After surviving his first assassinatiin attempt, Mr. Trump announced he has become “more spiritual.” His popularity stays strong, and his supporters now see him as “called by God,” to be God’s emissary to “fix” the United States. Assassination attempts, whether real or supposed, reinforce convictions that the “victim” is “God-chosen.” Many of Trump’s white evangelical supporters believe that “God has a hand on him,” meaning that, despite his moral flaws, God has chosen Trump to serve once again in the White House. This continually-stated pronouncement makes me think about the observation by Madeleine Albright (1937 – 2022) former U.S. Secretary of State: “This is the first rule of deception: repeated often enough, almost any statement, story, or smear can start to sound plausible.”

Authoritarian leaders have always found religion a wonderful convenience, which they manipulate to their advantage. It enables them to lord it over other people and allows them to punish their “enemies” guilt-free, since that punishment, they can proclaim, is what God wants. Their distorted religion enables them to bully and denigrate certain groups of people: women, LGBTQ people, non-whites, foreigners, and miscellaneous “losers.” Values like love, mercy, and compassion disappear. The key value is faithfulness and obedience to the authoritarian leader.

There are classic historical examples: The atheist and anti-clerical Benito Mussolini (1883 – 1945) needed backing by the Vatican to promote his National Fascist Party. He therefore married in the Catholic church and had his children baptized. In his first parliamentary speech in 1921, he announced that “the only universal values that radiate from Rome are those of the Vatican.”

Spain’s Generalissimo Franco (1892 – 1975) became a cruel and murderous dictator. Although Franco himself was known for not being very devout, he portrayed himself as a fervent Catholic and used religion to increase his power. He used the Guerrilleros de Christo Rey (the Warriors of Christ the King) to implement his policy of torture and executions.

And of course, as we are already commemorating the end of WWII in Europe, we know the story of Adolf Hitler (1889 – 1945). Hitler ceased being a Catholic when a teenager. But Hitler and his Nazi party promoted their brand of “Positive Christianity.” He described Jesus as an “Aryan fighter” who struggled against the corrupt Pharisees. Joseph Goebbels (1897 – 1945), Hitler’s Reich Minister of Propaganda and one of his closest and most devoted associates, wrote in April 1941 that although Hitler was “a fierce opponent” of the Vatican and Christianity, “he forbids me to leave the church, for tactical reasons.”

Getting back to the contemporary United States, I suspect we all remember that day in early June 2020 when, Bible in hand, then President Trump posed for photos in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church. It was Trumpian political theater.

Dr. Mariann Bude, Episcopal Bishop of Washington DC since 2011, stressed that Trump had used the Bible at St. John’s “as if it were a prop or an extension of his military and authoritarian position.” Trump is now selling “God Bless the USA” Bibles for $59.99 as he faces mounting legal bills.

Ideally, healthy religion supports and gives meaning to our lives. It proclaims values about how we should live and how we should relate to one another. It can unite us and give us hope and courage for tomorrow. All the great religious traditions call for honesty, justice, respect, and compassion. When grossly distorted, however, religion can also be a source of violent division, destruction, and death.

Promoting a healthy Christian way of life may very well be our biggest Christian challenge in 2024 and at the start of a new presidential administration in 2025. We need to reflect and examine our beliefs and our behavior, encouraging and supporting other healthy religion people.

The United States should be a society with liberty and justice FOR ALL. Leadership counts. Character counts. Authentic Christianity, in collaboration with other religious traditions, helps make it happen. 

• Jack

Dr. John Alonzo Dick – Historical Theologian

 

We not only learn from historic people, but we can also be encouraged by them.

This week some reflections about Hildegard of Bingen whose feast day was September 17^th. She was an amazingly prophetic woman who continues to motivate people and stimulate serious reflection. She was an abbess, an artist, an author, a composer, a mystic, a pharmacist, a poet, a preacher, and a theologian.

Hildegard, the youngest of ten children, was born in 1098 at Bermersheim near Mainz, Germany. Her parents were members of the nobility. When she was eight years old, her parents entrusted her to the care of a holy woman named Jutta. Then when she was fourteen years old, Hildegard, who was already having mystical experiences, entered the Frauenklause, a female hermitage associated with the Benedictine monastery at Disibodenberg, Germany. She was accompanied by Jutta who later became the superior of the small community of women. Hildegard remained under Jutta’s tutelage. When Jutta died in 1136, the members of the community elected Hildegard as their magistra (mother superior). Hildegard and her sisters soon afterwards left Disibodenberg because the nearby Benedictine monastery with strongly misogynist men made life difficult for them.

Hildegard then founded monasteries for women: Rupertsberg, near Bingen, in 1150 and Eibingen in 1165. After her death on September 17, 1179, Hildegard was buried at the convent cemetery at Disibodenberg. In 1642, her remains were removed to the church of Eibingen. Pope Benedict XVI (1927 – 2022) canonized Hildegard on 10 May 2012, and on 7 October 2012 he proclaimed her a doctor of the church, one of only four women to have been so named. The others are Catherine of Siena (1347 – 1380), Teresa of Avila (1515 – 1582), and Therese of Lisieux (1873 – 1897).

Hildegard’s theology was intensely incarnational. She understood the material world as imbued with sacred significance and sacramental meaning. She considered the human body a microcosm of the cosmos, which Hildegard viewed as an ordered, harmonious whole. She emphatically affirmed that both women and men carry the image of God, which endows each sex with equal dignity before God and within humankind.

Philosophically, Hildegard stood far apart from her male predecessors in her ability to uphold the two principles of human difference and equal dignity. Plato had dissolved difference into masculine unity, while holding onto at least a basic equality. Aristotle had conceived of difference as hierarchical polarity. Hildegard’s complementarity, however, affirmed difference as a balanced, integrated harmony.

An esteemed advocate for scientific research, Hildegarde was one of the earliest promoters of the use of herbal medicine to treat ailments. She wrote many books but particularly two books related to healing. Physica was about how items in the physical world (plants, gemstones, fish, etc.) could be used in healing. Causes and Cures goes into personal health more directly, such as the importance of following a different diet in the winter than in the summer. During the Middle Ages, monasteries had their own infirmaries and were places that people might go to if they were ill. So, it was natural for Hildegard to have known about healing. She was really one of the first people to write in such detail about healing and health, and she was certainly the first woman to do so.

Hildegarde was also well-known as a composer. She combined all her music into a cycle called Symphonia Armonie Celestium Revelationum (“The Symphony of the Harmony of the Heavenly Revelations”), composed around 1152, which reflected her belief that music was the highest praise to God. Her works, including In Evangelium and O Viridissima Virga, are still released today, and her ethereal style continues to influence New Age music, defined more by the effect or feeling it produces rather than the instruments used in its creation. People studying the history of music before 1600 consider Hildegard the best-known example of a female composer during that period.

Hildegard refused to be defined by the patriarchal hierarchy of the church and pushed the established boundaries for women. She is perhaps best known for her spiritual concept of Viriditas – “greenness” – the cosmic life force infusing the natural world. For Hildegard, the Divine manifested itself and was apparent in nature. For her nature itself was not the Divine but the natural world gave proof of God and glorified God.

She is also known for her writings on the concept of Sapientia – Divine Wisdom – specifically immanent Divine Feminine DivWisdom which draws close to and nurtures the human soul. Scivias was Hildegard’s first major theological work and the only one of her writings that was both illuminated and copied by scribes from her monastery during her lifetime. Scivias was completed in 1151 or 1152 and described 26 religious visions she had experienced. It was the first of three works that she wrote describing her visions.

Hildegard corresponded with the great personalities of her time, including emperors, popes, and queens. Sometime between 1154 and 1171, she responded to a letter from Eleanor of Aquitaine (1124 – 1204), Queen of France from 1137 to 1152, asking for advice, with these words “Your mind is like a wall which is covered with clouds, and you look everywhere but have no rest. Flee this and attain stability with God and men, and God will help you in all your tribulations. May God give you blessing and help in all your works.”

Hildegarde of Bingen stands out as an extraordinary figure in women’s history. She was a courageous woman who found remarkable success by expressing her unique voice. She did not accept the traditional place for women in the world. She wrote her books, and, in a male-dominated church, she went on preaching tours at a time when women were not supposed to preach, especially in public. She refused to behave in “traditional” ways. She called for the recognition of the Divine Feminine to balance the traditional Sacred Masculine. She wrote at a time when, if the church authorities had not thought she was divinely inspired she could easily have been put to death as a heretic.

As a German Benedictine abbess, she was a no-nonsense person and certainly no stranger to controversy. She confronted Emperor Frederick Barbarossa (1122 – 1190) for supporting at least three antipopes. Between 1152 and 1162, Hildegard often preached in the Rhineland. When she was 80 years old, her monastery in Bingen overlooking the river Rhine was placed under interdict because she had allowed the burial of a young man who had been excommunicated. She insisted that he had been reconciled with the church and had received its sacraments before dying. Nevertheless, the local diocesan canons authorized civil authorities to dig up the young man’s body. On the evening before the authorities arrived, Hildegard went to the grave, blessed it, and then, with the help of her nuns, removed all the cemetery markers and stones. She made certain the burial plot of the excommunicated man could not befound. The irate canons placed the abbey under interdict and forbade the celebration of or reception of the Eucharist at the Bingen monastery. This sanction was lifted only a few months before Hildegard’ death.

Hildegard of Bingen was truly an extraordinary woman and, I would say, the most fascinating and influential woman in medieval church history.

 

• Jack

 

Dr. John Alonzo Dick – Historical Theologian

 

Polarization is pushing U.S. Americans across the country to divide themselves into distinct and mutually exclusive camps. All with closed minds. In Matthew 12:25, Jesus warned the closed-minded people in his days, saying “Every country divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand.”

Acknowledging other perspectives means recognizing and considering alternative viewpoints or opinions on a given topic. It involves being open-minded and willing to listen to different ideas without at once dismissing them. It involves realizing that we all have much to learn about life in all its dimensions. I would emphasize that being open-minded means being less judgmental and more inquisitive and considerate. Open-minded people consider multiple perspectives before reaching a decision.

Sometimes, being open-minded can be tough. It shakes a person loose from beliefs and values once so comforting. I once believed and felt secure in my belief that Jesus’ disciples were only men, and for that reason only men could be priests. I also pictured the historic Jesus ordaining the Apostles at the Last Supper. But then, thanks to a college professor who kept asking question and encouraged me to ask questions, I started asking my own questions. Very quickly I learned that some of my certainties had no historic foundation.

Today I know that Jesus’ disciples were men AND women. As an historian I have learned as well that women presided at Eucharistic liturgies in the early Christian communities. I also have also realized that Jesus did not ordain anyone because ordination did not exist during his lifetime. In fact, in the first three centuries of Christianity, we have no direct evidence of an ordination ceremony.

Now I realize very humbly that on this human life journey we do learn new things, by being open to the knowledge and insights of other people. Being open-minded, we need to continually adjust our understandings and beliefs.

Being an open-minded believer truly enriches a person’s life. I can think of seven ways, but I am sure there are more:

• Open mindfulness enables one to explore and discover. Being an open minded person allows one to experience new ideas and fresh thoughts that stimulate personal growth as they challenge old visions, understandings, and beliefs. It can be a very liberating look at one’s contemporary world through an open mind. Remember Paul in First Corinthians: “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I put the ways of childhood behind me.”

• Open mindfulness promotes personal change and transformation. Opening our minds to new ideas allows us the opportunity to change what we think as well as change our view of the world. This does not mean one will necessarily change basic beliefs. It does mean one has to be open and respectful to people with differing perspectives. We work together. We must work together.
• Open mindfulness makes oneself vulnerable. This is scarier. In agreeing to have an open-minded view of the world, we acknowledge we do not know everything. We accept that there are possibilities we may not have considered. This vulnerability can be both terrifying and exhilarating. The jar is either half full or half empty. It depends on one’s perspective. I prefer to say that it is only half full.
• Open mindfulness helps one see and acknowledge personal mistakes. With an open mind one begins to see things from others’ perspectives. One can recognize the mistakes one has made. From time to time, we all fail and fall. The challenge is to acknowledge it and then get back up again and continue the journey, anchored in the virtues of Christian humility and courage
• Open mindfulness strengthens oneself and gives stability. It presents a platform upon which a person can build, putting one idea on top of another. With an open mind, one learns about new things; and one uses innovative ideas to build on old ideas. In my field we call this ongoing theological development. Dangerous stuff for the old guard ecclesiastics. Nevertheless, everything a woman or a man or a child experiences adds up. It strengthens who one is and what one believes. Note well: It is extremely hard to build on experiences without having an open mind.
• Open mindfulness helps one gain confidence. When a person really lives with an open mind, he or she develops a stronger sense of self. One can respect and appreciate but is no longer confined by the beliefs of others. Then the respectful dialogue can and should begin….
• Open mindfulness promotes self-honesty. Being open-minded means admitting that one is not all-knowing. Even if one is an older theologian! Whatever “truth” one holds, each person must realize that the underlying reality in its depth has more to it than anyone realizes. This understanding creates a sense of honesty that characterizes anyone who lives with an open mind.

For some people, being open-minded is easy. It seems to come as effortlessly as breathing. For others, having an open mind can be a challenge. But for anyone who wants to travel the road of life, it is essential. We remember the words of Jesus, in John 8:32, “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

– Jack

Dr. John Alonzo Dick — Historical Theologian

Email: john.dick@kuleuven.be

 

On a peaceful summer afternoon recently, the noise pollution really hit me. We had sunshine after what seemed like a month of rainy days. Then suddenly one neighbor began mowing his yard with a very noisy lawn mower. Another was in his backyard with the radio playing loudly. And another began to saw and pound boards in his backyard. I laughed and thought “oh for the rainy days of peace and quiet.”

Ubiquitous noise works insidiously. It not only raises our blood pressure but contributes to anxiety, stress, and nervousness. It closes our minds to contemplative experiences. But along with noise, hyperactive busyness characterizes much of our contemporary life. People today feel guilty if they are not rushing from place to place, working on projects at home, multitasking, and constantly connecting via cellphone, texting, and social media. If the power goes off, life becomes suddenly strange and disconnected.

A friend said we need a rediscovery of reflective contemplative moments. We need to control our noise pollution, clear our schedules for more free time, and reduce our cyber connectedness. The more receptive, contemplative, and inwardly quiet we become, the more open and attentive we become to the deeper vibrations in Reality. I would call that deeper contemplative awareness spirituality. I remember the words of Martin Luther King Jr. in his 1963 book Strength to Love: “Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.”

Contemplative moments open us to an experience of the Sacred which we describe in several words: our experience of the Transcendent, the Ground of Being, and of course our experience of God.

This week, therefore, a reflection about God from a master of contemplative wisdom whom I greatly respect: Richard Rohr (born 1943) a Franciscan friar in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He posted this on his website a few years ago but it rings true today. I have now known Richard since the early 1970s and have occasionally collaborated with him. On July 1, 2022, Pope Francis met with him and expressed support for his work. Later that year, Richard announced he would step back from public ministry following a lymphoma diagnosis. On May 9, 2023, he announced that he was now officially on the Core Faculty Emeritus at the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque.

Richard’s Reflection:

“It takes a long time for us to allow God to be who God really is. Our natural egocentricity wants to make God into who we want or need God to be. It is the role of the prophet to keep people free for God. But at the same time, it is the responsibility of the prophet to keep God free for people. This is also the role of good theology, and why we still need good theology even though it sometimes gets heady. If God is always mystery, then God is always on some level the unfamiliar, beyond what we are used to, beyond our comfort zone, beyond what we can explain or understand….

“The First Commandment says that we are not supposed to make any images of God or to worship them. At first glance, we may think this deals only with handmade likenesses of God. But it mostly refers to images of God that we hold in our heads. God created human beings in God’s own image, and we have returned the compliment, so to speak creating God in our image. In the end we produced what was typically a tribal God. In America, God looks like Uncle Sam or Santa Claus, or in any case a white Anglo-Saxon male, even though it says in Genesis 1:27 that “God created humankind in God’s own image; male and female God created them.” That clearly says that God cannot be strictly or merely masculine.

“Normally we find it very difficult to let God be a God who is greater than our culture, our immediate needs, and our projections. The human ego wants to keep things firmly in its grasp; and so, we have created a God who fits into our small systems and our understanding of God.

“Thus, we have required a God who likes to play war just as much as we do, and a domineering God because we like to dominate.

“We have almost completely forgotten and ignored what Jesus revealed about the nature of the God he knew. If Jesus is the ‘image of the invisible God’ (Colossians 1:15) then God is nothing like we expected. Jesus is in no sense a potentate or a patriarch, but the very opposite, one whom John the Baptist calls ‘a lamb of a God.’ (John 1:29).”

•  Jack

Dr. John Alonzo Dick – Historical Theologian