THEOLOGY, THEORY
& MYTH
INTELLECTUALS ARE STILL NEGLECTED SHEEP
American Christianity's lack of intellectual heft results from a strategic seduction of
the masses to mute deep thought. This "dumbing down of faith" eclipses
underlying metaphysical truths. Intellectuals need a more sophisticated conceptual
framework--like quantum physics.
TEILHARD DE CHARDIN'S THEOLOGY OF EVOLUTION
French Jesuit paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin, censored and silenced by the Vatican
during his lifetime, has become the 20th century's leading Catholic intellectual. His
life's work was to bridge science and religion by presenting purposeful evolution toward
perfected humanity.
DEMYTHOLOGIZING RELIGION WITH JOSEPH CAMPBELL
Applying Joseph Campbell's eclectic wealth of knowledge from the world's mythic database,
one can deconstruct cultural legends and biblical myths, such as the creation story, Adam
and Eve, the serpent, Can and Abel, and Moses.
THE FOURTH CENTURY's HERESY AGAINST THE TRINITY
The doctrine of the trinity had its roots in first century Palestine, where Christianity
was born amidst Jewish culture and Greek influence. Culminating in a historic debate
invited by Emperor Constantine, one finds linguistic hair-splitting as the most gymnastic of intellectual sports.
THOMAS MERTON'S LAST TALK: BANGKOK, 1968
The American Trappist monk Thomas Merton had to break his vows of silence and stability to
attend an international conference on monasticism. His talk got a poor reception. He was
an Aquarian, quoting Marx and Marcuse and it was the Sixties. More's the pity, as he died
immediately afterward.
FAITH AND REASON: A SURPRISING PAPAL ENCYCLICAL
The first non-Italian pope for a millennium exhorts thinking people to "be bold"
in this surprising papal encyclical. Not the usual conservative rant, Pope John Paul II
speaks with revolutionary fervor and uncharacteristically progressive thought about the
need for faith to join hands with reason.
ISLAMIC STUDIES
APPRECIATION OF CLASSICAL ISLAM
Islam's purely abstract monotheism countered the trinitarian view of Christianity and the
nationalistic views of Judaism; yet, at the same time, Islam combined the unconditional
monotheism of the Hebrew prophets with the universalism of Christianity. The
fastest-growing world religion deserves some respect.
ISLAM'S BRILLIANT ERA WAS OUR DARK AGES
The West's classical heritage is due to Muslim scholars who translated the corpus of Greek
philosophy, science, and mathematics into Arabic. Baghdad's 8th century House of Wisdom
was an immense library and translation center. The Renaissance owes its flourishing to
Islam's past ascendancy.
HOW MESOPOTAMIA BECAME IRAQ
The Allied Powers drew the boundaries of the Middle East in a peace settlement at the end
of World War I to bring "a just and lasting war." With the defeat of the Ottoman
Empire, British and French imperialists disposed of Arab and Turkish territories to suit
themselves.
HOW ZOROASTRIAN PERSIA BECAME SHIITE IRAN
The Persian religion of Zoroastrianism was the greatest influence on Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam. Indeed, ancient Persia was the world's first religiously tolerant
empire under Kings Cyrus and Darius. British, Russian, and American interests have since
manipulated this land's strategic resources.
THE SUNNIS AND THE SHIITES: ORIGIN OF ISLAM's
SCHISM
Islam's schism was a conflict of succession amidst tribal rivalry. The Sunnis would base
leadership on merit; the Shiites on heredity. Both are true Muslim, as Islam--like
Judaism--is a religion of orthopraxy, requiring certain practices, unlike the orthodoxy of
Christianity, proscribing certain beliefs.
FUNDAMENTALISM IS THE PROBLEM: CHRISTIAN OR MUSLIM
The most dangerous aspect of fundamentalism is its claim on absolute truth, which seduces
the young, uneducated, poor, and dispossessed. Fundamentalism is a planetary phenomenon
that rebels against modernity and tends to emerge in socially disorganized regions.
SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION
HEAVEN AND HELL: EVOLUTION OF A BELIEF
All higher mythologies and religions of the world divide the unity of the Absolute into
antagonistic pairs. These powerful metaphors indicate the seriousness of moral choices.
They are not literally anything but they are nevertheless theologically potent.
NOAH, GILGAMESH, AND THE BLACK SEA FLOOD
Neither a myth nor the revealed word of God, the flood story in Genesis--and other flood
legends around the world--reflects a cultural memory of a catastrophic flood in the Middle
Stone Age. Two marine geologists from Columbia University document this theory from twenty
years of deep-water archeology.
ABSOLUTE NOTHINGNESS AND ABSENCE OF MEANING
This personal evolution from belief to disbelief is a coming-out party of
consciousness--an atheist's spin on I Cor 13:11-12. A full-belly Buddha laugh bursts
through the sheltering metaphors of faith's ambiguity through insights from quantum
physics and chaos theory.
AN ASSESSMENT OF THE PONTIFICATE OF JOHN PAUL II
Biographical facts of the first non-Italian pope in half a millennium explain his
authoritarian doctrinal conservatism that eclipsed the Catholic tradition of episcopal
collegiality. Despite advocating for social justice and human rights, his pontificate
experienced the worst scandal in modern Catholicism.
PATRIARCHY VERSUS FEMINISM
HOW AN UNWED PREGNANT TEEN BECAME MOTHER OF GOD
Belief in the virgin birth of Jesus--or, more accurately, virginal conception--is rooted
in a mistranslation of Jewish prophecy and accommodation to Greco- Roman myths. The
gospels of Matthew and Luke are the only two sources, and they contradict each other, but
Matthew hints at a sexual scandal.
THE MUCH MALIGNED MARY MAGDALENE
Nowhere in the New Testament is Mary Magdalene a reformed prostitute. Rather, she is the
faithful apostle at the crucifixion, the burial, and the empty tomb. Over the
centuries, she fell victim to jealous prejudice from the emerging institutional church's
male hierarchy. Even the Vatican admitted such in 1969.
GOD USES BEAUTY AS DANTE USED BEATRICE
According to Plato, beauty is primary among the Transcendentals of Being. Two poems
reflect a view of God's use of beauty in woman as a lure to the transcendent. The Eternal
Feminine by Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin and The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri.
THE LADY, THE WITCH, AND THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION
Three concurrent views on woman as lady, witch, and virgin reflect the medieval church's
own distortions in an intriguing synchronicity. Each unbalanced view spawns another in
counterpoint. The idealized courtly lady catalyzed the persecution of witches and the
conceptually askew doctrines on the Virgin Mary.
NO GOOD REASON WHY NO FEMALE PRIESTS
Impediments against ordaining women derive from tradition, scripture, sacramental
theology, and canon law, though not persuasively. The reasoning is rooted in an archaic
mindset and used by a patriarchal Vatican power base to retain its prerogatives.
SCRIPTURAL STUDIES
DECONSTRUCTING BIBLICAL LITERALISM: In Brief
What biblical scholars call "higher textual criticism" arrived 300 years ago,
but ministers still haven't clued in their congregations. They need courage to say that
"certain positions are nonsense." In deconstructing biblical texts, scholars
take forensic evidence from linguistics and archeology to determine meaning.
ARGUMENTS AGAINST OLD TESTAMENT LITERALISM: In Full
The "documentary source hypothesis" is the most accepted theory to explain the
repetition, contradictions, and anachronisms within Hebrew Scripture. Multiple editors
drew from multiple sources among earlier Babylonian, Assyrian, Canaanite, and Egyptian
material to weave their covenant theology.
ARGUMENTS AGAINST NEW TESTAMENT LITERALISM: In Full
The midrash style of Jewish sacred storytelling was used by gospel writers to advocate for
Jesus as the expected Messiah: a motive in service to faith, not history. We have no
original gospel manuscripts, only copies of copies into which crept scribal errors, biased
commentary, and competing ideologies.
THE GNOSTIC CHALLENGE TO ORTHODOXY
The 2nd century scrolls found in clay jars in a cave in Egypt reflect gnosticism: a
dualistic, transcendent nihilism characterized by alienation from the world and spiritual
redemption through self-enlightenment. The institutional church denounced gnostics as
heretics.
PUBLIC ETHICS
THE JUST-WAR PRINCIPLES OF AUGUSTINE
The roots of the just war tradition begin with Augustine, the 4th century Bishop of Hippo
in North Africa. Augustine's presumption against the use of force required that only a
just cause, legitimate authority, and right intention together could overrule this
presumption for the sake of preserving peace.
CIVIL
RELIGION IN AMERICA: MYTHS OF CHURCH-STATE SEPARATION
The Establishment Clause of the Bill of Rights and the Free Exercise Clause of the U.S.
Constitution protect freedom of religion in America. Yet church membership has evolved
into a belief in the value of belief, which encroaches on the neutrality of others.
ETHICS OF CITIZENSHIP FROM A NADER RAIDER
David and Goliath is the template for Ralph Nader's battles with corporate America. As the
country's foremost consumer advocate for the public interest, his organization is called
Public Citizen, because only citizen initiatives as "applied ethics" can counter
the cynical greed of fraud and abuse.
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