The other day I was explaining to a friend why I don’t believe in a Creator – although I do believe in a “god” which is Ultimate Reality. I am no philosopher (as this article will surely demonstrate), but these are my reasons, as cogently as I can put them.
I am a panentheist – not to be confused with pantheist. Pantheism sees the world as God, and/or God as the world. Panentheism, on the other hand, sees the world as existing “in” God; that is, panentheism sees God as an all-embracing Sprit, which contains everything, and in which/by which everything is contained. God is “here” (immanent) and “more than here” (transcendent). God’s existence and enfolding presence, however, do not necessarily imply that God is a Creat0r. Quite the contrary.
There are plenty of cosmological models that do not require a beginning in time for the universe; that is, the universe could always have existed. For theology, such models negate the need for a First Cause – a cause which, in most Western religious expressions, is usually personified as both a deity and a creator. This of course is not a problem, since theology then simply suggests that, in regard to the eternal universe model, there exists a creator-god who has been creating the universe for as long as the universe has been emanating from that god; the universe being a continous, eternal outpouring from the continuous creative activity of an eternal creator. If the universe is eternal, then fine – so is its creator and “his” creative activity. But not all theological models demand that God be a creator. And this, in fact, is my position.
First, it seems to me that the notion of a creator is derived from the making of artifacts by human beings, an idea I first encountered as a youth when reading Fred Hoyle’s The Black Cloud. My personal take on this concept is that, relatively early, human beings came to realize that they had been born into world of pre-structured “stuff”. It probably wasn’t long before this realization got entangled with the realization that human beings are also prolific producers of “stuff”, via their countless artifacts. From this resulted the natural (but possibly incorrect) deduction that the pre-formed, “given stuff” of our environment must be some type of artifact, made and shaped by an invisible, non-human agency – which, however, shared several important properties with human beings. Hence the birth of a god or gods who functioned as a creator, or perhaps, a council of creators.
One obvious flaw to this, of course, is the gradual disappearance of “the God of the gaps” in the face of our ever-growing knowledge about how “stuff” works. Gods as supernatural explanatory causes and factors have been removed from our cosmologies, with the Creator being pushed further and further back, until one can say with Julian Huxley that “operationally, God is becoming more and more to look like the last fading smile of a cosmic Cheshire Cat” (probably not an exact quote, but the idea is plain). My views take the idea to its final conclusion, namely, that God does not have any relation at all to the function or state of the universe – either as a creator or an intervener … and that this idea of a non-operational deity is true, conforms to the mystical core of many traditions, and goes some way toward explaining how, although God is real, we continue to suffer as we do. It addresses not only the existence, but – more importantly – the persistence of evil in a world which, after all, turns out never to have been God’s making or a result of God’s “plans”.
Before proceding, I’ll mention the terrific importance the Creator-Deity has in the thinking of Creationists and Intelligent Design theorists. Most, but not all, of these people are less convinced of the Creator’s existence from a study of how the universe works, than from a literalistic belief in the biblical account of creation. Their firm belief – that a 5,000year old, pre-scientific creation myth of one particular ancient Semitic people could actually give a factual account of cosmic/world origins – is the crushing burden with which they have saddled themselves (and which they wish to foist onto the US’s public education system). They must believe in a Creator because their sacred book – literally interpreted – says they must. Obviously, appeals to science, plausibility, and reason are mostly wasted when trying to engage with these people. Worse, let’s look at what the existence of a creator might mean.
Let’s dispense with the Creationist deity right away: Yahweh, the creator-deity of a Bronze Age tribe -and of modern fundamentalists – as described in their scriptures, has many good qualities (for example, the Prophets with their message of social responsibility) and many inexcusably bad qualities. Unfortunately, the bad qualities dominate, particularly if one chooses to believe that this often destructive, crazy, vengeful, insecure, warlike, megalomaniac, arrogant, dishonest, murdering deity really exists and is really the source of the world and of human beings. If that was really the case, then for humankind all is lost. Thankfully, there is no evidence for Yahweh’s objective existence; and even if there were, people of good will would rightfully reject this deity on moral grounds alone. So let’s dismiss Yahweh as a significant creator figure. (Naturally, I delete from this equation all of the good, decent, educated, progressive Jews and Christians – they usually understand Yahweh and his scriptures analogically and metaphorically – a far cry from the literalist, fundamentalist Creationists and ID position.)
One can only deduce any Creator’s nature from the nature of “his” creation. The Buddha called this world samsara, a “wheel of birth and death” in which suffering and loss predominate. Buddha gets no argument from me. Now: what kind of creator would create an indifferent universe, much less a universe that inflicts suffering on sentient beings? The answer is obvious. This of course does not mean that there is no creator/designer. But it does strongly imply that such a being is unconcerned with creatures to the extent that “It” must be seen as blind, unware, indifferent, hostile, or even cruel.
So my position is that, for lack of evidence, it is unlikely that a Creator exists. But, if I am wrong in this surmise, the alternative seems far worse than is the case of no Creator. A Creator who is cruel or uncaring is, from my perspective, positively worse than no Creator. And again, if I am wrong, and a Creator does exist, perhaps in one of the several forms we have become familiar with: as an ancient alien or team of aliens; a hacker or hackers working from other dimensions; a universe-creating technology (whether or not actively maintained by living beings) whose infinitely ancient purpose it is to create multitudes of worlds. It doesn’t matter. In no case are these “first” causes God, and in no case do they display the concern for the world that most religions claim for God. If they exist, they remain aloof, indifferent, hostile, or cruel. (Now, of course, a creator-god could exist, and be indifferent and cruel, but I reject this depiction because it does not conform to most God-definitions extant in theology, religions, and mystical literature.
So: I do not believe in a Creator; or - if a Creator exists – I want nothing to do with It.
And yet: I do believe in a God that is real, but Who (or Which) is not a creator or an intervener, a God by nature transcendent to the world, yet mysteriously “in” the world by reason of embracing the world in Its own divine Presence. As a devotee of the Buddhist sect of Jodo Shinshu or Shin Buddhism, I give to this transcendent entity the name “Amida Buddha”.
In Part 2 of this essay, I would like to explore Amida as Ultimate Reality, Infinite Wisdom and Compassion, and Unimpeded Light … as well as the dynamics of a “theistic” spirituality in which there is really no God, no Creator, and no intervention: certainly an oddity from the general Western perspective that thinks of religion and spirituality in Abrahamic-creatorist categories.
Filed under: Christianity
Anti-semitism is always raising its ugly head in modern society, all too often in the form of the tired old lie, “the Jews killed Christ”.
Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. “The Jews” during Jesus’ lifetime probably heard very little of this itenerant preacher from Galilee. Those who did probably reserved “in their hearts” the points they thought worth pondering, and made a prudent judgment about his character and claims at some unknown later period. And much later, when some of Jesus’ disciples began to claim that their master had ascended to heaven and was sitting in God’s Judgment Seat, Jews living in Judea at that time would have had some startling new ideas about Jesus to consider and react to.
In any case,The Gospels are clear that “the Jews” collectively are not to blame for Jesus’ execution. In fact, the Gospels explicitly name Jesus’ executioners mostly as influential members of the priesthood and certain scribes… and of course the Romans. Thus both “ethnicities” – Jewish and Gentile – had a hand in Jesus’ death. Which is simply to say, theologically, that “we all killed Christ by our wickedness”. But the Gospels do not blame ethnicity for Jesus’ death: they blame human evil and sinfulness, presenting the interpretation that Jesus’ death was an atonement for ALL human sin, regardless of ethnicity and religion.
Anti-semites are fond of citing Matthew 27:25, “Then all the people answered, saying, ‘Let his blood be upon us, and upon our children’ “, mistakenly taking this to mean that “ALL” the Jewish people uttered this sentiment.
This is glaringly wrong, since Matthew’s “people”, “crowd”, and “multitude” do not – cannot – refer to the entire Jewish people – for the simple reason that this text refers only to the small fragment of people who had crowded into Pilate’s courtyard. Even at that, these were not necessarily the anti-semites’ much-vaunted “Jews against Jesus” … because as Matthew 27:20 says, it was “the chief priests and elders” who “persuaded” this small gathering to choose Barabbas over Jesus. The entire scene was, according to Matthew, a put-up job by the priests, not an action undertaken by “the Jewish people”.
Moreover, Matthew 26:3-5 states that Jesus was so popular with his own (of course, Jewish) people that the “priests, scribes and elders” were afraid to arrest Jesus for fear of creating “an uproar among the people”. What people? The Jewish people of Jerusalem and the Jewish people of Galilee who had come south to celebrate the Passover. Nowhere does Matthew suggest that “the Jews” were collectively responsible for Jesus’ execution.
Mark 14:55-59 shows that at Jesus’ trial, some “false witnesses” were brought in to condemn Jesus, but their testimony conflicted and was worthless. Moreover, Mark explicitly states that “the chief priests and all the council sought for witnesses against Jesus to put him to death; but found none“. That is, no valid Jewish witnesses recommended Jesus for execution. Again, “Jewishness” and “the Jewish people” or “the Jews” did not condemn Jesus, but only certain politically-motivated collaborationist priests who were inseparably entwined with Roman rule.
Luke 23:27 claims that many Jews took pity on Jesus and openly supported him on the way to Golgotha:
“And there followed him a great company of people – and of women, who also mourned and lamented him.”
What “great company”? What “people”? What “women”?
Answer: all were Jewish people. Enough said.
Those who insist that “the Jews” crucified Jesus, are obviously scripturally and historically ignorant, as well as being consorts of the hate-mongers. Knowing full well that only a tiny fraction of an elite Jewish aristocracy – a collaborationist group of Rome-supporters – were agents of Jesus’ execution, these ferocious anti-semites continue to broadcast their old lie that “the Jews killed Christ”. One can only stand aghast at the abysmal hatred and willful ignorance of such intellectual and moral cowards, and work toward quashing the lie every time it is disseminated.
I have become weary and sickened by the increasingly strident Christian-bashing that has become prevalent in modern society.
It is as if secularists and other non-Christians wish, consciously or unconsciously, to create “the new Jew”, a pilloried social leper upon whom it is considered healthy, wholesome, and even dutiful to heap scorn and ostracism. My sense of respect diminishes when people whom I might otherwise admire – and those whom I grudgingly respect even while wildly diverging from their thinking – when they play the “evil Christians” card. It is really so beneath them, but paradoxically, for these mostly bright folks, their prejudices seem to be reflexive and mostly unconscious. Seems that it’s time for some reflection and consciousness-raising.
Most of us have this tendency to revile “an Other”, in the process elevating ourselves, but danger flags should start flying when the media and other expectedly responsible, rational sources typically and as a matter of course begin a program of social bashing . A fishy stench is very much in the air when this kind of thing occurs, and sensitive, conscientious noses will scent it out.
So these are my feelings:
I was raised by Christians, fed, sheltered, educated and loved by Christians. – a huge number of us can say this, so it is the height of arrogance and selective amnesia to behave as if Christians are some foreign, exotic – and evil – species whom our daughters must never marry. I myself was a Christian for some 28 years. I therefore feel that this new wave of “anti-Christianism” is as mean and nasty as it it unjustified and disturbing.
A truism must be invoked here: Christians are people. As with most other people, they live in society with more or less success, with more or less helpfulness. They are people. They ought not to be vilified or ostracised – except for anti-social behavior that would result in anyone else being marginalized. Discernment in this area is crucial, as is recognizing the huge spectrum of belief in Christianity, for example, the unbridgeable gap that exists between emergent Christianity, liturgical Christianity, “biblical”/evangelical Christianity on the one hand, and fundamentalist Christianity on the other. Only when these inter-religious differences are known and recognized can an observer make any claim to fairness and objectivity. It takes a little homework. But so does any worthwhile effort to keep a society aligned with justice.
The following is a link to an article – a Buddhist appraisal of some local Christians, written by an ordained priest of the Jodo Shinshu (“Shin”) sect:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2005/01/14/the-christians-i-know/
It makes beneficial reading for those who wish to be socially apt, realistic, and compassionate – that is, for those whose conscience rebels at participating in the creation of any “new Jews”, be they Christian or otherwise.
A friend of mine recently noted that any government or social policy that is not for the common good partakes in sociopathology. This principle is supported by most religions and is found in Buddhism. I’d like to briefly cite an essay that treats exactly this issue. Written in wartime, it condemns Japan’s support of war with Russia (1904-1905), especially the misuse of religion in that effort. The author also condemns the ill-use that the “haves” direct toward the “have nots”. The specific religious context is that of Jodo Shinshu or Shin Buddhism, with its centrality of Amida Buddha and its belief in Amida’s “Pure Land”, where the faithful are posthumously transformed into bodhisattvas, or “helpful Buddhas”. Aptly, the essay is entitled, My Socialism.
I do not feel that socialism is a theory, but rather a kind of practice… I think we need to reform the social system rapidly and change the social structure completely from the ground up… I consider socialism to be related much more deeply to religion than to politics. In proceeding to reform society, we have to, first of all, begin from our own spirituality.
I consider [the Pure Land] to be the place in which socialism is truly practiced. If Amida is endowed with the thirty-two [holy distinguishing] marks, the novice bodhisattvas who gather [in the Pure Land] are also endowed with the thirty-two marks… [This is how] socialism is practiced in this Land of Bliss.
We have never heard that beings in the Land of Bliss have attacked other lands. Nor have we ever heard that they have started a great war for the sake of justice. Hence I am against war. I do not feel that a person of the Land of Bliss should take part in warfare.
The essayist’s words are certainly an example of “engaged Buddhism”, concerned for the welfare of all and willing to restructure society along principles of compassion rather than wealth-accumulation, greed, and war. In words that could have been written today, the author deplores the gap between rich and poor and its accompanying sociopathology:
We live in a country where the common people in general are sacrificed for the fame, peerage and medals of one small group of people. It is a society in which the common people in general must suffer for the sake of a small number of speculators. Are not the poor treated like animals at the hands of the wealthy? There are people who cry out in hunger; there are women who sell their honor out of poverty; there are children who are soaked by the rain. Rich people and government officials find pleasure in treating them like toys, oppressing them and engaging them in hard labor…
The external stimuli being like this, our subjective faculties are replete with ambition. This is truly the world of defilement, a world of suffering, a dark night. Human nature is being slaughtered by the devil.
Yet Amida Buddha continues his call to us, and this compassion itself should prompt us toward a spiritual socialism.
Our thoughts cannot but change completely: “I will do what the Buddha wishes me to do, practise what he wishes me to practise and make the Buddha’s will my own will, I will become what the Tathagata tells me to become.” This is the time of great determination!
The only thing I wish to accomplish through my great energy and human labour is progress and community life. We labour in order to produce and we cultivate our minds so that we can attain the Way. But look at what’s happening! We cannot help but lament when we hear that religious functionaries are praying to gods and buddhas for victory. Indeed, a feeling of pity arises in my heart and I am sorry for them.
…we must proceed from the spiritual realm and completely change the social system from the ground up. I am firmly convinced that this is what socialism means.
So in Jodo Shinshu there is a blueprint for social equality based on spiritual principles of compassion and wisdom for a life (in Marcus Borg’s words) centered in Spirit rather than in culture, a challenge to beat swords into ploughshares, to make war no more, and to never again rejoice at an enemy’s destruction, principles also rooted in the bible and enjoined in such texts as:
Proverbs 22:22-23: Rob not the poor, because they are poor; neither oppress the afflicted at the city entrance: for the Lord will plead their cause, and spoil the soul of those that spoiled them.
Proverbs 24:17-18: Rejoice not when thine enemy falls,, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles, lest the Lord see it,, and it displease him…
[The My Socialism esssay written by Takagi Kenmyo, cited in Beyond Meditation: Expressions of Japanese Shin Buddhist Spirituality, ed. Michael Pye, Equinox Publishing, Oakville CT: 2011.]
Filed under: Christianity
Just a few more words to convey Marcus Borg’s and John Crossan’s work on the death of Jesus, for this Lenten season. Already mentioned was their conclusion that Jesus’ sacrifice was not one of atonement or substitution. Rather, it was seen as a “ransom”. In the language of the times, to “ransom” meant to liberate someone from debt, or to pay for a slave’s release from servitude. And this meaning, say Crossan and Borg, is the earliest, truest connotation of Jesus’ “sacrificial death” in the New Testament. It means liberation from bondage.
Beginning with the Last Supper, the authors explain Jesus’ own view of his impending death:
“… when a person dies violently we speak of a separation of body and blood. That is the first and basic point of Jesus’s separated bread/body and wine/blood words… a correlation becomes possible between Jesus as the new paschal lamb and this final meal as a New Passover… The point is neither suffering nor substitution, but participation with God through gift or meal… it was by participation with Jesus and, even more, in Jesus that his followers were to pass through death to resurrection… It is… a final attempt to bring all of them with him through execution to resurrection, through death to new life. It is…about participation in Christ and not substitution by Christ.”
Moving on to Jesus’s death itself:
“… this [substitutionary atonement] is not the only Christian understanding of Jesus’s death. Indeed, it took more than a thousand years for it to become dominant… [it] first appeared in fully developed form in a book written in 1097 by St. Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury… [According to Anselm's view,] God must require a punishment, the payment of a price, before God can forgive our sins or crimes. Jesus is the price… [However] the substitutionary sacrificial understanding of Jesus’ death is not there at all in Mark… According to Mark, Jesus did not die for the sins of the world. The language of substitutionary sacrifice for sin is absent from his story. But in an important sense, he was killed because of the sin of the world. It was the injustice of domination systems that killed him, injustice so routine that it is part of the normalcy of civilization.”
Marcus J. Borg & John D. Crossan, The Last Week, Harper Collins, San Francisco: 2006, pp. 118-119 and pp. 138-139.
Filed under: Christianity
New Testament scholars Marcus Borg and Dominic Crossan discuss the meaning of sacrifice in relation to Jesus death. They use the example of a (female) firefighter who rushes into a burning building, finds a child, and drops the child safely into the net. Then the roof caves in, killing the firefighter. The next day the local paper has headlines about the firefighter’s life-sacrifice. Borg and Crossan accept the modern meaning of sacrifice and self-sacrifice, and emphasize that the firefighter has made “her own death peculiarly, especially, emphatically sacred by …[saving] the life of another”. The authors continue:
So far, so good. Now imagine if somebody confused sacrifice with suffering and denied it was a sacrifice because the firefighter died instantly and without intolerable suffering. Or imagine if somebody confused sacrifice with substitution, saying that God wanted somebody dead that day and accepted the firefighter in lieu of the child. And worst of all, imagine that somebody brought together sacrifice, suffering, and substiution by claiming that the firefighter had to die in agony as atonement for the sins of the child’s parents. That theology would be a crime against divinity.
The astute reader can see where these considerations lead – to the complete inversion of fundamentalist soteriology, to the utter refutation of what has been termed “Crossianity”.
Later on during Lent, this blog plans to present just what Borg and Crossan think that a non-sacrificial, non-substitutionary yet “salvific” death means in the context of Jesus’ execution.
Marcus J. Borg & John D. Crossan, The Last Week, Harper Collins, San Francisco: 2006, p. 38.
Filed under: Christianity
The season of Lent has arrived. The Christian world turns its thoughts toward the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, while the Jewish world anticipates the arrival of its Paschal season. These joyous-sorrowful feasts attend the Spring of the new year, and the mystery of God’s interaction with humankind.
While by no means meaning to be the skunk at this truly beautiful religious garden party, I wish to express a somewhat minority view, namely, that Jesus’ sacrifice was not one of atonement for sin. Rather, it was the inevitable outcome of his work and teaching, following an understandable line of cause and effect. I will grant – without ascribing paranormal future-predicting talents to Jesus – that he probably intuited that what turned out to be his final visit to Jerusalem would be lethal. In this, he is among other Jewish prophets and religio-social critics who met unpleasant fates at the hands of the powers that be (or were).
That Jesus “had a problem” with the current Temple and its priestly management makes historical sense if we take his message at face value. This is reiterated by the subsequent history of the Jesus movement in Palestine-Judea. Some of Jesus’ Jewish followers were persecuted and killed in their own homeland by their own Jewish peers. However, this was not yet a case of Jews against Christians. Rather, it was a case of some Jews against other Jews who belonged to the “Jesist” sect. And the persecution consistently issued from the priesthood and its minions.
Jesus’ message has many facets, but the pertinent one for this discussion is his opposition to the current running of the Temple and its animal sacrifice system. Note that Jesus’ “cleansing of the Temple” was not primary launched against the money changers – who, after all, had the legitimate function of seeing that the correct coinage was donated to the Temple. Rather, it was launched against the animal sacrifice system, which for reasons too complex to treat here, Jesus abhorred. The main result of Jesus’ actions in the Temple was to disrupt the flow of sacrificial animals into the sanctuary. He not only disrupted this meat parade, he set animals free and scattered them. Shortly thereafter, at “the last supper”, Jesus made clear his intentions, namely, that his renewed Covenant would be sealed with an unbloody sacrifice of plant offerings (wheat/bread and grapes/wine). These would constitute his new, reformed offering in place of animal flesh and blood. In none of the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ final meal is any mention made of the Paschal lamb, the idea presumably being that bread and wine would now be sufficient offerings for the reformed Temple in the inauguration of the Kingdom of God on earth.
No one in his/her right mind could possibly expect to call the Temple unholy, and to further desecrate its sacred commerce, and at the same time not expect some kind of retribution to follow. Those familiar with Christianity know that retribution did follow, with Jesus appended to a Roman cross. The Gospels are not specific in connecting legal charges against Jesus with his Temple demonstration, but they do mention the charge that Jesus was “leading the people astray”. Jesus’ Temple rebellion would surely have infuriated the priestly elite and worried the Roman authorities who counted on taxation received from the Temple, and surely would have constituted a major motivation for both parties to remove him from the scene.
Hence, Jesus sacrificed himself for his own unique prophetic message of a renewed Covenant minus animal sacrifice, for his proclamation of a definitive in-breaking of God’s Kingdom (itself enough to alienate the priesthood and Caesar’s agents)… and of course for Israel, for whose “lost sheep” alone Jesus said he was laboring. Here we have a martyr’s death, but not a sin-atonement.
Moreover, it is a pertinent fact that Jewish scripture and tradition holds that Yahweh, the tribal deity of Jesus and his Jewish confreres, had instituted myriad means of forgiveness and atonement for his “Chosen”. Of course, some of these were bound up with the Temple which Jesus so sorely wished to reform. But the bulk of them were simple acts that any Jew could perform, unconnected with priesthood and Temple. They included prayer. repentance, loving kindness, repudiation of idolatry, offerings of flour, money and jewelry, incense, and other means. Moreover, the Torah and Prophets, as Jesus received these texts, already contained strong currents of anti-animal sacrifice argumentation. At several points, Yahweh himself was presented as repudiating the sacrifical system, and – a thousand years before Pauline “Judaism by faith” and “internal circumcision” – was said to be pleased by “circumcised hearts” rather than animal sacrifice.
It is abundantly clear, then, that Judaism saw itself well-provided for in the areas of sacrifice, forgiveness and atonement. Nothing more was necessary than the rubrics laid down by Yahweh himself. Nothing was lacking in the atonement system, for the simple reason that Yahewh himself had provided it. The notion that a human being – a perfect, sinless, half-divine human being, no less – would in the future be necessary to provide some kind of ultimate, flawless sin-atonement is completely un-Jewish, and foreign to the Jewish scriptures and Prophets. For the Jews, their God-given atonement system was God-given, and to last forever. Nothing else was needed or desired. The Christian notion of Jesus as atoning sacrifice is a betrayal of Judaism and the Jewish Jesus. This is borne out even by the New Testament.
The New Testament describes Jesus’ Jewish disciples as operating from Jerusalem as their new headquarters. They remain Jews and practice Jewish rituals, including praying in the Temple. They continue to observe the Law and circumcision. They are sporadically persecuted not by “the Jews” but by the same priestly elite that Jesus before them had opposed. When they hear that Paul has been telling his Diaspora communities that Torah – precisely because of Jesus’ supposedly atoning sacrifice – is invalidated, even for Jews, they insist that Paul undergo the Nazirite vow in the Temple. For them, although the priesthood is corrupt and the animal sacrifice system needs reform, still the fact that they regard some of the Temple’s rubric as valid shows that they did not think that Jesus’ death replaced the Temple. They knew what was at stake when they pulled Paul’s feet to the fire and coerced him to take a traditional Jewish vow, namely, that Temple and Torah are still operative and authentic, regardless of Jesus’ martyric sacrifice.
Jesus’ death was that of martyr, prophet, and Kingdom-agent, not the atoning sacrifice of a World-Savior.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Much is being made – and rightly so – of the lack of violence and looting in the aftermath of Japan’s recent catastrophes.
Most of the looting US audiences see in their media is done by impoverished Americans, many of whom are non-white. This is because many times the worst devastation occurs in impoverished neighborhoods where, unfortunately, many of our non-white brothers and sisters are born and die, sometimes with very little hope of economic betterment. If any people, regardless of race, are impoverished, of course they will loot. It’s really that simple. Wealthier people tend not to loot, because they don’t “need” to. They have the best chance of escaping areas of devastation, the best storage-reserve-retrieval systems, the best insurance, and the best opportunities for reconstruction.
It is a false paradigm to project the behavior of some impoverished Americans onto the Japanese. It’s not just a matter of the Japanese being civilized, orderly, and blessed with a built-in system of deep courtesy. The US media I have seen have reported the behavior of general urban Japanese populations, not the behavior of “ghettoized”, impoverished Japanese. Therefore it is a mistake to project US social expectations on a populace whose actions are being reported generically, with no particular focus on how impoverished sections of that populace are, or are not, behaving.
Finally, the Japanese wisdom – which effectively tends to limit looting – is that the local stores still operating in the affected areas are simply giving – donating – their supplies. And they are doing it with a sense of order. The supplies are not just thrown at “customers”, but sensibly rationed.
Kudos to the Japanese for their compassion, practicality, and common sense.
Concerning demonic possession, it would seem that one needs to believe in a particular possessing entity in order to be possessed by it. That is: Christians need to believe in the Devil and his demons to become possessed. Possession by evil, damned spirits and fallen angels – by “the Devil and his minions” – is nearly unheard of outside of Christian cultures. It’s like reincarnation: in cultures that deny it, reincarnation is said rarely to occur, while in cultures that affirm it, reincarnation is said to occur with some regularity.
If memory serves, there is a Jewish tradition of demon possession derived from very ancient times, but still, Jewish demons are not “Christian” demons, and the Christian horned bogeyman is never said to possess Jews – as far as I know. However, Jewish tradition does mention the dybbuk, or possessing spirit of someone who has died – a soul who possesses. In William Peter Blatty’s Legion (sequel to The Exorcist), the Jewish cop Kinderman wonders about Christian demon-possession in contrast to Jewish dybbuk-possession. In the Middle Ages, ancient Jewish demonology shook hands with Christian demonic speculation and became Magic, both “black” and “white”. Demons were said to be invoked, but I am not aware of any actual _possession_ occurring resultant from such invocation – perhaps physical attack or bad luck, yes; but not literal possession calling for exorcism. Please correct me if I’m mistaken about this.
(It is also important to recall that the New Testament never portrays Jesus or his disciples as exorcising Satan or the Devil. The only entities that Jesus and his disciples exorcise are local demons, “unclean” spirits, and “spirits of disease”. Literal possession is never ascribed to Satan himself, although the sound principle did apply, that if you cast out Satan’s minions, you were in a real sense, vanquishing Satan. It is for this reason that when Jesus’ disciples returned from a mission that included exorcism, he told them, “I saw Satan fall from the sky like lightning”. The disciples had expelled Satan’s imps from possessed people, and Satan thereby suffered a major “hit”.)
However, spirit possession, as opposed to demon possession, is a widely-attested and documented phenomenon.
In many non-Christian cultures, possession is frequently looked on as a positive and necessary thing, and the possessing entities are not demons or the Christian Satan. Rather, they are ancestral spirits, shamanic/totemic spirits, or gods such as the Loa in Haitian Voudou. Tibetan Buddhism has exorcistic rituals for local demons and “elemental” spirits which differ strikingly from Christian rites, in that – because of Buddhism’s accent on universal compassion for all sentient beings – the Buddhist ritual applies “tough love” to demons, reminds them of their own innate but neglected Buddha nature, and does not usually try to punish them or drive them out violently.
I would guess that if a Buddhist, a Hindu, Sioux shaman, a Confucianist, etc., reported possession by a specifically _Christian_ demon, then the reporter must have been exposed to Christian demonology. After all, Satan, dybbuks, Beelzebul, Legion, etc., mean exactly nothing to non-Abrahamic cultures, and have very little power to frighten – or even interest – those populations. So, “Satanic possession” in non-Abrahamic cultures – even if we speculate that it does rarely occur – is most likely just one more result of Western incursion into other cultures.
Therefore it would seem that possession is a culturally-determined phenomenon. That being so, we would not expect to see Christian or Jewish demons possessing non-Jews and non-Christians. We must therefore deny our Western Devil his due. His influence is only effective for Abrahamic faiths, and does not extend into other religions.
Of course, fundamentalist Christians – who in any case are already biased toward superstition and judgmentalism – do say that the possessing entities of other cultures are “from Satan” and that the spirits and gods of non-Christian possession-cultures are really “Satan in disguise” … and the “poor natives” are too ignorant and depraved to realize it. But of course, these fundamentalists are merely projecting their own ghettoized views onto other cultures – cultures which, they falsely claim – are, even without possession, “Satanic” and Hell-bound.
Following the sacrament of baptism, the Eucharist (Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion) is Christianity’s central sacrament. Even congregations that deny the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist nonetheless celebrate it, however irregularly. Very little needs to be said, of course, about the Catholic Church’s exaltation of this sacrament. The shocking thing about this towering sacrament, however, is that there is very little chance that it was instituted by the historical Jesus, at least in its present form.
Paul says that he received his doctrine about the Lord’s Supper from a special revelation from Jesus. It is essential to recall that Paul was not an original follower of Jesus. Paul never knew the historical Jesus. Paul was never an apostle; rather, he invented his own definition of “apostle” and made sure that it was broad enough to include himself. Paul on more than one occasion vehemently eschewed any notion that his Christ-doctrine, his Gospel, was derived in whole or in part “from men” – the men in this case being those who knew and followed the historical Jesus. Therefore Paul cut himself off from, and actually disdained the testimony of those who knew Jesus – those whom he dismissed as “so-called Pillars” of the Jerusalem Church. Armed with this knowledge, it comes as no surprise to the alert reader that Paul would introduce a new doctrine that came not from the historical Jesus or his disciples, but from a special revelation from Paul’s mystical, risen, exalted-glorified heavenly Lord.
Had the Pauline Eucharist been widely practiced in the church, Paul would not need to be introducing it as a novelty to a congregation that apparently had never heard of it. What we see Paul doing is conveying a personal revelation which mandates a new ritual for his congregations, a ritual that does not go back to Jesus.
Knowing Paul, his Eucharistic testimony is a bit startling, because Paul famously gives only a smattering of data that might possibly refer to the real Jesus. For example, Paul never mentions Jesus’ miracles, exorcisms, parables, conflicts with Pharisees; beyond Jesus’ death on the cross, Paul never mentions Jesus’ final days, his arrest, his Jewish trial, his appearance before Pilate, his ascent of Golgotha, his final words, or his burial by friendly Jews. Yet with jarring obtrusiveness, abruptly and seemingly out of nowhere, Paul gives “historical” details of a final supper held by Jesus on “the night before he was handed over”, in which Jesus institutes the Eucharist, in which his “body” is identified with broken bread and his “blood” is identified with wine, to be repeated as a “remembrance” of him, and to display community awareness of his death (1 Corinthians 11: 23-30). Paul seems to believe that the rite is a real link with Jesus, because he warns against partaking of it “unworthily”, and recommends an examination of conscience before consuming the ritual elements.
Obviously, Paul did not derive the Last Supper tradition from the Gospels and certainly not from Jesus’ Judean disciples. Rather, he himself is “instituting” it by conveying it to his audience. There is no compelling reason to charge Paul here with lying or “making stuff up”.
Paul was prone to mystical states, visions and revelations. His Eucharistic revelation seems to be just one more example of his mystical tendencies. Paul may have received his Eucharist from the glorified Jesus; from his own creative unconscious; from Judaic tradition or from (say) the Mithraic or other pagan myths that prevailed in his culture. The pagan explanation seems to be the least satisfactory because elsewhere, Paul is vitriolic in his condemnation of pagan ideas and rituals. The Judaic explanation hits a little closer to home, if only for the simple reason that Jews traditionally lcelebrated bread and wine consumption, both at regular meals and at Passover. But none of them associated home-blessed meals and Passover feasting with the symbolic consumption of a prophet’s flesh and blood. The real answer to where Paul got his Eucharist lies hidden in the depths of his own psyche. Yet the Eucharist is mentioned in all four Gospels, and is a widely-attested practice in primitive Christianity. So the question then becomes: what did the Eucharist mean for early Christianity, and why was it so universally ascribed to Jesus’ institution?
Most Eucharists were celebrated with bread and wine or bread and water. Many Eucharistic liturgies were sacrificial, in that they were linked to Jesus’ atoning sacrifice, and re-presented it in a non-bloody manner. However, the famous Didache, an early Eucharistic manual with strong Judaic affinities, did not primarily link the bread and wine to Jesus’ salvific death. Apparently there were different Eucharists for different congregations. Yet all seem to share with Paul the idea that Jesus held a special meal just before he died, wherein he ascribed special significance to the meal’s bread and wine.
My very tentative theory is that the Eucharist combines three elements:
1. The Pauline mystery previously discussed
2. Jesus’ practice of “table fellowship” or “open commensality” (John Crossan’s term)
3. Jesus’ substitution of bread and wine for the temple’s sacrificial elements of animal flesh and blood;
See Bruce Chilton’s theory in the article at:
http://www.bib-arch.org/online-exclusives/easter-02.asp
One of the most striking features of Jesus’ ministry was his openness to the marginalized elements of his society. He was prone to traveling for days in open air with prostitutes, the possessed, tax collectors, and a host of social “rejects”. This policy was especially noticable in Jesus’ selection of meal partners. He could be found at meals, from the poorest celebrations to dinners with prominent teachers, Pharisees, and businessmen. The basis of Jesus’ cross-social meal fellowship was most likely an illustration of the universality of the Kingdom of God. All were invited to the table, but the marginalized and condemned would very often be the first to be seated. So already during his ministry, Jesus was using meals as examples of what life on earth should be like; life lived already in God’s Kingdom.
It is only a small stretch to picture Jesus developing open commensality to an even finer point among his most intimate disciples. It is easy to picture Jesus – in this private arena – attaching teachings to such a confidential, sequestered practice.
It seems that Jesus was in conflict with the current temple sacrificial system. He spoke against it, and finally he organized a protest demonstration that interrupted temple animal sacrifice. In this, Jesus was not being un-Jewish. Rather, he was reiterating a long-held minority-prophetic condemnation of temple sacrifice, as voiced in:
Jeremiah chapter 7: “Has this house, which is named for Me, become a den of robbers? … For I said nothing to your fathers about burnt offerings in the day I brought them out of the land of Egypt; but this I commanded them, ‘Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you will be my people…’ “
And Hosea, “Loyalty is my desire, not sacrifice; not whole offerings but the knowledge of God”; “the Lord has no delight in sacrifices”.
And Isaiah, “I have no desire for the blood of bulls, sheep, he-goats – who asked you for this? There is blood on your hands – go wash yourselves clean” … “Who slaughters an ox is like one who kills a person”.
And Amos, “I will not accept your offerings but let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream”.
And Psalms 40:66, “You [O Lord] did not desire sacrifice and offering … you have not required burnt offering and sin offering”.
Perhaps Jesus attached his own temple-protestation to his intimate meals with his disciples, and perhaps his final meal was regarded as the culmination of his revolt. In such a case, as Bruce Chilton has suggested, Jesus’ “words of institution” are transformed:
“This, my flesh” does not mean Jesus’ own body. It means that he is substituting bread as his choice of sacrifice. No more animal flesh is to be offered, but only the wheat-offering that Jesus and his disciples will present as a new form of sacrifice.
“This, my blood” does not mean Jesus’ own blood. It means that the sacrifice he and his disciples will bring to the altar will now be wine, not animal blood.
According to this interpretation, the traditional mistake has been to think that Jesus was speaking personally and autobiographically, as if he were identifying his own flesh with bread and his own blood with wine – whereas his real intent and usage of “my” and “mine” is entirely possessive, not subjective. His “my” simply means, “Here is MY new substitute for flesh; here is MY alternative ‘wine, not blood’ sacrifice.”
Perhaps a blending of Pauline mystery, a memory of the open commensality that Jesus practiced during his ministry, plus a new sacrifice/anti-temple teaching attached to his final meal(s) account for the rich symbolism of the Eucharist as we have it today.
