#not all people who study theology are religious and not all religious people are theologians I know whatever

[obstinatecondolement]

Clicked on a video that seemed like it was going to be about planners, because I've been kind of thinking about how I want to use my planner in the new year, but then less than a minute into the video the guy, who looked at most 28, said "I'm a content creator, but I am also a philosopher and theologian, and it is my goal here to help people to think more deeply" and I had a whole body reaction that translated itself into something that felt like nothing so much as the stuffing breadsticks in your purse "I have to leave immediately" meme and then slammed the back button.

There are many fine people who study philosophy and/or theology! I am friends with some of them! I have many friends who are people of a variety of different faiths and I deeply respect religious practice. However... this seemed like nothing I wanted any part of.

[queerprayers]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judensau

luther inspired hitler, following him is a step away from following hitler

Welcome, beloved. I don't want to dismiss your message, but I do want to make some things clear. I, like many, have horrors in my religion that I have to be able to address, and prejudices that I do not perpetuate consciously but know that I nonetheless have absorbed from culture, and am responsible for healing. Antisemitism within Christianity is a huge topic, with people devoting their lives to studying it. I would not fault any Jewish person for antagonism toward my communities--you would be right to be wary, and if I intend to continue participating in these communities, I must be able to understand and accept any justified anger or distrust coming my way.

I'd encourage everyone reading to learn more about this through the Wikipedia link, but a brief description/summary for those who don't want details/images: The mentioned article is about an antisemitic artistic trope from the Middle Ages. The church where Martin Luther preached included an image of this sort from 1305.

Martin Luther was antisemitic. This isn't up for debate. There is more to say, of course--we can look at how his attitudes changed over his life (for the worse, to be clear), we can talk about the extent to which he specifically influenced Nazism (this is a complicated conversation that I'm not qualified for)--but he was undeniably, horrifically, antisemitic. There's a Wikipedia page solely devoted to this topic.

That said, there's huge diversity within Lutheranism, seeing as it's a large religious tradition, and if you're interested in learning about Lutheranism and Hitler specifically, I'd encourage you to look into the split within the German Lutheran Church in 1933 and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran theologian who was hanged at the Flossenbürg concentration camp. It's fascinating to look back at that while living through such religious division in America right now.

Luther was a complicated man, who did not set out to found a church, and opposed the term "Lutheran." He was attempting to reform the Catholic Church from the inside, because he himself was Catholic. Not a very good one, obviously, but he didn't consider himself anything else. He was a monk for a time, then an academic, and his beliefs got him excommunicated. I've read some of his writings, but not all. I find value in them, while disagreeing with a lot of it. Lutheranism is a space with which I have fellowship with God and humanity, not a set of rules or a devotion to every word of a man from the 16th century. I'm not interested in excusing or defending him, nor do I feel the need to honor him in any way. I hope I disappoint him completely.

I am a Lutheran Christian--and I would not fault anyone for thinking those words function similarly. So to explain: I'm a Christian as in I follow Christ, devote myself to his teachings, pray to him, and live for him every day. I'm a Lutheran as in I am a member of a church and culture that traces back to communities of German Protestants who identified with the theology of Martin Luther. I do not follow Martin Luther. I do not follow Lutheranism. I follow God, and participate in Christianity often within Lutheran communities--primarily because of my heritage and the music.

Protestants don't have Saints in the Catholic sense, nor do we have a pope. Martin Luther is not our Saint, or someone we pray through, or our leader. We don't read his writings in church, we don't look to him for answers. He's someone many people have found wisdom in, someone who has inspired countless reformers, but he is a man. A saint in the Lutheran sense, a lowercase-s saint, a member of Christ's community--a sinner from his mother's womb. He probably wrote more about his own sin then you ever will. He devolved into conspiracy, and said horrible things about Judaism and Catholicism and Islam, and we have seen the legacy of German antisemitism (which he did not create, but obviously contributed to), and it's a good thing I don't idolize him. I honestly don't think about him very much. Yes, I read his catechism in Bible classes, but we were free to disagree with it--we were using his most basic writings as a starting point. The words of his that are most present in my life are his hymns, which we do sing often. His teachings were intended to lead people to the Bible rather than leaders/traditions, which is why he translated the Bible into German, and why I go to the Bible, not to him. I learned about his antisemitism growing up, and prayed for repentance on behalf of my ancestors.

There are people who hold Luther in higher esteem than me, to be sure. Do I think they're basically following Hitler? I don't know. It depends why they value him, I would say. Idolizing anyone is dangerous, especially men in the 1500s. I can think of no historical male writer I value that was not at least slightly misogynist. The two authors I've read today, Virginia Woolf and Shakespeare, both have antisemitic writing. Countless people sainted by the Catholic Church, and countless popes, have been antisemitic. There is no innocent tradition. I'm not trying to excuse any of this, or say we shouldn't be critical, but this is why we don't base religions on people. They have to be founded and organized by people, which means there's going to be issues (and Christianity's are quite obvious), but Christians have to remind ourselves every day that the only human we worship is the one who was God.

I wish you well, beloved. I'm glad you see the evil in my religion, genuinely. Not enough people do. I hope you continue educating people and being active in your fight against antisemitism--if you're not Jewish yourself, hopefully this shows up more as supporting Jewish people and communities, and less like borderline accusing people online for following Hitler because they still use the word for their traditions that their Norwegian great-grandparents did, because it's the word that stuck from the beginning. We're named after Luther's excommunication, not his antisemitism--Catholics would have had to change their name to Lutheran too if that was the theological issue happening. There's a whole conversation to be had on whether we should call ourselves Lutheran, but regardless, the communities and heritage exist, and will continue to evolve.

May God have mercy on the crimes of my community members. May God lead me to walk in the way of justice. May our religion serve us, and may we serve God.

<3 Johanna

[justforbooks]

On Mysticism: The Experience of Ecstasy by Simon Critchley

Philosopher Simon Critchley’s painstaking attempt to explore transcendent experience provides a fascinating overview of Christianity’s great outliers

Isometimes think of mysticism – the name we give to ecstatic, transformative experiences of absorption into absolute reality or, if you will, into God – as the subject that fascinates where all others merely interest. And yet it denotes something singularly hard to talk or write about, indeed virtually defined by its ineffability. On Mysticism, the philosopher Simon Critchley’s stab at effing the ineffable, feels oddly timely. As he notes: “There is an awful lot of mysticism about. More than ever in recent years.” He doesn’t speculate, but the widespread interest may point to that metaphysical restlessness that wells up during periods of acute cultural change – the return of the transcendental to a reality system no longer adequate for the times.

Among the more widely read and prolific of modern academic philosophers, Critchley has written books on topics as disparate as football, suicide and David Bowie. In a faintly defensive account of his interest in his current subject, he rightly points out that mysticism has been relegated and ignored within modern philosophy (with rare exceptions such as Nietzsche and Georges Bataille), whose rationalist bias favours critique, sobriety, laboriousness and rigour. He sees his book as a bid to push back against this epochal neglect.

An Englishman with a love of TS Eliot’s poetic evocations of the country and for medieval (mostly female) mystics – he knows his Hadewijch of Antwerp from his Mechthild of Magdeburg – Critchley sticks to the religious tradition he knows best: his study should more accurately be titled On Christian Mysticism. The riches of the Hindu-Buddhist east don’t get a look-in. Nor do Sufism, Kabbalah, or the philosophically subversive field of psychedelic experience – a post-monotheist bleeding edge of mystical consciousness. This narrowness notwithstanding, On Mysticism is a welcome, sometimes fascinating, perhaps inevitably frustrating book.

Most of the historical figures we think of as mystics did not see themselves as such: they were, rather, religious people whose devotion inspired experiences that revitalised, and in some cases, threatened the religious traditions they lived within (Marguerite Porete, a French Catholic mystic, was burned as a heretic in 1310). Critchley delves into the often fragmentary writings of various medieval Christian mystics – with particular focus on Julian of Norwich, notable for being the first female autobiographer in English, and Meister Eckhart, a cryptic German mystical theologian (and another heretic) who would influence Martin Heidegger.

Critchley prefers to talk of mystical consciousness rather than mystical experience. More than a matter of intense sensations, mysticism comprises “new ways of knowing and loving” that flower from elevated awareness. Following the theologian Bernard McGinn, he sees “mysticism as a practice that melds together experience and theology… Mystical experience without theology is blind. Mystical theology without experience is empty.” Critchley highlights the interplay between reading and contemplation: studying texts can trigger ecstatic transport, which in turn leads to a deeper “layering of concepts with experience”.

He runs us through various distinctions within the tradition of mystical theology. Cue plenty of exotic words: kenosis, kataphasis, soteriology, theosis. He’s particularly drawn towards apophatic or negative theology: the tradition of moving ever closer to the divine by naming everything that God is not.

Post-Enlightenment philosophy, Critchley notes, writes off mysticism as delusion, charlatanism or nonsense – and yet I wondered if he remains too much within academic orthodoxy to effectively spike his discipline with the mystical virus. (His admission to stridently professing a less than robust atheism to fit in with “fiercely secular” colleagues doesn’t allay such suspicions.) Mystical vision naturally calls for conceptualisation – Julian of Norwich had a single divine experience lasting a few hours, then spent decades working out what it meant – but Critchley’s compulsive parsing of mystical utterance into ever finer abstractions comes between his fascination with mysticism and the blood-red heart of the thing itself. His vivisections of Julian of Norwich and Meister Eckhart work against the mystics’ promise of immediacy, transfiguration, “experience in its most intense form”. We’re left wistfully eyeing mystical transport in a shop window: “I admire mystics who luxuriate in God and I luxuriate in their luxuriations.”

But perhaps this is splitting hairs on my part, towards a writer professionally committed to hair-splitting: it’s a stretch to expect a book about mysticism to deliver mystical experience. Critchley is largely content to serve as a tour guide to other people’s transports (he unambitiously claims he will consider his project a success if it persuades a few readers to check out the biblical Song of Songs). The best sections depart from the medievals to broaden our sense of who and what the mystical tradition includes: a bravura series of chapters traces a line from Julian of Norwich through the wondrous American nature writer Annie Dillard – in particular her short, crazily metaphysical book Holy the Firm, which features a little girl named Julie Norwich – to the incantatory mysteries of Eliot’s late, great Four Quartets… which, looping back around in a mystical spiral, quotes Julian (“And all shall be well and/All manner of thing shall be well”). While Eliot was himself no mystic (bar “a few flashes during my life”), Critchley’s reading paints the quartets as a kind of poetic mysticism – a work that approaches, and ultimately vanishes into, that which is beyond poetry.

Reflecting on how the monastically incubated mysticism of old has diffused through modernity as aesthetic experience, Critchley veers close to banality in suggesting that by listening to the music we love (and Critchley not very illuminatingly tells us about music he loves), we’re enjoying mystical consciousness. Better to think of music – or drugs – as the gateway drug that turns people on to mystical promise in the first place. Critchley can undermine his own credibility – I like Jarvis Cocker as much as the next guy, but calling him “a poet of the first magnitude” does no one any favours. Fortunately, though, he’s sceptical enough to see that the channelling of religious intensity into aesthetic bliss entails a domestication of the ecstatic. A corollary might be that we think of mystical yearning under capitalism as a kind of underground resistance – the glimpses that break through, despite everything, of a mysterious splendour invulnerable to economic, technological or political encroachment.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[revlyncox]

A Worldwide Faith

An orientation to Unitarian Universalism as a faith with a worldwide history, a worldwide community, and a worldwide impact on human rights.

Unitarian Universalists are a diverse and quirky bunch, and yet we have values in common. These values include justice, equity, transformation, pluralism, interdependence, and generosity. All of these values came into play during the longest trip of my life, a pilgrimage I took shortly after the turn of the century to Hungary and Romania. I attended the conference of the International Association of Religious Freedom, held that year in Budapest, and I visited Unitarian congregations in Transylvania, our cousins who have been gathering in freedom and reason and tolerance since the 1500s. 

I looked forward to the tour of Unitarian congregations and pilgrimage sites in Transylvania partly because it gave me a chance to spend more time with a friend and colleague who had spent a year as a scholar in residence at my seminary. Those day-to-day conversations led to a deeper understanding of the interdependence that exists today in the theological and cultural exchange between Unitarians in Transylvania and around the world and Unitarian Universalists in the United States. I learn different things about historical UU figures like William Ellery Channing and Henry David Thoreau and Clarence Russell Skinner when I get the perspective of people who are applying a different strand of Unitarian or Universalist theology in another country. 

Lifting our heads up above the walls of our mental and emotional cubicles is important, and it can be hard to do when we feel pressured by time or intensity or despair. There are a lot of forces that benefit when they can separate us from each other or from our best selves. Reconnecting with our larger communities, with our heritage, and with our values helps us to overcome that sense of isolation. And so it is worthwhile to remember that we Unitarian Universalists are part of a worldwide history, a worldwide faith community, and a worldwide network of action for justice and equity. 

Worldwide History

In addition to the international interdependence angle, I also wanted to visit Transylvania to learn more about Unitarian history. Studying our history can help us to take pride in the depth and beauty of our movement. In addition, knowing our history is one aspect of knowing ourselves. History doesn’t have to be destiny, yet we will have a better sense of how to create a path forward when we can learn from the experience of where we have been. 

Transylvania is one of the origin points of our faith movement. The founder of Unitarianism in Transylvania, Dávid Ferenc or Francis David, got some ideas from theologians who came before him. During the Council of Nicea in 325, Arius argued that Jesus was not of the same substance as God, and was not co-eternal with God. Obviously, Arius did not win that debate, and the doctrine of the Trinity left no room for dissent for a long time. Arius’ ideas continued as a heresy without much traction in the Christian world, though of course Jews and Muslims maintained the unity of God throughout their histories. 

Michael Servetus was martyred in 1553 for trying to correct the theological error of the Trinity. Servetus wasn’t trying to start a new church, he was trying to make changes in the churches that already existed. But his books had already been published, and the book bans couldn’t keep up with the spread of his ideas. Giorgio Biandrata, a physician who learned from Servetus, fled from Geneva and became the personal physician to Princess Isabella of Poland, who later became the mother of King John Sigismund of Transylvania. 

Dávid Ferenc was a scholar, then a Lutheran priest, then a Calvinist or Reformed leader, but his ideas kept evolving. Reading about Servetus and Arius and others, Dávid Ferenc came to believe that the Trinity had no scriptural basis, and so he preached his first Unitarian sermon in 1566. Crucially, unlike Servetus, Dávid Ferenc already had a community of people who were following him, the seeds of a religious movement. 

In other places in Europe, disagreements over religion were solved with violence or banishment. King John Sigismund of Transylvania brought together the leaders of the four major religious viewpoints for a peaceful debate in the Diet of Torda in 1568. The king took to heart Dávid Ferenc’s statement that “The conscience will be peaceful when it reaches the truth.” King John Sigismund issued the Edict of Torda, guaranteeing religious freedom to Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, and Unitarians. That still left a lot of people out, but it was the most tolerant position of any monarch in Europe at the time. The king converted to Unitarianism, having been convinced by Dávid Ferenc of a loving and singular God, and so was the only Unitarian king we know of for the rest of his short life. 

Backing up in the lineage a bit, the Italian scholar Laelius Socinus had learned from Servetus, and Laelius’s nephew Faustus Socinus inherited his papers and his ideas, and led a group of religious reformers who fled Poland and took refuge in Transylvania, where he met up with Dávid Ferenc. 

When King John Sigismund died in an “accident” at age 30, the rulers who followed him couldn’t put all of that religious diversity all the way back in the bottle, but they did outlaw “innovation.” Each of the four religions was allowed to continue, as long as they didn’t spread any new ideas. Dávid Ferenc could not stop evolving, despite the advice of his friends. He was old and unwell by this time, and did not survive imprisonment. He died in Deva in 1579. We consider him a martyr, and there is a memorial in his prison cell. His epitaph was these last words scratched into the wall of his cell: “Neither the sword of popes, nor the cross, nor the image of death – nothing will halt the march of truth."

Unitarian congregations in Transylvania kept meeting, and continuously operate to this day. Faustus Socinus kept writing, and his ideas made their way to England, where they were picked up by Joseph Priestley and Theophilus Lindsey, who started a Unitarian church in England in 1774. Joseph Priestley kept evolving his ideas, too, and eventually found a more receptive home for his thinking in America, where he helped start Unitarianism in Philadelphia. 

So, from these origin stories, we learn that pluralism is important. Through pluralism, we have an exchange of ideas, strength in diversity, and a chance to engage with differences through peaceful means. All of that fuels transformation toward inclusion, justice, and equity. We learn that studying matters, and that sometimes ideas that seem new are points of connection with friends we haven’t yet met; we are more interdependent than we know. And we learn that being learned and articulate is not enough, we need to organize communities of people. The congregations of Transylvania were held together not only by theology, but by the practices that were informed by their belief in a loving and caring God. Ideas are resilient, and communities of people who take care of one another even more so. 

Worldwide Faith Community

The history is inspiring, but we can’t let that distract us from the real and living faith community we enjoy around the world today. As I mentioned earlier, my trip to Transylvania was a double-header with attending the annual meeting of the International Association for Religious Freedom, which was held in Budapest that year. The IARF conference was interfaith. I attended lectures led by Bahai and Christian Reformed leaders. I stayed in the young adult dormitory (which should emphasize how long ago this was). Some of the others in my cohort included a Muslim woman and a Hindu woman from Pakistan and India, who sang together for the dorm talent show. I lit shabbat candles on Friday night with a rabbinical student from Great Britain and a Jewish UU colleague. A contingent of Catholic students from Mexico presented a story about water and interdependence. 

That being said, Unitarians and Universalists and Unitarian Universalists from all over the world had a strong presence at the conference. I would like to think that our practice with pluralism helped us to be supportive participants in that environment. 

We got a lot more practice with pluralism that week. Not only did we meet in interfaith small groups to listen deeply and to explore tough questions, we also learned more about our worldwide UU faith movement. I found it transformative to meet Universalists from the Philippines and Unitarians from northeast India and British Unitarians, and to have deeper conversations with my friends from Transylvania and Canada and other parts of the United States. Participants in our worldwide faith have a lot in common, and there are also beautiful and diverse expressions of that faith in each location. The practices of Universalism in the Philippines and Unitarianism in the Khasi Hills and Unitarian Universalists in western Europe and Unitarians in Transylvania all look different from each other. 

We can be interdependent and connected without being the same. In fact, we shouldn’t be the same. Enforced sameness that disregards local culture would not be true to our roots or our values. Most of our international cousins are some form of Christian, though almost always in a more liberating and wide-ranging way than their local ecumenical neighbors. That means that when we tend to our international relationships, we listen with grace and appreciation, even if our cousins pray differently than we might in our home congregations. 

After the conference, I was off to visit a series of Unitarian friends and heritage sites in Transylvania. Though Transylvania doesn’t exist as a country anymore, this region that is mostly in what is now Romania still has its own identity. Our Transylvanian cousins speak Hungarian at home, and so in Romania they hold a minority religion, language, and ethnicity. Between World War II and 1991, Unitarian church lands and schools were taken by the government for communal rule. Many Unitarian churches are still negotiating with the government to get their property back. Nevertheless, they persisted in keeping their language and their faith alive, even when it was dangerous to do so. Today there are about 150 Unitarian congregations in the region, with a combined membership of about 50,000 people. 

On my tour, I had a deep experience of generosity. I didn’t have a car, but relied on rides from friends, organized tour groups that made a temporary spot for me, and help from my Transylvanian colleagues with navigating public transportation. I stayed one night in the dorm at the Unitarian school in Kolozsvar, and otherwise was treated to home hospitality. The homes I visited were elegantly simple and lovely, and my hosts brought out their best to help me to feel welcome. I saw inspiring architecture, cheered for young people finally allowed to do their traditional dances in their traditional regalia, did my best to sing hymns in Hungarian, and ate really fantastic cheese. I will never forget their kindness and their patience with my ignorance. I hope that I can learn to welcome the stranger as heartily as my Transylvanian colleagues welcomed me. Generosity is a value in American Unitarian Universalism, and we can learn how to live that value more fully by deepening our relationships with our international cousins. 

Even though I met hundreds of people on that trip, there were international communities of Unitarians and Universalists I did not get a chance to hear about at the time. There are communities in Australia and New Zealand, South Africa, Brazil, Burundi, Italy, Germany and more. The Universalists or Unitarian Universalists of the Philippines have their own fascinating history, starting in the 1950s when their founder, Toribio Quimada, received assistance from the Universalist Service Committee. Universalism in the Philippines is a community of joy and resistance, and the risks they take by proclaiming their faith became evident when Quimada was assassinated in 1988. The Unitarians of the Khasi Hills and northeast India have a tradition going back to 1887. Again, pluralism and generosity help us to open our minds and hearts to learning, and this in turn leads us to deeper truth and more effective action for justice and equity. 

There have been a lot of changes recently to the ways Unitarian Universalism in the United States handles relationships with our larger international faith community. Our international connections have been vital and valuable for over 100 years, and yet sometimes our American tendencies to take over or to operate out of charity rather than solidarity have gotten in the way of deep and accountable relationships. Rev. Morgan McLean is the Program Manager of the UUA’s International Office. She tells me that the UUA has been helping to facilitate the process of reimagining our global faith. The International Partner Church Council and the International Council of Unitarians and Universalists have been dissolved, and there is a Leadership and Design Team in place with representatives from all over the world who are slowly, relationally, mindfully imagining something new, better, and more congruent with our shared values. My colleague says, “We are building a world transformed by love.” 

Worldwide Action

The operations of the UUA and its counterparts in other countries is, to an extent, internal. We are interdependent in our UU universe. Yet we also put our values to work in the world without regard to evangelism or the similarity of our human rights partners to ourselves. I’m talking about the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. 

Just as we in the UUA have learned more about how to have equitable relationships with our international family of faith, the UUSC has learned more about decolonizing their work. They center the voices and leadership of the most impacted rather than parachuting into a crisis situation and acting as experts. The UUSC has focused their United Nations advocacy work on amplifying the voices of their partners and helping those partner organizations get into the conversations. At the UN’s COP28 [Conference Of Parties] late last year, the UUSC helped people from 18 grassroots organizations get to the conference, and helped five of them from the Pacific Islands and the Philippines to get into the “Blue Zone,” where formal negotiations occur. We know that climate change most deeply impacts the people and nations who contribute to it the least, and that climate change drives other kinds of human rights disasters. Elevating the voices of the most impacted, getting them to the negotiating table, is the kind of thing a human rights organization driven by UU values can do with generous support. 

The UUSC’s human rights work related to climate justice is in addition to their support for their other partners. With the UUSC’s help, local partners are supporting Black and Trans people who are impacted by the war in Ukraine; organizations helping migrants in Mexico to find safety; and organizations in Burma working to achieve accountability for human rights violations. The UUSC also has a congregational accompaniment program for asylum seekers. They offer tools and information that support congregations and other groups in advocacy related to human rights. You can learn more in the recently-published UUSC annual report. 

The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee is not about evangelism or congregational operations. The UUSC is a human rights organization that channels resources and translates core values like justice and equity into action. By partnering with the UUSC, we can have a global impact that we would never be able to have operating as an isolated congregation. In partnering together, we remember that we are one interdependent world, resilient when we remember that we are not alone. 

Conclusion

You are not alone. We are not alone. This congregation is one of about a thousand congregations in the United States, connected in covenant with all of the other member congregations of the UUA. We are connected in history to the congregations in Transylvania and Great Britain and beyond who carry on traditions from the great turning points when our faith movement started and restarted. We are connected in mission and values to Unitarian, Universalist, and Unitarian Universalist congregations all over the world. We are connected in generosity and action to the international partner organizations of the UU Service Committee, supporting human rights and resilience in the face of climate change. 

Let’s keep in mind this larger picture of pluralism as we think about how to be in relationship with neighboring congregations in our cluster, across the state, in the Central East Region, and in our wider Association. Let’s celebrate the possibilities for transformation as we lift up our interdependence, open our hearts to generosity, and practice justice and equity together. 

So be it. Blessed be. Amen. 

[cruger2984]

THE DESCRIPTION OF SAINT JOSEPH CALASANZ The Patron of Christian Schools Feast Day: August 25

"Those who instruct many in justice will shine as stars for all eternity."

Joseph Calasanz, a close friend of the renowned astronomer Galileo Galilei, the founder of the Order of Poor Clerics Regular of the Mother of God of the Pious Schools, popularly in short as the Piarists, was born in Peralta de la Sal, Kingdom of Aragon, Crown of Aragon, on September 11, 1557, and the youngest of eight children and is the second son of Pedro de Calasanz y de Mur and María Gastón y de Sala. From an early age, he had consecrated his life to the Lord. In order to escape the attentions of a woman, he left the University of Valencia and took up Sacred Theology in Alcala.

Joseph's mother and brother having died, his father wanted him to marry and carry on the family. But a sickness in 1582 soon brought Joseph to the brink of the grave, which caused his father to relent. After his ordination on December 17, 1583 by the bishop of Urgel, Hugo Ambrosio de Moncada, Joseph understood the necessity of educating Christians at an early age.

During his ecclesiastical career in Spain, Calasanz held various offices in his native region. He began his ministry in the Diocese of Albarracín, where Bishop de la Figuera appointed him his theologian, confessor, synodal examiner, and procurator. When the bishop was transferred to Lleida, Calasanz followed him to the new diocese. In October 1585, de la Figuera was sent as apostolic visitor to the Abbey of Montserrat and Calasanz accompanied him as his secretary. The bishop died the following year and Calasanz left, though urgently requested to remain. He hurried to Peralta de Calasanz, only to be present at the death of his father. He was then called by the Bishop of Urgel to act as vicar general for the district of Tremp.

In 1592, he left Spain for Rome at the age of 35, where he opened a little school for the poor, who lived in a state of degradation and ignorance. A few years later, after convincing the pope of the need to approve a religious order with solemn vows dedicated exclusively to the education of youth, the congregation was raised to that status on November 18, 1621, by a papal brief of Pope Gregory XV, he founded the Order of Poor Clerics Regular of the Mother of God of the Pious Schools aka the Piarists, whose purpose was the education of children and young people.

At a time when humanistic studies ruled the roost, Calasanz sensed the importance of mathematics and science for the future and issued frequent instructions that mathematics and science should be taught in his schools and that his teachers should have a firmer grounding in those subjects. Calasanz was a friend of Galileo Galilei and sent some distinguished Piarists as disciples of the great scientist. He shared and defended his controversial view of the cosmos.

When Galileo fell into disgrace, Calasanz instructed members of his congregation to provide him with whatever assistance he needed and authorized the Piarists to continue studying mathematics and science with him. Unfortunately, those opposed to Calasanz and his work used the Piarists' support and assistance to Galileo as an excuse to attack them. Despite such attacks, Calasanz continued to support Galileo. When, in 1637, Galileo lost his sight, Calasanz ordered the Piarist Clemente Settimi to serve as his secretary.

Joseph brought the same understanding and sympathy that he had shown to Galileo to his friendship with the great philosopher Tommaso Campanella, one of the most profound and fertile minds of his time, producing famous philosophical works. Although he was highly controversial as well, Campanella maintained a strong and fruitful friendship with Calasanz.

Joseph was besieged till the end of his life by trials and persecutions, which he bore with patience and humility. One time, through the conspiracy of some brethren, Joseph was demoted from his office and carried through the streets like a felon. Another time, the accusations of some envious priests caused a canonical visit. When the Pope decided to close down the Congregation, Joseph replied: 'The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.'

He died on August 25, 1648, at the venerable age of 90, admired for his holiness and courage by his students, their families, his fellow Piarists, and the people of Rome.

Eight years after his death, Pope Alexander VII cleared the name of the Pious Schools, his congregation was restored, and flourished throughout the world.

He is beatified by Pope Benedict XIV on August 7, 1748 and canonized a saint by Pope Clement XIII on July 16, 1787. Pope Pius XII declared him to be the 'Universal Patron of all Christian popular schools in the world.' on August 13, 1948.

His major shrine can be found at San Pantaleo. His heart and tongue are conserved incorrupt in a devotional chapel in the Piarist motherhouse in Rome. St. John Paul II affirmed that Joseph Calasanz took as a model Christ, and he tried to transmit to the youth, besides the profane sciences, the wisdom of the Gospel, teaching them to grasp the loving harmony of God.

[locustheologicus]

Bethlehem PA: the Moravians

Late in October, during the Halloween season, my daughter and I visited Bethlehem PA to learn about the history of the Moravian community.

I am intrigued about the Moravians because like the Waldensians (who we read about in Boston where they evidently had some history and who venerated the great Catholic saint Francis of Assisi) the Moravians were a pre-reformation Christian movement that would eventually break away from the Catholic Church and establish a movement that promoted a Christian lifestyle based on access to Scripture before Luther and the reformation.

The movement began with the Bohemian priest and theologian Jan Hus who translated the Bible in his native language. The Hussites believed that the Church had fallen to corruption during the period known as the great schism and they questioned the Church’s authority. In many ways the church agreed and thus began the Conciliar movement which attempted to reform the Church by the participation of leaders through ecclesial councils. In 1414 the Council of Constance was formed and the Schism of the three Popes ended. Unfortunately Jan Hus’ position was deemed to radical by the conciliar movement and was burned at the stake in 1415.

Although Hus was killed his followers, the Hussites, developed into the Moravian community also called the Unitas Fratrum Order which was officially founded in 1457. Count (and later Bishop) Zinzendorf was an ardent defender of this community and helped organized its move to Bethlehem PA in 1739 from Bohemia in order to promote their religious freedom. In 1741 Bethlehem PA was the site of the first Christmas tree in America, a tradition that would eventually spread throughout the United States. The community was identified by their intense prayer life and study of scripture. These two components defined their communal experience. They also had a deep openness for diversity and were critical of slavery as the picture below demonstrates from their early founding.

The picture depicts a hierarchical but also deeply relational theology where all people, of different ethnicities, race, and culture, coexist within the fraternal brotherhood of Christ. This picture exists in the Moravian museum that was once the house belonging to the grandson of Count Zinsendorf, Lewis David de Schweinitz who was a famous botanist and mycologist. The instruments and study we toured are the way he left it in the 1830’s.

Bethlehem PA is another great town with a tremendous history. It depicts an interesting period in American history where early Christian communities who struggled with their own identity, even those that preceded the reformation, attempted to define themselves in this new nation.

[dbcjr3]

Do you ever feel like the Bible is really kind of old fashioned, its moral code no longer applies to a modern setting? Modern theology and teachings often substitute what we “feel” as if it were more true than the Word of God - and feelings can be almost anything!

As a matter of fact, one of the big lies going around today is that you can have “your truth”, “be true to your heart”. But if we’re deceived by the devil, whose only power over us is deception, then what good will trusting your heart do?

We need a rock of truth for our foundation like the wise builder Jesus talked about in Matthew 7:24-27. Such a rock is God’s Word, not the ideas of some person, no matter how intelligent or educated.

There’s no doubt that many very smart people question the Bible itself and even outright reject it, some of them are even theologians who explain it away. Other teachers tell us an easy Christianity without discipline or sacrifice. Why? Because it’s an easier sell and you don’t make people uncomfortable.

But rationalizing or explaining away scripture, God’s solid rock of foundation for us, is nothing new as we will see in Luke ‭23‬:‭20‬-‭24‬ ‭ESV‬:

“Pilate addressed them once more, desiring to release Jesus, but they kept shouting, “Crucify, crucify him!” A third time he said to them, “Why? What evil has he done? I have found in him no guilt deserving death. I will therefore punish and release him.” But they were urgent, demanding with loud cries that he should be crucified. And their voices prevailed. So Pilate decided that their demand should be granted.”

The religious leaders of Jesus’s day had already judged Him and sent Jesus to Pilate to execute Him. They did that so the blood wouldn’t be on their religious hands. It was their way of escaping responsibility for a decision they had made utilizing a legalistic maneuver, a rationalization made from the man-made laws abstracted from God’s Word.

They were all learned men with the highest education and leading lives of ongoing study of the Talmud, a set of theological books developed to interpret actual scripture. They held these theological writings in higher regard than scripture itself.

The proof of this is that they knew all the prophecies about the Messiah in scripture but failed to recognize Him when He finally arrived. Why? Because His teachings and behavior went counter to their theology, their more modern ideas about what scripture was actually saying.

Modern theology can abstract from the Bible with human interpretation, and then another abstract from that person’s interpretation, and another, and another to the extent that if Jesus Himself walked up to them they wouldn’t recognize Him. And that’s exactly what happened!

So, how should we respond to preaching? Follow the example of the Bereans in Acts 17:11

“ The people here were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, since they welcomed the message with eagerness and examined the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.”

Keep an open mind to receive the Word of God.

Take notes on the teaching and later search the scriptures to see if what is said is scriptural.

A good preacher cites scripture for every major point made.

Chew on what’s scriptural and swallow it, spit out what isn’t. What is really the Word of God will nourish and strengthen you and cause you to grow!

[mannabibleinstitute]

Guide For Choosing The Best Online Bible Colleges in Florida

Selecting the best online bible colleges in florida is a key stage for persons who wish to improve their religious education and, at the same time, pursue a ministry profession. This is especially important for you who need the best online Bible colleges suited to your interests. How to choose between online Bible colleges in Florida, why international Bible colleges are good to attend, and navigating through the rest of the world's such institutions are some topics we shall cover in this guide.

 

What Are The Reasons For Enrolling In An Online Bible College?

Several essential advantages of online Bible schools include convenience, various options according to a person's background regardless of his or her culture or lifestyle, and diversity, which is why every student is accommodated regardless of socioeconomic status.

Flexibility: Online programs allow students to find harmony between studying and personal / business engagements.

Accessibility: Students can take courses from anywhere in the world, thus promoting education for all people, including those who live in far-off regions that are rarely served.

Diverse Programs: Programs at online Bible colleges are varied, with the undergraduate level being provided up to PhD levels; these cover various disciplines such as theology, ministry dedicated to religious service or care provision, especially through pastoral activities, usually as ecclesiastical institutions refer to it all around which religious practice revolves around him while preaching thought in Bible too much sometimes!

 

Determining The Best Online Bible Colleges in Florida

Florida has many online colleges that offer quality education and spiritual growth opportunities. The following tips will help you choose the right one:

●       College is accredited

A reputable accrediting agency must accredit any college. This is a sure way to know if the institution has met the set academic standards that will make your degree acceptable to employers as well as other schools that are also accredited.

●       Curriculum and Programs

When looking for colleges, seek varied programs and an all-embracing curriculum. If you want to specialize in pastoral studies, biblical counselling, or theological research, there should be classes related to your career objectives at that college.

●       Faculty Expertise

Find out more about the qualifications and experience of the lecturers. The best online Bible colleges employ knowledgeable professionals and theologians who have a lot of knowledge in their areas of specialization and can provide valuable help and guidance.

●       Student Support Services

Supportive services are important for e-learners to succeed. Look for colleges that offer academic advising, career counselling, technical support, and other services.

Are you Interested in Studying at an International Bible College?

What are some of the benefits of attending such a college? Will explore the reasons for considering education at an international Bible college.

Global Perspective When you attend an international Bible college, you will encounter various theological traditions and cultural settings that will help you better comprehend the global church.

Networking Opportunities As a student here, you will interact with people from different parts of the world, including other students and lecturers, forming bonds that can benefit your private life and career.

Selecting the Best Online Bible College

Here are factors you should consider.

Program Flexibility: Ensuring the college program fits your timetable is essential. Some colleges allow students to study at their own pace through asynchronous courses, unlike others, which require real-time participation because they offer synchronous courses.

Technology and Resources Visit the school's online learning platform and available resources. This will assist greatly by allowing user-friendly interfaces, digital libraries, discussion forums, etc, to be accessed, enhancing the learning experience.

Financial Aid and Scholarships Check out what financial aid programs and scholarships students can participate in. For all students, top online Bible colleges offer financial aid that may help them afford education.

Activity and Communication Reflect on how fostering a sense of belonging among online students contrasts with fostering unsupportive student communities. Virtual chapel services, discussion groups, and extracurricular activities can add value to your spiritual and social life.

 Conclusion

Considering these factors, you'll choose an Online Bible college that fits your goals and aspirations. This decision will provide confidence as you begin an academic adventure." This is true if you are interested in top online Bible Colleges or probably international ones in Florida; thus, one should invest more time in researching so that he/she gets a quality education that supports their spiritual calling and boosts their careers tangibly.

[gaelforcewinds]

fun fact: this is the very first thing you learn in any study of christian theology. It's called "hermeneutics," the idea of comparing and contrasting different translations of the same text to see what meaning is missing in each of them, and why. that's why it's so funny when churches and pastors swear by only one possible translation (and why it's double funny when the Prefaces of certain translations say things like "we did our best to translate the objective meaning of the text and meanings" because ???? even the fact that you're saying that means you were looking at this the wrong way???)

in the same line of thought, "exegesis" is the process by which a translator and consumer of a text reads the text for what it says, trying their best not to project their own worldview onto the page and into the mind of the original writer. Exegesis is a fallacy, it's impossible. It simply can't be done by the human mind.

Eisegesis, by contrast, is the process by which the reader reads into the text a meaning which may or may not exist there. It's realistically the only way that human beings are capable of reading any text, not just literary, religious, or philosophical ones. we read ourselves into everything we consume.

the obvious funny outcome of all of this is christian theologians (that is, christians who like philosophy and treat the bible and writings from historical figures of the church as philosophical or historical texts rather than merely a documentation of cultural legend and, possibly, a moral guidebook to daily living) thinking it is possible to "objectively" read a book written in a language they can't speak or read, translated into multiple other languages and interpreted over the two millennia it's allegedly been in existence.

every translation is an interpretation. that's how languages work. only people who don't fluently speak multiple languages think every single sentence in a multilingual historical text has a one-for-one meaning, especially in modern English.

okay absolutely obsessed with this part of emily wilson’s interview about her translation of the odyssey

[techinfogalaxy]

Biography of Hilarion Heagy

Hilarion Heagy was a prominent Mennonite leader, theologian, and author who made significant contributions to the Mennonite Church in North America. He was born on October 31, 1920, in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, to a Mennonite farming family. Heagy grew up on the family farm and attended a one-room schoolhouse in his early years.

Heagy’s parents were deeply religious, and they instilled their faith in their children. Heagy grew up in a Mennonite community that placed a strong emphasis on pacifism, nonresistance, and service to others. These values would shape Heagy’s life and career.

Hilarion Heagy Education and Early Career

After completing his elementary education, Heagy attended Eastern Mennonite College in Harrisonburg, Virginia, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in Bible and Christian education in 1943. He then went on to earn a master’s degree in theology from Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Philadelphia in 1945.

After completing his education, Heagy worked for several years as a pastor and teacher in Mennonite churches and schools. He also served as a missionary in Puerto Rico and Mexico.

Hilarion Heagy Mennonite Central Committee

In 1954, Heagy began working for the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), a relief and development agency that provides assistance to people in need around the world. He served as the MCC’s executive secretary for Latin America from 1954 to 1959, where he oversaw relief and development projects in a number of countries, including Mexico, Nicaragua, and Colombia.

In 1959, Heagy was appointed as the MCC’s executive secretary for the United States and Canada. In this role, he oversaw the organization’s work in North America, including disaster relief efforts, refugee resettlement, and programs aimed at combating poverty and hunger.

Heagy served as the MCC’s executive secretary for the United States and Canada until 1967, when he was appointed as the organization’s executive secretary for overseas operations. In this role, he oversaw relief and development projects in more than 50 countries around the world.

Hilarion Heagy Theology and Writing

Throughout his career, Heagy was also deeply engaged in theological study and writing. He was a prolific author, publishing numerous books and articles on Mennonite theology, history, and practice.

Heagy’s theological work was shaped by his commitment to pacifism, nonresistance, and service. He argued that these values were central to the Mennonite faith and that they should guide the church’s engagement with the wider world.

In his book “The Christian and War,” Heagy argued that Christians should not participate in war or support military efforts. He also criticized the idea that Christians should support their country above all else, arguing that the church’s loyalty should be to God alone.

Heagy’s other books included “Anabaptist Prayers for the Twenty-First Century,” “Recovering the Anabaptist Vision,” and “The Vision and the Reality: The Story of Home Missions in the Mennonite Church.....read more

[actualmermaid]

In a better universe, this is what you find when you look up the LDS church online:

"We are the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a uniquely American approach to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Drawing on our rich history of 19th-century utopians, mystics, and visionaries like Joseph Smith, Jr., we profess a free, creative, and egalitarian faith that emphasizes a direct connection to God, the earth, and all of humanity.

"Joseph Smith lived during the Second Great Awakening, a time of religious revivals and competing denominations, all promising that their particular theology was the only way to Heaven. Brother Joseph was a poor farm-boy with little education, and he was concerned that these preachers were taking advantage of him. He went to a sacred grove of trees and, following the instruction of James 1:5, prayed that God would show him the truth. He emerged with a bold declaration: he had seen God the Father and Jesus Christ, who told him that none of the churches were true.

"Our story only becomes more fascinating from there, and we encourage you to share in it with us. All are welcome to join us for Sunday services. To emphasize community ties, our congregations are divided geographically, and you are encouraged to attend church and recreation with other members of your "ward." However, if this presents a problem for you, or if you have friends and family nearby, you are welcome to attend elsewhere.

"Our tradition emphasizes storytelling, acts of service, and family as ways to transmit the universal truths contained in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. We believe that many traditions have something to share with us, so we regularly host ecumenical and interfaith dialogues and community events. If you come to church on the first Sunday of the month, you may have an opportunity to share your own spiritual story, if you'd like!

"The heart of our faith is our Temple. In one of our most poignant early stories, the women of the church smashed their fine china to pieces to make its walls shine in the sun, so that it would reflect the beauty of the rituals they performed inside. These rituals draw on a variety of mystical traditions passed down by our ancestors, and are only practiced in private by members of our faith who affirm a commitment to good character. If you would like to know more about the context of these rituals, please contact one of our friendly Temple Outreach Ministers.

"We are grounded in the belief that we are all eternal spirit-offspring of God, who placed us into the physical world to learn from one another and build a society that promotes equality, justice, and truth. To this end, we sponsor local food banks, domestic violence shelters, and free medical, dental, and veterinary clinics. We also subsidize legal and social support for people who are incarcerated. Let one of our trained Community Support Specialists know if you would like help accessing these services.

"We are a living tradition built by fallible humans, and our story has taken some difficult turns. We promote scholarship into these moments, so that we can learn from them, and we maintain a reading list of historians, sociologists, theologians, and other academics who are studying our movement.

"We believe our tradition to be universally-applicable, and we welcome people from all walks of life. Thank you for your curiosity, and we hope to see you soon!"

[hotdemonsummer]

Obey Me! and the hierarchy of Demons

alternatively titled Levi Is Just A Big Fucking Snake

This long, long post is a general examination of NTT Solmare’s choices in developing the lore of Obey Me, namely the choices of which demons to turn into the brothers from a demonology perspective. I was going to include a lot more, but I hit 1k words and was like, a third done so I decided to split this thesis into multiple posts. Disclaimer: I am not a demonology expert, nor have I been a magic practioner in years. I am a guy with an otome hyperfixation first and a comparative theology enthusiast second.

To start off, I need to state the obvious: Obey Me is a Japanese video game, made by Japanese developers. For those who are unaware, Japan is a very fascinating case study in that it is one of five or six countries that were never colonized by Europe, and only one of two that are in the global north. As such, Japan has a wholly unique relationship with religion, particularly Christianity. Most of the population describe themselves as nonreligious, with Shintoism and Buddhism making up the largest practicing religions. Christianity, as it exists in broader Japanese society, is wholly cultural. There are of course Japanese Christians (and Japanese Jews and Japanese Muslims and so on), but they are in the significant minority. Christianity exists in secular, cultural forms: a purely commercial form of Christmas (and it is purely commercial, unlike what your manager at Target will say about American Christmas when he tries to make you wear elf ears) and a Christian-style wedding, both of which are imports from Western cultures.

Why am I talking about this? Aside from now having some more context for the sheer amount of chain-smoking gun-toting Catholic priests in anime, you might be realizing that you probably have a wider understanding of Abrahamic religion than you thought. Even those who grew up with a completely different religious background or no religious background at all would be exposed to the sheer weight of religious hegemony, especially through television. You are probably not this kid.

This is all to say that Solmare had to do their homework, and it turns out they did generally pretty well. More than that, they didn’t rip off the world of Obey Me just from history, and they actually made some changes (beyond the whole anime boy thing) that I think are really interesting.

(Also quick disclaimer: generally when talking about the real-world basis of these things I called it Christianity, but this isn’t exactly accurate. Christians certainly don’t have a monopoly on heaven or hell or angels or demons or Jesus, and as Judaism and Islam generally have a more in depth understanding of angelology. However, most surviving texts and research on demonology comes from medieval and pre-Renaissance Europe, and Solmare does seem to be taking the Christian route in most depictions.)

Initially, something was bugging me about Obey Me: the brothers. Lucifer and Satan were clear inclusions, as were Asmodeus and Beelzebub as well known demons. Mammon is a little less known as a figure, but a clear choice for an Avatar of Greed. Belphegor and the Leviathan, on the other hand, seemed like they were out of left field. Belphegor comes from the same Levantine religion as Beelzebub, but he definitely not a very well-known figure. The Leviathan is also in a completely different ballgame. Outside of Hobbesian philosophy, the Leviathan is a sea serpent of chaos. Not a pagan god (like Beelzebub and Belphegor), but just a big old sea snake. In the Book of Job, he shows up as just a big old snake (implied to be a minion of Satan, and not a demon proper). In the Midrash, he (or rather, she) is still just a big old sea snake. He is likely taken wholesale from the Canaanite Lotan, who was also just a big old sea snake. Just like Lotan, the Leviathan is a part of the shared Chaoskampf myth, like Jormungandr and Illuyanka and Vritra, which is to say he’s just a big old snake. I cannot stress enough of how much of a snake he is. 

There are plenty of well-known demons that just straight up don’t make an appearance in Obey Me (Belial, Ba’al, Moloch, Mulcifer, Buer, Amon, Abaddon,  Astaroth, Baphomet, Paimon, this is just off the top of my head), so why these two as main characters?

You can (probably) thank one guy for getting the ball rolling:

This old bastard is John Wycliffe, a 14th century priest and scholar and a RIDICULOUSLY controversial figure at the time. This isn’t the time or place for a lesson in Catholic history, but this guy was basically Martin Luther before Martin Luther. He is the likely author of a 1410 tract known as The Lanterne of Light, which was one of the first pieces of Christian academia to link the main sins with a particular demon. Contrary to “popular belief” and Wikipedia, no, the tract does not link each sin to each brother perfectly (the clearest link is between envy and Beelzebub, sorry, Belsabub, and notably Leviathan isn’t included in this list because he’s just a fucking snake). However, prior to this the sins and demons were unconnected, and the earlier Psellus classification of demons was ENTIRELY different. 

For the classification that Solmare clearly used, we have to jump forward to the late 16th century and talk about Peter Binsfield, who unfortunately does not have a surviving picture that I can easily mock. Anyone familiar with European witchcraft should definitely recognize his name. Binsfield was a German theologian whose 1589 book Treatise on Confessions by Evildoers and Witches was basically the leading instruction manual on how to torture people for witchcraft confessions. However, it also included a classification of demons and corresponding sins, one of the first to do so concisely since Wycliffe. While it is a very concise and simple classification, it is neither the most well-accepted or most popular (that would be Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis or King James’ Daemonologie, depending on who you ask). Binsfield’s classification goes as follows:

Lucifer (Pride)

Mammon (Greed)

Asmodeus (Lechery)

Leviathan (Envy)

Beelzebub (Gluttony)

Satan (Anger)

Belphegor (Sloth)

A few things to note here: Lilith is not included here (in certain classifications, she is equal to Lucifer), but it does include all the brothers. However, they are clearly out of order. I wasn’t able to find an actual copy on Binsfield’s Treatise, but the different secondhand sources I found all have varying orders and none of them are a match for Obey Me!’s order.

Why, then, is the order the way it is? Some things make sense from a narrative position but only if you dig deep enough. For example, Beel and Belphie being twins and therefore next to each other in the order makes sense if you know their shared roots in Moabite religion, because you won’t find any connection between the two written after the Iron Age. Satan being fourth-born is, I can only assume, a reference to tetraphobia (四 sounds the same as 死) but that’s just a guess. Levi and Asmo’s placement reasoning is a mystery to me.

Regardless, this is where the classification of “the seven princes of hell” comes from, and it is certainly not the only demonic classification out there! Like I said, Solmare clearly did their homework and thought about the brothers beyond just slapping the Wikipedia page onto a dev sheet and calling it a day (there are also other details, but I think those deserve a separate post)

[reina-morada]

i find a lot of value in your blog if not necessarily comfort. i come from a place w one of the largest muslim populations in the world, and like many organized religions comfortably in the majority & systematically benefitting from inequality, i’ve witnessed and survived a lot of prejudice and abuse that (ostensibly) stems from how certain groups interpret islam’s teachings. like you, i was raised catholic but catholicism itself in this area is very much a result of colonialism & imperialism. to this day still, i cannot seem to find it within myself to separate the actions of believers from their belief. i don’t think of myself as an adherent, but i feel lucky that i’m able to see your perspective as one. at the same time i also envy you for not being saddled w this same baggage lol. in any case i wish u peace .

Salaam,

Your trauma is valid. It honestly wasn't until this last year during spiritual direction that I realized how much trauma I carried myself from my upbringing in Catholic institutions. It's very difficult to reconcile faith when you've had negative experiences with it in the past. Catholicism being forced upon my ancestors was not a selling point for me. Neither was the lack of education of my religion teachers, who threatened me with poor grades if I did not take consume Eucharist in middle school. Or the discrimination I experienced being openly LGBTQ at a Catholic high school.

It took me many many years, and more than four years of university level theology classes, to finally see the worthy tenets of Catholicism. I won't say Christianity as a whole because honestly I don't have personal experience with Protestantism. Liberation theology is the religious understanding I subscribe to in regards of Catholicism. The oppressed, who will always be with us, must be aided, loved, and liberated. We will never experience true "Catholicism" if we do not aid the poor and the impoverished, fight with the oppressed and the marginalized, and time and time again choose to love one another. I understand the Bible through a historical-critical lens, and I see it as a historical testament left behind by our spiritual ancestors, but not one we should interpret literally or as the fundamental word of God.

If people feel differently, it's sort of hard to argue with them. I've met Catholics who read the Bible and use it to justify all kinds of immoral behavior, from misogyny to homophobia to Islamophobia. They simply believe these things exist in the text, without any care for historical analysis or theological education. You can even throw theological study at them and they won’t believe it, they just won’t. It’s against their interpretation. But I can assure you, I've met equally as many Catholics (especially in my work) who do indeed live trying to emulate Christ's example as an oppressed, poor man of color.

I've spent the last year doing research for a textbook about ministry from the perspectives of people of color in the Catholic Church. The same issues many non+ex-Catholics have with the Church are the same issues many current Catholics inside the Church have. From the sex abuse scandals to women's ordination, to the colonization that forcibly converted millions- Catholics nation wide have expressed their horror. Black Catholics, Hawaiian Catholics, Indigenous Catholics throughout the Americas and so on have demanded the Church acknowledge it's impact on their history. They are theologians, lay ministers, ordained clergy both male and female, teachers, and volunteers. National parish leaders around the country are crying out and demanding the Church to address gun violence, oppression against women in the Church, racism and so on. They're just as angry and upset as the people who've left the Church. I got to talk to a theologian who was blacklisted by Catholic bishops for demanding women's ordination, and I felt like I was meeting a celebrity.

Don't despair, anon. No matter what your personal religious life, I can tell you with certainty that there are Catholics (and Muslims and Jews and so on!) who genuinely feel the way you do. Criticisms and all. And all this to say, maybe one day you'll be at peace with everything. Maybe you won't. You'll discover on the journey. Neither answer is wrong.

I hope this helps you.

[spiritualdirections]

Can Pope Francis create a paradigm shift?

“Among the clergy, Francis receives his greatest support from older priests, who are dying off, rather than younger ones who are the future of the church... Finding young candidates for the priesthood, meanwhile, who support Francis and want to be celibate is like looking for Catholic unicorns.”

Fr. Thomas Reese, SJ, makes this blunt assessment in his column for Religious News Service. It’s a pretty good line. The main point of the article is that the Pope has waited too long to start the #LeftCatholicRevolution, to start suppressing and marginalizing conservative and traditionalist members of the hierarchy, and the Pope’s recent stint in the hospital has Fr. Reese worried that the Revolution won’t come at all before he dies. 

Now I am not on Reese’s team, nor am I rooting for it. But I think that his article misses exactly how the Revolution he wants could ever take place. The problem with Francis’ papacy has been that it has been too much about episcopal appointments and legislation changes and rules and exercises of authority on the one hand, and broad PR gestures on the other. What we don’t see, however, are ideas and arguments. While his previous two predecessors were very much about ideas and arguments, at a high level.

There’s a media narrative that Pope Francis just wants to recreate the Church of the 1970s, from when his generation in the Jesuits came of age and liberals ran the Church (into the ground, some would say), and all the stuffiness of the Church from before Vatican II gave way to a less doctrinal, more cheerful spirit, complete with welcoming banners in the sanctuary. Less worrying about truth, more compassion, openness, and love--especially for the poor.

I think that’s how many Catholic Boomers remember the 1970s. But in reality, the power behind all those felt banners wasn’t the greeters at the door who smiled intensely in a welcoming way. The power behind the movements in the Church that Fr. Reese liked came from a bunch of theologians who argued for a different way of being Catholic, with new ideas and a lot of scholarship behind those ideas. The reason why the more committed younger people in the Church today no longer hold to those ideas is...because of better ideas that came later to replace those 1970s ideas. 

Thomas Kuhn explains that a paradigm shift happens when a conceptual framework (what he calls a paradigm) starts to have problems explaining reality. People come up with questions and puzzles that the predominant ways of thinking cannot handle, and these unsolved puzzles pile up. Then a new theory comes along which 1) can offer an explanation of everything that the old framework could explain, and 2) can answer the new puzzles that the old framework couldn’t, and 3) proposes new directions for studying reality that turn out to be promising. When that happens, people adopt the new paradigm, and stop thinking in the old. 

Post-Vatican II theologians such as Hans Kung and Edward Schillebeeckx and Leonardo Boff helped to create a paradigm shift in theology, one which asked new questions and proposed radical answers, and which on various fronts took over the Church. Spirituality became more Freudian, more therapeutic and sentimental (in accord with the spirit of 1970s culture), and less interested in disciplining the passions. The universal call to holiness was interpreted to mean that everyone pretty much goes to heaven, especially the laity, and so the theological concept of holiness needed to be redefined until it wasn’t just for a small group of elite saints. In the new paradigm, traditional practices such as missionary work, going to confession, and embracing celibacy, just stopped making sense (if we’re all going to heaven anyway...). This was the new paradigm that became ascendant in the Church, and thoroughly dominant in the Jesuits, at the time Pope Francis came of age.

It turned out that the paradigm was a disaster for the Church by every traditional metric. The faithful and the priests influenced by it largely stopped coming to Mass or left the priesthood. But the intellectual paradigm built by the theologians was still predominant, still being passed on in pontifical universities and seminaries and Catholic graduate schools, well into the 1990s. 

It was replaced by a new paradigm, a creative traditionalism in which the leading lights were also in a position to make institutional changes. But the paradugn shift wasn’t simply because John Paul II was pope and he appointed Josef Ratzinger to head the doctrinal office; rather, their successor paradigm answered the puzzles of the previous paradigm. Laborem Exercens and Sollicitudo Rei Socialis were answers to the questions raised by Boff’s liberation theology. The Theology of the Body was an answer to the arguments of theologians who embraced the sexual revolution. On issues of priestly celibacy, or how to interpret the bible, or sacramental theology and praxis, or the role of reason in the faith, or whether to continue missionary work, or the vocation to religious life, or the nature of confession--and much more--St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI made arguments that took the issues raised by the 1970s theologians and brought them to a new level. They made arguments that paid attention to the traditions of the Church, and deployed them in new and creative ways to solve new problems or to approach old problems with new tools. And they created a paradigm that seemed to work, that seemed to set the Church on the path to recovery and perhaps even strength. Under the new paradigm, the Church was attracting large numbers of converts, including Protestant pastors and theologians. It was intellectually and spiritually convincing. It helped to make sense of the world. 

In order to change the Church from the Wojtylan paradigm, it’s not enough to appoint some 1970s retreads to high ecclesiastical office who impose their old paradigm by fiat. Because, as Fr. Reese points out, old people die sooner, and their power dissipates soon after they die. But neither is the answer to appoint lots of retreads, as he seems to want. If people are convinced by the Wojtylan paradigm--especially if all the priests and younger bishops are convinced by it--they won’t stop being convinced by it because of a motu proprio. The goal of the #LeftCatholicRevolution should be to provoke a paradigm shift, to come up with even better arguments than those of the two previous popes, to convince people to think in their new way because the new way solves the puzzles, and makes sense of reality, in ways that the Wojtylan paradigm does not. Because right now, the Wojtylan paradigm still seems to work, especially for those who embrace it thoroughly. And the 1970s paradigm still has no convincing answers to the problems that caused it to collapse in the first place.

I think there’s no better evidence of the superiority of the Wojtylan paradigm than Fr. Reese’s observation that today’s version of his preferred 1970s paradigm is no better than the original at convincing young men to offer their lives to Christ in the priesthood. You can’t say that clericalism is the largest problem in the Church, and then believably invite people to be clerics. John Paul II called young people to be heroes; #LeftCatholicRevolution calls them to be part of the problem. That’s not just a flaw in the messaging, it’s a flaw in the thinking. A flaw in the paradigm. 

I don’t want to predict that when Pope Francis does die, his successor will automatically be John Paul III. But I do believe that #LeftCatholicRevolution can only be achieved if it gets a lot smarter, if it develops a more convincing account of reality than the Wojtylan paradigm, so as to create a paradigm shift. If not, then Fr. Reese will have to wait for a cavalry of unicorns to take over the Church.

[religioused]

Queen Esther and the Orange Shirt

Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22 (Contemporary English Version)

The king and Haman were dining with Esther 2 and drinking wine during the second dinner, when the king again said, “Esther, what can I do for you? Just ask, and I will give you as much as half of my kingdom!”

3 Esther answered, “Your Majesty, if you really care for me and are willing to help, you can save me and my people. That’s what I really want, 4 because a reward has been promised to anyone who kills my people. Your Majesty, if we were merely going to be sold as slaves, I would not have bothered you.”

5 “Who would dare to do such a thing?” the king asked.

6 Esther replied, “That evil Haman is the one out to get us!”

Haman was terrified, as he looked at the king and the queen.

9 Then Harbona, one of the king’s personal servants, said, “Your Majesty, Haman built a tower seventy-five feet high beside his house, so he could hang Mordecai on it. And Mordecai is the very one who spoke up and saved your life.”

“Hang Haman from his own tower!” the king commanded. 10 Right away, Haman was hanged on the tower he had built to hang Mordecai, and the king calmed down.

20 Mordecai wrote down everything that had happened. Then he sent letters to the Jews everywhere in the provinces 21 and told them:

Each year you must celebrate on both the fourteenth and the fifteenth of Adar, 22 the days when we Jews defeated our enemies. Remember this month as a time when our sorrow was turned to joy, and celebration took the place of crying. Celebrate by having parties and by giving to the poor and by sharing gifts of food with each other.

The book of Esther does not mention God, prayer, or covenant,(1) and there is not even much theology in Esther.(2) The lack of religious behavior might have reduced the book’s popularity.(3) J.G. McConville, who wrote The Daily Study Bible commentary on Esther, notes that just because God is not mentioned that does not mean that Esther does not teach about God.(4)

There are times when the Bible is political. Esther is political, making the power people in the Persian Empire look bad. Subplots in Esther mock the Persian court and king.(5) The thinly disguised insults were probably enjoyed a lot by the ancient Israelites who listened to the story of Queen Esther.

McConville says Esther “is by any standards a brilliantly written story.”(6) Commentator William Neil gives us the sense that Esther might not be historical but contains enough history to feel realistic. There is enough drama and nationalism in Esther to appeal to the children of Israel.(7) Contributors to the New American Bible state one purpose of the book of Esther is the “glorification of Jewish people.”(8) One theologian considers the book of Esther to be a short novel, a novella, about Jewish people living away from their homeland.(9) While I am very uncomfortable with high levels of nationalism, members of oppressed minority groups need high levels of self-worth to thrive in the face of oppression.

The Bible is a book for the oppressed, for all the oppressed. As we remember Orange Shirt Day, I am going to say that again. The Bible is a book for all oppressed people. I am not going to tell Indigenous people what the story of Esther means to them. I will share some of what the narrative means to me.

The Israelites, who were carried off into slavery in other nations, faced oppression. The passage in the book of Esther is about an extreme act of oppression, the attempt to kill all Jewish people. We study this story on a day when we remember the oppression of Indigenous children who attended boarding schools. The Canadian Encyclopedia says an estimated 6 thousand children died at residential schools.(10)

The school day for Indigenous children started at 5:30 am when the children were expected to get up. Students were malnourished and vulnerable to tuberculosis and influenza. The teachers were generally poorly qualified, and students did not develop the skills needed to be successful when they returned to their communities or went into the larger workforce.(11) Students and parents protested the schools. A few students stole food, ran away, or set fires. Parents and political leaders protested the “harsh conditions.”(12) The students, parents, and political leaders who acted out and who protested strike me as the heroes of the Indigenous residential school era.

The impact of policies that oppressed Indigenous students in Canada continue to this day. While a few Canadians of European heritage see residential schools as an old problem and might not want to talk about it, many Indigenous people daily see the impact in the current lives of their extended families. One way that non-Indigenous people can recognize the inherent, God-given dignity of Indigenous people is to listen, with a sensitive heart, to the stories. I see that as a spiritual call, not as a political statement.

Jewish people around the world remember the story of Queen Esther, her courageous coming out, and the salvation of Jewish people. The holiday is Purim, a word that means lots.(13) The name of the Jewish holiday means lots because Haman cast lots to decide the day Jewish people should be executed. If we were naming the holiday now, we might call it lottery.

Wong Wai Ching Angela is a theologian. She was teaching at The Christian University of Hong Kong when she wrote a short commentary on the book of Esther. Angela makes the point that people in Hong Kong live between two competing sets of values, western values, and Chinese values. Those living in Hong Kong are like the Jewish people living in Persia – living with a tension between being under a colonial power and being Chinese.(14)

Indigenous people live with the tension of living as Canadians and having an Indigenous identity. While Canada is not a traditional imperial, colonial power, some of Canada’s institutions and approaches to First Nations people were developed when Canada was a colony. A few of the policies implemented regarding Indigenous people reflect Canada’s colonial history. Some members of minority groups living in Canada can relate to Esther and to the injustice Esther’s people faced.

The timing of Purim, a day when Jewish people celebrate the story of Esther, remains meaningful. Joseph Stalin was a “ruthless” dictator, who was responsible for the deaths of “millions of innocent people.”(15) He was believed to have had “bloody plans” to solve what he saw as a ‘Jewish problem’ in the Soviet Union.(16) In 1953, when the situation was seen to be a crisis, Joseph Stalin died. He died on Purim.(17)

Some of you might remember the 1990s Gulf War that took place after Iraq invaded Kuwait. For months, Sadam Hussein, Iraq's president, threatened to use SCUD missiles containing “deadly chemical gas" to ‘burn half of Israel.’(18) I suspect many Israelis braced themselves for the worst. As I recall, Israel did not suffer an enormous loss of life. According to a Wikipedia article, three Israelis were killed by missiles, and 71 additional Israelis died as an indirect result of the missiles.(19) The conflict ended on Purim.(20)

The book of Ester is a story of fear, threats, courage, coming out, salvation, and celebration. After a competition, Esther, a beautiful Jewish woman, becomes the new queen of Persia. Esther’s Jewish identity was not well known.

Jewish people fell out of favor with powerful people in Persia. Haman was an important official in Persia, so important that people were supposed to bow to him. Mordecai, a well-known Jewish man, refused to kneel or bow to Haman. Mordecai explained that he did not kneel because he was Jewish. When Haman learned this, he wanted all Jewish people killed.

Mordecai learned of the plan to kill all Jewish people. He put on sackcloth and mourned. Queen Esther, who was a closeted Jewish woman, is notified of the plot. She is asked to appeal to the king to save her people, and she does that. Her first step is to go to the king and to invite the king and Haman to dinner. At the dinner, she invites the king and Haman to a second dinner. This is where we pick up the story in today’s lectionary reading. And you might be able to understand the sense of the poetic justice or the karma of the narrative. Haman had gallows built to kill Mordecai. Haman is hanged on the gallows that he built for Mordecai.

The poetic justice surpasses a modern case of poetic justice. Robert Watson-Watt is generally considered to be the ‘father of radar.’ In the 1930s, he worked with a team that invented radar, a technology that helped detect the presence of aircraft “at any time of the day and in any weather conditions.”(21) When in Canada, Robert was reported to have been caught speeding by a constable with a radar gun. Robert told the constable, “Had I known what you were going to do with it, I would never have invented it.”(22) And if you ever received a speeding ticket, you might be secretly enjoying the irony that the one who helped invent radar got a speeding ticket because of radar.

While a quick read of Esther may give us the sense that there is nothing particularly spiritual or religious about the book, Esther speaks volumes about God’s love and priorities. The fact that the book of Esther builds up the morale and self-esteem of oppressed people says a lot about God. It tells us that God is present and active whenever oppressed people are being encouraged and built up. As people of faith, it is a holy and sacred duty to encourage and build up people, especially people who face systemic oppression. That is not a political statement; it is a spiritual statement, and it is a statement about our God.

The story of Esther takes place after a disaster. Because they were displaced and enslaved by war, there were children of Israel living in Persia. Orange Shirt Day is a reality only because of a disaster of a policy of having boarding schools to teach Indigenous children. We are in the disaster known as the COVID pandemic. During times of personal pain that may blot out the word God and prayer in the narratives of our hearts and lives, Purim speaks to us.

I am going to conclude with a quote from Rabbi Manis Friedman, as he reflects on the meaning of Purim. “God became real enough that we don’t have to refer to Him to know that He is there . . . That is a real achievement. God has become real to us. Our relationship has gotten stronger after the destruction, not weaker.”(23)

Notes

1 Wong Wai Ching Angela. “Esther.” Global Bible Commentary. (Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press, 2004), 139, mentions lack of references to God, covenant, and prayer. McConville mentions a lack of references to God. J.G. McConville. The Daily Study Bible: Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther. (Edinburgh: St. Andrew Press, 1985), 153.

2 McConville (1985), 153.

3 Angela (2004), 139.

4 McConville (1985), 153.

5 Angela (2004), 137.

6 McConville (1985), 154.

7 William Neil. William Neil's One Volume Bible Commentary. (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1973), 219.

8 New American Bible. St. Joseph Edition. (New York: Catholic Book Pub., 1992), 500.

9 Angela (2004), 135.

10 “Residential Schools in Canada.” The Canadian Encyclopedia. n.d., 22 September 2021. <https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/residential-schools>.

11 “Residential Schools in Canada.” (2021) <https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/residential-schools>.

12 “Residential Schools in Canada.” (2021) <https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/residential-schools>.

13 “What is Purim?” Tori Avey. n.d., 09 September 2021. <https://toriavey.com/what-is-purim/>.

14 Angela (2004), 135.

15 “Purim: What is Purim?” Chabad.org. n.d., 05 September 2021.

<https://www.chabad.org/holidays/purim/article_cdo/aid/645309/jewish/What-Is-Purim.htm>.

16 “Purim: What is Purim?” (2021)

<https://www.chabad.org/holidays/purim/article_cdo/aid/645309/jewish/What-Is-Purim.htm>.

17 “Purim: What is Purim?” (2021)

<https://www.chabad.org/holidays/purim/article_cdo/aid/645309/jewish/What-Is-Purim.htm>.

18 Tzvi Jacobs. “Purim Saddam.” Chabad.org. n.d., 19 September 2021.

<https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/39446/jewish/Purim-Saddam.htm>.

19 “1991 Iraqi Rocket Attacks on Israel.” Wikipedia. July 2021, 19 September 2021. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Iraqi_rocket_attacks_on_Israel>.

20 “Purim: What is Purim?” (2021)

<https://www.chabad.org/holidays/purim/article_cdo/aid/645309/jewish/What-Is-Purim.htm>.

21 “Watson-Watt, Sir Robert.” English Heritage. n.d., 18 September 2021. <https://www.english-history.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/robert-watson-watt/>.

22 “Watson-Watt, Sir Robert.” (2021) <https://www.english-history.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/robert-watson-watt/>.

23 Manis Friedman. “The Meaning of Purim in 2 Minutes.” Rabbi Manis Friedman. 08 March 2020, 25 September 2021. <https://youtu.be/kiMCYYEznfE>.

[keshetchai]

Yeah I've had a lot of atheists tell me that saying God is an absolute existence, is incorporeal, is one, and has no essential attributes is "essentially meaningless," but Maimonides (aka Rambam) is one of THE most influential medieval Jewish theologians and my quotes are from his Guide for the Perplexed, which includes his logical arguments regarding God. The Rambam isn't the only Jewish conceptualization of God that exists, but as a theologian he's extremely mainstream.

So like, no, I don't think one of the most famous Jewish theologians of all time defined God in a way that was basically useless. And I don't think my interpretation of what he argued is a non-definition either. Rambam was a devout believer in God. So much so that he dedicated a big chunk of this book to logical arguments regarding God and then he also created a 13 principles of faith list, which is probably the closest thing Judaism has to an organized belief statement/creed. Which is to say a lot of people accept his principles, plenty of us quibble about the specifics or only partly accept it, and plenty just don't think it's a necessity to theologically integrate. Or disagree.

And I do mean his logical arguments. If I had a dollar for every atheist who claimed they care about logic but a) actually had no familiarity with what logic actually means, and therefore b) never bothered to learn something can be a logical argument without being an unassailable scientific law or theory, I would be a fucking millionaire.

A gazillionaire, even.

(Spoilers: Logical arguments don't have to be objectively true! Logic is not a synonym for lab-tested, peer-reviewed science. Logic is not a synonym for "truth" or "fact.")

I bring this up because your comments here happened to stumble over a personal pet peeve of mine: (christian) atheists who want to discuss religion with religious people, who feel confident in their ability to logically disprove god or think it's so obvious as to be "pointless" to discuss or examine further, and who criticize anti-intellectualism and lack of logic amongst theists — but who simultaneously have never bothered to study any of the millennia of theological or philosophical arguments that do exist, and are generally unfamiliar with anything but the most shallow understandings of theism and religion. This is ...I don't know, serviceable? when you mostly talk with religious people who have an equally shallow familiarity with the complexities of theology and their religion, or who aren't very curious about it.

It's far less persuasive that you have a pro-intellectualism stance however, when you flippantly or disdainfully write off the work of hundreds of great intellectuals over centuries asking these exact questions, just because you think asking a question and exploring the answers is pointless. Especially when many of those intellectuals were scientists. (Rambam was a physician!)

I've come to learn that people who think philosophy and theology are pointless to study, and the questions and debates therein are solved or irrelevant — don't genuinely care about fighting anti-intellectualism.

> "why did God give out specific rules"?

Why did the big bang happen when it did, and for what purpose? What was the point? Was there a reasoning or intent for it? Why does the universe adhere to certain principles and behaviors (described by physics) despite not having a consciousness? What makes observable reality obey the laws of physics? What ensures physics happened the way it did? Does knowing the laws of physics help us apply that knowledge to better understand other things about the universe, so that we can further our understanding, or improve our technology and better our lives? Do the laws apply whether or not we know them by heart? Why does the universe need any rules at all?

These things don't have simple answers. Or sometimes any answers at all. And those are all scientific questions!

There's loads of theological and religious specific reasons I could give you based on my own Jewish understanding, but what if I instead say there's more interesting questions for you to be asking?

Like: if you think the answer is that people created those rules, then why did people need to create a god to have given them these rules? Surely, a king would be enough. Why do all societies create rules for rituals, beliefs, and ideologies? Why do we pass this information down in the form of stories? What causes the human urge to ritualize? To deify? Someone, at some point, had to be the first person to worship the divine. Why? What compelled them?

Why do people make specific rules or laws? If you think people create laws for a reason then why do you feel a god-concept would be apathetic to the process? Why assume that all theists believe God has "reasons" for doing things, instead of just simply doing, and humanity observing the nature of things, the same way science is observed?

These are all hypothetical questions. I don't need your answers, but I do want you to think the answer isn't simply brainwashing, or only people being taught to not question things authority figures tell them. If humanity invented gods and the divine and therefore began forming religions, and then humanity became heavily influenced by that invention to the point of changing social & cultural norms, influencing literature, art, legal structures, conflict, and etiquette — then is it really accurate to say this thing doesn't have some measure of "realness" to it? Clearly it has a very real impact on humanity. What makes something real?

Is love real if I can't purchase it, or hold it in my hands, or quantify it because it is immaterial? Is jealousy? Is joy, or anger?

The comics detour: 1) I'll point out first that the superhero comic was partly influenced by the Jews who created the genre, and even if they weren't very religious, I doubt they had any intent to create beings for worship in their comics.

And 2) superheroes are just that. Heros. A lot of religions mention heroes and those heroes aren't gods. There's probably some fascinating research about the hero vs god archetype, and fluidity or overlap between the two. The classical meaning of "hero" in the Greek sense was referring to a child with godly and mortal parents, so the hero archetype we have been influenced by basically worked on the premise that a hero is lesser than a God in terms of power, divinity, or influence.

3) I mean the superheroes didn't give you any laws to follow, so naturally you don't bother following them since they don't exist.

Still ...

4) Greek hero cults and hero worship existed. What makes something hero worship? What defines a hero cult? Is it producing dramas relating to their lives? Is it creating images of them? Is it dressing as them, drawing on their characteristics and specialties? Is it admiration? Intent? Is it the creation of a "shrine" in your home with things relating to or depicting them? Is it thinking "I wish I was as clever as this hero? I wish I had their power?"

What is being influenced by an ideology or a moral imperative? Basically if you believe God is a fiction the same way that Superheroes are a fiction, is a lack of "superheroes commanding laws that you would be following" really the only way you differentiate being a fan from being a follower? Surely there are more differences than just commanded divine laws. I mean, not all religions even have "commandments" as such, so that alone is not really significantly differentiating your superhero engagement/enjoyment from religion.

Again I don't need/want your answers to these questions. I'm asking them to demonstrate that you've arrived at a lot of assumptions evidentially without really examining why you made them or considering their weak points and your biases (lack of objectivity due to cultural norms). You haven't pried at these assumptions under a more dispassionate lens of academic thought.

Anthropologists and religious studies scholars frequently admit to "religion" having an imperfect definition, nevermind things with definitions that rely heavily on referencing specific cultural contexts like faith, belief, or worship behaviors to develop meaning.

As for the religious vs secular law thing, early Judaism didn't operate with these distinctions for the same reason it didn't differentiate between culture and religion. Laws and governance weren't approached like that in the ancient world. (Christians famously divide biblical laws into categories of ceremonial/ritual, moral, and civil/institutional. But all of them were still considered religious laws.) As Jews came to lose self-governance in Israel and/or began to live in the diaspora, it became necessary to abide by both the laws of the ruling power *and* Jewish law. And Jews believe we ought to obey the civic laws of the land where we are.

We tend to be huge proponents of a separation of church and state expressly because we don't want to be forced to "obey the church." Our internal divide between those who tried to assimilate and those who rebelled against assimilating to The State Religion under the Greeks is the entire narrative of Chanukah. The Jewish-Roman wars involved explosive conflicts regarding the Roman attempts to force Jews and Samaritans into the fold of the Roman Empire's State Religion. Neither the Jews nor the Samaritans were willing to give up our identities as Israelites, and the Roman empire - when they felt amicable towards us —gave us unique exemptions from the Roman state religion.

Btw you are very literally doing the thing we're all talking about — when a christian-background atheist assumes everything more or less works like Christianity does, and that religiousness correlates only to theistic belief in a god shaped like their idea of Jesus (which they don't believe in, but cling to as their conception of the easily disproven "God"). This is constant and never ending. When I say I see many atheists do this shit literally all the time, I mean you included have done this while trying to imply it's probably only like "5 atheists" who act like this or say these things.

like im not trying to dunk on this person but like,,, this really just is not what it’s about at all

atheism does not make me uncomfortable

i’m just not even looking at the situation in terms of religious vs. atheist

….uh, or more to the point, i know multiple people who are both.

atheism vs. theism just isn’t the framework through which i view religion, and this is because i’m jewish.