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Reasons why workers strike are because they believe they’re being taken advantage of, misunderstood, unappreciated, overworked, underpaid, etcetera.

I think the bible has every reason to go on strike. I just thought of 12 for now because it’s a nice, round, disciple-like number.

Here they are:

1. nuance to know me: Why do so many lack the ability to appreciate the subtleties of ancient texts? The original writers were cleverer than we give them credit for.
2. let me be me: It is an ancient collection of ancient writings by ancient men of an ancient culture from an ancient part of the world.
3. down with magical thinking: Magical thinking is the default position of the human mind under fear and stress. It is one part desire, one part wish, and one part fantasy, which makes a wonderful illusion but leaves you hungry soon after consumption.
4. common sense now: By common sense I don’t mean a status quo that is out of touch with mystery, but logically and rationally in touch with the real world as well. Circular reasoning keeps the magical interpretation of the bible in circulation.
5. rape and pillage me no more: Each group that depends on the bible for support uses it to explain, justify and validate its cause. Brutal treatment of the bible for our own pleasure is rapacious.
6. respect for genre: There are more genres in the bible than we can count. It is not a chronologically ordered history of facts. This isn’t even to speak of milieus!
7. stop taking me so literally: It’s become common to take the literal parts metaphorically and the metaphorical parts literally. Neglect the teachings of Jesus but defend mythological creatures. The ruffles the new Noah movie caused bewildered me. No it didn’t.
8. you can’t own me: This is not our book. Neither is it God’s. I would agree that it is a gift to be appreciated that contains truth but suggests a greater Truth. Let it speak for itself! Let it use its own voice.
9. love me for what I am: The bible is a sign like a finger pointing to what is True. It is true inasmuch as it indicates a way to understand the truth. A good sign is just a good sign. The word is not the thing.
10. myth and metaphor rock: Even an elementary appreciation for myth and metaphor unlocks deeper riches from the biblical texts and gets closer to what it is trying to communicate.
11. don’t letter-of-the-law me: The bible is being used more and more as a weapon of mass destruction, a fence-builder and an accomplice in crimes against humanity. Please stop!
12. free me from the fundies: There’s nothing that kills charity and conversation quicker than claiming you’re right and you have your own book to prove it.

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“God versus the Evangelicals” (cartoon by nakedpastor David Hayward)

The art of claiming sole ownership of God becomes finer.

I watch with fascination as the evangelical camp draws deeper lines in the sand. As their theology becomes more precise, their god becomes more small.

Of course, this cartoon applies to all theologies and their adherents.

Theology is becoming increasingly reactionary. While some try to expand the notion of God to become more inclusive, others will try to restrict the notion of God to become more exclusive. While some attempt to broaden the entry, others will attempt to narrow it. Unlimited will be met with limited.

We will only see the heat of this battle increase.

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“My Story Your Story” (cartoon by nakedpastor David Hayward)

My cartoon yesterday, The Shocking Meaning of Easter, created disturbance in the theological atmosphere.

It is because we choose to see with our eyes rather than our wisdom. We see separation where there is a deep and undivided unity.

Lies are more convincing to a divided mind than truth.

The Christ story is a deeply significant and meaningful metaphor for the story of humankind and the story of That-Which-We-Call-God.

Some would like to think that the conclusion of the story is the culmination of historical events, whereas I believe the conclusion of the story signifies what has already been all along. The conclusion is the light that illuminates all that seems to precede.

Like creation stories that sound like historically consecutive events in an attempt to explain how we got here, the salvation story sounds like historically consecutive events in an attempt to explain how we got here, at the intersection of human and divine, right here right now, where we are already one because we always have been.

It is a masterful metaphor that concludes by saying, “We are human. We are divine. We are one.”

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CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO SEE “ALL MEANS ALL” IN MY STORE!

There’s no theological way out of this.

All means all.

Paul’s theological metaphor insists:

All died.
All rose.
All sit at God’s right hand.

If Christ, as fully God and fully man, is us, then we all enjoy equal status as fully divine and fully human.

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“The Ups and Downs of Christian Theology” (by nakedpastor David Hayward)

There is no up.
There is no down.

But you must believe it if you want in.
Otherwise you’re out.

I’m not down with it.
You up with that?

Over and out!

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“Good Friday and Bad Gays” (cartoon by nakedpastor David Hayward)

Happy Good Friday!

I read a post yesterday by Michael Brown, A Shameful Day in Evangelical Christian Publishing, in which he berates an evangelical publishing house, Convergent Books, for publishing Matthew Vines’ God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships.

He is not happy!

Here is his climactic paragraph:

“In short, those who want to revise biblical sexuality and morality have moved away from the Word of God, and if they have any sense of integrity, they need to renounce their claim to be evangelicals—and that includes Cobb, if he personally claims to be one—and say, ‘We are liberal Christians who no longer hold to the authority of Scripture, because of which we embrace homosexual relationships.’”

This is the logic:

1. If a Christian supports homosexuality and same-sex relationships,
2. then they are no longer evangelical, but liberal,
3. then they can no longer with integrity use the scriptures,
4. then they are no longer, by implication, true believers.

What I see is that while those who support LGBT concerns are endeavoring to enlarge the place of our tent (Isaiah 54:2), evangelicals are drawing deeper lines of separation in the sand.

What I predict is a heating up of all-out war with evangelicals invoking the bible as sanction for their divine right to wage it.

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“Abuse of Power” (cartoon by nakedpastor David Hayward)

My cartoon today was inspired by the story of Doug Phillips, a “Christian giant” who is being sued for using his young, beautiful nanny as a sex object. Read it and weep!

I completely understand our temptations as human beings because I am one. It is common, and we see it every day in every sphere. People fall every day because of sex, power, money, abuse, racism, sexism, substances… you name it! None of us should be surprised when we see our fellow human beings giving into these temptations. If we are in touch at all with the power of our own desires, we will also empathize with those who give in to theirs.

So when we see a married family man cross boundaries and get sexually inappropriate with one of his employees, on the one hand we are alarmed at the level of inappropriateness, but on the other hand we can understand exactly how it happens.

But I claim that there is a deeper issue at stake. It’s not just our drives that cause the problem. In this case and other cases like it, the primary issue is the abuse of power.

Religious leaders are prime perpetuators of this dynamic!

1. Lifting money from the till: abuse of power.
2. Lording it over others: abuse of power.
3. Demanding people believe and live a certain way: abuse of power.
4. Manipulating someone: abuse of power.
5. Punishing people if they don’t comply: abuse of power.
6. Using extracted or surrendered information against people: abuse of power.
7. Exploiting people afraid of negative consequences: abuse of power.
8. Capitalizing on one’s fame to conceal a shady private life: abuse of power.
9. Inappropriate contact or intimacy with a subordinate: abuse of power.
10. Sexual contact with a subordinate: abuse of power.

It isn’t our drives that is the primary problem, but the abuse of power. We all have drives we need to control. But add power to the mix and it provides the opportunity to fulfill these impulses under the illusion they are either immune to the law, to detection or to consequences.

I suggest that all leaders, including religious ones, should complete an intensive course on the abuse of power. But I doubt this will happen because power is one of the most irresistible intoxicants that attracts many leaders to their positions in the first place.

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“Eat, Pray, Love” (Click on image to get a reproduction!)

Eat. Pray. Love.

I love the Jesus story. It’s sown into the DNA of my life, my philosophy and theology, and my spirituality.

I understand the story as a powerful metaphor for…

1. the tenuous fellowship but fundamental unity,
2. the blood, sweat and tears struggle,
3. and the mysterious inexplicable suffering of all people.

Eat. Pray. Love.

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“Why it hurts to get better” (cartoon by nakedpastor David Hayward)

One of the things that we find very difficult to accept is that it often hurts to get better.

Like this guy in the cartoon: the doctor promised to make his patient feel better. But in order to get there he has to endure some painful procedures. Surgery!

It is the same with spiritual growth. It is the same with the deconstruction of our beliefs.

Many people shrink back at the first hint of pain. They return to their former illness because it is easier. It feels better in the immediate.

However, if we are willing to go through some painful procedures, the promise will be fulfilled: we will eventually feel better. We will experience healing.

I know, for myself, that I have gone through some very painful times. But looking back I can see that they have all been worth it. I’m better off now than I’ve ever been!

I’m healthier.

More painful surgeries are in my future. And even though they are necessary, at the same time they are elective. I choose to have these procedures done!

I will be better for them.

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