[christ our black mother speaks]

An 84-page, full color collection of art, essays, questions and practices to deepen our connection to the Dark Divine Feminine.

Our conditioning has taught us to automatically perceive femininity as untrustworthy and blackness as dirty. So, black femininity is perceived as wholly unholy.

There’s something very evil about the way black women in particular are perceived as distant from the Divine. It brings to mind the Jezebel stereotype, the idea that black women are lascivious by nature, which has long plagued black women... [and] continues to thrive today...

In this volume of essays, I turn toward images of Christ on the cross. As I continue my exploration of the wholly holy female face of God, I ask a deeper question.

What does God’s femaleness and blackness practically mean for my particular black female experience?

And what does God’s femaleness and blackness practically mean for all of us? 

(from the website)

Find out more and order a digital copy for yourself:
http://www.christenacleveland.com/shop/christourblackmotherspeaks

[stranger god: meeting jesus in disguise, by Richard Beck (book)]

"When Richard Beck first led a Bible study at a maximum security prison, he went to meet God. His own faith was flagging, but Beck still believed the promise of Matthew 25, that when we visit the prisoner, we visit Jesus. And sure enough, God met him in prison.

With his signature combination of biblical reflection, theological reasoning, and psychological insight, Beck shows how God always meets us in the marginalized, the oppressed, and the refugee. And stories from Beck's own life illustrate this truth - God comes to him in the poor, the crippled, the smelly.

Psychological experiments show how we are predisposed to like those who are similar to us and avoid those who are unlike us. The call of the gospel, however, is to override those impulses with compassion, to "widen the circle of our affection." In the end, Beck turns to the Little Way of St. Thérèse of Lisieux for guidance in doing even the smallest acts with kindness, and he lays out a path that any of us can follow." (from Amazon)

Read what Richard says about this new book on his blog Experimental Theology.

Read quotes from other things that Richard has written, sometimes with commentary and sometimes with great cartoons (by yours truly), right here on my blog.


Buy the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Stranger-God-Meeting-Jesus-Disguise/dp/1506433758

draw the circle wide

We sang the song "Draw the Circle Wide" at church a few weeks ago and it fits well with this blog. Some will say "there shouldn't be a circle at all" (and I generally agree) -- however, if you read the lyrics, you will see that essentially everyone ends up inside the circle...

Draw the circle wide, draw it wider still.
Let this be our song: no one stands alone.
Standing side by side, draw the circle, draw the circle wide...

God the still-point of the circle
Round you all creation turns
Nothing lost but held forever
in God's gracious arms

Refrain

Let our hearts touch far horizons
So encompass great and small
Let our loving know no borders
Faithful to God's call

Refrain

Let the dreams we dream be larger
Than we've ever dreamed before
Let the dream of Christ be in us
Open every door!

Refrain

Click here to watch the video if your device does not support embedded videos.

"Draw the Circle Wide"
Hymn by Gordon Light and Mark Miller

Read more about moral circles.

If there is no circle, you might either belong... or everyone might just be little bits floating around in the vastness of space...

life and love

[every 10th jesus...]

This poster is from the collection of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics. 

The title alludes to Alfred Kinsey's work in the 1940s which found that 10% of men in the United States are homosexual. Despite there being significant methodological reasons that this number should not be applied to the general population, the number "10%" has stuck.

From the details page:

By incorporating this statistic into Bouguereau’s traditional religious portrait, Handel challenges the understanding of Christian views on homosexuality. Bouguereau’s idyllic depiction of the affectionate infants Jesus and John the Baptist in the loving embrace of the Virgin Mary evoke Christ's and Mary's love and compassion for all humanity, including the ten percent who may be gay or lesbian. The peacefulness of the scene emphasizes the stark contrast between the great benevolence and love expressed by Christ in the Bible and the hatred and violence directed towards the LGBT community that some attempt to justify with Christian ideology.

[happy easter!]

Black Jesus from Coptic Church in Egypt. Happy Easter. pic.twitter.com/HD9p9hN2zM

— Khaled Beydoun (@KhaledBeydoun) April 16, 2017

in the chapel at holy trinity

In the chapel at Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Edmonton.

Artist?

why I no longer believe in lgbtq+ friendly churches

I used to be in favour of lgbtq+ friendly churches.

My denomination, according to head office, has at least four lgbtq-friendly churches in this area¹. Generally, these churches are welcoming of people regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, allow involvement in ministry at all levels and have pastors who are theologically progressive.

Despite being lgbtq-friendly, these churches are uncertain spaces to many people, in that they have not declared if and how they value and embrace diverse peoples. To be specific in this context, these churches do not say anything about being lgbtq+ friendly, their website gives no indication of their welcome and there are no rainbows on the sign out front. The effect is that people in the neighbourhood and, in fact, even people inside the church itself, might have no idea.

And so initially I had thought that they needed encouragement to move toward becoming churches that openly declare that all people are welcome and valued. This is particularly important so that people who are at the edges and who belong to minority groups would know which churches will walk with them on their spiritual journey.

That's what I used to think. But now, I no longer believe in lgbtq+ friendly churches.

It’s not because they are hesitant to proclaim that the good news they believe truly includes everyone. It’s because just as lgbtq+ friendliness is absent from the signs and the website, so are all things lgbtq+ absent from the culture and structure of the church.

[mary]

 "Courage 3.0" by Tim Okamura. Found via a tweet.

For more of Okamura's work:
https://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/en_uk/blog/tim-okamura-women-of-color-portraits

[when jesus looks like a sex offender]

Hugh Hollowell ministers with the poor in Raleigh, North Carolina. I am quite a fan of his as I've often seen how he embodies in our time the Jesus that I read about in the Bible.

He has posted a story on his blog called "When Jesus looks like a sex offender'. Here's the beginning of the story:

An acquaintance of mine, a man who is a deacon in a local church, stopped by, and asked if he could talk to me.

We sat down in the small conference room at the community center we run.

“What do y’all do about sex offenders in church?” he asked.

A man named Andy had been coming to their church – a nice, successful, red brick, steeple church – for the last few months. He had attended their adult Sunday School, and everyone liked him.  Andy was an older man, in his late fifties, with a short beard and horn rimmed glasses. He was well read, knew his Bible and listened with rapt attention in the service. He was thinking about joining the church, so he scheduled a meeting with the pastor.

“That was when it went south. He told the preacher he was a sex offender, and he wanted to join the church,” the deacon said.

How would your church respond in this situation? How do you feel about it?

Read the rest of the story at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/hughhollowell/2016/10/when-jesus-is-a-sex-offender/

more than others...

[christ of the breadlines]

This woodcut is by Fritz Eichenberg. 

HT to Richard Beck.

things god forgot to put into the Bible (#7)

Matthew 15:11-13 New International Version (NIV)

What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.” Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?” He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots.

jesus meek and mild

the table of hospitality (2)

The people who feel welcomed are the people for whom you have set a table of hospitality.

Source: Doug Paul, edited.

What does such a table of hospitality that welcomes others look like?

How do we set  a table of hospitality that is welcoming to aboriginal people? People who are unhoused? Men and women who live with mental health challenges? People who identify as lgbtq+? Those who live with disabilities? Youth?

I think of two small things that happen at my church:

First, occasionally we substitute the Kenyan Rite for the usual Apostles' Creed. This not only helps us to think more about what we are saying, as the words are not the usual words, but the Kenyan Rite emphasizes different things from the Apostles' Creed. (see more commentary on this, including a great example from a Maasai prayer book).

Secondly, we have held a Standing Stones service in place of the usual Sunday morning Eucharist. The Standing Stones service is a gathering of Aboriginal and Non-aboriginal People to explore God in an Aboriginal Context (read more), and is very different from what we usually do, both in format and in content. I hope that we will be able to repeat this experience several times a year.

These are small ways in which to shift and expand the table of hospitality.

[forensic jesus]

"Back in 2002 a forensic artist used Semite skulls found in Israel to reconstruct the face and head of what a first-century male from Palestine would most probably have looked like."

Paul Alexander from Evangelicals for Social Action challenges us to put a picture of this Jesus up in our churches:

Their goal is to have one million churches with this picture on display.

What do you think? How would people at your church respond? Personally, I'd like to see a slightly friendlier looking version of the forensic Jesus instead of the slightly stunned version that the scientists drew up.

How do you feel about referring to the typical pictures of Jesus as the "European Jesus"?

Forward this post or the link to the full article to your pastor, and ask them to consider adding forensic Jesus to the church walls...

Read the whole article here. They also have a higher resolution version of the picture available there.

jesus and the thief

4 But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, 5 “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.” 6 He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.

John 12:4-6 NIV

So Judas is a thief, stealing from the common purse.

If the writer of the gospel knew this, wouldn't at least some of the others have known it? And perhaps Jesus himself might have known about it? Yet Judas was still in their midst, still a disciple...

As was Thomas who doubted like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind, Peter who later refused to publicly acknowledge Jesus before others, Matthew who as tax collector had exploited God's chosen people on behalf of the oppressive Romans, Simon the zealot (might some label him a terrorist today?), James the son of Zebedee and John his brother and the other two fishermen disciples who surely are liars (though some call it telling fish stories) ...

What's with that? What kind of church was this Jesus guy building? No wonder we threw out that nasty business of putting up with everyone and are back to being holy as God is holy.


HT to Maureen whose mention of Judas and the common purse in her sermon, inspired this post.

[key statement by presiding bishop michael b. curry]

“Many of us have committed ourselves and our church to being ‘a house of prayer for all people,’ as the Bible says, when all are truly welcome,” Curry said in remarks he later made available to Episcopal News Service.

“Our commitment to be an inclusive church is not based on a social theory or capitulation to the ways of the culture, but on our belief that the outstretched arms of Jesus on the cross are a sign of the very love of God reaching out to us all. While I understand that many disagree with us, our decision regarding marriage is based on the belief that the words of the Apostle Paul to the Galatians are true for the church today: All who have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female, for all are one in Christ.

“For so many who are committed to following Jesus in the way of love and being a church that lives that love, this decision will bring real pain,” he said. “For fellow disciples of Jesus in our church who are gay or lesbian, this will bring more pain. For many who have felt and been rejected by the church because of who they are, for many who have felt and been rejected by families and communities, our church opening itself in love was a sign of hope. And this will add pain on top of pain.”

---

Bishop Curry's statements were being made in the context of the Primates 2016 meeting at the end of last week, where it was later voted to put temporary sanctions against the Episcopal Church.
Read the entire article here.

thesis / antithesis

jesus visits the new synagogue...

Jesus visits the new synagogue and has a suggestion:

Ah yes, the ubiquitous "everyone welcome" sign. That's all it takes to encourage people to come, isn't it?

Of course, with the Jewish temple, not everyone was welcome in the same way. Nor is everyone welcome the same way now. More on that in an upcoming cartoon.

See my article on uncertain spaces for a different take on the usefulness of the "everyone welcome" sign.