Jesus is the answer. How sad.

The bumper sticker on the dirty Chevy S-10 in front of me says simply, “Jesus is the answer.” Its simplicity belies the enormity of its message: Jesus is the answer, so stop asking questions.

“Jesus is the answer,” and its equivalent thinking in other religions, is what’s wrong with religion in the early 21^st century: it presumes to answer what cannot be answered; it presumes to know what cannot be known; it shuts down the human capacity to imagine and create and think outside the box whose very self-proclaimed importance depends on never opening it, let along thinking outside of it.

Religion up until now has been about answers. Wars were fought over competing answers. And once an answer got control of a society, that society’s ability to think and evolve died.

If religion has a future—and that may be a big “If”—it will have to reclaim the power to question. If clergy have a future, it will have to shift from being the caste with the answers to the caste that helps you sharpen your questions. If churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples have a future they will have to reinvent themselves from communities with answers to communities of shared questioning.

Stop Worrying About CO2 Levels

Here’s the cool thing about CO2 numbers that the Green Agenda folks don’t want us to know: in the end the amount of CO2 will fall, and fall to zero. Forget Bill McKibben’s 350 parts per million, how about no parts per million? You heard me, Tree Huggers—zero CO2. Now that’s clean air! And it’s coming. In about a billion years.

Sure that is a bit of a wait, but it’ll be worth it. Without CO2 there will be no greenhouse effect at all, and that means no plants, and without plants there will be no photosynthesis and that means no oxygen, and without oxygen there will be no animals or people, and that means no Animal Planet or reality television shows. Birds will hang on for a while, as will fish and insects, but by the time global temperatures rise to 130 degrees Fahrenheit these fellows too are gone. That leaves microbes hiding in the last vestiges of ice hugging the equator after the earth has titled on her access and Santa and his reindeer look like slabs of Slim Jim. And even the hearty microbe dies of thirst in about 2.8 billion years. So there is hope for this planet yet; if by “hope” you mean it’s turned into barren rock.

Of course by then we earthlings may be living on a Klingon outpost in another star system, or maybe the best of us have been raptured to be with Jesus in Heaven. As a Jew I prefer the former outcome, but not because I don’t love Jesus, I do; but because, like Hebrew, Klingon has that “ch” sound that the Rapture Ready cannot pronounce, and I think it would be fun to watch them order a smoking glass of chech’tluth at an upscale Klingon bar.

So as I crank up my AC to compensate for what promises to be a middle Tennessee summer modeled on the Amazon Rainforest, I look forward to knocking back a few steaming glasses of chech’tluth with my Klingon friends. 'LwlIj jachjaj!

Beyond Worship

This morning I want to explore the message of three stories that hint at a religiosity for our time.

The first is the story of Abraham arguing with God over the destruction of Sodom (Genesis 18:25 ff). God wants to kill the innocent along with the guilty. Abraham insists that the Judge of all the Universe must himself do justly. In other words that Justice trumps God. Abraham wins.

The second is the wrestling of Jacob with the angel at Jabbok’s Ford (Genesis 32:22-30). As daylight comes the angel, who may well be God, begs Jacob to release him. Jacob agrees to do so only when given a blessing. The blessing is a new name, a new self-understanding: Yisra-El, one who wrestles with God and wins.

The third is the rabbinic story of Akhni’s Oven where God intervenes in a rabbinic debate over the kosher status of an oven and the rabbis, with one exception, tell God to back off citing Torah, lo bahamayyim he, the Wisdom we humans need is no longer in heaven, but in our hearts that we might live it (Deuteronomy 30: 12–14). God’s response to this rebuke is positive, “At last My children have defeated Me,” (Talmud, Bava Metziah 59b).

The message in all three stories is the same. God isn’t to be worshipped and obeyed, godliness is to be internalized and lived.

Most people didn’t get this and continued to worship God. In the Christian story God gets even more daring in “his” attempts to set us free. God incarnates as Jesus and then dies. It’s as if God is saying, “Look people, what more do I have to do to get you grow up? You’re like kids who refuse to leave home. I didn’t raise you to be dependent. What do I have to do? Die? Fine! I’ll die, and maybe then you’ll get the message.”

Of we didn’t get the message, and Christians await their God’s return.

The Prophet Micah summed up the entirety of God’s message this way: Do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God,” (Micah 6:8). Our rabbis read into the meaning of “your God” rather than “our God” or simply “God” the teaching that even though we will continue to invent gods for ourselves, we should hold them lightly, and not take them too seriously. We should be humble in matters of theology and religion. Just the opposite is the case.

When Ecclesiastes tells us how best to live, he never mentions worship, and focuses on eating and drinking moderately, keeping our clothes clean and our hair groomed, finding meaningful work, and cultivating two or three good friends. So daring was this teaching, that later editors sought to undo it by adding a false summation about fearing God and keeping his commandments, something Ecclesiastes himself never said.

When Rabbi Hillel sought to sum up the entire Torah he made no reference to God at all, saying, “That which is hateful to you do not do to another.”

The Jewish writer Franz Kafka wrote in his book of parables, “The Messiah will come only when he is no longer necessary; he will come only on the day after his arrival; he will come, not on the last day, but on the very last.” The messiah will come only when we no longer need him; only when we have made the world right by ourselves. Then he comes to celebrate our achievement, not to do for us what is our task alone to do.

The reason the Jewish messiah has not yet come, and the reason why Jesus has not yet returned is that you and I have yet to do what is asked of us: beat our swords into ploughshares, our swords into pruning hooks; cease to learn war; and create a world where each of us sits unafraid beneath our own vine and fig tree (Micah 4:3-4).

ReligionNext: What's Next for Beyond Religion

I changed the name of my blog from Beyond Religion to ReligionNext. The reason is simple: I never seem to get beyond religion, and what I am constantly drawn to is what is next in the world of religion and spirituality. I believe we are in the early decades of a spiritual revolution that will not (as I may have thought) take us beyond religion, but may lead into an new kind of religion or a new way of being religious. So, at least for now, welcome to ReligionNext.

Dr. Jung, Dr, Jung, You're Wanted STAT

I think dreams speak to us from our personal and collective unconscious. I rarely remember my dreams, but last night, the fifth night of this week-long retreat I dreamed the same dream three times. Chalk it up to my fever, if you like, but we Jews say that if you have the same dream three times running it is an important message. So here's the dream, see what you make of it.

I am flying home, where I am to give a lecture before returning to my house. The plane lands in Murfreesboro (we don't have a commercial airport), and as I deplane I walk down a flight of worn and cracked gray wooden stairs. No one else is going down, but lots of woman are going up. Three in particular stand out: Two elderly twins wearing identical white dresses with a yellow flower pattern, and one younger woman in pink. I am descending on the right side of the staircase, everyone else is ascending to my left. The two woman in white block my path. I step further to the right to allow them to pass, but they insist I walk by them first. They smile and nod as I do. The woman in pink greets me with a slight bow. They say nothing, but I know they are glad to see me.

When I get to the bottom of the stairs I am in a muddy village. Three roads leads out from the airport, and I can see Middle Tennessee State University at the end of one of them. Though I am certain I parked my car on one of them right next to the place I am to lecture, I cannot remember which road to take. I then realize that I forgot to take my luggage off the plane and my car keys are in my bag. The airport, however, has disappeared. I begin to panic.

I look around and notice a very run down village just behind me. I recognize the place and know there is a medicine woman there who can help me. I climb a mud embankment and walk through the village to find her. People are washing clothes on their porches and the dirt road is quickly turning to mud.

I see the medicine woman's house but before I get there my cell phone rings. As I answer a woman on the other end says, "Are your eyes open?" I realize they are shut. In fact I realize that I'm dreaming and that the reason I don't have my luggage is because I haven't even gotten on the plane yet. I am instantly calm, but sad that I won't get to talk to the medicine woman.

I wake up.

If anyone knows how to reach Carl Jung you can email him this dream for interpretation. Otherwise, you can post your own.

iDoctor

Last night I came down with a sever fever. I was freezing, shaking uncontrollably, with terrible pain in my joints and even my teeth. I was up all night. Today I looked up my symptoms on the Internet and found that they could relate to the following:

Mononucleosis, Diabetes, Tuberculosis, Multiple sclerosis, and Sarcoidosis.

I feel better already.

The Ten Vows

Today is Shavuot, the anniversary of the giving of the Ten Commandments. Torah doesn’t speak of them as commandments but rather as words. I interpret “words” as vows, and, in my book Minyan explore them as such. Here are the Ten Vows as published in Minyan. I will be sharing these with my students today during our retreat. I look forward to their response, and yours.

1.    God is the source of liberation. Aware of the suffering caused by enslavement to things and ideas, I vow to free myself from all addictions and compulsive behaviors, both material and spiritual.

2.    God cannot be named. Aware of the suffering caused by gods created in our own image for our own profit, I vow to recognize all ideas about God as products of human beings, bound by history and circumstance, and forever incapable of defining the Reality Beyond Naming.

3.    God cannot be owned. Aware of the suffering caused by the misuse of God and religion in the quest of power, I vow to liberate myself from all ideologies that demonize others, and to honor only those teachings that uphold the freedom and dignity of woman, man, and nature.

4.    Remember the Sabbath. Aware of the suffering caused by slavish attachment to work, consumption, and technology, I vow to set aside the Sabbath as a day of personal freedom, creativity, and play.

5.    Honor your parents. Aware of the suffering caused by old age, I vow to care for my parents to the best of my ability and to promote the dignity and well-being of all elderly people.

6.    Do not murder. Aware of the suffering caused by the wanton destruction of life, I vow to cultivate respect and gentleness toward all beings.

7.    Avoid sexual misconduct. Aware of the suffering caused by sexual irresponsibility, I vow to honor human sexuality and never degrade it through violence, ignorance, selfishness, or deceit.

8.    Do not steal. Aware of the suffering caused by exploitation, injustice, theft, and oppression, I vow to respect the property of others, to work for the just sharing of resources, and to cultivate generosity in myself and my community.

9.    Do not lie. Aware of the suffering caused by harmful speech, I vow to speak truthfully and with compassion, to avoid gossip and slander, and to refrain from uttering words that cause needless division or discord.

10.  Do not covet. Aware of the suffering caused by endless desire, I vow to live simply and avoid debt, to enjoy what I have before seeking to have more, and to honestly and justly labor for what I desire.