The Light in the Temple

From a scene at the farm in Vermont, this old lamp, hanging from a rusty nail, was originally blue. My younger son Sam, surveying the photos from which I was working, noticed the discrepancy and asked why I had chosen red over the pale blue. I explained that it would be a stronger, more expressive image with a red lamp, and reminded him of our visit to the Rubin Museum of Art (specializing in items from the Himalayas and surrounding regions), where we learned that red is the color of power. I think his eyes glazed over when I started talking about how this simple camp lantern could be analogous to one of the lamps in a Tibetan temple, or even a Christian church. Indeed, my initial thoughts on this theme were drawn from the final scene in Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, as Charles Ryder returns to the small family chapel at the Brideshead estate:

Something quite remote from anything the builders intended has come out of their work, and out of the fierce little human tragedy in which I played; something none of us thought about at the time: a small red flame - a beaten-copper lamp of deplorable design, relit before the beaten-copper doors of a tabernacle; the flame which the old knights saw from their tombs, which they saw put out; that flame burns again for other soldiers, far from home, farther, in heart, than Acre or Jerusalem. It could not have been lit but for the builders and the tragedians, and there I found it this morning, burning anew among the old stones.

Ok, perhaps I'm investing a little too much meaning in a painting of an old lamp. Simply take it as an example of the convoluted ruminations that keep me company most of the time. 9" x 12", watercolor, drybrush, pen and ink, on Fabriano cold-pressed 140 lb. paper.

INRI

Since taking up painting several years ago I've given a lot of thought to the issue of religious subjects. And while I've painted a couple of stained glass window images, I didn't regard them as overtly religious images. Several times I contemplated images depicting some aspect of the nativity of Jesus, but none of my ideas proved truly resonant, and thus strong enough to inspire a painting. I especially didn't want to create an image of Jesus that could be compared in any way to the ridiculously idealized Christian imagery of Warner Sallman, whose paintings of Jesus because the most widely distributed images of Jesus in the United States in the 1940s and 50s. Indeed, just about any Christian imagery would prove problematic given my opinions on the more zealous factions of the faith. These views I've made clear on numerous other occasions in this website. As I said in March 2007:

So, where does this leave me, possessing a higgledy-piggledy spiritual DNA, a double helix of agnosticism, Southern Baptist childhood, Episcopal adulthood, casual flirtations with Buddhism and Quakerism, as well as a fascination with some of the more ascetic and insular religious sects, including the Hassidim and the Amish? . . . Complicating the matter, I also represent that segment of the liberal populace that thinks "fundamentalist Christians," particularly those who identify with the Republican party and have tried to manipulate its agenda through groups like the Christian Coalition, are America's answer to 1930s fascism. These people - and not Islamic-based terrorist cells - are the most dangerous group in this country . . . but nothing new, given our nation's long history of breeding religious extremists.

That having been said, in the end, I jumped straight to the crucifixion, aiming for a more gothic representation without going so far as to imitate some of the more graphically violent aspects of Christian imagery from the Iberian tradition. No blood-soaked forehead and bleeding wounds here! And as usual, I had to take that narrowly focused perspective that only provides a hint of the whole. To be honest, I couldn't have painted the entire crucifixion from head to toe, let alone include the thieves flanking Jesus. Nevertheless, I think it retains a strength - a pathos - while avoiding some of the more "kitsch" elements of Protestant iconography.

While some observers might interpret this painting as a reflection of my own faith, it does not represent a devotional exercise in the way the creator of a gilded icon sees his effort as a form of worship. It's more an experiment - a monochromatic exercise in my development as a painter. Moreover, I've never been comfortable painting the human form, especially in a portrait setting, and this image in many respects falls into that category. Technical details: Sepia watercolor with pen and ink, on 5" x 7" Fabriano hot-pressed paper. (And for those of you not familiar with the meaning of "INRI": Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum . . . Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.)

Is Spring Finally Here?

Despite the continued cold temperatures, Spring seems finally to have made an appearance in New York. Beyond the obvious association with Passover and the Last Supper, I don't know the history of Easter as a officially sanctioned feast within the institutional Church. But I do wonder the extent to which Easter - like Christmas - incorporated pagan traditions and festivals, particularly in the Celtic church prior to the Synod of Whitby. Since we know that the early Church often co-opted local pagan religious practices and initially created a hybridized orthodoxy in many areas, one has to speculate on the rough juxtaposition of Easter and the Spring Equinox. And, given the physical manifestations of Spring and Easter's emphasis on resurrection, no doubt there's some association. I can't even begin to understand the formula, derived as early as the 4th century, used to calculate the date of Easter each year. But according to that formula, Easter can never be before March 22nd or after April 25th. So our Easter this year was as early as any of us will ever see it, since Easter will not land on March 22nd until the year 2265. Easter was last observed on April 25th in 1943 and will again be celebrated on that date in 2038. (Just a bit of Easter trivia for those of you who care about such things. I enjoy this sort of thing simply because it reveals how fluid belief and practice could be in the early Church, or ecclesia primitiva as it's sometimes called. So many religious groups today seem too concerned about enforcing rigid orthodoxy that they threaten to create a monolithic faith over which contentious parties will inevitably fight. Of course, warring over what constitutes orthodoxy and heresy punctuates the entire history of Christianity.)

The photos were taken around Greenwich Village over the last couple of days. Enjoy! (By the way, I love the ability to switch to fully manual settings on this camera. It allows me to play with depth of field, in this case bringing foreground objects into sharp focus while blurring the background.)

Happy Easter!

For those of you who celebrate the occasion, Happy Easter! (Enjoy the lilies!) As a child I usually associated Easter with the purchase of a new suit appropriate for wearing to church on spring Sunday mornings. I remember a few occasions when we received Easter baskets full of marshmallow and chocolate eggs nestled in that fake green grass. (Don't let your cat your dog swallow this stuff or you're in for a treat. The same rule applies for Christmas tinsel.) But the concept of the "Easter Bunny" was never really heralded in our household in the way Santa was given nearly equal status to the religious iconography of Christmas. I guess it's easier to reconcile Santa and the spirit of giving with the symbolism of Christ's birth. Sure, I've heard some apologists try to sell the idea that the eggs of Easter symbolize the potential of rebirth and resurrection. But it just seems like too great a stretch, trying to convince one's kids of the Easter Bunny's existence, even during the innocence of the toddler years. It reminds me of Jimmy Stewart trying to pass off the idea that Harvey, his unseen 6-foot rabbit companion is just as real. We've never mentioned the Easter Bunny to our kids. Naturally they like the idea of receiving candy for the occasion, but for them there's no association between the candy and a bunny. Indeed, having frequently watched the Veggie Tales episode on "The Promise of Easter," I'm confident they realize that Easter isn't about bunnies or chocolate. Moreover, we've done our best to explain the significance of Easter - and Christmas - within their proper religious contexts. Whether they ultimately choose to accept the standard Christian ideals vis-a-vis Easter will be up to them as they formulate a mature belief system and explore their own spirituality.

Lent, Part I: Addition or Subtraction?

There's a Simpson's episode in which a bored Lisa and Bart look to Marge for help. Suggesting board games, she offers several choices: "Citizenship," "The Energy Shortage Game," "Hippo in the House," and "The Game of Lent," which clearly looks like a parody of the old "Game of Life" that so many of us played as kids. Remember the little cars with pink and blue pins to represent one's spouse and offspring? Although Bart and Lisa turn down the offer, one suspects that in the warped minds of Simpson's writers, "The Game of Lent" would have included spaces like, "Yield to Temptation: Move back three spaces and say the Lord's Prayer five times."

Growing up as a Southern Baptist I never heard of Lent - or Advent, Maundy Thursday, and Epiphany, for that matter. Those were days observed by Catholics, whom, I recall, were always regarded with implied suspicion, as if they performed macabre rituals involving the "body and blood of Christ" behind their closed doors. Who could have imagined the dark arts imputed to the "holy mysteries" of transubstantiation or the rosary?! So even after I became an Episcopalian in my thirties, the practice of Lent still seemed alien, even if the concept of penitential contemplation proved obvious. It's rather like Advent on "downers" - a time of "preparation," but without the carols, wreaths, candles and parties. Those sentiments are ostensibly eaten away in an orgy of pancake suppers and church social hall "Mardi Gras" dinners on Shrove Tuesday.

Around Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday this year I tried to listen in on conversations that might reveal people's thoughts on the coming season. And from bus and subway to bodega and restaurant, it was interesting to hear how some will observe the Lenten season. For example, there were the traditional declarations of "I'm giving up x or y for Lent," with x and y most often being chocolate, alcohol, red meat, TV, and cigarettes. On Ash Wednesday I even overheard one restaurant patron declare while waiting in line: "I'm going to try and be nicer to people during Lent." (Thought: If you're using Lent to be a "nicer" person, you've got bigger issues than one can solve in a 40-day period. Moreover, one is compelled to wonder if this person is normally mean-spirited. Perhaps she's thinking, "Ok, as soon as that first Easter brunch bloody mary is drained, all bets are off; I'm going back to my bitchy self.")

A few years ago I heard a Lenten sermon by an Episcopal priest who addressed this practice of yearly denial. Commenting on the silliness of so many Lenten promises to abstain from, deny, or strip away these little physical elements of our daily lives, he noted that too many Christians over-ritualize and over-simplify the practice of Lenten disciplines, thus missing the point entirely. To me they seem akin to New Year's Resolution do-overs, made manageable by their finite scale. In the end, our Rector concluded his sermon by recommending the more active option of "taking on" something new that might prove enriching to ourselves and others. His examples included volunteering for community service organizations (like a soup kitchen, food pantry, or homeless shelter), committing oneself to new worship opportunities (for example, attending morning or evening prayer services, or engaging one's family in the nightly service of Compline, which is a lovely service in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer). These represented only the most obvious possibilities. Of a decidedly academic bent, I decided to take the scholarly route and read on matters spiritual. He urged us to be creative. And although my theology has expanded beyond the narrow confines of Christian dogmatism, being inclusive of several lexicons of faith at present, I've continued this Lenten practice adopted when I lived in Tennessee. Right now, for example, I'm reading Kathleen Norris's Dakota: A Spiritual Geography. (Photo: RC Church of St. Vincent Ferrer, Lexington Ave.)

To be continued

Epiphanies

My friend Nina over at Ornamental commented yesterday on how some of her best inspirations materialize while standing under a hot shower. I couldn't agree more. I've always found that some of my best ideas are delivered as I stand in the shower . . . as if the falling water is a conduit for wet epiphanies. Maybe the water pouring over us is akin to a baptismal experience, through which we're ideally washing away our sins and anxieties, while achieving some sense of heightened clarity about ourselves and our souls.

Whether or not one believes in the idea of spiritual baptism in the Christian sense - a practice with roots in pre-Christian, pagan ritual - there's something to be said for the power of that cleansing water. Years ago, when I still wrote poetry, I would have poems pop into my head, nearly fully formed, without that arduous period of gestation and self-editing that could define some moments of literary creation. Under those circumstances, I'd dash from the shower and grab paper and pen to record the words before other thoughts crowded out this latest revelation. Even now I find that my mind clears in the shower and the synapses seem to fire a bit more smoothly.

For the liturgically minded, this is the season of epiphanies, by the way. And this Sunday, churches around the world will celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany, ostensibly the symbolic moment of Christ's divinity being revealed to Gentiles, represented by the Magi. Parishes will parade likenesses of the Magi, "Three Kings" or "Wise Men" through their sanctuaries or the streets of small towns, or children will dress up in beards and plastic crowns to process into their church bearing their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. But like so many of these "feasts" in the liturgical calendar, its 4th century origins are convoluted and represent one of those focal points of disagreement between churches in the east and west. For example, in the Eastern Orthodox Church, January 6th marks the day of Christ's baptism in the river Jordan. And at one time, even Christ's birth was celebrated on this day as well, before December 25th and the feast of Christmas became a separate celebration.

Growing up in a Southern Baptist church I never heard of Epiphany - or Advent and Lent, for that matter. It was as disconnected from liturgy and western christian ritual as one could possibly be. Anything remotely liturgical or ritualistic was deemed "Catholic" in nature and thus suspect. I believe some of that has changed now, however, with more Baptist churches embracing the concepts of Lent and Advent as means of organizing and structuring the worship and educational experiences. It also allows these churches to employ the familiar idiom of Catholicism and its adjuncts as a way to appeal to potential converts with experience in those liturgically oriented traditions. As an Episcopalian - and occasional congregant in a Lutheran parish - I always found these moments in the liturgical calendar a way to connect with Christian traditions that, in some cases, stretch back over the millenia. They also remind one of the fluid nature of Christian belief over the centuries - a quicksand-like reality to be avoided by the more dogmatic denominations that prefer ignorance over an informed faith.

I tend to avoid making New Year's resolutions, realizing that they'll most likely be cast aside in a short time. (Authoring this blog was actually borne of a resolution last January, and is thus one of the few New Year's promises I've ever kept.) Yet instead of dwelling on promises and resolutions - or things "done and left undone" in the language of the prayer book, here's hoping that 2008 is a year of epiphanies, whether divined in the shower, while walking down the street, or engaged in prayer.

Tis the Season

My friend over at "A Room of One's Own" recently included some lines from Emily Dickinson, whose letters were often as lyrical as her poems.

"To live and die, and mount again in triumphant body, and next time, try the upper air-is no schoolboy’s theme! It is a jolly thought to think that we can be Eternal-when air and earth are full of lives that are gone-and done-and a conceited thing, this promised Resurrection! Congratulate me –John-Lad-and 'here’s a health to you'- that we have each a pair of lives, and need not chary be, of the one 'that now is'-"
Letter to John Graves, late April 1856, Emily Dickinson: Selected Letters

Long a fan of Emily Dickinson, I was really captivated by these lines. Obviously she was a person of faith, indeed, the child-like faith characteristic of an era when acceptance of grace and belief in the promise of resurrection seemed an easier path to take. Sure, Emily lived at a time when science - including Darwinian discourses on evolution - was perceived as an increasingly dangerous threat to Christian canon. But I'm guessing that tucked away in her Amherst home, somewhat isolated from the intellectual tumult of the academy, she found it easier to hold that vision of the "Eternal" close to her heart, unsullied by the assault of reason.

I had noted in posts from several months ago that the last few years have been a period of spiritual crisis for me, punctuated by severe questioning of my Christian heritage, and a curiosity with both Buddhism and Quakerism. I had experienced this drift to agnosticism during my 20s, an age when many people start to question the tenets - religious or otherwise - that have formed one's understanding since childhood. For years, and even more so of late, my family, all pretty regular churchgoers, have regarded me with the same suspicion early Christian bishops likely accorded the Albigensians or Arians, among numerous groups declared heretical. (Some of this suspicion about the nature of my belief is perhaps justified given my occasionally explicit non-trinitarian sympathies.)

A few months ago our local PBS station aired a three-part documentary, presented by English polymath Jonathan Miller, on the concept of "disbelief." (I discussed Miller's series in greater detail in my July 30th post.) Miller's "History of Disbelief" - he eschewed the term "atheism" - examined the philosophical underpinnings of disbelief in god(s) from the ancient world to the present. To a curmudgeonly skeptic like me, the content proved compelling and doubtless prompted me to revisit some of the issues first raised in my youth.

So now we approach the holidays and, beginning on Sunday, December 2nd, enter the Advent season, for those of you who follow liturgical calendars. And with Advent and Christmas one has to face again the theological questions of the immaculate conception, the virgin birth, the star, and the magi. Santa and the commercial blitz aside, isn't this what we're supposed to be celebrating on December 25th? I guess for those with "the faith of a child" it's easy to take that step of acceptance and just believe in these miracles. For me, tis the season of doubt. I want to believe without question. Yet that uncertainty is like that cough that won't go away, the wound that never heals.

Church Architecture, Part 2

These images are of Marble Collegiate Church on 5th Avenue, just a couple of blocks from my office. Marble Collegiate is sometimes cited as the oldest continuous Protestant congregation in the U.S., having been founded in 1628. (I can't confirm the veracity of the claim.) Still, the church is arguably most famous for its long-time association with Norman Vincent Peale, who served as pastor from the mid-1930s until his death in 1993. Note his statue out front, perpetually greeting passers-by. Peale was one of the founders of Guideposts magazine and author of the popular but controversial Power of Positive Thinking, which to some scholars encapsulates the philosophically shallow spirituality of the 1950s.

Peale's ministry aside, Marble Collegiate is a beautiful fixture in this neighborhood. Those ribbons adorning the iron fence? Stretching across the front of the church and down the left side of the church on 29th St., there's a gold ribbon for all U.S. service personnel who have died in Iraq. The blue ribbons represent prayers for Iraqi victims of the conflict and green ribbons represent prayers for peace. It's a pretty impressive display. I'm reminded of Abraham Lincoln's words from 1862:

In great contests, each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time.

Long suspicious of any nation's claims that "god is on our side" in a violent conflict, I'm convinced that god is nowhere to be found in the present war, despite both sides' claims to possess a monopoly on divine support. And as for gold ribbons, let's hope they are translated into votes repudiating the Bush regime's policies.

The Tyranny of Religion

Concluding last night, PBS here in New York ran a three-part series by English polymath Jonathan Miller on the "history of disbelief" - in short, an examination of disbelief in god from the ancient world to the present. It was thought-provoking, funny, disconcerting, and for me, highlighted some of my own philosophical conundrums vis-a-vis faith and religion.

Having been raised a Southern Baptist - before the denomination allied itself with the politics of fascism - I reluctantly carry the baggage of years spent in Sunday School learning the basic Bible stories to which even the most irreligious of skeptics is exposed. And although I don't believe in the literal truth of the Genesis creation, the flood of Noah, or Moses parting the Red Sea, I recognize their allegorical significance in terms of our society's philosophical evolution. Adam and Eve in the garden simply represent one more attempt by our ancient antecedents to explain the origins of the world in which they found themselves. Moreover, given the plethora of creation myths, one might assume that this effort to explain our creation is an act for which we're uniquely hard-wired thanks to genetic mutation and biological development of the intellect. Whether or not that intellect is endowed with a soul, however, remains the most difficult puzzle for me.

One can most likely trace the roots of my theistic uncertainty to the examples of scholarly inquiry to which I was exposed in academe. We were taught to dig, to doubt, and dig some more, until we found answers which might withstand the challenge of reason. (No doubt this admission would gladden the heart of the anti-intellectual apologist who equates education with the secular world's attempt to undermine faith, as if it were an explicitly avowed goal.) Thomas Jefferson even went so far as to examine the Bible itself using the criteria of rational inquiry. The end product, sometimes referred to as the "Jefferson Bible," exalts the ethical system outlined by Christ, but strips the Old and New Testaments of the supernatural and references that fail the test of reason.

As a historian, I think part of my problem has been the documented examples of organized religions - or the states that embrace them - using that religion to justify racism, conquest, genocide and governmental tyranny. English political pamphleteer Thomas Paine (pictured below) perhaps said it most succinctly, and with a touch of humor:

"Of all the tyrannies that afflict mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst.
Every other species of tyranny is limited to the world we live in, but this
attempts a stride beyond the grave and seeks to pursue us into eternity."

And, as I've stated on this site in numerous entries, I'm especially troubled by the latest efforts to use Christianity - embodied in the ideology of the "Religious Right" - as a means to define governmental authority and wield political power in the U.S. Ever-insightful H. L. Mencken correctly suggested that "the urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it."

In the end, I'd have to call myself a theist - as opposed to deist , and there is a difference - who largely distrusts the institutions, rituals, and machinery associated with organized religions. "I am a sect by myself, as far as I know," Thomas Jefferson concluded in a letter to a friend, and I'm increasingly of a mind with Jefferson in that regard. To be sure, Buddhism and Quakerism, as I've noted before, do offer some palatable alternatives to the religious outlets to which I've previously allied my attention. Additionally, I must tender a nod to the palliative effects of C. S. Lewis's Christian apologetics. Nevertheless, I find it unlikely that these adjuncts to monolithic faith will entirely allay that gnawing doubt that steals into one's thoughts on belief in the "almighty" or a "hereafter."

Doubt, rather than Jonathan Miller's outright disbelief, will likely shape my own theistic musings until I draw my last breath. I want to believe, and will try to believe, but I think it's also fundamentally human to remain skeptical. Some might argue that I'm merely hedging my bets. Quite the contrary; I'm only reflecting human nature's incapacity to understand clearly transcendence and the divine. Sure, imagining god as a benevolent George Burns or Morgan Freeman may offer the movie-going masses a grandfatherly deity who quiets our misgivings. Frankly, I'm more inclined to imagine the more humorous image of god offered by Gary Larsen in his Far Side cartoon, "God at his computer": God sits at his computer with a finger poised above a key labled "Smite," as he watches a man walking under a suspended grand piano. But all of these images still do nothing to resolve the issue of belief.

The Passing of Tammy Faye, Patron Saint of Religious Kitsch

The death of Tammy Faye on Friday prompted me to pause and recall one of the most colorful personalities of American popular culture in the last 40 years. Most people only remember Tammy Faye for her connection to Jim Bakker, the PTL Network, and the scandal that destroyed their Heritage USA amusement park scheme. And even if one managed to miss her turn as a prima facie icon of 80s greed and religious cynicism, one could scarcely have avoided her role as mascara-challenged patron saint of vacuous kitsch in recent years.

Yet growing up in the Norfolk/Virginia Beach area I more vividly remember Tammy and her simpering husband from their first television endeavor, "The Jim and Tammy Show," which aired on Pat Robertson's fledgling CBN network from 1968 until 1973. Broadcast on a weak UHF signal at the time, CBN featured little more than Robertson's signature "700 Club" program, bad reruns, cartoons, and "The Jim and Tammy Show." A children's program constructed around a Christian message, "The Jim and Tammy Show" resembled a televised Sunday School class and spotlighted Tammy's "talents" as a singer and puppeteer.

Nearly 40 years later I can still recall Tammy singing a song that began "One, two, three, the devil's after me," as she used her puppets Allie the Alligator and Susie Moppet (pictured, right). Filmed daily in front of a live audience, kids sat on small bleachers, arranged like an evangelical answer to Howdy Doody's "Peanut Gallery." I remember that the children would receive a gift of Marva-Maid milk at the end of each show. When I was in first grade (1971) one of my classmates attended a taping of the show. The next day he arrived at school displaying his little Marva-Maid carton to the collective "ooohhhs" and "aaahhhs" of our class. There was even a club one could join from which one received coloring pages, photos, and encoded Christian messages from Jim and Tammy.

A couple of years ago I saw a clip from one of these programs and was amazed that a show like that could have been so wildly popular. And it's hard to believe that at the height of its popularity, ca. 1970, Jim and Tammy were receiving up to 1,000 fan letters a week! It's no surprise that they left CBN in 1973 for "bigger and better" opportunities. Nevertheless, watching those clips one can see in Tammy the earnest, small-town Minnesota girl before the makeup, orgiastic excess, scandal, and downfall.

Having encountered that first incarnation of Tammy's onscreen persona, I'm just a little saddened by the news of her death, in part because one has to wonder how she would have fared away from the attention and spotlights, stationed in Minnesota for the duration. In that sense, one finds a resonant similarity between Tammy Faye and that other symbol of celebrity tragicomedy, fellow Minnesotan Judy Garland.

Still, Tammy Faye did embody much that is misguided and corrupt in the culture of Christian televangelism and will forever be linked to the scandalous PTL empire. To the masses who blindly pledged their meager dollars and "widow's mite" to the construction of Jim and Tammy's dream, the eulogizing that has accompanied Tammy's demise has probably served to reopen old wounds. To be fair, however, she seemed a bit more tolerant and forgiving than some of her peers. For example, I would never include her in the company of more malevolent figures like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, to whom she was linked at critical times in her public life. In the end, given our Dickensian fascination with the grotesque, I'm guessing that society's long-term memory of Tammy Faye will be shaped primarily by the final act in the drama of her sordid life. We'll likely forget the scandals and remember the mascara and the bravura.

Religion Redux

In the last couple of months I've had the good fortune to meet several transplanted Southerners who now call New York City home. Oddly enough, we each had been raised as Southern Baptists and, reaching adulthood, rejected that denomination in favor of more liberal religious climes.

If you follow politics, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) will be a familiar entity because the denomination always places itself squarely on the right wing of the "right wing." To non-Southerners, the denomination is often conveniently lumped together with other evangelical, conservative groups. And Southern Baptists do mirror the views of many of these organizations, including the Christian Coalition, Promise Keepers, Focus on the Family, and Pat Robertson's army of followers.

But the Southern Baptist Church wasn't always this conservative or politically involved. (Given their recent political connections and attempts to control their members' electoral habits, the SBC's tax-exempt status should be revoked.) Prior to the late 1970s the SBC was a large, but relatively quiet denomination among America's mainstream religious groups. The Southern Baptist Convention leadership, which oversees the denomination, engaged most of its energy and resources in mission work, both domestic and foreign. Individual congregations were largely independent, particularly in terms of what was preached on Sundays.

Beginning in the late 1970s, however, a faction of "fundamentalists" who believed, for example, in the inerrancy of every word of the Bible, began to hijack the denomination and Convention leadership. By the early 1980s, having succeeded, they began the process of enforcing dogmatic belief among congregations and ministers, while purging Baptist seminaries of women (students and professors) and those who didn't subscribe to the fundamentalist party line. In some cases, students and teachers were even forced to sign statements avowing the "literal truth" of the Bible. From that point on, it was just a downward spiral for the SBC as it joined the ranks of America's fascist organizations. Although the vast majority of congregations fell in line, lock-step, behind the Convention's leadership, a few more liberal churches openly broke away, some forming a group called the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

Thus it's no surprise that this conservative shift alienated countless individual members who rejected the SBC and, in many cases, walked away from organized religion altogether. So as one of those apostates, I was thrilled to meet people who had experienced the very same thing. I think I've mentioned in earlier posts that religion to Southerners is interwoven in the very fabric of our region's culture. It permeates southern society and affects one's life in the South whether one attends church or not. For those of us who had attended Baptist churches as children - and enjoyed the benefits of Sunday schools and summer "vacation Bible schools" - we understandably felt betrayed by a denomination now preaching a doctrine defined by hate and intolerance. The SBC's pathological anti-intellectualism - most often expressed in its disdain for Darwinist concepts and acceptance of "creationism" - likewise proved unacceptable to more liberal-minded adherents.

To make matters worse, much of what fundamentalists espoused had nothing to do with basic Christianity or traditional Baptist doctrine. Indeed, as Bruce Bawer revealed in Stealing Jesus: How Fundamentalism Betrays Christianity, fundamentalist beliefs were largely of 19th century origin and had no intellectual foundation in the Bible. Add the rise of similarly extremist "Christian" organizations and their cozy relationship with the Republican party, and a sense of betrayal among former SBC members often turned to outrage. (I dealt with the theme of outrage in Friday's post.)

In meeting these "Southern" New Yorkers I was amazed to learn that we had each experienced strikingly similar spiritual journeys that often included years of agnosticism and a rejection of church affiliation. Although I eventually turned to the Episcopal Church as an outlet for my convoluted faith, I still find it very difficult to actually sit in a church or follow a liturgy - as much as I enjoy some segments of the liturgy. I've also begun to incorporate ideas from Buddhism and the Quaker expressions of Christianity, making more traditional outlets of incorporated worship increasingly difficult to accept. I'm comforted by the discovery that many of my ex-Baptist contemporaries have adapted their spiritual lives to accept this admixture of religious doctrines. In the end, I believe that they're all expressions of the same basic human need to understand the concept of "god" in its most universal connotations.

"A twitch upon the thread . . ."

"I caught him [the thief] with an unseen hook and an invisible line which is long enough to let him wander to the ends of the world and still bring him back with a twitch upon the thread.”

In the middle of a recent enebriated evening with friends, I was asked to name my favorite book. Obviously that’s a tough question. Does that mean fiction? Nonfiction? Genres within each of those categories? (And no, that doesn't include Cosmo or People, for those of you who were wondering if that sort of thing counts.) Having spent over a decade in academe I could think of many scholarly works - a majority being from the history shelf - that made an impression: Gilje, Road to Mobocracy; Johnson, A Shopkeeper’s Millennium; Lockridge, A New England Town; Wood, Creation of the American Republic; and Brinkley, Voices of Protest. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. "No, no, no," my friends protested, reminding me of my geeky professor's profile. They wanted to know which novel ranked first among my favorites.

Although I’m partial to the whole Austen/Bronte cycle, thoroughly enjoy most of Dickens, and certainly worship at the altar of great 20th century American fiction - including Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Updike, and Cheever - I didn’t hesitate to chime in with an unexpected answer, knowing it would spark debate: Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited.

The vast majority of Waugh's novels - for example, A Handful of Dust, Decline and Fall, or Vile Bodies - represent the best of pre-World War II English satire. Waugh lampooned the aristocracy mercilessly and left to English literature a collection of first-rate comic novels. (Several have been adapted by Hollywood.) Yet it is Brideshead Revisited for which Waugh is best known. Its popularity in this country can be traced directly to the beautifully made TV adaptation aired on PBS stations in 1982. (Only 18 at the time, I spent 11 weeks glued to the TV at the expense of homework, family and friends.) How could this be my favorite novel?

On the surface it possesses some of Waugh's "tried and true" satiric characters. (The gay, lisping Anthony Blanche comes to mind.) There's the upper-crust - albeit Catholic - English family and a vast country estate and ancient home, echoing the great English literary tradition of rooting a story in a stately manor house. Toss in some moments of university debauchery at Oxford, the atmosphere of 1920s society, and one has a fun read if you're a fan of the Masterpiece Theatre genre. Visually, it made for a stunning television production, considered one of the best novel adaptations ever. (The role also propelled Jeremy Irons' career to the next level.) And no doubt at 18 I approached it on those terms, because at that point I had already developed a rapt anglophilia. Nevertheless, as I've grown older and re-experienced the book - which is by no means long compared to Waugh's English literary antecedents - I've taken more and more from it each time.

Brideshead Revisited is ultimately about the grace of god and the ways in which each of its characters acts within the framework of Catholic faith and grace. It is certainly a Catholic novel and reflects Waugh's own conversion to hyper-orthodoxy in middle age. Waugh examines each of the main characters, including the protagonist, Charles Ryder, in terms of his or her relationship to god. And, symbolizing the Church is the estate and house - Brideshead. There's the overly devout mother, Lady Marchmain who's faith carries her to her deathbed through repeated trials and disappointments. Her estranged husband, Lord Marchmain has rejected his wife and the Church and has fled to far off Venice. Cordelia, the youngest daughter of the family, possesses the faith of a child and devotes her life to service, even if she does fail to become a nun. Sebastian, the younger son, drinks his way out of Oxford and descends into a world of alcholism and dissipation in northern Africa. Julia, the older daughter, rejects convention, marries badly, and engages in an adulterous affair. And Charles Ryder, essentially a thinly disguised Waugh, regards matters of faith with unvarnished skepticism as he moves in and out of the circles frequented by the Marchmain family.

If Waugh had simply left the story at that point - and plenty of novels do just that - this would be an entirely one-dimensional work, a comedy of manners and morals and nothing more. Nevertheless, he takes that "twitch upon the thread" theme, borrowed from one of G. K. Chesterton's "Father Brown" novels, and very carefully draws the main characters back to Brideshead and thus back to the grace of god. Lord Marchmain, nearing the end of his life, returns home and, making the sign of the cross during last rites, acknowledges the faith he so soundly rejected for decades. Witnessing this, Julia recognizes the sin of her adultery and accepts god's grace, devoting herself to service thereafter.

But for Charles,the agnostic, redemption takes a bit longer. The novel begins and ends at 1944, with the bulk of the story having been a flashback to the 20s and early 30s. An older Charles Ryder has returned to the Brideshead estate as an army officer, with the estate now used as a temporary billet for soldiers. With a bit of reflection on all that he's experienced - love, loss, divorce, approaching middle age, and the stress of wartime - Charles Ryder, sitting in the estate's chapel, finally acknowledges and accepts the grace of god. Indeed, Ryder, almost certainly echoing Waugh's own sentiments, recognizes an even deeper, more ancient connection to the first communities of believers.

Now this is a rather crudely constructed precis of the novel. Scores of scholarly articles have dissected every page of Waugh's masterpiece. Of course I highly recommend it . . . and hope my clumsy description doesn't deter some of you from picking it up. Or watch the PBS adaptation! It is strictly faithful to the book, leaving little out (hence the 12 or 13 hour running time).

(To one friend's charge that my reading is far too serious, I'll counter with Bill Bryson, whose volumes cover one shelf in my home. His books are immensely funny, not at all serious, and regularly climb the ranks of the bestseller lists. His most recent The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, offers a fantastically funny memoir of a 1950s childhood in DesMoines, Iowa. Who says I don't know how to have fun!?)

"Here is the church, here is the steeple . . ."

" . . . open the doors, and there are the people." If you grew up in a family that attended church, you probably recall this little rhyme which was always accompanied by one's hands forming a church and steeple. Some of my earliest memories are of attending church with my family and that experience - good and bad - obviously constitutes an important part of my complex spiritual DNA. And, if one were to try and scribble a grocery list of my beliefs, the resulting enumeration would look as if I had gone to the "Piggly Wiggly" store and browsed the aisles for the most eclectic selection possible: plenty of carbs, a psalm or two, a pinch of agnosticism, sugary snacks, a healthy dose of seafood (because, hey, weren't a bunch of Jesus' disciples fishermen?) and hot dogs, which are ultimately all about faith. So at 43, racing for the checkout lines - and I certainly do not have twelve items or less - I'm starting to wonder what's this all going to cost and did I forget something in Aisle Three? (If you read my "Lenten non-discipline" post, you're probably now wondering if I was serious about that whole "non-discipline" thing. This isn't a "discipline"; it's just a bit of self-examination prompted by my reading.)

Living in New York City one encounters a seemingly limitless wealth of religious traditions. I've encountered atheists, Buddhists, Buddhist Christians, Quakers, Unitarians, Unitarians who believe in the Resurrection, fundamentalist Baptists, liberal Baptists, lukewarm Methodists, evangelical Episcopalians, mink-adorned Episcopalians, Hassidic Jews, Orthodox Jews, non-practicing Jews, Muslims, and a diversity of Catholics that hobbles one's understanding of the Catholic Church. And this is, by any means of measurement, not a complete list. Although I knew the City was a heterogeneous place vis-a-vis religion, I still found it altogether unsettling at first. There were so many choices! Where does a southerner in New York City start when "religious diversity" has always meant Baptists, Methodists, Pentecostals, Presbyterians, as well as a few Episcopalians and Lutherans, living together in one's community under a cease fire reminiscent of the 1914 "Christmas Truce" of World War I. They're willing to leave their trenches long enough to sing a verse of Silent Night, but thereafter the sniping continues. As for Catholics and Jews in the South . . . in many towns and cities they represent the religious margins.

So, where does this leave me, possessing a higgledy-piggledy spiritual DNA, a double helix of agnosticism, Southern Baptist childhood, Episcopal adulthood, casual flirtations with Buddhism and Quakerism, as well as a fascination with some of the more ascetic and insular religious sects, including the Hassidim and the Amish? (Although the Shakers have much to admire, their separation of men and women, as well as prohibitions against marriage and sex, represent deal breakers.) Complicating the matter, I also represent that segment of the liberal populace that thinks "fundamentalist Christians," particularly those who identify with the Republican party and have tried to manipulate its agenda through groups like the Christian Coalition, are America's answer to 1930s fascism. These people - and not Islamic-based terrorist cells - are the most dangerous group in this country . . . but nothing new, given our nation's long history of breeding religious extremists. (Read Bruce Bawer's Stealing Jesus: How Fundamentalism Betrays Christianity for an excellent examination of this topic.)

I'm beginning to reach the conclusion - long in the works - that we're all chasing after the same God. Christians don't have a monopoly on "the truth" and are rather arrogant to think it. Indeed, Jesus and the Buddha have more in common than most Christians realize. (No doubt many of my deceased antecedents, particularly the Methodist-Episcopal ministers and Baptist Sunday School teachers, are now rolling in their graves.) Unfortunately, however, many Christians in the U.S., including members of my own family, maintain that myopic view of their faith, in which a thoroughly Anglo-Saxon, almost hippie-like Jesus, presides over the faithful.

An old friend refers to this mass produced, suspiciously feminine image as the "benign Jesus." She even collects "benign Jesus" ephemera, including postcards, clocks, and calendars. Of course, the most famous example comes from Warner Sallman, whose painting, "The Head of Jesus" (1941), has arguably become the most widely circulated image of Christ, having been reproduced an estimated 500 million times. In the largely Protestant South, this image showed up on everything but grocery bags. Every "fellowship hall" from Charleston to Biloxi possessed at least one framed copy, while churches and funeral homes always included Sallman's painting on hand-held fans in the years B.A.C. (before air conditioning). I'm also quite certain that my paternal grandmother's living room included at least one Sallman rendering of Jesus (and the man produced many, in addition to the "Head of Jesus," including the image at the top of this post).

Where do I stand in this religious fray, having rejected the path trod by my Baptist and Methodist forbears? Hmmmm, it's still a work in progress, like some of my paintings. Although occasionally involved in a neighborhood Lutheran congregation, I'm still intrigued by Buddhism and the Quakers. Perhaps it's a product of their common emphasis on simplicity and a belief that one needs to pare away the extraneous material elements in one's life. I recently saw something of this in a Henri Nouwen book on the current relevance of early Christian ascetics, although it's a practice that enjoys only a limited following in this age of "mega-churches," which seem little more than Wal-Marts for the religious bargain hunter. For now, I'll continue to read and assimilate these new ideas, questioning my Buddhist friends and perhaps even attending a Quaker meeting. And although I want my children to reap the potential benefits of an upbringing that includes religion, I don't want them to face the "you must go to church each week" mentality that punctuated my childhood. If they become atheists, I'll be disappointed. However, if they eventually decide to become Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, or something altogether different, so be it. At least they will have made a conscious choice to recognize that voice of God which doubtless stirred our earliest human ancestors.

C.S. Lewis and my Lenten "non-discipline"

When it comes to the Lenten season, I'm usually not one to embark on suddenly strict regimens in which I deny myself alcohol, sex, or fattening desserts. Nor will I likely assume the mantle of prayerful penitent, spending that period between Ash Wednesday and Good Friday in daily meditation, soliciting God for the forgiveness of my sins. Nevertheless, I often try to turn my reading to matters spiritual during this period. I take Lent as a break from my normal reading routine, which is usually punctuated by tomes of history, sociology, and even the sciences. Last year, for example, I took Lent to march through a book recommended by a friend. The Buddha in Your Mirror represented a stark - and welcome - departure from the usual Christianity-focused efforts. But for several years - excluding the last - I've turned to C.S. Lewis, the great 20th century champion for an intellectually-based Christianity, and I enjoyed thoroughly God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics and Surprised by Joy: The Shape of my Early Life.

So this year it's a biography of Lewis by a professor from Wheaton College, the repository for Lewis's papers. The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C.S. Lewis promises to be a dense but enjoyable read. Indeed, within the first few pages I was struck by a passage which resonates so thoroughly with the core of who I am, I have to share it.

"My happiest hours are spent with three or four old friends
in old clothes tramping together and putting up in small
pubs - or else sitting up till the small hours in someone's
college rooms talking nonsense, poetry, theology,
metaphysics over beer, tea, and pipes."

Having spent many hours in one of Lewis's favorite Oxford pubs - a darkly ancient, ghost-inhabited pub likewise frequented by Lewis's friend Tolkein - I understand his sentiments. And having experienced that academic or intellectual camaraderie during my years as a historian, I agree passionately with his observation. Those indeed are some of "my happiest hours" and I wish they weren't quite so rare.