Without a prescribed religious service or liturgy, we have no creeds, confessions, or collections … no pulpits, pews, or processionals … no altar calls, prosperity preaching, damnation-orientation, celestial choirs, or “Christian” holy-rollers.
Instead, we’re a home-based interfaith, nondenominational online congregation that’s spiritual rather than religious, organic over organizational, and personal beyond institutional.
We gather to consider and celebrate the sacred journeys of our lives.
Whether you’ve attended church (but feel alienated from), or if you’d enjoy meeting other wayfarers seeking this type of progressive spiritual experience, please join us and other progressive people of faith.
I may be a pastor, but I question the efficacy of intercessory prayer. Personally, I believe that prayer comforts the one praying more than it helps the intended beneficiary.
I don’t understand or respect why he was there, but I will light a candle for Corey Comperatore, the former fire chief killed at the Pennsylvania rally who spent his final moments diving down in front of his family, protecting them from the gunfire.
Remember when Jesus came upon a gang of zealots about to stone a woman for allegedly committing adultery? Each lay down his rocks when Jesus reminded them that the one among them without sin should be the first to throw a rock. One by one, they left … realizing that none of us is without indignities or indiscretions.
The man I’ve been asked to pray for — because his ear was pinged either by a bullet or a stray piece of glass — has used his bully pulpit to throw lots of rocks, warning the world about bloodshed if he doesn’t win. He’s called for chaos, using tear gas for his convenience to empty a park so he could have a photo op in front of a church with an upside-down Bible. He’s published his own Bible. He floated the idea of executing Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley, inciting violence against the nation’s top general. He mocked the attack on Paul Pelosi. And he repeatedly has promised to weaponize the federal government by pursuing revenge, retaliation, and retribution against his political enemies.
Analyzing over 13,000 of his Truth Social posts from January 1, 2023 to April 1, 2024, media found that threatening political opponents has been a consistent fixation for him. Since the start of last year, he has issued direct or implied threats to use the powers of the federal government to target Joe Biden at least 25 times. He’s also threatened or suggested that the FBI and the Department of Justice should take action against senators, judges, members of Biden’s family and even non-governmental organizations. ABC News found 54 cases invoking his name in connection with violence, threats, alleged assaults. He declared New York Justice Juan Merchan a “highly conflicted” overseer of a “kangaroo court” and his supporters swiftly replied to his Truth Social post with a blitz of attacks on the judge. Some called for Merchan and other judges hearing cases against Trump to be killed.
As he was taken away from the rally and to a hospital, his campaign power brokers declared that the pictures of him punching the air with blood trickling down his face would become “iconic,” all too useful in painting him a strong man contrasted with his weak opponent. Such were their calculations during this photo opportunity. They will be especially useful motifs for the Republican Convention beginning today.
Indeed, the attempted assassination sparked a frenzy of online merchandise featuring pictures of the former president just after he was shot, with slogans such as “Bulletproof,” “Legends Never Die,” “Grazed but not Dazed,” and “Shooting Makes Me Stronger.”
Didn’t Jesus preach that we’re to love our enemies? Bless them that curse us? Do good to them that hate us? And pray for them who despitefully used and persecute us? (Matthew 5:43-44) Yes, he did. But he also warned that “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven,” which I believe this man has committed.
Devout Jewish people traditionally throw food to the fish during their High Holidays — Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur — each year, as instructed by Ecclesiastes 11:1–“Send out your bread upon the waters, for after many days you will get it back” (NSRV), or this translation from the Complete Jewish Bible, “Send your resources out over the seas; eventually you will reap a return,” or this one from the Living Bible: “Give generously, for your gifts will return to you later.”
This verse about diligence is open to many interpretations.
But in the case of the former president, I believe that Ecclesiastes 11:1 was fulfilled this past Saturday night.
Pastor, professor, publisher, and journalist Bruce H. Joffe is an award-winning author of magazine features, academic research, journal articles, self-help manuals, and newspaper stories. His nine books deal with international (intercultural) living, progressive theology, gender studies, “social” politics, our vulnerabilities, marketing, and the media.
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Recently, a member of my spiritual community contacted me privately, seeking my advice. Married for years in a committed and loving relationship, he now found himself attracted to and caring about another. Is that a sin, he wanted to know, and what should(n’t) he do about it? The plot thickened because all three people involved were of the same sex. My interlocutor found himself increasingly thinking about the other. Although “nothing” had happened between the two, he was suffering pangs of guilt. What could I say to him? How could I help?
Takeaways:
• Biblical adultery is restricted to a man having sexual relations with another man’s wife. It occurs only within the confines and context of marriage.
• Jesus addresses adultery specifically as a matter between a man and a woman.
• “Sin” is open to many interpretations, understandings, and translations.
• Adam was the first of many Bible men to have more than one wife.
• The Bible appears to support “polygyny” (one man, two or more women in marriage), but not “polyandry” (one woman, two or more men in marriage).
• Although the Hebrew scriptures describe numerous examples of polygamy among God’s devotees, most Christian groups have historically rejected the practice.
• Polygamy is illegal and criminalized in every country in North and South America, including all 50 U.S. states. However, in February 2020, the Utah House and Senate reduced the punishment for consensual polygamy, which had previously been classified as a felony, to roughly equivalent to a traffic ticket.
Starting with the Seventh Commandment – “You shall not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14) – the Bible is implicit in its condemnation of adultery. Later, in Leviticus 20:10, punishment for being involved in adultery was mandated: “If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife — with the wife of his neighbor — both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death.”
Notice, please, that adultery in this passage is restricted to a man having sexual relations (or whatever constituted “adultery” back then) with another man’s wife.
According to Easton’s Bible Dictionary, the simple meaning of adultery is marital infidelity. An adulterer is a man who has illicit intercourse with a married or a betrothed woman, and such a woman is an adulteress.
And what did Jesus say about adultery?
John 8:3-11 (NIV) tells this story: The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared, “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
What, I wonder, was Jesus writing on the ground?
Elsewhere, in Matthew 5:27-28, Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
Jesus, too, addresses adultery here as specifically a matter between a man and a woman. What about same-sex adultery, as my congregant had asked?
I don’t know about you but, for me, denying physical attraction to someone is one of those beatitudes that is easier to preach about than to practice. Like loving those who hate you. Not resisting an evil person. Praying for those who persecute you. Turning the other cheek. Loaning money to those who ask. Being perfect. And walking that extra mile.
All take a spirit and soul bigger than mine.
My own shortcomings reminded me not to rush to judgment when responding to the questions I had been asked. After all, didn’t I look beyond the literal when it comes to the larger and/or metaphorical meaning of the scriptures? What conclusions would I reach, I wondered, if I scratched beneath the surface of these verses about marriage and marital fidelity?
First, I needed to wrestle with the idea of sin. What is sin and to be sinful?
The dictionary offers two definitions: (1) an immoral act considered to be a transgression against divine law, and (2) to offend against (God, a person, or a principle).The Encyclopedia Britannica says that sin is a moral evil as considered from a religious standpoint. In Judaism and Christianity, sin is regarded as the deliberate and purposeful violation of the will of God. Elsewhere, sin is called “a corrupted state of human nature in which the self is estranged from God.” In the Old Testament, the word for sin is “khata,” meaning “to fail” or “to miss the goal.”
According to the Torah, the standard noun for sin is ḥeṭ (verb: hata), meaning to “miss the mark” or “sin.” The word avon is often translated as “iniquity”, i.e. a sin done out of moral failing. The word pesha, or “trespasss,” means a sin done out of rebelliousness. The word resha refers to an act committed with wicked intent.
How did Jesus work around sin?
In John 8:34, he tells the unbelieving Pharisees, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.”
Paul, as usual, is conflicted:
“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.” (Romans 7:15-20)
The Bible seems to indicate that there are degrees of sin—that some are more detestable to God than others (Deuteronomy 25:16; Proverbs 6:16-19). However, when it comes to the “eternal consequences of sin,” all are the same. Every sin, every act of rebellion, leads to condemnation and eternal death (Romans 6:23), Paul insists.
As always, I look beneath and beyond the words written in a different time to people whose culture was different than ours, and then transcribed from oral traditions, redacted, and translated from one dialect to other languages. Similarly, I’m hesitant to accept the Apostle Paul’s edicts as gospel, or to explain one dubious scripture by citing another.
Consider, for example, this egregious assessment of marriage rites and rituals proposed by Paul – aka Saul the Pharisee – who, to the best of our knowledge, hadn’t been in any relationship with a woman, let alone married to one:
“Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” (Ephesians 5:22–27)
Similarly, I take with a large grain of salt Paul’s further pronouncements on marriage in 1 Corinthians 7:2–5:
“But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.”
Curiously, apart from Paul, the Bible has very little to say about the specifics of marriage and adultery, per se, although they’re inherent to civil and ecclesiastical dictates. When searching the scriptures and religious traditions about marriage and marital infidelity, we open a Pandora’s box of conflicting facts and folklore … especially when adding polyamorous relationships to the equation.
God, many believe, designed marriage as the place for the expression of human sexuality. Sex within marriage has both relational and spiritual benefits. It also has the practical benefit of reducing the temptation to engage in sex outside of marriage.
Sometimes … but not always.
Research from the past two decades shows that between 20 and 25 percent of married men cheat and between 10 and 15 percent of married women cheat, according to Professor Nicholas Wolfinger, a professor of family and consumer studies at the University of Utah.
Written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter is a dark romantic story about a woman and her minister who had an affair and are punished by Puritan society.
The institutional church believes adultery, divorce, remarriage after divorce, marriage without the intent to transmit life, polygamy, incest, child abuse, free union, and trial marriage are sins against the dignity of marriage:
“As first described in Genesis and later affirmed by Jesus, marriage is a covenantal relationship between a man and a woman. This lifelong, sexually exclusive relationship brings children into the world and thus sustains the stewardship of the earth. Biblical marriage — marked by faithfulness, sacrificial love, and joy — displays the relationship between God and his people,” posits the National Association of Evangelicals.
Matthew quotes Jesus as saying: “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, except on the grounds of porneia (sexual immorality), makes her an adulteress; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” (Matthew 5:31-32).
Of this I am certain: According to the Bible, adultery only occurs within the confines and context of marriage. Far less sure, however, were Bible “givens” that I had overlooked or not fully comprehended because they made me uneasy based on today’s social norms.
Polygamy, for instance …
In the Bible, it is written of Adam that, “Then the LORD God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.’” (Genesis 2:18). In this instance, help meet means a help that is meet (proper) for Adam, and the term has since been transformed into helpmeet, or helpmate.
God, it follows, brings to Adam all the livestock, birds, and beasts of the field. None of these, however, proves to be “fit for” the man. “Fit for him” or “matching him” (ESV footnote), scholars maintain, is not the same as “like him,” providing a plausible reason that God didn’t bring Adam another man.
“Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!” we’re told in Ecclesiastes 4:9-10. The wise person works side by side with another, enjoying a good reward and finding help in times of need.
In Genesis 2:23–24 we read that, “Then the man said, ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”
Notice that it is Adam, not God, who is speaking. And remember that there is more than one creation story! Christians try to use Adam and Eve as a prototype for how all marriages should be. The problem is that the ancient Hebrews did not interpret the story of Adam and Eve in this manner.
For instance, how many wives did Adam have? According to some sources, he had two. Although not mentioned directly in the Bible, according to Jewish lore, Lilith, Adam’s first wife, explains the two contradictory versions of Creation within the book of Genesis.
One of the rabbinic folklore books, the medieval Alphabet of ben Sirach, gives an alternate version of the story of Adam and Eve. In this version, God decides it is bad for Adam to be alone, so he makes a woman named Lilith. Lilith and Adam have an argument about their sexual relations, and Lilith leaves Adam.
Unlike Eve, who we’re told was made from one of Adam’s ribs, and who agreed to be subservient to Adam, Lilith was made from the same clay as Adam, as his equal, and she refused to be obedient to Adam … which is why she was ejected from the Garden of Eden. In other words, Lilith was a very modern woman, a feminist’s woman, and the authors of the Bible chose to leave her out, setting Adam along another path, the path of the Patriarchy.
Adam was the first of many to have more than one wife or concubine. The list includes such notable patriarchs and kings as Esau (Gen 26:34; 28:6-9), Jacob (Gen 29:15-28), Elkanah (1 Samuel 1:1-8), David (1 Samuel 25:39-44; 2 Samuel 3:2-5; 5:13-16), and Solomon (1 Kings 11:1-3).
Abraham had a second wife, Hagar, who played an important role as his wife and mother of Ishmael. As such, she is an essential figure within Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Genesis 16, she is introduced as an Egyptian slave woman who belongs to Abraham’s wife, Sarah.
Jacob ended up having four wives out of whom came the tribes of Israel. Hannah was a baron wife out of a plural marriage; King David had several, and his son, Solomon had 700 wives and many concubines—including the Queen of Sheba! The only wife of King Solomon known by her personal name was Naamah, the Ammonite princess, mother of Rehoboam, heir to the throne.
“King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh’s daughter—Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. They were from nations about which the Lord had told the Israelites, ‘You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.’ Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray.” (I Kings 11: 1-3)
Miriam and Aaron were jealous because Moses had two wives and more of his attention would be taken by the newly married woman. (Numbers 12:1-10)
This is what God said to David after he cheated on his wives with Bathsheba: “I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your keeping, and gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if that had been too little, I also would have given you much more!” (1 Sam. 12:8)
Although some Christians argue that polygamy is a sin because it’s adultery. the Bible appears to support “polygyny” (one man, two or more women in marriage), but not “polyandry.” Women could have only one husband, and certainly no male concubines. Women who had sex with a man other than their legal husband were considered adulteresses, and those men were thought of as illegally robbing her husband of his possession: his wife.
“I first started to question what I was being taught at Bible college when I was in my 1&2 Samuel class, and the teacher kept saying that polygamy is a sin. I raised my hand and asked where in the Bible it said that specifically. He didn’t have an answer so he said he would ask the director of the Bible college and get back to me,” a classmate of mine in seminary said. “So, next class I raised my hand again and asked if he had an answer. He flatly said, ‘nowhere in the Bible does it say that polygamy is a sin; but it is not recommended because it can detract from a person’s focus on God.’ And then he said, ‘It’s also currently illegal in this country and God calls us to follow the laws of the land.’ Then he changed the topic. The more I thought about it, the more I realized modern Christians were trying to insert their own biased views on monogamy into the Scriptures.”
The debate focuses almost exclusively on polygyny (one man having more than one wife) and not polyandry (one woman having more than one husband), as polyandry is specifically outlawed by the Hebrew Bible’s laws of adultery, which narrowly define adultery as the practice of polyandry by or with an already married (or betrothed) female.
Ashkenazi and Sephardic rabbis passed decrees in the Middle Ages forbidding polygamy and the law in Israel, which is mostly secular in any case, does not recognize or permit it. With the founding of the modern State of Israel, a number of Yemenite Jewish men immigrated with their multiple wives. The government allowed them to keep the wives they brought with them but did not allow them to take on additional wives. This was done out of compassion for the wives, who were already dependent on their husbands.
Technically, polygamy is still allowed in Judaism (since it is allowed in the Torah), but if a man wants to take on a second wife, he needs to have a petition allowing him to do this signed by 100 rabbis. In principle, this should be done only under dire circumstances. The best example I heard is that of a man whose wife is institutionalized due to a severe mental illness. Since Jewish law forbids divorce under these circumstances, the man could be allowed to take on a second wife. Note that in such a case he would no longer be living with the first wife. The Orthodox rabbi who explained this said that it should apply only in the case of a young couple, especially when the man is responsible for raising his children. It should not be used for an older man whose wife develops Alzheimers late in life.
Judaism has never allowed a woman to have two husbands simultaneously.
Although the Hebrew scriptures describe numerous examples of polygamy among devotees to God, most Christian groups have historically rejected the practice and upheld monogamy alone as normative. Nevertheless, some Christian groups in different periods have practiced, or currently do practice, polygamy. Some Christians actively debate whether the New Testament or Christian ethics allows or forbids polygamy, and there are several Christian views on the “Old Covenant.”
The debate focuses almost exclusively on polygyny (one man having more than one wife) and not polyandry (one woman having more than one husband), as polyandry is specifically outlawed by the Hebrew Bible’s laws of adultery, which narrowly define adultery as the practice of polyandry by or with an already married (or betrothed) female.
Mormon men can lawfully have only one wife. The practice of polygamy, the marriage of more than one woman to the same man, was practiced by Church members from the 1830s until the early 1900s.
Marriage is a sacred institution in Islam with very important objectives. In most cases, the objective is achieved through monogamy. In certain situations, however, a man is allowed to marry more than one wife, with the condition that he treats his wives with justice and takes the decision with Taqwa or “God Consciousness.” Verse 3 of Surah 4 An-Nisa (Women) declares that a man may marry up to four women under specific (and debated) circumstances. In observance of this text, many Muslim countries allow a man to have up to four wives. However, many also require the man to state whether he plans to be monogamous or polygamous as part of the marriage agreement with his first wife, and if she disallows it, he cannot marry another wife while married to her. Polyandry, in which a wife has multiple husbands, is still strictly prohibited.
The idea that Islam allows polygamy so that men could pursue lust and as an excuse to fulfill sensual desires is a far cry from what the religion seeks to achieve.
Time and again, the question of polygamy in Islam is raised as a grave issue and a big hurdle to any serious discussions about the faith. The general idea is to ask: How can Islam claim that there is gender equality when it allows men to marry up to four wives? If men can have multiple wives, why are women also not allowed to marry more than one husband?
Research from the past two decades shows that between 20 and 25 percent of married men cheat and between 10 and 15 percent of married women cheat, according to Professor Nicholas Wolfinger, a professor of family and consumer studies at the University of Utah.
Most countries that criminalize adultery are those where the dominant religion is Islam, and several sub-Saharan African Christian-majority countries, but there are some notable exceptions to this rule, namely the Philippines and 17 U.S. states (as well as Puerto Rico). State laws typically define adultery as vaginal intercourse only. Therefore, two people seen kissing, groping, or engaged in oral sex, may not meet a state’s legal definition of adultery.
In the USA, laws vary from state to state. Although rarely prosecuted, adultery is still on the statute books and penalty may vary from a fine of few dollars to even life sentence. But in the US military, it is an impending court-martial crime.
State laws typically define adultery as vaginal intercourse only. Therefore, two people seen kissing, groping, or engaged in oral sex may not meet a state’s legal definition of adultery.
The legal status of polygamy varies from country to country, with each nation outlawing, accepting, or encouraging polygamy. In those countries that accept or encourage polygamy, polygyny is most common. In countries where only monogamous marriage is legally valid, de facto polygamy is typically allowed if adultery is not illegal. In regions such as these, in which polygamy is outlawed but tolerated, additional spouses after the first are not legally recognized.
With the exception of the Solomon Islands, polygamous marriages are not recognized in Europe and Oceania. In India, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore, the governments recognize polygamous marriages, but only for Muslims. In Australia, polygamous marriage is outlawed, but polygamous relationships are common within some indigenous Australian communities. In Indonesia, polygamy is legal in some areas, such as in Bali, Papua, and West Papua. Balinese Hinduism allows for polygamy, which has been practiced for centuries by the Balinese and Papuans. Protests to outlaw polygamy and polygamous marriages occurred in 2008 in Indonesia but did not result in legislative changes.
In some African countries, polygamy is illegal under civil law but still allowed through customary law, in which acts that have traditionally been accepted by a particular culture are considered legally permissible. This arguably confusing loophole results in two types of marriages: “civil” marriages and “customary” or “religious” marriages, and enables countries such as Liberia, Malawi, and Sierra Leone to allow and even support polygamous marriages without officially recognizing them.
Another unusual loophole is that many Muslim countries will recognize polygamous marriages as long as the husband, before marrying his first wife, informs her that he intends to add additional future wives … and she consents. If the first wife does not consent, the husband is not allowed to marry additional wives as long as he is married to her.
Some countries that have outlawed polygamy may still recognize polygamous marriages from other countries. For example, Sweden recognizes polygamous marriages performed abroad. Switzerland outlawed polygamy, but polygamous marriages conducted in another country are handled on a case-by-case basis. Australia recognizes polygamous marriages formed in other countries only under certain circumstances.
While illuminating, my studies didn’t reveal any “Abracadabra!” words I could share with my congregant to assuage his feelings of guilt and remorse. Maybe I should have cited this scripture: “Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed” (James 5:16). Although our relationship with God is personal, it’s not private. What we do in our personal lives affects others.
Ultimately the best I could do was to repeat two hackneyed euphemisms: “To thine own self be true” and “Let your conscience be your guide.”
From Hamlet, not the Bible, to thine own self be true means that we should be true to our principles and who we are. It’s a way of saying that we should stick to our principles, not assimilate, and do what we believe. It is beautifully phrased, and invokes ideas with positive connotations: truth, self-ownership, individuality.
There is something right about our need to follow our heart, to pursue our goals in an unwavering fashion, and to remain committed to those ideas we believe in. We should never be someone who betrays ourselves to impress or win over other people. Nor should we give up easily or quickly on those things we believe deep in our heart. So, we are right to whisper to ourselves “to thine own self be true.”
Jiminy Cricket offered Pinocchio this advice: “Always let your conscience be your guide.”
I always have a goal in mind when I counsel others: to get them to the point where they know the right thing to do before being faced with an ethical dilemma. It’s our inner conscience that drives us to act one way or another, informed by moral values and a desire to do the right thing … not because of any personal gain, but because we believe it’s the right thing to do.
Ultimately, that’s what I told him.
Pastor, professor, publisher, and journalist Bruce H. Joffe is the award-winning author of magazine features, academic research, journal articles, self-help manuals, and newspaper bylines. His eight books deal with international (intercultural) living, interfaith theology, gender studies, “social” politics, marketing, and the media.
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Today is a national holiday in Portugal. In Spain, as well.
For the most part, businesses are closed, and people aren’t working. Back in the USA, we’d refer to these special days as “bank holidays.”
Here in Iberia, today’s honor belongs to the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, which recognizes the Roman Catholic belief of the Virgin Mary’s immaculate conception (preserved from “original sin”) in her mother’s womb and is considered the first official day of Christmas celebrations for many people.
Others, however, look to “Black Friday” (no translation needed) as the true beginning of their holiday season.
In countries where Catholicism is the national religion, today is considered a “holy day of obligation,” religious feast days on which Catholics must attend mass and refrain from unnecessary work.
Do they?
Some do, especially older folks; others don’t, preferring to sleep in, enjoying a day with their families while catching up on household chores or taking day trips together.
Of Portugal’s 13 annual legal holidays, seven – more than half – are religious. In addition to Feast of the Immaculate Conception, there’s Good Friday (April), Easter (April), Corpus Christi (June), Assumption of Mary (August), All Saints’ Day (November), and Christmas Day (December) in 2023.
Spain has ten national holidays of which seven – 70% — are also based on religious observances: Today’s Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Christmas Day, Epiphany, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter, Assumption of Mary, and All Saints’ Day.
Add to these the regional holidays devoted to a given area’s particular saint.
While the vast majority (81%) of today’s Portuguese identify as Roman Catholic, most consider themselves “non-practicing.” And, according to the Spanish Center for Sociological Research, 52% of the Spanish self-identify as Catholic … with 35.2% defining themselves as non-practicing, while 16.8% see themselves as practicing their religion.
For many Spanish and Portuguese people, national and cultural identity is often linked to Catholicism rather than purely a religious affiliation.
Certainly, everyone appreciates the time off of work as designated by the state.
Rather than be obligated by religious holy days that no longer are the fabric of their lives, perhaps it’s time to be more flexible … allowing people to determine their own personal, meaningful holidays?
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If you’re like me, you’ve been seeing increasing media coverage of the climate crisis – including pollution – resulting in death and devastation among creation. How many species have succumbed and died—some by natural evolution, others killed by our wanton ways?
I remember a Bible verse from the Psalms (24:1-2), “The earth is the Lord′s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters.”
Yesterday, the camera chronicled the sudden demise of coral which, in the circle and interconnections of life, protects fish, algae, and our shorelines from the ravages of weather. Coral cannot live in heated waters which recently have risen by more than 1.5 degrees and register 92.5F degrees currently around the Florida Keys.
As often happens, my mind wandered … until stopping at the story of Noah’s Ark.
I could be wrong (especially if we take into account the water turning into blood and the hail, among the ten plagues of Egypt, and the parting of the Red Sea), but I suspect that in the chronicle of Noah’s Ark, we find the first example of climate change and crisis. Remember? According to the story, it suddenly rained 40 days and 40 nights. Noah, his family, and animals entered the Ark on the day flooding began. It lasted 40 days and nights. The waters rose and all creatures, except those aboard, were destroyed.
In this account, Noah labored faithfully to build an Ark, ultimately saving not only his own family, but humanity itself and all land animals from extinction during the flood which God supposedly created after regretting that the world was full of sin.
After 40 days (and nights), the Creator was appeased. Noah sent out a dove, which returned with an olive branch indicating the presence, again, of land. And the Holy One made a promise – a covenant – in which he resets and renews the blessings of creation, reaffirming God’s image in humanity and the work of dominion. “Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth. I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth,” we are told by the author of Genesis 9:11 and 13.
Let’s not miss a vital point here …
Why are we told the Creator caused the flood?
Allegedly, because the world was full of sin.
This seems to be a theme in both books of the Bible, starting with Deuteronomy, whose core is the covenant that binds Yahweh and Israel by oaths of fidelity and obedience: God will give Israel blessings of land, fertility, and prosperity so long as it is faithful to God’s teaching; disobedience will lead to curses and punishment.
Remember: these blessings and curses are specific to Israel.
In Deuteronomy we’re told, “You must purge the evil from among you” (17:7). Several verses later (19:15-20), we are warned again: “Thus you shall purge the evil from among you. The rest will hear and be afraid, and will never again do such an evil thing among you (19). Thus you shall not show pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot (20-21).
Despite its Hebrew reference to Israel, the idea of purging evil reportedly continues in the Greek testament with Paul the Apostle – aka Saul of Tarsus, a Pharisee – reiterating, “God will judge those outside. Expel the wicked person from among you” (5:13).
Throughout all his presumed writings, however, Paul’s focus is purging what he saw as the “evils” inside of us, our “sinful” nature … although his Christianity ultimately led to the Inquisition, Crusades, and evangelical bullying. In the Hebrew scriptures, it’s the “other” and outsiders – peoples who worship foreign gods and idols – whom a jealous and zealous god used the Israelites to avenge.
Today, purging evil is paramount in subduing and saving ourselves from the climate crisis which threatens to destroy our world and ourselves. We must deal with the effects of a poisoned environment of our own making.
According to the United Nations, results of our changing environment already include intense droughts, water scarcity, severe fires, rising sea levels, tragic flooding, polar ice melting, catastrophic storms, volcanic eruptions and emissions, seismic earthquakes, shifts in plant blooming times, and declining biodiversity. The heat is getting more intolerable; floods and mudslides are destroying people and property; hurricanes and typhoons are coming at us faster and more furiously; air quality indices show how difficult it is to breathe; winter and summer seasons are starting earlier and lasting longer.
Our beliefs will have little to sustain us if we don’t purge these evils from among us.
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter waves to the congregation after teaching Sunday school at Maranatha Baptist Church in his hometown of Plains, Georgia on April 28, 2019. Carter has taught Sunday school at the church on a regular basis since leaving the White House in 1981, drawing hundreds of visitors who arrive hours before the 10:00 am lesson to get a seat and have a photograph taken with the former President and First Lady Rosalynn Carter. (Photo by Paul Hennessy/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Iwas teaching journalism — specifically, a course entitled News Editing — at George Mason University in January 1981, when I could find no established precedents or protocols, no style guides or textbooks, to cite to my students about the layout dilemma.
On January 20, 1981, two distinctly remarkable, historic, front page news-making moments occurred simultaneously: After 444 days, Americans held hostage by Iran were released; and Ronald Reagan, a former actor and California governor, was inaugurated president of the USA. The hostages were formally released into United States custody just minutes after Reagan was sworn into office as the country’s 40th president on January 20, 1981.
How would or should newspaper editors handle the coverage, my students and I debated: Was one more important, more timely, more consequential than the other? Which story should be featured more prominently? There was no question that both stories demanded front page placement. But where on the page? Traditionally, newspapers place the most important stories at the top of the page; being on the right-hand side implied that a story was more important than others on the page. The Washington Post devoted its front page to these two stories, although one was placed “above the fold,” the other on the bottom half.
Guess which story took priority and preeminence?
Jimmy Carter was bedeviled by two behemoths during his single, four-year presidency.
On November 4, 1979, a group of militarized Iranian college students took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Soon, 52 United States diplomats and citizens were held hostage. A diplomatic stand off ensued. Lasting 444 days, this terrorist act triggered the most profound crisis of the Carter presidency, as well as a personal ordeal for the president himself.
President Carter pursued a policy of restraint that put a higher value on the lives of the hostages than on American retaliatory power or protecting is own political future.
Allegations of conspiracy between Reagan’s presidential team with Iran until after the election to thwart Carter from pulling off an “October surprise” abounded. And thus began the changing of the guard–from partisan distinctions to ugly words and vicious divisions.
The other dragon that President Carter couldn’t slay was economics. Between high inflation and fixed mortgage rates hitting over 14%, it was also about the money … as it always is.
Jimmy Carter has always been a good man. Moreover, he’s been a good Christian man–not just in terms of religious etymology but in practical ways, too. He practiced the words preached by the itinerant Jewish rabbi from Nazareth.
In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus explained what it looks like to live as his follower and to be part of God’s Kingdom. These passages from Matthew perhaps represent the major ideals of the Christian life.
They also reflect peanut farmer Jimmy Carter’s life and legacy.
• Blessed are the weak, for they shall inherit the earth.
• Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the “salt” of the earth.
• Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
• Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
• Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
(About that thirst blessing above, let’s not forget that Jimmy was overshadowed by his younger brother, Billy, and the infamous Billy’s Beer. Indeed, the Georgia farmer brought a colorful cast of characters with him to Washington.)
At 98, Jimmy Carter is one of America’s most active former presidents. His efforts at peace-making, international negotiation, home construction for the impoverished (Habitat for Humanity), and the eradication of diseases in Africa earned him the world’s respect. Forty years after leaving office, he continued to remain an actor on the world stage and at home.
As president, his tireless efforts to bring Israel and Egypt together in a peace agreement during the 1978 negotiations at Camp David may be seen today as the most consequential contribution any U.S. president has made towards Israel’s security since its founding. The treaty earned the Israelis everything they so long had sought: a separate peace treaty that ended not only the state of war with their most threatening neighbor, but also the freedom to carry out other strategic and military objectives without concern for igniting a regional war.
Despite serving a single term, Jimmy Carter ranks as one of the most consequential U.S. presidents when it comes to environmentalism. He installed solar panels on the White House, urged Americans to turn down their thermostats while sporting a sweater, and pressured Congress into putting tens of millions of Alaskan acres off limits to developers.
In 1982, with his wife Rosalynn, he founded the Carter Center dedicated to the protection of human rights, promotion of democracy, and prevention of disease. His determination to promote the rights of women led him, in 1920, to sever ties with the Southern Baptist Convention after six decades, over its rejection of women in leadership positions. He explained his decision to quit the church in a 2009 article entitled “Losing my religion for equality,” which later went viral. “Women and girls have been discriminated against for too long in a twisted interpretation of the word of God,” he wrote in the article.
The Nobel Peace laureate and longtime human rights advocate campaigned to end violence and discrimination against women since leaving the White House in 1981, calling it the “human and civil rights struggle of the time.”
In an interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Carter said that Southern Baptist leaders reading the Bible out of context led to the adoption of increasingly “rigid” views. Defying the largest Protestant denomination in the United States whose leaders also voted to condemn homosexuality, abortion, pornography, and adultery, he stated, “In my opinion, this is a distortion of the meaning of Scripture … I personally feel the Bible says all people are equal in the eyes of God.” Carter continued as a deacon at the Baptist church in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, where he was a faithful Sunday school teacher drawing congregants and visitors alike to rub shoulders with this humble, heart-warming man.
Carter, 98, decided to spend his last days with his family, supported by palliative care rather than medical intervention.
We should nod our heads, hold hands together, and allow our hearts to embrace these words from the scriptures according to Jimmy Carter: “I have one life and one chance to make it count for something. My faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can, with whatever I have to try to make a difference.”
Normally, I don’t like to talk about politics. Or politics and religion. Or politics, religion, and the “end times.”
Because I don’t consider myself to be a prophet. Nor a learned rabbi. Nor even a madman.
But, as John Pavlovitz would put it, there’s stuff that needs to be said.
The verse in the Bible about “For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again” (Matthew 24:21) has been sticking to my ribs.
How can it not be, with all the devastation and deceit we’re seeing daily—which some call the “new normal.” All of a sudden, it seems, plagues … the ability to use computers and artificial intelligence to control our lives … the anger of Mother Nature, increasingly hurling floods, draughts, seemingly endless heat waves, landslides, and unquenchable fires … and the barometer of international currency exchanges are conspiring with geopolitics to bring us war, famine, homelessness, helplessness, poverty, disease, prejudice, and hatred.
For me, these are signs of the times. The end times. Which, along with these dreadful gasps of a world spinning and sinning ingloriously away from salvation, ushers in an anti-Christ—the polar opposite and ultimate enemy of the Messiah in every way.
Let me stop here for a moment.
We are a people who have become numb and blind witnesses to what is occurring right before our very eyes. “Oh, people have always thought they were living in the end times,” theologians and people in the pews will nay-say. “We’ve lived through conditions like these before … and we will again,” they say.
But, have we? Really?
Never before have so many apocalyptic arcs aligned simultaneously.
Take the anti-Christ, for example.
I know who he is—and so do you. Not just deductively by the logic of our minds … but in our heart of hearts that truly senses such things and separates spirits from souls.
Even before they were spoken of in the Hebrew Testament’s Daniel all the way through the Greek Testament’s Book of Revelation, scholars agree that the Bible – whether or not you believe it – indicates a tumultuous series of events that will happen upon the anti-Christ’s arrival:
According to Christian tradition, he will reign terribly in the period prior to the Last Judgment.
The Christian conception of Antichrist was derived from Jewish traditions, particularly The Book of Daniel in the Hebrew Bible. Written about 167 BCE, it foretold the coming of a final persecutor who would “speak great words against the most High and wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws” (7:25).
The Antichrist will grow up in obscurity and begin his open “ministry” at age 30, gaining followers by giving signs and performing wonders.
Antichrist’s triumphant reign will last for three and a half years. Like Christ, Antichrist will come to Jerusalem, but, as the Messiah’s antithesis, he will be enthusiastically hailed and revered by the Jews. During his reign he will “rebuild the Temple and sit on the throne of Solomon” in a sacrilegious and hideous perversion of priesthood and just kingship. He will convert the rulers of the earth to his cause and persecute Christians.
Here’s how the Antichrist will unveil his true self as he rises to power:
He will exalt himself.
He will heed his inner voice above others.
He will be hostile toward the true God.
He will exalt human logic above faith.
He will prosper for a season and be loved.
He will think of himself as greater than God.
He will become increasingly lawless.
He will honor military power above faith.
He will love wealth.
He will hoard precious things.
He will become a man of war.
He will wage war on all people of faith.
He will force Israel to ratify a treaty.
He will divide Israel and Jerusalem.
Who do we know that acts that way? Who has been that abusive, acrimonious, adulterous? Who has said he could “commit murder on Fifth Avenue” and get away with it? Who has manipulated nations and leaders? Who has done everything possible to enrich himself from the spoils of others? Who has presided over a “deal” uniting Israel with Arab nations, while separating Jerusalem from the rest of Israel by moving his embassy? Who has withdrawn his nation from peace accords and climate agreements? Who has instigated riots, revolts, and – ultimately – murder? Who has taken and hidden top secret documents for his own objectives? Who has swindled his subjects out of money and means? Who speaks mumbo-jumbo from both sides of his mouth? Who has desecrated God in a publicity stunt, holding a Bible upside down in front of the National Cathedral? Who has leisurely spent more time on the golf course than in the course of his duties? Who has sworn on the Bible and taken an oath to uphold his duties and the laws of his land … but, then, deliberately ridiculed, mocked, and ruled to desecrate them? Who has been powerful enough to develop a cult of worshipful fans and followers that follow him faithfully, the truth be damned? Who has usurped the balance of powers such that he can continue to get away with murder, casting evil over all that believe in him?
You know who I’m talking about.
Will we let this devil without disguise get away with dividing good, well-meaning people who’ve lost control to contain him? Will we wait for a whole bunch of debatable apologetics — a rapture, four horsemen from the east, a Savior appearing in the sky?
Watch for the mark of the beast, my friends.
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Imagine it’s the 4th of July, Mardi Gras, or New Year’s Eve … only bigger. Because the festivities continue day after day–typically for four days or so.
There’s food and drink, people dancing in the streets. Musicians and merriment. DJ disco. Friends and family who now live elsewhere returning to their homeland and birthplaces to celebrate with drink, games of chance, special lottery tickets and prizes. Often, even a Mass (or two). Albeit in the village’s streets, backyards, taverns, cafés, and church yards, it’s loud, begins late (10:00 PM), and continues through the hours most people otherwise are sleeping soundly..
What are they celebrating?
Perhaps they’re paying homage to a particular saint. Remembering a day from their particular history. Or momentarily singing the praises of Portuguese life.
It’s that time of the year when we see — and hear — a different side of our Portuguese neighbors … as saudade takes a break in the back seat, giving way to saúde.
No matter how small the village — our little Lousa (not Lousã) has fewer than 500 residents — these summer festivals are big events. So big, that the population surges four-fold with people staying with relatives, at their family’s original dwellings despite their delipidated condition, at lodging facilities, even commuting between nearby villages not hosting their shindigs at the moment. It’s nearly impossible to find a parking spot, as vehicles of all vintages, shapes, and sizes double (and triple) park … or are simply left wherever.
Broken beer bottles, plastic cups, and cigarette butts awaken the mornings after to the garish light of another day too hot to deal with overflowing trash bins, as streets become sticky–drunk by grit, gristle, grease, and grime fried by the day’s scorching sun.
Yet these annual festivities are good for the soul and give evidence of a spirit eager to be freed. While it may seem as though we’ve wandered into the midst of a circus or carnival, other days and times are set aside for such events.
Pause …
Of course, people need time and space to recuperate and regain their wits about them; so late mornings and afternoons are set aside for life’s more mundane tasks. Including sleep. Half-hearted attempts are made to clean up the public areas littered beyond the local bins’ capacity. But much of the time is traditionally spent with family.
In some Portuguese towns and villages — including ours! — the highlight of the doings is saved for near the end: running of the bull(s), an event that involves people running in front of a bull (or small group of bulls) that have been set loose on sectioned-off streets.
Ours is that sectioned off street in Vila Boim, our home in the Alentejo, as the usually dormant bull ring is located at the end of our road.
I guess, like most everyone else on our street, we will need to move our cars.
And stay inside, watching the wild frenzy through our windows.
Portugal has a vibrant bullfighting tradition, but killing a bull is deemed tantamount to murder by some and was outlawed in 1928. The vast majority of Portugal’s population doesn’t watch, go to, or support bull fights. But bull runs are something else entirely. Especially in Sabugal and Terceira in the Azores Islands. I’m told that in Portugal, after the running, the bulls aren’t killed but get a few weeks off because of their bravery. Maybe that’s pure … errrr … bullsh*t, said to appease this American’s loathing of animal abuse.
“It’s not a show! It’s life, it’s partying, it’s adrenaline, it’s conviviality, they are roots that hold us tight to the land that saw us born and to which we return,” insists President Victor Proenca of the Municipality of Sabugal. “The gallantry ofthe riders, the courage of those who face the ‘proof bull,’ the public’s expectations with each new bull that comes out, the scoundrel who calls to the calf, the nostalgia of the party that ends in the unwinding… this is Capeia, land of passions, strong emotions and feelings that are repeated year after year.”
Bull runs are also the highlight of summer street festivals held in villages throughout Terceira, where the island is big on its bulls since they literally defended the Portuguese island from a Spanish invasion during the 16th century. When King Philip sent the Pedro Valdes to Terceira for a diplomatic takeover, its crew was met by 600 angry bulls and subsequently wiped out.
Here’s how writer Robin Esrock describes the bull running experience:
“For a moment, the huge Bull stops to weigh its options. There are people everywhere, taunting him, laughing, showing no respect whatsoever. There are rock walls, and wooden barricades, and more people on those walls and barricades, exuding a cacophony of celebration. Around the Bull’s neck is a thick rope, held many yards back to several men dressed in white. They’re supposed to condition his movement, but the Bull knows, and they know, it’s more of a nuisance than anything else. A nuisance like the young men who dare to step forward, threaten him with movement from jackets or blankets or hypnotically twirling red umbrellas. The impetuousness! To dare challenge such a beast, so strong and muscled that cows shudder their udders at the sight of him. A young man crosses the imaginary line and the Bull springs forward, horns primed, an unstoppable tank of nature. But the man sidesteps, deftly turning in a circle. Although the Bull is big and fast, it does not have power steering. They play this dangerous game, closely bonded, man and beast, until the man skips away safely to the applause of the crowd. The Bull pauses. He has choices. Should he charge into the crowd to send everyone scattering? Should he trample the man holding a notebook, with his baseball T-shirt and distinctly un-Portuguese appearance? Should he make an unexpected leap over a low wall where many others stand in mistaken safety? Should he turn back down the street toward the pen from which he came? The Bull turns its thick neck toward me, and I am frozen stiff. Reflected in the black orbs of its eyes, I see him weighing his options.”
Back in Vila Boim, as the annual festival wends its way to the end, one final event is scheduled. It’s the closing church service.
I contemplate the irony of bulls running down my street followed by a holy Mass–a communion commemorating the martyred body and blood of their Savior, Christ Jesus.
The next national holiday is the Assumption of Mary, marking the the Virgin Mary’s (supposed) bodily ascent to heaven at the end of her life. Assumption celebrations are accompanied by festivals, colorful street processions, fireworks, and pageantry. “Feasts” aren’t actually required, yet there is a longstanding tradition of blessing the summer harvest.
In 2022, Mary’s assumption is famously celebrated on 15 August.
Bruce Joffe is the publisher and creative director of Portugal Living Magazine, the magazine for people everywhere with Portugal on their minds. Read our current issue and subscribe — FREE of charge — to future ones at: https://portugallivingmagazine.com/our-current-issue
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“The Internet started as a bastion for free expression,” a former Reddit C.E.O. wrote. These days, “the trolls are winning.” Illustration by Javier Jaén.
It would appear that we are surrounded — swallowed — by lies, untruths, distortions, and alternative realities or interpretations and understandings. Lies come in all shapes and sizes … spread from pulpits, political podiums, and public squares. I’ve selected three here which must be turned on their heads, despite how gigantic and rampant they are.
The Big Lie:
Donald Trump won the USA’s 2020 presidential election; Democrats, dilettantes, and demons conspired to deny and deprive him of office.
The Bigger Lie:
The best defense against bad people with guns is good people with guns.
The Biggest Lie:
The US Constitution guarantees the right of all citizens to have and use guns.
Trump did not win the 2020 election. Umpteen challenges, court cases, recounts, and eye-witness testimonies show quite the contrary: He lost. But he used every tool — from lies to blackmail, conspiracy and terrorism to rile up his followers … which, ultimately, led to the Great Insurrection. On January 6, 2021, a mob of Trump supporter attacked the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., seeking to overturn his defeat by disrupting the joint session of Congress assembled to count electoral votes that would formalize President-elect Joe Biden‘s victory. Yet this heinous moment of American history wasn’t yet over … in fact, Trumpism has been spreading by Trumpsters intent on destroying democracy.
There’s no need for gun control in the USA? Bullshit. The lie propagated by the National Rifle Association advocating for additional guns, not fewer, has become the mantra of the country’s Republican party fed by egregious sums of financial contributions and favors to their campaigns by the NRA. Even as massacres and killings — of children! — continue to rise, politicians blame (other) people rather than the weapons of mass destruction. The height of hypocrisy was only recently reached when politicians like Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Texas Governor Greg Abbott addressed the NRA’s recent annual convention in Texas in the same state and time that a gunman killed 19 school children and two teachers at an elementary school.
“The rate of gun ownership hasn’t changed. And yet acts of evil like we saw this week are on the rise,” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz told crowds at the National Rifle Association’s convention in Houston. Cruz’s claim about stagnant gun ownership (which is factually misleading), is among the trove of inaccurate claims made by GOP officials at the NRA’s annual gathering, making clear that the string of mass shootings in recent weeks has not influenced their pro-gun convictions. On the other side of the world, much as I cringe and cry at loss of lives and homeland during Putin’s war against Ukraine, I can’t help but shudder at the billions of dollars in assembly line armaments sent continuously by the USA to Ukraine. (In the long run, I believe, it will be the sanctions against Russia by a steadfast European community of nations and the Russian people clamoring for change that will be the determining factors for Putin and his enablers’ defeat.)
And the Constitutional basis for bearing arms? I’m neither a historian nor a Constitutional scholar, but I cannot understand how these words upon which rest vigilante injustice and bloodshed aplenty have been interpreted and blessed by the government–executive, legislative, and judicial branches alike.
Second Amendment to the Constitution:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
For decades, the US has been locked in a reckoning over the breadth of the language in this amendment protecting the right to keep and bear arms. But in recent months, national attention has instead shifted to the lesser-considered subject of its first clause: “A well regulated Militia …”
Armed self-described militia members have shown up with growing frequency this summer to racial justice protests held in the wake of the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor at the hands of police. Their appearance, usually carrying rifles and dressed in military-style gear, has ratcheted up the tension at demonstrations and the risk of confrontation. Militia groups also attended gun rights rallies and demonstrations protesting coronavirus lockdown measures. Militia groups have, for years, argued that their actions are constitutionally protected. But legal analysts say the Constitution does not protect private military groups that are unconnected to or outside the authority of the government. In fact, all 50 states prohibit and restrict private militia groups and militia activity with several different kinds of laws as well as provisions included in most state constitutions.
If militias can be defined and defended these ways, is there any doubt that legislators and courts will accede to “pro-life” group demands to do away with abortion, denying women control over their own bodies? Or that same-sex marriage and adoptions will be redacted (at best) or overturned (at worst)? And that even issues concerning data privacy will be applied?
This is an unprecedented time we live in. We are living through climate change, a pandemic on pause, and an international conflict that has the potential to turn global. People around the world are struggling with conflicts and atrocities, at times due to the American military’s involvement, while hundreds more are dealing with increasingly dangerous heat waves as a result of the climate crisis. Still, others are trying to face the consequences of the pandemic, including the devastation left behind due to the loss of lives and the increasing financial insecurity that continues to widen the inequality gap between the struggling and the affluent. War in Ukraine wages on with what seems like no end in sight, while the Pentagon discusses options of US involvement in the fight against Russia.
This regression of rights in the democratic nation which has claimed countlessly throughout history to “spread democracy into the world” seems beyond ironic and hypocritical.
Although an ordained pastor, I’m certainly no Bible literalist. But when the same words are repeated nine separate times in one book (Deuteronomy) of Hebrew Testament Law and echoed at least once in the Christian Testament (I Corinthians 5:13), it’s time to take note:
You must purge the evil from among you.
I doubt that any of us disagrees about the importance of ridding ourselves and our society of evil; the problem arises because of our different values, beliefs, and interpretations of what constitutes “evil.”
In terms of the nine commands in Deuteronomy to remove evil, such “evils” are said to include liars (false witnesses); children who are stubborn, rebellious, gluttons and drunkards; idolaters; kidnapping and human trafficking; purity, unity, and promiscuity; showing contempt for judges and priests; prophets and dreamers advocating rebellion against God; and God’s so-called jealousy.
Moreover, Deuteronomy 17 describes three apparently disconnected aspects of justice:
How to handle an allegation of idolatry. (Verses 2-7)
How to handle a case that is too difficult for the local court. (Verses 8-13)
How to ensure a king remains humble and accountable to God. (Verses 18-20)
I say “apparently” because they are connected by more than the overall theme of justice. For example, the sequence illustrates the roles and responsibilities of various members of the nation as their relative authority increases. The picture begins with individuals, moves to the community, then to the nation, and finally to the king.
You must purge the evil from among you.
Bruce Joffe is publisher and creative director of Portugal Living Magazine. You can read the current issue and subscribe, free of charge, to the magazine on its website: https://portugallivingmagazine.com/our-current-issue/
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Feeding my three miniature schnauzers their morning meal, the youngest one goes through the same ritual every day: While gulping food from his bowl, he invariably misses one kibble that falls to the floor. He stops what he’s doing and searches for that kibble before casting an eye at all the chow still in his bowl waiting to be eaten. He ignores the bowl, however, until he’s swallowed that one errant nugget.
As he went through his routine this morning, for some reason the parable about the “lost” sheep came to mind. I couldn’t shake it all day. Like so many of the parables Jesus tells, I believe there’s more than one take-away or meaning to this one.
Conventional wisdom has it that even one silly sheep out of a hundred is important to the good shepherd, who leaves the 99 in search of the one. We all will be saved!
Doesn’t that make you feel good? That none of us “sinners” will be abandoned until we’ve all been brought back into the fold. That God so loved the world that …
But, wait a minute.
Aren’t we making some assumptions about this parable? That the shepherd is good and the sheep isn’t? That the 99 were respectful, while the one may have been resentful? That the one responsible for the incident was the sheep, not the shepherd?
Perhaps this parable is also about responsibility?
The Parable of the Lost Sheep appears in the Gospels of Matthew (18:12–14) and Luke (15:3–7). It is about a shepherd who leaves his flock of ninety-nine sheep to find the one which is “lost.”
Lost? Who is lost and who is responsible for the loss?
In the Gospel of Luke, the parable is as follows.
He told them this parable. “Which of you men, if you had one hundred sheep, and lost one of them, wouldn’t leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one that was lost, until he found it? When he has found it, he carries it on his shoulders, rejoicing. When he comes home, he calls together his friends, his family and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ I tell you that even so there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance” (World English Bible).
It’s interesting that, in Luke’s Gospel, the one responsible for the sheep being lost is the shepherd, who wasn’t keeping watch when the sheep happened to wander off somewhere. Look how the verse is translated by different biblical versions:
(NIV) “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?”
(NAS) “What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture and go after the one which is lost until he finds it?”
(Complete Jewish Bible) “If one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them, doesn’t he leave the other ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it?
(KJV) What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?”
(MSG) “Suppose one of you had a hundred sheep and lost one. Wouldn’t you leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the lost one until you found it?”
(Living) So Jesus used this illustration: “If you had a hundred sheep and one of them strayed away and was lost in the wilderness, wouldn’t you leave the ninety-nine others to go and search for the lost one until you found it?”
Only the Living Bible translates the verse such that the sheep had strayed and was lost, until the shepherd sought and found it. The other verses put a more mercantile twist to the story: The shepherd was responsible for the care and welfare of 100 sheep. Maybe he was napping or day-dreaming; perhaps one shepherd wasn’t enough to watch over 100 sheep. Nonetheless, one of the sheep was gone—leaving only 99 accounted for.
Perhaps that “lost” sheep was of critical importance to the flock—a leader, innovator, “heretic,” visionary, prophet whose role is essential to all the others? We assume that the errant sheep had wandered off … but what if that sheep had left to escape? Who’s at fault here: the shepherd or the sheep? In every single translation, the man has lost the sheep (i.e., the fault is his), rather than the sheep has gone astray (the sheep’s fault).
Remember the Napoleon character in George Orwell’s Animal Farm?
Sheep symbolize the masses. A clever and designing leader can easily lead them anywhere. Their numbers count in getting things done, but they never want to know the reason for any change. They are content to do what the leaders want them to.
Napoleon was quick to realize that they could be of great use to him in his struggle to attain supreme power. He therefore pays attention to their education, and teaches them to repeat the slogan “Four legs good, two legs bad.”
Another animal on the farm, Snowball, is addressing a meeting. This interrupts the meeting at crucial stage and Snowball fails to control his audience. When Napoleon expels Snowball and announces that there will be no Sunday meeting in future, four of the pigs voice their protest. At that, Napoleon’s dogs begin to growl and the sheep start bleating “Four legs good, two legs bad.”
The sheep are part of the massive propaganda machine that Stalin set up as he came to power in Russia, and they’re also the people who were swayed by that same propaganda. Instead of thinking for themselves, they just repeat slogans over and over.
The sheep represent the duped citizens of a totalitarian state.
In the New International Version, the words of Matthew’s Gospel tell the story a bit differently … such that the sheep caused the problem by leaving the flock:
(KJV) “How think ye? if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray?”
(NIV) “What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off.”
(NAS) “What do you think? If any man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go and search for the one that is straying.”
(Complete Jewish) “What’s your opinion? What will somebody do who has a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine on the hillsides and go off to find the stray?”
It’s a matter of responsibility—individual and collective.
Atlas Shrugged, a 1957 novel by Ayn Rand was her fourth and final novel; it was also her longest, and the one she considered to be her magnum opus in the realm of fiction writing. Rand described the theme of Atlas Shrugged as “the role of man’s mind in existence.” The book explores a number of philosophical themes from which Rand would subsequently develop her Objectivism philosophy: reason, individualism, capitalism, and depicts what Rand saw as the failures of governmental coercion.
The book depicts a dystopian United States in which private businesses suffer under increasingly burdensome laws and regulations. Railroad executive Dagny Taggart and her lover, steel magnate Hank Rearden, struggle against “looters” who want to exploit their productivity. Dagny and Hank discover that a mysterious figure called John Galt is persuading other business leaders to abandon their companies and disappear as a strike of productive individuals against the looters. The novel ends with the strikers planning to build a new capitalist society based on Galt’s philosophy.
In Atlas Shrugged, she shows that without the independent mind, our society would collapse into primitive savagery. Atlas Shrugged is an impassioned defense of the freedom of mankind’s mind. But to understand the author’s sense of urgency, we must have an idea of the context in which the book was written.
Rand called her philosophy “Objectivism,” describing its essence as “the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.” The world is best served, she believed, when individuals act entirely in their own rational self-interest. In other words, when they act selfishly.
This, of course, is contrary to the basic tenets of Christianity and most other faiths based on living out the Golden Rule.
The “absolute,” when taken together, is that we truly do need each other. It is both through community and leadership that we survive. With leadership without community, we have Putin’s aggression against his neighbor and brother. With community without leadership, we are lost and without direction.
Sometimes I feel like Jacob, wrestling with an angel of God.
Especially when I can’t grasp an unqualified answer that satisfies me; I continue plunging on, like Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel because he demonstrated that he was willing to let God prevail in his life. In response, God then promised Israel that all the blessings pronounced upon Abraham would be his.
Remember the story?
Jacob got up in the middle of the night and took his wives, eleven children, and everything he owned across to the other side of the Jabbok River for safety. Afterwards, Jacob went back and spent the rest of the night alone.
A man came and fought with Jacob until just before daybreak. When the man saw that he could not win, he struck Jacob on the hip and threw it out of joint. They kept wrestling until the man said, “Let go of me! It’s almost daylight.”
“You can’t go until you bless me,” Jacob replied.
The man asked, “What is your name?”
“Jacob,” he answered.
The man said, “From now on, your name will no longer be Jacob. You will be called Israel, because you have wrestled with God and with men, and you have won.”
Jacob said, “Now tell me your name.”
“Don’t you know who I am?” he asked. And he blessed Jacob.
Jacob said, “I have seen God face to face, and I am still alive.” So he named the place Peniel. The sun was coming up as Jacob was leaving Peniel. He was limping because he had been struck on the hip, and the muscle on his hip joint had been injured. That’s why even today the people of Israel don’t eat the hip muscle of any animal.
The Lord never told Jacob his name.
There’s plenty of questions I have for Him, but I know He’s not ready (or, maybe, it’s me) to tell me my name or my story.
Take Easter, for instance. There are those who swear that unless you confess the bodily resurrection – that, after being dead for three days, Jesus rose to live again – the Christian faith means nothing. It’s all based on that singular miracle that God raised Jesus from the dead.
Did God?
Who knows? I certainly don’t. But neither did the people who spent their time walking and talking with Jesus. Did he really die? Why didn’t those people walking on the road recognize him? Was Mary really the first to see him? Then ran to share the good news with the other disciples? And what about Thomas, the one we refer to as “doubting?”
So many theories have historically buzzed that Jesus never died. That it all was part of a Passover plot. That there was no resurrection—at least not in bodily form. That it’s all meant to be a metaphor or a basis for building the faith. That the primary Gospel left out the resurrection, while the latter ones added and embellished it.
On the other hand, we also read about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead to new life. And Elijah, who stretched himself three times upon the widow’s son … “And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived” (1 Kings 17:21-22).
Not that it matters.
Our beliefs shouldn’t be “eithers” or “ors,” fact vs. faith, allegorical and/or historical.
Truth be told, most people hang onto their religions for one of two reasons: They’re afraid to die and cease existing as they know it. Or, they’ve been clobbered with verses to avoid sins-or-else-hell and enticed by angelic choirs, streets paved with gold, and celestial reunions with their loved ones.
Apart from certain curiosities and circuitous circumstances, I’ve yet to meet anyone who has died and returned to talk about what it’s like on the other side of the paradise we’re hell-bent on destroying.
That’s where Easter comes in …
The Easter questions comprise our belief that hope springs eternal.
It’s not about faith. Nor love. Nor tradition. Nor creeds and confessions. Neither is it about recognizing a masterful act to validate our experience and what we believe.
Instead, it’s about our determination to persevere, hoping that our hearts and what we hold most dear will prevail. Against tyrants like Vladimir Putin. Oligarchs and capitalists who create a special kind of autocracy that absolves them of any resolve to repent and be merciful. Or democracies gone bad when the greed factor turns to prejudice and hate, special interests and injustice.
Whether I know, instinctively, that the Son of Man was or wasn’t killed and did or didn’t rise again to life, isn’t that important to me. That he was martyred, however, was … as it beckons me to his words and ways, deeds and indeeds. I want to know his story. And do my best to follow his path.
“How does us appreciating spring help the people of Ukraine?” asked Facebook friend Anne Lamott. “If we believe in chaos theory, and the butterfly effect, that the flapping of a Monarch’s wings near my home can lead to a weather change in Tokyo, then maybe noticing beauty — flapping our wings with amazement — changes things in ways we cannot begin to imagine. It means goodness is quantum. Even to help the small world helps. Even prayer, which seems to do nothing. Everything is connected.”
At my age, I ache. So, as I rise each morning to new days full of promise and potential, I am thankful. I’m still alive and kicking. As I follow the news and see trends – the ups and downs of the stock market, the urgent desire to help others against all odds, the Covid crisis taking a back seat to other “Breaking News!” of the moment, the small advances that dedicated scientists and philanthropists are making against the behemoth that is climate change, even the blessings that progressive theologians have brought to enliven the hitherto hold fundamentalists and literalist bondage to the Bible “just as God wrote it” – my faith surges and is restored … bit by bit.
When it comes down to it, that’s what Easter is really about and gives reason to rejoice: Hope restored.
“I will celebrate that I have shelter and friends and warm socks and feet to put in them, and that God or Gus found a way to turn the madness and shame of my addiction into grace, I’ll shake my head with wonder, which I do more and more as I age, at all the beauty that is left and all that still works after so much has been taken away,” Anne Lamott concludes.
It’s rising and shining beyond all the grit and grief … and I say hallelujah to that. Because, like Jacob, we too have been blessed!
"Exactly!" 