SERMON FOR A BLEAK DECEMBER SUNDAY
My son is a blogger, too, and like many bloggers, he posts nifty things he has found while sifting the debris of the Information Explosion. One of his recent entries struck me as a good text for today, Sunday, Dec. 2, 2007.
On the surface, citing it here might be interpreted as a critique of Christian fundamentalism. Actually, it’s aimed more, if obliquely because of the homicidal tendencies thereof, at Islamic fundamentalism. And it intersects with something I realized today about the Sixties, and its “generation gap.”
I was listening to a radio program during which one of the participants was talking about the loss of tribal identities around the world. As young people gain more exposure to the speech, images, and ideas of the wider world, they tend to lose their native ways, he said. Marshall McLuhan’s “global village” (he was a particularly acute futurist of the Sixties) turns out to be more “global” than “village” (my summary, not the radio person’s). In the Far North, seals go unhunted while satellite dishes proliferate. On the Great Plains, there are young native Americans who are more concerned about the Buffalo Bills than the White Buffalo. And so on.
In the Sixties, young people who grew up according to their family and neighborhood values, and were expected to turn college degrees into greater prosperity by taking better jobs, started turning into world citizens instead. They discovered the continued existence of imperialism, religions of spiritual experience rather than belief, and sexual mores more like those in Tahiti than those in Topeka. A phenomenal number sought to be artists of some kind—that is, to communicate in one or another of the universal languages that are music, dance, literature, the visual arts, and more. Especially, whether they intended to become scientists themselves, they were literate in the international language of science—for instance, using the concepts of psychology and sociology to recognize and dissect the authoritarian personality and the divided self. If had to pick one word to sum up the generation gap of those times, it would be “psychology” (Son, I have just one word to say to you: PSYCHOLOGY.)
But in this country, an even greater number live in circumstances designed to insulate them from world currents and reinforce family values—and, as I will get to in a moment, tribal values. Worse yet, the results of such propagandized educations come forward to seize the opening afforded by political correctness, and insist that their viewpoint deserves an equal place among all the others, even though there point-of-view is vertically organized rather than horizontal in orientation. In mathematics, a horizontal axis and a vertical axis cross at a point, which has no space, no territory, no cross-influence. There can be no meeting of minds in this case, because they cross each other in just such a fashion, speaking different languages that intersect rather than interact.
The “vertical” view (this is, of course, just a metaphor; if you have a horizontal view, you realized that) roots itself in foundations that are considered unshakeable. To some extent, the Constitution is held up as such a source of principles, but only because it is said to have been the work of men inspired by Christian faith. The Bible, the word of God, is the wellspring, the root, the source. In other words, the writings of a small tribe of a dozen smaller family tribes, warlike herders in an unimportant part of the world east of the Mediterranean Sea, are to govern us from now until the end of time, which may be coming soon, according to many who live by those writings.
But Christianity has had longer to live with its tribal writings than Islam. It isn’t death to suggest that those writings may be outdated, inadequate to guide us in our present, globally oriented circumstances. It will take centuries for the morally nouveau riche mentality to wear off, and chances are that a lot more Bahais will have to be quashed along the way, since they believe their founder had revelations from God that postdate Muhammed’s.
What they all lack is the ability to take a joke. For those who can live with uncertainty, ambiguity and unknowns, humor comes with the territory. A joke is valued, not only as a source of laughter, but as a way to find common ground and defuse tension.
Which leads me to my son’s blog, and today’s sermon. I’ve seen things on the Internet like what he posted, but whoever came up with this one did a particularly good job of employing the old rhetorical device of reductio ad absurdum to the idea that we should obediently take the Biblical word of God literally and use it to tell good from evil and choose what is good, without modern “interpretation.”
The text for today’s sermon is the earliest part of the Bible, the five books variously referred to as the Pentateuch, the Torah, or the Law.
“Laura Schlesinger is a US radio personality, who dispenses advice to people who call in to her radio show. She recently said that, as an observant Orthodox Jew, homosexuality is an abomination, according to Leviticus 18:22, and cannot be condoned under any circumstances.
The following response is an open letter to Dr. Laura which was posted on the Internet.
Dear Dr. Laura: Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination... End of debate. I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God's Laws and how to follow them.
1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?
2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?
3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness - Lev.15: 19-24. The problem is how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.
4. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord - Lev.1:9. The problem is, my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?
5. I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2. clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do it?
6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination - Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this? Are there 'degrees' of abomination?
7. Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle- room here?
8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How should they die?
9. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?
10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev.19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? Lev.24:10-16. Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair, like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)
I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable expertise in such matters, so I am confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.”
A final word from yours truly: remember that according to that basic book known as the dictionary, the word “fundament” can either mean “the fundamental basis of something” or “a person’s buttocks.”
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