Gentile Passover

Last Monday I had the privilege of being a part of a combined passover and Easter celebration. Since the last supper that Jesus shared with his disciples before he died was a passover meal, combining the two makes sense for Christians.

I'm sure it wasn't the most authentic passover meal. We didn't follow all the instructions in Exodus 12, and that's not even the only source of passover instructions in the Bible. There are also traditions not found in the Bible that Jews follow at the passover.

We cooked lamb over an open fire, outdoors, and we had unleavened bread to go with it. One of the people there had made the unleavened bread, and the lamb was from a halal butcher. (Halal standards are similar to kosher standards.) Some of the conversation was about the passover and Easter, and some was casual conversation about other things. As part of the meal, we took communion together, as Jesus instructed us to do in remembrance of him. It was special to be able to recognize the death and resurrection of Jesus in a way that I'm not used to--a somewhat less ceremonial way that took more time, was more fun, and may have been more like the original Last Supper (in spirit anyway) than our typical communion celebrations.

But there was something disturbing about this too. As we read Exodus 12, verse 12 stuck out to me, in which God says, "On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn—both men and animals—and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the LORD." The Israelites' liberation so many years ago required other people to die, or to suffer because someone close to them died. Some of the ones who died would have had very little to do with the Israelites' suffering and oppression, and some were kids. And in the Christian remembrance of Jesus's death, we symbolically commit cannibalism, symbolically eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the one who told us to do that. Or if you follow the Catholic belief in transubstantiation, you're actually metaphysically committing cannibalism, but only because the one who gave his life for you told you to do that.

I believe it's important for religious people to wrestle with the disturbing aspects of our faith, not to just pretend they're not there, or use some semi-satisfying explanation to pretend they're not disturbing.

In both the passover and Easter stories, liberation required someone to die. Is it better that the people who died deserved it (as in some of the Egyptians at the passover), or that the one who died was willing but didn't deserve it?

When the imitation is better

There are lots of cheesy or unusual cover songs out there, but have you ever heard the cover version of a song before you heard the original, and then thought the original was just cheesy? Here are some examples that I've noticed:

The Renegades of Funk
Cover: Rage Against The Machine
Cheesy Original: Afrika Bambaataa and Soulsonic Force

Mad World
Cover: Michael Andrews and Gary Jules
Cheesy Original: Tears for Fears

These original versions may have sounded pretty good when they came out, but when creative people decided to make music in the 1980s, they doomed themselves to be made fun of by the future.

I mentioned this idea for a blog post a while back to a friend, and she borrowed the idea on her blog. Can you think of any other examples of this phenomenon?

Olympics are over

So the Winter Olympics have ended once more. It was special to be living in the host country, but I guess it didn't make much difference in my overall Olympic experience.

When I first heard about Canada's "Own the Podium" initiative, I was skeptical about Canada's chances of winning the most medals. Canada has a relatively low population, and no matter how much money we pump into our Olympic program, we can't buy talented athletes. The USA consistently dominates Olympic medal counts, and would be very tough to beat.

So during the Olympics when criticism of "Own the Podium" got more vocal, I don't think my opinion changed much. The Canadian athletes weren't doing worse than I'd expected. Yes, I'd hoped we could win the most medals and I figured we would do better than in most Olympics, but winning the most medals always seemed unlikely.

Then Canada won the most gold medals of any country. Not only that, we won more gold medals than any country ever has in the Winter Olympics. That surprised me. When you consider how Canada didn't win any gold medals the last time we hosted the Winter Olympics (and the time we hosted the Summer Olympics for that matter), this is an even bigger accomplishment.

Congratulations to all of our athletes, whether you won gold, silver, bronze, or a participant ribbon. (Or do they give out participant ribbons in the Olympics?)

God's revelation

Following up on my previous posts about ideas I've rejected (religious ideas in particular), I'd like to write about an idea I was raised with that I haven't rejected--the idea that God really has revealed himself to people, through prophets, the Bible, etc.

While this idea can be used to turn religion into a controlling, oppressive thing, misuse doesn't mean the idea itself is wrong. The idea of natural theology (that our ideas about God can just be based on what we perceive) is attractive, but it has its own problems. It's so subjective. Personally, I think God's characteristics are not obvious from looking at the world around us. If they were, there would be a lot less variation in the world's religions. If God actually has revealed something about himself to people, those things that he revealed would be much more accurate and beneficial than anything we could figure out ourselves.

That leaves us with a glaring question: how do we know what God has revealed and what's just made up by people? Or can faith somehow transcend this question? Is there some way we can have a devoted faith without knowing for sure, intellectually, that God revealed certain things?

My pooping has been politicized

Click on the comic to see the full-sized version.

Merry Boxing Day

I'm a bit late posting this, but here is a part of the Christmas story. In this part, some astrologers from far away came to see Jesus. Jesus attracted all kinds of people, didn't he? From poor Jewish peasants to royal astrologers who didn't follow the same religion as Jesus did, many people saw something special about him.

Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the reign of King Herod. About that time some wise men from eastern lands arrived in Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star as it rose, and we have come to worship him.”

King Herod was deeply disturbed when he heard this, as was everyone in Jerusalem. He called a meeting of the leading priests and teachers of religious law and asked, “Where is the Messiah supposed to be born?”

“In Bethlehem in Judea,” they said, “for this is what the prophet wrote:

‘And you, O Bethlehem in the land of Judah,
are not least among the ruling cities of Judah,
for a ruler will come from you
who will be the shepherd for my people Israel.’”

Then Herod called for a private meeting with the wise men, and he learned from them the time when the star first appeared. Then he told them, “Go to Bethlehem and search carefully for the child. And when you find him, come back and tell me so that I can go and worship him, too!”

After this interview the wise men went their way. And the star they had seen in the east guided them to Bethlehem. It went ahead of them and stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were filled with joy! They entered the house and saw the child with his mother, Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasure chests and gave him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

When it was time to leave, they returned to their own country by another route, for God had warned them in a dream not to return to Herod.

The Bible--it's good but let's be realistic

A while back I wrote about some ideas I've rejected. Now I want to expand on a couple things.

"I've rejected the idea that the Bible is infallible."

"I've rejected the idea that more church involvement, more prayer, or more Bible reading will automatically make a person happier and closer to God. (Or did I ever believe this one?)"

The idea that the Bible is infallible seems to be based on circular reasoning. I can't believe that it's inspired by God just because it says so. And even if I could believe that, the part that says "All scripture is inspired by God" (2 Timothy 3:16) might not actually refer to the whole Bible. If the timeline that some fairly conservative scholars put in my Bible is correct, 2 Timothy wasn't the last book of the Bible written, so how could that verse refer to books that weren't written yet? And does "inspired by God" necessarily mean "infallible"? If a movie is "inspired by a true story," that doesn't mean it reflects the original story completely accurately. If God himself said the Bible is infallible, I could believe that. And if Jesus is God in the flesh, I could believe him. The Bible says Jesus said, "Scripture cannot be broken," (John 10:35), but that couldn't be referring to the New Testament, and something about how he just gave that a passing mention mid-sentence makes me wonder if that really wasn't his point. Or maybe I'm just looking for a cop-out.

And on the second topic, I used to read the Bible just about every day, pretty consistently. While I can't deny I learned some good stuff, and I matured during that time, it didn't make me super happy and I didn't feel close to God, despite what some preachers promised. So that's why I maybe never believed that reading the Bible would have some automatic amazing effect.

But when it really comes down to it, the Bible is an amazing book. Infallible or not, automatically life-changing or not, I have found it inspiring, convicting, just plain interesting, and sometimes just plain boring. And I still believe a divine message somehow comes through, but not necessarily in the form of answers; sometimes it's in the form of questions. I still try to read it regularly, and I'm still inspired, enlightened, and puzzled by it.

If there are any preachers out there who are inclined to make lofty promises about what will happen when people read the Bible, I'd suggest being more realistic. I suspect you'll get more people to actually stick to reading the Bible if you don't make promises like that.

So if you aren't all that familiar with the Bible, pick it up and read it. I promise it won't automatically revolutionize your life.