Carl Thorpe

In this episode, Dr. M. Elizabeth Thorpe is joined by Producer Carl Thorpe for a brief discussion of prayer and the Bible in public schools and their experiences as educators.

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Transcript

DDM [00:03] Hello and welcome to The Priest and the Prof. I am your host, the Rev. Deborah Duguid-May.

MET [00:09] And I’m Dr. M. Elizabeth Thorpe.

DDM [00:11] This podcast is a product of Trinity Episcopal Church in Greece, New York. I’m an Episcopal priest of 26 years, and Elizabeth has been a rhetoric professor since 2010. And so join us as we explore the intersections of faith, community, politics, philosophy, and action.

MET [00:38] Hello, it is good to be with you. Producer Carl is with me today, and we are here to talk to you about our experiences both as people of faith and as educators. One time, years ago, I had my students in political rhetoric do some group projects on major political and cultural issues of the day. One group got prayer in school. The group got up there and they were setting up their slides and getting ready in general, and then they turned to the class and they said, “Okay, we’re ready.” And one woman who I knew to be pretty conservative and religious said, “Okay, before we start, I’d like for us all to bow our heads and start with a word of prayer.” And everyone in the group clasped their hands and bowed their heads. You could feel the chill run through the room. The rest of the class started shifting very uncomfortably and some of them gasped. I was ready to jump out of my seat and say, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, let’s calm down here.” When the woman raised her head, opened her eyes wide and said, “Just kidding, but your reaction gets us ready to talk about today’s topic.” There was a collective sigh of relief and many people laughed out loud.

MET [02:00] It was easily one of the most memorable intros to a presentation I have ever had in one of my classes, and I don’t think I will ever forget it. No lie. I loved it. I thought it was perfect. I gave them a ton of points for that. But this woman was exactly right. For most people, the notion of prayer in class makes us really uncomfortable. But at the same time, there are some people who think it is absolutely essential.

MET [02:31] I grew up doing things like see you at the poll, which if you did not grow up in an environment where people were constantly trying to shove religion anywhere and everywhere, it was a yearly event where students gathered before school and gathered around the flagpole to pray. I guess we were supposed to pray for our schools or the nation, but that was never really made clear. We were just kids who were supposed to pray. And we did, and we sang our God is an awesome God and we’re our best evangelical selves. And there were signs up all over my church that said quippy things like, “As long as there are tests, there will be prayers in school.” I was surrounded by folks who generally believed that things would be better if we could shove as much Christianity into school as possible. I did not know this was a relatively new attitude, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

MET [03:27] For just a second, I’m going to ask Carl to give us a tiny bit of insight as someone who was a K through 12 teacher. Carl, can you tell us about your experience as a junior high teacher dealing with religion and school?

CRT [03:40] Sure. Back in Texas, I worked for two years as a paraprofessional at a wealthy elementary school and then three years as a classroom teacher at a low income middle school. Every morning, we had a moment of silence after the Pledge of Allegiance to both the American flag and the Texas flag, which is very weird, but that’s something for another day. This was intended to be a time where students and staff could pray silently if they wanted. We were supposed to ensure that our students were motionless and silent during this brief time. Many teachers required students to stand. Now let’s ignore for a moment the students who were not religious in any way. And let’s be honest, Texas most certainly didn’t take any of them into account either.

CRT [04:20] This was supposed to be non-sectarian. However, I often wondered about those students whose former prayer wasn’t respected by this. What about those students whose former prayer were supposed to be audible or who prayed in a prostate position or prayed facing a specific direction? A moment of silence privileges those whose faith allows for silent, private individual prayer. And honestly, even the groups who definitely could and did engage in silent private prayer, such as those who organized and attended to see you at a poll event Elizabeth described, would have preferred audible, specifically Christian prayer if they could have gotten away with it. The moment of silence was the best they could get away with at that time.

CRT [04:59] And speaking of CU at the poll, at the middle school I taught at, this was not a once a year thing. It was at least weekly and at times more than that. And many faculty and staff members participated, including the principal and some of the vice principals of the school. The students who participated were given more leeway in terms of behavior and discipline because they were good Christians who made mistakes. Rumor had it that the administrators who participated often prayed for forgiveness with students who were sent to their office as one part of their punishment for behavior issues and let off the hook, so to speak. Teachers who wanted to participate were excused from before school duties such as monitoring students coming off buses, et cetera, so they could go pray. Administrators and other teachers would say things like, “I haven’t seen you at the flagpole. You know it lets our students know how much we love them and respect them when we participate.”

MET [05:47] I wanna be very clear so much of that is so illegal.

MET [05:51] Also, historically, it hasn’t always been this way. Believe it or not, Baptists were some of the chief opponents of prayer in school for a long time, right up until the time the moral majority, which we have talked about before, took over American politics. And for some people, this seems so counterintuitive. Surely the largest evangelical group in the nation would want prayer in school, right? That’s what so many of us have learned for most of our lives. But no. For most of the Baptist tradition, there was a persistent effort to keep religion out of schools and other manifestations of state.

MET [06:37] So let’s talk about why. Let’s say you decide to make a public prayer at something like a town hall meeting or a school event. That’s a state sanctioned happening, right? Which means the state gives tacit approval for everything that happens. So, the state has a vested interest in what is said, which means the state has a controlling interest in what is said. In short, the state may have a say in what you say in your prayer. If you pray at a state event, the state gets to have a say in that prayer. For example, a lot of places have said you can have a prayer as long as it is inclusive and represents a number of belief systems. A Baptist of yester year might say, “No. When I pray, I pray to Jesus Christ, son of God, creator of the universe, and it is an infringement on my religion for you to tell me I have to pray to anything or anyone different.” In other words, historically, the more conservative religious groups wanted to keep religion out of the state because they wanted to keep state out of religion.

MET [07:54] The problem with combining the two is that it is not a one-way street. Once you inject religion into the state, it is impossible for the state not to become part of religion. And that may be great if you pray to the state, which quite frankly, a lot of so- called Christians right now do. But if you pray to Jesus who rejected worldly power, this is pretty much as blasphemous as it gets.

MET [08:22] Of course, I come with receipts. I’m going to give you a brief rundown of some of the most significant court cases dealing with religion in schools to give you some idea of how this is trending. The first case I want to talk about is Engel v. Vitale. What happened was the New York State Board of Regents authorized a short, voluntary prayer for recitation at the start of each school day. A group of organizations joined forces in challenging the prayer, claiming that it violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment. The question at hand was, does the reading of a non-denominational prayer at the start of the school day violate the establishment of religion clause at the First Amendment? The court held that the state cannot hold prayers in public schools, even if participation is not required and the prayer is not tied to a particular religion.

MET [09:21] In an opinion authored by Hugo L. Black, the court held that respondent’s decision to use its school system to facilitate recitation of an official prayer violated the establishment clause. Specifically, the policy breached the constitutional wall of separation between church and state. The court ruled that the constitutional prohibition of laws establishing religion meant that the government had no business drafting formal prayers for any segment of its population to repeat in a government-sponsored religious program. The court held that the respondent’s provision of the contested daily prayer was inconsistent with the establishment clause. Okay, that’s a lot of complicated words to say that you can’t voice prayers over the PA system or whatever, even if they are voluntary.

MET [10:14] For the record, this would come up again in Santa Fe v. Doe when there was a case over prayers at football games. That’s a complicated question because for decades, it was illegal for schools to have prayers before football games, but schools did it all the time anyway. Then in 2022, there was another prayer at Football Games case about a coach leading his team, and they decided that was acceptable, even though it was quite public. For the record, I have a huge problem with that case and wrote a whole book chapter on it. So if you want my thoughts, send me an email and I’ll shoot you the whole document.

MET [10:54] A second case from 1963 is Abington School District v. Shchempp. The facts of the case are that under Pennsylvania law, public schools were required to read from the Bible at the opening of each school day. The school district sought to enjoin enforcement of the statute. The district court ruled that the statute violated the First Amendment even after the statute had been amended to permit a student to excuse himself. The question was, did the Pennsylvania law requiring public school students to participate in classroom religious exercises violate the religious freedom of students as protected by the First and 14th Amendments? And the court decided public schools cannot sponsor Bible readings and recitations of the Lord’s prayer under the First Amendment’s establishment clause. It’s wild to think of a time when this was a question. At the same time, there are a lot of people out there right now who are trying to shoehorn the Bible into classrooms. So what are we thinking?

MET [12:06] Lemon v. Kurtzman is a particularly important case, both for the test it led to and for how it is largely being ignored by modern courts. Both Pennsylvania and Rhode Island adopted statutes that provided for the state to pay for aspects of non-secular, non-public education. The Pennsylvania statute was passed in 1968 and provided funding for non-public elementary and secondary school teachers salaries, textbooks, and instructional materials for secular subjects. Rhode Island’s statute was passed in 1969 and provided state financial support for non-public elementary schools in the form of supplementing 15% of teachers’ annual salaries. The appellants in the Pennsylvania case represented citizens and taxpayers in Pennsylvania who believed that the statute violated the separation of church and state described in the First Amendment.

MET [13:14] Appellant Lemon also had a child in Pennsylvania public school. The district court granted the state official’s motion to dismiss the case. In the Rhode Island case, the epelees were citizens and taxpayers of Rhode Island who sued to have the statute in question declared unconstitutional by arguing that it violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment. The District Court found in favor of the Appalees and held that the state violated the First Amendment. Okay. So the question in all of this is, do the statutes that provide state funding for non-public, non-secular schools violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment? The court held that a statute must pass a three-pronged test in order to avoid violating the establishment clause. The statute must have a secular legislative purpose. Its principle or primary effect must be one that neither promotes nor inhibits religion, and it must not foster excessive government entanglement with religion. The court held that both the state statutes in question had secular legislative purposes because they reflected the desire of the state to ensure minimum secular education requirements were being met in the non-public schools.

MET [14:45] Now I’m gonna shift gears for just a second. Kitzmiller v. Dover is a case that doesn’t always come up in these conversations, but I think it’s important. The Dover case is actually about intelligent design. I include it here because after evangelicals seem to have lost the prayer in school’s battle, until recently, they turned their eyes to science classes. It is not an exaggeration to say that intelligent design is one big bit of hogum. If you’re not familiar, it is an alternative theory to evolution that some states have tried to shove into science classes and argue that it wasn’t evolution, but an intelligent designer that created the world. And I love that. It isn’t God, just some unnamed, far off, intelligent designer that created the world and absolutely did not follow the laws of established science, but set the world down whole cloth. It is creationism without Genesis. It is garbage, but Christians love to propose it as an alternative scientific theory that fills in the gaps. Friends, it is not scientific, and there are no gaps. I remember a student years ago in a class announced that evolution couldn’t be accurate because there was a missing link. I told them, “The missing link you are looking for is Australopithecus africanus, and we’ve known about it for decades, and just because most people are wildly ignorant of science doesn’t mean we should teach people to be more ignorant.” My students were shocked, offended, and educated. In 2004, the Dover School Board mandated that biology teachers mention intelligent design as an alternative to evolution using the textbook of pandas and people.

MET [16:54] This one didn’t even make it to SCOTUS. It stopped at lower levels. The judge concluded that intelligent design is not science and cannot decouple itself from its creationist and thus religious antecedents. The decision deemed the policy unconstitutional and halted efforts to introduce ID into public school curricula nationwide. One of the most recent ways we have seen all this rear its ugly head is in places like Texas and Alabama, where states have tried to make laws requiring states to place the 10 commandments in classes.

MET [17:32] A case that has come up is Stone v. Graham. Sydell Stone and a number of other parents challenged a Kentucky state law that required the posting of a copy of the 10 Commandments in each public school classroom. They filed a claim against James Graham, the superintendent of public schools in Kentucky. The court ruled that the Kentucky law violated the first part of the test established in Lemon v. Kurtzman, and thus violated the establishment clause of the Constitution. The court found that the requirement that the 10 Commandments be posted had no secular legislative purpose and was plainly religious in nature. The court noted that the commandments did not confine themselves to arguably secular matters, such as murder, stealing, et cetera, but rather concerned matters such as the worship of God and the observance of the Sabbath Day.

MET [18:26] Look, if it isn’t clear by now, this is a mess. The rules change depending on the court and half the time red states don’t follow the law anyway.

CRT [18:36] I don’t know if you know this, but there isn’t just one list of 10 commandments among Christians. The Catholic and some Lutheran versions combine having no other gods and making no graven images into the first commandment, whereas Protestant traditions separate those into the first two. For Catholics and against some Lutherans covering your neighbor’s wife and your neighbor’s possessions are divided into the ninth and 10th commandments, while other Protestant traditions combine them into the 10th, which carries an off-putting emphasis on your neighbor’s wife being one of his possessions. In Texas, for example, they mandate the Protestant version of the 10 commandments as found in the King James version of the Bible, excluding the Catholic version, which again is probably intentional. So even something that claims to be non-denominational most certainly isn’t.

CRT [19:22] Similarly, mandates for teaching Bibles in schools usually privilege one specific translation over others. Again, Catholics and some Orthodox churches include a set of books often referred to as the apocrypha in their Bibles, and they are usually excluded from versions specified in these mandates. So even if you are 100% on board with biblical principles and texts being taught in public schools, students of other denominations of the religion that these laws and mandates seek to privilege are still being excluded.

MET [19:51] Okay. So what does all of this say about our faith? Honestly, I don’t think it’s anything good. If we are so unsure about our faith and insecure about it that we feel the state has to mandate it, then we are not doing our jobs. If we are willing to turn our religion over to the state to take care of its keep because we need the power of the state to keep it going, then we are failures. I don’t think the drive to put religion in schools indicates any great belief in the great commission. I think it represents a profound lack of confidence in your own beliefs. If your beliefs are so small and so fragile that you depend on the state to make them valid, then that’s not faith. That’s bureaucracy. And I do not believe Jesus came to be a bureaucrat. I do not believe salvation comes in the classroom. I do not believe we can depend on the power of the state to justify our faith, and if you do, then your faith is ridiculously weak. We talked just recently about God and the public, and I think there is a place for that, but I would never depend on the state to be the source of my religion, and I am thoroughly convinced that it is an unchrist-like way to approach Christianity.

MET [26:30] Thank you for listening to The Priest and The Prof. find us at our website, https://priestandprof.org. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact us at podcast@priestandprof.org. Make sure to subscribe, and if you feel led, please leave a donation at https://priestandprof.org/donate/. That will help cover the cost of this podcast and support the ministries of Trinity Episcopal Church. Thank you, and we hope you have enjoyed our time together today.

DDM [27:00] Music by Audionautix.

Dr. M. Elizabeth Thorpe debunks the claim that America is a Christian nation and how God is embedded in our culture and politics.

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Transcript

DDM – Hello and welcome to The Priest and the Prof. I am your host, the Rev. Deborah Duguid-May.

MET – And I’m Dr. M. Elizabeth Thorpe.

DDM – This podcast is a product of Trinity Episcopal Church in Greece, New York. I’m an Episcopal priest of 26 years, and Elizabeth has been a rhetoric professor since 2010. And so join us as we explore the intersections of faith, community, politics, philosophy, and action.

MET – I am about to say something that will ruffle some feathers, but here we go – legally speaking, America is absolutely not a Christian nation.

MET – I know there are a lot of you who have been raised, or at least been told, to believe that America was founded as a Christian country, but I am about to explain how that is 100% a fabrication.

MET – On the one hand, there were definitely colonies that were founded on religious beliefs. I’m not denying that. A number of the first European settlements in America were Christian. And I think it IS important to note that they were Christian and not religiously free. The pilgrims and the colonists absolutely did not come here for religious freedom in the beginning. They came to establish religious communities. It really wasn’t until the Baptists were doing their thing in places like Rhode Island and Pennsylvania that there was any notion of religious freedom. So in that regard, I will grant you that the colonists established Christian communities.

MET – But that is not the founding of America. That is the founding of a bunch of disparate, religious colonies with no connection, guiding principles, or system of laws that make up any kind of community or government, let alone a nation. America came late.r

MET – America came once the colonies had formed into something like states, and those states wanted to join into something larger. And even that was contestable. Some of you may remember that before the Constitution we had something called the Articles of Confederation.Those were a failure because they did very little to create any kind of connective tissue between the states. They didn’t create a nation – they created a coalition of separate nation states that were somehow supposed to get along. That, to no one’s surprise, didn’t work.

MET – Which leads us to the Constitution.

MET – The Constitution is what makes America America. It quite literally constitutes us. So if you’re going to talk about the founding of America, the place to start is less with the colonies, and more with the debates about constitutional monarchy and the Bill of Rights.

MET – Which brings me right back to religion.

MET – Here’s the thing more people need to know – there is no God in the Constitution. He’s not mentioned. Not even once. Some people might get all up in arms and say, “What about our rights from the Creator?” but hold your horses – that’s not in the Constitution. That’s in the Declaration of Independence. And the Declaration isn’t a legal document. It’s the opposite, actually. It’s an angry break up letter, at best. But really more of a manifesto or declaration of treason. Yes – treason. So, literally, the opposite of a legal document. It’s definitely illegal.

MET – But even if it were, and I will pretend for just a second, what does it really say? That we are imbued by our Creator with certain inalienable rights. God does not give us our rights. Our Creator does. Look, Thomas Jefferson was a very smart, and very specific guy. If he wanted to say we got our rights from God, he would have said it. But he said our rights came from our Creator. Thomas Jefferson, like the vast majority of the Founding Fathers, was Deist who was deeply invested in Enlightenment philosophy. He didn’t believe in an all-powerful God who commanded the universe, and it is dishonest to put those words in his mouth.

MET – So what does this mean?

MET – Thomas Jefferson believed, like most Enlightenment thinkers, in natural rights. That’s literally what he said – that certain rights are self-evident. They are so inherent and so clear that we can see them obviously in the world around us. Those rights are given to use by Natural Law. That, may indeed, come from a Creator. But NOT God, per se. Nature, the ultimate creator, grans us rights. That is why they are self-evident.

MET – Okay, how can I make such a bold claim? The evidence is in the constitution. The Founding Fathers were looking to separate themselves from the monarchy (and really, the monarchies) of Europe. And the monarchies of Europe were defined by the Divine Right of Kings. The Divine Right of Kings is a fun little tautological idea based on Romans 13: 1-2 and Proverbs 8:15-16. Romans says, Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. And Proverbs argues, By me kings reign,and rulers decree what is just; by me rulers rule, and nobles, all who govern rightly. These verses led to the idea that kings are basically infallible. In short, you should submit to the king, because God made him king. And you know God chose him as king, because he is king. You don’t get to be king unless God wants it.So it’s a free pass for any monarch to do pretty much whatever they want because, according to the Divine Right of Kings, their words and actions are sanctioned by God; so to question them is to question God.

MET – What does this have to do with the Constitution and the Founding Fathers? And the answer is – very specifically and intentionally, NOTHING.

MET – By that I mean, the Founding Fathers very specifically and intentionally left God out of the law because they were trying to get AWAY from monarchy and the Divine Right of Kings. We were literally fighting a whole revolution to separate ourselves from kings. We had to eliminate God from the equation, otherwise we would get into very tricky territory about who had power and why.So the Constitution leaves God out. Instead of deriving its political power from God, the Constitution derives its power from the people – literally the government of the United States is supposed to get its authority from the consent of the governed – not a higher power. That’s legit written into the Constitution. So not only is America not a Christian nation, it was specifically designed to keep all of that complicated Christian stuff OUT of the federal government because it disempowers the democratic and republican (small r) nature of the nation they were trying to form.

MET – And just in case you needed that made any more clear, in 1797, right after the Constitution was ratified and the government was established, the Founding Fathers made a very clear statement about..In the last years of the 18th century, the United States entered into a treaty with Tripoli, a Muslim Barbary State. Article 11 of this treaty reads, and I am not making this up, As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,-as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen,-and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries. So in 1797 we announced to the world we are in no way a Christian religion and we had no problem with Islamic nations. Weirdly, the Christians of the 20th century missed the memo.

MET – NOW, I am going to complicate this all further by telling you that legally we are not a Christian nation, but culturally, that is a more nuanced question. I will die on the hill that Christians have no legal claim to America. But I am more sympathetic to claims that our cultural legacy is Christian. And that comes down to some of what I said earlier – the first colonies were religious, we have long had a Christian majority in the country, and I will definitely admit there is a difference between the law and the social climate.

MET – But here is something to think about. Let me give you a few facts about church attendance:

MET – Church attendance in colonial America varied significantly, with high, often enforced participation in 17th-century New England (up to 70% in some areas) contrasting with lower, more varied attendance elsewhere. While 18th-century,, the Great Awakening boosted attendance, estimates suggest formal church membership was low (roughly 17–20%) on the eve of the Revolution, despite high cultural adherence.Please note that – in the 18th century, that’s in the 1700s, church attendance maxed out at 20% of the population.That is a very surprising statistic for a lot of people. During the era of the Founding Fathers, we get various estimates. Some historians who study these things believe that less than 10% of the population attended church. Others put that estimate at closer to 50%! So it’s kind of hard to know. But, regardless, it would seem that at the best and most generous estimation, less than half of the population went to church

MET – Church attendance actually hit its all time high in the 1950s. That was when we were at our most churchy – we were the most Christian of our Christian selves at that point. And church attendance hovered right around 50%. That’s it – at the time in our history when Christianity was the most vibrant and had the greatest influence over America about half of the population had any regular involvement with a church

MET – Now, this is obviously a much more complex issue than just who goes to church when. The influence of Christianity is more than just how many people go to church. The cultural impact of Christianity reaches beyond the church walls and into sociological, economic, and political concerns well beyond church attendance.But on the other hand, there is something really striking that I need you to understand. Church people are, and always have been, the minority in the United States. People may identify as Christian because they aren’t atheist or they celebrate Christmas, but actual Christianity, as in, engagement with the faith, is actually pretty rare.So when people say this is a Christian nation, they aren’t making claims about how many Christians there are in the nation – because there just aren’t that many. And there never have been.It is actually a very small part of the population that has any involvement with the faith at all. And people think that back in olden times people were way more quote unquote Christian, but they really weren’t. America doesn’t hit its Christian stride until well into the 20th century.

MET – So when we make claims about America being a Christian nation, what are we saying?

MET – In actuality, it’s a claim about a very small group of people having an incredibly outsized influence over the population as a whole. Because the nation at large doesn’t really have any connection to the church. But the church claims to have a connection to the nation.

MET – More likely, it is a claim about culture. We are not a religious nation at all. There is no evidence to support that we are a particularly religious nation but we have what I will call a God problem.

MET – God is everywhere in our society. We hear about him in our economics, in our pop culture, and in our politics. But we don’t adhere to him. We are a Christian nation in that we insert God into anything and everything, but we are not Christian by any theological, practical, or spiritual definition. We don’t go to church, we aren’t theologically grounded or educated, we don’t adhere to scripture, and we don’t reflect any particular belief system. And yet, God is a huge part of our culture.

MET – My claim, then, is that our God problem is really specific to America – we have taken the trappings of faith, embedded them in our politics and culture, but stripped the actual Christianity out of it. The result is we have politics with the language of God in it, but God gets left out. And I say this not as a political statement as much as a historical one. I have LITERALLY just outlined for you all of the ways God has been stripped out of our public lives. But at the same time, we have added him back in time and time again, but in a way that adheres to our faithless lifestyle. We have God without the God. We have a God of politics and culture – not of faith.

MET – All of this brings me to what you probably guessed was coming – Donald Trump’s antics of the last week or two. Now, I could go on and on about his battle with the Pope. It is abundantly clear that there are people, generally those who support Trump, who feel that the Pope’s brand of Christianity is suspect. Given that the Pope’s brand of Christianity is kind of global and important, that’s a big problem.And there is obviously tension between MAGA Catholics and traditional Catholics.

MET – But what I want to focus on is THE IMAGE. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, stop now and Google it. On April 12th, Trump (and it was Trump himself) posted an image of himself dressed as Jesus, surrounded by divine figures and happy supplicants, with rays of light coming out of his hands, apparently healing a sick man. One of my biggest problems with the image was that the man he was healing looked a lot like Jeffrey Epstein, but that is neither here nor there. Trump has since deleted the image and backtracked claiming it is just evil, liberal media who sees Jesus in this image.It is obviously him as a doctor!

MET – Dear listener – do not let him talk to you like you are an idiot. That was a religious picture of Trump as Jesus and anybody who tells you any differently is insulting you. I mean, really, don’t talk to that person anymore because they have told you what they think of you and you deserve better. It’s Trump as Jesus. It’s blasphemy

MET – But how did we get to a place where ANY politician thought it would be acceptable to portray themselves as a deity? Where did this idea that a person could be a god or a messiah come from? This is our God problem. We are not a Christian nation. But God is endemic to our politics. We have so intertwined God into our politics, and made discussions of God a part of the political scene, that it is common for people to substitute a political leader for God, and God for a political leader. The God problem is not whether we are or are not a Christian nation, the God problem is whether we can tell God from our politics. And the thing is – we often can’t. We have so muddied the water between our politicized faith and our faith of politics that our president actually thought he could replace Christ. Like, he literally thought his supporters would appreciate it if he just supplanted the Messiah.

MET – That is not a God problem; that is a God emergency.

MET – We cannot claim to be a Christian nation if we live in a country where it is possible to substitute a person for Christ. And we cannot claim to be a Christian nation if so few of us are actually involved with the faith. Right now in America the percentage of people who attend church regularly is actually quite high. We’re coming in at about 30%. So in some ways we are MORE of a Christian nation now than we were at the founding – so do with that what you will. But that’s generally not what people mean when people say we are a Christian nation. But what they DO mean is suspect, at best. What they OFTEN mean is that God is at the helm, or that God is at the heart of our nation. And BOTH of those are debatable, at best.

MET – What IS clear is that God is everywhere, even if he is not a driving force. Because God has been politicized. God has been turned into an economy. God has been turned into pop culture. And if THAT is what you mean by a Christian nation, sure, great. There is something about God everywhere you look. But for those of us who take God seriously, that should be a sign of trouble, not joy. Because the God I believe in cannot be secularized by politics and pop culture.

MET – The God I believe in does not fit into the economic models we are working with in these United States. The God I believe in is not the sanitized and cheapened version so common in the public sphere.

MET – If that is what is meant by a Christian nation, maybe we are one. But I don’t know what that has to do with Christ..

MET – Thank you for listening to the Priest and the Prof. Find us at our website, https://priestandprof.org. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact us at podcast@priestandprof.org. Make sure to subscribe, and if you feel led, please leave a donation at https://priestandprof.org/donate/. That will help cover the costs of this podcast and support the ministries of Trinity Episcopal Church. Thank you, and we hope you have enjoyed our time together today.

DDM – Music by Audionautix.com

We at The Priest & The Prof took a break from production over Holy Week and the week after Easter.  We will return on April 16th with a new episode.

Dr. M. Elizabeth Thorpe and Producer Carl Thorpe talk about anger and argue that it isn’t always wrong, harmful, or sinful.

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Transcript

DDM – Hello and welcome to The Priest & The Prof. I am your host, the Rev. Deborah Duguid-May.

MET – And I’m Dr. M. Elizabeth Thorpe.

DDM – This podcast is a product of Trinity Episcopal Church in Greece, New York. I’m an Episcopal priest of 26 years, and Elizabeth has been a rhetoric professor since 2010. And so join us as we explore the intersections of faith, community, politics, philosophy, and action.

MET – Hello and welcome. Today, Producer Carl is with me again, so everybody be nice to him. Today we’re talking about something a little different, but is as important to our spiritual lives as just about anything else we’ve covered, and that is anger. Now, it may not seem like it, but anger is just as an important part of our emotional and spiritual development as really anything else.

MET – We learn how to regulate our emotions as part of our emotional and social development, and figuring out what to do with anger is a big part of this. Just as a completely anecdotal and non-academic observation, I see a lot of this in people younger than me right now. Specifically in the struggles of young men. Now, more than at any time in history, men are expected to manage their emotions in an intelligent, empathetic, and sensitive way. Before, they have not really been expected to do this, and now they are not equipped to do this. The result is a huge backlash, and the advent of what is called the ‘manosphere.” Men are convinced they are being held to impossible standards and women are just asking men to be basic humans. The result is a lot of frustration, alienation, and a male loneliness epidemic. Much of this is because of an expectation that people learn to manage their anger and aggression.

MET – But anger is not new to the public. Anger has been an important part of American rhetoric since its founding. In 1741, Jonathan Edwards delivered his famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” At that point, sermons were very much a part of public discourse. They were the public speaking of the day. The sermon, which is quite long, is based on one single verse. I think I’ve talked about it before. Deuteronomy 32:35: “Their foot shall slide in due time.” So, starting out very positive! And the whole sermon, I mean the entire thing, is about how God has the power to send us to hell.

MET – Have a few tastes: “There is no want of power in God to cast wicked men into hell at any moment. Men’s hands cannot be strong when God rises up. The strongest have no power to resist him, nor can any deliver out of his hands.—He is not only able to cast wicked men into hell, but he can most easily do it.”

MET – Or, my personal favorite: “The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours.”

MET – Right? Cheerful stuff. Historically, we have been taught that God is angry. It’s a bit of a paradox. God loves us and wants to show us mercy. But the reason we need mercy is because we are so awful.

MET – But Jesus has very different ideas about anger. Jesus does, in fact, get angry. Many people, especially girls and women, have been told it is wrong, sinful, or improper to show anger. Friends, that is a tool by those in power to keep you in line. It’s why women are told over and over again they they are too emotional and they need to keep it together. Because women have things to be angry or sad about and if we let that go on somebody might have to be held accountable.

MET – But anger is not a sin. And I know it’s not because Jesus got very, very angry. Jesus got angry when he called Peter Satan. Jesus got angry when he flipped over tables in the Temple. The difference is that Jesus didn’t get angry at people who were annoying him with their problems – he got angry at the people who were causing problems. He got angry at religious leaders and merchants. He got angry at the rich and the powerful. Jesus got very angry – but not at the everyday people around him. Jesus wasn’t angry at the “sinners” in his midst. He was angry at the people who put them in a position where they were disempowered.

CRT – Often, we try to sanitize his anger. Take the “widow’s mite” story. You know, the one where the rich person gives a large amount of money to the temple followed immediately by a widow who gives all that she can. We often hear this story in the context of stewardship drives where the widow is held up as an example to us all of how we should give all that we can to the church. But that interpretation ignores what immediately precedes and follows the widow depositing her coins. Jesus tells his followers that the scribes “devour widows’ houses for the sake of appearance” and that the temple, “adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God” will be destroyed. The widow deposits the last of her coins, and those two coins will do little more than further feed the scribe’s hunger. This is unjust, and Jesus makes that clear. This woman,as a window, has no means to make a “honest” living, yet she gives all that she has to survive on to a system that already has more than it needs. Is the temple system all that different from economists and politicians telling people to give up Starbucks and Avocado Toast so they can afford skyrocketing gas prices and the housing market that hasn’t kept up with inflation since the 1970s? Who is benefiting from those ever increasing costs? Surely not the people who need the most help.

CRT – So we’ve talked about God being angry with us and Jesus being angry with the institutions that promote injustice, but what about us being angry with God? I remember talking to a religious leader in college shortly after my grandmother had died. I was told that everything that happened, good or bad, was part of God’s plan, and we are expected to accept it and be grateful at all times. I was told that I needed to think of God as a parent who knows what is best for me and I just needed to accept everything and be thankful. So when my Grandmother died, it was God’s plan. If I couldn’t accept that, it was sinful. God, I was told, picks and chooses who should suffer, and we should be glad about it because that suffering was somehow good because it was in furtherance of “God’s plan.” Is it any wonder, then, that I rejected the idea of a God who was beyond question and ended up an atheist for many years?

CRT – But God’s story, as told through the Bible, doesn’t bear that out. The prophets of the old testament did not accept that the world was the way it was because of God’s plan. The Bible is full of figures who express anger, not just at other people, but even directed at God. Jeremiah says “You will be in the right, O Lord, when I lay charges against you, but let me put my case to you. Why does the way of the guilty prosper? Why do all who are treacherous thrive? You plant them, and they take root; they grow and bring forth fruit; you are near in their mouths yet far from their hearts.” The prophet Habbakuk rails against God, saying “Your eyes are too pure to behold evil, and you cannot look on wrongdoing; why do you look on the treacherous and are silent when the wicked swallow those more righteous than they?” The prophets saw fit to question God and demand justice. Why can’t we? Why do we tell people who are suffering that they should not express their anger and frustration with God? Why do we just accept suffering as the plan and will of a loving God?

CRT – Jonathan Edwards says we have to accept that because we are worthy of nothing but suffering and damnation. God is rightly so disgusted with us that he has to hold his nose and accept us rather than destroy us. Is that love? How is that any different than telling an abuse victim that they deserve whatever their abuser does to them?

CRT – Elizabeth will tell you that the idea that we are all worthless and repulsive in the eyes of God hasn’t gone away. Many Christians hold onto the idea that they are abject sinners and it is only through unearned and unfathomable grace that God deigns to save us from damnation. This leads to harmful rhetoric like “hate the sin, love the sinner” that is used against the LGBTQ+ community like it is supposed to be so gracious and loving to call someone’s God given identity something worthy of hatred.

CRT – I think that there is something to discuss there about how we are told to love our neighbors as ourselves, while at the same time we are told that we are wretched creatures unworthy of love. If we are taught to hate ourselves, then why would we need to extend love to anyone else? But that’s probably a topic for another episode.

CRT – What if we just stop doing that? What if we instead assume that all living creatures are worthy of love, respect, and salvation? Shouldn’t we be allowed to be angry if they are not?

MET – One thing I think it is important to me that we get across today is that it is not wrong for you to feel anger. If you’ve ever been to therapy you’ve probably been told many times that feelings aren’t wrong. We have to feel our feelings. Anger is one of those. But as is often the case, you have to get to the root of that anger.

MET – When we hear people who are angry speaking in public or trying to advocate for themselves, we often react very differently based on who they are. For example, Jasmine Crockett just lost a primary in TX to James Talarico. I’m not here to tell you who was a better or worse candidate, but I can tell you what people said about them. Crockett was seen by many people as ‘unelectable.’ She was too volatile, too angry. Too hostile. It must be noted that Crockett is a black woman.

MET – Okay, we know that does not make a person unelectable because Donald Trump is in office. His whole schtick is that he is mean and doesn’t care about people’s feelings. But the difference between Crockett and Trump is that Trump is an old rich white guy, and Crockett is a young black woman. And we allow old rich white guys to be as angry as they want to be, and we find angry black women to be problematic and abrasive. And this isn’t some liberal, DEI nonsense This is provable and and observable. People like Condi Rice because she is completely moderate in public. People hate Michelle Obama because she has the audacity to be opinionated. Trump isn’t bound by any of the same restrictions because he doesn’t have to worry about the color of his skin changing the way people see his aggressive approach to things. In fact, many people see his aggression as a positive. Whereas for Crockett, it made her unelectable.

MET – This is absolutely a matter of tone policing.

MET – Tone policing is when you tell certain people that they need to watch their tone, usually for the sake of civility, in order for their point to be taken seriously. The idea is that we must all remain calm, unmoved by our emotions, and detached if we are to discuss matters of importance. It’s a classic approach to discourse that supposedly favors democratic republics by allowing for the marketplace of ideas to work its magic. It also makes sure that the people who are not affected by the issues are the ones making the decisions

MET – Because you know what? Sexual assault and harassment make me mad. It infuriates me that 1 out of every 3 women in America will be sexually assaulted in their lives. It infuriates a lot of people. But the people who are most affected by it don’t get to speak about it because they are upset? We’re supposed to just turn this issue over to people who have no connection to the issue because they can calmly talk about it? Racism makes me mad. The school to prison pipeline makes me mad. I’m really mad about trans people being stripped of their rights and identity. But because I am angry about these things I can’t take part in public discourse, I guess, because I might let an emotion show?

MET – That is how oppressors maintain power. By keeping people out of the conversation who have a vested interest in it, those who cause the problems are able to keep it up.

MET – HOWEVER. We are also called to love gently. We are supposed to love our enemies. Blessed are the meek and the peacemakers, right? What is love in a volatile world? Can you seek justice, a process that inherently causes strife, in a way that turns the other cheek?

MET – I’m actually going to turn to the Civil Rights Movement here, for just a bit. I’m actually often prone to think about Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael in that regard, but when it comes to being peacemakers in an angry world, the folks who were a part of MLK’s portion of the movement were probably the best example. And I’m not going to tell you it’s because they were so peaceful and non-violent. They were non-violent. But that doesn’t mean they weren’t angry. You can’t read the words of these leaders and not feel the frustration and fierce anger .I think about Fannie Lou Hamer and her testimony in Congress. She was very forthright about what happened to her and how she was treated. She was mad she couldn’t vote. And it inspired her to get people to the polls.

MET – So consider the protesters of the Civil Rights Movement – the protesters were peaceful, but anyone who says the movement was is whitewashing it in unhelpful ways. Because the Civil Rights Movement was terribly violent. It’s just that the violence came from the state. We’ve seen the pictures – we’ve seen the dogs and the firehoses turned on protesters. And we know non-state actors went as far as to set bombs in churches and set fire to homes. The Civil Rights Movement was INCREDIBLY violent. But the violence came from white folks who were acting against progress.

MET – So this question of how we can be angry and gentle at the same time is front and center. The Civil Rights Movement was a group of people who were collectively angry on both sides.One worked together to harness their anger to make the world a more whole and loving place. The other side just showed themselves to be monsters.

CRT – I want to go back to the idea of God as the loving parent who knows better than us for a minute. Who among us hasn’t been angry with our parents at some point in our lives? Maybe it was something as simple as we didn’t like the rules they set forth in their household because we felt they were unfair. Maybe a parent hurt us or failed to protect us. Maybe a parent refused to let us live our lives in the way we want without judgement. Whatever the reason, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, we have all been angry at our parents. Same goes for those of us with children of our own. Every parent has been angry with their children at some point. We get angry because our kids don’t follow our rules. We get angry because our kids make decisions that we feel aren’t in their best interest. We get angry because our kids are angry at us. We can say the same about siblings, spouses, and friends.

CRT – Anger is a part of relationships. In a lot of cases, I think that anger is very much like the anger expressed by God, the prophets, Jesus, and even the Civil Rights leaders Elizabeth just talked about. That anger is rooted in feeling like the deity, person, institution, what have you, hasn’t lived up to our expectations. To the ideal we have. The prophets were angry that their people were oppressed by nations that were more powerful than them. Jesus was angry that the religious leaders were corrupt and enriching themselves rather than caring for the poor and marginalized. The civil rights leaders were angry that our country claimed liberty and justice for all and then refused to provide it based on the color of one’s skin. We’re angry at our parents because they are supposed to be the arbiters and first teachers about love and fairness and protect us. We’re angry at our kids because they are supposed to take the lessons and examples we provide and live them out in a way that we envision for them.

CRT – Anger that someone or something hasn’t lived up to our expectations is rooted in and requires some kind of relationship with whomever or whatever you are angry with. And the question then becomes if that anger is a means to better that relationship or, conversely, a reason to destroy or harm that relationship. But if there isn’t a relationship there and the expectations that come from that relationship to be angry about, then you’re just screaming into the void.

MET – Ultimately, I think anger can be righteous, but for me, the question is, “what are you angry about?” If you are angry about your kid’s tattoo or what they are majoring in – honestly, get yourself together. In no way is that a justifiable thing to be angry about. If you are angry about getting the wrong coffee order or losing the parking space you wanted, honestly, just go home. You are not really fit to be in public at that moment. If you are angry about injustice or inequality – then that is righteous. If you’re angry because of hurt, it’s an opportunity to make a relationship whole.

MET – God is not asking you to put your sense of justice, or even your emotions away. God is asking you to harness them for good.

MET – Thank you for listening to the Priest & The Prof. find us at our website, https://priestandprof.org. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact us at podcast@priestandprof.org. Make sure to subscribe, and if you feel led, please leave a donation at https://priestandprof.org/donate.

MET – That will help cover the costs of this podcast and support the ministries of Trinity Episcopal Church. Thank you, and we hope you have enjoyed our time together today.

DDM – Music by Audionautix.com.

Dr. M. Elizabeth Thorpe and Producer Carl Thorpe discuss their relationship to place and how that impacts their faith and the Church.

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Transcript

DDM – Hello and welcome to The Priest and the Prof. I am your host, the Rev. Deborah Duguid-May.

MET – And I’m Dr. M. Elizabeth Thorpe.

DDM – This podcast is a product of Trinity Episcopal Church in Greece, New York. I’m an Episcopal priest of 26 years, and Elizabeth has been a rhetoric professor since 2010. And so join us as we explore the intersections of faith, community, politics, philosophy, and action.

MET – Hello and welcome! Today, I have the privilege of having Producer Carl on the mic with me.

CRT – Hello!

MET – Yeah, so it’s an exciting day. Carl and I want to talk to you a little bit about “place,” so I would like to tell you a little bit about my past.

MET – I think I have shared with you that I moved around a lot when I was young. When I share how, I guess you would say, “mobile” I was growing up, people often assume I’m from a military family – but actually it was oil. My dad was just a plain old oil hand for most of my life, so when the oil ran out in one place, we would pick up and move to where it was flowing in another place. Those are called booms and busts. We moved to where the oil was booming, and we left when it busted – to go to another boom. And that’s pretty much what we did until I was a teen. Then when I was in my early teens we settled in the Permian Basin, which is one of the top oil producing areas in the nation. Our connection to oil waxed and waned over the years, but much of my life was shaped a lot less by family connection or tradition than petroleum.

MET – Because of that, when I was a kid, I had a different understanding of place than a lot of my friends did. So many of my friends had a hometown or a house they grew up in or a best friend since kindergarten. I had layovers. I had places that I would be for a year, maybe two, just long enough to make a few connections, and then start all over. So place meant something very different to me when I was growing up. Place wasn’t something you were connected to – it was somewhere you were going to. I didn’t have a hometown or a place I grew up – I had a favorite town I had lived it. That is a VERY different perspective on life than what most kids get. For example, I liked Bracketville better than Abilene because there was a lot more outside adventure, but I realized as I got older, that as a teen Bracketville would have been terrible because there were no opportunities for teens to be involved or do anything in Bracketville. Abilene (and later Midland), had opportunities to be involved in music or theater, for example. Bracketville teens just snuck across the border into Mexico for the weekend and got hammered. I cannot emphasize enough to you that these are not realizations a 14 year old should be having. They aren’t traumatizing, in any way. But an 8th grader should not be so familiar with the tenuous nature of place that she can recognize that the place she lived in while she was in 2nd grade that she loved so much would not have been good for her while she was a freshman. These are adult realizations.

MET – All of this is to say, I don’t feel about place the same way a lot of people do. I’m not sentimental about any particular town or house. I guess if you HAD to locate my place in any way, you could say I’m from the desert, but honestly, I’ve lived in New York so long, that it rivals how long I lived in the dry, arid lands because I also lived in the hill country and coastal plains while I was in school and grad school, and that was more than a decade of my life, as well. I am, in a very real way, placeless. My home is where my husband and my kid are. And right now that is here, outside of Rochester, NY. If we picked up and moved tomorrow, I would not leave my home behind, because it would come with me. My home is very much a matter of the people I love, and has little to do with WHERE I am.

MET – Now, I say that, but at the same time, there are some markers of “place” that even I can’t get away from. Our first apartment in Greece, NY will always hold a special spot in my heart because it was where my kid spoke their first words and took their first steps. It was a crappy place to live in a not-so-great spot – but it was the home I could provide for a while, and it was the stepping stone to a somewhat better life. Did I like it? No. But it did mean something to me. When I see pictures of it, I do feel a certain amount of sentimentality. But I’ll never go there again. I don’t long for it. It’s just a spot where special things happened, and I remember that.

MET – And I recognize some places are more special than others. I, like many people, was horrified when Donald Trump demolished the East Wing. You can argue all you want that the ballroom is an improvement (it’s not – if you have seen pics of that and thought, yeah, that looks great, then please don’t go into interior decorating), but it is nouveau riche and garish. But that’s not what bothered most people. What bothered most people is that he tore down a whole wing of the White House. That is the People’s House. There’s something special about that place. About that house. The fact that somebody could do something so flippant and just tear it down was astounding to so many in the public. That’s not a strip mall. It’s not JUST a building. It’s a place that matters.

MET – And I’m not ready to make the grand proclamation that place doesn’t matter at all! It matters that I’m from Texas. That affects the way I talk and think and eat and a whole host of things. But my cultural background and where I happen to be are two different things. Yes, my heritage is one thing. But the physical spot I am in is just that – the physical spot I am in. And that is a matter of circumstance – not great, theological or philosophical meaning

CRT – Unlike you, we didn’t move around a whole lot when I was young. We moved to the San Antonio area in Texas when I was very young and, even though my parents divorced when I was in elementary school, both remained in the same area until I was in high school, and even then when my dad moved away, I stayed with my Mom and step-dad until I left for college. Even so, I didn’t feel a huge attachment to the homes we lived in. Sure, I had my room and my things, but I don’t have a lot of nostalgia for the places I lived.

CRT – We didn’t have an exclusive church home, either. Growing up Catholic, it was vitally important that we attended church every Saturday evening or Sunday morning, so it was often a matter of finding a Mass at a time that we were able or wanted to attend rather than making time for a specific church. I didn’t participate in many activities at the churches we attended, both because of our inconsistent attendance at any one specific parish and the fact that those churches didn’t have a whole lot of activities during the week for kids and teens. So it should come as no surprise that I didn’t feel much connection to “church” as a place either.

CRT – It may not come as a surprise, then, that when I went away to college, I didn’t find myself missing church and therefore didn’t connect with a church community when I left. Church had always just been a thing that I did on the weekends out of a sense of obligation rather than a sense of belonging. It wasn’t until I started attending church with you, Elizabeth, in grad school that I ever felt that kind of connection, like I had a “church home.” But that wasn’t because of the physical place. It was a home because of the people there and what we did in that place. That connection is something that I have wanted to find and cultivate for our kid. A sense of belonging to a church, not because I want them to be connected to a physical place, but because I want them connected to the people and what a church does.

MET – Of course, as is my wont, I’m going to tell you a little bit about some comm theory!

CRT – Shocking!

MET – I know! Come for the churchy stuff, stay for the intro lesson that you ignored while you were in college, right? Actually, this is something that Deborah would find interesting if she were here, because I know she is really fascinated by things like architecture, etc. But what I want to talk to you about is something called “material rhetoric”. I think I may have mentioned it before, but I want to talk about it again. This may well seem like a contradiction in terms – rhetoric is literally just words, so How can it be material? Well, that’s what I want to address.

MET – There are a couple of ways to think about material rhetoric – you can think of material rhetoric in the sense that rhetoric itself is a force in the world – it makes material change. Carl and I have been talking about this recently; we have been going back and forth. We can talk about rhetoric as an actual thing that causes action – it is material in the sense that it is both a product and produces. Or you can think about material things that ARE rhetoric, or rhetorical. And it’s that second one I want to focus on.

MET – This is this concept that material things can be rhetorical, they can make an argument. One of the most common examples is something like a memorial or a museum. Many of you have probably either been to Washington, D.C., or have seen pictures. And you may have seen, or seen images of two pretty unique things: the Vietnam War Memorial or the Korean War Memorial. These two memorial really stand out in relationship to the other memorials in DC. Now, I want you to think of the Lincoln Memorial for a second – huge, white, imposing – it’s really a testament to a giant of a man and a life well-lived. Many of the memorials in D.C. are dedicated to glory and triumph – they want us to remember what we have accomplished. The Vietnam and Korean memorials are very different. They tell very different stories. Soldiers’ names are written on black walls, and on the Korean wall, ghostly images are coming out of it. These memorials aren’t meant to inspire feelings of glory – they are dark. They are gloomy. These memorials tell stories about wars that killed a lot of people – and maybe we didn’t come out on top. These memorials mourn the dead as much as they celebrate them. These memorials were designed not to make everybody feel amazing about our accomplishments, but to make us stop and think about what we lost. THAT’S what is meant by “material rhetoric.” These are material things – they’re made of stone and iron and even water – but they make an argument. They tell stories. Museum layouts are designed to fashion a narrative. Where I went to school, where Carl and I went to school, is very clearly an old military school based on design and layout.

MET – There is something that the material realities of a thing, or a place, SAY about the message, or even truth of that place. And that I get that way more than just blind allegiance to a place because of sentimental connection. I may not understand why a person is deeply connected to a place emotionally, but I understand that some places make arguments. I understand that some places are telling stories. And I think when it comes to church, I am much more interested in that, the story, than some emotional connection to a building. What story does the church tell? Does the church say, we were once big and bustling but now we can’t fill the pews? Does the church say we have created a space where everyone has room and we are trying to meet all of our congregent’s needs? Those are two VERY different statements!!

MET – I never got wrapped up in loving a church or a specific church spot just because I was never at any church long enough to get enamoured. But that also taught me that God is not spatially bound. I was going to find God in any number of churches. The building was just a facade. The church, like my home, was about the people in it. And I also learned that the people in it could be good or bad arguments for God in ways that buildings did not always mirror. A beautiful visage did not always mean a Godly church.

MET – Material rhetoric is a big part of church life – we claim that material things have argumentative force all the time. We claim that the bread is the body and the wine is the blood, and somehow this means something. These physical things are a part of our metaphysical experience. But I think because liturgical churches get really caught up in the physical, they tend to…get caught up in the physical. God is not bound by our limitations. God is not bound by our buildings. God is not bound by our rhetoric or even our spaces. God is beyond materiality.

MET – In the Gospel of John the writer tells us that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God. That term used for “word” there is logos. It can mean word, but it can also mean “reason.” It’s where we get our word “logic” but also “logo.”. God has always been with us – as reason, as symbol. But not as a physical place, necessarily. Now, that is a claim I don’t think Deborah would like because she is kind of obsessed with bodies and the physicality of the faith, but John, unlike Luke and Matthew, starts us off with a God that rejects physical constraints. John’s gospel rejects the confines of a specific place.

MET – And my understanding of church has always been beyond the confines of a physical place, as well. I can name at least five different churches, off the top of my head, that I attended regularly by the time I went to high school. If I believed that place was essential to church (or God in general) then I would have to believe that some, or even all, of those churches, were invalid, because God was in a place – and I did not stay put. I was a kid – I was in children’s ministries and youth groups. And for somebody that was constantly moving having a place to turn to – a church – that was important. And I found my faith there. In each church. Because God found me there. Because God, like me, is not limited by place. He is placeless. He wandered in the desert, he walked the roads from Jerusalem to Nazareth, he and his friends moved from town to town telling their story – my faith is not a story of people who settled down. I am leery of people who expect God to do that, now.

CRT – I want to talk about one of the first sermons I ever preached. It was right here at Trinity, and it was on the Transfiguration of Jesus. You know, easy stuff, right? One of the things that always struck me about that story is that it speaks to me about the places we find God. In both accounts of the Transfiguration, Jesus leads three of his disciples, Peter, James, and John, up a high mountain where he is transfigured in radiant glory. During this, he is seen to be talking with both Moses and Eli’jah.

CRT – Now, Mountains are often sacred places in the Bible and in other religious traditions. Think of Moses on Mt. Sinai, the Greek Pantheon of Gods living on Mt. Olympus, even the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Mountains, and other high places, were where people on Earth could get as close to God or the gods as possible. It was where the physical and metaphysical realms almost touched. So if Jesus was going to be transformed in all his Glory and if he was going to commune with the great prophets of the past, then a tall mountain is of course the place where that was going to happen.

CRT – And Peter, recognizing that this place seems to be especially sacred, offers to set up tents or booths for Jesus, Moses, and Eli’jah so they can all stay up on the sacred mountain together. But Jesus doesn’t let them put down roots in that place, because God is coming down from the mountain to the people. Jesus makes the world a holy place by being in it. That’s what we are called to do as well. We aren’t called to build the biggest, prettiest, church building to contain God. We are called to bring God with us into the world.

CRT – Because that is what Christ did. Jesus didn’t set up shop and expect those that needed to feel his touch and hear his words to come to him. He went to them. He didn’t perform his miracles in royal places or in the synagogue. He performed them in the streets where the people who most needed those miracles were. He got his hands dirty, sometimes literally, to touch and to heal people who in many cases wouldn’t be welcome in those clean, holy places.

CRT – There’s a poem by Jay Hulme that comes to mind. If you heard our episode on Literature, I talked about him. He is a trans poet who grew up an atheist but was fascinated with church architecture. During his visits to cathedrals and churches in England, he came to believe and was baptized just before the Covid pandemic lockdowns began. But he, too, doesn’t only look for Christ in those buildings. The poem is called “Abide with us, Lord Jesus”

in the bleak earth, mould-dirt, in the tent and the tenement and the cold corner we found for ourselves.

Dwell amongst us in the ashes, in the filth and the fright and the freezing fear of eviction that comes with each knock at the door.

Make your home in the dust-dark doorways of dilapidated factories and dissipated department stores.

Our endless prayer: Come, Lord.

CRT – Hulme doesn’t go to a church and look for Jesus there. He calls out for Jesus to come to him in the least of holy places, even sofar as to call him to living homeless on the streets.

CRT – A lot of time and energy is spent discussing and debating the differences between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament. I’m not going to get into most of that, but I am often stuck by this: the God of the old testament and the God of the new testament have different relations to place. In the Old Testament, a great deal of time and energy is spent on specific holy spaces. The temple, the tabernacle. And a lot of time and energy is spent setting forth rules on who is allowed to enter those places and directly encounter God. In the New Testament, however, God leaves those holy places and dwells among the rest of us. So the question is, does Jesus go to unholy, unclean places to let the unholy and unclean meet him, or does it mean that everywhere and everyone is holy.

MET – Ok, so Listen, Carl and I are not here to tell you that you shouldn’t love your home church. And we don’t want you to think that you shouldn’t think fondly of the place you were baptized or the church you grew up in or sang in the choir at for years. But we are here to warn you that if you start looking for God in a specific spot as opposed to the people there, you will be lonely.

MET – In the Gospels, at the crucifixion, the veil at the temple is torn in two. Symbolically, that’s supposed to mean (I guess) that there is not a separation between God’s priests and his people anymore. The clean and the unclean. But it is also a comment on the sacrosanct nature of the place itself. God has torn the veil in two because God is not confined to a holy spot. God is not in the Holy of Holies anymore. He is in the world. He is the people we see in our lives every day. If we think of God as a place then we are limiting him. And if you are limiting God, then you don’t really believe in a God that has the power to redeem and save because God is small enough to be put into your own private box.

MET – So, sure – think fondly of the places where you have felt God. But don’t fall prey to the illusion that he is somehow stuck there. Your church is the convenient place for you to find God, not the place where God is relegated to.

MET – Places certainly can be holy. But many places can be holy. A place is holy because God is there, and God is where people are doing his work. So classrooms can be holy. Homeless shelters can be holy. Hospitals can be holy. And these places should be no less revered for their connection to God than the church, because somebody may find him there. We don’t need an altar and a cross to find and worship God. God is where we are. If we don’t notice, that’s our problem.

MET – Thank you for listening to The Priest and The Prof. Find us at our website, https://priestandprof.org. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact us at podcast@priestandprof.org. Make sure to subscribe, and if you feel led, please leave a donation at https://priestandprof.org/donate/. That will help cover the costs of this podcast and support the ministries of Trinity Episcopal Church. Thank you, and we hope you have enjoyed our time together today.

DDM – Music by Audionautix.com.

Dr. M. Elizabeth Thorpe and Rev. Deborah Duguid-May talk about Biblical and other texts that address and represent the LGBTQ community, paying special attention to how those texts have been interpreted to express heteronormativity and “traditional” gender roles.

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Transcript

DDM [00:03] Hello and welcome to The Priest & The Prof. I am your host, the Rev. Deborah Duguid-May.

MET [00:09] And I’m Dr. M. Elizabeth Thorpe.

DDM [00:11] This podcast is a product of Trinity Episcopal Church in Greece, New York. I’m an Episcopal priest of 26 years, and Elizabeth has been a rhetoric professor since 2010. And so join us as we explore the intersections of faith, community, politics, philosophy, and action.

DDM [00:42] Welcome. In this episode, we are following on from our episode on the clobber texts used against women and focusing on the passages that have been used against the LGBTIQI community to oppress and exclude people whose sexual orientation or gender identity is not heterosexual. Now, to be honest, this topic, as with many of the topics Elizabeth and I focus on, is personal. I myself am lesbian, married to my wife Melanie, but this is one of the reasons I’m really grateful, and this may sound a little strange, but that I was not raised in the church as a young person. You know, when I came out, I struggled with issues like, would my parents still love me?

DDM [01:30] I could not be open about it because I was a priest in a parish. And my bishop, although he knew I was gay, functioned under that old model of don’t ask, don’t tell. So although I wished to share with my parish, and I’m sure they would have been absolutely fine with it because of the love and the relationships that we had, I was told that if I did share with them, I would have to resign. So it was very difficult being gay and especially not being able to be open about it because there’s a way in which there is a dishonesty then, you know, it doesn’t feel like our relationships are now going forward rooted in honesty and trust.

DDM [02:08] But what I didn’t have to struggle with interiorly was spirituality and theology. Because I was not raised with any theology in the sense that I didn’t grow up going to church. And so I didn’t encounter the homophobia that is sometimes taught using Scriptures. And then by the time I went to seminary and studied theology, I had all these theological tools at my disposal and had enough to know that the homophobic interpretations of Scripture was simply inaccurate and poor theology.

DDM [02:43] So from a faith and theological lens, my sexuality was never a problem for me. And the gift of that was that I don’t really grapple with experiences of shame, doubt, self-loathing, or any of those negative emotions that those who have to overcome homophobic teachings in their formative years do. And so for those that have to unlearn this awful teaching, I think it is very hard and destructive. And we know it can very often even lead to literal death.

DDM [03:17] So I think that this is a crucial subject because as a person who loves our faith, I think we each have to recognize the ways in which our religion has been used destructively in the past, and then to take responsibility in undoing that damage by educating ourselves in good life-giving theology, but then also sharing and educating others whenever the subject comes up. Because if it is our faith, we share the responsibility for its misuse and its harm. So what I thought today, if you’re good with this Liz, is we could look at some of the texts that have been so misused and weaponized against the queer community.

DDM [04:00] So, for those who go back to the creation of Adam and Eve, I think you can listen to previous podcasts that Elizabeth and I have done on the creation story, and how that original creation of the Adamah is both fully male and female, and only later, after the division, does male and female emerge. But the next passage that’s used is Genesis 19, which is that famous story of Sodom and Gomorrah. In the traditional interpretations, and when I say traditional, I’m really putting those in air quotes, because as we’ll see later on, this really hasn’t been always the traditional teaching.

DDM [04:41] But in many of the interpretations that perhaps people might have heard, this is seen to be the passage condemning homosexuality, because the men of Sodom want to, and the word used is know, And in biblical knowledge, know is very often a euphemism for having sex with, like Adam knew Eve. So these men of Sodom want to know or have sex with these male visitors who we are told are angels. And this is actually where we get the word Sodomite from, from Sodom and Gomorrah.

DDM [05:16] But even a very quick cursory read of this passage really shows the flaws in this interpretation. You know, to protect the male guests, and we need to remember that in that Middle Eastern culture, protecting guests and providing Sanctuary for strangers amongst us was one of the most critical values for this culture. There was almost nothing more important than it, which is why treating the stranger or the immigrant in our midst was such a high Middle Eastern value and biblical value. But in order to protect these male angelic guests, the person whose home it is ends up throwing out their young virgin daughters to the men to rape, which they do.

DDM [06:04] Which shows us clearly that the men of Sodom were not interested in whether the victims were male or female, and I use the word victims, because this passage is about men using sex as a form of violence to rape and defile guests in order to humiliate the hosts and the strangers staying with them. And so the sin here is not being a safe space for strangers and using sex as a form of violence and rape. Now in case one missed that in the passage and in the reading of the passage, the prophet Ezekiel in chapter 16 verse 49 reminds the Israelites of this primary sin by saying, This was the sin of your sister Sodom.

DDM [06:51] She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed, and unconcerned. They did not help the poor and the needy. And then Jesus in the New Testament again restates this, reminding the crowds that when we do not welcome those sent by God, like the angels in this text, like the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, we will fall under God’s judgment. And so, this is really about not seeing God coming to us in the stranger, and actually has nothing to do with homosexuality, and certainly not with consensual same-sex love.

DDM [07:28] The next passage that is often used as a clobber text is Leviticus 18 and 20, when we’re told that a man shall not lie with a man. Now, again, some interpretations see this as a ban on male homosexual behavior. However, as with our podcast on gender previously, where we looked at the purity laws, these laws are part of the holiness code for ancient Israelites. And in the same section where we’re told a man shall not lie with a man, we are also told that we shall not eat shellfish, that we cannot wear mixed fabrics.

DDM [08:07] The word abomination, to’evah in Hebrew, actually refers to ritual uncleanness. It’s not about issues of morality. So just as we would not say one is immoral by wearing polyester fabric, In the same way, we cannot use this prescription of a man shall not lie with a man as a moral code. We can’t single out one of the ritual purity laws and suddenly say, well, now this one is about morality.

DDM [08:37] All of these laws were about ritual purity and cultural separation from other cultures around them. And so again, this passage really can’t be used to condemn homosexuality or modern day queer relationships. The next passage is in Romans 1, verse 26, where Paul calls out men committing indecent acts with other men. And again, this has been sometimes used to condemn male homosexuality.

DDM [09:08] But it’s interesting, and I think this is what people just forget, that this passage of Paul’s is part of an argument he’s building in Romans chapter 1 and 2 not to condemn others, but to highlight the universality that we all have sinned and are all in need of grace. And so ironically, it’s actually a passage about grace. But the question is, what specifically is Paul condemning here when he says indecent acts?

DDM [09:37] And most theologians would agree that this is actually what would be called temple prostitution or pedophilia. Now, why do we say that? Because in 1 Corinthians 6, 9-10 and 1 Timothy 1, verse 10, Paul speaks about men who have sex with men will not inherit the kingdom. The two words used here are the Greek words Malakoi and Arsenokoitai.

DDM [10:04] Malakoi meaning soft, delicate, effeminate. This was often a term used to refer to boys who were pre-pubescent, so had not yet become men. Arsenokoitai refers to those who have sex with men. And so what Paul seems to be speaking here is really of pedophilia, which is what would have been practiced often in the temple prostitution.

DDM [10:26] It’s adult men sleeping with young boys, culturally or in a ritual temple context. And again, pedophilia can in no way be equated with consensual adult sex.

MET [10:40] So that is a lot of textual information. I do not have the scriptural and theological background to go through all of the text in the way you do. However, I can take us on a little professorial journey that is very different, but maybe to your amusement. I’m going to tell you about something that happens in academia that you might not be familiar with.

MET [11:12] In academia, there’s something called Queer Theory. This is one of those things that everybody’s uncle or dad or whoever grumbles or throws a fit about because it is so useless and just a bunch of academic mumbo jumbo. And who is ever going to need that anyway? But let me tell you something.

MET [11:32] All those things that some grouchy old guy told you you are never going to need are exactly the things that we are missing right now. Look around you. People can’t tell fact from opinion, don’t know how to understand what they are reading or seeing, can’t tell if a source is legitimate or not, have no idea how to judge evidence, can’t assess or put together a good argument to save their lives, are totally taken in by any charlatan with a mic or a meme, and have no background knowledge with which to contextualize what they are seeing.

MET [12:07] So those intro level comp, lit, and media studies classes seem a bit more crucial now, don’t they? Now, I could very easily go on a rant about how there has been a concerted effort over the last 50 years to devalue the very disciplines that make you a well-informed and thoughtful citizen, because those in power specifically do not want well-informed and thoughtful citizens. But I’m sure you will hear that some other time, probably again and again. But suffice to say, Queer theory is one of those things from one of those useless classes everybody tells you not to take, like a women’s studies class or a gender studies class, something that obviously has no impact on your life because you clearly have no gender and will

MET [13:01] never come into contact with any women. Queer theory is kind of what it says. It is the process of reading things through a queer lens. It is understanding the world through queer eyes.

MET [13:16] Now you might say, well, that doesn’t make sense. How is that different? That tells me you are 100% straight and have never known anyone who trusts you enough to be honest with you about their sexuality. Seeing the world as a queer person is like seeing the world as a black person or as a woman.

MET [13:34] Your identity affects how you read things. So let me give you an example. Over the summer, My kid and I read a book together. We read Frankenstein.

MET [13:47] It’s one of my favorite books ever, and I was very excited to share it with them.

DDM [13:51] Oh my gosh. And your child and I watched that movie and I was horrified.

MET [13:57] Yes. I love Frankenstein. It’s my understanding the movie takes a few liberties. We were not two chapters into a discussion of this book when my kid kind of laughed and said, Well, this definitely isn’t gay.

MET [14:13] And I laughed, and I asked them to explain, and they did. The first chapter of Frankenstein is a guy going on and on about how handsome Victor is, and he is just so attached to him. And even though he doesn’t know Victor all that well, and how this guy is just desperate for Victor to be okay. Listener, it isn’t subtle at all.

MET [14:35] It is real queer. And later in the book, Victor Frankenstein gives similar soliloquies about his friend, Clerval. My kid also laughed and commented that Victor was definitely not in love with Clerval. And there was no reason to think this was about a bunch of gay dudes running around in the woods and mountains trying to do science.

MET [15:00] And we laughed. But actually, my kid made some really brilliant insights. When we talked about Frankenstein, we – and if you’ve read the book, you know what I’m talking about – we of course talked about Victor as wanting to be God and Victor as wanting to be a mother and all those kind of creation stories, right? He was a creator either way.

MET [15:22] But we talked about how thinking of him in these different archetypal ways makes for a different kind of story. And my kid then said, what about Clerval? And I didn’t know what they meant, but they explained that they were pretty sure Victor’s sexuality was expansive, to say the least, and that Victor was in love with Clerval. So my kid saw this as a queer fantasy.

MET [15:48] Victor wanted to be with Clerval, so the monster was his creation to fulfill that fantasy. This was his child to complete his family with his love. He wanted to be with Clerval, and this was the completion of his gay romance. Listener, I was blown away.

MET [16:03] My 15-year-old queered Frankenstein. And of course, we had a whole conversation about what that meant for Victor’s fiance, Elizabeth, and some of the other characters. And it was a really lively and fascinating conversation. But that’s precisely what Queer Theory is.

MET [16:21] It’s when you understand a thing through a queer lens. Now, you ask yourself, how would I understand this if it were, you know, just a little bit gay? We’re not asking you to queer the Bible, but we are asking you to consider that what you know of the Bible is wildly heteronormative and maybe doesn’t need to be that way. Gender roles, heteronormative ones specifically, are super important to maintaining control.

MET [16:55] And I mean that in every sense. Fascists are really into gender roles because it maintains quote unquote order and allows mechanisms of control to remain intact. By keeping all scripture, all interpretations, all translations understood through the same lens, through the same framework, the same people are always in charge. I think about second wave feminists who posited that the personal is political.

MET [17:22] And that is true in about a thousand different ways. Sexuality and gender, which are about as personal as you can get, are completely political. And I say that because political forces try to control them. And they try to control them because sexuality and gender roles that stray outside of strict boundaries cannot be easily controlled.

MET [17:44] And if I haven’t made this clear enough, being gay, gender expansive, transgender, or even just questioning gender roles is a challenge to authoritarianism.

DDM [17:54] Which is what we’re seeing so clearly in our culture today.

MET [17:56] Yes. Yeah. This is writ large for us right now. So I guess the next time anyone says something and you are learning that something is maybe not as pointless as you’ve been told, you can tell them you are fueling the resistance.

MET [18:14] To bring all of this together, Deborah has shown us how the Bible has been interpreted in a particularly heteronormative way. There were interpretations chosen to maintain power in certain hands. That’s what gender roles do. They maintain power.

MET [18:32] When we do things like queer Frankenstein or learn about actual translations, we aren’t just navel-gazing. We’re resisting.

DDM [18:44] Absolutely. And it’s so interesting that the pre-Christian Roman Empire, we know, was very open to queer relationships. And in fact, it’s interesting that the word homosexual was used to replace in the Bible words like temple prostitute, only beginning in about 1946.

DDM [19:04] Did you know that, Elizabeth?

MET [19:06] I actually did know. It’s one of those random things I did in fact know.

DDM [19:10] So it’s really, if you think about it, it’s a fairly recent movement of writing homosexuality into the Bible instead of using words like pedophilia or temple prostitute. Many older translations would use terms like young boys or boy molesters, clearly referring to pedophilia. In fact, in German translations, the word homosexuality only gets written into the Bible in 1983. I did not know that.

DDM [19:42] I mean, that’s so recently. And in fact, it later came out that this German translation where they wrote the word in homosexuality was funded by Biblica, an American company. So this is a very recent, we may say, cultural move from the USA promoting an anti-gay agenda. So I think people are right when they speak about the gay agenda, but it’s actually an anti-gay agenda that really has emerged in these last sort of 50, 60 years.

DDM [20:12] It’s incredible to me that 2,000 years of history around translation are being cast aside in favor of this quote-unquote traditional interpretation that ends up actually being a very new and well-funded cultural anti-gay movement from the USA. But I think knowing our own biblical tradition is critical and resisting these well-funded cultural movements to co-opt our tradition to serve male power and control really is essential for people of faith. And too many clergy have simply accepted these recent shifts without doing their own diligence and research on these issues. I think many clergy simply regurgitate what they’ve been taught.

DDM [21:00] But that really is no excuse. And anytime scripture is being used to strip people of human rights, warning bells should ring and we should be saying, hold on, is this really who God is? Is this really what was taught? Because that cannot be a God of life, but it’s a God of death.

DDM [21:20] But what is also interesting is the number of affirming passages of same gender relationships that our scripture actually affirms and records. In 1 Samuel 18 verse 20, David and Jonathan’s relationship is described. We’re told that their deep love was extraordinary. Scripture says Jonathan became one in spirit with David and he loved him as himself.

DDM [21:48] And David later says of their relationship, your love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than that of woman. That’s in 2 Samuel 1 26. This was a covenanted relationship when we read the text with very deep same-sex love. The book of Ruth and Naomi tell us of the deep love and commitment between these two women.

DDM [22:11] In fact, Ruth’s vow to Naomi is very often quoted in our liturgies for weddings. Where you go, I will go. Their relationship, while not explicitly romantic, shows deep same-sex devotion, love and commitment. And some have seen in this passage of Ruth and Naomi a model of chosen family and queer relationships.

DDM [22:37] In all these passages, however, we’ve got to remember that romantic love was very seldom the basis for any marriage or any covenanted relationship. And so we can’t transfer our ideas of marriage and romance onto marriage relationships from centuries ago. In fact, one could argue that romantic relationship is not even the basis for marriage, biblically, and is, in fact, far more of a reflection, I think, of post-19th century Western culture. I think that’s fair.

DDM [23:11] Yeah. In the New Testament, the story of Jesus and the centurion’s servant is very interesting. The Greek word pais, used for the centurion’s servant, can mean servant, it can also mean boy, or it can mean male partner. It seems, therefore, that Jesus healed not a servant as we think of, but a beloved male partner of this Roman centurion, which would not have been unnormal for a male Roman soldier to have a male partner.

DDM [23:42] We know homosexuality in the military is age-old. But what is interesting is that Jesus does not condemn their relationship, but instead praises the faith of the centurion soldier. And so given how some of Paul’s writings have been used and mistranslated to support homophobia, it’s interesting that Paul’s vision of a new humanity in Jesus transcends always gender, social and ethnic boundaries. And so Paul in Galatians 3 verse 28 speaks of a new community in Christ, defined no longer by maleness or femaleness, cultural or racial identity, even class identity.

DDM [24:25] but is for him a community that goes beyond these categories, including the binary male and female divide. Now, let’s be honest, this is radical even by today’s standards. And then in the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts chapter 8, Philip we’re told meets a Ethiopian eunuch who’s reading Isaiah 53. Philip then explains to him how this passage is referring to Jesus and the eunuch immediately asked to be baptized and accepted into the faith.

DDM [24:57] This is, ironically, the first Gentile to be baptized, and he is welcomed, baptized, and affirmed without hesitation, despite, as a eunuch, being a sexual and gender minority in the ancient world. Again, this is another story in our scriptures of powerful inclusion for gender minorities and non-conforming people that, let’s be honest, how seldom we hear from our pulpits these days.

MET [25:28] Alright, I’m going to take us on another literary journey for a minute, if you don’t mind.

DDM [25:33] Love it.

MET [25:33] Yeah. There’s an author named Madeline Miller who has carved out a niche for herself writing retellings of Greek myths. I’m sure you can see where this is going if we’re talking about clobber texts with LGBTQ populations and Greek myths. One of her most successful and well-received novels was a book called The Song of Achilles. When I was reading this book, my family and I laughed over and over again about the whole, they were roommates reaction that some people had to it.

MET [26:10] If you don’t know, The Song of Achilles is about the romance and love affair between Achilles, the greatest of Greek warriors, and Patroclus, the exiled prince of Opus and adopted son of Peleus. Now, please note, these are two dudes. And this is their love story. It’s not a bromance.

MET [26:32] It’s not a coming-of-age friendship. This is their passionate romance and dramatic end. Now, I’m guessing that most of you have not actually read The Iliad, which is where their stories come from. Don’t feel bad.

MET [26:48] Most people haven’t. But let me tell you something. It does not take a lot of really deep textual analysis or Queer Theory reading to come to the conclusion that Achilles and Patroclus were madly in love with each other. In the Iliad, they tend to each other’s wounds, they take care of and praise each other, profess great affection for each other over and over, and Patroclus dons Achilles’ armor in a ruse which leads to Patroclus’ death

MET [27:22] thanks to Apollo’s meddling. Achilles literally wouldn’t let Patroclus be buried because he wanted him close until the ghost of Patroclus came to him in a dream and begged him to let him pass on. Achilles finally gave him a funeral. And when Achilles finally died in battle, his ashes were buried with Patroclus so they could be physically together forever.

MET [27:51] Listen, folks, I have never, never had a housemate or even best friend that ticks all those boxes. But I do have a husband. But for pretty much as long as the Iliad was taught as literature, Teachers and professors held Achilles and Patroclus up as examples of masculine virtue. These are what good male friendships look like.

MET [28:18] Y’all. This is straight washing, and we are super good at it. We have read and taught so many things through the years that were so obviously queer, so clearly about love between two men or two women, or about a person whose gender was obviously non-binary, and we have shoehorned that into post-Victorian and post-Industrial Age understandings of ethics and sexuality that ultimately make no sense.

MET [28:50] The truth is, much of the quote-unquote classic literature that anchors the Western canon is exactly the kind of thing that Moms for Liberty would ban if they read or ever understood anything. I can only apologize to the listeners my parents’ age who read things like the Canterbury Tales and were not taught that they are just one sex and fart joke after the other. I can only apologize to the folks who saw The Hustler in the 1960s with Paul Newman and George C. Scott and couldn’t figure out what was weird about it because you didn’t have the vocabulary.

MET [29:32] Friends, that is one of the gayest movies I have seen in a long, long time. And I have to feel bad for all of us Christians who are brought up believing that things in the Bible were straight and cisgendered. I learned young that David and Jonathan were paragons of manly virtue. They cared for each other so much, but were also manly men.

MET [29:57] You know, they were authorities. It is absolutely hilarious to me that these just friends or roommates or whatever they are, these dudes who are definitely not gay, like Achilles and Patroclus or Jonathan and David, are the ones we think of as ideal men. Achilles was Greece’s greatest warrior. He literally had only one weakness.

MET [30:24] One. Patroclus was also a great warrior before Apollo struck him senseless and Hector killed him. He was also completely beloved by the troops.

MET [30:35] He was a skilled warrior and popular leader. Jonathan was loyal, faithful, and humble. But he was also royal and authoritative, a kind of natural leader. He recognized greatness in others, however, and allowed them to flourish.

MET [30:52] David was a warrior and king, and we know, quite virile. Christ comes from the line of David. David leads to salvation. So these are men’s men, right?

MET [31:04] As we understand it, anyway. And yet it is really hard not to understand them as deeply in love with each other, if not physically bound. But we didn’t talk about them that way at all, really, until the last 40 to 50 years. And in many places, people still don’t hear about them that way outside of college classrooms.

MET [31:29] Okay, so the thing is, I’m not telling you anything that many of you don’t know. Nobody talked about these things when a lot of you were young. But that’s not just because times have changed. That’s because 40 years ago, we were really good at effectively erasing some people.

MET [31:50] That’s what it is. If you never talk about a thing, if you never name it, never recognize it, how much does it exist? I mean, it exists, it’s there, but how real is a thing if it is just never acknowledged? How long was the queer community just not acknowledged.

MET [32:12] And if it was acknowledged, it was hurt in some way. Honestly, if you read Greek myths, it is impossible not to see them as queer, but we erased that. We silenced it because we didn’t want queer people. We just didn’t want to give them any voice.

MET [32:33] That is why going back and looking at these biblical texts is so important. Because one of the things Jesus came to do is give voice to the voiceless. Queer people have been stripped of their voices for generations by bad scripture, by bad translations, by bad education, and by bad intentions. These are the very people Jesus would pave the way for.

DDM [33:29] For sure. And you know what I always find so interesting is that Jesus’ ministry is taking place when Roman culture is dominant. And with that, much of the sexuality that you describe, Elizabeth, and yet not once does Jesus reference it in the Gospels or condemn it, but instead, you know, holds up the faith of the Roman centurion. raises disciples that will welcome and baptize a eunuch, never once condemning same-sex relationships.

DDM [33:30] And so I think the homophobia that we have heard and encountered or suffered under actually has almost nothing to do with scripture and our faith, but everything to do with cultural homophobia that has been read and transcribed onto our texts and then taught as though it is biblical. Homophobia is a cultural heresy rooted in the hatred of another that really has no place in the gospel of Jesus or in the church.

MET [34:08] Thank you for listening to the Priest & The Prof. find us at our website, https://priestandprof.org. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact us at podcast@priestandprof.org. Make sure to subscribe, and if you feel led, please leave a donation at https://priestandprof.org/donate.

MET [34:27] That will help cover the costs of this podcast and support the ministries of Trinity Episcopal Church. Thank you, and we hope you have enjoyed our time together today.

DDM [34:37] Music by Audionautix.com.

Join Rev. Deborah Duguid-May and Dr. M. Elizabeth Thorpe for a discussion of Empire as they look at the beginnings of the Gospels of Mark and John.

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DDM – Welcome. In this episode we are looking at how the gospel of Mark and John present the identity of Jesus in relationship to Empire, and specifically in their case the Roman Empire under whose occupation they are. And I’m super glad today because Elizabeth is back with me and

MET – It’s a big episode for me, people. I’m just all over this one.

DDM – So I’m glad it’s not going to be a monologue. Mark begins in his very first verse with a direct political statement – The beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Good news – or in Greek Evangelion was a term used in the roman empire to announce the birth or a victory of an emperor. So a decree would go out into the world of the roman empire announcing – the good news of Caesar Augustus… announcing a new emperor or some victory that had just taken place. So for Mark to use this term is a way of saying – a new emperor has arrived. It is saying that there is a new emperor and a new reign that is replacing the current regime. And in case anyone may have missed this, Mark in the same opening sentences follows up with the title Son of God. Son of God was not a religious title per se, but a political one during the Roman empire, as emperors were called Son of the divine One. And so, by using this title Mark is saying, Jesus is the true Son of the divine one, the Son of God, not Caesar Augustus. And so therefore by implication, Jesus is the one with Divine Authority, not Caesar Augustus.

DDM – So what we as readers now see when we read the opening lines of Mark is a religious proclamation, but at the time of Mark, this was primarily a direct political statement of who Jesus is, placing him in direct opposition to the Caesar of Rome, and claiming him to be the new locus of divine authority and therefore political power.

DDM – The very next verse of Mark tells us that of John the Baptist preparing the way for the Lord in the wilderness. Now remember from the last two previous episodes, Mark is speaking to both Jews and Gentiles, and so now Mark is reminding the Jewish community of the symbolic power for them of the wilderness. For the Jewish community the wilderness was the time immediately following their liberation from slavery in Egypt. It was the earliest times of liberation, outside of Egyptian imperial control, when as a newly freed community they were learning what it would mean to be a freed people belonging to God. And so, for the Jewish community the wilderness was the time when Gods kingdom began to take shape, outside of the Egyptian kingdom. By stating that John the Baptist was preparing the way for Jesus in the wilderness was a way of saying, God is about to call you out of oppression and slavery to Rome into freedom once again. Your liberation is just around the corner, and the kingdom of God is about to begin again. And so, these statements of Mark are deeply political, because it’s about a God who is always working to lead us out of oppression and slavery into freedom – not just religious freedom, but political freedom from occupying states and empires.

DDM – So Jesus, as the new divine authority is not one who will go out in conquest like Rome does but instead will go out to release people from oppression and lead them into freedom. Again, when Jesus is baptized, Mark has God God’s-self speaking from the heavens saying You are my beloved Son. This is not just us as humans naming someone as the Son of the Divine one, but literally God speaking and naming Jesus as the divinely appointed one.

DDM – And then still in the first chapter of Mark, we have Jesus himself, going before all of us, into the wilderness. This deeply symbolic place of new freedom. And it is in the wilderness, that we see Jesus in Mark’s gospel confronting every power that will lead to oppression. Our need for human power over others, our need and ego to prove ourselves, our desire for wealth. Jesus will confront not just the external oppressive power of Rome but will confront the internal human characteristics that result in the oppression of others – our need for power, wealth and control over others. Jesus, the new divine authority therefore confronts evil and empire both externally but just as importantly internally.

DDM – This is not about one power simply replacing another as we see so often in our world, but a far deeper rejection of power over others, of domination, by confronting them not just outside of ourselves, but just as importantly within ourselves, and so right at the beginning mark is not just showing the breaking in of a new reign of power, but showing us that this reign will not be about domination and conquest, but rather about humble service and suffering led by the actual spirit of God. And so, Mark is redefining power and kingship in a radical way. This is not the opulence of Roman power with the best foods, and clothes, architecture and fabric, but a leadership rooted in the wilderness and the margins, with fasting, being stripped of most clothing, inhabiting not a palace but the wild barren hills, surrounded by wild beasts and yet also surrounded by the angelic powers. Such a contrast in just a few lines – it’s really breathtaking.

DDM – And then Mark ends his origin story with “the Kingdom of God has come near”. John is arrested for the political threat he has become is too much for Herod, and Jesus takes up John’s proclamation that the new Kingdom is near and about to become a reality. It is not a new kingdom with a military overthrowing of Rome (as many had hoped and longed for), but it will be a new kingdom rooted in letting go of all that binds us externally and internally, and a radical obedience to the spirit of God in proclaiming justice and liberation or salvation for all. And for the rest of Mark’s gospel, we will be presented the collision between these two kingdoms.

MET – So, when Deborah said she was going to follow up our first three episodes with some commentary on the Nativity in Mark and John, I was like, “How? Why? There IS no nativity in Mark and John. Mark and John completely skip over Christ’s birth. Mark jumps right to the Baptism and John is just high or something and telling you about his trip. Or maybe it’s cosmology. Something along those lines.” But Deborah has switched the focus from the actual nativity to beginnings, and that is something I get.

MET – Mark is kind of interesting to me as a communication scholar, actually. I’m going to move away from theology for a minute and treat you like some of my students. There will not be a quiz. Mark doesn’t start with Jesus so much as he starts with John the Baptist

MET – Yes, as Deborah points out, the first sentence declares this is the gospel of Jesus, but the real heart of the first few verses don’t have much to do with Christ himself and have way more to do with his cousin, John.

MET – John fulfills the prophecies of Isaiah and preaches repentance and the coming of a great leader in the wilderness. John’s preaching is the focus in the beginning of Mark. It very quickly transitions to the baptism of Jesus, but the first few verses are all about how John is preparing the way.

MET – This appeals to me a great deal as a communication professor, because the focus in the beginning of Mark is not on a miraculous birth or particularly rich or poor visitors – but on a powerful speaker. John is a preacher. In my mind he’s a big tent revival guy. He’s the guy who would let the world know that change was coming. And John, bless him, was a public speaker. I know this isn’t the important part of the story – but it’s important to me. John made his way and his name by being out in the public and out in the wilderness preaching – by saying to a crowd what he thought God wanted them to know.

MET – John was a prophet – and like all prophets his voice was his primary weapon. As a comm scholar this means a lot to me. When we did the episodes on Matthew and Luke, we did a great deal of work to show you who paved the way for Christ’s birth, and how they did it. They were poor shepherds, rich astronomers, and haggard parents. They brought what they could.

MET – But as Deborah has shown you, Christ’s ministry was announced not by kings, but by an itinerant preacher. Jesus was brought to you not by visiting wizards or goat herders, but by a man who roamed around speaking to crowds in towns and in the wilderness – he was a rhetorician.

MET – I want to focus on this because public speaking actually was a big deal in Rome – and for John to just walk around doing it is profound. I teach a course in rhetorical theory, and in the early weeks we talk about rhetoric in Rome. For example, we talk about Cicero and his impact on rhetorical theory. Now I know, I say the name Cicero, and a lot of you might be thinking, I know that guy was Greek or Roman, but I don’t know a lot about him. That’s fine; you don’t need to know a lot about Cicero to understand what I’m about to tell you.

MET – We don’t necessarily make these connections, but the Roman Empire of Cicero is not far removed from the Roman Empire of Jesus. In fact, they’re only about 100 years apart. The great philosophers and teachers that we think of as being the forefathers of the West were very much a part of Jesus’s environment. Cicero was a Roman citizen who had achieved great renown for his abilities as a speaker and writer. He was what you would have called an activist in his time. He was, in fact, so effective as a speaker and writer that Rome eventually killed him. But that wasn’t the end of it – the state cut off his head (and some say even cut out his tongue) and cut off his hands as a signal to future upstarts. They cut off his head and tongue and hands because that’s where his power was. He was a speaker and a writer, and as a speaker and a writer he had had a profound impact on the public. So, when they executed him, they made a public statement for future writers and speakers to think really hard about. That’s something to keep in mind when you think about John’s future and how they treated him at the end of his life.

MET – Another thing we talk about in my classes is the importance of something like rhetoric in an Empire. That may seem random and dull, but I promise it is actually really relevant. Let’s say rhetoric is part of the education system as it was in Rome – that means we are teaching people to be persuasive, analytical, critical, and to have a voice in public. That ALSO means we are working under the assumption that they will have the opportunity to use their voice in the public sphere.

MET – The nature of Empire has a direct effect on rhetoric, then. In a democracy, rhetorical education is ESSENTIAL. It is where we learn debate, persuasion, how to analyze problems, how to come to consensus, and how to present our ideas. Rhetoric and democracy thrive together. In an empire, rhetoric has to be phased out of education and left behind. Because in an empire – democracy is weak. People don’t have as much free speech. Their voices don’t matter – they do not have persuasive power, and they do not have the ability to make changes because the state, not the people, is in charge. When empires are strong and democracy is weak, rhetoric and rhetorical education disappear (I will leave you to wonder whether you ever took a rhetoric class and what that means for us as a people).

MET – In fact, in the years after Jesus there is a whole movement in Rome to completely de-fang rhetoric and make it completely about stylistic flourishes and puffery instead of anything persuasive or content related specifically because the Empire became all powerful and the voice of the people was so unimportant. This movement is called the Second Sophistic. This should also have you wondering how the macro-politics of the day affected your education, for what it’s worth.

MET – So – what does this mean for the Gospel of Mark? It means John the Baptist is challenging Empire. By being a speaker, by bringing his voice into the public, by practicing the art of rhetoric, even if it was communal and culturally traditional, and not Greek or Roman, he was announcing to Rome that he challenged their hegemony. Empires love to paint themselves as containing a multiplicity of voices. But colonialism, in every era, is one power imposing itself on another. It is one power crushing another group under its boot. And here it is Rome oppressing Israel.

MET – But John has the audacity to speak. John has the absolute nerve to go into public and speak, out loud and to whoever will listen, as a Jewish prophet. John challenges power and hierarchy.

DDM – I’m just thinking as you’re speaking that we forget that John was also challenging Herod and those in his own community that had thrown their lot in with the empire of Rome. Herod had actually had his (John’s) father killed, Zachariah the high priest, so in some ways John really has suffered in his own family and family story. So, very courageous of him.

MET – So the reason the opening of Mark is interesting to me is because it is about precisely those things I have chosen to study for my job. It’s a guy who wants to make a difference, and he does so by making his voice known, despite the political odds being against him.

DDM – Right, and the threat to his own life. Fascinating connections there.

DDM – So, in John’s gospel, writing again to Jews and gentiles who have been kicked out of their societies because of grappling with the religious and philosophical identity of Jesus, John begins his origin story with “In the beginning was the Word.” The Greek word here is Logos. In the beginning was the Logos. Logos was a term used in Greco Roman philosophy for the rational principle that ordered the entire cosmos. And Elizabeth, I’m going to ask you to jump in a bit around the philosophy of logos which I am sure you have studied in greater depth than myself.

MET – Okay, I’ll jump in a bit about logos! Logos is a fun word because on the one hand, it is abundantly clear what it means based just on what it looks like. Logos obviously means “logic” or “logo” because that is right there in the word. Surprise! It means both. Logos is reason, word, logic, rationality, symbol – there’s a lot that goes into this word. The reason I’m jumping in here is because logos is a CENTRAL and FUNDAMENTAL idea in rhetoric. Many of you remember from your early days of learning to write or speak the old “logos, pathos, ethos,” stuff, and if you don’t, maybe the words sound familiar. But if I’m going to make some rhetorical connections to the gospels, I really can’t let this one slide.

MET – John’s gospel says in the beginning was the Word. So in the beginning was reason. Or symbolic logic. Or however you want to translate that. But in the very beginning there was something that was more than us. Something that was beyond animal, even beyond human. It was reason. It was something intelligent. It was the thought process that ties the universe together. Logos. And I think we need to seriously consider what that tells us. Logos was God and Logos was with God. God is reason. God is the divine intelligence that organizes the world. God is the system of ideas and words that makes it all make sense. This is a pretty Greco-Roman idea. The Greeks were constantly striving for perfection, and this is coming through loud and clear, here. God is rational. God is reasonable. And therefore, God will lead us to perfection.

MET – But this is important because this is holy, okay? Reason is divine. Reason is holy. Word, or logic is something mystical – maybe magical. But something, specifically, beyond just the physical world in which we live.

MET – Reason, in short, is god-like. It literally, is God. It may seem like that is setting up a paradigm in which God is completely untouchable, but consider our friend Aristotle for a minute. And this is the part you know: Aristotle said that when you are trying to convince someone you need different kinds of proofs. Specifically you need artistic and inartistic proofs. The inartistic proofs are just the outside evidence you bring in. You don’t have a lot to do with that. It’s just information. The artistic proofs are the proofs you create with your own mind. These are the arguments you actually put together. These inartistic proofs come in three varieties: appeals to logos, appeals to pathos, and appeals to ethos. That just means you create logical appeals, you create emotional appeals, and you create appeals based on your character.

MET – Okay – let me put a few pieces together for you: God is logos. We have that. Aristotle makes no claims that people are gods. But Aristotle does present a system by which a person can make an effective argument. But for Aristotle this requires a balance – you can’t have JUST an emotional argument, for example. An argument has to be a delicate balance of the three appeals that balance an argument. What is notable is that Aristotle has described this as a way to appeal to PEOPLE specifically – because this is the measure of people. People are made of three things – their emotions, their characters, and their reason. So, Aristotle says you have to appeal to them in those ways – logos, pathos, and ethos aren’t just how you make an argument – they are how you make a person. We are people of reason, emotion, and personality.

MET – So when we think about the concept of logos in John we need to think about how John is setting up our relationships to God, ourselves, and the divine. God is logos. Logos is reason and symbol. Logos is part of our very being. That holy reason is a part of our make-up. I don’t know that the writer of John and Aristotle actually sat down and had this conversation – but the ideas are running all through all of history.

DDM – I love that – and so John is saying this reason that orders the whole cosmos, is embodied in this man Jesus. Jesus is the full embodiment of this reason that Elizabeth has just been saying, of the fullness of reason, symbol, rationality. Jesus is the one the Greco roman world have been speaking about. In some ways, John is saying this philosophy you have studied and known, has now become embodied in one person – Jesus. So John doesn’t begin with Rome and any empire of the world but begins with the whole cosmos, and this ordering of the whole cosmos which is now embodied in Jesus. This is to remind the readers, that no empire can compete with that which orders the whole cosmos. That ultimate power is held by this principle of the Logos, the laws which order the whole of the cosmos, and these are embodied in Jesus who is the very Logos, before all that was created. John is saying no imperial power or empire can even be compared to this man, for he is the one before all powers.

DDM – And then John says, this Logos, it took human flesh. Why would this logos, this divine philosophy take on a human body? Why? That is the question John wants us to ask. And then, this Logos chooses John tells us to dwell among (not the palaces, not the temples – which is where power is often located) but chooses to dwell among us – ordinary human beings. This is such an anti imperial concept – that it would have shocked readers, this is a completely new idea, of the Logos taking flesh and living amongst common people – that the only question one could be asking is WHY?

DDM – It’s interesting that the Greek word for dwelt here – dwelt amongst us – the word dwelt, eskenosen, is actually the word for pitched his tent. If Logos is reminding the Greco roman readers of their philosophy, this phrase pitched his tent among us would immediately remind the Jewish readers of the wilderness times when God pitched his tent called the tabernacle amongst them and lead them through the wilderness. This was the symbolic image of God who chose to come down in the wilderness and lead them in the tent of the holiest of holies. For Jewish readers, this is saying Yahweh has once again chosen to come down and lead you into freedom, but the tent or tabernacle will now be the body of Jesus that will lead Gods people out of oppression.

DDM – John is contrasting here the power of empires in their architecture, palaces, temples, with God’s architecture of power in a human being, perhaps the greatest architecture and miracle of all. A human body becomes the dwelling palace of God, of the Logos, of Yahweh, and the human body becomes the embodied the cosmic power of God. This again is such an anti-imperial statement, to locate such power, the power of God, in a human being and in a human body. For those who had been kicked out of synagogues and roman empirical society, this was a reminder that power is not ultimately found in synagogues, temples, and palaces, but in a human body, particularly the human body of Jesus.

DDM – As we read through future chapters of John we will see how each time the crowds wish to make him King, Jesus withdraws. He will not be drawn into military kingdoms of this earth, and when Pilate ultimately asks him are you the king of the Jews, Jesus says – my Kingdom is not of this world. For as John reminds us in the very beginning, Jesus’ kingdom is the one that has no beginning and no end, it is the kingdom before the creation of the cosmos, and after the end of this world. Jesus is the divine logos, that is over all earthly powers and kingdoms, with no parallel.

Rev. Deborah solo-casts again, this time exploring the origins of Jesus Christ as told in the Gospels of Mark and John through the lens of gender.

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Transcript

DDM Hello and welcome to The Priest and the Prof. I am your host, the Rev. Deborah Duguid-May.

MET And I’m Dr. M. Elizabeth Thorpe.

DDM This podcast is a product of Trinity Episcopal Church in Greece, New York. I’m an Episcopal priest of 26 years, and Elizabeth has been a rhetoric professor since 2010. And so join us as we explore the intersections of faith, community, politics, philosophy, and action.

DDM Hello and welcome!

DDM In this episode I want to continue looking at Mark and John’s origin stories of Jesus, how they differ, why they differ, but particularly in how they deal with the issue of gender. If you go back to a previous episode, you will see Elizabeth and I looked at this theme in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, but I want us to look at them through Mark and John’s eyes.

DDM Rember Mark is writing after the temple has been destroyed, to Jews and Gentiles who are socially and economically struggling. This is an incredibly difficult time of social change, feeling like everything that had given security is destroyed. And they are feeling very vulnerable.

DDM And then Mark begins his gospel with “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ the Son of God.” Everybody is ready for good news, especially the poor and the vulnerable who are reading Mark, so what is this good news?

DDM In times of great social change, we always see two movements emerging. One will be to want to go back to the way things were, a return to the old ways, family values, a deeply conservative movement. And the other will be the need for something radically new, realizing that the old ways no longer work or even can work, they are gone and a new way needs to be found.

DDM Mark will give the community the latter. And so he begins with Jesus, no mention of Mary or Joseph, of a traditional family, of conception or childhood, not even the mention of a human father or virgin birth. For Mark, there is no emphasis on Jesus’ mother or any female role in his origins. For Mark he is simply the divine Son, the Son of God, not created through any gendered family story, but declared through God’s own voice breaking into our world at his baptism. You are MY Son, the beloved. For Mark, the birth story of Jesus is not about pregnancy and birthing, but about baptism, a choice we make to proclaim that we too are God’s children, beloved and pleasing to God.

DDM In fact, in Mark’s gospel it is interesting that Mary and his family don’t appear until much later in the gospel, where Jesus in very difficult words literally redefines family. When people are telling him your family is here for you, Jesus says, “Who is my mother and brother and sisters? Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

DDM This must have been almost offensive to his traditional biological family. But here we see Jesus teaching us that to follow God may mean we need to detach our identities from our traditional family and gender structures in order to do the will of God. And that following God will mean we inherit a new family, not based on gender, biological roles, and relationships, but on seeking and doing the will of God. This is not biological family first, but the family of those who do the will of God first. This is not traditional family values, but upending the patriarchal family systems, by creating a new family not defined by biological or gendered roles.

DDM What is interesting in Mark’s gospel is that although women are absent as birthers and mothers in the beginning of Jesus’ story according to Mark, they are crucial at every important moment in the rest of the Gospel narrative. Women are the ones at the foot of the cross when the male disciples run away, women are the first witnesses to witness the empty tomb and the resurrection.

DDM Mark is showing women in his gospel not as birthers and mothers first and foremost, but instead as disciples and witnesses of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and therefore disciples and apostles in this new faith community.

DDM At a time of great social upheaval, Jesus is calling this new community of faith, after the destruction of the temple, to build a new faith community, where women will not be seen primarily as mothers and birthers of the old patriarchal society, but instead women will be disciples and apostles of a new family and community in this kingdom of God on earth.

DDM And so, what is this good news that Mark is proclaiming in terms of gender?

DDM Well, that your identity does not come from being a mother or father, from your gender and traditional gender roles. But your identity comes from your choice to become a part of God’s family, that you are a child of God, beloved and pleasing to God. Mark is reminding them that their identity comes not from their birth stories, around economic standing, family history, or gender but instead through divine calling. And to respond to that divine calling will mean that they will be free, and perhaps even asked, to break social boundaries, even patriarchal ones, to build this new community of discipleship.

DDM Mark is reminding this vulnerable community of readers, that when we step out of these class and gender categories, when we are prepared to let go of our identities as mothers or fathers, when we let go of our identities as men or women, jew or gentile, then we are ready to stand with Jesus at the cross and see the resurrection of God and of our lives. Discipleship for Mark will replace hierarchy.

DDM In Mark’s gospel all are welcome to be a part of this new family, and all it takes is an act of choice. One that we are all equally free to make, regardless of our gender, our class, our culture, our status.

DDM Now John, remember, is speaking to Jews and gentiles that have been thrown out of the synagogues and Roman world because of their wrestling with who this Jesus is? And so how does John deal with gender in Jesus’ origin story?

DDM John begins with Jesus as beyond gender. In the beginning was the Word, through whom everything was created. So for John, the beginning takes place in the universe, not in a womb. Everything in all its gender shapes and forms come from Jesus and are created through this Jesus. And yet, when this Word enters our world, the Word enters being named not as male or female but flesh. Jesus comes in the flesh of humanity.

DDM And so again we see John presents Jesus without a biological mother or father, because Jesus always has been, and was never created. Jesus is instead the creator. And when God enters our world, it is as humanity, the focus being on the humanity of God – not the gender. And so, we see in John’s account that Jesus transcends and bypasses gender entirely. This story is not about biological reproduction or male lineage, but instead about a God who exists beyond our patriarchal structures with no reference to a mother or a father, and who choses not gender but human flesh. This is a story of incarnation, not of birth.

DDM John will later speak a lot about the need for us to re-born, again taking life and salvation outside of biology and gender, and about the need to be find life outside of “a man’s will” – referring to patriarchal paternity, or from the flesh referring to a woman’s body, but instead born from the Spirit – which is again beyond gender, and irrespective of gender. So John gives to us in the opening verses a way of being in flesh, embodied but beyond gender and traditional forms of gender.

DDM However, in order to attempt to silence or pull Jesus down the crowds say, isn’t this the son of Joseph? We know where you come from. John quotes these voices and comments to show to his readers that human birth stories have nothing to do with divine character and identity, no matter how much others may try to make them so.

DDM A little later in John’s gospel, the first sign of who Jesus is will be with Mary at a wedding. John doesn’t introduce her as Jesus’ mother, but rather in the formal title Woman. This is Jesus symbolically seeing even his own mother as a Woman in her own right and being, not simply as his mother. This shows us how Jesus is calling us to see each other in this new community. Not primarily as mothers, fathers, sons and daughters, but as individuals beyond patriarchal roles, individuals in our own right. Even for Mary, the Mother of God, this mothering role must give way to faith and discipleship, and so the story is about Mary the believer and Jesus the Messiah.

DDM Again it is in John’s gospel that we so clearly the creation by Jesus of a new family, so at the foot of the cross Jesus says to Mary – not mother – but Woman, behold your son referring to John, and then to John he says Behold your mother.

DDM Mothering for Jesus is not primarily biological, but it is the role we embrace in this new family. And so, in this story in John, a new spiritual family is created, beyond biological and gender ties, but rooted in faith.

DDM Just as we see in Mark’s gospel, moving beyond biological gender is not a diminishment of who we are, or of who women are. Mary is the Woman who begins his public ministry at the wedding of Cana, it is the Samaritan woman in Johns gospel who is the first to proclaim him as Messiah, it is Martha of Bethany that makes the strongest confession of faith – I believe you are the Christ, the Son of God and it is Mary Magdalene that is the first witness of the resurrection and becomes the first apostle. And so, women in John’s gospel are held in the highest regard – but not because of their biology, but because who they are as people.

DDM John is reminding this community that has been excluded from the rest of their people, that they have an opportunity to create a whole new community of faith. That this is the beginning of a new family, but John is equally saying to them, don’t repeat the patriarchal structures that don’t serve you. Instead find a new way to be together as a faith family, of deep equality, irrespective of biology and gender.

DDM Because in Johns gospel salvation is for all, to all who receive him, he gave power to become children of God. This ostracized community are being called children of God, irrespective of whether they were Jewish or gentile, male or female, poor or middle class. And they are to share in the divine life of the Word of God through faith and being reborn in the Spirit.

MET Thank you for listening to The Priest and the Prof. find us at our website, https ://priestandprof.org. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact us at podcast@priestandprof.org. Make sure to subscribe, and if you feel led, please leave a donation at https://priestandprof.org/donate/. That will help cover the costs of this podcast and support the ministries of Trinity Episcopal Church. Thank you, and we hope you have enjoyed our time together today.

DDM Music by Audionautix.com.