingers. Skin contact occurs frequently. But sanitation is really not the issue.

What’s wrong with the three-fingered approach? To my mind, it’s grasping. We do not grasp for a sign of God’s grace. We receive it in gratitude with outstretched hands. Again, we do not grasp for it; we receive it.

There’s a world of difference between grasping and receiving. I have sometimes in the past and do now promise to myself to always in the future inform the congregation beforehand that when I am serving communion you must hold out you hand to receive the bread but you must not hold up three fingers to take it because I won’t serve you until you get it right and we’ll stand there all day until you stop grasping and start receiving.

I’m retired now and may not have many more opportunities to serve communion, but whenever we do, people are going to receive not grasp at grace.

Next time communion rolls around at your church, check the bulletin or newsletter or screen. It probably says something about “taking” communion. Don’t believe it. We receive God’s grace. We don’t take it.

And it may be a small symbolic thing, but I’m going to enforce it.

Not the End Yet

I have never much appreciated the work of Bart D. Ehrman, so why did I sign up to receive his latest book on the date of its publication? I’m speaking of Armageddon: What the Bible Really Says About the End.

Actually, Ehrman’s book says very little about Armageddon. It’s mostly about the book of Revelation and the twisted history of its interpretation.

That’s why I wanted to read it. Revelation is a longtime interest of mine, and I like to know what others say about it. Erhman says nothing new or surprising, but he says it the same way he says just about everything: in a breathless, sensational, gee-whiz, Discovery Channel way that often sounds quite cynical.

He presents a straightforward account of how Revelation came to be the darling of crackpots and how its dreadful misinterpretation has infected public and private life worldwide. If you’re new to serious Revelation studies or want to be weaned off “end times” trash, this is valuable reading.

Then he gets into how he thinks Revelation ought to be interpreted, and here he gets into trouble.

After chiding fundamentalists and evangelicals for taking the bizarre symbols of Revelation too literally, he starts taking everything way too literally himself. John of Patmos, the author of Revelation, repeatedly warns his readers not to take what he says literally. Things are not this, he says over and over, only “like this.”

Even early on (page 31), Erhman snidely remarks that God apparently has body parts – and extremely wooden interpretation of John’s visions in chapter 5 of Revelation.

Ehrman’s jaundiced reading leads him to misread the lion and lamb symbolism. “The book is not about a lion that becomes a lamb; it is about a lamb that becomes a lion,” he says (page 160). No, no, no. You totally missed the point there.

Finally, he dismisses Revelation as revenge porn. “In the end, the right people will get what the wrong people have now” (page 172). He concludes: “…in my view, the God of Revelation cannot be the true God” (156).

The Jesus of Revelation is not the Jesus of the gospels, he says (206). The gospels present a unified portrayal of Jesus as the model of service to others. “I do not need to provide a full discussion of this here – that would require an entire book” (186).

I want to read that book, Bart. But this one and all the others like it, not so much.