Christianity

“With a wospel in our Gospel” Seuss Eucharist comes to our church

Sep 5th, 2011

I did not realize until I performed a quick Google search that this “liturgy” had actually been used (and commented upon) already. I arrived at church yesterday morning to find that we had two Eucharistic services scheduled, a traditional in the sanctuary and a “Seuss Eucharist” in the church hall. All summer long our children’s Sunday School program had been using Dr. Seuss books for the launching point for teaching and this was apparently the culmination of the program. We have an excellent person leading our Sunday school programs and while I found it an odd choice I was reassured by the fact that every lesson and point that the teachers were making with the Dr. Seuss books were being followed up with quotes from Scripture. (At our service, apparently unlike the service in Pittsburgh, no Dr. Seuss books replaced Scripture in the readings.) Indeed, given that Mr. Geisel himself was a practicing Christian it is quite likely that his faith influenced his writing.

While Dean Munday of Nashotah House felt that this was indeed a sacrilege, I am not so sure. Munday wrote

Now, before someone calls me a GRINCH for casting aspersions on this program, let me be clear about my reasoning. The Eucharist is to proclaim the Lord Jesus Christ’s death, whenever we eat the bread and drink the cup, until He comes again. That is its message, and that is the meaning. It needs no other metaphor. Dressing it up in other garb can only obscure—not enhance—its message and its meaning.

I can assure you that I was reading the liturgy very carefully during the service. (I can also assure you that I was not entirely convinced of it nor was I entirely comfortable. But I would likely say the same thing after being at my parent’s church for a service.) What I was very surprised to realize is that the theology of the eucharist was essentially left intact. Consider Eucharistic Prayer B from the Book of Common Prayer (1979):

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“Surprises in the Lords Prayer” Oh my, yes!

Apr 14th, 2011

by Christian Brady.

5 comments

Only slightly less annoying, yet far more accurate.

Our dear friend Jim-A-Mighty would label this a “dilettante alert.” Ms. Diana deRegneir admits to an ad hoc learning of religious matters, including the Lord’s Prayer. You too will be “surprised” by what she has found in “the Lords [sic] Prayer.” (I suppose I could stop there, but no, let’s go on.)

However, when I heard the prayer in its original Aramaic I was bitten by curiosity. So here’s what I learned.

The Lord’s Prayer is the accepted universal prayer for all Christians. In the latter part of the second century, Matthew interpreted the instructional passage spoken by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:9-13). The Sermon on the Mount is derived largely from the teachings of the Essenes, a Jewish sect in Palestine of which Jesus may have belonged. Thus, the prayer bears a striking resemblance to “The Kadish” found in the Talmud.

Matthew’s translation which most of us were taught in childhood is also admitted by scholars to be inaccurate. The problem of mistranslation arose in part because Matthew was translating into Latin from Greek rather than from Aramaic.

*sigh* It doesn’t get any better folks. I have no energy to deal with this and you all know better, so how about we all just give a wry chuckle, shake our heads, and go have an afternoon cup of tea? If you really must, you can read it all via American Chronicle | Some Surprises in the Lords Prayer.

Good intentions and all that

Jun 17th, 2010

by Christian Brady.

2 comments

If you follow my blog at all you will know there hasn’t been much to follow as of late. And this semester is always busy for me with with graduation for honors students, recruitment of new students, and this year I was chairing the search for one Dean while we were completing the search for new associate dean. The June was going to be different! June was completely set aside for me to work on Targum Ruth. Until I lacerated a tendon in the index finger of my right hand.

Now I am dictating a blog post to you via MacSpeech Dictate, which is working like a champ, but has a relatively limited vocabulary when it comes to Biblical and rabbinic literature. The surgery actually well earlier this week and I’m hopeful that I will be out of the cast by the beginning of next week. In the meantime, I thought I would share a couple of thoughts I’ve had recently while in church.

Cynicism is easy

From John Steven Fernandez on flickr, used under creative commons

Two weeks ago we decided to visit a different church for an evening service that was “contemporary and contemplative.” I was looking forward to a contemporary service and I knew the pastor was a good preacher. What we had, however, was 50 minutes of a total of three songs and one verse which lasted 25 minutes. Now I recognize that we all worship in different ways and each of us at different times worship in different ways so I sought to take this time to be in prayer and meditation, as intended by the worship leaders. Our 12-year-old daughter and six-year-old son, however, could be forgiven for becoming a bit impatient with the service. As it was, they were not and were very well behaved and our daughter paid quite a bit of attention to the worship and the sermon. The problem is, she has a bit too much of her father’s sarcasm in her.

At one point the worship leader began to improvise on the words singing over and over again “God of breakthroughs.” I had my head bowed and my shoulders began to shake lightly. My wife tapped me on the shoulder and asked if everything was all right. I looked up smiling and said, “God of our grapefruits? Isn’t he God of all citrus?” Needless to say, I was not setting the best example for our children.

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Why do Christians seem to need a body?

Mar 25th, 2010

by Christian Brady.

3 comments

Given that we are in the last days of Lent and almost to Good Friday, this is perhaps providential.

My automatic Google notification for “Aramaic” brought up a curious article from Psychology Today, “It’s in the Bible…Isn’t It?“ This is not a publication I read so I am unfamiliar with Stephen Mason , Ph.D. who is apparently nationally known for his writing and radio show. Nor do I know about his earlier article from last month where he addressed the question of an historical Jesus. In this column, however, he decides to poke again at this question and offers a poorly frame “quiz” of biblical knowledge. Apparently in an attempt to show us that he knows the Bible, having read it once as an undergraduate. Sadly, he begins by showing his own ignorance.

Last month, I wrote a column based on a documentary DVD titled: “The God Who Wasn’t There.” In a nutshell, it questions the existence of a historic Jesus Christ. I don’t know if there ever was such a person but, then again, does it really matter?

Look at Buddhism. Like Christianity, it has now split into numerous sects though no one can be sure about its titular head – Buddha. Was he a real person? Supposedly his friends called him Siddhartha and he died from either a mesenteric infarction or a bad truffle. But maybe he never lived. This was, after all, a couple of thousand years ago. Anyway, while Buddhists are happy enough with the message, Christians seem to need a body. Why this should be so, I don’t know.

"The Body of Christ" Used under Creative Commons license.

Assuming he is truthful in saying that he doesn’t know why a “body” is so necessary to Christianity (and I have no reason to think he is lying), he clearly does not remember much of the Bible he read so long ago nor bothered to learn even the most rudimentary facts about Christianity.

Why should Christians need a body? Because unlike Buddhism where the emphasis is upon the teachings and practices of the founding teacher, Christianity is that and more. As an aside and to make this point, when Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ¹ came out a rabbi friend of mine complaining about the violence said he did not understand why the movie had to be about the crucifixion, why not the Sermon on the Mount. “After all,” he said, “it is not like the crucifixion is central to Christianity.” Except it is.

It is true that the teachings and life example of Jesus are vitally important to Christianity, but the reason a real, bodily Jesus is necessary for Christianity is because his death was an atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world.² This fundamental teaching is clear in all of the New Testament, particularly Paul’s letters and the letter to the Hebrews. If there was no Jesus/no body then there was no sacrifice and thus no atonement of sins. So while the doc may not know why Christians insist on a real, historical Jesus. This is what makes “Good Friday,” otherwise a brutal and bloody affair, good.

So perhaps Dr. Mason will read this post and learn why it is that Christians need a body.

We showed this movie Tuesday night as the final film in our Reel Jesus film festival. I may blog on it later, but Man! what an exhausting film. I have such mixed feelings about it, but one thing is clear it is a powerful film. [↩]
Notice that I am not even addressing the question of whether or not he really existed, but why Christians “seem to need a body.” [↩]

Defining religion (or economics)

Dec 8th, 2008

by Christian Brady.

No comments yet

The late Johnny Hart, creator of BC, was known for his outspoken Christian beliefs and incorporating them into his comic. His Easter strips were notorious and his theology (as stated by himself) was fuzzy at best. Since his passing last spring the strip has been taken over by his grandson Mason Mastroianni and rather than simply maintaining the strip and its characters and avoiding religious and political topics that once marked Hart’s strip, he has addressed them, but from a perspective far different from Hart’s own. While I never felt that BC was the funniest of most insightful strip around, and I do think that old strips ought to be put to rest with their creators, others are pleased to see BC move from references to Jesus to jokes about pot induced munchies. I find Sunday’s strip lacking in many ways, but at the same time, he has a point…