Rosaries in the Hands of Pagans

I read an article in the Trib online today about "pagan prayer beads," essentially rosaries used by neo-pagans to count prayers or spells. (Read the story at ttp://www.chicagotribune.com/news/custom/religion/chi-0704230307apr25,1,3314759.story?coll=chi-religion-topheadlines.) The reasons were fascinating: some of the pagans interviewed for the story said that it made them feel connected to God, others cited a connection to the Catholocism they had once practiced in their youth, at least one said she liked the "soft slide of metal and beads over [her] fingers."

The rosary has a long history, of course, as an aid to devotion and meditation in the Catholic church. The beads, large and small, remind the prayer to say certain prayers (Our Fathers and Hail Marys) while meditating on certain "mysteries" in the life of Jesus and their significance for his followers. Historically, the rosary is a tool for helping people so order their inner lives that their outer lives look more like Jesus. While I obviously don't use a rosary, it seems to me that it loses all meaning when co-opted by a neo-pagan. All that's left is the symbol itself -- the soft slide of metal and beads over the fingers. The meaning is gone.

You know, that's always the danger -- that the symbols of our faith can lose meaning for us. Christians participate in a historic faith with traditions handed down from apostolic times. Bread and wine (or Welch's grape juice) remind us of the body and blood of Jesus -- and, if you're so inclined, allow you to receive again his sacrifice. While in Churches of Christ we generally don't use crucifixes, we know what they symbolize when we see one. Baptism is an important symbol to us; it signifies washing, and it signifies a new life, and it signifies our joining with Christ and with the church. The songs that we sing, the things we do in worship services, our private devotional practices: these things all mean something to us. Until they don't anymore.

Yet we can't just stop the Lord's Supper, or baptism if they lose meaning for us. We can't just stop doing them, because if we do we're cut off from our heritage and certain realities of our faith are lost. We can't just replace them with other rituals; churches who have tried have generally met with mixed results, at best. So we're always striking that delicate balance: participating in the symbols and rituals of our faith that have been passed down by our spiritual forebears, while trying to recall and reclaim their meaning in our own lives.

I keep finding that my eye wanders back a couple of paragraphs. The symbols of our faith really are there, aren't they, to help us so order our inner lives that our outer lives look more like Jesus? What value do they have if not to point beyond themselves to that end? Maybe keeping that in mind is enough. If we can ask continually ask ourselves how the rituals in which we participate and the symbols we use call us and help us to be more like Jesus, then they will not be meaningless in our lives. Even if we sometimes have to honestly answer, "I don't know," just asking the question itself might impart some meaning to the things we do.

What meaning do you find in the rituals and symbols that we employ at Northwest? Are there some rituals or symbols of historic Christianity that we don't use at Northwest that seem full of meaning for you? How could we incorporate them? And how do we help each other to make sure that our rituals and symbols never become merely "the soft slide of metal and beads over fingers"?

Operating System

In the spirit of learning something new, I've been reading about and playing with the Linux operating system on my computer. If you haven't heard of Linux, it doesn't really matter; suffice to say it's an alternative to Windows, and it does basically the same thing Windows does -- it organizes, coordinates, and runs the software on your computer. One of the things about Linux, though, is that the code that forms its foundation is free and open to the public. That means that anyone with some programming know-how can take Linux and customize, package, and distribute it.

Anyway, in reading about Linux I discovered that at least one of the groups that packages and distributes the operating system has what they call a "Christian Edition." Naturally enough, I guess, I was curious about what exactly makes an operating system "Christian." So I went to the website to have a look.

It turns out that what makes this particular flavor of Linux Christian seems to be included Bible study software, a content filter, something called a "Virtual Rosary," and a strategically-placed ichthus (the little Christian fish symbol) here and there. Interestingly, the operating system can be downloaded from a website called, in part, www.whatwouldjesusdownload.com. So now you know, if you were wondering, just exactly what Jesus would download.

I don't have a problem with Bible study software or content filters. I wouldn't even necessarily mind little Christian fish swimming around my monitor. I don't mean to bash this group -- they seem to wholeheartedly want to provide, free of charge, something very useful and helpful to believers. I applaud them for it, and wish them nothing but success.

Neither do I mean to split semantic hairs. Still, I want to go back to my original question. What makes an operating system -- or any other product, for that matter -- Christian? Christian music. Christian universities. Christian publishing. See, the word "Christian" is only used in the Bible three times, as far as I know, and each time it refers to people. Specifically, it refers to people that so identified with Jesus Christ that they had his name attached to them. They were "Christ-people" who even when they suffered for it "prais[ed] God that [they] [bore] that name." (1 Peter 4:16) If by a Christian operating system we mean that it's developed by and intended for people who are Christians, then maybe I understand. But I'm not so sure we should be using the label "Christian" as a brand to denote the Christian qualities of a certain product or institution. I went to a Christian university -- but it was only as Christian as the faculty, administration, and students cared to make it on any given day.

"What would Jesus download?" Paul, who saw the church as "the body of Christ," his physical presence in the world, might ask instead "What IS Jesus downloading?" Speaking to the issue of sexual immorality, Paul asked whether the church thought it was right to unite the members of Christ with a prostitute. (1 Corinthians 6:15) Graphic and shocking language, but it's more to the point, I think, of what it means to be a Christian. To be a Christian is to be so intimately identified with Jesus that we are literally members of his body. That reality gives our every action tremendous significance. It seems to me that being Christian is about consciously wearing the name of Jesus, not about the labels on the products we use.

What do you think? What makes someone, or something, "Christian"? Does that definition vary according to time and place? Do you think the "Christian" market contributes to our identity as people who are intimately identified with Jesus? Or does it perhaps detract from that identity? And how do we maintain our identity if it's not as simple as what we buy or watch or listen to?

How do we make sure that our own "operating systems" are, in fact, Christian?

I'd love to hear from you!

Interactivity

"Oh, just what the world needs. Another blog!"

I know full well that's what some people might say when they see that I'm succumbing to the vanity of thinking that people might actually be interested in reading my random thoughts and reflections. Believe me, I've thought of that. I'm well aware of what blogs can become, and not at all convinced that this blog will be any different in any sort of meaningful way. Yes, this blog could end up being little more than an exercise in triviality and futility and die a slow death from lack of interest -- either on the part of the editor, or the readers, or both.

And yet....

For all its shortcomings, the blog by nature has an advantage that lends itself to the life of the church. It's interactive. There's nothing "top-down" about a blog; when a blogger puts his thoughts out there, they are fair game. Response can be immediate, and the writer (if he dares) can be completely uninsulated. And perhaps the writer wants to respond, and then a conversation can begin. Somewhere in the stirred-up dust of conversations like that, truth is often discovered. People are changed. God's voice is heard.

We in Churches of Christ, like some other traditions, have a great history of disregarding the clergy-laity distinction. We have from our very beginnings resisted the notion that it is the responsibility of a few specially ordained men to tell us all how to live Christian-ly. But it's been said that when we did away with the clergy-laity distinction, we got rid of the wrong category. We told each other that among us there are no clergy, when what we should have been saying all along was that among us there are no laity. We are all ordained, and the Holy Spirit lives in all of us, and we all mediate God's grace to each other, and his voice can be heard in each of ours. Even the way we receive Communion in most of our churches illustrates -- unintentionally, I'm sure -- this "interactivity": we receive the bread and the cup, the tokens of his body and blood, the symbols of his grace, from one another. It's a small thing, but it means something to me that my wife can symbolically receive the grace of God from my hands, or I from hers.

My hope for this blog is that, in some way or another, it will contribute to our being able to be priests and pastors to one another. I chose the title "Crossroads" because I hope that what is said here, both by writer and reader, will in some way or the other help us in walking the way of the cross together. It's for each disciple to deny him or herself and take up their cross and follow their teacher, in whatever ways he calls us to. But it's only as we do so together, in community, that we'll be successful.

Some of you probably read other blogs on at least a semi-regular basis, and maybe don't feel you have time for another one. Others don't have time or interest for even one. I promise that i'll generally have something to say, and I'll always try to say it quickly and well. I hope you'll be willing to enter into dialogue through the comments section -- with myself and each other. Even if you aren't a member of the Northwest church, please feel free to respond to what you read; we know the church extends well past our front doors.

For now, let me leave you with a couple of questions. How could we be more "interactive" at Northwest, or how could your church be more interactive? What needs to change -- in tradition, practice, or polity -- to more fully reflect our belief that God is present in and speaks and acts through the entire church?

Thanks for joining me at the Crossroads.