books

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Lessons for the modern church, in the pages of 'I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die'

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Lessons for the modern church, in the pages of 'I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die'

The first time Sarah J. Robinson tried to kill herself was eight months after she became a born-again Christian.

She had struggled with suicidal thoughts since elementary school. She would imagine jumping into highway traffic or fill her hand with pills and consider swallowing them. But her depression only deepened after she was baptized as a teen and poured herself into Bible studies and upbeat youth-group projects.

She felt like a failure. Finally, she pressed a knife harder and harder into her skin -- but she couldn't force herself to end it all on the kitchen floor. Looking back, she wrote: "I didn't want my family to find me there, so I got up and put the knife away. I climbed into bed, put on a worship CD, cursed God and went to sleep."

Robinson kept stacks of journals and they provided crucial material for "I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die," a book written during three years of struggle and research. Her battles with depression have continued, even during her years working as a youth minister.

Images of handwritten pages appear in the book, including this 2007 plea: "Lord, I'm struggling. I need your help. This week has been really rough -- I've been sad & lonely & angry & numb. I cut myself and berated myself, wished for the end, tried so hard to hide it. I'm not just empty -- I've become a vacuum, taking on more and more of the absence of your presence. … God, please don't let me be lost."

It was hard to be that vulnerable, said Robinson, reached by telephone in Nashville. But including actual journal pages "seemed like a no-brainer" if the goal was to "let other people who are hurting know they are not alone. I wanted them to know that I've been there -- in that kind of midnight."

Among secular researchers, it's common to find two views of mental-health issues, said Robinson, citing the work of Stanford University researcher Carol Dweck. The first is a "fixed mindset" that assumes these conditions are predetermined and unchangeable. Thus, "setbacks and failures reveal who we really are and will always be," said Robinson." The second is a "growth mindset" that says individuals can adapt and change.

In pews and pulpits, many believers simply assume all mental-health struggles represent a lack of faith. Strugglers will be healed if they dedicate themselves to Bible study and prayer, while turning away from their sins. Church-based "pastoral counseling" is an option.

"The idea is that if I put the right things into the spiritual vending machine, then I'll get the right things out," said Robinson.

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National Cathedral invites evangelical to preach, triggering fierce storm of protest

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National Cathedral invites evangelical to preach, triggering fierce storm of protest

Halfway between Norway and the North Pole, scientists have buried a million seeds and crop samples under a mountain in the Svalbard archipelago -- in case an environmental doomsday comes to pass.

That strategy rings true during "this crazy, chaotic season" when so many are anxious about the coronavirus pandemic, global warming, lost jobs, surging debts and the bitter state of public life, said evangelical megachurch leader Max Lucado, in a recent sermon streamed online by the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.

“Most of us can't hide out in a bunker, yet threats of calamity may make us try to do so," he said. "If the wrong person pushes the wrong red button -- it's enough to make a person purchase a plane ticket to Svalbard."

But there was a problem. While pre-service publicity stressed that Lucado's books have sold more than 120 million copies and Christianity Today has called him "America's pastor," this invitation alarmed legions of Episcopalians opposed to his history of orthodoxy on sex and marriage. His sermon about God offering comfort in the midst of chaos avoided hot-button topics, but his cathedral appearance triggered an online storm.

Before the event, the Very Rev. Randolph Marshall Hollerith linked the Lucado invitation to the cathedral's history of hosting a variety of religious leaders. This has included evangelicals such the late Billy Graham, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and megachurch leader Rick Warren of Saddleback Church in Southern California.

"When we only engage with those with whom we agree on every issue, we find ourselves in a dangerous (and lonely) place," wrote the cathedral's dean. "That means this cathedral, and this pulpit, are big enough and strong enough to welcome pastors, rabbis, imams, clergy of every faith. … It does not mean we agree with everything they might believe, but it does mean that we exhibit and inhabit a sense of open handed welcome."

However, Hollerith issued a formal apology in response to the online backlash, noting: "In my straight privilege I failed to see and fully understand the pain he has caused. I failed to appreciate the depth of injury his words have had on many in the LGBTQ community. I failed to see the pain I was continuing. I was wrong."

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It doesn't help when true believers start joining mobs engaged in online combat

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It doesn't help when true believers start joining mobs engaged in online combat

It seemed that whenever the Rev. Daniel Darling ventured into social media, he saw the same red flags -- so he posted a commentary on "Christians and Conspiracy Theories."

"Because it's online, doesn't mean it's true," he noted. "Because a story is advanced by someone whose ideology I agree with, doesn't mean it's true. …

"For some reason, we are a people who want to believe there is a big plot behind every single thing that happens. … If you watch enough cable TV, depending on your political persuasion, you will come to think that behind every act in Congress there is a string of connected dots that go back to either George Soros (liberal) or the Koch brothers (conservative)."

This wasn't a hot take on QAnon letters or rumors of shredded Georgia ballots.

Darling wrote those words a decade ago, while leading an evangelical church near Chicago. Now he's a crucial voice for the National Religious Broadcasters and author of a book -- "A Way with Words: Using Our Online Conversations for Good" -- pleading for believers to think twice about their online lives.

"I'm not saying we should run away and hide," said Darling, in a telephone interview. "There's no way to avoid the fact that social media is a crucial part of American life. I don't think Christians have any choice about whether or not to be engaged. …

"What we need to do is be more careful when deciding where to draw lines and take stands. But, unless you're Amish, I don't see anyone sitting this one out."

It's especially important for religious leaders to warn their followers not to join the online "mobs" that are destroying America's ability to have sane public debates. In some cases, digital attacks are also threatening lives and reputations.

Consider, for example, the woke social-media attacks that fueled inaccurate mainstream news reports about Covington Catholic High School students at the 2019 March for Life. Then there were the conservative social-media warriors who embraced #pizzagate conspiracy theory claiming that prominent Democrats were linked to a global child-trafficking ring.

Did Russia steal the White House in 2016? Yes, there were mainstream-news reports. Did China, Cuba, Venezuela or some other evil force steal the 2020 election? Yes, there have been headlines on the other side of America's partisan media wars.

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Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks offered modern arguments defending an ancient faith

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Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks offered modern arguments defending an ancient faith

A typical Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks speech would open with a self-deprecating jab at long-winded rabbis and then flow into a blend of Hebrew texts, science, law, literature, current events and the scriptures other faiths.

When the former chief rabbi of the United Kingdom died on Nov. 7 at age 72, after battles with cancer that began in his 30s, the Prince of Wales said: "His immense learning spanned the secular and the sacred, and his prophetic voice spoke to our greatest challenges with unfailing insight and boundless compassion. His wise counsel was sought and appreciated by those of all faiths and none."

Most of all, Lord Sacks was known for using modern information and insights to defend ancient truths. One famous address, at a 2014 Vatican conference on marriage, began with fish mating in a Scottish lake 385 million years ago before charting humanity's rise from polygamy to monogamy, including some awkward biblical dramas.

Before this speech ended with a standing ovation, the rabbi explained that his goal was to defend the “most beautiful idea in the history of civilization," the concept of love as the origin of new life.

"What made the traditional family remarkable, a work of high religious art, is what it brought together: sexual drive, physical desire, friendship, companionship, emotional kinship and love, the begetting of children and their protection and care, their early education and induction into an identity and a history," he explained.

“Seldom has any institution woven together so many different drives and desires. … It made sense of the world and gave it a human face -- the face of love. For a whole variety of reasons, some to do with medical developments like birth control, in vitro fertilization and other genetic interventions, some to do with moral change like the idea that we are free to do whatever we like so long as it does not harm others, some to do with a transfer of responsibilities from the individual to the state … almost everything that marriage once brought together has now been split apart. Sex has been divorced from love, love from commitment, marriage from having children and having children from responsibility for their care."

Lord Sacks was part of the Modern Orthodox movement and wrote two dozen prayer books and works about science and spirituality, as well serving as a commentator on BBC Four's "Thought for the Day." He became chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth in 1991, holding that post until 2013, Queen Elizabeth knighted him in 2005 and he entered the House of Lords in 2009.

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Culture wars are about demographics: Thus, fertility has become a controversial issue

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Culture wars are about demographics: Thus, fertility has become a controversial issue

It was one of those happy social-media pictures, only this time the pregnant mother was celebrating with her nine children.

Los Angeles comedian and actor Kai Choyce was not amused and tweeted the photo with this comment: "this is environmental terrorism. … In the year 2020 literally no one should have ten kids."

The result was a long chain of sweet or snarky comments, as well as photos of large families. One tweet quoted a Swedish study claiming that having "one fewer child per family" can save an average of 58.6 tons of "CO2-equivalent emissions per year."

Debates about fertility often veer into fights about religion and other ultimate questions, such as the fate of the planet.

Parents with two-plus children are often making a statement about the role of religious faith in their lives. People on the other side of this debate have frequently rejected traditional forms of religion.

"What we call 'culture wars' are wars about demographics, but we have trouble discussing that," said historian Philip Jenkins, who is best known for decades of research into global religious trends, while teaching at Pennsylvania State and Baylor University. His latest book is "Fertility and Faith: The Demographic Revolution and the Transformation of World Religions."

In the 1970s, researchers thought the link between secularization and falling birth rates was a "Protestant thing" in Europe, but then this trend spread into Catholic cultures in Europe and in Latin America, he said. Fertility rates are now collapsing in Iran and some Islamic cultures. Meanwhile, Orthodox Jews and traditional Catholics continue to have larger families than liberal believers in those ancient faiths.

America's 2019 birth rate fell to 1.71, its lowest level in three decades, and well under the replacement rate of 2.1. This took place before the coronavirus pandemic and the Brookings Institute recently predicted a "COVID baby bust" next year, resulting in up to half a million fewer births.

Researchers frequently argue about which comes first -- secularization or declining fertility.

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Christian icons and art before the rise of the blue-eyed Jesus with blond hair

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Christian icons and art before the rise of the blue-eyed Jesus with blond hair

For modern skeptics, the 6th-century icon hanging in the Orthodox monastery in the shadow of Mount Sinai is simply a 33-by-18-inch board covered in bees wax and colored pigments.

For believers, this Christ Pantocrator ("ruler of all") icon is the most famous image of Jesus in the world, because the remote Sinai Peninsula location of St. Catherine's Monastery allowed it to survive the Byzantine iconoclasm era. The icon shows Jesus -- with a beard and long hair -- raising his right hand in blessing, while holding a golden book of the Gospels.

This Jesus does not have blond hair and blue eyes. "Christ of Sinai" shows the face of a wise teacher from ancient Palestine.

"When you talk about ancient icons, you are basically talking about images of Jesus with long hair, a beard and some kind of Roman toga. That's just about all you can say," said Jonathan Pageau of Quebec, an Eastern Orthodox artist and commentator on sacred symbols.

In the early church, he added, believers "didn't ask other questions -- about race and culture -- because those were not the important questions in those days. … Once you start politicizing icons there's just no way out of those arguments. You get into politics and dividing people and then you're lost."

In these troubled times, said Pageau, many analysts are "projecting valid concerns about racism and Europe's history of colonization and the plight of African-Americans back into issues of church history and art that are centuries and centuries old. It's a kind of category error and everything gets mixed up."

But that's what happened when debates about some #BlackLivesMatters activists toppling Confederate memorials -- along with attacks on Catholic statues and even insufficiently "woke" Founding Fathers -- veered into #WhiteJesus territory.

"Yes, I think the statues of the white European they claim is Jesus should also come down. They are a form of white supremacy," tweeted Shaun King, author of "Make Change: How to Fight Injustice, Dismantle Systemic Oppression, and Own Our Future."

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Baseball history includes many spiritual parables that are part of the American story

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Baseball history includes many spiritual parables that are part of the American story

Fans who crack open baseball history books are sure to find photographs of Jackie Robinson stealing home and wreaking havoc on the base paths.

It's less likely they will learn about him teaching Sunday school classes.

Nevertheless, Brooklyn Dodgers President Branch Rickey saw a connection between those skills.

When they met in 1945 to discuss breaking major-league baseball's color barrier, Rickey quoted Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount while describing the challenges ahead: "You have heard it said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also."

Rickey said: "God is with us in this, Jackie." In the movie "42," that thought turned into this memorable quip: "Robinson's a Methodist. I'm a Methodist. God's a Methodist. You can't go wrong."

This bond changed history. When broadcaster Larry King praised the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., as the "founder of the Civil Rights Movement," King responded: "The founder of the Civil Rights Movement was Jackie Robinson."

On one level, that's a baseball story. But it's also an example of how baseball has played a mythic, strangely spiritual role in American life, said Bryan Steverson, author of "Baseball: A Special Gift from God."

"Look at it this way. The object of baseball is to get home. And you are trying to make it home, safe. Sometimes, someone on my side may even need to make a sacrifice for me to get home, safe. Think about it," he said.

There's nothing new about scribes finding spiritual lessons in athletics, including numerous New Testament examples from St. Paul. But something about baseball's language and imagery encourages a special kind of reverence for many fans, said Steverson, a member of the Society for American Baseball Research. This unique role in the American story is especially obvious whenever baseball is missing -- due to a global pandemic or mere labor disputes.

Part of the appeal is the intricate nature of the sport's picky rules and even its structure, starting with what many scribes hail as the perfection of the diamond's 90-foot base paths. Steverson dedicated an entire book chapter to the practical and symbolic roles that the number three -- think Christian trinity -- plays in baseball.

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Trump in a Sword drill competition? Evangelicals care about people with open Bibles

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Trump in a Sword drill competition? Evangelicals care about people with open Bibles

For generations, young Christians have learned how to hold and respect their Bibles during competitions known as "Sword drills."

The sword image comes from a New Testament affirmation that the "word of God is … sharper than any two-edged sword."

Drill leaders say, "Attention!" Competitors stand straight, hands at their sides.

"Draw swords!" They raise their Bibles to waist level, hands flat on the front and back covers. The leader challenges participants to find a specific passage or a hero or theme in scripture.

"Charge!" Competitors have 20 seconds to complete their task and step forward. For some, four or five seconds will be enough.

The key is knowing how to open the Bible, as well as hold it.

It's safe to say the young Donald Trump didn't take part in many Bible drills while preparing to be confirmed, at age 13 or thereabouts, as a Presbyterian in Queens, New York City. His mother gave him a Revised Standard Version -- embraced by mainline Protestants, shunned by evangelicals -- several years earlier.

President Trump was holding a Revised Standard Version during his iconic visit to the historic St. John's Episcopal Church, after police and security personnel drove protesters from Lafayette Square, next to the White House. To this day, evangelicals favor other Bible translations, while liberal Protestants have embraced the more gender-neutral New Revised Standard Version.

A reporter asked: "Is that your Bible?"

The president responded: "It's a Bible."

"Trump is a mainline Protestant. That's what is in his bones -- not evangelicalism. It's clear that he's not at home with evangelicals. That's not his culture, unless he's talking about politics," said historian Thomas S. Kidd of Baylor University, author of "Who Is an Evangelical? The History of a Movement in Crisis."

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The big idea: It's crucial for all preachers -- black and white -- to fight racism in 2020

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The big idea: It's crucial for all preachers -- black and white -- to fight racism in 2020

In times of turmoil, brutality, fire and rage, black preachers have always turned to the Old Testament prophets.

Hear Jeremiah addressing the king and his court: "Thus says the Lord: Act with justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the alien, the orphan and the widow, or shed innocent blood. … (If) you will not heed these words, I swear by myself, says the Lord, that this house shall become a desolation."

There's plenty more where that came from. No one is shocked when black pastors take biblical texts about sin, justice, repentance and mercy and weave them into images and headlines from the news, said the Rev. Terriel Byrd, urban ministry professor at Palm Beach Atlantic University. This is a crucial role they have always played in their communities and as bridgebuilders to others.

"Even when they know that what they're going to say will be rejected, they dare to speak as prophets," he said. "They aren't afraid to preach what they need to preach. If you go to church during times like these, you know a black preacher will not be silent."

After decades of studying the art of preaching -- he is the former president of the African American Caucus of the Academy of Homiletics -- Byrd knows that traditions are different in white sanctuaries. But he is convinced America needs to hear from all kinds of preachers after the killing of George Floyd, his neck under the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer.

On the streets, some white police are kneeling -- this is powerful symbolism on many levels -- with protestors in prayer. Unity across racial lines in churches will be just as important.

Black church leaders will be on the scene during peaceful protests. When it's time to heal and clean up, all kinds of religious believers will take part -- black, white, whatever. But will they be able to speak together?

"It's crucial for white-church leaders to step forward and take a leadership role at this moment," said Byrd, reached by telephone. "If we have some true partnerships form, with a real sense of honesty and equality, we could see a way forward and make real progress fighting this injustice."

This is not, of course, the first time that clergy have faced this challenge.