Movie Write-Up: Grace Unplugged

I watched a Christian movie a few days ago: Grace Unplugged, which came out in 2013.  Although the movie is Christian, Lionsgate Films and Roadside Attractions released it, and they release a lot of secular movies.

The movie is about an 18-year-old girl named Grace Trey, whose father, Johnny Trey, used to be a rock star.  Johnny was known as a one-hit wonder, and he left the secular music industry when he became a born-again Christian.  Now, he and his daughter perform at their church, and also at other churches.  The two of them clash quite a bit.

When Johnny’s former agent, Frank “Mossy” Martin, comes into town and tells Johnny that his one hit is becoming famous again, Mossy invites Johnny back into the secular music industry.  Johnny declines Mossy’s offer, but Grace runs away from home, meets with Mossy, and becomes a success in her own right by performing her father’s hit.  Her father tells her that she is not ready for the secular music business, and she struggles to define the role of faith in her life.  She bumps into a nice Christian intern, Quentin, who befriends her and encourages her to make the Christian faith her own.  After Grace experiences a few professional bumps, Mossy tells her that she will be making her own album with songs that others have written for her.  When she objects that one of the songs depicts a one-night stand and goes against her values, she leaves the secular music industry and goes back home.  She remains a professional musician, however, along with her father.

The movie was not earthshakingly good, but is was all right to watch.  It shows how hard it is in certain settings to stand by one’s values, especially when they are unconventional.  In once scene, Grace and some higher-ups in the secular music industry are toasting with champagne, and Grace drinks it to fit in with the crowd.  I myself have no religious objections to drinking, but I do not drink because I am a recovering alcoholic, and I wonder what I would have done in Gracie’s situation: would I go along with the crowd, or would I just not drink from the glass while not being obvious about it?  I have to respect the Hollywood celebrities—-and there are many—-who are in Alcoholics Anonymous and may have to find ways to be social and fit in at drinking functions, without actually drinking.

Some of the actors in Grace Unplugged were familiar to me.  James Denton played Johnny Trey, and I know James Denton as Mike Delfino on Desperate Housewives.  I always liked Mike.  And I learned that Quentin was played by Michael Welch, who has been in some of the Twilight movies, but whom I know from the series Joan of Arcadia.  He played Joan’s nerdy little brother, who brought a scientific dimension to the show, and who also made a good point that there is a distinction between facts and the interpretation of them.

I read Christianity Today‘s negative review of the movie, and I have two thoughts about that.  First, the review tells about a host of a screening of the movie who scolded evangelicals for going to see The Hunger Games rather than Grace Unplugged, pleading with them to go in masses to the opening night of the latter movie.  I really did not like this, for a variety of reasons.  I get sick of evangelical leaders bossing around other evangelicals as if they’re children, or pressuring them to see a movie they may not want to see just because they are supposed to root for Team Evangelical.  While my opinion of Grace Unplugged was not as low that that of Christianity Today‘s review, I still laud Christianity Today for not being afraid to question Team Evangelical!

Second, I liked what the Christianity Today review said about the music manager in the movie, Frank “Mossy”: “Kevin Pollak sidesteps the film’s biggest potential landmine by making Frank a grown up, rather than a predator.”  I actually appreciated that, myself.  Mossy was not a Christian, and he did not share some of Grace’s values, but he was a good and a dependable agent, who knew how the secular music game was played.

My Posts that Talk about Kathryn Joosten

Actress Kathryn Joosten has passed on due to lung cancer at age 72.  I know her as Mrs. Landingham on The West Wing, as one of the manifestations of God on Joan of Arcadia, and as Mrs. McCluskey on Desperate Housewives.  It's ironic that she has passed on, since her character on Desperate Housewives also passed on in the final episode of the show. 

I'd like to share some posts that I wrote that discuss Kathryn Joosten's moments in television:

The West Wing:  Bartlett's Jobian Rant.

Joan of Arcadia: A Disappointing God in Joan of Arcadia.

Desperate Housewives:  Alone No More; Caught Up on Brothers and Sisters (Sort of); God of Borg; and The Desperate Housewives Finale.

R.I.P. Kathryn Joosten.

Psalm 66

For my weekly quiet time this week, I will comment on select verses of Psalm 66. I will use the King James Version, which is in the public domain.

To the chief Musician, A Song or Psalm.

For some reason, the Septuagint's superscription says that Psalm 66 concerns the resurrection. Augustine ran with this view by applying the Psalm to the resurrection of Christ and the church. When v 3 says that God's enemies will lie to God, Augustine interprets that in light of the Jewish leaders paying the Roman soldiers to lie about why Jesus' tomb was empty (Matthew 28). Psalm 66:6 talks about crossing the sea on dry land, and many interpreters have viewed that in reference to the Israelites crossing the sea during the Exodus. But Augustine applies v 6 to believers crossing the sea of mortality through their resurrection.

¹Make a joyful noise unto God, all ye lands:

In the Jewish Study Bible, Adele Berlin and Marc Brettler comment: "Universal acclamation for God for his deliverance of Israel (Josh. 2.9-11)." Indeed, the lands are being told to make a joyful noise to God, and Psalm 66 does appear to be relevant to the Exodus because v 6 seems to recall Israel's crossing of the sea. But Joshua 2:9-11 does not present the nations of Canaan acclaiming the God of Israel as a result of the Exodus; rather, they are terrified of Israel and her God. At the same time, Rahab does appear to acclaim the God of Israel when she not only fears God, but also seeks God's mercy and protection. In v 1, perhaps the lands are being told to rejoice in God on account of what God did in history for Israel at the Exodus, to (in the words of Keil-Delitzsch) "share in Israel's Gloria." I should also note that, in Second Isaiah, God's deliverance of Israel from exile is hoped to bring the Gentiles to the worship of Israel's God. Could Psalm 66 relate to that theme, on some level?

²Sing forth the honour of his name: make his praise glorious.

³Say unto God, How terrible art thou in thy works! through the greatness of thy power shall thine enemies submit themselves unto thee.

The word that the KJV translates as "submit" often means to lie (i.e., Genesis 18:15; Joshua 7:11; Hosea 4:2). Marvin Tate maintains that the word in Psalm 66:3 pertains to unwilling submission, on the basis of such passages as Psalm 18:45 and 81:16. But others have sought to go with the interpretation that the word in this verse relates to lying, deception, or denial. The medieval Jewish exegete Rashi says that God's enemies are so terrified of God that they are lying to God about their sins, as they wrongfully maintain their innocence. And the Targum says that God's enemies are denying God.

⁴All the earth shall worship thee, and shall sing unto thee; they shall sing to thy name. Selah.

Does this mean that all the earth will worship God after the wicked are destroyed, meaning that "all the earth" refers to those who are not wicked? Or will the wicked, too, sing to God and worship God, albeit reluctantly at first?

⁵Come and see the works of God: he is terrible in his doing toward the children of men.

⁶He turned the sea into dry land: they went through the flood on foot: there did we rejoice in him.

⁷He ruleth by his power for ever; his eyes behold the nations: let not the rebellious exalt themselves. Selah.

Orthodox rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch says that God's destruction of the Egyptian soldiers at the sea during the Exodus should discourage the wicked from exalting themselves against God. Psalm 66 may be going that route, in a sense, in that it says that the God who demonstrated his power at the sea still rules and watches the nations. One can ask why the nations should fear God on account of the Exodus, when there is no evidence that the Exodus actually happened. Not surprisingly, the Israelites hoped for fresh and current displays of God's power on their behalf.

⁸O bless our God, ye people, and make the voice of his praise to be heard:

⁹Which holdeth our soul in life, and suffereth not our feet to be moved.

I wouldn't be surprised if this is the sort of verse that influenced the Septuagint to apply Psalm 66 to the resurrection. This verse is most likely about God's protection of God's people in this life. But one could easily take that concept a step farther and say that God will protect his people even through death, seeing them through to the other side.

¹⁰For thou, O God, hast proved us: thou hast tried us, as silver is tried.

The Intervarsity Press Bible Background Commentary discusses the purification of gold and silver. On Proverbs 17:3, it states: "An additional 338 degrees is necessary to allow the metal to be poured without freezing and not so hot that a destructive crystalline structure forms or alloys are dissipated before the metal cools. It is also important to avoid oxygen infiltration as much as possible during the melting process so that the structure of the metal will not become porous. The refining process requires expertise and an intimate knowledge of the tools and metals involved."

That reminds me of I Corinthians 10:13: "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." Taking into consideration our individual temperaments, experiences, and situations, God gives us afflictions to purify us, but God does not seek to destroy us. Actually, God through purifying us is cleansing us of destructive tendencies and things that compromise our beauty and usefulness to God. Do I believe this? I will admit that my trials make me more compassionate towards others. At the same time, trials can also make a person bitter, and perhaps even break him or her. Why else are there suicides?

¹¹Thou broughtest us into the net; thou laidst affliction upon our loins.

A targum applies this verse to Israel's captivity under the Egyptians and (later) the Babylonians.

¹²Thou hast caused men to ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water: but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place.

Regarding the first part of the verse, the Hebrew can be literally translated as "you cause to ride man to our head". Tate interprets this to mean that God ordained Israel a leader, Moses, to travel at Israel's head across the sea at the Exodus. Others, however, argue that this means that God is enabling Israel's enemies to trample her down----to ride over the heads of corpses or to clamp down on Israel's neck. According to this kind of interpretation, going through fire and water refers to purification, for metal is purified in fire and water. The idea, according to this view, is that God is afflicting Israel in order to purify her. In Charles Haddon Spurgeon's Treasury of David, Thomas Adams states that "There is desolation and consolation in one verse: a deep dejection, as laid under the feet of beasts; a happy deliverance", and Adams goes on to affirm that we can only appreciate God's deliverance if we have experienced hard times. Adams' use of the terms "desolation" and "consolation" caught my eye because of the "Desolation and Consolation" scene in Joan of Arcadia (see here).

¹³I will go into thy house with burnt offerings: I will pay thee my vows,

¹⁴Which my lips have uttered, and my mouth hath spoken, when I was in trouble.

¹⁵I will offer unto thee burnt sacrifices of fatlings, with the incense of rams; I will offer bullocks with goats. Selah.

In vv 13-15, we move from "we" to "I". This may mean that the Psalmist is a leader of a congregation, or that he is drawing from the experiences of Israel as a whole as he seeks to assure himself that God will deliver him personally.

¹⁶Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will declare what he hath done for my soul.

I liked what Frederick Gaiser said in an article he wrote for the Spring 2006 Word&World: "The contemporary worshiping community needs to hear the witness of its individual members for the same reasons the people of Israel did. Such witness points to the ongoing reality of God's deliverance; it provides the response to the petitions of God's people that God act now. Faith is strengthened, and praise is elicited. Dietrich Bonhoeffer discovered this in his life together with other Christians in a time of great tribulation, noting that we 'need other Christians as bearers and proclaimers of the divine word of salvation. [We] need them solely for the sake of Jesus Christ. The Christ in [our] own hearts is weaker than the Christ in the word of other Christians.'"

¹⁷I cried unto him with my mouth, and he was extolled with my tongue.

The second part of v 17 translates literally as "and praise under my tongue". What's it mean for praise to be under the tongue? Job 20:12 talks about wickedness being under the tongue, Psalm 10:7 says that mischief and vanity are under the tongue of the Psalmist's enemy, and Song of Songs 4:11 affirms that honey and milk are under a tongue. Tate states that the idea in Psalm 66:17 may be that praise is creating a good taste in the Psalmist's mouth. Keil-Delitzsch, however, says that the Psalmist means that he is so sure that God will deliver him that praise is ready on his mouth, prepared for the time when God will deliver him.

¹⁸If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me:

I listened to sermons (including an entertaining one by Dr. John Gerstner) saying that this verse does not mean that God refuses to hear sinners, for, if that were the case, God wouldn't listen to any prayers, since all of us sin. Rather, they maintain, the verse is saying that God does not hear those who like sin or fail to struggle against it. I find this problematic, for I'd say that everyone who sins likes it on some level, otherwise they would not do it. And it's possible for one to, say, hate one's own bitterness and resentment and yet hold on to bitter and resentful thoughts. How much must one dislike sin before God can hear his or her prayers, for there are very few people who dislike their sins utterly.

At the same time, I can sympathize with the notion that one should not just be praying to God to save one's own skin----that there should be a commitment to a righteous path. David Corder talks some about that issue here.

¹⁹But verily God hath heard me; he hath attended to the voice of my prayer.

²⁰Blessed be God, which hath not turned away my prayer, nor his mercy from me.

Risky Faith

On page 808 of Stephen King’s The Stand: The Complete and Uncut Edition, the Judge reflects on the disappearance of Mother Abagail (the prophetess):

“I wonder if we need to reinvent that whole tiresome business of gods and saviors and ever-afters before we reinvent the flushing toilet. That’s what I’m saying. I wonder if this is the right time for gods…She’s been dead six days now. The Search Committee hasn’t found a trace of her. Yes, I think she’s dead, but even now I am not completely sure. She was an amazing woman, completely outside any rational frame of reference. Perhaps one of the reasons I’m almost glad to have her gone is because I’m such a rational old curmudgeon. I like to creep through my daily round, to water my garden—-did you see the way I brought the begonias back? I’m quite proud of that—-to read my books, to write my notes for my own book about the plague. I like to do all those things and then have a glass of wine at bedtime and fall asleep with an untroubled mind. Yes. None of us wants to see portents and omens, no matter how much we like our ghost stories and the spooky films. None of us want to really see a Star in the East or a pillar of fire by night. We want peace and rationality and routine. If we have to see God in the black face of an old woman, it’s bound to remind us that there’s a devil for every god—-and our devil may be closer than we like to think.”

What the Judge says reminds me about what I heard a professor of rabbinics remark about why prophecy ceased within Judaism: prophecy produces social instability, for it allows a person to come along and unravel everything with a “Thus saith the Lord”.

I can sympathize with the Judge’s comments. A struggle that I have with faith is that I am afraid it will disrupt my predictable day-to-day life. Not everyone is cut out to go to Africa as a missionary, or to skip work to do one of God’s special projects. If I were Joan on Joan of Arcadia, and God was giving me a bunch of assignments, I’d wonder if that would take me away from my schoolwork. Of course, Joan had the luxury of knowing that it was God speaking to her. I don’t. If I felt “led” to take a risk, how do I know that’s God, or just me?

There are passages in Scripture in which faith is consistent with living a predictable day-to-day life. Ancient Israelites under the Torah would just go about their agricultural tasks on a daily basis, honor God with tithes and offerings, and be just in their interactions. Nothing dramatic there. But then there are the passages in which God or Jesus calls people to leave everything behind and to take a risk. Those are the passages that scare me.

Phyllis Schlafly’s Positive Woman 7, Avoiding Evil and Pursuing Good on Lent

1. In my reading this morning of The Power of the Positive Woman, Phyllis Schlafly argues that the Equal Rights Amendment would require women to be drafted into the military (if the draft were to be reinstated) as well as place them in combat positions. She also states that the ERA would affect the police department, requiring it to give women the same assignments that it gives to men. While she’s not against women serving in the military and the police, she’s against them doing the exact same things that men do, for they do not have the physical strength that men possess. Physical strength is required for soldiers to carry heavy equipment in combat operations, or (in the 1970’s) to have the stamina to fight in the jungles of Vietnam. And physical strength is important in police assignments as well, for police officers need to intimidate and overpower criminals.

Mrs. Schlafly offers impressive documentation for her arguments. She quotes prestigious law journals, ERA proponents, the selective service manual, and real-life examples of the disaster that’s resulted from certain attempts in her time to extend to women complete equality in the armed services and the police. Ill effects have included women becoming pregnant on military ships, a lowering of standards, and the crippling of desperately-needed police departments, as they spend time trying to comply with an activist judge’s definition of “equality.”

Against those who argue that Israel drafts women, Mrs. Schlafly points out on page 101 that the Israeli military does not have complete equality:

Israeli women serve in the armed forces only about half as long as men. Israeli women have automatic exemption if they marry or have a baby. They are not put into combat or into integrated barracks with men. The Israelis tried putting their women into combat for a very brief period in the 1948 war, and they found out what happens to women when they fall into the hands of vicious men. Israel did not make that mistake in any of its three later wars.

Mrs. Schlafly wrote The Power of the Positive Women in 1977, but there was criticism of placing women in combat units as late as the early 1990’s. Mrs. Schlafly wrote against it, and Pat Buchanan mentioned it in a list of liberal evils in his speech before the 1992 Republican National Convention.

Nowadays, women are in military combat. There was a female soldier who tortured some Iraqis, which resulted in a scandal. Jessica Lynch and another woman were captured by Iraqis while they were in combat. And, during a 2008 Republican Presidential debate, arch-conservative candidate Duncan Hunter praised a woman pilot who did a heroic deed in Iraq.

Women don’t necessarily need physical strength to fly a plane, or to shoot a gun so as to hit their target. But I still wonder if there is complete equality in the armed forces. I wouldn’t be surprised if men still carry the heavy equipment. Plus, whenever I watch ABC’s This Week and see the lists of men and women who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, I mostly see men.

Regarding the police, I don’t know as much about that. I think that women can be effective and intimidating through swiftly-applied martial arts or their gun. I’m not sure how things are in real life, but, on television, men police-officers have female partners. Clint Eastwood had Tyne Daley on one of the Dirty Harry movies. On 7th Heaven, Lucy Camden’s husband, Kevin, had a beautiful partner named Roxanne. Robert Barone’s partner is a female on Everybody Loves Raymond. And then there’s the short-lived series, The Unusuals, starring Amber Tamblyn of Joan of Arcadia fame. Is art reflecting life?

I wonder if the military and the police have found ways to allow women to contribute, without defying common sense in the pursuit of complete equality.

2. At Latin mass this morning, we had the priest who talks about love. He referred to the parable in Luke 11:24-26, in which an unclean spirit leaves a man, gathers more unclean spirits, and (together with them) possesses the man again, after the man has been swept and cleaned up on the inside. The man’s state then becomes worse than it was before! The priest likened that to us becoming spiritually proud during Lent, as we pat ourselves on the back for fasting, doing good, and giving up our sins. He also cited Ephesians 5:3, which says that fornication, uncleanness, and covetousness are not to be named among saints. According to the priest, we don’t have to make a laundry list of our sins during Lent (a surprising statement from a Catholic); rather, we should focus on intimacy with God and our imitation of God.

I’m not sure if I have much of a problem with spiritual pride. The reason is that I’m too occupied with getting through the day in one piece—without bitterness, or bad thoughts. I turn to God to get me through my inner demons. I don’t have time to pat myself on the back, nor, for that matter, do I have much of a reason to do so.

I like the priest’s idea of just doing good rather than beating myself up over all the wrong that I do. As far as the part about not naming sins is concerned, do I violate that rule when I watch TV—such as Desperate Housewives? One can easily point out that the Bible presents its share of sordid acts, for human corruption is a part of the world with which God interacts. I don’t plan to give up Desperate Housewives, but I should take heed lest I become like the world. And perhaps, even as I watch my shows, I can reject the evil in them while embracing the good values that they promote—kindness, friendship, respect for others, etc.

Ryan Hunter Falls Out of Joan Into Ghost Whisperer

I just watched the pilot for Ghost Whisperer, which premiered in 2005.

Here’s what’s weird. Ghost Whisperer replaced Joan of Arcadia on CBS, after the latter was cancelled. In the cliff-hanger of Joan of Arcadia, Wentworth Miller played Ryan Hunter, a rich guy who also saw God, yet was somewhat of a villain. But we never got to see how that played out because Joan was cancelled.

But Wentworth Miller was on the pilot for Ghost Whisperer, the show that took Joan’s place. He played the ghost of a soldier, whom Melinda reconciled with her son. I find that pretty weird! I wonder if the makers of Ghost Whisperer were trying to win over Joan fans, who were disgruntled that Joan was cancelled and replaced by another series.

Why Lily Values the Church

When I watched the final episode of Joan of Arcadia today, I liked a comment that Lily made. Lily is Helen’s blunt spiritual advisor, who tried to be a nun at some point. Helen is Joan’s mom, and she’s preparing for confirmation to become a Catholic.

Someone has just defaced a Catholic church, and Lily explains to Helen and Helen’s son, Kevin (a reporter), why that bothers her:

People pray in here. Do you get that? They come in here with their insides all churned up and their hearts hurting, and all of their dead relatives, and their hopes and dreams and failures, and what keeps them awake at night, and they put it in here. And some creep comes in here and does this without even thinking about what it means. See here for the script.

Searching for Ryan Hunter, Dreams, Psalm 29

1. My WordPress stats jumped dramatically today, and I think I know why. The Sci Fi Channel had a Joan of Arcadia marathon today, and people (like me a year or two ago) have been left hanging with the last episode. Is Ryan Hunter good, bad, or neither? What role will Joan’s friends and mom play in Joan’s battle with Ryan? Since I posted links to fan-fiction, which you can access by clicking on “Joan of Arcadia Season 3″ underneath this post, people are flocking to this site and leaving it to visit the stories of MShaffer, Charles the Bold, Neias, and others.

I just watched this episode for the second time. This time around, I wasn’t mad at there not being a Season 3 on television, as I was when I watched the episode the first time. I’ve seen various attempts to continue the story, and there are ways that I’d continue it, if I knew how to write fiction. It’s been a while since I read fan-fiction on Ryan Hunter, but there are some things I wished it addressed. For example, I don’t recall the charism of Joan’s mom (i.e., dreams, premonitions) being used that much. I also don’t remember the dead little boy popping up either, though Judith did. Also, I wish the fan-fiction presented Ryan making a deal with the devil, which would explain why a fierce wind blows in his aftermath. But maybe the fan-fiction addressed some of those things, and I don’t remember it. The fan-fiction did an excellent job showing why Ryan Hunter was mad at God, however. I also want to add that I haven’t read all of the fan-fiction. I read how MShaffer and Neias treated Ryan, but I haven’t yet read Charles the Bold, who has a lot of first-person character studies. I hope to get to that sometime.

Enjoy the fan-fiction! I enjoyed listening to the Lady in the Water soundtrack while I read it. It was a therapeutic experience!

2. In Ancient Israelite Religion, I read “Aspects of Aramean Religion,” by Jonas Greenfield. What stood out to me today was the importance of dreams in ancient Near Eastern religion. A god could appear to someone in a dream with a message of “Fear not.” One figure, Keret, induced a dream athrough incubation (whatever that is) and was commanded therein “to sacrifice to the gods, to muster his troops, and to go on a campaign to acquire a wife” (73). Even a god could see dreams. The high god El knew that Baal (the storm god) had been dead for seven years, but he declared that Baal was alive after seeing a dream of rain and prosperity. And the Mesha Stone says that King Mesha of Moab was told by the god Chemosh to attack Israel.

Did they actually see these dreams? Jeremiah 23:32 talks about dreams of deception. Yet, Judges 11:24 appears to regard Chemosh as an actual god who blesses his people, Moab. So would the biblical authors be open to the possibility that Chemosh could guide Mesha through a dream? But God in II Kings 3 promises that Israel would defeat Mesha. Both can’t be legitimate prophecies, can they? Perhaps they can—it depends on which god is stronger and able to effect his will! Yet, Israel failed to defeat Moab, either because Mesha’s sacrifice of his child appeased his god and led him to give the Moabites extra help, or because it disgusted the Israelites and made them withdraw.

Some of these dreams may reflect wishful thinking. A person wants comfort, and he gets it in a dream. Or he desires a wife, and a dream encourages him to go out and get one. It’s somewhat like the topic of Rachel Held Evans’ blog-post for today, Does God Speak To You? : Many Christians hear from God what they want to hear, which calls into question whether they’re hearing from God at all!

But I have heard stories about people dreaming of things they couldn’t have known on their own. Ex-cessationist Jack Deere has some in his book, Surprised by the Voice of God. These dreams enable God’s people to minister to others.

And dreams can also be a means for God to teach moral lessons, or to comfort and encourage. Yes, skeptics can say that people in those cases are doing some “wishful dreaming,” but, as a person of faith, I believe that God can comfort people through dreams, as he can through other means, such as the reading of the Scriptures, sermons, and other people.

I read in some essay that the ancients believed dreams and the real-world were both aspects of reality. Moderns would view dreams as fiction in our heads, or as real in the sense that they are windows into our sub-conscious. But the ancients may have believed that dreams were from the gods. We know they thought some were, at least.

I had a weird dream yesterday. It was 2000, and Al Gore was talking about the recount. I told a person next to me that Bush would win, and that crucial events would occur during his Presidency: a terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, and a financial crisis, which I blamed on the government pushing unwise home-sales and people speculating with bad mortgages. Surprisingly, the person believed me! What’s the meaning of that, in terms of my own sub-conscious or reality, if dreams have a significance beyond myself (which may not be the case for all of them).

Anyway, now that I’ve written myself into this hole, on to number 3!

3. I finished Matitiahu Tsevat’s The Meaning of the Book of Job and Other Biblical Studies. Tsevat states on pages 196-197:

Imagine now the reaction of scholars should there come to light an ancient duplicate of a biblical text with Baal appearing where now we have Yhwh. Our received text would by unanimous pronouncement be declared to be an Israelite adaptation of a Canaanite original. But we need not appeal to imagine when, in fact, a biblical text, Psalm 29, has been and is, with mounting frequency, being identified as such in the absence of that imaginary duplicate or any other textual evidence deserving this name.

I long assumed that Psalm 29 came from a Canaanite hymn to Baal, for whom the Israelites substituted YHWH so they could use it for their own religion. But Tsevat says there’s no evidence for this. After reading that, I realized that I should check out why scholars believe Psalm 29 is a re-used Baal Psalm.

I didn’t read all of the relevant articles, but I looked at what Mitchell Dahood had to say about Psalm 29. According to him, the discovery of Ugaritic Ras Shamra texts had unearthed parallels to Psalm 29 in Ugaritic literature. But, as far as I can tell, there’s no actual “Psalm 29 to Baal” text in Ugaritic. Here’s a Christian apologetic article, which has useful information: Apologetics Press – Pagan Mythology and the Bible. But I’m sure there’s more to the issue than I found in my google search and reading of Dahood!

A Thaw Among Physicists?

I started Mark Smith's The Origins of Biblical Monotheism yesterday. The part that stuck out to me was on page 3:

Although discourse about God and the notion of belief has become increasingly problematic in departments of religion and divinity schools, theists elsewhere in the university are scarcely in full retreat. For example, a survey of American scientists on one campus, the University of Georgia, conducted by the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian of science Edward Larson, hardly indicates a lack of belief; if anything, the opposite is the case. Moreover, the topic of God has enjoyed a remarkable resurgence in contemporary Western culture by way of the field of physics...So, at the start of a new millennium, faith is increasingly questioned in religion and divinity faculties even as it is affirmed in other quarters of American universities.

I've seen numerous movies and TV shows in which a character says, "I don't believe in God---I'm a scientist," as if the two are mutually contradictory. In high school, I looked through a book in my school library, which was a publication of responses by celebrities to a child's question, "Do you believe in God?" In the book, you got Oral Roberts' dramatic narration of a vision he supposedly had, along with Andy Rooney's blunt answer of "no---sincerely, Andy Rooney." But the responses by the scientists were largely negative. As far as they were concerned, they couldn't see God, so they didn't believe in his existence.

A few years later, at DePauw, I read an article somewhere on the Internet, which said that physicists were more open to the existence of God than biologists. The reason was that biologists felt that they could account for biological phenomena naturalistically, through an appeal to evolution by natural selection. Physicists, however, realized that there were so many constants that had to be "just right" for life to exist on earth. Many of them, therefore, were open to the notion that a supernatural being created the cosmos and set in place the constants that were necessary for life. Is there a thawing in the physics community to the idea that God exists?

I also think of the pilot episode to Joan of Arcadia. On it was Joan's geeky scientist brother, Luke, who said that the existence of God was theoretically possible, since light could have consciousness. The creator of the show, Barbara Hall, said that she had read many books on physics, for she was interested in the interrelation between physics and religion. Is Luke's idea the sort of thing that Mark Smith is talking about when he says that physicists are writing about religion?

Caught Up on Brothers and Sisters (Sort Of)

I technically got caught up on Brothers and Sisters today, not in the sense that I watched every single episode of Season 3, but rather in the sense that I saw enough of Season 3 to watch the first episode of Season 4 this coming Sunday night and not feel lost.

I've been waiting for Season 3 to arrive at my public library for a long time, but I can't seem to get my hands on it. People have it on hold or are checking it out! But I had four episodes on my DVR, and I decided to watch those (while reading and translating, of course) to see where I was lost, how much I could understand, etc.

Fortunately, the first episode I taped was half-brother Ryan's introduction to the Walker family, as well as Nora first learning that her son Tommy had embezzled money. This was helpful to me, since I myself was meeting Ryan for the very first time, plus I was first learning about Tommy's embezzlement from his late father's fruit company. So, although I'm fuzzy about many of the details, I feel somewhat caught up. I also enjoyed hanging out with the characters, even though I hadn't seen all of their Season 3 experiences. I got grossed out, though, when Kevin kissed his husband, which tells me that I haven't seen the show for a long time.

I was thinking about the character of Tommy. I didn't know all of the details, but I was fairly certain that Tommy didn't embezzle the money out of greed. He's weak, not deliberately evil, as when he cheated on his wife when his marriage was on the rocks (Season 2). It turns out that he was embezzling to force his late father's mistress, Holly, out of the family business. Tommy never struck me as deliberately evil, but he often appeared to me to be self-centered. That changed a little in the Season finale, when he was in Mexico helping a village get water. I loved his warm, peaceful expression when he saw his family in Mexico, when they came looking for him. I was expecting him to tell them to buzz off, but he had apparently found peace in his time there.

I'm looking forward to Season 4 of Brothers and Sisters, as well as a new season of Desperate Housewives! I heard that Kathryn Joosten (Mrs. Landingham on the West Wing, Old Lady God on Joan of Arcadia, and Ms. McKloskey on Desperate Housewives) has cancer from her years of smoking, but I hope she'll still be able to be on the show. Rumor has it that Orson Bean (Beevis on the Twilight Zone, Loren on Dr. Quinn, married to the mom on the Wonder Years, good Republican, even though he was supposedly blacklisted in the 1950's) will be her love interest on Desperate Housewives, and I don't want that to get written out!

Another Joan, Season 3

I found this on a Joan of Arcadia fan site--the one where MShaffer has his stories. It's another Season 3 of Joan, and it looks lengthy and well-written:

http://www.fanfiction.net/u/963303/CharlesTheBold

This should satisfy my Joan palate for a while! Before I get to that, though, I want to read MShaffer's newest story, The Child, Part 2.

FSE: Smoke Monster, Joan Actors

Last night, I watched Lost, Criminal Mind, and the new ABC series, The Unusuals.

1. Last night's lost was about the judgment of Ben Linus, who had some humanity within him when he refused to kill Alex Rousseau. Over the years, however, he degenerated to become much more cruel and heartless, leading to the death of Alex (whom he was raising as his own daughter). In last night's episode, he went to the temple to summon the smoke monster, who would judge him for his sins. He entered the building not knowing whether the monster would kill him or allow him to live.

I can't really express what I think about the smoke monster. It appears to be immoral or amoral because it has killed so many innocent people, yet I see from last night that it has the moral sensibility to confront Ben Linus about his past behavior. Maybe it's like the shooter in Phone Booth: he's immoral in the sense that he kills innocent people, yet he has enough of a God-complex to judge Colin Farrell's lifestyle.

Is the smoke monster like God? Going into the temple not knowing whether one will live or die reminds me of the Old Testament's tabernacle protocol, in which a person was not allowed to stroll into God's sanctuary unannounced, lest God would kill him. As far as I know, it really didn't matter if the person was good or bad: if he disobeyed the sanctuary protocol, then he lost his life. Consider Uzzah, whom God killed for merely trying to stabilize the tumbling ark!

At the same time, God did appear to people in some capacity, and they were usually shocked that they were alive after seeing God. They're like Benjamin Linus, who is relieved that the smoke monster has allowed him to live.

Another tension is that there are times in the Bible in which God preserves the innocent from his wrath, and then there are times when he destroys the innocent along with the guilty (punishing the group, transgenerational punishment, punishing a man's family for his sins, etc.). Similarly, the smoke monster appears to kill the innocent, yet there are also times when it regards people according to their individual moral merit. I think that God differs from the smoke monster in the sense that God doesn't go around killing people for no reason, since the innocent perish when he is carrying out an act of judgment on an immoral group.

2. I watched The Unusuals because it has Amber Tamblyn from Joan of Arcadia. She looks good, even if she was a big-time Hillary supporter (which part of me actually admires because at least she wasn't going with the Obama fad but dared to be different). But what was interesting was that I got to see another Joan of Arcadia actor: on CBS' Criminal Mind (which I ordinarily don't watch because it's on the same time as Lost, but my dad has DVR, so I got to see both last night). Criminal Mind has the guy who played Will Giradi, Joan's dad. So I got to see two Joan of Arcadia actors in the same night. How cool is that?

Judaism, Abortion, and Joan

I read MShaffer's Joan of Arcadia: Season 3 episode, Episode 3.18, The Child, Part 1.

Joan's brother Luke has gotten Grace pregnant. Luke wants Grace to abort the baby, for he just got into MIT (his lifelong dream) and doesn't want the responsibility of raising a child. Grace, however, is reluctant. As she struggles with her options, she finds the answer to her dilemma in her Hebrew class. The instructor discusses Exodus 21:22-25, which states (in the KJV):

If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

There is debate about what this passage means. Pro-choicers argue this: If the woman suffers a miscarriage, then the guilty party pays a fine. But if there is harm to the woman, then lex talionis (eye for eye, up to the death penalty) takes effect. By contrast, pro-lifers contend as follows: If the baby comes out of the woman not fully formed, then the guilty party pays a fine. But if there is damage to the baby, then lex talionis is brought into play. Is lex talionis (eye for eye, et al.) the punishment for harming the woman or the baby? That is the debate.

Grace's Hebrew instructor opts for the "both" answer. After noting that the Hebrew word yeled in Exodus 21:22 means "child" and that Amos 1:13-14 condemns the Ammonites for deliberately ripping open pregnant women in Gilead, he offers the following conclusions about Exodus 21:22-25:

“This passage means the very opposite of what some who support abortion profess. In this case, the woman is accidentally struck, but if she or the child dies as a result, then the guilty party could be sentenced to death. This is the only instance in the Torah where involuntary manslaughter calls for the death penalty.”

I'm impressed by MShaffer's command of the Hebrew language and the debate over Exodus 21:22-25. But, in terms of real life, would someone hear this sort of message in a temple or synagogue? I have my doubts for two reasons.

1. In the history of Judaism, you find the sort of position that Grace's Hebrew instructor advocates--that the Torah mandates the death penalty for unintentionally causing the death of the fetus. It's in the Septuagint's translation of Exodus 21:22-25, Philo of Alexandria's Special Laws 3:108-109, the Samaritan Targum, and Karaite commentators. The problem is that these are not the forms of Judaism that came to dominate in Jewish communities. The Septuagint and Philo represent Hellenistic Judaism, not the rabbinic Judaism that became normative for Jews after 70 C.E. The Samaritans were considered outsiders because they weren't full Israelites, and the Karaites were a marginal voice within Judaism, which went the rabbinic route (even though the Karaites may have given us the Masoretic Text).

Palestinian and rabbinic Judaism, however, interpreted Exodus 21:22-25 to mean (1.) a fine for miscarriage, and (2.) lex talionis for harm to the mother. Josephus goes that route in Antiquities 4:278. Encyclopedia Judaica's well-documented article on "Abortion" (which I recommend, though I can't cut-and-paste parts of it) characterizes the position of the rabbis and medieval codes as follows: Exodus 21:22-25 imposes a fine for unintentionally causing a miscarriage, but abortion is still prohibited within Judaism, except to save the life of the mother. There seems to be debate about whether or not the fetus is a person. Normative post-70 Judaism appears to have an anti-abortion position, but it's not rooted in Exodus 21:22-25.

2. Grace could have heard an anti-abortion message in an orthodox Hebrew class, although I doubt it would have justified its beliefs from Exodus 21:22-25. But Grace is not orthodox, since she had a bat mitzvah, at which men and women were sitting together. In most orthodox synagogues, there are only bar mitzvahs (with some exceptions), and men and women sit apart.

Grace may be conservative or Reform. If she's conservative, she could have heard an anti-abortion message, since conservatives are interested in the halacha. If she is Reform, however, then I seriously doubt that she would hear it. With the exception of one professor, most of my Reform Jewish colleagues with whom I've discussed abortion claim on the basis of Exodus 21:22-25 that the fetus is not a person. If they have any conservative leanings whatsoever, they usually relate to Israel. On abortion, however, they're mostly pro-choice.

But I don't mind Grace's Hebrew teacher channeling the Septuagint, Philo, and the Karaites! Although they didn't dominate within Judaism, they had their influence on the world. The Septuagint and possibly Philo were big in Christianity, and (as I said above) the Karaites may have given us the Masoretic Text.

Another Season 3 for Joan

I found this just now: Ryan Hunter: A Dot Com Millionaire. It's someone's "autobiography" of Ryan Hunter, the rich guy on Joan of Arcadia who saw God and has an ax to grind against him. I've not read it yet, and I'm not even sure if it's finished. But I'm posting it here so I'll have access to it.

Evil

What is the source of evil acts? I've been thinking about this today--basing my thoughts on things I've read and seen on television.

I recently resumed my reading of Joan of Arcadia, Season 3. As many of you know, Joan of Arcadia only lasted for two seasons, and the second season had a huge cliffhanger. Consequently, excellent writers have decided to continue the series online, with a virtual Season 3. For the two versions, see here and here.

At the end of Season 2, we meet Ryan Hunter, a rich guy who (like Joan) has encountered God. His main difference from Joan is that he hates the Almighty.

How did he get to be this way? In the first version, God gave Ryan assignments to help people when he was younger, and the assignments interfered with his life and relationships. Ryan didn't feel he could tell his friends about his experiences with God, since even his religious friend deemed such a scenario to be evidence of mental illness. As a result, Ryan became bitter and turned against God.

In the second version, God gives Ryan assignments in his youth, but Ryan turns against God when his girlfriend decides to become a nun. Ryan concludes that God has stolen his girl, and he resolves from that point on to undermine the Almighty. Ryan still has good in him, but he does bad things (i.e., destroying houses of worship).

I didn't see the first scenario as significant enough by itself to turn Ryan against God. After all, Ryan had free will. He didn't have to do the assignments that God gave him. He could have simply stopped carrying them out, without becoming bitter against God.

At first, the second scenario didn't appeal to me either. "Why do writers today have to root everything in romance?," I thought. But, as I contemplated the matter further, I realized that there may be a profound insight about evil here. A Christian thinker once said that evil is making something or someone other than God the object of our worship, and that something or someone may be good.

Take Revenge of the Sith, which is Episode III of Star Wars. Anakin Skywalker becomes Darth Vader in an attempt to prevent his wife's death. His evil began as a pursuit of good.

I was also thinking about evil as I watched Desperate Housewives last night. Orson Hodge has been stealing because he feels emasculated by the success of his millionaire wife, Bree. Here, pride and a low self-image (which can actually co-exist) is the cause of Orson's evil.

Eedie's husband Dave is mad at Mike Delfino because he killed Dave's family in an automobile accident. So Dave pretends to be Mike's best friend and lures him and Mike's girlfriend, Katherine, into the woods. Dave's goal is to kill Katherine and put Mike through the same grief that he has endured. Here, a sense of justice is the root of Dave's evil.

Carlos' ex-girlfriend is the vice-president of his company, and she treats the employees pretty shabbily. She makes them work long hours, and she yells at Carlos' kids, thinking they belong to a Latino cleaning lady. She feels she has to be ruthless to make the company compete. Here, ambition and stress are the causes of her evil.

What can lead to goodness? I'm not sure. In another sub-plot of last night's episode, Susan has compassion on her lawyer ex-husband as he experiences what he put her through years earlier: his wife left him to raise a child on his own. Susan could have been happy at this "justice," but she had moved on years before, plus she didn't want anyone to have to endure that kind of pain. She saw her husband as human, so she felt bad for him. Moving on. Letting time heal. Using pain as a means to become compassionate. Take from this what you will!

In the case of Ryan Hunter, I can understand why he is upset--in both versions of Season 3! Perhaps he should've focused on the fact that his assignments from God were helping people.

More on Clones

For background, see Altruism and Jesus Clones.

Felix links to an article on his blog that criticizes a common Christian claim: that Christians should give up themselves. In "Altruism," I discussed this in light of altruism. In "Jesus Clones," I referred to the belief of many Christians that all of us should be like Jesus, which, for many, means happy-happy extroversion.

Here I want to talk about the Christian belief that everyone should believe the exact same way. For me, life is interesting because it has different people with different beliefs. The different ways that people get through life are of interest to me.

There is a strong part of me that likes John Hick's view on religious pluralism: that God interacts with people through various religions, making them better people through his grace. Or, as "God" said in Joan of Arcadia, God made different people, so there are different ways of relating to him.

At Harvard, a teaching assistant defined Thomas Jefferson's view on religion as follows: different religions are like different flavors of ice cream. As long as you're kind to others, you can pick whatever flavor you prefer.

I wonder if there are insights that non-Christian religions have that Christianity does not emphasize as much. Buddhism, for instance, talks about non-attachment as a key to happiness. I guess Christianity has that concept in some way, shape, or form, but Buddhism expresses it in its own unique fashion. As a result, I'm not sure if I'd call Buddhism superfluous.

On the other hand, is it wrong for all of us to believe the same way on certain things--how we should treat one another, for example. And not all of the religions can be right in their truth claims, right? Truth is truth. Shouldn't everyone believe in the truth, whatever that may be?

Is there a way for Christianity to be true, while preserving and celebrating the diversity of life, particularly people's different worldviews?

News

Here is some news about James' Thoughts and Musings:

1. I started a blog on wordpress, which is essentially the same as James' Thoughts and Musings, since it has the same posts and comments. I did this to follow in the footsteps of Ken Brown (C-Orthodoxy), who moved to wordpress in part to preserve his work from hackers. Wordpress backs the posts up, and I don't want what happened to Jim West to be my experience. Ken still writes on both blogger and wordpress, however, and that is what I intend to do.

Here it is: www.jamesbradfordpate.wordpress.com.

Another bonus: I have a wordpress account, so now I can comment on Felix's political blog (The Way I See It, Anyway). Look out, Felix!

2. My blog post from long ago, Asperger's and Religion, continues to get comments. Today, it got one from Arie Uittenbogaard, a Christian Aspie who has a solid grounding in the Bible and science (e.g., quantum mechanics, chaos theory). I checked out his web site, http://www.abarim-publications.com/, and Arie certainly thinks outside of the box! I'm going to add his web site to my blogroll.

I like it when people with an interest in the Bible also study science. I think of the series Joan of Arcadia, in which Joan's genius younger brother went into a discourse about how the existence of God is scientifically possible. That scene reflected the creator of the show, Barbara Hall, who has an interest in the relationship between science and religion. Personally, I've never been that good at science, but those with knowledge of it can open my mind to different ways of looking at God and religion.

Enjoy!

Abraham Lincoln 2009

Today is the two hundredth anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth. And here's an interesting tidbit of knowledge that I learned today: Charles Darwin was born on the exact same day as Lincoln.

I want to focus on Lincoln in this post, but Darwin will come into my discussion at the end.

I learned quite a bit about Abraham Lincoln when I was in elementary school, since Lincoln grew up in my beloved home state of Indiana. We learned that Lincoln had a mother who died when he was young, and that his dad then married a woman who took a special interest in Abe and gave him books to read. We heard that Lincoln had such a knack for rhetoric that his family would listen to his sermons every Sunday. Basically, Lincoln would go to church, hear the sermon, and re-enact it before his family, and that would be their church service! And we often heard that Lincoln got a good education by sitting in front of the fireplace reading law books. The lesson here was that reading could get us far in life, since Lincoln became a lawyer and the President of the United States!

In my reading and things that I heard, I also encountered a Lincoln who did not entirely fit the myth. People can pull out Lincoln quotes that regard blacks as inferiors. While Christians love to quote Lincoln's wish to be on God's side, there are rumors that he wrote an anti-Christian tract when he was younger, and his religious beliefs were not exactly orthodox in an evangelical sense. Some have cited stories in which Honest Abe appears a little less than honest. When I watched a C-SPAN re-enaction of the Lincoln/Douglas debates, Lincoln did not come across as that good of an orator, in either his delivery or content. (But maybe the delivery flaws were the fault of the actor.) And Lincoln's step-mother supposedly said that she didn't hear much from Abe once he left home. (Nice guy!)

The man was complex. People debate whether or not he was a Christian, but he did acknowledge a dependence on God when he was President. He could be kind, approachable, and sensitive, but he didn't stay in touch with the family that raised him. Maybe he cut corners every now and then, but a strong sense of Christian morality guided him, especially when he exhorted the Union to forgive the South once it re-entered the United States. Whether or not he viewed blacks as equals, there was a strong part of him that disliked slavery, since he joined a young party that was formed in opposition to it. He may not have been the best speaker in the world, but one of his simplest speeches (the Gettysburg Address) remains a salient encapsulation of American ideals.

A wise woman once told me that there is bad in the best of us, and good in the worst of us. "God" in Joan of Arcadia said something similar, when he discussed a moral continuum that all of us are on, in which many of us are neither completely good nor completely evil. I thought about this after I watched The Rosa Parks Story, when I read up on James Blake, the bus-driver who ordered Rosa Park to give up her seat. This man was a veteran of World War II. He fought for his country! Yet, he allowed himself to be influenced by the prejudices of his time and place.

There are lessons that we can draw from Lincoln's life. He managed to educate himself, even though his family was dirt-poor. His political career is practically a sermon on not giving up, since he lost tons of elections before he finally became President of the United States. We like to elevate him to the level of sainthood, but he was above all a human being. Some have argued that he was a manic depressant, who didn't want to be left alone with a razor because he feared what he might do.

Whatever Lincoln's complexities or quirks or weaknesses, I think that at heart he was a good man. At least he could rise above the "us vs. them" mentality that pervades the political atmosphere. He even appointed political opponents to his administration! I believe that God brought him to the Presidency for that very time, whatever his political inexperience might have been. That's not to say that God rubber-stamped or approved of everything he did, since critics do well to point out that Lincoln could be quite tyrannical. But, in my opinion, Lincoln was the right man for the job at that time. And, however I may oppose many of Barack Obama's policies, attitudes, and moves, I think that he is the right man for a time such as this. But time will tell! And I probably won't vote for him in the next election!

Okay, let me say a word or two on Darwin, since it's his birthday too. I didn't learn about him in elementary school because I lived in the buckle of the Bible belt. But he too was a man of complexity. His theory of evolution has been associated with atheism, yet he was a Christian at some point in his life, and people have identified theistic and atheistic statements in his writings. Darwin has been linked to racism, yet one of the most racist areas was the anti-Darwinian Christian South, which had slavery and segregation. I guess my overall point is this: People are messy, but we can see good in their lives and hopefully learn lessons from them.

Joan of Arcadia: Desolation and Consolation

The following is from the Joan of Arcadia's Season 1 finale. Joan is in the hospital, and doctors think that she may have a medical condition that leads her to have hallucinations. This leads to a crucial question: Are Joan's visions of God real, or are they all in her head?

Joan's parents, Helen and Will, are talking about God beside Joan's hospital bed. Helen is open to religion, and she's thinking to converting to Catholicism. Will, on the other hand, does not believe in God, but he has a strong moral compass as the police chief of Arcadia. Their family has had a lot of problems over the past year, for their athlete son, Kevin, became a paraplegic as a result of a car accident.

This is one of my favorite speeches: desolation and consolation. Read it as you imagine Mary Steenburgen's sweet, motherly voice.
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From Joan Of Arcadia - 1.23 - Silence

Helen - I was talking to a priest today. I'm telling you now. I--wasn't gonna hide it. Do you want to hear what a priest said?

Will - Was it a handsome priest?

Helen - [Laughs] Not as handsome as you.

Will - Go on.

Helen - He said that we go through times on consolation and desolation. Consolation is when... things are flowing, and everything makes sense, and... you feel connected, and... you're aware that god is present and... has plans for you, maybe... even likes you a little bit. You remember that?

Will - Sometimes.

Helen - Desolation is the other thing. When you are... scared... and confused and alone and out of step, and your cell phone doesn't work, and... your daughter gets sick, and... the cops come to the door and say there's been an accident. God... retreats, and... you're left with your own thoughts, and those thoughts are...dark. There are answers there. He told me. And strength.

Will - How long does desolation last?

Helen - As long as it needs to.
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My emotional state is mostly desolation--I feel angry, bitter, and disconnected from God, myself, and others. And there are days when my stuff just doesn't seem to work! But I usually feel consolation after an hour of prayer. And if I don't, then I pray for another hour. I also feel better after I watch Desperate Housewives: that's something I noticed this week! It's funny, it's sad, it's deep, and it teaches values, even though the characters clearly have their moral flaws (like all of us).

Whatever gets my mind off myself leads me to consolation. Usually, this is solitary, since I'm really self-conscious around people. But there have been times when I have been inspired by something I've heard in a class, or in church, or in an AA meeting.

Also, religion can be an enemy and a friend of consolation. The cure for desolation is for me to get my mind off of myself. But religion promotes introspection and self-evaluation: how am I doing morally and spiritually? This leads me to despair and anger. That's why, even though I don't entirely agree with Luther's interpretation of salvation from a Scriptural standpoint, I can deeply identify with his views on law and grace: the law leads us to despair, since we can never measure up to its demands. When religion helps me to get my mind off myself and onto inspiring things, that leads me to consolation.

And yet, there are times when introspection and moral self-correction can occur in the context of God's love and gentleness. In those cases, I feel awakened and consoled, not desolate.

What leads you to desolation and consolation?

Greco-Roman Monotheism, Biblical Intolerance

Source: George W.E. Nickelsburg, "Stories of Biblical and Early Post-Biblical Times," Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period, ed. Michael E. Stone (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984) 77-79.

"There is little that is particularly Jewish in these answers. For the most part, their content and themes--including the references to God and the imitation of God--are paralleled in pagan Hellenistic treatises on kingship...Even his criticism of idolatry (134-138) does not erect a barrier between Jews and Greeks. As Aristeas points out to the king, 'the same God who has given them [the Jews] their law guides your kingdom also...God, the overseer and creator of all things, whom they worship, is He whom all men worship, and we too...though we address him differently as Zeus and Dis' (15-16)."

Nickelsburg is discussing the Letter of Aristeas, which he dates to the second century B.C.E.

Often, when I read Greco-Roman or Hellenistic literature, I see references to "God." Aristotle and Plato had conceptions of "God," as did the Stoics. Nickelsburg says that the Jews' speeches in Aristeas on imitating "God" had Hellenistic parallels.

That sounds pretty monotheistic. Didn't non-Jews worship many gods? Then why all these references to "God" in Greco-Roman literature? I'm sure that there was polytheism in Greco-Roman cultures, since we know of their many deities--Zeus, Hera, Apollo, Poseidon, Aphrodite, etc., etc. But there were other elements of those cultures that were more sophisticated (from a certain point of view), as they searched for the one God who orders the cosmos. Similarly, although Hinduism has millions of deities, I've heard it claims that one single reality underlies all of them.

But Aristeas also has the "we all worship the same god, but we call him different names" spiel. This reminds me of three things. For one, it brings to mind a conversation I had with an evangelical on Facebook--on whether or not Muslims worship the same God as Christians and Jews. I claimed that they do, since all three of the religions believe there's one all-powerful God, who embodies and enforces a righteous standard. But she thought the Muslims' different conception of God meant that they were worshipping another deity altogether--distinct from the one in Judaism and Christianity.

But, when it comes down to it, wouldn't we all be worshipping a different God under that logic? No two people picture God in exactly the same way. Some see God as merciful, while others view him as strict. Most of us think he's a mixture of the two. Our conceptions overlap, yet they have clear differences. Does that mean we're all worshipping different gods?

Second, the quote makes me think about the Joan of Arcadia episode, "A Book of Secrets." Grace is having her bat mitzvah, and God wants Joan to help her out with it. Joan asks God why he created so many religions, and God responds that there are different people, so they all need different ways to relate to him. On some level, I like this statement, but I also deem it problematic. God is the source of all the world's religions? What if they contradict one another in their description of reality? Does that make God a liar? Moreover, while Grace lauded the Torah at her bat mitzvah service, the fact is that the Torah is not exactly the most tolerant book in the world. It said don't worship other gods. There's no "different names for one god" spiel in there.

On that note, I also think about the final episode of the second season, the one in which the villain burns down churches and synagogues. Will Gerardi of the Arcadia Police Department is not all that religious--actually, he's quite hostile to religion. But he's still upset that somebody destroyed something that others hold to be sacred. Barbara Hall said she was trying to get that point across in the episode.

But, again, the Bible is not all that tolerant. God told the Israelites to destroy the Canaanite altars. He instructed Gideon to tear down the altar of Baal. The good kings in the eyes of the Deuteronomist were those who got rid of certain sanctuaries. It didn't matter that people may have considered them sacred, as far as the biblical authors were concerned.

So there's a part of me that would love to be a religious pluralist, one who believes that so many people are grasping after the same being, who eludes all of us (as one professor told me). But the Bible doesn't always lend itself to that sort of mindset.