Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Nothing New Under the Sun: Reza Aslan's Quest for the Historical Jesus



I always recommend one book for friends who want some basic information on Islam:  No god but God by Reza Aslan. Out of the many survey books out there on the Muslim faith and Islamic history, it is by far the most balanced, nuanced, and interesting. And at around 260 pages of text, it's a pretty quick read. I'm a big fan of his work on Islam, so I was looking forward to seeing his interview with John Oliver on the Daily Show. When I heard the title of the book, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, I felt a little wary. And throughout the five minute interview, I found myself disagreeing with a lot of his premises and conclusions. By the next day, I had decided to write a blog entry based on his brief conversation with Oliver. And then, the debacle otherwise known as the interview with Fox News host Lauren Green brought Aslan into the spotlight.

 Since the weekend, Aslan has made several media appearances defending his book and speaking about the infamous Fox News interview. For a few days, his face was all over my Facebook feed, with about 20 of my friends sharing the clip of the interview and commenting on its absurdity, as well as linking to articles from liberal outlets like the Huffington Post. Zealot soon rocketed up to a top spot on Amazon's bestseller list. Aslan will clearly come away from this event with a fatter wallet and, I hope, more mainstream attention to the work that he has done on religion (though I suspect he would greatly prefer that attention be drawn to his work on the basis of the quality of his research rather than because of a ridiculous interview). 

 This blog post, however, will not be focussing on his interview with Lauren Green. Her abhorrent anti-Muslim bias is apparent and not worth discussing more than briefly. I only hope that those who take Fox News seriously as a source of information don't see this interview as additional evidence of a creeping “Islamic threat,” now manifested by a scheming Muslim using the facade of scholarship to attack the Christian faith and undermine Western society. But the concept of Fox News questioning the motives and sincerity of Muslims shouldn't shock us. There's nothing new there. 

 Oddly enough considering the hype and controversy surrounding Aslan, though, there's not much new about the main ideas in his book, either. If Green and her staff had done any basic research on the book itself or on the place of Jesus in the Qur'an, they would have realized that the arguments Aslan makes are as distant from the Islamic perspective of Jesus as they are from the Christian. They are in fact much more a reflection of the so-called “Quests for the Historical Jesus” that have been conducted over the last few centuries in Western Europe and the US. All of the following claims he has made in interviews can be found in the works of previous, skeptical Jesus scholarship.  

1.Jesus was a political revolutionary that fought against the Romans on behalf of the poor and downtrodden...and lost. Forget about any notions of atonement or self-sacrifice for our sins.

2.The “Jesus of history” and the “Christ of faith” should not be seen as referring to the same figure. In other words, the man who walked and talked in Palestine two thousand years ago should not be conflated with the theological construct of the “Christ” as depicted in Paul's writings and parts of the gospels. This is standard fare in Jesus studies, as is the idea that Paul of Tarsus was the real founder of Christianity as opposed to Jesus (whatever that means).

3.We have to read between the lines of the New Testament to find the historical Jesus. By no means should the Bible be trusted as reliable information about him, especially when considering his virgin birth in Bethlehem, his miracles, some of the more dramatic healings/resuscitations from the dead, and the resurrection. We need to peel back the layers of theology in the gospels to recover the truth. The writings of Paul, John, and Peter thus have little utility in understanding what Jesus was like. 

4.The gospels are given dates late in the 1st century. Scholars inevitably vary one from another on when they claim Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were written. Typically, critical scholars will give later dates, while Christian scholars will give earlier. This is often associated with issues of the Bible's reliability, since it would make sense that the more time that passes, the less authentic information there is within the writing. So after a brief discussion of the great impact that the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple by the Romans in AD 70 had on its Jewish and Christian inhabitants (an absolutely true point), he went on to say that all of the gospels had been written after this event. This is a bit of an older view, but still within the range used by skeptical scholars of the New Testament. 

This blog entry is based on only a few of Aslan's recent interviews. I look forward to reading the whole book. But even from what little I've gathered about it, the Quest for the Historical Jesus looms large overhead. In the next post, I hope to briefly describe a bit more what this Quest consists of and address a few of the problems I have with it, with some help from CS Lewis. 

Sunday, July 28, 2013

No Fear in Love: On the wisdom of scaring people into faith


As you could probably guess from my previous post, I felt a large amount of relief when last week's heat wave broke. Part of me wishes that it had lasted a few days more, though, for one reason. Last week, I passed a sign outside of a church in a neighboring town. The sign struck me so strongly with its humor and theological depth that I decided to write a blog post in tribute to it. On Tuesday, I took a trip to the church to take a picture of the sign and was crushed when I saw that it had been replaced by something much more boring (something about putting your trust in God I think). 

Against all hope, I went to the church office and asked about it. The secretary explained to me that I had missed it by a few days and that the sign had been replaced right after the heat wave ended. “That's such a shame,” I said to her, and it was. Now I'll probably never have a picture of a sign saying “You think it's hot here...”, though I'm crossing my fingers that they'll put it up again during the next heat wave. As a silver lining to the story, the secretary told me about a few similar signs that she had seen and enjoyed, including “Dining preference for eternity:  Smoking or Non-Smoking?”.

I did a quick Google images search when I got home and found some other gems:  “I kissed a girl and I liked it. Then I went to Hell”, “There's no AC in Hell either”, and “You may party in Hell, but you'll be the barbeque!” And lastly, a friend offered up her own picture of a sign noteworthy for its practical advice:  “Stop, Drop, and Roll Doesn't Work in Hell.” 

Over the last week, I've been racking my brain trying to think of reasons why churches would think such signs were a good idea. I tried and failed to imagine a scenario in which someone would pass a “Hell sign” and say to themselves, “Wow! Damn that's clever! That humorous pun had a terrifying effect on me. Let me pull my car over right now, go into this church, and give my life to Jesus so I don't have to go to Hell.” Perhaps such a situation has taken place before. But if it has, that person has begun his journey with God because of selfish fear of being punished for eternity. Using fear to draw people in to church, or to convince them to keep attending services, is rarely a good idea for promoting a healthy Christian community, one which truly loves God and neighbor. “Fear-based faith,” as I call it, never seems to last long or be more than skin deep. Our relationships with God should begin, be lived out day by day, and end, in love for Him. We can love Him in part for saving us from punishment in the next life, but our faiths cannot be centered on avoiding personal torment. 

Neither should our evangelism. Persuading people to believe in God by making them scared of Hell is far too popular a strategy. A few days ago, I was listening to a theological debate. The subject was whether, according to the Bible, those who reject God and lead evil lives will be afflicted with eternal conscious torment (as in the image of Hell we have been raised with), or if those people will simply cease to exist. (This is obviously a topic that can't be dealt with now; suffice it to say that I lean toward the latter option.) An argument that came up time and time again from the proponent of the traditional view of Hell was that believing in an afterlife in which the wicked will be annihilated would make it much more difficult to preach the “gospel” to non-believers. “How can we convince people to turn to Christ,” he was basically saying, “unless we scare them into it?” 

But when we look at the writings of the New Testament and the early Church fathers, avoiding Hell was rarely their main emphasis. God was so much more to them than solely a god of wrath and punishment; Jesus was so much more than a way to avoid a terrible fate in the afterlife. This is especially true in the speeches made by Peter and Paul in the book of Acts. To quote a previous blog entry of mine:  “When the apostles preached the Gospel around Palestine and the Roman Empire after Jesus' death, they did so with the strong conviction that the people they were speaking to needed to repent and be saved. But the emphasis of their speeches was the wondrous things that God had done and would do in and through Jesus. They were excited; they couldn't stop talking about Christ. We see the same thing in Paul's letters, where Jesus is continually on Paul's mind and in his heart. The apostles saw in Jesus' life, death, and resurrection all of God's plans coming to fruition.” God's plans for us and for the world. God's love. These should be the reasons we believe.

There are terrible effects in this life and in the next for conducting our lives with hate, violence, and cruelty. I also believe that there are consequences for rejecting God, though I am more than willing to give God the prerogative to know the hearts and intentions of non-Christians and to pass judgment on them as He wills. What it comes down to, though, is this:  We should want to obey God out of love and with the knowledge that He is worthy of our praise, rather than wanting to escape personal punishment; and that our main goal should be eternal life with God rather than the avoidance of Hell. I'll allow the apostle John to have the final word:  “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” (1 John 4:18)

Monday, July 22, 2013

Heat Waves and the Weight of Guilt


I like to think I have a knack for sympathizing with a wide range of opinions and lifestyles. But there is one statement that I hear occasionally that I will never be able to understand:  “I love summers in New Jersey!” Heat and humidity are the banes of my existence, as anyone acquainted with me knows. The longer the summer marches on relentlessly, the more my brain feels like mush. By the end of August, my concentration skills have devolved to those of a labrador puppy (but much less excitable), with a reaction time similar to a nonagenarian's. Oh yeah, and the sweat.

On the second day of last week's heat wave, I was lying in bed struggling to get up so I could write a blog entry. Writing was the last thing I felt like doing. Sleep seemed much more preferable, but even that was nearly impossible because of the afternoon heat. While I slowly tapped into my meager reserves of willpower, a few verses from a psalm suddenly popped into my head:  “When I declared not my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.” (32:3-4) It's rare for me to have Bible verses come unbidden like that, but it was from a psalm that I had memorized a few years ago. I guess my mind decided to make the obvious connection between my lethargic mood and the verse. 

I was struck by how apt the Psalmist's analogy is, how similar the oppressive heat of the summer is to the heavy weight our guilt and regrets can sometimes put on us. It becomes harder to breathe, to clear our minds and regain a sense of peace. The bottled-up pressure of our mistakes and problems can make us feel like a shadow of our normal selves. Like a New Jersey heat wave, it's not easy to see an end to our guilt and unease when we're in the middle of them. We wonder how our relationship with God and others can be fixed. We want to believe that things will be as good as they were before, but this can seem impossible to us. 

A few minutes after I remembered the psalm verses, I began to think of the apostle Peter. In spite of Jesus' warning to Peter that all of his disciples would run away in fear for their lives, Peter thought that he would have the strength to stand with his teacher no matter what happened. “Though they all fall away because of you,” he told Jesus, “I will never fall away.” (Matt. 26:33) Even after Jesus tells him that he will deny him three times, Peter sticks to his declaration that he is willing to die for Jesus rather than deny him. By the end of that night, Peter's situation seemed hopeless. All was lost. Not only was his Master probably going to be executed, but Peter had failed miserably in his promise to stand by Jesus' side and never abandon him. Instead, he had fled like the other disciples and denied that he even knew the man who had become the center of his life. With Jesus now arrested, he would never be able to apologize, never make amends, never make things right. The three wondrous years he had spent with Jesus and the disciples had come to a sudden and tragic end. 

By the end of the next day, his greatest fear had came to pass:  Jesus had died a painful death. How could he ever be free of his guilt and regrets, and stop thinking of “what if situations” that might have kept Jesus alive and well? Peter must have felt like his body and spirit were wasting away, that the hand of God was on him, judging him for the terrible betrayal he had committed against his Master. The situation was certainly improved because of Jesus' resurrection. But as miraculous and amazing as Jesus' first two appearances to his disciples must have been, I don't think Peter's heat wave was yet broken. His guilt was still there, his denial of Jesus making him feel like he was outside the bounds of forgiveness. 

Only during the third appearance would Peter find true relief. On the shore of Lake Tiberias, Jesus shared a breakfast with some of his followers. He used a charcoal fire to cook the fish and bread. I believe that this was a purposeful choice. The fire in the high priest's courtyard where Peter had denied his Master had been a charcoal fire. The smell of it must have evoked strong memories for Peter. Only by making that night fresh in Peter's mind could Jesus bring about true reconciliation between the two of them. After eating, Jesus asked Peter three times if he loved him. Peter became more upset after each questioning, perhaps without realizing that Jesus was trying to break away the layers of guilt that encased Peter's heart. But Jesus was doing more than forgiving him. He was also giving him a mission, a life purpose, an opportunity to make amends and do God's will on Earth. Peter was charged with feeding Jesus' lambs and tending his sheep, with being a force for good in the world and spreading the good news that Jesus is King. 

All things are temporary. This includes heat waves of both the natural and spiritual varieties, in spite of how permanent and irreversible they may seem at the time. Strong summer heat/guilt can bear down on us for weeks at a time, sapping our energy and willpower. But that pressure will always be lifted. Like Peter, we can emerge from our heat waves feeling reinvigorated and full of purpose and conviction. 

Monday, July 15, 2013

Egypt and the Problem of Suffering


Last week, I ended my entry on Egypt by expressing my intention to write on the need for hope and for people willing to stand up for peace and justice in the country. It seemed like a natural continuation of what I had written. I wanted to end my discussion of Egypt on a positive, spiritually-uplifting note. As the week passed, though, I knew in my heart that I wouldn't be able to write about hope. Not right now. Not with the events of last Monday, in which at least 51 supporters of the Brotherhood were killed during protests against the military. Not with the detainment of most of the Brotherhood's leadership. Not while many Egyptians continue to strongly oppose the ouster of the president, claiming that they're willing to die before they submit to what they see as a military coup and usurpation of power. 

Millions of their anti-Morsi counterparts, meanwhile, appear to be turning more and more to the military as the country's savior, with the potential danger of giving the military a blank check to do whatever it pleases. Will these people allow their hatred toward Morsi and refusal to live under despotic rule (in themselves, perfectly understandable sentiments) to blind them to the military leadership's actions? I'm afraid that they will wake up one day in a praetorian state, and that by then it will be too late. With these events, Egypt seems to be following a path of deep and sharp polarization (if not civil war), with no solution in sight. The possibility that the country will be torn apart from the inside and will take decades to recover looms on the horizon. 
  
As humans, we should be united by a sense of concern and outrage at this situation and others like it that lead to human suffering and pain. Compassion and sympathy for those whose rights and livelihoods are being trampled on by others are traits that should transcend boundaries of ethnicity, gender, socio-economic status, and religious affiliation. But the seemingly universal presence of evil and suffering poses a special problem for those of us who believe in an omnipotent god. If an all-powerful and good god exists, how can he allow the death of millions through murder, poverty, war, natural disasters, etc? How could such a god stand by as the events in Egypt played out? Why does God seem to be so shockingly absent in instances of violence, in ethnic strife, genocide, acts of terrorism, child abuse? Jesus walked on water, calmed the wind and waves, raised the dead. Surely, many people feel, such a god could (and should) pluck people out of cars moments before deadly traffic accidents, or strike dead the terrorists onboard the planes involved in 9/11. For as many stories we hear about people who escape from car wrecks without a scratch, who overcome poverty, mental illness, and addiction, many more people seem to have been left by God to suffer. Why doesn't God intervene in all of these situations? 

This is far from being my lightest blog entry. The problems and questions posed above have been discussed and debated by countless philosophers, theologians, writers, and “laypeople” over thousands of years. To some extent, they will always be shrouded in mystery, and I doubt that I will have everything figured out in the course of a few blog posts. However, we can't ignore the problems of pain and evil. As difficult and contentious as the issues are, we should attempt to grapple with the reasons why the world is so broken, why and how people hurt each other, and whether God actually is doing (or will do) anything about it. 

Monday, July 8, 2013

To Gather and Stand for Hope: Some words on this week's events in Egypt


I moved to Egypt about six months after its 2011 revolution. In the year that I lived there, I came to love the country. In my free time, I would walk the streets of my section of Cairo and just soak all of the sounds, sights, and smells in. I never felt in danger; the people I encountered on a nearly daily basis were more than friendly and willing to share their thoughts on the things that really mattered to them. Depending on the person, my very broken Arabic was a bit of an obstacle. But what I got from nearly everyone was a sense of deep concern for instability and the economy, an intense pride in being an Egyptian in the light of what they had achieved months earlier, and a persistent hope for the future. 

I left Cairo a few days after Mohamed Morsi's inauguration feeling cautiously optimistic. I believed that somehow Egypt would come out on the other side of its instability and uncertainty and emerge stronger than before. Having studied several modern revolutions and the many years of struggle that proceeded them, I didn't expect that this would happen soon. Most people I talked to knew it would be a long road, and that there would be no easy or overnight cures for Egypt's troubles. This has been no clearer than on Wednesday, a day which ended in the ouster of Morsi. (It was a coup, regardless of whether the removal of the president was a benign execution of the “people's will” by the military. Let's call a spade a spade here.) Egypt will essentially need to relive the year and a half of political and constitutional limbo it spent in between the 25 January revolution and the parliamentary and presidential elections. 

And who knows the political, social, and economic effects that Morsi's removal will bring with it? Some of the same people who were dreadfully concerned a few years ago that the military would never give up power to a democratically-elected government cheered as helicopters flew over Tahrir Square. This time, what will the military's interactions with the democratic process and writing of the constitution be like? Will groups in the military leadership see public support for its actions this week as a mandate for grasping even greater control over the day-to-day politics and economic activity of the country? How severe and illegal will the backlash against Egypt's Islamists become? These and a dozen other questions will loom over Egypt in the months (and, let's face it, years) to come. 

In spite of the continued violence and protests over Morsi's ouster, though, what other choice did Egyptians have? On the day the presidential election results were announced, I was sitting rigidly in front of my computer in my Cairo apartment. My heart was in my throat and I was getting the chills that always accompany particularly anxious moments in my life. While Egyptian officials drew out the announcement of the winner longer than a season finale of American Idol, I prayed that Morsi had won over Ahmed Shafiq, who I was convinced would simply continue Mubarak's system of rule. When Morsi was eventually declared the winner, I remember sighing with relief and thinking about how close the election numbers had been. Unlike the parliamentary elections, in which the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists gained a clear majority, Morsi squeaked past with a narrow 52% victory. Nonetheless, winning the elections signified to Morsi and his Brotherhood cadres that they now had the right to mold Egypt's future singlehandedly. In the process of realizing their vision, and in spite of whatever good intentions the leadership may have originally had, Morsi proved himself in some ways to be just as despotic as Hosni Mubarak. He and his party attempted to alienate those with differing visions from participating in Egypt's future, using their power to silence and marginalize the opposition. The accusations against Bassem Youssef for “maligning” the president and criticizing Islam are a case in point. (For those who are unfamiliar with Youssef, he hosts El Bernameg, Egypt's version of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

The recent protests against the president did not occur because of the ignorance and unruliness of Egyptians. Millions of people didn't gather in Tahrir Square and Alexandria last week solely because of their impatience and disappointment with the snail-like rate at which Egypt was recovering economically and politically. Unrealistic expectations of the progress that should have been made by Morsi during his year in office were not driving what many are calling the largest political protest in modern history. 

At the heart of the outrage of so many Egyptians is their perception that the 2011 revolution needs to be set back on track, that the heavy-handed and immoral ways in which Morsi and the Brotherhood leaders attempted to forge Egypt's future need to be opposed. Excepting the inevitable presence of some miscreants in the crowds, what we saw last week were people like you and me, willing to gather and stand for the hope of a just and prosperous Egypt. (Many of those gathered in support of Morsi, perhaps, should not be excluded from this statement either.) 

Several days after the ouster of the president, the situation in the country continues to be grim and deeply unsettling to those of us who love Umm ad-Dunia. Hope seems to be in short supply. But it is that hope, hope that drives both Egyptians and members of the world community to stand up for justice at potentially great cost to themselves, that will be needed if Egypt is not to fall into either anarchy or despotism. The revolution continues, God willing, not with violence and coercion but through a strong commitment and love towards the country. But this love is useless if not translated into action to defend Egypt from those who put their own greed for power and influence over the interests of its future. 

(Next week, I will continue to discuss the need for hope and for people willing to stand up for justice in Egypt, probably from a more “spiritual” perspective.)