Ask the Pastor, Part 1

I have borrowed a concept from a colleague and friend. The West Bloomfield UCC congregation submits faith n' religion questions that I do my best to answer. We collected our first round of questions last Sunday. Here they are with my humble answers:

How do you define “Christian?”

This is a question millions upon millions through the centuries have struggled with, fought over and died from. Let's start at the foundation:

The word Christian contains the word Christ from the Greek Kristos, meaning “anointed one.” This is the Greek term for the Jewish “messiah.” The suffix -ian is derived from the latin iani, meaning “a partisan of,” like Caesariani means “partisan of Caesar.” So Christian means partisan of the Christ.

The word Christian only appears twice in the entire Bible, and both times rather negatively! Early believers instead used terms like saints, brothers, disciples, and followers of the way. So it is unlikely that the followers of Jesus originated the term Christian.

Likewise, it certainly wouldn't have been 1st Century Jews who originated the term, since the name CHRISTian assumes that Jesus is the Christ, which most Jews denied. Rather, it appears Roman officials in Antioch may have coined the term to distinguish the Jesus movement from Judaism, and they probably meant it as an insult. Within several decades, the followers of Christ would wear that insult as a badge of honor, beginning to identify themselves as Christian.

The long and bloody history of our faith focuses a great deal on the definition of Christian, and, most specifically, on who ISN'T one. So many litmus tests and arbitrary rules of faith have been negatively applied to the term that many modern people of faith shy away from the label completely! As for me, I think I'd return to the original term and define Christian rather widely as anyone who would follow the teachings of Jesus as a self-identified partisan of the Christ. Or more precisely: A Christian, to me, is one who recognizes in some form the messiah-ship of Jesus, and desires and consistently attempts to bring his/her own life into harmony with his teachings.

Jesus is only spoken of one time as a child around 12 years of age. Why not more?

It seems an unfathomable mystery that our Bibles are very nearly silent on the topic of Christ's childhood, and we would dearly love to know more about his first years! But, logically, it is perfectly understandable that we do not. Consider the following:

We know little or nothing about the childhood of any Biblical character, except when some element or experience of that childhood is central to some point being made. What was it like for Moses being raised by an Egyptian princess? We have no idea. How did David pass his time as a five year old? Not a clue. Was John the Baptist a wild child? Beats me. Did Paul get along well with his mom and dad? Can't tell you for sure. Sure, we know that Ishmael and Isaac suffered rivalry and travails as children, but those stories are central to historic assertions the Biblical author is stressing. More often than not, childhood experiences are not documented because they weren't seen as vital to the message.

Most of the first followers of Christ didn't deem his childhood important enough to write about. Why? Some historians say that infant mortality rates were so high in those days that emphasis was placed only on birth (for lineage) and then on “coming of age” around 12 years old (successful survival to one's pro-creative years), with not a lot of societal attention or energy devoted to what we would today consider the vital, formative years of early childhood. It's true. Two of our four Gospels don't even have accounts of Jesus' birth (Mark and John)! Paul, who authored our oldest New Testament scriptures, addresses only the adult ministries and teachings of Christ. What mattered to the first generations of Christians were Jesus' very adult messianic claims and his teachings.

Those who assembled what we now call the New Testament saw no value in preserving stories of Christ's childhood. There are other Gospels out there that didn't make the cut when Christian leaders were deciding what would go into our Bibles and what would not. Some of them have stories of Jesus' childhood. Most of them seem kind of wild and pretty goofy. We aren't missing much by their exclusion, it would seem. So, what we have instead are two stories of Christ's birth (in Matthew and Luke, to prove his Jewish pedigree and assert God's intention from the start), and his experience at Temple as a pubescent boy (showing him entering public life as – at the least – an already unique and profound religious thinker).

I don't believe in the virgin birth or the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Does this mean that I'm not really a Christian?

Can those who would call themselves Christians be skeptical of basic tenets of the faith? Good question. Let me first frame my answer by referring back to my personal definition of Christian above, as one who recognizes the messiah-ship of Jesus in some form and who thus desires and consistently attempts to bring his/her life and relationships into harmony with Christ's teachings.

There are prominent sects of Christianity that insist a belief in the Virgin Birth is necessary for all “true Christians.” It is, for example, an essential element of Roman Catholic doctrine. If you don't believe in the Virgin Birth, you probably shouldn't consider Roman Catholicism or any of the more conservative Protestant sects. There are other branches of Christianity in which this is not considered a make-or-break issue, as they believe Mary need not have been a virgin for God and she to bring forth the messiah. Controversial? Yes. Universally accepted? No.

Not believing in the resurrection of Jesus is stickier, as the Gospel writers insist that the physical resurrection happened, and is an important part of our core traditions. Jesus is real. He is there. The apostles touch him. He eats a piece of fish (Luke 24:41-43).

But you specified bodily resurrection, didn't you? Perhaps you're thinking about 1 Corinthians 15 in which Paul argues clearly that the resurrection one must believe in and embrace as a follower of Christ is a Spiritual Resurrection?

The Gospel writers take great pains to describe Christ's resurrection as both a physical and spiritual event. Paul, on the other hand, speaks of Jesus “appearing” to many, and seems to rally around resurrection as a spiritual phenomenon. If you doubt that Jesus returned with a beating heart, breathing lungs, churning digestive system and all the mundane processes, functions and practical requirements associated with a mortal body, I would suggest there is still room for you in the mystery of the Christian faith. After all, Christ does seem to be in a strange state when Mary Magdalene meets him (she doesn't recognize him until he calls her by name, and then he tells her not to hang onto him), he moves through locked doors and might suddenly disappear when recognized. Couldn't these details speak of something above and beyond a mere physical resurrection? Sure they could.

However, if you deny completely the return in any form after death of Christ and disbelieve his promise to his followers of a new life in some form beyond this world, I can see no good or compelling reason to consider yourself Christian.

Life and School Sport Culture...

I read this article this morning and simply had to share it. What do you think of it? (c.k.)

Christian Science Monitor - Opinion

Columbine and the folly of overvaluing school sports
Ten years later, we are still confusing athletic success with the moral and intellectual kind.
By Jonathan Zimmerman
from the April 20, 2009 edition

New York - In December 1999, just eight months after 15 people died there, Columbine High School won its first state football championship. Americans love a happy ending, and this one was made for TV. National newscasts ran footage of the celebrations at Columbine, which followed a predictable media script: Athletic triumph tempers human tragedy.

And surely, Columbine High School needed any good news it could get. But the impulse to take comfort in sports reflected a larger problem, too: American high schools put far too large a premium on organized athletics.

As we pause to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Columbine murders, we should also reflect on the sports-crazed culture that helped produce them.

Let's be clear: Nothing can excuse the raw malevolence of the two boys, who gunned down 12 students and a teacher before taking their own lives. And they didn't go looking for "jocks" to kill, as early media reports claimed. But they were bullied by athletes, who stood at the top of the Columbine social ladder.

Even worse, adults reinforced this hierarchy. At Columbine, as sociologist Ralph Larkin has confirmed, teachers and administrators looked the other way when athletes hit or harassed weaker students. When sports stars got arrested outside the school, meanwhile, Columbine bent the rules to make sure they could still take the field.

Most of all, the school awarded athletes a special place in its symbolic order. In foyer display cases, sports trophies and memorabilia spoke volumes about who really counted. The hallway leading to the gymnasium featured Columbine's Wall of Fame, celebrating – you guessed it – the school's outstanding athletes.

That doesn't make Columbine unique, of course. Indeed, other American communities lavish even more acclaim on their youthful sports heroes. At Permian High School in Odessa, Texas – made famous by the H.G. Bissinger book "Friday Night Lights" – school officials spent $70,000 for a chartered airplane to fly the football team to visiting games. Meanwhile, the school's textbooks were 15 years out of date – and nobody could come up with the money to replace them.

So let's use this anniversary to think about sports – not just violence – in American schools. Keep in mind that violent crime in our schools has declined – not increased – by nearly half over the past decade. And shootings are extremely rare. Over the past 20 years, about 10 students per year have been shot in school – roughly one per month during the academic year. That's one too many, of course, but it hardly qualifies as a crisis.

Our overemphasis on sports does. When we tie "school pride" to athletics, we give pride of place to student athletes. And we send exactly the wrong message to millions of children: The sports field is more important than the classroom.

Colleges exacerbate the problem, of course, by rewarding athletic prowess with scholarships and special advantages in admissions. That's because so much of their pride, too, is invested in fielding successful sports teams.

And that returns us to Columbine, which won the state football title again in 2002. Once more, the school celebrated its strength in the face of adversity.

"The team and the school and the community at large had every reason to quit, to give up, to descend into total despair, but we've come out of it to a great degree," Columbine's principal said at the time. "We showed amazing resolve and resilience, and maybe, in some way, we've given faith to others, who saw how we responded."

But sports victories don't signify strength, or resilience, or anything else; they simply mean that one team scored more points than another one did. Today, 10 years after Columbine, we are still confusing athletic success with the moral and intellectual kind.

We need some brave school leaders to stand up and state a few simple truths: Sports are not life, and life is not sports, and all of us need to relearn the difference. Any takers?

Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history and education at New York University. He is the author of "Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory," which will be published in June.