Imagine All the People Living Life in Peace

While I had hoped to continue with the Passion story as it is told in the gospel of Mark this week, I have (of my own volition) bitten off just as much as I can possibly chew this spring. Thus, just to keep the momentum going and to stay in the habit of posting something weekly, here is a short essay I wrote for a global religions course in response to an article promoting a greater appreciation for religious pluralism. 

It is perhaps dishonest to speak about "Christianity" or "Islam" and perhaps even "Judaism" as cohesive specific belief systems. The plural "Christianities" or "Islams" may be more appropriate representations of reality. There are some Christians, for instance, who are very intolerant of anything that smacks of pluralism and who base their understanding of doctrine more on fear than hope. Christianity, as they see it, is very exclusivist. There are other Christians who would be eagerly on board with a pluralistic, universalist view of people and religion. I regularly engage with people on both sides of that spectrum and many points in between. 

With such scattered identities within religious traditions, it's difficult to imagine religious people from exclusivist iterations of those traditions finding value in interfaith dialogue of any kind. We discussed in our chavruta call the arrogance of some expressions of religion that prohibit meaningful engagement with anything that seems like Other. We also discussed the matter of religious privilege. In America, being Christian is a position of privilege, but it is never addressed in the same way that privilege of ethnicity, gender, or sexuality is addressed.

Thinking in terms of privilege, religious people are in a historical and cultural context, yet often wish to distance themselves from those contexts. People who claim the label of a particular religion must acknowledge the harm done by others with that religious identity if there is to be any hope of entering into others' universes peacefully. Twenty-first century people who claim to desire to enter into the mental and spiritual universe of another, yet dismiss the influence of religion in terms of injustice, oppression, terrorism, and genocide cannot be taken seriously. Even though a particular expression of a religious tradition is against any harmful practice, these traditions exist as parts of historical and cultural trajectories.

Thus, while it is possible to "imagine all the people living life in peace," it is easier to imagine that happening in the absence of religion than it is to imagine religious fundamentalism promoting peaceful coexistence. Perhaps the greatest hope would be for the pluralistic-minded religious people to increase in number and the fundamentalist religious people to die out (of natural causes, of course), rather than hoping for an end to any particular religious tradition. A sort of evolution of religious ideology rather than an extinction level event. This hasn't happened with racism as of yet, so this may be a long shot at best.

In any cultural change, there are innovators and early adopters, then there are the early and late majorities, and last there are the laggards. In terms of technology, early adopters already have their Google glasses and laggards are still using their land-line telephone exclusively. In terms of religious pluralism, we are perhaps in the phase of transitioning within a majority view. In the American South, is sometimes seems as though pluralism is still something of an innovation, but globally I'm not sure where things stand. The point is that there will be laggards -- people who cling to their religious exclusivism until they die or until they are forced along with an irresistible cultural tide.  

It's both challenging and easy for me to enter into the mental and spiritual universes of the Christians with whom I have seminary classes. Easy, because I am familiar with the language game, having grown up in the church, and because I enter into such engagements with an eye toward common ground. With more liberal Christians (who are usually much more open to pluralism), that common ground is often very easy to find. We can use one another's language and trust that we understand one another's meaning.

This is still a challenge for me, because I feel like an outsider to the Christian language game now. I understand the concepts, but I have rejected the idea that human beings are broken and in need of salvation from an external deity in favor of a more Humanist paradigm. Even though I can understand deeply and be close friends with Christians, I am not a Christian. They are no longer my tribe, and their language is no longer my language. Moreover, I was hurt by that tribe once upon a time, and those scars still inform my opinion of Christianities to some extent.

All that considered, I am optimistic enough to believe that the concept of God can evolve. People used to believe that supernaturals were responsible for weather events and cosmological events like the fantastic and beautiful lunar eclipse some of us had the opportunity to witness this week. Most people know better now. They better understand scientific explanations for their world and can still be filled with wonder without being filled with dread that their supernatural is trying to send them a message that they don't quite understand. The cultural role of gods has shifted. 

I would suggest that the only god that an individual can worship is a god that the individual can understand. Even monotheistic religions do not really worship a single god; every worshiper brings to the table personal ideas about the object of worship. Thus, the concept of God changes subtly with every believer and evolves as a result of cultural evolutions. For some time, I sought different language to use in the place of the word "God," settling on "deepest, most noble self." Recently, I began to reclaim the word "God" for the sake of convenience, acknowledging that "God" is a word that people use to speak about a part of themselves. So, personally, as I continue to grow in connection to myself and others, God evolves I suppose.

Mr Lennon dreamed that there might be "nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too." My dream, only slightly less ambitious, would simply be that people recognize that human beings invented their gods and their religions. They did so for very good reasons, and although those useful tools have sometimes been used as weapons, there is a place for religious practice in human culture. Perhaps it would be emotionally traumatic for some people to admit that the object of their worship was something they invented rather than the other way around, but I have confidence that -- in community -- people can adjust to the idea. This awareness could certainly contribute to a more pluralistic curiosity. After all, it is intriguing and enlightening to step into other mental and spiritual universes, and recognition that religion is a human invention can deflate some of the fear around exposure to Other. I honestly trust that people can still make use of religious ideas and practices while recognizing their own role in imagining their gods, but I doubt that many people in my lifetime will be ready for that shift.

Mark 7:24-37: When Prejudice Gets in the Way of Values

People often concoct a pleasingly dishonest image of those they admire. We often have a hard time thinking of our heroes or idols as flawed. So, when Jesus comes off as a bit of a bigot in Mark 7:24-30, it may be tempting to explain it away, but defending Jesus here might miss a bigger spiritual truth.

Here is the story, in a nutshell: The character of Jesus wants to have some time to himself, and instead he is accosted by a foreign woman -- a non-Jew who has heard of him. This woman begs Jesus to heal her daughter; the woman believes she is possessed by an evil spirit. Jesus dismisses her, calling her a dog, compared to the more valuable children of Israel. Then the woman does something rather impressive; she stands up to Jesus and challenges his prejudice. Jesus acquiesces, heals her daughter, and sends the woman home.

People wishing to protect an impression of Jesus as a sacred or holy figure have interpreted this exchange in a variety of ways. Maybe Jesus was just testing the woman, thus people must be persistent in begging God for what they want. It is as if to say that you have to want something badly enough to be nuisance in order for God to pay attention to you. There is actually another parable that supports this idea. The version of this story that is told in the gospel of Matthew, however paints Jesus in an even worse light. He ignores the woman at first, and then makes the interpretation of his metaphor about throwing children's food to dogs very clear. She doesn't deserve his help because she's not Jewish.

Recognizing that this exchange may never have happened, or that it may have transpired differently than gospel authors preserved it, the best means of extracting something useful from the story is to take it at face value. There is no way for any person to even confirm the existence of the Jesus depicted in the gospel narratives, so it would be rather presumptuous to assume to know the thoughts of a person from another culture and another time. While it may say something embarrassing about human nature, it is better to be honest than to protect a character who doesn't need protecting.

Try as we might, we are not color-blind or culture-blind. We make judgments about people, whether we want to or not. We assume things based on appearances, and we often act based on our assumptions. We have to. There is no way that we could ever have all of the information necessary to make a completely informed decision, much less know everything about another human being's character, beliefs, tendencies, desires, weaknesses, and strengths. We have to operate on assumptions to a certain extent. Being aware that we are making assumptions, however, can be helpful.

Like the character of Jesus in this story with the Phoenician woman, we are prone to taking one look at people and deciding whether we want to have anything to do with them. To be blunt, we often assess in a split second whether or not another person has any value to us. A lot of folks, we may write off as dogs not worthy of any meaningful attention. Some of us may write off people who are from different cultures, who look different from us, who have different income brackets or different lifestyles -- we may write people off for things we invent about them with no concrete information.

Sometimes people will challenge us, like the Phoenician woman challenged Jesus in the story. They may challenge us directly, or we may be challenged by something a person says or does that flies in the face of our assumptions. When that happens, we have an opportunity to rethink, to tap into our actual values and guiding principles, and to shift our behavior into alignment if necessary.

Sometimes, though, we have to challenge ourselves. People may not have the opportunity to challenge our assumptions, and even when we do give people that opportunity, we often make it difficult for them. Once we have made up our minds, we like to stay rooted. So, if we want to be really sharp about this, we have to learn to challenge ourselves. When we notice our assumptions and judgments and prejudices getting in the way of who we actually want to be in the world -- drowning out our actual values and deep guiding principles -- we have the option of changing. We can choose to allow deeper truths to inform our actions rather than allowing our assumptions, prejudices, and fears to hog to driver's seat.

We will sometimes be wrong. Sometimes, people will live up to our worst assumptions about them, even when we are trying to let go of those assumptions. The question is whether we want to be the kind of people who assume the worst about people or whether we believe in something more important than that. If we believe that all people have value, for instance, we have a choice about whether we look for that value in people or whether we look for reasons to dismiss them as mangy mutts that don't deserve our attention. We can actually have a greater positive impact in other people's lives and on the world we share when we choose to truly see people as human beings with undeniable worth and dignity -- and when we do that, we also become better embodiments of our own dignity and worth.

1 Kings 17-18: Seeing Beyond Caricatures to an End of Religious Arrogance

There were probably many Elijah stories floating around in ancient Israel, only a handful of which made it into canonical biblical texts. The character of Elijah makes frequent appearances in Jewish rabbinic literature and folklore as well. While the tales are blatantly legendary, many of these Elijah myths are instructive. The prophet's first appearance in the Old Testament is 1 Kings 17-18, where Elijah appears as a holy foil to the evil King Ahab and his foreign, Jew-hating wife Jezebel. These chapters relate the tale of a fallen Jewish people who have abandoned their religion and adopted the worship of foreign deities, for which they suffer a devastating drought. Elijah humiliates and kills the prophets of the other faith and convinces the Israelites to return to the worship of their own deity. Most likely written in the years following the Babylonian Exile, this story offered hope that there could be restoration after a period of perceived punishment.

Several interesting characteristics about the prophet are present in this story. First, Elijah claims power over the drought (although he does express fealty to the god of Israel). His time with the widow at Zarephath seems strikingly similar to (and thus was possibly a model for) a miracle story attributed to Jesus regarding making a little bit of food go a long way. Elijah has the power to effectively restore life to people who have died, and he has no problem killing people who promote a different religion from his own. Stories about Elijah fit typical patterns of hero myths from the ancient world, and the basic theme of "our god is better than your god" is an effective message of hope for a people who have been immersed in a foreign culture for decades.

The story is also a striking commentary about the Israelite people (or perhaps all ancient peoples). They are perfectly happy to go along with the most impressive magician of the moment and call it faith, and they are willing to slaughter 850 people at the word of one charismatic fellow with a convincing stage act. They don't seem to mind the implication that Yahweh will do what Elijah tells him to do, while their other faithful Jewish prophets have been holed up in a cave for three years, presumably unable to make any spectacular requests of the god they serve. Either God is only willing to work through one special person, or none of the hundred other prophets were tuned into God's plan. Whichever the case, it paints a tenuous and unsettling picture of a nation's relationship with the divine. What would they do if Elijah didn't happen to be around? How could they trust any of their priests and prophets to effectively guide them once they return to their ancestral religion?  

Hero myths never presume to answer such questions, though. People necessarily become caricatures in folktales, and after all, the story isn't intended as an actual report of historical events; it's about the Israelites rebuilding their sense of religious connection after a time of exile, which they interpreted as divine discipline. There was a message of hope and redemption imbedded in this story featuring a well-known folk hero. What then shall we derive from this tale, we who do not thirst for a sense of post-Exilic restoration?

It isn't that we should expect miracles. There are no recent reputable reports of miraculous occurrences like the dead being raised by a fervent prayer or a water-logged altar being consumed by divine fire. In other words, we have no counterpart for these miracles in contemporary society, and thus we must consider the miracles to be symbolic elements in a story and not replicable historical events. We should not even expect that God will do what we want if we pray fervently enough. Certainly, if we pray for rain long enough (such as the three years that Elijah waits in the story), it will eventually rain. That doesn't mean that our prayer was actively, intelligently answered. It simply means that what we desired eventually lined up with reality.

There is also no real value in turning this story or others like it into a popularity contest between religions. There were no real good guys and bad guys here; Baal and Asherah are as fictional as Yahweh. The hero of this sort of tale is determined by who is telling the story. If anything, we might recognize the disconnect between our present age of scientific knowledge and the time of our ancestors, who believed that unseen supernatural forces were in control of the weather and used it to reward or punish human beings. The idea seems preposterous to most people today, although even in the twenty-first century there are those who hold prayer rallies to pray for rain (ineffectual though such rallies turn out to be). We know more about the world than people once did, and we should live our lives based on that very real, testable knowledge.

Here is something worth noting: If we want to light a fire, we should get matches. Or a butane lighter of some kind perhaps. If we want to arrive someplace safely, we should be cautious and patient drivers. There are other factors, of course, but we have a great deal of control over creating what we want. If we take time for introspection, we will learn that we have the answers to a great many dilemmas in life; we are simply not accustomed to listening to ourselves. We are so unaccustomed to paying attention to our deepest and most noble selves, in fact, that it can seem like the action of some supernatural force outside of ourselves when we perceive a clear and direct sense of who we most want to be and what we most want to be doing. Even decisions like what subject to choose as a major in college, which job to accept, which route to take across town -- these decisions ultimately come from within ourselves, and we are often quite insightful when we give ourselves a chance. Prayer puts the focus on an imaginary force outside of ourselves; time for quiet, focused introspection can yield the same exact result without the unnecessary baggage of religious dogma.

The only reason the Israelites were willing participants in the worship of Jezebel's gods is that religion made sense to them as a way to address the issues of their lives. It doesn't actually matter what Jezebel thought about the Phoenician gods, we know enough to say that people of the ancient world imagined a supernatural underpinning to their perceivable reality. If something doesn't make sense to us today, we are capable of considering we simply don't understand without resorting to supernatural explanations. Moreover, if we are less hasty to attribute the things we don't understand to the supernatural, our curiosity can drive us to discoveries about ourselves and the world around us we might never have made otherwise. We can realistically create meaningful and connected societies on the basis of actual data and honest exploration rather than on what we imagine a supernatural being might want of us or accomplish for us.

Religion teaches us to undervalue ourselves on the one hand, by robbing us of our personal capability and responsibility and pinning it to an imaginary supernatural entity. On the other hand, religion imbues us with a sense of superiority, assuming our version of an imaginary supernatural entity is better than anyone else's. Religion gives us compelling parameters by which we can effectively judge other people who disagree with our confabulation and draw lines of separation between ourselves and people who look, behave, or think differently from us. Some may say that human beings will do this with or without religion, but removing the unfounded and irrational justification of religious dogma from the mix takes the teeth out of a great many lines of division in our world. Without religious justification, we are forced to admit that by and large, most of our assertions about other people are only opinions, however strong those opinions may be.    

There is still suffering in the world in the twenty-first century, and the answer is not to round up and execute a bunch of heretics. We have to learn to see other people not as caricatures and stereotypes, but as human beings with inherent worth. We share this planet, this reality, with an awful lot of people who think and live differently from us, and the answer is not to eradicate or dehumanize everyone that is "Other." By growing ourselves to allow the whole of humanity within our sphere of acceptability, we build what is called the "kingdom of God" by the writer of the gospel of Matthew. Our world has outgrown the prescriptions of religion that separate people into worthy and worthless, if such delineations were ever truly needed. No supernatural entity is going to do the work for us, but we are capable of phenomenal acts of creation when we are willing. The value and dignity of every person is where that creative act begins.

Dinah and the Shechemites: Not a New Band, Just a Story of Senseless, Violent Retribution

The actions of Jacob and his children didn’t always reflect an awareness of any sort of divinity, except perhaps with the assumption that they could do whatever they wanted because their god was better than other gods (which may not actually be any sort of awareness at all).  Consider the tale of Jacob’s daughter, Dinah, in Genesis 34.  Once Jacob and his family were settling into their new stomping grounds, Dinah went out unescorted to meet the other local women.  Shechem, the son of the area’s ruler (Hamor) saw Dinah and was instantly smitten, so he took her and slept with her against her will.  At least that’s the story recorded in scripture.  Jacob’s sons (Dinah’s brothers) were outraged, but they played it cool, deceiving Hamor and Shechem into thinking that they approved of a marriage between Dinah and Shechem.  They insisted that all of the men under Hamor’s authority be circumcised before plans could continue, to which Hamor readily agreed.  While the men were recovering from the minor surgical operation, Jacob’s sons slaughtered all the men, stole all of their wealth, livestock, women, and children, and considered it justice.  Jacob was angry that his reputation in the area was going to take a hit from his sons’ actions, but they showed no remorse.

When people tell stories about events that have happened to them, there’s no way to tell how much of the story is truth and how much is elaboration.  Even in this day and age, when two people engage in a moment of passion, they may have completely different accounts of the incident, should the occasion to talk about it arise.  If one person winds up feeling shame about the event, or thinks there might be something to gain from playing the victim, the story could easily become radically different from reality.  Even in reading the biblical account, it seems that Hamor and Shechem have a completely different understanding of the situation than Dinah’s family.  The alleged rapist wants to marry Dinah, Hamor wants to share his land with Jacob’s family, and they are willing to have all of their men undergo circumcision as part of the agreement.  It doesn’t seem like the behavior of ruthless criminals. 

Rape does happen.  And most people would agree that rapists deserve some sort of justice.  Even though it may be difficult to get to the truth when there are conflicting accounts, people who have been raped should not have their lives, behavior, or clothing scrutinized merely because they are brave enough to come forward.  That being said, it’s important to get as close to the actual truth as one can before meting out justice. 

But perhaps evaluating the nature of intimacy between Dinah and Shechem is out of place, considering the culture of the time.  If women were considered property, then it wouldn’t really have mattered whether Dinah consented or not, Shechem’s actions would constitute theft.  Maybe a closer story in today’s culture would be slightly less emotionally charged than considering one’s only daughter or sister as the victim of a violent sexual crime.  That image could understandably provoke a person to violence.  So, let’s consider a story about a car.

Imagine you have a classic car parked in a parking lot somewhere.  This car is a real beauty, your pride and joy.  But when you get back to the car after leaving it alone in the parking lot, you realize that someone has ripped open the steering column, hotwired the car, and taken it for a spin.  You are beside yourself with anger and disbelief, when a man approaches and says, “That is a great car.  I saw it sitting there and I just had to take it for a test drive.  I’d like to buy it from you.  Name your price.”

With your best poker face masking your rage toward this man, you say, “Sure, I’d love for you to have this car.  But, you and everyone in your neighborhood have to drink a bottle of this delicious wine.”  The man agrees, goes back to his neighborhood, and proceeds to get everyone drinking wine.  When the neighborhood is recovering from the alcohol, you go on a killing spree, slaughtering everyone in close proximity to this guy like you’re filming a slasher film.  Then you steal all of the cars in the neighborhood, as well as any valuable electronic devices, jewelry, cold hard cash, …you get the picture. 

Justice?  Not by a long shot.  Of course, this modernized retelling doesn’t capture all of the nuances of the cultures involved in the original story, but it doesn’t really need to.  No matter how you look at the situation, the actions of Jacob’s sons constitute a disproportionate response out of unchecked rage.  It’s a pretty impressive feat—killing a community’s men and making off with all the women, children, and valuables—but it’s far from model behavior.

Even as the heroes of their own story, the sons of Jacob come across as barbaric and nearly amoral.  Their sister was “defiled” by one man.  Their response is to kill an entire city of men and make off with everything and everyone else in the city.  And they set the stage for the slaughter by making a mockery out of the sacred sign of a holy pact with God.  It may seem clever, but it’s hard to call it just.  It would almost seem inhuman if it weren’t so close to some beliefs held by many people in the 21st century.  Many people still seem to find the idea of wiping out those who are different so much more compelling than the idea of learning how to find common ground and share the world with fellow inhabitants.

So, if we are not going to emulate over-the-top violence as a reaction to situations and people we don’t like, what is the alternative?  There are probably many, and the best among them are going to involve seeing other people as equal partners in creation.  People are all valuable and fallible, even the person who looks back at you from the mirror.  It isn’t about permissiveness or accepting wrongdoing.  Justice still has a place, when it is actually just and stems from the acknowledgement of every person’s inherent value.  Every person has that divine essence of truth, beauty, and creativity, but every person doesn’t tap into it equally.  So, in a word, we’re talking about forgiveness.

Forgiveness doesn’t mean eliminating consequences.  Forgiveness is simply a word for letting go of the dehumanizing hostility we so often direct at people.  There is no honest assessment of spiritual truth that can lead to the conclusion that forgiveness is an inappropriate response.  It’s a wonderful image to think that an all-knowing, benevolent god handles all matters of forgiveness, that mercy is ultimately the purview of the Almighty.  The concept of a Christ dying for the world’s sins can leave some people with the impression that the issue is handled without them needing to be involved.  But the act of forgiveness is our responsibility, regardless of religious persuasion.  Moreover, the act of forgiveness itself is healing, not to the one being forgiven, but to the person doing the forgiving.

Forgiveness is crucial to human relationships on every scale.  Without it, we are in a perpetual state of war with everyone, including ourselves.  There is still a place for justice, and actions have consequences.  We don’t have to make those consequences worse for ourselves and others by embracing hatred.  It is our responsibility as human beings to act toward one another in a way that honors our mutual value.  And when someone makes a misstep on that path, it is our responsibility to forgive.  It is one way of recognizing the deep truth, beauty, and creativity within ourselves, to recognize that even in the darkest of circumstances, we are capable of letting go of hatred.

Twelve Tribes Born of Jealousy, Fear, and Deceit: How the Children of Jacob Came to Be

Looking at the title for this entry, it becomes apparent that certain moral judgments are inescapable when people hear or read stories from other cultures.  To be fair, the Bible doesn't always blatantly pass judgment on the behavior of people like Jacob's wives; it simply states, "This is how she felt, and this is what she did."  Cultural mores and a cultivated societal understanding of right and wrong are bound to color how people are seen.  In a way, that's the point of much of this conversation.  In order to accept the Bible's teachings and apply them to modern-day life, one must be discerning about what makes sense and what doesn't fit with contemporary society.  It cannot all be equally accepted without analysis.  Many people want to lift up scripture as morally unassailable, but the truth of the matter is that we must use an internal sense of morality in order to judge what we read.

As an example, take the story of Jacob and his wives in Genesis chapters 29 through 31.  Back when Abraham was looking for a wife for Jacob's father Isaac, he was insistent that the wife be brought to Isaac instead of Isaac going to get her.  It's as if Abraham knew that his kinfolk were trouble.  Jacob has to find this out the hard way in dealing with Uncle Laban, who soon becomes Father-in-law Laban.  When Jacob had worked seven years to earn the wife he wanted, Laban changed the rules and told Jacob he had to first marry the elder (and uglier) daughter, Leah.  So Jacob worked for another seven years to get the wife he wanted, Leah's sister Rachel.

Laban was the very epitome of shrewd cunning.  When Jacob finally wanted to take his wives and children and head home, Laban played the grateful employer and (after over 14 years of not paying Jacob a wage) told his son-in-law that he could name his price to stay on and keep tending Laban's flocks.  Jacob wanted all the speckled or spotted goats or lambs, so after agreeing to the deal, Laban sent his sons to weed out all the speckled or spotted goats and lambs from the herds Jacob was tending.  Then he put three days between him and Jacob, probably feeling quite smug.  Jacob, while most likely feeling betrayed by his uncle, pulled a crafty bit of witchcraft and essentially bred his own wealth.

When he had had enough of Laban's tricks, Jacob took his wives and herds and children and headed back toward his father's land without telling Laban.  Just to twist the knife a bit, Rachel also took her father's household gods (or idols).  When Laban came to chase him down, Jacob was indignant, Rachel hid the idols, and Laban was forced to cut his losses and make a truce with Jacob.  So Jacob got the last laugh, not by being more righteous, but by beating Laban at his own game.

During all of this time, Jacob's wives had been having a breeding war.  Although Jacob loved Rachel more and found Leah to be less appealing, Leah was the one who got pregnant first.  In fact, Leah had four children by Jacob, which made Rachel very jealous.  Since she wasn't getting pregnant, and the problem obviously wasn't with Jacob, Rachel suggested that Jacob sleep with her maidservant Bilbah.  When Bilbah got pregnant, Rachel felt vindicated through a strange bit of vicarious conception.  After Bilbah had borne two of Jacob's children, Leah's competitive side kicked in and she threw her servant into the mix.  Leah's servant, Zilpah, also gave birth to two of Jacob's offspring.  The two sisters even traded herbal conception aids (mandrakes) for the opportunity to sleep with Jacob.  In the end, Leah had two more sons and a daughter with Jacob, and Rachel at long last (perhaps due to the mandrakes?) had a son, Joseph.  Some time later, after the departure from Laban, Rachel died giving birth to another son, Benjamin.

So, Jacob wound up with twelve sons by four different women, which wasn't a bad thing in that culture.  But wives were often considered valuable only in terms of the offspring they could provide to further the bloodline.  In fact, the story takes special care to point out why Rachel would be kept around if she wasn't bearing any children: She was aesthetically pleasing to Jacob, she was useful in hiding Laban's idols, she was loyal to her husband, and she had a handmaiden that could do the important work of conceiving children as a surrogate.  The fear of being worthless compelled Leah and Rachel to suggest some things that seem utterly alien to today's society, but it wasn't anything strange from Jacob's perspective.  Maybe the early Jews thought the situation strange, but every English translation conveys the story in very matter-of-fact terms, the impression being that this is just a recounting of how the twelve tribes of Israel came into being.  Whether there is any factual or historical accuracy to the story or not, it can at least be assumed that there is some cultural accuracy involved.

There are some spiritual lessons in these stories of Abraham's children and grandchildren as well.  In this particular case, there may be some lesson about trusting one's own ability rather than relying on an abusive "patron".  People often stay in situations in which they are being taken advantage of, simply out of a lack of faith in themselves.  Jacob's story encourages people to take responsibility for their own wealth and well-being.  His sacrifice for what he really wanted (Rachel) is also a lesson.  If something is worth having in the long run, it's worth some hardship in the short term.  In Jacob's case it was fourteen years of working without wages, but some people today are unwilling to make sacrifices for even a month or two in order to get what they truly want.

The lessons one can reap from the stories of these people are manifold, but they must be cast through the lens of the society in which a person lives.  A 21st century American man cannot expect to marry two wives, get to sleep with their maidservants as well, and perform a magic spell to make his wealth multiply.  He can expect, however, to wait for what he values and to cultivate a willingness to do every ethical thing within his power to create the life he wants.  Readers cannot look upon the words of the Bible, or any other text, and take it at face-value.  People must engage their minds in interpreting what is there, and that means tapping into the internal sense of what is right -- a sense of truth that surpasses personal preferences, and an awareness of beauty and value that sees beyond what is convenient. 

Fear and Family Ties: Examining the Exotic Cultural Origins of Judeo-Christian Thought

Some say that blood is thicker than water.  It's also scarier than water for a lot of people.  In the story of Isaac and Rebekah and their sons, Jacob and Esau, we find that Judeo-Christian ethics emerge from a culture that is very foreign and very familiar at the same time.  It is the very insular and fearful culture of one family that forms the basis for biblical spirituality.  This, again, refers to passages in Genesis chapters 24 through 34.

Fear is a natural human emotion, and certain circumstances and relationships can foster fear more than others.  In Isaac's case, a certain amount of fear is learned from his father, Abraham, and he responds to it as Abraham did.  When Isaac is living in Abimilech's land, his fear of the other men there leads him to tell the same lie Abraham had told about his wife on more than one occasion.  Isaac identifies Rebekah as his sister.  When Abimilech sees Isaac and Rebekah being affectionate with each other, he realizes the truth and chastises Isaac.


Abraham's insistence on purity of the bloodline is also handed down to Isaac.  When Esau (technically the eldest son) marries local Hittite women, his parents Isaac and Rebekah are not pleased.  But Esau was responding to a dynamic that his parents created.  Even though Esau was the elder son, his brother Jacob was the one that mommy loved best.  In fact, Rebekah encouraged Jacob to steal a final blessing from dad while Esau was out hunting.  If the story is to be believed, when the two brothers were younger, Jacob had demanded his older brother's birthright in exchange for food.  When their father was about to die, mom apparently wanted to make sure the deal was sealed.  So, in a feat of trickery that seems unbelievable, Jacob tricks Isaac into believing that he is Esau and Isaac blesses him.

Here is the weird bit: When Esau returns, Isaac oddly declares that he only had one blessing to give and now he's out.  Even understanding that words have power and such, this seems like a strange claim to make.  "I have two sons, but only one of you can receive my favor."  How does that not equal atrocious parenting?  To make matters worse, when Esau challenges Isaac on the "only one blessing" claim, Isaac basically curses him with a prophecy of a challenging and violent life.  No wonder Esau gets back at mom and dad by marrying a few Canaanites.

As has been mentioned, it's a simple thing to write prophecies back into stories after the fact.  If the history of these two brothers and the legacy they leave behind are the main themes of the story, then prophetic words from the mouth of their father make for good storytelling.  This is essentially the way that an oral tradition works.  One has to keep the listener interested in the story if they are to remember it and pass it down to their descendents, and foreshadowing is a very effective tool for maintaining interest.  Still, the impression of Isaac as a father comes across as less than model parenting.  And while it may still be the way some mothers behave, the intensity of Rebekah's favoritism (which leads her to encourage deceitfulness between her children) isn't much closer to an idealized picture of what a mother should be.

In any case, according to the story, Rebekah and Isaac are not happy with the idea of Jacob also marrying some local trash, and Rebekah is afraid that Esau may be angry enough to kill Jacob.  Thus, Jacob is sent off to find a wife among his family's people and live with his uncle, Laban (Rebekah's brother).  He finds two wives, as a matter of fact, and they are sisters.  Rachel and Leah are actually Laban's daughters, and as the story goes, they are the first women Jacob sees.  Since they are Rebekah's nieces, that makes them Jacob's first cousins.  Since they are also Isaac's cousins twice removed, the two sisters are also Jacob's second cousins twice removed.

Laban doesn't make Jacob's courtship easy, either.  Jacob wants to marry Rachel, and Laban demands seven years of labor in exchange.  At the end of the seven years, Laban pulls a fast one and sends Leah instead of Rachel.  (Laban and his sister must have learned from the same teacher.)  But Jacob wants Rachel, so he works for another seven years and earns her hand as well.  Their story has lessons of its own, but the basic theme in all of this can be seen in the best light as maintaining purity and in the worst light as insular and xenophobic.  After all, holiness in its most basic definition means to be set apart.

The patriarchal family of the entire biblical narrative creates a belief system out of a fearful, insular culture in which deceit is practiced even within the closest familial relationships.  All of the mandates and "shalt nots" in the scriptures can be traced back to this behavioral tradition.  While we sometimes hear arguments that the culture of biblical times was different from modern-day culture, we rarely stop to think just how different it was.  This family preferred marrying multiple cousins in order to maintain a purity apart from the influence of the rest of the world.  Does that level of paranoia seem healthy on any level?  Why do we accept rules and axioms based on fear and deception?  Why is it impossible to conceive of a scenario in which brothers are encouraged to coexist peacefully and relatives don't deceive one another just to get their way?  Aren't people capable of more than this?

That's a rhetorical question, of course.  Some people don't believe people are capable of anything more than this.  Some people believe that we are indeed deceitful, conniving, and scared at our very core, just like Abraham's family.  The only person in the bloodline who seems to have any sense is Esau, who sees the relationships around him and decides he wants nothing to do with it.  Although even he goes a bit overboard with marrying four Canaanite women just to spite his parents.  Children of all ages are influenced by their parents' dramas, and the patriarchal line of Genesis is no different.  Everyone has choices, though.  We are only bound by the fears and beliefs of our parents as far as we want.  We have the option to claim an identity based on trust and hope rather than fear and deception.  And we don't have to go overboard like Esau in order to do it.

The desire for separateness brings up another issue for modern American society, however.  If those who wish to honor biblical standards of behavior also were content to keep themselves apart from mainstream society, there are few people who would challenge them.  Like Abimilech, leaders would most likely say what they could to make believers feel safe and let them do as they wished provided it didn't infringe upon the livelihood and well-being of others.  However, some believers want to hold everyone to their standard.  They want the whole of the population to be compelled to adhere to a standard that has more to do with fearfulness than it does with right and wrong.  And many of them are quite willing to practice deception in order to get their way.  While we can see a biblical precedent for this kind of behavior, this is not keeping oneself apart.  This is not maintaining holiness.  This is bullying, plain and simple.  Frankly, I believe we are capable of better than that.

God Told You to Cut Off What Part of My Anatomy Exactly?: Circumcision and the Need to Belong in Genesis 17

Nearly everyone has done something at some point in time to be a part of a special group of people.  A person might shop at particular stores, wear a particular style of clothing, take up particular hobbies, listen to particular music, or hang out in particular places because of a desire to be identified as part of a subculture.  People join fraternities or sororities in college, or they may join a fraternal organization later on in life, because on some level they want a place to belong.  There is, I believe, a deep-seated need to seek out and discover one's place in the grand scheme of things, and there are many benefits that come from being a part of a larger group.  Gang culture wouldn't be so compelling otherwise.

One factor that sometimes accompanies belonging to a group is the clear distinction that one does not belong to a different group.  One only needs to belong to one fraternity, and there is a certain amount of pride that accompanies wearing those particular Greek letters.  Likewise, if one is a Crip, then one cannot also be a Blood.  One might avoid wearing red altogether, not just because blue clothing signifies where one belongs, but also because it clearly identifies who the "better" people are.

So competition kicks in on some level when we are finding our group.  There is some "survival" value to this competition.  If one identifies with people who work in a particular industry, one may be more or less likely to have consistent employment.  Belonging to a "better" group could lead to opportunities that wouldn't otherwise be available.  At the most basic level, actual survival may even be on the line.  This was at least the case thousands of years ago, although most people didn't have much of a choice about the tribe to which they belonged.

Many groups have initiation rites that members must undergo.  This "proves" the candidate's level of commitment to the group on a certain level, but more importantly it solidifies a personal sense of belonging with a powerful experience.  Christians may be baptized into the church fellowship, Freemasons may undergo a series of initiations into different levels of the group's hierarchy, and a white nationalist may shave his head and get a swastika tattoo.  So, some of the initiation procedures into a group leave a mark by which other people can identify a person, but many times the rites leave a much deeper mark on the psyche of the individual, allowing them to claim with some certainty, "I am ___________."

In Genesis 17, God supposedly tells Abraham that the mark by which his people will be known involves the removal of foreskin.  Circumcision has meant different things to different cultures.  In ancient Egypt, it was simply a rite of passage into adulthood, granting a young man the ability to learn mysteries that were not accessible to children.  The initiated would then learn stories, rites, and prayers intrinsic to the religion of the culture at the time.  For the Jewish people in biblical times, circumcision was a demonstration of obedience to God, which ultimately meant obedience to religious and community leaders.

In fact, the uncircumcised were literally cut off from the spiritual practices of the community.  In no uncertain terms, they knew they were not a part of the in-crowd.  Of course, this practice of enforcing identity with the group went beyond any hazing on a college campus.  Circumcision was seen as a matter of purity.  To be uncircumcised was to be impure.  Not just excluded from a group of people, but excluded from favor with the divine.  In other words, it was a very effective tool for control.

By now, many people have heard stories or seen movies about how difficult it is to extract oneself from a group.  Whether it's the mob or a street gang or a cult, leaving is not easy.  Even if one is allowed to break off ties easily, there is a void that some may find unbearable.  A person who has broken off from a group no longer has a place of belonging, no longer fits anywhere, no longer has the same easy of identity.  And the more intense the rites of inclusions, the deeper the void may feel.

It is not at all uncommon to want to belong somewhere, to want a place where one is accepted as part of the group.  That feels safe.  It satisfies a deep-seated need.  I don't know of many groups, however, that do not in some way look down upon others who do not belong, whether they be people who belong somewhere else or people who don't seem to belong anywhere.  It becomes one more Us vs. Them.  "We belong to the chosen people." Therefore everyone else is obviously not chosen, or essentially worthless.  So, identifying with one group automatically tells us which other groups we can ignore, abuse, or generally devalue.

The trick might be to recognize one's place in the world based on one's capability and passion rather than what kind of initiation one is willing to undergo.  Not that everyone has a choice about what is done to their body, especially as a young child, but we do all have choices later on in life about the kinds of associations we make.  We ultimately get to choose where we belong.  Recognizing oneself as a unique human being who still shares an incredible wealth of characteristics with the totality of the human race can put things in a much healthier perspective than the idea of being part of a chosen few.  People wind up doing things that would otherwise be unthinkable, all because of their affiliation with a particular group.  Things like committing violence against other people when there could be countless other ways of handling an issue.

The bottom line is that wanting to belong is natural, but rites and marks that set one group apart also identify the outsiders.  And "outsiders" is a strange word to use for the people with whom we share this planet.  It's time that we stop looking for ways to belong by blindly following what other people tell us is right.  We have a place in reality, every last one of us, and that place is determined by what we are willing and able to create, not by what we are willing to endure.  No group is better than any other group.  We are people.  We are all people.  Foreskins or not. 

The Wisdom of Acknowledging Similarities over Differences: Rewriting Genesis 11

One of the most familiar biblical tales, the story of the Tower of Babel appears in Genesis 11.  It makes sense to blame or credit a divine force for the dispersion of cultures and peoples, and from the context, it even seems like this was considered a wise thing to do.  My revision, or course, stems from a radically different perspective. 

We like to notice differences.  It’s something that our brains do well.  Differences in language, for example.  Some might say that if it weren’t for our differences, we could accomplish just about anything as a unified people.  But when we start looking for differences between people, the list is nearly unending.  Every culture has its own unique way of doing things, its own stories, its own songs, its own language.  Every family has its own unique history, its own traditions, its own inside jokes.  Every person has unique experiences, beliefs, strengths and weaknesses.  However minutely we might want to parse groups or individuals into different categories, there are innumerable differences we can use as criteria.

Like children with a healthy sense of curiosity, we may notice all of these differences and wonder why.  Why are we not all the same?  Why do we have different stories, different songs, different traditions, different strengths?  Some people think there must be a good reason for us to have so many differences.  There must be a good reason for us to have such an obstacle in the way of accomplishing the great things we could do if we shared more in common.  Some of us might conclude that a higher power must have ordained the vast differences we observe.

Of course, there’s also something within us that hates to be wrong.  If someone does something or believes something differently from us, then we slip easily into judging which is right and which is wrong.  Most of the time, we are quite insistent that our language or beliefs or traditions are right, and therefore those that are different must be wrong.  If we have the approval of a higher power supporting us, then we have even more reason to be convinced of our own rightness.

If we take a step back to the question of why all these differences exist, there’s a possibility that we don’t really need an answer.  Merely accepting that there are differences between people and families and cultures might even lead us to look for commonalities.  Not only does the list of commonalities between people extend at least as far as any tally of differences, the truth and beauty and creativity at the heart of every person certainly outweighs any differences we may perceive.  In fact, that very sense of truth and creativity is what allows us to overcome any challenges that arise because of differences.

The 21st-century world has room for a multitude of beliefs and traditions and songs and languages.  While there are ethical and moral circumstances in which right and wrong are legitimate concerns, our personal beliefs and cultural traditions are not truly threatened if we give credence to the beliefs and traditions of others.  Humanity is full of differences, but human creativity, persistence, and ingenuity have devised ways to overcome those differences time and again.  We are actually alike enough that it is essentially as though we all share a common language.  When we truly acknowledge all that we share in common with one another, nothing we plan to do in unity will be impossible for us.