The Great Comma and the Great Commandment

Last time I wrote about love being more important that doctrine.  If that is the case what do we do about the creed(s)―the statements of faith that are supposed be a foundational statement of belief that all Christians hold.  It is one of the parts of the worship service that most Christian denominations include.  Indeed, those that do are considered to be credal Christians.  The Anglican Church of Canada has both the Nicene Creed and Apostles’ Creed in the Book of Alternative Services.

The creeds are statements of what Christians are supposed to believe about God and Jesus.  However, as has been pointed out by Richard Rohr (who has become my go to guy on things theological and religious), they leave out what Jesus did in his public ministry which is primarily what the Gospels speak about; his miracles and parables and other important things in his life.  Rohr states:

If you worship in one of the liturgical Christian traditions, you probably know the opening words of the Apostles’ Creed by heart:

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended into hell;. .

But have you ever noticed the huge leap the creed makes between “born of the Virgin Mary” and “suffered under Pontius Pilate”? A single comma connects the two statements, and falling into that yawning gap, as if it were a mere detail, is everything Jesus said and did between his birth and his death! 

In Christian theology we have the Great Commandment, "you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  The Great Commandment, therefore, is an important part of what is represented by the Great Comma. IT is through Jesus life that we are shown the Way to live; it is love in action. 

If love is more important than doctrine i.e. belief, then Jesus life, is what we should be paying attention to as a model of how we should love one another.  I must be honest and confess that I am somewhat ambivalent about the creeds and having people recite them in our worship services.  Our prayer book does make it optional with the instruction that the celebrant may (my emphasis) invite the congregation to recite it.  On the one hand, it is foundational and states the things that all Christians are supposed to believe in, including the virgin birth and the (bodily) resurrection.  However, the creed can be a stumbling block to those who have trouble with these and other statements of faith.  Personally, I can reconcile the statements in the creeds with what I believe and statements such as the virgin birth mean what I intend them to mean; to take the lead from Humpty Dumpty in Alice in Wonderland, “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

That being said I do not believe that the creed should be an impediment for people being part of a Christian community.  Jesus certainly had short shrift for impediments and stumbling blocks, “It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble”.

That does not mean that I agree that Christian clergy should believe anything and everything including being atheists as in the case of Gretta Vosper who has been confirmed as a United Church of Canada minister and who is a self declared atheist―but that is for another discussion. 

So, you can see from this the mine-field, or perhaps I should say mind-field, doctrine can lead us into.  In conclusion, I believe (that is creedal language) that we should focus on the Great Comma and the Great Commandment rather than the Creeds, as important as they are. 

Blessings on your journey

Alice and the Looking Glass Life

A couple of weeks ago Lorna and I went to see a production of James Reaney's adaption of Alice, Through the Looking Glass at the Confederation Theatre in Charlottetown.  The production was interesting—to use a non-committal word.  To be more specific it engaged me in a number of areas.  I don’t know James Reaney’s interpretation to enable me separate what was his from the director’s stamp on the production.  However, aspects of it were not, to my knowledge, contained in the original version by Lewis Carroll.  

The production set out to engage the audience directly in what could be considered a post-modern interpretation.  The audience was directly engaging with the production by having two lucky young people selected to pull a chord which descended from the ceiling.  The audience was also showered at a couple of points with objects—first little packets of jelly beans and then with streamers.  It also had bubbles descending on us at various points in the production.  I found that, at the least, it didn’t take away from the production if it didn’t necessarily add to it.  Another attempt to engage the audience was to have various members of the chorus mug the audience shamelessly at various points.  There were other things that tended to distract from the main action.  There were, as Lorna pointed out, unfortunate distractions from the meaningful internal and external dialogue that Alice engages in as she attempts to understand the curious world in which she finds herself.  Another rather confusing and unclear element was the dressing of the male chorus members in female garb.  When it became clear that the rather plain members of the chorus were actually male, the confusion took a turn to wondering why?  The idea of the director, Adam Brazier, may have been to capture the confusion of Alice in this inside out world.  However, to my way of thinking it would have been more effective to have all chorus members in opposite gender garb as in the looking glass everything is backwards and inside out. 

The production did a creditable job of presenting many of Lewis Carroll’s wonderful characters in this dream world; self-satisfied Humpty Dumpty, the poor muddled kindly White Knight, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern—sorry wrong play—I meant the Walrus and the Carpenter and the poor fated singing oysters, Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Natasha Greenblatt’s Alice was wonderful and her performance gave a marvelous interpretation of her character.   In all it was definitely worth seeing.

That being said, what truly engaged me was the awareness that all this Wonderland of Alice’s took place in a dream.  It harkened back to the Summer Dream and Spirituality Conference that Lorna and I attended at Kanuga Center in Hendersonville North Carolina before coming to the Land of Anne (she of Green Gables).  As in The Wizard of Oz, the girl heroine is in a dream world comprised of archetypal characters that are sometimes friendly, sometimes helpful, sometimes frightening, sometimes dangerous, awful and awe-full, and always Wonderful (thinking of Alice’s first adventure).  In a dream it is helpful to understand all the images as parts of yourself which are often just those things; friendly, frightening, helpful, dangerous, and awful and awe-full and wonderful.   

If Alice’s adventure Through the Looking Glass were my dream what would I make of all those wonderful characters who would be part of me?  What part of me is the inflated pompous Humpty Dumpty?  Which part of me is the confused, out of touch kindly White Knight who takes things literally?  What part is the Carpenter and which the Walrus, both of whom are described by Alice as “very unpleasant characters” eating the poor innocent oysters.  Indeed what part of me is the innocent foolish oysters?    The mind boggles but they are all there for me to explore.  I believe that is a large part of the enduring stories of Alice that Lewis Carroll created.    Which character resonates most with you and which do you want to avoid connecting with the most?  Enjoy your trip into the Looking Glass World.