Musings About Theology

Egalitarian Theology, a Solution, or just a Thought? (2024-12-28)

My (for the time being) last contribution to this page

In many of my theological musings I have written about the image of God. At sometime during my studies of theology, I stumbled across a saying attributed to Voltaire: “God has made man in his image, and ever since, man has tried to return the compliment.” It is ironic that one of the first commandments of the Abrahamic religions is to not make a (graven) image of God, all while the Old and the New Testament, as well as the Koran are full of vivid descriptions of what this god is supposed to be like. These descriptions were engraved on parchment and later printed (i.e. from engraved copper plates) into these books, and from there over about three millenia into our minds.

Rather than strengthening my faith, as was one of the advertising lines of the theological college I enrolled in, I lost the little faith I had to begin with. Studying scriptures had me increasingly puzzled about the contradiction calling god loving, merciful, almighty etc, while telling about all the god-sanctioned or commanded atrocities that befell humanity, and will still await us on the Day of Judgement.

In one of his sermons, Meister Echart preaches against the characteristics we attribute to God. He tells that any of them, including love, light, mercy are insults to what God really is. He then takes any of these characteristics one by one and refutes them, ending up with the conclusion that, at least in human terms, God is NOT. Here I think, Eckhart comes suspiciously close to the eastern concept of Nirvana.

Some twenty two years ago, I stumbled across the Anonymously written book “Meditations on the Tarot, a Journey into Christian Hermeticism” (Tarcher Putnam, New York). I was (still am) fascinated by the approach, which describes the celestial or spiritual hierarchies comprehensively and through it, I found compelling reasons to join the Catholic Church, which mirrors these celestial hierarchies quite authentically. For seven years, I faithfully practiced the Benedictine spiritual contemplative path as a lay- or secular member of the Order of St. Benedict. This time of contemplation provided me with beautiful and valuable insights that I still cherish to this day. However, I also became increasingly aware of the toxicity that is created by either wilful or ignorant avoidance of facing the irreconcilable conflicts that will remain because of the built in contradictions of love and damnation. So I officially rescinded my membership of the Catholic Church.

My previous theological musings may provide the interested reader a glimpse into my insights as well as my doubts. A few months ago, after discussing Marxism and other egalitarian philosophies with my son Nicolas, I had an AHA moment. It dawned on me, that man has not only “created” God in his image, but also the celestial hierarchies. I began to realize that God as a creation of man’s imagination serves nothing better than maintaining (or even justifying) the still remaining grip of patriarchy on our society. If this grip is eventually waning, or if this is just a temporary and regional manifestation in our (hopefully still) liberal western culture, remains to be seen.

Considering the celestial hierarchies that are a foundation for most of western monotheistic religions, I began musing, if these hierarchies are also a man-made image to justify the power structures that have tormented the common working people on this planet. A god, surrounded by hosts (armies) of angels, neatly ranked according to “military” grades, living in heavenly splendour, while many of us humans are struggling, might simply be serving as justification for the injustice of mis-distribution of wealth and power.

My reaction to the compelling descriptions in the Meditations on the Tarot was to join an organization that reflected the spiritual world as I understood it based on the culture I grew up in. Now I am musing how we could free ourselves from this image that has been imprinted on us since long before “biblical times”. The Pharaos, then later the legendary kings like David and Salomo, Greek and Roman emperors, many of them declaring themselves to be divine, all amassed obscene amounts of wealth by exploiting common folks, threatening people with punishment, torture and death in this life, or religions that invented the business model of brokering salvation from otherwise guaranteed damnation, all while preaching love service for a god in religion, or love and service (even to death) for a nation in the travesty of patriotism.

While I can imagine that simple patriarchy, (the hierarchical structure of male superiority over the female gender) could eventually be overcome, I find it more difficult to imagine overcoming the concept of either spiritual as well as secular hierarchy, which has, although less consciously, been part of our culture’s archetypal imprint for many thousand years more than “simple” patriarchy.

Now and then, here and there, we come across mystics who tried to achieve this simple egalitarian goal, sometimes just for themselves, but sometimes also to encourage others to inspire an egalitarian approach to life. They are manifestations of the “little spark” Meister Eckhart claims to be alive in everyone and everything.

Egalitarian Theology, a Solution, or just a Thought? (2024-12-28)

My (for the time being) last contribution to this page

Last update: #0) Neurotheology (2023-11-20)

I moved the “Introduction” to #10

Wise and Witty Sayings
Musings #2, Introduction, musings on misunderstandings about the concept of god, belief and faith
Musings #3, The Problem of Sacred Scripture and when Texts Become Idols
Musings 4#, my theological heritage, about being “religious” or “spiritual” and do we need organized religion?
Musings #5, Biblical Stumbling Blocks and why many people turn away from religion when taking certain texts literally
Musings #6, Thoughts on Ecumenism and reflections on the diversity in the four Gospels
About Interpretation, a Rant (2023-01-02)
Musings Faith and Reason, True and Right? (2023-01-09)
Facebook and the Sacrament of Confession (2023-11-18)
Why Theology? An Introduction (2023-01-12)
The Parable of the Talents (2023-01-04)

Musings #0) Neurotheology (2023-11-20)

Neurotheology is a new discipline that will, as it evolves, be able to give us answers to many questions we might have wrestled with. Some answers I just recently have already found. I have written in the last Parkinson’s blogs how I learned from Dr. Janice Hadlock’s books to understand the primary cause of my type of Parkinson’s and managed to recover from it. An important factor is to be able to establish a dialogue with an “invisible friend” (rather than a monologue of compulsive rants). Dr. Hadlock emphasizes that it should be an invisible, not an imaginary friend. She also strongly recommends that one should not choose god to be this friend. Why, becomes clear from the research described below. My ten cents worth to this distinction is that god, as I understand it, is visible everywhere anyway. Once I managed to follow her advice, I was able to “flip the switch” with the result that the last and persistent remaining Parkinson symptoms disappeared instantly (details in the most recent Parkinson’s blog).

This Reflection should explain why some readers of previous reflections and musings occasionally scratched their heads, asking themselves how can one come to such conclusions, or be so cynical? Reading Dr. Janice Hadlock’s books, in particular Recovering from Parkinson’s and Stuck on Pause helped me not only to recover from Parkinson’s and switching off Pause, but also to understand my troubled “relationship” with the concept of a god. Rather than giving my own spin, I will paste what gives a proper neurological explanation of where in the brain the god concept can “reside” and what this means to our relationship with a god or religion:

What happens in the brain when conversing with a Friend? From p. 62-65 in Stuck On Pause by Dr. Janice Hadlock, available for free to download at https://pdrecovery.org/

“In the early years of the 21st century, medical researchers in the field of neurotheology saw unexpected brain responses in people who were told to think about god during their brain scans. Different areas of the brain showed increased activity in different people. What type of god a person had determined which brain area(s) showed increased activity.20)

For example, if a person’s god is a critical or vengeful god, then thinking about god brings about increased activity in the amygdala (the fear and rage centers on the left and right sides of the brain).

If a person’s god is presumed to be knowable through word-based study such as memorizing or quoting scriptures, then thinking about god increases activity in certain word-driven brain zones, such as the Broca’a area on the left side of the brain.

If a person’s god is feel-able and/or something one can physically resonate with, including causing the sensation of expansion in the heart/ pericardium, then thinking about god increases activity in the brain’s thalamus, tucked inside the striatum. The thalamus processes somatic feelings (awareness of sensations inside the body) and regulates how and where we sense that we physically exist.

If a person’s god is someone or something with whom the person can enjoy loving, mutual, thought- and/or word-based communication, then thinking of god increases activity in the brain’s striatum. 21)

The neurotheology research project described in How God Changes Your Brain, cited below, started out as a search for where the idea of god was located in the brain. The discovery that god wasn’t located in one place in the brain, but that different types of god activated different locations was actually more intriguing than just finding a brain location for god.

It appears that word-based communication with an unseen anyone, remembered or fictional, who is unconditionally loving, will have the same benefit to the striatum. This brings us to the subject of the new, twenty-first century understanding of the benefits of a parasocial relationship.”

20) How God Changes Your Brain, Andrew Newberg, M.D., Ballantine Books, 2010, Chapter 3. Some of his other books are Why We Believe What We Believe, Words Can Change Your Brain, Why God Won’t Go Away, and The Metaphysical Mind: Probing the Biology of Philosophical Thought.

21) For an example of further confirmation of the relationship between loving, word-based communication and the striatum, research done in 2019 used brain scans to show which brain areas are activated in children when they are being read to, as opposed to when children use computers or other “screen” devices for self-amusement. While books are read out loud to children – a type of loving, word-based communication, the children’s brains’ striatums become highly activated. This finding is from a study done by the Reading and Literacy Discovery Center of Cincinnati’s Children’s Hospital. “This is your child’s brain on books: Scans show benefit of reading vs. screen time”; CNN Health, Sandee LaMotte; Jan 16, 2020; http://www.cnn.com;2020/01016/health/child-brain- readubg-book-wellness/index.html .

The understanding I gleaned from reading about this research also gave me some insight into how a difference may be experienced between toxic and healing religion. When the fear and rage centers on the left and right sides of the brain are activated, the teaching or relationship may become toxic. When the thinking about god increases activity in the brain’s thalamus, tucked inside the striatum, the teaching or relationship can be healing.

In my Theological Musings which also contain critical reflections and cynical rants it can be easy to tell if I talk about the toxic version or the healing relation. At least it is now clear for me. With this new shift, my future contributions will very likely become more differentiated – hopefully for the better.

Wise and Witty Sayings

For every complex question there is a simple answer — and it is usually wrong. – Oscar Wilde

Don’t argue with idiots. They drag you down to their level of incompetence and then beat you with experience. – Einstein(?)

Never believe any statistics unless you have manipulated them yourself. – Bumpersticker

Don‘t believe everything you think. – Another Bumpersticker

*******

Music is the language of angels. – Traditional

God created man in his image. — Ever since man is trying to return the compliment. – Voltaire

Saint Augustin of Hippo‘s philosophy is like a gold mine. — A lot of rubble with an occasional nugget. – Karl Jaspers

Theologians study to get to know God. When they know God, it isn’t God. – Augustin of Hippo

Original Sin is the loss of sense of Beauty. – John O‘Donohue

A virgin is a person whose mind is so pure as if he (sic!) wasn‘t yet born. – Meister Eckhart

————————————————————————————

I use these sayings at appropriate (and sometimes inappropriate) moments.

They often serve as a filter to sort out my thoughts or reactions to what I hear or read.

Musings #2

Introduction

A few years ago I planned to get a blog going to share my theological musings. Being a bit of a luddite and technophobe assisted me to procrastinate. Since the Parkinson’s issue surfaced it got me rolling to set up this blog site. Now, that the first bulk of the health issue is shared, I use the momentum to begin with the musings.

Theology is a subject prone to misunderstandings, fanaticism, and attacks, both reasonable as well as thoughtless. Therefore I wish to lay out my approach to theology and present how I define some of the most basic and misunderstood terms. I hope that the reader will keep these personal definitions and concepts in mind, particularly if there is a clash between my concepts and the readers’. Some of the Wise and Witty Sayings should already give the reader a hint to where the musings might lead.

“Theologians study to get to know God. When they know god, it isn’t God” (St. Augustine). Early authors of the Old Testament (OT) must have recognized this problem by writing about not making a graven image of God. Besides physical images and statues, this also includes what we ‘engrave’ in our minds, which can lead us to believe that we know God. (This argument can create a nice little merry-go-round in our heads, which, when it can’t stop, may lead to OCD, just like the ‘engraving’.)

This is what might have prompted Voltaire to come up with his wise and witty saying “God created man in his image. Ever since man is trying to return the compliment.” Remember the commandment about graven images? Unfortunately, scriptures of the Abrahamic religions are full descriptions that encourage us to create very unfortunate graven images in our minds of this god-thing.

Now we get to the everlasting question: “Does God exist?” My favorite answer is, “I really don’t care”. But it is a good question, if not only because it actually unites believers and non-believers, christians etc and atheists. In between are the agnostics. St. Augustine’s quote is essentially agnostic. He knows that we can not know. However, much of his rubble (see Karl Jaspers’ quote) tends to prove otherwise, so I like to focus on the nuggets. Most atheists are believing that there is no god, this unites them with the christian etc people who believe that there is a God. Both are believers.

Here I would like to interject another quote: “Believe (as in just believing what someone else says or writes) is not worthy of true religion; faith is”. (Schleiermacher, as quoted by Avery Dulles in Models of Revelation). Jung expressed it in a similar way when he was asked if he believes in god. He is said to have answered; no, I don’t believe, I know God is.

While the Bible is full of misunderstandable stories, there are some that contain wisdom, others that are glorifying pure horror that happened in the name of god or presumably perpetrated by god. The OT begins with the creation story — actually two creation stories. Critics might gleefully rejoice because the Bible starts with a contradiction and therefore propose to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I would like to suggest that these contradictory first two chapters of Genesis give us a hint that we should not read the Bible as absolute historical fact as fundamentalism claims. This is backed up by another nugget from Augustin’s goldmine. In a sermon on creation he asks that if scientists’ new discoveries contradict stories in the Bible, the Bible should be revised.

Isn’t it tragic how often religious ‘leadership’ ignores good advice and obsesses over the toxic scripture content? I hope to be able to address this issue in the following posts.

Musings #3

The Problem of Sacred Scripture

A book is a book and as such it is a neutral object and I believe this should always remain so. What is sacred in scripture is the unknown divine that lies hidden or becomes manifest. In the Abrahamic religions this is called God. And the first commandment that is (or should be) followed by all adherents is: “you shall have no other gods before me”.

By declaring a book sacred, I believe we are already on the slippery slope towards turning the book into a god. The next step is to declare a fatherland or motherland sacred and soon the flag follows behind along with the sacred constitution and so on. How many gods have we created here? And who are the ones that fervently worship these gods if not those who are known as Bible Thumpers? In my opinion,if there is such a thing as blasphemy against God, it is to declare a mere book sacred.

A few weeks after I posted this snippet, Commonweal magazine published an article by Sarah Ruden (in the issue of March 2021, Volume 148, number 3, p.28ff)

When Texts Become Idols

What happens when the Bible becomes something more than revelation, and the Constitution something more than a tool?

It is worth checking out, as are many articles published in Commonweal.

Musings #4

The reader may have detected slight cynicism in my musings. In my five decades of work as church organist and choirmaster at churches of various denominations, I heard (and sometimes listened to) a few thousand sermons. Some of them were good and I might even refer to them in further musings.

There are many people out there who claim that they are not religious, but spiritual. This rarely impresses me. If I have to define myself along similar lines, I would prefer the opposite: I am not spiritual but religious. Hence my cynicism. I have simply heard so much nonsense and occasionally outright toxic garbage that standing by silently is not an option for me.

This is why I will never forget one sermon: Our Zwinglian parish (Huldrich Zwingli, Swiss reformer) elected a new pastor who was just recently ordained. She chose for her inaugural sermon Matth. 10:34 “I did not come to bring peace, but the sword”. Dead silence in the church… but then she presented her interpretation and people found their breath again. (In a nutshell) The sword, also symbolizing a lancet, can clean out boils and cancers or bring clarity to our minds. Not to act, when there is injustice won’t bring healing of which the result can be peace. I took this to heart (sometimes a bit too enthusiastically).

My father searched for the perfect religion and never found it (probably because it does not exist). While he studied, he read from the books – on whatever he delved into – at dinner time to us. So we were exposed to Hinduism, Buddhism, Zen, Taoism, Sufism, the Kabbalah and some minor exotic sects. Through my wife I was introduced to Unitarianism as well. Very much like my father, I was not able to find perfect satisfaction in any of these religions for various reasons.

Two quotes might explain somewhat why:

“When humanity was suffering or struggling, God came to earth or sent a prophet to bring humans religion which helped; but alas, the devil followed on his heels and made a church out of it.” (Swami Vivekananda)

“When two or three are gathered in my name, but not more, I shall be present.” (Bo Yin Ra referring to Matth. 18:20)

The second quote needs some explaining. The I (Jesus) is the essence of peace and love. Many of us know how difficult it can be to maintain a continuous presence of peace in a marriage. It would take saints. To have the essence of peace present among three people is even more difficult. One can also consider the linguistics around the number three. In many languages, grammar indicates that plural begins at the number 4. In English we say once, twice, thrice and then four times. In Swiss German 2 can be zwei, zwee and zwo and 3 drei, drü, drei. From 4 on there are no gender differences. Apparently we are not able to keep more than three separate objects in our minds at one time. If taken literally, it would have to be considered a miracle that churches actually exist. Maybe, this miracle is called grace? On the other hand, the mystery of the trinity is easier to comprehend if one considers the number 3 still as singular, thus making the Trinity one God.

In 2002 I decided to stop dabbling around in trans-religious experiments and 2004 began my theological study in earnest. I enrolled at a catholic college and completed my studies 2008 with distinction. I learned a lot and had some excellent professors, but not all. While I got valuable insights into the craft of theology, I also developed more sound arguments that supported my cynical view, not on theology as such, but on the doctrinarian institutionalization that reduces Religion to religion and God to god.

There are a variety of etymological interpretations of the word religion. Each of them has its rightful place. I choose the interpretation of re-ligare‘ (zurück binden in German) and interpret it as “to re-connect”, thus using Religion to reconnect to our spiritual beingness.

I do not wish to offend, but I would like to awaken a different way of thinking for those well meaning people who can read out loud in church about the dreadful massacre of Jericho, “ordered” by god, and then go on reading that god is love without blinking. I also hope to counteract at least a tiny tiny bit the misuse of nearly two millennia of apologetics. There are flaws in scripture, dogmas and doctrines for which I can not find a reasonable defense, unless one considers the prevailing business model of institutionalized religion beneficial for humanity. All this, however, does not diminish my love for a good liturgy. In a future post I plan to touch on the therapeutic value of liturgy. (See personal reflections: #4. “Liturgy, its Value in Praxis and Life”)

Musings #5

Biblical Stumbling Blocks

The Bible is not easy to read for people who wish to explore what it is all about. The easy part is that one can read it as a historical document on how people thought 2-3 thousand years ago. There are laws to guide people in their ways of living. There are myths and legends about things that may have happened in some way or other, and stories that attempt to explain how the world they lived in came to be. Some of them can also be used as teaching stories. I believe, as mentioned in Musings #3, that the two different creation stories are there to hint that reading the Bible is not to be taken literally. Considering this might make it easier to read these books, without discarding it all as nonsense or even garbage.

Some stories and laws however are nonsense or garbage if not outright toxic. Most of them, since centuries, have been left out of the liturgical readings that were read until Vatican II. Since about Vatican II the liturgical reading list has been expanded in protestant and catholic denominations from a one year to a three year cycle, to include a broader selection of scripture. Unfortunately reformed churches of the fundamentalist kind have embraced many of the toxic texts that are still left out, even in the three year cycle, to feed their self righteous and judgemental tendencies. The Rule of St. Benedict suggests that at evening readings the first seven books and the two books of Kings of the Old Testament should be avoided, because “it would not be profitable for those of weak intelligence to hear this portion of scripture at that hour of the day…”(Rule, chapter 42). These are the portions with the stories and laws I rant against.

Voices are often heard to call for banning or scrapping these texts if not for the whole Bible. I often played with this idea as well, but I have come to the conclusion that this is not a good idea. It could be functioning as a white washing that gives later generations the impression that all that comes from religion is good. We know this is not the case at all. Revising history to please a cultural trend is not a good idea.

Once we know that we can justifiably declare some texts as toxic garbage and let them be what they are, we will still stumble over stuff and words that are hard to swallow. I will attempt to tackle three words that get many peoples’ hackles up by offering an interpretation that will make it easier for the readers to find value in the stories, because isn’t that why we embark on a venture, to have a good experience? (I know there are people who read the Bible with the sole intent to find contradictions so they can justify their favorite rants, but I don’t write for these people because there is a wise and witty saying about arguing with idiots.)

Three words or concepts I stumbled over for years are: God, Sin and the chosen people of Israel.

About God I wrote In Musings #1. I would like to discuss the attributes given to god. (Meister Eckhart preaches that assigning attributes to god is an insult to God.) Love is difficult to swallow, given some of the merciless punishments dealt and promised to humanity. Merciful, apparently not always. Almighty, well, why is there evil and misery if God is love? Same for powerful. I won’t go on with the whole list. The reader will think of their own. What these attributes have in common is their moral qualities of good or bad. I don’t think that God can be simplified with such human attributes. Voltaire got it right. Humans just projected their wishful thinkings onto god. The only attribute I can justify is beauty. True beauty is neutral, neither good, nor bad, it is what it is. “I am who I am” is what God said to Moses. ‘God is beauty’, is what a few great mystics have concluded.

Sin is defined by John O’Donohue as the loss of sense of beauty. When scripture and doctrines rant about sin, our minds want to zone out. When judgemental fundamentalists rant about sin, our minds should zone out, because arguing with idiots… . The original sin came with the fall. Adam and Eve lost the sense of their own beauty and covered their best parts. Love was replaced by lust (I am not going to define lust!). Taking care of creation turned into exploitation. Look at industrial forestry, agriculture, mining, war etc and you observe a profound loss of sense of beauty. Sin is not the lack of following religious laws as such, particularly if such laws are actually examples of loss of sense of beauty themselves. Maybe this will help the reader make some sense of this trigger word.

God’s chosen people of Israel is a quite loaded expression, particularly now when we observe what is going on with the new state of Israel. The original Israel was called Jacob. The story goes that on his way back home Jacob struggled with an angel (or God). Jacob was able to hold the angel down and would not release him unless the angel blesses him. So the angel blessed him and gave him the name Israel, which means “he who struggles with God” and Israel walked away limping as are so many of us after our struggles. This tells us that God does not choose doormats who buckle and bow before it. God chooses those who struggle with it (some say him;). If you read or sing the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55) “God comes to the aid of Israel” (Verse 54) this means God chooses to help those who struggle with the thought or given concept of God, as did St Augustin and many a serious theologian or mystic.

To regard God as Beauty, Sin as the loss of sense of beauty and Israel as those who struggle with God helped me to not choke when I had to sing these words as cantor during mass or vespers.

Musings #6

Thoughts on Ecumenism

Missionaries in developing countries were often embarrassed when people to be christianized asked why christians preach their religion of love and peace while fighting each other across denominational lines. To mitigate this embarrassment they began thinking how they could work together to give a better impression on the people to be christianized. Eventually the World Council of Churches was formed. While there were always christians who wished to have all denominations in unity, I don’t believe many denominational leaders were willing to sacrifice their particular views to the cause of unity. At least the Roman Catholic Church was honest about this, by insisting that all other denominations would have to return into their fold. This was impossible for most protestant and reformed denominations and the Roman Catholics never joined the World Council of Churches.

I believe that all christian churches should respect each other while also respectfully agreeing to disagree on certain points. (I am not touching the topic of fundamentalism.) Unity in diversity is what makes life liveable in this world. I have already pointed out that the two creation stories give us a hint that there are different ways to understand the world and religion.

In this time of ever growing globalism and corporatism we begin to feel that having one market managed in one corporate tower is perhaps not the best idea. Maybe this is what the story of the tower of Babel tries to tell us. People united to build this tower to get closer to god. Perhaps this was their genuine wish, but god did not like this idea, gave each one a different language and dispersed them over the world where each was to worship in their own language and place. Any translator knows how challenging it is to accurately translate particular idioms into a different language. So God gave diversity through language and language in turn shapes our diverse ways of thinking. Today we are becoming more aware of this and are encouraged to mindfully choose our words, unfortunately sometimes at the cost of diversity.

The story of Pentecost (I just realize that I am writing this on Pentecost Sunday of the year 2021) again tells us about diversity, as it describes how the disciples were declaring God’s wonders in all the languages under the sun, understandable to all the nationalities that were present. Whenever I found a scripture passage difficult to understand or to swallow, I read it in more than a dozen languages in old and new translations, and then looked to see if one or more languages made the passage more understandable. Occasionally I found a bit of an answer.

Then we have the four canonical Gospels (and a whole lot more that did not make it into the canon), written by four very different characters and intended for different audiences. The beginning of christianity is rooted in diversity. I like to compare the four Gospels to four denominations I can relate to.

The Gospel of Mark is kind of bare bones history and can be compared to the simplicity of the reformed churches with no or only few ornaments and a simple liturgy that has the written word as its centre, explained by the (sometimes endless) sermon, and plain hymns harmonized by Goudimel of the Geneva era of the reformation. There is beauty in this stark simplicity. No particular emotions are thrust upon us.

The Gospel of Matthew is more elaborate and also leans on the Jewish tradition with its laws and ceremonies. Matthew was addressing his fellow Jews. When we enter a Lutheran or Anglican (Episcopalian) church we find some ornaments, stained glass windows and the liturgy is rooted in the catholic liturgy. Their Hymns are more elaborate, harmonized by Bach or Mendelssohn. In contrast to the reformed churches (Calvin, Zwingly etc) the protestant churches ‘only’ protested against the rule of Rome, not necessarily its way of worship, and so stayed with the tradition as Matthew did. They simplified some traditions and formally changed paradigms of salvation. A high Anglican service can easily be more elaborate than a regular Roman Catholic one.

The Gospel of Luke tells the story about the birth of Jesus in a descriptive and emotive way. It is sometimes more story than teaching. Roman Catholic churches are full of pictures, statues of saints, madonnas and of course the crucifix. Elaborate altars and side altars keep the worshippers entertained, their imagination fed and some souls inspired, even though until recently most people understood very little of what was said and prayed during mass. They did, however, understand “ite, missa est” (go, you are dismissed) hence the word mass.😉 The Architecture, liturgy, the music (if following the directions of Rome) with Gregorian chants and motets by Palestrina, were working on the subconscious.

The Gospel Of John is from a different world altogether. The opening hints of a mystery not easy to fathom. It is full of riddles that don’t always get answered in obvious ways. I am reminded of the eastern orthodox churches. Their liturgy is the most elaborate. How understandable it is, I can’t tell, I am not competent in either Greek or Russian to follow what is going on except for the parts in the liturgy that are similar enough to what I know. The ancient chants and new hymns by Rachmaninoff are stirring. The churches I visited in Russia were full of ornate work covered in warm gold that reflects the light of the candles and the sun, if it shines through the windows. I was under the impression that I was looking less at the Icons than their saints were looking at me. Their earnest and compassionate eyes have a way of looking at you that makes you feel they know more about you than you yourself.

Is there a Gospel for the Quakers? Or is their silence actually closest to John’s Gospel and maybe their simple rooms they gather in, closest to the mystery of a Russian cathedral?

7. About Interpretation, a Rant

2023-01-02/ About Interpretation, A Rant

Pre-PS, my son tells me that this rant is an interpretation of the situation 🙂

I am in the process of reading Christopher Butler’s Postmodernism, A Brief Insight (Sterling, 2002), as well as studying the sermons by Meister Eckhart. What a contrast in content! A passage on Metaphor in Butler’s book led to this rant which I am posting on my music, theology and personal reflections page. In this passage, Butler instructively deconstructs a (rather insipid) poem by the young Tennison to demonstrate deconstruction.

This threw me back to a high school German class where we had to “interpret” a poem. I had just switched from the Waldorf School to public high school. The teacher presented a poem, similarly sentimental as Tennison’s and wanted us to tell what we thought the poet was thinking. Coming from the Waldorf system, where everything had (to have) a deeper meaning, as well as being steeped in theology and world religions at home, I was trying to find some deeper meaning, when the teacher asked me to elaborate. Since I could not give a quick answer, because I saw no more meaning than the words themselves expressed, I didn’t know what to say, because I believed that since I was asked, there should be some deeper thoughts behind the poem.

So my neighbour at the next desk was asked instead. He just turned the poetry into prose, using basically the same words, and got high praise from the teacher for this “interpretation”. I was dumbfounded. This episode was the pint that made my bucket overflow. I decided to drop out of school, because I did not want to waste my time with such idiocy. If this teacher would have been better informed by postmodernist deconstruction, he would not have asked such a useless question. It did not occur to me that at that time in public schools much of the time one was simply expected to correctly regurgitate what was taught to pass the grade, because in the Waldorf school, I was under the (legitimate) impression that the teachers were actually teaching to enrich our lives, rather than just administering a curriculum. (I also rant about this in my reflection “What Method Do You Teach?” on the music page.)

Many poetry readings I attended, had some poets read their platitudes by attempting to suggest some profundity to their opus by chopping sentences of prose into arbitrary line-breaks which were accentuated with much gravitas and solemnity and sometimes also adding “the most expensive words” they could conjure up. I observed that some of these stylistic habits also made their way into church, where lay readers read the scripture very theatrically. This is obviously not a new trend, considering that there must have been a reason why until Vatican II priests had to chant the readings in a monotone way to ensure that only the words would be heard and not the personality or interpretation of the reader. The words of the Bible were considered meaningful enough that they did not need to be distorted by interpretation.

I have a similar beef with music. Good music, played well, does not need any interpretation, as some mediocre music teachers seem to believe. A good musician can play with the music, even let it be different at each performance. Good compositions can handle that. What they can’t always handle is arbitrary interpretation. Glen Gould, at least, had a reason for his provocative, arbitrary (and genial) renditions of Bach (among others). He was tired of the all too standardized renditions of his time and wanted to demonstrate a different way of playing music. Unfortunately many musicians jumped on his band wagon and aped his way of playing, creating a new standard, tainted with over-interpretation. I believe that every musician who can play with the music, will sound alive, without “having to interpret”.

(Prepare for a bit of a jump from rant to ramble….;)

Likewise, the content of Dante’s or Shakespeare’s works are interesting enough that they make a great story, even if one does not know the historical context. Of course knowing the history of their time will make their masterpieces even more interesting. Their genius of writing in flowing verse and rhythm adds to their beauty. They were literally playing with words. Reading Dante’s Comedy needs a skilled reader, but I doubt it needs an “interpreter”. However, Shakespeare’s plays may need good actors. I believe that good actors can assume the character they are playing without being recognized as who they are in daily life. I think personal interpretation is somewhat secondary to good acting.

Unfortunately, many theologians have interpreted the Bible (which is not always a good story), and later theologians have interpreted their predecessors. This kind of “telephone game” led to distortions that caused wars and horrendous suffering. All in the name of a god whose character was based on mere interpretation or assumption. “Thou shalt not make a graven image of God” is in my view the most important commandment. Unfortunately it is also the most ignored. The bible is full of “graven images” through its descriptions of a god who is depicted with many horrible, and a few good characteristics of humans. As Voltaire said: “God made man in his image, and ever since man has attempted to return the compliment.”

Meister Eckhart has much to say about the image we engrave in our minds of god. He also gives very compelling arguments in his sermons that can help us to follow the commandment of not giving attributes to god. St. Augustine figured it out as well, when defining theology: “Theology is the discipline to help us to know God. However, when we know God, it isn’t God.” Therefore we should question the value (or meta narrative) of interpretation. Considering that through the ages, music was (and still is) considered the language of the angels, we should question interpretation – for the sake of interpretation – of music as well.

What about bad music?— Ever heard of fallen angels? We shouldn’t judge, but we may (or must) feel. Those who have reached a reasonable level of individuation will feel differently from any other individual. As long as we can trust our feelings, we won’t need to judge.

8. Faith and Reason, True and Right? (2023-01-09)

Faith and Reason, True and Right?

While watching

Resetting Your Brain’s Dopamine Balance – Dr. Anna Lembke

I was reminded of two things. My chiropractor telling me that one can do the right things for the wrong reason, and how ancient practices and rituals can now be “explained scientifically”.

(see also Parkinsons #18)

Dr. Lembke’s lecture is full of information and quite enlightening. The way she describes the gremlins’ function in our brains, make the complex interaction of neurotransmitters easily understandable.

There can be an overstimulation or production of dopamine which can lead to dopamine addiction which can express itself in whatever we get addicted to. To restore the balance of “pain and pleasure” and a healthy production of dopamine, three factors stood out for me that would help overcome addiction:

30 days of complete abstinence

Acceptance of some pain through exercise

Being truthful by stopping to lie to yourself and others

This makes very much sense to me. However, in a way it is not anything new. What is new is the neuropsychological explanation. Her metaphorical gremlins are of great help.

The ancient practices and rituals I refer to are found in many religions and practiced in many forms. As a western theologian, I draw these obvious parallels based on my traditions:

30 days of abstinence – 40 days of fasting

Acceptance of pain – ascetic practices (time in the “desert”)

Stop lying – sacrament of confession

On the one hand, addictive behaviour is fed by availability of the addictive substance or activity. Because of new technologies, we are flooded with consumer goods and information that can drive us into addictions without us noticing it until it is too late. What before industrialisation was an occasional treat (releasing dopamine) is now available 24/7. Public or peer group pressure are also factors to push us into unwanted dependencies.

On the other hand, going to church and following the ritual practices embedded in the liturgy of the service and the liturgical year have diminished in inverse proportion to the availability to physical and digital consumer goods (dopamine producers). To me this is a simple (and perhaps also simplistic) explanation for the apparent explosion of addictive behaviours. It is simple for me, because I am experiencing the challenge of finding the balance or homeostasis, as Dr Lembke calls it, in producing enough dopamine to keep Parkinson’s at bay and avoiding dopamine addiction.

There is sometimes a trade off, which for some is acceptable, for others it is not. One of the consistently effective “methods” to get people off hard drugs is conversion to a faith. Unfortunately, quite often the kind of faith that does the trick is itself toxic because of the rigid fundamentalist approach it employs. There are enough stories of gurus and preachers who exploit people who turn to them for the help they promise. By them, “Truth” is being sold employing bold lies. This abuse is countered by “pure reason” represented by so-called new atheists. Both sides include a few “truths” in their approach. The use of such truths easily turns into abuse by turning them into absolute non-negotiables. I am skeptical about the existence of such things as absolute truths and pure reason (see also Musings #6, Thoughts on Ecumenism and reflections on the diversity in the four Gospels, #6 on my Theology page). There is clear evidence that placebo (faith) can play an essential role in a successful healing process. I consider it therefore as justifiable when people use the wrong reasons to do the right thing. However, I might add some conditions. The right thing, regardless of the correctness of the reasoning, has to be administered with integrity and in good faith.

In a less extreme (perhaps agnostic) way one may consider the liturgical and sacramental practices that help people in maintaining a neurochemical homeostasis to be a harmless wrong reason to achieve the right result.

9) Facebook and the Sacrament of Confession (2023-11-18)

As I was looking at the statistics of my website and YouTube channels I mused thusly:

I can see in these statistics how many people actually read my posts and musings. And I suspect that like with the videos on my YouTube channel, the majority clicks off or swipes to the next posting after about 10 seconds. When I post a 4+ minute video on FaceBook and I get a “like” within 20 seconds of posting it, I am slightly amused. Maybe 10% listen or read to the end, while the average listening time is between 40 and 60 seconds. Reading a complete post or listening to a complete recording seems to be quite outlandish.

During my brief but intensive seven year stint as a practicing Catholic, I had an interesting “initiation” to the sacrament of confession. Doing the first confession after “sinning” for over five decades was quite a marathon. So I asked the priest how he can handle listening to all this mental garbage. His answer was as blunt as theologically “profound”. He said, the confession is between me and god, so he does not have to listen at all. He can watch a soccer match while I am confessing, so it does not bother him.

This was quite a surprise for me. The generic term in my native German languages for a priest or pastor is Seelsorger, which would mean a carer of souls. This is closer to the concept of pastoral care that is likened to a good shepherd. In my five decades of working in churches of various denominations in Canada and Switzerland, I observed that the Swiss pastors were more concerned about the wellbeing of their flock than the Canadian pastors, who were more concerned about the wellbeing of the church. There is an understandable structural reason for this. I’d be happy to elaborate on this if there is interest.

The effect for me to post on the website Youtube or Facebook are quite similar to sitting in the confessional. I get my thoughts, “sins” and music out there, which is in itself therapeutic. To get generally the feeling from clergy that I am wasting their time, when I am talking to them on the street, or after a sermon, is a bit more disconcerting. Posting on social media is more relaxing. I am not wasting people’s time, people are more likely to waste their time scrolling which is not all that different from mindlessly twiddling the rosary. The posture of both, people who are scrolling through the smart phone and those praying the rosary often assumes that typical 35° angle of piety

The end result though is similar. Once it is out, there is more room in my head to think about other things. Life is too interesting to ruminate on the same issues. Besides, the environmental footprint of mind traveling is more compatible with my values.

Musings # 10

Why Theology? An Introduction

Why theology? (2023-01-12)

A) compare frequently used words ending in –ology

suffix: -logy; suffix: -ology

1.
denoting a subject of study or interest.
“psychology”
2.
denoting a characteristic of speech or language.
“eulogy”
- denoting a type of discourse.
  “trilogy”

B) compare them with words ending in –onomy

Both endings come from the greek. Logos means word, Onomos means name, and because a word can be a name, and a name can be a word, humans who are “defined” by using both, words and names, are such a confused species.

In the first category A), there are two (plus one) categories with contrasting (differences) basic assumptions if one assumes that matter actually exists.

The one word “that rules them all” is philology, as in the love of learning

In two disciplines that come to my mind, the existence of their object of learning is questioned:

God–theology
Soul–psychology

Other disciplines in which the existence of their object is not questioned are

The earth–geology
The human–anthropology

And then there is a discipline where the existence of the object – stars– is not questioned but the subject is: Astrology. In contrast to this stands astronomy, where both, object and subject are not questioned.

I studied theology in a catholic institution. A condition to be accepted in the program was belief in god. I hedged my bets based on the claim that mathematically or statistically it is more likely that god exists, than not. During my studies it became clear to me that I wouldn’t have had to cross my fingers behind my back when I agreed to be believing in god. Here is why.

St Augustine is probably the most quoted as well as the most prolific theologian in christianity. He is considered a “church father and teacher”. Eckhart quotes Augustin in a sermon on Luke 14:16 “What is said about god is not true and what is not said about him is true. Whatever one says that god is, he is not, and whatever one does not say about him is more real than that of what one says it is god.” (Augustinus, De Trinitate, VIII, 2,3)

Meister Eckhart who himself goes as far as saying god is Not and definitely nothing as in No Thing (Nirvana?). Therefore the reader may forgive me when I in my reflections question theological assumptions. In both the college, and the many churches I worked in for five decades, I heard some blend of mainly nonsense with occasional beautiful wisdom. The proportion may be similar to St Augustine’s writing, which Karl Jaspers describes to be like a gold mine: lots of rubble for the occasional nugget.

What I have not yet come across is neither Augustin nor Eckhart declaring that what is said about god in scripture is therefore misleading or should better not have been written. When I observe how humans in scripture have projected attributes and characteristics onto god that are more like images of themselves, I come to the conclusion that the commandment of not making graven images of god is quite thoroughly ignored, if one considers how these verbal images about god in scripture have engraved themselves into our brains so deeply, that no waters appear to be able to wash them out. At least, images engraved in stone will eventually be washed out and eroded by the elements with time.

Even though Augustine’s teaching is frequently quoted in sermons and books, have I ever heard a sermon (and I heard a couple thousand sermons during my work in churches) that questions the image we have in our minds, deeply engraved in most cultures that are rooted in the Abrahamic religions. This is what motivates me to “upset” the main narrative of these religions, because I wholeheartedly agree with Eckhart when he preaches that any attribute given to god is an insult to God. Like many theologians, I try to make a difference for people who struggle with the concepts of mainstream institutionalized religion. I hope the readers will keep this in mind when browsing through my musings.

PS. in the original Middle High German, Eckhart does not write god with a capital G, he only Uses capital letters for Names of people and places.

Musing # 11 (2023-01-04)

The parable of the Talents and Capitalism (Matthew 25:14-30)

The lord is a capitalist

The third servant is of humble spirit, knows his shortcomings and recognizes his lord’s ruthlessness and is honest and upfront about it. The lord gave him the least Talent. For his lack of capitalist ambition, the lord is throwing him into outer darkness, where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth, even though this servant could be considered wise enough not to speculate with the only Talent he had, knowing that he could lose it all.

However, the first beatitude promises the kingdom of heaven for the humble in spirit, proclaims the same storyteller (aka Jesus).

Is trying to reconcile this contradiction ethically justifiable, or were the attempts to do so (by way of apologetics) the cause for the atrocities committed in the name of that storyteller?

Or could it be that Jesus actually was sincere about the Beatitudes, but tried to point out how horrible and ruthless his father (a jealous god) is, because he knew that his Father would not spare him from his death on the cross. Did perhaps Jesus know that his father is still as ruthless as he was when he caused the Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, ordered the massacre of Jericho, to just name a few atrocities?

(we could have the same discussion when we consider “behold the Birds under the sky and the Lilies in the field” vs the virgins and the oil lamps.)