religion Archives - Page 8 of 11 - Ramblin' with Roger

What a Christian can learn from a Muslim about Jesus, by way of Dostoevsky

“The Church’s conception of Jesus is inextricable from the Church’s political, religious, and economic interests—that their Jesus may not be who Jesus actually was.”

I’ve got to read this book!

You may not know the name Reza Aslan, but you might have heard about the controversy about an interview that FOX News religion report Lauren Green did with him about his book Zealot, about the life of Jesus. She questioned how a Muslim could write about Jesus, and he kept repeating his extensive credentials as a religious scholar. The storm over her amateurish piece helped the sales of his book reach #1 on the New York Times bestseller list.

More interesting to me was this interview with John Oliver of The Daily Show. Aslan is addressing the Christian POV, though not focused on the Christ aspect of Jesus. Aslan disputes the notion of Jesus as a detached, celestial spirit, argues that the early Christian leaders never meant for the Gospel of Jesus to be taken literally, and attempts to answer the question of what Jesus would actually do were he alive in modern times. Aslan notes that if one knows nothing else about Jesus, knowing of the crucifixion is mighty informative since the cross was a punishment usually used on those the authorities considered trouble to the state.

The item that most intriguing me about him, though, was The Book That Changed Reza Aslan’s Mind About Jesus, an article in The Atlantic. The book in question was The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, read when he was 16.

“I first read this book when I was a Christian: a firm, devout follower of Jesus. Someone whose impression of Jesus was wholly a result of what the church told me he was. When I read The Brothers Karamazov… my eyes were opened to the notion that the Church’s conception of Jesus is inextricable from the Church’s political, religious, and economic interests—that their Jesus may not be who Jesus actually was. This rocked my world, even back then. I could sense that I was never going to be the same…

“I think Dostoevsky is saying that we must never confuse faith with religion. We must never confuse the institutions that have arisen, these man-made institutions—and I mean that quite literally, because they’re all run by men—who have created languages to help people understand faith, with faith itself. I, as a person of faith, read the same story and did not see it as a repudiation of faith the way a lot of atheists do. I saw it as a challenge to always remember that those who claim to speak for Jesus are precisely the kind of people that Jesus fought against.

“One of the things that’s fascinating about Jesus is that he refused to recognize the power of the Jewish authorities to define the Jewish religion for him. In this time, the priests had a monopoly on the Jewish cult. They decided who can enter the presence of God, and who could not. Which means of course that the lame, the sick, the marginalized, the outcasts, the ‘sinners,’ were divorced from communing with God. And Jesus’ ministry was founded upon not just rejecting that idea, but claiming the absolute reverse: That the kingdom of god that he envisions is one in which the priests, the aristocracy, the wealthy, the powerful, would be removed. And in their place would be the weak, the powerless, the marginalized, and the dispossessed. This was a reversal of the social order. In other words, it’s not just about the meek inheriting the earth. It’s about the powerful disinheriting the earth.

“I think that, obviously, is an enormous threat to the power-holders whose authority came from—precisely as Dostoevsky says—from their ability to appease a man’s conscience. Pay us your dues, your tithes, bring us your sacrifices, submit to our authority, and in return, we will give you salvation. And Jesus’ challenge to that idea was based on the notion that the power for salvation does not rest in any outsider’s hand: that it rests within the individual.”

R is for Roger, redux

I’d been a fan of Roger Moore since I watched him as Beau Maverick on the television show Maverick.

As I’ve undoubtedly noted, the name Roger comes from the Germanic roots meaning spear bearer, specifically “famous with the spear.”

When you think of the first name Roger, who are the first people you think of? (I mean besides me, of course.) That was the question in this segment of the TV show Family Feud; I’m sorry it is incomplete.

Here’s a list of celebrities whose first names are Roger. The ones that immediately came to mind are some I mentioned three-and-a-half years ago when I last did R is for Roger, plus these that I inexplicably left off:

Roger Clemens – in 24 seasons with the Boston Red Sox, Toronto Blue Jays, New York Yankees, and Houston Astros, he won the Cy Young as the best pitcher in his baseball league a record seven times and pitched a perfect game in 1994. He would have been a lock for the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2013 except for allegations of him using performance-enhancing drugs.

Roger Federer – the tennis player from Switzerland had spent 237 consecutive, and at this writing, 302 total weeks at number 1 in the ranking and has won 17 Grand Slam singles titles. He’s considered by many to be the greatest player of all time.

Roger Staubach – in an 11-season career, all with the Dallas Cowboys, the quarterback out of the Naval Academy had a Hall of Fame career. I wasn’t much a Cowboys fan, since they were/are rivals with my New York Giants; nevertheless, I always liked him personally.

Sir Roger Moore – I’d been a fan since I watched him as Beau Maverick on the television show Maverick, then as Simon Templar in the TV series The Saint. But, of course, he’s best known as Bond, James Bond, in seven movies. See his other credits.

Roger Waters – he was a founder member of the rock band Pink Floyd, serving as bassist, vocalist, and principal songwriter. In the 1970s and 1980s, the album Dark Side of the Moon spent years on the charts; Wish You Were Here, Animals and The Wall were other hit albums. He has been performing The Wall all over the world without his former bandmates.

Roger B. Taney – he was the fifth Chief Justice of the United States (1836-1864), and the first Roman Catholic to sit on the Supreme Court. While he dealt with many other cases, I know him for just one: writing the majority opinion in Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857), that ruled that black people, who were considered inferior at the time the US Constitution was written, could not be considered citizens of the United States, whether slave or free.

Roger Williams – the theologian who left England, only to knock heads (figuratively) with the Puritans, and eventually founded the state of Rhode Island as a place of religious tolerance.

Roger Rabbit – he is the frantic, neurotic title cartoon character of the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The film also starred the live human Bob Hoskins, and Roger’s animated human wife Jessica, who is not bad; she’s just drawn that way.
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My review of the late Roger Ebert’s autobiography.

ABC Wednesday – Round 12

March Rambling, about ME – oh, and other things

Chuck Miller: Every day you survive, every day you thrive, every day you achieve and succeed, is a big eff ewe to the haters.

I may have mentioned (once or twice?) that it was my birthday this month. Thank you for the 70-odd comments (some VERY odd) on Facebook, and a couple of tweets, not to mention comments at this blog. Dustbury cited my March 8, day after my birthday, post.

I won second prize in Pret-A-Vivre’s Oscar game. Thanks!

But the person who best got into the “celebrate Roger” spirit has to be Jaquandor. He answered my Ask Me Anything questions to him here and here, AND he ASKED me an Ask Me Anything question before I even requested it!

He also linked to a couple of my posts, AND he wrote a whole post for me. Yay! The first YouTube clip in his piece features Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, as Roger, and others, in a wonderful comedy segment from the movie Airplane!

Here’s some weird trivia.

The winner of the game show JEOPARDY! episode on Friday, November 6, 1998, was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, in a celebrity tournament. The winner of the JEOPARDY! episode on Monday, November 9, 1998, the next one aired, was MOI. Kareem and I – likethis.
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Usually, I write about International Women’s Day on March 8. this year on that date, though, I wrote about, er, ME instead. So here’s Reader Wil’s contribution instead.

Shocking New Evidence Reveals Depths of ‘Treason’ and ‘Treachery’ of Watergate and Iran-Contra

Melanie’s grandfather; also her humanness, fighting inertia.

SamuraiFrog needs help, and is getting it. Huzzah!

Chuck Miller: The toughest part is letting go. Letting go of the anger and the hatred and the feelings of worthlessness and regret and fear and sadness. And: Don’t ever give up. Giving up means that the bullies and the haters have won. And every day you survive, every day you thrive, every day you achieve and succeed, is a big eff ewe to the haters. He wrote a couple of years ago about the Chestnut Prison, which informs his current philosophy.

I think that an uncomfortably large amount of comedy these days springs from the same mental space from which bullying comes.

Benjamin Zander’s TED talk: The transformative power of classical music.

Sharp Little Pencil: Lucky Girl Child.

An Olympian with a physical disability; no, not Oscar Pistorius, but Olivér Halassy.

Character actor Malachi Throne died this month; trust me – you HAVE seen him perform. Mark Evanier tells an interesting tale about his appearance on the Batman TV show.

Steve Bissette: “Your Tax Dollars At Work for Disney Dept: So, NY state tax breaks are going to help the next Marvel/Disney SPIDER-MAN movie get made—while Marvel/Disney merrily fleeces Steve Ditko yet again. A Modest Proposal at MYRANT from guest columnist Richard Gagnon.

Some religion, and any philosophy that claims certainty, creates a false sense of security that leaves people sucking their finger rather than going where the finger is pointing.

STRIPPED: The Final Kickstarter Push for a feature documentary on the world’s best cartoonists: Talking about the art form they love & where it goes as papers die.

If you speak two languages fluently, in which do you cuss? There’s a study about that.

The one thing we know for certain about coincidence is that they are anything but coincidental. But what does it mean? Don’t know, but read this story, and the second comment anyway.

Review of ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ from 1949.

EXTERIOR: Suburban Buffalo — KFC — Afternoon — Winter. My, some people are…

Pennsylvania stadium aims to please fans with urinal video games. “The game is aimed at increasing prostate health awareness.”

K-Chuck Radio: Enjoying Jose Feliciano!

K is for Killing

The current debate over gun violence likely will not be ended so easily.

My church, First Presbyterian Church in Albany, NY, is celebrating its 250th anniversary this year. The church donated some artifacts to the Albany Institute of History & Art, itself founded in 1791. The Institute has an exhibit, ongoing through April 17, showing some of the church history over the years.

Some of the church members included John Jay, eventually the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court; Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury; and Aaron Burr, third Vice-President of United States, and the first NOT to go on to become President.

After Burr killed Hamilton in a duel in 1804, the pastor Eliphalet Nott delivered a jeremiad against dueling. As it was a particularly long and significant sermon, it was published by the Dutch Reformed Church in Albany. (I listened to the re-enacted speech a few years ago.) Eliphalet Nott had the remarkable effect of, almost singlehandedly, effectively ending what had been considered an “honorable” way for gentlemen to settle their differences.

The current debate over gun violence likely will not be ended so easily. The solutions seem to be fewer guns on one side, more guns on the other. The latter group clings to the Second Amendment to the United States 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.” The notion of a militia, to me, seems to be a state-run National Guard.

In any case, here’s a list of murders with firearms (most recent) by country. And here are twelve facts about guns and mass shootings in the United States. Nothing here, I suspect, will change anyone’s mind about the next steps to take. No Eliphalet Nott sermon will save the day anymore.

ABC Wednesday – Round 12

Mocking Religion

Not all speech is protected by the First Amendment. Is this merely art? Or is this yelling “fire” in a crowded movie theater, where the consequences of one’s action, chaos, was foreseeable?

The question on Facebook the other day, I’m only mildly paraphrasing: “Should the US government be condemning a movie” – we know which movie, I think – “to improve diplomatic relations?” For me, it’s an unequivocal “yes.” Not that the audience of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s denunciation really cares. They seem to be of the opinion that the United States should arrest the filmmakers, or worse.

This leads me to all sorts of further questions. Should a government official comment on art at all? I use the term “art” loosely. In 1992, Dan Quayle, then the Vice-President, complained that TV character, Murphy Brown, deliberately had a child out of wedlock. Should he have been allowed to do that? Indeed, there are devotees who believe Quayle was right. I say yes, he should have said it, though I disagreed with him.

(When controversial art is paid for, in part or in toto, with public money, that becomes a whole new level of controversy.)

Should the Innocence of Muslims filmmaker be arrested? The film trailer is certainly crude and vile, and misleading even to some of the actors in the film, who swear Mohammed wasn’t even mentioned by name in the copies of the script THEY read. Seems as though some sort of fraud has taken place, but I’m not a lawyer.

Not all speech is protected by the First Amendment. Is this merely art? Or is this yelling “fire” in a crowded movie theater, where the consequences of one’s action, chaos, was foreseeable? The Supreme Court case Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969) allows proscribing “speech” if it will incite imminent lawless action, such as riots. It would SEEM that the Danish cartoon situation of a half-decade ago would suggest that the film would be received badly. But could the filmmakers have foreseen such a violent outcome? Don’t know.

In any case, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, the alleged filmmaker, who was convicted of bank fraud, could go back to jail because the terms of his release stipulated that he be barred from accessing the Internet or assuming aliases without the approval of his probation officer.

Should the sensitivities of religious folks be taken into consideration? I remember the uproar over the Monty Python comedy Life of Brian (1979) and Martin Scorsese The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), directed by Martin Scorcese (1988), not to mention Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (2004). All appear on a list of The 50 most controversial movies ever, at #14, #1, and #20, respectively. I’ve only seen Brian, which I personally found uproariously funny, not to mention clearly NOT speaking about Jesus. Didn’t see the other two, but I think people, including politicians, can express their dismay without banning them outright.

And not so incidentally, I think artists should be able to make political statements, whether it be Barbra Streisand or Toby Keith. If people are annoyed by them and decide not to buy their albums, see their films, etc., that’s the way the marketplace works.

If this is more rambling than usual, blame Facebook.