I just finished up The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity by Slavoj Zizek, the so-called wildman of philosophy. And I keep going back to a passage on the very first page of the intro.

In it, Zizek says that religion in our current day of global empire is limited to two functions, the therapeutic and the critical. Therapeutic religion strives to help people adapt to the stresses of living in global empire. The feel-good prosperity gospel of Joel Osteen seems a classic example. But any spirituality that accepts the global order as it is and helps people find happiness within it goes the therapeutic route.

Critical religion points out what is wrong with the global order, and it may even take on the role of heresy. I wish Zizek had gone into this more, but all he gives us is half a paragraph. If you use the link above, click on “Look Inside” and search for “therapeutic,” you can read the passage for yourself. (My copy of the book is at home or else I’d blockquote it.)

What I keep thinking about is what critical religion operating as a full blown global heresy would actually look like. Al Qaeda and the Taliban are probably examples. The Latin American base communities of liberation theology fame, if they’re still around, are another. I’m thinking of groups connected to specific locales with nonstandard practices and beliefs that interrupt the regular goings-on of global empire in those locales.

What I can’t keep from asking is which of these is Unitarian Universalism—therapeutic religion, critical religion, or full blown global heresy? I think we can rule heresy out. We’re just not that severe or different.

With our anti-oppression work, critical religion seems the next place to jump. But I don’t think Zizek would go along with that. He regularly skewers liberal academics for how they do liberal politics as a way to hide from themselves their complicity with and privilege in the global system. Writing a paper doesn’t do much to actually alleviate oppression, and neither does shopping at Whole Foods. Joining a commune or a co-share community feel much more critical. Picketing safely in a government-recognized protest is therapy masquerading as critique. If a bunch of politicians are there too, it’s probably not critical religion at work.

Which isn’t to say something delightfully critical—and transformative—can’t happen at that protest. Anytime a gift economy or community of reconciliation arises, no matter how small, we’re encountering successful critical religion providing an alternative to empire. Without those two markers—gift and reconciliation—we’re doing the middle-class liberal version of therapeutic religion. And I’d like to think we’re called to more than that.

This week’s art—a stylized Ten Commandments—and theme—righteous judgment—really threw me off. I was expecting a legalistic selection of texts highlighting, once again, the trope that God punishes you when you sin. Instead, it was a nod not just to avoiding judging others but to our inability to judge each other, rightly, in any case.

2 Samuel 12:1-10. We miss David arranging for the murder of Bathsheba’s husband so he can marry her, coming in just as the prophet Nathan is confronting for his sin. Nathan tells David the story of a rich man who steals a poor man’s only lamb for dinner instead of killing one of his own, enraging David with the injustice of it. Then the turn: Nathan tells David that he is the rich man who has stolen Bathsheba, the poor man’s lamb. His family line is cursed to live by the sword as a result. But isn’t living by the sword in the job description of a king? And I’d love to know how Bathsheba felt about being turned into a sheeple.

Psalm 139. One of the best psalms in the book and an early move toward the doctrines of God’s omniscience and omnipresence. This one’s a favorite of pro-lifers for its “you knitted me in the womb” language. So much of inward-looking Christian spirituality has roots in this chapter. I’ve read this one several times over the years, but I was still surprised by the sudden turn to a call for vengeance and admission of “total hatred.” The psalmist asks God to correct him if he’s wrong, but clearly he thinks his hatred is right.

Romans 12:12-21. More evidence that Paul was familiar with Jesus’ ethical teachings, not just Good Friday and Easter. Judge not, the passage urges, even hate not. Let God take care of taking revenge, Paul says.

Luke 18:9-14. Jesus tells the story of a Pharisee’s self-righteous, and public, prayer and a tax collector’s humble prayer. God accepts the prayer of the tax collector, not the Pharisee. He closes with the cosmic reversal: the great will be humbled and the humble exalted.

I’m troubled by the teaching that only God is capable of judgment. I’m more than willing to admit that we are less than capable of perfect judgment, but aren’t we capable of good-enough judgment? Maybe I hung around ethicists too much, but I think that it’s good and necessary to make ethical judgments and to put the force of law behind them in many cases.

This need to let God be the final judge is the driver behind the doctrine of the Last Judgment. But I’m much more inclined to Miroslav Volf’s that what’s needed at any day of future arbitration isn’t judgment so much as reconciliation. Perfect reconciliation is of course not possible for us, and often even imperfect reconciliation is impossible. I understand the longing for a day of Last Reconciliation and see Volf’s thought as an ultimately hopeful turn on one of Christianity’s more despairing doctrines. But I don’t know that that makes it true.

I’m taking some time to follow along through the Christian year using the new Mosaic Bible, which has several biblical and extra-biblical selections for each week of the Christian year.

I’m taking some time to follow along through the Christian year using the new Mosaic Bible. This week’s readings for Pentecost Week 25: Nehemiah 9:5-37, Psalm 13, Romans 13:8-14, John 21:15-19, Romans 8:31-39.

An extended speech we start with in Nehemiah is yet another god-smites-when-you’re-bad remake, this time by the lead priests who may be the ones who wrote and then “discovered” Deuteronomy, convincing King Josiah to convert the country to what was probably it’s first real historical commitment to monotheistic worship of Yahweh, lest Yahweh punish them with conquest, exile and/or slavery yet again. No more worship of Ahserah back in the hill country for these guys! But is every week’s Hebrew Bible reading going to be “YAHWEH SMASH!!” I’m weary of the threats to fly right or get clobbered. Whatever happened to time out?

The Psalmist has the honesty to complain about unanswered prayer—how many evangelical ministers have the courage to do that from the pulpit?—and ends by offering God an improved reputation if he answers the psalmist’s prayer. He’s trying to bribe God! Click to continue reading “Unconditional Love”

I’m taking some time to follow along through the Christian year using the new Mosaic Bible. This week’s readings for Pentecost 24: Exod 3:1-22, Psalm 106-107, Acts 7:2-50, Luke 4:1-13, and Deut 8:1-20.

This week’s theme is wilderness, and the readings include the burning bush, a recap of the entire Exodus story in both Psalms and Acts, and Jesus’ tempting by the devil. And I can’t help but find myself perplexed and pissed.

It’s a thin thread that runs through these readings. In the Jesus story, we find a rejection of power, place, and even raw human biological need. But in the Psalms recap of the Exodus story, we find the worn deuteronomistic embrace of power, place, and human want—if you do what Yahweh says, you will enjoy power, place, and more, but if you don’t…

Stephen’s recap is interesting though. Click to continue reading “The Wilderness”

Last week I did something I haven’t done in years—I bought two new Bibles!  So far, I think I like them both quite a bit.

The first one, and the one getting all the press, is the new Mosaic Bible.  I’ve been calling this my new liberal artsy fartsy Bible, though the translation is the solidly evangelical TLIV.  The front several pages preceding the actual biblical text are devoted to the Christian liturgical year.  Each week has a theme—this week it’s “wilderness”—listing a lectionary-lite sampling of biblical passages from throughout the Bible, some killer contemporary and historical artwork, and meditations and essay excerpts from all centuries and continents.  I used to love the challenge of putting together a good “prayers of the people” based on the conversation between the week’s lectionary texts, so it’s nice to listen into that weekly conversation again, which can be pretty contentious at times.  It’s a beautiful Bible, no bones about it. I’m going to be blogging my way through each week’s readings, but more about that in a sec.

The second Bible is The Books of the Bible, a chapterless, verseless presentation of the TNIV translation. It’s aim is to focus on the actual literary units the Bible was written in—books, not chapters or verses.  It’s been a different experience reading Genesis with no chapter numbers to make me feel like I’m reading a lot or a little, or to make me wonder what the point of this chapter is versus that chapter.  The are still textual notes about this or that translation issue, but they’ve been moved to end notes so that footnotes won’t make it feel more like a term paper than like literature.  Some books, like Luke-Acts and Samuel-Kings, have been recombined to reflect the original literary unit they were writte in, and in the New Testament the books are grouped by tradition, such as Mark and the Peters or all of the Johns. The format and presentation are so easy and accessible that if I were teaching a year-long intro to the Bible as literature, I would use this edition. If you’ve never read much of the Bible, I recommend starting with this one. Plus it comes in blaze orange, so it’s ready for deer season!

Now as to blogging the Christian year…  You can read a first take at what I have in mind over at a side blog I never quite got going. My question for you is this: Would you rather read me struggle with the Christian year over there or over here?  And one other question: Anybody interested in reading along with me?

We have some great and growing fellowship groups at my congregation, and from time to time I get asked how we do it, especially about the young adult group. This is the advice I give to folks at my congregation who want to start up a fellowship group that reaches a large range of people, such as a GLBT or generational fellowship group.

Three of our generational groups have 80+ active people (though you won’t see them all at any one event), and we have some new ones that I think our well on their way.  We’re a large congregation in a major metropolitan area, so your mileage may vary.  But I think these principles would work just as well for mid-sized congregations in mid-sized cities.

1. Find some co-leaders.  Find two or three more people who also think your new fellowship group is a good idea.  They should be willing to do their part to make it happen, whether that means helping you with administrative tasks like setting up a Yahoo group or just committing to clearing their calendar to come to the first three or four events so that there’s a critical mass.  If you don’t have this kind of support, it could still happen, but you’ve got an uphill battle on your hands.

2. Pick something and do it every month. You need some sort of regular, non-project way for folks to connect.  Do something so easy that it almost plans itself, like a second Sunday lunch, fourth Friday dinner and movie, etc., and regularly so that no one has to wonder what day and time it takes place this month.  Just make sure it doesn’t conflict with another regular social event at your congregation, unless you’re certain no one in that group is in your group’s target audience.

3. Be a fellowship group, not a committee. The idea here is that one or two persons can be in charge of picking the restaurant and/or venue (taking suggestions from the group, of course) and just let everyone know what the plan is.  A group discussion each time of where to go will just end up irritating people who don’t like committee meetings—which is exactly who you’re targeting with this—besides taking time away from fellowship, which is the whole point of your group.  As long as the person in charge is fair and uses other people’s suggestions, no one will mind it not being more democratic.

4. Publicize, publicize, publicize. Lead with the new regular social event in your publicity until it’s established (and maybe even after it’s established).  And do one-on-one publicity, not just the official routes. If your leadership team committed to clear the schedule for the first, say, three events, to bring a friend along with them, and to ask everyone  in the group they know personally, the week of—”hey, you going Friday night?”—you’ll probably have critical mass for it to carry itself forward indefinitely on its own energy.

5.  Avoid waiters. Restaurants with wait staff taking orders add an hour–or two!–to the dining time if you have more than ten people (and you should expect to have twice that many once you get going), which sours the experience right at the end. They also tend to cost more, which cuts out some folks.  Places where you order a burrito or a bowl of pasta at the counter or where there’s a good buffet are ideal because they’re fairly cheap, handle each customer individually at the register, and often have side rooms you can reserve for free. The point is fellowship, not a fine dining experience or a twenty-person game of split-the-check bistro math.

6. Don’t expect to know everyone. One of the great things about a large and growing fellowship group is that you meet new people every time you come.  Our 20/30s group has 80-100 active people, of which 20+ will be at any single monthly lunch, plus a handful of newcomers.  Seasonal parties see around half the group show up.  It would be tough for anyone to feel like they know everyone in the group.  If you start off expecting to know everyone in the group, you’re setting yourself up for a small fellowship group.  Small groups are great too, but they’re also hard for new people to break into.  Start off with a mindset that will set your group on the path toward growth.

7. Mingle, mingle, mingle. You don’t have to ignore your favorite peeps, but if you want to hang out just with them, don’t invite the rest of the congregation along.  If you just want to hang out with your five or ten favorite people, your effort doesn’t warrant space in the church newsletter or an announcement from the mic on Sunday morning.  I believe all UUs have a hidden talent for mingling—because I’ve seen dozens of introverted UUs mingle, time and time again! Unleash your inner mingler!

8. Add this, then that. After your group has gotten off to a good start, people are probably going to want to start doing more things together.  Great!  Whoever comes up with the idea is deputized to do it, as long as another two or three people are in it with them.  Let a thousand flowers bloom!

9. Share leadership. If you’re leading the monthly lunches, ask someone else to take over when you’re out of town, under the weather, or facing a big deadline.  Little things like asking someone to sub in for you build a sense of shared leadership.  If you’ve been leading something for a couple of years, ask yourself who else would enjoy leading it and do a good job.  Then slowly turn it over to them so that they can have their time in the sun.  Don’t let the group belong to any one leader.  Everyone should play their part in making the group run, however large or small their part may be.

10. Practice the ministry of landing pads. A great service that your fellowship group can provide is being the place where newcomers to your congregation make their first connections and start to put down roots.  Don’t get bogged down in conversations about that controversial line item in next year’s congregational budget or go on and on about how the minister talks about God too much (or not enough).  It’s great for new people to see that UUs can, and do, amicably disagree about important matters, but they’ll like it even better if you ask them about themselves and what brought them to your congregation in the first place. Another part of being a landing pad is that you’ll get people whose very first exposure to your congregation is your fellowship group; that is, they come to your group without having come to worship.  Be sure you’re putting your congregation’s best foot forward so that first timers will want to hang out on Sunday mornings too.

What other words of wisdom do you have to offer?  Having a good experience with your fellowship group?