Why America Needs a New Spirituality

America desperately needs a new spirituality. One rooted in reason, love, and sound, historical evidence, not in religious fundamentalism or pseudo-spiritual wishful thinking. One not at odds with reality. 

This is one of the big ideas in my latest project. I'm exploring the implosion of conservative Christianity (barring a few exceptions) on the one hand, as evidenced by a continual string of evangelical-leadership and church scandals, and the spiritual void of secular scientific thinking on the other hand. 

Despite being well meaning, conservatives have a whacky theology when you look under the hood that doesn't line up with science and reason and sound biblical, historical scholarship. Liberal and secular alternatives on the other hand, despite their intellectual fluency, often discount all things spiritually-serious and Jesus-focused as the rantings of wild-eyed, dim-witted religious idiots. Really now. Are these are only choices? 

 Of course not. There are many, exciting progressive Christian streams emerging and growing in our day. But why does popular media typically couch "Christian" spirituality in such black-and-white terms? And, is progressive Christianity just a reaction to fundamentalism with lots of questions and few concrete answers? Is "Christian" faith meant to be confined to some obscure Divine Mystery? Or, is there an objective history based on reality that should inform it? 

My answer to that last question is "Yes." History matters. Not the traditional history we may have heard. That is often bad history and the foundation of much of fundamentalism and evangelicalism. But not revisionist history, either, which is the basis for much of liberal and secular thought on Christianity. What's needed is good, solid, historical scholarship. That's where I'm headed in an emerging story about how a history we never knew taps a spirituality we really need. 

What do you think? Is there a place for another look at Christian history that might reveal a solid spiritual direction outside the conservative and liberal extremes of our day? Where would you look to uncover such history?

Walking the Religion-free Path of Christ

Wild Goose Festival 2014 | June 26-29 | Hot Springs, NC

A few months ago I submitted the following speaking proposal to the Wild Goose Festival. They had over 300 submissions this year! Unfortunately for me, I was not chosen. Fortunately for you, there will be plenty of incredible speakers more accomplished than myself, including Sara Miles, Mark Scandrette, Brian McLaren, Melvin Bray, Jim Wallis, and Frank Schaeffer. This year’s theme "Living Liberation!" explores how our walk with Christ can lead beyond our legacies of racism, sexism, homophobia, colonialism, and economic inequalities. Check out the speakers and musicians lists and consider going. Although I won't be attending this year, I have gone three times and have always been blessed and encouraged. The fellowship with like-minded folks in the beer tent is worth the price of admission! The blurb below includes some of what I've been involved in lately. Cheers!

Walking the Religion-free Path of Christ 

Former evangelical missionary to African Muslims and author of Confessions of a Bible Thumper, Michael Camp uncovers the critical importance of historical rather than “biblicist” faith in “The Religion-Free Path of Christ: Walking an Old Paradox in a New Paradigm.” He gives examples how ignorance of history and misreading the Bible have caused erroneous views on women, homosexuality, the church, evangelism, and the future, and offers a vision for religion-free but Christ-centered world service that fosters love, goodwill, and social justice. Michael co-leads a Seattle-based missional house gathering, facilitates theological discussions in pubs, and serves Rotary International on community development and microfinance projects empowering the poor in Africa based in a club in Bainbridge Island, WA.

Myth #1: Jesus Was a Christian

[Part of series, 36 "Christian" and Secular Myths You Should Know]

Most people make this common and unexamined assumption that Jesus Christ was what we call a “Christian” and, in fact, the very first Christian, the one for which the religion was named. Travel back into the first century, however, step into the sandals of anyone who knew or encountered Jesus of Nazareth and you will realize how untrue this is.[1]  As history, the New Testament, and other sacred texts attest,[2] Jesus was a Jewish teacher or Rabbi living in first-century Palestine who closely followed the tenets and traditions of the Jewish prophets and law. The difference was, not that he represented a new faith, but that he brought a revolutionary way of interpreting an existing faith—pre-rabbinic Judaism of the first century.

His way was to interpret the Torah in light of its very own love ethic, making love the priority over law, while closely following the voices of the Jewish prophets. These were reforming prophets who identified corruption within the Temple sacrificial system, foresaw its demise, and announced a future new covenant between God and the descendants of Abraham. Jesus followed their lead with his own authority and called for the original purpose of the Jewish community—to be a light to draw Gentiles (non-Jews) to the one true God of justice and love. Jesus was not a Christian. He was a Jew calling for radical reform of the Jewish faith while opening the doors for non-Jews to enter into relationship with God in the spirit of a new Jewish covenant that made the Jerusalem Temple system obsolete. His first followers were all Jews. They believed he was the “anointed one” (the meaning of ‘Christ’) whom the prophets had foretold, not someone who would abolish Judaism and begin a new religion, but someone who would reform it.   

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[1] What Jesus Meant, by Garry Wills

[2] Did Jesus Exist? by Bart Ehrman

36 Modern “Christian” and Secular Myths You Should Know

Yes, I believe all of these are myths, in one way or the other, either as specific assertions or as blanket statements. At least, I will attempt to make the case that they are, based on biblical, historical, linguistic, archeological, and, in some cases, scientific evidence. Think about each one and see if some of them surprise you in light of others. Stay tuned for a blog post on each.

1 - Jesus was a Christian
2 - Jesus Founded Christianity and the Church
3 - America is a Christian Nation
4 - Jesus is a Myth
5 - Jesus is Irrelevant
6 - The Bible is Infallible
7 - We Should Obey the Bible
8 - The Bible is Altogether Unreliable
9 - English Translations of the Bible are Trustworthy
10 - The Bible Has No Spiritual Authority
11 - The “Kingdom of Heaven” is About the Afterlife
12 - Jesus Predicted the End of the World
13 - The End Will Come When the Gospel is Preached to the Remaining Unreached Ethno Linguistic Groups of the World
14 - Jesus is Coming Back
15 - Only Christians are Saved
16 - Atheists are Evil
17 - You Deserve to Go to Hell
18 - Jesus Took the Punishment for Our Sins
19 - Jesus Taught a Literal Hell
20 - Universalism Means God Won't Judge Us
21 - Paul Was a Misogynist
22 - There Were No Women Leaders in the New Testament
23 - Monogamous Heterosexual Marriage is God’s Standard
24 - God Condemns Homosexuality
25 - Sex Outside Marriage is Always a Sin
26 - Sex is Not a Moral Concern
27 - Science Has Proved There is No God
28 - Progressive and Liberal Christians Are Heretics
29 - Conservative Christians are Bigots and Religious Nutcases
30 - God Commands that Believers Belong to a Local Church
31 - Believers Should Tithe to a Local Church
32 - All Religions are the Same
33 - All Religions Besides Christianity are False
34 - God Hates Divorce
35 - Evolution is Not Biblical
36 - Intelligent Design is Not Science

Rethinking Sacred Texts

This is a 7 minute  speech I'm giving to my Toastmasters group next week. It's pracitce for a part of a larger talk I'm giving to a United Church of Christ congregation in Bethlehem, PA on August 4th.
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Thank you for inviting me to speak. I want to take you on a journey today. As you are familiar with my book, you know I came to a crossroads in my Christian experience,  where I began to question some long-held traditional beliefs, did some research, and began to change many of my viewpoints. Today, I’ll share an important leg of my spiritual evolution—how I came to rethink what sacred texts are.

First, what do I mean by sacred texts? Well, the Bible of course, but also other documents less familiar to most of us. Has anyone heard of the Gospel of Mattathias, Gospel of the Egyptians, I Letter of Clement, Letter of Barnabas, The Shepard of Hermes, or the Wisdom of Solomon? Most people haven’t. But these are all books that either a prominent church father or the early church accepted as part of the Bible!

When I was in the evangelical tradition, I was taught there were only two ways to look at the Bible.

1 – The [conservative] “correct” way - a uniform, infallible, authoritative, clear set of rules for humankind. An instruction manual. Submit to scripture. Obey the Word of God.

2 – The liberal way - contains many historically inaccurate accounts and is largely unreliable and irrelevant for the modern world. Yes, read the Bible as great literature. But it doesn’t hold real answers to the questions of life.  

One of my main discoveries is history teaches us both of these views are wrong. There’s a middle way that is more true to the evidence. The first place that points us to this middle way is the historical record of where the Bible came from. Let’s examine some facts. Imagine that I’m tacking these facts on a board and later we’ll tie them together.

·        The NT was not dropped from the sky in its entirety – it is a collection of books that took years to compile and there was substantial disagreement about it.

·        The first complete, uniform, recognized listing of the NT wasn’t until 363 AD and it didn't include Revelation, which wasn’t accepted until 397 AD.

·        The four gospels were written 30-60 years after Jesus. Paul’s letters were written 15-33 years after Jesus. The first followers relied on oral tradition, not scripture, for the Jesus story. For decades, even centuries, there was no NT in its modern form.

·       The Bible of the early church was the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the OT which included the Apocrypha, 11 books that Protestants don’t accept. 

·        There were many gospels besides the four – e.g. Hebrews, Egyptians, Peter, Thomas; some thought to be forgeries, some not.

·        The respected church father Clement of Alexandria had a 2^nd century NT that included many books that never made it into the NT.

·        Revelation was never fully accepted by the Eastern Church (today, it's not used in liturgy); it was rejected by many church fathers.

·        Luther advocated that the NT should be graded, some books more inspired than others. He thought Hebrews, James, and Revelation should be secondary.

·        The Bible we have was copied over and over. There’s strong evidence that some NT passages were inserted by copyists to reinforce a theological bias.

·        Scholars and historians have found errors in the NT (and the NT never claims it is inerrant); but most of them are immaterial; however, a few aren’t.

·        There are good reasons why some of the other sacred texts were not included in our Bibles; e.g. bizarre teachings and forgeries; but the Bible itself has bizarre teachings, e.g. women can’t speak in church and the Jesus-like-he's-on-acid book of Revelation. Also, a consensus of scholars say I & II Timothy and Titus are inauthentic.  

·        There are good reasons many books were included, e.g. Jesus’ and Paul’s sound, timeless, egalitarian, teaching on love, forgiveness, and community that revolutionized Jewish and Roman society.

Conclusion: Now, let’s tie these facts together. What can we conclude? Perhaps you’ll agree with me, that these facts show it's better to hold the Bible more loosely in terms of it being a universally applicable, uniform message from God. Don’t grip it so tightly. Come to respect it more, not less, as we see both the wisdom of God within its pages and the human element in its formation… and that the early church, although they generally agreed on some of the books, often accepted books that are not in it and questioned books that are. The New Testament is not always internally consistent and wasn't considered infallible.

This "lighter" approach is taking the Bible and other sacred texts more seriously, in historical context, albeit not always literally. When we do that, we can look past the dross and find the gems of the Bible—the principles that teach us about what God is like and how to live our lives; but not in a legalistic way, but a way that is consistent with how the Bible was compiled and copied and what it teaches in its historical/cultural context.

In summary, these list of facts I shared influenced me to rethink how one should view sacred texts and come to a new conclusion: that there is a middle way, between a conservative and liberal position, to view the Bible, that is more true to history.