Soulless

Audio Version 

After a prolonged sabbatical* I’m getting back to this blog thing because: A) I miss you; 2) I love you; c) I forget; D) something’s wrong; D) all the above. If you are exceptionally bright you probably chose ‘D’ but it’s also permissible to choose ‘D’ or any of the others.

I was originally going to write about some breaking news but another piece of news broke before I could finish. Just then, more news broke, followed by some more, until I finally realized all the news that day was broken.

First I was going to write about the allegations that makers of frozen potato products were colluding to drive up prices. Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Potato! This is devastating news for hard working people who depend on highly processed potato products for their daily nutrition. And who of us doesn’t enjoy a plate of Tater Tots with a mound of ketchup and a side of creamed corn?

But then I heard that fundamentalists had criticized some of Taylor Swift’s lyrics. (Yes, I know who Taylor Swift is … I might be old but even I know he created Yellowstone.) Mind you, fundamentalists used to say bad things about Alice Cooper too, and she turned out to be a better christian than most of them.

Then I heard that some religious types had declared the fires in southern California to be God’s punishment for being all liberal and such. The rest of us figured the fires had more to do with humans starting them in high winds during a drought, but whatever…

The big news came with the U.S. inauguration that brought a new, old President into the White House. His cabinet consists of a long list of grifters, brown-nosers, abusers, and crazies – the same staffing approach favoured by many Bible-belt mega-churches.

See what I mean? It’s like the news never stops.

Then came the Inaugural Prayer Service in Washington National Cathedral. Episcopal Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde spoke to the nation about unity and how it can only come through dignity, honesty, humility. She ended her sermon by urging the President to “have mercy” on those who are living in fear.

The President and his allies sat grim-faced and motionless through the proceedings but responded afterward with a bullhorn of bitterness and contempt. They called the Bishop a disgrace and demanded the Episcopal Church replace her. One lawmaker introduced a resolution to have her officially reprimanded by Congress. Republicans plainly don’t think of her as a man of God.

This was all very predictable but wasn’t the fault of the President. What was troubling was how many christian pastors and priests joined in the vitriol. I watched as conservative christians strained out a brand of godliness that didn’t have time for something as basic as christian mercy.¹

A few days later I stumbled on an article summarizing an interview with a high profile evangelical. He had appeared on a right-wing news channel and the poisonous opinions he shared around the world still anger me. He defended the President unconditionally and criticized the Bishop by using redirection, bad logic, cultural biases, and sham theology to justify his outrage.

To sum up: a christian Bishop, in a christian nation, speaking in a christian church, saying christian things, was attacked for saying them – by christians. They heard her quiet plea for mercy and dismissed it because it upset the head of state.

My personal news cycle ground to a halt for the next couple of days while pop evangelical christians (PECs) woke-shamed Bishop Budde and disregarded her plea for mercy. Love your neighbour mercy, means of salvation mercy, Sermon on the Mount mercy, inconvenient mercy.

On the surface, the powers-that-be didn’t like a sermon about mercy because it included immigrants, other faiths, and lifestyles they didn’t like. As the christian operatives expressed their disdain for the Bishop they also revealed their ignorance of the ways of Jesus who didn’t seek to control, coerce, or condemn.

I thought of the biblical prophet Amos, who spoke against confident, complacent worshipers who participated in extravagant assemblies with loud music and fund-raising. Nevertheless God “despises” their worship because of their disregard for justice and righteousness in the world around them.² Prophets were never popular. Can you see why?

So as the news cycle continued, I began to understand the Bishop-blasters from a different perspective. They didn’t resent her because she was wrong but because she was right. And the more they resisted her words, the more their arguments, attitudes, body language pushed a single word to the front of my brain – soulless.

The original biblical word for ‘soul’ is connected to the throat – literally the physical channel we use for air, water, nourishment, and self expressions. The word describes the things that generate and maintain wholesome life. When I use the word soulless I don’t mean God has literally abandoned them, but rather that they have abandoned God, to the point where they have surrendered their sacred gift of humanness and wholeness.

Christians who defend their king but deny their Saviour.

Remember the biblical story of Nicodemus? No? Well, you can Google it. Or find it in the Bible. Or Google where to find it in the Bible. Or keep reading…

Nicodemus was one of the most highly ranked religious leaders of the time: educated, wealthy, dedicated, influential. Nicodemus was immersed in a culture that justified righteousness using any means necessary. It made human sense for them to respond angrily to a radical Jesus and it seemed holy for them to resist others who didn’t live or worship as they did.

Nicodemus was a Jewish worshiper of God in every way he knew how, yet he went to Jesus secretly, for some reason not explained in the text. There was something instinctive and beautiful about how Jesus taught and lived.

If we read between the lines, it seems that something about how Nicodemus practiced his faith felt out of sync. He felt spiritually lost yet he didn’t have the words to express what was happening inside. Still, he listened to his soul, and began the conversation with Jesus by simply admitting: We all know you’re from God.

We find God when we start listening to our souls.

In response, Jesus offered Nicodemus some mysteries to ponder: the spiritual realm; tender love and mercy; what rebirth can mean; the winsome Spirit of God. The mysteries gave Nicodemus a place to begin pulling on the loose threads of what he had been taught. As his story unfolds in scripture it seems that he slowly began restructuring his faith around something more substantial than religious performance. Nicodemus had met love and mercy in the flesh and that’s where he restarted his journey.

Love and mercy.

~       ~       ~

* Oxford Languages

¹ I am often drawn to this famous quote:

  ” … between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference—so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of the one, is of necessity to be the enemy of the other … I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ…” Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), former slave and abolitionist

² For example, Amos 5:21-27 which ends with: “You have lifted up the shrine of your king, the pedestal of your idols, the star of your god – which you made for yourselves.”

Image: Pexels from Pixabay

Music: Unknown Album, Grumpynora